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Fishing in Pafos has always been an exciting sport and is becoming more and more popular all the time. Angling can also be enjoyed in the dams, situated in beautiful natural surroundings, providing excellent fresh-water fishing opportunities.
Today, the water in the dams is classified as very rich and there is a wide variety of fish. A special licence can be obtained for a small fee from the Fisheries Department (Tel: + 357 26240268).
If you want to test your fishing prowess try doing so from anywhere along the beautiful sandy beaches around Pafos. No licence is required for salt-water rod fishing.
No licence is required for spear-fishing (without aqualung), angling, fishing with vertical lines or trawling.
Licences have several conditions attached to them that regulate the equipment used, the days you can fish and in certain cases (spearguns with aqualung and fishing at night with a light), how much you can catch on each fishing trip.
The types of fish that can be caught include sea-bream, groupers, amber jacks and sea-perch.
Special (sport) fishing licences are required by law for fishermen who use:
- Boats and fishing-nets, longlines and traps
- Spearguns with an aqualung
- Spearguns with lights at night - without aqualung
- Nets without a boat. | <urn:uuid:e1d43f25-4995-4bfc-9409-7583f183f684> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.visitpafos.org.cy/Amateur_Fishing.aspx | 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 | 0.950118 | 293 | 1.625 | 2 |
Next year will be a pivotal one for the United States' credit standing.
Moody's said Tuesday it would likely strip the United States of its sterling AAA rating if lawmakers fail to produce a long-term debt reduction plan next year.
But if negotiations go well, the rating agency said, it would probably affirm the country's AAA rating and change its outlook to "stable" from "negative." A negative outlook suggests the rating could be downgraded over the medium term.
Thanks to the political brinksmanship that governed last summer's debt ceiling standoff, Standard & Poor's was the first agency to lower the country's AAA rating. Moody's and Fitch decided to stand pat, although they did lower their outlooks to "negative."
There are a lot of ways to approach substantial debt reduction. One of the most abrupt would be to simply let all the measures that make up the so-called fiscal cliff take effect next year.
The fiscal cliff -- which consists of a series of tax increases and spending cuts -- would curb the debt by roughly $7 trillion over a decade.
But it would also threaten the economy in the short term.
And if that's the course Congress chooses or simply fails to avoid, Moody's said it would likely maintain its negative outlook on the U.S. AAA rating.
"[The agency] would then need evidence that the economy could recover from the shock before it would consider returning to a stable outlook," Moody's said.
Another factor influencing Moody's outlook: the debt ceiling, which will probably need to be raised by early next year. Currently the outlook assumes that Congress will increase it "in a relatively orderly process." But Moody's said it would put the U.S. rating under review during negotiations over the debt limit. | <urn:uuid:3a206e98-4dd4-43e1-ba8e-86f4a89745f5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wyff4.com/news/money/Moody-s-US-credit-rating-hinges-on-Congress/-/9323996/16560528/-/i00onjz/-/index.html?absolute=true | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965184 | 361 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Whether it is the sprinter who finished first or the team that scored more points, it's usually easy to determine who won a sporting event. But finding the statistics that explain why an athlete or team wins is more difficult -- and major figures at the intersection of sports and numbers are determined to crack this problem.
Many statistics explain part of the picture, especially in team sports, such as the number of points scored by a point guard, a quarterback's passing yards, or a slugger's batting average. But many of these numbers -- some of them sacred among sports fans -- don't directly address a player's contribution to winning. This was a primary topic of discussion last weekend at the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference in Boston.
Organized by students from the MIT Sloan School of Management and sponsored by several sports-related companies, including media outlet ESPN, the conference brought together over 2,200 people to discuss player evaluation and other factors important to the business of sports.
Many of the research presentations and panel discussions described efforts to remove subjective judgments from sports statistics -- and how to define new statistics more directly explain a player's value.
"We have huge piles of statistics now," said Bill James, Boston Red Sox official and baseball statistics pioneer, at a panel discussion about adding modern statistics to box scores. "What you have to do is reduce it to significant but small concepts," said James.
New technology and analysis is only now making it possible to learn more about many fundamental events in several sports, which are not often addressed by traditional sports statistics.
"We're going to talk about stats that work and stats that don't work," said John Walsh, executive vice president of ESPN, who moderated the box score panel discussion.
The panel, which also included three other experts, cited several examples of statistics that didn't work: a receiver might drop a pass for one of several reasons -- but rarely are drops broken down into categories; an assist in basketball is a judgment call with room for different interpretations; and fielding percentage in baseball only generally describes a defensive player's ability.
In another session, Greg Moore, the director of baseball products for the sports graphics and visualization company Sportvision, described recent data-collection advances in baseball. When all the company's systems are fully deployed in Major League Baseball stadiums, they plan to track the trajectory of each pitch thrown, the movement of all the players on the field and the speed of every swing and hit ball. Their systems, already fully installed in some ballparks, will collect over a million data points at every game. Some of this data is publicly available.
The data will make it possible to say not just that a player hit a double or that he hit a hard line drive, but that the ball left the bat at a certain speed and launch angle and a certain number of degrees from the foul line. No scout or official scorer can contaminate those kinds of measures with subjectivity. On the other hand, a string of objective data is not inherently more useful than a flawed statistic, which may contain useful wisdom.
During the box-score panel discussion, Dean Oliver, ESPN's sports analytics director, said that collecting information this way opens a new frontier.
"It's an immense amount of data, but you have to know what to do with it," said Oliver.
The winner of the conference's research paper competition found one way to make new data useful. Using SportVU, a basketball database collected by the company STATS, a team from the University of Southern California's computer science department studied rebounding a basketball from its absolute first concepts. The data shows the movement of all the players and the ball, including rebounds, passes and other game events.
The research team showed empirically what was only previously accessible from inference and experience. They were able to show that by the time almost all rebounds travel 14 feet from the hoop they also drop below eight feet of elevation -- easy reaching distance for a basketball player. The researchers were able to compare shot distance with rebound distance and to show where strategic changes might change offensive rebounding success.
Rajiv Maheswaran, the researcher who presented the paper, compared the effort to find new insights about sports to astronomy. Once you start looking at the stars, he said, you make discoveries, which lead to new hypotheses and more research.
Explore further: Weekends are the best time to buy airline tickets, researchers find | <urn:uuid:5d1d0764-596e-49ce-984a-9da89d2e6c25> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://phys.org/news/2012-03-sports-statistics-scientific.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964654 | 896 | 2.15625 | 2 |
|Easton's Bible Dictionary|
For the measurement of time, only once mentioned in the Bible, erected by Ahaz (2 Kings 20:11; Isaiah 38:8). The Hebrew word (ma'aloth) is rendered "steps" in Exodus 20:26, 1 Kings 10:19, and "degrees" in 2 Kings 20:9, 10, 11. The ma'aloth was probably stairs on which the shadow of a column or obelisk placed on the top fell. The shadow would cover a greater or smaller number of steps, according as the sun was low or high.
Probably the sun-dial was a Babylonian invention. Daniel at Babylon (Dan. 3:6) is the first to make mention of the "hour."
Noah Webster's Dictionary
1. (n.) An instrument, formerly much used for showing the time of day from the shadow of a style or gnomon on a graduated arc or surface; esp., a sundial; but there are lunar and astral dials. The style or gnomon is usually parallel to the earth's axis, but the dial plate may be either horizontal or vertical.
2. (n.) The graduated face of a timepiece, on which the time of day is shown by pointers or hands.
3. (n.) A miner's compass.
4. (v. t.) To measure with a dial.
5. (v. t.) To survey with a dial.
Int. Standard Bible Encyclopedia
DIAL OF AHAZ
1. Hezekiah's Sickness and the Sign
2. The Sign a Real Miracle
3. The "Dial" a Staircase
4. Time of Day of the Miracle
5. Hezekiah's Choice of the Sign
6. Meaning of the Sign
7. The Fifteen "Songs of Degrees"
1. Hezekiah's Sickness and the Sign:
One of the most striking instances recorded in Holy Scripture of the interruption, or rather reversal, of the working of a natural law is the going back of the shadow on the dial of Ahaz at the time of Hezekiah's recovery from his illness. The record of the incident is as follows. Isaiah was sent to Hezekiah in his sickness, to say:
"Thus saith Yahweh, the God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will heal thee; on the third day thou shalt go up unto the house of Yahweh.. And Hezekiah said unto Isaiah, What shall be the sign that Yahweh will heal me, and that I shall go up unto the house of Yahweh the third day? And Isaiah said, This shall be the sign unto thee from Yahweh, that Yahweh will do the thing that he hath spoken: shall the shadow go forward ten steps, or go back ten steps? And Hezekiah answered, It is a light thing for the shadow to decline ten steps: nay, but let the shadow return backward ten steps. And Isaiah the prophet cried unto Yahweh; and he brought the shadow ten steps backward, by which it had gone down on the dial of Ahaz" (2 Kings 20:5-11). And in Isaiah 38:8, it is said, "Behold, I will cause the shadow on the steps, which is gone down on the dial of Ahaz with the sun, to return backward ten steps. So the sun returned ten steps on the dial whereon it was gone down."
2. The Sign a Real Miracle:
The first and essential point to be noted is that this was no ordinary astronomical phenomenon, nor was it the result of ordinary astronomical laws then unknown. It was peculiar to that particular place, and to that particular time; otherwise we should not read of "the ambassadors of the princes of Babylon, who sent. to inquire of the wonder that was done in the land" (2 Chronicles 32:31). It is impossible, therefore, to accept the suggestion that the dial of Ahaz may have been improperly constructed, so as to produce a reversal of the motion of the shadow at certain times. For such a maladjustment would have occasioned the repetition of the phenomenon every time the sun returned to the same position with respect to the dial. The narrative, in fact, informs us that the occurrence was not due to any natural law, known or unknown, since Hezekiah was given the choice and exercised it of his own free will, as to whether a shadow should move in a particular direction or in the opposite. But there are no alternative results in the working of a natural law. "If a state of things is repeated in every detail, it must lead to exactly the same consequences." The same natural law cannot indifferently produce one result, or its opposite. The movement of the shadow on the dial of Ahaz was, therefore, a miracle in the strict sense of the term. It cannot be explained by the working of any astronomical law, known or unknown. We have no information as to the astronomical conditions at the time; we can only inquire into the setting of the miracle.
3. The "Dial" a Staircase:
It is unfortunate that one important word in the narrative has been rendered in both the King James Version and the Revised Version (British and American) by a term which describes a recognized astronomical instrument. The word "dial" (ma'aloth) is usually translated "degrees," "steps," or "stairs," and indeed is thus rendered in the same verse. There is no evidence that the structure referred to had been designed to serve as a dial or was anything other than a staircase, "the staircase of Ahaz." It was probably connected with that "covered way for the sabbath that they had built in the house, and the king's entry without," which Ahaz turned "round the house of Yahweh, because of the king of Assyria" (2 Kings 16:18 the Revised Version, margin). This staircase, called after Ahaz because the alteration was due to him, may have been substituted for David's "causeway that goeth up," which was "westward, by the gate of Shallecheth" (1 Chronicles 26:16), or more probably for Solomon's "ascent by which he went up unto the house of Yahweh" which so impressed the queen of Sheba (2 Chronicles 9:4).
4. Time of Day of the Miracle:
At certain times of the day the shadow of some object fell upon this staircase, and we learn from both 2 Kings and Isaiah that this shadow had already gone down ten steps, while from Isaiah we learn in addition that the sun also was going down. The miracle therefore took place in the afternoon, when the sun moves on its downward course, and when all shadows are thrown in an easterly direction. We are not told what was the object that cast the shadow, but it must have stood to the west of the staircase, and the top of the staircase must have passed into the shadow first, and the foot of the staircase have remained longest in the light. The royal palace is understood to have been placed southeast of the Temple, and it is therefore probable that it was some part of the Temple buildings that had cast its shadow down the stairway in full view of the dying king, as he lay in his chamber. If the afternoon were well advanced the sun would be moving rapidly in altitude, and but little in azimuth; or, in other words, the shadow would be advancing down the steps at its quickest rate, but be moving only slowly toward the left of those who were mounting them. It may well have been the case, therefore, that the time had come when the priests from Ophel, and the officials and courtiers from the palace, were going up the ascent into the house of the Lord to be present at the evening sacrifice; passing from the bright sunshine at the foot of the stairs into the shadow that had already fallen upon the upper steps. The sun would be going straight down behind the buildings and the steps already in shadow would sink into deeper shadow, not to emerge again into the light until a new day's sun had arisen upon the earth.
5. Hezekiah's Choice of the Sign:
We can therefore understand the nature of the choice of the sign that was offered by the prophet to the dying king. Would he choose that ten more steps should be straight-way engulfed in the shadow, or that ten steps already shadowed should be brought back into the light? Either might serve as a sign that he should arise on the third day and go up in renewed life to the house of the Lord; but the one sign would be in accordance with the natural progress of events, and the other would be directly opposed to it. It would be a light thing, as Hezekiah said, for the shadow to go forward ten steps; a bank of cloud rising behind the Temple would effect that change. But no disposition of cloud could bring the shadow back from that part of the staircase which had already passed into it, and restore it to the sunshine. The first change was, in human estimation, easily possible, "a light thing"; the second change seemed impossible. Hezekiah chose the seemingly impossible, and the Lord gave the sign and answered his prayer. We need not ask Whether the king showed more or less faith in choosing the "impossible" rather than the "possible" sign. His father Ahaz had shown his want of faith by refusing to put the Lord to the test, by refusing to ask a sign, whether in the heaven above or in the earth beneath. The faith of Hezekiah was shown in asking a sign, which was at once in the heaven above and in the earth beneath, in accepting the choice offered to him, and so putting the Lord to the test. And the sign chosen was most fitting, Hezekiah lay dying, whether of plague or of cancer we do not know, but his disease was mortal and beyond cure; he was already entering into the shadow of death. The word of the Lord was sure to him; on "the third day" he would rise and go up in new life to the house of God.
6. Meaning of the Sign:
But what of the sign? Should the shadow of death swallow him up; should his life be swiftly cut off in darkness, and be hidden until a new day should dawn, and the light of a new life, a life of resurrection, arise? (Compare John 11:24.) Or should the shadow be drawn back swiftly, and new years be added to his life before death could come upon him? Swift death was in the natural progress of events; restoration to health was of the impossible. He chose the restoration to health, and the Lord answered his faith and his prayer.
We are not able to go further into particulars. The first temple, the royal palace, and the staircase of Ahaz were all destroyed in the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, and we have no means of ascertaining the exact position of the staircase with respect to Temple or palace, or the number of the steps that it contained, or the time of the day, or the season of the year when the sign was given. It is possible that if we knew any or all of these, a yet greater significance, both spiritual and astronomical, might attach to the narrative.
7. The Fifteen "Songs of Degrees":
Fifteen years were added to the life of Hezekiah. In the restoration of the second temple by Herod fifteen steps led from the Court of the Women to the Court of Israel, and on these steps the Levites during the Feast of Tabernacles were accustomed to stand in order to sing the fifteen "songs of degrees" (Pss 120-134). At the head of these same steps in the gateway, lepers who had been cleansed from their disease presented themselves to the priests. It has been suggested that Hezekiah himself was the compiler of these fifteen "songs of the steps," in thankfulness for his fifteen years of added life. Five of them are ascribed to David or as written for Solomon, but the remaining ten bear no author's name. Their subjects are, however, most appropriate to the great crises and desires of Hezekiah's life. His great Passover, to which all the tribes were invited, and so many Israelites came; the blasphemy of Rabshakeh and of Sennacherib's threatening letter; the danger of the Assyrian invasion and the deliverance from it; Hezekiah's sickness unto death and his miraculous restoration to health; and the fact that at that time he would seem to have had no son to follow him on the throne-all these subjects seem to find fitting expression in the fifteen Psalms of the Steps.
E. W. Maunder
AHAZ, DIAL OF
See DIAL OF AHAZ.
Dial (2 Occurrences)
2 Kings 20:11 Isaiah the prophet cried to Yahweh; and he brought the shadow ten steps backward, by which it had gone down on the dial of Ahaz. (WEB KJV JPS ASV DBY WBS RSV)
Isaiah 38:8 Behold, I will cause the shadow on the sundial, which has gone down on the sundial of Ahaz with the sun, to return backward ten steps. So the sun returned ten steps on the sundial on which it had gone down."'" (Root in WEB KJV JPS ASV DBY WBS RSV) | <urn:uuid:47112e6d-8f5a-409e-90f1-e132fa781138> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://refbible.com/d/dial.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97152 | 2,821 | 3.15625 | 3 |
Everything you need to understand or teach Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt.
Frank McCourt, the narrator of Angela's Ashes, describes his family origins and his early years in Brooklyn. His Irish father fled to America after serving with the Irish Republican Army in their conflict with the British. There he married Angela Sheehan from Limerick. Within a few years, Angela gave birth to five children, one of whom died in infancy. Life is hard in Brooklyn, and relatives arrange for the McCourts to return to Ireland and settle in Limerick. In their one-room dwelling, the entire family sleeps in one flea-infested bed. Frank's father, who is an alcoholic, goes on the dole. Angela accepts charity from the St. Vincent de Paul Society, but her family is miserably poor. Both twins die of pneumonia. The McCourts move to a slum house, and Angela gives birth to another boy, Michael. Frank's father tells him the baby was brought by the Angel on the Seventh... View more of the Angela's Ashes Summary
Angela's Ashes Lesson Plans contain 146 pages of teaching material, including: | <urn:uuid:eae718c1-325c-45b2-804b-21d371611bbd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bookrags.com/Angela's_Ashes/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964704 | 235 | 3.203125 | 3 |
TheShipsList-L ArchivesArchiver > TheShipsList > 2008-01 > 1201390428
From: Steve Aunan <>
Subject: [TSL] Coastal Steamships in Norway after 1858
Date: Sat, 26 Jan 2008 15:33:48 -0800
I know this may be far-fetched, but I'm looking for information on some of the smaller coastal steamships that brought Norwegians from the inland towns to the coastal port cities (Bergen, Stavanger, Kristiansund,etc.). I don't need info on the "feeder" ships which brought emigrants to the port of Hull in England; there seems to be plenty of information about ships like that.
So far I've found the names of several ships, including the Sundmør and the Aalborg; but I can't find any details about how many passengers they carried, how big the ships were (tonnage doesn't really help), how many cabins they had, etc.
The steamer Sundmør first began weekly trips to Geiranger in 1858.
The 140-ton steamship Aalborg was built in 1859 and scrapped in 1876.
Any help would be appreciated.
Steve in Sacramento
Shed those extra pounds with MSN and The Biggest Loser! | <urn:uuid:30c56d07-a560-414b-a954-1c6bad08f7fa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/TheShipsList/2008-01/1201390428 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934697 | 285 | 1.625 | 2 |
Drexel Hill World War II veteran gets long overdue recognition, medals (With Video)
SPRINGFIELD — Montraville “Monty” Lybrand never sought the spotlight in his life.
But the World War II Army veteran had a shining moment Friday morning when he received long overdue recognition for his military service. Lybrand, 86, of the Drexel Hill section of Upper Darby, was awarded several medals, including the Bronze Star, during a ceremony orchestrated by the office of U.S. Rep. Pat Meehan, R-7, of Upper Darby.
“Although it’s 67 years too late, we are delighted to say thank you this morning,” said Meehan at his district office in Springfield.
Lybrand expressed appreciation for receiving the recognition and shared recollections about his time in the service. Lybrand entered the service in 1944 at the age of 18. After training, he was deployed to Okinawa, Japan on May 1, 1945.
On May 29, 1945, Lybrand said he was injured from shelling near his station. “As a serviceman, you could hear it over your head,” he said.
Lybrand was then airlifted to Guam for treatment of wounds from shrapnel to his sternum. Afterward, he returned to Okinawa and stayed there until the Japanese surrendered. He was then transferred to Korea where he stayed until his discharge on Nov. 1, 1946.
In addition to the Bronze Star Medal, which was presented by Col. Sam Hayes of the Army National Guard, Lybrand received the Good Conduct Medal, Purple Heart, Asiatic Pacific Theater Medal, Army of Occupation Medal, WWII Victory Medal, Combat Infantryman Badge, Rifle Marksmanship Badge and the Honorable Service Lapel Button.
After his service, Lybrand finished his education and was employed by the Veterans Administration in Philadelphia. He retired in 1981.
Lybrand said he was blessed with longevity and five children, nine grandchildren and one great-grandchild. “I’m very proud of them all,” he said. Continued...
All of Lybrand’s children and a few grandchildren attended the ceremony. His children’s names are Kathleen Murtagh of the Drexel Hill section of Upper Darby, Donna Rutkowski of West Chester, Jennifer Glenn of Media, Monty Lybrand of Marple and Claire Barnes of Springfield.
Barnes said her father is a “true gentleman” who didn’t want a big ceremony. “He didn’t want us to make a fuss,” she said.
Lybrand’s wife, Catherine, died in 2006.
“She would have been very proud and would have said it was well deserved,” Barnes said. “I never saw two people love each other so much.”
Murtagh also said the recognition was well deserved. “We’re all delighted,” she said.
Lybrand’s son also said he was happy his father received the medals.
“He has been rather patient,” he said. “It’s a good day.”
Rutkowski said she was proud of her father and his life accomplishments.
Meehan, a former Delaware County district attorney and U.S. attorney, is running for re-election this year against Democrat George Badey, an attorney and chairman of the Radnor Democratic Committee.
In addition to Hayes, Meehan was joined by state Sen. Ted Erickson, R-26, of Newtown, at Lybrand’s ceremony. Erickson said he was very impressed by the 86-year-old Army veteran. Continued...
“He tells me that’s from good genes and I’m sure the support of his family,” Erickson said, referring to Lybrand’s long, successful life.
Location, ST | website.com
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June 29, 2012—The Milk Processor Education Program (MilkPEP), creators of the National Milk Mustache “got milk?(R)” campaign, recently announced the winner of its 2011 Spotlight On contest. Michelle Milley, cafeteria manager, St. Jane Frances School in Pasadena, Md., worked to improve her students’ nutrition by serving only fat-free chocolate and lowfat white milk and eliminating less nutritious beverages. She used Milk Mustache celebrity posters to create a buzz, and the school saw milk consumption begin to rise. At her school of 350 students, about 250 units of milk are consumed per day.
As part of her award, Milley will be featured in a print advertising campaign. To learn more about the “got milk?” campaign and to submit an entry to be considered as a monthly winner in the school foodservice category, visit www.milkdelivers.org/schools/spotlight-on/school-foodservice.
MilkPEP Spotlight On Contest
June 28, 2012 – SNA has received the following information about the Colorado Wildfires from the Denver Convention and Visitors Bureau. They say that “the Denver Metro area is not threatened in any way and our air quality is within normal standards.”
We are looking forward to seeing everyone at our 2012 Annual National Conference (ANC) in Denver and will notify you if we receive any further information about the wildfires. Our thoughts are with everyone impacted by the fires.
The complete memo from the Denver Convention and Visitors Bureau, along with a second about construction at Denver International Airport is available below:
You might have seen media coverage that Colorado is experiencing several fires. The High Park forest fire is 55% contained and is 75 miles North of Denver. The Waldo Canyon fire in Colorado Springs is more than 60 miles South of Denver. There is a fire Southwest of Boulder which is approximately 35 miles from Denver. We want to assure you that the Denver Metro area is not threatened in any way and our air quality is within normal standards.
We are in constant communications with our friends at the Colorado Springs, Fort Collins and Boulder Convention & Visitors Bureaus, as they continue to update their clients and visitors on areas impacted by the fires. In each city, there are still many activities available for recreation and visitation.
Rocky Mountain National Park and the popular Indian Peaks Wilderness area, as well as, all other mountain areas of Colorado to the west along the I-70 corridor (including Vail, Keystone, Breckenridge, Winter Park, Aspen and Steamboat), and all points South (including Crested Butte, Telluride, Durango and Mesa Verde National Park) are more than 100 miles from the fire areas and have had no impact from the fires or smoke. These areas are very open and accessible from Denver.
More information on the fires can be found at the Colorado Division of Emergency Management website (www.coemergency.com) or on Twitter at @COEmergency. Updates on Colorado wildfires are also available at www.inciweb.org/state/6/.
Our hearts and prayers go out to the families that have been impacted by these natural disasters. For ways to help those affected by the wildfires in Colorado, visit www.HelpColoradoNow.org.
Pardon Our Dust While We Improve Denver International Airport
Work has begun at Denver International Airport on a new 500-room Westin hotel and conference center and a new commuter rail line that will connect the airport to downtown Denver by 2016. Construction of these exciting projects will result in some temporary detours for arriving and departing passengers. Most people will notice very little difference. Please just follow the orange detour signs, or go to www.flydenver.com/construction for complete information and updates.
Denver International Airport is working closely with VISIT DENVER and our local transportation companies with commercial vehicles to ensure the impact on arriving passengers is minimal. You may also want to allow a few extra minutes to your transfer times, if applicable. If you are coordinating any customized “group” transfers please contact your VISIT DENVER service manager so we can put you in direct contact with DIA ground transportation for appropriate staging.
VISIT DENVER will continually monitor the progress of this exciting project and be sure to keep you updated.
© 2000 - 2013 School Nutrition Association, All Rights Reserved | <urn:uuid:9c5d39c7-ea8e-484c-9513-8b14287b0672> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.schoolnutrition.org/Blog.aspx?blogmonth=6&blogday=29&blogyear=2012&blogid=622 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936565 | 898 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Just a reminder: The $50 Curly Q Wall Decals Giveaway is open till 1/31/12. You can enter here.
The Kochi Muziris Biennale, an international exhibition of contemporary art, is India’s first ever Biennale. According to its curators, “it seeks to invoke the historic cosmopolitan legacy of Kochi and its predecessor, the ancient port of Muziris.” The three month long event showcases creations of eighty-eight artists from 24 countries. On our recent trip to the ancient port city of Fort Kochi we visited the Aspinwall House, one of the 10 different venues for the festival.
The first time being in Fort Kochi we went in without much knowledge about the venue or the exhibits. Yes, as you might have guessed there was ample creativity on display yet the thing that captured my imagination the most was the venue itself and the history associated with it. No, not revealing too much about it now but you can see how my focus shifted to the beauty of the building through the pics.
Near the entrance;
Just a disclaimer before we get into the exhibits; I neither am nor claim to be an expert on art/art critic. I’m just highlighting only the works of art that caught my eye or rather appealed to my layman eye.
Inside, artist Amar Kanwar’s installation, ‘The Sovereign Forest’ displays over two hundred varieties of rice seeds.
Art work by Pakistani artist, Rashid Rana using Urdu/Arabic magazine scraps.
The sights outside the building were equally breathtaking. A look from one of the downstairs balconies. A view of the backwaters and the port framed by the Kani konna or Cassia Fastula flowers.
A collection of candid photographs by Atul Dodiya.
By now I was totally enamored by the building and was trying to guess what this place would have been. Maybe a factory, a hospital? The vibe that I got from the building was exactly the same as the one I got while visiting the Ellis Island museum up in NYC.
Work by local artist, Prasad Raghavan and all I could see was the long wall of windows behind.
More views of the backwaters through the windows.
The star of the show, the ‘Stopover’ by artist Sheela Gowda and her husband Christoph Storz. They transported 170 grain grinding stones that they found in old homes all over Karnataka (a neighboring state) to the venue and set them in a random pattern.
A closer look of them rolling out the door into the waters. I’m pretty sure those cheap lounge chairs aren’t supposed to be there.
Back inside another beauty; a city made out of discarded pottery shreds by Vivan Sundaram.
I’m sure this traditional canoe loaded with old household knickknacks (by Subodh Gupta) is supposed to have profound meaning (maybe the Noah’s ark?) but unfortunately our hungry tummies didn’t let us ponder much.
More galleries by various artists…
On the way out, a giant weaver bird nest like structure called ‘Erase’ by Srinivas Prasad.
That wraps up our little tour. Any guesses as to what the building was?
Per the Biennale website, the Aspinwall House is a sea-facing colonial-era spice house which was the headquarters of the Aspinwall & Company Ltd. The company established in 1867 by the English trader John H Aspinwall traded in in coconut oil, pepper, timber, lemon grass oil, ginger, turmeric, spices, hides and later in coir, coffee, tea and rubber. The large compound contains office buildings, a residential bungalow, a number of warehouses, and smaller outer-lying structures. The company survived a devastating fire in 1889 which razed to the ground all the buildings throughout the length of the Kochi waterfront. | <urn:uuid:1a8ff52c-ee5e-491b-ad0b-4fc98209057e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://whatsurhomestory.com/kochi-muziris-biennale/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946581 | 834 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Ar-Namys (The Party of Dignity)
Chairman: Felix Kulov, former vice president (1992) and prime minister (2005-2007) of Kyrgyzstan.
Forecast for the October 10 parliamentary elections: Independent political analysts in Kyrgyzstan expect Ar-Namys to win no more than 7 percent of the vote, mainly in the northern regions and Bishkek.
Brief History and Major Highlights:
The Ar-Namys party was founded in 1999 by Felix Kulov, who quickly became Kyrgyzstan’s best-known opposition leader. The party attempted to run in the 2000 parliamentary elections, but was denied registration. In March of that year, Kulov was arrested for corruption and sentenced to seven years in prison by a military court. Ar-Namys then formed the People’s Congress of Kyrgyzstan electoral alliance with three other opposition parties, naming Kulov the chairperson.
In 2004, when Kulov was still in prison, Ar-Namys joined the For Fair Elections opposition alliance in preparation for the 2005 elections. The conduct of the elections led to protests (the Tulip Revolution) that ousted President Akayev. Kulov was then released and cleared of all charges; he quickly became one of the leading candidates for the presidential elections.
Kulov, though, joined forces with Kurmanbek Bakiyev, and became Kyrgyzstan’s prime minister, serving until he and his cabinet resigned in a dispute over the new constitution in November 2006. Parliament rebuffed his re-nomination in early 2007. Kulov then became one of President Bakiyev’s most outspoken critics. After the April 2007 uprising, Kulov was not invited to join the interim government and his party remains in opposition.
• Ar-Namys Party was founded on July 9, 1999, and registered with the Ministry of Justice on August 19, 1999.
• It attempted to participate in the 2000 parliamentary elections, but was denied registration. The party formed alliance with the Democratic Movement of Kyrgyzstan.
• On November 3, 2001, the party formed the People’s Congress of Kyrgyzstan electoral alliance with other opposition parties.
• In 2004 Ar-Namys joined the For Fair Elections opposition alliance in preparation for the 2005 parliamentary elections.
• 2007 parliamentary election results: 44,048 votes, 0 seats won.
• The party is registered to participate in the October 10, 2010 parliamentary elections.
Political Platform (2007):
• Main objective: To provide the people of Kyrgyzstan with a dignified life by establishing a truly lawful, democratic state and creating real opportunities for free economic, political, and spiritual development of the society, with consideration of the historic and cultural characteristics of the country.
• Economy: Establish a strong and reliable financial and banking system; overcome the poverty gap; revitalize industrial production; provide state support to farmers.
• Social sphere: Provide affordable housing; reduce unemployment; raise the minimum wage for federal workers; promote creation of new jobs; guarantee stable prices for bread and bread products.
• Governance: Limit presidential powers; overhaul the judiciary in order to transform it into a real instrument of protecting rights and interests of individuals and private property; raise the authority and independence of judges.
• National politics: Recognize ethnic diversity as an asset of the Kyrgyz people; develop federal employment programs to promote ethnic inclusion; promote the national language; improve the country’s ecology. | <urn:uuid:91f03917-b05a-4fda-ad48-2b6f33aa6d2a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kyrgyzstan.carnegieendowment.org/2010/09/background-on-the-political-party-ar-namys/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957546 | 730 | 1.585938 | 2 |
IT IS worth pausing from time to time to reflect on the remarkable features of the modern economy. As Deutsche Bank points out in its long-term asset return study, the longest series of bond yield data is for the Netherlands dating back all the way to 1517. In June, those yields reached a record low. Not just any old record, then, but a 500-year nadir. In America, yields go back only to 1790 but they too have been at all-time lows. The Bank of England was founded in 1694 but never felt the need to push base rates down so low; not in two world wars or a Great Depression. Nor did the Bank ever feel the need to expand its balance sheet to such a great extent (although Deutsche only has data back to 1830); currently it is around 25% of GDP.
Another statistic highlighted by Deutsche is the innate tendency of developed world countries to run a budget deficit. America has run a deficit for 40 of the last 44 years; Britain for 51 out of 60 and Spain for 45 out of 49. France has not balanced its budget since 1978; Italy since 1960. Efforts to balance the budget in many European countries are currently associated with recessions. There is an orthodox Keynesian explanation for this, of course, but perhaps there is something about the structure of the modern welfare state, with its elaborate system of transfer payments, that simply makes it difficult to trim. (The latest column muses on democracy and debt.)
Given this combination of economic circumstances, Deutsche is surely right to say that
Anyone predicting the endgame is speculating outside the historical dataset
Perhaps we will see hyperinflation as central banks suffer the "ketchup" problem; they create so much money that eventually it splurges out of the bottle. Or perhaps monetary policy has reached its limit, and we are in for a long period of Japanese-style stagnation. But perhaps a long period of stagnation is not feasible as it will exhaust the patience of either voters or creditors and lead to rapid default.
One other point from the Deutsche study (sorry, this is an investment bank research note and I can't link to it) is that despite all this unprecedented fiscal and monetary policy action, we have not made much progress in deleveraging economies. Deutsche looks at 16 countries and finds that only two - America and Australia - have total debt-to-GDP ratios that are lower than they were in 2007. At 345%, America's ratio is down from the peak of 366%, but barely below 2007's 348%. Some might say that is a good thing; that modern economies can't cope with shrinking credit.
But if they can't cope with shrinking credit, balanced budgets or higher interest rates, then modern economies have truly entered a new, and not very appealing, era. | <urn:uuid:d2ce41aa-8640-4efb-b9b0-b122a263995a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.economist.com/comment/1618026 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962015 | 573 | 2.53125 | 3 |
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- The Hatfield and McCoy Feud has had no shortage of oral history associated with this most persistent of American tales. But an announcement was made Monday of some apparent actual artifacts from the feud, including bullets fired during a key battle.
"I cannot overstate how amazing this find is. We uncovered actual bullets that were fired 125 years ago during the feud. It is incredible to hold something like that in your hand," said Bill Richardson, who has been a key figure in highlighting the feud's history.
The artifacts, which also include window glass from the period of the feud, charred wood embedded with a homemade square nail, pieces of whiteware ceramics and other items, were brought to light as the result of a fall visit to the area by the National Geographic Channel show "Diggers." The show features George "KG" Wyant and Tim "Ringy" Saylor searching for historic artifacts with metal detectors.
The announcement of the find had been delayed until now, to coincide with Tuesday's date, which marks the 125th anniversary to the day that a band of Hatfields raided the McCoy cabin on New Year's Day in 1888, killing Randolph McCoy's daughter, Alifair, and son, Calvin, and burning the McCoy cabin to the ground.
The episode of "Diggers" featuring the discovery of the artifacts -- including 10 bullets and the apparent site of the cabin -- will air 10 p.m. Jan. 29 on the National Geographic Channel.
The cabin assault was a key moment in the feud. Less than three weeks later, the Hatfields were arrested and tried. Until Monday's announcement, there have been no historic artifacts arising from the locale of the feud, and the site of the cabin was unknown.
After the initial discoveries, the "Diggers" stopped their probing and called in Dr. Kim McBride, co-director of the Kentucky Archaeological Survey at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, to take a more careful look.
She arrived in late September with three helpers, who conducted a formal, two-day preliminary excavation of the site, located near the unincorporated area of Hardy in Pike County, Ky. (The nearest towns of any size are Williamson and Matewan, W.Va.)
Three different calibers of bullets were found on a hillside, including shotgun pellets. The bullets were four to six inches underground and spread out over an area about 30 feet wide by 20 feet high.
"Finding artifacts for the house and these bullets they found on the hillside is very significant. They would have been deposited there by the McCoys shooting out of their house in defense," McBride said.
Both McBride and Richardson, while sounding confident these are actual feud artifacts, are careful to parse the discovery by saying that more work needs to be done, but that the evidence chain seems to add up.
A chain of title searches dates the cabin site to property owned by Randall and Sarah "Sally" McCoy. A well at the locale indicates a domestic site used to be there, and machine-made nails and the handmade nail embedded in charred wood date to the period, McBride said.
In addition, shards of window glass appear to date to the feud's period, said McBride, a West Virginia native who has done archaeological work across the region.
"Window glass changes in its thickness over time, so typically the thinner the glass is, the older it is. We have two pieces that are relatively thin that most certainly date from the period of the McCoy house."
Richardson, a West Virginia University Extension associate professor who does community development work in Mingo and Logan counties, has done more than anyone to highlight the Hatfield and McCoy Feud and encourage a tourism industry around it.
He doesn't flinch when asked if he might want too much to believe these are feud artifacts. After all, actual bullets fired by McCoys at Hatfields might be considered tourism gold. | <urn:uuid:0393343c-410d-48c2-820b-fbde4c812420> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wvgazette.com/Life/201212310181?page=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966742 | 813 | 2.015625 | 2 |
I have challenged Marie Simonsen, commentator in Dagbladet, to provide some concrete examples of places where Muslims have lived peacefully with their non-Muslim neighbors over longer periods of time. Personally, I don’t think any such place exists, which means that the term Islamophobia, so frequently used by her newspaper and others, is completely meaningless.
In an essay of 27 October, Rune Berglund Steen, head of communications at the Centre against Racism, claims that one can turn my original question on its head and ask whether Christians are able to live in harmony with their neighbors.
