text stringlengths 213 24.6k | id stringlengths 47 47 | dump stringclasses 1 value | url stringlengths 14 499 | file_path stringlengths 138 138 | language stringclasses 1 value | language_score float64 0.9 1 | token_count int64 51 4.1k | score float64 1.5 5.06 | int_score int64 2 5 |
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Haviland has a total population of 612 and a student population of 194. Of these students, 194 are enrolled in schools that offer teaching programs.
The largest teaching school in Haviland, by student population, is Barclay College. In 2010, Barclay College graduated approximately 1 students with credentials in teaching.
A total of 1 students graduated with credentials in teaching from teaching schools in Haviland in 2010. In 2009 tuition at teaching schools in Haviland was $13,590 per year, on average.
In addition to tuition costs, you should plan on spending an average of $1,000 for books and supplies each year, while enrolled in a teaching program in Haviland. And if you live on campus at one of the Haviland-based teaching schools, you will have an added expense of $6,400 per year, on average, for room and board. Students who live at home can cut this cost down to approximately $0.
After graduating with your credentials in teaching, if you decide to work as a teacher in Haviland, your job prospects are good. In 2010, 1 out of every 4 teachers in Kansas were working in the greater Haviland area. By the year 2018, the number of teachers is expected to increase by 20% in Haviland. This projected change is faster than the projected nationwide trend for teachers.
As a teacher in Haviland, you can expect to make an average salary of $39,890 per year. This is lower than the average salary for teachers in the state. | <urn:uuid:56d52c7f-ffca-40c0-8aac-a7b20ce5fcba> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hackcollege.com/school-finder/schools/kansas/haviland/teaching/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976968 | 312 | 1.609375 | 2 |
WHO, UNAIDS Ask Indian Government to Report Number of AIDS Deaths in Wake of Declining Number of Reported HIV Cases
June 6, 2005
UNAIDS and the World Health Organization on Thursday asked the Indian government to report the number of people in the country who died of AIDS-related causes in 2004 and previously had not been recorded as being HIV-positive in order to determine the total number of HIV-positive people living in India that year, the Indian Express reports. The request comes in response to the Indian government's announcement last month that far fewer new HIV cases were reported in 2004, compared with 2003 (Rashid, Indian Express, 6/5). According to data released by India's National AIDS Control Organization, 28,000 new HIV cases were reported in India in 2004, compared with 520,000 new cases in 2003, a nearly 95% decrease. The data -- collected by the Indian independent organizations Institute of Research in Medical Statistics and the National Institute of Health and Family Welfare -- used UNAIDS and WHO recommendations, but some AIDS advocates in the country said they dispute the numbers because no nongovernmental organizations that work with HIV-positive people have registered a corresponding drop in new demand for services (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 5/27). "India does not have figures of deaths due to HIV/AIDS so far, so we don't know what the new infections are," Ruben del Prado, deputy UNAIDS country coordinator, said, adding that the country cannot compare its 2003 and 2004 figures without taking into account the number of AIDS-related deaths.
Total Number of HIV Cases
Reprinted with permission from kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/hiv. The Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of the Kaiser Family Foundation, by The Advisory Board Company. © 2005 by The Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.
New York Times Examines How Local Governments Often Must Decide Between Using Quick or Early Detection HIV Tests
This article was provided by Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. It is a part of the publication Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report. Visit the Kaiser Family Foundation's website to find out more about their activities, publications and services. | <urn:uuid:d02633aa-0bb0-49c8-bfb2-1d5245f463ca> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thebody.com/content/art8761.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9336 | 499 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Each issue carries an imprimatur from
the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. Reprinting prohibited
Agony in the Garden
Understanding the Passion of Jesus
by Ronald Rolheiser
The Agony in the
in the Garden of
Gethsemane, is one of the
great texts in Scripture.
You’ll find it in Luke 22,
Matthew 26 and Mark 14.
Many will know it as one
of the Sorrowful Mysteries
of the Rosary. It’s also one
of the major Christian
icons, one that’s just
etched into our psyche.
That’s because it’s a deep
text, one loaded with
meaning. In this Update,
I’d like to break open this
text a bit for us, and show
how Jesus’ encounter with
this sacred space can be a
key for our own encounter
with the sacred.
It’s a moment, the few hours after the Last Supper, that Jesus had to prepare
for his death. That’s a lot of pressure, the kind that brings life sharply into focus.
What would you do if you knew you were in your final hours? Or, better yet, how
could that type of insight affect the choices you make between now and then?
That’s what the Agony in the Garden is all about.
In this Update we’ll look at three major aspects of the scriptural text. First,
we’ll talk about the Passion of Christ, the context for the Agony in the Garden.
Then we want to enter with Jesus into the Garden. What is the real drama of the
Garden of Gethsemane? Finally, we’ll take a look at some of the deeply moving
images that are written into this text.
The Meaning of Agony
The word agony is not just a pious term
from the Rosary or other traditions;
it’s a term from Scripture. In Greek
they talk about Christ’s agonia. We
know what agony means in English, but in Greek,
at the time of Jesus, it was also a technical term
for what athletes did warming up for the Olympic
Games. During that warm-up, the Greek athletes
would produce a certain sweat which would warm
up their muscles and ready them for coming combat.
That sweat, that lather, was called their agonia.
Luke is telling us that Jesus does an agonia to get ready for his passion. In essence, Luke is
saying, we don’t move from being self-pampering
to dying on a cross without some preparation.
The Agony in the Garden is the warm-up, the
readying, the agonia for the Passion that follows.
But what is the Passion of our Lord Jesus
Christ? The English word passion gives you a
false image. In English the word passion refers
to something that’s very deep in terms of feeling
love. But although you certainly can have passion
and love, you also can have passion and suffering.
When we think of Christ’s Passion, we think
of all the suffering that Jesus did. It’s more a
sense of passivity, or passiveness.
In Jesus’ passivity he gives his death for us,
unlike during all his active life up until the Agony
in the Garden, when he gives his life for us. We
often lump these together and miss the distinction.
Christ gave his life and his death for us. We give
our lives for each other in our activity; we give
our deaths for each other in our passivity.
When blood and water poured out of the
crucified Jesus (see John 19:31-37), we see not
only a sign of Baptism and Eucharist, though
clearly that is part of the story. We see also
another sign. What are blood and water? Blood is
the life principle that flows between us, it makes
us alive. Water washes us. So what the evangelist
is saying at another level is that Jesus died in
such a way that it makes us freer. We’re able to
live life; life flows more easily and we’re able to
live cleanly. That is when we are free of guilt.
Drama of the Garden
Do you ever wonder why that drama
happens in a garden? It’s the Agony
in the Garden, it’s not the Agony in
the Temple, the Agony in the Synagogue,
or the Agony on a Mountaintop, or in the Boat at Sea. In Scripture, where something takes
place is always much, much more than geography.
At a deeper level, the geography is spiritual; it’s
a place in the heart.
Why the garden? Gardens don’t appear that
often in Scripture, but they’re very important.
In spirituality, gardens have nothing to do with
cucumbers, radishes, garlic. Gardens are where
lovers go. That’s very important in getting to
the drama of the Agony in the Garden. This is a
drama inside of love. That’s why the beginning,
where Scripture opens up, we’re in the Garden
of Eden. In the garden you can be naked.
There’s no shame in the garden.
Where does Mary Magdalene, who was the
great lover in Scripture, find Jesus on Easter
Sunday, in the morning? In a garden. Remember
the wonderful old gospel hymn that Elvis Presley
famously recorded: “I come to the garden alone,
and he walks with me, and he talks with me, and
he tells me I am his own. And the joy we feel
when we tarry there... .” That’s Jesus as a lover,
and he calls us into the Garden.
Nothing against Mel Gibson’s film The
Passion of the Christ, but Jesus wasn’t a
physical athlete. The evangelists don’t emphasize
the whips, the beatings, the thorns, the blood,
the nails. They emphasize he was alone, betrayed,
humiliated, hung out to dry. Nobody stood up
When you read Mark’s Gospel, Jesus is saying
in the Last Supper that he is dreading what’s
going to happen. He doesn’t speak about the
ropes and the whips and the chains, he doesn’t
say, “You know, I’m really going to get beaten
up out there.” He says, “You’re all going to
betray me. I’m going to be alone.”
Three Tests of the Garden
I remember a teacher I had in grade school
who explained Jesus’ sweating blood as a
kind of pious moment for a Jesus who knew
how everything would turn out. But it’s
more than that. Sweating blood in the Garden is
about the drama inside of love—the drama that’s
deepest inside of your loneliness. What’s happening
in the Garden is a test of love. In essence
there are really three tests that tie together into
one test in the Garden:
1. Lose the Resentment
The first test is: Can you give your life over in
love without resentment and bitterness? Henri Nouwen says: “The sensitive world is not bound
up between those who are bound to duty.” You
know we have to take care of sick mothers and
work inside the Church and take care of kids and
take care of parishes and cook the holiday dinner
because nobody else is going to do it. Now all
sensitive people are bound to duty—some do it
with resentment; others give it over freely. See,
the first part of the major drama in the Garden of
Gethsemane is that Jesus has to give himself over
to this death, which is hard, which is suffering,
which is sacrificial. But he has to do it without
resentment. He has to carry the cross and not
send the bill.
Jesus was going to die anyway. But his great
gift was that he could die, he gave his life over
without bitterness, without price tag, without
anger, without resentment, with complete
forgiveness. The Resurrection is all about
forgiveness. Jesus came back and he never
challenged anybody with, “Where were you
when I needed you?” He came back just in
pure grace, transforming suffering into deeper
2. Face Humiliation
But tied to that, Jesus has to face a powerful
humiliation. We don’t get the drama of the
Crucifixion unless we really enter into this
powerful humiliation of Good Friday. Consider
what the risen Jesus tells the disciples on Easter
Sunday in the morning on the road to Emmaus
Luke says on that morning two disciples
are walking away from Jerusalem. Jerusalem
was the Church. It was their faith dream but it
was also the place of humiliation. And they
are walking towards Emmaus, a spa. Today it
would be like Las Vegas. The disciples are going
for some human consolation and they meet Jesus
on the road, yet they don’t recognize him. Why
not? Because they have written him off, because
they’ve seen him humiliated.
Then Jesus says to them: “Wasn’t it necessary?
Wasn’t it necessary that the Christ should
so have to suffer and enter into his glory?”
What’s the necessary connection? Essentially
what Jesus is saying to the disciples on the
road to Emmaus is that you can’t get Easter
Sunday if you don’t get the humiliation of
What suffering or humiliation does for us,
if we get it right, is to give us moral intelligence.
You learn it from your own humiliations. I
remember one lecturer, James Hillman, who
said, think of all the things that have made
you deep in your life. In virtually every case,
you know what brought that depth into your
life? Some humiliation you wouldn’t want to
talk about. You know, some powerlessness,
whether it was being beat up on the playground,
being the girl who was never asked to dance,
having a fat mother or alcoholic father, being a
victim of sexual abuse when you were a child,
whatever—powerful sufferings. They have
made you deep. They have given you character.
We see the same in the lives of many of our
saints who suffered. They, like Jesus before
them, allowed suffering to bring them to
compassion; not to bitterness. That’s the test.
3. Sacrifice for the Greater Good
The final test is this: Can you give your life
over and sacrifice today—your career, pleasure
and everything else—for something that’s
more long-range? Jesus had to die at age 33.
That’s not easy to do: It’s not easy to die at
any age. Yet to give his life over in trust for
something long-range, where it wasn’t going to
pay off today, is the opposite of despair. That’s
what real hope is.
So many of our sins are sins of despair.
They’re not sins of malice; rather, they’re what
I call practical despair. They’re sins where we
say, “Given my life, I’m going to settle for
second-best or third-best because ‘first best’ is
never going to happen for me anyway.”
My dad wasn’t very educated, but he knew
the Agony in the Garden. There was always a
picture hanging in our house of Jesus in Gethsemane.
My dad always told me, “If you’re going
to be faithful in anything, whether you’re going
to be a priest, whether you’re going to be married
or whatever, you better learn how to sweat blood
because that’s what it’s going to take.” Truly,
if you’re going to be faithful to anything—to
marriage, to a priestly or religious vocation,
to anything—learn how to sweat blood, because
that’s what it’s going to take.
What we get in the Garden of Gethsemane,
is Jesus, deeply. That’s because Jesus is our
model. He is the person we all look up to when
we suffer—we know we’re not praying to somebody
who didn’t taste it in all its darkness.
Remember the old translation of the Our
Father? In place of “and lead us not into
temptation,” we used to say, “and do not put us
to the test.” What is the test? We’re telling God
something like, “God, in my life I know you can test me the way you tested Jesus. I know you
can make me sweat blood, but cut me a little
slack. Make these things a little easier for me in
my life so I don’t have to taste that complete
darkness.” See, though, that darkness is the test
of the moral athlete, inside of our moral loneliness.
It’s not the test of our physical capacity to
That’s why we need to move beyond the
scourging metaphor of the Stations of the Cross.
There’s much more to the Stations. The Passion
is not about the blood and the ropes and the
whipping and how much Jesus endured. It’s
about something we’re meant to imitate. It’s
about our moral and emotional athleticism the
next time we have temptation. It’s about the test
inside of love, and it happens in a garden.
The Sleeping Apostles
We have examples in Scripture
of the rich things in the Garden.
Luke’s Gospel, for
instance, says, “Jesus went
into the garden and he told his disciples, ‘Pray
that you may not undergo the test’” (Luke
22:40). Rather than telling them to join in his
prayer, we’re supposed to learn something by
watching Jesus. Then he has this drama in the
Garden and finally gives his life over to his
Father. He says: “Not my will but yours be done.”
Then he turns around and, as Luke says,
“they were all asleep.” Out of what? Tiredness?
No. Luke says they were asleep out of grief
(22:45), sheer sorrow. That’s an incredible
line. They were asleep out of what? They
were asleep out of depression. It was just too
depressing to get the lesson. Most of the time
when we’re asleep, we’re not asleep physically.
When we don’t get something, it’s just too
depressing to get.
The Moment of Grace
About a month before Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr., was murdered for
his moral bravery, he recounted one
of the many threatening phone calls
he received. He said the phone rang and a person
said, “If you come here we’re going to kill
you.” And he said, in telling the story, that he
had heard those life-threatening calls many
times before, “but that night, for whatever reason,
it shook me to my roots. I couldn’t go back
to sleep. I brewed some coffee. I drank the
whole pot.” He said: “I began to cry at the
kitchen table, and I lost all my courage.” He
said: “I put my head in my hands and I thought,
I can’t do this anymore. I don’t want to die.”
And he said: “At that moment I felt this
strength in me that I had never felt before. I knew
what to do, what I needed to do.” You see the
Agony in the Garden, and it’s only after the
agony that the angel can come. See, then Jesus
got up. Then he was the athlete who was ready.
Then he could walk to his passion.
When Jesus left the Last Supper room,
he couldn’t do it. That was the great transition.
Only after he had broken down, had sweated the
blood, had told his Father many times, “I don’t
want to do this,” he finally broke down and
accepted it. How many of us, in our own way,
experience that frustration, that same sense of
abandonment? Yet, at the moment of acceptance,
God’s liberating grace flows. As Luke
says of Jesus in the Garden, the angel comes.
That’s a deep theology of grace.
NEXT: Divine Mercy Sunday (by Alfred McBride, O. Praem.) | <urn:uuid:9980d5bd-b73a-4148-85d2-2bc84ee42c8b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.americancatholic.org/Newsletters/CU/ac0208.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00076-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94348 | 3,777 | 2.515625 | 3 |
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Fuegi's 1994 biography of Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) is an exhaustive monument to academic
scholarship gone awry. At over 700 pages (including nearly 100 pages of endnotes), Brecht
and Company is the longest full-scale Brecht biography in print. It is also the most
controversial. Assailed by scholars and critics who either question or dismiss its
conclusions, the book frustrates even general readers with its sledgehammer abrasiveness.
Fuegi's revisionist assessment of this enormously influential 20th century poet and
playwright amounts to nothing less than character assassination.
The central contention of Brecht and Company is that Brecht had neither the talent nor the inclination to write the works that bear his name and include such cornerstones of modern drama as The Threepenny Opera, Mother Courage and Her Children, and Galileo. Fuegi claims to offer documented evidence that these and many other plays, stories, and poems were largely written by three Brecht collaborators who worked with him at different periods in his life: Elisabeth Hauptmann, Margarete Steffin, and Ruth Berlau. The biography portrays Brecht as a Svengali who exploited these women in a "sex for text" arrangement, using "the sexual magnetism he could exert at will" to seduce them in bed and at the typewriter.
Fuegi's ultimate aim is purely conjectural: he wants to prove that Brecht's literary crimes are symptomatic of deep psychosexual character flaws. We're informed, for instance, that Brecht's behavior is "eerily similar" to case studies of psychopathic personalities. Fuegi paints Brecht's middle-class upbringing in Augsburg, Germany as reflecting an environment of "sociopathic male violence" in which "the denigration of women is deemed wholly natural." Thus is the stage quite literally set for the young poet's future abuse of his female lovers and playwriting cohorts. The book's logic runs like this: Because Brecht was at heart a callous woman-hater, it is inconceivable that he could write plays with strong or sympathetic female protagonists, such as Saint Joan of the Stockyards, The Good Woman of Setzuan, Mother Courage and Her Children, and The Caucasian Chalk Circle. Fuegi insists that these plays are about women because - isn't it obvious? - they were written by women.
Vilifying Brecht as a plagiarist is by no means new. All Brecht biographers touch on the well-known accusations, such as uncredited passages from the poetry of Verlaine and Rimbaud that show up in the 1927 play, Jungle of Cities. Fuegi compounds the old charges by adding scores of new ones and expanding Brecht's misdeeds to previously unimagined dimensions. We're told that manuscripts in Elisabeth Hauptmann's handwriting (or her "strike pattern" on typewritten texts) prove that she was responsible for 80 to 90% of the script for The Threepenny Opera. Brecht's sole contribution to the play, according to Fuegi, was writing the lyrics for "Mack the Knife" and incorporating a few "nips and tucks" to the overall design of the script and production.
When the evidence suggests more than one interpretation, Brecht and Company without fail chooses whatever is most damning. For example, Fuegi toys with the not unreasonable possibility that Brecht might have dictated much of The Threepenny Opera with Hauptmann seated at the typewriter. But, no, he assures us that he has carefully examined dates and itineraries to discover when Brecht and Hauptmann were in the same room together, and he is convinced that Hauptmann worked on the script alone. So tangled and absurd does this kind of reasoning become that Brecht and Company ends up poisoning its overcooked research.
Brecht's artistic motives are depicted as self-serving and compromised at every turn. His theoretical writings on "epic theater" that have been so instrumental in the development of modern drama are recast by Fuegi as gibberish concocted by Brecht when a financial backer tells him it will sell more tickets: "Invent a theory, my dear Brecht! When one presents Germans with a theory, they are willing to swallow anything." Other biographers have stressed the diligence with which Brecht studied Marxism in developing the themes of his plays, as well as his sophisticated concepts of theatrical presentation and performance. Not Fuegi. He tells us that Brecht never understood the serious political ideas that his collaborators - not Brecht - poured into the plays. Here's what passes as evidence: "The surviving copy of Das Kapital from Brecht's library is almost completely lacking in marginalia and other typical signs of use."
Germany's Communists and leftists were in disarray when Hitler was appointed chancellor in 1933. Brecht left the country for exile in Denmark and later the United States. The Nazis revoked his German citizenship in 1935. By far the most odious passages in Brecht and Company involve Fuegi's determination to equate Brecht with Hitler and Stalin. Somehow we're supposed to accept the notion that Brecht's exploitation of women and colleagues was fascistic and that he gathered around him followers who were blindly attracted to his dangerous charisma:
[To] understand this century, it is essential to recognize the wholly irrational power these figures - whether Hitler, Stalin, or Brecht - exerted when they were encountered in person. Brecht is very much a part of this century of the charismatic, irrational yet effective Pied Piper powers that could, in the case of both Hitler and Stalin, lure tens of millions of supposedly intelligent beings to embrace their butchers.
Brecht may well have been manipulative and selfish as a human being, but comparing this man to Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin is so ludicrous that it defies common sense. It would be laughable if it weren't so tasteless.
In over 30 years in the profession I have not read an allegedly scholarly book on any subject I knew well that fell so short of minimum standards of serious scholarship. The evidence it presents is, for the most part, so flawed or unsustainable and the presentation of that evidence violates basic standards of accuracy and responsibility so egregiously that the book cannot stand up to careful scrutiny.
Bertolt Brecht's position in the pantheon of 20th century literary giants appears secure as the millennium approaches. His stature is such that no single biography, whether hagiographic or insulting, is going to be the last word on his life and art. John Fuegi's Brecht and Company is worth no one's time. Virtually any other Brecht biography is preferable. Highly recommended is Frederic Ewen's Bertolt Brecht, published in 1967, and reissued by Citadel Press in 1992. | <urn:uuid:7ba9ce98-c01b-4b1a-8929-e8f51a7dda2d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://culturevulture.net/archive/Books/BrechtandCompany.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965357 | 1,438 | 1.984375 | 2 |
|Uploaded:||March 5, 2008|
|Updated:||February 24, 2010|
This tutorial will be on how to draw a Gothic cross. I know some of you are wondering what a Gothic cross is. Well to tell you the truth I’m not sure but I do know what I can tell you about this fashionable cross that has taken Gothic culture by storm. This image of the Gothic cross looks a whole lot like the Celtic cross which is too bold with a circle in the background and markings engraved on the front. A Celtic cross is nothing more than a regular cross with a ring surrounding the mid part. This is the symbol of Celtic Christianity, but the symbol does have much older pre Christian background. Crosses that look like the Celtic cross and the Gothic cross, created a big Celtic art population. This particular cross has other names labeled to it such as High cross, the Irish cross, and the cross of Iona. In places like Ireland and Great Britain, there are a bunch of up right looking crosses that where created and displayed as early at the 7th century. Now, most of these crosses have inscriptions engraved in them or special designs that symbolize certain aspects of the individual’s life. In Cornwall there are old surviving crosses still standing such as St Pirans cross at Perranpth, as well as the island of Iona, Wales, Ireland, and Hebrides. There are also stone crosses that resemble the Celtic cross in Scotland as well, but these types of crosses are similar to the Anglo Saxon cross. In Irish myth Saint Patrick combined the symbol of Christianity (which is the cross), and the symbol of the sun to give a feeling of importance to the pagan followers by combining the two symbols to form the idea of life giving properties of the sun, and having the strength from god all in one. This image of the Celtic cross has been transformed today to symbolize ones individuality by most of the Gothic culture. Although it shows the awareness of faith it also shows the independence and a rebellious part of life. There are so many beliefs and religions around the world, to label it and call it false or true is not for us to say. All we can do is accept each others differences and not be judgmental of people that are different, because all in all we all are the same, we are human. In this tutorial I will show you "how to draw a cross" or “Celtic cross” step by step. The instructions are easy to read and understand. You will soon be on your way to drawing your very own cross of your choice. | <urn:uuid:9dbb5b3e-c9c3-4b11-96dd-0cd46d28cd93> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dragoart.com/tuts/320/3/1/learn-how-to-draw-gothic-cross.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951261 | 532 | 2.234375 | 2 |
Turnitin: Faculty Introduction
Purpose: to provide a system for encouraging students to produce original, ethical writing and allowing faculty
an easy method of monitoring student work. It will become a tool for enforcing the school Integrity Policy.Expectation of use:
As this program is most effective as a total school-wide initiative, it is expected that all faculty in all departments will require their students to enroll and use Turnitin and that faculty will systematically check “originality reports” generated by student submissions.
What can Turnitin do?
- This applies to all formal writing assignments which are research-based, position papers, opinions, reports, or analysis.
- This is not appropriate for personal reflections or journal writing, or other casual in-class writing.
- After students have submitted their typed essays through Turnitin, they must submit them to their teacher as well for grading; this can be done in either an electronic or hardcopy format as the teacher prefers. Handwritten work cannot be sent through Turnitin.
What will Turnitin NOT do?
- Places the burden of proof for demonstrating originality upon the student herself.
- Provides substantiated source information to the teacher.
- Acts as a deterrent for overt student plagiarism.
- Allows drafts of papers and student self-checks at the teacher’s discretion.
- Can be used as a teaching tool in early grades, gradually evolving to blind submissions in later grades.
- Scans all internet sources and the body of all student work of all participating schools nationwide, including a growing body of Mercy work as we continue to use the system.
- It does not take the teacher out of the decision-making/monitoring process. Specifically, the program does not “accuse” a student of plagiarism, but rather shows incidents and percentages of verbiage matches with other sources in its database.
- The teacher can direct the program to eliminate quoted material, which will likely take care of most of the matches. The remaining matches are displayed and can be quickly scanned to determine if they are incidental or meaningful matches.
- The program will not detect carefully and cleverly paraphrased ideas and concepts which are borrowed from texts. The teacher will have to see if such ideas are documented in the parenthetical MLA style. Suspicious concepts can be challenged. This usually is enough; our students tend not to go to the trouble of rewriting ideas so completely as to fool the system.
- For convenience’s sake a teacher may want to set an acceptability percentage level to trigger a closer investigation. That percent may vary from assignment to assignment. Or, occasional spot checks or teacher intuition may trigger a closer look at the originality report.
- The program will not check for correct MLA documentation format. This, however, is easily and quickly done with a glance.
- Greg will give an electronic demonstration of use at a near future date tba.
- Academic Council will discuss and carry information and to the departments.
- Small group demonstrations and help sessions will be offered to individuals or departments over the course of the next couple months. Just ask!!
Useful web addresses for help with Turnitin:
- Go to the website www.turnitin.com
- Click on to the “new user” button at top right of home page. You will be prompted to check “student” or “instructor”.
- Then set up your own personal account profile as prompted; you will need this information
- your account name Mother of Mercy High School
- your account ID 47934
- your account join password bobcat11
- you will use your own Mercy email address when prompted
- you will be prompted to create your own account password when you fill out the registration
- use “startup wizard” link to set up your classes; you will need a class name and code word to give students to enroll; the system will provide a course id number to give students as well.
- Instruct students to enroll. You may want to set up a Blackboard link for them. They will also go to the “new user” button, but will select “student” and follow the prompts, using the course code and password you have provided them. Later this fall the system may run through Blackboard. Stay tuned.
- follow links to tutorials and student handouts of research tips (or see web addresses below)
these will soon be on the Faculty organization page of Blackboard as direct links for your convenience.
Instructor quickstart video Page for student handouts and research tips
Questions or HELP!
(510) 287-9720 ext. 241 | <urn:uuid:2ca3d523-9f18-44d0-9f86-2e06fae7712f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.motherofmercy.org/s/746/index.aspx?gid=1&pgid=1324 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.910339 | 976 | 2.96875 | 3 |
Most of our life is spent in indoors, well-buffered from the constant changes in temperature, humidity, wind and light which shape life outside our homes and offices. It seems intuitive that the types of microorganisms which inhabit our indoor environment must be different from those on the outside; after all, by removing environmental stresses such as UV, dessication and wind, we eliminate selective pressures on populations. We spend 23 hours a day indoors, but we know very little about the types of aerosolized microorganisms we encounter – and inhale – with every breath. It has been postulated that ‘everything is everywhere’: microbes are widely distributed around the world, with particular environments selecting for population subsets. If that is the case, then are the organisms inhabiting a house different from those in a hospital, school or a downtown high rise? Are cosmopolitan microorganisms simply taking advantage of our climate controlled environment, or are they interested in us in particular, bearing genes for virulence and pathogenicity? And how are indoor microorganisms adapting to our widespread use of antibiotics, antimicrobials and other bacterial control agents?
Through a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the J. Craig Venter Institute is developing new tools and techniques to examine the composition of microbial populations in the indoor air environment. As many of these organisms are resistant to cultivation, our approach is modeled on the techniques developed during the Global Ocean Sampling (GOS) Expedition, namely the shotgun sequencing of bulk DNA to generate a genomic snapshot, or metagenome, of the indoor air environment. A fundamental difference with the GOS expedition is that of scale: a milliliter of open ocean seawater may contain 10,000 microorganisms or more, so filtering a few hundred liters of seawater will often capture enough DNA to construct a high quality random shotgun library for sequencing. Microbial density in the air is quite different: aerosolized bacteria counts for outdoor air are closer to 10,000 per cubic meter, meaning that a given volume of air contains a million times less organisms than an equivalent volume of seawater.
An additional issue is in collection efficiency. The collection efficiency of most cyclone-style air samplers is usually less than 100% – this is especially true as the particle size drops below 1 micron in size. As aerosolized bacteria are often small and dessicated, this efficiency becomes a problem, and air samplers have to be run for days at a time to collect sufficient DNA for sequencing. These long collection times lead to problems with growth and contamination. Our air samplers are wet-cyclone Spin-Con concentrators, and to prevent bacteria from growing inside the collection chamber, we add a number of bacteriostatic compounds to keep the organisms from multiplying in the collection liquid and skewing our population data. We have also programmed our collectors to dispense the collected sample into a refrigerated vessel containing additional growth inhibitors, and this is done every 2 hours. Lastly, we completely clean or replace almost of the tubing and parts on a daily basis – we do this to reduce the chance of biofilms forming inside any of the tubing or collection chambers. Air sampling is a labor intensive process, but the results have been relatively clean and diverse samples reflecting the actual microbial composition of the air environment.
Our original dataset was from a high-rise in mid-town Manhattan, where we collected air from an air mixing room over 20 floors up. Both indoor and outdoor air samples were collected, and these samples form a baseline of data for much of the sampling we are currently conducting in California. The air in New York City generally arrives from the west, so in addition to its urban signature, it also contains soil, dust and pollen from an entire continent. In San Diego, the predominant winds are from the Pacific, and we suspect that there will be a strong marine component to populations of microorganisms in both indoor and outdoor environments. To determine this baseline, we set up an array of samplers at the end of the 1,000 foot long research pier at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. These samplers ran for five days, and aside from an osprey menacing the water bags, we were able to collect relatively clean marine air prior to being influenced by the terrestrial environment.
As can be seen in the pictures accompanying this blog, we have samples in home and a medical center, and we plan to sample in a school and an office building. Each of these indoor environments is unique, and some of the sites are ten miles inland, and we are interested to see how the marine microbial component in the air attenuates with distance. We run multiple machines in parallel for several days, and produce two liters of collected liquid, which we then process and concentrate before we attempt to isolate the DNA. We have noticed that many of the organisms are associated with particles, so we use surfactants and mild physical techniques to de-aggregate the microbes prior to filtration, and we have found that this increases our yield of DNA substantially.
After the sample has been deaggregated, we pass the liquid through sequential 3.0 and 0.1 micron filters in order to fractionate the sample. Larger material, particulalry fungal spores, pollen and eukaryotic cells, tend to get trapped on the 3.0 filter, leaving more bacteria on the 0.1 micron filter. Any material which passes through the 0.1 micron filter is generally viruses and very small particulates – these too will be sequenced. An example of the quantity of material on a 0.1 micron filter can be seen in the picture on the left – it is surprising just how ‘clean’ 5 million liters of air is!. In posts to come we will describe more on how we get from filters to DNA and on to libraries, as well as share some of our preliminary results — so stay tuned! | <urn:uuid:2138a39b-c842-4524-9854-b3ff6e41cfe7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.jcvi.org/2010/07/genomics-of-the-indoor-air-environment/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941363 | 1,216 | 3.40625 | 3 |
There's a proverb that says if you love something, let it go. If it returns, it's yours. If not, well, it never belonged to you in the first place. But had my son Braden written that proverb it would go more like this: "If you love something and it won't cooperate, stomp the guts out of it."
A few years ago he and I rescued a frog in our garage. I gently placed the little guy in Braden's hands. We talked about the frog's warts, his strong legs, and bulging eyes. After the brief science lesson, we set him free. Braden followed his new friend around the yard for a half hour. He tried to catch it, pet it, and steer it. He wanted it back in the garage to do with it as he pleased. But the frog wouldn't oblige.
In frustration Braden lurched forward and crushed the little fellow beneath his foot. I was horrified! I momentarily concluded that my wife and I were raising a sociopath. When I could finally reel in my slack jaw I asked him, "Why did you do that?" His answer was as telling as it was simple: "Because he wouldn't listen to me."
Some of us think that God is a lot like Braden. If you don't stay one step ahead of him, leaping quickly from his crushing blow, God will maliciously scrub you into the dust. God will eventually catch up to you and squash you for every evil act ever committed, every wrong thought that has crossed your mind, and for every missed Sunday service.
Maybe it stems from an anxious childhood or from bad religious experiences, but we all too often see God for less than he is. We view him as some kind of irritated old school master keeping a ledger of our sins – an Ebenezer Scrooge – selfish, stodgy, and never to be crossed. Or we think of him as a vindictive bully, angry at the world – a cosmic Simon Cowell – one who only lets the best get by, and only then after a severe tongue lashing. Sure, a few will make it through the pearly gates, but God will be none too happy about it.
Or we may imagine God, sitting in a high and mighty palace somewhere, breathing threats and intimidation just waiting for someone to cross the line, to be noncompliant, so he can squash them like a bug. Or frog. Is this who God is? If you believe some religious extremists, certainly this is accurate. But this is not the God revealed to us by the person of Christ. Jesus reveals a God who loves with such passion that he was willing to drive nails into his own flesh to set free those living in darkness.
If we're not careful, these polluted images of God can even corrupt the very lynchpin of our faith – the cross. A vindictive God reduces Jesus to just a martyr – someone who finally stood up against this angry tyrant, and paid the price for it. But on the cross God was not saying, "See! Look what you made me do to my Son," launching the mother of all guilt trips. Not at all. The cross reveals, not God's anger, but God's love. The cross, and the love that orchestrated it, was not designed to shame and guilt us into doing something we really don't want to do.
It was an intentional act of revelation. God was showing us his heart. God was showing us his true nature. God was inviting us to flush away these horrible misconceptions about who he is. In the process he was calling us to himself; to a God worth believing, a God worth worshipping, a God worth loving.
And by the way, I don't think Braden will turn out to be an axe murderer after all. Thankfully, a day later our family paused to say grace over our evening meal. When it was Braden's turn to pray, he bowed and said: "Dear Jesus...I killed a frog." All was forgiven. | <urn:uuid:4a56c571-b3df-4706-a2d0-1ea3d57cb581> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.nola.com/cest-la-nola/2011/10/no_need_to_keep_jumping.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983974 | 829 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Building Information Modeling (BIM) technology is rapidly expanding throughout the architectural, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry as the foundation for a more effective project delivery. Hatch Mott MacDonald adopted this process in 2008, and strategically uses the latest BIM technology to deliver projects more effectively. Thoughtful application of BIM enhances the way that consultants, contractors, and clients collaborate. The ability to develop, manage, update, calculate, and distribute design information about a project is not only changing the workflows during the design and construction phases, but it is revolutionizing the approach to the design, communication, and life-cycle management of our projects.
Careful and appropriate integration of BIM efforts during the planning, development, and detailed design phases of a project support improved collaboration and visualization among Owners, Stakeholders and Contractors. This in turn leads to increased value during the execution stage of a project, including more efficient planning, procurement, and execution, resulting in cost optimization and risk reduction.
BIM capabilities within HMM include Site/Civil, Architectural, Structural, Process Mechanical, Utilities, and MEP. Projects utilizing BIM technology range from heavy civil and industrial infrastructure to commercial structures and linear work. HMM is committed to using BIM to deliver projects in larger infrastructure facilities such as water & wastewater treatment plants, underground structures, pump stations, dams, bridges, and tunnels.
HMM has developed a robust database of proprietary content with regard to the various sectors, practices, and clients that enables our design teams to deliver more than just a 3D model. Using BIM technology HMM can assist in providing multiple benefits over the lifecycle of a project including:
Project Development Benefits:
Pre-Construction & Project Delivery Efforts: | <urn:uuid:7393e57c-1385-4b82-9d1c-c9ef74d96574> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hatchmott.com/expertise/model-based-designbim | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.921892 | 356 | 2.3125 | 2 |
Misleading at MSU
February 14, 2007
by William Creeley
“You don’t get into the program because you choose to; you’ve gotten there because you’ve been found guilty of something,” she said. “It’s sort of like when you go to an alcohol diversion program. You don’t have a First Amendment right to control the content of your alcohol diversion program.”
“You don’t have a set of rights to control what kinds of community service you do necessarily.”
Unfortunately for MSU students, these quotes demonstrate not only that President Simon is deeply misinformed about exactly how the First Amendment works in relation to public universities like MSU, but also that President Simon doesn’t really understand how the SAC program works, either.
First, let’s tackle the First Amendment. Put simply, the First Amendment protects citizens from being punished for speech by the government or its agents. As a public university, funded by taxpayer dollars, Michigan State University is certainly a government actor, and thus bound by the First Amendment. Therefore, Michigan State cannot constitutionally punish students for engaging in protected speech.
