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Fairly good weather for football had drawn a crowd of 1949 to Germanen-Arena
. Stephan von der Goltz
was the appointed referee with assistance provided by Frank Sonck
and Felix Riemhofer
A 2-5-3 alignment was the formation of choice for Walsrode.
They fielded: Roberg - Pan, Borzych - Eckelmann, Petershausen, Lippenberger, Weichselbraun, Darwin - Drögenvorwerk, Trudolyubov, Krichbaum.
Corazon decided to use a 3-5-2 set up.
Lineup: Dima - Romero, Erkelens, Ratte - Wäänänen, Vilkuna, Zebedeo, Bittner, Basse - Maier, Rovati.
Corazon were mostly trying to use their skill at attacking on the flanks.
Walsrode's M. Eckelmann
tried to break through in the middle repeatedly, but couldn't get past the visitors' defenders.
The counterattacks of Corazon were deadly and 9 minutes into the game, C. Maier
received a nice pass from the right flank, making it 0 - 1.
A wonderful trick by V. Darwin
that left S. Erkelens
bewildered really deserved to end in a goal but the keeper made a fine save.
Attacking on the wings was the choice for Corazon, and they were successfully passing the ball from the middle to the wings to attack.
increased the visitors' lead by putting a volley away after a pass from the right. 0 - 2.
By now, the players in Corazon felt that victory was guaranteed and began to play it safe, focusing on defence and not risking too much going forward.
Corazon's C. Ratte
made it through the home team's defence on the right hand side 37 minutes into the match. After rounding the keeper, he only had to place the ball in the unguarded goal when a defender slid in and cleared the ball off the line.
The opposing supporters gave the referee an earful when he only gave O. Drögenvorwerk
from Walsrode a yellow card after a mistimed challenge from behind 40 minutes into the game. That was far too lenient!
A misunderstanding between the visitors' keeper G. Dima
and his left defence could have resulted in a goal for Walsrode, but V. Trudolyubov
's finish was way too lame.
Walsrode reduced the lead to 1 - 2 with 43 minutes on the clock when O. Krichbaum
got the best of a ball floated in from the left.
With 44 minutes having been played, Walsrode scored to make it 2 - 2. A dribble down the left wing, followed by a shot which took a wicked bounce off a defender resulted in the keeper having no chance. Everyone thought it'd been an own goal, but W. Pan
was marked down as the scorer.
2 - 2 was the halftime score.
Walsrode enjoyed most of the ball, as they maintained 56 percent of possession.
caused the crowd to go mental with his goal up the middle after 55 minutes. This gave Walsrode the 3 - 2 lead.
Cheers filled the stadium as V. Trudolyubov
broke through the visitors' central defence to put away the ball to increase the lead to 4 - 2 to Walsrode.
Confident in their lead, Walsrode's players relaxed and focused more on defending the lead than increasing it.
Possession in the forty-five minutes was dominated by Walsrode, with 57 percent of the ball.
performed admirably for Walsrode.
was a disappointment, however.
The most dominating Corazon player was without a doubt A. Basse
turned in a dismal performance, however.
The match ends 4 - 2. | <urn:uuid:81698940-8e41-4bec-987a-0c6d00745e88> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hattrick.org/Club/Matches/Match.aspx?matchID=394351608&SourceSystem=Hattrick&TeamId=501532&UpdateViewedReport=False&BrowseIds=394351608,394170952,390897505,390897501,390897500,390897496,393259796,390897492,393076989,390897481 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964872 | 843 | 1.640625 | 2 |
On January 1, 2013, the Senate and the House of Representatives passed the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 (“ATRA”), averting the so-called “fiscal cliff.” The legislation, which was signed by President Obama, extends numerous energy-efficiency and renewable energy deductions and credits, including the “production tax credit” (the “PTC”) under Section 45 of the Internal Revenue Code (the “Code”) for wind power and other forms of non-solar renewable energy.
PRODUCTION TAX CREDIT EXTENSION -
The PTC, which is determined based on the amount of electricity sold to an unrelated taxpayer which is produced at a qualified renewable energy facility over a 10-year period beginning on the date the facility is placed in service, allows owners of the qualified facilities to offset federal income taxes with the credits generated from the sale of this electricity. ATRA extends the PTC for wind and other non-solar renewable energy sources for an additional year. Importantly, ATRA treats a facility as an eligible facility with respect to which the owner has “begun construction” prior to January 1, 2014.
Please see full alert below for more information.
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© Morrison & Foerster LLP | Attorney Advertising | <urn:uuid:ca703e36-c35a-4456-bf19-81102b42d948> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/american-taxpayer-relief-act-of-2012-ex-61914/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.921107 | 443 | 2.171875 | 2 |
The original ruins, complete with stone doorway and windows, were preserved and repurposed. Since the ruins were lacking a roof, Organica was inspired to use the space as an enclosed outdoor area. Protective security grates were placed over the open windows, and a swinging gate for the door was added to create an elegant and historic stone entranceway with a rustic open air foyer area.
The architects designed the façade to have floor-to-ceiling windows that flood the interior with light. The windows not only give the residents a view of the beautiful ruins, but they also reflect them on the exterior.
The two level home extends around the ruins, with a garage flanked to the right. The main floor of the home houses an open living room, kitchen and small studio area that overlooks the ruins. The second floor is more private, housing two bedrooms. The master bedroom, located at the front of the home, makes use of the glass façade, facing the top of the beautiful ruins, and extending above to catch a glimpse of the surrounding landscape.
Casa Cabrela fuses the new with the old, creating a modern residence with vantage points to admire the history of Sintra’s ruins.
Via Arch Daily
Images ©FG + SG Photography | <urn:uuid:f3f1a664-0198-44bb-b964-fd786b0fa322> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://inhabitat.com/casa-cabrela-is-a-spectacular-modern-structure-surrounding-beautiful-stone-ruins/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961839 | 264 | 1.710938 | 2 |
The California Apartment Association (CAA) is the nation’s largest statewide trade association representing owners, investors, developers, managers and suppliers of apartment communities. Since 1941, CAA has been dedicated to protecting its members’ investments through political advocacy in the halls of state and local government, assisting them to comply with new laws and regulations through knowledge and information and educating members on emerging trends, legal issues, risk management and best business practices. California’s most successful property management companies, developers, real estate investment trusts, and thousands of individual independent apartment owners belong to CAA. With more than 17,000 members, representing more than 50,000 owners and industry professionals, CAA is the most respected voice of the multi-family industry in the state.
We represent the ethical members of the rental housing industry in all aspects of government affairs within the State of California and we provide information, products and services which contribute to the success of their businesses.
We, the members of the California Apartment Association, recognize our ethical duties to the communities of which we are a part. Being ever mindful of the increasing role of the rental housing industry in providing homes, we have united ourselves for the purpose of improving the services and conditions of the rental housing industry. Therefore we adopt this Code of Ethics as our guide in dealing with all people and encourage all members of the rental housing industry to abide by these ethical principles.
We, the members of the California Apartment Association, support the spirit and intent of all local, state, and federal fair housing laws for all residents without regard to color, race, religion, sex, marital status, mental or physical disability, age, familial status, sexual orientation, or national origin.
We believe that equal opportunity can best be accomplished through effective leadership, education, and the mutual cooperation of owners, managers, and the public.
Therefore, as members of the California Apartment Association, we agree to abide by the following provisions of this Code for Equal Housing Opportunity:
Download the CAA Code of Ethics, CAA Code for Equal Housing Opportunity and the Resident Bill of Rights.
1943 - Incorporated by 10 property owners as California Apartment Conference
1945 - Began conducting Education Conferences throughout the State
1980 - Adopts Code of Equal Housing Opportunity
1981 - Adopts Code of Ethics
1990 - Hires First Full Time lobbyist employee
1993 - Creates Legal Action Fund
1994 - Hires additional lobby staff
1995 - In conjunction with CHC, REALTORS and Builders successfully passes Costa-Hawkins to limit local rent control
1998 - CAA begins information center with background papers and issue insights
2001 - CAA Website launched
2007 - CAA Hires Political Director
2009 - CAA Legal Fund wins rent control challenge in Santa Cruz
2009 - CAA creates Rental Housing Against Higher Taxes to battle split roll
2010 - CAA Website redesigned | <urn:uuid:4cc8f720-1dca-4df2-b2a8-aabc604d04a3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.caanet.org/About_CAA.aspx | 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 | 0.919768 | 594 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Posted 19 August 2011 - 02:59 PM
I've searched the forums and the library, and have not found an answer to the simple question: how do turn on the coordinates function?
Thank you in advance.
You can type "/loc" to get your local coordinates, "/locall" to get full coordinates (most of this won't even mean much to you), or you can open up the map with 'M' and look at the top to see your coordinates under where it says "Your Location".
0 user(s) are reading this topic
0 members, 0 guests, 0 anonymous users | <urn:uuid:3553f107-be61-4e25-8286-9d2fb9544048> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.alganon.com/forums/index.php?/topic/5503-co-ordinates/?p=46961 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919147 | 125 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Ashfield, Port Albert, Goderich Main, Goderich St. Christopher, Goderich Rotary Cove, Houston Heights and Hay Township beach all exceed the provincial standard in water samples taken Thursday by the Huron County’s health unit taken, according to its beach water quality information line. But beaches remain open.
Since the conditions can change in a short timeframe, depending on such things as rainfall, air temperature and wind, the health unit has posted permanent signs to help swimmers make informed decisions.
“We don’t close beaches. We’re just advising swimmers to take a look at our notice boards and take precautions,” said Christina Taylor, who is a public health manager at the Huron County Health Unit.
In particular, swimmers should be aware that the risk of infection is higher when the water is cloudy or if it’s rained in the past 24 to 48 hours.
E. coli bacteria are present in the sand where the water washes ashore. Parents of children who play at the water’s edge are advised to ensure small hands are washed before snacks or meals. | <urn:uuid:f8694873-8778-4211-9115-afcbc9d89099> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://huron.bulletnewscanada.ca/2012/08/03/seven-lake-huron-beaches-report-high-bacteria-levels-but-open-to-swimmers/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.911507 | 235 | 2.015625 | 2 |
Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also episcopal
Episcopal (not comparable)
- Of or relating to the affairs of an Anglican church, such as the Scottish Episcopal Church or the Episcopal Church in the United States.
Episcopal (plural Episcopals)
- (informal) An adherent of an Anglican church, such as the Scottish Episcopal Church or the Episcopal Church in the United States; properly, an Episcopalian.
Usage notes
- The term Episcopal may be used when referring to an Anglican Episcopal Church, as in There was a small Episcopal church at the end of the lane, or He had been an Episcopal priest for twenty years, but one often hears Episcopalian instead.
- Similarly, Episcopalian refers to an individual member of the church, but one may hear Episcopal instead. | <urn:uuid:f0ceeb2c-cfd2-440b-bf61-a447e7666733> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Episcopal | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938295 | 180 | 2.609375 | 3 |
After having released,
- and 'LEGO Technic Tora no Maki' (a PDF online available book)
Isogawa Yoshihito published now, three new books to complement his collection of books. These illustrate many building techniques and examples of TECHNIC solutions, mechanisms, etc... that you may need to use at your own creations.
The original name in Japanese is "burotsuku de tsukuru kikai no hon" which translates into "How to build machines with bricks".
These are based on the PDF book "Tora no Maki", but got more examples with LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT motors and explanations were added to the previous edition with images only (although in Japanese).
The new books are,
You may find here, the several books contents in English and order them through this website.
Most of the images are self explanatory, so you don't need to care about the Japanese characters...
For a a larger review on these books, please refer to the original post at 'The NXT STEP" from Jim Kelly. | <urn:uuid:7bf2554b-1573-4326-823e-c827618ae780> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.technicbricks.com/2008/08/new-isogawa-lego-technic-books.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953114 | 223 | 2.34375 | 2 |
It isn't "caused by" climate change, it is climate change. Climate change is defined as a significant pattertn of change in natural climate events; this is a significant pattern of change in natural climate events, trending upward. Yes, it is the product of natural processes, but the results are more extreme than what was expected, and this has been the case in multiple instances. Ergo, climate has changed. You can argue that it's slight, but it's still climate change.
But the point remains that this isn't caused by climate change, it's just a regular monsoonal trough or somesuch science-talk.
It's also something we're wary of (and justifiably so), given what we know about the chemicals that we leak into the atmosphere and their potential effects on the environment. No scientist worth his ass will tell you that climate change is marked by a sudden and drastic shift in weather patterns overnight; this is exactly what we would expect to see if in fact the climate were changing, and so it's considered a noteworthy event for meteorologists and geologists.
Once in a great while it gets hotter than it's ever been since people started writing down the exact temperatures. That's normal.
For all the things that I never did
For all the places I never was
For all the people I never stopped
But there was nothing I could do..." | <urn:uuid:f3d643e4-63f3-41ae-b649-a42ed6e061cd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://offspring.com/community/showthread.php?48800-Austrialin-heat-wave&p=1492322 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980316 | 286 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Attempting to stop a band of young Blackfoot Indians from stealing his horses, Meriwether Lewis shoots an Indian in the stomach.
The voyage of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to explore the West began in May 1804 when the two captains and 27 men headed up the Missouri River. They reached the Pacific Ocean the following year, and on March 23, 1806, began the return journey. After crossing the worst section of the Rocky Mountains, the expedition split up. Clark took most of the men and explored the Yellowstone River country to the south. Lewis, with nine men, headed west to the Great Falls of the Missouri River where he split the small party still further. Six men remained behind to make the portage around the Great Falls. Lewis took the remaining three and headed north to explore the Marias River country of present-day northwestern Montana.
It was a risky, perhaps even irresponsible, decision. Lewis knew the Marias River country was the home of the Blackfoot Indians, one of the fiercest tribes of the Great Plains. Lewis hoped he could meet peacefully with the Blackfoot and encourage their cooperation with the United States. Yet, if they met a hostile Blackfoot band and a fight began, the four explorers would be badly outnumbered.
On July 26, Lewis encountered a party of eight young Blackfoot braves. At first, the meeting went well, and the Indians seemed pleased with Lewis' gifts of a medal, flag, and handkerchief. Lulled into a false sense of security, Lewis invited the Indians to camp with them. In the early morning of this day in 1806, Lewis awoke to the shouts of one his men--the Indians were attempting to steal their rifles and horses.
Lewis sped after two Indians who were running off with several of the horses, calling out for them to stop or he would shoot. One Indian, armed with an old British musket, turned toward Lewis. Apparently fearing that thee Indian was about to shoot, Lewis fired first and hit him in the stomach. The Indians retreated, and the men quickly gathered their horses. Lewis then learned that one of his men had also fatally stabbed another of the Blackfoot.
Fearing the survivors would soon return with reinforcements, Lewis and his men immediately broke camp. They rode south quickly and managed to escape any retribution from the Blackfoot. Lewis' diplomatic mission, however, had turned into a debacle. By killing at least one Indian, and probably two, Lewis had guaranteed that the already hostile Blackfoot would be unlikely to deal peacefully with Americans in the future. | <urn:uuid:c3b273d7-5919-47fd-9e0c-fb0078698dec> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/meriwether-lewis-shoots-blackfoot-indian?catId=11 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978303 | 523 | 3.4375 | 3 |
BMA launches complaints survey
12 November 2012
With complaints made against doctors up by a quarter in 2011, the BMA is launching a survey to increase understanding of the process and how it affects clinicians and the care they provide.
Have you ever had a complaint made against you or been in dispute with colleagues or management? How did it make you feel? Has it affected your medical practice or personal life ever since?
The latest statistics from the GMC suggest doctors are increasingly likely to face complaints. In 2011, 8,781 complaints about doctors were made to the GMC — a 23 per cent rise from the 7,153 made in 2010.
And that’s just the number of complaints made to the regulator. Many more are likely to have been made and resolved through local or national processes.
The GMC has pointed out that the rise in complaints does not mean that medical standards are falling. Few of the complaints it received resulted in doctors being erased from the medical register.
But the impact on a doctor against whom even a minor complaint is made can be huge and is not well understood. It is for this reason that the BMA will email the majority of its members next week, inviting them to take part in a confidential survey about the healthcare complaints processes.
Doctors will be asked about any complaints made against them from whatever source, their views on the fairness or otherwise of the process they went through as a result, and the impact the experience had on them.
Even doctors who have never been subject to complaints are urged to respond, as there is evidence that fear of complaints can affect doctors’ well-being and attitude to work.
BMA Doctors for Doctors Unit head Michael Peters says: ‘Doctors are often terrified about complaints. If a doctor has a complaint made against them, it goes into their psyche. It is not like being an accountant who slips up; it can mean the destruction of a whole person. That is how the doctor perceives it.
‘Complaints affect all doctors in one way or another, even if they have never had one made against them.’
The study is being organised by the Doctors for Doctors Unit, King’s College London and Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust.
Imperial’s Professor Tom Bourne says: ‘The feeling is that people are usually exceptionally worried about complaints and how they might impact on their careers, and this may or may not be justified.
‘This survey is the best chance doctors have had to give their views on this system — how it functions, and the impact it has had on them, their colleagues and patients.
‘The complaints system is supposed to protect patients. Yet, if it is resulting in changes to practice, and more defensive medicine, the impact may be counterproductive and lead to a deterioration in the quality of care.’
The team is hoping for a minimum of a 50 per cent response from the 119,000 doctors who will receive the survey invitation.
The survey should take 15 to 20 minutes to complete. It is fully anonymous and the answers cannot be linked back to doctors in any way.
Lead researcher Maria Jalmbrant adds that as far as the team is aware, the survey is one of the first of its kind.
The researchers have an open mind about what the data will show, but they hope the findings will be used to steer future policy. They believe there could be far-reaching consequences.
Dr Peters thinks the results could be used to reshape the complaints processes. He says: ‘We can inform authorities about the impact on doctors in order to make processes more sensitive. It’s not all about the GMC. Some NHS HR departments are not necessarily handling doctors and complaints well. We could sensitise them to the nuances and the potential vulnerabilities of doctors going through complaints.’
Professor Bourne suggests the work could reveal the type of doctor or specialty in which doctors are at particular risk of complaints or conflict. Structures could be put in place in these areas to prevent problems arising and to provide support.
Doctors are notoriously bad at admitting to problems as it is, and Dr Peters says complaints can trigger stress, anxiety, depression and worse.
A 2004 study, Suicide in Doctors: a Psychological Autopsy Study, published in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research details the factors behind the suicides of 38 working doctors in England and Wales. It says 25 doctors had significant problems related to work, although multiple and interrelated problems were often present.
Professor Bourne says: ‘People are worried about putting their hand up [and admitting a problem] if they feel they are depressed, or not coping. It’s not seen as acceptable.
‘But serious depression, anxiety and suicide are not acceptable outcomes of a disciplinary process. Nor is it a good outcome for patients if well trained doctors say “I am not doing that procedure any more” if one minor, isolated problem occurs.
‘That is why we need to understand these issues much better.’
Not about silencing patients
He adds that he has spoken to junior doctors who have received their first complaints. ‘They said it felt like the bottom had dropped out of their world,’ he says.
‘It impacts on their practice, on their time, how they go about their business as a doctor.’
The team emphasise that the work is not about changing the right of patients to complain about their care, or about stopping whistleblowers speaking up appropriately.
However, they say the impact of such process must be proportionate, and if problems with the existing system emerge, the BMA could take the lead on the issue.
Dr Peters says: ‘If we have a sufficient number of responses, we will be in a far stronger position to understand and support doctors, better inform health policy, and improve care for patients.’
The BMA offers the following help and support to all doctors:
- BMA Counselling is staffed by professional telephone counsellors 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Call 08459 200 169
- The Doctor Advisor Service runs alongside BMA Counselling, giving doctors and medical students in distress or difficulty the choice of speaking in confidence to other doctors. Call 08459 200 169, and ask to speak to a doctor adviser
- The Doctor Support Service is for doctors going through GMC fitness-to-practise cases. It offers emotional help from doctor supporters, who can also accompany individuals to GMC hearings. Call (020) 7383 6707 or email firstname.lastname@example.org.
BMA members can also access employment advice via 0300 123 1233. | <urn:uuid:a77ce15c-ef6d-4869-af6a-96e8a5a8da71> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bma.org.uk/news-views-analysis/news/2012/november/bma-launches-complaints-survey | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96497 | 1,375 | 1.570313 | 2 |
In a sub-analysis of data from an earlier trial comparing the ability of three agents used to restore blood flow to patients soon after heart attacks, researchers have found that drugs used to prevent blood coagulation appear to have different effects in heart patients with diabetes. These findings, coupled with an assessment of ease of administration and cost compared to other drugs, has lead researchers to recommend the drug enoxaparin, which is a low-molecular weight heparin, for acute heart attack patients with diabetes.
From Duke University:
Anti-Coagulation Drugs Found To Have Different Effects In Diabetics After Heart Attack
Wednesday, November 20, 2002 | CHICAGO — In a sub-analysis of data from an earlier trial comparing the ability of three agents used to restore blood flow to patients soon after heart attacks, researchers have found that drugs used to prevent blood coagulation appear to have different effects in heart patients with diabetes.
These findings, coupled with an assessment of ease of administration and cost compared to other drugs, leads researchers from Duke University Medical Center to recommend the drug enoxaparin, which is a low-molecular weight heparin, for acute heart attack patients with diabetes.
The Duke team reported the results of its analysis today (Nov. 20, 2002) at the 75th annual scientific session of the American Heart Association.
When heart attack patients are rushed to the emergency room, physicians immediately try to restore blood flow to the heart, usually by giving medications that dissolve clots in the coronary arteries. Since no one drug has been totally effective on its own in opening clogged arteries and keeping them open, researchers have tried different combinations of agents.
Thus was born the ASSENT-3 trial, the results of which were published in August 2001 in the journal Lancet. The trial enrolled 6,116 patients and documented the combined rates of death, recurrent heart attack or refractory chest pain. They then used this composite endpoint to measure the effectiveness of three different combinations of drugs.
All patients entered the hospital within six hours of a heart attack and were given varying doses of tenecteplase, a genetically altered version of the well-known clot-buster t-PA, which quickly dissolves the blood clot. Patients were then randomized to receive additional agents intended to keep the vessels clear: the blood-thinner enoxaparin; the blood-thinner unfractionated heparin plus abciximab (an agent that keeps platelets in the blood from clumping); or unfractionated heparin alone.
ASSENT-3 found that both the abciximab and enoxaparin groups reduced the rates of complications due to ischemia after heart attack and that both drugs had very similar death rates. In a sub-analysis of the data, the Duke researchers also sought to determine whether there was any difference in the outcomes of patients enrolled in the trial who had diabetes. In their sub-study, they closely examined the three individual measurements that make up the composite endpoint.
Both abciximab and enoxaparin with tenecteplase were effective in non-diabetics.
“When looking at diabetics, however, treatment with abciximab resulted in more deaths and a trend toward more recurrent heart attacks but less refractory chest pain,” said Karen Pieper, statistician at the Duke Clinical Research Institute. “Treatment with enoxaparin, on the other hand, resulted in somewhat lower risk of death but a trend toward more recurrent heart attacks and similar refractory chest pain.”
When studies have low rates of events — such as death, another heart attack or refractory ischemia — researchers will commonly group all events into what is known as a composite endpoint. When composite endpoints are used, fewer patients need to be enrolled to achieve statistical significance.
“If mortality rates in general for heart attacks are decreasing, as they have been, you need to enroll more patients to show a benefit of therapy,” said Duke cardiologist John Alexander, M.D., senior member of the team. “Alternatively, you can come up with other additional endpoints and combine them in a composite.”
However, interpretation of a drug’s effect on composite endpoints like those used in ASSENT-3 must be made cautiously. For example, while enoxaparin showed better mortality rates than its competitor in patients with diabetes, abciximab appear to better decrease the incidence of refractory chest pain. While it is possible that reducing refractory chest pain will reduce mortality rates down the road, there is no definitive empiric data that supports this theory, Alexander said.
“This analysis shows that enoxaparin appears preferable to abciximab in diabetics because of its overall impact on mortality,” Alexander said. “It is also easier to administer and less expensive than abciximab.”
Both Pieper and Alexander agree that future studies of enoxaparin and its impact on mortality rates in diabetics are needed.
The ASSENT-3 (Assessment of the Safety and Efficacy of a New Thrombolytic Regimen) trial was conducted at 575 centers between May 2000 and April 2001. The study was funded by Boehringer Ingleheim, Germany; Genentech, South San Francisco, Calif.; and Aventis, Bridgewater, N.J. Pieper and Alexander have no financial in the companies. | <urn:uuid:9155bec5-fbef-4d88-beca-7d85301d07c5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://scienceblog.com/408/drugs-found-to-have-different-effects-in-diabetics-after-heart-attack/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946422 | 1,146 | 2.75 | 3 |
There is a bunch of software out there that permit you to duplicate compact disks. In fact most Microsoft computer systems have disc duplication software automatically created in to them. If you were to take a routine movie it would possibly only take about 5 minutes.
The road to achievement with your mlm venture could be convoluted and filled up with challenges if you don’t possess the proper info you need to develop, keep and enhance your company. Even so, the tips and hints in this article will help you gain this knowledge and clean the journey from beginning to end, letting you obtain your enterprise ready to go as well as to achieve your ultimate goal of creating a large and effective group. Look at this info directly.
The increasing demand and the using of computers in differing aspects of normal living lead to increased use. As time passes, devices have to be replaced for items considered much better. These sorts of units never must be just thrown to the waste. These must be correctly disposed using computers recycling in Austin.
It could be better for the person to make some things better than before. It would be fitter for corporations to have a hard drive shredding Austin process done once in a while. Top security companies have observed that forty percent of these attacks are targeting the bigger companies. Most of the time, they are able to make the most out of it.
Computer system individuals were first dealt with to a taste of computer system printer inks and ink cartridges method back in the very early 80′s. Computer system printer inks were viewed as a feasible replacement for those undependable and frequently loud printers which made use of ribbons at that time. Later, brand-new modern technologies that acclaimed “drop-on-demand” ink cartridges were provided to the general public, and this was quickly thoroughly accepted, completely becoming the most commonly-used modern technology for printer ink cartridges.
In recent history the demand for wireless technologies has been growing exponentially, including in the automation industry. There are so very many potential applications in producing that the sheer options can become overpowering. The key has a sound method for wireless applications, realising that some systems benefit from hard-wiring, and that hard-wiring also makes a good ‘back up ‘ plan for when a wireless system goes down.
The present technologies have made communication and living much simpler. Cellular phones have become so common that it simply does not make sense to have none. With cell phones, it is now easy to communicate from virtually everywhere on this planet. Because of this development, a number of problems were also created; the issue of phone stealing has become a serious problem. A way of coping with the issue is using a cellular phone monitor.
The Shreveport home wireless security monitoring devices offer many advantages over their wired counterparts. They include cellular network-based alarm signals, extensive ranges, simple troubleshooting, ease of installation, and affordability. In addition, these devices are powered by batteries, which ensures they continue to function, even during times of power failure.
Many of us still remember going to the grocery store and having the checker type in the cost of each individual package and food item. Today’s checkers have the convenience of using automated bar code readers, which makes the process much faster and more accurate. In addition to the convenience factor, bar codes help improve the efficiency of inventory and help store owners quickly compile statistics about what products sell the best. | <urn:uuid:1ae33eb6-843e-4de3-8f5e-6759904d5e11> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tipfinds.com/computers/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96733 | 698 | 2.171875 | 2 |
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More than 4,000 chemicals are found in tobacco smoke, including at least 60 chemicals that are known to cause cancer, according to the National Cancer Institute. Some of the chemicals in tobacco smoke become cancer causing after they are activated by certain enzymes found in many tissues in the body. These activated chemicals then become part of the DNA in cells and possibly interfere with the normal growth of cells, the agency says.
Martin Health System 200 S.E. Hospital Ave., P.O. Box 9010, Stuart, FL 34995 772.287.5200
Copyright © 2013
Martin Health System
is a not-for-profit, community-based health care organization | <urn:uuid:5e506588-2101-47b7-be94-21124976c592> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.martinhealth.org/taxonomy/relateddocuments.aspx?id=0&ContentTypeId=20&ContentID=675 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963589 | 140 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Federalism, SCOTUS & Bond v. US
One of my primary objections to the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia is its emphasis on civil rights and liberties as they have evolved through the Bill of Rights and subsequent Constitutional Amendments. Obviously the federal government’s obligation to ensure citizens the right to participate equally in society and to not have their rights arbitrarily violated by the government is instrumental in preserving freedom. However, this focus is by its nature incomplete. The Founders believed that the structure of our governmental system would be the ultimate guarantor of individual liberty (see Alexander Hamilton’s discussion in Federalist 84). Representative democracy, separation of powers, checks and balances, federalism, and the extended republic were designed to preserve individual rights by “first enabl[ing] the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself” (Federalist 51).
This view of government structure as a tool to preserve individual liberties and rights tends to be a bit passé in contemporary discussions of American government. Justice Kennedy’s opinion for a unanimous Supreme Court in Bond v. the United States (2011) helps breathe new life into this neglected topic. The ruling concluded that individuals have standing to challenge federal statutes on the grounds that they interfere with powers reserved to the states (for the facts of the case please see SCOTUSblog and Oyez).
In his decision Justice Kennedy provided a primer on the relationship between governmental structure and the protection of individual rights. He stated that “If the constitutional structure of our Government that protects individual liberty is compromised, individuals who suffer otherwise justiciable injury may object.” He first turned to Supreme Court precedent that allowed individuals to invoke violations of separation of powers as an impingement of their rights. He gives the following example:
In INS v. Chadha, 462 U. S. 919 (1983), it was an individual who successfully challenged the so-called legislative veto—a procedure that Congress used in an attempt to invalidate an executive determination without presenting the measure to the President. The procedure diminished the role of the Executive, but the challenger sought to protect not the prerogatives of the Presidency as such but rather his own right to avoid deportation under an invalid order. Chadha’s challenge was sustained. A cardinal principle of separation of powers was vindicated at the insistence of an individual….
Kennedy then applies this same logic to federalism because
The Framers concluded that allocation of powers between the National Government and the States enhances freedom, first by protecting the integrity of the governments themselves, and second by protecting the people, from whom all governmental powers are derived.
Federalism protects individual liberty in three areas according to Kennedy:
1) The federal structure allows local policies “more sensitive to the diverse needs of a heterogeneous society,” permits “innovation and experimentation,” enables greater citizen “involvement in democratic processes,” and makes government “more responsive by putting the States in competition for a mobile citizenry.”
2) Federalism secures the freedom of the individual. It allows States to respond, through theenactment of positive law, to the initiative of those who seek a voice in shaping the destiny of their own times without having to rely solely upon the political processes that control a remote central power.
3) Federalism also protects the liberty of all persons within a State by ensuring that laws enacted in excess of delegated governmental power cannot direct or control their actions. See ibid. By denying any one government complete jurisdiction over all the concerns of public life, federalism protects the liberty of the individual from arbitrary power. When government acts in excess of its lawfulpowers, that liberty is at stake.
The unanimous decision in Bond v. United States was more than an arcane examination of standing to sue. Rather, it provides a means to reinvigorate our discussion of the mechanisms that preserve our individual rights and liberties. The Supreme Court has contributed greatly to this narrative by highlighting the importance of government structure and in particular federalism. | <urn:uuid:c0a4fa7a-5007-41f0-aac7-71cffe5ed829> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://theamericanpartnership.com/2011/06/21/federalism-scotus-bond-v-us/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940697 | 831 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Much of the United States has been suffering through a deep freeze for several days, and farmers are starting to express concern about damage to crops. Citrus growers in the West say damage to the fruit has already occurred, although not enough to impact prices. All this damaged fruit has one Explainer reader wondering: Is there anything wrong with eating visibly bruised produce?
Not necessarily. A bruise is an indicator of cellular damage. When you ding an apple or a banana, it can compromise the ability of the skin or the peel to keep oxygen away from the fruit, and oxygen breaks down the cellular walls and membranes. When the chemicals within the fruit become oxidized by enzymes like polyphenoloxidase, the reaction causes an unappealing brown color. There’s no evidence, however, that oxidized fruit is bad for you. Nor does a bruise necessarily indicate an infection. If you want to cut the bruised portion of your fruit away for aesthetic reasons, by all means do so. There are also plenty of ways to cover up the mushy consistency of bruised fruit — homesteaders turn their bruised fruits into pies, juice, jams or fruit leathers. But if you can’t be bothered to trim your bruised banana or bake it into bread, there’s little risk to your health in just eating it.
There is a caveat: Bruising makes a piece of fruit more susceptible to infection. As the cell walls break down, nutrients leak into the open, inviting colonization by microbes already present on the surface of the fruit or in the air. As they feed on the fruit’s exposed innards, the cells multiply rapidly. It’s possible for damaged fruit to grow some of the more notorious varieties of food-borne pathogens, such as salmonella or E. coli, but garden-variety yeasts and molds are far more common. Yeasts are of minimal concern — inoculating fruit with yeasts gives us such delights as wine and cider — but molds can be dangerous. Some species of mold release mycotoxins, which can cause a variety of human illnesses. (The most notorious mycotoxin, known as aflatoxin, is a potent carcinogen that grows on milk, cheese, nuts and grains.) If your bruised fruit has so much fungal activity that you can see or smell it, don’t eat it. In addition to bruised areas, you should check the area around the fruit’s stem for mold, which is an entry point for opportunistic microbes. Food safety experts have a saying: If in doubt, throw it out. Healthy adults often take their chances and get away with it, but this advice is especially important for small children or the elderly.
If your bruised fruit has visible microbial growth, is it still safe to eat the nondamaged portion? It depends on the fruit. The question is whether the roots of the mold have penetrated the food. It’s difficult for mold to grow deep into firm fruits. So feel free to cut away the moldy portion of a bell pepper — yes, bell peppers are a fruit — and eat the remainder. Bananas, on the other hand, are too soft to repel a mold invasion, so a banana with a bruised, moldy spot should be tossed.
Got a question about today’s news? firstname.lastname@example.org.
Slate’s Explainer thanks Doug Gubler of UC-Davis and Lynne McLandsborough of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. | <urn:uuid:fd8e5e4f-81b2-4d5a-a6fd-63256fcffa8b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bangordailynews.com/2013/02/04/health/is-it-safe-to-eat-bruised-fruit/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944426 | 730 | 2.984375 | 3 |
Two weeks ago, the girls and I checked out Colegate Park, a fantastic space-themed playground out in University Place. I came home all jazzed up to write about it, only to find this article from the Washington State Department of Ecology, dated 2003.
Here's the part we're concerned with: "At four parks, the average arsenic for a play area was above the state cleanup level of 20 parts per million. The highest average arsenic for a play area was 46 parts per million at both Curran Apple Orchard and Colgate Park in University Place. (Average of 6 to 10 samples within each play area). "
OK. Well, that's not cool, is it? Of course, we live in the Tacoma area, former home of the Asarco smelter, so there are going to be issues with many of the places our kids play, including our own backyards. As bad as that sounds, it's not really any different than most industrial cities across the US. Then I went through my video footage of our time there, and remember the construction site next door, the massive quantity of dirt being moved....blowing across the playground......gulp. Arsenic really can't do any harm on your skin, but inhaled is another matter. This is the sort of thing I'd have not given a second thought to before I had kids, but things are a little different now.
