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In the Bible is the story of the twelve spies who were sent into the Promised Lands to scout the area. The excerpt from Numbers tells us exactly what the spies were to scout for and discover and what important facts and other requirements they were to return with for Moses.
17 When Moses sent them to explore Canaan, he said, "Go up through the Negev and on into the hill country. 18 See what the land is like and whether the people who live there are strong or weak, few or many. 19 What kind of land do they live in? Is it good or bad? What kind of towns do they live in? Are they unwalled or fortified? 20How is the soil? Is it fertile or poor? Are there trees on it or not? Do your best to bring back some of the fruit of the land."
The instructions were straightforward, succinct, straightforward and plainly stated. But all of the spies except for two, Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, came back with tales of woe and horrors that awaited the Israelites should they even attempt to enter the lands and face these foes. They described giants living in heavily walled and fortified cities and among the tribes there was a collection of the worst of the Israelites enemies. Their report spread fear and woe through the people and despite attempts by Moses, Joshua, Caleb and even the promise of the assistance of G-d in taking the Promised Lands, the people feared and demanded that they turn from this place rather than be destroyed. For their complete lack of faith and lack of belief in the promises of the L-rd the Israelites were sentenced to spend the next forty years wandering in the desert until all those who had succumbed to fear had died and a new generation raised out of slavery and who believed in themselves and the L-rd could be raised and be worthy of the Promised Land.
Israel today appears to suffer from the same insane trepidations as their forefathers when facing the loathsome report from the spies. The difference today is instead of heavily fortified cities with walls too tall and well-built to scale manned by virtual giants and undefeatable foes, the modern Israelites face unmovable scorn from elitist leftists, the unavoidable anti-Semites, Islamic based hatred, and just plain simple hate from those who always follow without question. The signs of those who fear when they should lead instead are the broken lives of the Jews whose houses and neighborhoods are regularly ordered destroyed by judicial fiat even when the claims behind the suit demanding the demolitions have been proven to be fabricated and without merit. The leaders of the modern spies have been the Israeli Supreme Court and the recent change in leadership has yet to show any tangible change. One of the final edicts handed down by the previous President of the Supreme Court, Dorit Benish, ruled that all lands not currently considered as State owned lands are to be legally considered as Arab owned land regardless of the legal owner This made some land which is owned by Jews, complete with legal deed and other previously required paperwork, to be classified as illegal for any Jew to build a residence or any other structure or even to farm the land. This ruling immediately made some communities which have been in existence for many years, some over twenty years, with extensive area and numbers of families were instantly made illegal. This ruling is guaranteed to be utilized by the leftist groups in order to have these communities destroyed with no regard that some of these communities were actually built by the Israeli government on lands approved at the time of construction and which have no counter claims of ownership.
The most recent event in this saga is currently unfolding before our eyes. A group of families purchased an apartment building referred to as the Beit Machpelah as it is located near the Machpelah, Cave of the Patriarchs, in Hevron. The initial inspection of the deed and the sale proved that the building was purchased legally and everything was legally in order. Another of the leading modern day spies is Minister of Defense Ehud Barak who has already had the IDF rule that allowing the new owners to live in their legally purchased house which sits within Hevron, all of which is considered State Lands, cannot be allowed to occur as it might cause a disturbance and out of concern for public safety they have yet to receive requisite permits which he himself issues. Ehud Barak has taken the position that his hands are tied and he is powerless to do anything that would prevent the myriad of demolitions and evictions of Jews that have taken place in the recent past. The real problem is that most of these demolitions which are destroying the calm and lives of numerous Jewish families could be completely avoided if Ehud Barak would sign the needed permits and related paperwork. The Defense Minister is all that stands between the majorities of these forced ejections of families from their homes and a quiet, peaceful life, yet he claims innocence and that he is as much a victim of the circumstances as the now homeless Jewish families.
Completing the similarities to the Biblical story of the spies report is the other side of buildings which the government has declared for many various reasons to be illegal and slated for destruction. If a structure is built by either Arabs or Bedouins, then the government is reluctant to carry out any destruction orders and will find any reason in order to postpone such actions. The reluctance to carry out destruction orders and the willingness of the courts to provide legal coverage for such timidity is an ugly contrast to the veritable enthusiasm shown by the same high government officials to demolish any structure that is Jewish owned. When I witness such destructive action taken by the people in government of the land of Israel where they have no qualms about victimizing Jews yet defer out of apparent fear to those who are the modern day Canaanites it worries me as to what price the whole of the tribes of Israel will pay when retribution for their cowardice and lack of faith in the protection of the L-rd comes due. This time the punishment will be far worse than a mere forty years wandering the wilderness. My prayer is that the leaders in Israel awaken and realize their sins against their brothers and sisters before judgment is delivered and even those who have faith are included in the coming wrath.
There is a false feeling which has infected some who honestly believe that if they just give up the lands from the Six Day War then peace will bloom and everything will be perfect. The fact that after returning the entire Sinai Peninsula to Egypt, the first action their new Muslim Brotherhood government claimed was the peace treaty would be broken at the time of their choosing and was considered already voided. The destruction of the Gaza Jewish communities and full retreat from Gaza including every Jewish citizen and the entire IDF presence and in return the southern communities of Israel have been pummeled by rockets and mortars incessantly ever since. When the Israeli presence in a buffer zone was surrendered and returned to Lebanon, the immediate response was having Hezballah take up permanent positions right on the border pointing thousands of rockets at the residents of northern Israel. This eventually led to the assault and kidnapping of three Israeli IDF soldiers and the death of eight other soldiers in the kidnapping and ensuing response. This resulted in the second Lebanon War which had mixed results which is another way of saying failure. With this as the historic record, exactly what is it that makes these elitist know-it-alls think for even one second that should Judea and Samaria be turned into a new Arab entity known aswill result in peace of any nature. Perhaps the formation of a terrorist state called Palestine made from the heart of the historic and eternal Jewish homeland, the lands which were promised by the L-rd, will be the form of punishment from on high. May our judgment not be harsh upon the innocent and may those who do not hold Israel as dear and Jerusalem as their greatest love repent from honest realization of their errant actions before it becomes too late. We paid for not having faith and love for the land once before, are we not able to learn from our own past that our love for the Promised Land is also a sign of our love for the L-rd our G-d who will bless us when we bless Him and we bless Him by inhabiting the land He promised to us through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Are we that stiff-necked as not to be able to learn from our own past mistakes such that we now repeat the same transgressions? Apparently so. | <urn:uuid:583c0360-d3ee-465a-89f0-e9846926d08d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/11852884-the-fear-of-the-spies-still-frightens-the-tribes-of-israel | 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 | 0.976326 | 1,720 | 2.4375 | 2 |
Learnings Best Practices and Roadmaps from the Pan Asia ICT R&D Grants Programme
Madanmohan Rao; Nanditha Raman
S$50 (Asia) US$45 (Outside Asia)
Synopsis This unique book presents extensive analysis and discussion from the Pan-Asia ICT R&D Grants Programme covering 56 projects in 18 countries across Asia-Pacific. In addition to inputs from the ICT4D project heads, the book features insights from 6 ICT experts who personally visited these projects for assessments, as well as the key take-aways from a 3-day Learning Forum bringing all project heads and assessment experts together with donors and sponsors of this ambitious ICT4D initiative.
What have been the key contributions of ICTs to development projects in healthcare, education, gender equity, agriculture, environment, disaster management and policy research? How can such ICT4D projects reach sustainability, replicability and scalability? What are the challenges
involved in capacity building and execution for such social entrepreneurship projects? And what new horizons open up for these regional initiatives in the future?
These are the key questions addressed in this publication. | <urn:uuid:165b45c3-9c69-4e31-9d9d-5a2afd79b724> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.amic.org.sg/href?link=10&id=77 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00051-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.902177 | 237 | 1.710938 | 2 |
An Institutional Review Board (IRB) is a committee whose primary responsibility is to protect the rights and welfare of human research subjects. In accordance with Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations, an IRB reviews research proposals to ensure risks have been minimized and the potential for benefit has been maximized before human subjects participate in the research. The authority conveyed to the IRB includes decisions to approve, disapprove, require modifications, monitor, suspend and terminate research projects involving human subjects.
The IRB also ensures, as required, that human subjects volunteer to participate in research only after providing legally effective informed consent. Investigators may not solicit subject participation or begin data collection until they have received approval from the IRB or written concurrence that the research has been determined to be exempt from IRB review.
Certain populations of human subjects may be particularly vulnerable in a research setting, e.g., children, prisoners, pregnant women, fetuses, persons with physical or mental disabilities, and economically or educationally disadvantaged persons. When reviewing research involving these subject populations, the IRB will apply additional protective safeguards as required by federal and state law, institutional guidelines, and any other applicable agency/entity regulations. | <urn:uuid:0573d4b7-f49f-4b5d-bcdd-7efb3291710e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.healthsciences.okstate.edu/research/irb/index.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936903 | 251 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Because a story without conflict is boring, meaningless, with little power to draw us in.
I once attended a writers class where the instructor talked about what made successful books and movies. He believed the key was the way these books and movies upped the stress levels in readers and viewers, taking their stress above their current level, then resolving that stress at the end. Good conflict creates that vicarious stress and resolution, sucking us into the story and keeping us caring about these fictional characters.
One of my favorite tv shows that does a fantastic job with conflict (especially interpersonal/relationships) and upping those stress levels is Masterpiece Theater's Downton Abbey. It's about the lives of a wealthy, titled family in England during WWI and the lives of their servants. After this last episode - full of relationship strife, war, death, impediments to love and dreams - I told my husband what a big mess things had become for the characters.
And we love it. We have to keep watching until that stress is resolved. We're drawn in. We care about these people.
Have you watched Downton Abbey? What are your favorite types of conflict in books or movies (physical, internal, familial)? What other movies/tv shows or books are examples of good conflict? | <urn:uuid:320f1702-2af6-46ef-b90b-66f3b0b4999d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://stacyhenrie.blogspot.com/2012/02/conflict-is-key.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967835 | 263 | 2.046875 | 2 |
The programming skills you're going to need apply to writing custom shaders (textures), physics models, and animation.
Luckily, since you're just starting, you won't need to get into any of that for awhile
What you need to do know is learn some software and some art. I assume you're focusing on 3D here, since most of the CG work done for broadcast is 3D. Discreet [http://www.discreet.com/index-nf.html
] develops a very nice modeling application called 3D Studio Max. It gets used a lot for broadcast work and game modeling. Another option would be to try Maya, by Alias/Wavefront [http://www.aliaswavefront.com/en/news/home.shtml
]. This is the package used on a great majority of movie work. It's touted as being the best, but is horribly expensive. For the free route you can check out Blender [http://www.blender3d.com/
], soon to be open source
, and PovRay [http://povray.org/
]. Neither can really compare to the comercial packages for easy of use and features, but they're certainly quality and are capable of awsome output. You might also look at Cinema4DL and AnimationMaster (I haven't used either).
Since you're targeting animation, you'll probably also need some compositing and post-production software. Adobe of course has some great tools for that (Photoshop, Premier, Aftereffects). the GIMP is also a good tool, and supposedly there is an animation module you can get for it, but you have to compile from source. | <urn:uuid:c07102ce-fbe8-4a61-afa5-0c3d74648c41> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://forums.devshed.com/web-design-help-2/help-43875.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958376 | 355 | 1.890625 | 2 |
Tags: renewable energywind generatorenergy policy renewable energy solutionsinfrastructure development
Toine van Megen from Auroville Consulting talks about Sustainable Energy Systems. He says that today we are overloading our planet by 20% in terms of the planet's bio-capacity. Presenting a global balance sheet on energy consumption he asks whether we can meet the consumption of today and the future with renewable energy. The only way out he concluded would be need a radical decrease in consumption and a huge investment into renewable energy installations on a global scale. | <urn:uuid:3f3df5ca-4013-4a5e-867f-cbbd642ad4e9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://green.aurovilleportal.org/allcontent/30-presentations/284-sustainable-energy-systems | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.910974 | 109 | 2.21875 | 2 |
The cold snap this week has given me a chance to revisit the book by James Bonwick Western Victoria, It’s Geography, Geology and Social Conditions: The Narrative of an Educational Tour in 1857 . Although I have read the book several times, I still enjoy flicking through to my favourite parts. One of those is the description of the Belfast (Port Fairy) Methodist Church
“…this building has come in for it’s share of carvings, in the shape of wreaths, flowers, vases, etc. There is John Wesley’s benignant countenance regarding his incoming followers, and a noble shell expands over the front doorway. An extraordinary monster is beheld crouching beneath the shell. What he is, and what he does there, is a solemn mystery, known only to the artist. Guesses as to character and description seem to run into one line, that it (is) neither more no less than the representation of the Arch One, who certainly looks uncomfortable with the shell and John Wesley over his head. The mason may have intended it to exorcise the neighborhood, or to terrify little children into good behavior at chapel” (p84)
When I first read this book I penciled in a visit to the church when next in Port Fairy. The fishing port town of Port Fairy is one of my favourite places in Victoria and is a summer playground for many in the Western District. I didn’t know on my many visits to Port Fairy in the 1980s, that I had a link with the town. The Harman family had lived there in the 1850s and as Wesleyan Methodists would have no doubt attended sermons in the church.
While spending a few days there a couple of years ago, my small research assistant and I, walked to the church. I was keen to see the carvings as described by Bonwick and I was pleased to see they lived up to his description.
It is a little difficult to make out in the photo, but the “extraordinary monster” is in the bottom centre of the shell, its mouth is most easily seen. John Wesley is depicted in the stone above the shell. The carving directly above the door cannot be clearly seen here. Wire netting has been placed over the carvings in attempt to protect them.
We were lucky enough to run into a church volunteer doing repairs and he allowed us to go inside the church. The interior is still in its original condition. I allowed myself to imagine the sermons of the 19th century with a preacher placing the fear of God into his parishioners with talk of fire and brimstone.
The church was new when Bonwick visited. On September 5, 1855, The Argus ran an article from the Belfast Gazette. It was reporting the laying of the foundation stone for the Wesleyan church on August 21. Many townspeople gathered for the occasion, with the Reverend Hart beginning proceedings with prayer, scripture reading and song. The ceremony then proceeded to a laying of a time capsule. This honour was given to William Witton a long-term resident of the colony. Witton was about 45 at the time and had been a builder in Melbourne before taking up the life of a grazier in the Western District. His obituary credits him as the builder of the first Melbourne offices of the Bank of Australasia and for being one of the driving forces behind the foundation of Wesleyan churches throughout the colony.
According to the Gazette, a bottle containing “the Belfast Gazette and Banner of the week, and an inscription, of which the following is a copy : “The foundation stone of James street Wesleyan Church, Belfast, laid by William Witton, Esq., on Tuesday, August 21,1855. Minister, Rev. R. Hart; chairman of the district, Rev. D. J. Draper; president of the Conference; Rev. W. B. Boyce: building committee, Messrs. Tillotson, McMahon, Bellett, Cole, and Scott; treasurer, W. W. Watson, Esq. ; secretary, W. N. Hosking, Esq. ; contractors, Messrs. Barnes, McGut, and Trevaskis.” I thought it was unusual that local sculptor Walter McGill was not mentioned among the contractors, but I now believe that Mr McGut is in fact Mr McGill. McGill was an interesting character who was not only a sculptor and stone mason but also a phrenologist and has been credited for making the death mask of Captain Moonlight.
Next time I visit the church I am going to look for the foundation stone, and hopefully get some better photos! The church is now classified by the National Trust, who describe it as “one of Port Fairy’s finest buildings”. I would have to agree with them.
ENDNOTE: My small research assistant, now seven, has since resigned from his position. | <urn:uuid:8d881cc0-feb8-46bd-bea9-e912b70b3608> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mywdfamilies.wordpress.com/2011/06/09/in-search-of-the-extraordinary-monster/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=309c070579 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978142 | 1,023 | 2.25 | 2 |
Rayna Fahey is trying to change people's opinions of arts and craft. Taking ugly scenarios and making them beautiful with cross-stitch, Fahey has a unique and fresh approach to what are commonly known as the 'domestic arts'.
Founder of the Melbourne Revolutionary Craft Cartel, Fahey makes political statements and puts them in city and suburban settings. Her use of cross-stitch is not just for pretty decorative item: as each one comes with a message.
A screening of her documentary Making it Handmade will be shown at the gallery with director Anna Brownfield also attending, on Thursday 19 April at 7pm. At the same time, 'Hatchlings', a large bronze piece covering both the walls and the floor, will be installed in the gallery. Ewen Coats has created an interesting and thought-provoking work, the Atrium Project's second piece. | <urn:uuid:109df46a-6d97-49d1-8b27-b5f0d5aaba27> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.au.timeout.com/melbourne/art/events/3064/its-never-too-late-to-mend | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958184 | 181 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center has initiated tumor mutation testing for a limited number of patients with metastatic colorectal cancer. This pilot project for colorectal cancer is part of VICC’s Personalized Cancer Medicine Initiative (PCMI), a program to identify genetic mutations in a patient’s tumor that may be useful in matching the appropriate therapy with each patient. [...]
News: Personalized OncologyNext Page »
Watch video of Dr. Michael Neuss speaking about cancer. Neuss spoke Feb. 1 as part of the Osher Lifelong Learning class, “Medical Advances.” The course is presented by faculty of the Vanderbilt University Medical Center and focuses on what the future of medicine holds. Physicians are now able to use a patient’s DNA to select the [...]
Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center physician-scientists who created the new online medical decision support tool called “My Cancer Genome” have been named winners of a $20,000 health care technology award sponsored by the National Cancer Institute. The contest, “Using Public Data for Cancer Prevention and Control: From Innovation to Impact Developer Challenge,” was presented as part of [...]
The RENEW: Gentle Movement Classes are part of the Vanderbilt Cancer Wellness Program and are for adults going through cancer treatment as well as those who have finished. Karen Dyer-Klein, an exercise specialist at the Vanderbilt Dayani Center, describes the types of workouts available, which include Ai Chi (aquatic exercise) on Mondays at 3:15 p.m., [...]
For decades, cancers have been treated based on how they look under a microscope. Now, researchers know that specific abnormalities in the DNA of tumor cells can make each person’s cancer respond differently to treatment — knowledge that offers an exciting new avenue for tailored therapy. Personalizing cancer treatment for an individual patient based on [...]
Dr. William Pao, director of hematology and oncology at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, explains what personalized cancer medicine means for the future of lung cancer treatment. Learn more about Personalized Cancer Medicine.
MyCancerGenome, the online medical decision support tool for cancer care developed by Vanderbilt physician-scientists, has been selected as a finalist for a health care technology award. The contest, “Using Public Data for Cancer Prevention and Control: From Innovation to Impact Developer Challenge,” is sponsored by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), Division of Cancer Control and [...]
Dr. Carlos Arteaga, director of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center’s breast cancer program, describes how advances in personalized cancer medicine contributes to breast cancer treatment.
William Pao, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of Medicine and director of Personalized Cancer Medicine at Vanderbilt, has been named director of the Division of Hematology and Oncology in the Department of Medicine. “Dr. Pao has demonstrated tremendous leadership and creativity since arriving at Vanderbilt,” said Nancy Brown, M.D., chair and physician-in chief of the Department [...]
Leaders of Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Maury Regional Medical Center, Northcrest Medical Center and Williamson Medical Center today announced affiliation agreements establishing a partnership between these medical centers to work collaboratively to create new jointly operated programs and services in the counties where these hospitals reside. These programs are intended to expand primary and specialty [...] | <urn:uuid:c0a66eea-1ffd-4ab5-9b04-ab8a489587a8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.vicc.org/news/category/personalized-oncology/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935554 | 704 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Back in 1995 I gave a lecture at the Computer Game Developers' Conference in which I identified several problems with interactive storytelling. I reprised those ideas a few years later in a Designer's Notebook column called Three Problems for Interactive Storytellers. At the end of both the lecture and the column, I suggested that instead of trying to tell stories, we should build worlds in which stories can happen -- worlds in which players live a story of their own creation. The industry didn't have a term for it at the time, but what I was proposing was sandbox storytelling.
In sandbox storytelling, the idea is to give the player a big open world populated with opportunities for interesting interactions. The player isn't constrained to a rail-like linear plot, but can interact with the world in any order that he chooses. If the world is constructed correctly, a story-like experience should emerge.
Not everybody thinks sandbox storytelling is a good idea. The year after I gave my lecture, Bob Bates gave his own lecture at the 1996 CGDC called "The Responsibility of the Author."
One of the things he said was, "[Open-ended environments] may be fun to explore, but they do not fulfill the obligations of a story. There is no beginning, middle, or end. There is no pathos, no human drama, no greater truth to be gleaned from the hard-fought battles that the characters wage."
Bob recommended that we use a linear series of open environments instead -- what we now call a multilinear or foldback story, in which the player is compelled to go through certain choke points in the plot line.
However, Bob was assuming that in an open-world environment the player would have to go find the plot, and all she would get is a disconnected series of events. I think Bob was expecting that the plot events would be tied to specific locations, and if the player could experience them in any order, they would have to be unrelated to each other.
I'm not surprised that he made that assumption, especially back then. We're very used to mapping plots onto physical locations -- so much so that it's our default approach, and any other system is unusual. From Zork to Half-Life to Fallout 3, movement through space equals movement through the story. But to do sandbox storytelling, we have to get rid of this notion and think instead about how to create a plot that advances -- and maintains its continuity -- by other means.
The Grand Theft Auto games famously include sandbox play, but they don't do sandbox storytelling. Instead, you get the usual linear chain of missions; complete one and you get another one, and so on. It just so happens that the missions take place in a large open world, and you can abandon the mission and just wander around wreaking mayhem (or driving a taxi) if you want to.
Grand Theft Auto IV
In a way, this was what Bob meant by a linear series of open environments, except that instead of a series of different environments, the Grand Theft Auto games just give you new missions in the same environment -- although you do unlock new areas from time to time.
The Sims offers sandbox storytelling after a fashion. It gives you a world with a lot of stuff in it, and simulated people with varying personalities. As the player, you can make them interact and generate a (somewhat) story-like experience. Because the Sims don't speak English, most of the storytelling goes on in your head, but that's all right. You can make your own machinima, caption or record voiceover for it, and upload it to YouTube.
But The Sims uses a multipresent interaction model in which you don't have a particular avatar within the game world. To get a story out of The Sims, you have to manipulate more than one of the characters, rather than role-playing a single character. This makes you more of a creator than a participant. That isn't the way most storytelling games work, and I don't think it's what most people want from a storytelling game.
Computer role-playing games give the player a big open world, but rather than providing a single story, the world is full of quests -- essentially, disconnected subplots. I love Western RPGs, but they don't have quite the same feeling as a story with one plot. They're more like the legends of Hercules, or any other ancient hero who appears in several unrelated stories.
So how do we make an open-world game in which the player can roam around, yet still feels as if he's taking part in a story? First, as I said, we have to abandon the idea that the player will experience the plot entirely through exploration.
At the same time, traveling still has to be an integral part of the story; otherwise the travel will just be tiresome. Movies usually cut out travel time -- somebody comes out of their house in the morning, gets in their car, and in the next shot they're walking into their place of work -- unless the movie is actually about travel, as in a chase movie. | <urn:uuid:c5f3d593-ce1c-4ef3-9997-cb410bd5071e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6039/the_designers_notebook_sandbox_.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971722 | 1,041 | 1.890625 | 2 |
"Obama raises taxes on seniors (and) hard-working families to give welfare to those who pay none."
John McCain on Thursday, October 16th, 2008 in a Web ad
It's not welfare
(Published Oct. 21, 2008)
A new Web ad from John McCain's campaign features the ubiquitous Joe the Plumber and attacks Barack Obama’s tax plan as "welfare."
"Obama raises taxes on seniors (and) hard-working families to give welfare to those who pay none," the announcer says.
In the background is the phrase "$100-billion to those that pay no taxes."
There are a number of misleading things packed into a tight space here.
McCain's claim that Obama's plan will translate to higher taxes for seniors and working families is grossly misleading. As we have pointed out many times , that’s only true if a senior or a family is making more than $250,000 a year, or $200,000 for a single person. Otherwise, it’s generally not the case.
Here we will focus on the claim from the ad — repeated by McCain in recent stump speeches — that Obama’s tax plan amounts to welfare.
First, McCain is targeting Obama’s plan to enact a number of refundable tax credits. Refundable means the government sends a check if the taxes owed are less than zero. Among the refundable tax credits proposed by Obama:
• Under the Making Work Pay plan, a tax credit for wage earners of up to $500.
• A mortgage credit equal to 10 percent of mortgage interest for nonitemizers, up to a maximum credit of $800.
• A refundable higher education tax credit for the first $4,000 of qualifying higher education expenses.
Obama also has proposed expanding the earned-income tax credit for some; as well as the child and dependent care credit.
The McCain campaign cites a report from the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center as evidence that Obama's tax plan would amount to more government giveaways. The Tax Policy Center analyzed Obama’s tax proposals (as described by his economic advisers) and concluded that in 2009, his plan would, in fact, result in $100-billion in government outlays to people who have no income tax liability. That figure would gradually inch up in ensuing years, to $111-billion in 2018.
A couple of major caveats are in order. The government already outlays nearly $53-billion to 57-million people (38 percent of all tax filers) who have a zero or negative income tax under current law. A negative income tax means that refundable tax credits amounted to more than the person’s income tax liability, meaning they got a check from the government. The Tax Policy Center estimates another 15-million people would fall into the "zero or negative income tax" category under Obama’s tax plan.
Obama’s plan, according to the Tax Policy Center, would add an additional $48-billion in government outlay to those who pay no federal income tax. We think the ad is misleading in that it suggests Obama proposes an additional $100-billion for those who pay no federal income taxes.
"There clearly are aspects of the Obama plan that would give to people who pay no federal income tax," said Bob Williams of the Tax Policy Center.
But there’s another big hole in the ad’s logic. Obama’s proposed tax credit for wage earners is designed to offset payroll taxes. Those are the taxes withheld from your paycheck for Social Security and Medicare, 6.75 percent of your earnings.
All workers pay payroll taxes, even people who pay no income tax. So for McCain to say that Obama’s tax credits would go to people who "pay no taxes" is inaccurate. There are some under Obama’s plan whose tax credits would actually come to more than their income tax liability and their payroll tax liability, but that’s a very small percentage of people, said Eric Toder of the Tax Policy Center.
And there’s some hypocrisy here: McCain has proposed a refundable tax credit of his own. McCain proposes a $5,000 tax credit for people to buy health insurance. (We should note that the refundable portion of McCain's health care tax credit must go to a special health spending account so that it only pays for health-related expenses.)
Inasmuch as the plan is being sold as a way to help make health care affordable to those at the bottom of the income scale, it too would result in payments to those who pay no income tax.
"It absolutely is the pot calling the kettle black," Williams said.
We also think it's misleading to call Obama’s plan "welfare." Welfare is a loaded word that connotes government aid to those who aren’t working. Obama’s tax credit for wage earners is just that, for wage earners.
We also note that the earned-income tax credit has historically enjoyed strong support from Republicans as well. It was designed, in a way, to replace welfare payments to those who don’t work with government subsidies to low-income people who do work.
McCain is not proposing elimination, or reduction, of the existing earned income and child care credits. The existing system results in $53-billion to those who pay no income taxes. Is that support for welfare?
McCain is technically accurate when he says that under Obama’s plan, refundable tax credits would result in more people getting a check from Uncle Sam, rather than writing one. But we think it’s misleading to call that welfare.
So let's review again the McCain ad's claim in its totality. "Obama raises taxes on seniors (and) hard-working families to give welfare to those who pay none." The claim that Obama will raise taxes on seniors and hardworking families? Misleading. Using the term "welfare" to describe refundable tax credits? Not by most people's definition. That the plan would give payments to people who pay no taxes? Only if you don't consider payroll taxes as taxes. That all adds up to False.
Published: Monday, December 1st, 2008 at 12:00 a.m.
YouTube, McCain Campaign Web Ad: Joe the Plumber , Oct. 16, 2008
Tax Policy Center, An Updated Analysis of the 2008 Presidential Candidates' Tax Plan , Updated Sept. 12, 2008
Tax Policy Center, Senator Barack Obama's Non Health Tax Proposals As Described by his Economic Advisors: Impact on Outlays and Tax Units with No Individual Income Tax Liability , 2009-18, July 25, 2008
Tax Policy Center, Distribution of Tax Units with Zero or Negative Individual Income Tax Liability by Cash Income Level, 2009 , Aug 15, 2008
Obama Campaign Web site, Barack Obama's Comprehensive Tax Plan
McCain Campaign Web site, Straight Talk on Health System Reform
McCain Campaign Web site, Backup material, McCain-Palin 2008 Launches New Web Ad: "Joe The Plumber"
Interview with Eric Toder of the Tax Policy Center, Oct. 21, 2008
Interview with Bob Williams of the Tax Policy Center, Oct. 20, 2008
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- Shop the PolitiFact store for T-shirts, hats and other PolitiFact swag | <urn:uuid:15840c0d-b5fb-4cf0-b286-6b9daa9d401e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2008/dec/01/john-mccain/its-not-welfare/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959308 | 1,745 | 1.664063 | 2 |
"Tonight's theme is the momentum from a gathering storm for hope which I believe will one day bear fruit in abolishing all nuclear weapons." That's how Bishop Gabino Zavala, President of Pax Christi USA, launched our two-day observance last weekend of the 65th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
He went on and offered us his clear-eyed view. "April of 2009 represented a sea change from the former administration," he said, referring to Obama's speech in Prague. "It clearly laid out our president's vision and commitment to nuclear disarmament," toward "a nuclear free world."
But then Obama's glaring contradiction. The bishop took him to task for allocating more national treasure for nukes than his predecessor. In many documents over the past decades, the bishop reminded us, nuclear weapons have inspired official condemnation from the Catholic Church. And he urged us to take it seriously, to keep building our grassroots movement. Make your hopes for peace come true, he concluded.
Bishop Zavala's presence felt like a breath of fresh air to those of us in New Mexico who've been speaking out for disarmament for years. Not every day does one hear a Catholic bishop speaking clearly and eloquently about this crucial matter -- especially here, where nuclear weapons were first built and a new generation of them is in the works, thanks to Obama. Bishop Zavala's presence heightened our hope.
It was in that spirit of hope that we ascended the narrow road along the mountain cliff up to Los Alamos the next afternoon. We assembled ourselves at Ashley Pond, the park in the center of town where, 65 years ago, "Little Boy" and "Fat Man" were built -- carnival euphemisms to mask their impending horror.
There we passed out sackcloth and bags of ashes, then blessed them and the people of Los Alamos. In a spirit of prayer and repentance, more than a hundred of us then set off in silence along Trinity Road. At the appointed time we stopped and scattered the ashes and donned our sackcloth, and for 30 minutes we sat in prayer. We repented of our own role in the mortal sin of war and nuclear weapons, and we begged the God of peace to convert our nation to nonviolence and give us the gift of nuclear disarmament.
A weird sight to be sure. Over a dozen drivers that I saw revved by in a fit of aggression, hurling curses and insults and abuse. But processing back to the pond, friends shared how moved they were to take part in an action so imbued with the spirit of Jesus and Gandhi. And the tradition of the book of Jonah.
"Who are you trying to speak to?" an ABC TV reporter asked me just before we set off.
I said, of course, we call upon the employees and people of Los Alamos to stop designing, building and maintaining nuclear weapons. And we're speaking, as well, to the people of New Mexico, and perhaps to the world, about the need to abolish these weapons. But ultimately, I said, we're here to speak to God, to beg the God of peace for the gift of a world without war and nuclear weapons.
His eyes widened. I saw in them a fusion of wonder, amusement and surprise. "God?," he probably wanted to ask. "What does God have to do with this?" He had, I surmise, expected the usual -- a seething peace demonstration full of hysteria and anger. And here was one of penitence and sorrow, faith and hope. It was clear he was going to have some fresh thinking to do.
And all the more so because among us were representatives of the largest youth-led movement for disarmament in the country -- "Think Outside the Bomb." One doesn't often associate young people with anti-nuclear sentiments -- at least if you believe the media. But here was Jennifer, who happily told us, once we gathered back at Ashley Pond, of the group's upcoming week-long encampment and vigils in the town. They are planning a nonviolent direct action for later this week. These young folks, as the good bishop did, renewed our hope.
Miki Taylor was also among us, a doctor who grew up and spent her life in Hiroshima. She recently moved with her husband to Santa Fe, and she thanked us for our public stand. Later she told me that, while we need to remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we must understand that the same dark spirit which first created these weapons remains among us. The willingness to eliminate millions in a flash still lingers in the air. That evil spirit is alive and well in our military institutions, corporations, and government, and somehow, we need to change that spirit.
To our happy surprise, Ann Wright also joined us. A former army colonel and State Department official, she famously resigned in protest in 2003 in opposition to the Iraq War. Today she is one of the great leaders in the international peace movement, and travels tirelessly to promote peace and reconciliation. She was aboard one of the boats in the recent flotilla with relief supplies to Gaza when Israeli soldiers attacked, killing nine. Currently on a national speaking tour, she is also working to raise funds for a U.S. boat to Gaza.
Last year she made a pilgrimage to Hiroshima, where she tried to take in the destruction and open her heart to the pain. As for Los Alamos, the feeling is different, she said. "It feels eerie to be here." It was her first visit to the city of the Bomb.
In that eeriness -- spectacular vistas darkened by an evil purpose -- Ann encouraged us. "Continue your work for disarmament and peace," she said, "Don't give up. While the national movement seems dead, the local movements are strong. Everywhere, small grassroots groups are organizing and holding vigils and bringing in speakers. People are doing what they can. So keep doing what you can," she said with a smile, "Together, we can make a difference."
Sixty-five years ago our nation killed civilians on an incalculable scale. And in somber commemoration, a hundred of us this past weekend took to Trinity Road with heads bowed in sorrow. The weekend has passed, but not the opportunity. Accordingly, I invite everyone to join in that spirit of prayer, repentance, and nonviolence, and to do what you can to promote nuclear disarmament, as well as an end to our nation's senseless wars.
A word of caution, however -- don't do it with anger. Anger gains little; rulers shrug it off. Their constantly being embroiled in power struggles makes them adept at thwarting it. Grief is another matter altogether. Genuine grief can't be withstood. Rulers stand helpless before it. It leaves them flustered and confounded -- and in the best of scenarios, sets their own tears flowing too. It can be an opening to compassion and nonviolence.
And so I offer the following prayer, one used at previous vigils, to help us enter into grief, to help us convert our hearts, our church, and our nation. To help us cry out for God's gift of justice, disarmament and peace. As we "storm heaven" for the gift of peace, may it generate new hope among us.
As our country continues to design, build and maintain these genocidal weapons of mass destruction, we repent of our mortal sin.
As our country threatens the whole human race and the entire planet, we repent of our willingness to destroy the gift of your creation.
As we continue to hold the world hostage and commit the ultimate act of terrorism by threatening to use these nuclear weapons, we repent of nuclear terrorism and the fear, distrust and infidelity we spread.
For our silence, indifference, fear and despair, we repent. For all the violence we have personally committed, and for our own complicity with the culture of war and nuclear weapons, we repent.
Disarm our hearts, disarm our cities, disarm our military and our nation, disarm our world. Give us the gift of a world without war, poverty or nuclear weapons, a new world of peace.
And so we pledge--
In this world of hatred, indifference, fear and anxiety, to be instruments of your love;
In this world of selfishness, greed and materialism, to be instruments of your selfless service and generosity;
In this world of revenge, retaliation and resentment, to be instruments of your mercy, compassion and forgiveness;
In this world of doubt and despair, to be instruments of faith and hope;
In this world of lies and darkness, to be instruments of truth and light;
In this world of war, nuclear weapons and death, to be instruments of your peace, nonviolence and life.
Strengthen us to rebuild your global grassroots movement of nonviolence, that we will inspire more and more people to work for the abolition of war, poverty and nuclear weapons, that we might welcome your reign of nonviolence, love and peace everywhere. We ask this in the name of the nonviolent Jesus. Amen.