Now as clear as that constitutional prohibition is, the SAC program ignores it. According to SAC program materials
, examples of “situations that would generally be appropriate for SAC” include “[h]umiliating a boyfriend or girlfriend,” “disrespecting other students’ academic freedom,” “[i]nsulting instructors or teaching assistants,” and “making sexist, homophobic, or racist remarks at a meeting.” Whether or not this kind of speech is admirable, polite, or desirable is completely immaterial. The point is that these examples are clearly protected by the First Amendment, and until the Constitution is amended otherwise, such instances of protected speech have absolutely no business being grounds for a mandatory SAC referral. Because a mandatory referral to the SAC program means that a student’s registration is put on hold until the student has paid a fifty-dollar fee, a student who refuses to participate in the program is effectively expelled. If that isn’t punishment for engaging in protected speech, I don’t know what is. (Check out Greg’s column from last Wednesday’s The Detroit News
for more on precisely how the SAC program violates constitutional rights.)
Now on to the real heart of the matter here, which is President Simon’s misleading characterization of the SAC program. First, President Simon makes clear that the SAC program is punitive: “You don’t get into the program because you choose to; you’ve gotten there because you’ve been found guilty of something,” she says. Found guilty of what? Yelling an insult? Getting into a heated political debate? It is chilling to see how easily Simon skips past the constitutional problems raised by classifying protected speech as something a student could fairly “be[ ] found guilty of” at a public university in the United States.
Next—and here’s where Simon really demonstrates her ignorance of the SAC program—she says that being forced to attend the program is “sort of like when you go to an alcohol diversion program” because “[y]ou don’t have a First Amendment right to control the content of your alcohol diversion program. You don’t have a set of rights to control what kinds of community service you do necessarily.” President Simon couldn’t be more wrong. First, the SAC program is absolutely nothing like an alcohol diversion program. One only gets sent to an alcohol diversion program for committing an alcohol-related offense (such as underage drinking or public drunkenness), which is something the university has the right to regulate and punish. By contrast, one can be sent to SAC for engaging in constitutionally protected speech—something the university has no right to regulate and punish.
Moreover, President Simon’s statement isn’t even accurate with regard to an alcohol diversion program run by the government or a public university. Even in an alcohol diversion program, you have the right to freedom of conscience. If an alcohol diversion program at a state university forced a student to state that he believed, for example, that drinking was wrong or that prohibition should be re-instated, that would unquestionably be a violation of that student’s right to freedom of conscience. The SAC program, however, requires students to “explain” what they did wrong in a way that the program leader deems “acceptable.” As Greg described in his Detroit News column:
Students sentenced to SAC training are required to attend four sessions with a campus administrator acting as counselor where they learn to speak “correctly” about whatever alleged wrong they had committed. During training, students are required to answer a series of questions. Students must confess their understanding of the incident, but the SAC training materials make it clear that the student’s perception of what he or she did wrong is almost always incomplete... If the offense is being rude to a dorm receptionist, the student cannot simply state he or she should have been more polite. Rather, the correct response is “I feel entitled to be in the residence hall and that’s wrong…” The SAC sessions continue, with the student repeatedly being told the “right” way to feel and talk.
One would hope that it would be obvious that public universities should not be compelling student speech. To do so, as the SAC program does, is to violate a student’s freedom of conscience, a right clearly affirmed by the Supreme Court way back in 1943 in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette
President Simon’s comments about the SAC program are based on fundamental misunderstandings of the First Amendment. As the leader of a public university bound by that amendment, she should consider brushing up on it before making public misstatements. (President Simon, if you’re reading this, we’d be happy to send you a free copy of FIRE’s Guide to First-Year Orientation and Thought Reform on Campus | <urn:uuid:37835c5f-9313-482e-921d-e8453f940b2d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thefire.org/article/7736.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952404 | 1,299 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Fewer Men Having Surgery to Treat Enlarged Prostate: Study
-- Robert Preidt
TUESDAY, May 17 (HealthDay News) -- Some men with enlarged prostate may not be receiving sufficient treatment and could suffer severe complications as a result, according to a new study.
Although more men are receiving oral treatment for enlarged prostate, the rate of men operated on for the condition declined over a nine-year period and the rate of discharges for men for enlarged prostate with acute kidney failure has skyrocketed, researchers found.
Non-cancerous enlargement of the prostate -- called benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) -- is a common condition that affects millions of men in the United States each year. It can cause lower urinary tract symptoms ranging from frequent and painful urination to urinary retention, which can lead to kidney failure if left untreated.
Treatments include oral therapies and minimally invasive surgery.
In this analysis of U.S. hospital patient data, University of California, San Diego researchers found that the prevalence of BPH increased between 1998 and 2007 but discharges of patients treated for primary BPH decreased.
During that same period, discharges for patients who had surgery for BPH decreased 51 percent, discharges for patients with primary BPH with acute renal (kidney) failure increased more than 300 percent, and discharges for primary BPH with urinary retention, stones, or infection remained about the same.
The study was slated to be presented Tuesday during a special press conference at the American Urological Association's annual scientific meeting.
"Oral therapies for BPH are a common first-line treatment that can be effective in many men. However, it is imperative that patients be treated promptly if the drugs aren't working," press conference moderator Dr. Kevin McVary said in a news release.
"In many cases, surgical treatment for BPH can help prevent urinary retention, which can ultimately lead to acute renal failure that can be life-threatening," he added.
Because the study is being presented at a medical meeting, the results should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.
The U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases has more about http://kidney.niddk.nih.gov/kudiseases/pubs/prostateenlargement/.
Copyright © 2011 http://www.healthday.com/. All rights reserved.
The information in this article, including reference materials, are provided to you solely for educational or research purposes. Information in reference materials, are not and should not be considered professional health care advice upon which you should rely. Health care information changes rapidly and consequently, information in this article may be out of date. Questions about personal health should always be referred to a physician or other health care professional. | <urn:uuid:407e5b11-9cac-450a-ab8c-a36d42ed85a8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://healthlibrary.epnet.com/GetContent.aspx?token=83ee77b6-5d7c-451c-b269-7f0bab6eb1f5&chunkiid=645618 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939234 | 581 | 2.265625 | 2 |
A Happy New Year to everyone! May everyone find rich blessings irrespective of their faith tradition. May those without a faith tradition diligently seek and live truth as they understand it. As God is Love, so God is Truth.
As a committed Christian, I am the first to confess that the humans who embody my tradition have often failed (sometimes in spectacular ways) to live up to either Love or Truth. May God forgive us these failures and empower us to live according to God's Love and not according to our fears and pride.
As I write these words from Alaska, it is about 19 degrees (F) with winds up to 50mph. Sunrise is 8:46am and Sunset will be at 3:17pm. Mountains around my home cut off about an hour on either side of that figure. If I'm lucky enough to have readers, then PLEASE click on the comments links and let me know how the weather was on YOUR New Year's Day.
Ok. Now I'm ready to discuss "The Moral Theology of the Devil." This is Chapter 13 of Thomas Merton's "New Seeds of Contemplation." If I didn't support copyright as strongly as I do, I would key in the entire chapter into this blog, I think it is so important. As it is, I STRONGLY recommend that you consider ILL'ing the chapter if not the whole book. The citation for the book itself is:
Title: New Seeds of Contemplation
Author: Thomas Merton
Publisher: New Directions Publishing Company
Pub Year: 1961
LC Number: 61-17869
As I mentioned above. "Moral Theology of the Devil" is Chapter 13. I find this chapter important because it answers an important question about America's civil religion/nominal Christianity. How do we go from the radical love and self-sacrifice of Christ who healed his enemies to the fife-and-drum of the Presidential Prayer Team, which roots for a President to bring God's swift justice to the nations in the form of America's mailed fist?
Here are some quotes from Thomas Merton, written more than 40 years ago, that I think explain things:
"So, according to the devil, the first thing created was really hell--as if everything else were, in some sense, for the sake of hell. Therefore, the devotional life of those who are "faithful" to this kind of theology consists above all in an obsession with evil. As if there were not already enough evils in the world, they multiply prohibitions and make new rules, binding everything with thorns, so that man might not escape evil and punishment."
"Not love but punishment is the fulfillment of the Law. The Law must devour everything, even God. Such is this theology of punishment, hatred and revenge. He who would live by such a dogma must rejoice in punishment. He may, indeed sucessfully evade punishment himself by "playing ball" with the Law and the Lawgiver. But he must take good care that others do not avoid suffering. He must occupy his mind with their present and future punishment. The Law must triumph. There must be no mercy."
In referring to the "faith" that these sorts of people have as being a type of "magic" -- a "will power that is generated by 'profound convictions'", Merton writes:
"We will become popular because we have 'faith.' We will be rich because we have 'faith.' ALL OUR NATIONAL ENEMIES WILL COME AND LAY DOWN THEIR ARMS AT OUR FEET BECAUSE WE HAVE 'FAITH.' [Emphasis mine] Business will boom all over the world, and we will be able to make money out of everything and everyone under the sun because of the charmed live we lead. We have faith."
Is this not the public faith of the President, of Pat Robertson, and the backers of the Presidential Prayer Team? "God is ALLWAYS on our side, we have NO guilt whatsoever, and what we do, is good -- because it is of God?" If you disagree, click on the "comments" button and lets talk. Please look at my very first blog entry before posting.
Thanks for reading! I don't think most entries will be this long! | <urn:uuid:0248b878-f405-4f8a-9999-1fb51aee0441> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lisnews.org/blog?page=278 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948616 | 880 | 1.734375 | 2 |
This is an unpublished letter submitted to the Editors, Washington Post. It details how the NORAD testimony at the May 23, 2003, 9-11 Commission hearing came to be.
August 4, 2006
Letters to the Editor
The Washington Post
1150 15th Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20071
Recent news media highlight the issue of why the NORAD account was so wrong about the events of September 11, 2001. Answers range from the position of NORAD officials that they were telling the truth as they knew it to the opposing position that they deliberately lied to the 9-11 Commission. My assessment is that poor staff work and a single error in logic, compounded, led NORAD far astray from the facts of the day.
Metaphorically, the NORAD task was to solve a difficult Sudoku puzzle. An early mistake in logic makes such a puzzle impossible to solve. The NORAD mistake was made prior to September 18th, 2001, the day it published an official timeline. That mistake led to inaccurate accounts in every official government story at every level thereafter, including NORAD testimony before the 9/11 Commission on May 23, 2003.
I arranged for the presence of General McKinley, General Arnold, and Colonel Scott at that hearing. General Eberhart, the NORAD Commander, had a previously scheduled trip to Europe and seconded Major General McKinley, CONUS Region (CONR) Commander, to represent him. In my initial conversation with General McKinley he was inclined to testify alone, even though he was not in the NORAD chain-of-command on September 11, 2001.
The Commission staff had the NORAD and FAA timelines, the military radar data, and an initial document delivery from the Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS). We knew from that limited data that fighters had not flown directly from either Otis or Langley and that the NORAD and FAA timelines were not in agreement. General McKinley was advised that we needed a definitive explanation of the scrambles and an accurate timeline.
General McKinley added Major General Arnold, former CONR Commander to the attendee list. General McKinley was again advised that the scrambles were a critical issue and asked if General Arnold could speak to that issue. General McKinley then added Colonel Scott explaining that Scott, alone, knew more about the scrambles and the timelines than any other NORAD official; he was the definitive source.
Scott had the original NORAD timeline of September 18, 2001. That timeline showed notification times of 8:40 for AA11, 8:43 for UA175, 9:24 for AA77, and no time for UA93, alluding to the fact that Langley fighters were already airborne. An accompanying note explained that: “The FAA and NEADS established a line of open communication discussing AA Flt 77 and UA Flt 93.”
There was one critical and two other serious mistakes in the timeline. The critical error was the 9:24 time for AA77. The accurate NEADS log information was: “American Airlines No. N334AA hijacked.” N334AA is the tail number for AA11, not AA77, a basic fact apparently never checked by any NORAD, CONR, or NEADS staff officer with either American Airlines or FAA.
The 8:43 time for UA175, was impossible and never explained in any document or during any interview conducted by the Commission staff. It was most likely a NORAD misunderstanding of information from FAA. That is the approximate time that UA175 was hijacked, a fact only known post facto.
The “open line” caveat was disingenuous. FAA called the National Military Command Center at 9:20 on an unclassified line but no operational information was ever passed. NEADS tapes show that about 9:23 [sic: the time was actually 9:33, the original letter submitted contained a typo] the FAA representative to NEADS began work to establish a secure line. That effort was not completed until after 10 am, and had no relationship to real time information about either AA77 or UA93.
Both NORAD and FAA separately engaged in staff deliberations during the period Sep 11-17, 2001, and they were in periodic contact. According to the lead official for FAA she was in frequent contact with her NORAD counterpart, General Arnold. The two organizations could not agree. NORAD pre-empted and published its timeline on Sep 18. FAA did not publish a timeline until some months later.
NORAD was also preparing General Eberhart for October 2001 testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee. In that appearance, Senator Levin asked about notification on AA77, citing a time of 9:25. Eberhart responded: “I show it as 9:24 that we were notified.” Eberhart’s testimony solidified the critical error in formal CINC testimony before the Congress. It became the CINC-approved NORAD story.
Essential NORAD files and data were held at NEADS. The single, most important document was the MCC/T (Mission Crew Commander/Technician) log, a handwritten journal maintained in real time. It is that log, in particular, to which Colonel Scott refers when he stated to the Commission on May 23, 2003; “I will tell you the times on this chart come from our logs.”
Therefore, the 8:43 notification time for UA 175 was not mentioned by Scott. It was not in any log and had never existed. Scott’s review repeated the original mistake concerning the 9:24 entry for AA11 and made another mistake in interpretation by attributing a 9:16 entry concerning a United flight (probably UA175) to UA93. (The 9:16 time may come from a different log than the MCC/T log) Nearly two years after the initial mistake about AA77 was made and became CINC-approved, it was repeated and compounded to include UA93.
On the day after the hearing Colonel Scott sent an e-mail to Colonel Marr, with a copy to the Commission staff, stating that it became easier to explain the Langley fighter scramble in terms of UA93 than AA77. It is clear from that email that neither Scott nor Marr, whose staff supported Scott, took the time to listen to the tapes or look at the actual transcripts. The NEADS staff, and Colonel Scott, had sufficient data available to them to find the rebirth of AA11 misinformation and the real reason for the Langley scramble. If they found it they did lie. If they did not they could not tell the truth. They could not solve their Sudoku puzzle.
We await the findings of the Inspectors General of the Department of Transportation and the Department of Defense.
Miles L. Kara, Sr., Former Staff, 9/11 Commission | <urn:uuid:3919d4f4-e535-4e2c-8a95-2ebd7b1edee9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.oredigger61.org/?p=42 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968286 | 1,409 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Ponce in spanish terms is an oversized sausage link, so they use it to describe someone who is fat and/or stocky in Spanish slang.
Hombre 1: YO holmes I'm getting fat
Hombre 2: Ohhh vato i guess i can start calling you ponce.
Term originated in the UK and came to prominence in the 1960's, initially to describe a pimp. In Spanish it means "prince" and could have either been referring to the fancy, over-the-top clothing and jewelry popular with pimps, or because he was surrounded by a harem of women, involved in the underworld, but usually not the actual "king" of the area (he had to pay tribute to use the block or neighborhood).
Now it is generally used to refer to someone (usually a male) who dresses in nicer clothing and acts in a polished fashion; often interchangable with fag or pussy, but not necessarily as derogatory: a ponce is not necessarily homosexual, nor are they necessarily passive or weak, but they would tend to be thought of as metrosexual or gay in their manner of dress.
In the US it also takes a bit of a tone for a poser or wannabe, primarily in the punk, ska, or artsy scenes.
JACK: Oi, I need to find me a classy bird for the night.
TOM: Go talk to that ponce Tony. He got some nice girls, by the hour, they are.
JACK: Tony's a ponce, is that right? I though he just had some sort of magic with the ladies.
TOM: Fuckin' prat, you are.
NIGEL: I can't believe I got curry on me new Pradas! I just paid five hundred quid for em!
ANDY: Haha, you fuckin' ponce, that's what you get.
NIGEL: Fuck you, you fookin' chav, at least me Burberry's real.
ANDY: Right. You're still a ponce.
DAVE: Hey man, wanna come into the woods with us and blaze?
FRED: No thanks, dude. I've got a date tonight and I don't wanna get my jeans dirty or sound like a retard when I'm talking to her.
DAVE: Quit being a fucking ponce and come on, man. This shit's good.
FRED: Alright, fine.
"Tim is a ponce; he thinks that Blink 182 is punk."
An individual who attempts to fake having intelligence, class, or culture.
I knew he was a bit of a ponce, but what's with the monocle?
Chiefly British. Someone who procures customers for whores. The English word for Pimp. Although somewhat outdated it is still used but under different meaning;
A camp person, overtly dressed, gay.
"Get your arse in gear you fuckin' ponce!"
Widely used to reffer to a poser,camp or soft looking person- the type of person who looks like they would get beaten up by a girl
"Jimmy cried during titanic-hes such a ponce"
"Pato i cant believe your wearing make up,you ponce!"
v: to ponce off someone is to borrow without the intention of necessarily paying back
n: a ponce is a derogatory description of someone who is judged to be gay, appear gay or have some other attributes or characteristics that others find amusing and not in a nice way.
1. Maximillian is always poncing for fags.
2. That striped catsuit doesn't do you any favours Brendan, it makes you look like a total ponce.
a male who on occasion participates in strange activities, such as: water skiing and trying on women's shoes. a "ponce" may often be found wearing strange or moth-eaten fur hats, similar to one that 'light speed champion' wears. in response to a cuss from a "ponce", one would most likely say "shut up, gayboy" or "take that shit off your head".
MYLES: i'm thinking i might wear that furry hat out today.
JAMES: you think that will get you bare babes, init..that's so ponce.
MYLES: shut up, gay boy.
JAMES: at least i don't try on girls' shoes.
Someone who tries to get something for nothing by exploiting the good nature and benevolence of others.
there i was minding my own business , when this guy comes up to me and asks me if i had any spare change!!
God, what a Ponce! | <urn:uuid:3e1803fc-4dab-440b-aeaf-77940afeb7d6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Ponce&defid=3705196 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952327 | 997 | 1.515625 | 2 |
The board of the City University of New York voted Monday to adopt a broad ban on tobacco for the university system’s 23 campuses, making CUNY the largest tobacco-free public university system in the United States. The policy prohibits the use, marketing and promotion of tobacco on all grounds and facilities, including the areas outside campus buildings, and bars tobacco use during all events, including athletics.
“Tobacco is the leading cause of preventable death in the world today -- and in New York City -- and this action will further reduce exposure to tobacco and improve public health,” said Benno Schmidt, the board's chairman, and Matthew Goldstein, CUNY's chancellor, in a prepared statement. The university, which serves 262,000 academic credit students and 269,808 adult, continuing and professional education students, has emphasized public health of late, building an extensive set of public health programs through its multicampus school of public health.
Transforming a campus to smoke-free is often easier said than done . CUNY’s previous policy prohibited smoking inside all facilities, including vehicles operated by the university. That is a far cry from banning smoking on outdoor campuses contiguous with the urban streets of New York City, where smoking is permitted.
“We already have some experience, because some of our campuses that have very little green space and are really right in the middle of streets and have already been trying on their own to have smokers not be right next to the doors,” said Alexandra Logue, CUNY executive vice chancellor for academic affairs and university provost. “Other colleges and universities have tried this, and so we also will be drawing on their experience. You use signage a lot and education and ask people to step away from where they shouldn’t be smoking.”
Logue said that CUNY’s approach will be comprehensive and will include a partnership with city health officials to provide training for those employees trying to quit smoking. She said that CUNY’s ban will ensure that smokers trying to quit will be able to leave buildings without seeing other people smoking. This, she believes, is the kind of “cue” elimination essential to well-crafted policies that can actually help those trying to quit.
CUNY’s decision follows hundreds of other colleges and universities that have taken tobacco-related action in the last few years. (The University of Michigan announced Monday final approval on a policy to make its campuses smoke-free by July 1.) As CUNY notes on a new website created in tandem with the tobacco-free initiative , according to the most recent surveys, 420 colleges and universities have instituted smoke-free policies, while 249 colleges and universities have instituted tobacco-free policies -- meaning that, in addition to cigarettes, pipes and cigars, smokeless tobacco products such as chew and dip are also banned.
CUNY is not alone among New York City universities trying to put a stop to tobacco use. At almost this same time last year, New York University announced a smoking ban within 15 feet of the entrances to all university buildings. Columbia University passed a similar resolution in December , banning smoking within 20 feet of university buildings.
Logue sees no comparison between these kinds of policies and the campuswide ban CUNY passed. “What we’re doing is a much bigger step,” she said. “From what we heard from places that have done that, it can be quite problematic. People get upset that somebody’s within the circle. You still have the issue of the litter, and, depending on where people are standing, you still have the issue of secondhand smoke. And when it’s raining that circle tends to shrink.” | <urn:uuid:02d0b4e6-7e6f-46cc-ac33-3bd2ef025f69> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.insidehighered.com/print/news/2011/01/25/cuny_becomes_largest_university_system_to_ban_tobacco?width=775&height=500&iframe=true | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965628 | 774 | 1.859375 | 2 |
Ross Richardson will show video footage of his dives on the big screen Saturday in Frankfort at the Garden Theater in celebration of the launch of his book: The Search for the Westmoreland: Lake Michigan’s Treasure Shipwreck. The event is free from 4:00pm to 7:00pm.
A new book published in Traverse City by Arbutus Press tells the tale of a fabled shipwreck at the bottom of Lake Michigan. Somewhere off the coast of Frankfort, lies, largely in-tact the 200-foot Westmoreland. Diver and Author Ross Richardson has not released an exact location. It’s been at the bottom of the lake since before the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
The ship was carrying valuable cargo, en route to Mackinac Island. There are even unsubstantiated tales of a safe on board that could hold a treasure in gold coins, today worth millions. But Ross Richardson insists the first time he looked down on the bow of the deep sea wreck, his heart beat remained steady.
The First Sighting
“I was so busy doing all the stuff you’ve got to do while you’re diving,” he says. “You’ve got to make sure your ears are equalized, add pressure to your dry suit. I had both hands on the camera.
“So I was quite busy. I really didn’t have time to look around until I got down and kind of floated off the deck a little bit.”
Richardson did grow more emotional as he caught sight of a crane-like structure that’s used to hold lifeboats. The davit made the wreck feel eerie.
“The story is one of those davits hooked a lifeboat as it went down and flipped it and killed 15 people right on the spot. So I realized that the last people that saw this were about 150 years ago. And they all died right here,” he says.
Identifying The Wreck
There was some collapsed decking, a broken mast about the size of a telephone pole and on the sea floor were artifacts, china, still in-tact. The tell-tale sign this is the Westmoreland was an important architectural element to the ship. The sides were constructed in much the same pattern as a suspension bridge, with 12 foot arches running its length for support.
Richardson continued the dive, going the full 200 feet to the stern.
“And out of the gloom appeared the auxiliary helm, a perfectly in-tact ship’s wheel about four feet in diameter, just beautiful, sitting on the back deck since 1854, not a spoke out of place. It was pretty amazing.
“So yeah, when I saw that I realized no other divers had been here,” he says.
Richardson says, this is a deep sea wreck, but it would have been possible to dive it in the 1960s or 1970s. But he says, if that had happened, the divers would likely have wanted that wheel.
No Treasure… Yet
Richardson estimates he’s made more than 40 dives down to the Westmoreland since he found it in July of 2010, but, in case you’re wondering, he’s found no safe loaded with treasure.
“Not from a lack of looking,” he says. “It’s a legend that it was carrying this gold. Maybe the legend is true. Maybe it’s false. In the book I explain a couple of different theories of what could have happened with some previous searches. Or it could be sitting down there.” | <urn:uuid:b6226283-b4db-45d8-9530-d2cc96b91135> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ipr.interlochen.org/ipr-news-features/episode/search-westmoreland/2012-08-24 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972412 | 770 | 1.804688 | 2 |
New York City Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott announces plan to strengthen middle schools.
New York City's schools chief vowed Tuesday to tackle the persistent problem of lagging student achievement in middle school by opening 50 new middle schools, closing failing schools and recruiting good teachers and principals for the middle school years.
In a speech at New York University, Walcott said the new schools would open over the next two years and would include both charter schools and traditional schools.
Walcott said he would close failing middle schools while applying for up to $30 million in federal turnaround funds to revamp five struggling middle schools in the 2012-13 school year and five more the year after that.
School officials could not say how many of the 400 middle schools in the city's public school system are at risk of being closed. The city moved last year to shutter seven schools that either were stand-alone middle schools or included middle schools, such as a K-8 school.
Walcott noted that preventing students from falling behind in middle school has long been a challenge in New York and elsewhere. The city's elementary school students have made gains on state tests in recent years, but sixth, seventh and eighth graders have not.
Walcott said the best middle schools emphasize literacy and teach students to analyze what they read.
He said he would spend $15 million on nonfiction books for middle schools that are aligned with the Common Core academic benchmarks championed by President Barack Obama's administration in an effort to raise standards nationwide.
He said the city Department of Education's own Leadership Academy must strive to develop the next generation of middle school principals, and he said the department must recruit good teachers for middle schools.
New York City has closed 117 schools, the majority of them high schools, since Mayor Michael Bloomberg won mayoral control of the schools in 2002.
Walcott said the strategy has been successful "but now it's time to shift some of that focus toward our middle schools.''
"If a school is failing its students, we will take action and phase it out,'' he said.
Walcott said he looked would invite the teachers' and principals' unions to work with him.
United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew welcomed the invitation but criticized the emphasis on closing schools.
"As the state's education commissioner told them this summer, closing big schools and concentrating the neediest kids in another school that then ends up being closed is actually a strategy for failure,'' Mulgrew said in a statement.
Ernest Logan, head of the Council of Supervisors and Administrators, praised the middle school initiative.
"For years, middle schools in this country have been the weakest link in our education system,'' Logan said. "CSA looks forward to working with the chancellor on this vitally important effort.''
Walcott spoke at NYU's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development. | <urn:uuid:9c7221da-9fb9-4a1b-9637-cb2ce2ca8681> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wfuv.org/news/news-politics/110920/nyc-open-new-middle-schools | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971614 | 584 | 1.5 | 2 |
Raytheon Celebrates Engineers and STEM Education During National Engineers Week
Raytheon employees reach out across the nation to inspire the next generation of innovators
WALTHAM, Mass., Feb. 20, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Raytheon Company (NYSE: RTN) is celebrating the 60th anniversary of National Engineers Week Feb. 20-26 -- a week that highlights the achievements of our nation's outstanding engineers and the 10th anniversary of the program "Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day." Raytheon Chairman and CEO William H. Swanson is honorary chairman of National Engineers Week.
"To remain at the forefront of innovation, the United States needs to inspire a new generation toward rewarding engineering careers," said Swanson. "National Engineers Week is the perfect platform to engage, excite and encourage today's students – this week and every week."
At Raytheon, hundreds of employee volunteers will help students explore the fascinating world of engineering through hands-on activities and other events across the nation.
This outreach is part of Raytheon's overall commitment to spur interest among middle school students in math and science through its MathMovesU® program. Since its inception in 2005, MathMovesU has touched the lives of more than 1 million students, teachers and parents through interactive learning programs, contests, live events, scholarships and tutoring programs. To celebrate National Engineers Week, Raytheon will hold more than 25 events to engage students in math and science across the country. These include:
- Feb. 17 – Three hundred fifty high schools students in Tucson's GEAR UP (Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs) and MESA (Mathematics, Engineering, and Science Achievement) programs worked with 70 Raytheon engineers to build telescopes and learned about the science of astronomy. This event was a collaboration among Raytheon, the University of Arizona and the National Optical Astronomy Observatory.
- Feb. 20 – Raytheon hosts a "Scout Day" for 250 local scouts and scout leaders. Approximately 80 Raytheon employees assist the scouts in completing merit badge workshops in engineering, electronics, space exploration and radio. Each scout works on one badge during the day-long program.
- Feb. 21 – Raytheon's El Segundo site will host more than 200 local middle school students in a series of activities demonstrating how math is used in various career fields. Students learn the technology behind the Raytheon Aerosol Polarimetry System on the Glory satellite as they construct a polarized "telescope." Students will also hear from former astronaut Pamela Melroy about her journey to space and how her background in math and science helped her reach goals.
- Feb. 21 – Raytheon's San Diego site will host "Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day." Students from Barrio Logan College Institute, High Tech Middle School, East Lake Middle School and Point Loma High School take part in technology discussions, lab tours and hands-on engineering activities.
- Feb. 22 – Engineers from the Goleta site will visit Isla Vista Elementary School to engage students in math and science, showcasing fun workshops that involve engineering principles.
- Feb. 25 – The Society of Women Engineers at El Segundo will host "Shadow an Engineer Day," offering college students the opportunity to learn about a potential career path in engineering. The day includes guest speakers, a panel discussion and lab tours.
- Feb. 23 – Thirty middle school students, currently mentored by Raytheon engineers in an afterschool MathMovesU program, will come to the Aurora campus to compete in an egg-drop competition.
- Feb. 26 – Members of the Raytheon Women's Network (Aurora chapter) will go to the Community College of Aurora to support "Brains are Beautiful," a STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) event for high school girls in the Denver area.
- Feb. 21-25 – Raytheon volunteers will host a series of fun-filled demonstrations using fundamental engineering and mathematical principles at the company's exhibit in INNOVENTIONS at Epcot® at the Walt Disney World® Resort in Lake Buena Vista. The activities take place at Sum of all Thrills™ and are aimed to help spark students' interest in STEM subjects.
- Feb. 25 – Raytheon engineers will volunteer at Clearwater Fundamental Middle School and mentor some of the young women that belong to "Girls Get IT," a national network that offers girls and young women exciting opportunities to connect and explore the worlds of STEM.
- Feb. 22 – The Ft. Wayne site will host local middle and high school students who aspire to become engineers. The day includes hands-on activities, an introduction to Raytheon and the different engineering disciplines as well as lunch at the site.
- Feb. 24 – Students from six local high schools will visit Raytheon's Forest facility and participate in a series of activities focused on STEM.
- Feb. 19 – Raytheon sponsored the Nebraska Robotics Expo at the Strategic Air and Space Museum in Omaha. Coordinated by the University of Nebraska and the FIRST® LEGO® League, this event was a local robotics competition for approximately 1,000 students. Ten Raytheon MathMovesU ambassadors spoke with students, parents and educators about local STEM initiatives.
- The "Science of Sports" partnership between Raytheon and the New England Patriots strengthens as 55 Raytheon employee volunteers continue to make weekly visits to 20 teams of kids at 12 Boys & Girls Clubs in Dorchester, Leominster, Lowell, Lawrence, Roxbury, Marlborough, Framingham, Waltham and Woburn, Mass.; Nashua, N.H.; and Pawtucket and Newport, R.I., to encourage youth to explore math or science through sports.
- Mar. 2 – Students from Tewksbury Memorial High School will visit the Raytheon site in Tewksbury, Mass. for a tour of the facility, demonstrations and presentations.
- Mar. 8 – Students from Kennedy Middle School will receive a tour from Raytheon engineers at the company's Woburn, Mass., campus.
- Feb. 24 – The Raytheon State College site will host local high school students who get a brief overview about what it's like to work at Raytheon and then participate in a hands-on engineering activity and competition.
- Feb. 22 – Raytheon will host more than 100 Dallas-area high school students for a day of engineering activities, which include guiding the students through a production floor engineering simulation. The challenge models manufacturing processes and procedures to build an optical technology product. Twenty teams compete for the best-designed and most-improved Galileo scope. Raytheon engineers coach the students and senior technical fellows judge the students' efforts.
- Feb. 20 – Raytheon sponsors "Discover Engineering Family Day" at the National Building Museum. Guests can become creative inventors, engineers and mathematicians for a day. The event is a free, drop-in program for children ages 5-13.
Raytheon's MathMovesU program is committed to increasing middle school students' interest in math and science education by engaging them in hands-on, interactive activities. The innovative programs of MathMovesU include Raytheon's Sum of all Thrills experience at INNOVENTIONS at Epcot, which showcases math in action as students design and experience their own thrill ride using math fundamentals; the "In the Numbers" game, a partnership with the New England Patriots on display at The Hall at Patriot Place presented by Raytheon; the company's three-year sponsorship of the National MATHCOUNTS competition; and the MathMovesU scholarship and grant program providing more than $1 million in annual funding to students and teachers. Follow us on Twitter @raytheoncompany and @raytheonmmu. We'll be using hashtag #NEW11.
Raytheon Company (NYSE: RTN), with 2010 sales of $25 billion, is a technology and innovation leader specializing in defense, homeland security and other government markets throughout the world. With a history of innovation spanning 89 years, Raytheon provides state-of-the-art electronics, mission systems integration and other capabilities in the areas of sensing; effects; and command, control, communications and intelligence systems, as well as a broad range of mission support services. With headquarters in Waltham, Mass., Raytheon employs 72,000 people worldwide.
SOURCE Raytheon Company
The content of this News Release Archive is historical content. See this
important information regarding such content. | <urn:uuid:cddf0bb2-ac09-495d-b827-e2ac282fa278> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://raytheon.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=1760 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913598 | 1,773 | 2.25 | 2 |
What should you look for when selecting a good snorkel?
- Purge snorkel – a purge snorkel is the first and most important feature to include. Fortunately the purge snorkel is fast becoming the most common type of snorkel you can get. A purge snorkel allows you to return from below the surface (with a snorkel full of water), and blow out the water while your face is still in the water. A purge snorkel works by having a small one way valve at the base, which keeps the water out but allows you blow out any water that has entered the snorkel. It is a very simple design and a purge snorkel works very well. A purge snorkel is far easier to clear than the standard type of snorkel.
- Dry valve (or dry snorkel) – having a dry valve at the top of a purge snorkel is the best combination – this valve makes it much more difficult to enter the top of the snorkel, allowing you to concentrate on your spearfishing and reducing the number of times you need to clear your snorkel.
- Flexible hosing near mouthpiece – allows you to curve the mouthpiece into your mouth, giving you the most comfortable fit possible for your face shape.
That’s it – remember the best snorkel you can get will always be a purge snorkel. | <urn:uuid:c86001dc-ef54-4f75-82e2-259c8266851f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://spearfishingpoint.com/purgesnorkel.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929133 | 295 | 1.53125 | 2 |
RM Skill: Skilled
it would help if you explained more or showed the tutorial link.. Banks are easier without key presses anyways. It is simple Math and variable storage. A Variable to monitor how much Currency you have A Variable to hold the amount of gold you place in the bank. A Variable to measure your transaction. When depositing, if Variable Amount to Deposit is Greater than The amount you have then deny. When withdrawing, If Variable Amount to withdraw is Greater than the amount you have in bank then deny.
But as I was saying to begin with.. I need to see what you are doing.
This post has been edited by MissCoriel: Jan 20 2013, 04:45 PM
Basically, the idea of a bank is subtract the money from your inventory, and add it to a variable (yea, you need to check it against how much you've got). To withdraw, remove from variable and add to inventory.
To interest, do a time system and for every 7 days, add 10% or something.
Finally, if you have equal/more than the variable limit (I think it was 999,999) remove that from the bank, and add 1 Million dollars (as either an item or a variable).
If you wanna do an foreign currency, instead of using gold, just add to a variable, then have some kind of custom menu that shows the currency types. Then do an exchange, like 5 gold is 3 adamant. Add and subtract, same as banking. | <urn:uuid:ed8b4bf5-2dc8-4b53-84e9-8e14a0a57a1f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rpgrevolution.com/forums/index.php?s=9f42f2bb1acda5144c3121a3b9642e9d&showtopic=58314&pid=579002&st=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94501 | 306 | 1.734375 | 2 |
In May 1998, the then Scottish Executive issued "Special Educational Needs in Scotland: A Discussion Paper". It highlighted the Government's commitment to a more inclusive society, in the context of a national policy framework which aimed to develop a range of approaches and opportunities to meet the needs of children with special educational needs.
The Paper recognised that the complex special educational needs of a small number of children, often with associated social or medical needs, required particularly careful consideration and announced the establishment of an Advisory Committee to examine how the needs of these children were being met. That Committee published its report in 1999, which made a number of recommendations.
Why this review?
There have been a number of policy and legislative developments since then, for example, the introduction of Curriculum for Excellence and the commencement of the Education (Additional Support for Learning) (Scotland) Act 2004 (as amended).
In light of these, and considering the time since these issues were previously examined, advances in medical interventions and improvements to local and national provision, the Scottish Government believes this is the right moment to consider whether the current system is achieving the best possible outcomes for Scotland's children and young people.
Central to the review are the following principles:
- That at all times, positive outcomes for children and young people with complex additional support needs will drive policy
- Curriculum for Excellence entitles every child to a broad general education which develops their talents and personality reflecting the ways different learners progress
- This entitlement extends to the provision of the health/care and support necessary to allow them to access educational opportunities
- That all activity will be in line with the principles of Getting It Right for Every Child (GIRFEC), and will seek to ensure that children and young people are safe, healthy, achieving, nurtured, active, respected, responsible and included
- That to be consistent with the principles for the commissioning of national services for children established by the National Residential Child Care Initiative (NRCCI), the review will explicitly ensure that a national sector is shaped to deliver efficient and effective education and associated health/care in a manner which complements Local Authority provision and reflects Best Value
For further information, please see the Review's Terms of Reference | <urn:uuid:8653829d-aed6-4146-acfb-a3e897978cd8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.scotland.gov.uk/About/Review/DoranReview/About | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947122 | 448 | 2.890625 | 3 |
The FCC’s about to rule on Net Neutrality, and they’re collecting public feedback until Friday. If you feel as I do, sign the Save the Internet petition.