Over the course of the past two weeks, I've spoken with various government agencies, including the University Place School District, Park and Recreation Department, and Public Works Department, and the Pierce County Health Department and Washington State Department of Ecology. Here's the bottom line:
Good News - at least it's not lead (Hey thanks, Asarco ;) While there is some evidence that arsenic can lead to lower IQ scores in children, it's not the same direct relationship that you see in lead exposure. Unfortunately, it does have some other nasty side effects like sore throats, and.....possibly cancer. Here's a little light reading about arsenci from DHHS.
Later testing performed at the Junior High next door did not show levels high enough to trigger any type of remedial measures, according to school district maintenance head Mike Patterson. This made me wonder, how is that possible when the construction site is right next to the playground? He was not aware of the 2003 tests that showed such elevated levels at the park. (Neither were a few other UP officials I talked to)
I spoke with Amy Hargrove at the Washington State Department of Ecology. She backed up Mike Patterson that indeed, there were tests performed at the Junior High property in 2005. Whether or not those tests were performed at the current construction site is not entirely clear to me at the moment.
So, in light of all this, what can be done to limit exposure at the playground? While construction is going on, workers will hopefully follow basic soil management procedures like hosing down the soil so that it does not become airborne. (If you see otherwise, please let me know!) What you can do as a park visitor, is follow these basic precautions, recommended by the Tacoma-Pierce County Department of Health. Actually, we should all be following those recommendations, anyway, wherever we go in the Tacoma area.
This park is so much fun. I'd like to take the kids back. Honestly? I'll wait until they're not working on the school next door, or at least until all that soil has found its final resting place. I'd like to tell you something more positive than that, but that's how I feel about taking my own kids, so I can't responsibly tell you any different. It may be the arsenic levels at the construction site really are just fine, but I'd rather my kids not be inhaling dirt from any nearby source.
For more information:
Free soil testing for childcare centers
8500 37th Street West
University Place, WA | <urn:uuid:3ea5245f-d3e0-453d-8225-612163aef5a6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tacomamama.com/node/914 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971413 | 807 | 1.851563 | 2 |
So now that I know I am going and how I am getting there I need to think about exactly what I want to find out on my visit, to make sure I get the most out of my time there.
I guess these are what in the grand scheme of things would be my “goals” or “objectives”. Admittedly I had a pretty good idea of why I was going in the first place otherwise I wouldn’t have got this far, but it always helps to put into words what you want to find out.
- Trace the movement of William Henry and Harriet MITCHELL and their children across Hampshire between 1860 and 1901 (and possibly beyond).
- Find the parents and siblings of William Henry MITCHELL and his wife Harriet WRIGHT.
The first objective was my main reason for planning this visit, as the movement of the family across Hampshire is quite appealing to me (especially for someone who has spent the last 36 years in the same village) and I am hoping that this aspect of the family history will enable me to interest other members of the family in my research.
The second objective will obviously enable me to push my family history back another generation and will tell me if I need to spend more time in Hampshire or whether I shall be looking elsewhere. Once I have discovered this next generation I will be able to do some more research back in the comfort of my own home, in preparation for another record office visit.
The next planning phase is to break these objectives down and identify the most likely sources I am going to need to consult.
to be continued… | <urn:uuid:09d97fce-8d4d-4ecf-adfe-cab53c402b48> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wanderinggenealogist.wordpress.com/2009/03/17/preparing-to-visit-the-hampshire-record-office-part-2/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=72a7b014e3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969657 | 329 | 1.757813 | 2 |
I came across a great website full of content on teaching the holocaust to students. These activities have been developed for teachers to use as a guide. Their intent is to give teachers a framework to follow for use in a Holocaust unit of study. The philosophy behind these activities is based on constructivist pedagogy, brain-based learning and the awareness of the theory of multiple intelligences. It is hoped teachers will use them and build on them to fit the needs of students, taking into account their age, maturity, and ability levels.
It is strongly recommended that teachers read the Guidelines for Teaching the Holocaust published by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum before designing activities or using the ones we offer in A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust. The suggestions and cautions the Holocaust Museum offers are important and invaluable in delivering Holocaust instruction. The sensitivity of the subject matter requires careful consideration when designing curriculum and guiding students in presentations and research. | <urn:uuid:5c2ed1c0-269b-4ff6-9ff7-aeacceea117c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://edgalaxy.com/history/2011/8/11/the-secret-of-teaching-the-holocaust-to-students.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9509 | 186 | 3.9375 | 4 |
By various measures, Russia's telecommunications infrastructure is inferior to that of most developed industrialized countries. In 1991 only 33 percent of Russian households had telephones, compared with 94 percent in the United States. In 1995 Russia had seventeen telephone lines per 100 inhabitants, compared with thirty-six in Spain, forty-four in Belgium, and sixty-nine in Switzerland.
The Soviet Period
During the Soviet period, the state controlled all means of communications and used them primarily to convey decisions and to facilitate the execution of government directives affecting the economy, national security, and administrative governmental functions. The Ministry of Communications had responsibility for most nonmilitary communications, and the Ministry of Defense controlled military communications. Other ministries, including the Ministry of Culture, controlled specialized elements of the communications infrastructure.
Moscow maintained control over communications, and regional and local jurisdictions enjoyed little autonomy. This centralization forced the Soviet Union to acquire the means to deliver signals over a vast area and provided the impetus for the development of satellite communications, which began with the launching of the Molniya satellite communications system in 1965. Despite the success of the satellite system, Soviet technology was unable to meet the rapidly growing informational demands of the 1980s. In that period, the Soviet government began to import digital switching equipment from the West in an effort to modernize the national telephone system. The priority given to military and government applications skewed the distribution of new equipment, and officials dedicated relatively few telephone lines and communications facilities to commercial and residential use. In addition, most communications facilities remained concentrated in a few urban areas at the expense of smaller cities and rural regions.
Telecommunications in the 1990s
Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia has been engaged in the reorganization and modernization of its communications systems. In this process, control over communications has been decentralized and in large part privatized. In domestic telephone and related communications, control devolved to regional and local enterprises, which were then reorganized into joint-stock companies. Long-distance and international service operations were grouped together into a new organization, Russian Telecommunications (Rostelekom), which itself became a joint-stock company. The federal government has retained control over the national satellite system, telecommunications research and development, and education systems through the Ministry of Communications. Despite ownership changes, in 1995 only about 14 percent of Russia's 24.4 million telephones were located outside urban areas, the waiting list for telephone installation included more than 10 million names, and only 34,100 pay telephones were available for long-distance calls.
By mid-1994 the Russian telephone communications system had been privatized through the voucher program. Employees of the reorganized companies received about 25 percent of company stock, the government retained some shares, and the remainder were sold at public auction. Telecommunications stocks reportedly have been among the most coveted items on the fledgling Russian stock market. Domestic and foreign investors have been especially attracted to stocks in major regional telephone enterprises such as the Moscow and St. Petersburg telephone systems and Rostelekom. But the state has not relinquished its remaining telecommunications shares, showing reluctance to cede full control to the private sector.
Development of the telecommunications infrastructure depends heavily on foreign funding and joint ventures. The Ministry of Communications expected foreign investment in telecommunications to increase by 24 percent in 1996 over 1995, matching domestic investment of US$520 million. In the mid-1990s, state subsidies continue to fall. According to Western experts, that investment level is far below the amount needed over a prolonged period to modernize Russian lines or even to upgrade existing equipment. However, Russia faces stiff competition for foreign capital because Western and Japanese companies already have made substantial commitments to telecommunications modernization and privatization projects in a number of other countries.
Russia's goals for 1996 were the laying of 1,815 kilometers of cable and the installation of 9,500 kilometers of wireless lines, 5,000 long-distance exchanges, and 1.5 million new private telephone lines in urban and rural areas. The latter addition would bring the national total to 26 million lines.
The regulatory framework for telecommunications in Russia remains weak, but it is maturing. The Law on Communications, enacted in 1995, is the chief statute, but the lines of regulatory authority have not been clearly defined. The Ministry of Communications is the chief regulatory agency for "civilian" communications, but military and national security authorities control their own communications networks outside the purview of the Law on Communications.
As Russia's telecommunications systems develop, the regulatory issues facing the Ministry of Communications include frequency assignments, standardization of equipment, levels of competition, and establishment of optimal user rates. The military and internal security agencies traditionally have had priority use of most wireless frequencies, but the newer and expanding commercial and individual users require more access to frequencies. Standardization is needed so that older equipment can operate with the new models on expanded systems. A uniform policy is needed for regulation of telecommunications competition, which varied in the early post-Soviet years. And the Ministry of Communications has not yet established telephone rates that are affordable to the users but provide enough profit for the company to operate and expand.
The government has promoted competition in some sectors. An example is the licensing of a number of companies to provide specialized, dedicated service networks. For cellular telephone lines, the government has encouraged competition in densely populated areas, such as Moscow and St. Petersburg, while developing single provider systems for small areas where demand is limited. For long-distance service, in the mid-1990s Rostelekom competed with local telephone companies for revenues in the potentially lucrative area of interzonal communications. In addition, Rostelekom is facing competition from newer companies that are able to provide long-distance service through their own cables and via satellite. Under these conditions, the shape and size of the Russian telephone system is changing rapidly and responding to the demands of the market.
Experts estimate that Russia must expand its telephone networks from around 24 million telephones to between 75 million and 80 million and provide the modern switching equipment with which they can operate. They further expect that Russia will require an investment of US$150 billion to bring its telephone system up to modern standards. Russia has imported Western equipment in the modernization effort, but this strategy has proved very costly. The Russian equipment industry is trying to revive itself and develop indigenous technology to fulfill its needs.
Foreign investors could be an important source of capital and technology in the Russian telecommunications sector, but in the mid-1990s Russian laws and regulations limited foreign participation to the supply of equipment and services that would not hurt domestic producers. The Law on Communications gives preference to domestically produced equipment, with the major exception of cellular phone production, where officials have welcomed foreign participation. Domestic telephone services are the domain of Russian companies, but foreign companies have established a presence in domestic and international long-distance service.
Russian radio and television are undergoing similar changes (see The Broadcast Media, ch. 7). The programming facilities and transmission operations are separate, as they were in the Soviet system when the central government controlled all of these facilities. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russian radio and television programming operations were decentralized at the regional and local levels.
In the mid-1990s, three major countrywide state-owned programming companies provide most programming for the country. They are Russian Public Television (Obshchestvennoye rossiyskoye televideniye--ORT), Russian State Television, and St. Petersburg Television, which primarily serves the St. Petersburg metropolitan area. In 1995 Russian State Television was partially privatized when 49 percent of its shares were sold to private companies, but the company remains under state control.
The privatization process moved large blocks of shares into the hands of banks and powerful entrepreneurs, who formed communications and newspaper empires and used close connections in the Government to lobby for the release of additional state shares in the broadcasting enterprises. In 1996 the two most powerful broadcast entrepreneurs were former banker Vladimir Gusinskiy, head of the Media-Most holding company including the Independent Television (Nezavisimoye televideniye--NTV) network and several prominent periodicals, and Boris Berezovskiy, an automobile entrepreneur whose organization, Logovaz, now controls ORT as well as banking, oil, aviation, and print media enterprises.
Privately owned and operated, independent programming companies are playing a growing role in Russian radio and television programming. As of 1995, some 800 companies were in existence. In 1996 the largest private television channels are TV-6, which reaches sixty cities in Russia and elsewhere with a potential audience of 600 million viewers, and NTV, which serves European Russia and has a potential audience of 100 million viewers. Both companies were founded in 1993.
Transmission facilities are state-owned, and programmers must pay fees to the transmission companies to have their material broadcast. The fee establishment mechanism remains an issue in Russian telecommunications policy. Control over transmission gives the government powerful leverage over the content of broadcasts. In 1996 independent companies were considering cable and direct satellite television services to get into the state-dominated market as transmission providers. In 1992 some 48.5 million radios and 54.9 million televisions were in use.
Because the Law on Communications does not address the question of airtime allocation, policy makers also must grapple with that issue. Subsidies for radio and television broadcasters, including state-owned operations, have been reduced drastically in the first half of the 1990s, meaning that programmers must rely on advertising revenues.
|Country Studies main page | Russia Country Studies main page | Celebrity| | <urn:uuid:923c5e1a-0bcf-4d01-bf10-0f6699ecdea6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://country-studies.com/russia/telecommunications.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961337 | 1,927 | 3.453125 | 3 |
When the fiercest hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic is bearing down on you, a salvaged armchair under a wood-and-tin awning might seem a poor choice of shelter. But that's where Don E. ("I'd rather keep my last name out of it") was parked when Wilma hit South Florida at 6:30 a.m. last October 24. For Don and a buddy, it was the start of the workday at Jimbo's Place, a ramshackle beer and bait shop down by the water on Miami's Virginia Key. "Once we got out here, it was kind of too late to do anything but ride it out," Don says with a small laugh.
Jimbo's looks like nothing so much as an abandoned shack. But whether through good luck or unexpectedly sound construction, it survived Wilma's fury. Mercifully, the winds had ebbed from 185 miles an hour (300 kilometers an hour) at sea to 120 miles an hour (200 kilometers an hour) by the time the storm hit, but Wilma still left almost all of South Florida without power. For the next two weeks a generator and donated bags of ice kept Jimbo's open—the only establishment on the key where visitors could be assured of a cold beer and a friendly welcome.
Wilma was a record breaker in a season of unsettling records. Katrina, at the end of August, killed more than a thousand people and left much of New Orleans and the neighboring coast in ruins. The damage exceeded a hundred billion dollars—the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history—and the toll in fractured lives is incalculable. Rita, in September, rivaled Wilma in intensity and ravaged the Gulf Coast through western Louisiana and East Texas.
These three monster storms were part of an unmatched run of Atlantic hurricanes—15 in all. With a total of 27 named tropical storms, 2005 was the first year meteorologists exhausted their preseason list of 21 Atlantic cyclone names and had to dip into the Greek alphabet for the latecomers.
Days after Wilma, one visitor to Jimbo's was already worrying about what future hurricane seasons might bring. Sharan Majumdar, 34, is a hurricane researcher at the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, just across the highway from Jimbo's. He is one of a cadre of scientists trying to understand nature's most powerful storms and more reliably predict their surges, ebbs, and lurching paths from birth to landfall.
Swatting at sand flies on a warm November night, Majumdar says he can't really blame his fellow patrons at Jimbo's for deciding to stay put during Wilma. Forecasts today can get hurricane tracks wrong by hundreds of miles and wind speeds by tens of miles per hour. As a result, Majumdar says, "people often return after an evacuation to find nothing really happened." The solution, he says, is to improve forecasting through better science. "That's the only way to get people to trust the warnings."
The stakes have never been higher. Population is burgeoning along vulnerable coasts in the U.S., Asia, and the Caribbean. In the southeastern U.S., for example, coastal populations grew more than 50 percent from 1980 to 2003. The North Atlantic hurricane nursery, responding to a natural climate cycle, is experiencing a baby boom that isn't expected to end for a decade or more. And behind it all lurks the grim possibility that global warming is making these storms stronger.
Like all weather, hurricanes are fueled by heat—the heat of sun-drenched tropical seas, which powers the storms by sending warm, moist air rushing toward the frigid upper atmosphere like smoke up a chimney. As surrounding air is sucked in at the base of the storm, Earth's rotation gives it a twist, creating a whorl of rain bands. These whiptails of thunderstorm activity are strongest where they converge in a ring of rising, spinning air, the eyewall, which encloses the cloud-free eye.
Hurricanes (called typhoons in the western Pacific and tropical cyclones in the Indian Ocean) can propel themselves to an altitude of 50,000 feet (15,000 meters) or more, where the rising air finally vents itself in spiraling exhaust jets of cirrus clouds. The largest ever, the 1979 Pacific typhoon Tip, sent gale-force winds across more than 650 miles (1,000 kilometers). Even an average hurricane packs some 1.5 trillion watts of power in its winds—equivalent to about half the world's entire electrical generating capacity.
Starting this great weather engine requires surface waters of 80ºF (27ºC) or more, moist air, and little wind shear—a difference in wind speed at the surface and aloft that can tear apart a developing hurricane. But those ingredients often produce nothing more than a tropical disturbance—an unremarkable cluster of thunderstorms. "Disturbances look very similar day to day," says David Nolan of the Rosenstiel School, "and then all of a sudden you get a big burst of convection, then within six hours it becomes a depression, then it becomes a hurricane, then it's flooding my apartment." Katrina soaked Nolan's 14th-floor Miami Beach home as the storm crossed Florida on its fateful course to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. "It would be really nice to say what you need to make a hurricane," he adds. "And we really can't do that yet."
One thing was clear in 2005: Conditions were ideal for making hurricanes. From June through November—the official Atlantic hurricane season—bulletins and warnings streamed from the National Hurricane Center in Miami. But the most telling moment of the season came on November 29, one day before its official end, when NHC director Max Mayfield and other officials gave a summary report. Even as the officials recited a sobering roll call of power and destruction, the NHC duty forecaster was charting tropical storm Epsilon, just then getting ready to spin itself into yet another hurricane.
Yet 2005 was just a continuation of the upward trend that began in 1995. Because of a tropical climate shift that brought warmer waters and reduced wind shear, the Atlantic has spawned unusual numbers of hurricanes for nine of the past eleven seasons. "We're 11 years into the cycle of high activity and landfall," NOAA meteorologist Gerry Bell says, "but I can't tell you if it will last another ten years, or thirty."
Weather satellites make it easy for meteorologists to keep tabs on hurricanes. But ordinary satellite images show only the cloud tops. Space-borne infrared sensors can reveal more detail, charting the size and shape of the warm eye, and satellite radar and microwave sensors can map the rain. Hurricane hunter aircraft actually fly right into Atlantic hurricanes. But they only probe conditions at altitudes of several thousand feet, above the worst turbulence, Jack Beven of the NHC says—"not at the surface, where they really matter to people."
Last year, though, scientists flew a robotic aircraft straight into the maelstrom when tropical storm Ophelia was parked off the mid-Atlantic coast. The craft, called Aerosonde, swooped and circled for ten hours, as low as 1,200 feet (360 meters), monitoring winds and the flow of heat and moisture from the ocean into the storm.
That foray was a test, but forecasters routinely probe the heart of storms with shorter lived devices called dropsondes. Released from high-flying aircraft into hurricanes and the surrounding winds, these instrument-packed tubes descend by parachute. "They take about 15 minutes from 40,000 feet [12,000 meters] to splash," Majumdar says. Along the way, they measure temperature, pressure, humidity, and wind every half second, transmitting it all to the airplane before they hit the water.
By cranking dropsonde data into computer models that can simulate a storm and how it is likely to evolve, researchers have sharpened their forecasts of storm tracks. Three-day forecasts of Atlantic storm positions were off by an average of 440 miles (130 meters) in the 1970s; by 2005 the average error had dropped to 173 miles (280 kilometers). But one-day forecasts were still wide of the mark by an average of 70 miles (110 kilometers)—more than enough to keep coastal dwellers second-guessing the experts. The data and models still can't capture storms in enough detail to forecast all of their feints and swerves.
Storm intensity is proving even harder to forecast. Three-day wind-speed forecasts, off by an average of 23 miles an hour (37 kilometers an hour) in the early 1990s, had improved only marginally by 2005. Hurricanes regularly surprise observers with their mood shifts. In a matter of hours, a Category 5 storm (winds over 155 miles an hour [250 kilometers an hour]) can fade to a Category 3 (111-130 miles an hour [178-210 kilometers an hour]), or a mere tropical storm can explode into a killer. "Intensity changes are the things that really hurt people," says NOAA's Bell.
The state of the ocean below a storm explains some intensity shifts. In 1995, tropical storm Opal was inching toward Category 1 status—an entry-level hurricane—as it made its way through the western Gulf of Mexico. Then, in just 14 hours, it surged to Category 4. Satellite readings of the warm sea surface showed nothing unusual. But Nick Shay of the Rosenstiel School and his colleagues discovered that the warm layer wasn't limited to the top few yards of the ocean, as it usually is in the Gulf. Cold water at greater depths acts as a brake on hurricane intensity when the winds churn it to the surface. But Opal had strayed across a pool of warm water extending hundreds of feet down. No matter how hard the wind blew, it stirred up more hurricane fuel, causing the storm to intensify.
The tropical ocean is littered with these deep warm pockets, and their importance was underscored last year by both Katrina and Rita, which shot up to Category 5 when they passed over a deep band of warm Gulf water called the Loop Current. Satellites can detect subsurface warmth by looking for subtle bulges in the sea surface, Shay says. "It's not really rocket science, but here's something that works and improves intensity forecasts by 5 to 15 percent."
Waves, on the other hand, can blunt a storm. Whipped up by a hurricane, they can reach heights of more than a hundred feet (30 meters), exerting a drag on the winds that created them. "Heat adds fuel, but waves slow the winds down—they're fighting each other," says Shuyi Chen of the Rosenstiel School, who is collaborating on a powerful new computer model, called the Hurricane Weather and Research Forecasting model, that will simulate the fine details of the interplay between atmosphere, waves, and ocean. "You can get a forecast one to two categories wrong if you don't get the waves right."
Forecasters also need to understand a hurricane's internal workings. Katrina, for example, had grown into a certifiable monster by the morning of Sunday, August 28. Sucking energy from the Loop Current, the storm had screamed from the low end of Category 3 to a peak of 175 miles an hour (280 kilometers an hour), well into Category 5, in just 12 hours. As Katrina barreled toward land, the NHC issued an apocalyptic warning: "POTENTIALLY CATASTROPHIC HURRICANE KATRINA MENACING THE NORTHERN GULF COAST."
And then, swiftly and remarkably, the storm took a breather. In satellite images late Sunday, hours before landfall, a huge bite appeared in the southern side of the eyewall. Scientists probing the storm with aircraft and radar in a project called RAINEX worked out what had happened. Katrina's ferocious rain bands had converged toward the heart of the storm, cutting off the eyewall's moisture supply. The old eyewall broke up and a new one formed farther out—an inertial brake that slowed the storm just as a skater's arms slow her spin when she thrusts them outward.
If Katrina had been moving just a little faster, it could have hit land as a Category 5 horror. Instead, thanks to the timing of its eyewall replacement, it sideswiped New Orleans as a milder—but still devastating—Category 3.
For a hurricane, landfall is a death sentence. Once its watery fuel supply has been cut off, the storm inevitably weakens. But that is scant solace to those caught up in its death throes.
From a washed-out stretch of Highway 90 along the Mississippi coast, almost four months after Katrina, the view inland took your breath away. The once lush coastline was still a litter of debris and splintered wood, houses swept from their concrete slabs, ancient spreading oaks stripped of Spanish moss and festooned with rags and tattered plastic.
Water was the primary agent of destruction here. Most hurricane casualties come not from wind but from rain, waves, and, as the scene here made harshly evident, surge—the vast mound of seawater that is pushed in front of the storm, rising 28 feet (8 meters) or more in the case of Katrina.
"If you really want to wallop something," says Rick Luettich, a coastal oceanographer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, "Mississippi and Alabama are pretty close to ideal for maximum storm surge." The coastal waters are shallow, easily plowed up by inrushing winds. Local features matter too, says Luettich, who has worked on a computer program that forecasts surge height. Bays and estuaries can funnel and intensify surge, for example, while barrier islands and wetlands can buffer it.
Coastal development weakens those defenses, as a flight over an adjacent stretch of coast in Louisiana makes clear. Channels crisscross the marshlands, dredged for boat traffic. They let salt water into the back marshes, killing vegetation that holds them together. Add all the dikes and levees that hem in the Mississippi, cutting off the sediment that once replenished the marshes, and the result is staggering: More than 20 percent of Louisiana's coastal wetlands reverted to open water from the 1950s through 2000, 27 square miles (69 square kilometers) every year. The pilot holds up his chart of the tattered coast. "This here is the newest edition," he says. "But it's already out of date."
The full impact of a giant hurricane can't be measured in categories and wind speeds, in damage to homes and ecosystems, or even in lives lost. Those who live through one are never quite the same afterward. Tammy VanderZyl was a manager at Remoulade restaurant in New Orleans. She weathered Katrina in her apartment, then lived on the edge for three weeks with a group of near strangers. "You see things you never thought you would see," she recalls. "I saw whitecaps in my parking lot."
In his recent book, Divine Wind, Kerry Emanuel, a meteorologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, intersperses the science and lore of hurricanes with paintings, poems, and literary excerpts inspired by the great storms of history. None is more poignant than the haiku VanderZyl composed after confronting Katrina:
Strong wind blows away Everything that I am Where do I go now
For VanderZyl and many of her fellow New Orleanians, the answer to the final line is obvious: right back home. The city will be different now. But leave? "No way," she says. "Things would have to get way worse than this."
Just over the horizon of scientific certainty lies the disturbing possibility that they might. Kerry Emanuel is by all accounts a cautious scientist. For years he believed there was no good evidence that global warming was making hurricanes any stronger. But last year new calculations stopped him in his tracks. When he looked at the total power of tropical cyclones worldwide, he was faced with the conclusion that during the past three decades, the storms have grown almost twice as destructive.
Emanuel's results, published weeks before Katrina, were soon joined by another study, led by Peter Webster of the Georgia Institute of Technology. Webster concluded that the strongest storms—Categories 4 and 5—have become nearly twice as common over 35 years. The likely culprit, both scientists say, is global warming, which is adding hurricane-nurturing heat to the oceans.
It would be easier to find a building undamaged by Katrina in New Orleans' Ninth Ward than to locate a reputable climate scientist who doubts that human activity is warming the Earth. But the claim that hurricanes are growing stronger as a result has set off a tempest of its own. William Gray of Colorado State University, a pioneer hurricane forecaster, has called it "plain wrong." He and the NHC's Christopher Landsea say Emanuel and Webster's statistics are fuzzy and that data on past storms can't be trusted. Until weather satellites became common in the 1970s, many tropical storms at sea went unrecorded, and since then changes in sensing technology have made it difficult to compare hurricane strengths.
Emanuel agrees that the data aren't perfect. "But this is an important issue," he says, "and the only way to get a better answer would be to have a longer record of reliable data," which would make any trends stand out.
To improve the record, Landsea has been analyzing hurricanes back to the mid-1800s, trying to gauge their intensity from accounts of storm surge and wind damage. Other researchers are looking for signs of past hurricanes at the bottom of coastal lakes, where the strongest storms deposited layers of windblown beach sand, and in the wood of old trees from coastal forests. Rainwater from hurricanes is minutely lighter than regular rain, so a tree drenched by passing hurricanes preserves a subtle record of each storm in its growth rings.
While the debates go on, hurricanes will continue to strike increasingly populous coasts. That, says Landsea, is reason enough to worry. "The changes in society are as important, if not more important than global warming, or even natural cycles," he says. "When you double some vulnerable populations every 20 to 30 years, that's what's going to cause disasters. We've got a huge problem even if hurricanes don't change at all." | <urn:uuid:9a06ba6f-0ec2-44e7-8f04-718dca67b472> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/print/2006/08/super-storms/hayden-text | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963575 | 3,818 | 2.15625 | 2 |
driver has been stabbed and a businessman found dead. The Australians, it would seem, can do no right in the eyes of India. Yes, maybe Indian students choose poorer, rougher areas in Australian cities to live in, and maybe they don’t make enough effort to fit in. But surely, none of these can excuse murderous attacks on students who are pouring vast sums of money into the Australian exchequer for the privilege of studying there.
But, we understand there is Australia and then there is Australia. Michael O’Brien, minister for employment, training and further education and science and technology all rolled into one, chafes at the thought of all Australians being tarred with the same brush. On a trip to India recently, he sought to convince the Indian authorities that south Australia, particularly Adelaide, was cast in a different mould altogether. A multicultural and tolerant part of the continent, it has not seen any racially motivated attacks on Indians. In fact, that neck of the woods in Australia has been wooing young Indians to work there with promises of cheaper and safer living standards. “We are very tough about law and order,” he says.
But O’Brien’s protestations notwithstanding, Australia has taken a real beating in the education stakes, thanks to the boorish behaviour of its rednecks towards foreign students, particularly Indians. True, Adelaide has its own student taskforce to look into the problems of foreign students, but O’Brien and his special envoy Brian Hayes, himself of Indian origin, have their work cut out before people are convinced that there are two Australias — one welcoming and warm and the other where you are lucky to get away with your life.
Student issues apart, ties between Australia and India have never really taken off. It is not really a major part of our foreign policy perception, neither is there the level of interest about that country that there is in, say, France or the US. Trade between India and Australia is iffy and, of course, there is the red rag of uranium sales. The Aussies may tell us that they apply the same yardstick for uranium sales to all countries. But then the Indians don’t feel that we should be bracketed with everyone else. South Australia sits on one of the largest uranium reserves in the world. O’Brien is almost apologetic about this across-the-board standard his country applies to those who have not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. India feels, that given its growing stature in the world, it should be trusted as a responsible nuclear power and not be tied up in footling bureaucracy on proliferation.
The fault for India having such a negative perception about Australia lies with the latter, says O’Brien. He sees great economic opportunity in forging closer ties with India. And what better way than to woo students from here? The extent to which India has a blind spot about Australia is seen from the fact that the last prime ministerial visit to that country was when Rajiv Gandhi went calling in 1986.
It is a welcome sign that Australian leaders themselves are taking the initiative, as O’Brien has done, to dispel the myth that all Australians are allergic to Indians. Though Australia is still not the first port of call for most Indians when sending the children to study abroad, the economic downturn could make it an attractive destination given how much cheaper it is than the US and Britain. Language too is not a problem, as it would be in the European Union countries.
But one area, which is not so contentious and in which the two could work together, is renewable energy. The south Australians have been up and running with green technology on energy for quite a while and are looking to tie up with Indian partners like Suzlon. Hayes, himself a keen cricketer, predicts an upturn in ties in the near future. O’Brien’s best man at his wedding was from Kerala. The tea leaves seem to be falling into place for south Australia, but the question that remains is whether the Indians will be able to discern these fine distinctions at the moment. | <urn:uuid:664375f7-cd78-402f-bff1-b3aa29b57faf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hindustantimes.com/editorial-views-on/Platform/Not-a-kangaroo-court/Article1-485135.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967949 | 843 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Madagascar is one of the planet’s biodiversity hotspots. The ecosystems of Madagascar are among the most threatened on Earth. Poverty, shifting slash & burn cultivation and the reliance on natural resources have major impacts on the native forests. Only 8% of the original primary forest remains on Madagascar, in various degrees of degradation and fragmentation, and southwestern Madagascar harbors the most intact unique forest ecosystem.
The arid spiny forest of southwestern Madagascar (‘spiny thicket’) is among the most intriguing, unique and biologically diverse ecosystems in the world, harboring the highest level of plant endemism in Madagascar with 48% of the genera and 95% of the species listed as endemic. The spiny forest is characterized by xerophyte and succulent Didiereaceae (octopus tree), Euphorbiaceae, baobabs (Adansonia spp.) among several hundred woody species, providing home to unique animals, of which 90% are restricted to this forest (such as lemurs, birds, chameleons and invertebrates). The spiny forest extends across the extreme south and southwest regions of Madagascar, covering approximately five million hectares. It is the oldest biome of Madagascar and the most arid with an average annual rainfall of approximately 300 mm, restricted to elevations under 400m (more here).
Rural people from coastal and inland communities subsist directly from marine and forest resources by harvesting fish, edible and medicinal plants, fodder for livestock, firewood, and timber for construction. However, the primary forest resource is wood harvested for making charcoal. Charcoal production is the major source of fuel and income for the 20 million residents of Madagascar. The southwest Madagascar spiny forest has over two dozen tree species that are targeted specifically for charcoal. Over-exploitation places severe pressure on natural populations of these species and very little is known about their ecology or their ability to regenerate.
These unique forests are the least protected, the most understudied and by far the most deforested forests on Madagascar over the last 50 years (more here). Southwest Madagascar is the poorest, least developed and least educated region of the island, making it a tremendously challenging yet extremely attractive place with the greatest need for implementing grassroots conservation and restoration efforts.
There are very few ideas or opportunities available to Malagasy people about how to maintain their natural resources and where to receive alternative education, work or income that will benefit their existing livelihoods. Ho avy allows access to new inspiring knowledge that has the power to create jobs while simultaneously alleviating poverty as well as pressure on biodiversity.
Ho avy interacts closely with the rural village of Ranobe in southwest Madagascar, ca 30 km north of the provincial capital Toliara (see here). We started our work with one village family, which acted as para-botanists, guides and hosts, and soon the extended family formed their own village association dedicated to propagation and reforestation of native plant species in SW Madagascar, FIMPAHARA. Our field work takes place in the Ranobe forest ca 5-10 km from the village Ranobe. | <urn:uuid:d98af90e-fab1-4c0b-bfc1-996d963d7ce5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hoavy.org/en/why-madagascar/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940186 | 634 | 3.84375 | 4 |
Science Fair Project Encyclopedia
|Total population:||11 to 12 million (est.including Bulgarians outside Bulgaria)|
|Religion||Predominantly Bulgarian Orthodox including Atheist, Muslim, Roman Catholic and Protestant minorities.|
|Related ethnic groups|
The Bulgarians are a southern Slavic people generally associated with Bulgaria and the Bulgarian language. The majority of the Bulgarians nowadays live in the Republic of Bulgaria, although there are Bulgarian minorities or immigrant communities in a number of countries.
The modern Bulgarians are descendants of two peoples - the Bulgars, a nomadic people from Central Asia who settled in the Balkans in the 7th century, as well as of a number of southern Slavic tribes who had done the same a century earlier. Together the two groups formed the First Bulgarian Empire in 681. The Bulgars were later assimilated by the Slavs, who outnumbered them, but their name was retained.
To an extent the Bulgarians were also influenced by the indigenous Romanised and non-Romanised Thracian and Daco-Getic population, which had lived in the territory of modern Bulgaria before the Slavic invasion. However, the number of Thracians and Getae had been reduced significantly by the 6th century due to repeated invasions of barbarians; thus their influence in the formation of the modern Bulgarians was less pronounced than that of the other two peoples.
Most Bulgarians live in the Republic of Bulgaria. There are significant traditional Bulgarian minorities in Moldova and Ukraine, as well as smaller ones in Romania (Banat), Serbia (the Western Outlands), Greece (some 30,000 Muslim Bulgarians in the Xanthi and Rhodope provinces), the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Albania and Hungary.
Many Bulgarians also live in the diaspora, which is formed by representatives and descendants of the old (until 1989) and new (after 1989) emigration. The old emigration was made up of some 160,000 economic and several tens of thousands political emigrants and was directed for the most part to the USA, Canada, Argentina and Germany. The new emigration is estimated at some 700,000 people and can be divided into two major subcategories: permanent emigration at the beginning of the 1990s, directed mostly to the USA, Canada, Austria and Germany and labour emigration at the end of the 1990s, directed for the most part to Greece, Italy and Spain.
The largest urban populations of Bulgarians are to be found in Sofia (1,150,000), Plovdiv (300,000) and Varna (290,000). The total number of Bulgarians thus ranges anywhere from 11 to 12 million, depending solely on the estimation used for the diaspora.
Contribution to humanity
Medieval Bulgaria was the most important cultural centre of the Slavs at the end of the 9th and throughout the 10th century. The two literary schools at Preslav and Ohrid developed a rich literary and cultural activity with writers of the rank of Constantine of Preslav, John Exarch, Chernorizetz Hrabar, Clement and Naum of Ohrid. In the first half of the 10th century, the Cyrillic alphabet developed in northeastern Bulgaria on the basis of the Glagolitic and the Greek alphabet. The same is nowadays used to write five other natural Slavic languages (Byelorussian, Macedonian, Russian, Serbian and Ukrainian), Mongolian, as well as some 60 languages spoken in the former Soviet Union.
