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J. R. Miller, 1909
There is a strange story or tradition of a stone which was originally meant for an important place in the temple—but which was misunderstood and rejected by the builders. When the temple was about to be finished, one stone of peculiar shape was needed to complete it, and this stone could not be found. There was great excitement. "Where is the capstone?" the builders asked. The ceremonies waited, while search was made everywhere for the missing block.
Someone suggested, "Perhaps the stone which the builders condemned and threw away among the rubbish, is the one needed now for the place of honor." It was found and brought, and it fit perfectly. The stone was misunderstood by the builders. It came near being missed altogether, and if it had been there, would have been an unfilled space in the wall and an incomplete building. Continually the same occurs in life.
There are many people who do not seem to fit into any place among people. They do not appear to have ability for anything worth while, to possess qualities which will make them of value to the world. They are not brilliant, or strong, or skillful—nor do they seem likely to do anything to distinguish themselves. Perhaps they seem peculiar, eccentric. Yet later, they develop strength, ability, wisdom, even greatness, and fill important places in the world.
In a recent book, a number of pages are devoted to an account of eminent men for whom in their early years, their friends and teachers predicted failure. They were dullards, not showing any capacity. Afterwards, however, when they found themselves, these men became distinguished. Parents need not be discouraged if children at first seem unpromising, not caring for study. There may be hidden in their brain and heart, possibilities of power which will be brought out in certain circumstances, afterwards fitting them for important duties. God knows what he is doing when he is making men. He never makes one who has no place in the world. Even if it is a broken life, there is some place for it, some work it is specially fitted to do.
This truth is illustrated in life's common relations. There are many who are misunderstood and unappreciated, who do not get their proper requisite of praise and commendation. It is so in many homes. There are men who do not half understand the nobleness of their wives and the delicate beauty of their lives, nor appreciate the worth of self-denials and self-sacrifices which they continually make for their homes, and for those they love. There are many women who receive little commendation, who rarely hear even a kind, approving word—but who are honored by God because of the genuineness of their service and its lowliness and unselfishness. They have not found their true honor on earth—but some day it will be seen that their lives are for high places in the temple of God that is slowly rising.
A great many people everywhere—men as well as women—are not well understood. They have peculiarities which neutralize some of their good qualities. They are uncouth and unattractive in some ways. People do not see the good that is in them, do not value them at their true worth, underestimate and misunderstand them.
Here is a man whom many of his neighbors do not like. Something in his manners offends them, excites in them unkindly thoughts toward him. They say that he is not sincere, that he does not mean what he says. They judge him as lacking the elements of character which are essential to the best and most beautiful life. Yet those who know the man's inner life, are sure that his neighbors are mistaken in their judgment concerning him, that he has in him many good qualities. He is misunderstood. His neighbors' opinion about him are unjust. The best in him, does not appear. He is rejected by the builders as unfit for any place in the temple. He is not to men's tastes—and is thrown aside.
A strong plea should be made for the misunderstood and the unappreciated—and there are many of them. They are not taken into honored places. They are not elected to official positions, named on committees, nor called to act in conspicuous roles. They are left to work in obscurity, rejected by the builders and cast aside. We can do no better service than to become the friends of these who miss human favor and appreciation, to seek to be discoverers of worth and goodness which others overlook, and to strive to bring to recognition and into active, useful service—those who are in danger of being lost, forgotten, passed by and left to failure.
We should pray that we may see people—as God sees them, for he always sees the good, the best in everyone. He sees our possibilities—not what we are today—but what we may become through His grace and love tomorrow. We need to learn to be very patient with people until the worthy in them comes to its best.
Some fruits are not sweet until the late fall. Some people also ripen slowly, and it takes a long time before they become sweet, beautiful, helpful. We should not reject any life, because it is not yet beautiful, because it does not yet seem lovely. Wait and let God train and discipline it in his own way, and some day it may be ready to fill an important place.
The stone which the builders of society would reject as unfit, God may want at length as one of the finest ornaments in his temple. Let us be more patient with people whose faults offend us, who seem unfit or unworthy. Perhaps their faults are only unripenesses, or perhaps they are not faults at all, only peculiarities, which will prove to be elements of strength and beauty when the people find their true recognition. God has a place and a work for everyone. There will be a place by and by, for the misunderstood life; and the stone which the builders despise—God will use to be the head-stone somewhere.
Sometimes it is God himself who is misunderstood. Troubles come into our lives, and we ask, "Is God really always good? Does he indeed never cease to be kind? Does he care? Does he feel with us in our griefs and disappointments? Has he an interest in our lives? If he is our Father and cares—why does he permit us to suffer so?" We are in danger of misunderstanding God, and not accepting the love and care which are in his heart for us.
But God's work with us is not yet finished. We misunderstand it—because we have not yet seen it all. It is not just to criticize a picture—when the artist's work is not completed. Sometimes you read a story, and at the end of a certain chapter, all seems wrong. If the book ended there—you would feel that God was not kind. But there are other chapters yet to come—and as you read on, you learn how good came out of all that seemed hard, even unjust.
Human lives are serial stories. We may tell the bereft one who is questioning the divine goodness in the providence which so emptied her life—that God will stay with her, comfort her, and help her, causing all things to work together for good; and that some day she will find the love which she cannot now see.
If the story of Joseph had closed with the sale of the boy into Egypt, or when he was cast into the dungeon on a false accusation, we could not have claimed that good is the final outcome of God's care. We must finish the story—and then we shall find that there is a Hand which directs all human affairs and brings good out of all evil. Many times we think our circumstances in life, are anything but kindly. It does not seem to us possible that these rough, unfitting things can be built into the temple of our lives as beautiful stones. In our experiences there may be some threatening loss, some bitter trial impending, or some painful thing that has already come upon us—which we feel we cannot possibly build into the perfect temple. Yet this may be the very stone which God had prepared for the most important place in all the building! Some day you will say of it, "The stone which I, the builder, would have rejected, has become the head-stone! This is the Lord's doing, and it is marvelous in my eyes."
Do not reject, then, the experiences of sorrow, pain, and adversity. You do not see how these can become a good, a joy, a blessing in your life. But wait until God has worked out his plan to completion! The divine purpose in all providences, is to make men—and all his making is very good. Doubt not, therefore, that the very stone which to your eye and thought seems so unfit, so unsuitable for building into the temple of your life, God will use to fill an essential place by and by, perhaps to be the chief adornment in your character when complete.
Our Lord in the Gospels used the incident of the rejected stone, as applying to himself. He was the stone which the builders rejected—but which God made to be the corner-stone. The rulers had a mistaken idea of the Messiah. They thought he would be a mighty earthly king, who would free them from their subject condition and make them a great nation that should conquer the whole world. They had not learned the sacrificial idea of the Messiah, given in such prophecies as the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah. So when Jesus came, lowly, meek, loving, unresisting, they did not believe that he was the promised Messiah and would not accept him. They misunderstood him.
There are many people today, who do not approve of Christ. They do not like his way of helping and saving. They do not think he is the Friend they need. The life to which he invites them, does not attract them. They do not think he can lead them to the best things, the best character, the deepest joy, the truest usefulness.
In the tradition, there came a day when one particular stone was needed, must be had, or the building would not stand complete. Then the stone which had been despised, which had been thrown away, proved to be the only one that would fit and fill the place. The teaching is simple and plain. Men despise and reject Jesus Christ—but there will come a time when no one but Christ will fit into their soul's need.
For example, Saul did not think that Jesus was the Messiah. He was sincere and conscientious in his persecution of him. He regarded him as an impostor and rejected him. He sought to destroy all who believed on him. He thought he was pleasing God in his persecutions. One day near Damascus he had a wonderful vision. He saw a divine Being shining in heavenly glory. He was startled, amazed, and fell to the earth. "Who are you, Lord?" he asked. "I am Jesus," was the answer. Instantly Saul saw that Jesus was no impostor—but the Son of God. He accepted him now as the Messiah. From that moment Jesus took the supreme place in Saul's life. The stone which the builders rejected, became the corner-stone, the glory of his life, the hope of his soul.
They only misunderstand Christ, who think he is not all they need. Your life will always be incomplete, unfinished, until Christ is received into his own place in it.
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The New York Times is reporting that Google is making the case that they just aren't that big, especially from an anti-trust point of view. While they certainly corner the market in search, advertising, and online video, Dana Wagner, Google's "senior competition counsel," is working hard to convince the public that "competition is a click away." "None of the investigations take aim at Google's core advertising business. And unlike other technology giants in years past, Google has not been accused of anticompetitive tactics. But the investigations and carping from competitors and critics have Google fighting to dispel the notion that it has a lock on its market, even as it increases its share of search and online advertising. Eyes are rolling, especially in reaction to the idea that Google is a relatively small player in a giant market. 'They describe where they are in a market under a kind of a fairy-tale spun gloss that doesn't reflect their dominance of key sectors,' said Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy. 'Google search is an absolute must-have for every marketer in the world.'" | <urn:uuid:b05fd54d-8aca-4296-aff4-3f2c52b860a9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/06/29/1625230/google-claims-they-just-arent-that-big?sdsrc=prevbtmprev | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969828 | 225 | 1.609375 | 2 |
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Century-old message in a bottle found
WHEN a workman started knocking down part of a chimney in a museum he found a letter in a beer bottle that had lain hidden for 102 years.
Stonemason Joe Kipling discovered the bottle as he worked on a major alteration project at the Bowes Museum, in Barnard Castle.
Museum officials were delighted yesterday when they read the letter, which had been handwritten in 1906 by Owen Stanley Scott, who was the curator and secretary of the museum at the time.
It states that the flue was one of a number being blocked up in April 1906 when stoves used to heat the building were superseded by a hot water central heating system.
It goes on: “I wonder if this flue will ever be reopened? If it should be, and this bottle should still survive, the finder may be interested to find this brief record, which I now deposit.
“I, the writer, am the second curator of the museum, and have held the appointment for nearly 22 years. I am nearly fifty four years of age – a Churchman and Conservative, and a Past Master of the Barnard Lodge of Freemasons, No 1230.”
Mr Kipling, who is 18 and lives in Barnard Castle, said: “I was amazed to see the bottle.
Luckily, I managed to pull it clear before pieces of stone could fall on it.
“Once we got the letter out, everyone was thrilled to see that it was written more than 100 years ago. I’m going to get a photocopy of it framed to hang up at home.”
Peter Baker, site manager for the building scheme, said: “It was exciting for all the lads when this relic was found. It gives everyone a lift when an interesting artefact like this is discovered during any building operation.”
The chimney, which stretches from the ground floor to the roof of the building, is being removed to make way for a new archway near the main entrance.
Once the project is completed, the bottle, with its label stating that it once contained Usher’s beer, will be put on display with the letter and an explanation of how it was found.
Adrian Jenkins, presentday director of the museum, which was opened to the public in 1892, said: “It is fascinating to have come across this link to the past. In return, we are planning to put a time capsule somewhere in the walls before the project is completed. Hopefully, it too will be discovered some time in the future.” | <urn:uuid:a98e27ca-f6ac-4885-8712-16b47a552728> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/3992673.Century_old_message_in_a_bottle_found/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973765 | 561 | 2.1875 | 2 |
A TOWNSVILLE breastfeeding advocate has likened the furore surrounding public breastfeeding to racial discrimination.
Donna Clayton-Smith said discriminating against breast feeding was no different to a restaurant refusing to serve a person because of the colour of their skin.
Ms Clayton-Smith said if public buildings needed wheelchair access ramps to not discriminate against the disabled, then people should also support mums who breastfeed.
The comments come after a young mother was told she could not breastfeed at a public swimming pool at Bribie Island, north of Brisbane, last week.
Liana Webster said she was forced to leave the pool after staff insisted she stop breastfeeding her 11-month old baby by the pool.
Her story was followed up by Channel 7 Sunrise, with host David Koch saying he supported breastfeeding mothers but that women should be "classy" about doing it in public.
His comments prompted a backlash, with about 100 mothers and babies attending a "nurse-in" outside the breakfast show's Martin Place studio in Sydney yesterday.
Koch conceded he was a "bit of a dinosaur" but stood by his remarks.
Ms Clayton-Smith, who counsels local mums, said the Bribie Island incident was not an isolated case.
She said one Townsville mother had been told that she should not breastfeed in a food court and other mums had complained of feeling intimidated at public swimming spots.
"Unfortunately, discrimination is real. And it shouldn't be," she said.
"Mothers are protected by legislation. Breastfeeding in public is a lawful act. A mother should feel safe to breastfeed anywhere because when a baby wants to be fed, it wants to be fed then and there."
Erin Kiernan of Kirwan is mum to six-week-old Addison and 21-month-old Dominic and hopes the current debate educates the public.
After Dominic was born, Mrs Kiernan used a wrap to cover herself while breastfeeding in public.
"But I gave it up when I realised just how awkward it was to hold a wrap in place while trying to feed a restless child," Mrs Kiernan, 26, said.
"I stopped worrying about what others thought and just focused on him. I felt calmer and so did he."
The confident mum recalls only one incident when she has felt uncomfortable breastfeeding baby Addison in public.
"There was a man staring and I thought he was going to say something about me breastfeeding in the food court," she said.
"But he actually came over and congratulated me which was nice."
But it is not just breastfeeding mothers who have reported discrimination.
Ms Clayton-Smith said one local mother had felt judged for bottle-feeding her baby in public.
"She was chastised for not breastfeeding her child," she said. "You just can't win."
DISCRIMINATION CONCERNS: Erin Kiernan feeding six-week-old Addison and breastfeeding advocate Donna Clayton-Smith | Photo: ZAK SIMMONDS
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From despair to rejoicing
Soon, the Jewish people will commemorate the saddest period of the Jewish calendar, known as the Three Weeks of Distress, beginning with the fast of Shivah Asar b’Tammuz and concluding with the fast of Tisha b’Av.
According to tradition, the Babylonians breached the walls of Jerusalem during the First Temple period on the 17th of Tammuz. Three weeks later, on Tisha b’Av, both the First and Second Temples were destroyed, first by the Babylonians in 586 BCE and the second time by the Romans in 70 CE.
The Talmud contains a wide array of views explaining the causes of why our Holy Temple was destroyed. Many of the recorded positions posit failings in inter-relationships between Jews and fellow Jews. The most famous rationale offered, although it’s not the only one, is called “sinat chinam,” baseless self-hatred between Jews and fellow Jews. This particular explanation surrounds the discussion on the events that led to the destruction of our Second Holy Temple.
During the Second Temple period, we know that the Jewish People were divided into many smaller Jewish communites: Pharisees, Saducees, Essenes, Zealots, the Dead Sea sect, etc. Could it be that the sinat chinam between these various communities prevented our ancestors from seeing that they all comprised one Jewish people? If so, one can understand how the Holy Temple and the city of Jerusalem were taken from Jewish sovereignty.
How would one assess the state of the Jewish people today? Rabbi Mark Angel, authored an essay, “Two communities – one destiny,” that appeared in Ha’aretz on May 23. He wrote that the Jewish People today may be classified as those who do not abide by Halachah, those who abide by it rigidly, and those who abide by Halachah compassionately. He voices his concern that while there are different Jewish communities today, everyone needs to step forward and address the notion that we are all part of one Jewish people.
This month, I am completing my two-year term as president of the Toronto Board of Rabbis, which comprises rabbis from different communities in the GTA who recognize that we represent a single Jewish peoplehood. We are extremely grateful to UJA Federation of Greater Toronto, which has actively supported our efforts. We also thank the Canadian Jewish News for enabling members of the Toronto Board of Rabbis to write their rabbinic reflections over the years.
As we prepare to commemorate the sad season of the Three Weeks, may we all do our best in trying to actualize the expression, “Mi’yagon l’simchah,” doing whatever we can as a unified Jewish people consisting of many communities to transform the sadness and despair of this season on our calendar to joy and celebration.
Rabbi Howard Morrison is spiritual leader of Beth Emeth Bais Yehuda Synagogue and president of the Toronto Board of Rabbis. | <urn:uuid:a318d4b4-41d5-4579-b648-f531cf1720ee> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cjnews.com/columnists/despair-rejoicing | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966583 | 622 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Kids don’t need sports psychologists, personal athletic trainers or controversial Speedos to get a confidence boost and mental edge similar to that of an Olympic athlete. High-quality mental training comes from a lot of different places – you just need to know where to look.
The Mental Edge
Olympic athletes spend years trying to get it. Hundreds of books have been written on it. And coaches often say it’s the difference between winning and losing. It is the mental edge -- having the mental and emotional skills needed to excel.
These skills generally include: concentration, focus, attention, goal setting, energy management, self-confidence, commitment, poise under pressure and visualization.
Olympic athletes spend years honing these skills, and go to great lengths: The U.S. Olympic women’s softball team has performed Navy SEAL training. The Chinese swim team practices yoga, is learning English and spends hours in group problem-solving sessions. Others commit to biofeedback, hypnosis and extremely strict routines to try to get mentally tough. However, the mental edge can come from a lot more common outlets.
It was Karate that Judy Maddox turned to 20 years ago, after a doctor diagnosed her three boys with ADHD. “He told me to get them into a program that would help with focus and attention, and Karate helped immediately,” Maddox says. “It motivated them, they started paying attention, burning energy, and gaining confidence and self-control.”
Maddox joined her boys in training, earned her black belt four years later, then opened her own Universal Kempo Karate center. Since then, she’s trained thousands of people and says she sees daily how martial arts help people build mental skills. “They learn how to visualize and imagine success. It teaches discipline, respect, focus. They’re learning how to control themselves, how to keep on task and ignore distractions. And it’s not just on the mat. Those skills spread to their home life, school, relationships and sports.”
High school football coach Monte Gutowski agrees. “Positive thinking, having confidence in yourself, believing in your team’s ability to accomplish something, that’s half the battle,” says the new head coach.
He relies on visualization and relaxation techniques and may occasionally turn to the school district psychologist for help in teaching those skills. “So much of any sport is mental,” Gutowski says. “Anything you can do to boost those abilities will help you become a better athlete.”
So if you want to be a better athlete by getting that mental edge, but you just can’t justify the sports hypnotist, brain scans, or military training, look around. Great opportunities may be closer than you think. | <urn:uuid:3d8dd3a0-daf9-49b3-afa4-2fceb632ddab> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://redbank.patch.com/blog_posts/want-the-mental-edge-of-an-olympian | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962472 | 589 | 2.5625 | 3 |
- Historic Sites
Britain’s Yankee Whaling Town
The curious story of Milford Haven
June/july 1985 | Volume 36, Issue 4
Starbuck was impressed. It was an offer he could hardly refuse. Thus, in the summer of 1793 thirteen whaling vessels carrying some fifty Quakers belonging to seven families, plus 182 seamen, crept past the rocky jaw of St. Ann’s Head on the Welsh coast and into the safety of Milford Haven.
This, then, was to be their newfound home—a gentle hillside sloping down to the sheltered sea, with only a few white stone farmhouses to relieve the emptiness. It was up to the Americans to put the unborn town on the map of Britain.
Of two families in particular we have detailed evidence: the Starbucks and the Folgers. Of the others little is known, but contemporary records mention the names of Barney, Basset, Coffin, Gayer, Tibbetts, and Vaughan. Benjamin Rotch joined the Milford Haven settlement from Dunkirk slightly later.
During the early months, Greville housed the Quakers in the neighboring mansions of the gentry. He had already envisaged what he called “a fix’t plan” for Milford Haven comprising three main terraces linked by intersections at right angles. Some experts attribute the gridiron street plan to Greville’s architect, a French, naval designer named Jean-Louis Barrallier. Others credit the plan to the Quakers themselves, who had seen New York and approved its street planning.
On one point, however, there can be no dispute: the houses built by the Quakers for their own use are essentially New England in style. Staring boldly out to sea, they have the same austere lines—and, in some cases, the same shingled walls—that are found in the New England whaling ports of Salem, Mystic, and New Bedford. Nowhere in Britain is the atmosphere of early America so strong and so persistent. Visitors from New England often experience a ghostly sense of “home”—even when they are unaware of the American roots of the place.
The year 1802 saw the greatest event in the town’s history. People still talk about it. The occasion was a visit to Milford Haven by the living legend himself, Horatio Nelson, together with his mistress, the delectable second Lady Hamilton. In attendance, as always, was the ever-forgiving and pliant Sir William. Samuel Starbuck, though hardly approving of such a notorious triangle, was nevertheless sufficiently awed to report the fact that he had seen the famous Lady Hamilton sitting in the window of the inn (now the Lord Nelson Hotel) gazing out to sea “enraptured.”
At a public dinner, Nelson praised the Americans in particular, noting that “they have been enabled to send eight ships to the South Seas and thus establish the whaling industry in Milford Haven.” To crown it all, he pronounced the Haven and Trincomalee in Ceylon as the finest harbors he had ever seen. They were flattering words—and still proudly quoted whenever Milford Haven is seeking new industrial investment.
By now the Quakers were spreading their commercial wings. Some went in for brewing and milling. Others opened yards for ship repairs and construction. Benjamin Rotch started a bank, dealt in real estate, and bought himself a mansion. When Abigail Starbuck died in 1801, the Friends acquired a burial ground and eventually built a meetinghouse on the site. It is still there, surrounded by the final resting places of the families who left America in search of the Promised Land in Wales. This is the most evocative and poignant section of modern Milford Haven. The simple granite slabs carry only the plain initials of the Quakers, but they are touching reminders of their courage and devotion to adventure, as are the names of the nearby streets —Nan tucket Avenue, Dartmouth Gardens, and Starbuck Road.
Was that the end of Milford Haven’s American connection?
Not quite. The arrival of the railroad inspired new thoughts of glory in the town. They reached a peak of optimism when an American merchant proposed to build a fleet of fast ships to carry passengers and freight across the Atlantic in record time. They were to ply between New York and Milford Haven, thus avoiding the dangerous passage through the Irish Sea to Liverpool.
Only one liner actually made the trip. In 1889 the City of Rome arrived at Milford Haven carrying Barnum’s circus. The 134 passengers had to be transferred by tender because the anchorage was too shallow, and despite euphoric noises from the local business community the experiment was never repeated. The London Financial News said unkindly: “Milford has been the port of the future for so long that it is surely time that the future took account of the limitations of the present.”
In the 1960s, oil—crude rather than whale—again came to the rescue. Scores of giant storage tanks are located near Milford Haven, and major American and British oil companies provide much of the region’s employment. They intrude upon, but in no way spoil, the soft beauty of the landscape. | <urn:uuid:b3183bf7-195f-4720-8ebe-64dad84bc9ef> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.americanheritage.com/content/britain%E2%80%99s-yankee-whaling-town-0?page=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00051-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963414 | 1,092 | 3.046875 | 3 |
The sight of a sea turtle gracefully gliding through the ocean or a tortoise contentedly munching on greens warms an animal lover's heart.
The sight of a sea turtle gracefully gliding through the ocean or a tortoise contentedly munching on greens warms an animal lover's heart. But these visions may soon be distant memories. Today's World Turtle Day seeks to create awareness of the animal's vanishing habitats around the world and to draw attention to the inhumane treatment of turtles as pets and food sources.
Whether you're considering a turtle as a pet or simply encountering these shelled critters in day-to-day life, American Tortoise Rescue, the sponsor of World Turtle Day, hopes that we can all help in preserving and promoting our reptilian friends by observing a few easy guidelines.
- Don't buy a turtle or tortoise from a pet store, as it increases demand for wild animals. Instead, contact a local animal shelter or turtle rescue to adopt a turtle in need.
- Don't remove a turtle or tortoise from the wild unless it's sick or injured.
- If you see a turtle or tortoise crossing a busy street, then pick it up to help it across, but point it in the same direction it was originally heading. Turtles are headstrong creatures: even if you point it in the opposite direction, it will eventually return to its previous course — and straight back into danger!
For a few more tips to celebrate World Turtle Day, just keep reading. | <urn:uuid:e81885be-e1d2-4596-9ad1-ffe900bfacc4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.petsugar.com/wild-animals?page=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.901692 | 311 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), or sometimes called Chinese medicine (CM), is a traditional medical system. It has a holistic approach to diagnosing, preventing and treating diseases by identifying patterns and then applying the individual or combined therapies of acupuncture, Chinese herbal medicine, tuina – a therapeutic massage; and other techniques. Its unique characteristics which distinguish it from ‘orthodox’ medicine are rooted in the “concept of holism – zheng ti guan nian” and “treatment according to syndrome differentiation – bian zheng lun zhi”. It is essential to recognise that the fundamental theory of TCM includes those of Qi, Yin Yang, the five elements, zang-fu, the four diagnostic methods and syndrome differentiation systems.
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is one of the world’s oldest medical systems still widely practised today. It is a unique and independent medical system which originated from China and developed down through the centuries imbued with the spirit of Chinese civilisation and culture. For thousand of years, TCM has played a major role in maintaining the health of Chinese people.
Chinese Medicine was established through centuries of trial and error processes, taking a very long time from the beginning of the practice of Chinese Medicine to the establishment of a complete theory.
Thus although physical evidence for TCM reveals its origins to be over two thousand years ago, its social history, traditions and roots predates this, making it a fundamental part of Chinese civilization. Chinese Medicine directly and indirectly influenced the development of many herbal medicines around the globe, including but not limited to the herbal medicines in Japan, Korea, Tibet, Vietnam, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, etc. through the Silk Road. As you may know we are both Chinese medicine practitioners, and we have a busy herbal medicine dispensary, with herbal.
Here at the Cambridge Chinese Medicine Clinic, we use a mixture of the following treatments:
- Chinese herbal medicine
- Tuina massage | <urn:uuid:68c01a6c-4294-4155-8334-a69b78ede0c5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cambridgetcm.co.uk/therapies/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92575 | 405 | 3.28125 | 3 |
The other night I was in a facility and happened to notice the floor-maintenance technicians preparing for the night’s work. I knew they were floor-maintenance technicians because of the equipment they were pulling out of the storage area.
The stripping and refinishing service procedure is the most difficult process to perform on VCT. By definition it is the removal of all pre-existing coats of floor seal and/or floor finish and reapplication of new floor seal and/or finish.
Floor maintenance is the act of maintaining a floor surface utilizing various cleaning methods to remove soil. Dry particulates are easily removed with sweeping, dust mopping, micro fiber cloth systems and vacuuming, but as the soil becomes more difficult, so too does the cleaning methodology.
Until such time as the Star Trek transporter becomes a reality, we are faced with the challenge of getting the service to the customer. Chemicals, equipment, tools, materials and personnel all have to be transported to the service location. | <urn:uuid:cc03256c-b31f-458e-9d48-8f2b0c167752> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.icsmag.com/authors/1812-stanley-hulin/articles?page=4 | 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 | 0.965585 | 204 | 1.796875 | 2 |
The Letters of T. S. Eliot
Edited by Valerie Eliot and Hugh Haughton
Yale University Press
Volume 1 (1898–1922), $50, 912 pp.
Volume 2 (1923–1925), $50, 912 pp.
On New Year’s Eve 1925, the last day covered in the second and most recent volume of T. S. Eliot’s letters, the poet wrote to F. Scott Fitzgerald to thank him for the gift of The Great Gatsby. The novelist had written in the flyleaf, “For T. S. Elliot [sic] / Greatest of Living Poets / from his enthusiastic / worshipper / F. Scott Fitzgerald,” and the poet wrote back to say that he had read the novel three times and was convinced that it was “the first...
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Health Insurance Plan Study
J.D. Power and Associates Reports:
Members of Health Plans with Integrated Delivery Models Are More Satisfied than
Members without Integrated Plans
Satisfaction among Health Plan Members Decreases from 2010
WESTLAKE VILLAGE, Calif.: 17 March 2011 — Member satisfaction with health plans that share characteristics of integrated delivery systems (IDS) is considerably higher than member satisfaction with plans in which the provider and payer are not part of the same organization, according to the J.D. Power and Associates 2011 U.S. Member Health Insurance Plan StudySM released today.
Now in its fifth year, the study measures member satisfaction among 137 health plans in 17 regions throughout the United States by examining seven key factors: coverage and benefits; provider choice; information and communication; claims processing; statements; customer service; and approval processes.
Satisfaction among members in integrated health plans, such as Health Alliance Plan and Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, averages 741 on a 1,000-point scale, compared with 691 among members of plans where care is not integrated. In addition, members of integrated plans have a better understanding of their coverage and the processes necessary to receive services. Among integrated plan members, 63 percent say they “completely understand” the benefits covered, compared with 52 percent among non-IDS plan members. Similarly, 44 percent of IDS plan members say they “completely understand” how to receive preventive services, while just 24 percent of non-IDS plan members say the same.
“While not every IDS is created alike, an advantage of these plans is that interactions center on the member as a patient, because the provider and plan are integrated,” said Richard Millard, senior director of the healthcare practice at J.D. Power and Associates. “The higher level of satisfaction with integrated plans is particularly important with the passage of the Affordable Care Act, which will result in the creation of accountable care organizations modeled after the IDS approach.”
According to Millard, members of integrated plans tend to be more satisfied with information and communication, as well as coverage and benefits, than do members of non-IDS plans, which highlights how improvement in these factors may go a long way toward improving overall health plan satisfaction.
In 2011, overall member satisfaction is at the lowest point since the study’s inception in 2007, averaging 696, compared with 701 in 2010. Member satisfaction with coverage and benefits has decreased slightly, with considerable declines occurring in satisfaction with information and communication; claims processing; and statements.
“Information and communication remains the factor with lowest satisfaction among all plans, possibly reflecting the increasing complexity of health benefits,” said Millard. “Because members are increasingly concerned about the uncertainties surrounding cost and coverage, plans that focus on delivering useful information to manage these changes tend to earn higher satisfaction scores.”
Overall satisfaction of health insurance plan members is among the lowest across the industries in which
J.D. Power and Associates conducts research, including mortgage, banking and investment services. Health plan members in Pennsylvania, New England and the Northwest region are the most satisfied with their health plan experience.
Health plans ranking highest in their respective regions are (in alphabetical order): Aetna (which ties to rank highest in Texas); Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida; BlueCross BlueShield of Alabama; BlueCross BlueShield of Illinois; BlueCross Blue Shield of Nebraska; BlueCross BlueShield of Texas (which ties to rank highest in Texas); Dean Health Plan; Group Health Cooperative; Harvard Pilgrim Health Care; Health Alliance Plan (HAP); Independent Health Association; Kaiser Foundation Health Plan (which ranks highest in California, Colorado, and the South Atlantic and the Virginia-Maryland-Washington, D.C. regions); Medical Mutual of Ohio; SelectHealth; and UPMC Health Plan.
The study also finds the following key trends:
- More than one-half (57%) of members say that they either chose to or were required to make changes involving cost or coverage during the past year—continuing a trend where more members say they are powerless in being able to control costs on their own.
- In the growing market of individually purchased health insurance, satisfaction averages 667 points, compared with 700 among group health plan members. This gap indicates challenges ahead in improving the member experience for individual health plan members.
- Exchange-based purchasing, which may result in further growth of the individual market, is not yet well understood. However, only one-half of all members think that by 2014 they will continue to purchase health insurance as they do now.
The 2011 U.S. Member Health Insurance Plan Study is based on responses from more than 34,000 members of commercial health plans. The study was fielded in December 2010 and January 2011. For more comprehensive health plan rankings for all 17 U.S. regions, please visit .
About J.D. Power and Associates
Headquartered in Westlake Village, Calif., J.D. Power and Associates is a global marketing information services company providing forecasting, performance improvement, social media and customer satisfaction insights and solutions. The company’s quality and satisfaction measurements are based on responses from millions of consumers annually. For more information on car reviews and ratings, car insurance, health insurance, cell phone ratings, and more, please visit JDPower.com. J.D. Power and Associates is a business unit of The McGraw-Hill Companies.
About The McGraw-Hill Companies
Founded in 1888, The McGraw-Hill Companies is a leading global financial information and education company that helps professionals and students succeed in the Knowledge Economy. Leading brands include Standard & Poor’s, McGraw-Hill Education, Platts energy information services and J.D. Power and Associates. The Corporation has approximately 21,000 employees with more than 280 offices in 40 countries. Sales in 2010 were $6.2 billion. Additional information is available at http://www.mcgraw-hill.com.
An IDS is a network of health plans, hospitals and/or physician groups that work together to provide insurance, administrative and clinical healthcare functions.