John's column will return Sept. 7. His latest book, Daniel Berrigan: Essential Writings (Orbis), along with other recent books, A Persistent Peace and Put Down Your Sword, as well as Patricia Normile's John Dear On Peace, are available from www.amazon.com. To contribute to Catholic Relief Services' "Fr. John Dear Haiti Fund," go to: http://donate.crs.org/goto/fatherjohn. For further information, or to schedule a lecture or retreat on Gospel Nonviolence, go to www.johndear.org. | <urn:uuid:1fa7115e-7af5-4104-920a-864e69fde055> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ncronline.org/print/blogs/road-peace/65-years-atomic-bomb-gathering-storm-hope | 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 | 0.956256 | 2,006 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Most Active Stories
Kodak app aims to attract new users to old technology
Kodak has launched a free iPhone app to help photography enthusiasts in the U.S and Europe work with their film stock.
The shift to digital formats has meant it can be harder for people with an interest in the analog format to access the services that support film. Where do I buy it? What kind do I use? Where can I get it developed?
Kodak says over the past few years they've continued to receive a high number of enquiries, and this app was developed to keep information about their legacy film technology out in the market.
Despite Kodak’s recent financial troubles, U.S product manager for Kodak film, Tim Ryugo says the company’s legacy product is still going strong.*
“I must say our film sales have increased. It’s a very profitable product for us.”
Ryugo says the Kodak Professional app is easy to navigate and will hopefully bring new users 'back' to analog film.
Users will see five choices listed on the home page of the app: Type of film, what film to use, film format, where to buy film, and where to process film.
Each page then takes you through a process of finding the right answer for each user, Ryugo says.
Users can also use the app to find processing labs that use Kodak paper and chemicals through a location finder.
Who still shoots on film?
Photographer Joseph Prezioso learned to shoot using film, and he says the app isn’t just a handy informational tool, it has the potential to get younger photographers into film, and that excites him.
He says digital photography has its place, but he worries younger generations will end up without a visual history as most smartphone snappers aren’t printing or backing up their digital image files.
“This generation is going to have a loss of their memories. I can go to my mother’s house and go to a shoe box, or even one of the albums and I can see my entire life, and she still prints stuff out. But I feel like my little nieces and nephews, unless I take the time to print something for them, there are no photos of them growing up.”
The 'grain' of film
Photographer Julia Galdo says that film is a medium that enhances the artistic quality of her work.
According to Galdo “...it’s just a lot more sentimental looking, and captures a lot more of the highlights and the shadows.”
Galdo is part of professional photography company JUCO in California, and she says shooting with a roll of film that only has ten frames makes a photographer slow down and think more about their shot.
But, Galdo says using film isn’t always a walk in the park.
“It’s expensive, it takes a long time, you can’t just snap off a billion photographs when you’re shooting analogs. For me, it just kind of makes me a better photographer when I sit down, and slow it down and look and think about what I’m doing. I think it requires you to think about all your tools, your gear, and I guess be a more hands on photographer, which is something that I like the challenge of."
Galdo says she hopes the Kodak app might attract more people to using film, and this could potentially drive the price of the medium down.
But whether it gets cheaper or not, Galdo says film is something every photographer should have to work with at some point, and something she will stick with.
“Anything that I shoot personally or with great importance goes on film - just because I want to be able to have it and hold it 50 or 100 years from now - and I’m not exactly sure what digital files are going to look like at that point.”
*Editors note. Despite recent decisions to divest itself of its image business, demand for Kodak film stock remains strong, particularly amongst filmmakers. Here's a link to a site of dedicated film stock users that includes a user review of the new app.
Kodak Patent Sale
Morning Trail Mix | <urn:uuid:738f9a1f-914f-44b5-9db7-48ba2be85f00> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.innovationtrail.org/post/kodak-app-aims-attract-new-users-old-technology?nopop=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960764 | 893 | 1.710938 | 2 |
While in the period of pregnancy, the mother has to take immense care of herself, always keeping in mind that she is living the life of two. She should be mentally prepared to face the forth coming months and the sufferings that she would have to encounter are all her tribulations to bring a new soul happily to this earth! Apart from the doctor’s medications and advice, it lies solely in the part of the carrying mother to be ready to welcome the little one! Being happy at all times is very essential, as they all do affect the foetus in the womb.
Just listen to light music when something gets you into a troublesome thinking that you feel diffident or not sure of a successful delivery. This little task would make things better. And who knows! May be your son or daughter could become the next greatest musician in the world!
Parenting is the loveliest and at the same time, the most worrying part in any person’s life! No one is experienced enough to understand the baby talk and its essential needs, when it cries. Only mother is gifted with those special skills so that she could very easily comprehend her little one’s blabbers! However, the mother too sometimes would panic not able to get the true meaning of her kid’s cry.
So, this is the first thing a mother should avoid. She should not get tensed especially in front of her baby as it tends to respond to the environment more quickly. If your baby cries, try to pacify him or her without any tension. Then try to analyze the reason for its tears. Even if the little one is not convinced by all your calm efforts like satiating its hunger, playing with him then it is high time that you take him to a doctor.
Modern mothers can be divided into two main categories. The first consists of those who feel that while their children are very young they want to look after themselves and they feel that this activity is the most worthwhile job that they can do. However, even a mother who loves her child dearly will be prepared to admit that looking after small children isn’t easy. A woman who finds herself a mother shortly after leaving a job is unlikely to be well prepared for the demands, not to mention the isolation of being a mother.
Motherhood has its pleasures and fulfillment but it is very tough. It is a twenty-four job and it is rather badly paid. It’s repetitious and tedious; it is extremely demanding and wearing. No mother undervalues what she is doing but society does. Consequently when a young mother, particularly if she has been well trained to do a job, is asked what she is doing and all she can say is that she’s a mother, she feels that the admission classifies her as inferior to women who are holding down a job. It is up to society to take a more realistic view of motherhood than the present rather idealized one.
The other category is the working mother. For some reason the working mother is still a pejorative one in our society. If women aren’t prepared to devote themselves entirely to the upbringing of their children it’s generally felt that they aren’t maternal, that they aren’t selfish and heartless. If we go back to our rural beginnings, we find that mothers were always working mothers. They did an equal amount of work to the father and they shared the work of the family with the father. | <urn:uuid:98cc2361-f4ef-438c-9999-42863613bde8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.stigmaresearch.org/usa/tag/motherhood/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981662 | 710 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Theresa from Canada writes:
Hi, I have Windows 7 64 bit ultimate. The other night I had two Desktop shortcuts appear on my desktop that were never there before (I do have (and have always) had my hidden folders and files showing). When I tried to delete these two shortcuts I got a warning that it would harm Windows. These files are also located in my user files (under my name). The content is quite different on the desktop as to the same file in the user folder. Do I need them? Can I delete them without harming my PC?
Thanks – Theresa
Great question. Turning on the ability to view protected operating system files is sometimes required for certain fixes to your operating system or virus removal/spyware removal, however it also shows you files not intended to be seen by the user.
Think of these files like the software that runs your car’s various electrical components. Sure, the car maker could let you edit these files using a touch screen in your car, but for almost all situations letting someone edit or delete these files would do more harm than good.
So how do you turn these files off yet leave regular hidden files on? Easily. Click Start>Computer. Now hold down the Alt key on the keyboard and press the letter T. From the tools menu, click Folder Options.
In the Folder Options window, click on the View tab and scroll down to “Hide protected operating system files (Recommended)”. Click the box next to it so there is a check mark. Click Apply then OK.
You will no longer see those desktop.ini files or other operating system files anymore. | <urn:uuid:931efdd4-aafd-4e1e-b149-4be5d4b3a9a3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.worldstart.com/hide-protected-files-makes-new-desktop-icons/comment-page-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948005 | 337 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Persons with Disabilities on the Job
Equal Rights Publication ERD-7899-PWEB
PDF versions of this publication. Follow this link to obtain the Free PDF Reader.
The links (bookmarks) in the Table of Contents take you to that section in this Publication.
The links in the Text take you to either a page in our website, a section in the Wisconsin Statutes or a section in the Wisconsin Administrative Code.
Table of Contents
- 1. Disability Protections
- 2. What actions are covered?
- 3. Who is protected?
- 4. Is AIDS a disability under the law?
- 5. How does the law apply to alcoholism and drug addiction?
- 6. Can an employer refuse to hire a person because of a disability?
- 7. Must an employer hire a qualified person with a disability over other qualified applicants without a disability?
- 8. Can an employer discriminate against a person who has an association with a person with a disability?
- 9. What is a reasonable accommodation?
- 10. What kinds of reasonable accommodations might be involved?
- 11. Cay an employer ask about a disability?
- 12. How do the worker's compensation and fair employment laws apply for persons who sustain a work-related injury?
- 13. How is the law enforced?
- 14. Disability Resources
- 15. Questions about employment discrimination.
Wisconsin's Fair Employment Law gives civil rights protections to qualified persons with disabilities. The law applies to virtually all private and public employers, regardless of the number of employees.
Under the federal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), disability discrimination is also prohibited for employers having 15 or more employees.
Both laws are designed to ensure equal opportunity in all aspects of employment.
The law protects persons with disabilities against discrimination in:
- Recruitment and hiring
- Job assignments
- Leave or benefits
- Licensing or union membership
- Lay-off and firing
- Other employment related actions
- The law also prohibits an employer from retaliating against applicants or employees who assert rights under the law. Harassment on the job because of a person's disability is also prohibited.
The law protects individuals with disabilities who are qualified and can perform the essential functions of a job, with or without a reasonable accommodation.
An individual with a disability is a person who:
- has a physical or mental impairment that makes achievement unusually difficult or limits the capacity to work;
- has a record of such an impairment, or
- is perceived as having such impairment.
The first part of this definition applies to a substantial impairment that limits a person's major life activities such as seeing, hearing, walking, learning, and working. For example, a person with diabetes, epilepsy, or mental retardation would likely be covered, but a person with a minor, non-chronic condition of short duration, such as a broken leg or occasional headaches would generally not be covered.
The second part of this definition covers a person who had a disability but is now recovered. For example, a person with cancer that is in remission, or a person with a history of mental illness would be covered.
The third part of this definition includes a person who is "perceived" as having a disability. For example, an applicant whose physical exam revealed a prior back injury that would not affect job performance would be covered.
In many cases, it is difficult to decide if a condition is a disability under the law without having a written diagnosis from a physician or another health care provider. Typically, the facts in each case must be reviewed. For example, a pattern of relatively minor headaches may not be a disability whereas severe recurring migraines would likely be a disability.
Yes, a person with AIDS is protected under the law and may not be discriminated against because of this disease.
How does the law apply to alcoholism and drug addiction?
Alcoholism and drug addictions are disabilities under state law and a person may not be discriminated against for either reason. Under the ADA, a "current" user of illegal drugs is not protected although one who is recovering or who is in a supervised drug rehabilitation program is covered under both state and federal laws.
Employers may require employees who use alcohol or have abused drugs to meet the same standards of performance and conduct set for other employees and may prohibit the use of illegal drugs and alcohol in the workplace.
Can an employer refuse to hire a person because of a disability?
A person with a disability may be passed over if the disability is reasonably related to the person's ability to adequately and safely perform job-related duties. An employer may consider if a person's disability would constitute a hazard to the safety of the person, coworkers or the public. However, an employer may not assume a hazard exists because of a person's disability and must typically establish through objective or medically supported evidence that a significant risk of substantial harm would occur.
An employer has a legitimate interest in maintaining a safe workplace, but may not generalize rejection of persons with disabilities. If a hazard does exist, an employer has a further duty to determine if a reasonable accommodation can be made to reduce the hazard to an acceptable level.
Must an employer hire a qualified person with a disability over other qualified applicants without a disability?
An employer is not required to hire a qualified applicant with a disability over other qualified applicants. However, an employer may not refuse to hire a person with a disability because of the disability or because a reasonable accommodation is required to make it possible for the person to perform essential job functions.
Can an employer discriminate against a person who has an association with a person with a disability?
Under state law, disability "by association" is not covered. This refers to discrimination against an individual because a spouse, child or friend has a disability. However, the federal ADA does protect individuals against discrimination on this basis and a complaint may be filed with the US. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). See the disability resources section for contact information.
What is a reasonable accommodation?
A reasonable accommodation is any modification or adjustment to a job, the work environment or how things are done that enables a qualified applicant or employee with a disability to participate in the application process, perform essential job functions or enjoy the same employment rights and privileges as other employees.
A person with a disability is often the best source for identifying the most effective accommodation. A person with a disability is generally expected to make a request for an accommodation, unless the need for one is obvious.
An employer is required to make a reasonable accommodation unless it would result in a hardship to the business. The hardship standard will vary with each case. Generally, a hardship may exist if the accommodation is difficult or expensive to achieve in relation to the size and resources of the business. If the accommodation is unduly costly or disruptive or would fundamentally alter the nature of the business it might also represent a hardship.
What kinds of reasonable accommodations might be involved?
Following are some typical solutions:
- Modifying how exams or training are given;
- Installing a ramp for building access;
- Making restrooms accessible;
- Making telephones accessible;
- Raising a desk for wheelchair access;
- Offering part-time or flexible work schedules;
- Restructuring a job or redistributing minor job functions;
- Reassigning an employee to a vacant position;
- Providing reserved parking
Resource Tip: The JOB ACCOMMODATIONS NETWORK is listed in this pamphlet under "disability resources". Call them if you need ideas on accommodations for a specific disability.
May an employer ask about a disability?
Inquiries about a person's disability, health or worker's compensation history is unlawful if they imply or express a limitation based on disability. Under the federal ADA, any inquiry at the pre-employment stage, which would likely require an applicant to disclose a disability, is unlawful. Employers are advised to avoid such inquiries or medical examinations before making a bona fide job offer.
However, an employer may inquire about an applicant's ability to perform essential job functions and, within certain limits, may conduct tests of all applicants to determine if they can perform such functions, with or without an accommodation.
How do the worker's compensation and fair employment laws apply for persons who sustain a work-related injury?
An employee injured on the job and covered by the worker’s compensation law is not precluded from seeking remedies under state or federal fair employment laws. If the injury results in a disability as defined under the fair employment law, and the employee is not returned to work, not reasonably accommodated or faces another adverse action because of the disability, the employee may file a discrimination complaint under the fair employment law. An employee may also seek any rights separately available under the worker’s compensation law.
How is the law enforced?
Persons who believe they have been discriminated against because of a disability may file a complaint with the Equal Rights Division within 300 days of knowing about the alleged discrimination. The division investigates complaints, helps parties settle cases or, as necessary, orders remedies if discrimination is found. For information on filing a complaint, contact the Equal Rights Division at one of the two offices listed below.
A number of important resources are available to assist employers and persons with disabilities. A few key agency resources are:
Job Accommodations Network (JAN)
West Virginia University-809 Allen Hall
PO Box 6123
Morgantown, WV 26506-6123
(800) 526-7234 (Voice/TTY)
Technical Assistants making reasonable accommodations
Great Lakes Disability & Business Tech Center
University of Illinois-Chicago UAP
1640 W. Roosevelt Rd., M/C627
Chicago, IL 60608
(800) 949-4232 (Voice/TTY)
Technical Assistants ADA compliance in general.
Easter Seal Society of Wisconsin Inc
101 Nob Hill Road, Suite 301
Madison, WI 53713
(608) 277-8288 (Voice/TTY)
Technical Assistants Accessibility in buildings
Wisconsin Division of Vocational Rehabilitation
201 E Washington Ave
P.O. Box 7852
Madison, WI 53707
(608) 243-5600, (608) 243-5601 (TTY)
(608) 243-5625 Deaf & hard of hearing
(608) 243-5656 Blind & visually impaired
NAMI WISCONSIN (National Alliance on Mental Illness
4233 W Beltline Hwy
Madison WI 53711
(800) 236-2988 or (608) 268-6000
US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
310 W. Wisconsin Avenue, Suite 800
Milwaukee, WI 53203
(414) 297-1111, (414) 297-1115 (TTY)
Information about federal employment protections under the ADA
The Department of Workforce Development is an equal opportunity service provider. If you need assistance to access services or need material in an alternate format, please contact us.
This is one of a series of pamphlets highlighting programs of the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development. It is intended to provide only a general description, not a legal interpretation.
#1 Avoiding Loaded Interview Questions
#2 Harassment in the Workplace
#3 Pregnancy, Employment & The Law
#4 Persons With Disabilities On The Job
#5 Fair Employment Law & Complaint Process
#6 Age Discrimination in the Workplace
#7 Settlement: An alternative to investigation and hearing
#8 Race, Color, National Origin and Ancestry
#9 Sexual Orientation Protection
Questions about employment discrimination should be directed to:
EQUAL RIGHTS DIVISION
201 E WASHINGTON AVE
PO BOX 8928
MADISON WI 53708
Telephone Number: (608) 266-6860
TTY Number: (608) 264-8752
819 N 6th ST
MILWAUKEE WI 53203
Telephone Number: (414) 227-4384
TTY Number: (414) 227-4081 | <urn:uuid:f2baeb4a-b476-463b-a5ac-0ca15b3fbcdb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dwd.wisconsin.gov/er/discrimination_civil_rights/publication_erd_7899_p.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927738 | 2,506 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Cancellus Terrestris Bahamensis: The Hermit Crab.
The Fore-part of this Crab, being about one half of its Body is
crustaceous, and of a purple Colour, the Hind-part is soft and tender,
of a livid fleshy Colour, and covered over with only a soft Skin,
which not being so defensible as the crustaceous Part, and being
more liable to be bruised or hurt by the Attacks of Animals that
prey on them, Nature hath directed it for the Security of that tender
Part to get into and inhabit the empty Shell of a Fish that best
fits its Size and Shape: When the Crab grows too big for the Shell
to contain, it leaves that and seeks another more commodious, so
continues changing his Habitation as he increases in largeness,
which from being no bigger than will fill the Shell of a small Snail
or Perriwinkle, will become when at full Growth bigger than that
here figured: They crawl very fast with the Shell on their Back,
and at the Approach of Danger draw themselves within the Shell,
and thrusting out the larger Claw in a defensive Posture, and will
pinch very hard whatever molests them: They frequent most those
Parts of the Sea-Shores which are covered with Trees and Shrubs,
producing various wild Fruits, on which they subsist, tho' I have
seen them feed on the Fragments of Fish and other animal Substances,
cast on Shoar. They being roasted in the Shell are esteemed delicate.
I don't remember to have seen any of them to go into the Sea. The
Shells they mostly make use of are of the Buccinum Kind,
whose spiral Form is best fit to hold them fast, and secure them
in the Shell, in which they can fix themselves so fast, by Means
of short Claws at their Tails, that in pulling them out of it, the
tender Part separates from the crustaceous, and remain in the spiral
Part of the Shell. Fig. 1. shews the Animal in the Shell. Fig. 2,
chews the Animal out of the Shell.
Manghala arbor Curassavica, foliis Salignis: Button-Wood.
As Sir Hans Sloane in his Natural History of Jamaica,
has accurately described this Tree, I conceive it necessary to add
only what I know more concerning it. They grow always near the Sea
and in Salt Water, and are found on all the Coasts of America
between the Tropicks in greater Plenty than any other Shrub:
They being small, I know of no Mechanick Use they are put to, but
for burning, it is esteemed the bell Wood in these Latitudes. Where
these Trees are found, there are generally under them great Plenty
of Hermit Crabs, which probably may feed on its fallen Fruit.
Frutex trifolius resinosus; floribus tetra-petalis albis racemosis.
This Shrub grows to the Height of about six Feet, producing trifoliated,
pointed, stiff, shining Leaves growing opposite to one another on
Foot-Stalks two Inches long, and at the Ends of the Branches grow
four or five slender Stalks set with many very small white Flowers. | <urn:uuid:307b1e2b-cfba-4d4b-ac24-ed34c3611a13> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://xroads.virginia.edu/~ma02/amacker/etext/II_33.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948609 | 714 | 3.1875 | 3 |
Staff Picks: Movies
Staff-recommended viewing from the KPL catalog.
When Punk Rock Was Punk!
As a punk rock skateboarder in the 1980’s, Another State of Mind was the most authentic depiction of life as a teenager involved in the underground music scene that any of us had seen put to film. It could only be found on late night cable television during the eighties and early nineties (you were lucky if one of your friends had a VCR and made a copy of it) and so I leapt at the opportunity to add the DVD release to our documentary film collection, hoping it would appeal to a newer generation as well as those who experienced the eighties punk scene first-hand. Made in 1982, at the time of hardcore punk’s heyday, the film takes the viewer on a cross-country journey with legendary Southern California bands The Youth Brigade and Social Distortion. There is plenty of live footage of the bands playing but the filmmakers primarily concentrated their focus on detailing the experiences of the band members as they struggled to survive the daily grind of touring in an old school bus. There’s also quite a bit of attention given to providing voice to kids the bands met along the way as well the occasional teenage denunciation (targets include: Reagan politics, middle-class conformity, religion, etc.). It certainly brought back some fond memories of my youthful days of DIY music and culture. See a clip here.
Another State of Mind | <urn:uuid:224c8ab0-444a-4d09-bc61-f95481e4db12> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kpl.gov/movies/blog/default.aspx?id=15032390565 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960512 | 302 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Over the past few decades, Computer programming has ignited gallons of technological innovation, disrupting one industry after the other. For as long, programming has been a skilled task, a niche profession, art of sorts too. It has also made good programmers a rare breed. But I’ve started to imagine that in the coming years everyone will be able to program.
“Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for the rest of his life.”
Most people already program their devices as end-users to a tiny extent, be it an iPhone or the heating thermostat. But a more diverse level of programming will reach the masses, sooner than one might think. It won’t be the same as one would perceive writing complex computer code. It will be more intuitive.
At the moment, the majority of programming is profit or research oriented. The mass programming that I anticipate will primarily be self-serve. Want your refrigerator to automatically order a watermelon and some cold beverages for home delivery based on periodic weather forecast checks? Just program it through your tablet. Want to replace a broken part in your juicer mixer? Just program the 3D printer to make a new one right at home. Want the carpet vacuumed before the in-laws arrive in the evening? Just program the personal robot at home to do so while you are at work.
This emergence is already being made possible due to:
2. Global ‘Learn to Code’ initiatives, that encourage programming as a fun activity for all, like Code Year 2012 (where 333,628 people have already enrolled at the time of writing this post), the UK government introducing programming lessons into British schools, and ‘The Academy for Software Engineering‘ – New York City’s first public high school that will actually train kids to develop software, and even the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project will reach out to kids in under-developed nations.
3. Visual programming tools, that enable a simplified approach to developing applications, will also help accelerate the adoption of the self-serve programming culture, a bit like ifttt I suppose. But their UI/UX will take a few more years to achieve mass appeal.
4. Community support – Years ago I read somewhere that “Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution.” I believe programmers and hackers are not such institutions. We like to share, teach and learn in the process. The sheer volume of open source projects out in the wild is an evidence of this. The existing programming community will help thrive the Long Tail of mass programming.
Computer Science may remain to be for the elite, but someday, soon, self-serve programming is going to become a common man’s Swiss Army Knife. | <urn:uuid:059f83d1-cc53-4559-9d5b-f28a7089bfe8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nilkanth.com/2012/01/15/someday-everyone-will-be-a-programmer/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94555 | 586 | 2.71875 | 3 |
BRUSSELS, March 15 (UPI) -- French President Francois Hollande defended his plan to supply arms to Syrian rebels following a meeting with EU leaders in Brussels, Belgium, Friday.
The European Union agreed to an arms embargo in 2011, but France and the United Kingdom are eager to see it lifted, hinting they could take unilateral action if EU leaders continue to support the embargo, the BBC reported.
At a news conference after the conference British Prime Minister David Cameron said there was a "good understanding that what is happening now isn't working."
Hollande said the rebels have given assurances the weapons would not fall into improper hands, adding it is "because we have been given those [guarantees] that we can envisage the lifting of the embargo. We have certainty on the use of these weapons."
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Thursday France and Britain might ignore the arms embargo if it is not scrapped soon.
The anti-government uprising in Syria, in which an estimated 70,000 have been killed and 1 million more have fled the country, entered its second year Friday. EU foreign ministers are expected to discuss the arms embargo at a March 22 meeting, but Cameron and Hollande agreed the world could not stand by and watch while massacres occur, the BBC said.
Several European countries are worried exported arms, destined for the rebels in Syria, could end up in the hands of Muslim radicals, Radio France Internationale said Friday.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned Thursday dropping the embargo could mean more weapons going to Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime than to the opposition.
EU Parliament President Martin Schultz echoed Merkel's comments and criticized Britain and France for their potential defiance of the embargo, noting Merkel "is not completely wrong. Supplying arms to the opposition means more arms going to Assad from other countries."
Russia remains an ally of the Assad government and opposes arming the rebels, the BBC said.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov repeated his country's opposition Thursday, saying arming the opposition "is not an option."
The Local Coordination Committees, a Syrian opposition group, reported 132 people were killed in fighting across Syria Thursday, and six were killed by Friday morning.
Amnesty International said governments considering arming Syrian rebels should conduct a "rigorous human rights risk assessment" before doing so, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Amnesty International issued its caution Thursday as it released a report on abuses by both sides in the Syrian conflict.
Amnesty said safeguards should be established so arms deals could be voided if evidence indicates the weapons would be used to commit "serious human rights abuses."
The latest Amnesty reports indicate the Syrian government has "indiscriminately" bombed civilian neighborhoods, sometimes employing ballistic missiles and cluster bombs, and prisoners held by the government are "routinely subjected to torture, enforced disappearances or extrajudicial executions."
The human rights group said opposition fighters "are increasingly resorting to hostage-taking and to the torture and summary killing of soldiers, pro-government militias and civilians they've captured or abducted," Amnesty said.
In London, shadow Foreign Minister Douglas Alexander said Labor Party lawmakers need more questions answered before they could back arming rebels in their effort to oust Assad, the British newspaper The Guardian reported.
Alexander said Labor followers want to know how the British government could prevent British-supplied weapons from falling into the hands of al-Qaida followers, pointing to last week's kidnapping of 21 U.N. peacekeepers by an opposition group.
"There are fundamental questions that we need answered by the government before we would support that policy. One question is how do we guarantee where the weapons end up?" Alexander said. "Secondly, if the West was to choose now to arm the rebels, the EU to lift the arms embargo, why would that not simply lead to an increase in the supply of weapons [to the Assad regime] from Iran and from Russia?"
On March 15, 2011, the unrest began with nationwide protests following arrests in the southern city of Daraa.
Vigils around the world marked the anniversary this week.
|Additional World News Stories|
NEW YORK, May 21 (UPI) --Former first daughter Caroline Kennedy served on a New York jury that acquitted a Harlem man of selling drugs to an undercover police officer.
NEW YORK, May 21 (UPI) --U.S. hip-hop mogul Jay-Z says his wife Beyonce is not pregnant with their second child, despite persistent rumors claiming she is.
WASHINGTON, May 21 (UPI) --A member of Congress who led an investigation into the BP oil spill in 2010 expressed outrage that a judge threw out a charge against a former BP executive. | <urn:uuid:d08397c1-f5b1-4310-9a52-3e22c82f615e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2013/03/15/EU-to-discuss-lifting-Syrian-arms-embargo/UPI-68921363345935/?rel=61971363362566 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957289 | 952 | 1.59375 | 2 |
The research reports are part of the GRE® Board's research activities, which encompass a broad spectrum of concerns in graduate education beyond testing. General Reports deal with issues of broad interest to the graduate community. Technical Reports are targeted for audiences who deal with the technical aspect of assessments.
- Validity Evidence: Predicting Success in Graduate Education
- Validity Evidence: Constructs and Content
- GRE Validity Analyses
- Fairness and Accessibility
- Analytical Writing Measure
- Measurement Issues
- Minority and Special Population Issues
- Developing New Assessments
- Flow of Talent into Graduate Education
- Other Research
CGS/GRE Survey of Graduate Enrollment and Degrees
The GRE Board and the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) jointly sponsor an annual survey of graduate enrollment. The survey collects total graduate school enrollment data and discipline data from CGS member institutions and members of the regional associations affiliated with CGS. A goal of the data collection effort is to improve the availability of data on graduate education. Read more about the Annual Survey of Graduate Enrollment and Degrees.
Note: The downloadable PDF files for these research reports were created from the printed reports, which contained numbered blank pages. To reduce download time these pages were omitted. Therefore, some of the reports may appear to be missing pages, but are actually complete. | <urn:uuid:d719a332-53cb-4dde-82f8-fd24f0c29123> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ets.org/gre/research/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935403 | 275 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Simply begin typing or use the editing tools above to add to this article.
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The constellation of Cygnus has five T associations, and Orion and Taurus have four each. The richest is Ori T2, with more than 400 members; it has a diameter of 50 by 90 light-years and lies at a distance of 1,300 light-years around the variable star T Ori.
What made you want to look up "Ori T2"? Please share what surprised you most... | <urn:uuid:08ba21bb-8f1d-420b-9cc6-0d786fdaf095> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/432280/Ori-T2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93301 | 120 | 2.75 | 3 |
My girl friend says that she wears her tampons for a week at a time, I thought that they were supposed to changed them every few hours, and I am just woundering if I should be concerned for her, or can they wear them for a week at a time? I don't want to sound stupid but I just don't want anything bad to happen to her.
Posts: 20 | From: Florida | Registered: Jun 2006
| IP: Logged |
That's insanity, and no, not healthy. She's putting herself at a massive risk of TSS and bacterial infections. The rank smell that's going to be going on after a day or two alone should be a big giveaway to her that that's not smart.
She needs to change tampons, if she's going to use them, every few hours as you suspect. She can read the side of any box to inform her of that.
If she has trouble affording tampons, wants something she can use for a few more hours than tampons, she can look into a Divacup. That's going to cost her a lot less, but she still will need to change it a couple times daily.
-------------------- Heather Corinna, Executive Director & Founder, Scarleteen About Me • Get our book! Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. - Margaret Mead Posts: 63426 | From: An island near Seattle | Registered: May 2000
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Copyright 1998, 2013 Heather Corinna/Scarleteen
Scarleteen.com: Providing comprehensive sex education online to teens and young adults worldwide since 1998
Information on this site is provided for educational purposes. It is not meant to and cannot substitute for advice or care provided by an in-person medical professional. The information contained herein is not meant to be used to diagnose or treat a health problem or disease, or for prescribing any medication. You should always consult your own healthcare provider if you have a health problem or medical condition. | <urn:uuid:cfabeae5-6d08-4f31-a0c2-822df03320ec> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.scarleteen.com/cgi-bin/forum/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=27;t=013538;p=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963838 | 428 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Family Affected By Fatal Accident Fights to Save Another Life
Jon Simon, 67, hopes to receive life-saving help. He has been fighting non-Hodgkin Lymphoma for more than a year and needs a bone marrow transplant.
In response, neighbors, friends and family will hold a marrow donor drive on Sunday, October 12th at Whole Foods Market in Deerfield, to recruit marrow donors who can potentially help save his life or the lives of other people diagnosed with life-threatening blood cancers.
The test is a simple cheek swab.
The swab will determine if individuals are a match for any of the patients in a comprehensive database compiled by DKMS, the world’s largest marrow donor center.
Simon, a small business owner, has lived in Deerfield for more than 30 years. He and wife Helen, who was born on the South Side, raised three children, David, Bob and Sharon.
In 1993, David Simon was killed when a van jumped the curb at O’Hare International Airport and plowed into bystanders. The family set up a scholarship in David’s name and has now turned to help fight this battle for Jon.
“My father’s incredible spirit and determination has made it easier for his friends to endure this journey with him,” said Sharon Simon, his daughter. “This is a numbers game for all 35,000 people awaiting marrow transplants. It is time to get awareness out there of how simple it is to pay it forward and save a life.”
WHAT: A Bone Marrow Drive WHERE: Whole Foods Market – Deerfield (in the Cafe) 760 Waukegan Road Deerfield, IL 60015 WHEN: Sunday October 12, 2008 10:00 AM – 3:00 PM By Mail at: www.dkmsarmericas.org
Registration is a simple process: Individuals between 18 and 55 in good health, need only to fill out a form and have a cheek swab.
While monetary donations are not mandatory, we urge those who are financially able – even those who are excluded from taking the test for age or health reasons – to contribute.
What happens if you are found to be a life-saving match for a patient?
Once you have been identified as a donor there are two ways you can GIVE LIFE:
1. Peripheral Blood Stem Cell (PBSC) (Approximately 70%-80% of collections are performed this way). This procedure involves receiving daily medication for four to five days before the collection to increase blood stem cells in the bloodstream. The donor’s blood is removed from one arm, passed through a machine that separates the cells used in transplant and painlessly returned through the other arm. 2. Marrow (not spinal) Tissue (Approximately 20%-30% of collections are done this way) Doctors collect the cells, with a special needle, from the pelvic bone where a small amount of marrow (containing stem cells) is extracted. This is a procedure done under general or local anesthesia so the donor does not experience pain during the process.
Founded in 1991, DKMS is the world’s largest marrow donor center with more than 1.7 million registered marrow donors. Since its inception, DKMS has facilitated more than 14,000 transplants. The mission of DKMS is to give every blood cancer patient a second chance at life by recruiting marrow donors from every race and ethnicity.
DKMS Americas is a 501 (c)(3) non profit organization. All donations are tax-deductible and 100% of the donation will be used to cover the $65 donor registration fees.
To learn more about DKMS, please visit www.dkmsamericas.org. | <urn:uuid:35cc59a5-e0d5-41e7-a4d4-c4039c5b7e06> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/1582551/family_affected_by_fatal_accident_fights_to_save_another_life/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934244 | 775 | 1.703125 | 2 |
So, here comes Roger Penrose, Cycles of Time (2010). Here’s David Kaiser’s LRB summary of Penrose:
During the earliest moment of one aeon, the universe would be hot and dense, as our observable was right after the big bang. When temperatures are much greater than particles’ masses, particles behave as if they had essentially no mass at all: they zip around at nearly the speed of light, just as photons do. That’s critical, because the behaviour of massless particles involves no inherent reference scale—no baseline unit of length or time, no metre stick or calibration clock against which other measures might compare. As far as a photon is concerned time simply does not flow. A spacetime filled with massless particles would have no inherent scales by which to measure length or time. It would be governed, in other words, by conformal geometry: shapes and angles would have meaning, but overall distances would not. Remarkably, the end of an aeon might behave in much the same way. As the universe expands and cools after the beginning of a cycle, the ambient temperature would drop (looking, for observers within that epoch, just as our own big-bang universe does to us). Massive [I guess he means ‘massy’] particles like electrons, protons, hydrogen atoms and all the rest would gradually lose energy; they would no longer zip around as fast as massless photons do. In that regime, length and time and scale would emerge; the symmetries of conformal geometry would be suppressed. The universe would behave as ours does today. Pockets of dust would clump and, fuelled by the energy of gravitational collapse, ignite into the nuclear reactors we call stars. [LRB 17 Feb 2011, 36-37]A couple of things follow from this, or seem to. One is that the idea that spacetime itself, not only things inside space time, is in motion—expanding and contracting, for instance, and for some of that time ‘moving’ faster than light. Another is that ‘length and time and scale’ belong to a different logic than do ‘shapes and angles’—which seems to us counterintuitive, but is no less true for all that.
