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William Rivers Pitt, May 23, 2002
The earthquake began on Thursday, May 16th: The Bush administration had been warned by the CIA months before September 11th of Al Qaida terrorists and plans to hijack airplanes. Nothing of substance was done to address the threat - "The proper agencies were warned," we were told, but no representative of any pertinent agency has since stepped forward to acknowledge receipt of any warnings.
In fact, the spokesman for Massport, the Massachusetts state agency responsible for security at Logan airport, stated bluntly in the pages of the Boston Globe that his agency never heard from the Federal government regarding any hijacking threat. The two aircraft that destroyed the World Trade Center towers and killed thousands of Americans went wheels-up at Logan.
By Friday the news was sprayed across the headlines of virtually every newspaper on the planet: Bush Knew.
The implications were deadly for the Bush White House. Information had been given that indicated terrorist attacks were imminent, but little if anything was done to prevent them. Concern for the profit margins of the airline industry, which would have been crippled had a serious terrorist warning been disbursed in high summer, were first offered as a good reason why no true measures were taken to prevent the hijackings.
Later, spokesmen like Ari Fleischer and Dick Cheney came forward to claim that the warnings were "vague" and "non-specific" and therefore not worthy of notice. We were told that the hijack warnings pertained to "traditional hijacking" scenarios, as if that forgave the lapse in security. The weekend political talk shows became a showcase for spin, and the word went out for all to hear - the Bush administration is blameless, and anyone who says otherwise is a traitor.
The truly interesting part came on Monday. All of a sudden, the world was coming to an end. FBI Director Mueller claimed there was no chance that another terrorist attack could be stopped. Dick Cheney stuck out his jaw and stated bluntly that another terrorist attack was inevitable. Don Rumsfeld said terrorists would definitely get their hands on nuclear or biological weapons, and then use them to terrible effect. The newswires vibrated with images of suicide bombers on New York subways, and a warning went out to apartment building landlords - watch for suspicious characters, because the next WTC-type catastrophe could be yours. The Statue of Liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge were draped with bullseyes by the administration, though no one spoke of means to prevent these horrors.
The effect of these warnings was dynamic. People from coast to coast felt the clutch of fear in their guts as images of smallpox and mushroom clouds flickered behind their eyelids. New York City, battered and bruised, clenched its collective fist in a spasm of dread. It must be real, these threats, because the President and his people say so. Let there be terror and meekness in equal measure on the streets of the greatest city on earth.
And yet comes Wednesday, and an extraordinary series of revelations. An article in the May 21st edition of the Toronto Globe and Mail reported that, "the White House quietly acknowledged that the threats are not urgent and that they are partly motivated by political objectives" and that "the blunt warnings issued yesterday and Sunday do not reflect a dramatic increase in threatening information but rather a desire to fend off criticism from the Democrats."
It seems that everyone can calm down. Horrific terrorist attacks are not, in fact, imminent. Everything is well in hand. The Bush administration is merely using the fear and horror that another September 11th-type attack may happen again as a means to deflect legitimate criticism from the Democratic Party. Nothing to see here. Go about your business. This is, after all, just politics.
It was bad enough that Bush had made his crass 'trifecta' joke eight different times. You know this one: Someone reported that Bush promised not to raid social Security or dive into deficit spending unless the nation was faced with war, recession or national emergency. After 9/11, Bush was heard to crack on eight separate occasions, "Lucky me, I hit the trifecta." Let it be noted that the country is running a $66.5 billion deficit seven months into the budget year, and the 9/11 death toll between America and Afghanistan stands above 5,000 souls.. That is one hell of a trifecta, and no laughing matter.
It was bad enough that Bush and his people were selling photographs of his phone calls during the 9/11 attacks to raise political funds. Al Gore called the practice "disgraceful;" the word is not strong enough. The English language is deficient in words required to describe those who seek to profit from a day of such blood and horror.
Now, with leaders like Daschle and Gephardt calling for a public investigation into the obvious intelligence failures behind 9/11, we have well-known members of the Bush administration going on national television to terrify the American people so as to avoid any questions. It wasn't enough for Condoleeza Rice to go on CNN's 'Late Edition' to state that the administration was against a public investigation into 9/11, as she did on May 19th. The American people needed to feel the wrath of pure terror from this administration, to ensure that it would get what it wanted - a continued veil of secrecy and the surety that prickly questions would go unasked.
Why the veil of secrecy? Perhaps it is as simple as the story told by respected British journalist Gordon Thomas, who has reported that Israel warned the American government on five separate occasions of terrorist plots to attack prominent targets. As late as August 24, 2001, the Israeli security agency Mossad informed the CIA that "terrorists plan to hijack commercial aircraft to use as weapons to attack important symbols of American and Israeli culture."
There are those who believe the absolute worst - that Bush and his cronies knew of the 9/11 attacks in advance, and allowed them to happen so they could advance nefarious personal and political goals. For the time being, such accusations are totally unprovable and essentially irresponsible. The truth in hand, however, is worse than the darkest conspiracy theory.
The Bush administration had specific information in hand from the CIA pointing to an airplane-based attack on American targets. They did not warn agencies responsible for security at American airports, nor did they beef up airline security by fiat. The FBI had specific warnings of terrorist attacks in hand earlier in the summer of 2001, but a failure in the chain of command caused these warnings to go unheeded.
The same administration that had the 9/11 attacks happen on its watch has fought tooth and nail to keep any investigation into the security failures that led to the attack from happening. Basically, those security failures are still there, intact, deadly to us all. The warnings of impending catastrophe from the likes of Cheney, Rumsfeld and Mueller may prove to be a self-fulfilling prophesy because this administration refuses to take responsible action to address them.
In fact, the Bush administration has proven itself more than willing to go to wretched extremes to keep any investigation from gaining steam, by frightening the public with warnings of doom that they themselves admit have far more to do with politics than reality.
We were wide open to attack on September 11th because of these security failures. We are wide open to attack today, because the same irresponsible leaders in charge on 9/11 are calling the shots today. Rather than work to protect Americans, they seek to terrify Americans as a means to cow any Democratic move towards an investigation into the causes behind the 9/11 attacks.
If we are attacked again, they will have no one but themselves to blame. The Democrats asking for an investigation are doing so because they want to protect Americans. Bush and his people are fighting this because they want to protect themselves. They are purposefully making people afraid to further this agenda. They play politics on a field littered with the bones of American dead, and they peddle fear to a nation already saturated with woe.
Such foulness is beyond contempt, and reeks of desperation. There will be a reckoning. | <urn:uuid:018482cb-78ea-4b84-a426-531aae56f528> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.georgewalkerbush.net/politicalterrorist.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978266 | 1,674 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Independent restaurants are privately held companies and are commonly organized as sole proprietorships, partnerships or even Limited Liability Corporations (LLCs). Though independent restaurants can have several locations, each location is still owned by the single person or group of people. If you have a great idea for a new restaurant concept and enjoy the challenge of turning that idea into a successful reality, opening an independent restaurant is the way to go.
- Profitability. Independent restaurants do not have to share royalties with a franchise owner. This means all the profits your restaurant brings in are yours to keep (or split between your partners). For this reason, some independent restaurants can become more profitable than a competing chain.
- Exclusivity. Independent restaurants offer unique concepts that can be original and exciting to diners. When you walk into a McDonald’s, you know what kind of food and service to expect. With independent restaurants, the experience is new and unique.
- Familiarity. Many independent restaurants are family owned and have been handed down through several generations. For regular diners, this creates feelings of comfort, like being at home.
- Adaptability. If the eating habits of the client base suddenly change, to favor local or organic ingredients for example, independent restaurants can quickly change to meet these demands, because there is no bureaucratic red tape to go through.
Drawbacks to Opening an Independent Restaurant
Here are some of the main drawbacks to being an independent restaurant:
- High failure rate for startups. Independent restaurants that are just starting out have a higher failure rate than franchises. This is because their brand may be new and unfamiliar to the public, so they have to work hard to win them over.
- Trial and error marketing. New restaurants that are not a part of a chain do not have a proven marketing strategy. Though you can try and copy from the franchises, many of your marketing initiatives will fail, because you have to learn what works for your specific concept and target market.
- Funding difficulty. Most banks will consider a new independent restaurant a risky venture, because the failure rate for independents is higher than chain stores. However, an excellent credit rating and personal assets will help secure any loans you need to take out.
» More on Funding Your New Restaurant
Independents can have Multiple Locations
Independent restaurant owners can open more than one location, and it is a great way to earn more profit and spread your successful concept to new areas. However, you will want to make sure your first location is able to run on its own, because you will be spending most of your time getting the new store locations up and running. If you have to micromanage multiple locations, you will burn yourself out, and both stores will suffer.
Start with a Business Lawyer
Starting a new restaurant can be an overwhelming task. Though you have a great idea in mind, sometimes the logistics can trip you up. Before getting too far into the planning stages, you will want to hire a business lawyer that is familiar with a restaurant’s legal obligations, so you cover all your bases. | <urn:uuid:e0c87a50-7ec6-474a-8d65-6a96b53a03fa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.foodservicewarehouse.com/restaurant-equipment-supply-marketing-articles/how-to-start-a-restaurant/opening-an-independent-restaurant/c28277.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959111 | 627 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Heavy snow affects 77 million in China
BEIJING -- Emergency officials in China said more than 77 million people have been adversely affected by unprecedented heavy snowfall in 14 provinces.
Since the snowfall began Jan. 10, at least 24 deaths have been blamed on the weather, the Ministry of Civil Affairs told reporters in Beijing.
The problems are compounded by the tradition of millions of citizens to return to their hometowns for Spring Festival, or the Chinese New Year celebrations that fall on Feb. 7, the Shanghai Daily reported.
Some 200,000 people remained stranded at the main train station in Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong Province, down from 500,000 two days ago, the newspaper said.
The provincial railway authority began running ads urging people to give up their annual trips home, Dragon TV reported.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao flew and then had to take a train to Changsha City, the capital of Hunan Province Monday night to assess the disaster relief situation, Xinhua said.
At the city's main train station, Wen used a megaphone to wish the stranded passengers a happy Spring Festival and said everything that could be done to keep travel moving was being done, the report said.
Copyright © 2008, by United Press International. All Rights Reserved.
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(total 25 votes) | <urn:uuid:e50526fb-ebfe-4ab9-8314-149aed253db5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bendweekly.com/Worldwide-News/12604.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938579 | 278 | 1.804688 | 2 |
"It is vital that police and security services are able to obtain communications data in certain circumstances to investigate serious crime and terrorism and to protect the public. We need to take action to maintain the continued availability of communications data as technology changes," a spokesman said.
"Communications data includes time, duration and dialling numbers of a phone call, or an email address. It does not include the content of any phone call or email and it is not the intention of Government to make changes to the existing legal basis for the interception of communications."
Nick Pickles, director of the Big Brother Watch campaign group, said: "This is an unprecedented step that will see Britain adopt the same kind of surveillance seen in China and Iran.
"This is an absolute attack on privacy online and it is far from clear this will actually improve public safety, while adding significant costs to internet businesses.
"If this was such a serious security issue why has the Home Office not ensured these powers were in place before the Olympics?"
Shami Chakrabarti, director of the civil rights group Liberty, said that both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats had resisted the plan when they were in opposition.
"There is an element of whoever you vote for the empire strikes back," she told Sky News's Murnaghan programme.
"This is more ambitious than anything that has been done before. It is a pretty drastic step in a democracy.
"It was resisted under the last government. The coalition bound itself together in the language of civil liberties. Do they still mean it?"
Conservative backbencher Margot James said ministers would come under pressure to water down the proposals as the legislation passed through Parliament.
"I am sure there will be considerable pressure brought to bear as the proposals are debated for protections to be built in to protect people's privacy," she told the Murnaghan programme. | <urn:uuid:078f87b3-e676-46f0-8fc7-deedacd56cde> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thealternativemedia.com/articles/tabid/827/id/9683/internet-activity-to-be-monitored-under-new-laws.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965006 | 380 | 2.296875 | 2 |
Cercidiphyllum japonicum 'Pendulum'
Native to China, Japan. A specimen tree of many virtues if given regular moisture (especially during youth) and sheltered from intense sun and drying wind. Light, dainty branch and leaf pattern. Foliage changes color during growing season: emerges reddish purple, becomes bluish green in summer, then turns yellow to apricot in autumn. To enhance fall color, water less frequently in late summer. Trees grown in acid soil will have best color. Foliage of some katsura trees smells like brown sugar on warm autumn days when leaves are falling.
Rather slow growing, eventually reaching 40 ft. or taller. Pyramidal form when young; tree may remain fairly pyramidal or become more rounded (and as wide as tall) with maturity. Some specimens have single trunk, but multiple trunks are more usual. Brown bark, somewhat shaggy on old trees. Nearly round, 2–4-in. leaves neatly spaced in pairs along arching branches. No serious pest or disease problems. Mature trees need little pruning.'Pendulum'
Fast growth to about 20 ft. tall, 25 ft. wide, with gracefully weeping branches.
This hybrid is usually sold grafted at 5–6 ft. high on upright-growing understock. Graceful bran...
Grows 10 to 15 ft. high and wide. This is one of the species grown commercially for nuts (for those de...
Elegant specimen plant to 12–15 ft. tall, 10–12 ft. wide. Grown for silvery, willow-like f... | <urn:uuid:7ce86396-7853-4e11-93f4-d1c99e6eba8d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://plantfinder.sunset.com/plant-details.jsp?id=655 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.90806 | 343 | 2.25 | 2 |
5 features in Google Analytics I couldn’t live without
I’ve been using Google Analytics since 2006 and in that time I’ve seen some great changes and upgrades.
Below I’ve listed my top 5 most useful aspects of Analytics and the things I couldn’t live without.
About Google Analytics…
Google Analytics (GA) is a free service offered by Google that generates detailed statistics about the visitors to a website. It is the most widely used website statistics service, currently in use at around 57% of the 10,000 most popular websites (Information from Wikipedia).
Google Analytics has a neat little feature called ‘filters’ which allows you to manage data and statistics more accurately. Typically I use this for excluding IP addresses as this can skew many different areas including visits, bounce rate, time on site and more. I would recommend that if you use Analytics to exclude your IP to get a more accurate feel for stats.
Whether you run a small static website or a large eCommerce site, it’s crucial that you setup goals to track where your conversions are coming from and the phrases that were used. Setting up Goals in Google Analytics is a must do step and a great way to measure the success of a website. This can then lead you to testing and changing elements that may not be working so to improve conversions.
Analytics Annotations was implemented so you can make notes/comments on your stats. Typically I use this when I upload new content, gain important backlinks and have ranking improvements. It’s also good as a marker if you have made changes to your site and then compare this to positive or negative stat changes.
4. Custom Reports
Although Analytics gives users some great information, sometimes it’s a bit frustrating having to click multiple links to gather all of this information. Custom reports are a great way to combine all this information in to one panel and remove any unwanted data that’s not required.
5. Website Load Speed (New Interface)
To use this feature you will need to have the new GA interface and also install a small amount of code into your current Analytics code – further details on this can be found here. The site speed section measures the page load time on your website. Whilst I like this feature and use it often, I try and average out the figures as I’ve found they are not fully accurate – but I’m sure more work will be done on this in the near future.
Do you have any favourite GA features? Leave your comments below.
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- SEO Question: Why isn’t my website indexed in Google? | <urn:uuid:769375c0-28d2-4738-89b2-7747c93136a2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.davecain.co.uk/blog/useful-aspects-google-analytics | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925415 | 623 | 1.617188 | 2 |
SUBARU DIESEL ENGINE
Subaru introduced its Boxer Turbo Diesel engine to the European market at the 77th Geneva International Motor Show in March. Considered the world’s first horizontally opposed turbo diesel engine, the 4-cylinder power plant is expected to be offered in European Subaru vehicles in 2008.
The boxer layout gives the engine inherent advantages. The design contributes to rigidity, which is even more important in high-compression diesel engines than in gasoline-powered ones. Rigidity also contributes to low noise and vibration. The diesel is also compactly designed, allowing it to be used in vehicles previously equipped with gasoline boxer engines.
We are currently studying the feasibility of offering diesel engines in North American markets. Watch for more information in future issues of Drive. | <urn:uuid:1f332b8e-7bfd-4341-88e7-35be71455486> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://drive.subaru.com/sum07_news.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948089 | 161 | 1.976563 | 2 |
Standard Interpretations - Table of Contents|
| Standard Number:||1910.132(d); 1910.133(a)(1); 1910.151(c)(1) ; 1910.1200(c); 1910.1200(g); 1926.50(g)|
April 14, 2008
Mr. Douglas A. Page
Dormitory Authority State of New York
Albany, New York 12207-2964
Dear Mr. Page:
Thank you for your November 9, 2007 letter to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA's) Directorate of Enforcement Programs. This letter constitutes OSHA's interpretation only of the requirements discussed and may not be applicable to any questions not delineated within your original correspondence. You expressed concerns regarding OSHA's standards concerning eyewash and shower facilities. Your paraphrased scenario and our response follow.
Scenario: Many in the building industry are providing emergency eyewashes and emergency showers in very low-level hazard locations (e.g., a boiler room in an apartment house, dormitory, etc.) because of the ambiguous language of the standards. Where acids are used in BSL-3 laboratories, the method of compliance is rather straight-forward. In lower-level hazard applications, many in the industry are perplexed as to when these fixtures are required. To facilitate compliance with 29 CFR 1910.151(c) and 29 CFR 1926.50(g), guidance from your office is needed.
Question 1: When are eyewash and shower fixtures required?
Response: The OSHA requirements for emergency eyewashes and showers, found at 29 CFR 1910.151(c) and 29 CFR 1926.50(g), specify: "Where the eyes or body of any person may be exposed to injurious corrosive materials, suitable facilities for quick drenching or flushing of the eyes and body shall be provided within the work area for immediate emergency use."
Question 2: What are the definition of "corrosive materials" and the definition of "exposed to"?
Response: Although the standards discussed above do not define these terms, OSHA's Hazard Communication Standard is instructive. The standard at 29 CFR 1910.1200, Appendix A, defines a corrosive as:
A chemical that causes visible destruction of, or irreversible alterations in, living tissue by chemical action at the site of contact. For example, a chemical is considered to be corrosive if, when tested on the intact skin of albino rabbits by the method described by the U.S. Department of Transportation in appendix A to 49 CFR part 173, it destroys or changes irreversibly the structure of the tissue at the site of contact following an exposure period of four hours. This term shall not refer to action on inanimate surfaces.Generally speaking, corrosive materials have a very low pH (acids) or a very high pH (bases). Strong bases are usually more corrosive than acids. Examples of corrosive materials are sodium hydroxide (lye) and sulfuric acid.
As defined in 29 CFR 1910.1200(c),
"Exposure" or "exposed" means that an employee is subjected in the course of employment to a chemical that is a physical or health hazard, and includes potential (e.g.,, accidental or possible) exposure. "Subjected" in terms of health hazards includes any route of entry (e.g., inhalation, ingestion, skin contact or absorption.)Question 3: Can you provide a listing of corrosive materials and concentrations that would trigger the requirement for emergency eyewashes and emergency showers?
OSHA does not have a listing of corrosive materials that would require an eyewash and/or emergency shower. As 29 CFR 1910.151(c) and 29 CFR 1926.50(g) state, an eyewash and/or safety shower would be required where an employee's eyes and body may be exposed to injurious corrosive materials. One source of information on the corrosive nature of a chemical would be the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) for the product(s) being used which must accompany those products. See 29 CFR 1910.1200(g). In addition, the employer must determine if employees can or will be exposed during the course of their duties to hazardous materials in such a way that the protections of an eyewash or emergency shower would be necessary. If hazardous materials are present at a worksite in such a way that exposure could not occur (for example, in sealed containers that will not be opened, or caustic materials in building piping), then an eyewash or emergency shower would not be necessary. However, if the building piping containing caustic materials has, at certain locations, a spigot or tap from which the contents are to be sampled or withdrawn and employees are expected to perform such tasks, then, certainly, an eyewash and/or emergency shower would be needed where this task is to occur.
Under 29 CFR 1910.132(d), employers must perform a hazard assessment at their worksites to determine if personal protective equipment would be needed to protect their employees. Additionally, 29 CFR 1910.133(a)(1) specifically requires the use of eye and face protection when employees would be exposed to "liquid chemicals, acids or caustic liquids. . . . ," among other things. Therefore, an employer's hazard determination, conducted under the requirements of these standards, will help determine the necessity for PPE, as well as the necessity for eyewashes or showers as means of protecting employees from exposure to injurious corrosive materials.
Although the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York is not covered by Federal OSHA because it is a state government agency (see 29 USC 652(5)), it is covered by the New York Public Employee Safety and Health (PESH) program, which regulates the workplace safety and health of state and local government employees only. Private-sector employees in New York are covered by Federal OSHA. Therefore, state and local government employers in the State of New York must comply with State occupational safety and health requirements.
As a condition of plan approval, States are required to adopt and enforce occupational safety and health standards that are at least as effective as those promulgated by Federal OSHA 29 USC 667(c)(2). PESH has adopted the Federal OSHA standards, 12 NY ADC 800.3. These standards must be enforced at least as effectively as they are by Federal OSHA 29 USC 667(c)(2). If you would like further information regarding the enforcement of PEHA requirements, you may contact the New York Public Employee Safety and Health Program at:
New York Public Employee Safety and Health ProgramThank you for your interest in occupational safety and health. We hope you find this information helpful. OSHA requirements are set by statute, standards, and regulations. Our interpretation letters explain these requirements and how they apply to particular circumstances, but they cannot create additional employer obligations. This letter constitutes OSHA's interpretation of the requirements discussed. Note that our enforcement guidance may be affected by changes to OSHA rules. Also, from time to time we update our guidance in response to new information. To keep apprised of such developments, you may consult OSHA's website at http://www.osha.gov If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact the OSHA Office of General Industry Enforcement at (202) 693-1850.
Richard E. Fairfax, Director
Directorate of Enforcement Programs
Standard Interpretations - Table of Contents| | <urn:uuid:37971bed-a21a-4661-81c5-fd0bf47fa6ec> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=INTERPRETATIONS&p_id=27181 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922076 | 1,552 | 2.296875 | 2 |
More Than 1,000 First Time Patients Screened On National Colon Cancer Screening Day
NASHVILLE, Tenn., March 9, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- StopColonCancerNow.com achieved its goal of screening 1,000 "first-timers" for colon cancer on the first National Colon Cancer Screening Day on Thursday, March 8, 2012.
As part of Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month, National Colon Cancer Screening Day was created to urge all first-time patients to complete or schedule a colonoscopy on March 8, and that goal has been exceeded. More than 1,000 patients accepted the challenge and were screened for colon cancer by StopColonCancerNow.com affiliated physicians. StopColonCancerNow.com physicians perform approximately 1 in 10 screening colonoscopies in the nation, so the organization's sincere hope is that the number of screenings and appointments scheduled in the United States was ten-fold on National Colon Cancer Screening Day.
A new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine provides what researchers are calling the best evidence yet that colonoscopies prevent people from dying from colon cancer. The study shows that the colon cancer death rate was cut by more than half in those who had a colonoscopy.
"Almost 40 percent of Americans at risk for colon cancer are not getting screened, and we must change that," said Dr. John Popp, Medical Advisor, StopColonCancerNow.com. "We believe our first National Screening Day is a strong step in the right direction. And while we have promoted this one day for screenings, our larger mission is to make every day a 'national screening day' in hopes of saving more lives."Those who are at a higher risk for colon cancer include: anyone over the age of 50, African- Americans who are 45 years of age and over and those who have a family history of polyps or colon cancer. A colonoscopy allows doctors to find and remove precancerous polyps before they develop into cancer, making a colonoscopy the only test that allows both diagnosis and treatment at the same time. Colonoscopy can also find cancer at its earliest stage, when treatment works best.
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- Options TV | <urn:uuid:89cdfca7-b6c1-42df-85a4-56a8f877c1b5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thestreet.com/story/11450671/1/more-than-1000-first-time-patients-screened-on-national-colon-cancer-screening-day.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.91805 | 800 | 1.804688 | 2 |
While I enjoy sharing everyday recipes and Sunday Dinner menus, I figured that I should also begin sharing the building blocks to my cooking. Strong kitchen fundamentals provide the foundation for more advanced kitchen applications needed down some of the more winding recipe roads.
If you are a regular reader, you know that we love our onions. Shallots, yellow, red, sweet, and green-- we enjoy them all raw, roasted, creamed, and pickled. Caramelized onions, however, take the front seat in our house. I use them in baked breads, sandwiches, soups, and appetizers. Oh, and as a side to roasted meats with a sprinkling of freshly grated cheese-- yum! The process of cooking the onions low and slow is long, but crucial to achieve that soft, tender, sweet caramelized taste. This method also provides the desired texture and appearance. The upside is that they can be made days in advance and stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator or even frozen. Mine never seem to make it to the freezer.
The caramelized onions in this post were made with red onions. I do the same with yellow onions. There is one difference in the cooking process between red and yellow onions. When caramelizing red onions, I use water to deglaze the pan and stir in a teaspoon of balsamic vinegar at the end. When cooking with the yellow onions, I like to use white wine instead of the water when deglazing the pan. Sometimes I add minced garlic or herbs. I will include these variations in the recipe below.
Trim the tops and root ends of the onions and peel. Cut in half from top to bottom and lay cut side down on cutting surface.
Following the grains of the onions, cut the onions in thin slices. When you get towards the end of the onion, turn it on its side and continue slicing.
Repeat with remaining onions.
In a large skillet over medium heat, melt butter and oil.
Add the onion slices and stir for 10 minutes. Season with salt and sugar. Add garlic or herbs if using at this time. Cook, stirring occasionally for 1 hour. The long, slow cooking allows the onions to soften before caramelizing.
After 1 hour, increase the heat to medium-high. Cook, stirring frequently until the onions have brown and caramelized, about 30 minutes.
Deglaze the skillet with 1/4 cup water or wine, scraping up any browned bits. Stir in balsamic vinegar if using and season with salt and freshly ground pepper.
makes 2 cups
2 1/2 pounds of onions, red or yellow
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 tablespoon neutral oil (I use canola or safflower)
2-4 cloves of garlic, finely minced (for yellow onions)
1 tablespoon fresh thyme, chopped (for yellow onions)
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon granulated sugar
1/4 cup water for red onions or 1/4 cup white wine for yellow onions
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar (for red onions)
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
Trim the tops and root ends of the onions and cut in half from top to bottom. Lay one half on the surface of a cutting board and cut the onion lengthwise following the grain of the onion. This will help the onion soften. Repeat with remaining onions.
In a large skillet over medium heat, melt the oil and butter. Add the onions and stir to coat the onions in the oil and butter. Sauté for 10 minutes. If using yellow onions, add the garlic and thyme. Season with 1 teaspoon of salt and 1/2 teaspoon of sugar and cook for 1 hour stirring occasionally. Do not be tempted to increase the heat. The long and slow cooking softens the onions before they can be caramelized. Increase the heat to medium-high and cook, stirring frequently, until browned and caramelized, about 25-30 minutes. Deglaze the pan with 1/4 cup water or wine, scraping up any browned bits. Continue to cook until the liquid has evaporated. Add the balsamic vinegar to the red onions. Season to taste with salt and freshly ground pepper. Enjoy! | <urn:uuid:adfc245a-bcf9-4e3a-bd36-20b60a426411> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thegalleygourmet.net/2011/04/caramelized-onions.html?showComment=1319459688395 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920123 | 874 | 1.679688 | 2 |
ok so i am translating a Kannada book on chaturanga
Chess was invented in India around 1400 yeas ago and was played by kings and ministers (mostly the learned bramanas) of our country.The ancient chess boards were made out of teak,sandal or Rose wood and the pieces were made out of Ivory with gems embedded on them.
Historians and archaeologists have also found Chess boards made out of tiger skin
The Chess army had the same formation as the ones which was used during Indian warfare, The names of the pieces were King ,queen,Minister,camel (also called chariot in some places),Elephant,horse and the soldiers(also called boat).The Kings and queens do not face each other but are oppositely placed.
n early chess the moves of the pieces were:
King: as now.
Queen: one square diagonally, only.
In the version that went into Persia: two squares diagonally (no more or less), but could jump over a piece between
In a version sometimes found in India in former times: two squares sideways or front-and-back (no more or less), but could jump over a piece between.
In versions found in Southeast Asia: one square diagonally, or one square forwards.
Knight: as now.
Rook: as now.
Pawn: one square forwards (not two), capturing one square diagonally forward; promoted to queen only.
Two Arab travelers each recorded a severe Indian chess rule against stalemate:
A stalemated player thereby at once wins.
A stalemated king can take one of the enemy pieces that would check the king if the king moves.
continuing the translation
Chaturanga slowly spread to Persia and then to china>korea and finally japan who renamed chaturanga as shogi and modified the rules.Chess reached the west in the 13th century who drastically modified the rules and as the West had the most influence of the world,Western chess is the most popular form of chess played today.This shows the world about knowledge and the richness our country had long ago in a forgotten time period.When people in other countries had not yet learned to wear clothes our country not only invented a fine game which has stood the test of time,The finely carved ivory chess pieces also shows us how advanced our technology was.Ancient chaturanga sets and rule books can still be found in palaces,museums and ruins. | <urn:uuid:77b0a84f-8d4a-4dba-816a-66ea8ee552eb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.chesscube.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=245&start=20 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971676 | 517 | 3.25 | 3 |
View Full Version : Can you identify these?
02-01-2010, 08:33 AM
This is just for fun.
Attached are pictures of the business end of two gunbarrels.
Who made them?
Who owned them?
Aprox. when were they made?
And just for the heck of it, the one answer I do NOT know:
This, by the way, is flower power I BELIEVE in!!
02-01-2010, 09:57 AM
New one on me! Thought I'd seen just about everything.
02-01-2010, 10:43 AM
Is one of these a Kentucky Rifle?
02-01-2010, 11:44 AM
Does it attach to this still unknown thing somehow??:D
02-01-2010, 12:19 PM
The Puckle Gun???
02-01-2010, 01:07 PM
Early attempt to increase knockdown power of projectiles. American Rifleman had an article on them many years ago. European. Flintlock and eighteenth century as I recall. Very expensive. Can you visualize casting bullets for this? Wonder what the recoil was like.
I think the article included a couple of other barrel patterns.
Someone on the Black Powder Forum might have some information.
02-01-2010, 03:29 PM
Look a little like a blunderbuss that got run over by snow tires:eek:
02-01-2010, 03:43 PM
Alien Crop Circles ????
02-01-2010, 04:03 PM
Trouble 45-70 is closest.
Made between 1631 and 1653 for the King of Denmark by Danish gunsmith from Elsinore, Andreas Neidhardt.
They, along with the bullet molds, are in the Tohjus Museet in Copenhagen.
Indeed - they fired a single projectile of that weird shape.
And there are several other odd-ball patterns.
A ballistic gel test with one of these would also be interesting -
vBulletin® v3.8.7, Copyright ©2000-2013, vBulletin Solutions, Inc. | <urn:uuid:2087a618-0063-4cf6-8caf-7afeffe370ba> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thefirearmsforum.com/archive/index.php/t-73998.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.904659 | 456 | 1.53125 | 2 |
In a Desert Land: Namibia
By Jono David
I knew there was something special about this vast desert land when the immigration officer at the windswept Noordoewer border crossing asked me for a pen. "Sorry, I dont have one," I said with surrendering hands, looking to another tourist for help.
"Well," replied the civil servant, "If I dont take your details, I cant let you into the country."
His ivory smile gave his joke away. But its true; he was penless, and in retrospect, his unanticipated banter was as unpredictable as is his serendipitous nation.
Namibia is a vast and mostly desolate region in the southwestern corner of the African continent. Interminable hues, rock formations, wild land contours, and a haunting emptiness amble across 1,500 kilometers between South Africa to the south and Angola to the north and some two-thirds that distance from Botswana to the east and the forbidding Atlantic Coast to the west. Remarkably, only 1.7 million people call this place home.
Namibias faces weave an equally terrific tapestry, threaded by a dozen cultural groupings, including the Wambo, who comprise nearly half the population; the Herero, historically a nomadic pastoralist people; and the San, known in the not-too-complimentary past as Bushmen, hunter-gatherers by tradition. There are also a number of Namibians of European decent reflecting the lands occupation by Germany and South Africa before independence in 1990.
Namibias major attractions are neatly arranged on a more or less north-south line, or, as in my case, the reverse. My journey started on the serpentine bends of the Orange River. With the edge of South Africa standing tall to the left and Namibia ducking low to the right, 17 kilometers of canoeing showed my why Namibia has become such an allure for travelers: this place is inspiringly beautiful and full of promise.
The next day, I headed north along a stretch of meticulously manicured gravel road to the Fish River Canyon, said to be second in size to only Americas Grand Canyon. Daring myself to the rim of the 500-meter deep chasm, it seemed all 161 kilometers of the gorges length were visible. From the heights, I imagined taking wing and swooping down on the murky green thread below, stretches of which were cut by a waterless winter. But as the sun set an orange-red, its liquid glow flooded the thirsty channel.
When the next day I looked out upon the golden plains of Excelsior Camp, a private farm a few hours drive away, I again took an imaginary flight, soaring in the thermals with various birds of prey high above the oddly placed piles of stones which dotted the otherwise level grasslands.
It was out here on the edge of the Namib Desert that I caught my first ochre glimpse of the desert sands which create stunning contrasts of color and topography. With the desert clouding in the vehicles wake, I rocketed further into the heart of Namibia. Long drives here are rewarded with visions of unrivaled colors and shapes in the earth that truly resemble something out of this world. And in Namibia, the sandy planet of Sossusvlei is arguably the nations most beautiful heavenly body.
Sossusvlei is a magnificent sweep of ochre sand dunes towering as high as 305 meters above the parched land for fully 300 kilometers one way and 150 kilometers the other. These are the tallest, and oldest dunes in the world, even more so than those in the Sahara to the north or the great Arabian Desert to the east.
Surprisingly, these razor-sharp mountains of sand are full of life and creature tracks, such as those of sidewinder adder snakes, dune lizards, ants, and beetles. But hardy animals such as birds, the blind golden mole, gemsbok antelope, and ostrich also thrive here, seemingly self-sentenced to a life of arid encumbrance. But the real life of the desert seems to be in the throngs of local sandboarders (and travelers, alike) that flock to the dunes for the latest adrenaline-rush rocketing down a slippery slope on a piece of wood. It isnt the Alps, but its just as much fun.
Later, I orbited a crack in the Namib-Naukluft Park aptly named the Lunar Landscape. Peering into its moon-like crevices from an elevated plateau, the extraordinary vista drifted weightlessly before an admiring crowd who appeared as diminutive as the beetles on Sossusvleis gritty slopes.
Unearthly, yes. And timeless. Out here, the rhythmical caws of roosting birds at dawn are the closest thing to a timepiece. They woke me at my Sesriam campsite on the edge of the dunes to a flawless morning beneath a cobalt dome. Morning ablutions and meal completed, the journey continued through expanses of wide and diverse lands that seemed to change expression with every hill and dale. Rock formations beyond number and type made me wish I had taken geology more seriously as a kid; if there ever was a geologists heaven, this was certainly it.
But I was also traveling through a meteorological timewarp. By the time I pulled into the seaside town of Swakopmund, a day that began under crystal blue and the flutter of daybreaks soft canary-yellow had turned cloudy, full of mist, and positively cold.
