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Chinese human rights advocate Chen Guangcheng, who is blind, escaped house arrest in Shandong province last week – but his future remains uncertain.
Chen, a self-taught lawyer who was imprisoned and then subjected to violence and house arrest for exposing forced abortions and sterilizations in China, made a daring, Houdini-like escape to the U.S. embassy. Following delicate negotiations with the United States, Chinese officials pledged to allow Chen to live a “normal life” with his family, and he initially agreed to return home.
Does this sound normal to you?
“I don’t know what’s happened to my mother. There are guards inside the yard, in all the rooms, even on the roof. They’ve set up lots of cameras in my home and are preparing electric fences. They told my family they’d take wooden sticks and beat my family to death, so it’s very unsafe.”
-Chen Guangcheng, in an interview with NPR
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"Open Access" and the Tyranny of the FCC
By Alex Epstein (Springfield News-Leader, Oct. 29, 2007)
In January the FCC will auction off the prized 700 MHz spectrum of wireless bandwidth. But instead of offering the spectrum to the highest bidder to employ it however he judges best (for example, a mobile video-on-demand service), the FCC will force the winner to employ a specific business model--an "open access" Internet network that forbids the spectrum-holder from controlling which devices and applications use its network, regardless of how much bandwidth they eat up. Why? Because the FCC and sundry lobbyists claim, "open access" is necessary for the "public interest."
Wireless companies have rightly criticized "open access" rules as restrictions on free competition that unfairly favor certain business models--namely that of leading lobbyist Google. But the injustice of "open access" is just a symptom of the deeper injustice used to justify it: FCC's control of the "public airwaves" in the "public interest."
In today's discussions of FCC policy, it is taken for granted that airwaves are "public." But it shouldn't be. As philosopher Ayn Rand argued in a landmark 1964 essay, "The Property Status of Airwaves," airwaves should be private property.
Observe that the broadcast technology that makes the so-called public airwaves a value does not exist in nature. It is the creation of individuals--and, like all human-created values, its creators earn by their effort a right to their creation. When inventors and engineers first unlocked nature's potential to carry radio waves, and entrepreneurs began developing the commercial value of radio, the government had a responsibility to define property rights in this sphere--so that these innovators could own and utilize portions of the spectrum without interference by others.
There is an exact parallel here to property rights over newly available land. When the western frontier was opened in the 19th century, the government did not declare it public property. Rather, it parceled out the unowned land on a first-come, first-served basis, and then recognized a property right for those who made use of the land for five years. The same type of procedure—enabling pioneers to earn a property right to that which they render valuable--applies to any newly usable portion of spectrum. And, like land rights, once a property right to the use of a given frequency band in a given region is earned, it belongs to the owner unconditionally; he may use it to offer whatever content or services he judges best, or sell it to someone else to do the same.
If the government recognized airwaves as private property, the wireless industry and broadcast media would be transformed. Entrepreneurs would compete freely for ownership of spectrum, and over time, those who sold the most valued product would win out. We would see innovations at a pace undreamed of today--the pace of entrepreneurs and inventors, not the pace of central-planning bureaucrats.
Unfortunately, our government does not recognize airwaves as private property, and never has. In the 1920s, its response to the development of radio was not to define and protect property rights for the field's creators, but to nationalize them as "public property." Consider the injustice of this: the pioneers who envisioned the potential of radio technology, and took the risk of bringing it about, had no more right to their creation than we do, who created nothing.
Under the "public" airwaves regime, businesses do not own but merely "license" portions of spectrum--which the government has total authority to control in the "public interest." The use of spectrum is determined, not by the business that has purchased and earned it, but by the FCC--by whatever it feels is in the indefinable "public interest." In the realm of media, FCC bureaucrats can effectively censor viewpoints they dislike by revoking broadcast licenses or imposing huge fines. In the realm of wireless data, FCC bureaucrats and Congress can impose more onerous terms on a paying licensee anytime they wish--such as Google's proposal that licensees be forced to sell large portions of their bandwidth to competitors at FCC-dictated "reasonable" rates, no matter what it does to their business.
In all such cases, the creators with the best ideas and the willingness to prove them in a free market are throttled by lobbyists and government officials who can wheel and deal in Washington--and innovation suffers accordingly.
Americans need to start recognizing airwaves as the private property they really are, and demand the abolition of the FCC. Then the government can hold a fair and just auction for the 700 MHz spectrum, and the others, in which each spectrum is not licensed but sold--no strings attached.
Alex Epstein was a writer and a fellow on staff
at ARI between 2004 and 2011.
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North Shore Animal League
For more than 55 years, North Shore Animal League of America (New York) has worked to make the world a safer, friendlier, healthier place for animals in need. Since 1944, the League has placed more than 800,000 lost or abandoned pets in loving homes. They have performed countless routine and extraordinary medical procedures. And taught tens of thousands of caring people to be good friends, companions and caretakers to the pets they've adopted through the League.
Visitors might find it hard to imagine that one of the world's premier animal welfare organizations grew from a hodgepodge of tiny buildings - largely through the support of concerned individuals and corporations. All their programs are funded entirely by voluntary donations. As the League's capabilities and resources grew, their commitment to helping orphaned pets extended, first nationally, then globally.
Across the United States and around the world, companion animals rely on North Shore Animal League America to represent their interests and provide them with healthier, happier lives. They hope you will share with them the joy they feel for the innocent lives they've already helped save, and take part in their eager anticipation for the untold number of animals still to be adopted in the years to come.
Website: North Shore Animal League of America
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The San Francisco Chronicle has an article out this week entitled “Social science meets computer science at Yahoo!”. It’s about how Yahoo have been hiring “highly credentialed cognitive psychologists, economists and ethnographers from top universities around the world”. Carol Bartz being one smart chick realised early on that you couldn’t run a search engine at this point in time without experts such as those. In order to understand how people use websites, tools, and how they combine all of those…you need people experts. The web is social.
Computer science has created the infrastructure in this virtual world if you like, but now we have to make sure everything is ergonomic and usable. Sometimes architects create paths but people cut across the grass rather than using them. This is an example of how things work in reality. In computing, psychologists, social scientists, anthropologists and more help us to understand how to make sure things work for people. I won’t discuss here whether Yahoo! are right or wrong to do this because it’s a no-brainer for me. Of course they’re right to, we need to make sure people can easily understand and integrate new technology into their every day lives. Instead I want to look at the different types of roles other than computer science oriented that could really boost the business of search and the web as a whole.
In my own PhD research I found myself studying and researching areas of cognitive psychology in order to build a dialogue system. First hand I was able to see that without understanding how humans process language, I couldn’t come up with a good artificial solution. Psychology has many sub-fields (neuropsychology, abnormal psychology, comparative psychology…) but as a whole it can help with understanding why people do certain things as well, and how to encourage them to do something else. It can help us understand how online communities work, how different individuals influence things more than others and how to best assist users. From a search engine perspective psychologists can help us to understand which results are deemed more relevant by people and why. Things like personalisation of search results require a good understanding of how people search, what they look for and how they use the information for example.
We often think of them as dealing with money and working in banks, the government and the stock market for example, but their job is also very social. They are active in research in international development aid, study markets, micoeconomies, consumer attitudes and many more areas. They can make recommendations on how to provide a better service to user, and tell us also what users are after as far as product is concerned. Do they want a social search experience or do they just want an answer? What are people prepared to spend their money on? Answers to questions like this can help search engines move forwards and make the right decisions.
- Occupational health therapists
Alright, this is a bit of a cheat because they do belong with the psychologists, but their role is a bit different. They go to the workplace or homes of individuals and identify things that may make them sick or contribute to it. For example a stressful environment could lead to anxiety, depression or cardiovascular issues for example. These experts are useful because they are more sensitive to things that affect people negatively. If you run a search engine, allowing an OHP to observe the users and the environment they are working with may highlight things such as too much data being served up, mistrust and any other areas of tension.
These guys are social scientists who focus on qualitative research. They talk to people, observe them, interview them and collect data which is then analysed. Basically, they study humans. Their value is in running large studies in context and finding out how people might use a search engine but taking into consideration all of their background and their life offline too.
These people are both psychologists and linguists. Their role is to observe and study how people use language and why. It’s the study of psychological factors in language. Sociolinguists study language in its social context. When it comes to understanding how people choose keywords and search phrases, they are invaluable. They can even help to understand why people comment on some blogs and not other for example. Their work is highly interesting and super useful.
- Behavioural scientists
They look at how different organisms interact with each other be it animal or human. They particularly focus on decision processes and communication strategies among organisms and their social system. If we want to understand how people share links with each other for example, or how people create structure within their own experience of the web, we need behavioural scientists to do the research. Their skills are extremely useful.
- Animal trainers
When all else fails, I suppose that getting back to basics is in order
Many companies would do well to have a chat with one or all of these professionals about their own projects be it software, websites or virtual communities. There is a lot to learn from these fields and being open to this can only improve the web.
Here are some cool places to learn more about these areas in relation to the web:
Patti Anklam: Networks, complexity and relatedness
Clay Shirky: Writings about the internet
Dave Snowden: Cognitive edge
Graham Jones: Internet psychologist
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Were Scottish villages more badly affected than English ones? She was obviously not referring to the entire male population of villages. My basic point remains - the paucity of names on English war memorials is not in keeping with the scale of slaughter image that we were brought up on so to say 'villages were wiped out' is perpetuating a myth. The small relative number of names in country villages would have had little impact on the 'social and economic viability' of a village - whatever that means.
Three examples from my personal knowledge...
Langford Budville, Somerset - 6 names from an 1891 total population of 340
Milverton, Somerset - 30 names from 1562 in 1891
Henley in Arden, Warwickshire - 20 names from 1043
Piorun, on 27 May 2011 - 12:35 AM, said:
Alan: Forgive an old colonial but I still don't understand. Until May last year, I had lived in Canada for 44 years (of my . . . . . . considerably more!). Since returning, I believe that I've heard of this programme but I'm not sure that it's shown in Scotland. Do I glean from your post immediately following my query that the lady was referring to the male population of English villages being wiped out by the misfortune of the War? If so, assuming that some males were babes in arms and some were in their second childhood, the comment would be literally inaccurate. However, in the context of the socio-economic viability of the village at the time, it probably wasn't too far off the mark, especially in some parts of Scotland, and should hardly be a target for even us pedants. Your further clarification would be appreciated. Yours, Antony
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Bariatric Surgery - What is Obesity?
The formal definition of "morbid obesity" is expressed in terms of body mass index (BMI), which is a ratio of height and weight. Those with a BMI of 40 or more are considered morbidly obese. Those with BMI's over 35 who have an obesity-related medical problem(s) (co-morbidities) are also considered in the morbidly obese category. BMI's in this range generally correlate to ~ 100lbs over ideal body weight.
Morbid obesity is the level at which overweight patients develop medical problems as a result of their weight. Patients at this level of obesity are at risk of developing or worsening medical problems such as hypertension, diabetes, coronary artery disease, obstructive sleep apnea, degenerative joint disease, and certain cancers. Ultimately, these patients are at higher risk of early death from all causes.
Weight reduction to the non-morbidly obese range in morbidly obese patients has been shown to correlate with decreased severity or elimination of many of the co-morbidities referenced above. There is emerging evidence that decrease in these associated medical problems is associated with longer life expectancy.
Diet and exercise regimens are still the "first line" treatment for obesity. This can be supplemented with behavioral therapy and several medicines to aid in weight loss. Though modest weight loss (10% of total body weight) has been demonstrated with non-surgical modalities, a very high rate (95%) of weight regain following diet termination is documented.
The National Institutes of Health have concluded that morbid obesity is a disease that has a negative impact on longevity. In a consensus statement originally published in 1991 the NIH stated that obesity surgery was an acceptable option in the morbidly obese patient who has failed non-surgical weight-control measures.
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LinuxConsole is a live and modular Linux distribution that can be started from CD/DVD, hard disk, floppy disk, USB disk, or network card (PXE). The use of "console" in the title doesn't mean that it is started in "console" mode, but is meant to symbolize the simplicity of using it. This distribution is as simple to use as a game console: you can start applications without installing them. It is modular: there is a common base (device detection, GUI) and optional modules for multimedia, communication, and servers. The goal is having a very fast startup (less than 20 seconds), very good hardware detection, and many applications available (not just games).
BongoSurfer is a least-cost router for Linux, like the Smartsurfer program for Windows. It allows you to connect to the Internet with a 56k modem or ISDN, and chooses the cheapest provider for you. The tariff database is updated every day from http://www.billiger-surfen.de/. Since the tariffs only apply within Germany, the program is of little use in other countries. It features a cost calculator, a traffic monitor, an online timer, and more.
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Last year on Labor Day, I posted a chart of 7 generations of my family's work history on both of my blogs. (How did I miss that I've been blogging for over a YEAR??) Today I'm going to repost them with a few minor changes. I can only find Lewis and Judy Cleage in the 1870 US Census and their marriage record. I am not convinced that all the children listed living with them are their children if their ages are correct. But having no other information, I put them in. I do not know what work the children did in the future. I think I will look for them again. Annie Green Reed had two husbands and four more children but I left them off of this chart. They were all laborers or farmers or housewives. Both Buford Averitt and Robert Allen come to the family tree as white men who did not acknowledge their black offspring as far as we know. Oral history and records of birth, marriage and death account for their making it onto my chart. I've pinpointed Buford but there are several possibilities with Robert so he has no job here. My direct line is highlighted in yellow. You can see a similar chart for my maternal side HERE.
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How craft beer beat the recession
New research shows small brewers surged as bigger brands and the economy slumped.
The research organization Mintel reports that sales of craft beers, including Boston Beer Company's (SAM) Samuel Adams brand, the Craft Brew Alliance's (BREW) Widmer Brothers and Chico, Calif., mainstay Sierra Nevada, more than doubled from $5.7 billion in 2007 to $12 billion in 2012.
About 24% of beer drinkers told Mintel that they drank more craft beer sold at stores in 2012 than they did compared to 2011, while 22% upped their craft beer drinking in bars.
The Brewers Association craft beer industry group has been crowing about that growth for the last few years, and says craft beer expanded 13% by volume and 15% in sales back in 2011 alone. Meanwhile, the total number of breweries in the U.S. rose from 1,793 in 2010 to 2,336 at the end of December. That easily surpasses the 2,011 breweries operating here in 1887, when brewing hit its peak with help from European immigrants who brought their home countries' brewing traditions along for the ride.
Existing craft brewers are seeing huge growth as well. Boston Beer's production has increased 25% since 2007 and surpassed 2 million barrels for the first time in 2009 -- at the peak of the financial crisis -- according to Beer Marketer's Insights. Sierra Nevada saw sales increase 23% during that span and announced plans last year to expand operations to an East Coast brewery in Asheville, N.C. New Belgium Brewing in Fort Collins, Colo., which has increased production 33% since 2007, will be joining Sierra in Asheville and bulking up its brewing capacity as well. Meanwhile, Lagunitas Brewing Company, out of Petaluma, Calif., has more than tripled its output since 2007 and has plans to open a new brewery and tap room in Chicago this year.
Craft beer is a tiny pour in the beer industry's $78 billion stein, but its take is rising. The Brewers' Association says craft beer accounted for 5.7% of all beer by volume in 2011 while bringing in 9.1% of the industry's sales.
That's pretty small, considering one out of every five beers sold in the U.S. is a Bud Light, but Anheuser-Busch InBev (BUD) and MolsonCoors' (TAP) combined 76.5% share of the U.S. beer market is dwindling. The big breweries dropped production 3% apiece in 2011 as craft beer sucked up market share, and both are putting more emphasis on craft-style brands like Leinenkugel's, Goose Island and Blue Moon. Drinkers seem just fine savoring the craft brewers' slow-building results.
More on moneyNOW
Steam in S.F? I am amazed at the selection of beers in most large liquor stores and supermarkets. One of my several part time jobs while going to SD State and UCSD in the late 60s was working in liquor stores near the two campuses. One hell of a change!
America loves it's beer. But we are a nation of weekender binge drinking boorish bumpkins.
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Economists find that as women grow more self-reliant, marriages become more about wanting commitment than needing it.
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[BRIEFING.COM] The major averages ended higher across the board as the S&P 500 advanced 0.8%.
Equities climbed steadily since the opening bell as investors prepared for tomorrow's policy decision from the Federal Reserve. Although chatter in recent weeks has included speculation the Fed would look to taper its asset purchases, today's broad gains suggest investors expect mostly reassuring words from Chairman Bernanke at tomorrow's press conference.
All ten sectors ended with ... More
More Market News
Increasing yields can bring both risk and reward for these stocks, but that doesn't mean you have to miss out on earning consistent dividends.
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Although for the first time an Indian official has recognized the gross root realities of seriously needed Turkmenistani gas, particularly the gas supply transition to India via Pakistan, growing India Pakistan tensions added with hostile statements by India's Deputy Prime Minister question India's participation in TAGP. Conflicting statements are likely to change Pakistan's previously unconditional offer on gas supply transition to India into a conditional one, delaying India's serious gas supply needs.
Recent weeks were marked by an increasing war of words between Iranian officials and the U.S. as well as debates in Washington on the practical strategy of military action against Iraq's Saddam Hussein in Iraq. The emphasis that Saddam should be ousted by US troops due to Iraq's program of development of weapons of mass destruction and Baghdad's support for anti-Israeli terrorist groups in the Middle East, makes Tehran nervous about the future course of Washington policies, since the same accusations have already been voiced by US officials against Tehran. All these may force Tehran to re-consider its policy in Afghanistan and to look for new means and resources in possible standoff with America.
The post-September 11 emergence of a global consensus on fighting terrorism has created grounds for an opportunistic use of this broad objective by Central Asian countries, which have expanded suppression of opposition groups under the pretext of fighting terrorism. While the iron-hand policy towards opposition has been a fact of life in Uzbekistan since independence, the "democratic" regime of Kazakhstan has followed suit without concern about international condemnation. However, indiscriminate suppression of political dissent will not ensure the stability of the Central Asian political systems. Instead, it will contribute to the radicalization of their populations and to the growth of destabilizing extremist groups, and question the legitimacy of fighting terrorism as a global objective.
It is already clear that China is the big loser in the war on terrorism in Central Asia, if not elsewhere. Virtually every plank of its strategic policy for enhancing its influence and lessening American influence in the area has failed and its weaknesses have been cruelly displayed to the world. Therefore, Beijing is now searching for a new strategy with which to regain influence and reduce the threats it perceives from Washington's rising presence in Central Asia.
Recent leaks regarding a possible swap of territories that the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan might have contemplated in an attempt to settle the 14-year-old conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh have prompted much debate in the south Caucasus. The status of Nagorno-Karabakh as \"de facto independent state-de jure part of Azerbaijan\" no longer constitutes a major problem and a remaining hurdle in the peace process is the issue of land corridors. Some details of an alleged deal on the issue were recently revealed by Azerbaijani President Aliyev and, as a reply, by Armenian President Kocharian. The disclosures can be interpreted by an assumption that the idea of exchanging territories has proven to be unrealistic and is no longer on the negotiating agenda.
Recent reports suggest that large numbers of books and journals in the Uyghur language have been burned by the Chinese authorities in Xinjiang. Xinjiang University has also announced that it will no longer teach the majority of its courses through the medium of the Uyghur language, raising concerns about the long term future of this Turkic language and its culture. The latest campaign affects all Uyghurs, not solely the militants, and implicitly categorizes the Uyghur language as disloyal. This repression may be successful in the short-term, but only risks increasing Uyghur dissatisfaction in the longer term.
On June 19, Kazakh TV announced that the Pentagon had requested permission to use the Almaty civilian airport for U.S. military aircraft in the antiterrorist campaign in Afghanistan. This posed a dilemma to the Kazakhstani leadership, which is deeply divided on the whether Kazakhstan needs U.S. military bases. Kazakhstan remains strongly tied to the Russian security system through the CIS Security Treaty and bilateral security agreements. Opponents of the base argue that U.S. presence in Kazakhstan may jeopardize relations with Russia. Proponents argue that increasing U.S. military assistance to Tashkent has disturbed the strategic balance in Central Asia and given additional advantages to Kazakhstan’s long-time rival, Uzbekistan, and that only American help can restore that equilibrium.
Over the past five years, the United States and the European Union have emphasized the important role of countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia in the development of East-West energy and transport routes, linking Central and South Asia with Europe. Less noted, however, have been ongoing developments in the creation of North-South transport routes linking markets in South Asia with Europe via Iran and Russia. While recent analyses of Russian-Iranian relations have largely focused on weapons and technology transfers from Russia to Iran, the nascent North-South transport corridor signals an attempt to restore the historic trade of conventional commodities between South Asia and Europe. This project also demonstrates the common interest of regional countries to multiply the number of trade route options that extend north and south, as well as east and west.
India has sought the construction of an energy pipeline from Russia across Central Asia and China. This proposal shows the Indian wish to avoid energy dependence on Pakistan at any cost, despite the mounting energy needs in India. Although welcomed by Russia and China for further discussion, the feasibility of this pipeline project is highly doubtful for economic, technical, environmental, and security reasons. Whereas the idea could, if constructed, change the energy architecture of the region, it is highly unlikely to be endorsed by the Chinese government.
The new U.S.-Russian partnership expressly includes joint discussions and actions in Central Asia. As discussion on energy issues show, these discussions are not restricted to the war on terrorism. U.S. policymakers seem ready to grant Russia considerable influence in Central Asia, provided U.S. interests are also defended. This could become a durable basis for the external provision of security to the area, but there are potential problems that could erode the mutual confidence needed for partnership to work. One such problem is the future of Turkmenistan where the erratic and sultanistic regime of Sapirmurad Niyazov is clearly in grave trouble.
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How Do Marriages, Civil Unions and Domestic Partnerships Differ?
Civil unions permit gay couples to declare themselves as each other's reciprocal beneficiaries, which provides them the equivalent of a spouse's rights to hospital and nursing home visitation.
CREDIT: follmann | sxc.hu
The ongoing debate playing out in California courtrooms over the validity of Proposition 8, the voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage, has sparked debate over how marriage is defined. In the United States, there are several types of legally recognized monogamous relationships, with some granting couples gay or straight more rights than others.
Civil unions, also known as registered partnerships and civil partnerships, were first offered in the United States by the state of Vermont in 2000, according to the U.S. Office of Legislative research. In 1994, Vermont had become the first state to extend health benefits to domestic partners . Civil unions are now also recognized by Connecticut, New Jersey and New Hampshire.
Civil unions permit gay couples to declare themselves as each other's "reciprocal beneficiaries," which provides them the equivalent of a spouse's rights to hospital and nursing home visitation. Other civil union benefits can include the ability to access their partner's medical information and to make some personal decisions on each other's behalf.
However, civil unions differ from marriages in that they aren't recognized by the federal government, and under the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996 (DOMA), other U.S. states aren't obligated to acknowledge them either. DOMA defines marriage as "a union between one man and one woman," under federal law, according to the U.S. House of Representatives. So while civil unions offer some of the same rights and responsibilities as marriage, they vary from state to state and apply only on a state level.
Insurance law varies from state to state as well. For example, New Jersey insurance companies are required to offer civil union couples the same policies and contracts they offer to married couples, except where prohibited by federal law, according to the state's Treasury Department.
As for federal income taxes, "single" and "head of household" are the only filing status options for civil union partners. Each partner in a civil union must file a return with the IRS as though they are single.
If the relationship ends, the couple may need to file paperwork with the state to have their legal ties severed. For example, in Vermont, a civil union dissolution form must be completed.
Common law marriage
A common law marriage is the union of a couple that has not had a legally recognized marriage ceremony performed, or has not obtained a marriage license, according to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). A handful of states recognize common law marriage between a man and a woman. Iowa is the only state that currently recognizes same-sex common-law marriages.
The most common reasons for asking a court to recognize a common law marriage are to deal with issues that arise when the relationship ends, such as property division, establishing child custody, or to establish survivor benefits or other welfare benefits if one of the parties has died, according to the State of Utah Judicial Council.
Common law marriage can only be attained in the District of Columbia and nine U.S. states (Alabama, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina and Texas), according to the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA). Some states, including Alaska, Florida and Georgia, previously recognized common law marriages and still recognize those that were entered into before the state stopped acknowledging them, according to the SSA.
All states, however, recognize common law marriages that were validly contracted in another state, and the IRS recognizes common law marriages (between straight couples) as valid.
A domestic partnership consists of "two adults who have chosen to share one another's lives in an intimate and committed relationship of mutual caring," according to California Family Code section 297. As such, domestic partners in California are afforded the same rights (such as California tax benefits) and responsibilities that are available to married individuals, according to the State of California Franchise Tax Board (FTB).
In some states where domestic partnership is available, including Wisconsin and New Jersey, same sex couples must formally register with the state in order to be eligible for any benefits that the state may offer. Some states, like Nevada, Maine and Colorado, offer domestic partnerships to both same-sex and opposite-sex couples, according to the State of Connecticut General Assembly.
The benefits of a domestic partnership vary from state to state. For example, California taxpayers that are same-sex domestic partners are eligible to receive an exclusion from their gross income for employer-provided accident and health insurance, according to the California FTB.
- Are Humans Meant to be Monogamous?
- Why Do Couples Start to Look Like Each Other?
- 5 Myths About Gay People Debunked
Got a question? Email it to Life's Little Mysteries and we'll try to answer it. Due to the volume of questions, we unfortunately can't reply individually, but we will publish answers to the most intriguing questions, so check back soon.
MORE FROM LiveScience.com
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Alaska's third busiest state-owned airport has been crippled by runway construction this summer, and residents of Bethel are growing impatient. The Federal Aviation Administration has banned instrument approaches on the Bethel runway, and more than 100 Alaska Airlines flights may have been delayed or diverted, reports KYUK.
"I think that the state Department of Transportation has to realize what a serious issue this is for this community," said [City Council member Rick] Robb.
He said the delayed project is beyond an inconvenience. It's affecting the economic life blood of the community and it's a safety concern.
"We have people right now in our hospital that are trying to go to hospitals in Anchorage that can't get out," Robb said. "I happen to work for [the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corp.] and I know some individuals right now sitting in beds that can't get out. Some people for days sitting in the hospital. And this is an unacceptable situation."
Materials testing is one thing delaying the project, officials said. The state has promised at least a temporary fix for winter, but that might mean more construction next summer.
Find out more about the problem at KYUK: Bethel airport should be good this winter, says DOT
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This weekend LACMA added eight new works to its collection through its annual Collectors Committee events. All week on Unframed our curators will be highlighting the objects just acquired.
The austere geometry of the checkerboard, rendered in a singular, virtuoso weaving technique, indicates that this impressive textile was made to be displayed in a prestigious political or religious context. Textiles, the most important commodity in the ancient Andean world, were an integral part of all tribute, taxation, religion, political ceremony, birth, marriage, and death. The powerful visual impact of this cloth mosaic in its reductive color range is heightened by the metaphorical significance of the brown and white squares—symbolizing the ancient Andean belief in dynamic dualism, reciprocity, and complementarity between cosmic forces and the natural realm.
Woven in a meticulous technique in which neither warps nor wefts extend across the entire cloth, the textile was created with “scaffold” threads (which were later removed) that formed a temporary grid upon which to weave each miniscule square, less than an inch in size, separately. The fabric was assembled by the process of interlocking the warps and wefts of each adjacent square—forming a single cloth from the sum of many parts. In the history of world textiles, the multifaceted technique of discontinuous warp and weft was practiced only in the Andes.
Dynamic dualism, represented in the textile by juxtaposed light and dark squares, was a fundamental principal of ancient Andean thought. In this cosmological principle the universe was organized of contrasting but complementary opposites, and balance was attained by the interchange between the two. Balanced, harmonious existence was achieved through reciprocity, or interdependence of all human activity; in the harsh Andean environment, life was established on reciprocal relationships between family, co-workers, the administration, and the ruler, and on relationships that extended over the disparate geographies from the jungles of eastern Peru, to the Andes, to the dry desert coast. Reciprocity, symbolized by this complex textile, is expressed in the interweaving of more than a thousand fully finished squares—independent, yet interdependent—suggesting unity of the individual and the community.
An aesthetic object that signifies universal order, this textile is based on the same grid matrix woven into Andean textiles over a span of two thousand years. Remarkably, such an extraordinary example of the weaver’s art, more than 450 years old, could be mistaken for an artwork produced in the last half of the twentieth century.
For LACMA, with holdings in art from all over the world, this stunning Inka textile is a quintessential example of the aesthetic bond that unites time, space, and cultural diversity. It is tentatively slated to go on view this fall.
Kaye Spilker, Curator, Costume and Textiles
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From a genealogical point of view, only the following information is of genuine interest:
As long as care is taken over the question of surname variants, and the names of both parties are known, research in the marriage indexes is straightforward. If two people married each other, then obviously the registration district, volume and page number references for them in the indexes have to be the same. It is simply necessary to cross-check the two names in the indexes, working back from the approximate date of birth of the eldest child if this is known, until two entries are found in which all three references correspond. Marriage records are especially important in the early years of civil registration, since they record the names of the fathers of people born c.1820 to c. 1840, as well as their approximate ages, thus providing evidence which can be used to establish earlier generations in parish records. The value of these records is even greater for families who were not Catholic, since their records start in 1845.
Using marriage records with other sources
The 1911 census records the number of years a couple have been married, the number of children born, and the number of those children still living. This information is obviously very useful in narrowing the range of years to be searched for a particular marriage. In the case of names which are common in a particular area, the fathers' names supplied in the marriage record are often the only firm evidence with which to identify the relevant baptismal record in the parish registers. Once a marriage has been located in civil records, thus showing the relevant parish, it is always worthwhile to check the church record of the same marriage. As church marriage registers were standardised, from the 1860s on, they became more informative, in many cases supplying the names, addresses and occupations of both the mother and father of the parties marrying. In the case of most Dublin Catholic parishes, this information is recorded from around 1856.
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This is an old revision of CambrianResearchFund from 2007-09-25 13:57:48.
Cambrian Archaeological Association
The Cambrian Archaeological Association was founded in 1846 and it is a registered charity (no. 216249). Its charitable objects are 'to examine, preserve and illustrate the ancient monuments and remains of the history, language, manners, customs, arts and industries of Wales and the Marches and to educate the public in such matters'.
Since its foundation the Association has published an annual journal, Archaeologia Cambrensis (free to members) which has contained articles by the foremost scholars of the day on historical documents, architectural history, family history and archaeological monuments, finds and excavations.
Alongside its role as a publisher of important historical records and new thinking the Association has always seen itself as a society of like-minded friends who enjoy sharing their knowledge and enthusiasm for the past. The summer meetings of the Association were very notable gatherings in the nineteenth century and they continue to be so today.
The Association holds two meetings each year, a week in mid-summer and an autumn weekend, visiting sites and monuments in all parts of Wales and, on occasions, in England, Ireland and abroad. Easter conferences with lectures on matters of current concern in history and archaeology are held on a bi-annual basis. It arranges a lecture in Welsh at the National Eisteddfod each year. Website www.orchardweb.co.uk/cambrians∞ choose Welsh or English language.
Exists for the encouragement of research within the field of the Association’s interest. Its scope includes travel, fieldwork, excavation and associated scientific services, historical research, and other appropriate forms of assistance such as photography, photocopying, typing, and preparation of drawings for publication. Awards are normally in the region of £500 and are restricted to projects connected directly or indirectly with Wales and the Marches. Completed forms and copies (preferably up to six) should be returned by the end of October of any year for allocation in the following January. Late applications may be submitted before the beginning of January, but such late applications will only be considered if funds have not been fully allocated.
Please return the completed form to the Secretary. Forms available for download through
| CBA, St Mary's House, 66 Bootham, York YO30 7BZ.
tel: +(44) (0)1904 671417 | fax: +(44) (0)1904 671384 | email:
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Minimum Standards for Jewelry for Initial Piercings
The APP Board of Directors has adopted a revision to the APP minimum membership standards for jewelry for initial piercings. Although a Members’ vote was taken to adopt the original standards, a membership vote is not required when establishing or revising membership requirements. The Board has opted to proceed without member polling for the following reasons:
1. This revision simply updates and expands the standards set forth in the original document.
2. The new revised standards better reflect the current practices of both the APP membership and the piercing industry at large.
3. The APP has had extensive communication—both in person and in writing—from piercers questioning the out-dated and confusing nature of the previous standards.
4. Regulatory agencies often utilize the APP standards and incorporate them into law. Maintaining the outdated standards can therefore have negative consequences for piercers using acceptable products that were previously not listed.
The practice of relying solely on the implant designation of a material has now been addressed. Although implant standards address bio-compatibility of a given material when used for surgical implants, they cannot be directly applied to the use or required finish for body jewelry. Agencies that determine these designations and standards do so for both material quality and end usage. Implants rest permanently against internal tissue unless surgically removed or replaced, and are sometimes designed for bone or tissue adhesion. Healing piercings, however, form tissue against the smooth non-adhesive surface of the jewelry, and this jewelry can be changed when appropriate. For these reasons we list designation compliance as it applies to material content only; the finish requirements are described separately below.
Products with an ISO or ASTM designation are so noted and a statement specifying the finish requirements particular to body jewelry has been added. In addition, several materials designated for applications other than implants have been proven through historical and practical application to be suitably bio-compatible for initial piercing.
The revised Minimum Standard for Jewelry for Initial Piercings is as follows:
- Steel that is ASTM F138 compliant or ISO 5832-1 compliant
- Steel that is ISO 10993-6, 10993-10, and/or 10993-11 compliant [Note: The EEC Nickel Directive is a regulation that requires a low rate of nickel release for all materials used for costume or fine jewelry, belt buckles, watches, or other metallic accessories with direct skin contact. It does not specify nor prove that a material is safe to wear in the body; therefore, compliance with this directive alone is not sufficient for meeting the APP initial jewelry standards.]
- Titanium (Ti6Al4V ELI) that is ASTM F136 compliant or ISO 5832-3 compliant
- Titanium that is ASTM F67 compliant
- Solid 14 karat or higher nickel-free white or yellow gold
- Solid nickel-free platinum alloy
- Niobium (Nb)
- Fused quartz glass, lead-free borosilicate or lead-free soda-lime glass
- Polymers (plastics) as follows:
- All threaded or press-fit jewelry must have internal tapping (no threads on posts).
- For body jewelry purposes, surfaces and ends must be smooth, free of nicks, scratches, burrs, polishing compounds and metals must have a consistent mirror finish.
This revised wording will be used on all future APP publications and correspondence where the earlier version of the standards was published.
Adopted February 05, 2009
APP Board of Directors
Eric “Sque3z” Anderson
International Outreach Coordinator
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Search engine marketing can be considered a subset of search engine optimization where marketing refers to optimization practices that take place off the website while search engine optimization sets up the pages on the website for both the search engine spiders and the visitors to the site in term
s of design, content, navigation, etc. The relationship between two activities can be thought of much in the same way as the operation of a bricks and mortar storefront with SEO pertaining to in-store work such as merchandising, having the right mix of inventory, and an easy check-out procedure. SEM, on the other hand, would be the advertisi
ng that draws people to the store. When optimizing a website, SEM refers to all activities utilized to generate the incoming traffic which is a vital element of moving site pages higher in search engine results pages (SERPS). Common strategies and tactics include search engine and directory submission and back link development from relevant sites, blogs, ezines, forums, social media sites, and online news media.
As an active process of driving traffic to a website and improving search engine page rankings, search engine marketing is an ongoing process which must be carried out consistently for a website to be successful. Without it, a website would much like the previously mentioned bricks and mortar store that stops its advertising leaving its discovery to random passersby which may find the store but not in the kind of numbers required to make a business successful.
As businesses continue to migrate to web and increase their presence on it, multi-pronged search engine marketing has become the most cost-effective, fastest growing, and popular new marketing channel available, especially when compared to print and other traditional media
outlets. Almost any site trying to generate revenues can benefit from a properly run SEM campaign by raising awareness and driving traffic to a site, thus improving the chances of purchases and or other forms of conversions.
The ability to track and measure performance with multiple sources of hard data such as visits, click throughs, conversion rates, and a host of other metrics also sets SEM apart from other forms of advertising. Being able to measure performance can also give a search engine marketing company an indication of whether a campaign will be successful before its inception, reducing the risk of spending advertising dollars on a project that doesn’t provide a return on investment. An example of a campaign that a search engine marketing company would likely avoid would center on highly competitive keywords carrying a high marketing cost with a relatively low average unit sale price. In that kind of situation, the SEM company would search for less competitive key words which would still provide a return on investment.
Running a successful SEM campaign can consume one hundred to two hundred hours per month of labor to get started. Due to the time required, the vast majority of successful projects are normally outsourced to SEO/SEM companies. While the hard costs of executing an SEM campaign may make it tempting to try it as a do it yourself project, the re-allocation of hundreds of hours to in-house employees is not typically the best use of labor, particularly if existing SEM experience cannot be found in-house. Additionally, the timeline for meaningful results can vary widely depending on the level of competition for the keywords being optimized and the monthly budget allocation toward the project, meaning that an in-house employee tasked with the project might be re-allocated indefinitely.
As previously mentioned, multi-pronged search engine marketing campaigns are increasingly viewed as providing the best return on investment dollars. As such, the integration of a full spectrum marketing campaign can be quite complex and carry many moving parts.
A typical search engine marketing campaign can include:
- Press releases – Relatively easy to produce, press releases can be generated based on all kinds of events, ranging from new features on the company website to new product releases. The key is not to fall in love with doing releases to the point where they become meaningless. While fresh content is generally beneficial, repetitive releases of minor announcements will start to turn readers off.