So much for the behaviour of the universe after a few tens of billions of years. We know from supernova measurements and WMAP data that our universe will almost certainly never collapse back on itself but continue to expand for ever. So Penrose presses on: what will our universe look like after, say, ten-to-the-hundred years? By that late time nearly all of the extant matter would be likely to have fallen into black holes. Indeed swarms of black holes would have swallowed each other, forming supermassive black holes. But even black holes, it turns out, are not foolproof containers. Stephen Hawking demonstrated 35 years ago that black holes should radiate, slowly but surely emitting energy in the form of low-energy light.I don’t get this, I’ll confess. I always thought Hawking Radiation was generated by particles at the event horizon being split into positive and negative, the former being emitted and the latter falling into the black hole. But if we posit a single supermassive black hole as the end of the material cosmos, what is there outside the black hole (as it were) to be split in this fashion and so radiate out? I’m missing something obvious here, I don’t doubt. Anyhow:
Black holes behave like cosmic rubbish compactors; swallowing up massive detritus and ever so slowly seeping energy back into the cosmos in the form of massless protons. The process might contribute inexorably, until the black holes themselves evaporate. A nearly empty universe would be left, containing virtually nothing but massless particles—a spacetime once again governed by conformal geometry.Penrose’s argument is that this end-point can be ‘stitched’ onto the beginning point; that the metahistory of the cosmos entails a process of ‘falling into’ time for many billions of years, until time itself dissolves form the picture, and the whole thing can start again. I’d like to imagine a civilisation finding a way to thread matter precisely amongst a geometrically counterbalanced network of black holes, and effectively putting an end to this cycle. Unlikely, but possible, surely? I’m also struck by the idea that massy spacetime and massless space might exist in a superposition, a kind of spacetimespace. What happens at the moment of transition? Is it like the weirdness of water becoming ice (in which case, is there a 4⁰ greatest density equivalent?). Very intriguing. | <urn:uuid:02fa17ea-5a8c-4142-83ae-23d9fdd40560> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://europrogovision.blogspot.com/2011/02/space-and-time.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952522 | 994 | 2.609375 | 3 |
BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan - U.S millionaire scientist Gregory Olsen, the world's third space tourist, bid farewell to his family Friday during final preparations for his flight to the international space station with a Russian-American crew.
The 60-year-old founder of an infrared-camera maker based in Princeton, N.J., reportedly paid $20 million for a seat on the Expedition 12 flight.
Olsen, who holds advanced degrees in physics and materials science, defended his presence in the capsule as a necessary step in the evolution of space travel.
"I would hope that my flight would help, if just to make space flight more routine," Olsen said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.
"One hundred years ago, airline flight was reserved for only a few brave souls. Everyone flies (on planes) nowadays. The same will be true of space flight."
With the Russian-built Soyuz rocket being fueled on the launch pad Friday in Kazakhstan's barren steppes, Russian and American officials held tough talks on the future of joint space missions, with NASA's chief warning that Moscow's demands for payment could end U.S participation.
NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said a 2000 U.S. law banning space station-related payments to Russia because Moscow helped Iran build a nuclear plant "could end a continuous American presence" on the station.
The cash-strapped Russian Federal Space Agency has turned to space tourism to generate money. Olsen is the third non-astronaut to visit the station: California businessman Dennis Tito paid about $20 million for a weeklong trip to the space station in 2001, and South African Mark Shuttleworth followed a year later.
Olsen made his fortune on optic inventions. He is the co-founder of Sensors Unlimited Inc., a company that makes infrared imaging cameras and fiber-optic communications components.
At a preflight news conference with cosmonaut Valery Tokarev and astronaut William McArthur, Olsen said he preferred the term "space flight participant" to "space tourist."
"'Tourism' implies that anyone can just write a check and go up there. That's not what happened," he told the AP.
Olsen's flight was pushed back after Russian doctors found an unspecified medical ailment that since has been cleared up. He was cleared for flight in May.
Asked by a reporter how his health was, Olsen replied, "This has been two years of very hard work. In 20 hours, I will feel very, very good.
"All I have to do is to talk to my 4-year-old grandson, Justin," he said. "That's all the mental preparation I need."
McArthur, a retired Army colonel, has made three space shuttle flights, including one to the Russian space station Mir. He said he had no doubts about the safety of the Soyuz TMA-7 capsule.
"The record of the Soyuz indicates that it is a reliable vehicle. We have tremendous faith and confidence in the people who built and assembled our rocket," he said.
After blasting off Satuday morning from the Baikonur cosmodrome, the space craft will rendezvous in two days with the station floating 250 miles above the Earth. Olsen, Tokarev and McArthur will bring cargo aboard and perform experiments.
The station's current inhabitants, Russian Sergei Krikalev and American John Phillips, arrived in April and are scheduled to return with Olsen on Oct. 11, touching down in Kazakhstan.
Against the backdrop of the latest Soyuz launch, NASA's Griffin met with his Russian counterpart, Anatoly Perminov, for talks on the future of joint space missions.
Since the 2003 Columbia disaster grounded the U.S. shuttle fleet, Russia's Soyuz and Progress spacecraft have been the workhorses of the joint space projects, shuttling crews and cargo to the space station. Discovery visited the station in July, but problems with the foam insulation on its external fuel tank have cast doubt on when the shuttle will fly again.
Russia has made it clear that it expects the United States to make payment or some sort of capital investment in exchange for future U.S. participation on Russian flights.
However, the Iran Nonproliferation Act of 2000 penalizes countries that sell unconventional weapons and missile technology to Iran. Russia is building an $800 million nuclear power plant in Iran despite U.S objections that this could help Tehran build atomic bombs.
The U.S. Senate agreed unanimously last week to amend the law, lifting the ban on NASA purchases of Soyuz seats until 2012. The House has yet to act on the measure.
"We at NASA are seeking relief from the (law), which after April next year would preclude cooperation with Russia in relation to certain aspects" of the space station, Griffin said.
"At issue is whether there will be future U.S. crew members and future U.S. crew missions if the congressional provisions are not granted."
NASA officials said Thursday in Houston they expect McArthur to return to Earth aboard a Soyuz in the spring, one way or another. A space shuttle was supposed to bring him home, but NASA's fleet is grounded indefinitely.
Earlier, Anatoly Perminov, head of the Russian space agency, told reporters that if the U.S. shuttles are not flying by year's end, the Russian agency will begin charging NASA. He did not say how much Russia would charge.
The next Soyuz flight is scheduled for April.
NASA is uncertain when it will launch the next shuttle because of the foam problem. A March target is all but impossible and the space agency is looking for a mission no earlier than late spring. | <urn:uuid:02a737f0-2fc7-4f72-958b-4bd95c793590> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/nation_world/article_43782c62-52e6-5341-8adc-cef579fe368c.html | 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 | 0.960597 | 1,172 | 1.828125 | 2 |
The ANGLERPOD is watching TV.
The Anglerpod is a strange creature. You could call him odd, I suppose, but he’s not really that. More misunderstood. You see, The Anglerpod became bored with living on his home planet, and he longed to live someplace else. So he traveled to earth, and he liked it there. So he stayed. And he lived there happily for some time, seeing creatures similar to him, like the cave mites. Who let him stay in their cave. Very kind of them.
EXT. HILL WITH LAMPPOST. NIGHT.
But then it happened. And everything became dark. Luckily for the Anglerpod, he had his light, and he could see. But he soon longed for other light, having been quite enamored with the sun. He soon found the lamppost, whom he struck up a friendship with. He went to see her every day, with his hat on and smoking his cigar. They didn’t talk to each other, they didn’t need to. They understood each other. The Anglerpod was happy. The lamppost was too, from what the Anglerpod could gather.
The lamppost light flickers.
But then one day…
The lamppost light burns out.
The lamppost died. And the Anglerpod was lonely again.
The Anglerpod cries a single tear...and walks back down the hill.
The Anglerpod went back to his cave. He tried to be friends with the television, but it kept talking to him in a language he didn’t understand. He tried making friends with the cave mites, but they told him his light was too bright. And because the Anglerpod is a very considerate creature, he stayed away from them. And that was that. So the Anglerpod sits alone in his cave, staying a safe distance away from the cave mites and listening in wonder to the television’s strange words. He waits for something….but he doesn’t know what. | <urn:uuid:71de092f-1e53-41f4-bb0c-04a22c37421a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hitrecord.org/records/383198 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982445 | 441 | 1.5625 | 2 |
If you read here often enough you may have stumbled across my little campaign to tax the profits that banks, corporations, high frequency traders, drugs store chains and so on make getting “data for nothing and the profits for free”. The potential is huge if Walgreens made just under $800 million on their SEC statement in 2010 and I would almost guess they could have broke a billion in 2011.
Why should the big conglomerates profit so heavily and the “algorithmically generated profits” be so high? There’s no incentive to set up factories and hire people when a company can grab a couple programmers, write the web mining algos and start running a few queries and reports and sell the data which they get for free. We try and base too much of our economy today on algorithms and while we need them, we all need balance with manufacturing too. You know the best part of this idea is that insurance companies make millions selling data too so maybe a nice little revenue/tax bonus here and they still make enough to keep shareholders happy to boot.
Here’s my thoughts on this topic and the average consumer has no clue that all this is made as you can’t see, touch, feel or talk to those algorithms but they have teeth and take your money and your data behind scenes if written to “maximize financial dollar profits” whether they are accurate or not.
Start Licensing and Taxing the Data Sellers of the Internet Making Billions of Profit Dollars Mining “Free Taxpayer Data”–Attack of the Killer Algorithms Chapter 17 - “Occupy Algorithms”– Help Stop Inequality in the US
Small businesses are being pinched and this is no exception. It’s not that the Healthcare Law was bad but the economy evolved and a few modifications are needed, and especially in the math areas. Nobody is accountable there and with some of the big data capabilities coming in it’s hard to get to the bottom with multiple layers of code running. By the way thanks to all who are now searching for “The Attack of the Killer Algorithms” on search engines as it looks like that’s becoming a keeper.
There are many very good provisions of the Healthcare law and who’s the fool that thinks this doesn’t need to be revisited and adjusted all the time, it’s the world we live in so a total repeal like some folks talk just shows a lot digital illiteracy with politicians and lawmakers.
I said a while back that our new consumer protection chief better have some good understanding of math and algorithms as big business is using all of it for profit. I have no problem with companies making profits but when technological formulas are widening the inequality someone needs to dig in here and get with the math and algos. The link below has about 20 chapters on the Attack of the Killer Algorithm examples if you want to dive in further and see how formulas that run on servers 24/7 make life impacting decisions about out with a bunch of flawed data in the works. BD
President Appoints Richard Cordray as New Consumer Financial Protection Chief - Hope He Knows And Understands Correcting Flawed Math and Formulas To Battle the “Financial Attack of Killer Algorithms” On Consumers With Banks and Corporate USA
Small businesses are very mindful of their spending especially when it comes to healthcare. The Health Insurance Tax that's included in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is raising eyebrows among business owners.
He's talking about the Health Insurance Tax that's included in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. | <urn:uuid:2fa9f27b-6969-4067-8dfd-8868d4ec3a5c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2012/03/small-businesses-question-health.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948912 | 747 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Sunset over the waters of Lake DeGray.
The lake features 210 miles of shoreline, and plenty of hidden coves.
Dean Powell is an interpreter at athe state park.
For many Arkansans, it doesn't get much better than an evening at the lake, whether it be from the shore or on the water.
The pace of life is slower on the water - perhaps because there are so many beautiful things to take in.
"For skiers, boaters, fishermen, snorkeling, scuba diving, we do self-guided tours, kayaking tours, canoes, water bikes; it's a big recreation area," says Dean Powell, who is a park interpreter at Lake DeGray Resort State Park, exploring some of the lake's hidden treasures on what they call a sunset cruise.
The lake has more than 13,000 acres of surprisingly clear water. The shore is 210 miles of Arkansas woodlands.
The dam was completed in 1972, and soon the Caddo River filled up what was once a mountain valley, and once the home of many homesteaders.
Powell explains, "There was a man, Old Man Johnson was his name and he had a still, moonshine, right here where we're sitting. He had a home right here, when the Corps of Engineers came to tell him they were going to dam the lake. He basically said over my dead body and proceeded to shove them off the land with his shotgun."
Legend says Old Man Johnson never did leave, though he was warned over and over the water was coming. No on ever saw Old Man Johnson again.
Thirty years ago, Frances Johnson asked if he could place a cross on the family land in memory of his father. The legend says sometimes the cross is there - sometimes it is not.
The lake becomes surprisingly calm as sunset nears. A pair of Mallard ducks swim within feet of our boat. The smoke from a campfire hovers just above the water
And then the magic moment. There are few places in Arkansas where a tree or mountain does not obstruct your gaze. But here on Lake DeGray, the suns dips low in the sky - allowing a direct stare into mother nature's masterpiece.
Powell says, "You can feel it, you can smell it, you can see it, everything out here. And to be able to see the sun go down, yeah, it's the ending of another day. But you know what. It's the ending of another beautiful day. It's another day that you were alive to see this." | <urn:uuid:ad361d78-2609-4fa6-87d9-026f02d9f6c7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thv11.com/featured/amazed/article/102893/198/Amazed-By-Arkansas-Lake-DeGray-Sunset-Cruise | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977534 | 532 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Adults of this large group of flies
a feed on nectar and pollen of flowers, and pollinate plants. Many are brightly colored and resemble bees or wasps. Most species hover motionless except for beating their wings; others fly with a buzzing sound like bees.
This is one
of the most beneficial groups of insects in the yard and garden. Adult stages of
these insects are usually colored bright orange or yellow and black. Most
resemble bees and wasps, and some even carry this act to convincing extremes by
buzzing. However, adult syrphid flies (sometimes called “flower flies” or
“hover flies”) are harmless, feeding on nectar and pollen.
Syrphid fly larvae vary considerably in appearance and biology. They are 6 to 19 mm
long (about 1/4 to 3/4 inch long), elongated, legless, and slug-like. Their bodies are pointed at the head, blunt or broad at the tail end, and somewhat depressed. Many are yellow, pink, green, or brown marked with black or white.
Take a look at the picture of a larvae below
The larvae are commonly found among aphid colonies and move slowly over surfaces of plants, using their pointed jaws to grab aphids and suck out the body contents before discarding the aphid skins. Syrphid fly larvae can consume one aphid per minute. Adults lay glistening white, elongated eggs among colonies of aphids.
How do you tell the difference
between a fly and a bee? Here are a few differences:
- Wings: Flies have 2; bees have
- Antennae: Flies have stubby
antennae; bees have long.
- Eyes: Flies have big compound
eyes; bees have simple eyes.
If you see a bee hovering about
like a little helicopter, look again. Chances are that this
little fellow has only 2 wings, stubby antennae, and big eyes.
So, why does he look like a bee? That's his clever disguise.
Birds will not eat him for fear of getting stung. You don't need
to worry, however, as these little syrphid flies cannot sting.
|Is the Syrphid Fly a Good Bug
or a Bad Bug?
This guy is good! Not only are
they great pollinators, but the little maggots are real pigs
when it comes to munching aphids.
lay eggs on aphid infested leaves and within 2 or 3 days, a tiny
green maggot hatches. These little maggots are blind so they
have to tap their head around until they find an aphid. Then a
hook comes out, grabs the aphid, and pulls it against its mouth
to suck the juice right out. The maggots are tiny when they
first hatch, but after 3 or 4 weeks of feeding, they are almost
too fat to balance on a leaf. They then drop to the soil where
they pupate emerging as adults in about 2 weeks.
You should see syphid flies
hovering about in the summer. You'll probably say, "I
always wondered what those weird bees are."
Pollen or nectar rich plants such
as yarrow, lovage or fennel will help attract syrphid flies to | <urn:uuid:9291538f-af32-4990-8343-1f18ddbfbc5b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.eduwebs.org/bugs/syrphid_flies.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.912524 | 711 | 3.1875 | 3 |
Medical theology is a phrase that Soliant healthcare does not throw around lightly. It is an important concept for many who are in the medical field as it attempts to combine the study of medicine with an emphasis on theology, or the study of religious faith and God. If you have decided to study this concept, here are some things to keep in mind.
Faith Can be as Important as Medicine
According to Dr. David Larson, the National Institute for Healthcare Research president, faith is often as important as medical treatment for patients who have chronic or serious illnesses. He says that while medical treatment can be great for patients, it is not ideal for offering hope. And the medical profession does not typically offer love. But faith can provide both of these things for some patients.
Patients with Serious Illnesses Have Heightened Spirituality
When a patient has a serious or chronic illness, they typically become more serious about their faith and God. In a recent study of 200 senior citizen patients, more than 90 percent of them reported that prayer was their first response after initially learning about their unfavorable medical condition. Similarly, more than 95 percent of patients studied prior to having heart surgery said they used prayer as a way to cope with their situation.
Faith is Becoming More Acceptable
The medical community is becoming more acceptable of faith. Studies have shown positive results in patients who express a strong feeling of faith during their sickness which has resulted in more medical professionals recognizing the benefits of a patient’s faith.
Theology and medicine have been at odds for hundreds of years. But because of the recent studies of the benefits of a patient’s faith, these two concepts are now not viewed as opposing beliefs. | <urn:uuid:a3e09f23-4dbb-45e9-b4dd-e6c7b7a096f8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hcrc.org/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973701 | 342 | 2.5625 | 3 |
TECHNOLOGIES FOR THE DETECTION OF CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL CONTAMINANTS IN FOODS
Location: Residue Chemistry and Predictive Microbiology
Title: A non-targeted GC×GC/TOF-MS method and software for inventorying persistent and bioaccumulative contaminants in marine environments
| Hoh, Eunha - |
| Dodder, Nathan - |
| Pangallo, Kristin - |
| Reddy, Christopher - |
| Maruya, Keith - |
Submitted to: Journal of Environmental Science and Technology
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: June 19, 2012
Publication Date: June 19, 2012
Citation: Hoh, E., Dodder, N.G., Lehotay, S.J., Pangallo, K.C., Reddy, C.M., Maruya, K.A. 2012. A non-targeted GC×GC/TOF-MS method and software for inventorying persistent and bioaccumulative contaminants in marine environments. Journal of Environmental Science and Technology. 46(15):8001–8008.
Interpretive Summary: One of the most difficult and time-consuming aspects in the analysis of chemical contaminants in food and environmental samples is the identification of unknown chemicals. It is much easier to analyze known targeted chemicals in the samples, but this misses potential new contaminants that can be accumulating in the environment and food supply. In this study, a faster and easier method of analysis and identification of possible unknown contaminants was developed and assessed in the case of dolphin blubber, which is a sentinel species and matrix for bio-accumulative chemicals in the marine environment. The new method was able to identify many chemicals that were not known to occur in the environment previously, and many others were detected but remain unidentified. This analytical approach and study results may prove useful to environmental, analytical, and food scientists, as well as biologists and toxicologists who are interested in the identification of previously unknown contaminants in food and the environment.
Routine environmental contaminant monitoring projects generally use targeted analytical methods and are not designed to regularly screen for unrecognized or novel contaminants. We describe a non-targeted analytical method and data reporting system designed to identify and document unrecognized and novel marine contaminants in dolphins, a high trophic level sentinel species. The method used direct sample introduction (DSI) coupled to comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography with time-of-flight mass spectrometry, and was tested by characterizing a broad array of non-polar, persistent and bioaccumulative compounds in Atlantic common dolphin blubber. Compound identifications were made by searching a standard reference database and contemporaneously analyzing mass spectra from reference standards. Custom software was developed to organize and provide shared access to the identified mass spectra and related information. We identified a total of 271 compounds belonging to 24 classes. Anthropogenic contaminants and halogenated natural products were concurrently detected. Eighty-six compounds were anthropogenic contaminants that are not routinely targeted in environmental surveys, and 54 compounds were halogenated natural products. We also cataloged 27 halogenated mass spectra that were not able to be identified. The non-targeted analytical method and data reporting system demonstrates a framework for creating an inventory of persistent and bioaccumulative contaminants and halogenated natural products in marine environments, with the future goal of suggesting new compounds for routine targeted monitoring and risk assessment. | <urn:uuid:012d2885-b93b-414b-9368-940141698486> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ars.usda.gov/research/publications/publications.htm?SEQ_NO_115=275663 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939942 | 726 | 2.125 | 2 |
News & Events
September 14, 2011
U.S. Department of Education Releases Student Loan Default Rates
Jefferson City - Recent figures released by the U.S. Department of Education show that the student loan default rate in Missouri is still below the national average, and the default rate for loans guaranteed by the Missouri Department of Higher Education is well below the national average.
The information released by the U.S. Department of Education summarizes the default rates for borrowers whose first loan repayments came due between Oct. 1, 2008 and Sept. 30, 2009, and who stopped making payments before Sept. 30, 2010.
The student loan default rate measures the percentage of borrowers who have stopped repaying student loans.
The national student loan default rate rose from 7 percent in 2008 to 8.8 percent in 2009. Missouri's overall rate increased from 5.8 percent to 7.6 percent. The default rate for loans guaranteed by MDHE declined from 6.6 percent in 2008 to 6.3 percent in 2009.
While national student loan default rates have steadily risen from 2007 to 2009, the default rates for loans guaranteed by MDHE have declined each year. Overall state rates declined slightly from 2007 to 2008, but increased the next year.
The Missouri Department of Higher Education acts as a guaranty agency for about 40 percent of all student loans in Missouri that were disbursed before July 1, 2010. Loan guaranty agencies insure student loans against default. If the borrower defaults, the guaranty agency reimburses the lender and attempts to recover the funds from the borrower.
MDHE helps delinquent borrowers become financially responsible by offering free financial counseling. Default prevention grants, distributed by MDHE to Missouri colleges and universities, enable the schools to set up programs for students that encourage smart borrowing, financial literacy and academic success.
Commissioner of Higher Education David Russell says MDHE's success as a guaranty agency is largely due to its aggressive approach to default prevention.
"The recent data on student loan default rates show that MDHE's default prevention grants to institutions have been highly effective," Russell says. "Institutions use the grants to help educate student borrowers on ways to minimize their debts and live within a budget."
The average default rate of colleges and universities that received MDHE grants was significantly lower than the average rate of Missouri schools that were eligible for the grants but did not participate.
Missouri's student loan default rate of 7.6 percent was lower than Arkansas (11.6 percent), Illinois (9.1 percent), Iowa (11.5 percent), Kentucky (10.2 percent) and Oklahoma (10.7 percent). Only Kansas (6.8 percent) and Nebraska (5.6 percent) posted lower rates in the region. Missouri had 84,096 students in repayment and 6,462 defaulted borrowers during the reporting period.
MDHE also publishes free "Smart About Spending" portfolios and "Planning for Financial Success" calendars that guide students through the process of managing money. The free publications can be ordered through the agency's website. | <urn:uuid:49be9e3a-f397-4409-a22d-c40a3db8e3a6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dhe.mo.gov/news/show.php?u=Student_Loan_Default_Rates&yr=2011 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955365 | 623 | 1.65625 | 2 |
John 7:27 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
These people must have had a penchant for magic; they thought the Messiah would simply appear out of nowhere!
Their silly idea probably sprung from misinterpreting Malachi 3:1: "And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple. . . ." To them, "suddenly" implied that no one would know from where Christ came. Matthew 13:54-57 shows that many Galileans knew that He was the carpenter's son. They were familiar with His mother and family. Word got down from Galilee to the people of Jerusalem, and they, too, knew all about Him. How, they asked, could He be the Messiah?
We understand that Malachi 3:1 means that Christ will suddenly come to His temple, the church. But these citizens of Jerusalem, not "rightly dividing" the Scripture, did not realize that Christ would have two witnesses, two ministries. He would first come in "the form of a servant" (Philippians 2:7). The second time He would come "on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory" (Matthew 24:30) suddenly, quickly, when we do not expect Him, as many scriptures mention (Mark 13:32-37; I Thessalonians 5:2-3). Even then, those of God's people who are awake will know from where He comes.
Because Jesus did not just pop out of nowhere, these "magicians" refused to recognize Him as their Messiah.
Recognizing the Second Witness | <urn:uuid:c7cfe6c0-f1c2-4d50-8715-f00ad13e9278> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bibletools.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/Topical.show/RTD/CGG/ID/11403/Misinterpreting-Scriptures.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973413 | 330 | 1.65625 | 2 |
People Of WFIT
Sat January 7, 2012
Italian Shopkeepers Say 'No, Grazie' To More Hours
Italy's new prime minister, technocrat Mario Monti, wants to stimulate growth by boosting productivity and competitiveness. A new law that went into effect Jan. 1 allows shops, cafes and restaurants to stay open 24/7 all year long, holidays included. This deregulation puts Italy ahead of many European countries, but many Italians are resisting.
Friday — the Day of the Epiphany — was the first holiday of the year. In Rome, however, hardly anyone took advantage of the liberalized shop hours.
Restaurants were open, and so were a few cafes. But people looking for groceries were out of luck. Bakeries were closed, so were butchers and green grocers. Even the trendy organic food shop was shuttered tight.
Italian customs are hard to change.
Carlo Cicchitto owns a mom-and-pop household goods shop, but has no intention to open on a holiday.
"We can't be slaves to the store. If we keep it open, utility costs would rise," he says in Italian. "This new law may be good for customers, but for us shopkeepers, it's too big a sacrifice."
The governors of two regions are planning to challenge the new law in court. Despite being on opposite sides of the political spectrum, they claim deregulated shop hours will create problems for small businesses and that consumerism is not a good answer to the economic crisis.
On the competitiveness scale, Italy is at the bottom of the list of industrialized countries. The economy is dominated by powerful business lobbies, representing, for example, pharmacists, notaries, lawyers and taxi drivers.
Professional guilds determine not only membership and pay scales, but also work hours. In the case of shops, they decide the dates sales can take place.
Political scientist James Walston of the American University of Rome says Italian guilds are so deep-seated and part of the social fabric that they'll be a challenge for the prime minister.
"The chances of Monti defeating all of them and the chances of him introducing some kind of Thatcher or Reagan free-market Italy are very, very slim," he says.
Deregulation is opening up new paths for some, though. On the holiday of the Epiphany, one enterprising young man drew crowds of customers. At his outdoor stand, he demonstrated a simple kitchen gadget that peels, cores and slices vegetables.
This master salesman is Ahmed, an Egyptian. It's a sign that immigrants — not chained to old traditions — are perhaps best equipped to take advantage of new opportunities. | <urn:uuid:277f51e4-1608-4727-bddb-26e74236a270> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wfit.org/post/italian-shopkeepers-say-no-grazie-more-hours | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970424 | 552 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Every week, I post a picture of the food that has gone bad over the last seven days. Why do I do this? Because in March of 2008, I finally got fed up with the amount of food I was wasting, and I thought that showing my waste to other people would motivate me to use up my food instead of wasting it. Because this often embarrassing practice was so helpful for me, I invited other bloggers to join me in posting their food waste photos, and Food Waste Friday was born.
I nearly forgot to photograph my waste, but I remembered just in time.’
Here it is: a lone kiwi.
For some reason, this one went bad before the rest. It’s not moldy-just overly ripe. I could freeze it and add it to a smoothie, but I really do not prefer the taste of overly ripe kiwi, and it seems to overpower the other flavors in the smoothie.
So, off to the compost bin it goes.
I also had a bag of grapes that were starting to get wrinkly, so the girls and I picked out the really bad ones and froze the rest for future use in smoothies.
I’m pretty pleased with this-a kiwi and some grapes over a two week span is really good for me!
How did you do this week? If you blogged about your food waste, link us up by entering your info into the widget below. You’ll save money, reduce your trash output, and get a little publicity for your blog! And if you don’t blog, you can still share about your food waste by leaving a comment.
Those of you who participate in Food Waste Friday can now grab a fancy-schmancy button to perk up your posts. If you copy and paste the following code into your Food Waste Friday post, this little graphic will appear.
If you blog on WordPress, just make sure you’re in html mode when you copy and paste the code, or it won’t work properly.
Joshua’s 365 post: A or B? (for the record, I like B better.) | <urn:uuid:2f1de50a-421b-4cf2-a019-ce0690965290> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thefrugalgirl.com/2012/11/oh-right-its-time-for-food-waste-friday/ | 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 | 0.948334 | 447 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa affect up to 10 million females and 1 million males in the U.S., according to the New York-based National Eating Disorders Association.
The Alliance Theatre summer camp in Midtown will perform the original musical “What’s Eating Katie?” this weekend.
“It’s considered shameful now,” said director and composer Bryan Mercer. “Part of the reason for doing this is to break the stigma.”
The main character Katie, 13, suffers from anorexia, characterized by self-starvation and extreme weight loss, and dabbles in bulimia, a cycle of bingeing and purging.
“We’re out to change an entire campus culture here,” Mercer said. “These are kids who want to take their art in a more worldly fashion.”
The Alliance partnered with the northwest Atlanta-based Eating Disorders Information Network to produce the show, which enabled the cast to talk to people recovering from eating disorders and to firmly grasp how they affect people’s lives.
“It’s a life-or-death situation,” Mercer said. “It’s a 24-7 disorder and it never shuts up.”
Alliance Director of Education Chris Moses said the play reveals how society reinforces eating disorders and how that cycle can be broken.
“In a greater sense, it ties our students to something beyond ourselves. It’s a great side effect because they’re becoming stronger performers but it’s really teaching them to be compassionate about this issue and that theater does have power to make a change,” Moses said. “They’re spreading the word that it’s life-threatening and not something you just grow out of.”
However, he said the message is delivered in a “loving and entertaining way.”
“If our telling of the story can make someone feel like they can overcome this disorder or make one person feel as though they aren’t alone in this, then my goal for this project will be accomplished,” said Meagan Cascone, 17, who plays Barbara, Katie’s mother.
The musical’s playwright, Dina Zeckhausen, is a psychiatrist who specializes in eating disorders and founded the network. She taught the cast about “narrative therapy,” a common therapeutic technique on which the play is based.
“In narrative therapy, a person talks about their eating disorder as a separate entity from themselves,” said Marietta resident Jo-Jo Steine, 17, who plays Katie in the play.
“ED” is that separate entity, the personified eating disorder, played by Dunwoody resident Jordan Rich, 17.
“I hope to show how seductive and evil eating disorders are, so that people struggling can come to terms with their disorders and those without one will become more aware of the impact and extreme danger this voice in people’s heads can cause,” Rich said.
Despite the seriousness of the topic, Mercer said the play has a comedic aspect.
“Humor is healing,” he said. “If we’re brave enough to throw it on the stage and laugh at it, then it takes a little bit of the monster away.”
If you go:
What: “What’s Eating Katie?”
Where: Hertz Stage at the Alliance Theatre, 1280 Peachtree St., Midtown
When: Friday at 7 p.m. and Saturday at 2:30 p.m.
Information: (404) 733-4601 | <urn:uuid:e1ae2b16-91b2-4c64-8cfd-7acb6cefc7c4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://neighbornewspapers.com/pages/full_story/push?article-Alliance+camp+aims+to+shatter+stigma+on+eating+disorders%20&id=18966809&instance=all | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938963 | 786 | 1.90625 | 2 |
The Destructive Effect of Rumors
The Destructive Effect of Rumors
Rumors are sometimes a means of psychological warfare that can be used either for calming psychologically disturbed refugees, or for making them feel despair and deprivation.
Rumors spread quickly and can be very ambiguous, and it is no secret that rumors spread in those places where people are weak and vulnerable. Asylum seekers live for long periods of time in their centers, which are a good environment for the growth and spread of rumors. The effects of negative rumors include fear, worry and anger. In Avnstrup center in 2005, angry asylum seekers rioted inside the center after reading a notice pinned to the wall stating that all Iraqi asylum seekers must return to Iraq on a specific date. But afterwards it turned out that it was a mistake, and that the information had been incorrectly translated.
The long period of waiting and uncertainty means that asylum seekers can not live freely and safely. "Our asylum society is weak and disjointed because of loss and isolation," said Baher. Baher, an asylum seeker from Iraq, has spent six years moving between asylum centers and has finally settled in Avnstrup center. Baher makes a good point, because when a society is weak a good medium is created that lets rumors enter into society. He adds, "I left my wife and my little daughter, aged three, and now after this long period of separation, I have grown far from my old beliefs. Situations like this negatively effect our mental states and rumors cause nervousness between people."
Examples of rumors among asylum seekers are many. From time to time, we hear about rejected asylum seekers being deported to their home countries. Or there are rumors about asylum seekers being transferred to closed centers, or about offers of financial reward for asylum seekers who agree to return to their countries. There have also been rumors about asylum children being able to go the ordinary Danish Folkeskole so that are integrated. All of these rumors affect asylum seekers and can make people weak and confused.
Ansam, an Iraqi asylum seeker, lives in Avnstrup center. She said, "I have spent more than six years in asylum centers in Denmark and I have lived with the rumors. In fact there are positive and negative effects of rumors; the positive rumors help to lighten our suffering, for example when you hear a rumor that seems to show a solution to our problems. But this hope can quickly disappear. For example, when we hear that the government is discussing asylum issues, but then we don’t hear anything more." Jesper, a member of staff at Konglunden center commented on the effects of rumors. He said, "Rumors are like clouds, small or big clouds that can grow or disappear. Depending on the topics, they become rumors or superstition over time - or even very quickly. Rumors can be venomous and destructive in situations where there is a lot of doubt and confusion. They are the consequence of poor communication and lack of clear information."
What should we do about rumors?
Whatever the rumor, good or bad , we should do our part to check the facts. We also need to be much more aware of the problems we cause when we spread rumors. Whenever information is shared, between asylum seekers, the staff and immigration authorities, everyone should take care to consider the effect that the information will have the thoughts and emotions of the asylum seekers. | <urn:uuid:5fe0847c-c20d-4374-a406-08ef7c1ddada> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://newtimes.dk/showarticle.php?mode=show&id=25 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960141 | 697 | 2.90625 | 3 |
Artist Danica Phelps stands amid panels of her work in Manhattan's Lower East Side.
When the end of a longtime relationship cost artist Danica Phelps her home, she used her creative energies to chart the troubled period in her life. The result: A work of art that incorporates an eight-page court ruling that she says pushed her down the path toward foreclosure.
Titled "The Cost of Love," the 25-panel piece weaves 350,000 tiny red-hued stripes -- in shades of cherry, burgundy, peach and pink – together with words from the ruling, including "animosity," "eviction," "mortgage," "girlfriends," "child," "donor" and "insemination."
"This is the whole decision represented in these panels," Phelps, 40, said recently at Brennan & Griffin, the art gallery that represents her and is showing her work in Manhattan's Lower East Side neighborhood through Sunday. "I didn't want my emotion to be represented. What I wanted was to put out this word for word and to allow the viewer to have their own emotional reaction to it."
Phelps, who has used similar striping in previous pieces, said the genesis of her latest creation occurred in 2009, when her relationship with an ex-girlfriend unraveled and she decided to move out of the four-unit apartment building she owned in New York.
After moving in with relatives and unsuccessfully attempting to persuade her ex to move out of the apartment they had shared for three years, Phelps initiated eviction proceedings.
Once a family
But on June 2, 2010, Housing Court Judge Laurie L. Lau dismissed the case. Because Phelps and her ex-girlfriend had been a “familial unit” when they moved in together and jointly parented a now 3-year-old-boy named Orion born to Phelps through artificial insemination, Lau wrote, the latter was not subject to eviction under New York City law.
"While their relationship has obviously deteriorated into one of animosity and hostility, the evidence establishes the parties had intended to form a lasting familial unit,” the judge said. “It has been held that 'lifetime partners whose relationship is long term and characterized by an emotional and financial commitment and interdependence,' ... satisfy the definition of 'family' for purposes of the Rent Stabilization Code."
Phelps then decided to stop paying the mortgage on the apartment building, which is now in the midst of foreclosure. A real estate agent is trying to help her arrange a short sale (an agreement between a lender, a buyer and a seller in which the lender agree to accept less than the total loan) to avoid that.
She calculates her financial loss at $350,000, hence the number of red stripes in her artwork.
John Makely / msnbc.com
Close-up shows detail of one panel of Danica Phelps' work, 'The Cost of Love.'
"I know that this show sounds like it’s about the cost of having been in that relationship, but what the meaning is to me actually is the cost of maintaining Orion's happiness and his future," she said of her son. "If I have to lose the house ... I feel like it's actually a small price to pay."
$26 a letter
To make the panels – each of which represents one paragraph of the court decision -- Phelps first counted the numbers of the letters in the text – approximately 13,000 -- and divided 350,000 by that number. That worked out to $26 a letter.
She then took large pieces of paper and drew lines according to the value of each word.