How odd it was to trade the barren sun-baked sandscapes for palm tree-lined streets and all the mod-cons along their cozy lengths. It took but a moment to understand why this town of 25,000 souls plays host to hoards of holiday-goers from across the region, and increasingly from around the world. Not only does a relaxed atmosphere pervade in open-to-the-street cafes and along the seaside promenade, but the town is also situated more or less in the middle of the nations rugged coastline, making it an ideal base from which to probe nearby attractions. Not to mention a good stop in which to recoup with a comfy bed, a hot bath, a restaurant meal and email after a few days in the desert.
Swakopmund is not only where sea meets land or town meets desert, its also where cultures mix and political views at times clash. "Ive done more for Namibia than most real Namibians," declared a German emigre, as I paid for my Herero doll. What she meant by "real," I didnt know, and frankly, felt uneasy about asking her to clarify. I did, however, detect resentment in her tone at being governed by blacks. But like most whites in this mainly black land, she has likely enjoyed a life of considerable comfort a world apart from her adopted compatriots.
Down by the promenade, however, Terence had an entirely different tale to tell. "I moved [from the Caprivi Strip] with my family about a year ago because of the fighting there," he told me, referring to Angolan forces penetrating the border along the thin finger of land extending from the countrys northeast. Skirmishes had recently claimed the lives of several tourists and proved a good enough reason to redraw my own route to circumvent the region. "We might have gotten killed if we stayed," he continued. "I like it here, but its not my home. I want to go back as soon as possible."
Two days of modernity actually had me craving wilderness. On the road again, I entered the National West Coast Recreational Area, a 200-kilometer long strip of rugged coastline, stopping at Cape Cross, the landing site of Portuguese navigator Diego Cao in 1486 and which is also home to a massive breeding colony of Cape Fur Seals.
I pressed on into a place of legends: The Skeleton Coast. With such a ghostly name, my imagination was spooked even years before I made it here. This 600-kilometer wedge is one of the worlds most notorious shorelines, taking its name from the remains of dozens of ships run aground and the bones of their crews who stood no chance of survival ashore the desert wilderness. But the Skeleton Coast is, like Sossusvlei, full of life, exhibiting a remarkable range of flora and fauna radically adapted to the unmerciful habitat.
Some five millennia ago, the aboriginal peoples were apparently equally nonplussed by the areas beasts because they had the enterprise to make rock art of what they saw and hunted. Twyfelfontein, meaning "Doubtful Spring," hosts one of Africas most extensive collections of petroglyphs and draws archaeologists and curious travelers to this otherwise remote corner of the country.
By the time I reached Etosha National Park later that day, I was full of one of travels greatest attributes: anticipation. And when the moment of that first safari sighting arrived, its magic enveloped me. Everywhere, animals!
I had just passed Andersson Gate into one of Southern Africas most celebrated hunting grounds, but I was only here to shoot photographs. The initial sighting of zebra, ostrich, wildebeest, and springbok vying for a drink at a sunken out-of-view water hole compacted all the anticipation into a tight and tidy memory ball. In that second, I had realized the romantic dream and accomplished the long-held objective of watching African animals in the wild. I had been on safari.
But the wilds of Etosha tamed my expectations, too: animals are the true lords of these lands. Where once they ruled a free-roaming stage across the whole Southern African region, the kaleidoscope of wildlife survives today largely, but by no means wholly, within the protected spaces of game parks and nature reserves. Sadly, fences lasso the only hopes of survival for many of these animals.
Reluctantly, I had to leave the animal kingdom and the desertscapes behind, driving via the modern capital city of Windhoek and, from there, the Buitepos border crossing to Botswana. This time, I had a pen with me.
An immigration officer summoned me with her nod, authoritatively whacked an exit
stamp into my passport, and remarked, "Thank you for visiting Namibia."
I smiled back. "Thanks for having me." Then, offering my pen, I said, "Please take it. So you can let the next traveler in."
GETTING THERE AND AROUND
Namibia is well served by several airlines with good connections to and around Southern Africa with either direct or connecting flights to or near all capital cities. The national carrier is Air Namibia. The major airport is Windhoek with smaller ones at most major towns. Overland border crossings from one neighboring country to another are straightforward enough, though one ought to be prepared for potentially slow moving queues. Most border posts have limited hours of operation, though all are open daily.
WHEN TO GO
Remember, the seasons run opposite to those in the Northern Hemisphere. Generally, the winter months of May through September will bring the most favorable conditions, dry and cool, whilst other months are generally wetter, warmer, and more humid. The dry winter season brings more tourists. Flora and fauna vary dramatically with the seasons, so plan accordingly.
MONEY AND COMMUNICATIONS
Acquiring Namibian Dollars before arrival is unnecessary, if not impossible. US$1=N$7 (approx., October 2000). Most major world currencies are easily exchangeable in banks and bureau de changes once in the country. Throughout much of the region, the South African Rand is accepted, though change will usually be given in the local currency.
With exception to the South African Rand, it can be nearly impossible to exchange the local currency back once outside the country. Therefore, do not buy more money than you need. US Dollar American Express Travelers Checks are the most widely accepted TCs. Visa credit cards are fairly well accepted in cities and major towns only. In general, it is a good idea to carry a combination of monies.
COUNTRY TELEPHONE CODE: Namibia: +264.
Accommodations throughout the region run the gamut from basic campsites to luxurious lodges and hotels.
For all game park and reserve accommodations, contact:
- Namibian Wildlife Resorts, Ltd.
Head Office, Private Bag 13378
Tel: 61-256-446 thru 8, fax: 61-256-715
- Hotel Safari and Safari Court
P. O. Box 3900
Tel: 61-240-240, fax: 61-235-652
Singles/doubles from N$450/290 and N$550/440, respectively
- Hotel Heinitzburg
Heinitzburg Street 22,
Tel: 61-249-597, fax: 61-249-598
Singles/doubles from N$580/990.
- Hansa Hotel
3 Roon Street
Tel: 64-400-311, fax: 64-402-732
Singles/doubles from N$450/595
ACTIVITIES AND TOURS
Whilst individual travel is a great way to go, it will likely require extensive planning and bookings from six to twelve months in advance. Just turning up in the country, renting a vehicle, and setting out will likely end in great frustration, or worse. Organized tours, whether arranged with a local tour operator or guide or a tour operator from your own country, generally offer good value for money and relieve the burden of accommodation bookings as they are pre-arranged by each company, as well as lightening the load of other travel logistics.
The word safari means more than game drives. It encompasses virtually any adventure outing. Generally, a safari takes one of the following three forms, and varies in length from a few days to several months:
One or two night stays in temporary or permanent camps with basic facilities, traveling in 12-25 seat buses, catering mainly to budget travelers
Short stays in various camps and lodges, often groups of 6-12 traveling in minibuses or Land
Rovers, a mid-range target
Stays in permanently tented sites or lodges, a base from which to explore the surrounding area by day, aimed at those with a need for daily creature comforts.
- Wildland Adventures
3516 NE 155th St.
Seattle, WA 98155 United States
Phone: 800-345-4453 or 206-365-0686
Offers unique, small group and custom safaris in Namibia.
For all your Namibian desert sandboarding needs, contact:
- Swakopmund Adventure Centre
Also organizes quadbiking, skydiving, fishing, ballooning, horseriding, kayaking, micro lighting day tours, dolphin cruises, pleasure flights, camping safaris, and more.
- Felix Unite (head office)
141 Lansdowne Road, Claremont 7700
Cape Town, South Africa
Tel: +27-21-683-6433, fax: +27-21-683-6486,
Orange River canoe trips
- Namibia Tourism (various locations)
Private Bag 13346
Tel: 61-284-2366, fax: 61-284-2364
Also provides listings of local safari tour operators and guides
- Tour and Safari Association of Namibia
P. O. Box 11534
Tel: 61-238-423, fax: 61-255-422
Kartagener Associates Inc.
12 West 37th Street
New York, NY 10018
Tel: 212-465-0619, fax: 212-868-1654
6 Chandos Street,
London W1M 0LQ
Tel: +44-171-636-92924, fax: +44-171-636-2969
VISAS AND OTHER DOCUMENTS
Very generally speaking, passport holders of British Commonwealth countries plus USA and Japan will receive a 60-day or 90-day tourist visa upon arrival. Latest visa requirements ought to be checked before departure, however. Proof of onward travel will likely be needed.
Namibia Tourism (various locations)
Private Bag 13346
Tel: 61-284-2366, fax: 61-284-2364 | <urn:uuid:a09f127a-38b2-44ca-84de-fec1bc9d7c88> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gonomad.com/destinations/0103/david_namibia.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936502 | 3,462 | 2 | 2 |
Since 1980, with the inception of the Texas Assessment of Basic Skills, the first attempt to find out what students in the Texas schools learned during the year and an attempt to curb the fees for students taking the California Assessment of Basic Skills, I have watched as an observer and teacher whose students would take the test at the end of the year. I became a proponent of end-of-the-year testing during my second year as a high school English teacher – the year English IV became a requirement – when, at the end of the year, one of my students failed English IV because he could not read. He had just been passed on because of who his family was. I have seen the end of this train of thought in the 32 years I taught.
Now, the state has consistently made the test harder and added the report card to the mix, which has the local superintendents looking at what their schools are doing and why. Dr. Thomas recently published her opinion on why the disparity exists between BISD and the smaller surrounding schools. That could be one reason. She cannot address the biggest reason because she wants to remain in the system. That reason is the disparity of how schools are measured in the area of special populations. Of all the schools BISD is measured against, Tuloso-Midway is the only one judged by the same standards. The smaller schools get their special populations problems waived by state decree that a small group of students cannot be measured by the same percentage formula.
In any other circumstance, people would cry foul play. Property taxes divide homes and property into groups by factors such as composition and use. Football players follow the same pattern and divide schools into groups by population. When the game is played, all players on the field are judged by the same rules. Why is this not possible for AYP (Annual Yearly Progress)? If reports and newspapers are going to publish and compare, why is the basis for judgment not the same for all schools? This unfair comparison method has forced all kinds of expensive rules on the larger districts and not the smaller.
While I won’t tell you that I could see no problems with BISD as a parent, I will tell you that both of my daughters graduated from BISD in the top of their classes. One began her college career with 42 college hours with a cost of less than $1,500 and the other with 57 college hours at less than $2,200. Not to mention the full scholarship that each received. The first is employed by Valero Corporate in San Antonio. The second is on the President’s List at UTSA. But for a choice I made at one point, one of my daughters would have been a member of one of those special populations. All in all, I thank the teachers of BISD and First Baptist Church School for the success of my children.
Kathy Duge, parent, retired teacher and librarian | <urn:uuid:19895766-e3d8-4457-b2c4-32c04b03e41c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mysoutex.com/view/full_story/21883574/article-Observations-on-BISD---tests | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984603 | 598 | 2.28125 | 2 |
Precollege Teacher Enhancement and Leadership Training
Providing Online Distance Learning Opportunities in
DataStreme Ocean has major support from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to conduct a Teacher Enhancement Project with a strong leadership component. An innovative Internet-based distance-learning course directed towards middle-school teachers, but open to all K-12 teachers, has been developed and is being implemented nationwide. The course, DataStreme Ocean, explores the ocean in the Earth system with special emphasis on (1) the flow and transformations of water and energy into and out of the ocean, (2) the internal properties and workings of the ocean, (3) interactions between the ocean and the other components of the Earth system (hydrosphere, atmosphere, lithosphere, and biosphere), and (4) the human/societal impacts on and response to those interactions. It is designed after the other highly successful DataStreme distance-learning courses.
The DS Ocean course is the initial step in the training of Ocean Resource Teachers is their participation in the DS Ocean distance-learning course. The 13-week course is offered twice a year to selected participants. It is designed to enhance public understanding of the fluid Earth system emphasizing the atmospheric, ocean, and hydrologic sciences through the use of electronically transmitted environmental data and learning materials combined with Text readings and Investigations Manual activities and Current Ocean Studies online investigations. Teachers will become their school's representative as part of a major national science education program conducted by the American Meteorological Society.
Who can participate in
Teachers who are members of groups traditionally underrepresented in the sciences, or teachers who are teaching in schools with large numbers of students from groups traditionally underrepresented in the sciences, are especially urged to apply.
How is the DataStreme Ocean
The DataStreme Ocean course is offered through DataStreme Ocean Local Implementation Teams (LITs) that are located around the country. LITs, typically composed of three members, coordinate the selection and delivery of the course to approximately eight teacher participants each semester. Each team advertises the local course availability, recruits and selects participants, arranges and holds local meetings, individually mentors participants on course understandings and activities, provides participant evaluations, and assists in developing Resource Teacher action plans. Each LIT is composed of at least one master precollege teacher and most include one professional oceanographer, hydrologist, meteorologist or environmental scientist.
DataStreme Central, located at the AMS Education Office, is a team that develops instructional materials, provides logistical support to the LITs, conducts the credit-bearing course in which most DataStreme Ocean participants enroll, and administers the overall project.
What equipment do I need for
What does DataStreme Ocean do for
All participants are enrolled in a 3 semester-hour graduate course, entitled ESC 676 Real-Time Ocean Studies, through the State University of New York College at Brockport. Credit is awarded upon successfully completing course requirements the same semester as the course is taken.
What must I do after the DataStreme
DataStreme Ocean expects to develop a long-term working relationship with DataStreme Ocean course participants. The goal is to upgrade scientific literacy by motivating teachers and through them, their students, to develop and nurture active interests in science, mathematics, and technology.
If there is no LIT listed near you or in your state, inquiries may be sent to find out about joining a LIT outside your area by email to: email@example.com. You will be notified of the status of your application by the local LIT leader. Enrollment is limited and selection is based on a number of criteria.
NOAA and NSF support DataStreme Ocean. The State University of New York at Brockport, NY awards graduate-level academic credit for DataStreme Ocean. The AMS provides financial support for the program and encourages its membership to take part as LIT members.
DataStreme Ocean is primarily funded by NOAA.
Meteorological Society Last updated 09-12-2012 | <urn:uuid:2a3f7480-373f-4040-a897-8d77e6f6340d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ametsoc.org/amsedu/DS-Ocean/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937418 | 831 | 2.421875 | 2 |
Great Plays, as Viewed in 1913
I’ll soon be running off to Minneapolis for the 42nd annual convention of the Society for American Baseball Research, where I’ll be delivering the keynote speech. I don’t know whether I’ll be able to post an entry of customary length this week, so may file a couple of odd squibs like the one below. These were great plays, as viewed in 1913, yet unknown to me; some have lost their claim on immortality, so let’s dust them off now, nearly a hundred years after William Shepard Walsh offered them up in his Handy Book of Curious Information.
One of the most spectacular of recorded feats in fielding is credited to ”Wee Willie” Keeler, in a match played at Baltimore, in the early nineties, between the Baltimores and the Bostons. Keeler was right fielder for the home club. Right field there and then was a terror to visiting players, and a discomfort even to the visited. It ran down a rough and weedy hill and was backed by a fence which sloped upward at an angle of 65 degrees. The two clubs were engaged in a frantic duel for the pennant. [This detail, plus the fact that Stahl did not play with Boston until 1897, establishes that year as the likely date, rather than "the early nineties," as the author recalled.] Late in the game, with runners on bases, [Chick] Stahl, of the Bostons, drove to right field a long fly that looked like a certain winner for his club. Keeler, realizing that the ball would be out of reach from the field itself, leaped nimbly upon the slope of the fence, and, mounting higher and higher, reached for and caught the ball just as it was sailing over the fence. His momentum carried him further up the incline and ended by precipitating him over the other side of the fence, but he firmly held the ball aloft as he disappeared. His reappearance a moment later was greeted with what the reporters, with a nice mixture of metaphors, called “a rousing ovation.”
Up to date this had been the greatest individual feat ever performed on the field. In 1895, however, Bill Lange, center fielder for the Chicagos, established a new record in Washington. Incidentally he saved himself from fines, aggregating $200, imposed upon him by Captain Anson. Having missed a train from New York he had arrived on the ball-field only just in time to join in the game. In the first half of the eleventh inning Chicago broke a tie by scoring one run. Washington in its half had one man on first base with two out, when “Kip” Selbach, its hardest hitter, sent the ball flying over Lange’s head. “Home run!” howled the Washington fans. Lange, a man weighing 225 pounds, turned his back to the ball and sprinted desperately toward the center-field fence. Then, as the ball was going over his head, he reached and caught it, turned a somersault, crashed against the fence, broke through it, and crawled back out of the wreckage, never having let go of the ball.
The crowd stood up on the benches, stamped, howled, whistled, went mad.
Lange limped in home.
“Fines go, Cap?” he asked, briefly.
“Nope,” said Anson, more briefly.
Hugh S. Fullerton, an expert authority, writing in the American Magazine for June, 1910, signalizes as the greatest episode in base-ball history the famous tenth inning in a game played at Columbus, Ohio, between the home team and the St. Louis. It was the last day of the season . St. Louis and Brooklyn were almost a tie for the championship, the situation being as follows:
If both teams lost or both won, St. Louis would capture the pennant for the fifth consecutive time, an unparalleled record. A fortiore the same result would follow if St. Louis won and Brooklyn lost. On the other hand, Brooklyn could only become champion if on that last day Brooklyn won and St. Louis lost.
In the early stages of the St. Louis-Columbus game, the victory of the Brooklyns (playing in the East) was announced. The championship, therefore, depended on the success or failure of the St. Louis club. One can imagine the excitement and suspense of the spectators at Columbus and the fans all over the country when the ninth inning left the two antagonists close-locked in a tie. St. Louis scored one run in her half of the tenth inning. More excitement, more suspense. Then came a moment of almost frantic unrest with two men out and a runner on second base. “Big Dave” Orr came to the plate for Columbus. Three balls! Two strikes! The next ball pitched must decide the greatest event of the base-ball year. It whirled from the pitcher’s hand, it was met fair and square by Orr’s bat, it sailed back over center field,–the longest hit, some say, ever made,–and home came the man from second base and home came Big Dave.
This last story illustrates well the perils confronting one who would grasp baseball history on the fly. Received wisdom is often not so smart. (I’ll spare you the Doubleday-Cartwright patter.) It turns out that Dave Orr DID hit a walkoff homer at Columbus to defeat the Browns but the event took place on September 1, with 45 days left in the season schedule. Orr’s victim on the Browns, by the way, was ambidextrous pitcher Elton “Ice Box” Chamberlain, who won his nickname for the cool demeanor with which, while in the box, he caught flies (the insect variety) and ate them.
Oh, the stories could keep running, but summer is a-coming in, and we really ought to save such ramblings for the hot stove league. | <urn:uuid:ae3c210e-6414-4d8c-bac4-c584f4f16309> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ourgame.mlblogs.com/2012/06/25/great-plays-as-viewed-in-1913/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=ca8cc7cdd9 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972636 | 1,281 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Surgeries Performed at North Shore University Hospital
The surgeries we perform are diversified and include:
- Posterior fossa decompression
- Posterior fossa revision
- Craniocervical fusion
- Tethered cord surgery
- Syringomyelia operation
- Numerous minor surgeries, including:
- Invasive surgical traction
- Ventriculoperitoneal shunt
- Anterior cervical discectomy fusion
A surgical approach is greatly enhanced by the use of color Doppler sonography and morphometric measurements.
Specialization Means Expertise
Since Chiari-related surgeries are performed daily at The Chiari Institute, our surgeons benefit from the concept of full immersion. They have been exposed to an endless series of anatomical variants and have faced and solved complex technical problems.
Minimally Invasive Surgery for CMI (Chiari I Malformation)
This article concerns a relatively recent variation to CMI surgery, which involves the opening of skull and C1, without Duraplasty. A number of pediatric neurosurgeons are the current main advocates for this procedure. Their case series is small, since they just started; so long term results are unknown. This procedure is intended for young children. Their point is that when the dura (and the arachnoid) is opened, there is an increased risk of CSF leaks, wound infection, and meningitis. The risk of CSF leak is about 8% nationwide (while it is just 0.2% at The Chiari Institute).
» Read the complete article by Dr. Bolognese (PDF)
Please note: This document is in Adobe® PDF format and requires Adobe Reader to be viewed. If you do not have Adobe Reader, you can download it for free by clicking here.
Top of page | <urn:uuid:4cbfe799-87bb-4d14-95f4-f3b2bf192e93> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.chiariinstitute.com/surgeries.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9133 | 374 | 1.804688 | 2 |
In his June 08 column, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman says a major part of the reason the recession under Reagan recovered more quickly than the current recession is because of government spending. From the column:
Why was government spending much stronger under Reagan than in the current slump? “Weaponized Keynesianism” — Reagan’s big military buildup — played some role. But the big difference was real per capita spending at the state and local level, which continued to rise under Reagan but has fallen significantly this time around.
There are a myriad of things with which to respond to Krugman over this – his most egregiously inaccurate claim – and other points and inferences in his column. Below are several:
First and foremost, local and state government spending hasn’t gone down since the recession started. The linked chart does show that government spending went down in from 2009 to 2011 as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product, but in pure numbers (also seen at the link) only 2009 saw a drop, and the spending in 2010 more than matched the 2009 drop.
(Data for this claim comes from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and the linked chart and data come from Just Facts.)
Second, the spending prior to and during both recessions was both different and similar. From 1975 through 1979, state and local spending as a percentage of GDP fell by .9%, and then fluctuated for the following several years. Meanwhile, local and state spending went up by 1% of GDP from 1999 to 2002 and 2003. This reversed course for several years, and has since fluctuated. However, at no point did the spending as a percentage of GDP in the current recession drop even to the high point prior to the 1980s recession, an important context Krugman seems to ignore.
The above shows how the periods are different. They are similar insofar as the actual dollars spent consistently grew, meaning that Krugman’s overall contrast is still wrong.
Third, Dan Mitchell of Cato wrote a piece in February stating the obvious: The same bad policies Bush was responsible for that both contributed to the recession and exacerbated its problems have been continued by Obama. From Mitchell’s analysis:
- Bush increased government spending. Obama has been increasing government spending.
- Bush adopted Keynesian “stimulus” policies. Obama adopted Keynesian “stimulus” policies.
- Bush bailed out politically connected companies. Obama has been bailing out politically connected companies.
- Bush supported the Fed’s easy-money policy. Obama has been supporting the Fed’s easy-money policy.
- Bush created a new healthcare entitlement. Obama created a new healthcare entitlement.
- Bush imposed costly new regulations on the financial sector. Obama imposed costly new regulations on the financial sector.
To see some of these points in a more humorous way, check out this cartoon comparing the similarities in policies between Bush and Obama. All in all, for Krugman to blame (as he insinuated in this column and has outright stated in others) Republicans for allegedly holding Obama back and preventing Keynesian economic policies is insincere. Keynesian policies, as well as incestuous Big Business and Big Government back-scratching, have been the norm under the last two Presidents.
Fourth, as my good friend Bill Beach pointed out last week, our economy is incredibly sluggish compared to the 1980s recession, even though we are nearly five years out from its start and three years into the “recovery.” This is despite massive government spending in TARP, two stimuli, unemployment benefit extensions, the auto bailout, and trillions in Federal Reserve spending. Again, if it’s more outgoing federal money Krugman wants, he should simply look at the last several years.
Fifth and finally, Krugman’s argument about local and state governments and their alleged woes was coincidentally (or not?) discussed by President Obama on Friday, when the President said the nation’s economy is struggling mostly at the level of local and state governments. However, as the Wall Street Journal pointed out, Census data shows revenues for local and state governments have increased by six percent over the last two years.
In short, Paul Krugman is doing what Paul Krugman does best: cherry-picking a fact and making a completely unrelated conclusion that lacks proper context and fails to hold up even to the most cursory of examinations. | <urn:uuid:5e91bc2d-a3e1-4be5-9125-49f0ea00a5ad> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rightwingnews.com/uncategorized/krugman-keeps-pretending-spending-has-gone-down/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964967 | 894 | 2.25 | 2 |
WASHINGTON, D.C., January 12. 2013 - James Holmes’ trial is coming up soon.
On July 20th, 2012, Holmes murdered 12 people and injured 70 more in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. He is charged with 166 felony counts including murder and attempted murder. He is guilty. No question. No niceties from the press about calling him “the alleged gunman.” How can the public defender’s office defend this monster? What type of defense can he expect?
The simple answer to the first question is that his defender is assuring that the criminal justice system works. The “game” is supposed to be rock solid regardless of who the players are or their alleged crimes.
During the first five years of my law practice, in order to get myself familiar with courtroom procedures and to become comfortable talking in court, I joined the ranks of attorneys on the court’s “appointed” list, and I agreed to represent people charged with crimes for state scheduled fees. These accused persons’ incomes were less than a prescribed minimum, and they thus qualified for court-appointed legal counsel.
Prior to becoming an attorney I felt criminals deserved what they got, and I believed it would be difficult, indeed, to try to represent someone who was clearly guilty. My experiences in criminal court changed my views a bit.
The law provides that you are innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. This standard, beyond a reasonable doubt, is the highest standard in the law, because the consequences of the finding can mean taking away someone’s liberty, or their life. If the state, through its police, through their ability to find and provide evidence, and through it prosecutors’ skills, experience, and knowledge, cannot prove the guilt of an accused, the accused must be found not guilty. If the system were to be otherwise, we would resemble Nazi Germany. We cannot, as a just society, allow a process that eliminates the right to a fair trial, which includes a defense that puts the state to the task of proving the guilty of the accused.
How can anyone, an attorney assigned to representing James Holmes, for example, represent someone they know to be guilty? They can do so because they are affirming a bigger and more grand principle that assures that if and when you or I are charged, erroneously, with a crime, not matter what the outward appearances or proof might seem to be, we will have representation by an attorney whose job is to make sure the state proves we are, in fact, guilty.
James Holmes is clearly guilty. He is entitled to a defense that forces the state to prove his guilt. Should we otherwise simply lock him up now, forever, or send him to the executioner immediately? One of these consequences certainly will follow, after the appropriate and desirable criminal process runs its course. Or Holmes may be committed to a mental health facility if he convinces the Court he was insane at the time of the offenses.
Prosecutors want to win. I am sorry if I burst your bubble by telling you that sometimes they do not play fairly, by the rules, and that sometimes their actions are outright illegal. If you were being prosecuted, my guess is you would want an attorney representing you to find out if the prosecution was doing everything properly.
I represented a young man during my court-appointed days who was charged with drunk driving. Following his arrest, his blood was tested to determine his level of his intoxication. After completing the testing, the lab technician prepared a document called a Certificate of Analysis. It attested to the accuracy of the procedures employed and the test results. As a prudent defense attorney, I obtained a copy of this certificate before my client’s trial. A review of the certificate revealed that the lab technician’s license had expired prior to the testing. The certificate was no good and would not be available as evidence at trial for this technical reason. At trial, to my surprise, the prosecutor produced the same certificate with the exception that the tech’s license expiration date had been altered, showing that the lab technician’s license expiration date was months away.
Is that fair? Was my client guilty of driving while intoxicated? Clearly. Was he convicted? It saddened me, and it outraged me, that the prosecution was doing something illegal to try to get a conviction. If they had brought the original, unaltered certificate to trial as evidence, I would have objected, the certificate would have been out (so at this point there would have been no evidence of intoxication) and the prosecutor then would have called the police officer to testify about his observations of my client at the scene to try to prove intoxication. Likely the police officer’s testimony would have been enough to allow the judge to convict. Because of the prosecutor’s actions, however, I allowed the prosecutor to put the altered certificate into evidence with a request to examine the document. I asked if that was all of their evidence, the prosecutor said yes, they rested their case, and I then showed the judge the original certificate and moved that the one given to the court be ruled inadmissible. The judge had no choice, and a few words for the prosecutor.
The prosecutor claimed ignorance of the alteration. Astoundingly, no investigation of the altered certificate was ordered.
The reality is that the lab technician’s skill, knowledge, ability to draw blood, test it, record the results, etc. were all probably well above standards they needed to be in order for him to do that work. The license being active assures these things. But what if there were classes the tech needed to take that changed some of this process for the lab tech’s work, and he did not take those classes thus did not know things, and his license could not be renewed until he took the classes? Then, maybe, his affirmation on the certificate would be meaningless, because he truly may not have been qualified. Do we want unqualified people sending us to jail?
My client, guilty as hell, got off on a technicality. Justice, in my opinion, was served. The justice I refer to is that viewed from a societal standpoint. I would not want to be convicted if a lab technician who truly did not meet quality standards was the basis for that conviction. My job was to make sure the state did its job correctly, which included crossing all of the “t’s” and dotting all of the “i’s.” The issue of guilt in any individual case is not as important as the greater picture requiring fairness and compliance with laws set up to assure that fairness. Many are familiar with the saying that it is the law’s purpose to assure that no innocent man is punished, even if it means 100 guilty men go free.
James Holmes’ case most likely will end sooner than a trial, as it appears the only likelihood that he will not be given the death sentence is if he pleads insanity. I would expect that his defense attorney will ultimately enter this plea for him, and thereafter, as the sanity examinations are conducted and then reviewed, I expect the court will determine that Holmes did not know right from wrong, that it will be declared that at the time he was insane, and he will be committed to a mental health facility until some doctor determines he is sane and not a danger. Otherwise, absent an insanity resolution of his case, Holmes may expect a finding of guilt despite the efforts of his public defender attorney. In this event, I hope his attorney does a good job in making the state prove guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Holmes’ attorney, when it is all done, will feel good about himself knowing that he made the state oblige the law, and that having done that, the correct result, as determined by a jury, was reached.
If the attorney fails to provide the best possible defense, the attorney in effect acts as the prosecutor, the judge, and the jury.
Paul A. Samakow is an attorney licensed in Maryland and Virginia, and has been practicing since 1980. He represents injury victims and routinely battles insurance companies and big businesses that will not accept full responsibility for the harms and losses they cause. He can be reached at any time by calling 1-866-SAMAKOW (1-866-726-2569), via email, or through his website. He is also available to speak to your group on numerous legal topics. Paul is the featured legal analyst on the Washington Times Radio, in Washington, D.C., on the Andy Parks show, the featured legal analyst for America’s Radio News Network, heard in 165 markets nationwide, and he is a columnist on the Washington Times Communities.
His book The 8 Critical Things Your Auto Accident Attorney Won’t Tell You is free to Maryland and Virginia residents and can be obtained by ordering it on his website; others can obtain it on Amazon.
This article is the copyrighted property of the writer and Communities @ WashingtonTimes.com. Written permission must be obtained before reprint in online or print media. REPRINTING TWTC CONTENT WITHOUT PERMISSION AND/OR PAYMENT IS THEFT AND PUNISHABLE BY LAW. | <urn:uuid:59e03bd0-38f2-449a-9f9d-499a9ab193a9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/leading-edge-legal-advice-everyday-matters/2013/jan/12/defense-killer/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980504 | 1,890 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Laetitia Lemke interviews the Northern Territory Minister for Alcohol Policy Delia Lawrie about the proposed Alcohol Management Plan.
Source: 7.30 NT | Duration: 7min 29sec
LAETITIA LEMKE, PRESENTER: Enough is enough - it's the Northern Territory Government's latest response to problem drinking. A recent report into alcohol-related harm showed Territorians were drinking more than 15 litres of pure alcohol a year for every man, woman and child over 14 years of age. The Alcohol-related harm is estimated to be costing the Territory more than 640 million dollars a year. The Minister for Alcohol Policy, Delia Lawrie, this week released sweeping reforms that she says will turn the situation around. I caught up with her earlier today.
LAETITIA LEMKE: Delia Lawrie, welcome to the program.
DELIA LAWRIE, MINISTER FOR ALCOHOL POLICY: Thank you, Laetitia.
LAETITIA LEMKE: Statistics show that Indigenous and non-Indigenous Territorians drink at rates 50% higher than the national average. How does this program go about addressing those alcohol problems in both sectors of the community?
DELIA LAWRIE: Sure, what our plan does is we don't discriminate, it's any Territorian who has a chronic alcohol problem. What we do know is the Territory has three times the national rate of alcohol-related deaths - that's a tragedy that's occurring in our community - double the hospital admissions are related to alcohol in the Territory compared to nationally, and we're looking at about 50% of our road toll has a higher than legal alcohol/blood concentration in there, and also tragically as well, 60% of our our assaults, our domestic violence are alcohol-related. We have a significant problem with what alcohol is doing to Territorians.
LAETITIA LEMKE: Isn't a primary focus of this plan Aboriginal problem drinkers? What about the non-Indigenous heavy drinkers in pubs and clubs around the Territory?
DELIA LAWRIE: See, this is focussed on anyone who has a chronic drinking problem and I think people are kidding themselves if they think it's just Indigenous. Non-Indigenous Territorians drink at one point five times the national rate. Indigenous drink at one point seven times the national rate, so it's actually a whole-of-community problem. In terms of the precincts and the pubs and the clubs, what we've found is 30% of alcohol is consumed on premise - so, in your pubs and clubs. Seventy per cent of alcohol in the Territory is consumed off-premise. It's the off-premise that's insidious, it's the off-premise that is the domestic violence, that is a lot of the assaults that are occurring, the problems you're seeing in your parks and your beaches, et cetera. We had to tackle the off-premise which is why we've brought in this enormous reform. We will interface, though, with on-premise. The clubs are very interested in interfacing with the ID system because they don't want the banned drinkers moving in and causing problems inside a premises. Anyone drinking in a premise is fundamentally more controlled in terms of their drinking habits, and safer. So, there's responsible service of alcohol.
LAETITIA LEMKE: What evidence is there that these police-based methods work? We've had in the past anti-social behaviour laws, we've had dry communities, we've had programs where Territorians have had to sign and show ID to get alcohol. Why is this program any different?
DELIA LAWRIE: Well certainly what we've seen is where you've got a banned-drinker register in place - say, for example, in Alice Springs and Katherine - we have seen dramatic reductions in the pure alcohol, 18% reduction in the sale of pure alcohol in Alice Springs. Critically, though, in the evaluations we've done, a 21% reduction in serious assaults. The feedback we're getting from certainly the trauma people at Alice Springs Hospital has been quite a dramatic change. So we've seen the evidence of what's worked in the Territory, we've taken what's worked. We've seen where the gaps are, though, because we still have 54,000 incidents a year of people going into police protective custody, and we have 21,000 incidents a year of people going in and out of the sobering-up shelters. So what we're seeing is chronic alcoholic cohort who are in and out of the services, but not going into the treatment services. So we've designed a system that traps them into the no access to alcohol, which is the bans for three months from alcohol, and incentives in there for them to get into alcohol treatment, and mandatory treatment by the establishment of the new Alcohol and Drug Tribunal, and the enhanced powers of the Alcohol Court that will merge with the Drug Court into a new Smart Court.
LAETITIA LEMKE: What restrictions are there to ensure that police are using their new powers in an appropriate way that they aren't just able to slap bans on people indiscriminately?
DELIA LAWRIE: Oh, absolutely, really good question. Three times in and out of protective custody within three months is a pretty big bar to set. Most of us have never been in police protective custody in our lives let alone three times in three months. We could have done, say, for example, three times in twelve months where you would have caught a broader cohort of people - we wanted to go after the real chronic alcoholics so, to meet that test of three times in three months in police protective custody, you've got a chronic alcohol problem. To be taken into police custody for your own protection is a big issue. And so that's the first fundamental test. We've also established a tribunal, so that can review the decisions people are making on those administrative bans. So, if someone has an administrative ban placed on them because they've been three times into police protective custody in three months, they can say, actually you've got it wrong, I'm going to the tribunal to prove you got it wrong - it wasn't me that third time, I was actually in California. You always need a house of review/appeal, that's why we established the tribunal. The other good point to that tribunal, though, is people can refer people into the tribunal, so workers in sobering-up shelters, doctors, family members can refer people to the tribunal but there are clinical assessments, gate keepers if you like - the tribunal so that you can't just you know dob in a mate because you feel like it, they would be clinically assessed.
