text stringlengths 213 24.6k | id stringlengths 47 47 | dump stringclasses 1 value | url stringlengths 14 499 | file_path stringlengths 138 138 | language stringclasses 1 value | language_score float64 0.9 1 | token_count int64 51 4.1k | score float64 1.5 5.06 | int_score int64 2 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Legionnaires' disease has been linked to another death in Auckland.
The latest death, which occurred several weeks ago, was the second of the current outbreak, which began in late February.
The person was already very unwell, the Auckland Regional Public Health Service says.
The death of an elderly woman with Legionnaires, who was also already unwell, was confirmed in early April.
There have been 16 confirmed cases of the bacterial infection, but only one case in the last 28 days.
Legionnaires is a form of pneumonia and can be life-threatening to vulnerable people.
About one in 20 cases of Legionnaires' disease in New Zealand is fatal.
There are normally just one or two cases in the Auckland region in a six-week period.
Officials haven't been able to pinpoint the source of the outbreak, but a region-wide campaign was launched to chemically treat more than 300 Auckland building systems which could harbour Legionella bacteria.
These are buildings which have cooling towers or use an industrial process that recirculates water and generates aerosols.
In 2005, an unmonitored cooling tower in Christchurch was identified as the most likely source of a Legionnaires outbreak which was linked to three deaths.
The disease can be contracted by breathing in mist from water or dust from bagged potting mix or compost that contains the bacteria.
It is not passed from person to person. | <urn:uuid:a2804378-7187-4019-b240-e6c4b165fbad> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://health.msn.co.nz/healthnews/8472585/second-death-linked-to-legionnaires | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970898 | 288 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Looking for a little creativi-tea? Feeling craf-tea? Here’s a fun project! Fold with foil or other light paper — six-inch square seems to work best, but use whatever size is easiest for you. (You can always fold more!)
Makes a charming bookmark, greeting card decoration, or doll’s teapot.
Or fold several in different colours, then glue a string on the back of each one, loop through a hook, and hang as a decoration on your Christmas tree or anywhere.
Some experience with folding will be helpful. This model starts with a bird base and requires knowlege of the technique of sinking. Once you’ve got those techniques down, the rest of it is easy … follow the images below the instructions. Be sure to have a good cuppa nearby to sustain you while you’re folding.
Created by: N. Montero, Spain
Variation by: Janis Badarau (a.k.a. TeaGuide)
Begin with the bird base. (Click here for instructional video of folding a bird base.)
1. Sink the blunt end. (Click here for instructional video of performing a sink fold.)
2. Valley fold the front flap downwards. (Click here for instructional video of valley fold and mountain fold.)
3. Reverse fold the two points as shown. (Click here for instructional video of reverse folding.)
4. Valley fold the top flap of the spout on the left. Mountain fold the handle on the right inwards.
5. Open out the top of the teapot and tuck the point into itself.
6. Valley fold the edges of the spout inwards, then valley fold the bottomflap upwards. At the top you see the point tucked in. Reverse fold the handle again. Spout and handle are finished. Valley fold the bottom flap and tuck the arrowed point into the pocket, following the arrow, to complete the teapot.
You now have a teapot with a flat top. I don’t really care for that, so I created a variation that looked more like a real teapot with a “knob” on the lid.
Before tucking the top point into itself (Step 5), valley fold the point about one-third of the way up so the tip stands above the top of the teapot. Flatten the point, refold the original fold that was opened out, and tuck as above to complete the model.
Here’s how a friend designed a charming greeting card with a teapot folded from a textured silver metallic paper :
Follow TeaGuide on Twitter @TeaGuide1
Friend TeaGuide on Facebook
Contact us about reviewing your tea or tea-related product, or to be interviewed.
All content Copyright 2013 JP Badarau; all rights reserved.
# # # # | <urn:uuid:2df9efb8-bb3a-4fe2-8336-20f7875b5e95> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://teaguide.wordpress.com/page/2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.905657 | 611 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Most of the time, we think of Microsoft Exchange Server databases as being big, monolithic chunks of information. Exchange administrators usually think of a mailbox database as containing a stew of mailboxes, folders, individual mail items, and mail metadata, all lumped together in an amorphous mass. This view is understandable given that Microsoft doesn't fully document the internal structure of the .edb files that Exchange Server's Extensible Storage Engine (ESE) database creates. However, there's enough material out there (e.g., Brett Shirley's excellent presentations at TEC 2010) to give database aficionados an idea of how data items are structured and linked together.
Despite this nebulous view of the database, I've never yet met an Exchange administrator who didn't know that .edb files are divided into pages. I think that's because the term pages is so pervasive in the Exchange world; it's part of the documentation and online help for Eseutil and Isinteg (remember those?), to cite just a couple of instances. However, it's a little misleading to think of an .edb file as nothing more than a collection of pages because the information on those pages is interlinked. Losing a single page can have effects ranging from minimal to catastrophic-it all depends on which page you lose.
ESE uses a number of mechanisms to protect against page-level corruption. For example, each page contains a checksum that's generated at the time the page is written. Any time you want to know if a page is valid, you can read the page data, compute a new checksum, and see if the new value matches the stored checksum. That's exactly what happens during streaming ESE backups in Exchange 2007, Exchange 2003, and Exchange2000.
In Exchange 2010, a background maintenance task scans each page and performs the checksum check; the process is scheduled such that every page of every database, on both active and passive copies, should be scanned at least once every seven days. The checksum operation is throttled so that it doesn't read more than about 5MB/second worth of data, so its I/O impact is light. You can change this behavior so that checksum scans take place during the regular database maintenance window, but Microsoft recommends that you leave the default behavior in place.
What happens if the checksum scan indicates that a page contains an error? That's where the page patching process comes in. This name is a bit misleading because the page itself isn't patched. Instead, the damaged page is replaced with a clean copy from a replica of the database. The patching process is conceptually simple: When a page fails the checksum check, a new copy of the page is retrieved from the transaction logs on another database availability group (DAG) member that contains the same database. By replaying only that portion of the logs that contains data for the target page, the page contents can be replaced without affecting any other pages. The actual steps required to do this vary according to whether the damaged page is on an active or passive copy of the database. Ross Smith's excellent post on the Exchange Team Blog explains the steps in detail.
Note that page patching can take place only in highly available Exchange environments such as DAGs. Otherwise, Exchange has a couple of built-in page repair mechanisms, but if the page can't be repaired, it will be marked as bad. You'll then have to reload from backup.
These maintenance tasks, along with the others Ross describes, run with a goal of keeping your databases healthy and consistent, but they're no substitute for a proper high-availability design (if your business needs warrant it) and a robust backup system. Yes, yes, I know that it's possible to run Exchange 2010 using DAGs and not doing any backups, but that's a topic for another column! | <urn:uuid:44857707-13b6-4048-bb32-30ce1a1a67e2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://windowsitpro.com/exchange-server/exchange-server-database-errors-patch-page | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923563 | 789 | 1.96875 | 2 |
- Money Saving Tips
Get regular tips that can cut your fuel and energy bills by 10%.LET'S GO
For over 4 years, the 3-Council Ecological Footprint Program in Sydney’s east has seen Randwick, Waverley and Woollahra Councils work in partnership to build a more sustainable future.
By focusing on capacity building and the involvement of local communities, the program has supported the growth of projects such as demonstration sustainable housing developments, water- sensitive urban design installations, and The Compost Revolution to combat unnecessary food waste.
On the 1st February 2012, the 3 Council alliance signed up to Do Something’s 10% Challenge, pledging to reduce their carbon emissions and fuel and energy consumption by at least 10%.
In a joint letter written to mayors around the country, Randwick, Waverley and Woollahra have invited all local councils to join them in taking leadership on energy efficiency:
"We've all noticed the rising cost of energy and fuel, both at home and as an organisation. Being more efficient and smarter in how we use energy saves money that we can pass on to our ratepayers,"
Randwick Mayor, Cr Scott Nash.
"Randwick, Waverley and Woollahra councils are at the forefront of environmental action, and we're proud to be showing leadership to our community in this critical area."
"Local government is closely connected to its communities; we are increasingly aware of the risks and challenges facing us from an uncertain climate along with the increasing costs of energy and fuel."
Woollahra Mayor, Cr Susan Wynne.
"We've taken a strong lead on making energy savings and reducing emissions, and we're now extending that invitation to every other local council. It's something everyone can do; we'd also like to invite our residents and businesses across the eastern suburbs to join us in the 10% Challenge."
Waverley Mayor John Wakefield.
For more information about the 3-Council Ecological Foodprint Program and what you can be doing in your local area, visit Reduce Your Footprint
Over a three year period, Penrith City Council saved more than $640,000 in electricity and water charges....read more
By taking a challenge to reduce their community emissions by 10% in 2010, Lake Macquarie City Council achieved a 3.9% reduction in electricity use across the whole Council area....read more | <urn:uuid:d1c474ca-9381-4f77-9a6b-21c5940874fd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://10percentchallenge.com.au/organisations-case-studies/councils/3-council-ecological-footprint-program | 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 | 0.93851 | 492 | 2.203125 | 2 |
July 25, 2008
TUCSON, Ariz. -- NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander's robotic arm scoop is primed and ready to collect a soil sample from the northern region of Mars to analyze for the presence of water and other possible ingredients.
Scientists and engineers on the mission Friday prepared plans to send Phoenix later in the day that would command the robotic arm to rasp the hard soil in the trench informally named "Snow White," collect the shavings and deliver them to an oven for analysis.
Images received on Earth Friday morning confirmed that the scoop had been cleared of anything collected during previous days' testing. The scoop went through a sequence of moves to dump any remaining material. At the same time, the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer (TEGA) was successfully prepared for the sample by purging it of any volatile materials.
"The successful completion of these preparatory activities clears the way for our next critical event, delivering the icy soil sample to TEGA," said Doug Ming, of NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, the team's science lead for today's planning.
The Phoenix mission is led by Peter Smith of the University of Arizona with project management at JPL and development partnership at Lockheed Martin, Denver. International contributions come from the Canadian Space Agency; the University of Neuchatel; the universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus, Denmark; Max Planck Institute, Germany; and the Finnish Meteorological Institute. For more about Phoenix, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/phoenix and http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu.
Media contacts: Guy Webster 818-354-6278
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. | <urn:uuid:bb1b1804-b33e-46fb-b447-0e530938397a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2008-145 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.912511 | 350 | 2.5625 | 3 |
After re-reading Chapter 5, as Paul suggested in another topic, I believe I've dispelled my confusion.
Hash: a variable that has exactly two columns and (potentially) many rows of data
The hash itself is the variable.
The two COLUMNS are: 1)the keys and 2)their associated values.
So 'ID' is a key. 'name' is a key. 'country' is a key. etc.
Each set of key and value is a row. There can be many, many key/value combinations, but there is ever only one column of keys and one column of values.
(I had been incorrectly picturing the keys in the Page 162 problem as columns across the top of a sql table: ID as one column, name as another, country as a third, etc.)
Slow...but I finally get there.
This post has been edited by lab999: 23 August 2010 - 12:10 PM | <urn:uuid:36bad2b0-7f71-4a23-9595-b625e43cfd28> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://forums.oreilly.com/topic/20695-pg-162-hash-usage/page__pid__36210 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955203 | 199 | 3.34375 | 3 |
One of the most predictable and best pieces of advice we get in many situations. That’s because it is usually obvious when we are pretending to be something we are not, and our attempted deception makes far worse an impression on our audience than our real character actually would. Even if we pull it off, these acts can be extremely stressful to sustain, and we are very likely to get found out eventually.
The lesson generally holds for brands as well. Branding is not, as often appears to the casual observer and the counter-culturally minded, exclusively an exercise in pure, exploitative invention. While empathy and creativity are key, products and services beget brands. Once they are up and tottering on their own little legs, they can start to operate independently, and of course often start to govern or even jettison the products that first bore them, but in the long term they remain fundamentally an expression of and dependent upon some product or service. Branding is therefore not just about invention but about helping businesses to understand their strengths and weaknesses, their relationships with others, consumer and competitor, their goals and aspirations, and their personalities – in other words, helping them to know themselves.
From a position of self-knowledge a brand can begin to be itself – self-knowledge boosts both its confidence and very often its distinctiveness. Instead of being fearfully reactive and superficially appeasing consumers’ whims, it can start confidently and actively being something in particular. At this level a well-adjusted brand can often stop asking ‘what do consumers want?’, and start asking ‘what would the brand do?’. Witness the usual examples, of course – Apple, Innocent et al, but also Puccino’s coffee – whose coffee cups carry the message ‘worst cup design in the world’, and little biscuits say ‘stupid little biscuit’ on the wrapper. Wonderfully characterful and self-effacing, and I bet no consumers told them to write that, but now your coffee cheers you up in more ways than one because the brand has a deep understanding of its relationship with consumers.
Presumably someone told BlackBerry they were boring. I suppose it isn’t much fun being the cornerstone of cellular communications for the world of business and the businesses of the world, but it certainly seems to have been working out very nicely for them –according a Deutsche Bank forecast earlier this year, RIM are set for close to 20% of operating profit in the mobile phone market in 2009, with market share of around 2%. Likewise Apple, with very similar numbers.
BlackBerry has done tremendously well with a focused business proposition. I don’t talk about ‘my phone’, I talk about ‘my BlackBerry’: a triumph of branding. The handsets are, by and large, pretty good.
They have been sold in a very specific market space, and as competitors encroach on this territory it is right that BlackBerry should aim for independent consumer desirability, but the “Love” campaign is wildly, staggeringly off brand. You can’t move far round the tube without encountering exhortations to ‘Love what you do’. ‘All you need is love’ – BlackBerry dares to claim Beatles-grade love in gorgeously produced TV spots of beautiful people doing amazingly cool things. Love is, apparently, ‘at the root of everything good that has ever happened and will ever happen’.
Overblown, trite copy aside, the moment I see a BlackBerry ad with a picture of a great looking guy motorcycling across a desert that tells me to love what I do, I cannot help but think about how (much as I enjoy my job), I spend most of my day surgically attached to my laptop. There could hardly be a greater dissonance between the creative fiction and functional reality. BlackBerry has nothing to do with love and for me this campaign actually accentuates that.
The classic communication principle ‘if you want people to think you’re funny, don’t tell them you’re funny, tell them a joke’ applies here, as one facet of ‘being yourself’. BlackBerry cannot just tell assembled legions of office workers that the device that means they truly never leave said offices is actually the incarnation of love. There really is no reason to believe them.
All the more painful than the fact that BlackBerry lacks the confidence to be itself is that it is very clear who it is trying to be. Apple is a brand that appeals to a certain type of consumer, and BlackBerry is a brand that appeals to a different type of consumer. Part of the reason each has been so successful is this lean and differentiated targeting of a particular market space, deliberate or not. Blackberry cannot hope to beat Apple on its own turf – it simply does not have the credentials to do so, and as my colleague Kamil observed back in July, risks undermining the very things that make it great for its current customer base. In trying to be somebody else, BlackBerry risks losing differentiation, becoming nobody at all and spending an awful lot of money doing it. Much better to be yourself. | <urn:uuid:3cf8155c-7cd5-409d-9b97-672515051e30> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thevalueengineers.com/tag/puccinos/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968268 | 1,069 | 1.90625 | 2 |
Martin is Featured Speaker at Annual Electrical Week Luncheon
Dr. David Martin, Dean of the School of Business at St. John Fisher College, was the featured speaker at the Annual Electrical Week Luncheon, presented by the Electrical Association of Western New York on February 11. His presentation, “Let’s Hear it for Rochester Higher Education: A Tremendous Asset for this Region,” spoke about the benefits of higher education to the region as well as some of the current and future challenges higher education is facing locally and nationally.
Martin focused on the economic impact of colleges and universities in the region, sharing that 5% of the workforce in New York State is either directly or indirectly related to higher education. After analyzing the top employers in New York State from 1964 to 2009, he pointed out the noticeable change in the kind of work being performed.
“Manufacturing has been vastly reduced and now services - medical, business, education - have taken the lead. Higher education has something to do with the job shift by offering world-class programs that positively impact the region,” he said.
He also addressed the challenges and changes higher education is facing, particularly in the way students learn today and how it is different from the way they used to learn. Martin said students now learn visually, as opposed to more conventional auditory methods, and they no longer study alone, but tend to study together in groups. He focused on some of the ways that Fisher, and the other area colleges, have adapted to the changing learning methods of their students.
Martin said the Victor E. Salerno Center for American Enterprise, which will be the new home of the School of Business, is being designed to meet the needs of the digital age by adding mediascapes and other interactive technologies that will allow students to stay engaged and current.
“In this ever-changing world, higher education will continue to play a vital part in the future of Rochester, and throughout the world. By better preparing students and adapting to changing learning environments, education will continue to be an invaluable asset in the lives of many,” said Martin.
- O’Keefe Ross Art Gallery to Open “Parallel Universe and Figurations” Exhibit May 20
- Wegmans School of Nursing Acknowledges Nine with Graduate Awards
- MBA Graduates Recognized
- Inaugural Joining Forces Conference Attracts 170 Health Care Professionals, Veterans to Campus
- Executive Leadership Program Honors Students
- Wegmans School of Pharmacy Honors Students During Hooding Ceremony
- Bain Awards President’s Medals at 59th Commencement
- President’s Awards Ceremony Recognizes 47 Graduating Seniors
- Madigan, Plata, and McGregor Honored During Commencement Weekend
- Class of 2013 Presents Class Gift
- Goonan ’75 Receives Honorary Degree
- McCullough Urges Graduates to ‘Keep Learning, Cultivate Curiosity’
- Sodano Receives Father Dorsey Award
- School of Pharmacy Holds 2013 Student Awards
- “Undergraduate Review” Now Available Online | <urn:uuid:a64f549d-1bf3-48ed-9ecd-1a544d9a43c3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sjfc.edu/news/detail.dot?id=4ca5311e-b943-4fad-a469-40733a198b92 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943814 | 644 | 1.5 | 2 |
In a volatile stock market with a near-zero yield in money markets and 10-year Treasury bills yielding 2 percent or less, what’s an investor to do?
An increasing number of money managers are pinning hopes on an asset class that tends to do well no matter what the environment.
Build an “all-weather” portfolio of large multinational companies that consistently pay dividends, they say. It’s an approach that yields income even when the stock market declines.
“Multinationals are a pretty hot button right now for a lot of good reasons,” says Tom Huber, portfolio manager for T. Rowe Price’s Dividend Growth Fundfor the past 11 years. “Our diminished economic growth prospects are not as exciting as some emerging markets, and Europe is no better off. Today it’s important to invest disproportionately in emerging markets.”
If your long-term horizon is more than five years, there just aren’t many other good choices, says Fred Taylor, co-founder of North Star Investment Advisors. “Some multinationals are paying bigger dividends than 10-year bonds, sometimes twice as big," he says, "Buy companies with meaningful dividend yields of at least 2.5 percent annually that increase seven to 10 percent a year, and you’re way ahead of the game.”
Taylor mentioned Coca Cola as an prime example. Selling around $69 a share recently, Coke has a dividend yield of 2.7 percent that has been increasing steadily at 10 percent to 15 percent a year, he said.
“They make 80 percent of their earnings overseas—in China, Brazil, India,” says Taylor. “They focus on consumers in growing economies. Shareholders don’t have to worry about Europe and the U.S. growing at barely 1 percent. You want to own companies that are selling to growing markets, that hire in countries where labor costs are a third of what they are here.”
North Star also holds Philip Morris International , which pays a 4.5 percent dividend and announced a 21 percent quarterly increase last week; Royal Dutch Shell , a 5.5 percent dividend; Bank of Montreal at 5 percent and Johnson & Johnson at 3.6 percent.
In July, a Donaldson Capital Management investment policy committee report , "Have Multinational, Dividend-Paying Companies Become the World's Safest Investment?", answered the question unequivocally:“It is becoming clear that high-quality, multinational corporations may now be the safest investments in the world,” the report says. “They have piles of cash; significant free cash flows; modest debt loads; compete in every corner of the world, and charge a price for their services dictated by the market and not decree; pay taxes in every country in which they operate; and return a significant portion of their annual earnings to their shareholders in the form of dividends.”
The U.S. is just not the fastest growing part of the world right now, says Scott Offen, who manages the common stock investments of Fidelity Strategic Dividend & Income Fund. “There are opportunities in multinational corporations in which you're not tied to any one country for growth, and you can drive your overall revenue growth from revenue growth outside America,” he says.
Dividends have been a stock-investing staple for most of the 20th century, before falling out of favor in recent years. Since 1926, dividends accounted for 42 percent of the total returns from stocks, according to research firm Ibbotson Associates.
“For much of the past decade, they’re all you’ve really gotten,” says T. Rowe Price portfolio manager Huber.
In fact, Morningstarconcluded that even in the last 20 years through 2010—a period of relatively low dividends—they accounted for 27 percent of the market’s gains.
“With two bear markets in the past 11 years, people who’ve owned dividend stocks are way ahead of the game,” says Taylor of North Star Investment Advisors.
When tech investing swept the country in the mid-1990s, dividend investing was bypassed as investors focused instead on stocks’ potential for price gains. We know what happened with the tech bubble, and now companies such as Microsoft, Intel and even Ciscoare paying dividends.
Tech companies are the poster boys these days for finally deciding to pay a dividend,” says T. Rowe Price's Huber. “They’ve come to realize they aren’t the growth company they once were, that it makes sense to start paying out. It reflects a management team focused on the shareholder, which is a pretty important indication for us.”
Taylor noted that Intel now pays a 4 percent dividend after increasing it 15 percent in the last month. And Microsoft announced this week a 25 percent dividend boost, bringing it to 3 percent. Cisco is a bit of a latecomer, he says, making its first 1.5 percent dividend payments this year.
Dividend-paying stocks are the “decathletes of the equity market,” says Fidelity's Offen. “They don’t usually come in first in any one event. But as an asset class they have tended to be consistent—and that consistency can help them win over the long term.”
According to a December 2010 Fidelity Viewpoint newsletter , growth in dividend payments often tends to be more reliable than earnings growth. Since 1946, dividend growth rates have had a standard deviation of 6 percent, compared with 16 percent for earnings growth rates.
Fidelity notes how dividend payments can help offset price declines. In the previous decade, while prices of stocks in the S&P 500 fell an average 2.3 percent annually, the index’s annualized total return fell only 0.5 percent, meaning that dividend income contributed 1.8 percentage points a year to the total return.
“There’s still a perception that dividend-paying companies are no longer growth companies, that if they return the money to investors it means there are no good opportunities for them to grow,” says Huber. “If a company is growing 20 percent a year, the chances of it paying a dividend are low, but we balance out expectations, especially in the current climate. If a company is paying a dividend and growing at a 5 to 7 percent annual range, we think it’s a healthy level of growth.”
Ten thousand baby boomers a day are reaching age 65, Taylor says. “What are they going to live on? Not money market funds or T-bills. Their homes are no longer ATMs. Social Security and Medicare are in jeopardy. There aren’t any pensions and they haven’t saved enough to retire," he says. "They’re going to have to work longer and put money into something that produces meaningful income. The only good alternative they have is to own these kinds of companies.”
Focus on companies that are selling to Latin America, China, and India, says Taylor, “where a burgeoning middle class wants our goods. A weak dollar, if it continues, keeps our goods cheaper. The wind is at the back of dividend-paying multinationals for all those reasons.” | <urn:uuid:892dbd96-4c83-424f-9d76-57e08d3b6313> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://m.cnbc.com/special_reports/15/content/44285540 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954106 | 1,528 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Overall rating 4 out of 54.6 (135 ratings)
Last updated 22 May 2013, created 11 April 2006, viewed 219,838
Activities and games to support early phoneme / grapheme and initial sound recognition skills.
Please provide a rating.
Absolutely brilliant! Thanks!
Some great activities to use during Phonic Circle Time. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you, I've been looking for some activities which involve constant participation of all children.
Thank you, some fab games I will use in FS2 interventions
Thank you for sharing, there are a few games I have not tried before.
TES Editorial © 2013 TSL Education Ltd. All pages of the Website are
reproduce, duplicate, copy, sell, resell or exploit any material on the
Website for any commercial purposes. TSL Education Ltd Registered in England (No 02017289) at 26 Red Lion Square, London, WC1R 4HQ | <urn:uuid:b94632f4-65c2-41eb-b71a-6e73d40fd997> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tes.co.uk/teaching-resource/School-day-activity-timetable-to-support-EAL-pupil-3000290 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913039 | 196 | 2.125 | 2 |
(Image Credit: ABC News)
A student-drawn poster of Jesus encouraging people to "kill all infidels" is sparking debate over whether the drawing is sacrilegious or just a harmless classroom assignment.
The drawing is one of several that are displayed in the lobby of Hamilton Elementary School in Fresno, Calif.
The poster was turned in by a seventh grade student whose class was given the assignment to create a help wanted poster for soldiers to fight in the Crusades, ABC News' Fresno station KFSN reported.
The Crusades were a series of religious wars waged by the Catholic Church in the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries against the Muslim Turks, to regain access to holy sites in Jerusalem.
A color pencil drawing of a man wearing a Jesus name tag is in the center of the paper. Splashed across the top and bottom of the poster is the caption, "I want you to kill all infidels." The phrases "meet me in Jerusalem" and "get a free ticket to heaven" are also written at the bottom of the poster.
"I do believe common sense tells you, hey this may not be appropriate for a K through 8 school, right in the main lobby where each child passes on their way to school and home," Chris Alfaro, who has a second grade daughter at the school, told KFSN.
Alfaro and his wife said the principal agreed to address their complaint after the report aired in Fresno.
The poster is still on display.Also Read | <urn:uuid:015832de-55e4-4fc3-9a5e-6c7181006982> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sg.sports.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/kill-infidels-poster-calif-school-sparks-debate-162659201--abc-news-topstories.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972432 | 312 | 1.882813 | 2 |
"I'd rather sell my c*nt than my paintings"
Having caught two independent documentaries at the first ever London Chinese Independent Film Festival, M. Lý-Eliot considers women artists' position in China 20 years ago and today
Wu Wenguan's pioneering documentary Bumming in Beijing and the innovative docu-drama Oxhide II by Liu Jiayin share an intense focus on the day-to-day lives of female artists in Beijing. They were made 20 years apart and each at a time of great turbulence in China's recent history. Bumming in Beijing was filmed in the run-up and aftermath of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, when China was instigating ground-shifting reforms of its socialist economic policies. Like the 'after' to Bumming's 'before', Oxhide II has the 2008 Beijing Olympics as its backdrop - the event that symbolically confirmed China's status to the West as a dominant, state-capitalist economy.
Female writer Zhang Ci and female painter Zhang Xia Ping are two of the five brilliant artist subjects of Wu's documentary. Leaving government-assigned graduate jobs in remote provinces of China, they have come to Beijing to live as freelance artists. Rejecting domestic dependency and financial security, the women live alone relying on city-wide networks of friends for support. They become self-declared mangliu ("drifters" or "vagabonds") - people without jobs or Beijing residential permits.
The male photographer featured in the film, Gao Bo, comments that "drifting" is a difficult concept in China. At that time, individual rootlessness went against the demands of family and the centrist, bureaucratic state. The Communist Party's declared initiative was to liberate women from the shackles of the patriarchal Confucian culture, well-illustrated by the practice of foot binding, a crippling attack on female mobility. Yet Gao says that the lone artistic 'drifter' still appears stranger in China if she is a woman.