I am sure that is possible, although it is striking to notice that the Centre against Racism doesn’t even attempt to answer the original question. Some would speculate that this is because they cannot answer it. Islam’s bloody borders with other peoples, from Thailand to the Middle East, are well-known and well-documented.
Thomas Hylland Eriksen from the University of Oslo points out that Han Chinese commit atrocities against Tibetans, whites against blacks and blacks against whites. “The list of groups who cannot always live peacefully together would be a long one,” according to him.
Islam is not a completely necessary ingredient for creating conflicts, which we can see in Northern Ireland and other places. I have never been foolish enough to claim that this is the case; I am merely pointing out that Islam will dramatically increase the likelihood of serious conflicts. I am currently halfway through an English language book about how Islam in my view cannot be reformed. I would be happy to publish an essay about this topic under my real name if any newspaper dares to print it, which is doubtful.
It is true that the potential for conflict exists between closely related European and Asian nations even when Islam is not present. What does that mean? Ironically, it means that Hylland Eriksen, perhaps the country’s most prominent Multicultural ideologue, and the Centre against Racism have themselves smashed the foundations of their own ideology, apparently without realizing it. World history shows, unfortunately, that ethnic diversity strongly increases the risk of serious conflicts.
The Nordic countries’ greatest advantage, historically speaking, has been an ethnically homogeneous population. Our greatest competitive advantage is now being destroyed by state-sponsored politics. As an analogy, let’s say you had a big pile of gold and professor Thomas Hylland Eriksen told you to flush half of the gold down the toilet because this was supposed to be economically beneficial.
Hylland Eriksen said in an interview in 2008 that “The most important ‘blank spot’ now consists of deconstructing the majority so thoroughly that it can never be called the majority again”. If he had said that Somalis or Pakistanis should be deconstructed, this would have triggered strong reactions. Why is it always white Europeans, and only them, who are to be deconstructed and have their countries and cultural history taken away from them?
The political scientist Øystein Hetland described me on 31 October as an extremist, among other reasons because I am very critical towards Islam, and ask what it takes to make a democratic society work. I wrote the following on Gates of Vienna on the occasion of my fifth anniversary as Fjordman: “Are Islamic teachings inherently violent? Yes. Can Islam be reformed? No. Can Islam be reconciled with our way of life? No. Is there such as thing as a moderate Islam? No. Can we continue to allow Muslims to settle in our countries? No.”
These few sentences contain all the information about Islam you will ever need. Do I regret writing this? No. One ought to tell the truth, even when it is unpleasant. | <urn:uuid:2124daab-b49c-4935-b1f5-2cce6d85965a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.siotw.org/modules/AMS/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969259 | 777 | 2.4375 | 2 |
Pardon me, as I am starting from the rear of this car instead
of from the front. It's just so arresting, this back view.
This car, the Comet, was originally designed by Ford for the
Edsel brand. (I love wikipedia.) A bit of an orphan, it was
based on a stretched Falcon platform and later badged as a Mercury.
Why don't normal cars ship with gunsights on the fenders?
Or proper hood ornaments?
The front grille looks odd, and when you go and look up the
prototype you see a famous Edsel split grille.
More pictures. Her 1962 Mercury Comet sister is next.
candice at October 15, 2008 12:10 AM | <urn:uuid:31db2536-578a-4f4f-8b84-2729a2b4a919> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://egobsd.org/log/archives/2008/10/the_1960_comet.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946298 | 154 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Pee-Powered Portable Battery
Contrary to popular belief, you now can recharge a battery by urinating on it. The MetalCell, a unique and portable backup battery that charges from sodium, was designed by South Korean researchers in a bid to replenish electronics when in warfare.
Apparently the sodium in salt reacts with the magnesium plates and generates a dose of low-voltage power that’s enough to charge a laptop for up to four hours one single recharge of saltwater. At a cost of $200, I know what I will be packing on my next road trip or camping adventure. | <urn:uuid:924a5329-ae69-4af5-8705-4ceb9c86bb76> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lostateminor.com/2010/05/12/pee-powered-portable-battery/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942165 | 123 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Alessandra Sanguinetti - "The Adventures of Guille and Belinda and the Enigmatic Meaning of Their Dreams" and "The Life That Came"
Maybe you will be surprise to read what I'm going to write if you are an habitual visitor of this blog (thank you to every one of you), but I actually mean it: I don't like photography. More exactly, I don't like the act of taking photographies the way it is usually done. I tend to separate photographers in two species: the dictator and the robber. The former makes the image he has in his head and uses his model to realize it, a model that becomes not even a subject but most often an object. This is to photography what fetichist is to sexuality. The latter steals the images of people he takes pictures of and feeds his (or her) public with them, attracting all the congratulation, and making the world a vast show for an entomologistic vision of humanity. In this blog, I tried to find photographers (professional or amateurs) escaping to these categories and sometimes I found some. This is in particular why I like so much self-portraits, cause they can't be classified in one of them, only in narcissism or exhibitionism, but since these are supposed to be mental disturbed states and no social bad behavior, I don't mind. Why this long introduction? Because with this project, Alessandra Sanguinetti, a New York based Argentinean photographer is a pure example of someone escaping to each of the categories I described above (even the mentally disturbed ones) and providing a work that contribute to honor photography as an art. In following over several years (from 1999 to 2007) these two young cousins, she doesn't steel anything to them but makes of them iconic figures of the human condition, not unlike what old painting masters were doing before becoming also dictators and robbers. And we feel in complete empathy with them and feel touched as rarely in photography. These images have a magical quality, they are all beautiful without euphemising the worl they show. It's one of the greatest photographic work ever done. A site here. | <urn:uuid:3673c848-11fc-4667-8d36-2c1335b6ac95> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://scoptophilia.blogspot.com/2012/08/alessandra-sanguinetti-adventures-of.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972889 | 439 | 1.554688 | 2 |
With a strong local presence in every EU member state, Oracle is committed to helping grow the European economy, encouraging beneficial new technologies, recognizing innovation, supporting education and research, and improving social and environmental conditions. Our initiatives include:
The Lisbon Agenda: Supporting European Economic Aims
The Lisbon Agenda of 2000 aims to raise the EU's productivity and employment levels beyond those of the US by 2010by raising output and creating new jobs. Oracle's goal is provide our customer organizations with the technology they need to improve efficiency, reduce unnecessary costs, and to find and service new markets at home and abroad.
Oracle PartnerNetwork: Boosting Europe's IT Industry
Oracle has created a large, vibrant and rapidly growing partner ecosystem of national and international companies who are engaged in providing IT solutions, consultancy and implementation services to Oracle customers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. 53% of our revenues in the region are generated through this network of over 10,000 partner companies, whose success is also contributing to European job creation.
The Oracle Innovation Network: Fostering Innovation
Oracle's customers and technology partners continually create new, marketable tools, products and services that complement our own. The Oracle Innovation Network identifies and recognizes innovation in our European partner community with its half-yearly Innovation Awards, providing support to assist them in finding new markets for their innovations.
Oracle Academy: Helping European Students Develop IT Skills
The Oracle Academy program provides a fully structured higher education course that helps students to develop database design, programming, project management, presentation, and problem-solving skills. Participating teachers are supported with world-class training and professional development, and the latest database and online learning technologies.
The CERN Openlab Project: Supporting Scientific Research
The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), headquartered in Switzerland has relied on the power of Oracle Database since 1982 to process data resulting from its research into particle physics. Currently, Oracle Grid Computing technology is enabling CERN to distribute its data processing requirements among super-computers located at many different scientific and academic institutions around the world. | <urn:uuid:2caae116-c490-4ca9-9e15-cbafbc4e2da6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/european-union/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925984 | 418 | 1.726563 | 2 |
kirk5a wrote:DAWN wrote:There is no cause to freedom. If The Liberation has causes it's will be conditioned, and condition is a jail.
Not true."Emancipation, monks, also has a supporting condition, I say, it does not lack a supporting condition. And what is the supporting condition for emancipation? 'Dispassion' should be the reply.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .bodh.html
Supporting conditions - they support Emantipation, they dont create it.
Supporting conditions are writen in Vinaya.
Perharps peoples thinks that by saing that "there is no choice" we can say that "we dont have a care about what is the way we live", it's not like this.
Because this words can be saing ony by ego, but when you see this Dhamma of anatta, and "no choice" you have no more ego, is you understand that intelectualy, you wahe to develop that by awereness and concentration, until you will find, reveal the refuge, after that you have just to support it by conditions, dwell in it, beyond thoughts, beyond suffering, beyond Mara, beyond the fenomenal wolrd. You have to support it until your bodies die.
When in subway you watching trough window, there is many lightelings, and you are charmed by this mouvement since countless stops, you cant exit, you dont know how. But if you close your eyes, and tryes to feeling a chair, you will find it. This chair is alway be there, but we was to much charmed by lightelings of subway, since all this time we identifying with it, we think that we create it, we think that we have a choice of it, but all these lightelings still mouve on these own, and we suffering. So, the one who practice well, will find a chair, he will exit the next stop. Until he dont feel the chair, and dont know how to exit, he have to stick off his face from window, and be awere of mouvement of lightelings... Doing this way he will find a chair under his booty.
If some one who jump with a parachute is panic, he will die, or be tangled in the parachute and die after that. But if he is calm, and see that earth comes closer and closer, he will dont spend his precious time on suffering about it, he will try to find a parachute ring, and will never drop it again.
There is no conditions to parachute or subway chair, there is conditions to find it and dont loose it. To find it we have to be awere about dhammas in our mind and our live, dont be charmed by it, dont spend our time on suffering about that, spend our time to make a good choice and after suffering one more time because fruit of this choice brings no happyness etc etc... We have to find a chair, find a parachute, and dont loose it. It's all.
When the chair will be found, the one have no care anymore about lightelings, he let them be, he keep his mind awere about the next stop for exit.
When the parachute will be found, the one have no care about the falling down, he just keep his mind awere about the ground that comes closer
I'am sorry, there is to many words. | <urn:uuid:4c76e7a7-f371-4b24-b441-70ed38e19453> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?p=203834 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966982 | 735 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Hanahenro Diaries of Showa
- Title: Hanahenro: Diaries of Showa
- Episodes: 7
- Genre: Historical renzoku drama
- Broadcast network: NHK
- Broadcast period: 1985
- Air time: New Galaxy Drama (Saturday nights 11:00pm)
Hayasaka Akira's autobiographical work Hanahenro: Diaries of Showa Pilgrims, first shown in 1985, was the story of Japan from the late 1920's to the 80's, seen from the perspective of ordinary people and set against the background of a shop on Shikoku, the smallest of Japan's four main islands. The relationships within the shop owner's family were a reminder of the values and customs of days gone by, and the series enjoyed tremendous popularity.
In summer 1923, a 17 year old girl who wants to become a singer runs away from home and comes to Shikoku. She visits her aunt who runs a shop on a pilgrimage route and borrows money to go to Tokyo. On the day the girl leaves for Tokyo, she hears of the news that Tokyo has been hit by a major earthquake.
- Original novel: Hayasaka Akira
- Galaxy Drama on Saturday nights first began in 1969. The time slot was renamed Galaxy TV Novel in 1972. Ended in March 1989, and then brought back in April 1993 as New Galaxy Drama.
- The series aired again on NHK in 2005, starting Monday, November 21 at 11:15pm. | <urn:uuid:28983a47-e46c-4663-bd9f-aed7cc61b1fd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wiki.d-addicts.com/Hanahenro_Diaries_of_Showa | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926425 | 312 | 2.125 | 2 |
Nuke Test Makes Nuclear Abolition More Important Than Ever
North Korea’s test-firing of a short-range missile heightens and underlines the dangers of a world in which nuclear arms are spreading.
The news media treats the North Korea’s nuclear weapons program as a story of a bad actor threatening international security, giving it the sort of attention rarely given to calls for constructive action to eliminate the danger of nuclear weapons. In particular, the frayed Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty is seldom mentioned, nor the obligation contained in the treaty for the nuclear powers, including the United States, to eliminate nuclear stockpiles.
The contrast hits home in Hiroshima, Japan, the first city attacked with an atomic bomb. Just eight days before the North Korean test, the city’s daily newspaper, the Chugoku Shimbun, released an appeal from 17 Nobel Peace Prize laureates for citizens and governments to act for the elimination of nuclear weapons. Outside of Japan, the laureates’ Hiroshima-Nagasaki Declaration has received almost no media attention.
When North Korea held its nuclear test, however, Hiroshima immediately became a media stage, and legitimately so: Citizens gathered in an outdoor protest. At the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, a clock tracking the number of days since the world’s last nuclear test, which had been approaching 1,000, went back to one. Reporters sought out aging survivors for their comments. Suzuko Numata, an 85-year-old interviewed by Japan’s Mainichi newspaper from her bed at a home for the elderly, raised the real issue looming behind the North Korean test: a world in which nuclear weapons continue to be seen by some nations as something to be sought rather than as a threat to all humans.
Just days before the Nobel Prize winners’ declaration, one of the signers, International Atomic Energy Authority head Mohamed ElBaradei, told the United Kingdom’s Guardian newspaper that existing agreements on nonproliferation are out of date and that he fears big growth in the number of nuclear powers. The story received at best limited attention, despite ElBaradei’s prominence and expertise.
Then, there are the admirable efforts of some of the most prominent former U.S. national security leaders to generate momentum for a non-nuclear world. The group includes former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, former Defense Secretary William Perry and former Senator Sam Nunn. They did get space on the Wall Street Journal to write about their ideas, twice. Until recently, however, one was more likely to come across any details of their undertaking in a progressive magazine like YES! than in the main news media. But, as Shultz told YES! Magazine’s editor Sarah van Gelder for the summer 2008 edition, his group was engaging with leaders from all of the nuclear powers, including officially unacknowledged possessor Israel.
Shultz said, “The Nonproliferation Treaty in Article 6 says that those who don’t have nuclear weapons will have access to nuclear power technology and they won’t try to get nuclear weapons, and those who do have nuclear weapons will phase down their importance eventually to zero. People are looking for governments to live up to that treaty.”
More recently, though, the group received considerable media attention, because they met with President Barack Obama in the White House to endorse the vision for a nuclear-free world he unveiled in Prague earlier this spring. By speaking out, Obama has begun to make nonproliferation a more appealing story to a wider spectrum of the media.
Certainly, the Nobel Peace Prize groups’s spearhead Mairead Maguire, ElBaradei, the Dalai Lama, Muhammad Yunus, and the rest of their group hope Obama can begin to make a difference. The head of Chugoku Shimbun’s Hiroshima Peace Media Center, Akira Tashiro, wrote the appeal, which was revised before publication to take account of Obama’s speech in Prague.
The appeal’s timing was designed to fall a year ahead of a U.N. conference to review the treaty, including the duty of nuclear states to work towards disarmament. The 2005 review failed to produced substantive agreement, but observers say that the presence of the Obama administration has improved the atmosphere at a just-completed preparatory conference for 2010.
For the treaty’s future, North Korea, Iran, or other states with nuclear ambitions are no more than half the problem. The Nobel laureates’ Hiroshima-Nagasaki Declaration says, “We are deeply troubled by this threat of proliferation to non-nuclear weapon states, but equally concerned at the faltering will of the nuclear powers to move forward in their obligation to disarm their own nations of these dreadful weapons.”
In the same YES! edition as the Shultz interview, author Jonathan Schell wrote of the potential for a safer world if the nuclear powers would bargain to give up their bombs in exchange for enforceable promises by others to stay out of the nuclear business.
In sorting through the likely reasons behind North Korea’s nuclear test this week, David Krieger, president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, came to a related point: “North Korea’s nuclear testing is a manifestation of a deeper problem in the international system, that of continuing to have a small group of countries possess and implicitly threaten the use of nuclear weapons for deterrence or any other reason.”
In an interview, Tashiro said he hoped that Americans would support nuclear disarmament on the grounds—expressed by Shultz, Kissinger, and others—of the threat created by proliferation and the potential for terrorists to acquire nuclear materials. But, to come to that conclusion, Americans need more information on the issue than they usually receive.
Even with Obama talking about ending nuclear weapons, he and other nations’ leaders will need the support of an informed, engaged public if they are to create meaningful progress toward nuclear disarmament. In their conclusion, the declaration signers say, “As Nobel Peace laureates, we call on the citizens of the world to press their leaders to grasp the peril of inaction and summon the political will to advance toward nuclear disarmament and abolition.” That idea resonates in Hiroshima, a city that tries to make a better future out of horrible suffering. Perhaps as the world comes to terms with the dangerous possibilities of a nuclear-armed North Korea and Iran, the obligations of the current nuclear power to work towards abolition will get the attention required for action.
Joe Copeland wrote this article for YES! Magazine. Joe, who is part of the online news startup Seattle PostGlobe, is a visiting researcher at the Hiroshima Peace Institute on a Fulbright grant for journalists. While in Japan, he has a blog at www.hiroshimastories.com. The views are his own.
Hiroshima-Nagasaki Declaration of Nobel Peace Laureates
A Powerful Peace, by Jonathan Shell
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Independent. Nonprofit. Subscriber-supported. | <urn:uuid:acb33604-6554-422f-9116-6e2dd7976584> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/columns/korea-nuke-test | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946245 | 1,490 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Nathaniel "Nate" Griffin is Peter Griffin's Great-Great-Great-Great Grandfather and was an African slave. Nate Griffin was supposedly born in Quahogswana, Africa, and his real name was Richard Bachman, instead like many slaves, being allowed to choose his own American name. He belonged to the Pewterschmidt family and was their stable boy. While working as a slave for the "massa", Nate peed in their cereal each day and had sex with Lois's great ancestor as well as her fine sister. He currently resides in Heaven where there is a shortage of chairs.
Peter did not know of his black lineage in "Peter Griffin: Husband, Father...Brother?", after his son Chris started adapting other customs. After discovering he had a black ancestor at the Quahog Public Library he wasn't sure how to handle the information. He instantly became a part of the black community with help from his friend Cleveland Brown. He soon learns that his father-in-law, Carter Pewterschmidt's ancestors were Nate's owners. Peter received retributions from them, but Peter misuses the money by recreating the set of Pee-Wee's Playhouse in his own home, transforming it into Peter's Playhouse. While Peter is in a bathroom wondering what to do, Nate tells him to do what is right.
When Peter told his family about the family history in "Untitled Griffin Family History", he tells them that Nate married Lois Laura Bush Lynne Cheney Pewterschmidt. Their marriage produced three children that resemble modern-day Stewie, Meg, and Chris. He and Lois escaped from his master and her father Silas Pewterschmidt, who did not approve of the relationship. Griffin was shown to be good friends with Al Cowlings. Griffin would later found the Department of Motor Vehicles just so he can frustrate and irritate white people. | <urn:uuid:8dcca0d5-0a6c-405b-a27b-3abf60c15b56> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://familyguy.wikia.com/wiki/Nate_Griffin | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988424 | 392 | 2.25 | 2 |
안녕하세요! Welcome back to TTMIK! In this lesson, we introduce how to say “after -ing” or “after you do something” in Korean. In order to say this, you need to use the structure -(으)ㄴ 다음에, -(으)ㄴ 후에, or -(으)ㄴ 뒤에. Find out how to use these expressions in natural context and and listen to more sample sentences by listening to the audio lesson. Be sure to check the PDF available in the side bar of the lesson post as well!
Thank you for studying with us!
You can download a free PDF for this lesson here, or if you want to study with our TalkToMeInKorean textbooks, you can get them here. And after you learn the basics, try writing your own Korean sentences and get corrections from native speakers through HaruKorean, our 1:1 correction service. | <urn:uuid:92621422-89cc-4dd4-9e9c-6a710a45aa6d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.talktomeinkorean.com/lessons/level-3-lesson-19/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.905961 | 230 | 2.734375 | 3 |
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Lorna Kleidman, creator of KettleX and three time kettlebell champion, reacts to an article published by Private MD Labs, which discusses how statins and physical fitness can help to fight dyslipidaemia, a condition which patients experience high levels of cholesterol and blood fats.
Bohemia, NY (PRWEB) December 06, 2012
On December 6, kettlebell fitness instructor Lorna Kleidman responds to an article published by Private MD Labs concerning ways to fight against dyslipidaemia, a high risk condition of cholesterol and blood fat.
In a report by Private MD Labs, the Veterans Affairs Medical Center hosted a study conducted by Peter Kokkinos, analyzing the records of “more than 10 million veterans” and “found that combining cholesterol-lowering drugs known as statins with physical fitness may be the most effective way to reduce the chance of dying from dyslipidaemia.” Dyslipidaemia, according to Private MD Labs, “is a condition in which patients experience high levels of cholesterol and blood fats.”
Private MD Labs reported that “[a]ccording to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 71 million U.S. adults have high levels of LDL.” Private MD Labs adds that “In between 1991 and 2010, the rate of high cholesterol dropped from 18.3 percent to 13.4 percent.”
“Individuals with dyslipidaemia should improve their fitness to at least a moderate level. Treatment with statins is important, but better fitness improves survival significantly and is a valuable additional treatment or an alternative when statins cannot be taken,” said Kokkinos in the Private MD Labs report.
“When managing health, prescribed medicine and curving poor physical habits can help tremendously,” comments Kleidman. “Before your health depends on medication, changing eating habits to create a lower cholesterol diet and incorporating a consistent workout regimen can improve and maintain your health.”
Kleidman suggests that incorporating kettlebell exercises into your fitness routine will not only affect your health but your mental sharpness as well. “Kettlebell movements require you to be present, you’ll feel completely energized and refreshed after a session, even if it’s just 10 minutes.”
Lorna Kleidman is a Three-Time World Champion and World Record holder in kettlebell sport and the most decorated kettlebell athlete in the country. She developed the innovated methods used in KettleX as a way to bring the benefits of the bells to everyone in an easy to use, comprehensive and fun format. Lorna has been teaching individuals and group classes for the past six years.
For the original version on PRWeb visit: http://www.prweb.com/releases/prweb2012/12/prweb10197464.htm | <urn:uuid:f42a2642-368e-4f42-b6b0-0a67d95a51e4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kait8.com/story/20276015/lorna-kleidman-responds-to-an-article-concerning-the-benefits-of-using-physical-fitness-to-fight-high-cholesterol | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.916453 | 628 | 1.976563 | 2 |
f you haven't already done so, this is the time to begin sowing seeds for fall transplants. By starting now, you can have pansies, calendulas, Johnny-jump-ups, flowering cabbage, lettuce and othe cool season transplants ready to plant in the garden in September or early October.
If starting your own transplants has been disastrous for you in the past, especially in spring, take heart because starting fall transplants is easier. Since the soil is not as cool as it is in spring, there is not much damping-off disease. Gardeners are able to start the transplants outside where they receive plenty of sunlight; however, don't let transplants get too much sun. Morning sun and afternoon shade are a good combination.
Although many different containers can be used to grow seeds, one of the most convenient is a styrofoam coffee cup. Simply poke three or four holes in the side at the bottom of the cup. Write the name of the variety on the side of the cup so it won't get lost, as so often happens with labels. Another advantage of using coffee cups is that they're white and reflect heat.
The next major concern is a potting soil mix. Many standard potting soils will work fairly well, but you can make your own. To one bushel each of vermiculite and peat moss (finely ground pine bark can be substituted for peat moss), add 10 tablespoons of 0-20-0 (superphosphate) and l/2 cup of garden fertilizer, such as 12-24-12. Mix the material thoroughly by putting the ingredients out on the drive, scooping into the bottom and throwing each shovelful on top, pyramid fashion. Another technique is to roll the mixture back and forth in an old tarp. The soil should be slightly watered down so it's damp but not soggy.
Click on picture to see larger image
Most seeds should be barely covered with the soil mix, but some tiny seeds like lettuce need not be covered at all. Water them thoroughly, preferably by setting them in a pan of water and allowing the soil to soak from the bottom. Allow the containers to drain and then put them in a plastic bag out of sunlight. Within a few days the seedlings will begin to grow. As soon as this happens, take the containers out of the bags and put them in a well-ventilated area. As the seedlings begin to make growth, use any soluble houseplant fertilizer to keep them growing vigorously.
If you've had problems with disease in the past, you might want to use a fungicide twice: once at planting and again at germination. Lightly dust the seeds prior to planting. A fungicide can also be used to drench young seedlings just as they come up. Before you know it, you'll have a pot full of tiny seedlings that can either be transplanted into individual containers, or if there aren't too many in the pot, held until time to go into the garden. Perhaps the simplest technique is just to plant two or three seeds in each pot, thinning them to one plant after a few weeks.
If you opt for transplanting, be sure that you handle the young seedling only by the leaves. If you grasp the stem and damage it to any extent, the young seedling will be stunted. Pots for transplants should be filled to within l/4 inch of the rim. A pencil can be used to put a hole in the center of the potting soil mixture. This is where a little moisture is critical; dry soil won't allow the soil to stay open. Carefully lower the seedling roots into the hole and then use the pencil again in a lever-like action to firm the soil against the root system. Be sure to water the plants carefully, picking up any leaves that get knocked into the soil. Before you know it, you'll be eating delicious, home-grown broccoli. | <urn:uuid:5637d129-c1be-423d-b769-5c5082acc9fd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/newsletters/hortupdate/hortupdate_archives/2003/Jul03/art6jul.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9563 | 818 | 2.96875 | 3 |
18 October 1996
The rekindled sovereignty dispute between Japan and China (includingTaiwan) over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands at the eastern edge of the East China Sea involves 500-year-old claims and future offshore oil development. Sovereignty over the islets could affect 40,000 sq km of surrounding continental shelf/EEZ area. The most recent flare-up was ignited when a Japanese ultranationalist group built a makeshift lighthouse on one of the islets, which are controlled by Japan. Diplomatic notes, popular demonstrations, convoys of protest boats, and the death of one protester, who drowned near the islands, have inflamed passions, but done little to shed light on the sovereignty and jurisdictional issues.
There are five small volcanic islands and three rocky outcroppings in the Senkaku/Diaoyu group (see table). They have a total land area of some 7 sq km. Most of the islets are clustered around the largest island, Uotsuri/Diaoyu, which covers roughly 8 hectares and lies 170 km northeast of Taiwan and 410 km west of Okinawa. Two outlying islets, Kobi-sho/Huangwei Yu and Akao-sho/Chiwei Yu, are located 31 km and 108 km from Uotsuri/Diaoyu Island, respectively. None of the islets is inhabited. All the features lie within the 200-m isobath, at the edge of the Asian geologic continental shelf. The 2,270-m-deep Okinawa Trough lies seaward of the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, separating them from the nearest undisputed Japanese islands.
Recent events brought the long-simmering dispute to a boil on 14 July 1996, when the Japan Youth Association landed on one of the disputed islets. It built a 5-m high, solar-powered, aluminum lighthouse, and requested that the Japanese Maritime Safety Agency designate it an official navigational signal. In 1988, the group had set up a similar structure on the western shore of Uotsuri/Diaoyu Island to reinforce Japan's sovereignty claim.
Taiwanese and Hong Kong Chinese responded with demonstrations and flotillas of boats, which were intercepted by Japanese vessels. One Hong Kong activist died near the islands on 26 September, when he attempted to swim from the protest boats to an islet. On 7 October protesters briefly landed on Uotsuri/Diaoyu Island and raised the PRC and ROC flags, which were later removed by the Japanese. Diplomatic protests were lodged. Japan claimed that it could not act against the lighthouse because it was built on private land, but Foreign Minister Ikeda met with his Chinese counterpart and told him that Japan had no plans to recognize the lighthouse. Chinese Premier Li warned Japan about provoking China, but all the concerned governments began to caution protesters and call for calm. "Private" negotiations between Tokyo and Taipei to permit Taiwanese fishermen to fish outside the 12-nautical mile territorial sea of the disputes islands failed to progress, but the sides agreed to meet again.
Japan claims that it discovered the Senkaku Islands and incorporated the islands in 1895, when they were terra nullius (unclaimed). It maintains that the incorporation met with no Chinese protest and that the islets were always treated as part of Okinawa and not transferred under the Treaty of Shimonoseki, as China claims. Japan cites development activities in the islands by its nationals from 1897 until World War II and American administration under Article 3 of the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty. It views the 1971 Ryukyu (Okinawa) reversion agreement with the United States as validating its sovereignty.
The PRC and ROC claim that Chinese discovered the islands in 1372 and subsequently used them as navigational aids. The islands were incorporated into China's maritime defences in 1556. They also cite usage by Taiwanese fishermen and an 1893 imperial edict of the Dowager Empress that awarded Diaoyu Dao, Huangwei Yu, and Chi[wei] Yu to a Chinese pharmacist who had gathered rare medical herbs on the islands. China contends that the islets were transferred with Taiwan to Japan by the Treaty of Shimonoseki, which ended the 1894-95 Sino-Japanese War, and should have been returned after the Second World War, under provisions of the 1943 Cairo Declaration, 1945 Potsdam Proclamation, and Article 2 of the San Francisco Treaty.
None of the claimants disputes the fact that Japan exercised control of the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands from 1895 until the Second World War. They differ on whether the islets were free for the taking in 1895, how Japan obtained control in that year, whether the islands were traditionally associated with Taiwan or Okinawa, and what the implications of various peace treaties and the 1971 Ryukyu Reversion Agreement are.
In 1971 Japan and the United States signed an agreement returning the Ryukyu (Okinawan) and Daito Islands to Japanese administration. All of the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands are within the polygon delimiting the returned islands, the coordinates of which were listed in Agreed Minutes that were appended to the 1971 Japan-US Ryukyu Islands Reversion Agreement. Uotsuri/Diaoyu Island is 33 km within the western limit of the polygon. During Senate ratification of the Reversion Agreement, the United States specified that the agreement did not affect the determination of sovereignty over disputed islands. The US Department of State continues to take no position on the sovereignty of the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands.
Clearly the US administered the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands with the Okinawan islands under Article 3 of the 1951 San Francisco Treaty and transferred the islets to Japanese administration in the 1971 Agreement. However, these provisions were not predicated on the transfer of sovereignty. It was in Article 2, not Article 3, of the 1951 San Francisco Treaty that Japan renounced rights to various areas, including Formosa (Taiwan). The Reversion Agreement cited Article 3. Therefore, the US action restored the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands to the administrative status they held before the war. Although the US agreement with Japan cannot be viewed as changing the true sovereignty of the dispute islets, the American inclusion of the islets in a geographic definition of the Ryukyu Islands clearly supports Japan's contention that these islets were associated with Okinawa.
Other documents which might be relevant lack details that would clarify the islands dispute. The 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki mentioned the "Island of Formosa together with all Islands appertaining or belonging to the said Island of Formosa." The 1951 Japanese Peace Treaty signed in San Francisco included a renunciation of all Japanese rights, title, and claim to "Formosa and the Pescadores" in Article 2. However, neither the ROC nor the PRC were seated at the San Francisco conference; neither signed the treaty. The 1952 Treaty of Peace between the Republic of China and Japan cited Article 2 of the 1951 San Francisco Treaty. It reiterated that "Japan has renounced all right, title and claim to Taiwan (Formosa) and Penghu (the Pescadores) as well as the Spratly Islands and the Paracel Islands." It also recognized that "all treaties, conventions and agreements concluded before December 9, 1941, between China and Japan have become null and void as a consequence of the war." The 1972 Joint Communique between the People's Republic of China and Japan mentioned that Japan "adheres to its stand of complying with Article 8 of the Potsdam Proclamation." The 1978 Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the PRC and Japan merely confirms their Joint Communique. Perhaps, it is understandable that the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands were not separately cited in early documents. They are minuscule and have never been inhabited. They had little value until offshore oil exploration began in the 1970s, but one might have expected the issue to be addressed in agreements from that period.
The Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands dispute erupted on the international stage, following a 1968 United Nations Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East report suggesting petroleum deposits under the East China Sea. The law of the sea at that time emphasized natural prolongation in determining continental shelf jurisdiction. Ownership of the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands would permit Japan to leap over the Okinawa Trough and have secure basepoints from which to claim mainland shelf area. When Taiwan and Japan began offshore leasing, their island sovereignty dispute and related overlapping claims became obvious. In September 1970 protesters planted the Taiwanese flag on one of the disputed islets. The 1971 Ryukyu Reversion Treaty triggered protests by the PRC.
The claimants reached a modus vivendi which shelved the sovereignty issue until recently. There have been occasional flare-ups, such as when the PRC listed the islands in its 1992 territorial sea law, but the sides have foregone some provocative opportunities. Japan did not include the islands in its straight baseline claim. Although the PRC and Japan recently promulgated exclusive economic zones, they avoided explicitly delimiting the zones' outer limits and coupled the new laws with calls for negotiating boundaries in overlapping areas. Now, some actions by individuals and non-governmental organizations threaten to wrest the dispute from governmental control.
International law presents many unanswered questions about the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands dispute. Can claims of sovereignty based in fourteenth century Asia be judged by norms developed in Europe centuries later? What is the nature of discovery and occupation for uninhabited islands? What is the critical date when the dispute crystallized? Were the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands part of Taiwan or of Okinawa before 1895? How does one interpret ambiguous treaties? Finally, how will the disputed islands affect maritime jurisdiction. Even if ownership of the islets is settled, can that sovereign claim an EEZ or continental shelf from islands that have never been inhabited and seem to have no economic life. The 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea would appear to say no, but several countries claim extended jurisdiction from such features.
|PRC NAME||JAPANESE NAME||LATITUDE (N)||LONGITUDE (E)|
|Huangwei Yu||Kuba-shima or Kobi Sho||25° 58'||123° 41'|
|Chiwei Yu||Taisho-jima or Akao-sho||25° 55'||124° 33'|
|Daioyu Dao||Uotshuri-shima||25° 45'||123° 29'|
|Beixiao Dao*||Kita Kojima||25° 45'||123° 33'|
|Nanxiao Dao*||Minami Kojima or Minami-ko-shima||25° 44'||123° 34'|
|Dabeixiao Dao*||Okino Kitaiwa*|
|Dananxiao Dao*||Okino Minamiiwa*|
* The correspondence of these feature names is uncertain. Nanxiao Dao appears to be Minami Kojina and Beixiao Dao seems to be Kita Kojima, judging from the PRC National Atlas (1979). However, the likely Chinese meanings of the names suggests that Dananxiao Dao and Dabeixiao Dao may refer to these respective Japanese place names.
Sources: US Board on Geographic Names, Japan: Preliminary Gazetteer (Washington, DC: Department of the Interior, 1953); Toshio Okuhara, Japanese Annual of International Law 15 (1971): 106; Zhongguo Diminglu [Gazetteer of China] (Beijing: Ditu chubanshe, 1983).
1. Japan calls the islands Sento Shosho or Senkaku Retto. The People's Republic terms them the Diaoyu Tai, and the Republic of China renders the same Chinese characters in a different romanization system as Tiao Yu T'ai. [back]
2. Sankei Shimbun (Tokyo) (17 July 1996), p. 1, translated in FBIS, Daily Report: East Asia (hereafter FBIS, East Asia) (19 July 1996). [back]
3. "Chronology of Events," Kyodo (Tokyo) broadcast in English, 26 September 1996, transcribed in FBIS, East Asia (27 September 1996); "Protester Dies in Defense of Disputed Asian Islands," Washington Post (27 September 1996), p. A32; Yuri Kageyama, "Asian Land Fight Heats Up," AP (Tokyo) 25 September 1996; Kyodo (Tokyo) broadcast in English, 7 October 1996, transcribed in FBIS, East Asia (8 October 1996); "Premier of China Joins Fray," Washington Post (1 October 1996), p. A15; Chiang Ching-ling, "Special Dispatch," Chung-kuo Shih-pao (Taipei) (6 October 1996), p. 2, translated in FBIS, China (10 October 1996). [back]
4. Toshio Okuhara, "The Territorial Sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands and Problems on the Surrounding Continental Shelf," Japanese Annual of International Law 15 (1971): 97-102; Thomas R. Ragland, "A Harbinger: The Senkaku Islands," San Diego Law Review 10 (May 1973: 668-69; J. R. V. Prescott, "Maritime Jurisdiction," in Atlas for Marine Policy in East Asian Seas, edited by Joseph Morgan and Mark J. Valencia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), pp. 31-32. [back]
5. Tao Cheng, "The Sino-Japanese Dispute over the Tiao-yu-tai (Senkaku) Islands and the Law of Territorial Acquisition," Virginia Journal of International Law 14 (1973-74): 248-60; Victor H. Li, "China and off-Shore oil: The Tiao-yü Tai Dispute," Stanford Journal of International Studies 10 (Spring 1975): 151-53; Jiang Kun, "Japan Cannot Claim Sovereignty over Diaoyu Islands by Citing the 'Preemption' Principle," Zongguo Tongxun She (Hong Kong) broadcast 1309 GMT, 12 September 1996, translated in FBIS Daily Report: China (hereafter FBIS, China) (17 September 1996); "China Will Never Yield an Inch of Territory," Wen Wei Po (Hong Kong) (12 September 1996), p. A2, translated in FBIS China (16 September 1996). [back]
6. "The territories defined in paragraph 2 of Article I [of the Reversion Agreement] are the territories under the administration of the United States of America under Article 3 of the Treaty of Peace with Japan, and are, as designated under Civil Administration Proclamation Number 27 of December 25, 1953, all of those islands, islets, atolls and rocks situated in an area bounded by the straight lines connecting the following coordinates in the listed order." The Minutes continue with a table listing the following points: (28°N, 124°40'E), (24°N, 122°E), (24°N, 133°E), (27°N, 131°50'E), (27°N, 128°18'E), (28°N, 128°18'E), and (28°N, 124°40'E), as found in UN Treaties and other International Agreements vol. 23, pt. 1 (1972): 475. [back]
7. Hearings on the Okinawa Reversion Treaty before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 92nd Congress, 1st Session (1971), p. 11; Tao, p. 251. [back]
8. Li, p. 151. [back]
9. The 1952 Peace Treaty can be found in United Nations Treaty Series 138 (1952): 38-48. The 1972 Joint Communique, 1895, 1951 and 1978 peace treaties are found in Fred L. Israel, ed, Major Peace Treaties of Modern History (New York: Chelsea House). [back]
10. Wei-chin Lee, "Troubles under the Water: Sino- Japanese Conflict of Sovereignty on the Continental Shelf in the East China Sea," Ocean Development and International Law 18 (1987): 586; Li, pp. 143-47. [back] | <urn:uuid:a7056b66-9480-46c7-8e19-00d595c6a4c0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www-ibru.dur.ac.uk/resources/docs/senkaku.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925885 | 3,457 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Emotional triggers are at the heart of every sale. People decide first based on emotion, then they justify their decision to buy using logic.