LAETITIA LEMKE: These proposals do have significant resourcing implications. We're talking about 20 million dollars just for the treatment facilities. On top of that there's policing costs, administrative costs, the court reforms. Realistically, where is the money going to come from to ensure all of this can be implemented?
DELIA LAWRIE: Look, I do want to say that these reforms are about targeting the banned drinkers, they're not going to affect everyone else who goes about their daily lives. There will be no change, we've had evaluations and we've seen the reports done, it shows us 642 million dollars a year is the cost of what alcohol is doing across our community. So that's from health costs right through to your corrections costs, so there's a real cost driver in there. That's not why we're doing it, by the way. We're doing it because of the social harm. The pure economics tell you 642 million dollars a year to tackle the problem yet we're seeing recidivist cycle occurring in our community - more harm occurring. We recognise we can't do it on our own, we will work in partnership with the Commonwealth government and with the local government. I think you've seen the Darwin and Palmerston Alcohol Management Plan that we've put out there - the councils are on board, they want this to happen too. We're certainly committed as a Territory government to the funding of this, we've committed to funding the IT systems to support it, to rolling out the infrastructure so that the small business doesn't have to pay, we're going to cover those costs. In terms of the alcohol and rehab, we've seen significant investment in the last few years from the Commonwealth government, we've seen an increase in rehab beds and sobering up shelter beds - there's about 300 now across the Territory. I'm confident that whether Julia Gillard is the Prime Minister or Tony Abbott is the Prime Minister, we will work with them to get that all important tens of millions of dollars of increase funding. At the end of the day - if they don't step up, we're prepared to.
LAETITIA LEMKE: Delia Lawrie, thank you for joining us.
DELIA LAWRIE: Thank you. | <urn:uuid:4c241ec7-f0f7-494d-8270-a3bead150487> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-09-04/alcohol-crackdown/2603718 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969228 | 1,859 | 1.867188 | 2 |
Head Injury, Age 3 and Younger
Almost all children will bump their heads, especially when they are babies or toddlers and are just learning to roll over, crawl, or walk. These accidents may upset you, but your anxiety is usually worse than the injury. Most head injuries in children are minor.
Head injury occurs more often in young children than adults. When compared with adults:
- Young children can't control the movement of
their heads as well as adults.
- Their heads are larger in relation to their bodies.
- Their neck muscles are not as well developed.
- Young children's legs are somewhat shorter in proportion to the rest of their bodies. This makes a child's center of gravity closer to the head than an adult's center of gravity.
- Young children are more likely to have an accident or fall as they learn new skills such as walking, running, and jumping.
Bumps, cuts, and scrapes on the head and face usually heal well and can be treated the same as injuries to other parts of the body. A superficial cut on the head often bleeds heavily because the face and scalp have many blood vessels close to the surface of the skin. This bleeding is alarming, but often the injury is not severe and you can Reference stop the bleeding with home treatment. When bleeding does not stop with home treatment, visit a doctor because a young child can lose a large amount of blood from a deep cut on the head.
The most common serious head injuries in young children are caused by falls and abuse (inflicted head injuries), such as Reference shaken baby syndrome Opens New Window. Serious head injuries may involve injuries to the brain. The more force that is involved in a head injury, the more likely it is that a serious injury to the brain has occurred. If there has been a Reference high-energy injury to the head Opens New Window, there is a greater likelihood that a serious injury has occurred. When a high-energy injury occurs, it is even more important to assess the child for Reference signs of a serious head injury Opens New Window.
Following an injury, it can be hard to tell the difference between a mild traumatic brain injury (Reference concussion Opens New Window) and a more serious brain injury. Watch the child carefully for 24 hours after a head injury to see whether he or she develops any signs of a serious head injury.
When a head injury has occurred, look for injuries to other parts of the body. The alarm of seeing a head injury may cause you to overlook other injuries that need attention. Trouble breathing, shock, spinal injuries, and severe bleeding are all life-threatening injuries that may occur along with a head injury and require immediate medical attention. Reference Injuries to the spine Opens New Window, especially the neck, must be considered when a head injury has occurred.
Many head injuries can be prevented. Use car seats, seat belts, helmets, and Reference make your home safe from falls to prevent an injury. Establish good safety habits early so your child will continue them when he or she is older.
Reference Check your child's symptoms to decide if and when your child should see a doctor.
|By:||Reference Healthwise Staff||Last Revised: Reference November 16, 2012|
|Medical Review:||Reference William H. Blahd, Jr., MD, FACEP - Emergency Medicine
Reference H. Michael O'Connor, MD - Emergency Medicine | <urn:uuid:0dd14351-bf8a-48bb-9d1e-3d0b1aa6fc25> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sutterhealth.org/healthwise/index.cfm?A=C&type=info&hwid=head3§ion=hw93657 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951301 | 700 | 3.515625 | 4 |
COMMON NAMES: PARKINSONIA, JERUSELUM THORN, RETAMA, HORSEBEAN, CLOTH-OF-GOLD, CROWN-OF-THORNS, BARBADOS FENCE FLOWERS, PALO VERDE, MEXICAN PALO VERDE
Parkinsonia aculeata (park-kin-SOH-nee-ah ak-you-lee-AH-tah)
Fabaceae (Legume, Bean or Pulse Family)
HEIGHT: 12 to 30 feet, has been seen growing up to 40 feet.
SPREAD: 15 to 20 feet
FINAL SPACING: 12 to 15 feet
NATURAL HABITAT AND PREFERRED SITE: Native along the Rio Grande in the Rio Grande Valley, best will adapt to a wide range of soils. It can grow in wet soils but is extremely drought tolerant and will do very well up through the center of Texas.
IDENTIFICATION INFORMATION: Graceful, airy tree with long thin compound leaves, yellow summer flowers green bark and heavily armed with thorns.
FLOWERS AND FRUIT: Fragrant yellow flowers in the spring or throughout the summer, especially after rains. Racemes are 5 to 6 inches long. The pea-shaped flowers persist for at least a week. Fruits form as slender pods 2 to 4 inches long, constricted between the seeds, brown at maturity. Seeds are green, turning brown at maturity.
BARK: Bark is thin, smooth, green, turns reddish brown with small scales on older trunks.
FOLIAGE: Leaves are compound with tiny leaflets. Overall leaf is 8 to 16 inches long. Leaflets are only 1/3 of an inch long or less. The leaf mid rib, branches and twigs are green so they also provide photosynthesis.
CULTURE: Parkinsonia is easy to grow in a wide range of soils, even high salt conditions. Can grow as far north as Dallas but risks freeze damage there during severe winters. Grows best in the moist, deep soils but is strongly drought tolerant. During drought it shed the small leaflets leaving only the mid ribs of the leaves which are green and can continue to manufacture necessary sugars for survival. Fast growing when young, relatively short lived, tolerates moist soil but doesn’t like sopping, heavy, wet clay soils.
PROBLEMS: Freeze damage possibilities in the northern half of the state. Seedlings can become somewhat a problem by sprouting up all over the place.
PROPAGATION: Easy to grow from cuttings or seed but acid or physical scarification treatment is needed to aid germination. Physical damage such as filing the seed coat and/or soaking in liquid humate or seaweed can also aid germination.
INSIGHT: It is probably risky to invest a lot of money in this plant for use north of Austin. | <urn:uuid:d147cce9-83c9-4490-92d4-bdb57e5974e5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dirtdoctor.com/Parkinsonia_vq926.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924411 | 609 | 2.953125 | 3 |
The last time I went to Chicago I saw Desperately Seeking Susan in the theater, and it was a new release at the time. Also, I was at an age where getting to see Desperately Seeking Susan was the coolest, and I spent my allowance on a bunch of Madonna-inspired rubber and silver bracelets at Contempo Casuals at Water Tower Place, oblivious to the amazing city around me. Luckily this past weekend, I returned to Chicago more mature and appreciative of architecture, and I found myself cruising Trulia for Chicago housing as soon as I had to leave. Here are just a few of the sites that make up the amazing city.
One of the most fun things you can do in Chicago is rent a bike and take it up or down the coast of Lake Michigan; we opted to go North. It was worth the horrendous customer service and outrageous prices at the bike rental place on the Navy Pier.
One of the great things about the architecture of Chicago is all of those little details on the buildings that came before Mies stripped everything down. The detail above is from what is currently a Bloomingdale’s Home store, formerly the Medinah Temple, designed by Huehl and Schmid, built in 1912.
While I knew a bit about the 1922 Chicago Tribune building/contest (in architecture school you learn that the second-place entry is the one everyone is still talking about, by Eliel Saarninen). What I didn’t realize is that the existing neo-gothic architecture has all of these little fragments from other buildings around the world stuck in it, from castles in England to the Great Wall of China.
Okay, so I was not coordinated enough to ride my bike and snap a picture of 860-880 Lake Shore Drive at the same time, so they are missing from this photo essay, as well as a slew of other iconic buildings. Sorry! Anyway, Marnia City (1959) by a.k.a. the honeycomb buildings, was built by one of Mies’ proteges, Bertrand Goldberg.
He also designed the Prentice Women’s Hospital, a Brutalist building that is currently in danger of being demolished (last I heard Northwestern University was still pushing to tear it down; sign a petition to help it get landmark status here). This building is a feat of engineering and was one of the first designs to use CAD, which was cutting edge technology at the time. The building was completed in 1975.
I think I like this view of Frank Gehry’s Jay Pritzker Pavilion at Millennium Park (2004) the best. He sure knows how to make you want to go check out what the rest of it looks like with a big metal tease. Here’s what the rest of it looks like.
Obligatory shot of Cloud Gate (2004), a.k.a. “The Bean,” by Anish Kapoor.
Last picture I took before I got super tired and picture quality got even worse – Yvonne Domenge Sculpture at Millennium Park. | <urn:uuid:11b6695d-0c66-4e40-ac83-b9c49076acaf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.designpublic.com/2012/10/02/chicago/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97576 | 637 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2005.01.02
Graham Zanker, Modes of Viewing in Hellenistic Poetry and Art. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004. Pp. xiv, 223. ISBN 0-299-19450-7. $39.95.
Reviewed by James Clauss, University of Washington (firstname.lastname@example.org)
Word count: 2073 words
When I began to investigate the world of Hellenistic poetry in graduate school, I eventually turned to Apollonius' Argonautica. While working on the description of Jason's cloak in Book 1, I was especially struck by the image of Aphrodite looking at her reflection in Ares' shield. At that very time, there happened to be an exposition of the finds discovered at Vergina in San Francisco, which included a cameo bearing a portrait of Aphrodite looking at her reflection in a shield. I have been intrigued by the intersection between Hellenistic poetry and art ever since. While other scholars have offered book-length studies on this topic, such as Webster's Hellenistic Poetry and Art, Onian's Art and Thought in the Hellenistic World, and Fowler's The Hellenistic Aesthetic, what distinguishes Zanker's contribution is his close, and in particular intertextual, reading of Hellenistic poetry as a constructive parallel for viewing contemporary art.
In the first chapter, "Aims, Approaches, and Samples," Zanker discusses how the exploration of literary "ekphraseis" can benefit our understanding of artistic representations. (1) They provide a verbal response to viewing that the monuments are incapable of giving us; (2) Greek rhetorical teachers regarded such passages as means of teaching students how to view art; (3) like the monuments, these descriptions require the reader to supplement unexpressed details; and (4) they expose contemporary admiration for illusionism in the visual arts. What follows is a detailed analysis of the description of the goatherd's cup in Theocritus' first Idyll as an example of how to understand the Hellenistic manner of viewing. In short, Zanker demonstrates how the viewer is required to fill in the blanks in order to understand the meaning of the individual scenes. "(N)arrative can be, and is meant to be, extrapolated from the visual clues, in a manner wholly consonant with what we know of the actual representational art of the period" (p. 13). Zanker adds that in the Theocritean passage we encounter an essential feature of Hellenistic art and verse, a topic he will return to later: "the depiction of lowly objects and people placed by allusion in a grand form and tradition -- those of epic, to be precise" (p. 14-15).
The next three chapters examine the process whereby poets and artists "created modes of viewing in order to involve viewers and readers visually and spatially" (p. 27). In Chapter 2, "Full Presentation of the Image," Zanker explores how audiences are brought into the picture. He identifies a number of attributes that achieve this effect. For instance, backgrounds are articulated in such a way as to invite the viewer/reader into the scene (e.g., the Giant's knee on the Pergamene Altar and the elaborate backdrop to Theocritus' Idyll 22); audience cooperation is piqued by the need to perform an act of supplementation, i.e., the application of one's knowledge of myth to complete the scene (e.g., the "White" Marsyas in the Uffizi asks the viewer to conjure up the presence of Apollo; the occasion of Idyll 25 has to be implied by the reader, about which more below); and audiences are integrated into scenes by becoming part of the action (e.g., our discomfort at coming upon a naked Aphrodite, such as the Cnidia, or our inclusion among the celebrants of Callimachus' mimetic hymns).
The chapter contains a number of other observations that attest to the shared goals of poets and artists, such as interest in representations in the round, fascination with optical effects, and a desire to underscore the ethos of his human subjects. As evidence of these, Zanker offers Praxiteles' Cnidian Aphrodite, which during the Hellenistic period was moved from a rectangular to a circular shrine so that it could be viewed from all sides; depictions of reflections, as in the Alexander Mosaic or Capua Aphrodite; and the busts of artists and thinkers which are designed to hint at the psychology of the individual. Zanker successfully employs the Greek rhetorical tradition and its focus on "enargeia," as well as the new Posidippus papyrus that attests to this quality, in support of his readings.
In the next chapter, "Reader or Viewer Supplementation," Zanker expands on the idea of audience participation in both literary and artistic representations. In sum, he describes how artists integrate readers or viewers by inviting them to participate in and flesh out the details; this is achieved by way of abbreviated but suggestive depictions and narratives. For instance, both Callimachus' rendition of Heracles' killing of the Nemean Lion in the Victoria Berenices and the Telephus frieze with its discrete scenes accentuate selected moments that stand for the entire story. What is more, Zanker states, poetry appears to have developed this approach to narrative before art. A case in point is Idyll 25. Here the portrayal of the pastoral landscape all but narrates the story of Heracles' cleaning of the Augean stables by alluding to the event and suggesting the immensity of the project. Among the plastic arts, such as the Farnese Heracles, what is novel is the degree to which they underscore and focus on the psychological aspects of "off-stage" moments that comment on the actual climactic events that everyone is familiar with. Hellenistic poets and artists, Zanker argues, prompt their audiences to decode visual signs in their encounters with their works.
"Reader or Viewer Integration" forms the theme of the following very interesting chapter. Zanker expands on the theme of audience inclusion. He begins with the "Boy with a Goose" statue from the Vatican, a piece that finds a remarkable parallel in Herodas' fourth Mimiamb. As the young child (ca. eighteen months old) reaches upward with his right hand, signaling a desire to be picked up, he balances himself on his left hand, pressing down on his pet goose. As Cynno in the poem states, "By the Fates, how the little boy is squashing the goose! If it weren't stone in front of our feet, you'd say the statue will speak" (p. 103). Herodas' mime provides an important clue for how we are to reconstruct a viewing of the statue in its original context, as Zanker shows. The work was most likely set on the ground or on a low base ("in front of our feet") so that it would reach up to the viewers and draw them into the composition. The same can be said for the Terme Boxer, whose upward gaze suggests the intended viewer's position vis a vis the statue, and the various nude Aphrodite statues whose coquettish attempts to hide their private parts imply that we have caught them off-guard.
Zanker includes in his discussion a number of epigrams that describe works of art in such a way that they are clearly meant to encourage readers to feel as if they are in the presence of the celebrated item. What I find particularly compelling is his discussion of Callimachus' mimetic hymns that similarly treat the reader as one of the participants. And in fact, Zanker goes further by stating that the literary "evocation of a religious moment in no way precludes a religious purpose or effect" (p. 116), thus bucking the prevalent notion that these poems are strictly literary, a position that I too have long held. As part of his argument, Zanker cites the various special effects that were employed at temples to astound worshipers as a parallel to the self-opening doors at the beginning of Callimachus' Hymn to Apollo. While reflecting on his point, I recalled the popular holograph of Jesus on sale at Vatican religious stores; as you walk past this representation of Jesus on the cross, his eyes open and close. The comparison suggests at least two possible audiences for such special effects in literature and at religious sites: the pious who, though knowing that the effects are contrived, nonetheless buy into the images as a way of engaging emotional responses to sincere beliefs, and those with a taste for the unusual. Similarly, the statue group celebrating the Attalid defeat of the Gauls, which, Zanker argues, would have created in its original audience the sense of being present at this critical moment, might be said to parallel religious dioramas such as that of Joseph Smith receiving his first vision, which I saw years ago at the Mormon Visitor's Center in Salt Lake City.
In the next chapter, "An Eye for the New (Poetic Genres, Iconographical Traditions)," Zanker takes on the topic of "genre-crossing," the practice whereby Hellenistic artists and poets portray low subjects in high media and ascribe divine status to human beings. Here too I find the comparisons instructive. For instance, the severe hair style of the well-known Spinario, featured on the book's jacket, alludes to classical statues of the ephebe, and yet the subject, a young boy of no apparent social status pulling a thorn from his foot, is quotidian. Zanker finds a similar disconnect in the Venus de Milo: "(t)he fusion of her realistic body and idealized head, adorned with hair in the simple Classical style" (p. 136). The lowly herdsmen of Theocritus' Idylls, whose activities, such as pulling a thorn from a foot, are at odds with the traditional subjects of hexametric verse, provide an apt literary analogue. Zanker ascribes this new interest in daily life not to the collapse of the polis and retreat into private life, as is commonly held, but to a "positive value placed on private, individual fulfillment in the home and within the family" (p. 127) and the means to afford the kinds of conspicuous consumption we find evidence of among the ancient texts and artifacts. The blurring of human and divine status can be found both in the mixing of hymns and encomia (the former previously restricted to gods and the latter acceptable for mortals), as seen in Callimachus' and Theocritus' poetry in honor of the Ptolemies, as well as in contemporary statuary and coins.
"Viewing Pleasure and Pain" provides the topic of the sixth and final chapter. The focus of the first part of the chapter is Aphrodite. The history of Aphrodite statuary, from the East Pediment of the Parthenon to the late Hellenistic era, reveals not only an interest in creating ever more provocative poses, but also, Zanker suggests, shows how Hellenistic artists managed to underscore the goddess' frivolity together with her dangerous power. Both sides of the divinity find parallel in Apollonius' Aphrodite (her apparent powerlessness before her son as contrasted with her importance for the success of the expedition as predicted by Phineus) and Theocritus' first Idyll (she appears smiling but at the same time is responsible for Daphnis' death), although I would point out that the combination of Aphrodite's seeming frivolity and frightening power is very much present in the famous Homeric hymn to that goddess. With regard to the second theme of the chapter, pain, Zanker points to the Suicidal Gaul group and identifies the "evocation of pathos in a heroic context" (p. 154) as an innovation in victory monuments. His analysis of the Drunken Old Woman is particularly helpful when it comes to looking at Callimachus' Hecale. While the woman herself has extremely wrinkled skin and a toothless smile, her earrings, rings, headcloth, coiffure, and tunic reveal that she was a successful hetaira in the past. This same contrast between a wealthy past and pathetic present can be found in the Hecale, whose titular character, similar to the Drunken Old Woman, was once wealthy but now lives a life of poverty. What characterizes these and other representations of human suffering in art and poetry, Zanker offers, is the degree of realism that is unprecedented in earlier works and owes much to contemporary scientific knowledge.
Modes of Viewing in Hellenistic Poetry and Art is fully successful in achieving its goal of asking the sister arts to comment on each other, and I find that my appreciation of each has been enhanced considerably. I was especially impressed by the fact that Zanker allows the literary and sculptural works to speak for themselves; that is, at no time does he appear to have an agenda other than observing possible intersections between the various pieces discussed and he is at all times forthcoming with what we know and do not know about the dates of the these works. Zanker's book has allowed me to view Hellenistic poetry and art from a new and enlightening angle and encourages further reflection on the interconnections between the literary and plastic arts and what they tell us about the artists and their times. | <urn:uuid:76f53375-a467-48d8-99e0-cbfe61d9db1d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2005/2005-01-02.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954891 | 2,825 | 2.296875 | 2 |
By Pete Kotz
By Michael Musto
By Michael Musto
By Capt. James Van Thach told to Jonathan Wei
By Kera Bolonik
By Michael Musto
By Nick Pinto
By Steve Weinstein
If we must die, let it not be like hogs Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot, While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs, Making their mock at our accursed lot. If we must die, O let us nobly die....
"If We Must Die," Claude McKay
Lying helpless and hooked up to a machine in the white man's hospital in Georgia is not how Khallid Abdul Muhammad envisioned he would die. Over the past five years, every time I interviewed him for The Goddamned White Man, a book we were planning to co-author, the leader of the New Black Panther Party and founder of the Million Youth March, would begin the session by reciting Claude McKay's epic poem "If We Must Die."
At times, Khallid changed some of the words to reflect the alienation he sensed from his followers, an alienation he believed was closely related to his own estrangement from his spiritual father, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. "If I must die," Farrakhan's domey ex-mouthpiece would declare, "though far outnumbered let me show me brave/And for their thousand blows deal one death blow/What though before me lies the open grave?/Like a man I'll face the murderous, cowardly pack/Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!"
I would like to think that is how Khallid faced down death on February 10. Sources told the Voice that five days before the 53-year-old black ultranationalist fell gravely ill, members of a disgruntled faction of the Panthers in Atlanta were planning a violent showdown in New York to settle once and for all their challenge to the legitimacy of Khallid's group. Some members of the New York chapter were warned to stay indoors, the source said. Hashim Nzinga, a spokesman for the new Panthers, did not return Voicecalls for comment.
Khallid, who had been renovating a brownstone on Harlem's historic Strivers Row, was in New York City on February 10. He had met with a group of vendors at the Harriet Tubman School in Harlem. After the meeting, Khallid returned to Atlanta, where he had a home. His wife told supporters that Khallid complained about "feeling tired and achy," went to lie down, and began vomiting profusely. He was taken by ambulance to a hospital at which the family was told that they did not have the facilities to handle neurological emergencies. He was then driven to WellStar Kennestone Hospital in Marietta, a suburb of Atlanta. On Wednesday afternoon, Akbar Muhammad, a top Farrakhan aide, rushed to Khallid's bedside and prayed with the family.
"Family members said he suffered a stroke and was on life support," said James Muhammad, editor of The Final Call, the Nation of Islam newspaper in Chicago. "Our prayers are with him and his family." The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported on Friday that Khallid had suffered a brain aneurysm and had been taken off life support on Thursday afternoon.
However, as the Voice went to press Friday, Khallid was still on life support in an intensive care unit, despite the extensive media reports that he had died. Reverend Al Sharpton, leader of the Harlem-based National Action Network, was the first prominent civil rights figure to go to the hospital. "His family seemed stunned," recalled Sharpton, adding that he did not question them about Khallid's medical condition. After praying with Khallid's wife and top aide Malik Zulu Shabazz, the Baptist minister was led into a room where the once fiery activist lay motionless. Sharpton again prayed and after about one minute he was escorted from the room.
"Khallid was just lying there," said Sharpton, who struck up a friendship with Khallid after being stabbed in Bensonhurst by a white man in 1991. "He sent me a note after the incident," Sharpton remembered. After Khallid was gunned down by a former NOI minister in 1994, Sharpton wrote Khallid a letter of support. "Imagine that! When I saw him, I couldn't physically do anything for him," the activist said.
When Khallid got into trouble several years ago and was sentenced to community service, he went to Sharpton, who arranged for Khallid to serve out his term delivering a series of lectures to street gangs Sharpton had been trying to mentor. "Reverend Sharpton and Khallid developed a strong relationship over the years," said Timothy Ford, who ran the program at Sharpton's headquarters. "One of the reasons Reverend Sharpton is so touched by this tragedy is that he and Minister Khallid had both vowed never to duplicate the mistakes of their respective heroes, Jesse Jackson and Farrakhan," Ford explained.
Eight years ago this month, Khallid first drew harsh criticism for his strident anti-Semitic and anti-white rhetoric and his verbal attacks against gays and Catholics. Farrakhan rebuked "the tone" of his virulent attacks after a November 1993 diatribe against Jews delivered to black students at Kean College in Union, New Jersey, and removed him as his top national assistant. In the speech, Khallid called Jews "bloodsuckers," and called for the slaughter of white South Africans. Farrakhan suspended him indefinitely from the Nation of Islam in 1994 after Khallid called non-black merchants, Koreans and Italians with businesses around Harlem's Malcolm X Boulevard, "white Jews and bloodsuckers."
Find everything you're looking for in your city
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Check out the hottest list of places and things to do around your city | <urn:uuid:284f4433-d9e2-49e9-a8d0-385e42a8406b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.villagevoice.com/2001-02-20/news/if-i-must-die/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978978 | 1,254 | 1.898438 | 2 |
If you have been running for a few blocks and it was really hot outside, you don’t want to wait around for the water to get cold. Having a chilled water dispenser will have its own benefits by giving you access to water just as you need it. For people who like to do-it-yourself, installation of the dispenser is fairly easy and uncomplicated. Depending on how much you needed the cold water, the dispenser can also help you save some money.
As we all know, water is a very essential element that our body needs. Our body alone is made up of 70% water, which when depleted significantly can lead to serious consequences. Drinking fresh and clean water is a great way to battle health problems and if you add chilled water into the equation it completes the formula.
Chilled water dispensers are not only installed in the home but are also useful in the workplace or office. So, what are the advantages of having these dispensers?
- Cleaner Way to Dispense Cold Water
Chilled water dispensers are cleaner and better way to serve water to anyone. There will be lesser contaminants introduced to the water when it is served from the dispenser as compared to adding ice cubes or placing it in a container.
- Supply of Chilled Water
If you want uninterrupted supply of chilled water, you might want to consider buying chilled water dispenser. As per your cold temperature requirements, many of these dispensers can be adjusted accordingly so you can have your own supply of chilled water.
How to Buy Chilled Water Dispenser?
A detailed research is necessary if you want to learn more about chilled water dispensers. This will help you make the right decision but it will not hurt if you could ask some helpful questions to aid you in the process.
- What would you use the chilled water dispenser for?
- What are the things you need to learn before buying dispensers?
- How can cold water dispensers different from hot water dispensers?
- How important is energy efficiency when buying one?
- What are some additional features you want to have?
The answers to these questions will help you arrive to the right decision. Considering the number of dispensers out there, it is important that you know what your choices are. It will only make you lose money if you’re buying something you have no idea about.
Posted by JackieAzuela at 29 October, 2012 | <urn:uuid:94c7aeea-f0dc-4c8d-acba-7c02d8a61059> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.chictip.com/kitchen-bath/inspiration-advantages-of-having-chilled-water-dispenser | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96524 | 501 | 1.820313 | 2 |
His company removes the hazardous chemicals from the cars and puts the vehicles into a mega-shredder, which reduces cars to pieces the size of a fist. SA Recycling sorts the scrap into steel, aluminum, copper, rubber, plastic, glass and other materials, then sells it to local or export brokers.
"We feel that a shredder or a recycler is the natural solution for where these cars should end up," Marcucci said.
He expects a 10% increase in volume from the CARS program from both clunkers from dealers and scrap from auto dismantlers.
Not all junkyards and auto dismantlers will benefit from the clunkers program. Some are too small to make the process of getting the cars and reselling them worthwhile. Others say there's too much paperwork and hassle involved. And some say the cars aren't worth much without the engines.
"Who wants to haul and try to sell parts of low-demand vehicles?" said Carlo Viola, the owner of AAA Foreign Auto Parts in Sun Valley, which sells used engine parts. "They're disposing of the one item that has the most immediate value."
Viola runs an open telephone line that allows auto dismantlers to talk to one another and search for parts they might need. He says some shops don't think the cars are worth buying because they are, well, clunkers -- and headed for extinction anyway. If thousands of minivans are taken off the road, who will need minivan parts?
But the participating junkyards, scrappers and auctioneers aren't concerned. They see an opportunity and they're planning to take advantage of it.
"These cars will be newer and fresher than typical junk cars," Adlen of Aadlen Bros. said.
In his lot already, the unmarred clunkers stand out from the wrecks that line rows upon rows, their hoods up and their insides picked clean.
"A lot of the people in the business are optimistic the prices will be good because the product is better than we thought," said Bill Tiedemann, vice president and general manager at Total Resource Auctions, which re-markets cars to junkyards and scrappers.
At the Aadlen Bros. lot, the new cars contrast sharply with the beat-up junkers like the mauled Audi A4, its air bag hanging limply outside the car where a door used to be before what looked to have been a harrowing accident.
One car, a fully loaded 2002 Lincoln Continental with a sunroof and leather seats, could be worth as much as $5,800 at a dealer trade-in, according to Kelly Blue Book.
But Blue Book price is one thing and the real market is another. Some dealers won't even accept gas-guzzling SUVs as trade-ins because they can't sell them at a profit.
"There's really no demand," said Hector Habash, a salesman at South Bay Ford Lincoln Mercury. "That's the whole purpose of the cash-for-clunkers program." | <urn:uuid:1c3a87d2-6223-4eac-a91f-fce3600f3496> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.latimes.com/2009/aug/05/business/fi-junkyards5/2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00051-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960014 | 635 | 1.609375 | 2 |
For the first time, a U.S. judge has suspended the deportation of the foreign-born same-sex spouse of an American citizen. Last week’s action by an immigration judge in New York comes amid ongoing challenges to the constitutionality of a law banning the federal government from recognizing marriages between homosexuals.
Last year, Cristina Ojeda of Queens, New York, married her partner of three years, Argentine-born Monica Alcota, in nearby Connecticut, one of only a handful of states that allow civil marriage for gay people. But Alcota has been living under the threat of deportation for years, having overstayed a tourist visa that expired 10 years ago.
Last week (3/22/11), Alcota stood before an immigration judge fearing deportation to Argentina. But the judge halted deportation proceedings to give her and Ojeda time to petition for federal recognition of their marriage.
Ojeda spoke with VOA a day later, saying, "We were happy. It gives us more hope."
Among the more common ways for non-citizens to gain legal residency in the United States is by marrying a U.S. citizen. But that avenue is blocked for tens of thousands of bi-national gay couples. Most states refuse to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples, and federal law bans recognition of same-sex marriage.
Ojeda recalls the pain of seeing her spouse taken into federal custody and placed in detention for three months prior to the deportation hearing. "Oh God, it has been horrible. I have never gone through anything this painful, having Monica being taken away from me on the bus. I had to hug her, and they took her," she said.
Attorney Lavi Soloway represents Alcota and Ojeda. "Monica and Cristina represent the ultimate consequence of discrimination against lesbian and gay couples who, although they are legally married, are denied recognition of their marriage by the federal government for all purposes, including immigration. Cristina is no different than any other U.S. citizen. She is in a loving, committed relationship with her spouse," he said.
Enacted in 1996, the Defense of Marriage Act stipulates that only opposite-sex marriages are valid under federal law. During the past year, federal courts have ruled core elements of the Act unconstitutional. Those cases are being appealed and could ultimately be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Weeks ago, the Obama administration announced it would no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act’s constitutionality, leaving it to congressionally-appointed attorneys to argue for its retention. Earlier this month, bills to repeal the law were introduced in both houses of Congress.
California Western Law School Professor Ari Waldman has written extensively on the legal battles surrounding the Defense of Marriage Act. He says suspending deportation is well within an immigration judge’s power, as Judge Terry Bain did for Monica Alcota. "That the constitutionality of DOMA is, at best, uncertain, must have suggested to Judge Bain that a law that is of dubious constitutionality should not be the basis for splitting up a committed couple," he said.
VOA contacted several pro-DOMA advocacy groups. None were willing to comment on the Alcota-Ojeda case, but all are steadfast in their conviction the institution of marriage should be reserved for heterosexuals, and that allowing gays to marry will weaken the institution and corrode the family unit, what they call the building block of civilization.
Attorney Lavi Soloway sees the issue differently. "It really is a question of discrimination. And I have not yet heard a cogent argument for justifying discrimination against couples like Cristina and Monica. The United States has a long history of battling to perfect the ideal that all people have equality under the law. And what Monica and Cristina achieved is one small incremental step towards further perfecting that ideal," he said.
Law Professor Waldman says Judge Bain’s decision sets no binding precedent for other immigration cases involving bi-national married gay couples. But he expects other judges will take note of the Alcota-Ojeda case and concur that similar deportations should be suspended until the Defense of Marriage Act’s constitutionality is definitively determined, or until the law is repealed, as President Barack Obama has advocated. | <urn:uuid:9c3a246b-6d76-48ed-9b04-d352abf27a9b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.voanews.com/content/us-immigration-judge-suspends-deportation-of-gay-spouse-118741179/174610.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968413 | 882 | 1.929688 | 2 |
Fact sheet by the USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities. Click here to print as a PDF.
Click here for Spanish version
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: "Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law" (No. 2271).
In response to those who say this teaching has changed or is of recent origin, here are the facts:
- From earliest times, Christians sharply distinguished themselves from surrounding pagan cultures by rejecting abortion and infanticide. The earliest widely used documents of Christian teaching and practice after the New Testament in the 1st and 2nd centuries, the Didache (Teaching of the Twelve Apostles) and Letter of Barnabas, condemned both practices, as did early regional and particular Church councils.
- To be sure, knowledge of human embryology was very limited until recent times. Many Christian thinkers accepted the biological theories of their time, based on the writings of Aristotle (4th century BC) and other philosophers. Aristotle assumed a process was needed over time to turn the matter from a woman's womb into a being that could receive a specifically human form or soul. The active formative power for this process was thought to come entirely from the man – the existence of the human ovum (egg), like so much of basic biology, was unknown.
- However, such mistaken biological theories never changed the Church's common conviction that abortion is gravely wrong at every stage. At the very least, early abortion was seen as attacking a being with a human destiny, being prepared by God to receive an immortal soul (cf. Jeremiah 1:5: "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you").
- In the 5th century AD this rejection of abortion at every stage was affirmed by the great bishop-theologian St. Augustine. He knew of theories about the human soul not being present until some weeks into pregnancy. Because he used the Greek Septuagint translation of the Old Testament, he also thought the ancient Israelites had imposed a more severe penalty for accidentally causing a miscarriage if the fetus was "fully formed" (Exodus 21: 22-23), language not found in any known Hebrew version of this passage. But he also held that human knowledge of biology was very limited, and he wisely warned against misusing such theories to risk committing homicide. He added that God has the power to make up all human deficiencies or lack of development in the Resurrection, so we cannot assume that the earliest aborted children will be excluded from enjoying eternal life with God.
- In the 13th century, St. Thomas Aquinas made extensive use of Aristotle's thought, including his theory that the rational human soul is not present in the first few weeks of pregnancy. But he also rejected abortion as gravely wrong at every stage, observing that it is a sin "against nature" to reject God's gift of a new life.
- During these centuries, theories derived from Aristotle and others influenced the grading of penalties for abortion in Church law. Some canonical penalties were more severe for a direct abortion after the stage when the human soul was thought to be present. However, abortion at all stages continued to be seen as a grave moral evil.