The documentary is filmed in the cramped, dilapidated living spaces of artists who initially seem to succeed in making their art the centre of a footloose existence. Wu cuts repeatedly between their bedsits as they discuss themselves and each other, keeping the viewer feeling exhilaratingly mobile. You identify with the artists, as though you too were practicing Ceng Fan: the technique of waking up at noon, scanning your address book and cycling to a friend's for lunch. After five o'clock, the process starts over for supper.
In this world, where living is not easy, possibilities do not seem too limited. Artistic, social and even some economic opportunities are open to both genders - both the female and the male painter have individual exhibitions at the Beijing gallery and occasionally sell paintings to foreign tourists. There is even a sense of mobility between the genders. We see women with short hair and denim jackets, swearing and smoking, as well as charming, sylph-like men with long hair and delicate manners.
Berenice Reynaud notes in her article that "what prompted Wu to shoot Bumming in Beijing was the writer Zhang Ci's decision to marry an elderly American man who'd take her to the US." Yet by the end of the film two of the male artists have also married Westerners and left: they are not too proud to reject becoming more mobile, even it if means marrying a wealthier, female Westerner. Men and women are united by their common artistic labour, which creates a sense of solidarity between the sexes that seems to surpass traditional gender binaries.
Before the introduction of the market economy, China had no product advertising aimed at women: the socialist government declared a devotion to equality between the sexes in dress and in work
Liu's docu-drama Oxhide II is also set in a Beijing artist's home. In this sequel to her 2003 debut Oxhide, Liu has again created a mild dramatisation of her own family as they make 73 dumplings in real time (two and a half hours making for blissful but hungry viewing).
Whilst Wu in Bumming in Beijing also uses many slow, long shots of mundane activity, Liu's use of the technique is more claustrophobic. The camera is held in nine static positions; shots are held for as long as twenty minutes. As a viewer you manoeuvre little, often seeing only arms or legs in the shots and only occasionally hearing the actors' voices. The outside world is only talked about intermittently and when it does creep into the little flat, it sounds menacing. Mall managers threaten to cancel the lease on the father's bag shop. A gossiping neighbour will malign the family if they lose the business.
The family also has to worry about those beneath them on the economic ladder - their salesgirls who will struggle to find work if sacked. Liu makes sexist implications clear: her parents worry about the future of the "reliable" but "overweight" salesgirl. They predict that the 'skinny' salesgirl will find new work more easily. As well as selling a product, the salesgirl is expected to sell her own, preferably slim, image.
Before the introduction of the market economy of the last 20-30 years, China had no product advertising aimed at women. The socialist government declared a devotion to equality between the sexes in dress and in work. In Oxhide II, the relative equality of the middle-aged mother and father's relationship (where we see them sharing the labour inside and outside the home, and where the artisan father performs a lot of traditionally 'feminine' work such as cooking and sewing) is presented as somewhat old-fashioned. Gone are the days where women like Zhang Ci in Bumming in Beijing would be automatically assigned to edit a magazine (a job many current female UK graduates could only dream of!). In the China of Oxhide II, a young woman's employment prospects have ceased to be skills-related and gender-blind.
The dream of being able to earn money through individual, original, creative work is a dying dream, not one of the future
The female artist here is no drifter - this Beijing appears too hostile to support outdated bohemian behaviour. Presenting herself in a domestic setting, the director is 28 and lectures at the Beijing Film Academy. She cannot distribute her independent films within China due to censorship. The audience for her art is almost entirely foreign and her experimental style ensures she receives little commercial reward.
Although this was also true for Wu 20 years before, the portrait of Beijing in Oxhide II is one with even less professional security despite the family seeming wealthier than the artists in the earlier film (indeed, in Oxhide II they eat pork dumplings, not the staple cabbage and potatoes of Bumming in Beijing). It is difficult not to agree with Reynaud who deplores the fact that in the New Chinese Cinema the number of women filmmakers has been limited due to the advent of market economy: only two of the nine films at the festival were directed by women.
A female, Chinese, independent, experimental docu-drama maker will well understand how an artist's work can be marginalised. In this light, Liu's criticism of her father and his defence of the failing artisan business where he designs and makes the bags himself, in opposition to factory-produced goods, is down to his failure to recognise economic reality. The dream of being able to earn money through individual, original, creative work is a dying dream, not one of the future.
Li Ruoqie, the curator of the inaugural London Chinese Independent Film Festival, sees the China of 20 years ago as poorer but more socially liberal, where women had more equal opportunities than they do now. Yet even in Bumming in Beijing the female artists struggle with their roles as both women and creative producers. They are the only ones interviewed who display emotional distress about their precarious lifestyles.
Writer Zhang Ci desires female power, referring to America as the cultural centre of the world, a "mother's womb" full of mystery and opportunity. Nevertheless, her method of getting there involves marrying an older American man. To reach this promised land of economic and artistic opportunity, she relies on his power. Her stated dream to "write something significant" competes with her desire to have a "nice house". The film opens with a scene of her cooking and Wu often shows her performing domestic tasks, undermining our sense of her artistic vocation. We even see her asking her landlady about her laundry, which suggest a little uncomfortably that Zhang's freer lifestyle is maintained by the domestic work of another woman. Zhang's disappearance halfway through the film is sudden and difficult for the audience.
In Oxhide II the domestic has become the setting for art. The family table becomes the platform for the coming together of differing people through creative labour
Gradually more focus is given to the Zhang Xia Ping, the female painter and the only artist to disapprove of Zhang Ci's act of "selling [her]self through marriage". Zhang Xia Ping is utterly dedicated to her art. In her words: "I would rather sell my c*nt than my paintings." The penultimate section of the documentary is devoted to her fragile mental health. Mou Sen, the theatre director, supports her, declaring that he and her "share the same soul" and that a true artist should be mad. However, it is hard not to conclude from Zhang Ci leaving for America and Zhang Xia Ping's mental breakdown that even in potentially more liberal days being a female vagabond in Beijing was a bleak prospect.
While Bumming in Beijing is doubtful as to whether a female vagabond can be successful, it seems to be accepted fact in Oxhide II that she cannot: the domestic has become the setting for art. The family table becomes the platform for the coming together of differing people through creative labour. As the single focus of the latter film's nine shots, it is the only space in which the family members stop arguing with each other and instead communally make bags, dumplings and ultimately the film itself. The table, with its weathered and scratched surface, is where the identity of the makers has always become plastic, even when the world outside seeks only to limit them. The inspiring portrayal of art in both films suggests it has the potential to turn the maker into a gender-neutral figure who is open to different identities, whether sexual, racial or class-based.
All images courtesy of L.C.I.F.F. | <urn:uuid:07ceecb3-ac14-4d9d-97b6-5bb4a090525c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thefword.org.uk/reviews/2012/10/Bumming_in_Beijing_and_Oxhide2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971723 | 2,157 | 1.867188 | 2 |
Twins allowed to commit suicide
- Published: 12 Jan 2013 at 15.56
- Online news:
BRUSSELS - Identical twins were allowed to take their lives together after their dwindling eyesight became an unbearable burden, a Belgian newspaper has reported.
The men died on Dec 14, Het Laatste Nieuws reported, in the first case in the world of twins using the legal right to euthanasia.
The 45-year-old men, who were born deaf, had spent their entire lives together, the newspaper reported. They grew up in the same room, both qualified as shoemakers and later moved into the same apartment in Putte, 30 kilometres northeast of Brussels.
This article is older than 60 days, which we reserve for our premium members only.You can subscribe to our premium member subscription, here. | <urn:uuid:c0ae133b-e213-4e2e-8ba1-d903f44e4897> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bangkokpost.com/breakingnews/330499/twins-allowed-to-commit-suicide | 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 | 0.982315 | 173 | 1.851563 | 2 |
Although Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world, women have opportunities that were unheard of a decade ago. With assistance from Catholic Relief Services, many women and girls are attending school and earning incomes for their families. With continued advances, women in Afghanistan are poised to play an essential role in shaping their country's future.
Read stories of some of the women whose lives have been changed as a result of CRS programs in Afghanistan.
All photos by Jennifer Hardy/CRS
Jennifer Hardy is CRS' regional information officer for Asia and the Pacific Rim. She is based in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. | <urn:uuid:cc271e56-13aa-45b9-a907-f2083cba6b1c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.crs.org/afghanistan/nurturing-self-sufficiency-in-afghan-women/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974789 | 125 | 1.953125 | 2 |
WH Science Czar Says He Would Use ‘Free Market’ to ‘De-Develop the United States’
In a video interview this week, White House Office of Science and Technology Director John P. Holdren told CNSNews.com that he would use the "free market economy" to implement the "massive campaign" he advocated along with Population Bomb author Paul Ehrlich to "de-develop the United States."
In his role as President Barack Obama's top science and technology adviser, Holdren deals with issues ranging from global warming to health care.
"A massive campaign must be launched to restore a high-quality environment in North America and to de-develop the United States," Holdren wrote along with Paul and Anne H. Ehrlich in the "recommendations" concluding their 1973 book Human Ecology: Problems and Solutions.
"De-development means bringing our economic system (especially patterns of consumption) into line with the realities of ecology and the global resource situation," Holdren and the Ehrlichs wrote.
"Resources must be diverted from frivolous and wasteful uses in overdeveloped countries to filling the genuine needs of underdeveloped countries," Holdren and his co-authors wrote. "This effort must be largely political, especially with regard to our overexploitation of world resources, but the campaign should be strongly supplemented by legal and boycott action against polluters and others whose activities damage the environment. The need for de-development presents our economists with a major challenge. They must design a stable, low-consumption economy in which there is a much more equitable distribution of wealth than in the present one. Redistribution of wealth both within and among nations is absolutely essential, if a decent life is to be provided for every human being."
CNSNews.com asked Holdren about this passage on Tuesday after he participated in an Environmental Protection Agency forum celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Clean Air Act.
CNSNews.com asked: "You wrote ‘a massive campaign must be launched to restore a high quality environment in North America and to de-develop the United States' in your book Human Ecology. Could you explain what you meant by de-develop the United States?"
Holdren responded: "What we meant by that was stopping the kinds of activities that are destroying the environment and replacing them with activities that would produce both prosperity and environmental quality. Thanks a lot."
CNSNews.com then asked: "And how do you plan on implementing that?"
"Through the free market economy," Holdren said.
CNSNews.com also asked Holdren to comment on the declaration he made in 1995 along with co-authors Paul Ehrlich and Gretchen Daily of Stanford University that mankind needed to "face up" to "a world of zero net physical growth" that would require reductions in consumption.
"We know for certain, for example, that: No form of material growth (including population growth) other than asymptotic growth is sustainable," Holdren, Ehrlich and Daily wrote in an essay for the World Bank titled, "The Meaning of Sustainability."
"Many of the practices inadequately supporting today's population of 5.5 billion people are unsustainable; and [a]t the sustainability limit, there will be a tradeoff between population and energy-matter throughput per person, hence, ultimately, between economic activity per person and well-being per person," Holdren, Ehrlich and Daily wrote. "This is enough to say quite a lot about what needs to be faced up to eventually (a world of zero net physical growth), what should be done now (change unsustainable practices, reduce excessive material consumption, slow down population growth), and what the penalty will be for postponing attention to population limitation (lower well-being per person)."
Holdren would not comment Tuesday about this statement, saying he had to get to another engagement. | <urn:uuid:218989c4-3490-4d26-9f09-c2dba6681759> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://newsbusters.org/blogs/nicholas-ballasy/2010/09/16/wh-science-czar-says-he-would-use-free-market-de-develop-united-st | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959216 | 801 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Becoming an Unteacher: Do the Unexpected
I had the pleasure of seeing Jeremy K. Macdonald’s Soiree of Slides at the Instructional Technology Strategies Conference this past weekend . . . a beautiful five minutes.
His message was that as teachers, we learn to do the expected. Students are supposed to behave within the norms and rules of school. Teachers enforce those norms and rules. When students break those norms and rules, teachers discipline the students. But, maybe, just maybe, the student had a “good” reason for doing so and maybe, just maybe, teachers should do the unexpected rather than enforce. Maybe, they should “do” caring instead.
Jeremy reported what happened next via his blog post #Unexpected. Here is an excerpt:
My student was at school today. I still wasn’t sure how I was going to approach the situation and my plan for a book drive. She met me in the principal’s office. I asked the school counselor to be there as well. We began to talk. I asked her about the recent events. We discussed her thought process over the past several months and what had happened to so many books. Her answer was simple. She didn’t know. She was not sure why she took the books other than that she wanted to read them. She talked about taking books that she thought her two year-old sister would like to hear or books that she could share with her neighbors. As the conversation went on I could see in her eyes that she really did not know what she had done was “wrong”; that the currency she had used to buy social interactions was not earned but stolen.
My heart broke again. This time, however, it was because I knew my reaction was the right one. Her eyes grew larger and brighter as I explained what her new responsibility would be in light of this situation. She said things like, “I’ve never done that before.” and “I get to be in-charge?”, and “I wonder who else would want to help.” So starting Monday, she will head our community book drive and organize a book-trade in which anyone can take or leave a book.
As I stood up to hug this little girl my eyes met the teary eyes of our school counselor. Just moments before this meeting, she had asked the usual questions regarding punishments, detentions, and possible suspension for stealing. The unexpectedness of it all was more than she anticipated. She then saw what I saw — a little girl that already lived in a world of turmoil and confusion. Today was our opportunity to bring her out of that world, if only for a moment, and empower her instead of the expected belittling we so often justify.
My Own Doing the Unexpected: A Peak Experience
I had a similar experience with 8 year old Sherry a while back. To this day, I view it as a peak experience in my life.
Sherry was a tough little third grader in my counseling group at a local elementary school. Sherry had to be a tough cookie – as she was a witness to her sister being shot and killed by a drug dealer. Other kids in my counseling group had similar stories – one’s mom was found dead in a ditch . . . tough situations, tough kids, tough behaviors. Sherry would be suspended three times during her third grade year due to defiant behavior. I had to use a behavior modification system (which I personally abhor) to check in with them every 10 minutes because of acting out behaviors. But who could blame them? . . . such horrible situations in their short lives. As the principal stated, “These third graders have experienced more trauma in their young lives then I will experience in my whole lifetime.”
Sherry loved coming to the group, but was especially defiant this day – I wasn’t feeling so patient, tolerant, or compassionate on this day. So with a brush-off wave of my hand I said, “Sherry – just go back to class.” With head down, she returned to her class. The group met the last period of each Tuesday. I would send the kids to their respective buses after that. Sherry did not take the bus, walked home from the school. After school on this day, Sherry returned to my meeting area– staying shyly on the periphery as I straightened up. I made eye contact with her and she moved ever so slowly towards me like the boy and the fox in The Little Prince.
I was ready to make the adult-in-charge-type-statement. As I knew Sherry loved the group time, I was about to say, “If you learn to behave yourself, you would be allowed to stay in the group.” I opened my mouth and these words come out instead, “I missed you today. You are very special to me.” With her big black eyes (even bigger at that moment) staring intensely at me, she stated, “I don’t feel very special.” And this kid, who never cried, had a few big teardrops flow from her eyes. I said, with eyes that were probably as big, black, and intense as hers at that moment, “Well, you are very special to me.” And big teardrops rolled from my eyes. This was a peak experience for me, an experience that can only be explained as one heart purely touching another heart. No more was said – Sherry’s behavior was fine for the rest of the year.
I did the unexpected . . . I didn’t expect it, Sherry didn’t expect it. It changed me. I became an unteacher on this day. | <urn:uuid:a70e42b0-dec4-476b-a6a4-90529459f172> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://usergeneratededucation.wordpress.com/2012/02/22/becoming-an-unteacher-do-the-unexpected/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.989069 | 1,212 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Most Americans breath dirty air — in many places, levels of pollutants like nitrogen dioxide and ozone are in violation of federal air quality standards. And now, those standards are getting even stronger, which will put even more of the country out of compliance: EPA recently upped standards for nitrogen dioxide and is working on strengthening limits for other pollutants. But to make real improvements in air quality without breaking the bank, what is called for is not another round of top-down regulation, but an update of the Clean Air Act to allow strong market-based solutions.
Progress on cleaning our nation’s air pollution has slowed because of the Clean Air Act’s structure. The law was adopted in 1970 and hasn’t been updated since 1990. It worked well in the past when there was plenty of low hanging fruit-cheap reductions that achieved big benefits. But now its format, which relies on each state to create detailed plans to meet national air quality goals, has become unbearably cumbersome.
The state plans must specify who cuts emissions and how much, but to decide that local regulators need to understand the details of production processes and engineering options for all factories, power plants, and other polluters in their jurisdictions. Regulators are ill-equipped to dig into the nitty-gritty of each company’s practices to find the most cost-effective cuts. And under top down regulation, businesses have little incentive to provide the information to regulators — so further progress is tough. Even though there are likely to be smart, cheap ways to reduce emissions, no one has both the incentive and know-how to find them.
Switching from top-down regulation to a cap-and-trade system would allow for progress without regulators needing information they can’t get about how pollution can be reduced. Cap-and-trade sets a declining cap on total emissions and allowances to emit are limited by this cap. The declining cap would drive up the price of an allowance, which gives companies a profit-based incentive to figure out how to cut emissions. It’s a win-win solution where more reductions are made at a smaller cost to businesses. And in this down-turned economy, that’s important both to reduce economic harm and to sell stronger environmental controls to a skeptical public.
As Barack Obama said during his campaign, cap-and-trade is “a smarter way of controlling pollution,” because the government doesn’t dictate “every single rule that a company has to abide by, which creates a lot of bureaucracy and red tape and often-times is less efficient.”
Congress should amend the Clean Air Act to reflect this reality: a national cap-and-trade system should cover the “major” emitters in the most polluting industries, plus new vehicles and vehicle fuels. By bringing most air pollution under the same system of caps, we will see major efficiency gains that allow us to get much cleaner air with much less cost. This system need apply to only 6 percent of the major stationary sources and none of the hundreds of thousands of minor ones, but would still capture the lion’s share of pollution subject to national goals. States should be freed from these plan requirements in dealing with the rest of the sources, but subject to fallback federal safeguards.
Congress has not revised the Clean Air Act or any of the nation’s other major environmental statutes since 1990 — this is an irresponsible omission because the pollution problem and our understanding of how to deal with it have changed radically since the early 1970s when most of these statutes were originally structured. New national caps that cover carbon as well as a range of other air pollutants are a good place to start. We explain how Congress can overhaul its outdated environmental statutes in Breaking the Logjam: Environmental Protection That Will Work. | <urn:uuid:2523e4c2-7bea-433a-bd52-ef2ed5deea82> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://grist.org/article/2010-02-17-why-congress-must-revise-the-clean-air-act/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953079 | 777 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Technicolor has launched a new 3-D certification program, Technicolor Certifi3D, that is geared toward broadcasters and network service providers looking to deliver quality and comfortable 3-D experiences to consumers.
The Technicolor Certifi3D program ensures that 3-D material meets minimum quality requirements before it is delivered to consumers. As part of the service, Technicolor evaluates each shot against a set of objective criteria for stereographic reproduction, including a 15-point quality checklist to identify common errors in production, which result in suboptimal 3-D content.
The company said it would also offer training programs to broadcasters and content creators to help them update their production and post-production techniques from those required of traditional TV to 3-D TV.
Behind the technology that serves as the foundation for the Technicolor Certifi3D service is a 3-D analysis software tool that was developed by Technicolor that allows the company’s stereo technicians to quickly and precisely diagnose many of the issues that create viewer fatigue and discomfort. Using the left and right source masters, the software builds a 3-D model in real time, giving an accurate pixel count for objects that are too close or too far away from the viewer, which would result in discomfort. It also automatically detects and flags conflicts with the edges of the TV screen, another significant source of discomfort for 3-D in the home.
Technicolor offers a variety of 3-D services, ranging from 3-D visual effects, post production and Blu-ray 3-D services to 3-D VOD encoding and mobile 3-D TV. | <urn:uuid:ef8df5bd-8c64-423e-83f8-fd23b90ec04e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://broadcastengineering.com/blog/technicolor-launches-3-d-certification-program | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941509 | 333 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Remember when having your first vehicle would be a coming of age for American teens? Whether or not this would be a clunker or something like that more snazzy, Transportation Department statistics reveal that in 1978, 50% of 16-year-olds within the U . s . States got their motorists license. By 2008, however, only 30% accomplished it.
What exactly do present day teens consider symbolic of their independence? Based on Sheryl Connelly, manager of worldwide consumer trends and futuring (yes, apparently this is a factor) for that Ford Motor Company, it is the smartphone. And Thilo Koslowski, lead automotive analyst for technology research firm Gartner, concurs that “Mobile products, devices and also the Internet have become must-have lifestyle items that convey status. For the reason that sense these products provide a amount of freedom and social achieve that formerly just the automobile offered.” Read more » | <urn:uuid:6ace931a-3c87-4d9e-af52-f5c9da393d99> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hi-techinformatics.com/?tag=study | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946166 | 190 | 2.1875 | 2 |
Recall -- Firm Press Release
FDA posts press releases and other notices of recalls and market withdrawals from the firms involved as a service to consumers, the media, and other interested parties. FDA does not endorse either the product or the company.
Abbott Voluntarily Recalls Certain Similac® Brand Powder Infant Formulas That Did Not Meet Its Quality Standards
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - Sept. 22, 2010 - ABBOTT PARK, Ill. - Abbott is initiating a proactive, voluntary recall of certain Similac-brand, powder infant formulas in the U.S., Puerto Rico, Guam and some countries in the Caribbean.
Abbott is recalling these products following an internal quality review, which detected the remote possibility of the presence of a small common beetle in the product produced in one production area in a single manufacturing facility. The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has determined that while the formula containing these beetles poses no immediate health risk, there is a possibility that infants who consume formula containing the beetles or their larvae, could experience symptoms of gastrointestinal discomfort and refusal to eat as a result of small insect parts irritating the GI tract. If these symptoms persist for more than a few days, a physician should be consulted.
The recall of these powder infant formulas includes:
- Certain Similac powder product lines offered in plastic containers.
- Certain Similac powder product lines offered in sizes such as 8-ounce, 12.4-ounce and 12.9-ounce cans.
To immediately find out if the product in your possession is included in this recall, parents and caregivers should visit www.similac.com/recall, and type in their lot number to determine if their product is affected, or call (800) 986-8850.
No Abbott liquid infant formulas are impacted. Products not involved in the recall include all Abbott Nutrition liquid ready-to-feed and concentrated infant formulas and all powder and liquid specialty formulas, such as Similac Expert Care™ Alimentum®, Elecare®, Similac Expert Care™ Neosure®, Similac® Human Milk Fortifier, and metabolic formulas for inherited disorders.
About the Recall
- The company is implementing a plan to address this matter in the affected manufacturing facility, which is expected to be completed shortly. No other facilities or products are involved in this recall.
- Abbott has consulted with the U.S. FDA regarding this recall.
Information for Parents and Caregivers
- Products with affected lot numbers should be returned to Abbott at no cost to the consumer.
- Parents and caregivers can go to www.similac.com/recall or call Abbott's consumer hotline, (800) 986-8850, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
- Both the website and the consumer hotline have specific details on how to complete the return process.
Holger Liepmann, executive vice president, Abbott Nutrition said:
"Abbott understands that parents expect to feed their children only the highest quality product. We are taking this action so that parents know that the infant formula products they provide unquestionably meet the highest quality standards for which they are known. We regret any inconvenience this situation poses to parents and consumers." | <urn:uuid:8c52ac16-f913-4e69-aa0b-9ba3b2fddbf0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fda.gov/Safety/Recalls/ucm226885.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928926 | 665 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Two antique train carriages built exclusively for leaders will go on display in northern Taiwan on June 7 to celebrate the Taiwan Railway Administration’s (TRA) 125th anniversary, officials said yesterday.
The carriages have gained fame among train aficionados because only heads of state or top officials had the privilege of riding in them, a TRA official surnamed Lin (林) said.
“In a sense, these trains were like imperial palaces on the move,” Lin said, with the carriages serving only Japanese occupiers and a former president of the Republic of China.
The carriages, called “railway saloon cars” for their extremely flamboyant interiors, were designed to transport the rulers of the day around Taiwan on inspection tours, Lin said.
The two carriages, built in 1904 and 1912, respectively, were made completely of wood and luxuriously appointed.
The 1912 car, which served Japanese Emperor Hirohito when he traveled to Taiwan in 1923 as a crown prince, was lacquered 10 times to cover the gaps between the teak and cypress panels that formed the carriage, Lin said.
Inside the car, drawings of chrysanthemums — a symbol of Japan’s imperial family — were used generously to highlight the presence of royalty.
That carriage was later taken over by Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) for his personal use in traveling up and down western Taiwan.
A third car, built in 1969 of steel and fitted with luxurious trappings, will also be on display.
Former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) took a ride in it in 1991, Lin said.
Maintaining the older train carriages is no easy task because workers must closely monitor conditions in both the cars and the depot where they are stored.
“The depot must be kept at an absolute humidity of 55 percent at all times, to be precise,” Lin said.
The three cars will be open to a maximum of 140 visitors at Cidu Station in Keelung City for one day only.
People interested in seeing them can register by dialing (02) 2456-8990 tomorrow from 8:30am to 4:30pm. | <urn:uuid:1f660100-d13d-48c0-808e-dd610afc7f8c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2012/06/03/2003534407 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967006 | 481 | 1.96875 | 2 |
Stem cell procedures are commonly in use in Europe and China. Americans are beginning to understand the regenerative power of stem cells and are looking to become part of this new direction in medicine. Manning’s European physicians removed some of his body fat, extracted stem cells from it and then injected the cultured cells into his neck to rejuvenate the damaged nerves and tissue.
Although Manning’s procedure created many discussions among American doctors and ethicists, adult stem cell therapies are in preclinical trials and are mostly used in “desperate situations” in the U.S. In Colorado, a leading spine surgeon successfully performed a lumbar disc procedure using adult stem cells to reverse the disc degeneration and regrow cartilage. In Ohio, doctors grew a teenager’s cheekbones, which were missing due to a rare genetic defect.
Optimism is high as adult stem cell treatments are seeing very promising results. The effectiveness of Manning’s treatment is pending, leaving the four-time league MVP still unsure as to when or if he’ll be able to play this season. However, leading European doctors have cured varying levels of blindness and engineered entire windpipes, organs and digits. With every research and clinical trial that’s performed, come more surprising and encouraging results for the developing field of regenerative medicine. Frankly, the U.S. needs to start playing catch-up.
One American company is capitalizing on the increasing applications of adult stem cells by offering a life-saving service. American CryoStem is one of the only stem cell banks in the world dealing exclusively with adipose tissue. Participating physicians can extract adult stem cells from body fat with a minor procedure. It’s tested for viability and cryogenically preserved for as long as necessary. Storing your personal stem cells today provides more treatment options without the possibility of cellular rejection from donor cells, and the ability to capture your current cell age because as your body ages so do your stem cells.