When you get a handle on the emotional “reasons” and triggers your target market uses to make their buying decisions, then you can push those emotional hot buttons when designing your selling strategy, your email promotions, and your social media approach.
At least this is what the experts say.
Is this true? Well, yes and no.
Decision making involves logic and emotion, but it’s the 80/20 rule – 80% emotion and 20% logic.
Now that doesn’t mean all we see or hear is the emotional aspect. In fact, the emotional aspect is kept quiet. Why? Because it isn’t acceptable to broadcast that a decision has been made by using mostly emotion.
Logic is the process of justifying in our mind what we want to do (or just did) emotionally.
Women understand this because they’ve been living with this for years, or they’ve been accused of this for years (depending on how you look at it).
Research, customers, and leaders are recognizing the worth of emotions in every aspect of work, family and social existence.
Knowing this reality begs the question: what is Sales Psychology? It is the use of psychology or human nature to sell a particular object, idea or concept to a person. Big companies like Amazon, Ebay, Yahoo, and Google use this every day and are very successful at it.
Here’s how they do it. It’s based on the words you type into your computer. They keep track of what you search for, what you buy, or what you consider buying, and they create a list of what they think you will be interested in. They send you personalized messages based on what you tell them. It’s that simple.
The essence of this type of marketing is to help people make the right decisions – to buy from them. The core of this communication is persuasion, and the way they persuade is to use emotional triggers.
Psychologists tell us there’s a huge difference between what we think in our mind and what we feel in our heart. The hard part is reconciling these two things. It can be done.
Hearts and Minds
Are you marketing to your prospect’s hearts or to their minds?
You need to do both.
If you start a conversation with your prospect by showing all of the great things your product does, then you’ve lost them before you even got started.
Why? Because . . .
- Benefits appeal to Emotions
- Features appeal to Logic
- Logic justifies Emotion
- Emotion drives Sales
Knowing this one exact piece of psychology can make all the difference in your success.
I challenge you to go a bit deeper than talking to your prospect’s mind. Today’s consumer is an educated consumer. They “see” through the hype. They aren’t impressed with all the talk.
They want to see action. Proof. Results.
They want to feel something. How are you making them feel?
They identify with emotion – their emotions. Tap into what emotional state they live in or are afraid of.
This is where you use your “emotion” words.
Words like appalled, tickled, charmed, betrayed, isolated, joyous, and amused to name a few. Words that instantly bring your prospect to an emotional state, and where they get in touch with what they are feeling at that particular moment.
It’s smart to engage with your prospect on a core level of what they want most. What are their basic needs? Are they getting them met? How will you meet them?
In the next part of this two-part series, I will discuss the steps you take to tap into your prospects major hot button. Hint – there are seven of them!
[This is only one of the many powerful articles in this week's Influence It! Real Power for Women free ezine. To enjoy the full issue, jam packed with insightful information on strategies to enhance your personal and professional life to achieve ultimate success, you must be a subscriber. Sign up for your own free subscription NOW by clicking here!] | <urn:uuid:a3d95741-4d59-499c-989b-d874c935b764> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.braveheartwomen.com/blog-entry/Influence-Design/Hot-Buttons-Heart/13000082433?messageID=13000172018 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950086 | 900 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Though West Germany adopted PR, like the weak Weimar regime, it started with few parties and before long passed a law that parties with less than 5% of the vote would get no seats in parliament. (Our Canadian Greens got less than that in 2006, I note.)
The unification of West and East Germany in 1990 made a more complex nation-state. Federal German politics is now a constellation of five parties, and the FDP has struggled to meet the 5% threshold.
It is hard for ... [Angela Merkel's coalition] government to make strong decisions. Even the mildest measures to make labour markets more flexible, and thus reduce East German unemployment, are a struggle.
Andrew Coyne did not read Tuesday's Post editorial attentively. With inexact reasoning, he claims there is a contradiction between two consequences of PR alleged by the Post: party fragmentation and excessive consensus. If he followed the politics of Continental Europe with active interest, he would see the drift that results when those two factors collaborate.
PR is not good for countries as complex as unified Germany and Canada. It would mean endless and incoherent coalition governments.
Friday, April 20, 2007
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Responding to yesterday’s National Post editorial "PR is a bad idea", Andrew Coyne asks:
What is it about proportional representation (PR) that turns otherwiseGood question Andrew! What is it about PR that makes Andrew Coyne such a raving fanatic in favour of changing an electoral system that’s served us so well for well over a century? He calls the Ontario proposal a "minor patch" to the first-past-the-post (FPTP) system. He’s written several columns on the subject recently to convince Ontario voters to ‘go for it’.
sensible individuals into raving loonies?
We in BC narrowly escaped switching to STV (single transferable vote) in a recent referendum. But the PR pushers are still trying to get their way so we’re not out of the woods yet.
I'm not fond of the idea of switching to a system that institutionalizes back-room dealing to set up governance coalitions between parties. Who do the voters hold accountable for screw-ups and malfeasance? I'm not sold on the screwball notion, advanced by PR enthusiasts, of votes being "wasted" in the FPTP system (a vote for someone who fails to get elected is presumed to have been wasted?)
We were told that voting wasn’t complicated. The ballots were clear and simple - no problem - just show up and tick off the candidates. That's true, but then you try to follow how those ballots are counted to determine winners and losers. Not so simple. There’s a complicated formula cooked up in the back rooms by the experts and a computer spits out the answer. A website set up by the BC Citizen’s Assembly offers an animated simulation of exactly what happens in a typical scenario. That’s what finally convinced me there would be lots of unintended consequences.
And one more little thing. Coyne wrote in a column last week that the Citizen’s Assemblies set up to make recommendations on PR (or otherwise) were "randomly selected". So that’s good and fair and very democratic, right? Wrong. The BC Citizens’ Assembly (and I assume the Ontario CA) may have been randomly chosen - but from a list of self-selected, motivated and activist individuals heavily pre-disposed to changing the system. That a majority of the ‘expert’ witnesses they would hear would be enthusiastic champions of novel voting systems was highly likely. That the Citizens’ Assembly would recommend switching from FPTP to some other system was a foregone conclusion.
I hope the National Post continues to oppose PR. But it might be better if they printed rebuttals to the Andrew Coynes in the form of columns written by identifiable individuals rather than in anonymous editorials.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Update - last word: Mark Steyn's take.
Where was the spirit of self-defense here? Setting aside the ludicrous
campus ban on licensed conceals, why didn't anyone rush the guy?
As the cliche goes—and like most cliches. It's true—none of us knows what he'd do in a dire situation like that. I hope, however, that if I thought I was going to die anyway, I'd at least take a run at the guy.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Sunday, April 15, 2007
"...8 (more) reasons the 1950s are unfairly maligned" by Roger Kimball
[via The Corner]
1. Scenario: Jack pulls into school parking lot with rifle in gun rack.
1956 - Vice Principal comes over, takes a look at Jack's rifle, goes to his
car and gets his to show Jack.
2006 - School goes into lockdown, FBI called, Jack hauled off to jail and never sees his truck or gun again. Counselors called in for traumatized students and teachers.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
That's the title and subtitle of the recently published book by Fred Singer and Dennis Avery. From the Amazon book description:
Singer and Avery present in popular language supported by in-depth scientific evidence the compelling concept that global temperatures have been rising mostly or entirely because of a natural cycle. Unstoppable Global Warming explains why we're warming, why it's not very dangerous, and why we can't stop it anyway.
Sunday, April 1, 2007
Mark Steyn brings his usual incisive clarity to the Iranian hostage situation.
The hostages are British. So what is Britain doing? Nothing.
The hostages are also European. What is the EU doing? Nothing.
The hostages were on a U.N. sanctioned mission. What is the U.N. doing? Nothing.
Actually they’ve all been yakking and making ‘stern’ pronouncements of ‘grave’ concern, etc.
The Iranians must be quaking in their boots. | <urn:uuid:8369a456-9555-4f50-a292-a142ec2c4cae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://jr2020.blogspot.com/2007_04_01_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963154 | 1,270 | 1.976563 | 2 |
theodp writes "In mid-May, the Department of Homeland Security quietly expanded a program that allows foreign science, technology, engineering and math grads to work in the U.S. for 29 months without a work visa. 'Attracting the best and brightest international talent to our colleges and universities and enabling them to contribute to their professional growth is an important part of our nation's economic, scientific and technological competitiveness,' explained DHS Chief Janet Napolitano. But last week, Senator Chuck Grassley called on the GAO to 'fully investigate' the student visa program, citing reports of abuse and other concerns in his letter. Now, Computerworld reports that the DHS STEM Visa Extension Program continues to be dominated by Stratford University and the University of Bridgeport (as it was in 2010), prompting some tongues to wag. It is "obvious to any reasonable person that the schools producing most of the OPT students are not prestigious research universities," quipped policy analyst Daniel Costa, "which means that many of the OPT students across the country are not in fact the 'best and brightest.'" While conceding that top students can come from lesser-known schools, 'those will be the exception to the rule,' argued Costa, who suggested the government should include performance metrics in the OPT program, such as grades and university rankings." | <urn:uuid:b47673f9-bf8d-4855-98da-04d4c20b0ce7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bsd.slashdot.org/submission/2099255/dhs-best-and-brightest-stem-program-under-fire | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944301 | 267 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Posted by BH
FREE ZONE MEDIA CENTER CARTOONS WFZR FZTV
I urge people to unbutton their wallet, pull out a check, reach into their purse, whatever it takes. You will find that when you give a dollar and something of yourself, a lot more than a dollar comes out the other end.By 2020, Melinda Gates hopes to have extended the use of forced sterilization through manipulation of foreign governments to further the scheme of preventing 80 million of “unwanted pregnancies” in places like Africa, India and Southeast Asia.
Every Woman, Every Child, and innovative public-private and civil society partnerships developed through the Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition. The Summit also aligns with the broader framework established by the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) almost 20 years ago.The ICPD officially contended that universal education, reduction of infant births, protection of maternal mortality as an excuse to sterilize millions of women, and purveying “family planning” as a cover for preventing the most densely populated areas from continuing to freely procreate were the most effective course of action to ensure the agenda of the global Elite.
“Although donors must meet their commitments, it is time to look for other ways to find resources to finance development needs and address growing global challenges, such as combating climate change…The related Huffington Post article includes this video, titled “What is the New World Order?” with the Chairman of the World Economic Forum USA, to explain why global governance will solve our issues:
“We are suggesting various ways to tap resources through international mechanisms, such as coordinated taxes on carbon emissions, air traffic, and financial and currency transactions.” [Emphasis added]
Carbon Tax: A tax of $25 a ton of carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted in developed countries…The money could be collected by national authorities, but be earmarked for international cooperation. CO2 is the “greenhouse gas” blamed most often for climate change.However, conservative organizations (and those that value national sovereignty), worry about hundreds of billions of dollars more being allocated to the United Nations.
– Currency Transaction Tax: A tax of 0.005 percent on all trading in four major currencies – the U.S. dollar, the euro, the yen and pound sterling – would yield around $40 billion a year for international initiatives. The decades-old idea of levying a small charge on financial transactions is sometimes called a “Robin Hood tax” since it supposedly taxes rich nations to benefit poor ones.
The European Union’s executive Commission has proposed the introduction of such a tax – 0.1 percent for shares and bonds and 0.01 percent for derivatives – in the 27-member union with effect from January 1, 2014, an initiative expected to raise just over $70 billion a year. The WESS says a portion of that could be earmarked for international cooperation.
– SDRs: Allocation of International Monetary Fund Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) could yield $100 billion a year to purchase long-term assets that could then be used for development finance. Set up in the 1960s, SDRs are used by governments and some international institutions. It is not itself a currency, but its value is based on a basket of the dollar, euro, pound sterling and yen. Some countries, including Russia, China and Brazil, have been pushing the idea of SDRs replacing the greenback as the world’s reserve currency.
– Billionaire’s Tax: A tax of around one percent on individual wealth holdings of $1 billion or more, “with the revenue destined to finance internationally agreed global development purposes.” The WESS says this mechanism, which it estimates could raise $50 billion a year, is an option that could be explored but needs further technical elaboration.
“Realizing the potential of these mechanisms will require international agreement and corresponding political will, both to tap sources as well as to ensure allocation of revenues for development,” said Vos. | <urn:uuid:33a1041c-dcfa-46b5-a73f-686932b74610> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.freezonemediacenternews.com/2012_07_07_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941852 | 842 | 2.140625 | 2 |
Life expectancy in Canada is just under 81 years. Seems no one told Elsie Mitchell that, as she celebrated her 100th birthday in early August. Born August 4th, 1912 in Toronto, Elsie was raised in Parkdale and was an accomplished pianist who played on the radio as a teenager. In 1931, the only child moved with her parents to "the country." Their new address: 59 Grenview Boulevard. Elsie's father was called "crazy" for paying $11,500 for a house located off a stretch of Bloor St. that boasted just three businesses: Main Prize Drugs, Bank of Nova Scotia, and A&P. Today, the area now known as The Kingsway features a bustling retail strip and sees houses sell for seven figures. Elsie moved out when she married her stockbroker husband George in 1937, but the two returned to the Grenview property in the early '40s. They remained there for 25 years before selling it in 1975 for a price of $110,000. (As Elsie's daughter Marilyn put it, her parents sold just a little early.) Elsie and George, who were married for 50 years before his passing in 1987, also had a son, George Jr. Elsie now lives in West Park's Long-Term Care Centre and has three grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. Happy birthday, Elsie.
Interact with your community! Share the photo with your friends, leave a comment for the world to see, or buy a copy of the photo as a print or downloadable file to keep forever.
Share Comment Purchase | <urn:uuid:f8752ebe-f539-481d-9eeb-940d7177becb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.snapetobicoke.com/index.php?option=com_sngevents&id[]=437299 | 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 | 0.982048 | 324 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Washington, D.C. played host to a number of Earth Day 2012 activities and many students joined Renewal in the celebrations. Students came from Houghton College (NY), Messiah College (PA), Eastern University (PA), Waynesburg University (PA), Trevecca Nazarene University (TN) and Dallas Baptist University (TX).
Sunday morning, students gathered for worship at the National Cathedral. Dr. Matthew Sleeth, executive director of Blessed Earth, delivered the sermon, Are Christians Blessing or Cursing the Earth – A Call to Action. Students also witnessed the launching of the Seminary Stewardship Alliance and a forum with Dr. Sleeth and esteemed author, poet and farmer, Wendell Berry.
Students gathered on Monday morning at the White House, where they met with Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials, the executive director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnership and the President’s deputy assistant for energy and climate change.
During the White Hosue briefing, students joined other faith leaders in unveiling the Green the Golden Rule Quilt. The quilt, which is the shape of the United States, was made from donated and recycled clothing from across the country. Renewal and other organizers plan to take the quilt to various college campuses in the coming year with the “Green the Golden Rule” message.
If you are interested in having the quilt come to your college, send an email to firstname.lastname@example.org
All photos are taken by Chris Elisara.
Additional media coverage from the weekend:
Religious Youth To Obama: ‘Creation Care Is A Swing Vote For Many Evangelicals’
White House Earth Day Briefing Offers Hope, Reminds Us There Is Still Much To Do | <urn:uuid:0fe5c90f-3c0b-4bb0-af7d-d47099b0c85c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://renewingcreation.org/blog/139/earth-day-in-dc-wrap-up/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933102 | 367 | 1.90625 | 2 |
Fun Classroom Activities
The 20 enjoyable, interactive classroom activities that are included will help your students understand the text in amusing ways. Fun Classroom Activities include group projects, games, critical thinking activities, brainstorming sessions, writing poems, drawing or sketching, and more that will allow your students to interact with each other, be creative, and ultimately grasp key concepts from the text by "doing" rather than simply studying.
1. Shadow Box
Create a shadow box that depicts a scene from "Innocent Blood" by following the instructions below.
1. Find an empty and usable shoebox with a lid. Cover it with any type of paper you like.
2. Cut a round or square hole in one side of the box just large enough to see through clearly.
3. Find objects around the room including magazine cutouts and more that remind you of a certain scene from the "Innocent Blood". Be sure...
This section contains 1,123 words|
(approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) | <urn:uuid:084628fe-a896-4c69-a944-f5443d7ff595> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bookrags.com/lessonplan/innocent-blood2/funactivities.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932378 | 214 | 4.125 | 4 |
DES, AES and Blowfish: Symmetric Key Cryptography Algorithms Simulation Based Performance Analysis
Security is the most challenging aspects in the internet and network applications. Internet and networks applications are growing very fast, so the importance and the value of the exchanged data over the internet or other media types are increasing. Hence the search for the best solution to offer the necessary protection against the data intruders' attacks along with providing these services in time is one of the most interesting subjects in the security related communities. Cryptography is the one of the main categories of computer security that converts information from its normal form into an unreadable form. | <urn:uuid:9445fb38-7ff9-495a-8d96-c91e60c92272> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.techrepublic.com/whitepapers/des-aes-and-blowfish-symmetric-key-cryptography-algorithms-simulation-based-performance-analysis/32496402 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.908957 | 127 | 2.421875 | 2 |
With the news of the Taliban’s horrific shooting of Malala Yousufzai in October, our thoughts naturally went to the girls we sponsor in Pakistan. Safeer Ullah Khan, our contact in Pakistan, assured us that all of the girls are safe. He reports that their education is not...Read More
When Amy Zehnder traveled to Tanzania two years ago, she prepared herself for an exciting photo safari. But she returned home with much more than pictures of wildlife, “I came back completely transformed by the people,” she says. A girl–to whom Amy refers to as her...Read More
Help Us Make Our First Ever Online Auction a Success! Education is our greatest hope in improving the quality of life for girls in underdeveloped and developing nations. When we educate a girl in the developing world, she gains self-determination and autonomy over her body....Read More
Join us in recognizing the United Nations’ first ever International Day of the Girl. We invite you to stand with Girls Education International as we celebrate girls around the world–the girls who dream of going to school, and of leading independent, fulfilling, and...Read More
You never know what will happen once you get involved with Girls Ed! Veronica Dolo came to GEI as a scholarship student from Grbanga, a town in central Liberia. Veronica graduated from high school just about the time the Girls Ed board decided to sponsor one girl for a post-secondary education. Veronica was highly recommended for not only her academic success, but for her drive and determination as well.
With tuition, fees and some living expenses from Girls Ed, Veronica began nursing school at Smythe Institute of Management and Technology in Monrovia in January of this year, carrying 18 credit hours.
Anne Rosenblum, a Liberia Now advisory board member and Education Team member , was able to meet with Veronica on a recent visit to Monrovia. She said “Veronica is a beautiful and vibrant girl who is very interested in learning and studying, and wants to be either a nurse or a doctor. She is extremely appreciative and knows she would not be able to go to high school or college without the help of Girls Ed.”
Rifat, 12, is the fourth in a family of five children. Since her father’s death several years ago, the household’s subsistence depends upon a meager pension and support from relatives. Rifat’s older sister was married young, and has a daughter. Her two elder brothers study at the secondary school in the neighboring village of Buchal, Pakistan.
When Rifat completed her primary school education two years ago her family felt that a primary level education was sufficient for a girl. Despite Rifat’s interest in continuing her studies, she was forced to work in the fields or at home instead. With support from GEI, Rifta now attends secondary school.
Gulzar, 16, is the youngest of seven children, none of whom have received secondary level education. Although her parents are alive, they are elderly. So Gulzar’s brothers are the breadwinners, working as daily wage laborers who earn enough to feed the family. One of her brothers is married with two children and they all live together in one house.
Gulzar completed her primary school education three years ago, but could not continue because her family could not afford it. Gulzar wanted to continue her studies, and knows that her education is very important. Gulzar is an ambitious girl who would like to have a job after her studies. Gulzar’s parents support her desire to be educated, but can’t assist financially. With support from GEI, Gulzar now attends secondary school.
Buy some great items on Ebay, and support Liberian and Pakistani girls at the same time! Check out our online auction items by clicking here.
As part of our continued efforts to empower girls, we’re hoping to raise enough funds before year’s end to send more girls to school. Today, we’re launching our first ever online auction through eBay Giving Works. Join us this holiday season as you do your gift shopping. When you buy a gift through our online auction, you also give a gift: an education to a girl in Pakistan or Liberia.
Read more here. | <urn:uuid:0d174d0c-999a-47e0-8296-8cc5ca74043c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.girlsed.org/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972176 | 892 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Essay Contest 2012 Honorable Mention, Junior Entry
Grace Langeberg, 7th Grade
Teacher: Mary Reeck
School: Aquinas Middle School, La Crosse, WI
Preserving 150 Years of History: The 1861-1862 the War Commences
Urban sprawl is destroying many of the most important pieces of American history. The Civil War tore apart our country, but after it was over we were more united. It’s a tragedy that our country cares so much about production and industry that we are forgetting about the men who gave their lives for freedom for their beliefs. I believe that in order for us to step forward we need to preserve our roots. What do you think the people who fought on Civil War battlefields would say if they saw a giant Walmart sitting on the ground were they had struggled? I think they would be disappointed that we have such carefree throw away lifestyles.
This is the perfect time to begin preserving our past for future generations. It is horrible that twenty percent of our battlefields have been irreplaceably damaged. Where brother fought against brother, now lay housing developments, casinos, and countless other buildings. One common example is when a park protecting the battlefield has to close or severely limit its hours. This makes it harder for us to learn from and celebrate the lives of all the men who gave their lives for our country. I wonder what these people trying to destroy the battlefields think. How could someone not care about something so important as Civil War battlefields? Men lost their lives here and we just want to put up buildings?
Every time we destroy a piece of this hallowed ground we are taking away part of our history. Abraham Lincoln said this perfectly, “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.” We should stop destroying our history and start preserving it. | <urn:uuid:b61d0fb9-b85b-49fd-a146-515403144955> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.civilwar.org/education/contests-quizzes/essay-contest/2012-essay-contest/essay-contest-2012-honorable.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968955 | 391 | 2.90625 | 3 |
gruidl at MEDSCI.MBP.MISSOURI.EDU
Sat Aug 6 14:04:01 EST 1994
Dear Worm group netters:
We are currently looking into different types of epitope tagging. I am
currently aware of three: Myc, HA and the IBI Flag system. I have heard
that the HA antibodies have some background problems in worms. I have
heard that the Flag antibodies gave weak signals. Some have had success
with the myc antibodies. We would be injecting the tagged RNA into the
gonad, wait until the protein is expressed and look for localization of the
tagged protein primarily in the embryos.
I would like any information available for any of these systems. If anyone
knows of another epitope tag system I would like to know about that as well.
Please respond by email at this address.
email gruidl at medsci.mbp.missouri.edu
More information about the Celegans | <urn:uuid:2c2c4a2d-c5c8-4a1a-8211-5bbd832c5e38> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bio.net/bionet/mm/celegans/1994-August/000051.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936328 | 207 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Native Speakers: Ella Deloria, Zora Neale Hurston, Jovita Gonzalez, and the Poetics of Culture
Native Speakers places the work of three foundational female folklorists in conversation to illuminate an often silenced part of feminist intellectual history, the ethnographic and folklore scholarship of women of color. Analyzing the ethnographic and fictional work of Dakota ethnographer Ella Deloria, African American folklorist Zora Neale Hurston, and Tejana folklorist Jovita Gonzalez, the text reveals the numerous factors that led to the marginalization of these three scholars who also happened to be women of color. Exploring how the work of Deloria, Hurston, and Gonzalez negotiates intersections of race, class, and gender in early twentieth century America, Cotera places an emphasis on empire and colonialism. In so doing, she reveals the ways in which imperialism affected colonized peoples in different ways, but led to similar results—silencing, marginalization, impoverishment, forced assimilation, and exile.
Cotera enacts an important excavation of the feminist intellectual tradition revealing that the voices of women of color are not absent as some have assumed, but instead have been neglected or silenced. Emphasizing the need to take historical specificity and social location into account, and arguing that the work of these three women contains "complex decolonizing textual subversions," Cotera further claims that "the most provocative point of connection" is each woman’s exploration of "the political and poetic possibilities of fiction." The emphasis she places on the fictional work of these women is unique, especially in the cases of Deloria and Gonzalez, neither of whose fiction was published during their lifetimes.
The book also documents the history of intellectual theft as it pertains not only to these women of color, but to the work of marginalized "others" in general. This reclamation reveals how various fields (ethnography, folklore, literature, feminism, and so on) have relied on the voices of women of color and other marginalized groups, yet have often rendered such voices invisible by using their work without giving them credit. Illuminating how gender, race, and class play key roles in this socio-historical silencing, Cotera's work speaks volumes about how vital it is to reclaim such histories.
The book is organized in two sections, with the first exploring the ethnographic and folklorist work of Deloria, Hurston, and Gonzalez, and the second considering their fictional work. The text offers a detailed account of the history, politics, and socio-cultural conditions that shaped the work of these three women while offering cogent analysis of how race, class, gender, nation, and empire informed both their work and the responses to it, and is especially useful for those interested in feminist anthropology, ethnography, folklore, and literature.
Bookending the two sections are a lengthy introduction ("Writing on the Margins of the Twentieth Century") and a concluding epilogue ("What Love Got to Do With It?: Toward a Passionate Practice"). Each of these sections are beautifully written with a comprehensive theoretical approach that teases out the complex aims of the text while offering a thorough consideration of the historical, sociocultural, and intellectual traditions shaping the work of these three authors in particular and feminist ethnographers/folklorists in general.
The epilogue is one of the most intriguing sections of the book as it covers what is so often left out in academic manuscripts—love, or what Cotera refers to as "passionate praxis." Drawing on Chela Sandoval’s idea of love as a "decolonizing practice," Cotera argues that the work of these women is both motivated by and about love. Their work is driven, she argues, by a passion for sharing and unearthing marginalized knowledge (in terms of gender and race/ethnicity). Further, their work is about the love(s) of the various peoples/characters populating their writing.
Exploring the role of women as active social agents, these women, Cotera argues, "fundamentally reorient the masculinist and colonialist direction of our collective historical imagination." Exploring what Cotera names as affinities inside differences, their work, along with that of Cotera’s, re-imagines feminist intellectual history, opening up a space for othered voices. What is not to love about that? | <urn:uuid:e0c83d22-5f6f-4fa0-88a4-572940ad2aa7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://elevatedifference.com/review/native-speakers-ella-deloria-zora-neale-hurston-jovita-gonzalez-and-poetics-culture | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935576 | 913 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Wisconsin firm to build foundation for Stillwater bridge; Study shows some women dying younger; more briefsWisconsin News
A Wisconsin company will build the foundation for the new four-lane bridge across the St. Croix River between Hudson and Stillwater, Minn. Studies generally show that Americans are out-living their parents, but that’s not true for a lot of women.
A Wisconsin company will build the foundation for the new four-lane bridge across the St. Croix River between Hudson and Stillwater, Minn.
Edward Kraemer and Sons of Plain in Sauk County was named the winning bidder Monday. The firm will get almost $37 million to build five piers up to 15 feet above the river’s normal elevation, plus eight shafts per pier, drilled to 120 feet below the river bed.
The foundation work will begin next week. It’s supposed to be finished by mid-2014, but officials say Kraemer will get incentives if it’s done by the early part of the year.
The main bridge construction begins next summer, and the new structure is expected to open in 2016. It replaces an 80-year-old lift bridge that goes into downtown Stillwater.
Congress and President Obama agreed to work around federal protections a year ago to get the new bridge built. Supporters and environmentalists had debated the project for decades before that.
Study shows some women dying younger
Studies generally show that Americans are out-living their parents, but that’s not true for a lot of women.
A new UW-Madison study shows that the percentage of women dying before age 75 went up in 43% of all U.S. counties from 1992 through 2006.
In Wisconsin, those female death rates have risen in 19 of the state’s 72 counties. Most are in the western half of the state and in north central areas.
UW doctoral candidate Erika Cheng said her research team was shocked because it’s generally assumed that people are living longer. But female death rates rose in 1,224 U.S. counties, while men’s death rates before 75 rose in just 108 counties – and none in Wisconsin.
So why are women dying sooner? Experts couldn’t say.
But according to the UW’s annual county health rankings, possible factors include lower-than-average education levels, higher rates of smoking and drinking and traffic crash rates.
The UW’s David Kindig said the study proves that you can no longer assume the nation’s getting healthier just by looking at death rates for heart disease and cancer.
Storm closes dozens of schools
The latest snowstorm has not hit most of Wisconsin yet, but a forecast of up to 11 inches was enough to close dozens of schools today.
La Crosse, Eau Claire and Kenosha are the largest of the school systems to shut their doors in western and southern Wisconsin. Classes were canceled at UW-Platteville, even though the campus itself remains open.
Alma, which is northwest of La Crosse, had four inches as of 6 a.m., and much of southwest Wisconsin was in the two-inch range.
Five to 11 inches of heavy, wet snow are predicted for about the western half of the state. Up to five inches are possible in Milwaukee, and up to eight in Kenosha as spinoffs from a storm that’s expected to dump around 10 inches in the Chicago area, the most in the Windy City in two years.
Green Bay and northeast Wisconsin only expect light snow.
Senate considers matching grants to job-training programs
Wisconsin lawmakers are expected to give their final approval today to a bill that would train workers for increasingly complex jobs.
The Senate will consider giving $15 million in competitive matching grants to job-training groups. The measure also sets up a new computer system to keep track of job data and steer job-seekers toward professions with the highest demands.
Gov. Scott Walker proposed the measure, and the Senate’s approval would send the bill to him for his signature. The Assembly passed it 94-4 last week despite a couple of criticisms from Democrats.
There were concerns about the cost of the computer system. One lawmaker tried but failed to have the state’s technical colleges, instead of the state’s workforce development agency, oversee the training effort.
Charges expected against man who says he shot girlfriend when she woke him
Prosecutors in central Wisconsin expect to file charges next week against an Adams man accused of shooting his girlfriend to death.
A judge set a $250,000 bond Monday for Coleman Dybul, 28, who was booked on suspicion of reckless homicide.
He reportedly told Adams County sheriff’s deputies that Toni Voss, 27, startled him while he was sleeping early Saturday, and he grabbed a shotgun next to his bed and fired it.
Sheriff Sam Wollin said many people keep firearms in their bedrooms, and he had no reason to believe the incident happened differently. The state Crime Lab and local investigators are still reviewing evidence.
High school deals with five traffic deaths in 13 months
Campbellsport High School is dealing with its third major tragedy in 13 months – all involving traffic deaths.
Yesterday, a crisis intervention team helped students and staffers cope with the death of Lance Beyer, the school’s associate principal and athletic director. Beyer, 31, was killed Sunday in a two-vehicle crash northeast of Fond du Lac.
School officials said Beyer was instrumental in helping youngsters cope with the deaths of four Campbellsport students in a pair of highway crashes last year.
Authorities said Beyer pulled into the path of a vehicle coming from his left at the corner of Fond du Lac County roads Q and G. Officials said alcohol was not a factor. They were not sure if Beyer stopped at the corner and then pulled out, or if he drove through a stop sign.
The other driver and her two kids suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
Beyer was a teacher at Campbellsport High before becoming an assistant principal.
Three girls soccer players from Campbellsport died in a speed-related mishap in February 2012, and an 18-year-old student died last November after he lost control of his car.
More residents turning to Better Business Bureau before they buy
It appears that more Wisconsinites are doing their homework before they buy something major.
The state’s Better Business Bureau said it received 1.7 million inquiries last year about the legitimacy of various companies. Those inquiries were up by 20% over the previous year.
Spokeswoman Kimberly Hazen said the advance inquiries resulted in 1,000 fewer complaints about products and services that companies provided.
The BBB said mail order and catalog businesses attracted the most complaints about Wisconsin shoppers in 2012. Department store complaints were second, followed by auto dealers.
The business bureau said roofing contractors attracted the most number of inquiries, followed by remodeling and construction services, heating and air conditioning and auto repairs.
The BBB takes requests online or by phone. The Web address is
Assembly speaker advises Milwaukee to curb its spending
Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos says the Milwaukee city government needs to find ways to be more efficient and save money.
The Racine County Republican said it would show conservatives that Milwaukee can be a world-class city without “taxing ourselves into oblivion.”
Vos told the Milwaukee Press Club Monday that he met recently with Mayor Tom Barrett on the city’s biggest issues as Gov. Scott Walker has urged the city to focus on attracting jobs and improving its economy.
Vos said he could consider throwing state money at the city’s problems. But he said he prefers giving the private sector a chance to help, instead of government just giving money to some and taking away from others.
Vos also took a political dig at the Democrat Barrett, saying he spent much of the last three years running for governor while he chose to “abdicate a lot of things the city of Milwaukee has needed.”
Barrett chief of staff Pat Curley invited Vos to meet with Milwaukee officials and point out his ideas for being more efficient instead of “tossing flip, political remarks back and forth.”
Curley also pointed to a recent study by the Public Policy Forum that outlined Milwaukee’s fiscal challenges but said the city is well run financially.
Killer of elderly woman gets life sentence
A northwest Wisconsin man will spend the rest of his life in prison for brutally killing a 93-year-old woman almost four years ago.
Judge Kenneth Kutz refused Monday to consider any possibility of a supervised release for Christopher Roalson of Radisson, who turns 31 later this month.
A jury found him guilty last fall of homicide and burglary in the slaying of Irene Roszak at her home near Radisson in May 2009.
The judge ordered Roalson and his co-defendant, Austin Davis of Ojibwa, to pay restitution to the victim’s family with whatever money they make in prison.
Davis was sentenced last January to 25 years for serving as a lookout to Roalson, but after he appealed, his term was reduced to eight years, and he ended up testifying against Roalson.
Prosecutors said the two men had planned to kill a couple that Roalson was arguing with, but a motion light at the couple’s home scared them away. So they went to Roszak’s house nearby, where Roalson shouted satanic references while repeatedly stabbing the woman and hitting her with a chair. | <urn:uuid:ccad829a-d09d-4c9d-9c91-c318054ecf88> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newrichmond-news.com/event/article/id/49863/group/News/publisher_ID/9/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967885 | 1,995 | 1.796875 | 2 |
HIV or human immunodeficiency virus is a type that attacks the human immune system. HIV can cause death from the virus weakens the immune system through infection. This virus is classified as one of the worst pathological condition, because the early symptoms of HIV infection may be difficult to diagnose.
People have to increase their knowledge about HIV, as is becoming one of the world’s deadliest diseases. At least, you should have an idea of the primary symptoms of HIV. Primary HIV infection is the stage when a person has been infected with HIV for a few weeks or months. People infected with HIV may have symptoms that are similar to the flu or mononucleosis during this time. During primary HIV infection, a person will not get a clear test result to rule on whether they are infected or not with HIV antibody tests.
In many cases, those who show early HIV symptoms will develop flu symptoms. These flu-like symptoms consisting of fever, rash, sore muscles and swollen lymph glands. But in other cases, can not demonstrate the symptoms of HIV at all and remain silent for years. Most people with primary HIV infection symptoms that usually occur two to six weeks after infection. Acute retroviral syndrome is constant experienced by people with these symptoms, the primary HIV infection may have different symptoms in different people. Some scientists consider rash and fever are the main symptoms of primary HIV infection, especially when presented in combination with one or more of the symptoms.
Those with symptoms usually experience fever, loss of appetite and joint pain. Other general symptoms include sore throat, muscle pain, swollen lymph nodes, diarrhea, fatigue, headache, oral and genital ulcers, nausea and vomiting. These symptoms can occur within days or weeks of first contact with the virus during the acute or primary infection with HIV. In other cases, people with HIV have no symptoms at all, however, most people will always present some of the symptoms and others may show only mild symptoms. When primary or acute HIV infection is more, the reduction of symptoms and patients look better for a while. Most people have no visible symptoms of a longer period of time, it is 8-10 years.
If these conditions are left untreated, the immune system will quickly become weak and the disease progresses to AIDS. The symptoms experienced by the next person infected with HIV are often related to opportunistic infections that attack patients with symptoms of AIDS include pneumonia, tuberculosis and toxoplasmosis. Primary HIV infection or primary symptoms of HIV are a stage which requires immediate medical treatment. You must explore for rapid treatment of a STD test site to see if you have the disease. | <urn:uuid:13a5e54f-dacf-4d92-82e0-847c261da86b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.protectmifamilies.org/disease/the-determination-of-hiv-symptoms/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961436 | 527 | 3.96875 | 4 |
International news agency partners with APC on Take Back the Tech! campaign
Par KB pour APCNews
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, 14 December 2010
As part of APC’s MDG3: Take Back the Tech! to end violence against women campaign, international news agency IPS partnered with APC to report on the intersection of ICTs and violence against women around the world. In these three articles, IPS reports on how women are targeted for cyber crimes in Pakistan, are using ICTs to build self-esteem in Argentina, and are experiencing greater gender-based violence due to an increase in ICT use in Uganda.