- From the 13th to 19th centuries, some theologians speculated about rare and difficult cases where they thought an abortion before "formation" or "ensoulment" might be morally justified. But these theories were discussed and then always rejected, as the Church refined and reaffirmed its understanding of abortion as an intrinsically evil act that can never be morally right.
- In 1827, with the discovery of the human ovum, the mistaken biology of Aristotle was discredited. Scientists increasingly understood that the union of sperm and egg at conception produces a new living being that is distinct from both mother and father. Modern genetics demonstrated that this individual is, at the outset, distinctively human, with the inherent and active potential to mature into a human fetus, infant, child and adult. From 1869 onward the obsolete distinction between the "ensouled" and "unensouled" fetus was permanently removed from canon law on abortion.
- Secular laws against abortion were being reformed at the same time and in the same way, based on secular medical experts' realization that "no other doctrine appears to be consonant with reason or physiology but that which admits the embryo to possess vitality from the very moment of conception" (American Medical Association, Report on Criminal Abortion, 1871).
- Thus modern science has not changed the Church's constant teaching against abortion, but has underscored how important and reasonable it is, by confirming that the life of each individual of the human species begins with the earliest embryo.
- Given the scientific fact that a human life begins at conception, the only moral norm needed to understand the Church's opposition to abortion is the principle that each and every human life has inherent dignity, and thus must be treated with the respect due to a human person. This is the foundation for the Church's social doctrine, including its teachings on war, the use of capital punishment, euthanasia, health care, poverty and immigration. Conversely, to claim that some live human beings do not deserve respect or should not be treated as "persons" (based on changeable factors such as age, condition, location, or lack of mental or physical abilities) is to deny the very idea of inherent human rights. Such a claim undermines respect for the lives of many vulnerable people before and after birth.
For more information: Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration on Procured Abortion (1974), nos. 6-7; John R. Connery, S.J., Abortion: The Development of the Roman Catholic Perspective (1977); Germain Grisez, Abortion: The Myths, the Realities, and the Arguments (1970), Chapter IV; U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, On Embryonic Stem Cell Research (2008); Pope John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae (1995), nos. 61-2. | <urn:uuid:795de3e1-5c25-4e8a-8ee4-1c2f985870ca> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://old.usccb.org/prolife/constantchurchteaching.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96535 | 1,273 | 2.90625 | 3 |
Today, I had the pleasure of hosting a craft at a local marketplace. We made replicas of the London 2012 Summer Olympic Games medals.
The craft is simple but fun and a great conversation/lesson starter. The main supplies you will need are glue, purple ribbon, gold (or silver) glitter, crayons or other crafty supplies to embellish your medals, and a printer. I printed mine in black and white on a pale yellow paper. You could print on card stock to make your medals sturdier but regular weight paper worked just fine. A link to the FREE printable of the 2012 medal is included at the bottom of this post.
If you’re up for detail work, grab some white paint and add rings, London 2012, and lines like you see on the real ribbons.
We also learned some interesting facts about the Olympics and the medals.
- In ancient times, athletes were awarded olive wreaths to crown their heads instead of medals.
- The 2012 Gold Medal is made up of 92.5% SILVER and only 1.34% GOLD. The rest is COPPER.
- Despite gold making up a tiny percent of the gold medals, they are worth about $650 in precious metals due the current high price of gold.
- The front of Summer Olympic medals always show the Greek Goddess of Victory, Nike. The Host City designs the back of the medal.
- The color of the ribbon also changes. This year, the ribbons are a deep purple.
- The Summer Olympics are held every 4 years in a different city. This year the games are hosted by London, United Kingdom and in four years Rio de Janeiro, Brazil will host the 2016 games.
- An Olympiad is a period time measuring 4 years. The London 2012 Games are officially called the Games of the XXX Olympiad. XXX is the Roman numeral for 30 and we are now within the 30th Olympiad since the start of modern Olympic games.
- Modern Olympics Games were started in 1896 but the games have roots dating back to 776 B.C. That’s almost 2800 years ago! Wow!
-Summer Sports include: Aquatics, Archery, Badminton, Basketball, Boxing, Canoe/Kayaking, Cycling, Equestrian, Fencing, Football, Golf, Gymnastics, Handball, Hockey, Judo, Modern pentathlon, Rowing, Rugby, Sailing, Shooting, Table tennis, Taekwondo, Tennis, Triathlon, Volleyball, Weightlifting, Wrestling.
- WORD PLAY: Don’t meddle with an Olympic athlete’s medal which is made of precious metals for he or she has shown great mettle during the games.
-205 different countries (and a few territories) are competing in the 2012 Olympic Games.
Learn more about the many countries competing this year with highly acclaimed The Barefoot Books World Atlas by Nick Crane for children. The World Atlas was released less than a year ago and is already in it’s 4th printing due popularity.
“This fresh and informative atlas offers engaging, fact-filled overviews of Earth’s oceans and continents….With its emphasis on sustainability, interconnectedness, and diversity, the book offers young armchair travelers and globe-trotters much to discover” — Publishers Weekly
Ideas: Watch a few games and then find the winner’s home country in your Atlas and learn fun facts about the surrounding region.
Hang up the included pull-out world map next to your TV. When a game starts look for each competing country on the map. Isn’t it amazing that people who live so far apart, speak different languages, and who come from completely different backgrounds can share a common passion for their chosen sport?
You can make your own medals by downloading the FREE PRINTABLE (PDF) 2012 OLYMPIC MEDAL CRAFT here. | <urn:uuid:bd0a09a6-bd14-4138-b79f-58477a6b998f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.justchildrensbooks.com/olympic-medal-craft-info/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93274 | 821 | 2.5 | 2 |
Currently, the Shanbally plant construction is more than 60% complete and the commissioning and qualification activity is
just starting. Project team members who were formerly involved with the project design phase have transitioned to commissioning
activities. Recently hired Shanbally plant colleagues will participate in equipment commissioning activities as part of their
education and development program.
Other teams are developing plant manufacturing and quality systems in preparation for plant start up, with engineering batches
planned for 2009. There is a detailed operation readiness plan in place and we are currently 30% complete in this area. The
laboratories will come online in March 2009, and will be ready to support testing of the initial production batches.
As Shanbally's finishing touches come together and the plant nears completion, the hard work of hundreds of people, inside
and outside the company, brings Pfizer another step closer to its objective.
Desmond Fitzgerald is the project leader of the Shanbally project and Ken Bradley is the site leader at the Shanbally plant, both of Pfizer Inc, Shanbally, Ireland, +353 21 500 7947, email@example.com
1. Wagenigen University [homepage on the Internet]. Wagenigen, the Netherlands: Innovation in Biopharmaceutical Process Development
and Manufacturing; 2006 [cited 2009 Jan]. Available from: http://www.bionovations.org/. | <urn:uuid:69d5282d-1c9d-418f-b126-46e1532e824e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.biopharminternational.com/biopharm/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=585551&sk=&date=&%0A%09%09%09&pageID=5 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926399 | 294 | 1.585938 | 2 |
FIA make changes to blown diffuser rules
May 17, 2011
Posted by on
The exhaust blown diffuser has been limited by the FIA
The FIA has informed all F1 teams of changes to the technical regulations concerning blown diffusers, which will come into effect at this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix.
One of the main points of development for the teams this year has been the blown diffuser, which channels exhaust gases onto the diffuser, which initially only brought downforce benefits while the driver was on the throttle.
However, several teams, particularly Red Bull, have been believed to have exploited the blown diffuser, by allowing the system to work even while the throttle is not being used. A constant flow of gas through the exhaust system is rumoured to be the cause for this.
This is the innovation that the FIA will soon ban. They have written to all the teams, instructing them that the use of the throttle is only to increase torque, not for aerodynamic performance.
If any team is caught to evade this ruling, they will have broken Article 3.15 of the technical regulations, which bans movable aerodynamic pieces or devices.
McLaren believe that this exploitation may be the key to Red Bull’s scintillating qualifying pace, so it will be interesting to see how Vettel and Webber perform in Barcelona this weekend.
Update: The FIA has decided not to go ahead with this regulation for this weekend, after several “unforeseen and unintended consequences” were brought to their attention. However, they are planning to move ahead with the new ruling as soon as possible. | <urn:uuid:a139580f-bc46-4242-8b92-99b9927083f0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gforcef1.wordpress.com/2011/05/17/fia-make-changes-to-blown-diffuser-rules/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970765 | 335 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Toning: Great moves you can do in the pool
The wonderful thing about water is that it gives you natural resistance with absolutely no impact to the joints. There are exercises you can do for every muscle group, and your risk of injury is extremely low. Anything that you do with dumbbells can be translated into a water exercise. If you already have a routine with free weights, you have a license to create your own water move that does the same thing.
Keep your weight distributed evenly and check your posture often. Keep your abdominals tucked in to support your back throughout every exercise. Don't bend, stretch or reach any further than you do on land. It takes time to grow accustomed to the gravitational difference in water, but as your experience grows, your body will become more in-tune with the water. Here are a few examples of modified free weight exercises:
For the quadriceps (front of the thighs), hamstrings and gluts: Stand with your feet hip-width apart in shallow water with your arms bent at your sides, hands out flat with fingers together and palms up. Slowly bend your knees into a squat position, sticking your derriere out behind you. Keeping your back neutral (not arched) and abs tucked in, exhale and stand up straight.
For hips and gluts: Facing the edge of the pool, hold on with both hands and slowly bring one leg out to your side, keeping your back straight. Exhale while you bring it up as high as you comfortably can without turning at the ankle Bring it back down and repeat, doing a full set for each leg.
For gluts: The scissoring motion is great for the buttocks and hamstrings, and it indirectly tones the abdominals.
For abs, you can simulate crunches, or here's a toughie: Stand with your back to the side of the pool, holding onto the rim with your elbows. Keeping your knees unbent, slowly bring both legs up to a sitting position and hold it for ten seconds. Do not hold your breath, though. Breath slowly throughout this exercise. Then bend at the knee to bring them down, repeating this as many times as you'd like to. Be careful to keep your back straight throughout this exercise.
What do you think ?
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GPGPU start to take over the HPC sector: 5120 ATI GPUs deployed in China
11/3/2009 by: Theo Valich
During the recently held nVidia GPU Technology Conference, we spoke with a lot of supercomputer vendors and learned quite an interesting number. It turns out that roughly 90% of supercomputer orders now come with at least a single GPU order [to evaluate GPU in HPC environment]. In a lot of cases, supercomputer order would contain both ATI and nVidia GPUs for a fair evaluation.
When it came to creation of Tianhe [translated into Milky Way], this supercomputer currently carries the unofficial title of world's most powerful supercomputer. Chinese National University of Defense Technology recently unveiled first PFLOPS computer outside United States of America.
Working on a budget of 600 million RMB [Yuan], which translates to 87.88 million USD, Chinese scientists created a supercomputer consisted out of 24,576 Intel Core2-based cores [6144 Harpertown CPUs - 3072 Xeon E5540s and 3072 Xeon E5450s] and 5120 AMD RV770 GPUs [2560 ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB cards]. Together, 6144 Intel CPUs and 2560 AMD GPUs reach a theoretical speed of 1.206 PFLOPS.
This kind of performance took Chinese scientists by surprise. Zhang Yunquan, a researcher with the Institute of Software of the Chinese Academy of Sciences [CAS] was quoted: "I was shocked at the milestone breakthrough, which was beyond expectation, I previously forecast China's first petaflop computer no earlier than the end of 2010."
Unfortunately for researches involved - due to SPEC rules and regulations, GPUs aren't allowed to run Linpack [SOPEoptimized code is banned], so only CPU scores are taken into place. 24,576 Cores achieve 563.1 TFLOPS in Linpack, and that should be enough to qualify into Top10 of world's most powerful supercomputers. Top500.org will announce the new list of world's most powerful supercomputers during this month. More precisely, during Supercomputing 09 conference held in Portland, Oregon between November 14-20.
Naturally, scientists don't care about the Linpack numbers, but rather making use of both CPU and GPU for their research. According to Dr. Zhang Yulin, President of NUDT - this system will be used for designing space ships and similar aerospace vehicles such as satellites [hence the name Milky Way One], processing seismic data in relation to oil exploration and earthquake research, bio-medical analysis and many more. Naturally, the strengths of parallel approach within GPU architecture will make CFD [Computational Fluid Dynamics] and volumetric calculations [seismic research] to deliver calculations much faster than serial CPUs are capable.
The sheer size of this system is nothing short of breathtaking: 103 large racks occupy an area over 1,000m2 [10,763 sq. ft.], the whole installation is 155 tons in weight and yes, you do need a lot of electricity to power this kind of system.
Milky Way One, HPC, High Performance Computing, Top500.org, Top500, Intel, AMD, CPU, GPU, GPGPU, Xeon, Intel Xeon E5540, Roadrunner, Jaguar, DOE, Los Alamos National Laboratory, LANL, Oak Ridge, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, ORNL, Cray, Cray XT5, IBM, BlueGene, BlueGene/P
© 2009 - 2011 Bright Side Of News*, All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:4213d144-e741-4870-b44d-6bd6ec8b5e53> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.brightsideofnews.com/print/2009/11/3/gpgpu-start-to-take-over-the-hpc-sector-5600-ati-gpus-deployed-in-china.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917007 | 743 | 2.5 | 2 |
Palestinians celebrate the U.N. General Assembly votes on a resolution to upgrade the status of the Palestinian Authority to a non-member observer state. / Adel Hana, AP
President Obama and aides aren't pleased with the United Nations vote to upgrade the status of the Palestinian Authority.
The U.N. decision is "not helpful" as the United States and allies work for a two-state solution in which Israel and a new Palestinian state can co-exist side-by-side in peace, said White House spokesman Josh Earnest.
"That goal will only be achieved by face-to-face negotiations, not unilateral action," Earnest said.
The United Nations, with the United States in opposition, voted Thursday to make the Palestinian Authority a non-member observer state, setting off major celebrations in Palestinian cities.
Copyright 2013 USATODAY.com
Read the original story: White House: U.N. action on Palestinians 'not helpful' | <urn:uuid:330b3be4-8d82-4066-90e5-6b98135126ff> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ithacajournal.com/usatoday/article/1737355?odyssey=mod%257Cnewswell%257Ctext%257CLocal%2520News%257Cs | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.91658 | 200 | 2.09375 | 2 |
Benign Breast Cysts
A cyst is a fluid-filled sac. Breast cysts usually do not contain cancer cells (are benign).
Some women who have lumpy breasts also have benign breast cysts that are surrounded by fibrous tissue. Some cysts cause lumps that can be seen or felt (palpable). A cyst that can be felt may move about under the fingers. Its texture depends on where it is located and how much fluid is in it. It may feel smooth or rubbery. It may be hard or soft.
A cyst may be painful and tender or may be painless. A cyst may get smaller after a menstrual period, or it may persist and grow larger. Some cysts can only be seen on a mammogram (breast X-ray) or with ultrasound.
The exact cause of breast cysts is unknown. They may be linked to the hormones of the menstrual cycle. Breast cysts are rare in women older than 50.
eMedicineHealth Medical Reference from Healthwise
To learn more visit Healthwise.org
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Where can the supporters turn for support?
Our Ask An Angel correspondent is Arlene Petersen, Certified Senior Advisor and Life Care Navigation Specialist in the area of senior home care.
I have been caring for my husband for just a short time, and I already feel stressed. A friend suggested that I join a support group, but I don’t even know what that is. Can you point me in the right direction?
Support is so important when going through a struggle or difficult time in life. Some people are open to support groups and others are not, thinking they can handle their situation on their own. Perhaps they can, but I think of it in a slightly different way. For example, if my car has a problem, I will seek the advice of an expert mechanic to fix it. I would never consider tackling the repair on my own or giving it to an un-trusted source.
I apply that truth to other areas of my life as well. If I need help, I work with a professional to solve whatever needs to be solved. I have an attorney, an accountant, a pastor, etc. All of these people are experts in their field. This applies to support in life as well.
A caregiver support group is an excellent resource when life involves caring for a loved one. Stress is inevitable in this type of situation. You might feel overwhelmed, and when you feel that way, stress occurs. Stress can cause us to act in impatient and even un-loving ways toward those we are caring for. The common airplane instruction of “put the breathing mask on yourself first” applies here. A support group is the “breathing mask” which allows a break so that you can be re-energized and refreshed to tackle the role of caregiver.
The Mayo Clinic offers advice on the benefits of a support group:
— Feeling less lonely, isolated, or judged
— Gaining a sense of empowerment and control
— Improved coping skills and adjustment
— An opportunity to talk openly and honestly about your feelings
— Reduction in distress, depression, or anxiety
— A clearer understanding of what to expect with your situation
— Learning about new medical research
— Getting practical advice or information about treatment options
— Comparing notes about resources, such as doctors and alternative options
Plan to attend a few support group meetings to see how you feel you fit in. If the support group makes you uncomfortable or you don’t find it useful, try another one. Remember that even a support group you like can change over time as participants come and go. Periodically evaluate the support group to make sure it continues to meet your needs.
Also be aware that you may be at a different stage of coping or acceptance than are others in the support group. Or they may have a different attitude about their situation. While such a mix can provide rich experiences, it may also be unhelpful or even harmful. For instance, some in the group may be pessimistic about their future, while you’re looking for hope and optimism. Don’t feel obligated to keep attending the group if a conflict or group dynamic is upsetting — find another group or just sit out for a while.
Support group red flags
Not all support groups are a good match for you. Some may be driven by the interests of one or two members. Look for these red flags that may signal a problem with a support group:
— Promises of a sure cure for your disease or condition
— Meetings that are predominantly gripe sessions
— A group leader or member who urges to stop medical treatment
— High fees to attend the group
— Pressure to purchase products or services
— Disruptive members
— Judging your decisions or actions
Be especially careful when you’re involved in internet support groups:
— Keep in mind that online support groups are sometimes used to prey on vulnerable people.
— Be aware of the possibility that people may not be who they say they are or may be trying to market a product or treatment.
— Be careful about revealing personal information, such as your full name, address, or phone number.
— Don’t let internet use lead to isolation from your in-person social network.
Support groups can be found in your community through local resources. You can begin by asking your doctor or nurse for references. You can also contact a local church or hospital clergy for resource information. We also recommend Senior Services. Their main office number is 847-741-0404.
I realize that attending a support group can be challenging. You may be a quiet observer when you first attend a meeting. Once the meeting is over and you are in the quiet of your own home, you can digest how the group interacted. Reflect and think about how you can fit in the next time you visit the group. In time, you may feel comfortable to share. Remember, it can be a rewarding experience.
If you are a caregiver and would like a set of Caregiver Support Cards, please call me. Please note they are spiritual in nature and deliver inspirational messages that can bring refreshment to a caregiver. These cards offer one small way to received support as you provide care to your loved one. Call me at 847-429-0100 and I will make arrangements to mail you a set of these caregiver support cards.
Have a question for our angel correspondent? You can send our angel an email to firstname.lastname@example.org or send your question via mail to Ask An Angel, 65 Woodbury St., South Elgin, IL 60177. | <urn:uuid:c77c3bf4-2823-48ea-9ef3-ff2b45d2839f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mysundaynews.com/2012/07/12/finding-support-for-the-supporters/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948844 | 1,152 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Currently, a letter is circulating in Congress requesting that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) track hate crimes against Sikh, Hindu, and Arab Americans. While the FBI has various categories to track hate crimes, crimes directed at these three communities are not currently tracked and it is crucial that they are added to the tracking form in order to address this problem and keep all communities safe. It takes less than five minutes to ask your Member of Congress to sign-on to this letter.
Long before September 11, 2001, South Asians have endured bias, discrimination, and hate violence against our community. Unfortunately, following the September 11th attacks, these crimes escalated particularly against Sikh, Muslim, Arab, and South Asian Americans in many facets of life. In fact, within just one week of September 11th, South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT) identified 645 incidents of bias in these communities. On August 5, 2012, the tragic shooting at the Sikh gurdwara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin took the lives of six people and was followed by a wave of apparent hate crimes and incidents throughout the country. Sadly, these attacks continue to be an ongoing problem in our community and effectively addressing them has become increasingly difficult.
Part of the difficulty in addressing these alleged hate crimes is due to the fact that they are only partially tracked. According to the FBI, over 6,600 hate crimes were reported in 2010 alone, the majority of which were motivated by race (approximately 47%), followed by religion (approximately 20%), sexual orientation (approximately 19%), and ethnicity or national origin (approximately 13%). Hate crimes in the Muslim community are tracked by the FBI with a notable rise by 1600% from 2000 to 2001. However, hate crimes against Sikhs, Hindus, and Arabs are not similarly tracked. These categories do not exist in the FBI’s hate crime tracking form and without fully accounting for the problem, we cannot begin to fully understand or address it.
Currently, numerous organizations, including SAALT, have requested that the FBI add these categories to the tracking form so that individuals can be given the dignity of having these crimes accounted for and so that we can begin as a society to fully address them. Many organizations have submitted requests to the Advisory Policy Board (an arm of the FBI) regarding the inclusion of anti-Sikh, anti-Hindu, and anti-Arab categories in the hate crime tracking form as hate crimes in these communities are rampant. As a part of these efforts, a letter to the Advisory Policy Board is currently circulating for signatories in Congress requesting that these categories be added so that data is collected regarding hate crimes in these communities. Ask your Member of Congress to sign-on as well. | <urn:uuid:cf23a763-051c-4827-bb9d-374b16562564> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://saalt.org/urge-your-member-of-congress-to-help-track-hate-crimes-against-sikh-hindu-arab-americans/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975205 | 544 | 2.375 | 2 |
|Chronological and political information|
HK-01 was a rogue Hunter-Killer assassin droid in operation around 4,015 BBY. It was thought that, after gaining a degree of artificial intelligence, HK-01 instigated what became the Great Droid Revolution.
HK-01 began secretly reprogramming his fellow droids, aiming to liberate his automaton brethren from their sentient masters. HK-01 set the droids to rise up in revolution at his command, and across the galaxy, droids suddenly became violent and aggressive towards their owners. Once-loyal battle droids turned against their masters, and subjugated entire planets in the name of the Droid Revolution.
Despite his impressive command of his new army, HK-01 was unable to remain in control of the droids, and his orders were soon deciphered and traced by agents of the Galactic Republic. The Jedi Knights were able to locate the source of these dangerous communications, and shut HK-01 down.
In spite of the trouble HK-01 caused, Czerka Corporation was able to conceal their role in HK-01's creation, and the Hunter-Killer series continued production, evolving over time with newer and more advanced models. Some of the most infamous of HK-01's successors included HK-24, HK-47, and the plentiful HK-50 models.
- Star Wars: The Old Republic (Mentioned in Codex entry)
- The New Essential Guide to Weapons and Technology
- The New Essential Chronology
- The New Essential Guide to Droids
- The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia
- The Essential Guide to Warfare | <urn:uuid:46f31a38-55f4-4456-a84c-3e1c42391852> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/HK-01 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957311 | 332 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Left, Right and Crippled
|One thing I hate about politics is the way that so many people choose to draw a chalk line on the floor between themselves and their opponents and say, “You and I cannot agree.”|
Ideas around Left and Right Wing politics represent one area that this happens. Left and Right in politics has meant different things at different times since the origin of the terms in revolutinonary France. But by the twenty-first century, in British politics, the Left and Right of politics had come to represent the inevitable conflict between two interests, both of which must be accommodated to run any sort of democracy. In absolutely basic economic terms, these interests might be labelled the interests of the collective (Left) and the interests peculiar to the individual (Right). The individual may be any political or economic entity; a person, a household, a business or even an entire country.
Both of these interests are important. Again, in very simplistic terms, ignore one interest and you’re left with something like Feudalism, ignore the other and you’re left with Communism. Most people (now) acknowledge that neither of these systems hold much benefit for either the collective or the individual. So we need to be somewhere round about the middle and there is always going to be some debate about exactly where along the spectrum our priorities must be; more with the collective good or more with the individual.
This is not a relativist argument. There must be some optimum point of balance, but it is likely to shift about a fair amount with a changing world and has to be constantly revised. Thus democracy. A rather crucial premise of democracy is that the best way of doing things will change in time.
The wonderful (terrible) thing about the current UK New Labour government is that people hate it for being too Left Wing or too Right Wing depending on their own political viewpoint; New Labour are left-wing bastards and also right-wing bastards; which is a neat trick. However, this particular government has done something a little different from previous ones, working on the basic principle of whatever sells, rejecting this old-fashioned model. This makes New Labour arguably less hypocritical than previous governments because they lack any principles which can be betrayed.
Anyway, there are some things that Left and Right do not mean – at least not in British politics up until now. It is, for example, perfectly possible to be a Right-Wing liberal or a Left-Wing authoritarian. There is no magic correlation between religiosity and Right-Wing politics, or environmentalism and Left-Wing politics and so on.
And the point I am concerned with today is the fact that egalitarianism can be compatible with both Left and Right. It really frustrates me when people on the Left make Right Wing synonymous with oppression, and when those on the Right assume that equality is none of their business.
I do not merely believe in equality because I think it is a nice idea, but because I think it is the best way of going about things, which benefits everybody. And there are two quite different ways in which this is the case. I'll use the example of disabled people, although similar goes for other disadvantaged groups:
As an individual, I want to get as much out of life as possible. I want as much freedom as possible, to do what I like with my life and to contribute to the society in which I live.And there are two different perspectives in opposition to this:
As an individual, I want the freedom to do what I like with my money and resources; I do not wish to use them to support other people, I do not wish to be told who to employ or how to run my business. If I have unfair advantages over other people, then so be it; I enjoy these advantages and do not wish to give them up.You may notice that it was basically Left-Wing language that was used to support the T4 program; these people are too much of a strain on the collective. This despite the fact that within the history of British politics at least, it is generally Left-Wing administrations who have made the bolder steps towards disability equality (as well as sexual and racial equality).
This is because it is usually those on the Right who are concerned about the amount of tax paid by individuals, and perhaps most importantly, the amount of legislation and financial obligations forced on individual businesses and organisations. It can be costly, in the short-term, to make the necessarily changes, and these costs are felt far greater by individual entities than the collective as a whole.
A Right Wing Egalitarian is far more likely to attempt to empower the individuals who are experiencing disadvantage; through education, training, access to equipment, increased personal freedom (e.g. more flexible benefit rules) etc.. Which would be nice, but would be likely to have very limited results if businesses and organisations were not also obliged to change.
However, the fact is that from whatever political perspective, the more unequal our treatment, the more burdensome we are on both individual interests and the collective. And everyone loses out.
Please note I have only capitalised Left and Right in order to make it clear I mean Left and Right in that way. I don't know whether that is grammatically correct. | <urn:uuid:1bcfb299-a622-44fe-a59b-c2b5d5a326b0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blobolobolob.blogspot.com/2007/03/left-right-and-crippled.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967523 | 1,084 | 1.507813 | 2 |
- Riccardo Tisci and Carine Roitfeld Collaborate on Givenchy Campaign
- Suzy Menkes Takes on New Role
- Edward Felsenthal Helming Relaunch of Time.com
FOR THE RECORD: Hugo Boss has financed the research and printing of a new study “Hugo Boss. 1924-1945. The History of a Clothing Factory During the Weimar Republic and Third Reich,” by Roman Köster, which will be released in German by C.H. Beck today. Over the years, the Metzingen-based Boss has periodically been confronted with allegations and rumors suggesting its founder designed the Nazi uniform or was Hitler’s personal tailor.
“We don’t want and have never wanted to hide anything, but rather want to bring clarity to the past. It’s our responsibility to the company, our employees, our customers and everyone interested in Hugo Boss and its history,” stated Philipp Wolff, senior vice president of communications.
The 104-page book took Köster, a professor at The University of the German Armed Forces in Munich, three years to write. It contains information already made public, but the company felt it was important for an independent source like Köster to further investigate the company history in a historic context. Boss emphasized it “was not involved in the research or writing and that no influence whatsoever was brought to bear concerning the study’s form or content.”
Key facts: Hugo Ferdinand Boss established his clothing factory in 1924, employing 20 to 30 seamstresses. The company was near bankruptcy in 1931, the same year Boss joined the Nazi party, and it subsequently received orders for uniforms. During World War II, the company primarily produced uniforms for the German armed forces and the Waffen SS. Boss, however, was one of more than 15,000 German factories producing uniforms during that period, and Köster writes, “There is no indication that the Hugo Boss company played any kind of leading role in [the uniform production] sector. Nor do the available sources indicate in any way that it was involved in designing uniforms.”
During the war, Hugo Boss also employed 140 forced laborers, mostly women, as well as 40 French prisoners of war from 1940 to 1941. Regarding treatment of those workers, there is some evidence that Boss himself tried to alleviate conditions, but Köster notes that while Boss was likely not personally involved in intimidation of the workers, “he took no action to stop [it] either.”
This is the second report commissioned by Boss on the company’s wartime history. The first, written in the late Nineties by the Munster academic Elisabeth Timm, was never published in book form, but was available over the Internet and public archives. That work had been prompted by reports of a Hugo Boss Swiss bank account, which turned out to have never been activated. At the time, Boss published a two-page release based on Timm’s findings, and contributed to the international fund set up to compensate former forced laborers. | <urn:uuid:cbae0d0b-74fe-4ec6-9784-9bc48e026dbc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wwd.com/media-news/fashion-memopad/for-the-record-5204423?navSection=issues | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97315 | 637 | 2.265625 | 2 |
In the course of preparing for their Greek finals I have received a number of wonderful questions from students about this or that passage of Scripture. And since Nick Batzig has been hounding me for over a year to include some kind of Greek exegetical comment on my blog, I thought it might be appropriate to share one with you, though it is a significant departure from my usual posts (I really try to steer clear of theological stuff here).
The question revolves around translating 1 Cor 15:26:
ἔσχατος ἐχθρὸς καταργεῖται ὁ θάνατος
Don’t let the brevity fool you. I found it very difficult to bring out the force of this in sensible English. The Greek syntax actually made me teer up a little. Here are some considerations.
- The position of ὁ θάνατος makes it difficult to bring out the “surprise” of the passage. It is appositional with ἔσχατος ἐχθρὸς: “the last enemy… namely, death.” Translating as appositional in English seems overly formal to me, though. Paul makes his point with a bit of rhetorical flair, a flair that is removed in the “literal” English.
- The verb καταργεῖται is both passive and progressive. The combination makes translation difficult, but the big problem is the force of the progressive. Most English versions regard it as futuristic, which would indicate the surety of the outcome described. I think it better to regard it as having a durative or tendential force.
- Futuristic idea: either “the last enemy to be destroyed” (most translations) or “the last enemy that will surely be destroyed is death” (focuses on the surety of a future outcome). This is possible, but it is not the best explanation. Remember we are driving to a main point in all this discussion of resurrection: the (present!) stinglessness of death (1 Cor 15:55-6).
- Tendential idea: “the last enemy is being destroyed” (that is, Christ is currently in the business now of destroying this enemy). This is my preference. See Thiselton’s 1 Cor commentary, p1234. The difficulty here is the passive. It’s really difficult to get (1) the tendential idea, (2) the passive idea, and (3) the pithiness all in one go.
- Durative idea: “the last enemy has begun to be destroyed” (that is, Christ began destroying this enemy in the past and continues to do so. This is possible, but durative progressives are usually associated with a temporal adverbial clause, which we don’t have here.
- Paul is all over the temporal and aspectual map in this section (1 Cor 15:23-28); progressives are bracketed by Aorists, which in turn are bracketed by progressives again. The whole constitutes a redemptive-historical description of the resurrection. We start with the broadest eschatological orientation: ἀπαρχὴ Χριστός, ἔπειτα οἱ τοῦ Χριστοῦ (15:23). One resurrection harvest in two parts (see Gaffin). So Christ’s resurrection starts the process, and the whole thing will be completed when his many sons (Genitive of relationship) will be raised ἐν τῇ παρουσίᾳ αὐτοῦ (temporal prepositional phrase (“when”) with a subject Genitive (“when he comes”). Within these two bookends we have a whole slew of activity, described with whole slew of progressives and Aorists and related temporal conjunctions, all of which is then described under the umbrella of Jesus’ βασιλείν. Sorting when each activity occurs can be difficult, and goes beyond the abilities of what started out as a simple post.
So the question is: can we bring all this content out with the same economy and forcefulness of Paul’s original? Here are my attempts at a translation.
Respecting the passive, though adding an adverb to bring out the tendential/durative force:
“Death, the last enemy, is already being destroyed.”
Or, avoiding the passive for the sake of clarity (our little girl has made me appreciate the NLT more than I had in the past):
“Christ is already destroying death, the very last enemy.”
“Christ has already begun to destroy the last enemy, death.”
All of these are significant syntactic departures from the original, though.
In any case, here is my (loose, preliminary) translation of the entire passage, 1 Cor 15:22-27a:
ὥσπερ γὰρ ἐν τῷ Ἀδὰμ πάντες ἀποθνῄσκουσιν, οὕτως καὶ ἐν τῷ Χριστῷ πάντες ζῳοποιηθήσονται. Ἕκαστος δὲ ἐν τῷ ἰδίῳ τάγματι· ἀπαρχὴ Χριστός, ἔπειτα οἱ τοῦ Χριστοῦ ἐν τῇ παρουσίᾳ αὐτοῦ, εἶτα τὸ τέλος, ὅταν παραδιδῷ τὴν βασιλείαν τῷ θεῷ καὶ πατρί, ὅταν καταργήσῃ πᾶσαν ἀρχὴν καὶ πᾶσαν ἐξουσίαν καὶ δύναμιν. δεῖ γὰρ αὐτὸν βασιλεύειν ἄχρι οὗ θῇ πάντας τοὺς ἐχθροὺς ὑπὸ τοὺς πόδας αὐτοῦ. ἔσχατος ἐχθρὸς καταργεῖται ὁ θάνατος· πάντα γὰρ ὑπέταξεν ὑπὸ τοὺς πόδας αὐτοῦ.
For just as all die in Adam, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in its own proper order. Christ as firstfruits, then those who are sons and daughters of Christ when he comes, then the end, when he will hand over the kingdom to His God and Father, after he has destroyed ever authority and power. For it is necessary for him to continue to rule until every enemy has been placed under his feet. The Last Enemy, Death, is already being destroyed, for all things have been placed under his feet.
What do y’all think?
Oh, and I have found Thiselton’s commentary on 1 Corinthians to be a very helpful handling of the Greek text. He consistently appeals to Paul’s overarching theology in its eschatological/redemptive-historical emphasis. | <urn:uuid:7feee155-efa3-4a33-80c9-b39c3c23840d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nerdlets.org/tag/exegesis/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924138 | 1,873 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Student Ethics Essay Award
Submissions are now being accepted for the 2013 Student Ethics Essay Award (SEEA). Authors of winning essays and their Chapter Advisors/Regional Councilors will be notified in June 2013.
The Student Ethics Essay Award program is conducted as part of ASHA's efforts to enhance ethics education activities, and is designed to provide opportunities for NSSLHA members who are undergraduate or graduate students in communication sciences and disorders (CSD) to think about ethical decision making as they prepare to start careers in audiology, speech-language pathology, or speech, language, and hearing sciences. The goal of the SEEA is to create greater awareness of situations individuals in CSD careers may encounter that could pose ethical dilemmas and options for addressing these dilemmas.