Why should you care? Well, would you mind if someone switched your search engine from Google to Yahoo? Do you care whether movies streamed to your neighborhood will arrive slower than emails streamed into rich neighborhoods? Do you want the Internet’s innovators to be a few companies in the middle with control over the routers, or everyday folks with a laptop on the end nodes?
I’m hot and bothered about this because the principle of net neutrality has guided the Internet since its infancy, and there is no question in my mind that it is the single biggest reason for the phenomenal growth of creative, scientific, and economic activity online.
To allow Internet Service Providers to negotiate faster access for companies like Barnes & Nobles or Yahoo would be like allowing the Federal Highway Administration to charge BMW drivers smaller tolls in return for kickbacks. Thankfully, our country’s roads were built in a vehicle-neutral way, and as a result they have been flexible enough to serve horse carriages, Model Ts, and Priuses. To charge higher rates for some forms of traffic and not others would be to stifle technological innovations of the future.
Unfortunately, net neutrality is still not a given. Take this news from the past couple days:
Another Internet service provider is caught getting in the way of its users, just four days before the Federal Communications Commission closes the window for public comments in its effort to stop such meddling.
Windstream Communications, a DSL provider with more than one million customers, has copped to hijacking user search queries made using Firefox’s popular browser — even when a user has set it to use another search engine….
Windstream had been intercepting toolbar search queries possibly using deep packet inspection technology. When a user enters a search query into the Firefox toolbar, Windstream inserts itself between the user and the provider of that application. The search query is then redirected to a Windstream-owned search engine, where the company can derive additional revenue from the captured traffic.
The Internet, like the highway, is a public good that should be provided equally to all, not preferentially to the rich and powerful. Net neutrality is the only way to safeguard its promise of innovation and prosperity for our future. | <urn:uuid:a7affcc3-065f-4c5c-9989-3bf65df02c6f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nmdnet.org/2010/04/07/one-day-left-to-save-the-internet/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939977 | 491 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Computer Availability and Use
Computers with Internet access are available at both the Main Library and the West Harrison Branch. Rules for their use are below. Introductory Internet and on-line catalog classes are held on a regular basis at the Main Library. No registration is necessary. Please click on Events at Main Library for specific dates and times.
Rules For Computer Use
Westchester County residents may log onto a computer using their Westchester library card number. Non-residents shall be issued a guest pass at the information desk.
Please observe the following guidelines:
- Computers may be used for 30-minute sessions. If no one is waiting, the computer will allow you to stay on longer.
- If a computer is not being used, you may walk right up to it and log on to use that computer.
- If all computers are in use, please sign up at the PC Reservation Station, located next to the Information Desk. A receipt will be printed directing you to a computer at a specified time. Be aware of your designated time. The system allows a five-minute grace period for you to log on.
- There is a limit of one person at a time at each computer. If two people need to work together on one computer, please see a librarian at the Information Desk.
- There is a charge of 15 cents per page to print. Please pay the Librarian at the Information Desk before printing.
- Library staff may not be available to provide technical support.
- Workstations will shut down 10 minutes before closing.
The Harrison Public Library assumes no responsibility for any damages to Library users' personal devices, software, files, and/or equipment. Do not turn off or reboot the computers. Tampering with Library equipment or attempting to access or modify the operating system or any other software or programming, including bypassing network security functions, is prohibited.
Please be aware that these are public computers used by patrons of all ages. The Harrison Public Library cannot monitor the information that is obtained through these computers. Parents are advised to take an active interest in their children's online use. No filtering (blocking software) is used on these computers, but the Librarians or staff may ask you to refrain from viewing or using particular sites or content. If asked to refrain, you must comply immediately.
This Library adheres to the Westchester Library System Internet Use Policy, which is available at the Information Desk.
Failure to comply with these rules may result in loss of computer privileges.
Amended: December 6, 2010 by the Harrison Public Library Board of Trustees | <urn:uuid:a98b74cb-14a3-419f-87fa-403e5734f987> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.harrisonpl.org/computeruse.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.908551 | 530 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Jeff Atwood wrote a provocative blog post entitled Please Don’t Learn to Code that I wasn’t going to respond to because it looked a lot like trolling to me. What I think, though, is that Jeff is conflating the suggestion that people learn to program with the suggestion that everyone should be a software developer. In the end, though, the post is just a mess.
I’m not for falsely equating programming with essential life skills like reading, writing, and math, or with the things Jeff suggests people spend time on instead — learning how things work at a “basic level” or becoming better communicators. That said, I would encourage people to learn to program for a number of reasons.
The first is that much of the world is run by computers. Learning to program involves learning how computers work at a more basic level. Even just knowing how the Web works at a technical level is helpful, if only to know if something is broken on a site you’re using or on your local computer.
In some ways, the relevant analogy is to auto repair. Knowing how your car works and how to fix some things doesn’t make you a mechanic, but it does make it less likely that you’ll be stuck on the side of the road with no recourse other than roadside service, and also helps to ensure that you won’t be exploited when you have to deal with a mechanic.
There are many people out there who work with software developers who are not themselves software developers. Understanding how to program makes it easier to communicate with them.
The second thing is that learning a little programming can make you better at your job if your work involves using a computer at all. Here’s my favorite programming story of all time. I used to work with a software developer who started her career at a chicken processing plant in Arkansas. She started not as a programmer but as an administrative assistant. Back then, they didn’t do word processing, they typed on typewriters.
Even though she had no formal training as a programmer, she figured out that the electric typewriters they used were programmable, and learned how to program them to complete various forms rather than typing them in by hand. Her boss noticed her good work and had her learn how to program another computer they had in the office. Eventually, he encouraged her to quit and go back to school to become a professional software developer.
Had she not been a smart and curious person who figured out that programming would make her job easier, she may still be working in that chicken plant. Today programming is now a more fundamental tool of automation than it has ever been. How many people could eliminate redundant work if they knew how to write scripts to collect data for them and schedule them to run nightly? How many people struggle with terrible Web applications that could be improved with user-created style sheets or Greasemonkey scripts? Programming empowers you to remove annoyances from your daily life.
The third reason is that learning to program teaches you a different method of problem solving than most people are familiar with. Learning to program teaches you how to break down problems into familiar components and then meld those components together to create a solution. Programming is not the only way to learn those skills, but it’s a good way to learn them, and that skill is widely applicable to every day life.
I wouldn’t make the argument that we make programming courses mandatory in school, or that everyone should learn to program, but I would encourage anyone who has the slightest interest in programming to pursue that interest. | <urn:uuid:d7787191-70ce-4fc2-bff2-fe0b04e2649f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://rc3.org/2012/05/15/why-you-might-want-to-learn-to-program/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971582 | 741 | 2.375 | 2 |
Today in History: March 22
Raymond Loewy, Designer
Preliminary Studies for Studebaker "Avanti" Automobile
fluid marker on paper,
March 22, 1961.
American Treasures of the Library of Congress
On March 22, 1961, industrial designer Raymond Loewy made a dozen sketches of a futuristic sports car at the request of Sherwood Egbert, the recently appointed president of the ailing Studebaker Corporation. Egbert hoped that Loewy, who had a long relationship with the company, could design a new car bold enough to capture the popular imagination and boost the company's sagging fortunes. Loewy and his team of designers produced a prototype automobile in record time; the Avanti—Italian for "forward"— debuted in April 1962 to rave reviews. The four-passenger car was indeed forward-looking, for it had a steamlined fiberglass body with almost no chrome, and was the first American car to incorporate a disc brake system along with other safety features.
A series of problems stalled production of the car, however, and the Studebaker Corporation abruptly discontinued its U.S. manufacture late in 1963. Seeking to revive the popular model, in 1965 two Studebaker dealers acquired the corporation's vacated South Bend, Indiana, factory and as the Avanti Motor Corporation produced the Avanti II into the 1980s.
Raymond Loewy, who is sometimes called "the father of industrial design," also designed automobiles for Hupmobile, Lincoln, and Jaguar, among many other projects. Born in Paris in 1893, he was educated in France as an engineer. Loewy emigrated to the United States after World War I, where his first design assignments were in window decoration for New York department stores. Loewy's signature streamlined style was eventually seen in a wide variety of industrial and consumer products, ranging from railroad locomotives to refrigerators, to pencil sharpeners, to dishes, to corporate logos. He became a U.S. citizen in 1938 and married Viola Erickson ten years later. Never Leave Well Enough Alone, Loewy's autobiography, appeared in 1951. In the early 1960s, Loewy was hired by the Kennedy White House for several projects; he also designed a commemorative postage stamp in memory of John F. Kennedy, in 1964. By 1967 he was employed by NASA to create hospitable spaces for astronauts. Raymond Loewy died in 1986.
Raymond Loewy Associates, "Look" kitchen. Kitchen IV.
June 1, 1951.
Architecture and Interior Design for 20th Century America, 1935-1955
- Architecture and Interior Design for 20th Century America, 1935-1955 includes over a thousand photographs pertaining to Loewy's career; to find them, search the collection on Loewy and add appropriate keywords such as kitchen, automobile, office, or steamship.
- View the online exhibition, Raymond Loewy: Designs for a Consumer Culture (external link), on the Hagley Museum and Library (external link) Web site.
- To find more information about the history of technology and invention, go to Gallery C of the Reason section of the American Treasures of the Library of Congress and scroll down.
- Search on the terms automobile or car in the collection Prosperity and Thrift, 1921-1929 for information on America's favorite mode of transportation in the decade before Raymond Loewy came into his own as a designer. For example, see High School Girls Learn the Art of Automobile Mechanics in 1927, or read selections from the 1924 Popular Mechanics Automobile Tourist's Handbook.
- Explore the exhibit The Work of Charles Eames and Ray Eames: A Legacy of Invention. At the end of World War II the Eameses joined a larger movement of architects and builders aiming to bring good design to everyday life. | <urn:uuid:da3f4eb7-e75e-4222-b6e2-32ac4e39acae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://international.loc.gov/ammem/today/mar22.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949396 | 803 | 3.046875 | 3 |
Consumer Reports Index: Americans' Financial Woes Lessen Dramatically Ahead Of Election, Winter Holidays
YONKERS, N.Y., Nov. 5, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Consumer Reports Index, an overall measure of Americans' personal financial health, revealed a major decline in the financial difficulties faced by Americans, and a rise in consumer sentiment ahead of the U.S. presidential election and winter holidays.
"There is reason for optimism this month, with financial difficulties in decline and sentiment moving upward. These are very heartening signs for retailers, especially as we get into the all-important holiday shopping season," said Ed Farrell , director of consumer insight at the Consumer Reports National Research Center.
The Consumer Reports Index's Trouble Tracker, which looks at both the proportion of consumers that have faced financial difficulties as well as the number of hurdles they have encountered, declined by 11.5 points to 38.7, its lowest level since first measured in April 2009. The largest improvement (-12.9 points) was among middle-class families earning between $50,000 and $99,000, though lower-income Americans also saw modest improvement (-5.7 points).
Consumer Sentiment pushed into positive territory this month (50.7), propelled by gains among Americans earning $100,000 or more, whose sentiment improved 6.7 points to 59.7. Lower-income Americans, earning less than $50,000, also saw a modest 1.7-point rise, though their sentiment remained in negative territory at 48.2.
The Consumer Reports Index's employment measure also pushed into positive territory (51.5) this month, up from 49.7 the previous month. This improvement was driven by a decline in those losing a job in the past 30 days, which dropped to 2.7 percent from 6.0 percent a month earlier. In contrast, the share of Americans starting a job in the past 30 days rose modestly to 5.7 percent from 5.3 percent the prior month. These numbers indicate that the economy is gaining more jobs than it's shedding.
"Job losses fell sharply and more Americans started versus lost jobs. However job starts remain at relatively low levels. Continued progress will hinge on increasing job starts over the coming months to sustain gains," Farrell said.
The Consumer Reports Index's next 30-day retail measure, reflecting planned activity in November, showed gains across most categories compared to last month. This was led by items that are usually popular as holiday gifts like personal electronics (21.4, up from 15.9 the prior month) and small appliances (13.8, up from 9.3). However, planned spending this month lags the year-ago figure, suggesting challenges for retailers. Moreover, planned spending among non-index categories decreased for new cars (1.8, down from 3.0) and homes (1.8, down from 2.5), but was up slightly for used cars (3.5, up from 2.8).
The level of stress that consumers reported was unchanged at 57.8 from 58.0 the month before. The most stressed Americans in the past 30 days were those with households earning less than $50,000 (60.6), those in the North East (62.9) – who were bracing themselves for Hurricane Sandy – and adults 65 years of age and older (59.3).
The Consumer Reports Index report, available at www.ConsumerReports.org, comprises responses directly from consumers on five key measures: the Sentiment Index, the Trouble Tracker Index, the Stress Index, the Retail Index and the Employment Index.
The Consumer Reports Index, conducted by the Consumer Reports National Research Center, is a monthly telephone and cell phone poll of a nationally representative probability sample of American adults. A total of 1,013 interviews were completed (663 telephone and 350 cell phone) among adults aged 18+. Interviewing took place between October 25 and October 28. The margin of error is +/- 3.2 percentage points at a 95% confidence level. The complete index report, methodology and tabular information are available. Contact: James McQueen 516-724-0709 or firstname.lastname@example.org.
The material above is intended for legitimate news entities only; it may not be used for advertising or promotional purposes. Consumer Reports® is an expert, independent nonprofit organization whose mission is to work for a fair, just, and safe marketplace for all consumers and to empower consumers to protect themselves. We accept no advertising and pay for all the products we test. We are not beholden to any commercial interest. Our income is derived from the sale of Consumer Reports®, ConsumerReports.org® and our other publications and information products, services, fees, and noncommercial contributions and grants. Our Ratings and reports are intended solely for the use of our readers. Neither the Ratings nor the reports may be used in advertising or for any other commercial purpose without our permission. Consumer Reports will take all steps open to it to prevent commercial use of its materials, its name, or the name of Consumer Reports®.
SOURCE Consumers Union
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Request more information about PR Newswire products and services or call us at (888) 776-0942. | <urn:uuid:f6b18353-6e72-43c0-945d-ab43dd98d987> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/consumer-reports-index-americans-financial-woes-lessen-dramatically-ahead-of-election-winter-holidays-177228111.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943403 | 1,137 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Lett Log House
Contributed by Robert Lett
Lett Log House -
Williams County Ohio
The Lett log house which was built by
George W. Lett can be found in Williams County Ohio. Williams County is the
most northern and western county in the state of Ohio and borders upon
Indiana and Michigan.
George W. Lett was born in 1821 in Muskingum County Ohio and was the son of
Aquilla Lett and Charity Cobbler Lett and married Elizabeth Long in
1849.and lived in Guernsey County Ohio not far from the
Muskingum County line and a section of Meigs Township called the "Lett
In 1850 George W. Lett acquired 40 acres of land in Milford Township (
Defiance County) from the government at $1.25 per acre. He transported his
family (wife and two small children) and belongings to his homestead by
horse and wagon and eventually built his log house.
The structure which is often described as a log cabin is more appropriately
called a log house as the structure had a stairway leading to a second
The Letts lived in the log house for 36 years and raised 11 children in the
home. Their children and year of birth are as follows; Mary 1840, Joseph
1850, Ira 1853, Doctor 1853, Laura L. 1855, Charles W. 1858, Elizabeth 1862,
Sarah 1864, Amanda 1866, Josephine July 4 1869, and Martha E. April 5,
1872. Elizabeth Lett died from asthma on December 2, 1886 at the age of 62
and George Lett died at the age of 77 on
February 5, 1898.
The Log House has been moved to the Williams County Ohio fairgrounds
and is maintained in conjunction with the Williams County Historical Society
which has refurbished the dwelling with appropriate era furnishings. The
house is open for tour.
There are "Old Settlers"
who came from Canada via "The Underground Railroad." It was the
most dramatic nonviolent protest against slavery in the United States
that began in the Colonial Era and reached its peak between 1830 and
1865. An estimated 30,000 to 100,000 slaves
used the "railroad" to get to Canada; many others escaped to Mexico,
the Caribbean, and Europe. | <urn:uuid:37d9127c-9a95-4a8f-a765-2841e049b922> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.oldsettlersreunion.com/Lett%20Log%20House.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96663 | 492 | 3.21875 | 3 |
The key is to clean up the code you are most likely to work in again.
Working in well-factored code is more fun and more likely to produce the desired result. Those are both important.
However, refactoring takes time, and all edits carry risk of new bugs. Refactoring code that you don't otherwise need to work in is a bad idea.
How to know what code you need to work in? Changes tend to happen together, in high-churn areas, while other areas are left idle for a long time. There are many reasons for this phenomon; one is that the changes you make right now are probably wrong, but you can't know that until they're done.
So, I use the following sequence when working on a feature or bug fix:
Imagine what the code would look like if it was ideal for the change I want to make, so that the change would be a simple one-line edit that was obviously correct?
Imagine a path of refactorings to get things to that point.
Make one refactoring at a time, testing as I go, and checking in each refactoring separately, with a special change description that starts with "REFACTORING:". This helps make it obvious that if you're looking for a deliberate behavior change, you don't have to look at this one. Also, since most refactorings are well-defined with well-known names, it is easy to understand these changes later.
Make the single one-line edit to get the desired functionality change.
This approach works just as well for changes to existing functionality as it does for adding new functionality, as everything is existing code after day 1. However, if you're branching in to a new area of functionality for your program, it may make sense to throw a quick-and-dirty implementation together to get real feedback on your plans.
There are many caveats:
If a deadline is looming, the risks of refactorings may outweigh the benefits. Judgement is required.
Sometimes the code would require extensive refactoring to make this work, but it would be possible to implement the desired feature or bug fix easily enough. In this case, I may do the more obvious, straightforward refactorings but not the ideal described above.
If I don't have high-quality automated tests, the risks of refactoring are more concerning. I may refactor less, depending on the circumstances. However, poorly-factored code is also difficult to unit test, so it's easy to end up in a quagmire if you're not careful.
Note that I avoid refactoring towards structure that I think will be beneficial for some future change that I can't be sure I'll need. Refactor for the issue at hand only. However, if this is not the first time I've needed to make this kind of change, I may broaden the scope of refactoring in anticipation of future similar changes. Judgement required, again. | <urn:uuid:64bc4892-e1bb-44af-bde8-0b78426d82b1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/115839/how-clean-should-new-code-be/115840 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969792 | 617 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Do you have some money you’d like to deposit in safe investment? You can rarely do better than Certificates of Deposit or CDs. CDs often have a minimum investment amount and are sold for different durations, ranging from 3 months to 5 or even 7 years.
“Laddering” CDs is an effective strategy for lowering the risks of being stuck with a low interest rate for a long period of time while having a good cashflow in the form regularly maturing CDs.
Here’s how it works. If we could predict perfectly in advance whether interest rates were going up or down, we would buy at high rates only and pass on low rates.
However, we can’t predict interest rates accurately; also most of us want CDs that mature at different times, in case we need the cash.
So, we can “ladder” our CDs. For example, we might choose a one-year ladder, meaning we want each CD to mature after one year. If we wanted to buy 4 CDs in total and redeem one every quarter, our strategy might be:
- Buy one (1) 3-month CD
- Buy one (1) 6-month CD
- Buy one (1) 9-month CD
- Buy one (1) 12-month CD
When the first CD matures, use the proceeds to buy a 1-year CD and do the same for the 2nd, 3rd and 4th CDs. This way, you would always have a CD maturing every 3 months. You will also be able to benefit from the best interest rates.
You can also use a 2-year ‘ladder’ to lock in rates for longer.
The objective is to always have some of your money earning the best rate. Happy investing! | <urn:uuid:520b932a-9cef-46d6-9899-053c860fb2fa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bankloansandrates.com/2011/05/26/laddering-cds-as-a-method-of-minimizing-investment-risk/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964372 | 375 | 2.0625 | 2 |
Two black-and-white colobus monkeys at the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore are now parents. The baby monkey was born Saturday and is the first for two of the zoo's colobus monkeys, 14-year-old Keri and 19-year-old Bisi. The baby's gender isn't yet known.
Distinguished by their black bodies and long white tails, colobus monkeys are from the forests of equatorial Africa, but because they are hunted for meat and fur, and because of the loss of their forest habitat, the monkeys are in decline.
The zoo now has four colobus monkeys: two adult females, an adult male and the new infant. | <urn:uuid:f309db8b-aeec-4827-9797-b17b4f25ac0e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wamu.org/news/12/04/22/colubus_monkey_born_at_maryland_zoo | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971166 | 140 | 2.578125 | 3 |
OverviewByers Peak stands out as a prominent, highly visible mountain to the west of the town of Fraser in southern Grand County, and is an easily identifiable and beautiful landmark. It is also the highest point in the Byers Peak Wilderness Area. Despite having only two main trailheads, there are many routes and loop hikes available. Just one possibility is to combine Byers Peak with Bills Peak.
Byers Peak is a very popular peak, but doesn't receive quite as much attention as other (14er) peaks in the area due to its lower height.
The summit has excellent views of all the peaks in the Vassquez Moutains, the Never Summer Range, Indian Peaks, Rocky Mountain National Park, Williams Fork Range, and the Gore Range.
Getting ThereEast versus West Access
The two main access routes to Byers Peak are from the Fraser Experimental Forest on the east and the Keyser Creek Drainage on the west. Each access route offers its own advantages and disadvantages.
The East Access is a much shorter drive for those living in the Fraser River Valley or the Front Range. The access road is also better.
The West Access definitely offers the more scenic routes for climbing the peak. The trails are also more pleasant and less well used. The disadvantage is that the access road is rougher and it is a longer drive if you are coming from the east (as do most people living in Colorado).
Old (Bottle Pass) and New Byers Peak Trailheads (East Access)
There are a few routes to get to the trailhead, but this one may be best. From Highway 40 at the shopping center near the canter of Fraser, turn south on County Road 72 for 0.2 miles. Turn right on Fraser Parkway for 0.8 miles. Turn left on County Road 73 and follow it for 7.0 miles. There are a few side tracks, but stay on the main road. Make a right and follow the road 3.0 miles to the gate and trailhead. The road has a few potholes, but is suitable for two-wheel-drive vehicles.
Keyser Creek Trailhead (West Access)
East of Parshall (not far east of Kremmling) and on Highway 40 between mile post 197 and 198, turn south onto Country Road 3. Follow County Road 3 until you reach County Road 32 (FR-139), between mile markers 15 and 16 on County Road 3. Follow County Road 32 for 4.7 miles and turn right on FR-136 on the road marked for Lake Evelyn and Bottle Pass Trail. The small parking area at the trailhead is reached after another 3.9 miles. The last road is sometimes rather rough in places, but if you drive slowly, most vehicles can make it.
Routes OverviewFor full descriptions, rather than references to other routes/route combinations, please click on the links to the descriptions for each individual routes.
New Byers Peak Trail
Note: This trail is not the one shown on the topo map.
This is a newly constructed trail and has become the standard route on Byers Peak. It is probably the easiest route and there is some easy class 2 scrambling on the last part of the ridge. The summit is 4.4 miles from the trailhead and has 3000 feet altitude gain.
Old Byers Peak Trail
Note: The beginning of this trail is not shown on the topo map.
This trail offers a less crowded alternative to the New Byers Peak Trail and makes a nice loop with the New Byers Peak Trail. This route is easy, but requires more navagational skills than the standard route. Much of the trail is pretty faded, but easy to follow as it stays close to the ridgetop.
If you plan to ascend one trail, and return via another, it is recommended that you ascendthe Old Byers Peak Trail and decend the New Trail. The reason for this is that its easy to miss the turnoff to the Old Trail while descending because the junction is not marked.
The summit via this route is 3.8 miles with 3000 feet elevation gain.
The Keyser Creek route is on the west side of Byers Peak and is less used than the eastern routes. It is also a more scenic route and offers great views of Bills Peak's north face.
The total distance from the Keyser Creek Trailhead to the summit is 5.3 miles with 2800 feet elevation gain.
Byers/Bills Peak Loop
There are many spectacular options for a loop hike combining both Byers and Bills Peaks. See two route suggestions below:
Byers/Bills Peak Loop via New Byers Trail
Byers/Bills Peak Loop via Keyser Creek
Red TapeNo permits are required to climb Byers Peak. Parking at the trailheads is free.
When To ClimbThe most popular season is July through September. Expect to walk through some snow at least as late as mid July. Byers Peak would make a fine winter ascent, but you must walk a much longer distance.
Beware of thunderstorms in the summer months!
CampingCamping is available below the Fraser Experimental Forest trailhead at the Byers Creek Campground. Check with the Forest Service (970-498-2770) for the current fees. Because Byers Peak lies within the Fraser Experimental Forest, overnight camping is not allowed except at designated camping areas. For information on current camping restrictions and other camping areas in the vicinity, contact the Sulphur Ranger District.
Keyser Creek Drainage (West Access) offers several undeveloped campsites.
Mountain ConditionsBecause it stands in relative isolation above the Fraser Valley, Byers Peak experiences frequent and strong winds, even on good-weather days. Be sure to bring a lightweight windbreaker. The section of trail above timberline is short, and can be downclimbed quickly and easily In the case of inclement weather, but it is always wise to watch the skies.
For current road and trail conditions, contact:
Sulphur Ranger District
9 Ten Mile Drive
Granby, CO 80446
Below is the climate summary for nearby Berthoud Pass at 11,315 feet elevation. These are all averages, so expect more variation, but this will give you a good idea about the climate at higher elevations around Byers Peak. *National Weather Service Data 1950-1985.
|MONTH||HIGH||LOW||SNOW DEPTH||DAYS W/PRECIP| | <urn:uuid:c03cb268-cb88-4e50-b6d4-88aab048c888> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.summitpost.org/byers-peak/151200 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928277 | 1,344 | 1.742188 | 2 |
The Aachen health "factory":
One of the weirdest looking buildings in Europe could easily be the large hospital of Aachen. The Klinikum Aachen, full German name "Universitätsklinikum Aachen" (University Hospital Aachen), abbreviated UKA, formerly known as "Neues Klinikum", is the largest hospital of europe located in Aachen in Germany. It is part of the University of Aachen and contains its whole medical faculty. Seen from far away, for many visitors the Klinikum Aachen looks like a giant power plant rather than a hospital.
This is due to the huge striped ventilation pipes that are attached to the outer walls and the 24 " towers" that protrude above the main building:
The University Hospital Aachen (UKA) combines in its singularity all mechanisms of supplying the patient, the entire medical faculty and the dentistry under one roof. In this enormous building is a place for the common research of engineers, scientists and physicians. At the moment co-operate 59 professors, 824 scientific assistants and 4347 non-scientific employees in 33 clinical departments, 21 institutes and in the administration of the UKA. The University Hospital has 1.510 beds. The industrial design of the building is not only visible from the outside but also the interior of the building is very industrial looking:
This building was designed as a health factory, the product enters the "factory" sick and leaves it healthy. | <urn:uuid:4781a49e-7f8d-485c-a1db-78dfd73a977d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pcgladiator.blogspot.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956699 | 318 | 2.1875 | 2 |
In developing our Strategy we identified eight types of environmental impacts – or ‘Environmental Impact Categories’ – that occur across our value chain. These are illustrated below.
We have assessed the relative importance of these impact categories and prioritised action accordingly. The main ways we can make a difference are to manage resources efficiently and manage hazards and emissions. So we aim to:
The Strategy is designed to significantly improve our environmental footprint. We are clear that the levers for change are located in our actual business processes. So the Environmental Strategy team reviewed how we work and identified four focal areas to be targeted by 2015 to ensure we make a difference across the whole value chain. These are:Management processes, covering best practice guidance, tools and key performance indicators (KPIs) to track environmental performance across all functions and brands. These processes ensure that the Strategy is coherent and that the targets complement each other.Product excellence, embedding environmental aspects into our innovation projects within each brand where the product innovation and design takes place. Overall ambitions are to reduce complexity and create sustainable products and packaging.Process excellence, implementing and tracking environmental improvements across our value chain, such as energy savings in the supply chain and in our stores.Support processes, aligning all environmental initiatives through the support functions such as HR, IT and Corporate Communications and bringing the Strategy to all our employees.The illustration below shows where across the value chain these four focal areas can help us improve our environmental performance.
Here you can recommend this page to an colleague.
Thank you for recommending this site. | <urn:uuid:fb8a37e9-0227-4cdf-9638-02fc8f4d99d6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.adidas-group.com/en/sustainability/Environment/Environmental_Strategy_2015/Our_approach/default.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917684 | 311 | 2.09375 | 2 |
Synthetic vitamins dangersPosted: August 12, 2012
Synthetic Vitamins fuel sickness while
enriching the corrupt medical industry
Megadoses of vitamins – bane or boon?
by S. D. Wells
(NaturalNews) Are you taking a multi-vitamin that’s killing you slowly? Did you think you were doing the right thing by jiggling that little pill out of its container and washing it down your throat every day in the name of health and wellness? Which ones are you taking; One-a-day, Centrum, Equate, or maybe you just picked up some of Sam’s club’s“Members Mark Complete?” Sounds like a real winner! Wait a second, it could be even worse. You might have gone and done the unthinkable, and you bought your children Flintstones vitamins. Tell me it’s not true.
Have you really read the label, researched any of the synthetic additives, or checked out the “other ingredients,” or did you just figure that was irrelevant? If you are guilty of taking any of the aforementioned supplements, it’s time to buy some liver, kidney, and colon detoxification, and you better educate yourself about those too, because “The Man” wants you sick and dying, not avoiding toxic vitamin imposters that are NOT ABSORBABLE by the body. Dangerous, mind-blowing additives in your crappy vitamins that are listed as “other ingredients” include: talc, dyes, sodium benzoate, methylcellulose, carnauba wax, silicon and/or titanium dioxide. In all of these cases, what you don’t know WILL hurt you!
In the mid-1930s, multivitamins became available in grocery stores and pharmacies. These supplements were made from natural, dried and compressed vegetable and fruit concentrates, but then, in the early 1940s, certain brands began producing synthetic tablets, and that’s when the mayhem began.
Now, millions of Americans and people all over the world want to eat right and take the right vitamins to help them live a long, healthy life and be energetic all the while, but the majority of these innocent, naive, and nutritionally uneducated beings have NO CLUE that the big “brand name” vitamins on the shelves of most grocery and drug stores are synthetic toxins which not only DO NOT foster good health, but are mutagenic and carcinogenic. This means they are basically poison for the body, fueling disease and disorders, including arthritis, osteoporosis, brittle bones, cancer, and yes, Alzheimer’s disease. Did you know Pfizer owns “Centrum?” Did you know Bayer owns “One-a-Day?”
Walking into a nutritional nightmare is easy if you don’t know the “low down” on supplements. Dangerous supplements can reverse what you are trying to accomplish. Also, many multivitamins, especially the chewable ones, contain Aspartame, one of the leading causes of Fibromyalgia and IBS (irritable bowel syndrome).
“Other ingredients” usually means animal parts and cancer causing artificial sweeteners
If your vitamins come in the form of gelatin capsules, you are more than likely consuming the skin, cartilage, connective tissues and bones of diseased animals. On top of that, if your vitamins contain the artificial sweeteners Aspartame, Acesulfame Potassium, Sucralose or Sorbitol, you could be developing artificial sweetener disease (cancer) and mutating your cells, your DNA, and passing that mutagenic DNA along to future generations.
Don’t feel dumb if you did not know that synthetic B-12 comes from activated sewage sludge just don’t be a repeat offender! Your “corporate” made vitamins are made by pharmaceutical and chemical companies who also concocted chemotherapy. It’s just another angle to handle the threat of people getting healthy from nutritional information, and so you’ve been deceived.
Synthetic vitamin B-12, cyanocobalamin, is made from ground up toxic cow livers and activated sewage sludge. These cow livers are overloaded with steroids and antibiotics, and the pesticides the cow assimilates from eating GMO feed, and these cows are living in CAFO’s (confined animal feeding operations), where they often collapse and die slowly, while lying in their own “sludge” or fecal matter. (http://www.foodkills.org/synthetics.html) Synthetic vitamin B also comes from coal tar and petro-chemicals, known to depress the central nervous system and cause respiratory ailments.
Those cheap, synthetic vitamins you’re taking in hopes of maintaining proper health are deteriorating your health as quickly as fast food burgers and fries. Synthetic vitamin A comes from fish liver juices loaded with toxic PCB’s and mercury. Synthetic vitamin C comes from acid blends that irritate the lining of your digestive track. It’s just a chemical copy of naturally occurring ascorbic acid. This kind of fractionated, chemical acid never grew in the ground or received sunlight, but rather it’s a sulfuric acid by-product. Once you swallow that pill, it’s just another carcinogenic drug in your body, like MSG (monosodium glutamate) or Aspartame.
The bottom line is that the wrong vitamins are chemicals. More than 90 percent of the fake “vitamin C” in this country is manufactured in New Jersey by Hoffman-LaRoche, one of the world’s largest drug manufacturers. (http://www.thedoctorwithin.com)
Organic vitamin A has antioxidant properties, but synthetic vitamin A accomplishes just the opposite. In one study, subjects who received synthetic A – beta carotene had an eight percent higher incidence of fatal heart attacks, strokes, and lung cancer than those who got the placebo (sugar pill).
Synthetic Vitamin D is derived from irradiated oil
Synthetic vitamin D is toxic and can result in permanent deposit of minerals in the heart, lungs and kidneys. How could this be true? Because it’s made from petroleum extracts, coal tar derivatives, and irradiated cattle brains. It may even contain formaldehyde and ammonia! (http://www.doctorsresearch.com/articles4.html)
Routinely contained in nearly all NON-ORGANIC vitamins are genetically engineered ingredients, pesticides, and animal drug residues, pathogens, feces, hormone-disrupting chemicals, toxic sludge, slaughterhouse waste, chemical additives, preservatives, and chemical by-products. (http://www.naturalnews.com)
The wrong kind of calcium kills you slowly
The calcium myth must be dispelled right now. If you eat and drink dairy products, including milk, yogurt and cheese, you are loading up your body with calcium, in fact, most likely, you are overloading your body with calcium. True whole food vitamins don’t leech the body of their missing co-factors and don’t cause a vitamin imbalance. How does Big Pharma make a fortune off your sickness? Calcium supplements! If you think the staggering numbers of people in the U.S. suffering from arthritis and osteoporosis are somehow doing so just by chance, you are DEAD WRONG. Want the good kind of calcium? Research plant-based calcium like leafy greens, kale and spinach.
No matter what the FDA says or wants you to believe, organic vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, probiotics, and enzymes are “MEDICINE,” and synthetic vitamins are simply ANTI-MEDICINE – disease and disorder breeding health criminals. Get smarter. Read the labels. Ask questions. If your vitamins are not organic, then they’re probably making you sick.
Learn more about the true history of modern medicine in this revealing report. Free downloadable PDF. Covers Nazi connections with Big Pharma, war crimes of Bayer, the weapons origins of prescription medications, the shocking history of psychiatric medicine and much more.
Sources for this article include: | <urn:uuid:263eeffc-67b1-46b4-8faf-0b1f965f23d7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://biosil.wordpress.com/2012/08/12/synthetic-vitamins-dangers/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926455 | 1,720 | 1.945313 | 2 |
12 Dec 2012, BioSpectrum Bureau , BioSpectrum
Singapore: Prostate cancer is becoming increasingly common due to globally growing numbers of elderly men, and scientists are fighting to create new treatment options for patients with advanced disease, states a new report by healthcare experts GlobalData.
The new report states that the prostate cancer market has historically been dominated by chemotherapies and hormone therapies, with major players including AstraZeneca, which market the hormone therapies Zoladex (goserelin acetate) and Casodex (bicalutamide), and Sanofi, which market the popular chemotherapies Taxotere (docetaxel) and Jevtana (cabazitaxel).
Hormone therapies will continue to be a mainstay of prostate cancer treatment, but the role of chemotherapies will be reduced as targeted therapies like Johnson & Johnson's Zytiga (abiraterone acetate) and Medivation/Astellas' Xtandi (enzalutamide) become the most popular treatment options for metastatic Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer (mCRPC). While patients with early stage prostate cancer can often be cured with surgery and radiation therapy, the cancer suffered by mCRPC patients is incurable, and they often suffer from painful symptoms related to bone metastases.
However, recent market entrants J&J's Zytiga and Medivation/Astellas' Xtandi fulfill the unmet need for oral mCRPC therapies that extend overall survival and have positive safety and side effect profiles. Another promising pipeline drug, Bayer/Algeta's Alpharadin (radium-223 chloride), also extends overall survival, has an excellent safety and side effects profile, lessens the likelihood of Skeletal-Related Events (SREs), and eases bone pain.