No advertising or other promotional use can be made of the information in this release without the express prior written consent of J.D. Power and Associates. /corporate
Having Trouble Downloading Article Get Adobe Acrobat Reader | <urn:uuid:be5800f4-ce12-4990-93da-6a0c7174aee6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jdpower.com/content/press-release/pilHnkZ/health-insurance-plan-study.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948939 | 1,309 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Ten years ago I had no interest in photography. Delving into it on any level was either a clunky or an expensive situation. I had no interest in taking the time out of my day to learn my way around a darkroom or the proper techniques. As for digital. Well digital was a joke back then. To get something decent you had to sell your body for science, anything consumer wise was laughable at best. So in short I had no interest, but I did possess a camera despite the odds. I just didn’t have the passion for it that I have now. What changed?
Despite the push back from photographers on the sanctity of film over digital, thankfully, the technology manufacturers have continued their steady progression of improving upon themselves. This progression has allowed the trickling of professional grade cameras into the hands of average consumers. Mind you not every consumer is going to go out and get a $2500 5D Mark II, but its a lot cheaper easier to obtain than a $15,000 Hasselblad. But if you take a look further into what is being produced you have several cameras that have broke the $1000 mark that can produce professional level results. What’s even better than this is that it has pushed the consumer level products down to dirt cheap affordability. An affordability level that is evident now that almost every phone has a camera in it.
Between 2000-2010 the rise of photographers can be attributed to many things, but the biggest being the accessibility & affordability. Being able to come out of college and spend some money on a decent camera and start a business is not a stretch of the imagination for budding photographers.
The great thing about this? The quality will only improve, and the prices will only drop. Don’t get me wrong, I love film…if its in the right hands. The rise of digital photography has allowed a whole new crop of artists to emerge, ones who thrive on instant feedback and correction. Yes you can go to school, learn the proper techniques, and go about it the “right” way, but if your are talented and you have a good eye that can easily become great, don’t let the “schoolers” stop you. If you create great art, you will be respected for that. And if you don’t, well get some schooling, take some classes and refine your approach.
Digital photography has also opened up other emerging trends in our industry. As the darkroom slowly fades away and artists pull up in front of their computer they are faced with endless possibilities for crafting their images. Our post production process is now more robust with the advent of Photoshop, the ease of Lightroom, Aperture, and the millions of plugins out there.
In mere hours we can go through a shoot we took in the morning, edit, post process and send them to the printer. We have improved our work flow and allowed us more time to dedicate to being artists.
Of all this though, I feel the largest change in the industry had come within the last two years. Trends are happening at such a regular pace it is hard to keep up. Each trend happening on top of the other in a frantic overlap. For me I first became aware of the turnover when photographers really began leveraging the social scene. I started to see new techniques, discovers new media, new technology. The first big trend I noticed was HDR photography. First it was a manual thing, then BAM! It started to become its own program, then bracketing was brought onto most cameras, and now some of the newer cameras being rolled out are HDR capable. They produce live on board HDR photos. A trend that still continues.
Then along came two more trends that are still picking up pace. The Micro Four Thirds / EVIL systems, and mobile phoneography. I think the MFT/EVIL systems are a sign of things to come. A good example to look at is the Sony NEX-5. I see this becoming a baseline of what our future professional cameras are going to be based off. But of course with full frame sensors. Anyone who has carried around a 5D Mark II fully loaded with a Telephoto lens, knows you need to start weight lifting. Imagine carrying around a body that was as light as your phone and the lens system was all inclusive. Well, Sony and Canon are already heading down that path. The time frame they gave seemed far off, I expect it to be much sooner in the scheme of things.
Mobile Phoneography is something I wholeheartedly endorse and participate in. I have heard photogs complain time and time again that they wanted a shot but couldn’t get it. Or got a shot and said I really wish I had this. Well, as they say “the best camera you have, is the one you have in your pocket” (or something like that). Most photogs carry phones with them all day long. Our phones (I’m going to use iPhone as an example because that is what I use) have become not only mobile desktops, but an easy portable phone. I have started and many others have started series of mobile phone portfolios. If you can make something looking amazing and incredible from your phone, then you have the talent to wield and learn a body/kit system. But where these phones succeed is past the point of simply taking a picture. You can edit, post process and share your photos in a matter of minutes.
The line between consumer and professional equipment is being blurred. What we think of today as “consumer grade” will most likely only reside in our pockets. Outside of our phones nearly any camera you pickup in the near future will be a professional level camera.
But what’s next? What’s the next big trend? I feel to next big thing is on board processing. They have begun to put this into some of the MFT and Camera Phones, but I imagine real soon you’ll be able to take your post process directly from your preferred program and apply them directly on your DSLR or your camera of choice, saving you even more time.
What about you, what are your feelings on the next big trend in the industry?
Ron Heerkens Jr (http://www,ronheerkensjr.com) is President of GF Media Entertainment multimedia studio (http://goatfactorymedia.com). Key areas of focus are Film, Photography, and Sound Design. Also a musician, actor, lover of comics. Lives life in Rochester, New York with his wife, daughters and dogs. You can follow him on Twitter: http://twitter.com/gfmedia or contact him by email: email@example.com | <urn:uuid:a4a4d031-632f-4c07-8719-694c9c06aba1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fuelyourphotography.com/state-of-the-photo-industry-whats-next/ | 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 | 0.971533 | 1,383 | 1.664063 | 2 |
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Preserving Public Trust: Accreditation and Human Research Participant Protection Programs
The emergence of accreditation bodies will introduce new organizations with important roles to play in learning from lapses in the system to ensure continuous improvement, making it all the more important to spell out the roles and responsibilities of different parties when serious infractions come to light.
Large multicenter clinical trials now routinely include formal data safety and monitoring boards (DSMBs). DSMBs were initially established to assist research sponsors with analysis of their data, but their importance in assessing risk and monitoring safety has become apparent. Such boards are typically composed of researchers with expertise similar to that of the principal investigators, but they come from independent research institutions and are augmented by statisticians, bioethicists, and sometimes lawyers and consumers. The only personnel requirements for NIH DSMBs are that they include expert clinicians and experts in biometrics or statistics. These monitoring boards receive reports of study outcomes, including both intended effects and adverse events. They pool findings from multiple centers (findings which the individual centers often do not receive and to which only research sponsors would otherwise have access). DSMBs may stop a trial if it appears to be causing harm or if its study objective is met early. A DSMB can also become the locus for receiving reports of mishaps and complaints, as well as adverse events and research outcomes.
NIH has recently mandated that any NIH-sponsored clinical trial have a research monitoring plan and that the plan take into account the level of risk (NIH, 2000). The National Cancer Institute has mandated that any phase III trial (a large trial, typically conducted at many centers, intended to demonstrate the efficacy of an intervention) have a DSMB (NCI, 1999). The inclusion of such boards has been standard practice in most trials sponsored by private industry to test new drugs, devices, or biologics. The Good Clinical Practice portion of the International Conference on Harmonisation guidelines that govern clinical trials has an entire section (section 5.18) devoted to monitoring (International Conference on Harmonisation of Technical Requirements for Registration of Pharmaceuticals for Human Use, 1996, pp. 26–29). The connections between DSMBs and IRBs are not completely consistent, however. Although all DSMBs are accountable to research sponsors for the integrity of the data, their role in ensuring safety and in protecting research participants is less well articulated. They are not always clearly accountable to IRBs, and their responsibilities to research participants or groups representing the interests of research participants are sometimes not explicit.
WILL ACCREDITATION ENHANCE PERFORMANCE?
The interaction between accreditation bodies and the organizations that they accredit can indicate new strategies for improving performance. Over the past three decades the constant lament of dozens of reports from a half dozen knowl- | <urn:uuid:a479dcaf-83e2-4dd7-9f87-088c629a9645> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10085&page=61 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954838 | 609 | 2.4375 | 2 |
Most Recent Action
On October 1, President Clinton signed into law the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP) authorization bill for Fiscal Years 1998 and 1999. The bill, S. 910, had been awaiting his signature since September 16, when it passed the House, having passed the Senate at the end of July. The law contains several new initiatives, including the development of a real-time seismic hazard warning system, an assessment of seismic monitoring networks, and a feasibility study for establishing a second emergency personnel training center on the West Coast. Increased funding levels are provided for R&D in earthquake science, engineering, public education, and mitigation.
The law authorizes $105.8 million for FY98 and $108.9 million for FY99, divided into the following allocations:
|USGS||$52.6 million||$54.1 million|
|FEMA||$20.9 million||$21.5 million|
|NSF||$30.4 million||$31.3 million|
|NIST||$2.0 million||$2.1 million|
Key provisions of this legislation include:
In other hazards news, the National Science Foundation has named three centers to conduct and coordinate earthquake engineering research for the nation. NSF will invest $2 million per year, to be matched with nonfederal funds, to each of these centers: the University of California at Berkeley's Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center; the University of Illinois Mid-America Earthquake Center at the Urbana-Champaign campus, and the State University of New York at Buffalo's Center for Advanced Technologies in Earthquake Loss Reduction. These centers will form a consortium of public and private institutions committed to integrated research and education activities, which includes engineering, geology, geophysics, and the social sciences.
Similar bills to reauthorize NEHRP were introduced in the House and Senate, with minor differences in authorizations for agencies existing between the two bills. The Senate provided more for FEMA and the House more for the USGS, NSF and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). In the end, the House voted unanimously to accept an amended Senate version of the bill.
S. 910 was introduced June 16, 1997 in the Senate by Sen. Bill Frist (R-TN). The Subcommittee on Science, Technology and Space held an oversight hearing in early April 1997 and a summary of that hearing is available at this site. The bill was reported on July 30, 1997 and passed the Senate with an amendment by unanimous consent on July 31, 1997 and the House on September 16. As introduced, S. 910 authorized $103.2 million for FY1998 and $106.3 million for FY1999, with agencies receiving the following amounts.
|USGS||$49.2 million||$50.7 million|
|FEMA||$25 million||$25.8 million|
|NSF||$27.1 million||$27.9 million|
|NIST||$1.9 million||$2 million|
The House Science Committee held a markup for H.R. 2249, the companion bill for S. 910, on July 29. With a quorum present, the bill was ordered to be reported by a unanimous roll call vote. H.R. 2249 was introduced by House Science Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) on July 24, 1997 with support from Ranking Member George Brown (D-CA). An oversight hearing was held in April 1997 and a summary of that hearing is available at this site. The bill authorizes $105.5 million for fiscal year 1998 and $108.7 million for fiscal year 1999, with agencies receiving the following amounts:
|USGS||$52.5 million||$54 million|
|FEMA||$20.9 million||$21.5 million|
|NSF||$30.1 million||$31.2 million|
|NIST||$2 million||$2.06 million|
In the mid 1970's, concern over the 1971 San Fernando earthquake and the Palmdale bulge (seismic zone in southern California) led to the formation of the Newmark-Stever Committee by the President's Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). Originally, the committee was to develop a program to understand and address the seismic hazards in southern California but was later expanded to include national earthquake hazards. The committee's recommendations were used to establish the Earthquake Hazards Reduction Act, which became Public Law 95-124 on October 7, 1977. The Act established the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP) as a long-term, nationwide, earthquake risk reduction program. It also designated member agencies and their activities and responsibilities. NEHRP has supported research in several areas including:
As a senator from Tennessee in 1990, now-Vice President Gore introduced S. 2789 to reauthorize the Earthquake Hazards Reduction Act of 1977. On November 16, 1990, this bill became Public Law 101-614, the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program Reauthorization Act. The Act significantly amended NEHRP by refining the agency responsibilities, program goals and objectives to include:
The 102nd Congress produced several bills that would have amended the Earthquake Hazards Reduction Act of 1977, but none were passed. H.R. 2806 was introduced on June 27, 1991 and required that all earthquake-prone states be identified and would have established a program of earthquake insurance and reinsurance. H.R. 4792 was introduced by Rep. Patsy Mink (D-HI) on April 7, 1992 and S. 2533 was introduced the same day by Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-HI). Both bills were similar to H.R. 2806 but dealt with earthquakes and volcanoes and would have established a program for earthquake and volcanic eruption insurance and reinsurance.
In November 1993, concerns were raised regarding the effectiveness of NEHRP. The program was seen as lacking a strategic plan, having insufficient coordination and implementation of research results, and lacking emphasis on mitigation. In response to these concerns, Dr. John H. Gibbons, Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) directed that a report be done to address the concerns. The review was done by the National Earthquake Strategy Working Group (NESW), and the result was the report Strategy for National Earthquake Loss Reduction and the formation of the National Earthquake Loss Reduction Program (know as NEP). The goals of NEP, coordinated by FEMA, include:
Primary Responsibilities of FEMA
NEHRP was last authorized on October 19, 1994 by Public Law 103-374. This Act authorized $103 million for fiscal year 1995 and $106 million for fiscal year 1996. The Act directed the President to conduct an assessment of earthquake engineering research and testing facilities in the United States. The Administration, through NSF and NIST, developed the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) to conduct the assessment. EERI made several recommendations regarding the state of the nation's earthquake engineering testing facilities. The primary recommendation among these was to develop and implement a comprehensive plan for upgrading existing earthquake engineering research and testing facilities.
In the 104th Congress, S. 1043 was introduced by Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) to amend and reauthorize NEHRP and shift the focus from R&D to mitigation techniques. The bill was unsuccessful due to its other component, natural disaster insurance reform. A similar bill, H.R. 3322 was introduced in the House. For additional information refer to the Political Scene columns published in the February 1996 and November 1996 Geotimes, an American Geological Institute publication.
Sources: USGS Earthquake Information website; White House Library website; FEMA website; National Science and Technology Council Report: Strategy for National Earthquake Loss Reduction; House Report 105-238; Senate Report 105-59 ; Seismological Society of America
Contributed by Catherine Runden, AGI Government Affairs Intern and Dave Applegate and Kasey Shewey, AGI Government Affairs
Last updated October 30, 1997 | <urn:uuid:b81ac9ee-15cd-4799-861e-c02b24e13348> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.agiweb.org/legis105/nehrpup.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948936 | 1,676 | 2.640625 | 3 |
The Logic of Life: The Rational Economics of an Irrational World
In The Logic of Life, bestselling author Tim Harford quite simply makes sense of this world.
Life often seems to defy logic. The receptionist is clearly smarter than the boss who earns fifty times her salary. Arbitrary lines starkly divide the desirable districts of the city from the dangerous ones. Voters flock to the polling booths to elect candidates who’ll rip them off to favour special interests. None of it makes logical sense — or does it?
Economist and acclaimed author Tim Harford thinks it does. By weaving stories from locations as diverse as a Vegas casino to a barroom speed date, Harford aims to persuade you that people are, in fact, surprisingly logical.
When a street prostitute agrees to unprotected sex, or a teenage criminal embarks on a burglary — perhaps especially when a racist employer disregards a black job applicant — we would seem to be a million miles from rational behaviour. Harford shows that, discomfitingly, we are not. It turns out that the unlikeliest of people are complying with the logic of economics and responding to future costs and benefits, often without realizing it; and socially tragic outcomes can have their roots in individually rational decisions.
Brilliantly reasoned, always entertaining and often provocative, The Logic of Life is a book to help you understand yourself and the world around you.
From the Hardcover edition. | <urn:uuid:68162194-bca9-42d0-a031-e668cb926962> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://books.google.ca/books?id=FIOJ7Fow2N0C&q=rational+choice+theory&source=gbs_word_cloud_r&cad=6 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95477 | 293 | 2.265625 | 2 |
The shadow stormtroopers, sometimes called Blackhole stormtroopers because of their use under Agent Blackhole, were specialized Imperial stormtroopers and were the successors of the Republic's clone shadow troopers.
The shadow troopers were an elite squadron within the Imperial stormtroopers who were assigned an experimental cloaking armor. This allowed them to disappear in virtually any environment. These soldiers were trained to use their advanced technology to ambush their enemies who they often surrounded before they were capable of defending themselves. They typically acted as reserve units that backed up standard stormtrooper squadrons and only appeared when a battle turned against the Empire.
During such conditions, stormtrooper commanders often called the shadow troopers to provide them with reinforcements. In addition to their cloaking devices, the armor was laced with durasteel fibers which made them more resistant to physical as well as energy attacks when compared to standard stormtrooper armor.
The Emperor's Shadow Guard often made use of shadow stormtroopers during their missions. Variants of the design were a dark trooper version as well as an EVO trooper version, Incinerator trooper version, and a Jumptrooper version.
Their most distinguishing feature was their all-black armor—a stark contrast to the typical white armor common to other stormtroopers. This unique black armor provided some stealth benefits, which resulted from the stygian-triprismatic polymer material used in the production of the armor. Lord Blackhole also incorporated meltmassif into his shadow stormtroopers for use when he would disable them. Shadow stormtroopers also carried cloaking devices that rendered them invisible for a short period of time.
On Vorzyd VEdit
Shortly after the Battle of Yavin, Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa were sent on a mission to Vorzyd V, the "Gambler's World," where they were to disrupt the Imperial gambling operations with the support of the president of that world. However, the operation was disrupted by Blackhole himself, and platoons of his stormtroopers were seen fighting the local resistance and the Alliance troops.
Battle of MindorEdit
- "Answer me this: Why is the armor of my stormtroopers black?
I'll give you a hint: It's not just paint."
- ―Lord Shadowspawn
Lord Shadowspawn led legions of shadow stormtroopers against New Republic forces at the Battle of Mindor in 5 ABY. These shadow troopers armor was made of meltmassif which allowed Shadowspawn to control them completely at will.
Carnor Jax's commandEdit
In 11 ABY, a squad of shadow stormtroopers formed a bodyguard for aspiring Dark Lord Carnor Jax during his attempt to take control of the Empire; it is believed that these were soldiers from Blackhole's old elite unit, but it is not known how they had come into service with Jax, or whether their attachment to him implies any contact with Blackhole. It is possible they were some of the forces placed under his command by the Imperial Ruling Council following the Battle of Endor. It is notable that Jax himself had formerly served in Blackhole's old unit. Although crack troops, they were all slain by Kir Kanos on Yinchorr.
The only noticeable difference between Jax's shadow stormtroopers and the original group were black viewplates on the helmet. The first Blackhole stormtroopers had white viewplates.
Behind the scenesEdit
Hasbro produced a shadow stormtrooper action figure for the 2006 San Diego Comic Convention, although it was only sold at StarWarsShop.com. The exclusive figure is referred to as a "shadow stormtrooper" on the packaging; however, the Databank entry has the name as "Blackhole stormtrooper". Hasbro later re-released the action figure as part of the Saga Legends line.
In The Force Unleashed game for the PSP, Wii, and PS2, the shadow stormtrooper playable skin is unlocked by the code INTHEDARK, and in the Xbox 360, PC and PS3 version, by the code BLACKHOLE.
The LEGO Group Released two Shadow Stormtrooper Minifigures in 2007 in the "Tie Crawler" set. Another Shadow Stormtrooper also came with the 2008 "Imperial Dropship", along with three standard Stormtroopers. It also was released by the Lego Group as a limited edition maquette in partnership with Gentle Giant. Also according to DK's Lego Star Wars mini-figure book the Imperial Dropship set incorrectly labled the Shadow Stormtrooper as an Imperial Pilot.
In the MMORPG Star Wars Galaxies, Shadow stormtroopers were called black hole stormtroopers (note the space between the words black and hole). In appearance, they were little more than standard stormtroopers with black armor. They would often be given randomly-generated names, such as TK-807.
- Star Wars: The Force Unleashed game
- Gambler's World (First appearance)
- Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided
- Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor
- Dark Empire II (Possible appearance)
- Crimson Empire
- LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars (Non-canonical appearance)
- Star Tours: The Adventures Continue
- Handbook 2: Crimson Empire
- The Emperor's Pawns"—Star Wars Gamer 5 "
- Star Wars Galaxies: The Total Experience: Prima Official Game Guide
- The New Essential Chronology (Picture only)
- Evil Never Dies: The Sith Dynasties
- Star Wars Miniatures: Legacy of the Force
- Rebellion Era Campaign Guide
- "Blaster"—Star Wars Insider 111
- LEGO Star Wars: The Visual Dictionary
- Star Wars Art: Visions (Ambiguously canonical source) (Picture only)
- The Essential Guide to Warfare
- "Authors of the Expanded Universe: Russ Manning"—Star Wars Insider 140 | <urn:uuid:cb15b95a-7294-4446-a9c6-e3e5e54477de> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Shadow_stormtrooper | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949047 | 1,228 | 2.1875 | 2 |
Posted by on October 29, 2009
At Rivet Logic we do quite a bit of work with the JBoss Seam framework, specifically with our Content Management System integration we call Crafter rivet.
Seam can be used with the Spring bean factory framework, a popular “IoC” or Inversion of Control / Dependency injection framework. Spring enables developers to create instances of java objects known as beans and then to wire them to other java objects. Most people working in J2EE today are familiar with this so I won’t spend any time going in to further detail here. Seam also supports the ability to use java annotations to declare a class as a bean and to specify how it should be wired through what they call out-jection and injection. Check out the Seam website for more details on how the Seam bi-jection mechanics work.
One question that has come up for me many times on consulting engagements is: “which approach to use, Spring or Seam bi-jection?” My experience shows me that the answer is not one or the other. Both approaches have significant benefits and can be used together to create a stronger approach than either one can provide on its own.
Here are some very simple guidelines
When to use Spring beans:
Infrastructure components and services are great candidates for Spring beans
- Such services are generally singletons within the system. Spring has excellent support for managing and wiring these objects
- Such service classes are often packaged in separate more commonly used libraries. Hard coding a bean name and wiring within the class definition or strongly coupling to Seam is less desireable.
- You want a very simple way to override the implementation at deployment time. Consider a scenario where you want to override a DAO. By managing the bean in Spring it is extremely easy to override the bean definition to use an alternate class and configuration in a given environment simply by placing an additional xml file in the classpath
When to use Seam annotations:
Domain specific components are good candidates for bi-jection.
- They are often fine grained application specific components.
- Explicitly stating how the component will be wired in the the class file has little impact on its re-usability because its scope is limited to the application at hand.
- Such components really benefit from one of Seams strongest features in its bean framework: Conversation Scoping. This is the ability to define a life-cycle which is shorter than a session. By limiting the lifetime of a object to its true life-cycle it’s possible to free memory up for other needs within the system. On large, high troughput applications the benefits here cannot be overstated.
By using a combined approach you get the reusability and flexibility of Spring framework with the performance orientation of conversation scoping and ease of development associated with Seam annotations.
Posted by on September 08, 2009
Last week was Red Hat Summit and JBoss World. We participated as a sponsor of JBoss World and also gave a few presentations during the breakout sessions. Below are some highlights from our trip:
JBoss World at the downtown Chicago Hilton:
Our booth at the partner pavilion:
Museum of Science & Industry party:
Although we didn’t walk away with the overall JBoss Innovator of the Year Award, we still have our category award for Optimized Systems to display in our trophy case….
Until next year!!
Posted by on August 19, 2009
Last year, Rivet Logic won the 2008 JBoss Innovator of the Year Award with our Kaplan implementation utilizing Alfresco and JBoss. Can we do it again this year?
JBoss notified us earlier this month of the terrific news that we had been selected as the category winner for the 2009 JBoss Innovation Awards for Optimized Systems for an Alfresco/JBoss implementation we performed for Harvard Business Publishing. But can we repeat what we did last year and take the overall Innovator of the Year Award again? The judge of that will be left up to the voters, so place your vote for Rivet Logic!!
The winner for the 2009 Innovator of the Year Award will be announced at this year’s JBoss World held in Chicago from September 1 – 4. We will be participating, so if you find yourself there, drop by and say hi!!
Posted by on June 10, 2009
Today eXo Platform, a leading European open source company, announced the merger of its eXo Portal project with JBoss Portal to create an open source portal platform.
The goal of the new project is to forge a strong portal solution by bringing together the technical strengths of the two projects through the open source community.
According to eXo Platform CEO, Benjamin Mestrallet, “What has always been a challenge for any portal community or vendor is providing the right balance of robust infrastructure and engaging usability features. This collaborative project will strive to strike that balance and will work to create an enterprise-grade, open source alternative to expensive, bloated closed source portals.”
“The eXo portal has some impressive functionality in terms of ease of use, UI flexibility and straightforward management administration; JBoss.org’s current portal project has a robust engine, performance and security features, combined this collaboration project will help drive portal capabilities forward,” said Dr. Mark Little, Sr. Director of Engineering, Middleware at Red Hat.
What does this new portal product mean for other open source portal platforms like Liferay and Plone? Should they be worried? They may want to keep an eye out as eXo is contributing a new project to the JBoss community, eXo JCR, which is a “robust cluster-ready Java Content Repository that is standards based and a key component for the project”. Could this be seen a threat to other portal platforms which lacks the robust content management features that eXo JCR will bring?
It would be interesting to see how the new JBoss eXo portal platform fares with enterprises in their choice of portal and collaboration software.
Posted by on March 16, 2009
Last week, Red Hat launched their third annual Innovation Awards, which will be presented at the 2009 Red Hat Summit and JBoss World held in Chicago later this year in September.
“The Innovation Awards were created to honor individuals and companies who have forged new ground to demonstrate innovative solutions through the use of Red Hat and JBoss products and technologies.”
There are a total of six categories, including Management Excellence, Optimized Solutions, Superior Alternatives, Extensive Ecosystem, Carved out Costs, and Outstanding Open Source Architecture.
“Five categories will each recognize two winning submissions, one from Red Hat and one from JBoss, and the Outstanding Open Source Architecture category will recognize one winner who is deploying both Red Hat and JBoss solutions. From these category winners, a Red Hat Innovator of the Year and a JBoss Innovator of the Year will be selected by the community through online voting and announced at the awards ceremony.”
Last year, Rivet Logic was honored with the JBoss Innovator of the Year Award for our Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions implementation, www.kaptest.com.
We look forward to participating in the Innovation Awards again this year!
Posted by on February 13, 2009
JBoss just announced the JBoss Migration Assistance program, of which we’re a founding partner. The primary goal of the project is to provide a collection of open source tools and resources that will enable enterprises to more easily migrate from closed source, proprietary application servers to open source JBoss platforms. We’re happy to bring our experience with application and portal migration to this new JBoss.org project.
As Matt Asay points out, this is a community effort that will combine Red Hat’s efforts with that of its most experienced JBoss system integrators, as no one tool or process can cover the gamut of app server/portal/content migration. This type of communtiy effort represents the essence of collaborative open source development. | <urn:uuid:7fe9f43f-f5ea-487b-af4d-9ec8e21cb9f4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.rivetlogic.com/category/jboss/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930283 | 1,679 | 2.015625 | 2 |
Fla. students walk on water for class assignment
MIAMI (AP) — Students from Florida International University in Miami walked on water Thursday for a class assignment.
To do it, they wore aquatic shoes they designed and created.
"Second year in a row of bragging rights," said Alex Quinones, who was the first to make it to the other side of a 175-foot lake on campus in record time — just over a minute. Quinones, who wore oversized boat-like shoes, also won last year and will receive $500.
The secret, he said, is in the legs.
"The shoes is part of it, but if you don't have the legs then you're not going anywhere," he said.
Students had to wear the aquatic shoes and make it across the lake in order to earn an "A'' on the assignment for Architecture Professor Jaime Canaves' Materials and Methods Construction Class.
The annual race, titled "Walk on Water," is an assignment required to pass Canaves' class.
"It's traditional in a school of architecture to do boats out of cardboard for a boat race. I thought our students were a little bit more special than that," Canaves said. "We decided to do the walk on water event to take it to the next level."
Erika Olson's team designed shoes made out of Styrofoam with a piece of plywood extending from the back, wrapped up "with a lot of duct tape."
"We had a trial so I knew it was going to be challenging," she said. "But today it was a lot worse. I had to wait for other people to go and it was a lot of work."
Some students tried to keep their balance as the shoes wobbled on the surface of the water. One design came apart during the race.
Carolina Rivera chose to be the "walker" for her team because she thought "it would be a cool project. But it's so much harder than it looks." Her team also created a boat shape for shoes, but this design had flaps in the back to serve as a flipper.
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- 11468How to help tornado victims | <urn:uuid:98dc1ea4-3b29-4897-8915-82b3d01010b3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://newsok.com/article/feed/460053 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979224 | 547 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Preflop Hand Comparisons
To get an idea of the value of a Texas holdem hand, you need to know how it would stand up against other hands. Preflop pot odds calculations can be pretty easy but you still need a factor to weigh against those odds. This often leads to tough decisions in the blind positions whether a bad hand is worth calling a raise because of the odds offered. Below are a list of the common groupings of hands versus other hands along with the percentage so your have a better idea of when to call with garbage. The percentages expressed are the chance of one hand winning against another if they go all the way to the showdown.
Pair versus Pair
80% vs. 20% in favor of the bigger pair. It varies based on distance from each other (because then they interfere with straight-making). If they are close (AA vs. KK), it gives strength to the higher pocket pair. Having the similar suits also gives strength to the higher pocket pair.
Pair versus Two Overcards
This is your typical coin flip situation, typically 55% vs. 45% in favor of the pocket pair. Note a hand like Jack-Ten suited against a small pocket pair (55 or lower) actually has the edge because the pair does not interfere with Jack-Ten's straight making ability.
Pair versus Two Undercards
Around 80% to 20% in favor of the pocket pair. The undercards vary between 14% and 23%. It's based on the suits and if the two overcards interfere with their ability to make a straight.
Pair versus Overcard/Undercard
About 70% to 30% in favor of the pocket pair. It also helps the over/under hand by 1% or so if it is a low ace (five or lower) in those cases where the pocket pair doesn't interfere with a straight.
Pair versus Same Card and One Over
Almost the same as the above scenario, it's 70%-30% to 65%-35% in favor of the pocket pair. The pocket pair's advantage can end up as low as 60% if it's against middle-suited connectors.
Pocket Pair versus Same Card and One Under
This is the worst situation you can be in: super dominated. It's around a 85% to 15% chance in favor of the pocket pair. Even if the pocket pair is up against a suited connector, it is at best 80% to 20%. The absolute worst case scenario in holdem is the example, where K2o is 22-1 to win!
Overcards versus Undercards
This one often surprises new players. It's typically 65% to 35%. If the unders are significantly far enough away from the overs and suited (and without matching any overcard suits), it can reduce the advantage to as little as 60% to 40%.
Over/Under versus Two In-Between
This is usually around 60%-40% in favor of the overcard/undercard. It can reduce the advantage to 52% to 48% with a middle-suited connectors that don't share a suit with the over/under and where there is no straight interference. Something like A2o vs 89s.
Alternating (High/3rd versus Low/2nd)
Varies from a 70%-30% to a 60%-40% advantage for the 1st/3rd hand but mostly just falls around a typical 2 to 1 edge to the player with the highest card.
Usually the person with the higher kicker wins 2 out of every 3 times or better, but as the kickers get lower, the edge starts to disappear because of split pot possibilities.
Same Low Card
The dominated hand has around 40% at best if it is a suited connector against two unsuited cards without poor straight potential. Otherwise it's 2 to 1 in favor of the higher hand. If the low cards are really low (A3 vs. A2), there is a significant chance of a split pot, which would give an edge to the dominated hand.
If it is suited versus offsuit like the example, then the suited cards gain a 2.5% edge or so. In any other case, it'll be...um...50%-50%, believe it or not. Pair against pair or other match-ups without similar suits are each 2.17% to win (the chance of a flushy board), with a 95.65% chance of a tie.
Pius Heinz wins the 2011 World Series of Poker Main Event over Martin Staszko.
The second wave of U.S. indictments against online poker rooms fires out from Maryland.
Player Migration Begins
PartyPoker's attempts to woo poker players away from US-facing rivals.
Feds Indict Online Poker Operators
News about the April 15, 2011 federal online poker indictments.
Three Poker Book Gift Ideas
Three Poker Book Gift Ideas for the Holidays | <urn:uuid:b389d460-2e13-4970-ba17-247b0a4c10d3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.texasholdem-poker.com/preflop_hand_comparisons | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936551 | 1,017 | 1.851563 | 2 |
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Thu September 15, 2011
11 more face criminal charges related to Detroit Public Schools
Wayne County prosecutor Kym Worthy has charged 11 people with crimes against Detroit Public Schools.
Only three of the people charged are former district employees. They include two cafeteria workers accused of pocketing lunch money, and an ex-teacher who failed to report drunk driving offenses.