Participating students write an essay on the selected ethics topic and submit it to their NSSLHA Chapter Advisor for initial review; NSSLHA members who are not affiliated with a specific NSSLHA chapter submit their entries to their Regional Councilors. Each NSSLHA chapter/Regional Councilor may select up to five student essays for submission to ASHA for the final review and selection process. Members of ASHA's Board of Ethics review the essays and select three winning authors who receive
- one student registration to ASHA Annual Convention (first place winner only)
- monetary prizes ($750, $500, and $250 for first, second, and third place respectively)
- certificates of achievement
- invitations to the NSSLHA Luncheon and Awards Ceremony during the ASHA Annual Convention in November
Winners and their essays are recognized
- on the ASHA website
- on the NSSLHA website
- at the NSSLHA Luncheon and Awards Ceremony
- in The ASHA Leader
See Student Ethics Essay Award recipients to view previous winners and read their winning essays.
Award Eligibility | 2013 Essay Topic | Essay Requirements
Essay Evaluation Criteria | Essay Resources
Submission Instructions for Students | Submission Instructions for Advisors | Submission Deadlines
- Individuals must be a member of a local NSSLHA chapter or the national NSSLHA organization. (Note: Only NSSLHA chapters in good standing with the Association are eligible to submit a member student's essay. NSSLHA chapters may recertify online with the national office.)
- Individuals must be enrolled part time or full time during the 2012–2013 academic year in an undergraduate or graduate-level CSD program.
- Graduate students must be enrolled in a program currently accredited, or in Candidacy status, by the Council on Academic Accreditation in Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology (CAA).
2013 Student Ethics Essay
Drawing upon ASHA's Code of Ethics, relevant Issues in Ethics statements, and other resources, students will write an essay on the topic of workplace dilemmas:
Persons in our profession are as likely as anyone else to experience workplace dilemmas that might compromise their professional ethics. The term workplace dilemma may apply in situations where power abuse between employer and employee exists when the employee is asked by the employer to perform tasks beyond his or her educational training and experience, or when the workload expectation cannot be completed within the contract day. It may also include a situation when the employee is asked by the employer to complete documentation that he or she knows is inappropriate. Students are asked to write an essay in which they consider the ethical issues raised by the problem of workplace dilemmas.
- Essay Format
- 1,200 words or less, excluding title and any references (essays exceeding the 1,200-word limit will be disqualified)
- Standard format, including title, introduction, body, and summary/conclusion
- Microsoft Word, 12-point font, double-spaced, on 8½" x 11" white paper
- Numbered pages
- The SEEA Application Form [PDF] must be completed and signed by the student and NSSLHA Chapter Advisor/Regional Councilor and attached to the essay.
- The student's name and other identifying information should appear only on the SEEA Application Form, not on the essay itself, in order to ensure objectivity in the review process; however, the student's name or initials may be used in the file name for the e-mailed version. Once received, the essay will be assigned a number to retain anonymity before being submitted to the review panel.
- Entries must be original work, unpublished, not under consideration for publication elsewhere, and must be submitted by an undergraduate or graduate student currently enrolled in a CSD program. Graduate students must be enrolled in a CAA-accredited (or in Candidacy status) graduate CSD program.
- Individuals may not submit more than one essay. Submissions of entries authored by multiple individuals will not be considered.
Essay Evaluation Criteria
NSSLHA Chapter Advisors and Regional Councilors may use any criteria and means they choose for evaluating essays. Possible evaluation criteria include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Has the writer followed the essay format and submission requirements described above?
- Has the writer approached the essay topic in a fresh, rich, and illuminating way, avoiding moral platitudes and oversimplification?
- Has the writer demonstrated familiarity with the ASHA Code of Ethics (2010), relevant Issues in Ethics statements, and other ethics-related resources?
- Does the writer make a contribution to ethical deliberation and discernment that is mature, insightful, and likely to be both helpful and interesting to members of NSSLHA and ASHA?
- Has the writer presented his/her position in a clear, logical manner that facilitates understanding of the writer's line of reasoning?
- Has the writer supported his/her arguments with factors that are ethically relevant and avoid preoccupation with matters that have little logical relevance to the writer's thesis?
- Is the writer's analysis comprehensive, objective, balanced, and thorough?
- Is the essay free of grammatical, typographical, and punctuation errors?
Submission Instructions/Checklist for Students
- Ensure that you and your essay meet the eligibility and format requirements.
- Print, complete, and sign the student section of the SEEA Application Form [PDF].
- Print and submit your essay, along with your SEEA application form, to your NSSLHA Chapter Advisor or Regional Councilor by 5:00 p.m. on Friday, April 12, 2013. (Essays/applications submitted directly to ASHA by students will not be accepted.)
- E-mail your essay as a Microsoft Word document attachment to your NSSLHA Chapter Advisor or Regional Councilor by 5:00 p.m. on Friday, April 12, 2013.
Submission Instructions/Checklist for NSSLHA Chapter Advisors and Regional Councilors
- Confirm that students submitting essays meet the eligibility requirements and that students have completed the student section of the application form.
- Review the essays submitted by eligible students and select up to five essays to be submitted to ASHA.
- Complete and sign the NSSLHA Chapter Advisor/Regional Councilor section of the application form(s).
- Mail the completed and signed application form(s), attached to the print version of the essay(s), and postmarked by 11:59 p.m. on April 19, 2013, to:
Ethics Program Manager
American Speech-Language-Hearing Association
2200 Research Boulevard, #309
Rockville, MD 20850
- E-mail the essay(s) a Microsoft Word document attachment(s) to ASHA's Ethics Program Manager at email@example.com by 11:59 p.m. on April 19, 2013. Your message should include the name of the NSSLHA chapter submitting the essay(s) and the total number of essays being submitted.
- Student Deadline: 5:00 p.m. on April 12, 2013
- NSSLHA Chapter Advisor/Regional Councilor Deadline: 11:59 p.m. on April 19, 2013
For questions on the SEEA or the submission process:
Lorraine Lennon, ethics program manager
firstname.lastname@example.org and email@example.com
For more information on or to join NSSLHA:
ASHA Action Center 800-498-2071 or visit the NSSLHA website. | <urn:uuid:fae298bb-b1a6-4a93-89e8-d43c210a6c8d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.asha.org/Practice/ethics/essay_award/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922061 | 1,737 | 1.515625 | 2 |
International and out-of-state companies focused on clean energy are investing heavily in the Albany, New York, area, fueling a sector that has attracted more than $400 million.
Companies from Spain, Belgium, and Scotland have announced plans over the past two weeks to expand their presence in New York State's capital region by investing in research, manufacturing, engineering, and sales staffs.
“We weren’t aware of what was here five years ago when we identified nanotechnology as a growth area that could help many of our products,” said Gautam Thapar, chairman and CEO of Avantha Group, the India-based parent company of CG Power.
CG Power designs, markets, and manufactures products and offers services related to power transmission and generation. Avantha, with $4 billion in annual revenue, owns companies in the paper and pulp, food processing, farm forestry, and chemical industries. Nanotechnology could make his businesses more efficient and more competitive, Thapar said.
Universities around the region have spurred interest in the area, said Francis Murray, president of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority.
UAlbany’s NanoTech center has become a research and training hub for the East, joining Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, one of the top engineering schools, he said.
Community colleges also have responded to a growing demand for workers by training students to install solar panels and work in other energy fields, including semiconductors and wind power.
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Sign up for the latest business news, opinion and analysis from Upstart and get the best the site has to offer each week day. | <urn:uuid:6f7b67fb-f6bf-4cc0-8987-85c4bbd4515a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://upstart.bizjournals.com/news/wire/2010/07/03/international-firms-bet-big-on-new-york-energy-market.html | 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 | 0.95978 | 391 | 1.601563 | 2 |
torch lily is an attractive plant with erect, grey-green, deeply
keeled leaves, forming large clumps with attractive white to greenish
white or greenish yellow flowers borne on tall stalks in spring.
This is a robust plant with 8-12 strap-shaped leaves, 500-1 200
x 15-35 mm. The flower stalk (peduncle) can grow up to 1.8 m tall
and is topped by a very dense, cylindrical inflorescence which tapers
towards the tip. It comprises many tubular, greenish white to cream-coloured
flowers which open from slightly red-tinged buds in spring (October).
In the subspecies autumnalis the flowers are yellower and
brighter and occur in autumn..
The torch lily occurs mainly in grassland along streams. It prefers
heavy clay soils that are inundated with water during the warm summer
months. It occurs naturally in the interior of South Africa, west
of the Drakensberg escarpment in the far eastern parts of the Northern
Cape, Free State, northern Eastern Cape and is widespread in the
high-lying parts of the northern provinces of Gauteng, North-West,
Limpopo and Mpumalanga.
Kniphofia is named in honour of J.H. Kniphof (1704-1763)
who was a professor of medicine at Erfurt University in Germany.
The name ensifolia is derived from Latin, meaning sword-shaped,
in reference to the shape of the leaves.
There are two subspecies: subsp. ensifolia which is widespread
and is described above, and subsp. autumnalis which occurs
in the Harrismith District of Free State and bears flowers with
a yellowish tinge in autumn (February-March).
Kniphofia ensifolia belongs to a large genus of some 70
species, many of which are attractive garden subjects. The flowers
vary from white through yellow to deep orange and even almost black
in the case of K. typhoides.
The range of size and leaf character is remarkable, from tiny plants
of not much more than 300 mm to giant species like K. multiflora,
which can produce flower spikes of over three metres in height and
recurving leaves of the same length.
Kniphofia ensifolia is found growing naturally along watercourses
usually in marshy soil where water is abundant, it enjoys wet feet,
although in cultivation it can be grown in normal garden soil if
enough water is provided. It is also adapted to being burnt in veld
fires in its natural habitat. It survives by storing water in its
thick roots and retaining the following season's buds below ground
where they are not damaged.
The flowers are rich in sweet nectar which is relished by nectiferous
birds especially sunbirds. Insects are also attracted by the nectar
and they in turn attract insectivorous birds to the garden.
Although there seems to be no direct reference to the use of this
species in traditional medicine or folklore, there are a few other
members of the group, which are indeed listed as being used as snake
deterrents as well as use of the roots for relieving chest complaints.
Other species are also listed as being used by the Xhosa women for
bringing good luck to their children.
Growing Kniphofia ensifolia
This is a an old garden plant. Taylor (1985) writes
that Francis Masson introduced it to gardens before 1786.
The torch lily is a useful garden and landscape plant for many
applications as it is deciduous, becoming totally leafless during
the dry winter months, providing an opportunity to plant winter-flowering
annuals in the same area. It has attractively architectural foliage
which provides a backdrop for softer-textured perennial planting
in the foreground. The attractive, nectar-rich, spring flowers also
draw birds to the garden. Coming from high altitudes and being dormant
in winter makes it suitable for colder gardens.
Kniphofia ensifolia is easily propagated from fresh seed
sown in spring in seed trays or frames. The seed should be lightly
covered and kept moist. The seed usually germinates within 3-6 weeks
and should be left until they are approximately 50 mm high before
pricking them out into deeper trays or cold frames where they can
be grown until they are large enough to be planted into individual
containers and ultimately into the garden.
Mature plants may also be divided into several smaller clumps,
this is best done at the end of winter before the onset of the growing
- Arnold, T.H. & De Wet, B.C. (eds). 1993. Plants of southern
Africa: names and distribution. Memoirs of the Botanical Survey
of South Africa No. 62. National Botanical Institute, Pretoria.
- Codd, L.E. 1968. The South African species of Kniphofia. Bothalia
- Fabian, A. & Germishuizen, G. 1982. Transvaal wild flowers.
- Fabian, A. & Germishuizen, G. 1997. Wildflowers of northern
South Africa. Fernwood Press, Cape Town.
- Hutchings, A. et al. 1996. Zulu medicinal plants. An inventory.
University of Natal Press, Pietermaritzburg.
- Pooley, E. 1998. A field guide to wild flowers of KwaZulu-Natal
and the eastern region. Natal Flora Publications Trust, Durban.
- Taylor, J. 1985. Kniphofia - survey. The Plantsman 7:128-160
Walter Sisulu National Botanical Garden.
With additions by Yvonne Reynolds | <urn:uuid:ca40582f-cfa8-4a51-b7ec-ccf44f04c6f4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.plantzafrica.com/plantklm/kniphofensi.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922945 | 1,253 | 3.1875 | 3 |
The Japanese game of Go has fascinated me for many and I have included it in a scene in the novel I’m writing. In the scene, set in May 1917, the main point of view character Lieutenant ”Wilkins” has been granted passage on the Japanese battle Cruiser Kasagi from Cape Town to England. On the ship he meets the ethnologist Yanagita and they begin a life long friendship.
It was after midnight and only a minimal crew were on duty. Wilkins stepped through the hatch leading out onto the deck and inhaled, through his nose, the crisp air into his lungs. He held this breath, for a several long seconds before exhaling audibly and headed forward along the starboard deck.
The stars shone as brilliant pin points in the dark sky—perfect for navigation; clear skies and negligible swell would make taking readings from the sextant child’s play. The only sound was the quiet whirl of a breeze in his ears and an intermittent clicking sound coming from up forward.
Wilkins had always enjoyed walking, particularly early in the morning and again late at night just before sleep. Since his bout of influenza he had not returned to the habit. Maybe this was why he felt so constrained. The ship was just coasting along as if the world were not at war.
He maintained a solid pace around the perimeter of the ship. His body had grown accustomed to his enforced docility and soon his shins ached with every long stride. He had made about three circumnavigations of the ship before he heard a familiar voice call out.
‘Wilkins-san, please come and join us,’ called Yanagita from the shadows of the guns on the foredeck.
Yanagita sat cross-legged on a thick cushion, and opposite him was a grey haired man. Between them, in the moonlight, was a low wooden table—about knee height. Their eyes were bright and smiles wide.
‘Come sit with us a while,’ Yanagita said, raising his arm to welcome Wilkins to their table.
Despite the cool air, both the Japanese men were naked to the waist. Wilkins stood for a moment.
‘I’m sorry Yanagita-san, I’ve disturbed you both,’ he said and nodded to the older man.
‘No, do not worry, please, let me introduce Kawabata-san, ni go-shokai shimasu,’ Yanagita said nodding towards the grey haired man.
Wilkins put out his hand.
‘Good evening Kawabata-san, komban wa,’ he said and glanced to Yanagita to check his pronunciation.
Kawabata looked to be in his late fifties. His grey hair was cropped short and rough. He reminded Wilkins of the veteran sailors he had met in northern Canada and the Arctic.
Kawabata nodded his dark tanned head and motioned for Wilkins to join them.
‘Dozo,’ he said.
‘Thank-you, arigato,’ Wilkins said realising that Kawabata may not speak English.
He lowered himself to the ground and sat between them at the small low table.
‘Wilkins-san, you have walked passed us several times. You are, in a hurry, to get to this war?
‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘it’s a dire time for the Empire and our Allies.’
‘All the more reason to use this respite to recover your strength properly.’
‘I know,’ Wilkins sighed, ‘but I need to play my part.’
Wilkins was aware of Kawabata watching him. Did the old man understand?
Yanagita continued, ‘We all have a part to play but it is rarely what we expect.’ He paused and then gestured at the table. ‘This is Go.’
The table top looked to be one solid piece of wood about ten inches thick, and it had a square grid of lines etched upon it in black. Many small black and white stones had been placed haphazardly across the table, but always at the intersections of the gridded lines.
‘A cousin to the game of Chess,’ Yanagita continued.
‘Yes, checkers, Chinese Checkers I think we call it.’
‘Ah no, Wilkins-san, not Chinese Checkers, this is Go. It is a game of strategy, some say, invented by the Chinese Emperor Shun almost forty-one centuries ago. But I think an Emperor would have too many things on his mind to invent such a game.’
Wilkins’ travels had given him the opportunity to discover the customs of many indigenous peoples and he had learnt many Inuit games; becoming adept at seal fin puzzles.
‘What are the rules Yanagita-san, can you teach me to play?’
‘Samimasen, I am sorry Wilkins-san, not tonight. But you are most welcome to watch. You see Kawabata and I have a wager on this particular game.’
He picked up a black stone from the wooden bowl on the table closest to him and placed it with a click at the intersection of two lines in the grid.
Over a hundred of the black and white stones already lay on the board. Looking closer Wilkins began to see patterns in their placement; less like chess—where the pieces represented men on a battlefield—and more like the cities and borders of a continent, where areas of the board were encompassed by either black or white stones.
‘Who is winning,’ Wilkins asked without looking up at either of the Japanese men.
‘I am ahead by two,’ Yanagita said, ‘but it is not so simple. You see this is part of a long standing argument between us. We are re-enacting a game played over ninety years ago on the 19th of July, 1836, between Go Masters Yasui Shintetsu and Mizutani Takuma. Kawabata-san believes that Yasui made an error early in the game that eventually cost him the match. And so we test this theory.’
‘So you just take over from that point, to see who is right?’ Wilkins asked.
‘In a way yes,’ Yanagita explained, ‘but we must keep to the original strategies they used in that game.’
Kawabata then bowed to Yanagita and placed his white stone on a different section of the board. They then placed several more stones in quick succession without seeming to watch each other’s movements.
A doorway opened behind Kawabata and a swath of light flooded the deck. A young Japanese Ensign carried an exquisite wooden box toward them.
Kawabata jumped to his feet and looked up and down the ship.
‘Iie,’ he whispered, trying to take the box from the young man.
‘Dozo, dozo,’ the young man responded, turning his body to ensure Kawabata could not wrest the box from his grasp.
He bowed once, and then again, even deeper, until Kawabata returned his seat. He placed the box on the deck between Wilkins and Kawabata, nodding to Wilkins and then looking to Yanagita for reassurance. He opened the double sided top of the box to reveal a small kit stove.
‘Would you like some tea, Wilkins-san,’ Yanagita said.
Wilkins nodded to Yanagita and again to the young man, who responded with a cheerful grin. Wilkins now noticed the young man’s swollen jaw and several bruises on one side of his face.
‘Arigato, Takeshi-san,’ Yanagita said bowing to the young man.’
The game of Go resumed as the young man built a small fire with kindling wood and heated some water in a blackened steel kettle.
‘Takeshi-san,’ Yanagita said, ‘is one of Lieutenant Obata’s men, as is Seaman Kawabata. Kawabata was Takeshi-san’s Kenjitsu Sensei when he was a young boy.’
The game progressed and Wilkins began to comprehend some of the strategy. The object was to secure sections of the board for your colour. But unlike chess, once the pieces were placed on the board, they were not moved again; unless they were surrounded by an opponent’s stones, and then they were removed and placed alongside the playing area.
‘Was this a famous game?’ Wilkins asked.
Steam rose from the kettle and Takeshi took it from the stove and placed it on a small cloth he had laid out upon the deck.
‘Yes,’ Yanagita replied his speech slowing as Kawabata placed one of his gleaming white stones on the board.
Kawabata looked up to Yanagita with a rye smile.
‘Yes Wilkins-san, it was a famous game. Not one practiced by beginners, but famous.’ He fell silent for a moment. ‘Kawabata-san has provided me a great lesson tonight,’ he said bowing low. ‘And well timed,’ he said receiving his tea from the young Takeshi.
In this low light the bright green powdered tea had a pleasant contrast to the pale interior of the old tea cups. They looked like they had been bouncing around in Kawabata’s kit bag for decades. The cracks, chips and heavy stains on them gave tribute, like proud medals of honour, to their passage through time. The tea was tepid and very bitter. When Takeshi had served all three men, he put out the fire and packed up the stove, bowing to each of them; last of all to Kawabata who squirmed in his seat, and again looked about nervously. Yanagita and Kawabata continued to place stones on the board but now with little concentration.
‘So Kawabata has won the game?’ Wilkins asked.
‘Yes, he will win,’ Yanagita replied.
‘So he has the advantage and you are just playing it out.’
‘Iie, no Wilkins-san. I am still ahead but Kawabata has found suki—an opening—in the strategy played by Master Mizutani and will eventually win.’
He smiled towards at Kawabata.
‘We will try again another time, though, I am not convinced that Master Mizutani would have left this suki. Tonight it is my own skill that has been found wanting.’
G is for the strategic game of “Go” | <urn:uuid:55985084-e5a8-40ec-b03f-f36f7291a85d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://afetteredmind.com/2012/04/07/the-strategic-game-of-go/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976821 | 2,341 | 1.546875 | 2 |
should always include environmental treatment in addition to treating your pet. Learn what you can do to minimize the exposure and spread of common outdoor pests.
While most pet owners are diligent about flea and tick control on their pets, many overlook the importance of environmental pest control. An effective pest control program
Know your risks
Inspect your pet before coming inside. Designate a flea and tick inspection area. A brightly lit mudroom or garage, preferably an area removed from the main entrance or living area, is a great place to inspect your pet after spending time outdoors. A little extra time checking for fleas and ticks can be the difference between a comfortable home and a miserable flea infestation.
The three most common pet pests are fleas, ticks, and mosquitoes. While there are more types of pet pests, these three are notable because they can also transmit diseases to humans. Fleas are well-known vectors for a variety of diseases. However, in recent years, diseases transmitted by ticks and mosquitoes have received more attention. Once regional concerns, occurrences of mosquito-transmitted West Nile Virus and heartworm disease, as well as tick-transmitted Lyme Disease are being reported across the nation.
Reduce areas that harbor pet pests
The good news is there are lots of fast and easy ways to protect you and your pet. Environmental conditions favorable for fleas are moisture, warmth, shade, and ample organic debris. In other words,
doghouses and other areas where pets spend most of their time outdoors. Ticks can be found waiting for their next host in leaf litter, brush, and tall grass. Mosquitoes are found in greatest concentrations near their breeding grounds (pools of stagnant water and essentially any body of standing water). The first step to environmental pest control is to reduce these conditions.
Rake away organic debris such as loose pet hair, leaves, straw, and grass clippings to disrupt flea habitat. Keep areas around
kennels tidy and free of tall grass and brush. Doing so creates a buffer zone that makes it more difficult for ticks to come in contact with your dog. Inspect your property for discarded, watertight containers such as bottles, cans, or garbage bins where mosquitoes may breed in standing water.
If you haven't done so already, use appropriate preventives to protect your pet.
Bio Spot® Defense Spot On® is an easy-to-apply topical that controls adult and juvenile forms of fleas, as well as ticks and mosquitoes. Once your dog is protected, you can increase the level of protection by treating your yard where infested animals may travel and expose your pet to fleas and ticks.
For an existing inside infestation check out the
Bio Spot® Home Protection.
Combine pet protection with environmental treatment to help ensure an effective pest control program that offers peace of mind throughout the summer. | <urn:uuid:af369ebc-ae68-4c7e-aad6-9dd140571b56> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.drsfostersmith.com/PIC/Article.cfm?d=155&category=175&articleid=1896 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941532 | 584 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Mozilla said it is working on a vulnerability that affects the most recent release of its Firefox browser.
While it is working on a fix, Mozilla has removed the download of Firefox 16 and replaced it with Firefox 15.0.1, which is not affected by the issue. Users who already upgraded to version 16 are recommended to downgrade back to version 15.
According to Mozilla, the confirmed vulnerability "could allow a malicious site to potentially determine which websites users have visited and have access to the URL or URL parameters." Mozilla said it is not aware of any public exploits at this time.
Users who do not want to downgrade to version 15, "can wait until [Mozilla's] patches are issued and automatically applied to address the vulnerability," wrote Mozilla's Michael Coates in a blog post. Of course, that would also mean that the security issue will persist until the fix is available.
[UPDATE] Panic over, everyone. Reader Ira Milner tells us that Firefox 16.01 is now available for download. You can grab it here. | <urn:uuid:f06e752a-391c-4f4f-9cbd-35e019cd2c67> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tomshardware.com/news/firefox-16-security-downgrade-vulnerability,18343.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95234 | 215 | 1.617188 | 2 |
The Ficus bonsai
This tree has a lots of sorts and varietes. There are about 1000 - 2000 known species of the ficus tree around the world. We will publish a detailed article on this bonsai soon.
Light: It is recommended to keep it at bright and shiny places. Avoid direct midday sun using drapery or other protection. During summer, it is very good to put them outside once the temperature has exceeded 15°C.
Temperature and exposure
Keep at 15°C and higher temperatures.
Pruning and forming
You can form it with wire. However, use wire for short periods only. Let them grow continuously during the first year. Start forming ficus during the second year of it's age. Prune new sprouts and divide one into two smaller.
Soil and replanting
Planting a tree into the bonsai pot should be done when it becomes at least three years old; You should consider replanting each two years. Use soil which consists of three parts of argillaceous rock, 5 parts of peat, and 2 parts of sand or granulate clay.
Watering and fertilization
The soil must be soft-dampy and should not dry up. Fertilize every week from Spring to Autumn. During the Winter periods, fertilize each 2 or 4 weeks depending on conditions and requirements.
By cutting at any time. Or by seeds.
Is suitable for all styles types and can grow in various sizes. Bear in mind that trees with small leafs should grow smaller.
This is a place for pictures of real Ficus bonsai trees. If you have any, send us them and they will be published with your copyright and link to your site if necessary.
This article has been viewed 29242 time(s).
We recommend you to visit: | <urn:uuid:aaa25778-4980-4dac-a0c7-ea9671a719df> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.a-bonsai.org/articles/bonsai-guide/ficus-bonsai-tree.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92929 | 382 | 2.6875 | 3 |
The Living with the Bush Coalition is made up of Victorian residents who support the Coalitions Charter. The Living with the Bush Coalition is unaffiliated with any political party/group or religious organisation.
The research also has implications for bushfire-prone areas in Victoria, where there have been calls to clear large areas of bushland after this year’s Black Saturday bushfires.
‘The “bulldozer solution” of clearing large tracts of bush to reduce the risk of bushfires will only compound the problem – by clearing the land, you get a hotter land surface, so bushfires will be more severe,’ said Dr McAlpine.
‘Rather, we need to restore and actively manage native forests and woodlands for the multiple ecosystem services they can provide.’ | <urn:uuid:ac5d4328-347d-4b2f-8a57-f83fce10ade3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://livingwiththebush.org/dp/og | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948455 | 163 | 2.25 | 2 |
Is a spike in the monetary base - currency in circulation plus bank reserves at the Fed - the first sign of imminent inflation?
Art Cashin, the well-respected director of floor operations at the New York Stock Exchange for UBS, recently told King World News the increase in the monetary base may well be a sign of impending inflation.
Monetary base, sometimes called high-powered money, is the basis for the bank lending that drives our economy. When interest rates are normal, banks use their reserves for lending.
Unfortunately, these are not normal times. The U.S. Federal Reserve and other central banks around the world continue to hold interest rates at zero.
Zero interest rates mean zero returns. Investors don't get paid for investing. Banks don't get paid enough interest to compensate for the risk of lending money into the economy. Looking at it another way, there is no penalty for doing nothing with your money. | <urn:uuid:97959453-f9c8-405e-a8c0-fcf9d2106ee3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://moneymorning.com/tag/inflation-articles/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946099 | 188 | 2.203125 | 2 |
There's no quit in Michael PorterOctober 15, 2012: 5:00 AM ET
He has influenced more executives - and more nations - than any other business professor on earth. Now, at 65, he and an all-star team aim to rescue the U.S. economy.
By Geoff Colvin, senior editor-at-large
FORTUNE -- Right this minute, in offices around the world, business-people are holding high-level meetings to talk about strategy. They're trying to figure out if they can really achieve the lowest costs, or if they should focus on differentiating their product or try to dominate a niche in the business, and someone is suggesting they try to do a little bit of each, and someone else is replying they'd be doomed. "Should we really be doing all the activities in the value chain?" "No! We need to outsource!" The meetings are getting heated because everyone realizes the decisions could mean life or death.
If you interrupted one of these meetings and asked the participants why they're discussing these questions, they'd look at you funny. It's perfectly obvious, after all, that these are the most crucial issues. We talk about them because we have to, and everyone has been talking about them since the dawn of time, they would tell you. But they would be mistaken.
Generally without knowing it, they -- we -- are speaking the language of Harvard's Michael Porter, the most famous and influential business professor who has ever lived. Incredible as it seems, there was a time when these concepts were not the foundation of most business thinking. Says Roger Martin, the longtime dean of the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Business and a former colleague of Porter's: "Everyone who talks about sustainable competitive advantage and how they're going to get it -- they don't say, 'This meeting is occurring because Mike Porter said it's important.' But that is why."
Businesspeople aren't the only ones who speak Porter's language. Leaders of nations, regions, and cities use his "diamond model" to frame their plans for becoming more competitive. Environmental policymakers apply the Porter hypothesis. Health care reformers study his work on transforming that broken industry.
Now Porter aims to change the conversation on another vast topic: America's competitiveness. The Harvard Business School's U.S. Competitiveness Project, led by Porter and professor Jan Rivkin, is unlike anything the school has attempted: recruiting scholars from inside and outside the school to achieve a specific goal -- making the U.S. more competitive. "We've never done this before, and shame on us, frankly," Porter says. "Look at the tremendous goodwill and influence we have. People listen, and we have to take advantage of that." Porter takes pains to point out that dozens of people besides him are working on the project. But it's clear that if he hadn't agreed to be involved -- to be "the tip of the spear," as Rivkin puts it -- the project might not have happened.
One of the project's central theses is that most debates about U.S. competitiveness are wrong to focus almost entirely on federal government action. That's why Porter and Rivkin have written this article describing how companies can make America more competitive while also advancing their own interests. In this, as in everything he does, Porter wants to exert influence: "We want every businessperson to read that article and put it down and say, 'You know what? Damn it, we're gonna do this!'"
You might suppose that Porter, at 65 and having exerted a career's worth of influence, might be ready to hang it up. He isn't. He looks 55 and has more energy than the average 35-year-old. "What I'm particularly fortunate about," he says -- he talks a lot about how lucky he has been -- "is that I really love doing this stuff. I mean, I'm not tired of it. I'm not fatigued. So many academics get tired."
In a recent typical week, he wrote during a flight back to Boston from London, met editors at the Wall Street Journal, did a video interview at the Huffington Post, and appeared on CNBC; he held several meetings or conferences at Harvard, spoke twice at a large conference of the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City, a nonprofit he founded in 1994, and advised Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Newark Mayor Cory Booker, a Fortune 500 CEO, and the government of Rwanda. He seems to subsist on air. Joan Magretta, a former consultant who became a Harvard Business Review editor and wrote a book called Understanding Michael Porter, says, "I've worked with Mike for 30 years and have never seen him eat a meal."
A book on understanding Porter is worthwhile because he's often misunderstood. He is widely and rightly regarded as the all-time greatest strategy guru, but that view gets the emphasis wrong. His first important book, published in 1980, was Competitive Strategy. Next came Competitive Advantage, followed by The Competitive Advantage of Nations and On Competition; there's his Initiative for a Competitive Inner City, and of course he's now working on the U.S. Competitiveness Project. Are you noticing a theme?
Competition and winning have defined Porter's work and in large part his life. He has said that sports were the center of his existence as a kid, and at Monmouth Regional High School in New Jersey he was an all-state football and baseball player. At Princeton, where he majored in aeronautical engineering, he made the NCAA All-America golf team and graduated Phi Beta Kappa. He went directly to the Harvard Business School, where he realized he wanted to teach and where he became a Baker Scholar, a distinction reserved for the top 5% of the class. He then made the unorthodox move of crossing the Charles River to get a Ph.D. in Harvard's economics department; he won the prize for the year's best thesis. Then he recrossed the river to teach at HBS.
Eight years after graduating from high school, he was teaching at the world's No. 1 business school.
He already knew what the focus of his research would be. As an HBS student, he had absorbed "the practitioner view of competition," but back then it didn't include many general insights; each case was unique. As an economist, he understood "the more abstract view of competition that one saw in industrial economics," and it was the opposite: Individual firms were all pretty much the same and not interesting. "It was the juxtaposition of these various kinds of training that made it sort of obvious what some of the rich opportunities were," he says. So those were what he worked on.
He explained the results in Competitive Strategy, which quickly became the bestselling business book ever up to that time. Every company, he said, is subject to five forces: the competitors it currently faces, the threat of new competitors, the threat of substitutes for its products or services, the bargaining power of its suppliers, and the bargaining power of its customers. Within that environment, every company must choose a strategy, and there are only three: achieving the lowest costs, differentiating its products and services, and dominating a niche. Trying to do some of each -- getting "caught in the middle" -- prevents a company from realizing the benefits of any of these strategies, and as a result it will lose to competitors who choose just one.
The book revolutionized managerial thinking around the world and made Porter famous. It also sparked another widespread reaction: "The highest compliment, I've come to understand, is, 'Oh, that's obvious,'" Porter says. "I used to get really mad about that, but now I understand that's the goal -- to take a complex problem and make it seem really clear and obvious." Real-world practitioners agree. "The five-forces framework is as valid today as it was then," says Adrian Slywotzky, a consultant.
A great paradox of Porter's career is that he has achieved the summit of academic distinction while loudly rejecting the No. 1 rule of the academic game. It states that all advancement depends on publishing as many articles as possible in the few dozen top-tier academic journals. Porter has scarcely bothered, publishing just seven such articles in his 39-year career. His many articles in the Harvard Business Review don't count; that's a mere "practitioner journal" in the view of academics. Yet Porter holds a University Professorship at Harvard, the highest honor the school can bestow, held by about 1% of the faculty; it means he isn't tethered to any particular school within Harvard, not even the business school, but can roam across the entire university wherever his interests lead him.
Another measure of his academic success, telling and ironic: In the many footnotes that follow every article in academic journals -- the journals Porter has so frankly disdained -- he has been cited far more often than any other writer on business or economics.
The U.S. Competitiveness Project is the largest example yet of Porter's real-world influence. "We are judging this project on impact," says Rivkin. "It's successful to the extent we help companies operating in the U.S. compete in the global economy and raise the standard of living."
With the U.S. Competitiveness Project well under way, what might Porter try to change next? He is taking advantage of his University Professorship, working in the School of Public Health to improve health in China, working at the Medical School on health care delivery in Africa, and teaching at the Kennedy School of Government. And Harvard has a lot more schools. "Yesterday I was meeting with the dean of the education school at Harvard, and we were talking about education," he says. "There's an opportunity to reframe that field. And I'm very tempted."
Porter knows he's trying to do too much. A lesson he has learned belatedly is to "enroll others" in his projects, with the U.S. Competitiveness Project as exhibit A. But taking on too much seems to be in his nature, so he'll probably keep doing it. At least until he gets tired. Which right now is not a real-world concern.
This story is from the October 29, 2012 issue of Fortune. | <urn:uuid:97e12969-906c-4eab-8550-d742bed2b641> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2012/10/15/michael-porter/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984458 | 2,119 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Thought from Today’s Old Testament Passage:
[Chapter 15] David now ordered that the Levites or priests should carry the ark upon their shoulders. Now he bethought himself of that which he could not but know before, that, none ought to carry the ark but the Levites, v. 2. The Kohathites carried it in their ordinary marches, and therefore had no wagons allotted them, because their work was to bear upon their shoulders, Num. 7:9. But upon extraordinary occasions, as when they passed Jordan and compassed Jericho, the priests carried it. This rule was express, and yet David himself forgot it, and put the ark upon a cart. Note, Even those that are very knowing in the word of God, yet have it not always so ready to them as were to be wished when they have occasion to use it. Wise and good men may be guilty of an oversight, which, as soon as they are aware of, they will correct. David did not go about to justify what had been done amiss, nor to lay the blame on others, but owned himself guilty, with others, of not seeking God in a due order, …
Note, Many that are very remiss in their duty, if they were but faithfully told of it, would reform and do better. The breach upon Uzza made the priests more careful to sanctify themselves, that is, to cleanse themselves from all ceremonial pollution and to compose themselves for the solemn service of God, so as to strike a reverence upon the people. Some are made examples, that others may be made exemplary and very cautious.