GlobalData predict that Zytiga and Xtandi will dominate the mCRPC space, expecting peak Zytiga sales of $1.7 billion in 2018, and Xtandi sales increasing to $2.05 billion by 2022. However, increasing pressures to prove cost-effectiveness could restrain growth in the prostate cancer market, particularly in Europe, as reimbursement hurdles and price cuts will limit the premium pricing and uptake of new drugs. | <urn:uuid:be39511c-11fb-463e-b84c-cb3cc1d1456b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.biospectrumasia.com/print_article/biospectrum/news/123103/zytiga-xtandi-dominate-prostrate-cancer-market | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913945 | 472 | 1.789063 | 2 |
To the Orleans Parrish:
Hello. It has been abundantly reported that the New Orleans Parrish has decided not to include Creationism or Intelligent Design in its curriculum. The world of Atheism and the National Center of Science Education are "dancing in the street". It is good that you are not teaching the false doctrines of current Creationism, because they do not convey the truth of Genesis. However, it is bad that you are trying to decide for the students whether or not there is a Creator. It is not your place to do so. It is also bad that you are teaching the tenets of Atheism in public schools, using public funds. That is a lawsuit waiting to happen.
What I urge you to do is to also include the correct
opposing view to the evolution theory in science class, which is the "Observations of
Moses". Contrary to what Creationism teaches, the first chapter of Genesis is not
about how our Earth and universe were created.
What is commonly called "Creation Week" is nowhere in Genesis. Yes,
there were six days that Moses was shown by God, and Moses was told about the seventh day, but what God was showing
Moses was an explanation of geologic history, before modern mankind (Adam &
Eve) was formed upon the Earth.
For nineteen years, the literal truth of Genesis has been reconciled with scientific reality, specifically that which has been discovered to be true. However, the conclusions of science of that data are that which have been in error. The correct reading of Genesis 1:1 is "4.6 billion years ago, God created this universe, starting with the planet Earth". But what follows verse one must be read differently, in their proper chronological order, which Creationism and Theology do not comprehend.
Attached is a
two minute sample of my presentation (Observations of Moses), that reconciles both science and Genesis, and Genesis chapter one with chapter two. Chapters one and two were narrations of two different time periods of mankind on Earth.
Chapter one was of prehistoric mankind, and
chapter two is of modern mankind.
Near the end,
the days which Moses saw are given in the order in which God revealed them, and again in the chronological order in which they occurred, coinciding with geologic history. The whole presentation is 62 minutes. The Sanhedrin in Israel viewed the complete presentation, and the first
thing they said was "WOW". They didn't believe literal interpretation
of scripture could be reconciled with scientific reality, but there it
You would have to view the complete thing to understand it all. Be advised that no one that has seen the presentation has been able to find any (scriptural) error, including the "Doctors of the Law", the Sanhedrin. It is your responsibly to educate your students, and not to brainwash them with the ideology of Atheism. Without offering a balanced viewpoint, you are favoring one over the other, and unfortunately, you are favoring that which is not true.
I conduct a six
hour class for biology and geology science teachers, to assist them in
properly conveying to the students what Genesis chapter one is teaching
mankind. The sudden "jumps" in the 600+
million year fossil record are explained,
and the 4 billion year geologic strata is addressed.
me, using the contact information provided below. | <urn:uuid:8f194e98-f6d1-4769-9f69-698c0190bbe7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.opednews.com/populum/diarypage.php/The-Truth-of-Genesis-An-A-by-Herman-Cummings-121224-215.html?f=The-Truth-of-Genesis-An-A-by-Herman-Cummings-121224-215.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970486 | 706 | 1.851563 | 2 |
Online Dutch Courses at UCL
- CLIE Home
- Online Dutch Home
- Online cursussen Nederlands
- Lagelands Beginners Dutch Language Courses 1 and 2
- Hogelands Intermediate Dutch Language Courses
- Opperlands Advanced Dutch Language Course
- Early Modern Dutch Reading Skills Short Course
- Business Dutch Reading Skills Short Course
- Fees and Course Information
- Registration form
- Student Testimonials
“The online course in Early Modern Dutch was extremely helpful for my research. Although it is taught online, it is very well-structured, with clearly defined exercises and drills. Rather than a straight translation course, the exercises are designed to draw the reader's attention to specific problems of translation and ambiguities in the assigned text. This is very helpful for anyone working directly with early modern sources. The instructor's vast scholarly knowledge and patience were great assets. I highly recommend it.”
A professor from New York University (US)
"I was a student on the intermediate Dutch course, Hogelands. An Vanderhelst was my Dutch language tutor, and all lessons were conducted via Skype. Even though I was a novice when it came to online learning, An talked me through the technical problems and delivered the material clearly and in a manner which ensured that my skills in the Dutch language increased enormously. An taught structured lessons, where the aim was made clear from the beginning, and she drew on the supporting online material. It was a pleasure to be a member of her course."
Michael Clifford (translator, Germany)
"I took Dutch beginners classes previously, but had trouble getting past the basics. The structure of An's class really helped me get a grip on the grammar, then broaden my vocabulary and understanding with exercises on interesting topics. I would highly recommend these courses for anyone wanting to learn Dutch."
Kathleen Nafus (engineer, Belgium)
“My course through the UCL Language Centre was an excellent experience. I got all the flexibility one usually receives from an online course but more importantly got a lot of one on one time with the course instructor. She was great with accommodating my busy schedule and always had insightful comments to help me improve my translations. If I ever need more acquire or improve my language skills in the future I know where to look.”
Bob Tiegs (PhD student, US)
"The intermediate Dutch course Hogelands was first class with lots of interesting texts and exercises, always challenging and never boring. An was a great teacher - motivating and encouraging us in a fun way. As a professional linguist, I found the course especially good as it went at a fast pace and enabled me to make real progress."
Wendy Wingham (linguist, UK)
"I have a full time job and my study is purely vocational and so the computer based courses provided by UCL have been absolutely brilliant for my situation. I can study or complete the work at a time to suit me and yet I have had the full back up of the University and staff to assist me with my learning. The course material and level of help has provided me with everything that I required and I would have no hesitation in recommending one of these courses of study. Distance learning over the internet is straight forward and provides a high quality academic package at an affordable cost."
Graham Miles (financial advisor, UK)
Page last modified on 17 may 13 14:15 by James A Green | <urn:uuid:c49ef67b-4cde-4e40-89a3-8375f330c8d6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ucl.ac.uk/clie/online_dutch/testimonials | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967215 | 711 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Archive for the ‘Austrian Black and Tan Hound’ Category
Austrian Black and Tan Hound Puppies
The Austrian Black and Tan Hound is a dog breed native to Austria. It is widely believed to be the true descendent of the original scent hound, despite a lack of historical evidence to support the belief. This large-sized hound was employed for the purpose of tracking wounded game, mostly hares, in higher altitudes. These dogs are associated with many positive traits, such as hard-work, affection and obedience. It is important to introduce these dogs to socialization at an early age, for the development of these characteristics, as also to avoid their tendency to chase smaller pets. Read on to know more about this dog breed.
Austrian Black and Tan Hound History:
The Australian Black and Tan Hound is also known as the Brandlbracke. There are no concrete records regarding the roots and origin of this dog breed. However, it is considered that the hunting hound has descended from the Keltenbracke or the ancient Celtic Hounds. Going by this belief, this Austrian dog has a rather rich history. The ancestors of Brandlbracke found favor among the warriors as war dogs. They were also the favorite dogs of royalty.
Austrian Black and Tan Hound Appearance:
Austrian Black and Tan Hound is a medium sized dog, identified with a broad skull, a strong straight muzzle and a black nose. The lips are tight-fitting and well pigmented. It has strong jaws and teeth, meeting in a scissor bite. These dogs have clear dark brown eyes, which don’t show any red in the corners. Their ears are medium in length and broad, with round tips. The ears are set high and the flaps hang flatly on the sides of the head. These hounds have a supple body, which imparts them an agile and strong appearance. They have a deep and broad chest and a long tail, which tapers gradually, slightly bending at the tip. The legs are straight, well-developed and strong.
The Austrian Black and Tan Hound is a breed of dog originating in Austria. It is thought to be the true descendant of the original Celtic Hound, although there is no known history of the Austrian Black and Tan Hound until after the middle of the 19th century. This large sized hound was used for tracking wounded game, most commonly hare, in high altitudes.
Black Austrian Black and Tan Hound:
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New Black Austrian Black and Tan Hound:
I have been showing Afghan Hounds for over 20 years, breeding only the last three years. I breed on old Scandinavian bloodlines. My lines are from the Swedish El Khyrias kennel began in the 1960′s and later passed on to the Boxadan Kennel in Denmark where they have bred and shown for nearly 30 years also. Nowadays, Boxadan (Lotte and Ulf Jorgensen) are not breeding very much and have concentrated on judging and serving as kennel club officers. There are only a handful of breeders who now have these wonderful bloodlines. They are healthy lines, with wonderful movement, structure and temperament. They have been line-bred for several generations with a few outcrosses. These lines are still top quality and winning at shows and making great pets. | <urn:uuid:015fd928-df38-4e88-8fe8-7947f193b5df> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://puppi-es.com/austrian-black-and-tan-hound | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956656 | 799 | 2.609375 | 3 |
NBC 2011: James And The Giant Speech
Year in and year out, the Nordic Barista Cup hosts invaluable talks by the best and brightest minds in coffee. Here’s a recap and analysis of one of our favorite talks from NBC 2011, presented by James Hoffmann and featuring questions and commentary from Kyle Glanville, Tim Wendelboe and David Latourelle. We think what James and the gang had to say may very well set the tone for the industry in the coming years. And since James is currently on an internet sabbatical, he will never see our decision to present these SprudgeNotes accompanied by a brand new photo gallery installation, entitled “James Hoffmann: Great Women In History”.
James starts off by giving some objectives for his presentation: while the topic is “reinventing espresso,” this is something of a misnomer to James. His goal is to give some context for the development of espresso as we know it today, and discuss the problems we must confront in order to move forward. “We would all agree that we would like espresso to move on and evolve and we’d like to see progress and we are by and large dissatisfied with it.” We’ve inherited a lot of baggage about espresso without really understanding why.
The beginning of espresso as we know it can perhaps be credited to Luigi Bezzera, who in 1901 introduced his steam powered machine. The reason for its success? It was fast. “Caffe Express”. But this isn’t espresso as we know it: this is a big cup of filtered coffee, made very quickly.
The first reinvention was brought about by Achille Gaggia, who, in 1948, introduced his first lever machine. Rather than pressurizing the brew water with steam, Gaggia’s machine forced water through a cake of coffee with a spring-loaded piston. This was the first appearance of crema, and the machine itself read “natural coffee cream,” as early customers were perplexed by the “scum” on top of their coffee.
In addition to the technological innovations in espresso, James examined the cultural aspect of the espresso tradition and what we’ve inherited as a coffee drinking culture.
The traditional espresso blend. No one can pin down the exact time that this “tradition” came to be, but espresso really took off during a time of economic weakness, in poor post-war Italy. Italians had to buy cheap coffee. Presently, the traditional espresso blend is thought of in marketing terms, qualities endowed by cheap ingredients. Low acid (low elevation), heavy body (cheap robusta). Espresso as a process evolved to make these cheap, poor quality ingredients palatable, and the technological developments followed suit. When we think of an Italian espresso blend, it’s codification for cheap ingredients.
The Starbucks. The proliferation of Starbucks provided a retail revolution for espresso, and introduced the idea of espresso as being special. Romance and mystique allured customers while the bottom dollar motivated coffee companies. Retailers realized they could charge more for this exotic European import while using less coffee than drip. This pioneered the model of selling coffee. “It’s just like buying a Big Mac.”
The most recent reinvention of espresso, and the one that causes the most problems: The David Schomer. To James, Schomer and the landmark work done at Vivace Espresso represents the technical reinvention of espresso. We began to notice that minute changes in process yield huge differences in cup quality. “This kind of kicked off for me the fetishization of espresso and also created a rampant breeding ground of strange theories propped up by half-remembered science.”
James is nervous about the confusion between innovation and novelty. Novelty is easy, because it’s just new, and it’s satisfying, but innovation is fixing a specific problem. Ask people what they want to do with espresso: “I want more complexity, I want it to be sweeter.” It’s easy: BUY BETTER COFFEE. An espresso blend will always taste like that blend. Investing huge expectations in technology will be disappointing. We aren’t going to create a magical manifestation of sugar with preparation. There is a potential for coffee to be better. For example: the coffee industry “lost our minds” when Esmerelda Special came out, it changed minds about what coffee was capable of.
The point of all this is: in moving forward, we have to decide what we’re taking with us, and what we’re leaving behind. If we have a specific goal, it’s much easier to get there. James’s goal is for espresso to be easier. We just aren’t very good at it yet, or at least not as good as we should be. Let’s look at the process and figure out how we can make it better.
It’s been unacceptable that for so long we’ve tolerated inconsistent baskets, and recent advancements have been a big step forward. Water is still misunderstood and needs to be figured out. But the biggest villains are undoubtably our grinders. If you went back in time to 1951 and picked a grinder up off the shelf, it would be largely the same as one today. They haven’t changed, and that’s one of the reasons espresso has become so difficult.
The Q&A session is where it gets really juicy.
David Latourell: Does making espresso easier fit all models of business?:
James says that we constantly look to the restaurant industry, and there are many models of business. Many coffee shops are different, but there needs to be a greater differentiation on how we present coffee.
What do you want from grinders?
“In an ideal world I would like a grinder that produced a weighed portion of coffee… I would like a grinder that retains as little heat as possible, that ideally retains no coffee in the burrs… I would like burr chambers to not expand when they got hot, causing our grinds to change when we get busy… Give me a nice portion of coffee consistently, and don’t change what you do just because I asked more often.”
Tim Wendelboe: Is there room for updosed, underextracted shots to be accepted, if they are tasty?
Some of us will prioritize things like texture and mouthfeel for cleanliness and clarity. There are some hard limits to extraction, and some of us have more tolerance for poorly prepared food. We have broader definitions of espresso, and there are ways to do different things better; there is a way to do ristretto better if that’s what you want. “I don’t think there’s an ideal… did I dodge that or, answer it?”
As coffee production improves, is there room for robusta?
“I think devoting energies into making great coffees incredible would be unwisely spent on making cheap coffees palatable. So for us and our section of the industry, I don’t think robusta has the genetics to ever really offer us up something that will excite us.”
Kyle Glanville: It’s the year 2030, and we have re-imagined what our equipment can do… what do you dream of in this setup? You’ve got the stage, you have the opportunity to make demands.
“I’m not afraid of more automation.”
We are really excited by what James says here in his presentation, and even more excited that this can be shared with the entire industry. James was very wise to give a historical context of espresso, because when he gets down to what we need to do, he has already more than made the case that we have to decide what to dispense with. While we are excited about the possibilities pressure profiling has to offer, we are still a little skeptical; is this going to be a technology that people use to ameliorate poor coffee (“OOH, this profile, really cleans up this blend!”), or will it be used as a technology to best express a coffee’s inherent quality? Clearly, there is a long way to go on both sides of the cafe/manufacture equation, but kudos to James for presenting the problems we face in a characteristically clear and cogent fashion.
“Let’s get to work.” Watch the video for yourself! | <urn:uuid:3231d423-f748-4a82-a54c-2aadbc5e35a0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sprudge.com/nbc-2011-james-and-the-giant-speech.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960991 | 1,802 | 1.601563 | 2 |
You may remember that recently both Barack Obama and John Key
came out personally in favour of gay marriage, writes Emelia
Mixter of Logan Park High School.
Whatever their reasons, it certainly brought the issue back
to the table and it is causing New Zealand to review where it
really stands on the issue.
Do we keep our current position with Civil Unions, or do we
go forward into what could be considered equality and
legalise gay marriage?
Currently, I am working on a short documentary, interviewing
people whose lives have been affected since the Civil Union
Act of 2005.
And it's incredible just how broad the spectrum of opinion is
on the old legislation.
For some, a Civil Union is a way to get married without any
For others, it's simply a marriage with a few legal barriers.
But some would say that it is a case of separate but not
equal; a way for us to ignore the issues at hand and keep
everybody relatively happy.
In the past few weeks I have learned that it is all of these
The major issue surrounding Civil Partnerships is the
question of adoption.
Adoption authorities do not recognise civil partners as an
actual couple and frankly it's hard enough as it is to adopt
as a married couple, let alone individually.
However now thanks to the bipartisan support of the Green
party's Kevin Hague and National's Nikki Kaye there is a
debate to change that. This is a great thing; a great step
Except now there is very little distinction between what
constitutes a marriage and what constitutes a Civil Union.
So why can't we just allow any two people who want to, to get
Even since the Civil Union Act of 2005, people's attitudes
have changed spectacularly.
Maybe we're not perfect, but New Zealand is becoming a much
more accepting society than it was even ten or twenty years
So what is stopping us from going even further on the issue
of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) rights?
I talked to a Civil Union celebrant who said, "I think that
Civil Unions are a case of separate but not equal. I mean if
there is a couple who love each other and want to be
together, why can't they just get married? I mean do we
really have to have a whole separate category of Civil
Sure, as a political move, legalizing gay marriage is risky
and not everyone is going to agree with it.
But not everyone agreed with the Civil Union Act either;
flashback to images of Destiny Church rallies. However now,
for both straight and gay couples, it's become a very normal
way of living.
When I asked a woman who had undergone a Civil Union with her
partner in 2010, what she thought of the controversy and
debate, she said, "Well there are always going to be people
who will find something to hate; that doesn't fit in with
their world view, you know, down with Fruit Juice! But gay
marriage and Civil Unions are really only part of a very long
list that they have..."
Do you remember how we look back at times like the 1950s,
where American people were protesting integration in public
schools, and how over 60% of white Americans were "willing to
support segregated schools?"
Now we think of those people as ignorant, right?
Maybe in 50 years, our own grandchildren will see the issue
of gay marriage in a similar light.
While my analogy may seem a little unfair to those people out
there who don't support gay marriage, I think it's important
for people to take a good look at their own political values.
To politicians who are on the fence over this issue, I say
you can either be remembered for what you stood up for, or
forgotten for what you didn't do. | <urn:uuid:4ff6e8c4-3bbe-48bb-b96b-08401a0f7f60> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.odt.co.nz/news/schools-news/212814/separate-or-equal | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971751 | 817 | 1.960938 | 2 |
A longitudinal study of the impact of the metabolic syndrome on cognition and brain volumes in normal aging
Concurrent with the increased prevalence of obesity in the United States, a significant portion of older adults are increasingly at risk for developing metabolic dysfunction including insulin resistance or impaired glucose tolerance, dyslipidemia, hypertension, and abdominal obesity. These metabolic abnormalities tend to cluster together, forming what is known as metabolic syndrome. Metabolic syndrome is widely considered a "pre-disease" state associated with development of cerebrovascular disease and dementia. Several studies have proposed links between components of metabolic syndrome and neurocognitive and brain dysfunction; however, few studies have examined the additive effect of the cluster of risk factors that comprise the syndrome. This study used the National Cholesterol Education Program criteria, modified to be inclusive of insulin resistance, in a baseline and follow-up design to compare a group of 58 middle-aged and elderly adults with metabolic syndrome to 64 age-matched controls on cognitive performance. Additionally, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain volumes were derived on a subset of participants using Voxel-based Morphometry and Automated Anatomical Labeling techniques. Metabolic syndrome was associated with significantly reduced performance on standard neuropsychological tests of declarative memory, and exhibited strong effects for reduced performance on tests of attention and working memory. Metabolic syndrome was also significantly associated with reduced total brain volume, reduced gray matter volume, and reduced volumes in areas in regions of the temporal and prefrontal regions that have established associations with declarative memory. Robust longitudinal effects associated with metabolic syndrome were seen in declarative memory, attention and working memory, and total brain volume. Unlike any published study to date, the results provide novel evidence that the metabolic syndrome is associated with smaller total brain volume and total gray matter volume. Further, participants with metabolic syndrome performed worse on declarative memory tests and had smaller volumes in prefrontal and temporal lobe areas associated with declarative memory. ^
Biology, Neuroscience|Psychology, Psychobiology|Psychology, Cognitive
"A longitudinal study of the impact of the metabolic syndrome on cognition and brain volumes in normal aging"
(January 1, 2008).
ETD Collection for Fordham University. | <urn:uuid:f85fbfdd-78a1-435e-9e65-6b3a544ae258> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://fordham.bepress.com/dissertations/AAI3353770/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933222 | 449 | 2.234375 | 2 |
Allowing Your Business Credit Cards Get Personal
It is the practice of many small business owners to separate their work related expenses from personal finances by using business credit cards. This is a useful process in maintaining records for accounting and tax purposes. However, these good intentions do not guarantee that your credit cards follow the same route!
Providers of business credit cards request a Social Security number which enables them to research a credit record before approving issue of a card. Wells Fargo is one provider who admits that they consider personal and business accounts during the application process. The reason given is that a lean business record could be uplifted by a solid personal profile. A business loan is usually required to be supported by a personal guarantee.
In many instances, business credit cards terms include the condition that any credit applied to the business, ultimately becomes a personal responsibility. The “Ink card” from Chase, requires that the applicant checks a box at the top of an application form, showing that the applicant agrees they will be responsible for the payment of any outstanding balance on the account.
In certain circumstances, these conditions are reasonable, for example; small businesses applying for business credit cards without a firm credit foundation, or history. However, a personal commitment is two sided, especially if a business should fail. The card provider would be entitled to claim from personal assets, even if bankruptcy was declared. It is usual, for personal assets to be protected from business bankruptcy.
Although some business owners may consider it unwarranted having business credit cards; establishing accounts in the name of a business, is an important step in separating business and personal credit. This could provide a benefit with improved accountancy tools, not available on a personal basis. | <urn:uuid:4f5655d4-350b-4a3a-8a8d-9bfa32668e95> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://inaudit.com/featured/allowing-your-business-credit-cards-get-personal-22261/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963598 | 345 | 1.523438 | 2 |
I grew up in England with people that rarely told you much about themselves. It simply wasn’t done. Some of those same people are now friends on Facebook and are people I follow on Twitter. I’m finding that I know more about them now than I did when we lived in the same city. Are Facebook and Twitter therefore becoming a measure of the degree to which you know someone? Should you rank your personal network based on those that you interact with via these social networks more highly than those you simply meet from time to time? Of course some people use Facebook and Twitter more than others, just as some people blog more frequently than others (yes I know what you’re thinking). The active participants are of course the ones you will know most about, which leads me to my next thought: I can see someone like Malcolm Gladwell doing a book on social exposure, the degree to which we expose our personality and thoughts online and how that defines us. Are ‘mavens’ in Gladwell’s Tipping Point, likely to have large social networks and to divulge large amounts about their likes and dislikes on Twitter and Facebook? Are his ‘connectors’ the ones that simply drive the creation of social networks? I can see technology that analyzes people’s Facebook pages and then slots them in to Galdwell’s character types. Would that be useful for PR people? Maybe. | <urn:uuid:4438714f-4489-4639-8f59-f24fe9fc1e8b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://timdyson.wordpress.com/category/flickr/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975695 | 294 | 1.554688 | 2 |
WASHINGTON — US lawmakers threatened to cut aid to Pakistan unless it freed an American detained in a shadowy murder case, as Washington intensified pressure on its uneasy war partner.
The United States has already warned that high-level dialogue would be at risk unless Pakistan releases US diplomatic official Raymond Davis, who said he was acting in self-defense when he shot dead two men in Lahore last month.
Three members of the House of Representatives drove home the point on a visit to Pakistan, telling Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani starkly that the US Congress was working on its budget and looking for areas to cut.
"It is imperative that they release him and there is certainly the possibility that there would be repercussions if they don't," Representative John Kline, a Republican from Minnesota, told reporters on his return.
"It's entirely possible that a member of Congress would come down and offer an amendment to cut funding for Pakistan based on their detaining Mr. Davis," Kline said.
"My guess is there would be a lot of support for such an amendment, frankly, because of the outrage of detaining an American with diplomatic immunity," he said.
Asked if aid would be at risk if Davis stayed behind bars, Representative Buck McKeon, who heads the House Armed Services Committee, said: "It very well could be."
Davis was arrested on January 27 after shooting the two Pakistanis, saying he feared they would rob him. A third Pakistani was run over and killed by a US consulate vehicle that had come to assist Davis, according to police.
The incident has set off protests in Pakistan, where anti-US sentiment already runs high. Shumaila Faheem, the wife of one of the two men who was gunned down, committed suicide on Sunday by taking poison pills.
Many observers have questioned whether Davis was an ordinary diplomat. Pakistani police said he traveled around with loaded weapons and a GPS navigation system.
"This case exposes a kind of dark side of this relationship between Pakistan and the US, which is what feeds a lot of the suspicions," said Shuja Nawaz, director of the South Asia Center at the Atlantic Council think tank.
Nawaz was not surprised by US officials' adamance on freeing the American, saying: "There are so many layers to this story, on who he was and what he was doing, so clearly they don't want him out of their sight."
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declined to meet Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi at a weekend conference in Munich, in a show of displeasure over the case, foreign diplomats in Washington said.
US officials have told Pakistan that the Davis case "has to be resolved before we can move to a higher level of discussion," one diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Officials stressed that the United States has not suspended contact with Pakistan, a key partner in the US war effort in Afghanistan and international campaign against extremism.
"We continue to engage the Pakistani government at the highest levels to seek resolution of this case," State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told AFP.
"We continue to stress that the US diplomat has diplomatic immunity and should be released," he said.
Clinton still met in Munich with General Ashfaq Kayani, the head of Pakistan's powerful army, and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari held talks on Monday with the US ambassador, Cameron Munter.
President Barack Obama's administration has put a focus on combating anti-Americanism and reducing the allure of extremists in Pakistan.
Congress in 2009 approved a five-year, $7.5-billion aid package meant to build schools, infrastructure and democratic institutions as Pakistan ended a decade of military rule.
In October, the Obama administration proposed another $2 billion in assistance for Pakistan's military, often seen as the key power center in the country.
Nawaz, the analyst, said the administration would need "powerful gestures," including compensation for the families of the shooting victims, to help rebuild public sentiment in Pakistan.
But Nawaz said Pakistan's leaders also had themselves to blame for letting the case drag on, saying it had become a "political kickball" between the central government in Islamabad and the Punjab provincial authorities.
Copyright © 2013 AFP. All rights reserved. More » | <urn:uuid:c802793f-4205-4d00-932a-522d2742a7f5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5j5WqbJDP6e2zAGFLr8VbxbmGtAMA?docId=CNG.e093538b06af08f7cd61c9c19c18d0fc.2d1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977597 | 875 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Hello, I'm new to the forum. I have a 3-4 year old male betta living in a heated 5 gallon aquarium, gravel, filter, treated tap water, silk plants, and an acrylic pillar decoration that I sanded sharper edges off of. He gets fed the betta pellets about every other day and occasionally freeze dried shrimp. He's fairly large (3-4 inches) and highly active and spunky (he flares back if you put your hands on the side of your face as if you're flaring at him). He used to live in a 1/4 gallon bowl with a plastic plant for a year, then he upgraded to a 1 gallon bowl for a little over a year, now he's in his 5 gallon bachelor pad. I figure I'm doing something right if he's survived this long *knock on wood* seeing as I could never keep fish for more than a month prior to him.. Perhaps he's just a fighter!
Anyway, my question is.. I have about 3 medium sized silk plants and 4 small silk front plants in this aquarium with 2 of the larger ones in front of the filter to break up the flow.. but I've thought about getting a live plant. Would it be too much to put in a piece of java fern? I'm concerned about the java fern from a pet store possibly carrying contaminants, snail babies, etc.. What are the odds of this? Or would a betta bulb work? I don't have a problem with algae either, he gets more of the morning sun/ambient sun than direct light.
I'll post pics of his set-up in a bit, if I can get some better ones.
Edit: Here's a link to his aquarium set-up | <urn:uuid:24727f3e-fe3a-4e6f-893c-054a0783c7b2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bettafish.com/showthread.php?p=334682 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965421 | 358 | 1.703125 | 2 |
"This web page was produced as an assignment for an undergraduate course at Davidson College"
MIF2 and YKL091C
Yeast Gene Review:
MIF2 Encoded Protein:
YKL091C Encoded Protein:
Yeast Gene Review:
In the previous webpage assignment, the transcriptome of the yeast genome was analyzed using microarrays in order to determine the expression patterns of the genes MIF2 and YKL091C under varying conditions. The purpose of this webpage, however, is to analyze the proteome of the yeast S. cerevisiae in order to gain greater insight into the functions of the proteins encoded by these two genes. As stated in the previous assignments, the annotated MIF2 gene encodes for a protein essential to the mitotic process in S. cerevisiae. Specifically, MIF2 encodes for a centromeric protein involved in mitotic spindle structural assembly. The unannotated YKL091C gene is hypothesized to encode for a PITP, phosphatidylinositol transfer-like protein, involved in modulation of signal transduction and cross-membrane transportation.
MIF2 Encoded Protein:
Figure 1: Screen capture of the graph generated by DIP for MIF2, which depicts the protein-protein interactions for the MIF2 encoded protein. The MIF2 protein is signified by the red node in the top left corner of the figure. MIF2 is shown to interact only with the central node, which represents the MCM21 protein. According to the Saccharomyces Genome Database, MCM21 is involved in chromsome segregation, and it also localizes in the condensed nuclear chromosome kinetechore.
The DIP database is useful for determining protein-protein interactions. It presents the interaction results as a graph in which the desired protein is signified by a red node, and the nodes connected to it signify the proteins that are suspected to interact with it. The greater the evidence to support the interaction between the two proteins, the thicker the line between the two nodes. By clicking on the node, one can ascertain the identity of the protein and other related information.
Benno Figure 1
Figure 2: Screen capture depicting the position of MIF2 protein within the Benno Schwikowski figure, which depicts 2,709 interactions among 2,039 proteins. According to this Benno figure, the MIF2 protein interacts with the protein encoded by MCM21. The interaction displayed in this figure corroborates the information supplied by the DIP databse, which also indicates an interaction between MIF2 and MCM21. The blue line connecting the two signifies identical locations, but differences in function. Both the MIF2 and MCM21 proteins localize at the chromosome kinetochore.
Benno Figure 1
Benno Schwikowski was a computer scientist, who collaborated with Stan Fields and Peter Uetz, in order to generate an interaction map for yeast protein. After compiling data concerning the 2,709 interactions among 2,309 proteins, Benno was able to generate complex diagrams of these interactions, of which a small portion is depicted in the figure above.
Figure 3: Screen capture of the MIPS list of 8 interactions for MIF2 of which three are actual protein-protein interactions that are signified by the interaction label ">physical<". The proteins with which the MIF2 protein interacted included CBF1, MCM21 and CHL4. CBF1 is a centromere binding factor that is involved in chromosomal segregation. MCM21 is an outer kinetechore protein that plays a role in chromosomal segregation. Not surprisingly, CHL4 is also a outer kinetechore protein that is involved in chromosomal segregation.
MIF2 PPI and Complex Viewer
MIPS is yet another database, which provides information regarding the genome of the yeast S. cerevisiae. This database also supplies information regarding the interactions of the proteins encoded by the genes. The protein interaction information for a gene is listed under the section entitled: PPI and Complex Viewer.
The prowl search only served to confirm that the MIF2 protein is a centromeric protein that does in fact function in chromosome segregation and in the maintainence of spindle integrity. One of the Prowl hits resulting from my MIF2 search was my unannotated gene YKL091C.
Figure 5: Screen capture of the genetic interactions of MIF2 with CBF1, CBF2, and CEP3. CEP3 is a component of the CBF3 kinetechore protein complex. CBF1 is centromere binding factor that is involved in mitotic segregation. CBF2 is another centromere binding factor, which is also a component of the CBF3 kinetechore protein complex.
The yeast-two hybrid method involves using the protein of interest as "bait" in order to determine the "prey" proteins, which physically interact with it.
MIF2 Y2H Page
Experiment 1 design
From the information uncovered up to this point concerning MIF2, it is clear that the protein for which MIF2 encodes is a centromeric protein. The protein interaction information supplied by the various databases cited above also indicates that the MIF2 protein solely interacts with proteins localized in the chromosomal kinetchore and involved in chromosomal segregation. In order to confirm MIF2's role in the mitotic process, a knockout could be generated in which the MIF2 gene has been deleted. This would undoubtedly result in an inviable phenotype because the cells would be prevented from completion of mitosis due to the lack of MIF2 protein. This outcome would result because the MIF2 protein is essential to the maintainence of the structural integrity of the spindle assembly prior to the anaphase spindle elongation step of the mitotic cycle. Another potential experiment might employ the yeast-two hybrid method, in which the bait protein (MIF2) is placed within the single MIF2 mutant cell during three stages in the mitotic cycle: prophase, metaphase and anaphase. This series of experiments would reveal that the MIF2 protein experiences no protein-protein interaction during metaphase or prophase; however, experiences an abundance of interaction during the initiation of anaphase during which it is essential to spindle integrity.
YKL091C Encoded Protein
The DIP database did not have a operational protein interaction graph for the YKL091C protein.
Benno Figure 1
The protein encoded by the unannotated YKL091C gene was not one of the 2,039 proteins included in the diagram generated by Benno Schwikowski.
Benno Figure 1
Figure 5: Screen capture of the MIPS list of protein-protein interactions in which YKL091C is known to be involved. The MIPS database had no information with regard to protein interactions involving the protein encoded by YKL091C.
YKL091C PPI and Complex Viewer
The prowl search did not yield any new information regarding the unannotated gene YKL091C or its corresponding protein.
Figure 6: Screen capture of the known interactions of YKL091C. The Y2H database provided no information regarding known or even projected interactions for the YKL091C protein.
YKL091C Y2H Page
Experiment 2 Design
One potential method for discerning the function of the YKL091C gene and the function of the protein for which it encodes is with a good old fashioned knock-out. By knocking out a gene either by deletion or severe disruption, one can determine its function due to the developmental complications that arise for lack of the gene and its corresponding protein. I would use an experimental method similar to that outlined in the Giaever paper. The researchers involved in this experiment generated gene-deleted mutants in order to gain greater insight into the functions of both known and unknown genes in the yeast S. cerevisiae (2002). Groups of yeast cells with the YKL091C gene deletion could also be subjected to a number of variable conditions, and the results could then be contrasted with groups of yeast cells reared in the same conditions without the deletion. Since I hypothesized that YKL091C is an aerobic gene that encodes for a PITP, I would want to contrast the performance of a normal group of yeast cells with that of gene-deleted mutant cells in a high oxygen environment. Because the mutant lacks the YKL091C, I would expect the mutants to exhibit slower growth rates resulting from diminished efficiency in the areas of signal transduction and membrane trafficking. However, I would also conjecture that the phenotype would still be viable. In order to gain greater insight into potential protein-protein interaction involving the YKL091C, I would also propose the execution of an experiment that utilizes the yeast-two hybrid method in which the YKL091C protein is used as the bait. When the bait is fused with the DNA binding domain and placed within a cell, any interaction with a prey protein will result in the transcription of a reporter gene. This experiment would be a good first step towards a better understanding of protein-protein interaction involving YKL091C.
Biology Main Page
Campbell, AM and Heyer, LJ. Genomics, Proteomics, & Bioinformatics 2003. San Francisco, CA: Pearson Education, Inc.
Database of Interacting Proteins (DIP), 2001, <http://dip.doe-mbi.ucla.edu/dip/Search.cgi?SM=3>
MIPS Comprehensive Yeast Genome Database (CYGD), 2002, <http://mips.gsf.de/genre/proj/yeast/index.jsp>
Saccharomyces Genome Database (SGD), 2002, <http://www.yeastgenome.org/>
Prowl, 2000, <http://188.8.131.52/prowl/proteininfo.html>
Yeast Interaction Database, 2002, <http://portal.curagen.com/extpc/com.curagen.portal.servlet.PortalYeastList?modeIn=List
"MIF2/YKL089W." Saccharomyces Genome Database. Last Update: 2003. <http://db.yeastgenome.org/cgi-bin/SGD/locus.pl?sgdid=S0001572>
"YKL091C." Saccharomyces Genome Database. Last Update: 2003. <http://db.yeastgenome.org/cgi-bin/SGD/locus.pl?locus=YKL091C>
Giaever G, et al. (2002) Functional profiling of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae genome. Nature 418(6896):387-91
Dan's Main Page
Biology Home Page
© Copyright 2003 Department of Biology, Davidson College, Davidson, NC 28035
Send comments, questions, and suggestions to: email@example.com | <urn:uuid:f01cff27-a04f-45b6-98cf-e3e02beffb1f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bio.davidson.edu/Courses/genomics/2003/cheuy/Protein.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.912753 | 2,375 | 2.140625 | 2 |
Fri March 8, 2013
One Woman In A Hundred: Harpist Edna Phillips And The Philadelphia Orchestra
A new biography reveals what it was like to be the first woman to enter the all-male sanctum of The Philadelphia Orchestra in 1930. WRTI’s Meridee Duddleston discovered the powerful combination of talent and fear.
On September 14, 1930, the headline of the Philadelphia Public Ledger read: "Solo Harpist to Be First Girl in Philadelphia Orchestra." A young Edna Phillips entered the single-sex fortress of The Philadelphia Orchestra in 1930 - a year after pianist Sergei Rachmaninoff called it "the finest orchestra the world has ever heard." She’d played the harp for only five years when she was hired as the first female member and principal harpist. Her "musicalité" may have been obvious to the pioneering Leopold Stokowski, but was she ready? What was it like to be the only woman among men at a time when gender equality and workplace mores were far different from what they are today?