Ask your doctor about the adult stem cell storage and services of American CryoStem. Pre-enroll today to find out when a service provider becomes available in your area. American CryoStem is a publicly traded company trading under the symbol (OTCQB: CRYO). For an investor kit, go to www.americancryostem.com/ | <urn:uuid:7a9a37ab-d930-4186-bc49-119ec6d8e5fb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.prlog.org/11699124-peyton-manning-throws-hail-mary-pass-with-stem-cell-therapy.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947331 | 489 | 1.890625 | 2 |
We present new estimates of home ownership for black and white households from 1870 to 2007. Black ownership increased by 46 percentage points, whereas white ownership increased by 20 points. Remarkably, 25 of the 26 point narrowing occurred between 1870 and 1910. Part of this early convergence is accounted for by falling white ownership due to movement out of agriculture, but most is accounted for by post-emancipation gains among blacks. After 1910, white and black households increased ownership, but the racial gap barely changed. We discuss the influence of residential segregation, public policy, and permanent income on the ownership gap. | <urn:uuid:261327b8-7c69-4b71-950f-a1f6dcde8fad> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://econpapers.repec.org/article/aeaaecrev/v_3a101_3ay_3a2011_3ai_3a3_3ap_3a355-59.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963348 | 119 | 3.046875 | 3 |
Con Edison Media Relations
Contact: Brenda Pérez
Telephone: (212) 460-4111
For Immediate Release: December 4, 2002
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION AWARDS CON EDISON PIPELINE RESEARCH CONTRACT
Radar Will Enhance Damage Protection, Leak Detection
NEW YORK - Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc. (Con Edison) has been awarded a $439,999 pipeline safety research contract by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). The company will work in partnership with Witten Technologies and Electromagnetic Instruments, Inc. to develop a 3-D digital mapping system for identifying steel and plastic underground equipment, and detecting leaks.
Commissioned by Con Edison in August 2001 and January 2002, Boston-based Witten Technologies, Inc. produced underground images of lower Manhattan through a ground-penetrating technique called radar tomography. A piece of equipment similar to satellite radar is placed on the back of a truck, which drives directly over the site taking 3-D pictures of utility infrastructure six feet below the surface.
“Radar tomography has already been successful in reducing the digging required to maintain dense underground utility infrastructure,” said Mary Jane McCartney, Con Edison’s senior vice president of Gas Operations. “DOT’s award will allow us to extend similar benefits to leak detection and the prevention of pipeline damage. We look forward to this partnership yielding the same excellent results we have seen in the past.”
U.S. Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta said, “By leveraging funding through partnerships, we expect to produce a wide range of research and stimulate the market with beneficial technologies two to three years sooner than would have otherwise been possible.”
The partnership team, which includes the U.S. Departments of Energy and Interior, reviewed more than 85 applications for the awards. Additional awards for a second phase of the program are pending. Con Edison’s research contract is one of seven awarded by DOT, totaling $1.6 million.
Con Edison is a subsidiary of Consolidated Edison, Inc. [NYSE: ED], one of the nation’s largest investor-owned energy companies, with more than $8 billion in annual revenues and $18 billion in assets. The utility provides electric, gas and steam service to more than 3 million customers in New York City and Westchester County, New York. For additional financial, operations and customer service information, visit Con Edison’s Web site at www.coned.com. | <urn:uuid:ca5a894b-3e78-4fde-bec2-d03dbe0cba0b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.coned.com/newsroom/news/pr20021204.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920299 | 532 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Water Authority Announces Proposed Water Rates for 2013
San Diego -- Driven by rate increases from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and the Water Authority’s investments in more reliable water supplies and infrastructure projects, the San Diego County Water Authority staff Wednesday proposed an “all-in” 9.6 percent increase in the cost of untreated water purchased by its 24 member agencies in 2013. The Water Authority Board of Directors is scheduled to hold a public hearing and vote on the proposal at its June 28, 2012 meeting.
The total cost for municipal and industrial untreated water would rise to $1,003 per acre-foot on January 1, 2013, up $88 per acre-foot, or 9.6 percent from the current rate. The proposed treated water rate for 2013 is $1,259 per acre-foot, up $111 per acre-foot, or 9.7 percent. (An acre-foot is 325,900 gallons, enough to meet the needs of two average single-family households of four people for a year.)
The Water Authority posted its proposed 2013 rates online at www.sdcwa.org/sites/default/files/files/board-memo-rates-and-charges-2012-0516.pdf, opening a six-week public review period. The Water Authority Board is scheduled to receive a presentation on the proposed rates at its meeting May 24, at which time it is scheduled to set a public hearing for its June 28 meeting.
The proposed rate increases are driven primarily by three factors: 1) increased costs from MWD, the region’s largest imported water supplier; 2) increased debt service costs necessary to pay for the Water Authority’s $3.5 billion investments in major new water infrastructure projects; and, 3) an increase in the quantity and price of the Water Authority’s purchases of supplies from the Imperial Irrigation District.
The largest single driver of the proposed rate increase is rate increases approved April 10 by MWD. MWD’s Board of Directors approved an “average” 5 percent rate increase for 2013 that actually results in an estimated 8.5 percent increase in MWD-related costs to the Water Authority. This accounts for about 48 percent of the Water Authority’s proposed rate increases for next year.
This spring, the Water Authority, its member agencies, and members of the public were successful in persuading MWD to lower its 2013 rate increase. Instead of adopting an average 7.5 percent increase, as it originally proposed to do in March, MWD ultimately approved a 5 percent rate increase, 33 percent lower, on April 10. The Water Authority estimates the smaller increase will save the San Diego region’s ratepayers $5 million in 2013.
“Without that reduction, the increased MWD costs we would have been forced to pass through would have resulted in a proposed 2013 rate increase of about 11 percent,” Water Authority General Manager Maureen Stapleton said.
Payments for major water infrastructure investments made over the last two decades account for about 26 percent of the proposed untreated water rate increase and about 31 percent of the proposed treated water rate increase. This includes paying an additional $21 million in planned debt service costs to finance large-scale infrastructure projects such as the San Vicente Dam Raise (the largest single expansion of local reservoir storage in the county’s history, currently under way), the Olivenhain Dam and Reservoir, Twin Oaks Valley Water Treatment Plant, and additional pipelines, pump stations, and other projects necessary to operate and maintain the region’s water delivery and storage system.
“By making these long-planned investments in major infrastructure projects, we are improving the region’s water supply reliability now, and for generations to come,” Stapleton said.
The Water Authority has reduced the costs of financing its capital projects. Recent bond refunding sales are expected to save $19 million in financing costs (on a present-value basis over the life of the bonds). This lowers debt service costs in fiscal year 2013 by $2 million, compared to previous estimates.
The Water Authority is taking additional steps to mitigate the impact of increasing debt service costs on the proposed 2013 rates. The most significant of these is reducing the senior lien debt service coverage ratio from the current fiscal year estimate of 1.47 to 1.35 in fiscal year 2013. The reduced coverage ratio will continue to meet all bond covenants, and coverage is projected to meet the Water Authority Board’s 1.5 coverage policy target in 2014.
“This one-year reduction in coverage is a measured and reasonable step to mitigate rate increases,” Stapleton said. “Without this measure, the necessary rate increase in 2013 would have been 17.5 percent.”
Another portion of the proposed rate increases is related to supplies from the Water Authority’s water conservation and transfer agreement with the Imperial Irrigation District. IID supply costs account for about 26 percent of the Water Authority’s proposed untreated water rate increase, and about 21 percent of the proposed treated water rate increase, with nearly half of these increases attributable to the 10,000 acre-feet of increased supplies. The IID transfer will provide 100,000 acre-feet of water in 2013, up from 90,000 acre-feet in 2012. The cost of this water will increase 10 percent in 2013 under the terms of the agreement; a lower, 5 percent rate increase is scheduled for 2014.
In addition, investments by the Water Authority in lining the All-American and Coachella canals in the Imperial Valley desert provide approximately 80,000 acre-feet of water annually to the Water Authority under a 110-year agreement with the U.S. Secretary of the Interior.
“Our growing supply from the IID transfer and canal-lining projects provide vital water supply reliability benefits for our region and are much more reliable than MWD supplies,” Stapleton said.
During the latest supply cutback from MWD, from July 1, 2009 to mid-April 2011, the Water Authority received approximately 264,000 acre-feet of supplies from the IID water transfer and the canal-lining projects.
“These supplies reduced MWD’s 13 percent cutback in our imported water to an overall 8 percent shortage for the Water Authority,” Stapleton said.
In addition to the water supply reliability benefits, Stapleton said the IID and canal-lining agreements improve the Water Authority’s control over the cost of a significant and growing portion of the region’s imported water supply. MWD’s rates are set annually or biennially by MWD’s Board of Directors and have proved to be both unpredictable and far higher than MWD’s own projections. In contrast, the price of supplies from IID is set according to an agreed-upon schedule through 2015. From 2016-2034, IID supply increases are tied to the Gross Domestic Product Implicit Price Deflator index. Over the most recent 10-year period, the GDP-IPD index has a compounded annual growth rate of 2.3 percent per year. In comparison, MWD’s Tier 1 untreated water rate rose at a compounded annual growth rate of 7.3 percent between 2004 and 2014.
The Water Authority filed suit in June 2010 challenging MWD’s 2011 and 2012 water rates. MWD is overcharging the Water Authority for transporting the Water Authority’s IID transfer and canal-lining supplies from the Colorado River. The Water Authority estimates the gross amount of transportation overcharges will increase in 2013 by $17 million, to $57 million. The gross overcharges in 2011 and 2012 were $38 million and $40 million, respectively. For more information on the rate litigation, visit www.sdcwa.org/mwdrate-challenge.
The Water Authority has taken aggressive steps to cut its own costs. The Water Authority’s current two-year budget (fiscal years 2012 and 2013) is 16 percent lower than its previous two-year amended budget. Spending reductions include:
- Executing the largest workforce reduction in the agency’s history. The Water Authority is reducing the number of employees by 16 percent between 2008 and 2014. This includes the elimination of 31.33 full-time employee positions in the current budget period.
- Deferring 14 construction projects totaling $150 million to July 2014 or later.
- Reducing the budget of the water conservation program by 60 percent to right-size conservation spending in light of significantly reduced water use in the region since 2007.
- Providing no new local supply development funding, decreasing school education and small-contractor outreach programs, and reducing internal support services for finance, human resources, and information technology.
- Cutting back 15 percent on office supply, travel and similar costs. These efforts alone save almost $1 million from the previous two-year budget.
- Managing labor and benefit costs by increasing the employees’ cost share of retirement benefits.
“Like many businesses and government agencies, the Water Authority has taken the difficult, but necessary steps to cut spending and reduce our workforce to keep our costs down where we can for our ratepayers,” Stapleton said. “Unfortunately, we did not see MWD demonstrate the same kind of cost-cutting commitment during its recent budget and rate-setting process. We will continue to aggressively advocate for spending reductions at MWD that will not only benefit our ratepayers, but ratepayers throughout Southern California.”
More information on MWD is available at www.MWDFacts.com.
To learn more about the services provided by the San Diego County Water Authority and its member agencies to ensure regional water supply reliability, read the Water Authority’s fact sheet at: www.sdcwa.org/sites/default/files/files/publications/reliablewatersupply_fs.pdf.
# # # | <urn:uuid:bf23cc72-78fa-4a42-aa0b-4a938666b978> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.acwa.com/content/water-authority-announces-proposed-water-rates-2013 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943597 | 2,065 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Foundation Bengal Cat FAQ
What is a Foundation Bengal Cat?
The origin of the Bengal breed began with the cross between The Asian Leopard Cat (ALC) and the domestic cat. Some of the early felines used in these matings include Egyptian and Indian Maus, Burmese and non-pedigreed domestic cats. As the breed progressed, SBT Bengals were taken back to the Asian Leopard Cat instead of the misc. other breeds. The first three generations resulting from the ALC x Bengal are considered "Foundation Bengals". The terminology regarding the early generation Foundation Cats can become somewhat confusing for even the most experienced Bengal enthusiast.
What do "Filial", "F1", "F2", "F3" and "SBT" mean?
The term "filial" comes from the Latin word filius or "son". The genetic meaning of the word filial is "of or relating to a generation or the sequence of generations following the parental generation" (The American Heritage© Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, Copyright © by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.) Bengal breeders refer to F-1 as the first generation cross between the ALC and the domestic Bengal. The F-2 is the second generation cross (the offspring of the F-1 and the domestic Bengal). The F-3 is the third generation (the offspring of the F-2 and a Bengal). The International Cat Association (TICA) considers the fourth generation (F-4) to be a "SBT" (studbook tradition) Bengal, eligible for competition in the show ring and a fully accepted domestic cat.
The following table clarifies the early generation terminology used by the Bengal world today (not including domestic outcrosses):
Why are no male Foundation Bengals used in breeding?
The first three Foundation generations generally produce infertile male offspring. There are a few exceptions to this rule but for the most part, only female Foundation Bengals have proven to be fertile and thus the Foundation males are adopted into qualified pet homes.
How does the temperament differ between a Foundation and an SBT Bengal?
This question is best answered by first describing the innate nature of the Asian Leopard Cat. This small, elusive wildcat is found from Siberia, Pakistan, Tibet and India, Burma, Thailand, and part mainland China then south to Sumatra, Java, Borneo and the Philippines. They can thrive in a variety of habitats... dense tropical forests, scrub, semi-desert and agricultural areas. The species Latin name (bengalensis) is derived from the first Leopard Cat that was discovered swimming in the Bay of Bengal.
The temperament of the Asian Leopard Cat tends to be ellusive and intelligent. In their natural environment they typically hunt by night, since they are almost exclusively nocturnal animals. They are agile felines, going from treetops to marsh in one continual motion. They are found within the vicinity of water and are accomplished swimmers. Many wild Leopard Cats will dispose of the excretions in water, to cover their scent from large predators. It is with this extreme intelligence that the ALC has survived many generations in a world where their habitat is dwindling and where they are a very small predator in the huge circle of life.
How does this all relate to the Foundation Bengal?
Typically, any progeny off of the Leopard Cat will inherit at least some parental traits. As each generation moves away from the Leopard Cat heritage, some of those traits may be removed or lessoned to some degree. The Foundation Bengal is often leery of new situations because nature has instilled a cautious intelligence in their ancestors. They need a stable and secure environment and typically do not adapt to variations within their everyday life. The commitment to a Foundation Bengal must be considered to be life-long because while they may not bond to all people, if they do, it is usually passionately intense and breaking this bond can destroy the spirit of the cat. They are not your traditional pet cat and there needs to be a clear understanding of the environment and lifestyle one needs to achieve in order to form the trusting relationship that may be possible with them. The Foundation Bengal is not predisposed to being aggressive but when faced with an uncomfortable situation (often involving loud noises, quick movements, or strange people or situations), they typically show a shyness and look for a safe and quiet place. This may be any area of their home where they have chosen as a safe and secure environment, perhaps a separate room or a remote cat tree where they can be "alone", until they feel safe and secure. Every Foundation Bengal is different, with individual personalities and different reactions to every situation.
The Foundation Bengal is an intense feline with many aspects of the Asian Leopard Cat behavior that can make a fascinating addition to the appropriate home. However, those same idiosynchrocies can make life very uncomfortable for both owner and cat if the household is unprepared or unable to accept them on the Foundation Bengal’s terms. The closer the Foundation Bengal is to the Asian Leopard Cat, the stronger the instinctive behaviors and the less likely that they can be modified to fit the owner's expectations. A true Foundation Cat enthusiast does not expect the cat to change to fit the owner's lifestyle, but rather is willing to change their lifestyle to accept the behavior of the cat. In general, while SBT's adapt readily to new situations, new people and new places, Foundation Cats find it more difficult to do so and are much more easily stressed by those changes.
|Back to Top|
TIBCS Membership Secretary - 5351 E. Thompson Rd, Box 179 - Indianapolis, IN 46237
Content Permission Form | Acknowledgements | Webmaster
All content and images Copyright © 2002-2013 by The International Bengal Cat Society
All Rights Reserved | <urn:uuid:eb215df2-7c38-4772-98f1-feaca9aec541> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bengalcat.com/aboutbengals/foundation.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938449 | 1,201 | 2.75 | 3 |
Corn becoming king in Upper Midwest as acres riseRobert Stover has been raising corn all his life in eastern North Dakota.
GRAND FORKS, N.D. (AP) — Robert Stover has been raising corn all his life in eastern North Dakota.
His grandfather, Frank Stover, brought ears of corn with him from Indiana when he moved to the Larimore, N.D., area in 1901, and subsequent generations of the Stover family have kept raising it.
“We've always had it,” said Robert Stover, 59.
When Bob Finken was growing up in western North Dakota, he never thought about raising corn. The crop just wasn't viable there.
Now it is. This spring, for the first time, the 53-year-old Finken, a Douglas, N.D., farmer, will be planting corn.
“It's time to try it,” he said. | <urn:uuid:13d6ce33-c558-4269-9a8f-da96c0e7e215> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jamestownsun.com/event/article/id/160861/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975335 | 197 | 1.945313 | 2 |
The Slemish scenic drive is approached from Glenarm if your heading north and Carnlough if your heading to Belfast. Whatever direction you start from, you will drive up one glen and down the other (Glenarm and Glencloy).
The unique shape of Slemish gives away its geological past, it is a remnant of a volcano, one of several that poured out vast lava flows that covered this part of the North Antrim and created the Giants Causeway around 60 million years ago during the Paleogene period (Lower Tertiary).
After the final eruptions the lava in the vents slowly solidified and millions of years of erosion followed including several ice-ages which weathered away the surrounds of the volcano leaving what we see today, the solidified dolerite vent which is known as a volcanic plug.
With no other peaks around, the views and sense of height from the top is wonderful, access is via a steep rough path from a car park near the base. The top is 437 metre high (1430 feet). It is a wonderful spot on a clear summer day with panoranic views over the whole Braid Valley, Sperrins and Belfast Hills.
The area around Slemish is where Patricius (Saint Patrick) was brought after being sold as a slave to Milchu, a local chieftain. At this time, raiding parties from Ireland to Scotland, England and Wales were common practise as was slave trading. Many believe the raiding party came from the Sconce at Articlave, a strategic power base of the time, and that he was brought back here before being sold to Milchu. The Sconce has associations with Niall of the Nine Hostages and also Roman artefacts.
Patricius in later life wrote the ‘Confessio’ which tells of his experiences, in it he write:
I, Patrick, a sinner, a most simple countryman, the least of all the faithful and most contemptible to many, had for father the deacon Calpurnius, son of the late Potitus, a priest, of the settlement [vicus] of Bannavem Taburniae; he had a small villa nearby where I was taken captive. I was at that time about sixteen years of age. I did not, indeed, know the true God; and I was taken into captivity in Ireland with many thousands of people…..’
He worked as a shepherd for Milchu, and during the six years he spent in enforced servitude he endured many hardships but also found his spiritual calling and faith. At this time the area would have been forested with the peak of Slemish rising out of it, He writes…
’ after I reached Ireland I used to pasture the flock each day and I used to pray many times a day. More and more did the love of God, and my fear of him and faith increase, and my spirit was moved so that in a day [I said] from one up to a hundred prayers, and in the night a like number; besides I used to stay out in the forests and on the mountain and I would wake up before daylight to pray in the snow, in icy coldness, in rain, and I used to feel neither ill nor any slothfulness, because, as I now see, the Spirit was burning in me at that time.’
Page 1 of 2 | <urn:uuid:e4fece21-5bad-4115-bf9d-7c3dee7c01b2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.causewaycoastalroute.com/index.php/slemish-mountain-saint-patrick-website | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977323 | 706 | 2.4375 | 2 |
Ok, so you know the times that I mean. You’re coming unglued. You can’t cope. Your heart is pounding. Your thoughts are racing. In fact, there are layers of thought, fifteen-feet deep. Crap. Wait, you don’t know what you’re thinking about. You can’t tease out just one thought. Sweat is beginning to trickle from places you’d rather not mention, at least not to someone you don’t know well. Ack! You can’t take it. The panic is mounting. Oh no! You’re freaking out, and since you know you’re freaking out, you freak out some more. You get up, since there’s no way to sit still. Suddenly, you’re in another room, but you don’t know why you’re there. Confused, you leave that one and find yourself standing in some peculiar spot like the middle of the hallway with your mouth hanging open. Your heart starts skipping beats. Uh-oh! Maybe it’s a heart attack. Possibly you’d call 911 if only you knew where your phone is hiding. Your breathing is erratic, your hands start shaking and soon after, your entire body.
WOMP! You’re having a “freak-out.” Otherwise known as a panic attack. Cripey!
So what do you do? Here are some tips. They’re only mine. They work for me, but I’m by no means an expert, so take them with a grain, or five, of salt. If they help you, great, if not, I apologize.
1. Go find someone to talk to – about anything, anything at all. Find your phone and make a call to someone you trust, or seek out a neighbor. Don’t talk about freaking out, find a different topic. “Hey, can I have that Salsa recipe you mentioned last week?” “I’ve been wondering what you’re up to, fill me in.” “Got any favorite authors, I’m in the mood to read!” “Where DID you find that rug? It’s so, um, colorful.” This always stops my freak-outs. By the time I get off the phone or leave a neighbor’s house, I can think clearly again and all the sweat has done dried-up.
2. Find something to watch on YouTube. Go for something funny. Type in kangaroos, cats, dogs, turtles, beetles, funny babies, or Charlie Chaplin. AVOID the serious stuff. Make yourself watch a few videos until you start laughing. What pounding heart?
3. Clean something. There is nothing quite like cleaning to quiet a freak-out. Scrub your tub. When was the last time you did that anyway? Command your commode to sparkle! Throw out all the dead food in your fridge. It’s been laughing at you, wondering when you were going to get around to the task. The mayonnaise that expired thirteen months ago is mocking you. Go on, get rid of it. Oh, how ’bout your car? Could it use a good washing? And what of the inside? How many fossilized french fries can you find? Count them. Right there is some amusing Panic Vanish!
4. Organize things. Your computer documents or photographs. Yay for folders! How about your linen closet, or your pantry? Put like with like. Organize your make-up or your tools. Straightening up makes you feel like you’ve accomplished something, so naturally, you’ll feel calmer afterward.
5. Run an errand. Go grocery shopping. Pick up the clothes from the cleaners. (Pardon me while I get side-tracked. Ask yourself why you have so many things that need to be dry-cleaned. Possibly you may be able to eliminate this errand if you stop the obsession with rayon.) Ok, onward. Get that gift for your niece’s birthday, you know you’ve been putting it off. Force yourself to go get it. What about your prescriptions? Do you need to head to the pharmacy? Any errand that gets you out of the house is a great distraction. And yes, you CAN drive while you’re having a panic attack, they don’t last that long. You know this. Pay careful attention to the road. Quit worrying about your heart rate. Use your Zen mind.
6. Go for a walk. Listen to music, if possible. If you can’t go walking because it’s 2 am, walk in your garage, your living room - any space will do. Walk in circles. Walk in figure-eights. Aim for a perfect square. See if you can pull off a heart shape. Concentrate!
7. Eat something VERY slowly. Ok, so you want to lose weight, yeah, yeah, we all do – well it’s not going to happen overnight. So, eat a small piece of candy, a cookie, a granola bar. Savor it. Mindful eating! I like to do this with my eyes closed. I won’t even look at the food. Well heck, it’s not looking at me! I take long, deep breaths while I’m eating and pay very careful attention to the flavor and texture of the food. My boyfriend was oh, so skeptical about this. He said, “There’s no way eating with you eyes closed makes food taste different.” Well, he was as amazed as I when he tried it. It’s an entirely unique food experience. When I’m done eating a cookie, slowly, mindfully, with or without my eyes closed, most of the freak-out is gone.
8. Go somewhere you wouldn’t normally visit. Try the zoo, a museum, the library, your local community center, or even your town or city hall. Yes, I’ve actually visited my city hall as a means of distraction. I wound up registering to vote! I was quite pleased I’d found someplace new to go and my freak-out went away. Plus, I now had a voter registration card on its way to my house.
9. Do something creative. Draw, paint, scribble, doodle. Make stick figures. Sculpt. Make something with Play-Doh. Make paper airplanes. If you don’t know how, do some research. Or make dots on a piece of paper and then try to connect them. Once you’ve done that, color in the shape and name it. Which creature is this? Which planet is it from? Ah, also try creating a maze. My neighbor does this whenever he feels panicky. He once spent 16 hours making a maze. Heh, heh, amazing! This is extreme distraction.
10. I saved the best for last. Of course, with practice, this one can PREVENT a case of the freak-outs but if you’re not there yet, that’s OKAY. Don’t rush yourself. Just breathe. In and out, very slowly, no matter where you are, no matter what you’re doing. Just breathe. Count from 1 to 10. Then reverse, 10 to 1. Repeat. Really, this works, it’s Mindful Breathing, simplified. Ok, so if you couldn’t manage this one (and there are times when you can’t) BEFORE you had your freak-out, once you’re done with it, find someplace QUIET to sit and JUST BREATHE. Tell yourself that this was just a freak-out, it’s done now. If it had been a real emergency, you’d still be running from that saber-toothed tiger.
Adrenaline, Cortisol – be gone – POOF! | <urn:uuid:2f6d2225-8316-45ec-a037-fb871b06701a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://zenandtheartofborderlinemaintenance.com/tag/trouble-coping/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946057 | 1,717 | 1.609375 | 2 |
With the opening of the 2013 EcoChic Design Award, a sustainable fashion design competition, talent from Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Singapore, UK, France, Belgium and Germany will be “cutting the waste out of fashion.” Spotlighting sustainable sourcing, the competition is open until August 15.
Prizes include an educational trip to jewelry brand John Hardy in Bali, the opportunity to show original collections at Hong Kong Fashion Week and have work featured in a global traveling showcase.
At this year’s Fashion Week previews of Autumn 2013 collections in London and New York, designers such as Britain’s Louis Gray played with repurposed materials in a collection referred to in the press as “derelict chic.” Leanne Mai-ly Hilgart’s emerging label, Vaute, became the first all vegan fashion label to show during New York Fashion Week.
With global attention on sustainable luxury and fashion, we take a look at luxury brands and how committed to sustainability, as a key component of corporate citizenship, they are today. When it comes to corporate citizenship, many luxury brands are seeing the necessity – and opportunity – to be socially responsible.
Starting in 2011, for example, a number of Italian high-end fashion brands have invigorated efforts to restore Italy’s cultural landmarks. Designer Kenneth Cole is Chairman of the Board of Trustees of amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Reserch and sits on the board of HELP USA, dedicated to helping the homeless. Donna Karan created the Urban Zen Foundation, partnering with New York’s Beth Israel, supporting the Department of Integrative Medicine and Medical Center’s Continuum Center for Health and Healing to change the environment of the oncology unit, introduce yoga therapy and conduct research.
While there is much activity among luxury brands and designers in corporate citizenship, and it is becoming well understood that it’s a vital part of the life of brands today, environmental sustainability remains a painful issue in the luxury space. Because of the scarcity of raw materials and the special production techniques required to create luxury products, for example leather, the production lines of luxury brands strongly impact the environment.
When it comes to environmental sustainability, today the world of luxury can in some ways be divided into “Davids” and Goliaths.” The “Davids” are new upcoming brands that have sustainability at the core of their vision and mission, and that cannot comprise on it.
Monique Péan is well-known for its sustainable jewelry. ECOALF develops their own textiles from the innumerable discarded plastic bottles fishing nets, and even coffee grinds, repurposing them into soft wearable fabric and it has recently been included into Barneys’ assortment.
Svilu, founded in 2012 by Britt Cosgrove and Marina Polo, seeks to revisit the fundamentals of a woman’s wardrobe by offering timeless staples that are mindfully sourced and locally produced. These are great examples of sustainable luxury.
For the global, long-heritage luxury brands that populate everyone’s imagination, or the “Goliaths,” taking their commitment to becoming eco-friendly from intent to process throughout their supply chains has been slow and difficult.
In 2012 the luxury brands group PPR, for example, announced a series of environmental targets to reduce its footprint. The five-year plan, which covers all the company's brands, includes reductions of CO2 and waste production, controlled water and hazardous chemicals usage, as well as regulated sourcing of raw materials and precious materials.
Despite efforts of these global brands, GREENPEACE asked them to provide detailed information about their sustainability practices and many have been reluctant to do so. Why with so much conversation about the importance of sustainability and the threat of a shame campaign would some big brands not respond and in some cases continue to perpetuate unsustainable practices?