Women targeted for cyber crimes in Pakistan
In Pakistan, women’s rights activist Fariha Akhtar says that women have become easy targets for cyber crimes in her male-dominated South Asian country. “We prefer being abused and harassed than being ‘dishonoured’ in the eyes of society,” she said in “For Women, Cyber Crimes Are All Too Real,” an article written by international news agency IPS for APC’s Take Back the Tech! campaign to end violence against women.
The article reports that women in Pakistan are increasingly becoming victims of cyber pornography, where photos of women are altered electronically to become lewd images that are then posted on the internet or are sent via mobile phones.
The article also explains the lack of a legal framework in Pakistan to prosecute cyber criminals means it is difficult for women who are victims of cyber crimes to seek justice. Akhar joined the Take Back the Tech! campaign in 2009 and since then has advocated and written widely on the safe and secure use of ICTs (information and communication technologies).
Using ICTs to build self-esteem in Argentina
In Click Here to Escape Gender Violence IPS reports on a Catholic nun, Norma Santa Cruz, who heads a programme in Buenos Aires, Argentina, aimed at bringing ICTs to women who are victims of violence.
“The goal is for the women to set up an email account, a blog or a Facebook page, in order to use the social networking sites and link up with other women, in a learning process that can help them rebuild — or build — their self-esteem,” says Santa Cruz. The programme won a Take back the Tech! Fund small grant.
Increase in ICT use sees increase in violence against women in Uganda
IPS describes the rapid growth of the ICT market in Uganda coupled with the increase in gender based violence due to the use of information and communications technology in ICT Boom for Economy, A Bust for Some Women.
The article reports on a new study from Makerere University’s Department of Gender and Women Studies, which found that the majority of women ICT users have had conflicts within their families, especially over issues of freedom and control.
The article also looks at how APC partner WOUGNET has trained women and rights advocates on how to use ICTs, how to minimise the negative effects of using ICTs, and has raised awareness of violence against women in Uganda through use of short message services (SMS).
IPS is APC’s MDG3: Take Back the Tech! to end violence against women campaign media partner for 2010. | <urn:uuid:85f1cd07-0e03-4fe5-a24a-a55491c27dc1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.apc.org/fr/news/international-news-agency-partners-apc-take-back-t | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947861 | 681 | 1.710938 | 2 |
There’s a song in the rock musical Hair called "Easy to Be Hard," and it goes like this:
How can people be so heartless
How can people be so cruel
Easy to be hard
Easy to be cold
These lyrics have been running around my head since reading the two-part series from the nonprofit Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism about the impact of Wisconsin’s new nursing home “tort reform” law. And when I say “impact,” I’m specifically talking about current and future nursing home residents who are abused and neglected. (Pay close attention, Baby Boomers.)
Here is the series’ summary:
Families’ abilities to hold potentially negligent nursing facilities accountable have been diminished by a recent change in state law that bars records of abuse and neglect from use in the courts, the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism has found. The Center’s investigation also shows that some long-term care facilities are failing to report deaths and injuries, as required by law.
Not that we’re surprised. Under the leadership Governor Scott Walker and with the express assistance of that nasty gang-‘o-corporations, the American Legislative Exchange Council, the nursing home industry authored a bunch of provisions to make it difficult or impossible for families to sue on behalf of their abused or neglected (i.e., dead or injured) relative. For one, these laws make it virtually impossible for grossly negligent facilities to ever be liable for punitive damages. For another - and the focus of the series- these laws prohibit families in these tragic situations from using any state investigation records as evidence in their lawsuit. In the words of Milwaukee personal injury attorney Ann Jacobs, “When you’ve got these records that are part of the regulatory process, the idea that you wouldn’t be able to introduce them to the jury is just insane. Why would we hold that information back?” Indeed.
In one case profiled by the series, records of a four-month period of neglect that led to a bone-deep, E-coli infected bed sore on the backside of a 32-year-old brain-damaged and physically-disabled resident (he required horribly painful surgery and months on his stomach), could not be used in the family’s lawsuit.
The impact of this law extends beyond the families who do sue:
Several attorneys said they have turned down meritorious cases because the new law makes it harder and more costly to sue nursing homes and other health care facilities.
“Even before this legislation, these were very difficult, expensive, time-consuming cases,” said Jason Studinski, a Stevens Point attorney who specializes in elder abuse lawsuits. “Frankly, once a victim knows what hurdles are in their path, some choose to go away, even if they have a legitimate claim.” …
And don’t think patient safety won’t suffer. As Dane County Circuit Judge William Hanrahan, who prosecuted crimes against the elderly for 19 years as a district attorney and assistant attorney general, put it:
“It’s very important that attorneys are able to take these cases and hold those who neglect and abuse the elderly accountable. Some of the biggest changes come as a result of legal action.”
Heartless, cruel, hard, cold. Mustn't forget dumb. | <urn:uuid:d0c045fa-84b3-4460-8fcc-b00ea0a00fbb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thepoptort.com/nursing_homes/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954232 | 702 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Former NASA scientist Dale Chamberlain of the High Altitude School of Hydroponics
FORT COLLINS - Former NASA scientist Dale Chamberlain won't promise to get you sky-high, but he can teach you how to grow better marijuana.
Chamberlain, of Loveland, is launching the High Altitude School of Hydroponics - HASH - to help Colorado residents learn to grow better pot. Chamberlain says complying with the state's new marijuana-legalizing Amendment 64 today requires that someone either give you pot or that you grow your own. And any marijuana people grow has to be grown inside a locked room, not outdoors.
While most anyone can grow marijuana, Chamberlain says the skills he can teach people will allow them to grow better pot. He likens hydroponically grown marijuana to small-batch distilling or a fine wine. "We want to help put Chablis in your glass," he says.
Chamberlain got his bachelor's degree from Colorado State University in Fort Collins, and went on to work for NASA designing experiments for the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station.
Chamberlain says there are a variety of seemingly small things home growers do that can affect the quality of their crop, which can take months to bring to harvest. Some growers, for instance, install infrared security cameras to monitor their crops, not realizing that plants can "see" and will respond to infrared light.
Giving the plants extra light allows them to grow faster, but it must be given at the right time in their growing cycle. Chamberlain says there's long been an underground growing community, and it's time for home growers to learn how to grow legally from experts.
"We can't encourage the breaking of any laws, and we don't," Chamberlain says.
That's been a sticking point for CSU's Cooperative Extension Service. Because CSU receives so much federal funding, university lawyers have repeatedly told extension experts they cannot help Coloradans grow marijuana. Amendment 64 allows adults to grow up to six plants at a time. But marijuana growing and possession remains illegal under federal law, and so the state's usual agricultural experts have been sidelined.
That's where Chamberlain thinks he can help. His first four-hour class this weekend will be held at Front Range Community College in Longmont, and costs $200. By growing indoors under strictly controlled conditions, Chamberlain says yields are higher and more consistent. Several shops in the Fort Collins area sell hydroponic growing supplies, but workers there are careful to avoid giving any advice about growing marijuana.
"The stigma is so strong that no one is even talking about it," Chamberlain says.
(Copyright © 2013 Fort Collins Coloradoan, All Rights Reserved) | <urn:uuid:2a58c19c-f8d0-4649-9c39-d935597481dd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.9news.com/rss/article/315712/222/Former-NASA-scientist-helping-residents-grow-better-marijuana | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951621 | 551 | 2.359375 | 2 |
News From the Soviet Union
From Targets monthly
Once the following series of bills are adopted, this will rework the country's political structure and make it nearly impossible for Putin to be deposed by any constitutional means.
Putin has submitted a series of Bills to his Cabinet or his United Russia Party that, once adopted, will make Putin undisputed ruler-dictator.
The First Bill seeks to revamp the distribution of the federal tax revenue to allow the government to keep more of the money, previously both regional governments' budgets (and regional governor's slush funds). It will be the most controversial of the three.
The Second Bill tinkers with laws that govern the disciplining of regional governors. Specifically it seeks to empower the Kremlin to replace the Governors with Putin's own people.
When combined, these two Bills give the Kremlin the de facto right to assert budgetary and personnel control, and it does not matter that these people were elected. By withholding budgetary money, any region that is not to the liking of Putin's government politically can be the justification to remove all the personnel and appoint Putin's own cronies. This way it is absolutely not possible for any left-wing member to gain the Governor's position, even if the majority of people voted for him or her.
The Third Bill has the greatest significance, as it will rewrite Russia's electoral laws, raising the percentage of the popular vote that political parties must garner in elections, to gain seats in the Russian Duma from the present 5% to 12.5 %. The new law would totally purge the Duma of small parties. This would leave Putin's United Russia Party, which is the largest faction in the Duma. This means that the passage of these Three Bills is practically assured.
The country's other major party, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (Zyuganov) is strongly supporting Putin in this bid, as it would disenfranchise many of the smaller communist and workers parties that have siphoned off votes, and therefore Duma seats, in the past decade.
Considering the communist (CPRF) weakness and cooperation in all matters with Putin, a two-party Duma would be just putty in Putin's hands. That guarantees that each appointment by Putin's government will get quick passage, and Putin never has to worry about getting impeached. This will insulate Putin from any political threat, aside from revolutionary change.
Putin has managed to tame the media, exile some troublesome oligarchs and limit any challenge from inside the Duma or the regions of Russia. But there is a possibility that the new bourgeois clans, centered in Leningrad and the ambitions of the Yeltsin Family Combine, will in the future show their heads... depending of course as to which Western Power backs which clan for the riches of Russia.
If there was any time more urgent to expose Putin and Zyuganov, it is now. If there was time more urgent to UNITE against this double evil in Russia, it is now. There is no excuse to delay, since no way will the people be victorious without a revolutionary change. Talk is cheap, action is what is needed now!
The classic case of Oleg Shein, Deputy of the Russian Duma
By Shamil BorodobaevWhen three years ago Oleg Shein had won in the race for the seat in the State Duma, it was seen as a big victory for all those who stood on the left of the CPRF. We all hoped that Shein would not only carry on the work begun by previous left deputies like Grigoriev and Avaliani, but that he would raise it to a new level of militancy. We can now say that our hopes have failed to come true. But even worse.
One cannot say 100% that Shein’s tenure in the Duma was entirely useless for the left and labour movement in Russia. We should not belittle his role in the campaign against the World Bank sponsored Labour Code. Shein also helped a number of labour collectives. But that was all, no advancement to a new level of militancy has taken place or has even been attempted.
It seems that instead, Shein had been much more interested in the advancement of his career in the system of bourgeois government rather than advancing the left and labour movement in Russia. This may explain why Shein is also willingly parting with any mention of communism but embracing some sort of neutral "Laborism." (The founding documents of the recently established Labour Party of Russia by Shein) together with the notorious anti-communist and Yeltsinite Sergei Khramov and he doesn’t mention the even word "capitalism" or "class".
You see, by not mentioning these two words makes it easier to get in favour with the Kremlin and the government, doesn’t it? Western social-imperialists too prefer dealing with a pure Labourite, rather than a revolutionary and a communist. Having made this choice, Shein will inevitably find himself on the other side of the barricades and will become the enemy of the genuine Left, even if against his own will, because the very logic of his politics will push him into the fold of reactionary bourgeoisie. We can already see this happening in Shein’s recent vote in favour of banning a referendum.
The program of his own created his own Labour Party they purged anything that even looked like or smelled like the word Red. It was a betrayal because his is the attempt to lead the movement away from the communist influence, way from the struggles of common interests of the working class. After this betrayal we could expect anything from Shein, because that was his decisive step.
There was a time when Shein preached the need to promote workers in elections to public office and, we must not forget that Shein criticized Stalin that he did not allow the workers to have "democracy" in their union.
It is unpleasant and disheartening to see the degeneration of the labour leader, who only recently gave us so much hope. We have to acknowledge that Shein now stands firmly on the path that has been traveled before him by far too many labour leaders. History knows many examples in the world of this sort, and alas, Oleg Shein will not be the last.
Based on the On-Line PRAVDA
The quick development in the world and the drive towards Globalization, the tendency towards a one-polar world, and the establishment of the New World Order, causes a real problem for Russia in the Kaliningrad Region of Russia, the only outlet for Russia to the Baltic Sea. The safeguarding of the territorial integrity and sovereignty if Russia is at stake now, under the real threat of globalization.
With EU demands and with Poland and Lithuania demanding territorial change, it is now a crucial battle over the Kaliningrad territory, which must be defended.
Zbigniew Brezinski who still commands much influence in Washington, was the architect of Globalization. He influenced US foreign policy by demanding that the United States undertake two objectives: Secure a predominant position and the necessity to create a geopolitical structure that can soften the tensions caused by the forced remaking of the word during the establishment of the New World Order.
Let us also not forget the secret speech made by the ex-president of the USA to the HG commanders on October 25, 1995. He outlined concrete steps and objectives to bring the ex-USSR to the level of a third-world country, and he directed the American military and political elite to split Russia into small states by waging international and inter-regional wars, the way it was done in Yugoslavia.
It was also extremely cynical of Zbigniew Brezinski to speak a t a recent US-Ukrainian Advisory Committee dedicated to conferring on him the rank of a Lvov Citizen of Honour, when he said that the US-led New Word Order was created specifically against the Russians.
So, the Kaliningrad Region and the South Kurile Islands that Japan wants are a snare to test Russia’s will to give up territories. It is against this background that the Kaliningrad Region is being pushed to the fore by the European Union and US imperialism.
Close this page to return. | <urn:uuid:9590e398-7f52-4d86-a4ab-15fb7e021267> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.northstarcompass.org/nsc0212/newssu.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968313 | 1,689 | 1.796875 | 2 |
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- A nonprofit foundation intended to raise and distribute money for Birmingham's 1963 civil rights anniversary activities has been disbanded and its board dissolved.
Meanwhile, Mayor William Bell is seeking $250,000 of city money to award grants to groups organizing activities throughout 2013, taking part of the role previously assigned to the defunct Birmingham63, Inc. foundation. Next year is the golden anniversary of seminal moments of civil rights activity in Birmingham.
"As you know, the Birmingham community is one of the most charitable communities in the nation. It was determined that there are enough charitable organizations in and around Birmingham to facilitate the commemoration and make it a success," said Bobbie Knight, a former foundation Board member and Alabama Power Company's Birmingham Division vice president, in a written response.
Still, Bell seeks to assume some of the foundation's expected financial role by using $250,000 in public money to make grants to organizations, with the city becoming both the funding and grant awarding agency.
The City Council will consider Bell's proposal which includes dividing the funding with the council getting $125,000 and the mayor $125,000.
"We have had numerous requests from organizations seeking to commemorate 1963 in their own way," said Bell's chief of staff Chuck Faush. "The mayor wants to try at this point to assist with some of those organizations, realizing that we can't fund everything. We can try to do what we can at this point."
Grant parameters are yet to be determined, but Faush said the organizations would be ranked by the benefit and lasting impact of their projects.
"Because of the number of requests, you assess it as you go," Faush said. "We were inundated with the number of requests."
Faush said the same scrutiny would be given for these grants as all other city funding.
"There's no new process. It is the same process that we have right now," he said. "The difference is we've assembled everything together. The administration really tried to gather as much information as possible."
Faush downplayed the Birmingham63, Inc.'s dissolution.
"It was never really kicked off. It has not raised any funds nor expended any funds," he said. "The foundation was contemplated to fill a void and at this point there isn't a void."
Faush said council members would get more information later in their meeting binders this evening, including the groups seeking funding.
However Councilman Steven Hoyt, chairman of the Budget and Finance Committee, said he was concerned about the lack of information regarding the 50th anniversary.
"Not a single press conference has had a councilor involved and not a single trip has included the president of the council.
Hoyt speculated that the same lack of information and collaboration from the mayor's office was a factor in the foundation's demise.
"'United for the good of William Bell Sr.,'" Hoyt said, making a play on Bell's motto and campaign slogan, 'United for the good the city.' "The mayor can't be running his own program and calling it a concerted effort."
Hoyt also objected to two separate pools of funding cash for an event that's supposed to foster unity.
"It's about unity and it looks like we should be unified on this one issue, but there's got to be transparency," he said.
Councilman Johnathan Austin had not yet heard of Bell's $250,000 request but questioned the process, calling for tight controls when spending city money.
"The 50th anniversary commemoration year is so important that we don't need to say that we're going to take a pot of money and throw it at a bunch of nonprofit organizations," he said.
Austin also called it cumbersome having both the mayor and council separately allocating grants.
"One entity needs to be the responsible party and it should not be the council and mayor's office separately," Austin said. "Who are we going to hold responsible? I don't think the council should be willing to put ourselves in the position where we are going out giving money to these organizations."
Council President Roderick Royal said more details are needed.
"The mayor and his staff have been driving this train and I'm not sure what the dissolution of the foundation means," he said. "The foundation plan is best because it ensured community involvement. We probably really need to know why the foundation plan has not worked, and that question is the one I will be curious to know the answer." | <urn:uuid:1296af34-0960-406a-ba10-8c27ae6ba6ae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2012/10/post_807.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980108 | 921 | 1.6875 | 2 |
We're a co-operative business operating in a market economy. Our core purpose is not to maximize profit, but we are constrained by the same commercial principles as other retailers. Nonetheless, we believe business can advance human rights.
The goal of our Ethical Sourcing Program is to improve the human condition in factories. This is no small feat. The causes of worker infractions are complex, varied, and driven by flaws in our economy and society. Completely ending abuse of overtime, unlawful pay, and unsafe working conditions would require fundamental changes to factories, retailers, governments, economies, and to consumer's spending habits. Mindful of all this, we are working toward measured and incremental improvements.
Factory audit program conducted by MEC merchandisers, external auditors and the Fair Labor Association.
Corrective action that aims to find resolution by building trust, empowering workers and factory managers, and working with industry.
Suspension of Business with, and eventually letting go of, factories that fail to improve.
Our Ethical Sourcing Program is run by a Director who reports directly to the CEO. At the Board level, a Sustainability Committee establishes and oversees the program's mandate and objectives. These are included in MEC Board Policies. The committee meets periodically with the Senior Manager to review audit results and progress. As a member of the Fair Labor Association, the program is also accountable to their independent monitoring. Beyond the program itself, ethical sourcing requirements are integrated into our product design philosophy and purchasing decisions. | <urn:uuid:0c09f954-4b22-48c8-a068-09077e3419e3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mec.ca/AST/ContentPrimary/Sustainability/EthicalSourcing/WhatMECIsDoing.jsp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952995 | 306 | 1.679688 | 2 |
"Rathergate" is the derisive term applied to a set of four documents allegedly written by the former commanding officer of President George W. Bush in the early 1970's, and broadcast on the CBS program 60 Minutes Wednesday, September 8, 2004. The resultant exposure of these documents as forgeries, coupled with a lack of proper news investigating techniques, led to the ouster of four senior producers at CBS several months later, as well as the departure of long-time anchorman Dan Rather, for whom the scandal was named.
The 60 Minutes broadcast
In September, 2004, the presidential campaign between George W. Bush and John Kerry was in its final months. Part of American politics was to issue what is called an "October surprise", in effect a last-minute effort by the opposition aimed at discrediting the leading candidate to the point that he loses the election. On September 8, 2004, CBS News broadcast 60 Minutes Wednesday, with a lead-in segment by Dan Rather on newly-disclosed documents which indicated Bush may have shirked his duties while in service with the Texas Air National Guard:
- "The military records of the two men running for president have become part of the political arsenal in this campaign – a tool for building up, or blowing up, each candidate’s credibility as America's next commander-in-chief."
- "While Sen. Kerry has been targeted for what he did in Vietnam, President Bush has been criticized for avoiding Vietnam by landing a spot in the Texas Air National Guard - and then failing to meet some of his obligations."
- "Did then-Lt. Bush fulfill all of his military obligations? And just how did he land that spot in the National Guard in the first place? Correspondent Dan Rather has new information on the president’s military service – and the first-ever interview with the man who says he pulled strings to get young George W. Bush into the Texas Air National Guard."
The intent of the broadcast was to prevent Bush's reelection by insinuating that he had used his political connections to avoid service in Vietnam. A highlight of the segment was an interview with former Texas House Speaker and Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes, who stated "I was contacted by people from the very beginning of his political career, when he ran for governor, and then when he ran for president, and now he's running for re-election." Barnes, a life-long Democrat, at the time was a protégé of President Lyndon B. Johnson, and in 2004 was actively working on raising money for Kerry's campaign; he stated that he had wielded the clout to help Bush get into the Texas ANG .
The documents are in the form of memos supposedly written by Lieutenant Colonel Jerry B. Killian, which include:
- An order directing Bush to report for a physical examination.
- A note to himself that he had grounded Bush for "failure to perform to USAF/TexANG standards," as well as disobeying orders for the physical exam.
- A note to himself of a telephone conversation with Bush. The note records that Bush was working on the campaign of an Alabama senator, and wanted to be excused from his duties.
- A note to himself which claimed he had pressure on him from higher up to "sugarcoat" Bush's evaluation report.
The documents were supplied to CBS news by a former officer in the Texas Air National Guard, Bill Burkett, who stated in interviews earlier in the year that "he overheard a telephone conversation in the spring of 1997 in which top Bush aides asked the head of the Texas National Guard to sanitize Bush's files as he was running for a second term as governor of Texas. Several days later, he said, he saw dozens of pages from Bush's military file dumped in a trash can at Camp Mabry, the Guard's headquarters" .
Proof of forgery
The script used in the document was instantly suspected. Bloggers picked it up immediately as "Times New Roman", and matched the documents up with the default layout of Microsoft Word. As to it being a part of the U.S. military, journalist Robert Bluey wrote "The typography experts couldn't pinpoint the exact font used in the documents. They also couldn't definitively conclude that the documents were either forged using a current computer program or were the work of a high-end typewriter or word processor in the early 1970s. But the use of the superscript "th" in one document - "111th F.I.S" - gave each expert pause. They said that is an automatic feature found in current versions of Microsoft Word, and it's not something that was even possible more than 30 years ago." .
The standard-issue machine in all branches of the U.S. armed forces for writing documents during the 1960's-1970's was the IBM Selectric and Selectric II typewriters, both of which contain interchangeable fonts on a typeface ball. So wide-spread was the use of these machines that they were made part of the planned maintenance system in which repairs and upgrades were done by military personnel rather than the factory. The use of stand-alone word processors and office computers did not appear at military commands until as early as the late 1970s, well after the Killian documents were supposedly written.
Post office box
The header of each document bears the name and address of the squadron: 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron, P.O. Box 34567, Houston, Texas 77034. Not just the sequential number of the P.O. box was suspect, but the fact that it was even on the memo at all raised questions. Military addresses have always included the full name and location; at no time has any branch of the military, active duty, guard, or reserve, used a post office box as an address.
Gary Killian, son of Lt. Colonel Killian, stated that his father always signed his full name on documents and letters; there was nothing abbreviated, as in the suspect documents. In an unsigned document, obtained by CBS and dated August 18, 1973, was captioned CYA. "If he had written that, he would have signed it," Killian told FOX News of his father. Killian also stated his father would have typed such a document himself, even though he was a "very poor" typist who "hated" it. "He did not type memos to himself," Killian added, stating it was "too much effort" and "very dangerous … not a good practice."
CBS did its own investigation in the matter, and determined there were several serious breaches of handling this story, among them failure to identify the sources of the documents properly; failure to document the chain of custody of the documents; failure to establish the credibility of the documents.
Those that tendered their resignations on request were: Senior Vice President Betsy West, the supervisor of primetime programs for CBS News; Josh Howard, the executive producer of Wednesday's version of 60 Minutes; Mary Murphy, senior broadcast producer and Howard's deputy. Mary Mapes, the actual producer of the Killian documents story, was terminated, in part for calling a senior official in John Kerry's presidential campaign (Joe Lockhart) and offering to put him in touch with Burkett. The CBS panel called Mapes’ action a “clear conflict of interest that created the appearance of political bias.”
Unbowed and still convinced of the document's authenticity, Rather filed a $70 million lawsuit against CBS and its former corporate parent, Viacom on September 19, 2007, claiming he was made a "scapegoat" . A day later, Mapes wrote a column in the Huffington Post, claiming that far-right blogs have "pronounced themselves experts on document analysis, and began attacking the form and font in the memos. They screamed objections that ultimately proved to have no basis in fact...They dominated the discussion by churning out gigabytes of mind-numbing internet dissertations about the typeface in the memos, focusing on the curl at the end of the "a," the dip on the top of the "t," the spacing, the superscript, which typewriters were used in the military in 1972. It was a deceptive approach, and it worked" .
In a clear contradiction of her rant, Mapes did in fact have prior knowledge of Bush's guard service in her hands but chose to ignore it. In a press release on January 10, 2005, Accuracy in Media reported that the internal investigation conducted by CBS into the "Rathergate" matter revealed that Mapes had documented information on hand which detailed Bush's attempt to volunteer for duty as a fighter pilot in Vietnam but was denied by his superiors at the time due to his inexperience. Accuracy in Media Editor Cliff Kincaid explained:
- "Mapes, who was very close to Rather and enjoyed his confidence, had the evidence exonerating Bush of this malicious charge. The report shows that there were multiple credible sources to prove that Bush did not try to avoid Vietnam by going into the National Guard and that he was in fact willing to go to Vietnam as a pilot. However, CBS News deliberately kept this information from its viewers and conveyed an opposite impression because Rather, Mapes & Company were trying to depict Bush as a coward who, as Commander-in-Chief, was sending American soldiers to their deaths in Iraq."
- Transcript of 60 Minutes Wednesday, September 8, 2004
- The Killian Documents, in .pdf format
- The CBS Independent Review Panel report
- "CBS Ousts 4 For Bush Guard Story", from CBS, January 10, 2005
- "The First Rathergate", article on National Review Online
- "Courage for Dan Rather," by Mary Mapes; Huffington Post | <urn:uuid:8de2d0cd-e5b7-4320-99ca-ef702f243303> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.conservapedia.com/Rathergate | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983188 | 2,013 | 1.859375 | 2 |
What do Google, Microsoft and Apple have in common? A lot, actually; and following their respective developer conferences earlier this summer, several new commonalities have been revealed. We now know that new tablet devices are being developed by Google and Microsoft and that Google and Apple are both looking to capitalize on their mapping software. We’ve also learned that iOS 6, Windows 8 and Android 4.1 are going to incorporate more Internet and social media functionality than any previous operating systems. This enhanced focus on social connectivity will undoubtedly be an important component of these new systems, but its impact on Internet marketing may be even greater.
A More Social Future
Despite Facebook’s apparent inability to succeed on Wall Street thus far, the network is still as popular as ever. With upwards of 900 million users, nearly 1/7 of the world’s population is using Facebook. That’s an impressive reach for a social network that began less than a decade ago as a college project. Microsoft and Apple have both seen potential in Facebook and their confidence in the brand is reinforced by its incorporation into their new OS offerings. The move to integrate social media directly into the operating system itself will only bolster its popularity, which will significantly impact the Internet marketing industry.
Effects on Internet Marketing
SEOs and SMOs are likely to see a substantial rise in their client base. Online marketing initiatives will become increasingly valuable as the Internet itself continues to become more accessible. Today, the role of social media in marketing initiatives is larger than it has ever been and it has proven effective for many companies worldwide. Search engine optimization and social media are expected to become even more closely related going forward, as well.
The release of iOS 6 and Windows 8 are also likely to impact current social media campaigns and increase their overall effectiveness. The future of social media looks to be very bright and with the help of tech industry mainstays such as Microsoft, Apple and Google, it may become the very cornerstone of online marketing.
What are your thoughts on the future of social media marketing? Drop me a line at email@example.com or on Twitter @brwebimax. | <urn:uuid:4b9443bd-6968-4d87-9caa-cac37f89fe07> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.webimax.com/blog/facebook/coming-this-fall-a-new-era-for-internet-marketing | 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 | 0.960945 | 439 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Laptop ChargersEach laptop computer requires a unique voltage, current and connector. AC to DC adapters are designed specifically to match accordingly. Your first step in finding the correct laptop charger is to select the brand of your notebook computer and the model number through Battery Select Technology™ search tool. This tool will guide you to find an exact match for your laptop computer to the correct laptop power adapter.
Laptop Charger Guides & Videos
Laptop Power Supply: Linear versus Switch-Mode
|For years and years, linear power ruled the world of power conversion. However, when switch-mode power became commercially available in the late 1970s, it began to render linear power obsolete. Why is that? And what is the difference between the two? Let us examine both power conversion types and discuss what has made switch-mode the preferred power supply for laptops. » More|
Laptop Adapter Safety Mark
|Have you ever wondered what all the symbols, logo schemes and fine print intricacies on the back of a laptop adapter actually indicate? Perhaps you’ve never noticed the hieroglyphics that cover the underside of these power packs, much less understand what they mean. » More|
How To Test Laptop Adapter
|While the majority of us typically trust that the laptop adapters for our laptops are functioning properly, that’s just not always the case. Laptop adapter, otherwise known as AC adapters or power bricks, converts Alternating Current (AC) into Direct Current (DC) which your computer can then use as a power source. They are an absolutely vital piece of your laptop. If they’re not functioning properly, neither will your laptop. » More|
What does AC INPUT and DC OUTPUT mean on laptop adapters?
Range of Alternating Current (AC) consisting of Volts and Amp.
Direct Current (DC) consisting of Volts and Amp.
Have you ever wondered if you could take your laptop to different countries; countries that use different plugs and different voltage? The answer to that question can actually be found on your laptop adapter label.
Located on every laptop adapter is the INPUT and OUTPUT information. This is absolutely important to find and know! In the United States we use 110V. However, most other countries use 220V. So what to do? How can you be sure that your laptop or its adapter will not get fried as you go about your travels or anywhere else?
Here are a few tips:
1. Know Where to Look and What to Look For-
As we mentioned earlier, located on every AC adapter of and every laptop is a label that contains very important information. One of the key bits of information you will find is the INPUT and OUTPUT range. Find it, know it, and never forget it.
2. Ask or Search-
If for some reason you're not able to find INPUT and OUTPUT information, or if you ever have doubts about an electrical outlet that you are thinking about plugging into, ask someone who might know or do a quick search engine inquiry. If there's any doubt at all, it's better to err on the side of caution and be sure.
3. Match Your Volts & Amps-
You always wants to match the Voltage and Amperage of your current laptop AC adapter. If you have higher amperage with matching voltage, you can still use it. The general rule of thumb, however, is to not use any adapter with over 2x the amperage.
- I have a 60W AC adapter and want to use a 90W adapter? YES
- I have a 60W AC adapter and want to use a 150W adapter? NO (not recommended)
Using the wrong type of adapter, or plugging into an electrical outlet not suited for your laptop can have damaging consequences. In the worst cases, it can damage your laptop motherboard, overheat your AC adapter, and even permanently damage your laptop battery. Know your equipment, know what you're plugging into, or Contact Us if you ever have doubts or questions.
Laptop Power Supply: Linear versus Switch-Mode
|For years and years, linear power ruled the world of power conversion. However, when switch-mode power became commercially available in the late 1970s, it began to render linear power obsolete. Why is that? And what is the difference between the two? Let us examine both power conversion types and discuss what has made switch-mode the preferred power supply for laptops. |
Linear power converters have bulky steel or iron laminated transformers. They provide safety barriers between high voltage AC input and lower voltage DC output. The transformers reduce the AC input from 155V or 230VAC to lower voltage such as 30VAC. The lower AC voltage converts to DC when passed through electrolytic capacitors. That low voltage DC converts into the correct output voltage via a transistor or IC.
Switch-mode power converters take 115V or 230VAC and convert it to high voltage DC. That DC converts to low voltage using small ferrite transformers, FETs or transistors. That voltage converts into the correct DC output voltage by another set of diodes, capacitors and inductors.
When comparing linear and switch-mode power converters, it becomes clear just why laptop manufacturers choose switch-mode converters to charge their laptop batteries. A 50W switch-mode power converter averages a size reduction of 80% compared to linear converters. A 50W linear power supply weighs four pounds, whereas switch-mode converters weigh slightly more than half a pound.
Linear power converters have a limited input range and require a change to the transformer taps when used in a different country. When the input voltage drops more than 10%, the DC voltage becomes too low and the power supply cannot deliver the required output voltage. In comparison, switch-mode converters operate anywhere in the world (85 to 264VAC) without any adjustment. Switch-mode converters also compensate for small losses of AC power in the range of 10-20 milliseconds without affecting the output.
Linear power converters also normally operate at 60% efficiency for 24V outputs, whereas switch-mode operates at 80% or higher. This equates to an energy savings of 20%. If a 100W laptop battery is charged for 24 hours in a day, the reduction in energy loss could be 367kW hours. At an average cost of $0.10 per kW hour, you could save $92.50 due to the switch-mode converter.
When comparing linear and switch-mode power converters, the differences between the two are clear and it's easy to see why switch-mode power converters are the preferred power supply for laptops throughout the world.
Laptop Adapter Safety Mark
Have you ever wondered what all the symbols, logo schemes and fine print intricacies on the back of a laptop adapter actually indicate? Perhaps you’ve never noticed the hieroglyphics that cover the underside of these power packs, much less understand what they mean.
The following glossary should clear up any confusion and satisfy the stunning curiosity you may have harnessed when coincidentally faced with the underside of your laptop power adaptor. Basically, the symbols are indications that the device and its inner contents are in accordance with various environmental policy, international trade requirements, and quality standards. There are a lot of pictures because there are a lot of regulations. Many of these need not apply, nor interest the average laptop user. Others, however, might be worth inspecting. Either way, we have cracked the code and aren’t keeping the secret to ourselves.
Underwriters Laboratories® is an independent product safety certification organization that has been testing products and writing standards for safety for more than a century. UL evaluates more than 19,000 types of products, components, materials and systems annually with 20 billion UL Marks appearing on 66,000 manufacturers' products each year. UL's worldwide family of companies and network of service providers includes 68 laboratory, testing and certification facilities serving customers in 102 countries. The UL Listing Mark is one of the most common UL Marks. If a laptop power adapter carries this Mark, it means UL found that representative laptop adapter samples met UL's safety requirements. These requirements are primarily based on UL's own published standards for safety.
TUV Rheinland of North America's US certification mark is recognized and accepted by state, city and county regulators (building officials, fire marshals and electrical inspectors) throughout the US as an equivalent alternative to the UL mark for laptop adapters.
RoHS is an acronym for Restriction on the use of certain Hazardous Substances. The concept behind California’s RoHS Law is to limit the amounts of certain hazardous heavy metals in specific waste electronic devices (laptop power adaptors) so that those metals never find their way into landfills or elsewhere, where they can eventually be released into the environment. California's Legislature modeled the California RoHS Law after the European Union's (EU's) Directive 2002/95/EC which bans certain hazardous substances from electrical and electronic equipment sold in the EU. The California RoHS law required DTSC to adopt regulations prohibiting ac dc power adapters from being sold or offered for sale in California if that adapter is prohibited from being sold or offered for sale in the EU due to the presence of lead, mercury, cadmium, or hexavalent chromium above certain maximum concentration values (MCVs). DTSC's California RoHS regulations took effect January 1, 2007.
The CCC (China Compulsory Certification) Mark is a mandatory safety and quality mark for electrical, electronic and many other products sold in China. The manufacturers are not allowed to self-declare to the requirements of the CCC Mark and products must be tested in China, and a CQC auditor must conduct the initial factory inspection. All the laptop adapters listed in Compulsory Certification Catalogue (19 species, 132 products, 9 industries) should bear the CCC mark issued by the specified certification organization and be pasted the CCC label before leaving factory for distribution, importing or using in the business activities.
The China Commission for Conformity Certification of Electrical Equipment issues the CCEE Mark, also known as the Great Wall Mark. CCEE is a non-profit impartial organization established in 1984, to provide safety certification for electrical products. The organization is made up of experts and representatives from various governmental agencies in China. CCEE is authorized by the China State Bureau of Quality and Technical Supervision as the Chinese National Certification Body (NCB) and is the Chinese representative in the CB Scheme.
|CE (European) |
The CE Marking is a mandatory (legally required) mark for any product that falls within the scope of a European Directive, and is intended for sale in the European Market. This covers an estimated 70% of all products sold today in the EU. The rules for CE Marking are valid for any manufacturer of such goods, whether resident within the EU, or of foreign origin. The main catalyst behind the CE Marking of products is to allow the entry and free movement of goods within the European Union and some partnering nations. To accomplish this, European Directives (or laws) were introduced, which contain the essential requirements that a product must meet to be sold in the EU. These directives are supported by European standards, which specify the essential health and safety requirements of the Directive. Essentially, these Directives specify the minimum level of safety for laptop adapters sold within the European Union (EU). Compliance is thereby demonstrated with the manufacturer affixing the CE Marking to their laptop adapter, indicating that their product conforms to any and all applicable directives. It is important to note that the CE Marking is not a certification, approval or quality mark, but merely a manufacturer’s declaration that the laptop power adaptor meets the essential requirements of the respective directives - no more. CE Marking is the manufacturer's claim that the laptop adapter meets these essential requirements. Additionally, a product may not bear the CE Marking unless a directive that specifies the use of the CE Marking requires it.
|NOM NYCE (Mexico)|
NYCE (Spanish acronym for Electronics Standardization and Certification), is a non-profit civil association created in November of 1994 by a group of leading companies from the Electronics, Telecommunications and Information Technologies sectors in Mexico. NOM safety approval in Mexico requires in-country testing in order to create an appropriate safety report accepted by the Mexican safety agency NYCE
IRAM (Instituto Argentino de Normalización y Certificación) is Argentina Institute of Standardization and Certification. IRAM is the main certification body in Argentina is a not-for-profit private association founded in 1935. It is the national standardization body, and it operates certification activities under an independent management.
|EK Mark (Korea)|
Established in 1970, the Korea Electric Testing Institute (KETI) is the National Official Professional Testing Research Institute, which is a well-known reputation organization in Korea in performing testing. It is also a Certification Body which can issue KC or EK Mark Certification for products importing into Korea
|PSE JET Mark (Japan)|
The PSE Mark (Product Safety Electric Appliance and Materials) is designed to signify that a the laptop adapter complies with the law according to a new set of standards for electric devices. The PSE Mark is a mandatory mark for Japan according to the Electrical Appliance and Material Safety Law (DENAN). The DENAN law is meant to essentially prohibit the sale of all electric appliances and materials that do not comply with the new standards.