- Blogs – Blogs present a terrific way to communicate informally with a new and existing audience in a direct manner. They can be used to position the company as an authority in the field, provide another channel for public relations, and serve as point for media relations. Whether embedded on the company site or hosted separate from it, blogs will play a significant role in increasing the site’s presence on major search engines. Blogs can also provide support to branding efforts and help in terms of differentiating one company from another.
- Article submissions – Articles can develop trust and position the sponsoring company as an authority in its related fields. White papers, newsletters, research, and informational articles, especially when published on a regular basis, can raise a company’s public profile, improve search engine rankings, and grant credibility to a company and its brands.
- Social Media Marketing - Rapidly becoming a force unto their own, the social media sites have attracted a search engine marketing cottage industry which caters only to marketing on Twitter, Facebook, etc. These sites offer a massive opportunity for companies to find and connect with people who may be interested in their products and services. Basically, a grass roots platform consisting of hundreds of millions of users, the sites offer a double edged sword of instant communication which can either be favorable or not. For that reason alone, companies now must monitor what is being said about them on the social media sites even if they have no desire to build a corporate presence on them.
- Link building - Link building has become a huge priority in search engine marketing efforts due to the weight given by search engines to one way links coming into a site from other relevant “authority sites”. While there are many companies advertising their link building capabilities, it is only the inbound links from authority sites which score in the search engine’s algorithms. As such, the practice of link building tends to be the most time consuming and important part of any online SEM strategy. Much of the cost of these strategies is directly related to developing these inbound links. All of the above mentioned components of SEM can play significant roles in a link building strategy. Due to the substantial amount of time and experience required to execute a strategy properly, SEM services are the most commonly outsourced aspect of the total SEO process.
- Pay per click – Pay-per-click (PPC) ads run down the right side of the search engine results pages, with prices set by a bidding process for keywords. Once the bid price is accepted, a business can set a budget for how many click-throughs they’re willing to pay for and have the ad pulled once that budget amount has been reached. Optimizing for pay-per-click can be done in the same manner as website SEO where the most advantageous keywords are chosen for the objective of providing the best return on investment.
- Search engine placement – Search engine placement ads are found at the top of page one of the search engine result pages. The spots are purchased for a fixed price which guarantees placement in the shaded “sponsored” area for a set period of time. Like PPC ads, a search engine placement ad can be seen on the front pages of the search engines and provide a jump start to a search engine marketing campaign while waiting for the optimization and marketing campaigns to achieve results aimed at the top rankings of organic search. Unlike PPC, search engine placement ads hold their place for an agreed upon time frame, eliminating the possibility of getting bumped due to the exhaustion of a click-through budget or being outbid for a top spot on the page.
When embarking on a search engine marketing campaign the firm you go with must be able to deliver results needed to drive enough visitors to the site for conversions. The best way to determine whether that firm can deliver is to check out how their existing clients are doing and how they’re doing for themselves. Checking to see clients’ rank, increases in traffic, conversion numbers, etc. can shed a lot of light on the capabilities of the search engines marketing companies. If all other things are equal, lean toward a larger rather than a smaller one to ensure continuity should there be some turnover in personnel. Keep in mind that a project in a competitive marketplace could require up to two hundred hours per month. If you’re dealing with a small firm, the two hundred hours per month required for labor at the outset of a search engine marketing campaign would provide full time work for one employee. If your company is their only client, it’s all good. It’s when small companies take on multiple projects with high labor demands that clients can either be neglected or outsourced to companies they may not be familiar with. The Gervais Group has years of experience in search engine optimization and search engine marketing. For a free analysis on starting your campaign, call the Gervais Group today at (770) 529 2262 .
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Salmonella is an organism that can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems. Healthy people infected with Salmonella often experience fever, diarrhea (which may be bloody), nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain beginning 12-72 hours after infection. The illness usually lasts four to seven days. In rare circumstances, infection with Salmonella can result in the organism getting into the bloodstream and producing more severe illnesses such as arterial infections (i.e., infected aneurysms), endocarditis and arthritis.
People exhibiting any of these symptoms should contact their health care provider.
The products being recalled in Colorado are individual mangoes that can be identified by the Daniella brand stickers and one of the following PLU numbers: 3114, 4051, 4311, 4584 or 4959. The mangoes were sold to major retailers and wholesalers nationwide, including Costco, Kroger and some Whole Foods stores. The mangoes were sold at various retail stores between July 12 and Aug. 29.
Consumers who have purchased the recalled mangoes are advised not to eat them and to discard them. Consumers are advised that if there is no identifying sticker on the mango, they should either discard the product or return the product to the place of purchase.
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment is working to confirm the distribution of these products in Colorado. The state health department is working with retail locations to ensure they have received the recall information, pulled any affected product and notified their customers.
Purchasers of these products are urged to dispose of them. Purchasers may contact Splendid Products for further information at 866-918-8758 Monday through Friday 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. EST and Saturday, Sept, 1, 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. EST. A copy of the company press release is available on the company Web site at splendidmangoes.com.
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Miadenyigba e.V. is a German-African organization based in Essen to promote socio-cultural, health and education-related projects and activities. Miadenyigba, the name of the organization comes from the Ewe language and means “our homeland”.
Ewe language is spoken in the Ewe areas and taught internationally and studied, for example in the African faculty-University of Cologne. The proper name of the Ewe language is “Ewegbe” is one of the Kwa languages and is predominantly along the West African coast, mainly spoken in the south of Volta-Region (Ghana), southern Togo and southern Benin, by approximately three million people.
See the Image: Map of the Ewe area in West Africa.
The proper name of the Ewe people is “Eweawo” who live accordingly in those areas of the three countries; Ghana, Togo, Benin. The historical record after, the Ewes came in the 16 th century from north Benin to the border of Nigeria, then from Ketu in Tando district and finally Notsie under the ruler “King Agokoli.
We have planned to publish and discuss details on the history of Ewes in our forum.
Miadenyigba Association is currently working on a Mobile-Clinic project for Ghana-Togo-Benin, to provide medical care for the people in the Ewe areas of Ghana-Togo-Benin starting from Southern-Volta (Ghana). Details about this project are described in our Homepage.
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A hoplite of the Greek style.
In earliest Roman history soldiers fought in much the same equipment Greek warriors used.
Of the five classes defined the in the census, the first class was made up of those wealthy citizens who possessed the best armament.
This excellently equipped hoplite would therefore no doubt be of the first class.
This page was last updated on 4th June 2008.
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An Inside View
A History of Growth
In 1828, Citizens Financial Group got its start as a small community bank called the High Street Bank in Providence, Rhode Island. We’ve come a long way since then.
Today, Citizens Financial Group, Inc. is a $132 billion commercial bank holding company. Headquartered in Providence, R.I., through our subsidiaries we have more than 1,500 branches, approximately 3,900 ATMs and more than 20,900 employees. We operate a 12-state branch network under the Citizens Bank brand in Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont, and the Charter One brand in Illinois, Michigan and Ohio. We have non-branch retail and commercial offices in about 40 states are owned by RBS (The Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc).
A good bank is built on solid values. Those values are represented in our Credo – the beliefs that guide our actions every day. Learn more about Our Credo of Customers, Colleagues and Community.
The Words of Our Colleagues
To give you a better idea of what it's like to work here, we asked some of our colleagues to tell you about their favorite benefits programs in their own words. Learn more about the benefits we offer.
Spotlight on CFG Scholars
"It is so wonderful to know that Citizens Financial Group cares not only for the well-being of their employees, but also for the future of their employees' children."
"Citizens not only provided the financial support to pursue a post-graduate degree (MBA), but also supported this achievement by being flexible with my hours. Citizens encourages all employees to challenge themselves. The result is a motivated workforce of highly trained individuals that translates current knowledge into everyday activities."
"I was at your class yesterday on the Learning Link…Excellent class, I learned plenty. Please thank the appropriate people for me for providing these classes to us. I can't wait to finish all of them."
"What a terrific career development plan! It's great to have such resources at our fingertips to help broaden our knowledge!"
"This program afforded me the opportunity for growth and development through the many excellent course offerings and created a baseline for developing my individual annual goals and objectives. The best way to delight our customers is to increase the value of our services, and this can only be accomplished by continuing to upgrade our knowledge level so that we can become more strategic business partners and provide daily world-class service."
"This program is another ‘WOW’ for Citizens and shows our commitment to the growth and development of our colleagues."
Spotlight on Our Credo
"To me, this is the first company where employees have a very special place. This company makes me feel that I am special and appreciated and for that reason I work with more energy and dedication, and best of all, wherever I go and I can tell the company that I work for -- I say it very proudly, 'I work for CITIZENS BANK!' ".
"Having worked for other financial institutions, I have found that Citizens is very unique. Citizens embraces cultural diversity in a very grass-roots manner. Senior management, especially the CEO and her team, are out in various communities on a frequent basis.”
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Yangon Chinatown or Tayote Tan as the Burmese called it, is in downtown Yangon, located west of the Sule Pagoda and was created when the British expanded the city in the 1850s. It lies between Shwe Daung Dan Street on the west and Shwe Dagon Pagoda Road on the east. The northern and southern borders are the Maha Bandoola Road and the Strand Road.
Within and around this area, the Chinese community built their residences, clan associations, 会馆, temples, offices, and shops. The location of these institutions reflected the historical spatial distribution of the Chinese in Yangon Chinatown. The Hokkien lived along Strand Road while the Cantonese congregate along Maha Bandoola Road.
However, there are exceptions to this rule. For example, the Hokkien community built their clan temple, Long Shan Tan, 龙山堂, on the Anawratha Road amongst the Cantonese community.
There are no friendship arches in Yangon Chinatown unlike many other Chinatowns. However, the usual clues of “Chinatowness” are everywhere such as the Chinese characters on signboards of Chinese businesses. These businesses include gold shops, restaurants, and shops offering CDs and DVDs of Chinese movies and Chinese pop music.
The major temples in Yangon Chinatown are the Cantonese Guan Yin Temple, 观音古庙, (Guan Yin Gu Miao) and the Hokkien Keng Hock Keong, 庆福宫, (Qing Fu Gong). Major Chinese festivals and religious celebrations are held in the two temples while clan associations organize programs and celebrations for their members.
Chinatown is not the official name of the area or of any of the roads but the concept of Chinatown has been in active use. There are businesses and property development projects that incorporated the term “Chinatown”.
Although the temples and clan associations in Yangon Chinatown are not often mentioned in tour guides, a visit to Yangon Chinatown especially during festive seasons shows how the overseas Chinese in Yangon continue to maintain and to transmit their cultural identity.
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Day 7: Working harder isn’t working
Striving to produce ever more food is the wrong starting point for achieving food security. Instead, let’s focus on reducing inequalities by giving small-scale farmers’ more control, valuing their knowledge, and removing barriers that hamper women’s ability to farm on equal terms.
By Rokeya Kabir, Executive Director of Bangladesh Nari Progati Sangha (BNPS)
Every year it seems we have to relearn the hard lesson that producing more food is no guarantee of ending hunger. This decade, Bangladesh has gradually increased rice production, saving the national economy a significant amount of foreign exchange that once went to pay for imported rice. Thanks to our farmers and their backbreaking efforts, our leaders can now smugly proclaim, “We produce enough to feed the nation!” Or “The country has no food deficit!”
“Every year it seems we have to relearn the hard lesson that producing more food is no guarantee of ending hunger.”
Sadly, this macroeconomic reality has not brought benefits to farmers themselves. In the low-lying region of the northeast, for example, around forty percent of households are still unable to eat two meals a day, even though the region is well-known as centre of rice production. (Fishing is the other source of living for people there, but corruption and political influence in leasing system deprives fisherfolk from access to many water bodies.)
The problem is the imbalance between price of food and the income of the poor. Bumper harvests were achieved by the state-sponsored use of new seeds, chemical fertilizers and pesticides. But those same innovations also raised production costs, even beyond what farmers can get for their harvests. Because small-scale farmers must borrow money to plant, this profit-loss imbalance keeps them locked in a vicious cycle of debt.
It is time to rethink the technology used in farming and related services to empower peasants to earn a living, feed their families and keep food prices affordable for all income groups. Let’s start by valuing farmers’ indigenous knowledge, experience and innovation, using a farmer-led approach to improve their natural resource base.
Investment in farmer-centric research for recovery and improvement of indigenous rice varieties should be the first step. The indigenous varieties of rice that made northeast Bangladesh a centre of rice production long before the introduction of foreign seeds have almost disappeared. The goal should be to free our farmers from dependence on the seeds of multinational companies and its local agents, including giant corporate-NGOs.
“It is time to rethink the technology used in farming and related services to empower peasants to earn a living.”
Once seeds are under farmers’ control and their rights over them are guaranteed, farmers could regenerate and expand their biodiversity as they have for generations. Control over seeds is the lifeline of the farming community and strengthening farmers’ seed system is essential for innovation and knowledge generation.
Planting indigenous varieties of rice and other crops would reduce costs with a positive impact on lives and livelihoods. It would lessen the use of chemical fertilizer and pesticides and augment the use of organic and environment friendly alternatives. Current production methods cost the ecosystem heavily, causing damaging soil quality and extinction of flora and fauna. It would also promote diversity: of species and crop varieties, of ecosystems and habitats, of knowledge and practice, even of relationships.
Farmers lost control over seeds at the same time that they lost control over other farming essentials, like fertilizer and pesticides. The Structural Adjustment Program led by the World Bank and bilateral agencies (particularly USAID) in the 1980s transferred public services for farmers from the state-owned Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation (BADC) to the private sector. This was done in the name of promoting competition, but in reality the new market system allowed private dealers who enjoy political backing to manipulate stock levels.
“In reality the new market system allowed private dealers who enjoy political backing to manipulate stock levels.”
It’s a similar story with ground water for irrigation. Farmers are dependent on local water lords who own the deep tube-wells in each locality, privatized under Structural Adjustment. The market control exercised by water lords is a key factor in high production costs, and the wells also contaminate drinking water with arsenic.
State subsidies for agriculture have not compensated for the stranglehold exercised by private traders. In fact, studies show that sixty percent of beneficiaries of subsidies are not poor, but rich landowners and non-farmer traders. The same is true regarding bank loans: the lion’s share, which should be set aside for poor and landless farmers, goes to rich landowners.
These middle-men, rice mill owners and traders, also control the sales end of the market, offering farmers low prices at harvest time. Government and NGOs should facilitate farmers’ cooperatives to market crops directly to consumers. That would ensure fair prices at both ends, for producers and consumers.
A more just agricultural system would also remove the particular barriers faced by women farmers. Our rural women are a major part of the farm workforce, yet are virtually invisible to family, state and society. Their unpaid contribution is not calculated in national GDP at all.
“Farmers have worked hard to increase food production, but the system is stacked against them.”
Close to half of all farmers in the nation are now women as more men have left to look for jobs in the cities or abroad. However, to be eligible for government funding for farm supplies, farmers need an Agriculture Input Assistance Card (AIAC) to prove their land ownership, which many women can't get because the land is in their husbands' names. Without the cards, women farmers have to work much harder to food on the table for their families.
It is a gross violation of the rights of these millions of women who are relentlessly working to increase the country’s food production. No wonder a fundamental demand of the Bangladeshi women’s movement is to reform inheritance laws so that women can inherit land. Such a step is essential for sustainable agriculture and food security too!
Our farmers have worked hard to increase food production, but the system is stacked against them. Working harder is not working. We need to change the system. Valuing farmers’ knowledge, experience and innovation is the logical place to start.
Download: Working harder isn’t working
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Ownership and Artistic Credit in Bonsai by Will HeathBonsai by Janet Roth created under the supervision of Boon Manakitivipart. Most recent wiring and branch setting by Michael Hagedorn. Photograph by Sam Edge used with permission of the copyright holder, Boon Manakitivipart.There has been some discussion on Internet forums recently regarding if, or when, it would be acceptable to show a purchased bonsai. By purchased bonsai it is meant a bonsai that has already been styled by another artist and not styled by the purchaser themselves.
Another often-debated issue revolves around the question of when exactly does a purchased bonsai becomes the new owners and when is it acceptable for the new owner to claim the bonsai as their own work.
With the recent discussions on the Internet and the current active planning of a professional American World Class show, these issues are indeed pertinent and need to be addressed.
In the following article I will merge these two debates together, as I feel they revolve around the same issues and arguments. I will explore many of the justifications used to avoid giving credit to the artist that actually created the bonsai and I will compare many of these thoughts to the same issues in other art forms. For the purposes of this article I will take a strict hard line view that will advocate always naming the artist in all but one scenario, but in the end, I'll leave the final decision as to how these subjects should be treated to the artists, the owners, the patrons, and the people who makes the rules for the shows.
One of the most often asked question on this subject is, "When does a purchased bonsai become that of the new owners?" The answer is simple, never. Well almost never, there is one exception that I will explore in detail later.
It doesn't matter how long you own a purchased piece of art (bonsai is indeed an art form, so I will use other art forms as examples on which to base my thoughts on) the artist is always recognized. Art collectors the world over have long sought after and purchased works of art for their private and/or public collections. Many works of art have changed hands quite a few times over the course of history, owners have changed, and yet one thing always remained constant, Monet's "Water Lilies" have always been Monet's "Water Lilies" and never has the owners name been attached. This work is currently on display at the Art Institute of Chicago, how silly would it be for it now to be referred to as the Art Institute of Chicago's "Water Lilies" How confusing would such a titling process be when over the course of years the name would change with each new owner until eventually maybe the original artist's name would be forgotten?
Any other work of art always has the artists name attached to it, always. It doesn't matter who buys it, where it is shown, how long it has been owned, the artist created it and the artist always gets the credit. Imagine if a private collector bought Monet's "Water Lilies" and then painted over Monet's signature with his own, the art world would certainly attack that, some would scream plagiarism, it would certainly be unethical, some would call it criminal. Even if the new owner just painted over Monet's signature without signing his own and allowed people to "assume" it was his own work, it would still be unethical.
Some state that since the tree is a piece of living artwork, it shouldn't matter who does the work on the tree. This couldn't be farther from the truth. It always matters, when one fails to mention who created the artwork, they dishonor the original artist and they purposely or unintentionally take credit for the creation and therefore commit plagiarism. Omission of the truth is just as bad as a falsehood.
This leads right into the common argument that once the new owner prunes, trims, wires, or re-pots the bonsai then the original artist needs no longer to be named. The thinking here is that since the bonsai needs to be maintained and the original artist no longer does so, that "ownership" transfers to the new owner automatically after a certain task is completed or a certain amount of time has passed.
Ownership is not in question here; there is no doubt who "owns" a piece of art, well except in those cases where items were stolen during war times, but even then, possession is not, as is commonly claimed, the basis of the law. When Di Vinci painted "The Last Supper" for the refectory of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan, the refectory "owned" the work of art; after all, they commissioned it. If I commissioned Walter Pall to design a bonsai for my business that would be displayed in the foyer, I would "own" the bonsai once it was paid for. However, Walter's name would always be attached to it, even though I would have to water it, trim it, and eventually re-pot it. I could not ethically show that bonsai without his name attached, ever, well except in one case, which I will get to shortly.
Paintings and sculptures change over time, they degrade, fade, become stained, and even get touched up, but the original artist still remains attached. When Pinin Brambilla Barcilon restored Leonard Di Vinci's "The Last Supper" they not only removed other attempts at restoration, but they painted over some areas as well. It was a twenty-year project that left a completely restored painting that many think lost its original brightness in the process. After all this, it is still Di Vinci's Last supper and not Pinin Brambilla Barcilon's Last Supper.
When Italy's premier restoration institute for stone and marble, Opificio Delle Pietre Dure was chosen to restore Michelangelo's David it cause quite a stir because of the techniques that were slated to be used. Years later it is still Michelangelo's David and not Opificio Delle Pietre Dure's David.Bonsai by Mauro Stemberger. Originally imported from Japan by the Nippon Bonsai Center. Enrico Savini purchased the tree at Nippon and some months later he sold it to Mauro Stemberger. Mauro Stemberger and Enrico Savini completed the first styling together.
Why would a Bonsai created by John Naka ever be anything else but a Bonsai created by John Naka? If Joe Smith bought one of Naka's trees, at what point would it become a Joe Smith bonsai? If a major collection bought one or received one as a donation, would they ever not mention it was a John Naka creation? Why should a private owner treat it differently?
Taking this to its logical conclusion, when could Joe Smith show his purchased John Naka bonsai? Certainly never in a judged show because like it our not judged shows award the creator of the bonsai.
I am aware that many will argue with the above statement but the truth is the truth. Judged shows are quite clear in their rules which often state how long a person must have owned the bonsai for, some insist on disclosure of the original artist, some require that the work must have been done by the entering artist, and an artist caught entering a "ringer" is quickly chastised and dishonored or at least looked down upon by other artists. Why would these rules be in effect if only the tree is being judged? It's not the bonsai that is being judged, it is the talent that created it that is being judged.
Certainly most shows do not put the artist's name on display with the bonsai but simple questions will reveal that this is done for two reasons. One is for "security" and the other is to prevent bias on the part of the judge toward any particular artist or artists.
Judged shows from the Ginko Awards to local club shows judge the talent of the artist and not the work of art alone. This is why people compete, it is why awards are given, it is why people are quick to congratulate the artist on his placement, it is why such awards are included in the artists? bio, and it is what makes an artist famous.
In Japan, where I understand that many think that more emphasis is based on the tree and where people are known to purchase a world-class bonsai one day and then show it the next day, things are looked at differently, but are they so different indeed? Based on the huge amount of people who buy bonsai to show, many believe that, there at least, it is all about the tree and not the artist. This must be seen in the light that great bonsai artists in that country enjoy a celebrity status and advertised or not, their work is well known to the community. In this environment, naming the artist may not be important because most people know anyhow.
Looking at Japan and the culture there, can we say it is all about the tree? I don't think so; certainly newly purchased bonsai are entered in major events without giving credit to the artists, but is it the bonsai that is being judged or the original artist? The bonsai is indeed being judged but what is the bonsai but the sum of the artists? talent? Bonsai don't create themselves, it is the artist that brought it to the point that it can be shown, that it can win awards. It is the artist that had the vision, it is the artist that did the work, that cared for the tree, and that turned a living thing into a piece of art. A bonsai is the culmination of the artists? vision, talent, and work, it is not the bonsai that is being judged, it is the artists' work that is being judged. A bonsai is the sum of the artists' talent, skills, and knowledge, without which, it would simply be a potted plant.
Let's refer to other art forms again. New artists, be they painters, sculptures, pianists, or whatever, often enter competitions where prestige can be won if their artwork is judged to be the best. These competitions can mean a great deal to an artist, they can make or break a career sometimes. What is being judged here, the artwork or the person who created it? It is the talent of the artist that is being judged and this talent is revealed in the creation. Without a creator there is no creation.
Now let's say I am wrong in my assumptions that the artist is judged and the bonsai is actually what is being judged, again an artist created the bonsai and that artist's bonsai is the one that will win (or not). It is only ethical to name the artist.
Andy Rutledge says in his article "Misplaced Credit in Bonsai" ( http://www.andyrutledge.com/articles/nocredit.html
)"Learn this learn it now and keep it forever in your head: The artist who grew the tree or who first styled the tree and then sold it to an enthusiast or other artist does not display it as a bonsai in the exhibit where it wins an award. As I've said before, the tree itself is just a component of artistry. What wins the award in an exhibit is not the tree (at least I sincerely hope not). Rather it is the bonsai display. If you?re participating in judged events where it is just the trees alone that are being judged, you are part of the problem. Don't do that; go display them elsewhere where artistry matters."
As much as I admire Andy, I disagree with him completely on this subject. He makes the creation of and the artistic merit inherent in a well-designed bonsai valueless. I see a display as the frame to display the bonsai in, like a great painting, a frame can greatly enhance or completely ruin a work of art. Certainly there is an art in the making and selection of a frame for a piece of art, but a frame on a wall without a painting is useless for all intents and purposes, it is simply a vessel awaiting fulfillment, not unlike an empty flower vase.
Andy states that it is the display that is judged and not the bonsai. Let's take a look at the 2006 World Bonsai winners ( http://www.bonsai-bci.com/WorldBonsai06 ... %20RESULTS
) how many of these are in a display? Certainly not the winner. We can also look at our own World View of gallery here at AoB and see world-class bonsai from many countries, not one submitted in a display, unless you count a stand as a display.
Bonsai should be judged in a bonsai show or in a bonsai contest as bonsai just as a painting is judged as a painting, the frame never comes into question when judging the talent of the painter, nor should the display (or lack of) be considered when judging a bonsai. I am assuming that Andy was talking about a full tradition display and not the, needless to mention, pot and stand, which should of-course always be considered.
Now if we are talking about a display contest, like the one we recently held here at AoB, then it is the display that is being judged and the bonsai at that time is just a component of the display, as Andy mentions above. In this instance the creator, the artist that assembled the display should be named and if asked or required, the original artist of the bonsai, scroll, accent, etc should also be named. In our display contest, we stated that the bonsai in the display need not be created by nor owned by the entrant. In the display contest, it was not the talent at creating bonsai that was being judged, it was the talent of arranging an artistic display that was being judged, two completely different talents.
There are those who attempt to marginalize and trivialize this discussion by saying that if we need to give credit to the artist that created a bonsai then we need also to give credit to the person that planted the seed of the tree, to the grower of the stock, or even to the nursery that sold the raw material. Again, looking to other arts for answers, we can see that the maker of the canvas, the manufactuer of the paints, the quarry from where the stone for the scupture was brought, or even the frame maker are never named. It all boils down to who had the talent to turn raw material into art.
The only group of people that naming the artist could possibly discourage would be the patrons, yet patrons of the art could still be and should be praised, without them, very few art forms would prosper. Praise and encouragement should be given to those who acquire and keep a collection of fine bonsai creations. I believe that these few should receive special mention and recognition apart and beyond the artists, just as in other forms of art. In example, if John Smith was a avid collector of world-class bonsai and wished to display his collection in a public venue, as many collectors of paintings do, John should be named as the patron. This showing might be proclaimed and listed as "bonsai 1 by master x, from the John Smith Collection" "bonsai 2 by master y, from the John Smith Collection" etc.
Patrons of the art of bonsai are often overlooked; this is something we all can help to improve. Maybe galleries featuring the collections of patrons, as well as shows set up to feature collections of patrons are long overdue. I personally will work toward showcasing some patrons in the near future. However, the creating artist should be named even in this venue.
In conclusion, based on the above information, it is easy to see why, in today?s existing bonsai shows, a bonsai not created by the person showing it should not be entered without fully disclaiming the original artist. I have shown that these are not bonsai contests but indeed talent contests in which the talent of the creator is being judged. Even in a non-judged competition, the original artist should always be given proper credit if for no other reason than showing respect to the person who had the talent to create the bonsai.
Oh yes, I almost forgot, there is one circumstance where a person could claim the work of art as their own, in which the tree could be shown, judged, or displayed without the original creators name attached. Let's think about Monet's "Water Lilies" once again, if I purchased this work of art and then proceeded to scrape the existing paint off of the canvas and used it to paint my own work on to, then I could certainly sign this piece and claim it as my own. Or if I simply repainted over the painting with my own art, then I could also claim the resulting work as my own.
In bonsai the same would be true where a person took an existing styled bonsai and reworked and restyled it beyond what the original artist created. We are not talking about bending a branch here, or shortening one there, we are talking about creating a new, unrecognizable creation from the material at hand. I'll leave the debate on why one would do this, to others.
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Bald Eagle Facts
- Facts and Figures
- Bald Eagle Nests
- Food Habits
- Causes of Mortality
- Bald Eagles and DDT
- Conservation and Management
The bald eagle has been our national symbol since 1782, when Congress adopted the design for the Great Seal of the United States. Ranging from Alaska to the northern border of Mexico, and from the Pacific to the Atlantic coast, the bald eagle is the only eagle found exclusively on the North American continent. Long a key symbol in Native American cultures, the bald eagle has more recently been emblematic of freedom and democracy as well as wilderness and the environmental ethic.
Facts and Figures
The bald eagle is not really bald. "Bald" is from an obsolete English word meaning white. Bald eagles do not attain their white head and tail feathers until their 5th year of age. Immature birds undergo progressive annual changes in plumage pattern from uniformly dark brown their first year to extensive white and brown mottling in their fourth year. Other notable characteristics include a large downward-curving yellow bill, and yellow feet with sharp talons for catching prey.
- Size: Size increases with latitude; Alaskan birds are noticeably larger.
- Weight: Males 7-10 pounds, Females up to 14 pounds
- Wingspan: Males greater than 6 feet Females up to 8 feet
- Age (record longevity): 28 years in wild, 36 years in captivity
Capable of breeding in fifth year of life when adult plumage attained. Pairs mate for life. In the Chesapeake Bay area, breeding activity begins in November and can last through mid- July. Most eggs laid mid-January to late February. Females lay 1-3 eggs, 2-egg clutch most common (79%). Incubation period is 35 days. Males participate, but female does most of incubating (72%). Both parents hunt and feed young. Young eaglets fledge in average of three months (8-14 weeks).
Bald Eagle Nests
Both sexes participate in nest building, which usually begins 1-3 months before egg-laying. Generally built in one of the largest live trees available with accessible limbs capable of supporting the nest. Nests built in top quarter of tree just below the crown, against the trunk or in the fork of large branches close to the trunk. Nest constructed from sticks collected on the ground or broken off of trees. Grasses, mosses, and other material may be added as filler. The nest bole is lined with finer woody material and ultimately with downy feathers from adults. Additional materials added throughout the year, including daily additions during breeding season. Nests used for multiple years may reach enormous dimensions. Bald eagle nests are among the largest nests of all birds; Typical size is 5-6 feet in diameter and 3 feet tall! Famous Ohio nest used for 34 years measured almost 9 feet in diameter, close to 12 feet tall, and weighed over 2 tons! Record St. Petersburg, Florida nest was 9.5 feet in diameter and 20 feet tall!
Bald eagles, like other raptors, are birds of prey. They usually seek out aquatic habitats (bays, lakes, large rivers), as fish are their preferred food, but bald eagles are opportunistic foragers.
In addition to fish, they eat a great variety of aquatic and terrestrial mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians. They will also feed on carrion, especially in winter, and are known to steal prey from other birds, such as osprey.
Diet of nesting bald eagles (summary of 20 studies):
Northern (breeding north of 40° N), non-coastal populations including those in Alaska, generally migrate south for the winter between August and January.
Bald eagles in the Great Lakes region and adjacent areas in Canada may migrate eastward to winter along the Atlantic Coast from Maine and New Brunswick to Chesapeake Bay.
Because of its rich food resources, Chesapeake Bay also is host to a large influx of summer migrants from Florida and other Gulf Coast states from May to September.
Most immatures on Chesapeake Bay limit movements to the bay. Less than 10% of radio-tagged individuals moved north in summer.
Northern birds return to breeding grounds as soon as weather and food availability permit, generally January to March.
Causes of Mortality
Most bald eagle mortality is human-related, either directly or indirectly. Of 1,428 individuals examined by the National Wildlife Health Center from 1963 to 1984, death was attributed to following causes:
(impact with wires or vehicles)
Bald Eagles and DDT
Reproduction impaired due to eggshell thinning across lower 48 states during years of DDT use: 1947-1972.
Changes in nest success (percentage of active nests with at least one young fledged) and productivity (number of young fledged/active nest) for Chesapeake Bay:
- Pre-DDT Nest Success: 79%
- 1962 Nest Success: 14%
- Pre-DDT Productivity: 1.6 young fledged/nest
- 1962 Productivity: 0.2 young fledged/nest
- 2005 Productivity: 1.58 young fledged/nest
In lower 48 states, bald eagle populations have shown tremendous growth since DDT banned in 1972:
- 1963: 417 estimated breeding pairs
- 1982: 1,482 estimated breeding pairs
- 1997: 5,000 estimated breeding pairs
- 2005: 7,066 estimated breeding pairs
Conservation and Management
Bald eagles were protected under the Bald Eagle Protection Act in 1940 in Alaska and lower 48 states. The Act prohibited taking or possession of bald eagles or any parts including feathers, eggs, and nests.
Bald eagles were further protected as Endangered Species under 1973 Endangered Species Act, however, expanding populations led to down-listing as a Threatened Species in 1995. In 2007 bald eagles were formally "de-listed" or removed from the federal Endangered Species Act. Bald eagles continued to be listed as a state threatened species by DGIF.
Bald eagle populations have continued to grow in Virginia and across the country. In 2011 the breeding population in Coastal Virginia was more than 730 pairs (more information: Center for Conservation Biology). In addition, DGIF surveys in the Piedmont and Mountain regions of Virginia indicate an increase in nesting in these areas as well. As bald eagle populations near saturation in Coastal Virginia an increasing use of urban and suburban nest locations has been observed. The continued recovery of bald eagle populations in Virginia led the DGIF Board to take action at their August 14th meeting to remove the bald eagle from the Virginia state list of threatened and endangered species effective January 1, 2013. This is a remarkable milestone along an impressive conservation success story. DGIF will continue to work to preserve the gains this species has made.
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WHAT THE HECK IS THE NWSS?
The National Western Stock Show has invited the Colorado AHEC Program, University of Colorado Anschutz Medial Campus to provide a health screening exhibit at the National Western Stock Show January 12-27, 2013. Over 675,000 attendees visit the National Western Stock Show each year, which includes farmers, ranchers, and students from urban and rural areas. This is an excellent opportunity for UC\AMC to allow our health profession students to provide free health screenings to NWSS participants from all over Colorado, the United States and other countries around the world.
One part of the exhibit is focused on health screenings with blood-pressure checks, lipid testing and health education materials targeting Farmers and Ranchers, a second part of the exhibit is a health assessment for children ages 2-18 and the third part is an oral health program targeting oral cancer in adults and Cavity Free at Three for children. Adults who receive screenings and are considered high-risk may receive onsite counseling from a clinical faculty member.
COLORADO AHEC PROGRAM NEEDS YOU!
There are 16 days of the National Western Stock Show, January 12-27, 2013 and we could not offer this great service to the community without our extraordinary volunteers. Volunteers are needed for the exhibit from 8a.m.-8p.m. daily.
WHO CAN VOLUNTEER?
- University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus
- Dental Students
- Medical Students
- Nursing Students
- Pharmacy Students
- Physical Therapy Students
- Physician Assistant Students
- Public Health Students
- Clinical Faculty
- Non-Clinical Faculty and Staff
There are two shifts daily. The AM shift from 8:15 am – 2:30 pm and the PM shift is from 2:00 pm – 8:00 pm. Each shift is around six hours. There is some overlap in time to allow for the shift change. Volunteers must register online. Training is required for all students.
This is also a great opportunity for health profession students to interact with elementary, middle and high school to college students and share about the vast array of health career opportunities.
AND, all volunteers will also have the opportunity to visit the National Western Stock Show on the day they volunteer. Make plans to come early before your shift or stay after your shift to enjoy the Stock Show!
The final product of a health professional who thrives in a rural medical practice requires years of development, education and work. From grade school to college to health career education, excellent education must be coupled with rural experience and a receptive and supportive rural community. Thousands of students pass through the National Western Stock Show exhibits each year. We hope to attract many young students to our exhibit and provide them with materials and excitement about health careers, and health career education at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. We believe there is an excellent cadre of well-educated and motivated youth throughout rural Colorado. By increasing their exposure to and experiences in health careers and health careers education, we hope that more will choose a rural health career.
Does your department have any free swag (pens, mugs, t-shirts, pads, etc) to give away? If so, please contact Naomi Spector at 303.724.4748.
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What is Actual Concept?
Welcome you in the vast world of internet. Do you know that today internet is not only means to collect the information, but also used to earn money by doing some online work on it. There are so many works on Internet to do but the important are get paid to view Email Advertisement and online form filling work, lets have a short look of both types of work.
WORK 1: CLICKING ON PAID ADVERTISEENTS
There are many Multinational Advertising Websites on Internet from which you can earn good income without any payment. you have to click their advertisements,stay their at least 30/45 seconds For this, advertising companies will pay you directly minimum $0.25 on each advertisement. you also receive paid emails directly in your inbox. These emails will contain advertisers website links. You have to click these Ad links and go to advertisers website and view them for 30-40 seconds.
Look at the Screen Shots below to understand this
Easy & Simple Job
That You Need To do As Shown Below
STEP 3 : On Clicking The Link A New Browser Window Will Open And You Need To
Stay In That Window For 10-60 Seconds
STEP 4 : After 30-60 Seconds Your Account Will Be Credited With Amount
Associated For That Paid Advertisement
STEP 5 : Check Your Account Status Anytime
just login with your Username and Password and see how much you earned.
How much I can earn?
There are thousands of companies on Internet which provide PTC work.So It depends on the number of hours you work daily because there is no limt of work but the important thing is that how much time do spend for this work or how many ads do you browse every day.The member who is working daily 3-4 hours can easily earn Rs.9000 to 12000 per month by doing this job.
See the Cheques Received by our Members from
( Click the image to view bigger size )
WORK 2: GET PAID TO FILL ONLINE FORMS.
There are hundreds of Survey Companies (Market Research Companies) all over the world. Their main job is to conduct online survey on behalf of the Multinational Companies. These Survey companies are constantly looking for people like you to help them conduct the survey and collect information .Multinational Companies pay huge amount in terms of lakhs of Dollars to the survey companies to conduct survey about their products and services.