Bulgaria exerted a similar influence on its neighbouring countries in the middle and the end of the 14th century, at the time of the Turnovo Literary School, with the work of Patriarch Evtimiy, Grigorii Tsamblak , Konstantin of Kostenets (Konstantin Kostenechki). Bulgarian cultural influence was especially strong in Wallachia and Moldova where Bulgarian was the official language until the end of 17th century and the Cyrillic alphabet was used until 1860.
Bulgarians have made a valuable contribution to the arts and sciences in modern times, as well. Julia Kristeva and Tzvetan Todorov were among the most influential European philosophers in the second half of the 20th century. Kristeva has been a prominent figure in contemporary critical theory and semiotics. Nicolai Ghiaurov, Boris Christoff, Raina Kabaivanska and Gena Dimitrova have made an invaluable contribution to opera singing. Ghiaurov and Christoff have been unanimously recognised as the greatest bassos in the after-war period. The artist Christo has been the most famous representatives of the so called environmental art with projects such as the Wrapped Reichstag.
In sports, Hristo Stoichkov was one of the best soccer players in the second half of the 20th century with his play on the national team and FC Barcelona. He has received a number of awards and was the top scorer at the 1994 World Cup. High-jumper Stefka Kostadinova was one of the top ten female athletes of the last century and still holds one of the oldest world records in athletics.
Bulgarians in the diaspora have also been active. Bulgarian-American scientist John Atanasoff is the father of the modern computer with the electronic digital machine he invented in 1939 (see also Atanasoff Berry Computer). French-Bulgarian Sylvie Vartan is one of the most renowned French singers. Bulgarian-American Stephane Groueff wote the celebrated book "Manhattan Project," about the making of the first atomic bomb and also penned "Crown of Thorns," a history of Tsar Boris III of Bulgaria.
Bulgarians speak a Southern Slavic language which is closely related to Serbo-Croatian and is often mutually intelligible with it. The Bulgarian language is also sometimes mutually intelligible with Russian on account of the influence which Russian has had on the development of Modern Bulgarian since 1878. Although related, intelligibility is quite scarce between Bulgarian and the Western and the other Eastern Slavic languages.
Bulgarian demonstrates several linguistic developments that set it apart from other Slavic languages. These are, however, shared with Romanian, Albanian and Greek (see Balkan linguistic union). Until 1878 Bulgarian was influenced lexically by medieval and modern Greek, and to a lesser extent, by Turkish. More recently, the language has borrowed many words from Russian, German and French.
Some members of the diaspora do not speak the Bulgarian language (mostly representatives of the old emigration in the USA, Canada and Argentina) but are still considered Bulgarians by ethnic origin or descent.
Bulgarian is written in the Cyrillic alphabet.
There are several different layers of Bulgarian names. The vast majority of them have either Christian (names like Lazar, Ivan, Anna, Maria, Ekaterina) or Slavic origin (Vladimir, Svetoslav). After the Liberation in 1878, the names of historical Bulgar rulers like Asparuh, Krum, Kubrat and Tervel have again been resurrected. The old Bulgar name Boris has spread from Bulgaria to a number of countries in the world with Russian Tsar Boris Godunov and German tennis player Boris Becker being two of the examples of its use.
Most Bulgarian surnames have the surname suffix -ov (bulg: -ов;). This is often transcribed as -off. (John Atanasov-John Atanasoff) The suffix -ov is the Slavic possessive case suffix, thus Nikola's son becomes Nikolov, and Ivan's son becomes Ivanov.
Another typical Bulgarian surname suffix, though much less common, is -ski. These two surname endings get an additional –a when the bearer of the name is female (Ivanov becomes Ivanova and Smirnenski becomes Smirnenska).
The surname suffix -ich can be found sometimes, primarily among Catholic Bulgarians. The ending –in also appears sometimes, though rather seldom. It used to be given to the child of an unmarried woman (for example the son of Kuna will get the surname Kunin and the son of Gana – Ganin). The surname endings –ich and –in do not get an additional –a if the bearer of the name is female.
Most Bulgarians are at least nominally members of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church founded in 870 AD (autocefalous since 927). The Bulgarian Orthodox Church is the independent national church of Bulgaria like the other national branches of Eastern Orthodoxy and is considered an inseparable element of Bulgarian national consciousness. The church has been abolished twice during the periods of Byzantine (1018-1185) and Ottoman (1396-1878) domination but has been revived every time as a symbol of Bulgarian statehood. In 2001, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church had a total of 6,552,000 members in Bulgaria (82.6% of the population) and between one and two million members in the diaspora. Unfortunately, the problem with the allegience of the Orthodox Bulgarian minorities in Serbia, Romania, Moldova and Ukraine has not yet been settled and Bulgarians in those country still hold allegiance to the respective national orthodox churches.
Despite the position of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church as a unifying symbol for all Bulgarians, smaller or larger groups of Bulgarians have converted to other faiths or denominations through the course of time. In the 16th and the 17th century missionaries from the Vatican converted the Bulgarian Paulicians in the districts of Plovdiv and Svishtov to Roman Catholicism. Nowadays there are some 40,000 Catholic Bulgarians in Bulgaria and additional 10,000 in Banat in Romania. The Catholic Bulgarians of Banat are also descendants of Paulicians who fled to Banat at the end of the 17th century after an unsuccessful uprising in Bulgaria.
Between the 15th and the 18th century, a large number of Orthodox Bulgarians were converted (usually forcibly) to Islam by the Ottomans. Their descendants now form the second largest religious congregation among the Bulgarians. In 2001, there were 131,000 Muslim Bulgarians in Bulgaria, some 30,000 in the Xanthi and Rhodope provinces in northeastern Greece and around 100,000 in Turkey.
Protestantism was introduced in Bulgaria by missionaries from the United States in 1857. Missionary work continued throughout the second half of the 19th and the first half of the 20th century. In 2001, there were some 25,000 Protestant Bulgarians in Bulgaria.
The national flag of Bulgaria is a rectangle with three colors: white, green, and red, positioned horizontally top to bottom. The color fields are of same form and equal size.
The Coat of Arms of Bulgaria is a state symbol of the sovereignty and independence of the Bulgarian people and state. It represents a crowned rampant golden lion on a dark red background with the shape of a shield. Above the shield there is a crown modelled after the crowns of the kings of the Second Bulgarian Empire, with five crosses and an additional cross on top. Two crowned rampant golden lions hold the shield from both sides, facing it. They stand upon two crossed oak branches with acorns. Under the shield, there is a white band lined with the three national colors. The band is placed across the ends of the branches and the phrase "Unity Produces Strength" is inscribed on it.
Both the Bulgarian flag and the Coat of Arms are also used as symbols of various Bulgarian organisations, political parties and institutions.
Relation with other peoples
Bulgars and Slavs
Bulgarian revival period
20th century Bulgarians
The contents of this article is licensed from www.wikipedia.org under the GNU Free Documentation License. Click here to see the transparent copy and copyright details | <urn:uuid:186b9da4-9ece-4628-b350-86e08afcac66> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/science_fair_projects_encyclopedia/Bulgarians | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951101 | 2,432 | 3.09375 | 3 |
From the Midwest redneck author of "The Rooster Crows at 4am!," "Lizard Poop!," and "The Philippines Expat Advisor"
The Official Time of the Philippines: Juan Time or Filipino Time?
Recently, I’ve seen many a reference being made to “Filipino Time” and thought this would be a good time to delve into this tradition to help understand why being late for everything is considered the norm in the Philippines. Being married – so to speak - to the Archipelago (a Filipina) for over 25 years, I am all too familiar with the Filipino’s standards of tardiness.There are no standards really.
While researching these later-than-late tendencies, I have learned about what could possibly be the origin and cause of Filipino Time. The roots of “Filipino Time” transcend hundreds of years and the term was coined to mean Filipino Indios Time.
Back during the Spanish colonization period, whenever there were social events and parties, there was a need to distinguish between the SENIOR’s and SENORITA’s time and the Filipino Indios (or Second Citizen) time. Filipinos were required to come at a later time during events hosted by the Spaniards, where the Spanish conquistadores, mestizos, would all have been properly hosted and seated.
The late arrival would allow for the Filipino guests to self-effacingly say they had already eaten. They would then assimilate on the sides of the party where they would quietly make their own connections for business and politics. They would also provide applause and dance as directed by party organizers. They were also often used as after dinner entertainers to their colonizers. As this became carried through time, it became tradition and culture …just remember 300 years of Spanish colonization!
Whoever coined the term “Filipino Time” would today probably realize a stark contrast from its original use. While it originally described the Filipino’s inclination for arriving at or starting an event 15 to 30 minutes later than scheduled, it has become a notorious habit that, unknown to many and in simple terms, contributes significantly to this country’s overall lost productivity.
In an attempt to change this mindset and imbue awareness of the benefits of timeliness, the Philippine Department of Science and Technology, through the Science and Technology Information Institute, on September 30th of 2011, launched a campaign titled “Juan Time,” which is designed to promote time-consciousness among Filipinos.
Juan Time is intended to promote the nationwide use of the Philippine Standard Time (hence “Juan Time”, a word play on “One Time” and “Juan” being the common name for Filipinos) and sync timepieces with the PST. According to DOST Secretary Mario Montejo, “PST, the country’s official time, sets only one common time in the archipelago’s more than 7,100 islands” and that “Juan Time reminds Filipinos that keeping to the PST avoids the difficulties of having confusing, unsynchronized time.”
While I think it is a noteworthy attempt by officials in the country to tackle tardiness that is deemed to negatively impact the country’s economy, changing 300 + years of an evolutionary trait could be as monumental as the timely scheduling of pick-up times for Jeepneys. For me, the DOST mantra – With PST, “Filipino time” is now “on time” is almost as laughable as betting on a blind rooster at a cockfight.
An excerpt from the Urban Dictionary:
Filipino Time, which means things get done whenever they get done. Official Timing of The Philippines.
Although I fully understand the intent of the DOST, I ask the question all the time – would life be any different in my view if Filipino’s all just began to show up on time? Maybe for some, it would.
Personally for me and others who may be at that point in life where retirement and slowing down is way more important than catching a Jeepney on time, the choice of showing up on time or being fashionably late is just an added convenience of one’s chosen lifestyle.
More importantly, and as far as I’m concerned, the later I am the colder the San Miguel could potentially be! But, one also does run the risk of missing out on the “polutan.” For me, I simply look at exercising the option of being late as a “life” Executive Privilege. | <urn:uuid:f52e357e-0f89-45ec-a96d-353d10f7a9cf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.philippinesplus.com/2012/07/12/the-official-time-of-the-philippines-juan-time-or-filipino-time/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967357 | 968 | 1.78125 | 2 |
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The Center for Health Promotion is a service of the Ithaca College Office of Counseling and Wellness. The Center strives to create a campus culture which encourages and supports health-promoting behaviors and environments.
The Center for Health Promotion provides free health information, training, and consultation for Ithaca College students. Please visit our resource room, located on the lower level of Hammond Health Center. Our educational resources include
- Ithaca Student Health 101 wellness e-magazine - Check it out!
- Confidential, one-on-one appointments to talk about health-related concerns such as:
- Alcohol and other drug use
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- Coping skills for stress management, transition difficulties, academic challenges
- Whatever you want to talk about!
- Wellness pamphlets and brochures.
- Posters on various health topics.
- Bulletin board kits for RAs.
- Free condoms and other safer sex supplies.
- A SunBox Light Therapy unit.
- Campus and community resource information and referrals.
The Center is open Monday to Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Stop by to meet one of our program interns or our program director, Nancy Reynolds, MSPH. Nancy can also be reached by email at email@example.com or by phone at 607-274-7933 | <urn:uuid:1ca911ce-2306-467e-989e-4810b024a3e9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ithaca.edu/sacl/healthpromotion/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917854 | 316 | 1.6875 | 2 |
- Sharon Turner
EAP Teacher (English for Academic Purposes), Sabanci University
What is the value of gaining a higher education?
I was reading an article today in the Guardian about the consequences of higher education. The writer's premise was that if graduates could not be guaranteed entry to the job market, higher education was meaningless. Does higher education have value beyond economic/ business needs? | <urn:uuid:080b54dd-2a30-482c-8163-4f8cca3422b0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ted.com/conversations/5354/what_is_the_value_of_gaining_a.html?c=313185 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959063 | 79 | 1.875 | 2 |
If you’ve been following these Deke’s Techniques blog posts for a while, you know my favorite techniques are those that require nothing but Photoshop; that is, Deke takes a mixture of effects, smart objects, filters, and color information, and with no source material whatsoever, creates something that looks like something else. After watching this week’s episode, I know if I were stranded on a desert island (with Photoshop and a power supply for my laptop, of course) I would be able to create 100% synthetic, natural-looking wood purely from Photoshop (to go with my faux starscape and fake curtains created in previous weeks’ techniques.)
The fake woodgrain is created from a combination of the clouds, emboss, high pass, and noise filters, plus an adjustment layer or two, and a color overlay effect. After watching this week’s free movie, you will be able to create something like this:
Without a single pixel harmed or tree destroyed!
For lynda.com members, Deke has created another exclusive video inside the Deke’s Techniques course in which you’ll learn how to put several of these wooden slats together and carve a message into them. In fact, members can see the entire collection of Deke’s Techniques in the Online Training Library®, with plenty of great tips and tricks for creating your own world of real and imagined textures, words, and images.
See you next week, with another free technique from Deke. | <urn:uuid:d1c34b06-e93f-4cbe-a4d2-b595c7ed37e5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.lynda.com/2011/06/07/dekes-techniques-creating-a-simulated-wood-grain/comment-page-1/ | 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 | 0.932021 | 311 | 1.617188 | 2 |
|Unique Business in Martin County
Naval Base started development during World War II, in 1940.
Crane was one of many government production facilities across the
Hoosier state, and started as a naval weapons depot. It was named in
honor of Commodore William Montgomery Crane, the first head of the
Navy’s Bureau of Ordinance.
geological composition of the soil in Martin County is ideal for gypsum
material. Both National Gypsum and US Gypsum operate plants near Shoals.
was once a huge industry in Martin County. Shells of the mussels were
used for pearl buttons beginning in 1915 by Fabius Gwin, and became an
astonishing industry as time passed. Gwin was known as the “king
of the button industry” in the state, and his factories paid extremely
well and employed over 300 people during the peak seasons as
diggers. The shells from the White River are superior to
Tennessee River shells, which is the major shell producing river in the
United States. Gwin kept his company afloat until his death in
1947. However, when zippers and elastics were introduced to the
market, buttons dramatically lost their popularity and the industry in
Martin County took a severe blow. These buttons could still be
produced today as the River has a bountiful supply of mussels but they
have been protected.
pottery in Shoals/Loogootee: About the same time period as the famous
Rookwood Pottery was made in Ohio. Upton Stuckey realized the clay from
the hills of his farm could be molded and finished by firing. Ovens
were built, and the venture later became the first pottery in Martin
County, and perhaps one of the very first in the state of Indiana.
Containers by Stuckey had a blue and blue-green glaze design that
resembles a bird. Devol and Catterson operated two pottery kilns at
Shoals and made 92,000 gallons of common stoneware annually, from
1870-1892. The land in and around Shoals and Loogootee was ideal for
pottery, and probably still is. John H. Folks made stoneware, flower
pots, etc. from a bed of light gray potters’ clay located on the Joseph
Cannon farm beginning in 1878. The stratum of potter’s clay used by Mr.
Folks is nearly five feet thick and underlies a vein of coal. The area
is extant with a variety of yellow-loess potter’s clays and shale and
is ideal for this industry.
Music Company, specializing in operating juke boxes, is located in
Shoals and one of the largest companies of its kind in the Midwest.
abundant supply of natural gas and sand led to the growth of a booming
glass industry in Martin County. The Loogootee Glass Company,
Graham Brothers, New Caladonia Glass Works, and Phoenix Window Glass
Company resided in Loogootee, starting around 1902. Everything
from fancy, delicate perfume bottles to medicine bottles, glass chains
to fruit jars, were produced. It’s been quoted that “just about every
man in town worked there at one time or another, even if it was just
for a short time.” All of the factories closed, however, by 1915
because the supply of natural gas was extinguished.
Facts and “True Stories”
1861, a troop train carrying soldiers passed through Loogootee, heading
towards Washington, D.C. for guard duty. After the engine cleared
the Beaver Creek Bridge, a rail gave way, causing a horrific wreck that
killed 40 soldiers and wounded 105. At the time, Martin County
had a large group of Knights of the Golden Circle, who were southern
sympathizers, and were suspected of loosening the rail.
first veteran that died in the Civil War from Martin County was Private
Amos Boyd of the 14th Indiana Volunteers. He was killed in West
Virginia at Cheat Summit Fort.
A Martin County resident visits the gravesite of Amos Boyd, first Martin County veteran to die in the Civil War.
Photo courtesy of
of its caves and cliffs, the region around and including Shoals was a
popular hideout for bootleggers during the Prohibition.
- Pre-historic Indians lived in the
area as far back as 11,000 BC. They hunted now extinct animals
such as bison, mammoth, and mastodon.
to the Society of Indiana Pioneers, an individual was a pioneer of the
county if they resided here on or before December 31, 1825.
- Originally a part of Daviess County, Martin was organized as a separate county February 1, 1820.
- The first state highway was built in 1820. It ran from New Albany to Vincennes, and went through Martin County (Hwy 150).
Gang: Martin County had some notorious citizens in the 1880s named
Archer that were supposedly robbers and murderers. They were
finally lodged in the Martin County jail in March of 1886 after years
of roaming free. The people of the community took the law into
their own hands, and on the night of March 9, 1886, they broke into the
jail, locked up the sheriff, took the prisoners onto the court house
lawn, and with ropes in hand, lynched the Archer Gang. At 1:00
a.m., the court house bells rang to alert the townspeople to witness
the Archers’ hanging on the court house lawn, where they remained
hanging until noon of the next day.
County has had the most county seats of any county in Indiana, totaling
nine. The first county seat was at Hindostan, because it was the
largest town in the county. It was also on the New
Albany-Vincennes stagecoach route, which was the first stagecoach route
in Indiana. After Hindostan was hit by the Yellow Fever, the
county seat moved to Mount Pleasant from 1828-1844. A new
community developed near Mount Pleasant in 1853, where the Ohio and
Mississippi Railroad came through. The people of Mount Pleasant
moved to this new community, called Loogootee, which remains the
largest (and only) city in the county. Surprisingly, Loogootee
has never been the county seat. Trinity Springs became
the new county seat, known for its natural health spas. The last
and final move was to Shoals on the White River, approximately 8 miles
from Hindostan, in 1871, where approximately 1200 people reside today.
- Information provided by Bill Whorrall’s A Photographic History of Martin County, Robert L. Reid and Thomas E. Rodgers’ A Good Neighbor: The First Fifty Years At Crane, Harry Q. Holt’s History of Martin County Indiana, and Bob Greene.
Contemporary Artist, Authors
Author and story teller Wendell Trogdon, has written about Southern Indiana first hand. Published through Country Pines Printing and available online, some of his titles include:
Damon-Beyond the Glory
Indiana at Random
The 1930’s and 1940’s…Pain and Pleasure
Winding are the Roads
Main Street Diners (including Velma’s at Shoals)
not just the name of a popular television show. The history
of Martin County is replete with tales of a lost city and buried
gold. Situated on the New Albany-Vincennes stage coach route, the
first stage coach route in Indiana, Hindostan is the county’s first
- The traditional story
goes that in the fall of 1820, an illness plagued the town of Hindostan
and wiped out the population (about 1000 people). It appears the
illness was Yellow Fever caused from mosquitoes. Today, there are
no signs of an existence of the town of Hindostan, except for the town
cemeteries filled with the families lost to the Yellow Fever.
However, we only know for sure that fifteen people died that
year. We do know that the Yellow Fever struck Vincennes in 1820
as well. By 1825, people had begun to leave Hindostan, and in
1828 the county seat was moved to Mt. Pleasant. But, as for no
one residing at Hindostan after 1828 as is popularly believed, history
reveals that ferries ran all the way up in to the 1840s, and the famous
mills were still in operation in 1855. Domestic disputes were
recorded in 1830, as were several assaults and batteries. The
depression of 1819-1820 resulted in people moving into Hindostan and
buying property on “notes,” and never paying these notes back. So
many debts and lawsuits were accumulated by the citizens that
eventually many fled the area. Therefore, it seems that Hindostan
lost most of its residents from moving rather than illness
||Hindostan Falls on the White River, site of mills, ferry crossings,
the “lost town.”
Photo courtesy of Bob Greene.
county treasurer was rumored to have come down with the Yellow Fever,
and when he fell ill he took the county taxes that he had collected and
buried it in an iron pot. He told no one of where he had hidden
the pot, so the legend of the buried money still lives on today.
one is exactly sure of how Martin County got its name. A few
suggestions were Major Thomas Martin, who was from Kentucky, and John
P. Martin, a Revolutionary War veteran.
“Bigfoot” sighting occurred in 1979. 19-year-old Andy Keith saw a
“Bigfoot”-type creature cross the road near his home in the hills of
northeast Martin County. He said that the creature smelled so
bad, he was unable to get close enough to it to follow it.
Although they tried, no man was able to stomp into the slightly muddy
terrain hard enough to create a footprint as deep as the one left
Andy Keith shows off a mold of the giant footprint, belonging to the creature he saw wandering around Martin County.
for more on this story.
Martin County today, a quick profile:
Martin County detailed history sources:
Bill Whorall's Books & Documentaries on Martin County:
Information provided by Bill Whorrall’s
A Photographic History of Martin County
and Bob Greene. | <urn:uuid:09796bc1-64b4-4ad8-9557-15f534adc28c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.visitmartincounty.org/history_and_legends.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965318 | 2,262 | 2.90625 | 3 |
December 24, 2012
AQHA Corporate Partner Nutrena explains why your horse might be developing a pot belly.
My horse (an off-the-track Thoroughbred) was very thin when I bought him in July, possibly due to his stress level. Now, things changed for the better for him. I ride him every day for about one hour. However, he is growing a pot belly. He eats grain and hay (and I think straw). He is dewormed, so I’m not sure what else to do to keep him healthy.
For the answer to this question, we consulted Nutrena customer support member Jolene Wright.
Other than worms, pot bellied can be a sign that your horse is getting too much stalky type hay or hay that is baled too mature and high in lignin. Hay baled too mature is high in lignin, and horses can’t digest lignin. Hay high in lignin can also be a cause of impaction colic, especially if not enough water is consumed. Hay that is baled during the proper stage will have hemicellulose and cellulose, which is digested by the horse. Good quality hay baled at the proper stage is important for the horse to reach daily nutrient requirements. During drought conditions, it is common for hay to be baled more mature due to the lack of rain. Drought conditions make it harder to find good quality hay. Alfalfa or grass cubes or pellets can be good alternatives when good quality hay is hard to find.
The hay-to-grain ratio can also cause a pot-bellied look, but more so for young horses. You want to be sure your horse is getting the recommended level of feed for your horse’s weight and activity level. A controlled starch and sugar feed is always best, such as SafeChoice Original.
– Jolene Wright, Nutrena customer support member
One Comment on “Pot-Bellied Horse”
Add a Comment | <urn:uuid:77cdd1a7-ed5a-4549-88eb-7548e46e1d30> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://americashorsedaily.com/pot-bellied-horse/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956955 | 421 | 1.875 | 2 |
Lithium (Li) is a trace mineral, used in the treatment of bipolar disorder at doses hundreds of times higher than that from diet. The main dietary sources are vegetables and grains, followed by dairy. The concentration in water varies widely: @evolutionarypsy recently tweeted San Pellegrino's high Li content of 200mcg/L.
Among myriad actions it decreases brain inflammation by reducing brain arachadonic acid levels and increasing the concentration of an anti-inflammatory metabolite of DHA (evolutionarypsychiatry.com/2010/07/lithium-and-inflammation.html). It also supports B12 and folate transport into cells.
In Japan and Texas there's an inverse correlation between tap water's lithium concentration and suicide, and the Texas study also showed lower arrests for drug use and violent crime.
In the Japanese study the highest concentration in water was 59mcg/L.
400mcg Li improved mood in a small placebo-controlled trial in former drug users. "In the Li group, the total (positive) mood test scores increased steadily during the four weeks of supplementation and specifically in the subcategories reflecting happiness, friendliness and energy. In the placebo group, the combined mood scores showed no consistent changes; the happiness scores actually declined." http://www.jacn.org/content/21/1/14.long
Drinking mineral water relatively high in Li increased BDNF (the hallowed brain-derived neurotrophic factor also increased by things like exercise and eating your blueberries), and reduced anxiety scores (in a non-controlled trial) www.gjpsy.uni-goettingen.de/gjp-article-shiotsuki.pdf
And it may affect lifespan - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21301855
Does avoiding grains and dairy make the Li content of your water more important? Should San Pellegrino join Kerrygold in the hall of fame?
Anyone aware of Li levels in water in Africa, or estimates of paleolithic Li intake?
Not another thing to tweak, you neurotic OP! (?)
-- edit: A psychiatrist recently drew flack in Ireland for suggesting more lithium in tap water, which resulted in inevitable comments about medicating the populace, and comparisons with Brave New World. If we have higher rates of mental health problems in low lithium areas it makes me wonder about the norm in the evolutionary "milieu". On the other hand just as depression isn't an antidepressant deficiency maybe protective effects of small quantities of lithium are more "medicinal" than normal physiology at work. http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/kfqlojsnmhcw/rss2/ | <urn:uuid:d3808c20-2b38-4e00-b2e5-7a22af6b6a6d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://paleohacks.com/questions/108795?sort=newest | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.907094 | 570 | 2.53125 | 3 |
The rules for 2011 are not yet finalized. The NACLO committee
may make minor changes to the rules in the next few months.
You may also find these rules, along with all other essential information
about the contest, in the printer-friendly
The NACLO competition is for high-school students, which also allows
the participation of middle-school students. It consists of two rounds,
called the Open Round and Invitational Round.
Open Round (February 2, 2010): The first round is open to
all interested middle-school and high-school students; its purpose is
to identify the strong contestants who advance to the second
round. The judges expect that about one hundred contestants will
advance to the Invitational Round.
Invitational Round (March 10, 2010): The second round is
for the contestants who have advanced from the first round, and the
problems at this competition are harder than the Open Round problems. The
purpose is to select national winners, who will be eligible to participate
in the International Linguistics Olympiad (ILO).
Problems and solutions
- The Open Round is three hours long, whereas the Invitational Round is
five hours long. The judges have the authority to lengthen either
competition in the event of unforeseen circumstances.
- The contestants should submit all their solutions in writing, using a
black nonerasable pen, and ensure that their handwriting is
legible. The use of a black pen is essential to ensure legible
photocopying or scanning of the solutions, which may be done to
streamline the grading process.
- The contestants should write their names and registration numbers on
every page of the booklet, and they should write their solutions in
the appropriate spaces, provided in the booklet; the judges will grade only
legible solutions. If the space in the booklet is insufficient, contestants
may use extra blank sheets to write their solutions. If they use extra
sheets, they should write their names, registration numbers, and problem
numbers on every sheet; use only one side of each sheet for the
solution; and use different sheets for different problems. After the
competition, the contest organizers will photocopy or scan the submissions
and send different problems to different graders. If a contestant uses
both sides of a sheet, the text on the back will be lost during the
photocopying or scanning.
- The contestants may solve the given problems in any order, and they
should try to solve as many problems as possible. Most problems include
"practice" and "theory" questions; the practice parts are worth about 60%
of the score, and the theory parts are worth about 40%. Contestants may
receive partial credit for providing an incomplete solution to a problem, or
specific ideas for solving it. Thus, if they have ideas for solving a
problem, they should write them even if they have not been able to develop a
Allowed and disallowed materials
- The contestants should bring their own paper and black pen, and
may optionally bring pencils or other writing instruments for scratch
work. The facilitators will provide additional paper as necessary.
- The contestants should write their solutions in black ink, and may
use pencils only for scratch work. They may use blank paper for scratch
work; however, they should copy their final solutions into the spaces
provided in the problem booklet, and they may enclose additional
sheets only if the space in the booklet is insufficient.
- The contestants may not use any electronic devices except basic
wristwatches. In particular, they may not use calculators, computers, palm
pilots, cell phones, pagers, or wristwatches with built-in calculators.
Attempts to use electronic devices will normally lead to
disqualification. If a contestant has any medical electronic devices,
required for health reasons, she or he should notify the facilitators
about it before the contest.
- The contestants may not use any written or printed materials, such as
books or their own notes produced before the contest.
Conduct during the contest
- The contestants should follow all instructions of the facilitators; if
they have questions about the rules or conduct during the contest, they
should raise their hand and ask a facilitator.
- The contestants may not talk with anyone except facilitators, and
may not collaborate with each other. Attempts to communicate with other
contestants will normally lead to disqualification.
- Any bags should be placed under the seats before the contest, and
may not accessed during the contest. Thus, the contestants should get
all required materials from their bags before the contest.
- If a contestant has a cell phone, pager, or any other sound-emitting
device, it should be turned off before the contest; note that switching it
to the silent mode is not sufficient.
- The contestants may take bathroom breaks during the contest; however,
they may not take their bags, any electronic devices, problem booklets, or
their notes with them when temporarily leaving the room. Also, two
contestants may not take a bathroom break at the same time.
- The contestants may bring snacks into the contest site and eat during
the contest, but they should be considerate of others. In particular, they
should avoid "noisy" foods, such as foil-wrapped chocolates, and foods
with a strong smell. The local facilitators have the authority to
override this rule and prohibit snacks at specific sites. Even
if the facilitators allow snacks, they have the authority to remove
any types of food from the contest site if they feel that these types of
food may distract other contestants.
- If some contestant arrives late, they may still participate in the
contest; however, they may not ask facilitators to repeat any instructions
or announcements that have been missed due to the late arrival. Also, they
may not ask for time extension in the end of the contest, which means that
they will have less time than the other contestants.
Questions during the contest
Note to facilitators
- If a contestant has a question, she or he should raise a hand, and one
of the facilitators will answer the question. When talking with a
facilitator, contestants should keep their voice low, to make sure that
they do not distract others and do not accidentally provide a hint for
solving any problems.
- If a contestant needs a clarification for a specific problem, the
facilitator will need to contact the judges via email, which means
that an immediate answer may not be available. Please note that local
facilitators are unable to provide answers without contacting the judges.
If the judges agree that the problem requires a clarification or
correction, they will normally announce it to all contestants.
- If the judges feel that an answer is already contained in the
booklet, or that a contestant is asking for a hint on how to solve the
problem, they may refuse to answer the question.
: The contest orginizers will provide the
e-mail address for clarification questions. Please do not attempt to
answer questions about problems without contacting the judges. Also,
please monitor your e-mail for possible clarifications and corrections.
Please remember that even a minor comment may sometimes give your local
contestants an advantage over others, and it may also confuse contestants.
- Every problem will be worth a specified number of points;
harder problems are generally worth more points.
- The judges will score each solution based on its correctness, quality,
and clarity, and determine the overall score as the sum of solution
scores; see the NACLO scoring
page for more details. They will try (but do not guarantee) to
complete the scoring and announce the results within three weeks after the
- The judges are solely responsible for scoring the solutions,
ruling on unforeseen situations, and selecting the winners; their
decisions are final.
If some contestants have special needs, they should notify the contest
organizers as soon as possible, and the organizers will try to accommodate
them. The contestants should discuss all their special needs before the
Questions about the site? Email azure [at] umich [dot] edu | <urn:uuid:3de97fea-e661-49bc-ba97-e4bc9aa8def4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~eugene/Naclo/rules11.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930059 | 1,742 | 3.296875 | 3 |
Healthy Way Issue 33
Unpleasant daytime experiences prevent sleep and create a state of depression and the ‘wheels’ which are supposed to stand still during the night turn faster and faster. Alfred Vogel looks at what can help.
This article features an extract from Jan de Vries fascinating book - Treating Body, Mind and Soul.
Practitioner Brian Murphy takes an in-depth look at the Bowen Technique, a natural and holistic therapy pioneered by Thomas Bowen (1916 –1982).
With the colon the main exit for food waste and toxins, naturopaths worry at any hint of complacency over its functioning. Alison Cullen explains the intricacies and looks at why and how to keep the bowels naturally healthy.
We look at health problems faced specifically by men, such as heart disease and prostate and how to avoid or to overcome them by natural means.
Rest and relaxation are watchwords but, along with the guide book and the phrase book, it’s always best to be prepared with a few remedies so that your holiday is not spoilt by that unexpected upset, writes Debbie Webber.
This Healthy World article looks at The Falkirk Wheel and its impact on the surrounding environment.
This beautiful tree with its white flowers gives us shiny brown conkers, which have been making themselves useful ever since the tree was imported from Asia in the 16th century.
In this feature, Alison Cullen addresses the readers' issues.
Did You Know features the Neem Tree, otherwise known in India as the 'Village Pharmacy. | <urn:uuid:1c237461-4f91-4999-bdea-24534dacda1e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.healthywaymagazine.com/issue33/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944507 | 320 | 1.984375 | 2 |
Best Known For
Ariel Sharon is an Israeli statesman and retired general, who served as Israel's 11th prime minister.
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In 1982, Sharon launched a controversial and much-contested invasion of Lebanon. The purpose of this attack was drive out PLO leader Yasser Arafat and his forces in the Beirut, but it led to a decades-long military presence in Lebanon by Israeli troops.
To accomplish his end, Sharon allied himself with pro-Christian factions within Lebanon, and supported a new government that was led by Bachir Gemayel. After Gemayel's assassination,
a militia of Gemayel's supporters attacked the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila. Sharon had allowed the militia to enter these camps, but he later explained that the militia was supposed to rid them of any remaining terrorists. But, in fact, they went in and indiscriminately killed men, women and children. The Israeli government launched an investigation into the massacres, and found Sharon negligent in how he handled the matter. He was removed from his position in 1983.
While a scandal of that magnitude has destroyed many of a political career, Sharon managed to stay on within the Israeli government. He served as the minister of Industry and Trade from 1984 to 1990. During this time, Sharon was instrumental in signing the 1985 free trade agreement with the United States. He oversaw a tremendous wave of real estate development, as the minister of housing and construction. From 1990 to 1992, Sharon managed the building of 144,000 new apartments, which were created to meet the new needs of the country's growing population. There was a new wave of immigrants coming to Israel from the Soviet Union.
In 1999, Sharon became the chairman of the Likud Party. He made a controversial trip to Jerusalem to visit the Temple Mount, a Jewish holy site that is also home to the al-Aqsa Mosque. This mosque is a revered place for Muslim, and Sharon's presence there in 2000 is considered by some to have helped ignite a new wave of attacks by the Palestinians against the Israelis. In wake of renewed violence, the military hardliner Sharon easily won election as prime minister.
As Israeli's prime minister, Sharon initially seemed to continue his relentless pursuit for security for his country. He launched Operation Defensive Shield in 2002, which was actually a military offensive in several Palestinian areas. Sharon also authorized the construction of protective barriers in certain areas, including the West Bank. As his time in office progressed, he seemed to be shifting away from his militant political position. Sharon began talking about a policy of disengagement with the Palestinians, and seemed to embrace the U.S. "Road Map" for peace between the two sides.
