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What are rights? John Reid's threat to suspend article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights - the one that speaks of a right to liberty - suggests he doesn't know, in two senses.
Sense one. Rights, if they are to be meaningful, are not merely something that governments grant to people through legislation. They have moral force; laws reflect this force, but do not create it.
When we speak of North Koreans, Zimbabweans and Darfur refugees as having human rights, we usually mean that they have moral rights, whatever the laws of their nations say.
This common sense tells us that if Reid insists upon souped up control orders, contrary to Article 5, then he is violating rights. He can abolish law. He cannot abolish morality.
Sense two. Rights are trumps. They over-ride other goals, even success in war: this is why we have rules of war.
The only thing that can trump a right is another right. Reid might argue that the British people's right to safety trumps the right to liberty of shady characters. But in the case of the three men who absconded whilst under control orders, he cannot use this claim, as he's said the three do not pose a direct threat to British people.
Indeed, the success of Operation Crevice shows that the terrorist threat can be countered by good, professional policing.
So why is Reid so keen to violate rights? Is it because he has no confidence in the police and security services? Or is it because this former communist and friend of a war criminal has never had any respect for rights anyway? | <urn:uuid:8d78ab63-db89-42ad-a8c7-28660e4c1b47> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2007/05/reid_and_rights.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968388 | 329 | 2.640625 | 3 |
UT System launches healthy living competition
By Tim Brownlee
Assistant Director of Public Affairs
(May 22, 2008)--The University of Texas System and the UTSA Office of Human Resources will launch on May 28 a system-wide competition for employees ready to take steps toward better health. Participants will log daily exercise and caloric intake for six weeks, and the UT System institution with the most program miles will receive the America On the Move: UT System Ultimate Challenge traveling trophy.
- La Prensa Foundation is newest member of UTSA Lone Star Society
- UTSA alumna Jordan Kaufmann wins $50K for new stent-graft start-up
- UTSA begins new way-finding sign installation this summer at Main Campus
- USA Today: UTSA long jumper Tyler Williamson rescues three-year-old boy
The goal is to enroll 20 percent of UT System employees with 35 percent increasing daily physical activity by 2,000 steps or more and eating 100 fewer daily calories. UTSA employees can register and then maintain an online daily log of daily steps or minutes of activity, which are converted to program miles. By meeting the daily goal, participants can reach their "trail destination" in 42 days.
The new program focuses on the importance of a balance between energy expenditure and calorie intake to prevent weight gain. By logging the information, awareness of current habits is raised and motivation increases for improvement. According to experts, when individuals set personalized goals that match their needs, they are more likely to initiate and maintain change.
The America on the Move 2008: UT System Ultimate Challenge uses the small-steps approach (such as an extra 2,000 steps and 100 fewer calories per day) as a more easily achievable approach. Incremental goals enable individuals to set their own pace, which builds confidence to do more over time.
Program goals: America on the Move UT System Ultimate Challenge
- Raise participants' awareness of their current physical activity level and nutrition habits.
- Motivate them to make positive physical activity and healthful eating behavior changes daily, such as increasing daily physical activity level by 2,000 steps and eating 100 fewer calories, within the six-week challenge.
- Build understanding of the importance of achieving energy balance for weight control.
- Collect data to recognize participant accomplishments and support future program decisions.
- Recognize achievements of individuals and institutions within the UT System.
- Make the workplace a supportive environment for active living and healthful eating.
- Create a fun and friendly challenge among institutions during the six-week challenge. | <urn:uuid:40e70f3c-2ec5-447c-9336-11f639274cf9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://utsa.edu/today/2008/05/healthy.cfm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.907967 | 520 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Mary Kay Henry, Labor Activist
“Our local unions and divisions should drive our national priorities, not the other way around.”
Mary Kay Henry is a labor union organizer and the first female president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).
Henry grew up in a Detroit suburb as the eldest girl in a family of 10 children. During college, she was a lobbyist for a grassroots advocacy group alongside union activists. In 1979, she earned her bachelor’s degree in urban planning and labor relations from Michigan State University.
In 1980, she started her career at the SEIU California State Council as a researcher. Over the next 10 years, Henry held various positions there. She helped pioneer the union’s nontraditional collective bargaining agreements and system-wide health care organizing strategies.
Henry moved to SEIU International, where she served as director of the health care division, an executive board member, the chief health care strategist and the executive vice president.
In 2010, she was elected international president of SEIU. Henry advocates for labor, immigrant and LGBT rights. She is a co-founder of the Lavender Caucus for SEIU’s LGBT employees.
Henry serves on the executive board of Families USA, a consumer health care advocacy organization. In 2009, Modern Healthcare magazine named her one of its “Top 25 Women in Healthcare.” In 2011, CNN named Henry one of “Washington’s Most Powerful Women.”
Henry and her partner, Paula Macchello, a senior strategic organizer with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, are outspoken advocates for same-sex marriage. Together for 24 years, they share homes in Washington, D.C., and San Francisco.
Filed under: People | <urn:uuid:cccc5834-715d-41f7-b5d9-e941de612643> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2012/10/lgbt-history-month-profile-labor-union-organizer-mary-kay-henry/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950067 | 358 | 2.390625 | 2 |
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The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that all of the kittens are believed to be rabid.
Vince Farah, a spokesman for the Henry County Animal Care and Control Department, says it's imperative that anyone who came in contact with the kittens come forward because they could have been scratched or bitten. The kittens were given away in late August.
Farah said the odds are 99 percent that every one of the kittens in the litter had rabies.
He said Walmart is helping locate the kitten handlers.
Rabies is a deadly virus if gone untreated. | <urn:uuid:be4b494c-c0ea-4a94-ad1f-2c44a6bfbcaa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.romenews-tribune.com/pages/full_story/push?article-Kittens+given+away+at+Walmart+believed+to+be+rabid%20&id=20268391 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962094 | 113 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Last modified: 2009-10-02 by ivan sache
Keywords: bouillon | godefrey of bouillon | cross:potent (red) | cross:jerusalem (red) | crosslets: 4 (red) | oriflamme | crusade |
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Municipal flag of Bouillon - Image by Arnaud Leroy, 11 December 2005
The municipality of Bouillon (5,477 inhabitants on 1 January 2007; 14,957 ha) is located in the massif of Ardenne on the river Semois, close to the border with France. The municipality of Bouillon is made since 1977 of the former municipalities of Bellevaux, Bouillon, Corbion, Dohan, Les Hayons, Noirefontaine, Poupehan, Rochehaut, Sensenruth, Ucimont and Vivy.
Bouillon is located in a large curve of river Semois; the town is mostly known for its medieval fortress recalling Godfrey of Bouillon. The local tradition claims that the fortress was built in the 8th century; there is historical evidence of a central donjon flanked by the smaller donjons existing in 1050. The other fortifications are much more recent and were mostly designed by Vauban in 1679. The fortress was mentioned, but not described, in 988 as belonging to the family d'Ardenne. The town developed below the fortress, near the river. The main purpose of the fortress was to watch the road between Lower and Upper Lotharingia, known as avenue des François and used as a convenient invasion path until 1940.
In 1082, Godfrey of Bouillon, son of Eustace of Boulogne and Ulda of Ardenne and nephew of Godfrey the Hunchbacked, inherited the Duchy of Lower-Lotharingia (aka as Lower-Lorraine or Lothier); he was the fifth and last lord of the Ardenne family. When he decided to go on the First Crusade called by Pope Urban II, he sold his domain in 1096 to Otbert, Bishop of Liège to fund his expedition. Otbert was not rich and even looted the abbeys and churches of his own domain in
order to collect the funds.
Godfrey took part to the seizure of Jerusalem in 1099, being the
first Crusader to enter the town. However, he refused the title of King
of Jerusalem, refusing to bear a golden crown where Christ had borne a
spine crown, and was entitled Warden of the Holy Sepulcher on 22 July
1099. He died the next year, aged 39, and was buried in the St.
Sepulcher's church, close to the Calvary. The contract signed with the
Bishop of Liège allowed the purchase of the Duchy by Godfrey's
successors, but none of them exercized his right.
It seems, however, that the title of Duke of Bouillon was not used before the 15th century; in 1456, Bishop John of Heinsberg was entitled par la grâce de Dieu évêque de Liège, duc de Bouillon, comte de Looz, ..., a title which was later used until 1794.
Bouillon belonged to Liège until 1679, with a few breaks; the town was allowed to build fortifications but was never granted the title of good town (bonne ville). Bouillon was seized by the Count of Verdun and taken over by Liège in 1140. In 1415, the castle was ceded against a rent to the de la Marck family, which ruled the Duchy as an independent state. The most famous member of the family was William de La Marck, aka the Ardennes Boar. Emperor Charles V reattributed Bouillon to Liège in 1521. The town was seized by King of France Henri II in 1552, but he had to retrocede it to Liège after the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis, signed in 1559.
In 1591, Charlotte of la Marck, whose family had been confirmed rights
on Bouillon and Sedan, married Henri de la Tour d'Auvergne, Viscount of
Turenne. During the Holland War, Bouillon was besieged by Marshal of
Créquy for the King of France. In spite of the Prince-Bishop of Liège's protesting he was the legal Duke of Bouillon, Godefroid-Maurice de la Tour d'Auvergne was confirmed as the Duke of Bouillon after the Treaty of Nijmegen (1679), and Bouillon remained French until the end of the Ancient Regime.
The printer Pierre Rousseau (1727-1785) was banned from Liège and Brussels, where he had attempted to spread Voltaire's philosophy. He set up in 1759 a big printing house in Bouillon where the Journal Encyclopédique was published again from 1760 to 1793.
On 24 April 1794, the People's Assembly of the Duchy, which then included 150 villages, proclaimed the Republican regime; the former Duchy was integrated to the French Republic on 26 October 1795. It was said: "The shark from the Seine has swallowed the Republican gudgeon from the Semois."
Ivan Sache, 11 December 2005
According to Servais [svm55], these arms were granted to the town of Bouillon by (Dutch) Royal Decree
on 18 November 1818 and confirmed by (Belgian) Royal Decree in 1841; they had been used by the
town for ages. Such arms were traditionally assigned by the medieval heralds to the Dukes
of Lothier / Lower-Lotharingia of the family of Ardenne.
The Gelre Armorial shows "Argent a fess gules" for the Duchy of Bouillon (Hertoge v. Bulgoen, #1342, folio 95v).
The very same arms (with a different origin) are used by the town of Leuven, whose municipal flag is therefore the same as the municipal flag of Bouillon, as is of course the national flag of Austria.
Arnaud Leroy, Pascal Vagnat & Ivan Sache, 27 May 2007
Flag hoisted over the fortress of Bouillon - Image by Ivan Sache, 11 December 2005
The flag hoisted over the fortress of Bouillon is not the municipal flag of Bouillon. The TV program Télétourisme (RTBF) showed close-ups of the flag, which is white with a red cross potent and another four crosslets in the four cantons. A similar cross pattern, but with yellow crosses, is associated with the Kingdom of Jerusalem set up by the Crusaders after the seizure of the city in 1099.
Godfrey was the son of Eustace II, Count of Boulogne (1024?-1080?)
and Ida of Lorraine (1030?-1113). Eustace II, a powerful lord,
fought together with William of Normandy at the battle of Hastings in 1066.
Godfrey had been appointed heir by his uncle Duke Godfrey III the
Hunchback, Duke of Lower-Lorraine, but after Duke Godfrey's murder
in 1076 he inherited only Bouillon, Verdun, and Antwerp. His succession as Duke was disputed by his cousin Albert III, Count of Namur, but at
first neither contender won, because the German King Henri IV
appointed his own two year-old son Conrad as the new Duke, clearly
demonstrating that Lower-Lorraine had lost its significance as a
political entity. Eleven years later, in 1087, Godfrey finally did
become Duke of Lower-Lorraine, after Conrad had been appointed King of
Germany by his father, who had himself been crowned Emperor in 1084.
Pope Urban II called for the First Crusade in 1095. The lords who left
for the Crusade often bequeathed or sold their domains to the church,
in order both to secure their goods and to get the money required for
The first wave of crusaders, led by Peter the Hermit and Walter Sans Avoir, was annihilated in 1096 by the Turks. The second wave of crusaders, known as the lords' crusade, was led by powerful lords such as Hugh of Vermandois, Robert II of Flanders, the Count of Toulouse, the Count of Normandy and the Italian Normands Tancred of Hauteville and his uncle Bohemond I. Each lord fought together with his vassals. Godfrey of Bouillon led a troop of Lotharingian knights. The Crusaders took Antioche and Edesse in 1099 and marched against Jerusalem. The siege started on 7 June; the Counts of Normandy and Flanders stayed in the north, Bouillon and Hauteville in the west and the Count of Toulouse in the south. It was impossible to attack the eastern flank of the town because of the torrent Cedron. A first attempt failed in 13 June. Timberwood and carpenters were brought from Jaffa in order to build the required machines of war, that is three rolling towers and catapults. The attack started during the night of 9 to 10 July; with the main attack launched on the evening of 13 July. On 15 July, Godfrey of Bouillon put his tower against the wall and entered the town with his brother Eustace of Boulogne. The northern part of the town was progressively seized. The seizure of the southern part of the town was delayed because it was necessary to fill up the ditch. The Egyptian Fatimid garrison of the citadel was liberated against a ranson but the Moslim and Jewish population of the town was slaughtered. Godfrey of Bouillon was proposed the crown of Jerusalem but he refused "to bear a golden crown in the place where Christ had borne a spine crown"; he was elected Warden of the Holy Sepulcher on 22 July and died the next year from the black plague.
Godfrey of Bouillon's fame was huge in the Middle Ages; he was considered, together with Clovis and Charlemagne, as a hero of the Christian religion. In the 13th century, Vincent of Beauvais published his Great Mirror (Speculum Majus), a kind of universal encyclopaedia reprinted by the Jesuits in Douai in 1624. The Mirror was divided into four chapters, the Mirror of Nature, the Mirror of Science, the Mirror of History and the Moral Mirror, the latter having been written in the 14th century, probably after Vincent's sketches. In his Historical Mirror, that is the history of the Church, Vincent of Beauvais relates in great detail the exploits of Clovis, Charlemagne and the Crusaders, whose model is Godfrey of Bouillon. The great medievist Émile Mâle has shown that the Speculum Majus was the main source of inspiration of the religious iconography of that period: there are very few historical characters portrayed as statues or in the coloured windows of the cathedrals but the Christian leaders, including Godfrey of Bouillon.
Encyclopaedia Universalis gives a more nuanced account of Godfrey of Bouillon's career. His main role seems to have been arbitration in the
conflicts that broke up among the winners after the conquest; his
military action seems to have been very small until the assault of the
walls of Jerusalem. The military leader of the Crusade, appointed by
the Pope, was the ambitious and inflexible Raymond of Saint-Gilles.
After the victory, the barons preferred to elect Godfrey of Bouillon;
morevoer, the status of the new Latin Empire was not specified by the
Pope and the power of the new ruler was fairly virtual, something the
ambitious warlords could not accept. Therefore, Godfrey of Bouillon
is no longer considered as the founder of the Eastern Latin Empire by
Since Bouillon is today located in Belgium, Godfrey of Bouillon is considered as a Belgian national hero. For the 175th anniversary of the independence of Belgium, Godfrey of Bouillon's sword was offered in Jerusalem by a Franciscan monk to Karel De Gucht, the Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs. Historians questioned the authenticity of the sword and wondered how it could have been preserved since the 11th century and attributed to Godfrey of Bouillon. Moreover, there was a controversy in Belgium about the real significance of Godfrey of Bouillon's acts. For decades, the history of the Crusades has been revised and several historians have shown that the western point of view was very biased. The late Georges Despy also revised Godfrey of Bouillon's legend and showed that the hero was not very different from the warlords of that time, that is sometimes immoral, violent and greedy and sometimes repentant, religious and courageous. Godfrey of Bouillon was recently revised in the best-seller Les grands mythes de l'histoire de Belgique. A leftist position is defended by Anne Morelli, historian at the Free University of Brussels, who says that the official concern about the sword was a case of "apology of a crime against humanity". On the other side of the debate, Jean Solé defends the traditional image of Godfrey of Bouillon as a Christian hero who saved Europe from the Muslims.
Alleged banner of Godfrey of Bouillon - Image by Ivan Sache, 11 December 2005
Godfrey of Bouillon's oriflamme is presented by the Order of the Holy Sepulchre, which uses it as its emblem. The
oriflamme is white with the red cross and crosslets and the
Crusaders' motto Deus lo vult, granted to them by Pope Urban II on 27 November 1095. The Order says that the banner was used by "Godfrey
of Bouillon and his successors". The wording is ambiguous, and it can be
read that the crosses, representing the Christ's five wounds, were also
granted by the Pope.
A similar emblem, but with yellow cross and crosslets, is known as the flag of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, 1099-1291. Since the municipal arms of Bouillon ("Gules a fess argent") were traditionally attributed by the medieval heralds to the dynasty of Bouillon, it is possible that their colour was associated to the design of the Jersualem crosses, then considered as Godfrey of Bouillon's arms. For the moment, I have not found any evidence that Godfrey of Bouillon ever bore such arms.
Ivan Sache, 11 December 2005 | <urn:uuid:48e116f9-c134-494d-bb37-482c988fdcff> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.crwflags.com/FOTW/FLAGS/be-wlxbo.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968891 | 3,124 | 2.03125 | 2 |
Light Box in Digital Photography can be a great tool for creating shadowless images of Miniature models with white background even with low end camera. Just like we said in Tripod in Digital Photography, Light Box has special role in Digital Photography simply because not all can afford a high end camera but needs to get perfect professional looking pictures for smaller objects, like miniature models, scale model cars etc. With a proper setting with a Light Box, high ISO which is needed for taking photo relatively dark place, noises adds up quickly with low end camera. In this article, we will discuss about how a Light Box works and how you can procure one.
Basics of Light Box
Light Box is nothing but a box made of non reflecting translucent white material, whose 5 sides are usually closed with the non reflecting translucent white material it is made up with to allow external light to enter the box, in whose center the object whose photo will be taken is placed. The open or partially open side of the light box also lightened with white soft light and photo is taken from this end.
A light box operates on the basic laws of Physics on behavior of light rays. The incident light should be diffused and the reflections should be uniform within the box.
Light Box for your Digital Photography
The above photo was taken by me using not even an entry level camera – it was Nokia N73 ME , the individual doggies measures 1.5 inches and the light box is about 1.75 feet in dimensions (in all aspects). If bigger model / object is needed to be captured and the camera has less crop factor, the size of Light Box will have to be increased. Another factors are – the wavelength of the light sources, distance of the light sources, optical property of the material the Light Box is made up of. As it is about physics, hypothetically a formula can be created. But as there are too much variables from one Light Box setup to another Light Box setup, its not very practical.
Roughly, white non shiny paper or white cloth can be ideal as backdrop inside the Light Box, as they will not cast any pattern. White Fluorescent light usually works great as the light source for the Light Box. A tripod can stabilize the camera better in front of the Light Box.
As the need of Light Box becomes bigger with the object’s size, after a certain size, Light Box becomes useless or impractical. Rather a flexible Light Tent or a Studio Setup of the whole room is used instead of a Light Box.
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The name mentioned in the ancient manuscripts for this device is "musketeer", which for us is completely uncomprehendible, because the word "musketeer" was user for our ancestors' ancestors. They lived, az the ancient people say themseves, in dark and turbulent times. They drssed in funny clothes and carried "thunder sticks" with which seemingly killed one another. Our scientists believe that this was due to demographic problems - then the population of our land was much more numerous than now and it appears that this was the way to control population.
This is the device in question:
On the next pictures, the ancient author with pride displays his supremacy over the mechanical world by mercilessly dismembers the helpless device:
After that he puts the device on oven bigger tortures - he cuts in in the middle:
Here the ancient one puts two locking devices:
These are the remain of the poor device. Our scientist suppose that this was done so the man can mount the device to the side of his hut - a hunter custom in ancient times - when the mercilessly kill a helpless wild creature they cut his head and mount it on the walls of their homes as a decoration:
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Having Linux on your PC, either primary or secondary has many benefits. Some of the obvious ones are:
Forget about viruses:
If your computer shuts itself down without asking you, if strange windows with text you don't understand and all kinds of advertisements appear when you don't ask for them, if emails get sent to all your contacts without your knowing it, then your computer probably has a virus. The main reason for this is because it runs Windows.
Linux hardly has any viruses. And that's not like "Oh well, not very often, you know". That's like "If you've ever heard of a real Linux virus, please tell me". Of course, a Linux virus is not impossible to get. However, Linux makes it very hard for this to happen, for several reasons:
Linux uses smart authorization management. In Windows you (and any program you install) usually have the right to do pretty much anything to the system. If you feel like punishing your PC because it just let your precious work disappear, you can go inside the system folder and delete whatever you want: Windows won't complain. Of course, the next time you reboot, trouble begins. But imagine that if you can delete this system stuff, other programs can, too, or just mess it up. Linux doesn't allow that. Every time you request to do something that has to do with the system, an administrator password is required (and if you're not an administrator on this system, you simply can't do it). Viruses can't just go around and delete or modify what they want in the system; they don't have the authorization for that.
Don't pay $300 for your operating system:
(And don't copy them illegally)
You're probably saying to yourself : "Oh, I didn't pay for Windows". Are you absolutely sure ? If your computer came with a copy of Windows, then you paid for it, even if the store didn't tell you about that. The price for a Windows license amounts to an average of one fourth of each new computer's price. So unless you obtained Windows illegally, you probably paid for it. Where do you think Microsoft gets its money from?
On the other hand, you can get Linux completely free of charge. That's right, all these guys all around the world worked very hard to make a neat, secure, efficient, good-looking system, and they are giving their work away for everybody to use freely (if you wonder why these guys do such things, drop me an email and I'll try to explain the best I can :) ). Of course, some companies are making good business by selling support, documentation, hotline, etc., for their own version of Linux, and this is certainly a good thing. But most of the time, you won't need to pay a cent.
Linux and "Open Source" software are "free". This means their license is a "free license", and the most common is the GPL (General Public License). This license states that anyone is allowed to copy the software, see the source code (the "recipe"), modify it, and redistribute it as long as it remains licensed with the GPL.
So what do you care about freedom? Imagine that Microsoft disappears tomorrow (okay, that's not very likely, but what about in 5 years, 10 years?). Or imagine it suddenly triples the price for a Windows or Office license. If you're tied to Windows, there's nothing you can do. You (or your business) relies on this one company, on its software, and you can't possibly make things work without it (what good is a computer without an operating system?). Isn't that a serious problem? You're depending on one single company and trusting it wholeheartedly to let something so important nowadays as your computers work the way they should. If Microsoft decides to charge $1000 for the next version of Windows, there's nothing you can do about it (except switch to Linux, of course). If Windows has a bug that bothers you very much and Microsoft won't fix it, there's nothing you can do (and submitting bugs to Microsoft isn't that easy, see the "Report bugs" section).
With Open Source, if a particular project or support company dies, all the code remains open to the community and people can keep improving it. If this project is especially useful to you, you can even do this yourself. If a particular bug annoys you, you can submit it, talk with the developers, but even better, you can fix it yourself (or hire someone to do so), and send the changes back to the upstream developers so that everyone gets the improvement as well. You're free to do (nearly) whatever you want with the software.
Update all your software with a single click:
Windows has a pretty convenient tool called "Windows update", which allows you to update your system with the latest updates available.
But what about all your non-Microsoft software ? Adobe applications ? ZIP compressor ? Burning program ? Non-Microsoft web browsers and email clients, etc. ? You need to update all of them, one by one. And that takes time, since each one of them has its own (auto-)updating system.
Linux has a central place called the "Package manager", which takes care of everything installed on your system, but also every single piece of software your computer has. So if you want to keep everything up-to-date, the only thing you need to do is press the "Install Updates" button down there :
Are your tired of restarting your computer all the time?
Have you just upgraded one or two little things on your Windows system with "Windows update"? Please reboot. Have you just installed some new software? Please reboot. Does your system seem unstable? Try to reboot, everything will probably work better after that.
Windows always asks you to restart your computer, and that can be annoying (maybe you happen to have a long download going on, and you don't want to interrupt it just because you updated a few pieces of your system). But even if you click "Restart later", Windows still keeps bothering you every ten minutes to let you know that you really should restart the computer. And if you happen to be away from your computer and you didn't see the question, it will happily reboot automatically. Bye bye long download.
Linux basically doesn't need to restart. Whether you install new software (even very big programs) or perform routine upgrades for your system, you will not be asked to restart the computer. It is only necessary when a part from the heart of the system has been updated, and that only happens once every several weeks.
Do you know Internet servers? They're the big computers that answer you when you ask for a web page, and send the information to your browser. Most of them run Linux, and since they need to always be available (a visitor could come anytime), they aren't restarted very often (services aren't available while the system is starting). Actually, many of them haven't restarted for several years. Linux is stable, it runs perfectly well without restarting all the time.
You'll probably not let your computer stay on for several weeks but the point is: the system won't bother you with restarting all the time.
For more reasons to get Linux go to http://www.whylinuxisbetter.net/
You might not want to stop using Windows, but do give a try to Linux, you might like it so much that you will start using Linux for normal everyday usage. I tried Linux earlier this and now use XP only for playing games (FIFA08).
In my next post I will explain 'What are distros?' and how to chose the best one for you. | <urn:uuid:7f44e4a0-d8ae-4b77-9b73-3ac7c07af5d8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.helpforlinux.blogspot.com/2008/07/why-linux-is-better.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957826 | 1,596 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Cathie's primary harmonic equation for the Unified Field Theory is as follows:
Einstein E = MC2
Cathie M = C + 1 / sq rt C
Therefore E = (C + 1 / sq rt C) C2
Re: Math and science... You will need to read....
(and these are just a few developments in this area)
Bruce cathie Home page - http://www.brucecathie.com/
And this - http://www.dprins.demon.nl/convergence/9915.html
(I suggest you read Convergence completely. Scroll to bottom for links. And do not let the initial 'channelled' info put you off the rest. In fact find out about Edgar Cayce and David Wilcocks).
Einstein's own equation of relativity gets very close to this Unified Field in and of itself. Almost everyone knows that the equation reads Energy equals Mass times The Speed of Light (C) squared, or E=MC2. What Einstein hoped to do was to solve this equation for the Speed of Light alone. He believed that the value for mass could eventually be substituted as a measurement of light. If this was done, then all of Creation could be expressed as being made up of Pure Light - mass and energy entirely a function of Light. This is the true "unified field" that Einstein was searching for.
As amazing as it must sound, Cathie solved this problem. In the Grid, he discovered an expression of Mass that was phrased in terms of the Speed of Light. At the end of this chapter, we will print his solution, but we will not try to discuss it because of its complexity. (More adventuresome authors might try to rephrase these complex arguments into their own words, so that they are not just flat-out plagiarizing Cathie's own work.) So, even though Cathie "cracked the code" of the Unified Field Theory, what is actually more interesting and important to us is the discoveries that he made along the way! As Cathie approached the solution to the puzzle, he unearthed some fundamental discoveries that forever change our understanding of "sympathetic vibrational physics." http://www.dprins.demon.nl/convergence/9915.html
The stunning, arresting and incontrovertible truth of Cathie's findings, (mirrored by synchronicity just now on the author's clock,) is that the "Grid Speed of Light" is - you guessed it - EXACTLY 144,000 minutes of arc per grid second in free space.
Exactly what does this mean? Quite simple, actually. The fundamental, harmonic value for the speed of light is precisely the same as the fundamental harmonic values for the following:
the Mayan Calendar's baktun, at 144,000 Earth days;
the Bible number of the 144,000 souls who will Ascend;
the fundamental "building block" of all sound vibration frequencies, 144;
the fundamental Gematrian "frequency number" for light, 144;
And, of course, the harmonic of 12 times 12.
New Perspectives on the Great Pyramidhttp://sonic.net/bernard/pyramid.html
The purity of the indicated space above the physical top of the Pyramid is not of this world. Each individual must recreate its existence. It is truly a sacred space—eternal, incorruptible, and timeless. But its latent potential must be supported in the world in order to be realized.
This is the first indication that the Great Pyramid is indeed a model of man. The message is: Man is "locked" to the earth through his biology and that biology is cosmically correlated with his planetary evolution. This is the primary understanding.
We contend that it was known to the builder almost 5,000 years ago, where on the earth the Pyramid was located, where in the solar system AND where in the galaxy. The design and position of the Great Pyramid indicate that the architect of Cheops utilized all three of the above frameworks and one other. This fourth framework is a living, moving, changing framework. It is simultaneously the largest framework we can conceive and the most immediate. It is magnetic.viii
Our thesis presumes that the missing link between the science of today and that of the Pyramid builders (and other ancient architects) is the knowledge and use of a magnetic framework.
The magnetic value of a location is integral to the selection of sites chosen as "sacred" in earliest times. Monuments were linked with the heavens by astronomical alignments, and to the earth by identification with their magnetic orientation. Modernly this orientation is defined as the magnetic dip and declination of the earth’s magnetic field. The dip and declination values of any location are constantly progressing westward, so that marking a location at a specific time would have been an important feature of the monument as marker.
We are magnetic beings living on a magnetically oriented planet in a magnetically interacting universe. The ancients were attuned to this and included the knowledge of their magnetic bearings in their architecture.
The Pyramid, to be an accurate model of man and earth, had to have a provision for that which is beyond itself and in the process of becoming. The stone courses of Cheops are about its history, but the "top" of the Pyramid represents the potentiality of the entire structure.