The other cases involve laptops stolen from Detroit schools.
Roy Roberts is the district’s Emergency Manager. He says these types of infractions, while relatively small, hurt larger efforts to reform city schools.
“At a time when we are working to drive even more resources to the classroom, with almost 90% of funding going directly to schools and school-related programs, why would we let any funds flow out of the classroom for personal or illegal use?”
The Wayne County prosecutors office and the Detroit Public Schools Office of the Inspector General have been working together to root out crime in the school system since 2009.
DPS has made more than 40 criminal referrals to the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office Public Integrity Unit since the collaboration between DPS and the prosecutor's office began in 2009. | <urn:uuid:7eed553d-d202-4657-8597-9bc72c164625> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://michiganradio.org/post/11-more-face-criminal-charges-related-detroit-public-schools | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959191 | 250 | 1.53125 | 2 |
BOJNICE, Slovakia — In return for her company on a photographic excursion to Bojnice Castle, my daughter, Kika, 15, negotiates a two-part promise. She will not have to eat the casserole for lunch because she loathes liver. I have to take her to a pizza parlor because she’ll be ravenous without anything to eat. Agreed. We stow our cameras in the car.
The castle spikes into the air directly ahead like a commercial for Disneyland. But our first stop is the fortress’s jail in an adjoining park. There can’t be many prettier prisons. A small circular building of hewn stone, it is surrounded by a deep pond. The structure matches perfectly the Gothic style of the 19th-century renovations to the citadel.
The prisoner walked a plank out to the jail and was locked in. The guards retracted the bridge. If the convict managed to pry off the bars across the openings, he still faced a cold swim. In winter, the pond freezes over. Kika regularly skates here with her friends. Today, it’s slush because the weather has warmed slightly.
The fortress walls loom above us. Kika aims her camera at a scattering of holes blasted in the wall near small rectangular windows. Trigger-happy Russian soldiers peppered the castle with AK-47 fire in 1968 when they arrived to squash the liberalization efforts of the Czechoslovak government under Alexander Dubcek.
“You’re developing a good eye for a photo subject,” I tell Kika.
“What do you mean “developing?” she counters boldly. “I already have a good eye. Why don’t we have a contest to see who can take the best picture?”
“OK. Mama will decide the winner,” I say. She begins clicking frantically, four photos for every one of mine.
We plan to tour the castle’s interior, but the dark wooden main gate is closed. We can hear laughter seeping out from within.
“It’s a Saturday,” Kika says. “So there’s probably a wedding going on.” The castle is closed to the public if there’s a private celebration. I know. Twenty years ago, I got married in the manor’s Golden Hall. I had never been in such an elaborately ornate room in my life.
To one side of the entrance, a small, picturesque, arched opening appears in the stone wall. Iron bars crisscross it. Above the gap, ivy droops down in a most fetching manner. Someone has jammed an ugly brown metal garbage container against the opening, spoiling my shot.
“Give me hand moving this, Kika,” I ask, tugging at the metal. “This could be a beautiful picture.”
You’ve got to be nuts, her look insinuates. The metal weighs a ton. So, I forgo that photo opportunity.
“You’ve got to be pretty desperate to win,” Kika observes.
We scoot by beautiful, half-cylindrical windows of cut stone jutting from the wall. Originally, the 12th century edifice on this spot was a wooden fortress owned by a Benedictine monastery. In the 1600s, it became a heavily-fortified baroque structure controlled by the powerful Palffy family. Hungarian King Ferdinand III gave the fortress to the Palffys for resisting the Turks and for helping him against rebellious noblemen.
State-owned now, its last lord, Count Frantisek Palffy, renovated the castle in the 1800s to its present French Gothic style. He filled it with countless exotic works of art and asked in his will that tours be made available to the public. His wish has been carried out.
The castle’s moat is thawed. But kids usually play hockey here. Kika leans way out over the wall to watch a family feeding ducks and swans swimming on open patches of water. Her camera clicks constantly. She plays back one of her images and is disappointed with the result.
“Why couldn’t we have a camera where you just blinked your eyes and it took a picture exactly as you see it,” she asks. “Cameras just don’t record what we see.”
A stone statue of a drinking woman catches our interest. It reminds us that Bojnice is a spa town. For centuries, the warm waters that bubble from the earth here have been famous for their health-reviving qualities.
The pizza is scrumptious. But back home, my delight is squelched.
“I hope you don’t mind my saying so, but Kika’s pictures are a tad better than yours,” my wife declares diplomatically.
I knew they would be. | <urn:uuid:6adf147d-0472-47be-b2f0-b8073eb06888> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.mysanantonio.com/cards/2008/01/photo-follies-at-the-fortress/?gta=commentlistpos | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955177 | 1,055 | 1.570313 | 2 |
The New York Times just released a story about Spencer Brown and his three-year old company, Rentagreenbox.com (formerly Earth Friendly Moving). Chelsea Green author Richard Seireeni profiled Spencer’s company in his book, The Gort Cloud: The Invisible Force Powering Today’s Most Visible Green Brands.
In honor of Spencer’s ecopreneurism, we profile him here.
Here’s an excerpt from The Gort Cloud:
It is helpful to examine the industry—or more correctly, the industries—that Spencer was intending to disrupt. What kind of competitive landscape was he planning to enter?
Everyone moves at some point in their lives, generating tons of waste in the form of cardboard boxes and packing materials. It’s one reason why the average US citizen uses up to twenty tons of basic raw materials annually, and why the total yearly waste for all Americans would fill a convoy of garbage trucks long enough to wrap around the earth six times, or reaching halfway to the moon.
In fact, 40 percent of all that waste is made up of paper and cardboard. This is despite the facts that most cardboard contains a substantial amount of recycled paper and that approximately 70 percent of cardboard is recycled—unless, of course, the price of gas continues to go up. Then recycling actually declines because of the cost of moving all that cardboard around. Nevertheless, trees are still cut down to be made into paper boxes with a very short life span that often end up in the ground where they cannot be used again. Spencer adds, “Cardboard has a huge impact in landfills as the glues that bind the paper are not water-based and this chemistry leaches into and contaminates the water table.”
It also takes enormous resources to recycle cardboard boxes—sorting, transporting, washing, agitating back down to pulp, and then remanufacturing into new boxes. When McDonough and Braungart speak of “cradle to cradle,” this is not what they have in mind. Spencer notes, “Each time a box is recycled, only 40 percent is usable, and 60 percent is waste. Also, each time we reuse material, the end product is of lesser quality at a higher price, forcing industry to look at virgin materials, like old-growth trees.”
In the average move, boxes are furnished by the movers, providing an opportunity for extra revenue in a highly competitive and low-margin industry. Spencer estimates that upward of 40 percent of profit comes from the sale of these moving products. Storage facilities, now ubiquitous on the American landscape, sell boxes as well as bubble wrap and tape. The same thing goes for U-Haul or Penske Trucks, as well as UPS, Staples, Kinko’s, the box-and-ship outlets, or anyone selling packing materials.
This is the industry Spencer began to chase in 2005, and he called his alternative Earth Friendly Moving. But despite the name, he had no intention of becoming the green Atlas Movers or the green Starving Students of Orange County. He didn’t want to be a mover at all. Nevertheless, the nature of his idea—to rent out reusable moving boxes made of recycled plastics—would put him in direct competition with the entire moving industry.
Here are two videos about Rentagreenbox.com. The first is a promotional video that explains the business model and the recycling process. The second is a profile of the business from EcoBiz on the Sundance Channel with none-other-than our very own Simran Sethi.
Unfortunately, Rentagreenbox.com is currently only available in Orange County, California and Los Angeles. But, Spencer is selling franchises and hopefully more will begin popping up across the country. Visit their web site for more information. And to read the story behind Rentagreenbox.com, and a dozen other growing green businesses, check out The Gort Cloud by Richard Seireeni. | <urn:uuid:dfffe26e-b0f2-4665-a236-4b2ad27526f2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.chelseagreen.com/content/2009/01/page/3/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947557 | 827 | 2.015625 | 2 |
Wars Taking Toll on Military Families
By The Associated Press
EDITOR'S NOTE - With troops fighting on foreign soil since late 2001, the United States is learning about the long-term toll of modern war on the home front. The Associated Press examines some of the consequences for military families.
FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. - Far from the combat zones, the strains and separations of no-end-in-sight wars are taking an ever-growing toll on military families despite the armed services' earnest efforts to help.
Divorce lawyers see it in the breakup of youthful marriages as long, multiple deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan fuel alienation and mistrust. Domestic violence experts see it in the scuffles that often precede a Soldier's departure or sour a briefly joyous homecoming. | <urn:uuid:3672fa7c-1b02-4b7d-8445-3001af681a7e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.knoxnews.com/fredbrown/2008/07/wars-taking-toll-on-military-f.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.911064 | 163 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Kinnow farming attracting Punjab farmers
Ferozepur, Dec 21(ANI): Kinnow farming is proving to be a major attraction for farmers in Punjab.
What was once an parched land in the belt bordering Rajasthan, now wears a bright orange hue- Abohar in Ferozepur, Muktsar and Bhatinda - to the northern district of Hoshiarpur, kinnows are now the best example of diversification to horticulture in the state.
In a state dominated by wheat and paddy crops, kinnows are making millionaires out of farmers, who are increasingly taking to horticulture.
With favourable weather conditions this year, Punjab is headed for a record production of 7.3 lakh tones of kinnows, more then double of last year's 3.5 tones.
While, the per-hectare productivity of kinnow, from 10 tones in the past has gone up to 15 tones in the last few years. And this year it is almost 19 tones per hectare.
The area under the crop has also gone up by nearly 4,000 hectares.
"The production of kinnow is good this year because of favourable weather and the demand of the fruit is also good. Earlier, because of bumper production of orange and citrus, the rates of kinnow were affected, but this year due to reduced orange and citrus production, the demand of kinnow is high," said Gurwinder Singh, a kinnow grower.
"Kinnow has also suffered due to scanty rain as the size of kinnow is small, but the overall production and demand is good. The buyers are coming from all over India and we are getting good prices in the market too," he added.
The marketing of kinnow has also become convenient with the setting up of processing plants in the region.
Recently, two plants of the Punjab Agro Juices Limited were installed at a cost of 16 million dollars, which will be run by a state agency to meet the demand of juice companies for kinnow concentrate.
Many progressive kinnow growers now have contractors to market kinnows in big markets like Delhi.
"The reason for the early arrival of kinnows in the market is that the production of juicy fruits was very less and so the demand of kinnow went high. The prices are also good. The good quality of kinnow is available at Rs. 13-14, otherwise the normal rates are Rs eight to nine," said Brij Mohan Sharma, a financer.
Surinder Kumar, a kinnow exporter, said: "Kinnow is being transported to all over India and Bangladesh is the only country where it is being exported. If other countries also start importing kinnow from here, it will be good for farmers, as the production of kinnow will increase."
The Government too has woken up to the wonder fruit, which is estimated to possess the highest content of limonene, a compound which has anti-cancer properties.
And for the first time, kinnows would be bought by a state procurement agency to be processed at the two multi-million plants at Abohar and Hoshiarpur. By Avtar Gill
Copyright Asian News International/DailyIndia.com | <urn:uuid:cf436ab4-0e93-4630-8dc7-5177b6c9e8b7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dailyindia.com/show/350771.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958843 | 670 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Date: March 23rd, 2004
Article by: Nathan Glentworth
(Owner, Head Editor & Hardware Reviewer)
Product was donated by: Intel
INTEL CORPORATE PROFILE
For more than three decades, Intel Corporation has developed
technology enabling the computer and Internet revolution that has changed
the world. Founded in 1968 to build semiconductor memory products, Intel
introduced the world's first microprocessor in 1971. Today, Intel supplies
the computing and communications industries with chips, boards, systems,
and software building blocks that are the "ingredients" of computers,
servers and networking and communications products. These products are
used by industry members to create advanced computing and communications
systems. Intel's mission is to be the preeminent building block supplier
to the Internet economy.
Intel's newest core revision can be summed up relatively
easily. The prescott core not meant to dwarf the performance numbers
of the older northwood counterpart, but was created to take advantage
of the newer 90nm production process, allow for higher clock frequency
scaling along with the addition of the new enhanced SSE3 instruction
set and a larger L1 and L2 on-die cache. When the word came about that
the prescott core was to be on the market, the unfortunate relative
time frame coincided with AMD's release of their new Athlon64 line of
processors. Due to this occurrence, people starting raving that the
Prescott was meant to be Intel's defensive tactic against their rival's
64-bit based alternative. This can't be any farther from the truth.
Just in case you didn't know, this version of the prescott
core is still for 32-bit computing. It is not meant to compete against
64-bit computing. It is a minor core revision with some enhanced features
and is based on a more refined manufacturing process and that is all.
Some people were negatively portraying the Prescott to be a failure
because its performance numbers didn't blast the northwoods out of the
But it never was meant to..... | <urn:uuid:9d96ec73-8ba6-4b8a-8c48-fca2162bb57c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tweaknews.net/reviews/prescott/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954369 | 434 | 2.3125 | 2 |
There’s more bad news for Obamacare. A new poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that 51 percent of Americans have an unfavorable view of President Barack Obama’s signature health care law, while only 34 percent see it favorably.
Kaiser reports that this is “a low point in Kaiser polls since the law was passed,” and that the reason for the law’s declining popularity is rooted in decreased Democrat support:
While Democrats continue to be substantially more supportive of the law than independents or Republicans, the change in favorability this month was driven by waning enthusiasm for the law among Democrats, among whom the share with a favorable view dropped from nearly two-thirds in September to just over half (52%) in October.
The poll is the bitter icing on the cake for Obamacare’s bad month. In late September, Kaiser reported that Americans are paying more and more for their health insurance every year, with the price of family premiums increasing in cost by 9 percent between 2010 and 2011. Of that amount, Obamacare was responsible for between 1 and 2 percentage points, or approximately 20 percent, of the increase in premiums, according to Kaiser Family Foundation CEO Drew Altman. Obamacare was supposed to reduce costs, not increase it.
Then there’s the collapse of the CLASS Act — the long-term care insurance component of the health care legislation. In mid-October, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius admitted that the CLASS program can’t work, after months of insisting that it could. Sebelius said that “despite our best analytical efforts, I do not see a viable path forward for CLASS implementation at this time.”
Increased health care costs and an untenable long-term care plan? Is it any wonder that Americans aren’t happy with the law? It’s possible for Washington to enact reforms that reduce health care costs for all Americans, but Obamacare isn’t the way to do it. | <urn:uuid:c83131a5-1788-45f3-8b1d-f687753e502d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.heritage.org/2011/10/28/new-poll-shows-obamacare-less-popular-by-the-day/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9577 | 404 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Definition from Nolo’s Plain-English Law Dictionary
The decision of a court of appeal ruling that the judgment of a lower court was incorrect and is reversed. The result is that the lower court which tried the case is instructed to dismiss the original action, retry the case, or is ordered to change its judgment.
Definition provided by Nolo’s Plain-English Law Dictionary.
August 19, 2010, 5:23 pm | <urn:uuid:5ee6a769-adaa-4c8d-b425-60d6b7a6251f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/reversal?quicktabs_3=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945697 | 91 | 2.1875 | 2 |
The Chicago City Council
is the legislative branch
of the government
of the City of Chicago
. It consists of 50 aldermen
elected from 50 wards
to serve four-year terms. The Chicago City Council is gaveled into session regularly (usually monthly) to consider ordinances, orders, and resolutions whose subject matter includes traffic code changes, utilities, taxes, and many other issues. The council, in conjunction with the Mayor of Chicago
, hears recommendations from the Commission on Chicago Landmarks
and then may grant individual properties Chicago Landmark
status. The presiding officer of the Chicago City Council is the Mayor of Chicago
. The secretary is the City Clerk of Chicago
. Both positions are popularly elected offices.
The Chicago City Council chambers are located in Chicago City Hall
. Also located in the building are the downtown offices of the individual aldermen and staff.
Between 1972 and 2009, a total of 30 Chicago aldermen were indicted and convicted of federal crimes such as bribery, extortion, embezzlement, conspiracy, mail fraud and income tax evasion. Three additional aldermen were indicted for similar offenses but two died before federal prosecutors could bring them to trial and one, Anthony Laurino (39th) was too sick to stand trial.
The last election was held in 2011, with new members being sworn in on May 16, 2011.
<nowiki>*</nowiki> Year of appointment, not first election | <urn:uuid:5a980199-8d88-4e96-893d-1a82e16a05c4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pages.rediff.com/chicago-city-council/261351 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959888 | 297 | 2.53125 | 3 |
DoDEA Announces Results of 2010-2011 Customer Satisfaction Survey
ARLINGTON, VA — Parents and student continue to give increasingly high marks to Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) Schools according to results of the 2010-2011 Customer Satisfaction Survey (CSS).
The survey is administered every other year to sponsors with children in pre-kindergarten - 12th grade and to students in grades 4-12. For the 2010-2011 survey, more than 19,000 sponsors and 27,000 4th-12th grade students responded to the survey. These statistics represent an approximate response rate of 24% of eligible sponsors (down 1% from the previous survey) and 57% of eligible students (down 18% from the previous survey).
Questions posed in the survey related to school issues such as curriculum, instruction, standards, assessment, technology, student support, and communication. The survey was developed by representatives from various groups, including DoDEA Area and District representatives, DoDEA's Education Directorate staff, and the Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC). Some questions were taken from the Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of the Public's Attitudes Toward Schools with additional DoDEA-specific questions.
Highlights of Results - Education in General
Overall, 77% of parents and 73% of students rated DoDEA schools with an "A" or "B." Students and parents were equally satisfied with their particular school, with 79% of parents and 74% of students rating their school as "A" or "B." Nationally, 77% of parents rated their child's school as "A" or "B."
An increasing number of parents and students rated DoDEA schools highly in how well they were providing for all students to meet or exceed challenging academic standards. Close to three-fourths of parents (76%) and students (72%) rated their school "A" or "B," a 2-4% increase respectively over the previous survey.
Parents and students were also asked to indicate what topics they felt were major problems, minor problems, or not a problem at all in their schools. DoDEA parents and students continue to report the lunch program as the major issue at their school. According to students, the second major problem is bullying. Students' comments indicated that other students frequently "pick" on each other, but no one does anything about it. According to parents, the second major problem is financial support/funding. Parents remarked on being asked to "donate" supplies such as paper to the school; however students' comments referred to the lack of funds for field trips and sports competitions.
When asked to rank the top three actions with the most potential to improve their school, DoDEA students and parents continue to cite raising academic standards and reducing class size as the top two ways to improve their school. However, students and parents disagreed on their third choice, with students selecting "increasing access to instructional technology" and parents choosing "improving teacher qualifications and competence."
When asked to grade their school in preparing students in several specific curricular areas, parents and students continue to rate their school highest in preparing students in the core content areas of reading, writing, mathematics, science, and social studies, with at least 70% of both groups giving their school an "A" or "B" in these areas. Both parents and students rated their school lowest in preparing students in foreign language with 59% of parents giving their school an "A" or "B."
Highlights of Results - Assessment
DoDEA parents differ from parents nationally with regard to the amount of emphasis put on achievement testing. While 44% of parents nationally report there is too much emphasis on achievement testing, only 15% of DoDEA parents and 23% of students reported the same.
DoDEA parents were in agreement with parents nationally about whether all states should be required to use the same standardized assessment - approximately two-thirds of both groups approve of this requirement.
Highlights of Results - Technology
Parents viewed the use of online learning positively, with slightly more than half of the respondents approving of students being able to earn high school credits online without attending a regular school - a percentage higher than the 47% of parents nationally who also approved of the practice.
Highlights of Results - Student Support
Parents continue to be less positive than students in their opinions of the counseling services at their school. While 70% of students graded their school's counseling services as "A" or "B", only 47% of parents did so. While students' responses represent an 8% increase over the response in the previous survey, the responses from parents was consistent with results from previous surveys.
Note. Should clarify this is secondary only - maybe either Secondary students and parents or Students and parents at the secondary level...Students and parents continue to express dissatisfaction with the help counseling services provide in preparing students for life after high school (college, work, military service, etc.). Approximately 39% of parents and 44% of high school students graded their school with an "A" or a "B" in this area. These results represent an 11% decrease in parent ratings from the previous survey (50%) and a 21% decrease in the positive responses from students in the previous survey (65%). Definitive conclusions may be difficult to draw from these two comparisons - the wording of questions was changed slightly in the current survey which may have been a factor in the decreased satisfaction ratings.
Highlights of Results - Communication
Parents and students are increasingly pleased overall with the communication by their school. More than 80% of parents rated their child's school with an "A" or "B" in communicating about academic progress, behavior, general information, and responding to their questions and concerns in a timely manner. Although generally positive, students were less satisfied with the communication from their schools than parents, especially in the timeliness with which the school responded to their questions and concerns, with only 64% rating their school with an "A" or "B."
A complete wrap-up of the Customer Satisfaction Survey results is available on the DoDEA website, www.dodea.edu.
DoDEA will administer the next Customer Satisfaction Survey beginning in November 2012. Delete this statement - as part of the efficiency review for data collections/surveys by OSD this was canceled. We're trying to get it reinstated but aren't sure this will happen. DoDEA plans, directs, coordinates, and manages pre-kindergarten -12th grade education programs for Department of Defense (DoD) dependents who would otherwise not have access to high quality public education. More than 190 DoDEA schools serve approximately 87,000 students worldwide in Europe, the Pacific, the United States, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. DoDEA also provides support and resources to Local Education Activities throughout the United States that serve more than 1 million children of military families. | <urn:uuid:06de7a63-7af9-4101-86ac-16ed77475d78> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dodea.edu/newsroom/mediaadvisory/22062011.cfm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975887 | 1,416 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Come to the Townie Street Party and make your mark on this piece. I'm inviting everyone to come and mark the piece with where you live, where you've seen the results of invasive plants and animals in the county - wild hogs rooting in your garden? Ash borer killing your trees? Bring notes about your experience or pictures of your garden and we'll add the to the piece as well. This is a community based project and most of the images in it come from community members. We're hoping to spark dialogue about what are invasives, how long they've been an issue (hint - hundreds of years!) and what are some of the ways communities are handling the challenges presented by invasives.
When: Monday July 19th from 5:00pm to 9:30pm
Where: Ingalls Mall between Burton Tower and the League - I'll be in the Art Zone Tent
Working on this project has led me to some interesting sites - here are a few:
Michigan DNR - Habitat threats
Huron River Watershed Council
Legacy Land Trust
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Saturday, July 10, 2010
I'm looking for your help. For this project I'm putting together images, maps and words about how people have changed the environment here in Washtenaw County. Is your backyard full of garlic mustard? Place you like to paddle on the Huron now devoid of beneficial mussels? Banks full of purple loosestrife? I'm looking for your images and your words and I need them soon.
I'm also looking for mapping of invasive plants and animals in the county - if you have maps that you're willing to let me use please contact me!
This project will be assembled the night of the Townie Street Party - Monday July 19th at Ingalls Mall.
You can email me your images and words - to lasATlesliesobel.com
You can also bring them to the Townie Street Party from 5:00pm - 9:30pm
And please help me spread the word - time is running short and I'm looking for more material! | <urn:uuid:f9b952ff-3afb-4ea2-b9e9-40f6a59b4ed9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lesliesobel.blogspot.com/2010_07_01_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954618 | 435 | 1.921875 | 2 |
Some four decades ago, as a seventh-grader in upstate Idaho, I participated in a basic hunting safety program the National Rifle Association offered at our school. I carried my NRA safe-hunter card in my wallet all through high school — and with it, my impression of the NRA as an avuncular group dedicated to the outdoors and to safe, courteous, sportsmanlike hunting.
Which is what it was back then. As recent stories in The Washington Post and Salon have recounted, for most of its history, the NRA was a mainstream organization that promoted marksmanship, conservation and hunting.
After the headline-grabbing shootouts involving heavily armed, Prohibition-era gangsters like Al Capone, John Dillinger and Bonnie and Clyde, the NRA even helped the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration to pass the nation's first gun-control laws, in 1934 and 1938. Decades later, it deemed the gun-control act of 1968 something "the sportsmen of America can live with."
So what happened?
Simple: A group of gun rights absolutists unhappy with the organization's moderate, bipartisan orientation staged a surprise takeover. That started with a floor fight over rules and leadership at the NRA's 1977 meeting in Cincinnati, where better organized gun-rights absolutists prevailed over NRA moderates.
As an index of their outlook, Neal Knox, instrumental in the Cincinnati insurrection, thought that the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. might be part of a plot to advance gun control, and favored rolling back restrictions on the private ownership of machine guns.
Although there have been some internal struggles since, the hard-liners have transformed the NRA into the uncompromising, fire-breathing pressure group that it is today.
The full extent of that transformation came into sharp focus in the aftermath of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, when reporters put the NRA under the microscope after the revelation that domestic terrorist Timothy McVeigh had once sent an angry letter to his congressman sealed with a decal reading: "I'm the NRA."
The Boston Globe reported in a 1995 series that an important NRA official had met with leaders of the ultra-fringe Michigan militia movement, and that the NRA had selected as one of its law enforcement officers of the year a pro-militia Arizona sheriff who had started his own "civilian posse," which, he declared, he would call upon to fight the federal government if necessary.
The series also reported that as the NRA tried to boost revenues, its rhetoric had increasingly begun to resemble that of the conspiracy-theory-prone militia types, many of whom are convinced that the federal government wants to seize all private firearms and then impose totalitarian rule.
One regular source of hyper-heated anti-government rhetoric was Wayne LaPierre, the NRA's executive vice president and chief executive officer. In a fundraising letter sent out before the bombing, LaPierre charged that the ban on assault weapons then in effect "gives jack-booted government thugs more power to take away our constitutional rights, break in our doors, seize our guns, destroy our property, and even injure or kill us."
He further asserted that "in Clinton's administration, if you have a badge, you have the government's go-ahead to harass, intimidate, even murder law-abiding citizens."
LaPierre eventually issued a weasel word apology for some of his comments.
Now, one might have thought that the NRA would have changed its tactics and tone after that national embarrassment.
But last year, LaPierre, who earns about $1 million a year for his efforts, was still ranting away in similar terms. If President Barack Obama was re-elected, "the future of your Second Amendment rights will be at stake," he wrote in an NRA fundraising appeal. "And nothing less than the future of our country and our freedom will be at stake."
Preposterous as that is, given the extent of right-wing paranoia abroad in the land, some NRA members may actually believe that. It's even possible that LaPierre and other NRA leaders do. Still, the more likely scenario is that they simply use those apocalyptic tropes as tools to raise the millions needed to fund the NRA's operation and salaries.
It's hard to know which is more troubling, really. But as the debate about curbing gun carnage goes forward, it's important for sensible, mainstream America to realize that this is no longer even remotely your father's NRA.
Scot Lehigh writes for the Boston Globe. His email address is email@example.com. | <urn:uuid:f4359861-c522-4a95-8f89-485859743838> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.timesunion.com/opinion/article/Gun-absolutists-run-NRA-4298907.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965179 | 942 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Grammar Lesson: Sentences By Design (or Construction)
Sentences are constructed by purpose (declarative, interrogative, exclamatory, and imperative sentences) as well as by design. The four types of sentences by design (or construction) are the simple, the compound, the complex, and the compound-complex sentence.
- A simple sentence consists of one independent (or main) clause (group of words).
- My report should be longer.
- Joanna and Anna brought their children home.
- I cannot easily forget that ceremony.
- A compound sentence consists of two or more independent (or main) clauses that are closely related in meaning.
- The sun broke through the clouds, and the children went outside to play. (This is a good compound sentence because the clauses are related.)
- The sun broke through the clouds, and the television needs to be replaced. (This is not a good compound sentence because the clauses are totally unrelated.)
- A complex sentence has one main (or independent) clause and one (or more) subordinate (or dependent) clauses.
- This is the same method that the doctors used last year. (The subordinate clause is underlined.)
- If you can help us out, we would be very grateful. (The subordinate clause is underlined.)
- A compound-complex sentence has two (or more) main (or independent) clauses and one (or more) subordinate (or dependent) clauses.
- [The public address announcer correctly pronounced the player's difficult name], and [the umpire signaled to the batter] who was standing by the dugout. (The subordinate clause is underlined, and the two main clauses are in brackets.)
Activity 1- Simple and Compound Sentences
There are five simple (S) and five compound (C) sentences in these ten sentences. Write the appropriate letter on the line next to the sentence.
- The exciting performer approached the microphone, and the crowd waited expectantly.
- This operation will take only two hours.
- Walter signaled for the waiter, and the waiter walked over to the table.
- Tom, the repairman, entered the office, and his helper brought in the tools.
- Scratching his head, the musical conductor looked quite confused.
- The experienced stuntman is capable of performing many difficult maneuvers.
- Trey's mother-in-law would also like to go to the dance recital, but she already has an appointment that night.
- Our team's catcher, Jillian, is very agile, and she is also a dedicated captain and player.
- Priscilla watched the sunset from her bay window across the serene lake in Massachusetts.
- Can you believe that story?
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Today on Education.com
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- Steps in the IEP Process | <urn:uuid:dc34fe56-a491-4a72-9631-b41f296443eb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.education.com/reference/article/sentences-design-construction/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944907 | 745 | 3.609375 | 4 |
FEBRUARY 2012: 2013 Mitsubishi Evo XI
With Mitsubishi scrapping its gas guzzlers and launching brand-new electric and gas-electric hybrids, all aimed at meeting ever-tighter global emissions standards, the rumor mill is suggesting that even the Lancer Evolution is going to go green. Or green-ish. The idea is to keep it high-performance and AWD, but also use some of the technology already behind the forthcoming i-MiEV electric city car and wed it to either a turbodiesel or a gas motor. The potential would still be there for exceptional output when both gas/electric power plants combine, but it's possible Mitsubishi may allow the driver to roll up to highway speeds on battery juice alone, vastly improving fuel economy. Evo XI may become both larger and more refined too, positioning it more naturally against rivals like Audi. | <urn:uuid:650e184c-425c-445f-a23c-a857920803fe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/news/preview-concept/12-new-cars-that-are-worth-waiting-for-2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929584 | 182 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Linda S. Cordell
Linda S. Cordell was appointed a Senior Scholar at SAR in July 2006. No stranger to SAR, Linda has been a participant at several advanced seminars, was an NEH resident scholar in 1981–1982, held Arroyo Hondo Summer scholarships in 2003 and 2004, and served on the Staley Prize Committee and an SAR Planning Committee prior to joining SAR. Linda is an archaeologist whose primary research is in the U.S. Southwest with an emphasis on the14th and 15th century northern and central Rio Grande Valley Ancestral Pueblo peoples. Her research interests include archaeological method and theory, the archaeology of settlement dynamics in agricultural communities, and human responses to climate change in arid regions. Linda is author of Prehistory of the Southwest (1984), Archaeology of the Southwest, second edition (1997), Archaeology of the Southwest, third edition (2012), Ancient Pueblo Peoples (1994), Before Pecos: Settlement Aggregation in the Upper Pecos Valley, New Mexico (1998), and co-author with Beatriz Braniff-C. and others of La Gran Chichimeca, el Lugar de las Rocas Secas (2001). She is also editor of Tijeras Canyon, Analyses of the Past (1980); co-editor with George Gumerman of Dynamics of Southwest Prehistory (1989); co-editor with Nelson Foster of Chilies to Chocolate, Foods the Americas Gave the World (1992); and co-editor with Don D. Fowler of Southwest Archaeology in the Twentieth Century (2005); among many other books and innumerable articles.
Linda earned her B.A. at George Washington University, her M.A. at the University of Oregon, and her Ph.D. at the University of California Santa Barbara. She taught at the University of New Mexico from 1971–1987, as an Assistant, Associate, and Full Professor and served a term as chair of the Department of Anthropology. Linda then spent four years at the California Academy of Sciences, in San Francisco, as Irvine Curator and Chair of the Department of Anthropology. In 1992, Linda joined the faculty of the University of Colorado, Boulder as Director of the University of Colorado Museum, a comprehensive natural history museum, and Professor of Anthropology. She served at Colorado until June 2005, and holds emeritus status in the Department of Anthropology and the Museum. More recently, she was appointed to the External Faculty at the Santa Fe Institute in 2010 and was a keynote speaker at their Spring Science Council Meeting in April 2011.