The Canadian Standards Association is a not-for-profit membership-based association serving business, industry, government and consumers in Canada and the global marketplace. CSA Marks appear on over one billion products worldwide. Each mark tells you that an authorized testing laboratory has evaluated a sample of the laptop ac dc adapter product to determine that it meets applicable national standards.
So there you have it. Basically everything that has ever been scribbled on your laptop adapter now has a bit of meaning behind it. The presence of hieroglyphics on your power pack is probably a good thing, as it suggests your product is legitimate and abides by code. The lack of these symbols is probably more of a concern. Hopefully this glossary has been helpful, and please let us knows if we have missed any.
How To Test Laptop Adapter
So how do you know if your laptop adapter is working the way it should be? First and foremost, most laptop adapters have an LED light that illuminates when power is available. They’re not always 100% though, so sometimes it’s good to run a test and make sure your adapter is working like it should be.
|While the majority of us typically trust that the laptop adapters for our laptops are functioning properly, that’s just not always the case. Laptop adapter, otherwise known as AC adapters or power bricks, converts Alternating Current (AC) into Direct Current (DC) which your computer can then use as a power source. They are an absolutely vital piece of your laptop. If they’re not functioning properly, neither will your laptop.|
Testing laptop adapters is actually easier than you think. Below we have the very simple steps you need to take to ensure your laptop is receiving the power that it needs.
You will need Volt Meter or Multi Meter to test your laptop adapter.
|Plug the adapter into the outlet. Make sure everything is plugged in securely and properly. |
|Turn you laptop adapter over and locate the voltage output. Voltage ratings are typically found on the bottom of the laptop adapter.|
|Grab the Volt / Multi Meter and insert the red wire into the slot marked with a + sign (positive). Plug the black wire into the slot marked with a – sign (negative). Make sure to plug the ends in without the plastic handles. |
|Set the Volt / Multi Meter to DCV (Direct Current Voltage). Make sure it’s set to a number higher than the voltage listed on the adapter. Usually you will set the Volt / Multi meter to the number 50. |
|Place the tip of the red conductor inside the adapter and the tip of the black conductor on the outside edge of the adapter.|
|To know if the correct amount of power is being supplied, look at the needle reading. It should land on the voltage marking near the voltage listed on the back of the adapter. If it doesn’t, it may be time to purchase a new one.|
The A/C adapter is a crucial piece of your laptop. Be sure to test it every now and again to make sure your laptop is getting the power that it needs.
Apple® is a registered trademark of Apple Inc. in the United States and other countries. | <urn:uuid:66129d4c-5a34-45a9-b443-f17d2914eaa3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.atbatt.com/laptop-chargers.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920074 | 3,471 | 2.65625 | 3 |
X Prize dangles $10-million for fuel-efficient car
More than 60 teams from nine countries have lined up to chase a $10-million prize for making a green supercar that smashes records for fuel efficiency, organisers of the competition said on Thursday.
The initial list of teams signed on for the Automotive X Prize competition range from California-based electric car start-up Tesla Motors to Cornell University in New York.
“We’re not talking about concept cars,” said Peter Diamandis, chief executive of the X Prize Foundation, at the event to mark the launch of the competition at the New York auto show. “We’re talking about real cars that can be brought to market.”
The goal is to create a commercially viable car that gets at least 160km to the gallon. In late 2009, qualifiers will crisscross the United States in a stage race designed to test the vehicles on speed and the distance they can travel. The race will also test the vehicles in traffic and a range of terrain and weather conditions in determining a winner.
A few early contenders rolled quietly into the New York auto show on Thursday, some on three wheels. Others, like the Hybrid Attack from a high school team out of Pennsylvania, sported a more traditional speedster silhouette.
Tesla, which is owned by PayPal creator Elon Musk, has built an electric sports car that can travel 392km on a charge and reach 96km/h in four seconds. The sold-out $98 000 Tesla Roadster went into production this week.
“We desperately need cars that are clean and efficient and safe and attractive to everyday buyers,” said New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg at the launch.
None of the major automakers has signed up to join the X Prize competition although many, including Toyota and General Motors, have electric or partly electric vehicles in development that are expected to come to market in the next several years.
Malcolm Bricklin, the auto entrepreneur who brought the super-cheap Yugo hatchback to the United States in the 1980s, said he would enter the competition with a luxury car priced under $40 000 and backed by a dealership network.
Bricklin said his attention is solely on building up the electric and electric hybrid auto industry after recent failed efforts to import the first Chinese-made car to the United States. “I’m not interested in a normal car anymore,” he said.
Bricklin said he signed on Thursday for a $50-million private placement with Ferris Baker Watts that his company, Visionary Vehicles, will use to develop and market its X Prize contender.
Organisers of the Automotive X Prize on Thursday also announced they have signed up a sponsor for the competition to build a production-ready vehicle that exceeds 160km per gallon or gets energy-equivalent fuel economy.
Insurer Progressive will sponsor the competition, which begins accepting formal applications in two months.
The X Prize Foundation is the same organisation that promoted space flight by awarding $10-million for the first privately funded group to fly into space.
Aerospace designer Burt Rutan won that Ansari X Prize for space flight in 2004 in a venture backed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. ‒ Reuters | <urn:uuid:211b220c-32cf-477d-a235-97842a7ed10c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mg.co.za/article/2008-03-21-x-prize-dangles-10million-for-fuelefficient-car | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956601 | 677 | 1.867188 | 2 |
Bible: Gen 4:19; 11:29; 12:19; 20:2, 3
4:19 Lamech took two wives for himself; the name of the first was Adah, and the name of the second was Zillah.
11:29 And Abram and Nahor took wives for themselves. The name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, 1 and the name of Nahor’s wife was Milcah; 2 she was the daughter of Haran, the father of both Milcah and Iscah.
12:19 Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her 1 to be my wife? 2 Here is your wife! 3 Take her and go!” 4
NET Bible Study Environment | <urn:uuid:e3c56433-afc5-40b9-a86b-b3d293dcc795> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://net.bible.org/?_escaped_fragment_=bible/Gen%25204:19;%252011:29;%252012:19;%252020:2,%25203 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.99095 | 166 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Rose of Sharon, also called Althaea, is a large hibiscus shrub with lovely rose, purple, white, or blue flowers about 3 inches (8 centimeters) wide. The flowers bloom from midsummer to early fall. The rose of Sharon grows about 12 feet (3.7 meters) high and has large, three-lobed leaves. It is hardy and does well under unfavorable conditions either in the city or in the country. It is native to Eastern Asia and grows in many North American gardens. Gardeners have developed several forms of the shrub. The rose of Sharon may be grown in pots and later transplanted outdoors.
Scientific classification. The rose of Sharon is in the mallow family, Malvaceae. Its scientific name is Hibiscus syriacus. | <urn:uuid:e87de4ba-b165-430c-babb-30cb21564f25> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.flowers-cs.com/rose_of_sharon.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961091 | 165 | 2.40625 | 2 |
Getting e-learning and e-commerce to people in developing nations is problematic if their annual income is only a few hundred dollars --- or less. Even if the internet is available, how do people afford a computer to access it? This sub $250 PCtvt device being developed by Carnegie Mellon may help. Smart WiFi phones are more portable, and may soon cost a lot less, but the PCtvt shows what is already being done with the traditional desktop concept.
It's intention is really to entertain and aid communication in a community, rather than be used as a personal computing device. But it combines a limited computer and a browser with a radically simple icon-driven design, can handle e-mail and voicemail, and can be used as a television and a videophone. All for less than $250.
The success of this PCtvt depends on their being some kind of telecommunications infrastructure available so it can be hooked up to the net. That may work in a place like India, the PCtvt's initial destination, but it won't work in Africa or anywhere else that landline phone systems are simply unavailable to the poor. Access to the internet can be resolved, at least in urban areas, by wide-area WiFi hotspots of the sort that will be commonplace in America and Europe within a year or two. But the access devices have to be WiFi enabled.
The PCtvt could herald a wave of new concepts in low-end computing at price points that, in volume, will beat the $200 mark. How about a similar device without the television but with WiFi access, more powerful browser functionality, and secure encryption? It could be used for transactions (e-commerce) and learning (basic literacy, school, teacher training, university, employable skills training). Back such a device with free-to-cheap ASP services to help people set up simple websites and start small online businesses, and a government or aid agency could have a rapid and significant impact on the population of an underdeveloped urban area. | <urn:uuid:d492c718-6fcf-4030-a41e-b2c77740ab8a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://parkinslot.blogspot.com/2004/09/low-cost-web-access-device-for.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946984 | 412 | 2.890625 | 3 |
Frequently Asked Questions About Block Island
Q: What’s the best way to get to Block Island?
A: We recommend that you board your own yacht and tell the captain to get you to Block Island. If for some reason that’s not possible (the yacht’s hull needs cleaning, for instance), you can take a ferry from the Port of Galilee in Rhode Island any day of the year. The car-carrying ferries leave from here. High speed ferries run seasonally, out of Galilee and New London, Conn (). You can also take a 15-minute flight to BI any day of the year from Westerly, Rhode Island.
Q: How many people live here during the winter?
A: An island head count taken annually on Groundhog Day typically finds 900 to 1,000 people “on-island.” Block Island, Rhode Island is unique in one special way: it is the smallest town (in both population and land area) in the smallest state.
Q: How many children attend the Block Island School?
A: Approximately 150, kindergarten to 12th grade. The Block Island School, on High Street, was recently updated and expanded.
Q: Where are the public restrooms?
A: Just off the ferry, straight ahead, you’ll find restrooms at the Visitor’s Center. You’ll also find public toilets at the harbormaster’s shack in Old Harbor, the Fire/Police Station, the Island Free Library, the Hog Pen marina in New Harbor, and the Town Beach pavilion. Port-a-johns are set up at the Southeast Lighthouse and Mansion Beach.
Q: Where does Block Island get its electricity?
A: The Block Island Power Company operates diesel generators on Ocean Avenue. You’ll hear them whirling away as you walk or bike past.
Q: What’s a fire number?
A: All Block Island buildings are assigned fire numbers. Emergency services use these numbers when responding to calls. The numbers are meaningless as street addresses. Mail is not delivered to homes here; this is a primary reason there are no street addresses for homes and businesses.
Q: Are there squirrels on the island?
A: No. Ditto for chipmunks, skunks, possum and raccoon. Critters common on Block Island include deer, muskrat, mice, rats, turtles and the occasional snake. | <urn:uuid:ffdda5cf-d8b6-4fa7-9739-17f98a1ffcbe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blockislandguide.com/content/block-island-faq | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932734 | 513 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Figures of speech abound in the Bible. God's penmen often illustrated divine truths by comparing it with objects from everyday life. The parables of Jesus dealt with fishing, farming and vineyards, things the residents of Palestine were familiar with.
The apostle Paul often compared our vocation with that of an athlete. He tells us if anyone "competes is athletics, he is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules" (2 Tim. 2:5). Near the end of his life, he said he had "fought the good fight," and had "finished the race" (2 Tim. 4:7).
Another figure of speech Paul used dealt with the military. He told a young evangelist to "wage the good warfare" (1 Tim. 1:18) and to "endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ" (2 Tim. 2:3).
In the latter part of his life, Paul was constantly surrounded by Roman soldiers. On some occasions he was even chained to his guards. He lived in the presence of the greatest military power this world has ever seen. When writing to the brethren at Ephesus, he tells them to put on the "whole armor of God" (Ephesians 6:10-20). The Roman soldier carried his shield, a sword and a spear and wore greaves, his breastplate and a helmet. But what about soldiers of the cross of Christ?
Since we are not fighting a fleshly battle, "the weapons of our warfare are not carnal" (2 Cor. 10:4). In our fight against the wiles of the devil, Paul mentions six distinctive pieces of armor.
"The girdle of truth": The girdle was not an ornament -- it was used to bind all the other pieces together and give the soldier freedom of movement. The center of our armor is truth. In John 17:17 Jesus said God's word is truth.
"The breastplate of righteousness": The breastplate of the Roman spearman was made of chain-mail. It was used to protect the heart and other vital organs. Our heart is to be protected by righteousness.
"Feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace": The sandals of the foot soldier were composed of thick leather soles studded with cleats of iron. This would give the soldier a firm footing during the battle. These sandals were designed to make it difficult to walk backwards. This is just as well since the soldier had little or no armor on his back. If he decided to flee from the enemy he would be better off to discard his armor. Our footing must be supplied by the gospel of Christ. "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace" (Romans 10:15).
"The shield of faith": The Roman shield was composed of leather or wicker. It was usually four feet long by two and a half feet wide. The enemy often fired long arrows covered with ignited pitch. If an arrow were to strike a soldier his breastplate would stop the arrow from piercing him, but the pitch would fly off the arrow and set the soldier on fire. Our spiritual enemy does not always attack directly. The shield of faith can protect us from his advances.
"Helmet of salvation": The helmet was made of leather and reinforced with bronze. We are to take, or receive, this helmet from God. It is our salvation.
"Sword of the Spirit": Unlike the legions of Rome, our only offensive weapon is the "sword of the spirit," the word of God (Hebrews 4:12). This was the weapon Christ used when attacked by Satan in the desert (Matthew 4:1-11). A soldier is never wasting his time while sharpening his sword. Soldiers of the cross need to become more proficient in their use of our only weapon. Timothy was told to give himself to "reading, to exhortation, to doctrine" (1 Tim. 4:13). Our armor is to be put on with prayer. Let us always realize we are mere foot-soldiers, God is in control.
Flavius Josephus lived during the zenith of Rome's military glory. Having been made a Roman citizen by Vespasian, he travelled with the Roman legions during the middle of the first century. Josephus was truly impressed with military discipline. He claims soldiers always carried their weapons with them, even in time of peace. Furthermore, practice in the proper use of their weapons never ceased. "Every soldier is every day exercised, and that with great diligence, as if it were in time of war, which is the reason why they bear the fatigues of battle so easily" (Josephus, The Wars Of The Jews, Book III, Chap. 5, 1).
If only Christians could become as familiar with our weapon, God's word! If we would "search the Scriptures daily" (Acts 17:11) we would never fear the day of battle.
Have you ever wondered what caused a military power like Rome to meet its downfall? Nearly all historians agree that Rome brought about her own demise. Edward Gibbon says "the relaxation of discipline, and the disuse of exercise rendered the soldiers less able, and less willing, to support the fatigues of service" (Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 3, p. 271). Soldiers were able to convince their officers that the weapons were too heavy. The Roman sword and shield which had subdued the world was cast aside. "The cavalry of the Goths, the Huns, and the Alani, had felt the benefits, and adopted the use, of defensive armor -- they easily overwhelmed the naked and trembling legions, whose heads and breasts were exposed, without defense, to the arrows of the barbarians" (Gibbon, p. 271). Gibbon further states that their "indolence may be considered as the immediate cause of the downfall of the empire."
Occasionally I get the feeling some of my preaching brethren have decided our armor just isn't suited for today. I get this impression from church bulletins consisting entirely of news, notes and reminiscences, but no teaching. It is also seen in the preaching of some. Instead of meaty sermons from gospel preachers, we hear "three points and a poem" from Dale Carnegie impersonators. Instead of "earnestly contending for the faith" (Jude 3), some would rather apologize for it.
If men do not have the backbone to fight, they should at least get out of the way of those who do. Three times in Ephesians six we are told to "stand." Paul told the Corinthians the "weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God" (2 Corinthians 10:4,5). It is not enough for us to defend the truth in our own comfortable meetinghouses, we must attack the citadels of error and pull down the enemies strongholds!
When General Douglas MacArthur was called home from the Korean war in 1951, he reminded Congress that "wars very object is victory, not prolonged indecision." God's people today can not be interested in merely "holding our own," we must be on the offensive.
Some brethren have apparently forgotten who the enemy is. Maybe they need a course in "enemy recognition." Jesus declared that the man who is not with Him is against Him (Matthew 12:30). If a man is not preaching the gospel of Christ, he is a minister of Satan. The devil does not always attack under his own banner, sometimes he advances under a flag of truce. Paul warned us that it is possible for Satan to appear as an "angel of light" (2 Corinthians 11:14).
Let us remember we are in a "fight to the finish" with our enemy. If we remain in a constant state of preparedness, the enemy will not catch us off-guard. At the end of our struggle we have a home prepared for us with other faithful soldiers of the cross. "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. Yes, says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors, and their works follow them" (Rev. 14:13).
A detailed sermon outline on The Gospel Armor compares the armor worn by Roman soldiers to the "gospel armor" worn by Christians. Includes photos of Roman military uniforms from throughout the Roman empire (PDF file size: 868k) | <urn:uuid:171bc52c-d405-4015-ae79-419fd7ae5909> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.padfield.com/1995/armor.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974423 | 1,771 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Everyone sleeps, but not everyone sleeps well. Each night, more than 70 million Americans who suffer from a sleep disorder struggle to get a good night’s rest, according to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.
The Sleep Disorders Center at St. John Medical Center provides the latest resources in the diagnosis and treatment of sleep disorders. We employ a multi-disciplinary team of medical professionals experienced in sleep-related issues to help patients manage their sleep disorders and restore their quality of life.
Individuals can trust that their sleep needs are in excellent hands since St. John's Sleep Disorders Center ranks among the highest quality centers in the United States. The program recently received program accreditation from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM.)
To receive accreditation, a sleep center must meet or exceed all standards for professional health care as designated by the AASM. The accreditation process involves detailed inspection of a center’s facility and staff, including an evaluation of testing procedures, patient contacts, and physician training. Additionally, the facility’s goals must be clearly stated and include plans for positively affecting the quality of medical care in the community it serves.
Learn more about the St. John Sleep Disorders Center here. | <urn:uuid:182d0bca-3423-484b-b335-985fdb6acb81> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.stjohnsapulpa.com/general.asp?id=319&siteuse=11 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951715 | 248 | 1.804688 | 2 |
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| | | | | | <urn:uuid:ae801f9a-7023-494a-903f-c33d8bc590ab> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.megaessays.com/essay_search/Co_Tower.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938567 | 1,712 | 1.734375 | 2 |
A well-credentialed scientist's hard-driving attack on the accepted view that AIDS is an infectious disease caused by HIV. Duesberg (Molecular biology/Univ. of Calif., Berkeley), an early researcher in the field of retroviruses, asserts that HIV, like virtually all retroviruses, is harmless. He finds that HIV meets none of the usual criteria (such as the six laws of virology) used to establish that a microbe causes disease. But if that is so, why do scientists persist in saying that AIDS is an epidemic caused by HIV? As Duesberg tells it, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention needed a serious epidemic to justify its continued existence, and by naming AIDS a single contagious disease, it created an atmosphere of public fear that brought it increased funding and power. The biomedical establishment took note. Having failed to find a viral cause of cancer, Duesberg says, virus hunters needed a new disease, and AIDS was it. The HIV-AIDS connection was then announced by Robert Gallo, head of a retrovirus lab at the National Cancer Institute, at a 1984 press conference rather than demonstrated in a peer- reviewed scientific paper. Further, Duesberg charges, the pharmaceutical companies exploited the situation by bringing back highly toxic failed cancer drugs, such as AZT, which, he says, destroys the immune system and causes AIDS-like symptoms. Duesberg cites other scientists who have questioned the HIV-AIDS hypothesis, among them several Nobel laureates, including Kary Mullis (for Chemistry), the author of this book's foreword. Duesberg's own theory is that AIDS is linked to the use of immunity-suppressing illicit drugs (such as crack and ``poppers''), and he urges investigation along these lines. One need not accept Duesberg's drug hypothesis, however, to be persuaded that the serious charges he makes deserve serious answers. A controversial book, certain to be met with strong resistance from the biomedical establishment. Four appendixes (not seen) include articles on HIV by Duesberg in scientific journals. | <urn:uuid:49adb7d5-e355-4aa4-8306-991dff82113f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/peter-h-duesberg/inventing-the-aids-virus/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959368 | 427 | 2.609375 | 3 |
- The Image of the Black in Western Art. Vol. IV, Parts I-II: From the American Revolution to World War One by Hugh Honour
Harvard, 379 pp, £34.95, April 1989, ISBN 0 939594 17 X
- Primitive Art in Civilised Places by Sally Price
Chicago, 147 pp, £15.95, December 1989, ISBN 0 226 68063 0
- The Return of Cultural Treasures by Jeanette Greenfield
Cambridge, 361 pp, £32.50, February 1990, ISBN 0 521 33319 9
In 1787 the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade obtained, from an unrecorded artist, a design for its seal ‘expressive of an African in chains in a supplicating posture’, with the superscription ‘Am I not a Man and a Brother?’ Small cameo reliefs after the seal were soon made by Josiah Wedgwood in his jasper ware, which, set into the lid of a snuff-box or dangling from the wrist, enabled the participants in this, the first great non-denominational philanthropic crusade, to exhibit their sensitivity and enlightenment. It was a smart and artistic antecedent of the lapel badges and car stickers which have been adopted by the champions of unborn babies and endangered species. This logo, as it would now be called, of the kneeling, shackled black was clear, compact, memorable, touching, and yet entirely decorous – with the added attraction, as Hugh Honour astutely points out in The Image of the Black, of hinting at conversion as well as emancipation. Indeed, Honour concludes that, for all the Society’s admirable intentions and great achievements – which he concedes with some reluctance – the very image of their endeavour to help the blacks came to ‘enshrine the idea of pathetic, docile subservience and black inferiority’. The motto, or slogan, ‘echoed both Christian beliefs in the equality of mankind before God and enlightened theories of natural law’, as Honour observes, but it cannot be considered so congenial to white philanthropists’ conviction of their superiority. Brotherhood – fraternité, – soon became an explosive word.
Art and literature in the last decades of the 18th century and the first of the 19th – the first part of the period that Honour explores – are notable for the contradictory ideas and prejudices about blacks which they reveal. To this period belong what are perhaps the most sympathetic and beautiful portraits of blacks ever made by Europeans. One of these is Reynolds’s incomplete and undated study of a young black man listening (it seems) to the winds that disturb the sky behind him, a painting long believed to be a portrait of Dr Johnson’s beloved black servant, Frank Barber. Houdon’s radiant patinated plaster head of a black woman of 1781, probably made in connection with a fountain group for an aristocrat’s garden, is another. Above all, there is the Portrait d’une Négresse exhibited at the Paris salon in 1800 by a pupil of David, Marie-Guilhelmine Benoist. The woman’s breast is exposed, but not with any sly or coy intention – her undress seems as natural to her as her white cotton turban; and the candour of her gaze is as disarming as the dignity of her bearing is impressive. She was painted, Honour notes, ‘during that brief period between the emancipation decree of 1794 and the restoration of slavery in 1802 when a black citoyenne was “free and equal”, that is to say as free and as equal as any French woman.
The painting must surely have been intended at least partly as a tribute to the French emancipation of slaves and as a celebration of the hopes expressed in numerous emancipation prints, several of which represented females. Might the artist have gone even further, perhaps, taking the words Moi égal à toi inscribed on the prints as an augury for the emancipation of all women?’
Honour’s exhaustive survey reveals how seldom colour seems then to have been an impediment to egalitarian sentiment, or the pretext for its opposite. The devil could be thought of as black, and Honour reproduces the spectacular study Ingres commissioned from a former pupil, Chasseriau, of a black Parisian model (he couldn’t obtain one in Rome), which he proposed to use for a painting of Satan. But this was a most unusual interpretation. It was also proposed that, because blushes register only on white faces, shame and embarrassment – those essential indicators of a civilised sensibility – must be deficient in blacks; but this argument was far outweighed by the numerous testimonials to the beauty of black skin, often compared with basalt or patinated bronze, which were as much valued by connoisseurs as statuary marble. Far more significant than any sense of difference which colour might suggest was the ‘evidence’ that blacks were not brothers ‘under the skin’. In Julien-Joseph Virey’s popular Histoire Naturelle du Génie Humain (first published in 1801) a profile taken from a sculpture of the bearded Zeus is contrasted with one of an Ibo African with large lips, flat nose and receding brow, and one of an orangutan. Virey considered that the shape of the black’s forehead suggested that the brain was contracting with distaste for thought, whilst the projection of nose and mouth indicated a preference for sniffing and eating. | <urn:uuid:c32fe86d-fe7a-48e7-aa62-1d17ea99aaa0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lrb.co.uk/v12/n05/nicholas-penny/fraternity | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95798 | 1,167 | 2.953125 | 3 |
The perfect tombstone for today, Tombstone Tuesday, is that of my great, great grandfather, Isaac Lenont. Isaac was born Izak Leenhouts in the Netherlands in 1834, and died as Isaac Lenout in Northfield, Rice, Minnesota, USA in 1884.
Family lore and some bits of tantalizing information we've dug up indicate that the personal philosophies of Isaac and my great, great grandmother Sarah Jones Lenont were directly at odds. Isaac was said to be a staunch and strict Calvinist, while Sarah was a noted Freethinker! Sarah was even a delegate to the National Liberal League Conference in 1881 - leaving her husband and children in the care of a housekeeper she had hired so that she could attend the convention in Chicago. Upon her return, Isaac let it be publicly known that he would not be responsible for any of Sara's debts for attending said conference. He had obviously disapproved of her going. But she went anyway.
Where am I going with this? On Isaac's death, his widow Sarah and their five grown children changed their surname from Lenout (or various other Dutch spellings) to Lenont. Sarah even put "Lenont" on Isaac's tombstone, even though had never gone by that variation. She also put on his tombstone the following quote from Thomas Paine:
For Justice all place a temple, and all season, summer. The world is my country, to do good, my religion.Clearly, as a Calvinist, Isaac would have considered Paine's words to be codswallop. My theory is that Sarah and her modern, forward-thinking children were happy to be free of the stern and domineering Isaac, and they showed this by by immediately changing their name to distance themselves from him. And Sarah put her own kind of quote on his tombstone... because she could!
Interestingly, as I was thinking about which tombstone to feature today, I discovered that today is the anniversary of Thomas Paine's birthday, and is also National Freethinkers' Day! How perfectly these three things fit together! One of my genealogical goals is to discover more about the personal beliefs of the members of the Leenhouts/Lenhout/Lenout/Lenont family, to determine if my theories about the name-change and the quotation chosen for Isaac's tombstone are correct. Happy Freethinker's Day!
|The Freethinkers' Movement is often represented by a white rose with thorns (symbolizing truth, and the pain that must sometimes go along with the truth).|
Do you have ancestors who were at odds with one another because of their beliefs? Do you know of a tombstone of which the deceased would not have approved? Do you have any Freethinkers among your ancestors? Let me know in the comments! | <urn:uuid:004f2f59-971d-4c3d-ad4a-1176dc4ca0ea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://geneamania.blogspot.com/2013_01_01_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985193 | 583 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Color has tremendous impact on a design’s attitude towards its content and audience. A coordinated color scheme uses hues and values that work well together towards a certain mood.
A color scheme is a starting point: Colors proven to work together. The next step is to use them in a design.
Normally, color schemes contain a three to five hues and values. These sets are based on variations. Each includes four “brand” colors based on shadow, midtone and highlights of five coordinated “scheme“ colors. Each brand color is further divided into eight shades. This allows for great variation within a design while maintaining the overall lool & feel.
Download a .png file to sample colors in most graphics applications. Download a .psd (Photoshop) or .ase (Adobe Exchange) file for use in Adobe products. | <urn:uuid:ab097a12-f406-4eef-8925-713fbe0dec21> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://benthinkin.net/projects/free-color-schemes/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.914419 | 176 | 2.671875 | 3 |
On the 20th Anniversary of the start of Japan's "lost decades", the government of Japan is announcing yet another plan to stimulate their economy.
Japan’s four-month-old Government, already reeling from a political funding scandal and dwindling public support, today vowed to enlarge the economy by 150 trillion yen (£1 trillion) and haul the nation out of a “long, downward-sloping tunnel”.
The Democratic Party of Japan said that the scheme would deliver annual real GDP growth of at least 2 per cent between now and 2020 and create more than 4 million new jobs over the same period....
Halfway through the Government’s ten-year plan, Japan's debt relative to GDP may rise to 246 per cent, according to analysts from the International Monetary Fund.
The ambitious ten-year plan would see Japan shift some of the focus of its giant economy, with new emphasis placed on environmental technology, science, tourism and medical care.
The growth blueprint, which some investors said “smacked of desperation”, also vowed to expose Japan more closely to growth in Asia....
Will America still be trying to stimulate our economy our of recession 20 years from now? Somehow I don't think we have that option. | <urn:uuid:ab7a9b7f-efb6-40ca-8403-f3f3e3cbed62> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.economicpopulist.org/content/glimpse-our-future | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943062 | 254 | 1.703125 | 2 |
10 questions: ocean protector Richard Ambrose
Whether he's scuba diving in the Channel Islands, inspecting coastal Californian wetlands for signs of recovery or poking around in tide pools, Professor Richard Ambrose's research is almost literally a day at the beach.
By Alison Hewitt
Originally published in UCLA Today
Ambrose is the director of the Environmental Science and Engineering Program and a professor of environmental health sciences at UCLA's School of Public Health. He specializes in protecting the coast and managing coastal resources, and has spent decades lending his expertise to projects such as wetland restoration. UCLA Today's Alison Hewitt talked with Professor Ambrose about what motivates him, his love of scuba diving and the troubles he sees ahead for the California coast.
You spend all your time thinking about the ocean and the coast. Can you still enjoy a day at the beach, or does your work-brain switch on in the middle of vacation?
Actually, if I just go to a sandy beach, that's a habitat I don't do much work in. I can just enjoy the waves and the sand. But really, thinking about all these things — wetlands, kelp beds, rocky intertidal zones — that is recreation for me. In fact, if I travel to new places, I often try to see my usual habitats in new places, like the East Coast and Gulf Coast. Their wetlands, especially, are very different compared to California.
I really enjoy the science and the research, but another part of what keeps me motivated is recognizing that I can have a meaningful impact on how natural resources are managed and protected. My research has a practical application.
At the UCs (he earned a B.S. at UC Irvine in 1975, and his Ph.D. at UCLA in 1982), you did your undergraduate and graduate work in field ecology and octopus ecology. What made you switch to the preservation of tide pools, wetlands, kelp beds and the like?
I had a lot of different things I was interested in, but especially the ocean. Back then, there weren't many people concerned with conservation, but the issue was beginning to grow. When I started my post-doc at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, my department head was involved in managing fisheries, and I became more involved in marine conservation issues. Now my research is mostly focused on developing the science that resource managers need so they can decide the best ways to preserve resources, and on working with coastal agencies on preservation.
You've worked with the California Coastal Commission, the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission, the state Water Resources Control Board, the U.S. EPA, and lots of other local, state and federal agencies. Now you're working on the state's Ocean Protection Council (OPC) as a co-chair of its Science Advisory Team. What's your role there?
The OPC is trying to deal with coastal problems in a comprehensive way. For many agencies, they just look at their own little piece. OPC looks at the big picture. The science team is bringing attention to problems that scientists think are really important right now, and also looking ahead to the important problems.
What are some of the water problems scientists foresee?
We already know about problems that have to do with pollution, especially from runoff. Runoff is mostly water that runs off our streets and lawns, and contains pesticides and metals. But now there's a whole new class of contaminants that people haven't paid much attention to: endocrine disruptors, which act like hormones, and can affect marine life very differently from other pollutants.
Another problem is climate change. It will cause ocean acidification, and as the pH changes, it can have profound effects across the whole food web in ways we don't fully understand yet. Sea level rise is another obvious result of climate change, and that would impact not just people living near the coast, but habitats near the coast — tide pools, wetlands and coastal bluffs. In some places, tide pools will disappear, and wetlands can't migrate inland they way they would once upon a time, because people have built condos and offices there.
What are the benefits of wetlands, anyway?
In many places, wetlands serve as a filter to reduce pollutants before they reached the ocean, and they used to do so more effectively for California, but we've destroyed so many wetlands. They're also very productive habitats. They capture a lot of energy from the sun, which they then pass on to the animals living there and to animals in other habitats. Wetlands also serve as nurseries for many fish, and they're habitats for a lot of animals we care about. The wetlands are very important stopovers for some migrating shore birds or water fowl, and they're important habitats for many endangered species.
What are some of the local wetlands you've worked on, and how do you help restore them?
I co-chaired the scientific committee planning restoration for the Ballona Wetlands. I've done a lot of work at Malibu Lagoon, and a restoration project at Ormond Beach, just up the coast from Point Mugu. I've worked at the Carpenteria Salt Marsh, a very nice wetland system, and I've also done a lot of work at Mugu Lagoon up near Oxnard, including a lot of restoration and reviewing its success.
At places like Mugu Lagoon, a 25-acre salt marsh, I helped design the restoration project. It was getting contaminated by sewage. UCLA Professor Rick Vance and I figured out how the sewage could be safely integrated into the salt marsh at low concentrations, with certain soils and certain plants, without damage. Then we designed it, deciding on things like elevations. At high tide, the water has to come in and cover the right parts and still be able to sweep back out. We worked on the elevations, the locations of tidal creeks and the sediment mix. This was about eight years ago, and it's doing its wetland thing now. It looks like a wetland. It still needs time to develop, but it's definitely recovering. On other projects, I've also been involved in bringing in the right mix of plants.
What's the state of wetland preservation in the U.S. and California?
We've lost about half of the wetlands in the nations, but in California we've lost 91 percent of our wetlands, the highest fraction of any state. I research whether mitigation projects are working, and the answer is basically — not very well. That's why I'm working with so many agencies. I'm trying to provide them with information so they'll know how they can improve the process. One of the interesting finds I had while working on a state project was that mitigation projects assigned to companies or developers often weren't working very well, and it wasn't because they weren't following directions — they were doing exactly what these agencies told them to do. So that tells us we need to develop better instructions, which I'm helping the agencies do.
Of all the habitats you study, do you have a favorite?
It's like being asked to choose who's your favorite child! I think the rocky intertidal is my favorite because the ocean waves are right there, and the tide pool species living there are so precisely, uniquely suited for that habitat. They have to be exposed to air for hours at a time and also spend time underwater, and be strong enough to stand up to crashing waves.
I really like tropical habitats, too. I don't do much research on coral reefs, but I love to visit. That's my ideal vacation, going scuba diving. I'm identifying all the fish and spotting the interaction between the fish and the coral. Scuba's really neat. It's a completely different world. You're breathing underwater, and things don't look or feel like what you're used to. You can be neutrally buoyant and just sit in the water, calm, like a bird. It can be just beautiful. I learned to dive for my dissertation research.
Scuba was part of your dissertation? That's kind of awesome.
And I still use it sometimes for research. I do a lot of diving off Anacapa Island, one of the Channel Islands off the coast of Ventura. My team's been looking at a place that used to be a kelp bed there but then became an urchin barrens. When sea urchins get too abundant, they eat all the giant kelp and graze away all the algae. We expected a cycle, that the kelp would come back. But the kelp has been gone since 1985. We're interested in how that happened.
We're also looking at an area on the other side of the island that used to be an eelgrass bed — that's a sea grass. Eelgrass beds are like wetlands, in a way. They're very productive. They act as nurseries and support a lot of life. Again, the urchins grazed it all away and it never came back. But there, we've transplanted some [eelgrass] from Santa Cruz Island, and that's been successful.
What's an easy thing people should know about water resource preservation that isn't widely recognized?
The biggest message is that people don't recognize the connection between what they do where they live, and how their activities affect the ocean. If you live in Westwood or Culver City, you're not thinking your actions directly impact the ocean, but they do — that’s where the trash and sediment that washes into the oceans comes from. Litter and plastic trash washes in from miles away from the coast. People need to think about how connected they are to the ocean.
Published: Monday, October 19, 2009 | <urn:uuid:4744f3c2-c265-4bcf-b4f4-d77c5ab0e538> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.environment.ucla.edu/news/article.asp?parentid=4737 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9738 | 2,001 | 2.171875 | 2 |
Landmark to close the Neptune in Seattle
SEATTLE, WA — Another classic movie theater will close soon in the Emerald City. Landmark Theatres has announced it will cease operations in February at the historic Neptune Theatre which opened in 1921. The lease will be picked up by the Seattle Theatre Group (STG) which will take out about five hundred seats and use it primarily as a venue for live performances, though STG says that films will still be occasionally shown.
The Seattle Theatre Group will spend about $500,000 on renovations, including updated restrooms and removal of about 50 percent of the theater’s floor seating, according to a spokeswoman.
The Neptune will reopen in spring of next year. Films will still be shown on occasion, but the venue will primarily be used for live performances.