Sharon alienated many of his supporters and his own party members with his call for a withdrawal of Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip. This was a radical change of heart for the creator of so many Jewish communities built on disputed territory. Some have speculated that Sharon, a pragmatist at heart, came to realize that holding on to the area had become untenable.
In 2005, Sharon broke with the Likud Party to form a new centrist political group, known as the Kadima Party.
profile name: Ariel Sharon profile occupation:
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Learn more about some of the world's most famous prime ministers, including "Iron Lady" Margaret Thatcher, the first woman to hold the position; Winston Churchill, who stood against Adolph Hitler's threat to control Europe during World War II; Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister; and his daughter, Indira Gandhi, who served three consecutive terms as prime minister before she was assassinated by her bodyguards in 1984.
Famous Prime Ministers 66 people in this group | <urn:uuid:ba8bb537-0b6a-427d-b5c8-71c9cb07df11> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.biography.com/people/ariel-sharon-9480655?page=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977005 | 829 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Sewer systems that are improperly maintained and operated oftentimes lead to sanitary sewer overflows (SSOs) due to increased flow in the system (inflow/infiltration [I/I] problems), pipe failures (tree root intrusions, blocked, broken or cracked pipes, and pipe settlement at the joints) and manhole deterioration. The EPA believes that sanitary sewers are the most deteriorated part of the wastewater infrastructure. A primary concern with SSOs is the effect they have on human health. Many times SSOs occur in high public areas such as basements, streets, playgrounds, rivers and streams. The EPA estimates that there are at least 40,000 SSOs per year. The EPA further estimates that approximately 75 percent of all sanitary sewer systems are capable of providing only 50 percent of their original capacity or less.
An EPA document (832-K-96-001 - Summer 1996) provides information relating SSOs to potential health risks. SSOs are a direct threat to public health since they contain raw sewage and therefore have the potential to contain
• protozoa (parasitic organisms),
• helminths (intestinal worms), and
• bioaerosols (inhalable molds and fungi).
The severity of the diseases that these organisms can spread varies from the common cold and fever to salmonellosis (food poisoning) and gastroenteritis (causing diarrhea and abdominal pain) to life threatening diseases including hepatitis, meningitis and cholera. The public can be exposed to the above organisms and diseases through contact with raw sewage in
• drinking water contaminated by SSOs,
• direct contact in areas of high public access (including inhalation and skin absorption), and
• consuming fish and shellfish harvested from areas where SSOs occur.
Based on additional information from the EPA (EPA 832-K-96-001 - Summer 1996), one SSO in Cabool, Mo., in 1990 caused 279 people to be affected by a pathogenic strain of Escherichia coli when contamination from the SSO entered the drinking water mains. Four people died, 32 were hospitalized and 243 became ill with diarrhea and other problems from this event. In addition, the EPA notes a study that estimates a direct relationship between gastrointestinal illness contracted while swimming and bacteria levels in the water. One study indicates that an average of nearly 700 cases of illness per year were reported in the 1980s from eating shellfish contaminated by sewage and other sources. The EPA estimates that the number of unreported cases is 20 times that.
Due to incomplete reporting and inconsistent permitting, most of the data available regarding SSOs are only approximate. One of the primary contributors to incomplete reporting is SSOs that occur in remote areas. These SSOs are difficult to identify and thus many times go unnoticed. However, the data that do exist, although most likely underestimated, presents a strong argument for improved SSO regulations.
Upcoming SSO Regulations
Based on the aforementioned risks associated with SSOs and a presidential directive dated May 29, 1999, the EPA began developing a program that would monitor and regulate SSOs from a national standpoint. These efforts resulted in the development of a proposed SSO rule under the NPDES legislation that was developed by the EPA and the SSO Federal Advisory Subcommittee. The SSO Subcommittee unanimously supported the proposed SSO rule during their October 18-20, 1999 meeting. The proposed rule was released in January 2001 and consists of the following three standard permit conditions for owners of sanitary sewer collection systems.
• Capacity, Management, Operation and Maintenance (CMOM) (proposed 40 CFR 122.42[e])
• Prohibition on SSOs (proposed 40 CFR 122.42[f])
• Reporting, Record Keeping and Public Notification (proposed 40 CFR 122.42 [g])
Under the proposed rule, the EPA also intends to expand the NPDES to include satellite collection systems. In addition, the EPA is discussing utilizing a watershed management approach with the proposed SSO rule in order to prioritize environmental efforts within a given area. The program that is anticipated to have the largest impact in terms of initial effort required from collection system owners is the CMOM program.
The proposed CMOM legislation (122.42[e]) contains four basic sections.
• General Standards
• CMOM Program Components
• Small Collection Systems
The General Standards section sets forth the basic provisions for the proposed CMOM legislation. Five basic requirements are set forth and must be met by the permittee.
• Properly manage, operate and maintain, at all times, all parts of the collection system that you own or over which you have operational control.
• Provide adequate capacity to convey base flows and peak flows for all parts of the collection system you own or have operational control.
• Take all feasible steps to stop and mitigate the impact of sanitary sewer overflows in portions of the collection system you own or have operational control.
• Provide notification to parties with a reasonable potential for exposure to pollutants associated with the overflow event.
• Develop a written summary of your CMOM program and make it and the audit under section 5 available to any member of the public upon request.
The CMOM Program Components section states that a CMOM program must be developed in accordance with the General Standards. If any element of the General Standards section is not applicable or appropriate, it does not have to be included in the permittee's CMOM program. However, the written summary must identify why that particular element does not apply. The necessary components of a CMOM program as outlined in the proposed regulations are
• legal authority,
• measures and activities,
• design and performance provisions,
• monitoring, measurement and program modifications,
• overflow emergency response plan,
• system evaluation and capacity
assurance plan, and
• program audits.
The first step is to identify the major goals of the program. These should be consistent with the general standards presented in section 1.
The CMOM program then should focus on organization. This section of the program should identify positions responsible for implementing tasks presented in the permittee's CMOM program, including lines of authority (an organization chart can be used here). In addition, a chain of communication for reporting SSOs should be established.
Legal authority is another issue that must be addressed per the proposed CMOM legislation. This provision requires the permittee to specify legal authority (through legally binding documents such as sewer use ordinances and service agreements) to assure proper maintenance, design, construction and inspection of the sanitary sewer system. This section of a permittee's CMOM program would assure that the permittee has adequate legal authority to authorize implementation activities.
The measures and activities section is the heart of the CMOM legislation. This section requires the permittee to provide adequate maintenance of facilities and equipment, develop and/or maintain system mapping and provide routine preventative operation and maintenance activities and training for collection system personnel. In addition, this section requires the permittee to assess the capacity of both the collection system and treatment facilities, as well as to identify structural deficiencies and establish rehabilitation measures.
In addition to the preventative measures discussed above, the proposed CMOM legislation also requires standards to be set for additions to and rehabilitation of the existing sewer system in the design and performance provisions. Standards must be set for the installation of new sewers, pumps and other appurtenances as well as rehabilitation and repair projects. Procedures also should be outlined for inspecting and testing these activities.
The proposed CMOM legislation requires monitoring, measurement and program modifications to occur as needed to keep a CMOM program effective. Under this section, the effectiveness of the CMOM program should be evaluated and appropriate changes should be made. The CMOM program summary should be updated to reflect these changes.
The legislation also requires that an Overflow Response Plan be developed. This section requires the permittee to provide a plan that outlines steps to be taken when an SSO occurs, including notification of health agencies. This plan should provide a framework to ensure that all overflows are properly identified, responded to and appropriately reported. In addition, the plan should provide measures to train personnel and ensure that they follow all overflow response procedures. Emergency operations also must be addressed.
A System Evaluation and Capacity Assurance Plan needs to be developed if peak flow conditions are contributing to an SSO within the sanitary sewer system. Basic elements of this plan are
• capacity enhancement measures, and
• plan updates.
The basic tenet of the System Evaluation and Capacity Assurance Plan is to assure that the permittee is aware of the current capacity of the system and the peak flows associated with overflow events. In addition, any hydraulic deficiencies within the system should be identified. The permittee also must establish measures to address and correct these deficiencies and update the plan as necessary.
CMOM program audits are an essential part of the proposed SSO rule. They provide a tool for continuous improvement of the CMOM program and thus the sanitary sewer system. The audit must evaluate the effectiveness of the permittee's CMOM program in terms of its deficiencies and its steps to respond to these deficiencies. The audit should be appropriate to the size of the sanitary sewer system and the number of overflows.
The Communications section (section 3) states that the permittee should communicate on a regular basis with those who are interested in their CMOM program. In addition, the permittee also should allow feedback from interested parties as the CMOM program is developed, implemented and updated.
Section 4 addresses small collection systems and allows for the NPDES Authority to make modifications to the CMOM program permit condition. Specifically, systems with an average daily flow of 2.5 mgd or less are not required to develop a written summary of the CMOM program and are not required to perform an audit or prepare an audit report unless an SSO occurs that discharges to waters of the United States. Systems with an average daily flow of 1.0 mgd or less may not be required to implement the legal authority or measures and activities provisions (with the exception of system mapping).
What Can be Expected?
The proposed CMOM legislation is quickly approaching, with the proposed rule anticipated to be released this spring. It is expected that the rule will become part of the NPDES legislation within the two years following. Therefore, it is in the best interest of the permittee to start developing a Capacity Management, Operation and Maintenance program that incorporates requirements from the proposed legislation.
CMOM Program requirements are to be included in the first NPDES permit that contains CMOM conditions. For satellite systems, a permit application generally must be submitted within 3-5 years of publication of the final rule and based on the receiving treatment facility permit renewal schedule. However, systems that exhibit chronic SSOs or have an SSO that discharges to waters of the United States may be required to submit an application within 180 days.
One of the primary objectives of the CMOM legislation is for permittees to catalog all aspects of their system and maintain procedures in place for maintenance and rehabilitation to occur as needed. Based on the proposed legislation, CMOM programs shall address current capacity problems within the system as well as provide the framework for preventing and addressing potential problems within the system. Developing a thorough CMOM program will require municipalities to have a strong grasp on the capacity of their system as well as the problems that exist within it. A Gap Analysis is one tool that can and should be utilized to determine the difference between the permittee's current operation, maintenance and capacity assurance protocols and those required to meet the basic tenets of the CMOM legislation. In addition, the following are procedures that exist for evaluating sewer systems.
• Manhole Inspections
• Flow Monitoring
• Smoke Testing
• Dye Testing
• Night Flow Isolation and Measurement
• Closed Circuit Television Inspection
• Hydraulic Modeling
These procedures provide a permittee with information regarding defects within the manholes and pipelines, daily flow values and inflow/infiltration sources. In addition, they provide information regarding system configuration for mapping purposes. This information will prove to be a strong tool in developing a CMOM program.
In addition to this effort, the permittee will be required to create and update the following four documents.
• Written Summary of the
• Overflow Response Plan
• System Evaluation and Capacity
Assurance Plan (as needed)
• Program Audit Report
Ultimately, these documents serve as a record that the permittee is following the CMOM legislation requirements. It will be essential for the permittee to maintain proper documentation, especially in the cases when SSOs do occur. In these cases, the permittee will have the burden of proof in showing that every effort was taken to prevent the SSOs from occurring.
The Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) released GASB - 34 in June 1999, requiring state and local governments to report all infrastructure assets, including sewers, in their annual financial reports. The date that GASB - 34 will take effect varies based on a government's annual revenues; however, all governments must begin proactive reporting of infrastructure by June 15, 2003.
The upcoming SSO regulations also are expected to be finalized and incorporated into the NPDES legislation within this time frame. Retroactive reporting (back to June 30, 1980) will have to be incorporated into the financial reports after a transition period of four years.
In order to accurately account for this infrastructure reporting, a thorough knowledge of infrastructure inventory and conditions will be necessary. In addition, all infrastructure assets will have to be depreciated unless a state or local government can show that these assets are being maintained at an established level. To comply with this, the government will be required to present an up-to-date inventory, perform condition assessments of the assets and estimate the total amount to maintain the infrastructure assets at the established level.
The development of a CMOM program should be developed in conjunction with sewer infrastructure reporting to eliminate potential redundant efforts. A complete CMOM program will address each of the items to allow governments to report infrastructure assets without having to depreciate them.
In conclusion, permittees should take the next two years as an opportunity to develop a sanitary sewer management program that is in compliance with the proposed CMOM legislation. This will allow for the development of a program that is compatible with both the permittee, the collection system size and complexity, and with the legislation. In addition, a thorough CMOM program will allow for an easier transition into the upcoming required infrastructure reporting and, if completed in conjunction with GASB -34 requirements, will eliminate redundant efforts.
Sanitary Sewer Overflows | <urn:uuid:e82c5fa1-72bf-4e82-b083-c326c296f688> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wqpmag.com/print/12390 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938689 | 2,997 | 3.453125 | 3 |
Testifying at a Senate Banking Committee, Federal Reserve Gov. Daniel Tarullo noted that the QRM risk retention rule is designed to protect MBS investors and the recently finalized QM rule is designed to ensure borrowers are not placed into loans they can’t afford.
As the six regulators sit down to finalize the QRM rule, Tarullo said “making QRM more or less congruent with QM” should be on the table for consideration.
“Given the state of the mortgage market right now, I think we want to be careful here about the incremental rulemaking—that we are not beginning to constrict credit to lower- and middle-class people,” the Fed governor said.
Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. chairman Martin Gruenberg told the committee that the Dodd-Frank Act does not prohibit the QRM rule from being defined as the same as the QM rule.
Comptroller of the Currency Tom Curry agreed with the FDIC chairman on the definition issue. And he agreed with Tarullo that it is “important to look at the cumulative effect” of the rules.
Curry noted that OCC is concerned about “competition and the ability to have the widest number of financial institutions, regardless of size, participating” in the mortgage market.
A recent report by CoreLogic shows that 42% of loans originated in 2010 would not meet the QM test due to the debt-to income limits and other criteria in the QM rule.
If the QRM rule imposes a 10% downpayment requirement, the combined impact of the QM and QRM rules would remove 60% of the loans from the market, according to CoreLogic. | <urn:uuid:a9295f9b-6101-41e0-b3af-5d6b651eafea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nationalmortgagenews.com/dailybriefing/regulators-making-qrm-rule-congruent-with-qm-1034579-1.html?site=default_msn | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958778 | 353 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Is your workout burning flab—or just burning up your time?
By Amy Rushlow, Posted Date: August 13, 2012
You probably have a friend who looks amazing thanks to an intense workout plan—whether he used series of follow-along DVDs, signed up for boot camp classes, or joined a trendy hard-core fitness group. And that’s not surprising. Work hard, and you’ll see results. Rocket science, right?
But just because something works doesn’t mean it’s your best option. Or even that it’s a good option at all.
These intense workout plans all include a type of training called “metabolic training.” Its goal is, in short, to increase your metabolism. That means you’ll burn fat not only during your workout, but at work, in your car, even while you’re sleeping. (For a fast-paced plan you can do at home, check out Speed Shred, the new follow-along DVD series from Men’s Health DeltaFIT.)
How does it work? In a typical metabolic-style workout, you’ll do resistance exercises at a fast pace, usually with some short rest periods between each move. For example, you’ll perform squats continuously for 20 seconds, rest for 10 seconds, do pushups for 20 seconds, rest for 10 seconds, and repeat that cycle for a total of four minutes.
Only four minutes? That’s right—metabolic workouts are fast. That’s part of their appeal. In a study from Azusa Pacific University, subjects who did a 4-minute routine similar to the one above burned 63 calories during the workout and an additional 297 calories afterward.
There’s a reason this type of training is so popular right now: It works. If you want to lose body fat, it’s the best type of exercise you can do. But metabolic training is a relatively new arrival to the fitness mainstream. And as any first-gen iPhone user knows, it takes a while to work out the kinks. So with the help from the country’s leading metabolic training experts, we’ve busted the top 5 metabolic training myths.
Myth #1: Endless jumping exercises are great for fat loss!
OK, jumping exercises are great for fat loss. “But they’re terrible for your joints,” says B.J. Gaddour, C.S.C.S., the creator of the Speed Shred DVD series. “Take a look at the testimonials for some of the intense workout plans. You see people with bands around their knees from knee injuries.” Instead of jumping on and off a box with your feet together, try this: Jump onto a 12- to 20-inch box with both feet. Then step off the box one foot at a time. “This gives you all the power and fat-loss benefits of a jumping exercise without destroying your joints,” Gaddour says.
Myth #2: You should feel exhausted at the end of every workout.
Go hard or go home? Hardly. “We’ve begun to value how ‘extreme’ a program is more than the results it can produce,” says Martin Rooney, C.S.C.S., author of Warrior Cardio. “But if you’re so sore you can’t move for days, you can’t train and you’ve damaged your body in a way that makes it more difficult to recover.” When you’re done, it should feel like you could do one more set or go for a couple more minutes. Leave some gas in your tank.
Myth #3: You need to work out every day if you’re serious about losing weight.
“You don’t get any results from training,” says Alwyn Cosgrove, C.S.C.S., owner of Results Fitness in San Clarita, California. “You need training plus recovery to get results.” Avoid exercising more than two days in a row. “Two days on, one day off seems to be the perfect recovery for most people,” Cosgrove says.
Myth #4: The faster the move, the better.
A metabolic exercise doesn’t have to make you out of breath to be effective, Gaddour says. Why? Resistance training is a great way to increase your metabolism. One study found that the metabolic boost from a full-body weightlifting session lasted for 72 hours. A must-try move: The hip hinge and row. “It works nearly every pulling muscle in your body, particularly your hips and shoulders, which are the most metabolically active tissues you have,” Gaddour says. Watch the video below to see how to perform this slow, controlled metabolic exercise.
MH Standard Player for WordPress 600x338 Theme: Light
Myth #5: Technical exercises are good additions to a hard workout.
Some popular programs call for high repetitions of technical exercises like cleans, snatches, and overhead squats—even when you’re exhausted. The problem: “With these exercises, your form will fail before you ever get a metabolic response,” Cosgrove says. That’s why Cosgrove likes what he calls self-limiting exercises. These are exercises that, once you’re fatigued, you simply can’t do anymore. Take a pushup. After a certain number of pushups, you won’t be able to raise your body off the floor. Basically, they’re hard to mess up. Planks, pullups, and bottoms-up kettlebell presses are other examples. | <urn:uuid:bedeb3b6-240b-4249-b3d2-4b2f2cc25511> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.menshealth.com/deltafit/5-fat-loss-myths?cm_mmc=Yahoo_Blog-_-Health-_-Clarke_Duncan-_-Fat_Loss_Myths | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930556 | 1,212 | 1.523438 | 2 |
During the 2012 fall season, we launched a survey that seeks to understand how you use and value the security resources on the Cisco Security Intelligence Operations Portal at http://cisco.com/security. At the same time we also made available our enhanced feedback mechanism—shown below highlighted in red—to allow you to more easily share your thoughts and frustrations with our content.
The response has been fantastic; thank you.
Through the new survey and feedback systems, we are broadening our understanding of the content-types you find useful, those you don’t, as well as content you’re not familiar with. We have received very specific questions and feedback and done our best to respond directly when we could (did you include an email address?) and have responded publicly via @CiscoSecurity a few times when no contact information was shared. For example, when an anonymous feedback-submitter suggested we provide RSS feeds for Cisco Security Advisories, we responded via Twitter with:
@CiscoSecurity: A friendly reminder, RSS feeds for all Cisco SIO content types, including Security Advisories, are available at http://cs.co/9007VQr7
Read More »
Tags: customer feedback, security, survey
My colleague, Dario Ciccarone from the Cisco Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT) will be presenting “Security Vulnerability Handling at Cisco” at (ISC)2′s New York Metro Chapter meeting on February 13th, 2013. This will be an evening of information security presentations, networking reception and filled with Chapter activity discussions during this event. This event also qualifies for 2 CPEs for certified information security professionals (CISSP). Read More »
Tags: Cisco PSIRT, Cisco Vulnerability Policy, security, vulnerability
Secure access continues to be paramount for a connected world. People connect to the Internet for business and for personal use, from wired, wireless or mobile devices—locally and remotely. The Internet is a global system of interconnected networks. User devices, the Internet, and all computer networks are the target of a growing number of increasingly complex security threats. Let’s take a look at some recent trends from the Cisco Connected World Technology Report that speaks to the need for secure access:
- Three devices is the average per end user with the desire or mandate to work anywhere and anytime—how do we ensure control of all these devices?
- 71 percent of the next generation workforce will not obey the policies—how do we enforce policy?
- 60 percent will not be responsible for protecting corporate information and devices—how do we protect sensitive data?
- Mobile malware is growing; Android malware grew over 2000% from 2012 but is only 1% of the web malware encounter—how do we ensure secure connection from your mobile device and with web intensive users Read More »
Tags: cisco annual security report, Cisco Identity Service Engine (ISE), cisco live london 2013, Gartner Magic Quadrant, ISE, MDM, NAC, secure BYOD, security policy
Last week my colleagues and I were excited to deliver a 4-hour lab on IPv6 Security at Cisco Live London 2013. The training enabled students to correctly identify, classify, and deter or prevent the nefarious IPv6-specific behaviors. They did so by configuring network threat defense, countermeasures, and controls that were implemented and deployed on infrastructure devices as well as validate their effectiveness. Some of the nefarious behaviors included IPv6 spoofing, using IPv6 in IPv4 tunneling to bypass, and DDoS using IPv6 packets. This IPv6 security training was first delivered at Cisco Live USA 2012, where 19 students participated in the class. At Cisco Live London, we welcomed 21 Cisco Customers, giving them access to our lab-hosted equipment to practice and complete tasks covered during class. What follows are some key observations about our training in London as compared to our training in the U.S.: Read More »
Tags: Cisco Live London, IPv6, IPv6-security, security
A few months ago we published a technical white paper explaining how we measure the performance of Cisco IPS sensors. The idea was to give Cisco IPS customers insight into the work that goes into producing the performance numbers that are recorded in a data sheet, with the ultimate goal of helping customers deploy the correct IPS appliance for their environment. We have now followed up the performance work with a paper describing how we test the effectiveness of our IPS product line.
This new paper titled, “Testing the Efficacy of Cisco IPS”, explains how Cisco IPS fits into the Cisco Security portfolio and how the IPS product team measures efficacy. Read More »
Tags: global correlation, IPS, IPS efficacy, IPS performance, security | <urn:uuid:b5eab46f-96fe-4e7b-af9f-b6fa7b114f41> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.cisco.com/security/page/17/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.915491 | 969 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Fortunately for our native squirrels, gray squirrels have not adapted well to wild environments and thrive only in urban settings. However, their large size and urban habit have driven most of our red squirrels from Calgary. Both speices eat a variety of native foods, but can adapt quickly to unusual food sources. Naturally, the are especially fond of NUTS! Nuts and other foods are often cached for later use. In late winter and early spring they will eat tree buds. In summer they eat fruits, berries, and succulent plant materials. Mushrooms, corn, and cultivated fruits are taken when available. During population peaks, when food is scarce, these squirrels may chew bark from a variety of trees. They will also eat insects and other animal matter.
Red squirrels are often heavily dependent on coniferous forests for cones and buds, hence their tremendous success in boreal and evergreen forests. | <urn:uuid:1da02cd5-3a91-4ae7-bc0b-ba581d4e0874> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aiwc.moonfruit.com/squirrel-information/4533865192 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970125 | 185 | 3.390625 | 3 |
WELCOME TO SKYWATCH. If you've read us before, you have a pretty good idea what we're about. If not, think of this as an introductory-level, all-year issue of Sky & Telescope, our monthly parent magazine. Here you'll find everything you need to know to start exploring the universe
overhead. Lots will also help experienced skygazers move up a notch or two. And here in one place are big evening sky charts for the next 13 months (including December 2012, in case you picked this up a bit early). Each year we focus on a different theme. This year it's suburban backyard astronomy: exploring the cosmos successfully even under the light pollution
of a thickly settled area. | <urn:uuid:b3a22e60-fd38-4f78-bb8b-f334e8765854> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.shopatsky.com/product/skywatch-2013/new-arrivals | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931796 | 151 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Word of the Day, Website of the Day, Number to Know, This Day in History, Today’s Featured Birthday and Daily Quote.
Word of the Day
Interminable in-TER-muh-nuh-bul (adjective) Having or seeming to have no end; wearisomely protracted - www.merriam-webster.com
Website of the Day
Chuck Norris Facts
You’ve probably heard at least one Chuck Norris fact over the years (perhaps “There is no chin behind Chuck Norris' beard. There is only another fist.”). This website collects the facts of the famous tough guy, who was born on this date in 1940.
Number to Know
36.9 million: Number of U.S. residents who claimed Irish ancestry in 2009. This number was more than eight times the population of Ireland itself (4.5 million). Irish was the nation's second most frequently reported ancestry, trailing only German. – Census.gov
This Day in History
March 10, 1969: In Memphis, Tenn., James Earl Ray pleads guilty to assassinating Martin Luther King Jr. He later retracts his guilty plea.
Today’s Featured Birthday
Actor Jon Hamm (42)
“May the Irish hills caress you.
May her lakes and rivers bless you.
May the luck of the Irish enfold you.
May the blessings of Saint Patrick behold you.” - Irish blessing | <urn:uuid:a9f1cab4-7923-4bb8-8861-b185c63f1677> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.linncountyleader.com/article/20130310/NEWS/303109998/0/opinion | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.915131 | 305 | 2.1875 | 2 |
Obsolete military installations rightly receive a good deal of attention from designers these days, and this trend has only increased in the last year with all of the focus on national parks and their role in making the territory. On a recent episode of the terragrams Casey Brown makes a compelling argument for landscape designers turning their sites toward functioning militarized landscapes. Today we’d like to imagine a Marxist turn to this speculative trend, and propose that a further emphasis on modes of production might enable a more varied and nuanced response to the militarization of the landscape and acts of territorialization.
In the years leading up to World War II the United States was woefully underprepared for major combat operations. One of the primary responses to this situation was the proliferation of Army Ammunitions Plants across the American landscape. With the fall of France in 1940 congress appropriate defense funds and over 60 ammunitions factories were constructed across the nation in a three year span. The first batch of three were constructed as models for similar installations where many of the concepts and demands of a modern ammunitions plant were tested. One of these original test plants is located outside of the town of Radford in southwestern Virginia.
Built under the auspices of the Department of Army Matereial Development and Readiness Command (DARCOM), the Radford plant produced the single-base smokeless powder that was the primary propellant for American military ammunition in WWII. Reading through the bewildering treasure trove that is the Historic American Landscapes Survey we can learn that site selection was governed by seven criteria:
1) a southern location to ensure easy access to cotton (a basic raw material for smokeless powder production.
2) access to coal suitable for steam production
3) a mid-continental location as a defense against enemy bombardment
4) proximity to two main railroad lines
5) availability of an ample water supply for processing purposes
6) a relatively level site to avoid excessive grading
7) availability of suitable labor.
The tiny mountain town of Radford was built on the banks of the New River which is the only river that flows west through the Appalachains to become part of the Ohio River Valley. As such, it served as a gateway to the west and was a logical nexus in the railroad network as it expanded west in the 1850’s. It’s proximity to the coal areas of West Virginia and the base flow of the New River and flat floodplain afforded the opportunity for easy building required by the military in war time.
[the worker housing at the Radford Army Ammunitions plant was definitely not blast proof; the architecture seems to fit nicely between the shitty company town of pre-WWI and post-WWII ticky-tack suburban housing]
One requirement seems problematic, however. Given what the military had learned of the difficulties encountered when inculcating southern labor to the demands of military culture with the Harpers Ferry debacle, why would they ever choose to locate another arsenal in deep western Virginia? We have a theory: it probably had to do with the massive polytechnic land grant university just 8 miles up the road that was literally created in the name of cranking out engineers, technicians, and farmers well-versed in the rigors of technological labor (for a short insight into this idea check out JB Jackson’s “Looking into Automobiles”, or for a much longer exigesis, David Noble’s America by Design).
Reading further in the historic survey we read the explanation for the particular and fascinating spatial patterns and objects within the arsenal landscape:
Buildings used in the first stage of the process, where the material handled is highly flammable but not explosive, are grouped together in a section known as the “cotton area.” Those used in the second stage, where the material handled is highly explosive, are widely spaced and form what is called the “powder line.” Material is conveyed from one building to another first by flumes, then by motor trucks, and finally- when the highly explosive stage is reached- by small hand carts.
... From here on a unique type of construction, adapted to handling explosive materials, is required. All of the buildings in the powder line make use of “blow out” construction designed to control the direction of an explosion through one or more extremely light screens which will “blow-out” with a minimum increase in the air pressure within the building.
A second method of limiting the effects of explosions… is used in the solvent recovery buildings and those in the finishing area, which are spaced from all other buildings and from each other and surrounded by barricades. Spacing varies according to the maximum amount of explosive which is to be processed or stored in the building at any one time.
Barricades are constructed of heavy timbers with a plank face on each side and a screened dirt fill, making a solid wall with an average of approximately 5-foot thickness to absorb the shock of any possible explosion. Their height roughly corresponds to the height of the buildings they surround.
These dueling axes of design- the internal genetic logic versus the environmentally determined- offer a compelling and seemingly complete theory of arsenal landscapes, a notion that is advanced Gilles Deleuze in Difference and Repetition. Unfortunately, this does not account for the agency of the landscape itself, but rather assumes it is merely the result of the friction created between internal logic and external relations, like a town that springs up at the crossroads where Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil. Levi Bryant says it better: “missing in Deleuze’s mapping of developmental relations, however, is a role for the agent itself in its own construction.”
At the RAAP this can be seen in the post-war history of the place, and the recent developments on the site. In its WWII heyday the arsenal employed over 20,000 workers and the facilities still contain 2,754 buildings, 132 roadway miles, 26 railroad miles, 21 miles of security fence, and 60 miles of piping. The workforce has been reduced to 2,000 and the site is now operated by ATK as the sole producers of TNT for the US Army. TNT, trinitrotoluene, was historically produced at the site with a process that created a toxic residue called “redwater” which then had to be disposed of. This process, as well as the constant blast testing, coal fired power plant, and other propellant manufacturing processes resulted in the arsenal being included in the EPA’s superfund program in 2000.
[if the rail tracks are the internal logics and the road is the environmental forces, is that a landscape we see materializing there in the middle ground? or a dodge stratus?]
In 2007 a new process of TNT manufacture was developed at the plant which eliminates the redwater waste stream for a compound called isotrioil. According to the USAEC’s website the new process reduced greenhouse gas emissions by a factor of ten, and the isotrioil waste product is useful as a component of dynamite, which is coming in handy in the DOT project to widen Interstate 81 just down the road. Many of the arsenal’s old buildings and facilities are vacant and there is evidence in the aerials that the vegetation of the flood plain is reclaiming some of the old buildings, despite the presence of acid drainage pools and heavy metals.
In some ways the project is exciting- it is a real example of what Pierre Belanger describes as the “latent reciprocity between industry, waste, and urbanism,” and suggests that the re-integration and activation of our soiled industrial sites need not be limited to park-making. More than that, though, we are interested in the topological aspect of these landscapes, and the agency of the places themselves, set in a sort of duel with its own genetic makeup and the forces acting on it. There is something about a landscape that has the capacity to endure even when the internal logics fail or the external relations are disrupted.
And now, please enjoy a short google earth tour of some other ammunitions plants. They are the very essence of the phrase difference and repetition and are our twisted, god-forsaken heritage; let’s not blanket them all with a 19th century historical landscape typology.
[the lake city ammunitions plant in buckner, missouri]
[red river ammunitions depot, in texarcana, TX]
[the massive and now obsolete army ammunitions plant in Charlestown, Indiana]
[the obsolete Joliet ammunitions plant in Wilmington, Illinois] | <urn:uuid:97e11a25-f641-4c89-919d-22fa999dabb6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://faslanyc.blogspot.com/2012/02/radford-army-ammunitions-plant.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956514 | 1,780 | 3.03125 | 3 |
| Volume 2, Book 14, Number 64 :|
|Narrated by Shu'aib|
I asked Az-Zuhri, "Did the Prophet ever offer the Fear Prayer?" Az-Zuhri said, "I was told by Salim that 'Abdullah bin Umar I had said, 'I took part in a holy battle with Allah's Apostle I in Najd. We faced the enemy and arranged ourselves in rows. Then Allah's Apostle (p.b.u.h) stood up to lead the prayer and one party stood to pray with him while the other faced the enemy. Allah's Apostle (p.b.u.h) and the former party bowed and performed two prostrations. Then that party left and took the place of those who had not prayed. Allah's Apostle prayed one Raka (with the latter) and performed two prostrations and finished his prayer with Taslim. Then everyone of them bowed once and performed two prostrations individually.' "
| Volume 2, Book 14, Number 65 :|
|Narrated by Nafi'|
Ibn Umar said something similar to Mujahid's saying: Whenever (Muslims and non-Muslims) stand face to face in battle, the Muslims can pray while standing. Ibn Umar added, "The Prophet said, 'If the number of the enemy is greater than the Muslims, they can pray while standing or riding (individually).' "
| Volume 2, Book 14, Number 66 :|
|Narrated by Ibn Abbas|
Once the Prophet (p.b.u.h) led the fear prayer and the people stood behind him. He said Takbir (Allahu-Akbar) and the people said the same. He bowed and some of them bowed. Then he prostrated and they also prostrated. Then he stood for the second Raka and those who had prayed the first Raka left and guarded their brothers. The second party joined him and performed bowing and prostration with him. All the people were in prayer but they were guarding one another during the prayer.
| Volume 2, Book 14, Number 67 :|
|Narrated by Jabir bin 'Abdullah|
On the day of the Khandaq Umar came, cursing the disbelievers of Quraish and said, "O Allah's Apostle! I have not offered the 'Asr prayer and the sun has set." The Prophet replied, "By Allah! I too, have not offered the prayer yet. "The Prophet then went to Buthan, performed ablution and performed the 'Asr prayer after the sun had set and then offered the Maghrib prayer after it."
| Volume 2, Book 14, Number 68 :|
|Narrated by Anas bin Malik|
Allah's Apostle (p.b.u.h) offered the Fajr prayer when it was still dark, then he rode and said, 'Allah Akbar! Khaibar is ruined. When we approach near to a nation, the most unfortunate is the morning of those who have been warned." The people came out into the streets saying, "Muhammad and his army." Allah's Apostle vanquished them by force and their warriors were killed; the children and women were taken as captives. Safiya was taken by Dihya Al-Kalbi and later she belonged to Allah's Apostle go who married her and her Mahr was her manumission. | <urn:uuid:721871fe-1cf8-46e4-b1a9-f32a7d37d521> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sahih-bukhari.com/Pages/Bukhari_2_14.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986053 | 717 | 1.835938 | 2 |
By curating this page, you will get permissions to update as well as add content to this page. Page views on this page will count towards your incentive program.
Amy Jean Klobuchar ( /ˈkloʊbəʃɑr/, born May 25, 1960) is the senior United States Senator from Minnesota. She is a member of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, an affiliate of the Democratic Party. She is the first elected female senator from Minnesota and is one of seventeen female senators serving in the 112th United States Congress. | <urn:uuid:05695dfb-16e7-47a2-9e15-28d8e1a220e1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.allvoices.com/people/amy_klobuchar | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960631 | 118 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Leptospirosis is a rare and contagious bacterial infection that can be very serious. The infection is caused by the bacterium called
. Leptospirosis is most common in warm, tropical conditions and can affect any part of the body.