Linda was elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences in 2005. She has been awarded the A. V. Kidder medal for eminence in American Archaeology by the American Anthropological Association—the second woman to have won the Kidder medal in its 60 years of existence. Linda was also awarded the Byron S. Cummings Award by the Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society in 2004, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa at George Washington University.
Always active in the profession of anthropology, Linda has been elected to terms as a member of the Board of Directors of the Society for American Archaeology and Board Member and President of the Southwest Symposium, and as a representative of Section H (Anthropology) of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Throughout her career, Linda has enjoyed teaching undergraduate and graduate students, directing archaeological field schools, developing museum exhibitions, and conducting collaborative research. Her current projects include being available to SAR Resident Scholars, visitors, and members; consulting on exhibitions for the National Museum of the American Indian; and continuing collaborative research on 14th-century Ancestral Pueblo society, ceramics, and maize agriculture. | <urn:uuid:29079184-39fb-4175-a788-95ef1d134002> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sarweb.org/?senior_scholar_linda_s_cordell | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955961 | 760 | 1.75 | 2 |
- Contact Us
One Day's Wages is Looking to Grant $30,000 for Human Trafficking Projects
We're excited to share with our movement that because of your generosity, we hope to award up to 3 grants totalling $30,000 in the upcoming months and many more in the future through the ODW Human Trafficking Fund - an issue specific fund meant to address the prevalence and severity of human trafficking.
The Human Trafficking Fund targets projects addressing the many facets surrounding human trafficking.
Educate Yourself - What is Human Trafficking?
The United Nations defines Human trafficking as “the acquisition of people by improper means such as force, fraud or deception, with the aim of exploiting them". Human Trafficking is a very local issue, and looks differently from place to place; it can include sex slavery, forced labour, debt-bondage and even forced fighting in wars. It often takes advantage of women and children, as these groups are typically the most vulnerable in societies.
Many advocates for those subjected to trafficking have rightly called human trafficking “modern slavery”. Instead of being a intuitional form of slavery based solely on race, like most of us think of when they hear of slavery, the modern slave trade looks for those that are politically marginalized, stigmatized and in situations of desperation, and then exploits them for their own gain.
- There are an estimated 600,000 to 800,000 children, women and men trafficked across international borders annually. (U.S. Department of State)
- Worldwide, there are nearly two million children in the commercial sex trade. (UNICEF)
- The total market value of illicit human trafficking is estimated to be in excess of $32 billion. (UN)
- There are an estimated 27 million slaves in the world today – More than the total amount of people seized from Africa during the four centuries of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. (National Geographic)
$30,000 for Grants
Because of some individual donations and birthday causes for this project, an amazing and inspiring idea campaign via Justin's 2000 miles bike ride, and $25,000 raised last year for this issue, we have decided to award up to 3 grants totaling $30,000 to organizations that are working in the area of Human Trafficking and we hope to announce our recipients at or near this year's Annual Gala.
But we need your help.
Share your suggestions for Grants
At ODW, our ethos and values are not to award grants by hosting popularity contests, voting, or social media contests. Thousands of people have trusted us with their funds and we take that trust and stewardship seriously.
Rather, we want to find and vet organizations - particularly smaller ones that are often overlooked - that are doing significant, transparent, and measurable work.
There are many organizations that are doing inspiring work but we don't know all of them - or even many of them.
This is where you come in.
In the comment section below:
1) Share an NGO or CBO (community based organization) that is working around the issue of Human Trafficking and in countries classified as "low or medium development" nations by the United Nation’s Human Development Index.
2) Explain why you believe in their work.
While not exclusive, our goals are to partner and collaborate with NGOs and CBOs whose operating budget is under $100,000/year USD.
* For organizations, you can read more about our criteria for grants and submit an initial letter of inquiry (LOI) here.
** For larger NGOs, we may direct them towards a "matching grant."
Your voice matter to us. We look forward to reading and researching your suggestions.
Ways to Donate
Use this page to select an organization and donate online using your credit card.
Checks should be made payable to: One Day's Wages. Please write "Giving Fund" or the specific project/fund you are giving towards.
Wire donations, stock transfers, or estate planning. For more info, contact firstname.lastname@example.org.
Mailing address:One Day's Wages
1301 2nd Ave. Suite 3600
Seattle, WA 98101
ODW is a 501(c)(3) organization. All donations are tax-deductible. 100% of your donations (minus credit card transaction costs) go directly to specific projects to alleviate global poverty. | <urn:uuid:011482a9-44fc-40eb-afcf-608bfa1aa9d2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.onedayswages.org/community/blog/2011/10/one-days-wages-looking-grant-30000-human-trafficking-projects | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946149 | 911 | 2.421875 | 2 |
Maike is exploring the links between ecosystem services and human well-being in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa.
Her work is part of a programme on the 'Governance of ecosystem services under scenarios of change in southern and eastern Africa', led by the Stockholm Resilience Centre and funded by the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA). She is collaborating with the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in South Africa, and aims to investigate ecosystem service dynamics and regime shifts in a regional poverty hotspot.
After completing her MSc in Conservation Biology at the University of Cape Town, Maike worked in both the government and NGO sector on natural resource management issues in South Africa and Madagascar. These experiences led her to the Stockholm Resilience Centre to pursue research on the human-environment interface.
Of particular interest are the ways in which bundles of ecosystem services relate to the human landscape, the trade-offs and synergies between different services, as well as the changes in social-ecological systems that lead to regime shifts and their impact on human well-being. | <urn:uuid:85e2bbb2-64cd-4184-b17e-438ee70c7181> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.stockholmresilience.org/contactus/staff/hamann.5.53ee94ff132ea995528800015580.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942517 | 218 | 1.820313 | 2 |
From Vallejo, California, USA:
My 22 year old son, who has had diabetes since age 13, was in good control until he had a virus and ended up in the hospital with DKA. Now they have revoked his driver's license even though he has never driven when he was sick and tries to keep his glucose levels in check. How can he get his license back?
Laws differ from state to state, but I have never heard of a license being revoked because someone was hospitalized with high blood sugars and DKA [diabetic ketoacidosis]. Perhaps your son hasn't told you the true reason his license was revoked. If what you say is correct, he will need his doctor to work with him to convince the department of motor vehicles that there is no danger when he drives.
I suspect he had some driving violation he didn't tell you about. If he didn't have any driving violation, than his doctor would have had to notify the department of motor vehicles that it wasn't safe for him to drive. In some states this is mandated if a physician feels that there is a medical contraindication to someone's driving (which is usually low blood sugars, not ketoacidosis with diabetes). I suspect that your son hasn't told you all the details.
Sometimes having your license revoked if you are indeed driving with low blood sugars (or with alcohol or both), can get the person to take the responsibility of driving more seriously and prevent a tragic accident and get be an incentive to control the diabetes more carefully.
Additional comments from David S. Holtzman, Esq.:Courts have held that holding a driver's license is a privilege, not a right. The state can revoke that privilege if there is evidence that a medical condition would prevent the driver from safely operating a vehicle. Likely, a physician treating your son reported that your son may not always be able to recognize when he will be so sick that he cannot safely drive.
Your son is entitled to a hearing on the DMV's determination that his medical condition prevents him from safely operating a motor vehicle. In preparing for the hearing, he should obtain the advice of an attorney licensed in his state with expertise in vehicle and traffic law. He will also need to show proof from at least one physician that he is fit to operate a motor vehicle.
Original posting 26 Jan 2003
Posted to Other Social Issues
Last Updated: Tuesday April 06, 2010 15:09:40
This Internet site provides information of a general nature and is designed for educational purposes only. If you have any concerns about your own health or the health of your child, you should always consult with a physician or other health care professional.
This site is published by Children With Diabetes, Inc, which is responsible for its contents.
© Children with Diabetes, Inc. 1995-2013. Comments and Feedback. | <urn:uuid:e880a81e-c3db-4c9a-9ddb-6389b054716e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.childrenwithdiabetes.com/dteam/2003-01/d_0d_a17.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981059 | 581 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Do you remember how it felt to sit in one of these? The old school desk was the asana (“seat” in Sanskrit) that propped us up in school as we learned grammar and arithmetic, and maybe a few extra-curricular tricks.
As kids we sat in class with the spine upright and mula bandha rooting the sit bones on the wooden plank, while we learned conventional labels and concepts to harness our creativity and empower our intellect.
Now our butts may be a bit too wide to fit into one of these desks, and our minds may have since become cluttered with notes, memories, choices, concerns and a million other vrittis (thoughts)…. but many of us are back – back to (yoga) school and raising our hands high.
Same but Different
Let’s not forget, however, that there’s reason for hope and enthusiasm: now we’re different than we were before. Our mental citta (mental capacity) is more refined. According to the philosophy of yoga, the consciousness, like the body, is always changing, developing, and evolving. Read the same book now as you did last year, and your mind will process it differently. Not just because of your experience and thoughts over the past year, but because the terrain of your mind is inherently different.
The good news is that now we have new capacity to realize the essence of life, the permanent, unchanging Truth beneath the rolling swells of thoughts, emotions, feeling and so much other information in our lives. That’s what yoga is for – to purify our mental and physical space. That is what we all have the possibility of learning in the asanas we make on the mat.
We may be trying to rekindle the spark of joy and playfulness that bubbled out of us when we sat in these little desks as kids. We may be determined to get back those slim waist lines and flexible limbs that seated life has since turned into distant memory. These possibilities, although still there, are but ephemeral whims.
Our Deepest Desire
Our deepest desire, underneath all other stuff that may make yoga appealing, is seeing the mind and body for what they are now, and connecting with the part of us that has always been. This, I think, is as practical and relevant as anything I ever learned in school. Welcome back. | <urn:uuid:5d0e39a8-b7ae-4685-9d14-faad08245537> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.doyouyoga.com/the-school-desk-asana/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968567 | 495 | 1.742188 | 2 |
I am sure lots of the gamers and PC enthusiasts out there remember when we moved from the AGP slot over to the first PCIe slot. The performance improvement coming from an AGP video card to the PCIe cars was very impressive. Later the PCIe 2.0 slot came out with about twice the bandwidth of the original and again brought video cards that had more performance. Now there is a new specification for PCIe that is ready to be downloaded by PCI-SIG members.
The new specification is PCIe 3.0 is backwards compatible with PCIe and PCIe 2.0 devices so your old cards will work with the new spec once it starts showing up on the market. The 3.0 specification has a new 128b/130b encoding scheme and has a data transfer rate of 8GT/s. The original PCIe spec has 2.5GT/s and the PCIe 2.0 spec has 5GT/s transfer rates.
According to the PCI-SIG the 3.0 spec has bandwidth of about 1GB/s in one direction on an x1 slot and can scale up to 32GB/s on an x16 slot commonly used for graphics cards. More bandwidth should mean that the video cards could offer gamers more performance for their favorite games. The new spec also has a number of other enhancements.
"The PCI-SIG remains dedicated to I/O innovation and we are proud to release the PCIe 3.0 specification to our members," said Al Yanes, PCI-SIG chairman and president. "The PCIe 3.0 architecture details significant improvements over our two previous PCIe specifications, providing our members with the performance and functionality they need to continue to be innovators in their fields."
Further Reading: Read and find more Mobile Devices news at our Mobile Devices news index page. | <urn:uuid:dd59f0c5-25c7-4a8e-8061-98c2ee0a9a19> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tweaktown.com/news/17632/pci_express_3_0_specification_is_ready/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943401 | 363 | 1.515625 | 2 |
World War II liberator and liberated share experiences at Fair Lawn event
Wahl, who received a Bronze Star Medal Combat Infantryman badge for his service, originally received his commendation from Bush in 2007, but it was sent by mail and did not arrive in time for the ceremony.
In the end, these men and all of the veterans who were honored, are survivors: of war, hardship and horror that few in America can now imagine.
“I don’t know myself how I survived,” said Peck. “If somebody tells you or me that he did this or that in order to survive, don’t believe him,” he said. “It all comes down to mazel,” he said. “Luck.” | <urn:uuid:7bb74a60-c650-4c68-bc34-f8ce485a794d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.northjersey.com/community/history/World_War_II_liberator_and_liberated_share_experiences_at_Fair_Lawn_event.html?c=y&page=3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984112 | 161 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Thanksgiving is upon us and I wanted to share with you some of my favorite tips for sailing through it with as little stress as possible.
As much as we love our families, time spent together in the holiday rush can have its share of stressful problems. We know our relatives so well. They know what buttons to push to make us crazy, just as we know theirs. So how best to get through the day?
- Remember not to be looking for reasons to be offended. Often a comment made off the cuff hits a little too close to home. Most likely the person was not looking to offend us. Even if they were, taking offense raises our blood pressure and leaves them untouched.
Unless we choose to escalate the whole situation. Is that really how we want to remember the holiday?
- Focus on what's good about the day, what you're grateful for. Stress and negativity cannot live in your brain at the same time as gratitude. Anytime something begins to make you unhappy, find something, anything that you're grateful for. And with all that happened with Superstorm Sandy this past month, so many of us have much to be grateful for.
Remember my favorite Wayne Dyer quote, "When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change." Works with cranky relatives too!
- We humans tend to imagine things either much worse or much better than they actually turn out to be. Decide in advance it's going to be fine regard less of what it may have been like in previous years.
Whatever your Thanksgiving is like, remember it's only a day or maybe even a few hours. We can get through it...if we do our part to bring the best of us to the table... If all else fails, just breathe and wait it out. The day will be over before you know it! | <urn:uuid:8b145f7f-eb64-4ebe-83ff-6e5876564234> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bristol-warren.patch.com/blog_posts/strategies-for-a-lovely-thanksgiving | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972339 | 378 | 1.820313 | 2 |
I am so impressed with the parents forum in Pimlico. They held a great meeting to discuss free school meals. They got speakers from Islington and Westminster council to explain about their free school meal policies and a councillor from Westminster came along to explain why they weren't able to do it.
The parents made a short video explaining what free school meals would mean to them. It is very powerful viewing. One of the parents also made a terrific speech which I have copied below.
All of the women involved are new to campaigning but have done a really brilliant job. If you want to leave a message of support or have a question for them please leave a comment below and I will ensure that they get it.
We all know why we are here today, so I thought I would get straight to the point.
It doesn’t sound a lot. Some of you may spend that on your own lunch in one day…
But to some of us, it makes a big difference. Many families that I know have two, or three or even four children in full time school. That is £35 per week. That’s the difference between getting a new school uniform, or not getting one. Getting a new winter coat. Or not always having to say “not this week”…!
We want the best for our kids. At the moment, there is a problem in Westminster with a rise in obesity and type 2 diabetes. There are health programmes out there tackling this. We know from the other trials around the country that having a healthy, hot meal at lunch time directly impacts on children’s concentration levels. They are calmer in the classrooms. Not only does it improve their health but it impacts on their achievements in school. We know lunchboxes are a poor second best. Only 1% of lunch boxes in the UK meet the high nutritional standards of school meals.
So as parents we really want our kids to be able to have the very high quality school dinners that are offered in Westminster’s schools. But many of us have to choose between this cost, and other equally important things for our families.
We all know it has been very cold over the last few months. We all had to put some extra heating on. But what if you just can’t afford to put the extra heat on, because you don’t have any more money to put on the key?
How do you explain to your kids not to put the heater on, when they get up and they’re cold? To hear them say “don’t do that, or we’ll be sitting in the cold and the dark!
Why is it right that when you go back to work after being on income support, you loose this help, just because you are getting – in a lot of cases – only a few extra pounds income?
Even with schemes where you can claim some clothing allowance, childcare for the first six months and so on… eventually this also stops, and this support is taken away leaving you still on a low income. With all these challenges on families’ income, we think it is simply unfair that those kids loose out. Would it not make sense to just give all kids a free hot meal?
In Southwark they are, and in Islington. So why can’t we?! | <urn:uuid:8b7efad9-99cd-417f-8293-74ff5c3b7b2e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://jackiesschoolfoodblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/low-income-mums-making-case-for-free.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973644 | 688 | 2.015625 | 2 |
What Are The Best Pond Filters?
Author: Allen Jesson
Although a natural pond does not require the use of a pond filter a man made pond can only benefit from its use. Pond filters are designed to break down toxins within the water usually caused by decaying organic particles, if a pond filter is not used to remove this physical dirt your pond could be at risk of having poor pond water which could result in health problems for any fish living within the pond.
Depending on the size of your pond and how many fish you have will determine the type and size of the pond filter you need. Once installed the pond filter will keep both the water free from particles that can cause the water to be murky, smelly and even toxic, your fish and pond plants will also benefit from the pond filter as they will be healthier.
Pond filters not only optimise the viewing of your pond by cleaning the water for enhanced viewing of the fish, plants and inhabitants pond filters also conserve water by cleaning and recycling the ponds original water, When the water is pumped back into your pond it keeps the pond water which also helps to reduce the risk of the pond becoming stagnant.
There are several different types of pond filters to choose from all of which will produce a noticeable difference to any garden pond.
External pond filters are usually the largest type of pond filter available. They are situated outside of the pond but close to it. They are usually filled with large sheets of foam with porous or plastic stone biological media underneath.
The biggest advantage of external pond filters is the improvement of the water quality it is also possible to add different filer media to serve other purposes should you have a specific problem with your pond. Having the pond filter outside of the pond makes the unit a lot easier to clean also the external pond filter supports the largest fish load.
The only disadvantage is the size and visibility however it is quite easy to disguise the pond filter behind pond plants making it less visible.
These pond filters are extremely versatile and are filled with a mixture of filter media for different types of filtration including chemical, mechanical and biological filtration. The advantages of this type of pond filter is not only the cleanliness of the water but the pond filter can also be used for other purposes such as water fountains, pond spitters and many other water based pond feature.
The only disadvantage is this type of pond filter is submersed in the water which may mean that you will need to stand in the pond to retrieve it depending on where it is situated when you decide to clean it.
When purchasing pond filters you will find that pet shops are always happy to help you chooses the right filter to suit your pond, take the time to ask someone in the shop and explain what sort of pond you have it is also wise to have a rough idea of the size and how many fish reside with it to make sure the best pond filter is selected.
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/pets-articles/what-are-the-best-pond-filters-108503.html
About the Author:
Allen Jesson writes for several sites including Seapets, a leading source for Pond Filters and hot dog training tips and training for dogs. | <urn:uuid:ca4948ea-c0e3-4791-af30-123a628b84d7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pondworld.com/pond-filer-types.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955862 | 664 | 2.046875 | 2 |
Former Kauffman Foundation CEO Carl Schramm recently wrote that Kansas City is Americas least dynamic town it wont grow and it wont shrink.
By YAEL T. ABOUHALKAH
The Kansas City Star
He added that the most reliable measure of a citys future health is whether employment is expanding or contracting.
Schramms words angered many of this areas civic elites and politicians.
But emotions aside, statistics show his damning comment was more right than wrong.
• This regions employment growth the past 10 years has been weak.
• Growth the past three years has been downright distressing.
Dont pin all the blame on bad old Kansas City, either. The employment data below include Johnson County cities as well as other growth areas in Platte and Clay counties.
This week I reviewed hundreds of figures from the last decade for the Kansas City region and 17 others.
Ten are considered our Midwestern benchmarks. Seven other areas have been visited as part of the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerces leadership exchange program, designed to teach lessons on how to improve our region. Officials returned Tuesday from Austin, the latest site.
The Kansas City area was a feeble 11th in percentage growth in total nonfarm employment from July of 2002 to July of 2012, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Austin (up 24.4 percent) was the leader, followed by Fort Worth, Nashville, Oklahoma City, Seattle, Charlotte, Omaha, Denver, Indianapolis, Tulsa, Kansas City (up 3.1 percent), San Diego, Pittsburgh, Minneapolis, Cincinnati, Memphis, St. Louis and Milwaukee (down 3.7 percent).
The Kansas City region was an appalling 16th in employment growth from July of 2009 to July 2012, from near the bottom of the economic collapse to a healthier period now.
Austin (up 8.0 percent), Nashville, Fort Worth, Oklahoma City, Pittsburgh, Denver, Charlotte, Seattle, Indianapolis, San Diego, Cincinnati, Minneapolis, Omaha, Tulsa, Memphis, Kansas City (up .5 percent), Milwaukee and St. Louis (up .4 percent).
Combining both sets of statistics, the healthiest four regions are Austin, Nashville, Fort Worth and Oklahoma City.
The four weakest are St. Louis, Milwaukee, Memphis and Kansas City.
These worrisome numbers are a big challenge and nasty wake-up call for people and organizations who play large roles in increasing area employment.
At the top of the list are the board of directors for the Kansas City Area Development Council and longtime CEO Bob Marcusse; the board of directors for Kansas Citys Economic Development Corp. and new CEO Pete Fullerton; the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce and CEO Jim Heeter; and business executives on the Civic Council of Greater Kansas City.
The list of responsible parties also includes elected officials such as Johnson County Commission Chair Ed Eilert and Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback. Their Missouri-side counterparts include Kansas City Mayor Sly James and Gov. Jay Nixon.
This regions economically destructive border war is part of the problem; poaching companies in both states has created few net new jobs at a big cost to taxpayers.
While the University of Missouri-Kansas City is improving, it doesnt yet have enough private or public funds to make it outstanding beyond a few select departments.
This region has to get much better at attracting outsiders to step up and invest here.
The chambers Big 5 effort aimed at helping to create jobs is a start. So is an emerging bid to boost start-ups by entrepreneurs.
Still, this region needs much more dynamic leadership at its many eco-devo agencies. It needs better cooperation among politicians to woo private investment. Other metro areas have ramped up their games. We must stop lagging behind. | <urn:uuid:dde60899-579b-4770-afe4-5510d657012d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kansascity.com/2012/09/26/3835529/our-areas-development-strategies.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940424 | 772 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Republicans have spent the last four years baselessly accusing President Obama of stirring up resentment against the rich. Meanwhile, his campaign — or, at least, its surrogates — actually is stirring up resentment against a different group: foreign countries. Obama’s attacks on Romney for outsourcing have, in the latest ad from the pro-Obama super-PAC Priorities USA, metastasized into a general attack on overseas employment:
The ad says of China, “thousands owe their jobs to Mitt Romney’s companies,” illustrating the charge with video of Chinese workers on an assembly line. It then adds, “India — which also gained jobs thanks to Romney, an outsourcing pioneer!”
Why is Obama’s super-PAC running ads crediting Romney with creating jobs for people in China and India? And why is that considered such a terrible thing? Here is where the demographic weak point of Obama’s coalition runs squarely up against the beliefs of his economic advisers, and this somewhat unseemly political message is the result.
Obama is harnessing the political power of economic nationalism — the belief that other countries’ prosperity must come at our own expense. It’s an idea that economists consider almost totally wrong. I say “almost” because there is some legitimate disagreement over the possibility that a country can dominate an industry in a way that gives it an advantage over others — say, the cluster of software expertise around Silicon Valley. In general, though, economic nationalism is an idea that politicians use to win elections, then ignore when they’re in office. Obama does not want to stop outsourcing, offshoring, or free trade. He thinks that higher employment in China and India is, all things being equal, good.
But voters like economic nationalism. And there’s a certain category of voters that likes it an awful lot: working class voters, who have seen their wages stagnate over the last several decades in a more globalized environment. Obama has had trouble attracting white working-class voters, but not in a uniform way. In 2008, he cratered among white working-class voters in Appalachia, but held up fairly well among white working-class voters in the upper Midwest. (Probably because those voters had endured eight years of economic stagnation under George W. Bush.)
But now Obama is doing even worse among white working-class voters than he did four years ago. As Nate Cohn has convincingly argued, the decline in Obama’s support from 2008 has been highly uneven. He has held or even increased his standing among nonwhite voters, held up well among college-educated white women, and seen a little deterioration among college-educated white men. It’s white voters without a college degree where most of his decline has taken place.
This fact has important electoral college implications. In some states, especially those where Obama attracted new voters into the Democratic coalition, he relies mainly on nonwhite and college-educated white voters. That’s why he’s holding up reasonably well in Virginia and even North Carolina (the latter of which he just barely won in 2008). But for the same reason, it’s easy to see Obama losing disproportionate support in states where he needed lots of white voters with college degrees in order to win — mainly Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.
Michigan is the hardest state to figure out right now. On the one hand, the high concentration of white working-class votes suggest it would be ripe to swing disproportionately back to the GOP. On the other hand, Michigan supported Obama by almost a seventeen point margin four years ago. Then Obama almost single-handedly rescued the state’s economy, while his opponent called for the industry to go bankrupt. So what gives? We still don’t know. Recent polls have shown, respectively, Romney leading by one point, Obama leading by six points, and Obama leading by fourteen points. Whether Michigan is in play is hard to say at this point.
What does seem clear is that Obama needs to hold down Romney’s margin among the white working class. The field of play has been generally narrowed to white working-class voters who disapprove of Obama’s job performance but also distrust Romney. NBC’s latest poll shows that undecided voters have a poor view of Obama, with a 29-42 favorable rating, but an abysmal view of Romney, at just 16 percent favorable against 44 percent unfavorable. Thus the general focus on discrediting Romney as a champion of the middle class, and the specific appeal to economic nationalism. | <urn:uuid:6cdb7d4b-32d6-4503-8c40-f90da706df89> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2012/07/romney-the-white-working-class-villain.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962976 | 940 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Download the ACE Overview
For more than 35 years, DOE’s Building Technologies Office (BTO) has championed the development of energy-efficient products and approaches to building design and construction—building technology—and fostered their application and use in the market.
As an integral part of BTO, BECP plays an important role in the acceptance and use of building technology by supporting the development and improvement of energy codes that, when adopted, implemented, and satisfied, create demand for their application and use. Advances in building energy efficiency such as cool roofs, new lighting technologies, and innovative design practices fostered by BTO have an increased impact due to BECP’s support for the adoption of, compliance with, and enforcement of energy codes
In the United States, residential and commercial buildings account for 40% of all energy use and 70% of electricity use. Energy codes that are adopted and satisfied result in less energy use, reduced environmental impacts, and a reduction in energy bills that accrue during the life of every building. In addition, they provide an increase in the resale value of buildings.
Over the last 20 years, BECP has assisted in reducing the nation’s annual energy use by more than 0.3 quads and saving consumers more than $15 billion.
The rate of new building construction and existing building additions or renovations does not allow us to be lax in applying energy codes as an integral tool to address our energy, economic, and environmental challenges. For that reason, the BECP has developed the ACE Learning Series and will continue to support enhancements to buildings through energy codes.
Building energy codes and standards are key to a clean and sustainable energy future.
Building energy codes and standards (hereinafter referred to as energy codes) are minimum energy-efficiency requirements for the design and construction of new buildings and additions and renovations to existing buildings. Energy codes are an integral part of what are called building construction regulations or, more generally, building codes that govern all aspects of buildings from structural integrity to electrical safety and fire protection.
The two most widely adopted energy codes are the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) and ANSI/ASHRAE/IES Standard 90.1 (ASHRAE Standard 90.1). The IECC applies to all buildings. ASHRAE Standard 90.1 applies to commercial buildings, which are considered buildings other than single-family dwellings and multifamily buildings three stories or less in height above grade (e.g., residential buildings).
The IECC adopts ASHRAE Standard 90.1 by reference, allowing it to be used and, in some instances, requiring it to be used in lieu of the provisions in the IECC.
Once adopted, these codes are required to be satisfied as a condition for building approval and occupancy; those adopting them, generally state and local governments, will conduct activities to ensure compliance. When adoption of and compliance with energy codes is achieved, buildings will use less energy, helping to reduce our nation’s dependence on foreign energy sources and bolstering our economy while addressing our increasing environmental challenges.
This ACE Overview provides a high-level view of energy codes— what they are, their value, and their application. It also serves as a starting point from which to secure additional details on adoption, compliance, and enforcement from ACE toolkits focused on those topics. Whatever your role with buildings—designer, specifier, builder, contractor, product developer, policy maker, elected official, code official, building owner or developer, or consumer—having a firm grasp of energy codes is fundamental to ensuring buildings meet our needs while concurrently using less energy.
By making conscientious efforts to reduce building energy use through energy codes, we help improve the economy and U.S. competitiveness and reduce the impact of buildings on the environment. | <urn:uuid:013b6766-111a-450c-acbc-33a7e513126e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.energycodes.gov/resource-center/ACE/overview | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937217 | 785 | 2.5 | 2 |
Driver’s Licensing Began
On February 28, 1935, the General Assembly passed the Uniform Driver’s License Act, placing in the pockets of authorized drivers the state’s official sanction putting them behind the wheel. The bill, sponsored by Senator Carroll Weathers of Wake County, was a response to the fact that more than 1,000 deaths had occurred on the state’s highways since the rise of the automobile 30 years earlier. The automobile age in North Carolina had begun in earnest with the introduction of the “Buggymobile” in New Bern in 1903 and other primitive vehicles soon after.
The 1935 act defined a motor vehicle as “any rubber-tired vehicle propelled or drawn by any power other than muscular.” Aircraft, road rollers, street sprinklers, ambulances, baggage trucks and agricultural and industrial tractors were excluded from the licensing requirement.
Then, as now, drivers were required to be at least 16 years of age. Initially no test was required, and only the word that the applicant was experienced and careful was needed. Exams began in 1948.
Today the Division of Motor Vehicles, part of the Department of Transportation, administers the state’s drivers licensing program. You can see the original Uniform Driver’s License Act by clicking here.
Other related resources:
- Driver’s Liceneses on NCpedia
- Materials related to transportation in the State Government Publications Collection of the State Library
- The N.C. Transportation Museum in Spencer
For more about North Carolina’s history, arts and culture, visit Cultural Resources online. To receive these updates automatically each day, subscribe by email using the box on the right and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. | <urn:uuid:fcd837d9-155f-48ce-a6fc-6faf80890d87> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nchistorytoday.wordpress.com/2013/02/28/drivers-licensing-in-n-c-began/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938972 | 361 | 3.34375 | 3 |
Secretly, my wife still harbors a little regret about the lost weekends I spent coding Mule, but without her, Mule would not have been created and the book you are reading would not exist.
Like thousands of developers before me, I was continually struggling with the complexities of systems integration. The problem was that the proprietary solutions of the day there were no open source alternatives back thenset out to address integration by adding another piece of complexity to the problem. These products made too many assumptions about the environment and architecture, masking the ugliness with doodleware, slick demo applications, and suave salesmen. I used to work long hours trying to work around integration products rather than being able to leverage them. This resulted in me venting to the point where my wife firmly suggested that I stop complaining and do something about it. A Mule was born.
Six years on, and Mule represents a shift in the way we integrate applications. It provides a focus on service orientation and assembly instead of building monolithic application stacks. Integration and service orientation are becoming increasingly important parts of application developers’ lives, since organizations never throw anything away. Couple this with the rise of SaaS, Web 2.0, and Cloud computing, and we have an evolution from traditional application development to an assembly model, where data is served in many forms from many sources inside and outside of our company firewalls.
This book provides the first thorough coverage of all aspects of Mule. It provides examples for everything you will need to do with Mule, from creating and consuming services to working with various technologies such as JMS, Web Services, and FTP. Importantly, it covers how to test, deploy, monitor, and tune Mule applications, topics that can trip up new users due to the flexibility of the Mule platform.
The great yet subtle element of this book is that the authors have captured the essence of pragmatism that is the founding principle of Mule. The notion that you can start small and build a complete ESB architecture over time is prevalent. Each chapter explains the tools provided by Mule for building service-oriented applications. The chapters cover everything, including configuration basics, message routing, data transformation, publishing services, and working with the Mule Galaxy registry.
This publication marks a significant milestone for the Mule project. It demonstrates that the ideals of open source and community building do work. The authors, David Dossot and John D’Emic, have been long-time community members and have made many other contributions to the project; this is a significant and lasting addition. I can see this book becoming the must-have guide for all current and prospective Mule users since it walks the reader through all aspects of Mule in the right amount of detail, focusing on the areas most important for building applications. Read on to learn how to unlock the power of Mule.
Creator of Mule | <urn:uuid:0fd2fabd-2542-437b-9aed-962d73313a28> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://manning.com/dossot/excerpt_foreword.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953249 | 601 | 1.5625 | 2 |
A study conducted by executive search firm Rosenzweig & Co. found that the number of women in top executives positions in Canada has fallen over the past year from 37 women in the highest-paying executive jobs in 2006 to just 31 in 2007. Furthermore, of the 535 highest paid and most senior positions at those companies, only 5.8% are held by women (down from 6.9% in the prior year). One more disheartening statistic shows that only 26% of those companies have at least one woman in an executive officer’s position (e.g., CEO, CMO, COO, CIO, CFO, etc.), which is down 4% from 30% in the prior year.