The middle portion, the courses of stone and the inner chambers catalog the realm of the celestial world—the cycles, rhythms and harmonics of the various members of the solar family.
The lowest portion, nearest the ground—the corner sockets and chambers carved out of bedrock infer the most elemental patterns of the earth’s body itself.
The builders were not in error, they were precise.
The character of the information is mathematical and geometric; it represents the eternal, mechanical and unchanging relationships of pi and phi, circle to square, etc.
From our own observations, a simple illustration: In a perfect case, the height of the pyramidian would be 27.7777 feet. The reciprocal of this number (1 divided by 27.7777) times 10,000 is 360, meaning: the part indicates the whole.
The Pyramid simultaneously symbolizes one year, one second of arc, one rotation of the galaxy, and one second of time.
The introduction of the one-second pendulum, gives new meaning to the definition of the inch.
The inch of the Pyramid is not exactly the conventional inch used today—but very close. Close enough for conversation. The quality of the inch used in the Pyramid however is vastly distinct. When knowledgeable critics exclaim "But, the Egyptians didn’t have the inch!" They are both correct and incorrect. Actually it is we who do not possess the inch nor the knowledge of Time, not with the magnitude possessed by the pyramid builders.
Our premise is that all units of measurement are derived from human physiology. The rhythms and cycles of the body are an expression of cosmic process. (See previous discourse on Sources of Measure. Necessary to this discussion is the presupposition that the builders utilized the 360-degree circle and its attendant hours, minutes and seconds of sexigesimal notation.)
Metaphorically speaking, the balanced or authentic "heart" of an evolved individual, beats 60 cycles per minute. The "true heart" presumes the second of time. During one second of time, the rotation of the earth will have progressed through 1500 Canon feet of arc on the equator. (Notice how we jumped from a small unit, one second, to a large unit, the earth’s equator, and from time to linear measure.) When the heart beats 3.4418888 times the earth will have rotated through 5,162.8333 feet on the equator. This distance and time relate to the duration of one completed breath. (5,162.83333 feet is also 50.900 seconds of arc on the equator. Celestially 50.90 represents the number of seconds of arc the equinoxes precess in one year.) In one day of the sacred year of 360 days, there would be 25,461.6 breaths. Astronomically this is the same as the number of sacred years in the precessional cycle of the equinoxes: 25,461.6 sacred years. (By the calendar this translates to 25,825.8+ earth/solar years.) One can only marvel at the congruence of such a system and at the length of time which would be required to accumulate or calculate such observations.
Following the line of synchronicity:
Using the perfect heart beat as the second of time, there would be 87,636 heart beats in one sacred day.
In the sacred year (360 days of 24hr 20min 36sec) there are 8,763.6 hours.
In the precessional cycle of 25,825.8 calendar years, there are 876.36 orbits of the planet Saturn. (The relevance of Saturn or Kronos figures strongly in the whole system. Refer to sections Saturn Source of Measure and The Well Tempered Solar System.)
In one rotation of the galaxy, there are 8763.6 precessional cycles.
the pyramids "surpass description and are equal to a number of the greatest works of the Greeks, but the Labyrinth surpasses the pyramids."
The heavens are a labyrinth of time, timing, cycles, signs and portents. Man finds his measure in the stars, and in the planets. From the heavens he acquires the measure of the self, for the labyrinth is also the maze within us, and the ‘thread’ which guides us is connected to everything in the universe.
The human body, which evolved on a pulsating planet animated by the rhythms of the firmament, plays out the music of the spheres on its exquisitely tuned physiology. The planets are both above us and in us.http://sonic.net/bernard/pyramid.html
SECRETS OF THE HEBREW LETTERShttp://www.meru.org/Press/Atlantisrising.html
He says the Hebrew Bible is arranged similarly to a hologram: the first letter contains the whole, the first word expands on the first letter, the first sentence upon the first word, etc. "It's very much like what our scientists do," he says. "We include information with messages sent to outer space that explains how to decode the entire message-that's also how compression programs work on computers." He also believes the Hebrew Bible contains a function similar to the mathematical purpose of pi, and links consciousness and physicality the way pi links the radius and circumference of a circle: "Our radius is our physicality and the circumference is our life, our emotions," he says. "The ancient Hebrew alphabet is far more than a tool for everyday communication or the transmission of sacred texts; the letter forms themselves have intrinsic geometric and mathematical properties that point us to a profound knowledge of life and the nature of human consciousness." Tenen feels there are principles of law and order in the relationship between humans and the cosmos that, up till now, only Pythagoreans and Kabbalists have suspected. "What I've found," says Tenen, "is that these principles correspond to the numerical patterns of some of the basic geometrical forms found in the physical world. For example, the double helix, which is the form of the DNA molecule."
I'm trying to make sense of this myself at present, so with that caveat in mind:http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaver...oflearning.htm | <urn:uuid:afcf1821-9cfd-40c7-bf89-3baf954b7294> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=639.msg62857 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927956 | 2,422 | 2.296875 | 2 |
Airport cuisine at the touch of a screen
iPads being installed in airports across country
Food delivered to your gate at the touch of a screen? It sounds too good to be true, but it's happening at a handful or airports.
About 7,000 Apple iPads are being installed at La Guardia Airport in New York, Toronto Pearson International in Ontario and Minneapolis-St. Paul International in the Twin Cities in a collaboration between airport food and beverage provider OTG Management and Delta Air Lines.
In the Delta terminal at Minneapolis-St. Paul, iPads at seats in the gate areas will give airline customers up-to-the-minute flight updates, as well as free access to the Internet. Plus, fliers waiting for their flights can order food from a selection of new restaurants in the terminal and have it delivered to the gate.
"If I'm going to spend $10 on a beer, I'd rather do it on an iPad," said Michael Card, who was traveling recently through Minneapolis-St. Paul, "because it's more fun, more exciting."
OTG Management has eliminated most of the chain restaurants and fast food options at the Minnesota airport in favor of restaurants with menus designed by chefs from the Twin Cities area. The same local concept is being applied at LaGuardia and Pearson airports.
"The goal behind this was to make travel better for travelers," OTG spokesman Sean Aziz said. "You have to get to the airport earlier now with new (security) measures, so why not be able to get to your gate, have a fresh meal, a great glass of wine, the convenience of an iPad, charging your devices? It was really just to make the little things better."
When the project is completed late next year, Minneapolis-St. Paul airport's Terminal G will play host to 12 unique restaurants. Each will also have an iPad at every seat.
IPads in the restaurants will offer color photos of each dish and will -- at least for the ordering aspect of your meal -- replace the need for a server. Hosts still play a role, OTG says, and servers will still see that you're taken carry of after they bring out your cooked order.
OTG Chief Technology Officer Albert Lee had his own hesitations about installing the iPads.
"There was a lot of fear that this would somehow reduce the customer service experience," Lee said, "but I think people appreciated the ability to order and feel in control of their environment. And I think they enjoyed having access to the internet."
Traveler Kurtis Zameck was waiting recently for his flight at Minneapolis-St. Paul and used the iPad to place an order.
"The first time I saw it, it was a little odd," Zameck said. "But I think after you use it once or twice, it's pretty user-friendly."
And he didn't find that the service aspect of the experience suffered.
Many travelers seemed pleased with the changes. Some said they liked the ability to check stocks or to stay up to speed on their flight departure, and parents said it was nice because pre-loaded games like tic-tac-toe and checkers gave their kids something to do.
But not everyone shared those sentiments. One man who was hurrying to finish his food and catch his flight called it "impersonal."
"I prefer the personal touch. I like dealing with people, but the service was good," he added.
Another passenger said the system was a little confusing at first.
"The first time I ordered a drink, it was a gin and tonic, and I didn't see the tonic, so I (accidentally) ordered a double gin. I had to actually go back to the bartender to get them to put tonic water in it. ... But once you get used to it, I think it's fine."
While OTG's iPads replace the need for servers to take the initial order back to the kitchen, Lee insists that it isn't eliminating restaurant jobs. They say they're merely "changing how we deal with service."
"Instead of waiters coming to take your order and going back and entering things (in the computer) ... we now have servers more geared toward our concierge experience."
And what about the security of the devices? Lee says the custom Web browser has been designed so that any personal data entered -- whether it be login info for Facebook or your online bank account -- is completely wiped clean with every press of the home button.
"We've designed this to take into account that you're still inside an airport," Lee said. "We want you to feel comfortable. We want you to, in a lot of ways, forget that you're inside an airport. But you still have to board a flight, so we'll remind you about your flight."
You can check out the changes now at Minneapolis-St. Paul and LaGuardia. Pearson's iPads will debut in early 2013.
Copyright 2012 by CNN NewSource. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. | <urn:uuid:9f847669-3e6a-4d48-9a95-07bd795e2667> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.clickondetroit.com/lifestyle/travel/Airport-cuisine-at-the-touch-of-a-screen/-/2305824/17863382/-/view/print/-/yid0riz/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974226 | 1,047 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Coming out healthy for gay Canadians: Study 0
(ParisPhoto - Fotolia.com)
Coming out of the closet is good for a gay person's health — at least, if they're Canadian.
A new study out of Montreal's Louis H. Lafontaine Hospital found gay and bisexual people who have told others about their sexual orientation show fewer symptoms of anxiety, depression and burnout.
But the study, which questioned and measured stress hormones in 87 gay or bisexual Montrealers, may have a regional bias.
"Coming out might only be beneficial for health when there are tolerant social policies that facilitate the disclosure process" lead author Robert-Paul Juster said.
"As the participants of this study enjoy progressive Canadian rights, they may be inherently healthier and hardier.
"Coming out is no longer a matter of popular debate but a matter of public health. Internationally, societies must endeavour to facilitate this self-acceptance by promoting tolerance, progressing policy, and dispelling stigma for all minorities." | <urn:uuid:e1947919-092c-4564-bd16-66860b645292> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lfpress.com/2013/01/29/coming-out-healthy-for-gay-canadians-study | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913332 | 207 | 2.484375 | 2 |
by J. D. Heyes, Natural News:
Is the nation and the world headed for another financial meltdown? You would think so, judging by what U.S. banks have been told to prepare for by regulators.
According to documents obtained by Reuters, officials from the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency have directed five of the country’s top banks -Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup Inc., Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase & Co. – to develop plans for preventing a collapse if they once again faced serious problems because they wouldn’t be able to count on government assistance.
The program, which began in 2010 and was largely kept secret, is in addition to “living wills” banks were instructed to craft plans to help regulators dismantle them should they actually fail. The revelations “show how hard regulators are working to ensure that banks have plans for worst-case scenarios and can act rationally in times of distress,” Reuters reported. | <urn:uuid:f865e94a-ff5c-4866-985e-aaf57b419c5d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sgtreport.com/2012/08/u-s-banks-told-to-prepare-for-financial-collapse/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967742 | 209 | 2.109375 | 2 |
1Then the king sent, and all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem were gathered to him. 2And the king went up to the house of the LORD, and with him all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the priests and the prophets, all the people, both small and great; and he read in their hearing all the words of the book of the covenant which had been found in the house of the LORD. 3And the king stood by the pillar and made a covenant before the LORD, to walk after the LORD and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes, with all his heart and all his soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book; and all the people joined in the covenant.
4And the king commanded Hilki'ah, the high priest, and the priests of the second order, and the keepers of the threshold, to bring out of the temple of the LORD all the vessels made for Ba'al, for Ashe'rah, and for all the host of heaven; he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron, and carried their ashes to Bethel. 5And he deposed the idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense in the high places at the cities of Judah and round about Jerusalem; those also who burned incense to Ba'al, to the sun, and the moon, and the constellations, and all the host of the heavens. 6And he brought out the Ashe'rah from the house of the LORD, outside Jerusalem, to the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron, and beat it to dust and cast the dust of it upon the graves of the common people. 7And he broke down the houses of the male cult prostitutes which were in the house of the LORD, where the women wove hangings for the Ashe'rah. 8And he brought all the priests out of the cities of Judah, and defiled the high places where the priests had burned incense, from Geba to Beer-sheba; and he broke down the high places of the gates that were at the entrance of the gate of Joshua the governor of the city, which were on one's left at the gate of the city. 9However, the priests of the high places did not come up to the altar of the LORD in Jerusalem, but they ate unleavened bread among their brethren. 10And he defiled To'pheth, which is in the valley of the sons of Hinnom, that no one might burn his son or his daughter as an offering to Molech. 11And he removed the horses that the kings of Judah had dedicated to the sun, at the entrance to the house of the LORD, by the chamber of Nathan-melech the chamberlain, which was in the precincts; and he burned the chariots of the sun with fire. 12And the altars on the roof of the upper chamber of Ahaz, which the kings of Judah had made, and the altars which Manas'seh had made in the two courts of the house of the LORD, he pulled down and broke in pieces, and cast the dust of them into the brook Kidron. 13And the king defiled the high places that were east of Jerusalem, to the south of the mount of corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel had built for Ash'toreth the abomination of the Sido'nians, and for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. 14And he broke in pieces the pillars, and cut down the Ashe'rim, and filled their places with the bones of men.
15Moreover the altar at Bethel, the high place erected by Jerobo'am the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, that altar with the high place he pulled down and he broke in pieces its stones, crushing them to dust; also he burned the Ashe'rah. 16And as Josi'ah turned, he saw the tombs there on the mount; and he sent and took the bones out of the tombs, and burned them upon the altar, and defiled it, according to the word of the LORD which the man of God proclaimed, who had predicted these things. 17Then he said, "What is yonder monument that I see?" And the men of the city told him, "It is the tomb of the man of God who came from Judah and predicted these things which you have done against the altar at Bethel." 18And he said, "Let him be; let no man move his bones." So they let his bones alone, with the bones of the prophet who came out of Sama'ria. 19And all the shrines also of the high places that were in the cities of Sama'ria, which kings of Israel had made, provoking the LORD to anger, Josi'ah removed; he did to them according to all that he had done at Bethel. 20And he slew all the priests of the high places who were there, upon the altars, and burned the bones of men upon them. Then he returned to Jerusalem.
21And the king commanded all the people, "Keep the passover to the LORD your God, as it is written in this book of the covenant." 22For no such passover had been kept since the days of the judges who judged Israel, or during all the days of the kings of Israel or of the kings of Judah; 23but in the eighteenth year of King Josi'ah this passover was kept to the LORD in Jerusalem.
24Moreover Josi'ah put away the mediums and the wizards and the teraphim and the idols and all the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, that he might establish the words of the law which were written in the book that Hilki'ah the priest found in the house of the LORD. 25Before him there was no king like him, who turned to the LORD with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; nor did any like him arise after him.
26Still the LORD did not turn from the fierceness of his great wrath, by which his anger was kindled against Judah, because of all the provocations with which Manas'seh had provoked him. 27And the LORD said, "I will remove Judah also out of my sight, as I have removed Israel, and I will cast off this city which I have chosen, Jerusalem, and the house of which I said, My name shall be there."
28Now the rest of the acts of Josi'ah, and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? 29In his days Pharaoh Neco king of Egypt went up to the king of Assyria to the river Euphra'tes. King Josi'ah went to meet him; and Pharaoh Neco slew him at Megid'do, when he saw him. 30And his servants carried him dead in a chariot from Megid'do, and brought him to Jerusalem, and buried him in his own tomb. And the people of the land took Jeho'ahaz the son of Josi'ah, and anointed him, and made him king in his father's stead.
31Jeho'ahaz was twenty-three years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Hamu'tal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah. 32And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his fathers had done. 33And Pharaoh Neco put him in bonds at Riblah in the land of Hamath, that he might not reign in Jerusalem, and laid upon the land a tribute of a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold. 34And Pharaoh Neco made Eli'akim the son of Josi'ah king in the place of Josi'ah his father, and changed his name to Jehoi'akim. But he took Jeho'ahaz away; and he came to Egypt, and died there.
36Jehoi'akim was twenty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Zebi'dah the daughter of Pedai'ah of Rumah. 37And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his fathers had done.
|<< | 2Kgs:23 | >>| | <urn:uuid:7b2ed90a-4058-4a73-9dbb-79c6688083eb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.katapi.org.uk/katapiNSBunix/Versions/versionsTextByBC.php?B=12&C=23&BoldKFm=12023028.00&BoldKTo=12023030.00&version=RSV | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985598 | 1,795 | 1.875 | 2 |
Tail: Brown hackle fibers
Ribbing: Gold tinsel
Body: Natural rabbit-not plucked *
Hackle: Formed by the long fibers of unplucked rabbit fur as it is wound on. *
* The phrase ‘unplucked rabbit fur’ from the Trout recipe listing refers to not removing guard hairs from the dubbing as it is wound on the fly, but rather leaving them intact to create a ‘buggy’ appearance.
** The Gold Ribbed Hare’s Ear dry fly is on Trout Plate No. 15. | <urn:uuid:4f514a49-8ebe-4717-b576-54c349bd1ee8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hatchesmagazine.com/blogs/Hatches/2011/10/27/ray-bergman-collection-122-gold-ribbed-hare%E2%80%99s-ear/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.902726 | 121 | 2.21875 | 2 |
For as long as I have paid attention to conversations about social media, the same topic seems to come up over and over. There is an artificial line that people like to draw between those who "get it" and those who don't. The ones ingrained in using social media talk of connections and engagement, and can't understand why anyone would fail to see the value in these basic principles. The skeptics, on the other hand, just don't believe in the value of it. After all, there are many other more important pieces to running a business than creating engagement on a Facebook page, right?
Terminology like "traditional media vs new media" and "old school" are masking the real fundamental issues behind this disconnection. There are two simple facts:
- Most social media professionals overestimate what social media can do.
- No one has a single intrinsic way of describing the value/ROI of social media.
Last night, President Obama shared the story of the "Sputnik Moment" in his State Of The Union speech – a point in time where Americans realized the potential threat that the Soviet Union posed because of their superior technical ability showcased in the launching of the Sputnik rocket into space. Social media is sitting on the verge of such a moment right now.
To bridge the social media belief gap, we need an enemy. Not one who will attack us, necessarily, but one who poses a threat. In many ways, Facebook is already that enemy. The data they collect on users rivals the best and most comprehensive company database. On a consumer behaviour level in many ways, they understand more about what people actually do and say than many research firms who might charge hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Facebook has already launched the rocket, and its payload is deep knowledge about everything and everyone. Maybe Facebook could become our Sputnik. It could be the threat on the horizon that inspires real action from an entire population, simply to avoid becoming dependent on one platform that will know everything about everyone.
What Sputnik taught us is that the chance to avoid falling behind can be the greatest motivation to bring disconnected worlds and people together. Utlimately, it could become the reason for any brand to uncover the value in social media as well. | <urn:uuid:1183aa46-62f1-4b8d-8a81-e1368d69466f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rohitbhargava.com/2011/01/social-media-the-sputnik-moment-.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954505 | 458 | 1.921875 | 2 |
Mokena SD159 expanding ‘Rachel’s Challenge’ anti-bullying program
By Susan DeMar Lafferty firstname.lastname@example.org August 31, 2012 4:44PM
Updated: October 3, 2012 6:13AM
Mokena School District 159 will expand an anti-bullying, character education program into its elementary and intermediate schools, and offer a session for parents.
Rachel’s Challenge – a program based on the writings and life of 17-year-old Rachel Scott, who was killed at Columbine High School in 1999 – was introduced in Mokena Junior High School two years ago.
School officials recognized the value of the program early on at the junior high and decided then to expand it to other grades, said Sarah Boldman, social worker at the junior high.
Student assemblies will be held Wednesday at Mokena Elementary School and Mokena Intermediate School, and Thursday at the junior high. A program for parents and community members will be at 7 p.m. Thursday at the junior high.
According to its website, Rachel’s Challenge is a series of “student-empowering programs and strategies that equip students and adults to combat bullying and ally feelings of isolation and despair by creating a culture of kindness and compassion.”
Earlier this year, Heidi Herrmann, mother of a Mokena Intermediate School student who has been bullied, launched a Facebook page titled “We want an anti-bullying program in Mokena School District 159.” She and other parents addressed the school board on the issue in June, saying existing anti-bullying policies were not working.
At that time, Supt. Steve Stein said the Rachel’s Challenge program would be coming to the schools in the fall.
The assemblies are not in response to the parents’ request but were booked prior to that board meeting, Boldman said.
“It is important to note that Rachel’s Challenge is more than just an anti-bullying program. It is about being better people and having strong character. The challenges are good for all kids,” she said.
Also this year, the board made changes to its student handbook to add bullying and cyber-bullying to its list of offenses that could warrant discipline.
“There is still a lot of work to do,” Herrmann said. She is hoping to work with the Parent Advisory Board to update the school district’s website to make it easier for parents and students to report bullying. | <urn:uuid:d9dff6b9-d9d7-46c5-855b-e6638361bd86> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://southtownstar.suntimes.com/neighborhoodstar/frankfort/14832441-521/mokena-sd159-expanding-rachels-challenge-anti-bullying-program.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962996 | 532 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Luke Moran-Rossen believes the Grinch is real.
And why shouldn’t he after the four-year old and his family returned home on Christmas Eve to discover that that their Christmas presents and other valuables had been stolen by a real-life, cave-dwelling creature with a heart "two sizes too small.”
“I was all ready for toys,” said the pint-sized Moran. “But I’ve seen the Grinch on TV and he stole my gifts.”
According to his father Mike Rosson, the hairy green thief entered through an unsecured front door to get inside the Mojave Street residence.
"We had just got back from baking cookies at grandma’s house," he said. "I had left the door unlocked for a visiting relative to enter while we were away."
Upon entering, Rosson's initial thought was that the family dog had gotten into the gifts because she had eaten a box of Christmas chocolates the day before. However, after a quick room-by-room walkthrough, he discovered that other items were missing and his heart sank.
“First I was angry and then I was hurt, because I really worked hard this year to make the first Christmas my son would remember special," said Rosson. "He doesn’t remember anything about last year, but now he is still is talking about the Grinch two weeks later.”
Among the estimated $2,500 worth of items that were taken was an iPad, various pieces of jewelry, and a vintage Oakland Raiders football helmet once owned by a close friend's father who has passed away.
Also stolen was Rosson's heart medication from his kitchen cabinets, leading him to believe the thief may have been stealing to support a drug habit.
Although Rosson said the gifts could be replaced, seeing his son cry on Christmas Eve really got to him.
“It didn’t really hit me, until it hit him (Luke),” he said. “We can get the gifts back, but not the memories of that night."
The family did have insurance on some of the electronics that were taken, but some of the deductibles are as high $200, and like all families, money is tight. Rosson said he and his girlfriend of eight years, Cathleen Moran, will just have to work harder to get the items replaced.
And while little Luke may have been brought to tears, fortunately Santa Claus had not made his rounds at the Rosson's before the Grinch arrived, so there was still one present left — a huge basketball game that sits in the family’s living room.
That among other items donated by friends who scrambled to round up small gifts from the Love's Travel Center at 3 a.m. in the morning, allowed the Rosson's were to provide their son some joy on Christmas Day.
Rosson who grew up in Bakersfield has lived in Tehachapi for 10 years, and said despite what has happened he is not going anywhere.
"It’s not just Tehachapi, but it hits hard because it never used to be this way here," he said. "But unfortunately times have changed. | <urn:uuid:bb2d5dbe-1928-47f1-95eb-85c2b312b2cc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tehachapinews.com/news/local/x1099653062/Grinch-steals-four-year-old-s-Christmas | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988853 | 674 | 1.625 | 2 |
CSNE Outreach Blog: A Promising Practice to Promote STEM to Under-represented Youth
Staff of the NSF Engineering Research Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering (CSNE) have created an outreach blog designed to explain neuroscience and sensorimotor neural engineering to under-represented youth.
The complex field may be hard to understand for young people. Sensorimotor neural engineers study the properties of neural systems (e.g., the brain, spinal cord, nerves, ganglia, and parts of the receptor and effector organs), including sensory systems and motor systems, to identify how engineering techniques can be applied to them.
The outreach blog is a promising practice for increasing the interest in STEM and promoting further study in STEM of groups who are under-represented in these academic and career fields. This vehicle is used to explain advanced engineering concepts using terminology and examples that high school and middle school students can understand and share information about exciting STEM fields. Some examples of blog topics include:
- What Engineers Do When They’re Doing Engineering
- Sensorimotor Demystified
- Nervous Systems
- Biology vs. Technology
Further, the CSNE supplements the outreach blog by offering local events and summer programs for youth, such as the Young Scholars Program, which invites high school students onto the University of Washington campus during the summer to work in research labs.
Last update or review: March 06, 2013 | <urn:uuid:7cd2925c-f8a7-48f9-a395-b5f69d26eadd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.washington.edu/doit/Stem/articles?528 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93168 | 288 | 3.265625 | 3 |
BBS Breed Spotlight: Kuvasz
If you want a dog that will form a fierce bond with you or your family, the Kuvasz is the dog for you. Even to the point of self-sacrifice, this dog loves its family above all else. Read more about this beautiful dog on the BestBullySticks.com Breed Spotlight on the Kuvasz.
History & Background: Throughout history, the Kuvasz (pronounced KOO-vahz) has played a part in both the lives of European kings and shepherds. Though Tibet is claimed as this dog’s original home, the even larger predecessor of the modern Kuvasz is thought to have accompanied Turkish refugees fleeing the Mongols into Hungary. The Turkish word “kawasz” means “armed guard of the nobility” or “protector.” These dogs were the trusted friend of King Matyas I, the ruler of Hungary and many other nobles. Eventually, Kuvaszok became working dogs for shepherds.
By the end of WWII, numbers of Kuvaszok had greatly diminished. During the war German and Soviet soldiers would kill the dogs because they so loyally defended their families. Of the approximately 30 dogs that remained after the war, other breeds were interbred to repopulate the Kuvaszok such as Great Pyrenees. The result is the modern Kuvasz, which is smaller than its ancestors.
Height: 26 to 30 inches
Weight: 70 to 115 pounds
Coat: The Kuvasz sports a thick double coat of medium length that ranges from straight to wavy and is odorless. This dog also has a mane, starting at the neck and covering the chest. On the lower forelegs and hind legs short, smooth hair appears. An abundance of hair is found on the back of the thighs and under the tail, usually 4 to 6 inches long. During warmer months, the Kuvasz sheds most of its dense coat. Read more | <urn:uuid:6d6f03cc-d58e-463a-a43b-be375952f922> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bestbullysticks.com/blog/tag/kuvasz-breed-description/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945103 | 419 | 2.09375 | 2 |
First Look at HadCRUT4
Posted on 18 April 2012 by dana1981
Morice et al. (2012) explains the changes in HadCRUT4, which incorporates land temperatures from CRUTEM4 (as described by Jones et al. 2012) and sea surface temperatures (SSTs) from HadSST3 (as described by Kennedy et al. 2011 Part 1 and Part 2).
CRUTEM4 has been updated to include more data:
"US station data have been replaced with the newly homogenized US Historical Climate Network (USHCN) records [Menne et al., 2009]. Many new data have been added from Russia and countries of the former USSR, greatly increasing the representation of that region in the database. Updated versions of the Canadian data described in [Vincent and Gullett, 1999, Vincent et al., 2002] have been included. Additional data from Greenland, the Faroes and Denmark have been added, obtained from the Danish Meterological Institute [Cappeln et al., 2010, 2011, Vinther et al., 2006]. An additional 107 stations have been included from a Greater Alpine Region (GAR) data set developed by the Austrian Meteorological Service [Auer et al., 2001], with bias adjustments accounting for thermometer exposure applied [Böhm et al., 2010]. In the Arctic, 125 new stations have been added from records described in Bekryaev et al. . These stations are mainly situated in Alaska, Canada and Russia. See Jones et al. for a comprehensive list of updates to included station records."
HadSST3 includes both an increased number of SST measurements, and new adjustments for recently-identified biases. Gavin Schmidt provides a good discussion of some of the issues with historical SST measurements at RealClimate.
Kevin C has produced a great animated GIF comparing the global coverages of HadCRUT3 and HadCRUT4, illustrating that the most notable difference is better coverage in HadCRUT4 (Figure 1).
Figure 1: global geographic coverages of HadCRUT3 and HadCRUT4. Colors represent mean(2006-2010) minus mean(1996-2000), from +2°C (red) to -2°C (blue).
Figure 2 compares HadCRUT4 to the previous version, HadCRUT3. Note that so far HadCRUT4 data are only available through 2010.
Figure 2: HadCRUT4 (blue) vs. HadCRUT3 (red) annual global surface temperatures
The largest change comes during the mid-20th Century, for example due to an adjustment to account for the sources of SST data switching during World War II from European fleets to almost exclusively US fleets (discussed by Schmidt at the link above). These adjustments, which somewhat dampen the mid-century cooling, are quite apparent in Figure 3, which takes the difference between HadCRUT4 and HadCRUT3.
Figure 3: HadCRUT4 minus HadCRUT3 annual global surface temperature data
In HadCRUT4, the hottest years on record are 2010 and 2005, with 1998 right behind in a statistical tie. This brings HadCRUT4 into better agreement with the surface temperature records from NCDC and GISS, which also have 2010 and 2005 as the hottest years on record, whereas HadCRUT3 had 1998 as the hottest.
This is something of a dark day for the many climate "skeptics" who in recent years have exclusively used HadCRUT3 to argue the myth that global warming has stopped, thanks to its cool bias. In fact, they were already attacking CRUTEM4 a month ago.