Matthew Henry, Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Bible (computer file) (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers) © 1997
The John Ankerberg Show | P.O. Box 8977 | Chattanooga, TN 37414 USA
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The highlight of January will be the planet Saturn, which will rise in the east around 8 p.m. local time at the start of the month and two hours earlier by month's end. The planet with the famous rings will be almost at its biggest and brightest as it crosses the southern sky, remaining visible most of the night.
When Saturn is high in the south on a clear night, there is no better opportunity to view its rings with a telescope. Saturn will remain at almost the same brilliance all month as it dominates the stars of the constellation Leo the Lion. Over the next few weeks Saturn will gradually move away from Leo's brightest star, Regulus.
Saturn's moon Titan, which is larger than the planet Mercury, can be seen with any telescope in a clear dark sky. It will be directly north of Saturn on Jan. 3 and Jan. 19 and directly south of the planet on Jan. 11 and Jan. 27. Wait until the constellation Leo has completely cleared the horizon before you turn a telescope on Saturn, to avoid the turbulence in Earth's atmosphere that will otherwise blur your view of the planet.
While you wait for Saturn to gain altitude in the east, you can enjoy the sight of the planet Venus blazing low in the west-southwest. This "evening star" will appear about a half hour after sunset, shining through the afterglow of twilight.
During the last week of the month, Venus will be joined by much fainter Mercury as the smallest planet climbs out of the twilight into a dark sky. Mercury by itself can be hard to find, and this will be a fine opportunity to see it using Venus as a conspicuous marker. Mercury will be below Venus and slightly to the right (west).
Jupiter will rise in the southeast around 4 a.m. local time in January, easily outshining every other object in the morning sky. The brilliant white planet will pass north of the bright orange star Antares of the constellation Scorpius as the month goes by.
Far below Jupiter will be Mars, which will be close to the southeastern horizon and difficult to see this month.
The Quadrantid meteor shower will be active for the first week of January, peaking on the night of Jan. 3-4 during the hours before dawn. The moon will be full during the peak, obscuring the fainter meteors, so viewing conditions will not be favorable. Try to find a spot where the moon is blocked by a building or trees. The rate of this shower varies considerably and unpredictably from year to year.
The Quadrantid meteors will appear to come from a point called the radiant near the end of the handle of the Big Dipper, which will rise in the northeast. The radiant is in the constellation Bootes the Herdsman, which contains the bright orange star Arcturus as a conspicuous marker. In the 18th century, this area of the sky was called Quadrans Muralis and gave the Quadrantid meteor shower its name.
Try facing northeast toward the Big Dipper. If you extend the curve formed by the handle's three stars, it forms an "arc to Arcturus." Meteors should be visible in all parts of the sky, but the higher Arcturus is above the eastern horizon, the more meteors there will be. More information about viewing meteor showers, including the Quadrantids, is available from the American Meteor Society at www.amsmeteors.org/showers.html .
The moon will be full on Jan. 3, at third quarter on Jan. 11, new on Jan. 18 and at first quarter on Jan. 25.
Source: Indiana University
Explore further: Three centaurs follow Uranus through the solar system | <urn:uuid:3199a403-8cf7-488a-aa9b-27779909f0da> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://phys.org/news87143204.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.916071 | 770 | 3.046875 | 3 |
The terms topic or subject can be used to describe what a sentence refers to. What are the proper terms for the "source" (the person who is speaking or writing) and "destination" (the person who is listening or reading) when referring to a particular phrase used in communication?
For example, if Ann were to tell Bob: "The sky is blue" What general term would I use to describe Ann or Bob in relation to that sentence?
If they were speaking out loud, I might call Ann the speaker, and Bob the listener. If Ann had written to Bob, I might call Ann the writer and Bob the reader. In both cases, I might also call Bob the audience. Ann could be described as using the sentence to communicate with Bob. The trouble with all of these options is their actual use:
"The source of the sentence" - implies text, not a person
"The sentence speaker" - excludes writing, sounds wrong
"The sentence writer" - excludes speaking
"The person who used the sentence" - too verbose
"The sentence destination" - a tagline for your local jail?
"The sentence listener" - an upcoming Hollywood movie?
"The sentence reader" - excludes listening
"The audience of the sentence" - could imply more than one person, too verbose | <urn:uuid:0f071ac9-6e78-40d8-b461-1a1c1716254a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/4669/is-there-a-proper-way-to-refer-to-the-source-and-destination-of-a-phrase-use/4671 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950038 | 272 | 3.21875 | 3 |
|The meeting between the software
people and the electrical and mechanical engineers on the project goes well. The hardware people have already been
approached by the Fictitious Advanced Product Design Department (FAPDD) and have added several new features to
this coffee maker.
A relief valve to interrupt coffee
brewing, and a weight sensor in the coffeepot station are new. But most importantly to us is the microprocessor
control system. A state of the art microcontroller with Java 1.0 burnt into ROM, half a Meg of FLASH, half a Meg
of RAM and 32 GPIO pins.
Fabulous, we won't have to program
this thing in assembler [and all of the people watching over our shoulders will be able to actually run the code
from their Internet browser.] The electrical engineers will use the bottom most 8 GPIO pins for input from the
A/D converter to get the pressure sensor reading. The next 2 pins are input for the brew button and the water sensor.
The next 4 pins are output to the indicator light, warmer, boiler, and pressure relief valve in that order. The
top most 18 pins are unused.
Things are going well, then one
of the engineers asks a question: "What about the cancel brew function."
"We haven't heard anything
"Well, we talked to the FAPDD
guys and they don't want it but we could just add it easy enough."
"Any additional requirements
will effect our time to delivery date."
"But it won't cost you anything
to add it now, adding it later will."
"I don't think that is true.
If we add a cancel brewing function we will have to read the brew button during the brew cycle right?"
"Well yes, I suppose but you
were going to do that any way weren't you?"
"We don't know yet. Besides,
there is another issue. We would be required to debounce the switch."
"Weren't you going to debounce
the switch anyway?"
on Page 2. | <urn:uuid:79360370-b012-4187-8018-f263d8dfdeb5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.extremeprogramming.org/example/hardwaredesign.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949983 | 435 | 1.859375 | 2 |
Information for Men
Information for Men
Did you know?
- 99% of persons arrested for or convicted of rape are men.
- In a survey of high school boys, 76% believed forced sex was acceptable under some circumstances.
- In a survey of college males, 35% anonymously admitted that, under certain circumstances, they would commit rape if they thought they could get away with it.
Most men don’t rape. But most rapists are men. While many of these men are deeply disturbed sociopaths, some are also “regular guys” who go too far, perhaps because of being under the influence of drugs or alcohol, or because of wrongly-held beliefs about what a woman “should” do in certain situations. Below are some commonly held myths that men should read and think about in order to protect themselves from becoming a perpetrator of sexual assault.
What if a woman leads me on and then says “no” to sex? Isn’t that unfair?
A person has a right to change his or her mind at any point during an intimate encounter. NO means NO, and after she says NO, it’s rape! There is NO POINT at which a man cannot control himself during sexual arousal. He may not want to control himself, but he can stop.
Don’t some women make up stories about rape just to get attention or ruin a guy’s reputation?
No person in her right mind would fabricate a rape charge and go through all the horror, trauma, and fear of reporting it to the police, going through a physical exam at the hospital and exposing herself to the abuse and skepticism by friends, family, and the judicial system, unless something had occurred. It is estimated that 92% of the time, a woman reporting a rape is telling the truth.
If she doesn’t struggle or scream, how can that be rape?
Rape is sex without consent, whether or not there is a struggle. If a woman feels that she has no choice, or is incoherent or unconscious, it is rape.
She said “no,” but we had sex before and she was fine with it that time.
Her sexual history with you or anyone else is irrelevant. Prior consent is not necessarily consent for the current situation. Remember, NO means NO.
Aren’t women who wear sexy clothing and flirt with guys at parties just asking for it?
What a woman wears has nothing to do with the behavior of the rapist. Rape is about power, not sex. A woman is never to blame for being raped. As one author says, “A woman is no more to blame for being raped because she was in a risky situation, than a deer is for wandering into the sights of the hunter.” The perpetrator is at fault, not the victim.
How can I protect myself from being accused of sexual assault?
- Know your sexual desires and limits and communicate them clearly.
- Be aware of social pressures and remember that it’s okay not to “score.”
- Remember that being turned down is not a personal rejection. Women who say “No” to sex are not rejecting you; they are expressing their desire not to participate in a single act.
- Your desires may be beyond your control, but your actions are within your control.
- Accept the woman’s decision. “No” means “No.”
- Don’t continue after “No.” If you think the woman doesn’t mean it, simply stop and ask…then respect her decision.
- Don’t assume that just because a woman wears sexy clothes and flirts that she wants to have sex.
- Don’t assume that previous permission for sexual contact applies to the current situation.
- Avoid excessive use of alcohol and/or drugs. Never have sex with someone who is intoxicated or passed out.
Can’t men also be victims of sexual assault?
Yes. One in six men will be sexually assaulted in his lifetime. Male survivors may experience fear and anger over the loss of control of their bodies. Men are often raised to believe that showing emotion is weak or wrong, which can make it even harder to deal with the overwhelming feelings resulting from an assault. It is important to seek help. See information about what to do if you are assaulted. | <urn:uuid:765f49dd-1270-4499-81bc-16278d0f7bf6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.duq.edu/life-at-duquesne/student-wellbeing/sexual-integrity/assault/information-for-men | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969293 | 916 | 1.984375 | 2 |
Satellite Spies Typhoon Roke Hitting Japan
Typhoon Roke makes landfall over Japan as seen by Japan's MTSAT-1R satellite at 0430Z Sept. 21, 2011.
Typhoon Roke, the second typhoon to hit Japan this month, came ashore near Lake Hamana, midway between Toyohashi to the west and Hamamatsu to the east just as Japan's MTSAT-1R satellite snapped a picture of it.
Torrential rains exceeding 3.5 inches per hour in some places and the threat of landslides and flooding have left more than a quarter of a million households without power. Tokushima in southern Japan received nearly 24 inches (60 centimeters) of rain in the last two days, according to the UK Met Office. [See the photo of Typhoon Roke's landfall]
The storm, which had achieved a strength equivalent to a Category 4 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale yesterday, is weakening below typhoon status and re-emerging over the Pacific Ocean, according to a Met Office update.
Roke has dumped rain on a part of Japan that was already inundated earlier this month by Typhoon Talas. The sheer volume of rain dropped by Talas created deadly floods and landslides. In one area, Talas dropped 65 inches (165 centimeters) of rain in 72 hours, a new record for the country, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.
Evacuations of thousands of residents took place before Roke made landfall. Roke has been tracking up the coast of Japan, with worries about the effect its rains could have on the area of Honshu (Japan's main island) impacted by March's devastating earthquake, especially the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, BBC News reported.
This story was provided by OurAmazingPlanet, sister site to SPACE.com.
MORE FROM SPACE.com | <urn:uuid:a8c8b055-33ae-483c-9cbf-d2db593794eb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.space.com/13035-satellite-spies-typhoon-roke-hitting-japan.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9461 | 385 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Older adults worked through 3 phases as they made the initial transition to permanent residence in a nursing home
Question What are the initial experiences of older adults who are admitted to nursing homes on a planned or unplanned basis as they make the transition to nursing home life?
3 long term care facilities with religious affiliations in a large city in Midwestern USA.
15 adults ≥65 years (age range 76–97 y, all of Euro-American origin, 73% women) who were admitted to a nursing home for expected permanent residence, were able to understand and speak English, were able to give informed consent, and who passed a short mental status questionnaire. 2 of the adults had mild confusion.
Indepth semistructured interviews lasting 45–60 minutes were conducted with each participant every other day for 2 weeks and 1 month after admission. Discussion focused on adjustments to institutional life. Field notes were made during the interviews and observations of participant behaviour (eg, stayed in room) were recorded. Data saturation was reached after the 15th participant was interviewed. Interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. Data were analysed using the constant comparative method.
The transition to nursing home life had 3 phases: overwhelmed, adjustment, and initial acceptance. Participants who had planned their admission to the nursing home progressed through the phases more quickly than those who had unplanned admissions.
The overwhelmed phase consisted of the emotional response to the admission, including crying, feelings of loneliness and sadness, and longing to go home. Participants made conscious efforts to protect their families and attempted to hide their feelings. Problems included experiencing too many changes at once, adjusting to reduced personal space, and the lack of privacy.
During the adjustment phase, participants began the process of adjustment by internalising their admission. They began to think about the future and everyday living. They tried to have a positive attitude, establish new social networks, and deal with issues about control and autonomy (eg, rules and regulations of the nursing home and lack of participation in decision making).
In the initial acceptance phase, participants began to take action (eg, made new friends, got involved in activities), felt more self confident, and began to take control of their situation, realising that they had a future.
Older adults went through 3 phases of adjusting to a permanent nursing home admission: feeling overwhelmed, adjustment, and initial acceptance. Adults who had planned their admission progressed through the phases more quickly than those who had unplanned admissions.
- John Pugh, RN, RCNT, ONC, MN
The number of older people entering nursing homes is rising and will continue to rise for the foreseeable future. This relocation can be a traumatic event and often occurs at a time when the person is experiencing a personal crisis or physiological change. It is therefore vital for nurses to understand more about nursing home entry if they are to help make this transition a success. This study by Wilson is timely and pertinent and contributes to a growing understanding of the characteristics of entry to a nursing home. Evidence suggests that this transition is a huge challenge to the person, but that effective proaction may assist with a successful passage.1 A simple theory has emerged that will assist nurses and other professionals to assess and plan for older people during the transition to nursing home life. Wilson seems to indicate that participants can easily be classified as having planned or unplanned admissions, but has not made clear what constitutes a planned and unplanned event. Indeed, there may be varying degrees of each. The choice of a grounded theory design is appropriate, because nursing home entry is a complex social process and there may be many variations in the way people respond. This method of research never suggests generalisability and the author rightly says nothing about the results being applicable to all environments. The study simply provides an emergent theory of nursing home entry, with the expectation that others will replicate it and modify it in light of further data. Lack of replication for grounded theory studies is one of the major obstacles to their acceptance as a valid method of research. The study's failure to address specifically the role of informal carers as a central concern at nursing home entry may be an important omission, but could be addressed in an adjunct study in the future.
Source of funding: not stated.
For article reprint: Dr S A Wilson, Marquette University College of Nursing, Clark Hall, PO Box 1881, Milwaukee, WI 53201–1881, USA. Fax +1 414 288 1597. | <urn:uuid:9865d3de-338f-438f-bfe0-072da2c16017> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ebn.bmj.com/content/1/3/96.1.full?cited-by=yes&legid=ebnurs;1/3/96 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973297 | 905 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Lenten Reflections: Holy Saturday
Bread for the World members headed to Capitol Hill on Tuesday June 14, 2011, to lobby their members of Congress on behalf of poor and hungry people. Lobby Day was part of the Bread for the World's 2011 National Gathering, when nearly 300 people from around the United States converged on Washington, DC, to learn how to advocate against hunger and poverty. Photo by Laura Elizabeth Pohl.
Holy Saturday was a day of Sabbath rest after the violent, tortuous death Jesus’ endured. For his disciples and followers, all hope was lost. But we know what happens on the next page, and soon they would, too.
or Lamentations 3:1-9, 19-24
Psalm 31:1-4, 15-16
1 Peter 4:1-8
or John 19:38-42
[The following prayers for Holy Saturday are from Dr. Scot McKnight and can also be found here.]
O God, Creator of heaven and earth: Grant that, as the crucified body of your dear Son was laid in the tomb and rested on this holy Sabbath, so we may await with him the coming of the third day, and rise with him to newness of life; who now lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
O God of unchangeable power and eternal light: Look favorably on your whole Church, that wonderful and sacred mystery; by the effectual working of your providence, carry out in tranquility the plan of salvation; let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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Nearly a decade after a German man claimed he was abducted, spirited to Afghanistan and beaten in a secret CIA-run prison, lawyers for Khaled El-Masri appeared in a European court Wednesday hoping to make his case against the local government that allegedly handed him over to the CIA's extraordinary rendition program in the first place.
El-Masri, a German national of Lebanese descent, is suing the country of Macedonia in the European Court of Human Rights for its alleged role in his four-month "disappearance" beginning in late 2003. The new case is the latest in el-Masri's nine-year judicial odyssey, which has so far involved the legal systems of at least four countries and could cast a sliver of sunlight on one of the CIA's most secretive and controversial post-9/11 programs.
El-Masri contends that in December 2003 he was traveling by bus from Germany to Macedonia when he was detained at the Macedonian border, according to court documents. Plainclothes Macedonian police officers brought him to a hotel in the capital city of Skopje and held him there under guard for 23 days. In the hotel he was interrogated repeatedly and told to admit he was a member of al Qaeda, according to an account provided by the Open Society Justice Initiative, which represents El-Masri in the current case. El-Masri responded by going on a hunger strike.
The German claims he was then blindfolded and taken to an airport by the Macedonian plainclothes police where he was beaten and sexually assaulted before he was dragged to a corner of the room and had his blindfold removed. He saw before him several men in black clothes and black masks.
These men, the Initiative claims, were from a secret CIA rendition team.
El-Masri was then allegedly thrown onto a plane and claims that the next thing he knew, he was in Afghanistan, where he would stay for four months under what his lawyers called "inhuman and degrading" conditions that included "violent and prolonged interrogations."
According to the Initiative, it wasn't until May 28, 2004 that El-Masri was suddenly removed from his detention, thrown onto another plane and flown to a military base in Albania.
"On arrival he was driven in a car for several hours and then let out and told not to look back," the group says on its website.
Albanian authorities soon picked El-Masri up and took him to an airport where he flew back to Frankfurt, Germany. According to El-Masri's lawyers, the CIA had realized they accidentally picked up the wrong man.
Upon arriving in his home city of Ulm, Germany, El-Masri says he contacted his lawyer and began seeking criminal proceedings against those who he said kidnapped and assaulted him without cause.
Since then, El-Masri, his supporters and foreign governments have attempted to settle the matter through various legal channels, but to no avail. In 2005, the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit on behalf of El-Masri against George Tenet, then director of the CIA, but that case was dismissed in 2006 after the U.S. government claimed the case would jeopardize "state secrets." The U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the case in 2007.
The same year, a German prosecutor issued an arrest warrant for 13 CIA agents for their alleged role, according to the New York Times, but the agents were never arrested.
In 2009 El-Masri filed a civil lawsuit for damages against the Macedonian Ministry of Interior and that case is still pending, the Initiative said.
Even Spanish authorities became involved in 2010 when investigators there claimed the CIA team had made a secret stopover in Palma de Mallorca before heading to Macedonia, according to the Spanish national newspaper El Pais. | <urn:uuid:95d9357b-8dd5-4720-96e9-a9b65721c6c0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/khaled-el-masri-cia-case-mistaken-rendition/story?id=16363012 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986315 | 778 | 1.859375 | 2 |
Gore Vidal’s Fan Club: What, exactly, did they admire about the man? asks Andrew Ferguson
The most puzzling thing about the career of Gore Vidal, who went toes-up last week at 86, was the reverence in which he was held by people who might have known better. He was famous for announcing the “death of the novel” as an art form, and as if to prove the point he kept writing them. No one who survived a reading of Kalki or Myron or Creation or Duluth will recall the experience with anything other than revulsion and self-loathing.
. . . in 2009, at a humid dinner filled with our culture’s leading personages, he was presented with the lifetime National Book Award for his Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Was Danielle Steel busy that year? The Personages greeted him with a prolonged and affectionate standing ovation, a favor he returned by talking about himself, alternately cranky and befuddled, for nearly an hour. He figured no one would dare show signs of boredom as he lulled them inexorably into catalepsy, and he was right. The Personages had been programmed for reverence.
And they were endlessly forgiving. For decades Vidal had said that Franklin Roosevelt knew in advance of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and let the slaughter come anyway, and when 9/11 gave him the chance to make the same slander against another president, he went even further and speculated that George Bush had colluded with his vice president to encourage the terrorist attacks. At his death a critic at the Washington Post summarized the Vidalian view with an uncommon mildness: “He took an acerbic view of American leadership.”
The man must have felt bulletproof. With implausible romances like Lincoln and Burr he filled more readers’ heads with more historical crapola than anyone since Parson Weems. (“So powerful as to compel awe,” said Harold Bloom of Vidal’s make-believe histories.) He thought the Bilderbergers and members of the Bohemian Grove controlled world finance. (“He is a treasure of state,” said R.W.B. Lewis.) He befriended Timothy McVeigh and spoke warmly of him. (“Vidal did not lightly suffer fools,” said the obit writer in the New York Times.) He dished out anti-Semitism in a dozen different venues with imperturbable serenity. (“Both by temperament and by birth he was an aristocrat,” said the Times.)
He called William F. Buckley a crypto-Nazi. (“Vidal was known for his . . . scathing wit,” said Diane Sawyer on ABC.) He wanted to try Henry Kissinger for war crimes and suggested that John McCain had invented tales of his torture at the hands of the Vietnamese. (“A savvy analyst and glorious gadfly on the national conscience,” said the L.A. Times.) He was paid nearly a million dollars, adjusted for inflation, to collaborate with the pornographer Bob Guccione on Caligula, the most expensive stroke film ever made. (“An astonishingly versatile man of letters” — the Post again.)
It’s anybody’s guess how he got away with it all while maintaining a reputation as, at worst, “an acerbic gadfly,” and at the grandest, “one of the greatest essayists in the English language.” The Personages have their own reasons for choosing whom to revere. | <urn:uuid:5f1e07fc-1456-4ec4-9bae-e07e8fa9be72> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://curiouspresbyterian.wordpress.com/2012/08/16/just-what-was-there-objectively-to-admire-about-gore-vidal/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978072 | 755 | 1.648438 | 2 |
August Beauty Gardenia
image by H.B. Dean
Also known as the cape jasmine, gardenias are a popular plant in the South. An evergreen flowering bush with white fragrant blossoms, depending upon the type, these plants will grow from 2 to 8 feet wide and tall. The creamy white flowers bloom throughout the summer and fall, giving off a beautiful fragrance. Like other flowering shrubs, gardenias require proper planting, watering and fertilizing to thrive.
Preparing and Planting
Select the site for the gardenia. They do well in partial to light shade with soil that is moist, rich and well-draining. An acid-loving plant, gardenias need a pH between 5.0 and 6.0.
Prepare the site for the gardenias. Test the soil a month before planting and amend it using hydrated lime or sulfur. Several weeks before planting, dig up the soil, remove weeds and rocks and incorporate generous amounts of compost or well-rotted manure and peat moss.
Plant the gardenia in the spring or fall. Dig a hole that is as deep as the root ball and two to three times its width. Fill the hole with water and set the gardenia in it. Add the soil to the water, until the hole is filled and the soil firm.
Caring for Gardenias
Water the gardenia regularly, keeping the soil moist but not soggy. Direct the water towards the roots; avoid getting the leaves wet, which can cause fungus. A 2-inch layer of mulch will help retain the soil's moisture and enrich the soil.
Feed the gardenia with an acidic fertilizer about once a month. If you have access to pine needles, which increase the acidity of the soil, spread them underneath the gardenias. To prevent the pine needles from washing away during rain, cover them with mulch.
Treat white flies or mealy bugs with an insecticidal soap or horticulture oil. Remove any leaves that turn yellow or spotted.
Prune the gardenias in early spring to control the shape of the plant. Deadhead--or remove--the spent blossoms to encourage additional flowering.
Winterize the gardenia before the first frost. Rake pine needles or decaying leaves around the base of the bush.
About this Author
After attending Hardin Simmons University, Kay Dean finished her formal education with the Institute of Children's Literature. Since 1995, Dean has written for such publications as "PB&J," Disney’s "Family Fun," "ParentLife," "Living With Teenagers" and Thomas Nelson’s NY Times bestselling "Resolve." An avid gardener for 25 years, her experience includes organic food gardening, ornamental plants, shrubs and trees, with a special love for roses. | <urn:uuid:b14522f1-6888-4ae2-af28-cdc420713847> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gardenguides.com/70114-care-gardenia-plants.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.904949 | 578 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Asia at Noon
On Not Breathing Easy: The Impact of India's Urbanization on Air Quality
This Asia at Noon presentation by Deborah Naybor, PhD candidate in the UB Department of Geography, will address the problem of air pollution in India and efforts to control it. As India has taken its place in the globalized economy, its growing middle class has demanded more electricity and durable goods. The escalation of industrialization and vehicular traffic has exacerbated air pollution, taken its toll on the wellbeing of city dwellers, and placed financial burdens on India's cities. Specifically looking at Kolkata's rapid and unplanned growth and the impact on health and quality of life, this presentation will examine India's lack of enforcement, insufficient planning, and its adoption of poorer standards for pollution than those recommended by the WHO as contributing to the endangerment of its urban population. | <urn:uuid:8a11317e-32a2-41bd-a36d-d44fe43e8a1f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.buffalo.edu/calendar/calendar?action=describe&which=0C3FEF82-720F-11E2-A945-A96902FCE69D&lastaction=list&category=&time=&thismonth=1&from=&until= | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953025 | 175 | 2.359375 | 2 |
Over the last decade, the prediction market industry has grown more slowly than one might have expected given the technology’s unique combination of simplicity and power. The main source of resistance to enterprise prediction markets has been the information and power-sharing that this new approach entails. Those traditionally in control of the collection and distribution of information are often reluctant to let go of their prerogatives.
Yet, the pace of adoption has also been relentless. One has to wonder what is the deep driver to adoption that has been able to effectively counter the natural and powerful resistance to share information and power.
In the latest issue of CNBC BUSINESS magazine, a feature article on NewsFutures provides some answers, beyond the traditional nod to Surowiecki’s “The Wisdom of Crowds” book whose best-seller success is itself a symptom of something deeper and more powerful: a demography-enabled cultural shift:
Servan-Schreiber suggests that it may not be long before participatory technologies become a prerequisite for employees reared on a diet of blogs and wikis. “A whole generation of workers has grown up with the internet and everything it entails,” he says. “It means they expect to be heard and to be part of the conversation all the time, including at work. They expect that people will listen and take them seriously. Prediction markets provide an answer for that yearning.”
His message for these companies is that resistance is futile; prediction markets are, literally, the future. “We are in tune with collective intelligence and participatory process; prediction markets can easily involve thousands of people. Our industry is surfing a huge demographic wave and that is what will make us ubiquitous.”
Read the full article online. | <urn:uuid:87ca379a-cf93-44c6-8a20-33e0a7c88680> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://newsfutures.wordpress.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950749 | 361 | 1.75 | 2 |
John Sousa was immensely proud of his country, America.
In serving it in the forces he captured its power in his stirring military
music. By the age of 26 he had become conductor of the US Marine Band.
The Band provided the facility to tour widely with a presence at military
academies. After a five-year period of finding his feet he started composing
for the Band. Within 12 years he had become known as "The March
King" as the heavy-beat formula of his march music conquered American
Sousa marches are uncomplicated pieces which, due to
their rhythm and regular use of cymbals and bass drum, are distinctly
Sousa; but it would be unfair to suggest that he was incapable of composing
in other genres. Occasionally we come across a piece of music which
is not so mechanically inspired and freer in composition: there are
examples of such pieces on this disc.
The CD contains a number of his marches, which interestingly
do not seem to vary in style from a well-trodden formula used over a
twenty-year period. There are seven tracks which reveal a different
side to this American composer. His Songs of Grace and Songs of Glory,
an early piece, is an example of something quite different. Composed
as a 'religious medley', it is a soft and languid piece played by woodwind
with distant brass fanfare chords. Its texture is unusual for a wind
band. Inspiration comes from a number of hymn tunes.
The Willow Blossoms Serenade has a syncopated
ragtime style modelled on Scott Joplin's music of over a decade earlier.
It was written to suggest the swaying of willows in Willow Grove Park,
Philadelphia to which the piece is dedicated.
At the Movies was written in the heyday of the
silent cinema and was intended to convey mood music for the screen.
This is another piece which shows a difference from the accustomed Sousa
style. It is subtitled Scenarios of Cinematographers but the
notes do not state for which films the music was intended. We are told
that the first movement depicts 'co-eds being serenaded at a university'.
The second movement reveals 'a pretty maid pleading for safety whilst
being pursued by a clever villain'. The third movement is a Joplin style
rag (perhaps more like Coates than Joplin) depicting 'a ragtime hoe-down
dance on the village green'.
The Rose, Shamrock and Thistle is a medley of
British tunes and shows that Sousa had well-developed skills to weave
together different themes with appropriate orchestration and dynamics.
King Cotton is one of Sousa's lasting melodies;
a simple tune set against a prominent beat. It was composed for the
Cotton States Exposition in Atlanta and marked a first major appearance
of the Sousa Military Band in the region.
The notes provided are somewhat sketchy and it would
have interested readers to be given details of Sousa's childhood, background
and musical training. Useful and adequate background material on each
piece (in English, French and German) is included. The Royal Artillery
Band clearly enjoy themselves under the leadership of Keith Brion. | <urn:uuid:0795e2ea-1c07-4d03-962e-8f0b372df099> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2001/Oct01/Sousa2.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967631 | 695 | 2.640625 | 3 |
UK air accident specialists are not intending to investigate an unusual incident at an air show during which a Handley Page Victor bomber unexpectedly became airborne during a high-speed taxi demonstration.
The incident occurred during the Cold War Jets Open Day at the Bruntingthorpe airfield, south of Leicester, the scene of the recent restoration to flight of an Avro Vulcan.
Bruntingthorpe's Victor, XM715, had been participating in the 3 May event when it became briefly airborne, apparently reaching a height - based on photographic evidence - of at least 20-30ft.
Circumstances of the incident are unclear. There are no confirmed details of the speed of the aircraft, the crew complement, or meteorological conditions, nor has it been confirmed whether the aircraft sustained any damage.
But while the Air Accidents Investigation Branch says it is "aware" of the incident, it is not conducting an inquiry. The Civil Aviation Authority has so far been unable to comment further, pending clarification of the incident, but says the aircraft is not on the civil register.
Bruntingthorpe's Cold War Jets event involves fast taxiing of several vintage aircraft including the de Havilland Comet, English Electric Lightning and Hawker Siddeley Buccaneer.
First flown in 1952 the Victor was, alongside the Vulcan and the Vickers Valiant, part of the Royal Air Force's nuclear deterrent 'V-bomber' fleet. | <urn:uuid:ca689cd7-ca8a-488c-a5bd-82e0756ec353> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/pictures-victor-bomber-accidentally-becomes-airborne-during-taxi-326067/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944537 | 298 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Date of this Version
Understanding the adaptive significance of variation in female mating behaviour is important because variation may often be favored by selection instead of a change in mean mating behaviour, particularly in variable environments. Females are known to adjust their mating behaviour to a variety of intrinsic and extrinsic factors including nutrition. There are multiple reasons why female behaviours might vary with nutrition; we tested two of these hypotheses: the search cost hypothesis and the direct benefits hypothesis. These hypotheses are not mutually exclusive, but they make contrasting predictions under some conditions. Low nutrition females may have less available energy to support the costs of searching for and sampling males. If sampling males is energetically costly, the search cost hypothesis predicts that low nutrition females will sample fewer males, and because they invest less in sampling, will show less biased mate choices. Alternatively, in species with male provided direct benefits, low nutrition females often benefit more from mating with preferred males. When this is the case, the direct benefits hypothesis predicts that low nutrition females will show stronger preferences for traits correlated with benefit quality and thus show more biased mate choices. The direct benefits hypothesis does not make an obvious prediction about female sampling behaviour, although greater sampling might be required to identify high benefit males. We tested these hypotheses using the variable field cricket, Gryllus lineaticeps. In this species, females receive fecundity benefits from mating with high chirp rate males but only in low nutrition females. We manipulated either diet quantity or quality (protein to carbohydrate ratio) and measured female mate preference. In the diet quality experiment, we also measured sampling behaviour. Diet quality influenced female sampling behaviour: females provided a high quality diet sampled more extensively. However, neither diet quantity nor diet quality influenced female preference. These results partially support the search cost hypothesis. Possible explanations for why diet treatments did not influence female chirp rate preference are discussed.
Advisor: William E. Wagner, Jr. | <urn:uuid:878bb37f-0abd-4c78-a788-dd3c72d04af6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/bioscidiss/35/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918948 | 385 | 3.34375 | 3 |
Rash, Age 11 and Younger
Most rashes will go away without medical treatment. Home treatment can often relieve pain and itching until the rash goes away.
If your child has come in contact with a substance that may cause Reference contact dermatitis Opens New Window, such as Reference poison ivy Opens New Window, immediately wash the area with large amounts of water.
Once a rash has developed, leave it alone as much as possible.
- Use soap and water sparingly.
- Leave the rash exposed to the air whenever possible.
- Encourage your child not to scratch the rash.
If your child has a rash, he or she should not be in contact with other children or pregnant women. Most viral rashes are contagious, especially if a fever is present.
Relief from itching
Itching with a rash is generally not serious, but it can be annoying and may make a rash more likely to become infected. Rashes caused by Reference chickenpox Opens New Window, Reference eczema Opens New Window, or contact dermatitis are much more likely to itch. Sometimes itching can get worse by scratching.
Home treatment may help the itching.
- Keep your child's fingernails clean and short, and encourage him or her not to scratch. Cover your baby's hands with socks to help keep him or her from scratching.
- Keep your child out of the sun and in a cool place. Heat makes itching worse.
- Keep the itchy area cool and wet if your child is older than age 9 months. Put cloths soaked in ice water on the rash a few times a day. Too much wetting and drying will dry the skin, which can increase itching. Do not put cloths soaked in ice water on the skin of a baby younger than 9 months. It may cause the baby's body temperature to go down.
- Try an oatmeal bath to help relieve itching. Wrap 1 cup of oatmeal in a cotton cloth or sock, and boil it as you would to cook it. Allow it to cool to room temperature, and then use it as a sponge while bathing your child in cool water without soap. You can also buy a product at the store, such as Aveeno Colloidal Oatmeal bath.
- Dress your child in cotton clothing. Do not use wool and synthetic fabrics next to the skin.
- Use gentle soaps, such as Basis, Cetaphil, Dove, or Oil of Olay, and use as little soap as possible. Do not use deodorant soaps on your child.
- Wash your child's clothes with a mild soap, such as CheerFree or Ecover, rather than a detergent. Rinse twice to remove all traces of the soap. Do not use strong detergents.
- Do not let the Reference skin become too dry, which can make itching worse.
Nonprescription medicines for itching
Carefully read and follow all label directions on the medicine bottle or box.
- Try calamine lotion for a rash caused by Reference contact dermatitis Opens New Window, such as poison ivy or poison oak rashes.
- For severe itching, apply Reference hydrocortisone cream 4 times a day until the itch is gone. Note: Do not use the cream on children younger than age 2 unless your doctor tells you to do so. Do not use in the rectal or vaginal area on children younger than age 12 unless your doctor tells you to do so.
- Try an oral Reference antihistamine to help the scratch-itch cycle. Examples include chlorpheniramine maleate, such as Chlor-Trimeton, and diphenhydramine, such as Benadryl. Oral antihistamines are helpful when itching and discomfort are preventing your child from doing normal activities, such as going to school or getting to sleep. Don't give antihistamines to your child unless you've checked with the doctor first.
|Try a nonprescription medicine to help treat your child's fever or pain:|
Talk to your child's doctor before switching back and forth between doses of acetaminophen and ibuprofen. When you switch between two medicines, there is a chance your child will get too much medicine.
|Be sure to follow these safety tips when you use a nonprescription medicine:|
Symptoms to watch for during home treatment
Reference Call your child's doctor if any of the following occur during home treatment:
- Other symptoms, such as a fever, feeling ill, or signs of infection, are severe or become worse.