For example, a 13-letter word would be worth $338, and thus would be followed by 338 stripes. She glued words from the judge’s ruling on large pieces of paper and painted the lines around them, using a mix of watercolor and gouache – a form of watercolor with more pigmentation.
She then cut the paper into rows and glued them onto birch plywood. At the bottom of each panel is the "cost" represented and the paragraph it represents from the ruling.
Phelps, who had other artists help her with some of her earlier stripe art, said she wanted to do this one herself, even though it took her five months to finish it.
“I felt like each stripe should be painted by me,” she said with a sigh. “It's like letting go of the house, every single penny of it. And once I’ve painted it, it's gone."
She said she found the process peaceful and healing, though some viewers don’t get that sense when they view it.
"People have said, 'Oh it's so dark … all that red is so angry,'” she said. “I look in here and it's glowing to me. … I feel like I accomplished what I set out to, which is to turn something that was depressing to me into something very beautiful."
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- Schools in bankrupt city work to prove poverty is no barrier to success | <urn:uuid:e56460aa-df1f-452b-a8dd-c7ae20cbcbde> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/02/17/10409224-shrugging-off-legal-setback-artist-danica-phelps-turns-court-ruling-into-new-work | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978946 | 1,122 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Is it better to teach formalism or intuition?
by Edward Z. Yang
Note: this is not a discussion of Hilbert's formalism versus Brouwer's intuitionism; I'm using formalism and intuition in a more loose sense, where formalism represents symbols and formal systems which we use to rigorously define arguments (though not logic: a sliding scale of rigor is allowed here), while intuition represents a hand-wavy argument, the mental model mathematicians actually carry in their head.
Formalism and intuition should be taught together.
But as utterly uncontroversial as this statement may be, I think it is worth elaborating why this is the case—the reason we find will say important things about how to approach learning difficult new technical concepts.
Taken in isolation, formalism and intuition are remarkably poor teachers. Have you had the reading a mathematical textbook written in the classic style, all of the definitions crammed up at the beginning of the chapter in what seems like a formidable, almost impenetrable barrier. One thinks, "If only the author had bothered to throw us a few sentences explaining what it is we're actually trying to do here!" But at the same time, I think that we have all also had the experience of humming along to a nice, informal description, when we really haven't learned much at all: when we sit down and try to actually solve some problems, we find these descriptions frustratingly vague. It's easy to conclude that there really is no royal road to intuition, that it must be hard won by climbing the mountains of formalism.
So why is the situation any different when we put them together?
The analogy I like is this: formalism is the object under study, whereas intuition is the results of such a study. Imagine an archaeologist who is attempting to explain to his colleagues a new conclusion he has drawn from a recently excavated artifact. Formalism without intuition is the equivalent of handing over the actual physical artifact without any notes. You can in principle reconstruct the conclusions, but it might take a while. Intuition without formalism, however, is the equivalent of describing your results over the phone. It conveys some information, but not with the resolution or fidelity of actually having the artifact in your hands.
This interpretation explains a bit about how I learn mathematics. For example, most mathematical formalisms aren't artifacts you can "hold in your hand"—at least, not without a little practice. Instead, they are giant mazes, of which you may have visibility of small fragments of at a time. (The parable of the blind men and the elephant comes to mind.) Being able to hold more of the formalism in your head, at once, increases your visibility. Being able to do quick inference increases your visibility. So memorization and rote exercise do have an important part to play in learning mathematics; they increase our facility of handling the bare formalism.
However, when it comes to humans, intuition is our most powerful weapon. With it, we can guess that things are true long before we have any good reason of thinking it is the case. But it is inextricably linked to the formalism which it describes and a working intuition is no where near as easily transferable as a description of a formal system. Intuition is not something you can learn; it is something that assists you as you explore the formalism: "the map of intuition." You still have to explore the formalism, but you shouldn't feel bad about frequently consulting your map.
I've started using this idea for when I take notes in proof-oriented classes, e.g. this set of notes on the probabilistic method (PDF). The text in black is the formal proof; but interspersed throughout there are blue and red comments trying to explicate "what it is we're doing here." For me, these have the largest added value of anything the lecturer gives, since I find these remarks are usually nowhere to be seen in any written notes or even scribe notes. I write them down even if I have no idea what the intuition is supposed to mean (because I'll usually figure it out later.) I've also decided that my ideal note-taking setup is already having all of the formalism written down, so I can pay closer attention to any off-hand remarks the lecturer may be making. (It also means, if I'm bored, I can read ahead in the lecture, rather than disengage.)
We should encourage this style of presentation in static media, and I think a crucial step towards making this possible is easier annotation. A chalkboard is a two-dimensional medium, but when we LaTeX our presentation goes one-dimensional, and we rely on the written word to do most of the heavy lifting. This is fine, but a bit of work, and it means that people don't do it as frequently as we might like. I'm not sure what the best such system would look like (I am personally a fan of hand-written notes, but this is certainly not for everyone!), but I'm optimistic about the annotated textbooks that are coming out from the recent spate of teaching startups.
For further reading, I encourage you to look at William Thurston's essay, On proof and progress in mathematics, which has had a great influence on my thoughts in this matter.
Did you enjoy this post? Please subscribe to my feed! | <urn:uuid:551b86f9-c494-44af-9fd7-a60f771f768d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.ezyang.com/2012/03/is-it-better-to-teach-formalism-or-intuition/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9618 | 1,111 | 2.453125 | 2 |
Obama’s Great Eligibility Fraud
The Founders feared divided loyalty and foreign influence over the president and especially that the child of foreign royalty could become president and claim the right to subjugate and rule America as a king. The intent of the Framers was to require that the president and commander-in-chief be solely American at birth and not have citizenship by birthright of any other country.
This fear of divided loyalty is a valid now as it was then, maybe more so, because today it is so much easier to maintain an emotional connection to a foreign nation. Obama declared in a speech in Berlin in July of 2008 that he is a “citizen of the world.” Michelle Obama has publicly called Kenya his “homeland.” Obama’s official biography circulated by his publisher for years stated that he was born in Kenya!
The politically incorrect truth is that the Founders meant for the president to come from an American family and only from an American family, not from a foreign family or a divided family that is half American and half another nationality. They intentionally wrote that requirement into the Constitution.
The first Congress, which included many of the Farmers, wrote this definition into the first Naturalization Act of 1790. This act has been replaced by newer naturalization laws, but it still shows the original intent of the Framers.
Today’s public is not much aware of the original meaning of “natural born citizen,” because the term is not in common use and such issues do not come up very often.
The politicians of both parties are ignoring the original intent of the Framers, because they both have favorite sons, whom they want to nominate that are not constitutionally eligible.
The courts are too intimidated by the politicians and fear of an adverse public reaction to even allow the issue to be properly argued in court.
None of the media, including the so-called conservative media are properly informing the public about this fraud. They are influenced by the same large corporations and wealthy elite that control the political parties.
BACKGROUND & DEFINITION OF NATURAL BORN CITIZEN
Taken from Article 2, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution.
No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
Surprisingly (or maybe not), no government officials are legally responsible for vetting the eligibility of Obama. The word of the Party is accepted under the “honor system.” Unfortunately, the political parties have no honor. See this link.
If Obama were eligible, the courts could easily rule on this or Congress could pass a resolution declaring that Obama is “natural born,” as they did for Senator John McCain. That they do not do it for Obama, just demonstrates that they themselves know full well that he is not eligible. Otherwise, they would resolve this controversy that has gone on for 3-4 years.
A special exception to the eligibility requirements has been made especially for Obama and there is a huge coverup by our corrupt Congress and the corporation-run media, both conservative and liberal. You can read the resolution on McCain’s eligibility here:
In the Resolution declaring McCain’s eligibility hearing, the Senate cited this statute below of the First Congress that defines the term “natural born citizen.” It is clear from the text of the Senate’s own reference that the term requires the parents to be citizens of the United States. If the children of an American citizen married to a foreign citizen were intended to be natural born citizens, they could have explicitly stated that.
Click the header below to go to the Library of Congress for the source of the quote.
That the Senate cited this law as proof of McCain’s eligibility just shows that Congress knew very well that Obama is not eligible, because the law eliminates Obama, declaring that the children of American citizens (plural) are natural born citizens.
If Congress wants to give away our birthright and make the children of foreigners on temporary student visas Natural Born Citizens and thus eligible to become president, a constitutional amendment is necessary.
Chap. III. — An act to establish an uniform Rule Of Naturalization.(a)
Section I. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That any alien, being a free white person, who shall have resided within the limits and under the jurisdiction of the United States for the term of two years, may be admitted to become a citizen thereof, on application to any common law court of record, in any one of the states wherein he shall have resided for the term of one year at least, and making proof to the satisfaction of such court, that he is a person of good character, and taking the oath or affirmation prescribed by law, to support the constitution of the United States, which oath or affirmation such court shall administer; and the clerk of such court shall record such application, and the proceedings thereon; and thereupon such person shall be considered as a citizen of the United States. And the children of such persons so
naturalized, dwelling within the United States, being under the age of twenty-one years at the time of such naturalization, shall also be considered as citizens of the United States. And the children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural born citizens: Provided, That the right of citizenship shall not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States: Provided Also, That no person heretofore proscribed by any state, shall be admitted a citizen as aforesaid, except by an act of the legislature of the state in which such person was proscribed.(a)
Approved, March 26, 1790.
This statute was replaced by later legislation, but it was enacted by many who were Founders and shows the intent of the Founders by use of the term “natural born citizen.”
The same definition is repeated in the following Supreme Court ruling, which still has the force of law:
Excerpted from Minor v. Happersett – 88 U.S. 162 (1874)
The Constitution does not in words say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives or natural-born citizens, as distinguished from aliens or foreigners. Some authorities go further and include as citizens children born within the jurisdiction without reference to the citizenship of their parents. As to this class there have been doubts, but never as to the first. For the purposes of this case, it is not necessary to solve these doubts. It is sufficient for everything we have now to consider that all children born of citizen parents within the jurisdiction are themselves citizens. The words “all children” are certainly as comprehensive, when used in this connection, as “all persons,” and if females are included in the last, they must be in the first. That they are included in the last is not denied. In fact, the whole argument of the plaintiffs proceeds upon that idea.
Under the power to adopt a uniform system of naturalization, Congress, as early as 1790, provided “that any alien, being a free white person,” might be admitted as a citizen of the United States, and that the children of such persons so naturalized, dwelling within the United States, being under twenty-one years of age at the time of such naturalization, should also be considered citizens of the United States, and that the children of citizens of the United States that might be born beyond the sea, or out of the limits of the United States, should be considered as natural-born citizens. These provisions thus enacted have in substance been retained in all the naturalization laws adopted since. In 1855, however, the last provision was somewhat extended, and all persons theretofore born or thereafter to be born out of the limits of the jurisdiction of the United States, whose fathers were or should be at the time of their birth citizens of the United States were declared to be citizens also.
This is a quote from 1866 by John Bingham, known as the father of the 14th Amendment. It shows that the 14th Amendment does not change the meaning of the term “natural born citizen,” as some claim, and does not change the eligibility requirement for the presidency that he be natural born, the offspring of (two) American parents.
Has the Congress of the United States the power to pass and enforce the bill as it comes to us from the committee? Has the Congress of the United States the power to declare, as this bill does declare, in the words which I propose to strike out, that there shall be no discrimination of civil rights among citizens of the United States in any State of the United States, on account of race, color, or previous condition of slavery.
I find no fault with the introductory clause, which is simply declaratory of what is written in the Constitution, that every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural-born citizen; but, sir, I may be allowed to say further, that I deny that the Congress of the United States ever had the power or color of power to say that any man born within the jurisdiction of the United States, not owing a foreign allegiance, is not and shall not be a citizen of the United States. Citizenship is his birthright, and neither the Congress nor the States can justly or lawfully take it from him. But while this is admitted, can you declare by congressional enactment as to citizens of the United States within the States that there shall be no discrimination among them of civil rights?
This quote is from “The Law of Nations,” written by Emerich de Vattel in 1758. In book one chapter 19,
The citizens are the members of the civil society; bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority, they equally participate in its advantages. The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens. As the society cannot exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights. The society is supposed to desire this, in consequence of what it owes to its own preservation; and it is presumed, as matter of course, that each citizen, on entering into society, reserves to his children the right of becoming members of it. The country of the fathers is therefore that of the children; and these become true citizens merely by their tacit consent. We shall soon see whether, on their coming to the years of discretion, they may renounce their right, and what they owe to the society in which they were born. I say, that, in order to be of the country, it is necessary that a person be born of a father who is a citizen; for, if he is born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth, and not his country.
It is clear that “natural born citizen” means the children of citizens (plural) of the United States. Obama is, therefore, not constitutionally eligible for the Presidency.
The meaning of the Constitution cannot be changed without an amendment. The leadership of Congress knows very well what the real requirement for the presidency is and they have just chosen to ignore it, in order to advance the corrupt political agendas of both parties. They are convinced that they can ignore the constitutional requirement as they please and no one will be able to do anything about it.
A great criminal fraud has been perpetrated on the American public by both of the political parties when Obama was elected and sworn in as president.
If justice be served, the members of the Democratic National Committee, who certified Obama’s eligibility should literally be charged with fraud and sent to prison. The Congressional leadership of both parties is complicit in this.
A YouTube Clip on the same theme: | <urn:uuid:2734d6f6-3fb8-41fc-9de2-42aa767482bd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://stop-obama-now.net/obama-eligibility/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976051 | 2,591 | 2.171875 | 2 |
Press announcement from Application Systems Heidelberg for immediate release.
Planning - Constructing - Testing
Build a bridge...keep the costs down...but keep your traffic safe!
The Bridge Project is the successor to the original and award-winning Bridge Builder simulation, all amateur designers and structural engineers finally have a new challenge on their Mac.
The gameplay has been subject to much tweeking and development with new up to date materials exciting scenarios and a variety of tasks waiting to be solved.
Build stable bridges in a variety of highly detailed landscapes with some amazing scenery and back drops.
Take on the task of constructing a huge variety of different
bridges: truss, suspension, folding, stone, steel, wood, car or railway bridges.
Whilst you enjoy the enhanced graphics and the new, improved physics engine you can design and build the most spectacular bridges and then test them with stress tests.
Download free levels from the global Bridge Builder 2 community, share your challenges and participate in competitions.
- All-new in-game graphics with a variety of detailed 3D objects
- New user interface for easy operation
- Additional materials such as wood and concrete
- In addition to trains, cars and ships you can now test
vehicles such as buses and tanks
- Extended weight and stability testing of different vehicles,
or natural events such as storms or earthquakes
- 48 varied and challenging levels: different towns, canyons,
- Set the design tasks to different modes - single or expert.
- Editor feature - build your own levels and share them with
- Compare your technical skills with other players in the global
- Take part in competitions, improve your own record!
Mac OS X 10.6
2GHz Intel Mac Core Duo
GeForce 8600/Radeon HD2400
Featuring information in English, German, French, Italian,
Spanish, Russian, Polish and Portuguese | <urn:uuid:c10a57cf-0977-4211-91e5-3c0f93e5a99a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mcvuk.com/index.php/press-releases/read/bridge-project-coming-to-the-mac-soon/0103791 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.90202 | 392 | 1.585938 | 2 |
FTC Worried About Big Online Platforms, Only Sort Of Means Facebook and Google
The Federal Trade Commission just released a new report laying out its current thinking on Internet privacy. In some cases, the commission recommends new legislation, while in others it just want to hold more workshops.
The FTC previously released a “privacy framework” in December 2010. The framework outlined three principles that the commission wants companies to follow, including “privacy by design” (which means thinking about privacy at every stage of product development), simplified consumer choice, and greater transparency. It made perhaps its biggest splash by endorsing a “Do Not Track” mechanism in Web browsers. The FTC didn’t invent the idea, but DNT has gained more momentum since it made the endorsement.
In the new report (view or download the PDF here), the FTC includes five main action items:
- Do Not Track — The report notes that “significant progress” has been made in making Do Not Track a reality. “However, the work is not done.” The FTC says it will work with organizations including browser vendors, the Digital Advertising Alliance, and The World Wide Web Consortium “to complete implementation of an easy-to use, persistent, and effective” system.
- Mobile — The FTC wants mobile companies to provide “short, meaningful disclosures”, and it will host a workshop on May 30 in the hopes of that it “will spur further industry self-regulation.”
- Data Brokers — The FTC supports legislation that would give consumers access to the information that data brokers hold about them. It also calls for those brokers to “explore creating a centralized website” showing who is collecting what data.
- Large Platform Providers — The FTC report says that as Internet Service Providers, operating systems, Web browsers, and social media services try to “comprehensively track consumers’ online activities,” they raise “heightened privacy concerns,” and the commission plans to hold a workshop later this year to look at the issue. For now, it seems like the commission is least concerned about the final category. The report says that even though “companies such as Google and
Facebook are expanding their reach rapidly, they currently are not so widespread that they could track a consumer’s every movement across the Internet,” so they don’t raise “the same level of privacy concerns.”
- Promoting Enforceable Self-Regulatory Codes — The FTC says it will participate in the Department of Commerce’s efforts to build sector-specific codes of conduct, and that if those codes are developed, the commission will “view adherence to such codes favorably in connection with its law enforcement work.” | <urn:uuid:6d13e800-a42f-4db3-a5dd-80c9ee60c04e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://techcrunch.com/2012/03/26/ftc-consumer-privacy-report/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953989 | 578 | 2.203125 | 2 |
The Florida Department of Health is working towards a healthy Florida through the Healthy Communities, Healthy People program with the goal of reducing death and disability due to chronic diseases such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer. The Orange County Health Department is committed to ensuring that residents of Orange County are given the information, education and resources needed to live a healthy lifestyle.
Chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes are the leading causes of death and disability in the United States. These diseases account for 7 of every 10 deaths and affect the quality of life for over 90 millions Americans. Although chronic diseases are among the most common and costly health problems, they are also among the most preventable.
Through the program we: | <urn:uuid:791a9225-e7a3-4a7c-9ee5-02294e308c0c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://orchd.com/generalHealth/communityHealth/chronicDisease/healthyCommunities/index.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962249 | 146 | 2.359375 | 2 |
December 1, 2011 |
It's Saturday morning, and four of Westlake High's six offensive linemen have shown up to practice wearing pajama bottoms. "If we know the coaches aren't going to have a problem with us being comfortable, then we're going to be comfortable," said the line's spokesman, senior center Jordie Hannel. "So it's wake up, throw on the most comfortable thing we can find, come to practice. " There's no reason to doubt the sincerity of Hannel, a 6-foot-2, 250-pound senior who has a 4.7 grade-point average, a 2320 SAT score out of a possible 2400 and has never received a grade other than A on his report card in high school.
October 1, 2011 |
Robert Woods lined up in the USC backfield at one point Saturday, triggering panic among Arizona's defenders. "Woods! Woods! Woods!" the Wildcats barked. Shadowing the Trojans receiver was possible … until the ball was snapped. Then the sophomore continually baffled his opponents. He turned short catches into big plays. He forced safeties to all but ignore other receivers. He transformed the Coliseum into his oversized playground during USC's 48-41 victory. "He tore our zone up, man," cornerback Shaquille Richardson said.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
June 10, 2011 |
Clara M. Luper, a black civil rights activist in Oklahoma whose early leadership of lunch counter sit-ins helped break down racial barriers at restaurants and diners nearly two years before the Greensboro, N.C., sit-ins captured national attention in 1960, died of natural causes Wednesday at her home in Oklahoma City, her family said. She was 88. Luper's role in civil rights history began with a Greyhound bus trip to New York City in 1957. A high school history teacher, Luper had written a play called "Brother President," about the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the leader of the successful Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott.
March 26, 2011 |
Courtney Vandersloot scored 29 points, handed out seven assists and got seven steals to lead 11th-seeded Gonzaga to the Elite Eight for the first time in school history with a 76-69 win over Louisville on Saturday night in the Spokane Regional semifinal of the NCAA women's tournament. Gonzaga is the lowest-seeded team to advance to a regional final in the history of the women's tournament. Playing less than two miles from their campus in Spokane, Wash., the Bulldogs (31-4) sent the blood pressure rising for the 10,000 or so hometown fans in attendance after squandering nearly all of a 20-point second half lead.
February 17, 2011 |
There was an important lesson learned by UCLA's baseball team last year en route to its most successful season in school history: Don't celebrate with a dog pile. The Bruins lost one of their best hitters, infielder Tyler Rahmatulla, to a broken hand during a postgame victory celebration in the Super Regionals. Insult was added to injury when South Carolina's pitchers shut down the Bruins' hitting in consecutive victories in a best-of-three series for the national championship. Rahmatulla is healthy for his junior season even though he broke his foot on the first day of fall practice.
January 31, 2011 |
Concerns that NCAA sanctions would end USC's reign as a college football recruiting force were apparently unfounded. USC Coach Lane Kiffin has already welcomed nine players who enrolled early in January. And on Wednesday, the first day of the NCAA's signing period for fall sports, USC is expected to sign as many as two dozen more players to cap what will surely be a national top-10 recruiting class. So what happened to the 15-scholarship limit that was supposed to handcuff the program? | <urn:uuid:6db54e46-7366-462a-80f5-05f4e102cc49> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.latimes.com/keyword/schools-history | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97299 | 797 | 1.507813 | 2 |
[COLOMBO] Lack of reliable data on forest resources could prevent Sri Lanka from immediately accessing UN funds pledged to help the island nation reduce carbon emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, a new study said.
Sri Lanka was last month (25 March) promised initial funding worth US$ 4 million from the UN-managed, multi-partner trust fund to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+).
Under REDD, developing nations are offered financial incentives to combat forest degradation and deforestation. Potential annual revenues for Sri Lanka from REDD+ could reach US$ 400 million, according to the study published on 21 February in the Journal of Environmental Management.
The study, by the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, University of Gothenburg, Chalmers University of Technology and Linköping University, Sweden, showed that though the country had large forest reserves it lacked reliable data on its forest resources, or rates of forest loss to establish benchmark levels for carbon emissions.
Sri Lanka has to identify the factors that drove deforestation, and formulate a range of policies and measures relevant to REDD+, it said.
The process, however, could take several years. "This depends on the overall pace within the UN Climate Change negotiations to set the overall policy for REDD+, especially how REDD+ should be financed," Eskil Mattsson, earth scientist with the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, and principal author of the study, said.
"I think we will have to wait until 2020 at least before a formal REDD+ is in place," Mattsson said.
Anura Sathurusinghe, conservator of forests at Sri Lanka’s forest department, told SciDev.Net that a part of the funding, expected later this year, would go towards creating benchmark data and formulating a comprehensive national REDD+ programme.
The study also indicated Sri Lanka could face many hurdles in checking deforestation. Currently, over 85 per cent of forest clearing is for small-scale, rain-fed farming.
"Nearly 80 per cent of people living in these areas depend on this type of agriculture for subsistence," Mattson told SciDev.Net. As a result, a major share of potential emission reductions will come at the expense of small and seasonal farmers, raising livelihood concerns, he observed.
The sheer diversity of forest types and the impact of human activities also complicate accurate estimation of Sri Lanka’s carbon stocks.
Detailed investigations are needed to determine the actual levels of annual vegetation loss, said Sarath Premalal Nissanka, co-author of the study and senior lecturer, department of crop science, University of Peradeniya. | <urn:uuid:9c2a40b4-2e04-4b66-9b72-14064b870198> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://m.scidev.net/es/agriculture-and-environment/deforestation/news/sri-lanka-carece-de-datos-forestales-para-fondos-redd-.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945001 | 546 | 2.828125 | 3 |
It is imperative that coaches get the parents involved. Not only are they are a major resource for your team, but the U-10 player still views their parents as the most significant people in their lives. A pre-season meeting should be held with the parents so that objectives and team policies can be addressed. Some topics that you may want to address at this meeting are:
Some coaches say that the 9 and 10 year-old players are beginning to "turn the corner" and starting to look like real soccer players. However, games are still frantically paced and unpredictable for the most part. These players are starting to find out how much fun it is to play the game skillfully, but they will still stop and laugh if the referee gets hit in the backside with the ball during a game. Some other things that we can expect when working with this aged player are:
Some of the players that are playing as U - 10's are seasoned veterans of the youth soccer scene. Some of them may have already been involved in traveling to play in tournaments. As a result, some of them might be very nervous about the whole process. It is our job to keep things in perspective for these young, developing players. True, some of them are becoming quite skillful and are seeing how fun it is to play the game when they can really control the ball. However, many of them are still learning the ropes. Even the more experienced players need to have the game be fun!!!
Emphasis is still placed on having players learn how to control the ball with his/her body, but now, they need to find themselves in more game-like situations. Training is more dynamic and starting to have players make simple, basic decisions such as "Which way is there more space?" or "Who should I pass to?".
Following are some more items that a coach of U-10 players should consider:
Here are some items that should be included in a U-10 training session:
WARM-UP: A brief warm-up is appropriate in order to get the players thinking about soccer and to prepare them physically for the time ahead. This should involve individual body activities that involve the ball. Since there can be one theme to the session, hopefully, the warm-up will lead into the theme of the day. Static stretching is also appropriate at this time after the players have broken a sweat, again, hopefully done with the ball. Again, the warm-up should get the players ready to play. It should be lively, fun, and engaging as well as instructional. There is nothing like a good, fast paced activity to grab the player's attention and make them glad that they came to practice.
INDIVIDUAL OR SMALL GROUP ACTIVITIES: Follow the warm-up with some kind of individual activity, not necessarily a real 1v.1 game, but some kind of activity where players act as individuals or cooperate in small groups in a game environment. An example would be a kind of tag game, or a keep-away game. Keep players in motion at all times. Avoid having them wait on lines. Play games of "inclusion" instead of games where the "looser sits". Be creative. These players like "crazy" games with a lot of action.
PLAY THE GAME: Small sided soccer can be used to heighten intensity and create some good competition. Play 4 v.4 up to 8 v.8. Be creative. Play with 4 goals, or 2 balls. Play with or without boundaries. Perhaps play to emphasize a particular skill (can only dribble the ball over a goal line in order to get a point). Use cones if you don't have real goals. Keep players involved. Have more than one game going on at a time if necessary. Switch teams often, give everyone a chance to win. Also, it is important that every player has a chance to shoot on goal as often as possible.
WARM-DOWN & HOMEWORK: Finish the session with a warm down. Give them some more stretches to do with the ball. You may want to review what you started the session with. Also, give them some homework so that they practice on their own. Think of some ball trick that you would like to see them try to do, like, bounce it off their head, then thigh, then foot, and then catch it. Can one player kick a ball to a partner and then back without it hitting the ground? Can they do that with their heads? It is important to finish on time. This is especially essential if the players are really into it. Stop at this point and you will get an enthusiastic return.
Here is a game to use in the 'Small Group Activity' phase of the practice. It is an engaging game that is fun to play and challenges players in almost all aspects of the game.
This game is good for teaching dribbling skills as players find themselves in situations where they have to dribble to keep possession as well as dribble to beat an opponent. Also, they find themselves in situations where they may have to pass to a teammate as well as find themselves playing defense as well. becasue there are so many balls, and so many goals, it is just a crazy enough game to be appreciated and enjoyed by a typical nine- year-old.
Here is a 4 v.4 game that is free flowing and gives players a lot of problems to solve. It is a good game to use towards the end of the session as it is very close to the 'real' thing.
One particularly good thing about this game is that since teams end up attacking in two, different directions, it forces players to play in different positions. They are at the back of the team when their team attacks one end-zone, while they will find themselves at the top of the team when they attack in the other direction. This is great for their development.
This game also encourages players to "SPREAD OUT" and work together, which, players are starting to be able to do at this age. At first, players will be tempted to just kick the ball up the field instead of passing. With patience, and demonstration of what is possible, this game could have a dramatic impact on their ability to play attractive, skillful soccer.
Written by Jeff Pill, NHSA Director of Coaching. Special thanks to Dr. Thomas Fleck and the National Youth Coaching Staff, Bill Buren, Dr. David Carr, Dr. Ronald Quinn, Virgil Stringfield.
Back to Pill's Drills | <urn:uuid:462424c6-c991-4e14-a881-19bea16f6de4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://eteamz.com/soccer/pills/u-10.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981339 | 1,338 | 2 | 2 |
Solsona's Hotel Sant Roc is an emblematic early twentieth-century Modernista building designed by two distinguished architects, Ignasi Oms and Bernadí Martorell. Commissioned by the Guitart family, the hotel that opened on 16 August 1929 was an astonishing addition to Solsona, a town with 2,500 inhabitants deep in the Catalan countryside. The main façade of the hotel, crowned by a crow-stepped gable, recalls traditional building in northern Europe, particularly the houses lining the canals of Amsterdam. Another referent is the Casa Amatller in Barcelona.
An impressive structure of ashlar masonry, the hotel has nine attractive entrances on its four sides and many windows, some in Neo-Gothic style. The front of the building has an attractive vestibule and above the main entrance and to the left is a large balcony overlooking the street. From a second-floor corner, below the building's characteristic stepped gable, rises a distinctive turret on octagonal stone corbelling in a geometrical pattern that matches the friezes that mark the first and second storeys.
The architects' plans were carefully executed and fine craftsmanship can be appreciated in the sgraffito decoration cut into the lime rendering on the exterior walls, in the woodwork both inside and outside the hotel, on the principal staircase and in the plaster ceilings over the main rooms and reception area. Each floor is arranged around an almost square central hall with rectangular spaces on either side. At the heart of the building is a square stairwell and a central corridor. The Modernista exterior is not the only distinctive feature of this hotel: noteworthy elements of the interior decoration can be seen in the use of iron, brick, tiles, stained glass, and frescoes on some of the ceilings. Historicist influences, usually Neo-Medieval elements or floral motifs with curving lines, are evident throughout the building. Although remarkable overall, the hotel's most emblematic feature is the composition of the exterior view.
The Garrigasait family took over management of the Hotel Sant Roc on 20 March 2002 and commissioned restoration work to counter structural damage that had arisen during the many years of service that had accumulated by the turn of the twenty-first century. The prime purpose of the restoration was to recover as many of the original architectural elements as possible so as to maintain the atmosphere of the hotel's early years. The result is a Modernista hotel that combines comfort and the creativity of the architects and artisans who built it. Elements such as frescoes and wall treatments, large curved stained-glass windows, wrought iron fixtures on the main staircase, windows and balconies, plaster moulding on the pillars and many other details blend harmoniously with the perfection of Murano crystal chandeliers and other lighting fixtures, original paintings and furniture in more sober lines.
The second phase of this important building's history began on 15 August 2004, when the Hotel Sant Roc reopened with 4-star status to celebrate its 75th anniversary. | <urn:uuid:c4eb886d-02d3-4cd6-8f59-6e22c3761b17> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.artnouveau.eu/en/institution.php?id=131 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945221 | 620 | 2.40625 | 2 |
G-d tells Moshe that He is hardening Pharaoh's heart so that through miraculous plagues the world will know for all time that He is the one true G-d. Pharaoh is warned about the plague of locusts and is told how severe it will be. Pharaoh agrees to release only the men, but Moshe insists that everyone must go. During the plague, Pharaoh calls for Moshe and Aharon to remove the locusts, and he admits he has sinned. G-d ends the plague but hardens Pharaoh's heart, and again Pharaoh fails to free the Jews. The country, except for the Jewish People, is then engulfed in a palpable darkness. Pharaoh calls for Moshe and tells him to take all the Jews out of Egypt, but to leave their flocks behind. Moshe tells him that not only will they take their own flocks, but Pharaoh must add his own too. Moshe tells Pharaoh that G-d is going to bring one more plague, the death of the firstborn, and then the Jews will leave Egypt. G-d again hardens Pharaoh's heart, and Pharaoh warns Moshe that if he sees him again, Moshe will be put to death. G-d tells Moshe that the month of Nissan will be the chief month. The Jewish people are commanded to take a sheep on the 10th of the month and guard it until the 14th. The sheep is then to be slaughtered as a Pesach offering, its blood put on their door-posts, and its roasted meat eaten. The blood on the door-post will be a sign that their homes will be passed-over when G-d strikes the firstborn of Egypt. The Jewish People are told to memorialize this day as the Exodus from Egypt by never eating chametz on Pesach. Moshe relays G-d's commands, and the Jewish People fulfill them flawlessly. G-d sends the final plague, killing the first born, and Pharaoh sends the Jews out of Egypt. G-d tells Moshe and Aharon the laws concerning the Pesach sacrifice, pidyon haben (redemption of the first born son) and tefillin.
A Sign For Our Times
"And it [tefillin] shall be a sign upon your arm, and an ornament between your eyes, for with a strong hand G-d took us out from Egypt." (13:16)
There was once a child prodigy who, at the age of three, could play Rachmaninoff better than the best.
A concert was arranged for her to play in public. Months before, posters and TV advertisements proclaimed that she would perform for one concert, and one concert only.
In order that this once in a lifetime event would not be forgotten, special mementos of the concert would be sold. For example, a tiny white concert piano on a bracelet, or a tiara with a piano on it.
The morning after the concert, the newspapers fell over themselves trying to find superlatives to describe the performance.
About a month later, a couple of louts who had missed the show turned up at the child's home and demanded a "command" performance.
"Yeah, we know everyone says she was great. We read the newspapers and all, but we don't believe it. If you bring her down from her bedroom now and get her to perform here in your sitting room on this grand piano, then we'll believe she's as good as everyone says she is; if not we don't believe..."
When G-d created the world, there was no doubt that it was He who had brought everything into existence, that He knew all that was going on in the world, and that He was involved in the smallest event that happens in this world.
From the time of Enosh, Adam's grandson, people started to make mistakes about G-d. Some people denied that there was a G-d at all.
Others conceded the existence of a Divine Power, but said that He was so removed and exalted that He only had knowledge of the spiritual realm, but didn't know what was going on down in this world.
Yet a third group admitted that G-d knows what is happening in the lower realms, but He isn't interested in what we do. In other words, He created the Universe, and then, as it were, went off to play golf.
G-d decided once and for all to quash these mistakes. He would bring a series of miraculous events that would show, by altering the course of nature, that He creates nature.
Not only this, but He would take a nation out of the midst of another nation and make them His people. This would show that not only is He aware of what transpires in this world, but He cares and interacts with Mankind.
G-d would do this only once, because by performing these miracles, He would remove the ability of man to have freedom of choice to believe in Him or not, and the purpose of Creation was the existence of a being, Man, who has free will to believe or not.
This is the story of the Exodus. G-d took the Jewish People out of Egypt to prove that He is alive and well and the world is living in Him!
In order that we should not forget this once-and-once-only re-orchestration of nature, He gave us souvenirs of the "concert" such as a mezuza to put on our doors and tefillin to bind on our arms. Someone who has these reminders will go through his life as though he had a string tied around his pinkie and will never forget.
Not only that, G-d made it incumbent on every generation to pass-over - to recreate the events of this great concert of nature in every generation at a Seder so that each generation would know that it had actually happened. Parents don't lie to their children about things of importance.
For this reason, G-d will not perform at the whim of every boor who comes along and claims that he doesn't believe there was a concert at all. There are millions of fans who still have their tiny white concert pianos carefully handed down from generation to generation to prove the others wrong. | <urn:uuid:bf1449d1-c488-4b9b-8573-06a42ef01af9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ohr.edu/620/print | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979037 | 1,294 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Photograph by Sarah Leen
Biofuels have been around as long as cars have. At the start of the 20th century, Henry Ford planned to fuel his Model Ts with ethanol, and early diesel engines were shown to run on peanut oil.
But discoveries of huge petroleum deposits kept gasoline and diesel cheap for decades, and biofuels were largely forgotten. However, with the recent rise in oil prices, along with growing concern about global warming caused by carbon dioxide emissions, biofuels have been regaining popularity.
Gasoline and diesel are actually ancient biofuels. But they are known as fossil fuels because they are made from decomposed plants and animals that have been buried in the ground for millions of years. Biofuels are similar, except that they're made from plants grown today.