These are companies like Coca Cola,Nike, Dell, Microsoft, and even McDonalds!
These companies provide you survey forms in which you have to fill your right choice. Each question of the survey has 4 to 5 choice answers among which you have to choose an answer according to your opinion. Please note: There is no question of being right and wrong because here you have to give information to the company about yourself, which might be positive or in negative, i.e. if you are asked which product of L.G. is being used in your house, your answer can be either in positive or in negative. Therefore according to the status of the survey form the company pays you Rs.12 to 50 for each form.
How much can I earn for each Survey form I fill or each ad I visit?
You can earn Rs.50 to Rs.200 ($1 to $5) for each survey form you fill and average $0.25 for browsing an ad companies have many Ad categories to Based on the category, the rate may increase.
What is the Qualification to Do this Work?
No need Extra qualification. Just basic Internet Browsing knowledge is enough to do this job.
How much Time I need to Work in the Internet ?
There is no hard and fast rules regarding the work. It depends on the number of hours you work. You can work at your convenient timings. But it is good at least you work 2-3 hour daily to earn a decent income.
Have we to fill the survey forms correctly? Whether any problem arises in payment if the forms are filled wrong?
The forms in which your survey is taken is to be filled according your own information. So there is no question of to be right or wrong.
Whether something is to be bought or sold in this work ?..................
No, never you have nothing to buy or sell in this work.
Do I have to pay any amount or fees while joining survey companies?
No, You have not to pay any fees to these companies. Your registration is totally free in all these companies.
Is there is any time limit or target ?
There is no such target or time limit. You can do it your own time without having any target for this work.
Where we can do this work?
You can do this work at your home if you have your personal system and internet connection, or you can do it from any cyber cafe and also at your office.
When and what time we can do this work?
You can do this work in any time of day and night (part time, full time) or when ever your want. It is not necessary to do the work daily, if you want you can give the gap of some days during your work.
Is there limited time to start the work?
Yes advertiser companies need limited worker for this work. Further registration will be closed when the requirement is completed.
How would I get my payment from them & in what mode?
There are different types of payment systems in different companies. Some companies make their payment monthly, some after 15 days either by cheque or transfer the amount in your bank account, for which you have to provide your account detail to those company with IFSC CODE of your Bank Branch. Please note that some companies also have a minimum payout limit of 25$ or 50$. It means if you could not do much work for any reason in current month and your earning is below then specific amount , you will not be paid in this month and instead of it you will be paid in next month and this amount will be adjusted in next month earning.
Does it Cost to Join?
Yes. To start the work we will provide you the "CD Package" in which you will get step by step instruction to start the work and fill the form etc. with your website (by your name) and with your username and password. The charges of all this package are only Rs. 1350/- which is not to be paid in advance, You have to fill the registration form and we will call you for confirmation and send the package at your address by post or by courier. You have to pay Rs. 1350/- (including postal charges) to the postman after receiving the package.
Cash On Delivery
Facility Available Across India.
Don't miss this great Opportunity !
Rs 1350/- only
No Expiry Date! . . . No Renewal Charge!
Sir, I have invested a lot of money for the part time job of online and off line and consequently I joined your company last month, I am very happy now because I got the cheque of rupees 15550/- this week. This is the first time when I got some money online and I highly thankful for this.
Hello Sir, my name is Naveen and I am a student of Class 12, before one month I would spend many time on internet on orkut and chatting and nothing else. My father and mother often scolded me. Last month I got your package arranged, at the advice of my friend, and started to work at once. Which is very easy and today I am very happy because I have got first cheque of Rs. 14300/- which is the first earning of my life. My parents are very happy and praising me, receive thanks from my parents and my side.
When I saw your website I thought that one more website has discovered but when I read the detail of it, I got courage and I requested you to send me package and started the work. I do not believe that I have earned 225$ from cj.com last month and earned $ 285 in this month. Although it is not enough but still I am very pleased because it is only beginning, and when I can earn so easily why other cannot because it is very easy job and everyone can do it.
Sir I have been doing 2,3 house daily for last some years on internet and still I do, but there is difference. First I wasted 2 hours but now I use the same 2 hours on your work and earning some amount also. This month I have earned Rs. 9500/. I am a bank employee and work there from 10 to 5 and from 8 to 10 am on internet at home, and now I am thinking to increase my time limit. So that I could earn more.
Hello today I am very happy because I have received my first cheque of 315 dollars. This is not a handsome amount but for for the illiterate worker like me who knows nothing how to work on internet, the above amount is more than enough. Now I am learning fast and have done the work of 289 dollar in this month. It is very easy job and good customer support from you for which I am highly obliged to you.
What will we get in CD PACKAGE which you provide us? .......
The E-booklet in which, we let you know how to start your work,how to fill the online forms etc.
You will be given your user name and password
Also as 15 days promotion offer from our sponsors we are offering our members a free website for personal or business use.
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Back in 1991 at U.C. Santa Barbara, students could easily get free tickets to the Gaucho basketball games. It was pretty fun, and I've been a basketball fan ever since.
One night while watching the opponents shoot free throws, I thought up the "hypnodisk". I figured it would be fun to build this large spiral-pattern wheel for use behind the basket while the visiting team was shooting.
My friend Bob Burnell Jr. and I bought some heavy yellow paperboard and painstakingly drew an elegant spiral with the use of a pottery wheel. Next we colored in the dark blue. Then we punched a hole through the center and epoxied some steel washers there for reinforcement.
By holding a pen or a nail through the center, we could spin the school colors and mesmerize the other team!
I remember being a little sheepish about actually trying this tactic, but Bob and I both brought hypnodisks to games, spun them during free-throws, and tried to distract the opposing shooter any possible way.
Statistically, the hypnodisks didn't help at all, but they were really fun to wield. After about 15 games, mini-hypnodisks began showing up in other college basketball stadiums, notably New Mexico State University.
Soon after that, The Gaucho team, which was led by guard Carrick DeHart and forward Eric McArthur, beat UNLV, the last time UNLV lost that year before winning the NCAA title. Kareem Abdul Jabbar was a commentator for EPSN at that game, and he made at least one on-air comment about the "spinners". We walked home from the game with the wild, enthusiastic crowd.
Bob and I tried to bring them to a few away games, and we were mostly successful. At Pepperdine's Firestone Fieldhouse we were not allowed to bring them inside. Security told us that "signs were not allowed in the arena", but what they meant was that "visiting signs are not allowed in the arena".
Pepperdine star Doug Christie was spared the wraith of the hypnodisk that night, and his team was able to beat UCSB.
After I graduated, I tucked my hypnodisk away, but occasionally saw imitations on television. The NBA finally banned them during the '93-'94 playoffs.
It wasn't until many years later that I found this photo deep inside my copy of Late Night with David Letterman The Book (circa 1985). It was in the "Laundry Etiquette" section and features Larry "Bud" Melman staring into a hypnodisk- equipped clothes dryer.
I had subconsciously stolen the hypnodisk idea from the Late Night book! Even the name was the same!
Free Throws | Keon Clark Fan Page | Other incredible stuff | Home | Contact Rob
June 2, 2003 Photographic Height/Weight Chart | Comparing the Odds of a Royal Flush in Poker to Winning the Mega Millions Lottery Jackpot | The Television Commercial Database Terms and Conditions Copyright 2003 Cockeyed.com
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I drew a smiley on the board and provided the skeleton for a new class
that drew only the circle that represented the face. I asked the
students to get it to display a smiley according to the drawing. While
they did that, I downloaded my source code for Smiley.java and
the modified classes from the BlueJ sample
project (added move() to Triangle and Circle) and showed them my
implementation. I wanted them to define a class that supported many of
the operations the basic shapes did. I started with a single Circle
attribute representing the face, a constructor that created the
circle, and a makeVisible() method that made the face visible.
The major conceptual point I wanted to make was:
You can define your own class that contains objects. You can call
methods on those objects and you don’t have to worry about the
implementation details. You can support the other methods by passing
the method calls to the different objects.
A number of students started by looking at Circle.java and trying to
model their work on it, but I suggested working from the very simple
skeleton we had on the board. This greatly helped the students who
were getting lost in the source code.
I also pointed out that they could use BlueJ to determine the
coordinates and sizes experimentally. Instead of edit-compile-test,
they could interactively create an object, manipulate it, and then
inspect it to find the necessary values.
This exercise was open-ended. After students got the smiley to
display, they added support for moveUp(), moveDown(), moveLeft(), and
moveRight(). moveHorizontal(int distance) and moveVertical(int
distance) followed shortly after. move(int x, int y) required a bit
more thought because they couldn’t just pass the request on. I also
had a simple animate() method. I suggested making it possible for the
user to change the smiley’s colors (face, eyes, and mouth – separate
methods, or one method with three parameters) or size (bit more
I think this exercise worked very well. I did not have to tell the
students exactly what to do, although I gave them a number of hints. I
exposed my planning process – first, get the face to display, then add
the eyes, then the mouth, then add other methods one at a time.
Students learned how to plan implementation in small steps. I did not
tell them what they had to do; I just drew a figure on the board and
had a demo up on the projector. On their own, they figured out that
they needed to specify negative height in order to get an inverted
triangle and add offsets during the move.
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US 7780024 B1
A self peelable seal having one or more layers for sealing containers by heat induction, conduction, or other means and having a stiffening structure. A portion of the seal is axially retained within a closure thereby allowing the peelable seal to be loosened from the container neck by placing a lifting force on the seal with the closure upon removal of the closure from the container.
1. A closure for sealing a container, comprising:
a container having a container neck, said container neck having an opening defined by a container rim;
a closure axially removable from said container neck;
a generally disc shaped peelable seal rotatingly axially retained within said closure;
said seal having a central body portion and an overhang portion extending beyond a margin defined by said central body portion, said central body portion including a first layer and a second layer, said first layer forming said overhang portion extending beyond said container rim surrounding said opening of said container, wherein said first layer including a stiffening structure of such thickness and rigidity that said seal can be loosened by applying a vertical force to said overhang portion of said first layer;
said overhang portion extends from about 0.005 inches to about 0.25 inches beyond said container rim of said container neck;
said second layer of said seal being a sealant for bonding or sealing said first layer of said seal to said container rim and being a relatively low density and tensile strength; and
said overhang portion of said generally disc shaped peelable seal being sufficiently rigid and nonflexible from said stiffening structure so that a seal retainer circumscribing an inner annular side wall of said closure applying said vertical force upwardly on said overhang portion of said first layer upon removal of said closure from said container neck thereby completely removing said bonded seal from said container rim and rotatingly axially retaining said seal within said closure when removing said closure from said container.
2. The closure of
3. The closure of
4. The closure of
5. The closure of
6. The closure of
7. A closure and container comprising:
a container having a container neck, said container neck having an opening defined by an upper rim;
a closure having a top wall with a depending annular side wall, wherein said annular side wall having an inner surface;
a helical thread depending inwardly from said inner surface of said annular side wall, wherein said closure threadably engaging said container neck;
said closure top wall having an inner surface and an outer surface with a centrally oriented through hole extending between said top wall inner surface and said top wall outer surface;
a generally disc shaped seal having a stiffening structure, said stiffening structure extending at least partially over an area of said seal within said closure, said stiffening structure further including a vertical post with a head projecting from the portion of said stiffening structure within said closure, wherein said head is positioned at a distal end of said post;
said post having a first diameter and said head having a second diameter, wherein said second diameter of said head is larger than said first diameter of said post;
said post extending through said hole of said closure top wall and said head positioned on said outer surface of said closure top wall, said second diameter of said head being greater than the diameter of said hole of said closure top wall; and
wherein said seal is loosened by applying a vertical force to said head of said stiffening structure extending beyond the diameter of said top wall hole when removing said closure from said container thereby completely removing said disc shaped seal from sealing engagement with said container upper rim and axially retaining said seal within said closure.
8. A seal and closure combination comprising:
a container having a container neck, said container neck having an opening defined by an upper rim;
a closure threadably engaging said container neck, wherein a generally disc shaped seal is rotatingly held within said closure;
said seal having a body portion, said body portion having a first layer, an intermediate layer, and a sealant layer stacked together in a composite sheet with adhesives, said body portion forming an overhanging portion extending beyond said upper rim of said container, said first layer is from about 0.010 inches to about 0.25 inches in thickness, said intermediate layer is from about 0.001 inches to about 0.010 inches in thickness;
said sealant layer disposed so as to be adaptable for sealing or bonding of said body portion to said container rim and being a relatively low density and tensile strength;
said first layer of said body portion and said overhanging portion including a stiffening structure;
said intermediate layer is a foil layer for induction sealing said seal to said container upper rim; and
a seal retainer applying a separating axial force to separate said seal from said upper rim of said container neck upon applying an upward removing force upon said closure from said container neck and rotatingly axially retaining said seal within said closure when removing said closure from said container.
9. The seal and closure combination of
10. The seal and closure combination of
11. The seal and closure combination of
12. The seal and closure combination of
This patent application is a continuation-in-part of and claims priority to and benefit from, currently pending, U.S. Nonprovisional patent application Ser. No. 11/181,576, filed on Jul. 14, 2005, which is incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to container inner seals, and, more specifically, to inner seals having a stiffening structure which promotes ease of removal by allowing the user to loosen or remove the inner seal by flicking an overhanging portion with a finger or by retaining a portion of the seal in the closure.
2. Description of the Related Art
In view of the need for airtight inner seals on containers for food, medicine, and the like, closures have been developed which incorporate an inner seal bonded with a sealant to an upper rim of a container rim (i.e., the landing area of the container neck). Traditional inner seals typically have an integral pull tab to grip to facilitate removal of the inner seal, or no pull tab at all, forcing the user to resort to sharp objects to scrape, puncture, or break the inner seal. These traditional inner seals thus have numerous shortcomings. Although inner seals having integral tab portions are designed for gripping, end users—particularly the elderly—may find it difficult forming the required thumb and forefinger connection to pinch and pull the tab of the inner seal up and away form the upper container rim. Scraping or puncturing the inner seal with sharp objects such as knives can be dangerous to the end user. Therefore, there is a need for inner seals which are easily removed by the end user, particularly those who cannot pinch and pull a tab, and that do not require sharp and dangerous objects to puncture the inner seal.
In view of known deficiencies associated with earlier inner seals, there is provided an inner seal or liner having one or more layers. The inner seal has a central portion or body and optionally an overhanging portion extending beyond the margin or fringe of the central portion of the inner seal. In a single-layer inner seal, the inner seal includes a stiffening structure, such as a co-extruded film actually consisting of a plurality of materials. In a multi-layer inner seal, the inner seal includes the stiffening structure (or layer), and can further include an intermediate layer and a structure adapted for sealing or bonding the inner seal against an upper rim of a container (or landing area of a container neck). These layers may be stacked in the order recited, and are secured together in a composite sheet with adhesives known in the art.
In an embodiment of the seal having an overhanging portion, the overhanging portion may circumscribe the periphery of the central portion or body of the inner seal, and includes the stiffening structure, which facilitates removal of the inner seal by flicking the overhanging portion with a finger or retaining it within the closure. In an alternative embodiment, the seal has a post with a head extending through a hole in the top wall of the closure. The head has a larger diameter than the hole in the closure top wall, thus retaining the seal within the closure. In this embodiment the seal need not have an overhanging portion to be retained within the closure. The invention thus provides an inner seal easily removed not by pinching and pulling a tab, which some elderly people in particular might find difficult to perform, or by gouging the seal with a sharp object, which is dangerous, but by flicking an overhanging portion or by retaining the inner seal within the closure so that the inner seal is loosened or removed from the landing area of the container neck. The inner seal may be of any size or shape of inner seals known in the art, such as disc-shaped.
For a better understanding of the present invention, together with other and further objects thereof, reference is made to the following description, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, and its scope will be pointed out in the appending claims.
The aspects and advantages of the present invention will be better understood when the detailed description of the embodiments taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:
While this invention is susceptible of embodiments in many different forms, there are shown in the Figures and will herein be described in detail, embodiments of the invention with the understanding that the present disclosure is to be considered as an exemplification of the principles of the invention, and is not intended to limit the broad aspects of the invention to the embodiments illustrated.
As shown in
An embodiment of the peelable seal of the present invention is generally disc-shaped as shown in
As shown in
In a single-layer seal 12 configuration, the seal 12 may include a stiffening structure, such as a co-extruded film actually consisting of a plurality of materials. The single-layer seal 12 configuration would be a construction in which a hot iron (not shown) is used to bond the seal to the upper rim of a container 10 (or landing area of a container neck 14). The materials must be stiff such that the seal 12 could be “flicked” as shown in
A multi-layer seal 120 as shown in
The multi-layer peelable seal 120 configuration is comprised of a layer 122 of about 0.0120 inches thick, an intermediate layer 126 of about 0.0015 inches thick, and a sealant 128 of about 0.0010 inches thick, for an overall thickness of about 0.0145 inches. In this configuration, the layer 122 includes about 0.0020 inches of polyester (PET) and about 0.0100 inches of polypropylene (PP).
In yet another multi-layer seal configuration, seal 120 is comprised of a layer 122 of about 0.0410 inches thick, an intermediate layer 126 of about 0.0015 inches thick, and a sealant 128 of about 0.0010 inches thick, for an overall thickness of about 0.0435 inches. In this configuration, the layer 122 includes about 0.0400 inches of rubber modified polypropylene thermoplastic elastomer and about 0.0010 inches of PP. The backing material which provides stiffening structure to the top layer 122 is generally selected from any solid material providing an adequate stiffening structure such as, for example, polyethylene terephalate (PET), polypropylene (PP), Nylon, polyethylene (PE), polyvinylchloride (PVC), styrene, ethylene-vinyl-acetate (EVA), ethylene-vinyl-alcohol (EVOH), Vinyl, foams of the preceding materials, paper, a stiff metallic material such as aluminum or steel, or combinations thereof. The preferred backing material is PET, PP, PVC, a stiff metallic material or paper.
The peelable seal 12 or 120 may be applied to a container in a conventional manner. The seal 12 or 120 typically is placed inside a closure 20 by a closure manufacturer, and the closures 20 typically are supplied to a packager of the container with the seals 12 or 120 retained within the closure 20. The seal 12 or 120 is sealed to a container 10 by methods that will be recognized by those skilled in the art. The closure 20 is attached to the neck 14 of the container 10. The central portion 13, 113 or body of the seal 12, 120 shown in the figures is of substantially the same size and configuration as the opening or mouth of the container 10. In the embodiments shown, the seals 12, 120 include the overhanging portion 18, 118 circumscribing the peripheral edge of the body 13, 113 of the seal 12, 120. The depth of the overhanging portion 18, 118 extends from the peripheral edge of the body portion 13, 113 beyond the rim of the container 10 usually from about 0.0050 inches to about 0.2500 inches. The preferred depth of the overhanging portion 18, 118 is about 0.0620 inches. The overhanging portion 18, 118 facilitates removal of the seals 12, 120 by one opening the container 10. Instead of pinching and pulling a tab with the thumb and forefinger, or having to remove the seal with a knife or other sharp object, as in other conventional seals, the user flicks the overhanging portion 18, 118 with the meat of the finger 50 to loosen it, and the stiffening structure provides the rigidity or resistance so that when the meat of the finger 50 meets the overhanging portion 18, 118, the seals 12, 120 pop up from the land area of the neck. The seals 12,120, in other words, are not flexible like traditional inner seals.
While there have been described several embodiments of the present invention, those skilled in the art will recognize that other and further changes and modifications may be made thereto without departing from the spirit of the invention, and it is intended to claim all such changes and modifications as fall within the true scope of the invention.
Citas de patentes
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The outstretched hands and arms of a figure skater preparing for a spin can be considered a slender rod pivoting about an axis through its center. (See the figure below .) When the skater's hands and arms are brought in and wrapped around his body to execute the spin, the hands and arms can be considered a thin-walled hollow cylinder. His hands and arms have a combined mass of 7.50kg . When outstretched, they span 1.80 m; when wrapped, they form a cylinder of radius 25.0 cm. The moment of inertia about the axis of rotation of the remainder of his body is constant and equal to 0.400 kg m^2If the skater's original angular speed is 0.350rev/s , what is his final angular speed?
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Almost 200 nations extended on Saturday a weak UN plan for fighting global warming
until 2020, averting a new setback to two decades of UN efforts that have failed to halt rising world greenhouse gas emissions.
The extension of the Kyoto Protocol keeps it alive as the only legally binding plan for combating global warming even though it will cover developed nations whose share of world greenhouse gas emissions is less than 15%.
The world's poorest countries, inundated by rising seas and worsening disasters, made a last ditch plea for financial help early Saturday as negotiators at United Nations climate talks
struggled to reach an ambitions deal to combat global warming.
The two-week UN conference in the Qatar capital of Doha was never meant to yield a global climate pact to curb emissions of greenhouse gases
– that has been put off until 2015.
But many developing nations said they were increasingly frustrated with the lack of ambition from rich countries on everything from climate aid to the emissions cuts they will make until 2020.
Talks were set to end Friday but they continued into early Saturday with negotiators set to meet in several hours to assess progress.
"The expectations we had for a great deal in Doha is no more. That is dust," said Mohammed Chowdhury, a Bangladeshi who is a lead negotiator for a coalition of poor nations called the Least Developed Countries or LCD.
"We are facing day in and day out the adverse effects of climate change," he said. "Nobody is nearby to rescue them. You see President Obama asking for huge funding for Hurricane Sandy ...
But we won't get that scale and magnitude of support."
The biggest fight early Saturday swirled around what is called "loss and damage," a relatively new concept which relates to damages from climate-related disasters. Island nations and LCD have been pushing for some mechanism to deal with this but the United States has pushed back over concerns they might be held liable for the cleanup bill since they are the world's second biggest emitter behind China.
Many scientists say extreme weather events, such as Hurricane Sandy's onslaught on the US East Coast, will become more frequent as the Earth warms, although it is impossible to attribute any individual event to climate change.
Green activists at the summit (Photo: AFP)
"It's becoming the last straw for the small island states, the least develop countries," said Alden Meyer, of the US-based Union of Concerned Scientists.
"Seasoned negotiators are coming out of that room in tears, very emotional. They are starting to say what are we doing here? What is the point of these negotiations?"
The tought negotiations, which were rumored to be on the brink of failure, activists said they were giving up hope that any deal would include tough measures to protect the planet from the effects of global warming.
"The deal in Doha is a recipe for disaster. The deal in Doha is a coffin for the planet," said Michael Dorsey, a professor at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, speaking outside the negotiations.
"We will see the failure to have emission targets sufficiently high enough. We are going to see the failure to move critical resources to countries on the margin in the developing world who desperately need resources to get out ahead of the unfolding climate catastrophe that is playing out around the planet."
Most of the key disputes revolved around money.
Poor countries, especially a coalition of island nations and African countries, came into the talks demanding a timetable on how rich countries will scale up climate change aid for them to $100 billion annually by 2020 – a general pledge that was made three years ago – and how they will raise the money.
But rich nations, including the United States, members of the European Union and Japan remain in the midst of a financial crisis and were not interested in detailed talks on aid at this meeting.
The current text on financing agrees only to continue "scaling up" aid until 2020 and delays most detailed decisions until 2013. It includes no midterm targets or mechanisms — such as a tax — for raising the revenue.
One of the sticking points was whether to allow countries to carry over surplus emissions allowances into the next phase as well as to extend it for five or eight years and whether there would be a trigger requiring countries to commit to more ambitions emissions targets at a certain date.
The US never joined the Kyoto accord, while Japan, New Zealand, Canada and Russia don't want to be part of its extension, meaning it would only cover about 15% of the world's emissions of greenhouse gases.
Doomed? The summit (Photo: AFP)
Governments have set a deadline of 2015 to agree on a wider deal that would include both developed and developing countries, which now produce a majority of the world's emissions. As part of that, delegates were also trying to make progress on the 2015 work plan and close loopholes that would bring all countries into one negotiating path.
The negotiations were also hampered, delegates and activists said, by a lack of leadership from Qatar. Draft agreements were not ready until the last second and Qatar did nothing to bring together key ministers to hash out a grand deal as past presidents have done.
The goal of the UN talks is to keep temperatures from rising more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 Celsius), compared to preindustrial times. Temperatures have already risen about 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.8 Celsius) above that level, according to the latest report by the UN's top climate body.
"There is a huge lag between the international policy response and what science is telling us," UN climate chief Christiana Figueres told The Associated Press. "We know that science tends to underestimate the impacts of climate, and so if anything, that gap continues to grow."
Reuters contributed to this report
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Local Catholics hope new pope brings changes to faith
Published: Friday, March 8, 2013 at 2:00 p.m.
Last Modified: Thursday, March 7, 2013 at 2:51 p.m.
Since Pope Benedict XVI resigned late last month, local Catholics are concerned about what type of person will be selected as his successor.
In a March 3 poll taken by The Associated Press asking who’s next to lead the Roman Catholic Church, people suggested everything from a Latin American pope to one more like the conservative, Polish-born John Paul II. What most agreed on, however, was that the church is in dire need of a comeback.
“What I would like to see is for a pope to come in and bring back more reverence in the church,” said Arianne Naquin, a parishioner of the Cathedral of St. Francis de Sales in Houma. “I’d like certain things to be enforced like not speaking in church and not eating or drinking an hour before receiving Jesus.”
A decline in Mass attendance and in the number of faithful, practicing Catholics, as well as clergy sex-abuse scandals have taken their toll on the church. So many parishioners said the next pope should be open about the problems and offer ideas for solutions, rather than ignore them.
The Rev. Josh Rodrigue of St. Francis, who has studied at the Vatican, said he has faith in the cardinals, the senior ecclesiastical officials who, as a body, elect the new pope.
“This period of choosing the new papal leader is not a campaign period but a discernment period where the cardinals gather in prayer,” he said. “The media often doesn’t understand how this can be a spiritual thing. This is primarily spiritual, not political. The cardinals are also each given time to speak and surface issues with regard to the church in the world today and the needs of the new evangelization and getting the gospel out in a new way.”
Rodrigue said he knows the governing body of the Catholic Church is searching for someone “who can lead us to have fresh insight as to how to relate the church to the world and allow the world to better understand teaching of the church better.”
He said he doesn’t believe the church is attempting to sweep sex-abuse scandals under the rug, adding that the cardinals will discuss what papal candidate is the best choice to address the issue.
Any unmarried Catholic man qualified to be a bishop can be the pope. The man must be at least 35.
“It could be a priest or a bishop, but in reality, it’s usually one of the cardinals,” Rodrigue said.
One local said one change she hopes for is that the new pope is much younger than his predecessors.
“The Catholic Church is behind the times; maybe someone younger would be more willing to bring about change,” said Abby-Lynne Pellegrin, 50, of Houma.
Part of Pope Benedict XVI’s mission was in line with Pellegrin’s idea. The first step he made in achieving this goal was by becoming the first pope with a Twitter account.
Naquin said she thinks those efforts were great, and she wouldn’t mind if the next leader keeps it going.
“I strongly believe that the youth will carry this faith in the future,” she said. “Social networking is not particularly my thing, but it is the youth’s. So if that allows them to have knowledge and become more faithful and closer to the Lord, if that’s the tool they must use, then I cannot condemn that.”
Some Catholics, like Pellegrin, have other, more controversial ideas for change, including “allowing priests to marry,” she said.
Rodrigue said that idea in particular is not impossible, as it is not part of the faith’s doctrine, just more of a practice and tradition.
“One thing we have to remember is that the church has changed very little in terms of doctrine since the first pope, Peter, because doctrine doesn’t change,” he said. “The way it is presented often changes to make it presentable and understandable to the people and the church of the modern world.”
The Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux has a married priest who came in from the Episcopal Church, Rodrigue said. In such cases, a priest’s work load is diminished and he’ll serve as an associate or have another job to supplement income.
“That’s more so because a priest’s salary will not provide for a family and for children’s education or college,” he said. “So lots of time the priest may be a teacher in a school or something like that.”
The pope can change anything outside of doctrine. For example, Rodrigue said, the pope could decide everyone must kneel while taking communion. The decision can be made individually, but former popes have typically consulted cardinals, theologians and congregation members to study Catholic legislative text and centuries of changes and practices.
Not everyone has something they’d like to see change. Connie Domangue, a parishioner of St. Francis, said she’s happy with the Catholic Church just the way it is.
“I’m fine with everything,” said Domangue, who adamantly added that she feels the traditions and the workings of her faith are fine as they are.
The College of Cardinals, the body that selects the new pope, will meet for a papal conclave, when preparations began Monday, in seclusion until the next pope has been decided upon, when they release white smoke through the air to alert Catholics that a decision was made. Officials have said they would like for a decision on a new pope by next week, so the new head of the Catholic Church can preside over Holy Week ceremonies.
Rodrigue feels the choice of a new pope is already made.
“God has already chosen the next man,” he said. “We’re just praying that the cardinals listen, and we’re looking forward to the acceptance of this man that’s chosen. We want a holy pope, and we want the one that God has chosen.”
Staff Writer Kris Johnson can be reached at 857-2207 or firstname.lastname@example.org. Follow her on Twitter @krisLjo.
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President Barack Obama's military advisers plan on the U.S. and its NATO allies ending combat operations in Afghanistan perhaps as soon as mid-2013, a year and a half early.
U.S. forces in Afghanistan have already been reduced from 100,000 to 90,000, and another 22,000 are due home this fall.
The role of most of the remaining 68,000 U.S. forces would be to support and train Afghan soldiers, but leave any fighting to them. Washington would be willing to leave beyond 2014 a residual force to provide air power, logistics, supplies and training, but that would require permission from the Afghan government. The Iraqi government said no to a similar offer, and we were out by the end of last year — except for a small force to help guard the U.S. embassy.
The Obama administration's numerous critics say it erred in proposing this revised date, that this only encourages Taliban forces — who, depending on which intelligence estimate you read, either are or are not on the run — to hold out.
But this ignores an obvious fact: The Taliban live there. They may hide out in Pakistan and the drones may have taken a terrible toll on their leadership, but they have always known that sooner or later we would leave. It was a simple matter of hiding the AK-47 and picking up a hoe until we did.
In the barest terms, we have accomplished our basic objectives. Osama bin Laden and his top aides are dead. Al-Qaida has been crushed. The Afghan government that gave the 9/11 plotters sanctuary has been routed and dispersed, and its leader, Mullah Omar, dare not emerge from hiding in Pakistan, even after we leave.
As in Iraq, the government we leave behind was better than the dictatorship we found. But Iraq and Afghanistan have shown that our ability to establish democracies in ethnically divided countries with no history of democracy is limited.
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Originally published on TheHorse.com
Dan Howe, PhD, a professor and molecular parasitologist at the University of Kentucky Gluck Equine Research Center, and colleagues are finishing up a three-year Sarcocystis neurona genome project. The primary goal of the project, titled "Genome Sequence for the apicomplexan Sarcocystis neurona," has been to sequence and assemble the genome of S. neurona, the protozoan (single-cell) parasite that causes protozoal myeloencephalitis (EPM) in horses.
Prior to the S. neurona genome project, Howe had been conducting preliminary sequencing studies in his lab funded by a gift from Thoroughbred breeders John and Jerry Amerman. In 2009 he received a $500,000 grant from the USDA-CSREES (U.S. Department of Agriculture-Cooperative State Research and Extension Service) competitive grants for his research.
S. neurona causes equine protozoal myeloencephalitis (EPM), which is one of the most important and commonly diagnosed neurologic diseases in the United States. EPM has a tremendous ongoing impact on the equine industry and equine health due to the considerable cost of diagnosis and care to fully recover an affected horse. Some horses might never recover entirely. Clinical signs vary from horse to horse but include loss of coordination, muscle atrophy, sore back, stumbling, locking of the stifle joint, and weakness.
The parasite's life cycle initially begins in the definitive host, which is the opossum that passes the S. neurona oocysts and sporocysts in its feces. To complete its life cycle, this parasite needs two hosts, one definitive (final) and one intermediate.
Horses serve as an accidental intermediate host of S. neurona. Horses represent a dead end for the parasite life cycle since they cannot pass the disease among themselves or contract the disease from another infected horse. When grazing on the pasture, ingesting feed or water contaminated with opossum feces, the infective stages of the organism are passed to the small intestine of the horse, where emergence from a cyst eventually takes place.
The infective stage of the organism undergoes several replicative cycles in the blood vessels. In some horses they migrate to the central nervous system where the parasites cause severe neurologic disease. This neurologic damage can cause various signs, all dependent on the area of the central nervous system parasitized.
This project's purpose has been to sequence S. neurona, to compare it to sequences from other related parasites, as well as to make the information available to the research community, Howe said.
According to Howe, the study has succeeded in providing new insight to the protozoan that might be useful for the closely related important human parasites such as Toxoplasma and Plasmodium (malaria) that are known to cause significant disease in both humans and other mammals.
The biology of S. neurona resembles other pathogenic apicomplexans and is fairly complex with multiple life cycle stages. Howe said the sequencing efforts have revealed molecular diversity among different S.neurona strains and other Sarcocystis species.
"We have been able to sequence one representative strain at this point, but we hope to obtain genome sequences from at least one, if not several, additional strains," Howe said. "The tremendous drop in the cost of sequencing now makes this feasible. But at this point, there is no evidence to suggest that any one strain type is more important (i.e., more pathogenic) in horses than others."
Howe said the genome sequence will contribute to an increased understanding of S. neurona and thereby enhances its value as a comparative model for other members of this important group of pathogens.
"A fully sequenced genome will also provide a resource for characterization of virulence factors and S. neurona antigens, which can lead to new protective immunizations or chemotherapeutics against this parasite," Howe said. "However, there is a tremendous amount of data to be interpreted before the initial lab work on potential vaccine candidates and chemotherapeutic agents can get started."
The information from the study will be posted to a public database available for research on EPM. Howe has been collaborating on the project with Chris Schardl, PhD, the Harry E. Wheeler Chair in Plant Mycology and director of the University of Kentucky Advanced Genetic Technologies Center (UK-AGTC), and Jessica Kissinger, PhD, of the University of Georgia.
Shaila Sigsgaard is a contributing writer for the Bluegrass Equine Digest.
Want more articles like this? Sign up for the Bluegrass Equine Digest e-Newsletter.
Disclaimer: Seek the advice of a qualified veterinarian before proceeding with any diagnosis, treatment, or therapy.
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Students have read about life in South Asia today, including the economies of the countries in the region. In this activity they will learn more about the economy of India and the reasons businesses or industries might choose to operate in India. They will also learn that India encourages tourism and tourism-related businesses.
Students will use information from the Ministry of External Affairs of the Government of India Web site to learn about the Indian economy and environment for business investment. Students will answer four questions and then apply what they have learned to write a business proposal.
- Students will be able to describe what actions the Indian government has taken to encourage business investment.
- Students will be able to identify the economic factors that support tourism-related businesses.
- Students will be able to evaluate the objectivity of a government-sponsored Web site.
Applied Content Standards
Standard 2: The geographically informed person knows and understands how to use mental maps to organize information about people, places, and environments in a spatial context.
Standard 3: The geographically informed person knows and understands how to analyze the spatial organization of people, places, and environments on Earth's surface.
Standard 4: The geographically informed person knows and understands the physical and human characteristics of places.
Standard 6: The geographically informed person knows and understands how culture and experience influence people's perceptions of places and regions.
Standard 11: The geographically informed person knows and understands the patterns and networks of economic interdependence on Earth's surface.
Standard 18: The geographically informed person knows and understands how to apply geography to interpret the present and plan for the future.
Student Web Activity Answers
- Foreign businesses might be attracted by India's large population, recent economic reforms, stable democratic government, free-enterprise economy, sophisticated legal and accounting systems, opportunities for joint ventures with Indian businesses, and skilled managerial and technical workers.
- Tourism in India is a high–priority industry. In 2000, there was an occupancy rate of 51.7 percent in the Indian hotel industry, and tourist arrivals increased by 6.4 percent. India will need additional hotel rooms and other tourism-related businesses, and financial incentives are available for new hotels.
- Physical: beaches, jungles, mountains, wildlife sanctuaries, national parks; Cultural: modern cities, historic and religious sites, palaces, sports
- The Web site contains objective, factual information, but it also includes persuasive material that is subjective. No critical or negative information is given. The Web site is sponsored by the government to encourage foreign investment, so the information presents India in a positive light.
- Students' proposals will vary but should include at least 4 well-thought-out reasons that support India as a place to do business. Students should also provide reasons the chosen city appeals to tourists.
Go To Student Web Activity
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Several Rhode Island agencies and advocates for the homeless drafted a plan that would emphasize long-term housing over temporary shelters.
In 2010, 95 percent of long-term homeless adults in Rhode Island were in shelters, with five percent in housing. Under the plan – 98 percent would be in housing and two percent in shelters, by 2016.
The Rhode Island Housing Resources Commission, Rhode Island Interagency Council on Homelessness, and Rhode Island Housing worked with housing and homeless advocates to put together the $130 million plan, which seeks to eliminate both chronic homelessness and homelessness among veterans in five years; and homelessness for families, children and youth in 10 years, in part by creating nearly 900 new units of affordable housing – a mix of new construction and renovated existing properties – structured on the “Housing First” model. The plan also emphasizes rapid re-housing and shelter diversion programs.
Eric Hirsch, Ph.D., a Providence College professor of sociology, was on the Steering Committee for the plan and says the ultimate goal is to end homelessness of all kinds.
“But over the shorter-term, the idea is to move people who are living in the shelter system into permanent housing,” he says. “People have been in the shelter system for, in some cases, eight years, 10 years.”