With prompt and proper treatment, prognosis is usually good. If untreated, complications may develop that can potentially be fatal.
Leptospirosis is caused by contact with fresh water, wet or dampened soil, or vegetation that has been soiled by urine from an infected animal.
When contact is made with the contaminated material, the bacteria enter the body through open sores or wounds in the skin, or through mucous membranes. People can also contract leptospirosis by drinking water that has been contaminated by the urine of an infected animal.
Once the bacterium has entered the body, it flows into the bloodstream and throughout the body, causing infection.
Your doctor will ask about your symptoms and medical history, and perform a physical exam.
Tests may include the following:
Blood test to determine the presence of antibodies to the
- Cultures or other laboratory tests | <urn:uuid:0b4eac85-86e6-44ed-abbb-3fcb3ddb76e4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bidmc.org/YourHealth/ConditionsAZ/Dysarthria.aspx?ChunkID=200995 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941335 | 233 | 4.15625 | 4 |
King Sun and Journey to the West
Okay, for those of you who it is not painfully obvious to King Sun is a homage to the character of the Monkey King from the classic Chinese adventure story called “Journey to the West.” Indeed some of the characters, places and events in King Sun's bio are also adapted (stolen) from this old tale.
So for those of you who are curious here is a list of references to Journey to the West that can be found in the King Sun bio you have just read.
1.King Sun - Homage to the character of the Monkey King, 'Sun Wukong'. Like Sun he is also immortal and wields a magic staff.
2.Pigsy – Homage to character of Pigsy. In Journey to the west Pigsy was a heavenly soldier who got banished from heaven and ended up inside a Pig, hence the nickname Pigsy. The King Sun Pigsy is so called because in the NV, Ogre's have a pig-like snout for a nose
3.Sandy – Homage to the character of Sandy. The original Sandy was a water demon who was called Sandy because his real name 'Sha Wujing' meant 'Sand Awakened to Purity'. Because he was a water demon I decided that it would be best the the NV Sandy would be a Mer-Person
4.Cloud The White Horse – A Homage to both the white horse that Tripitaka travelled around on and the fact that the Monkey King could ride on clouds using a technique called 'Cloud Somersaulting'
5.Trippy – A blink and miss it Homage to the character of Tripitaka. In Journey to the West he was the monk that was tasked to travel west to claim some scrolls. Sun Wukong, Sandy and Pigsy were his bodyguards.
6.Hugoshan, the original home of Sun – A homage to the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit where Sun Wukong was born from a stone egg. In China this mountain was called 'Hua Guo Shan'
7.Bodhi Mountains – Homage to Patriarch Bodhi who was the Sage who taught Sun Wukong the secret of immortality
8.The Waterfall / Shu Li Do – In journey to the west Sun Wukong was crowned king of the Monkeys by leaping through a waterfall and discovering the Water Curtain Cave “Shu lian Dong” very similar to how Sun discovered a new home for the Simapians by jumping through a waterfall and thus being crowned their new king.
9.The Sage Pool – Another homage to Patriarch Bodhi who was a Sage. Just as he is one of the sources of Sun Wukong's immortality, the pool of water that Sun finds that smells like Sage is believed by most to be the source of his long life.
10. The Dragon Staff - In Journey to the West Sun Wukong is granted his magical wishing staff (the Ruyi Jingu Bang) by the Dragon King of the Eastern Seas (alluded to in Sun's bio by the fact that the cave Sun finds the Dragon in is on the east
side of the Mystic Mountains)
11. The Stone Monkey – One of Sun Wukong's names which he is named due to the fact that he was born out of a STONE EGG.
12. Journey to the West - Just like the original Monkey King, Sun Wukong, King Sun's first journey (to find a new home for his people) took him West
13.Drummond – Not a homage to Journey to the West but instead to the actor Brian Drummond who voiced Odiphus / Stinkor (a Paleezean) in MYP He-Man | <urn:uuid:c7a7599b-6bd2-4b35-893b-acc43417c2ca> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://he-man.org/forums/boards/showthread.php?154467-Masters-of-the-Universe-A-New-Vision&s=534ae8d29c8f386c65941b93a46a05db&p=2712515 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96958 | 767 | 1.976563 | 2 |
Here is some Uzbek food.
We were planning a huge feast of the stans. Meaning food from countries that end in stan. Uzbekistan Afghanistan.
Well the feast got canceled but we did a little Uzbek thing ourselves.
Pictured is Uzbek Plov A mixture of rice, lamb, onions, spices, tomato, cinnamon sticks raisins and whole garlic.
A rule of Uzbek cooking is: Add a pound of onions for every pound of meat.
Also shown is Uzbek style sauteed pumpkin with yogurt and tomato sauce. Very similar to the Afghan pumpkin and meat sauce. | <urn:uuid:c3c7f156-464e-469d-8708-4043b49cf6fd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=127.msg5158 | 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 | 0.920137 | 121 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Salt Lake Tribune
April 14, 2011
by Thomas Burr
Washington • Border patrol agents would be able to cross into sensitive wilderness areas, build and maintain roads, construct fences and patrol the areas with vehicles without fear of breaking environmental laws under a bill introduced this week again by Rep. Rob Bishop.
The Utah Republican, chairman of the House Natural Resources subcommittee over federal lands, says his bill will allow border agents to secure the border without what he says are barriers — literally physical barriers in some cases — put up by public land managers.
Bishop, who toured the border in Arizona last year and plans to go next week as well, is holding a joint hearing Friday with the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, to look at border security along the U.S.-Mexico line.
He says federal lands along the U.S. border are a “haven of criminal activity” and environmental laws meant to protect the lands are actually allowing border crossers to destroy them.
“I have seen firsthand the damage that has been done to our federal lands from trash, foot traffic and man-made fires,” Bishop said in reintroducing the bill he proposed last session. “Providing Border Patrol with the necessary access to deter and apprehend those who cross through our federal lands illegally would deliver the greatest benefit to both national security and the long-term health of our federal lands.”
Matthew Chandler, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, under which border patrol operates, said the department doesn’t comment on pending legislation. But he noted that DHS is fully committed to cooperating with Interior and the Forest Service, which also has lands abutting the international border.
Interior spokeswoman Kendra Barkoff also declined to comment on pending legislation but noted that the department’s work with Homeland Security has allowed basic border security infrastructure to be strategically located on federal lands to meet DHS’ goals.
Interior, Homeland Security and the U.S. Department of Agriculture entered into an agreement in 2006 that allows border patrol to enter sensitive wilderness areas in pursuit of criminal activity, though Bishop has contended the deal still hampers the ability to secure the border. | <urn:uuid:f3acb733-4e15-4a96-a71f-8318d476ddff> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://borderwallinthenews.blogspot.com/2011/04/bishop-bill-seeks-to-waive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944701 | 442 | 1.78125 | 2 |
The Boys & Girls Club of Greater Holyoke, founded in 1892, is an affiliate of Boys & Girls Clubs of America, one of the nation’s oldest and premiere youth organizations. Boys & Girls Clubs of America has its national headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia.
The first Boys Club was started in Hartford, Connecticut in 1860. The first affiliation of Boys Clubs took place in 1906, when fifty-three Boys Clubs, including Holyoke, gathered in Boston to form The Federated Boys Clubs of America. In 1931, The Federation became Boys Clubs of America. In 1956, Boys Clubs of America received a U.S. Congressional Charter. In 1990, the national organization changed its name to Boys & Girls Clubs of America, and Congress amended the Charter accordingly.
Our Mission Statement
To enable all young people, especially those who need us most, to reach their full potential as productive, caring and responsible citizens. | <urn:uuid:d4a2dc78-c1eb-40ec-82d0-6300021c432c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://oldclub.hbgc.org/index.php/en/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951729 | 185 | 1.554688 | 2 |
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(click on image to enlarge).
Left. A rare (copyright by Samuel Goldring) artist drawn image of a Rabbi holding a large scapel with the object being to perform a circumcision. A naked child is lying on a stretcher drinking out of his bottle. A woman (Jewish mother?) is standing at the baby's head. The caption: Isador Gets His First 10% Cut. Art Center, 442 N. Vermont Avenue, Atlantic City, N.J.
"From c1830 rare 8 page rag paper chap book entitled: "MOTHER GOOSE AND THE GOLDEN EGG", published by J. Wrigley, NY.Engraved graphics include an anti-semitic rendering of a Jewish man.
Cane of an anti semitic theme depicting a grotesque man with a large nose and teeth and a carved yarmulka(kippa) on his head.
Program from the German film, Jud Suess. The film was shown in German cinemas in the years 1940 and 1941. It focuses on the hatred developed against Suess Oppenheimer, who became treasurer for the Grand Duke of Wurtemburg during the 18th Century. Suess is eventually hanged for the rape of an "Aryan" woman. Actors in the film were chosen because of their ability to speak German with a "Jewish" accent.
Anti-Semitic caricature in the Vienna newspaper "Kikeriki! Vienna Humoristic People's Paper" (Kikeriki! Wiener humoristisches Volksblatt), from March 1913.
The caricature shows a postcard, published in the Kikeriki series. Its title cites a German proverb speaking about education and learning: 'If one wants to be a hook one day,he has to bend betimes'."Hook" also means "hooked nose".
The title of the postcard speaks about the music orchestra of the "Deutschmeister" (an Austrian infantery regiment in World War I) in Russian-Poland.
An original Quisling Fascist propaganda poster from WW2 German-occupied Norway. Artwork shows a member of the Hird - the "Stormtrooper" section of Vidkun Quisling's Nasjonal Samling party (note St.Olaf's Cross armband on his blue-black uniform) - defending Norway against the stereotypical enemies - the serpent-like Bolshevik (hammer-and-sickle / stars), the Jewish-British Imperialist ( + Star of David), the Jewish-American Financier ($$$ + Star of David). Note also the large "V" symbol - the "V for Victory" campaign of the Allies was "hi-jacked" and neutralised by Axis propaganda-agencies. 69 x 48 cm
World War I: Postcard with anti-Semitic drawing: "In the new garrison" (In der neuen Garnison). Printed in Austria.
Nazi Propaganda publication from 1939. "The Jews in the USA," by Dr. Hans Diebow pubished in Germany by the Nazi Party (DSDAP). This work was designed to show that there "was no difference between the Jews of Europe and Jews in America." Photos are taken in odd situations or are designed to enhance stereotypes of the physical aspects of the Jewish body. The cover shows New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia eating at a barbeque (LaGuardia's father was an American army bandleader and his mother was European of aristocratic Italian Jewish lineage). LaGuardia's sister, interestingly enough, born in 1881 in New York City, Emma Gluck and her Hungarian Jewish husband were living in Budapest in 1944 when Nazi troops occupied the city. The Gestapo arrested her as a political prisoner because she was La Guardia's sister. She was deported to Mauthausen with her husband, and enslaved at Ravensbrueck, a notorious concentration camp for women. Gluck was 64 when she was released from Ravensbrück in the spring of 1945.) | <urn:uuid:4aa8c459-e33a-440a-927c-793d917104b1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.chgs.umn.edu/histories/otherness/otherness1-7.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949613 | 861 | 2.75 | 3 |
Divisibility Tests to Find the Smallest Prime Factor of a Number
Date: 02/02/2006 at 15:27:39 From: ed Subject: tricks to find smallest positive prime divisor of a number How can I find the smallest positive prime divisor of 1633? I need to do it quickly without dividing in the standard way of finding prime numbers, such as 1633/2 and so on.
Date: 02/02/2006 at 22:28:57 From: Doctor Greenie Subject: Re: tricks to find smallest positive prime devisor of a number Hi, Ed - Let's first discuss the problem in general of finding the smallest prime divisor of a number. Of course if the number is even, the problem is trivial--the smallest prime divisor is 2. Otherwise, we need to check for divisibility by odd primes. One of the first considerations is how far we have to look before deciding (if we haven't found any divisors) that the number is prime. The answer is that we don't need to go higher than the square root of a number. The square root of a number "n" is the number which multiplied by itself gives n. If there are two unequal integers whose product is "n", then one of them must be larger than and the other smaller than the square root of n. So if we haven't found any integer divisors by the time we reach square root of n, then we aren't going to find any. Next we can try divisibility rules for odd primes. There are only three which I find of much use. Of course the divisibility rule for 5 is trivial. Then, the number is divisible by 3 if the sum of the digits is divisible by 3; and the number is divisible by 11 if the difference between the sum of the odd-numbered digits and the sum of the even-numbered digits is divisible by 11. If you aren't familiar with that divisibility rule, here is an example: 57607 is divisible by 11, because 5+6+7 = 18 (sum of odd-numbered digits - 1st, 3rd, and 5th) 7+0 = 7 (sum of even-numbered digits - 2nd and 4th) 18-7 = 11 is divisible by 11 In your specific example, a quick check using these divisibility rules shows that 1633 is not divisible by either 3 or 11. There are divisibility rules for other odd primes; in fact, you can develop divisibility rules for ANY prime number. But these are in my opinion merely curiosities, because using them usually takes far longer than performing the long division. In case you are curious about the process for developing these divisibility rules, here is a link to a page in the Dr. Math archives where the process is discussed and demonstrated: Finding Divisibility Rules for Large Numbers http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/55962.html The fastest method I know for checking for divisibility by odd primes involves adding or subtracting multiples of the prime divisor being tested to get trailing zeros and then dropping those zeros. Here is how I could find that, using the example above, 57607 is divisible by 11 using this method: 57607+33 = 57640 5764-44 = 5720 572-22 = 55 55 is divisible by 11, so the original number is also. The reasoning is as follows: (1) 57607 is divisible by 11 if and only if 57607+3(11) = 57640 is (2) 57640 is divisible by 11 if and only if 5764 is (3) 5764 is divisible by 11 if and only if 5764-4(11) = 5720 is (4) 5720 is divisible by 11 if and only if 572 is (5) 572 is divisible by 11 if and only if 572-2(11) = 550 is (6) 550 is divisible by 11 if and only if 55 is (7) 55 IS divisible by 11; therefore 57607 is divisible by 11 At this point in your specific problem, we simply need to apply this method for finding the smallest prime factor of 1633. The prime divisors we might need to check are the following: 7, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37. (As discussed earlier, we don't need to go higher than 37 since the square root of 1633 is just over 40.) We use the method described above; I will display the process rather cryptically to save time and space...!! 7: 1633; 1640; 164; 150; 15 no... 13: 1633; 1620; 162; 110; 11 no... 17: 1633; 1650; 165; 80; 8 no... 19: 1633; 1690; 169; 150; 15 no... 23: 1633; 1610; 161; 230; 23 YES!! If we are to find the full prime factorization, we then simply divide 1633 by 23 to find the result. We can perform long division for this, or we can use logic. Using estimation, we see that 1633/23 is about 70; and since the final digit of both numbers is "3", it should be (and is!) 1633/23 = 71. I hope some of this helps. Please write back if you have any further questions about any of this. - Doctor Greenie, The Math Forum http://mathforum.org/dr.math/
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© 1994-2013 The Math Forum | <urn:uuid:ef3e821f-cc46-4890-b170-cde2228da74f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/69921.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.914173 | 1,196 | 3.328125 | 3 |
Mrs. Elena. Writer for a New World.
Internationally acclaimed Mexican author Elena Poniatowska spoke at the National Hispanic University, and received an honorary doctoral degree. An ongoing scholarship was announced in her name.
What makes literature? What makes a writer? In truth nada, only those that reflect themselves into the artist words, Mrs. Elena has been writing since the literary boom of the Mexican and Latin American writers, her works both as a journalist and novelist span from the Mexican Revolution, the massacre of Tlatelolco, to natural catastrophes such as the 1985 earthquake that left México in rubble.
National Hispanic University managed a great feat in bringing Señora Elena to San Jose. One of México’s most prominent novelist, thinkers, social critics and icons, born to Mexican and French royalty in 1932, her love for the common man and woman of México became deeper as the social inequalities marked themselves throughout the countries history.
A stage is raised in her honor. In her humble demeanor she addresses a crowd that has gathered, the seats filled before she walks out in her white dress. The hills contrast the day in a serene light, she has a soft spoken voice, her speech is a recounting of the origins of literature - something a college professor or a literary critic would be silenced by - this is something that can only be heard once. Her speech reminds one of a sermon from an ancient mystic.
“Literature that Rises from the Street,” spans the lives of the wives of miners in Bolivia, to women soldiers in the 1910 uprising against the rich of México. Truman Capote thought he had invented a new genre of writing when he wrote “In Cold Blood”, but when one hears the words revived, the words of an old soldier woman speak through her narrative, the writer disappears; Elena is an observer of a magnificent life. With a melancholic air, she recounts the heroic feats of rescuers identifying the remains of an earthquake, the families looking for their family members, the narrator holds on to the last ray of hope speaking to the corpses and reciting Hamlet as he places flowers over the dead, each and every part of her words pulsing through the veins, silencing the crowd. Listening closer to the heart beat of a country reviving.
Poniatowska unravels the condition of her nation, from the corruption, drug trafficking, the social inequalities of the rich and poor. Her words continue, the tale merges into the life of a college professor that enters the jungle and starts a revolt against the corporate treaty signed in the early 90’s by its countries leaders and the U.S.. A treaty that would ultimately ignore the poor and native people of México, The rebels titling themselves as the Zapatistas of E.Z.L.N (the Zapatistas Army of National Liberation.) making an uprising in 1994, that began the persecution of a population of Mayan natives that were largely ignored by politicians.
Marcos, the professor and leader of the rebel army had established a learning center in the jungles of Chiapas, a library that would educate its people as the revolt created a new consciousness, such gestures of depth was one of the first things the Mexican Military burned down in their battle against the Mayan Rebels.
Silence settles, the words of Mrs. Elena now sinking deeper into the crowd, her gentle voice embraced by the audience. Literature can never contain all that the human heart can hold, at best it comes close in rare and silent moments, and those moments exist the first time they are heard.
Her papers in her hands, her white dress and short hair reminiscent of the early flappers, her voice gentle and firm gave homage to those that had perfected the craft, from Domitila Chungura (the wife of a miner), Jesusa Palancares (her protagonist from “Hasta no Verte”), Perez Jolote, Ricardo Pozas, that made possible the real as literature, it has been long since Truman Capote wrote "In Cold Blood", where he recounts the tale of a murder in Holcomb Kansas, where he had termed his new genre nonfictional novel. Mrs. Elena weaves the tales of marginalized individuals through the span of the century; she reveals to us that for the true narrator, the deepest tales emerge from those unheard.
“Those who do not have a voice, have the most powerful voice,” she peaks out to the multitude.
Post a comment | <urn:uuid:8e01232e-dee0-47ce-92eb-cdde9ce3be87> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.siliconvalleydebug.org/articles/2011/10/12/mrs-elena-writer-new-world | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963716 | 935 | 2.390625 | 2 |
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Around this time last year, I stood at the threshold of my home in Hackney, with a week-old baby asleep inside and two helicopters overhead tracking the looters outside. As far as I could figure out there was trouble about 100m to the south, and more trouble about 300m to the north. I didn’t venture far, I’m afraid; my paternal instincts were stronger than my journalistic ones.
A neighbour, holidaying in Scotland, called to advise me to get my family out of London. He was concerned that civilisation was about to collapse. I wasn’t, but I admit that during those bizarre few days it didn’t seem absurd to entertain the possibility.
Why did the riots happen? Every pundit had an explanation, from government cuts to soft policing. But there’s a very different way to look at last summer.
Consider the following simple model of a potential riot, based on an idea published in 1978 by the sociologist Mark Granovetter. There are 1,000 people in a crowd of protesters, and all of them have some underlying tendency to embark on a looting spree. We might reckon that an outbreak of rioting might be triggered by insensitive policing, or by the poverty of the crowd, or the opportunities for theft or for violent protest. But for simplicity let’s assume that the only thing everyone in the crowd cares about is what everyone else in the crowd is doing. Some people will start looting without much company. Others will hang back until the riot is well under way.
Let’s put a number on this riotous tendency. One anarchic lunatic has a threshold of zero: he requires nobody else’s encouragement to start throwing bricks at the police. Another person has a threshold of one: he needs someone else to get things kicked off, but then he’s happy to join in. Then there’s a person with a threshold of two and another with a threshold of three, all the way up to the wallflower of the crowd who has a threshold of 999 – he’ll join in only when there’s literally nobody else standing back.
As you no doubt appreciate, this crowd will display a domino-like tendency to riot: the first person encourages the second; that pair draws in a third; then a fourth and a fifth, until everyone is on the tear.
An interesting lesson quickly emerges from this simplistic model. Imagine that, say, the fourth person in an otherwise identical crowd doesn’t have a threshold of three but of four. This second crowd will behave itself: after the first two troublemakers start acting up, there is no third person willing to join them. The outcomes could hardly be more different – and certainly there would have been no national and indeed international media frenzy if the 2011 riots had consisted of two yobs causing trouble on the fringes of a protest in Tottenham, and nobody else joining in.
Yet we know, because we constructed the examples, that these utterly different results emerged from all but indistinguishable initial conditions. One person out of 1,000 had a fractionally different inclination to riot (by one-tenth of 1 per cent of the observed range). As Duncan Watts points out in his book Everything Is Obvious Once You Know the Answer, the two crowds would seem identical to any survey or statistical test you might care to deploy. The same tendency for apparently identical conditions to produce utterly different outcomes also appears in field experiments carried out by Duncan Watts, and in recent models based on more realistic networks of influence.
Nevertheless, we persist in talking as though we understand why riots happen, rather than recognising the random self-reinforcing processes at play. Social influence can work that way. Last year it was arson and assault across English cities. This year it is buying Fifty Shades of Grey.
Tim Harford is the presenter of Radio 4’s “More or Less”
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2013. You may share using our article tools.
Please don't cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web. | <urn:uuid:48fc1b01-91bb-47c9-b326-e54dc042a65a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/9aad691c-db73-11e1-be74-00144feab49a.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94879 | 893 | 1.789063 | 2 |
05-10-2011, 06:02 PM
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Originally Posted by Byron
If it was labelled as "Oriental" sword, then it likely is Echinodorus "Oriental" which is a plant that appeared during in vitro culture of Echinodorus "Rose" by the Oriental Aquarium plant nursery in Singapore, hence its name. It appeared in 1994. New leaves are vivid pink and somewhat transparent, and turn to dark olive green as they mature. It remains smallish for this genus, about 15cm/6in in height and is thus very suitable in the foreground.
Okay thank Byron, Yes it was labeled as "Oriental" The new leaves are difinitely pinkish and transparent. Some more then others. Which is why I was starting to wonder. Glad to know that is normal. | <urn:uuid:0f0a1af1-ac97-451c-8d76-5add650f248e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tropicalfishkeeping.com/aquarium-plants/new-growth-70092/page2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980153 | 174 | 1.546875 | 2 |
There has been a great deal of talk about consumer confidence plunging to 26 year lows given rising oil and falling house prices. When I attended the University of Dayton’s RISE Symposium in late March, students were asked what their favorite economic indicators were. One said the consumer confidence index and I remember muttering to myself that I thought it was one of the worst. I also remember thinking it a bit strange that college students would have a favorite economic indicator. I think I had a favorite song at that age, but I bet I’d have been hard pressed to even name a single economic indicator.
Anyway, why did I have that reaction? Simply because paying attention to it has cost me money in the past. At least in my experience, it seems to be an excellent reverse barometer of the market’s likely near term direction. It hit lows around 9/11 and I remember it hitting lows in the summer of 2006.
Almost every time the media announces a headline grabbing, multi-period low for the consumer confidence index, the stock market has seemed to do what you would least expect — shoot up. The index is based on a survey of 5000 folks, who are asked somewhat subjective questions about their present situation. Rather than calling it a consumer confidence survey, perhaps we should call it a consumer psychology survey. It seems to do a good job of explaining how we feel at a particular minute in time, but not necessarily how we’re acting at a given moment of time or perhaps more importantly, what we’ll be thinking one month from now. It’s a touchy feely survey, perhaps better analyzed from the perspective of psychologist’s chair than an investor’s trading desk.
For what it’s worth, every time I read that consumer confidence has hit a new low going forward, I’ll click my heels three times and say to myself, ”there’s no worse indicator I know, there’s no worse indicator I know.”
There now, I feel better already.
News & Updates
The last three months have been rewarding for stocks, but like baseball in the snow, something hasn…
Crain’s Cleveland Business recently published a list of the largest local money managers. Broadleaf… | <urn:uuid:44cb02e4-d69b-421c-8fc3-29214d299962> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.broadleafpartners.com/2008/04/29/why-i-hate-the-consumer-confidence-survey/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967414 | 472 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Wildlife Services, the Department of Agriculture agency that controls and kills wildlife that create problems, suffered a major setback earlier this year when a newspaper series showed a pattern of waste and damage to ecosystems.
Now the agency that Idaho calls on to kill wolves and even cougars along the Boise River Greenbelt, faces new criticism. A story by Pulitzer-Prize-winning reporter Tom Knudsen of the Sacramento Bee has photos of an agent allowing his dog to savagely attack a coyote in a trap and other photos of animals in leghold traps.
Like my earlier stories this year of a trapper who posted a picture of himself posing with a live wolf in a trap the story and its pictures will make people who care about animals angry. It also brings new scrutiny to an agency that under the best of circumstances, faces challenges defending its mission. | <urn:uuid:b18e2d24-7191-413d-b7e7-8e8b79db7d50> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://voices.idahostatesman.com/2012/11/02/rockybarker/new_photos_posted_web_government_trapper_letting_dog_attack_coyo | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943108 | 172 | 1.742188 | 2 |
"There are a lot of folks who are doing a lot of grass roots efforts to promote the interests of low and middle income people. The first people on the ground actually in New Orleans were a group called "A Common Ground Collective" who have basically been running medical clinics, gutting houses, assisting people to get back in public housing since really September, I mean even really right after the storm. And they have done a lot to highlight issues of race and class and also they have actually taken steps, they've taken action, they've helped occupy certain public housing places, they've broken into schools that were closed and gutted them and tried to get them ready for people to live in. They've gutted many, many poor people's homes, so they've done a lot. There are also a lot of public housing advocates who have come out. I mean one of the things that, most notable things that came out of Katrina was that almost all the public housing stock was closed even if it wasn't damaged in any way and there are a great many public housing residents who want to come back to town. And there are many, many advocates, Elizabeth Cook, is someone that I can think of in particular who worked really hard to try to get the federal government to allow people back into public housing which is really not happening right now."
I think that the race and class problems that we have here in New Orleans are really not necessarily unique to New Orleans it's just the fact that we had a storm blow through and highlighted it, brought it all out into the open in front of the cameras for everyone to see, but all this has been here and it is present in other cities. It's present in Washington, New York, Chicago, so I don't really think that in this situation the city of New Orleans, the state of Louisiana is in a great position to address poverty at all because there are so many other various problems that confront it. The question is who is supposed to address poverty on a nationwide scale and what have they done?
There's been very little effort to assist people to get back to New Orleans. Remember, most poor people were evacuated by gun point essentially, put in the nearest plane and dropped somewhere, it could be Salt Lake City, it could be Virginia, it could be Houston, and there's been very little effort made to try to get people back in town, and that's something the government could do more with at least in terms of providing people with advice. This "Road Home" program that we have which is supposed to help people rebuild their homes is not very well advertised in New Orleans itself and in other states where evacuees can be found. So a lot more could be done in getting the word out that there is a possibility to return, but I don't think it's encouraged really at this point. | <urn:uuid:65272ec9-8728-457e-b1f6-0ca290cc3475> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=2367463&page=14 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.992601 | 577 | 1.875 | 2 |
Posted on Wed, May. 02, 2012
last updated: May 02, 2012 04:47:18 PM
President Barack Obama sought to use a surprise visit to Afghanistan to start lowering the curtain on the longest war in U.S. history. But as Taliban-led insurgents showed only hours after Obama flew home Wednesday, the bloodletting appears far from over.
At least three suicide attackers struck a heavily guarded housing complex for international workers in Kabul and the Taliban declared the start of a spring offensive, a dark bookend to Obama’s brief overnight visit that contrasted starkly with his assertion that the conflict is winding down.
The violence claimed at least seven lives, underscoring anew how what is supposedly the most secure Afghan city remains vulnerable to attacks that humiliate the government and its foreign backers while stoking fear among ordinary Afghans as U.S.-led combat forces withdraw.
“The attack was a message to Obama that the Afghan nation will not accept America’s slavery,” a Taliban spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, told McClatchy by cellphone.
While Mujahid claimed responsibility on behalf of the Taliban, the U.S. ambassador to Kabul, Ryan Crocker, said that the Haqqani network, an extremist group based in Pakistan’s tribal area, “cannot be ruled out” as the culprit. The United States blamed the group for a wave of attacks on April 15 against government and foreign facilities, including the U.S. Embassy and NATO headquarters, in Kabul and three provincial capitals that lasted some 18 hours and killed more than 60.
Shortly after Wednesday’s violence, the Taliban announced on their website that their spring offensive would start Thursday “under the glorified jihadi name of al Farooq.” Al Farooq is the surname of the second man to succeed the Prophet Muhammad as the leader of the Islamic faith.
The “primary target” will be U.S.-led international troops, “their advisers, their contractors and members of all associated military, intelligence and auxiliary departments,” said the statement. Others will include “high-ranking officials of the stooge Kabul regime,” lawmakers and people associated with the defense, interior and intelligence ministries.
In a separate statement, the Taliban denounced as “illegitimate” a strategic agreement on U.S.-Afghan relations signed by Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai and vowed to continue fighting “until the expulsion of all invaders and their puppets.”
It remains to be seen just how potent their spring offensive will be. The insurgency has suffered serious blows since a U.S. troop buildup in 2010 that forced them to all but abandon conventional attacks and rely heavily on ambushes, assassinations, roadside bombs and attacks like Wednesday’s, aimed at a housing complex called Green Village.
“The insurgency will likely expand its asymmetric operations as a result of its diminished operational capability and in order to conserve diminishing resources,” states a Pentagon report on the war that was released Tuesday. While the report expressed doubt that the insurgency will be able to sustain a significant offensive this year, citing diminishing popular support and the elimination of many senior militants, it said that “insurgent leaders have worked throughout the fall and winter to motivate leaders and fighters, particularly in the south and southwest, to leave Pakistani sanctuaries and return to battle.”
Wednesday’s attack, combined with last month’s coordinated assaults, raised questions about the assertion in the report _ the Department of Defense Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan, submitted every six months to Congress _ that allied efforts “have widened the gap between the insurgents and the population in several key population centers, limiting insurgent freedom of movement, disrupting safe havens in Afghanistan, and degrading insurgent leadership.”
While predicting that the overall number of attacks should continue to decline, the report warns that some high-profile attacks should be expected in Kabul. And it raises doubts about the Obama administration’s plans to draw the Taliban into peace talks, concluding that “despite initial overtures toward political cooperation … the Taliban retains its goal of overthrowing the elected Afghan government following the withdrawal of international forces” at the end of 2014, when the United States and allied nations are to complete a pullout of their combat forces, handing the Afghan government full responsibility for the country’s security.
Obama’s six-hour visit coincided with the first anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden by U.S. Navy SEALs in neighboring Pakistan, and was clearly staged with his tough re-election campaign against presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney in mind.
He arrived on Tuesday in the dead of night to sign with Karzai a 10-year framework for U.S.-Afghan ties after U.S. combat forces leave. An undetermined number of U.S. troops will remain to train Afghan troops and provide them with intelligence and logistics support. The United States and its allies will continue financing and equipping Afghan forces.
After signing the agreement at Karzai’s palace, Obama spoke to U.S. troops at Bagram Air Base, the main U.S. base in Afghanistan. He also delivered a televised address to the American people that sought to frame the U.S. troop drawdown as signaling the end of the 9/11 wars and the result of major progress toward crushing al Qaida, the Taliban and allied terrorist groups.
After “more than a decade under the dark cloud of war ... we can see the light of a new day on the horizon,” Obama declared. “The Iraq war is over. The number of our troops in harm’s way has been cut in half, and more will be coming home soon. We have a clear path to fulfill our mission in Afghanistan, while delivering justice to al Qaida.”
“As we emerge from a decade of conflict abroad and economic crisis at home, it is time to renew America,” he said. “This time of war began in Afghanistan and this is where it will end.”
Obama warned, however, that “there will be difficult days ahead” _ a forecast borne out just hours after he left for Washington, when three suicide attackers struck the housing complex on the eastern edge of Kabul shortly after 6 a.m.
One attacker detonated a car loaded with explosives outside the walled compound’s front gate, leaving a small crater in the road, devastating the entrance and covering the roadway with twisted, smoking metal debris and broken bodies.
Armed with assault rifles and grenades, two other insurgents then tried to charge into the compound where European Union, United Nations and other international workers live. They failed to breach an inner gate into the interior perimeter and took cover inside a building housing a laundry and maintenance department, said Charles Dillon, a spokesman for Stratex Hospitality Inc., the complex’s owner.
The men exchanged fire with security guards until the arrival of Afghan special forces and their Norwegian military trainers, he said. One of the men died detonating his explosives-packed vest while the other eventually was shot dead.
“They didn’t get through to our interior perimeter,” said Dillon. “At no time was our residents’ safety compromised.” He declined to say how many people were living in the compound.
The building in which the attackers holed up caught fire, sending up a huge column of dark smoke.
At least seven people were killed and 17 others were wounded, said an Interior Ministry statement. The dead included a Nepalese security guard and a young boy who was on his way to school, while 10 children walking to a school next to the compound were among the injured.
Matthew Schofield of the Washington Bureau contributed from Washington.
Safi is a McClatchy special correspondent.email: email@example.com | <urn:uuid:ef54415a-cfef-4a6d-8ee4-f8227cc5ba1b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/05/02/v-print/147388/taliban-bombers-attack-kabul-hours.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958242 | 1,653 | 1.625 | 2 |
Preemies from low-income families at high risk for dangerous brain bleeds
Babies born prematurely to low-income parents have a disproportionately high risk for developing dangerous brain bleeds that require multiple surgeries and extensive follow-up, according to a small Johns Hopkins Children's Center study.
The findings - published online Sept. 28 in the journal Pediatric Neurosurgery and based on an analysis of 38 patients referred to Johns Hopkins for treatment of brain hemorrhages related to premature birth - offer a sobering reminder of the role socio-economic factors can play in health outcomes, the researchers say.
The link between poverty and premature birth has been well-documented, the investigators say, but the new findings go a step further and focus on the consequences of one particularly dire and fairly common complication of prematurity - brain hemorrhages.
"Our study shows just how detrimental and far-reaching the effects of prematurity can be, medically and otherwise, highlighting the critical need to better identify high-risk pregnancies and reduce the number of premature births," says Edward Ahn, M.D., pediatric neurosurgeon and senior author on the research.
"Brain hemorrhages can have a lifelong impact on a child's neurological and cognitive development, but also create a financial burden on the families, many of whom in our study were already economically challenged," Ahn adds.
The premature brain's blood vessels are highly vulnerable to rapid changes in blood and brain pressure that occur around birth. While some brain bleeds are small and contained within the blood vessel, others can spread further and significantly damage the brain, particularly if not diagnosed and treated promptly. Serious hemorrhages require surgery, intensive follow-up and, often, long-term care to deal with the neurological and developmental after-effects of the condition.