The full story is in the online Post-Intelligencer. | <urn:uuid:b5ac7e18-f2b8-4236-bdd8-c27b9abc2f80> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cinematreasures.org/blog/2010/12/3/landmark-to-close-the-neptune-in-seattle | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950002 | 177 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Residence for a Sculptor positions itself frontally within a hillside. It consciously projects itself as a series of constructive polemics that help in building a solid design concept:
1. Facade / Face vs. Viscera / Musculature: A smooth, taut facade is lifted above the hillside, reflecting the linear displacement of spaces. The facade is supported by a steel frame that is exposed on the rear, uphill side. The dialog here is between fineness and unrefined, between an outward effortless presentation and the physical efforts that are required to present it.
© All photographs courtesy of Sharon Risedorph Photography
2. Choreography and Expectation:
The first impression of the house emphasizes its horizontal arrangement and suggests a long view to the east. One enters from behind on the uphill side, away from the suggested view. If expectations promise a horizontal and outward experience, the first reality is an inward-focussed, strongly vertical entry space where the owner's pottery is on display.
This space has a 22' curving, torqued steel wall on one side and a curved staircase and wall on the other. Only after venturing through this space, up the stairs and across a bridge does the long exterior view of the Valley of the Moon reveal itself.
The entry space, twisting and torqued, dark, vertical, inward, is based on qualities of the owner's large clay pots, a few of which are visible at the base of the stairs. From the inception of the project, the strength of these sculptural clay forms was a deep influence on the making of spaces within the house.
4. Display / Advertising:
The Entry Vessel and the upstairs Great Room are conceived as spaces to display the product of the sculptor's labors. This sense of offering of the fabricated wares allows the house to take a certain pride in the fruits of labors there.
Green Strategies and material.
Residence for a Sculptor integrates a long list of green strategies. The house is sited to maximize passive heating and cooling and its fenestration is designed to accomplish the same goal. The fenestration is also designed to maximize natural air-flow throughout house so no air-conditioning was installed, none was needed.) It also maximizes natural daylighting throughout the house so no lights would be needed during daylight hours.
A Hybrid-House structure was used with recycled lightweight steel frames that minimize the amount of metal required for the structure. At the end of the lifetime of the house, the structural frames can be easily unbolted and recycled / reused.
Judicious environmental friendly decisions were taken when picking the material used to build the project The exterior cladding will never require painting. Bamboo flooring is used on the upper floors, while the original concrete slab is used for main floor, minimizing material waste. Earth-friendly cabinets and low-ash concrete counters are used in the kitchen. Simple measures, such as the use of in-floor radiant heat, compact fluorescent lights , low-flush toilet, minimal landscaping contribute in lowering the energy consumption of the house. | <urn:uuid:ecbd94c9-d10c-4f11-b348-56b3cbd2308e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.archinnovations.com/featured-projects/houses/sander-architects-residence-for-a-sculptor/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930158 | 643 | 1.757813 | 2 |
16So he delivered him over to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus,
17and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called The Place of a Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha.
18There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between them.
19Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.”
20Many of the Jews read this inscription, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Aramaic, in Latin, and in Greek.
21So the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ but rather, ‘This man said, I am King of the Jews.’”
22Pilate answered, “What I have written I have written.”
23When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his garments and divided them into four parts, one part for each soldier; also his tunic.4 But the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom,
24so they said to one another, “Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it shall be.” This was to fulfill the Scripture which says, “They divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.” So the soldiers did these things,
25but standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.
26When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!”
27Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.
31Since it was the day of Preparation, and so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away.
32So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first, and of the other who had been crucified with him.
33But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs.
34But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water.
35He who saw it has borne witness—his testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth—that you also may believe.
36For these things took place that the Scripture might be fulfilled: “Not one of his bones will be broken.”
37And again another Scripture says, “They will look on him whom they have pierced.”
38After these things Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate gave him permission. So he came and took away his body.
39Nicodemus also, who earlier had come to Jesus5 by night, came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds6 in weight.
40So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews.
41Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid.
42So because of the Jewish day of Preparation, since the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there.
1 Greek Ioudaioi probably refers here to Jewish religious leaders, and others under their influence, in that time; also verses 12, 14, 31, 38
2 Or Hebrew; also verses 17, 20
3 That is, about noon
4 Greek chiton, a long garment worn under the cloak next to the skin
5 Greek him
6 Greek one hundred litras; a litra (or Roman pound) was equal to about 11 1/2 ounces or 327 grams | <urn:uuid:fd6ae949-b69a-45cb-81ff-1daab997889c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bibleserver.com/index.php?text_ref=43019026 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.991142 | 918 | 2.046875 | 2 |
National Reference Laboratory for West Nile virus (WNV)
Institute for Novel and Emerging Infectious Diseases
Martin H. Groschup and Ute Ziegler
West Nile fever virus (WNV) is an emerging arthropod-borne flavivirus. WNV is an important zoonotic virus (infections of humans can cause encephalitis with fatal outcome) with its major reservoir in the wild bird population. There is no evidence for the introduction of live WNV, a future introduction cannot be ruled out in principle, also in the light of an increasing climate warming and the already existing presence of the main mosquito vectors for WNV (Culex pipiens spp.) in the south of Germany.
At the same time the outbreak from WNV in wild birds in Austria, autumn 2008, and horses in Italy 2008 and 2009 shows that the virus spreads further northward. Also in 2009 the active surveillance program was continued by the analysis of hundreds of samples from wild birds and horses. We found WNV specific antibodies in migratory birds (middle and long distance) but not in resident birds, domestic poultry or in local horse population. WNV-specific nucleic acid could not be found in any of the samples.
Since May, 2009 a conventional killed vaccine (Innovator® Fort Dodge) is admitted for the application by horses in Germany. Therefore, in the NRL the first follow-up study was carried out to determine the antibody titres of horses after vaccination by the neutralization assay. For the improvement of the diagnostics, especially for the application as a screening procedure and for the application with very low sample volume (in particular from wild birds) an indirect ELISA on the base of recombinant protein was developed. At the same time two commercial ELISA`s for the detection of WNV antibodies under registration for the national licensing. | <urn:uuid:018baeac-1a99-42b8-8268-7ca935fe3133> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fli.bund.de/no_cache/en/startseite/institutes/institute-of-novel-and-emerging-infectious-diseases/reference-laboratories/nrl-for-wnv.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928923 | 379 | 2.78125 | 3 |
(1778 - 1841)
Private, U.S. Army
He Never Forgot the Starving Days
illiam Bratton was a taciturn, intelligent man who stood more than six feet tall.1 As a youth he had been apprenticed to a blacksmith, and so, although there is no mention of it in the journals, it is possible that he, like Alex Willard, might occasionally have assisted the Corps' principal blacksmith, John Shields. Bratton's family had moved from Virginia to the Kentucky frontier when the boy was about twelve, and thirteen years later, on October 20, 1803, Clark enlisted him in the Corps of Discovery.
On May 11, 1805, Bratton had one of the men's most terrifying meetings with a grizzly bear. As the canoes moved up the Missouri River--in present Garfield County, Montana, on a stretch of river now under Fort Peck Lake--Lewis excused him from paddling because of an infected hand, and ordered him to walk on shore and hunt. Late that afternoon Bratton reappeared, running toward the river and yelling to be taken aboard quickly. He had shot a grizzly through the lungs, and the wounded bear had chased him for half a mile. Seven men sent to finish off the bear located and killed it. The bear had lived at least two hours after first being shot.
Mysterious, Painful Illness
n 1806, for four months beginning in February, Bratton "had a tedious illness which he boar with much fortitude and firmness," as Lewis wrote on June 8. Bratton was working at Salt Camp when he and George Gibson became very ill, and sent word asking to be replaced. This was done, and the invalids returned to Fort Clatsop on February 15.
From then through June 8, the captains' journals mention Bratton's suffering on 23 different days. His main symptom was extreme pain in the lower back, which kept him from sitting up, and weakness "in the loins" that prevented walking. The captain-doctors tried cinchona bark in potentially dangerous amounts2 and several courses of laxatives, both to no avail. When the Corps headed home up the Columbia River, Bratton still was weak and in great pain. After Clark succeeded in buying horses at The Dalles, "the eighth Bratton was compelled to ride as he was yet unable to walk." (Clark, April 20)
Finally, on May 24 at Camp Choppunish, Shields recommended that Bratton be given "violent sweats"--a mode of steam-and-cold-water treatment we would call a sauna. He dug a 4-foot-deep hole in the ground, placed stones in the bottom and heated them with fire, then removed the coals and provided a seat where Bratton could be placed, naked, with a vessel of water to sprinkle on the hot stones, producing steam. With the hole covered by a low tent of willow poles and blankets, he endured the steam for 20 minutes, meanwhile drinking "copious draughts of a strong tea of horse mint." He was then lifted out and twice plunged into the cold river nearby. After undergoing another three-quarters of an hour of steam-induced sweating, he was wrapped in blankets and allowed to cool off gradually. The next day he was able to walk around camp and, at last nearly pain-free, begin [began] slowly to recover his strength. Two weeks later Lewis pronounced him cured.
Dr. David J. Peck, an osteopath and himself a tall man and a sufferer of back pain, believes that Bratton's illness was likely a "bad case of degenerative disc disease and the arthritis that accompanied it."3
Prosperous but Frugal
ratton became a keelboat freighter on the Mississippi River after the expedition, but re-enlisted in the army for the War of 1812. He married at the age of 41, and fathered eight sons and two daughters. The family lived in Waynestown, Indiana, where Bratton--owner of considerable farmland--was elected justice of the peace. Family stories tell that he was "very saving and could not see anything wasted." Teased at a corn husking for picking up individual grains, Bratton said "that he had seen the time he would have been very thankful for a few grains of corn," no doubt recalling his hunger pangs during the westward crossing of the Bitterroots.4
Barbara Fifer; 02/06
1. Charles G. Clarke, Men of the Lewis and Clark Expedition (Glendale: Arthur H. Clark, 1970), 44.
2. David J. Peck, D.O., Or Perish in the Attempt: Wilderness Medicine in the Lewis & Clark Expedition (Farcountry Press, 2002), 227.
3. Ibid., 249.
4. Post-expedition information is from Morris, Fate of the Corps, 100-101.
Funded in part by a grant from the National Park Service, Challenge Cost Share Program. | <urn:uuid:9d6a8e7f-bcef-486f-9e74-86f2c074d845> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lewis-clark.org/content/content-article.asp?ArticleID=2569 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976097 | 1,050 | 3.046875 | 3 |
Our nutrition is determined early on in our lives based upon the food we eat. Studies have shown that metabolism is both genetic and developed, meaning that our youth have a higher likelihood of battling otherwise bad genetics–or supporting good ones!–through physical exercise and early healthy eating habits.
Unfortunately, school lunches have been a widespread debate that has led to an overall sub-par youth dining experience. Slow Down for School Lunches looks how lunches could be improved in today’s K-12 industry.
As a parent, what can you do to improve the diet of your child?
If you have a child that’s picky about the healthy foods you put in front of him or her–veggies, fruits, and such–get them into the kitchen! A child will stubbornly refuse food set in front of them, but if they are part of the cooking / preparing process, it suddenly becomes an adventure to try a new food out.
Do creative things with healthy foods. I’ve read about how moms will make “beancicles” with frozen green beans and how parents make homemade dried fruits that children love as fruit snack substitute. Next time your child wants a fruit roll-up, get an organic FruitaBu smashed fruit and hand that to them instead.
Then there’s the sneaky method. Cook healthy things into your spaghetti sauce, pancake batter, and baked pies, and your children will be eating things they’d otherwise turn their noses up to. Offering undesirable fruits and vegetables in a juice form is also a proven success.
Last but not least, the old saying “Don’t play with your food” is one of the worst things imaginable–if food’s a game, it’s bound to get eaten! For younger children, make eating healthy something fun and it’ll become a much-loved recreation. | <urn:uuid:9006feba-8fb3-4cf0-9fd4-17806e24d5a6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.responsivehealth.com/2009/11/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954909 | 394 | 3.15625 | 3 |
It will be helpful to practice survival vocabulary in context. Vocabulary can be taught and learned in various categories, which may assist with comprehension:
“Key survival words are printed on flash cards; either on paper cut to size or on index cards. We review these cards every class. The time varies. Sometimes we spend only a few minutes; other times we spend 15 or 20 minutes going through them.
We developed a contest in the class. It went like this. For every word that the learners read correctly, it belonged to them. For every word they did not get, it belonged to me. Sometimes I let them see the cards they missed so that they could try to read them correctly. At the end, they counted both piles. The team with the highest score won.
At the end of the program, I took each learner individually, and had them read the cards to me while I kept track of the correctly read words.”
A Plain Language Guide in Reading, Writing and Math. Kentville, NS:
Partners in Employment Outreach (Spring 1998), p. 2.6. | <urn:uuid:a143edcc-d68a-4bba-9e47-2ba4ec3db88f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nald.ca/library/learning/sarc/section3/29.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960423 | 228 | 3.796875 | 4 |
Magic & the Supernatural QuizJudaism has many folk customs with magical undertones. But these are not without controversy. How well do you know Jewish magic, and the debates around it?
Question 1. True or false: in the Talmudic period, bowls etched with magic formulas were used by Christians, Mazdeans, Mandeans, but never Jews.
Question 2. Which of the following supernatural practices is forbidden in the Bible?
Hepatoscopy (reading animal entrails)
Belomancy (casting or shooting arrows as lots)
All of these
None of these
Question 3. True or false: Among the Dead Sea Scrolls, there exists a fragmentary text that is a collection of protective formulae for fending off demonic attack.
Question 4. What does Lilith do, according to Jewish legends?
Coerce Jewish men into being unfaithful to their wives
Snatch newborn babies and take them away from their parents
Turn into a wolflike creature at the full moon
Encourage idolatry and non-kosher eating practices
Question 5. From where did the story of Lilith originate?
The ancient Near East
Early Modern Germany
Question 6. What are segullot?
Animals said to have magic powers
Good luck prayers
Good luck charms
Question 7. What book contains formulas that were ostensibly used to create golems? | <urn:uuid:5363d63d-8a99-4b9e-97e9-ceb7d4ef9e6c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://myjewishlearning.com/quiz/print.php?tid=BF.IS.MS | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.907653 | 292 | 2.296875 | 2 |
This Z-shape lake, hemmed in by high hills, has an area of 293 sq.km. It is some 80km long, barely 5km across at its widest point, and up to 378m deep.According to a Maori legend the lake came into being when a sleeping giant was burned to death. His heart still beats, however, at the bottom of the lake, causing variations in the level of the lake, which can rise or fall by several centimeters within 5 minutes.The first Europeans reached Lake Wakatipu in 1853, and some years later the whole lake was surveyed. The Otago gold rush of the 1860s brought thousands of prospectors into the area. In those days there were 30 or 40 passenger ships, including four steamers, plying on the lake. One old steamer, the Earnshaw (1912), is now one of the lake's tourist attractions.
A trip through the 20km long Skipper's Canyon in a specially equipped bus is an exciting experience. Drivers who do the trip in a hired car are not covered by insurance.The return trip can be by jet boat for part of the way.Those interested in Bungy jumping can do a 104 m (340 ft) jump from an old gold-mining bridge over Skipper's Canyon.
A cableway, the Skyline Gondola, runs up to the summit of Bob's Peak (446 m; 252), from which there is an overwhelming view. Immediately below is Queenstown; beyond this is Lake Wakatipu; and beyond this again, forming a striking backdrop, are the peaks of the Remarkables.
The Shotover River is a challenge to the adventurous visitor, with trips by jet boat in which the steersman has to battle against strong currents, and white-water rafting in kayaks or rubber dinghies. There are organized rafting trips lasting several days, with overnight accommodation in tents.
SS Earnslaw Cruises
Cruises on the SS Earnslaw, which first went into service in 1912, are very popular. Some of the cruises include visits to sheep farms that are accessible only by boat. (The ship is taken out of service in June for its annual overhaul.)
Queenstown is the most popular winter-sports center in New Zealand, the season lasting from June to September or October. Coronet Peak (1650m), 15km north of the town, has excellent skiing facilities.
This walk, a circuit which takes about four days, runs through the valleys of the Greenstone and Caples Rivers, which both flow into Lake Wakatipu. The best starting-point is Elfin Bay, on the west side of Lake Wakatipu.
Map of Queenstown Attractions | <urn:uuid:8eb09b81-33c8-4a57-8987-581545a6b55f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.planetware.com/new-zealand/queenstown-surroundings-nz-ot-qs.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962584 | 566 | 2.484375 | 2 |
A lost world revealed by drought
Looking down into a valley near the edge of Lake Mead, it was hard to believe that the bustling town of St. Thomas had ever thrived below. A woman shielded her eyes from the October sun and asked our guide, "Is this it?"
Eighty years ago, neighbors gossiped under cottonwood trees and children played baseball in the street. Now, only scattered remnants hint at the rise and fall of the little town: crumbling concrete foundations, rusty engine fragments, and dry cisterns. The valley feels abandoned and desolate, starkly lonely under a cloudless desert sky.
It was National Archaeology Day, and I'd accompanied six curious tourists to explore the skeleton of this ghost town, resurrected from its watery grave. We negotiated a steep path down into the valley, our feet sinking deep into the soft desert sand. Thick groves of invasive tamarisk - one of the few living inhabitants of the dusty plain - choked the narrow path and scratched our bare arms and legs. Thousands of tiny freshwater shells crunched underfoot, mementos from the decades the town spent far below the murky surface of Lake Mead.
Settled by Mormons in 1865, St. Thomas was nestled between the Muddy and Virgin rivers, two tributaries of the nearby Colorado River. The rivers provided fertile ground and dependable water, both rarities in southern Nevada. Despite the inhospitable climate, the settlement thrived, supplying nearby mining communities with barley, pears and cotton. By the early 1900s, a railroad ran through town, and soon, one of the first automobile highways in the West linked St. Thomas with developing cities in California and Utah.
Even in late fall, the sun blazes overhead; it's a dry, searing heat that shimmers in the distance against crimson mesas. A century ago, residents slept outside and lounged on shady porches to escape the summer heat. Crowds would celebrate as the train rolled into town, carrying hundreds of pounds of ice. Each July 4th, children flocked to Hannig's Ice Cream Parlor to buy special 5-cent ice cream cones. Today, just one corner of the ice cream parlor still stands, its pockmarked concrete walls hot to the touch, baked by the desert sun.
The water that brought St. Thomas to life eventually led to the town's demise. In 1928, Congress approved a plan to tame the mighty Colorado by building the Boulder - now Hoover - Dam at a narrow section of the river less than 40 miles from the town. Once construction was completed, the floodwaters would close in on the little valley.
But the people of St. Thomas did not want to leave. Local authorities came by every few months, urging them to pack up and move to nearby Overton or Logandale. "Sure, of course we are getting ready to move," the residents said, reassuringly. "Just give us more time." The rangers returned, again and again, to the same reluctant refrain.
As the water closed in, in the mid-1930s, people finally began to gather their belongings. Two worn chairs were left in the street outside the Gentry Hotel, and passersby stopped and sat on them for a while, watching the rising lake slowly consume barley fields and chicken coops. Soon, the chairs, too, were swallowed.
St. Thomas lay beneath Lake Mead for much of the last 70 years, emerging occasionally when the water level dropped. This time, the town has been exposed since 2002 - the longest time since its drowning - because the reservoir has been depleted by a lengthy drought and a growing population. And Lake Mead is unlikely to reclaim St. Thomas any time soon: its surface now lies nearly 30 feet below the town's remains. The site, now managed by the National Park Service, is frequented by tourists, historians and the occasional coyote.
Even after the town's flooding, its previous residents still thought of the little valley as their home. Each time the water receded, they descended on the ruins to read poems and picnic in the empty lots where their homes once stood. At the 1965 reunion, Marva Perkins Sprague found her childhood doll, buried in a mud bank.
Nearly 30 years earlier, auto shop owner Hugh Lord had been the last to leave St. Thomas before it was swallowed. He had refused to believe that the floodwaters would ever reach his home. As the rising lake lapped at his front porch in the summer of 1938, he finally stepped into a boat and rowed away, surrendering to the water that had helped the town blossom, then came to claim it.
Kate Shaw is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News (hcn.org). She is a science and environmental writer living in southern Nevada. | <urn:uuid:fc594478-c786-4bae-bf41-1ad592e95e93> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cortezjournal.com/article/20130301/columnists15/130309986/0/Columnists17 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969545 | 995 | 2.921875 | 3 |
|(design research map by Elizabeth Sanders)|
I am very interested in how people function and interact with their environments as well as with the "things" in those environments. Therefore, I am also interested in the scientific research that surrounds such issues. That's why I have this random Design Research Friday series on my blog. But this time, instead of sharing the findings of an experimental study, I would like to share a few different things that discuss design research in general:
- Above is a map, created by Elizabeth Sanders, which outlines the current state of design research. Read more about it here (scroll down to page 13).
- Below is a link to Nigan Bayazit's paper about the history of design research:
Bayazit, N. (2004). Investigating Design: A Review of Forty Years of Design Research. Design Issues, 20(1), p.16-30.
Reading the paper and studying the map made me realise 2 things:
1. Even though the idea of design research seems obvious to me at this point in time, it wasn't always such a concrete matter historically. In fact, it's a relatively recent topic from a scientific perspective. It's interesting to read how design research developed and why.
2. Because our societies and the way we communicate and do things are constantly changing, there will always be adaptations to consider and new things to discover in design research. I find this exciting because it means that design research will always be important, relevant and forever evolving.
If you are curious about design, I'm sure you will find the paper and the map very interesting, especially together. The give a nice quick impression of where design research came from and where it is now. You will surely find yourself thinking, "... and where will it go?". We can theorise, but only time will tell :)
Feel free to leave your thoughts or open a discussion in the comments below.
Have a great weekend! | <urn:uuid:de5ae3fe-3f32-4ba8-afe4-e99c37ca9d7b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hvhinteriors.com/2012/08/a-bit-about-design-research-design.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954232 | 399 | 1.835938 | 2 |
01-Mar-2004 -- On the morning of March, 1st Stefan and I set off from a fly camp south of Jamāliyya in the Nile Delta to try and get to the confluence of 31N 33E. Armed with a map, a camera and of course a Garmin we headed eastwards through the delta passing fields of rice, corn and wheat until we arrived at the Suez Canal. A toll of 2 Pounds allowed us to cross the impressive Mubārak Bridge spanning the canal. The contrast between the two sides of the canal could not be greater, lush green farmland to the West and arid wind blown desert to the East.
We took the road to Sinai passing through a number of military check points, whose guards were more than a little interested in where an Englishman and a Romanian would be travelling to, and why. Our combined limited Arabic did little justice in explaining the reason for travelling to a Confluence point but they all allowed us to pass just the same.
As we drove through the inaptly named town of Bi'r al-`Abd ("The Servant's Well", but not a watering hole to be found anywhere), the Garmin beeped and told us that we were 1.7 km from the point. After trying most of the tracks within the town we found one that appeared to go in the right direction and took us to within 350 m.
A brief walk across the rolling sand and we arrived at our goal. Marvellous!!!! | <urn:uuid:fdf6750d-b834-4f91-b83a-ad9db4d35463> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://confluence.org/confluence.php?id=8167 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959046 | 306 | 1.828125 | 2 |
http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,88109,00.html Story by Jaikumar Vijayan DECEMBER 11, 2003 COMPUTERWORLD NEW YORK -- "Zero-day" attacks that take advantage of software vulnerabilities for which there are no available fixes are emerging as a major threat to corporate security. More than ever, the threat underscores the need for companies to have safe configuration policies for software and systems, as well as good incident-response and patching capabilities, said users at the InfoSec 2003 trade show here last week. "I'm very concerned about it," said Joseph Inhoff, LAN administrator at Lutron Electronics Co., a manufacturer of lighting equipment in Coopersburg, Pa. Because such attacks take advantage of flaws before software makers can fix them, the potential for damage from so-called zero-day exploits is something Lutron's management is especially worried about, Inhoff said. "I'm trying to figure out what I can do about it," said Inhoff, who was at the show to see how automated patching software could help bolster the company's response capabilities to such attacks. Although they have been seen as a major security threat for some time, there haven't yet been any major zero-day attacks. But users won't have to wait for long, warned Mary Ann Davidson, chief security officer at Oracle Corp. and a member of a panel discussing the topic at this week's event. For one thing, malicious hackers are getting better and faster at exploiting flaws, Davidson said. Last summer's Blaster worm, one of the most virulent and widespread ever, hit the Internet barely a month after Microsoft Corp. released a patch for the software flaw it exploited. A variant called Nachi, carrying a dangerous payload, hit users less than a week later. In contrast, January's SQL Slammer worm took eight months to appear after the vulnerability it targeted was first disclosed. "You can see that the timelines are collapsing," said Davidson. That trend suggests it's only a matter of time before users see attacks against flaws not yet disclosed or for which no patches are available, she said. The number of new vulnerabilities and exploits surfacing on security newsgroups is another indication that such attacks aren't far off, said Todd Kunkel, network systems security administrator at Adelphi University, a Garden City, N.Y-based school with more than 7,500 students. Kunkel monitors such groups on a daily basis to try to keep abreast of new flaws and see if work-arounds are possible before any exploit code becomes available. "I try to find out if there is anything that I need to worry about and see how I can go about fixing it," he said. The relatively glacial pace at which some corporations patch their systems against known vulnerabilities also makes them attractive targets for both conventional and zero-day attacks, said Gerhard Eschelbeck, chief technology officer at Qualys Inc. in Redwood Shores, Calif. Every quarter, Qualys conducts over 1 million vulnerability scans on behalf of 1,300 clients and "several thousand" prospects, Eschelbeck said. One such scan in November showed that over 12,000 systems were vulnerable to a flaw in a Microsoft Windows Remote Procedure Call function for which no patches were available. The consequences can be "potentially devastating" for companies, said Dennis Brouwer, a senior vice president at SmartPipes Inc., a Dublin, Ohio-based provider of managed networked services. "Your services will depend entirely on how quickly you are able to respond to such attacks," he said. Having good processes in place for real-time vulnerability scanning and automated patching are key, Davidson said. It's also crucial for users to ensure that their software vendors are meeting specific safe-configuration requirements when products are shipped. Federal agencies are already headed down that path. The U.S. Department of Energy in September signed a contract with Oracle under which the software vendor is required to meet a checklist of security settings when shipping software to the agency. Such measures are a good way to mitigate exposure to zero-day threats that take advantage of weak default settings, Davidson said. - ISN is currently hosted by Attrition.org To unsubscribe email majordomo@private with 'unsubscribe isn' in the BODY of the mail.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Dec 12 2003 - 03:54:20 PST | <urn:uuid:30a32374-7240-487c-9e85-856188a10bd8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lists.jammed.com/ISN/2003/12/0049.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967088 | 915 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Robert H. Stockman wrote in his book The Baha'i Faith in America, that while Margaret B. Peeke had been raised as a strong Protestant church member, her interests changed, and she became a Martinist. Martinism is a form of mystical Christianity. Margaret was the author of Born of Flame, Numbers and Letters: or The Thirty-Two Paths of Wisdom, and Zenia the Vestal.
A book reviewer stated that Zenia the Vestal was a book which embodied “the occult laws of spiritual development, as given by the wise men of other lands…”
An advertisement for two of Mrs. Peeke’s books appeared in The Metaphysical Magazine in 1901.
According to Ohio Authors and Their Books, Margaret Bloodgood Peeke traveled widely, teaching Hermetic philosophy, with her largest following in the northern Ohio area. Margaret Bloodgood Peeke died on November 2, 1908. She is buried in Pomona, Tennessee near her daughter Grace Peeke. Grace Carew Sheldon wrote in an article in the Columbus Medical Journal shortly after Margaret’s death, that “The loss to her myriads of friends in every part of the world testifies to her international value, for she was beloved both at home and abroad.”
A copy of Zenia the Vestal is located in the local authors collection of the Archives Research Center of the Sandusky Library. The book contains an inscription from Rev. George H. Peeke to Miss Hazel Maud Morgan, the daughter of local Sandusky businessman, T. T. Morgan. The inscription reads:
Wisdom is the principal thing | <urn:uuid:67a4e14c-b909-4bbf-b56d-471e69146987> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sanduskyhistory.blogspot.com/2009/10/zenia-vestal-by-margaret-b-peeke.html?showComment=1333835002392 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969425 | 341 | 2.4375 | 2 |
Who ever knew Kevin Youkilis was Jewish? Who ever even thought to ask? The ferociously goateed Boston Red Sox infielder is one of several Hebrew hammers lightly profiled in the new documentary Jews and Baseball, a sunny jaunt through the diamond that reaches from Lipman Pike, the first-ever paid baseball player, through Hank Greenberg and Sandy Koufax up to Shawn Green. The first major head of the players' union was Jewish, we learn. So was the man who wrote the music for "Take Me Out to the Ball Game."
Talking heads testify to the importance Jews have had in the sport, with archival footage mixed in. A few minutes pass praising a player, then a fade to black announces that we're on to somebody else. Like baseball, the film wraps itself up in names, dates, stats, and highlights, losing story along the way. It celebrates Greenberg, one of his era's greatest, for not playing on Yom Kippur during a pennant race, but neglects to say (a) whether his team won that day, (b) whether the Tigers won the pennant that year, or (c) whether Greenberg took Yom Kippur off in subsequent seasons. The film feels simultaneously micromanaged and slapdash, spouting generalities about the game while neglecting to show a full at-bat. The anecdote triumphs over the big picture consistently, and grasps at meaning feel strained, like the interviewee who tells us that Jews have baseball in their blood because the Bible starts with "In the big inning."
So, what's the big picture? Why should Jews care about what other Jews are playing, and why should non-Jews care about Jews at all? As the film hints by describing Greenberg pep-talking a young Jackie Robinson, the major-league Jewish triumph is a universal one. In a London Review of Books piece shortly after Obama's 2008 election, Slavoj Žižek assessed its appeal. The point, he wrote, wasn't just that a black man had won, but that a black man could win. It's worth arguing that the Jews were history's first "niggers"—a perpetually excluded, stomped-on group, almost to the point of comedy. (As the author Michael Patrick MacDonald has written, "Of course, no one considered himself a nigger. It was always something you called someone who could be considered anything less than you.") A Jew's rise to the top of a society intellectually, financially, and even physically was thus important symbolically not only for other Jews, but for all oppressed peoples. The success of a white-but-not-quite-right group in baseball eventually helped bring in darker-skinned people—first African Americans (a similar trend happened in basketball), then Latinos. Without Sandy Koufax, there would be no Pedro Martinez.
As Jews have more casually entered America's fabric, what it means to be Jewish has changed. Jews and Baseball holds up former star Shawn Green as a model for current Jewish fans, but fails to note that in 2001 Green chose not to play on Yom Kippur, nearly 70 years after Greenberg made the same decision. Historical consensus seems to be that Greenberg did a great thing by calling public attention to Judaism; by contrast, the major question both in 2001 and now surrounding Green's choice to sit has been whether he did enough.
Do you need to do anything? It says something about the assimilated state of Judaism in America that the most prominent Jewish player in this past World Series, Texas's Ian Kinsler, technically isn't Jewish. It also says a lot about the way historical roles have changed that the world's most prominent niggers now are Palestinians oppressed by the Israeli government, and that many Jews have dissociated themselves from Israel to take Palestine's side. (What hasn't changed, alas, is the predominance of anti-Semitism worldwide, Israel being the latest excuse.) Judaism is in one of the most comfortable positions that it's probably ever been in right now, and so the need to identify oneself as Jewish—let alone stand for Judaism, let alone defend it—feels less urgent.
Still, the words "Yes you can" prove potent in any field, especially when coming from someone with whom you identify. Identification doesn't have to be religious (your hero can have also come from the Philadelphia area, can have also had divorced parents), it's just one clear model. Warshow, Farber, Sontag, Hoberman, Rosenbaum, Lopate, Scott: I wanted to be a film critic before I learned that many of the greatest have been Jewish. Now that I know, they inspire me even more. | <urn:uuid:63865742-5660-4c0f-9040-5a5f411abf9e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/jews-and-baseball-an-american-love-story/5144 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972472 | 968 | 1.992188 | 2 |
S No 1 /4 originally published on 1st October 2006
Lies being taught;
Knight Templar’s were ‘Christian’ warrior, who who fought for protection of holy land
Now the truth;
1. King Solomon’s temple is central to Freemasonry. Anything connected to King Solomon’ Temple is connected to Freemasonry.
The Knights Templars : According to Guillaume de Tyre the Order of the Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon was founded in 1118. Its founder is said to be one Hugues de Payen, a noble man from Champagne and vassal of the count of Champagne. One day Hugues, unsolicited, presented himself with eight comrades at the palace of Baudouin I, king of Jerusalem, whose elder brother, Godfroi de Bouillori, had captured the Holy City nineteen years earlier. Boudouin seems to have received then most cordially, as did the patriarch of Jerusalem the religious leader of the new kingdom and special emissary of the Pope. The number nine is based on historical set of nine heroes called “nine worthies”. The Nine Worthies are nine historical, scriptural, mythological or semi-legendary personages who were established in the middle ages as a set of heroes personifying the ideals of chivalry. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Worthies.
The declared objective of the Templar's, Guillaume de Tyre continues, was, “as far as their strength permitted, they should protect pilgrims on the holy land’s highways and byways” So worthy was this objective apparently that the king King Baldwin provided them with lodging in the al-Aqsa mosque, which was, according to the Crusaders, built on the location of the former Temple of Solomon and from this the fledgling order derived its name.
For nine years, Guillaume de Tyre tells us, the nine knights admitted no new candidates to their order. They were still supposed to be living in poverty such poverty that official seals show two knights riding a single horse, implying not only a (Masonic) brotherhood, but also a penury that precluded separate mounts. This style of seal is often regarded as the most famous and distinctive of Templar devices, descending from the first days of the order. Although their ostensible objective was Christian but they desire to be lodged in the ruins of ‘Temple of Solomon’ (The first temple of Judea) led us to believe otherwise. The objective appears us to be ;-
a) Protection of temple of Judea.
b) To find the lost “Ark of Covenant”, whose last hiding place had been underneath the Temple of Solomon.
c) To find the hidden secrets and mysteries of temple of Solomon the first temple of Judea. Much of the rituals of forth degree in Masonry namely chapter is based on this part of History when nine Knights dug under the temple to know the hidden mysteries of Temple Judea believed to lying therein. Under the Temple they are believed to have found some scrolls (as per the rituals in freemasonry) and treasure.
True as masons keep their secrets. These knights also kept their secret about “temple of Solomon” with them but used their knowledge and treasure gained from digging under the 1st Temple of Judea to their fame.
Within a decade the Templars fame seems to have spread back to Europe. Ecclesiastical authorities spoke highly of them and extolled their “Christian” undertaking. By 1128 or shortly thereafter, a tract lauding their virtues and qualities was issued by no less a person than Saint Bernard, abbot of Chairvaux and the age’s chief spokesman for Christendom.
After nine years in 1127, most of the nine knights returned to Europe and a triumphal welcome, orchestrated in large part by Saint Bernard. In January 1128 a Church council was convened at Troyes court of the count of champagne, Hugues de Payen’s liege lord at which Bernard was again the guiding spirit. At this council the Templar's were officially recognized and incorporated as a religious military order. Hugues de Payen was given the title of Grand Master. He and his subordinates were to be warrior monks, soldier mystics, combining the austere discipline of the cloister with a martial zeal tantamount of fanaticism a “militia of Christ” as they were called at the time. And it was again Saint Bernard who helped to draw up, with an enthusiastic preface, a rule based on that of the Cistercian monastic order, in which Bernard himself was a dominant influence.
Genuine zeal for keeping the Holy Land in Christian hands led both secular and church authorities to make vast donations to the Templars. Based on their new found treasure they were also able to influence the church as the King. in 1139, a papal bull was issued by Pope Innocent II, a former Cistercian monk at Clairvaux and protégé of Saint Bernard. According to this bull the Templars would owe allegiance to no secular or ecclesiastical power other than the Pope himself. In other words, they were rendered totally independent of all kings, princes, and prelates, and of all interference from both political and religious authorities. They had become, in effect, a law unto themselves, an autonomous international empire. With their new carte blanche from the Vatican, the Knights Templar expanded at a staggering rate, both in numbers and political force, amassing vast estates in over a dozen countries. Throughout, Europe younger sons of noble families flocked to enroll in the orders ranks, and vast donations in money, goods and land were made from every quarter of Christendom. They began extending credit to bankrupt royals and charging interest in return, thereby establishing modern banking and broadening their wealth and influence still further. To this day Judean or Jews continue to be masters of Banking which they had begun during their Templar days.
Today’s One Dollar bill Still contains the Masonic symbol of a Master Mason.
During the two decades following the Council of Troyes the order expanded with extraordinary rapidity and on an extraordinary scale. After the recognition of the Order, Hughes de Payens himself set out on a European trip, soliciting land and money from royalty and nobility. When Hugues de Payen visited England in late 1128, he was received with “great worship” by King Henry I. He founded the first Templar site in that country, on the site of what is now London’s Holborn Underground Station.
If Templar's were Christian, why were Templar’s site different from Churches, but they were - because Templar’s are / were Jewish. Freemasons are descendants of Templar’s. All Masonic “rites” or “observances” are direct descent from Building of King Solomon’s temple or 1st Temple of Judea and furthered by the Templar order from the period they had dug underneath the ruins of Temple of Judea during Templar’s days.
By advent of time Jewish rituals of Templar’s became more and more apparent. By the 1300s, Pope Clement V decided that something had to be done. Working in concert with France’s King Philippe IV, the Pope devised an ingeniously planned operation to quash the Templar's and seize their treasures. In a military maneuver worthy of the CIA, Pope Clement issued secret sealed orders to be opened simultaneously by his soldiers all across Europe on Friday, October 13 of 1307.