“There’s no good reason to have been living in shelters that were designed purely for emergency use,” Hirsch says.
Jim Ryczek, executive director of the R.I. Coalition for the Homeless, says shelters were never intended to be places where people live. “They first started cropping up in the mid-to-late-80s as a way to stabilize people and give them a safe place to be until they could get into other housing. But they’ve now become places where especially the chronic and long-term population has lived for literally years.”
Ryczek says the experience can be traumatic. “It’s a no-brainer to think that when people are displaced from their home they go through some level of trauma in having to adjust to a different situation,” he says. “If it’s a night to night shelter, they just aren’t great places to be no matter how well-run they are. It’s traumatic to have to live with different people and leave at 8 o’clock and have to figure out what to do until 6 o’clock that night.”
With a permanent home, people are better-equipped and able to get the mental health or addiction services they need, advocates say.
“Certainly if you have an apartment, a home, it’s going be far easier to deal with any mental health issues you have or certainly any alcohol or drug issue,” Hirsch says. “Trying to deal with an addiction while living on the street is a hopeless enterprise.”
With the Housing First model, there are few formal requirements of the program other than meeting the terms of the lease, Hirsch says. “You can do what anyone else does in an apartment and you would not be forced out of the program unless it’s a violation of your lease.
“This has been very effective because very high-demand programs with a lot of rules and regulations – homeless people were not responding well to those and in many cases were leaving their apartments.
“But with Housing First, we see retention rates of over 90 percent within a year after moving in,” he adds.
Having a permanent address can lead to quicker access to services. “One of the things (Housing First participants) have said was, the big thing for them was immediate access to a psychiatrist or behavioral health professional who can prescribe various kinds of medication for them,” Hirsch says. “Many people are simply self-medicating on the street; they have no access to a psychiatrist. I think that’s really crucial. Just the fact that they can get the medications they need for anxiety or depression or schizophrenia is really effective so people don’t have to buy street drugs to try to self-medicate.”
Ryczek says at a glance, it may seem cheaper to house individuals in shelters, rather than permanent housing. But studies have shown that when you factor in costs resulting from increased hospital stays, incarcerations, ambulance runs or emergency room visits, it’s cheaper to house individuals in permanent housing, rather than shelters. “Then you factor in that people are stabilized and more humanized in their living situation and able to reconnect with their families and communities, and it seems like a no-brainer,” Ryczek says.
When Hirsch evaluated the Housing First program, “We looked at the cost for the year before people moved into housing and the same costs for the year after, and we found that even after paying for the case manager and the housing subsidy we were still saving $8,000 per person per year,” by housing the individuals.
“We suggest that it literally will save money to solve this problem,” he says.
Hirsch notes advocates are looking at diverse funding sources for this initiative along with any available state funding.
By Pamela Berard
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If you hire a nuisance wildlife control operator to trap the raccoon(s) for you they can release it back onto your property, but you would need to make sure that the access to under the porch has been sealed off so that the raccoon(s) do not just go back once they are released. Unfortunately, in many places there are not enough natural cavities in trees available for the raccoons to use. So they end up making den sites under (or in) buildings. The reason that "nuisance" animals are often euthanized is that there is no place to take them. It is illegal to release them at natural areas and parks. This is because those places already have populations of raccoons, and biologists do not want to possibly spread diseases to those populations. Additionally, the animals that are relocated often try to find their way back home, and in the process may be killed by vehicles. If you can't reach the DWB in your county, I'd suggest contacting the biologist in a nearby county for advice on how best to remove the raccoon(s).
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MARSHALL - Adoption is a difficult and time-consuming process under the best of circumstances, but when it's an international adoption, the difficulties can multiply in ways that cause anxiety and heartbreak for prospective parents.
Richard and Kristi England met the little girl who won their hearts in May 2012, in Bryansk, Russian Republic. After four trips and much paperwork, they had a court hearing that allowed them to adopt her on Dec. 14, 2012.
Last Saturday, they brought Sophia Nadezhda England, now 3-1/2-years-old, home.
Photo by Steve Browne
Sophia Nadezhda England and her father Richard England look out at the snow on
Friday in Marshall, a week after the Englands brought her home from Russia, just before a ban on foreign adoptions there took effect. Nadezhda means “Hope”
They almost didn't make it.
"We found out about her shortly after her second birthday," Richard England said. "Our coordinator at the adoption agency saw her picture and said, 'She looks like she'd fit with the Englands' and sent us an e-mail."
The Englands have a biological child, Arabella, 2, and a child, Max, 6, who was also adopted from Russia in 2009.
"Even before our marriage, we talked about adopting," Kristi England said. "This time around, since Max is from Russia, we wanted to stay with the same country."
According to Kristi England, they chose Russia after reading in a book about international adoption that there are about 700,000 orphans in Russia. Of those who age out of the system, only 10 percent become functioning adults.
The long road to bringing their daughter home began with a five-day visit to the orphanage.
"They do their best," Kristi England said, "They try to paint things and make them bright."
The orphanage was home to between 68 and 75 children between infancy and four years of age, some of them "social orphans," children left by parents who weren't able to take care of them.
"The facilities are OK," Richard England said. "It's lack of staff that's the problem."
Preparations involved an Adam Walsh Background Check through the state of Minnesota, another before U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement would issue a visa for the child, and an FBI background check mandated by the Russian government.
"There was a lot of paperwork and fingerprinting," Kristi England said. "We had to do psych evaluations, medical evaluations, classes and home studies."
Then when all seemed clear, a week after their court date, a bill was introduced in the Russian parliament to ban foreign adoptions and was passed a week later. The bill was passed as a wave of resentment swept across the country following the well-publicized death of an adopted Russian child in Texas.
"We heard the news in Russia," Richard England said. "The media said the mother was drunk and taking psychotropic drugs, that the child was beaten. Then we found out the child was playing outside, the mother went inside briefly and came out to find the child unresponsive."
An autopsy is still pending in the case.
"They are saying that Americans adopt Russian children to harvest their organs, or they want to depopulate Siberia so they can take it over," Richard England said.
After some tense moments, the Englands got their daughter home just under the wire. But they said they know many other couples, who had met the children they longed to bring home, who had not had their court date and may never see them again.
"The embassy told us we were either the last or the next-to-last," Richard England said.
The future of adoptions from Russia is uncertain. Many Russians feel a burning sense of resentment that Americans can give Russian children the homes they cannot find in their own country.
But as for now, Richard England said, "We're looking forward to getting used to her, having her in the house and being a family."
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The first 2 metre repeater in ZL was set up by Christchurch Branch 05 in 1969, the same year the North Canterbury Amateur Radio Club was formed. In line with commercial practice at that time, the mode of operation was AM as was most of the early two metre operations throughout the world. FM mode, however, was also being pursued and would ultimately prove both superior and the preferred mode. Some of the Club members were already beginning to think along these lines and in December 1972 a VHF Group was formed
specifically to research and build a FM Repeater. Progress, over some months, was going reasonably well when the club member in charge of the project suddenly left the district, taking the project materials with him. A dispute over the ownership of said materials was never resolved, and the project had to be abandoned.
The VHF Group was wound up in November 1974.
By the mid-1980’s, Br. 68 had a definitive interest in the Hurunui /
It had also been involved in assisting the Marine VHF Assn. in setting up their new repeater on
In September 1989, by which time 2 metre mobile operators, in the city in particular, were experiencing extreme interference problems, principally from computers, and so Br.05 opted to take up the 705 allocation, greatly reducing the interference problems.
Meanwhile, after 725 came on stream, Club member John Powell ZL3TRW, who was employed by the Waipara County Council, (then to become the Hurunui District Council) and in the course of his work was able to carry out extensive testing of 725 coverage, the verdict being that it did NOT project well into the area at all, and access by the new licencees being difficult if not impossible to achieve. This prompted renewed interest in a repeater for this area.
In early 1993 investigations began for a suitable repeater site, with emphasis on the ability to cover the Lk. Sumner and
Not long after 6975 was established, there was felt a need for a UHF repeater also, and this was set up, initially at the Clubrooms in Rangiora, on the frequency of 438.700 (870). In due course it was moved up to
870 did not prove to be a popular repeater, carrying very little traffic, and with interest growing in the possibility of linking Mt. Noble to the Greymouth repeater on Sewell Peak, it was decided to utilise the UHF repeater as the link directly into Greymouth 8575, the appropriate licence and frequency change duly completed. Next came the need for control, the ability to shut down if necessary and other functions as needed. We were fortunate to have the help and abilities of a team led by Pete Robinson ZL3TJH who came up with a most unique control system which included weather reporting.
It had been noted that there was a high maintenance requirement at this site especially antenna parts coming loose or getting broken and wind generators failing. With the advent of the weather reports it soon became obvious that there are extremely high wind velocities across the mountain and a check of the geography reveals why. The predominant wind is from the Northwest, and the Hurunui River valley from near its exit at Lake Sumner to where it turns to the NE around the foot of Mt. Mizar, is aligned in a NW – SE direction with the wind funnelling down the valley until it hits the base of Mt. Noble standing right at the end of the valley. This forces the wind up and over the mountain and so causing the continual damage to the repeater site.
Owing to its remoteness the only practical means of obtaining power at the site is by means of solar and wind. It is therefore necessary to keep power consumption as low as is practical. This is achieved by the ability to reduce output power on 6975 and to switch off the Tranz-Alpine link at the times (especially winter) when there is insufficient charging capacity to maintain the complete system.
Researched and prepared for the website, and 40th Anniversary of the North Canterbury Amateur Radio Club Inc. (Br.68, NZART) by Geoff Gillman ZL3QR Club Historian.
Researched and prepared for the website, and 40th Anniversary of the
North Canterbury Amateur Radio Club Inc.
Geoff Gillman ZL3QR
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The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization, has said the new security measures outlined by the Transport Security Administration (TSA) unfairly single out a particular religious group and may therefore be illegal.
In the days since the attempted terrorist attack aboard a U.S. bound airliner, Americans have been engaged in a full-blown debate regarding privacy, security and the limits of government’s right to search individuals who have not been suspected or charged with criminal activity.
Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele made a splash in the news this week, accusing the Obama administration on Tuesday of following an inconsistent policy toward terrorism, just a day after the release of his new book where he denounced the president’s overall policies while heavily criticizing recent members of the GOP for losing touch with America.
Democrats in the House and Senate intend to bypass conventional procedures by negotiating the merger of the two versions of the healthcare bills behind closed doors, a move that will prevent Republicans from delaying or modifying the process, the Associated Press (AP) reports.
The staff of Parker Griffith, a first-time congressman who announced his decision to change party affiliation from Democratic to Republican before Christmas, have tendered their resignation in a sign of protest.
Human Events magazine, a weekly conservative publication, has named former Vice President Dick Cheney ‘Conservative of the Year’ for his ongoing criticism of the Obama administration’s national security policy.
After an al-Qaida affiliate in Yemen claimed credit for Christmas day’s failed terrorist attack aboard a flight bound for Detroit, several U.S. Congressmen have called on President Obama to stop the transfer of Guantanamo Bay detainees to the Arab country.
The District of Columbia City Council has voted to legalize gay marriage, making the nation’s capital the sixth jurisdiction to allow such unions, and the first below the Mason-Dixon Line.
Legislators in Iran have rejected top Sen. John Kerry’s (D-Mass.) request to visit the country, the media have reported. According to TheHill.com, Iranian media have said that Kerry, who is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, had submitted an official request to visit Tehran as an emissary.
Rounding off a busy year in 2009 campaigning for Americans’ constitutional rights, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) has condemned leading politicians in Washington state and Chicago for what they see as an attack on civil liberties.
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I'm not writing this because I’m gloating over the results of Election 2012. I'm not writing this because I think “my guy” beat “their guy.”
I'm writing this because I think the election showed us some very important things about the citizens of these United States:
Our country’s electorate chose to recognize the plurality of all its people and cast their votes in ways to protect the rights of all its citizens. Our country’s electorate chose to promote the idea of governing for the benefit of all citizens rather than the benefit of a few. And our country’s electorate chose to cast the majority of their votes for candidates who ran on a platform of inclusion and compromise against those whose party staked its campaign on religious superiority, intolerance and values from the past century.
On the whole, we learned quite a lot about our country last Tuesday, Nov. 6.
We learned that the country doesn’t take kindly to the restrictions on women and women’s health that many Republican candidates promoted during the campaigns. We saw this in the overwhelming rejection of candidates that not only made outrageous comments about rape and contraception, but also proposed legislation restricting women’s ability to make their own reproductive choices.
Candidates like Todd Akin (of “legitimate rape” fame), Joe Walsh, Scott Brown, Richard Mourdock (who suggested pregnancy after rape is a “gift from God”), Alan West, and others were defeated. An historic mark was made in the Senate—20 women senators will now hold seats in the upper chamber, including the legislative body’s first lesbian senator. Tammy Ducksworth, Clair McCaskill and others won spotlighted, news-making campaigns. Pro-choice candidates (including CT’s Chris Murphy and Elizabeth Warren in Massachusetts) received resounding support across the country and women voters cast ballots overwhelmingly -- by 38 percent -- for Democratic candidates who supported women’s equality measures.
I heard one pundit on the morning after the elections make a pithy, yet incredibly insightful, analysis of what happened during Election 2012 when it came to how the Republican Party positioned itself. Matt Dowd of ABC said, “The Republicans ran a ‘Mad Men’ campaign in a ‘Modern Family’ world.” That couldn’t be more on point.
The election showed us that voters support social issues, like marriage equality and even legalization of marijuana, that are more of today than 50 years ago. When the 18-month debate and election cycle hyped the GOP’s reproductive platform that was not only anti-choice but also seemed to be anti-contraceptive, the country seemed to scratch their collective head at the end point and say, “What century do they think it is?” With states as varied as Maine, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington supporting gay marriage referendums, it seems the country is supporting diversity more and more.
What the country doesn’t seem to support as much is the Tea Party. Five Tea Party candidates lost their runs for seats and the standard bearer -- Michele Bachman -- managed to only eke out a very tight win. This only highlights another major conclusion from the election: The GOP is highly fractured and needs to reassess its priorities, its leadership and its direction if it’s going to maintain a large enough electorate to represent.
Even in the less extreme sectors of the party, there is recognition that party unity has taken a major hit. Former Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer said that Mitt Romney wasn’t the “spiritual leader” of the party. Former party head Michael Steele and former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani both spoke out about how the Republicans as a whole need to reexamine how to incorporate more moderate views front and center into their party’s platform.
There were other major miscalculations the GOP made, especially when it came to money, and we saw that big money didn’t necessarily equate to big wins. Despite outspending the Democrats, the Republican candidates in key battles lost to the surprise of some party stalwarts. Karl Rove, the high priest of the party, had to come up with every rationalization in the book to explain why the big bucks and his strategy didn’t work -- not only to big money donors but to himself -- to great embarrassment on live TV while serving as a pundit on the conservative FOX network.
Speaking of overspending and waste, just look what happened to Linda McMahon. In her second failed bid for political office, the Connecticut Republican spent $50 million, this after the first $50 million she spent losing a bid for governor the year before. That’s quite a lot of money to spend on learning that what you stand for isn’t what voters want any more.
The Republicans failed to campaign in a 21st century way. The Democrats took much more advantage of social media platforms, fundraising and incorporating contemporary methods to economize what their less full war chests contained.
Overall, the Republicans miscalculated who would come out to vote and who was important in the electorate. Despite beliefs that the youth vote wouldn’t turn out for President Obama in 2012 like they did in 2008, the opposite happened: the youth vote increased and the overwhelmingly supported the President’s re-election. The enthusiasm amongst women and minority voters was at an all-time high for the Democrats once again.
Sadly, it was reflected in the faces of the Republican candidates and spokespeople out front and center of the party. Donald Trump and the Todd Akins of the world did the GOP no favors. White men who seemed to be out of touch with the electorate became equated with what the party stood for. And in the immediacy of today’s news cycle, those kinds of newsmakers hurt the Republicans in critical ways.
Here’s what did win: Truth. Tolerance. Compassion. In the days following, we’ve seen an acknowledgement of that as Republican leaders, like John Boehner, have made more conciliatory remarks about some of the president’s major programs that voters favored -- health care and immigration among them. Key to these initiatives is the intangibles of compassion and inclusion. Those are hard messages to get around and it worked in the Democrats’ favor.
We all can take away lessons from Election 2012. Compromise is something voters want. Middle ground and moderates -- especially when it comes to social issues -- is the way the majority of the country trends. And finally, the country is different now in racial makeup, in priorities and in the direction it’s heading. Politicians would be wise to heed what it is the citizens of this great country want when it comes to representing them.
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October 3, 2002
From TB to T-Cell
Tracing the roots of Cedars-Sinai.
Sometimes, adversity strikes gold. In Los Angeles, three major medical institutions, including Cedars of Lebanon and Mount Sinai -- the independent hospitals that merged to form Cedars-Sinai Medical Center -- and the City of Hope sprang from Los Angeles' Jewish tuberculosis problem.
Cedars-Sinai's story begins at the turn of the 20th century, when Eastern European Jews afflicted with tuberculosis (then called consumption) headed to Los Angeles, seeking a dry climate and clean air. Long before antibiotics were available, these "lungers," as the transplants were nicknamed, arrived in droves from the East Coast and expanded the city's Jewish population from 2,500 to 10,000 by 1910, explained Steve Sass, president of the Jewish Historical Society of Southern California.
The local Jewish leadership -- Hebrew Benevolent Society (eventually Jewish Family Service) and B'nai B'rith lodges -- grappled with the obligation to care for these ailing Jews. Hebrew Benevolent Society President Jacob Schlesinger convinced his reluctant father-in-law, Kaspare Cohn, to help.
Cohn, a prominent businessman who founded what has since become Union Bank, converted a house he owned at 1443 Carroll Ave. in Angeleno Heights -- now Echo Park -- into the Kaspare Cohn Hospital. On Sept. 21, 1902, the hospital opened with eight patients and Dr. Sarah Vasen, one of Los Angeles' first women doctors, as its medical director.
One of Los Angeles' first suburbs, Angeleno Heights was the Beverly Hills of its day. It had the city's largest concentration of Queen Anne homes.
"The neighbors did not take to having patients with a contagious disease in their midst," Sass said.
As a result, a City Council resolution barred the facility from treating consumption. So Kaspare Cohn Hospital opened a 50-bed tuberculosis facility on Stephenson Avenue (now Whittier Boulevard) in 1910.
The new hospital was twofold in its significance to the Jewish community. Not only was the hospital treating Jews with tuberculosis, but it was also haven for Jewish physicians.
"Unfortunately, it was difficult for Jewish doctors to get on staff at other hospitals," Sass said. "Even into [the 1930s and 1940s], it became a place where Jews could practice when they couldn't get hired elsewhere because of anti-Semitism."
Community tensions muddied relations between The Jewish Federation precursor -- Federation of Jewish Charities -- which supported Kaspare Cohn Hospital, and two groups of unassimilated Yiddish-speaking, immigrants that wanted more done regarding Jewish tuberculosis. In 1910, the Hebrew Consumptive Relief Association raised the funds to build its own hospital in Duarte.
What started out as the Tents of Hope in 1913 -- literally tents in lieu of buildings -- evolved into the City of Hope. Meanwhile, Bikur Cholim created a two-room hospice in 1923 that became the Mount Sinai Home for the Incurables. Initially on Breed Street in Boyle Heights, Mount Sinai moved into a larger Bonnie Beach Place complex in 1926.
"It brought everything from optometry to dentistry to radiology to the neighborhood," Sass said.
Kaspare Cohn Hospital moved to Fountain Avenue in Hollywood in 1930. At the request of Cohn's heirs, the hospital changed its name to the neutral-sounding Cedars of Lebanon in order to raise funds in the broader community. The new name was a biblical reference to the curative properties of Lebanese cedar branches.
Dr. Leon Morgenstern, who for more than four decades served as chief of surgery in Cedars-Sinai's cardiology department, started out at Cedars of Lebanon in 1952.
"Cedars was more academic and research oriented," Morgenstern said. "Mount Sinai was more of a populist hospital. It was very difficult to get on the Cedars staff -- they wanted only the top specialists. Those who couldn't get on staff went to Mount Sinai."
In 1955, Mount Sinai moved to Cedars-Sinai's current Beverly Boulevard location. Alternative sites, such as on Mulholland Drive and in Century City, were considered, but Beverly Boulevard proved central to where the Jewish community had moved. The Hyman and Emma Levine family (of which former Congressman Mel Levine and Dina Schechter are descendents) contributed the property, on which the original building stood until the 1994 Northridge Earthquake.
By the 1960s, discussions to merge Cedars and Mount Sinai into one medical complex was stirring up local Jewish machers.
"The Jewish community was going through a period of soul-searching," Sass said. "They were questioning whether to pour more money into institutions supporting Jewish continuity, as opposed to institutions which do not serve specifically Jewish interests and help the community at large."
The merger process spanned the period from 1961 to 1971. During that time, Irving Feintech, who in 1948 joined Mount Sinai, where his brother, Norman Feintech, was president, served as the Joint Conference Committee chair.
"It was just not easy at the time," Feintech said. "It was going to cost us $130 million. We had to find out how we were going to get that money.
"Before we went to the banks, we had to show that we had the community's support," he said. "Ultimately, the community felt it was necessary. We didn't need two hospitals going after the same money."
Steven Broidy Sr., Cedars-Sinai board chairman, convinced Union Bank Chairman Harry Volk to lend the capital, with the Cohn family's blessing.
"It was a pretty smooth transition," Feintech said of combining the two hospitals' staffs and cultures.
On Nov. 5, 1972, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center held its official groundbreaking for its 1.6-million-square-foot, 1,120-bed hospital. By April 3, 1976, the first patients were transferred to Cedars-Sinai's obstetrics and gynecology and pediatrics departments.
"The move to Beverly Boulevard cemented Cedars-Sinai's Jewish identity," Sass said. "By just the very statement of a Star of David on the building, it was clear what the identity of the hospital was."
With the move came a host of gestures catering to its Jewish patients and visitors: kosher food, mezzuzot, a full-time Jewish chaplain and the Jewish Contributions to Medicine Mural in Cedars-Sinai's Harvey Morse Auditorium.
The mural resulted from two years of planning by a 60-member mural committee headed by Morgenstern. Painted by the late Terry Schoonhoven, it showcases Jewish men of science through the ages: Asaph Harovfe, Maimonides, Garcia da Orta, Dr. Jonas Salk, Sigmund Freud and Stanley Cohen, a Nobel Prize winner in physiology and medicine who was present at the mural's May 2, 1999, dedication. Cohen represents the Nobel laureates in physiology and medicine, 42 of whom are of Jewish heritage.
"We narrowed [the mural's personages] down to 40 figures," Morgenstern said. "It could've been more than 200."
Morgenstern noted Cedars-Sinai's accomplishments, such as the breakthroughs in his department: the first open-heart surgery in 1955, the discovery of Prinzmetal angina coronary disease and Dr. Jeremy Swan and Dr. William Ganz's catheter, which revolutionized cardiac monitoring. Feintech, who has had five bypass surgeries at Cedars-Sinai, also noted neurological and laproscopic advances.
Today, Feintech, and Robert Silverstein, co-chair Cedars-Sinai's Campaign for the 21st Century. The project began with a $140 million endowment fund, and is currently working to raise $180 million of the $360 million needed for new buildings and programs. The S. Mark Taper Foundation Imaging Center will have its dedication on Oct. 16, with a critical-care tower scheduled for completion in three years.
"Cedars-Sinai is going to continue as the leader in hospital patient care in the future," Feintech said. "We'll just keep moving ahead like we have in the past."
"What's amazing about this whole story," Sass said, "is that from the challenge of Jewish tuberculosis came two internationally recognized institutions of medical research, Cedars-Sinai and City of Hope. Even though a century has passed, the Jewish mission has stayed intact. That history is something they can be proud of. It's the legacy of our Jewish community."
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Note: To protect the privacy of our members, e-mail addresses have been removed from the archived messages. As a result, some links may be broken.
> Hey Artsednetters ----------->
> As far as giving students written work if they misbehave, I think it would
> work if its one or maybe two kids. If there are several kids misbehaving,
> experience has been that they will contunue to misbehave and goof around.
> would be a suprise if they actually did the written work.
> Someone mentioned to keep them busy and encourage them. I agree. Praise
> helps. A lot of these kids are afraid to even try. Also, I suggest that
> take kids aside and talk to them individually. Praise them honestly and
> them you care about them before you tell them what behavior you would like
> them to stop. Many of these kids dont have anything positive being said
> them. Often times the biggest of bullies or trouble makers become putty in
> your hands once they know you care about them.
> I worked at a school once that had the lowest " art-esteem" that I have
> seen. My first six months were horrid to say the least. Many students
> work, and didnt seem to care at first. After lots of praise, the creation
> a mini art gallery to get the hard workers art recognized, and projects
> made them tell about themselves, I made some headway. My moment of glory
> this school was when I organized a Cinco de Mayo chalk painting contest. I
> had never actually heard the kids cheering except for when there was a
> But, when the principal announced the winners of the contest, there was
> echos of cheers throughout the school.
> Its a struggle, I know. I hope these suggestions help. Hang in there!
> -Dawn in
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Evansville firefighters are learning to deal with hazards when it comes to trains. Members of Evansville's fire departments were in the rail yard at the corner of Highway 41 and Lynch Rd. today to learn what to look for in a possible hazardous spill.
There are more than a hundred places for a leak to pop up on a rail car, and this training helps to indentify what is hazardous and quickly seal the leaks. While firefighters receive some training on hazardous train spills, this gives them a chance to get hands on training.
"To give them a chance to actually get on and work around a rail car," said Joe Murabito of DuPont Company, "which none of these folks get to do in a normal hazmat training course. So, it's really a great opportunity for these folks to get together and physically see what they're dealing with."
Dupont offers this service free of charge to the city fire departments. Hazmat teams will get more training later this week.
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The French take their chicken, like their freedom, very, very seriously. In fact, they appear to equate the two. The national symbol of France dating to the French revolution is the rooster, le coq gaulois. And the most acclaimed chicken in France, prized for its depth of flavor, is still, after centuries of careful breeding, the white-feathered poulet de Bresse, which sports a red coxcomb and blue legs and feet. Patriotism in France is bottom up.
Part 1: Do labels equal liberty for France's best birds?
Part 2: A chicken-tasting tour of Paris.
No surprise, then, that the signature French cigarette brand, Gauloise, features a highly stylized chicken logo on its blue package. The national motto of France — liberté, égalité, fraternité – was printed on that blue package back in the day when the New Wave movie star Jean-Paul Belmondo was often seen on screen with a Gauloise hanging from his full, pouty lips. Well, does a French chicken have lips?
As staple food and cherished symbol of freedom, the humble (sometimes comedic) chicken is at the very foundation of French culture and identity. King Henri IV knew this well when, in the 16th century, he called for a chicken in every peasant’s pot.
I came to appreciate the special place (and price) of chicken in French culture this past summer while eating an awful lot of poulet rôti in Paris bistros and cafés. I plucked roasted chickens from twirling rotisseries at boucheries (butcher shops) and marchés (outdoor markets) all over town. There was a wonderful home-roasted chicken too (see description in Part 2), as one might expect from a culture that gave us the simple but delicious comfort food tradition known as cuisine de bonne femme.
But getting a handle on France’s highly evolved farm-raised poultry industry (poulet fermier) and its exhaustively (and sometimes confusingly) labeled products seems to require an advanced degree in agricultural science, if not French culture and linguistics.
Among the most pampered chickens in France, perched at the pinnacle of France’s poultry hierarchy, are birds élevé en liberté or “raised in liberty.” This term is proudly printed on the colorful labels attached to pricey packages of poultry sold under France’s prestigious Label Rouge certification program.
It’s no accident that the term adopted for France’s premium birds appears first, ahead of both “égalité” and “fraternité,” in its national motto. It took almost the entire 19th century for the revolutionary tripartite motto’s terms and sequence to become fixed. Extending the term liberté to identify and market France’s finest poultry was set in motion in the 1960s when the Label Rouge program was launched.
French chicken a little less free
The liberté-raised birds are allowed to roam outdoors without fences or time restrictions. “Totally free” is another translation for “élevé en liberté.” Accordingly, these birds command the highest prices in French shops, save for organic (bio) poultry and specialty birds like those from the region around Bourg-en-Bresse in the east of France, which are AOC protected and produced, it is claimed, under conditions even more demanding than Label Rouge.
But there is no one-term-fits-all label in France for free-range birds as in the U.S. An existential notch below élevé en liberté chickens are those élevé en plein air, or raised out-of-doors. These plein air chickens (and ducks, geese, turkeys, etc.) are required under the Label Rouge program to have ample time to range outside their coops within a fenced but generous area of no less than 21 square feet per bird. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s more lax standards require only that free-range poultry producers give their birds unspecified and unverified time outdoors with no space requirements. Home, home on the range? Well, at least once in awhile, if they are lucky.
Note that plein air is the same term used to describe the Impressionist landscape painting style of the late 19th century when French oil painting was liberated from the confines and subject matter of academic studio painting. Free-range painters.
From a French existentialist perspective
The freedom- and chicken-loving French may be all about liberty for themselves and their winged comestibles, but no matter how strict and humane the regulations under a certification program like Label Rouge (and several programs in the U.S. that emulate the standards), the chicken in France is far from free, existentially speaking. Modern chickens and all their related galliformes, whether free-range or factory-farmed, are bred, raised, slaughtered, labeled and consumed at the complete whim (and profit) of humans.
As one butcher put it to me when I asked a lot of questions about the chicken I was investing in (a lovely plein air bird raised just outside the Bresse appellation, and at a more palatable price), “If chickens were really free to range they would take off and never return.” I laughed and shot back a gallinaceous variation on Jean-Paul Sartre’s famous line from his existentialist play, “No Exit,” “Yea, hell is other chickens.”
But after all the existential considerations of French poultry and the euphemistic terminology used by compassionate (and clever) carnivores to market it, one still has to cook the bird, and cook it well to fully appreciate its culinary virtues.
In Part 2 of this report, I present critical findings from my chicken-tasting tour of Parisian restaurants, shops, farmers markets and homes. The results may surprise you, as they did me.
Top photo: Chicken labels in a Paris shop window. Credit: L. John Harris
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A blanket rate is a premium charged (and applied on a uniform basis) for property insurance covering properties at multiple locations. It is the same rate used for all properties owned, instead of using a specific rate for each location or type of property. This type of rate is used under a blanket insurance policy.
Blanket insurance policies are not for everybody, however it is recommended for those who has multiple properties and have their businesses continuously moving between these properties, have properties that are difficult to move and categorize, and those that need a hedge against inflation swings and valuation errors.
In these situations having blanket coverage is important so that even if the individual property valuation changes there is no need to keep on recalculating the premium amount since all the properties are covered under the same rate.
There are two ways to compute for the blanket rate: by getting the highest blanket rate and by getting the average blanket rate. The highest blanket rate is determined by getting the highest rate that applies to any property covered under the blanket insurance policy. This isn’t ideal in most cases since the same expensive rate will also be used to calculate the policy payments for properties with much lower rates.
The average blanket rate, which is the preferred method, is determined by calculating the individual premiums of each property to be covered under the blanket insurance policy, then adding them all up and dividing the sum by the blanket limit.
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"One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work terribly important."
10/12/05: iPod critique pt. 4 (Melville)
" 'This is all part of the shift from mass media to personalized media,' says Paul Saffo, a technology forecaster and director of the Institue of the Future. No doubt this is true, but is it, I wonder, a good thing? For all the cachet and control implied by the iPod, the laptop, the BlackBerry, the digital camera, and wi-fi, in the end what seems to be on offer are particular kinds of distraction and avoidance, and a peculiar kind of 21st-century digital loneliness."
10/10/05: iPod critique pt. 3 (Melville)
"iPodistas like to talk up the social benefits of iPod-jacking: Total strangers swap iPods for a moment to listen to each other's selections. Well, okay. The utter hell of having to listen to strangers' music collections while standing close to them without talking in public notwithstanding, such an idea proceeds from the premise that it is the iPod that has offered this epochal opportunity for social interaction. It was, I am given to understand, entirely possible even before the iPod to approach a stranger on the street and attempt to swap words, names, or even ideas in a form of "tuning in" known as a conversation. A celebration of the joys of iPod-jacking seems a final acceptance that the possibility of actually communicating is gone for good, and we are left with a pale facsimile: You play me yours and I'll play you mine."
10/08/05: iPod critique pt. 2 (Melville)
"Unlike listening to (good) radio, which could infuriate and surprise you in equal measure, the iPod jukebox protects you from the shocks, both highs and lows; it offers you a safe experience that flatters, because every good track is one you chose, every familiar song reminds you of an emotion or memory: yours. Never did I think I'd find myself sounding so much like that old Fankfurt school philosopher-grump Theodor Adorno, but his argument that pop music and its predictable structure deliver back to the user a cheap thrill because he or she recognizes how it will end seems to work for the iPod."
10/06/05: iPod critique pt. 1 (Melville)
"Legal scholar Cass Sunstein has a theory about the Internet that he calls "The Daily We." The argument is that rather than broaden our access to information, ideas, and experiences, the Internet, precisely because it offers such dizzying, disorienting choice and possiblity, reinforces the tendency to filter out what is unknown, stick to what you like, and congregate with others who like the same thing."
10/04/05: Poverty Is Flawed
"If you're poor, you must not be smart. If you're smart, then why are you poor? According to out dominant culture, poverty confirms a personal flaw."
09/29/05: Broken Cross? Say it ain't so!
"Just recieved my order I placed with you guys late last Saturday and hey presto its arrived at my hell hole today (Thursday). Fuck me the new Jelvins CD is a blast, the Virus 100 CD (I have it on vinyl but no player...) is so fucking cool sounding and the jackets better than i thought it'd be. Well you can guarantee that ill get a few looks from people. "Oh my broken cross, how UNchristian" *snore*. Anyhow I thought Id say a big thanx and another for the free poster.
Be cool. Paul."
09/18/05: Rare glimpse of right wing honesty
"We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did."
- Rep. Richard Baker (R-LA) to
lobbyists, as quoted in the Wall Street Journal
- Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, news conference, Sept. 3, 2005
-First Lady Laura Bush, twice referring to a "Hurricane Corina" while speaking to children and parents in South Haven, Mississippi, Sept. 8, 2005
- Former First Lady of the US, Barbara Bush, 9/5/05
"First they came for the Muslims and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Muslim.
FEMA in 2001, New Orleans Times-Picayune & PBS in 2002, FEMA in 2003, and National Geographic in 2004 are just some of the entities which reported extensively on the problems with the New Orleans levees. FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is part of the US federal government, currently situated in the Department of Homeland Security.
"It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay.
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A few short years ago (earlier this decade), wireless connectivity was a novelty. Some folks had wireless home networks back in the early 2000s, but not many, and wireless gadgets relied mainly on RF broadcasting. (Think cordless phones and baby monitors.) It was around this time, circa 2002, that Motorola started exploring a vision of connected devices and the connected home. In a bid to bring new products to retail, the Motorola Connected Home business introduced the Simplefi networked audio player. It was ahead of its time. Promising to stream music wirelessly from a PC, the Simplefi entered the market at a time when mp3 players were still rare, and the device never got an upgrade from RF to Wi-Fi. It was perhaps an inauspicious start to the connected home space for Motorola, but we’re still talking about the very early days of wireless connectivity.
Fast forward a few years. Motorola’s Connected Home business returned its focus to video and Internet delivery as a means of enabling connected devices for consumers. This part of the CE industry grew increasingly important as more and more devices started supporting Wi-Fi, connecting not only to each other (as with networked stereo systems in the home), but also to the Internet. Meanwhile, Motorola’s Networks business started zeroing in on mobile broadband, another means of getting consumers hooked in to the Internet from a wide range of devices.
Fast forward a couple more years. Connected devices are everywhere – from smartphones, to mp3 players, to cameras, and digital photo frames. Even TV has gone mobile, accessible through the Internet and a variety of TV Everywhere services. Motorola’s Connected Home and Networks businesses have merged to become Home and Networks Mobility, and the focus for the entire division centers on broadband and media delivery. Given consumer demand for connectivity, the business has positioned itself nicely in a growing segment of the market.
Fast forward just a bit more. Parks Associates predicts that the CE industry will ship around 200 million connected devices globally by 2013. It’s an estimate that some have called conservative, and it’s one that would have been nearly unimaginable around the turn of the millennium. While there have been some setbacks and missteps along the way, the speed of progress has been nothing short of remarkable. And what’s Motorola doing? Leading the way with deep-fiber networks, DOCSIS 3.0, digital compression, and 4G technologies. After all, someone has to make all those connected devices work. It’s a market with a short history, but a long, exciting road ahead.
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Since the dawn of time, man has expressed himself through art, through ideas, through creativity. We drew on cave walls and tinkered with shit until we discovered awesome things like fire, the wheel, and words. Oh I love me the guy who decided we needed more than grunts and gestures.
I express myself primarily through writing. It’s what I know. It’s what I’m good at. (I think.) This world needs more expressing and less judging. Recently I got a tattoo, (I’ll get back to this later) my first and probably my last, and I find with every negative reaction to this tattoo, I’m pondering more and more why it is we have to judge how others express their individuality. It’s my body, my skin and my choice....more
I’m going to get up on this here soapbox because I haven’t really had a good rant in a while. Just let me take these shoes off so I don’t slip…and there we go. Ready? Good.