- A new rash lasts longer than 2 weeks.
- Your child's symptoms become more severe or more frequent.
|By:||Reference Healthwise Staff||Last Revised: Reference February 21, 2012|
|Medical Review:||Reference William H. Blahd, Jr., MD, FACEP - Emergency Medicine
Reference H. Michael O'Connor, MD - Emergency Medicine | <urn:uuid:5b7c1f09-c1e8-47f6-b077-927421787d91> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pamf.org/health/healthinfo/index.cfm?A=C&type=info&hwid=rsh10§ion=hw100537 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930094 | 1,025 | 3.21875 | 3 |
Robert D. Putnam is one of those Harvard University professors respected for his scholarly research and celebrated for the masterful way he connects it to the narrative of modern life. When he wrote that Americans were “bowling alone” — and therefore no longer building up “social capital,” the trust, informal networks and energetic communities necessary for a healthy, engaged democracy — his indictment of civic life in a book with that catchy title drew the attention of White House policymakers and influenced a generation of political scientists.
So the October publication of his latest book, “American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us,” was greeted with much anticipation, and it does not disappoint. Crunching decades of data, Putnam and co-author David E. Campbell went searching for the roots of interfaith tolerance and found that even though religious practice in America trends toward polarization, it is tempered by an acceptance based on familiarity. Knowing someone of another faith — and increasingly, Americans do — makes us more tolerant of those who hold that faith.
To emphasize the point, the authors offer their own polyglot stories in the book’s introduction. Campbell is a Mormon, the child of a Mormon mother (who was born a Catholic) and a Protestant father, who eventually converted to Mormonism. Putnam was raised as an observant Methodist, but upon marrying his wife nearly 50 years ago he became a Jew.
A Jew? Robert Putnam, who looks like he could have stepped off the Mayflower, who can trace his ancestors back to the witch trials in Old Salem, who has always seemed the epitome of the Harvard academic WASP, is Jewish?
“Yes, and I am personally responsible for a minyan!” he said with a flourish, during a rare, free moment from the incessant touring and interviewing that comes with publishing a book these days. It seems that though he and his wife raised their two children as Jews, both children married non-Jews, but one of those spouses converted, and all six grandchildren are being raised as Jews, even though their grandfather resembles a Pilgrim.
“I didn’t set out to write this book because I’m a converted Jew,” Putnam hastened to add during a telephone interview with the Forward. (Although Jews do emerge on top of the religious popularity contest. More on that later.)
“I want the book to stand as a piece of scholarship, and for people to react to what it says, not who wrote it,” he said. “But I have thought a lot about how the book speaks to Jews, and my own conversion made me more aware of the trends.”
These trends include fluidity, as roughly one-third of Americans have switched religions at some point in their lives; intermarriage, as up to half of all American marriages are between people of different faiths; polarization, as Americans are concentrating on either end of the religious spectrum — highly devout or avowedly secular — and the moderate religious middle is shrinking. And yet, almost paradoxically, Putnam and Campbell found in their research a high degree of tolerance for people of another faith, and for those who have no faith at all.
Why? The authors argue that the answer is what they call the Aunt Susan Principle: “We all have an Aunt Susan in our lives, the sort of person who epitomizes what it means to be a saint, but whose religious background is different from our own…. [Y]ou know that Aunt Susan is destined for heaven. And if she is going to heaven, what does that say about other people who share her religion or lack of religion? Maybe they can go to heaven too.”
There are limits to this tolerance. Putnam and Campbell found that three religious groups were noted for their unpopularity: Mormons, Buddhists and Muslims. The antipathy toward Mormons and, especially, Muslims may be due to their negative public images, but it’s hard to say the same for Buddhists. Instead, this unpopularity may be traced to the fact that these three groups stand outside the Judeo-Christian framework as unknown, alien, and therefore not subject to the Aunt Susan Principle and the benefits of familiarity.
Using the same measurement tools, Putnam and Campbell conclude that Jews are the most popular religious group, a finding that, no doubt, will be greeted by some Jews with surprise and skepticism. In fact, that was the reaction Putnam received when he spoke about this at his Reform synagogue, Temple Isaiah in Lexington, Mass.: “People said: ‘You’re wrong! They do hate us!’ and I said, ‘Best I can tell, they don’t!’”
This finding is confirmed by other research — including a 2009 study by the Anti-Defamation League that found anti-Semitism in America to be at a historic low. Putnam said this finding also resonated with his own experience. Because his first 20 years were lived as a Methodist, because he doesn’t, well, look Jewish, “it’s more likely to have people say anti-Semitic things in my presence than in yours,” he said.
He certainly heard casual, socially accepted anti-Semitism from people of his parents’ generation, but he also witnessed firsthand the national trend of its diminishment after World War II. “The generations that came of age after 1946 were less exposed to this,” he said. “Political correctness actually worked. This change is a real change.”
Besides challenging a certain aspect of “Jewish identity as victim,” this finding may prompt another way to look at intermarriage. Putnam acknowledged that his family is hardly typical — starting out with one Jew (his wife) and ending up with 10. But, he added, “some say Jews always lose when there is intermarriage. Maybe that is a function of outdated data. If Jews are seen as quite an attractive group, that may lessen the case that Jews will lose.”
Contact Jane Eisner at email@example.com | <urn:uuid:34b04d31-3118-494a-aa32-e8a77a057569> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://forward.com/articles/133047/robert-putnam-assays-religious-tolerance-from-a-un/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977996 | 1,265 | 2.03125 | 2 |
see + do
Tel: 33 3 85 35 85 24
Concierge.com's insider take:
In prehistoric times, hunters ambushed mammoths and horses at Roche de Solutré, a startling hogback outcropping six miles east of Mâcon, near the villages of Pouilly and Fuissé. (The Solutrean Phase of the Upper Paleolithic period, 15,000–12,000 B.C., was named for this area.) Today, the outstanding Musée Départemental de Préhistoire stands on the spot where millions of animal bones were unearthed. Exhibitions change regularly: Most feature archaeological items that were unearthed here, while others are thematic (prehistoric weaponry, for instance) and draw on museum collections from around the world. Kids love this museum, as do plenty of adults; many of the items displayed, though thousands of years old, look like powerful works of modern art. After visiting the museum, continue to the top of the cliff (it's an easy stroll from the museum parking lot). On a clear day, the views range across the countless vineyards of southern Burgundy and the northern Rhône Valley.—David Downie
Open daily 10 am to noon and 2 to 5 pm, January through March, October, and November; 10 am to 6 pm, April through September. Closed December, New Year's Day, and May 1.
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BEEN HERE? TELL US WHAT YOU THINK
Be the first to write a review of Musée Départemental de Préhistoire and share your tips with the Concierge.com community. | <urn:uuid:3a46aca2-90c4-47c9-8fcf-24bedfbfe06c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.concierge.com/travelguide/burgundy/seeanddo/502810 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.904581 | 347 | 1.976563 | 2 |
Stanford University News have posted a press release/interview with Reviel Netz about his book Ludic Proof: Greek Mathematics and the Alexandrian Aesthetic.
In the book, Prof Netz considers ancient Greek mathematical texts as works of literature, comparing them with other written works from the time.
Professor Netz argues that Hellenistic mathematical writings adopt a narrative strategy based on surprise, a compositional form based on a mosaic of apparently unrelated elements, and a carnivalesque profusion of detail. He further investigates how such stylistic preferences derive from, and throw light on, the style of Hellenistic poetry.
It’s interesting to think about how what constitutes a “proof” has changed over the years, and how the way a proof is presented affects your reading of it, separately from the logical methods used. The interview is very short, and worth a read.
Also worth looking at is this rather nice website about the Archimedes Palimpsest, made to accompany the Neumann Prize-winning book The Archimedes Codex written Reviel Netz and William Noel. | <urn:uuid:6d516f89-f189-4c46-a73a-7158cc0e196a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://aperiodical.com/2012/05/inside-a-mathematical-proof-lies-literature/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932641 | 227 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Understanding your personal pronation type is crucial to choosing the proper running shoes.
As with the "normal pronation" sequence, the outside of the heel makes the initial ground contact. However, the foot rolls inward more than the ideal fifteen percent, which is called "overpronation." This means the foot and ankle have problems stabilizing the body, and shock isn't absorbed as efficiently. At the end of the gait cycle, the front of the foot pushes off the ground using mainly the big toe and second toe, which then must do all the work. | <urn:uuid:76f37692-f118-4ba6-a7a3-6713a0f22ac3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.runnersworld.com/running-shoes/pronation-explained?page=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944423 | 114 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Our undergraduate and graduate students conduct cutting-edge scientific research with DU faculty members and at collaborator institutions nationwide.
Physics majors: Find a research project!
Student Research Highlights
Graduate student Azure Avery's work is nationally recognized
Azure Avery has had a banner year, publishing two first-author papers and receiving two prestigious awards. Avery is the first author of two new articles: "Observations of the planar Nernst effect in permalloy and nickel thin films with in-plane thermal gradients" (Avery, Pufall, & Zink 2012, Phys Rev Lett, 109, 196602) and "Determining the planar Nernst effect from magnetic field dependent thermopower and resistance in nickel and permalloy thin films" (Avery, Pufall, & Zink 2012, Phys Rev B, 86, 184408). In addition, she received the APS GMAG Ph.D. Dissertation Award for outstanding research in magnetism and was selected as a finalist for Best Student Presentation Award at the upcoming 2013 Joint MMM/Intermag conference. Azure works with Dr. Barry Zink and plans to finish her Ph.D. in 2013. Congratulations, Azure!
Recent BS graduate Mark Rustad publishes first-author paper on his thesis research
Mark Rustad, BS Physics 2012, is the lead author on a paper recently published in the Journal of Chemical Physics. Titled "Why and how does native topology dictate the folding speed of a protein?" (Rustad & Ghosh 2012, J. Chem. Phys. 137, 20510), the article reports on Mark's research at DU on the physics of protein folding. Working with Dr. Kingshuk Ghosh, Mark created new theoretical models to investigate the speed with which a protein molecule can fold into the biologically relevant state called the native state. Mark is currently a Ph.D. student in the Department of Physics at the University of Minnesota.
Astronomy Ph.D. student Rachael Tomasino won a prize for the best graduate student poster at the recent APS Four Corners conference for her poster "AKARI MLHES Data Set Processing with FAST," which describes a method for calibrating and correcting images obtained from the Japanese infrared satellite AKARI. The figures show an image of alpha Orionis (Betelgeuse) before and after correction for cosmic-ray hits using Rachael's method. Rachael is a second-year graduate student working with Dr. Toshiya Ueta.
Astronomy Ph.D. student Jamie Lomax has published a first-author paper in the Astrophysical Journal describing her recent work on the eclipsing interacting binary star beta Lyrae. Lomax analyzed 6 years' worth of spectropolarimetric data and found the first evidence for a "hot spot" in this system where the mass stream from one star strikes the accretion disk around the other. Her results appear in "Geometrical constraints on the hot spot in beta Lyrae" (Lomax et al. 2012, ApJ, 750, 59). Jamie also presented this work at the recent Stellar Polarimetry and Stars, Companions, and Interactions conferences. Jamie works with Dr. Jennifer Hoffman and will complete her Ph.D. in 2013. | <urn:uuid:02ea8834-90d9-4773-9b4a-307b91336281> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.du.edu/nsm/departments/physicsandastronomy/currentstudents/studentresearch.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917533 | 686 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Delta is the latest airline to add Bulldogs to its “no-fly” list, and not because their cuteness poses a threat to national security. American, English and French Bulldogs have all been added to the list based on Delta’s review of incidents over the past year. It seems that Bulldogs are among those breeds most affected by the challenges that flying poses to animals.
The short stick
Short-faced dogs and cats (like Bulldogs, Pugs, Pekingese, Persians and Himalayans) are called Brachycephalic breeds, meaning that their heads are short. This accounts for their snub-nosed appearance, but it also means they are prone to respiratory problems. Brachycephalic disease is inherent to these breeds. Although it is technically a conformational problem, these breeds are actually bred to look this way, despite the trouble it causes.
What is Brachycephalic disease?
Brachycephalic disease is a collection of conformational issues that contribute to respiratory distress, including:
- Stenotic nares: This means small nostrils. As you can imagine, having tiny nostrils would make it more difficult to breathe.
- Tracheal hypoplasia: This is a narrowed trachea, which is the passageway for air from our mouths to our lungs. Having a small trachea means having to work harder at bringing air to the lungs.
- Elongated soft palate: The long soft palate can be sucked into the airway when air is breathed in, causing respiratory distress.
All of these things contribute to respiratory distress, and unfortunately it can be a vicious cycle. Once distress occurs and the respiratory rate increases, inflammation to the airway causes swelling, further narrowing the airway. All of that huffing and puffing can also lead to dangerous hyperthermia, or increased body temperature.
The big fix
Surgical correction is recommended to allow those animals with Brachycephalic disease to breathe a little easier. The nostrils can be opened up, and the elongated soft palate can be trimmed (along with the extra pharyngeal tissue). These surgeries reduce the chance of respiratory distress, but care should be taken to also try to keep these breeds calm, quiet and cool (easier said than done with frisky young Pugs!).
And luckily, if the pet is insured from a young age before any clinical signs are present in the pet, chances are the surgery can be covered by Petplan pet insurance. All of these breeds are also prone to obesity, which further compounds respiratory issues, so be sure to keep one eye on the scale at all times! | <urn:uuid:963e3fe4-0074-4b60-8125-deaadb658cbf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gopetplan.com/blogpost/petplan-pet-insurance-discusses-the-dangers-of-flying-with-brachycephalic-breeds | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951914 | 544 | 2.96875 | 3 |
Serving Bel Air, Benedict
Canyon, Beverly Hills. Brentwood, Laurel Canyon, Los Feliz, Malibu, Pacific Palisades, Melrose, Santa Monica, Sherman Oaks, Studio City, Topanga Canyon, West Hollywood, Woodland Hills, Westwood & Hollywood Hills.
Book Review: 'The People of the Book'
Posted by Susie Kopecky on Dec 24, 2011 - 9:35:56 AM
BEVERLY HILLS—Gertrude Himmelfarb's new work, The People of the Book: Philosemitism in England, from Cromwell to Churchill, is a marvelous new publication which dazzles, educates and challenges age-old assumptions about English-Jewish history. And the history of England and its Jews is a terribly fascinating one, often far more complex and richly nuanced than many may realize.
For some reason, some still find it hard to reconcile the idea of Jewishness and Englishness; however, Jews have a very long history with our cousins across the pond in England. Jews (in notably sized populations) were documented in England at least by 1066, with the Norman invasion and the ascension of William the Conqueror. The history of the Jews is a history of a wandering people and a history of unexpected allies and enemies. For about 200 years between the Norman Conquest in 1066 and the Edict of Expulsion in 1290 (the official decree from the king that officially banished Jews from England for roughly four centuries), England was a relatively stable ally.
Gertrude Himmelfarb's The People of the Book is an utterly fascinating new work. Photo courtesy of Encounter Books
Though it was a relatively stable place for Jews to reside, Jews were still heavily restricted in terms of owning land, holding certain positions and consistently reminded that they were allowed to live in England solely at the pleasure and patience of their non-Jewish rulers. Jews were often far limited in the types of jobs they could engage in, and as a result of restriction, sometimes lending money was the only logical way they could support families. When it came time to foot the bill, however, sometimes the English rulers encouraged or turned a blind eye toward antisemitic attacks toward their lenders.
From time to time, religious fervor (assisted by Thomas of Monmouth's introduction of the false Blood Libel) and political expediency would help to incite riots against English Jews. Further political restrictions, injury and sometimes mob-led mass killings would be the bloody result of such antisemitic riots in England around the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. By 1290, King Edward issued the expulsion of Jews from England, and with that simple order, the rose of English Jewry was to wither for nearly four hundred years until the official re-entry and recognition of Jews on English soil under Cromwell in the mid-seventeenth century.
And this is where Himmelfarb's lovely book begins.
This book is not meant to outline the entire history of the negative or positive experiences of Jews in England. "Rather," Himmelfarb writes, the book is "a historical essay highlighting crucial ideas and events in that history, from the readmission of the Jews to England in the seventeenth century, through the discourses and disputes of the eighteenth, culminating in the admission to full citizenship in the nineteenth, and beyond that to the achievement of Jewish statehood in the twentieth."
Much has been documented about Europe's problematic history of antisemitism. What is fascinating and so refreshing about this book is its exploration of the relatively uncharted waters of the history of positive movement by non-Jews in early modern English society.
This book focuses on philosemitic moments in English history. (Philosemitism, the author notes, literally means "'love of Jews' (by non-Jews, presumably)" but is much more. In this book, the term encompasses ideas of respect, toleration and recognition, and "on some occasions and for some Christians - Evangelicals, most notably - philosemitism goes beyond recognition to reverence or adulation, something very like 'love.'" Himmelfarb also touches upon the oft forgotten (or simply unknown) truth that the English of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries often saw themselves as a 'new' chosen people, and identified as such with their cousins in religion.
This work takes a fascinating look at the quintessentially modern English character and how a country which saw itself as a modern beacon of liberality slowly embraced ideas of toleration of those who did not strictly conform (in their religious devotion) according to the prevailing winds. Interesting character sketches and ruminations on political machinations are delivered as well, fleshed out by fascinating details on the likely factors leading to philosemitic decisions and attitudes in the era discussed within this book (such as millenarianism and Hebraism).
This book is not long, coming in at 155 pages. And the text is easy to read: I was able to complete this delicious work within hours. The author weaves rich tapestries of images throughout the five major sections into which this book is broken ("In the Beginning: The Readmission of the Jews," "The Case for Toleration," "The Case for Political Equality," "Fictional Heroes and Heroines" and "From Evangelicalism to Zionism").
This book would make a highly enjoyable and educational Christmas or Hanukkah gift.
The People of the Book is published by Encounter Books.
Serving Bel Air, Benedict Canyon, Beverly Hills. Brentwood,
Laurel Canyon, Los Feliz, Malibu, Pacific Palisades, Melrose,
Santa Monica, Sherman Oaks, Studio City, Topanga Canyon, West Hollywood,
Woodland Hills, Westwood & Hollywood Hills. | <urn:uuid:0af6ae2c-c209-415c-83f9-7b6fadb3c9df> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.canyon-news.com/artman2/publish/Books-1/Book_Review_The_People_of_the_Book.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948613 | 1,194 | 2.03125 | 2 |
SADC spurns Brazil, adopts DVB-T2
It’s official. Southern Africa will adopt the European standard for digital terrestrial broadcasting. In addition, the region has adopted the latest version of the standard, known as digital video broadcasting terrestrial version 2, or DVB-T2.
After months of uncertainty, a Southern African Development Community (SADC) special task team has settled the digital TV standards argument by choosing the upgraded European standard.
In a statement following a three-day meeting of the SADC committee responsible for reviewing the digital TV migration standard, committee chairman Joel Kaapanda said the best standard for the region is DVB-T2.
Kaapanda said the committee based its decisions on several factors, including the looming international deadline for digital migration of 2015.
The region’s migration to from analogue to digital broadcasts was thrown in disarray earlier this year when SA’s department of communications proposed a review.
SADC had adopted DVB-T in 2006 through a detailed plan and agreement signed in Geneva.
However this commitment was questioned when the communications department began entertaining lobbying from Brazil and Japan, both of which wanted Southern Africa to adopt a version of Japan’s integrated service digital broadcasting terrestrial (ISDB-T) standard.
Brazil has adopted and modified the Japanese standard.
The decision left local broadcasters confused and frustrated, since many of them were well into the migration using version one of the European standard.
After several mud-slinging sessions between representatives of both standards, the SADC region decided to put together a task team to make a decision as to which standard would be best.
Kaapanda said another reason SADC has recommended DVB-T2 is because other “standards are yet to be tested in terms of compliance with the Geneva agreement signed in 2006”.
As part of the outcomes, the SADC task team has recommended that all member states begin the adoption of DVB-T2 as soon as possible.
“However, those member states that have already started implementing DVB-T standard should proceed with its implementation but ultimately migrate to DVB-T2,” he said.
He said SADC countries hoping to implement any other standard must carefully consider doing it in compliance with the Geneva agreement, specifically since other standards may cause interference with the broadcasts of the DVB-T2 standard. – Candice Jones, TechCentral | <urn:uuid:e813feb3-c9c9-44cb-b63d-b5aa31a4de48> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.techcentral.co.za/sadc-spurns-brazil-adopts-dvb-t2/19468/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955172 | 509 | 2.03125 | 2 |
Complete and fax back this form to register for the event
Having seen the details of your event on Lawyer Diary I would like to register for the event : Personal Impact on 4 December 2013.
The Theatreworks Personal Impact course gives participants the opportunity to explore and develop their skills in relation to how they present themselves and how they affect others, in a variety of settings and situations.
"It creates fifty times more awareness than a million books on the subject" Manager, Pricewaterhouse Coopers.
Theatreworks is a management development programme run by the National Theatre, providing creative training opportunities. Theatreworks draws on the techniques used by actors and directors in the rehearsal room to encourage confident and creative communication by stretching the voice, the body and the imagination. Experienced trainers recognised as leaders in the field of creative training lead all Theatreworks events.
"A liberating experience" Chief Executive, NHS Trust.
BENEFITS TO PARTICIPANTS
- Ability to harness their own personality, presence and purpose to affect a group
- Insight into what makes people interesting and engaging
- Increased confidence in communicating to an audience
- Understanding physical presence and body language
- Improved use of voice and breathing
- Active listening skills and techniques for concentration and relaxation
- Pointers for carrying the learning back into the workplace
Ice Breaking exercises, encouraging participants to use their instincts and to work spontaneously. Exploring physical and mental flexibility. Active listening, concentration, breaking down barriers, openness, working with others.
Communication and Voice
Listening and using words effectively. Developing interpersonal skills, building rapport and communicating effectively. Utilising the potential of the voice and physical presence for presentation of self. Breathing techniques and tools that participants can use immediately.
Making an Impact
Harnessing personality, presence and purpose to affect a group. Using text, body, voice and space to communicate to an audience with stated purpose. Feedback from the rest of the group and trainers.
Places are limited to no more than 12 people per course.
All participants are invited to attend a buffet and a performance at the National Theatre in the evening. This is included in the cost of the training.
NT Theatreworks Open Courses - a series of experiential, interactive workshops designed by the world’s leading theatre and training professionals to provide a secure, creative environment for participants to explore and rehearse communication styles, develop new skills and grow in confidence
Take part in workshops in Personal Impact and Influence and Rapport. | <urn:uuid:8b66ab69-8851-422a-98ba-28ccabf92e4e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thelawyer.com/events/Personal-Impact/560161.print | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924719 | 522 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Don’t worry, this guy is just trying to sell a book conveniently located on the left sidebar of the Guardian. I hear there’s a two for one special with Chariots of the Gods on Amazon.
Get a load of some of this rubbish:
The world we inhabit has an outer rind that is extraordinarily sensitive to change. While the Earth’s crust may seem safe and secure, the geological calamities that happen with alarming regularity confirm that this is not the case. Here in the UK, we only have to go back a couple years to April 2010, when the word on everyone’s lips was Eyjafjallajökull – the ice-covered Icelandic volcano that brought UK and European air traffic to a grinding halt. Less than a year ago, our planet’s ability to shock and awe headed the news once again as the east coast of Japan was bludgeoned by a cataclysmic combination of megaquake and tsunami, resulting – at a quarter of a trillion dollars or so – in the biggest natural-catastrophe bill ever.
Could it be then, that if we continue to allow greenhouse gas emissions to rise unchecked and fuel serious warming, our planet’s crust will begin to toss and turn once again?
The signs are that this is already happening. In the detached US state of Alaska, where climate change has propelled temperatures upwards by more than 3C in the last half century, the glaciers are melting at a staggering rate, some losing up to 1km in thickness in the last 100 years. The reduction in weight on the crust beneath is allowing faults contained therein to slide more easily, promoting increased earthquake activity in recent decades. The permafrost that helps hold the state’s mountain peaks together is also thawing rapidly, leading to a rise in the number of giant rock and ice avalanches. In fact, in mountainous areas around the world, landslide activity is on the up; a reaction both to a general ramping-up of global temperatures and to the increasingly frequent summer heatwaves.
Whether or not Alaska proves to be the “canary in the cage” – the geological shenanigans there heralding far worse to come – depends largely upon the degree to which we are successful in reducing the ballooning greenhouse gas burden arising from our civilisation’s increasingly polluting activities, thereby keeping rising global temperatures to a couple of degrees centigrade at most.
Alaska has detached OMG!
Yeah right, that ~0.8°C of atmospheric warming in the past century reached all the way down to the bottom of the ocean and disturbed the fault off Japan. Of course if Mr. McGuire doesn’t do anything but let himself get scared by computer model predictions instead of examining measured reality, I can see how he’d be driven to write a book like this.
This Guardian article is even less credible when you pitch a sensational book in the “news” article at the Guardian right alongside it. I may nominate this guy for idiot of the year, he may beat Peter Gleick for this honor.
Here’s the book:
Waking the Giant: How a changing climate triggers earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes by Bill McGuire
UPDATE: 9:00AM 2/27 Anonymous whiner “The Power of X” complains in comments that I “didn’t use enough science” in this post. I didn’t realize that when mocking such absurd claims I had to worry about it that much, especially when I tag the story with “GLOC” and “ridiculae”. I figured hey, I just won Best Science Blog for the second year in a row and Lifetime Achievement Award in the 2012 Bloggies, plus the post went up at 3:30AM PST, so I though maybe I’d get a little slack. Oh well, that’s what updates are for. Steve Goddard helpfully points out what the USGS has to say about this nonsense. They write on their website:
Are Earthquakes Really on the Increase?
We continue to be asked by many people throughout the world if earthquakes are on the increase. Although it may seem that we are having more earthquakes, earthquakes of magnitude 7.0 or greater have remained fairly constant.
A partial explanation may lie in the fact that in the last twenty years, we have definitely had an increase in the number of earthquakes we have been able to locate each year. This is because of the tremendous increase in the number of seismograph stations in the world and the many improvements in global communications. In 1931, there were about 350 stations operating in the world; today, there are more than 8,000 stations and the data now comes in rapidly from these stations by electronic mail, internet and satellite. This increase in the number of stations and the more timely receipt of data has allowed us and other seismological centers to locate earthquakes more rapidly and to locate many small earthquakes which were undetected in earlier years. The NEIC now locates about 20,000 earthquakes each year or approximately 50 per day. Also, because of the improvements in communications and the increased interest in the environment and natural disasters, the public now learns about more earthquakes.
According to long-term records (since about 1900), we expect about 17 major earthquakes (7.0 – 7.9) and one great earthquake (8.0 or above) in any given year.
They make the exact same argument that I do about severe weather, another favorite worry-wail of the CAGW camp:
Oh, the GRACE data isn’t the definitive answer on ice loss=earthquakes
correlation ≠ cause | <urn:uuid:750042dd-39bd-41c6-9151-2bede051d6c2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/27/why-yes-linking-climate-change-to-earthquakes-does-seem-to-be-bordering-on-the-insane/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945074 | 1,184 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Yesterday morning at THE SPLIT I was on a panel with John Rosenwald,Lee Sharkey and Jody Bolz. This was a lit-date between the editors of Beloit Poetry Journal and Poet Lore. The session was well attended and consisted of an excellent exchange between poets.Our topic was "What Makes Effective Political Poetry? Editors' Perspectives." I raised three points:
1.What are the politics of the editors?
2.What do we mean by the word effective?
3.What do we want a poem to do?
Lee Sharkey handed out a list of quotes by writers who had addressed the issue of political poetry. The one I liked the best was by John Berger:
Every authentic poem contributes to the labour of poetry...to bring together what life has separated or violence has torn apart...Poetry can repair no loss, but it defies the space which separates. And it does this by its continual labor of reassembling what has been scattered.("The Hour of Poetry")
So, I said goodbye to Jan Beatty on the bus earlier today. She wanted to go hear the DC Youth Slam Team Finals.
I headed home with a poem in my head.I was a happy poet. It had been a good week. Now after Saturday, must come a Sunday kind of love.
"Don't you hear this hammer ring?
I'm gonna split this rock
And split it wide!
When I split this rock,
Stand by my side. | <urn:uuid:acea31fb-c7ea-4f20-94dc-9134fd9d0f67> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the_best_american_poetry/2010/03/mor-on-split-this-rock-by-e-ethelbert-miller.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973888 | 311 | 1.554688 | 2 |
TOLEDO, OH (Toledo News Now) - Unemployment is up slightly in Toledo and Lucas County.
In Toledo, the jobless figure was 8 percent for November, up slightly from 7.9 percent in October. In Lucas County, 7.4 percent were unemployed in November, 7.3 percent in October.
Officials at The Source said the numbers are not that surprising.
"I think it's bound to happen," said Craig Gebers of The Source. "You're going to have months [where] it goes up and down. Those labor stats are always fluctuating, depending on who drops off unemployment."
Gebers said there are ways to improve your chances of landing a job. He recommended applicants develop skill sets in computers, math and reading, especially when going after a position in manufacturing.
"Because of the equipment that is now in manufacturing, you have to have a higher level of skills and those are what we call basic skills," he said.
Another tip was to become more marketable. The Source offers online classes on how to do that.
"Know what you're applying for, do your research about the company, learn about the job and have an attitude [of] this is an opportunity for you," Gebers added.
And the folks coming to The Source hope such an opportunity knocks on their door in 2013.
Copyright 2012 Toledo News Now. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:4f8f1ce5-ff1e-413b-8bd0-e2722665678c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.toledonewsnow.com/story/20446366/www.toledonewsnow.com | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968834 | 290 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Superfund Program Implements the Recovery Act
Vineland Chemical CompanyVineland, New Jersey
The site of the former Vineland Chemical Company’s operations is in a mixed industrial and residential setting. From 1950 until it abandoned the plant in 1994, the company manufactured arsenic-based herbicides at the site. Because of improper storage and handling of arsenic-based salts, the plant property (54 acres), nearby marsh/wetland sediments, area ground water and sediments of the Blackwater Branch, Maurice River and Union Lake are contaminated; arsenic is the major contaminant of concern.
Cleanup Activities to Date
EPA listed the site on the National Priorities List in 1984 and has been addressing it in two stages -- immediate actions and four long-term cleanup phases. Through these long-term actions, EPA’s efforts are focused on source control, contaminant migration management and the cleanup of marsh/river and lake sediments. To date, EPA has demolished and removed contaminated buildings on the plant site property, and removed and disposed of hazardous chemicals stored/abandoned on the site. EPA also constructed a ground water extraction and treatment system, which has been operating since 2000, to control the off-site migration of ground water contamination. Through use of a state-of-the-art soil washing system, EPA has processed over 400,000 tons of arsenic-contaminated soil/sediments and returned 95 percent of the material to the site as clean backfill. Finally, EPA has completed cleanup of the first of three sections of the Blackwater Branch through a combination of soil washing and off-site disposal.
Recovery Act Project Activity
EPA will use the $20 million in Recovery Act funds to speed up the cleanup of the remaining stretches of Blackwater Branch. The associated contaminated sediments are the major remaining source of arsenic contamination to the Maurice River (designated as a scenic river) and Union Lake (the second largest lake in NJ). EPA anticipates that speeding up the cleanup of the Blackwater Branch will reduce the overall cleanup of the site by approximately two years.
FY2011 highlights include:
- Recovery Act funds were 100% expended on the construction project. The project continues using other appropriated funds.
To find out more about:
- This Superfund site, go to: http://www.epa.gov/region02/superfund/npl/vineland/.
- The Recovery Act and:
- Superfund, go to: http://www.epa.gov/superfund/eparecovery/index.html;
- EPA, go to: http://www.epa.gov/recovery; and
- the United States, go to: http://www.recovery.gov. | <urn:uuid:c6cb1424-c7b6-45f9-9084-b003998fab0c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://epa.gov/superfund/eparecovery/vineland_chemical.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932022 | 570 | 2.4375 | 2 |
MEA blames Legislature, facts say otherwise
A Department of Education report that said 48 school districts posted deficits in 2010-2011 is being used to blame Gov. Rick Snyder and the Legislature for cuts that are part of the state's 2011-2012 budget.
Michael Van Beek, director of education policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, said Gov. Snyder’s cuts weren't in place at the time the districts were in the red, and that these districts were spending more than they were taking in before Gov. Snyder took office.
The article states: “The move comes after school districts absorbed cuts in state aid, with the minimum per-student grant dropping from $7,316 to $6,846 — which union leaders said is the main reason.”
Van Beek said it will not be possible to measure the impact of budget cuts on school district deficits until after the 2011-2012 fiscal year ends, which is June 30, 2012.
“Blaming Gov. Snyder and the Legislature for these budget deficits aligns nicely with the narrative the MEA would like to push on the public, but unfortunately for them, the data don’t justify their claims,” Van Beek wrote in an email. “Many of these school districts were overspending long before Gov. Snyder took office, with two-thirds of them operating in the red for at least three years.”
Thirty-eight of the districts had been in the red for more than one year and 16 of the districts had been outspending revenue for five or more years.
The Grand Rapids Press quoted a union official who blamed Snyder’s cuts for the deficits.
“What did the Legislature expect would happen when it cut $1 billion in school aid?” said Doug Pratt, the Michigan Education Association's public affairs director.
“I'm surprised there aren't more districts on the list, since so many were struggling because of declining enrollment and other things even before Gov. Snyder took money away to give businesses a $1.8 billion tax cut. And the reason there aren't more is because employees have given so much back through concessions.”
Grand Rapids Press Reporter Dave Murray, Grand Rapids Press Editor Paul Keep and the MEA’s Doug Pratt didn’t respond to emails seeking comment. | <urn:uuid:778fc8f8-81fb-441c-b057-6cafc394dc61> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/16304 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971911 | 484 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Court decisions against crucifixes in Italy’s public schools
November 3, 2009
Last week, a Muslim leader in an Italian province won a court fight to remove crucifixes from the public school where his children attend.
In a separate case brought by a self-described "secular" mother, the European Court of Human Rights ruled on November 3 against the use of crucifixes in classrooms in Italy . Read news reports at New York Times , CBS and the BBC .
The Court applied Article 9 (freedom of thought, conscience and religion) of the European Convention on Human Rights to this case.
Exerpts from this ruling:
The presence of the crucifix – which it was impossible not to notice in the classrooms – could easily be interpreted by pupils of all ages as a religious sign and they would feel that they were being educated in a school environment bearing the stamp of a given religion. This could be encouraging for religious pupils, but also disturbing for pupils who practised other religions or were atheists, particularly if they belonged to religious minorities. The freedom not to believe in any religion (inherent in the freedom of religion guaranteed by the Convention) was not limited to the absence of religious services or religious education: it extended to practices and symbols which expressed a belief, a religion or atheism. This freedom deserved particular protection if it was the State which expressed a belief and the individual was placed in a situation which he or she could not avoid, or could do so only through a disproportionate effort and sacrifice.
The State was to refrain from imposing beliefs in premises where individuals were dependent on it. In particular, it was required to observe confessional neutrality in the context of public education, where attending classes was compulsory irrespective of religion, and where the aim should be to foster critical thinking in pupils.
and then the court's concluding judgment:
The compulsory display of a symbol of a given confession in premises used by the public authorities, and especially in classrooms, thus restricted the right of parents to educate their children in conformity with their convictions, and the right of children to believe or not to believe.