Much of the gasoline in the United States is blended with a biofuel—ethanol. This is the same stuff as in alcoholic drinks, except that it's made from corn that has been heavily processed. There are various ways of making biofuels, but they generally use chemical reactions, fermentation, and heat to break down the starches, sugars, and other molecules in plants. The leftover products are then refined to produce a fuel that cars can use.
Countries around the world are using various kinds of biofuels. For decades, Brazil has turned sugarcane into ethanol, and some cars there can run on pure ethanol rather than as additive to fossil fuels. And biodiesel—a diesel-like fuel commonly made from palm oil—is generally available in Europe.
On the face of it, biofuels look like a great solution. Cars are a major source of atmospheric carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas that causes global warming. But since plants absorb carbon dioxide as they grow, crops grown for biofuels should suck up about as much carbon dioxide as comes out of the tailpipes of cars that burn these fuels. And unlike underground oil reserves, biofuels are a renewable resource since we can always grow more crops to turn into fuel.
Unfortunately, it's not so simple. The process of growing the crops, making fertilizers and pesticides, and processing the plants into fuel consumes a lot of energy. It's so much energy that there is debate about whether ethanol from corn actually provides more energy than is required to grow and process it. Also, because much of the energy used in production comes from coal and natural gas, biofuels don't replace as much oil as they use.
For the future, many think a better way of making biofuels will be from grasses and saplings, which contain more cellulose. Cellulose is the tough material that makes up plants' cell walls, and most of the weight of a plant is cellulose. If cellulose can be turned into biofuel, it could be more efficient than current biofuels, and emit less carbon dioxide.
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The Great Energy Challenge
An initiative to help you understand our current energy situation.
See how you measure up against others, and how changes at home could do tons to protect the planet. | <urn:uuid:eee0ddcc-9f62-47d2-a091-0ef10f4bf2c3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/biofuel-profile.html?nav=A-Z | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972109 | 650 | 3.484375 | 3 |
Hundreds of Ladakhi and Tibetan Buddhists attended the sermons by the Dalai Lama.
"Your arrival here is a very significant thing for us. Just by sitting beside you, there is a feeling of calmness. You came to our land and prayed for the people of this region, for peace and brotherhood. We do not wish for anything more than this", said Omar Abdullah, Chief of Jammu and Kashmir State in his welcome address.
The statue of Lord Maîtreya Buddha or the future Buddha is the tallest in the Ladakh region, which has a significant population of Buddhist followers.
Built under the leadership of Thiksay Rinpoche of the Diskit monastery, the statue took six years to complete and cost 30 million rupees, or more than 600-thousand dollars. | <urn:uuid:1f0370e3-db95-45a7-a358-9fa9d21bad9c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=42,9386,0,0,1,0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951527 | 165 | 1.8125 | 2 |
For individuals who want to train their hamstrings, the muscle group running up the back of the leg from the knee to the butt, there are a variety of easy activities that will tone and strengthen these essential power-lifting muscles. Here are some of the top hamstring building activities recommended by a variety of trainers and others.
- Deadlifts and "Good Mornings" - These activities can only be done at home if you have a home barbell set. Both of them, though, are beneficial for the hamstrings, which play a unique role in lifting a load. A simple deadlift involves bringing a barbell and a set of weights from the floor to a spot above the head or shoulders. Modified deadlifts known as "good mornings" involve holding the barbell behind your back while going from a squatting to a standing position.
- Foam Roller Exercises - Other home hamstring exercises can be a blend of stretches and muscle toning. The bio foam roller hamstring exercise is an excellent example of this. Foam roller users can place rollers under the feet or lower legs, raise their body up with their arms, and roll back and forth. Variations of this exercise provide good workouts for the hamstrings, and using the foam roller on the hamstring area can massage the muscles and help loosen them.
- Kickbacks - These handy hamstring activities can be done at home with no gear at all. For a kickback, position yourself on the ground, on hands and knees. Then extend one leg up behind you and kick upward. The kickback works the hamstrings and related muscle groups "against the grain" and helps toughen up these workhorse muscles.
- Walking Lunges - These hamstring helpers can be done with or without free weights. Essentially, the participant goes forward from a standing position into a lunge with one leg, and goes down almost to the floor before reversing direction back up to a standing position. Any amount of free weight increases resistance for more aggressive muscle strengthening.
- Jumping - Modified long jumping or rhythm jumping also works the hamstrings, although not in an isolated way. Jumping activities really work a wide variety of muscle groups, and if done with a jump rope or similar tool, can vastly improve agility as well.
- Step Ups - this classic exercise also works the hamstrings. You don't need any gear except for some raised surface. Simply practice stepping up onto a raised surface, first with one leg, then the other, and then back down again. Stairmaster and related machines can be good, too.
- Leg Presses and Curls - For these items, you will need a home gym machine. Leg presses and leg curls each rely on a specialized fixed weight machine for resistance. However, if you do have a multi-use machine in your garage, basement or other fitness space, you can add these to your hamstring repertoire.
All of the above are popular workouts for the hamstring muscles that you can do in the comfort of your own home, provided you have some of these basic fitness tools. | <urn:uuid:4dab20c0-f056-4cb2-97fa-225b92c5386e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fitday.com/fitness-articles/fitness/exercises/7-at-home-exercises-for-your-hamstrings.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917174 | 624 | 1.632813 | 2 |
I would like to try making homemade pasta, but my significant other won't let me buy a pasta machine. It's understandable, they are expensive. What are good techniques to make homemade pasta without a rolling machine?
Many pasta shapes can be made without a pasta machine--home cooks have done it for generations. The only pastas that are really difficult to make without a special machine, I think, are the extruded pastas like buccatelli or macaroni.
One common method, which leads to a lot of different shapes, is to roll the pasta dough out into a sheet with a rolling pin. It can then be cut into a variety of shapes, with a knife, pizza cutter, or even a cookie or biscuit cutter:
Some more interesting shapes, like orecchiette, can be shaped by hand as well. You create a small cylinder of dough, and then cut it into coins, then flatten these into the final shape. The linked article has detailed instructions and pictures.
I have not tried to go into a huge amount of detail, because you are going to want to read specific recipe and technique articles, and watch videos of the techniques, all of which you can easily search for. Each of the links above is to a recipe that has lots of helpful pictures and detail. | <urn:uuid:068c5a42-9012-43aa-a688-ed5008a1e13c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/32332/what-are-techniques-to-make-homemade-pasta-without-a-pasta-machine/32334 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961568 | 269 | 1.75 | 2 |
The Season of (Electric) Light
The Evolution of Holiday Lighting
Before the last autumn leaf has fallen, many cities and towns will be sponsoring their annual holiday tree and menorah lightings. Illuminated municipal buildings and shopping centers will lure customers to linger past dark, and at the top of many holiday gift lists will be flat-screen televisions and electronic games and gadgets. From November until January, the season is awash in light.
While candles have marked many holiday traditions for centuries, electric light added a new dimension. In 1882, just three years after Thomas Alva Edison’s invention of the light bulb, an enterprising associate, Edward Johnson, thought of replacing the customary Christmas tree candles with electric light bulbs. But adorning the tree with Johnson's lights was not a simple matter of untangling the string of lights and draping them around the tree — the bulbs needed to be specially made and hand attached to an electric wire. No Saturday afternoon project, achieving a lighting spectacle required a professional to assemble and hang the decorations. Nevertheless, the idea caught on, with President Grover Cleveland inaugurating the first electrified White House Christmas tree in 1895.
Innovations in lighting technology, including parallel lights that remained lit after one bulb in a string burned out, sets of lights that could be connected end-to-end to create longer chains, safety measures to prevent fires, and aesthetic improvements — new shapes, designs and colors — eventually followed, although it would still be many years before the now standard lights came into widespread household use after the First World War.
By 1923, Calvin Coolidge had made the annual National Tree Lighting an event of political significance. The significance of the tree lighting ceremony grew with the advent of the Second World War. Crowds gathered and others listened to the proceedings on the radio shortly after the outbreak of war in 1941, as Franklin Roosevelt — joined by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in a surprise diplomatic visit to Washington, D.C. — made moving speeches and were joined in songs and hymns in celebration of peace. The tree was not lit again until the end of the war in 1945. Lighting — or not lighting — the tree became an occasion marked with symbolism. The tree remained dark until thirty days of mourning had passed following the assassination of John Kennedy in 1963, and again in 1979 and 1980 in honor of the Americans held hostage in Iran. In 1995, the tree was lit for the first time by solar energy.
In keeping with efforts to be energy efficient, the tree at the National Capitol is also now lit with LEDs. Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) are the newest lights gaining popularity. Because LEDs do not require filaments or glass bulbs, they can produce bright white light, and through the use of refractors, a range of vibrant colors. Moreover, they are being made in a huge variety of shapes and sizes. Even more appealingly, especially in view of the rising economic and environmental costs of energy consumption, the new lights burn longer and more efficiently, and are less subject to damage, all of which make them a desirable consumer alternative to traditional lighting.
LEDs are also changing the face of another holiday custom — the exterior lighting of the Empire State Building. Like the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Empire State Building is a symbol of a great city. One of the nation’s most recognizable historic landmark buildings, the Empire State Building, has been illuminated since its completion in 1931, but it was not until the 1970s that colored lighting, which changes according to the holidays, was introduced. The first holiday lighting was red and green for Christmas, and blue and white was added years later to mark the Hanukah holiday. Today, advances in technology are changing the way the building is lit, however. With the recent conversion to LEDs, the building’s 208 floodlights no longer need to be adjusted or changed by hand, a previously time-consuming and laborious process. The future looks even brighter, with plans on the horizon for “intelligent illumination” capable of creating endless variety of designs. With more spectacular effects now easily at hand, computer-controlled LEDs will likely change the face of this holiday institution. | <urn:uuid:2d5cba97-ab56-41d7-af50-9c94a17ba3f0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php?title=The_Season_of_(Electric)_Light&oldid=18805 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955419 | 860 | 3.09375 | 3 |
Looking back on that fateful day near the 35th anniversary of Elvis’ death, DeVane, the medical director of Bradley County Fire and Rescue and medical adviser to the Cleveland Fire Department, elaborated on the day that became a defining moment in his life and career as an emergency room physician.
“I was working at the hospital that day as an acting intern on the resuscitation team when they called a code — which was a resuscitation in progress in the emergency room,” DeVane said. “Since I was on the resuscitation team I went into the emergency room that was packed with people. They were initiating the first steps of resuscitation. I made my way around the stretcher and relieved the person doing the chest compressions.”
DeVane said he did not know he was working on Elvis Presley, explaining, “When you go into resuscitation your mind goes into a series of steps that you have to take to give the person the best opportunity for survival. We were in those steps — not really thinking about outcome or who the person is, but thinking about getting things done as efficiently as possible.”
Still, looking down at the person and having grown up just two miles from Elvis’ house on Whitehaven, DeVane said it did cross his mind, “Man! This guy could be Elvis Presley.’”
“I kept looking and pumping on his chest,” he said. “Then I looked down and saw he had on his signature, trademark necklace, which had TCB and a lightning bolt emboldened on it. He gave that to friends and associates.”
As he kept performing CPR, DeVane said others in the packed room wanted to know who the man was he was working on and someone blurted out, “It’s Elvis Presley.”
Because he was slightly above the crowd perched on a stool while performing resuscitation, DeVane said he could see everyone in the room and noticed Elvis’ private-duty nurse across the way and his physician facing the foot of the stretcher. The emergency room and paramedic staff continued to work on Elvis for quite a while but to no avail. The King was gone. Dr. Nichopolous listed the official cause of death as cardiac arrhythmia. Silence followed. Reality was setting in for everyone. Elvis was officially dead.
“It’s one of those surreal moments in life that — when you look back it doesn’t seem real, but at the time it was very real,” DeVane said. “He still looked like Elvis would look in life, but paler, obviously.”
According to DeVane, Presley “was never defibrillated because he never developed any kind of a heart beat.” Since Presley was found at home and paramedics had worked on him there before transporting him to Baptist Memorial Hospital, DeVane estimates Presley was out at least an hour before he worked on him.
“It was quite an experience in life,” DeVane admits. “And as you find out in emergency medicine, life is full of experiences. When you look back you wonder how you made it through all of them.”
DeVane said he grew up a fan of Elvis, who had lived not far from him in the community, but Elvis was older and had a different circle of friends.
“He use to come out and play football at our high school football stadium at Whitehaven High School,” DeVane recalled. But memories of that charismatic youth who turned rock and roll on its heels and took music to a new level of excitement took a back seat to what had unfolded on Aug. 16, 1977.
DeVane admits, “It really was the beginning of a career in medicine that made me want to try to make an impact. It was like a first experience to see exactly what kind of influence my opportunities in medicine provided.”
Having completed a residency in internal medicine at the city of Memphis Hospital, he moved to Cleveland and have been here ever since working as the medical director at Bradley Memorial Hospital, the medical director at Bradley County EMS for 25 years and an emergency medicine physician at SkyRidge Medical Center.
Married 38 years to Jo Lee DeVane, a physician at Lee University’s clinic, the couple has three children, Ben, who has a Ph.D. in educational technology, Taylor, a commercial pilot at American Eagle and Brianna, a fifth-grade student at Tennessee Christian School.
Having 35 years of experience and practices as E.R. physician, even having been stabbed by a patient once, DeVane said he is honored to be in his profession and to work side-by-side with dedicated professionals who oftentimes risk their lives for the sake of others — a profession he links to his faith.
“I feel pretty strongly that if I had not had my Maker walking with me throughout my career in the ER, I wouldn’t have made it these 35 years,” he said. “But every time you pass these public servants it would be nice if people would stop and give them a pat on the back and thank them, because they risk their lives for relatively little in reward other than the fact that they made an impact on someone’s life.” | <urn:uuid:9f12fe17-a13f-4ecb-ae6f-5eaa94d4fb7c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.clevelandbanner.com/view/full_story/19951390/article-Dr--Jerry-DeVane--Enjoying-a-career-in-emergency-care?instance=most_popular | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987927 | 1,113 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Mobiles, music players and PDAs have freed up the way we communicate and entertain ourselves, but now we're travelling around with absolutely truckloads of information.
It's official: Australians are "heavy". This isn't referring to our food-induced state. The "heavy" in this case relates to our personal digital consumption.
The typical gadget-crazy person is now carrying around massive amounts of information. Forget the old address book and paper diary; today we're storing text messages, emails, images, music and more on our mobiles, MP3 players, organizers and cameras.
Australians who own a run-of-the-mill mobile phone, organizer and the "less heavy" iPod Shuffle, for example, are carrying around 600MB to 1GB of data — roughly the equivalent of a pick-up truck filled with paper according to an estimate by Professor Ray Williams from the California Institute of Technology. Many of us are literally walking around with truckloads of information!
According to a study by Toshiba International, the amount of data that can be stored by individuals has grown by 400 percent in the last three years, while the cost for every gigabyte has fallen by 80 percent.
The Toshiba study polled 200 consumers in the United Kingdom and 200 in Germany to find out about the data they were storing in a variety of devices such as mobile phones, PDAs and MP3 players.
The study indicated mobile phones were the most used devices (text messages and images being most commonly stored) and that 60 percent of the consumers kept 1,000 to 2,000 music files on their MP3 players. That's about 5GB or 5 pick-up trucks!
The weight of freedom
While our mobile devices may be carrying around a lot of information, they've helped to set us free from the anchored computer. We can now contact anyone, anytime; capture their image and listen to music while we wait.
"There's no doubt about it; mobile devices take the pressure off," says Dr Toni Robertson, of the Faculty of Information Technology at the University of Technology, Sydney. "People don't have to plan as much before they go out. They simply pick up their devices."
Peter Higgs, from Queensland University of Technology, says there are many benefits to the new consumer devices — more immediate contact which helps provide security and safety, greater access to knowledge, an ability to record more easily and an ability to personalize your music tastes. However, he says, there are qualifiers: "People can get access to your secrets, you can lose valuable information if you don't back up and there is much less down-time now, less reflective time."
Phones & Cameras
With the widespread introduction of 3G mobile technology this year, mobile phones are set to become really serious digital storage devices. Third generation technology supports high-speed data capacities (2MB) and applications such as full-motion video, conferencing and full internet access — a whole new range of information for us to carry around.
- The majority of mobile phone users keep between 10 and 40 text messages at any one time.
- According to the Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association (AMTA), there are an estimated 16.5 million mobile phone subscribers in Australia.
- Australia's mobile penetration rate is now approximately 85 percent. An AMTA report indicates that in 2003, Europe had an average mobile penetration rate of 83 percent with Germany and the United Kingdom at the top end of the scale.
- According to Nick Mann of Motorola Mobile Devices, 60 percent of their Australian mobile phone users would use the camera on their phones and approximately 15 percent are using their phone to play music on the MP3 player with removable memory. And, of course, text is challenging voice as the preferred modus operandi.
"Communication has been a major driver of the new technologies," says Dr Robertson, "A US study found that the most common use of video phones was for showing shopping purchases and videos of pets."
Our mobile phone cameras are typically storing over 30 images, although very few mobile phones images are printed as the quality is poor on a 1 mega-pixel (MP) phone camera. However, 3MP phone cameras are now available and 5MP are around the corner.
The ease with which we now take and store images is changing our attitude towards photos. Not so long ago, "captured images" as photos were precious commodities. Now the digital versions are fleeting and ephemeral. Photo albums are becoming virtual.
- In 2005, approximately 40 percent of Australian households will have digital cameras.
- Kodak Australia's Brian Finch says that in 2004, 53 billion digital images were captured world-wide. It's estimated that in 2007 that number will climb to 172 billion.
- While the majority of these images are printed at a retail outlet, 9.1 billion of the 53 billion were printed at home.
Listen to the music
US technology writer, Eric Danton, believes that digital players have become more popular as a reaction against involuntary exposure to someone else's taste — that is, music force-fed to us in cafes, shopping centres and elevators. "It gives us a choice: their music or ours", he says.
- According to industrysearch.com, Apple has sold more than 10 million iPods internationally since their debut in 2001. The company holds 65 percent of the hard drive-based portable music player market.
- 60 percent of people polled by Toshiba kept 1,000 to 2,000 music files on their devices. That's about 5GB.
There is a serious down side to switching off from extraneous noises. The Ambulance Service of NSW says that "sound-proofing" our lives means that emergency vehicles often cannot be heard by people with headphones in their ears or when in cars with radios blaring.
The personal digital assistant (PDA) is the Filofax of the Noughties. With the addition of various wireless technologies, the PDA has become both a planner and a communications device.
The latest technology combines phone, email, organizer, messaging, web access, MP3 player and camera (including video) functions.
- Since 2002, the number of hand-held devices in Australia has grown from approximately 115,350 and is expected to number around 405,000 this year (International Data Corporation (Australia) (IDC) data).
- Early PDAs, around 1996, stored 256KB of total memory. Today's glossy model can take 256MB.
Data sources: Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association (AMTA), Motorola Australia, Toshiba International, Toshiba Australia, Kodak Australasia, industrysearch.com, Apple Australia, International Data Corporation (Australia).
PalmOne's Lesley McKnight says that there are over 20,000 software applications which can be used with palmOne's handheld devices.
"Mobility is a core part... to empower people with choice of a device," she said. "Users want to have access to their personal and business information no matter where they are."
Thanks for the extra memories?
Is our heaviness the muscular variety, with flexibility thrown in? Or, are we chewing the fat?
No-one would ever want to go back to the dark ages of fixed phones, big bulky cameras, tinny radios and a ton of sound system.
However, in our efforts to "byte" off more and more, we need to digest and stream-line. To remember that we are the users and not the used.
Published 17 March 2005 | <urn:uuid:e39efd5d-adf6-4f0f-b955-5ed132d5602f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2005/03/17/2839558.htm?site=science/indepthfeature | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954668 | 1,545 | 2.328125 | 2 |
Last month we reported on the relative popularity of the iPhone on popular photo-sharing site Flickr: popular enough to vie for and reach the #1 spot.
That a camera phone could eclipse popular photographer mainstays like the Canon EOS Digital Rebel, Nikon's D-Series and others spoke highly of how much people value taking images on the go from a device that's always in their pockets.
EXIF Data Change
As it turns out, with the new iPhone OS 3.1 update, Apple made a change to the EXIF data included in each photo taken with the iPhone camera. EXIF data is metadata about the image itself that's embedded in image file; it typically includes information about what type of camera took the photo, for example.
Whereas before the EXIF metadata simply identified the camera as "Apple iPhone," with the new 3.1 update the different iPhone models are differentiated into "iPhone," "iPhone 3G" and "iPhone 3GS." In other words, the "Apple iPhone" line item in the above graph is now splintered into three different sources, and over time has taken a resulting dip.
Still, iPhone OS 3.1 was only released 5 days ago in conjunction with the Apple Rock and Roll event, so it can't completely account for the dip that actually started back in mid-August — but it certainly seems to be precipitating the continued drop.
If the theory is correct, there's also an easy solution Flickr could use to bring back a more accurate picture of the data. They would simply need to aggregate the three different models into a single line item on the graph, and/or perhaps offer some sort of way to view iPhone usage data as both separate models and as a total aggregate count together. We hope they choose the latter, as it would be interesting to see if people end up enjoying and using the 3-megapixel camera with autofocus in the 3GS moreso than the 2-megapixel version in the original and 3G iPhones.
If you're an iPhone user, do you find yourself taking more photos on the go than you used to? What service(s) do you use to share your images? | <urn:uuid:83444556-4315-48b5-a882-7430b5ced439> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mashable.com/2009/09/15/flickr-iphone-2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963886 | 445 | 1.515625 | 2 |
As fundraisers we dream about the new frontier of online giving as a potential golden ticket for reaching younger or more tech savvy donors. Driving everyone to give online, in monthly installments, is all the rage. But what happens when a donor wants to give $1000 or more? Is there potential negative organizational impact in accepting large gifts online?
Negatives to Large Online Gifts
There are fees associated with online giving that can add up quickly if you are not paying attention. Paypal has the smallest fee in the field, coming in at 2.4% of each donation, and the percentage cut taken by online giving tools can go up from there to as high as 7.5% (or more). These fees may seem small when donations are a few hundred dollars or less, but when we start looking at donations in the $500 to $1000 range the bite that fees take out of a donation can become substantial. So at what threshold do you start considering counseling people away from online giving and towards check, stock or cash donations?
Consider what your average small gift donation amount would be- that could be $25, $35, $50- and use that number to determine the maximum amount that you are happy to pay in fees per donation. A good rule of thumb would be to aim for a payout to the online donation company that is equivalent or less than your average small donation. So if your average small gift is $25 and you are paying a 2.5% fee per donation, you might consider setting your maximum online gift threshold at $1000 ($1000 x 2.5% = $25).
There are certainly additional factors that can have a potential negative effect on your organization when accepting large online gifts. The timeframe in which the money actually becomes available to you is an important thing to consider. Many organizations set up accounts in which donations are delivered via a short term direct deposit, in which case the transfer time probably is not critical, however organizations who use online donation tools that pay in a monthly or a twice monthly lump check will see substantial delay in receiving large funds when an online major gift is made.
Strategies to Counseling Away From Large Online Gifts
It's tricky to direct donors to give via a specific avenue when it comes to major gifts, but there are some techniques that you can implore to help direct your large dollar donors away from online giving. The first to consider is your online giving menu. These are the dollar amount suggestions that you offer to potential donors via the online donation tool. You can suggest that larger donations are not made online by a setting the dollar amount progression to max out at your maximum online gift threshold.
Additionally, acknowledging to online donors that there is an opportunity to give off-line might provide enough of a hint for major donors to deliver their donation through a different avenue. Straight up asking that gifts larger than a certain threshold not be given online, with added explanation as to why that request is being made, feels like a somewhat risky endeavor and the etiquette around that is a little unclear.
There is also the potential to direct large dollar donors to give under a different online tool than your standard giving channel. Google Checkout is an interesting option in this area, as Google Grant recipients get access to this payment technique without any fees. The user experience is not ideal as it may be a little wonky, but for a donor who is determined to give a large amount through an online channel it may be a nice compromise tool to allow you to retain the entire value of the gift. Be cautious when going this route though, you don't want this process to seem overly complicated or to come off ungrateful. Save this strategy for people whom you can be sure will understand the situation.
Overall, remember, you don't want to scare away your donors due to an obsession with saving the fee, but a gentle nudge in the direction you want to move them can certainly help. | <urn:uuid:feeba2e7-282d-4dc1-bce1-ec7b8c4dcbf9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.idealware.org/blogs/andrea-berry | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953321 | 793 | 1.84375 | 2 |
The following is an excerpt from an article on the website for the National Clearinghouse on Familes & Youth.
L is for “let go” of whatever is angering or distressing you. Take a couple of deep breaths and recognize that you have the power to rise above whatever is bothering you. This enables you to become more aware of how you view a situation and to think about changing your attitude.
A is for “attitude.” We can’t control what happens to us, but we can respond to our experiences with a positive attitude. The way we respond is more important than the actual events, Klein explained.
U is for “you,” because only you can change your attitude or let go.
G is for “go do it,” or use what you find in the previous steps to give yourself a more positive and hopeful perspective, and
H is for “humor eyes and ears.” “Humor is all around us all the time, but we don’t always notice it,” Klein says. Look around and notice something you didn’t see before, like a bumper sticker, for example, that may make you laugh.
Take the time to follow the link and read the rest. Keep smiling! | <urn:uuid:14cf2b97-4086-4b12-b293-d3b96569424e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.peacefullivingcare.com/4/archives/07-2012/1.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939475 | 271 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Posted by Lewis on May 12, 2006
In Reply to: Re: See a man about a gamgee posted by RRC on May 11, 2006
: : : : : : got to see a man about a dog- there are a few different meanings behind it, but isnt it derived from early cockney slang- gotta see a man about a dog... 'gotta go to the bog' ? (just like dustbin lids is meant for 'kids' etc)
: : : : :
: : : : : That's ingenious, but I don't think I agree. OED finds the expression 'see a man about a dog' first used in an 1860s melodrama by the Irish-American playwright Dion Boucicault, who doesn't seem a very likely user of Cockney rhyming slang. Eric Partridge in his 'Dictionary of Historical Slang' defines it as meaning to urinate, but also as meaning to have a drink, and (as he primly puts it) 'to visit a woman sexually'.
: : : : Nobody ever gives us context. Or not willingly. The phrase "I have to see a man about a dog" has quite a history. Type "see a man about a dog" into the search box, top of the previous page. Both the OED and Partridge can tell you what the phrase has meant to at least some users of it, but not what it means to whomever you got it from. For that you need context, perhaps quite a bit. In the rural U.S.A. it has pretty consistently meant "I've gotta pee." Or, "I'm going to see a man about a dog," I'm going to pee, usually at least a short distance away. (Otherwise the statement would be moot.) Perhaps to the boys and men I grew up with, the image of a dog naturally suggested the act of lifting the leg (although that's not precisely the way it's done by most men). SS
: : : The rhyming explanation also does little to explain the equally popular "see a man about a horse". Horses pee like a racehorse (^_^) but they don't rhyme with any word I can think of for toilet.
: : "I've got to see a man about...a dog" has a well-established UK use of making a departure to an undisclosed destination. when I were a lad, it were used to indicate that the destination was none of the hearer's [i.e. my] business. I did not often hear it used for going for a pee, for which there were many other euthemisms, but rather just 'out'. the one place the person was not going was to see a man about a dog.
: : it did mean 'out' so could be used to visit an outside privvy, but that was just one of many possible destinations and the implication was that the speaker was going to be some time.
: : I'm puzzled that the alleged origin should be so late [mid 1800s].
: : I've lived most of my life (so far) within the amplified range of Bow Bells & I don't reckon on it being rhyming slang at all, but if you take a captain (Captain Hook=look) at the Peregrines (Peregrine Took=Book), me old silver (silver plate=mate), you may golden (golden plover=discover) the gravy (original sauce/source).
: : nuff said.
: : L
: Peregrin Took? I had no idea that Cockneys were so into Tolkien. (^_^)
I'm not saying that those are well-known examples of CRS, but it changes over time - and we Southerners are the catalyst - I have a brother living East Lahndon way and he's well up on Tolkien, so who knows whether bookshops will be Tookshops?
As an aside, I know an elderly lady who was taught by Tolkien when she was at University - she also knew CS Lewis too, so it's not just a myth. | <urn:uuid:ab7cf9c8-a254-4ca2-a5de-8d13f8d46826> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/48/messages/287.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977436 | 864 | 1.960938 | 2 |
Justin Blackmon, first-round draft pick for the Jacksonville Jaguars, was arrested on Sunday and has been charged with aggravated DUI. Under Oklahoma law, a driver can be charged with aggravated DUI if a blood alcohol content test shows .15 or greater. Blackmon, according to officers, blew a .24 on a breathalyzer test, which is three times the legal limit.
Blackmon was previously arrested on suspicion of misdemeanor DUI in Texas in 2010 after officer reported seeing him speeding on a suburban Dallas highway. While Blackmon took responsibility for that charge, he pleaded not guilty to the recent charge. While it isn't clear exactly what he will argue at trial, one always has to wonder about the accuracy of breathalyzer devices.
Breathalyzer devices are notorious for inaccuracy for several reasons. First of all, the scientific calculations used in the device are not going to be accurate for some individuals. Second, alcohol takes time for the body to process, and the amount of alcohol measured in the body may not uniform throughout. Depending on when a breath test is administered, it could end up showing a higher blood alcohol content than it is in reality. Third, Breathalyzer devices do not test only for alcohol, and a number of products could interfere with getting a correct reading.
The bottom line is that evidence from these devices is not necessarily accurate, and therefore should not be presented as such by prosecutors. Those facing a DUI charges as a result of a breathalyzer test should contact an attorney to have their case evaluated.
Source: ESPN, "Justin Blackmon arrested for DUI," June 4, 2012. | <urn:uuid:7238ac9c-74d9-4a75-b2b7-b27d5a818338> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.criminallawyerblogdallas.com/2012/06/nfl-draft-pick-faces-dui-charge-after-taking-breathalyzer-test.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966367 | 328 | 1.679688 | 2 |
All You Need to Know About Caskets, caskets, caskets
All You Need To Know About Caskets
Reduced to its simplest terms, a casket is the box which holds the body and a burial vault or grave liner is the "box which holds the box". For sales purposes they will be called everything but these simplisitic terms. You'll hear caskets referred to in gaudy terms such as interment vessels, while the vault or liner is the outer container. If you can be savvy enough to see past these embellishments you'll be ahead of the game.
Mankind first began burying its dead for very practical reasons. There were plenty of predators about and the last thing ancient man wanted was for them to develop a taste for humans. Later, burial and cremation were ways of disposing of the dead without risking horrible plagues such as cholera. In the Middle Ages, when superstition was religion (and vice-versa), the dead's legs were broken and large stones placed atop the grave, to keep the dead from "wandering". The tombstone is a holdover from this custom.
Last century a death in the family meant contacting the local cabinetmaker or carpenter who would construct a simple box, getting friends and family to dig the grave in the family, church, or community cemetery, have a minister say a few words, then adjourning to care for the survivors. The total outlay? Maybe twenty dollars. Today a casket can cost tens of thousands of dollars. IF you let it.
The First Lie
Of the somewhat meaningless figure the NFDA cites as their average funeral cost, an unrealistic $5,300 or so for 1999, the industry claims the casket only accounts for about 14%. Two things are wrong with these figures; the total figure is the average of all funerals, including direct burials, indigent burials, and cremations, and does NOT include the costs of burial plots, fees for opening and closing the grave, burial vaults, or monuments, AND the 14% figure is from an NFDA report published in the early 1970s! IF the NFDA figures were correct, your average casket would cost only $750 (14% of $5300) instead of the nearly $2,200 figure current surveys reveal. This is just the surface of untruths the industry puts forth about caskets.
Materials and Construction
Caskets come in a wide range of materials, each of which has its selling points. I can't say each has its advantages, because this is simply untrue. In fact, the Funeral Rule is specific in its language regarding supposed benefits of caskets, which is summarized as follows:
No casket or outer burial container shall be held forth as offering superior 'protection' of the remains from water, moisture, biological invasion (insects, grubs, etc ...), or roots, when it ISN'T TRUE. Nor shall claims of indefinite preservation be made. Furthermore, NO FUNERAL HOME CAN CHARGE A FEE FOR THE CUSTOMER USING A CASKET BOUGHT ELSEWHERE THROUGH AN ALTERNATE SOURCE, NOR REQUIRE A FAMILY MEMBER BE PRESENT FOR ITS DELIVERY, NOR MAKE A FUNERAL SERVICES PACKAGE CONTINGIENT UPON THE PURCHASE OF A CASKET OR OUTER CONTAINER..
In short, no matter what the materials or construction of the container, the body WILL return to nature. That said, here's what you'll have to choose from.
This supposedly means STEEL, but the truth is there are several popular alloys used which are cheaper and lighter than steel, and lend themselves more-readily to the construction process. This is by far the most popular material in use today, and also one of the highest mark-ups. On a visit to a casket factory in August of 1997, I was told by the manufacturer that their average metal casket cost them $64 in materials and labor, and wholesaled to the funeral director for $264, which included packaging and delivery. Similar units to this routinely sell for $1,795 - $2,695 in funeral homes. You can do the math on the mark-up for yourself.
Metal caskets are listed by the thickness of the material as stated in gauges, such as 20-gauge, 16-gauge, etc ..., which is similar to the way shotguns are classified by the thickness of their barrels. The insinuation is that the thicker the material, the longer-lasting or more protective the casket. This isn't the case, of course, since even the lowest gauge casket will likely outlast the body inside it. Average price for a metal unit from a funeral home runs $1,350-$3,750, while our alternative sources start as low as $450 for a perfectly acceptable unit. The average difference in price between a 16-gage and a 20-gage unit? Try about $1,000.
This somewhat fanciful category includes Bronze, Copper, and Stainless Steel. Bronze has been around for a long time. It has a reputation for durability born in the Bronze Age, and a price tag similar to an automobile. The highest-priced unit we found was a bronze casket which, on the East Coast at least, had a range from $15,000 to an unbelievable $70,000. They are durable, and pretty, and the top of the line for snob appeal, but all too often they are merely a plated alloy and the bottom may well be thin metal of another type which can and will deteriorate much sooner than the sides and top.
Bronze and copper are listed in weight per square foot of material, usually cited as 32 oz., or 34 oz.. Average cost from a funeral home, $5,700 - $10,000 and UP. Cost from our alternative sources, under $3,000. Copper holds up well and, of the two, is probably the better buy. The same problems as cited for bronze apply. Average cost from a funeral home, $3,900-$8,700 and UP. From our alternate sources, under $2,000.
Stainless Steel is included among the 'semiprecious metals' to differentiate it from the regular metal caskets. The durability of stainless steel is well known, with the caveat that there is no guarantee the bottom isn't made from some other metal. Average funeral home price, $3,000 and up. Alternative prices, under $1500.
Many nice caskets are fashioned from oak, cherry, walnut, mahogany, and poplar. There are also some very nice models of pine, but you're not likely to be shown those unless you ask. These are works of art, but without even the facade of protective qualities touted in the metal lines. If you bought one of these, I'll almost guarantee you were given a strong pitch to buy an upscale burial vault to 'protect' it. Average price from a funeral home, $2,000 - $20,000. From alternative sources, $795 - $3,000.
Cloth-covered and Plain Wood
Many of these are available for under $500, even from a funeral home, and can be dressed-up with a flag, floral arrangements, or alternate hardware to good advantage. Some are nicely finished and perfect for viewing prior to cremation. A recent wrinkle is getting a white cloth-covered casket, and having friends and families 'autograph' it with their thoughts and remembrances. This is particularly apt for the young, as it affords the survivors an act of 'closeure' prior to the funeral.
There are a range of 'tricks' funeral homes use to make purchasing such a unit distasteful. They may refer to them, or any other reasonably-priced casket, as a Morgue Box, or even as a Welfare Box. They may keep them in an out-of-the-way corner, basement, or hallway, and have their display models in unflattering color combinations. (Note: I've actually seen one of these in an ARMY GREEN color, with a PUTTY colored lining!) These units come in literally hundreds of models and color combinations. Average price from a funeral home, $495 - $995. From our alternative sources, $295- $450.