Author Mary Sue Welsh worked with the observant, warm, and funny Phillips on her story during Phillips’ lifetime, completing it after the first harpist’s death in 2003. True to Phillips’ desire, it’s as much about the challenges and triumphs of her own life, as about how the Orchestra grew and responded to its conductors - particularly Leopold Stokowski. | <urn:uuid:a3e60afe-8bba-45e7-8c73-037398bc402b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wrti.org/post/one-woman-hundred-harpist-edna-phillips-and-philadelphia-orchestra | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951625 | 311 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Sitting SATs out
Kari Anson explains how, with the agreement of her school, she used her opposition to SATs to devise cross-curricular activities for her Year 5 class.
A stimulating starter for a unit of work on SATs involves playing a recording of excerpts from theBBC Panorama programme ‘Tested to Destruction’ (see resources).
The creatures that children on the programme drew when asked to describe their feelings about SATs can be used as a starting point to discuss with the class their own feelings. For example the children in ‘Tested to Destruction’ describe knots in their stomach, feelings of nausea, pressure, discontent at a lack of a balanced curriculum and an inability to sleep. This exercise can provide a plethora of emotive language, giving rise to wonderful PSHE links.
My next step was to introduce my class to the nature of debate, introducing the terms ‘chair’, ‘motion’, ‘proposer’ and ‘seconder’. The class was then divided into two, each half responsible for researching the arguments to support or reject the motion ‘Key Stage 2 SATs should be scrapped’. A chair, as well as proposers and seconders for both sides of the argument, were chosen well in advance of the final debate.
As part of the research process, the children accessed ICT facilities to conduct research in order to strengthen their position. I encouraged them to find evidence to back up their main arguments.
With the agreement of my Head Teacher, the final debate took place in front of an invited audience of parents, who had the opportunity to vote on the motion together with the class.
On the day of the debate, invited guests entered the ‘floor’ receiving both a red and green voting card. The chair opened the debate by inviting the main speaker to propose the motion, providing just one or two key points to justify the motion.
In my experience, arguments such as SATs encourage a narrowing of the curriculum, place undue pressure on children and are an unfair assessment of a whole Key Stage’s progress have been popular on the anti-SATs side. The need to maintain standards, keep parents informed about their child’s progress and prepare pupils for taking exams later in life are frequently used as counter-arguments.
We adhered to the traditional format of debating, climaxing in the chair asking the floor: “All those in favour of the motion ‘Key Stage 2 SATs should be scrapped’ raise your green cards.” The chair then made a quick visual assessment of numbers. The chair then asked: “All those against the motion ‘Key Stage 2 SATs should be scrapped’ raise your red cards,” and carried out another count. Based on the result, the chair then announced whether the motion was carried or not carried.
In the parental vote at my school, the motion ‘Key Stage 2 SATs should be
CONTINUES ON PAGE 13
Clips from BBC Panorama ‘Tested to Destruction’
NUT materials on assessment reform www.teachers.org.uk/assessment
‘SATs – Stress Activating Time Snatchers, or Sensible Academic Tests of Success?’ Five Scolastic contributors have their say http://education.scholastic.co.uk/
National Strategy site linked to Year 6 non-fiction unit 3 – argument
node/19369?uc = force_uj
National Strategy site linked to Year 5 non-fiction unit 3 – persuasive writing http://nationalstrategies. standards.dcsf.gov.uk/node/19956
British Debate’s primary school programme: Discover Your Voice www.britishdebate.com/schools/
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| Page 16 | <urn:uuid:4c04f2b3-37a0-4e74-af5c-da847b166d28> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://content.yudu.com/A1p44d/T2TPrimary2010/resources/12.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.921349 | 852 | 3.296875 | 3 |
When they say it's not the money...
If you want to see what motivates a doctor to circumcise perfectly healthy baby boys ... just look in his driveway.
"I have some good friends who are obstetricians outside the military, and they look at a foreskin and almost see a $125 price tag on it. Each one is that much money. Heck, if you do 10 a week, that's over $1,000 a week, and they don't take that much time."
- Dr.Thomas Wiswell
quoted in the Boston Globe
June 22, 1987
Infant circumcision in the US is largely covered by health insurance. It declined rapidly in the UK after the National Health Service was set up in 1947, and doctors delivering babies were no longer able to charge extra for doing it.
Medicaid funding of circumcision of the boys of poor parents is being withdrawn as states find the cost is an unnecessary burden:
September 1, 1982
August 1, 2000
August 1, 2002
October 1, 2002
December 1, 2002
January 1, 2003
July 1, 2003
July 1, 2003
February 3, 2004
before April, 2005
July 1, 2005
August 1, 2005
February 1, 2011
July 1, 2011
A study by Leibowitz et al. showed that the circumcision rate falls where it is not covered by Medicaid:
Predicted neonatal male circumcision rates as a function of Medicaid coverage of circumcision and the percentage of male newborns in hospital for whom Medicaid is their primary payer: Nationwide Inpatient Sample, 2004.
The International Coalition for Genital Integrity's
The International Coalition for Genital Integrity's Medicaid Project surveyed all US states in 1999, and was able to account for 181,292 circumcisions costing a total of $20,255,217. According to HCIA-Sachs, Medicaid funded a total of 310,403 circumcisions, implying a total cost to the US taxpayer approaching $35,000,000.
Intactivists commonly claim that greedy doctors promote infant circumcision for purely financial reasons. There is clear evidence for this. The same survey found that where Medicaid paid more than $US60, circumcision was nearly twice as likely as where it paid less than $US50.
No of births
So what is the real cost of circumcision? The AAP quotes an estimated total cost of $US150-270 million for the US annually. At 1.3 million circumcisions, that's only $125 - $225 each.That can only be a small fraction of the real cost.
Facility fees: The baby is usually already in a hospital, and the facility fees are not counted separately. In 1990-1, Mansfield et al. calculated that a baby and his mother spend an extra 0.26 of a day in hospital if he is circumcised. Generalizing the difference in hospital length of stay to the United States suggested an annual cost then of between $234 million and $527 million beyond charges for the procedure itself.
We can get another estimate of the cost from the fees for outpatient circumcision, in South Carolina $570, in Minnesota $288 - $800
Anaesthesia: Louisiana spent $121,695 on circumcision anaesthesia in 1999. (There were 10,763 circumcisions, but a significant proportion would have been committed without anaesthetic.) Other figures are unobtainable.
Another estimate of the total immediate cost is as much as $2000-2500 for every male born (around 50.1% of all births in the US), based on the multiple added costs for each delivery which ends in a circumcision adding up to around an extra $2000-2500. The extra charges were around $1000 in 1991.
But the real costs of circumcision are to the baby, and the boy and man he becomes:
But the financial incentive to circumcision is not only from the payments for the operation. The foreskin itself is valuable, not only to its owner, as these pages stress, but to whoever possesses it.
Back to the Intactivism index page.
Christopher J. Mansfield, William J. Hueston, Mary Rudy, "Neonatal circumcision: associated factors and length of hospital stay", Journal of Family Practice, Volume 41, Number 4: Page 370-376, October 1995. | <urn:uuid:b0ba8901-36c8-4a51-b12f-f8981fb1b260> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.circumstitions.com/%24%24%24.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94567 | 886 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Evaluating Your Anesthesia Services — How to Assess Your Anesthesia Team
In a webinar on May 8, Syed Ishaq, vice president of client development for Somnia Anesthesia; David Perlstein, MD, MBA, medical director at St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx (N.Y.); and Thomas Dean, chief administrative officer at San Juan Regional Medical Center in Farmington, N.M., discussed how to evaluate an anesthesia department's performance and the importance of doing so.
Mr. Ishaq began the webinar by explaining the importance of evaluating a hospital's anesthesia department. He explained that 70 percent of a hospital's revenue is tied to its operating room or other surgical services. As a result, the anesthesia group oversees one of the most critical departments in a hospital. While each facility, of course, has OR managers and other staff to manage the day-to-day operations of the department, Mr. Ishaq believes anesthesiologists play a major role in OR operations as they can greatly impact delays, cancelations and surgical quality.
He pointed to a recent study by researchers at Tulane University that uncovered delays and cancelations at the university's medical center cost nearly $1 million in 2009. With reduced reimbursements a rising concern for all hospitals, improving OR efficiency can have a huge impact. "Declining volume and revenue demands tighter efficiency," said Mr. Ishaq.
Because of the impact anesthesia departments can have, it is very important hospitals regularly evaluate their anesthesia group, said Mr. Ishaq. He recommended evaluating the groups in four main areas:
• Leadership: Is the group aligned with the hospital's mission and goals? Is there an anesthesia leader that serves as the "face" of the department? Are anesthesiologists involved in the hospital's overall strategy through committee involvement?
• Quality: Does the group measure quality and identify areas for improvement? Is it regularly collecting and tracking data? Is there a formal quality improvement program in place? Are there standard operating procedures based on evidence-based practices?
• Finance: What are the current revenue and expenses of the department? Is there an anesthesia subsidy paid? If so, why? What is the group's ability to bill and collect? What staffing model is used? Is it the most efficient?
• Clinical: Are the anesthesiologists running the OR clinically competent? Do they offer the newest types of services? Are they partnering effectively with OR management and nurses?
Mr. Ishaq then directed listeners to a new, first-of-its-kind app developed by Somnia Anesthesia to help hospital leaders evaluate their anesthesia services. To access the app, using your smart phone or tablet, click here.
He recommended leaders use this to guide the initial evaluation of their current services and use the information gained from it to develop objectives for improvement either by working with the current anesthesia provider or by selecting a new provider with capabilities in these four areas.
Next, Dr. Perlstein shared how St. Barnabas Hospital's evaluation of its anesthesia department led it to seek a new anesthesia group. Specifically, the previous anesthesia leadership was not aligned with the hospital, and quality was somewhat inconsistent. "We felt we really had no partnership [with the group]," he said. Efforts to improve did not meet desired objectives, so the hospital released a request for proposal for a new provider. The RFP included objective and subjective criteria upon which to evaluate potential new providers. "We looked for extensive management experience; we wanted dedicated physician leadership, onsite management and access to quality data," he said. The hospital eventually selected Somnia Anesthesia.
Dr. Perlstein reported that the anesthesia department's onsite leadership and overall OR efficiency has markedly improved since working with the new group. He recommended other facilities that are considering a new anesthesia group involve as many key stakeholders — from OR staff to surgeons — as possible in the selection process and attempt to include someone with anesthesia expertise on the evaluation committee.
Finally, Mr. Dean shared his experiences surrounding San Juan Regional's decision to replace its anesthesia department last year. He pointed to inadequate presence of leadership, inefficient OR scheduling, subsidy increases and quality concerns as the key reasons the hospital sought to open the RFP process up beyond its incumbent provider.
"We were going to have to be measuring ourselves against national standards and norms," he said, explaining that the hospital, while small and in a rural area, had to begin benchmarking itself against other providers, especially given the advent of value-based purchasing.
San Juan's selection committee based its decision on two key factors: leadership and quality. The wanted a "pit-crew" model as opposed to "cowboys," he explained. Critically important was "the ability to get objective data, think about evidence-based practices…and have leadership responsible for having necessary changes," he said.
Just a few months after selecting Somnia Anesthesia, Mr. Dean reported that the anesthesia group has become more aligned with the hospital while creating greater efficiencies. He also advocated for involving key stakeholders beyond hospital administrators in the selection processes. Specifically, he recommended involving surgeons and members of the department of surgery as well as board members in the process.
View or download the Webinar by clicking here.
More Articles Featuring Somnia Anesthesia:Somnia Anesthesia Releases Web-Based Tool to Assess Anesthesia Services
How the Anesthesia Drug Shortage Impacts Hospital Operations
Anesthesia Involvement in Hospital Strategy, Leadership Crucial to Department, Facility Success
© Copyright ASC COMMUNICATIONS 2012. Interested in LINKING to or REPRINTING this content? View our policies by clicking here. | <urn:uuid:3bb8c527-f2cf-4be6-bbed-4f06819624e1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/anesthesia/evaluating-your-anesthesia-services-how-to-assess-your-anesthesia-team.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960391 | 1,161 | 1.578125 | 2 |
When I tell people that I ration my dogs food I typically get some variation of, “Oh, my dog would never go for that. My dog is always hungry so I leave food in his bowl all day” as a response.
Um, sorry, but no wonder your dog is overweight. Just like people, keeping fit and trim is just simple math. Calories in have to equal calories out.
Chester and Gretel would eat all day too if I let them. Sure, they try to tell me its food time all day. They even get real persistent. But, like a good parent I know what is good for them and I don’t give in.
There is no doubt that a healthier dog generally lives longer. One article I found said that dogs fed to “ideal body condition” lived 1.8 years longer than their overweight litter mates. That’s a bonus of nearly 2 extra years of life, just for keeping your dog close to his ideal body weight. I know that food equals love to some people but wouldn’t you rather your dog be with you longer?
The majority of commercial dog food formulas include a weight chart that will allow you to figure out about how much of that particular food your dog should be eating each day. However, there is a general rule that you can use as far as portion size. If your dog weighs up to 10 lbs, you will want to feed them around one cup of food per day. If your dog weighs from 10 to 25 lbs, you need to feed your dog from 1 ½ to 2 ¼ cups per day.
Remember, these are just GENERAL guidelines and you may need to adjust portion sizes based on your own dog’s needs. For example, the metabolism is slower in an older dog so you may need to feed them less. If your dog is inactive they will require less food. If your dog is very active or competes in agility you will likely have to increase their portion sizes.
I use my dogs ideal weight as a gauge for adjusting their portion sizes. There are several methods you can use to determine your dog’s ideal weight. I use a simple method that my vet recommended to me when Chester was a puppy.
A healthy weight for dachshunds is when you can see their ribs poking out a little. If you view your dog from the top, they should have a clearly defined waist – wide in the front, narrow at the waist and wider again at the hips.
If you view them from the side, you should be able to see the upward tuck of the abdomen. An overweight dog will have very little or no tuck.
I watch my dogs and adjust their food accordingly, always keeping those guidelines in mind. When they get a little plump I cut back. If they start to look to skinny I give them a little more food or increase their treats.
Could your dog stand to lose a pound or two? | <urn:uuid:76a1a195-19da-4561-b04a-90732db22375> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://youdidwhatwithyourweiner.com/how-do-you-keep-your-dogs-so-trim/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00051-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976169 | 610 | 1.84375 | 2 |
- Waist high gardening
- No bending or kneeling
- Can be placed anywhere
- Eliminates soil compaction
- Eliminates root rot
- Easy to weed
- Engineered drainage system
The elevated garden is the modern way to garden, offering many benefits.
No bending, kneeling or squatting. Gardening is brought to waist height making it easy to plant, weed, water and fertilize. The elevation also eliminates the use of chemicals for animal control.
The elevated garden is fun for all ages and also accessible from a wheel chair. The engineered designed drainage system enhances growth and eliminates root rot which is a common issue with over watering. It also allows evaporation from the top and bottom which helps reduce soil impaction. The elevated garden can be placed on patios, decks or even outside a window to be enjoyed from inside the home.
Have a summer long gardening experience with an easy to maintain flower, vegetable or herb garden.
Enjoy gardening the modern easy way with the elevated garden. | <urn:uuid:13d14e0e-b50f-45b2-ab98-434be446775f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ghcmolding.com/elevated-gardens/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.916125 | 207 | 1.671875 | 2 |
New Video Demonstrates Skin Cancer Self-Exam
SATURDAY, Nov. 3 (HealthDay News) -- A new video that instructs people how to do a self-examination for skin cancer has been released by the American Academy of Dermatology.
"Checking your skin for skin cancer only requires your eyes and a mirror. Involving a partner adds another set of eyes, which is especially helpful when checking the back and other hard-to-see areas," Dr. Thomas Rohrer, a dermatologist in private practice in Chestnut Hill, Mass., said in news release from the academy. "Examining your skin only takes a few minutes, but it could save your life."
Skin cancer is the most common cancer in the United States, according to the experts.
"Current estimates show one in five Americans will be diagnosed with skin cancer in their lifetime, so it's important to be familiar with your skin, especially your moles," Rohrer said. "Catching skin cancer early is key for successful treatment, so check your skin regularly and see a board-certified dermatologist if you spot anything suspicious."
When examining your skin, stand in front of a mirror and use the following steps to look at the front and back of your body:
Raise your arms and examine the right and left sides of your body.
Then bend your elbows and look carefully at your forearms, upper underarms and palms.
Next, examine the back of your legs, spaces between your toes and your soles.
Finally, examine hard-to-see areas such as your back, buttocks and top of your head. Use a mirror to inspect the back of your neck and scalp, parting your hair for a better view.
During your skin examination, check moles for the ABCDEs of melanoma, the most deadly type of skin cancer:
Asymmetry. One half of the spot is unlike the other half.
Border. The spot has an irregular, scalloped or poorly defined border.
Color. The spot has varying colors from one area to the next, such as shades of tan, brown or black, or with areas of white, red or blue.
Diameter. Melanomas are usually greater than 6 millimeters, or about the size of a pencil eraser, when they are diagnosed, but they can be smaller.
Evolving. A mole or spot on the skin that looks different than the rest or is changing in size, shape or color.
Here's where you can find the "Skin Self-Exam: How to Do" video.
SOURCE: American Academy of Dermatology, news release, October 2012 | <urn:uuid:150d12e3-4c04-48a5-a84d-090a6d348adf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lcmh.com/Taxonomy/RelatedDocuments.aspx?id=184&ContentTypeId=6&ContentID=669485 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932852 | 553 | 2.296875 | 2 |
Robert Dalgleish in Scotland has announced that he will be holding a U.K. Genealogy Skypecast on Saturday, the third of March. Anyone and everyone with U.K. ancestry is invited to join in. Conversation will be limited to topics concerning genealogy research in England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland.
Skypecasts are very similar to telephone conference calls with one exception: there is no telephone. A Skypecast is a free conference call service provided by Skype. A moderator sets up the call in advance. In this case, the moderator will be Robert Dalgleish.
At the appointed time, Skype members connect headsets to their computers and connect to the Skype service. By clicking on the appropriate link, each person is connected to the conference call in progress. All can chat with each other, and there are no toll calls or conference call fees.
All you need is a computer, an Internet connection, Skype software, and a headset (headphones and microphone, either separate units or combined into one). Free Skype software is available for Windows, Macintosh, Linux and even Windows Mobile handheld computers. Skype works with dial-up Internet connections although at significantly reduced fidelity. DSL or cable broadband connections work much better and usually sound better than normal telephone calls.
Before you can participate, you need to download the free Skype software, connect your headset and microphone, and then test. I'd suggest that you connect to the free Skype Echo number at echo123. The Skype Echo records ten seconds of your talk and then plays it back to you so that you can hear what your equipment sounds like. You can test over and over until everything is hooked up correctly. You are then ready to join a Skypecast or to place free calls to other Skype users anywhere in the world.
You can join Robert Dalgleish and the other genealogists in the free UK Skypecast on Saturday 3 March at 9 PM UK time. That is at 4 PM Eastern U.S. time or 1:00 Pacific Standard Time. You can convert that date and time to your local time zone at http://www.worldtimeserver.com/convert_time_in_GB.aspx?y=2007&mo=3&d=3&h=21&mn=0.
At that time, you can join the UK Genealogy Skypecast at https://skypecasts.skype.com/skypecasts/skypecast/detailed.html?id_talk=469808. | <urn:uuid:9a449a43-017b-4e83-a241-bda578934ae9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.eogn.com/eastmans_online_genealogy/2007/02/uk_genealogy_sk.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.915595 | 513 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Facebook Releases its Carbon Footprint Report
Today, Facebook announced the release of its carbon footprint metrics in a special Facebook app, dedicated to the reporting. The data puts Facebook below Google’s stated cabon footprint industry average in 2010, and is promising for tech industry ‘green’ evangelists.
And as Katie Fehrenbacher of GigaOM notes, the carbon footprint you leave from drinking your morning latte is about the same as using Facebook for a year. She writes, "Yeah, that’s nothing, and shouldn’t scare off green-leaning, guilt-susceptible Facebookers (but maybe latte drinkers should think twice — the milk is the energy suck)."
For Facebook, who has admittedly been a proponent of sustainability, and outlined their initiatives on another unique page, the report is both a marketing and PR tool. But it also shows the progress that tech companies have made towards sustainability.
Google, by comparison, revealed its carbon footprint for the first time in 2010, saying that it emitted 1.5 million tons of carbon annually.
According to an article in the Guardian, Google said its data centers consume “50% less energy than the industry average.” This, they say is mostly due to the cloud-based nature of its product. Google has not released an updated carbon footprint report since then.
Facebook, on the other hand, computed its carbon footprint to 285,000 MT, or metric tones, of greenhouse gases in 2011. Or, that's about 0.000269 MT of greenhouse gases per user, per month.
Here’s the Facebook carbon footprint infographic: | <urn:uuid:cd430814-e0de-4300-a7ea-4cd90567b83b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://socialmediatoday.com/thomas-samph/666726/facebook-releases-its-carbon-footprint-report | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938061 | 338 | 2.234375 | 2 |
DEERFIELD BEACH -- The bicentennial of the signing of the U.S. Constitution continues on Monday morning with the burial of a time capsule at City Hall.
The city kicked off the celebration in September with fireworks, speeches and a host of other special events.
On Monday morning, news clips of the celebration, minutes from City Commission meetings, maps and photographs will be buried in the time capsule.
``We are going to have a little bit of speech making,`` Commissioner Joe Tractenberg said. ``Very little.``
Tractenberg serves as the chairman of the city`s Bicentennial Constitution Committee.
The time capsule is a capped pipe donated by Southern Bell that typically would be used for underground lines.
The capsule will be buried for 100 years.
The event is free and takes place at 10 a.m. on the northern side of the City Hall grounds, 150 NE Second Ave. | <urn:uuid:bdf10e8f-a848-41dc-87ea-1ac234bdd979> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1988-02-14/news/8801090861_1_time-capsule-bicentennial-constitution-committee-city-hall | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.921777 | 190 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Some reflections and points of view from a barricade
September 14, 2009
Many of us shouted: “To the police station, cabros!” There was strength, there were people. But more will was lacking, perhaps more tactics. The terrain was favorable, the police station was only two blocks away. There weren’t many cops, only a minibus. A better organized group would have given them the war that they seek every day, that they maintain, that they establish and defend. There is no talk of managing these little explosive spaces, or manipulating the 60 young people who were there that night. But it would be useful to understand ourselves in the context of the damage we wanted to cause. Because it’s clear that we came out to tangle with the police, and if a cop was left with three fewer teeth, or a shot-up hand, or a fractured arm, then so much the better. But if we weren’t prepared, then nothing would be worth so much risk; our strength would be diluted, our desires would only be a little nighttime game.
But that shout said it all. “To the police station” contained our meaning. It was the specific moment at which we were able to break from the everyday of commodities, relinquishing the heavy burdens of labor, academic responsibilities, and social lethargy that this society—out of the most psychological fear—forces us to accept, take part in, and witness. That mob of incontrolados attacking a condominium was the same one that stormed the Bastille, the same one that took to the streets of revolutionary France to hang the rich from the lampposts, the same riffraff that Marx insulted as lumpen. In the depths of its unconscious, the society of the rich (in which it is not only the wealthy, but rather each and every one of us who makes society function day after day, generating little spaces of power in which exploitation and cruelty are practiced) is afraid of being attacked, robbed, and humiliated by that lumpen, which has nothing to lose. Well-recorded are the scenes of past centuries’ internecine struggles in which the last (or the first, depending on how we look at it) level of the social pyramid falls like a raven on the homes, businesses, and palaces of the rich. That fear doesn’t disappear, and it makes itself evident year after year on March 29 and September 11 through the influx of media propaganda generated by the television stations, the political parties, and the government, who look to channel that psychology of fear toward the protection of their terrain and the justification of their own existence. It is an influential performance that congeals perfectly in the heads of the citizens and makes them into what they are.
What remains to be done, then? Go on. Hold up the barricade until they break us. Physical space disappears, and for an instantaneous, spontaneous, minuscule moment of space-time, the relation to capital is destroyed. In that—I insist—minimum square meter, we replace all the social paranoia, all the stolen happiness, all the usurpation of our free time by work hours; in the end, we replace all that our families have (and they have) taught us, for a period of time in which nothing is the same as before. “Setting aside the rubbish they talk about this day, at the present time leftist groups have been mourning for 36 years, while the ones on the corners every September 11 are the kids and young people who are there to start a personal war against the police. And there will always be contempt for authority; that is eternal. Dates like today (when they say that the lumpen, the delinquents, and the vandals come out) are a space, concretely physical but also symbolic—although the explanation can be confusing at times—in which a group of human beings, protected by one another, no longer fears the machinery of repression embodied by the police. If the leftist intellectuals sitting so comfortably at their desks look down on and insult those ‘children who do not know why they protest and were not there on September 11,’ it is because their annoyance stems from seeking to represent the entire left of capital and looking to reaffirm on each ‘controversial’ date that it is they who are the representatives and the spokespeople for the ‘excluded,’ as they like to be called. Their problem is that the combative youth are not interested in mediation via the left of capital. There is no validity to it for them or for others,” I thought, while I saw a group pull up some wooden panels protecting the construction of a Líder store on the square.
I eventually come to the end. The smell of smoke and tear gas was oppressively unbearable.
To be continued . . .
- An Incontrolado
Some nighttime photos from September 11 | <urn:uuid:d16dca6b-9505-4a1f-a5eb-b43c633f0f66> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thisisourjob.wordpress.com/2009/10/24/some-reflections-and-points-of-view-from-a-barricade/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971293 | 1,015 | 1.632813 | 2 |
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Ron, love your site. Have made the 11 plant garden and all is going ok...so far. One question. In some posts you say to use Calcium Chloride, and in other posts you say to use Calcium Nitrate, both with Miracle Grow. Which should I use? I have access to both. Thanks!
It's Nitrate I'm not sure where Chloride came from. That is a mistake.
I've switched from a metal halide light to a sodium one for some plants I have growing indoors to go to the flowering stage. Do I still need to cut back the number of hours to get my plants to flower, or will the sodium light do the job? Thanks.
12 on 12 off unless they are indeterminate plants like tomatoes then they will continue to flower all year long unless it gets to hot like mine did.
I've seen quite a bit in Ron's web pages reference timers for turning pumps on and off. Check out www.x10.com it has a product called Active Home that you can easily program your whole house (including pumps) to turn on/off whenever and as many times as you want according to the documentation. The application runs on a PC and once set up, you supposedly can turn your PC off and the scheduler still operates. I haven't tried it yet, however it looks very interesting. Tim
Yes I am using X-10 to control lights and cameras all over my 5 acres. I bought the deluxe hole house computer setup but have yet to set it up on my computer. It is easier to use the remote control that came with it to turn my lights on and off. For the ultimate X-10 products magazine try www.smarthome.com 800-762-7846
what is the difference between a "powerhead" and a regular "pump"? I recently was in a Worm's Way retail store, and asked the clerk, and his answer was "Hmmm, I think they are the same."
I thought I would call on the collective expertise of the group (and Ron).
Thanks a boatload.
A power head pump injects air bubbles into your water at the same time as it pumps water.
can grow rocks be re-used? And if so for how long, how many crops.
Grow rocks can be used forever. Just clean them between harvest with a ten percent bleach solution.
grow rocks can be reused indefinitely......
I just priced calcium nitrate. It was 23 dollars a pound around here. Can anything be substituted for it? I will eventually go with a normal hydroponic solution.....this is just to get me by for a bit. Thanks,
Not that I know about.
Ron, In the Hydroponic Society of America email comments someone stated that Bell Peppers only need about 400 - 500 PPM strength solution, otherwise they burn and/or don't grow well. I was thinking of growing Bell Peppers, is this true ? Thanks
Different plants do need different strengths of solution. I can't find any reference to the ppm for peppers in my books. But I am feeding my peppers at twice that and they seem to be doing ok except for the wilting from the heat during the hot mid-day.
Re: PPM Bell Peppers
My plant guide lists the ppm for peppers at 1260-1540. You can get information for more plants at: http://www.foothillhydroponics.com/p2library.htm
Just for info, I saw this link in HT mag. They have HID light kits at real good prices (1000W HPS for 140 Canadian Dollars = $95 US, 400W for 120 CAD = $80 US). Anyone ever dealt with them? Possible link Ron?
Re: Calcium Nitrate
Look in the yellow pages under "agriculture chemicals". I bought a 50 lb. bag of 15.5-0-0, just like the one Ron shows in the website. It cost me $15.00. With the sales tax, it came to $16.25.
Tailwheel, Thanks a ton!!
Gman, I have not delt with them ( www.thcbc.com/itm00008.htm ) before but I just gave them a call and they seem very nice. They have a catalog available by mail as well so I ordered one, he also told me that they will be adding pictures of the products in about a week. Look at the kits section if you want a complete system. Later, DC420
Average problem. How often do I clean out the reservoir, what do you clean it with. Is there any chemical or item that you add to the nutrient solution to keep green slime out of the system. Have been growing for a year.
couple months clean the reservoir with a
ten percent bleach to 90 percent water
And if you don't have green slime in you system then your nutrient solution isn't right. You can't grow hydroponicly without green slime. Some systems more than others depending on how well you can keep light from hitting any water in your system.
Re: Green slime in system
There is a natural ingredient called "DARK", normally found between sunset and sunrise that you must add to minimize algae growth in your system.
Sunlight reacting with water causes green slime (algae)to form in the solution through photosynthesis. Make sure all components of your system are painted and that NO chance of sunlight shining on any part of it.
How often does the water in the reservoir have to be changed?
When it gets low or if your plant show signs of a problem. Or if you notice a lot of particles in your water.
Is it legal to grow tobacco?
Only because it was grand fathered in. It would not pass FDA scrutiny today without paid politicians help.
Copyright © 1996-06 by Hydroponics Online All rights reserved .Revised:01/01/06 | <urn:uuid:b2cd181a-0c70-4561-8c20-c157f4ab611c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hydroponicsonline.com/qapages/qapage48.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929508 | 1,561 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Construction’s February unemployment rate of 21.8% showed improvement over January’s 22.5% rate and was a substantial drop from February 2010’s 27.1%, but the industry’s jobless level remains the highest among U.S. industries, according to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics report.
Released on March 4, the BLS report shows that construction gained 33,000 jobs in February. However, BLS notes that the industry’s February pickup in jobs followed a January loss of 22,000 jobs, which “may have reflected severe winter weather.”
Jobs increased in February in all construction segments, except non-residential building, which had a loss of 2,000 jobs. Specialty trade contractors gained 27,700, and heavy-civil construction jobs rose by 4,500 in the month.
Nevertheless, construction again posted the worst monthly unemployment rate among major industries. The BLS rates for construction and other industries are not adjusted for seasonal variations. Construction’s unemployment rate peaks in winter months, when building slows in much of the country.
|Note: Rates are not seasonally adjusted.
Source: U.S. Dept. of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics | <urn:uuid:f183ae45-b61c-49b6-856c-ea7f5dfa4a07> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://enr.construction.com/business_management/workforce/2011/0309-ConstructionJobless.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925029 | 255 | 2.15625 | 2 |
According to James Cagney's portrayal of George M. Cohan, the premier entertainer in all of American history, it took only 45 minutes by train to get from New York City's Broadway to New Rochelle, N.Y., in posh Westchester County.
Shortly after the movie "Yankee Doodle Dandy" came out, I was on the wonderful Santa Fe Super Chief with my father, heading for the West Coast. It was the most elegant passenger train you can imagine, and averaged better than 100 mph.
If another great old train — the Lehigh Valley Railroad's Black Diamond — went that fast, it means it also could have gone from the Lehigh Valley to Broadway in 45 minutes or thereabouts.
The Black Diamond carried passengers between New York City and Buffalo, with a stop in Allentown. It was known as "The Honeymoon Express" because so many newlyweds used it to go to Niagara Falls.
» The latest on traffic, delays and road construction delivered to your mobile phone. Click to sign up to receive text alerts!
My, what progress we've made over the last six or seven decades!
In March of this year, a story in The Morning Call, by freelance writer and railroad expert Kirk Raup of Bethlehem, said passenger rail service could be brought back to the Lehigh Valley by each person "paying 2 cents more per Happy Meal."
Raup pointed out that California residents approved a referendum calling for a temporary sales tax of a third of a percent, "and as a result, they have raised most of the money for their rail project without undue hardship on themselves."
He said the first step in getting passenger service to New York would be to form a regional rail transit agency similar to the one in California. He estimates the state-federal cost of providing 90 mph service to both New York and Philadelphia would be $450 million to $500 million.
Last week, there was another story about passenger trains. It said Amtrak's hopes for high-speed rail service could mean a trip from Philadelphia to New York would take 37 minutes with trains that go 220 mph.
The only thing needed is $151 billion to rebuild the Northeast's tattered and crowded passenger rail systems, and it would take only 18 years to complete the New York-Philadelphia-Washington part.
I am guessing it would take an additional 18 years, perhaps, to run a line to the Lehigh Valley, and that means I'll be able to zip to Broadway in less than half an hour by the time I am … well, never mind.
I guess I'd better address the hopes of people who are a little younger.
On Sunday, still another story in The Morning Call said the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission projected that "our strategically located and enticingly inexpensive region" could attract enough people to boost the population by 227,000 people by 2040. That, it was reported, means the total population could go to 875,000 by then — more people than cities like Detroit or San Francisco.
With my luck, I'll probably live long enough to drive my car to New York when all 875,000 of them are on the same road at the same time, with no trains available.
I have been yelping about the lack of passenger train service for a long time, especially after I returned from Japan in the 1960s. I thought that maybe America did that country a favor by flattening it two decades earlier, because they were forced to start all over, and that let them do it right.
Sweden, however, was not flattened and the Swedes nevertheless found a way to build great passenger railroads, as have many other countries. But not us.
With the melody of Cohan's "Forty-five Minutes from Broadway" running through my head, I decided to ask Raup about his idea for a regional rail transit agency.
"We're way behind the rest of the world in passenger rail transportation," he said, noting that he went to Sweden in the 1990s to help in a project there to restore antique steam locomotives.
Because of that, Swedish rail officials gave him a ride in their X-2000 and even let him handle the controls when the train was smoothly humming along at 150 mph. "It was a neat experience," Raup said. "Their rail system is light years ahead of us. We're falling behind the eight-ball."
That's a disgrace in a nation that became the world's most admired economic giant largely because it built the world's best transportation systems, starting with the canals through the Lehigh Valley that spurred the Industrial Revolution. Now, we seem willing to forfeit our children's future by letting those systems rot and disappear.
Raup indicated the Lehigh Valley would be a perfect place to get started on a quest to reverse those trends, starting with his idea for a regional rail transit agency, financed by a small local tax measure (the 2 cents per Happy Meal approach). The agency could then push for state action, as happened in California. "It would be much easier with an agency in place," he said.
I'm not so sure how easy it would be. There are politicians who get hysterical any time taxes are mentioned, but before too long, the need for investment in a better transportation system will be obvious.
I hope they do not wait until there are 875,000 people clogging the highways to New York — and your progeny will be singing, "Forty-five Hours from Broadway."
Paul Carpenter's commentary appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. | <urn:uuid:cfc465c5-d7c6-4540-9002-5473d4212abf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mcall.com/news/local/carpenter/mc-pc-passenger-trains-20120717,0,3345931.column | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974006 | 1,153 | 1.875 | 2 |
GLOVERSVILLE - Garbage will not remain on the Fonda, Johnstown & Gloversville Rail Trail for long. At least, that's what Gloversville Mayor Dayton King and Johnstown Mayor Sarah Slingerland are planning with the Adopt-a-Trail program.
The program?- based on the Adopt-a-Highway program that allows volunteers to "adopt" a highway to regularly remove litter from?- is meant to ensure the trailway in the Glove Cities gets cleaned up regularly.
"It's helpful in many ways," Slingerland said. "Obviously the Rail Trail park will be cleaner. It will make people more aware of the natural resources we have. I think it will ultimately create more usage of this natural park."
A black trash bag and other items are shown recently along part of the Fonda, Johnstown and Gloversville Rail Trail.
The Leader-Herald/John Borgolini
The two cities are looking for businesses and organizations -and on occasion families and individuals - to adopt sections of the trail and maintain it by picking up trash or doing lawn maintenance several times a year to open the communities' eyes to the "natural resources" the trail holds.
Slingerland said the city of Johnstown had firefighters and Glebe Street Elementary School student council members assist with maintenance work in the past, but the Adopt-a-Trail program will be a more formal effort due to the records from applications.
"One of the roles of the cities will have is to process those applications, but it will also give us a systematic way to run this program," she said.
Gloversville Public Works Director Kevin Jones said this will help the two cities, and city officials have been told to expect money to be budgeted for the program beginning next year.
Jones cited the economy as part of the reason the mayors are looking to start this program.
"We're at a point now where as money becomes tighter, we try to find more innovative ways to get things done," he said. "We're trying the best we can with shrinking departments and shrinking budgets."
Jones said there have already been several calls received from people interested in the program.
Gloversville has a $5,000 grant from the Nicholas Charitable Trust for a temporary summer employee to mow and maintain the city's portion of the trail.