There is no longer any excuse for using HadCRUT3, and HadCRUT4 is in better agreement with the two other major surface temperature data sets. In fact, the HadCRUT4 linear trend in recent years now falls between the other two, a bit higher than NCDC but a bit lower than GISS. For example, the 15-year trends (1996 through 2010, which can be found with the SkS temperature trend calculator) are:
0.157 +/- 0.146°C/decade (GISS)
0.136 +/- 0.145°C/decade (HadCRUT4)
0.121 +/- 0.140°C/decade (NCDC)
0.098 +/- 0.156°C/decade (HadCRUT3)
So we can probably expect to see the 'skeptics' using NCDC surface temperature data from now on. | <urn:uuid:29040e95-4bf0-4162-8267-f88fcb87bc90> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://skepticalscience.com/first-look-at-hadcrut4.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926721 | 942 | 3.046875 | 3 |
Brazilian Senate approves law restricting advertising to children
On 9 July, the Standing Committee on Consumer Protection of the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies approved a draft bill banning the marketing of any products or services to children under the age of twelve and restricting marketing to children aged twelve to eighteen. The draft bill states that "[any form of advertising] of any product or service must always be directed at the adult public."
Marketing to children under the age of 12: Under the draft proposal, the following marketing techniques among others would be banned which are deemed "to appeal to children under the age of twelve":
- "Use of certain language or music;
- Use of animated characters, children, presenters or celebrities;
- Special effects and excessive use of colour;
- Prize draws, premiums and give-aways."
Under the current proposal, the rules would apply to broadcast and print media, as well as the Internet and "packaging, promotions and merchandising at the point of sale". TV advertising would be "banned fifteen minutes before and after children's TV shows and shows which have a majority of children viewers."
In addition, children under twelve would be banned from participating or being depicted in any type of commercial marketing communications "except government campaigns on healthy nutrition, security, education, health, among others."
Marketing to children aged 12-18: With regard to marketing to children aged between twelve and eighteen, the draft bill states that "any advertising or marketing communication directed the adolescent, must, among others:
- "Take special care of the psychological characteristics of the adolescent;
- Respect the naivety, inexperience and the feeling of loyalty to other adolescents;
- Not induce the feeling of inferiority in the adolescent, in case he or she does not buy certain products;
- Not capitalise on belief, fear and superstition;
- Not induce any form of violence;
- Not entice to any form of degradation of the environment;
- Constitute a true depiction of the product or service offered, clarifying on its characteristics and functioning."
In addition, the draft proposal "forbids any 'merchandising' during programmes of entertainment directed at adolescents and the use of the words 'somente' and 'apenas' (meaning 'only' / 'just') next to the prices of products and services."
Source: Advertising Education Forum
WFA Comment: The draft bill now requires discussion within the Chamber of Deputies, specifically within the Commission of Constitution and Justice. If approved, it will be submitted to the Senate, where it can be amended further and voted upon again. The Brazilian Advertisers Association (ABA) will be coordinating with media and agency interests in the next two weeks in order to formulate a common industry strategy. WFA will assist ABA in the formulation of relevant arguments. | <urn:uuid:b292e7d3-d5a0-4984-ab65-b03f27c97240> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fic.wfanet.org/news/onenews.php?Lib_ID=2133 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935043 | 583 | 2.28125 | 2 |
Conflict In Libya
In Libyan Town Of Zawiya, Divisions Run Deep
As fighting rages around the Libyan oil port of Brega, it's becoming increasingly clear that a military stalemate has developed between the eastern and western parts of the country. Some observers are beginning to predict that Libya could eventually be partitioned.
But in the western city of Zawiya, those aren't the only ruptures the country is facing as Moammar Gadhafi clings to power.
'Everything Is OK'
During the first weeks of the uprising, Zawiya was one of the most contested cities. Now, the rebellion here has been crushed, and green pro-Gadhafi banners are everywhere. But while there is a surface calm, the divisions here run deep and strong, a sign of what is happening in the rest of Libya.
At the hospital in Zawiya, the government presents journalists with the administrator, Dr. Salah Ibrahim. "Everything is OK," he says.
Ibrahim later acknowledges that he's been in his post for only one month and doesn't know how many people were killed during the rebellion here; nor can he say what happened to the wounded rebels.
The former director of the hospital, Dr. Ramadan Salem, was demoted. He simply refuses to answer reporters' questions about what happened to the rebels in Zawiya. Although he was the hospital's director during the fighting, he says he also has no idea what took place during that period.
"I was the manager," he says. "I don't deal with the patients." When asked whether the hospital had wounded children, he says, "I don't know about these things."
Later, a doctor whispers what has really happened here, as a staged pro-Gadhafi rally goes on outside his window.
Most of the hospital staff was replaced after Gadhafi's loyalists took control of Zawiya, he says. Five of his colleagues are still in prison. Everyone is acting, he says — it's all a pretense.
'I Will Die For Him'
As Gadhafi reasserts control, anger has deepened and positions have become entrenched — which bodes ill for the future.
There are true Gadhafi loyalists, who believe he is good for the country and that the rebels are evil saboteurs. Sumaya, a 30-year-old doctor, says she came back from abroad as soon as the bombing campaign began.
"I came from France to support [Gadhafi]," she says. "I will die for him. I swear to God I will die for him."
Sumaya says she was able to study outside Libya because of the scholarship she received from the government.
"We had a good education from him," she says. "Before Gadhafi, huts — we [were] living in huts. And the foreigner, they have a villa and they have a flat, and eating our food, taking our petrol."
Jason Pack, who researches Libya at Oxford University, says he thinks 30 percent of western Libya will always be pro-Gadhafi, "either for tribal reasons or because they've benefited from the current system economically."
"They have state jobs, they fear change, they were part of the revolutionary committee movement," he says.
That leaves the rest of the population, who are either against Gadhafi or conflicted.
Back in Zawiya, at the central square, the graves of rebels who were buried in the park have been dug up and the bodies taken away.
There are other things missing, too. The mosque had been used by the rebels as a makeshift hospital during the fighting. The government says it was desecrated.
The land where the mosque once stood is now an empty lot, razed to the ground as the Gadhafi government tries to erase Libya's recent history, stone by stone. The scars, though, are indelible. Copyright 2011 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/. | <urn:uuid:77b6c69f-3172-45c2-82ca-d1b62b485cf7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.weku.fm/post/libyan-town-zawiya-divisions-run-deep | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986586 | 843 | 1.984375 | 2 |
State Sen. Con Bunde wants to place a new tax on rural Alaskans, saying politically unorganized parts of the state need to start paying their fair share of education costs.
Rural residents of Alaska, unlike those living in incorporated boroughs or municipalities, don't pay property taxes or other taxes that defray the costs of running state schools. Bunde, R-Anchorage, said a change was needed, even if the perception is that he is attacking rural Alaska.
"Free lunches die hard," Bunde said.
The tax would be on residents living in the 19 politically unorganized regional education assessment areas of the state. Those areas, with mostly Alaska Native populations, are divided using boundaries or sub-boundaries of the regional corporations formed by the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act.
The tax would be calculated to average what the rest of the state's residents pay for education, Bunde said.
The Department of Revenue puts that at $467.99 per adult. With nearly 20,000 people eligible for the tax, the state would collect about $9.2 million next year, according to the Revenue Department's analysis.
Exempt from the tax would be people older than 65, younger than 21, the poor and disabled veterans.
Bunde's bill is scheduled for a floor vote in the Senate on Friday. Opposing it will be at least one rural legislator.
"I feel it's unfairly targeting rural Alaska," said Sen. Donny Olson, D-Nome.
Olson said Bunde's bill may be considered special or local legislation, in which case it would be unconstitutional.
Olson said he has not heard the possibility of a legal challenge if the bill is passed because he is hoping that cooler heads prevail in the Legislature. He said he planned to propose amendments to the bill on the Senate floor Thursday.
"I don't have any doubts that this will pass the Senate," Olson said. "The question is, will it be a kinder, gentler bill?"
The Senate is controlled by a 12-8 Republican majority.
The money collected by the proposed tax would go to the state. The state Legislature would not be able to dedicate those funds, meaning the money collected from one village wouldn't necessarily go back to that village's school.
The intent is to use the money for educational costs, Bunde said.
The bill is Senate Bill 112.
Juneau Empire ©2013. All Rights Reserved. | <urn:uuid:5ad531ad-36f7-473a-afb4-be316f14221c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://juneauempire.com/stories/030206/sta_20060302019.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96661 | 507 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Victorian Art Glass Developed Many New Techniques
By Anne Gilbert
Late 19th century American art glass borrowed some of its motifs from nature;
others, such as the filigree pieces, adapted Venetian styles. It was an exciting
time in glassmaking history that resulted in glass such as the world had never
seen before. The public couldn't get enough as hundreds of pieces from vases to
miniature lamps came to the market. The names were as novel and sometimes as
exotic as the color combination and techniques. There was "Crown Milano," made
by the Mt. Washington Glass Company. Though there was nothing new about
enameling and painting on opal glass, when it was named "Crown Milano, it became
instantly popular. When "Burmese" glass was introduced by the company, the
salmon pink and translucent yellow colors evoked visions of a Burma sunset.
Often, designs such as a fish swimming in a net of gold or a fern were used.
These days, pieces can sell at auction for from $2,000 to around $6,000.
other popular Mt. Washington original techniques were shaded wares. "Peach Blow"
and "Amberina" are the best known. Strangely, they weren't popular in their day,
but they have become appreciated by today's' collectors. Amberina shaded amber
to rust. Considered choice are peach blow pears and peach in the shape of the
In 1884, a patent for Vasa Murrhina Art glass was registered by John
Charles De Voy in Sandwich, Massachu-setts. It is one of the most colorful
examples of art glass and was named for "Vasa Murrhina," originally supposed to
have been made by the Boston Sandwich glass Company. It was either transparent
or cased with imbedded pieces of colored glass and mica flakes. These days, it
is modestly priced from around $180 to $600.
"Onyx" glass was made beginning
in 1889, adding a touch of elegance to the art glass market. Slightly
opalescent, it was decorated with pattern molded floral and leaf motifs that
were painted with a platinum luster. Prices range from around $300 to $1,600.
Imitating stone and marble in glass goes back to antiquity. However, it was
once again made by the Challinor, Taylor & Company of Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania. "Moss Agate" stone glass was originated by John Northwood and made
by Stevens and Williams.
Historical events often led to creating a new type
of Art Glass. Such was the case when late 19th century archeological digs at
Troy, Mycenae, made discoveries of ancient glass and pottery. It was known as
"Sicilian Ware" when Mt. Washington Glass Company marketed it as "lava glass." A
lava tumbler sold at the summer James Julia Auction for well over estimate for
CLUES: While Victorian Art Glass went out of fashion with collectors
from the early 20th century to around 1960, it made a big comeback in the 1970s.
Unfortunately, many types were reproduced. When buying either, do your research
or get help from a knowledgeable dealer.
A Mt. Washington Burmese decorated sugar bowl. (Photo, courtesy James Julia
An art glass Lava tumbler. | <urn:uuid:416b7114-728b-4da2-9b46-ed46114173e6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.go-star.com/antiquing/ant_detective1007.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970572 | 724 | 2.953125 | 3 |
My father lives by himself almost a thousand miles from my home.
What can I do from such a distance to help him?
Caregiving is often a long-term task. What begins with an occasional phone call to share family news can become daily contact to manage the demands, small and large, of another person's life. The monthly trip to check on Mom becomes the major project transitioning her to an assisted living or managed care facility close to your home.
Although mid-life, working women with their own major family responsibilities remain our primary caregivers, more and more men are becoming caregivers. However, anyone anywhere can give care—regardless of gender, income, age, social status, and employment. No matter how great the distance, being helpful is what counts.
Here are some tips from an NIA booklet called So Far Away: Twenty Questions for Long-Distance Caregivers:
- Seek out help from people in the community: the next-door neighbor, an old friend, the doctor. Call them. Tell them what is going on. Make sure they know how to reach you.
- If there is already an on-site caregiver, identify options to help them if a crisis occurs. Making prior arrangements can make things easier when a crisis occurs.
- Get a directory of senior resources and services from the local library or senior center, and check for updates on these resources. This helps everyone know what's out there and begin "plugging into networks."
- Pull together a list of the person's prescriptions and over-the-counter medicines, including doses and schedules. This is essential for emergencies. Update the list regularly.
- Discuss an advance directive that states your parents' health-care treatment preferences. If he or she does not have one, talk about setting it up. If there is, make sure you have a copy and know where the original is kept. You might want to make sure the person's doctor has a copy for the medical record. | <urn:uuid:ea64daba-b016-49ee-b61e-a9a8370b981c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/magazine/issues/summer09/articles/summer09pg7.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955403 | 404 | 2.1875 | 2 |
|Gyms and health clubs that are medium to large sized facilities are generally geared toward the no-frills, self-motivated, meat and potato type of fitness enthusiast. These types of facilities often offer professional instruction also known as personal training. If your primary focus is to get busy, sculpt your body without the frills and/or you are possibly on a tight budget, a gym may be your best choice. Finding the right facility will determine your success or failure in obtaining your intended fitness goals. Now that you have narrowed it down to joining a gym based on your needs, it’s time to choose the right gym for you.
- Location – The gym’s location, including the distance traveled to get there can either make it a pleasant or unpleasant workout session. Once you have somewhat decided on a facility, you should make plans to visit the gym during the times you would be working out. Check to see if there is enough equipment that you would need for your workout so you don’t have to wait around to use a machine. This can add time to your workout and be an inconvenience that will lead to frustration.
- Price – The cost of membership is also a main concern. Compare and equate price with the amount of equipment in each gym.
- Gyms that sell more than three month terms without a State Bond put you at risk. This three month term protects the consumer if the gym goes out of business. It is mandatory that the State Bond Number be in the upper right hand corner of the contract. If the number is not visible and the contract is signed regardless, you put yourself at risk of monetary loss.
- Cleanliness – Is the gym clean? The gym should always look and smell clean. Check shower and locker areas. These areas should be free of debris on the floor to avoid any slipping or tripping incidents. The most important reason to avoid unsanitary gyms is because of diseases. There are many viral causing agents and bacteria that can be found on unkempt barbells, benches or any other equipment. It is very distasteful to see sweat puddles left around workout areas or to even smell the stench of body odor. For obvious reasons, it is to one’s best interest to avoid working out in that type of environment. Always make sure there is anti-bacterial soap, towels and spray bottles in cardio areas.
- Equipment – Evaluating the type of equipment at a gym is like appreciating all of the qualities that are desired in a companion. Whether you prefer a gym that has more free weights or more machines will depend on your training goals. A great way to begin is to actually work out at the potential gym of your choice. This will allow you to determine how well the equipment fits into your overall development plan. By doing so, it will help you determine:
- Is there enough variety of equipment for differing angles?
- Is the equipment sturdy and well maintained?
- Are there enough pieces of the popular equipment that you will need to get through your workout (bench press, cable pulleys, etc.)?
- Music – The background music (along with the general atmosphere) may also play an important role in your workout. Motivating music like rock or upbeat hits may help stimulate you to work out harder. For those of you who find this distracting, don’t rule out headsets.
You can equate your decision-making as being similar to going on a date and determining if that person might become a future companion of your choice. You will probably not make that determination before several dates and/or conversations. The same should be done when choosing a gym.
While touring the gym or completing your first workout, don’t hesitate to ask members about maintenance of equipment, i.e. if something breaks, how soon does it get repaired? When you walk into a gym, you should be able to “feel” the type of members. Are the members respectful to one another by not making excessive noise, stripping machines of weights and making sure weights are put away after use?
Different gym brands may offer different philosophies and training environments, but remember that there are certain fundamentals that have to be right if a gym is really going to deliver. The most important is the staff. A fitness facility is only as good as its staff. All too often, gym memberships are sold on promises of “luxury facilities” and high-tech equipment. The reality is that the staff that runs the gym will really determine how rewarding and productive your membership will be. You can ask yourself “Does the staff, commencing from the front-desk and including the locker-room attendants, make me feel welcome and comfortable?” You should be made comfortable and welcome from the minute you walk through the door. You should be greeted by friendly smiles. The attitude and demeanor of the staff can tell you a lot about the gym. Happy, motivated and enthusiastic staff can automatically motivate you for your workout. Unhappy and non-motivated staff is likely to ignore you, therefore making for a less motivating workout.
Just a few more factors to consider:
- Lighting – Is there ample lighting in the parking lot at night?
- Hours – Are the hours of operation right for your lifestyle?
- Prices – Are the prices reasonable? They should be reasonable to comparable clubs. If one is too high, you need to ask why and is it worth the extra money.
- Support – What about support after I join? Don’t be shy about asking for help or guidance. You have the option of emailing the owner or considering hiring a personal trainer.
- Membership freezes – Does the gym offer a freeze on memberships?
As you search for a new gym or health club that will help you reach your intended goals, make sure you consider everything discussed above as well as defining areas that are important to you. Remember, choosing a gym is an important investment and the choice you make can be a long-lasting relationship that can lead to unending inspiration and success or on the other hand, turmoil and eventual failure.
We at Strong & ShapelyGym thank you very much for taking the time to evaluate our gym. Feel free to email the owner, Bob at firstname.lastname@example.org for any other questions.
At Strong & Shapely, you get the best for less. After a visit to our gym, you will know what we are talking about. Strong & Shapely is the only gym that can say that. Since the opening of our gym in 1984, we have not had a salesperson - the gym speaks for itself. | <urn:uuid:f364ffa0-681c-4905-bb59-96e9885bcd6d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://strong-and-shapely.com/things.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957337 | 1,366 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Book: Pax Indica
Author: Shashi Tharoor
Pax Romana or “the Roman Peace” described the period during which Rome became a dominant power and the focal point of culture, trade and influence in Europe. Similar terms have been used for other empires, like Pax Britannica for the century leading up to the First World War. In each case, the power of the empire — military, economic, and cultural, combined with internal political stability — ensured peace. It was an age of glory for the states that were the power centres, although there were mixed results for the regions that came in the path of the Imperial juggernaut.
Pax Indica, or the Indian peace, is Shashi Tharoor’s look at modern India. Tharoor’s basic hypothesis is that India can use a combination of her size, trade prowess, soft power and growing influence in the world to ensure an age of domestic transformation. As far as Tharoor is concerned, “pax Indica” is a foreign policy that allows India to play a role in developing a contemporary “peace system” that will help “promote and maintain a period or co-operative co-existence”.
Tharoor is a fan of Indian soft power, which according to him arises despite the state — from trade ties and cultural exchanges — but the state can exploit it for progress and peace. He stresses the need to move from being ajatshatru (without enemy) to sangamitra (friend to all) and that is the guiding philosophy of Pax Indica. It may seem optimistic, simplistic and even naïve, but there is a grain of truth and practicality in it. Apart from Pakistan, India has decent relations with most of the world. It cannot afford to militarily engage to establish influence; nor does she have the kind of wealth to sign blank cheques for the rest of the world — so all that remains to be used is soft power. Tharoor advocates that India use it to the hilt.
Trade, government credits and private sector involvement, says Tharoor, makes India a very influential player on the world stage. His emphasis upon India’s need to “cultivate good relations with countries that can assist us” and become “partners in our fundamental objective of keeping our people safe, secure and free” goes some distance in explaining the seeming contradictions in India’s foreign policy. Consequently, the friendship with Iran (“Iran’s natural resources, particularly oil and natural gas, have been increasingly important to India for decades”) and the desire to strengthen ties with the West, the growing relationship with Israel (“India is now Israel’s largest market for defence products and services”) and India’s continued support for the Palestinian cause are not as contradictory as they initially seem.
Tharoor’s admiration for Jawaharlal Nehru results in a rose-tinted view of India’s early foreign policy. (For example, the entire 1962 debacle, during which China wrested “23,200 square kilometres of Indian territory”, is dealt with in a single paragraph.) His defence of non-alignment is robust and Tharoor writes that non-alignment as Indian foreign policy in the first 40 years after Independence gave India an advantage in the last two decades because that policy “enabled us to work with all the major powers without exception — and to get help (if I may be allowed to mangle Marx) from each according to their capacity, to us according to our need.”
Post-1991, Tharoor says the postcolonial chip has fallen off India’s shoulder and the country can look at the world from a position of authority. At a time when it is acceptable, indeed expected, to berate the problems of non-alignment, Tharoor offers a perspective on why the path of foreign policy independence in the years following 1947 was the correct path for India to follow.
One chapter in Pax Indica is devoted to Pakistan, a state whose own internal divisions have created a situation in which the rulers of Pakistan “do not feel able to challenge militant groups and their leaders because they have become too popular with a radicalised and pro-Islamist populace”. Tharoor says it would be unrealistic to expect Pakistan to change fundamentally — there are too many parties jostling for power in Pakistan to allow this. In his opinion, India should “seize on whatever straws in the wind float its way from Pakistan to explore possibility of peace”. He believes stronger economic ties could enable peace, while more contentious issues like Kashmir should be discussed separately.
It is possibly the only controversial (and also, rather simplistic) statement in the entire book.
In the chapter on China, Tharoor says the normally complacent elephant (India) is naturally wary of the “hissing dragon” (China). He lists all the advantages that China has — “India’s sclerotic bureaucracy versus China’s efficient one, India’s tangles of red tape versus China’s unfurled red carpet to foreign investors, India’s contentious and fractious party politics versus China’s smoothly functioning top-down communist hierarchy” — but then says, “India has become an outstanding example of the management of diversity through pluralistic democracy”. Yet he maintains, “India is a fractious democracy, China is not. But as an Indian, I do not wish to pretend we can compete in the global growth stakes with China.”
Pax Indica is a great introduction for those interested in reading about India’s foreign policy and its evolution since independence. Tharoor has a way with words, and the book is not academic, but a perspective from a ringside observer of changing world dynamics. It may be wise to discount some of Tharoor’s optimism although, given the opinions about India are usually, all doom and gloom, Pax Indica is a refreshing and educated counterpoint. | <urn:uuid:9d23e3b3-dde8-4bf1-97d1-5b5742b17bdf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dnaindia.com/lifestyle/1735605/review-book-review-pax-indica | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948053 | 1,272 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Minnesota lawmaker wants smoking banned in theater productionsA bill by Sen. Barb Goodwin, DFL-Centerville, would bar actors from puffing away as part of plays.
By: News Tribune staff and news service reports, Duluth News Tribune
The curtain could soon fall on smoking as part of theatrical productions in Minnesota, under legislation introduced Thursday.
The bill by Democratic Sen. Barb Goodwin would bar actors from puffing away as part of plays.
The theatrical loophole is one of the rare exceptions to Minnesota’s ban on indoor smoking in public places. Since the ban took effect in 2007, people aren’t permitted to smoke in bars, restaurants, arenas, nursing homes, the common space of apartment buildings, meeting rooms and other indoor public places.
State law permits smoking in performances as long as patrons are given notice in advance and it is noted in performance programs.
Goodwin, of Columbia Heights, said the bill was inspired by a constituent with an allergic reaction to smoking who has worked on theatrical productions and often attends them. But the senator said it goes beyond ambiance issues.
“If they can’t do it in any other places, why should they be able to do it there?” Goodwin said. “The influence on young people or others in the audience of them smoking is not a good influence you want, anyway. It glamorizes smoking, especially when it’s on stage like that.”
Duluth’s Renegade Theater Company produced a few shows this past season that included characters smoking cigarettes on stage. “A Steady Rain,” which played in April, is the story of two veterans of a Chicago police department. “Summer and Smoke” and “The Eccentricities of a Nightingale,” both by Tennessee Williams, were performed in repertory this past summer.
If the bill passes, Renegade’s executive director Andy Bennett said the company will be OK.
“It would hamper things, but it’s not like they’re telling us we can’t use stage lights,” he said. “When we use it, it’s for a reason and not because it’s ‘cool.’ The main reason is atmosphere. The smell and the haze add to the feel of the show. In those instances, we feel it is a valuable part of the show. There are shows like ‘Talk Radio’ where the smoking is almost another character in the show. There are some roles where smoking feels like an extension of the character.”
The theater company has worked around smoking in the past. In 2008, Renegade produced “The Pillowman” and substituted heavy smoking with Twizzlers licorice and coffee drinking.
If there is going to be smoking onstage, they let audiences know.
“We’re diligent about putting up signs and letting the consumer make the decision and deciding whether it’s worth being in the audience,” Bennett said.
In situations where characters are smoking, Bennett said they use cigarettes, herbal cigarettes or e-cigarettes, which have water vapor as smoke. So far: no complaints.
The Duluth Playhouse stopped using nicotine cigarettes in shows around the time the original ban went into effect, executive director Christine Seitz said. They’ve sometimes cut smoking if it wasn’t crucial to the character or play. They’ve also used e-cigarettes.
“Long ago we stopped using nicotine cigarettes out of respect for our audiences and our actors,” she said.
Philip Bither, senior curator of performing arts at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, said he views a potential ban as unnecessary and unfortunate. The Walker occasionally features plays with smoking, and Bither said he doesn’t think it would be the same with fake cigarettes or other substitutes.
“The sense of authenticity and realism is often important in the theater,” Bither said. “In certain productions it would be lost.”
He said one of the most memorable shows the Walker presented was a solo performance of Roger Guenveur Smith doing “A Huey P. Newton Story”; in one scene, smoke from his cigarette swirled around him onstage.
“That visual effect added to the metaphor of this complex character,” Bither said. Newton co-founded the militant Black Panthers civil rights group in the 1960s.
The proposal against smoking in plays would fully seal off what had been a loophole exploited after Minnesota’s bar and restaurant smoking ban was enacted.
Some bars started holding theater nights where customers cast themselves as actors so they could smoke. That practice stopped after legal setbacks.
In 2009, the state Court of Appeals upheld a fine against the owner of a Babbitt bar. Tank’s Bar owner Thomas Marinaro was challenging his petty misdemeanor citation for violating the state smoking ban.
Marinaro had posted a sign on his door for an improvisational performance of “Gun SMOKE Monologues” that was being held every day from 3 p.m. until closing time. Smoking customers wore badges identifying themselves as “actors.” Appeals judges agreed with a lower court that the theatrical production was a sham and not exempt under the law.
Want to comment about a topic or story? Send a letter to the editor. Letters are limited to 300 words, must be the original work of the author and must be exclusive to the News Tribune. Letters are edited for style, space, accuracy and civility. Elections-related letters in support of or in opposition to specific candidates are limited to 200 words. Letter writers are limited to one published submission every 30 days. With rare exceptions, the News Tribune does not publish poetry; letters that are anonymous, libelous or attack other writers; consumer-complaint letters; thank-you letters; or letters generated by political or special-interest campaigns. Include a full name, address and daytime phone number. Only names and hometowns will be published. | <urn:uuid:6e5f1376-5e49-4bd1-a23f-867dd20aa37f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/256016/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959163 | 1,264 | 1.515625 | 2 |
The patients was an 73 year old man who had a progressive memory loss
without other illness, and who had worsened over a the 3 years prior to
imaging. A functional MR technique was used in which a bolus of gadoteridol contrast agent was injected rapidly during the collection of image data, resulting in contrast-induced signal loss in proportion to cerebral blood volume. The resulting maps are a reflection of cerebral function because blood volume is coupled to
flow. Relatively high function in the cortical ribbon can be clearly seen, here as white or high signal, because the data represent integrated signal loss.
The following is a published abstract on the method.
Perfusion SPECT and functional MRI in Alzheimer's disease
K.A.Johnson, P.F.Renshaw, J.A.Becker, A. Satlin, C.D.English, B.L.Holman
Brigham and Women's Hospital, McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA.
Functional MRI is potentially useful for the evaluation of brain function in Alzheimer's disease (AD). We compared fMRI and perfusion SPECT in 16 probable AD patients (NIH criteria), and 10 normal age-matched controls. The MR system (GE Signa 1.5T) was equipped with an Advanced NMR Systems Inc. echo planar coil. We used an axial spin echo technique, and injected gadoteridol (Bracco Inc) as a bolus over 6 sec at 20 sec into the scanning sequence. Calculation of CBV maps was performed by the method of Belliveau et al. SPECT was obtained with a digital annular system (DSI Inc) 20 minutes after a 20 mCi injection of Tc99m HM
-PAO. Each SPECT dataset was superposed (registered) to its corresponding MR image dataset, using a computerized iterative surface fitting algorithm. A polar grid system was used to divide a mid-axial fMRI or SPECT slice into 120 regions. The correlation of mean regional activity (counts/pixel) on SPECT and mean signal intensity on fMRI, assessed with Pearson's product moment correlation coefficient, was 0.78 +/- 0.10 across 26 subjects. Regions which included large vascular structures were least correlated. We conclude that dynamic susceptibility contrast fMRI is highly correlated with SPECT perfusion in elderly subjects and may prove useful in the clinical assessment of dementia. | <urn:uuid:098fd132-0a45-4a55-b3ac-7dc43fe2a95c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.med.harvard.edu/aanlib/cases/case24/case.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928863 | 501 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Todd is correct; You can make a decent puzzle with just 75K, and many lists extend into the 100's of K. (And I'm convinced that if you have the Cruciverb wordlist, then you probably have access to 99% of the entries that you'll ever need which are shorter than 7-letters ... the longer, multi-word entries are the ones that you need to go out and locate from whatever source you can). A more important issue is how well ranked one's wordlist is, and a beginner can rerank enough words in his wordlist to produce publishable puzzles. If you have the Professional version of Crossword Compiler, for instance, you can adjust the ranks of words that show up in the fill menus ... and that helps immensely. Something to think about.