The answer may lie not solely in the cost and logistics of changing supply chains and manufacturing practices, but in what brands observe in consumer behavior. While consumers list the environment as a priority, purchases point to contradictory choices.
An article published in 2012 on Fashion Theory shows that even consumers that say they care about sustainability engage in behaviors that are not sustainable when it comes to choosing what to wear. Style is mandatory for many and may override other priorities.
Brands that once shied away from the ethical and sustainability problems of fur are coming back to it, while at the same time designing eco-friendly products within their collections. This dissonance reflects the real challenges consumers themselves experience in choosing between what seems luxurious and being fully sustainable.
For luxury brands to be authentically committed to sustainability, environmental campaigns threatening them with negative PR and lost customers does not seem a powerful way to go. What will likely motivate brands is seeing the success of those that are seriously acting on sustainability.
GREENPEACE has ranked Valentino top eco-friendly luxury brand. In the luxury world, Tiffany has taken sustainability very seriously and is committed to obtaining precious metals and gemstones in ways that are socially and environmentally responsible. Tiffany & Co. not only ranked in the top 100 brands in Interbrand’s Best Global Brands 2012 report, it saw a 15 percent increase in brand value from the 2011 report.
Threatening doesn’t work; we need positive, fiscally sound arguments to convince luxury brands. As brand consultants, it is our job to build a strong case for the ROI of sustainability and corporate citizenship as a whole.
To push luxury brands to take sustainability more seriously, we should help them to see the value that can come from being an authentically sustainable brand. Once we bring luxury brands on board, they can shape the idea of “coolness” and style for consumers.
Ottavia Pelloni is a Senior Consultant for Interbrand. | <urn:uuid:166a128f-9f1f-4512-8afb-496efb874f6a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.interbrand.com/en/knowledge/blog.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950599 | 1,199 | 1.640625 | 2 |
President Obama has changed his tune on al-Qaeda. Gone from his stump speeches is the boast that al-Qaeda has been decimated.
This was President Obama speaking in Miami on October 11: “Four years ago, I told you we’d end the war in Iraq, and I did. I said we’d end the war in Afghanistan, and we are. I said we’d refocus on the people who actually attacked us on 9/11—and today, al-Qaeda is on the run and Osama bin Laden is dead.”
Fast-forward to Obama speaking in Mount Vernon, Iowa, on October 17, the day after the second presidential debate: “You know, four years ago I told you we’d end the war in Iraq, and I did. I said we’d end the war in Afghanistan, and we are. I said we’d focus on the terrorists who actually attacked us on 9/11, and we have, and bin Laden is dead.”
Notice, gone is the phrase “and today, al-Qaeda is on the run.” This is no accident.
At Tuesday’s presidential debate, Obama was challenged on the September 11 terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi and on the meaning of the word terrorism. The fact that the President’s stump speech has been altered shows that this issue is finally getting under Obama’s skin and that of his advisers.
What the President and his Administration said—or did not say—since September 11 on terrorism has become a matter of deep fascination. But at the heart of the blame-shifting and lawyerly language over the meaning of terrorism are questions about intelligence, security, and policy failure in the Middle East.
The fact that al-Qaeda is in fact alive and getting a foothold in Libya should not have been news to the Administration. Details can be found in a new report from the Library of Congress. This report was completed in August, and the Library of Congress concluded that al-Qaeda has grown in strength in Libya as well as in other Arab countries.
Still, President Obama, Vice President Biden, and their surrogates kept mouthing the line that “al-Qaeda is in the run.” But apparently not any more. | <urn:uuid:06d39f71-005b-4319-85aa-bbb8ccd1d2b2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.heritage.org/2012/10/18/obama-changes-stump-speech-al-qaeda-no-longer-on-the-run/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980229 | 481 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Grapes are a great backyard choice if you're seeking delicious juice, some wine to savor or snacks fresh from the vine. But look elsewhere if it's low maintenance or fast production that you want.
Grapevines need a lot of attention and as many as five years to mature from bare root plants.
"It's less expensive to do grapes than traditional landscaping like shrubs and flowers from an investment viewpoint," said Tom Powers, author of "The Organic Backyard Vineyard" (Timber Press, 2012). "The trade-out is that you have to put in more maintenance time.
Starting a small vineyard also requires planning. Does your preference run to table grapes or wine grapes? American or European cultivars? Do you plan to use chemical pesticides and herbicides or go organic?
Whatever you decide, don't let a lack of space stop you, said Powers, who has designed and installed more than 100 vineyards, primarily around the San Francisco Bay Area.
"If you are simply hoping to plant some table grapes to enjoy for home consumption, you do not need a vineyard," he said. "You can grow grapevines up an arbor, over a fence or against a wall."
Wine grapes, however, should be trained to grow on a trellis. That makes them easier to manage and allows the sun to reach the leaves, which produces good fruit.
"Even a few rows of vines can produce enough grapes to make several hundred bottles of wine every year," Powers said.
Here are some additional grape-growing basics:
n Selection/hardiness: Match the grapes to your climate by knowing how many frost-free days they'll need to ripen, Powers said.
n Spacing: Vines planted for training on a trellis normally are spaced 8 feet apart, while those planted for training on an arbor can be placed 4 feet apart, said Gary Gao, a small-fruit specialist with Ohio State University Extension.
n Soil: Most any kind will do, but the best are those combining fertility with good drainage.
n Sunlight: At least eight hours a day. Photosynthesis uses energy from the sun to convert carbon dioxide to sugar. This is important, Powers said, because sugars are the basic building blocks of the components giving wine its flavor.
n Pruning: Once a year when the vines are dormant. "What you do for accepted growth in summer is pull leaves," Powers said. Strip any part of the leaf canopy that forms around the fruit.
n Pest Management: "The first step is to practice prevention," Powers said. "Choose the right location, prepare the soil and select the right rootstock. Maintain the vines properly with adequate water and nutrition. Always use the least toxic method for control of any problem."
Growing requirements are much the same no matter which grape varieties you choose, Gao said.
Most cultivars were developed for a specific use, although you can work with an all-purpose grape like the Concord, he said.
"Some will eat it as a table grape but it's not perfect," Gao said. "Others will use it for juice or a wine. It's not a premium wine but it can be consumed. Most would use the Concord for jams or jellies."
It probably is best to choose just one variety bred for a specific purpose. "Their flavors are more concentrated," he said.
Grapevines require three years, minimum, to produce a harvest, Powers said. "I tell people five years. Growing grapes teaches patience." | <urn:uuid:4783b011-7fe7-452f-9432-103ba9e0f033> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://record-eagle.com/features/x1133183628/Plant-now-for-wine-in-2016 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958077 | 739 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Giuseppe Verdi Style
A selection of articles related to giuseppe verdi style.
Original articles from our library related to the Giuseppe Verdi Style. See Table of Contents for further available material (downloadable resources) on Giuseppe Verdi Style.
- The Pagan Origins Of Christian Mythology
- The Judeo-Christian religions were founded in a region of the world where savior religions existed for thousands of years. Much of the symbolism and many of the stories in the Bible may be traced to earlier myths of the Persians, Egyptians, and other people...
Religions >> Christianity & Paganism
- Art during the Age of Faith
- The Age of Faith is the one thousand medieval years from 400 A.D. to 1400 A.D. It must be noted though that faith was not a uniquely medieval phenomenon as medieval pursuits were not purely geared towards faith only.
Saga of Times Past >> History & Anthropology
- Christ's Role, As He Might Have Meant It: a Discussion
- It seems that organized religion has assumed the role of Christ in the dispensation of Truth, be it relating to the church itself or in the very Word of God. The Pope, when speaking in his official capacity, is considered to be the mouthpiece of God."...
Religions >> Christianity
- The Horned God in India and Europe
- Of all of the Gods that we honor in Paganism today probably the most revered is the Horned God, in the shape and form of Cernunnos. Pick up some modern Pagan literature and chances are he is in there, listen to conversation at a Moot and you will hear him...
Deities & Heros >> Celtic, Welsh, Irish & Brittish
- Hawke, Elen: British Author
- Elen Hawke is an author, artist and British witch from Oxford, England with many years experience both living and teaching the Craft. She is a Craft elder, a Wiccan initiate, and a professional astrologer and tarot reader, as well as being a working...
Real Interviews >> Authors
Giuseppe Verdi Style is described in multiple online sources, as addition to our editors' articles, see section below for printable documents, Giuseppe Verdi Style books and related discussion.
Suggested Pdf Resources
- Giuseppe Verdi
- In Italy Giuseppe Verdi composed in a bold, direct style, and his operas often included elements of nationalism. In Germany. 5.
- Similarities in the Use of Dramatic Recitative Style in the Music of
- establish the similarities in the use of recitative style in the music of Claudio Monteverdi and Giuseppe Verdi.
- LA TRAVIATA by Giuseppe Verdi Featuring
- Giuseppe, Violetta's servant .
- GIUSEPPE VERDI LA TRAVIATA
- Giuseppe Verdi was born on October 10, 1813 financial help, Verdi, who had affirmed his musical talent in .
- GIUSEPPE VERDI
- Such is the criticaJ acclaim that has greeted The Works of Giuseppe Verdi. . Style and Structure: $20.
Suggested Web Resources
- Giuseppe Verdi biography - 8notes.com
- The music of Verdi served the audience of the mass public rather than that of the musical elite.
- Giuseppe Verdi - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera.
- Composers In The Kitchen: Risotto Giuseppe Verdi Style : Deceptive
- Nov 17, 2010 The king of opera was humble about his music, but not so when the subject was cooking risotto.
- Risotto Giuseppe Verdi's style | Italian Recipes | Italian recipes
- Risotto Giuseppe Verdi's style. This dish was created by the French chef Henry- Paul Pellaprat (1869-1952) and dedicated to the Maestro.
- Giuseppe Verdi: Biography from Answers.com
- Giuseppe Fortunato Francesco Verdi (born Oct.
Great care has been taken to prepare the information on this page. Elements of the content come from factual and lexical knowledge databases, realmagick.com library and third-party sources. We appreciate your suggestions and comments on further improvements of the site.
Giuseppe Verdi Style Topics
Related searchesblood physiology of blood
dream interpretation dinner
coldplay studio albums
state of emergency india | <urn:uuid:08338da9-abb1-4601-a15d-593585833898> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.realmagick.com/giuseppe-verdi-style/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924811 | 964 | 2.625 | 3 |
Christine H brings one of the most fascinating disaster scenarios seen on Doomsday Preppers and one that not many are aware of. She is worried about a megatsunami resulting from the eruption of Cumbre Vieja, a volcano near the Canary Islands.
According to geologists, an eruption could trigger the western half of the volcano to slip into the sea. The resulting debris would create an apocalyptic tsunami almost 2000 feet high at some points, cooling down to about 200 feet once they reach the east coast.
England, coastal Africa and the Eastern United States would be devastated. Estimated casualties in New York, Boston and Miami would be in the millions as buildings were leveled. According to studies, the wave would hit the east coast roughly 6 hours after an eruption and be able to flood areas 16 miles inland.
Preparing for the Tsunami
Christine is leveraging an impressive level of OCD to organize her food stores to the point of being portable. She wants to be able to get up and go as soon as possible. With 6 hours to escape following an eruption – no time could be wasted. Her plan is to bug out to a friends house located inland with 3 months worth of supplies.
The getaway plan is by car with a backup of going by boat. There are some obvious problems with this. Paddling at a speed of 1.2 miles per hour would put her within the path of the tsunami’s flood range if they were able to get moving the minute Cumbre Vieja erupted. It beats wearing a snorkel in traffic and hoping for the best but that’s about it.
Personally, if I were committed to redundancy I would invest in a better watercraft than an inflatable raft. I would also get an outboard motor to increase my speed. Solutions like the zodiac are very affordable and available secondhand, my brother purchased one when he was in highschool.
Christine was able to get some of her friends within the community interested in prepping by showing easy to make meals. Everyone likes making life easier, so showing a meal that can be made in minutes in a jar is a great gateway to prepping.
She makes a point of low acid food being much longer lasting. This is true, but not necessarily the entire truth. Both low acid and high acid foods can be successfully canned, with different methods required. Water bath canning is required to kill microorganisms with high acid foods and pressure canners can be used to destroy bacteria with low acid foods.
To pick one nit, there was a moment where Christene said there was a great thing to add to protein – carbs! While I staunchly disagree with this logic, it is not entirely untrue. Using carrots, celery and corn is more of an addition of fiber than straight carbohydrates. Celery is ridiculously low calorie and carrots have a relatively low glycemic index of 39-45. I would avoid the corn due to the abundance of fusarium mold and fructose but other than that great meal! | <urn:uuid:20521796-a9fc-41e2-9b21-056de83caa8b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bugoutnutrition.com/doomsday-preppers/doomsday-preppers-christine-h/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973377 | 616 | 2.109375 | 2 |
Anders Zorn (1860 – 1920) painter of three US presidents is internationally renowned for his portraits and paintings.
Zorngården in Mora was the home of Anders and Emma Zorn, and Emma lived here until 1942, when she died.
The house is an eclectic mix of Swedish and English style, filled with Gustavian, Empire and country-style furniture. The house was finished in 1910 and contains many original objects that belonged to the Zorns. There is an extraordinary room in the east wing, almost 10 metres from floor to ceiling, that the Zorns used for socialising and entertaining guests. Interestingly, the cottage part of the house was originally situated on Anders Zorn’s maternal grandfather’s farm and Zorn had it moved here when he purchased the land.
Many silver articles, from designs by Zorn, are on display. | <urn:uuid:c0c40969-dfdc-470a-aef4-44f7ab1ba711> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.visitsweden.com/svezia/places/central_sweden/home_of_artist_anders_zorn/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97317 | 180 | 2.03125 | 2 |
Placer County Adoption and Foster Care Program
Are you interested in becoming a foster or adoptive parent?
- Placer County has a continuing need for foster and adoptive families. Placer County works in partnership with Sierra Forever Families to operate the Placer Kids program. This program recruits and educates new foster and adoptive parents, and provides foster care licensing and adoptive home studies to families who are interested in opening their homes. The program also provides ongoing support for families to better deal with issues the children face. Children do best when they can stay in their own schools and live in their own communities. Placer Kids has children who need temporary foster care, which could be anywhere from 3 to 12 months in time. Additionally, there are children who are unable to return to their families and need permanent homes either through adoption or guardianship. Information & Orientation
There are several ways families may help children in need
Shelter Care Families
- Children 0 to 5 years of age are placed in Shelter Care Families. These licensed foster families have a contract with Placer County to be available for a maximum of 30 days, until the children either return to their birth families, or are placed in a foster family. Shelter Care Families are usually licensed for a maximum of two children. A monthly stipend per child is provided, with the foster parents also receiving the prorated monthly foster care rate when a child is placed. Foster parents are expected to be on call 24/7 with four days off per month.
- Reunification families provide care for children who need a temporary home while arrangements are made to return them to their birth families. The birth parents will be actively involved in a reunification program, usually overseen by the courts.
Concurrent Planning Families
- Concurrent Planning families provide care for children who have active reunification plans. The majority of children placed in Placer Kids homes are in reunification and need Concurrent Planning families. These families help with reunification efforts, yet can be available to adopt the child, or children, if necessary.
- See Placer Kids Featured Family
- Pride Training for Foster Care Licensing and Adoptions 2013 Schedule
- These families provide a permanent home for children and youth. Those wishing to adopt a foster child must first obtain a foster care license. Children must reside with an identified adoptive family for a minimum of six months before the child can be legally adopted. While a child is living with such a family, the child is considered to be in foster care and the family must meet the necessary requirements. Obtaining this license starts by attending the Placer Kids Orientation. Next, a home visit will be scheduled with a licensing worker, and the prospective family will be given an application package to complete, learn about the nine-week pre-licensing courses, and be given Livescan documents for fingerprint clearances. Foster parents must be current in CPR and first aid, have a clear TB screen, and be in general good health, which is documented by a physician’s health screening evaluation.
- Placer Kids has many support services in place to help make the foster care/adoption experience successful. Placer Kids offers a nine-week training class which, along with the orientation, will give foster and adoptive families a broad overview of the services that are available. There is a foster/adoptive family support group that meets monthly in both Auburn and Roseville.
- See The Support Group Flyer
- The first step in exploring foster care or adoption is to attend the once a month orientation meeting. The orientation is held the 3rd Thursday of every month from 6:30 to 8:30 PM at the Placer Kids location at 287 Nevada Street, Upstairs, Auburn, Ca. 95603. See the Events Page for specific, upcoming dates.
Child care is provided, free of charge; however, please call Placer Kids to reserve a space in advance. For further information, and to ask questions, please call the Placer Kids toll free number at (888)387-9982 or call Placer County Children’s System of Care at (530) 886-2879. | <urn:uuid:2d8a1604-8348-4ea7-9753-c878b7683e9e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.placer.ca.gov/Home/Departments/hhs/children/FosterCareAdoption.aspx?pdf=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937696 | 844 | 1.515625 | 2 |
With the 2010 midterm elections coming up on Tuesday, I decided to look into the correlation of candidates Twitter accounts and their recent performance in polls.
I gathered a random sample of 30 senate, house and governor races from RealClearPolitics database of recent election polls and gathered each the number of followers had by each candidate in each race. I used the Twitter accounts linked to by the candidate’s campaign websites (as many of them have multiple accounts, I used the official 2010 campaign accounts). The poll data I used was the RealClearPolitics average, which is an average of recent polls of likely voters from multiple sources.
I found that in 71% of races, the candidate with the most Twitter followers was ahead in the polls.
I also graphed the correlation of “winning the Twitter battle” (having more Twitter followers than your opponent) with “winning the poll battle” (polling ahead of your opponent) and found that while there is a fair amount of variation, there may be a significant amount of “predictiveness” in Twitter following comparisons between candidates.
This research is just a first step into understanding the correlation between election performance and social media usage, but I think it indicates there is an important relationship at work. | <urn:uuid:ad05e912-e37e-4bc7-9c74-c70b3ac167cd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://danzarrella.com/new-data-can-twitter-predict-elections.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964185 | 255 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Have you ever sat down and thought about value? In order for something to be valuable, it has to have a standard by which its worth is measured. This measuring rod is often called a “value system.” This world has a value system. Condominiums on a South Florida beach are very valuable. A high paying position at work, all manner of material possessions, a reputation (good or bad depending on your preference)… all these things the world considers valuable.
Have you ever considered your own value? It was determined by a group of scientists in 1950, that the broken down elements of the human body are worth $1.78. You know what the sad thing is? There are many times when I feel just that worthless. When I look at the vastness of this universe and the complexity of creation, it’s easy to come to the same conclusions as King Solomon who wrote, “Vanity, vanity, all is vanity.” I mean what is my life worth, really? I look inside and see sin, weakness and frailty. I look outside and see a perishing body and pointless pursuits. Sometimes I look at myself and find it difficult to understand how God can see me as worthwhile. You would think that God, who spoke into existence all of life, the universe, the laws of nature, physics and time, would have something more worthwhile to do than treasure and value a pile of dust like me. David pondered this when he asked God the question, “What is man that you are mindful of him…”
Maybe a perspective change is needed. We look at things like the universe and nature and are amazed. We marvel because all these things are greater than what we can comprehend. We see greatness and majesty all around us, then we look at ourselves and feel like we don’t quite match up. What we must understand is that God does not see it that way. He is not impressed with his own handiwork. As an artist might look at all of his work and choose one painting that is dearest to his heart, so God has chosen us to be the apple of His eye, His treasure, His most valued work of art. We are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus. Remember, it was only after God created man that He looked at creation and said it was, “Very good.”
Jesus taught us that sometimes, the most seemingly worthless things are the most worthwhile things. He found it worthwhile to leave heaven, become a servant to evil mankind, and then be innocently crucified by them… and for them. He felt it worthwhile to bestow upon us, in abundance, the treasures and blessings of heaven, forgiveness, acceptance, enlightenment and so much more. Why? Because of love? Because it pleased Him? Because of relationship? Oh that we could grasp and understand “What is the width, length, depth and height… to know the love of Christ that passes knowledge that we may be filled with the fullness of God.”
Take the time today to lavish your love and praise upon your Savior who stopped at no cost to bring you close to Him. He holds you near His heart as His most valued treasure. | <urn:uuid:fab5f657-f322-4acf-9ecf-f5c5e0f6bdf9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ccnorthwest.org/wordpress/?p=1074 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975155 | 661 | 1.59375 | 2 |
The Rev. James Orange, civil rights activist, dies at 65
By TIM EBERLY, ERNIE SUGGS
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 02/16/08
A longtime civil rights activist, the Rev. James E. Orange, died unexpectedly Saturday night at Crawford Long Hospital in Atlanta.
Orange, 65, was admitted to the hospital for gallbladder surgery last week, said his daughter, Jamida Orange, 38.
He was kept at the hospital because of complications and was scheduled for follow-up tests Saturday when he passed away for reasons that were not immediately known, she said.
"I'm stunned. Not only did I lose my parent, but I lost an actual role model, and a lot of the people in this country lost a role model," Jamida Orange said.
A native of Birmingham, Ala., Orange lived in southwest Atlanta for the past four decades, his daughter said.
"It is a great loss for all of us, including a personal loss for my wife and me," said the Rev. Joseph Lowery, who founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
"He was one of the great figures in the movement. He will be greatly missed," Lowery said.
In the mid-1960s, Orange was hired by the SCLC as a field staffer -- a group that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called the "ground crew."
"He couldn't afford to go to college and was working as a chef," said Andrew Young, civil rights activist, former mayor of Atlanta and U.N. ambassador.
"He quit his job and started going with us, although we were only paying $10 a week. And he never left."
When King and his fellow civil rights workers went into communities to spread the word of equality and unity, it was the ground crew's job to maintain order, Young said.
Working with King and the late Rev. Ralph David Abernathy, Orange struck a colorful and imposing figure in the civil rights movement in Selma, Memphis, Chicago and other cities. He helped organize rallies and used the 300-plus pounds on his more-than-6-foot frame to help keep them peaceful.
With a baritone singing voice, Orange also became known for his freedom singing.
Orange began working for the AFL-CIO in February 1977 and became a regional coordinator, participating in at least 300 labor-organizing campaigns in the Southeast.
And in 1995, Orange set up a committee to organize an annual march and other activities in Atlanta honoring King.
"That's his legacy," his daughter said. "Not only did he believe in Dr. King's philosophy, he lived Dr. King's philosophy."
He is survived by his wife, Cleophas, four children and two grandchildren. Funeral arrangements will be announced next week.
W.A Bridges Jr./Staff
The Rev. James Orange (left) and the Rev. Joseph Lowery at a civil rights event in Atlanta in 2004. | <urn:uuid:9d24ad6c-c428-4e86-a919-81edafe51160> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.afrigeneas.com/forum-history/index.cgi/md/read/id/12/sbj/the-rev-james-orange-dies-at-65/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984614 | 635 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Firm Location and Corporate Debt
Journal of Banking & Finance
This study examines the influence of a firm’s geographical location on corporate debt and provides evidence that the higher cost of collecting information on firms distant from urban areas has significant implications on a wide array of corporate debt characteristics. We find that rural firms face higher debt yield spreads and attract smaller and less prestigious bank syndicates than urban firms. Rural firms attempt to reduce their informational disadvantage by relying more on relationship banking. Our results on the effect of location on corporate debt are robust to the inclusion of an extensive set of firm and issue characteristics. | <urn:uuid:fd1bc518-c19c-412d-ab5b-e1474facf713> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://epublications.marquette.edu/fin_fac/69/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.901729 | 120 | 1.804688 | 2 |
They Made America: Two Centuries of Innovators from the Steam Engine to the Search Engine, By Harold Evans, Little, Brown, 496 pp, illustrated, $40
There is a storm drain in downtown Boston, at Court and Washington streets, which could be cast in bronze and set in granite as a monument to the American genius for innovation and invention.
The site figures in the Boston History Collaborative's Innovation Tour. As the tour bus approaches, a guide speaking as the young Thomas Alva Edison says he remembers the corner well. In 1867, he had been experimenting with Alfred Nobel's nitroglycerine formulation ''when I suddenly realized the concoction could blow up in my face. So I poured the chemicals into a sarsaparilla bottle and gently lowered it into the sewer over there. Lucky I didn't blow up the Old State House."
Edison left Boston shortly after, and went on to invent the incandescent light and much, much more. But within a couple of years, Alexander Graham Bell would be in Edison's old Court Street laboratory, trying to develop a harmonic telegraph -- an advancement on the invention of Charlestown native Samuel F.B. Morse.
That combination of individual genius and an intellectual atmosphere that fostered innovation is what Harold Evans celebrates on a broader level in ''They Made America," a large and lavish coffee table book .
As Evans, the English science reporter turned American publishing executive, puts it, the harsh conditions and unfamiliar environment facing the early American settlers ''impelled an almost frantic drive . . . for practical innovations that would make life less tenuous and more agreeable," and were invariably combined with forward-looking marketing strategies.
Cyrus McCormack, Evans writes, ''was not the only farmer to invent a reaper, but he was the one who initiated the financing mechanisms that made it possible for hundreds of thousands of farmers to afford the invention."
And Ida Rosenthal did not invent the brassiere -- her husband did -- but ''she put all the pieces together in production and marketing so that [it] reached millions of women." And the brassiere itself allows Evans another New World jab at the Old Country. It replaced the figure-reshaping corset, ''so long associated with aristocratic pretensions," with ''a Jeffersonian appeal to the natural order of things."
Evans's approach to his subject also has an innovative twist.
All the expected giants are here -- in detailed explorations of what made their achievements great, coupled with layman-friendly explanations of the achievements themselves. (The book is also an accompaniment to a PBS series.)
So there are Morse, Edison, and Bell, along with Henry Ford, George Eastman of Kodak, and Edwin Land of Polaroid, as well as the creators of the digital age, Gary Kindall, Steve Jobs, and Bill Gates.
But there are surprises -- like
The disgusting experiences of taking his daughters to country fairs ''where the rides were tawdry, the employees hostile, and the grounds dirty" inspired the creation of the Disneyland theme parks. As Disney saw them, the parks would be ''something alive, something that could grow, something I could keep [pulsing] with ideas."
While the coffee table book format of ''They Made America" permits the fully-detailed illustrations of various inventions, it also provides the opportunity for the occasional attention-grabber.
It is a full-page photograph of Ted Turner, teeth clenched between pursed lips, eyes squinting against the glare of an ocean sun, shoulders straining over the wheel of Courageous, the 12-meter yacht with which he successfully defended the America's Cup in 1977.
And before Evans gets to CNN and the innovation of 24-hour electronic news, there is a brief -- but no less stirring -- account of Turner's victory in his yacht Tenacious in the gale-wracked 1979 Fastnet Race. Turner told Evans in an interview that while everyone else involved in the race appeared worried about living -- 19 crewmen died and some 150 yachts capsized and sank -- he was worried about winning. ''The ordeal," Evans writes, ''was a marker for his destiny."
And it sets Evans up for a final anecdote. On the day that CNN was launched in 1980 -- ''a dazzling triumph of technology and journalism," Evans writes -- Turner had secretly commissioned a military band to record a tape. The instructions for when it is to be played, Evans writes, are simple: ''We will stay on the earth until the end of the world. We will cover the story and then we will sign off playing 'Nearer My God to Thee."'