Relative newcomers to the industry are the highly durable fibreglass and space-age plastic caskets. For durability it would be hard to beat these materials. The plastic casket manufacturer, for instance, warrants materials for 500 years. The EPA, which has studied the same material in our landfills the past several decades, cites 2,000+ years as a more-likely duration! Both units look similar to their metal counterparts, and retail from a funeral home at $2,500-3,900. From our alternate sources they are available for $1,350-1,900. If a long-lived material is desired, consider this: the poly-foam used in making soft drink coolers will outlast virtually any material currently used in the casket business!
The funeral industry routinely marks-up caskets 400%-1500% of their cost. The fancy hardware and plush interior will matter little to the 'guest of honor'. No casket made will halt either the natural deterioration of the body (though some will accellerate it!), nor penetration by roots or water. Ask, no DEMAND!, to be shown models within your price range. There are dozens of caskets under $1,000 readily available, so don't just choose from what the funeral director shows how or has on the display floor; virtually any model can be available within hours in any color combination you choose. Don't be 'shamed' into anything.
The book and planning program offer dozens of tips on how to save money while providing the dignity and reverence your loved one deserves. Primarily this is covered under the heading Popular Sales Ploys and Out-Right SCAMS, some of which will sound familiar if you have arranged a funeral the past thirty years, since they are commonplace. Some of these will likely anger you, and should. This is particularly true in the case of the claims offered about protective or sealing caskets.
If you'd like an alternative price quote on a particular unit, anywhere in North America, phone 1-757-427-0220 during the hours 8 am - 11 pm. A lady in Los Angeles County did so recently, and got the same casket her funeral home had priced at $6,200 . . . for $650, delivered within four hours. It's worth the effort.
CLICK to visit our Online Catalog of Affordable Caskets
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Member of Software HyperBanner | <urn:uuid:6da2fbc8-6475-413d-b220-03ee63edb0a9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dragonet.com/funeral/casket.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946553 | 2,304 | 2.625 | 3 |
10th Mountain Division mortar crews test new equipment
September 5, 2012
FORT DRUM, N.Y. (Sept. 5, 2012) -- Soldiers from the 2nd Brigade Combat Team's 1st Squadron, 89th Cavalry Regiment; 2nd Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment; and 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry Regiment, participated in testing of the new One Tactical Engagement Simulation System, Aug. 14-24, in the Fort Drum training area.
A group of operational testers from Operational Test Command brought the One Tactical Engagement Simulation System, or OneTESS, to Fort Drum for Soldiers to use with their mortar systems. The testers come up with scenarios in which the Soldiers can use the system. The Soldiers, in turn, provide feedback on how well it works.
"What we are doing is testing to make sure the equipment is durable, suitable and survivable," said Neil Jorgenson, a tester with Operational Test Command. "We want to make sure Soldiers understand it, and go through the right training. We will actually see how well they can use it, deal with it, repair it and support it."
By using the OneTESS, units can employ mortars in a live force-on-force training exercise by using an instrumentation system with indirect system capability against the Homestation Instrumentation System, or HITS.
"OneTESS is what we mount on the mortar system which works in conjunction with the Homestation Instrumentation System, which is the new MILES (Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System)," Jorgenson said.
"We are giving a lot of information to the program manager to make sure this piece of equipment is going to work right," Jorgenson explained. "He will then take this data and go back, refine the equipment and make some tweaks to it from software to hardware. When we do put this into the Soldiers' hands, it is something they will be able to use."
The OneTESS is composed of three kits: the dismount kit, a mortar kit and forward observer kit. The dismount kit consists of a player unit that is worn on the Soldier with the individual weapon system and instrumentation radio system.
The mortar kit consists of a mortar simulator round, collar insert, optical sensor Weapons Orientation Module and player unit. The kit is appended to a weapon system and is intended to capture azimuth and elevation adjustment made by the crew in real time.
The forward observer kit consists of a player unit and forward observer tablet. The forward observer, or FO, tablet provides the FO the ability to coordinate the real training environment with a virtual training environment.
Sgt. 1st Class David M. Huntington, a section leader with Mortar Platoon, A Troop, 1-89 Cavalry, said he thinks the new system will be beneficial to Soldiers during training exercises.
"The OneTESS will give the Soldiers more realistic results and accurate fires," he said. "(When) using a fire marker during training, we are limited by the civilian's ability to get to where our rounds are notionally going to impact."
Jorgenson explained that the system works with FM signals and throws out a probability hit / kill code to Soldiers, vehicles and equipment that are geared up with a HITS system and are within the impact area. The mortar crews will not be dependent on fire markers to go check what has been hit in the impact area.
Soldiers are taking the training and testing of the OneTESS system seriously.
"The Soldiers are providing excellent feedback during the after-action review comments," Huntington said. "Hopefully everything is taken into consideration when the testing period is over and the developers (use the information) to make it an even better product than we have now." | <urn:uuid:c8fb7f5a-9434-4e4c-8ff9-486e2989a666> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.army.mil/article/86587/10th_Mountain_Division_mortar_crews_test_new___/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948157 | 775 | 1.554688 | 2 |
So far in 2008, Asian soybean rust discoveries have been limited to states along the Gulf of Mexico with most of the confirmed finds in Florida. Only a few counties in Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas have seen soybean rust, unlike last year when hundreds of counties in more than a dozen states found the disease.
Hot, dry weather in the Southeast has kept spores bottled up, but with tropical storm season here, wet conditions are conducive for spore development and rains and winds can rapidly carry spores hundreds of miles. Earlier this week, spores were discovered in a couple of counties in Georgia and with the wet weather, growers in the Carolinas, Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi need to be wary and ready to apply fungicides to late-planted soybean crops.
In the past, by the time soybean rust reached Midwestern states, soybeans were in advanced growth stages so rust was not a problem, but because of the floods and wet spring, crops are maturing later and rust could spell yield losses. In particular danger this year is Missouri, where most of the 5.3 million acres of soybeans were planted as much as a month behind schedule.
"This year we have late-planted full season soybeans, and then of course we have some double-crop soybeans and even some of those were planted pretty late," says University of Missouri agronomist Bill Wiebold. "So we have some soybeans that will enter into September that are pretty young and those would be vulnerable to a late season influx of rust spores."
The usual pathway rust takes to the Midwest is through Louisiana and Texas, and until recently those areas have been extremely dry. Earlier this year Hurricane Dolly dropped a lot of rain in Texas and moved north into the Midwest, but according to Wiebold didn't bring rust. However; the move inland of the tropical storm Fay could bring rust to the Midwest depending on the air current patterns.
"Now that we're into what looks like an active hurricane season, we have to keep an eye on what's happening in those southern states." Wiebold says. "They are kind of our sentinel plots and as we watch that we'll get an idea of whether we should be concerned or not. | <urn:uuid:fdf8dd0a-31fe-4e87-971d-d9c13ee9036f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://farmprogress.com/story-asian-soybean-rust-less-prevalent-in-2008-0-18879 | 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 | 0.976187 | 457 | 2.5625 | 3 |
We've been doing some really fun St. Patrick's Day crafts and activities around here. I can't wait to share them all. I have to post a quick one this morning because I'm off to work. These handprint leprechauns are just so cute and they were really so easy to make. The kids think they're hilarious too. Here's how we made them:
What you'll need:
green and black craft foam
1. paint your child's fingers (excluding the thumb) orange and paint their palm peach. Stamp on the paper. Paint just the top of their palm orange for some hair. Allow to dry.
2. cut a hat out of the green craft foam and a stripe for the hat out of the black foam.
3. have your kids glue the hat and stripe on their little leprechaun. Glue a yellow button on the hat.
4. using a sharpie, draw on his adorable little face.
Linking up to ABC and 123
Linking up to Tot Tuesdays
Linking up to Kids Get Crafty
Linking up to For the Kids Fridays | <urn:uuid:ceb5de56-7657-4d54-aba6-439f2f04f811> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.meetthedubiens.com/2011/03/handprint-leprechauns.html?showComment=1299619967655 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945635 | 233 | 1.828125 | 2 |
BBC Music Magazine: outstanding; International Record Review: outstanding; Classics Today France: outstanding.
In the most central and often-recorded repertoire, it is far from easy for a musician to make reviewers sit up and notice what he or she is doing. But with his cycle of Beethoven’s works for solo piano, it is safe to say that Ronald Brautigam has amply succeeded. He has so far given us a ‘Pathétique’ that the website klassik.com found ‘almost impossible to describe in words’ and a ‘Mondschein’ that according to International Record Review ‘goes to the heart of what Beethoven was surely driving at’. As for the ‘Waldstein’, the reviewer in Classica-Répertoire ‘had never heard it ring out with more freshness, youthful spirit and conquering ardour’, while his Spanish colleague in Scherzo advised that listening to Brautigam’s ‘Appassionata’ would result in ‘a rarely experienced rush of adrenaline’. On a more general level, the cycle has – even before completion – been deemed to show the promise of becoming ‘a milestone in Beethoven interpretation’ (klassik.com), and ‘a Beethoven piano-sonata cycle that challenges the very notion of playing this music on modern instruments, a stylistic paradigm shift’ (Fanfare). The fact that Brautigam plays these works on the fortepiano has added to the interest, but the most common comparisons in reviews are to the legendary recordings of Schnabel, Brendel, Kovacevich or Arrau – in the words of the Fanfare reviewer ‘one hears playing on such an exalted artistic and technical level as to constitute a veritable lexicon of what may be achieved on a piano (of whatever vintage.) ... Brautigam's interpretations, exuding wisdom and joy, revere Beethoven without idolizing him.’ With Volume 7 of the cycle, Brautigam has arrived at one of the pinnacles of the piano repertoire, the monumental ‘Hammerklavier Sonata’. Once more he gives his listeners the opportunity to revisit a well-known work, and experience it in a fresh light, as a result of the clarity and distinctive timbre of Brautigam’s chosen instrument, and his superb, but never self-serving technical command of it. Included on the disc are also Sonata No.26 (‘Das Lebewohl’ or ‘Les Adieux’) and Sonata No.27 in E minor, Op.90.
Extra material for download | <urn:uuid:241f9ff4-3514-4bc0-8401-ae6e1ebdae4e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.eclassical.com/performers/brautigam-ronald/beethoven-complete-works-for-solo-piano-vol7.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919676 | 575 | 1.53125 | 2 |
I was cleaning out some things from my fridge one day and I realized that I had forgotten about some leftovers stored in a Tupperware bowl. It must have been several weeks old because I could see the horrible greenish mold that had grown on whatever was in it. Nothing smelled bad in the fridge, so I had not noticed it before that day, but I dreaded the thought of removing the lid to throw out the contents, because certainly I would smell it then.
Well, I reasoned that it was just a plastic bowl and I could just avoid dealing with the mess of it and simply throw the entire thing away.
A bit later, I thought about how I had resolved to throw out a perfectly good bowl because it was, in my mind, now contaminated and disgusting. It was the easiest thing to do and it did make sense to me, but I found myself considering how the action I took is similar to that which we take with others in our lives.
I treated the bowl as if it was the problem rather than the molded food contents. I could have removed the contents in any number of ways and soaked the bowl itself in a disinfectant like bleach and added soap until I was ready to wash it out. In this way, I would have removed the problem from the bowl, which was never the problem.
Theorist and narrative family therapist Michael White is known for his idea of “externalizing the problem” which has to do with helping people to situate the problem, through how they talk about it, on the outside of themselves or others. In essence, the problem becomes a separate entity or external to people who are often viewed as the problem.
It was from this idea that I began thinking about the parallel between how I had handled the bowl with molded food and how we often view others in our lives. When we are able to see the molded food as the problem that has perhaps contributed to the horrible smell of the bowl, for example, then we are not blaming, attacking, or attempting to throw away the bowl as the “stinky bowl.” When we separate the problem of the molded food from the bowl, then we create opportunities for greater possibilities for not letting the stench of the old molded food take away a perfectly good bowl.
I believe that in our problems within our families and relationships as well as with ourselves, we would benefit hugely from this understanding. Rather than fight one another or ourselves, we would stand up against the problem recognizing it as an outsider seeking to invade our lives and rob us happy and satisfying relationships. We would not seek to throw one another away because of things we see as “problems in them.” Instead, we would work to change our relationship to the problem, which often means that we change something about how we respond to it. This might lead to a way of throwing out the problem and keeping the “bowl.”
The problem does not live inside of you; it is an illusion.
Contact columnist LaTonya Dunn at firstname.lastname@example.org. | <urn:uuid:a3134ca3-53d1-491b-9f4f-b05424e0a273> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.albanyherald.com/news/2011/aug/29/take-aim-real-problem/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988668 | 627 | 1.953125 | 2 |
At just over 25 meters from stem to stern, and 140 tons, the wooden long-line tuna-fishing boat Daigo Fukuryu Maru (No. 5 Lucky Dragon) is hardly imposing.
Yet despite its diminutive size for an ocean-going vessel, in March 1954 the Lucky Dragon’s encounter with radioactive fallout from a U.S. hydrogen-bomb test spurred shock and indignation of titanic proportions, straining Japan’s cozy diplomatic and commercial ties with the United States.
Eventually, the Lucky Dragon emerged — along with the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki — as an enduring symbol of protest against the insanity of populating this small planet with untold thousands of nuclear devices capable of expunging all life on Earth. And since last year’s reactor meltdowns at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, the boat has embarked on yet another voyage — as a vivid reminder of the dangers of “peaceful” nuclear technology.
The Lucky Dragon departed its home port of Yaizu, Shizuoka Prefecture, on Jan. 22, 1954, with an inexperienced 22-year-old captain named Hisakichi Tsutsui at the helm. The underpowered ship capable of only 5 knots was built in Wakayama in 1947 and was plagued by engine troubles.
South of Midway Island on Feb. 9, calamity struck when nearly half the Lucky Dragon’s 330 fishing lines — each around 300 meters long — were lost when they snagged on coral reefs. Faced with the prospect of returning home in disgrace after catching just a handful of the bigeye tuna they were hunting, the captain decided to head south to hopefully richer fishing grounds around the Marshall Islands.
No one on board knew that five months earlier the U.S. had notified the Japanese Maritime Safety Agency that in advance of planned nuclear tests, the Bikini Atoll exclusion zone was to be expanded eastward to longitude 166° 16′.
With food and fuel running low, March 1 was to be the Lucky Dragon’s last day of fishing before returning to Yaizu. Its log recorded its position as 166° 18′ — perilously close, but still outside the exclusion zone.
At 6.45 a.m. on Monday, March 1, 1954, the sky was still dark. What happened then is described in “The Day the Sun Rose in the West,” a first-hand account by then 20-year-old crewman Matakichi Oishi that was published in 2011.
He writes: “A yellow flash poured through the porthole. Wondering what had happened, I jumped up from the bunk near the door, ran out on deck and was astonished. Bridge, sky and sea burst into view, painted in flaming sunset colors … “
What Oishi saw was the first U.S. test of a dry-fuel thermonuclear device, code-named “Castle Bravo.” At 15 megatons, it was the largest nuclear test ever conducted by the U.S., and remains the fifth-largest nuclear explosion in history. It was also, in a sense, an accident. A theoretical error by the bomb’s designers meant that the explosion that actually occurred was 2½ times more powerful than intended. It was, in fact, the biggest-ever explosion made by humankind, and was up to 1,000 times more powerful than the one that had razed Hiroshima nine years before.
Quite obviously, the U.S., which had fallen behind the Soviet Union in nuclear weapons technology, was playing catch-up big time.
Lucky Dragon wasn’t damaged by the blast or its shock wave, but several hours later white, radioactive dust from atomized coral that had surged up to the edge of the atmosphere in an enormous plume began raining down on the Lucky Dragon and all aboard.
As Oishi writes: “The top of the cloud spread over us. … Two hours passed. … white particles were falling on us, just like sleet. The white particles penetrated mercilessly — eyes, nose, ears, mouth. We had no sense that it was dangerous.”
While the fallout continued to rain down, the crew spent six hours pulling in the lines before setting course for home. By the same evening, crew members were starting to notice skin burns and other symptoms of radiation — symptoms that only worsened during the two-week voyage to Yaizu.
Later tests of the shi no hai (ashes of death) that fell on the ship found a toxic cocktail of radioactive isotopes, including strontium-90, cesium-137, selenium-141 and uranium-237.
The ship reached Yaizu on March 14. After a Geiger counter detected radiation at a distance of 30 meters, it was towed to a remote section of the port and put under police guard. The 23 crew were quarantined in a hospital outside the city. Their heads were shaved and their irradiated clothing and possessions were buried. In frantic efforts to track down the ship’s catch, Geiger counters were used at Tokyo’s Tsukiji and other fish markets, but at least two of the huge tuna were likely sold and eaten.
Afterward, the Ministry of Health and Welfare stated that 856 Japanese fishing vessels, with upward of 20,000 crew members were exposed to radiation from that test. The price of tuna plunged due to fears over radiation, and some 75 tons caught from March through December 1954 were found to be unfit for consumption and were destroyed.
However, in an example of the paranoia typical of those times, the head of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission alleged that the Lucky Dragon had been sent to Bikini “to spy” on the test. Nonetheless, the U.S. government grudgingly paid out $2 million (¥720 million at the current rate of exchange) in “consolation money” — a settlement far short of the claimed damages of ¥2.47 billion. Slightly over 10 percent went to the Lucky Dragon’s owner and crew, each of whom received about ¥2 million.
Transported by prevailing air and ocean currents, radioactive debris from the test swept westward, and increased radiation levels were found not only seafood, but in Japan’s rice, vegetables and other produce. (The Marshall Islands, site of the U.S. nuclear tests, fared even worse: some of the atolls remain uninhabitable to this day.)
In the summer of 1954, Aikichi Kuboyama, the Lucky Dragon’s chief radio operator, who was, at age 40, the oldest crew member, developed liver complications and went into a coma. On Sept. 23, he died at a Tokyo hospital, leaving a wife and three young daughters.
The Lucky Dragon and its crew — half of whom were still living at the time of the 50th anniversary of the incident in 2004 — served to galvanize anti-nuclear movements in Japan and worldwide. On Aug. 6, 1955 — the 10th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing — the first World Conference against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs was held in Hiroshima.
The Lucky Dragon incident was also to inspire the original sci-fi horror movie “Godzilla,” an allegorical story of a mutant, fire-breathing sea monster, spawned by nuclear testing, that attacks Japan. The film was released on Nov. 3, 1954.
Meanwhile, after being declared free of residual radiation, the Lucky Dragon was purchased by Tokyo University of Fisheries and refitted. Then in 1956, renamed as Hayabusa Maru, it was put to use as a training vessel. After national broadcaster NHK reported in 1967 that the ship was on the verge of being scrapped, then-Tokyo Gov. Tatsukichi Minobe backed a successful campaign to save the “eyewitness to history.”
The vessel’s former name, Daigo Fukuryu Maru, was restored, and in June 1976 the exhibition hall in Yumenoshima Park, in Tokyo’s Koto Ward, opened to the public. In addition to the actual ship, visitors can see a variety of artifacts from the ill-fated voyage, including its log, radio, and items owned by the crew. The exhibition hall is an obligatory stop for school groups visiting Tokyo, many of which leave behind brightly colored chains of 1,000 origami cranes, called senbazuru, as a prayer for peace.
Outside the hall is a monument on which there is an inscription recording Kuboyama’s jisei (dying wish) from his hospital bed in 1954. It reads: “Gensuibaku no higaisha wa, watashi wo saigo ni shite hoshii.” (“I pray that I am the last victim of an atomic or hydrogen bomb.”)
The Daigo Fukuryu Maru Exhibition Hall (Daigo Fukuryu Maru Tenjikan) is in Yumenoshima Park, a 10-min. walk from Shin Kiba Station on the Yurakucho Subway Line and JR Keiyo Line. Open 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. (closed Monday unless it is a public holiday, when it is closed the next day). A brochure and explanatory wall panels are provided in English, and admission is free. For more details, call (03) 3521-8494. | <urn:uuid:7c336372-f5d7-4bb5-8bdc-504a02de5e27> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2012/03/18/general/lucky-dragons-lethal-catch/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970493 | 1,967 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Family Income Supplement
Family Income Supplement (FIS) is a weekly tax-free payment available in the Republic of Ireland for families, including one-parent families at work but receiving low pay.....
Frontier Workers becoming unemployed
Under European Union regulations a frontier worker can be defined as someone who lives in one member state and works in another, returning home at least once a week. Therefore people who live in the Republic of Ireland (ROI) and work in Northern Ireland (NI) and vice versa are considered frontier workers....
|Frontier Workers - Maternity Benefits|
Generally the member state in which you are working pays any maternity benefit due under EU social security rules. For example, if you are a cross border worker living in the Republic of Ireland and working in Northern Ireland you would claim any maternity benefits from the UK...
|Frontier Workers claiming State Pension|
European Union directives state that frontier workers who have paid social insurance contributions in two or more EEA member states may be entitled to a pension or partial pension from each country awarded on a pro rata basis. This will be decided when they reach State Pension age, taking into account their country of residence.....
|Winter Fuel Grants|
Qualification criteria for entitlements to Fuel Grants in the North and South.....
|Frontier Workers - Working Tax Credit|
Working Tax Credit (WTC) and Child Tax Credit (CTC) were introduced in 2003 and are income based credits for people who are in low-paid employment and/or people who have children.A person may qualify for either one or both of these credits depending on their circumstances. Working Tax Credit is similar to Family Income Supplement in the Republic of Ireland.
|Child Tax Credit|
Child Tax Credit is classified as a family benefit and must be available to workers in the UK regardless of residence. Therefore a frontier worker living in the Republic of Ireland and working in Northern Ireland is eligible to apply provided they meet the other qualifying criteria....
|Tax Liability for Frontier Workers|
Tax liability is a significant area of enquiry for the Borderwise project (the joint initiative run by Citizens Advice and the Citizens Information Board) and it is cross-border workers living in Northern Ireland who represent the bulk of resulting enquiries. This is not surprising as the Revenue Commissioners in the Republic of Ireland have put in place an initiative to ease taxation pressures on Cross Border workers with the introduction of trans-border worker’s relief....
|Health Entitlements for Frontier Workers|
Generally, frontier workers are entitled to access health services both where they live and where they work. Therefore a frontier worker living in the Republic of Ireland will be entitled to access health services on either side of the border....
|All Ireland free travel - South|
|All Ireland free Travel - North|
|Changes to Motoring Taxes in the UK|
|Changes to Vehicle Registration Tax|
|Qualifications across borders|
|Business Start Up Grants (South)|
|Business Start Up Grants (North)|
|EU Pet Passport Regulations (South)|
|EU Pet Passport Regulations (North)| | <urn:uuid:c65f943b-b6a8-4600-bc81-0b93dec87d1d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.borderwise.ie/gl/Issues/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929628 | 634 | 1.875 | 2 |
We were just over at the Rocky Mountain Institute’s Boulder office the other day for a Green Drinks event and suddenly we have a reason to mention them again — a spin-off from the think tank, Bright Automotive, just sold a minority stake to GM Ventures, according to cnet. Apparently it doesn’t hurt that Bright was involved in producing the now-very-dead EV1: Read more
GM is saying that its new Chevy Volt — expected to hit showroom floors sometime late in 2010 — will get a gazillion miles per gallon. Well, not a gazillion… but far more than any other hybrid is claiming: 230 mpg.
This would make the Volt almost five times more fuel efficient than the Prius, which claims 48 mpg and is becoming more common in Boulder than even prairie dogs, Crocs and cruiser bikes. But there’s a catch. It’ll cost you nearly twice as much to buy a Volt than a Prius. Read more about the Volt here or after the jump.
In Boulder, residents — and increasingly the government — are looking to take the Priuses they already own to the next level, converting the cars to plug-ins that one day may be able to feed electricity back to the grid.
Boulder County, the city of Boulder and the University of Colorado are all collaborating with Xcel Energy on one of the first large-scale tests of vehicle-to-grid technology. Just recently, big yellow plugs have sprouted from the northwest end of the parking lot behind the county courthouse, and you can see a couple of converted Priuses plugged into the wall when they’re not being driven.
Read more about the local vehicle-to-grid tests on the Daily Camera’s Web site here and here. Or check out a story on Hybrids Plus, a Boulder-based company that converts standard hybrid cars to plug-ins, here. | <urn:uuid:f585c64a-fbea-446a-a9a9-ae76bb1587bb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://biggreenboulder.com/tag/electric-cars/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947842 | 399 | 1.953125 | 2 |
CESG – Canada Education Savings Grant
CESG – Canada Education Savings Grant is paid directly into your child’s RESP.
To help you save for your child’s education after high school, the Government of Canada will add to your savings in a Registered Education Savings Plan (RESP) with a Canada Education Savings Grant (CESG).
Eligibility for the CESG
Children up to and including the age of 17 are eligible to receive the CESG based on the following conditions:
For children 15 years old and older, prior RESP contributions must have been made before December 31 of the year in which the child turns 15.
The Amount of the CESG
On the first $500 you save in your child’s RESP, the Canada Education Savings Grant will give you:
- 40 cents per dollar, if your net family income is $37,178 or less.
- 30 cents per dollar, if your net family income is between $37,178 and $74,357.
- 20 cents per dollar, if your net family income is more than $74,357.
No matter what your net family income is, when you save more than $500, the Canada Education Savings Grant will give you 20 cents for every extra dollar, up to $2,500.
Steps to Getting the CESG
To get the CESG, all you need to do is:
- Apply for a Social Insurance Number (SIN) for your child. There is no fee to get one, however, certain documents are required. Contact 1 800 O-CANADA for more information or visit a Service Canada centre near you.
- Apply to the Canada Revenue Agency for the Canada Child Tax Benefit (CCTB), if your family net income is $74,357 or less. This form is generally provided at the hospital where your child was born.
Choose the RESP provider that best meets your needs. (RESP providers include most financial institutions, such as banks or credit unions, as well as group plan dealers or financial services providers.)
- Open an RESP for a child.
- Put some money in your RESP.
- Ask your RESP provider to apply for the CESG on behalf of the child.
The grant money will be deposited directly into your child’s RESP.
Lifetime CESG Limits
The most CESG your child can receive is $7,200. This lifetime limit also applies to each individual child when the CESG money is shared with other beneficiaries as in a family RESP.
In this case, lifetime means from birth up to the end of the year that the child turns 17 years old.
Using the CESG
As soon as your child is enrolled in a qualifying educational program, he or she can start receiving money from the RESP. At that time, the CESG along with income earned by the money in the RESP is paid to the beneficiary as an Educational Assistance Payments (EAPs). Each EAP includes a specific amount of the CESG.
If your child does not go on to education after high school, the CESG must be returned to the Government of Canada, unless the RESP is a family plan. If the RESP is a family plan, the CESG may be used by another eligible child named in the plan. That child may use an amount of the CESG up to his or her lifetime limit as described above. | <urn:uuid:d51dbc95-5fff-42ff-8bc3-878c168a1a56> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tax-services.ca/cesg-canada-education-savings-grant/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947951 | 700 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Annuals, Perennials, Flowers
Grows in Zones 8, 9, 14–31 as a perennial, and in Zones 2–7, 10–13, and 32–43 as an annual. This petunia relative is probably native to Brazil; its garden forms are the result of hybridization. Plants are smaller than petunias, with more wiry, slender stems and tiny, closely set leaves– but not all botanists believe they differ significantly enough from petunias to merit a separate genus.
There are two basic types. The trailers, low and flat growing, with leaves 1/2 in. long and–1/8 in.wide, are called Liricashower and have white, pink, or purplish blue flowers an inch wide. A more compact and mounding, less trailing series is called Colorburst; it has somewhat larger leaves and cherry, rose, red, or violet flowers. One grower offers both compact and trailing types sold as Million Bells and Superbells that come in a wide range of colors. Superbells are more heat tolerant.
Wiry stems make the plants less subject to breakage than petunias, and tobacco budworms seem uninterested in foliage and flowers. Plants are self-cleaning (spent flowers drop off cleanly). Blooms are produced all season long and plants behave as perennials where frosts are nonexistent or light. Used in hanging baskets, flower boxes, or as bedding plants (plant 1 1/2 ft. apart).
This is the common species. Smaller in all its parts than Prunella grandiflora, with leaves t...
Native to eastern North America. To 4 ft. tall, 3 ft. wide, with full clusters of bright blue-violet f...
Tall grower to 4-5 ft., with ruby red blooms. | <urn:uuid:b12e99ba-6ca2-44ea-8532-abbd3d4608aa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://plantfinder.sunset.com/plant-details.jsp?id=488 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943895 | 391 | 2.9375 | 3 |
Creditably for it, the Sindh government has taken an important initiative to stop deforestation.
The provincial forest department recently held a special consultation meeting on a draft law entitled "The Sindh Forest Act, 2011" to replace an old law that dates back to 1927.
Needless to say, a lot has changed since then due to population increase, conversion of forest lands into agriculture farms and urban development schemes as well as illegal logging.
Administrative inefficiency, corruption, and use of pressure by civil and military officials have made their own contribution to large-scale destruction of indigenous trees and woodlands.
The consultation participants pointed out that Pakistan has earned the unsavoury distinction of having the highest annual deforestation rate in Asia.
As per internationally accepted standards, 25 percent area of a country should be under forest cover; here, it is only 2.5 percent.
The result is constant environmental degradation and soil erosion - a major cause of flashfloods and silting of water bodies and dams.
Last year's devastating flashfloods in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa were a dreadful reminder of what can happen if there are not enough trees to prevent soil erosion.
As part of its commitments under the UN plan of action for the Millennium Development Goals, to be achieved by 2015, Pakistan was to expand its forest area to 6 percent.
Given the present trend, there is no way this country can get anywhere near that goal.
Regardless of UNDMGs, the government must put its act together and adopt necessary measures to increase green cover.
The present draft law contains a number of good suggestions towards that end.
The easier ones include making forest management plans mandatory for all types of forests, ensuring community participation, and increasing penalties for violators.
The more difficult but important part pertains to curbing provincial government leaders' and legislators' inclination to make arbitrary decisions about forest areas.
The proposed provision aims to take away the provincial governments' powers to change the status of reserved/protected forests, allowing them to intervene only where the public interest so demands, such as construction of a road, canal, or a park sans a built structure.
Sad as it is, an attempt to implement a national forest policy that included a similar provision ran aground last year because of refusal by all the chief ministers except Punjab's to give up that power.
Without this particular provision, any new law aimed at promoting afforestation or reforestation will remain ineffective. | <urn:uuid:b39c052c-9ee6-4ca2-af75-c7b40be952b7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.defence.pk/forums/social-issues-current-events/141251-putting-stop-deforestation.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945267 | 505 | 2.828125 | 3 |
23 was a beautiful day and the perfect day for the nest survey
flight I had scheduled with Windway pilot Mike Frakes. The purpose
was to check on known nests that aren’t visible from the
ground as well as check on other pairs of birds suspected to
be nesting. When Richard Urbanek flew on 14 April he found and
confirmed 6 active nests on the Necedah NWR. Since then two other
pairs were suspected to have started nesting.
Even when the birds aren’t visible we learn a lot based
on the strength of the signal from their radio transmitter. If
is functioning normally, the signal is usually pretty strong. If
all of the sudden the signal is coming from the same area but is
sometimes weak we begin to suspect that the weak signal is due
to that bird sitting on a nest and incubating. In a sitting position
the antenna is covered and the range of the signal is reduced.
Nest Check: Four Known Plus Three New
We quickly checked the 4 nests on the southern half of the refuge
(211 and 217; 213 and 218; 313 and 318; and 309 and 403). We observed
one member of each pair sitting on the nest, incubating. After
checking those 4 nests, we headed north to check the pairs who
were suspected to be nesting. Our tracking team had done an excellent
job interpreting the behavior and the signals of the birds, as
we discovered both suspected pairs (11 & 12-03 and 1-04 & 8-05)
were indeed incubating! Within the first 45 minutes of our flight
we had seen 6 nests, 2 of which hadn’t been confirmed prior
to our seeing them. We checked the other pairs known to be nesting
on the north half of the refuge. Then tracked down our final pair,
408 and 519. They had been seen together on Tuesday afternoon (Apr.
22), which meant they weren’t on a nest — but when
we found them, one of them was incubating! It sometimes amazes
me how quickly these birds seem to go from appearing to do nothing
(in regards to reproductive behavior) to building a nest, laying
eggs, and beginning incubation. Our total was now 9 active nests.
Missing Pair Found! TEN Nests Now!
Our next task was to look for missing pair #212 and 419. The transmitters
on both these birds are non-functional so they can’t be tracked.
first searched their main use area on a state wildlife area north
of Necedah but found no Whooping Cranes. On the way
to the private property they use in the fall, I saw two white
birds on a large, remote marsh east of us. Pilot Mike turned the
plane and we went
for a closer look. We descended and circled over the birds; they
were Whooping Cranes — and a nest! I scanned through all
the radio signals and didn’t pick up a single beep. It had
to be our missing pair: 212 and 419. The count was now TEN nests.
So far the birds are doing great. We hope that will continue. Some
pairs (like #211 and 217) have already been incubating for over
two weeks. Others (like 408 and 519) just started yesterday.
That means more monitoring and keeping fingers crossed in hopes
that all these pairs will successfully hatch their
eggs! Stay tuned.
Sara Zimorski, Aviculturalist
|April 23 Nest Survey
Click photos to enlarge.
the air: nest of #212 and #409.
See the little box? It's the
nest of 408 and 519! This brand
new nest probably just began April 22. I’ve
drawn a square around the nest since it’s hard to pick
This is #309's FIRST nest! Her new mate is $403. | <urn:uuid:24052151-9beb-4078-8a24-ac801245e087> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.learner.org/jnorth/crane/spring2008/Update042508_Sara.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 | 0.940155 | 829 | 2.1875 | 2 |
The Supreme Court last week heard arguments on the constitutionality of the 2010 law that revamps the health care system, with conservative justices indicating considerable skepticism over a provision that would require most individuals to buy health insurance or face financial penalties.
The court heard oral arguments on this “individual mandate” last Tuesday, and the following day considered whether the entire law – the Affordable Care Act (ACA) -- could stand if that requirement were struck down. Conservative and liberal justices appeared to differ sharply on this issue, with the liberals arguing for a more limited ruling.
On Wednesday the court also considered the complaint from 26 state governments that the law coerced them with enormous financial incentives to expand Medicaid coverage. Again sharp differences seemed to emerge on the court. A decision in the case is expected in June.
The Concord Coalition, which is not a party to the case, has cautioned that the more controversial parts of the law, including the individual mandate, help make possible the more popular features, such as ensuring that people with pre-existing medical conditions can buy insurance. The individual mandate prevents people from waiting until they are sick to buy insurance, and thus the requirement keeps the insurance pool more stable and less costly as a whole.
From a fiscal standpoint, the biggest concern would be that if the mandate is determined to be unconstitutional and the court strikes down the entire law, the Medicare cuts and cost control efforts in the ACA would be eliminated as well. In that case Congress would need to quickly pass new cost-control measures that are at least as effective as those that are in the law. In an election year that might be quite difficult, but fiscally we cannot afford to lose any time. | <urn:uuid:a93c2db8-6ccf-422f-ad94-5b1755f6e2f4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://concordcoalition.org/publications/budget-reports/updates/2012/0403/high-court-focuses-%E2%80%98individual-mandate%E2%80%99 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96881 | 339 | 2.03125 | 2 |
I assume people reading this article are already familiar with SOA & SOAP. SOA principles are not new for someone who has explored it from the days of RMI/CORBA or Microsoft COM/DOM. One such technology that is still popular even today & significantly unique & worth mentioning here is REST ( termed as Representation State Transfer). REST is a style of architecture where a collection of distributed hypermedia resources are addressed & accessed without any additional burden of a messaging layer such as SOAP & without the need to manage session tracking via HTTP cookies, making possible to build robust applications simpler, faster & easier. REST lays emphasis on how resources are defined & addressed. See video here ..