However, all hope is not lost for Canadian businesswomen. In April 2007, Catalyst surveyed all of the FP 500 companies in Canada, and at the time, 15.1% of upper management positions were held by women (up from 14.4% in 2005). That means some of those women could be on the right path to move into corporate executive positions in the future. What remains to be seen is whether or not they’ll get the chance.
What do you think about the lack of women in the highest-level executive positions in large Canadian companies?
If you enjoyed this post, why not sign up for the Women On Business feed to get all the latest updates? | <urn:uuid:912037ca-f2a9-44a7-8b4e-f4b22e318ab3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.womenonbusiness.com/female-leadership-on-the-decline-in-canada/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972309 | 288 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Maryland Innovation Initiative Invests in Johns Hopkins Biomedical Projects
A Maryland corporation established to help accelerate the commercialization of new technologies has awarded nearly $300,000 to three Johns Hopkins-related projects that hold promise for ushering new medical devices to the marketplace.
In its first round of investments, the Maryland Innovation Initiative (MII) on Dec. 19 gave awards to BOSS Medical LLC, a Johns Hopkins University startup company; and to two school of medicine faculty members who are working on other medical devices.
BOSS Medical, which is developing a novel way to harvest bone grafts in a minimally invasive way, received a $99,860 award. Edith Gurewitsch Allen, an associate professor of gynecology/obstetrics in the Division of Maternal Fetal Medicine, was given $99,818 to support her research concerning an umbilical cord blood collection device. The third award, for $100,000, went to Kieren A. Marr, a professor of medicine, who is studying a new point-of-care diagnostic device for lung infections.
Two of these projects — the BOSS Medical and cord blood systems — originated as Johns Hopkins student devices in the Department of Biomedical Engineering’s Center for Bioengineering Innovation and Design (CBID). CBID offers a master’s degree program aimed at developing innovative biomedical devices for the global marketplace. The biomedical engineering (BME) department is jointly administered by the university’s Whiting School of Engineering and school of medicine.
“The investment that the school of engineering and the BME department has made in translational technology development, through CBID, is really paying off with important new solutions to unmet clinical needs,” said Elliot McVeigh, director of the biomedical engineering department. “This funding comes at an ideal time to bridge the gap for these projects from very early technology into local medtech startups.”
Created by the Maryland General Assembly, the Maryland Innovation Initiative was set up to commercialize technology developed at five qualifying Maryland universities, including Johns Hopkins. The others are the University of Maryland, College Park; University of Maryland, Baltimore County; University of Maryland, Baltimore; and Morgan State University. Administered by the Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO), the MII has a $5.8 million budget for the 2013 fiscal year. This year’s awards are the group’s first major investments.
BOSS Medical is developing a system to enhance the success rate of a spinal surgery procedure by using a bone graft from the patient’s own body, retrieved in a less expensive, safer and less painful manner. The TheraCord system promises to collect a much greater supply of cord blood, which is gathered from the umbilical cord and placenta after a live birth. This blood is the most viable source of stem cells.
Youseph Yazdi, executive director of CBID, commended the state for the financial support for these projects. “This new TEDCO program provides critical gap funding to move these great innovations into startups that will grow Maryland’s medtech commercial ecosystem,” he said. “Without it, many of these ideas may not realize their potential to save lives and create jobs in Maryland.”
Maxim Budyansky, co-founder and chief technology officer of BOSS Medical, began work on the bone-harvesting device as a CBID master’s student in 2010. He and fellow student Neil Shah launched the company with three school of medicine clinical advisers after completing the program in 2011.
“We are grateful that Maryland is providing such a great funding environment,” said Budyansky. “Without this funding, we wouldn’t be able to pursue our goal of achieving clinical impact with new technology.” | <urn:uuid:1a222f5b-b953-42d4-8b0e-1a472fbfb918> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/maryland_innovation_initiative_invests_in_johns_hopkins_biomedical_projects | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942757 | 794 | 1.898438 | 2 |
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What to Expect the First Yearby Heidi Murkoff
Synopses & Reviews
The comprehensive month-by-month guide that clearly explains everything parents need to know about the first year with a new baby.
Featuring a practical, illustrated Baby Care Primer, a First Aid Guide, and Best-Odds Recipes.
With special sections on the older sibling; selecting the right physician; seasonal concerns and traveling with baby; managing childhood illnesses; and nurturing the adopted baby, the low-birthweight infant, and the baby with specific problems.
"Unquestionably the best book for parents of infants in their first year of life that I have had the pleasure to read." (Morris Green, M.D., Perry W. Lesh Professor of Pediatrics, Indiana University Medical Center)
"This complete, practical, and unique book will help parents prevent or solve the problems of caring for a newborn infant through the first year of life...I love it!" (Ruth A. Lawrence, M.D., Professor of Pediatrics, Obstetrics & Gynecology, University of Rochester Medical Center)
To help you become the best-equipped parents possible, here is a complete first-year manual from the authors of What to Expect When You're Expecting, America's pregnancy bible. Includes thorough information on baby's monthly growth and development, feeding, sleeping habits, infant illnesses, and safety.
Reassuring answers to 12 months of concerns:
-How do I cope with my colicky baby?
-How do I know when my baby is really sick and when I should call a doctor?
-How can I get my baby to sleep through the night?
-When is the best time to wean my baby?
-Why am I still having contractions now that I've delivered?
-When am I going to start feeling like a parent?
-How do I decide when to go back to work?
America’s bestselling guide to caring for a baby, with over 10 million copies in print, What to Expect the First Year is the bible for taking care of a newborn though the milestone of his or her first birthday.
The Second Edition incorporates the most recent developments in pediatric medicine. Every question and answer has been revisited, and in response to letters from readers, dozens of new Q&As have been added. The book is more reader-friendly than ever, with updated cultural references, and the new material brings more in-depth coverage to issues such as newborn screening, home births and the resulting at-home newborn care, vitamins and vaccines, milk allergies, causes of colic, sleep problems, SIDS, returning to work, dealing with siblings, weaning, sippy cups, the expanded role of the father, and much more. An updated cover and all-new black-and-white line illustrations complement the fresher book with a fresher look.
Everything new parents need to know about the care (and feeding) of an infant, from the authors of What to Expect® When You're Expecting. Covers monthly growth and development, feeding for every age and stage, sleep strategies that really work.
Filled with the most practical tips (how to give a bath, decode your baby's crying, what to buy for baby, and when to return to work) and the most up-to-date medical advice (the latest on vaccines, vitamins, illnesses, SIDS, safety, and more).
Reassuring Answers to Hundreds of Questions:
The only book on infant care to address the physical as well as the emotional needs of the entire family.
About the Author
Heidi Murkoff is the author of the What to Expectandreg;series and author of Eating Well When You're Expecting, The What to Expect Pregnancy Journal andamp; Organizer, What to Expect the First Year, The What to Expect Baby-Sitter's Handbook, and the What to Expect Kids
Table of Contents
Foreword: A Word From the Doctor
Introduction: Why This Book Was Conceived
The First Year
Of Special Concern
What Our Readers Are Saying
Other books you might like
Health and Self-Help » Child Care and Parenting » General
Health and Self-Help » Child Care and Parenting » Infancy and Toddlerhood
Health and Self-Help » Psychology » General | <urn:uuid:37815a96-fcf1-4f3c-bc99-9ac72cc13027> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780761152125-5 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.909563 | 960 | 1.953125 | 2 |
The Snail on the Slope is a generative movie based on a book of the same title by Strugatsky brothers. The novel is set on an unknown planet, where humans have a base from which they are investigating and trying to conquer the Forest. The Forest, which is a huge single organism is constantly changing and fighting back. It is also dangerous and there are a lot of unexplained phenomena that they are discovering.
The movie is made of five chapters, which address the questions of artistic and scientific efforts to understand nature. The topics that arise in those chapters are: sublime view on nature, role of knowledge, ubiquitous bureaucracy, and destruction of nature.
via CreativeApplications.Net on Vimeo. / Thanks Tadar
Posted on: 26/09/2009
Posted in: Processing | <urn:uuid:a2ec731f-ed47-42b0-a9fc-0bf8d72d9fe7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.creativeapplications.net/processing/the-snail-on-the-slope-processing/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962283 | 162 | 2.578125 | 3 |
The announcement takes total U.S. humanitarian relief to $76 million since Syria’s conflict began last year. The U.S. is providing food, water, medicine, clothing and hygiene kits, the White House said.
The aid is separate from the $25 million in communications equipment and medical supplies that Washington is delivering directly to the Syrian opposition. The new relief money will go to the U.N. refugee agency, the international Red Cross, UNICEF and other organizations providing assistance to Syrian civilians, U.S. officials said.
“After nearly 17 months of conflict, the humanitarian situation is dire and rapidly deteriorating,” a White House statement said. It said the American aid will help “provide lifesaving assistance and reduce human suffering.”
More than 200,000 Syrians have fled to neighboring Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, and hundreds of thousands more are displaced within Syria. In Aleppo alone, nearly two weeks of fighting has forced more than 200,000 people to flee their neighborhoods or the city altogether, according to the U.N. Aleppo is Syria’s largest city.
While the Obama administration’s attempts to halt the bloodshed through diplomatic means have been frustrated, it is trying to step up its assistance for civilians trapped in the violence and the rebel groups battling President Bashar Assad’s superior armed forces.
State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell told reporters on Wednesday that the U.S. had added $10 million to its “nonlethal assistance” to the Syrian opposition. That’s in addition to the $15 million announced earlier this year.
The effort also aims at building relationships with groups the U.S. believes will play an important role in Syria after the Assad regime falls.
Assad’s government has bitterly repressed protesters and tried to stamp out the insurgency. But recent offensives by anti-Assad forces in Aleppo, Damascus and other regions of the country have raised hopes in Washington that the tide of the war may be turning.
Activists estimate that 19,000 people have been killed since March 2011. | <urn:uuid:6c91dd98-8df7-4bdd-a847-33be61ab925b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://couriernews.com/view/full_story/19671818/article-US-announces--12m-more-in-Syrian-humanitarian-aid | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956793 | 431 | 2.046875 | 2 |
Make Patch Time Count!
Watching television is one way to occupy children during patching, but there are other effective things to try!
The patch is in place to force the weaker eye to work: when children watch television, they may focus on sounds instead of sights. Think of how often you've seen kids 'watch' TV while using their eyes for other things. Activities that require active participation are fun and encourage your child to rely on sight, without any help from their ears.
Arts and crafts ► Arts and crafts ▼
Activities that use fine motor skills (i.e., coloring, cutting, and pasting) are wonderful for encouraging use of the weaker eye. Initially children's eye-hand coordination may be poor; simple activities will help build confidence.
Paint-with-water books are great because the pictures help kids create a fun piece of art at a low ability level. Paint-with-water books are like coloring books. They are printed with dyes that become colorful with water. Children brush a damp paintbrush across a page and easily create colorful pictures. These books can be found near the coloring books in many grocery and drug stores.
Games ► Games ▼
Beanbag toss games can be fun. Find five or six different containers (i.e., bowls, boxes, pots and pans) and set them in a line on the floor, separated by a few inches. Have your child stand at one end of the line and try to toss a "ball" (Ping-Pong ball, rolled up sock or beanbag) into each of the buckets. If she misses, have her try again until she is able to get the ball into each of the buckets.
Reading ► Reading ▼
Reading is another wonderful way to pass time. Many books require close attention, for example the Find the Skunk or Where's Wanda kinds of books; however, any book will keep eyes busy. As you read, follow the words with your finger, drawing your child's attention along with you. Talk about the pictures and have him try to guess what might come next. Even very young children will enjoy and can benefit from looking at wordless books with mom and dad. Librarians or sales associates in the bookstore can guide you to terrific picture books without text. Then your child can read the book to you!
Fun activities stimulate vision and make patch time easier for all. Your one-on-one attention may ease some of the difficulties associated with patching.
If you have activities that have been successful for you and your child, please share them with us! We'll share some of the suggestions on the web and in the Eye Patch Club. | <urn:uuid:0ffceb9b-635d-4b0a-8ece-b2ac31ce2347> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://preventblindness.org/make-patch-time-count | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958114 | 551 | 3.53125 | 4 |
Choosing the right baseball bat can be a very confusing process.
Today with all of the different options and technologies being offered what seems like an
easy process can become a daunting task. With some key knowledge and a little research,
buying the right bat can be an easy and rewarding experience. We have created a “bat buying guide”
to help you find the bat that fits your needs.
Starting with the basics: Different Types of Baseball Bats
High School/College/Adult Bats
Otherwise known as adult, these baseball bats are designed for players
age 13 and up. Specifically for high school and college players, the sizes of the bats will range from 30″ to 34″.
The barrel diameter is 2 5/8” and a – 3 weight drop (for example is you have a 32” bat the weight will be 29 ounces).
All of these bats will have the size and barrel diameter stamped somewhere on the bat and needs to have
a BESR (Bat Exit Speed Rating) certification to be legal for most leagues.
Shop for High School/College/Adult Bats
Senior League/Big Barrel Bats
Senior league bats are those designed for the intermediate youth players generally 10 to
13 years old. The lengths of these bats can range from 27″ to 32″ and will either have a barrel diameter of 2 5/8″ or 2 3/4″
known as the big barrel. The weight drop in these bats will vary from -5 all the way up to -11. Baseball leagues will
vary in rules whether they allow the 2 5/8″ or 2 3/4″ barrels, so make sure you check with your league rules before you
decide on your bat.
Shop for Senior League/Big Barrel Bats
Youth/Little League Bats
Little league bats are geared for players approximately age 7 through 12. All of these bats
will have 2 1/4″ barrel diameters; the lengths will range from 27″ to 32″. Youth league bats will have the largest
weight drop of any bats available, -7 to -13.5. Generally the bats will be labeled with the leagues in which they
are used, Little League, Dixie Youth, Babe Ruth, Pony, and AABC.
Shop for Little League/Youth Bats
As a general rule, bigger, stronger players usually prefer a heavier bat for maximum power.
Smaller players usually benefit from a lighter bat that allows greater bat speed. To determine the weight that’s
right for you, swing a variety of bats and see how much weight you’re comfortable with.
Length and weight combine for peak performance. A longer bat gives you greater reach, allowing you to hit balls on the other side of the plate. But remember that a longer bat may be heavier, and the extra weight could slow you down. Like checking the weight, you need to swing bats of different lengths to decide what length best suits you.
|Little League (8-10 yrs)
|Senior Youth League (11-12 yrs)
|High School & College
Different Bat Materials
Today almost all bats are either made of High grade aircraft alloys, or recently
composite bats have emerged. This is where things start to get confusing, in the last 5 – 10 years high
grade alloys have always been used in the construction of these bats, recently composite and hybrid technology
have changed the way the leading manufacturers are making their bats.
The options available:
- 100% Alloy bats – made completely of aircraft grade alloys
- 100% Composite bats – made of composite fibers
- Half & Half bats – bats that have a composite handle, and aluminum, alloy, or hybrid barrel
- Hybrid Bats – Bats that have combined two different materials, such as alloy with carbon
Composite Baseball Bats
The new composite bats on the market are different from the alloy bats.
A composite bat has different features, which require a “break in” period before the bat reaches
its optimal performance. With composite bats a player will need to hit approximately 200-300 real
leather baseballs while rotating the barrel to completely break in the surface area of the barrel.
The composite bats will also sound more like you are hitting a wood bat than an alloy one. Once the
composite bats are broken in they will greatly increase the sweet spot and durability, which some
studies have shown surpass the ability of standard alloy bats. The composite bats will carry a higher
price tag, but with the correct break in and care will be worth the price. | <urn:uuid:3a077ed4-66ab-4d9c-94fc-dcf842188fb3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.baseballrampage.com/?tag=shopping | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.901371 | 963 | 2.03125 | 2 |
Grand Junction, Colo. (KKCO) – They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and for ten students with disabilities at the Center for Independence, that's absolutely true.
For the last seven weeks, students have been taking a photography workshop to help tell the stories of people with disabilities.
The class is funded by a $15,000 grant.
With the grant, the Center for Independence was able to purchase cameras, a printer and pay instructors to teach the classes.
Some of the student''s work will be displayed at this year's winter ArtFest, which is Feb. 28 at Two Rivers Winery. | <urn:uuid:f1adac20-b10a-4af2-afe2-ccc53e17c0fc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nbc11news.com/home/headlines/Appreciating-photography--191344631.html?site=full | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962667 | 129 | 1.5 | 2 |
AQAP, al Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen, on Thursday released a tenth issue of its glossy online English language magazine Inspire.
Dated "Spring 2013" and compiled after French forces moved against jihadists in Mali in January, the magazine contains a familiar litany of propaganda articles railing against the West (with "crusader" France the latest target) mixed with how-to advice on launching terrorist attacks in the West, all illustrated with colorful graphics and catchy titles.
But the new issue also cleared up a mystery that has long puzzled counterterrorism analysts.
In late 2011, several weeks after a U.S. drone strike killed the magazine's original creative forces -- American militants Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan -- a new English speaker called Abu Yazeed began to appear in AQAP's videos. His face was partly in shadow, but one could make out glasses and a full beard. He spoke with an accent.
At the time, counterterrorism analysts had no idea who he was.
But the latest issue of Inspire lifted the veil in an obituary piece revealing that Abu Yazeed had been killed while fighting in southern Yemen.
It described Abu Yazeed al Qatari as a Yemeni in his early 20s from "a respectable family" who spent much of his life in Qatar.
It said that several years ago, Abu Yazeed had traveled to the UK to earn a degree in a subject he was "passionate" about -- science -- but he quickly grew disillusioned with the "hypocrisy of the West" and abandoned his studies to go back to Yemen to join up with jihadists.
It was a trajectory that was similar to that of Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab, the Nigerian "underwear bomber" who tried to blow up a plane coming into Detroit on Christmas Day 2009. AbdulMutallab had attended a top London university before travelling to Yemen and establishing contact with al-Awlaki.
"As (Abu Yazeed) had a wide knowledge of the language and customs of the West, he quickly came to the Inspire team and became great friends with Samir Khan and Sheikh Anwar (al-Awlaki), even spending time camping with them in the deserts," the Inspire obituary stated.
It said that some time later, Abu Yazeed "had a burning desire to see some action" and joined al Qaeda fighters on the front lines in Yemen's Abyan province.
"He was quickly spotted for his skills and leadership talent and was given the position of supervisor at an Abyan training camp," the magazine stated. It said that after al-Awlaki and Khan were killed in September 2011, Abu Yazeed returned to work on the ninth Inspire magazine -- released in the spring of 2012 -- in which he wrote Khan's eulogy.
In that article, he revealed that Samir Khan, who had cut his teeth editing a Jihadist blog in North Carolina before traveling to Yemen, had trained him in media techniques.
"During his company, he taught me everything he knew about presentation of certain material, special designing for the magazines, how to work in certain visual design programs. He taught me how to use the best from my skills," Abu Yazeed wrote.
After this stint with Inspire magazine, Abu Yazeed returned to fighting and was killed by a Yemeni army tank projectile in Zinjibar, Inspire said.
The fact that Inspire is producing new issues shows that the group has a number of other English speakers still working on its propaganda output.
Besides the obituary of Abu Yazeed, the 10th issue of Inspire included a Q&A with an al Qaeda consultant who advised followers in the West to try to assassinate former top Western leaders if they judged it too difficult to break through the tight security around current leaders.
The magazine also provided an illustrated guide to torching cars and creating road traffic accidents in the West.
And it included a target list of Western intellectuals it deemed to have insulted Islam and a letter by Omar Abdel Rahman -- the so-called blind sheikh -- it said had been smuggled from his U.S. prison. CNN cannot independently confirm the authenticity of the letter.
"If they kill me, which they will ... take revenge on them for me in the most severest and violent of manners!" the letter stated. | <urn:uuid:6f9ee53a-82e6-49dc-8e30-9964c2e6131c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ksat.com/news/Al-Qaeda-s-Inspire-magazine-solves-a-mystery/-/478452/19141878/-/9xid50z/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975071 | 897 | 1.601563 | 2 |
As part of his job as ‘special military reporter,’ Hugo Jaeger got to use advanced color photography during World War II. His work includes unique documentation of Jews in Warsaw, Kutno ghettos
Smiling made-up women, a man wearing a yellow Star of David talking to German officers.Unusual color photos from World War II ghettos in Poland shed light on Jewish life in 1939-1940, shortly after Jews were imprisoned in ghettos and before the mass destruction began.
The pictures were taken by senior photographer Hugo Jaeger, who received unprecedented access to the area and to the Nazi regime’s upper echelon, including Adolf Hitler, and got to use the most advanced technology of that time – color photography.
The photos were released to mark the 72nd anniversary of the official establishment of the Warsaw Ghetto in October 1940.
In one photo from 1940, people are seen queuing for water and vegetables, under a sign reading, in German, “Typhus area.”
LIFE magazine, which bought the photo archive from Jaeger, describes him as Hitler’s personal photographer and has published photos he took during the Third Reich leader’s 50th birthday in the past.
But Dr. Daniel Uziel, a historian from Yad Vashem who also deals with photos from that era, doubts the title, describing Jaeger as “a special military reporter” who received rare access to places regular photographers were no allowed into.
“Jaeger was a famous photojournalist in Germany in the 1930s. He was drafted at the beginning of the war as a reservist to the Wehrmacht propaganda units. Because of his status as a photographer he received the status of a special military reporter,” explains Uziel.
“He was given uniform and weapons and received access to wherever he pleased. Because of his special status he also got two unusual photography technologies: Kodak color film and a stereoscopic camera which creates images in 3D. He would shoot the same scenes with both cameras.
“He was supposed to hand the pictures over to the Nazi propaganda office, and apparently never did. These photos did not pop up at the time.”
Justyna Majewska, a curator at the Holocaust Gallery in the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, notes in an article on Time magazine’s website that there is virtually no German military presence at all in the pictures.
Dr. Uziel explains that “the German army was preparing to invade the Soviet Union at the time. So in those areas, taking pictures and conveying information on the army were strictly prohibited.
“The propaganda units had nothing to do. They began looking for subjects and found the ghettos. This is the reason why there is series of newspaper articles, photos and films from that time showing the ghettos in Poland.”
Women in Kutno Ghetto in 1940 (Photo: Getty Images)
Jewish man speaks with German officers in Kutno, 1939 (Photo: Getty Images)
As opposed to other propaganda photos from that time, these pictures do not appear to be hateful or dehumanizing, although Jaeger is described in the article as an “ardent Nazi”.
It is quite possible that Jaeger had asked the people for permission to take their photos, and thereby documented a young woman smiling for the camera in the Kutno ghetto in the Łódź province, a photo which stands out against the background of her miserable surroundings.
According to the Yad Vashem website, some 6,700 Jews lived in Kutno before the Holocaust, making up more than one-quarter of the city’s population. The Germans set up the ghetto in June 1940, after many more Jews arrived from the area.
“The color photos don’t seem to match the Nazi stereotype of Jews,” explains Uziel. “The Jewish women are pretty, and they would usually choose ugly motifs. It doesn’t look like a propaganda photo.”
The photo of the three made-up women was presented in Yad Vashem’s “Spots of Light” exhibition, which describes the different experiences of Jewish women during the Holocaust and has been displayed around the world.
Jaeger did not hand these photos over to the propaganda office, but he did transfer the 3D pictures to a German publisher, which was part of the propaganda systems and had a monopoly over this technology.
“They published fancy albums with empty spaces to glue the pictures in, like cards,” says Uziel. “The thick cover had a pocket with a stereoscope, a device used to view these photos.”
Jaeger’s pictures were likely designated for an album on the war in the east, part of which was to be dedicated to the Jews. The album was never published, perhaps because of Nazi Germany’s defeat.
The Time article describes how Jaeger’s 2,000 photos reached LIFE in the 1970s.
“On that spring day in 1945, during a search of the house where Jaeger was staying, the Americans found the leather satchel in which the Führer’s personal photographer had hidden literally thousands of color slides. What happened next, however, left Jaeger staggering.
“Inside the satchel that held the compromising pictures, Jaeger had also placed a bottle of brandy and a small, ivory gambling toy — a spinning top for an old-fashioned game of chance known by, among other names, ‘put-and-take.’
“Happy with their find, the soldiers sat down to a session of put-and-take while sharing the bottle of brandy with Jaeger and the owner of the house where the photographer had been living. (Jaeger’s own apartment in Munich had been destroyed in Allied air raids.) The leather satchel, and whatever else was hidden away in it, was forgotten as the brandy dwindled and the game of put-and-take spun on.
“After the Americans left, a shaken Jaeger packed the color slides into metal jars and, over time, buried them in various locations on the outskirts of town. In the years following the war, Jaeger occasionally returned to his multiple caches, digging them up, drying them out, repacking and reburying them.”
In 1955, he dug them up and hid them in a bank vault in Switzerland. A decade later he sold them to Life magazine.
Click here to view additional color photos by Hugo Jaeger from ghettos | <urn:uuid:d2cdfd49-2841-4854-be25-520f1495cfb6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cija.ca/antisemitism/jewish-ghetto-life-in-color-from-hitlers-photographer/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973378 | 1,385 | 3.203125 | 3 |
- Material Culture
- Roman History
I am an historian of imperial Rome whose interests have been directed to subjects as diverse as social banditry and family history, but my regionally-based research has usually been focused on the history of the north African provinces of the empire. I began my advanced graduate research at Cambridge University where I came under the tutelage of Joyce Reynolds and under the influences of Moses Finley. I began my paying academic career in the mid-1970s at the University of Birmingham in England before taking up a position at a smaller undergraduate institution in western Canada. From the mid-1990s, I was Professor of Ancient History and Director of the Graduate Group in Ancient History at the University of Pennsylvania; from 2004 to present I have been the Andrew Fleming West Professor of Classics at Princeton.
My initial publications, in the mid to late 1970s were mainly in the social and economic history of Africa in the high Roman empire, but the focus of my research later shifted, in the 1980s and 1990s, to a main concern with Roman family history and with the historical demography of imperial Rome. More recently, my concerns have returned to problems of violence in the making of new social orders, and have centered on the conflicts that created the Christian worlds of the late antique Maghrib.
I have always had wider historical interests, especially in the problematics of historiography and with developments that have characterized human populations on a global scale. This latter interest led me, more recently, to participate in the Princeton project on world history that ended with the creation an innovative textbook entitled Worlds Together, Worlds Apart. In addition to my scholarly publications and teaching, I have been especially drawn to the possibilities of presenting the results of my historical research to a slightly wider historical audience in media such as History Today, The New Republic, The New Left Review, and The New York Review of Books.
1. Sacred Violence: African Christians and Sectarian Hatred in the Age of Augustine
2. Worlds Together, Worlds Apart: A History of the World: Beginnings Through the Fifteenth Century (Third Edition) (Vol. 1)
3. Spartacus and the Slave Wars: A Brief History with Documents (The Bedford Series in History and Culture) | <urn:uuid:d83681c0-f76f-4010-9174-3732c7a81858> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.princeton.edu/classics/people/display_person.xml?netid=bshaw&display=All | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946211 | 456 | 1.554688 | 2 |
The Patrol Section of the Vernon Hills Police Department is the largest section of the agency. This "core" of the Department is comprised of four shifts of officers. Each shift consists of a Commander and a Sergeant, who have the role of shift supervisors. The Patrol Section is primarily the first response to emergency and non-emergency incidents. (During 2008, the Department responded to 19,502 total calls for service.) Patrol officers routinely conduct preliminary investigations of crimes, enforce traffic laws and promote safety in Vernon Hills.
Patrol officers on the Vernon Hills Police Department work 12-hour shifts, either from 6 a.m. - 6 p.m. or from 6 p.m. - 6 a.m. Each shift works as a team, with each member of the team having the same days off. Two teams are assigned to each 12-hour period. When one team is working, the other is off. Each team works for 2 or 3 days and will then be off for the same amount of time while the other team for that time period is on duty.
In addition, there are four officers who are permanently assigned to the noon-midnight time slot during the winter, which changes to two officers working noon-midnight and two officers working 2 p.m. - 2 a.m. during the summer. These officers supplement the regular teams of officers during the busiest times of the day. A Traffic Unit officer is also assigned to each 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. team.
Have you ever wondered what the correct thing to do is if you are being stopped by the police? We can tell you. | <urn:uuid:9e5b04e3-fa66-4c18-a10c-3dc28908f570> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.vernonhills.org/aboutpd/PatrolSection.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970945 | 333 | 1.546875 | 2 |
The Curiosity rover took its first scoop of Martian soil last month. This achievement, like nearly everything the rover has done since its dramatic landing on Mars, was made possible by 31 actuators. Each actuator consists of an encoder, a brushless DC motor, a planetary gearbox, a brake, and a resolver.
The actuators, made by Aeroflex Corp., are located throughout the rover, and are responsible for most of its moving parts, including its wheels, robotic arm, and remote sensing mast (the rover’s “head”), among others.
Today, these actuators are driving Curiosity around on the surface of Mars. But engineering difficulties with the actuators caused the mission’s launch to be delayed by two years (the first such launch-date slip since the Viking program in the 1970s), and put the program at risk of cancellation by Congress.
Click on the image below to see images of the rover on Earth and on Mars.
This engineering drawing shows the location of the arm on NASA's Curiosity rover, in addition to the arm's turret, which holds two instruments and three tools. The arm places and holds turret-mounted tools on rock and soil targets. It also manipulates the sample-processing mechanisms on the 66-lb (30-kg) turret.
The arm has five degrees of freedom of movement provided by rotary actuators known as the shoulder azimuth joint, shoulder elevation joint, elbow joint, wrist joint, and turret joint.
I spoke with Rob Manning, NASA’s chief engineer for the Mars Science Laboratory (the official name for the Curiosity rover), about these difficulties, and how his team successfully overcame them. I started my conversation with Mr. Manning by mentioning that many Design News readers daydream about the kind of work he and his teammates do.
“Sometimes we daydream about having a normal life,” he replied. Managing a high-profile space mission can be a “rocky road,” but that’s “typical when building things of this complexity.”
“Our foibles are highly visible,” Manning said. “They’re watched by Congress and the public with a lot of scrutiny.” On the other hand, the sense of accomplishment when everything comes together is indescribable. He spoke with obvious excitement about the challenges of producing “fantastically complex designs” and making them work, millions of miles from earth.
Manning is starting his 33rd year at NASA. The Mars Science Laboratory is his 14th project, and his third as chief engineer. Before Curiosity, Manning was the chief engineer for NASA’s previous Mars rover missions, including the Spirit and Opportunity rovers in 2004, and Mars Pathfinder, the vehicle that landed the diminutive Sojourner rover in 1997.
Sojourner was designed for a seven-day mission, although it survived for a total of 83 days. Spirit and Opportunity were each designed for 90-day missions. Spirit survived for six years. Opportunity is still active today, but must hibernate during the Martian winter, which lasts more than four months. During this season, temperatures drop as low as -120C (-184F). The demise of the Spirit rover has been attributed to these extremely cold temperatures.
In contrast, Curiosity was designed to operate throughout the Martian year. This means that its actuators must be capable of functioning even during the cold of the Martian winter. As the temperature decreases, the viscosity of liquid lubricants increases exponentially. To put this into perspective, a grease that, at room temperature, has a base oil viscosity similar to SAE 20 motor oil, at -120C would have a base oil viscosity higher than that of molasses. | <urn:uuid:55ce1a85-e21b-4968-8532-0b39a09ebaae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.designnews.com/author.asp?section_id=1365&piddl_msgid=869367&doc_id=254881 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972526 | 784 | 3.4375 | 3 |
MSN Living Features NAMM in Musical Ways for Baby Bonding
NAMM worked with MSN Living to provide research and input for this feature article, Five Musical Ways to Bond with Your Baby. NAMM Foundation Executive Director Mary Luehrsen is quoted throughout, among other research provided by NAMM.
"Even if you're sitting with your baby on your lap and you take their chubby, little hands and you clap to the rhythm, you are engaged in hands-on music-making with your baby," Luersen advises. The article is broken down into five easy to follow categories, with research and anecdotes to back up each of the five ways to nurture your babies' innate curiousity towards music.