For all its pictorial and graphic advantages, the large format produces a somewhat cumbersome reference work. Libraries and schools should find ''They Made America" valuable, however, in accomplishing Evans's hope that ''the exploits of the innovators who made America . . . did something to spark the ambitions of the next generation to make a new America." | <urn:uuid:6db24c48-7d0f-468e-aaa4-2c6a6c269ed7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.boston.com/news/globe/living/articles/2005/01/18/evans_celebrates_yankee_ingenuity_in_they_made_america/?camp=pm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950193 | 1,028 | 2.234375 | 2 |
About a soy... masculine traits affected by eating soy?
Originally Published: November 20, 2009
Is it true, according to studies, that taking a lot of soy may make a man more feminine?
Mmmmmm, soy…. Soy is a rich source of phytoestrogens (also called isoflavones) which mimic the effects of the hormone estrogen. Both men and women have estrogen; women just have more. So, does eating a lot of soy cause a hormonal imbalance in men? Be comforted to know that soy consumption does not increase estrogen levels in men (or women for that matter). Besides mimicking estrogen, phytoestrogens actually help moderate the levels of estrogen in the body — that is, when estrogen levels are low, phytoestrogens act like the hormone estrogen. When estrogen levels are high, phytoestrogens act as anti-estrogen agents.
Research has looked at the effect of soy on hormone concentrations (including estrogen and other reproductive/sex hormones) in men, and found negligible changes in hormone levels. Eating soy from food sources (like soy beans, soy milk, and so on) will not make a man's features more feminine. In fact, several studies show positive effects from eating soy including that it's linked with a reduced risk for cardiovascular disease and different types of cancer (mainly cancers of the breast, prostate, and ovaries).
Research has also looked at the effect of soy on sperm quality (including ejaculate volume, sperm concentration, total sperm count and motility). These studies suggest that eating soy does not affect sperm quality. So fear not, the idea that soy impacts masculine traits or features is a myth. Enjoy the soy, | <urn:uuid:5c04ef7e-e80d-44a7-acf8-29ace0889fae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://goaskalice.columbia.edu/about-soy-masculine-traits-affected-eating-soy | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.915936 | 349 | 2.0625 | 2 |
Grass seed production
Most of the cool-season grass seed in the United States comes from the Pacific Northwest — in particular, Oregon. Therefore, the state's trends for grass seed production can be a good indication of the U.S. market in general. In March of 2001, Oregon's Extension Economic Information Office released preliminary market estimates for grass seed in 2000. The results showed an increase in acres grown, but a decrease in the value of grass seed crops.
According to Bill Young, Extension agronomist, Oregon State University, grass seed increased 1.8 percent in acres grown from 1999 to 2000. However, the total value of grass seed crops declined 6.5 percent.
Perennial ryegrass, which has Oregon's largest acreage, declined in acreage by 3.1 percent, according to Young. Other species that declined in acreage included annual ryegrass (-0.5 percent), orchardgrass (-3.8 percent) and colonial bentgrass (-5.8 percent). All other grass seeds increased in acreage: hard fescue (98.5 percent), red fescue (27.2 percent), Kentucky bluegrass (20.4 percent), Chewings fescue (9.5 percent), tall fescue (5.0 percent), rough bluegrass (3.6 percent) and creeping bentgrass (2.7 percent).
Source: Bill Young, “Crop and Soil News/Notes,” Oregon State University Extension Service; OSU Extension Economic Information Office
A customer you've always thought was a good client has just told you they've gotten a lower bid from another contractor to do the same work you're doing. It's a price you think will provide very little profit. What do you do?
This poll was conducted on the website that hosts Maintenance Matters, the weekly email newsletter from the editors of Grounds Maintenance magazine. You can find the current poll at www.grounds-mag-news.com.
Want to use this article? Click here for options!
© 2013 Penton Media Inc. | <urn:uuid:9cd9ae62-0db5-45f6-9071-d885abc40470> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://grounds-mag.com/mag/grounds_maintenance_grass_seed_production/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917053 | 432 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Paying for College
Administered by Tuition Management Systems (TMS)
The university offers deferred payment plans through a reputable, private firm. Any student may arrange for a budgeted payment plan through the program in order to avoid a large cash outlay at the beginning of each semester. Information on the payment plan is sent to all students early in the summer. Contact the Business Office at 260-399-8004 for more details or apply online at www.afford.com/sf.
The Federal Grad PLUS Loan and the Federal Parent PLUS Loan are fixed interest rate education loans which allow graduate students or parents of undergraduate students to borrow up to the full cost of attendance less any financial aid already awarded.
- Graduate student or the parent of an undergraduate student is the borrower.
- The interest rate is fixed at 7.9%.
- Loan discharged if student or parent dies or becomes permanently disabled.
- Parent may postpone principal payments while student is in school. Graduate students will receive an automatic deferment on their loans while in school. Interest will accrue on all PLUS loans during periods of deferment.
- Loan approval is based on credit history; debt-to-income is not considered, thus making it easier to qualify.
- 10 years to repay.
Alternative loans are private, credit based loans that offer students an additional way to pay for the cost of education. Interest rates are based on both the credit-worthiness of the borrower/co-borrower and upon market variables.
- Student is the borrower. While loan is in the student's name, usually a parent is included as a co-borrower. The co-borrower bears equal responsibility for loan repayment.
- The interest rate will typically be variable with no cap, will vary from lender to lender, and will be based on a consumer index (i.e. prime, commercial paper, LIBOR) plus a margin.
- Not usually discharged if student dies.
- Interest accrues while student is in school. Some programs require student to make minimum monthly payments or interest only payments while in school.
- Loan approved is often based on both credit history and debt-to-income ratio.
- Length of repayment varies among lenders, generally 10-25 years.
We recommend that students consider alternative loans only after they have exhausted all federal loan options.
These options are available to pay the balance after all other aid is taken into consideration. You may take advantage of one or a combination of the above options.
Employer Educational Assitance Program
This program allows a student to defer payment of reimbursable tuition and fees for up to 15 days after the end of each course. Eligible employers include those of the student, their parent, or spouse. Any balance in excess of the reimbursed amount should be remitted by the published due date.
In order to qualify for the program, students must submit a payment agreement form and proof of an employer’s intent to reimburse for tuition and fees, prior to the published due date. The form and guidelines for this program can be found on My Cougar Connection (MCC). To complete this form log on to MCC, select the Student’s tab, then the Student Finances link. The Employer Assistance Form is located at the bottom of the page. Please contact the Business Office at (260) 399-8004 or by e-mail at BUSOFC@sf.edu with any inquiries. | <urn:uuid:c555f4bc-feed-4b16-8a24-3050cf70d6fd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sf.edu/sf/financialaid/pay | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942325 | 709 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Three Things CSI Gets Wrong Every Time
The cops on the trio of television shows that make up the CSI franchise nearly always get it right. They go to the crime scene. They find the evidence. They apply their magic, er, science. They get their man.
But does the show itself get it right, compared to the real world? Not necessarily, according to Roger Thompson, a forensic scientist and director of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department Crime Laboratory in Charlotte, North Carolina. Here are the most glaring errors:
1. "I'm your worst nightmare: a nerd with a badge!"
"[On CSI] the [forensic] analysts are sworn law enforcement officers," Thompson says. "That's not typical of analysts. Analysts are neutral. We're supposed to be unbiased. But on CSI, they're in there interrogating suspects," says Thompson (who doesn't carry a gun).
2. 10 Cops, One Case
Another myth perpetuated by virtually all cop shows is that a team of investigators can devote all of its time to a single case. Actually, a good detective or forensic scientist has brains, good instincts, and...time management skills.
"With our chemists, for example, we probably see them working 80 to 100 to maybe 120 cases a month," Thompson says. "They have to be able to multi-task."
3. "After I processed the DNA evidence, I realized the prints matched those I lifted off a handgun last week. I fired the gun to see if I could establish a ballistics match with the slug I pulled out of decomposed corpse! The test results are in! Let's go get 'em!"
It's a good way to build drama. The bad guy is going to kill again. The cops know he's guilty, but can't...quite...prove it. The clock is ticking. But wait! New evidence! A mad scramble in the lab to get it processed, and...It's a match! Pick him up!
"We've obviously got lots of checks and balances we go through before we put that information out," Thompson says. In CSI, the same guy visits the crime scene, gathers the evidence, and processes it. "In a big department like New York," Thompson says, "there will be a group that just does firearms. That's all they do is shoot guns and look at the fragments under a microscope." Other departments have their own specialties, and investigators have to piece together information from different sources. Maybe the TV studio just can't afford to pay all those extra actors.
"Crime-solving is a complicated system that involves many people with many jobs," says Dr. Gary Telgenhoff, forensic consultant to CSI, including "homicide detectives, entomologists, CSIs, ballistics examiners, trace evidence examiners, toxicologists, lab tech, coroner's investigators, autopsy assistants, and, of course, forensic pathologists." So you may not make it as the star of CSI: Poughkeepsie, but it looks like the job prospects in real-life forensics are considerably broader. | <urn:uuid:75937cd4-262e-459b-b463-b0e48e613eb7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.policeemployment.com/resources/articles/CSI-gets-wrong | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960486 | 640 | 1.8125 | 2 |
How to Get Rid of Dissociative fugue
Dissociative fugue disorder Treatment, Cause, Symptoms, Medication
Dissociative fugue is extremely rare in clinical practice. In a dissociative fugue, patients not only lose their memory but also wander away from their usual surroundings, When found they usually deny all memory of their whereabouts during the period of wandering, and may also deny knowledge of personal identity. There have been a number of accounts of dramatic case histories (see Hacking 1998). The disorder must be distinguished from organic disorder, for example, epilepsy and substance intoxication.
Dissociative fugue symptoms
Dissociative fugue is a rare disorder. An individual with dissociative fugue suddenly and unexpectedly takes physical leave of his or her surroundings and sets off on a journey of some kind. These journeys can last hours, or even several days or months. Individuals experiencing a dissociative fugue have traveled over thousands of miles. An individual in a fugue state is unaware of or confused about his identity, and in some cases will assume a new identity (although this is the exception).
A dissociative fugue may be present when a person impulsively wanders or travels away from home and upon arrival in the new location is unable to remember his/her past. The individual's personal identity is lost because that person is confused about who he/she is. The travel from home generally occurs following a stressful event.
The person in the fugue appears to be functioning normally to other people. However, after the fugue experience, the individual may not be able to recall what happened during the fugue state. The condition is usually diagnosed when relatives find their lost family member living in another community with a new identity.
Causes of Dissociative Fugue
Causes are similar to those of dissociative amnesia, with some additional factors. Fugue is often thought to be malingering, because the fugue may remove the person from accountability for his actions, may absolve him of certain responsibilities, or may reduce his exposure to a hazard (such as a dangerous job assignment). Many fugues appear to represent disguised wish fulfillment. For example, a financially distressed executive leaves his hectic life and lives as a farm hand in the country. The fugue may remove the patient from an embarrassing situation or intolerable stress or may be related to issues of rejection or separation. For example, the fugue may say, in effect, "I am not the man who found his wife to be unfaithful." Some fugues appear to protect the person from suicidal or homicidal impulses.
Facts and Tips about Dissociative Fugue
- Dissociative fugue, usually several episode of amnesia is the condition where people disappear from their usual routine and may assume a new identity, forgetting all or some of their usual life.
- Dissociative fugue is typically caused by severe trauma, for example wars, accidents, natural disasters, or sexual abuse during childhood.
- Symptoms of this disorder such as sudden and unplanned travel away from home, inability to recall past events or important information from the person’s life,
- confusion or loss of memory about his or her identity, probably assuming a new identity to make up for the loss, severe distress and problems with daily functioning.
- For treating this disorder used psychotherapy, although a combination of psychopharmacological and psychosocial treatment..
- Frequency of dissociative fugue tends to rise during stressful or traumatic periods, for example during wartime or after a natural disaster.
- Alternative treatment for a dissociative disorder might benefit from antidepressants or antianxiety medication.
Do you like this Story? | <urn:uuid:a01110ee-b81d-4f03-813d-f320ef1dd8d0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.depression-guide.com/dissociative-fugue.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944222 | 762 | 3.078125 | 3 |
Building Sustainable Communities conference hits Kelowna this month
If the Building Sustainable Communities Conference is the ideas hub, Kelowna's Spider Agile Technologies is the "in practice" example of what a healthier, more earth-friendly business looks like.
Last week, in a fundraiser for the Fresh Outlook Foundation, the non-profit organization which hosts the conference out of Kelowna each February, those with an interest or even a glimmer of acceptance for the more ecologically (and often economically) friendly route in business got a taste of the upcoming conference and the types of business models it's looking to support and encourage.
"This is an example of what the conference is all about," said Fresh Outlook Foundation founder Joanne de Vries as she stood in the middle of Spider Agile's cafeteria hosting breakfast.
Throwing open their doors for the event, the technology company—now owned by the multi-national DIRRT—offered a glimmer of hope for the life that could be as companies get set to compete for employees needed to fill baby boomer's chairs.
With green walls filled full of plants to an in-house gym, twice weekly trainer visits and a cafeteria supplying healthy lunches, the web Spider weaves is clearly designed to catch workers' eyes—and keep them. The company itself also tries to make its product ecologically friendly, designing the plug-and-go office set-ups so that everything from the walls to the electrical systems can be reused in another office should the need arise.
This is the fifth year for the Building SustainAble Communities conference, running Feb. 27 to Mar. 1 at the Delta Grand Resort.
In a quirky addition to this year's conference, delegates will be using Lego to strengthen awareness between different industry and government sectors on sustainability problems and solutions.
Registration can still be done online or by coming to the conference a half an hour before a specific session. On site registration is $30 per session. | <urn:uuid:4c4d29af-bd28-4813-8d8b-1f00a789e808> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kelownacapnews.com/news/138971389.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93864 | 402 | 1.9375 | 2 |
Dolly Parton & the Roots of Country Music
Copyright and Restrictions
The Library of Congress provides access to these materials for educational and research purposes and makes no warranty with regard to their use for other purposes. The written permission of the copyright owners and/or other rights holders (such as holders of publicity and/or privacy rights) is required for distribution, reproduction, or other use of protected items beyond that allowed by fair use or other statutory exemptions. There may be content that is protected as "works for hire" (copyright may be held by the party that commissioned the original work) and/or under the copyright or neighboring-rights laws of other nations.
Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item. Users should consult the bibliographic information that accompanies each item for specific information. This catalog data provides the details known to the Library of Congress regarding the corresponding items and may assist users in making independent assessments of the legal status of these items as related to their desired uses. Items included here with the permission of the rights holders are indicated as such in the bibliographic information for each item.
While every effort has been made to obtain permission to use these songs or portions of these songs, in some cases, the rights' owner may have only granted permission to use a portion of the material online. In those cases, only thirty-second excerpts of sound recordings and one or two pages of print or manuscript materials are used.
In some cases, the Library was unable to identify a possible rights holder and has elected to place some of those items online as an exercise of fair use for strictly non-commercial educational uses. The Library of Congress would like to learn more about these materials and would like to hear from individuals or institutions that have any additional information or know of their history. Please contact: Performing Arts Reading Room.
Suggested credit line: Library of Congress, Music Division. | <urn:uuid:00e46530-b38b-4a94-a77c-1ed735e96fb1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/html/dollyparton/dollyparton-copyright.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941885 | 402 | 2.296875 | 2 |
An introduction to the world of e-portfolios: why you need one, how it can help with your learning and development, and how you go about creating one.
What is an e-portfolio?
An electronic portfolio, better known as an e-portfolio, is an online collection of work, ideas, list of your achievements, competences, activities, goals, aspirations and more. At its most basic, it is a means to electronically record your achievements but used to its full capability it can become a valuable learning and development tool that stays with you throughout your education and career. Additionally, it is also a dynamic vehicle for showcasing your abilities to the employment world at large.
Why do I need one?
Much is made these days of the way employers Google potential new recruits to uncover more about them and e-portfolios can be used to mark yourself out from the competition, providing employers with a professional and ‘living’ portrait of your abilities and aspirations. E-portfolios can also be searchable so by including relevant keywords for your job role or sector increases your chances of being discovered.
According to Simon Cotterill, senior research associate at Newcastle University, who has been involved in developing and implementing e-portfolios for more than 10 years, there is increasing amount of anecdotal evidence of showcase e-portfolios contributing to employer selection. He suggests they can be especially valuable at the short-listing-for-interview stage to demonstrate the ‘extra’ you can offer.
“The process of ‘doing’ an e-portfolio may be more important than the actual portfolio you produce,” he says. “An e-portfolio can help you build up evidence of your skills and enable you to concisely summarise these and provide real examples, which can be powerful on an application form or in an interview.”
Can it help with my learning and development?
While its name implies showcase, there is great deal more to an e-portfolio than exhibiting what you can do. E-portfolios can also play a vital part in your ongoing learning and development by tracking your learning and how and why it has been useful.
“In educational terms you are developing your independent learning and reflective abilities, which are associated with deep, rather than surface learning,” says Cotterill.
“For vocational subjects, such as engineering, e-portfolios can also be linked in with professionalism and professional requirements; increasingly the world of work includes annual assessments/appraisals and job/promotion applications require ongoing independent learning and reflective evidencing of your achievements – in other words ‘portfolio learning’.”
How do I create one?
A range of free Web 2.0 technologies can be used in the development of an e-portfolio such as wikis and blogging tools, as well as standard presentation software. Components that make up an e-portfolio will vary but most will include blog entries, uploads of your files, images, videos and other media, CV, evidence of skills, personal development plans (PDPs) and action plans, explains Cotterill. There are also dedicated e-portfolio platforms used by some colleges, which can go much further. Cotterill has been involved in the development of the ePet portfolio at Newcastle University, which is configured to meet diverse pedagogic requirements and helps to embed portfolio learning into the curriculum.
As he underlines, if your course uses e-portfolios for assessment, dialogue or linking to specific skills and structures then you will probably be better off using the university-recommended one.
“Most dedicated e-portfolios support technical standards for life-long learning records (‘Leap2A’) which means you can transfer your data between different systems and also your portfolio may ‘talk’ to other systems used by your university or employer,” adds Cotterill. Other dedicated platforms include Pebble Pad and Digication.
What else do I need to consider?
While what you do and how you use your e-portfolio is largely down to you, don’t overlook the part that others can play. Cotterill points out that most e-portfolios will include a place for dialogue with tutors and it can also feature input from peer groups, employers as well as other relevant individuals.
“Sharing your e-portfolio with tutors, employers and peers may seem daunting, but it may pay back in terms of your development,” he explains, giving the example of how a supervisor from a work placement could help to provide valuable feedback and evidence of your performance. “For example negotiating and documenting the intended outcomes and how they will be met and evidenced. Record if these objectives were achieved and reflect on them.”
Where does the IET fit in?
Career Manager is an online professional development tool from the IET that permits students and young engineers to record information relating to their PDP and detail CV information as well as set objectives and actions. It can also be used to assess against UK specific competence and other frameworks.
One of the tool’s most important features is its ability to allow individuals to compile and submit an application for professional registration from within. Kerry Lamacraft, professional development officer at the IET, explains that a guest ticket can be sent to a supporter, which could be a mentor or manager for example, who can then review different elements of the tool and add their comments.
“When engineering students create their application for registration, they can send guest tickets to their supporters,” she explains.
And a new version of the system is currently in development that will add further features.
“We’re working with various groups of volunteers and users to make sure we’re incorporating the requirements being asked for. It is already a fairly sophisticated system, but we hope this new version will provide even richer functionality,” Lamacraft enthuses.
|To start a discussion topic about this article, please log in or register.|
"Is augmented reality the next big thing or a marketing gimmick? Is it fundamental to the future or a fashion faux pas?"
- Fukushima Daiichi Unit 3 5th Floor Highly Radioactive Debris [03:09 pm 17/05/13]
- Cluster formation on cooja simulator [01:59 pm 17/05/13]
- DSLAM Power Consumption [01:58 pm 17/05/13]
- English is not my first language. [01:23 am 17/05/13]
- Transport 2020 [09:35 pm 16/05/13]
Tune into our latest podcast | <urn:uuid:b9982599-6c98-430a-8a28-73aee563c357> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://eandt.theiet.org/explore/students/2011/e-portfolios.cfm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944781 | 1,388 | 2.140625 | 2 |
What can work in emerging markets?
There is no denying that the growth opportunities in emerging markets, such as China, Brazil and India, can have fundamental implications for a company’s business strategy, operating model and risk management. Moreover, given the continued sluggishness in many domestic economies, who can blame companies for banking on these emerging markets as engines of growth?
But what approaches actually work in emerging markets — joint ventures, licensing agreements, organic growth? More important, how can a CFO know which specific strategy is most appropriate for his or her organization?
Full article is also available for download, in PDF, at top of page.
To find out, Deloitte Consulting LLP recently undertook a survey — outlined in Fortresses and Footholds: Emerging Market Growth Strategies, Practices and Outlook1 — of 628 executives from companies headquartered in 34 countries. Of the respondents, 389 actually have emerging market revenues today, which translates into roughly a 60/40 split between the haves and the have-nots.2 And the study compared and contrasted their views on revenue opportunities, the challenges respondent companies face in emerging markets and which growth strategies have tested to be most effective.
Specifically, the study found that many respondent companies are finding emerging markets success by establishing local, market-specific production, service, distribution, research and development and other operations to develop closer ties to customers and business communities. In this issue of CFO Insights, we summarize some of the findings and recommend ways CFOs can tailor their strategies to achieve success in emerging markets.
The emerging markets imperative
The potential of the emerging markets continues to be compelling. In 2010, gross domestic product (GDP) in emerging economies grew by 7.3 percent, compared to growth of 3.0 percent in the United States, 1.8 percent in the Euro area and 4.0 percent in Japan.3 Looking forward, Deloitte4 research projects that emerging markets will likely account for 58 percent of growth in global GDP from 2010 to 2015, compared to 32 percent for the advanced economies of the G7.5
Still, although many companies recognize this potential and place a high priority on driving increased revenues from these emerging markets, respondent executives reported mixed success in meeting their goals. Among companies with emerging market revenues in the survey, 38 percent had exceeded their goals over the last three years, 27 percent had met them and 35 percent had fallen short.
In assessing what worked, however, there were several common ingredients. In fact, executives pointed to four elements instrumental to their success:
- Go local. Companies that had company-owned operations in at least five of six major emerging markets were much more likely to have exceeded their revenue goals (60 percent) than those that did not (32 percent). The advantages of greater knowledge of customer needs and buying habits, greater brand awareness in the market and more experience in navigating government approvals and procedures translate into overall success.
- Grow organically. Across companies of various sizes and industries, organic growth, cited by 61 percent of executives, was considered the most important approach for expanding in emerging markets — soundly beating joint ventures with local companies (20 percent), acquisition of local companies (10 percent), and licensing agreements (6 percent). Organic growth can offer substantial benefits, including helping a company protect its intellectual property, providing insight into the needs and preferences of customers and experience with the local business environment.
- Scale up. Companies with revenues of $5 billion or greater were more likely to have exceeded their sales revenue goals in emerging markets over the last three years, while small companies (less than $500 million in revenue) were the least likely to have done so.
- Know thy customer. Organizations that evolve their value propositions with the needs of customers and segments in particular emerging markets in mind will likely produce higher revenue impact. In fact, rather than simply exporting their existing offerings, many companies looking for larger growth design products/services to meet the needs of emerging market customers at multiple value points
What works, what doesn’t
As for specific strategies, there were multiple ways for entering emerging markets — and they are not all created equal. Figure 1 outlines the various approaches and executives’ views if they were extremely or very successful. It is clear the drive to be local remains consistent in the successful approaches.
For example, two of the most effective strategies were initiatives to meet the particular needs of local customers. Designing products and services specifically for customers in the local market (60 percent) and offering a different value proposition for local customers (59 percent) were among the strategies most cited as being effective. In addition, two other highly rated strategies — use local sales/service support centers (62 percent) and employ company-owned sales and/or distribution (60 percent) illustrate the benefits of becoming part of the local business community and gaining greater access to customers and the regulatory environment.
There are multiple examples of how such local companies achieve effective results. Unilever, for example, launched a program in India called the Project Shakti that uses local women as product ambassadors. These women, who live in rural areas where distribution is a challenge, basically operate a quasi-franchise distribution business often via bicycle. On the flip side, when a company launched a new cereal in India without realizing that the predominant method for eating breakfast there involves hot milk — which tends to turn a cornflake-type cereal into mush — it had to revamp the offering.
Interestingly, some of the strategies that didn’t score very high (Figure 2) included collaborating with nongovernmental organizations and philanthropic groups (28 percent), despite the recent successful public-private partnerships with such organizations as World Vision. Offering products/services in smaller packages at lower cost didn’t prove successful either (28 percent).
Eyes wide open
One of the key takeaways from the research was that the variances underscored the heterogeneity of the markets. Such differences require growth strategies that are grounded in market dynamics and company capabilities. Still, for CFOs seeking to enter or expand in emerging markets, there are common questions that can be asked to increase the probability that a particular strategy will work. For example:
- Where should operations be located? Indications from the study are that companies typically feel more comfortable expanding in countries — or nearby regions — where they already have operations. Still, such a comfort level with regulatory and country knowledge may come at the expense of better opportunities in another geography. CFOs should weigh the tradeoffs and determine if there are clear models forecasting location costs.
- Are emerging market strategies replicable? Emerging markets cannot be treated as one entity and CFOs should not assume that the same strategy that has worked in one market will work with a different product set and a different buyer in a different environment. It is essential to develop specific insights to understand unmet needs and the constraints present in each market, whether it be a populous urban area or rural village. For example, Chinese and Brazilian consumers of rising affluence have much in common, but have vastly different needs and expectations for many products and services. In response, finance will likely have to adapt its models to wide regional and country differences.
- What does a particular market demand? Even when companies have some
success in a specific emerging market, they may not yet have the in-country R&D or strategic marketing experience/specialization to adequately assess customer needs. To gain a better understanding, they may initially rely on local players, such as distributors or other important vendors in the value chain. Then once they gain a better understanding, they can research and selectively customize products or channels. For example, powdered baby milk and cheese are fairly recent categories of mass-market products in India and China, and require investing in educating consumers on the nutritional value of the products.
- What capabilities should I have access to? Even large companies need to stay nimble in emerging markets. But as they mature or have greater growth in a market, companies need to assess what they need to assess and what they need to own in terms of rapid product design, company facilities, contract manufacturing, etc. Separate the market tactic from the business objective. Successful companies may balance risk and investment demands by accessing the capabilities they need through local vendors or joint ventures. Over time company-retained assets may become more attractive.
- What metrics should I use to evaluate success? Typically, companies will run a Net Present Value (NPV) assessment when entering an emerging market. But care must be taken to adjust the cost of capital or discount rates for the significantly higher risk equity premiums in most emerging markets. Moreover, a NPV assessment alone is insufficient and requires scenarios that reasonably evaluate different market behaviors. Returns matter, but realistic scenarios that account for uncertainty will likely become more valuable to the business especially in the early periods of emerging markets expansion.
- What type of internal controls do emerging markets demand? Many companies have been ensnared in Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violations. Business practices vary widely and “corruption” is frequently not obvious or visible. In any emerging market, there needs to be an appropriate segregation of duties in terms of payment approvals, creation of vendors, the giving of gifts, and handling of entertainment, as well as regular testing of those controls and payments. As with market demand, local insight matters. You cannot audit what you do not understand.
- What if we make the wrong bet? In emerging markets, success requires meeting unmet needs and effectively navigating individual market constraints. However, the rate of change is so great that the most effectively laid strategies may be outdated before they launch. It is essential to consider taking a dynamic approach to strategy and execution that allows for market movements and new market learning. It is essential to remember that changing tactics is not the same as changing strategy.