I have dozens of wordlists which function in different ways. For instance, if you were going to make a puzzle in which none of the entries contain the letter E, then you would go to the Word List Manager (in CC) and figure out a way to produce such a wordlist. (How else would one make such a puzzle?) I also periodically make wordlists which contain entries of all the same rank or the same word length ... just so I can make visual inspections and adjust them accordingly. (Think about it: words only compete with other words which are the same length). One could also make mini-wordlists that are all Roman numerals -- things like that -- so that their ranks could be adjusted quickly before adding them back to the main list.
One other thing I recommend: have a separate wordlist which contains theme-specific entries, and use that wordlist to periodically purge such entries from your main wordlist. Whenever you download an upgraded version of the Cruciverb wordlist, you tend to pick up more theme-specific words, so identify these and add them to your purge list. | <urn:uuid:dbfc3c4d-33d5-47f9-b98c-7daa7c7f824a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cruciverb.com/index.php?topic=1404.0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95954 | 388 | 1.539063 | 2 |
- About Us
- Educator Tools
- Partners in Health
Kids' Recipe Contest-Closed Notice
“Stirring Up Health™”
National Middle School Recipe Contest
The contest runs from September through March each year. The entry deadline for this year was March 2, 2012. Check back in the next month for the announcement of contest winners!
Thanks to all the young chefs who entered the contest!
- A panel of judges will select recipe finalists.
All recipes submitted will be judged on the following:
- Recipe: Originality and creativity
- Essay: Quality and how completely essay questions are answered
- Winners will be notified of the judges’ decisions by the end of March, 2012.
We appreciate your special efforts!
If you missed the contest, don't miss the classroom ideas. Use them for experiential learning throughout the year!
For additional information contact;
Vickie L. James, RD, LD, Healthy Kids Challenge Director
Toll free phone: 1-888-259-6287 | <urn:uuid:b91eaf98-fa93-4797-bd97-571e9f78c639> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.healthykidschallenge.com/content/kids-recipe-contest | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917885 | 218 | 1.578125 | 2 |
You measure because you want to make better-informed decisions. But even simple, harmless-looking measures can be dangerous. For example, they can give you a nice, clear picture of an illusion. Do you want to base your decisions on illusions? Technical Editor Brian Lawrence advises that, before you dive into measuring anything, ask yourself, "Will measuring do more harm than good?"
In his article this issue, Rex Black says that if you, like Lord Kelvin of long ago, want knowledge beyond "a meager and unsatisfactory kind" you can decide to measure things. Maybe you've already done so. If you have, did it work out as you intended? I don't think we have much of a winning record for measurement in pretty much all of the software industry over all of its history. I believe we can do better, and I worry that what we've done so far is positively dangerous. Measurement has a way of creating self-fulfilling prophecies. | <urn:uuid:dc5fb3aa-5f4c-4c07-9dcb-1df576f4aa50> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://manage.techwell.com/articles/magdepartment/measuring?quicktabs_1=3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00051-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96918 | 197 | 1.945313 | 2 |
By Marissa Lucero
On December 20, 1939, Radio Australia, which is still a major international broadcasting power today, began broadcasting overseas using short waves. This is important because it broadened Radio Australia’s communication to continents such as Asia. In that time period in history, radio was the means of mass communication, as televisions were not typical in homes until years later. The radio station also is translated into eight different languages, making the information readily available to many different countries listeners. | <urn:uuid:7caa8bc4-0511-4a86-a576-2e5ff52876f8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ucdenver.edu/academics/colleges/CLAS/Departments/communication/Research/undergraduateresearch/Pages/12.20.2011.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971041 | 100 | 3.515625 | 4 |
Pay Hikes to be highest in India in 2007
A study by ECA International says that India is going to see the highest pay hikes in the world this year.
This is what the report says:
The highest salary increases for 2007 are anticipated to be in India, Indonesia and Russia, with companies in all three locations forecasting median increases above 10%. At the other end of the scale, salary increases are forecast to be lowest in Switzerland, Japan and Germany. However, in order to see what is really happening in global salary trends, ‘real wage’ increases –the projected salary increase above inflation – need to be considered.
While Indonesia and Russia are expected to see high pay hikes, it is India which emerge the winner. The report adds:
The highest real wage increases are still expected to occur in India and Indonesia.
The fact that salaries are increasing is something that we in India can see everywhere around us. At one time it was only those who were pouring out from IIT and IIM’s who were getting high salaries but now if you are good, companies are willing to pay. Why, even the traditional textile companies who used to pay their management trainees barely Rs 6000-7000/- as starting salaries now have increased salaries by 25-45%. There is a company which has increased salaries by more than 100% over the last two years. Designers who were not paid well just a few years ago now can pick up a cool Rs 40,000/- per month as a starting salary if they are from a top institute! Why, shop girls in malls are earning Rs 6000/- a month and they are have barely passed their 12th grade. At one time they could not hope to earn more than Rs 3000/- for 9 hours of work.
While starting salaries are going through the roof, so are salaries of top management personnel. There is a shortage of CEO’s and business heads in India as not only are many multi-national companies setting up shop here, there is a plethora of start-ups. Businesses are also expanding into diversified fields. And in those industries where there is a shortage of talent and experienced personnel like in software and retail, salaries are going through the roof!
At one time in India if one has to earn a lot of money the only way was to start a business or if one did not have the mentality to start a business – one could become a doctor and aim for a flourishing practice. But now many companies are giving senior executives the lifestyle they crave for – apartments in posh localities, soft loans to buy homes, health care, club memberships and ofcourse a lot of cash. And its not just IT companies.
Sure, prices are going up too, but as the ECA reports says, real wages are keeping up, inspite of inflation. Here are some ECA figures sourced from a Times of India report:
Country/ Real wage increase in %
United States: 1.2
Wages are still low in India
Ofcourse wages in India are still very low as compared to those in say the United States. A Rs 10,000/- a month for a graduate management trainee may seem peanuts by American standards. It is only $228 after all…but it is still considered a decent salary by many youngsters here as a starting salary. Another advantage that Americans have is that food is a small percentage of their salaries. In India if the bread earner of a family of four is earning Rs 10,000 monthly, most of his salary will go in food and housing and there will be little disposable income.
The wages are actually a levelling off
So these salary hikes that ECA has forcasted are actually just the beginning of a levelling with the rest of the world. Salaries here are low as compared to equivalent salaries even in China. People who work 8-10 hours a day in India at skilled jobs should get enough money to not only feed their families but buy a house and a vehicle. And have some left over. An ideal situation, but we are nearer that dream with each passing year.
Related Reading: India to become a top economic power by 2050
Globalisation is good for the whole world
Plenty of jobs for animators in India
Real Estate in India is booming
Britain may not welcome Indians, but India will
India is a economic miracle
India is short of qualified people
Not everyone in India is getting these high salaries
The ever increasing number of Indian Forbes billionnaires
The US produces less engineers than India
People today think differently of the world
Britain has underestimated India’s growth potential | <urn:uuid:daa83eae-242d-4d22-9c0b-ccf85379f597> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nitawriter.wordpress.com/2007/02/07/pay-hikes-highest-in-india/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9721 | 946 | 1.664063 | 2 |
I am fascinated by how our environment affects our mental and physical and health, so I love decorating tips based on feng shui, the ancient Chinese art of arranging things. To learn how we can tweak our homes to maximize our health, I turned to feng shui expert Jayme Barrett, author of the book Feng Shui Your Life. Keep clicking for her five key principles.
“The center of your house is the 'health center' according to feng shui," says Barrett, who recommends adding yellow and green to the area. “Yellow represents the sun and green symbolizes nature, and they’ll energize the health center.” She’s not suggesting you redecorate, just incorporate yellow and green accents like flowers, vases, pillows, candles or window treatments. | <urn:uuid:58b3de24-4d7d-474a-8eee-a92f43cf7de2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://health.lifegoesstrong.com/slideshow/feng-shui-tips-health-slideshow-image/add-yellow-and-green-accents | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913771 | 169 | 1.796875 | 2 |
On October 15th 2008 Blender foundation released the 2.48 version of this heavenly fantastic software called Blender.
Blender is a free open source 3D software licensed under the GNU General Public License.
The aim of Blender is to supply the community with a state of the art software for 3D modelling, animation and game design. Blender is strongly developed and can count a vast community supporting it and the huge number of artist around the world who are devoted to it. Blender can moreover compete with hi level, hi quality and hi priced software like 3DS Max, Maya, Cinema 4D, LightWave 3D and so on. I have used it for some time and, even if the GUI it’s not that fashionable and ergonomic as it should perhaps better be, I must admit that the amount of things you can do and the quality you can obtain from it are astonishing. Compared to the other 3D solutions Blender also offers a fully integrated Game Engine.
One the many things which are simply lovable is the integration with Python which is my favourite programming language.
The new features every release offer are simply brilliant.
See below the list of the improvements in the current version.
- Real-time GLSL Materials
You can get many of Blender’s Materials also drawing in real-time in the 3D window and the game engine, including shadow buffers! It requires a more recent 3D card with good hardware shader support.
- Game Logic
Game logic and game level editing has been improved in many ways. Most notable are the Logic States, which allow to group logic bricks in simple”state engines” and activatate, deactivate, or smoothly make transitions between them.
- Bullet SoftBody
Blender’s GE uses the Bullet physics library. The library has been updated to the latest version, supporting soft body dynamics. Support has been added for flat cloth or volumetric soft bodies. Bullet allows interactions beween soft bodies as well as rigid bodies and static collision bounds of all types.
- Game Engine notes
The Game Engine is back, and better than ever! In this section you can read some of the backgrounds, and a collection of other GE release notes.
- Colored shadows
You can assign an RGB color to any lamp’s shadow now. Although this isn’t a feature supported “in the real world”, it’s a cool trick to allow artists to present a more realistic shading and lighting in their work (without need for GI).
- Shrinkwrap Modifier
As one of the Google summer projects, you can now allow an object to be “shrinked” to match/touch another object’s shape. The modifier works based on vertex groups allowing a part of a model to shrink or be projected
- Grease Pencil
The Grease Pencil allows to sketch annotations, notes and even animated motion suggestions in Blender. Great for collaborated work, remarks from directors or to draw key frame poses for characters.
- Animation tools
A lot of work has been done on better management for inserting keys. Further you can read notes here about rigging, bone locking and aligning. And there’s a Mancandy reference rig update!
- Sun, Sky, Atmosphere
This new “sun/sky” feature allows to use Sun lamps to simulate sky color and atmosphere scattering. A lot of options are available to achieve interesting artistic results, including blend modes and color space.
- Sculpt mode improvements
A couple of new Sculpting options were added. Now brushes allow a custom falloff curve, and there are more options available for textured brushes.
- Python Editor
One of the included Google summer projects was to improve our texteditor with Python IDE features, allowing much more advanced editing and integrated API lookup support for scripters.
- Fluid Control
Fluid simulation can be controlled using particles which define local force fields and are generated automatically from either a physical simulation or a sequence of target shapes. At the same time, as much as possible of the natural fluid motion is preserved.
- Wind & Deflectors
The Wind forcefield now has “noise” option. Force Deflectors now can also occlude or absorb forces. | <urn:uuid:995d8580-8878-4e6a-866e-df7e0d296b6c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wizandchips.wordpress.com/tag/blender/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920595 | 893 | 1.960938 | 2 |
The first thing that comes to mind when someone asks this question is a concept dating back to Ancient Babylon and shared by most of the world’s religions commonly known as the “Golden Rule” … “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” This holds true whether the errors are the result of something you did or something the printer did. (Click to read more.)
Printing is one of the few true manufacturing industries left in the US. Unlike manufacturers like Ford, where the “line” is set up for the year and the exact same car is assembled until the line is set up again next year, printers reset the “line” multiple times per day. Each “model/book” is different. Like Ford Motors, it takes dozens of workers to manufacture each and every book. Each set of hands involved in the process sets up an opportunity to have something go, not quite according to plans … a Printer Error.
On the other side of the equation, publishing is not simple or easy either. There are many things involved with the publishing of a book. Unlike running a lemonade stand, where you simply need lemons, sugar, water, and a few clean paper cups to get started, becoming a publisher and publishing a book involves many different steps and variables within these steps. At each of these steps there is the possibility of mistakes being made … a Publisher Error.
Murphy’s Law dictates that most of these “mistakes” or “imperfections” will not surface until all books are printed and resting safely in the publisher’s warehouse/garage or closet. It is quite natural for slight panic to set in upon the discovery of a mistake. This book is after all, the author/publisher’s latest addition to their family … their baby. After the initial panic subsides the natural next step is to try to asses blame … whose mistake was this, anyhow? Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that this step doesn’t need to be taken but you will last a lot longer in this business if you save the blame step for a little later.
From the printer’s side of the equation, the overwhelming majority of customer perceived “mistakes” are not mistakes at all but imperfections in the process covered by Printing Trade Customs. I’ve written at least a dozen times about the absence of the word “perfect” in the printer’s dictionary. There is no such thing as a perfect book. Folding and trim might vary. Quantity, especially on an offset printing run, will vary. Color can vary within a print run. Covers may “lift” slightly when books are set out on a shelf exposed to humidity. The one thing that all of the above imperfections have in common is that book sales will not be adversely affected. Keep in mind that 90 is still an A. If you are not comfortable with this concept, you will most likely have a miserable publishing experience and should probably save your money and try something else.
The next level of mistakes are true mistakes. In this case, rather than blame, severity is the better place to start. By severity, I mean, will this problem affect sales? And, if the answer is yes, how severely will it affect sales? If the problem is something that takes someone from Smith College with a couple of Masters Degrees to even catch, chances are it’s a problem that won’t affect sales at all. In this case, the mistakes should be noted and addressed in the reprint, after the current print run sells out.
If on the other hand, the main title of the book is misspelled, the effect on sales could be serious. These books probably need to be reprinted. Of course there are plenty of examples in between. Very few mistakes result in absolutely unsalable books. While not perfect, and maybe not even a 90, they are salable. This holds true regardless of fault.
Now that you have assessed the severity of the problem, it’s time to figure out who caused the problem in the first place. The problem is usually either the printer’s fault or the publishers. I say usually because you would be surprised how many times there are multiple issues on a printing job with split responsibilities. The perfect example of this would be the printer printed on the wrong paper but the publisher OK’s the printer proof with the title spelled wrong.
Had the book been printed on the correct paper with the title spelled wrong, it would have been the publisher’s responsibility. True story: the original name of Merrill Lynch was “Merrill & Lynch” but someone didn’t check the printer’s proof close enough on the original stationery and they couldn’t afford to reprint so the name stayed Merrill Lynch. I had a similar experience in my early career with a job for the government. This book had gone through 7 different proofing stages and when the final books were delivered, the switchboard operator asked the question, “What does reseach mean? “ Unlike Merrill Lynch, the government had plenty of money and reprinted the 70,000 books with “reseach” changed to “research”. While this is an extreme example, it demonstrates the importance of looking closely at the printer’s proof. In either case, most printers will reprint the books at a steep discount, not wanting to make money off a customer’s mistake. I’m sure that was true with the stationery printer, too. (See “Golden Rule” above.)
In the other example, where the printer used the wrong paper, it was well within the publisher’s right to reject the job and have all the books rerun. Reality is that this would be unusual because sales would not be affected by a single copy whether the book was printed on 50# white offset or #50 natural. In a case like this, most publishers would either accept the books outright or accept at a discount. (See “Golden Rule.”)
Now let’s look at the same example with a different outcome. In this case, the publisher insists the printer reprint on the correct paper (Grrrrrr, but within publisher’s right), but asks that the printer use a different file because they found a few things they would like to change. Smells fishy doesn’t it? “Well, you have to reprint anyhow” the publisher says. This is true, but the reprint is to correct a mistake the printer made, not to let you, the publisher, correct mistakes. (See “Golden Rule.”) This one falls in that category of shared responsibility. NO printer will rerun a book at his expense and allow the publisher to make corrections at the same time. Would you? The answer is to go back and examine the severity of both problems … the incorrect paper and the corrections publisher wants to make. The choices are:
1. To use the first printing at a discount and make the corrections at the 2nd printing stage.
2. Reprint the books on the correct paper using the original files at the printer’s expense and let the printer put the original books in the chopper.
3. Everything in Number 2 plus reprinting the books at publisher expense using new file.
4. Agreeing to Number 1 on the condition that the printer shares the cost of another printing using the new file.
How would you handle this if it were you were the publisher? How would you handle this if you were the printer? If you stay in publishing long enough, you will be faced with many similar decisions. Mistakes happen. In the perfect world, none of them will be your fault. But as we all know, the world is not perfect. What does it hurt to “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”?
See you next issue. | <urn:uuid:8e6b7390-5372-4cfb-83e6-80ae00ee9722> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.publishingbasics.com/2012/02/29/ask-ron-my-books-are-not-right/comment-page-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958488 | 1,669 | 2.234375 | 2 |
Back when plans for revitalizing Coney Island were just taking shape in 2006, the New York Aquarium held a dramatic architecture competition for a new facility. A stunning design by Philadelphia firm WRT and Barcelona architects Cloud 9 was chosen, looking like a breeching whale scooping up krill in its canopied mouth.
That plan was fed to the sharks. As funds ran short two years later, it looked like the aquarium would build a new shark tank and little
more. The renderings that emerged a year later were for a garish amusement, the sort of design a second grader might come up with after a visit to the boardwalk.
Now, final plans for the aquarium have been approved, and while they are not nearly as expansive or impressive as those first proposed, the result is a facility satisfying as a day at the beach. It is a fitting addition to the reinvigorated boardwalk, nothing too complicated nor demure. A sweeping walkway sheathed simply in a shimmering aluminum curtain has been added, sort of Gehry-lite. This ramp leads up to the new 50,000-square-foot addition, which houses that 500,000-gallon shark tank, offering ocean and boardwalk views.
These views were especially important to local council member Dominic Recchia, according to The Journal:
Mr. Recchia remembers visiting the aquarium as a child and being struck by the aquarium’s lack of ocean views. “It was always frustrating to me,” Mr. Recchia said. The new plans for the building “had to bring the aquarium to the ocean.”
The paper notes that the aquarium has $49 million in commitments from the city but still needs to raise more money to cover the project’s $150 million budget. The expansion, which will also offer access to the aquarium via the boardwalk for the first time, will open in 2015. Though it has been surpassed in size over the year’s, the New York Aquarium remains the nation’s oldest, having opened in 1896. | <urn:uuid:5de1019b-2a84-42c3-bf16-20a76382bc2b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://observer.com/2010/12/finally-a-seaworthy-coney-aquarium-pics/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970984 | 429 | 1.96875 | 2 |
While about 8 percent of Americans are unemployed, nearly a quarter of Americans say they were laid off at some point during the recession or afterward, according to the survey. More broadly, nearly eight in 10 say they know someone in their circle of family and friends who has lost a job.
Of those laid off in recent years, nearly a quarter said they still had not found a job. Re-employment rates for older workers have been particularly bad, with nearly two-thirds of unemployed people 55 and older saying they actively sought a job for more than a year before finding one or had still not found work.
But the Very Serious People — who, I would guess, are for the most part members of the 1 in five who *don’t* have anyone in their circle who lost a job — insist that all of this is as nothing compared with the threat from invisible bond vigilantes. | <urn:uuid:47f16237-6970-4ebe-9632-2a3bc457a07b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/07/the-human-disaster/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988986 | 181 | 1.828125 | 2 |
This is an automated message delivery bot that is blocked locally for failing to comply with English Wikinews policy on bots.
Why doesn't EdwardsBot respect the " "/" " templates?
Simply put, because those templates are very poorly implemented.
In order for a bot (operator) to respect those templates, the full page text of the target page must be fetched and then the template must be extracted and parsed. In addition, the templates support both positive and negative assertions. These factors combine to create a coding headache that simply isn't worth the trouble, particularly as most of EdwardsBot's deliveries should be opt-in.
- Operator: MZMcBride (talk)
- Bot name: EdwardsBot (talk · contribs)
- Programming language: Python (source)
- Task: m:Global message delivery
- I'm apparently not allowed to vote here, so I'll just comment instead. The bot's source code is here: m:Global message delivery/Configuration. I can't really lose any more respect for this project. As someone recently commented to me, he had stopped contributing to Wikinews because "rewriting content from the BBC gets old" and "it's not fun to write articles by yourself." Someone else commented to me that "nobody wants to read old news." And these are all valid arguments for why Wikinews has failed, but really, let's be honest, it's the user "community." Brian: looking directly at you. And let's not pretend as though this is a single disgruntled English Wikipedian saying so alone. There have been complaints for years about you and your behavior here.
It used to be that the English Wiktionary was the most (or perhaps simply the most well-known) hostile and insular Wikimedia wiki. But the English Wikinews has worked hard to take that title. Good job, y'all. Half of me wanted to add a specific exception so that the bot wouldn't post here (if target_wiki = 'en.wikinews.org': continue!), but I'll restrain myself. GOD BLESS AMERICA! --MZMcBride (talk) 21:49, 25 January 2013 (UTC) | <urn:uuid:c5dc1144-c021-44b3-adc1-83a90e2a01b2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/User:EdwardsBot | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951775 | 455 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Support the UT Gardens
There are a variety of ways you can support and help the University of Tennessee Gardens grow:
Friends Membership: Learn more about the ways that becoming a Friend of the UT Gardens helps to support the UT Gardens in Knoxville and Jackson and choose the membership level that is best for you.
Visitor Education Center: A center is needed to better serve and educate visitors. We'd like to meet and discuss ideas with you for a ‘green’ facility and how you can be part of its establishment.
Conservatory: A conservatory would provide educational opportunities about tropical and non-indigenous plants and their habitats in different regions of the world that no other garden or nature center in our region can display.
Plant Collections Endowment: The UT Gardens participates in the North American Plant Collection Consortium which encourages botanical gardens to build and preserve significant collections of different plant taxa to prevent their extinction. Help build the Dogwood, Cryptomeria, Metasequoia, Microbiota, and Taxodium collections in the UT Gardens and help us play a global role in protecting and conserving a portion of the world’s plant kingdom.
Professional Development Endowment: Assist in providing funds for students majoring in Public Horticulture or Landscape Design for internship training in the UT Gardens and field trip opportunities to visit other public gardens or professional workshops and conferences. These experiences are at the heart of professional development for students and provide the most meaningful and lasting forms of education.
Cultural and Performing Arts Endowment: Traveling exhibitions and special events increase visitor attraction to the Gardens and appeal to broader audiences. Funds from this endowment will provide for cutting-edge exhibits, quality cultural and performing arts and special events.
Contact The UT Gardens
Department of Plant Sciences
252 Ellington Plant Sciences Bldg
2431 Joe Johnson Drive
Knoxville, TN 37996
Phone: (865) 974-7324
Fax: (865) 974-1947 | <urn:uuid:197344f5-877b-44f4-a9f8-c04f7d3fb28a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://utgardens.tennessee.edu/support.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.906938 | 413 | 1.625 | 2 |
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Nelly Furtado (born December 2nd, 1978) is a Canadian singer-songwriter, record producer, actress and instrumentalist.
Furtado came to fame in 2000 with the release of her debut album Whoa, Nelly!, which featured her breakthrough Grammy Award-winning single "I'm like a Bird".
In 2003, she released the less commercially successful Folklore (2003), but returned to prominence in 2006 with the release of the album Loose .
Life and Music career
Childhood and youth
Nelly Furtado was born in the Canadian city of Victoria, British Columbia to Portuguese immigrants.
She began playing instruments at the age of nine, learning the trombone, ukulele and, in later years, the guitar and keyboards. At the age of twelve, she began writing songs, and as a teenager, she performed in a Portuguese marching band.
After graduating from school in 1996, she moved to Toronto. The following year, she formed Nelstar, a trip hop act, but left the group as it didn't represent her personality.
In 1999, she landed a record deal with DreamWorks Records after recording some successful demos. Furtado's first single, "Party's Just Begun (Again)", was released that year on the Brokedown Palace: Music from the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack.
2000-2002: Whoa, Nelly! and early commercial success
Furtado released her debut album, Whoa, Nelly! in October 2000.
The album was an international success, supported by three singles: "I'm like a Bird", "Turn off the Light", and "...On the Radio (Remember the Days)". It received four Grammy Award nominations in 2002, and her debut single won for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.
Furtado's second album, Folklore, was released in November 2003.
The album includes the single "Força" (meaning "strength" or "carry on" in Portuguese), the official anthem of the 2004 European Football Championship.
Furtado performed this song in Lisbon at the championship's final, in which the Portugal national team played.
Other singles included "Powerless (Say What You Want)" and the ballad "Try". The album was not as successful as her debut.
2006-2008: Loose and return to prominence
Furtado's third album, Loose, was released in June 2006.
Primarily produced by Timbaland, it received generally positive reviews from critics, and became the most successful album of her career so far. It reached number one in several countries including the United States and Canada, and included the hit singles "Promiscuous", "Maneater", "Say It Right" and "All Good Things (Come to an End)".
In 2007, Furtado and Justin Timberlake were featured on Timbaland's single "Give It to Me", which became her third number-one single in the U.S. and second in the UK.
On September 20th, 2003 in Toronto, Furtado gave birth to a daughter, Nevis, whose father is DJ Jasper Gahunia. Furtado and Gahunia, who had been good friends for several years, remained together for four years until their breakup in 2005.
In July 2007, it was reported that Nelly Furtado had got engaged to Cuban sound engineer, Demacio "Demo" Castellón, who worked with her on Loose.
Furtado began acting in school plays in middle school but has since appeared on: an episode of CSI: NY ("Some Buried Bones"), soap opera One Life to Live and on an epidsode of Roswell.
Outside of US television Furtado has also been on in the hit Portuguese soap opera Floribella
Nelly Furtado was named after Soviet gymnast Nellie Kim.
In November 2006, Furtado revealed that she once turned down $500,000 to pose fully-clothed in Playboy.
12th February 2013
Rapper Nelly has enlisted Canadian singer Nelly FURTADO for a "Nelly and Nelly collaboration".The duo has hit the recording studio...
15th November 2012
Singers Nelly Furtado and Natalie Cole were among the stars who helped honour Brazilian entertainer Caetano Veloso in Las Vegas...
29th September 2012
Nelly Furtado never wanted to be a celebrity. The 33-year-old singer - who shot to worldwide fame after the release...
24th September 2012
Nelly Furtado wants to have more kids before her next album. The 'Maneater' hitmaker - who has an eight-year-old daughter...
18th September 2012
Nelly Furtado has certainly dipped her toe in plenty of different styles during her time in the music industry, and...
26th June 2006
Nelly FurtadoLooseAlbum ReviewIt's all about making you dance on Nelly Furtado's new album 'Loose'. It's...
20th November 2003 | <urn:uuid:13ffab3a-6906-48e6-8ae7-6482ff09a85a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.contactmusic.com/info/nelly_furtado | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974865 | 1,080 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Official: Uganda to Pass Anti-Gay Bill this Year
KAMPALA, Uganda - Uganda’s anti-gay bill will be passed before the end of 2012 despite international criticism of the draft legislation, the speaker of the country’s parliament said Monday, insisting it is what most Ugandans want.
Speaker Rebecca Kadaga told The Associated Press that the bill, which originally mandated death for some gay acts, will become law this year.
Ugandans "are demanding it," she said, reiterating a promise she made before a meeting on Friday of anti-gay activists who spoke of "the serious threat" posed by homosexuals to Uganda’s children. Some Christian clerics at the meeting in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, asked the speaker to pass the law as "a Christmas gift."
"Speaker, we cannot sit back while such (a) destructive phenomenon is taking place in our nation," the activists said in a petition. "We therefore, as responsible citizens, feel duty-bound to bring this matter to your attention as the leader of Parliament ... so that lawmakers can do something to quickly address the deteriorating situation in our nation."
The anti-gay activists paraded in front of Kadaga, with parents and schoolchildren holding up signs saying homosexuality is "an abomination." The speaker then promised to consider the bill within two weeks, declaring that "the power is in our hands."
"Who are we not to do what they have told us? These people should not be begging us," Kadaga said of activists who want the bill to become law.
Uganda’s penal code criminalizes homosexuality, but in 2009 a lawmaker with the ruling party said a stronger law was needed to protect Uganda’s children from homosexuals. Parliamentarian David Bahati charged at the time that wealthy homosexuals from the West were "recruiting" poor children into gay lifestyles with promises of money and a better life. Bahati believes his bill is sufficiently popular among lawmakers to pass without difficulty.
Gay rights activists in Uganda, while opposing the bill, point out that it has helped their fight for equality by putting what used to be a taboo subject on the national agenda. Homosexuality is illegal in many African countries.
Pepe Julian Onziema, a prominent Ugandan gay activist, said the new push to pass the law was frustrating.
"It’s disappointing, but we are also going to seek a meeting with the speaker," Onziema said. But it is unlikely the speaker will agree to such a gathering, he said.
While the bill appears to be popular in Uganda, it has attracted widespread criticism abroad. President Barack Obama has described it as "odious," while some European countries have threatened to cut aid to Uganda if the bill becomes law. | <urn:uuid:42591372-c01b-4f08-940b-febc788d6a98> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.edgesandiego.com/news/international/news/138893/official:_uganda_to_pass_anti-gay_bill_this_year__ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970763 | 575 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Bush Convicted of War Crimes
Remember where you were when you heard the news. It’s not the International Criminal Court and it doesn’t have any government endorsements, but the first conviction for war crimes against George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and several of their senior legal advisors has been made. A U.S. President has been convicted for war crimes, and it's the initial collection round the ICC probably needed towards raising Bush’s airfare to The Hague.