The study tracked 38 babies treated at Hopkins Children's between 2007 and 2010 for complications of brain hemorrhages they had suffered during preterm birth. Most infants in the study (65 percent) were from low-income families and received public health insurance (63 percent). Household income is not part of a standard medical record, but the researchers used zip code and Medicaid status as proxies for income. Medicaid is the public health insurance program for low-income children.
In addition to the higher risk for brain bleeds, the study showed babies from lower-income homes and those with public health insurance had fewer scheduled follow-up appointments and more emergency room visits, compared with babies with private health insurance and with those from higher income homes. The researchers note the differences were clear, even though they didn't reach statistical significance due to the small number of patients in the study.
"If a family foregoes a scheduled follow-up and instead ends up in the ER with a serious, yet likely preventable complication, the medical and financial consequences can be far worse not only for the family but for the health care system as a whole because ER care is more expensive than routine check-ups," Ahn says.
The investigators said their findings need to be replicated on a wider scale in order to further tease out the reasons behind the disproportionate risk.
Provided by Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
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15 hours ago | not rated yet | 0 | <urn:uuid:6ddc0c73-bffb-4d3d-9bce-22c6bb90174b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-preemies-low-income-families-high-dangerous.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937789 | 1,542 | 2.078125 | 2 |
Credit Card FAQ
How Long is a Credit Card Number?
A credit card number is normally 16 digits long, but some cards like American express are 15 digits long. The actual credit card length varies with the individual company, but all credit card companies are required to follow certain ISO standards for the length of credit card number.
The MasterCard has 16 digits, and Visa is 13 to 16 digits long. The maximum length of any card is 19 digits. A credit card's 16 digits are divided into groups of four. There is also an expiration date on the front, and a three digit numbers on the back of the card.
What Does A Credit Card Number Mean?
The first digit of every credit card is the MII (Major Industry Identifier) digit which denotes the specific industry.
- The 0 is for securities
- 1 and 2 are for airlines
- 3 is for travel and entertainment
- 4 and 5 is for banking and finance
- 6 or 7 is for merchandising
- 7 is for Petroleum
- 8 is for healthcare and telecommunications
- 9 is for state owned or national entities
The MII (Major Industry Identifier) standards or codes listed above are made by the American Bankers Association. The increase of the credit card culture has made these codes common knowledge but they were intended to be kept confidential during creation.
The first six digits of credit card number are known as the IIN (issuer identification number), which also includes the MII digit. These digits represent the institution that issues the credit card to the card holder. The IIN is kept secret as an extra security measure taken to protect against fraud.
After the MII is the Individual Account Identifier which makes up the rest of the digits on the cards except the last one. The last digit is called the checksum or Validity Check Code.
What Length Of Credit Card Numbers Is Used By Which Companies?
The number of digits some of the credit card companies are using:
- American Express: 15 digits
- Bank of America: 16 digits
- Maestro: 12-19 digits
- Solo: 16, 18, or 19 digits
- Switch: 16, 18, or 19 digits
- Visa: 16 digits
Why Does The Credit Card Number Need To Be 16 Digits Long?
The Individual Account Identifier is assigned randomly with a range of 7 digits to 12 digits. The higher the number of digits, the harder it is to breach the security and indentify the number. The last digit which is known as Validity Check Code or Checksum assures the security as it uses an algorithm to validate whether the credit card number is correct or not.
What Is An Alternative Credit Card Number?
Controlled Payment Numbers are disposable credit card numbers used to prevent online credit card fraud. The concept of Controlled Payment Numbers is to assign a credit card holder another number to be used instead of the real credit card number. This way the customer does not reveal the long credit card number online and remains safe in case someone tries to steal their card number.
The Controlled Payment Numbers are designed to use only for a single time and expire after a limited time. A lot banks like Bank of America and Citibank are offering this service implementing the technology in their own way.
This article explains how and why the credit card number is 16 digits long, how the digits are divided into groups and their significance in tracking the credit card numbers, the security during online transactions, and alternate of credit card numbers to avoid credit card numbers thefts online.
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- More at: Credit Card FAQ
The " How Long is a Credit Card Number?" article is property of CreditCardsCo.com and is copyrighted. The article may not be published, rewritten, broadcast or redistributed without prior written permission. | <urn:uuid:cb56034a-46c3-499b-bdb2-800c85ff0453> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.creditcardsco.com/how-long-is-a-credit-card-number.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.905897 | 883 | 2.46875 | 2 |
This is really a tragic story and it makes me sad to write it, but I think it's important because it can prevent other people from suffering the same fate. It's a story I've pondered often in my own parenting efforts.
I once had a student who was a wonderful child in many ways. The student was talented, bright, and full of possibilities. This student had loving parents and the parents were enamored with their child. Everything the child did was celebrated and the parents worked hard to create a wonderful life for the child.
During the child's later middle school years, some small, problematic behaviors began to occur. Nothing major, but some less-than-ideal things. This is normal--it happens with every child as they work through puberty and the attendant stresses.
However, the parent made a critical mistake. Parent began to intervene. Instead of listening to the teachers and others who brought the behaviors to light, Parent became argumentative and felt that teachers were attacking Child. Parent began running interference for child--celebrating every achievement and ignoring the less-positive feedback.
Child began to grow entitled and felt untouchable and started to make some even less-desirable choices. Child eventually took some actions that led to more formal discipline by the school. Still nothing major--a serious talk and detention hall.
Parent was outraged. Furious. Felt it was unfair, unwarranted, and so on. Fought it every step of the way.
It will not surprise you to learn that Child grew up with a strong sense of entitlement. This had an impact on the way Child acted--more and more spoiled and disagreeable. Whenever natural consequences came, Parent intervened, seeing every disagreement in which the Child was involved as a conflict between justice and injustice. Even formerly trusted sources and advisors were shunned because they gave advice and counsel that was too hard and direct to be listened to and did not sufficiently celebrate Child.
Fast-forward a few years. Child struggled in high school. Teachers were impervious to parental pressure. Peers shunned Child, who had now become spoiled and engaged in self-defeating social behaviors and was unable to keep or maintain friendships. Worse, every action Parent and Child took to rectify the social situation actually made it worse.
But here is the tragedy: Parent was totally and completely unable to help Child. Parent couldn't see what was going on because Parent had become habituated to running interference and protecting Child from every blow. Parent saw every adversity as an injustice to be fought and a personal attack.
Child was bitterly unhappy, unable to function successfully and no one could help because those closest didn't see the problem. And Parent had effectively taught Child not to listen to or take criticism from anyone else. So Child was stuck and kept making choices that made the situation worse. I remember watching and thinking, "How can you do that?" but, like others, I was no longer a welcome source of advice or feedback so my hands were tied. It was very frustrating to watch and see--and not be able to help.
Everyone around Child could not believe Child or Parent could be so blind. No one could help, though, because those who cared enough to be honest were shunned and seen as the enemy.
This may seem an extreme situation, and I agree that the outcome is not common. However, it started out with very normal behaviors and giving in to very normal parental temptations. Those behaviors then became habits and it grew and grew.
This is something I try to keep in mind in my own parenting. In addition to the list of warning signs I posted earlier, I have thought of an additional sign: if you hear something from a teacher or coach, or the parent of a peer, listen. Sure, maybe they hate your child and have an axe to grind. But in my experience, that is fairly rare. Listen and watch. Maybe what they say is unfounded. But if you hear the same thing from multiple sources, you do your child no favors if you ignore it. | <urn:uuid:e61a18f3-5b15-4d04-a72d-d669ab12862d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bradenbell.com/1/category/teachable/1.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986366 | 826 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Desert Monet: Emily Kngwarreye
Last Friday marked the 14th anniversary of the death of Emily Kame Kngwarreye (1910-1996), an Australian Aboriginal artist. She has been described as “one of the most prominent and successful artists in the history of contemporary indigenous Australian art,” “one of the world's great painters,” and the “Desert Monet.” Akira Tatehata, the director of the National Museum of Art in Osaka, summed it up by saying, “...there can be only one way to describe her. She was just a genius.” So today we present some fun facts about Australia's most popular aboriginal artist... perhaps their most popular artist period.
1. Only beginning her painting career at age 78, Emily Kngwarreye went on to become a highly prolific artist and “one-woman industry,” producing more than 3,000 paintings by the time she died at age 86. That averages out to about one painting a day for those eight years. (She finished her last painting, “Yam Awelye—Blue” just four days before her death.) Her high output was due in part to the dependence of others on her income: more than once she postponed retirement in order to continue providing funds for her community. Despite having no children of her own, she was responsible for as many as 80 kinspeople. The money she earned—estimated to be as much as A$500,000 a year—was spent not on herself, but on purchasing necessities and gifts for others, including supplying a car each week to the community.
2. Kngwarreye, who never studied art, developed her own unique methods for painting. She would spread her canvases on the ground and paint while sitting on or next to them. Over the years, she began using larger brushes, and eventually began trimming down the hairs around the edge of the brush, leaving the middle hairs longer. This styling of her brushes produced unique effects in her paintings, like dots with strong centers and softer edges. Kngwarreye could use both her hands to paint and would often switch from hand to hand, sometimes employing a brush in each hand to paint simultaneously. She was reportedly strongest with her left hand, though.
3. “Earth's Creation,” the sister painting to “Earth's Creation II” (shown above), is considered by some to be “Australia's most important painting.” The 6.3 meter by 2.7 meter work, sewn together from 4 smaller pieces of linen, was sold in 2007 for $1.056 million, setting a record for the sale of indigenous art. But it wasn't just the highest price paid for an indigenous work of art – at the time, it was the highest price ever paid in Australia for a work of art by a female artist, too.
4. When asked to describe the meaning of her paintings, Kngwarreye answered, “Whole lot, that's all, whole lot, awelye, arlatyeye, ankerrthe, ntange, dingo, ankerre, intekwe, anthwerle and kame. That's what I paint: whole lot.” (Or, in English, “...whole lot, my dreaming, pencil yam, mountain devil lizard, grass seed, dingo, emu, small plant emu food, green bean and yam seed. That's what I paint...”) Many of her paintings center around yams, an important source of food for the aboriginal people and especially dear to Kngwarreye, whose middle name, Kame, refers to the yam's yellow flower.
5. Although she didn't begin her painting career until she was almost 80, Kngwarreye had been creating batiks for several years before that. She was a founding member of the Utopia Women's Batik Group in 1977, but gave up batik when she began painting on canvas. Kngwarreye cited several reasons for her switch, including that she “got a bit lazy... it was too much hard work,” that making batik uses up all the soap powder, and that her “eyesight deteriorated.”
6. Kngwarreye's community was fairly isolated, so it wasn't until the age of 9 that Kngwarreye saw a white man or a horse. Then, one day, she was out in a dry riverbed digging for yams when a white policeman passed through on a horse, leading an aboriginal prisoner in chains. Viewing this strange sight, Kngwarreye believed the white man to be a devil-spirit.
Fans should check out the collections of Kngwarreye's work at MBANTUA and Songlines Aboriginal Art; the retrospective exhibition at DACOU Melbourne and the National Museum of Australia's "Utopia: the genius of Emily Kame Kngwarreye" exhibition; the Message Stick episode on Kngwarreye; this AIAM100 video on Kngwarreye; this Japanese video about Kngwarreye; and DACOU's collection of articles and stories about Kngwarreye.
"Feel Art Again" usually appears three times a week. Looking for a particular artist? Visit our archive for a complete listing of all 250+ artists that have been featured. You can e-mail us at email@example.com with details of current exhibitions, for sources or further reading, or to suggest artists. Or you can head to our Facebook page, where you can do everything in one place. | <urn:uuid:1cbdfb17-e650-44c0-936f-c6ada5ee6528> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mentalfloss.com/article/25734/desert-monet-emily-kngwarreye | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976715 | 1,188 | 3 | 3 |
I received the following email from a member of the SHS Hunting Chat Forum.
“Build it and they will come
This is the actual turnoff from Banff to the # 1 highway to Calgary. Great picture isn't it? They had to build the animals (especially the elk) their own crossing because that was where the natural crossing was and after the highway was built there were far too many accidents. I understand it didn't take the animals long to learn that this was their road.”
I have seen this picture many times and each time I thought that I should get to the bottom of the story, and today I finally did. Was the bridge purposely built so elk and other wildlife can safely cross the busy Trans-Canada Highway, or is it an urban myth?
According to Parks Canada there have been fences, gates, cattle grates and wildlife walkways set up to ensure the safety of wildlife and road users along the highway section that leads through the wildlife rich part of the Banff National Park. However the bridge was not built for the wildlife. The elk use the Canadian Pacific Railroad overpass; according to local residents the elk and other wildlife have learned to use the railroad bridge to safely cross the busy highway. How adaptive animals are is illustrated by locals who say that the wildlife not only learned to use the railroad bridge but also seem to know the times when trains approach the bridge.
Tags: Banff National Park, Elk Crossing, Trans-Canada Highway, Elk Bridge | <urn:uuid:4b2be27f-a696-4c32-95a3-268f240dfa7a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://outdoorswithothmarvohringer.blogspot.com/2008/02/elk-crossing-on-highway-1-in-banff.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982432 | 307 | 2.5625 | 3 |
I learned yesterday that President Andrew Johnson was buried with his head resting on a copy of the Constitution. (I had to assure one of my nieces that, no, the president wasn't decapitated.) Here are some other unusual items people have carried to their graves.
- Just last April, a man in India was buried in the car he had owned since 1958.
- Reuben Smith was buried in 1899 sitting in his recliner with a checkerboard on his lap.
- Sir Walter Raleigh was buried with his favorite pipe and a tin of tobacco
- Bela Lugosi was buried in a black Dracula cape.
- Humphrey Bogart was buried with a small whistle inscribed, "If you need anything, just whistle."
- Bob Marley was buried with "his guitar, a soccer ball, a marijuana bud, a ring given to him by the Prince Asfa Wossen of Ethiopia and a Bible."
- Canadian Mountie Peter Schiemann was buried with a flashlight and bag of potato chips. ("He always said, 'If I was to die, bury me with a bag of chips and a flashlight because it's dark and I'll get hungry,'" said his sister, Julia Schiemann.)
- The guy in this commercial was buried with his lawn mower. | <urn:uuid:2ff2cbb1-e683-4ac1-920b-33c52a7d1226> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.genealogue.com/2007/06/few-last-requests.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98917 | 267 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Posted 5 months ago on Jan. 3, 2013, 11 p.m. EST by arturo
from Shanghai, Shanghai
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Not to say that China doesn't have any problems, but this is a step in the right direction:
"A southwestern Chinese province with the largest impoverished population in the country will relocate more than 100,000 destitute rural residents into modern communities before spring 2013.
The move was part of a poverty alleviation project initiated last year to move 2 million farmers out of the province's poverty-ridden mountainous and desert areas within nine years."
The new homes are near an industrial park and local governments will provide job training to help new residents adapt to their new lives.
This sort of things happens on an increasingly regular basis these days. Shouldn't the US be doing the same? | <urn:uuid:894f3a00-f325-403f-af14-41634c877f7e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.occupywallst.org/forum/china-settles-100000-poorest-residents-into-new-ho/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931581 | 175 | 1.757813 | 2 |
As George W. Bush signals world history's most lethal military machine to ready an indefinitely dated but seemingly inevitable assault on Iraq, numerous commentators from various points along the political spectrum are making the case against the White House's clamor for war. Here are the primary points, some being made by leading supporters of United States Empire, including Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser to George Bush
* Contrary to the claims of Bush junior, Don Rumsfeld, Condaleeza Rice and Tony Blair, there is no significant evidence linking Iraq to terrorist conspiracies against the United States, now or in the past. In addition, Saddam Hussein is a longtime enemy of Al Qaeda and other Islamic extremists of the bin-Laden variety.
* An attack against Iraq will squander what's left of the global good will America garnered in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks. There is virtual consensus in the world against an attack on Iraq at this time.
* A pre-emptive war against Iraq is utterly contrary to international law and morality and dubious even under the American Constitution. It would set a horrific standard and serve as a dangerous model for future international behavior.
* There are plenty of states besides Iraq with terrible rulers who have done and do horrible things to "their own people." Does the US propose to attack and change the governments of these countless other nations? Of course not, particularly since many of the worst violator states - Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Columbia, to name just a few - are heavily supplied and assisted by the US.
* There are plenty of states that possess more weapons of mass destruction than Iraq. Does Bush intend to invade Israel (known to possess hundreds of nuclear warheads), Pakistan, or India?
* The US is the only nation that has ever actually used nuclear weapons - twice and both times without reasonable justification, if such a thing exists for the use of such sinister devices on civilian populations. It currently possesses and keeps at the ready more thermonuclear warheads than the rest of the world combined. It refuses to honor international treaties by permitting its own weapons programs to be inspected by international experts. In the last three years, moreover, America has violated international law by bombing four states - Serbia, Iraq, Sudan, and Afghanistan. America has also waged radioactive war twice since 1990, deploying munitions containing depleted uranium in the Gulf and Kosovo wars, producing significant measurable increases in child leukemia and birth defect rates in Iraq and Serbia. Should the US be preemptively invaded, by virtue of its unrivalled possession, development, and record of using weapons of mass destruction?
* The horrible actions that Saddam carried out against technical citizens of Iraq (dissident Iraqi Kurds) and to which Bush and Rumsfeld obsessively refer (how many more times must we hear Dubya, Rummy, Condi, and Tony make disingenuous expressions of horror at the fact that "he gassed his own people"? ) were conducted with the full approval of the US policymakers, who viewed Hussein as a valued Persian Gulf ally prior to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Indeed, the US and its imperial junior partner England were the leading suppliers of Iraq's chemical and biological weapons during the 1980s.
* Hussein poses little real threat to the world or even to the region. According to former United Nations Special Commission chief inspector Scott Ritter, Iraq has been essentially "disarmed from a qualitative standpoint." Even Kuwaiti and Israeli analysts have acknowledged that Iraq no longer poses a serious danger. Moreover, to the supreme disappointment of Bush, who revealingly claimed to "see an opportunity through the tears" just two days after 9-11 (yes, an opportunity to launch wars planned before the Twin Towers fell), Hussein has acceded to White House demands for intrusive and unrestricted military and weapons inspections, far beyond the elementary requirements of national sovereignty.
* The best way to get Saddam's dreaded weapons into in to the hands of terrorists or otherwise in play is precisely to threaten his existence. It is only with nothing left to lose that Saddam would likely unleash his biological and chemical materials, whatever they be, possibly provoking havoc in the region. There is no evidence that Hussein is suicidal, which he would have to be to conduct a significant operation against the US.
* A war on Iraq will distract American and world attention and resources away from the urgent need to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict in an equitable fashion.
It will also distract the US and the world from the difficult task of preventing further attacks by Al Qaeda and other shadowy non-territorial terror networks. According to Scowcroft, "the central point is that any campaign against Iraq, whatever the strategy, costs, and risks, is certain to divert us for some indefinite period from our war on terrorism."
* American troops will be put at risk by an invasion of Iraq. Some will come home in body bags, something understood by military authorities, some of whom served time in Vietnam, but which does not concern the administration's well stocked coop of "chicken-hawks" from Bush junior on down.
* If the US does manage to unseat Hussein, US forces will have to remain in Iraq for untold years, carrying out an expensive, difficult, and risky nation-building project.
* A war against Iraq will very possibly generate catastrophic side effects for the US, including a dangerous de-stabilization of the entire Middle East, a massive upsurge of virulent anti-Americanism in the Islamic world, and possibly even war between the two nuclear powers of the Sub-Continent. "If the US is seen as turning its back on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict" in order to settle old scores with Saddam, Scowcroft has warned, "there would be an explosion of rage against us. We would be seen as ignoring a key interest of the Muslim world in order to satisfy what is seen as a narrow American interest. Even without Israeli involvement, the results could well destabilize Arab regimes in the region, ironically facilitating one of Saddam's strategic objectives" (Scowcroft should have added: to facilitate one of Osama bin-Laden's core objectives). In short, war on Iraq will do more than divert Americans from proper prosecution of the "war on terrorism;" it will also breed thousands of new anti-American terrorists.
There's plenty in all of the above to shoot down the warmongers of the White House. It is politically useful to antiwar activists, perhaps, that (reflecting divisions within the ruling-class on how to most effectively dominate the world), some of the key antiwar talking points are being at least partly written for us by imperialists like Scowcroft.
It is difficult, however, not to notice a missing piece in the antiwar
case(s) that make its way into the "mainstream" (really corporate) media and even in some of the statements from the left side of admittedly narrow US ideological spectrum. That missing or at least significantly under-emphasized piece is the likely terrible impact of a US attack on the ordinary non-policymaking people of the official enemy state.
Will innocent Iraqi civilians die? How many everyday Iraqi men, women, and children, including seniors and infants, will perish in, and as a result of, a new military assault on Iraq? Four things should be kept in mind in trying to answer these apparent mainstream non-questions.
First, using the past as a guide, we can begin by noting that, as eminent US historian Gabriel Kolko has recently noted (Another Century of War?NY: New Press, 2002), 33,000 civilians died during the relatively short Gulf War and the Kurdish and Shiite rebellions that followed.
Next, we should recall that a large number - estimates range from 100,000 to more than a million (including half a million children) - Iraqi civilians have died as a result of US-imposed UN sanctions on vital food and medicine imports since 1991. Thanks to this consequence of America's "benevolent" and "humanitarian" imperialism (in the words of the New York Times' Arab-bating foreign-policy columnist Thomas Friedman) and to war damage that remains un-repaired, the Iraqi people are in a weakened state compared to 1990. Their basic infrastructure and material lives are still horribly damaged on an ongoing basis by an American-led war that has never really stopped - something that will inflate morality levels in the event of another frontal US military assault.
Third, we should register the unpleasant fact that civilian deaths from American military actions in Afghanistan have exceeded 9-11's US toll, something to bear in mind when Pentagon officials claim that they will only attack military targets in Iraq.
Fourth, it should be noted that ordinary Iraqi people were not consulted on Saddam's decision to invade Kuwait in August 1990. And Hussein does not consult them on his recent moves any more than Afghan sheepherders murdered by US B-52s and cluster during the last year were consulted on Al Qaeda's plans before they died in the name of Bush's war on terrorism.
Yet beyond some references on the liberal-left side of the debate to the danger of "spilling the blood of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians who get caught in the way" (Michael Klare in the October 7th Nation), the issue of civilian casualties seems to be a marginal part of the Great Iraq War Debate. As befits a nation whose leaders murdered millions of Southeast Asians during the 1960s and 1970s but which still publicly obsesses only about what the Vietnam War did to our own national psyche, the debate is pretty much all about us. The officially permissible dispute is about how it will hurt our interests, how it will damage our image in and agenda for the world, how it might backfire against the new American Century.
Americans looking for reasons to oppose war on Iraq should certainly review the official reasons presented above in bullet-point form. They should also visit the web site of "Voice in the Wilderness," an excellent peace and justice organization that posts a plethora of disturbing facts and photographs, both documenting and personalizing the terrible human consequences of US policy in Iraq (to explore this material, go to www.nonviolence.org/vitw). In a minimally decent, civilized, and morally responsible nation, the mere chance that thousands more innocent people might be killed by a proposed government action would be all the information needed to preclude the action.
It's something worth reflection for Americans who continue to wonder why the "Arab Street" hates us. Also worth reflection in a time when US policymakers fret over the power of stateless terror networks: the ultimate form of global terrorism continues to be, as for many centuries now, the international system of state power, under whose hegemony ruling classes of various nations collaborate in the victimization of ordinary non-policymaking men, women, and children, for whom the first agenda is simply to survive from one day to the next.
Paul Street is an urban social policy researcher and freelance writer in Chicago. He can be reached at pstreet@cul-chic <mailto:firstname.lastname@example.org> ago.org | <urn:uuid:85d83b65-dae0-49d6-a99c-adc3d2592ac3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.zcommunications.org/iraq-war-debate-by-paul-street | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954191 | 2,273 | 1.578125 | 2 |
21-Feb-2002 -- During the second week of the Ḥajj religious holiday a group of expatriates working in Riyāḍ set off on a five-day, off-road camping trip. The route entailed driving south of Riyāḍ on tar roads to Sulayyil, then heading into the Rub` al-Khāliy desert across the gravel plains of Wādī Dawasir to the sand dunes, then north-west across sand/gravel plains, and finally north along the tar road from Laylā to Riyāḍ. The distance was made up of nearly a thousand kilometres of tar road and over six hundred kilometres of off-road driving. Having contracted the degree confluence bug, we managed to visit four Confluence sites during this journey. This was our second Confluence. See 23N 47E, 21N 47E & 22N 47E.
On this part of the 600 kilometre trek from Riyāḍ to Sulayyil, the countryside was very bare of vegetation, as you would expect in a desert. However, what most people do not realize is that Saudi Arabia, like most deserts, is mainly made up of arid, rocky areas. Sure, there is sand as well – mostly, undulating sand plains punctuated with long lines of dunes. Indeed, the Rub` al-Khāliy desert (the Empty Quarter), which covers the south-eastern quarter of Saudi Arabia, is the largest sand desert in the world.
The Confluence was about fifteen kilometres away to the east of the main road. The route was made up of fields of volcanic stones, surrounded by patches of sand. While the sand was a little soft, it was less gruelling on our tyres than the sharp igneous stones. We reached the actual confluence point and tried to photograph the zero N and zero E GPS reading. This is not as easy as it sounds and the GPS reading tends to wander, even when the GPS is not moving. We finally gave up and took the group photograph instead.
After a light lunch we started on the last leg of the day's tar road journey. | <urn:uuid:7224a948-e9d9-43c0-bc2e-ae012c2646e0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.confluence.org/confluence.php?id=7658 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967969 | 449 | 2.09375 | 2 |
Kondinin, WA, 6367
S 32° 29.705 E 118° 16.070
50H E 619109 N 6403977
Quick Description: Another interesting old Post Office in the small southern wheatbelt town of Kondinin.
Location: Western Australia, Australia
Date Posted: 1/20/2012 6:37:36 AM
Waymark Code: WMDJAV
This brick and corrugated iron building is a full service Post Office in the style common in the 1950s and 1960s. I couldn't find anything to indicate the age of the building. In looking at the photos I took it appears that there are two windows open, but it must be just a trick of the light as the photos were taken on 1 January 2012 and the Post Office was definitely closed.
Post Boxes are located in the alcove at the left of the photo.
Post Office Type: Post Office
Post Boxes: Yes
Historical Significance: Yes - Less than 50 years old
Current use: Yes
To post a log to an existing Australia Post waymark, you will need to post a unique picture of the Australia Post sign. Including your GPS device in the picture is not neccesary and wouldn't be cause for disapproval, as long as all other details of your log are acceptable.
|There are no logs for this waymark yet. | <urn:uuid:107686ce-43e8-46dd-866c-feb39744f165> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/WMDJAV_Kondinin_WA_6367 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946912 | 291 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Standing on Tipperary’s most famous hill, with the former seat of Munster’s high kings behind you and the vast forever-green spread of the Golden Vale in front, there’s one person who doesn’t spring to mind… Justin Timberlake.
The fact is, though, that the Celtic cross that adorns Timberlake’s left shoulder has its roots in places like this.
In the ancient. In the Rock of Cashel.
Whether or not this link to the Rock is intentional, we don't know. But the Rock has given the world some of the most symbolic images of Christian Ireland. And that’s no surprise when you consider that this grouping of medieval buildings in the heart of County Tipperary is the most visited heritage site in Ireland.
It’s the kind of modest creation that now swings from necks, gets tattooed onto arms, curls around wrists and is slipped on fingers when the question is popped.
The intimidating pile of the Rock of Cashel isn’t exactly the type of place you’d associate with creative inspiration. For jewellery designer Vincent Byrne, though, it’s just that:
“The High Crosses you’ll find at the Rock of Cashel have become iconic designs in jewellery and now actually, they’re one of the most popular pendants in the world. Some experts believe Saint Patrick created this form of cross.
“The idea is that he took the traditional Christian cross and combined it with the Sun Cross in an attempt to convert pagans to Christianity. Still, I reckon that’s ambiguous at best...”
Maybe Justin Timberlake knows the real story? | <urn:uuid:f06ab476-7ea0-4fc1-9dfa-3dbbfa2be735> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ireland.com/en-au/destinations/republic-of-ireland/tipperary/articles/rock-of-cashel-celtic-art | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919953 | 356 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Every now and again a question pops up relating to services or support for the family, but it is not always clear where to access information.
Local authorities have a duty* to provide parents with children and young people up to the age of 20 with information and guidance on a whole range of topics relating to family support.
Below are links to pages of information relating to some of the more frequently asked questions.
This list will be further developed in response to feedback from parents:
- Adult and Family Learning
- Child health/weight
- Child home alone
- Child Trust Fund
- Concerns about starting or changing schools
- Emergency childcare
- Fostering and adoption
- Grandparents - new page!
- Leisure activities/holiday care
- Parent support
- Parents – separating/divorcing
- Parent and toddler groups
- Young carers
*Under the Childcare Act (2006) Section 12 – Information, Advice and Assistance | <urn:uuid:6ae886b7-5167-45e6-b445-cfdd768cafad> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www3.hants.gov.uk/childrens-services/childcare/parents/cis/family-support-information.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.905621 | 196 | 1.90625 | 2 |
If in our daily life we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we, but everyone
will profit from it. This is the most basic kind of peace work. – Buddha
Q: What was your favorite part about Kenya?
A: Though I’d like to say it was holding the hands of ten children at once, watching women roll
beads from strips of old magazine paper, dancing to the beat of an African drum for two miles
along dusty roads, watching a cheetah hunt and an elephant bathe, eating sugar cane freshly
picked from the fields, riding on the back of a motorcycle through a glade of eucalyptus trees,
singing hokey-pokey at the top of my lungs, washing with a bucket, eating chapatti, or falling
asleep to the sweet sounds of the children’s choir hymns all hours of the night, there’s one thing
beyond it all that cannot escape me. Burned forever in my heart are the smiles.
Some say that happiness is the source of a smile. Others believe the smile the source of
happiness. It’s a chicken and egg phenomenon and regardless of its origin is inclusive of one
very important thing: joy. Though the walk to school is often five miles long and the chance of
rain a fairytale, the opportunity to attend school costly and the likelihood of graduating college
rare, the probability you’ll contract AIDS or malaria high and the chance you’ll be treated low, the
reality of hunger felt when you miss your only meal each day because you had to stay home and
work instead of going to school where you’re served a small cup of porridge, the ability to read
only known by some and the ability to write your own name known by fewer, there is one thing
that you can count on: the happiness felt from the smile of another.
We may not be able to give the $10,000 it costs to build a new school nor the $250 per student
it costs to attend high school each year, give rain nor fertile land, cure AIDS nor prevent
mosquitoes from spreading malaria, serve three full meals a day to the 925 million hungry nor
teach all of the illiterate world to read. What we can do instead is share. Share the joy of laughter,
the love of unity and the serenity of a smile.
I went to Kenya expecting to teach, and instead I was taught. My dear friends Moses from
Uganda, Moses of Kenya and Brother Jastus Suchi not only inspire me to be a better, kinder
person, but they motivate me to be a happier, more compassionate person. In their smiles are the
hope of their communities, the strength of their souls to carry on helping others, the wisdom to
know how, the humility to do so without gain, and the compassion to cultivate love and joy among
those whose path they cross along the way.
Though our friends may be many thousands of miles away, “The shortest distance between to
people is a smile.” – African proverb
Smile on everyone, smile on.
Grieve, GOA Team Leader | <urn:uuid:1f2d8991-ded9-4b45-9e37-1f239a8827fe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theglobaloutreach.org/2012/01/smile/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949702 | 683 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Students at West High School now have a high tech option for interacting with the world and expanding their educational reach.
At a dedication ceremony Thursday morning, people applauded the demise of what was a mini-auditorium and the dedication of what is now a state of the art lecture hall.
At West High School the future is now.
"The ease of use is one of the key components to making sure when you implement technology you make sure that anyone can walk up and use it right away," Tom Gallaher of Gallaher and Associates said.
Gallaher and Associates installed the technology.
It's the vision of the West High School Foundation. The organization raised more than $300,000 to create it.
It replaces power points and bad acoustics and uncomfortable chairs. The new lecture hall features a giant screen which allowed the Tennessee Commissioner of Education to join the celebration through a live video connection.
Padding on the walls enhances sound. Comfortable seats with individual writing tables improve the student experience.
Presenters and teachers can see a 70-inch monitor while they manipulate media from this podium.
"Some of the advancements with technology have to do with the ability to control all of the types of media that presenters and teachers want to be able to use. We have a system that's all completely controlled with an ipad," Gallaher said.
The technology is an academic tool that will broaden the educational experience for the students at West High School.
"To be able to bring the video conferencing and for them to be able to have access to classes in other countries, to be able to talk to students in other countries, I think that's going to be an experience they'll take with them and keep with them forever," West High Curriculum Principal Shannon Siebe said.
It expands the concept of distance learning to not only communicating with other schools but also with other cultures around the world.
"It's vital that our students are provided with the technological tools to really be able to learn about what's going on in the world around them," Siebe said.
The world comes to West High School through a new lecture hall. | <urn:uuid:6dcf847e-9385-4337-8495-a9a55f4e695e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wbir.com/life/local/programming/liveatfive/article/252061/8/West-High-goes-high-tech | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964424 | 444 | 2.0625 | 2 |
About the Garden of Stones at the Museum of Jewish Heritage
British sculptor Andy Goldsworthy’s Garden of Stones, 18 massive stone boulders with holes fire-seared through their centers, was installed in September 2003 at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City. The exhibit came about through the active assistance of a number of people at Cornell.
The museum’s Memorial Garden is an outdoor space devoted to contemplation and reflection, dedicated to the memory of those who perished in the Holocaust and honoring those who survived. Eighteen boulders were selected because in the Hebrew tradition the number represents life. A single sapling, planted by Holocaust survivors, grows in the hollow within each stone. As the trees mature, each will become a part of the stone, its trunk and roots widening and fusing to the base--the artist’s metaphor for the tenacity and fragility of life.
During a visit to Cornell in December 2002, Goldsworthy and his assistant, Jacob Ehrenberg, met several times with a small group of students, staff and faculty to discuss the planned installation. Graduate students in Cornell’s Department of Landscape Architecture advised on size for the glacial erratic boulders, which were discovered in Vermont fields by Goldsworthy and Ehrenberg. The saplings were grown at Cornell under the guidance of Professor Tom Whitlow from the Department of Horticulture, who recommended the dwarf chestnut oaks (Quercus prinoides) and advised on optimum conditions needed for growth and nourishment of the trees.
The saplings were nurtured at Cornell by faculty and students. Miriam Pinsker ’04, who was then a senior in natural resources, helped transport the saplings to New York City and took part in the planting. The granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor, Miriam went on to earn a MPS (Master of Professional Studies) degree in Plantations’ Public Garden Leadership program. | <urn:uuid:0a79a355-9471-4657-9f1c-5c20f6f03379> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cornellplantations.org/our-gardens/arboretum/goldsworthy/museum | 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 | 0.957637 | 397 | 3.078125 | 3 |
Telephone Fraud Alert: Your Branson Bank Debit/ATM Card
5/15/12 - We have become aware that some Branson Bank customers are receiving phone calls notifying them that their Debit/ATM Card has been deactivated. The recorded message instructs the customer to call a 1-800 number or Press 1 to reactivate the card. These calls are not from Branson Bank. Should you receive such a call, do not call the number or respond to the message in any way. Never provide card information to unsolicited callers. These types of calls are an attempt to obtain card information from various banks and customers to be used in fraudulent activity. If you have received a call and responded by giving out information related to your card, please contact Retail Customer Service immediately to close your card at 417-334-9696.