Fundamentally, succeeding in emerging markets involves the right strategies, local knowledge and a focus on learning and adapting as you grow. Armed with the three, the lessons learned from the survey — both successes and failures — can help organizations build more effective and sustainable platforms for growth in emerging markets.
Receive CFO center updates
About CFO Insights and Deloitte's CFO Program
This Deloitte CFO Insights article was developed with the guidance of Dr. Ajit Kambil, Global Research Director, CFO Program, Deloitte LLP and Lori Calabro, Senior Manager, CFO Education & Events, Deloitte LLP. Special thanks to Andrew Marks, Senior Writer/Senior Editor, Deloitte LLP, for his contributions to this article.
Deloitte’s CFO Program harnesses the breadth of our capabilities to deliver forward-thinking perspectives and fresh insights to help CFOs manage the complexities of their role, drive more value in their organization and adapt to the changing strategic shifts in the market.
For more information about Deloitte’s CFO Program, visit our website at www.deloitte.com/us/cfocenter.
1Fortresses and Footholds: Emerging Market Growth Strategies, Practices and Outlook; November 2011; the survey defined emerging markets as China, India, Southeast Asia, South Korea, Brazil, Latin America outside Brazil, Eastern Europe and Russia, Turkey, Egypt and South Africa.
2Fortresses and Footholds: Emerging Market Growth Strategies, Practices and Outlook; November 2011; see methodology, page 20.
3World Economic Outlook Update, International Monetary Fund, September 2011.
4As used in this document, “Deloitte” means Deloitte Consulting LLP, a subsidiary of Deloitte LLP. Please see www.deloitte.com/us/about for a detailed description of the legal structure of Deloitte LLP and its subsidiaries. Certain services may not be available to attest clients under the rules and regulations of public accounting.
5G7 are Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. | <urn:uuid:2c8288c0-196c-471c-a57a-a8226d4383c4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.deloitte.com/view/en_US/us/Insights/browse-by-role/Chief-Financial-Officer-CFO/CFO-Insights/7e2c43c7ba116310VgnVCM2000001b56f00aRCRD.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949905 | 2,444 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Milton’s Cambridge Latin: Performing in the Genres 1625–1632
Milton’s Cambridge Latin: Performing in the Genres 1625–1632 follows Milton as a student, performing aloud in each of the Latin genres — required or voluntary — by which Cambridge defined itself in his time there. By taking readers inside his Latin scripts, this study shows his emerging personality, different from orthodox accounts. He seeks reputation, he is outgoing and politically alert, and where appropriate he is cheeky and bawdy. Methods used in this book include those of Latin scholarship, history, and anthropology. All the Latin is given in its original and in translation. A special feature is the first ever complete text and edition of Milton’s showy parody of Cambridge graduations, by which he presented his college’s freshmen at their induction-rite. For this reason in particular, the work is needed by all university libraries and Milton scholars.
Milton’s Cambridge Latin: Performing in the Genres 1625–1632 highlights the important ways in which Milton’s use of Latin during his Cambridge years acted as a means of enabling him to “fit in” to the university. In this regard this is very much a book about text, context, and genre: more specifically, about Milton’s Cambridge Latin texts, his “exercises” and “voluntaries” (in both prose and verse) in relation to particular university occasions and genres. As such it is the first of its kind. While several of the Latin pieces treated in this work have formed the basis of individual article-length discussions, this book is the first to bring all such “performance pieces” together in a single study, and to do so in a way that does them merit, rather than dismissing them as mere “university exercises”. I found the work very readable, well structured, and enhanced by the novelty of its anthropological approach.
— Professor Estelle Haan Sheehan, Queen’s University, Belfast | <urn:uuid:4cda018f-beaf-469f-972c-1c524e840a2c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://acmrs.org/publications/catalog/milton%E2%80%99s-cambridge-latin-performing-genres-1625%E2%80%931632 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960789 | 430 | 2.71875 | 3 |
April 2012, Vol. 135, No. 4
Do little engines really do big things?
Why Greek sovereign debt matters to us
Download the PDF
Précis from past issues
In “ Are Small Businesses the Biggest Producers of Jobs?” (The Regional Economist, Federal Reserve Bank of Saint Louis, April 2011), Kevin L. Kliesen and Julia S. Maués examine the data behind a claim that is routinely asserted by politicians of every persuasion, namely, that “small businesses” (however they may be defined) are the job creation engines of the U.S. economy, responsible for generating a disproportionately large share of new jobs relative to larger firms.
The article traces the claim to its root. In 1979, David Birch, who was then a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote that firms with 20 or fewer employees accounted for two-thirds of new jobs created during the early 1970s, and firms with 100 or fewer employees accounted for 82 percent of new jobs. Correspondingly, large firms (those with 500 or more employees) accounted for only a small share (15 percent) of new jobs. Birch’s findings were subsequently refined by him and revised by others, but the idea that small businesses account for most of the country’s job growth was soon ingrained as fact in the nation’s political discourse.
It is well known that the failure rate of small businesses is notably high. It takes time for businesses that do not survive to be born and live, then to fail and die. During that time, the business increases the number of jobs, but only in the short run. Later, as it fails, the business decreases the number of jobs. Think of the large number of small businesses that come into existence each year, some of them destined to fail and be forgotten, others able to turn a profit and continue in operation— with a few in the latter group eventually outgrowing the “small business” category—and it’s easy to see why, as a whole, small businesses account for such a large portion of new jobs.
However, looking at job creation statistics tells only half the story. True, small businesses, as they come into being and begin to grow, account for an attention-getting share of job creation. It is also true that as some of them struggle and fail, they also account for a large share of job destruction. The authors note that “a common confusion between net and gross job creation” occurs when the focus is placed only on the number of jobs created by small businesses and no attention is paid to the number of jobs destroyed as some small businesses become smaller or cease operations entirely. The notable hundreds of thousands of new jobs are transformed into dozens of thousands when job losses are subtracted from gross job gains to yield net job gains. When the focus of research is shifted to net job gains, it can be seen that large firms create the most jobs. One illustration of this in the article is a table of data from the BLS Business Employment Dynamics program showing that firms with 500 or more employees had the largest number of net job gains over the 1992–2010 period.
Because the financial crisis in Greece could lead to political and civil unrest within the country and has caused concerns about the stability of the euro and its impact on the world economy, Greek financial troubles are of international importance.
In "Demystifying Sovereign Debt in Greece: Why It Matters to Us" (EconSouth, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, second quarter 2010), economic analyst Andrew Flowers explains the Greek money crisis, its potential repercussions on both the euro nations and the global economy, and what lessons it holds for other countries dealing with large budget deficits.
Flowers notes that while Greece has led the pack among euro countries in terms of running large budget deficits and carrying a high debtto- GDP (gross domestic product) ratio, Greece is not alone in its fiscal problems. Several other European countries, including Italy, Ireland, Spain, and Portugal, are also dealing with large deficits.
The severity of Greece’s fiscal crisis was revealed in October 2009 by the newly appointed Greek finance minister. Investors began to lose confidence in the country’s sovereign debt, resulting in widening bond and credit default swap spreads. By December of the same year, the government proposed the first of several austerity measures to help lower the budget deficit; these measures were met with investor skepticism and objections from protestors. “The political and financial drama in Greece has since oscillated between greater protests and renewed, bolder austerity plans,” explains Flowers.
Flowers notes that some analysts worry that the Greek crisis could also affect other European countries, especially if a large European financial institution were to fail. In addition, the effects of the crisis could spread outside of Europe. Flowers points to troubling signs of strain in the interbank lending market, which could feed through to businesses and consumers around the world.
Concerns over potential spillover effects to other fiscally troubled countries in the euro area prompted a pan-European response to the crisis. In May 2010, the European Commission unveiled a rescue package totaling $957 billion for troubled European governments. However, euro-area countries must still enact tough budget and labor reforms to successfully stabilize their economies, says Flowers.
There are several lessons to be learned by governments all over the world battling large financial deficits. Yet, as Flowers concludes, “time will tell how Greece and its European partners will regain stability and the confidence of investors. For other countries, the Greek fiscal crisis has been a sobering reminder of how precarious government finances are in this postrecession world.”
We are interested in your feedback on this column. Please let us know what you have found most interesting and what essential reading we may have missed. Write to: Executive Editor, Monthly Labor Review, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Washington, DC. 20212, or e-mail MLR@bls.gov.
Within Monthly Labor Review Online:
Welcome | Current Issue | Index | Subscribe | Archives
Exit Monthly Labor Review Online:
BLS Home | Publications & Research Papers | <urn:uuid:7c08233d-12a6-4a5f-afac-2f5018c4f5ff> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2012/04/precis.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960915 | 1,258 | 2.421875 | 2 |
by Lauren Dowdy
and driving dont mix
For a year, researchers with the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute
observed the actual daily driving habits of 241 drivers in 100 cars.
It was the first such instrumented vehicle study undertaken. While
80 percent of all crashes and 65 percent of all near-crashes involved
the driver looking away from the roadway within three seconds of
the onset of the event, the researchers discovered that the
most dangerous contributing factor leading to crashes was fatigue.
the road to Challenge X with 170-proof
With the 2005 leg of Challenge X: Crossover to Sustainable Mobility
successfully completed, mechanical engineering professor Doug Nelson
and the Virginia Tech Hybrid Electric Vehicle Team (HEVT) are turning
their design for an ethanol-powered SUV into a working vehicle.
Nelson and the students are among 17 university teams selected by
the U.S. Department of Energy and General Motors to compete in the
three-year Challenge X -- challenging engineering students to develop
designs and technology for the next generation of energy-efficient,
low-emissions vehicles. Read more
devices convert water to hydrogen gas
Wonder where the fuel will come from for tomorrow's hydrogen-powered
vehicles? In a process sometimes called "artificial photosynthesis,"
Virginia Tech researchers are developing catalysts that will convert
water to hydrogen gas. Read more
used to study West Nile virus in Virginia
The spread of West Nile
virus across the United States since 1999 illustrates the potential
for mosquito-borne diseases to expand their range into the US and
have a significant effect on the population. Virginia Tech assistant
professor of geography Korine
Kolivras is using her experience in analyzing the 2001-2002
dengue fever outbreak in Hawaii to understand the potential spread
of West Nile in Virginia. Through the use of Geographic Information
Systems (GIs), she delineated areas in Hawaii that provided a habitat
for mosquitoes and had the potential for outbreaks of mosquito-borne
diseases based on temperature, precipitation, land cover, topography,
and the presence of populated areas. She is developing a similar
risk map for outbreak prevention and control for Virginia.
Read about other College
of Natural Resources research.
Safety Corps develops safe system for fast-track construction
courtesy The Wallace Agency of Roanoke, Va.
To make sure ABC's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" construction
in Blacksburg, Va., was as safe as it was fast, Virginia Tech's
Center for Innovation in Construction Safety and Health developed
the Rapid Universal Safety and Health (RUSH) system and 50 faculty
members and students served on the "Extreme Safety Corps."
identify influences in information technology career choices for
A Virginia Tech team has identified five factors that influence
girls' information technology (IT) career choices -- including race,
parental support, age when introduced to computers, and positive
image of IT. A DVD and guide are available for parents, counselors,
teachers, and academic advisors. Read
for Governance and Accountabilities is helping the Arab Civitas
provide democracy education in seven Arab nations. Read
radios overcome incompatibilities
After a disaster, like hurricane Katrina,
emergency-responders from many jurisdictions converge. But the radio
systems used by the different jurisdictions are rarely compatible.
Cognitive radio offers a solution. A cognitive radio will configure
itself to talk to any other unit that the responder selects. Read | <urn:uuid:1b4f76de-625e-445f-ba0e-d9c6deb4c900> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.research.vt.edu/resmag/sc2006/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.904495 | 725 | 2.859375 | 3 |
The adage says "a picture is worth a thousand words," but when Leeann Lewandowski happened upon a photograph of her late mother on Facebook after her home was destroyed in Superstorm Sandy, she was speechless.
"The first thing I see on my Timeline is my mother holding my daughter, Katie, on the day that she was born. I'm usually a very cheery person, but I absolutely crumbled," said Lewandowski, a 47-year-old elementary school teacher and mother of twin 14-year-old girls from Union Beach, N.J.
Union Beach is a small seaside community with fewer than 6,500 residents, and Sandy hit it hard, destroying nearly 200 homes and decimating the coastline.
"It was kind of like 'The Wizard of Oz,'" said resident Pamela Vasquez.
A hot tub was found a block and a half away from where it once sat. Remnants of wooden decks floated in the tide. Family photo albums were buried under piles where multistory houses once stood.
Jeannette Van Houten also lost her Union Beach home in Sandy, but buried among the devastation she found a calling -- to return memories of happier times to the 1.8-square-mile township by reuniting residents with the family photographs that Sandy scattered to the winds.
The day after the storm, Van Houten went for a walk along the shoreline to assess the damage and she stumbled upon a photograph of a couple attending a wedding. She leaned down, picked it up and, suddenly, her mission became clear.
"Photos are the only things that hold us to the past. My niece was murdered in 2008 and the only thing we have left of her is our photos," said Van Houten.
She soon started a Facebook page where she uploaded the pictures she found, hopeful that through the power of social media, residents of the small community would see them and be able to identify the faces and families in the photographs.
Since she started, Van Houten has uploaded more than 2,000 photos to the Facebook page -- and she's still looking each day for more lost memories among the debris. About 60 families have reclaimed photos so far, she said. And some people, like Lewandowski and her daughters, have since joined the effort. | <urn:uuid:ff391592-cfc2-468d-b697-6cf1de2df0eb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wpbf.com/news/entertainment/Family-photos-returned-post-Sandy/-/8788562/17484352/-/11wylim/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976482 | 472 | 1.523438 | 2 |
It would appear that we have reached the limits of what it is possible to achieve with computer technology, although one should be careful with such statements, as they tend to sound pretty silly in 5 years.
Note: This page is saved at the end of the indicated academic year without editing. Links included in articles may no longer be valid.
14 undergraduate Computer Science majors received their BS degrees at the 2012 commencement. They were Andrew Blowe, Allyson Cool, Jennifer Hill, Ryan Huffman, Nathan Jacobson, Kathleen Kaas, Nicole Keller, Samuel Lewis, Richard Orndorff, Craig Rowe, Adam Stauffer, Michael Taylor, Sean Weber, and Naseem Zietoon.
Several of the 30 graduate students who completed their MS degrees in 2012 received their MS diplomas in the afternoon Graduate School commencement ceremony.
Outstanding students in each graduate degree program were recognized at the 2012 Graduate School reception a few days before Commencement in May.
Michael Moorman received the Bryce Blackwood Beauchamp Award for Outstanding Student student in the graduate Computer Science program. The award was established in memory of alumna Bryce Blackwood Beauchamp (BA '84, MS '87) who was both an undergraduate and graduate student in computer and information sciences and who served as the technical coordinator for the department in the 1980s.
Francis Abantei (MS '12) received the Gary Corsar Award for Outstanding Student in the graduate program in Information Technology. The award was sponsored by Gary Corsar (MS '09). Gary told us that it's important to keep up with technology. A softwawre developer, Gary said he pursued a graduate degree because he wanted to improve all aspects of his career, not just get a certification in one software language or management field, and by sponsoring this prize he encourages others to do the same.
Abdulaziz Aljabre received the Stephen R. White Award for Outstanding Student in the graduate program in Management of Information Technology. The award was established by Douglas White (BA '87, MS '94) in honor of his father, Stephen R. White.
Computer Science majors in the Class of 2012 took advantage of the Midterm Recess to work on their Senior Projects. In the photo, Andrew Blowe, Richard Garcia, and Don Shaner work on a UAV in the Robotics Lab. Upon completion, the plane will be capable to fly a pre-programmed route and carry out reconnaissance tasks using two HD video cameras on-board.
Senior computer science major Sam Lewis's paper "Detection of Breast Tumor Candidates Using Marker-controlled Watershed Segmentation and Morphological Analysis" was accepted for presentation at the 2012 IEEE Southwest Symposium on Image Analysis and Interpretation and for publication in the conference proceedings. The conference will take place in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in late April. Sam did his research under the guidance of professor Aijuan Dong as part of a Summer Science Institute at Hood. Professor Dong is also his co-author on the paper.
New CS & IT graduate students enjoyed supper in the computer science department's office during the Graduate School Orientation for the Spring 2012 semester. New students this semester came not just from Frederick and the surrounding area, but from as far away as Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and Thailand.
Three Security Webinars available to faculty and students through the CyberWatch ConsortiumThree new webinars are being offered through the CyberWatch Consortium in spring 2012. For details and descriptions, see the CCSIA web site.
Dec 5, 2011 -- We are pleased to announce that the Hood College Center for Computer Security and Information Assurance of the Department of Computer Science has been accepted as a member of the CyberWatch Consortium. Funded by the National Science Foundation, CyberWatch is a consortium of higher education institutions, businesses, and government agencies whose mission is to improve the quantity and quality of the information assurance (IA) workforce.
Hood College has established a Center for Computer Security and Information Assurance in the Department of Computer Science. The purpose of the Center is to promote research, education, and sound internal practices in computer security and information assurance. The center coordinates educational programs and practices in information assurance, and interacts with local area businesses, laboratories, and government agencies.
During the Graduate School Orientation for the Fall 2011 semester, more than a dozen new CS & IT graduate students filled the computer science department's office for supper with program directors Xinlian Liu and Elizabeth Chang. Returning students Joe Dwyer and Aaron Lucas shared their experience and tips for going through the program.
Senior Nathan Jacobson presented his summer research project "Access Control Policy Tool (ACPT)" to the Plenary Session of the SURF Colloquium held at NIST on August 2, 2011.
Nathan was one of six students who presented at the Plenary Session. This is the second year Nathan was accepted to the SURF program. Nathan's adviser is Dr. Vincent Hu. Dr. Hu was extremely pleased with Nathan's work and invited him to reapply in 2012.
Altogether three Hood students participated the SURF program this year. Senior Jennifer Hill reported on her project "Creation of an Evaluation Interface for Human Assessments of Machine Translations" at the Colloquium sessions. Nathan, Jennifer and Math major Andrea joined 150 students from institutions across the nation to become new alumni of the highly acclaimed summer research program.
A copy of the colloquium abstract is available in the computer science office suite, HT 226.
In June, Professor Xinlian Liu attended a professional conference in Zhengzhou, China. He also visited the National Meteorological Center in Beijing, where he worked for 3 years before coming to the States. They are interested working on optimizing a new weather model. Liu also visited the site of Tianhe-1A, the fastest supercomputer in China (it used to be No. 1 in the world, but was recently bumped to No. 2 by Japan's K-system). They are eagerly looking for suitable applications to prove the effectiveness of the hybrid architecture.
Sixteen BS Computer Science students and several MS recipients participated in Commencement 2011.
On May 5, 2011, Hood CS Robotics won the mobility challenge of the Virtual Manufacturing and Automation Challenge at the 2011 IEEE International Conference on Robotics & Automation held in Shanghai.
Our team was unable to attend the conference so we paticipated in the challenge remotely, having sent our algorithms/code in advance of the competition.
Scott McLemore (BS '11) was the sole member of Team Hood. We believe he was both the only single-member team and the only undergrad-only team in the competition. Scott worked on and developed robotic mobility and navigation algorithms to solve problems for this international competition for 4+ months as his senior project and he clearly did a magnificent job.
While neither Scott nor team coach Professor George Dimitoglou was able to make it to Shanghai for the awards luncheon and ceremony, please congratulate Scott on this remarkable, international achievement.
The Department of Computer Science at Hood College regularly seeks adjunct faculty in selected areas of computer science and information technology. These are part-time, temporary appointments to teach single courses. The specific courses are dependent on the class offerings each term. Areas of interest include computer security, IT management, information systems and engineering, and computer networks.
Applicants should hold a masters degree in computer science or a doctorate in computer science or related field. Send a letter of inquiry and curriculum vitae, indicating your potential teaching areas and professional experience, to Elizabeth B. Chang, Chairperson, Department of Computer Science, Hood College, 401 Rosemont Avenue, Frederick, MD 21701 (or email firstname.lastname@example.org). We especially welcome applications from women and members of minority groups. | <urn:uuid:d0a22092-cf0c-4dbf-9216-59c8d09d84d3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cs.hood.edu/?news/archive1112 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950597 | 1,599 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Presidency Council Ratifies U.S.-Iraq Security Pact
By Gerry J. Gilmore
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Dec. 4, 2008 The new U.S.-Iraq security pact that was approved by Iraqi lawmakers Nov. 27 was ratified by Iraq’s Presidency Council today, senior U.S. officials said.
The two-part security pact consists of a strategic framework agreement that establishes the foundation of a long-term bilateral relationship between the United States and Iraq, as well as a status-of-forces agreement that stipulates how U.S. forces are affected by Iraqi laws.
Both agreements will take effect Jan. 1, following the exchange of diplomatic notes. The agreements replace a United Nations mandate authorizing the U.S. military presence in Iraq that’s slated to expire Dec. 31.
“We welcome today’s ratification by Iraqi’s Presidency Council of the Strategic Framework Agreement and Security Agreement,” U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan C. Crocker and Army Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, commander of Multinational Force Iraq, said in a joint statement issued today.
“The United States Embassy and the Multinational Force Iraq will begin immediately to implement these two agreements with our Iraqi partners,” Crocker and Odierno continued. “We will undertake initiatives to strengthen our cooperation in the fields of economics, energy health, the environment, education, culture and law enforcement.”
The United States also will support Iraq’s request to the U.N. Security Council to continue protection of Iraqi assets, Crocker and Odierno stated.
The now-ratified U.S.-Iraq security pact contains “two landmark agreements that will guide our relationships with Iraq, to help solidify Iraq’s democratic gains that they’ve made over the past few years, affirm Iraq’s sovereignty, and put its relations with the United States on a strong footing,” White House Press Secretary Dana Perino told reporters today.
A majority vote of Iraqi legislators in attendance approved the new security pact a week ago today. Iraqi lawmakers’ approval of the pact “affirms the growth of Iraq’s democracy” as well as its “increasing ability to secure itself,” President George W. Bush said in White House statement issued Nov. 27. | <urn:uuid:92e30c84-4f98-408f-acd3-138a663f2721> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.defense.gov/News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=52192 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939207 | 489 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Item description: “Report of Commander [John] Rodgers, U. S. Navy, of the sending the submarine propeller back to Fortress Monroe for further orders.”
The report discusses naval actions in support of the Union Army’s movements during the Seven Days Battle, but also shares concerns over the Union’s submarine, which the commander describes as “so terrible an engine, if employed against us, that if I retain her I must keep a strong force to guard her.” He also states that “in the hands of our enemies…[the submarine] might be used to blow up the Monitor, Galena, Minnesota, or whatever vessel should be advanced either in position or importance.”
To read more from the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, click here.
Item citation: Official records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion.. Series I, Volume 7. Washington : G.P.O., 1898. C970.75 U58no Ser. I, Vol. 7. North Carolina Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. | <urn:uuid:48376098-17bf-49d5-9e6d-2a3144b29b03> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lib.unc.edu/blogs/civilwar/index.php/2012/06/29/29-june-1862-the-west-or-right-bank-of-james-river-is-entirelyin-the-hands-of-the-rebels-nearly-the-whole-power-of-the-southern-confederacy-is-within-a-few-miles-of-us/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.90369 | 240 | 2.140625 | 2 |
Everyone seems to be talking about recent epic jazz documentary by Ken Burns. Americans are rarely without an opinion and the line seems to fall between two differing points of view. The general public and the jazz neophytes seem to have both appreciated and benefited from the series. A number of my history of jazz students with no previous knowledge of the style have expressed that they were unaware of the greatness of the art form and the music fans who sacrificed so much towards its evolution. In this way the Burns piece has got us discussing the music and thinking about its social impact and that in itself is important It is long overdue.
On the other hand, musicians, critics, and seasoned jazz fans are lamenting the many important musicians and concepts that the documentary omits. It is doubtful that the Burns’ series on the Civil War, and then on baseball, created such impassioned discussion. While there is no doubting the magnitude of their creative genius, the series seems to sacrifice the last 40 years of jazz evolution under the weight of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. They cast a long shadow which at times may have been excessive in the documentary, but I still prefer to see this as an important first step in this country’s attempting to understand our own American art form. Someone will have to come along to fill in these gaps at a later date, hopefully in the PBS format. All conservative Republicans please take note – this is why we have a National Endowment. There may be another way of looking at the Burns Jazz Series. Someone once said that “popularity is the crumbs of greatness” and this documentary reminds us that it is ultimately the artist’s impact on people and the nation that really matter. As we sweep the floor of the flavor-of-the week-pop music (Girl bands, boy bands, giraffe bands, etc.) we might be reminded of that Frank Zappa quote, “Americans hate music but they love entertainment.” The Burn series may open some doors and begin to help us discern the difference.
The real heroes of America are the common folk who make a difference by doing their work in an often less public light than the MTV generation has experienced. The late, great jazz bassist Milt Hinton taught us the benefits of giving to one another through jazz and that music can be an all encompassing mission of tolerance and love. (Can I get an amen?) The hell-bent on success, get out of my way if you can’t get me a record deal folks are the tree people who have truly missed the forest. Milt really knew the long way home, and showed quite a few of us, not with lecturing but leading by example.
No documentary, movie, play, song, or concert is perfect, and the debate of its merit that ensues can be tiresome. By looking at the Burns PBS series on jazz in a positive light, despite its faults, it may help us to go into the closet and pull out the measuring stick of greatness that was forgotten in America so long ago.
For Milt Hinton, thanks for everything, Judge. | <urn:uuid:100352e0-f873-4512-b7de-fd83c01530a3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.briantorff.com/writing/the-measure-of-greatness/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965119 | 639 | 1.820313 | 2 |
It wasn’t too long ago when Dubai, a city in the United Arab Emirates, Also shown is her sister, Adeline, and Sylvia Rudberg. was in the news for having indoor skiing in the middle of a desert. Now, it made the news again in a “60 Minutes report,” “A visit to Dubai, Inc.”
On its way to becoming a Middle Eastern version of New York City, Dubai is building up and out in quite a hurry.
Dubai Inc., is actually how Dubai’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, refers to his government. It is actually run like a business.
Sheikh Mohammed thinks that if the US and Europe can have it, why can’t Dubai? You name it, they’ve got it; and if they don’t have it, it won’t be long before they do.
Soon, Dubai will be home to the world’s largest shopping mall and the world’s tallest building, that, when finished, will be twice the size of the Empire State Building.
Sheikh Mohammed has big visions for Dubai and his city, some might call it ideal. After all, they don’t pay taxes, college tuition, or health care. Wouldn’t that be nice? Maybe we should all move to Dubai.
The majority of the city’s wealth comes from oil, and it can only get wealthier with corporations from around the world investing in Dubai.
By attracting corporations with free trade zones, no taxes, fewer regulations, and other incentives, many are flocking to this city of opportunity.
What was desert just seven years ago, is now called the “largest construction site on earth.”
Many might find this extravagant and greedy. Steve Kroft from “60 Minutes” said Sheikh Mohammed has a “little bit of Donald Trump” in him.
Listening and watching this man, I got a sense of a man on a mission a man with ambition. This could be a turn-around for the Middle East and an example for countries fighting and in poverty.
He also claims no other Middle Eastern city could have done this due to a number of reasons including “lack of vision, heavy bureaucracy, lousy governments, and corruption.”
After all, he would be the one to know.
Sheikh Mohammed wants his people to have a good life now and he is doing whatever he can to make it possible.
I see nothing wrong with this. In fact, isn’t that what we want for the Middle East?