The prosecution occurred at the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal Foundation, a private organization chartered under Malaysian law. It has no endorsement from any government worldwide and is anything but an institution of global acclaim, but it is still very significant because it has been created by those with power to persuade the ICC. Those condemned are Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and former deputy assistant attorney general John Choon Yoo, former assistant attorney general Jay Bybee, and former counsels Alberto Gonzales, David Addington and William Haynes.
The transgressions are the use of torture and the war crime of using torture during war, as defined by the Convention against Torture and four Geneva conventions of 1949, to which the United States government is a party. The statement of the tribunal was that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld “engaged in a web of instructions, memos, directives, legal advice and action that established a common plan and purpose, joint enterprise and / or conspiracy to commit the crimes of Torture and War Crimes, including and not limited to a common plan and purpose to commit the following crimes in relation to the ‘War on Terror’ and the wars launched by the US and others in Afghanistan and Iraq.” The evidence that they knew about this and supported it has been very compelling for quite a while.
One of the most revealing things about this development, however, is that the mainstream press in the US and UK have not touched it. At all. Not one spillage of ink, kb of information or second of airtime. CNN, the BBC, Newsweek, ABC, the London Times. The list could be as long as this article. The only major news source to touch it has been The Real News Network. I would rush to say that this display is some bizarre double-standard or moral evasion by the mainstream press, but it’s not as if these stations have been quiet about news that criticizes the war previously.Continued on the next page | <urn:uuid:b7ffe5d7-0c8c-430e-b2e1-3f5a32efc637> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://technorati.com/politics/article/bush-convicted-of-war-crimes/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+trarticles+%28All+articles+at+Technorati%29 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968445 | 508 | 1.640625 | 2 |
If you have kids, or know anyone who does, you may have noticed that in this day and age it appears that their world revolves around social networking sites like Facebook and My Space. Instant messaging on computers and text messaging on cell phones seem to have consumed the lives of our younger generation. Technology is moving at the speed of light, and internet access has become easily accessible in most of our kids lives. Computer and internet technology are great things, but, if not closely supervised, they can be very dangerous and sometimes fatal for our kids. Parents should be very aware of things like cyber bullying and the cruel reality of sexual predators that frequent chat rooms and pretend to be someone theyre not. I am the parent of two teenagers, and have done a little bit of homework on this subject. I would like to share some tips with you, and discuss three of the most important things that I feel every parent can, and should, do to ensure their childs safety and well-being associated with the use of the internet.
I feel that the most important thing a parent can do to protect their child from harmful activity on the internet is to get involved. Know what sites your kids are going to. Surf the web with them and teach them how to be good digital citizens. By this I mean you should help them understand that they should not share personal pictures or information about themselves or anyone else that could be harmful or embarrassing. Remember, once you post a picture, a video, an email, or a comment on the internet, it can be copied and pasted elsewhere, and sometimes can never be recovered. Help them understand that great harm can come from cyber bullying. A tragic example of this is demonstrated by the fact that, in Missouri in the summer of 2006, 47 year old Lori Drew created an alias account (Josh Evans) on My Space and bullied 13 year old Megan Meier, to the point of suicide. Drew harassed Meier in internet communications, and convinced her that the world would be better off without her. Tragically, Meiers mother found her daughter in her bedroom closet, where she had hung herself.
Getting involved with our kids and their internet habits is at the top of my list. For me its no different than knowing where your kids are, who they are hanging out with, what theyre doing, what movies they are watching on TV, etc. If you think your child is in danger you can visit http://kids.getnetwise.org/ for detailed information on what you can do. If you know of a child that is in immediate risk of danger, you should report instances of online child exploitation to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's Cyber Tipline. Reports may be made 24-hours a day, 7 days per week at www.cybertipline.com or by calling 1-800-843-5678.
My second piece of advice is to have your home computer in a central location that can be seen by all members of the family. I think this, combined with the first tip, could have prevented the suicide of Megan Meier. My home computer is in a location where anyone in the kitchen or living room can see the screen at all times. I am just like most parents who believe that our kids would never go to porn sites, but I would rather not take the chance. Kids are human, and humans are curious. I think it is better to be safe than sorry, and I can guarantee you that Megans mother is very sorry. Why take the chance when you dont have to? Allowing a teenager access to a computer in their bedroom without any supervision or parental restrictions is a recipe for trouble.
Speaking of supervision and parental restrictions, my third piece of advice is to harden your computer. There is third party software available that can assist in keeping your kids from accessing porn sites. Some examples are Net Nanny Parental Controls, Safe Eyes, and CYBERsitter. I know what youre thinking. My child would never visit a site like that! I feel the same way about my kids. But again, why take the chance? Here is a link from TopTenREVIEWS, which lists some of the best internet filter software of 2011.
Create a separate user account for your kids and restrict what they can and cant do. Check to see if your internet service provider has tools that can monitor the amount of time your child spends online, or can limit the people who can contact them. Make sure you have some type of pop up blocker enabled on your computer.
Internet safety nets for our kids not only address the possibility of harm, but can also limit what our kids can access on the internet. There are many other things that can be done to help protect your kids and I could easily turn this into a 20-page article. My purpose of writing this article is to remind all parents of the dangers out there and to encourage you to do your own research to protect your kids. I found my top three tips on the following link, and think it is a good place to start your own research on how to protect your children from the possible dangers associated with internet use.
Here is a link to compare internet filter software: http://internet-filter-review.toptenreviews.com/
Here is another great article on online safety for kids written by Neadom a few months ago. | <urn:uuid:f323b5c7-2759-401a-a55b-be43ef2b17c8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kotoritechnologies.com/?task=tag&tname=onlinesafety&type=blog | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94947 | 1,093 | 2.890625 | 3 |
Athina Karatzogianni is Lecturer in Media, Culture and Society at the University of Hull. I recently read her very interesting book on The Politics of Cyberconflict: Security, Ethnoreligious and Sociopolitical conflicts. She gave a presentation on her book at the Politics 2.0 conference here in London. The topic of her book and presentation is closely aligned with my dissertation research. She focuses on the impact of the Internet on dissident and protest activity.
I very much agree with Dr. Karatzogianni’s comment that file-trading networks like Kazaa and Gnutella increasingly facilitate communication between dissidents since they have no central source and would be harder to turn off. Indeed, some scholars assert that the rise in peer-to-peer (P2P) communication networks threaten authoritarian rule. She also emphasizes the significance of “technologically enhanced tactics” which I find to be an important factor that may play in favor of social resistant groups. Because these groups are decentralized and mobile, their organizational structures may allow them to better capitalize on distributed and mobile ICTs.
Dr. Karatzogianni and I are also on the same page vis-a-vis the outcome of the Internet’s impact of state-society relations. As she argues, it remains to be seen whether it will develop into a powerful engine for democratization, or will fall under the pressure and regulation of authoritarian regimes. I recently blogged about this specific issue here.
Dr. Karatzogianni concluded her presentation with the interesting notion that the Internet may be leading states in the direction of more networked organizational structures while enabling dissidents to become more efficient in their capacity to organize. In other words, the two actors are becoming more similar in their organizational topologies. This is not an entirely new notion, however, as the same argument has been made in the netcentric warfare literature. In contrast, network theory suggests that as a hierarchical organization takes on a networked organization, the latter becomes more decentralized and the former more centralized.
During the Q & A session, I asked Dr. Karatzogianni whether two years on since writing her book she still feels that she has changed her mind about which side, state or society, will gain the upper hand thanks to the Internet. She replied yes, she’s more inclined to believe that as the periphery becomes increasingly connected, we may very well see “dissidents of the world unite” since the core will be less effective in providing ideologies of interest to the periphery in response to globalization’s increasing challenges and divides. This certainly echoes some of the research on the rise of fundamentalism such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. While I would like to think she is right, I think it still remains to be seen which side will make more effective use of ICTs, as I blogged about here.
I had coffee with Athina after the talk and had a great chat with her about our shared interests. | <urn:uuid:190d473c-0254-401c-9097-1e7b87f1e4fa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://irevolution.net/2008/04/17/politics-20-conference-politics-of-cyberconflicts/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965042 | 620 | 1.726563 | 2 |
BY Tulsa World Third Extra
Jun 1, 1921
1/20/13 at 7:41 AM
At the Mowbray Undertaking company was an unidentified white man, whose age might be placed between 28 and 32 years, and whose death wound was a bullet which entered the back of the head. He died at a hospital. There were no clues of identification which could be followed last night and he was unidentified up to 3 o’clock this morning.
At Stanley-McCune Undertaking company is an unidentified white man about 35 years of age. Death was also due to a bullet wound entering the head.
There were no dead at the other morgues.
A.R. Stick, city clerk, Sapulpa, death expected momentarily.
G.T. Prunkard, conductor on Frisco, Sapulpa, shot in left shoulder, chin, forehead,
Lee Fisher, 338 ½ East First street, shot in left leg.
L.T. Slinkard, West Tulsa, leg fracture.
Robert Palmer, West Tulsa, shot in left shoulder.
Ed Austin, 418 S. Detroit, shot in left foot.
E.F. Bershmer, 1437 East Hodge, shot in left hand and left leg.
Clarence Hill lay at the Frissell Hospital, 314 East Brady, near death, according to nurses, due to being shot through the lung. The fear that he might not live until morning was expressed by attendants. Other than his name, no information was given out.
Three wounded men were taken to the Tulsa hospital, but none was seriously hurt, according to meager reports. Hospital attendants refused to give any information. H.L. Curry, James Collins and one other were at this hospital
P. & S. Hospital
One fatally wounded man was taken to the P. & S. Hospital. He died shortly after reaching there and was removed to a morgue.
No wounded were taken to the Sand Springs or the Morningside hospitals they reported. Neither was there any injured at the negro hospital. | <urn:uuid:e9583bb1-bb67-460f-8872-9bef8c113d85> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tulsaworld.com/site/printerfriendlystory.aspx?articleid=19210601_222_0_AttheM398802 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968151 | 430 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Pine (genus Pinus) is a genus of trees in the family Pinaceae. They make up the monotypic subfamily Pinoideae. There are about 115 species of pine, although different authorities accept between 105 and 125 species.
The straight-grained pine wand always chooses an independent, individual master who may be perceived as a loner, intriguing and perhaps mysterious. Pine wands enjoy being used creatively, and unlike some others, will adapt unprotestingly to new methods and spells.
Many wandmakers insist that pine wands are able to detect, and perform best for, owners who are destined for long lives, including Garrick Ollivander who had never personally known the master of a pine wand to die young. The pine wand is one of those that is most sensitive to non-verbal magic.
The modern English name "pine" derives from Latin pinus by way of French pin; similar names are used in other Romance languages. In the past (pre-19th century) they were often known as fir, from Old Norse fyrre, by way of Middle English firre. The Old Norse name is still used for pines in some modern north European languages, in Danish, fyr, in Norwegian fura/fure/furu, Swedish, fura/furu, and Föhre in German, but in modern English, fir is now restricted to Fir (Abies) and Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga). | <urn:uuid:be02e499-568c-43ea-9232-8b21f22952be> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Pine | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93848 | 308 | 3.03125 | 3 |
Routledge Library Editions: Jane Austen
Published October 12th 2011 by Routledge – 752 pages
This four volume backlist collection brings together an array of criticism written about the works of Jane Austen, encompassing everything from a detailed analysis of her six published novels, through to an investigation of the heroines within her fiction, a re-evaluation of her political subtext and proto-feminism, and even a French appreciation of her work.
Published between 1924 and 1987, these four reissued works offer a thorough and engaging insight into Jane Austen and the canon of Austen criticism, which will appeal to the general reader as well as to undergraduates studying 19th Century English Literature and the rise of the novel.
I. Jane Austen: The Six Novels II. Jane Austen and the State III: Jane Austen' Heroines: Intimacy in Human Relationships IV. Jane Austen: A French Appreciation with A New Study of Jane Austen | <urn:uuid:c76a8863-e765-4469-b96e-96689d0e4269> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415673136/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924903 | 204 | 1.875 | 2 |
What would we do without potatoes on Pesach? I imagine we’d starve! So don’t forget this easy and basic recipe for roast potatoes that will make everyone forget it’s Pesach.
1. Peel and rinse about 2-3 potatoes per person (when I make this, no matter how many I make, there are never leftovers.)
2. Cut the potatoes into either bite sized pieces or cut in quarters for larger roast potatoes.
3. For quartered potatoes, par boil the potatoes first (Israeli potatoes are very hard and require par boiling. If your potatoes are softer, you may not need this step). Place potatoes in a large pot of cold water. bring to the boil and allow to cook for about 5 minutes – make sure the potatoes don’t cook, they just need to get to a stage where a fork can start piercing them. Drain till dry.
4. For par boiled potatoes and bite sized pieces (which you need to pat dry with paper towels): Line a large roasting pan with baking paper. Pour a good layer of oil into the pan (make sure that the whole surface of the pan is covered). Add the potatoes and toss them in the oil until all sides of all the potatoes are coated in oil – if necessary, add more oil. Sprinkle a little salt and finely ground pepper and toss around.
5. Place the pan in a pre-heated 180°C (350°F) oven and bake for about 40 minutes. Then stir the potatoes around and bake for another 20 minutes. Stir again, and keep going until all sides of the potatoes are rich golden brown. Be careful not to tear the baking paper when you are stirring the potatoes or to break the potatoes – I recommend using a rubber spoon or lifter and only stirring once in a while. | <urn:uuid:824a913f-026b-41ce-b197-7e3d82c002b8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kosherblogger.wordpress.com/roast-potatoes-2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.907573 | 375 | 2.015625 | 2 |
Top 10 Developmental Toys for Children with Special Needs
5 of 11
From Hasbro. Have a blast catching butterflies as they spout over four feet into the air with this physically stimulating game. As your child catches and sorts butterflies, he'll also be improving his gross and fine motor skills, along with visual perception and scanning. Make it a party, and help develop his social skills too, by inviting friends to join in on the fun.
Ages: 3 - 6 years
Buy on Amazon
Next: Block Buddies | <urn:uuid:e3e2180a-7816-4363-80b5-81d4148f2e14> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://fun.familyeducation.com/slideshow/toys/64973.html?page=5 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941939 | 108 | 1.984375 | 2 |
About this CRS report
This document was obtained by Wikileaks from the
United States Congressional Research Service.
The CRS is a Congressional "think tank" with a staff of around 700. Reports are commissioned by members of Congress on topics relevant to current political events. Despite CRS costs to the tax payer of over $100M a year, its electronic archives are, as a matter of policy, not made available to the public.
Individual members of Congress will release specific CRS reports if they believe it to assist them politically, but CRS archives as a whole are firewalled from public access.
This report was obtained by Wikileaks staff from CRS computers accessible only from Congressional offices.
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If you have other confidential material let us know!.
For previous editions of this report, try OpenCRS.
Wikileaks release: February 2, 2009
Publisher: United States Congressional Research Service
Title: The Group of Eight Summits: Evolution and Possible Reform
CRS report number: RS22403
Author(s): Martin A. Weiss, Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division
Date: March 29, 2007
- The Group of Eight (G8) summit is a forum to informally discuss and create policies on major foreign policy issues among the heads of state of the United States, France, Germany, Canada, Italy, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Russia. The 2007 summit will be hosted by Germany and is scheduled to take place in Heilegendamm on June 6-8, 2007. This report discusses the evolution of the G8 and possible reform as background for the meeting. | <urn:uuid:b7734b6b-3b10-4c5a-95af-090c7525025e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wikileaks.org/wiki/CRS:_The_Group_of_Eight_Summits:_Evolution_and_Possible_Reform,_March_29,_2007 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925261 | 353 | 2.140625 | 2 |
R. Azariah De' Rossi in - or out of - Artscroll
Censorship and 'Correction' of 'Improper' Sources Cited in Previous Editions
Not only does Rabbi Sutton ignore academic literature and conceal his use of non-religious sources, he also censors 'improper' sources mentioned in previous editions of LiKedoshim Asher Ba'Aretz. For example: both previous editions quote in full the short work Zichron Divrei Aret"z, by Rabbi Abraham Dayan, which first appeared in 1850.42 In that composition, Rabbi Dayan included a variety of anecdotal information that had reached him regarding the city of Aleppo and the Jews within it, from antiquity until his own times.43 Inter alia, Dayan relates that one elderly scholar told him of a tradition according to which, in each one of the old city's gates was preserved a wondrous ancient object. Thus, in one of the gates there was the tooth of an ancient fish, two feet long, in another gate 'the nail of one of the giants, as [large as] a pillow and a duvet', and in a third gate, a jug of sand from the river Sambatyon. Rabbi Dayan knew that some people tend to discount the factuality of information such as this, and so he wrote:
And as I have seen some persons, wise in their own eyes, who say that “the world goes according to its ways”,44 and they believe nothing unless they see it with their own eyes or unless it's written in the books of Hamirs,45 therefore I shall transcribe for them here what was written in the book of Me’or Eynayim by dei Rossi on p. 88, in the name of the head of the Christian scholars,46 book 15 chapter 9, about the size of the giants' body. That [scholar reported that] he saw the tooth of a man which, if cut according to the measurement of our teeth, could be divided into one hundred [of our] teeth.
In other words, in order to put an end to these skeptics' criticism, Rabbi Dayan reveals that he read Azariah dei Rossi's Me’or Eynayim, and that the author quoted there information from the book of a very major Christian scholar. This Christian scholar reported that he saw a huge human tooth, and this finding verifies the fact that giants existed in the past. From this, the above-mentioned skeptics may conclude, that there is no reason to doubt the report about the giant's nail found in one of the gates of the City of Aleppo.
Let us now see, how the paragraph quoted above is paraphrased in Aleppo:
I have seen some people, convinced of their own intelligence, who think that nothing exists beyond nature and don't believe what they haven't seen with their own eyes or in secular sources. Therefore, for these skeptics I cite a book which quotes secular sources concerning the existence of ancient giants. He writes of scientific finds of the teeth of giants that are one hundred times the size of average human teeth.47
The contrast between this "translation" and the original text is striking! The title Me’or Eynayim has been exorcised and it is now cited anonymously as "a book", and the information dei Rossi attributed to “the head of the Christian' scholars” is now attributed to "secular sources". Furthermore, while that Christian scholar reported [one!] giant tooth that he saw with his own eyes, in Aleppo's rewriting this report became "scientific finds" of "teeth of giants" [=many teeth of many giants].
In order to explain this amazing transformation we should recall, that the book of Me’or Eynayim raised a huge debate when it was published, for the writer was of independent critical thought and dared to raise difficult questions regarding various traditions found in Rabbinical literature. The Rabbis of Venice imposed a ban (herem) upon ownership of the book and upon reading it, and the same was done by Rabbis in other towns in Italy, as well as by the Rabbis of Safed. The Mahara"l of Prague attacked Azariah dei Rossi and Me’or Eynayim in his book Be'er haGola.48
The fact that Rabbi Abraham Dayan, son of the most aristocratic Jewish family in Aleppo and author of several 'kosher' religious books, read Me'or Eynayim, treated it as a reliable source and attributed credibility to information quoted in it in the name of a major Christian scholar – does not at all cohere with the portrait of the characteristics of the Aleppo community and its scholars, which Rabbi Sutton would like to cultivate among his readers. Based on his (not unfounded) confidence that nobody within the English speaking Aleppan community would be likely to discover the change, Sutton permitted himself to 'purify' the original text by Abraham Dayan – a text that neither David Zion Laniado nor Mordechai Attiah had thought to change. Furthermore, knowing that English readers in the early 21st century attribute credibility to scientific findings, Sutton decided to write that in this anonymous text there are "scientific finds of the teeth of giants" – even though all that really appears there is the testimony of one man who saw one tooth.
But this Ultra-Orthodox censorship led the writers of the book to a place where they would surely be surprised to find themselves. For who is this Christian scholar, whose words they converted to "scientific finds"? If one reads the text of Me'or Eynayim one finds that Rabbi Azariah dei Rossi is citing none other than … Augustine of Hippo! Indeed, in his City of God, book 15 chapter 9, Augustine seeks to confirm belief in the veracity of the Bible's reports about the bodily measurements and the life spans attributed by the Bible to pre-diluvian humans. He testifies that on the sea shore by Utica (a city sited in what today is Northern Tunisia) he saw the molar of a human being, apparently one of the giants of yore, that was one hundred times larger than one of 'our' teeth. The bottom line is, then, that the Syrian community inBrooklyn and elsewhere were treated, thanks to Sutton's efforts at censorship, to a text in which the words of St. Augustine in his book 'City of God' were raised to the level of "scientific finds" with an Ultra-Orthodox "hechsher" from Artscroll Publishing! To which we can only say: "this is 'Torah' and this is its reward."
42 The work was published in Livorno in 1850, together with other works by the author: Holech Tamim and Poel Tzedek.
43 This is how Yaron Harel summarizes the contents of this work: 'a random enumeration of various historical events which took place in Aleppo, as traditionally told in the city. Beginning with legends about the city's conquest by Yoab ben Seruyah, and ending with events which took place in the author's times' (Yaron Harel, ibid n. 19, p. 48).
44 Hebrew: Olam ke-Minhago Noheg, i.e., reality follows the laws of nature (and thus, such anecdotes are suspect).
45 The books of Hamirs = the books of Homerus = books considered to be credible by the educated world.
46 Examining the source in the Me’or Eynayim (Mantova 1674 p. 88) reveals that Rabbi Dayan omitted one word here, maybe because it seemed unclear to him. And here is the original text: "the head of the Christians' scholars wrote in his City in book 15 chapter 9, about the size of the body of giants, that he saw the tooth of a man which if cut to the size of our teeth, would be divided into one hundred teeth." For further identification of this source, see text below.
47 P. 11.
48 See Joseph Dan, ROSSI, Azariah, in: Encyclopedia Judaica (1973) 14:315-31, and see also the editor/translator's introduction in Light of the Eyes, Azariah de´ Rossi; Translated from the Hebrew, with an introduction by Joanna Weinberg, Yale University press, 2001.
Please see my prior post 'What would R' Azaryah surely have resented? The portrayal of a controversial rabbi by Artscroll.,' which is probably the first and last time that the name of R. Azaryah de' Rossi will be mentioned in an Artscroll publication. De' Rossi's work Me'or 'Enayim was not only cited by obscure (at least outside of Aleppo) rabbinic figures like Abraham Dayan, but he was also cited by the author of Minhas Shai on the Bible - a massoretic commentary with accepted halakhic authority - by R. Yaakov Emden, by a Lithuanian roshei yeshiva such as Netziv, by modern scholarly rabbis like Menachem Kasher, whose works are considered very valuable and certainly acceptable in the faithful communities which Artscroll hopes to shape the religious thinking of.
Read the rest of Zohar's review (in English translation, as linked above, or in the Hebrew original). It includes such chestnuts as the fact that the book reproduces a photograph from an out-of-print work on Aleppan Jewry from 1910 - by a Jewish Christian missionary without explaining who he is; the book helpfully misspells his name, ve-ha-mevin yavin. Incidentally, this Joseph Segall was allowed by the communal leaders to photograph a page of the Aleppo Codex, which is wonderful because it meant that the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy from the Codex was preserved (see its image here); but also not so wonderful, since it may well be that the reason why after this point the Aleppan rabbis and communal leaders steadfastly refused to allow the entire codex to be photographed by anyone, was because of the Segall incident - a consequence that proved most unfortunate, since a lot of the Codex is now missing, unphotographed). | <urn:uuid:52531273-acb0-4ca5-82ba-7112068cf824> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://elucidation-not-translation.blogspot.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00076-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967409 | 2,139 | 1.9375 | 2 |
Priest and martyr; born in the Diocese of Bangor, Wales, 1590; died 1642. He was educated at Oxford, and ordained a Protestant minister, but abandoning heresy, he crossed over to Paris, where he was received into the Church by Mr. Richard Ireland. Admitted to Douai College, 12 Feb., 1621, he continued his studies there until 1624, when he proceeded to St-Omer, in order to enter the Society of Jesus. Finding, however, that this was not his vocation, he was ordained a secular priest and sent on the English mission. He worked with unremitting zeal for some years, was twice apprehended and twice released. Once more a prisoner in 1642, he was brought to trial and condemned to death, but at the queen's intercession was reprieved. When this act of clemency on the part of Charles I excited the anger of Parliament, Goodman, with great magnanimity, protested his unwillingness to be a cause of dissension between Charles and his subjects, and begged that he might be sacrificed to appease the popular displeasure. This heroic act of generosity made a considerable sensation, and probably suggested to Wentworth, Lord Strafford, the idea of doing the same. Goodman, however, was left to languish in Newgate, but the hardships soon put an end to his life on Good Friday, 1642, not 1645, as is sometimes said.
Challoner, Memoirs of Missionary Priests (London, 1878), II, 79; The Prisoners of Newgate's Condemnation, (London, 1642); Gillow, Bibl. Dict. Eng. Cath., s.v.; State Papers, Dom., Chas I., 1635, cccviii, nn. 66, 66, i.
APA citation. (1909). Ven. John Goodman. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06647a.htm
MLA citation. "Ven. John Goodman." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 6. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909. <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06647a.htm>.
Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. September 1, 1909. Remy Lafort, Censor. Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York.
Contact information. The editor of New Advent is Kevin Knight. My email address is feedback732 at newadvent.org. (To help fight spam, this address might change occasionally.) Regrettably, I can't reply to every letter, but I greatly appreciate your feedback — especially notifications about typographical errors and inappropriate ads. | <urn:uuid:505f4284-ae72-4ffb-ac2f-8aad6fab23f8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06647a.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953123 | 578 | 2.59375 | 3 |
The Ottawa Citizen reports, “Hurricane experts admit they can’t predict hurricanes early; December forecasts too unreliable:”
Two top U.S. hurricane forecasters, famous across Deep South hurricane country, are quitting the practice of making a seasonal forecast in December because it doesn’t work.
William Gray and Phil Klotzbach say a look back shows their past 20 years of forecasts had no predictive value.
The two scientists from Colorado State University will still discuss different probabilities of hurricane seasons in December. But the shift signals how far humans are, even with supercomputers, from truly knowing what our weather will do in the long run.
Fancy that — weather and climate experts seemed much more confident a decade ago:
The New York Times was also pretty despondent about snowfalls never returning to New Yorkback then.
RFK Jr. also wrote in the L.A. Times in September of 2008 that global warming has made snow in the DC region “so scarce today that most Virginia children probably don’t own a sled.” | <urn:uuid:fc98cf42-45e5-4eb3-8b68-8732603d943e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pjmedia.com/eddriscoll/2011/12/13/hurricane-experts-admit-they-cant-predict-weather-algore-hardest-hit/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951334 | 223 | 1.960938 | 2 |
A Dead RabbitSituation puzzles (sometimes called lateral thinking puzzles) are ones where you need to ask lots of yes or no questions to figure out what happened in the situation. These are good puzzles for groups where one person knows the puzzle and answers the questions.
A man came home from work one day to find his neighbor's rabbit in his dog's mouth. The rabbit was dead. When his neighbor came home, he went next door to explain what happened. When he said that he came home and the rabbit was in the dog's mouth, he begged for forgiveness. The neighbor said not to worry about it, that the rabbit was not harmed. The man was puzzled. How was the rabbit not harmed?
AnswerThe rabbit had died a day earlier from a sickness, and was buried in the neighbor's backyard. The dog had dug up the rabbit.
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Back to Top | <urn:uuid:ffc23b26-dcbd-4e40-91eb-f20c7ef18de1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.braingle.com/brainteasers/teaser.php?id=22542&comm=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986674 | 227 | 2.390625 | 2 |
KeraNetics Gets $3.3M Fed Grant to Fix Nuke Burns
Fast-growing Winston-Salem therapeutics developer KeraNetics has landed a $3.3 million federal contract to help commercialize a gel for treating nuclear radiation burns.
KeraNetics, formed in 2008 as a spinout from Wake Forest University Health Sciences, specializes in converting purified keratin proteins, the key structural material of human nails and hair, into medical products.
This grant from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is just the latest in a series of federal contracts for KeraNetics.
This pact is for continued development of the company’s KeraStat Burn Gel, a unique keratin-based product to prevent cell and tissue damage after exposure to ionizing radiation that could occur after a terrorist attack or an accident at a nuclear power plant.
The North Carolina Biotechnology Center awarded KeraNetics a $150,000 Small Business Research Loan in 2010. The company is also participating in NCBiotech’s Industrial Fellowship Program, sharing costs for postdoctoral researcher Erin Falco, Ph.D., to work two years as a scientist at the company and learn the ropes of industrial research.
The company is getting ready to build a manufacturing facility in Kannapolis, about 50 miles southwest of KeraNetics headquarters. There it will continue to extract and purify the active ingredients in keratin for use in its products. It also plans to begin commercialization of its current portfolio of products while inventing new ones.
“The work being conducted here could result in treatment options that could redefine the standard of care for radiation disasters and emergencies,” said Luke Burnett, Ph.D., chief science officer at KeraNetics. | <urn:uuid:071e7874-e1a0-4984-91a9-77326b2804bb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ncbiotech.org/article/keranetics-gets-33m-fed-grant-fix-nuke-burns | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929983 | 379 | 1.8125 | 2 |
"I'd like to toast the country of Georgia, our hosts, the incredible work you've done to preserve the method of natural wine making, the food, the drink"
"I want to drink to our guests, in Georgia we say every guest is a gift from God"
"Let us toast the people of Georgia, it brings tears to my eyes to see visitors from another country, to see your pleasure, the sparkle when you talk."