Today I was inspired by an article published in Salon written by (one of my favorite writers) Rob W. Hart. He discusses self-publishing and a trend that until reading his article, I thought was just something created by my sensitive ego to drive me batshit....more
After another Robert Langdon indigestible delivery, one would be justified to ponder with perplexity why a wealthy writer should continue to flog a horse, when the wretched animal has obviously been dead for a long time.
But publishing is a business. A nitpicking one, with asshole CEOs, corporate tentacles, and douchebag representatives. It's just like every other business enterprise out there, so how is it that these two – art and business – coexist, and even depend on each other?
There's a drycleaner that I pass almost every day on my way to work that posts weekly quips and phrases to get you thinking. This week's was, “Money won't buy you happiness. Happiness won't buy you groceries.” A-fucking-men. Contrary to popular belief, writers don't survive on coffee and inspiration alone. We have to eat too. So, some of us pull down “regular” jobs (I'm a server in beach town. I know, how cliché.). Others slave over the keyboard writing articles about herpes, drywall, and how to care for laminate flooring – all so we can spend the wee hours of the night churning out the writing that we want. So that we can publish the art that we are truly proud of.
For a long time I’ve encountered frustration when dealing with genre. While I believe categorizing books based on theme and such is a necessary evil, it’s annoying that those writing within each category have determined that only one formula or one set of criteria can fit that specific category. Do not challenge established norms. Do not disagree with popular ideas. Do not rock the genre boat.
Writers push aside these boundaries every day. We mix this genre with that and we make new genres. Yet, many of us won’t publish this work unless we do it ourselves. And if we do, we risk not being accepted by a large portion of our genre’s “community.” That’s sad....more
For most people, privacy is a precious possession. Seldom has a day gone by without hearing or reading stories about righteous citizens fighting tooth and nail to protect their privacy against the rapacity of governments and corporations. It seems a paradox, or at least a contradiction, that the same people would joyfully surrender another parcel of their personal space when they embrace the latest technologies. ...more
This is old news, but it’s taken me some time to digest, so I haven’t written anything about it. I’m not sure how I feel about my beloved Goodreads being swallowed by Amazon, not that I have anything against Amazon. It’s a business and it conducts itself as many businesses do, but Goodreads occupies a special place in my heart. It was my doorway into the writing world, and a priceless source of new authors and books I’ve come to love. I don’t want it to become Amazon-ized....more
As an author (and in general) I hate being stuck into a box. It's like those imaginary lines mock me, daring me to cross them. I loathe when authors are pigeon-holed into genres, as though creativity can be contained within the confines of a single style or theme. It irritates me beyond reason and has for a long time. But recently, I’ve realized that it’s not publishers or agents that do this to us. It’s not even a choice made by many authors. It’s readers that force us to stay within clear genre lines.
Don’t get all riled up. I’m not criticizing the readers. Actually, I get it, and I agree that we should keep to one genre. Sort of. Let me explain. This is not really a rant worthy of the soapbox, but it’s filled with frustration because I can’t have my way on something, so this is where it shall go....more
The race is on to figure out the means to stop e-book piracy. As a writer I would welcome a sure-fire scheme to prevent piracy; it’s ridiculous that almost any book can be downloaded free by anyone with a modicum of Internet savvy and five minutes to spare. But with age I’ve lost my blinding idealistic streak and accept the unpalatable facts of our era. Nothing will ever stop a determined individual from copying text, giving it any present or future format and make it freely available. That the poor bastard who burned his eyelashes creating the text will not get a cent for his troubles has never disturbed the thieves’ sleep....more
This post was shared by the author being criticized. The original post was actually from a disgruntled reader, who was also a writer. Here’s what the reader had to say:
“I’m sorry, I just can’t keep quiet. This is how I’m feeling. I’m going to piss off a lot of people, but you know what. I’m tired of keeping quiet....more
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During Curiosity’s journey to Mars, it was carried by something called a cruise stage: a combination of propulsion systems, fuel tanks, and other equipment required to guide the rover to its destination. On the way down, though, all that stuff made a bit of mess.
Just before the cruise stage hit Mars’s atmosphere, the fuel tanks and propulsion systems were dumped — along with two 165-pound blocks of tungsten ballast — to smooth the aerodynamics on the final approach. This picture shows the site at which all that extraneous baggage landed, some 50 miles away from Curiosity’s landing site.
These pictures were captured by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, and the debris has clearly left some prominent scars on the planet. It’s not all bad, though: because NASA knew a ton of information about the objects that hit the planet — how much they weighed, how fast they were moving, that kind of thing — it can analyse the images and impact dynamics to learn more about the atmosphere of Mars. Clever. [NASA via Popular Science]
Images by NASA
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Hospital readmission rates for Medicare patients are dropping after increasing for more than five years as the 2010 U.S. health-care law begins levying penalties for excessive numbers of repeat patient visits.
Thirty-day readmission rates fell to 17.8 percent late last year after averaging 19 percent for the past five, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said today on its website. The decline translates to 70,000 fewer readmissions in 2012 for Medicare, the U.S. health plan for the elderly and disabled.
The drop shows the Affordable Care Act is working to rein in costs, Jonathan Blum, a deputy administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said today at a U.S. Senate Finance Committee hearing in Washington. He also reiterated that health-care spending is growing more slowly.
“Quality is improving and costs are growing more slowly,” Blum said.
The U.S. is levying fines against hospitals with high rates of patient readmissions under a provision of the health-care system overhaul targeting $8 billion in Medicare cost savings within six years. Almost 1 in 5 Medicare patients hospitalized in the U.S. is readmitted within a month of their release, adding to hospital costs that jumped to $17.5 billion in 2010, according to the Medicare agency.
The effort to lower readmissions is leading to better health outcomes and saving money, said Senator Robert Casey, a Pennsylvania Democrat.
“This is very difficult to tackle, this issue that relates to delivering better care at a lower cost,” Casey said. “It looks like you are beginning to unlock that door.”
Under the health-care law, hospitals with a high number of readmissions within 30 days can lose as much as 1 percent of their Medicare payout for fiscal 2013 and 3 percent in 2015. The program, which started with discharges beginning Oct. 1, focuses on Medicare patients suffering from heart failure, heart attack and pneumonia.
The penalties may cost the industry $280 million this year, according to an August report by Medicare. Average fines for a hospital are about $125,000, according to a September report from the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission.
In addition to a drop in readmission rates, clinicians at some hospitals have reduced their early elective deliveries of newborns to close to zero, according to the fact sheet. Among 135 hospitals reporting common measures, early elective delivery rates have fallen by 48 percent.
Blum also said costs are being contained by a payment and care model called Accountable Care Organizations that seek to coordinate medical services and reduce waste in exchange for a share of the savings produced. There are more than 250 groups participating in Medicare Accountable Care Organizations, serving about 4 million beneficiaries, he said.
ACOs are expected to save as much as $940 million in the first for years, according to Blum’s agency.
“You’ve got more to do, but it’s certainly optimistic,” Senator Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat, told Blum.
To contact the reporter on this story: Stephanie Armour in Washington at email@example.com
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Reg Gale at firstname.lastname@example.org
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When we drive somewhere new, we navigate by referring to a two-dimensional map that accounts for distances only on a horizontal plane. According to research published online in August in Nature Neuroscience, the mammalian brain seems to do the same, collapsing the world into a flat plane even as the animal skitters up trees and slips deep into burrows.
“Our subjective sense that our map is three-dimensional is illusory,” says Kathryn Jeffery, a behavioral neuroscientist at University College London who led the research. Jeffery studies a collection of neurons in and around the rat hippocampus that build an internal representation of space. As the animal travels, these neurons, called grid cells and place cells, respond uniquely to distance, turning on and off in a way that measures how far the animal has moved in a particular direction.
Past research has focused on how these cartographic cells encode two-dimensional space. Jeffery and her colleagues decided to look at how they respond to changes in altitude. To do this, they enticed rats to climb up a spiral staircase while the scientists collected electrical recordings from single cells. The firing pattern encoded very little information about height.
The finding adds evidence for the hypothesis that the brain keeps track of our location on a flat plane, which is defined by the way the body is oriented. If a squirrel, say, is running along the ground, then scampers straight up a tree, its internal two-dimensional map simply shifts from the horizontal plane to the vertical. Astronauts are some of the few humans to describe this experience: when they move in space to “stand” on a ceiling, they report a moment of disorientation before their mental map flips so they feel right side up again.
Researchers do not know yet whether other areas of the brain encode altitude or whether mammals simply do not need that information to survive. “Maybe an animal has a mosaic of maps, each fragment of which is flat but which can be oriented in the way that’s appropriate,” Jeffery speculates. Or maybe in our head, the world is simply flat.
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Accusations that President Alvaro Colom helped orchestrate the murder of a prominent lawyer continue to intensify – deepening divisions in a country still recovering from a 36-year civil war.
Guatemala City and Mexico City
The scandal surrounding accusations that Guatemala's president orchestrated the murder of a prominent lawyer is intensifying – deepening divisions in a country still recovering from a 36-year civil war. It is also, according to some analysts, handing the country its greatest threat to democracy since that war ended in 1996.
Tens of thousands of Guatemalans have taken to the streets since a video emerged in which Rodrigo Rosenberg, the lawyer, accused Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom and three others of murder and corruption.
Mr. Rosenberg, who was shot dead while riding his bike on May 10, recorded the video days earlier, saying in it that: "If you are watching this, it is because I was murdered by President Alvaro Colom, with the help of Gustavo Alejos," the president's secretary.
Mr. Colom denies any involvement and says the protests are politically motivated. His critics maintain that they are not out to topple any president but merely are seeking the truth.
On Monday, they presented a petition to Congress signed by more than 35,000 Guatemalans that calls for Congress to strip Colom of his prosecutorial immunity.
The scandal comes as Guatemala is threatened by rising levels of lawlessness, with street gangs terrorizing residents and drug traffickers taking over wide swaths of the country.
"This is a crisis. When the people lose confidence in the authorities, what comes next is ungovernability and with it more corruption and violence," says Mario Polanco, director of the human rights organization Mutual Support Group in Guatemala City.
Vast right-wing conspiracy?
Colom, the nation's first leftist president in 50 years, says the scandal is a right-wing political conspiracy designed to bring down his government.
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Arts, sciences and humanities build healthier, more livable, vital communities. They are essential to a strong education system. They contribute enormously to our economy.
In an all-new episode, Steve D'Agostino interviews Grace Ross, a founder and organizer of both the Worcester Unemployment Action Group and the Worcester Anti-Foreclosure Team. They talk about how we get unemployed Americans back to work doing good jobs at good wages.
In February 2012, Congress put a temporary end to a divisive fight over extending unemployment benefits that left Massachusetts unemployed workers with at least a 57-week extension on their unemployment benefits. As Worcester Mag reported at he time, “Problem is, say local organizers, no one consulted with the unemployed before taking the vote."
The WoMag article quoted Chris Horton as saying, "'What’s going on with unemployment, it’s a very deep and broad problem and it’s receiving very little attention.' His work with the Worcester Anti-Foreclosure Team has kept him involved in the plight of the un- and under-employed.”
The WoMag article also quoted Grace Ross as saying, "'There was a lot of pressure behind the scenes, but the media coverage made it look like an afterthought. It was the kind of vote we were afraid of.'" Grace is also author of the book Main St. $marts, a study of the most recent economic and foreclosure crisis.
As the WoMag article noted, “for Ross and Horton, the spin hurt the hardest. As the economy shows signs of recovery, including claims of a national [at that time] 8.3-percent unemployment rate, they say there’s less focus on joblessness because the statistics sound comparatively rosy. Unfortunately, that 8.3 percent misses tens of thousands of unemployed who don’t fit the federal government’s definition.”
In the spirit of full disclosure, Steve does marketing consulting work for Geese In Flight, of which Grace is a founder and organizer.
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This site is devoted to the inventive genius of Mr. Charles Havelock Taylor. The information contained in this historic account is taken from engineering journals, family photo albums and the personal memoires of two families.
Born in Chatham New Brunswick January 20, 1859, Charles was the eighth child and first born son of Mary (Palmer) Taylor born 1820, died 1906 and Charles Taylor born 1817, died 19??. (left)
The Taylors were one of the pioneer families from England, who first settled in New York State in 1710. During the American Revolution the family joined many other United Empire Loyalists and moved north to New Brunswick.
His Father, pictured above with wife Mary, was a saw-mill contractor. Charles' stay in the Chatham area was short as when his father completed the building of a mill, the family moved on to the next location. The constant moving affected his schooling although it is known that during his boyhood he attended school in Matapedia, a small logging settlement, which is on the border of New Brunswick and Quebec, and at Kedgwick near by. (photo at right is a family gathering in New Brunswick).
At the age of 12 Charles' family moved to Levis Quebec a sleepy little village overlooking the picturesque "Old" City of Quebec. To attend school he had to cross the river. Winter was the only time when the river could be safely traversed. As a result the school year was short and his formal education terminated at spring break-up. He acheived the level of 6th grade before he was forced to quit for good.
In 1876 his family moved to Montreal. It is here that that he embarked upon a career that would lead to great feats of engineering. His father won a contract to construct a section of the Lachine Canal.
Being a self-educated man and possessing strong analitical skills Charles began his work career with his father. It was not long before Taylor's entrepreneurial skills and ingenuity came to the forefront. He contracted for the task of pumping water out of excavation sites while work on the canal proceeded. Up until this time only steam driven pumps were used for this type of work but for Taylor and his creative mind there had to be a better way. He struck upon the novel idea of siphoning off the water. He offered to do the work for a mere 20 dollars a day, much below cost of the steam pump used at the time. His method was absurdly simple and Charles was able to sit back and reap the benefits of his idea. Twenty dollars a day was a lot of money at a time when the economy of the country had fallen on hard times. He generously used his new found wealth to help his father and the family.
Acknowledgements: Richard Hillary (grandson of CH. Taylor) as well as Roy and Charles (Bud) Taylor (sons of CH Taylor) .
*** The comment section for this blog has been shut down due to filthy scum attempting to post garbage on the site...... my wish for you is a long and painful death. ******
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|You are here: Rediff Home » India » News » Special|
Many in the subcontinent are beginning to writing him off.
But is Nepal's King Gyanendra really going to be the 'last Hindu monarch'?
That's the trillion dollar question. And the next few days, if not weeks, are going to be critical for the 58-year-old monarch [who staged two successive coups on October 4, 2002, and February 1, 2005] on grounds that political parties' had failed to tame a growing Maoist revolt in the Himalayan foothills.
As the 'People's Movement-II' takes its course across the length and breadth of Nepal, the international community [chiefly India that shares civilizational ties with Nepal] is eagerly following the developments unfolding in the Himalayan nation of 25 million.
India's Nepal dilemma
That Gyanendra's popularity has hit the lowest ebb becomes clear from the anti-monarchy slogans currently being shouted on the streets of Kathmandu and other towns and cities across Nepal. In 1990 -- during the 'People's Movement-I' -- similar demonstrations forced his brother, the Late King Birendra who was slain during the June 1, 2001, palace massacre, to step down as autocratic monarch.
Tsunami [Images] of pressures
Not this time. For the first time since the King started his direct rule, there's a whole tsunami of pressures building up on the monarch. From domestic as well as regional and international quarters pressure is mounting on him to step down and restore democracy. For now, the people's representatives -- the Seven Party Alliance and the underground Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) -- have vowed to embrace multi-party polity.
The people of Nepal want lasting peace, stability, democracy and political stability. Tens of thousands of people, fed up with years of violence and centuries-old backwardness against the spectacular backdrop -- started pouring on to the streets across Nepal since April 6. Their demands: the monarch must go and usher in an era of complete democracy, whereby the Maoists can lay down their arms and join the political mainstream.
But the monarch has all along remained bent on his roadmap -- restoration of parliament through general elections that he's intent on holding within a year. The SPA constituents, who essentially want the monarch to reverse his 'regressive steps' by reinstating the dissolved House of Representatives, aren't listening. They are stepping up pressure on King Gyanendra, who's been isolated by the western powers and India after 'February One'.
And the SPA seems to be succeeding. The turnouts at anti-king demonstrations -- in hundreds of thousands in some cities -- have been quite unprecedented. Today, not a single township has been left untouched by the pro-democracy -- and worse, pro-republican -- showdowns.
Red star hangs over Nepal
Besides, fighting pitched battles with security men on Kathmandu's Ring Road and other towns, the SPA leaders have called on people and businesses to stop paying tax to the regime. Things came to a head when, for lack of transportation of essential supplies on major highways, the nation teetered at the edge, just as civil servants including home ministry officials joined the strike.
But things might just calm down given the international pressure that's mounting on the monarch to restore democracy. Following an emergency meeting attended by key cabinet ministers and army chiefs in New Delhi, Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh [Images] appointed former Jammu and Kashmir [Images] Regent and senior Congress leader Dr Karan Singh as the Special Envoy to Nepal.
Before things could get from bad to worse, Karan Singh flew to Kathmandu with Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran and Joint Secretary for Nepal and Bhutan, Pankaj Saran. Singh's appointment at an extremely crucial time for Nepal assumes importance for two basic reasons.
First, Singh is a living example of how feudal monarchs could abdicate, still win over people's hearts and minds, and lead a highly respected and dignified public life.
Second, the 75-year-old leader is married to Yasho Rajya Laxmi, grand-daughter of the last Rana Prime Minister, Mohan Shumsher Rana.
Nepal: Grim alternatives
In Kathmandu, Singh has held talks with senior politicians, former prime ministers, senior government officials and, most importantly, King Gyanendra. He will be conveying the message that multiparty democracy needs to be on track for the welfare of Nepal and Nepalese people. That would be in India's interest, too.
Senior diplomats in Kathmandu agree -- the sooner democracy returns to Nepal, the better it is for the country, other neighbors and, most fundamentally, the monarch himself.
American Ambassador to Nepal James F Moriarty recently told CNN, 'Nobody wants to see the King cling on to the wheel of a helicopter and flee.'
In fact, Moriarty's frank and undiplomatic remarks echoed popular sentiment. If the King steps down now, there would still be a room for him as a ceremonial monarch, and he can still play the unifying role in a small yet incredible diverse country like Nepal.
If wisdom, good sense doesn't prevail and he continues to hold onto power, 'History will show him his way,' as veteran leader G P Koirala said recently,
Paras: 'Most Dreaded?'
Many commentators in the subcontinent have lately started addressing Gyanendra as the 'last Hindu monarch'. Many commentators and politicians in Nepal agree that if he doesn't win the hearts and minds of the Nepalese people and the international community, he will not be acceptable. Even if Gyanendra does so, analysts and political pundits fear, people might not accept his son, Crown Prince Paras, as the future King.
Paras as a horrible track-record as the 'royal brat'; as the misguided teenager; and even as the Crown Prince, thanks to his hitting-after-drinking habits [India's Society magazine ran a cover on Paras as 'the most dreaded man in Nepal' last year]. Prince Paras hit the peak of notoriety by allegedly knocking down popular singer Pravin Gurung on the streets of Kathmandu in 1999.
The Crown Prince became more unpopular when he purchased an expensive Harley Davidson bike for himself and thrashed one of his best friends, Siddhartha Rana, at a posh Kathmandu night club in 2004.
Against such a backdrop, Paras's involvement in nature conservation as head of the King Mahendra Trust for Nature Conservation and the chief patron of National Sports Council does not seem to have repaired the damage. In contrast, his spouse, Crown Princess Himani and little crown prince and princess, Hridayendra and Purnika, are loved more by the people.
The biggest challenge for Nepal's monarchy in recent times has been the bloody Maoist revolt. The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) started the violent armed conflict in February 1996 to start a republic by overthrowing the nearly 250-year-old monarchy. Over time, the revolt grew, thanks to mishandling by the string of horse-trading-plagued multi-party governments.
The massacre of the royals on June 1, 2001, added fuel to the fire as the Maoist leaders attempted to pit the masses against Gyanendra, accusing him of hatching a conspiracy to massacre the royal family members. But the unpopular rebels failed to shake the ground beneath the King's foot. Then, he hadn't started his direct rule yet.
Recently, CPN-Maoist leader Puspa Kamal Dahal, who goes under the nom-de-guerre of Prachanda, stole the international media limelight when he announced 'exile or execution' to the monarch who, ironically, enjoys considerable respect among Hindu groups in both Nepal and India.
But he was quick to add that 'the people's verdict [whether constitutional, whether ceremonial or no monarchy after constituent assembly elections] would be acceptable to the Maoists.' To this day, the rebel leaders have been demanding an end to 'autocratic monarchial rule'. The bad news for proponents of absolute monarchy is that the popular sentiment is also against the King's direct rule.
Enough lives have been lost; enough blood has flown down the Bagmati River. So, as a senior diplomat pointed out last week, someone has got to give. But then, who? Who has got to give? Ask any Nepali or a friend of Nepal, the reply will be: 'King Gyanendra'.
Only time will tell whether or not he will.
The author is chief correspondent of The Kathmandu Post in India and can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.org
Latest news from Nepal
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Tel Aviv — Israel’s largest ultra-Orthodox political party is eliciting outrage from those to its right and a mix of anxiety and applause from those to its left after breaking a 113-year-old taboo and joining the Zionist establishment.
Back in 1897, several leading ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, rabbis declared that it was prohibited for Orthodox Jews to get involved in Zionism. Their rulings came in response to the founding of the World Zionist Organization at the First Zionist Congress.
This is the very organization that Shas, the Sephardic Haredi party that currently has 11 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, has now decided to join.
“Shas wants to be part of the building of Israel, of education in the Diaspora and the ingathering of the exiles — these are the reasons it wants in these important times to join,” said Yigal Bibi, Shas’s chosen representative to the WZO.
The WZO accepted Shas’s request to join in late January, after the party met the requirement that its political platform incorporate principles from the WZO’s 2004 Jerusalem Program — essentially the mission statement of the Zionist movement — which includes the goal of “strengthening Israel as a Jewish, Zionist and democratic state.”
Some, however, fear that admitting Shas to the WZO is a mistake. Shas is a “Trojan horse,” Rabbi Uri Regev, a member of the Jewish Agency’s Board of Governors, told the Forward.
“I see Shas entering not as a triumph of pluralism, but an example of the cynical manipulation of democratic processes — not in order to strengthen Zionist activities and organizations but to abuse them,” said Regev, a leading Israeli Reform rabbi and CEO of Hiddush, an organization that pushes for religious pluralism in Israel.
Meanwhile, to Ashkenazi Haredi leaders, Shas’s move to join the WZO is nothing less than an act of treason. “The underlying worldview of Haredi Jews is that there can be no coming to terms with heresy,” thundered an editorial in Yated Ne’eman, a newspaper controlled by Israel’s most influential Ashkenazi Haredi rabbis. “The shock with which the recent move of Shas was received points to the trepidation truly God-fearing Jews feel toward any undermining of the foundations of our beliefs.”
Opposition to Zionism is considered one of the main ideological positions that differentiate Haredim from Modern Orthodox Jews. But while Shas considers itself a Haredi party, it has been more tolerant of Zionism than Ashkenazi Haredi groups have been.
In the Knesset, Shas fights on behalf of traditional Haredi causes, such as defending army exemptions for yeshiva students. Yet unlike the Ashkenazi United Torah Judaism party, Shas will accept Cabinet-level positions in Israeli governments. And the party’s spiritual leader, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, is in favor of praying for the welfare of the state.
According to Bibi, Shas’s WZO representative, the decision to join the Zionist body clears up any confusion about the party’s position. “Rabbi Ovadia Yosef says that Shas are the real Zionists,” said Bibi, who before joining Shas had served in the Knesset representing the National Religious Party, a religious Zionist party.
But Shas’s newspaper, Yom Leyom, tells a very different story. An editorial published in late January acknowledged that Sephardic rabbis have been active in a “battle” against Zionism, and then stated: “The war is not over
and we are right in the heart of it.” It argued that while Ashkenazi Haredim have decided to fight the “war” using “old weapons,” Shas has decided to “fight from the inside.”
Shas’s strength on the “inside” will be significant. It will receive around 45 of the 585 seats at the 36th World Zionist Congress in June. The WZO has a 50% stake in the Jewish Agency for Israel, a body that spends $100 million a year on “Jewish-Zionist” education in the Diaspora and has responsibility for sending Israeli emissaries to Jewish communities around the world. By virtue of their party’s representation in the WZO, Shas representatives will fill almost 5% of seats on Jewish Agency committees and on the agency’s Board of Governors.
In another article, Yom Leyom took a swipe at the Jewish Agency, saying that it is imbuing young Jews with a “deficient” culture, and that the existing Haredi approach of staying out of the WZO would lead to “losing more and more souls.” Yom Leyom wrote of the need to curb the influence of Jewish Agency emissaries who are “undermining Torah” and pointed out the importance of its WZO membership in “stopping the Reform.” It outlined an explicitly outreach-driven agenda, writing: “All that we want to do is bring more and more Jews to their Father in Heaven.”
Bibi said that Shas wants to see its world-view reflected in the work of the WZO and the Jewish Agency. “Shas is obliged to take part in this,” he said. He added that this is legitimate as every faction in these organizations does the same.
Some inside the Jewish Agency take the view that whatever mixed messages are coming from Shas, Haredi representation in the WZO broadens the Zionist movement and should thus be welcomed. The Jewish Agency’s treasurer, former Labor lawmaker Haggai Merom, called Shas’s move a “historic development.”
Regev, however, said he is “gravely concerned” that the Zionist movement will become a tool for dissemination of Shas’s Haredi ideology as the party tries to “carry out what it feels it can do by clout in the WZO just as it does in Knesset.” He said he fears that it will “push out” non-Orthodox voices from the Zionist movement, and believes that its antagonism toward the Reform and Conservative movements undermines its ability to work within the organization.
But even as Regev criticizes Shas for its hostility toward the Reform and Conservative movements, the party’s Haredi critics are accusing it of legitimizing them. Yerach Tucker, spokesman for Knesset member Moshe Gafni of the United Torah Judaism party, told the Forward that his party is outraged that Haredim will sit in a forum with movements that “want to destroy Torah, want to destroy am yisrael,” Hebrew for the Jewish people.
But Bibi countered that there is no difference between sitting in the Knesset, as Gafni does, and serving in the WZO, and said that UTJ should consider following Shas’s lead. “In three or four years they will understand that they also need to join,” he said. “They need to understand that Zionism of old fulfilled its aim of establishing a state, and now there are new challenges.”
Contact Nathan Jeffay at email@example.com
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IMPORTANT NOTE: The following information is intended to supplement, not substitute for, the expertise and judgment of your physician, pharmacist or other healthcare professional. It should not be construed to indicate that use of the drug is safe, appropriate or effective for you. Consult your healthcare professional before using this drug.
Univasc Oral Uses
This drug belongs to a group of medications called ACE inhibitors. It is used to treat high blood pressure (hypertension). It works by relaxing blood vessels, causing them to widen. Lowering high blood pressure helps prevent strokes, heart attacks and kidney problems.
How To Use Univasc Oral
Take this medication by mouth, usually once or twice a day; or as directed by your doctor. Take this drug on an empty stomach, 1 hour before a meal. Use this medication regularly in order to get the most benefit from it. Remember to use it at the same time(s) each day.
Do not take potassium supplements or salt substitutes containing potassium without talking to your doctor or pharmacist first. This medicine can raise your potassium levels, which rarely can cause serious side effects such as muscle weakness or very slow heartbeats. Tell your doctor immediately if these effects occur.
The dosage is based on your medical condition and response to therapy. It may take 4 weeks before the full benefit of this drug occurs.
It is important to continue taking this medication even if you feel well. Most people with high blood pressure do not feel sick.
CONDITIONS OF USE: The information in this database is intended to supplement, not substitute for, the expertise and judgment of healthcare professionals. The information is not intended to cover all possible uses, directions, precautions, drug interactions or adverse effects, nor should it be construed to indicate that use of a particular drug is safe, appropriate or effective for you or anyone else. A healthcare professional should be consulted before taking any drug, changing any diet or commencing or discontinuing any course of treatment.
Information last revised October 2010 Copyright(c) 2010 First DataBank, Inc.
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October 26, 2009
A lot of people think teaching is somehow a job for life — that no teachers can be fired for any reason, no matter what they do, who they kill, or whether or not they sleep in garbage cans. It’s not true. In fact, the Department of Education tries to take away teacher jobs all the time. I recently read about one teacher who’s up on charges for giving watches to kids who scored 90 or above in his class. Clearly, dangerous individuals like that must be dealt with severely.
Those of us who aren’t up on charges have other worries. For example, we can become “ATRs.” ATR is an acronym for “Absent Teacher Reserve.” When Chancellor Klein closes a school, he’s required to retain 50% of “qualified” teachers. This translates to fewer than 50% of actual teachers. If the “reorganized” school doesn’t offer French, for example, 100% of working French teachers say adieu, teaching schedule and bonjour, Absent Teacher Reserve.
The ATR situation started in 2005. Tabloid editorial writers were jumping up and down about the new UFT contract. God bless teachers, they declared. Finally, they said, principals could decide who they wanted to hire. It was morning in America again. Several weeks passed before they went back to vilifying us, as tradition dictates.
In any case, teachers would no longer be sent to schools simply because there were open positions. Instead, they’d become ATRs, teaching whatever, wherever, to whomever. From there, we were assured, they’d easily find jobs. Unless, of course, they didn’t. Personally, I’m very glad I transferred when I could. For all I know, they could be closing my former school this very moment. I’d be very unhappy as an ATR teacher, and I’ve met many ATR teachers who feel precisely the same way.
What principal wants to hire an ancient relic like me when she can get a shiny new teacher who’ll do anything she says for less than half the price? And best of all, most of those teachers will be history well before they hit the five-year mark. They’ll never mature enough to question any program, no matter how pointless, wasteful, or illegal, and they’ll never become burdens on society by retiring and collecting pensions.
Before the ATR situation, displaced teachers could transfer based on seniority. As a new teacher, I was bumped several times by these senior teachers. No one would help me get a job. Not the city, not the union, not anyone. A UFT rep told me that I’d be glad when I was more senior — the system would then work for me. This notwithstanding, I’m more senior than I’ve ever been, and it doesn’t work for me at all.
For a while, there was also a UFT transfer plan. If you worked in a building for a number of years, you could consult a list of openings in your subject area. You could then select from those openings and move to another school.
Judging from tabloid editorials, the UFT transfer plan was evil. From what I’ve read, it was used exclusively by lazy incompetent teachers who moved around to inflict more misery in new and different places. This notwithstanding, I used the plan because I lacked foresight — I failed to throw a sufficient number of kids out of my classes.
In my last school, the Spanish 1 classes were out of control. The teacher sent the AP kids all the time. This one wouldn’t sit down. That one was chewing gum. This one threw a paper airplane. Twice! The AP was spending a great deal of time on this. How could she solve this problem?
Why not take that ESL teacher who didn’t throw kids out and have him teach Spanish 1? It seemed perfect. But I was appointed to teach ESL, and there was that bothersome UFT contract. She couldn’t force me. I’d already told her I’d been offered a 3:30 class at Queens College and she said it was no problem-so I’d accepted. She decided to make me an offer I couldn’t refuse.
She said, “Mr. Goldstein, I’m going to assign you to teach five Spanish 1 classes in September. If you don’t agree to do it, I’m going to give you a late class and you’ll have to forget about Queens College.”
This was a tough decision for me. What to do? If only I’d thrown more kids out. I was just married, had just bought a house, and I really needed that second job. But I loved teaching ESL.
At the time, of course, there was that UFT transfer plan. If I was at a school enough years (I was), I could transfer to any school that needed an ESL teacher.
I found two schools close to Queens College, Francis Lewis and John Bowne, and neither of them (at the time) had classes after 3 PM. I marked them as choices one and two. I had to get the principal’s signature, and he shook his head grimly, saying, “You’ll never get into Francis Lewis.” Five weeks later, I got a call from the Board of Education to report to Francis Lewis in September.
My new AP at Francis Lewis was wonderful. To this day, I’ve never seen anyone who could handle people quite like she could. One semester, she asked me if I’d mind teaching a Spanish 1 class. I told her sure. I’d have done anything she wished. I’d have put her statue on the dashboard of my car.
She’s gone now, and so is the UFT transfer plan that sent me here. I miss them both.
I hope, if my daughter follows through on her plan to be a teacher, that the job of teaching is at least as good to her as it’s been to me. I also hope there are still some good supervisors around. Many of mine have been excellent, and that’s made a huge difference. I’ve been lucky.
I know teachers who haven’t been so lucky. Their schools closed, they got dumped into the ATR pool, and there they remain. I know one who emailed me regularly, becoming more and more depressed until she finally resigned — a big win for the city, I suppose. I even know one who got tapped for a special mentoring program — a promotion based on merit. When the program closed, that teacher became an automatic ATR.
I love to teach. It’s exciting to meet new kids and get to know them. It’s even more exciting if you’re an ESL teacher and they come from every corner of the world. I’m very proud I can play some small part in helping them along.
If you take that away from me, I’ll be lost, and that’s precisely the sense I get from ATR teachers I know. I read one writer speculate about how wonderful it would be to not have the day-to-day responsibilities of lesson planning and follow-up, but I’ve yet to meet the real-live ATR teacher who was happy about it.
And whenever ATR teachers tell me their stories, I’m certain of one thing — there but for the grace of God go I.
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Like many other independent-minded directors working in the US at the time, Kramer didn’t have the freedom to be an auteur in the true sense of the word. Given that he wanted his films to reach a wide audience, his goals had to be realised while working within the constraints of the studio system. This often meant populating his films with well-known actors (some of whom were, in the Hollywood tradition of the period, Star Personalities – associated with a certain type of role in the average moviegoer’s mind). And though the scripts that he worked with were weightier and more nuanced than those in the typical studio film, critics haven’t always been kind to him – his work has sometimes been dismissed as bloated and self-conscious, with contrived resolutions and simplistic treatment of important issues. In short, “Hollywoodised”.
In the interview I mentioned, Kramer himself shows humility and introspection about these aspects of his career. An excerpt:
“When I began work as a filmmaker I wanted desperately to be an artist. From my standpoint, I never came close. The reason was that I was born into film at a time when to make my mark and to do what I wanted to do, I had to take on the establishment within the Hollywood firmament…To get On the Beach made, I made a deal with United Artists that I would use two stars and UA would finance the picture. This has happened to me twenty times. I always had to work on such large canvases to get the film made at all…It’s commendable that Kramer could make these self-critical remarks, but I think he’s being hard on himself. His best work still holds up quite well today (unless your idea of good cinema is restricted to indie films that are entirely uncorrupted by studio money). Among the movies that he directed, the one I’m fondest of is Judgment at Nuremberg, his stark three-hour epic about the Nazi war trials shortly after the end of WWII.
I didn’t want Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner in On the Beach because they made it much less realistic for me. The presence of the stars made the film less powerful, less to the point…For me, a film like Hiroshima Mon Amour which was about being able to sustain life on a planet faced with atomic warfare, was more powerful than On the Beach. The difference is that I’m an American [studio director]. I made On the Beach and it was seen by millions of people. Hiroshima Mon Amour got a limited release and was seen by a select audience.”
I first saw it as a 14-year-old when I was trudging from one video library to another with the Leonard Maltin Movie and Video Guide in my hand, picking up any pre-1970s movie that the reviewer had given a rating of 3 or more stars (how strange this seems, given my supercilious attitude to the rating system now). I loved the film unqualifiedly back then. Watching it allowed me to combine two seemingly irreconciliable interests: a) the historical period in question – WWII, the Holocaust and its aftermath, and b) the careers of actors such as Spencer Tracy, Marlene Dietrich, Burt Lancaster and Montgomery Clift.
Shot in austere black and white, Judgment at Nuremberg opens with the ageing Judge Haywood (Tracy), an American freshly arrived in Nuremberg, being driven to his quarters. Haywood looks around him at this wasted city that hosted grand Nazi rallies at the height of the Third Reich; later, he will go for a walk in a deserted quarter, observe the wary quietness of the few people around, and imagine hearing Hitler’s rabble-rousing speeches – the sense of decay is almost palpable, and resentment and guilt seem to exist side by side.
But most of the action in this fictionalised version of the Nuremberg Trials takes place in the courtroom, where Haywood is presiding over the trials of four Nazi judges, men of influence and high standing during the Nazi regime but now war criminals being asked to account for their actions. Among the accused is the solemn Dr Ernst Janning (Burt Lancaster), a respected figure in his day and central to the film’s theme that in times of severe political change and uncertainty, even well-intentioned people can end up doing things foreign to their essential natures. Other principals include the attorneys for the defence and the prosecution, and witnesses such as a baker who was forcibly sterilised by the Nazis and a hausfrau whose elderly Jewish friend was put to death on the charge of having an “improper” relationship with her.
There are no villains in Judgment at Nuremberg, or rather, there are no individual villains: as screenwriter Abby Mann says in an interview on the DVD, “the film’s real villain is patriotism” – that is, people believing that they needed to do certain things collectively for the good of their country or state, without examining their consciences. And the idea of shared guilt is central to the script. (Some scenes reminded me of the great ending of Alain Resnais’s Night and Fog, where people at different levels – concentration camp guards, commandants, generals – shift the responsibility for the Holocaust on to someone else, and the narrator asks plaintively, “Who is responsible?”)