1. Make listening to music an everyday thing.
2. Broaden your musical horizons.
3. Sing to - and with - your baby.
4. Make music a hands-on activity.
5. Sign your child up for music lessons. | <urn:uuid:2bc313d3-5900-4d6b-9018-f07c89191a1e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.namm.org/news/namm-in-media/msn-living-features-namm-musical-ways-baby-bonding | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929832 | 204 | 1.828125 | 2 |
The sale and use of dicyandiamide (DCD) has been brought to a halt in New Zealand after low levels of the substance were discovered in samples of dairy products from the country.
New Zealand’s two biggest fertiliser companies - Ravensdown and Ballance Agri-Nutrients - have suspended sales of DCD after residues of the compound were found in some September 2012-manufactured Kiwi dairy products.
DCD is applied to pasture by farmers to prevent nitrate – a potentially harmful fertiliser by-product – seeping into rivers and lakes.
DCD has never been considered to be a food safety risk – even at high doses – and there is no international standard for DCD in food. International regulators and customer could, however, consider any DCD residue a contaminant.
This has led to concerns that dairy products originating from New Zealand could be excluded from international markets.
Managing potential trade concerns
The New Zealand Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) has applauded the manufacturers’ decision to suspend sales, but expressed concern about the potential damage to the “quality” reputation of the country’s dairy industry.
“Because no standard exists, the detectable presence of DCD residues in milk could be unacceptable to consumers and our international markets, even in the small amounts found in recent testing,” said MPI deputy director general of standards, Carol Barnao.
“Food regulators around the world are reflecting market demands with increasingly rigorous testing and in some countries there is a zero tolerance to detected residues outside agreed standards,”
“New Zealand’s reputation is based on the high quality of food we produce, so MPI is working across the board with primary producers to manage potential concerns for our markets and consumers.”
In addition, the MPI has established a working group to assess the future use of DCD “that meets trade requirements.”
“Responsible approach” to findings
Fonterra – New Zealand’s largest dairy exporter – has also praised the “responsible approach” taken by the manufacturers.
“We have been assured by New Zealand’s regulatory authority – the Ministry for Primary Industries – that there is no food safety risk. However, DCD residues in agricultural products may present a future trade issue,” said managing director of co-operative affairs at Fonterra, Todd Muller.
“Although DCD was a promising option for reducing nitrate leaching, it is critical that New Zealand’s trade reputation is preserved. The voluntary suspension is the responsible approach in the absence of any internationally agreed standards for DCD residues in foods,” said Muller. | <urn:uuid:fcec8a99-1adc-4485-b509-d743cc9c7621> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.foodqualitynews.com/Legislation/DCD-use-suspended-in-New-Zealand-after-residue-discovered-in-dairy | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950091 | 561 | 2.3125 | 2 |
- Historic Sites
The Tragedy Of King Philip And The Destruction Of The New England Indians
The most serious threat to white colonization of New England was the Indian uprising of 1675-76, known as King Philip’s War. What follows is the story of the tragic man who led that futile struggle, Philip, chief of the Wampanoags. But perhaps it is just as much the story of Philip’s erstwhile friend and resourceful pursuer, Benjamin Church. This account is taken from George Howe’s superb history of Bristol, Rhode Island, Mount Hope, due in February from the Viking Press.
December 1958 | Volume 10, Issue 1
The regulars were uniformed in leather jerkins and breeches, and wore Monmouth caps on their heads. Each man carried a six-foot flintlock musket and a bandolier which held a pound of powder, twenty bullets, and two fathom-length of match. They had no tents; each night of the march down from Providence they had slept under blankets on the frozen ground. But they had taken 47 prisoners themselves. Captain Nathaniel Davenport of the 5th Massachusetts Company bought them in for his own account as slaves at a bargain: eighty pounds for the lot.
The Narragansett fortress, which was under Canonchet’s command, covered a four-acre rise in the middle of the trackless swamp, eighteen miles inland from the garrison house. The English might not have found it at all if Peter Freeman, one of Church’s Indian prisoners, had not guided them. It was hidden from sight, even on a clear day, by a jungle of cedars. On December 19, 1675, the day of the assault, it was snowing hard, and there was a two-foot fall by afternoon. That was almost the shortest day of the year, with the sun setting by four o’clock. The fort had been designed by an Indian engineer called Stonewall John, with the help of Joshua Tift, a renegade white man. Inside it, 3,000 Indians were crowded into 500 wigwams. Their winter provisions, in tubs hollowed out of sawn-off butternut trunks, were stacked against the walls to deaden the English bullets. The fort was even equipped with a forge for the repair of ordnance. Around its perimeter a sixteen-foot abatis of felled trees, with the branches forward, was backed by a stockade of logs. The only bridge between the fort and the tussocks of the swamp was a single log, with the inner end set between four-foot palisades with loopholes in them.
The attack began at two in the afternoon while the squaws were preparing dinner inside the fort. As fast as the English ventured onto the log, the Indians shot them from the loopholes, and they toppled into the icy stream. Six captains went down. Among them was Davenport, who had just paid eighty pounds for his slaves.
Away from the stream, the stagnant swamp was frozen over. Church, who had been stationed on solid ground with the governor’s staff, saw his chance. With thirty men, he crossed the ice and broke into the fort from the flank, through the tangle of the abatis. It was a feat that, under heavy armor, would have been impossible in a thaw, and was almost a miracle now in the twilight and the snow. In his own modest words, He encouraged his company and ran right on, till he was struck with three bullets; one in his thigh, which was near cut off as it glanced on the joint of his hip-bone; another through the gatherings of his breeches and drawers with a small flesh wound; a third pierced his pocket and wounded a pair of mittens he had borrowed of Capt. Prentice, which, bring wrapped together, had the misfortune of having many holes cut through them with a single bullet.
His troop poured through the breach behind him. After a hopeless hand-to-hand fight, the Indians fled through the dark across the ice into the fastness of the swamp. “They run, they run!” someone shouted over the tumult. A few squaws strapped their papooses to their backs and plodded away through the drifts. They had no time nor strength to carry anything else into the blizzard. Most were left behind, cowering in the wigwams.
The regulars prepared to fire the camp. Church tried to dissuade them, if only because the English would need the shelter and provision for themselves. Since he was only a “reformado,” no one listened. In the darkness and terror, it was easier to burn the wigwams than to spare them. He dragged himself back to Governor Winslow, who also bore the title of general, to plead against the burning.
The general [his story goes on] moved toward the fort, designing to ride in himself and bring in the whole army; but just as he was entering it one of his captains met him, and asked whither he was going. He told him, “Into the fort.” The captain laid hold of his horse and told him his life was worth a hundred of theirs, and that he should not expose himself. The general answered that he supposed the brunt was over, and that Mr. Church had informed him the fort was taken, and he was of the mind that it was most practicable for him and his army to shelter themselves therein. The captain replied in a great heat that Church lied, and told the general that if he moved another step toward the fort he would shoot his horse under him.
Then bristled up another gentleman, a certain doctor, and opposed Mr. Church’s advice, and said that if it were complied with, it would kill more men than the enemy had killed. And looking upon Mr. Church, and seeing the blood flow apace from his wounds, told him that if he gave such advice as that was, he should bleed to death like a dog before he would endeavor to stanch his blood. | <urn:uuid:a96cbd2c-2172-4e9c-a84d-5a2dcbc15d0e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.americanheritage.com/content/tragedy-king-philip-and-destruction-new-england-indians?page=9&nid=51000 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.989249 | 1,268 | 3.609375 | 4 |
AISB miscellaneous Bulletin Item
SIAM Special Issue on Optimization in Imaging Sciences
SIAM Journal on Imaging Sciences (SIIMS) Special Issue on Optimization in Imaging Science Many image analysis problems can be formulated as MRF or CRF estimation problems that require minimization of a discrete energy function. Commonly used energy functions are based on models in physics, geometry, or statistics. With some exceptions, however, many formulations correspond to NP-hard optimization problems. Recently there has been a surge in research in image sciences where either known or newly developed combinatorial optimization algorithms were successfully applied to a wide spectrum of problems in imaging. There are several aspects of this development. Some of the new combinatorial algorithms could guarantee globally optimal solutions for certain special cases, and several such special classes were identified in image. Furthermore, new optimization methods with proven performance guarantees have been developed and applied to a much wider spectrum of more difficult imaging problems. Geometric interpretation of discrete energies on N-D grids/complexes have yielded very fruitful connections with continuous models and optimization methods for hyper-surfaces, total variation, or other functionals. In summary, combinatorial optimization techniques applied to image analysis have led to rapid development of a large number of very fast practical optimization algorithms for many imaging problems. We are soliciting original contributions on the theoretical and algorithmic aspects of related discrete optimization techniques, as well as their applications in imaging science. The scope of this special issue includes, but is not limited to: * graph cuts, belief-propagation and message passing, pseudo-boolean optimization, linear and nonlinear binary optimization, primal-dual methods, etc. * applications in image analysis, multiview geometry/reconstruction, optical flows, segmentation, registration, etc. * high-order MRFs * geometric models, convex relaxations, continuous flows Important Dates: Accepting manuscript submissions: March 1 to April 15, 2009 First review completed: July 2009 Revised manuscript due: September 2009 Expected publication date: December 2009/January 2010 Guest Editors: Endre Boros, Rutgers University, The State University of New Jersey Email: Endre.Boros@rutcor.rutgers.edu Yuri Boykov, University of Western Ontario, Canada Email: firstname.lastname@example.org Jerome Darbon, University of California Los Angeles Email: email@example.com Philip Torr, Oxford Brookes University, UK Email: firstname.lastname@example.org Special Issue Adviser: Andrew Blake, Microsoft Research Cambridge, UK All interested should submit a manuscript and cover letter in PDF format via the SIIMS online submission site at http://siims.siam.org. Include a statement in the cover letter requesting the paper be considered for the Special Issue on Optimization in Imaging Science. Note the block labeled Special Section (just under the keywords block on your submission screen) and select "Special Issue on Optimization in Imaging Science" from the dropdown box. Also be sure to note in the Manuscript Comment text box at the bottom of this page that your work is intended for the Special Issue. Papers will be subject to review by a guest Editorial Board and the same high standards for the journal apply to the Special Issue. If any questions, contact Mitch Chernoff, Publications Manager, SIAM, at email@example.com, or Guillermo Sapiro, SIIMS Editor-in-Chief, at firstname.lastname@example.org, or any of the four Guest Editors. | <urn:uuid:925eda4d-5c1d-43dc-afbb-fbe653a53df0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aisb.org.uk/index.php/news/82-bulletin/120-bulletin-item?event_id=143&bulletin_type=miscellaneous | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.907928 | 727 | 1.53125 | 2 |
The U.N. estimates that the world's population will pass the 7 billion mark on Monday.
Much of that growth has happened in Asia — in India and China. Those two countries have been among the world's most populous for centuries. But a demographic shift is taking place as the countries have modernized and lowered their fertility rates. Now, the biggest growth is taking place in sub-Saharan Africa.
Due in part to that region's extreme poverty, infant mortality rates are high and access to family planning is low. The result is high birth rates and a booming population of 900 million — a number that could triple by the end of the century. Population expert Joel Cohen points out that, in 1950, there were nearly three times as many Europeans as sub-Saharan Africans. If U.N. estimates are correct, there will be nearly five sub-Saharan Africans for every European by 2100.
As NPR's Adam Cole reports, it was just over two centuries ago that the global population was 1 billion — in 1804. But better medicine and improved agriculture resulted in higher life expectancy for children, dramatically increasing the world population.
As higher standards of living and better health care are reaching more parts of the world, the rates of fertility — and population growth — have started to slow down, though the population will continue to grow for the foreseeable future.
U.N. forecasts suggest the world population could hit a peak of 10.1 billion by 2100 before beginning to decline. But exact numbers are hard to come by — just small variations in fertility rates could mean a population of 15 billion by the end of the century. | <urn:uuid:4fcc5911-a264-45ba-94cc-26e4a4e05634> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wamu.org/programs/morning_edition/11/10/31/visualizing_how_a_population_grows_to_7_billion?width=605&height=485&inline=true | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962576 | 328 | 3.15625 | 3 |
- Domestic Energy Independence: An “All of the Above” Energy Policy
- Our Nation’s Energy Abundance
- Pulling the Plug on American Energy Independence: The Failure of the Current Administration
- Protecting Our Environment
- Our Republican Party’s Commitment to Conservation
- Private Stewardship of the Environment
- Reining in the EPA
We are the party of sustainable jobs and economic growth – through American energy, agriculture, and environmental policy. We are also the party of America’s growers and producers, farmers, ranchers, foresters, miners, and all those who bring from the earth the minerals and energy that are the lifeblood of our nation’s historically strong economy. We are as well the party of traditional conservation: the wise development of resources that keeps in mind both the sacrifices of past generations to secure that bounty and our responsibility to preserve it for future generations.
Domestic Energy Independence: An “All of the Above” Energy Policy (Top)
The Republican Party is committed to domestic energy independence. The United States and its neighbors to the North and South have been blessed with abundant energy resources, tapped and untapped, traditional and alternative, that are among the largest and most valuable on earth. Advancing technology has given us a more accurate understanding of the nation’s enormous reserves that are ours for the development. The role of public officials must be to encourage responsible development across the board. Unlike the current Administration, we will not pick winners and losers in the energy marketplace. Instead, we will let the free market and the public’s preferences determine the industry outcomes. In assessing the various sources of potential energy, Republicans advocate an all-of-the-above diversified approach, taking advantage of all our American God-given resources. That is the best way to advance North American energy independence.
Our policies aim at energy security to ensure an affordable, stable, and reliable energy supply for all parts of the country and all sectors of the economy. Energy security is intimately linked to national security both in terms of our current dependence upon foreign supplies and because some of the hundreds of billions of dollars we pay for foreign oil ends up in the hands of terrorist groups that wish to harm us. A growing, prosperous economy and our standard of living and quality of life, moreover, depend on affordable and abundant domestic energy supplies.
A strong and stable energy sector is a job generator and a catalyst of economic growth, not only in the labor-intensive energy industry but also in its secondary markets. The Republican Party will encourage and ensure diversified domestic sources of energy, from research and development, exploration, production, transportation, transmission, and consumption in a way that is economically viable and job-producing, as well as environmentally sound. When our energy industry is revitalized, millions more Americans will find work in manufacturing, food production, metals, minerals, packaging, transportation and other fields – because of the jobs that will be created in, and as a result of, the energy sector. We are determined to create jobs, spur economic growth, lower energy prices, and strengthen our energy industry.
Our Nation’s Energy Abundance (Top)
Coal is a low-cost and abundant energy source with hundreds of years of supply. We look toward the private sector’s development of new, state-of-the-art coal-fired plants that will be low-cost, environmentally responsible, and efficient. We also encourage research and development of advanced technologies in this sector, including coal-to-liquid, coal gasification, and related technologies for enhanced oil recovery.
The current Administration – with a President who publicly threatened to bankrupt anyone who builds a coal-powered plant – seems determined to shut down coal production in the United States, even though there is no cost-effective substitute for it or for the hundreds of thousands of jobs that go with it as the nation’s largest source of electricity generation. We will end the EPA’s war on coal and encourage the increased safe development in all regions of the nation’s coal resources, the jobs it produces, and the affordable, reliable energy that it provides for America. Further, we oppose any and all cap and trade legislation.
All estimates of America’s oil and natural gas reserves indicate an incredible bounty for the use of many generations to come. At a time when unemployment has been above 8 percent for 42 consecutive months, the longest stretch since the Great Depression, and some 23 million Americans are either unemployed, underemployed, or have given up on finding work, we should be pursuing our oil and gas resources both on and offshore. It is nonsensical to spurn real job creation by putting almost all of our coastal waters off limits to energy exploration, while urging other nations to explore their coasts. We call for a reasoned approach to all offshore energy development on the East Coast and other appropriate waters, and support the right of States to a reasonable share of the resulting revenue and royalties. We support opening the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) for energy exploration and development and ending the current Administration’s moratorium on permitting; opening the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) for exploration and production of oil and natural gas; and allowing for more oil and natural gas exploration on federally owned and controlled land. We support this development in accordance with applicable environmental, health and safety laws, and regulations.
The current President personally blocked one of the most important energy and jobs projects in years. The Keystone XL Pipeline – which would have brought much needed Canadian and American oil to U.S. refineries – would create thousands of jobs. The current President’s job-killing combination of extremism and ineptitude threatens to create a permanent energy shortage. We are committed to approving the Keystone XL Pipeline and to streamlining permitting for the development of other oil and natural gas pipelines. Nuclear energy, now generating about 20 percent of our electricity through 104 power plants, must be expanded. No new nuclear generating plants have been licensed and constructed for thirty years. We call for timely processing of new reactor applications currently pending at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The federal government’s failure to address the storage and disposal of spent nuclear fuel has left huge bills for States and taxpayers. Our country needs a more proactive approach to managing spent nuclear fuel, including through developing advanced reprocessing technologies.
We encourage the cost-effective development of renewable energy, but the taxpayers should not serve as venture capitalists for risky endeavors. It is important to create a pathway toward a market-based approach for renewable energy sources and to aggressively develop alternative sources for electricity generation such as wind, hydro, solar, biomass, geothermal, and tidal energy. Partnerships between traditional energy industries and emerging renewable industries can be a central component in meeting the nation’s long-term needs. Alternative forms of energy are part of our action agenda to power the homes and workplaces of the nation.
Pulling the Plug on American Energy Independence: The Failure of the Current Administration (Top)
The current Administration has used taxpayer dollars to pick winners and losers in the energy sector while publicly threatening to bankrupt anyone who builds a new coal-fired plant and has stopped the Keystone XL Pipeline. The current President has done nothing to disavow the scare campaign against hydraulic fracturing. Furthermore, he has wasted billions of taxpayers’ dollars by subsidizing favored companies like Solyndra, which generated bankruptcies rather than kilowatts.
Since the current President took office in 2009, consumers pay approximately twice as much for gas at the pump. Our common theme is to promote development of all forms of energy, enable consumer choice to keep energy costs low, and ensure that America remains competitive in the global marketplace. We will respect the States’ proven ability to regulate the use of hydraulic fracturing, continue development of oil and gas resources in places like the Bakken formation and Marcellus Shale, and review the environmental laws that often thwart new energy exploration and production. We salute the Republican Members of the House of Representatives for passing the Domestic Energy and Jobs Act, a vital piece of pro-growth legislation now introduced by Republicans in the Senate.
Abundant Harvests: Protecting Our Farmers
Agricultural production and agricultural exports are a fundamental part of the U.S. economy, and the vigor of U.S. agriculture is central to our agenda for jobs, growth, and prosperity. Our farmers and ranchers are responsible for millions of jobs and for generating a trade surplus of more than $137 billion annually. Our producers provide America with abundant food, export food to hungry people around the world, and create a positive trade balance. Because of their care for the land, the United States does not depend on foreign imports for sustenance the way we depend on others for much of our energy. However, Americans are concerned about the increasing cost of their food under the current Administration policies that restrict energy production and raise costs for producers due to increased regulation. Our dependence on foreign imports of fertilizer could threaten our food supply, and we support the development of domestic production of fertilizer. The success of our system of risk management policies will enable farmers and ranchers to continue to feed and fuel the nation and much of the world.
Restoring Economic Stability for Our Farmers
Uncertainty is threatening the survival of our nation’s farmers. America’s growers and farmers are aging and much of America’s farmland will be passed to the next generation of farmers with families. Uncertainties in estate and capital gains tax laws threaten the survival of multigenerational family farms. The proposals for tax reforms contained elsewhere in this document will make certain that family farms will not be lost.
The Proper Federal Role in Agriculture
Agricultural producers and the jobs they generate throughout the entire food chain must confront volatility in both the weather and the markets. We support farm programs that enable them to manage the extraordinary risk they meet in the fields every year. These programs should be as cost-effective as they are functional, offering risk management tools that improve producers’ ability to operate when times are tough.
Just as all other federal programs must contribute to the deficit reduction necessary to put our country back on a sound fiscal footing, so must farm programs contribute to balancing the budget.
Programs like the Direct Payment program should end in favor of those, like crop insurance, that help manage risk and are counter-cyclical in nature. We support the historic role of the USDA in agricultural research that has transformed farming here and around the world. Because food safety is a major concern of the American people, we urge Congress to ensure adequate resources for the Department’s responsibilities in that regard.
The U. S. Forest Service controls about 193 million acres of land and employs 30,000 workers. The Forest Service should be charged to use these resources to the best economic potential for the nation. We must limit injunctions by activist judges regarding environmental management. In order to secure one of the country’s most important natural resources, we will review the way the Forest Service handles wildfires. This summer’s lack of rainfall over much of agricultural America highlights the importance of access to water for farmers and ranchers alike. We stand with growers and producers in defense of their water rights against attempts by the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers to expand jurisdiction over water, including water that is clearly not navigable.
The productivity of America’s farmers makes possible the generosity of U.S. food aid efforts around the world. These programs are fragmented between the Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Agency for International Development. They should be streamlined into one agency with a concentration on reducing overhead to maximize delivery of the actual goods.
The food stamp program now accounts for nearly 80 percent of the entire USDA budget. In finding ways to fight fraud and abuse, the Congress should consider block-granting that program to the States, along with the other domestic nutrition programs.
Protecting Our Environment (Top)
The environment is getting cleaner and healthier. The nation’s air and waterways, as a whole, are much healthier than they were just a few decades ago. Efforts to reduce pollution, encourage recycling, educate the public, and avoid ecological degradation have been a success. To ensure their continued support by the American people, however, we need a dramatic change in the attitude of officials in Washington, a shift from a job-killing punitive mentality to a spirit of cooperation with producers, landowners, and the public. An important factor is full transparency in development of the data and modeling that drive regulations. Legislation to restore the authority of States in environmental protection is essential. We encourage the use of agricultural best management practices among the States to reduce pollution.
Our Republican Party’s Commitment to Conservation (Top)
Conservation is a conservative value. As the pioneer of conservation over a century ago, the Republican Party believes in the moral obligation of the people to be good stewards of the God-given natural beauty and resources of our country and bases environmental policy on several common-sense principles. For example, we believe people are the most valuable resource, and human health and safety are the most important measurements of success. A policy protecting these objectives, however, must balance economic development and private property rights in the short run with conservation goals over the long run. Also, public access to public lands for recreational activities such as hunting, fishing, and recreational shooting should be permitted on all appropriate federal lands.
Moreover, the advance of science and technology advances environmentalism as well. Science allows us to weigh the costs and benefits of a policy so that we can prudently deal with our resources. This is especially important when the causes and long-range effects of a phenomenon are uncertain. We must restore scientific integrity to our public research institutions and remove political incentives from publicly funded research.
Private Stewardship of the Environment (Top)
Experience has shown that, in caring for the land and water, private ownership has been our best guarantee of conscientious stewardship, while the worst instances of environmental degradation have occurred under government control. By the same token, the most economically advanced countries – those that respect and protect private property rights – also have the strongest environmental protections, because their economic progress makes possible the conservation of natural resources. In this context, Congress should reconsider whether parts of the federal government’s enormous landholdings and control of water in the West could be better used for ranching, mining, or forestry through private ownership. Timber is a renewable natural resource, which provides jobs to thousands of Americans. All efforts should be made to make federal lands managed by the U.S. Forest Service available for harvesting. The enduring truth is that people best protect what they own.
It makes sense that those closest to a situation are best able to determine its remedy. That is why a site- and situation-specific approach to an environmental problem is more likely to solve it, instead of a national rule based on the ideological concerns of politicized central planning. We therefore endorse legislation to require congressional approval before any rule projected to cost in excess of $100 million to American consumers can go into effect.
The Republican Party supports appointing public officials to federal agencies who will properly and correctly apply environmental laws and regulations, always in support of economic development, job creation, and American prosperity and leadership. Federal agencies charged with enforcing environmental laws must stop regulating beyond their authority. There is no place in regulatory agencies for activist regulators.
Reining in the EPA (Top)
Since 2009, the EPA has moved forward with expansive regulations that will impose tens of billions of dollars in new costs on American businesses and consumers. Many of these new rules are creating regulatory uncertainty, preventing new projects from going forward, discouraging new investment, and stifling job creation.
We demand an end to the EPA’s participation in “sue and settle” lawsuits, sweetheart litigation brought by environmental groups to expand the Agency’s regulatory activities against the wishes of Congress and the public. We will require full transparency in litigation under the nation’s environmental laws, including advance notice to all State and local governments, tribes, businesses, landowners, and the public who could be adversely affected. We likewise support pending legislation to ensure cumulative analysis of EPA regulations, and to require full transparency in all EPA decisions, so that the public will know in advance their full impact on jobs and the economy. We oppose the EPA’s unwarranted revocation of existing permits. We also call on Congress to take quick action to prohibit the EPA from moving forward with new greenhouse gas regulations that will harm the nation’s economy and threaten millions of jobs over the next quarter century. The most powerful environmental policy is liberty, the central organizing principle of the American Republic and its people. Liberty alone fosters scientific inquiry, technological innovation, entrepreneurship, and information exchange. Liberty must remain the core energy behind America’s environmental improvement. | <urn:uuid:f0f6bd6b-cc8f-4b4d-95e7-7011c017de47> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gop.com/2012-republican-platform_america/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93792 | 3,453 | 2.171875 | 2 |
This is a great community story. I just love the way we come together when there’s a worthwhile opportunity to do so.
EcoWalk is a project with the “goal [of] … tak[ing] an underused area of the [Sag Harbor Elementary] school and transform[ing] it into a beautiful, usable, educational area for the children and community to use, as well as educate them about the origins and importance of various ecosystems.” EcoWorks, Ltd., the non-profit behind EcoWalk, has been raising money for phase II of the project over at kickstarter.com for the past few months. The goal was to raise $10,000 by January 5th. As of 9:00 p.m. on January 4th, that goal had been surpassed by over $1,000.
When I checked the Kickstarter site a few days ago, EcoWalk was still about $3,000 short. But, a last-minute e-mail blast from EcoWorks rallied support, and the Sag Harbor community came through for this worthwhile project.
That’s very good news, because the way Kickstarter works is that a project lists itself on their website, sets a financial goal and a deadline, and then Kickstarter starts accepting pledges. If the goal is met by the deadline, Kickstarter collects the money pledged and turns it over to the project organizers. If the goal is not met, no money is collected, and the organizers get nothing. It’s just Kickstarter’s way of making sure that the money people pledge will go to a viable project. It makes sense, but, can be stressful when the deadline is approaching and the goal still hasn’t been met. It sure is a relief to see that EcoWalk has reached its goal, and not lost out on everything by falling a few dollars short.
When completed, it is hoped that EcoWalk will link the campus of the Elementary School to that of Pierson Middle/High School. I’m particularly excited about this part of the plan as it provides an opportunity to calm a very busy intersection adjacent to the two schools, and will hopefully allow the schools and the community to engage in a bit of creative “placemaking.” (I’ll be writing more about placemaking in future blog posts. Stay tuned.)
And a thank you from Sag Hampton, to all who donated.
What do you think about EcoWalk? Leave a reply below. | <urn:uuid:3f8a83dd-5440-4f37-9650-4d47cd76ff09> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.saghampton.com/2011/01/ecowalk-exceeds-its-goal/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959704 | 513 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Because overtraining affects the physical responses to training and adaptation, the body must also contend with a wide array of psychosocial stressors, from sports-related (team dynamics, coaches) and environmental (frequent travel, altitude) challenges to personal (relationship, work, financial) issues.
You can read Human Kinetics e-books on desktop, laptop, and various mobile devices, as long as you have authorized the device or e-reader app to read e-books protected by Adobe's digital rights management (DRM).
Increase speed, power, endurance, and efficiency with Cutting-Edge Cycling. You’ll learn how to apply the latest in cycling research, science, and technology to train smarter, ride longer, and race faster.
Renowned cycling coach Hunter Allen and leading scientist Stephen Cheung share the most recent biomechanical, physiological, and technical advances and research, why they matter, and how you can incorporate them for maximal training and optimal performance.
From the latest information on periodization, lactate threshold, and recovery to bike positioning, pedaling technique, and cadence, Cutting-Edge Cycling covers every aspect of conditioning, preparation, and competition in this physically demanding sport. Additional coverage includes interviews that cover a broad range of topics: interpreting lab results, fatigue, monitoring training, high-intensity training, prevention of and recovery from overtraining, pacing, bike fit, power meter quadrant analysis, hydration, and cooling strategies.
If you’re serious about gaining the edge on the competition, Cutting-Edge Cycling is one guide you shouldn’t be without.
Chapter 1 Evaluating Cycling Science Chapter 2 Producing and Measuring Energy Chapter 3 Tracking Effort and Performance Chapter 4 Periodizing Your Training Chapter 5 Preventing Overtraining and Enhancing Recovery Chapter 6 Finding Your Perfect Pace Chapter 7 Optimizing Bike Fit Chapter 8 Pedaling for Peak Efficiency Chapter 9 Understanding Hydration and Supplements Chapter 10 Dealing With Environmental Stress
Hunter Allen is a former professional cyclist, renowned coach, and expert in using power meters to train endurance athletes. As a professional racer for 17 years, he earned more than 40 career victories in competitions around the world. He was considered a great all-arounder who had the race tactics and skills essential for success at a professional level. Upon retiring from racing, Allen became a USAC elite-level cycling coach and certified nutrition consultant. He has coached more than 400 athletes, including Olympic cyclists, champions of the European road racing circuit, and champion mountain bikers. Allen is a frequent presenter at USA Cycling's coaching certification courses and was a technical consultant to the 2008 USA Cycling BMX Olympic team.
Allen writes for Road magazine and UK-based Cycling Weekly, and he coauthored Training and Racing With a Power Meter. Allen is the founder of Peaks Coaching Group, which specializes in training cyclists and other endurance athletes. He is a codeveloper of TrainingPeaks WKO software, a leading program for analyzing data from power meters. His passion is applying science and technology toward improving athletic performance.
Allen lives in Bedford, Virginia, with his wife and three children.
As the science and training editor for PezCyclingNews (web site), Stephen Cheung, PhD, focuses on translating cutting-edge scientific research into practical guidance for both cyclists and coaches. Cheung has authored more than 100 articles that cover respiratory training, altitude training, precooling and fatigue in the heat, hydration, optimal cadence, pacing strategies, jet lag, supplements, hypoxic stress, and the reliability of exercise testing protocols.
Cheung holds a Canada research chair in environmental ergonomics at Brock University, where his research focuses on the effects of thermal stress on human physiology and performance. He is also the author of Advanced Environmental Exercise Physiology (Human Kinetics, 2009). Cheung helped to establish the sport science support network for the Canadian Sport Centre in Atlantic Canada and has consulted with the Canadian national rowing and snowboard teams on specific sport performance projects. Cheung has also served as a cycling official and as a board member of the Canadian Cycling Association.
Cheung is a passionate cyclist who has been commuting and competing on the road for more than 25 years. The highlight of his cycling experiences was meeting his wife, Debbie, during a cross-Canada ride in 1996.
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“Hunter Allen and Stephen Cheung translate the most recent science into practical training information for cyclists. Cutting-Edge Cycling will be a vital component to any cyclist’s success.” | <urn:uuid:209b966f-07b6-42b3-9c9d-d65b16ae82b8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.humankinetics.com/products/all-products/cutting-edge-cycling-ebook?ActionType=2_SetCurrency&CurrencyCode=5 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931373 | 1,183 | 2.25 | 2 |
THE Ordinary of NEWGATE HIS ACCOUNT OF The Behaviour, Confessions, AND Last Speeches Of the Persons who were Executed at the End of Salisbury-Court in Fleet-street, LONDON, On Friday the 21st of September, 1716, FOR THE RIOT Committed in that Court on Tuesday the 24th of July last.
London Printed, and are to be Sold by J. MORPHEW, near Stationers-Hall. 1716.
THE Ordinary of Newgate's ACCOUNT, &c.