At dawn on the thirteenth, the documents were unsealed and their contents revealed. Clement’s letter claimed that god had visited him in a vision and warned him that the knights Templar were heretics guilty of devil worship, defiling the cross, and other blasphemous behavior. Pope Clement had been asked by god to cleanse the earth by rounding up all the knights and torturing them until they confessed their crimes against God. Clement’s Machiavellian operation came off with clockwork precision. On that day, countless knights were capture, tortured mercilessly, and finally burned at the stake as heretics. Echoes of the tragedy still resonated in modern culture; to this day, Friday the thirteenth is considered unlucky.
After the Templar's demise, the mystique surrounding it persisted. The final recorded act in the orders history had been the burning of the last Grand Master, Jacques de Molay, in March 1314. As the smoke from the slow fire choked the life from his body; Jacques de Molay is said to have issued an imprecation from the flames. According to tradition he called his persecutors Pope Clement and King Philippe to join him and account for themselves before the court of God within the year. Within a month Pope Clement was dead, supposedly from a sudden onslaught of dysentery. By the end of the year Philippe was dead as well. Many French Freemasons, in conspiring against King Louis Philippe XVI, felt they were helping to implement Jacques de Molay’s dying curse on the French line. When the king’s head fell beneath the guillotine, an unknown man is reported to have leaped onto the scaffold. He dipped his hand in the monarch’s blood, flung it out over the surrounding throng and cried, “Jacques de Molay, thou are avenged!”
Thus began the quest for New World Order (NWO), a world free from the rule of church and Monarchy and (unsaid) to re-establish rule of Jews which rule had came to an end in 931 BC with the destruction of 1st Temple of Judea or Temple built by king Solomon. | <urn:uuid:26f4ecfc-bb84-4c47-a5c5-5b34d391669e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lovkap.blogspot.com/2011/01/freemen.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971194 | 2,028 | 2.484375 | 2 |
This chapter aims to summarise and analyse the project that involves the work of a group of experts whose ambition it is to help those who make the political decisions, the media and interested readers to understand the requirements of the EU and the situation in Croatia, to draw concrete conclusions and make recommendations for essential measures. Part one raises the question of whether the EU is fiction or reality, part two puts Croatia in the context of the EU, while the third part concentrates on macroeconomics, banking and finances, taxes, government aid, trade policy, power, agriculture, employment and unemployment, the legal system, the non-governmental sector and equality between men and women. Part four analyses key questions of Croatia’s accession to the EU – regulation within the EU itself, the normative and real harmonisation of Croatia and the EU, Croatian advantages and its points of vulnerability, and a comparison of Croatia with member countries and candidate countries. The chapter also offers a number of recommendations for individual areas, while particular stress is placed upon recommendations that relate to the importance of the public administration and the independent agencies, the question of whether it is better to make adjustments at once or only when they are essential, and the attitude to regional initiatives. The message of the paper is that most of the criteria of Maastricht, Copenhagen and the Stabilisation and Association Agreement are posed in such a way that they can only be of benefit to the country. Our goal ought to be to live in a society that meets as many of these criteria as possible, and whether Croatia will, in so doing, be a member of the EU or of some other association, or an association with some other name that will be relevant at the time Croatia has achieved all this is less important. The EU may help Croatia in its economic and social development, but only the citizens of Croatia can achieve economic development, institutions that are more efficient, and a society that is going to respect the laws and the rights of individuals. | <urn:uuid:9e921e4f-21be-47fd-9402-033ed53cfc72> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://econpapers.repec.org/bookchap/ipfchaptr/1-01.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940865 | 398 | 2.25 | 2 |
How Neck Pain is Diagnosed
If your neck has been hurting for a while, it's time to find a doctor who can diagnose and treat the cause of your neck pain.
Neck pain that is intense or persistent, regardless of whether it began out of the blue or occurred after an injury, needs to be evaluated by a medical professional who is qualified to make a neck pain diagnosis.
Neck Pain: Do You Need a Specialist?
If your neck pain is the result of a traumatic event like a car accident, a medical professional should immediately stabilize your neck to prevent additional injury and transport you to a hospital for a full evaluation.
If your neck pain begins gradually — in the absence of an obvious injury or accident — it's usually a good idea to see your primary care doctor first. Depending on what they think the underlying condition is, your family doctor may be able to diagnose and treat your neck pain.
In more complicated cases, however, when the cause of your pain is less straightforward or when neck surgery or other procedures may be required, your primary care doctor may refer you to a physician with neck pain expertise:
Orthopedic surgeon. Also called orthopedists, these doctors have been trained to help prevent, diagnose, and treat problems that involve your muscles, bones, and joints.
Neurosurgeon. Neurosurgeons perform surgical procedures on the central nervous system, including the brain and spinal cord. If your neck pain is due to an injury of the spinal cord or the bones that surround the cord, a neurosurgeon may become involved in your care.
Pain management specialist.
Pain management specialists, or physiatrists, are specially trained to treat and help people manage longstanding, or chronic, pain.
Rehabilitation specialist. Rehabilitation specialists are doctors who specialize in helping people regain physical strength and function after a severe injury due to trauma or conditions like a stroke.
Neck Pain: Diagnosing the Cause
When you first see your doctor about your neck pain, he or she will take a medical history and do a comprehensive physical exam.
Your doctor will ask you detailed questions about your symptoms and review your previous medical records to see if past conditions or accidents may be contributing to your neck pain.
During the physical exam, your doctor will evaluate your neck movement, determine which neck positions increase your pain, pinpoint areas of neck tenderness, and examine other parts of your body, like your arms and legs, to see if you are having additional symptoms. The physical exam may involve:
- Having you move your head in various directions
- Having you push your hands or shoulders against manual resistance
- Determining if your sense of touch has been affected by your neck pain
- Testing your reflexes
- Watching you walk forward and backward
Neck Pain: Special Diagnostic Tests
Depending on the results of your physical exam, your doctor may have you undergo additional tests, including:
X-rays to take pictures of the bones inside your neck
Computed tomography (CT) scan, a special type of X-ray to give your doctor a close look at the bones in your neck that encase your spinal cord
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) , an imaging study that enables your doctor to view your spinal cord and the nerves in your neck
Electromyography (EMG) , a test used to examine the functioning of the nerves and muscles in and around your neck
Myelography, the use of X-rays and the injection of a special dye into your spinal canal to better evaluate your spine and nerves
Blood tests, ordered if your doctor suspects that a specific type of arthritis, thyroid problem, or infection is causing your neck pain
Lumbar puncture, also called a spinal tap, if neck pain is accompanied by fever, headache, and sensitivity to light, all symptoms of meningitis. If your doctor is concerned about this possibility, you will likely be sent to the emergency room to undergo a lumbar puncture.
Neck pain is common and can be caused by a number of conditions, ranging from minor muscle strain to severe infection or nerve damage. The only way to get to the source of your neck pain is to see your doctor for a complete evaluation. | <urn:uuid:02442957-e18d-4bda-8e88-e2b090edae47> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.everydayhealth.com/neck-pain/neck-pain-diagnosis.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937279 | 866 | 2.421875 | 2 |
Two DVDs available for those who are considering a Hysterectomy as a solution to their PMS
Purchase to benefit NAPS
Training for Innovation (TFI) part of an NHS initiative, has produced a series of DVDs which explain in a simple and clear way what happens before, after and during surgical procedures. The series is aimed at patients and their families but there has also been a significant interest in them by surgical consultants, clinicians, nurses and physiotherapists who value the benefits of informed patient involvement in healthcare.
NAPS knows that there is an increasing number of women who are opting for a hysterectomy as a solution to their PMS and we are delighted to be able to offer this authoritative information and advice through the Association.
The two DVDs ‘Understanding Hysteroscopy' and ‘Understanding Abdominal Hysterectomy' both explain :
- what each procedure is
- what will happen to you during the procedure
- who the medical team of experts are that will be responsible for your care
- what things you can do immediately after your operation to help speed up your recovery
Each DVD can be purchased from NAPS for £4.00 (including P+P ).Two DVDs £7.50 (including P+P), cheques payable to NAPS. Please send orders to NAPS, 41 Old Road, East Peckham, Kent TN12 5AP.
A percentage of each DVD sold will go towards the Association's funds. | <urn:uuid:362fcc40-42d1-402a-adc6-de5587ed8218> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pms.org.uk/About+PMS/Bulletins/2010+Bulletins/August+2010/item1136/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967059 | 306 | 1.742188 | 2 |
What happens to the weather when the humidity goes up? How are temperature and hunidity related? Do relative humidity and cloud coverage affect each other at all?
Humidity is a measure of the amount of water air can hold. Scientists can use the temperature to find out how much water the air can hold. The higher the temperature, the more water! For example, if the relative humidity is 100% then that means the air is holding as much water as it can at that temperature.
Think of the air as a glass and you want to know how much water it can hold. If you add more water to the glass, then the relative humidity will go up. The air acts in the same way.
When the humidity is high, there is enough water in the air to make rain or snow. Humidity can change a lot during the day. Why?
A change in temperature causes a change in pressure. If the humidity was 100% and the temperature goes down, the air pushes together and squeezes out water. This is our rain and snow!
Humidity is important for clouds too because they are made of water and ice. If the humidity is high, there is a lot of water that can be used to make clouds. The larger the amount of water, the more clouds we can have.
Submitted by Drew, Misha, Jenna M., Jenna O., Courtney, Jessica, (age 14, Minnesota, USA)
(May 8, 1999)
Shop Windows to the Universe Science Store!
Learn about Earth and space science, and have fun while doing it! The games
section of our online store
includes a climate change card game
and the Traveling Nitrogen game
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Almost everyone has a question or two about living in space. What do astronauts do in space? How do they do everyday things like eat, sleep and go to the bathroom? It's important to note that astronauts...more
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If that is so, the energy released during the Big Bang must have created many such black holes. Therefore most of the Energy of the Big bang must have disappeared in that form. Then how did the Universe...more | <urn:uuid:979531c3-7909-4964-b3d6-68ad8ecbd102> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.windows2universe.org/kids_space/humidity.html&edu=mid | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946987 | 676 | 3.609375 | 4 |
Textile processing units of Bangladesh garment companies are adopting cleaner production (CP) practices, which is helping them save a lot of money as well as to be more competitive.
Twelve apparel manufacturers, including the DBL Group, ABA Group, Fakir Knitwear, Multifabs, SF Fashion and Tarasima Apparels have introduced CP practices at their textile processing units.
The 12 factories were provided technical assistance by the South Asia Enterprise Development Facility (SEDF), which is managed by the International Finance Corporation (IFC).
After investing around US$ 210,000 on CP technologies, the 12 units have together saved about US$ 568,000 or more than 250 percent in the first year of introduction of environment-friendly production technologies.
According to an IFC report on the benefit of CP practices, returns on the investments may go up to 550 percent in the initial three years after adopting of sustainable technologies.
The CP system involves use of improved technologies that reduce consumption of water, energy, and other resources. It also results in decreased amount of carbon emission and water generation. Thus, it helps textile processing units to substantially cut-down on their costs.
There are about 1,700 washing, dyeing and finishing factories in Bangladesh that discharge 56 millions of toxic waste each year, which necessities urgent action for introduction of environment-friendly production practices in Bangladesh textile manufacturing units, according to the IFC report.
IFC stated that 12 factories at which CP practices were introduced, saved about 6,200 million cu m of gas, 1.33 gigawatt-hour of electricity and 75,000 millions cu m of water.
This has encouraged SEDF to partner with six more units to help them adopt CP practices at their units this year.
“We have adopted the cleaner production practices with help from the IFC and we have been successful in setting up a model factory in Bangladesh. The CP practice is mainly about using fewer resources for production in order to reduce carbon emission. It also involves decreasing the usage of water, energy and other resources, ” Mr. MA Jabbar, Managing Director of DBL Group, one of the firms to introduce the CP concept in the beginning of 2011, told fibre2fashion.
“Under the programme, we first identified what we were doing and its impact on the environment. Then we monitored and implemented technologies to reduce the impact. For example, we earlier used 120 litres of water for dyeing purpose, and now we are using 70 litres. So, we are now saving 50 litres of water,” he explains.
“Overall, we have been able to reduce our consumption of gas by 18 percent, electricity by 13 percent while increasing our production by 14 percent and reducing carbon emission by 17 percent during January-September 2011 compared to corresponding months of 2010,” he reveals.
“The decrease in usage of gas and electricity alone have resulted in saving approximately US$ 195,000 for our company during the nine month period. If we add savings on water, compressed air, etc., the total savings will cross 500,000 per year” he adds.
Elaborating further, he says, “We have all the data and now we are monitoring how much we are reducing on our usage. We will be targeting how much we saved by the end of the current year. It requires a little investment as well as awareness both. But in this kind of investment you get assured returns.” | <urn:uuid:ec3f21f6-b772-4b93-881a-09fff0fbe843> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bangla-expo.com/DTG/marketnews_detail.asp?serno=388 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951405 | 712 | 1.859375 | 2 |
Q. Why is it that every day off from school or holiday break we are forced to have homework for our children? I thought the whole idea of a break or vacation was to do just that, get a break. We spend most of our Christmas and spring breaks completing projects that teachers hand out the last day of school before a break starts. I don't think that teachers or the administration take on a project to complete when they are on breaks. We can't plan too much time away, or when we do we are carrying supplies and books wherever we go. A day off or vacation needs to be respected by the teachers. This is not the time to be loading more homework onto kids. They already have way to much as it is. If it continues, I feel that teachers need to be doing questionnaire work for parents during the time off. Maybe if they enjoyed having homework during holiday time, they will rethink handing it out.
A. The last part of this comment made me chuckle. If teachers were given homework by the parents, teachers might not hand as much out over the holiday. Still, most teachers do not give homework over vacation, and those teachers that give assignments often give enough warning for children to complete the assignments before the break if they are diligent, non-procrastinators. At least that is my understanding of these assignments. It sounds like you have a different experience, and I agree that teachers should not hand children an assignment as they head out the door to a vacation. It is a time to rest and relax. In high school, the stakes are higher, and I would expect some assignments for certain programs and classes even over the vacation. An AP chemistry teacher preparing his students to take the test in spring might assign homework over all vacations, especially spring break, to prepare his students to pass the AP test earning college credits. There is a different timetable. I don't think AP teachers, or most any teachers, would be willing to do the same homework they assign because they have already been students. Now they are teachers.
Contact the writer: Do you have a question about your child's education? Carol Veravanich is an experienced teacher and assistant principal who answers readers' questions each week. Contact her at http://www.goasktheteacher.org or e-mail directly to firstname.lastname@example.org. | <urn:uuid:2ca9178f-07f0-44e9-916a-5bd9f358b2e7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ocregister.com/life/teachers-190698-homework-break.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977782 | 477 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Do you know Makassar? Makassar is the capital city of South Sulawesi Province, and the largest city on Sulawesi Island. From 1971 to 1999, the city was formally named Ujung Pandang, after a precolonial fort in the city, and the two names are often used interchangeably. It total large of area is 175.77 km² and has population of 1.25 million.
The city is southern Sulawesi’s primary port, with regular domestic and international shipping connections. It is nationally famous as an important port of call for the pinisi boats, sailing ships which are among the last in use for regular long-distance trade. Makassar has the famous Airport in Sulawesi Area, namely is Hasanuddin International Airport. And if you want to go shop? The main shopping centers are here, MTC karebosi makassar, Panakkukang Mal, and Panakkukang Trade Center. I hope you will be happy visit to makassar. Thank you.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
5:50 AM Sofhal Jamil 1 comment | <urn:uuid:b5f7b306-0e81-494a-a078-a8617a392611> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kampungturis.blogspot.com/2008/12/makassar-south-sulawesi.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944722 | 237 | 1.867188 | 2 |
The HSL controls in Lightroom (stranding for “Hue, Saturation and Luminance”) give us the power to make amazingly subtle (or dramatic) nondestructive edits to specific colors within an image. Very, very cool.
By giving us three different ways to adjust eight distinct colors, the HSL controls offer a way to work in specific areas of image — based on where those colors are found — with an amazing degree of finesse. This is a kind of localized control that not too long ago could only be performed by creating complex masks in Photoshop, although even then the control was less sophisticated.
The HSL controls are very, very cool and should be well understood by all photographers. However, learning to use HSL (at least for me) is not an intuitive process. Really mastering HSL requires good instruction.
Whatever your current HSL I.Q. is, you will likely benefit from one, two or all three of these resources.
#1: Video Demo of Basic HSL Functionality. In “Using HSL in Lightroom 3 Hue Saturation and Luminance” Mark Dickinson shows us the HSL sliders in action, showing us how to quickly play around to understand the importance of the red, orange and yellow controls for adjusting skin color. If you are new to HSL, Dickinson’s five minute video will help orient you to the possibilities before gaining a deeper understanding of what’s going on.
#2: Clear, Concise Explanation of Controls. In “Using Lightroom’s HSL / Color / Grayscale Panel” Martin Evening provides an explanation of HSL functionality that is clear, concise and in-depth — all at once. Adapted from Evening’s Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 Book, The: The Complete Guide for Photographers and focused on helping us make “fine-tuned color adjustments in Lightroom,” this article is perfect for photographers who want the HSL skinny with no fuss.
#3: In-Depth HSL Understanding. Writing for X-Equals, Michael W Gray has done us a wonderful service by dishing up a brilliant, clear, in-depth three-part series on the HSL controls in Lightroom, from conceptual underpinnings to practical usage. Filled with fantastic graphics — that you can download to “play along” — you’ll find:
Mastering HSL in Lightroom – Part 1 of 3 — In depth exploration of “exactly what the HSL is and how it is used,” showing a range of effects on an X-Rite Color Checker. Really sweet. (Gray, in true über photo nerd from calls this the “basics of HSL.” If you’re not an über photo nerd, try to stick in there, as this information really is should be basic for serious photographers, even if it really is advanced.)
Mastering HSL in Lightroom – Part 2 of 3 — Gray shows us the importance of starting with camera profiles (an interrelated and important topic) and then helps us start using the HSL controls in a basic manner. (If you get lost in Part 2, still head to Part 3, which will help you make sense of Part II.)
Mastering HSL in Lightroom – Part 3 of 3 – With “basics” (focusing on color correction functionality) covered in Parts I and II, Gray helps us see how to get more creative with HSL by cross processing and making color monochromes. These creative techniques — pushing controls to extremes — help us better see how the fundamental work. Very cool.
HSL Control Learning as Ongoing Process
Gray hits HSL learning on the head when, at the end of Part III, he says, “I would like to restate that the HSL is one of the most straight forward tools, but at the same time the HSL is so nuanced that it takes a long time and a lot of practice to be able to jump right in and carry out your desires.” | <urn:uuid:553a3676-504b-4fe6-be98-d1b1b3cf7108> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.aftercapture.com/tag/mastering-hsl-in-lightroom/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923294 | 859 | 1.960938 | 2 |
Pope, at audience, says those in power must rule with justice
Published: December 1, 2004
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Those who govern have a moral obligation to protect the poor and oppressed, Pope John Paul II said. During his weekly general audience at the Vatican Dec.1, the pope said that justice for all, especially the poor, is "fundamental for good government." The Bible says that violating their rights is "an act against God, a religious crime," he said. During his talk at the packed Pope Paul VI audience hall, the pope, inspired by Psalm 72, stressed the duty of those in power to commit themselves to moral integrity. Good governments and rulers will exercise justice "above all with regard to the poor, who usually are the victims of the powerful," the pope said.
Copyright (c) Catholic News Service /U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The CNS news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed, including but not limited to such means as framing or any other digital copying or distribution method, in whole or in part without the prior written authority of Catholic News Service . | <urn:uuid:90ab49b1-4b39-4f4a-ade9-e5054854f523> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.georgiabulletin.org/world/2004/12/01/WORLD-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971199 | 235 | 2.125 | 2 |
USS Hugh L. Scott (AP-43)
Hawkeye State in the 1920s,
which became USS Hugh L. Scott in 1941
|Namesake:||Hugh L. Scott (1941–42)|
|Operator:||United States Navy (1942)|
|Builder:||Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation|
|Launched:||17 April 1920|
|Acquired:||for the US Army, 31 July 1941|
|Commissioned:||into the US Navy, 7 September 1942|
|Out of service:||12 November 1942|
|Struck:||7 December 1942|
|Fate:||torpedoed 12 November 1942|
|Beam:||72.2 ft (22.0 m)|
|Draft:||30 ft 6 in (9.30 m)|
|Depth:||27.8 ft (8.5 m)|
|Propulsion:||4 steam turbines, twin screws|
|Speed:||18 kn (21 mph; 33 km/h)|
USS Hugh L. Scott (AP-43) was a Hugh L. Scott-class transport ship. She was built in 1921 and spent 20 years in merchant service as a passenger and cargo liner. She was acquired for the United States Navy shortly before the USA entered the Second World War, served as a troopship in Operation Torch in November 1942 and was sunk by a U-boat four days later.
The vessel was designed to be a troopship, ordered by the USSB from Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation, Sparrows Point, Maryland and laid down in 1920. Her intended name was to be Berrien but when she was launched on 17 April 1921 it was as Hawkeye State.
Hawkeye State was a turbine steamship, with four steam turbines driving twin propeller shafts by single reduction gearing. These gave her a speed of up to 18 knots (33 km/h) — as fast as many ocean liners of her era.
In 1921 Matson Line ran Hawkeye State between Baltimore and Honolulu via the Panama Canal and California. In 1922 she passed to the Pacific Mail Steamship Company,which was taken over by Robert Dollar in 1925. She was then transferred to Dollar Steamship Company, which renamed her President Pierce. In 1938 Dollar was reorganised as American President Lines.
Routes with Dollar Lines
Dollar Line put President Pierce on trans-Pacific services between San Francisco and the Far East until 1931, when she was switched to a round-the-World service. Her first circumnavigation began at New York on 19 November 1931, going via the Panama Canal, California, Japan, China, Malaya, Ceylon, the Suez Canal, the Mediterranean and thence back to New York. She completed a total of five such trips, beginning her final one from New York on 2 June 1933.
SS President Hoover
Early on the morning of 11 December 1937 a much larger Dollar Lines ship, the ocean liner President Hoover, ran aground in a typhoon on Kasho-to, east of Formosa.Hoover's 330 crew got their 503 passengers and themselves safely ashore without loss, but the 853 people now needed to be taken off the remote island. The task was shared between President Pierce and American Mail Line's SS President McKinley.McKinley, assisted by the Japanese cruiser Ashigara, collected about 630 people from Kasho-to on 14 December. Pierce collected the remaining 200 people on 15 December.
On 31 July 1941 President Pierce was taken over for the US Army, which renamed her USAT Hugh L. Scott after General Hugh L. Scott, who was Army Chief of Staff 1914–17. She made four voyages to the Far East before sailing to the US East Coast in July 1942.
On 14 August 1942 she was transferred to the US Navy and Tietjen and Long of Hoboken, New Jersey converted her into an attack transport. on 7 September 1942 she was commissioned as USS Hugh L. Scott, under the command of Captain Harold J. Wright.
Hugh L. Scott took part in Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of French North Africa. As part of Transport Division 3 (TransDiv 3) she sailed on 24 October after intensive amphibious training. She approached the beaches at Fedhala, French Morocco, early on the morning of 8 November and — after bombardment by surface ships[clarification needed] — landed her troops. She then cleared the immediate invasion area and did not return until 11 November, when she entered the refueling area and then anchored in the exposed Fedhala roadstead to unload her supplies.
Sunk by U-boat
The Naval Battle of Casablanca delayed off-loading her cargo and departure from the Moroccan coast. On the evening of 11 November, U-173 slipped inside the protective screen and torpedoed transport Joseph Hewes, tanker Winooski and destroyer Hambleton. Hugh L. Scott and the other transports were at battle stations all night and resumed unloading the next day. That afternoon, 12 November, another submarine, U-130 commanded by Ernst Kals, torpedoed Hugh L. Scott,Edward Rutledge, and Tasker H. Bliss.
Hugh L. Scott, hit on the starboard side, burst into flames and foundered, but owing to the availability of landing craft for rescue, casualties were limited to eight officers and 51 men. U-173 was later sunk by destroyers but U-130 escaped.
- Swiggum, S; Kohli, M (28 February 2010). "Ship Descriptions – P–Q". The Ships List. Retrieved 8 May 2013.
- Lloyd's Register, Steamships and Motor Ships. London: Lloyd's Register. 1934. Retrieved 7 May 2013.
- Tully, Anthony; Hackett, Bob; Kingsepp, Sander (2012). "Stranding of S.S. PRESIDENT HOOVER - December 1937". Rising Storm – The Imperial Japanese Navy and China 1931–1941. Imperial Japanese Navy Page. Retrieved 7 May 2013.
- Priolo, Gary P. "USS Hugh L. Scott (AP-43)". Service Ship Photo Archive. Paul R. Yarnall & NavSource Naval History. | <urn:uuid:d47a2bc9-9dad-4fac-bc18-2b611155f55d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Hugh_L._Scott_(AP-43) | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942041 | 1,296 | 2.46875 | 2 |
UN FACT: The spelling of the term "Llanowar," now known as the name of a forest in Dominaria where a proud race of elves lives, was probably inspired by the Welsh language. In Welsh, the pronunciation of the double L
is difficult to describe in text, but it's sort of a whispered, percussive hiss sound with the tongue held in position to pronounce the letters "t" and "l" together. I kind of love that sound and consider it to be awesome. Using that pronunciation to say "Llanowar" would be beautiful, but the accepted pronunciation in Magic
basically treats the double L as if it were a single L, hence simply: "LAN-oh-war."
By the way! Today? Elves. Medium? Magic art. Let's go. Spartans, prepare for some pointy-eared glory.
Kick us off, Kev.
Elves embody a host of physiological and psychological characteristics, and believe you me, this melange of defining attributes goes way beyond ear shape. Can Magic art take us to all of them? Surely we can find the physical differences between various elves there—the mohawks and face paint on Llanowar elves, the horns and hooves on Lorwyn / Shadowmoor elves. But you'd be surprised at how many elvish societal roles and cultural values you can find portrayed in Magic's art. Most elvish art portrays the woodsy ones in one of a few different ways, and we'll go through all of them today. That is correct: I have identified all of the categories of elf art. All of them, exhaustively! There is no need for further scholarship on the matter! The matter is solved. Let's get on with it.
Elves as Protectors of the Forest
More than almost any other race in the Multiverse, elves have their identity sculpted by their environment. An elf's life is tangled up in the forest from cradle to grave—it's his home, his livelihood, and his mission. Even the merfolk can't claim the elves' dedication to their natural surroundings, as the elves combine a reliance on the forest's gifts with an explicit and abiding devotion to all of nature.
Elves really, really like their trees.
The best way to get an elf to show his true colors is to threaten the forests. Move into their territory with intent to harm, and the elvish façade of a race of pastoral frolickers with good cheekbones will crumble away faster than you can say "Greenpeace with longswords."
Our buddy Matt brought us this absorbing look at an elf shaman who's deeply in touch with the fauna of the woods, particularly the spirit of the bear.
In Lorwyn, elves ride cervins. In Norwood, they ride moose. Rebecca Guay might make this scene look beautiful and serene, but do not get on the business end of those antlers.
What better herald of the elvish connection to nature than Jim Murray's rendition of Gaea's Herald?
Note that elves defend their turf whether it's a literal grove of trees or not. In Ravnica, where there are no open areas of wilderness, elves inhabit and protect the high spires and hanging gardens of that vast city. In post-apocalyptic Dominaria, the beaten-down, emaciated elves defend whatever patches of moss or fungus they can find to call home.
Elves as Master Warriors
Even when the woods per se are not at stake, elves don't sit idly by while battle is afoot. Elves have a reputation for being gifted fighters, either in armies that swarm out of the trees led by lords of the forest, or as heroic individuals whose combat prowess outstrips even the legends told about them.
FUN FACT: For Duel Decks: Elves vs. Goblins, I wrote two bits of narrative to go on either side of the strategy insert that came with the decks. Here's the one that appeared on the Elf side, that I think embodies the "Elves as Warriors" aesthetic.
"Loyal kin, elders, siblings. I cannot welcome you with a wish of peace today.
"As many of you know, during last night's wildfeast, the goblin tribes staged a cowardly attack on our heartwood groves. Dozens of worthy elves perished, including the champion Lledala. The heartwood's fate is still in question. The trees may yet survive the damage, but today our druids' faces are grim with doubt.
"I know many of you have deep roots in the groves affected, and I know that your hearts ache with injustice. Even hours after the attack, you feel that we have not acted with sufficient speed or vigor. You long for a chance to repay our grave debt to the goblins in battle.
"Today, that battle is joined.
"The goblins are massing in a valley near here. Today we show them the folly of their actions. I ask that you remember our commitment to the flourishing of all life—by slaking the earth's thirst for goblin blood. May your footsteps sound the thunder of Gaea and your steel impart her fury!"
—Baelon, ambush commander of Llanowar
Here's the alternate art of Ambush Commander that appeared on the pointy-eared side of Elves vs. Goblins.
The elves of Lorwyn consider the mazelike stretch of forest known as Wren's Run to be the finest hunting ground in the world. Before it became Shadowmoor's haunted Raven's Run, the imperious elves honed their slaying skills there.
In Shadowmoor, the elves' skills in combat ceased to be a matter of destroying eyeblights and became a matter of survival. Jason Chan's Wilt-Leaf Liege is emblematic of elvish beauty, grace, and vulnerability even when charging headlong into battle. Compare with the grim determination of William O'Connor's piece, used on the Shadowmoor Elf Warrior token. Two flavors of awesome that taste great together.
Shadowmoor Elf Warrior Token art by William O'Connor
Speaking of mounted elves charging into battle, I've always loved Donato Giancola's Tolsimir Wolfblood piece. There's something about the traditional "elf ranger with bow" look to him, combined with the distinctive Magic twist of Voja's claws digging into the cobblestones of Ravnica, that tweaks my fantasy-goob fandom.
Radha is scary. Keldon blood will do that to you. Does that make her inappropriate for a list of elvish warriors? I don't know. I figure the smart money's on the girl holding the head of her decapitated foe in her hand.
Elves as Masters of Magic
Elves are in touch with the land, which means they're in touch with mana and magic. They both satisfy and defy expectation in that regard, sometimes appearing as the traditional elf mage in full wizardly regalia, sometimes bucking the trend as a down-and-dirty shaman of some grungy death cult.
I'm basically sold whenever we come out with a piece of an elf conjuring magic. The scale of the elf in Seedcradle Witch illustrates how exposed the noble elves are in Shadowmoor.
The Viridian elves of Mirrodin are devoted to opposing the artificial forces of that metallic world. I love the contradiction of how they have a bit of metal in them (as all creatures on Mirrodin do), yet fight for the destruction of artifice.
The Golgari of Ravnica are the guild of life and death. The Hungarian team of Boros and Szikszai nailed the vibe of the elf as shamanic death-cultist.
There's an almost anime feel to this elf piece, set in the destroyed forests of Dominaria. I dig the style, and love the sense of a mote of hope surrounded by tragedy.
This is one of the most powerful pieces of an elf wielding magic that Magic has ever had. Hats off to Brandon Kitkouski.
Life would be pretty dull if we saw the same Orlando Bloom-style elves year after year. Luckily, since Magic loves traveling from world to world and loves elves, we're guaranteed to see some elvish oddities. Check out these pieces that push the Elvish Envelope (which sounds like a green spell to me—or maybe a tribal artifact?).
It's hard not to start with the Simic here. Momir Vig sets the tone for this guild of progressive-minded bio-researchers.
The creative team knew how emblematic the guildmages would be for Ravnica block, so special care was taken to make sure the illustrations were knock-your-socks-off hot. Check out the detail here on Simic Guildmage. (Aleksi, paint more for us. Please.)
In the Onslaught storyline, elves grew more and more feral and treelike as powerful energies radiated out from the Mirari. Check out how this elf's skin has become slightly green, and how his hair has turned into branchlike protrusions.
Here's another shot of the Mirari-warped elf look, this time as of that block's final set, Scourge, where the transformation is complete. ELF SMASH!
As I mentioned before, all creatures on the metal world of Mirrodin have metallic elements built into their bodies—even the elves. And yet, there's clearly still pride in this guy's heart. Stand tall, chosen hero of Tel-Jilad.
Elf avatars are the soul of elfhood, abstracted in the direction of the infinite. Mark Zug, bring us home.
Oh, okay, one last thing. FUN FACT: There are elves in Naya.
Letter of the Week
Dear Doug Beyer,
So, something about this constant plane-hopping bothers me. OK, so each block we get a new setting - that makes sense. But why a new plane?
Planes aren't necessarily planets, but generally they're supposed to be big, right? Like world-sized big. And the thing about a world is, you don't need to leave it to get a new setting. You just need to go somewhere else on it.
Now obviously you need to go to a new plane when you want an entirely new cosmology, as with Kamigawa or Lorwyn, but even then, I have to think, these planes aren't really being treated as worlds. I mean, an entire planet of feudal Japan? It's kind of ridiculous, no? When you have a whole world, it should have a lot more diversity than that.
Now, you had Dominaria, which was supposed to be two-and-half times the size of Earth, if I recall, so you wouldn't run out of different settings on it. But then came the various apocalypses, and, well... that's the problem right there. Taking all of Dominaria and treating it as one setting. Putting the entire world in danger. That's the thing - world-sized conflicts don't really make sense. They're too big. I guess old-style planeswalkers can manage them, but it's still ridiculous. Without recent technology (or really good magic), nobody on a world should have any clue what's going on in most of it, aside from those faraway places there are occasionally ships or trade caravans from.
Basically, I'd like to see some worlds that are treated as, well, worlds, rather than one-use throwaway settings. Ones that are actually heterogeneous, you know? Not necessarily Dominaria-for-every-block style, but just show us a sensible-setting-sized bit at a time, let us know other areas only through their interaction with where we're focused on, then maybe later return and do things from a different point of view, where the mysterious outsiders of that previous block are now the focus, the previous focus are now mysterious outsiders, and there are even *more* mysterious outsiders that are too far away for the previous focus to have even heard of, except as legends and rumors, sort of thing.
This is a fantastic email, Harry. Thanks for taking the time to send it in.
With a few caveats, I'm on your side here. Logic dictates that entire worlds should not have the same geography or culture throughout. World-scale conflicts should not be possible except in extreme circumstances. Information flow in fantasy worlds should be, by and large, difficult. I care a lot about this level of world realism. Making decisions that bring the planes of Magic closer to a fully and realistically fleshed-out universe is the true artistry of Magic world-building.
Furthermore, we will return to previously-established planes. It is in the plan. You're right that there is plenty of room left over on many of Magic's planes to explore more deeply in a future block—and not just Dominaria.
The caveats to my agreement with you, Harry, have to do with what I call the "craft" of world-building. Craft is the skill of managing the practicalities of a creative endeavor. I almost hesitate to use the word "practicalities" because it has such a derogatory connotation in some circles, but I don't mean it as a negative thing at all. Art needs craft the way a building needs a structural system. A piece of art without good craftsmanship is meaningless, inaccessible drivel that falls apart before it does its job.
The craft of world-building dictates that worlds should be understandable and differentiable from other worlds. You can sum up Mirrodin in two words—"metal world" (and half of that is just the "world" part!). This allows our minds to latch onto the essential characteristics of the setting quickly. It also helps us differentiate that world from the others that have gone by—"metal world" is distinct from "feudal Japan world" and "city world" and "idyllic storybook world" and "five shards world" (Shards of Alara previews will be here before you know it!) and all the rest. Our minds need that. If every world is so intricate and diverse that they all take a paragraph to describe, then it takes our minds a long time to process what's going on in the world. Duplicating the complexity of Earth's cultures every year is not only impossible, it's impractical—our brains would not know what to do with that kind of depth. The craft of fantasy demands those kinds of theme-oriented worlds. (I want to write more on the craft of Magic creative—someday I'll get to that.)
There's also the nonzero pressure to use wholly new settings to:
- keep Magic feeling fresh,
- emphasize the scope and breadth of the Magic multiverse,
- provide lots of new words and concepts for cards (which could be accomplished without entirely new worlds, I grant), and
- keep planeswalkers extraordinary and special by giving them many worlds to 'walk to.
But you're not asking for fractal-like complexity, Harry—you're just asking for us to explore another element or two of existing worlds. A new continent or district or civilization on a previously visited plane. A deeper dimension layered underneath Magic's settings. As long as we can find a way to do that while respecting the responsibilities of craft, I think you are on to something. | <urn:uuid:26428471-fa48-4b9e-8940-92e53cdef24c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/db50 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956523 | 3,220 | 2.328125 | 2 |
Yellow-billed stork (Mycteria ibis)
|Also known as:||African wood stork|
|Size||Height: 90 - 105 cm (2)|
Male weight: 2.3 kg (3)
Female weight: 1.9 kg (3)
The yellow-billed stork is classified as Least Concern (LC) on the IUCN Red List (1).
The yellow-billed stork (Mycteria ibis) is a large wading bird, which is most easily distinguished by its black tail and long neck (2) (3). It also has a characteristic yellow bill, with red skin at its base that extends onto its face. The bill is long, blunt and slightly downward-curved, perfectly adapted for catching its prey (2) (3).
This species has white feathers on its back, wings, breast and underside, which are suffused with pink. These contrast with the tail and flight feathers which are black, with the head being feathered to the top of the crown. The yellow-billed stork has long, brownish legs, used to stabilise the body while searching in water for prey (2) (4).
The colouration of the yellow-billed stork becomes more vivid throughout the breeding season. Its bill becomes a deeper yellow and the face a brighter red while the feathers are saturated with pink and the skin of the head is retracted, the area of visible red skin hidden beneath becoming larger. The ordinarily dull legs become a brighter red (2).