But the film doesn’t cop out when it comes to fixing responsibility. In what may seem a contrived resolution, the courtroom drama climaxes with Ernst Janning responding to the call of his conscience and making a tidy little speech condemning himself and his associates for complying with events that they knew were wrong. Some critics have suggested that this scene, involving as it does one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, Burt Lancaster, is a sympathy-generator. But this is a ludicrous allegation, for just a few minutes earlier we have been shown documentary footage of the brutalities of the Nazi regime (this is hard-hitting stuff straight out of the concentration camps – certainly not something you’d expect to see in a mainstream Hollywood film of the time). Though the film has sympathy for people who were swept along by the dark current of history and made momentary decisions that they would regret for the rest of their lives, at no point does it suggest that the guilty mustn’t be held accountable.
What the script does manage to convey is the ambiguity surrounding the actions of practically everyone involved in the rise of Nazi Germany. When Judge Haywood pronounces his verdict at the end, we agree with his insistence on making individuals accountable for their acts; but at the same time we never lose sight of the points the defence attorney makes in his closing speech – about moral relativism, about Churchill’s praise of Hitler while the Third Reich was building its strength, about American complicity in the growth of industrial Germany, about the long and complex series of events that allowed the horrors of Auschwitz to take place.
Today, more than 15 years after I first watched Judgment at Nuremberg, it’s easier for me to see the flaws – for instance, that some scenes are static and heavy-handed. But it was very courageous for the time, and it certainly didn’t pander shamelessly to the box-office or attempt to spoon-feed a mass audience. And while some of the courtroom scenes are clumsily shot (you can almost sense that the cameraman was running out of places to put his equipment in this claustrophobic setting), it still looks good as a whole and its most powerful moments haven't dated at all.
Kramer says in his interview:
Do you think United Artists wanted to make Judgment at Nuremberg, the story of a Nazi trial? They weren’t at all interested in those people in the ovens and the crooked judges. I studded it with stars to get it made as a film so that I would reach out to a mass audience.Given those conditions, I think he did extremely well. It’s all very well to condemn a film for having too many big names in it, but why not simply judge the performances on their own terms? Watching Judgment at Nuremberg, hardly ever does one get the impression that star power is intruding on the film’s basic function. Spencer Tracy, that master of understatement, is the anchor here as the old judge, showing as he so often did that great acting doesn’t have to be about flashy, attention-grabbing moments (the sort that run with the nomination announcements at award shows) or playing a variety of characters with different looks and accents. In Tracy’s best work, everything could hinge on a single glance, or on the way his character listened to and responded to something said by someone else – and there are many such moments in this film; the moral dilemmas Judge Haywood faces give the actor a lot of scope for internalising his feelings.
There isn’t a major weak link in the cast. The prosecuting attorney is played by Richard Widmark, another consummate professional, the fiery defence attorney Hans Rolfe is played by Maximilian Schell (who won the best actor Oscar for this role despite being the least-known member of the cast – or perhaps because of it). There are short but very effective cameos by Judy Garland and Montgomery Clift as Nazi-regime victims who testify in court. (If you’re at all interested in acting styles, it’s fun to contrast Clift’s attention-grabbing Method performance with Tracy’s naturalistic one.) And on the sidelines is the magnificent Marlene Dietrich (all of 60 at the time but looking ageless as ever) as a German general’s widow who forms a wary friendship with Judge Haywood.
Burt Lancaster is the only member of the cast who seems out of place to me, but even his casting wasn’t simply a means of adding star value to the film. Around this time Lancaster had in fact started branching out into character roles – something he would do very successfully in films like Birdman of Alcatraz, The Leopard and The Swimmer. (That said, it would have been brilliant if Kramer had got Laurence Olivier – his first choice – to do the role.)
P.S. I have conflicting views on this idea of star power undermining the credibility of films that deal with social issues, or that are “realistic” in the usual sense of that word. In this post, I mentioned that the non-mainstream Amitabh Bachchan starrer Main Azaad Hoon, his honest attempt at doing something different, didn’t work for me because much as I adored AB, I could never see him as John Doe or Everyman. The quality of Amitabh’s performance was beside the point, since his reputation and screen image would be a mental block for a viewer regardless: for the film to truly achieve what it wanted to achieve, the lead role would have had to be played by an unknown actor, or at least someone who didn’t have iconic status.
However, attractive though this idea is – that star personalities shouldn’t be allowed to mix with Serious Cinema – it’s also very exclusivist, besides being impracticable of course. Another post on that sometime.
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Man says he lost $500,000 in virtual currency heist
Digital coins: As discreet as cash – and
just as more vulnerable
Leaders of the open-source virtual currency project known as Bitcoin say they have no way to verify one user's claim that hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of digital coins were plucked from his computer earlier this week.
Rumors of the heist have been swirling since Monday, when a Bitcoin user named Allinvain claimed 25,000 Bitcoins, technically valued at close to $500,000, had mysteriously been transferred to an unknown user's account. Allinvain speculated the thieves made off with the windfall after using malware to compromise his Windows-based computer.
"I just woke up to see a very large chunk of my bitcoin balance gone," the user wrote. "I feel like killing myself now."
More than 300 posts later, it's still not clear if the claims are part of an elaborate hoax. Because Bitcoin is built on a peer-to-peer foundation that completely bypasses any sort of centralized database, it's impossible for even the architects of the digital currency to verify if a theft took place.
"Bitcoins technical details are complex cryptography and there's no way for us (as developers) to figure whether there was a real theft or not," Nils Schneider, one of the project backers, wrote in an email to The Register.
Still, the claims highlight the darker side of a completely decentralized digital currency that's built from the ground up to be as anonymous as cash. Long considered the Holy Grail of futurist libertarians because it can't be traced by marketers or governments, the system has no mechanism to trace the types of digital heists that are becoming a common occurrence these days.
One can say many of the same things about cash, but there are a few caveats: It's typically not possible to store hundreds of thousands of dollars in a "wallet," digital or otherwise, and traditional wallets aren't protected by anything like the Windows operating system, which is notoriously susceptible to online criminals. Cash also can't be stolen remotely by someone who's physically located half-way around the world from the victim.
What's more, cash stored in bank accounts or paid using credit cards is often protected by guarantees from government agencies, such as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, or card issuers, such as Visa. Those, of course, are the same boogeymen virtual cash-loving libertarians want to bypass in the first place.
Over the past few months, the exchange rate for Bitcoins has skyrocketed, reaching as high as $29 and hovering in the $18 to $19 range more recently. But Schneider said it's not realistic to value Allinvain's claimed loss at $500,000 because of another potential dark side in the virtual cash system.
"The market just couldn't handle the sale of 25,000 BTC at once," he explained. The true value of the loss "would be more like $300,000 and cause the price to drop to around $10. Also, at the time he acquired the coins they probably were worth only $1000 or less. So the loss is in terms of USD is more a theoretical value. It's not like he put $300,000+ into bitcoins and lost them." ®
Bitcoins can shit off and not come back until they're called Galactic Credits.
So this bastard was a speculator!
He bought a whole pile at 4c each and now they are supposedly worth $20.
Shuffle along bankers, hedge fund dealers etc. Make way for one of your brethren,
<--- Burn them all!
so apart from money laundering,
and Ponzi schemes, can anyone name a practical use for bitcoins? Are they any more than just the ostrich farm or tulip of a new generation?
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America now faces the prospect of economic conflicts with both Europe and East Asia. The United States and the European Union have already fired the first shots of retaliatory sanctions over their ever-growing trade disputes. On the other side of the world, meanwhile, Asian countries are creating a bloc of their own that could include preferential trade arrangements and an Asian Monetary Fund. These developments could produce a tripolar world and hamper global economic integration. To avert this outcome, the United States must quell its domestic backlash against globalization and reassert its economic leadership in the world. The new Bush administration should make multilateral trade liberalization a top priority -- or it will face unpleasant economic and political consequences as the U.S. and foreign economies slow.
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You probably already know that the weak dollar boosts U.S. exports at the same time it makes imports like fuel and fertilizer more costly. However, the weak dollar's negative effects can hit farmers in other countries even harder.
"A weak dollar is negative for Brazilian farmers. Even those of us who tie dollar-based inputs to dollar-based commodity sales have some inputs like fuel and labor that are difficult to hedge," says John Carroll, an American whose family farms 26,000 acres in Bahia, Brazil.
He cites a gritty real-life example of the economic tug-of-war between the Brazilian real and U.S. dollar: "In December 2008, we had a 2.5:1 exchange rate. Currently, we have a 1.7:1 rate. Let's assume beans are $9/bu. An employee making 30,000 reals/year last December was making $12,000, or 1,333 bu. of soybeans. To pay the same employee 30,000 reals at the 1.7:1 rate, it costs us $17,650, or 1,960 bu. of soybeans. We need rising commodity prices just to keep pace with the weakening dollar."
"Brazil is better off with $7 beans and currency at a ratio of 4:1 rather than the ratio it now has," says market adviser and Top Producer columnist Jerry Gulke. "It puts a real strain on growers to cash-flow stuff. Their incremental cost per bushel of soybeans to open up new land is very expensive. It will take $12 to $13 soybeans to make that pay."
Competitive Disadvantage. David Kruse, whose family farms more than 22,000 acres in Bahia, adds: "When soybean prices rise in the U.S. and the dollar falls, it's tougher for Brazil to compete.
"In essence, Brazil is being penalized for its success in terms of its currency. Brazil has come through the global recession better than most countries. It has been attracting investment money, which has been inflating its currency," Kruse says. "That has now become a negative factor.
"Profit margins in Brazil are still relatively narrow. Basis levels are terrible down there and their cost structure is not that different from the U.S. Corn Belt," he says.
Brazil's currency situation is unique, says Phil Abbott, a Purdue University economist specializing in international trade and ag development. "Over the past few years, Brazil's currency has been more volatile than the Euro. When the dollar was weakening, the real appreciated faster than the Euro. Cycles in Brazil are more pronounced," he says.
Euro. Nonetheless, with a weak dollar, European farmers might find themselves at a a bit of a marketing disadvantage, says Mike Boehlje, Purdue University ag economist. "U.S. wheat, for one example, might now be more competitive with European wheat in world markets.
"And Eastern European farmers in countries transitioning to the Euro eventually will have the same kinds of currency issues that French and German farmers have with the Euro," Boehlje says.
Canada. Canadians also struggle with the weak dollar, which hurts their ag balance sheet.
"Recent volatility of the dollar is a huge issue," says Ben Currelly, a grain trader and founder of NorAg Resources in Port Hope, Ontario. "Canada is principally an ag exporter. We use only about 20% of what we grow. So a strong Canadian dollar is not a good thing for Canadian agriculture—it makes our products more expensive to the U.S., an important buyer.
"In the end, strong currency means lower basis to farmers and higher interest rates, cutting into margins in two ways," Currelly says.
China. China ties its currency to the dollar, so a weak dollar means a weak Chinese yuan. In China's economic world, that's good.
"Chinese currency has been dead constant since 2008," Abbott says. "The Chinese have seen some variations in prices externally but have used mostly domestic border measures to keep some out."
Apart from soybeans and cotton, U.S. grains are not competitive in China. "About 10 years ago, China made the strategic decision to import soybeans and protect domestic grains," says Fred Gale, a USDA–Economic Research Service economist who follows Asia. "If the Chinese currency appreciated against the dollar, U.S. crops would be more competitive and push down domestic Chinese prices.
"Even now, there's a lot of discomfort within China, with people saying soybean imports are unfair to Chinese farmers," he adds. "I don't think Chinese officials want to import corn and other things like pork and wheat.
"If they appreciated their currency against the dollar, they would also lose their competitiveness in exports," Gale points out.
"The weak dollar makes Chinese exports even more competitive in places like Europe and Brazil, where currencies are strengthening against the dollar and therefore against the Chinese currency," Gale says.
Top Producer, December 2009
- DECEMBER 2009
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The biggest factor determining the performance of an investment portfolio is, according to a landmark paper produced quite a few years ago now, asset allocation.
Asset allocation refers to how much money you put into lower returning safe assets like government bonds versus higher returning risky assets like shares. All investors must consider this issue at some time but there is some disagreement as to what is the right strategy for sovereign wealth funds and other investment entities with ultra long investment horizons. In NZ the NZ Super Fund has a longer investment horizon than most and with almost $20bn in assets it is one of the largest local funds.
The investment experts at the NZSF have determined that an appropriate asset allocation is 80 per cent in growth assets and 20 per cent in bonds - the rationale being that because NZSF has a very long term investment horizon it can afford to take a long term view and have a higher proportion of its money in higher growth, risky assets and in particular assets that are hard to sell and/or hard to price.
These are known as illiquid assets and the theory is that because of the disadvantages of investing in them they will produce higher, more volatile returns. Looking at NZSFs portfolio some 27.5 per cent is in relatively illiquid sectors like infrastructure, timber, property and other private markets. The downside however is cost - it requires expensive experts to manage these sort of assets. Furthermore, to paraphrase George Orwell, some experts are more expert than others.
The strategy of making money out of illiquid assets is popularly known as "harvesting illiquidity premiums" and has also been described as the Swensen model after David Swensen of the Yale University Endowment who did this sort of thing very successfully. We wrote about Mr Swensen's investment success at Yale back in November 19th 2005 in a column entitled "Advice Without The Strings"; but concluded that if we didn't have a genius like Mr Swensen working for us then a complex strategy ran the risk of assuming a high risk, high cost portfolio with uncertain returns.
The Swensen model was also recently cited by an MBA student who suggested that the Swensen strategy was appropriate for long term investment by Iwi. This column was sceptical of that view on the basis that, to understate things, most Iwi don't have David Swensen working for them.
To get an insight as to what can happen when you combine a concentrated Swensen - like strategy on esoteric assets with sub optimal management we only have to look at the experience of the Libyan and Qatarian Sovereign Wealth Funds. Wall Street saw these guys coming and it hasn't turned out well. For example Forbes magazine reports that the Libyan SWF lost 98 per cent of the US$1.2bn in assets it entrusted to one of Wall Street's largest brokers.
A recent article in the Journal of Portfolio Management came to the same conclusion when it suggested that the investment strategy adopted by the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world, the Government Pension Fund Global of Norway (GPFG), has more to commend itself to other long horizon investors than the Swensen model.
Today we compare the asset allocation of the Norway fund with the NZ Super Fund. As the pie charts illustrate the NZ Super Fund's portfolio has a more aggressive asset allocation than the GPFG - the Norwegian fund has twice the allocation to bonds and the NZSF has more concentrated positions in individual stocks and a far greater allocation to alternative assets.
Put all this together and it is likely that the Super Fund portfolio will be far more volatile than the Norwegian fund. The differences go beyond asset allocation however, even though the GPFG has about US$600 billion in assets it has a far lower allocation to esoteric asset classes and although it owns about 1.1 per cent of the world's sharemarket it avoids big holdings in stocks. Clearly the managers of the Super Fund and the GPFG have different views as to what constitutes the right strategy. So far the Super Fund has performed relatively well returning 7.4 per cent pa versus 6.8 per cent pa for its benchmark which it calls the "reference portfolio" (RP). The RP is defined as 70 per cent international shares, 5 per cent NZ shares, 5 per cent international property and 20 per cent international bonds.
Asset allocation is a big issue and $20bn is a lot of money but there seems to be precious little debate as to what investment strategy is appropriate for the Super Fund. Contrast this with what happens in Norway where every bad quarter the media and politicians question the wisdom of having any money in shares.
In an email Catherine Etheredge, Head of Communications for the Super Fund, said that for a fair comparison between the two funds we need to consider that "the Super Fund comprises a much smaller part of NZ's wealth than the Norwegian fund does of Norway's. Norway's fund is also aimed at preserving its citizens purchasing parity through time (ie preserving rather than growing wealth).
The NZSF mandate is to maximise returns without undue risk. These issues are important when determining asset allocation. In addition the Norway fund has to be able to pay money out effectively on demand while we have no withdrawals scheduled for about 17 years".
Whilst the Super Fund says that its asset allocation is 20 per cent bonds, 80 per cent shares it is important to understand how it gets to these figures. You could quite easily look at the portfolio and assume that the bond weighting was just 7.5 per cent with shares at 92.5 per cent.
The Super Fund has about 28 per cent of its portfolio in alternative assets like infrastructure and timber and when it calculates asset allocation it considers that these assets have some attributes of bonds and some of shares. So for example it reckons that infrastructure is 60 per cent shares and 40 per cent bonds. For timber it assumes that this asset is 70 per cent bonds, 30 per cent shares.
It is important that the public and politicians understand the NZSF's alternative treatment of alternative assets. With the future looking more uncertain than ever it will be interesting to see if NZSF continues to outperform its Reference Portfolio.By Brent Sheather Email Brent
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Sometimes we human being overlook the goodside of giving and always wanting to be the ones to recieve something.
But the greatest gift one can ever have is that of giving. This does not only imply giving to the needy, it also applies to even just giving friends, relatives, and also our Boyfriends, Girlfriends, Husbands or Wives. The little that you give really blesses someones spirit. Who knows, maybe the sweet you shared with a friend when you where a kid is adding on more blessings to your life and because of that gesture, that person will never forget you. One day you may be in need of help and just be surprised that even the least person you expected to help you would be there for you. Its not only about giving material things, but even a smile, kindness and good gestures is part of giving. God works wonders.
So people let us develop a heart of being on the giving side than on the receiving side.
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Iraq and the Pentagon
Leaving on a jet plane
The American military prepares for a difficult departure from Mesopotamia
BLAKE HALL is a muscly entrepreneur in Washington, DC, who hunted Islamic insurgents and buried friends before he was 25 years old. He is one of about 1.5m Iraq veterans and, like many, he feels frustrated that America's mission is coming to a close without much fanfare. “At a great cost of blood and treasure, we achieved nothing tangible,” he says. Many disagree. Iraq is no longer a dictatorship, though still something of a violent police state. On August 15th a few dozen bombs exploded across the country, killing at least 89 Iraqis.
More than eight years after a barnstorming invasion, the last 45,000 American troops are preparing to leave by Christmas, ending a mission that has cost $1 trillion and nearly 4,500 American lives. A small military presence may remain beyond this year. Iraq's security forces cannot yet secure the country. They rely on American help, notably for intelligence co-ordination and air-traffic control. But for the most part American diplomats will take over tasks so far performed by soldiers. The embassy in Baghdad plans to hire and manage thousands of private contractors to operate helicopters and air defence systems. It is ill-equipped to do so. Officials insist they can cope but many contractors believe “the suits” are out of their depth.
Even a minimal American military presence in Iraq depends on a request from the Iraqi government, an indecisive and divided body. Some factions are in favour, while others stress the need for a new start. Muqtada al-Sadr, a popular cleric, has threatened to reconstitute his Mahdi Army militia to drive out any remaining Americans. Ordinary Iraqis are torn between a desire to see the occupiers leave and a fear that life will become even more dangerous.
American generals are frustrated with the situation but will probably accede to any request to stay put. Budget-cutters in Congress may prove less accommodating. It costs about $1m a year to keep a soldier in Iraq. Bob Casey, a Democrat on the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, argues that “it is going to be very hard to sustain [a presence] in light of our fiscal and economic commitments.” And Mr Hall, the veteran, says his experience of witnessing “valour and selflessness that did not achieve a whole lot” makes him wish for an America more restrained in its commitments.
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Thursday, January 31, 2008
The second reason why most of the TV programming that's watched on HDTV sets is still standard def is because HDTV programming isn't nearly as popular as HDTV sets. The evidence for this includes the fact that there are only about half as many households with subscriptions to HDTV programming packages as there are households with HDTV sets. There are several reasons for this. For one thing, HDTV has become something of a status symbol and the HDTV sets are much more evident of this status than having the HDTV programming to watch on them is. Another reason is that HDTV sets have the wide screen aspect ratio that many DVD's and an increasingly large number of standard definition TV shows are available in. The wider viewing area is a good way to heighten enjoyment of watching TV, and in many ways is more noticeable than the high resolution picture that you get with HDTV. Yet another reason is that modern video game systems like the Xbox 360 and Sony's Play Station 3 can display their graphics in high def resolutions and take advantage of the 16:9 aspect ratio of HDTV sets.
Despite all of this, many people find standard definition programming relatively unsatisfying on HDTV sets. There are several reasons for this. For one thing, the analog format that a lot of standard definition TV still comes in, isn't completely compatible with a lot of HDTV sets. This causes a worse picture in many ways than if the same programming was just displayed on a standard def screen. Another problem comes from the fact that HDTV screens are simply designed to display more pixels which result in a more detailed picture than you can get from a standard definition TV set or standard def programming. Therefore, the result of displaying standard def programming on such a high def screen is missing pixels which cause the picture to look grainy and generally low quality. This is especially obvious when standard def programming is displayed on a relatively large high def screen.
There is a way to combat this problem though- buy an HDTV set that's good at rendering standard def programming. There are a variety of sets that are better than average at doing this and they're made in a variety of technologies. DLP projection TV's and Plasma screen TV's can both be good at this, but there are more LCD screen HDTV sets on the market that are well rated for displaying standard def programming than any other type on the market. One thing that will help is getting an HDTV set with a built in up converter that will fill in the absent pixels to make the SD picture look sharper. Barring that, a smaller screen will look better because the gaps in the picture will be harder to see.
In all, this is a problem, but not one that can't be avoided with a little bit of foresight
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Film: James Blue's The Invisible City (Houston's Housing Crisis) (with Adele Naude Santos), 1979
Saturday, May 5, 2012, 12–3:30 pm
The Albright-Knox is pleased to screen James Blue’s documentary film about the substandard housing crisis in Houston, Texas, in the 1970s. Blue was a faculty member of the University ay Buffalo at the time he produced this film. A portion of the film is also on view as part of the special exhibition Wish You Were Here: The Buffalo Avant-garde in the 1970s, on view in the 1905 Albright Building.
A free screening of Blue’s Who Killed the Fourth Ward? A non-fiction Mystery in Three Parts, 1978, will take place on Friday, May 4, from 12:30 to 3:30 pm, as part of M&T FIRST FRIDAYS @ THE GALLERY. Learn More
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Cattle, commonly referred to as cows, are domesticated members of the Bovidae family. People likely first domesticated cows about 8,000 years ago in Mesopotamia and other early civilizations due to cows’ large size, mild disposition, and relatively simple diet and because cattle provided food, hides, and could be used for heavy labor. In the mid-16th century, Spaniards and other Europeans introduced cattle to the American continents.
Cattle process food with a stomach composed of four sections. A cow’s digestive system allows the cow to regurgitate and repeatedly chew otherwise indigestible food. Because of this ability and because cows possess hooves, biologists categorize cows as “ruminants.”
Cows can live to twenty-five years of age, although in the food industry they typically last no more than four or five years, with cattle raised for beef living even shorter lives.
Cows are social animals and, if unrestrained, form herds with dynamic relationships among the members. Social bonds also exist between mother and calf. If separated from her calf, it is not surprising to hear a mother cow bellow for hours, if not days.
Experts estimate that 1.3 billion cattle populate the planet. About 30% of these cattle live in Asia. 14% live in Central and North America.
Dairy producers primarily use three types of housing:
- Tie stalls: Tie Stalls make it possible to observe and inspect cows by restricting their movement, an unrestricted cow will usually walk 6,000 or more meters a day. Tie stalls also interfere with the natural herd instincts of cows.
- Dry-lot pens: Dry-lot pens allow access to limited dirt pens that allow social interaction and exercise, although these pens often lack shade, shelter, and proper drainage. Sometimes the pens will offer shade, sprinklers, and other amenities.
- Free stalls: Free stalls provide bedded stalls that allow the cows to move from the stalls to concrete or earth yards where the water and food sits.
Dairy producers rarely need to brand the cows because they will not intermix with other cattle, but often dock the cows’ tails, allegedly to reduce mastitis (infection of the mammary glands) and to prevent waste matter from getting into the milk.
Bovine: a Subfamily of the Bovidae Family that includes many hoofed animals, cattle included
Brand: permanent mark on a cattle’s hide
Branding Iron: tool typically heated or chilled to apply a brand
Bull: a male bovine that is not castrated
Calf: a baby cow
Corriente: a bred of cattle often used for rodeo events
Cow: a female cow; also used to generally refer to cattle
De-horning: cattle handlers often remove horns from calves before the horns fully form
“Downed” cattle: cattle too sick or injured to stand or walk on their own
Ear Tag: to mark cattle some ranchers attach tags to cattle ears
Feedlot: enclosure where cattle are kept and fed food to make them quickly gain weight
Heifer: a young female cow
Rodeo: competitive event where participants rope, tie, and ride various animals, cattle included
Steer: a castrated male bovine
Overview of Laws Affecting Bovines
Detailed Discussion of Bovines
Return to Topic Area
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Female Genital Mutilation – on the Rise in Indonesia
More and more female babies, even adults, are being circumcised in the name of faith, despite a government ban.
A lack of regulation since the ban makes it difficult to monitor, but medical practitioners say female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) remains commonplace for women of all ages in this emerging democracy of 240 million – the world’s largest Muslim nation.
Although not authorised by the Koran, the practice is growing in popularity.
With increased urging of religious leaders, baby girls are now losing the top or part of their clitoris in the name of faith, sometimes in unsanitary rooms with tools as crude as scissors.
“We fear if [FGM/C] gets more outspoken support from religious leaders it will increase even more. We found in our latest research that not only female babies are being circumcised, but also older women ask for it,” said Artha Budi Susila Duarsa, a university researcher at Yarsi University in Jakarta.
While the procedure in Indonesia is not as severe as in parts of Africa and involves cutting less flesh, it still poses a serious health concern.
Even a small wound on the genitals can lead to sexual, physiological and physical problems.
“Even a small wound on the genitals can lead to sexual, physiological and physical problems,” Duarsa said.
Indonesia forbade health officials from the practice in 2006 because they considered it a “useless” practice that “could potentially harm women's health”.
However, the ban was quickly opposed by the Indonesian Ulema Council, the highest Islamic advisory body in Indonesia.
In March this year, the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the country's largest Muslim organization, issued an edict supporting FGM/C, though a leading cleric told the NU’s estimated 40 million followers “not to cut too much”.
“It is against human rights,” said Maria Ulfah Anshor, a women’s rights activist and former chair of the women’s wing of the NU. “For women there is absolutely no benefit and advantage.”
FGM/C traditionally existed as a sign of chastity; a symbolic practice performed by shamans, or local healers, who used crude methods such as rubbing and scraping.
With shamans largely falling out of favour, the religious are turning to midwives who rely more on cutting instead.
Midwives don’t know what they are doing. They were never taught the practice at school, so they do the same with girls as with boys: they cut.
“Midwives don’t know what they are doing. They were never taught the practice at school, so they do the same with girls as with boys: they cut,” Anshor said.
During the 32-year Suharto dictatorship, outspoken religious expression was discouraged, but since his fall in 1998, people started looking for their religious identity, with stricter interpretations of Islam being adopted by scores of municipalities.
More Indonesian Muslim women wear a headscarf now, claiming it is more accepted than it was 15 years ago.
Forbidden, but unregulated
The 2006 ban prohibited FGM/C, but in practice there is no oversight.
Yarsi University researchers found that in spite of the ban, the practice continues unabated in hospitals and health centres.
A midwife at a state hospital in Jakarta admitted that she cuts newborn girls: “When mothers ask me to do it, I tell them about the upsides and downsides of circumcision,” she said.
But when asked to explain the benefits, she declined further comment.
According to Yarsi University’s research, most incidents happen in secret, sometimes unhygienic, back-street operating rooms – creating a big risk of infection.
“If there are problems, it is because the practice is not done in a sterile way,” Duarsa said.
An official standard?
The demand for FGM/C makes it hard to control the practice, said Minister of Women’s Empowerment Linda Amalia Sari Gumelar.
“That’s why we encourage female circumcision to be medicalised and practiced by trained health personnel to avoid further harm.”
Gumelar is working with the Ministry of Health to make an unsafe practice safer, even though it is outlawed and has been condemned by a large number of treaties and conventions, and ratified by most governments of countries where FGM/C is present.
The development dismays women’s rights fighter Anshor.
“I would advise not to circumcise your daughters at all,” Anshor said. “If women are circumcised, people believe they become more beautiful and not as wild and will make men more excited in bed. For women themselves, they don’t get any excitement at all.”
It is hard to tell what impact, if any, government action will have on people like grandmother Dede Jafar, who had never heard of the ban but does not like it.
“That is so sad because Muslims have to be clean,” she said, sitting outside her home with her 10-month-old granddaughter who was cut eight months ago. Jafar noted that every woman in her family has undergone the procedure.
"Even if it is forbidden, we still have to find someone to do it. It is obligatory. We should always try to find someone to do it for us, because we have to.”
This post was first published in IRIN in September 2010.
asia! IN A SNAP
SEARCH OUR SITE
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Reed D. Benson joined the University of New Mexico law faculty in 2008. At UNM he serves as faculty editor in chief of the Natural Resources Journal. He spent the previous six years at the University of Wyoming College of Law. Prof. Benson teaches courses relating to water resources law and administrative law, and has also taught legislation and environmental law. He has written several articles on water law and policy in the West, most recently "Dams, Duties, and Discretion: Bureau of Reclamation Water Project Operations and the Endangered Species Act", 33 Columbia Journal of Environmental Law 1 (2008). Prof. Benson is a co-author for the 6th edition of Water Resource Management, a leading Water Law text. He has also spoken at numerous conferences, focusing primarily on environmental aspects of water management by state and federal agencies. Before he began his teaching career, Prof. Benson worked in Oregon for the nonprofit conservation group WaterWatch, serving four years as a staff attorney and five as executive director. He also worked as an attorney for a Boulder, Colorado law firm, for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, DC, and for the Land and Water Fund of the Rockies. He earned a B.S. with honors in economics and environmental studies from Iowa State, and a J.D. magna cum laude from the University of Michigan Law School in 1988.
Shlomi Dinar is Assistant Professor in the Department of Politics and International Relations at Florida International University in Miami. His research spans the fields of international environmental politics, security studies, and negotiation with particular interest in conflict and cooperation over transboundary freshwater. Dinar is likewise interested in the formal arrangements states negotiate and how such agreements encourage participation and compliance. His current work investigates the role of water scarcity in promoting international cooperation and the relationship between climate change and treaty compliance. He is the author of International Water Treaties: Negotiation and Cooperation along Transboundary Rivers (Routledge 2008) and co-author of Bridges over Water: Understanding Transboundary Water Conflict, Negotiation and Cooperation (World Scientific 2007).
Lee E. Dunbar received a BS in Biology from Upsala College in 1974 and an MS in Marine Ecology from the University of Connecticut in 1979. Lee has been employed with the Department of Environmental Protection since 1978. He is currently serving as the assistant director of the Planning and Standards Division of the DEP Water Protection and Land Reuse Bureau. His responsibilities include oversight of scientific and technical staff responsible for implementing a number of water management activities including water quality-based permitting support, total maximum daily load development, lakes management, non-point source grant program, watershed coordination, aquifer protection, inland and marine water quality and biological monitoring and assessment, technical support for the nitrogen trading program, and development and implementation of Connecticut State Water Quality Standards and Criteria. Recently, he has been assigned lead responsibility to oversee the development of stream flow regulations for Connecticut.
Peter Galant is a Vice President with Tighe and Bond and leader of their Water Technical Practice Group. He has over 20 years of experience in water supply planning, design and construction. Peter is a past president of the Connecticut Water Works Association and is a member of the Water Resources Committees of the CT Section of the American Water Works Association and the New England Water Works Association. Peter has also participated in the workgroups assisting the CT DEP develop new streamflow regulations.
Dr. Peter H. Gleick is co-founder and President of the Pacific Institute in Oakland, California. The Institute is one of the world’s leading non-partisan policy research groups addressing global environment and development problems, especially in the area of freshwater resources. Dr. Gleick is an internationally recognized water expert. His research and writing address the hydrologic impacts of climate change, sustainable water use, water privatization, and international conflicts over water resources. His work on sustainable management and use of water led to him being named by the BBC as a "visionary on the environment" in its Essential Guide to the 21st Century. In 2008, Wired Magazine called him “one of 15 People the Next President Should Listen To.”
Dr. Gleick is one of the nation’s leading scientists working on the implications of climate change for water resources. He has also played a leading role in highlighting the risks to national and international security from conflicts over shared water resources. He produced some of the earliest assessments of the connections between water and political disputes and has briefed major international policymakers ranging from the Vice President and Secretary of State of the United States to the Prime Minister of Jordan on these issues. He also has testified regularly for the U.S. Senate, House of Representatives, and state legislatures, and briefed international governments and policymakers.
Dr. Gleick received a B.S. from Yale University and an M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. In 2003 he received a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship for his work on global freshwater issues. He was elected an Academician of the International Water Academy, in Oslo, Norway, in 1999. In 2006 he was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C. and his public service includes work with a wide range of science advisory boards, editorial boards, and other organizations. Gleick is the author of more than 80 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters, and six books, including the biennial water report "The World’s Water" published by Island Press (Washington, D.C.).
John Herlihy is Director of Water Quality and Environmental Management for Aquarion Water Company, a public water supply company serving a population of 580,000 in 36 towns in Connecticut. John has over 30 years of experience in drinking water related water quality and environmental management matters. John is also the Vice Chairman of the Connecticut Section of the American Water Works Association.
Deborah Lapidus is the National Organizer with Corporate Accountability International, a membership organization that protects people by waging and winning campaigns that challenge irresponsible and dangerous corporate actions around the world. Deborah organizes public officials, students, members, and activists around the country to get involved with the Think Outside the Bottle Campaign. As a graduate of Green Corps, the field school for environmental organizing, Deborah has traveled around the country coordinating grassroots environmental and electoral campaigns. Deborah graduated from Brown University in 2005 with a concentration in international relations and the global environment.
Marc Levy is Deputy Director of the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), part of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. He also serves as an adjunct professor in Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs. He is a political scientist specializing in the human dimensions of global change. He has published over 50 peer-reviewed works on environment-security connections, environmental sustainability, emerging infectious diseases, the geography of poverty, and the effectiveness of international environmental institutions. He serves as Lead Project Scientist of the Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center and directs the Earth Institute’s Cross-Cutting Initiative on Environment-Security Linkages. He has served on a number of global environmental assessments and frequently advises national governments and international organizations on global change issues. Before coming to CIESIN in 1998 Levy had teaching appointments at Princeton University and Williams College.
Lynne Lewis is an Associate Professor of Economics at Bates College in Maine. Prior to joining to Bates College, she served on the faculty at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. She received her Ph.D. in economics from the University of Colorado in 1994 after finishing a two-year dissertation fellowship at the Environmental and Societal Impacts Group at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Much of her research has addressed transboundary water resource management including efficiency analysis of allocation agreements, compliance with allocation rules, tradable permits for pollution control and the valuation of environmental amenities and disamenities with watersheds and coastal zones. Most recently, she is working on a research grant focused on valuing the potential benefits from dam removal and river restoration. She is also working on a project looking at climate change and interstate water sharing agreements. She served on the Board of Directors of the Universities Council on Water Resources (UCOWR) from 1998-2005, and currently serves on the Board of the Natural Resources Council of Maine, the Penobscot River Science Steering Committee and the Advisory Board of Mitchell Center for Environment and Watershed Research.
Prof. Kaggere Shivananjaiah Lokesh obtained his Bachelor’s Degree in Civil Engineering from Bangalore University, securing First Class with Distinction. He obtained his Master’s Degree (M.Tech.) in Environmental Engineering from the premier organization Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur during 1987. He successfully completed his Ph.D. degree from the University of Roorkee (presently IIT, Roorkee) in the area of Environmental Engineering during 1996.
Prof. Lokesh is the founder associate of the Dept. of Environmental Engineering (1987) and the Dept. of Biotechnology (2000) in the college. He has over 70 research publications in national and international journals (including peer journals) and conferences. He has been a special invitee by SIDA, Sweden from India to participate and present his research findings in a Special International Conference on Ecological Sanitation held at Inner Mongolia, China during 2007.
Aaron Salzberg serves as the Special Coordinator for Water Resources in the Bureau of Oceans, Environment and Science in the Department of State. He is responsible for managing the development and implementation of U.S. policies on drinking water and sanitation, water resources, and transboundary water and leads the U.S. Government’s response to the Senator Paul Simon Water for the Poor Act of 2005. Aaron has been the lead water advisor for the United States at several major international events on water including the Second, Third and Fourth World Water Forums, the International Conference on Freshwater in Bonn, the World Summit on Sustainable Development, the UN Commission on Sustainable Development and several G8 Summits.
Aaron has a Ph.D. in Genetic Toxicology and a Masters degree in Technology and Policy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also holds a Masters degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Maryland and has mediated more than forty civil disputes as a mediator with the Harvard Law School.
Mark P. Smith is the Director of the Eastern U.S. Freshwater Program for The Nature Conservancy (TNC). Prior to joining TNC, Mark spent six years as the Director of Water Policy at the Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs (EOEA) and six years with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Boston as the project manager for the Casco Bay Estuary Project, part of EPA’s National Estuary Program. He has a master’s degree in Urban and Environmental Policy from Tufts University and a bachelor’s degree from Washington University in St. Louis.