AT the General Sessions held at Justice-Hall in the Old-Baily, on Thursday the 6th, Friday the 7th, Saturday the 8th, and Monday the 10th of September, 1716, Thirty-two Persons, viz. 20 Men and 12 Women, who were Try'd for several capital Crimes, being found Guilty, did accordingly receive Sentence of Death; together with another Person, who having once obtain'd a Pardon, and since forfeited it, was call'd down to his former Judgment. Of these Malefactors, viz. 10 Women pregnant, and 7 Men, being Repriev'd, (which Mercy I pray GOD give them Grace to improve unto his Glory) and 11 Executed last Wednesday, these remaining Rioters are now order'd for their Execution.
On the Lord's Day the 9th instant, I preach'd to them and the others, both in the Forenoon and Afternoon, upon part of the Second Lesson for that Morning-Service, viz. Matt. 10. 7. (the Words of Our Blessed Saviour to his Disciples) And as ye go, preach, saying, The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.
And upon the last Lord's Day, the 16th instant, I preach'd to them again, both in the Morning and Afternoon, on Exod. 20. 13. Thou shalt not kill.
Of which Sermons I have already given an Account in my Paper of Wednesday last (together with that of the Malefactors that were then executed) whereto I refer the Reader.
As to these Persons in particular, who are now to suffer, I represented to them the Heinousness of their Crime, so as to bring them (if possible) to a suitable degree of Repen
tance; shewing them, That such a great Sin (as this was) must needs be greatly repented of, if the Person guilty of it expects ever to obtain GOD's Pardon and Salvation.
In my private Discourses with them, they gave me such an Account of their respective Circumstances (both as to their Fact and Repentance) as here follows.
1. George Purchase, condemn'd for being concern'd in the Riot in Salisbury-Court, Fleetstreet, on Tuesday the 24th of July last. He said, he was 23 Years of age, born at Puddle-Dock, London: That he serv'd an Apprentiship of 7 Years with a Shoemaker in Salisbury-Court: That when his Time was expir'd he became a Journeyman to his said Master, and never did an ill thing before this Fact for which he is condemn'd, and which he rashly committed, not considering then (as I endeavour'd now to make him sensible of) the Unlawfulness and dismal Consequences of such a Rebellious Sedition as that was, which so much tended not only to the Ruin of private Persons, but to the great Disturbance of, and Dishonour to, the whole Government. I representing both to him and his Fellow-Criminals and Sufferers, what perfect Nonsense (not to say worse) it was for them to cry-out, High-Church and Ormond; and what an unheard of Impudence and Disloyalty, what an enormous Wickedness and Impiety they all discover'd to be in their Nature, by their uttering these and the like Rebellious and Malicious Expressions; Do Hannoverian, King George, Down with the Mugg-house, &c. by which they excited and stirr'd up both themselves and others, to kill and plunder, to set the Nation in a Flame, and, in a word, to do all the Mischief they could, and to which (no doubt) they were greatly encourag'd underhand by such as neither fear GOD, nor honour the KING; nor indeed have any true Love for, or Regard to the Lives of those poor silly Tools they made use of in that Riot.
Upon this my Observation and Admonition (endeavouring to convince them, that they could have no good Intent in doing what they did, but quite contrary) this George Purchase acknowledg'd it to be a heinous Crime, himself greatly Guilty, and his Sentence just; praying GOD to forgive him this and all other his Sins, and have Mercy upon his Soul.
2. Thomas Beane, condemn'd for the same Fact. He said, he was 22 years of age; born in Salisbury-Court, where his Father formerly kept the Ship Tavern: That he was 5 Years at Sea, as Servant to the Purser of a Man of War , whom he serv'd the last of those 5 Years in the capacity of his Steward: That he was a Servant to some Gentlemen unhappily engag'd in the late Rebellion at Preston, since they were in Newgate, and not before. As to this Fact he was condemn'd for, he confest his guilt of it, acknowledging in particular that he carried part of the Mug-house Sign about the Street, and at last threw it into a Cart; but withal endeavour'd to palliate it, saying, That he inconsiderately join'd in that Riot, the dismal Consequences whereof he did not then apprehend, but now (to his great Sorrow) knew the Mischief he had thereby involv'd himself in.
3. William Price, condemn'd also for the same Riot. He said, he was 21 years of age, born in the Parish of St. Andrew Holbourn: That he was bound Apprentice to a Sword-Cutler , and had now serv'd 4 years of his Time, and never committed any Crime before this Riot hapned. He confess'd, That, hearing there was a great Concourse of People in Salisbury-Court, he presently ran thither, but said withal, That it was with no ill Intent, but out of meer Curiosity; however, when he was come he join'd with others there, and assisted them in demolishing Mr. Read's Mug-house, destroying his Goods, and crying, high Church and Ormond, &c. Upon which Confession of his, I shewing him the heinousness and mischievous Consequences of that wicked Fact, he began to be sensible, and said, he heartily repented of it, praying GOD to forgive him this, and all other his Sins. He also was much concern'd to hear that his poor Mother had been misrepresented by some Persons, who had reported, that she us'd no Endeavours to save his Life; for he was fully satisfied she did that to her utmost.
4. Richard Price, condemn'd likewise for that Fact. He said, he was 20 Years of age, born at Llangdavery in Caermarthenshire in Wales, where having serv'd his Time with a Taylor , he came up to London, and here wrought Journey-work , and never engag'd in any ill thing before this hapned; adding, That accidentally passing by that Place where the Tumult was, he unhappily fell in among 'em, not considering the Unlawfulness and ill Consequence of such a Fact. He was very ignorant, and could not so much as read, which was a great disadvantage to him under these his melancholy Circumstances. I endeavour'd to make him sensible of his great Offence, and to beg Pardon for it, and all other his Sins; which he accordingly did with Tears.
5. John Love, condemn'd for being concern'd with the 'forementioned Rioters. He said, he was about 16 years of age, born in White-Fryers, London: That he had learnt to make Buttons , but his chief Employment was, the helping of Bargemen and Lightermen to unlade their Boats . He further said, That he never was (nor ever deserv'd to be) brought before Justice till this Riot happen'd, in which
he unfortunately involv'd himself, without considering what he then did, or what might follow thereupon. I found him a very ignorant Person, who could not read at all, and hardly knew any thing of Religion; and he was, for some Days past, so very sick and weak, that I was forced to attend him in the Condemn'd Hold; so all I could do there was, to pray for him.
At the Place of their Execution, whither they were this Day carried in two Carts from Newgate, I gave them my last Attendance, exhorting them still more and more to repent of this and all other their Sins. I pray'd and sung some Penitential Psalms with them, and made them rehearse the Apostles Creed. They desir'd, that all young Men and others would take Warning by them, and learn Wisdom from their Folly. They also desir'd the Standers-by to pray for their departing Souls: They begg'd Pardon of GOD and of the KING, and of all they had offended; and declar'd, That they dy'd in Charity with all Men; wishing that none would be so unhappy as to follow them in this, or any other Evil Course, that might bring them to an Untimely End. After this I pray'd with 'em again, That God would grant 'em the Pardon of their Sins, and the Salvation of their Souls; that they might have a happy Passage out of this miserable Life, and be admitted into a State of Everlasting Bliss and Glory. Then I withdrew from them, and left 'em to their private Devotions, for which they had some Time allotted them: When that was expir'd, the Cart drew away, and they were launch'd into Eternity, they all the while praying to GOD to have Mercy on them, and receive their Souls.
THis is to satisfy the Publick, That I never was acquainted with the two Gentlemen, Prisoners now in Newgate, mention'd in the Sessions-Paper, wherein I am also mention'd as their Servant; but was only hired to them as a Weekly Servant, at Five Shillings per Week, about Five Weeks before I was apprehended; and as I am a dying Man, I do declare these Gentlemen did not kno any thing of my going upon that Affair. Tho. Beane.
Sept. 21st. 1716.
This is all the Account here to be given of these Persons, by me,
Friday, Sept. 21st 1716.
WHereas on Monday Night the 17th instant, a Male Child of about four Days old was dropt in Furnival's-Inn Gateway, in the Parish of St. Andrew, Holbourn: London. If any Person will discover the Father or Mother, or Person who dropt such Child, so that the Parish may be discharg'd, shall receive forty Shillings, as a Reward, from Mr. Francis Clarke the present Churchwarden .
In a few Days will be publish'd,
THe Third and Last Volume of Posthumous Works written by Mr. Samuel Butler, Author of Hudibras; part written in the time of the Usurpation, and the rest in the Reign of K. Charles II. To which is added, The Coffin for the Good Old Cause; publish'd just before the Restoration. By Sir Samuel Lake. Printed for S. Briscoe. | <urn:uuid:8e2f436c-48ab-4b3b-9c2b-5eb3e7ef0011> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?path=ordinarysAccounts%2FOA17160921.xml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985192 | 2,503 | 1.953125 | 2 |
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...change. Whereas pioneer coaches such as Henry Iba of Oklahoma A&M University (now Oklahoma State University) or Long Island University’s Clair Bee taught strictly a man-to-man defense, the zone defense, developed by Cam Henderson of Marshall University in West Virginia, later became an integral part of the game (see below Play of the game).
...a specific opponent, except when “switching” with a teammate when he is screened or in order to guard another player in a more threatening scoring position. Another major strategy is the zone, or five-man, defense. In this system each player has a specific area to guard irrespective of which opponent plays in that area. The zone is designed to keep the offense from driving in to the...
Pass defenses had always been either man-to-man or zone (each back covering an area). In the 1970s, when zone defenses virtually eliminated long passes, strong running games—featuring backs such as Buffalo’s O.J. Simpson, Miami’s Larry Csonka and Jim Kiick, and Pittsburgh’s Franco Harris and Rocky Bleir—dominated the NFL. Landmark rule changes in 1977—banning defensive contact...
What made you want to look up "zone defense"? Please share what surprised you most... | <urn:uuid:f2509071-4250-447b-9260-2a0a98dfbbfc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/657851/zone-defense | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936839 | 305 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Four years ago I wrote a blog post about turning large shipping containers into homes. I found the concept, process, and results fascinating. That post is no longer available, and the links it contained are no longer active — the Web moves on — but the topic of the post, cargotecture, is very much alive.
Cargotecture is the design of large cargo shipping containers for housing. Part of the recycling movement, it falls under the upcycling umbrella. Upcycling is a component of sustainability in which waste materials or useless products are converted into new materials or products of better quality or a higher environmental value. Turning the countless shipping containers littering lots throughout the country into housing certainly fits this description.
Another term to describe reusing old materials or products in different ways is repurposing. This week saw reports of a creative repurposing and possible example of upcycling. For the first time ever, New York City invited residents to swim in pools made from repurposed garbage dumpsters. (more...) | <urn:uuid:5af218bd-acf7-4574-bd9e-7dfcb1a0584f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.thefabricator.com/?tag=upcycling | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940713 | 212 | 2.265625 | 2 |
Toshiba Corporation and NEC Corporation today announced two key advancements toward development of a magnetoresistive random access memory, a technology seen as key to the development of future generations of high performance mobile equipment.
Unveiling the latest fruits of a joint development program dating back to 2002, the two companies announced a new cell design that halves power consumption during data writes and cuts writing errors, and a novel MRAM architecture with high speed characteristics and a performance that will support development of high-density devices.
Full details of the new technology were presented on December 14 at IEDM (International Electron Devices Meeting) 2004 in San Francisco, USA.
The features of MRAM are fast read/write, high density, unlimited endurance and non-volatility?the ability to retain data when switched off. While MRAM show great promise for application in mobile information equipment, cell size and power consumption must be reduced, and no loss of operating speed achieved, before commercial application is possible. The advancements reported by NEC and Toshiba point the way forward.
NEC and Toshiba reduced write current by developing a new shape for the magnetic tunneling junction (MTJ) that stores information in the cell. The MTJ shape is similar to the standard rectangular shape, but with arc-shaped bulges on both sides, in the middle of the longer length. Seen from above, the outline of the shape resembles a coin placed on a rectangle. With this new design, write current is approximately half that of present MRAM, and writing errors are reduced, even if there is some fluctuation in the switching characteristics of each memory cell. (Please refer to the figure 1.)
Toshiba and NEC have also developed highly promising new cell architecture. Research to date has produced two basic proposals on MRAM cell structure. The first of these couples each cell with a transistor, which advances read times, but at a cost in increased cell size. The second, the cross point (CP) structure, removes the transistor from each individual cell, a move that reduces cell size, but read access time gets longer and read errors occur due to generation of sneak current, the tendency of current to be directed to the unselected cell. Toshiba and NEC have realized a high-speed CP cell structure that uses one transistor to control four cells. This achieves a cell that is the same size as a standard DRAM cell and conventional CP cell, and much smaller than an MRAM cell with transistor. (Please refer to figure 2.) The new architecture also achieves a 250 nanosecond read time, four times faster than the conventional CP cell structure.
Through continued joint development, Toshiba and NEC aim to define fundamental technologies required for realizing a 256 megabit MRAM, utilizing MTJ based on 250 nanometer design rule and CMOS technologies based on 130-180 nanometer design rules by fiscal year 2005.
Development of the new MRAM technologies was supported by grants from Japan's New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO). | <urn:uuid:3378ba51-e69a-42e0-bbcc-99ceccc07ec2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/News/Details.aspx?NewsId=11817 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939903 | 610 | 2.59375 | 3 |
- Journal of Nursing Education
- June 2012 - Volume 51 · Issue 6: 353-357
Pathophysiology is a difficult course both for students to take and for instructors to teach. However, little research has explored learner characteristics that teachers may address through targeted instruction to make both the teaching and learning experience better. This study examined the influence of students’ causal attributions for success on their self-regulated learning, which is strongly associated with positive learning outcomes. Results indicated that ability, effort, and luck attributions for success collectively influenced Pathophysiology students’ self-regulated learning and that ability was the most potent influence. The findings and the implication for teaching are discussed.
Dr. Dunn is Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology, Educational Statistics and Research Methods, and Dr. Osborne is Assistant Professor, Eleanor Mann School of Nursing, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas; and Ms. Link is Doctoral Candidate, Educational Psychology and Research, University of Memphis, Nashville, Tennessee.
The authors have disclosed no potential conflicts of interest, financial or otherwise.
Address correspondence to Karee E. Dunn, PhD, Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology, Educational Statistics and Research Methods, University of Arkansas, 248 Graduate Education Building, Fayetteville, AR 72701; e-mail: .email@example.com | <urn:uuid:98d35782-d4d9-49e5-9496-e2380a31d57e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.healio.com/nursing/journals/JNE/%7BF9B81ACB-730C-4176-BC75-167AA6EB863C%7D/Exploring-the-Influence-of-Students-Attributions-for-Success-on-Their-Self-Regulation-in-Pathophysiology | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913929 | 270 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Since 1984, The Bell Center for Early Intervention Programs has provided quality early intervention services in a center-based program in Birmingham. Here, infants and toddlers at risk for developmental delay receive services from transdisciplinary teams which include a physical therapist, an occupational therapist, a speech-language pathologist and an early childhood special education teacher as each child works on specific individual developmental goals.
Children come from throughout central Alabama with a wide variety of special needs and diagnoses ranging from cerebral palsy and Down syndrome to autism and rare genetic disorders. However, children are not required to have a diagnosis or qualifying delay to attend The Bell Center. As a result, The Bell Center also serves many children who were born prematurely or who do not have a specific diagnosis.
The Bell Center offers services following a complete developmental evaluation, often within a few days or weeks after birth. However, older children exhibiting delays can be evaluated up to their third birthday. And while services are provided to the child, the whole family benefits from The Bell Center’s holistic approach.
Programs at The Bell Center are designed to promote growth in gross and fine motor skills, as well as language, cognition, self-help, and social skills. Each child is evaluated annually, and goals are tailored specifically to the child’s needs. The program has provided dramatic results for the more than 1,000 children who have participated since its inception. | <urn:uuid:0c65dba0-833f-40d8-bd92-2a5446b97f08> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thebellcenter.org/about/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975039 | 282 | 2.109375 | 2 |
Clifton is located in Virginia.
Clifton, Virginia has a population of
family-centric than the surrounding county with
48.72% of the households
containing married families with children.
The county average for households married with children is 39.7%.
The median household income in Clifton, Virginia is
The median household income for the surrounding county is $102,445
compared to the national median of $50,935.
The median age of people living in Clifton is
The average high temperature in July is 88
degrees, with an average low temperature in January of 24.1 degrees.
The average rainfall is approximately 35.6 inches
per year, with 16.3 inches of snow per year.
No weather information available. | <urn:uuid:d7e10025-3276-40a3-b04f-49273efba60f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mrishomes.com/VA/Clifton | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960102 | 164 | 1.921875 | 2 |
Congressional Democrats seek to raise minimum wage to $10.10 an hour
Published: Tuesday, March 5, 2013 at 3:18 p.m.
Last Modified: Tuesday, March 5, 2013 at 3:18 p.m.
WASHINGTON — House and Senate Democrats want to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, more than a dollar higher than President Barack Obama proposed in his State of the Union address.
Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin and California Rep. George Miller say their bill, introduced Tuesday, would boost the minimum from its current rate of $7.25 an hour by 2015. It then calls for automatic annual increases tied to changes in the cost of living.
Obama's proposal last month called for an increase to $9 an hour, but Harkin says that doesn't go far enough.
The lawmakers say a hike in the minimum wage would help lift millions of workers out of poverty and boost the economy. But top Republicans have rejected the idea, saying it would hurt employers.
Reader comments posted to this article may be published in our print edition. All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission. Links are encouraged. | <urn:uuid:ea7414e4-737e-40f9-92d4-bd17c777f970> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.houmatoday.com/article/20130305/WIRE/130309818/0/Author | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953532 | 243 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Today, Congressman Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), a member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, issued the following statement regarding the passage of H.R. 4078, the Regulatory Freeze for Jobs Act:
"To cut unemployment, we need to slash the red tape strangling small businesses. I agree with Steve Jobs when he said "Government needs to be a lot more business-friendly. It's easier to build a factory in China and almost impossible to do so these days in America, largely because of regulations and unnecessary costs.' Our bill imposes a moratorium on any new significant regulatory action, save for health and emergency, until unemployment drops to six percent nationally. There are nearly 13 million Americans looking for a job, and they need government to work with businesses to promote hiring - not act as an additional burden.
"Since President Obama took office, we've seen an unprecedented amount of costly and burdensome regulations heaped on business owners. In the past three years, regulations deemed economically significant have increased 52%, while regulations published just this year will cost American businesses $56.6 billion."
"House Republicans have passed over 30 jobs bills to cut the red tape holding back job-creation; it's time President Obama and the Senate stopped blocking these pro-growth bills and started working with American job-creators." | <urn:uuid:6fcca10a-a248-44c7-a347-6260b9355291> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://votesmart.org/public-statement/728778/kinzinger-votes-to-freeze-regulations-on-job-creators | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942863 | 268 | 1.617188 | 2 |
The results of two recent environmental studies regarding cruise ship wastewater discharge provide new and significant scientific insight into the low environmental impacts of cruise ship operations on the marine environment.
Two independent yet interrelated studies by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (ADEC) provide a major step in understanding the environmental impact of cruise ships.
Significantly, results from a recent EPA study showed that the dilution of discharges from cruise ships moving between 9.1 and 17.4 knots are diluted by a factor of between 200,000:1 and 640,000:1. Measured dilutions were found to be significantly higher than the 40,000:1 initial dilution prediction made in 2000 by the cruise industry. The higher the dilution rates, the less negative impact on the water quality.
During August 2001, the EPA monitored the discharges of four cruise ships off the coast of Miami, Florida to determine how quickly ship wastewater was diluted. The EPA tracked and quantified the plume dilution and dispersal of wastewater discharge from Royal Caribbean and Carnival Cruise Line ships. The International Council of Cruise Lines worked closely with the EPA to identify and coordinate cruise ships, locations, transit routes and sailing schedules.
In July 2002, the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (ADEC) conducted Whole Effluent Toxicity (WET) tests on the wastewater effluent from five different cruise ships operating in Alaska waters. In these WET testing cases, the short and long-term lethal or reproductive effects on indigenous marine animal species were tested in various dilutions of discharge streams from cruise ships. Study results show that at a dilution rate of 200:1, wastewater has essentially no impact on the animal species. The ADEC scientific review panel stated
that wastewater discharges from
large cruise ships, while underway, are not of concern.
"These scientific studies have added to our knowledge of the impact of cruise ship discharges on the marine environment," said Michael Crye, president of the ICCL. "We hope that the results will ease the minds of those who share our goal of responsible environmental management."
Crye added, "Our substantial investments in new technology for wastewater treatment, as well as air emissions and waste reduction, underscore our dedication to environmental protection efforts. We look forward to working with these agencies to enhance our programs even further, as our commitment to responsible environmental practices is as important a priority as our commitment to the safety and security of our passengers and crew." | <urn:uuid:f6bb4432-040e-4bba-b11b-670e1cba566f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.marinelink.com/news/article/study-backs-up-cruise-industry-s-commitment-to-environment/300698.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943097 | 504 | 3.25 | 3 |
The Islamic Society of North American (ISNA) is an organization linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. ISNA was an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation trial, the largest terror financing trial ever held. If you go to the ISNA website, you will find a very interesting list called the Partners of ISNA. Here is a partial list of church Partners:
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Presbyterian Church (USA)
The Union for Reform Judaism
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
United Methodist Church
Unitarian Universalist Association
How do these Partners of ISNA work? They work very hard serving Mohammed and Allah. Their first job is to be ignorant of Islamic doctrine. The Partners never show the slightest sign of knowledge about Islam, except to parrot what their Muslim “handlers” tell them.
To assure that this ignorance is passed down to the next generation, the Partners use their schools to train the next generation to be as ignorant as they are. In other words, their schools never teach how Christians were dhimmis (semi-slaves) inside of Islam, even in those mythical days of the Islamic Golden Age. The schools of the Partners never teach the Islamic doctrine as regarding Christians and Jews. There is no Jew-hatred in the Partners’ version of Islam, in spite of Islamic doctrine being more filled with Jew-hatred than Hitler’s Mein Kampf.
The Partners never bring up the murder of Christians and Jews to their ISNA masters. When ISNA puts up a condemnation of murder of Christians in Nigeria on their website, that is enough. The Partners never get around to asking why these murders of Christians have happened for 1,400 years, or why there will be yet more this week.
Instead, the Partners are content to believe the stories of how Islam honors Isa (the Jesus of the Koran) and loves the People of the Book (one of the names for Christians and Jews). Of course, the fact that Isa lacks every quality of Jesus as found in the Gospels never troubles a Partner, since the Partners honor their oath of subservience to Islam and do not read the Koran.
The Jewish Partners are equal in their ignorance when they never mention that the Musa of the Koran is not the Moses of the Torah, in spite of their ISNA masters’ declarations. Since the Jews are as deliberately ignorant of Islamic doctrine as are the Christian Partners, they don’t know who the Musa in the Koran is. The willful ignorance of these Christian and Jewish Partners is traitorous.
The banner cry of the Partners is “tolerance” — tolerance of the intolerable. The Partners will tolerate religious genocide, church-burnings, rapes, kidnapping, honor killings, and lies, as long as these are done by Muslims. The Partners will piously smile when faced with evil, because they are being tolerant.
But there is one thing that that Partners will not tolerate: conversation about the doctrine and history of political Islam. Want to be a bigot? Speak about the suffering of Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, and atheists under Islam, and down comes the name-calling against those who know and speak out against the evil of sharia persecution of Kafirs. | <urn:uuid:91f9ac40-854a-46fe-a0f0-ab6968b42b36> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://counterjihadreport.com/2012/04/11/partners-in-crime/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948654 | 674 | 2.0625 | 2 |
|<< 2 Chronicles 7 >>|
King James Bible
Fire from Heaven
(Psalm 135:1-21; Psalm 136:1-26)
1Now when Solomon had made an end of praying, the fire came down from heaven, and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices; and the glory of the LORD filled the house.
2And the priests could not enter into the house of the LORD, because the glory of the LORD had filled the LORD'S house.
3And when all the children of Israel saw how the fire came down, and the glory of the LORD upon the house, they bowed themselves with their faces to the ground upon the pavement, and worshipped, and praised the LORD, saying, For he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever.
Solomon's Solemn Sacrifice
(1 Kings 8:62-66)
4Then the king and all the people offered sacrifices before the LORD.
5And king Solomon offered a sacrifice of twenty and two thousand oxen, and an hundred and twenty thousand sheep: so the king and all the people dedicated the house of God.
6And the priests waited on their offices: the Levites also with instruments of musick of the LORD, which David the king had made to praise the LORD, because his mercy endureth for ever, when David praised by their ministry; and the priests sounded trumpets before them, and all Israel stood.
7Moreover Solomon hallowed the middle of the court that was before the house of the LORD: for there he offered burnt offerings, and the fat of the peace offerings, because the brasen altar which Solomon had made was not able to receive the burnt offerings, and the meat offerings, and the fat.
The Feast of Dedication
8Also at the same time Solomon kept the feast seven days, and all Israel with him, a very great congregation, from the entering in of Hamath unto the river of Egypt.
9And in the eighth day they made a solemn assembly: for they kept the dedication of the altar seven days, and the feast seven days.
10And on the three and twentieth day of the seventh month he sent the people away into their tents, glad and merry in heart for the goodness that the LORD had shewed unto David, and to Solomon, and to Israel his people.
God's Promise and Warning
(1 Kings 9:1-9)
11Thus Solomon finished the house of the LORD, and the king's house: and all that came into Solomon's heart to make in the house of the LORD, and in his own house, he prosperously effected.
12And the LORD appeared to Solomon by night, and said unto him, I have heard thy prayer, and have chosen this place to myself for an house of sacrifice.
13If I shut up heaven that there be no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people;
14If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
15Now mine eyes shall be open, and mine ears attent unto the prayer that is made in this place.
16For now have I chosen and sanctified this house, that my name may be there for ever: and mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually.
17And as for thee, if thou wilt walk before me, as David thy father walked, and do according to all that I have commanded thee, and shalt observe my statutes and my judgments;
18Then will I stablish the throne of thy kingdom, according as I have covenanted with David thy father, saying, There shall not fail thee a man to be ruler in Israel.
19But if ye turn away, and forsake my statutes and my commandments, which I have set before you, and shall go and serve other gods, and worship them;
20Then will I pluck them up by the roots out of my land which I have given them; and this house, which I have sanctified for my name, will I cast out of my sight, and will make it to be a proverb and a byword among all nations.
21And this house, which is high, shall be an astonishment to every one that passeth by it; so that he shall say, Why hath the LORD done thus unto this land, and unto this house?
22And it shall be answered, Because they forsook the LORD God of their fathers, which brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold on other gods, and worshipped them, and served them: therefore hath he brought all this evil upon them. | <urn:uuid:05d35eec-7a8e-490c-8504-7f32d79867ea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://biblehub.com/kjv/2_chronicles/7.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961823 | 996 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Building our brand
are our barriers?
are the unique attributes of our product?
attributes could we create that would add value to
should we call it?
should the name and logo say about the product?
you build your brand, you need to address a number of
your barriers. For instance, if a producer wants
to build his brand around high quality and the product
typically has horrible quality, that producer will either
need to rethink the branding strategy or change the
way the fish is handled. Failure to do either will result
in lost business.
sure to understand how your product is unique from others
and build those branding messages around those attributes.
If the fish is extremely red, make that a big deal.
If it holds up better in the oven than the skillet,
emphasize cooking methods.
yourself if there are things about the product that
may go unnoticed without finessing them out in a brand
message. For instance, can we make people feel good
about buying our product. Perhaps we can say the producers
are Mom and Pop businesses and eating this salmon helps
a name and logo are important ways to create an
impression on the consumer. | <urn:uuid:079c623e-5ab9-4360-a55f-befe5ac56cbc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dced.state.ak.us/ded/dev/seafood/seafoodmarketing/marketingpresentation/branding.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913715 | 249 | 1.976563 | 2 |
It’s important to know what to include in your resume but is it just as important to know what to leave out? Hunter International recruiters read dozens of resumes each day and abide by the below list of no-no’s:
The word “resume”. Putting this at the top of the page is not only unnecessary but takes up precious space. The same applies to the line “References available upon request,” which is generally understood.
References. Don’t add these to the resume (or cover letter) itself. List them on a separate page and keep it until references are requested.
A photo. You want to be hired for your mind, experience and accomplishments.
Age, etc. Don’t list strictly personal information that is not related to the job, such as age, height, weight, marital status, or health.
Your GPA? At some point, usually five years after graduation, leave off your college accomplishments and your GPA, even if it was a 4.0.
Salary Needs. Avoid including salary needs unless the advertisement you’re responding to specifically asks for them. In that case, include them in the cover letter. Your resume is never the place to broach the subject of salary. The Etiquette Advantage in Business by Peggy and Peter Post | <urn:uuid:7a257de6-7e75-438d-ad0a-711cecfd04e2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hirecruiting.com/how-to-build-your-resume-less-is-more/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954167 | 274 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Several other curricular topics are integrated within the Foundations of Doctoring Curriculum, including Threads sessions, Interprofessional Education sessions, IHI Open School Modules and the Clinical Interlude.
As in the Essentials Core Blocks, Threads content is integrated into Foundations of Doctoring curricular time. There are sessions in the Humanities, Ethics and Professionalism (HEP), Medicine and Society (M&S), and Culturally Effective Medicine (CEM) threads.
You will participate in required interprofessional curriculum along with the other health professions students on campus. This consists of the Fundamentals of Quality & Collaborative Care modules/sessions. In these learning activities, you will develop foundational knowledge and skills in effective interprofessional teamwork. These sessions are incorporated into your FDC schedule and are required aspects of FDC.
IHI Open School
In December after the Essentials Core block curricula has concluded in Phase I, you will spend 1 week exploring the clinical environment both on campus and in the hospital setting. Your full participation in this week is required and is part of the FDC grade. | <urn:uuid:b5cb5333-8d57-4657-9eb6-74e6c8496faf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ucdenver.edu/academics/colleges/medicalschool/education/degree_programs/MDProgram/longitudinal/foundations/phase1and2/Pages/Professional-Development-Curriculum.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.912665 | 228 | 1.859375 | 2 |
‘Lorax’ true to Seuss rhyme and reason
Sunday’s Academy Awards might have left the false impression that movie song-craft is dead. For bureaucratic reasons, there were only two nominees, neither of which was featured during the show. Both were from so-called family movies - “Rio’’ and “The Muppets’’ - and, in different ways, they were clever approaches to the musical number. “The Lorax’’ has a show-stopper that’s just as good and in some ways better.
The movie itself is a new, faintly faithful version of Theodor “Dr. Seuss’’ Geisel’s 41-year-old ecological cautionary tale. It’s been animated by the same company that made “Despicable Me,’’ which is to say you don’t know whether to watch “The Lorax’’ or lick it.
The song is a rock number called “How Bad Could I Be?’’ and it would have been high on the pop charts any time between 1988 and 1998. It sounds like something Roger Daltrey might have written for Head Start. At just about the halfway point, it arrives and deepens the movie’s tone. A pleasing tale about a boy (with Zac Efron’s voice) who sneaks out of his entirely plastic town to fetch a real tree for the willow of a girl (Taylor Swift) he loves transforms into a darker nightmare of modern industrialization. The song is full of gospel accents, warped voices, hints of Darwinism, and uses the word “biggering.’’
The singer is a character called the Once-ler. In flashbacks, he’s a sort of young Oakie whose invention - a multiuse garment called a Thneed - causes hysterical demand, which causes the Once-ler (Ed Helms) to break his promise not to harm the forest he shares with cuddly bears, goosey fowl, and amphibious goldfish. The vision of dystopia this number conjures feels defiantly grim for a movie where the trees look, as they do in the book, like freshly spun cotton candy. Written by John Powell, Cinco Paul, and Kool Kojak, it also brings out the book’s doomy undercurrent and has more layers and complexity than the movie around it. If I had a hard time sleeping, I don’t envy some parents.
The other numbers are good, too. They have wit and bite and, at least once, Auto-Tune. “The Lorax’’ has never been regarded as highly as ‘The Cat in the Hat’’ or “Green Eggs and Ham’’ and one assumes that’s to do with Dr. Seuss’s concern for a cause other than reading. It was a parable that, in becoming a film, has been literalized and commercialized. I don’t recall seeing the face of the Once-ler in the book. As a figure of industry, he didn’t need one, really. He was everywhere. The Lorax , meanwhile, was the keeper of the forest, this little orange creature with tremendous flaxen facial hair - a little bit walrus, a little bit wood nymph.