Jones said the employee, along with the Adopt-a-Trail program, will make a measurable difference in what he believes is a major part of the cities.
"What were hoping to do is make the Rail Trail the best we can make it for the residents," he said. "In my experience, working in both cities, it seems as though a lot of people use the Rail Trail. A lot of people use it for recreational purposes. A lot of people use it for exercise. A lot of people use it to get around. It's a good corridor for both cities."
According to a news release, both cities welcome a variety of organizations to participate, including fraternal, youth, senior citizen, school and neighborhood groups.
The section of trail adopters take can be any length they are willing to clean up, the release said. Adopters also are allowed to keep any proceeds they earn from recyclable trash, the release said.
For more information, call Jones at 773-4557 about sections of the trail in Gloversville, or call Johnstown city engineer Chandra Cotter at 736-4014 for sections in Johnstown. | <urn:uuid:8e151343-8914-43be-89cd-9f292f3e16d5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.leaderherald.com/page/content.detail/id/548638/Program-seeks-volunteers-to-clea---.html | 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 | 0.962135 | 732 | 1.820313 | 2 |
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Can you name the U.S. states with just two syllables??
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Sep 22nd, 2010 at 00:03 GMT
Dang - I was halfway through typing the last answer when time ran out! Anyway, good quiz!
Comment below threshold:
Sep 22nd, 2010 at 00:07 GMT
Oregon and Florida should be bonus answers since depending on how you pronounce them they're 2, 2.5, or 3 syllables.
Sep 22nd, 2010 at 01:08 GMT
I don't think there's any debate over Florida not having 3 syllables
Sep 22nd, 2010 at 01:40 GMT
I don't know about that. Some people say Flor-da rather than Flor-i-da
Sep 22nd, 2010 at 02:19 GMT
And some people say "cuz" rather than "cousin", it doesn't change the fact that it's a 3 syllable word. Anyways, nice quiz. =)
Sep 22nd, 2010 at 02:41 GMT
How can a word have 2 1/2 syllables? It's either two or three. Words can't have half of a syllable.
Sep 22nd, 2010 at 05:23 GMT
@WredAguyW: words can't have half a syllable, but they can certainly have a debatable syllable! eg in UK pronunciation, "foliage" is three distinct syllables "fo-li-age", but with the middle one unstressed and shorter than the others; in the US, it varies, but the middle syllable is usually very weak if not entirely absent, to the extent that I think most Americans would think of it as a two-syllable word (and be annoyed if a Brit told them they were wrong :-) ) Conversely eg "Toronto" is usually pronounced something like "Tronno" by locals, but they think of it as 3 syllables, and if asked to say it slowly/carefully, they'll say all 3.
So, I guess... do any Floridians or Oregonians actually think of their states as 2-syllable words, or just pronounce them that way colloquially?
Sep 22nd, 2010 at 06:16 GMT
@bsd987- I'm guessing you're from the north-east or mid-atlantic (like me), right? It seems like we tend to have more glottal stops than other american accents, so when we say 'Oregon', it sounds kind of like 'organ' except for that little psudo-click after the 'r' or a 'double-r' sound ([or'-gen] or [or-rgen]). That "click" is a glottal stop and should be treated kind of like this vowel-> the 'ɨ '. (it's said like the vowel from 'ion' in the way we in the mid-atlantic say 'nation'). Similar thing with Florida. So it is really [ɔr-ɨ-ɡən] and [flɒr-ɨ-də] and not [ɔr-ɡən] and [flɒr-də].
Sep 22nd, 2010 at 08:28 GMT
@Riko: Yeah but not everyone from those areas pronouces them that way. I'm from the northeast and I can honestly say that the vast majority of the people I know pronounce both Florida and Oregon with all three syllables.
Sep 22nd, 2010 at 18:17 GMT
There's nothing ambiguous about Florida's pronunciation. Anyone who says "Flor-da" is just being lazy or talking so fast that you easily miss the pronunciation of the i.
Sep 22nd, 2010 at 20:29 GMT
@HollywoodLeo, Or just from the south. Yay south.
Sep 22nd, 2010 at 22:58 GMT
Good quiz, bsd987 - one of the stupidest comments I've ever read.
Sep 23rd, 2010 at 01:40 GMT
Wow, I can't believe bsd987's comment has been voted down so much. I've lived in Florida for eight years (grew up in Georgia), and, like, 98% of the time I hear someone say "Florida" it sounds like it has two syllables. Sure, some people pronounce it with three syllables, but that's just part of the fun of accent variation. Besides, for those of you who say the matter isn't even debatable, how do you pronounce cardinal, chocolate, family, grocery, or average?
Sep 23rd, 2010 at 02:26 GMT
And just to be clear, when I say 98% I'm talking about the people I interact with, which means southerners are vastly over-represented (and also I'm exaggerating for effect, as we all do from time to time). I don't know what the overall average syllable count is--my only point is that it's very debatable.
Sep 23rd, 2010 at 03:05 GMT
Maybe average I'd pronounce with 2 syllables, I don't know how you fit grocery into 2... the other ones are good examples, so people can see both sides of it. I think they should be bonuses (or even official), as, from what I see, it's based on how the people living there pronounce it, and that's what's important. Besides, we have the years, which actually helped me:)
Sep 23rd, 2010 at 04:52 GMT
@penguinman95, I'm in the South and even here in Arkansas Florida has 3 syllables.
Sep 23rd, 2010 at 04:53 GMT
@jws, I pronounce every one of those examples with 3 syllables. Your argument is debunked.
Sep 23rd, 2010 at 04:55 GMT
@simpleerrors, you fit every one of those into 2 the same way you fit Florida into two...by being lazy and not pronouncing one of the syllables. Flor-da (ignoring the -i-), Card-nal (ignoring the -i-), Choc-late (ignoring the -o-), Fam-ly (ignoring the -i-), grosh-ry (ignoring the -er-), and av-rage (ignoring the -i-).
Sep 23rd, 2010 at 04:56 GMT
Finally (fin-al-ly, not fine-lee) I surely hope thesecretbox is joking.
Sep 23rd, 2010 at 05:59 GMT
@HollywoodLeo: Ugh, this is giving me a headache--I might have to take some aspirin (which I pronounce with two syllables). Your inference (two syllables--again, as I say it) that your own speech renders my point inoperative (four) is, to put it bluntly, sophomoric (three). So, does all this phonetically (four) -efficient (three) syllable-elision make me lazy? Perhaps, but I'm not especially (four) interested (three) in hearing about it, as I'm growing quite indifferent (three) toward this particular argument.
Sep 23rd, 2010 at 06:17 GMT
You're obviously not indifferent, otherwise you wouldn't be taking the time to respond to me.
Sep 23rd, 2010 at 23:32 GMT
How many syllables in "Hawaii"?
Sep 28th, 2010 at 02:58 GMT
1. I am from Oregon, and I can assure you that there is nobody in the entire state with a functioning brain for whom that word has but two syllables. 2. I also have never heard the word "foliage" pronounced with anything resembling two syllables. I dunno where one might get the idea that "most Americans" would pronounce it that way, unless one's entire exposure to America is through John Wayne movies and old episodes of "The Dukes of Hazzard".
Oct 2nd, 2010 at 05:54 GMT
I think we have all learned that people from different areas pronounce words different ways. Personally, I hear Flor-da more than Flor-i-da. All of simpleerror's examples I hear and say with two syllables except for grocery and family. But where HollywoodLeo is from, that is obviously not the case
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STMX is a high-performance Common Lisp library for composable Software Transactional Memory (STM), a concurrency control mechanism aimed at making concurrent programming easier to write and understand. Instead of traditional lock-based programming, one programs with atomic memory transactions: if a memory transaction returns normally it is committed. If it signals an error, it is rolled back. Transactions can safely run in parallel in different threads, are re-executed from the beginning in case of conflicts or if consistent reads cannot be guaranteed, and effects of a transaction are not visible from other threads until committed. This gives freedom from deadlocks, automatic rollback on failure, and aims to resolve the tension between granularity and concurrency.
BitDew is a programmable environment for the management and distribution of data for grid, desktop grid, and cloud systems. It can easily be integrated into large scale computational systems such as XtremWeb, BOINC, Hadoop, Condor, Glite, Unicore, OpenStack, and Eucalyptus. It provides key P2P, grid, and cloud technologies (DHT, BitTorrent, Amazon S3, DropBox) and high level programming interfaces with a simple API for creating, accessing, storing, and moving data with ease, even in highly dynamic and volatile environments.
3Delight is a very fast RenderMan-compliant renderer designed to produce photorealistic images for serious production environments. Some of its features include ray tracing, global illumination, motion blur, depth of field, subdivision surfaces, programmable shaders, quality antialiasing, and antialiased multi-depth shadow maps. The API and the shading language are very similar to what is described in the RenderMan interface documentation.
Boxes is a text filter that can draw any kind of box around its input text. Box design choices range from simple boxes to complex ASCII art. A box can also be removed and repaired, even if it has been badly damaged by editing of the text inside. Since the generated boxes may be open on any side, the program can also be used to create regional comments in any programming language. New box designs of all sorts can easily be added and shared by appending to a free format configuration file. In addition to being a command line tool, Boxes integrates well with any text editor that supports filters. | <urn:uuid:9df0e3b7-a681-4c8f-ab88-05b78be4f17a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://freecode.com/tags/max-os-x?page=1&sort=created_at&with=&without=3192 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.912849 | 482 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Armand Petitjean, perfumer and cosmetician, devoted his life to his dream of giving women the most beautiful things possible.
For them, he created Lancôme.
For them, he selected the rose.
For them, he surrounded himself with the best researchers.
For them, he began an exemplary adventure in the realm of passion.
His passion for fragrances inspired Armand Petitjean to take a spectacular step: in 1935, he launched Lancôme with five great fragrances. Audacious? Yes, but Armand Petitjean was a product of the school of François Coty, the "father of 20th century luxury perfumes."
"Tropiques", "Tendres Nuits", "Kypre", and "Bocages", rare perfumes which would be followed by so many others, among them the prestigious "Magie" of the nineteen-fifties. Nearly all the bottles were created by the great artist Georges Delhomme.
The bottles Georges Delhomme created for Lancôme are today collectors' items.
The Fish-Moon bottle for the eau de cologne Cachet Bleu (1935).
The bottle with an engraved jasmine flower in blossom could contain different fragrances (1935).
The amphora of "Marrakech" today commands astronomical prices (1947).
See All products by Lancome | <urn:uuid:02698709-bdc0-46c6-8e5a-bd93d3453cf1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fragrancex.com/products/_bid_Lancome-am-cid_make--up-am-lid_N__brand_history.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929522 | 300 | 1.898438 | 2 |
I've seen my fair share of "diet, exercise, lose weight" resolutions as a registered dietitian. Fortunately, I've never had to make that kind of resolution. I just live it every day.
My resolutions are more of the self-enlightenment variety. It's a continual process to be more aware of the world around me and my place in it.
That's why I take more time to make my New Year's Resolutions. It's like buying shoes. I don't like the blisters that go with either if they rub me wrong.
Instead I walk around in my new resolutions for a while to see if they feel as good after a few days as they did when I first tried them on.
I've been breaking in some resolutions for 2012 over this past week. They're now at the point where they feel right. The next big step is, of course, to share them. Making a public announcement is like throwing out the receipt for a new pair of shoes. There's no taking them back after that.
In my role as a registered dietitian blogger, I hereby resolve that when writing or speaking about food and nutrition I will:
- Acknowledge the diversity of the U.S. population in age, ethnicity and religion as well as income, education and geography – all factors that impact food choice and dietary patterns.
- Recognize that the food supply and health care in this country are determined by economic and political forces, not human rights, so until that changes everyone does not get their fair share.
- Never forget that nearly half of the U.S. population now lives below the poverty line or are counted as low income when all living costs are factored into their budget, making eating well a bigger challenge. 2010 Census Bureau data
- Not overlook the fact 22 percent of American adults score below basic literacy levels, so are not capable of understanding basic food and nutrition information or making informed healthcare decisions. National Centers for Education Statistics. | <urn:uuid:0b95b783-dbb8-4227-8cc7-95ba376222e3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://health.lifegoesstrong.com/article/become-enlightened-these-food-nutrition-resolutions | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00076-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968793 | 408 | 1.867188 | 2 |
The State Government will set up an integrated spice processing facility with a capacity to process 7.5 tonnes of fresh ginger at Meenangadi in Wayanad.
CSIR-NIIST (National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology under Council of Scientific and Industrial Research) will extend technical assistance.
The project is estimated to cost Rs 1.93 crore and is financed by the State Government. It is expected to go on stream during the next harvesting season.
CSIR-NIIST had developed the technology in year 2000, which has since been deployed in ventures several Northeastern States.
The latest one was set up in Sikkim just a couple of years ago, Suresh Das, Director, CSIR-NIIST, told Business Line.
The Meenangadi plant will be set up on land owned by the Malabar Union of Milma, the milk cooperative.
The project viability has been arrived at based on the highest raw material price at the farm gate of Rs 20 and finished goods price of Rs 40, the lowest possible selling price.
Ginger samples have been analysed for oil content and are found to have measured up to requirement.
The plant is expected to break even at 47 per cent capacity at an expected internal rate of return of 15 per cent.
The sensitivity analysis has also been done to evaluate the project.
CSIR-NIIST along with Malabar Union of Milma and Kerala Industrial Infrastructure Corporation will be responsible for the execution of the project.
Of the 7.5 tonnes of fresh ginger to be processed per day, four tonnes will be marketed as cleaned waxed ginger and the balance processed for making ginger oil/ginger powder or both.
A major issue with ginger has been that harvesting coincides with the rainy season, which rules out the scope for sun-drying, Das said.
Artificial drying is energy intensive and most of the volatile essential oils are lost during the drying operation.
The CSIR-NIIST technology helps retain the flavour and the processing is done without drying prior to oil recovery.
This technology had won the National Technology Day Award for the institute in 2003. | <urn:uuid:bdca5f16-fe20-4daa-8bca-c86af44cfe13> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/science/article3742505.ece | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953959 | 439 | 1.734375 | 2 |
12 February 2012 17:13:33 CET
28 November 2011 17:12:00 CET
Gothic. Power of era about God’s Excellency and people’s humility. People who were longing for raising into altitude. Architecture, the art of painting and statuary were strongly marked by the religious motives of Christianity. Architecture was the most expressive among these arts; it combined the era with its powerful objects and showed its strength with details like rosettes, glass partitions and Christian symbols. | <urn:uuid:1826634c-f8bc-42c3-bf07-d535e854876a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://balkanartnow.com/index.php/blog/tag/peter/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975648 | 104 | 2.296875 | 2 |
Since the Treatment Advocacy Center was formed in 1998:
- Nearly half the U.S. states have modified their civil commitment standards to make it possible for more individuals to receive timely intervention for severe mental illness.
- Six states have passed assisted outpatient treatment (AOT) laws, and many others have strengthened existing ones.
- Thousands of individuals have received treatment they likely would not have received without these reforms.
- Innumerable individuals with severe mental illness, family members, mental health professionals, law enforcement officers, researchers and others have dedicated countless hours to advocating with us for the elimination of barriers to the treatment of severe mental illness.
- The Center's website has evolved into the worldwide web's largest and most comprehensive source of information about treatment laws and standards for severe mental illness.
- The Treatment Advocacy Center has remained the only national organization dedicated to advocating for improved treatment laws and standard for individuals with the most severe mental illnesses.
Following is a summary of some of the treatment law reforms successfully advocated by the Treatment Advocacy Center in its first 10 years. | <urn:uuid:7a67499d-066b-458a-8c45-0f5d410bc251> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org/results/results-subpage-1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961573 | 216 | 2.328125 | 2 |
- 12 iPhones Apps That Will Make You a Networking Star
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- Big Data Gold Isn't Always Where You Would Expect It
- 6 Tips to Build Your Social Media Strategy
IDG News Service - Intel drew the curtain Friday on some of its future research projects to continue making transistors smaller, faster, and less power-hungry out as far as 2020.
In a briefing for reporters and analysts at the company's Santa Clara, Calif., headquarters, Intel researchers discussed exotic materials such as carbon nanotubes and nanowires as well as novel techniques to take the transistor down to the atomic level.
The performance and cost benefits from ever-shrinking transistors have driven Intel and the rest of the IT industry for the past 30 years, but advanced researchers are starting to plan for the day in which transistor features simply cannot be made any smaller using conventional materials and techniques.
Once researchers get down to the atomic level, where transistor gates are no wider than an individual atom or two, current manufacturing techniques and materials simply won't work, said Paolo Gargini, an Intel fellow and director of technology strategy at the company.
Intel just completed the transition to its 90 nanometer process technology. The company has plans in place for materials that will enable it to get down to transistors with gate lengths of just 10nm around 2011, but by 2013 Intel and the rest of the chip industry will need new materials to stay on a two-year cycle of shrinking transistors. A nanometer is a billionth of a meter.
Carbon nanotubes and nanowires are two promising materials that many companies are eyeing, said Ken David, director of components research at Intel. Carbon nanotubes are cylinders made from rings of carbon atoms that would be used as the channel between where the power enters and flows out of a transistor. Transistors work when electrical current is either blocked or allowed to flow through the channel, giving the transistor an "on" or "off" state that represents a bit of information.
Nanotubes are durable structures that allow electrons to move more quickly through the channel than current materials, David said. Intel recently built a carbon nanotube transistor that can theoretically run three times faster than a conventional transistor of the same size and power consumption, he said.
While many companies and universities have grown nanotubes, the challenge will be integrating them into a high-volume manufacturing process, David said. The same is true for silicon nanowires, which Intel hopes to one day use to build an entirely new transistor shape, he said.
The metal gate on a current transistor sits above the channel and silicon material. In about four years, Intel plans to integrate tri-gate transistors into its process technologies, where the gate material surrounds the transistor on three sides. This helps to control current leakage, especially when the transistor is turned off, David said.
But Intel believes the ultimate transistor shape would be a pure cylinder with a gate wrapped entirely around the channel, David said. This type of transistor would strike the best balance between electron mobility and leakage control, he said. A silicon nanowire could be the material used to build this transistor, but a great deal of research needs to be conducted in order to optimize the electrical performance of the transistor and ready the structure for manufacturing, he said. | <urn:uuid:aa49f7ee-ea7d-4b09-91ed-12100cb5fd2e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.networkworld.com/news/2004/1022intelprepa.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931282 | 684 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Curyung v. Alaska
On June 6th, 2004 the Native American Rights Fund filed an amicus brief on behalf of a number of Alaska Tribes in the Alaska Supreme Court in Curiung v. Alaska. The question presented in Curiung is whether federally recognized Tribes can bring suit under Section 1983 in state court on behalf of themselves and their members to vindicate important statutory rights under the ICWA and other federal and state laws after the United States Supreme Court ruling in Inyo County. Inyo County involved the core issue of whether the Paiute Shoshone Indian Community was immune from execution of a state search warrant of tribal employment records issued in connection with the investigation of potential off-reservation welfare fraud by certain unnamed tribal employees. The Tribe sought declaratory and injunctive relief against the County and its officers on the ground that they had exceeded their jurisdiction because the warrant interfered with the Tribe's sovereign immunity and its right to self- government. The Tribe also sought compensatory damages under Section 1983 for violation of the Tribe's rights. The Supreme Court held that Tribes are not persons for purposes of bringing Section 1983 claims against a state for damages for infringement of sovereign interests. In Curiung, however, the amici tribes argue that Inyo County does not preclude their Section 1983 claims because the rights asserted are private rights that are grounded in statute.
On December 15, 2006 we received a unanimous decision in our favor by the Alaska Supreme Court upholding a Tribes right to bring a 1983 action on behalf of its members under a parens patriae theory. The case was remanded to the superior court for a trial on the merits. Settlement discussions have been scheduled to take place over the winter ‘08. | <urn:uuid:5eae6d04-cfa7-432a-a771-b878b9bcf8ac> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://narf.org/cases/curyung.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958292 | 352 | 1.835938 | 2 |
|STARS DO NOT LIVE FROEVER. A
time comes when the supply of hydrogen dwindles and the nuclear reactions in the core die
down. but instead of fading away, the star now balloons out to become a brilliant red
giant maybe a hundred times its former diameter. More massive stars become powerful
supergiants, bright enough to be seen across intergalactic space. This transformation
happens because, deep within its core, the star has tapped a new source of energy, helium,
which can keep it shining for a while longer. | <urn:uuid:6885a9f6-cd49-44e5-adbb-773cf3e4c545> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://library.thinkquest.org/C0126543/stardeath.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935084 | 116 | 3.46875 | 3 |
Planning is the key when it comes to preparing for retirement. Know the basics.
While the Company believes the content contained in the Website is accurate and not misleading, it cannot determine compliance with the laws of your jurisdiction, or your individual situation. Other than the ability to read the information contained on this website, you are granted no license in any of the Content, which shall remain at all time the property of the Company
The information contained herein is to be used as educational material only and is not intended to provide advice, legal or professional. This information should never be used as an original source of authority on any legal matters. Any laws and regulations concerning this material should be directed to the proper regulatory authority. Always review the regulations and statutes of the state in which you reside or are purchasing the insurance in. The information contained herein could become obsolete due to legislation, legal situations or industry practices. You must consult your own advisor for any and all legal or professional advice on any information contained herein.
Annuities have become a part of many individual’s retirement and investment planning. Before you buy an annuity you should know some of the basics and be prepared to ask your agent / financial planner lots of questions about whether an annuity is right for you. Remember you are the one investing the money. It is your job to make sure what you are buying meets your investment strategy. It is the job of your insurance agent / financial planner to make recommendations to you on products and services that are available to you within your strategy and to make sure you are completely comfortable with what you are buying. If you are uncertain about something or you are not comfortable with the risk associated with what is being recommended, do not sign the check until you are. Changing your mind after you purchase the annuity, even during a free look period, could cost you money. Annuities are for long term financial strategies and should not be used for short term planning because of the potential penalties imposed on annuities by the IRS and the insurance companies themselves. No matter what type of annuity you purchase, the IRS will impose a 10 percent penalty for withdrawals on growth of income if the withdrawal is made prior to age 59½. Because IRS allows annuities to grow tax deferred (you don’t pay taxes on the money until you withdraw it), the first monies withdrawn are from growth rather than from principal. No penalty is imposed on the money put into the contract by the owner. The penalty is only on the growth and is in addition to the ordinary income tax (not capital gains) that will be due when the money is withdrawn. Also, if you withdraw money from your annuity within a certain period after you purchase the contract, the insurance company usually asses a surrender charge which is a type of sales charge. Generally, the surrender charge is a percentage of the amount withdrawn and usually declines over a period of several years, known as the surrender period. If you are doing periodic payments it is possible that each payment you make will have its own surrender period. Different contracts have different surrender periods. Many contracts will allow you to withdraw part of your account value each year – for example; 10% or 15% of value of your account, without paying the surrender charge. Keep in mind that the IRS will impose a 10% penalty on the growth/interest of the withdrawal if you are under age 59 ½.
Also, when you purchase a variable annuity you will be paying additional charges that will reduce the value of your account and the return on your investment. They will often include the following:
Morality and Expense Charge: This charge is equal to a certain percentage of your account value. This charge compensates the insurance company for the insurance risks it assumes under the contract. Profit from the mortality and expense charge is sometimes used to pay the company’s cost of selling the annuity, such as a commission paid to your agent or planner for selling the annuity.
Underlying Fund Expense: These are the fees and expenses imposed by the mutual funds that are the underlying investment options for your variable annuity. These are indirectly paid.
Administrative Expense: This fee is usually a flat dollar amount that the insurance company may charge to cover the cost of record keeping and other administrative expenses. Many insurance companies waive this charge if the account value is above a certain dollar amount on a certain date.
Fees and charges for other features: Most variable annuities offer special features to the contract that often carry additional fees or charges. These features can enhance the contract for the client and might include a step-up death benefit, a guaranteed minimum income benefit or long term care insurance rider.
Remember. You pay for each benefit provided by your variable annuity. Be sure you understand the charges, Consider whether or not you need the benefit. Also, is it better to buy the benefit as part of the annuity or can you purchase a separate policy for less?
You should be provided a prospectus that will explain all these charges and features of the annuity. Make sure you go over them with your agent/financial planner and write in the margins your question and the answers. Keep the original prospectus and all changes with your contract. It will be your bible if you have a problem down the road. If you are investing in a variable annuity through an IRA, TSA or 401(k) plan, there is no additional tax advantage from the annuity.
What are some of the advantages of a variable annuity?
Variable annuities offer a range of investment options. The value of your annuity will vary depending on the performance of the investment options you choose. The investment options for a variable annuity are typically mutual funds that invest stocks, bonds, money market instruments or some kind of combination of the three.
Variable annuities let you receive periodic payments for the rest of your life. This feature can protect you against the possibility after retirement of outliving your assets. Variable annuities have a death benefit. If you die before the insurance company starts making payments to you, your beneficiary is guaranteed to receive a specific amount. Variable annuities are tax deferred. You pay no taxes on the income and gains from your annuity until you withdraw the money. You may also transfer your money from one fund to another within the account without paying taxes at the time of the transfer.
What is an annuity?
Annuities are provided by Insurance Companies and are designed to provide supplemental retirement income. It is a financial contract between you and an insurance company whereby you make a series of payments or a lump sum payment into the contract and the insurance company agrees to make periodic payments to you beginning immediately or at some future date. Annuities help people meet their financial needs. When planning your long-term investment strategy, annuities should be considered. One of the primary benefits of an annuity is the tax deferral on interest or growth. This applies as long as the funds are not withdrawn.
There are two types of annuities:
They are fixed annuities and variable annuities.
The fixed annuity is a guaranteed contract: The principal, interest and the amount of the benefit period is guaranteed. The insurance company gives you a guaranteed interest rate for a certain period of time. At the end of that period there is a minimum guaranteed interest rate the company will pay while the contract is in force.
Variable annuities are not guaranteed but most do have a minimum guaranteed death benefit. Well managed, variable annuities will keep pace with, and can exceed, the rate of inflation. Past performance of the funds within the annuity are no indication of future performance. For agents to sell variable annuities they must be securities licensed. Variable annuities require an agent to get licensed with the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) or the FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Inc.). In addition some states require a separate Variable Contracts License.
There are two phases of an annuity contract.
They are the accumulation phase and the Annuitization phase or payout phase.
The accumulation phase is sometimes considered as the growth years where you can contribute money into your annuity.
With the Annuitization phase or payout phase, the process is reversed. This is where you give the insurance company the money in your annuity contract and they agree pay you a fixed amount of money over the period of time you have selected starting on a specific date. It is very important that you understand that once the Annuitization phase begins it can not be changed.
Purchasing an annuity.
When purchasing an annuity you must always understand all of the terms to the best of your ability. If there are additions, withdrawals or a complete liquidation, there may be penalties or restrictions. Know what they are.
To understand annuities one must understand its terminology. It is not complicated but can be confusing to one who does not understand the meaning of certain concepts.
The following terms will help you get a better understanding of annuities:
Contract Owner. The person named in the Contract as the owner of the annuity. The contract owner can be an individual, couple, trust, corporation or partnership. The only requirement is that the owner must be an adult or legal entity. Since the contract owner controls the annuity, the owner has total control and can give the contract to anyone.
The Annuitant: The annuitant is probably the most difficult person to understand. The annuitant has no control over the annuity. This is the individual on whose life the Maturity date and the Annuity payments are based. That is all. Maybe the best way to describe the annuitant is to use an example of a life insurance policy. When a life insurance policy is issued, you have an individual named as the insured and that individual continues to be the insured until the owner of the policy either terminates the contract, stops paying the premiums or the insured dies and the face amount paid to the beneficiary. With an annuity the terms of the contract remain in force until the owner makes a change or the annuitant dies. NOTE: The annuitant can also be the contract owner.
The Beneficiary: The beneficiary to an annuity can be an individual, trust, corporation or a partnership. Religious organizations as well as other charities and non profit organizations can be named as a beneficiary. The owner of the annuity can change the beneficiary at any time.
Contract date: The date on which the contract is issued.
The Effective date: The date on which the contract becomes effective. This date usually coincides with the date of the first purchase payment.
The Payment date: This date is when the first purchase payment was received by the insurance company.
The Maturity date: This is the date on which the annuity payments are to begin.
Purchase Payment: This is any premium paid by the owner into the contract.
Underlying Fund: This is a portfolio of an open-end management investment company that is registered with the SEC in which the subaccounts invest.
Subaccount: A Subaccount is that portion of the assets of a Separate Account that is allocated to a particular Underlying Fund.
Separate Account: This is a segregated account registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the assets of which are invested solely in the Underlying Funds. The assets of the Separate Account are held exclusively for the benefit of the contract owner.
Contract Value: This is the purchase payments, plus or minus the investment performance on the amounts allocated to the various funds, adjusted by any applicable charges and withdrawals.
Cash Surrender Value: This is the contract value on the date the contract is surrendered less any surrender charges if applicable and any premium taxes not previously deducted.
Dollar Cost Averaging: This is a program that allows you to transfer a fixed amount of money to variable funding options each month, theoretically giving you a lower average cost per unit over time than a single one time purchase.
Systematic Withdrawal Option: You can arrange to have money sent to you at set intervals throughout the year. Any income and penalty taxes will apply on the
Rebalancing: You may elect to have the company periodically reallocate the values of your portfolio to match the rebalancing allocations you have selected.
Spousal Continuance: This is subject to availability. If your spouse is named as an additional owner or is beneficiary and you die prior to the maturity date, your spouse may elect to continue the Contract as owner rather than have the death proceeds paid to the beneficiary.
Ask Questions before you invest.
The SEC writes it very well by stating:
“Financial professionals who sell variable annuities have a duty to advise you as to whether the product they are trying to sell is suitable to your particular investment needs.” Don’t be afraid to ask them questions. And write down their answers, so there won’t be any confusion later as to what was said. Better yet. E-mail your agent and keep the response in your file for reference if needed.
Variable annuity contracts typically have a “free look” period of ten or more days, during which you can terminate the contract without paying any surrender charges and get back your purchase payments (which may be adjusted to reflect charges and the performance of your investment). You can continue to ask questions in this period to make sure you understand your variable annuity before the “free look” period ends.
Before you decide to buy a variable annuity, consider the following questions:
* Will you use the variable annuity primarily to save for retirement or a similar long-term goal?
* Are you investing in the variable annuity through a retirement plan or IRA (which would mean that you are not receiving any additional tax-deferral benefit from the variable annuity)?
* Are you willing to take the risk that your account value may decrease if the underlying mutual fund investment options perform badly?
* Do you understand the features of the variable annuity?
* Do you understand all of the fees and expenses that the variable annuity charges?
* Do you intend to remain in the variable annuity long enough to avoid paying any surrender charges if you have to withdraw money?
* If a variable annuity offers a bonus credit, will the bonus outweigh any higher fees and charges that the product may charge?
* Are there features of the variable annuity, such as long-term care insurance, that you could purchase more cheaply separately?
* Have you consulted with a tax adviser and considered all the tax consequences of purchasing an annuity, including the effect of annuity payments on your tax status in retirement?
* If you are exchanging one annuity for another one, do the benefits of the exchange outweigh the costs, such as any surrender charges you will have to pay if you withdraw your money before the end of the surrender charge period for the new annuity?
Remember: Before purchasing a variable annuity, you owe it to yourself to learn as much as possible about how they work, the benefits they provide, and the charges you will pay.
For more information on annuities available to you in your state contact your professional insurance agent.
There is an old saying “Measure twice, cut once”. The same can apply when purchasing an annuity. Think twice act once. To make sure your money goes where you want it to go compare and be sure. Fees reduce the value of your account whether you make money or not. Make sure you know all the fees and charges that are associated with the contract you are thinking of buying. If you are replacing one annuity with another, make sure you understand the surrender charges and any other penalties that might be involved. Here are a few fees that insurance companies charge for managing your money:
Compare and be Sure Chart
(Mortality & Expense)
|What is the percentage||__________%|
|Average Fund Expense Fee||What is the percentage||__________%|
|Administrative Fees||What is the percentage||__________%|
What are they?
|What are the percentages||__________%|
|Other: Fees associated with
this annuity that will reduce
|What are the percentages||__________%|
|Annual Fee/When is it waived||Dollar amount or percentage||$____or___%|
|Surrender charges|| What is the percentage and for
how many years
|Free Withdrawal amount.
Is it available and how does it work?
|What is the amount or percentage?
Is it on premiums paid or account value?
If exercised does the death benefit reduce
dollar for dollar or on a pro-rata basis? | <urn:uuid:5db74ed7-d0d3-4c0c-af80-c29c2bcd0188> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://jimsseniornews.com/annuities/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955267 | 3,443 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Oct. 25, 2012 at 9:20 AM ET
To be among the first passengers to board a plane is often so crucial to keeping your sanity while flying that many travelers are willing to pay for it.
But what if you could have an edge over other fliers for free?
A recent Stanford University computer science graduate who came up with a way to boost passengers’ odds of boarding early on Southwest Airlines flights found lots of takers, but also drew scrutiny from the airline, which ordered him to shut down the project.
“It was funny because I actually didn’t think that anyone wanted to use this at all. I literally thought that it was something no one cared about,” Nikil Viswanathan told NBC News.
He was wrong. Thousands of travelers were captured by Viswanathan’s simple idea: to automatically check in for a Southwest flight the second you are able to, thereby improving your chances in the carrier’s first-come, first-serve competition for boarding times.
Viswanathan, who lives in Palo Alto, Calif., began the project while visiting his sister on the East Coast earlier this year. He kept forgetting to check in for his flights, so Viswanathan, 25, decided to create a tool that would automatically do it for him on Southwest – the airline he flies most. It took him less than an hour to write the code, which he incorporated on his website, Checkintomyflight.com.
Here’s how it worked:
Southwest passengers don’t receive assigned seats, but they board in groups that are labeled either A, B or C, with the A group boarding first and getting the pick of overhead bin space and the best seats.
Passengers who buy Business Select fares are guaranteed an A boarding pass, while Southwest’s frequent fliers and travelers willing to pay a $10 fee for “EarlyBird Check-In” are checked in before everyone else, boosting their chances of getting into the A group. The rest dukes it out starting at 24 hours before departure.
Passengers who used Viswanathan’s website would be checked in the moment the process opened, virtually guaranteeing a spot in the A boarding group. There was no charge for the service.
Viswanathan unveiled the website on his Facebook page on October 2. It was featured on Hacker News three days later, and then picked up by two travel blogs. More than 10,000 people have visited Checkintomyflight.com since and about 1,500 flights have been entered into the site.
“People were getting really, really good boarding passes,” Viswanathan said. “This is a much better experience than trying to wake up in the middle of the night or the early morning, remembering to check in.”
But Viswanathan also soon heard from Southwest, which sent him a cease and desist letter last week. Programs like his violate the company’s terms and conditions of use, he found out.
“Southwest places a very high value on customer service and our personal relationship with customers,” said spokeswoman Katie McDonald in a statement to NBC News. “By intruding on that relationship and removing a touch point with the customer, check-in sites take away the ability for Southwest to provide its services in accordance with its policies and legendary personal touch.”
Viswanathan said he suspects Southwest is most upset that passengers who used his website didn’t see the ads on the airline’s check-in page.
He shut down Checkintomyflight.com on Wednesday, even though travelers have put in flights all the way until May of 2013. He’s hoping Southwest will allow him to honor those requests.
The project has even garnered Viswanathan a job offer from Expedia. He has declined, preferring to work on his “own stuff,” he said. | <urn:uuid:0b5f2549-cfbc-4d1a-90ee-2d6c7717ea66> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nbcnews.com/travel/southwest-airlines-shuts-down-automatic-check-site-1C6681666?ocid=msnhp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973698 | 814 | 1.898438 | 2 |
B.O.L.D. stands for Breath of Life Dorchester. B.O.L.D. is a youth-led organization that focuses on environmental and social justice by addressing the health and safety concerns of the Dorchester community. Participating members are youth between the ages of 14-18 working to improve the quality of life in the community through education, advocacy and activism. B.O.L.D. serves the community through civic engagement and partnerships to effectively improve the health and safety in local neighborhoods.
B.O.L.D.'s initiatives include: | <urn:uuid:93d06666-057a-4a13-90dd-a0e3a85ecf94> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wlu.edu/x37998.xml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967201 | 119 | 1.96875 | 2 |
WebMD Medical News
Daniel J. DeNoon
Laura J. Martin, MD
Oct. 25, 2011 -- Boys and men aged 11 to 21 should routinely be offered the Gardasil vaccine for HPV, the human papillomavirus, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) today voted.
Although HPV vaccination is approved for males as well as females, it has been routinely recommended only for girls and women up to age 26. The ACIP decision changes that.
The panel voted 13-0, with one abstention, to make HPV vaccination with Gardasil routine for boys aged 11-12. In a second 8-5-1 vote, the panel extended routine Gardasil vaccination to boys and men through age 21.
And in a third vote, the panel voted 13-0-1 to recommend Gardasil for 22- to 26-year-old men who have sex with men, or who have weakened immune systems. Boys 11-12 years old will be offered Gardasil as a routine vaccination; it can be given as early as age 9. It will be offered as a catch-up vaccination to older teens and young men who have not completed the three-shot series.