Amy Vickers is a nationally recognized water conservation and efficiency expert and author of the award-winning Handbook of Water Use and Conservation: Homes, Landscapes, Businesses, Industries, Farms (http://www.waterplowpress.com/). She also wrote the national water efficiency standards for plumbing fixtures that were adopted under the U.S. Energy Policy Act of 1992, a measure that will save an estimated 6 to 9 billion gallons of water daily in the U.S. by 2020. Most recently, Ms. Vickers's Boston Globe op-ed, "Putting a cap on the bottled water industry,"* resulted in a public hearing at the Massachusetts State House on the growing problem of excessive groundwater extractions by bottled water companies. She is now working to pass legislation that calls for a moratorium on new and expanded extractions for bottled water. As president of Amy Vickers & Associates, Inc., an independent research and consulting practice based in Amherst, MA, Ms. Vickers has assisted over 100 public and private sector clients across the US, Canada, England, and the Middle East. A frequent public speaker and author of over 50 articles and professional papers, Ms. Vickers has been interviewed and quoted by The New York Times, USA Today, The Boston Globe, Atlanta Journal & Constitution, CNN, NPR and other media. She serves on the Board of Directors of the national nonprofit Alliance for Water Efficiency. Education: M.S., Engineering, Dartmouth College; B.A., Philosophy, New York University.
Glenn Warner, Ph.D., P.E. is a professor in the Natural Resources and the Environment Department at the University of Connecticut. His principal areas of interest are in water resources with a specialty in soil and water management in landscapes. His research includes ground water-surface water interactions, water and chemical movement in soils and modeling dynamic processes and interactions in ecosystems.
Ellen Wohl received her BS in geology from Arizona State University in 1984 and her PhD in geosciences from the University of Arizona in 1988. She has been a faculty member at Colorado State University since 1989. Her research focuses on physical processes and forms of rivers, particularly mountain streams and bedrock canyon rivers. She has authored or co-authored more than 90 scientific articles and 22 book chapters, edited 2 technical books, and written 6 books. To date, she has conducted field research on every continent but Antarctica.
F.W. Olin Science Center, Room 109
270 Mohegan Avenue
New London, CT 06320
Visit us on campus:
F.W. Olin Science Center
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Three points about the labor market:
1. The unemployment rate is up—because more people are looking for jobs.
The unemployment rate climbed by half a percentage point to 5.5 percent in May, the Labor Department reported today. There were 8.5 million Americans reported as unemployed last month.
A year ago, the unemployment rate was 4.5 percent and there were 6.9 million Americans out of work. So is it all due to the economic downturn? Probably not. Zubin Jelveh reports that young workers have entered the labor force and are looking for jobs:
• Meanwhile, for those between 16 and 24, the unemployment rate jumped 2 percent, to 13 percent.
• But the biggest reason for the jump is the number of high schoolers looking for work. Their unemployment rate skyrocketed by 3.3 percent, to 18.7 percent.
Another interesting point from a commenter at Capital Gains and Games: "As gas and food inflation get worse, the nonworking spouses enter the job market to supplement shrinking real family income. Retirees look for jobs because their fixed incomes are being eroded."
2. Companies will survive the great baby boomer retirement.
A bright note from the economists at First Trust:
"The productivity boom that started in the mid-1990s continues to thrive, meaning long-term prospects for U.S. economic growth remain strong. Non-farm productivity is up 3.3% versus last year, while manufacturing sector productivity is up 4%. One implication of this is that as Baby Boomers gradually age into retirement—and growth in the labor force declines—firms will still be able to raise output by adding capital equipment and generating efficiencies in the way they operate."
3. Your income isn't really growing.
This probably doesn't come as a surprise. A sour note from the economists at First Trust: "Rising inflation continues to erode the value of workers' paychecks. Labor compensation grew at a healthy 4.9% rate in Q1, but only grew at a 0.6% rate on an inflation-adjusted basis."
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My first real exposure to the atrocities of the Holocaust at the hands of the Nazis probably came in elementary school, at a time when most of my teachers were of Jewish descent, and when the Lower East Side still had a strong Jewish population. Thus, I learned more about the Holocaust than any other human tragedy, even more than slavery. That might have been more relevant to the students they taught (most of the students in my class were Black or Latino with a couple of Asians and one White girl). They did the best they could in showing us how terrible slavery was, but I couldn’t blame my teachers for their focus on the Holocaust because their hurt was more immediate, and they could tell us more readily the struggles their family members faced during the Holocaust. Plus, the details are really graphic.
So what’s a young brotha gonna do to find out about parts of his history? I couldn’t turn to bachata songs because they usually reflected the sorrows of a forlorn lover, and merengue just started making obscure references to the female anatomy or a new dance. Hip-hop turned away from the Black nationalist message and more towards gangsterism, at once reflecting the greater oppression of the system and in many ways perpetuating said criminality. So of course, a group of concerned African-American women and men (about 3 of them in all) at the local Boys Club showed me the seminal documentary “Eyes on the Prize,” enticing the 20 of us with cookies and treats to come and watch as people hung, shot, lynched, sprayed, harassed, and discriminated based on the series of features we attest to as race.
Over the next few years, not to discredit any of the educators, I didn’t hear much about the harsh realities of either harsh reality until senior year, after I hastily charged White people in general of racism and benefiting from slavery. My teacher completely leveled me for that one and made me submit a retraction, essentially. I bit it because I needed to graduate, but it only made me angrier, possibly more bitter, and more inclined to divisive discussions, and maybe more reticent in admitting how my friends of all backgrounds shaped my understanding of the way the world worked.
Fast-forward to today, and I’ve visited 2 Holocaust museums thus far, and both of them made me think thoroughly about the comparisons and contrasts we can make between the Holocaust and the Maafa (African Enslavement). While the Jews who helped raise worldwide awareness of the Holocaust through monuments, museums, and a motto of “forgive but never forget,” the more widespread descendants of the slaves and murder victims of the Maafa across the Americas don’t yield the same reverence.
Is it because of a racial difference, and the expansion of the definition of what it meant to be white in the earlier part of last century? Could it also be the differences in access and prioritizing education between White Jews and descendants of Africans who were enslaved, education the key in solidifying catastrophic events in history? Is it because we can’t directly implicate the United States for reaping benefits from German Jews, but we can most certainly see the legacy of slavery throughout the Americas, and we can hold America responsible for reparations in America? And is it because somewhere between 2 to million 6 million people died in the Holocaust all across Europe but somewhere between 50 to 100 million people died in Africa, and all across the Americas? I assume it’s a strong mixture of all these questions.
Nonetheless, when I walked through the halls of the Holocaust Museum in DC, I never once heard anyone say “get over it,” deriding those who have been affected negatively by that experience. Never once did anyone question whether this Holocaust was true (there are Holocaust doubters out there, but they’re been proven wrong thoroughly). Never once did someone say “Wow, those Jews haven’t done anything since then to contribute to our society.” The same can’t be said for African-Americans in this country. And just as a matter of reference, there are two proposals for actual monument museums dedicated to slavery in the United States, but nothing concrete. Yet, even through African-American history museums, much like the Holocaust museums, we can only get a snippet of the harsh realities of
The one thought that rings true to both of these genocides was that we do need to learn more about them. We can’t pretend to have been there, even with some ill-conceived role-play. Knowing of the tragedy and really trying to understand the point of view of descendants of these tragedies really improves, not hinders, true unity. If these atrocities don’t come to light on an academic and personal level, then we’ll be doomed to another of those again. It’s no wonder why incidents like the Crown Heights Riot keep happening, and why Michael Richards had no problem saying what he said in such a public and caustic way.
Both incidents highlight another reason why it’s important to infuse our curriculum with deeper understanding of the continuing tragedies that occur daily, from the kids murdered in Philadelphia and South Central Los Angeles to the families separated in Baghdad and the Sudan. We’ll never see the end of this until we start to see human life (including our own) as indispensable. The idea of massive collections of bodies lying in a pit isn’t a foreign concept to people that come from these places. Once you turn a blind eye to it, that pit looks awfully bottomless …
jose, who wants you to help him sings, these songs of freedom, ’cause all he’s ever had … redemption songs …
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Data miners fight law that shields doctors
WASHINGTON - When most patients go to the pharmacy to fill a new prescription, they don't think twice about turning over the note from their doctor. After all, how much could the scrawl on that tiny slip be worth?
Not much to the average consumer - but to the world's largest drug makers, the information is an invaluable sales tool that they use to track what drugs individual doctors are prescribing.
Companies like IMS Health Inc., based in Norwalk, Conn., have built an industry around gathering prescription data and selling the information to pharmaceutical companies for millions of dollars each year. Pfizer Inc., Merck & Co. Inc., and nearly every other drug maker uses the data to identify which doctors are prescribing their drugs and which are prescribing the competition. When freebie-wielding salespeople show up at their offices, most doctors don't know they're being targeted based on their own prescribing habits.
But the political tide may be turning against IMS Health and competitors like Verispan, a unit of Surveillance Data Inc. After years of steady growth, they are fighting against laws in three New England states to keep prescribing information out of their hands.
Judges in Maine and New Hampshire have handed the companies early victories, declaring laws aimed at stopping the commercial use of prescription data unconstitutional. But an impending decision by the federal appeals court in Boston could overturn those actions and open the door to more restrictions nationwide.
As many as 18 states considered data restrictions this year, though analysts said they held off to see if New Hampshire's law survives legal scrutiny.
The challenges to so-called data-mining companies are part of a larger backlash against pharmaceutical marketing efforts, which involve courting doctors with gifts, meals, and other perks.
State advocates say the sales push drives up the cost of healthcare by convincing doctors to prescribe the latest, most expensive medications.
"Obviously these companies want doctors to prescribe the medicines they're marketing," said New Hampshire Assistant Attorney General Laura Lombardi. "We want doctors to make their decisions based solely on their best medical judgment."
IMS Health executives argue that without their products drug companies would have to hire even larger sales forces, because they wouldn't be able to target their efforts.
But state lawmakers note that in the decade since 1993, when IMS launched its prescription tracking system, spending on drug promotion rose 300 percent and company sales forces doubled to more than 100,000 representatives.
"The word for how I felt is 'violated,' " said Dr. Gary Sobelson, a New Hampshire doctor who supports the data restriction efforts. "They knew things about my prescribing habits that I didn't know myself."
Attorneys for New Hampshire and Maine say their laws, which ban or limit the sale of prescription data, protect the privacy of doctors and patients. But judges in both states rejected that argument, noting that all patient names are deleted from prescribing records. They also said that restricting access to the information violates the First Amendment guarantee to free speech. Vermont delayed implementing its own law until 2009, after seeing the challenges its neighbors faced.
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|A 46-year-old woman was admitted to the hospital because of swelling of her left breast. A x-ray examination revealed that 2 x 2 cm nodule was noticed
in subcutaneous tissue. Breast cancer was suspected and the resection was
performed. When her breast skin was cut open, a white string like parasite
This is an entire body that was taken from the patient. Neither head nor mouth was observed. We call this parasite a plerocercoid of Spirometra erinaceieuropaei. Spirometra erinaceieuropaei is a parasite of dogs and cats. Humans become infected with the larval stage (plerocercoid) of this parasite.
Gross isn't it?
Parasites! Here? In modern North American? Lands of sanitary regulations, running water, and flush toilets? Countries of hygiene - and health-conscious populations? Don't be ridiculous!
Parasites, although far from mind for most of us, are closer physically than we think. Chances are that a lot of people reading this article are playing host to a few of them. The odds are at least one in 10 and possible five in 10 that you are infected with some sort of parasite. Nice to know, huh?
We may not know about parasites, or even want to know, but we should know, because they can hurt us. Parasites can produce symptoms from the milding uncomfortable to the severe: try constipation, diarrhea, gas and bloating, irritable bowel syndrome, joint and muscle aches, anemia, allergies, skin conditions, nervousness, sleep disturbances, teeth grinding, chronic fatigue, and abdominal pain.
Symptoms are not but the half of it, however. Many health practitioners believe that not only do parasites result in symptoms such as those listed above, but that they also may be responsible for a number of other health problems. These include environmental illness, hypoglycemia, Crohn's disease, long-standing obesity, depression, upper respiratory tract ailments, and endometriosis.
Parasites cause these effects because of what they do in the body. They can:
Parasites enter your body in one of four ways:
The parasite is often harmful. any number of them can infect your gastrointestinal tract. Most parasites produce similar symptoms, as noted above. Parasites survive and reproduce in the body, often for long periods of time - years!Once in your body, different parasites behave differently. Some parasites eat the food you are eating (sugar is a favorite parasite food), while others eat YOU! Parasites can attach themselves to the body and suck out its nutrition. different types of parasites can cause a deficiency of vitamin A, vitamin B12, and iron.
While some parasites stay in the intestinal tract, others explore the body, passing through any number of body parts, and often causing havoc as they go. They can, for example, get into joints and eat the calcium linings of your bones, resulting in arthritic tendencies. They can also eat the protein coating on your nerves, causing a disruption in the nerve signals from the brain.
Yes, parasites are with us and can do damage. It is worth your while to know a little bit of parasitology.
Giardia is transmitted in cyst form through food and wter that has been contaminated by human or animal feces. The cysts also can be carried by household pets. In North American, giardia is often called a "hiker's" disease, as hikers who drink from contaminated water sources come down with it. However, this parasite has moved from the country and now is turning up in metropolitan areas. Symptoms include diarrhea, bloating, foul-smelling gas, nausea, weight loss, and abdominal cramping. In the small intestine, Giardia can significantly reduce the production of immunoglobulin A, an important source of antibodies. Giardia also interferes with the absorption of vitamin A and B12.
Cryptosporidium is a water-borne parasite but is also transmitted via day-care centers (due in part to unsanitary diaper-changing). Once ingested, Cryptosporidium lodges in the intestine and can result in profuse diarrhea, nausea, abdominal cramps, and possible low-grade fever. In 1993, almost one-half million people in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, received this parasite via the city water supply, and 100 died. It has caused a total of 28,000 citizens in Carrollton, Georgia, and Jackson County, Oregon, to suffer, and has also made appearances in 15 other U.S. states.
Roundworm (Ascaris lumbricoides) is the most common intestinal parasite in the world. It resembles an earthworm and is transmitted directly to humans from soil or food contaminated with human feces. Roundworms can pass through the liver and the lungs and, in doing so, creates severe tissue irration and allergic reactions. Symptoms in children include nervousness, colic, poor appetite, allergic reactions, and at times malnutrition, as roundworm inhibits absorption of nutrients. Adult symptoms include abdominal pain, edema of the lips, allergic reactions, insomnia, anorexia, and weight loss.
Hookworms (Necator americanus, Ancylostoma duodenal) are found in warm, moist soil and enter the body by penetrating the skin. People who go barefoot are often infected. Hookworms travel through the bloodstream to the lungs (where bronchitis may develop) and to the trachea. They are then swallowed and end up in the small intestine. Symptoms include itchy patches of skin, pimples, and blisters. Hookworms grab onto the intestinal mucosa, resulting in hemorrhage of the mucosa and loss of blood.
Pinworm (Enterobius vermicularis) is the most common worm in the United States, and is found largely in children. The main symptom of pinworms is perianal (outside the anus) itching, especially at night. The itchiness can cause insomnia and, as a result, listlessness, restlessness, and irritability.
The pinworm leaves the body to lay eggs right outside the anus (thus the itching). The eggs can then contaminate underwear, pajamas, sheets, hands, and anything that contaminated hands may touch. The eggs can also float about the house. Thus, while most parasitic infections may be avoided through careful hygiene, you may get pinworm by simply breathing.
Liver, oriental lung, sheep liver, and intestinal flukes are all transmitted via food, while blood flukes are transmitted via swimming or bathing water. Most fluke infections have occurred outside of North American. Still, it is very possible to contract a fluke. One health practioner, Hulda Clark, Ph.D, claims that parasites (along with pollution) cause all illness, and that intestinal flukes are the worst parasite.
Fluke symptoms include urinary problems, liver problems, hepatitis, abdominal papin, liver abscesses, fibrosis, diarrhea, and vomiting.
Many health practitioners now recommend herbal remedies. These remedies use a number of herbs with antiparasitic properites.
The article "Parasites: Is Something Having you for Dinner" is reproduced with the permission of AIM International.
©1997 - present by AIM International
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Governor Chet Culver announced today that Iowa received an additional $11.6 million to put over 2,000 Iowans back to work rebuilding parks, infrastructure and public facilities damaged by last summer’s devastating storms. The money comes from the National Emergency Grant program and Iowa initially received $17.1 million. To apply for one of the positions, Iowans should contact their local workforce development office.
More from the Gov’s Office:
Administered through Iowa Workforce Development, the grant provides assistance to Iowans. The grant is primarily designed to assist with putting unemployed Iowans back to work rebuilding the state’s public facilities, infrastructure and parks. Each individual is eligible to receive up to $12,000 in wages for participating in the clean-up efforts and the wages are paid at a rate that significantly exceeds unemployment insurance compensation rates. The grant targets the counties declared eligible for FEMA’s Public Assistance Program during the summer of 2008.
The emergency funds have been used to provide temporary employment on projects for the clean-up, demolition, repair, renovation, and reconstruction of destroyed public structures, facilities, and lands within the affected communities. In addition, these funds may be used to perform work on the homes of economically disadvantaged individuals who are eligible for the Federally funded weatherization program, with priority given to services for the elderly and individuals with disabilities.
The increased grant will allow up to 2,008 Iowans to participate in the Emergency Public Jobs program through June 30, 2010. As of March 31, 2009, 993 Iowans have participated in the program. In 1993, over $25 million in federal funding provided necessary wages for Iowa’s restoration efforts.
If you find this information helpful, please subscribe to our newsletter by clicking the newsletter below:
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You no longer have to be an absentee voter to vote-by-mail in New Jersey. According to a new state law that passed in the spring, voters absent and present can choose to exercise their voting prowess by darkening circles and filling blanks in the comfort of home.
What about fraud?
Someone somewhere had to think about all of the fraud scenarios that can arise by allowing remote voting. To address the concerns, signatures from the ballot are set against voter applications to authenticate voter identity. And there are specific restrictions on how ballots can be transported, something that was an issue when absentee was the only mailing option.
Candidates acquiesce that the New Jersey state law will be a game-changer for the way in which they conduct campaigns. Though ads usually get heated close to election date, the early vote-by-mail option means that by the time "E" day rolls around, many voters would already have signed, sealed, and mailed the deal. But for candidates it can also hold the promise of more votes...whether voters have difficulty reaching a polling location or are too busy to take time out on election day, vote-by-mail gives a unique option to fulfill the civic duty to vote.
Westerly winds move east
New Jersey is taking a bold move in switching on the vote-by-mail option. But it can look to the West to see how it has worked. Oregon is the only state in which 100% of votes are entered by mail. And Washington state is not far behind, having only one county to still have physical polling locations.
- N.J. touts new "vote-by-mail" law (The Philadelphia Inquirer)
- Vote by Mail (fairvote.org)
- State-by-State Time Off to Vote Laws (FindLaw)
- Justices Don't Look Kindly on Disputed Provision of Voting Rights Act (FindLaw's Courtside)
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Dog barking can cause a statutory nuisance. If we receive a complaint about dog barking, we send a letter to the owner of the dog advising them we have received a complaint. We also ask the complainant to keep a record of the noise, using diary sheets.
If the noise continues and we believe it could constitute a statutory nuisance we serve an informal notice on the owner of the dog. If this doesn't work, and a nuisance is witnessed we can serve a legal notice under the Environmental Protection Act 1990. If an officer witnesses a contravention of the notice we can prosecute the owners.
What you can do
There are many reasons why dogs bark including loneliness, boredom, attention seeking, defending their territory and medical problems.
If you have to leave your dog for long periods:
- feed and exercise it before you go out and leave it some fresh water
- make sure its bed or basket is comfortable and its favourite toys are around
- check that the room is not too hot or too cold and that there is adequate ventilation
- leave a light on if you are not coming back until after dark.
|Pollution Enforcement Team|
|Telephone||0208 760 5483|
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Bush-hating becomes a US way of life
THE toilet in Manhattan read like a foul-mouthed summary of the latest Michael Moore book. "BushIn the bar, talk kept returning to politics and the protest planned for George W Bush’s arrival in New York for his party’s convention the week after next. "It can’t be too violent," warns one. "That’s what he wants."
This is the level of fever in the US presidential elections and, to British ears, the debate is strikingly familiar. People hate President Bush now in the same way that they hated Margaret Thatcher in the Eighties. The fury dynamic is at work.
It is in evidence everywhere. The anti-Bush tomes in British bookshops are a small sample of those for sale in America, competing for the most hysterical title.
It is almost as if President Bush has driven the liberals mad.
In California, effigies of the president are sold in tourist shops, apparently to be burnt on the beach. Bush punchbags are doing brisk trade: "Anyone but Bush" stickers are on cars. Bush-hating has become a national sport.
And to Brits living in New York, the feeling is nostalgic. "It’s like having the poll-tax protests all over again," said one expatriate. "Everyone hates Bush, in the same way that everyone hated Thatcher."
But this was a Manhattan "everyone", meaning those crammed into the urban island which has long considered itself the centre of the universe. Outside the cities, America is evenly split - and utterly polarised.
The US is also wrestling with another ghost from Eighties Britain. Headlines in the American newspapers tell about unemployment rising, factories closing down, and towns being robbed of the jobs which kept the community together.
In the Eighties, these were called the "Thatcherite redundancies" as Britain closed down coal and steel factories, with workers being laid off as the government decided to import goods instead.
In America, the process of factory closures has a new label: "outsourcing" or "shipping jobs abroad", and fury on this front is driving the anti-Bush campaign in states such as Ohio, Missouri and Arkansas.
So should Mr Bush be worried that he is hated to the same degree that Margaret Thatcher was? Electorally, it is no bad thing: for all her detractors, the Iron Lady was never defeated in the polls.
This is President Bush’s fault. Like Thatcher, he has made no attempt to build a "big tent", including factions of the enemy. He has given up assuaging those opposed to him and, if anything, seems to delight in their fury.
Choosing New York for the Republican National Convention is seen by most in the city as incendiary - roughly equivalent to holding the 1990 Conservative Party conference in East Glasgow. For Mr Bush, Manhattan is lion’s den central.
It’s also the scene of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks - and going back there sends out a signal of defiance which is central to the appeal of today’s Bush administration and was so to Thatcher’s Conservative Party.
Karl Rove, Mr Bush’s chief political adviser, has developed the same strategy as the Tories developed in the Eighties: don’t waste any time trying to appease political enemies. Elections are decided by the quiet ones.
Angry voters don’t have more say. Electorally, it matters nothing whether New York is ambivalently against Mr Bush or whether it is one step away from a unilateral declaration of independence (as seems the case now).
Just as suburban Britain decides the race for 10 Downing Street, a handful of largely rural voters in about 17 landlocked states will decide the White House race. And these areas have always seen themselves as breeds apart.
The liberal way of life of the cities is alien to the church-going, gun-owning populations of Arkansas and Arizona, whose position as knife-edge states makes them far more important than New York or San Francisco.
Those undecided are watching with alarm at the debate on either side of the American coast. If New York does break out into a riot, this event would certainly act as a recruiting sergeant for the Republicans.
Arthur Scargill, after all, unwittingly rallied millions of votes to the Conservative Party in the Eighties. Voters may not have liked Margaret Thatcher, but they hated the militant trade unions.
THE Bush supporters are from a conservative coalition, only part of which admires the president. Many choose to identify themselves with car stickers reading "God Bless America" rather than "Bush-Cheney 2004".
Their logic: the president may not be the sharpest tool in the box, they argue, but at least you know what he stands for. This, for years, was the mantra of those who disliked Margaret Thatcher but voted for her anyway.
This is the paradox of politics: there is no direct link between being hated, and losing power. Strength can be a virtue in itself: radicalisation of your opponents makes you the champion of the moderates.
Margaret Thatcher had another secret weapon in 1983: the Social Democratic Party, which split Labour support and handed the Tories a thumping majority on a smaller share of the vote.
Today, in America, this task is being dutifully filled by Ralph Nader, who is supported by those who think that John Kerry, the Democratic candidate for the White House, is too conservative.
There has never been a real place for a third party in US politics: the country which offers 27 choices of shampoo has only two real choices for president. Even now, Mr Nader barely registers on the opinion-poll radar.
But in a country where the last White House race was won by 269 votes in Florida, the three million votes which Mr Nader is set to pick up this year could well be decisive.
Mindful of this lesson, Republican donors who are banned from giving any more money to President Bush are filling Mr Nader’s coffers - Richard Egan, who raised $200,000 for the Republicans last time, is a top Nadar donor.
This is why Michael Moore recently went down on his knees on live television and begged Mr Nader to withdraw. The split in the Left could save Bush now - just as it saved the Conservatives in 1983.
Mr Kerry knows he must be as conservative as possible to win: and praises Mr Bush’s "charm" on national television to try to calm down the fevered battle doing his campaign such harm in the cities.
Mr Bush’s ability to ignore huge chunks of America’s 130 million voters is made possible by the same constituency system which, in Britain, allowed the Thatcher government to win time and time again.
That is why a visit to any major US city will not give any fresh intelligence on how the campaign is going. It is the people without the car stickers who will decide the most important, and closely-fought, election in the world.
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Weather for Edinburgh
Monday 20 May 2013
Temperature: 9 C to 20 C
Wind Speed: 7 mph
Wind direction: West
Temperature: 8 C to 18 C
Wind Speed: 10 mph
Wind direction: North west
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Food for Fines
Got fines? Give food. It’s that easy. Why let those unused canned food items go to waste when you can donate them to Food for Fines, which will not only help you pay back your library fines that have added up all semester, but will also go to people in need.
From now through mid-December, bring non-perishable food items to the Birnbaum or Mortola Library circulation desks in PLV and NYC and receive amnesty on your library fines. Each item of food equals $1 off your fines owed. So, if you owe $5 in fines and bring 5 non-perishable food items, your fines will be cleared. A simple equation with a powerful result!
All of food items will be donated to City Harvest.
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Do You Learn As Much If You Get Your Degree Through Distance Education
Article by Jenny Paterson
“Education is the key to success. Ignorance is the way to a miserable life. ” For people who want nothing but a good life should invest in getting a good education and believe to do it but through online degree programs; nowadays there are countless colleges from all around the world that offer genuine online degrees. So, there’s no need for you to definitely worry about finding the cost-effective and appropriate online degree program because you have the power to choose the best online education. Keep in mind that it is crucial to know if the program is actually accredited and legitimate.
Another benefit of pursuing a good online degree is that you can actually choose your college – with out leaving home. This enables you to go to the college of your choice – and spend less. You save money on all of the fees that on-campus students need to pay. There are many different ways that you could have your own courses delivered to you. While some colleges offer their programs in a basic correspondence program format, other have really gone high-tech. More and more colleges are actually using social sites such as SecondLife, along with other similar programs. This could definitely add a little fun to the course, and it will also enable you to actively participate in the class. It will require, though, that you log-in at a specific time when the class is within session online.
If you are a stay home mom, or someone who are only able to go part-time as a student, distance learning provides you with the perfect opportunity. Everything you need is supplied and you can take your university courses online – when the kids are still asleep – or perhaps in the middle of the night if that is the only real time you have. Even those who work in the military or those who travel can also work on a diploma – even from another part of the world. One more advantage is that you do not have to rush through your education to complete your college degree. For a lot of online degree, there are no specific semesters. You can take it at your own pace, and go at a pace that your time and finances permit.
One of the many concerns of people being enrolled in online education is if they are able to learn as much as they would if they’re enrolled in a traditional class. You have to be aware that the curriculum in a conventional class is more or less the same with online courses. The only difference is that in conventional course the students are spoon-fed with their lessons while distance learning requires a student to become responsible enough to study their own lessons in order to learn.
Education has been changed forever by the Internet. Correspondence school and distance education are now referred to as online education, and learning as well as teaching can now occur everywhere in the world. There are thousands of institutions that offer programs over the internet, ranging from extremely respected and accredited universities to diploma mills that require nothing but your money. You should get your own online education from an accredited college. The credential that you get from a diploma mill will be even worse than worthless, and may set you back your professional reputation as well as your job once people find away about it.
The value of education you might receive in online learning would solely depend on the student’s perseverance, diligence and resourcefulness. It’s all about determination and the mindset associated with working hard to achieve your dreams. Distance learning enable you to get your college diploma or degree without the need of leaving your current work.
About the Author
If you want to find further details about a bachelors degree online program or maybe a listing of the cheapest online degree courses available today don’t hesitate to go to our website JobTrainingPlace.com
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The Department of Aging warns customers their personal information may be in jeopardy. Last week, a laptop computer, flash drive and paper files were stolen out of a locked vehicle used by an employee in Wichita.
The social security numbers of 100 people have been stolen. Those people are part of the Senior Care Act program. The Department of Aging says it's tried to call those 100 people directly on the phone.
7,000 other seniors are at risk. Their social security numbers were not stolen, but other personal information was taken. Those seniors are participants in the Older American Act program including Meals on Wheels. This group will receive a letter from the Department of Aging.
The files, contained personal and protected health information, primarily involved customers located in Sedgwick, Harvey, and Butler counties. The theft was immediately reported to the Wichita Police Department. The Kansas Department on Aging is actively working with the police on the case, but the stolen items have not been recovered. However, at this time there's no evidence to indicate that the information has been accessed and misused.
The stolen data and documents may include full customer names, complete addresses, dates of birth, social security numbers, gender, in home services program participation information, Medicaid identification numbers, case management location and case manager names and telephone numbers. No banking, credit card, or driver license information was involved. All involved customers identified will be sent an individual letter explaining the situation and the department has attempted to notify those customers whose social security numbers were compromised by phone.
"We are immediately reviewing policies and procedures relevant to information security, especially for those employees whose duties require travel off-site to prevent a similar situation from recurring," stated Secretary Shawn Sullivan of the Department on Aging.
The Department of Aging recommends customers let their bank and credit card companies know that a state computer, which may contain personal information about them, was stolen. This will allow banks and credit card companies to assist in spotting any suspicious activity which might occur concerning customer accounts.
It's also recommending customers review all of their bills and report anything suspicious to the companies involved. If a customer believes that someone has made use of information without permission, they may contact their local police department. Customers should not give out any personal information to people they don't know, especially those who call them on the telephone, regardless of whom the callers claim to be or what they may claim to already know about a customer.
Other steps can be taken to protect personal information. Customers may order one free copy of their credit report every year from each of the three major credit bureaus listed below. In addition, customers may place a fraud alert on their credit reports to help prevent someone from opening additional accounts in the costumer's name or changing an existing account.
Equifax Experian Trans Union Corp.
PO BOX 740250 PO Box 1017 Fraud Assistance Division
Atlanta, GA 30374 Allen, TX 75013 PO Box 6790
(800) 685-1111 (888) 397-3742 Fullerton, CA 92834
Equifax.com Experian.com (800) 916-8800
» The latest on traffic, delays and road construction delivered to your mobile phone. Click to sign up to receive text alerts!
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February 1, 2013 The closing number marks the first time the stock market measure has broken that barrier at the end of the trading day since October 2007.
February 1, 2013 Although a fiscal cliff was narrowly prevented at the beginning at the year, there's another budget deadline approaching. If Congress doesn't act, billions in automatic budget cuts will slice military spending, possibly hurting contractors and some personnel.
February 1, 2013 The economy shrank slightly at the end of 2012, and the unemployment rate ticked up in January. But this spring's data could look much brighter if the housing market continues to heat up as expected. That's because the sector supports a variety of jobs, ranging from bricklayers to appliance manufacturers.
February 1, 2013 Nobody knows exactly how many jobs the economy added (or lost) last month. Here's how to make an educated guess.
February 1, 2013 The jobless rate was 7.9 percent vs. 7.8 percent in December. But new data show job growth has been better than first thought and ended 2012 on a strong note. Overall, it's estimated that several hundred thousand more jobs were created in 2011 and 2012 than previously thought.
January 31, 2013 WNYCOne in five Americans has a criminal record, according to some estimates. And while punishment is usually temporary, those records can last forever. With an already stiff job climate, finding employment can be even tougher for those millions with unlawful pasts.
January 31, 2013 Some Republicans have already seized the moment, saying this decision was part of the "failed Obama record." The Obama administration said it was already moving forward with some of the council's recommendations.
January 31, 2013 The year ended on a strong note, with personal incomes up 2.6 percent in December alone. But over all of 2012, growth in both incomes and spending was less than the increases in 2011. The week's big economic news comes Friday when we'll hear how many jobs were created in January.
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|ANAHEIM AWARDED $5.9 MILLION GRANT FOR SMART GRID TECHNOLOGIES
ANAHEIM, CA (October 29, 2009) - The City of Anaheim was awarded $5.9 million by the U.S. Department of Energy (D.O.E.). In receiving this award, Anaheim was only one of six electric utilities in California and one of a hundred agencies nationwide to receive the D.O.E award.
Overall, $3.4 billion in funds were available for smart grid projects as part of the federal stimulus program or American Recovery and Reinvestment Act signed into law in early 2009. Once the funds are allocated, they must be spent within a three-year period.
“I am extremely pleased with the variety of smart grid technologies that Anaheim already has in place, and receiving this funding will improve our ability to connect the various smart grid elements,” said City of Anaheim Mayor Curt Pringle. “With these technologies, our customers will soon have the tools to view their usage and have a direct role in conserving water and energy."
Anaheim began implementing smart grid initiatives more than two years ago. As a result, more than 700 of its largest commercial customers already have the automated “smart” meters installed, and approximately 3,000 of its residential customers were switched to these smart meters. On average, 500 residential customers are being converted per month.
Other vital smart grid technologies, such as a meter data management system - the system that collects the automated meter reads and eventually will connect to a web portal for customers to view their water and energy consumption - has already been integrated with Anaheim’s customer billing system. Additionally, the City’s outage management system, a tool that will remotely detect the exact location will also be integrated with the data management technology.
Anaheim is well positioned in comparison to some of its neighboring utilities, who likely sought greater funding to address an aggressive meter replacement plan, as well as to fund the purchases and integration of the smart grid elements Anaheim already has in place.
Given the current economic situation and under direction of its City Council, Anaheim has developed a comprehensive plan that helps reduce the risk of being stranded with technology that may become obsolete as national standards for these technologies are defined.
To learn more about the funding for the smart grid technologies, visit www.energy.gov
ABOUT ANAHEIM PUBLIC UTILITIES For more than 100 years, Anaheim Public Utilities has served Anaheim water and electric customers with low rates and reliable service. Anaheim Public Utilities is Orange County's only publicly owned water and electric utility.
ABOUT ANAHEIM The City of Anaheim, founded in 1857, is one of the nation's premier municipalities and is California's 10th most populous city. Anaheim covers 50 square miles with more than 345,500 residents and more than 2,100 City employees. The municipal corporation's annual budget is $1.3 billion. Anaheim supports a thriving business community with companies such as CKE Restaurants, Inc., L-3 Communications, Pacific Sunwear, and Disneyland Resort. Successful sports franchises call Anaheim home, including Angels Baseball, Anaheim Ducks, Anaheim Arsenal, and the 2008 Olympic Gold Medal winning USA Men's Volleyball team. Anaheim also boasts world-class meeting and entertainment venues with the Anaheim Convention Center, the largest on the west coast, Honda Center, The Grove of Anaheim, Anaheim GardenWalk, and Angel Stadium of Anaheim. Annually, Anaheim welcomes millions of visitors to the city, truly making it where the world comes to live, work and play. For more information, please visit www.anaheim.net.
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GIOVE missions serving as Galileo’s radiation watchdogs
Many experts forecast the space weather to be stormy. After years of inactivity, the Sun is waking up, perhaps profoundly affecting Earth’s space environment and the satellites orbiting through it – including the imminent Galileo constellation.
Problems of a stormy Sun
Our parent star makes its presence felt in a variety of ways, from the solar radiation all life relies on to the steady stream of the solar wind, made up of ionised nuclei and electrons.
Then there is the sudden eruption of billions of tonnes of highly energetic charged particles during solar storms – two of which occurred last month.
It typically takes a couple of days for these solar streams to reach our vicinity, where their interactions with Earth’s magnetic field can cause spectacular low-latitude auroras, sometimes damaging electrical infrastructure. One 1989 event caused major power outages across Canada.
The uppermost layers of the atmosphere making up the electrically charged ‘ionosphere’ are also perturbed.
“The frequency of solar storms varies with the 11-year solar cycle, reflected by the amount of sunspots visible,” says Stefano Binda, an ESA engineer in the Galileo project.
“Right now we are in the upwards phase, with maximum solar activity predicted between 2012 and 2014.
“This is an issue of concern for all satellites and therefore also for Galileo, as we begin launching this October and are scheduled to begin operations by mid-2014, right in the heart of the ‘solar max’.”
Effects on satellite navigation
Solar storms affect satellite navigation in various ways, starting with the satellites themselves.
Components can be unexpectedly upset and gradually degraded by the particle bombardments. Galileo’s medium orbit at an altitude of around 23 200 km is less protected by the geomagnetic field than other orbit regimes, like low orbits.
This orbit also takes the satellites through the outer Van Allen radiation belt, one of the two toroidal regions where incoming charged particles are funnelled by the magnetosphere – meaning they will actually have more lifetime radiation exposure than their higher-altitude geostationary equivalents.
Satnav users on the ground, along with the terrestrial infrastructure overseeing the constellation and producing navigation signals, will also experience unwanted effects.
“Propagating through an energised ionosphere leads to signal delay,” explains Stefano.
“Ordinary telecommunication systems can just boost through broadcast energy but satellite navigation uses the signal delay to calculate the user’s position.
“Just a billionth of a second’s delay can cause a 30 cm error, and the ionosphere can cause errors in the order of several metres.”
This article continues...