On a blog regarding this story, one person’s conspiracy theory was that Sheikh Mohammed and Iran made a deal to destroy the World Trade Center in order to make Dubai the new financial capital of the world.
Nice try, but I think that’s a bit far-fetched since there is enough wealth in the world to go around. Evidence of this can be seen by not charging taxes or making his people pay for health care and education. He also claims he is a “friend of the US and loves the country and its people.” He does admit, though, not liking our foreign policy.
Sheikh Mohammed’s plan also entails tourism. Many of the skyscrapers include, or will be built to include, hotels such as the first Giorgio Armani Hotel.
Dubai already has the most luxurious hotel in the world, with the cheapest room priced at $2,000 a night.
Sandy beaches, unlimited shopping, exciting night life, and a cultural melting pot. Sounds like a great place to visit, though to me.
It will be interesting to see how it all progresses. This could be the next New York or Paris. Either way, I like Sheikh Mohammed’s vision and what appears to be a love for his city and his people. | <urn:uuid:95953d1f-a86f-4151-94a2-5e07f223ef99> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.herald-journal.com/archives/2007/columns/km102207.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96053 | 818 | 1.914063 | 2 |
“I don’t have enough pressure” is a common complaint from operators that too often yields unconventional and impractical solutions from the maintenance department. Maintenance staff shouldn’t be charged with modifying airflows to accommodate demand increases or take it upon themselves to manipulate the system to appease operators.
However, without a standardized set of operating procedures and consistent schedule for routine items, such as filter cleaning and changes, your maintenance staff actually can cause more harm than good (and higher operating costs) by acting on instinct and presumption.
So, develop a schedule that emphasizes proper maintenance and efficiency. Regularly change filters in the air compressor and air system to ensure air quality and prevent costly pressure drops. Systematically inspect and replace filters to safeguard your air quality. Go beyond the air compressor and compressor room. Check airline and point-of-use filters within your facility. Those are just as important to maintain as the air compressor and air compressor room filters.
Inappropriate uses of compressed air take a huge toll on energy costs. Watch for applications that can be done more effectively or more efficiently without compressed air. For example, too often compressed air is used for cooling or other applications where much lower air pressure would suffice. Look for areas where your system has been compromised with irregular add-on uses; there’s likely a simple cost-effective and conventional solution that will dramatically reduce the pressure draw on your compressed air system.
Periodically adjust condensate drains on timers to ensure they open as intended and aren’t stuck open. Replacing timer drains with zero-loss drains to stop wasting compressed air is an even more effective solution.
Like nearly everything, a compressed air system operates with greater efficiency when it receives appropriate attention. The right compressor maintenance and operating practices cut energy costs and help prevent breakdowns that result in costly downtime and lost production. Small changes and minor savings quickly add up when you calculate their value over time.
Tim Last is vice president, quality air systems, for Atlas Copco Compressors, Rock Hill, S.C. E-mail him at firstname.lastname@example.org. | <urn:uuid:b65f46f5-8328-44cf-bab5-9c45fcda9a4e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.chemicalprocessing.com/articles/2009/204/?start=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927945 | 436 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Already a Bloomberg.com user?
Sign in with the same account.
Dec. 12 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. politicians love to celebrate, not chastise, big-time college athletics.
There were two exceptions: More than 100 years ago, when President Theodore Roosevelt intervened to clean up the brutality of college football, and almost 40 years ago, when Congress passed Title IX, requiring colleges and universities to allocate a fair share of their athletic budgets to women. Both worked.
Washington may be about to step in again. Top-level intercollegiate athletics, particularly football and basketball, are corrosively corrupt: cheating, paying players under the table and taking advantage of other athletes, while turning a blind eye to criminal activities, including, most recently, the sexual abuse of children.
The driving force is money; academic values are secondary. The term student athlete too often is a travesty. Powerful coaches run roughshod over academics, including college presidents.
Pennsylvania State University is illustrative. The fabled football coach, Joe Paterno, the president and the athletic director have been fired for covering up the alleged systemic abuse of young boys by one of the former assistant football coaches.
What makes the story more astonishing is that Paterno and Penn State were considered among the better people and programs in college football.
At the core, it’s about a lack of accountability. Penn State football games draw more than 100,000 fans into Beaver Stadium and the sport came to overshadow the university itself. Anything that threatened that money-making machine was swept under the rug. Penn State football was insular and arrogant. Coach Paterno was accountable only to himself.
Weeks after scandal erupted at Penn State, similar charges surfaced at Syracuse University. This time, they involved a powerhouse basketball team. An assistant coach was charged with sexually abusing boys. The omnipotent head coach, Jim Boeheim, called the accusers liars and implied it was all a shakedown.
“I’m not Joe Paterno” he said, adding, “nobody can keep me quiet.”
One alleged victim said Boeheim saw him in a hotel room on a trip with the accused assistant coach. When evidence came out buttressing some of the charges, Boeheim’s credibility plummeted. The basketball program at Syracuse is a smaller universe than Penn State football. Probably sensing the threat, the head coach changed his tune, saying he regretted the angry charges he had leveled at the alleged abuse victims. The assistant coach was fired, but so far the Syracuse chancellor is vowing support for Boeheim and the lucrative program.
Although there are no suggestions that the abuse of kids was involved, the cherished college basketball programs in Kentucky offer other examples of lack of accountability.
At the University of Louisville, Rick Pitino, one of the game’s more successful coaches, stresses family values, travels with a priest and in another job featured the Pope in his basketball guide. In 2009, he admitted that he had sex with a woman in a local bar and to later giving her $3,000 either for, in his account, health insurance or, by her account, for an abortion. The woman later was convicted of extortion. He was depicted as the victim, and she went to jail. He’s still highly compensated and celebrated by the university.
In Lexington, 76 miles away, the University of Kentucky’s coach, John Calipari, is treated like a god. Before coming to UK, he took two other teams to the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Final Four Men’s Championship. Both successes were later vacated because of cheating violations. Kentucky is now a basketball factory, bringing in great high school players who stay for a year, win games and turn professional. The president of this academic institution showers praise on the coach.
When accusations of NCAA rules violations were leveled against Ohio State’s powerful football coach, Jim Tressel, a few years ago, the university president, Gordon Gee, was asked if he was considering firing him.
Gee’s reply: “I’m just hoping the coach doesn’t dismiss me.”
Ultimately, Tressel was forced to resign. Buckeye fans now are celebrating the hiring last month of the legendary former Florida coach Urban Meyer. When Meyer was at Florida, in addition to winning two national titles, 25 of his players were arrested during his tenure, half on charges of felonies or violent misdemeanors.
And then there’s the fiasco called the Bowl Championship Series, or BCS, where, based on financial interests, major universities and colleges decide who is going to play for the national championship and in post-season bowl games. Unlike almost every other college sport, there’s no playoff system. Defenders of the BCS say playoffs would hurt student athletes even though they would be held during the holiday season when schools aren’t in session.
Lawmakers led by Utah Republican Senator Orrin Hatch successfully persuaded the Justice Department to consider the antitrust implications of the BCS and college athletics.
On the other side of the spectrum, U.S. Representative Bobby Rush, a liberal Illinois Democrat, has likened the governing body of intercollegiate athletics to Al Capone and the Mafia. He called the NCAA “one of the most vicious, most ruthless organizations ever created by mankind.” Representative Joe Barton, a conservative Texas Republican, and Representative Steve Cohen, a liberal Democrat from Tennessee, are forming an anti-BCS caucus.
It probably would be foolish for Congress to legislate. No one has devised a sensible policy initiative. Oversight hearings with the power of subpoena are likely and easier to justify. Some of the most prestigious U.S. universities are participants in a system that debases academic values.
The best palliative would be for university presidents to take charge of their football and basketball coaches and athletic directors.
With all the money at stake, that’s unlikely. Several years ago, well before the sex abuse scandal broke, the president of Penn State, Graham Spanier, went to the home of Paterno, who was then 77, and asked him to retire. He was sent away.
(Albert R. Hunt is the executive editor for Washington at Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)
--Editors: Max Berley, Mark McQuillan.
To contact the writer of this column: Albert Hunt in Washington at firstname.lastname@example.org
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Max Berley at email@example.com. | <urn:uuid:939a331b-1a79-4e04-96e4-0cb42e207ba3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-12-12/college-sports-need-a-government-intervention-albert-r-hunt.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970178 | 1,375 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Filed under: Wings
You wouldn't think that the Las Vegas to London route would be a popular flight but it seems that rivals British Airways and Virgin Atlantic are in a battle for Vegas supremacy. The first nonstop British Airways flight from London to Las Vegas landed Sunday night at McCarran International Airport. Passengers on the inaugural flight included Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman and British Airways CEO Willie Walsh, who was making his first trip to Las Vegas. The picture above shows the water arch used to honor maiden flights.
British Airways plans to run flights on twin-engine Boeing 777s from London to Las Vegas and they are offering some pretty tempting rates. BNET reports that it costs just $276 for roundtrip economy flights from November 2 to December 20 and December 24 to March 28 if tickets are purchased this week. British Airways' London-Las Vegas flights will have 36 business seats, 24 economy plus seats and 212 regular economy seats. Virgin Atlantic has been doing this run since 2006 but British Airways has the advantage of flying out of Heathrow International Airport while Virgin flies out of the less-centrally-located Gatwick International Airport. | <urn:uuid:a87d1d56-307e-4040-bc62-bfea41aba853> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.luxist.com/tag/NonstopFlight/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952254 | 231 | 1.65625 | 2 |
I hadn't even landed to begin my new assignment before someone started crying.
"Are you excited?" I ventured to the woman weeping next to me on the plane from Miami to Port-au-Prince yesterday, because I honestly couldn't read her emotion, and because it seemed more polite than asking if she's freaking the fuck out because large parts of her home country are still, eight months after the quake of the ages, a planless pile of displacement and epidemic rape.
"It is not a good sensation," she said, and when I asked how come, she shook her head and waved her hand at me, because then she was crying too hard to talk. She's just here to get her papers in order, she told me eventually, for her new, post-quake permanent residency in Florida, where she's been chronically unemployed despite attempts to find work as a nutritionist.
You can't walk very far out of the airport without coming up to one of the almost 1,500 camps holding more than a million displaced people. Side-to-side-to-side sheets of plastic erected low in the sweltering heat, littered paths in the narrow dirt between rows. These would be the parts with the rape and very dubious future, where the poorest Haitians have ended up. Total physical insecurity, food and water insecurity to boot. No end in sight.
But outside, right around the edges, things are bustling. While we inch through traffic, past packed street stalls, my 27-year-old taxi driver, Charles, explains that this is as good a time as any to go into business. He comes from a middle-class family. He is going to become upper-class. On our 45-minute drive, there are stores in the buildings that are still standing; people everywhere skirt the rubble. Haiti looks different, Charles tells me, and there's still a lot of damage to the buildings, but things are essentially the same. There has always been a class of Haitians too poor to know what they're going to eat the next day. Politicians were wildly corrupt and didn't do right by the people before the quake, and that's not going to change after the November elections, so the earthquake hasn't made much difference for people who want to try to make their way in the country.
"Oh," Charles says when two tiny kids press themselves against my window to beg for money at a traffic stop. "My heart is breaking."
"This is heartbreaking too, hey?" I say, gesturing at a displacement camp a moment later. We pass one about every 15 seconds.
He shrugs. Meh.
"Have you ever been in one of these? To see what it's like?"
"It's horrible," a middle-aged radiologist hanging out at my hotel bar later that night says of the conditions, nodding in the direction of the camp just across the street. "It's horrible," he says again, then trails off, because no amount of drunken volubility allows him to describe how horrible it is. He is wealthy and white, and his house withstood the quake, but for fear that an aftershock would bring it down on top of him he decided to sleep in a tent in his mother's front yard for several months afterward. He had to get up early because it's insufferably hot as soon as the sun comes up, and the rain brings with it a whole other host of nightmares. "When I came out into the streets after the earthquake, everywhere there were just driverless cars, corpses, and people screaming from under the rubble. When the very ground beneath your feet betrays you? The last major earthquake in Haiti was before the United States was even a country. We are used to only two threats here: fire and hurricanes. So we build everything out of cement. And then when it collapses... "
But: "C'est la vie." The men at the bar commend me for my concerns about media mutterings that there needs to be a plan for weaning displaced Haitians off aid, implying that they're drowning in it, when in fact people are hungry enough to trade sex for food-aid cards. But I mustn't neglect the other Haiti: Do not miss a chance to go to the beautiful beach, they say. I must go to the port city of Jacmel while I'm here, not to see a clinic project but for a nice lunch and some drinks. The radiologist wants to helpfully direct me around his country because he's glad when journalists come. It's important for maintaining their political process.
Speaking of politics: Years ago, he announces at some point in the evening, there were only two mosques in Haiti. Now there are 41. Eyes go wide, head-shaking and murmurs of "I didn't know that." Sentences that start with "I don't have anything against Muslims, but..." "If you want to come to my house as my friend, you are welcome, but if you come to my house as a Muslim who wants to convert people to Islam, stay away." Et cetera.
And to think some of my friends were worried I was going to get culture shock.
Help fund Mac's Haiti trip—without spending a dime of your own money. Just visit spot.us to earn $10 in pitch credit and donate it to Mac's reporting. | <urn:uuid:26923b33-0739-49dd-a6b4-6f36320c28f4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.motherjones.com/rights-stuff/2010/09 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982518 | 1,105 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Hahaha.... Today is the 1st day of chinese new year. I'm at home waiting for Ang Pow to come. Chinese New Year is full of customs. For example, before chinese new year, we need to do spring cleaning and buy new clothles. It is considered unlucky to wear old clothles on CNY. Then there is the ang pow and the Kum (mandarin oranges).
Have you ever wondered, why do people exchange Kum on CNY? Traditions say that the word "Kum" sound like "gold". And exchanging Kum is like exchanging gold. BUT, why do I want to exchange gold with someone? I take 2 gold balls, exchange with your 2 gold balls, I end up still having 2 gold balls. Maybe I might get better looking, bigger and heavier gold balls. But what the whole point? I don't gain anything right?
And have you ever wondered, Why kum? Why not other fruits? Pineapple for instance is called "Ong Lai" which mean something like "Luck come". Isn't exchanging luck better than exchanging gold? Or maybe some other stuff. Why must it be kum?
Does anyone likes to eat Kum? Or rather, does anyone buy kum besides during CNY? I don't think so. I am beginning to think that all these exchanging of kum is just a conspiracy thought up by some kum farmers long time ago. Look, without this tradition, who would still buy their kum? Maybe some people will, but not many. And look at the way people buy the kum during Chinese New Year. Carton by carton. Some people give kum as gift before CNY. Everyone would buys extra kum just incase some of them are spoilt.
These nasty fruits are the fastest decaying fruits I've ever seen. They decay within 2 weeks
!!! Kum farmers must find a way to sell their kum fast or they will just rot and spoilt in the marketplace. And since these kum are usually harvested around January, why not start a tradition of exchanging kum during chinese new year?
Excellent plan! Now the kum farmers can continue to grow kum and still manage to sell them before they start to rot. And we chinese will be having a headache on how do we settle the kum after chinese new year.
And I tell you, I have alot of kum this year. You see lah, we need some kum as offering to the god. Some for exchanging with relatives and friends. And some extra in case these nasty-decaying-fruits decide to rot before the guest come. Usually, we get 1 carton of kum. But this year, my dad's trying-to-be-good friend decided to give us 1 more carton of kum. HORROR!
Guys and gals, point to note. Never ever ever give one carton of kum as gift during CNY. NEVER. Most people would had bought their own kum already. Next time, try giving ba kwa or spring roll or something-that-doesn't-decay-so-fast.
Anyone have any suggestions on how to settle these kum after CNY?
Yeap, all these kum are at my house now. No photoshop. And no, my dad doesn't sell fruits.
What to do with kum after chinese new year?
BTW: I posted similar question in forum and these horny guys and gals are using the thread to talk about "Cum" instead of "Kum". You guys very ham sup leh. I got a big issue here and all you all talk is who "Cum" on who. | <urn:uuid:adbe6c24-55de-4aa5-8a18-2e0cb0668f63> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://decayonnet.blogspot.com/2006_01_01_archive.html | 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 | 0.972586 | 771 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Love. Not Loss.
The best way to rekindle a lost love is not to talk about what went wrong — extinction, habitat loss or resource scarcity. It’s to remember what we loved in the first place.
HOW TO TELL A LOVE STORY
If you want a happy ending for nature and people, it has to be a love story. Personalize. Humanize. Publicize. Starting now. IUCN CEC announces a new campaign with a series of short films including ‘How to Tell a Love Story’.
How to Join the Campaign
What can you do? Join the communications campaign launched in Jeju!
- Share the love – Pass the videos on to your networks and use them in your work.
- Tell us your love story – There are many different avenues for people to share their love stories, like Twitter #lovenotloss, IUCN Facebook, CEC Facebook and the CEC e-newsletter. Share links to websites that use positive communication about nature.
- Love nature – Next time you talk about nature, make sure it’s a love story. Here are some examples.
This promotion pack gives you all the tools you’ll need to help us share the love message and includes: images, links and text to share. We’d love you to watch these films and share them with your friends, colleagues or whoever you think should see them. Download the pack >>
Campaign Case Studies
Be inspired by three great examples: I Don't Eat Turtle Eggs, Motherlike Sundarbans, and Big Garden Birdwatch. Download the examples >>
Love. Not Loss.
Running 3.27 minutes, play this video at meetings to provoke practical discussion on communications strategies. Produced by Wildscreen for CEC and the SCBD.
What if we bottled up the incredible experiences people have of nature into an inspiring positive message? This video challenges the conservation community to create messages inspired by awe and wonder, not loss and extinction. The equation is LOVE + ACTION = PUBLIC CHANGE.
|Send us your comments here| | <urn:uuid:1b0573ca-e497-49c5-853e-a2400d0ff2b1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.iucn.org/about/union/commissions/cec/cec_how_we_work/love__not_loss_/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.901491 | 433 | 1.898438 | 2 |
Merit pay idea lacks substance
Liberal leadership candidate Kevin Falcon is quick to dismiss critics of his teachers’ merit-pay proposal as unclear on his concept.
Most distinctly, he suggests, his plan is not true “merit pay,” basing an individual’s salary on performance. Rather, it would provide cash bonuses to teachers deemed exceptional.
While this distinction seems a tenuous sticking point, Falcon is learned enough to realize the onus is on him to explain how his suggestion would work in practice.
The question is clear. How does one determine which teachers are more deserving of our tax dollars?
One common answer is measuring students’ academic improvement.
But while rising grade-point averages in one term would suggest greater learning, what about subsequent terms—after the cream has already risen?
Pity the pocketbook of the teacher who starts the year off with a bunch of Grade A all-stars, with nowhere to go but stay the course or (gulp) drop.
How about student and parent feedback? Sure we’d see a lot of kowtowing by some. But would this really result in better classrooms?
Clocking teachers’ extracurricular hours? Not necessarily an accurate measurement of quality teaching, and could be akin to measuring fine dining by the pound.
In defending his plan, Falcon talks about his experiences as a student, and being encouraged by a teacher who got him into history and, subsequently, politics.
How would this have been measurable, had there been a like-minded premier in Falcon’s day? Is such excellence even quantifiable on paper?
Until a well-thought-out argument is put forth, teachers’ remuneration should continue to be negotiated in more traditional ways, with exceptional teachers compensated through the knowledge of a job well done and the occasional pat on the back. | <urn:uuid:7cea4170-393c-4c8f-8320-fc8794b0e6d0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kelownacapnews.com/opinion/114323909.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978946 | 385 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Only sixty seconds in it.
Forced upon me, can’t refuse it,
Didn’t seek it, didn’t choose it,
But it’s up to me to use it.
I must suffer if I lose it,
Give an account if I abuse it,
Just a tiny little minute,
But eternity is in it.
Benjamin E. Mays lived with a conviction about the sacredness of time – even one minute of time. How could our lives change if we had the same belief?
A minister, scholar, educator, social activist and advisor to several presidents, Dr. Benjamin E. Mays (1894-1984) was born to former slaves in Epworth, South Carolina. His childhood home is now a historic site and museum in Greenwood County.
He served as the Dean of the School of Religion at Howard University (1934-1940) and then as the President of Morehouse College (1940 to 1967).
Benjamin Mays was inspired by Frederick Douglas, a former slave and a leader in the Civil War-era abolitionist movement, and Booker T. Washington, also a former slave and advocate for the African-American community at the turn of the 20th century. He was one of the most articulate critics of segregation in the South in the years leading to the modern Civil Rights Movement.
He was a mentor to Dr. Martin Luther King beginning in his college days and continuing until his assassination in Memphis on April 4, 1968. MLK referred to him as a “spiritual mentor” and “intellectual father.” He delivered the eulogy at King’s funeral.
He instilled two concepts in Martin Luther King and all of his students: the dignity of all human beings and the incompatibility of American ideals and the entrenchment of racism and discrimination.
Dr. Benjamin E. Mays wrote 9 books, almost 2000 articles and received 56 honorary degrees.
Q4U: With Benjamin E. Mays, do we too see time as spiritual, as sacred? What if eternity is in time as we understand it? Even one minute of time. If we see time as sacred, how will it transform our schedule, our lives?
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE … | <urn:uuid:ed4adddd-651f-4789-bd6a-d158a895d3f1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.truenorthpublish.com/one-minute/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965255 | 473 | 2.578125 | 3 |
(Liliaceae - Lily Family)
- small perennial Spring-blooming bulb
- maturing at about 10" tall by 8" wide when in foliage and flower
- radiating clump growth habit
- full sun to partial shade
- best performance occurs in full sun in moist, rich, well-drained soils when bulbs are planted about 4" apart and 3" deep in September or October
- propagated by separation of bulb offsets, or less frequently by seeds
- Lily Family, with virtually no disease or pest problems, unless improperly sited too deeply or in a wet site, when bulb rot will occur
- abundantly available as dry bulbs in late Summer and throughout the Autumn
- Winter foliage is tolerant of temperatures down to 0 degrees Fahrenheit (-18 degrees Celsius), below which is suffers some degree of winterburn
- most effective if several bulbs are grouped together into a cluster, or
better yet that many are grouped together into a mass planting or lining a path
- allow foliage to senesce before its removal in early Summer
- dark green, emerging in late August or early September and remaining green throughout most Winters, elongating further in Spring at the time of floral emergence
- blades of leaves are senescing in late May and completely dead by late June, at which time they can be removed
- solid colors of purple, purple-blue, or white
- effective in flower for about two weeks in late April and early May
- the pyramidal inflorescence of many solitary short-pediceled flowers occurs on a scape (peduncle) that rises to 10" high
- the slightly fragrant inflorescences attract many bees
- flattened, circular green fruits mature to brown by late May
- the top of the scapes (with their immature fruits) should ideally be sheared off after floral senescence, for larger inflorescences the following Spring
- ID Summary
- unique foliage is green from late August through late May, then dying in June and entering a period of Summer dormancy before new foliage emerges
- pyramidal inflorescences are composed of many miniature purplish-blue flowers resembling upside-down urns, attracting many bees in early May
- good for beds, borders, raised planters, rock gardens, mass plantings, or naturalized areas, and looks best when planted in groups, drifts, or serpentine wide lines
- the Winter-green foliage can be used to outline both sides of a woodland path, stepper stone walkway, or sidewalk in Winter, and will be visible through shallow snows as a guide for walking
- fine texture
- thick density
- early Spring accent flowering bulb
- mildly fragrant Spring inflorescences, usually of a blue-purple color
- Winter-green foliage
- propagates itself over time, by bulb offsets and seed dispersal
- dried fruiting stalks will persist unless dead-headed
- attracts bees when in flower (this can be an asset, if pollination of other nearby plants is desired)
- zones 4 to 8
- native to Asia Minor
- other early Spring-flowering bulbs, especially the smaller-flowering bulbs (Crocus, Galanthus, Eranthis, Iris reticulata, species Narcissus, species Tulipa, etc.)
- the two common species (Muscari armeniacum & Muscari botryoides) are virtually indistiguishable in appearance, and have cultivars selected upon the basis of floral color, floral texture, and floral size
- Muscari is the Turkish name for the bulb.
- armeniacum translates as "of Armenia".
- the specific epithet for the other species, botryoides , translates as "like a bunch of grapes", which the inflorescences resemble.
- Muscari (Grape Hyacinth) is in the Lily Family, as is Hyacinthus (Hyacinth), the major bulb which is extremely fragrant but in a different genera.
- Grape Hyacinth is a representative of the minor bulbs which self-propagate, slowly spread with time, and maintain floral density and vigor, unlike the major bulbs (such as hybrid Hyacinths) which usually decline with time in bulb number and bloom vigor.
- Muscari armeniacum is known as a Spring-flowering bulb with nearly evergreen linear foliage (which dies back to the ground during mid-Summer).
Return to Search Form
Copyright © The Ohio State University
All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:c0200667-d3db-42a2-882b-c37686df68dc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hcs.ohio-state.edu/hcs/TMI/Plantlist/muscari.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.910265 | 952 | 2.890625 | 3 |
2. Write a ladder logic program that will count the number of parts in a buffer. As parts arrive they activate input A. As parts leave they will activate input B. If the number of parts is less than 8 then a conveyor motor, output C, will be turned on.
5. We are developing a safety system (using a PLC-5) for a large industrial press. The press is activated by turning on the compressor power relay (R, connected to O:013/05). After R has been on for 30 seconds the press can be activated to move (P connected to O:013/06). The delay is needed for pressure to build up. After the press has been activated (with P) the system must be shut down (R and P off), and then the cycle may begin again. For safety, there is a sensor that detects when a worker is inside the press (S, connected to I:011/02), which must be off before the press can be activated. There is also a button that must be pushed 5 times (B, connected to I:011/01) before the press cycle can begin. If at any time the worker enters the press (and S becomes active) the press will be shut down (P and R turned off). Develop the ladder logic. State all assumptions, and show all work.
6. Write a program that only uses one timer. When an input A is turned on a light will be on for 10 seconds. After that it will be off for two seconds, and then again on for 5 seconds. After that the light will not turn on again until the input A is turned off.
7. A new printing station will add a logo to parts as they travel along an assembly line. When a part arrives a ‘part’ sensor will detect it. After this the ‘clamp’ output is turned on for 10 seconds to hold the part during the operation. For the first 2 seconds the part is being held a ‘spray’ output will be turned on to apply the thermoset ink. For the last 8 seconds a ‘heat’ output will be turned on to cure the ink. After this the part is released and allowed to continue along the line. Write the ladder logic for this process.
9. Use the timing diagram below to design ladder logic. The sequence should start when input X turns on. X may only be on momentarily, but the sequence should execute anyway. Note that output A is normally on. | <urn:uuid:cfd6e30c-e4f2-4939-a4de-060e23004535> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://engineeronadisk.com/V2/book_PLC/engineeronadisk-68.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944871 | 518 | 3.34375 | 3 |
NASA's Curiosity rover has snapped its first color photo of the Martian landscape from the surface, using a camera that is still packed away on its long robotic arm.
The new Mars photo reveals a view of the terrain north of the Curiosity rover, and shows the north wall and rim of Gale Crater in the distance, NASA officials said Tuesday in an image description.
Curiosity touched down on the Red Planet on Sunday night inside Gale Crater, a sprawling impact basin that stretches 96 miles (154 kilometers) across. While a camera on the rover's underbelly snapped hundreds of color photos of Mars from above during the descent, the new image is the first color view from Curiosity on the ground.
Space news from NBCNews.com
Teen's space mission fueled by social media
Science editor Alan Boyle's blog: "Astronaut Abby" is at the controls of a social-media machine that is launching the 15-year-old from Minnesota to Kazakhstan this month for the liftoff of the International Space Station's next crew.