The ACIP continues to recommend either of the two HPV vaccines, Merck's Gardasil or GlaxoSmithKline's Cervarix, to women. It's routinely recommended at age 11-12 and may be given as early as age 9, with catch-up vaccinations up to age 26. Cervarix is not approved for men.
Gardasil's cost -- listed on a commercial Internet pharmacy site at about $140 a dose -- made some of the ACIP panel members hesitate to recommend it for young men. But many were swayed by an argument from James Turner, MD, executive director of the American College Health Association and a professor at the University of Virginia.
Turner noted that while most of the panel focused on the cancer-prevention benefit of HPV vaccination, the vaccine offers other less tangible benefits. A strong recommendation, he said, would ensure that the vaccine is covered by health insurance.
"The consequences of HPV rarely include cancer but always include anxiety, suspicion about a partner's fidelity, or about being 'damaged goods' and never able to enter into a valid relationship," Turner told the panel. "By making a firm recommendation, we remove any ambiguity about insurance covering this vaccine."
HPV -- human papillomavirus -- causes cervical cancer in women. It also causes genital warts, anal cancer, and oral cancer in both sexes, as well as penile cancer in men. Men who have sex with other men are most at risk of anal cancer caused by HPV and are the men who may most benefit from Gardasil vaccination.
If at least 50% of women got all three doses of HPV vaccine, heterosexual men would largely be protected from the virus. But even though HPV vaccine is routinely recommended for girls, only 32% have completed the three-dose series.
Vaccinating males will not be cheap. The CDC estimates that the first-year cost will be:
Continuing safety studies show no link between HPV vaccination and serious harms such as blood clots, neurological complications, autoimmune disease, or death.
To reinforce that point, William Schaffner, MD, president of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, asked a pointed question.
"In view of recent political discussions, are there any indications of central nervous system dysfunction or mental retardation associated with this vaccine?" asked Schaffner, chair of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University.
"There is no evidence," said Eileen Dunne, MD, MPH, who presented the CDC's report on Gardasil safety to the ACIP.
As with other vaccines, HPV vaccination sometimes is associated with fainting episodes. Fainting after vaccination usually happens within 15 minutes of getting a shot. It's more common in women than in men.
HPV vaccination has rarely been linked to skin infections, such as abscesses or cellulitis, near the injection site. There have been 12 reports of severe allergic reactions to Gardasil. All of these patients recovered.
SOURCES:Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, Oct. 25, 2011.James Turner, MD, executive director, American College Health Association; professor, University of Virginia.William Schaffner, MD, president, National Foundation for Infectious Diseases.Eileen Dunne, MD, MPH.
The Health News section does not provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. See additional information. | <urn:uuid:74b80507-5f50-4785-85c0-24007fb5e624> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newschannel34.com/webmd/childrensvaccines/story/Males-11-21-Should-Get-Gardasil-HPV-Vaccine/VmgpXTfXqE66oovl-2wi9A.cspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948903 | 949 | 2.3125 | 2 |
|Joined: 09 Mar 2007
Location: Jbeil Byblos
| To be a Lebanese.. be creative
• You constantly mix Arabic, French, and English "Okay, merci kteer, yallah bye!" "Hi kifak ca va"
• Your statements should start with "Enno".
• The words "Khayi" “Man” "Bro" "Cuz" are a big part of your vocabulary.
• The word "Wallah" has replaced the word "Really" in your vocabulary.
• You Believe that “Bounjouren” “Bonsoiren” are registered vocabulary words.
• You say the words "Stylak" and "Salbe" very often.
• You say "Bolice" for "Police"
• You call a night club "Night" and McDonalds "Macdo"; Abbreviation is a convenient style of communication.
• Your father swears at you with words that affect him (Yilaan Abouk)
• Whenever you see a relative you haven’t seen in a while, you say : ''Yee Shoo mgayar wo mihlaw"
• ''We'll only stay 10 minutes'' means you’re spending the whole day.
• You always say "open the light" instead of "turn the light on".
• You say bye 17 times on the phone, before actually hanging up.
• When you fail, your first words are: most of my friends failed too!
• You are so "Class" while everyone else are "Nawar"
• You never stand in line.
• You don't memorize your full National Anthem.
• You talk for an hour at the front door when leaving someone's house.
• You think that Syrians are the butt of all jokes.
• You can't do anything in life unless you have a Wasta
• If a Cop stops you cause you’ve violated a certain law, God help him since you'll be callingPAPI ...then PAPI will fuck his life.
• You eat almost everything with bread.
• You put olive oil on EVERYTHING and brag about how healthy it is.
• You always need to have a Supply of Nuts & Bizir.
• You always fight over who pays the bill.
• Your mom makes food for 10 people but you are only 3 on the table.
• Your mum cooks a meal that lasts three days
To Lebanese Argileh has become as essential as Fresh Air.
• You have to smoke Argileh.
• A good restaurant is measured by how good is their Argileh, and whether the Nara guy is always around!!
• Your mother yells at the top of her lungs to call you for dinner even if you're in the next room.
• You ask your dad a simple question and he tells you a story of how he had to walk miles just to get to school.
• Your parents don't realize phone connections to foreign countries have improved in the last two decades, and still scream at the top of their lungs when making long distance calls.
• You have to have at least 3 relatives living in your neighborhood. .
• Your Family is never happy with what you've achieved. If you graduated from school they'll tell you "Eqbel Shahadeh El kbeereh", when u get that "Oqbal el Aroos / Areees", when you get that "Oqbal ma nefrah be Wledkom", and when you get that "Oqbal Shadet Wladkom”, and it keeps on going...
• You drive a new BENZ but you can’t afford money for gas
• You drive cars with black Fume windows.
• You’re a very good driver, except for the fact that you drive like shit!
• You don’t feel embarrassed filling gas for 3$. (5.000 LBP)
• You can talk on your cell phone, eat a sandwich, drink, and smoke while driving a manual shift.
• You never wear a seat belt.
• You spend all your money buying accessories for the car. (But not Gas).
• You are permitted to have a little chat with your friends in the next car, and block the way on a green traffic light.
• All roads are 2-ways, so driving in the opposite direction is always permit ted.
• If you are a boy you have to learn how to drive when you are 14 years old.
• You stole the car when your Parents were asleep, and were involved in an accident that they don’t know about, till now.
Lebanon = Night Life; No introductions needed here.
• You have to be professional in holding your cigarette and drink in one hand and have easy access to both.
• You think its cool to dance and smoke at the same time.
• You can’t spend the night in one particular Night Club (At least 3).
• You Can Do The Dabkeh
• You are standing next to the largest suitcases at the Airport.
• When you arrive at the airport back home you find at least 20 relatives waiting to greet you.
• Getting a visa to Europe or the States is like getting a baby; everybody tells you "Mabrook"
Last but unquestionably not least.
• You love yellow cause u love "Hezbollah", blue cause u love "future"
• You should get involved in politics, before kindergarten.
• You hope that the political situation will be solved but you know that it won’t.
AT THE END YOU JUST FEEL VERY PROUD FOR SCORING MORE THAN 80% OF THIS FACTS.
|Mon Nov 02, 2009 10:23 am | <urn:uuid:3d0db3ee-cfc8-49ee-b26f-e27540267841> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.discoverlebanon.com/en/forum/viewtopic_t_174_sid_4d42cc83d1e0e19590a9df949d605d06.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926618 | 1,235 | 1.632813 | 2 |
In Annapolis, Reconciled with a Pardon
Hazel G. Snowden and Gov. Parris Glendening at a ceremony celebrating the pardon of Snowdens uncle, John Snowden, convicted and hanged in 1919 - the last man to so die in Anne Arundel County.
Keeping time with the gospel choir singing "Maryland, My Maryland," Gov. Parris Glendening marched down the aisle to the pulpit of Asbury United Methodist Church. He was in Annapolis to accept the thanks of a family, a church and a community for the pardon he signed on May 31, exonerating John Snowden, the last man hanged in Anne Arundel County.
The outpouring of joy at the celebration was in crisp contrast to the mood of February 28, 1919, the day Snowden was hanged. On that day, angry crowds and death threats kept then-governor Emerson Harrington fearing for his life in the State House, and police officers patrolled the Anne Arundel County jail with machine guns. By then, most Annapolitans had been convinced of Snowden's innocence. Many had signed their names to petitions requesting an appeal, but their request was denied.
The case had been volatile from the beginning. Snowden, a black man, was accused of killing Lottie Mae Brandon, a pregnant white woman. At first, beliefs of guilt or innocence split along racial lines, but soon doubt was cast on the trial's evidence, and public opinion turned. It was clear in most people's minds that Snowden was innocent. But the question lay unresolved for 82 years, leaving the local African American community distrustful of local authorities.
The June 22 celebration was planned to say thank you to the governor who had finally provided closure by issuing the long-sought-for pardon.
"Thank you, thank you and thank you again," said Hazel Snowden, John Snowden's niece. "You have cleared my uncle's name, the name of a good man who refused to leave this world with a lie in his mouth."
As well as Governor Glendening, Snowden thanked the John Snowden Memorial Committee and the many people who had helped her uncle's cause.
Much of the thanks went to Carl Snowden (no relation), a former Annapolis alderman who is a special assistant to Anne Arundel County Executive Janet Owens. He started the ball rolling in 1990 by writing a letter to then-Gov. William Donald Schaefer requesting a pardon. Governor Schaefer referred the case to the parole board but never formally responded.
It seemed forgotten until one day last year when Carl Snowden ran into a man standing in front of the Arundel Center on Calvert Street in Annapolis holding a bill.
"What you here for, sir? Are you here to pay a water bill or a tax bill?" Snowden asked with a smile.
"No no, no, no. I don't like this building. This is where they hanged old John Snowden."
Hearing those words, Carl Snowden realized the trial and execution were still on the minds of some Annapolitans. He wrote another letter. This time, Governor Glendening took action. At Friday's celebration, he told his audience why.
"There are a lot of things we do not know," said Glendening, "but there are a lot of things we do know. We know that two key witnesses recanted their testimony and that 11 of the 12 jurors wanted his sentence commuted. There can be little doubt that the hanging of John Snowden was a miscarriage of justice."
County Executive Janet Owens also climbed into the pulpit to give out certificates of thanks and to read her citation proclaiming June 22, 2001, Gov. Glendening Appreciation Day in Anne Arundel County.
Many other politicians sat in the audience for the tribute. Carl Snowden recognized State Sen. John Astle, Dels. Mary Anne Love and Dick D'Amato, Judge Clayton Greene, former Annapolis Mayor Al Hopkins and many more.
To recall the eight-decade-old tragedy, Scotti Preston and Lenward Barber Jr. performed the "Ms. Georgia Brown" act of the play Four Women of Annapolis. Dressed in a shimmering black floor-length dress in turn-of-the-century style, Preston played Ms. Brown, John Snowden's spiritual advisor and a member of Asbury, who spent much of Snowden's last year with him, singing hymns and reading the Bible.
As Snowden, Barber stood amid the congregation, filling the church with his deep voice as he sang a soulful "His Eye Is on the Sparrow."
The gathering of 644 was treated to an old-fashioned evening of thanks and praise, complete with a rare visit from their governor. They had come a long way to get there, writing letters of petition, gathering community support and raising the money for the ceremony and a memorial plaque.
There were smiles of satisfaction all around. Then the benediction was given, and every voice said "Amen."-
- Greshen Gaines
Put Kids in a Bog and Both Thrive
Ten-year-old Beth Millford of Crofton begins to plant a carnivorous pitcher plant in the man-made bog at Arlington Echo.
photograph by Amanda Lofton
Children crowd each other to see some of these rare flesh eaters. One even volunteers to put a finger in. But the Venus fly trap returns it unscathed. Firsthand is how Planet Earth campers at Arlington Echo Outdoor Education Center learn about Maryland bogs and the plants that thrive in them.
As well as sweat and dirt, these hundred young environmentalists have gathered some impressive knowledge and concern for their planet. "Helping Earth is a good thing, and I don't want the earth ruined," declares nine-year-old Elizabeth Swigert of Huntingtown. She listens intently as Phil Sheridan, director of Meadowview Biological Research Station, explains how bogs work as natural water filters.
Bay pollutants like nitrogen, lead and mercury are filtered from running water and contained in the acidic sponge-like mixture of sand and peat that is a bog. Here, too, rare plants grow: carnivorous pitcher plants and Venus fly traps, sundews, blue flag irises, white water lillies, wax myrtles and cardinal flowers as well as bog-loving butterflies, frogs and turtles.
Bogs also aid in flood control, explains Jim Robinson, visiting from Chicago for the Meadowview Association. Bogs absorb water after a heavy rain and allow it to filter more slowly toward streams, rivers and the Bay.
Inside a pitcher plant, the young campers find the bodies of many tiny insects waiting to be digested, which takes about a week. In the Arlington Echo man-made bog, they plant these carnivores and other rare plants.
Referring to the Venus fly trap she is about to plant, 10-year old Beth Millford of Crofton explains "bugs go inside of it, and it has juices that digest them."
Why should the children be concerned with bogs and their inhabitants? Steve Barry, director of Arlington Echo, explains that only three natural bogs survive on Maryland's Western Shore. Barry calls this hands-on education in pollution prevention a "point-source project," focusing on stopping pollution before it enters the Bay. "There is very little you can do once it's there," Robinson explains. We are "educating children of Maryland about unique plants."
Echos of Elizabeth's concern for the future of the earth confirm the success of this project in winning the children's interest. Eleven-year-old camper Devon Cannon of Glen Burnie says he likes learning about "lots of things that help the earth," including water testing and waste reduction. This, says Ali Holzberger, 10, of Glen Burnie, as each camper gently places an insect-devouring plants into the 48-by-30-foot bog, is "stuff you can't do on family trips."
- Amanda Lofton
Chesapeake Biological Lab Wants You
To Be a Bay Scientist
Volunteer citizen-scientists sort fish aboard Chesapeake Biological Labs' ship Aquarius.
photograph by Connie Darago
For the research crew from the Chesapeake Biological Laboratories, business as usual is a fine day on the Bay. And so it is this June morning, with bright morning sun dancing upon the Chesapeake Bay and the Patuxent River as the 65-foot research vessel Aquarius leaves her dock in Solomons.
Aboard is a crew of volunteers seeking to become scientists. They'll gain firsthand experience with fishes to carry back to the lab to share.
'Trips like this give people a better understanding so they can convey that message when they give tours of our facilities," says Erin Woodrow, who coordinates the "great bunch of volunteers" who explain how the lab helps the outside world.
The Chesapeake Biological Laboratories, founded in 1925 by Reginald Truitt, is the oldest state-supported marine laboratory on the East Coast. Its eight-acre campus (land donated by the people of Solomons) includes 23 buildings (seven of which have historical significance), a 750-foot research pier, four research boats and a maintenance facility.
More than 180 faculty, students and staff use the state-of-the-art facility to study the ecology and health of the Bay. Professors with degrees ranging from marine biology to biochemistry blend basic and applied science to the protection of the environment and the wise use of our natural resources.
'There are so many people that are new to the area," said Woodrow, explaining that the Laboratories want to reach out with its knowledge beyond the lab. "We want them to learn more about the water."
Which is why retired contractor Bob Moord joined up with the Lab. "I've always loved the water," said Moord, "and I was fascinated with the work the Lab does. They feed information to our legislators, who make the laws that protect our environment."
As it was for retired Delaware fire chief, Dick Woodall, who found in Solomons the perfect place to retire.
"When I came here," said Woodall, "I wanted to learn more about the water, so I began volunteering."
Both are now Chesapeake Biological Laboratories volunteer scientists.
At the Lab, volunteers open and close the visitors' center - located in the 1890 historic Sauders House - run videos, interpret displays and provide information. On Wednesdays and Fridays at 2pm, they give free public tours.
First, they must know their Bay science.
As Aquarius churns up the Patuxent dredging for oysters, fisheries scientist Eileen Setzler-Hamilton prepares tanks for the catch. Setzler-Hamilton has spent her entire 26-year career at the lab.
"My first assignment was in the upper Potomac," Setzler-Hamilton says. "They were considering building a nuclear power plant, and we did an impact study on the ecology."
Now she's teaching volunteers to be citizen-scientists.
Regional marine specialist Jackie Takacs and part-time media staffer Jim Love help Hamilton break open the oyster clusters.
"These look really healthy," says Setzler-Hamilton, explaining their contents to onlooking volunteers.
"The enthusiasm of this staff is contagious," says volunteer Lee Soderberg, who came to the Center after learning she would be living in Solomons for a year. "It's important to learn all you can about the area in which you live and help protect it."
The crew worked quickly as the heavy, dripping fishing net was hoisted aboard. Besides oysters, the catch yielded an 18-inch rockfish, countless yellow perch, four crabs, a toad fish and an odd-looking character called a hogchoker.
Early colonists named the fish: After feeding the fish to their hogs, they saw their swine choked on blood from slashed throats. This strange fish - resembling a blob of brown Jell-O with no defined head, body or skeletal structure when viewed head first - can invert its entire skeleton into rows of razors.
Such is the Bay lore to be taught this weekend and again in August, when the Lab widens its environmental education to teachers. Topics will include oysters, oyster reefs, aquaculture, biodiversity and ecology. "Teachers will receive free supplies" said Woodrow, "so they can duplicate the workshop. Everything is free, thanks to grant funds from the state of Maryland."
In an upcoming series, Savor the Bay, the lab plans to combine science and seafood. A workshop on rockfish, for instance, will unite a professor studying the fish with a chef who'll prepare a dinner featuring the fish.
Such workshops, Woodrow hopes, will draw more people of all ages and teach them about the water. Some may volunteer, too.
When the Aquarius returned to her dock, volunteers headed for their cars. Well, most of them. Some still had work to do.
Chesapeake Biological Laboratories' visitors center is open Tuesdays through Sundays 10am to 4pm. Information? 410/326-7491.
- Connie Darago
In Season: Peas from the Garden
Among the hierarchy of garden produce from my backyard, none is more rare and precious than Pisum sativum. Snap peas are sweet, crisp and fresh tasting. They are among the earliest of spring crops to plant and harvest. Plant them in early March, and if all goes well there will be peas from mid-May to mid-June. If all goes well.
Things sometimes don't always work out. The season for peas is short, and there aren't many second chances.
Peas are by nature chancy. You put the seeds in the ground when it is still winter. The air is raw and the ground is cold and clumpy. With other plants, you can start a dozen or a hundred in a flat in a south-facing window, then pick out the strongest looking from the ones that germinate and finally harden them off in a cold frame before transplanting them outside. But with peas there is no intermediate stage, no babying.
Some years, you get the cool weather that peas need to thrive; temperatures above 70 degrees cause the plants to stop producing. So if they are planted too late, or if the weather turns unseasonably warm, all will not go well.
This year, if you recall, the cruel month of April was hot and dry. My thermometer recorded a high temperature of 91 on April 10, and on two other days the high reached 89. The peas got off to a good start, but they could not handle that kind of heat.
The weather from mid-May to early June was good for peas, but the early season hot weather had been too much for them. We ended up getting about two pounds, good for about three meals.
The pea plants have been removed and cucumbers have taken their place. The beans, tomatoes and other summer crops are coming along fine. Come July an abundant crop of "Super-Sweet" cherry tomatoes will help me get over my lingering disappointment.
- Gary Pendleton
I doubt if I will plant a fall crop of peas. The cycle begins again in January. When the seed catalogs arrive, peas will be the first item on the list of seeds to order.
Way Downstream ...
In Virginia, authorities are trying to find out what killed nearly 200 protected sea turtles that have washed up along the Eastern Shore of Chesapeake Bay. Suspecting that fishermen's pound nets snared the endangered loggerheads and Kemp's ridley sea turtles, they imposed emergency restrictions making it easier for the turtles to escape
In Chestertown, many rejoiced last week after winning a nine-year war over a powerful and persistent foe. The Kent County Planning Commission voted 5-1 to reject Wal-Mart after critics argued that the chain's107,000-square-foot store would destroy local businesses and erode the town's charm
In Montgomery County, the Humane Society is offering $2,000 for information bringing the arrest of a goose-hater who killed two Canada geese and dumped one of the beheaded carcasses on the doorstep of Jane Wilder, who was trying to settle a dispute over the growing goose population at her lakefront community
Our Creature Feature comes from Key West, where an operation known as "The Great Chicken Lift" was carried out under the cover of darkness last week. For decades, wandering chickens have been part of the charm of one of America's quirkiest outposts. But no more.
After complaints about crowing and bird-droppings, the first batch of gypsy chickens were gathered up after some debate and hauled out of town in a U-Haul by specially appointed chicken-catchers. The birds may miss those Key West sunsets, but they won't lack much else at their new climate-controlled, beachside home at Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary near St. Petersburg. | <urn:uuid:5d24958e-cc6a-488d-a15d-4a407df47580> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bayweekly.com/old-site/year01/issue9_26/dock9_26.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958506 | 3,539 | 2.015625 | 2 |
BMW will offer loaner vehicles to customers of its upcoming i3 EV in order to counter range anxiety, a feature that inevitably comes with electric vehicles.
According to a report from WardsAuto, the German automaker is developing a global program that provides free gasoline-powered loaner vehicles to buyers of its new i3 EV, to eliminate range anxiety on long trips.
Scheduled to launch in first-quarter 2014, BMW’s new 5-seat electric vehicle has a range of 80-100 miles (128-161 km) on battery power alone. This is enough for the average daily city commute, but not for trips out of town.
This is why the automaker will offer an optional 2-cylinder gasoline scooter engine modified for the i3, which will double the EV’s range, according to BMW spokesman Dave Buchko. The unit will likely cost around $4,000, adding to the i3’s expected price of around $45,000.
Gasoline loaner vehicles will be offered to i3 customers for trips that are beyond the EV’s range, with the cost of the program to be included in the price of the i3. BMW estimates that the i3 will satisfy about 90 percent of the driving requirements of its buyers, with loaner vehicles covering the rest of 10 percent.
Since June 2012, Nissan has offered a similar program called “Go the Distance” for owners of its Leaf EV. The program grants Leaf buyers up to 10 free days with a Nissan rental car equipped with an internal combustion engine.
By Dan Mihalascu
via | Carscoop | <urn:uuid:33760570-f200-4a7e-9e02-20af21bc9cbb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.play-auto.net/2013/03/bmw-to-offer-loaner-vehicles-to-i3-owners-to-deal-with-range-anxiety/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945654 | 340 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Spain formally became the fourth country to ask for bailout aid from the euro zone on Monday, June 25. Spain’s short-term borrowing costs nearly tripled at auction on Tuesday. Market participants expect Moody’s to further downgrade Spain’s sovereign debt to Junk status.
Meanwhile, Cyprus also beat Italy to officially become the fifth Euro Zone bailout nation as ‘‘negative spillover effects through its financial sector, due to its large exposure in the Greek economy,’’ according to a government statement.
Although no specific amounts were determined yet, WSJ reported that two external consultancies estimate Spanish banks’ actual capital needs could be at around €62 billion ($77.5 billion), and Cypriot Finance Ministry staff said they expect the total financing needs to come to €10 billion ($12.5 billion).
Between the two, Spain is the one causing a lot higher anxiety. Spain is Europe’s fourth largest economy, which is larger than the other four euro bailout sisters—Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Cyprus--combined. And remember Spain already requested up to €100 billion ($125.7 billion) from EU bailout earlier this month to recapitalize its regional banks reeling from the collapse of its massive real estate bubble. Sadly, judging from the current debt situation (see graph below), the Euro bailout train most likely will not stop here.
|Graphic Source: Thomsonreuters.com|
Previously, we discussed how in the not so distant future, almost all countries in the world could end up in one of these three classes--bankruptcy, credit counseling or debt renegotiation due to decades of deficit spending. That also means many nations, after the storm of debt/banking crisis, will need to implement various government austerity programs, and households will commence debt deleveraging--a long and painful process. An analysis from McKinsey should illustrate this point more clear.
Using the previous deleveraging cycle of Sweden and Finland post financial crisis during the 1990s as a baseline, McKinsey compared the current progress of US, UK and Spain. What KcKinsey found is that the United States may have been half way through that process, while households in Spain and the United Kingdom have only just begun to deleverage. (see chart below).
McKinsey reckons the US could return to trend as early as mid-2013, but cautions:
“… after US consumers finish deleveraging, they probably won’t be as powerful an engine of global growth as they were before the crisis. That’s because home equity loans and cash-out refinancing, which from 2003 to 2007 let US consumers extract $2.2 trillion of equity from their homes—an amount more than twice the size of the US fiscal-stimulus package—will not be available.”
More despair would come to Spain:
“….Today, Spanish corporations hold twice as much debt relative to national output as do US companies, and six times as much as German companies. Debt reduction in the corporate sector may weigh on growth in the years to come.”
UK, even though not part of the Euro sovereign bailout discussion yet, its prospect is not that much better:
“….we find that the ratio of [UK] household debt to disposable income would not return to its long-term trend until 2020.”
What’s more, “Significant public-sector deleveraging typically occurs only when GDP growth rebounds, in the later years of deleveraging.” And since today’s deleveraging economies are larger and under more challenging circumstances, the current deleveraging process could take longer than the historical experience of five to seven years from Sweden and Finland in McKinsey’s baseline.
That suggests the world most likely could experience a long deflationary period. Some economists are starting to worry about the U.S. and Europe could face a coming Japanese-style deflation cycle. Although we don’t believe that is in the cards, since Japan is unique in its demographics, banking and government systems, we do think darker days are ahead, and America’s lost decade would at least get an extension. | <urn:uuid:67ca2355-411b-4c1d-ae32-fc3a4b63252f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.feedthebull.com/article/after-sovereign-debt-crisis-comes-deleveraging | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956474 | 868 | 1.992188 | 2 |
Ciatica is usually caused by pressure on the sciatic nerve from a herniated disc .Sciatica pain is felt in the lower back, buttock, or various parts of the leg and foot.It is a set of symptoms including pain that may be caused by general compression or irritation of one of five nerve roots that give rise to the sciatic nerve, or by compression or irritation of the sciatic nerve itself.
You can cure this by using few Home remedies mention below
Garlic milk can be prepared both in cooked and uncooked states. In raw state uncooked form is more powerful. This milk is prepared by adding the pulp of the crushed garlic in uncooked buffalo milk. The proportion is four cloves to 110 ml of milk. Another method is to boil the garlic milk. This will help in curing sciatica.
Nutmeg is another effective remedy for sciatica. A nutmeg should be coarsely powdered and fired in gingelly oil until all the particles become brown. This oil can be applied beneficially on the affected parts as a pain reliever.
Good home remedy for sciatica – Rhus tox (30C) is a homeopathic remedy for back pain, arthritis and general aches and pains. Rhus tox is widely used for back pain and stiffness including trauma from lifting heavy loads and bruising or sprains. This remedy is also good for joint and muscle ailments, sciatic pain and neck stiffness.
Effective home remedy for sciatica – Put some 50 mg of mustard oil in a small beaker and chop 3-4 pieces of garlic seeds or cloves. Heat it till the color of the garlics turn semi red. Massage the oil in bearable hotness around the buttocks or the areas where you are suffering from pain. This will help in reducing sciatica pain.
Juices like the juice of potatoes and celery leaves. These juices in combination are said to provide sciatica relief when drunk in a minimum quantity of 10 ounces daily. The addition of carrots and beetroots to this mixture is said to fortify the strength and taste. If you can’t drink the juice drinking celery tea throughout the day is also beneficial for sciatica. | <urn:uuid:0568b870-08e9-4519-9072-69fb27ddbc53> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://techpur.com/sciatica-home-remedies-for-leg-pain-foot-pain-lower-back-pain/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949256 | 455 | 1.671875 | 2 |
The first day of class for students at Heiban Bible College in South Sudan turned terrifying on Feb. 1, as Sudanese Air Force planes dropped eight bombs on the school constructed by Samaritan's Purse (SP). The North Carolina-based Christian relief group reported that the attack destroyed two buildings. SP head Franklin Graham called it "a miracle" that the packed school reported no injuries or deaths. The college sits in the South Kordofan province near the hotly disputed, oil-rich border between Sudan and South Sudan. The UN reports that more than 78,000 residents have fled the area since the Sudanese government in the north began sustained air raids in the region last August, and Graham said: "My prayer is that the world will not just sit by ... but make it clear to the government of Sudan that attacks like these will not be tolerated."
Obama loves super PACs
President Obama had to eat his condemnations of super PACs as a "threat to democracy" and "shadowy campaign committees" when his campaign announced in February that he would support Priorities USA, a super PAC, to help fund his reelection campaign. The 2010 Supreme Court decision Citizens United allowed for the creation of super PACs, political groups that can accept unlimited donations from corporations, and conservative super PACs like American Crossroads proved powerful in the 2010 elections. "The stakes are too important to play by two different sets of rules," Obama's campaign manager Jim Messina explained to supporters. White House spokesman Jay Carney echoed Messina: "He's not saying that the system is healthy or good ... his campaign is making the decision that the rules are what they are."
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned California's Proposition 8, the 2008 referendum that defined marriage as between one man and one woman. "Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California," wrote Judge Stephen Reinhardt, one of the most liberal federal judges, in the 2-1 decision Feb. 7.
The U.S. Supreme Court regularly overturns rulings from the liberal circuit, but the circuit court attempted to craft the opinion to avoid that outcome, insisting that its ruling was narrow. Reinhardt wrote that it only applied to California because the voters had targeted a "minority group," which the state had already given the rights of married couples. Supporters of Prop 8 could ask the circuit court for a hearing before the full court, or they could appeal directly to the Supreme Court. Gay couples will not be able to marry in the state until the appeals process is exhausted.
Let it not snow
Heavy snowfall and sub-zero temperatures eased only slightly in Eastern Europe, where record chill since January has killed hundreds in the region. Government shelters in Ukraine took in more than 100,000 victims of cold and power outages, while snow caused traffic jams more than two miles long in Crimea, along the Black Sea coast. Romania's weather-related death toll this year reached 41 on Feb. 8, and in Serbia one person died in Belgrade after being hit by an icicle that fell from the roof of a 12-story building. Remnants of the storm blanketed Italy with its largest snowfall since 1986 and forced closure of airports across the continent.
Babying Baby Doc
Former Haitian president Jean-Claude Duvalier won't face trial for human-rights abuses, despite a litany of allegations by Haitian victims and international human-rights groups. A Haitian judge ruled in January that the notorious former leader-known as "Baby Doc"-would stand trial only for corruption charges related to his 15-year rule.
Duvalier stunned Haitians by returning to the beleaguered nation in 2011 after 25 years of exile in France. He would face a maximum of five years in jail if convicted on the corruption charges.
The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Jan. 27 ruled in favor of Julea Ward, a counseling student at Eastern Michigan University, who claimed school administrators expelled her because of her beliefs. The three-judge panel said the evidence suggested she was right and reversed a lower court ruling in the school's favor.
Administrators kicked Ward out of the counseling program after she asked her faculty advisor to refer a gay client to another student counselor. Ward said her beliefs made it impossible for her to affirm the client's homosexual relationship. The court chastised administrators for punishing Ward for requesting a referral, something they allowed other students to do for non-religious reasons. The court's action clears the case for a jury trial.
The New York State Senate on Feb. 6 voted 52-7 for a bill that would allow religious organizations to use public schools in the state.
The bill would block New York City's move to ban religious organizations from using public schools as houses of worship, a ban that affects more than 60 churches and that was scheduled to take effect after Feb. 12 services. Last week, advocates of the bill were waiting to see whether Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver will permit the bill before the Assembly, despite his own misgivings. "I think the way the Senate is taking it up, it's seriously flawed," Silver told The New York Times. "It would open up the schools to anybody. It might include the Ku Klux Klan."
But Bill Devlin, a Manhattan pastor who has worked locally to overturn the ban, says that argument is a red herring. He pointed to the past 30 years during which no such organization has ever tried to use the schools. "They're dealing in hypotheticals," he said.
Many of the affected churches have served poor communities for decades and, unable to afford commercial rent, may have to leave the city if the ban survives. Influential pastor Tim Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian Church urged the state to intervene. "It is my conviction that those churches housed in schools are invaluable assets to the neighborhoods that they serve," he said in a statement. "... [L]et them be those good neighbors."
U.S. relations with Egypt grew more strained as Egyptian officials announced criminal charges against 19 Americans working for nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Cairo. Thirteen of the 19 Americans charged live outside Egypt. Those living in Egypt include Sam LaHood, director of the International Republican Institute and the son of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.
The charges came as part of an Egyptian investigation into pro-democracy groups that monitor elections and offer training to candidates. Officials accuse 43 employees of a handful of NGOs of operating the groups without government licenses and spending foreign funds without Egyptian permission. Four of the NGOs receive partial funding from the U.S. government, but the groups say their work is nonpartisan and transparent, challenging Egyptian suspicion that the organizations are fomenting rebellion against the ruling party. U.S. officials say the charges jeopardize U.S. aid to the Egyptian military: The United States gives Egypt $1.3 billion annually.
When Shawn Casias on Jan. 31 entered his parents' remote home just outside Monterrey, Mexico, he discovered the dead body of his 67-year-old mother, Wanda Casias, with an electrical cord wrapped around her neck. Searchers five hours later found the body of his father, John Casias, 76, in a building on their property.
John and Wanda Casias were Monterrey-area missionaries for three decades-fiercely dedicated to the First Fundamentalist Independent Baptist Church they established. Their children remember Wanda saying, "We were called to Mexico. They are our people."
Monterrey is a magnet for two of the most active drug cartels, Zetas and Gulf-but John and Wanda Casias were so secure in their faith they were willing to risk living there. Son John Casias said: "If my parents were here right now ... they would say, 'Pray for those who murdered us.'" | <urn:uuid:1317af26-965d-4f5b-9d62-2d690566e94d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.worldmag.com/2012/02/bible_college_bombing/page1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972837 | 1,631 | 1.617188 | 2 |
What Can I Do About My Jumping Dog?
If your dog jumps all over guests like a kangaroo, do not take the easy way out and put him away... or try to teach him the "kangaroo bop." This leaves him excited, which makes him even more excited the next time a guest comes by.
How can you stop dog jumping?
Give a firm, one word correction. "Firm" means serious, not shouting or screaming at the dog. If you look, you will note that your shouting excites him more, thus making the situation worse.
Next, make the dog sit and stay in one place until he is totally calm before releasing him to say hello.
Remember, if your dog has any kind of behavior problem and you give up in the correction process at eighty percent, that is the reason he only gives you eighty percent. Dogs want to give you one hundred percent, but you have to ask for it. | <urn:uuid:fb0c5cf2-a0b7-4576-82e3-41c52ac0b6d8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pawpersuasion.com/blog/2007/09/what-can-i-do-about-my-jumping-dog.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964749 | 197 | 1.875 | 2 |
wiredmikey writes "Over 250,000 user names, email addresses, and passwords used for social networking sites can easily be found online. A study of the data collected showed that 75 percent of social networking username and password samples collected online were identical to those used for email accounts. The password data was gathered from blogs, torrents, online collaboration services and other sources. It was found that 43 percent of the data was leaked from online collaboration tools while 21 percent of data was leaked from blog postings. Meanwhile, torrents and users of other social hubs were responsible for leaking 10 percent and 18 percent of user data respectively...." | <urn:uuid:f0388093-1ef8-4ba9-9af6-fefae584486d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/08/16/1619243/75-use-same-password-for-social-media-email?sdsrc=prev | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969635 | 126 | 2.15625 | 2 |
All you need to know about nutrition and how to give your active child all the goodness she needs...
With food rather than milk now making up the bulk of your child’s diet, those solid meals are her main source of nutrition. Some foods give her energy, while others help her to grow and protect her body from illness. Children of toddler and pre-school age are growing rapidly and are very active, so you need to make sure they receive the right amount of energy and nutrients by providing them with a healthy, balanced diet (and then trying to get them to eat it!). So what should you be serving up to meet your toddler’s needs?
Why it's important
Fat plays a vital role in giving your toddler energy, carrying vitamins around her body and helping build cell membranes. Toddlers need more fat than adults – up to a third of their total food intake – so stick to full-fat milk, butter and yoghurt rather than semi-skimmed or low-fat versions.
Good food sources Dairy food, fats and oils, meat, eggs, oily fish, nuts.
How much your toddler needsAround two glasses of milk and a serving of egg, oily fish (only twice a week for girls, up to four times for boys), meat or cheese.
Protein provides vital amino acids (the body's building blocks) and gives your child the energy she needs for all that walking, climbing, running and jumping.
Good food sourcesMeat, fish, eggs, dairy foods, cereals, bread, soya products, nuts and pulses.
How much your toddler needsAround two servings a day of meat, beans, fish, egg or cheese.
Why they’re important
Carbs provide your toddler with much of the energy she needs each day.
Good food sourcesBread, rice, potatoes, pasta, noodles and cereals.
How much your toddler needsRoughly four servings per day – but don't give her too much bulky fibre (such as bran or brown rice) as it will stop her absorbing the nutrients she needs. You can give her brown bread, but avoid wholemeal rice and pasta at this age.
It helps build strong bones and teeth, regulates your toddler’s muscles and her heartbeat and makes sure her blood clots normally.
Good food sourcesDairy foods, green leafy vegetables, soya beans, tofu, nuts and bread.