The male and female yellow-billed stork are similar in appearance, with the male being slightly larger (2).
The juvenile yellow-billed stork has an off grey-brown plumage, with a paler underside. It also has feathering on the head which extends further down onto its face than in the adult and its face is much duller (2) (5).
The yellow-billed stork does not generally vocalise, except for during the breeding season, when it will hiss and clap its bill (2).
The yellow-billed stork is native to Africa, where it ranges from Senegal in the east and Mauritania in the west and south to South Africa. It is a vagrant to the north of the Sahara including Morocco and Egypt (6).
The yellow-billed stork favours wetlands with a water depth of between 10 and 40 centimetres, with sandbanks and trees close by. It is frequently seen in margins of rivers and lakes, lagoons, large marshes, small pools, flooded grasslands, alkaline lakes, reservoirs, water holes and rice paddies, which all have optimum conditions for this species. It will avoid flooded areas as it is not able to feed in deep water (2) (6).
The diet of the yellow-billed stork comprises frogs, small fish, aquatic insects, worms, crustaceans, small mammals and birds (2) (6). This species is a patient feeder and will submerge its bill into the water until contact is made with its prey, at which point the head is flipped back and the catch swallowed. The yellow-billed stork has been known to wait while crocodiles or hippopotamus feed, before approaching to eat the organisms which have been stirred up (2).
During the night, the yellow-billed stork forms communal roosts at favoured sites surrounding the wetland, for example, on sandbanks or in trees. These roosts are often shared with other species (6).
The yellow-billed stork sometimes migrates to areas where the feeding conditions are more favourable, especially throughout periods of heavy rain. However, some populations are known to be sedentary (6). The most likely reason for this migration in this species is rising water levels creating poor hunting conditions (2).
Breeding in the yellow-billed stork is seasonal and dependent on the abundance of food. Breeding usually begins towards the end of the rainy season or at the beginning of the dry season, when food is readily available, the rainy season lasting from November through to May (6) (7). The yellow-billed stork breeds in colonies, although it will never form a flock of more than 50 individuals (6).
The nest of the yellow-billed stork consists of sticks positioned in a small tree over water, or elevated higher in a tree on dry land. There may be 10 to 20 pairs in each tree, sometimes of different species, with each nest separated by 1 to 3 metres (2) (6). The male and female yellow-billed stork share responsibility for incubating the eggs, brooding, guarding and feeding the young (2).
The German common name of this species is ‘Nimmersatt’, meaning never full, due to the eating habits of the nestling, it increases from 60 grams to 500 grams in weight within the first ten days of life (2).
The yellow-billed stork is known to be under pressure from poaching and reduction of available habitat; however, no threat is thought to be currently affecting the overall population size (2).
The yellow-billed stork is listed under the African-Eurasian Waterbird Agreement (AEWA), which calls upon parties to undertake conservation actions to help protect and conserve bird species that are dependent on wetlands for at least part of their annual cycle (8). There are no other specific conservation methods currently known to be in place for this species.
Find out more about the yellow-billed stork:
BirdLife International - Yellow-billed stork
This information is awaiting authentication by a species expert, and will be updated as soon as possible. If you are able to help please contact:
- Alkaline: having a pH greater than 7.0.
- Crustaceans: diverse group of animals with jointed limbs and a hard external skeleton, characterised by the possession of two pairs of antennae, one pair of mandibles (mouthparts used for handling and processing food) and two pairs of maxillae (appendages used in eating, which are located behind the mandibles). Includes crabs, lobsters, shrimps, woodlice and barnacles.
- Flight feathers: the feathers at the end of the wing, involved in flight.
- Incubation: the act of incubating eggs, that is, keeping them warm so that development is possible.
IUCN Red List (October, 2011)
- Hancock, J. and Kushlan, J.A. (2010) Storks, Ibises and Spoonbills of the World. Christopher Helm Publishers, London.
- Sinclair, I., Hockey, P.A.R., Arlott, N. (2007) The Larger Illustrated Guide to Birds of Southern Africa. Struik Publishers, Cape Town.
- Redman, N., Fanshawe, J. and Stevenson, T. (2009) Birds of the Horn of Africa: Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia and Socotra. A & C Black, London.
- Sinclair, I. and Davidson, I. (2006) Southern African Birds: A Photographic Guide. Struik Publishers, Cape Town.
BirdLife International - Yellow-billed stork (October, 2011)
- Nanda, S. and Warms, R. (2010) Cultural Anthropology. Cengage Learning, California.
- African-Eurasian Waterbird Agreement (October, 2011) http://www.unep-aewa.org/ | <urn:uuid:ca305b2a-2019-4a57-a11c-f290c958fa46> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.arkive.org/yellow-billed-stork/mycteria-ibis/factsheet | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925753 | 1,587 | 3.609375 | 4 |
Sun, Apr 29, 2012
Original 'Mercury 13' Member Ready To Go
For the 500 or so well-heeled individuals who've signed up with Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic to make the brief trip into space, there is probably no more qualified person on the list than Wally Funk of Roanoke, Texas. At 73, she has been flying since the age of 16 and has amassed 18,600 flight hours and has trained 2,000 pilots. She was a champion air racer and has made three historic firsts; she was the first civilian flight instructor at Fort Sill, OK; the first FAA inspector; and the first NTSB air crash investigator.
Time Magazine reports that she almost got to add astronaut to the list in the 1960's as she trained in a private program for women with NASA's support similar to the physical and mental tests the male Mercury astronauts endured. Of the 25 women invited, 19 enrolled and 13 graduated. Then at 21, Funk was the youngest of the group. The women called themselves the Mercury 13. Even with NASA's support the country wasn't quite ready for women in space. Funk says "It was the era when women were in the kitchen. Space travel was the old-boy network."
Now through the courtesy of Virgin Galactic, she will have the opportunity to do something that eluded her 40 years ago. The space flight will take passengers to a point 60 miles above the earth where they will experience five minutes of weightlessness with amazing views of the planet, and then return for landing in New Mexico. The first flights are expected to begin in 2013. Until then Ms. Funk is staying busy training pilots, advising aerospace companies, and working the lecture circuit.
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Effort Will Mark First Time Army Has ECM Capability On Unmanned Aircraft Two electronic attack payloads in support of the U.S. Army's Networked Electronic Warfare, Remotely Operate>[...] | <urn:uuid:27b04b77-1315-4d86-85fb-8da37157b2a9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mailto:publisher@aero-news.net/index.cfm?do=main.textpost&id=8fe874a6-94b3-4471-b178-8bde20f6ec1d | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946584 | 555 | 2.1875 | 2 |
Feeding The Hungry
2012 Georgian Of The Year
Bill Bolling has dedicated his life to engaging, educating and empowering disparate – sometimes, desperate – people and institutions, bringing them together to solve the problems within their communities, coaxing the body politic to heal itself. It’s been one long and elaborate game of connect-the-dots for Bolling, who is genetically inclined to always say yes, but does not want this story to be about him. He wants it to be about the dots.
“In fact, it’s very uncomfortable on a certain level to get plucked out as the guy who did this or that, because one never works alone,” says Bolling, founder and executive director of the Atlanta Community Food Bank (ACFB). “I guess I did create what we might call the container that allows all this good work to go on. But I did that with the help of a lot of other people.
“It’s all about the community. It always has been, and I’m just one among the many.”
Nonetheless, this is Bolling’s story, because he’s Georgia Trend’s 2012 Georgian of the Year, for creating and growing and maintaining the container – he also calls it a tool – that has been feeding hungry people since 1979, when he started the South’s first food bank (and one of the nation’s first) in the basement of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Atlanta.
And his job has never seemed so critical. A miserable economy, high unemployment, increased poverty and a disappearing middle class are adding up to more hunger, and the ACFB has responded, increasing food distribution by more than 30 percent a year for the past three years.
Without increasing staff and utilizing more than 1,000 volunteers a month, the ACFB dispersed about 34 million pounds of food in fiscal 2010-2011 to more than 700 partner agencies in 38 North Georgia counties, including Metro Atlanta, and Bolling doesn’t expect the trend to reverse any time soon, either.
“For the past several years, we were all just working harder, thinking that this economic climate was an anomaly and things would go back to the way they were. I don’t think it’s going back.
“But we’re not broke; we’re not without resources,” he says, meaning the collective “we,” all of us, not the ACFB by itself. “I think that maybe we were intoxicated before. We started to feel like we were owed all this … stuff. And this is our wake-up call. We weren’t owed anything, so now let’s figure out what really has value.”
Leave it to Bolling, the eternal optimist, to find a silver lining even as more stomachs are growling.
“In my talks, I always say there aren’t many good things that can come out of a depression or a recession or whatever this is. But when I say that we’re distributing 34 percent more food, and dealing with the logistics of that, all the trucks, the warehouse, it just means that thousands more people are helping their neighbors,” he says.
“It’s really neat to see what people are capable of doing for each other in uncertain times. In the past, so many of us used to think of those ‘other people’ or that ‘other guy.’ Maybe they were immigrants, maybe they were poor people, maybe they had personal problems and made bad choices, but they were the ‘others.’
“Now, that ‘other guy’ is your brother-in-law or your neighbor.”
Bolling says that 20 percent of the people looking for assistance through the ACFB today have never asked for help before. And when you consider that about half of the people fed through the ACFB have jobs but aren’t earning a livable wage, it’s easy to understand the thoughts and emotions driving the Occupy movement.
“We’re living in a new reality,” says Bolling. “It’s a challenge for all of us in America right now, and we’re operating out of fear. Fear is the common denominator. It’s what sells today. It’s the core emotion we’re dealing with as a society.
“We should remember that for over 200 years we’ve faced every challenge. We’ve gone through tough times. It’s what gives us character. So, we’re in one of those times now. But if your orientation in life is to see problems as opportunities, then we are living in incredible times right now.”
Bolling was the only kid in tiny Denton, N.C., who drove a tractor to Little League practice. The tractor was a gift from his grandfather, Ben Carroll, who told him to plough gardens all around the rural town for widows and people who didn’t have much of their own.
“That was the world I grew up in. Everybody seemed to help everybody,” says Bolling, who was six when his birth father died and he moved with his mother, Becky, to live in a house Carroll built just for them.
Becky eventually married Don Garner, a man that Bill still thinks of as “Dad,” not stepdad. Garner owned a small broom manufacturing company, which is where Bill spent most of his after-school hours, working and letting the entrepreneurial spirit sink in.
But he inherited his sense of community service from his grandfather, who was the city manager, policeman and dogcatcher (among other things) in Denton, a city of about 800 some 40 miles south of Winston-Salem. And when a house caught on fire in the middle of the night, he’d wake up his eight-year-old grandson Bill, who lived next door.
“I was his sidekick,” Bolling says. “We also had a little farm on the edge of town, raised some animals, grew our own food. And my grandfather would go out and lease more land and grow more food. We’d fill up the truck and ride around town – he knew where the needy families lived.
“I guess my grandfather was the first food banker I ever met.”
Bolling joined the Air Force at 17, right after high school, and spent almost two years in Vietnam working on C-130s’ airborne navigation systems. He saw plenty of combat from the air, got shot at, and it left its mark.
“Those are big markers in a young life, going to war,” says Bolling.
When he left the Air Force in 1969, he got involved in the anti-war movement and the Civil Rights Movement and got seriously involved in his spiritual journey.
He worked a thousand jobs, give or take, and was, at different times, a carpenter, surveyor, salesman and carpet cleaner, went to college at Appalachian State (Boone, N.C.) on the GI Bill, then moved to Georgia for grad school (he studied Humanistic Psychology at West Georgia College), met his wife, Haqiqa, and together they started an interfaith community on 10th and Myrtle streets in what was a rough part of Midtown Atlanta at the time.
The community worked with homeless people, the mentally ill, taught and practiced meditation, even started a restaurant, and Bolling discovered that he was an entrepreneur and a leader. He also started volunteering at St. Luke’s and learned to always say yes.
“I had been running a community kitchen for about four years and didn’t have a vision of what the food bank would be. For me it was a matter of getting some other congregations to open their doors and help feed the hungry,” Bolling says. “I actually went out and promised all these congregations all the food they needed if they would just open up. Lo and behold, one of them said yes, and I didn’t have the food!
“So that’s how the food bank started – I needed some place to store the food.”
He introduced himself to everyone he could in the food industry, and when someone called to say, “We found 15 tractor-trailer loads of this food in our warehouse, and its almost out of date … can you take it?” Well, the answer was yes.
“The answer is always yes. That’s how you learn to figure things out,” Bolling says. “I couldn’t keep 15 tractor-trailer loads in that basement, so you start thinking about who else you can share it with.”
St. Mary’s Food Bank Alliance, the world’s first, was established in Phoenix in 1967 by John van Hengel, who developed the food “banking” concept – individuals and resources (like grocery stores disposing of food in damaged packaging) could deposit food and funds, and social agencies could make withdrawals of food for their clients at no cost.
By the late 1970s the idea was spreading fast, and when Bolling started the ACFB, about a dozen others around the country were cropping up. They met to share knowledge and ideas, formed a national network called America’s Second Harvest (now known as Feeding America), and the ACFB had the franchise for the entire Southeast.
“I helped start food banks in North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida,” Bolling says.
The network grew within Georgia, too, as banks started in Savannah, Macon, Augusta – there are seven across the state today (an eighth is being developed in Gainesville) under the umbrella of the Georgia Food Bank Association, headquartered at the ACFB. Together, they serve more than 2,500 agencies that feed people in all 159 Georgia counties.
“Necessity was the mother of invention,” says Mike Firmin, founder and executive director of Golden Harvest Food Bank in Augusta, established in 1982.
“Second Harvest didn’t have Augusta in its expansion plan. It wasn’t considered a major food distribution center,” Firmin says. “But this community had great determination, and Bill saw that. He saw it in me and in how I described what we were doing in Augusta. He lent his support; he shared food and connections. Basically, he kind of discipled me in the food banking movement.”
Today, the Augusta food bank serves more than 400 nonprofit agencies in Georgia and South Carolina. And you can hear a bunch of those stories from other food banks across Georgia, nonprofit entrepreneurs whose core business is to feed the hungry by leveraging the resources in their communities.
“One of the great things about food banking is it provides a very real, locally governed structure for people of goodwill who want to make a difference to plug into, at every level, with their time or their money,” Firmin says.
And Bolling is the guy who first started rolling that social snowball. It’s grown to startling proportions.
The ACFB is now in its fourth location – a state-of-the-art, LEED-certified 129,000-square-foot facility (a first for any food bank in the country) that features one of the state’s largest rooftop solar power arrays. About 110 employees and hundreds of volunteers work in the acquisition, processing, packaging and shipping of food. They have a fleet of trucks that make deliveries to partner agencies all over the region, utilizing logistics software acquired from UPS and a fleet of 15 tractor-trailer trucks.
“We’re learning something new every day, and when you’ve got to learn something you ask yourself, ‘Who’s the best?’ Well, we were growing rapidly and we had a logistical challenge, but Atlanta is the center of logistics,” Bolling says. “We’ve got UPS. We’ve got Coca-Cola, which sends out 800 trucks a day. I invited all of them to the table to teach us.”
Bolling talks a lot about the table, about bringing people of different political or religious ideologies to the table where they discover common ground and goals.
“One of Bill’s key talents is his remarkable ability to engage the entire community, to relate to all segments of the community,” says Rob Johnson, chief operating officer at ACFB. “He’s always striving for inclusion of as many people as possible. One minute he’ll be talking and interacting with someone on the street, a homeless person, and the next he’ll be meeting with a senator or a CEO.”
Johnson, who started one of the first overnight homeless shelters in Atlanta, was one of Bolling’s early shoppers. He joined ACFB in the 1980s after doing a feasibility study that led to the launching of Atlanta’s Table, a pioneering partnership in which the ACFB picks up prepared, ready-to-eat food for quick turnaround from local restaurants, caterers and hotels. That program led to passage of a state law protecting food donors from liability. The ACFB handles about 600,000 pounds of prepared food every year now.
Through the years the ACFB has added a variety of other projects to its mission. The Community Gardens Project has inspired more than 175 gardens all over North Georgia. Communities are growing their own food, and by the way, the food bank collects about 100,000 pounds of food a year from these gardens to feed others.
Kids In Need provides school supplies for more than 300 Title I schools in a dozen systems. The Atlanta Prosperity Campaign connects working families and individuals to money-saving programs and existing benefits, such as earned income tax credits – last year they brought more than $22 million back into the pockets of people who really need the cash (i.e., not the proverbial one percent).
“See, that’s what I call economic development,” says Bolling, who has worked every angle he knows to make it all happen, but sees some tough challenges ahead.
There was federal stimulus to help meet the demand of the past couple of years. That money’s gone now, but while most banks were trying to figure out what to do with their federal cash injections, the food bank was putting its stimulus to work on the street.
And the food bank is looking at a 30 percent cut in aid from the USDA, even as it takes on the job of managing the federal TEFAP (The Emergency Food Assistance Program) contract for Georgia – a perfect example of public-private partnership that actually works.
“The collection, transportation and accounting for food? We do that better than the government can, so it makes perfect sense,” Bolling says. “A dollar coming into the food bank makes $7.30 worth of food going out the door. The government can’t come close to that. The TEFAP contract takes us beyond the rhetoric of ‘public-private’ to a better reality.”
But now he’s contemplating that rueful exercise that’s become a universal theme in a circle-the-drain economy – doing more with less. Emptier than usual shelves in the warehouse worry him, but a couple of new programs will help keep food moving, he says.
First, the ACFB is servicing retail stores like never before – 87 Walmarts, about 140 Krogers and 160 Publix stores. They get about three million pounds of food a year just from the Walmarts, and it serves as one of Bolling’s classic win-win scenarios.
“Walmart’s commitment in this was not feeding hungry people, it was to the environment. They’re one of the leading companies practicing environmental stewardship, so they’re committed to not putting stuff in landfills,” he says. “That’s stuff we can use.”
America throws away about 40 percent of the food it grows and packages, and Bolling has made it his life’s work to link that otherwise wasted resource with the people who need it. It has brought him in contact with the people who can afford to help.
“I’m not sure why I initially felt like I could go to CEOs or politicians, into boardrooms, but over time I’ve come to realize that I belong at those tables,” Bolling says. “We’re providing a huge community service, an asset, so I need to be at those tables, especially in these times. It’s all about creating win-win situations.”
He isn’t planning on retirement, not anytime soon, though the ACFB is in the midst of sustainability and succession planning.
“I’ll retire as executive director of the food bank some day, but as a sense of purpose, I think I’ll always be feeding hungry people,” he says.
It’s what sustains him, feeding hungry people and bringing others along for the ride, connecting those dots, changing lives, and by extension, maybe the world.
“When one person helps another person, that’s when transformation happens,” he says. Given Bolling’s line of work, and his Christian faith, he thinks often about the classic “stone soup” story and its Biblical relative, the parable of Jesus feeding the 5,000.
“Getting 5,000 different people to share their stash, that’s the big miracle,” he says. “This is our miracle today. That’s the story of the food bank.” | <urn:uuid:4801f8c6-a118-49bf-987a-cf536c03d3ef> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.georgiatrend.com/January-2012/Feeding-The-Hungry/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97234 | 3,793 | 1.664063 | 2 |
The word telephone is etymologically Greek: it is a combination of tēle, meaning "afar, far off," and phōnē, "sound, voice.”1 Historically, the word has been used to designate a variety of devices that convey sound over great distances. As far back as 1828, Sudree used the word to name his device that sent signals by musical notes.2 “By the mid-nineteenth century in German, and to a lesser extend in French and English,” Brian Winston writes, “all devices which relayed sound through whatever medium were known in both scientific and popular literature as telephones.”3 These uses, according to the OED, are now obsolete. Today, the word specifically denotes an apparatus for transmitting sound, especially that of the voice, by means of electricity to another telephone. Unlike the radio which transmits unidirectional sound, the telephone functions by reciprocity. Every telephone, therefore, consists of a mouth- and earpiece, allowing for “real-time conversational interaction at a distance.”4
Alexander Graham Bell is today normally credited with its invention on March 10, 1876. Bell’s title as inventor, however, has been shadowed over with controversy since that day, the notable contenders being Elisha Gray and Antonio Meucci. Although the title of inventor is singular, the basic working telephone we find in people’s homes today was a plural creation, involving the work of Bell, Gray, Edison and Hunnings, amongst others. The telephone grew out of the telegraph. Inventors worked to transmit the human voice through the telegraph wire. Johan Philip Reis’s telephon, first exhibited in 1861, failed to transmit human speech adequately because it was based upon the telegraph’s technique of sending information by turning the wire on and off. Bell’s, on the other hand, succeeded because he kept the wire on. This enabled Bell to transmit speech by “causing an electric current to vary its intensity precisely as the air varies its density during the production of a sound.”5 Thus, the telephone wire extended human speech beyond its pre-electrical boundaries.
The telephone improved communication beyond extending the reach of the human voice and ear. It made the act of communication nearly effortless, as people only needed to pick up the phone and dial some numbers, if they were not first connected to a switchboard operator, to reach whomever they wanted to contact, whereas before the telephone’s invention people were forced to travel or use an intermediary who traveled to send a message. Although the telegraph did exist before the telephone, people were still required to travel outside their homes to use one. The phone also quickened the pace of communication, enabling people to reach each other within seconds and to exchange information in real time. The only limits to telephonic communication then were the reach of the wires and the price of service, both of which had improved by “1925,” so that “most Americans,” as Fischer writes, “could speak to one another across town or across country quickly, back and forth, fully.”6 Global communication was thus only a matter of time.
The form of each medium affects its use. Thus, as Claude Fischer writes, “the early telephone, because of party lines and poor sound quality, was an instrument for practical purposes, not sociability.”7 Although true, this statement is an overgeneralization. Rural women socialized over the phone despite the above problems, and even took advantage of the party line to hold open community forums.8 Inevitably, as sound quality improved and people began to get separate lines, the phone became more of a social device, because it allows for real time verbal interaction, and by its nature is intimate and informal. Intimate, for it carries the voice and its personal inflections and tones, and it does so sensually, as McLuhan observes: the telephone “unites voice and ear in an especially close way . . . so it is quite natural to kiss via phone.”9 Moreover, personal expression and affect are easily conveyed through the telephone, whether intended or not.10 In addition, Meyrowitz argues, communication via the telephone is less formal than it is through print. Direct and live, the telephone conversation is “more spontaneous and less contrived.”11 Since people can articulate their thoughts through dialogue while on the telephone, conversations over it tend to be more non-linear than print. Furthermore, telephonic communication involves the aid of non-verbal cues such as tone and inflection, which makes it both less formal and more intimate than print. As Meyrowitz claims, “Without nonverbal cues, careful construction and rewriting are needed to capture the correct ‘feeling.’ Sarcasm, teasing, and other nuances of meaning are easily lost in [print]. This is why even intimate love letters tend to have a ‘formal’ quality, while . . . telephone conversations seem quite intimate and personal.”12
While the above aspects make the phone ideal for long distance relationships, they make it dangerous for politics. McLuhan notes how Kennedy preferred to communicate with the Kremlin by teletype and not by telephone.13 Type allows people to step back from the heat and pressure of real time dialogue to collect their thoughts and develop as well as articulate their standpoints, whereas “the telephone demands complete participation, unlike the written and printed page.”14 People can also hide their anger, frustration and passion behind print, which is difficult to do over the phone. In addition, the very speed of telephonic communication has its dangers. Tom Gunning writes, “The apparent compression of time can, in fact, cause a precipitate collapse of the process of reflection. Kern theorizes, for instance, that instantaneous communication through cable and telephone artificially speeded up the July crisis that led to World War I, as technological haste propelled ultimatums and responses into a scenario of unstoppable confrontation.”15
Although not the safest medium for the exchange of volatile political views and decisions, the telephone is arguably democratic. Private, not normally censured and leaving no communicative trace by itself, the telephone enables dissenting voices. Plus, its decentralized form promotes lateral interchange and a plurality of voices. The telephone can therefore oppose the homogenizing force of radio and other centralized media, which broadcast to the many from one controlled center. Furthermore, to use centralized and public media normally requires the permission of an authority, who may not allow transmission [link]. Equally significant, the phone is available to everyone, since its use, unlike print media, requires no training.
Kennedy’s desire to use another medium than the telephone to communicate with the Kremlin seems to manifest an awareness shared by so many others of the telephone as an “intruder in time or place.”16 Carolyn Marvin, for example, writes, “The telephone was the first electric medium to enter the home and unsettle customary ways of dividing the private person and family from the more public setting of the community.”17 To pick up the phone is to invite someone into your home, for the telephone is, as Marshal McLuhan claims of all media, an extension of man. Beyond the fact that the earpiece is modeled on the structure of the human ear, the telephone extends the user’s ear and voice to what McLuhan describes as an “extra sensory perception.”18 That is, the caller’s sense of hearing and his or her voice enter into the receiver’s space, and vice versa. On the phone, we inhabit a new space that is neither side of the call exclusively but a mix of the two, both more and less than the space we inhabited before we picked up the phone. We are no longer fully attentive to our own immediate space nor are we fully capable of extending ourselves into the space at the other end of the call. Still, to call someone is to hear not only his or her voice but also the background in which he or she lives.
Later technologies added onto the basic telephone have erected a barrier between the public and private, however. Services, such as caller ID, answering machines and voice mail have changed the way the phone brings the outside world into peoples’ private worlds. Before the invention of the answering machine, it was necessary for one to answer the phone if one wanted to know who was at the other end and the purpose of the call. Today, the receiver can choose not to pick up the phone and still discover who called and why. The phone is now a less obtrusive medium and many treat it like mail, having the choice of whether or not they will engage the caller and if so, when they will.
Not surprisingly, the popularization of the cellular or mobile phone has brought about many changes in the nature of telephonic communication. Text messaging, for example, has become very popular, since it allows people to communicate efficiently without the participatory obligations of a phone call. The cellular phone has also enabled people to call on the move, achieving what Leopoldina Fortunati calls a “nomadic intimacy.”19 This has, in turn, made the telephone’s intrusion bidirectional, with the private sphere now encroaching upon the public. People can have intimate conversations in whatever public space they find themselves as long as they have cellular service. Fortunati envisions this altering our relation to the public. “The mobile phone,” she writes, “is a device that enables people, when they perceive the surrounding environment as extraneous to them, to contact somebody of their intimate circle, that is, to activate the reassuring procedure of recognition.”20 This capacity, she argues, keeps people from “discovering and living directly everything that social space can offer.”21 This closure to new discourses and viewpoints available in the public, Fortunati writes, “implies remaining closed inside a rigid and inert kind of discourse, because [with intimates] one tends to say the same things, to repeat the same procedures in conversation, and so on.”22
There is much controversy over the effects of the telephone. Scholars dispute whether it has eroded or strengthened local communities. They also argue whether the telephone has made conversations generally shallower or not. Additionally, debates continue over whether it has increased anxiety about security and privacy and the general place of the domestic sphere. With the popularization of the cellular phone, fear has spread over the probability of it to cause cancer. Despite these concerns, however, people often report feelings of isolation, uneasiness and loss of control when they lose telephone service.23 Thus, most people risk the possible negative consequences above, because the phone has now become what we might safely call a necessity, a true extension of man. | <urn:uuid:c4d3298b-3e07-40d6-a5ca-cf3cdbcb3e5b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://csmt.uchicago.edu/glossary2004/telephone(2).htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958398 | 2,265 | 4.0625 | 4 |
South of US-12 I pass the state Fishery Research Station. The Native Americans knew of salt springs here, and when French travelers came up the river by canoe, they named it using their word for salt, saline. Years of drainage and agriculture have lowered the water table so much that the springs no longer flow. The York Mill was at this site until the 1940s.
At Stony Creek Road, I detour about a mile west to see what is left of the village of Mooreville. The sight of a large tree growing up through the porch of the abandoned church is jarring. Mooreville lost out to Milan when the railroad came through, suffering the indignity of having buildings moved to be closer to where the action was.
About halfway between Milan Dragway and the little hamlet of Grape, the Saline, Macon, and Raisin rivers join together. In the 1807 Treaty of Detroit, the Potawatomi surrendered most of southeast Michigan but retained land here called the Macon Reserve.
The road is called North Custer now (South Custer runs parallel on the other side of the River Raisin). At Raisinville, some old buildings are preserved by the Monroe County Historical Society. The little brick schoolhouse was built in the 1850s. The white Navarre House next door was built in 1789--the first of George Washington's eight years as president. | <urn:uuid:73db24ad-84dd-4672-aac2-4c413a9d7732> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://arborweb.com/articles/remember_the_raisin__4.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95844 | 284 | 2.890625 | 3 |
Using 3D printing to fix ancient artifacts
Published on December 13th, 2012 | by Sevaan Franks2
Researchers at Harvard University’s Semitic Museum are using 3D printers to recreate a ceramic lion that was destroyed 3,000 years ago by the Assyrians during an attack on the Mesopotamian city of Nuzi. [Thx to Bryan for the link!]
Using a process called photomodeling, the Harvard team photographed sculpture fragments in the museum’s collection from hundreds of angles to create 3-D renderings of each piece, then meshed them together to form a semi-complete 3-D model of the original artifact. They compared the digital model to scans of full statues found in the same location, noting the gaps and creating the missing pieces and support structures out of 3-D printed parts and CNC carved foam. The technique worked successfully: The reconstituted sculpture will be displayed at the museum when this gallery is reinstated in 2014-15, but will likely be online well before that.
Story: Joseph Flaherty, Wired | Photo: Learning Sites/Neathawk Signs and Designs | <urn:uuid:ba273c9c-f9b3-4e97-b93c-2e671ad1edb6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ablogabouthistory.com/2012/12/13/using-3d-printing-to-fix-ancient-artifacts/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92728 | 234 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Contrast this contemptuous performance with [Christopher Hitchens's] enduring sympathies for his long-admired (but now ex-) friend Noam Chomsky, a man who spent the cold war years denying the Cambodian holocaust, promoting a denier of the Jewish Holocaust, and comparing America — unfavorably — to the Third Reich.
Loyalty to bad commitments leads to moral incoherence, which also manifests itself in Christopher [Hitchen's] choices of friends and enemies. The epic struggle against totalitarianism for much of the 20th Century was America’s cold war against the Soviet empire. But during the last decades of this cold war, Christopher’s platform was the Nation magazine – America’s leading journal [...]
While Obama made false parallels between Jews and Arabs as contributors to the intractability of the Middle East conflict and rewrote some history [in his June 4th speech to the Muslim world], he also said in no uncertain terms that it was Palestinians who had to renounce violence (and here he drew no parallels and [...]
A truly saddening state of affairs exists in Arlington, Massachusetts. Students at the local high school have not said the Pledge of Allegiance in decades. No American flag hangs in any classroom. Some school administrators have suggested that this is to avoid religious controversy over the unmentionable G-word contained within the Pledge. No one, of [...]
The following is taken from the new memoir by Christopher Hitchens entitled “Hitch-22.” Mr. Horowitz suggested the quote to give inspiration to our readers on this 4th of July.
Even if not without convolutions and contradictions, it became evident that the only historical revolution with any verve left in it, or any example to offer to [...]
Among my new comrades-in-arms, many began with second thoughts, having started out as Sixties radicals like myself. Indeed, in the last few years, the nation as a whole has begun to draw back from the radical decade and its destructive agendas. What I had learned, one way or another in the course of my journey, [...]
For all his wealth, [George] Soros’s greatest influence comes not from spending his own money, but by inducing other people to spend theirs. This is most obvious in his approach to the financial markets. Soros’s reputation as a financial prognosticator is such that legions of investors hang on his word, and buy or sell at [...]
In the political landscape, seismic shifts first occur below the surface. Only after accumulating a critical social mass do they become visible. Until then, one can track their movement in the growing incoherence of the political language, and in the terms we use to describe our political choices, like “liberal” and “conservative.”
But, as even the [...] | <urn:uuid:8522b5bd-b8c4-4aac-93f0-0396c44b3f08> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://frontpagemag.com/author/nichole-hungerford/page/5/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964875 | 580 | 1.914063 | 2 |
What are possible reasons why an
nmap -sT scan would show "ports filtered" but an identical
nmap -sS scan shows "ports closed"? I understand that
-sT is a full TCP Connect, which is easier to detect (and to filter) than the
-sS half open scan. But why?
Both types of scans send a SYN packet; both types of scans should expect back a SYN|ACK or a RST. The only difference that I see is that the half open scan will send a RST instead of finishing the connection handshake.
Also, I ran the command
nmap -sT -P0 which tells nmap not to send a ping first (I think it typically does both a TCP ping and an ICMP ping). Doing that command causes it to respond with "ports closed" which is identical to the
-sS scan response. Is that because
-sT is normally being blocked due to pinging first?
That's my assumption, but I want some more experienced opinions about what I am seeing and what types of scans I can do to investigate further. Btw, I am of course allowed to be doing these scans (class work). | <urn:uuid:0286d254-54ea-409e-9cbb-cb76822ae9db> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/31174/why-does-an-nmap-st-scan-show-ports-filtered-but-ss-shows-ports-closed?answertab=active | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954687 | 252 | 1.554688 | 2 |
The Bacon Memorial window was donated by the Friends of Norwich Cathedral in 1984. It is dedicated to Sir Edmund Bacon, High Steward of the cathedral from 1956 to 1970 and was collected and arranged by Dennis King (G King and Sons).
The central panel contains the armorial achievement of Sir Edmund including his Garter and motto "Mediocria firma". It is a modern piece made by G King & Sons.
The remaining glazing consists of reused medieval glass mainly from the church of St Andrew, Tottington, Norfolk and from Nowton Court, Suffolk.
At the foot of the left and right lights representations of St Mark, as a winged lion and St Matthew as "The Winged Man," both were originally located at Tottington. They both date from the period 1330 - 40. Between the two Evangelists in the central, is a lovely representation of the Virgin and Child. Of unknown origin it dates from a similar period.
Above the Evangelists are the Apostles St Matthew and St Thomas. Although their "bodies" date from c1300 their heads were replaced in the 15th century. The space between the panels and the canopies has been filled with fragments including a border made of alternating vine leaves and squirrels.
To see more detail and information on the origin of each piece place your cursor over the highlighted panels in the window | <urn:uuid:741f14dc-3dae-42f1-908f-89f1cfcf1e49> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.norfolkstainedglass.co.uk/Cathedral/jesus_n2_general.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976386 | 279 | 2.34375 | 2 |
- Zounds! A spectral mist arises over Georgetown. (Photo: TBD Staff)
So this is why they call it Foggy Bottom! Here is the view from K Street NW at Whitehurst Freeway late last Thursday night, when temperatures shot down precipitously and condensation made every surface clammy. A white wall of shuddersome fog higher than Key Bridge arose from the Potomac, staying neatly between its shores and stretching all the way from Southwest to Georgetown and northward. That's Rossyln in the background.
Was D.C. built on an Indian burial ground? Or was it the Mist? Both are intriguing possibilities, but ABC7 meteorologist Steve Rudin has a better explanation. Here's what Rudin has to say:
Ahhh, the wonders of cool nights and a quick warm-up thanks to the sun. Basically, this is evaporation. More moisture in the air over the river (or lake, for that matter) is contrasting with the "less" moist air over land. Poof: You get river fog.
Fall is a great time for river fog; the sudden temperature dips above moisture-breathing water call these spectral mists into existence late at night. In some parts of the U.S., fog can fill riverways and valleys throughout vast territory like blood coursing through twisted capillaries. For instance, look at this satellite image of Wisconsin during a fog breakout late in August 2009. The mists paint the location of the tributaries of the Wisconsin and Mississippi rivers:
And here's one more shot of the Potomac from last week. It's blurry, but hey, so was the fog: | <urn:uuid:d0015799-ef6c-4fb0-82a2-9032e2846b4e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wjla.com/blogs/weather/2011/10/river-fog-bursts-from-the-potomac-a-sign-of-fall-photo--13126.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934901 | 346 | 1.976563 | 2 |
Photo: Fossil exhibit in Venezuela
Three million years after being trapped in a tar pit, the fossils of 34 species of animals have been recovered and analyzed - including saber-toothed tigers and a new species of caiman - and will be able to be enjoyed by the public at an exhibit in Caracas.
The tar pit was more than 18,000 square meters (more than 190,000 square feet) in size and located in El Breal de Orocual, an area in the eastern Venezuelan state of Monagas, and it became a trap during the Pleistocene era where a large number of animals met their ends. Recently, their remains have been providing new information about the presence of certain species far from where they had been thought to reside.
Scientists infer from the remains, for instance, that an early mammal - perhaps a type of horse - was attacked by a tiger at the site but both beasts became stuck in the viscous tar bed, which at the time was covered by a very shallow lake.
Over the years, more and more animals became trapped in the deadly tar, including carrion-eating birds and insects, and thus since 2006 - when the first fossil find was made there - scientists have been able to analyze an entire ecosystem and six years later the tar pit was still providing revelations such as the discovery in late 2012 of a new species of alligator-like reptile dubbed the Caiman venezuelensis.
The fossils were found when state-owned oil giant Petroleos de Venezuela, or PDVSA, was building a pipeline, but the pipeline work was suddenly halted when workers found bones at the site.
Most of the skeletons of ancient animals recovered from the tar pit are now being exhibited for the public at the La Estancia Art Center belonging to PDVSA in the Venezuelan capital. | <urn:uuid:33196c43-5dab-4792-af91-776157ab8caa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hispanicallyspeakingnews.com/latino-daily-news/details/3-million-year-old-fossils-go-on-display-in-venezuela/21790/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981722 | 376 | 3.359375 | 3 |