"I would like to toast by singing a song. Let us drink to friendship"
"I'd like to talk about the Causasus mountains and our ancestors. The world is so small now and it's wonderful that we can all meet. I am also talking to your ancestors, blessing them for your beauty, your courage and your spirit"
"Lets drink! For we are all Georgian!"These were some of the shorter toasts that started at around 1pm and went on until almost midnight. This tradition of Tamada is typically Georgian, passing around a horn from which to drink, growing more abstract and effusive in praise as the evening wears on.
I've had a fantastic but long second day in Tbilisi. I've been struck by the almost innocent generosity and hospitality of the Georgians. It's the first country I've been to in a long time where if you take a picture of someone, they smile rather than ask you for money.
In the morning I went to the market, my idea of heaven. There is a divide on this trip: myself and @foodstories are rather more interested in the food but the wine bloggers, who speak in their own language, gargling and swirling drink around in their mouths while staring into space or frowning at each other, or into their glasses, prefer to drink. This trip has been organised by Isabelle Legeron, a passionate advocate for Natural Wines, different from organic wines in that they are made without any additives, yeasts or sulphites (the stuff that gives you a headache). Georgia has revived the ancient tradition of Natural Wine over the last five years; they mature their wines in Kvevri, large terracotta pots or amphorae, sometimes containing five tons, an ancestral method before wine was kept in wooden barrels. This ancient technique can be compared to making sourdough, the natural flora is used to ferment the wine.. The first evidence of wine-making was found in Georgia, 5000 BC. This, along with the lack of additives, gives the wine a very different character, particularly the 'orange' wines, which are fermented with the skins of the grapes to give a certain tawny colour.
|Traditional bread oven a bit like a tandoori, they press the dough onto the walls of the inside of the oven.|
|These are like capers|
|The chickens are yellow, probably corn-fed, and have large feet.|
|Disks of bees wax|
|They love a bit of Fablon in these old markets don't they?|
|Red and green sauce, tkmali, which is made with mirabelle plums; the green are unripe and sour, the red and purple are riper and sweeter.|
|Propolis and honey|
|Seeds for planting are sold loose by the egg cup|
|Sunflower seeds are a popular snack|
|Churchkela seller: these are strings of walnuts dipped repeatedly in concentrated grape juice which forms a skin.|
|The cheese tends to be very salty|
|My booty from the market; seeds and some roots which die eggs red (more on this later)|
|Sometimes the wind kicked up!|
|Orange wine by Malkhaz Jakeli.|
|Feast on a barrel prepared for us while we were tasting wines by Mamuka Mzhavanadze|
|The Georgian cross is unusual: you notice the arms turn downwards and it's bound together with a rope. The legend behind this is that St. Nino used a grapevine to form a cross and bound it with her hair.|
Phanduri, a traditional Georgian instrument
|Walnut is used extensively in Georgian cooking; here we have beetroot, leeks and spinach mixed with a walnut paste and cabbage, aubergine and peppers stuffed with walnut paste.|
|Trout with pomegranate sauce, rather too sweet I felt. Last year I did a fish dish with sour cherries for a 'Russian' meal.|
|Notations on the bottle of Natural wine|
|Sturgeon, boiled and smoked slices|
|A home built still for making eau de vie. I want one!|
|Opening the kvevri, which is a giant terracotta pot lowered into the ground. Here you see just the top.|
Georgians often drink from shallow terracotta bowls, which reminds me of how they used to drink chai on Indian trains.
|We heard some polyphonic singing in the church. The atmosphere was very casual, informal. People wandering up and down, going up the front to hear the singers, sitting around chatting. It was very commun|
|Another toast, drinking from the 'horn' at the house of Giorgi Barisahvili. He also gives us a wine to taste that is made from 110 varieties of grape.|
That Crazy Frenchwoman Isabelle Legeron.You can buy tickets to the Raw Wine Fair in May here: http://www.rawfair.com/buy-tickets
You can buy tickets for my Georgian meal (aided and abetted by fellow food blogger @foodstories) at the Large Glass Gallery with Natural Wine selected by Isabelle Legeron here: http://www.wegottickets.com/event/161520 | <urn:uuid:417aab56-4988-4f38-805d-c5830da539cc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://marmitelover.blogspot.com/2012/04/we-are-all-georgian-day-2.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959381 | 1,215 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Swedish Radio Slanders Serbs over Belgrade Pride
On 6th November 2012 Justitia Pax Veritas (JPV) filed a complaint with the Swedish Broadcasting Commission due to the morning programme broadcast by Swedish Radio’s channel one (P1) concerning this year’s Pride Parade in the Serbian capital, Belgrade.
In JPV’s complaint it was pointed out that a number of unwarranted and selective theories, as well as grossly derogatory judgements, were expressed about the Serbian people in the radio programme, and that there was a remarkable agreement in the studio on these theories and judgements.
“Such grossly partial and arbitrary programmes are a direct threat to freedom of speech and democracy. With these kinds of ‘reports’ it is possible to slander any ethnic group, including LGBT persons,” the chairman of JPV said.
According to the latest information from the Swedish Broadcasting Commission it has received about 30 complaints so far regarding the radio programme in question.
Programme: P1-morning show
Channel or station: Swedish Radio, P1
Date of broadcast: 2012-10-01
Time of broadcast: 06:49
The radio morning programme of P1 on the 1st of October was about this year’s Pride Parade in Belgrade and was guested by Stina Magnusson Buur from the organisation ‘Kvinna till Kvinna’ (Woman to Woman) and Robert Hårdh, secretary-general at the organisation ‘Civil Rights Defenders’. It was evident from the programme that both organisations were involved in the then on-going Pride Parade as well as that they have been politically active in Serbia for a long time.
During the approximately 10 minutes long programme a number of very counter-factual, very selective theories and grossly derogatory judgements were passed on the Serbian people and there was a remarkable agreement on these in the studio.
Robert Hårdh chose to explain that homophobia in Serbia is due to the war being over which means that people not any longer have the opportunity of killing other ethnicities. Instead the Serbs, according to Hårdh, now without punishment devote themselves to violating oppressed minorities. This, to say the least, sensational theory was not in any way countered by the other participants in the programme. Hårdh also argued that the Serbian church is a “negative force” and went on to connect the church’s stance in the LGBT matter to its alleged role during the civil war in ex-Yugoslavia.
The whole programme was characterised by a palpable eagerness to market LGBT activists from organisations such as those of Hårdh and Magnusson Buur at the price of offending many people with gross generalizations and mock explanations (according to information by the Swedish embassy in Belgrade over 100 000 people with Serbian descent live in Sweden). It is redundant to point out how contra productive such a stance is in the circumstance.
In an objective – factual and impartial – radio programme it would have been possible to hear alternative explanations for the existing homophobia and above all aversion to organisations driving LGBT issues in Serbia. Nowhere in the programme was the widespread poverty and harsh living conditions that people face in today’s Serbia mentioned. As if this does not affect the general tolerance towards any kind of deviation. The passed war is mentioned, however only in connection to the claim that Serbs do not any longer have the opportunity of killing other ethnicities. Nowhere is it mentioned that the people of Serbia suffered greatly due to the civil war in ex-Yugoslavia, and that the country has long been subject to isolation, sanctions, bombings and ‘economic reforms’ which have created poverty in a once relatively prosperous society. As if this is irrelevant to the context, particularly when speaking about LGBT activists.
In an objective and impartial programme there would have been mentions of the existing and a much important distinction between the Serbian people’s view on ordinary LGBT persons on the one hand and on their view on some LGBT activists on the other hand. This distinction is very present in the general debate in Serbia where it is not uncommonly pointed out that the most prominent LGBT activists are financed and supported by precisely those powers behind the sanctions, bombings, neoliberal ‘reforms’ and various other demands directed at Serbia (such as giving up 15 % of its territory).
In the public debate in Serbia there have been LGBT persons that have distanced themselves from above mentioned LGBT activists. This is, however, never mentioned during the programme. While bringing up for example ignorance as a reason for homophobia, Robert Hårdh, himself spreads ignorance about the same people from whom he demands acceptance of others.
There are a number of, in the context, very relevant facts that were never mentioned and important questions that were never posed. It was for example claimed in the programme that the situation for LGBT persons in Serbia is the worst in the whole region. A factual and impartial journalist would have asked why there has not been any Pride Parades in Pristina, Sarajevo or Podgorica and how it is possible that no one is pressuring those in power in the mentioned areas to organise such parades. Does it have to do with the higher level of acceptance in regards to LGBT persons in for example Pristina or are there other explanatory models?
The explanatory models presented in the programme focused on the Serbian people’s alleged characteristics – violent, intolerant and xenophobic (it appears from Hårdh’s statement that Serbs are violent people who due to lack of war, where they can kill other ethnic groups, choose to oppress minorities. From statements by Magnusson Buur it appears that Serbs are suspicious towards anything foreign simply for being foreign) – and their centuries-old institutions (a majority of Serbs today are members of the Serbian orthodox church which Hårdh sweepingly characterises as a “negative force”).
The radio programme in question is a textbook example of spreading ignorance and shamefully dehumanising and delegitimising an ethnic group. It is thus grossly partial and grossly counterfactual and consequently in breach of the broadcasting permit.
Complainant: Justitia Pax Veritas | <urn:uuid:c41849e6-e0fd-41b5-a96e-73cd63f5a278> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.globalresearch.ca/swedish-radio-slanders-serbs-over-belgrade-pride/5311784 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965063 | 1,283 | 1.59375 | 2 |
There was no confirmation from the Syrian government, which has periodically freed hundreds of prisoners over the 21-month-old conflict in apparent concessions. But Damascus has always stressed such prisoners "do not have blood on their hands."
Syrian government forces have struck local deals with rebel groups to trade prisoners but the release announced on Wednesday would be the first time non-Syrians were freed in a swap.
Opposition groups accuse Assad of detaining tens of thousands of political prisoners during his 12 years in office and say those numbers have spiked sharply during the civil war.
Missing persons became a key issue when street protests against Assad first erupted in March 2011.
Turkey is one of Assad's fiercest critics, a strong opposition backer and proponent of international intervention. It has been highly critical of Iran's stance during the Syrian uprising, which has killed around 60,000 people according to a U.N. estimate.
Turkey, Gulf Arab states, the United States and European allies support the mainly Sunni Muslim Syrian rebels, while Shi'ite Iran supports Assad, whose Alawite minority is an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam.
A pro-government newspaper said on Dec. 31 that Syrian forces arrested four Turkish fighter pilots who were trying to sneak into a military airport with an armed group in the northern province of Aleppo. | <urn:uuid:cc2ccf7b-d271-4f37-b4f3-218ae0169fce> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://m.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-News-Wires/2013/0109/Syria-swaps-over-2-000-prisoners-for-Iranians-held-by-rebels-Turkish-NGO-says/(page)/2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977568 | 266 | 1.921875 | 2 |
Blood is a unique resource for which modern science has not yet found an artificial substitute. In view of the complexity of its components and the defence mechanisms attributed to it, research scientists are still a long way from discovering a suitable substitute for this precious resource.
Blood must, therefore, be collected from humans.
Québec hospitals depend on the generosity of donors for their blood supply. These donors are individuals who are concerned about sharing the great wealth that circulates in their veins. Several thousand patients, both children and adults, would not recover their health without blood donations.
In Québec, only 3% of eligible donors give blood. Why so few? Some people hesitate to give blood because they are misinformed or don’t understand the importance of donating. Yet it is essential because there are no substitutes for human blood.
To learn more : | <urn:uuid:20e25cb0-a4de-4a7c-976e-c18691cf8539> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hema-quebec.qc.ca/comprendre/don-de-sang/index.en.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933169 | 172 | 3.515625 | 4 |
A person who gathers knowledge and incorporates it into computer programs such as expert systems and natural-language processing systems.
But now dozens of technology start-ups are commercializing linguistics research, and competing to hire the relatively small pool of specialists on the topic, which isn't even taught at many U.S. universities. Suddenly, linguists have their pick of jobs as lexicographers, 'knowledge engineers' and 'vocabulary-resource managers.'
Daniel Golden, "No Longer Just Eggheads, Linguists Leap to the Net," The Wall Street Journal, May 30, 2000
A good example of how such rule-based systems work is a programme, called Dipmeter Advisor, which interprets geological data from an oil-well measurement device (a dipmeter). A typical rule from the programme goes:
IF there is a red pattern over a fault, the direction of the red pattern is perpendicular to the fault, and the length of the red pattern is greater than 200 feet, THEN the fault is a growth fault.
Other rules start: ''If the fault is a growth fault . . . '', and so on.
Dipmeter Advisor was developed (with the help of artificial-intelligence workers at MIT) by Schlumberger, the French-controlled company that has an international stranglehold on the business of measuring well geology for oil companies. To get at the geology of a well, various measuring devices (including dipmeters) are lowered into it on thin wires and data signals sent back to produce a ''log'' of the well.
Interpreting such logs requires skills normally acquired only by long, painstaking study. Encapsulating the skills in a master computer programme would mean very profitable business for Schlumberger. Dipmeter Advisor is a first step.
The ''knowledge engineers'' who worked on developing the programme drew on the expertise of Schlumberger's top log-interpretation man, Mr Al Gilreath. They sat with him for a year as he carried out his job, asking him to describe how he reached his conclusions and to codify his knowledge whenever possible. They then came up with a set of rules of the type listed above.
"Why can't a computer be more like a man?," The Economist, January 9, 1982
Knowledge engineers are suddenly in demand at dot coms, but the job title itself isn't all that new. It emerged in the early 1980s when the rage to create expert systems hit full force. Expert systems are a subset of artificial intelligence. They're computer programs that make decisions within a narrow field of study. Those decisions are based on a massive database of knowledge and rules gleaned from experts in the field. It's the knowledge engineer's job to codify this data so it can be used by the program. | <urn:uuid:a1f07fe4-1dac-4514-abb4-f06d3bdc8960> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wordspy.com/words/knowledgeengineer.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960874 | 573 | 3.265625 | 3 |
Within this category, some of the most common product types were toy market stalls and kitchen units, often sold alongside toy fruit and veg. These allow young children to 'play shop', or to role play cooking dinner (or doing the laundry) - a fairly traditional and wholesome activity.
One innovation I hadn't seen before was 'sliceable' food (e.g. carrots), which could be chopped up with a wooden knife, and then stuck back together again, through the magic of simple velcro. This is a neat play feature, and also helps teach cutlery skills.
However, later on in the day, I came across another company selling wooden play furniture who were a bit different.
Millhouse is a 30-year old British company, who for starters are unusual by actually manufacturing their products themselves, in Lincolnshire (rather than China or Thailand).
Their version of the toy kitchen unit cleverly doubles up as a market stall via a blackboard on the back of the unit. They also promote it as a 'healthy eating kitchen' and supply a kit with it containing plant pots, compost pellets and seeds - everything a child needs to get started with growing things for themselves.
The stock marketing photos for the product are propped, as the sales rep was keen to point out to me, with real fruit and veg rather than toys.
The message here is simple - they think children could be learning about and engaging with real food rather than toys.
This idea struck a chord with me. Whilst working at the Science Museum, one thing the exhibition design teams were often keen to emphasise was the importance of showing real phenomena, rather than simulations. You can see this in the distinction between the Launchpad gallery (hands-on science exhibits) and the old, long closed down and much internally despised, Food For Thought gallery, which contained mock-ups (complete with toy food) of a supermarket checkout and a fast food restaurant.
However, I don't know how far this thought should go. When should a toy not be a toy? Would it be better to introduce children to real carpentry tools rather than toy ones? Or a real stethoscope instead of a toy one? I don't really know the answer to these kind of questions, but the Millhouse products did make me stop and consider the different values of toys, playing, and learning - something I wasn't really expecting at a toy fair. | <urn:uuid:5bf08247-eaf8-466c-88b8-d24f49d382f9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.frankieroberto.com/millhouse | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973525 | 496 | 2.25 | 2 |
Estonia Whips Russian Butt
Reader “Robert” directs us to a BBC web page which compares the performance of the nations in post-Soviet space on economics, health and democracy. It provides three charts which reveal shocking facts about the failure of Putin’s resource-rich Russia when compared with tiny Estonia, the leader of the group.
First comes economics, which reveals not one but three stunning insights about Russia:
The chart shows Estonia has consistently out-performed Putin’s Russia. It also shows that even at Russia’s lowest point, 1998, it was still well above the regional average, meaning that when Russians complain they needed to impose dictatorship because of their unusual suffering they are simply lying. Many countries were worse off than Russia at that time, but they didn’t turn to the secret police. And finally, it clearly shows that Russia’s rebound begin in 1998, two years before Putin took the reins of power as president, under Yeltsin.
Chart number two shows that Russian life expectancy lags far behind the group average, and that compared to Estonians Russians hardly live at all.
It’s wonderfully ironic that Estonia is so far out ahead of Russia, since Russia has been doing all it can to destroy Estonia, including a brutal and internationally famous wave of cyber attacks. Through it all, Estonia has developed a fully-realized and civilized democracy, spitting in the eye of its giant neighbor and it threats, showing the people of Russia that it can be done. Without oil resources, Estonia has proven to Russia that it can build a vibrant economy that puts Russia’s to shame.
Estonia has won. | <urn:uuid:bc3c38d1-be23-4422-8a0e-84299c5e9be9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://larussophobe.wordpress.com/2011/09/28/editorial-estonia-whips-russian-butt/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=5092e672ce | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960025 | 345 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Hilda Olivarria, 55, has lived in the same modest Tucson house for 32 years. Since she became disabled in 1994, there’s been little money for upkeep—even less since she started caring full time for three grandchildren five years ago. This spring she was hoping the ancient, rusting cooling unit on her roof could limp through one more searing Arizona summer.
Before the season even hit, however, things got worse. One day Olivarria caught the faint smell of rotten eggs in her house. A gas line had broken. The local utility shut off her gas, which fuels her furnace and hot water heater, and suggested a contractor to repair the line—for $1,000.
“A thousand dollars!” Olivarria says. “That’s my monthly income. There’s no way I could do it.”
But one recent morning, a crew was hard at work on Olivarria’s property. The workers fixed the gas line and connected it to a new energy-efficient furnace and water heater. They installed reflective window shades outside her living room to deflect the sun’s heat. Then they went on Olivarria’s roof and installed a new cooling unit.
And it all cost Olivarria nothing. The tab, which would likely exceed $5,000 commercially, was covered by a federal program that aims to help low-income and older Americans weatherize their homes.
Across the country, thousands of homes like Olivarria’s are echoing with the sounds of repairs, thanks to dramatically expanded federal spending for weatherization assistance for homeowners and increased tax credits for those who improve their energy efficiency. The funding was included in the massive economic stimulus package—the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act—signed into law by President Obama last winter. The expanded programs offer an unprecedented opportunity for Americans to make needed home repairs with Uncle Sam’s help.
Stimulus funding bolsters the U.S. Department of Energy’s Weatherization Assistance Program with $5 billion to be spent during the next one to three years. That’s many times the previous year’s funding for the program, which was started during the 1970s fuel crisis. At full capacity, the program will reduce fuel bills in 1 million homes a year, according to the DOE. It could also put an estimated 87,000 people to work fixing up older homes.
“These investments will reduce energy costs for those that need it most, while creating jobs, reducing pollution and moving the country toward energy independence,” says Secretary of Energy Steven Chu.
To put weatherization within reach of more low-income homeowners, the government raised the program’s eligibility limits—they had varied from state to state—to 200 percent of the poverty level. That’s income of $21,660 for an individual and $44,100 for a family of four (higher in Alaska and Hawaii). The federal guidelines allow states to give priority to people over 60, people with disabilities and families with children. Final eligibility is determined at the local level. | <urn:uuid:6e50eb65-d866-4052-8f06-223fe6ab1059> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aarp.org/politics-society/environment/info-09-2009/go_green_at_home_with_uncle_sams_help.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960672 | 643 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Facebook Blames API Bug for Email Synching Glitch
Facebook said Monday afternoon that a bug within the API for certain mobile devices was accidentally synching a user's @facebook.com email address rather than their primary address.
"We are in the process of fixing this issue and it will be resolved soon," a Facebook spokesman said. "After that, those specific devices should pull the correct addresses."
Facebook said that for "most devices," the API was working correctly and pulling a user's primary email address. Certain devices, however, were "pulling the last email address added to the account rather than the primary email address." Given that Facebook recently added an update to list @facebook.com email addresses on users' Timelines, that address was pulled and synched with a user's contacts.
Facebook did not specify which devices were affected.
As a result, some people found that their emails were listed in friends' contact lists as the @facebook.com address. People fired off emails to their friends at this new address without noticing, resulting in "lost" emails that seemingly never arrived. Complex settings with Facebook Messages, however, were to blame.
Facebook said this afternoon that emails sent to @facebook.com email addresses from Facebook friends or friends of friends will go to your Facebook Inbox. Messages from anyone else will be sent to the "Other" folder within your Inbox. Many people - myself included - did not realize this Other inbox existed, prompting us to think our messages had disappeared into the ether.
In some cases, however, that was true. "If you've specified in privacy settings that you only want to receive messages from friends or friend of friends, then the message will bounce," Facebook said. "We've noticed that in a very limited number of cases, the bounce email back to the original sender may not be delivered because it may get intercepted by spam filters. We are working to make sure that email senders consistently receive bounce messages."
For more, see Facebook Email: What You Need to Know.
For more from Chloe, follow her on Twitter @ChloeAlbanesius.
blog comments powered by Disqus | <urn:uuid:c60eea80-6d35-467b-9852-5db1da2c5f38> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2406636,00.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970849 | 439 | 1.59375 | 2 |
A natural environmentalist
- Carole King testifies at a House hearing in 2005. AP Photo
Carole King’s songs are tightly woven into the tapestry of American music. Flip on the radio and, before long, at least one of the singer-songwriter’s familiar tunes is likely to ring out. Starting with The Shirelles’ “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?” in 1960, King wrote a series of classic songs. Aretha Franklin’s “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” and “You’ve Got a Friend,” which James Taylor turned into a smash hit, are just a couple of examples.
But King has also struck a major note as an environmental activist. She moved from her native New York to Idaho in 1977 and quickly involved herself in local environmental causes. She is also a familiar presence on Capitol Hill, lobbying for wildlife protection, climate change legislation and environmental causes in general. POLITICO Senior Editor David Mark recently spoke to King about the political calculus for passing environmental legislation, President Barack Obama’s green initiatives and a host of other topics.
Did you make a conscious decision at some point to transition from music to environmental activism?
It wasn’t a change of career. It was an additional career. It was a series of things. You could say it started with growing up back East, spending time on a mountaintop in Connecticut, getting a love of nature. And my mom had a victory garden.
Moving to Idaho, I grew to see what destruction can do. When I first moved here, I saw destruction from mine tailing. Then I started seeing all the roads going into what ought to be wilderness. It just didn’t seem right. I started getting involved. ... I believe there should be areas protected as wilderness. I thought we should at least ask for protection of the roadless areas. It sort of wasn’t working that way — the conservation groups were asking for about a third of them.
And then I heard about these people in Missoula, Mont.: the Alliance for the Wild Rockies. The short version of what they were doing was to come up with a proposal that transcended state law. Each state would designate the federal wilderness in its own territory. When I saw this proposal, it was based on science. It was based on the grizzly bear range. Biologists regard grizzly bears as an umbrella species: If they’re in trouble, everyone’s in trouble. What they needed was a biological corridor.
It made so much sense to build overlapping roadless areas in five states [Idaho and Montana, plus eastern Washington and Oregon and western Wyoming]. | <urn:uuid:27914223-4846-4318-877c-20882ce66c13> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/24754.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965363 | 563 | 1.929688 | 2 |
To our faithful readers,
If you listen to the Christian News you have probably heard some of the controversy over displaying the Ten Commandments in public places. This week’s reading covers the time when God first wrote the Ten Commandments, with His finger, on stone and gave them to Moses. You will see how and why Moses became so angry he threw the stone tablets down, breaking them!
We will read of the various sacrifices that had to be offered so that each time we sinned we would be forgiven and we might remain in a right relationship with God. How thankful we are that God loves us so much that He gave the greatest and final sacrifice, His Son, so that when we accept Jesus’ sacrifice we no longer have to offer sacrifices that merely “cover” our sins (Heb. 10:14); but that they are gone forever (8:12; 10:17).
Don’t let the details of the Tabernacle, priestly garments, and sacrifices sidetrack you. God wrote details so that we would recognize His patterns as they appear later in Scripture. We are now the Temple or Tabernacle of the very presence of God. How awesome is that? We may not be as beautiful as the original, but we are the living-breathing Body of Christ on earth. When we get to the New Testament, we’ll see how Jesus was foretold in the Tabernacle, its furnishings, the sacrifices and feasts. Even the layout of the encampment – if it were seen from “Google Earth”—was in the shape of a cross! God is so-o-o-o awesome!
More than once Jesus said Moses spoke of Him (John 5:46; Luke 24:27). Try to catch the deeper meaning as we read Moses’ words. Then, let’s praise the Lord together!
In Christ, Pastor Rick | <urn:uuid:2a5acdbd-4527-4b0d-8616-ddd087946042> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.oneplace.com/(A(Rk-u7T1k3LwyEeqT904aOeMtX_LPS4KXKUiFkzvehpmPsj6zIEubmFno0lN_SgBjRCQB3LZnkCoNfM_217HBRLpB4Dao378qIW196zKtgarGv01Ca7OiQtF8XODab94b_--wyvTsPfBhYqiPdncW7WwxHre_xnbHkMk7xgZy08z9iaXy0))/ministries/bible-pathway/read/articles/gone-forever-13966.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964836 | 399 | 2.765625 | 3 |
City Ethics president,
Carla Miller, worked with Integrity
Florida (Dan Krassner) and the Florida Alliance for
Retired Americans (Richard Polangin) on a Resolution that
passed at the annual conference of the Alliance last week. This is
part of an emerging citizen initiative in Florida that involves
numerous groups joining forces to fight for the passage of
effective laws in Florida to close loopholes in current ethics
laws. As stated in the resolution, Florida leads the nation in
public corruption convictions.
The resolution (see below) calls for a change in Florida law that
will allow the Ethics Commission to self-initiate complaints. Now,
if they become aware of an ethics violation, they have to sit on
their hands and do nothing unless a citizen files a complaint.
Also, the resolution calls for the creation of independent Ethics
Officers statewide who can only be fired with the approval of the
State Ethics Commission. There are also recommendations on
transparency of state contracts and a review of penalties for
In order to have effective ethics reform, citizen groups must be
engaged and educated. Then they need to be coordinated into a
focused lobbying group. This resolution is the first of many to
come in Florida and we will be shooting for legislative changes in
the spring of 2013. | <urn:uuid:65ebf35d-ff13-4fd0-9fd0-4fbdddf45290> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cityethics.org/blog/104 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931791 | 272 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Australian Bureau of Statistics
1306.5 - Western Australia at a Glance, 2012
Previous ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 10/04/2012
|Page tools: Print Page Print All RSS Search this Product|
Mining industry remains WA's biggest economic contributor
Exports from Western Australia increased from a total value of $83 billion in 2009-10 to $112 billion in 2010-11, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
Iron ore saw the biggest increase, from $34 billion being exported in 2009-10 to $57 billion in 2010-11. China continued to be the state's biggest export recipient during this period.
The mining industry remained a cornerstone of the local economy, making up 28% of the state's production.
Western Australian residents also saw an increase in their weekly earnings during this period. Male earnings increased by $164 and female earnings increased by a smaller $62.
The state's Health Care and Social Assistance industry grew significantly, employing 17,800 more people in 2010-11 than in 2009-10.
For further information, see Western Australia at a Glance, 2012 (cat no. 1306.5).
These documents will be presented in a new window.
This page last updated 29 May 2013 | <urn:uuid:285f0e55-12e9-45b3-a708-70db86c9d8d4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/mediareleasesbyReleaseDate/BCE59CF924346C40CA2579D70011855D?OpenDocument | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.912978 | 265 | 1.898438 | 2 |
In industrialized countries, more than 30% of women and about 10% of men consult for venous signs and symptoms of the legs. Important factors such as heredity, excess weight, some professions requiring prolonged periods of standing or sitting may increase the risk of developing a chronic venous disease of the leg. These conditions can evolve and produce complications such as skin pigmentation, chronic oedema, dermititis, eczema, phlebitis and ultimately leg ulcerations.
The most common symptoms are feelings of heaviness and tiredness in the legs, especially after long days of work and often associated with some leg swelling.
Varicose veins reflect more serious conditions of the disease. In general, the larger the varicose vein, the more serious the problem. Long existing varicose veins and thrombosis invariably lead to skin lesions, which, at the worst, will end up in an ulcer. Therefore, an early diagnosis is essential in order to prevent a bad outcome of venous disease.
Varicose veins are one of the most common condition of venous disease in the legs. According to the American Society for Vascular Surgery, as many as 40 million Americans have varicose veins. Statistics further show that 15% of men and 25% of women have varicose veins. In fact, more people lose work time from vein disorders than from arterial disease. (Vascular Disease Foundation Newsletter, Spring 2005).
Visible tortuous varicose veins are located in the subcutaneous fatty tissue. They are often tributaries to the saphenous veins or accessory saphenous branches. The saphenous veins are located in a duplication of the fascia covering the leg muscles. As they are covered by the fatty tissue, they are not visible in most of the cases. In varicose veins, the anti-reflux valves are defective causing venous stasis and leg swelling.