If you are the recipient of one of these calls and can provide us with the phone number from which the call came, along with the name of your phone service carrier, it would be helpful to us in investigating the fraud. Please call Retail Customer Service at 417-334-9696 with the information.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has received numerous reports from consumers who received an email that has the appearance of being sent from the FDIC. The email informs the recipient that "in cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security, federal, state and local governments..." the FDIC has withdrawn deposit insurance from the recipent's account "due to account activity that violates the Patriot Act." It further states deposit insurance will remain suspended until identity and account information can be verified using a system called "IDVerify."
If consumers go to the link proveded in the e-mail, it is suspected they will be asked for personal or confdential information, or malicious software may be loaded onto the recpient's computer.
This e-mail is fraudulent. It was not sent by the FDIC. It is an attempt to obtain personal information from consumers. Financial institutions and consumers should NOT access the link provided within the body of the e-mail and should NOT, under any circumstances, provide any personal information through this media.
The FDIC is attempting to identify the source of the e-mails and disrupt the transmission. Until this is achieved, consumers are asked to report any similar attempts to obtain this information to the FDIC by sending information to email@example.com.
Debit card scam targets bank customers
Published : Monday, 13 Jun 2011, 7:21 AM EDT
RALEIGH, N.C. - Authorities say thieves using text messages have scammed around $100,000 from Gateway Bank customers in North Carolina and Virginia.
North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper says customers have been receiving fake text messages saying their debit cards have been deactivated. They're then instructed to call a phone number and enter in their debit card number, expiration date and PIN number.
The thieves use that information to make new debit cards and withdraw money. Withdrawals have been made as far away as California.
At least 10 different phone numbers have been used by the thieves, mostly with North Carolina and Virginia area codes.
Gateway Bank officials and Cooper tell people that if they get the messages, they should contact police.
Bad Guys Use Text Messaging to Attack Bank Accounts
In today’s world of technology it seems that new terms are created everyday to describe the latest electronic criminal activity. Today is no different. A new form of attack that has come to be known as “SMiShing” (because it uses SMS text messaging) has emerged, and community banks and credit unions are the prime targets. Below is a description of a typical “SMiShing” attack. Please keep in mind that Branson Bank will NOT notify you of a suspicious ATM, Debit, or Credit Card activity via text messaging. If you receive an automated text message purporting to be from Branson Bank, requesting that you call a number, do not call the number in the text message. Instead, please call the main Branson Bank number, 417-334-9696, and ask for Operations in order to notify us of the event.
Here is an example of a currently common “SMiShing” attack:
"Notice - this is an automated message from (your bank), your ATM card has been suspended. To reactivate call urgent at 866-###-####."
In many cases, the SMiShing message will show that it came from "5000" instead of displaying an actual phone number. This usually indicates the SMS message was sent via email to the cell phone, and not sent from another cell phone.
This information is then used to duplicate credit/debit/ATM cards. The system could also be used to direct your call to an official sounding electronic telephone system where you are asked to enter your account numbers, or even usernames and passwords to online banking.
Please know that the security of your information is always number one on our priority list. We will continue to do our best to help customers stay abreast of best practice measures for keeping their information secure as we continue to offer new and exciting products that move into new areas of accessibility and convenience for our customers. Your best defense is staying informed.
Your Branson Bank Team
Keep Your Banking Website Login Information Safe
From The Newest Attack
Hackers have found a new way to obtain customer's banking website log in information. The new hack is especially wicked because it doesn't matter if you have security software or not. Antivirus software cannot stop this from happening. Here is the deal:
A customer may visit their banking website and log in and do their business as usual. After they are done, they may continue to browse. If they land on a hacked website, the website sends a message to the people who wrote the malicious code. The user's temporary internet files folder is examined and if a recent banking website login is found, a pop-up appears that looks as though it is from your bank indicating that your session has expired and re-authentication is required. Many banks actually do request reauthentication once a login has expired, so this appears very legitimate. Once the customer "re-authenticates" his login info is passed directly to the hackers and the account is compromised.
There are a couple of ways to help protect yourself from this attack.
1. The Best Way -DO NOT reauthenticate to the banking website via any pop-up, even if you think it may be a legitimate request. Instead, close your browser and return the bank website and log back in from their main website.
2. When leaving your banking website, be certain to click Log Off instead of simply X-ing out of your browser. This closes the session.
3. When you are doing banking online, have only one browser window or tab open at a time. When you are finished, log off of your banking website, and close the browser. You can open a new browser window if you plan to do any further web browsing.
Remember, anti-virus software cannot stop this attack, because no malicious program is ever loaded onto your computer. The malicious software is actually located on the remote website. Please keep this in mind when using online banking, and help educate others about the issue.
Virus Alert! More Info
Fraudulent Cashier's Checks
Branson Bank has become aware of a Mystery Shopper scam distributing fraudulent cashier's checks purported to be from Branson Bank. We are not taking part in any such program and these checks ARE NOT valid checks issued by Branson Bank.
The fraudulent cashier's checks, thus far, have been identified in the amount of $4998.00, with the Branson Bank logo in the upper left-hand corner.
We are requesting that you contact your State Attorney General's Office to report if you have received any of these checks.
Customer Fraud Notification
Branson Bank has become aware of several unauthorized debit card transactions impacting local area residents. It is the policy of Branson Bank to move quickly to properly protect our customers from these incidents.
Branson Bank’s network and systems are monitored continuously and have in no way been compromised. Rather, this fraudulent activity is believed to be originating from the debit card transaction processing company of certain area businesses.
As always, we ask that you regularly monitor all of your accounts and notify the bank promptly if anything unusual is noticed. This can be done easily via your Freedom online banking account as well as Branson Bank’s telephone banking system.
To protect against unauthorized use of your debit card during online transactions, we're urging our customers to sign up for MasterCard® SecureCode.
Please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions at (417) 334-9696. | <urn:uuid:695d99f8-e196-45ae-88f3-aaf1ae590361> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bransonbank.com/fraud-alerts-scams.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934919 | 1,824 | 1.625 | 2 |
Daughter of Orestes A. Brownson, b. at Chelsea, Massachusetts, 7 June, 1839; married William J. Tenney, of Elizabeth, New Jersey, 26 November, 1873; died at Elizabeth, 30 October, 1876. She wrote some literary criticisms for her father's "Review", and many articles, stories, and poems which appeared mainly in Catholic magazines. Her other works were: "Marian Elwood, or How Girls Live" (New York, 1863); "At Anchor; a story of the American Civil War" (New York, 1865); "Heremore Brandon; or the Fortunes of a Newsboy" (in "The Catholic World", 1869); and "Life of Demetrius Augustine Gallitzin, Prince and Priest" (New York, 1873). Her novels are interesting, genuine, and original, and all that she published is stamped with her distinguishing traits of character, and shows that she thought for herself, expressed herself freely, with good sense and judgment, without undue bitterness, and with great benevolence towards the poor; and she scatters over her pages many excellent reflections. The life of Gallitzin is her principal production, for which she spared no pains to collect such materials as remained. She more than once visited the scenes of the missionary's labours, and formed the acquaintance of priests and others who had known him, collecting such facts and anecdotes of him as they remembered. It is a sincere and conscientious tribute to the rare virtues and worth of an extraordinary man, devoted priest, and humble missionary.
APA citation. (1908). Sarah M. Brownson. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03003a.htm
MLA citation. "Sarah M. Brownson." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 3. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908. <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03003a.htm>.
Transcription. This article was transcribed for New Advent by Michael T. Barrett. Dedicated to Sarah Axenty.
Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. November 1, 1908. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.
Contact information. The editor of New Advent is Kevin Knight. My email address is feedback732 at newadvent.org. (To help fight spam, this address might change occasionally.) Regrettably, I can't reply to every letter, but I greatly appreciate your feedback — especially notifications about typographical errors and inappropriate ads. | <urn:uuid:42386870-380d-4304-8e09-306c388b368e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://newadvent.org/cathen/03003a.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926925 | 558 | 1.78125 | 2 |
. "4 The Relationship between Formative and Summative Assessment -- In the Classroom and Beyond." Classroom Assessment and the National Science Education Standards. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2001.
The following HTML text is provided to enhance online
readability. Many aspects of typography translate only awkwardly to HTML.
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as the authoritative form to ensure accuracy.
Classroom Assessment and the National Science Education Standards
summative assessment and considers how inherent tensions between the different purposes of assessment may be mitigated.
HOW CAN SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT SERVE THE STANDARDS?
The range of understanding and skill called for in the Standards acknowledges the complexity of what it means to know, to understand, and to be able to do in science. Science is not solely a collection of facts, nor is it primarily a package of procedural skills. Content understanding includes making connections among various concepts with which scientists work, then using that information in specific context. Scientific problem-solving skills and procedural knowledge require working with ideas, data, and equipment in an environment conducive to investigation and experimentation. Inquiry, a central component of the Standards, involves asking questions, planning, designing and conducting experiments, analyzing and interpreting data, and drawing conclusions.
If the Standards are to be realized, summative as well as formative assessment must change to encompass these goals. Assessment for a summative purpose (for example, grading, placement, and accountability) should provide students with the opportunity to demonstrate conceptual understanding of the important ideas of science, to use scientific tools and processes, to apply their understanding of these important ideas to solve new problems, and to draw on what they have learned to explain new phenomena, think critically, and make informed decisions (NRC, 1996). The various dimensions of knowing in science will require equally varied assessment strategies, as different types of assessments capture different aspects of learning and achievement (Baxter & Glaser, 1998; Baxter & Shavelson, 1994; Herman, Gearhart, & Baker, 1993; Ruiz-Primo & Shavelson, 1996; Shavelson, Baxter, & Pine, 1991; Shavelson & Ruiz-Primo, 1999).
FORMS OF SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT IN THE CLASSROOM
As teachers fulfill their different roles as assessors, tensions between formative and summative purposes of assessment can be significant (Bol and Strange, 1996). However, teachers often are in the position of being able to tailor assessments for both summative and formative purposes.
Any activity undertaken by a student provides an opportunity for an assessment of the student's performance. Performance assessment often implies a more formal assessment of a student as he or she engages in a performance- | <urn:uuid:2ab418eb-0f96-45fa-a0fb-0fbaaed458a8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=9847&page=60 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.921721 | 560 | 3.609375 | 4 |
Americans are famous for wanting to just “get down to business” in meetings. Maybe a few minutes of chit-chat about the Yankees game or the weather, but otherwise, let’s get to the important stuff.
The misconception is that the meeting is just that – a meeting. What if the person you’re meeting might be an incredible individual who maybe, just maybe, is going to become an important part of your life (starting today!).
Reflecting on yesterday’s post about generosity, we know that generous action increases when we expect to have repeated interactions. The expectation of repeated contact makes it more likely that our kindness will be reciprocated, and makes it more likely that it will be witnessed by others, so the rational / optimal thing to do is to help others.*
So the question becomes: if the person you’re meeting just might be amazing, how do you act? You’d want to make it more likely that you’ll see that person again in the future, of course. And, going in, you don’t know who is and isn’t amazing, but I’d bet that there’s a lot more amazingness out there than you think.
To get us yankees to make a shift, instead of shouting (ineffectually) about how we should all “spend a little more time getting to know people,” let me instead propose that we reframe each meeting as one moment, the first moment, in a much longer-term relationship. And that relationship is just latent potential until you activate it with real human connection at the outset.
Oh, and how IS the weather?
*(let’s park the question of the motivation behind generosity for a minute…that’s a post for another day) | <urn:uuid:2a53a715-d22d-408f-ad80-361712c0d608> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sashadichter.wordpress.com/2011/09/29/small-talk/ | 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 | 0.94341 | 381 | 1.59375 | 2 |
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history of Russia
The struggle began at the death of Vasily I, a son of Dmitry Donskoy, in 1425. The succession of his 10-year-old son Vasily II was challenged by his uncle Yury, prince of the important upper Volga commercial town of Galich. After many turns of fortune, Vasily II succeeded, with the help of Lithuanian and Tatar allies, in establishing his house permanently as the rulers of Muscovy.
What made you want to look up "Yury"? Please share what surprised you most... | <urn:uuid:1cc33181-05e4-440f-89e5-2e0bb002c999> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/655078/Yury | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956597 | 152 | 3.421875 | 3 |
The results of the Arterial Biology for the Investigation of the Treatment Effects of Reducing Cholesterol 6–HDL and LDL Treatment Strategies (ARBITER 6-HALTS) trial that were recently released showed that adding extended-release niacin (Nicotinic Acid; Vitamin B3) to statin therapy led to a decrease in carotid intima–media thickness (IMT), indicating regression of atherosclerosis, but adding ezetimibe (Zetia) to statin therapy did not result in reduced IMT. However, the section of Preventive Cardiology at Cleveland Clinic is still recommending that patients continue to take ezetimibe, as it is a safe medication that effectively lowers low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol (“bad” cholesterol).
The study included 208 patients who were evaluated for 14 months. Patients were split into two groups; one group took ezetimibe and a statin. Patients in the other group took extended-release niacin and a statin. All patients had LDL levels under 100 mg/dL and coronary artery disease or coronary artery disease risk equivalents, including diabetes, a 10-year Framingham risk score of 20% or more or a coronary calcium score above 200 for women or 400 for men.
Extended-release niacin positively affects high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol (“good” cholesterol), while ezetimibe has a neutral effect on HDL. Ezetimibe remains a reasonable option for patients who are currently taking high-dose statin therapy but have not reached their LDL goal. Ezetimibe is also a reasonable option for patients who cannot tolerate statins or can only tolerate a low-dose statin. Approximately 70 percent of patients who take extended-release niacin experience side effects like skin flushing, burning and itching, which can cause some people to stop therapy.
Two ongoing clinical trials, IMProved Reduction of Outcomes: Vytorin Efficacy International Trial (IMPROVE-IT) and AIM-HIGH: Niacin Plus Statin to Prevent Vascular Events (AIM-HIGH), will provide more clinical information about the benefits of these therapies. IMPROVE-IT is an ongoing clinical trial from 2005 until 2012 in which patients are taking the statin simvastatin (Zocor) alone or in combination with ezetimibe. AIM-HIGH is an ongoing clinical trial of 3,300 patients who are taking either a statin alone or Niaspan plus simvastatin and will be completed in 2010.
Taylor AJ, Villines TC, Stanek EJ, et al. Extended-Release Niacin or Ezetimibe and Carotid Intima-Media Thickness. N Engl J Med. 2009;361:2113-2122. | <urn:uuid:54dce3dc-4279-4611-915d-f1b73ca1b438> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://my.clevelandclinic.org/heart/prevention/the_use_of_zetia.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.911729 | 602 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Does your dog become scared, anxious or generally stressed out when a thunderstorm hits?
Many dogs truly suffer in the fall and winter, when their sensitive ears pick up the occasional sound of thunder.
Some signs that your dog is stressed include trembling or shaking, excessive salivation, hiding, barking or squealing, looking about with wide "saucer" eyes, and many others.
Why consider this troubling behavior when the weather is still warm, and the sun is shining? Because if your dog is one of those who suffer during thunderstorms, you can do something about it, but you must begin before the weather changes.
One approach that can work very well is gradual sound desensitization.
Basically, you expose your dog frequently to the sound of thunder -- at an extremely low level at first -- and pair the sound with something pleasurable, like a belly rub, a meal, a game of tug-of-war or snuggle time in your lap. Over time, as your dog grows accustomed to the distant sound of thunder, you gradually increase the sound level.
Fortunately, you can accomplish this without being particularly adept at forecasting the weather; there are CDs available with nothing but the sound of thunder for this exact purpose.
If you are diligent in desensitizing your dog in this manner, then by the time a real thunderstorm arrives, your dog may consider the noise as something he routinely hears, and doesn't become bothered by it.
Another great product is the Thundershirt, so named for its effective use on stressed-out dogs, particularly during a thunderstorm.
Many experts believe that pressure applied to the body has a calming effect on the nervous system. The shirt fits snugly on the dog with numerous Velcro straps, providing gentle but firm pressure around the torso. The beauty of this product is the dramatic results that can often be seen instantly.
If you suspect a storm is on the way, place the Thundershirt on your dog ahead of time. Even if the weather catches you off guard, and your dog becomes stressed, you can put on the Thundershirt and often watch your dog relax within a few minutes. Usually, just the comforting pressure of the shirt relieves the stress -- no training required.
In my experience, dogs that have a long history of becoming stressed during car rides, when left alone or during thunderstorms can greatly benefit from wearing a Thundershirt in addition to some general desensitization work on whatever stresses them.
It's not necessary to worry over or pity your frightened pooch in these situations, or to administer drugs, which don't address the cause of the dog's stress or provide any long-term relief.
Seek out a professional for guidance, act before the stormy weather hits and prepare your dog in every way you can, naturally, to lose the fear and remain relaxed and happy this fall and winter.
Lisa Moore's pet-behavior column appears once a month on the Weekly Pet Page. Write to her in care of LifeStyles, The Modesto Bee, P.O. Box 5256, Modesto 95352. | <urn:uuid:4b6d957a-096e-446e-a45c-471f2d814737> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.modbee.com/2010/10/04/1368313/talking-dog-curb-pets-anxiety.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95025 | 639 | 2.046875 | 2 |
That shimmering, silvery, tadpole of a car you see up there is the Swiss ECCO, and it’s more than just a funny-looking car. Indeed, the ECCO is a solar-powered transformer that morphs from electric car to nautilus-inspired, carbon-neutral camper that was conceived by NAU – a team of visionary designers, architects, and (I couldn’t make this up if I tried) Hollywood special-effects artists in order to … I have no idea.
Still, does anyone really need an excuse to develop a bizarrely sensual chrome living pod to cruise the Bonneville salt flats in? Of course not! Because it’s there, that’s why!
The ECCO, then, is vaporware, and the “green scene” always gets packed with vaporware when gas prices start climbing. Usually, these are projects that are so wildly ambitious in concept that they have no chance of becoming real. While they may seem, initially, to be easily dismiss-able, these pie-in-the-sky ideas are often the first step towards getting the engineers excited and the politicians involved and investors motivated enough to make things real.
So, if you want to cruise the deserts of the future in a vehicle like the ECCO, share this post, email the photos, click the links, talk to your friends, and generally get the word out. In the meantime, soak up the visuals and try to enjoy the show! | <urn:uuid:d1cab2be-2c50-4d73-848d-942e29c284b0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gas2.org/2011/05/24/swiss-ecco-is-the-solar-electric-rv-of-the-future/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943422 | 316 | 1.59375 | 2 |
The S1033AB is a complete telecare system designed to detect falls and wandering. This system includes a telephone auto dialler which will automatically contact you if any of the sensors have been triggered.
The compact unit measures 35mm by 60mm and features a panic button which can be pressed in the event of an emergency. The unit is worn like a badge and can detect if the user has fallen or is lying unconscious on the floor.
In addition the device can detect if the user has wandered out of the home by measuring the radio signal strength between the badge and the Alert-it pager. A built in temperature sensor detects low temperatures which may indicate the user is at risk of Hypothermia.
The system comes with an Alert-it pager and a telephone dialler. When an alarm is triggered the telephone dialler will call a series of pre set phone numbers. These phone numbers could be family, friends or neighbours. Once connected the telephone dialler will deliver a short audio message to let the person who has been called know what the problem is allowing them to take appropriate action. | <urn:uuid:72dbdcbc-17a7-449a-9d6c-77c0e5a015da> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.alvolution.co.uk/s1033ab-fall-panic-wander-alarm-badge-with-telephone-dialer | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941522 | 226 | 1.90625 | 2 |
“…you will spend the rest of the day thinking about it once you close the back cover!” — Book Worm Brandy
“…brought me to tears and I would wager the author is writing from personal experience.” — online review
“Often high in tension, sometimes sad in events but always ripping with suspense.” — online review
The Last Sunset : a novel of rebellion by Bob Atkinson.
The time is tomorrow, and the world ends under burning skies.
Nuclear Armageddon blasts through time itself, sucking in people as it goes, dumping them at a turning point in history.
The place… Fort William in the Scottish Highlands.
The year… 1746.
The Highlanders are in revolt, and the redcoats are coming…
Can history be changed? Or is the future doomed to witness… The Last Sunset?
Bob says of his novel:
The Last Sunset was conceived amongst the empty glens and ruined townships of Lochaber. The events of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries still scar this land, and indeed continue to scar the psyche of many of the older inhabitants.
There are glens within ten miles of Fort William where you can walk all day without seeing another living soul. Once heavily populated, these places have long been left to the wind and heather.
The past hangs heavy here, and occasionally – just occasionally – you can sense moments from those days. A brief scent of peat smoke in a ruined settlement. The tang of manure amidst the green swathes of a shieling that haven’t seen cattle in two hundred years.
Indeed, Sam’s tale from Gettysburg is closely based on the story told to me by a rational, well-educated woman who watched the spectres of two ragged clansmen materialise around her campfire by the shores of a remote loch some years ago.
The world is dotted with places around which the wheel of history briefly turned: Stalingrad. Waterloo. Gettysburg. The skies above England in 1940. Likewise for a few months in 1745/46, the Highlands occupied one of those crossroads of history.
Who knows what kind of world we would inhabit had events transpired differently here?
And on some other shore perhaps lies Tir Nan Og
The land of the Gael.
Where Highland hills no longer mourn their brood
Of empty ruined glens.
Where bleating sheep no longer rule where Highland hearts
Have tried and failed.
And where at last Culloden’s graves
Are empty of their Highland dead.
— Bob Atkinson, Fort William, May 2012
A selection of reviews
|5* review of The Last Sunset ‘If you like action it’s there in bucketloads… a soft spot for romance, its there too’ http://amzn.to/Q2cKyS|
|5* review of The Last Sunset “…my copy will be well thumbed throughout the years!” http://amzn.to/RRuYsz #Scotland|
|5* review of The Last Sunset: ‘I live near Glen Laragain and love the way the author has written about the area.’ http://amzn.to/RRvjeT|
|5* review of The Last Sunset “beautiful poetic prose, matching the haunting beauty of the Highland setting” http://amzn.to/Q2cKyS #Scotland|
|The Last Sunset: “If amazon had a ten star rating it would be deserved… one of my favourite reads of the year” http://amzn.to/RRw7Ao|
|…brought me to tears and I would wager the author is writing from personal experience 5* review of The Last Sunset http://amzn.to/RRwBXl|
|Often high in tension, sometimes sad in events but always ripping with suspense. 5* review of The Last Sunset http://amzn.to/RRx6Ax|
|Drawn in from page one, each event builds so that you cannot stop reading. Review of The Last Sunset (5*) http://amzn.to/Q9GXzl|
|I could not believe this was a debut book… this novel has all this marks of a well-seasoned writer The Last Sunset http://amzn.to/RRxHCm|
|I laughed and cried in equal measure. 5* review of The Last Sunsethttp://bit.ly/RRybZ7 #Scotland #timetravel #Highlands|
28 Nov 12: Bob writes guest post: Culloden
28 Nov 12: Bob writes post: A Tale of Two Rebellions
27 Nov 12: Bob interviewed at Oh, Chrys
26 Nov: The Last Sunset reviewed at Book Worm Brandy: “unique and powerful”
23 Nov 12: Bob interviewed at Mommy Adventures with Ravina
25 Oct 12: The Last Sunset now available for Barnes & Noble Nook
17 Oct 12: Reviewed at Keeper of the Sword
6 Sept 2012 Publication date set for tomorrow: paperback in Scotland, EU, USA, and rest of UK. Kindle edition worldwide. Other eBook formats coming over the next few weeks.
25 Aug 2012: The Last Sunset featured in an article from BBC Scotland | <urn:uuid:e50efb64-5bd4-46ca-931c-997fcedcd803> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://greyhartpress.com/our-suspense-thriller-stories/the-last-sunset-novel-coming-soon/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913554 | 1,112 | 1.75 | 2 |
You might guess that the carbon footprint from a carton of orange juice is largely due to packaging, transportation and disposal, but the findings from a recent PepsiCo study may surprise you. When the entire life cycle of orange juice was included, growing the oranges turned out to contribute the most to the carbon footprint—mainly due to the production and application of nitrogen based fertilizers.
It's important for designers to recognize the impact made in every phase of a product's life cycle. In this case, shifting agricultural practices may result in the most significant emission reductions, but designers are far from powerless to make improvements. The same study states that packaging and distribution represented 37% of the carbon footprint. With that in mind, how could a designer accurately test new scenarios to create an orange juice distribution strategy that has fewer impacts on the environment? How would he or she know if a plastic bottle is better than a gable-top carton or not? How do concentrated juice products size up?
These types of questions are challenging because of the complexity of real world factors; the formulation of appropriate answers requires powerful analyses, databases and tools. Fortunately, within the last year, applying life cycle thinking has come within the reach of any designer. We now have the tools to help us assess the life cycle environmental impacts of our designs before they are produced and to improve upon products that already exist. This gives us insight into the orange juice delivery problem, at least for a start.
Life Cycle Assessment
In brief, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a way to quantify the human and environmental impacts of products from raw material extraction, manufacturing, transportation, use, maintenance, recycling and end-of-life. Every stage in the product's life cycle has potential impacts on the environment; LCA gives designers the ability to make informed decisions to reduce those impacts. For an in-depth background on LCA, the United Nations Environment Program's Life Cycle Initiative provides a training kit.
As LCA continues to evolve, so too do its key issues. To gain a better understanding of these, I interviewed consultants in the life cycle field and asked them to share stories from their work. The resulting case studies follow; after that, I'll introduce several tools designers can use to systematically assess the environmental impacts of their products.
An example of Timberland's Green Index label. Image: The Lazy Environmentalist.
Timberland's Green Index
Tom Gloria of Industrial Ecology Consultants has worked with Timberland to determine the impacts of footwear production and track improvements for the company. They now maintain a Green Index rating system for their footwear products—a 'nutritional label' to quantify the impacts of every pair of shoes they sell.
Each shoe is rated from best to worst in three environmental areas: climate impact, chemical use and resource consumption. After setting a baseline Green Index score, Timberland set targets for reductions in energy use, waste generation and solvent use. They have goals to increase the use of organic cotton, renewable materials, recycled content and improve the environmental performance of their factories.
Gloria says that most consumers still evaluate a companies' products by performance, function and price, but a growing number of customers want to know a company is making progress in environmental areas. The Green Index labeling can help show this progress.
Well before Timberland's customers started to see the Green Index rating system and corporate-wide, quarterly key performance indicators, there were internal discussions about the most significant environmental aspects as a company. Questions were raised about the data sources in LCA tools. Was the data representative of the factories that Timberland sourced material from?
After investigating, Timberland decided to use average industry data to calculate the climate impact of raw material production and factory-specific data on energy use that accounts for the power delivered from the regional electricity grid. According to Gloria, using industry averages in LCA as a proxy definitely has its benefits due to the relatively low costs of obtaining the data. Yet, when it comes to making some large capital expenditures to change materials, processes or suppliers, the argument is much better if you've got the factory-specific data to back it up.
Seventh Generation detergent is specially formulated for equal effectiveness in both cold and hot water washing.
Tim Greiner of Pure Strategies talked about his work on detergents with Seventh Generation, specifically addressing the company's initiative to advocate greener products and behaviors.
Greiner looked closely at the life cycle impacts of Seventh Generation's detergent. He had greenhouse gas factors for nearly all of the product formula and transport stages. Data had to be calculated for the use and disposal phases, including: washing machine use, hot water heating, drying and treatment of the waste water generated by washing.
Greiner found that the consumer use phase—washing machine use, heating hot water and drying the load—used the most energy and had the highest greenhouse gas impact—roughly 95% of the greenhouse gas emissions generated for an average load of laundry in the US. With these findings and the strong communication channels Seventh Generation had with their customers, it became clear that changing customer behavior was a top priority, as the detergent is specially formulated to have the same cleaning effectiveness in both hot and cold water cycles.
Greiner also touched on his experiences with data sources in LCA tools. To help determine data quality requirements for materials, he often considers the percentage of a total product's weight. For example, a material that makes up 40% versus 1% of a product's weight may need greater attention. The company could then take this information to its suppliers to determine if the data was representative of their operations or if there were marked differences.
He pointed out that there many limitations to gathering better data, and the further a company goes up its supply chain, the less leverage it has. For commodity materials such as detergent surfactants, a purchaser generally only knows the region, and in some cases may not even know that. Regional specificity and thresholds for emissions and water use from production processes are not usually available. When a number of companies are interested in the attributes of a specific commodity material-palm oil, for instance—Greiner believes industry standards can play a role, much like we buy 'green' power. When a number of companies collaborate on industry standards, the benefits become more compelling for suppliers.
Products from Biomass-based crops
Melissa Hamilton of EarthShift, an organization focused on LCA capacity building within corporations, talked about the different methodologies used in LCA and results that often surprise clients.
According to Hamilton, companies that create products from biomass-based crops often think their products are naturally better than the petrochemical-based alternatives, but discover the impacts from intensive land use, fertilizer use and pesticide application are much higher than expected. This depends on the resources used in growing those plants, and LCA can help identify critical areas to focus on during the production of these products.
She also points out that there is variability produced by the impact methodologies within LCA. These are consensus-based approaches decided upon by life cycle practitioners and scientists that convert emissions into human and environmental impacts. There are many to choose from, but each yields different results depending on value choices and the emissions measured. It is important for companies to select one that is relevant for the product studied, and to compare results across methods. Treatment of biomass-based crops might produce either favorable or unfavorable results for a product depending on the selected methodology, for example.
The control of this variability grows with the sophistication of the LCA tool. In more advanced systems, the user may specify how emissions are translated into impacts.
Summary of the Uses of LCA
To summarize, key uses of LCA by practitioners include determining and monitoring the most significant environmental aspects; establishing a baseline for comparison, labeling impacts and setting corporate goals; and considering all life cycle impacts, including changing customer behavior in the use phase. These same practitioners are making important contributions to LCA by seeking industry standards to create more compelling benefits for suppliers to change practices; mastering the selection of appropriate data sources (industry-averages versus factory-specific); and becoming aware of the need for and developing transparent methodology.
In a design studio I taught at Pratt Institute last fall, I used one of the new LCA tools called Sustainable Minds. With no download needed, the students signed in to the web-based tool and quickly got into testing their design concepts.
Projects ranged from a vertical grow-light system for plants to a vermicomposting bin. After establishing which elements each product should be evaluated and compared by (e.g., providing light for indoor plants or the material for containment of food scraps), users also indicate how long this service will be delivered. Next, data pertaining to material selection, production methods, transport distances and end-of-life assumptions are entered. Sustainable Minds makes it easy to upload a bill of materials from AutoDesk's Inventor (as well as other 3D modeling programs), so no manual entry is necessary for the material selection stage.
Once the life cycle stages are filled in, the results are broken down in easy-to-read to charts, giving a quick idea about where the impacts are in the product life cycle. Add as many concepts as you want and compare any two of them side by side. Sustainable Minds also has an expansive section of the website dedicated to helping designers understand eco-design strategies that may help reduce the impacts revealed by the software.
Sustainable Minds screenshot
In Sustainable Minds, the impact methodology is limited to one approach, in which all the environmental impacts are rolled into a single number, or single-indicator. This simplifies the results and provides clear information to act on, which is very handy for LCA beginners or students. More detail on this impact method can be found at Sustainable Minds.
What might one learn from Sustainable Minds? In the simple case of the vermicomposting bin, for instance, my student had to make an argument for the extra materials and processes that went into her more user-friendly, visually pleasing design. Do-it-yourself worm bins simply use a plastic bin with a lid and some holes cut out. She designed her bin to be left out in the kitchen instead of tucked away in a closet. But would her worm bin last longer before being tossed out? Though her design was relatively worse for the environment, she used Sustainable Minds to show when things would tip in her favor due to a long-lasting product that people wanted to keep.
Greenfly is another web-based tool with a user-friendly interface that allows one to specify key attributes for life stages. Scenarios are viewed individually and charts are broken down into results for a product's carbon footprint, energy demand, water use and solid waste generation, but there is no way to compare two scenarios side-by-side to view relative differences.
Greenfly includes a set of design guidelines that prompt users to think about goals related to: dematerialization, low impact material selection, cleaner production, optimized distribution, design for durability, use phase impact reduction, and design for waste avoidance and resource recovery.
Next, Solidworks has taken another direction by including an add-on called SustainabilityXpress directly in the modeling environment. In this version individual parts are assessed with the environmental impacts shown right within the 'impact factor dashboard'.
A more advanced version, Solidworks Sustainability, is available for purchase. It allows users to assess entire assemblies, enter data on the use phase and transport modes, and determine components with the highest impacts from the bill of materials. Both versions allow users to set baselines for comparison and generate reports in a couple key impact areas.
The products mentioned above are relatively new when compared to SimaPro from Pré Consultants and GaBi from PE International. These sophisticated software products have been around for many years, and are widely used by life cycle assessment professionals. The user interface for both of these products is challenging and there is a steeper learning curve than Sustainable Minds and the Solidworks tools. As I learned how to use these two programs—both equally challenging—it became clear that many features are for people that want to go deeper into a product's life cycle.
GaBi requires users to build a 'process-tree' to connect materials, energy and processes to parts. After building the product system in GaBi, users can check if inputs and outputs match up for the assemblies. In SimaPro, after data for the product system is entered in, users can switch to a flow chart view to easily see the relative impacts from materials and processes. Both tools can display inputs/outputs and impacts in what appears to be every conceivable format. Training and/or tutorials are available for GaBi through PE International and SimaPro through EarthShift.
Both packages utilize data sets made up of industry averages for thousands of processes; industry-specific and custom data sets are also available. SimaPro pulls information from numerous external sources, while GaBi builds datasets from internal client sources as well—PE International is also an LCA consultancy. Pricing for both vary based on the customer's individual selection of data sets.
SimaPro and GaBi allow users to select from a number of impact methodologies. The single-indicator systems, like the one used in Sustainable Minds, can also be utilized here, along with common individual impact categories such as global warming potential, acidification potential, eutrophication potential, etc.
The Bottom Line on LCA Tools
Sustainable Minds works well for students, design firms and manufacturers that need to compare a range of product systems in any design stage, and for benchmarking existing product systems. At $10 per month for students and $58 per month for professionals, plus a free 30-day trial, it's also highly accessible. Greenfly remains free, though there are plans to move to subscription-based licensing. However, its interface doesn't presently allow a comparison of two scenarios side-by-side. For schools or companies with a Solidworks license, the advanced version, which allows users to specify projections for the use phase, is more useful than the Xpress version. Contact your local reseller for a price.
Both GaBi and SimaPro are ideal for companies or graduate students requiring access to larger databases of materials and processes, different impact methodologies, and increased options to view impact results. Pricing greatly depends on the size of the databases included, so it's best to check the company's website. Temporary licenses are available and educational versions are discounted (or free in the case of GaBi).
Whatever your preference, all of these tools offer greater access to information at critical points in the design process. They empower designers to make meaningful changes that reduce the impacts of products on humans and our environment, at all scales. This helps bring LCA to the fore of the discipline, promoting its adoption as an important practice in the design process.