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305.610.01 ISSUES IN INJURY AND VIOLENCE PREVENTION
Addresses prominent sources of injury, including motor vehicles, falls, fires, and firearms. Explores the biological, behavioral, and social issues relating to injury and violence prevention and policy. Emphasizes basic strategies for preventing injuries and deaths in the workplace, home, travel, and recreation, and the relative effectiveness of various types of approaches. Students who wish to write a paper may sign up for extra credit as special studies.
COURSE OBJECTIVES 1. To increase your knowledge and understanding of injuries as a major public health problem. 2. To explore current issues related to the prevention of injuries. 3. To familiarize you with some state-of-the-art methods of controlling injuries. 4. To facilitate a self-examination of your attitudes toward causation and prevention of injuries. 5. To help you to recognize and take advantage of your opportunities for reducing injuries and for injury control advocacy.
- Monday 3:30 - 4:50
- Wednesday 3:30 - 4:50
- Environmental Health Sciences
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London is coming up with a new skyscraper. Called The Shard, which is also called as London Bridge Tower, the building is set to be 1017 ft tall and is actually under construction. The number of floors would be 72 and is scheduled to be completed in 2012. Although the building is not very tall when compared to skyscrapers in Asia or USA, the uniqueness of The Shard lies in its architecture.
“Designed by the Renzo Piano Building Workshop, the 72-story tower has several twisting glass facets on its exterior, and inside, will have offices, apartments, restaurants and a 15-story observation gallery.”
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The 16 scientists who signed the Wall Street Journal editorial are a minority, but they're not outliers. They're not "flat earthers." They're not "scared of science." They are, quite simply, distinguished scientists with a dissenting opinion.
And their opinion deserves our respect.
Following are the scientists and engineers who signed the WSJ editorial.
Claude Allegre, former director of the Institute for the Study of the Earth, University of Paris
J. Scott Armstrong, co-founder of the Journal of Forecasting and the International Journal of Forecasting
Jan Breslow, head of the Laboratory of Biochemical Genetics and Metabolism, Rockefeller University
Roger Cohen, fellow, American Physical Society
Edward David, member, National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Sciences
William Happer, professor of physics, Princeton University
Michael Kelly, professor of technology, University of Cambridge
William Kininmonth, former head of climate research at the Australian Bureau of Meterology
Richard Lindzen, professor of atmospheric sciences, MIT
James McGrath, professor of chemistry, Virginia Tech University
Rodney Nichols, former president and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences
Burt Rutan, designer of Voyager and SpaceShipOne
Harrison H. Schmitt, Apollo 17 astronaut and former US Senator
Nir Shaviv, professor of astrophysics, Hebrew University, Jerusalem
Henk Tennekes, former director, Royal Dutch Meteorological Service
Antonio Zichichi, president of the World Federation of Scientists, Geneva
Hi. Just to clean up a few points. Except for our ancient ruins, our cities average less than 100 years. Mostly a lot less. Look at it as replacement time. Most or our buildings are used for around 50 years, then torn down and replaced with bigger and better. Ignoring all the many other variables, we could just raze and rebuild gradually as the sea rises. Some sites will be more exposed to wave and storm action and there will surely be important costs for that, but I would not want to oversell the size of the calamity. Most of us are not now living where we were born, so I think as long as the rate slow, the world as a whole would hardly notice. Not as important as war and famon.
Yes we are massivly dumping CO2 into the air. We are also making major changes to the distribution and temperature of surface fresh water, the range and distribution of plants and animals, and airborn aerosols (smokes and the like). Think of the world wide impact of warming the fresh water over large regions, replacing trees with grasses, and grazing grasses to bare soil, and nitroginating the oceans. The Algae bloom from the end of the mississippi by itself may seem ignorable, but add enough such stimulus from our many farms/yards in many rivers and streams, and we are contributing much more than just CO2. In fact some of these effects may be balancing the effects of the CO2. If that balance should run out of steam at the extreemum, we will get a period of much more rapid change. That scares me. I like to eat, and I do not want to have to pay $5 for an ear of scraggly corn.
On the good side of all this, we are wicked smart and can figure out how to survive and even live well under much more dificult conditions. Will we? That is a nasty hard question. I wish I was more confident in our good sense, but I do not see any good reason to take it for granted.
One more thing to consider is that this may be part of that wonderful process of evolution that so many people love and worship. If the ocean level rises a bit then folks will need to move inland a bit. And the good news is that the rise will not be that very fast so as to cause any loss of life, at least not among entities able to walk away from it. Trees and plants will surely suffer though. Consider the benefits of not having to deal with storm damage to those areas just barely out of the water. When they are under water it will no longer be a problem. Certainly things will be different, but will it be worse? or just different? What about all of those fools who are always telling us how good change is, never regarding that not all changes are an improvement. So possibly some will learn something.
POssibly at some level there will be more reflection of the sun's enegry, and things will cool off. That is another possibility.
How long ago was the presently exposed ice laid down ? Is that the case in the 3 major regions ?
Someone suggested that the ocean currents significantly push continents. I find this VERY hard to believe. The momentum and drag of the water is miniscule in comparison to the momentum and friction of the turbulent mantle
My problem with the "Global warming causes increased CO2" argument is that most people simply don't understand the scale of Anthropogenic carbon emissions as compared to "natural" ones. Or as Sarah Palin one famously tweeted, "How arrogant is man! Only G-d can change the climate". This sounds reasonable to some religious people. It is, also, completely wrong.
if you take the amount of fossil fuels burned since 1750 and determine the released carbon, which is a well understood number, and take out the amount of CO2 that was taken up by and caused short term acidification of the oceans (short term as in 100s to 1000s of years), you come pretty close to today's levels. So much for the "Warming causes CO2" argument.
William, you are absolutely right that much of the complexities of the climate is not well understood. We only became aware of greenhouse gases as a significant climate issue in the 1970s, in part because a Russian Venera probe found that Venus has a surface temperature of 900 degrees (F) when they were expecting more like 100F based on Venus' distance from the sun. So this whole science is very young.
While we may not understand the complexities, we do know - for sure - that we have doubled CO2 levels and that causes an added 4.7 watts/m2 of solar insolation. We also know that large scale, long term changes have already happened in the places most sensitive to climate - the glaciers near the poles, polar sea ice, and mountain tops like "Glacier National Park". And finally, we know that every year we add even more carbon to the atmosphere than the year before due to "economic growth" worldwide.
We also know that plants are budding earlier. Animals are changing their ranges. Some species are in trouble because the exquisitely orchestrated dance between plants germinating in spring and insects & birds bearing young to feed on those plants is now out of sync by as much as 2 weeks in some parts of North America. These are all well understood, well documented observations, published in peer reviewed journals like AAAS Science.
And it seems obvious that on a planet with 200 ft of sea level rise locked up in ice, and most coastal cities 30ft or less above sea level, that we ought to proceed with caution. It took hundreds, in some cases thousands, of years to build those cities. The notion that we can just pick NYC up and move to higher ground is the height of hubris. Yet they are already talking about building a sea wall across Hudson Bay. But how high?
So why don't we act? My opinion is that oil, gas, and coal interests have succeeded as the tobacco interests succeeded for a time 35 years ago, turning a scientific issue into a political one. In part that is because unlike past environmental warnings that were heeded (ozone hole, smog, water pollution, lead paint, you name it), this one is extremely difficult and expensive to correct. But just because we can't or won't do anything, that does not make the science wrong.
This is, as someone said, like not buying fire insurance because you never had a fire. Only this "fire" won't just burn down your house. It will burn down everybody's house. Even in an audience made up largely of college trained engineers, why do so few seem to understand the concept of risk and its mitigation??
The real problem does get mentioned occasionally, but seldom gets the attention that it should be given. That is, that the climate is a very complex system and not really understood adequately. Some facts appear to point in one direction, but then other information is found that invalidates the first conclusion. One real problem is the inability to tell the difference between cause and effect. Whatif we discover that global warming is the cause if increased carbon dioxide? Whgich would be very logical, by the way. It is a case of inadequate understanding driven by intense emotions, coupled with a long time opinion that "we are living too comfortably here in the USA". And I am certain that many of us have heard that assertion. So we should also consider the source.
I'd like to add one more thing. A friend, who is a global warming denier, stated that it is hubris for us to think that our activity could change the weather, that we are not that powerful. I think the "ozone hole" that could have grown to cover the Earth, it we had not acted in time, counters this point of view.
On the contrary, I think it is hubris to think that we can do anything and the Earth will take care of our mistakes.
I had a professor in college who always told us to "consider the source"
Take a look at the credentials for these esteemed scientists, and you will learn much about the realities of the climate "debate" in America. Based on their titles, only three of these guys are even remotely involved with climate research, and two of those are meteorologists. Of the rest, we have a former conservative Republican Senator and astronaut trained as a Geologist, several journalists who write about the climate but do not study it, and the remainder are a jumble of technologists, physicists, astrophysicists, and science federation presidents. And finally, my personal favorite, Burt Rutan, who, while being a great engineer, admits on his Wikipedia page that he is not a scientist at all, but rather a "climate change hobbyist" who refused to be interviewed by Scientific American because of their "climate change bias". Distinguished scientist?
Yet Mr Murry ends his article with, "They are, quite simply, distinguished scientists with a dissenting opinion..." Perhaps they are distinguished and competent in their studied fields, but climate change is not the field of expertise for most if not all of this group. This makes their opinion of no more value than anyone else's.
You will note the complete absence of anyone who does actual climate change research from this list of scientists. Why? Because in fact there is NO significant scientific debate on climate change in the climate research community and there has been little to none for years. According to an article I read in "Science News" last year, 97% of articles published in the scientific press in the previous few years did not dispute Anthropogenic global warming. But some 70% of articles in the general press do. Thus the "debate" is political, not scientific.
I am old enough to remember the Nicotine debate in the 1960s. This is identical, they even use the same tactics. Even the same words, it's uncanny. "There is no scientific proof", "High level scientists say...", "it's only natural", and all of the other FUD we heard last time. And it will likely end the same way, only when the preponderence of evidence becomes so large that it can no longer be ignored. Like, say, when they have to permanently evacuate the first major coastal city due to sea level rise.
So you might ask, how is it that this gaggle of scientists, journalists, and engineers got a highly politically charged opinion published four weeks before a presidential election in the Wall Street Journal, that stalwart of American conservatives, in such a way that it sounds like climate research scientists are in horrible disagreement? Gee, I wonder.
This political crap is something I expect from the Wall Street Journal. But I don' expect it from Design News. This is an engineering publication, Mr. Murray. Please spare us the politics.
The problem in a nutshell is: Are these scientists climate scientists? You can be a professor, a Nobel Laureate, a scientists with a raft of PhDs it doesn't matter. You have to be a student of climatology and plugged into data and the climate models to grasp what is actually going on. These naysayers are biting around the edges. Some may not care if many pacific islands disappear, along with half of Florida and the flooding of many coastal cities. There will be gainers from global warming including Canada and Russia which will end up with more agriculture. All indications are that global warming is happening faster that predicted. This is largely due to climate modelers being conservative in their predictions to be more believable. Unfortunately that has come back to bite them giving credence to the naysayers that their models are not accurate.
There is one piece of the argument that has to be granted to the naysayers and that is our star, the Sun, is a variable star and we can only make an educated guess what its output will be in the future based on past performance. We have no control over the Sun but we do have control over our burning of fossil fuels and it is quite clear from the data that fossil fuel burning has had a bigger effect over time than the Sun's variability even though we haven't a reliable record of the Sun's performance in the last couple of hundred years. In the area of climate change the Earth's weather system has positive feedback so trends tend to get amplified. As the Earth heats up ice, that reflects sunlight back into space, melts and no longer serves that function, permafrost melts releasing methane, eventually oceans heat up, methane hydrate melts and more methane is released, and so on.
I'm an electrical engineer and not a climatologist so what I've said should be taken with a grain of sea salt.
Fine, burn wood from sustainable forests. It is the release of millions-of-years-worth-of-laid-down-carbon that I see as the main problem. Many places aren't getting warmer, but many are, all round the weather is getting less predictable, and pushing records. The places that are warming fastest are the places that help stabilise the weather systems ... the ice masses that don't move much, and we really don't know what the result will be. I lean to caution. I want to breath clean air, and I don't want my grandchildren to say "if only my grandparents generation had been more careful".
A quick look into the merger of two powerhouse 3D printing OEMs and the new leader in rapid prototyping solutions, Stratasys. The industrial revolution is now led by 3D printing and engineers are given the opportunity to fully maximize their design capabilities, reduce their time-to-market and functionally test prototypes cheaper, faster and easier. Bruce Bradshaw, Director of Marketing in North America, will explore the large product offering and variety of materials that will help CAD designers articulate their product design with actual, physical prototypes. This broadcast will dive deep into technical information including application specific stories from real world customers and their experiences with 3D printing. 3D Printing is
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Free Website Advertising Partners Adsense
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In order to maximize revenue with AdSense, Google places ads on your website that match your website content, appeal to your users' interest, and satisfy the needs of advertisers. Google AdSense targets ads to your website using contextual targeting, placement targeting, and interest-based advertising.
How many times have you viewed ads on websites over the years and spotted some pretty ridiculous ads that have absolutely nothing to do with the website or your own interests? No doubt you and everybody else just end up ignoring those irrelevant ads, and the advertiser gains nothing.
Relevance is a major challenge to any ad server, and Google does its best to make sure that the ads placed on your website through Google AdSense are as relevant as possible to your site's users. In order for you to maximize revenue with AdSense, Google tries to ensure that the ads placed on your website match your website content, satisfy the needs of advertisers, and appeal to your users' interests. With Google AdSense, Google ads are targeted to your website using three methods:
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Placement targeting allows advertisers to choose specific placements as defined by website publishers. Publishers can define their own ad placements using custom channels that group together specific ad units on a website. You can group ad units by topic, ad format, or location on a page. Thus, when advertisers target ad placements, their ads may only appear in the specific ad units the publisher has selected. Google AdSense placements provide advertisers with the exact placements they seek for their ads, and in turn you can obtain premium pricing by giving advertisers what they want.
Keep in mind that placements in Google AdSense start with custom channels. Custom channels allow you to track the performance of specific ad units based on your specified criteria, such as ad formats, ad positioning, or topics. For example, you can create a channel for ads that pertain to a specific topic, such as Google AdSense related products. You can also create a channel for ad units that appear at the top of each page or on the homepage. And you can also create a channel for only image ads, only video ads, etc. In all, Google AdSense provides you up to 200 channels to customize.
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Interest-based advertising targets the Google ads on your webpage to a user's area of interest, which is determined by other websites they have visited. To achieve this, Google examines the cookies on a user's computer that detail which websites they have visited. Based upon those websites visited, Google interprets the user's area of interest and runs related Google ads on your website.
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With accurate targeting in place, Google AdSense does its best to make sure your ads are as relevant as possible to your website visitors, thus maximizing your chance of generating revenue with Google ads.
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Google Launches New Reporting Features For AdSense15 May 2013 at 3:51pm Google has been full of announcements today as its developers conference, Google I/O, takes place. Not everything the company announced today came from I/O, however. For one, the company announced on its Inside AdSense blog that it has added dome ?
Google AdSense Goes After Vietnamese Market14 May 2013 at 12:18pm Cites "huge potential."
Online Advertising in Vietnam Just Got Way Better: Google AdSense Debuts In V...14 May 2013 at 5:31am In Vietnam, one of the most popular models for internet companies and startups to make money in the consumer space is online marketing. It?s only natural, after all, since Vietnamese consumers are still ...
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By Ed Edelson
THURSDAY, June 26 (HealthDay News) -- If you're an older American with no major health problems, chances are about one in 10 that you've had a stroke and didn't know it.
It was probably not severe enough to cause recognizable symptoms, such as vision problems, facial weakness or trouble walking, but it was still a blockage of a brain artery, and it reduced your thinking powers just a bit.
That estimate comes from a new study of 2,040 people, average age 62, in the long-running Framingham Offspring Study. MRI scans showed that 10.7 percent of them had experienced what study author Dr. Sudha Seshadri, an associate professor of neurology at Boston University, called "a silent brain infarct."
It's the cerebral equivalent of what physicians call a myocardial infarct -- blockage of a blood vessel that causes damage to tissue. In the case of a silent stroke, the blockage and the damage occurs in the brain, without symptoms.
A silent stroke is different from a transient ischemic attack (TIA), a momentary loss of brain function, Seshadri said. A TIA causes some symptoms, while a silent stroke, by definition, doesn't. But both are warning signs to pay attention to the well-known risk factors for stroke, such as cholesterol levels, blood pressure, obesity and smoking, she said.
The incidence found in the Framingham Offspring study "was within the ballpark of what prior studies have suggested," Seshadri said. "But this was a group of people who were younger than in most of the prior studies. The fact that one in 10 persons had silent attacks that had subtle side effects on the brain is something we should be concerned about and should address."
The report was published in the online issue of Stroke.
The effects of a silent brain infarct show up on an MRI scan as "small lesions in various parts of the brain," Seshadri said. "We can't tell from that whether they had a symptomatic attack." And the MRI scans give no clues as to when the silent stroke occurred.
Testing showed that "on average, compared to age-matched controls, those with lesions do have subtle signs, such as loss of flexibility of talk," she said.
The incidence seen in the study did not startle Dr. Claudette Brooks, director of the neurovascular laboratory at West Virginia University Health Sciences Center.
"When I look for the cause of headaches and similar problems, it doesn't surprise me when I see these lesions, and other colleagues tell me they see them," Brooks said.
An even higher rate of silent strokes might be expected in a study of black Americans, she noted. "They have a higher incidence of hypertension [high blood pressure], atherosclerosis, and hyperlipidemia [excess blood fat]," Brooks said.
Nothing special needs to be done to reduce the risk of silent stroke, Seshadri and Brooks both said.
"I wouldn't recommend that people rush out to have an MRI," Seshadri said. "It's up to the medical and public health community to emphasize the importance of controlling risk factors."
"The whole thing boils down to modifying risk factors," Brooks said. "If you don't have risk factors such as high cholesterol, obesity and diabetes, try to keep yourself out of the group that does. If you do, modify them by keeping blood pressure and cholesterol down, things like that."
Detailed advice on preventing strokes is offered by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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BOSTON - The federal Environmental Protection Agency has extended the state's clean water protections by banning boats from discharging sewage in coastal waters off southeastern Massachusetts.
The ban on treated and untreated sewage announced Friday applies off Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket and Mount Hope Bay, located between Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
Massachusetts environmental chief Richard Sullivan said the prohibition means nearly all of the state's coastal waters are now protected from boat pollution. He said that means cleaner beaches and water for residents, tourists and fishermen.
The EPA said it worked with the state on the ban for five years. Among the needed changes: the Steamship Authority, which runs trips between the Cape and islands, had to retrofit their vessels and install a pumpout facility for them.
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Japan's Lawmakers Backpedal on Reforms
TOKYO -- Uh oh! Is Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi losing his appetite for reforming this country's economy? It's hard to avoid this conclusion in the wake of decisions made by his government in the final days of 1999.
First and foremost, the three-party ruling coalition announced on Dec. 29 its intention to delay by one year the introduction of a plan to limit depositor insurance. Fearing a run on weak banks four years ago, the government implemented an emergency measure to provide full-deposit protection. That measure was to be replaced by a scheme on April 1, 2001, whereby protection would be limited to 10 million yen ($95,000) per customer if a bank goes under.
Why the one-year delay? Many of Japan's regional banks and local credit co-ops fear that once full-deposit protection is lifted, customers will withdraw their funds and put them in stronger, bigger financial institutions, like the national publicly traded money-center banks. This in turn would likely drive some of the weaker local banks out of business along with the farmers and small companies that borrow from them.
This is exactly the kind of shakeout many experts think is long overdue. But lawmakers in the Liberal Democratic Party (the LDP is the dominant force in the ruling coalition) aren't particularly excited about inflicting this kind of hardship on key voter blocs in the run-up to a lower house election, which must be held by Oct. 20.Tokyo's financial regulators have long believed that imposition of limited depositor protection next year would force banks to get their act together and send a strong signal to the markets that Japan is genuinely committed to financial system reform. While some LDP lawmakers share these objectives, electoral politics ultimately carried the day. Credibility be damned. Another reform put on hold: consolidated taxation. Unlike in the U.S., profitable companies in Japan can't take tax write-offs against losses accrued by their subsidiaries. To reduce tax exposure on Japanese companies and increase their international competitiveness, the government was planning to establish consolidated taxation beginning fiscal 2001. This initiative has also been postponed for a year. The delay had nothing to do with elections. Instead, according to Garry Evans, a strategist for HSBC Securities in Tokyo, it smacked of a resurgence of the Ministry of Finance. Consolidated taxation means reduced tax revenue. That's bad news for MOF, which is growing increasingly panicked about Japan's soaring budget deficit. Evans thinks the one-year delay had MOF's fingerprints all over it. Yet another significant setback for reform came in the guise of a government recommendation to scale back preferential tax treatment for individual pension plans similar to defined-contribution 401(k)s in the U.S. Scheduled to win parliamentary approval this spring, these new pension plans could come on line as early as this fall. Again, the tight-fisted MOF was almost certainly behind the decision to limit the tax benefits of the 401(k)-like plans. This half-baked approach may save MOF a few bucks, but one must question the wisdom of undercutting the attractiveness of the schemes, which are critical in helping Japan cope with its aging society and represent an important fix for the nation's hopelessly underfunded defined-benefit corporate pension plans. Finally, in another sign that politicians are growing less interested in pushing the reform envelope, the LDP antideregulation committee established last fall has been hard at work. Japanese media reported last week that the committee, comprised of more than 100 LDP lawmakers, is creating four separate working groups to study the negative impact of regulatory changes on Japan's small enterprises, which are big backers of the LDP. The committee has said it will make recommendations to the government this spring, and these are sure to include measures intended to derail the deregulatory movement in the country. For now, this committee is probably more interested in pre-election posturing than anything else. But the antideregulation lawmakers are supported by none other than LDP policy chieftain Shizuka Kamei and their movement represents a troubling shift away from getting the government out of the way of business and encouraging growth under a more market-oriented system. Will these attempts to ease up on reform subside after the lower house election this year? Don't bet on it. Once that poll is finished, the LDP will set its sights on an upper-house election that must be held in the summer of 2001. Lacking a majority in that chamber, the LDP will be working furiously to win the support of its traditional voter blocs, such as the construction industry and farm lobby. And it's these folks that are most threatened by the painful reforms that must be implemented before this economy can return to sustainable recovery. More importantly, an acute sense of impending doom is what finally drove Japan's lawmakers to get off their hands and start passing reform legislation. Well, the government has stabilized the nation's banking system, the economy will almost certainly see positive growth this fiscal year and unemployment is no longer rising. So where's the impetus for change? For an awful lot of LDP members, it's apparent there is none.
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Hear from Mimi Ajzenstadt, provost of Rothberg International School at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Tuesday, Feb. 26, as she presents “Children, Families and Women in the Israeli State, 1880 through 2012.”
The talk—sponsored by the Center for International Affairs, the College of Arts and Sciences, the Flora Stone Mather Center for Women and the Schubert Center for Child Studies—will take place in Inamori Center on the ground floor of Crawford Hall, from 3:30 to 5 p.m. A reception will immediately follow the talk.
Ajzenstadt is the Mildred and Benjamin Berger Professor of Criminology at the Institute of Criminology, faculty of law and a professor at the Baerwald School of Social Work and Social Welfare at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She is the author of more than 50 scholarly articles and three books. She is also an associate editor of the Journal of Experimental Criminology and serves on the editorial boards of Israeli Criminology and the European Journal of Criminology. She has been a consultant on social welfare and crime control policies for many national and international groups.
Please note: This announcement has been updated to reflect the correct date. The event will take place Tuesday, Feb. 26.
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Yes, it's an extreme title, but it's true. The idea of insurance is to average risk over a large group of people. If advance information exists about the outcomes of individuals, it's impossible for a fully competitive free market to provide insurance.
In particular, free markets cannot provide health insurance.
To see this, consider a function which assigns a utility value to each point of a state space . For example, one of the elements of could be "you will have cancer in 23 years". This outcome is bad, so the corresponding would be a large, negative number.
We also have a probability distribution over . Without insurance, the expected value of is .
With insurance, we can average over a large number of people to change the utility function to be closer to the average. For simplicity, we'll consider only the case of perfect insurance, where the new utility function is exactly the average. In the perfect insurance model, we pay an insurance company , and in return they agree to pay us depending on the particular outcome . is an extra amount to cover administrative costs, risks due to lack of independence and finite numbers of customers, and profit (in the case of imperfect competition).
Assuming no one has any prior knowledge of the state , the only way for different insurers to compete in the perfect insurance model is to reduce overhead. Everyone looks the same, so there's no advantage in charging different amounts to different people. The insurers profit from anyone with and lose money from anyone with , but there's nothing they can do about it if they can't tell the difference in advance.
Now assume there's some prior knowledge about the state, say where is known in advance and is unknown. In the absence of regulation, it becomes possible for an insurance company to charge different amounts based on the different . In particular, it's possible for an insurer to sell policies only to people with a favorable value of , and charge . In a free market, anyone with a favorable value of will flock to these cheaper policies. Insurers offering policies to those with unfavorable values of will have to raise rates in order to stay in business, since they will have lost the customers from which they make money. Assuming a sufficient level of competition, the price of all insurance policies will converge on .
The result is that we're now insuring only over the uncertainty contained in , not . In the worst case, if , and insurance vanishes completely.
Whether this is good or bad policy-wise depends on what and look like. For car insurance, includes whether the driver was considered at fault in accidents in the past, whether they've driven drunk, whether they drive a muscle car or a Honda Civic, etc. Charging different amounts depending on these factors seems fair, since intuitively these factors can be considered the "fault" of the individual. Similarly, charging more for home owners insurance if you live in the path of a hurricane is also (arguably) reasonable.
In the case of car insurance, even with these known factors out of a way, the space of uncertainty is still quite large. It includes the actions of other drivers, random equipment failure, invisible road conditions, etc. It is impossible for insurers to predict these factors, which means that private, free market insurance can efficiently insure against them.
For health insurance,the space of known factors includes all past medical history and preexisting conditions, public genetic information including gender and race, healthy or unhealthy lifestyle, etc. In many cases, it includes information about the current medical problem, since insurers have significant control over what kind of treatment people can receive once they are diagnosed. Now, we can argue about whether it's fair to blame people for unhealthy lifestyles, but I highly doubt anyone will argue that black men should be held responsible for their higher rates of prostate cancer.
If we accept that the space of known factors is too large, the only way to reduce it is to apply some type of regulation to reduce the effective size of . A fair amount of subtlety is required to make such regulation effective. For example, let's say we ban insurers from discriminating based on race, but still allow them to collect information about healthy lifestyle. It's healthy to play sports, so the insurer might ask whether the person plays basketball. People who play basketball are more likely to be black than those who don't (caveat: I'm just guessing here), and therefore it's quite possible that they have higher risks of prostate cancer. Unless the government is smarter than the insurers (impossible, since the insurers have access to the text of laws), the only reliable way to solve this is to ban knowledge of entirely.
However, banning insurers from using knowledge of is dangerous unless you also ban customers from using knowledge of . In an extreme case, it would be very bad to allow people to buy insurance policies in response to accidents of unexpected diagnoses. Everyone would wait until they needed medical coverage to buy insurance, and all insurers would rapidly go out of business.
In general, if individuals are allowed to use any information prohibited to insurers, and the space of available policies is large enough, sufficiently diligent individuals with favorable values can use this information to lower their insurance premiums without raising their risk. Insurers will have to raise their premiums in response, which results in an increase in cost for those with unfavorable values.
In fact, assuming sufficient options and perfect competition, the result of this individual choice would be exactly the same as if the insurers were allowed to use knowledge of ! Wow. I didn't fully understand that point before writing this post.
The conclusion is that if we believe true health insurance is a good thing, and that health insurance means insuring over factors which can be known in advantage, free markets don't work either for insurers or for individuals. We can't allow insurers to base prices on prior knowledge, and we can't even allow individuals to choose which policy they buy based on their knowledge of their own medical history.
Hmm. The individual side of this is somewhat unfortunate, but I don't see any way around this argument.
Followup: Here are more details about the individual side.
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Save your instant gratification for a rainy day
Let me ask you a personal question: do you ever have a problem with self-control?
Are you confident you won't eat too much chocolate this weekend? Are you always able to avoid over-eating? Can you stick to a diet? Keep going to the gym regularly?
Ever had trouble giving up smoking? Do you never drink too much at parties or put too much through the pokies at the club?
Do you save as much as you'd like? Do you always live within your means? And have you never got carried away by the moment and had unprotected sex?
If you can't give the right answer to all of those questions, don't feel too bad. No one else can, either. Having trouble with self-control is part of the human condition.
Trouble is, the trouble we have controlling ourselves isn't part of the conventional economists' model of human behaviour.
But a leading behavioural economist, Matthew Rabin of the University of California at Berkeley, has been working to overcome that deficiency. Professor Rabin, who was awarded the prestigious John Bates Clark medal in 2001, has been visiting the University of Melbourne.
With his colleague Ted O'Donoghue, of Cornell University, Rabin has published a paper on The Economics of Immediate Gratification. That's the heart of the problem.
Rabin says our preference for immediate gratification leads us to overindulge in activities with immediate rewards and delayed costs - such as many of the things we've already mentioned.
Of course, our susceptibility to immediate gratification can just as easily work the other way: we underindulge in activities which involve immediate costs and delayed rewards. That is, we procrastinate, putting off necessary but unpleasant tasks.
So that's why we need self-control - to ensure we don't end up regretting our overindulgence.
Conventional economics has long recognised our impatience: we want the good things as soon as possible and the bad things as far off in the future as possible. This is why economists are always "discounting" the future. The further something - good or bad - is in the future, the more heavily it's discounted to reduce it to its "present value".
However, economists assume our preferences are "time consistent". That is, our preference for day one over day two is identical to our preference for day 101 over day 102. So they apply the same rate of discount to all days or years. This is called "exponential" discounting.
But it isn't the way humans work. Suppose a person must choose between doing five hours of an unpleasant task on April 1 or 5 hours on April 2. Time consistency implies that the person's choice will be the same whether she's asked on February 1 or April 1.
Most people, however, would choose April 1 if asked on February 1, but April 2 if asked on April 1. In other words, we apply a much higher discount rate to near events than we do to distant events. Some people call this "hyperbolic" discounting, but Rabin prefers to say we have "present-biased preferences".
One way to look at the problem is to say we have "present selves" and "long-run selves". Because we're so heavily into immediate gratification, our present selves are always leading us to do things our long-run selves will regret.
Hence our desire for greater control over ourselves. One of the strategies we use to overcome our self-control problems is to impose "commitment devices" on ourselves.
These can range from something as simple as telling a friend to "give me a good kick if I don't do such-and-such" to admitting yourself to an alcohol clinic, spending a week at a fat farm (where they feed you on rabbit food), joining a Christmas club (where you contribute a small sum each week and get it all back just before Christmas) to something as sophisticated as committing yourself to a compulsory retirement savings scheme (where your money's locked up until you retire).
Another voluntary forced-saving favourite is not getting all your tax rebates taken into account when tax is deducted from your pay packet, so that your annual tax refund is a lot bigger.
Most economists would regard many of these commitment devices as irrational - particularly when they involve giving up implicit interest receipts. Saving up your tax rebates for the end-of-year refund, for instance, is equivalent to giving the taxman an interest-free loan.
But economists think that way because they assume away self-control problems. Take them into account and many commitment strategies become quite sensible.
Note that when it comes to the most extreme class of self-control problem, addiction, Rabin sees our desire for immediate gratification being supplemented by a separate problem: mis-prediction of our future preferences, such as our (usually incorrect) belief that, "I can quit any time I want to."
Though we all have trouble controlling our actions, Rabin divides us into two categories: the sophisticates and the naifs.
Sophisticated people foresee they will have self-control problems in the future, whereas naive people don't foresee any problems. The sophisticates are pessimistic about their ability to control themselves, whereas the naifs are supremely optimistic about their ability to switch to doing the right thing in future.
So it's the sophisticates who use commitment strategies to minimise future regret. Consider this example.
Suppose a person can buy ice cream either in small individual tubs or bigger family tubs, with the bigger tubs costing not much more, so that their cost per gram is much cheaper.
And suppose that, from a long-run perspective, the person would like to consume one individual tub a night. However, her preference for immediate gratification means she will eat a whole family tub if she has it in the fridge.
Finally, suppose the person can go shopping only in the mornings, so there's nothing she can do if she gets home at night and wants to eat more ice cream than is available.
Someone with the time-consistent preferences assumed in the standard economists' model (who probably doesn't exist) would eat only an individual serve a day, but would buy a family tub every few days to save money.
Naifs also buy family tubs, but do so every day. Each time they do, they plan to consume only an individual serve on the first night, but end up eating the lot at one sitting. And they keep doing so every night.
Sophisticates, however, correctly predict they'll eat a whole family size if they buy it. So they buy an individual tub each day as a means of self-control.
The message for marketers? Sell your product in both sizes. Discounts on large packages stimulate demand from naifs, while small packages provide a commitment device for sophisticates.
Ross Gittins is the Herald's Economics Editor.
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SALINAS, Calif. (AP) — A California farm said Thursday it was recalling bags of chopped romaine lettuce because of possible listeria contamination, though no illnesses have been reported.
True Leaf Farms announced the recall of 90 cartons that were shipped to an Oregon food service distributor. From the distributor, it might have gone to at least two other states, Washington and Idaho.
The Food and Drug Administration notified the company that a sample from one bag taken as part of a random check tested positive for listeria.
Federal health officials say they've gotten better at detecting the germs that cause food poisoning, so they are seeing them in produce more often.
The recall covers product with a use by date of Sept. 29. The bag and box code is B256-46438-8.
California health officials are looking into the contamination, said Ken August, spokesman for the California Department of Public Health, but have not determined how the lettuce became contaminated.
"Anytime there is a contaminated food product, we are concerned and take steps so that it's removed from shelves as quickly as possible and to notify consumers," he said.
Listeria rarely shows up in produce, but an outbreak linked to cantaloupe from a Colorado farm has caused at least 72 illnesses, including up to 16 deaths, in 18 states.
August said the state is working with the company to verify the distribution of the produce being recalled. Most of the lettuce was sold to California institutions — restaurants and cafeterias, he said, and only a small amount went to retail in other states, August said.
The Salinas Valley is known as the "Salad Bowl of the World" for its production of lettuce.
Lettuce currently picked at the farm is safe to eat, said Steve Church, CEO of Church Brothers, which sells and markets the farm's produce. The company is working with the FDA, Church said, to determine if there are any problems at the farm and is taking more time to sanitize its produce.
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Editor's Note: On Oct. 3, 2008, Congress raised the FDIC and NCUA insurance amount to $250,000. This change has been extended to Dec. 31, 2013.
The news of banks failing has consumers rattled. They're asking: "What will happen to my CD?" And if they didn't have accounts at these banks, they're asking: "Is my bank safe?"
This special section explains the role of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. in protecting deposits at banking institutions, how the FDIC handles bank failures and how you can check up on your bank.
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Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, is also referred to as Lou Gherrig's disease, after the famous baseball player who died of this disorder. This disease produces the gradual loss of muscle function due to the breakdown of neurons, or nerve cells, involved with movement, in the spinal cord. This noncancerous disease displays symptoms often confused with the neurological complications of Lyme disease. It is not contagious and involves the central nervous system and, secondarily, the muscular system The areas most commonly and severely affected include the hands, forearms, legs, head and neck.
Causes of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
The cause of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is unknown.
Signs and Symptoms of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
Symptoms usually start in the hands and spread to the arms and legs. These symptoms include: muscle twitching, weakness, cramps, stiffening and spasticity. Eventually it will affect the muscles that control breathing and swallowing. There is unexplained weight loss, slurring of speech and sudden involuntary bursts of laughter or crying. Mental acuity usually remains intact.
Find more information
Medical Content Last Updated on 07/12/2008
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DragonFly kernel List (threaded) for 2004-12
Re: Description of the Journaling topology
:That's only true if the journal is written to persistent storage on the
:receiving end. How will you guarantee that the journal will be in synch
:with the actual file system--will operations slow down until the journal
:can be sent/acknowledged or will you allow large windows of buffered
:data to accumulate before the receiving end acknowledges them (in which
:case the journal won't be very useful for crash recovery or coherency)?
:Isn't what you want a distributed file system? If not, why not?
I'm not sure what you are asking here. There is always a buffering
delay imposed somewhere. Always. You can't eliminate it. The only
effect this delay has on the application is whether the application
requires acknowledgement of a commit to hard storage before proceeding
or whether it only requires a serialization guarentee during crash
Most applications really only care about this: They do operation A
and then do operation B, and if a crash occurs B is only restored if
A can also be restored.
Even database applications would prefer to allow commits to be pipelined
all the way until they intend to export the results outside of the
transactional environment. At that point and *ONLY* at that point
such applications would want to wait until the data is fully committed
such that crash recovery guarentees restoration. This doesn't mean
that you can't have buffering, only that what buffering you do have
will impose certain latencies at that point in time.
The buffering only effects those latencies and only at certain points.
Latency cannot be avoided, and the amount of buffering is not necessarily
responsible for latency. e.g. if you are running over a fast network
the buffering latency could still be in the < 1ms range.
Arguably filesystems are not transactional in nature, at least not
normally. But they don't really have to be ... a journal can still
guarentee serialization of events during crash recovery no matter
how much buffering is used.
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