When symptoms are present, the patient may experience ankle and leg swelling, heaviness or fullness, aching, restlessness, fatigue, pain, cramps and itching. Sometimes, varicose veins are painless. As a consequence of varicose veins, chronic venous insufficiency (CVI) with leg edema, skin changes or venous ulcers may develop.
There are two types of varicose vein classifications – primary and secondary. The risk of developing primary varicose veins is frequently associated with heredity, female gender, pregnancy and higher age.
Secondary varicosities are a direct result of deep vein occlusion. In this case, superficial veins may be part of the collateral venous circulation leading to dilatation, elongation and valve insufficiency of these veins.
Varicose veins are part of the chronic venous insufficiency disease. If not treated, varicose veins can lead to the aggravation of the disease and to the signs of CVI. Wearing SIGVARIS compression socks or stockings is vital for the management and treatment of varicose veins and other venous disorders. | <urn:uuid:de113fcf-de99-4db8-8fc6-e424211915ce> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sigvaris.com/en/sigvaris-medical/varicose-veins/overview | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939916 | 640 | 3.078125 | 3 |
Frank Buckles, the last surviving American veteran of the First World War, has died just weeks after his 110th birthday. Born 1 February 1901, Buckles had lied about his age to join the Ambulance Corps, where he served on the Western Front. He was one of nearly 5 million Americans who would serve in that war, a war in which 118,000 US servicemen would be killed in action in a little over seven months of combat.
Between the wars, Buckles found himself in the Philippines, where, in 1941, he was captured as a civilian by the Japanese. He spent three years as a prisoner of the Japanese before being freed. Read the rest of the story here.
America’s last World War I Veteran dies at 110 | <urn:uuid:ea8b6882-de39-4bd7-8a1a-3247d82a8201> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.libusters.com/blog/sample-page | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988626 | 155 | 2.46875 | 2 |
Submitted by libbyliberal on Sat, 11/17/2012 - 11:21pm
Mohammed Omer, Palestinian journalist based in Gaza who in 2008 won the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism, writes:
“Air strikes are bombing everything that moves. Everything that moves in the streets is being bombed and attacked. ... One thing that we ought to talk about here is the humanitarian situation in the Gaza strip. This is a situation of targeting a population of civilians, exactly like Israel is shooting in a fishbowl. And there is no shelter, and there is nowhere to run for the general population. Gaza is living in a very dire situation.”
Bill Van Auken of wsws writes: Read below the fold... | <urn:uuid:2b020502-60b6-4ef4-be68-4eb1b764d829> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://correntewire.com/category/tags/bennis | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954796 | 153 | 2.765625 | 3 |
Personalized, One-on-One Math Tutoring
Unlike most learning center math programs, StudyPoint math tutors focus on your child's own schoolwork. We believe the best measure of your child's understanding and progress is the math grade on his or her report card. To this end, your tutor will focus on the lessons and material being covered each week by your child's classroom math teacher. The goal is to help your child grasp new concepts, and when necessary, to fill skill gaps that are preventing him or her from fully understanding new material.
With one-on-one math tutoring, your child will be able to learn at his or her own pace. Our tutors review concepts until it's clear that the student has mastered them, and new ones are introduced only when your child is ready.
Importantly, a primary goal of our personalized math tutoring programs is to help your child prepare for and succeed on important quizzes and tests. This involves reviewing homework assignments, discussing key concepts and techniques, and working through practice problems together.
Most importantly, our tutors help students take ownership for their learning, with the goal of making your child an independent and successful math student. | <urn:uuid:e97006fe-53fb-4535-b2bf-7ccb7fdc045a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.studypoint.com/math-tutor/personalized.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960446 | 243 | 1.859375 | 2 |
From: Jefferson, Robert C. (X2JEFFER@southernco.com)
Date: Mon Aug 30 1999 - 07:39:02 EDT
I have seen on the Internet somewhere a very interesting Java program.
It is an English thesaurus where words are related by lines in a 3-d chart.
The distance between words show graphically how closely words are related.
And when you click on a new word it becomes the new center of the graph and
word related it circle it.
All of this is in virtual 3-d. I think it has 70,000 words.
I think this would be very interesting in Greek, of course which Greek.
From: Mike Sangrey [SMTP:firstname.lastname@example.org]
Sent: Friday, August 27, 1999 8:17 PM
To: Biblical Greek
Subject: Re: Source for the semantic range of ...
I've replied privately to Rolf, since what I said in that email is
more linguistic than B-Greek. However, there is one item that I
think would be helpful to those on this list. So, I've attached
> I would like to add another dimension, which you hint at, namely
> one of different presupposition pools.
> The native Greek speaker did not need any books for this but he
> she could depend on the common presupposition pool of the native
> speakers and would get an instant understanding of the meaning of
If one understands how a 'presuppositional pool' might work,
then the method of learning vocabulary through memorization is
humorously incomplete. One should form a more complex structure
than a list of glosses. The structure would have to be a network
of usages which are related in a variety of ways. I don't have
the experience to come up with the list of those ways, though.
Does anyone happen to know where this might be discussed?
The building of the network would only be possible by diligent
study of grammatical constructions which are semantically related.
So, a lexicon does not quite cut it. Though a lexicon is a start;
the ingesting of a complete lexical entry is needed to build the
skeleton of the network in one's head. One still needs to go beyond
that to think like a Greek.
There is no 'do' in faith, everywhere present within it is
B-Greek home page: http://sunsite.unc.edu/bgreek
You are currently subscribed to b-greek as:
To unsubscribe, forward this message to
To subscribe, send a message to
Attachment converted: Tacitus:RCJefferson.vcf 3 (????/----) (0002CA9C)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:40:37 EDT | <urn:uuid:72256951-88ba-4f49-b388-ae6765ca14c2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/test-archives/html4/1999-08/32581.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.915171 | 612 | 2.28125 | 2 |
They are the heartfelt correspondence from the great acerbic wit of the European Enlightenment to the last Russian empress, in which he praises her authoritarian style and mocks the extravagances of her French counterparts.
For years, the letters from Voltaire to Catherine the Great have been hidden away in a private collection - the contents a mystery. But now, courtesy of a Moscow art dealer, they will be returned to Russia, where their musings and advice may provide solace to the current Kremlin resident, Vladimir Putin, himself accused by critics of an authoritarian style.
Alexander Khochinsky, a Russian art dealer, paid a record €583,200 (£400,000) in Paris for the 26 letters written by the French satirist to Catherine II. Yesterday, he refused to say on whose behalf he had bought the archive. He said: "I cannot say the name of the person, but they are very important and in Russia." He added that the purchaser was not one of Russia's oligarchs. "I did a lot of work to get the archive at the best conditions and price," he said.
The Kremlin has recently promoted the return to Moscow of valuable artefacts from Russia's history, many of which were lost to foreign collectors during the the last century. The oligarch Viktor Vekselberg paid a reported $100m (£54m) in 2004 for the Fabergé eggs which he then returned to Russia.
Mr Khochinsky said he had not read the letters, dated 1768 to 1777, but thought they contained information that would help the "European direction of Russia".
Thomas Bompard, a manuscript expert at Sotheby's in Paris who looked after the archive, said: "Voltaire and Catherine never met, but the relationship between these great characters of the 18th century was conducted through these letters."
The most telling comments in the letter for today's Russia refer to Catherine's governing style. Mr Bompard said Voltaire, who lambasted the French monarchy during the Enlightenment for its excesses, approved of her role as an "enlightened despot".
Catherine, who ruled Russia for three decades until her death in 1796, viewed herself a patron of the arts and liberty, and a "philosopher on the throne", but has been criticised for the little she did for the millions of peasants in her empire.
Voltaire supported her military endeavours, including her war against the Turks. Mr Bompard said that after Louis XVI's wedding to Marie Antoinette, the monarch, soon to be deposed by the French revolution, celebrated by setting off hundreds of fireworks which apparently killed many bystanders. "He wrote that more people were probably killed by the fireworks than by Catherine's war against the Turks," said Mr Bompard.
He described the letters not as works of diplomatic politesse, but as being "intimate". He said: "In Voltaire's bedroom there was a portrait of Catherine in front of his bed."
Star of the North
Catherine II the Great was born Sophie Augusta Fredericka in 1729, a German princess who was sent to Russia in a diplomatic Prussian intrigue and grew more popular than the man she married, the Grand Duke Peter - later Peter III. After his death she became empress, extending the Russian empire south and westwards. She considered herself a philosopher, and the arts flourished. The Hermitage museum, St Petersburg, started as her collection. She corresponded with the great minds of her day, including Voltaire, who called her "the Star of the North". | <urn:uuid:50bd369c-6d55-4482-8265-ee9cc9034306> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/jun/02/russia.books | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978805 | 734 | 2.15625 | 2 |
CHICAGO, July 18, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — Equine Welfare Alliance (EWA) – Despite dozens of articles about the imminent opening of a horse slaughter plant in Rockville, Missouri, EWA has learned that the plant is not opening anytime in the foreseeable future.
The announcement by Sue Wallis that the plant was undergoing renovation and would be open in September turns out to have been as premature and misleading as her earlier announcements in Wyoming and Mountain Grove, MO.
Wallis has not in fact purchased the plant, and cannot legally do so (had she the resources) because its ownership is entangled in a complex web of civil and criminal issues involving dubious deeds of trust through a shell company called Six Bears, and criminal theft charges against its Canadian operator Vincent Paletta.
Paletta had already been charged with two counts of felony stealing by deception when Wallis’ announcement brought the plant to the attention of Mountain Grove attorney Cynthia MacPherson. It was MacPherson who uncovered the elaborate plan by the Palettas to protect the plant from creditors.
On behalf of one creditor, Elvin’s Refrigeration, MacPherson has sued the Palettas, asking the court to block all transfers of the property until the ownership can be determined and creditors protected. The petition claims the Palettas violated MUFTA (Missouri Uniform Financial Transactions Act).
Elvin’s has also filed a Nonconsensual Common Law Lien against the plant’s owner charging that the Palettas fraudulently used bogus deeds of trust, and even sued themselves through their shell companies to protect their assets from creditors.
Although Wallis and her Missouri attorney Dan Erdel did form two new companies and have requested federal inspections, they do not own the plant for which the request was made thus rendering the filing moot. Moreover, records show that they have made no application to Missouri agencies for the required permits.
Undeterred, Wallis has already announced a plant in Oklahoma, where selling horse meat or possessing horse meat for sale is illegal. This announcement too has been widely reported as factual.
EWA has published a comprehensive report on the Gordian legal knot encasing the Rockville plant.
Source: Press Release
>> Donate to the Fund for Horses Campaign to End Horse Slaughter. Thank you! | <urn:uuid:1d70f0bf-5c00-4c34-baec-a736f7e0edce> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tuesdayshorse.wordpress.com/tag/sue-wallis/page/2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965512 | 486 | 1.5 | 2 |
People of Northwest Public Radio
Prop 8 northwest
Tue February 7, 2012
Prop 8 Ruling Likely Has No Immediate Effect On Northwest
Tuesday's ruling overturning California’s ban on same-sex marriage is not expected to affect similar laws in other states. Oregon and Idaho also have voter-approved amendments against gay marriage. But Washington lawmakers are poised to send Governor Chris Gregoire a measure allowing gays and lesbians to marry.
The judges on the federal appeals court crafted their decision to apply specifically to California. It's not clear yet whether the US Supreme Court will eventually take up the case.
But even if it does, Jeana Frazzini of Basic Rights Oregon says that’s a long way off and gay rights groups like hers aren’t relying on the legal system. She says, "This is going to be an issue that we need to win in the court of public opinion one way or another."
Frazzini says Basic Rights Oregon may try to get a measure on the ballot in two years aimed at legalizing gay marriage.
But Oregon voters banned same-sex marriage in 2004, and Teresa Harke of the Oregon Family Council doesn’t believe voters have changed their minds. "I think Oregon still feels very strongly that marriage is between a man and a woman."
Idaho voters approved a ban on gay marriage in 2006. The state’s attorney general filed a brief in support of California’s Proposition 8, defining marriage as between one man and one woman.
On the Web:
Ninth Circuit opinion:
2008 California voter guide (inclides text of Proposition 8):
Same-sex marriage laws by state: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_law_in_the_United_States_by_state
Copyright 2012 Northwest News Network | <urn:uuid:15bdec8d-2e37-43f5-842f-a401f954986d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nwpr.org/post/prop-8-ruling-likely-has-no-immediate-effect-northwest | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92419 | 379 | 2.046875 | 2 |
After worming our way through the narrow streets of Moradabad, a small city in Uttar Pradesh, India, a local doctor brought us by foot to the End Polio Now rally which had already begun.
As part of a team of 20 Rotarians from districts 6440 (Illinois, USA), 6270 (Wisconsin, USA), 5650 (Nebraska, USA), and 1070 (England), we are in India this week to immunize hundreds of children in the Moradabad area and participate in a Polio Summit Conference 25-26 February involving Rotary leadership, government and health ministry leaders from India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nigeria, and surrounding countries.
Words are inadequate to describe the rally. We marched about a mile plus with people yelling, microphones blaring, and people waving. This was all to raise awareness of Sunday, when we will be doing the immunizations. The emotions were overwhelming. There were several hundreds of people in this rally.
After the march, there was a ceremony in the park. Then we were taken to one of many slum areas in this city. The squatters “survive” by collecting rags and plastic bags that are purchased by a local company who recycles them. Once again Rotary has stepped in by providing a health clinic twice a week to immunize and take care of the health of these incredibly poor people. They treat worms, lice, and many common infections.
Back to the hotel for a quick change of clothing and then more ceremony at the local Rotary meeting of two of the 15 clubs in Moradabad. We were honored and lauded for coming from so far to help these people fight polio. The state of Uttar Pradesh used to have the most cases of polio, and now there has not been an active case of the crippling disease in Moradabad for two years and three months.
Adapted from nid2012India, where you can read an ongoing account of the NID team. | <urn:uuid:89e6f74f-a88d-49ec-8fdd-1bd0457f343d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.rotary.org/2012/02/23/polio-immunization-rally-in-moradabad/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=8ac41143de | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968287 | 402 | 1.820313 | 2 |
I have a pier-and-beam house, and the instructions are pretty much correct.
Tile will crack eventually when placed over pier-and-beam because of two related issues:
Floor joists often aren't on 12- or 16-inch centers, so they allow too much "give" when you step on the floor between the joists.
The piers are settling independently of one another based on soil conditions, and even fractional-inch movement is enough to crack grout lines over time.
So, if you really want tile, I would suggest removing the existing linoleum, then do the following:
- Ensure that the subfloor is as level as possible before you begini. This is a lot better than to discover later that you need to shim your subfloor, use self-leveling compound, etc. for the tile to lay flat.
- Lay a first layer of 3/4" plywood (or leave the one you have if it is in good condition and screwed down well).
- Install a second layer of either 3/4" plywood or cement board going the other direction, so any movement at the first-layer joints is distributed across the second layer. Be sure to use long wood screws that go through both layers and back into the joists.
- Install a decoupling membrane such as DITRA over the subfloor.
- Install the tile. | <urn:uuid:8852f2ed-0f19-43f7-b72c-d17833e2ca6d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://diy.stackexchange.com/questions/5076/kitchen-tile-on-pier-beam | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954901 | 293 | 1.75 | 2 |
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Hosts, Reporters and Producers
Wed April 4, 2012
ACLU Seeks to Protect Cell Phone Records
The American Civil Liberties Union is taking a stand to protect cell phone records in police investigations.
Gurnal Scott: About 40 North Carolina police agencies responded to the national ACLU's question on how cell phone records were obtained. The ACLU said the responses were inconsistent ranging from getting court orders as a safety net to having no written policy at all. North Carolina ACLU spokesman Mike Meno says the intent is not to hamper how police track suspects.
Mike Meno: But if that is required, why don't they go to a judge and get a warrant the way they do for so many other things? There's a reason we have checks and balances in this country and it's to make sure the government doesn't overstep into the rights of individuals.
The ACLU is supporting legislation in Congress that requires a judge to sign off on information obtained by police from cell phones and GPS devices. | <urn:uuid:2890c3ef-2fe3-42a1-b820-7737cc415a3a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wunc.org/post/aclu-seeks-protect-cell-phone-records | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938366 | 277 | 1.921875 | 2 |
Why is the Banyan tree so important in Indian folklore ?
The stories of Zeus’ infidelities and his wife Hera’s reactions and efforts to curb his liecentious moves.
Sita – the epitome of an Indian daughter,wife,daughter-in-law,mother.
What is the myth surrounding the island of Crete?
An insight into what Shiva’s third eye stands for.
Animals play a critical part in Hindu mythology. Some, serve as symbols to communicate metaphysical ideas.
Just because someone’s way of life differs from the normal,accepted,traditional one,does not make them into demons !
Our failure to admit,that there is a grey between the black and the white,often leads us to our own downfall.
No matter,how much we vilify war;there is no escaping it at times.
Across cultures,the Moon has always been looked upon as beautiful,mysterious,out-of-reach and sublime.
The many stories,tales,legends and myths about Sunday.
About Kubera,the keeper of the Wealth.
The Forbidden always was,always is and always will be alluring and tempting,no matter what the consequence.
Society was created to live in harmony with nature;not to destroy it with its demands.
As humans we prefer affection over wisdom; more than knowledge, we need love. | <urn:uuid:f80d4f3e-4a68-4ba4-9775-893c9582dc07> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://devdutt.com/2008/10 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951625 | 296 | 1.992188 | 2 |
08-03-04 – The City of Denison is taking on energy giant, TXU, arguing their energy supplier is charging customers too much. The city is threatening to file a lawsuit if the company does not provide documents, proving the need for rate increases.
In a complaint issued Monday afternoon, The Denison City Council, challenges the rates set by TXU’s electric supplier, TXU Transmission and Delivery. The supplier controls power lines in North Texas.
John Walls, a representative for TXU Transmission and Delivery, attributes the rate increase to rising fuel costs. The city of Denison now wants to see proof of those rising costs. TXU is willing to hand over the documents, but they want the city to hold off on the rate issue for one more year when the Public Utilities Commission reviews their investments and earnings.
Denison has turned down the one year request and has resolved to move toward class action litigation. At least 79 other cities are questioning TXU’s rates. If a majority of the cities join in, Denison plans on filing suit.
The TXU-controlled cities are basing their rate concerns on a successful case in South Texas that resulted in lower electric rates for numerous cities. | <urn:uuid:33fd2aa2-c0fb-4abf-b790-09633dd32c4b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kxii.com/news/headlines/902057.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947477 | 249 | 1.664063 | 2 |
On this last day of 2009, let's step back and think about where our food actually comes from.
You live in town on a small plot of land and you usually go to the store to buy your weekly supply of groceries. You find all kinds of excellent food items on the shelves and in the coolers, so your big decision is what kind should I buy or what brand is best.
You don't have to worry that the shelves are empty and you won't be able to buy enough to feed your family.
With all these choices and an abundant supply of things to buy, why should you be interested in the corn and soybean harvest in our area? Or across the nation?
Let's take a look at that question.
While a bit later than usual, corn harvest in our area moved along fairly well this fall. Wet October weather caused delays in maturing the crop and muddy fields for harvest. Then some nice November weather allowed farmers to get into the fields to harvest their crop, along with the rest of their soybeans.
Corn yields were exceptionally good for the most part. Reports of 200 or more bushels from an acre have not been unusual. One farmer said he had just under 250 bushels per acre.
Back in the 1950s and early 60s, yields of 50 to 70 bushels were considered good. So you see, we have come a long way with productivity on local farms as well as those across the nation.
That increased productivity is the main reason you can go to the store and find an abundance if healthy food items at reasonable cost.
We have been able to reach today's yield levels in corn and other crops, as well as in livestock production, by the use of modern technology along with hard work by farmers.
Technology has been in the areas of seed improvement, careful use of crop protectants, using only fertilizers that are needed along with huge improvements in farm machinery and equipment.
Increases in livestock productivity have come about through improved feeding, genetics and health care of the animals.
With rare exceptions, our livestock is better cared for today than at any time in our history. Livestock housing has changed dramatically and livestock and poultry are healthier and more productive than in the past.
More meat, milk and eggs from an acre of land are indications that farmers are great stewards of the animals and land.
Since you may live in town and have never been on one of today's farms, you may not realize what goes into running an up-to-date farm. Yes, they are larger than 50 or 60 years ago, but there are still all-family farms in our area. Across the nation, we have fewer than 5 percent that are really corporate farms.
Family farms are larger because today's technology has allowed one person to farm many more acres or take care of a lot more livestock. And because of low farm prices, farmers have had to get larger in order to make a reasonable living for the family.
In so many ways, government policies have been geared to low food prices. Policies have been set that encourage more farm production to be sure we don't have a food shortage in this country. Hungry people would be the quickest way for politicians to get voted out of office.
We need to start 2010 by doing a better job of telling consumers about today's modern agriculture and our safe, affordable food supply. We want to avoid a food shortage in the future!
Parker is an independent agricultural writer and works with the local Farm Bureau Board. | <urn:uuid:acf37f22-42ee-4374-8713-858acde7b05b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tribune-chronicle.com/page/content.detail/id/531647/Advances-in-farming-keep-us-safe.html?nav=5146 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974424 | 719 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Photo by Flo Legendere / Flickr, licensed under Creative Commons
For many years I taught incarcerated people. During a course called "Explorations in Reading," at the women's prison in New Hampshire, we managed to persuade the officer to let us hold a class session outside, on the edge of the blacktop basketball court where several women were sunning, pant legs and tee-shirt sleeves rolled up. I looked beyond the wire fencing to a stand of trees and read aloud Mary Oliver's poem, "Some Questions You Might Ask," wherein the poet wonders about the nature of the soul: who and what have one? Is there a shape to it?
I told the women in class I love the poem because I believe that trees have souls. Immediately, someone suggested that when I die my soul might enter a tree.
"That would be perfect," I said, "as long as I don't end up a bench." We laughed and a woman said, "You could end up paper that someone writes on." Another piped up and said, "You could end up being a disciplinary write-up form."
"No not that," I exclaimed. But then it hit me, what if every thing, every being potentially held some particle of spirit or soul of something or someone I loved? What if the disciplinary write-up form were printed on paper that came from a tree that possessed a great soul?
The answer came tumbling out of my mouth: I would be more apt to treat all things and all beings more compassionately. My vision and relationship with the world and all its inhabitants would change.
Rabbi David Cooper in his book, God Is a Verb explains five levels of soul — the first is Nefesh, the Hebrew word for vital life force, which refers to the soul of atomic structure. Every particle of matter has Nefesh.
Rabbi Cooper cautions us against limiting soul to a particular body or entity. He likens it to magnetic field, a kind of spiritual current that flows through every thing, every being, connecting us all.
Alice Walker begins her novel, Possessing the Secret of Joy, with a line from a bumper sticker:
When the ax entered the forest, the trees said, “The handle is one of us.”
To see ourselves in those who seem most definitively them is a kind of vision I desire though it frightens me. Often, when I feel tethered by fear, I long to be free of it, yet there are moments when what I want is to be willing to be afraid, and still enter the forest where trees are brave enough to recognize themselves in the handle of axes that seek to cut them down.
In part, that's why I began working in prisons, to find in myself those who reside there. That came easily enough. Were it not for the privileges, the resources, the chances, and choices I've been so abundantly given, but for the grace of God, there go I. The challenge was finding myself in the correctional officers. I thought a lot about who becomes one and why. I remembered how I, too, needed a job once, which led to teaching in a locked adolescent unit of a psychiatric hospital where we assessed and tallied behavior on point sheets, where fluorescent lighting and sealed, chicken-wired windows taunted fresh air and sun.
I never really subscribed to the treatment model, nor did I like much of what I saw, but it paid well. To the teenagers on that unit, no matter how empathetic I tried to be, I was still "staff," the hospital equivalent of a correctional officer.
When the ax entered the forest, the trees said, "The handle is one of us."
Before I knew it, I found myself behaving like some correctional officers I'd observed: leaning too far into the face of an angry adolescent whose confinement embittered him. I heard myself telling him like countless other adults had, what I could do to him. In that split second when he screamed at me and I knew I was powerless to change one iota of his pain, I reached for what power I could, and did nothing but sully myself and fuel his cynicism.
I heard the words of Maya Angelou who said there is nothing sadder than a young cynic because she or he goes from knowing nothing to believing nothing. In that moment of mutual frustration and powerlessness, neither of us believed there was anything else to do. Neither of us recognized the soul of the other, or anything we had ever loved. In that moment, the sparks of the divine in each of us, lay dormant, dispossessed. We saw only the ax blade, not the handle.
When does a child embody the soul of an ax instead of a tree?
Each time I have volunteered in a penal facility, I have been warned: Do not trust the inmates. They are called "cons" for a reason. They will ask you for things and try to manipulate you. Not once in the ten years I taught or brought in artists or speakers, did anyone con or manipulate me. I did not expect them to. I offered my respect and received theirs in return. I have no doubt that prisons, like society at large, are rife with negative behaviors. They breed like bacteria on stale bread, seizing the most opportune conditions: distrust, disrespect, dehumanization. It is challenge to enter a prison and keep cynicism at bay; it is a triumph of spirit to dwell there, for an eight-hour shift, or a sentence, without surrendering one's humanity.
In her "Morning Poem," Mary Oliver speaks of daring to be happy. I asked the women in class what that meant to them. A woman said, "They hate it when we are happy in here. They can't stand to see us smile."
Later that afternoon in prison, when we had returned to the building, to the room we shared with vending machines, we were all laughing, and I looked up to see four people with visitor badges on a tour of the prison staring in at us. "Now see," I joked, "they're going to think prison is fun." But underneath the irritation of being studied lay the recognition that the four people on the tour saw something important as they passed by. They saw incarcerated women who knew their bodies could be chastened, but not their souls. And maybe, like the trees, they understood, "the handle is one of us." | <urn:uuid:4cab0432-0bda-4a52-88c3-d659c1f6ba62> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.onbeing.org/comment/845271 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979307 | 1,325 | 1.835938 | 2 |
The Cultural Geography of Colonial American Literatures
- Publication date:January 2009
- 15 b/w illus.
- Dimensions: 229 x 152 mm
- Weight: 0.47kg
Ralph Bauer presents a comparative investigation of colonial prose narratives in Spanish and British America from 1542 to 1800. Bauer analyzes narratives of shipwreck, captivity, and travel, as well as imperial and natural histories of the New World in the context of transformative early modern scientific ideologies. He reviews the narrative models promoted by the "New Sciences" during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries within the context of the geopolitical question of how knowledge can be centrally controlled in outwardly expanding empires. | <urn:uuid:849e7ea4-f89f-44f4-87af-f618f817e93d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cambridge.org/us/knowledge/isbn/item2425988/?site_locale=en_US | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.904803 | 138 | 2.1875 | 2 |
|Author: James Fearnley
Title: Bee Propolis - Natural Healing from the Hive
A powerful health aid rediscovered
Editor: Souvenir Press
Price : £7,99 (GBP) Exchange rate
1) The author email@example.com
2) Nature's Laboratory Ltd
Goathland, Whitby, North Yorkshire
YO22 5JR United Kingdom
Tel: + 44 (0) 1947 896037
Fax: +44 (0) 1947 896482
Manufactured by the bees from plant resins to keep their hives free of harmful bacteria, propolis is rapidly acquiring recognition as a natural product with vast potential for human health. Although its antiseptic properties were known in ancient times, only recently have scientific studies shown that it could be of help in treating a wide range of conditions.
Worldwide research has found that propolis is effective:
in the alleviation of joint and muscular pain, arthritis and rheumatism
as a treatment for skin complaints such as eczema and psoriasis
in relieving asthma, bronchitis and other respiratory problems
as a healing agent for wounds and burns
in treating gastro-intestinal problems and blood disorders
as a stimulant for the immune system
Most importantly, propolis contains powerful antibacterial properties which are capable of destroying strains that have become resistant to conventional antibiotics. Could it be the natural antibiotic of the future?
Written by one of the world's leading experts on propolis, this pioneering book explains how to use propolis as part of everyday care, with advice on preparations and dosages, and provides full references and details of organisations and suppliers. It is a valuable introduction to a product that is increasingly in the news.
The Bugs and the Bees
"From around 2002 onwards people will get a sore throat on Tuesday and be dead by Friday" so said George Poste former research director of Pharmaceutical giant Smith Mine Beecham more than 5 years ego. He was referring to the problem of antibiotic resistance.
The arrival of SARS (Serious Acute Respiratory Syndrome), might be seen as a fulfilment of his prophecy.
SARS is the latest superbug to hit the headlines. Like MRSA (Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus), MDRTB (Multi Drug Resistant Tuberculosis) and VRE (Vancomycin Resistant Enterococcus), they all have one thing in common - the drugs don't work.
The World Health Organisation has been warning against the overuse of antibiotics for years. The trouble is, as Dr Harold New of Columbia University points out, 'Bugs are cleverer than man"
It takes no time at all for these super survivors in our body to crack the code of even the most sophisticated of our new wonder drugs. Scientists reckon it takes around 18 months! Unfortunately it takes around 20 years to develop the next generation of antibiotics.
At a time when medical science is spending billions on trying to solve this problem a pioneering new book reckons that the humble honeybee may have some of the answers.