We all know DFS stands for Documentum Foundation Services and there are 13 foundation/standard/platform services and many additional Extended services that are technology platform specific such as DFS content services for SAP. Let us first recap a bit on the importance of SOA. We have known of business logic tier and database tier in traditional JEE applications. The business logic tier consists of functions which are reusable validating business logic & processing it. If you extend these systems furhter then you’are talking about integrating & interacting many such systems with each other. As we all know, such interactions are not possible because each application system has its own language, datatypes etc. So they dont understand each other even if they are able to talk. Then, here comes a WSDL and believe me the whole SOA revolves round this. It is the core contractual document(an xml file) that defines the services that can be called and what is expected as arguments before you make a call. More importantly such interactions can be packaged into a standard service and of course the essence of interaction is to embody the business logic into that service. But the trick here is you can change business logic by keeping the contract/wsdl constant. But its important to remember that a contract is once and for ever unless you want to rebuild the whole thing again. So be cautions to build a fairly robust WSDL contract.
Briefly, different applications can enable integration by exposing their business functionality as services and it is not possible to invoke a service without a prior agreement in the form of a WSDL file.
Typically a DFS WSDL will have the following elements defined.
1) Types: defines data types
2) Message: “” typed definition
3) Operation: “” description of operation
4) Binding: “” protocol & dataformat
5) PortType: “” abstract set of operations
6) Port: “” Single endpoint wit binding + network address
7) Service: “” Group of related endpoints
I believe you will be able to understand that all the elements come with <> and you can add your imagination to my brief description. Discussing the full WSDL will be too elemental.
The UDDI Registry: All services must be registered with a UDDI Registry for easy discovery by other services trying to find them(unlike REST). So instead of looking into the whole web they can look at just one place. UDDI stands for Universal Description & Discovery Interface. Every time a service is registered, the UDDI-Registry retains a copy of the WSDL for its own reference. A registration involves the U-Registry knowing its descriptions and all the operations defined in it.
Insert diagram here ..
Coming back to services, the standard services are categorized into 5 categories.
- Core: has
- Object Service
- Version Control
- Query Store
- Access Control
- Virtual Document
- Search Service
- Task Management
- ci(content intelligence)
- Analytics service | <urn:uuid:aa35a77e-e9a9-495b-915b-a86641cebb16> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://documentum.forums.c-affinity.com/?cat=4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.909944 | 777 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Does the "Copyright Alerts" system announced by major copyright holders and ISPs earlier this month run afoul of antitrust law? That possibility was first suggested to us by law professor James Grimmelmann. We decided to pursue the question, and our investigation led us to an unexpected direction: the Depression-era fashion industry.
High-end women's fashion during the 1930s was dominated by a trade organization called the Fashion Originators' Guild of America. Then, as now, clothing wasn't eligible for copyright or patent protection. But the guild established an elaborate system of privately enforced quasi-copyright protection for fashion designs. Retail outlets wanting to carry merchandise from guild members had to agree not to carry merchandise from manufacturers that created knockoffs of members' designs.
The system included regular inspections by guild representatives to verify that retailers were complying with the rules. Retailers caught selling knockoff merchandise could be banned from buying clothing from guild members, and members caught selling to blacklisted retailers faced stiff fines.
Retailers and the Federal Trade Commission challenged the system under antitrust laws. In 1941, the Supreme Court upheld the FTC's position, holding that the system "constituted an unfair method of competition" under antitrust law.
Does similar reasoning apply to the "copyright alert" system that major ISPs and content companies announced earlier this month? Mark Patterson, a law professor at Fordham University who specializes in antitrust law, told Ars that the system could be vulnerable to an antitrust challenge similar to the one the FTC made against the Originators' Guild.
The similarities are striking. The alerts system, like the Originators' Guild's enforcement system, is an effort to fight unauthorized copying of incumbents' creative works. The Supreme Court described the Originators' Guild as an "extra-governmental agency" that "provides extrajudicial tribunals for determination and punishment of violations, and thus trenches upon the power of the national legislature." The same could be said of the review process envisioned by the Copyright Alerts system.
"Intellectual property law strikes a balance," Patterson said. "What the agreement in the Originators Guild case did was try to break up that balance by creating a new IP right and also by creating this whole private enforcement mechanism."
In an e-mailed statement, the Motion Picture Association of America's Dan Robbins rejected the comparison. He told Ars that the 60-year-old Originators' Guild case "deals with an entirely different situation. More far reaching efforts have been held perfectly lawful under the antitrust laws." He pointed to endorsements from the White House and other public officials as evidence that the system passes legal muster under antitrust laws.
"The courts and enforcement agencies have indicated that collaborative efforts to help educate and protect against intellectual property infringement are procompetitive," he said. For example, he cited a 2000 opinion by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which stated that "no one but a copyright violator can gain by denying to copyright holders the right to engage in cooperative efforts to enforce their copyrights against a common infringer."
Patterson acknowledged that the six-strikes system is designed to enforce existing rights under copyright law rather than create a new IP right. But he argued that this aspect of the Originators' Guild case wasn't essential to the Supreme Court's holding in Originators Guild. He says that the Copyright Alerts system "doesn't create a new right, but it creates its own enforcement mechanism. It disrupts the balance that copyright law has struck in a couple of ways."
For example, the copyright alert system shifts the burden of proof to an accused subscriber, forcing her to prove that she did not infringe copyright law. That's the opposite of how things work in the traditional court system, in which the burden of proof rests with the accuser. "From a lawyer's point of view, the allocation of the burden of proof is huge," Patterson said. The system also requires the defendant to pay for the privilege of defending herself, which is at odds with ordinary court rules requiring the plaintiff to pay.
Patterson expressed surprise that the parties to the agreement didn't seek advice from regulatory authorities before announcing the Copyright Alert system. Both the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission provide guidance on this kind of question. But Robbins told Ars that the movie and recording industries didn't seek formal regulatory guidance because they are confident the system is legal. And, he said, "the actual agreement was vetted by Administration officials—including at the Department of Justice—before the White House endorsed the program."
A long shot
Theoretically, a wide variety of parties—the Department of Justice, Federal Trade Commission, state attorneys general, and private plaintiffs—have standing to challenge the Copyright Alerts system on antitrust grounds. But political and resource constraints make it unlikely that any of these parties will act. The Department of Justice is apparently out since it was already consulted by the White House prior to the agreement's announcement.
The FTC is an independent agency, so on paper it has discretion to pursue antitrust cases without the approval of the Obama Administration. But Patterson said it "doesn't seem very likely" that the FTC will do so. Nor are state attorneys general likely to act. "For many, maybe all of them, politics plays a role," he said. "You don't want to pick an unpopular case."
What about private parties? Patterson said that private parties have to overcome procedural obstacles that government officials would not. Government officials automatically have standing to sue under antitrust laws, whereas private parties need to show that they've been harmed.
"It's not clear that a court would view the prevention of (alleged) copyright infringement as an injury," Patterson said. "On the other hand, a court might also say that the injury was not the inability to infringe, but the inability to choose among ISPs that had different anti-infringement policies. It's an argument that a plaintiff could make, but I don't know whether it would succeed." | <urn:uuid:d1e96d33-8b2d-4259-8cf7-410b04321621> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/07/what-the-1930s-fashion-industry-means-for-big-contents-six-strikes-plan/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963412 | 1,218 | 2.421875 | 2 |
"Pesticides Indicted in Bee Deaths"
California beekeper Gene Brandi got suspicious when he sent half of his hives to a farmer who irrigated with the pesticide imidacloprid, and half of them died. The hives he didn't send continued to thrive.
"Stories like Brandi's have become so common that the National Honeybee Advisory Board, which represents the two biggest beekeeper associations in the U.S., recently asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to ban the product. 'We believe imidacloprid kills bees -- specifically, that it causes bee colonies to collapse,' says Clint Walker, co-chairman of the board.
Beekeepers have singled out imidacloprid and its chemical cousin clothianidin, also produced by Bayer CropScience, as a cause of bee die-offs around the world for over a decade. More recently, the same products have been blamed by American beekeepers, who claim the product is a cause of colony collapse disorder, which has cost many commercial U.S. beekeepers at least a third of their bees since 2006, and threatens the reliability of the world's food supply."
Source: Salon, 05/18/2009 | <urn:uuid:d6510db4-27c9-40fa-8206-158b457a73a1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sej.org/headlines/pesticides-indicted-bee-deaths | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968496 | 254 | 2.1875 | 2 |
There's a pride in it -- red, white and blue. But this banner has no stripes. It might have one star, it might have five if the family it belongs to is big enough, their sense of service strong enough.
Today we celebrate the country's independence with American flags. Lining the streets, strapped to poles, flown from the porch and clutched in tiny hands. But the blue star service banner again has a special place on today's July Fourth.
Designed and patented in 1917, the service banner was the unofficial symbol of a child in the service during war. In World War II they became a fixture in the windows of homes across the nation to show the pride and support of the family inside.
Each blue star on the banner's white, red-framed background represents an immediate family member serving their country in war.
With thousands of Floridians still in harm's way in Iraq, Afghanistan and hot spots throughout the world in today's war against terrorism, the blue star banner has again found a place.
"It's been very popular this year, even though so few people know about it," said Scott Salway, of Jack Finch's National Flag in Oakland Park, where they've been selling American flags since 1941.
"Usually I'll get a call from someone explaining very tentatively what they're looking for and I say: `You're looking for a service banner,' and they'll react, `Oh thank you, nobody else knows what I'm talking about.'"
If the blue star banner was ever a historic relic, it no longer is today. In the summer of 2001 the American Legion had resolved to rekindle interest in the banner, said Steve Thomas, a spokesman for the national office. "Then 9-11 and then the war on terrorism made it so much more important," Thomas said. "It's a poignant way to show support, and it's sweeping the country."
Thomas said the American Legion's official emblem company has sold more than 213,000 service banners nationwide in the past three years, 142,000 of them in 2003 since troops began massing in Iraq.
Salway said the New Jersey distributor that supplies him has been "overwhelmed" by orders.
"Right after 9-11 we sold anything red, white and blue. There was a line outside the door every day. Our entire stock was sold out," said Salway.
"This year we've had a run on the service banners, and a lot of people have come in looking for the flags of the different branches of the military. People really want to show their support."
To many South Floridians, that support is needed now more than ever.
"Everyone I talk to, I try to remind them that we still have people we love over there," said Jaci Polston of Lake Worth, whose husband, Jeremy, was sent to Iraq in January with the National Guard's Company B of the First Battalion, 124th Infantry Regiment.
Jeremy Polston was hit in a surprise attack at a checkpoint near Baghdad three weeks ago. But after being treated for shrapnel wounds, he was patched up and sent back to work, his wife said.
"We just didn't have any idea it would be this bad post-war," said Jaci Polston, who is home alone with the couple's 7-month-old son. "I'm much more anxious now than before, and I hope people don't forget we're still waiting for them to get home safe."
Polston soon will be getting her own service banner to add to the yellow ribbon she displays outside her home. The mix of old tradition with new on this July Fourth will stand as a point of pride, and a reminder of the cost of this day's celebration of independence and freedom.
Jonathon King can be reached at email@example.com or 954-356-4691. | <urn:uuid:984c7d16-b602-42c5-9a1d-30d163258dc8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2003-07-04/news/0307040085_1_banner-american-flags-blue | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980503 | 803 | 1.898438 | 2 |
MOAB, UT — A student from The University of Texas at El Paso is missing after he fell into the Colorado River at the Gold Bar recreation area near Moab, Utah, on Wednesday afternoon.
The student, Waley Liang, was participating in a UTEP Geology Club field trip with five other students when he was swept into the river as he tried to cross to an island approximately 50 yards directly across from the recreation area, according to an incident report filed by the Grand County Sheriff’s Office.
"We are extremely concerned for the well-being of Waley, and University is doing everything possible to support the family and to assist the rest of the students who are on the trip," said UTEP President Diana Natalicio.
The students were accompanied on the trip by Jose Hurtado, Ph.D., associate professor of geological sciences, and an adviser to the Geology Club. A parent of one of the students also accompanied them on the trip.
Laura Serpa, Ph.D., chair of the UTEP Department of Geological Sciences, said it is not uncommon for students to participate in field trips such as this one.
"We have numerous field trips year round for geology students," Serpa said. "We are monitoring the search effort in Utah and are ready to assist in any way we can."
The other five students who were on the trip will be flown back to El Paso later Thursday. Counseling will be available for those involved on the trip.
Liang, 21, is a junior and in his first semester at UTEP, having transferred from El Paso Community College. He is a 2011 Franklin High School graduate. | <urn:uuid:4e4db399-9242-426a-9a36-14cacbc900cc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kdbc.com/print/node/17215 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979072 | 339 | 1.984375 | 2 |
The central truth of the investment business is that investment behavior is driven by career risk. In the professional investment business we are all agents, managing other peoples’ money. The prime directive, as Keynes knew so well, is first and last to keep your job. To do this, he explained that you must never, ever be wrong on your own. To prevent this calamity, professional investors pay ruthless attention to what other investors in general are doing. The great majority “go with the flow,” either completely or partially. This creates herding, or momentum, which drives prices far above or far below fair price. There are many other ineffciencies in market pricing, but this is by far the largest. It explains the discrepancy between a remarkably volatile stock market and a remarkably stable GDP growth, together with an equally stable growth in “fair value” for the stock market. This difference is massive – two-thirds of the time annual GDP growth and annual change in the fair value of the market is within plus or minus a tiny 1% of its long-term trend as shown in Exhibit 1. The market’s actual price – brought to us by the workings of wild and wooly individuals – is within plus or minus 19% two-thirds of the time. Thus, the market moves 19 times more than is justified by the underlying engines!
-Jeremy Granthan, Quarterly Newsletter, April 2012
Here’s the chart he gives, demonstrating the volatility of herding.
It’s an unforgivable sin in the investment management business to miss a bull market. You’re in the bottom quartile sucking wind while everyone else is cleaning up? That’s when the redemptions come fast and hard. And the next thing you know you’re packing your things and being escorted by security to the door. Who wants to be that guy? No one. That’s what herding is all about.
But hold on a minute. There are two sides to this coin. Let’s reach back to March, April and May of 2009 when the global economy seemed on death’s door and people were scared, selling into a market that seemed to just drop and drop every day. The S&P500 bottomed at 666, a level that was deeply, deeply oversold for exactly the reasons Grantham gives above. I fully expected them to go even lower for exactly that reason. Here’s what I wrote about Grantham back then:
"Jeremy Grantham, who is chief investment strategist of Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo & Co and manages over $85 billion is telling clients to get out of cash…we are in the overshoot phase of the bear market, with most of the decline being sentiment driven. Could we go to 450 on the S&P, yes (I fully expect us to go lower still after a bear market rally). But, in going lower, the market would make more and more value plays apparent."
-More bullishness from Jeremy Grantham, 10 Mar 2009
Actually that was almost right at the bottom. So stocks did not go lower; the values were obvious enough to lift markets from that day forward.
But Fund managers who were caught up in the madness that led to 666 didn’t want to be in the bottom quartile, holding on to loser investments that were getting clobbered. That’s sure fire way to get escorted by security to the door and out on the street – during a huge recession no less. So you sell, with everybody else. That’s what Grantham is talking about.
At some point though the momentum switches. It just happens. The data start to get less bad and buyers like Grantham start to pull the trigger. At some point, the momentum shifts. None of us knew the Great Financial Crisis bottom was mid-March 2009 at the time. Just like none of us knew exactly when the tech bubble was going to burst, although we knew it would.
I remember well that Grantham started to sell early and watched as he underperformed. Jeremy Grantham is a big believer in reversion to the mean. He is a value investor and his analysis indicated that traditional stock portfolios were well overvalued by any value metric. So he began taking his clients out of stocks in 1998 and 1999 just as the market zoomed. The redemptions started rolling in as herd behavior and mania was all around. Grantham lost 40% of his funds under management during that blow off peak to the mania. That’s how it works, folks.
But Grantham stuck to his guns and was proved right when the market crashed starting in March 2000. Remember, almost no one has the professional latitude or fortitude Grantham had during the tech bubble.
What about this cyclical bull market? Here’s how I characterised it in April 2009 just after it began:
This is a fake recovery because the underlying systemic issues in the financial sector are being papered over through various mechanisms designed to surreptitiously recapitalize banks while monetary and fiscal stimulus induces a rebound before many banks’ inherent insolvency becomes a problem. This means the banking system will remain weak even after recovery takes hold. The likely result of the weak system will be a relapse into a depression-like circumstances once the temporary salve of stimulus has worn off. Note that this does not preclude stocks from large rallies or a new bull market from forming because as unsustainable as the recovery may be, it will be a recovery nonetheless.
…This is a fake recovery underneath which many problems remain.
Nevertheless, banks are going to earn a lot of money and that is bullish for their shares – at least in the medium-term. Yes, the stock market is overbought right now. However, if banks put together some decent earnings reports over the next few quarters, their shares will rise.
Furthermore, if the banks can earn enough, this cyclical recovery will have legs as banks will then have enough capital to resume lending and that is supportive of the broader market as well.
The S&P500 was at 858 when I wrote that. It is now well over 1300. If you missed this three-year bull market, you lose and that’s a dismissible offense. But, as I said in 2009, I don’t believe for one second that this recovery is a ‘real’ recovery. As soon as we have another recession, all of the problems – the overindebted households, the excess housing inventory, the excess auto capacity, the still bubblicious Australian and Canadian property markets – will come out of the woodwork. It will be what I call a Shiller double dip. That means bad things for shares, which are overvalued on a cyclically adjusted PE basis or by a Tobin Q ratio metric in my view.
How do you deal with that?
Jeremy Grantham gives a good answer, recounting the tech bubble story I told you:
You apparently can survive betting against bull market irrationality if you meet three conditions. First, you must allow a generous Ben Graham-like “margin of safety” and wait for a real outlier before you make a big bet. Second, you must try to stay reasonably diversified. Third, you must never use leverage. In my personal opinion (and with the benefit of hindsight, you might add), although we in asset allocation felt exceptionally and painfully patient at the time, we did not in the past always hold our fire long enough or be patient enough. It is the classic failing of value managers (and poker players for that matter) to get impatient and bet too hard too soon. In addition, GMO was not always optimally diversified. We are generally more cautious (or, if you prefer, “more experienced”) now than in 1998 with respect to, for example, both patience and diversification, and at least we in asset allocation always stayed away from leverage. The U.S. growth and technology bubble of 2000 was by far the biggest market outlier event in U.S. market history; we had previously survived the 65 P/E market in Japan, which was perhaps the greatest outlier in all important equity markets anywhere and at any time. These were the most stringent tests for managers, and we were 2 to 3 years early in our calls in both cases. Yet we survived, although not without some battle scars, with the great help that we did, in the end, win these bets and by a lot. Hypothetically, resisting the temptation to invest too soon in 1931 may have been a tougher test of survival in bucking the market. Luckily we, and all value managers, were not around to be tempted by that one.
In sum, Grantham says you can survive an irrational market by
- allowing for a generous Ben Graham-like “margin of safety” and waiting for a real outlier before you make a big bet
- staying reasonably diversified
- never using leverage
For me, this is the central thesis of Grantham’s quarterly letter. I suggest you read the whole thing at his website. There is a lot more in there and it is another spectacular piece of investment analysis.
P.S. – Note the following quote on stock picking from the article as it is important: because asset class selection packs a more deadly punch in the career and business risk game, the great investment opportunities are much more likely to be at the asset class level than at the stock or industry level [emphasis in original]. | <urn:uuid:bf16847e-1c49-48aa-8fb6-acc9890fa87d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.creditwritedowns.com/2012/04/missing-a-bull-market-is-a-dismissible-offense.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971227 | 1,990 | 1.507813 | 2 |
The Feuds of the Clans, by Alexander MacGregor, , at sacred-texts.com
This commotion in the Western Isles of Scotland did arise, at this time, betwixt the Clan Donald and the Clan Lean, upon this occasion. Donald Gorme Macdonald of Sleat, travelling from the Isle of Skye to visit his cousin, Angus Macdonald of Kintyre, landed with his company on an island called Jura or Duray, which partly appertaineth to Maclean, partly to Angus Macdonald; and by chance he landed in that part of the island which appertaineth to Maclean, being driven thither
by contrary winds; where they were no sooner on shore, but two outlaws, Macdonald Herrach and Hutcheon Macgillespick (who were lately fallen out with Donald Gorme) arrived also with a company of men; and understanding that Donald Gorme was there, they secretly took away, by night, a number of cattle out of that part of the island which appertaineth to Maclean; and so they retire again to the sea; thereby thinking to raise a tumult against Donald Gorme, by making the Clan Lean to believe that this was done by Donald Gorme's men, who, lying at a place called Inverknock-bhric, were suddenly invaded unawares, under silence of the night (neither suspecting nor expecting any such matter) by Sir Lauchlan Maclean and his kin, the Clan Lean, who had assembled their whole forces against him. Maclean and his people killed, that night, above 60 of the Clan Donald; Donald Gorme himself, with the residue, escaped, by going to keep in a ship that lay in the harbour. Angus Macdonald of Kintyre hearing of this lamentable accident fallen out betwixt his brother-in-law, Maclean (whose sister he had married), and his cousin,
[paragraph continues] Donald Gorme, he taketh journey into Syke to visit Donald Gorme, and to see by what means he could work a reconciliation betwixt him and Maclean for the slaughter of Donald Gorme's men at Inverknock-bhric. After Angus had remained a while in Syke with his cousin, he taketh journey into Kintyre; and in his return he landed in the Isle of Mull, and went to Duart (Maclean's chief dwelling place in Mull) against the opinion of his two brothers, Coll and Ronald, and of his cousin, Ronald Macdonald, who all persuaded Angus to the contrary; desiring him to send for Maclean, and so, to declare unto him how he had sped with his cousin, Donald Gorme, and how far he was inclined to a reconciliation; but Angus trusted so much in his brother-in-law, Sir Lauchlan Maclean, that he would not hearken unto their counsel; whereupon his two brothers left him, but his cousin, Ronald Macdonald, accompanied him to Duart, where Angus at first was welcomed with great show of kindness; but he, with all his company, were taken prisoners by Sir Lauchlan Maclean, the next day after their arrival, Ronald Macdonald escaping, and that very
hardly. Angus was then detained in captivity, until he did renounce his right and title to the Rhinns of Islay, which property appertaineth to the Clan Donald, and had been by them given in possession for their personal service. Angus was forced to yield, or there to end his days; and for performance of what was desired, Angus gave his eldest son, James, and his brother, Ronald, as pledges, to remain at Duart, until Maclean should get the title of the Rhinns of Islay made over to him; and so, the pledges being delivered, Angus got his liberty.
Angus Macdonald, receiving the wrong at Maclean's hand, besides that which his cousin Donald Gorme had received at Inverknockbhric, he went about, by all means, to revenge the same; and the better to bring this purposed revenge to pass, he used a policy by a kind of invitation, which was thus: Maclean having got the two pledges into his possession, he taketh journey into Islay, to get the performance of what was promised unto him, leaving Ronald, one of the pledges, fettered in a prison at his house of Duart, in Mull, and carrying his nephew James (the son of
[paragraph continues] Angus) and the other pledge along with him in his voyage. Being arrived in the Isle of Islay, he encamped at Ellan-lochgorm, a ruinous fort lying upon the Rhinns of Islay. Thereupon Angus Macdonald took occasion to invite Maclean to come to Mullintrae, or Mulndrhea (a dwelling-place which Angus had well furnished in the Isle of Islay), seeing he was better provided of all kind of provision there than Maclean could be; earnestly intreating him to lie at his house, where he should be as welcome as he could make hint; that they should make merry so long as his provision could last, and when that was done, he would go with him. For this custom the Islanders have, that when one is invited to another's house, they never depart so long as any provision doth last; and when that is done they go to the next, and so from one to one, until they make a round from neighbour to neighbour, still carrying the master of the former family with them to the next house. Moreover, all the Islanders are of nature very suspicious, full of deceit and evil intention against their neighbours, by whatsoever way they may get them
destroyed; besides this, they are so cruel in taking revenge that neither have they regard to person, time, age, nor cause, as you may partly see in this particular. Sir Lauchlan Maclean's answer to Angus Macdonald's messenger was that he durst not go to him, for mistrust. Angus then replied that he needed not to mistrust, seeing he had his son and his brother pledges already, whom his friends might keep in their custody until his return; and that, for his own part, he did intend nothing against him, but to continue in all brotherly love and affection towards him. Maclean, hearing this, seemed to be void of all suspicion, and so resolves to go to Angus's house; he carried with him James Macdonald, the pledge (his own nephew, and the son of Angus), whom he kept always in his custody, thereby to save himself from danger, if any injury should be offered unto him. He came to Mullintrea, accompanied with 86 of his kinsfolk and servants, in the month of July, 1586, where at the first arrival, they were made welcome with all courtesy, and sumptuously banqueted all that day; but Angus, in the meantime,
had premonished all his friends and well-wishers within Islay to be at his house the same night at nine o'clock; for he had concluded with himself to kill them all the very first night of their arrival, and still concealed his purpose, until he found the time commodious, and the place proper. So Maclean, being lodged with all his men in a long house that was somewhat distant from other houses, took to be with him his nephew James, the pledge before mentioned, with whom he never parted; but within an hour thereafter, when Angus had assembled his men, to the number of 300 or 400, he placed them all in order about the house where Maclean then lay. Angus himself came and called upon Maclean at the door, offering him his reposing drink, which was forgotten to be given him before he went to bed. Maclean answered that he desired none for that time. Although, said Angus, it be so, yet it is my will that thou arise and come forth to receive it. Then began Maclean to suspect, and so did arise, with his nephew James betwixt his shoulders, thinking, that if present killing was intended
against him, he would save himself as long as he could by the boy. The boy, seeing his. father with a bare sword, and a number of his men in like manner about him, cried, with a loud voice, for mercy to his uncle, which was granted, and Maclean immediately removed to a secret chamber till the next morning. Then called Angus to the remnant within, so many as would have their own lives to be saved, that they should come forth (Macdonald Herrach, and another, whom he named, only excepted); obedience was made by all the rest, and these two only fearing the danger, refused to come forth which Angus perceiving, he commanded incontinent to put fire to the house; which was. done, so that the two men were pitifully burnt to death. This Macdonald was the author of these troubles; the other was a very near kinsman to Maclean, and of the eldest of his sirname, renowned both for counsel and manhood.
After that, the report of Maclean's taking came to the Isle of Mull, Allan Maclean, and some others of the Macleans, caused a rumour to be spread in Islay, that Ronald (the brother
of Angus Macdonald, and the other pledge which he had given to Maclean) was slain at Duart, in Mull, by Maclean's friends; which false report was raised by Allan Maclean, that thereby Angus Macdonald might be moved to kill his prisoner, Sir Lauchlan Maclean, and so Allan himself might succeed to Sir Lauchlan; and, indeed, it wrought this effect, that how soon the report came to Angus's ears that his brother Ronald was slain, he revenged himself fully upon the prisoners: for Maclean's followers were by couples beheaded the days following, by Coll, the brother of Angus.
The report of this fact at Mullintrae was carried to the Earl of Argyll, who immediately assembled his friends to get Maclean out of Angus's power; but, perceiving that they were not able to do it, either by force or fair means, they thought necessary to complain to the King. His Majesty directed charges to Angus, by a herald of arms, commanding him to restore Maclean into the hands of the Earl of Argyll; but the messenger was interrupted, and the haven port stopped, where he should have
taken shipping towards Islay, and so he returned home; yet with exceeding travel made by Captain James Stewart, Chancellor of Scotland, and many straight conditions granted by Maclean to Angus, Maclean was at last exchanged for Ronald, the brother of Angus, and the pledge before mentioned; and for performance of such conditions as Maclean did promise to Angus, at his delivery, he gave his own son, and the son of Macleod of Harris, with divers other pledges to Angus Macdonald, who thereupon went into Ireland, upon some occasion of business, which Maclean understanding, he invaded the Isle of Islay, and burnt a great part of the same, regarding neither the safety of the pledges, nor his faith given before the friends at his delivery.
Angus Macdonald, returning out of Ireland, did not stir the pledges, who were innocent of what was done unto his lands in his absence; yet, with a great preparation of men and shipping he went into the islands and Tiree appertaining to Maclean, invading these places with great hostility; where, what by fire, what by sword,
and what by water, he destroyed all the men that he could overtake (none excepted), and all sorts of beasts that served for domestic use and pleasure of man; and, finally, came to the very Ben Mor, in Mull, and there killed and chased the Clan Lean at his pleasure, and so fully revenged himself of his former injuries. Whilst Angus Macdonald was thus raging in Mull and Tiree, Sir Lauchlan Maclean went into Kintyre, spoiled, wasted, and burnt a great part of that country; and thus, for a while, they did continually vex one another with slaughters and outrages, to the destruction, well near, of all their country and people.
In the meantime, Sir Lauchlan Maclean did entice and train John MacIan, of Ardnamurchan (one of the Clan Donald), to come unto him unto the Isle of Mull, promising him that he would give him his mother in marriage, unto whom the said John MacIan had been a suitor. John being come unto Mull, in hope of this marriage, Maclean yielded to his desire, thinking thereby to draw John MacIan unto his party against Angus Macdonald. The marriage was
celebrated at Torloisk, in Mull; but the very same night John MacIan's chamber was forced, himself taken from his bed out of Maclean's mother's arms, and eighteen of his men slain, because he refused to assist Maclean against Angus Macdonald. These were (and are to this day) called, in a proverb, "Maclean's nuptials."
John MacIan was detained a whole year in captivity by Maclean; and, at last, was released, in exchange of Maclean's son and the rest of the pledges which Angus Macdonald had in his hands. These two islanders, Angus Macdonald and Maclean, were afterwards written for by the King, and trained unto Edinburgh, the year of God 1591, with promise safely to pass and repass unhurt or molested in their bodies or goods, and were committed both to ward within the Castle of Edinburgh, where they remained not long when they were remitted free, to pass home again, for a pecunial fine, and a remission granted to either of them. Their eldest sons were left as pledges for their obedience in time coming. | <urn:uuid:34d03421-c96b-49f0-82bf-5f251b1a7f89> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/fotc/fotc25.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.990166 | 2,917 | 2.546875 | 3 |
November 1, 1989 |
A bomb destroyed a leftist union hall in the capital Tuesday, killing 10 people and wounding at least 29, including two Americans. The devastating explosion rocked the headquarters of the National Federation of Salvadoran Workers, the second largest union in El Salvador, at 12:30 p.m. Journalists who reached the scene in downtown San Salvador counted six mangled bodies in the rubble of the building. A Rosales Hospital spokesman said a union leader and a girl died while undergoing surgery.
July 22, 1988
Salvadoran police fired tear gas into a crowd of about 5,000 demonstrating students and workers, injuring at least one person in the worst violence to erupt during a protest march in the capital of San Salvador this year.
July 3, 1988
Most of El Salvador was without power because of widespread rebel sabotage and a strike by 3,500 electrical repair and maintenance workers who are demanding a $60-a-month pay increase, officials said. Five technicians trying to repair damaged power stations have been killed by mines planted by leftist rebels, utility officials said. Also, residents of San Salvador said parts of the capital were without water because electric pumps were not working. Gen.
July 9, 1987
Salvadoran riot police shot at striking government social welfare workers trying to force their way into a San Salvador building. At least 22 people were injured, including officers and journalists, witnesses said. The violence reportedly began when policemen cornered one of the strikers and started beating and kicking him. A group of fellow workers went to help him. "Then suddenly, shots were heard and we all hit the ground," said one witness, a journalist who refused to be identified by name.
July 6, 1987 |
In the San Mateo district of San Salvador, where most of the houses have two-car garages, nearly 50 impoverished families have put up shanties on a vacant lot to replace homes they lost last year in an earthquake. Across town, students from the National University have been holding classes outside the offices of President Jose Napoleon Duarte to demand an increase in the university budget and to protest a recent death-squad threat against 14 campus leaders.
March 29, 1987 |
Emilio Gonzalez arrived on an overnight flight from Los Angeles with tired eyes, a stubble beard and a sigh of resignation. As the 45-year-old factory worker stepped out of the terminal building at El Salvador's Comalapa International Airport, young boys swarmed to his side, hawking lottery tickets and begging for spare change. | <urn:uuid:4190a309-70fb-4111-958b-2e1d4af5ddd9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.latimes.com/keyword/el-salvador-labor | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968168 | 518 | 1.867188 | 2 |
Updated Feb 25, 2013 - 6:12 pm
Arizona lawmakers look to regulate legal marijuana
PHOENIX -- Arizona lawmakers want to overhaul the state's medical marijuana law.
One lawmaker would shut down dispensaries that use unclear labels for its food products. Another measure would allow colleges and universities to conduct medical marijuana research. A third would allow county zoning ordinances to apply to marijuana cultivation.
``It was the voters that clearly supported medical marijuana in Arizona, so it's the job of the Legislature to ensure that the law is being implemented properly,'' said Sen. Kimberly Yee, R-Phoenix.
Arizona voters approved medical marijuana by about 4,300 votes in 2010, authorizing its use for cancer and certain other medical conditions. The Department of Health Services oversees Arizona's medical marijuana program and regulates dispensaries where patients and caregivers can legally buy marijuana.More than 35,000 people in Arizona have medical marijuana cards.
Marijuana proponents have cautiously watched the debate over the proposed regulations. They support any action that allows the state to carry out the intent of the law, so long as the measures don't limit medical marijuana access.
``When voters approve medical marijuana laws, it's because they support allowing seriously ill people to use marijuana in the treatment of their conditions,'' said Mason Tvert, a spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, a national group that pushed for passage of the 2010 law. ``There's no reason to believe they have changed that position and we need to move forward and establish a workable system.''
Paul Harrison, manager of the dispensary CMG Clinics, said he has seen many cancer patients since the Phoenix treatment center opened.
``It's all kinds of deliberating conditions,'' he said.
An effort to repeal the medical marijuana law has not moved forward in the House.
Another measure moving forward in the Senate would allow police to dispose of medical marijuana seized during a criminal investigation. The American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona opposed the measure during a recent committee meeting.
Yee is behind the measures to restrict marijuana food labels, allow colleges to use marijuana in research and allow police to get rid of confiscated medical marijuana. She said the 2010 measure approved by voters didn't offer enough guidance to protect consumers or allow law enforcement to do its job.
She said medical marijuana food products, such as lollipops, brownies, ice cream and gummy candy, appeal to children and need to carry appropriate warning labels.
``They look like chocolate bars with very vibrantly colored labels that really do appear to appeal to young children,'' she said.
Yee said police shouldn't have to return seized medical marijuana because it is an unnecessary burden to require officers to cultivate marijuana plants during an investigation.
Cristina Silva can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/cristymsilva | <urn:uuid:74dd73c0-d57a-4f52-9a1f-696f20d24da2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ktar.com/22/1613196/Arizona-lawmakers-look-to-regulate-legal-marijuana | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959664 | 571 | 1.960938 | 2 |
May 24, 2011
NYSERDA Funding Helps Fort Edward’s Irving Tissue Plant Improve Energy Efficiency, Reduce Costs By $1.5 Million Annually
More Than $1.9 Million in NYSERDA Funding Supports Energy Efficiency Upgrades and Green Building Construction
As part of Governor Cuomo’s commitment to help manufacturers reduce the cost of doing business by becoming more productive and energy-efficient, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) provided funding to help the Fort Edward-based Irving Tissue reduce its energy costs by $1.5 million annually.
More than $1.9 million in NYSERDA financial incentives helped Irving Tissue, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of consumer paper products, install energy efficiency measures in new and existing manufacturing facilities. Measures include lighting, HVAC and new air compression, vacuum and storage systems, among others. Irving Tissue also partnered with its equipment vendor to incorporate energy efficiency into the design and operation of a new paper machine, which will significantly reduce energy costs and energy consumption.
The project provided for 485,000 person-hours of construction work to more than 1,300 contractors.