For the film, he’s got Danny DeVito’s voice and is rendered very much beside the point (even though he’s starring in all the movie’s decidedly anti-Lorax tie-ins for everything from a Mazda SUV to disposable diapers). After explaining how the Once-ler won then lost his empire and is currently living out a curse the Lorax levied, the movie turns into a chase adventure in which the boy, who’s now named Ted, presumably after Geisel, races to plant the last tree seed before he’s stopped by the synthetic town’s tiny mayor, O’Hare (Rob Riggle), which must be a pun on the black pageboy that curtains his face. (The hair clippers could only be set on “Korean dictator.’’) In other nonsense, Ted’s grandmother (Betty White) gets to perform X-Games tricks.
Cinco Paul wrote “The Lorax’’ with Ken Daurio (the directors are Chris Renaud and Kyle Balda; and the movie’s available, inessentially, in 3-D). Paul and Daurio also did 2008’s just-serviceable “Horton Hears a Who!’’ Their deviations from this book don’t stray terribly far from its spirit. Despite some schmaltz and pandering, this is a still a nifty feat of protest whose activism now comes mostly from songs. “Let It Grow,’’ insists the climactic town-wide number. Whether they’re singing about the environment or the mayor’s hair, you definitely want to do something to help. | <urn:uuid:b39b2821-d398-496e-8f1f-31863516e3da> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2012/03/02/a_cartoon_musical_with_rhyme_and_reason/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959443 | 1,093 | 1.664063 | 2 |
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See class lists and photos from each school, and look for a special section in Monday's edition.
Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli, as signed by John Adams, in 1796:
"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,—as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen [Muslims],—and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan [Muslim] nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."
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Find searchable data, including public employee salaries, crime stats and more. | <urn:uuid:58cf018f-6d54-4dcf-8166-f59eb0909bee> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kitsapsun.com/comments/reply/?target=61:341719&comment=483881 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924866 | 252 | 2.578125 | 3 |
posted April 10, 2012 by alexis |
here at method, we tend to look at challenges as opportunities for innovation. which is why last year we partnered with TerraCycle – the world’s leader in collecting difficult-to-recycle packaging and making it into new products – to collect and upcycle method laundry, dish and hand wash refill pouches. these packages are very efficient to make, yet aren’t widely accepted by curbside recycling programs. but with TerraCycle’s innovative processes, the non-recyclable becomes recyclable.
schools, community centers, youth groups, churches and more can set up TerraCycle collection locations to collect and send in typically non-recyclable waste to be turned into new products, i.e. upcycled, and earn money for their organization at the same time.
this year, instead of only collecting method refill pouches, we’ve expanded our TerraCycle Brigade to include the collection of our pumps, triggers, wipes, pouches and caps. and perhaps even more exciting, we’re now also collecting refill pouches, pumps, triggers, etc. from ANY cleaning product sold in the US.
by accepting packaging from all cleaning product companies, we can work to reduce landfill waste and replace the use of virgin materials while saving energy and carbon emissions. our goal for 2012 is to collect and upcycle more than method manufactures in the year. and we think we can do it.
to find out more about the TerraCycle program, find upcycling brigades in your neighborhood or find out how to start your own, visit http://www.terracycle.net/en-US/how-terracycle-works.html | <urn:uuid:f5b117c5-f5fa-4bc8-a6b0-d5c46ec94a19> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://methodhome.com/outsmart-waste/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93683 | 368 | 1.8125 | 2 |
It seems there is some question as to whether or not Obama is an American citizen. Yet we have heard nothing from the biased news media about this. Where is the story New York Times?
Philip J. Berg, a former deputy attorney General, raises questions about the place of Barack Hussein's birth. He contends that Obama was born in Kenya and that his mother merely registered his birth in Hawaii.
Berg a prominent Philidelphia attorney, former gubernatorial and senatorial candidate, former chair of the Democratic Party in Montgomery (PA) County, former member of the Democratic State Committee, and former Deputy Attorney General of Pennsylvania. According to Berg, he filed the suit--just days before the DNC is to hold its nominating convention in Denver--for the health of the Democratic Party. Â Berg filed suit this afternoon in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania against Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic National Committee and the Federal Election Commission. The action seeks an injunction preventing the senator from continuing his candidacy and a court order enjoining the DNC from nominating him next week, all on grounds that Sen. Obama is constitutionally ineligible to run for and hold the office of President of the United States.
Berg claims in the lawsuit, that Obama was born in Kenya, not Hawaii as Senator Obama claims (and we all know Obama doesn't lie). The lawsuit claims Obama's mother traveled to Kenya with his father but was prevented from flying back to Hawaii because of the late stage of her pregnancy, "apparently a normal restriction to avoid births during a flight." Which is also what Obama's paternal grandmother, half brother and half sister have also claimed.
According to Berg, inconsistent accounts of Obama's birth, including reports that he was born in two different hospitals--Kapiolani Hospital and Queens Hospital--in Honolulu, as well a profound lack of birthing records for Stanley Ann Dunham, though simple "registry of birth" records for Barack Obama are available in a Hawaiian public records office.
If Obama was really born in Kenya, Berg says, thelaws on the books at the time of Obama's birth hold that U.S. citizenship may only pass to a child born overseas to a U.S. citizen parent and a non parent if the former is at least 19 years of age. Obama's mother was only 18 at the time and therefore, because U.S. citizenship could not legally be passed on to him, Obama couldn't be registered as a "natural born" citizen and is thus not eligible to seek the presidency pursuant to Article II, Section 1 of the United States Constitution.
Berg also states that if Sen. Obama could have somehow been deemed  "natural born" that citizenship was lost in or around 1967 when he and his mother took up residency in Indonesia, where Stanley Ann Dunham married Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian citizen. Berg also states that he possesses copies of Sen. Obama's registration to Fransiskus Assisi School In Jakarta, Indonesia which clearly show that he was registered under the name "Barry Soetoro" and his citizenship listed as Indonesian.
Read the entire story here. | <urn:uuid:07ced178-05ac-45cb-a7ca-3628e85187f7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474977428212 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976235 | 641 | 1.5 | 2 |
With Grant's permission:
The following is a conspiracy theory; a mixture of fact and conjecture. My research into this in terms of the matters of fact has been light, but if anybody chooses to challenge what I label as factual, I'll be happy to look up additional sources; or you can go to Wikipedia and look up the posted supporting material. I will state for the record that I neither believe nor disbelieve the following; but it makes a hell of a good story....
1) Fact: There is pretty much universal agreement that there has been quite a bit of climate change around the earth for the last couple of decades. It appears that the majority of those studying this believe that it is being caused by a global warming cycle, with a large majority of those believing that it is either caused by human activity or that it is at least heavily aggravated by human activity (yes, I know a significant minority disagrees; for the moment, I don't care).
2) Fact: One of the more visible proponents of the humanity-caused global warming theory, as well as one of the first visible proponents, has been one Albert Gore.
3) Fact: The 2008 Summer Olympics are scheduled to be in Beijing, China.
4) Fact: China has built an open stadium for the Olympics, in spite of the heavy pollution in Beijing and that the Olympics will be held during monsoon season.
5) Reasonable conjecture: China has been doing everything possible very hard to ensure that nothing will go wrong during the Summer Olympics.
6) Reported: China plans to use weather control techniques to keep the weather suitable during the Summer Olympics.
7) Fact: there are major concerns about the global side effects of weather control, leading to the United Nations passing a convention on the ban on weather control in 1976 (the U.S. has signed and ratified this; I don't know for sure about China, but, based on current evidence, they haven't).
8) Not too unreasonable conjecture: Based on #5 & #6, China has been experimenting with weather control for quite some time. Maybe even 20+ years?
9) Fact: The Kyoto accords, currently the most ambitious international agreement (or would-be agreement, as it seems that everybody wants it to affect everybody BUT themselves), does not put any brakes on Chinese industrial growth.
10) Fun conjecture #1: The current climate change HAS been caused by humanity; specifically Chinese weather control experiments.
11) Fact: One Albert Gore has been present on at least one occasion of funds being illegally transferred from China, although he has declared that he did not know the funds were being transferred. Although the courts determined that the fund transfers were criminal in nature, he was not convicted of any wrongdoing.
12) Fun conjecture #2: Al Gore has been in the pay of China to use his influence to distract people from Chinese weather control, and to help them use global warming theory as an economic weapon against the U.S. | <urn:uuid:2d40faec-fbf7-49d3-bfaf-e289aadd4d30> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://forums.comicbookresources.com/showthread.php?216187-The-Olympic-Global-Warming-connection | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97362 | 610 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Severn Trent Services Provides Reverse Osmosis/Electrodeionization Technology For Oil Refinery In Pakistan
Fort Washington, PA - Severn Trent Services recently provided multiple water treatment technologies, including reverse osmosis and electrodeionization (RO/EDI) systems, for Bosicor Oil Pakistan Limited, a private sector crude oil refinery under construction in Pakistan, which will have a capacity of 115,000 bpd and will be the largest crude oil refinery on completion (3Q 2010). Bosicor Pakistan Limited, an associated company of the refinery under construction, is already in the business of crude oil refining. The existing and proposed refineries are located at MuazaKund, Hub, Balochistan, Pakistan. The complex RO/EDI system, which will purify seawater for use as process water at the refinery, includes a UAT™ reverse osmosis membrane filtration system and a UAT EDI system from Severn Trent Services and also incorporates a dissolved air flotation system (DAF). The RO/EDI system will purify the refinery's process water at a rate of up to 4.0 mgd.
Bosicor Oil Pakistan Limited required a total solution that incorporated multiple technologies in order to treat open seawater up to 40,000 ppm of total dissolved solids. The double pass RO/EDI system provided by Severn Trent Services combines reverse osmosis and electrodeionization technologies to effectively remove more than 97 percent of all feedwater contaminants, including ionic, organic and particulate contamination from cooling water intake. The system consistently produces a very high water quality effluent, which is ideally suited to produce the refinery's required water purity of = 0.2 microsiemens. Severn Trent Services is responsible for supplying, testing and commissioning their manufactured system.
According to Marwan Nesicolaci, vice president of international sales and business development for Severn Trent Services, "The RO/EDI system is the first filtration system of its kind in Pakistan, and the system's design and low energy costs make it an excellent choice for industrial ultrapure water applications. Severn Trent Services is leveraging its global presence and full range of treatment technologies to serve as a total solutions provider for the industrial water treatment needs of this region and throughout the world."
About the Sponsor
The sponsor of Bosicor Oil Pakistan Limited is Byco Industries Incorporated, a joint venture company having shareholding in the ratio of 60:40 between Bosicor Corporation Limited and Abraaj Mauritius Oil and Gas SPV Limited. Bosicor Corporation Limited, is a global investment and trading company whose objective is to invest in the infrastructure needs of the chemical, petroleum and petrochemical industries while Abraaj Mauritius Oil and Gas SPV Limited, is an investment company set up by Abraaj Capital Limited, an investment firm specializing in private equity investments in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia (MENASA) region.
About Severn Trent Services
Severn Trent Services, with global headquarters in Fort Washington, Pa., USA, is a leading supplier of water and wastewater solutions. The company's broad range of products and services is concentrated around disinfection, instrumentation and filtration technologies, and contract operating services. Our analytical services group is the United Kingdom's leading environmental testing organization, and our international operating services business provides worldwide contract operation and support for all aspects of water and wastewater utility operational development and business transformation.
SOURCE: Severn Trent Services | <urn:uuid:ff6b828f-eabf-4d3c-b6f0-9a6306985c57> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wateronline.com/doc/Severn-Trent-Services-Provides-Reverse-0001 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.912348 | 720 | 1.578125 | 2 |
The Census Bureau tells us that more than 30 million Americans are living in poverty. This is routinely denounced by liberals, and sometimes even by conservatives, as a great moral scandal. However, hardly anyone knows what living conditions are characterized, these days, as poor. Robert Rector and Rachel Sheffield of the Heritage Foundation point out that in 21st century America, most “poverty” is what would until very recently have been considered “wealth.”
This is partly because the Census Bureau grossly undercounts the financial resources available to poor families:
[T]he Census report massively undercounts the economic resources provided to poor people. The Census asserts that a household is poor if its “money income” falls below a specified threshold. In 2009, the poverty income threshold for a family of four was $21,756. However, in counting the money income of households, the Census ignores virtually the entire welfare state. For example, there are over 70 means-tested welfare programs that provide cash, food, housing, medical care, and social services to poor and low-income persons. Major means-tested welfare programs include Temporary Assistance for Needy Families; Supplemental Security Income; the Earned Income Tax Credit; food stamps; the Women, Infants, and Children food program; public housing; and Medicaid. (Social Security and Medicare are not means-tested welfare programs.)
In 2008, federal and state governments spent $714 billion on means-tested welfare programs, but the Census counted only about 4 percent of this as “money income” for purposes of determining whether a household was poor. The bottom line is that the economic resources available to poor persons are vastly greater than the Census claims.
The lifestyle of the average “poor” person in America is astonishingly comfortable by any normal standard:
As scholar James Q. Wilson has stated, “The poorest Americans today live a better life than all but the richest persons a hundred years ago.” In 2005, the typical household defined as poor by the government had a car and air conditioning. For entertainment, the household had two color televisions, cable or satellite TV, a DVD player, and a VCR. If there were children, especially boys, in the home, the family had a game system, such as an Xbox or a PlayStation. In the kitchen, the household had a refrigerator, an oven and stove, and a microwave. Other household conveniences included a clothes washer, clothes dryer, ceiling fans, a cordless phone, and a coffee maker.
The home of the typical poor family was not overcrowded and was in good repair. In fact, the typical poor American had more living space than the average European. The typical poor American family was also able to obtain medical care when needed. By its own report, the typical family was not hungry and had sufficient funds during the past year to meet all essential needs.
This is not, of course, the image that John Edwards and his cynical political heirs try to portray. The amenities available to the typical poor American household are remarkable:
Poor families with children have more conveniences and amenities than other poor families. In 2005, the median amenity score for poor families with children was 16. We examined all poor families with children with an amenity score of 16 to determine which items appeared most frequently in these homes.
* These homes typically had both air conditioning and a personal computer.
* For entertainment, they typically had cable or satellite TV, three color televisions, a DVD player, a VCR, and a video game system, such as an Xbox or Play Station.
* In the kitchen, they had a refrigerator, a stove and oven, a microwave, and an automatic coffee maker.
Other amenities included a cell phone, a cordless phone, and a clothes washer.
These conveniences may be considered representative of the living standards of the median or typical poor family with children in 2005.
It is obvious that the general improvement in living standards that has taken place in the United States over the last generation has enormously benefited our poorest citizens. Yet, by defining the “poor” as those Americans who have the lowest cash incomes, liberals take all improvements in living standards out of the equation.
Most cynical of all, perhaps, is Barack Obama, who intends to implement a new definition of poverty, under which that condition can never be eliminated, no matter how well, materially speaking, “poor” people live:
There is a vast gap between poverty as understood by the American public and poverty as currently measured by the government. Sadly, President Barack Obama plans to make this situation worse by creating a new “poverty” measure that deliberately severs all connection between “poverty” and actual deprivation. This new measure will serve as a propaganda tool in Obama’s endless quest to “spread the wealth” and will eventually displace the current poverty measure.
Under the new measure, a family will be judged poor if its income falls below certain specified income thresholds or standards. There is nothing new in this, but unlike the current poverty income standards, the new income thresholds will have a built-in escalator clause. They will rise automatically in direct proportion to any rise in the living standards of the average American.
The current poverty measure counts (albeit inaccurately) absolute purchasing power (how much meat and potatoes a person can buy). The new measure will count comparative purchasing power (how much meat and potatoes a person can buy relative to other people). As the nation becomes wealthier, the poverty standards will increase in proportion. In other words, Obama will employ a statistical trick to give a new meaning to the saying that “the poor will always be with you.”
The new poverty measure will produce very odd results. For example, if the real income of every single American were to triple magically overnight, the new poverty measure would show no drop in poverty because the poverty income standards would also triple. Under the Obama system, poverty can be reduced only if the incomes of the “poor” are rising faster than the incomes of everyone else. Another paradox of the new poverty measure is that countries such as Bangladesh and Albania will have lower poverty rates than the U.S.—even though the actual living conditions in those countries are extremely low—simply because they have narrower distribution of incomes, albeit very low incomes.
According to Obama’s measure, economic growth has no impact on poverty. Since the beginning of the 20th century, the incomes of nearly all Americans have increased sevenfold after adjusting for inflation. However, from Obama’s perspective, this increase in real incomes had no effect on poverty because the incomes of those at the bottom of the income distribution did not rise faster than the incomes of those in the middle.
In plain English, Obama’s new poverty-measure system will measure income “inequality,” not “poverty.” But he cannot call it an inequality index because the American voter is unwilling to support massive welfare increases, soaring deficits, and tax increases just to equalize incomes. However, if the goal of income leveling is camouflaged as a desperate struggle against poverty, malnutrition, hunger, and dire deprivation, then the political prospects improve.
The new measure is a public relations Trojan horse, smuggling in a “spread-the-wealth” agenda under the ruse of fighting significant material deprivation—a condition that is already rare in American society.
I am reminded of Dinesh D’Souza’s anecdote about a friend from India who told him that he was emigrating to America. When Dinesh asked why, his friend said, “I want to live in a country where the poor people are fat.”
In contemporary America, poverty is not so much a material condition as a spiritual one, often characterized by drug abuse, alcoholism, mental illness and illegitimacy. Until voters have a better understanding of what today’s poverty is and is not, it will not be possible to craft effective solutions to the very real problems–mostly behavioral–that afflict a significant portion of our population. | <urn:uuid:2998e60f-b9db-4e8d-90f5-f86cc21a11c3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/07/poverty-american-style.php?tsize=large | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963048 | 1,680 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Read this article on my blog
Overview: The intention of this article and the series of article that will follow is to understand following concepts and ideas:-
2) What is the difference between brand development, brand strategy and branding?
3) How can business benefit from branding?
4) What is online branding? Tips and tricks.
5) A case study and a guest interview.
6) Vox populi (A collection of ideas and views on the subject from various sources)
A business organization usually start making sense out of the benefits of branding when either one of their senior managers discover it while he accidentally stumbled upon a book on branding or suddenly they realize that their competition has become “famous overnight”. And the result of this interesting discovery leads them to the doorsteps of a so called “brand guru” , who talks about a prophecy that there business is doomed and he is a godsend savior to bring them out of the oblivion. The enlightenment begins here and then with couple of meetings over sushi, black coffee, heated arguments, ego brushes and some brand experts (by products of the exercise) later a brand is born. The result of this exhilarating & arduous exercise somewhat looks like this:-
1) Hiring of a design agency
2) Suddenly a new logo is created
3) The corporate identity looks like a riot of colors
4) A meticulous exercise of revamping the marketing collaterals and online presence
5) A press meets with dark suited business journalists (who are more interested in “what’s on the menu?” then “what’s in the meeting?”)
6) A beautiful mailer sent across to the customers, employees and other stakeholders (with the new logo and color family of course)
7) High expectations (should result into benefits overnight)
8) A hole in the balance sheet (sushi and black coffee bills included)
With some heart burns and blame games later our “brand” is forgotten and people return back to their work with a feeling that “whatever it was but it has certainly added a nice idea to my retirement plan-becoming a brand guru someday”. Pass on the caviar and some champagne too.
I understand your concern, but I am not the byproduct of some similar exercise, I am but a curious spectator of this game called “branding”. And here through my blog I want to discover and unravel the mystery behind it, so that someday I and you can help create a brand which lives up to everybody’s expectation and performs like any other asset of the organization in creating a real, tangible value for the business or just to create a sound bite “A brand that really works.”
I hope I have set the tone for taking the case forward and if you have gone through something similar or you have an interesting sushi recipe, then I request you to share your experiences by leaving a comment.
Download an interesting article on branding by Jeff Cohn from my blog | <urn:uuid:ba56c908-960f-418b-9f38-5739e9bd7be6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.design21sdn.com/people/13864/posts/5175?order=Most_popular | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948852 | 625 | 1.617188 | 2 |
This Is What Windows 8 Looked Like In 2010 [IMAGES]
Operating systems tend to take a long time to build, since they’re pretty complicated beasts. Windows is certainly no exception, and Microsoft usually spends two or three years building a new Windows OS. With Windows 8, they began way back in 2010, just a year after the release of Windows 7.
One of the first tasks they undertook when work on Windows 8 began was finding an interface style that would be unified across the whole operating system. To this end, they made a series of design mockups of what all the different elements of the OS would look like, as a reference for the whole Windows 8 design team. Those mockups have now been made public, and they are – in most cases – surprisingly similar to the final product available today.
A blog called I Started Something has posted these Windows 8 design mockups for the world to see, and the blogger says they were pulled from a presentation given by Microsoft’s Jensen Harris. In the pictures, you can see the Start screen, the lock screen, the charm menu, and the on-screen keyboard. While most of the elements look uncannily similar to the final product, there’s a couple things that turned out pretty different (the charm icons, for example).
It’s an interesting look into the design vision of the Windows 8 operating system, and a peek under the hood at a process we don’t normally get to see as consumers. It’s also impressive to see how forward-looking of a vision Microsoft’s design team seems to have; when you consider the fact that these mockups were made around the time the original iPad was released, it becomes clear how much Windows 8′s design aesthetic was ahead of its time. | <urn:uuid:27d747ba-30aa-47bd-b3db-69aacd8f7372> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ijailbreak.com/microsoft/microsoft-windows-8-2010-mockups/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965272 | 371 | 1.71875 | 2 |
TOLEDO, Ohio (KTLA) -- Century-old baseball cards discovered in an Ohio attic sold big at auction.
Karl Kissner, the executor of his aunt's estate when she passed away found 37 rare baseball cards in mint condition underneath an old doll house in the attic.
And they weren't just any cards -- they were mostly hall of famers like Cy Young, Honus Wagner and Ty Cobb.
The cards fetched a combined $566,000 at an auction at the National Sports Collectors Convention in Baltimore.
Kissner says he knew his aunt was a packrat, so he made sure he went through everything carefully.
"You had to open every envelope, open every book," Kissner said.
"So knowing that, we went through [her things] very meticulously. Had we gone through in a rampage, we may not have spotted those cards and they would have went in the hopper."
Kissner believes the cards belonged to his grandfather, who was the owner of a meat market and probably used them as promotional handouts many years ago.
This find is considered one of the biggest and most exciting finds in the history of baseball card collecting.
The money made from the cards will now be evenly divided among 20 cousins.
'Epic' Baseball Card Collection Sells Big at Auction | <urn:uuid:d30de899-4f83-4927-be8d-8823cbabc6d6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dailyamerican.com/topic/ktla-epic-baseball-card-collection,0,7470445.story | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981945 | 276 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Sometimes in recipes, certain ingredients get taken for granted -- you don't spend too much time thinking of what a difference an ingredient makes, especially when it seems insignificant or small. In Mediterranean food some of the most flavorful ingredients are the smallest. We're talking about capers! Those tiny green specs, actually flower buds (click here to learn more on that) are salty, briny and pungent. Just a little goes a long way (maybe that's one reason they may be taken for granted). Many recipes wouldn't be the same without capers, like the classic piccata sauce, eggplant caponata or even homemade tartar sauce. After looking through our slideshow, you'll see just how much of a difference capers make. | <urn:uuid:7fbab406-e241-4854-913a-ea20a4e138bb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/21/capers-recipes_n_1533909.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934183 | 152 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Since water is a scarce resource in the high desert, birds are found in abundance where it does occur. Many small ponds and lakes formed by spring rains and snow melt provide temporary homes for a surprising number of waterbirds, such as ducks, geese, shorebirds, herons, and gulls. Even swans are sighted regularly during the spring migration north to Canada. A few small riparian areas and aspen clumps provide shelter for warblers, vireos, catbirds, orioles, woodpeckers, and more. Small marshes on the northern edge of the lava flow attract blackbirds, wrens, and herons.
Much of the park is covered by shrublands and many specialist species can be found here. Birds such as Brewer’s Sparrows, Sage Sparrows, Sage Thrasher, and Sage Grouse, are found in much higher numbers than in similar areas with more human activity. Limber pine, rocky mountain, and Utah juniper stands growing in cinder gardens and kipuka areas offer habitat to woodpeckers, flycatchers, chickadees, nuthatches, warblers, sparrows, and finches. These patches of trees in the midst of a vast sea of shrublands and barren lava flows are a beacon to many migrating birds, such as warblers, sparrows, and flycatchers, which reside here for brief periods in the spring and fall.
Even the seemingly barren lava flows provide shelter for Mountain Bluebirds, Violet-green Swallows, and Rock Wrens. During the long, cold winters that are characterized by blowing snow and temperatures well below freezing, birds are still found at Craters of the Moon. Ravens, nutcrackers, and chickadees live here all year. Mountain and arctic birds that stay for the winter include Black and Gray Crowned Rosy-finches, Rough-legged Hawks, Northern Shrikes, Snow Buntings, and in some years even Snowy Owls or Gyrfalcons.
Did You Know?
Searing lava flows that initially destroyed everything in their path today protect the last refuges of intact sagebrush steppe communities on the Snake River Plain. These islands of vegetation, known as kipukas, provide important examples of what is "natural". | <urn:uuid:0a344735-9111-41db-bdaf-66a50a8be106> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nps.gov/crmo/naturescience/birds.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941715 | 478 | 3.625 | 4 |
Duke Energy's Rogers Urges NCSU Grads to 'Write Your Own Book' May 16, 2011
CHARLOTTE, N.C. -
The following are excerpts from Duke Energy Chairman, President and CEO Jim Rogers’ speech to graduates at North Carolina State University’s Commencement exercises May 14.
“I believe most of you already have gadgets like iPods, iPads and smart phones.
“So how’s this for excitement? How about a book?
“It’s called ‘No Limits’ – and the good news is, you get to write it yourself.
“The first few chapters have already been written. It may have been written by others based on real-life observation – of how you work, how you talk, how well you play with others.
“With your degree in hand, I challenge you to not be limited by the current ‘book’ on you.
“Become the strong, central protagonist in your own story.
“The most successful people I know have done just that. And by successful – I don’t necessarily mean financial net worth.
“I mean people who know how to pursue life without limits.
“Who aren’t satisfied with just being satisfied.
“Who put the needs of others ahead of their own, and in the end, get so much more than they put in.
“One of those people is Carol Hardison. Carol built a successful career in Information Technology at Duke Energy over 18 years. She had a bright future and could have stayed on the management track for another decade or so – and left with a nice retirement.
“But instead – in the year 2000, she left a job she loved – to fulfill her lifelong passion for helping people in poverty – as CEO of the nonprofit Crisis Assistance Ministry in Charlotte.
“Every year, that organization helps thousands of people – in Carol’s words – ‘to gain stability and have hope.’
“When she changed careers, Carol didn’t redefine herself – but she did redefine her limits. Since college and as a Duke employee, she was a regular volunteer to help the homeless and those in need of a helping hand.
“Meanwhile, she was developing a solid set of business skills in management, strategic planning and customer service. What she didn’t know was – she was preparing for an opportunity to help people in financial crisis move toward self-sufficiency.
“Another person who knows no limits is Rye Barcott. He is 32 years old.
“He spent part of his summer break from college living in Kibera. Until I met Rye, I’d never even heard of Kibera (an urban slum in Nairobi, Kenya).
“More than 200,000 people live in squalor, in an area about the size of New York’s Central Park.
“We’ve all read about places like Kibera. We’ve seen the pictures that remind us how good we have it here. But people like Rye do something to change it.
“He made an initial investment of $26, and co-founded a nonprofit called Carolina for Kibera.
“It started with a soccer program, and in time built a medical clinic that grew into a grass-roots movement to help the people of Kibera help themselves.
“After graduating from college, he served five years in the Marine Corp. Rye continued to help lead the effort in Kibera while serving as a Captain in Bosnia, Iraq and the Horn of Africa.
“After his tour of duty, Rye got two master’s degrees from Harvard. Right now – he’s on a nationwide tour promoting his book, ‘It Happened on the Way to War – a Marine’s Path to Peace.’
“My point is Rye doesn’t let anyone else’s idea of what one person can accomplish get in his way.
“Busting out beyond the limits involves a certain amount of risk. At the time, you never know for sure which were the right choices, or the wrong ones – which were the good breaks, or the bad ones.
“You may only know when you look back on them years later.
“Teddy Roosevelt referred to it as being ‘in the arena.’
‘The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood.
‘Who … if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.’
“My wish for each of you is that you have the courage to ‘get in the arena.’
“The best graduation gift that I – or any of us – can give you, is the copyright to your own story. Begin writing it today. Write it with passion and purpose. And write it without limits.”
|24-Hour Phone:||800-559-3853 (DUKE)| | <urn:uuid:06729feb-cd89-488c-96e8-2f078538f67f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.duke-energy.com/news/releases/2011051601.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960401 | 1,098 | 1.539063 | 2 |
The Seven Survivors of Prydein
In The Mabinogion's tale of "Branwen uerch Llyr," There is a horrific battle which is said to have killed all of Ireland except for five pregnant women, and all of the army of Prydein (Welsh Britain), except for seven men and one woman:
Now, as much of the battle was over a Cauldron of Rebirth, I feel it necessary to bring up a poetic curiosity: In the 9th century poem "Prieddu Annwn" aka "The Spoils of Annwn," attributed to Taliesin, the refrain is "Save only seven, none returned from..." whatever name he was using in that stanza for the Otherworld. This is curious because in the poem, the quest is to steal a cauldron from the Underworld/Otherworld. But leading this quest isn't Bran, but King Arthur. The seven aren't specifically listed, but one can assume at least Arthur and Taliesin (though it takes one up to eight men and not seven, keep in mind King Arthur is perhaps doubling the role of Bran):
Now, I use the story of "Culhwch ac Olwen" because it specifically tells of a raid on Ireland (which stands in for the Otherworld) for a magic cauldron, very similar to the one in Taliesin's poem. And who is said to go on this voyage but Arthur, Taliesin, Manawyddan, Pryderi, Bedwyr, Gwalchmei, Cei, and Llwch Lleminawg, among others. It is likely that whoever wrote the "Prieddu Annwn" may have been thinking of both tales--"Branwen uerch Llyr" and "Culhwch ac Olwen" when he wrote the poem. (Obviously Taliesin didn't write it, because he died in the sixth or seventh century.)
In the grail romances, the prominent seekers of the grail are usually:
Most curiously, there was apparently a tradition, recorded in one of Evan Evans' notebooks (Panton MS 13), about there being seven survivors of the Battle of Camlann:
According to Bromwich, Evans' text is a copy of Lewis Morris' copy of Peniarth 185, a seventeenth-century manuscript.
The significance of seven may be the numerological concept of completeness.
Bromwich, Rachel. Trioedd Ynys Prydein. Cardiff: UWP, 2006. p. 169.
Ford, Patrick. The Mabinogi and Other Medieval Welsh Tales. 1971
Loomis, R.S. Celtic Myth and Arthurian Romance. Constable, 1993
Taliesin. "Prieddu Annwn." The Four Ancient Books of Wales. ed. & trans. W.F. Skene. Edinburgh, 1868.
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Mary Jones © 2004 | <urn:uuid:73467323-8eba-4924-bd5c-2661e92ca194> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.maryjones.us/jce/survivors.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933191 | 619 | 2.390625 | 2 |
The trucking industry officials on hand made a point of stating that the trucking industry needs to take the lead by taking the steps to help educate shippers on all of the challenges on the road before the transport industry during the miles ahead. That during the past few years there hasn’t been as much time for the trucking industry to devote to the job of educating shippers about the issues, but that during the months ahead the industry would need to spend more time talking to shippers about the issues in hand. In the hope that this education will help both parties work better together during the months and years ahead and possibly find new ideas on how to deal with some of the issues the the flatbed trucking industry, and transport trucking industry as a whole, has in hand.
Hopefully, all of these desires come true in the days ahead, but on thing is for sure, it’s always a good idea to keep all parties involved in a business informed on the issues of doing business. This idea can only help and could lead to solutions for some of the issues for the American trucking industry as we head into the second decade of the century of the environment. | <urn:uuid:42f62b44-c11d-424f-9dc4-72a08774e019> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.momentumfreight.com/wordpress/2011/03/21/shipping-industry-needs-more-education/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979147 | 239 | 1.757813 | 2 |