#1 Alphonsus (Guest) on Thursday November 05, 2009 at 8:38am
Doesn’t a ban on religious iconography also say something significant to children about what they should believe?
#2 Yolande (Guest) on Monday November 30, 2009 at 5:27am
This may be just my imagination but I am noticing an interesting double standard these days.
Working in an office with Christians and atheists we had an incident where one of the atheists was asked to go easy on his foul language. He then got really upset and caused a whole lot of speeches from management to the Christians about how they weren’t allowed to speak about religion, because they were “forcing” their religion on him.
It became so bad you had to be careful what you said the whole time you were in the building, but that particular atheist still spouted his foul language without consequence and now, you couldn’t even make it known that it made you uncomfortable.
When something like this happens, I have to wonder. Who is forcing a religion here? | <urn:uuid:8432428c-c311-445b-9413-d943a07df160> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.centerforinquiry.net/blogs/entry/court_decisions_against_crucifixes_in_italys_public_schools/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975134 | 648 | 2.484375 | 2 |
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Trinity College Library – University of Dublin | Photograph via Skylark Studio Following up from last year’s highly popular post ‘ 15 Incredible Libraries Around the World ‘, the Sifter has compiled another collection of beautiful libraries from your comments and suggestions. Ultimately, it is the books within these buildings that make it special, but many of these pillars of learning stand as landmarks in the cities and universities they reside. For all lovers of books, these libraries deserve to be cherished and revered. 2. Kirby Library, Lafayette College | Easton, Pennsylvania, USA
Common Themes in Literature It has been argued that there are anywhere between 3 and 40 main themes in literature that continue to be explored by each successive generation of writers. No one knows for what the real number is--it depends on who you ask--but below is a list, not necessarily inclusive, of the most common ones. There are many variations, and there are often overlaps as well. So, right or wrong, in no particular order, here they are.
Photo by Nathiya Prathnadi By Scott Young Want to read faster? In this article, I’m going to share the lessons I learned that doubled my reading rate, allowed me to consume over 70 books in a year and made me a smarter reader. I’m also going to destroy some speed-reading myths, to show you it isn’t magic but a skill anyone can learn. How I Started Speed Reading | <urn:uuid:cc0e42df-dbe4-4c3e-af40-b8b23669577f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pearltrees.com/forzaethonorum/literature/id3380165 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946206 | 309 | 1.898438 | 2 |
Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by the editors of HealthDay:
Only 1 in 4 Sunscreens Effective and Safe: Report
A new report claims that only 25 percent of 800 tested sunscreens provide protection for your skin without using potentially harmful ingredients.
The Environmental Working Group's 2012 Sunscreen Guide defines safe sunscreens as those that are free of the chemical oxybenzone and retinyl palmitate (a type of vitamin A), don't have SPF above 50, and protect against UVA and UVB sunrays, CNN reported.
"The results are slightly better than previous years, but it continues to surprise us that we can recommend such few products," said Nneka Leiba, a senior analyst with the group.
Fifty-six percent of beach and sport sunscreens contain oxybenzone, which absorbs ultraviolet light. However, some research shows that the chemical can be absorbed through the skin and the Environmental Working Group and other experts believe that oxybenzone in linked to hormone disruption and possibly to cell damage that may lead to skin cancer, CNN reported.
Oxybenzone is safe, according to the American Academy of Dermatology, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the chemical in sunscreen for use on children older than six months.
Retinyl palminate is another potentially harmful ingredient found in many sunscreens, according to the Environmental Working Group. Government-funded studies in mice have found that this type of vitamin A may increase the risk of skin cancer when used on sun-exposed skin, CNN reported.
Sharp Drop in Maternal Deaths: U.N.
The United Nations says the number of women worldwide dying from complications of pregnancy and childbirth fell 47 percent in the last two decades, from 543,000 in 1990 to 287,000 in 2010.
The U.N. said the decrease in maternal deaths is due to increases in contraception and in antiretroviral drugs for mothers with AIDS, as well as a greater number of births attended by nurses, doctors, or midwives with medical training, The New York Times reported.
While maternal deaths are falling quickly in East Asia, they are declining slowly in Africa. The overall reduction in Asia is largely due to China, which has a one-child policy, high rates of contraceptive use, and an improving health care system.
Two countries -- India and Nigeria -- account for one-third of maternal deaths worldwide, the U.N. said. Others with high numbers of maternal deaths include: Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan, Sudan, Indonesia, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, The Times reported.
One-Third of Adults Worldwide Have High Blood Pressure: WHO
High blood pressure affects one in three adults worldwide, according to a World Health Organization report released Wednesday.
Effective, low-cost treatment has led to a drop in rates of high blood pressure in wealthy nations but many people in poor countries remain undiagnosed and untreated. For example, less than 20 percent of adults in Canada and the United States have high blood pressure, compared with nearly 50 percent in Niger, Agence France-Presse reported.
The WHO data also showed that one in 10 people worldwide have diabetes and that 12 percent of the world's population is obese. The Americas have the highest rate of obesity (26 percent) while Southeast Asia has the lowest rate (3 percent).
"This report is further evidence of the dramatic increase in the conditions that trigger heart disease and other chronic illnesses, particularly in low and middle-income countries," said WHO director general Margaret Chan, AFP reported.
The WHO also said that deaths in children younger than five years fell from almost 10 million in 2000 to 7.6 million a decade later.
Copyright © 2012 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
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A state away, in Virginia, one private school is dealing with its own influenza catastrophe. Peter Bender, principal of the upper school at Walsingham Academy in Williamsburg, Va., said he and other administrators were forced to shut down the school on Friday when more than a quarter of the student body was absent Thursday with flu-like symptoms.
"We started noticing absences this past Monday -- maybe 60 or 62 students were out," Bender said. "The lower school principal told me that she had 30 out."
With each day, the number of illness-related absences grew. By Thursday, 118 out of 314 upper school pupils and 80 out of about 440 lower school pupils children were absent with symptoms consistent with either a respiratory infection or gastrointestinal illness.
Bender said that it was at that point the administrators decided to close down the school on Friday -- to the praise of the students' parents.
Bender, who has 35 years of experience working in various school systems, said he has never seen a wave of illness-induced absence of this magnitude.
He noted that state health officials have not yet determined the exact cause for the illnesses. Currently, he said, the health department is offering the families of sick children screening kits to detect norovirus -- a type of bug that causes gastrointestinal illness.
Schaffner said that it is difficult to determine the exact nature of the illness without knowing more about the individual cases. But he said that the influenza virus is a likely suspect, given the symptoms described.
"You would think that the influenza virus is the more likely cause this time of year," he said.
Schaffner added that while norovirus is generally more associated with intestinal symptoms, influenza can also bring about gastrointestinal effects such as diarrhea in younger children.
"It would be extremely unusual to have two prominent viruses in one institution simultaneously," he said. "That would be very, very odd."
In the aftermath of the infections at Walsingham Academy, workers are scrubbing down the school -- a step that Schaffner said will not likely help if an influenza bug is to blame, but which Bender said he welcomes.
"My No. 1 concern is the health of the students," he said. "This extra day is intended to give everyone a rest and the opportunity to clean the buildings."
For Willis, the week to come will be one in which he struggles to cope with his loss.
"It's like I'm waiting to wake up from a nightmare," Willis said.
Since his son's death, he has talked openly to the media about his experience. Talking about it, he hopes, will help him deal with his grief -- and alert other families to the danger of the flu.
"If it helps one family avoid going through what we're going through, then it's worth it," he said. | <urn:uuid:b27b5a64-c0b8-47f8-a58c-c3570d419bff> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://abcnews.go.com/Health/ColdandFluNews/story?id=6977860&page=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982152 | 581 | 1.726563 | 2 |
The scientists and engineers of NASA's Curiosity rover mission have selected the first driving destination for their one-ton, six-wheeled mobile Mars laboratory. The target area, named Glenelg, is a natural intersection of three kinds of terrain. The choice was described by Curiosity Project Scientist John Grotzinger of the California Institute of Technology during a media teleconference on Aug. 17.
"With such a great landing spot in Gale Crater, we literally had every degree of the compass to choose from for our first drive," Grotzinger said. "We had a bunch of strong contenders. It is the kind of dilemma planetary scientists dream of, but you can only go one place for the first drilling for a rock sample on Mars. That first drilling will be a huge moment in the history of Mars exploration."
The trek to Glenelg will send the rover 1,300 feet (400 meters) east-southeast of its landing site. One of the three types of terrain intersecting at Glenelg is layered bedrock, which is attractive as the first drilling target.
"We're about ready to load our new destination into our GPS and head out onto the open road," Grotzinger said. "Our challenge is there is no GPS on Mars, so we have a roomful of rover-driver engineers providing our turn-by-turn navigation for us."
Prior to the rover's trip to Glenelg, the team in charge of Curiosity's Chemistry and Camera instrument, or ChemCam, is planning to give their mast-mounted, rock-zapping laser and telescope combination a thorough checkout. On Saturday night, Aug. 18, ChemCam is expected to "zap" its first rock in the name of planetary science. It will be the first time such a powerful laser has been used on the surface of another world.
"Rock N165 looks like your typical Mars rock, about three inches wide. It's about 10 feet away," said Roger Wiens, principal investigator of the ChemCam instrument from the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. "We are going to hit it with 14 millijoules of energy 30 times in 10 seconds. It is not only going to be an excellent test of our system, it should be pretty cool too."
Mission engineers are devoting more time to planning the first roll of Curiosity. In the coming days, the rover will exercise each of its four steerable (front and back) wheels, turning each of them side-to-side before ending up with each wheel pointing straight ahead. On a later day, the rover will drive forward about one rover-length (10 feet, or 3 meters), turn 90 degrees, and then kick into reverse for about 7 feet (2 meters).
"There will be a lot of important firsts that will be taking place for Curiosity over the next few weeks, but the first motion of its wheels, the first time our roving laboratory on Mars does some actual roving, that will be something special," said Michael Watkins, mission manager for Curiosity from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
SOURCE and IMAGE CREDIT: NASA | <urn:uuid:66790119-0ffb-4e58-8aae-8bb2bb09efcf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://space.brevardtimes.com/2012/08/nasa-mars-curiosity-to-zap-rocks-with.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945535 | 641 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Search online for ‘The World’s Biggest Cake’ and you’ll find a plethora of results. The world’s largest Christmas, Birthday, Wedding, Cupcake, even SpongeBob SquarePants cake will be there for you to wonder at and then wonder why. It won’t take long for you to reach ‘The most Jaffa Cakes eaten in one minute’.
I’m sure you’ll share my astonishment when you learn the record is… six. Six! Well, that can’t be the limit of what’s humanly possible. McVities introduced the Jaffa Cake way back in 1927. Is six how far we’ve come in all that time? That’s easy to beat isn’t it. Isn’t it?
So off I went (with some confidence I have to admit) to our local Tesco Express to buy a packet of McVities Jaffa Cakes. A colleague was happy to help adjudicate, so I emptied the Cakes onto a plate and got ready.
Then I decided to eat lunch first because, well, cakes are dessert.
And then I decided to look at the rules: you can only eat one Cake at a time, you have to show your mouth is empty after each Cake and you’re not allowed to drink any water.
I tried it. I did four. Don’t laugh. It’s hard. Extensive research after my attempt (OK, a couple of minutes’ worth) showed me that there are some key techniques used by the elite athletes in this field. And I failed to do all of them. I reckon I could get to five if I practised those methods, but I should probably get back to work.
For more Jaffa Cake fun – check out Pimp That Snack: The Giant Jaffa Cake (pimpthatsnack.com) | <urn:uuid:28a948b0-c9db-46b9-b8e4-d5e24896998f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sundaypublishing.com/the-sunday-world-record-attempt/ | 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 | 0.928912 | 415 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Steve Schaefer, Forbes Staff
If you can put the word market after it, I cover it.
The London interbank offered rate is a closely-watched measure of banks’ willingness to lend to one another, and thanks to the latest settlement from U.S. regulators at least one bank is paying up for trying to manipulate that rate.
Barclays will pay $200 million to settle allegations that rather than providing accurate submissions for the bank’s Libor and Euribor (the euro interbank offered rate), the firm “attempted to manipulate and made false reports concerning both benchmark interest rates to benefit the Bank’s derivatives trading positions by either increasing its profits or minimizing its losses,” according to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
The CFTC also found that “throughout the global financial crisis in late August 2007 through early 2009, as a result of instructions from Barclays’ senior management, the Bank routinely made artificially low LIBOR submissions to protect Barclays’ reputation from negative market and media perceptions concerning Barclays’ financial condition.”
According to the CFTC’s explanation of the charges and the attempted manipulation,traders would e-mail Libor submitters with requests in order to benefit swaps or futures positions. From the CFTC’s statement:
one trader stated in an email to a submitter: “We have another big fixing tom[orrow] and with the market move I was hoping we could set [certain] Libors as high as possible.”
In addition, certain Barclays Euro swaps traders, led at the time by a senior trader, coordinated with and aided and abetted traders at other banks in each other’s attempts to manipulate Euribor, even scheming to impact Euribor on key standardized dates when many derivatives contracts are settled or reset.
The traders’ requests were frequently accepted by Barclays’ submitters, who emailed responses such as “always happy to help,” “for you, anything,” or “Done…for you big boy,” resulting in false submissions by Barclays to the BBA and EBF. The traders and submitters also engaged in similar conduct on fewer occasions with respect to Yen and Sterling LIBOR.
Barclays, which also settled with the U.K.’s Financial Services Authority and entered into a non-prosecution agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice, said its total cost for the settlement will total £290 million (about $450 million).
Chief Executive Bob Diamond said he and other senior leaders have voluntarily agreed to forgo annual bonuses for 2012 to reflect the seriousness of the matter. “The events which gave rise to today’s resolutions relate to past actions which fell well short of the standards to which Barclays aspires in the conduct of its business,” Diamond said, stressing that prompt action was taken once those issues were identified.
Barclays Chairman Marcus Agius noted that the firm’s management fully cooperated with authorities and “continues to take prompt and decisive action to correct them.”
CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler said that benchmark rates like Libor impact all manner of borrowers, from big corporations to small businesses taking out loans. “Banks must not attempt to influence LIBOR or other indices based upon concerns about their reputation or the profitability of their trading positions,” he continued.
Shares of Barclays were up 1.7% in London Wednesday. | <urn:uuid:8128c85b-2bc3-4b34-8b15-23a9c2417af6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveschaefer/2012/06/27/cftc-says-barclays-manipulated-libor-to-boost-derivative-trades-protect-reputation/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00076-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963777 | 731 | 1.617188 | 2 |
* Died June 19, 1909
George Dovey was co-owner of the Boston Doves (later known as the Braves) along with his brother John Dovey. He died at age 46 after suffering a hemorrhage while on a train.
By BR Bullpen
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"The Book: On The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are" and the Philosophy of Alan Watts
In 1966 Alan Watts, self proclaimed philosophical entertainer, published what many regard as his master work, "The Book: On The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are". In this book, Watts attacks a belief at the foundation of Western culture and technology: the self as a separate ego, separated from and in conflict with the rest of the world. Furthermore, Watts provides an alternative view based on Hindi and Vedantic philosophy.
"The Book" is essentially a synthesis of Watts' work as a philosopher, writer, speaker, and student of Eastern and Western religion; beautifully articulated metaphors, witty aphorisms and mind expanding insights all packed into a concise 146 pages.
Come join me as we discuss "The Book" in detail. The class will be an open forum where we can delve further into the ideas at the center of the human potential movement.
The course will span six weeks, with each week covering one chapter (there are six in all). Food, drinks, intellectual stimulation and merriment are sure to be provided. What more do you need to know?
Of course, the only requirement for the class is that all members read "The Book". For those who cannot obtain a copy, an online version can be found here:
**All new members please contact me at [email protected] for information on meeting times as they vary from week to week (the EXCO email system is not working).
Hard Times Cafe
1821 Riverside Ave.Minneapolis, MN 55454
I graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2009 with a BA in Communication Arts. The teachings of Alan Watts have played an integral role in my development as a human being.
Facilitator phone number(s):
Class minimum size:
Class maximum size: | <urn:uuid:6a3afeec-68a9-47a6-884f-564f535fad5c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.excotc.org/class/the-book-on-the-taboo-against-knowing-who-you-are-and-the-philosophy-of-alan-watts | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919059 | 380 | 1.867188 | 2 |
This collaborative project, sponsored by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and others, developed biodiversity indicators to support planning and decision-making at the national level in four participating countries. In each country national partners developed and tested several indicators for a single focal ecosystem, using an iterative process of consultation, inventory and synthesis of existing data.
The BINU project has launched this 20-page booklet on its experience and lessons learned in developing biodiversity indicators for national use.Resource Type: Reports
The WDPA-Marine is dedicated to providing the most comprehensive set of marine protected areas (MPAs) data available. The dataset focuses on MPAs and representation of the diverse species and habitats found in the marine environment. The tools itself features the attributes of each MPA, gives users an advanced search function, provides a viewer through Google Earth and links through to other detailed information such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.Resource Type: Tools / Applications
The Critical Site Network (CSN) Tool is a new online resource for the conservation of 294 species of waterbirds and the important sites upon which they depend in Africa and Western Eurasia. Leading global conservation organisations working for the protection of waterbirds and their habitats have joined forces to develop this tool, strengthening the implementation of the African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbird Agreement (AEWA) and the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands.Resource Type: Tools / Applications
This poster series was created between 2008 and 2010 to publicise the work of the 2010 Biodiversity Indicators Partnership, a global initiative of international organisations working to further develop and promote indicators for the consistent monitoring and assessment of biodiversity.
For more information about this partnership, go to www.twentyten.net.
Resource Type: Posters
The CBD-mandated Biodiversity Indicators Partnership (BIP) is a global initiative that has operated since 2007, promoting and coordinating development and delivery of biodiversity indicators in support of the CBD and related Conventions, national and regional governments and a range of other sectors. UNEP-WCMC is the official Secretariat of the BIP.Resource Type: Tools / Applications
Datasets Available from UNEP-WCMC: Excluding WDPA
Access to UNEP-WCMC datasets is provided on the understanding that you read and consent to be bound by the Terms and Conditions attached. For the purposes of this Agreement the “Data” comprise any of the spatial data and associated attribute data downloadable from the UNEP-WCMC website, excluding the World Database on Protected Areas.
This dataset was created show the original habitat types as they were before man's influence in the Indo-Malayan realm; change over time can be seen when used alongside the remaining natural habitats dataset. These datasets were produced alongside the publication "Protected Areas Systems Review of the Indo-Malayan Realm, Mackinnon, J. ed. 1997" in collaboration with The Asian Bureau for Conservation (ABC). This was produced to document the growth and changing character of the protected areas systems of the region over the ten year period 1986-1996. This was in the hope of aiding conservationists and development practioners to conserve Asia's rich biological resources upon which so many depend.Resource Type: Spatial Data / Maps
Hotspot Ecosystem Research on the Margins of European Seas (HERMES) was one of the 40 most successful projects under the EU's 6th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development. Following completion of the project in March 2009, The HERMES Story is published jointly by HERMES and UNEP to inform policy and decision makers from around the world about the lessons learned and the amazing new insights into deep-sea biodiversity, structure, function and dynamics discovered under HERMES. The HERMES Story highlights the need for concerted action to protect the deep sea against the increasing pressures, threats and impacts from human activities and climate change, and provides inspiration for the development of similar deep-sea research projects in other regions.Resource Type: Reports
The UK National Ecosystem Assessment (UK NEA) is the first analysis of the UK’s natural environment in terms of the benefits it provides to society and continuing economic prosperity. Part of the Living With Environmental Change (LWEC) initiative, the UK NEA - which commenced in mid-2009 - will be reporting in early 2011. It is an inclusive process involving many government, academic, NGO and private sector institutions.
The National Biodiversity Indicators Portal is the leading resource for information on national biodiversity indicators. This portal is a companion website to the Biodiversity Indicators Partnership (BIP), which provides indicator information at the global level.
This website provides guidance and examples to support the development and effective use of biodiversity indicators. These capacity building resources are the product of more than five years of experience by UNEP-WCMC and the BIP. It is designed principally to support biodiversity indicators at the national level, but it is relevant for working from the local to global scales.
©2013 UNEP All rights reserved | <urn:uuid:80719a75-6aeb-41b5-8e0d-7468fd4d59d9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.unep-wcmc.org/datasets-tools--reports_15.html?%0A%09%0A%09%09&types=Tool,Data,Map,Book,Report,JournalPaper&q=%0A%09%0A%09%09%0A%09%0A%09%09%0A%09%0A%09%09%0A%09%0A%09%09%0A%09%0A%09%09&ctops=Biodiversity%20Indicators,Marine%20PAs,Deep-Sea%20Biodiversity,Trees | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.908022 | 1,029 | 3.1875 | 3 |
Chapter LXVI.—Danger of Disobedience.
“And your work is to order what things are proper; and that of the brethren is to submit, and not to disobey. Therefore submitting they shall be saved, but disobeying they shall be punished by the Lord, because the president is entrusted with the place of Christ. Wherefore, indeed, honour or contempt shown to the president is handed on to Christ, and from Christ to God. And this I have said, that these brethren may not be ignorant of the danger they incur by disobedience to you, because whosoever disobeys your orders, disobeys Christ; and he who disobeys Christ offends God. | <urn:uuid:1b8250a4-ce26-4df0-a48b-5ccc3414d1fd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/008/0080753.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956517 | 143 | 1.820313 | 2 |
|B/OSS Insider Blog|
Shared Infrastructure Requires Managed Connectivity
By Kevin Ressler
Infrastructure sharing on the tower, in the central office, in the data center or in in-building wireless system (DAS) is becoming increasingly popular as mobile operators seek to reduce costs and speed time to market. But shared infrastructure often puts mobile operators in the dark when network changes are made. While mobile operators usually maintain assets in separate areas in shared facilities, one mobile operator may make physical layer changes that affect other mobile operators, and it is difficult for affected mobile operators to respond appropriately because they’re not aware of the specific nature of the change. Often, a network operator isn’t aware that a change has even occurred until the change causes an unintended service interruption.
Managed connectivity is a means of understanding, in real time, when and where physical changes in the network take place. It brings the physical layer of the network under the same management visibility, discipline and control as the other network layers.
For many years we have had network-management systems that track activity at Layers 2-7 of the networking stack; however, operators have favored mostly manual, error-prone systems to track physical layer changes. In fact, one estimate is that 70 percent of network technicians’ time is spent updating spreadsheets and network diagrams, time that would be better spent proactively focusing on network health.
Over time, with each network change, network diagrams can become increasingly inaccurate because there are many different technicians working on a given tower, data center or central office. Eventually, technicians may not have the right network map for a given piece of infrastructure when they go to work on it, or the map they are using may be outdated.
This situation has a significant impact on the timeliness and cost-effectiveness of network changes. When a repair is necessary, the technician is dispatched to the tower, data center or customer premise without knowing for sure whether or not the equipment on his truck is adequate for performing the repair. Once at the site, for each hour of downtime, the technician spends 50 minutes just determining what the problem is, rather than fixing it, and if a part is needed that the technician doesn’t have, it means another trip back to the dispatch center and a consequent delay in making the repair. Given the often remote location of some network elements, this could mean losing an entire day’s productivity.
Several vendors are now offering system solutions that address these challenges. A managed connectivity system consists of special cable connectors that have microchips embedded in them, a companion patch panel that reads the contents of the microchip and forwards them via Ethernet, and a software management system that interprets the information from the patch panel – automatically and in real time, without user intervention. Managed connectivity is an out-of-band solution that does not impact network traffic.
Depending on the type of managed connectivity system, the system may capture and present information – metadata – about each cable plugged into the network, where that cable is located, how long that cable is, the color of the cable connectors, and other important information critical to network operations. With this information in hand, the network operator has a powerful new tool to manage the physical layer of the network.
For example, the operator might have networks that are separated by colors of cable – high security is red, for example, while normal traffic is blue. If someone plugs a blue cable into a red network, the managed connectivity solution knows the color of the cable and can thus alert operators and proactively govern network health. This is particularly important in government and military applications.
Another example is cable length. By capturing and reporting the length of each cable, the operator can know if a cable is within spec for the job it is doing. If the combined length goes beyond the industry standard level, for example, you can have problems transmitting the data because it’s no longer within the industry standard. Plugging in the cable and immediately knowing the length helps the operator stay within industry standards.
Simply knowing what is connected and disconnected also provides an audit trail for regulatory purposes. Hospitals, government agencies, casinos and shared data centers all need to maintain often cumbersome audit records to show that the operator has maintained continuous control over the network, and these audit trails also instill confidence in the people sharing the network. In a managed connectivity system, mobile operators now use modern GUIs to control physical layer resources supporting fixed and mobile devices. No more combing through hundreds of cables to track down an issue.
With managed connectivity, the network operator has the same visibility into the physical layer of the network as it is used to having for layers 2-7. With centralized management of the physical layer, the network operator can speed repairs, reduce the cost of maintenance, and establish preventative maintenance policies that proactively minimize unplanned network events. Managed connectivity gives network operators the confidence of knowing what is occurring in the physical layer at all times, taking the risk and much of the operating expense out of maintaining shared infrastructure.
Kevin Ressler, Ph.D., serves as director, global data center industry management, for TE Connectivity. Kevin is responsible for TE’s full spectrum of enterprise, telecom, and data communications data center solutions. Kevin leads TE Connectivity's data-center business, including go-to-market, marketing, product management and new product development. | <urn:uuid:d8e6b080-5591-458e-b45a-5cf37b2f9a63> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.billingworld.com/blogs/insider/2012/10/shared-infrastructure-requires-managed-connectivi.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932997 | 1,106 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Slumping business confidence undermines building-construction activity
Despite favourably low interest rates, a turnaround in fortunes for stakeholders in the building-construction industry should not be expected any time soon.
This is so when one considers business confidence levels that are taking a knock. Slumping sentiment amongst business decision-makers — representing the autonomous component of investment — could mean firms cutting back on additions to fixed capital, even if fundamental determinants of investment (such as real interest rates) have not changed. The correlation between changes in business confidence levels and the growth in building activity — growth in addition to the stock of residential and non-residential property — is shown in the graph that follows. The current poor showing of both residential and non-residential property fundamentals is, of course, not doing much to aid sentiment.
Similarly, there is a strong relationship between the growth in gross fixed capital formation (new capital investment in buildings, machinery and equipment) by private business enterprises and business confidence levels (second graph).
Considering that private business enterprises account for 60% of overall gross fixed capital formation, which in turn makes up 20% of the total expenditure on gross domestic product (GDP), continued weak sentiment amongst business decision-makers does not augur well for the economy. | <urn:uuid:f91a0fac-e7f2-4b43-b4c3-98e0c975cb53> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rode.co.za/node/5364 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00051-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933915 | 256 | 1.859375 | 2 |
The public outcry over the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act seems to have gotten so loud that even members of Congress can hear it. On Thursday we covered the news that Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) was expressing second thoughts about SOPA's DNS provisions. He said he changed his mind after he "heard from a number of Vermonters" on the issue.
On Friday, several Republicans started backpedaling as well.
SOPA sponsor Lamar Smith (R-TX) announced that he would be pulling the DNS-blocking provisions from his own bill. “After consultation with industry groups across the country, I feel we should remove Domain Name System blocking from the Stop Online Piracy Act so that the Committee can further examine the issues surrounding this provision," Smith said in a Friday statement.
Meanwhile, six GOP senators who served on the Senate Judiciary Committee (which unanimously approved the legislation last year) wrote a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid asking him to postpone a vote on PIPA to give them more time to study the legislation.
"We strongly believe that the theft of American intellectual property is a significant problem that must be addressed," they wrote. But since the Judiciary Committee last considered the legislation, "we have increasingly heard from a large number of constituents and other stakeholders with vocal concerns about possible unintended consequences of the proposed legislation, including breaches in cybersecurity, damaging the integrity of the Internet, costly and burdensome litigation, and dilution of First Amendment rights."
The current plan for the full Senate to consider the bill on January 24 "may not permit us to work through many of the concerns that have been raised," they warned.
Lest anyone doubt the signers' tough-on-piracy bona fides, they include Orrin Hatch (R-UT), who once proposed that Congress give copyright holders a special exemption allowing them to hack into the computers of those suspected of piracy. In a 2003 hearing, he suggested that damaging someone's computer "may be the only way you can teach somebody about copyrights."
Another member of Congress that has been feeling the heat from voters is Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). After reddit members raised $15,000 in 48 hours for his anti-SOPA challenger, Ryan came out with a clear statement of opposition to the legislation.
"It appears that lawmakers are beginning to realize how much damage their anti-'piracy' bills could cause to the Internet and to Internet-related businesses," said Public Knowledge's Sherwin Siy in a statement. "While we are pleased that some progress is being made, we are also firm in our opposition to both bills because some very bad provisions remain."
Washington insiders hold disproportionate sway on Capitol Hill. But members of Congress are ultimately chosen by American voters. When enough of them express a strong view on an issue, members of Congress do pay attention.
Update: The Obama administration has come out in opposition to SOPA in its current form. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor has also promised that SOPA will not proceed to a vote until "consensus" has developed. | <urn:uuid:7a4a3eec-f6b4-45bb-be64-8f67c52209a0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/01/under-voter-pressure-members-of-congress-backpedal-on-sopa/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972261 | 627 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Moving Beyond the Automobile
Want to learn some new vocabulary? Curious about what “traffic calming” might be? Want to learn about how progressive street design can make for much more livable communities? Then come to the Net Impact BGI event on October 24!
Cities around the country and around the world (including Seattle) are taking a new approach to street infrastructure. Instead of designing streets solely to allow for efficient movement of cars, planners and designers are taking a more democratic approach that makes space for alternative modes of transportation. People need options for getting around a city, whether it’s walking, biking, bus, rail, ferry, or some combination of these. Designing solely for cars limits options and disenfranchises various groups of people.
When cities are designed for biking and walking, there is more interaction among people, and quality of life is improved. There’s empirical data to prove this. Donald Appleyard, a researcher from the University of California, did some fascinating research several years ago showing that people who lived on streets with relatively low car traffic that were pedestrian-friendly had a much greater sense of community and more interaction with their neighbors than people in the same city who lived on high-traffic streets that made little space for pedestrians. People living on the high-traffic streets reported feeling much more constrained in terms of their personal space, and they had less interpersonal interaction. These findings about community enhancement made Appleyard one of the early proponents of the “complete streets” movement. We’ll talk more about the benefits of complete streets on October 24.
So why does this matter for a business school, you might ask? Because there are all kinds of business opportunities presented by the movement toward alternative or active transportation. This is a trend that will almost certainly accelerate over the next two decades, and that will create many opportunities for entrepreneurs to do well by doing good. For example, two BGI grads created a business called Hub & Bespoke in Fremont that provides clothing that people can wear to bike and to meetings (no spandex to be found). The more people are biking to work and school, the better Aldan and Juliette will do – a true win-win situation. More businesses like this might be in development right now at BGI, who knows? All kinds of opportunities exist to both support and capitalize on the growth in bike commuting and other forms of active transportation.
Firms like SvR Design, Alta Planning & Design and Toole Design Group are doing quite well helping cities create streetscapes, public spaces and trails that give people new options for mobility. And these firms need capable business managers. Opportunities for bike shops, cargo bikes, tour operators and associated services will grow. Urban restaurants, food trucks, and other businesses that cater to bikers and pedestrians in the city will prosper, like the redeveloped South Lake Union in Seattle, WA.
So come learn more about how cities are changing streets for good, and how you can be involved in the movement. See you at the new BGI home in Pioneer Square at 6:00 pm on October 24.
Demi Allen is an MBA candidate at the Bainbridge Graduate Institute, and one of the leaders of Net Impact BGI, a student group finding opportunities to connect their sustainable business education with the Seattle area business community. | <urn:uuid:8696a051-c6f5-4957-af2d-b8380e63d516> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bgi.edu/changing-business/alternative-transportation-and-livable-communities/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959552 | 687 | 2.359375 | 2 |
Montana voters specifically said "corporations are not entitled to constitutional rights because they are not human beings," Courthouse News Service reported.
The measure was a stinging rebuke to the U.S. Supreme Court's June decision to do away with the state's campaign-finance limits.
In its June ruling, the Supreme Court essentially affirmed its divisive 2010 decision in Citizens United finding federal limits on political expenditures interfered with corporations' "free speech" rights.
(That ruling allowed political contributions to organizations supporting campaigns, namely super PACS, but it left in place a bar on direct political campaign contributions.)
Montana's "corporations aren't people, too" measure orders its reps in Congress to propose a Constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United.
In reality, it's a huge long shot that the state's representatives will be able to amend the Constitution, Jess Bravin points out in the Wall Street Journal. For that to happen, two-thirds of lawmakers in both houses of Congress would have to sign off and then three-fourths of the states would have to adopt the change.
But the measure shows Montanans aren't just going to let Citizens United go.
Given the fact that Barack Obama just won the chance to make the Supreme Court more liberal, the justices might just pay attention to the state's little-noticed initiative. | <urn:uuid:7c08a273-25f4-4939-9211-6783f8befa16> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.businessinsider.com/montana-campaign-finance-initiative-2012-11?pundits_only=0&get_all_comments=1&no_reply_filter=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963035 | 276 | 1.804688 | 2 |
A series of revisions were issued in 2010 to the Charity Commission guidance notes covering the following areas:
Internal Financial Controls (CC8)
Managing Financial Difficulties and Insolvency (CC12)
Charity Reserves (CC19)
Risk Management (CC26)
For some of the revisions it merely a case of updating for changes in the Charities Act 2006 and therefore little has changed in the guidance, but with changes in technology and the difficult economic environment, a couple of the revised guidance notes will be more relevant to the school sector:
- Internal Financial Controls (CC8)
Whilst most school charities have good financial controls, the revised guidance on Internal Financial Controls in CC8 highlights areas such as use of electronic banking where controls may need reviewing. Schools can be good about ensuring appropriate limits for cheque signing, but it is not uncommon to find weaker controls over electronic banking such that, sometimes, the biggest monthly outgoing in a school’s bank account, the salary BACS transfer, is all transacted by one person in the finance team, which could pose a greater risk of fraud or error than when cheques were more prevalent.
CC8 has a suggested self- assessment checklist on financial controls, which may help to indicate where financial controls are weak and where procedures need tightening.
- Managing Financial Difficulties and Insolvency (CC12)
The guidance note is helpful in providing advice and information for trustees of charities facing financial difficulties, but also considers how to minimise the risk of insolvency for any charity by putting effective financial management in place.
At Alliotts we have seen very clearly amongst our school clients that those schools that have effective management and financial control in place, tend to be the ones which have coped better with drops in school numbers, or have barely suffered at all from the current economic climate.
From our experience, the key areas of focus for school charity trustees as shown in CC12 include:
- Preparation of budgets and projections
- Establishing effective internal financial controls
- Monitoring of budgets and year end forecasts
- Diversifying income streams (perhaps through trading subsidiaries)
- Identifying and managing risk
- Setting clear a policy on reserves and their utilisation
- Monitoring investments performance (where held)
- Seeking appropriate professional advice when looking at significant financial commitments
- Considering mergers to spread overhead costs or increase income streams
If you need any help with any of these areas please do not hesitate to contact us. | <urn:uuid:a76dba4c-9065-451d-99f9-9e18efa71be6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.barlowrobbins.com/site/news/barlownews/charity_commission_advice_on_funding_and_finance | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945183 | 516 | 1.726563 | 2 |