How much your toddler needsAround three servings – so two glasses of milk and a yoghurt or a cheese sandwich. Use full-fat milk, not semi-skimmed, until she's at least two.
Zinc helps your child’s her body use carbohydrate, protein and fat. It also helps her grow, repair tissue and boosts her immune system.
Good food sourcesMeat, milk, cheese, eggs, shellfish, wholegrain cereals, nuts and pulses.
How much your toddler needsRoughly two servings of foods containing zinc each day.
It helps to make red blood cells which carry oxygen around her body. Iron is essential for energy, particularly at this stage when children are very active and growing fast.
Good food sourcesRed meat, poultry, fish, beans, nuts, dried fruit (such as apricots), whole grains, breakfast cereals and dark green leafy vegetables (but not spinach).
How much your toddler needsAround two servings a day, for example a bowl of fortified cereal and a portion of baked beans. Having a vitamin C-rich food (like orange juice) at the same as eating non-meat iron sources will her to absorb more.
Why they're important
These essential micronutrients are needed in small amounts in your child's body to keep her healthy, and are involved in processes from eyesight to immunity.
Good food sourcesFat-soluble vitamins (such as vitamins A, D, E, K) are found in vegetable oils, dairy foods, liver and oily fish. Water-soluble vitamins (such as vitamin C and the vitamin B group) are found in fruit, vegetables and grains.
How much your toddler needsA healthy balanced diet full of fruit and vegetables (at least five portions a day, including fresh, frozen, tinned and dried varieties, juices and smoothies), meat, fish, dairy foods and carbohydrates should provide her with the majority of vitamins she needs. However, supplements providing vitamins A, C and D (in the form of liquid drops) are now recommended from six months to five years, especially if she has a limited diet. Ask your health visitor for advice on the best supplements for your child.
© Immediate Media Company Ltd 2012. This website is owned and published by Immediate Media Company Limited. www.immediatemedia.co.uk | <urn:uuid:e41865f9-438c-45b9-aa77-32dee6f81535> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.madeformums.com/baby-and-child-nutrition/nutrients-your-toddler-needs/11355.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955557 | 986 | 3.46875 | 3 |
The auxilia in Roman Britain and the Two Germanies from Augustus to Caracalla: Family, Religion and ‘Romanization’
This thesis examines the cultural and social relationships cultivated by ethnically diverse auxiliary soldiers in the western Roman empire. These soldiers were enrolled in the Roman auxilia, military units that drew primarily on the non-Roman subjects of the empire for their recruits in numbers that equaled the legionaries. I argue that auxiliary soldiers could and did maintain large families, and demonstrate, from epigraphic data collected and presented in my dissertation, how foreign ethnic and religious identities were variously integrated into Roman military culture by both individual auxiliaries and the Roman state.
The history of the auxilia in Germany from the time of Augustus and in Britain from the time of Claudius is discussed, with extensive reference to epigraphic material provided in appendices to this work. Analysis of military diplomas from across the Roman empire demonstrates a significant phenomenon of auxiliary family creation that helps to contextualize the diploma data from Germania and Britannia. Research on further epigraphic evidence from Germania and Britannia demonstrates a marked diversity in religious dedications by auxiliary soldiers and further evidence for auxiliary families. From a discussion of the history of the concept of “Romanization‟ and other theoretical models that can be applied to the study of the auxilia, the continued usefulness of the evolving concept of “Romanization‟ to our understanding of auxiliary cultural integration is assessed. Auxiliary service is shown to have provided many non-Roman ethnic groups avenues of cultural and legal inclusion that each soldier, surely in his own way, could exploit.
PhD Dissertation, University of Toronto, 2010 | <urn:uuid:d2e6859c-59fa-4350-ad1c-5df6e99d220e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ancient.eu.com/article/409/ | 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 | 0.947711 | 344 | 2.25 | 2 |
In My View
Published Sunday, Nov. 21, 2004 Fairbanks Daily News-Miner Fairbanks, Alaska
The Daily News Miner’s Nov. 7, 2004 editorial (A howlin good time) clearly illustrates how seriously Alaskans are misled about the current rash of aircraft-assisted wolf-shooting programs.
As an animal advocacy group that represents hundreds of Alaska members, Friends of Animals holds the interest and right to express our views about the ethics and treatment of wolves and other free-living animals, and to condemn aerial shotgunning as a morally corrupt act regardless of who pumps the bullets.
Times have changed; ideas have evolved. A civilized society abandons violent, ignorant wolf persecution campaigns as shameful conduct. Jon Coleman, author of the new book Vicious: Wolves And Men In America explains, wolf-haters seek “mementos of power…a stockpile of masculine totems — guns, skins” and their victims’ heads “helped a small man feel big.”
The unlawful wolf-killings that prompted the criminal charges imposed on one of three hunter-pilot teams permitted by the state to shoot wolves near McGrath is utterly predictable. Permit-holders may well view the shooting opportunity as open-ended, and go anywhere to kill wolves. It’s lucky that David Haeg and Tony Zellers were caught.
The Daily News-Miner’s editorial skips the facts about the McGrath wolf-control program. Originally, the McGrath area included 1,700 sq. miles. Wolf killers couldn’t find any wolves in this area despite Alaska’s Department of Fish & Game’s (ADF&G’s) assurances that the area contained too many wolves, so ADF&G expanded the control area to provide wolves to kill.
The Board of Game regulation that authorized the McGrath program allows the aerial killing of every last wolf that can be found in this 3,000 sq. mile area, for an unspecified number of winters. This regulation requires only that 20 wolves be left alive in the entirety of 8,500-square-mile GMU 19D east, which includes the 3,000-square-mile control area. Thus it is accurate for Friends of Animals to have said that the state intends to annihilate the wolves within the 3,000 sq. mile McGrath control area. Contrary to the News-Miner’s editorial that “several dozen” wolves would be left in the 3,000 sq. mile control area following aerial wolf-shooting, there is no such requirement.
Moreover, under the McGrath “adaptive management” plan, the state will assist trappers and hunters to keep wolves suppressed in the control area each winter, after the formal control program ends. New wolves will colonize the region year-to-year, dispersing from near and distant areas into the vacancies created each winter in the wolf-control area.
It’s likely that far more than 50 wolves will be shot during the life of the McGrath control program. And there will be many more wolf deaths in the other formal and de facto control areas.
The arguments advanced by wolf control proponents and their government apologists, don’t prove that there are low moose numbers — these claims would not survive a quality scientific, let alone ethical, review. Scrutiny is absent because of the inherent prejudice of the decision-making Board of Game that favors the savagery of pumping wolves full of bullets to rid the land of sentient animals they’re bent on dominating with vicious determination.
The latest wolf control program to be authorized for the Fortymile region may illustrate better than any others the state’s dishonesty. From 1997 — 2001, the state completed a so-called non-lethal wolf control program in that region in which wolves were sterilized and relocated. The promotions surrounding that effort promised that if caribou numbers increased to the specified objective, wolf numbers would be allowed to not only recover but increase above their pre-control level. Fat chance. Although caribou numbers have increased beyond the objective (more likely in spite of than because of the control effort), the state is reneging on its promise and is replacing it with yet another aerial control program.
Friends of Animals will continue to challenge the legality of Alaska’s aerial wolf-control programs in court this year, and we’re running ads and organizing a new series of Howl-In protests around the country and internationally to activate a broad-based coalition of people who respect free-living wolves. Together we pledge to boycott summer travel to Alaska until the state evolves ethically, and the aerial shot-gunning of wolves ends.
Priscilla Feral is president of Friends of Animals, which is based in Darien, Conn. | <urn:uuid:0dba45cd-904b-4cb4-b611-06a85b66c4a2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://friendsofanimals.org/actionline/winter-2005/in-my-view.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 | 0.913741 | 1,004 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Michigan State Police say they have used chemical spray on right-to-work protesters who to tried rush into the Senate chamber at the State Capitol.
Inspector Gene Adamczyk says people tried to rush past two troopers guarding the Senate door Thursday. He says the troopers used chemical spray after the people refused to obey orders to stop.
He says there were several arrests but didn't give a number.
Adamczyk says the Capitol has been temporarily closed because of concerns for the safety of people and the building. He estimated about 2,500 visitors were at the Capitol.
Adamczyk said the building wasn't at capacity but protesters were heavily concentrated in a few areas. | <urn:uuid:5ec8955d-0d80-47d2-b88f-f900cc3b8678> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wndu.com/news/headlines/Police-pepper-spray-protesters-at-Mich-Capitol-182413921.html?site=mobile | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984962 | 138 | 1.625 | 2 |
Web Conferencing Cuts Costs for California Community College System
- By Linda L. Briggs
With 2.5 million students and 75,000 faculty, the California Community College system
has considerable shopping clout with vendors. Using those numbers to its advantage, the CCC has created an immense and cost-effective state-wide Web conferencing system
for its 109 member colleges. The conferencing system, originally set up in 2001 and moved to a new vendor in 2007, allows administrators, faculty, and students at any member college to use the system's toll-free number for meetings, classes, and other events. That adds up to tremendous savings for the state's community colleges, which are spread up and down the state across 72 community college districts.Growth of Electronic Conferencing
The e-conferencing system's popularity is evident in its growth: In 2003, fewer than 1,500 meetings among 15,000 users were held on the e-conferencing system. In four years, usage has grown to 10 times that number, and numbers for 2008 will almost certainly be significantly higher, according to Project Director Blaine Morrow, as the program continues to expand and as he publicizes it further. "We took a gamble [in setting up the system originally]," Morrow said, "and it's really paying off now."
The savings in travel time and expense, as well as reduced time away from work and staff time savings, Morrow estimated, are so widespread and immense that they can't really be calculated.
With headquarters in San Diego, California's southernmost large city, CCC's e-conferencing project, called CCC Confer
, serves community college districts ranging in size from a few thousand students to more than a hundred thousand in some districts, and everything in between. The system uses video cameras and optional connections with ordinary telephone services via a toll-free conference call. It relies on Web conferencing and e-learning software and services from Elluminate
called Elluminate Live!, which the consortium switched to last year after using a system from another vendor. With either vendor, Morrow estimated, CCC Confer was the company's largest customer.
Part of the reason for the switch was features in Elluminate, although the deal Morrow was able to negotiate using the size of his constituency was a factor as well. And though he said he sees the raft of Web-conferencing products that are currently available as much the same in their basic features, Morrow said that Elluminate offered some additional features specific to teaching that clinched the bid. "Elluminate has some things that we did not see from any other vendor," he said. These include a note-taking feature that allows students to use a note pad during a class without opening a second application, a timer that clocks meeting length, and the ability to include synchronous video from a Web camera on each participant's browser during a meeting.
The product also offers application sharing, so that instructors can share their desktop applications or allow students to control a shared virtual desktop, as well as a whiteboard in which anything displayed is an individual object and can be moved around the board by participants. That means that in a brain-storming session, for example, every student can individually add comments to the whiteboard. That's a feature he also finds handy in business meetings, Morrow said.Cost Savings and Green Appeal
The conferencing system was originally launched in 2001 with a five-year, $11.5 million grant from the statewide Chancellor's office to one member of the consortium, Palomar College in San Diego County. The program has been gradually expanded since then, and the grant was renewed in 2006.
Information about how to sign up and use the system is disseminated from a portal site, www.cccconfer.org, that includes an online training center with live help or self-paced training, demonstration rooms, and other resource information.
Uses of the system range from administrative meetings, which Morrow estimated make up perhaps a third of the usage, along with distance education, meetings of professional organizations, and office hours between professors and students. Faculty throughout the state use the system to teach online classes, either by integrating CCC Confer into their course management system, such as Blackboard or Moodle, or by directing students to the CCC Confer portal.
A key benefit to planning, managing, and funding the communication system at a state-wide rather than local level, Morrow said, is the ability to leverage the numbers. The shear size of the state's community college system has given him flexibility in selecting a vendor, since it meant that several e-conferencing vendors were eager to work with him. The size of the consortium has also given him clout in asking for specific features, and for support and training as part of the deal.
Along with the dollar savings, Morrow said he likes the environmentally friendly savings in reduced carbon emissions from cutting travel. Unfortunately, he doesn't have a way yet to specifically calculate savings from the Web conferencing system yet, either in real dollars or environmental benefits. "We have talked about that with the vendor," Morrow said. "If we could figure out how far people would have to travel, even if they were going to a central site in California ... the savings would be [huge]. We know that we are saving people a ton of money, we just don't have a good way to calculate it right now."
Morrow said he speaks regularly with other state college systems who are interested in emulating what California is doing, and he encourages schools to contact him for advice and suggestions. | <urn:uuid:8a2337ea-e77a-4f3a-a7e8-d780f6b96c9e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://campustechnology.com/articles/2008/07/web-conferencing-cuts-costs-for-california-community-college-system.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975153 | 1,155 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Through this article I'd like to dissect some components of open source software projects to help everyone better understand the dynamics involved. This understanding is important because all too often we are involved in just one aspect of a project, and therefore may see it from only one perspective.
Show your support for Zikula! Sign up at Github account and watch the Core project!
Continuous Integration is considered to be a mature and essential part of software development. The idea of continuous integration is to continuously test software and apply various other automated checks to ensure quality. We can apply a similar concept to almost any aspect of our daily life, and certainly in project management. Let's call it, “Continuous Review”.
“Continuous Review” simply means to regularly review what you are doing and measure the results. Over time you can easily see what is working and what is not. The consequences of not doing this can be very substantial.
“Not invented here” is an unwillingness to use foreign stuff from outside your own project or company. Many open source projects suffer from this phenomenon, and in the past, so did we. There are many reasons for it: I specifically remember people expressing that if we use 3rd party solutions for stuff on our website for example, that might send the wrong message about what Zikula can and can't do. There's probably a pride issue buried deep in there too. Such a fear comes from complete ignorance.
You may be curious how you can contribute to the Zikula project or any of the module projects now that many of them have moved to Github. The good news is that it is actually pretty easy to do so. We just haven't done a good job of publicizing how it's done. Well, that is what this article is all about!
Writing a custom Zikula module can be relatively fun and easy, provided you follow some basic guidelines and are prepared to invest some discipline. The more complex the module you are writing, the more you will benefit from the strategies laid out in this post.
Submitting bug reports, or "tickets" for Zikula (or any other piece of software) can sometimes be a chore. It is tempting to write a quick ticket that briefly says, for example, "Login is not working", and then let the programmer figure out what's wrong.
Let's remember what the goal of submitting a ticket is, though: get the bug fixed.
As we have extensively upgraded and extended our Cozi recently, I recognized that most of us do use very few features, and might not even be aware what can be done with the beast. I therefore will start a serie of articles about the "hidden secrets of our Cozi" here There will be no special order or weight, I will just write them as they come in my mind.
Personally spoken, I love the style Trac is using Pygments by default to present code in the repository browser view:
I'd like to explain the process of moving and SVN repo to Github. There are limitations in what you can import because git and subversion are fundamentally different. In most cases it will not affect you, but in some circumstance, it will. I have explained the: potential difficulties here (8 minute video).
Importing projects to github.com is relatively easy but there are some important considerations:
This article explains the reasons why, and to answer some common questions that arise from the move.
Firstly, GIT has dozens of advantages over subversion. I'll not get into the techie details, but safe to say, it's a dream to work with, saving time and making complex operations a 'piece of cake'. But there are many other reasons for the move beyond individual developer satisfaction. The big plus with GIT is that it opens up collaboration in ways that are just not possible in subversion.
I made a video about it: here (read more)
The holy grail of content publishing - that's exactly what Pagesetter means to so many people. A little known fact is this multipurpose, do it all module was written on the train, by Jorn - to and from his way to work! Pagesetter is basically a database system, you can configure the schema and generate forms to display that data. With Pagesetter alone, you can do most tasks all with the same module. It's no wonder that that there was great disappointment when Jorn announced he would orphan all his modules due to the birth of his first child. | <urn:uuid:4a89288d-4588-493a-b04b-930587c43718> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.zikula.org/.72.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956181 | 926 | 1.945313 | 2 |
Pro-life advocates claim a new poll on abortion may change the whole debate on the controversial issue. One pro-lifer says the poll shows the world what most her fellow advocates have known for years.
According to a recent nationwide survey of 1,001 Americans conducted by Wirthlin Worldwide, 61 percent felt that “abortion is almost always a bad thing for a woman.” In contrast, 23 percent stated is “almost always a good thing.” The Wirthlin poll coincides with the results of another survey conducted by the Elliott Institute in December 2002, which found that 52 percent thought abortion makes women's lives worse, whereas only 16 percent believed it makes women's live better.
Dorinda Boardlee of the pro-life group Americans United for Life says the more recent poll delivers a clear message.
“[The Wirthlin survey] shows that there's no longer this dichotomy between those who speak for the unborn child and those who claim to speak for woman,” Boardlee says, “because if you claim to speak for women, you will now understand from our 30 years of abortion experience that abortion…hurts women.”
According to Boardlee, abortion hurts women both physically and mentally. And in another finding from Wirthlin, 64 percent of Americans know someone who has had an abortion. Boardlee reacts to that discovery.
“This is something that we are experiencing from the women who are in our lives,” she says. “[T]hey have voices; and they can speak, unlike unborn children; and they are showing severe psychological problems. They're showing problems with their future child-bearing capability. The truth always comes out.”
According to the pro-life advocate, the realization that women's health is damaged by abortion will change the debate forever. Americans, she says, are “facing the reality that the violence of abortion leads to disaster for women, our children, and our culture.” And abortion, she adds, “has not turned out to be the great liberator we were told it would be.”
The 2002 survey conducted by the Elliott Institute established that 80 percent of Americans felt that women experienced moderate to severe emotional effects from abortion. An even higher percentage, including those who were “pro-choice,” said women were not fully informed of this risk beforehand.
(This article courtesy of Agape Press). | <urn:uuid:72152d31-a3a7-4401-b467-0f38418c67d7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://catholicexchange.com/survey-on-women-and-abortion-opens-new-area-of-debate/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975373 | 501 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Programming languages with a Lisp-like syntax extension mechanism
I'm making a programming language, and, having spent some time in Lisp/Scheme, I feel that my language should be malleable. Should I use macros, or is there something else I might/should use? Is malleable syntax even a good idea? Is it perhaps too powerful a concept?
EDIT: In doing some research, I found fexprs. I don't really understand what these are. Help with that in an answer too please.
EDIT2: Is it possible to have a language with macros/something-of-a-similar-nature without having s-expressions? | <urn:uuid:a9f59a77-8ce6-4833-8f4f-71203d445bf8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/166640/besides-macros-are-there-any-other-metaprogramming-techniques?answertab=votes | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946857 | 139 | 1.953125 | 2 |
Since 2002, while underage alcohol use and tobacco use rates decreased, illicit drug use rates remained relatively steady, with negligible declines -- despite prohibition.
In 2009 about half of the youths aged 12-17 reported that it would be "fairly easy" or "very easy" for them to obtain marijuana if they wanted to.
We urge young people to avoid alcohol, tobacco and other drugs, but national surveys show us that substance use is common among high school students and most young people accept it as part of teenage social life. If we ignore the reality of teen drug use and fail to provide young people with honest, informative drug education, we increase their risk of falling into abusive patterns. Misleading drug education can also weaken youth confidence in law enforcement, parents, and other adults. DPA supports reality-based approaches to drug education at home and in school that foster open and honest dialogue around the risks and consequences of drug use. Students need drug education that respects their intelligence and gives them the tools to stay safe and healthy. Get our Safety First booklet for ideas on how to talk to young people about drugs. | <urn:uuid:8efb9fc1-9d3b-4def-8406-e0ec103bd0dd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.drugpolicy.org/drug-education | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949135 | 223 | 2.984375 | 3 |
The Successful Online Student
Students should possess certain qualities to be successful in an online course. Not all students are good candidates for Internet-delivered courses; some students will tend to be more successful in traditional face-to-face courses.
This page lists the qualities of a successful online student. If you feel you are weak in the areas indicated below, you should speak with an advisor before registering for an online course. All courses, online or otherwise, take slightly different approaches to meeting the course objectives. The specific tools and techniques used to deliver instruction will vary some from course to course; you may wish to contact the instructor of a particular online course for more detailed information.
Online students should:
- Be self-motivated and self-disciplined.
With the freedom and flexibility of the online environment comes responsibility. Due to the need to independently manage the flow of information and tasks in an online course, successful online students need to be self-starters and possess effective time-management skills.
- Be able to communicate effectively through reading and writing.
In the virtual classroom, nearly all communication is written, so it is critical that students feel comfortable expressing themselves in writing. This may require remedial efforts on the part of the student. Meaningful and quality input into the online classroom is an essential part of the learning process. Time is given in the process to allow for the careful consideration of responses. The testing and challenging of ideas is encouraged; you will not always be right, just be prepared to accept a challenge. Be willing to embrace active class participation, both as an individual and as a part of collaborative student groups.
- Accept critical thinking and decision making as part of the learning process.
Critical thinking skills are an essential part of any learning process, but become even more essential in an online course. The learning process in an online course can involve discovery, critical thinking, synthesis of resources and evaluation of knowledge.
- Be willing and able to commit to at least 9 hours per week per 3-hour course.
Online courses are not easier than the traditional educational process. Many students will say it requires much more time and commitment. Though the content of an online course is the same as its traditional counterpart, the delivery method demands that the online student learn technology skills and conduct most of their communication in written form.
- Meet the minimum technology requirements for online courses.
Online courses require that you have access to the minimum technology (computer with access to the Internet, a Web browser and an email account) as well as basic proficiency with this technology. You may take a self-assessment here.
- Feel that high quality learning can take place without going to a traditional classroom.
The learning outcomes for online courses are the same as their traditional counterparts. The successful online student will view online courses as a convenient way to receive their education - not an easier way. Online courses are not for every student. Be prepared to accept the instructor as facilitator to the class, as opposed to being a director of class activities. While your instructor is certainly managing the instructional process, they will be less the "sage on the stage" and more the "guide by the side."
- Be willing to "speak up" if problems arise.
Many of the non-verbal communication mechanisms that instructors use in determining whether students are having problems (confusion, frustration, boredom, absence, etc.) are not possible in the online approach. If a student is experiencing difficulty (either with the technology or with the course content), he or she must communicate this immediately to the instructor.
- Take advantage of Support Services.
As a Distance Learning student, you have access to many of the same services that on-campus students have: Registration, Financial Aid, Advising, Library, and the Bookstore are all available online for all students. Be sure to take advantage of the range of services that Butte College provides. These services can be accessed from the Butte College home page.
- Be willing to learn independently and in groups.
The online learning process is best facilitated when students interact not only with the instructor, but also with each other. Your online instructor should be encouraging group interaction as a part of the learning process. In addition, your instructor may ask you to work in small groups, communicating with group members via the class communication tools to complete group projects.
- Preferred Learning Styles.
Not all students learn best in the same way. Online courses depend to a great degree on a large amount of reading, writing and independent analysis. It is important that as an online student, if you do not learn best this way, be willing to both know your learning preferences and also stretch into new learning modes. Be willing to accept that due to this, Internet-based courses may be more difficult than their face-to-face counterparts.
Adapted in part from University of Illinois & the Illinois Online Network. | <urn:uuid:50633d6c-fbf4-41c9-b58f-d7804a3a513b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.butte.edu/distance/online_student.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936351 | 999 | 2.703125 | 3 |
.- Israel’s official Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem has named the World War II-era Archbishop of Florence, Cardinal Elia Dalla Costa, as “Righteous Among the Nations” for his help in rescuing hundreds of Jews from Nazi persecution.
Yad Vashem said on Nov. 26 that the cardinal “played a central role in the organization and operation of a widespread rescue network.”
The Nazis began to deport Jews after the German occupation of Italy in September 1943. A major rescue effort in Florence was begun by the city’s Jewish leader Rabbi Nathan Cassuto and Jewish resistance fighter Raffaele Cantoni. The operation soon became a joint Jewish-Christian effort, with the cardinal offering guidance.
Cardinal Dalla Costa recruited rescuers among the clergy and supplied letters asking monasteries and convents to shelter Jews. He sheltered Jewish refugees in his own palace for short periods before they could be taken to safety.
Yad Vashem said the cardinal was part of a network that helped save hundreds of local Jews and Jewish refugees from areas previously under Italian control.
Survivor Lya Quitt testified that she received help from the cardinal after she fled to Florence from France in September 1943. She was brought to the cardinal’s palace and spent the night with other Jews sheltered there before rescuers took them to different convents in the city.
The cardinal died in 1961 at the age of 89. The cardinal’s medal will be kept at the Yad Vashem memorial in Jerusalem.
Yad Vashem has honored over 24,000 people with the medal in recognition of their “extraordinary courage to uphold human values.” Other Catholic honorees include Latvian priest Fr. Kasimir Vilnis, who was honored in 2008.
Controversy over the actions of the Catholic Church during the Holocaust has often focused on Pope Pius XII. Some critics contend the wartime Pope did not do enough to speak out against the persecution of Jews.
The Pope’s defenders point to his numerous actions behind the scenes that helped save persecuted Jews.
Until earlier this year, the Yad Vashem memorial’s exhibit on Pope Pius XII mainly echoed his critics, saying the Pope “did not protest” the murder of Jews.
The memorial has since changed the exhibit panel, citing recent research. It acknowledges the Pope’s condemnation of ethnic persecution and the efforts of the Holy See to save Jews. It notes Pius XII defenders who say official Catholic neutrality prevented harsher measures against the Catholic Church and allowed more covert rescue efforts to succeed.
The exhibit still criticizes “a lack of clear guidance” and instances of silence from the Vatican during the Nazi era. | <urn:uuid:5aec7608-5777-4dad-8370-f96779ed1837> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/yad-vashem-honors-italian-cardinal-who-rescued-jews/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965371 | 560 | 3.28125 | 3 |
- Intersection of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers Allahabad
Lonely Planet review for Sangam
This is the point where the shallow, muddy Ganges meets the clearer, deeper Yamuna. Hindu pilgrims come all year to bathe and take a boat out to the auspicious spot where the two rivers meet. A rowing boat should not cost more than Rs 30 per person if you share, but boat-owners are desperate to get foreign tourists on board at inflated prices. A private boat for a half-hour trip is about Rs 200. The number of pilgrims increases during the annual Magh Mela (mid-January to mid-February).
Astrologers calculate the holiest time to enter the water and draw up a 'Holy Dip Schedule'. The most propitious time of all happens only every 12 years when the massive Kumbh Mela takes place. Ardh Mela (half-mela) is every six years. Both of these attract millions of sadhus and pilgrims. In the early 1950s, 350 pilgrims were killed in a stampede to the soul-cleansing water (an incident recreated in Vikram Seth's novel A Suitable Boy).
The most recent Ardh Mela was in 2007, while the next Kumbh Mela here is 2013. | <urn:uuid:5d5018bb-56d5-4f96-9d35-9259627a0592> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lonelyplanet.com/india/uttar-pradesh/allahabad/sights/river/sangam | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941653 | 266 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Eskmeals Viaduct walkers force train to make emergency stop
Last updated at 15:50, Monday, 11 June 2012
A GROUP of walkers has been blasted for causing a train to slam on its emergency brake while crossing a viaduct.
Network Rail said the incident happened when a group of between eight and 10 people were spotted walking on the Eskmeals Viaduct – which is illegal.
The driver of the 13.31 Barrow to Carlisle Northern Rail service was forced to bring the train to an emergency standstill, before the trespassers left the scene.
A Network Rail spokesman branded the group’s actions as “dangerous”.
He said: “There were approximately eight to 10 members of the public on the viaduct; we believe they were two families.
“The driver of the train brought the train to an emergency stop so he didn’t hit anybody.
“The train crew say they saw the trespassers leave the viaduct, get in to their cars and drive off.
“They appear to have been just strolling across the viaduct.
“This is both illegal and dangerous. It is trespassing on private property, which carries a fine of up to £1,000.
“There is also the stupidity of walking on a live railway line when trains can come along at any moment.
“Clearly, if the driver hadn’t applied the brakes in an emergency situation, we could have been looking at injuries, even fatalities.
“The people were putting themselves in extreme danger.
“If there were any children in among the group, what an appalling example the adults are setting for their future life: teaching them trespassing and walking on the railway line is an acceptable thing to do.”
The incident, which happened last Monday afternoon, has sparked calls for a pedestrian footbridge to be installed across the viaduct. Mark Holroyd, South Copeland Tourism development officer, said: “The incident which has occurred raises the need for improved pedestrian and cycle access across the Esk.
“We have long said a cantilevered structure onto the existing railway bridge would be ideal.
“Not only would this improve safety, but open up South Copeland – particularly Waberthwaite and Bootle – to cycling for visitors from Ravenglass.”
But the Network Rail spokesman said: “We are not funded to provide public footbridges across river estuaries.”
A Northern Rail spokeswoman confirmed the incident, adding: “Our drivers undergo rigorous training for situations such as this and use their expertise and knowledge to ensure the safety of our passengers.
“When the route was clear, the service continued on to Carlisle, with a slight delay of 16 minutes.”
First published at 13:07, Monday, 11 June 2012
Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk
Have your say
Those folk walking over the viaduct should have tried it when there was a steam special about to cross the viaduct. Brakes on steam engines are about only 40% efficient as a railcar so they would have ended up in West Cumberland Hospital if not the coroners slab! Folk like that deserve to be injoured when trestpassing and prosecuted under the Health and safety at Work Act for endangering life - their own!
this is not a rare incident - some tourist seem to leave their brains and manners at home when visiting this area - as a local i see peoples private property crossed, gates left open, bad manners displayed if you dare use your own PRIVATE road to get home, there are plenty of maps that show people where to go they just assume they can go where they want
View all 3 comments on this article | <urn:uuid:bfabc3d4-8464-4bdc-8bae-a08ba3ddfaad> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nwemail.co.uk/news/eskmeals-viaduct-walkers-force-train-to-make-emergency-stop-1.963940?referrerPath=2.1823/2.1823 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964848 | 796 | 1.921875 | 2 |
Up Front: April 2010
Scars fleck my flesh. Many were inflicted by folly, like the now nearly invisible one at the corner of my right eye, etched when I toppled into a toy box as a toddler. (A man’s reach should, indeed, exceed his grasp but not a 1-year-old’s.) Others, more precise, linger where scalpels once sliced skin. That both my hands don’t bear these in abundance is a testament to a surgeon’s curiosity, compassion and skill, but they make a mockery of the economics underlying American medicine.
Among the afflictions I’m heir to is one called Dupuytren’s contracture, which causes the fascia, a layer of tissue just beneath the skin of the palm, to harden and shrink, forming lateral cords that keep the fingers, especially ring and pinkie, from straightening. Eventually they bend, curling like claws. Rarely painful, it’s not malignant, but if you make a living with your hands — or as I’m doing now, pecking a keyboard — it becomes a major pain in another part of your anatomy. Even putting your hand in your pocket can be a trial.
Standard surgery involves cutting open the palm to excise the fibrous tissue. This not only requires stitches, splints and postoperative therapy but risks complications such as infection and nerve damage. Because there is a 50/50 chance the nodes will grow back, the resulting scar tissue makes another fasciectomy even more difficult. The first hand surgeon I consulted cautioned me to wait. Over the course of a decade, I watched my fingers — first on my left, then my right — tick down like the minute hand on a clock as the quarter-hour approaches.
Prowling the Internet, I read everything I could find about Dupuytren’s. That’s how I learned about needle aponeurotomy. Pioneered by a rheumatologist in Paris, the procedure is performed by few doctors in this country. Simply put, it involves poking a small-gauge hypodermic needle into the cords, fraying them until they can be snapped by straightening the fingers. A clinic in West Palm Beach, Fla., was not only doing it but training others. Clicking through its site, I came across a photo of Dr. Richard D. Goldner, an orthopedic surgeon at Duke University Medical Center. (Ironically, I could have found him in the pages of BNC, in our annual listing of the state’s best doctors. For the latest, see our November issue.)
In the fall of 2008, he spent nearly four hours freeing the fingers of my left hand. Last October, he spent two more on my right as we chatted — the procedure requires only local anesthetic, numbing just the skin — about the pros and cons of Obamacare. Then I drove to my brother’s house outside Hillsborough and, the next morning, home to Charlotte, losing only a day of work.
Needle aponeurotomy is tedious, especially for a surgeon of Dr. Goldner’s caliber, and it pays poorly. I know, because just the other day my insurance company sent a letter informing me, five months later, that it was my responsibility, as part of my annual deductible, to pay the provider the $285 it had approved of the $1,712 that was billed. If money had mattered that much to him, Dr. Goldner would have had an economic incentive to flay open my palms, a fasciectomy being much more lucrative for him and the hospital.
So with straightened hand, I salute such healers. But this I must confess: I sometimes catch myself yearning to use it to slap the mouths of those who say this flawed health-care system is the best there is and that we should just let it be.
Due to a data-entry error by the North Carolina Golf Panel, Hope Valley Country Club in Durham was omitted from the top 100 golf courses in the March issue. It ranks 53rd. The corrected list can be viewed at www.ncgolfpanel.com. | <urn:uuid:2150f2d7-b419-4cec-a29a-e26b1fc49eda> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.businessnc.com/articles/2010-04/eye-of-the-needle-category/?query=category.eq.2010-04&back=articles | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958819 | 875 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Valentine's Day can be a budget buster for kids. Money spent on food, cards, and parties can catch you by surprise. Teach your children to enjoy Valentine's Day by focusing on frugal activities instead of getting caught up in consumerism.
Make Your Own Cards:
Instead of purchasing Valentine's Day cards to giveaway; have your children make their own. The recipients will be pleased and you'll have a project to keep your kids busy.
Buy at a Discount Shop:
If your children will need Valentine's Day cards for the entire class, pick them up at a dollar store.
Bake Instead of Buy:
If you need to bring treats for a class party, have your child help you bake the treats instead of buying premade at the grocery store. Make a double batch, and you'll have some to enjoy with your own family.
Did you save last year's Valentine's Day cards? If so, cut the front off and glue them onto construction paper. You'll have a new card with a new look. If you don't have cards from last year, plan ahead and consider saving your cards for next year.
Have a Family Night:
Instead of going out for a romantic dinner with your spouse, consider staying at home and having a family night. You'll save money on dinner and a babysitter and you can enjoy a fun evening at home with your kids.
Focus on Free Entertainment:
If possible, offer to provide music or poems for a class party instead of bringing items you must purchase. Sign up quickly, so you can pick what you want to bring.
Celebrate on a Different Day:
There's no rule that says you must celebrate Valentine's Day on Feb. 14. Celebrate it on a different night and you'll avoid inflated prices. | <urn:uuid:c9d49bcd-e487-4fc1-a4e3-07b2900dada6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kidmoney.about.com/od/savingmoney/p/valentines.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955018 | 370 | 2.25 | 2 |
Memoranda 98-03 (The Debt Collection Improvement Act of 1996)
The Debt Collection Improvement Act of 1996
The Debt Collection
Improvement Act of 1996 (DCIA) fundamentally changed the manner
in which the Federal government is required to manage the collection
of its delinquent debts. Congress has directed that the management
of delinquent obligations is to be centralized at the Treasury Department
in order to increase the efficiency of our collection efforts. The
Administration strongly supported this legislation and is fully
committed to its successful implementation. However, implementation
of the statute's requirements to date has not met either the President's
or the Congress' expectations.
I am writing to enlist
your personal and active participation in a concerted effort to
revitalize compliance with the statutory mandate. The statute is
comprehensive and complex, and cannot be successfully implemented
without all affected agencies working in close cooperation with
the Treasury Department to analyze and refer the appropriate delinquent
debts. The Secretary of the Treasury has instructed the Financial
Management Service to meet promptly with the affected agencies to
expedite this process.
Effective management of delinquent debt is highlighted in the President's FY 99 Budget as a Priority Management Objective. Accordingly, it is my expectation that each agency will address implementation of the DCIA with the utmost urgency and with the highest levels of cooperation. I have asked Acting Deputy Director Ed DeSeve to work with the President's Management Council to focus on the specific areas in need of immediate attention and to keep me advised of your progress in meeting these expectations. I know that by working together we will be successful in this important endeavor. | <urn:uuid:37febcfb-0abc-488b-bbad-464cc9fd88f3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/memoranda_m9803/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930348 | 334 | 1.726563 | 2 |
We've teamed up with great folks at Abrams Appleseed to offer "Montessori Monday's"! This is a first in a series.
As families prepare to head "back to school", we thought we would take this opportunity to offer a few tips to help ensure a smooth transition. After a long, hot and fun Summer, it can be challenging to get back into the swing of things, but hopefully these suggestions will help provide some direction.
1. Talk positive about school. “You get to go to school tomorrow!”
2. Relate your childhood experiences to your children. “I loved school. I was always so excited to go to school and meet new friends and learn new things.”
3. While it can be difficult for parents, we recommend a quick drop-off and pick-up.
4. When entering the school, walk in with your child, instead of carrying them.
5. Try to ensure a good night sleep.
6. Create a routine. Consistency is vital to early childhood development.
While these are just a few tips, we would be more than happy to elaborate on any of the above points. We are sure you have others. We would love to hear them. | <urn:uuid:04216822-832e-47da-8235-6dbc0944cfc6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://baandek.org/blog/2012/8/6/back-to-schoolhtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969369 | 257 | 2.03125 | 2 |