“I commend Irving Tissue for making innovative investments at its Fort Edward facility that will help to retain and create good-paying manufacturing jobs for New Yorkers while reducing the environmental impact of its operations,” Lieutenant Governor Robert J. Duffy said. “I am especially proud of the public-private partnership between Irving Tissue, NYSERDA and Empire State Development. Under Governor Cuomo’s leadership, these partnerships will be a fixture of our economic revitalization plan by decreasing the energy cost burden on our large and small businesses so that they can grow, compete in global markets and create jobs for New York’s economy.”
NYSERDA president and CEO Francis J. Murray Jr. said, “As Governor Cuomo has stated, cutting energy use is good for business and good for our environment. NYSERDA commends Irving Tissue for its work to reduce the energy use at its Fort Edward facility, and we stand ready to help businesses of all sizes benefit from smart investments that will provide strong returns for years to come.”
“Irving Tissue is a great company for Washington County and New York State and this collaboration with NYSERDA makes them even better,” said Senator Betty Little. “Improving efficiency and conserving energy is not only good for the environment, but also the bottom line. Money saved can be reinvested and that promotes prosperity and jobs. I’m looking forward to seeing even more progress here in the years ahead and know we can count on the continued support of Governor Cuomo, NYSERDA and Empire State Development.”
“The NYSERDA mission of assisting New York companies to find ways to reduce their energy consumption is a perfect strategic fit with our core value of continuous improvements of our products and processes. This common purpose was the driving force behind the very successful energy consumption strategies implemented in our most recent project,” said Robert K. Irving, President of Irving Tissue.
Empire State Development provided Irving Tissue with a $600,000 grant for the first phase of the company’s expansion in November 2007, which included the demolition of older buildings, the construction of a new 120,000 square feet facility, and the purchase and installation of a state-of-the-art Long Line Folding Machine in the building. This enabled Irving Tissue to increase tissue converting operations at the plant and retained 278 employees.
“We applaud Irving Tissue’s long-term commitment to the Capital Region and Upstate New York,” said Empire State Development President, CEO & Commissioner Kenneth Adams. “As Washington County’s second largest employer, Irving Tissue’s expansion project is critical to the local economy and to the company’s ability to successfully compete in the paper and tissue manufacturing industry. We are pleased to have been able to help them grow and prosper over the years. In addition, NYSERDA’s assistance in this second phase clearly demonstrates how our public/private partnerships are successful in retaining businesses in New York State.”
NYSERDA incentives supported the purchase and installation of energy-efficient equipment at the facility as well as the company’s new green building. These investments will not only save energy but also improve productivity and lower operating costs at the Fort Edward plant.
The energy savings, approximately 16 million kilowatt hours annually, is equivalent to the annual amount of electricity consumed by nearly 2,320 single-family homes.
NYSERDA is the one-stop shop for credible, accessible information on energy efficiency and, through successful public-private partnerships across New York State, it plays an important economic development role, as it helps all energy consumers improve their bottom lines by reducing operating costs.
Since 2000, NYSERDA has supported 1,400 commercial and industrial energy efficiency projects in the Capital Region. These projects are realizing an estimated $21 million in energy cost savings annually and have reduced their electricity consumption by 190 million kilowatt hours—the equivalent to the annual amount of electricity consumed by more than 27,500 single-family homes. NYSERDA provided $24 million in funding for the projects.
Funding for Irving Tissue’s energy efficiency and new building projects was provided through NYSERDA’s Industrial and Process Efficiency and New Construction Programs. These programs provide more than $100 million in funding to energy efficiency projects with an emphasis on the manufacturing and data center sectors.
For decades, Irving Tissue has embraced sustainable business and land management practices that balance economic, environmental and social impacts into its decision making that will create long-term value to its host communities and customers. These practices have reduced the amount of materials used to create its products, reduced energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions and supported environmental sustainability initiatives at each of its facilities.
Since acquiring the Fort Edward plant in 1996, Irving Tissue has grown the operation from 140 employees to a team of over 330.
For more information, visit NYSERDA.ny.gov.
NYSERDA, a public benefit corporation, offers objective information and analysis, innovative programs, technical expertise and funding to help New Yorkers increase energy efficiency, save money, use renewable energy, and reduce their reliance on fossil fuels. NYSERDA professionals work to protect our environment and create clean-energy jobs. NYSERDA has been developing partnerships to advance innovative energy solutions in New York since 1975.
Last Updated: 05/14/2013
Dayle Zatlin, Assistant Director of Communications
518-862-1090, Ext. 3359
Email : firstname.lastname@example.org | <urn:uuid:5cb048ee-9549-41a5-9237-6585cc1f1a2a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nyserda.ny.gov/About/Newsroom/2011-Announcements/2011-05-24-NYSERDA-Funding-Helps-Fort-Edwards-Irving-Tissue-Plant.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941037 | 1,393 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Horses and West Nile Virus
The University of California Davis Center for Equine Health is recommending that California horse owners should have their horses vaccinated for West Nile virus starting in March/April 2006, before the summer's peak mosquito season. There is an estimated one million horses in California. The mortality rate in horses that contract West Nile virus remains at about 30 percent.
A horse vaccine became available in 2001, under conditional approval by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The vaccine, made by Fort Dodge Animal Health, was granted full approval in 2002. According to the company, it has been found effective in warding off the illness in horses with 95 percent efficiency.
U.C. Davis Center for Equine Health :
- Vaccinate all previously non-vaccinated adult horses in March/April 2006 with a two-dose primary series, 3 to 4 weeks apart.
- As a general rule, UC Davis veterinarians recommend that you avoid vaccinating pregnant mares in the first trimester of gestation whenever possible. Talk to your veterinarian about your best options for vaccinating your particular mare.
- Vaccinate all young horses (less than one year of age) in March/April 2006 with a three-dose primary series. Allow 3 to 4 weeks between doses one and two, and allow 6 to 8 weeks between doses two and three.
- If the foal was born to a mare or a mare that was not booster vaccinated 4 to 6 weeks before foaling, begin the vaccination series at 3 months of age.
- If the foal was born to a mare that was booster-vaccinated within 2 months of foaling, then begin the vaccination series at 4 to 6 months of age.
- Vaccinated Horses - If your horse was fully vaccinated last year or if the primary vaccination series was completed this year, follow up with a booster every six months.
- Booster all horses that have not been vaccinated within the previous 6 to 8 weeks, then follow with boosters every 6 months from the date of the last vaccination. | <urn:uuid:5be4bc64-dabb-4491-803a-f2d7c30356f2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.placer.ca.gov/Departments/Agriculture/InvasivePests/HorsesWNV.aspx?p=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957403 | 419 | 3.046875 | 3 |
Historic Brass Ensemble
The renaissance trombone or more common term "sackbutt," is one of the earliest brass instruments that has maintained its original design. The term sackbutt means to push and pull or unsheathe (as in a sword). The study of renaissance and baroque music on original instruments develops the students understanding of musical traditions, concepts, and practices.
The ultimate goal of the University of Louisville Historic Brass Ensemble is to further develop all facets of the musician interested in early music. This course/ensemble is vital for all trombonists to incorporate into their curriculum while at University of Louisville. Learning literature on the instrument it was intended for is imperative.
The ensemble performs on both trombone ensemble concerts and early music ensemble concerts. The University of Louisville owns a set of four sackbutts (F alto sackbutt, two Bb tenor sackbutts and D/Eb bass sackbutt). For more information on future performances or participation contact Brett Shuster. | <urn:uuid:c4691dd8-2455-4ee6-984a-c979ad19aeac> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://louisville.edu/music/ensembles/instrumental/historic-brass-ensemble.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934191 | 207 | 3.421875 | 3 |
NRG Energy, Inc. (NRG), headquartered in Princeton, New
Jersey, is a wholesale power generation company founded in
1989, which has an ownership interest in 47 power generating
facilities around the world. The diverse portfolio of facilities, are
primarily in the Northeast, South Central and Western regions of
States but, they have locations in Europe, Australia and
operations include baseload, intermediate, peaking, and
cogeneration facilities, thermal energy production and energy
resource recovery facilities. NRG also has ownership interests in
generating facilities in Australia and
David Crane, who holds an undergraduate degree from Princeton
University and a Harvard Law School graduate, is the CEO.
In late 2005, NRG Energy bought Texas-based Texas Genco
from a group of private equity firms
for a price of roughly $5.9 billion.
June 19, 2006 NRG Energy
filed a Letter Of Intent with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
to build two 1358-MWe ABWR at the South Texas
Project site.
This was the first nuclear plant
license application filed in the United States in 29 years. | <urn:uuid:503b60ae-07b9-4068-9d17-0bc96b4c58c4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://maps.thefullwiki.org/NRG_Energy | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.910682 | 241 | 1.75 | 2 |
An angry debate has erupted in Russia over the antisemitic text The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
The Public Chamber of Russia, which oversees the activities of parliament, is pushing to have the 19th century forgery banned, while another state body, the Prosecutor General, recently argued that it is "politically and historically educational".
In March, a lower chamber of the Prosecutor General's Office ruled that the Protocols did not fan ethnic hatred.
Now, Evgeny Velikhov, Secretary of the Russian Public Chamber, has sent a formal request to the Prosecutor General Yury Chaika asking that he acknowledge the book as extremist literature.
The row broke out after a north Moscow branch of the Prosecutor's Office refused to place the Protocols on a federal list of extremist materials, citing an unspecified "psychological examination" of the book.
Mr Velikhov said in his letter: "It is outrageous that such an unlawful and anti-scientific position found support among Moscow prosecutors.
"The distribution of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in Russia represents a serious threat to inter-ethnic accord and the integrity of our country."
Mr Chaika's office has yet to respond. | <urn:uuid:4e5ab852-6e6d-4665-9d4a-2e5327d126a2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thejc.com/print/49539 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94921 | 247 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Anxiety disorders in older people
Reviews in Clinical Gerontology, 06/18/2012
Lindesay J et al. – This article reviews the research into anxiety disorders in adults aged 65 years and older that has been published over the past ten years. The topics covered include: the construct of anxiety and its disorders in this age group; epidemiology, including prevalence, incidence, course, outlook, and risk factors; assessment scales; co–morbidity and differential diagnosis (depression, dementia, physical illness); and management, both pharmacological and non–pharmacological. | <urn:uuid:750e6bd8-9cc5-4658-8523-ddb8cbc440c4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mdlinx.com/nursing/news-article.cfm/4102348/0/anxiety/next/10?source=scroller | 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 | 0.935617 | 120 | 1.640625 | 2 |
In an age of cell phones, high definition TVs, DVRs, iPods, and countless devices sucking power from every outlet in our homes, the latest report from the Electric Power Research Institute might come as a surprise. The demand for residential power in the U.S. is actually falling.
For the last 30 years (up until 2011), residential power demand has grown fairly steadily. From 1980 to 2000, the growth rate was about 2.5 percent per year; from 2000 to 2010, the rate was 2 percent per year.
However, during the first three months of this year, residential power demand nationwide dropped by 1.3 percent (after adjustment for the effects of weather). It’s expected to continue to decline over the next ten years.
Why is this happening? According to the Associated Press, utility executives are a bit perplexed – typically, power usage is not affected by changes in the economy. As AP Energy Writer Jonathan Fahey writes, “Even when the economy is stagnant, people still watch TV and keep their ice cream cold.”
Utility analysts are pointing their fingers at quite a few possible reasons for the decline, including the increasing adoption of energy efficient lighting, the efficiency programs initiated by federal and state governments, the weak housing market resulting in families occupying smaller homes, and grassroots efforts from consumers cutting back on energy use. They’ve also noted that appliances have become more efficient in the past couple of decades.
To read more, see the AP article. | <urn:uuid:0478d29c-28f6-4195-b9d6-00000866296a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.pegasuslighting.com/2011/09/this-just-in-us-power-demand-declining/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96606 | 307 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Pente means five in Greek while athlos means contest, so the pentathlon included five events: discus, javelin, long jump (three events which only existed as part of the pentathlon), running and wrestling. Athletes are doing some of these on this pot. The modern pentathlon has the five events of horseriding, fencing, shooting, swimming and cross-country running.
There was only the long jump, not the high jump, in Greek athletics. You can see that the athlete in the picture is holding heavy lead or stone jumping weights called halteres. These were swung to increase the length of the jump. You can also see three pegs in the ground which mark the previous jumps.
The longest race at the ancient Olympics was the foot race called dolichos which was about 5 kilometres. The shortest was the fast sprint, the stade, which was about 192 metres long. For the first 50 years of the Olympic games it was the only event. In the picture you can see a man sprinting.
Wrestling and boxing
The two naked fighters shown on this cup are taking part in the pankration, a type of wrestling match in which nearly anything was allowed, including kicking and trying to strangle your opponent. There are also some boxers on the left – one with cuts on his face. Boxing was even more violent than the pankration.
This is the Discobolos, a beautiful statue of a discus-thrower. When the statue was found the head was broken off. The person who repaired the statue, before it was brought to the Museum, joined the head on facing the wrong way. Discus throwers look towards the discus, not away from it.
One unusual event involved a team of horseback riders galloping a relay race at night carrying a flaming torch. The picture shows a winning torch-race team approaching a goddess. To mark the start of the modern Games a relay of runners carry a lit torch (called the Olympic Flame) from Olympia itself to the site of the Games.
The chariot races were perhaps the most exciting of all the events at Olympia. Chariot driving was very dangerous. Drivers were risking their lives as the chariot could crash at high speed. There were races for four-horse chariots and two-horse chariots. On the front of this coin you can see a man driving a four-horse racing chariot.
In ancient Olympia there was a race for carts drawn by a team of two mules. However, this sport was included for only fourteen Olympic games. This is a coin made to celebrate a victory in the race. You can see the high seat which all mule-carts had.
Running in armour
The race in armour, called the hoplitodromia, reminded all Greeks that one of the main purposes of athletics was to prepare them to fight for war. Running in full heavy armour in hot weather can’t have been easy. In the picture the winner has taken off his helmet, while the loser has thrown down his weapons in annoyance. | <urn:uuid:427f0799-462b-452a-8f21-c253e7a0602e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/young_explorers/discover/all_about/sport_in_ancient_greece.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981591 | 636 | 2.953125 | 3 |
OriginOil Announces Breakthrough Innovation to Increase Algae Yield 7
OriginOil Announces Breakthrough Innovation to Increase Algae Yield
Algae Screen technology protects algae from microscopic predators, integrates with Live Extraction
Los Angeles, CA – March 21, 2011 – OriginOil, Inc. (OOIL), the developer of breakthrough technology to transform algae, the most promising source of renewable oil, into a true competitor to petroleum, today announced Algae Screen™, a process that keeps algae healthy and productive by selectively eliminating microscopic predators without the use of chemicals. The technology employs an electromagnetic pulse, similar to what is used to achieve Live Extraction™. OriginOil will offer Algae Screen and Live Extraction in one integrated offering for growers.
“Much of our technology is based on the same underlying science, so it makes sense to create ‘functionality hubs’ to simplify field operations and create more value for producers,” said OriginOil’s CEO, Riggs Eckelberry. “We see much more integration activity as the algae industry matures.”
The company recently filed for patent protection of the new Algae Screen technology, its twelfth patent application, entitled “Enhancing Algae Growth by Reducing Competing Microorganisms in a Growth Medium.”
“All algae are targets for invasion. Oil-rich algae are particularly attractive to rotifers and other microscopic predators,” said Paul Reep, Senior VP of Technology. “Algae Screen will protect an algae culture continuously from microscopic invaders, such as rotifers, bacteria, and ciliates. An additional unique benefit is that it integrates fully with Live Extraction, since it is based on similar technology.”
Microscopic invaders, such as rotifers, reduce the value of the algae crop by metabolizing valuable oil and biomass. Additionally, invasions can choke off algae growth and reduce the percentage of daily harvest. The problem exists in all types of growth systems, but most acutely in open ponds.
Algae Screen targets invaders with calibrated pulses of low-power electromagnetic energy that leave the algae safe. The pulsing and power levels are adjustable for different algae types and environmental conditions such as water hardness and salinity. Together with Live Extraction, Algae Screen offers a safe and easily manageable resource for algae health and continuous harvesting. | <urn:uuid:39376990-ac38-4ac5-a199-d87729056ca1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.oilgae.com/club/users/tomcatino/blogs/1156 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.921371 | 485 | 1.71875 | 2 |
|Ten generations have passed since the time of Noach. Man has descended to lower spiritual depths. In the year 1948 after the Creation, Avram is born. Through observing the world, Avram comes to the inescapable Truth of HaShem's existence, and thus merits that HaShem reveals Himself to him. At the beginning of this week's Parashah, HaShem tells Avram to leave his land, his relatives and his father's house and travel to an unknown land where HaShem will make him into a great nation. Avram leaves, taking with him his wife Sarahy, his nephew Lot, their servants, and those who he converted to faith in HaShem.|
When they reach the land of Canaan, HaShem appears to Avram and tells him that this is the land that He will give to his descendants. A famine ensues and Avram is forced to relocate to Egypt to find food. Realising that his wife's beauty would cause his death at the hand of the Egyptians, Avram tells her to say that she is his sister. Sarahy is taken to the Pharaoh, but HaShem afflicts the Pharaoh and his court with severe plagues and she is released unmolested.
Avram returns to Erets Yisrael (Canaan) with much wealth given to him by the Egyptians. After a quarrel over grazing rights breaks out between their shepherds, Lot decides to part ways with his uncle Avram. Lot chooses to live in the rich but corrupt city of Sedom in the fertile plain of the Jordan. A war breaks out between the kings of the region, and Sedom is defeated. Lot is taken captive. Together with a handful of his converts, Avram rescues Lot, miraculously overpowering vastly superior forces, but demurs from accepting any of the spoils of the battle. In a prophetic covenant, HaShem reveals to Avram that his offspring will be exiled to a strange land where they will be oppressed for 400 years, after which they will emerge with great wealth and return to Erets Yisrael, their irrevocable inheritance.
Sarahy is barren and gives Hagar, her Egyptian hand-maiden, to Avram in the hope that she will provide them with a child. Hagar becomes arrogant when she discovers that she is pregnant. Sarahy deals harshly with her, and Hagar flees. On the instruction of an angel Hagar returns to Avram and gives birth to Yishmael. The Parashah concludes with HaShem commanding Avram to circumcise himself and his offspring throughout the generations as a covenant between HaShem and his seed. HaShem changes Avram's name to Avraham, and Sarah's name to Sarah. HaShem promises Avraham a son, Yitschak, despite Avraham being ninety-nine years old and Sarah ninety. On that day, Avraham circumcises himself, Yishmael and all his household. | <urn:uuid:eaf0139a-77ee-4829-8dd2-7cfc39e89942> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bible.ort.org/books/divreid2.asp?action=displaypage&book=1&portion=3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979214 | 614 | 2.75 | 3 |
Many different factors contribute to the difficulty of a particular holiday, including the daily walking distance, the terrain, the altitude and weather conditions. Since some of these factors can change, our grades can only provide a general indication. We have tried to make our grading system as clear as possible.
Each of our adventure holidays is graded on a scale of 1 to 12, with 12 being the most challenging. These grades are divided into YELLOW, GREEN, BLUE and RED sectors on the grade symbol and described here. In addition to reading this information and the individual holiday description, it is very important that before booking any holiday you should read the appropriate holiday dossier. If you have any questions about the nature of a particular itinerary or its suitability for you, please contact the KE office.
Suitable for most people in good health, holidays at this grade include only limited amounts of activity. Any elements of walking are predominantly on good paths. | <urn:uuid:4f71f1f3-42f0-449b-bb89-ce27a951fe99> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.keadventure.com/module/acms_grading?showTripGrade=1&ActivityId=011&GradeLevel=3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952762 | 190 | 1.765625 | 2 |
People who eat a lot of low-fiber and processed foods that quickly spike blood sugars may, not surprisingly, have a significantly higher risk of the most common form of diabetes, according to a new study.
"By raising blood sugar and demanding that the pancreas keep pumping more insulin, meal after meal, day after day, a high-glycemic diet can put people at risk over the edge," said Dr. David Ludwig, who studies obesity at Boston Children's Hospital but was not involved in the work.
The report analyzes 24 studies published since 1997 that tracked what 125,000 adults ate. The new study confirms links prior researchers made between those so-called high-glycemic foods - including white bread and potatoes - and diabetes.
Published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the new report from researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, Oxford University in the UK, and others found that the 125,000 studied adults daily ate an average of 139 grams of sugar or its equivalent.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 8 percent of Americans have diabetes. More than 90 percent of those cases are type 2 diabetes, which prevents the body from properly using or producing the blood sugar-regulating hormone insulin.
The analysis did not pinpoint precisely how many of the 125,000 participants actually developed the disease, but for every additional 100 grams of sugar per 2,000 daily calories, people had a 45 percent higher risk of type 2 diabetes.
"It's easy to get more than 100 grams, especially if you're not being careful to choose the right kinds of foods," research dietician Heidi Silver, of Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, who was not involved in the new study, told Reuters Health.
Low-glycemic foods include fish, meat, high-fiber fruits and vegetables, nuts, cheeses and other dairy products, brown rice and other unrefined grains. The glycemic load is calculated by multiplying the total of carbohydrate grams in a given food by its assigned glycemic index, a number that can be found in online tools.
It's important for the general public to better understand what high-glycemic and low-glycemic mean, researchers said, and how to figure out their glucose intake. A very ripe banana, for example, has far more grams of sugar than one that's still green. Eaten raw, rather than cooked, sweet potatoes have a low glycemic index.
There's a "jungle of information and misinformation out there," clinical dietician Kari Kooi of Methodist Hospital in Houston told Reuters Health.
"For instance, fiber (in prepackaged energy) bars is not the same thing as natural fiber you get in fruits and vegetables," said Kooi, who was not involved in the current study. "That's deceptive to consumers, who also may not realize that just having fiber...doesn't necessarily mean the same thing as being low-glycemic."
© 2013 Thomson/Reuters. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:bf0e0656-fc0d-42ec-81fe-2bb89f3cedc5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newsmaxhealth.com/Health-News/high-glycemic-foods-diabetes-processed-foods/2013/02/15/id/490545 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959299 | 619 | 3.1875 | 3 |
|Soy-based engine oil does not readily boil off and resists heat degradation. In tests, it caused a significant drop in hazardous air emissions, compared with petroleum-based oil.|
The 2002 Farm Bill signed by President Bush encourages the use of biobased products, including those made from soybeans. Soybean-based fluids offer numerous environmental benefits. For example, they are biodegradable, low in toxicity, and can be added to or replacements for metalworking and hydraulic fluids. Formulated to provide the same functions of any standard petroleum-based metalworking fluid, soy-based fluids lubricate and cool cutting tools. They flush small metal chips away, providing more accurate machining. Also, some data suggest that engine emissions are lowered when using soy-based oils.
The Farm Bill establishes a new program for the purchase of biobased products by Federal agencies. The guidelines will designate items that are biobased or can be produced with biobased products. They will also provide information on availability, relative price, performance, and environmental and public health benefits of biobased products. This should increase the use of biobased products where applicable, including lubricant markets.
Although performance limitations create a barrier for soybean oil to be used in all lubricants, there have been successful developments of soy-based lubricants for niche uses. These include commercial rail, flange and switch lubricants, wire rope lubricants and top-of-rail lubricants, as well as two-cycle engine oils, for use in both water- and air-cooled engines. All are gaining acceptance as viable alternatives.
"Finding targeted markets in which performance, economics and the environment are primary drivers of commercialization is where soy-based lubricants will have the most success," says David Smith, commercialization manager at Omni Tech International, a Michigan-based consultant to the chemical and biobased products industries. "Current research is focusing on resolving performance issues and making the modifications necessary to increase stability of soybean lubricants."
Increasing the viability of soy-based lubricants requires addressing the performance limitations of soybean oil. USB is researching ways to modify the oil traits of soybeans through a project called the Better Bean Initiative. This is a coordinated effort with university and government researchers and the soybean industry to accelerate the development of soybean seed with enhanced compositional traits. Currently, soybean oil has limitations in thermal, oxidative and hydrolytic stability, as well as low-temperature flow characteristics.
USB is also sponsoring work for nontransgenic modification to produce a more stable soybean oil. This involves using genes from wild and commercial soy varieties to develop a new variety with superior oil traits. Other ways for modifying soybean oil include chemical or mechanical processing or the use of chemical additives. Currently, chemical additives offer the most rapid and cost-effective way to improve stability.
Soy-based metalworking fluids can perform as well as or better than standard petroleum-based fluids in metalworking operations. Several formulations have even shown better machining characteristics when used on steel and aluminum. Others are so effective that the same benefits can be found by using only half of the volume expected.
By fully or partially replacing petroleum with soybean oil, biodegradability is increased, toxicity is reduced and the level of volatile organic compounds is lowered. In addition, soy-based metalworking fluids provide a high flash point, easy disposability, soap-and-water clean up and no offensive odor.
Soy-based hydraulic fluids offer many of the same benefits, and are manufactured by several companies. These include Terresolve Technologies and Renewable Lubricants, Inc., both based in Ohio.
Terresolve offers three lines of soy-based hydraulic fluids, all of which are biodegradable and non-hazardous, making them useful in applications where leakage or spillage causes environmental damage. This helps reduce insurance costs and reduces the disposal fees commonly associated with petroleum-based hydraulic fluids. These products can be used in any conventional hydraulic system, without modification.
Renewable Lubricants has also developed three lines of hydraulic fluids. Its Bio-Hydraulic Oil line is biodegradable and formulated to perform in hydraulic systems that require anti-wear, rust and oxidation properties. The company's Renew-Hydraulic Fluid line combines vegetable-base oil and renewable re-refined mineral base oil to improve the performance of both. It has patented its anti-oxidant/anti-wear technology as Stabilized High Oleic Base Stocks. This technology boosts the high-temperature stability of the formula and increases load capacity. All of these formulations meet OEM specifications.
A vegetable-based engine oil that contains soybean oil has also been created. AgroManagement Group (AMG) of Colorado has tested its product to investigate the efficiency of emission reduction. The soybean/vegetable-oil blend features a molecular structure that doesn't readily boil off and resists heat degradation. Tests indicate that it also caused a significant drop in hydrocarbon, carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxide emissions, compared with traditional petroleum-based engine oil.
As more companies work to comply with the mandate of the Farm Bill, the use of renewable resource, plant-based, non-toxic and readily biodegradable products is expected to increase dramatically. For more information about industrial uses for soybean-based products, visit www.unitedsoybean.org. | <urn:uuid:ca401ceb-bf84-4e7e-b40e-2a4a832e8e44> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.impomag.com/articles/2003/10/soy-based-lubricants-ready-industrial-role?qt-most_popular=0&qt-digital_editions=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945287 | 1,116 | 2.828125 | 3 |
opening of a technology company in Nablus. (MaanImages/Rami Swidan, File)
As many as eight news outlets have been rendered unavailable to many Internet users in the West Bank, after technicians at the Palestinian Telecommunications Company, or PalTel, tweaked an open source software called Squid to return error pages, a detailed technical analysis indicates. Several small companies are using a similar setup.
The decision this year to begin blocking websites marks a major expansion of the government’s online powers. Experts say it is the biggest shift toward routine Internet censorship in the Palestinian Authority’s history. Aside from one incident in 2008, Palestinians have generally been free to read whatever they wanted.
“This is unprecedented for them,” says Jillian York, director for international freedom of expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a US digital rights group. “It is troubling because they had done a relatively good job at keeping the Internet open until now.”
The affected websites are Amad, Fatah Voice, Firas Press, In Light Press, Karama Press, Kofia Press, Milad News and Palestine Beituna. With their focus on internal Fatah issues, none are among the most popular outlets in Palestine. But they all report on daily news.
Many of the sites have been described as loyal to Muhammad Dahlan, a former Fatah leader and critic of Abbas. A feud between them took on new urgency last summer, when Fatah sought to expel the former strongman and security forces raided his home. As far back as June 2011, the Palestinian Authority was complaining about its inability to shut down alleged Dahlan media based abroad, the al-Hayat newspaper reported at the time. Four of those sites are now being blocked.
Several Palestinian officials have expressed reservations about the decision, calling it embarrassing and counterproductive. One of them, a member of Salam Fayyad’s cabinet, agreed to speak on the record for this story. Other officials who spoke to Ma’an in recent weeks were not authorized by the Palestinian Authority or PalTel to discuss either the blocking decision or the technology being used to enforce it.
Officials familiar with the order say it came from Ahmad al-Mughni, the Palestinian attorney general. They say he delivered it in person to the CEO of at least one of the service providers being forced to prevent access. Al-Mughni dismissed these claims and refused to take questions from Ma’an.
“I am not the court,” he said Tuesday without elaborating.
According to a Palestinian official with first-hand knowledge of the decision, the attorney general was acting on instructions from higher up in the government — either from the president’s office or an intelligence director. Still, there is no indication a judge approved any element of the censorship program, suggesting al-Mughni issued the decree under his own perceived authority, the official said.
Other Palestinian officials more readily pointed a finger at al-Mughni.
“The attorney general is responsible,” communications minister Mashour Abu Daka told Ma’an. He said al-Mughni submitted the order to PalTel over his objections and despite concerns it could be illegal. There is no Palestinian law that permits Web censorship and the attorney general knows it, Abu Daka charged.
“He made up his own laws to justify what was solely his decision,” the minister said. “Blocking websites is against the public interest. I oppose it without exception.”
‘Not going to jail’
The attorney general is already facing criticism from journalists and human rights groups for ordering the arrest in March of a newspaper reporter accused of defaming the foreign minister. He also signed off on the recent arrests of two bloggers after they criticized Abbas on Facebook. Palestinian journalists have held a number of demonstrations protesting the clampdown.
By contrast, the blocking has gone largely unnoticed. Mada, a press freedom group, raised the issue of Milad and Amad, while US blogger “Challah Hu Akbar” reported extensively about In Light Press, but many Palestinians remain unaware the Internet is censored. This is partly because providers have not acknowledged their cooperation nor have subscribers been told any websites are off limits.
Even at private Internet companies, employees fear losing their jobs or worse if they discuss the program. “Sorry, but I’m not going to jail,” said one PalTel technician when asked for a list of the websites.
PalTel representatives refused to answer basic questions such as when they received the order or who signed it, but extensive testing shows its Internet provider Hadara has blocked as many as eight websites at a time. A PalTel spokeswoman said in an email that “we only implement government decisions and we do not get involved in the decisions they make as long as they are backed by the existing laws.”
The testing was conducted over four weeks by Ma’an and the Open Observatory of Network Interference, a new project by Web security experts Arturo Filasto and Jacob Appelbaum to track censorship around the world. Using a tool called an OONI probe, they scanned 1.1 million websites for a specific type of blocking.
“The technique being used to restrict access is a transparent HTTP proxy,” Filasto said, meaning a company intercepts attempts to reach blocked websites and returns a different page. Testing a connection in Bethlehem demonstrated that Hadara was blocking access to eight websites, while others blocked between four and six. A few of the sites are also blocked in Gaza, Internet users there said.
The method being employed by Hadara is relatively basic, Filasto said. Experts who have analyzed the data say the company configured an open-source software called Squid to detect the blocked sites and redirect users. Squid was originally developed with funding from two US government agencies, but neither one has any control over its distribution today. Syria and Lebanon also use it for Web blocking, according to experts.
Squid’s West Bank debut indicates that while the Palestinian Authority may be more determined than before to censor the Internet, it is less willing to spend much time or money doing it, experts said. The software is free and easy to alter for censorship.
“It’s a pretty common approach,” says Danny O’Brien, Internet advocacy director at the Committee to Protect Journalists, a US press freedom group. “Instructing ISPs to block a few websites can be so tempting, and it’s usually how a government’s Web censorship program begins,” O’Brien says.
“The big problem is no one willingly hands over the list. It would provide a map of places the government doesn’t want to you to see. When you can’t see the list, there’s no accountability from the public.”
The new program’s timing may also embarrass the Palestinian Authority’s financial backers in the United States and European Union, both of which are considering legislation to curb the export of Western technologies used to censor political speech in the Middle East.
In Washington, a spokeswoman said the State Department was “concerned about any reports regarding the use of technologies to restrict access to information. The United States advocates Internet freedom.”
She pointed to a December 2011 speech in which US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pushed for stronger efforts on behalf of those “who are blocked from accessing entire categories of Internet content.” | <urn:uuid:fbad4d78-2252-4a72-9acd-570b0d4c55f2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.shoah.org.uk/2012/04/25/palestinian-media-clampdown-spreads-to-the-web/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955367 | 1,552 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Animals In Print
The On-Line Newsletter
From 11 January 2004 Issue
TEN COMMANDMENTS OF ANIMAL GUARDIANSHIP
1. When you adopt me, remember that my life is likely to last 15 to 20 years. Please don't forsake me, any separation from you is painful.
2. Please give me time to understand what it is you want from me. Change can be more difficult for me than for you.
3. Please don't be angry with me for a long time, and don't lock me up alone as punishment. You have your human family, your friends, your entertainment and I ONLY HAVE YOU!!!
4. Please trust me and help me to trust you . . . it is crucial for mine as well as your well being.
5. Talk to me . . . even if you think I don't understand your words I understand your voice and love it when you speak to me and stroke me.
6. Before you hit me remember that I have teeth and claws and could easily hurt you but I choose not to bite and scratch you because I love you..
7. Be aware, that however you treat me, I WILL NEVER FORGET!!!
8. Before you scold me for being uncooperative or bad, ask yourself if maybe something is wrong and there is another reason for my behavior. Perhaps I am sick, hot, old or just plain tired, frustrated and weak. PLEASE TRY TO UNDERSTAND WHAT IT IS LIKE TO BE ME AND PUT YOURSELF IN MY PLACE.
9. Please take care of me when I get old and don't abandon me, for you too will grow old. Please notice when I am ill because I need you to take me to the vet for help when I am ill just as you need to see a doctor.
10. Go with me on the most difficult journeys. Never say, "I can't bear to watch" or "Do it when I leave" because I need you with me even at the end of my journeys. Please always do what is best for me even if it is unbearable for you to do so because I love you and trust that you will.
Donations needed, information at website
Return to Animals in Print 11 January 2004 Issue
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[Illustration: “A LITTLE CHEQUE.” (MR. IRVING AS “DIGBY GRANT” IN “TWO ROSES.")]
Judged by this test, I have no hesitation in regarding Mr. Irving’s King Lear as the finest creation of his genius. This is an instance in which the actor creates the piece. Shakespeare is, as a poet and playwright, at his worst in “King Lear.” Yet his accessories are wonderful in variety and suggestiveness. Only Shakespeare could have created the heath, and have so ordered the old King’s passion, as to make his madness part of the very thunder and lightning. That was Shakespeare’s magnificent conception, and Mr. Irving’s rendering is worthy of its tempestuous grandeur. How to talk up to the storm, how to pierce the tumult with the cries of human distress, how to escape the ridiculous and the incongruous, how to be a King on the desolate heath, and to make the royalty gleam through the angry darkness, were the problems, and Mr. Irving solved them one and all, even with redundance of faculty and skill. At the end of the heath scene the man is more remembered than the storm. It has been objected that in the first scene Mr. Irving’s Lear is too old and feeble. I venture to think otherwise. I further venture to think that the King’s age and the King’s imbecility have both been accurately appreciated. A man at eighty, a man athirst for flattery, a man who would pay a kingdom in exchange for adulation, must have outlived all that is best and strongest in human nature. He comes upon the stage as a wreck. His vanity has eaten up his sagacity, so that she, Goneril or Regan, who can flatter most, can lie most, and can play the devil best, shall fare most lavishly at his hands. Is it not well partly to excuse these excesses of self-valuation by such mitigations as can be found in the infirmity of old age? Even in an elderly man they would have been treated with contempt; they could only be endured in one whose eighty years had been doubled by the hardness of his life lot. | <urn:uuid:c49b9c12-b12d-46d6-b6c4-67080747e729> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bookrags.com/ebooks/12223/53.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983823 | 489 | 2.171875 | 2 |