Lloyd Hicks is the founder of New Leaf Strategic Consulting. He teaches part-time at The New School and Pratt Institute. | <urn:uuid:ffab7ed1-9c57-4ac2-a3b3-5f1434faad00> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.core77.com/blog/featured_items/life_cycle_thinking_key_issues_and_indispensable_tools_by_lloyd_hicks__16082.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938626 | 3,087 | 3.328125 | 3 |
A few years ago I was with a close friend in a grocery store. As we snaked along the aisles, we became aware of a mother with a small boy going in the opposite direction and passing us in each aisle. The woman barely noticed us because she was so furious with her child, who seemed intent on pulling items off the lower shelves. As the mother became more and more frustrated, she started to yell at her son and, several aisles later, progressed to shaking him by the arm.
At this point my friend spoke up. A wonderful mother of three and founder of a progressive school, she had probably never in her life treated any child so harshly. I expected that my friend would give this woman a solid mother-to-mother talk about controlling herself and about the effect this kind of behavior has on a child. Braced for a confrontation, I felt a spike of adrenaline.
Instead my friend said, "What a beautiful little boy. How old is he?" The woman answered cautiously, "He's 3." My friend went on to say how curious he seemed and how her own three children behaved in the grocery store, pulling things off shelves, so interested in all the wonderful colors and packages. "He seems so bright and intelligent," my friend said. The woman had the boy in her arms by now, and a shy smile came to her face. Gently brushing the hair out of his eyes, she said, "Yes, he's very smart and curious, but sometimes he wears me out." My friend responded sympathetically, "They can do that; they're so full of energy."
As we walked away, I heard the mother speaking more kindly to the boy about getting home and cooking his dinner. "We'll have your favorite—macaroni and cheese," she told him.
If you don't need to prove that you are right or that someone else's behavior should be punished, you can better see your way to achieving harmony in any given situation. My friend instinctively knew that reprimanding the mother in the grocery store might have incited her to greater rage—rage that might later have been directed at the child. Although there are times when it is necessary to stop someone physically from hurting another person, more often it is helpful that we show love and understanding to those lost in anger, allowing them to remember their own tenderness.
Each of us can share tender mercies throughout the day. These small kindnesses toward friends, family or strangers may go unnoticed by the world at large, but in offering them, by letting love flow through us, we will generate a field of sacredness. And that is its own reward.
This excerpt is from Ingram's book, Passionate Presence.
More Ways to Spread Kindness
From the December 2000 issue of O, The Oprah Magazine
We Hear You! | <urn:uuid:3c42e1af-6b4c-48a2-9d65-cfe1066e8e28> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.oprah.com/spirit/Best-Response-for-Anger-Small-Acts-of-Kindness | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982574 | 581 | 2.171875 | 2 |
The Diversity Toolkit is a free resource to help professional bodies
learn from the experiences of others and implement change within their
Download the Diversity Toolkit:
About the research
Back in 2008, there was an emerging consensus that steps needed to be taken to develop effective policies and practices in relation to equality and diversity.
PARN was funded by the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, to create a new Diversity Toolkit, as part of the Gateways to the Professions Programme that year.
The research for the Diversity Toolkit aimed to answer the question...
"How can professional bodies embed awareness and support for diversity?"
Download the research findings below: | <urn:uuid:02a84f0e-3e88-4394-bc6a-8f34d8fa42b2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.parnglobal.com/diversity-toolkit.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935962 | 135 | 1.90625 | 2 |
Director: Hans-Christian Schmid
By Marilyn Ferdinand
The filmmakers of the Berlin School have caught the interested and often admiring eye of serious cinephiles around the world since they began releasing their deceptively simple films at the beginning of the new millennium. The Berlin School filmmakers, of whom Christian Petzold (The State I’m In , Yella ) is perhaps the most iconic, generally shun the overtly political breast-beating other German filmmakers have engaged in with regard to Germany’s fraught past; instead, their stories are quite personal in scope. Yet there is an underlying seriousness of purpose that often puts difficult choices and feelings of guilt at the center of their films, thereby coming at the problem of the moral legacy with which Germans are still struggling from a less sensational, but no less acute angle.
These films vary in the degree to which they work; sometimes stripping them down too much takes some of the urgency of the questions they pose out of them. Such was the case, I felt, with Longing (2006), Valeska Grisebach’s Lady or the Tiger parable that never really fleshed out its dilemma for me. So, too, Hans-Christian Schmid’s most recent film, Storm (2009), seemed a hybrid of the overtly political and the politics of personal betrayal that didn’t do either perspective much justice. However, with Schmid’s earlier film, Requiem, the tone is perfect, and its tale of possession leading to tragedy is a perfect allegory for Nazi Germany’s brutal mindset.
Requiem, which tells the story of a modern-day demonic possession and exorcism, is based on the true story of German college student Anneliese Michel. Schmid’s take on this story, which certainly must be well-known in his country, focuses intensely on the possessed woman herself. In using this approach, Schmid does a remarkable thing. He takes us inside the life of someone who eventually comes to believe she is possessed by demons.
Unlike the makers of another film released about the same time that is also based on this story, The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005), Schmid isn’t interested in deciding for us—and especially for the woman herself—whether her claims of possession are real. If we want to draw our own conclusions, screenwriter Bernd Lange has provided “evidence.” It must be kept in mind at all times, however, that this so-called evidence is the interpretation of a writer, and therefore not truly factual.
Michaela Klingler (Sandra Huller) is a 21-year-old woman with a strong and completely natural desire to become independent of her family and start her own life. She receives a letter in the mail informing her that she has been accepted to a college in another town. Her father (Burghart Klaussner) and younger sister (Friederike Adolph) are happy for her. Her mother (Imogen Kogge) reacts by saying, “How can you go there with your thing?” and reminds her of her previous failed attempt. A predictable fight ensues, during which Michaela accuses her mother of not wanting her to have anything of her own. This could be any family, anywhere in the world.
Michaela prevails with the support of her father, who arranges a dorm room for her. He drops her at her new home with a smile and a hug, and Michaela begins her first steps into freedom. On her first day of class, she is late. The professor stops her on the steps of the lecture hall as he describes a theory of teaching. He then asks her if she agrees with the theory. She answers that she doesn’t know. He asks her what she does believe in. She says, “In God.” The room explodes in titters—this is the rebellious ’70s after all. The professor cautions them that their response means they may not believe in much of anything, and that is a problem. In this not terribly subtle, but effective, way, Schmid is cautioning the film audience to suspend judgment about spirituality and its power. It also, however, provides a much subtler set-up for the rest of the film that believing in something too deeply can have grave consequences.
Michaela sees a woman from her hometown leaving the lecture hall at the end of class. At first, Hanna (Anna Blomeier) rebuffs her, but when Michaela later gives her a cheat sheet during an exam, she warms up. They become fast friends, especially after Hanna finds Michaela collapsed in her room and learns her secret—she has epilepsy. Michaela and Hanna have some carefree times together, including going to a mixer at which Michaela meets Stefan (Nicholas Reinke), a handsome young man who appears merely to want to get in her pants. She ends up as his girlfriend, however.
Michaela confesses to Hanna that she hears voices. Hanna thinks Michaela should see a doctor. Michaela argues that she’s seen doctors, been to hospitals, and taken pills all her life, and they have done her no good. She decides to follow her instinct to seek spiritual help.
Michaela goes home to see her parish priest to complain about the voices. He sternly chastises her for believing in demons, calling God and the Devil symbols rather than facts. Michaela sees another priest, who wants to perform an exorcism once he sees how agitated she becomes when he tries to pray with her. She has lost the ability to pray, touch the cross, and hold a rosary.
Events snowball, including a major fight with her mother and a break-up with Stefan, and eventually, Michaela ends up at home. Her mother and father are now convinced she is possessed, and they call in the two priests to start the exorcisms. The movie is almost over by the time the exorcism begins.
We recognize Michaela’s swearing and rude behavior from The Exorcist (1973), and it does seem demonic coming from such a pious girl. But it’s not horrifying. It could be the result of many factors, such as being off medication, heartache, school pressures, her mother’s disapproval, her own identification with St. Katherine, who suffered possessions all her life. What becomes obvious is that medical science is as primitive as religion at this point in time, and that a troubled girl brings out the worst in everyone, from her long-suffering mother to an eager young priest in love with the idea of exorcism.
The cast is uniformly superb, but Huller, who is in nearly every frame, gives one of the great performances I have ever seen. She brings to life a complex woman with a view of her condition consistent with who she is. Schmid adds to the verite feel of this film by shooting with a handheld camera and concentrating on close-ups, making us feel as though we are trying to peer into Michaela’s soul. I don’t know what was going on in this girl, but I found this film to be a fitting requiem to her spirit. | <urn:uuid:0434d4e1-c046-4b77-87a6-8368c594268b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ferdyonfilms.com/2011/requiem-2006/7938/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973868 | 1,495 | 1.53125 | 2 |
'Mongst life's many cares, there is none so provoking,|
As when a brave seaman, disabled and old,
Must crouch to the worthless, and stand the rude mocking
Of those who have nought they can boast but their gold,
Poor Tom, once so high on the list of deserving,
By captain and crew, none so dearly were prized,
At home now laid up, worn with many years serving,
Poor Tom takes his sup, and poor Tom is despised.
2. Yet, Care thrown a-lee, see old Tom in his glory,
Plac'd snug with a shipmate, whose life once he saved,
Recounting the feats of some bold naval story,
The battles they fought, and the storms they had braved
In his country's defence he has dared every danger,
His valorous deeds he might boast undisguised,
Yet home-hearted landsmen hold Tom as a stranger,
Poor Tom loves his sup, and poor Tom is despised.
3. Myself too am old, rather rusted for duty,
Yet still I'll prefer the wide ocean to roam,
I'd join some bold corsair, and live upon booty,
Before I'd be jibed by these sucklings at home.
Poor Tom, fare thee well ! for, by heaven, 'tis provoking,
When thus a brave seaman, disabled and old,
Must crouch to the worthless, and stand the rude mocking,
Of those who have nought they can boast but their gold. | <urn:uuid:49a9ec9b-26a6-41cb-a426-aa0883f2ed52> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.musicanet.org/robokopp/scottish/mongstli.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963772 | 330 | 2.046875 | 2 |
The world's toughest eighteen holes lie not along the foggy shores of Pebble Beach or on the wind-whipped undulations of St. Andrews but rather in the tangled sub-Saharan bush of Chililabombwe, Zambia, home of the Konkola Golf Club. Chililabombwe, a tiny border town within earshot of the warfare in the Democratic Republic of Congo, is known for its idyllic subtropical climate and for the Konkola Copper Mine, one of the richest on the continent. But the town's golf course--originally called Bancroft Golf Club by its colonial founders and renamed after Zambia won independence in 1964--is clearly the pride of the region.
You really know you're not at Augusta when the scorecard says "A ball coming to rest in a hippo footprint may be lifted and dropped in the nearest possible position to provide maximum relief." Seven-thousand-pound hippos don't tiptoe; ostriches could nest in the divots they leave. Hippos track across the grounds because the Konkola is near the Kafue River.
Chris Mwaba, the club secretary, sometimes must caution visiting players to watch out for poisonous snakes. Every now and then a duffer bushwhacking through the thigh-high kasensi grass will be confronted by boomslangs, black and green mambas, puff adders, gaboon vipers or the highly venomous spitting cobra. But perhaps Konkola's greatest challenge is the series of ponds along which ten of its holes are situated. Many a tee shot has gone into the drink, but that's not the biggest problem.
In bold, black letters the scorecard warns "NOTE: BEWARE OF CROCODILES ON 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 13, 14, 15, 17 AND 18." To date, almost a half-dozen caddies have been munched while on ball-retrieval expeditions. "Wandering near the water is not the wisest move for a caddie at Konkola," says a club member. "They become easy meat."
The thirty or so courses that speckle the Zambian countryside are among the most exotic in the known world. In Livingstone, golfers risk having their balls swiped by baboons; in Chingola, by vervet monkeys. At the old Kasaba Bay Lodge course, golfers shared the fairways with Cape buffalo, hartebeests, wart hogs, hippopotami, elephants and puku, henna-red antelopes seen mainly in crossword puzzles. Herds of impalas, duikers and black lechwes roam the nine-hole course at the state house in Lusaka. In Ndola, the main obstructions are immense termite mounds. Seventy-two rise from the sandy soil; the sixth hole alone has fourteen. "Zambians call termite towers ant hills," says club president John Nkandu. "The hills can grow as high as several stories."
Ndola, Zambia's second-largest city, is where we begin our Konkola chronicle. The town's civic credo, "The Friendly City," is stenciled on an airport wall. Friendly Ndola is. Uneventful it is not. Headlines in one day's newspaper included the following: WIFE EXPOSES BLOOD-SUCKING HUSBAND, SELF-CONFESSED WIZARD GOES IN FOR 2 YEARS and MAGISTRATE SUES OVER COCKROACH IN SOUP.
The counsel offered in the local press can be equally uncommon. An editorial in the Sunday Mail proposed a novel solution to the Monica Lewinsky scandal: CLINTON SHOULD CONSIDER POLYGAMY. | <urn:uuid:1c073756-f638-426c-88aa-77c15a036d63> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.travelandleisure.com/articles/on-the-fringe | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00051-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925597 | 804 | 1.75 | 2 |
Search Tags: transportation funding reform bill
Virginia is moving ahead with plans to allow buses to use Interstate 66 shoulders starting next year as a pilot project to reduce congestion along the heavily traveled corridor.
The Virginia Senate passed a transportation reform funding bill that would increase taxes in the region. But the new funding would provide enough money to extend Metrorail to Dulles among other transportation projects in Northern Virginia.
As Virginia lawmakers continue to debate how to pay for transportation projects in the state, Fairfax County officials fear the loss of $300 million that is slated to help pay for constructing the Silver Line to Dulles.
A Virginia Senate committee has rewritten Gov. Bob McDonnell's transportation funding reform bill.
Tags: Frank Wagner | <urn:uuid:d04b8529-ae43-4444-be49-e11f53042bfb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wtop.com/?nid=1042&tag=transportation+funding+reform+bill | 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 | 0.92047 | 144 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Meet the first female footballers (who kicked up quite a fuss in their knickerbockers!)
In buttoned-up blouses and billowing bloomers, they may not look as though they are dressed for the football pitch.
But these are the members of Britain’s first official female football teams – whose clashes on the field in the 1880s sparked riots off it and contributed to greater empowerment for women.
The pictures, uncovered as part of an exhibition charting the history of women’s football, reveal the characters who tackled a man’s world for the first time.
Feminist goals: Mrs Graham”s XI, from Stirling in Scotland, are thought to be the first women”s football team in Britain, and sparked riots after they beat England 3-1 in their second match ever in May 1881
Top of their game: Nellie Hudson, known as Nettie J Honeyball, and Helen Matthews, who played under the pseudonym Mrs Graham, set up pioneering ladies” sides in the late 19th century
However, while thousands flocked to see their matches by 1895, when these photographs were taken, they were still less fascinated by the players’ silky skills than by what silkies they might be wearing for the unladylike spectacle.
One newspaper report at the time said: ‘The young women presented a pretty appearance on the field, and this was in a great measure due to the nice assortment of colours, as well as the dainty way in which the women set them off.’
Casting aside corsets in favour of voluminous knickerbockers and prim bonnets amounted to quite an eyeful back in Victorian times and spectators frequently tried to get on to the pitch to get closer to the players.
Another newspaper of the day noted: ‘There will always be curiosity to see women do unwomanly things, and it is not surprising that the match was attended by a crowd numbering several thousands, very few of whom would like to have their own sisters or daughters exhibiting themselves on the football field.’
At the centre of the furore was the British Ladies’ Football Club, which played dozens of games that year.
Kicking against oppression: Mrs Graham”s XI, pictured training in Loakes Park in 1895, are even credited with helping women get the vote
Founded by the enigmatic Nellie Hudson, known as Nettie J. Honeyball, the club fielded teams called North and South which played against each other.
In a newspaper interview she declared she had founded the club ‘with the fixed resolve of proving to the world that women are not the ornamental and useless creatures men have pictured’.
Sports writers of the day tended to disagree, though. According to a match report from The Sketch, ‘it would be idle to attempt any description of the play’.
It went on: ‘The first few minutes were sufficient to show that football by women is totally out of the question.
‘For the most part, the ladies wandered aimlessly over the field at an ungraceful jog-trot. A smaller ball than usual was utilised, but the strongest among them could propel it no further than a few yards.’
Blooming outrage: The women, whose team even included the world”s first black female footballer, shocked their male counterparts by playing in revealing bloomers and blouses
In the North team was Helen Matthews, a goalkeeper who played under the name of Mrs Graham. She had founded the first female Scottish national side, Mrs Graham’s XI, in 1881.
Riots erupted after the team defeated an English side twice. As a result, women were banned from playing football in Scotland, so Matthews headed south and later joined forces with Hudson.
But many believe her team deserves credit for helping women get the vote in Scottish local government elections, since campaigners received the royal assent just a day after the unrest.
Stuart Gibbs, 47, who helped compile the exhibition, said: ‘The players were all part of the rights for women movement so maybe the game was seen as a sign of the times and had some influence.’
Historian and exhibition organiser Colin Yates, 54, added: ‘The games often caused anger from men who disliked women doing what, at that time, was a man’s job.’ | <urn:uuid:4953f51f-384c-4aa9-9a40-2a97824189c0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sportsboundguide.com/meet-britains-1st-female-footballers-who-kicked-up-quite-a-fuss-in-their-knickerbockers/ | 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 | 0.986117 | 922 | 2.203125 | 2 |
Guidelines recommend that doctors incorporate many practices to prevent cardiovascular disease (heart attack and stroke) into routine health care for their patients. These practices include, for example, measurement of blood pressure and cholesterol level and treatment when either is high. Other recommended practices include certain tests and treatments for patients who have conditions such as heart failure or diabetes. Unfortunately, although guidelines recommend various interventions to prevent cardiovascular disease, doctors sometimes forget to include all of these interventions in the care of every patient. Many hospitals and other health care settings have developed programs to improve care, but these programs often have limited success. Some experts believe that quality improvement programs with multiple components are more effective than simpler programs. | <urn:uuid:4b56b578-f1ad-435c-b125-414b1ab9efb9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=717883 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952165 | 134 | 2.796875 | 3 |
|Israel's Gaza offensive damaged 47,000 houses, leaving many Palestinians homeless [AFP]
Exactly six months ago - minutes before Israel launched its war - I was sitting in a coffee shop in Gaza City's main square.
Six months later, here I am again. At the same table, ordering the same drink from the same waiter who is talking about the same thing - no fuel, no electricity, no goods.
The untouched rubble of Israel's onslaught is becoming part of Gaza's landscape. Nothing here has changed, except the weather.
In 23 days, Israel's military managed to damage 47,000 homes in Gaza. Tens of thousands of people are still living in tents, just as I left them months ago, because Israel continues to block the entrance of building material.
The winter has come and gone, and now the blistering heat is their new challenge.
Stranded and forgotten
The homeless remain stranded and, it seems, forgotten.
The international community pledged $4bn to rebuild Gaza after the war - a publicity stunt says one lady I spoke to who lives with her children in a tent by the side of the rubble once their home.
Gaza is often compared to a prison - but even murderers and rapists are entitled to a roof over their heads, a toilet, food - and if their cell is damaged, they are moved to another one.
"They weren't moving so I struggled to pull their hands apart, to take Nour to get help. But they were dead"
Article One of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. In Gaza, like so many other international principles, that rule does not apply.
After the war, Israel left 75 tonnes of depleted uranium in the soil, while half of Gaza's hospitals were demolished. And that's just the infrastructure.
At least 1,440 Palestinians were killed by Israeli soldiers and artillery whose aim, the establishment still maintains, was to neutralise Hamas fighters.
Of those killed, 431 were children and 114 women, according to Palestinian sources.
But it's not the dead that I feel sorry for anymore, it's the living.
I met the Deeb family after the war.
My colleague, Ayman Mohyeldin, had spoken about them on air during the offensive. On January 6, as 21 members of the family huddled together in the garden outside their home, Israeli missiles struck.
Their home was next to a UN school that had been converted into a shelter. Israel says it was after Palestinian fighters hiding out near the school.
Eleven members of the Deeb family from across three generations died within seconds, from three-year-old Nour to her 76-year-old grandmother.
Hussein Deeb described the moment to me.
"I couldn't see when it first happened, I felt around me and put my hand on my sister-in-law, she was holding her daughter, three-year-old Nour's hand," he said.
"They weren't moving so I struggled to pull their hands apart, to take Nour to get help. But they were dead."
The only time Hussein smiled was when he was telling me about Nour. He remembers how he used to repeat the stories of what his niece did and said that day to his friends and family and they would all laugh.
Now, the house is empty. All signs of joy and life replaced by a sad silence.
The waste of war
Ziad Deeb is 23 years old. He lost his father, two brothers, a sister and six cousins that day. Ziad also lost both his legs in the blast.
I asked him how he could continue and he shook his head, saying; "I have to overcome this, work harder at school."
What he's lost in physical capability he is determined to make up with mental strength.
|Ziad Deeb lost his legs in the Israeli missile strike that killed 10 of his family [EPA]
Both of them have given their testimonies to the UN fact-finding mission which is due to report in August.
"What compensation are you expecting?" I asked, but when I saw the sadness their eyes I realised the foolishness of my question.
People here are not asking to be given anything, they are not even expecting a single Israeli soldier to face war crimes charges for what they have done - past experience has made people here more realistic than that.
What they want is for the world to know their story and maybe a few people to remember it.
Wars are always a waste - of life, of effort, of money. But they can sometimes mean the end of something or the beginning of a new phase.
Israel said its aim was to stop Hamas's aggression. It didn't.
Hamas says it withstood Israel's military might - but at what price?
During the war, people here would talk about whether this means something will change.
Endure the next few weeks and something better may prevail I heard people say.
But nothing has got better here, nothing has changed ... except perhaps the one thing Israel cannot affect - the weather. | <urn:uuid:fecaddce-c07b-496d-85d8-cfb86140d8f6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aljazeera.com/focus/2009/06/200962618352694327.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985765 | 1,067 | 2.09375 | 2 |
Recycled Large Trash Bags
When trash is unavoidable, choose recycled plastic trash bags. They're a more sustainable choice for your home and the planet.
- 80% recycled plastic
- 24% post-consumer recycled plastic
DID YOU KNOW...If every household in the U.S. replaced just one package of 20 count trash bags made from virgin plastic with 60% recycled ones, we could save 86,000 barrels of oil, enough to heat and cool 4,900 U.S. homes for a year! Learn more. | <urn:uuid:1511fdf6-21ed-4d15-b1aa-be817cbf51a7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.seventhgeneration.com/tall-kitchen-trash-bags | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917899 | 111 | 2 | 2 |
If your arteries ever became clogged with gunk -- as does happen from time-to-time with us humans -- you and your doctor would want to take instant, massive action to fix the situation.
Similarly, if your car were ever to develop lots of oil deposits, you'd be well-advised to take immediate action as well. In both cases, the "heart" of the entire works -- your actual heart in your own body and the engine in your car -- would be in danger of seizing and suffering long-lasting harm.
We know that a sloppy diet and too little exercise cause sticky deposits called cholesterol to block our arteries. But what's the culprit behind oil gumming up our engine -- isn't oil one of the good guys when it comes to car engine health?
Well, yes, it is. But when oil is subjected to a high enough temperature, it can solidify and become baked onto the surface of whatever is close by, like for instance, a narrow engine oil passageway or critical engine parts themselves. It can also lose its viscosity and become a tar-like goop that makes life hard for your vehicle's engine.
When enough of these deposits collect, the possibility of a vehicle engine underperforming or even dying, go up dramatically. Thick or solid oil can have the reverse effect that clean, normal oil has. Instead of cleaning, lubricating and cooling your engine, it can pollute, hinder and contribute to overheating.
This article lists five of the most common clues that your vehicle is harboring oil deposits. Notice them too late and you could be facing a steep repair bill. But catch them early enough, and you could save yourself an engine and many greenbacks, not to mention peace of mind. | <urn:uuid:5162d31c-ccff-4279-9b6e-c329fa5afb9f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://auto.howstuffworks.com/5-symptoms-of-oil-deposits.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964612 | 359 | 2.078125 | 2 |
However, just because you have included a subwoofer in your home theater setup, that doesn't mean you are getting all the impact you need, or want. If you have a large room, a room that has acoustical problems, or an irregularly shaped room, you may find that you need more than one subwoofer. For more on the reason why using more that one subwoofer might be beneficial, also read: Using Multiple Subwoofers (About.com Stereos).
Hooking Up More Than One Subwoofer
If you find that you need, or want, more than one subwoofer, the question becomes: "How do I hook-up two, or more, subwoofers in my home theater system?"
The first tip for integrating more than one subwoofer into a home theater setup is that if you are going to use multiple subwoofers in your listening area, it is best to use all of the same brand and model, so as to have the same low frequency reproduction profile for your room.
However, with some added attention, you can combine two different size subwoofers, such as a larger 12-inch sub with a smaller 10 or 8-inch sub, or subwoofers of different brands and models. However, you have to be aware of any differences in power output. For more details on getting the best performance from any subwoofer, check out some useful subwoofer installation tips from About.com Stereos.
Now, before you buy your subwoofers (or combine ones that you already have), make sure they provide the connections that can fit within the three possible setup options below. Also,
The Two Subwoofer Solution
Here are the three ways to add two subwoofers in a home theater system:
1. If your home theater receiver only has one Subwoofer pre-out (sometimes labeled Sub Out or LFE out), just use an RCA Y-Adapter and use it to send two parallel signals to two separate subwoofers.
2. If your home theater receiver has two subwoofer pre-outs, connect one output to one subwoofer and the second one to another subwoofer.
3. If one of your subwoofers has both a RCA Line-in and Line out connection option, connect your home theater receiver's Subwoofer Pre-out the your subwoofer's line in, and then connect the subwoofer's line out to the line-in of a second subwoofer.
Connecting Three or Four Subwoofers
Also, if you are using three or four subwoofers, the best option would be to make sure all your subwoofers have both RCA line and line out connections and just daisy chain them all together using a series of subwoofer cables.
The Wireless Subwoofer Option
However, there is one additional subwoofer connection trick. Both Sunfire and Velodyne make wireless subwoofer adapters that can transmit to up to two or four wireless compatible subwoofers, respectively. In this case, stick with Velodyne or Sunfire wireless subs if possible, but both systems can adapt any subwoofer with RCA line inputs into a wireless sub.
For more on subwoofers, including basics, buying tips, and actual product suggestions read the following supplementary articles: | <urn:uuid:095b9f7d-35ec-4e02-9564-3baf4710219f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hometheater.about.com/od/hometheaterdoityourself/qt/How-To-Connect-Two-Or-More-Subwoofers-In-A-Home-Theater-Setup.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923488 | 709 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Clegg warns of 'chilling effect'
Uncertainty over the UK's membership of the European Union could have a "chilling effect" on the economy, Nick Clegg said in a stark warning over calls for a referendum.
The Deputy Prime Minister said the public should only get a say if there was a transfer of powers to Brussels - and denied breaking a pre-election promise of a popular vote.
In a long-awaited speech on Friday, Prime Minister David Cameron is expected to announce plans for a referendum on a new settlement with Brussels after the 2015 general election.
He has rejected calls for an immediate in/out referendum on British membership, which he said would present voters with a "false choice". But he said it would be right to seek the "fresh consent" of the British people after negotiating a new settlement for the UK.
Mr Cameron has been caught in an increasingly ill-tempered row within his party, with some Tory backbenchers calling for a public vote on the EU, while business leaders and grandees including Lord Heseltine have warned of the dangers of UK withdrawal. The issue is also straining relations with the Tories' strongly pro-EU Liberal Democrat coalition colleagues.
Lib Dem leader Mr Clegg joined the warnings of business leaders over the impact of exit or the threatened prospect of it. "I do not think we should do anything to jeopardise our leadership (in Europe) and we certainly should not do anything which would have a chilling effect on jobs in this country," he said.
"We should be very careful at a time when the British economy is still haltingly recovering from the worst economic shock in a generation to create a very high degree and a prolonged period of uncertainty because in my view uncertainty is the enemy of growth and jobs and our priority, in this Government and in the national duty, has got to be to foster growth and jobs.
"If you are an investor investing in the United Kingdom to create jobs here it is unnecessary to create a high degree of uncertainty which might actually chase away that investment and might diminish the number of jobs in this country."
Mr Clegg warned an "arcane debate" was at risk of being put before Britain's national interests. The 2010 Liberal Democrat manifesto noted that the EU had "evolved significantly since the last public vote" in 1975. "Liberal Democrats therefore remain committed to an in/out referendum the next time a British government signs up for fundamental change in the relationship between the UK and the EU," it said.
Pressed on the pledge, Mr Clegg said the party had in fact gone further by enshrining a referendum on any further transfer of powers to Brussels in law. "Given that we have given that clarity, we have provided that certainty... I don't think it is wise to add to that with a degree of uncertainty which I believe will have a chilling effect on jobs and growth in this country," he said. "For me the priority remains jobs and growth, not an arcane debate which will go on for years and years." | <urn:uuid:b7870810-57e5-4c98-a220-e6a02348a526> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.uttoxeter-news.co.uk/Home/Clegg-warns-of-chilling-effect-0-4045484.xnf | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971239 | 618 | 1.859375 | 2 |
Prior to the release of the report by the National Commission on Teaching that clearly points out our state and national kindergarten through 12th-grade teaching standards are not making the grade, the school reform debate has, for the most part, focused on the K-12 system. However, as this recent national report demonstrates, if we are going to truly change and improve our public schools, we also must invest in preparing our teachers for tomorrow - today.
The report states Florida received only one "star" out of 10 on the standards they set for teachers. The overall theme of the report is that if we want better student outcomes, we better invest in teacher training and retraining. According to the report, 17 percent of Florida's new teachers were unlicensed, and 39 percent of mathematics teachers did not have a minor in the subject they are teaching. Clearly, no significant, long-lasting quality gains in K-12 education are possible without well-educated, motivated, competent and professional teachers.
Innovations are taking place in our public schools including the infusion of arts into the curriculum by the Center for Creative Education, team teaching, cooperative learning and technology, to name a few. While we talk about reforming our schools, we cannot lose sight of who is teaching our children and the critical need to invest in teacher education and staff development.
Far too many of our colleges of educaiton are forgotten and weak links in our efforts to improve schools. Certainly there are pockets of innovation and change, like the Henderson School at Florida Atlantic University, and the Tech Prep program that engages the Palm Beach County Public Schools, Palm Beach Community College and the business community.
As a whole, however, the school reform movement has made little impact on our colleges of education.
Given the changes needed in our schools, not putting a greater emphasis on enhancing our teacher preparation programs would be the equivalent of the auto industry not paying attention to what the steel companies produce for them. Our colleges of education.
We need to challenge our teacher preparation universities to:
* Put more emphasis on subject-matter courses together with education-methods classes. It stands to reason: You cannot teach what you do not know.
* Raise admission standards.
* Increase the term of study from a four-year program to a five-year program with more emphasis on supervised student teaching, similar to teaching hospitals in the field of medicine.
* Provide for a vigorous first-year induction process for all beginning teachers with additional follow up in the second and third years after graduation.
* Allow for alternative preparation and certification processes that encourage professional from other fields to enter the teaching profession.
* Increase the number of professional development schools where university education professors work side-by-side with new teachers to induct them into the professional and engage in ongoing applied research about successful teaching and learning. We need to provide incentives for professors to do more than "research and write" about K-12 school reform.
* Catch up with the technology and prepare teachers to use these new tools in the classroom to prepare students for the 21st century.
* Invest in the existing teaching and administrative workforce in the field. It is not uncommon for business to invest between 2 percent and 4 percent of annual revenue on ongoing staff development. In our schools, however, staff development is often the last to be added and the first to be cut in tough budget times.
Given the demographics of South Florida, a concerted effort needs to be made to recruit and prepare more minority teachers and to train and retrain others to function in a diverse and multicultural world.
Change, the most elusive commodity in the school reform movement, needs to incorporate the whole educational cycle - K-12 and higher education.
We need to continue to build bridges between our educational institutions, not moats.
-- The author is executive director of the Economic Council of Palm Beach County and former special assistant to the president for public school initiatives at Wayne State University, Detroit, Mich. He wrote this article for the Sun-Sentinel. | <urn:uuid:42c1c82f-1af4-45da-a04a-f25c2b75630d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1996-10-26/news/9610240331_1_teacher-education-school-reform-teacher-preparation | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960913 | 815 | 2.0625 | 2 |
- Category: World News
- Published Date
- Written by Reuters
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s condition has “improved slightly” after a cancer operation in Cuba, the information minister said on Monday, amid doubts over whether the former soldier is in good enough health to continue governing.
“The patient has shown a slight improvement in his condition,” Venezuelan Information Minister Ernesto Villegas said during a terse televised statement, adding the president has maintained contact with family members.
Chavez has not been heard from in two weeks following a fourth operation for an unspecified type of cancer in the pelvic region. The government has said he suffered post-operatory complications including unexpected bleeding and a lung infection, but offered few details about his actual condition.
His death, or even his resignation for health reasons, would upend the politics of the South American Opec nation where his personalised brand of oil-financed socialism has made him a hero to the poor but a pariah to critics who call him a dictator.
His allies are now openly discussing the possibility that he may not be back in time to be sworn in for his third six-year term on the constitutionally mandated date of January 10.
Opposition leaders say a delay to his taking power would be another signal that Chavez is not in condition to govern and that fresh elections should be called to choose his replacement.—Reuters | <urn:uuid:eb40dc76-e705-4088-8cee-e5161e9a2d4e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mwnation.com/world-news-the-nation/13664-chavez-slightly-improves-after-surgery | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979101 | 287 | 1.601563 | 2 |
If you spend any time on the internet, you’ve probably encountered LOLSpeak. LOLSpeak is a cutsy way of spelling words, complete with grammatical errors. It also includes acronyms such as LOL, TTYL, and TL;DR. LOLSpeak even includes a bit of its own mythology, such as the Ceiling Cat/Basement Cat dichotomy, the little kitty who brought a cookie but eated it, and the itteh bitteh kitteh committeh. You’ve probably received e-mails featuring one of I Can Has Cheezburger‘s captioned LOLCats.
Well, someone by the name of Martin Grondin had the amazingly clever idea to rewrite the entire Bible in LOLSpeak, as if it were written for cats by cats. The project is called The LOLCat Bible and is available for free as a wiki or in book form. The whole thing is hilarious and very clever, and I highly recommend that you at least go over and look up some of your favourite passages.
In closing, I leave you with Genesis 1:1-5…
Oh hai. In teh beginnin Ceiling Cat maded teh skiez An da Urfs, but he did not eated dem. Da Urfs no had shapez An haded dark face, An Ceiling Cat rode invisible bike over teh waterz. At start, no has lyte. An Ceiling Cat sayz, i can haz lite? An lite wuz. An Ceiling Cat sawed teh lite, to seez stuffs, An splitted teh lite from dark but taht wuz ok cuz kittehs can see in teh dark An not tripz over nethin. An Ceiling Cat sayed light Day An dark no Day. It were FURST!!!1 | <urn:uuid:51b120e2-69af-4775-9b1a-adbe32b84660> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.carpescriptura.com/?p=1064 | 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 | 0.949642 | 396 | 2.109375 | 2 |