In Bee Propolis - Natural Healing from the Hive, James Fearnley asks why it is that honeybees do not get ill despite living in colonies of up to 70,000 in conditions perfect for the growing of bacteria. The answer he tells us is propolis.
Propolis, a Greek word, literally means `Defender of the City' because the bees use it to defend their City or hive against attack and infection. To make propolis the bees collect resin from trees and plants taking it back to the hive where it is combined with other products of the hive and transformed into a the highly complex immune defence system which makes the bee hive the most sterile environment known to nature. Within the hive Propolis has antibiotic, anti-viral, anti-inflammatory and anti-fungal properties
Propolis was first used as a medicine by the Egyptians and continued to be used by the Greeks and Romans.
James Fearnley has collected a substantial body of modern medical research from around the world to show how propolis can help problems as varied as asthma, arthritis and Alzheimer's disease. So how does it work?
Research at the UK Heart and Lung Institute in 1998 showed that propolis was not only an effective antibiotic but that it could also disable bacteria which had become resistant to antibiotics like MRSA (Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus) a problem that now affects 70% of our hospitals. But Propolis works in a different way from chemical drugs. Instead of killing the bacteria outright it seals them up preventing them from leaking into our system. In the came way, if an intruder, a mouse for example, tries to enter the hive itself, the bees can kill the mouse but are unable to remove it. So the bees then seal the mouse in propolis preserving it for decades inside the hive but preventing any infection reaching the main colony.
A survey of propolis users conducted by the author showed that nearly three quarters of people take propolis for joint problems - arthritis and rheumatism, breathing problems - asthma and bronchitis or skin problems - eczema and psoriasis. He conducted research at the University of Oxford to find out why.
It turns out that some particular compounds called flavonoids inhibit the production of leukatrines and prostaglandins, which cause inflammation and pain. A wide range of diseases, including the ones just mentioned, are now thought to be triggered by this inflammatory process.
Dentists too are increasingly using propolis to treat inflammatory conditions such as mouth ulcers, erupting wisdom teeth and even bad breath. Philip Wander President of the Homeopathic Dental Association has pioneered its use in the UK including using it to keep a smile on the face of some of Manchester United's leading footballers.
Propolis seems to work by enhancing the body's own immune system and a significant number of people use it to ward of coughs colds and flu during the winter months. However those with depleted immune systems can also benefit. Post Viral Fatigue Syndrome or M.E. responds well to propolis. Dr. Leonard McKewan a Harley Street specialist treated 27 patients with Post Viral Fatigue Syndrome or ME and reported that 24 of them "obtained major benefit", 14 patients were able to return to work, school or college.
Perhaps the most fascinating, and potentially exciting, use of propolis was discovered recently by some Nuns caring for people with Alzheimer's disease, a problem, which now affects 1 in 5 people over 80. Sister Carole of the Little Sisters of the Poor in Lambeth treated 24 sufferers with propolis and told reporters "I'm not claiming to have found a cure but the results have been extraordinary - the improvement in the patients condition was gradual and positive".
Propolis is available in a variety of forms ranging from liquids to tables, capsules and creams usually through local health stores or pharmacies.
Bee Propolis - Natural Healing from the Hive is published by Souvenir Press and is available from must good books stores or direct from the author 01947 896037 - firstname.lastname@example.org - Web: www.beevitalpropolis.com
Further information about Propolis is available from:
MateriaMedica - Information about Natural Medicines
PO Box 6 Louth Lincs LN11 8XL
Natural Medicines Advice line is also available from:
MateriaMedica on 0906 8020803
Calls cost 60p per minute.
|Realization / Réalisation / Realización
/ Realisierung: Gilles RATIA
Last update / Mise à jour / Actualizado el / Letzte Bearbeitung: 17/03/01
APISERVICES - Copyright © 1995-2005 | <urn:uuid:5ada0d11-99e3-43c9-b1a6-6d3077f6cb31> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://beekeeping.org/new/books/fearnley.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.916383 | 1,644 | 1.929688 | 2 |
United States Department
of Agriculture • Rural Development
Contact: Alec Lloyd (517) 324-5204
USDA AWARDS MORE THAN $22.3 MILLION FOR DISTANCE LEARNING AND TELEMEDICINE GRANTS
WASHINGTON, Oct. 1, 2007 – Acting Agriculture Secretary Conner today announced the selection of 78 grant recipients for Distance Learning and Telemedicine grants totaling $22.3 million in 31 states.
“These grants connect rural communities to educational programs and medical services that bridge the miles between doctors and patients and provide classroom teaching at the touch of a button,” said Conner.
The Distance Learning and Telemedicine (DLT) grant program was created to improve access to education and medical services through the use of technology. Of the grants announced today, 38 will provide access to medical services and 40 will be used to improve educational opportunities. The grant funds will be awarded to the selected recipients contingent upon meeting the conditions of the grant agreement.
In Maine, a variety of education and healthcare projects include $267,341 for Maine Administrative School District 27 to purchase video conferencing equipment so schools can share academic and special education resources and expand adult learning activities. Another $399,817 will connect schools in Maine Administrative District 48 so they can share resources and access the Aroostook Mental Health Center for special needs students. Administrative District 21 will receive $378,661 to fund a TEC-NET project to provide students with an expanded curriculum, enhanced foreign language instruction and better Internet connectivity.
Eight projects in Texas and Oklahoma have been selected to receive DLT funding. Texas’ Education Service Center Region 12 will receive $338,936 to expand distance learning for 30 additional sites in rural areas of central Texas and southern Oklahoma. Added courses include college preparatory and teacher training and certification opportunities. Northwestern Oklahoma State University will increase access to higher education courses in five rural counties with the help of a $256,390 grant. A grant of $246,410 will help Oklahoma State University’s Center for Health Services develop a telemedicine network to provide radiology services and specialty care for small hospitals in an extremely rural part of the state. A complete list of grant recipients is available on the USDA Rural Development web site at http://www.rurdev.usda.gov.
USDA Rural Development’s mission is to increase economic opportunity and improve the quality of life for rural residents. Rural Development has invested more than $76.8 billion since 2001 for equity and technical assistance to finance and foster growth in homeownership, business development, and critical community and technology infrastructure. More than 1.5 million jobs have been created or saved through these investments. Further information on rural programs is available at a local USDA Rural Development office or by visiting USDA’s web site at http://www.rurdev.usda.gov.
Questions? Contact the Webmaster | <urn:uuid:ca66b7a5-7055-4b4e-9a1b-fdd74b62eba9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rurdev.usda.gov/mi/Press%20Room/Distance%20and%20telemed.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.921385 | 601 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Online Resources - Non-Traumatic Emergencies
This Web was compiled from a variety of sources including the online resources listed below, but is not intended to substitute or replace the professional medical advice you receive from your physician. The content provided here is for informational purposes only, and was not designed to diagnose or treat a health problem or disease. Please consult your physician with any questions or concerns you may have regarding your condition.
This page contains links to other Internet sites with information about non-traumatic emergencies. We hope you find these sites helpful, but please remember we do not control or endorse the information presented on these websites, nor do these sites endorse the information contained here.
American Academy of Family Physicians
American Academy of Pediatrics
American Academy of Pediatrics - Immunization Information
American College of Emergency Physicians
American Red Cross
CDC - Childhood and Adolescent Immunization Schedule
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
National Eye Institute
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
National Safety Council | <urn:uuid:f685ca36-c2b7-462c-9af9-7e052a8137da> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.muschealth.com/gs/HealthTopic.aspx?action=showpage&pageid=P00851 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.902857 | 213 | 2.109375 | 2 |
From Nashville, Tennessee, USA:
I am having difficulty getting a straight answer from the endocrinologist about pumps. The pediatrician thinks it would be good, but the endocrinologist just skirts around the topic. When I mentioned the Children with Diabetes pump conference, I was told "Of course, they think you are a bad parent if you don't have your child on the pump!" The response I get from the endocrinologist is that we are controlling her blood sugar fine. In January 2005, her A1c was 6.9 and they told me that was too low. They want it 7.5 to 8.5. It has gradually gone up to 7.9. She has been having a lot of morning lows. I think what happens is I load her up with carbohydrates and then am afraid to give her a bolus.
Insulin pumps have very clear advantages and disadvantages for kids with diabetes. Their advantage is enabling kids and teens to better manage their diabetes and achieve desired hemoglobin A1c results. This can be done with insulin shots, but can be easier to achieve with the technology a pump provides. Another clear advantage is decreasing the number of injections that are needed as well as more precisely delivering insulin and being able to vary the amount of basal insulin that is given during the day and night. Some disadvantages of pumps include having a piece of hardware attached to you 24 hours a day and an increased chance of getting sick with diabetes -- diabetic ketoacidosis.
Your child's decision should be made on an individual basis and made only after becoming familiar with pumps and their advantages and disadvantages. You should also consult with your physician and an informed diabetes educator familiar with pumps.
Additional comments from Dr. Philip Ledereich:It sounds to me like your child's endocrinologist is not that knowledgeable of pump technology and how to successfully manage children on pumps. It may be good idea to get a second opinion from another endocrinologist.
I know of one "pediatric" endocrinologist who only has one or two kids on pumps. I would never take my child to him. My son has been pumping successfully for several years now.
An alternative to reduce the risk diabetic ketoacidosis is to split the basal and replace some of it with Lantus, so if the pump fails, there always is background insulin (the Lantus), and DKA would not begin as quickly. See The Untethered Regimen by Dr. Steve Edelman.
Additional comments from Jeff Hitchcock, CWD Founder and Editor:I recall hearing from a family who attended our Friends for Life 2003 conference, who said that their child's endo had told them, "Don't go there. You'll come back wanting a pump!" When I heard that I was mystified that a health care provider would, in effect, try to conceal information about a tool that a family might find better meets their child's needs. What possible good can come from that behavior? It certainly doesn't instill a sense of trust and confidence in the doctor on the part of the family.
Our Focus on Pumping conferences are, as one might expect, all about insulin pump therapy. We have sessions that cover the basics, advanced pumping strategies, and selecting an infusion set, just to name a few. While most families who attend are already using a pump, some who come are interested in learning more about it. What better place could there be than a conference devoted to all aspects of pump therapy?
Finally, I would like to comment on the endo's assertion that "... they think you are a bad parent if you don't have your child on the pump." Nothing could be further from the truth. Our goal as parents is to ensure that our children receive the best diabetes care, so that they can be as healthy as possible and live life as if they didn't have diabetes, to the extent that that's possible. Some of us choose pump therapy, some of us choose multiple daily injections. Some of use choose both to accommodate summer activities like surfing. The point is that this is our choice, and we at Children with Diabetes support whatever choice a family makes.
Last Updated: Tuesday April 06, 2010 15:10:02
This Internet site provides information of a general nature and is designed for educational purposes only. If you have any concerns about your own health or the health of your child, you should always consult with a physician or other health care professional.
This site is published by Children With Diabetes, Inc, which is responsible for its contents.
© Children with Diabetes, Inc. 1995-2013. Comments and Feedback. | <urn:uuid:edd57a0e-ae80-497b-b2d3-a4431e4a366a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.childrenwithdiabetes.com/dteam/2005-08/d_0d_d82.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973317 | 942 | 1.84375 | 2 |
The Beaglier is a crossbreed between the Beagle and the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel (CKC Spaniel). They are frequently referred to as ‘designer dogs’ and many publications/websites often misspell the breed as Beagalier. These small dogs are predominantly popular in Australia.
Beagliers commonly come in the following color combination’s: Lemon and white, red and white, orange and white, black and tan; may be bi or tri-colored. They are not AKC Recognized, but have known to be best grouped in with the hounds.
Not AKC Recognized – Possibly grouped with Hounds
10-25 lbs (4.5-11.6 kg) – Male Beaglier & Female Beaglier
12-16 inches (30.5-40 centimeters) – Male Beaglier & Female Beaglier
The Beaglier can range in sizes from small to medium (as many other small dog groups). Most commonly, the Beaglier will resemble the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel’s size and it will inherit the Beagles sense of the scent (i.e. its a scent hound). The Beaglier has large and expressive eyes which they have inherited from the Beagle but typically has the shorter muzzle of the Cavalier. The Beaglier has innate hunting abilities and are known for their lively charisma. Like the Beagle, they are very cute and adorable. They tend to be very loving and affectionate with their families and especially with children.
Beagliers have a short to medium length coat. Their hair is hard and very close which also may be slightly silky and wavy.
The Beaglier is playful, gentle, good natured and very curious with where they are. They are very affectionate, calm and loving. They do especially well with their families and are gentle with children. As with many other dog breeds, they are energetic and they get very anxious if they are left unattended or alone for a long period of time. Beagliers get along best caring children who are a bit older. They can live well with other dogs but because of their hunting characteristics, Beagliers are not suited for homes with non-canine pets. They make good watchdogs and they will bark or notify their family as soon as they hear or sense something that doesn’t seem right.
The Beaglier has an even temper and does best with families who have older children that can be gentle to these good natured dogs. Keep that in mind when consulting a Beaglier breeder.
As a small breed, the Beaglier can do well in an apartment provided they are given a lot of exercise and are properly trained. This breed is very energetic and will do best if given enough space to run and play in. They enjoy daily walks with the leash and love to be apart of activities with family which will keep them active and happy. Beagliers have a hunting instinct so they should not be left alone in any areas where they can escape as their hunting nature will take over.
It is recommended that you brush the Beaglier to remove any loose or dead hair. Only bath the dog or puppy necessary to avoid drying out the skin. Its ears can be prone to infections if not checked and kept clean regularly. As with most other small dogs, the Beaglier can be prone to health problems such as ear infections, heart disease, epilepsy and patella luxation.
Beagliers have a tendency to be stubborn which can create some challenges when training. Early socialization is imporatant and you may want to consider beaglier obedience training. Beagliers will do best when training is done with firmness, patience and consistency. | <urn:uuid:388cf982-7828-4c89-8d99-500e70765e36> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://beaglier.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960557 | 786 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Environmental Impacts of Airport Operations, Maintenance, and Expansion
Publication Date: March 2008
Publisher(s): Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service
Funding authorization for Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) programs set forth in the Vision 100 -- Century of Aviation Reauthorization Act (P.L. 108-176, hereafter referred to as Vision 100) are set to expire at the end of FY2007. During the current reauthorization process, methods to address the environmental impacts associated with airport operations and expansion are likely to be debated. This issue is important to various stakeholders, particularly those whose health, property values, and quality of life may be affected by such impacts. The concerns of community members and local, state, and tribal agencies regarding environmental impacts have led to the delay and cancellation of some airport expansion projects.
To address these concerns, airports may be required to implement projects that would minimize the environmental impacts of their operations. Some of these projects qualify for federal funding. For example, in its FY2008 budget, the FAA requested $354 million to meet its "Environmental Stewardship" goals. Projects funded under this category address the environmental impacts of airports, primarily to abate airport noise (e.g., soundproofing homes, purchasing noise barriers and monitors, and relocating persons or businesses). Among other uses, funds may be spent on projects to minimize water quality impacts (e.g., funding projects that would control the discharge of deicing chemicals) and to reduce airport-controllable air emissions (e.g., purchasing alternative fuel vehicles to replace the airport's ground services equipment). Funds also are authorized for researching new aircraft technology that would reduce noise and air emissions.
The anticipated growth in air travel has heightened the significance and complexity of some environmental regulatory issues. Also, several new requirements are expected to affect airport operations (in terms of procedural changes and potential investment in infrastructure). The most significant issues include changes to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards applicable to deicing operations and oil spill prevention procedures, as well as state and local agency directives to monitor and control air pollution, particularly toxic air pollutants.
On February 14, 2007, the FAA proposed legislation to reauthorize FAA funding (H.R. 1356, the Next Generation Air Transportation System Financing Reform Act of 2007). Environment-related provisions of the proposal would fund projects intended to minimize environmental impacts or help airports comply with regulatory obligations; fund environment-related research, such as new technology that would produce quieter, more fuel-efficient aircraft; and amend existing environmental regulatory requirements.
To better understand the need for funding environment-related airport projects and research, this report provides an overview of the main environmental impacts associated with airport operations: noise, water quality, and air quality. Also discussed are the environmental review requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) and the environmental provisions in proposed legislation to reauthorize FAA programs. | <urn:uuid:b3d45874-bbf7-4f23-a922-7c90535efffd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.policyarchive.org/handle/10207/3205 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942834 | 591 | 2.4375 | 2 |
The article says a lot of interesting things about the interaction between the Indian culture and theoretical physics, and about many heroes of string theory from India and friends of ours.
Indian string theory has the best outcome per dollar in the world ;-) which is one of the arguments by Andy Strominger that have - during a dinner in the Society of Fellows that I attended - convinced Lawrence Summers, the famous president of Harvard University, to find some extra funding for our Indian colleagues.
Lawrence Summers asked how much money could improve their life by a significant amount, and Andy Strominger answered $100,000.
The rest has been trivial for Summers. He contacted his rich friend, philantropist Jeffrey Epstein, whose secretary called Andy Strominger and asked him where the $100,000 cheque should be sent. I assure all my readers that if a woman or a man writes a comment below this article suggesting that Lawrence Summers has nothing to do with this gift to Indian string theory, then she or he will be completely wrong. ;-) I will appreciate if she or he will stand corrected. | <urn:uuid:bcf8ecca-041e-46cd-b749-0337a69ee723> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://motls.blogspot.com/2005/02/sultans-of-string.html?showComment=1109473260000&m=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953813 | 224 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Earlier Tuesday, Pope Benedict XVI continued his historic pilgrimage through the Holy Land, visiting the Western Wall in Jerusalem. This is the last remnant of the Roman-era Temple, representing Judaism’s holiest shrine. It is also the most-visited tourist site in Israel. The Pope spent several minutes in silent prayer before the ancient stones of the Wall.
Israel's Minister of Tourism, Mr. Stas Misezhnikov, welcomed the Pope “to the Holy City of Jerusalem, the spiritual center of all nations on earth, and the eternal Capital of Israel. Hundreds of millions of the faithful around the world uplift their eyes to this very spot. Today especially, they are closely watching your pilgrimage in the Holy Land, the place where history came into being, where our forefathers and our prophets once lived and breathed.”
The Tourism Minister noted that the Pope's visit has “historical significance for Jews and Christians everywhere. I believe that the tidings of peace you bring will permeate the hearts of hundred of millions of Catholics all over the world, and I hope they will follow your example and visit the Holy Land as well.”
“Your call to all the faithful to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem carries great significance for us. It will help promote the very peace to which you have referred in your speeches here in Israel.”
The Pontiff, like his predecessor John Paul II on his pilgrimage to Israel in 2000, recited Psalm 122 (in Latin), a prayer traditionally said by pilgrims who used to come to Jerusalem three times a year. “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. May those who love you be secure. May there be peace within your walls and security within your citadels."
As is the custom at the Western Wall, the Pope placed a note bearing a prayer for peace in the cracks between the stones. Indeed, the theme of peace has shaped his entire pilgrimage to the Holy Land. The text, as released by the Vatican: “God of all the ages, on my visit to Jerusalem, the “City of Peace”, spiritual home to Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, I bring before you the joys, the hopes and the aspirations, the trials, the suffering and the pain of all your people throughout the world. God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, hear the cry of the afflicted, the fearful, the bereft; send your peace upon this Holy Land, upon the Middle East, upon the entire human family; stir the hearts of all who call upon your name to walk humbly in the path of justice and compassion. “The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him.” (Lamentations 3:25) | <urn:uuid:4ca3367e-a14d-47d7-89cd-18ab4eb806fb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.holyland-pilgrimage.org/de/pope-benedict-xvi-visits-the-western-wall | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943207 | 564 | 2.328125 | 2 |
Where will you find a Santa‘s Grotto that shows children the real meaning of Christmas?
For the past 3 years over 5,000 children have queued for hours, their excitement filling the air around Deenagh Lodge in the Killarney National Park. What could have these children so excited? Well, firstly they are waiting in anticipation to enter Santa’s Grotto, to meet Santa, Mrs. Claus and the elves, but something makes this visit extra special – these kids are not anxious to see what gifts Santa has for them, instead, these special little children are helping Santa by bringing along a gift to add to Santa’s sleigh, so that less fortunate children throughout Kerry will wake up to the magic of Christmas spirit this Christmas morning. This coupled with the impromptu Christmas carolling (which in previous years has been initiated to help pass away the time) makes this the ideal way to begin your Christmas Season. | <urn:uuid:6a910ce0-5141-4594-9a38-b3ddf2fac053> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dreamireland.com/travel-blog/tag/open-air-market | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941176 | 194 | 1.632813 | 2 |
BRUSSELS (AP) — Less than a year after Mali's military was heavily criticized for seizing power in a coup, it will now start receiving advice from European experts on how to maintain control of its vast territory.
On Monday, the European Union officially launched a training mission to the African nation. Its goal is to make the disparaged Malian army good enough to patrol the whole country, including its huge northern region, where French and African troops are fighting to unseat Islamist rebels who used the coup's chaos to grab control there.
The mission will "support stability in Mali and the Sahel, both now and in the future. Respect for human rights and the protection of civilians will be an important part of the training program," said EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton.
Critics have accused the new Malian military government of being undemocratic and abusive. Still, the European Union ministers felt they has no choice but to offer support and oversight because of fears that — if left alone — northern Mali could turn into a new Afghanistan, with Islamist groups given free rein to hatch deadly plots carried out around the world.
The 27-nation bloc was so eager to help that it sent the first 70 advisers to Mali 10 days ago so they could hit the ground running when the decision was made. More EU military experts will begin arriving in Bamako, Mali's capital, next month and the training will begin in April.
The decision by the bloc's 27 foreign ministers who were meeting in Brussels authorizes the deployment of about 500 people to Mali for 15 months at an estimated cost of €12.3 million ($16.4 million).
About 20 EU countries will participate in the mission, which officials say will not be involved in any combat.
The Sahel is the semiarid area of North Africa south of the Sahara Desert. The region shared by several countries, often poorly policed and home to organizations that claim affiliation with the al-Qaida terrorist group.
Some of those groups have imposed a harsh version of Islamic law, executing violators and performing punitive amputations on thieves.
Greatly concerned, international officials, including those in the EU, have turned to the enemy of those militants — Mali's military government in Bamako, a former pariah.
That military's record over the past year has drawn little praise. It ostensibly handed power back to civilians, but then in December it arrested the prime minister, who announced his resignation on state television at 4 a.m., hours after soldiers had stormed his house.
Human Rights Watch's senior researcher for West Africa, Corinne Dufka, said those events fit the pattern of abuse by Malian soldiers since the coup in March 2012.
"They've arrested, beaten and intimidated journalists; tortured and disappeared military rivals; and now, apparently, arbitrarily detained the prime minister. None of these incidents have been investigated and those responsible appear to have been emboldened by the shameful lack of accountability," Dufka said at the time.
As the rebels drew nearer to Bamako, the government there grew increasingly desperate, and the international community increasingly concerned. In January, France, Mali's former colonial master, intervened at Mali's request and began to drive the rebels back. Forces from other African countries joined the fight.
And the EU, too, was eager to help — but, as a condition, it successfully pressed the government to draw up a plan for holding elections this year and to ensure that a civilian government has control over the military.
In the wake of the coup, the EU, the World Bank and the African Development Bank all suspended aid to Mali. That aid has begun to flow again. Monday's statement by the EU foreign ministers welcomed the resumption of development funds.
Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, said Monday after a meeting with Diango Cissoko, the Malian prime minister, that the EU would organize a donors conference for Mali in May.
The goal now, EU officials say, is create an army not only capable of holding the retaken territory but willing to respect international law and civilian control. The aim, said Gen. Patrick de Rousiers, chairman of the EU Military Committee, is to train four battalions.
"It's building a new army," Rousiers said Monday, but he did acknowledge the mission faced risks, including that of terrorist attacks.
Don Melvin can be reached at http://twitter.com/Don_Melvin. | <urn:uuid:db1c8b5b-dda1-4ec8-8a62-1d0e1c01b23b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://washingtonexaminer.com/eu-launches-military-training-mission-in-mali/article/feed/2072762 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961567 | 910 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Romain GaryArticle Free Pass
Romain Gary, original name Romain Kacew, pseudonyms Émile Ajar, Shatan Bogat, Lucien Brûlard, René Deville, and Fosco Sinibaldi (born May 8, 1914, Vilnius, Lith., Russian Empire—died Dec. 2, 1980, Paris, France), Lithuanian-born French novelist whose first work, L’Éducation européenne (1945; Forest of Anger), won him immediate acclaim. Humanistic and optimistic despite its graphic depictions of the horrors of World War II, the novel was later revised and reissued in English as Nothing Important Ever Dies (1960).
Gary’s novels mix humour with tragedy and faith with cynicism. Les Couleurs du jour (1952; The Colors of the Day), set in Nice at Carnival, and La Danse de Gengis Cohn (1967; The Dance of Genghis Cohn), in which the ghost of a Jewish stand-up comedian takes possession of his Nazi executioner, are comic novels nonetheless informed by serious moral considerations. Les Racines du ciel (1956; The Roots of Heaven), winner of the Prix Goncourt, balances a visionary conception of freedom and justice against a pessimistic comprehension of man’s cruelty and greed. Other works by Gary include Le Grand Vestiare (1948; The Company of Men), a novel set in postwar Paris; Lady L (French and English versions, 1959), a social satire; La Promesse de l’aube (1960; Promise at Dawn), an autobiography; Clair de femme (1977; “The Light of a Woman”); and Les Cerf-volants (1980; “The Kites”). Published under the name Émile Ajar, Gary’s novel La Vie devant soi (1975; The Life Before Us, or Momo) also won the Prix Goncourt—a violation of the rules of the prize, which allow an author to receive it only once.
During World War II Gary joined Gen. Charles de Gaulle in London. Already trained as an aviator, Gary served with the Free French Forces in Europe and North Africa, earning the Croix de Guerre and Compagnon de la Libération. For 20 years following the war, he served in French diplomatic service. From 1956 to 1960 he was French consul general in Los Angeles. He was later married (1963–70) to the American actress Jean Seberg. Gary committed suicide in 1980.
What made you want to look up "Romain Gary"? Please share what surprised you most... | <urn:uuid:c55d44e2-23e9-46b8-aa1f-60b3e4818458> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/226290/Romain-Gary | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.908692 | 551 | 1.882813 | 2 |
Several months ago, the Wall Street Journal's Bret Stephens offered up a column noting the inexorable collapse of the climate campaign and wondering what new eco-apocalyptic scare would be ginned up to replace it; he offered a steak or gourmet burger lunch to the reader who submitted the best idea. I suggested shifts in the earth's magnetic field; Bret e-mailed back to say that several people had suggested this idea. (I'm not sure whether he ever declared a winner and served up the burger.)
The idea has been percolating among earth scientists for quite a while now. This NASA story from 2003, for example, shows how much the magnetic north pole has moved over the last 150 years. Looks like the idea is starting to catch on with the media, which means the popular imagination won't be long in catching up. Maybe it already has: The first Hollywood movies about asteroids came out in the late 1990s, after astronomers began warning of their potential danger, and we've already had a couple of movies, such as The Core, that relate to the root cause of magnetic shift--changes in the hot molten-iron core of the earth. Trouble is, a complete collapse or sudden shift in the earth's polarity might spell "game over" for life on planet earth (though this is in dispute).
This story suggests that changes in the earth's magnetic fields are causing, or will cause, an increase in "super storms." The initial problem for the eco-apocalytpics here is that it offers an alternative explanation for climate change. But that's not a bug--it's a feature. All the eco-apocalyptics need is some semi-plausible way to allege human causation for the erratic magnetic fields. Surely before long we'll hear some Gore-like figure claim that the world's growing electricity grid, along with all our artificial metal buildings, airplane flights, and so forth, are "confusing" the planet. It's even better than greenhouse gases. It will require us to shut down virtually the whole of advanced civilization and return to the 17th century--the Unabomber would love it--because even windmills and solar panels won't save us.
Steven F. Hayward is a F. K. Weyerhaeuser Fellow in Environmental Studies at AEI. | <urn:uuid:2e323f15-588e-4a0f-9eb4-93df8acbc082> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aei.org/article/energy-and-the-environment/climate-change/the-next-big-thing-among-eco-apocalyptics/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934791 | 473 | 2.109375 | 2 |
Home Page || Chapter 1 || Chapter 3 || Chapter 4 || Chapter 5 || Epilogue
The War Begins
When World War II officially broke out in the fall of 1939, Father was recalled to his old unit, to some camp in the countryside. A new decree declared that Jews were no longer allowed to serve as armed soldiers in the Hungarian army; rather, they were to serve in work battalions led by Hungarian officers and managed by low-ranking Hungarian soldiers. Jews continued to wear army uniforms, but they had to also wear armbands that identified them as members of the Jewish work units and they weren't allowed to carry arms. These regulations were part of a second wave of antisemitic laws which further limited Jewish participation in the cultural and business life of the country. This was deja vu for our family.
Mother ran the store on her own, and David and I spent long hours helping (or maybe hindering) her and waiting for irregular, unexpected visits from Father who managed to weasel or buy his way out of the camp for short furloughs. In his green soldier's uniform, he looked skinny and unhappy. Mother tried to feed him well and send him back to camp with enough food to last at least a few days.
As Father didn't tell us stories about his experiences in the army, we never knew how well or badly he and the other Jews were treated. He asked all about our schooling and how we managed at home, but he never told much about himself. | <urn:uuid:13f726af-9dd8-4043-a000-55cc95c55c61> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.remember.org/jean/Chap2/begins.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.99333 | 307 | 2.125 | 2 |