- Buzz Aldrin's vision for journey to Mars
- Giant black hole may be cooking up meals
- Watch a 'ring of fire' solar eclipse online
- Teen's space mission fueled by social media
The rover's first color surface photo was taken by the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI), which is located on a turret at the end of the rover's robotic arm. Curiosity snapped the photo on the afternoon of its first day after landing, which mission controllers label Sol 1 to mean the first Martian day of operations. Curiosity's Sol 1 on Mars began while Monday was in progress on Earth.
At this time, Curiosity's robotic arm is still stored the way it was when the spacecraft launched into orbit last Nov. 26. The robotic arm will be extended in upcoming days as Curiosity's mission team performs checks of the rover's systems. Later on Tuesday, Curiosity is expected to raise its camera-tipped mast, which can take high-resolution images of Mars, as part of those checks.
MAHLI's removable dust cover is coated with Martian dust kicked up during the rover's descent, giving the image its slightly fuzzy appearance. Mission managers are planning to take photos without the transparent dust cover in place in the coming weeks, as they continue checking out the rover's various instruments and system.
With the robotic arm still packed away, MAHLI looks out from the front left side of the rover, and is in a position that is rotated 30 degrees relative to the deck of the rover, NASA officials explained. This image has been rotated to correct that tilt, so the sky is "up" and the ground is "down" when viewing the landscape.
Curiosity's MAHLI camera is designed to capture detailed, high-resolution images of rocks and soil. The camera's sharp focus makes it capable of taking photos of small objects up close, as well as sprawling Martian landscapes.
The $2.5 billion Curiosity rover is expected to spend at least 98 weeks (two Earth years) exploring Gale Crater during its primary mission. The robot is the largest rover ever sent to Mars and carries a sophisticated set of instruments to determine if Mars can now, or could ever in the past, be habitable for microbial life.
- Gallery: Mars Rover Curiosity Landing Success
- Mars Rover Curiosity: Mars Science Lab Coverage
- Curiosity Rover's Descent Images Reach Earth | Video
© 2013 Space.com. All rights reserved. More from Space.com. | <urn:uuid:2078e515-ec88-4bae-9432-757c48643f60> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nbcnews.com/id/48553327/ns/technology_and_science/t/rover-sends-first-color-snapshot-martian-surface/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928678 | 715 | 2.78125 | 3 |
by Erik Olin Wright, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Erik Wright is President-Elect of the American Sociological Association and the theme of his Presidency will be “envisioning real utopias,” which is also the title of his latest book. I assigned him the task of explaining in less than 1500 words what he means by real utopias and what is their relevance for global sociology. Do you think he passed?
The idea of real utopia is rooted in what might be termed the foundational claim of all forms of critical sociology: we live in a world in which many forms of human suffering and many deficits in human flourishing are the result of the way our social structures and institutions are organized. Poverty in the midst of plenty does not reflect some unalterable law of nature; it is the result of the way the existing social organization of power and inequality massively affects the possibilities for human flourishing. This foundational claim suggests three central tasks for a critical sociology: first, the diagnosis of the social causes of these harms; second, the elaboration of alternative institutions and structures; and third, the development of a theory of transformation which tells us how to get from here to there. The study of real utopias is one way of approaching the second of these tasks.
The utopia in “real utopia” means thinking about alternatives to dominant institutions in ways that embody our deepest aspirations for a just and human world. This is fundamentally a moral issue: figuring out the moral standards by which institutions should be judged and exploring how alternative institutional arrangements might more fully realize those values. The real in “real utopia” also explores alternatives to dominant institutions, but focuses on problems of unintended consequences and self-destructive dynamics. What we need are clear-headed, rigorous models of viable alternatives to existing social institutions that both embody our deepest aspirations for human flourishing and also take seriously the problem of the practical design of workable institutions – and thus are attentive to what it takes to bring those aspirations to the real world.
Exploring real utopias implies developing a sociology of the possible, not just of the actual. But how can we do this without falling into idle armchair speculation? One of the most fruitful strategies is to identify actually existing social settings that violate the basic logics of dominant institutions in ways that embody emancipatory aspirations and prefigure broader utopian alternatives. The task of research is to see how these cases work and identify the ways in which they facilitate human flourishing; to analyze their limitations, dilemmas and unintended consequences; and to understand ways of developing their potentials and enlarging their reach. The temptation in such research is to be a cheerleader, uncritically extolling the virtues of promising experiments. The danger is to be a cynic, seeing the flaws as the only reality and the potential as an illusion.
The study of inspiring empirical cases, however, is only part of the agenda of real utopias. Focusing exclusively on empirical cases tends to narrow the conception of alternatives to specific kinds of institutions, often at a fairly micro-level of social organization. We also need an understanding that “another world is possible” at the macro-level of the functioning of social systems as a whole. In the past that kind of discussion revolved around the epochal contrast between capitalism and socialism. To explore this kind of system-level alternative requires more abstract theoretical analysis of different models of social and economic structures. A fully developed sociology of real utopias integrates the concrete empirical investigation of institutions that prefigure emancipatory alternatives with such abstract theoretical discussions of the principles underlying alternative systems.
In this short essay there is not space to elaborate this full agenda. What we can do is put some flesh on the bare-bones idea of studying real utopias by examining two illustrative empirical cases. Each of these cases embodies, if still in partial and incomplete ways, the utopian vision of radical, democratic egalitarian alternatives to existing institutions. The first comes from the Global South; the second from the Global North.
Urban Participatory Budgeting
The idea of a ‘direct democracy’ in which citizens personally participate in making democratic decisions within a political assembly seems, to most people, hopelessly impractical in a complex modern society. The development of what has come to be known as ‘participatory budgeting’ is a sharp, real utopian challenge to that conventional wisdom. Here is the basic story: Participatory budgeting was introduced almost by accident in the city of Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 1989. Porto Alegre is a city of around one and a half million inhabitants in the south-east corner of the country. In late 1988, after long years of military dictatorship and a period of transition to democracy, a left-wing party won the mayoral election in the city but did not control the city council, and thus faced the prospect of having four years in office without being able to do much to advance its progressive political program.
Faced with this situation, the activists in the party asked the classic question, what is to be done? Their answer was a remarkable institutional innovation: the participatory budget, a novel budget-making system anchored in the direct participation of ordinary citizens. Instead of the budget being formulated from the top down, Porto Alegre is divided into regions each of which has a participatory budget assembly. There are also a number of city-wide budget assemblies on various themes of interest to the entire municipality – cultural festivals, for example, or public transportation. The mandate for each of these participatory budget assemblies is to formulate concrete budget proposals, particularly for infrastructure projects of one sort or another. Any resident of the city can participate in these assemblies and vote on the proposals. After ratifying these regional and thematic budgets, the assemblies choose delegates to participate in a city-wide budget council for a few months until a coherent, consolidated city budget is adopted.
The participatory budget has been functioning effectively in Porto Alegre since the early 1990s. In some years the budget process is vibrant, actively involving thousands of residents in city budget deliberations; in other years, especially when discretionary spending is limited, participation declines. By all accounts the participatory budget has contributed to invigorating public involvement in city affairs and redirecting city spending towards the needs of the poor and disadvantaged rather than of elites. Overall, then, the participatory budget has opened a space for an expansion and deepening of democracy beyond the limits of what had been thought possible.
In the years since the invention of the participatory budget in Porto Alegre, there have been over 1000 cities around the world in which some form of participatory budgeting has been tried. This is an instance in which a real utopia innovation in the Global South has migrated to the developed regions of the world.
Imagine that in 2000, before Wikipedia existed, someone proposed to produce, within ten years, an encyclopedia with about 3.5 million English entries which would be of sufficient quality that it would become the first place to which millions of people would turn to get basic information on a very wide range of topics. Then suppose that this person proposed the following institutional design for producing and distributing the encyclopedia: (1) the entries would be written and edited by hundreds of thousands of people around the world without pay; (2) anyone could be an editor and anyone could edit any entry in the encyclopedia; (3) access to the encyclopedia would be free to anyone in the world. Impossible! To imagine hundreds of thousands of people cooperating to produce a fairly high quality encyclopedia without pay and then distributing it at no charge flies in the face of economic theory that insists such widespread cooperation needs monetary incentives and hierarchy in order to be effective. Wikipedia is a profoundly egalitarian, anti-capitalist way of producing and sharing knowledge. It is based on the communist principle “to each according to need, from each according to ability.” It is organized on the central principles of horizontal reciprocities rather than hierarchical control. And, in less than a decade, is has basically destroyed the commercial market in encyclopedias that had existed since the 18th century.
Wikipedia is the most familiar example of a new form of noncapitalist, nonmarket production that has emerged in the digital age: peer-to-peer, collaborative, noncommercial production. These new forms of production, in turn, are closely connected to a number of other real utopian dimensions of the information economy, such as the creative commons, copyleft licensing, and open-source software. What remains to be seen, of course, is the extent to which these new forms will be corrosive of conventional capitalist forms of intellectual property rights, or simply increase the diversity of economic forms within a dominant capitalist economy.
These two examples illustrate the basic idea of social alternatives that run counter to the dominant ways of organizing power and inequality in contemporary institutions. These – and many other – examples open up new spaces for more egalitarian and democratic forms of social interaction. They reflect utopian aspirations for transformed conditions for human flourishing, yet they also seek ways of embodying those aspirations in real institutions. Understanding such possibilities is the point of the real utopias agenda. | <urn:uuid:ad075998-fcad-4993-9182-f56e303da1b7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.isa-sociology.org/global-dialogue/2011/07/real-utopias-for-a-global-sociology/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941342 | 1,872 | 2.28125 | 2 |
If you grew up in a small town, you probably knew someone like Takao Kasuga, the nebbish-hero of The Flowers of Evil. Kasuga is a precocious middle-schooler who copes with provincial life by burying his nose in a book. His peers tolerate him, but find him a little too smug and strange to be one of the guys. Kasuga, for his part, takes pride in his sophisticated reading habits, stashing poems in his desk and telling his classmates that they’re too stupid to appreciate his favorite writer, Charles Baudelaire.
In a moment of impulse, Kasuga steals the gym outfit of beautiful classmate Nanako Saeki — an act witnessed by Sawa Nakamura, the class outcast. Nakamura confronts Kasuga after school, threatening to expose him as the thief unless he complies with her requests. Her motives for blackmailing Kasuga are complex, a mixture of prurient interest in Kasuga’s sexual fantasies and sadistic delight in wielding power over a boy. At times Nakamura physically dominates him — she punches and tackles him — and at times she manipulates him with humiliating tasks and questions.
I’d be the first to admit that the similarities between Flowers of Evil and Sundome — however superficial — predisposed me to dislike the book. I didn’t think I had the stomach for another story in which a ball-busting girl sexually and psychologically tortured a sad-sack boy. Yet Flowers of Evil proved a far more compelling and honest look at adolescent sexuality than Sundome, thanks, in large part, to Shuzo Oshimi’s sympathetic portrayal of Kasuga.
Throughout the book, author Shuzo Oshimi hints that Kasuga’s character was inspired by his own experiences as a book-toting misfit. “I read Baudelaire’s Flowers of Evil for the first time in middle school,” he explains at the end of chapter one. “I didn’t understand much of it, but the book’s feel — suspicious, indecent, yet nastily noble — made me think, I’m so cool for reading it.” Kasuga, too, clearly feels a sense of superiority for having discovered Baudelaire at a young age; in a fit of self-pity, he muses, “How many people in this town understand Baudelaire?” At the same time, however, he’s keenly aware that his peers think he’s weird. Kasuga may be mature enough to appreciate Baudelaire — or perhaps, more accurately, to think he understands Baudelaire — but he isn’t quite old enough to shake off his classmates’ teasing.
Oshimi also does an exceptional job of dramatizing Kasuga’s inner sexual turmoil. Early in the book, for example, Kasuga catches sight of Saeki. In a flash, he pictures her clad in gym clothes, blushing and telling him, “I love you.” His acute embarrassment at being discovered mid-reverie is all the more palpable for the way in which he’s drawn: Kasuga sinks into his chair, his shoulders slumped, brows furrowed, and body foreshortened, making him look like a moist ragdoll. In later chapters, Oshimi uses surreal imagery — a wall of eyes, a fun-house mirror, a giant sink hole — to suggest that Kasuga’s normal teenage discomfort with sexual feelings has become something more powerful and destructive: shame.
If Kasuga is a sympathetic character, Nakamura poses greater difficulties for the reader. She claims her true agenda is to expose him as a pervert, but nothing about Kasuga’s behavior indicates that he is; if anything, Kasuga is naive, torn between romantic and sexual ideas about love. (That he calls Saeki “my muse, my femme fatale, my Venus” suggests the extent of his confusion.) Nakamura, too, appears to wrestling with complicated sexual feelings; in several scenes, she hints at her own predilections, only to accuse Kasuga of harboring even nastier ones. In short, Nakamura seems intent on finding someone more self-loathing and sexually confused than she is, yet her behavior is so violent and manipulative it sometimes feels as if Oshimi is trying too hard to suggest her disaffection; Nakamura’s character veers dangerously close to being a symbol of castration anxiety, rather than an emotionally damaged teenage girl.
That said, The Flowers of Evil is a shockingly readable story that vividly — one might even say queasily — evokes the fear and confusion of discovering one’s own sexuality. Recommended.
THE FLOWERS OF EVIL, VOL. 1 • BY SHUZO OSHIMI • VERTICAL, INC. • 202 pp. • NO RATING (BEST FOR OLDER TEENS) | <urn:uuid:05b3432c-2688-43ef-9301-29a5df164ffc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mangabookshelf.com/14582/the-flowers-of-evil-vol-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955871 | 1,049 | 1.632813 | 2 |
While the quality of heroin in Australia remains questionable, opioid users will continue to inject pharmaceutical opioids such MS Contin, fentanyl buprenorhpine, and of course, oxycontin, as they are cheaper and the purity is consistent. Unfortunately, there are many problems with injecting pharmaceutical pills such as oxycontin that need to be addressed.
Oxys are designed to be swallowed, not injected. They contain a lot of additives including chalk, glue and other fillers that are harmful when injected. Only a very small portion of the tablet is actually oxycodone, the active ingredient in medications such as Oxycontin and OxyNorm. The main problem with injecting oxys is that it can be difficult to separate the active ingredient oxycodone from the additives. These additives can damage and block your veins, which can eventually lead to ulcers and even gangrene and loss of limbs. Injecting pills also puts your liver and kidneys under extra strain, which can lead to very serious health problems. This is why, if you must inject, filtering is so important.
While the risks involved with injecting oxy can be reduced, there is no 100% safe way to inject these drugs. The safest way to take them is to swallow them (crush them up first and they will take effect faster). If you still decide to inject, you need to take the time to prepare your shot using some of the following tips. Your veins will thank you for it.
Remove the coating
Remove the coating from each pill with a new swab. Hold the pill and rub the coating off, but not so much as to make the pill go soft. Some people also scrape the coating off using a sharp knife or razor. Be very careful if using this method. Don’t stick the pill in your mouth and suck the coating off!! You will coat the pill in bacteria and could give yourself a dirty shot.
Crush the tablets
Crush the pills as finely as possible.
Most people find this to be the best procedure: take two spoons, one large (like a tablespoon) and one small (like a teaspoon). Swab both spoons. Put the pills in the large spoon. Put the smaller spoon on top of the large one so it fits inside the bowl of the spoon. Rock the top spoon from side to side, applying careful pressure, to break up the pills. Keep gently grinding and crushing the pills with the small spoon until you have a fine powder.
If you find using spoons is difficult, put the pills between two new, clean sheets of printer paper and rest on a table. Carefully roll a glass bottle or a rolling pin over the top piece of paper to crush the pills in between. Then tip the powder into a spoon.
If you are injecting a lot pills you might find a spoon is too small. Use a teacup or a small bowl to catch the powder, but make sure it is first properly washed and rinsed. When it’s dry, use some swabs to clean out the inside of the cup before you crush the pills.
Add sterile water to the mix. There are numerous opinions among oxy users about how much water to use, but it will depend on the number of pills you are mixing up, and this will depend on the strength of the tablets that you have. Obviously, if you have 80mg oxys then you will need to use less water than if you have only 20mg or 40mg tablets. The amount of pills used will also affect whether you use a 1ml insulin syringe or 3ml or 5ml barrel and tip. Users have different opinions about how many pills can fit into a 1ml insulin syringe. Some users say they put two pills in a 1ml fit (i.e. 60-80 units of water) while others say they can manage up to five pills in a 1ml syringe. You need to find out what works best for you.
“Mull up” with the swabbed end of the plunger or fit. Try to squash up as much of the powder as you can so it dissolves.
Allow the mix to settle for at least five (preferably 10) minutes.
To heat or not to heat?
There is a lot of contention over whether to heat the mix. Most people tend to heat up the mix rather than spend time waiting for the mix to separate. Some users say their shot is stronger if heated, others say it makes no difference.
Oxycodone is water soluble and OxyNorm is easy to dissolve. But Oxycontin is made differently, so it’s harder to break down. The glue, chalk and other fillers are not soluble. When heated, it will melt into a gluey mess. It’s this “glug” that can cause so many problems if injected.
If you must heat the mix, only use a small amount of heat. Turn your lighter down to the lowest setting. Hold the flame 2-3cm under the spoon and heat until the mix thins out. If you see bubbles begin to form then you are overheating it. You will see the fillers congeal into a solid mass floating on the top of the spoon or into a few lumps.
While the mix is still warm, place the spoon on an ice cube. The sudden decrease in temperature will further separate the fillers from the active solution.
Filtering - the most important part
There are a few different methods for filtering depending upon the equipment you have available and amount of pills you are using.
Micron or “wheel” filters are hard to obtain, but get them if you can – they filter most particles out. Some users think they lose some of the active ingredient when they use wheel filters, but research suggests that little of the active ingredient is lost if it’s filtered carefully.
Up to eight pills can be filtered using a 1.2 size filter. You will need to use a 3ml or 5ml barrel when using a micron filter.
Put the mix into a barrel. Pre-wet the filter by putting sterile water into another barrel. Then attach the filter and push some water through the it.
Now attach the filter to the barrel with your mix. Put a tip onto the filter. Take an empty barrel, put the tip into it, and push the mix very slowly through the filter into the new barrel.
If you are really diligent, you can start with a larger filter such as 1.2, then move down to a 0.2 size filter, which will take out bacteria as well.
Swab your fingers and make a filter about 8mm-1cm in diameter and drop it onto the edge of the mix (away from the solidified matter). Put your tip onto the cotton and slowly draw the solution through the cotton wool. Be careful to avoid any solid matter. If you can, repeat this process.
Cotton wool will take out particles larger than 50 microns.
The 3ml barrel and cotton wool method
This is a useful method to use when you are using more pills than will fit into a 1ml insulin syringe.
Take the plunger out of a 3ml or 5ml barrel. Swab your fingers and roll a wad of cotton wool about 2cm in diameter and drop into the barrel.
Force the cotton wool into the end of the barrel by replacing the plunger and squashing it down. Take the plunger out again. Carefully tip (or squirt from a syringe) the mix into the barrel onto the cotton wool. Replace the plunger (which can be a bit tricky) and gently squeeze the solution through. Repeat the process if you can.
Now your shot is ready. Stay safe!
Illustrations by Renata Pari | <urn:uuid:ae706f0c-d753-40c9-9842-f3c40c7adf46> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nuaa.org.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=611:injecting-oxycontin&catid=32:users-news-issue-no-62-spring-2010&Itemid=84 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93381 | 1,607 | 2.234375 | 2 |
Posted by Dan O’Brien
Electoral systems are like exchange rate regimes – none is perfect and all have downsides. I have not suggested that changing Ireland’s system is a panacea, but rather that it, and the making more normal the way the executive is formed, would be the two biggest steps in improving the effectiveness of government in Ireland.
Mixed member proportional systems, such as those in Germany and New Zealand, have single seat constituencies (elected on a FPTP basis) and (closed) national lists which ensure proportionality. I am not suggesting the first part.
I propose keeping multimember constituencies and keeping STV for them (which would not mean all these seats going to FF and FG or a number of other consequences you suggest). The only change in this aspect would be that the constituencies would be roughly twice the size, as they would return, in total, only 83 TDs. This would have the additional benefit of further reducing excessive localism as each TD would need a higher quota and would therefore need to appeal to a larger number of voters (let me be clear here: it is all about trying to get a balance between local and national focus, and not about being hostile to local focus).
As for the national list, I would suggest a closed list. I don’t see the need for this to be linked to the other half, to ensure perfect proportionality, although it could be.
Parties would have an incentive to make the list as attractive as possible and to avoid putting cronies on it. Neither Germany nor New Zealand has any real problem with parliaments packed with cronies. In addition, Ireland’s political parties appear to be trusted by voters – their pecking order in seat numbers hasn’t changed since the1930s, the longest such period of stability in any democracy – so why should there be such fear of trusting them with lists?
There is the wider issue of the relationship between political institutions and government effectiveness. As readers of this site know, there is a vast body of literature on this (as it happens UCD’s Sebastian Dellepiane-Avellaneda, has a nice review article of the literature in the January issue of the British Journal of Political Science). But the literature has focused on differences between developed and developing countries rather than the smaller differences among developed countries. There is an absence of comparative work on the relationship between electoral systems on the one hand and, on the other, parliamentarians’ calibre, how they use their time and legislative output. Despite this, it seems as if political scientists in Ireland mostly support retaining the STV because they believe it to be at least as good as other systems. If this is the case why have the dozens of countries that have considered its merits over decades not opted for it? | <urn:uuid:96c26846-8ec2-42b6-b29d-bd7a7ac97aea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://politicalreform.ie/2010/05/19/electoral-reform-is-not-a-panacea-but-it-will-have-effects/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977305 | 577 | 2.15625 | 2 |
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Democrats in the House and Senate are on the same page when it comes to health reform. They want it.
They even agree on some of the biggest ticket items in bills that they will be combining when they return from their holiday in January.
But there are a couple of areas where the head-butting could be fierce. Key among them: Taxes.
Here are a few of the ways the two chambers differ in their thinking:
The House and Senate both have provisions that would tax high-income households more to pay for reform. But they do so very differently.
The House leans on them heavily. It would impose a 5.4% surtax on a taxpayer's adjusted gross income over $500,000 ($1 million for couples filing jointly). The surtax would go into effect in 2011 and is estimated to raise $460 billion by 2019. The income thresholds would not adjust for inflation, so over time the tax would capture more and more taxpayers.
Critics of the surtax say it would not help reduce health care costs or spending, goals that have taken a backseat to insuring more Americans.
The surtax isn't likely to make it into a final piece of legislation because it doesn't have sufficient support in the Senate, where there are no votes to spare.
But in an apparent nod to the House's preference to tax the rich, the Senate bill would impose a higher Medicare tax on an individual's income over $200,000 ($250,000 for couples). The increase would start in 2013, and is estimated to raise $87 billion by 2019.
Currently, the Medicare payroll tax is 2.9% on all wages -- with the worker and his employer each paying 1.45%. Under the Senate bill, these high-income workers would pay 2.35%. (See correction.)
Supporters of the tax increase say it would help the long-term funding of Medicare. But the Congressional Budget Office put the kibosh on that argument. You can't use the tax to help pay for health-care reform and long-term Medicare needs -- that's double-counting, the CBO said.
Critics of the payroll tax hike say, that like the House surtax, it won't curb health costs or spending.
If your company picks up most of your health-insurance tab, many think that benefit should be taxed at least somewhat, especially for very generous plans. Critics worry about the consequences of hiking taxes on workers.
The Senate tries to sidestep the issue by focusing the tax on insurers. Its bill would impose a 40% tax on insurers for the portion of employer health plans that exceed $8,500 for individual coverage and $23,000 for family coverage.
Higher thresholds would apply to plans that provide coverage to high-risk professions and to workers over 55.
The measure would go into effect in 2013 and would raise an estimated $149 billion by 2019.
Opponents maintain the tax would still ultimately be borne by workers, as insurers pass along the higher costs.
Supporters say the tax holds the promise of reducing the growth in health spending over time. Their reasoning: As the cost of plans grow more expensive, employers will instead opt for lower-cost options to avoid the tax.
And, the economic theory goes, once employers start spending less money on healthcare they will use the money saved to pay workers higher wages. The workers will then owe income tax on those higher wages, providing revenue to help pay for health reform.
Both the House and Senate bills have measures that would subsidize the cost of insurance for low- and middle-income families. But both also require that most Americans obtain coverage.
Those who fail to acquire adequate coverage under the House bill would be subject to a tax equal to the lesser of 2.5% of one's modified adjusted gross income, or the national average premium for single or family coverage, whichever is relevant.
Those who are claimed as dependents on a taxpayer's return would not be subject to the penalty themselves. But their parent or guardian would be responsible for providing them coverage. Parents may include their children up to age 26 on their insurance policy under the House bill.
The measure would go into effect in 2014 and raise an estimated $33 billion by 2019.
Under the Senate bill, those who fail to have adequate coverage would have to pay a penalty that would increase over time. "Generally, the penalty would start at $95 in 2014, $495 for 2015 and $750 for 2016 with indexing for inflation [thereafter]," according to a CCH Tax Briefing paper.
The measure, in conjunction with a penalty on employers who fail to meet the requirements under the bill to help workers get coverage, is estimated to raise $36 billion by 2019.
For those who would rather look good than avoid skin cancer, they would face a 10% excise tax on indoor tanning services under the Senate bill. The provision would go into effect in 2011 and raise an estimated $2.7 billion by 2019.
The Senate bill includes another revenue raiser affecting individuals that is not included in the House bill. Currently, you can deduct medical expenses that exceed 7.5% of adjusted gross income. The Senate bill, would raise that threshold to 10% for anyone under 65 starting in 2013, and would apply to seniors 65 and older by 2017.
The measure would raise an estimated $15.2 billion by 2019.
Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated what the increased Medicare payroll tax rate would be for individuals.
|Overnight Avg Rate||Latest||Change||Last Week|
|30 yr fixed||3.66%||3.58%|
|15 yr fixed||2.79%||2.72%|
|30 yr refi||3.64%||3.57%|
|15 yr refi||2.79%||2.72%|
Today's featured rates:
Glass employees speak openly on public concerns More
Property prices continued to rise last month in China, defying policymakers who have sought to cool the housing market while preserving robust economic growth. More
Small business owners say they're not yet feeling the effects of an improving economy, and most aren't rushing to hire, or seeking funds to invest in their businesses. More
Between ballooning student loans, credit cards and money owed to family members, graduates of the class of 2013 are facing an average $35,200 in debt, a Fidelity survey found. More | <urn:uuid:fa972f45-25ef-4aa8-8916-4142710bc999> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://money.cnn.com/2009/12/31/pf/taxes/health_reform_taxes/index.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964862 | 1,335 | 1.554688 | 2 |
It's red hot, mate. I hate to think of this sort of book getting in the wrong hands. As soon as I've finished this, I shall recommend they ban it.
Once in a while it really hits people that they don't have to experience the world in the way they have been told to.
Beauty is the first present nature gives to women and the first it takes away.
George B Mere
There was a time when I used to get lots of ideas... I thought up the Seven Deadly Sins in one afternoon. The only thing I've come up with recently is advertising.
Time is shortening. But every day that I challenge this cancer and survive is a victory for me.
If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.
I was approached to do a film script for the Beatles. I said it would have to be an absolutely original script. Paul McCartney said do whatever you like. I said that means you'll never be able to do it.
Friendship is a very simple word, very commonly used. The word friend is almost used on a daily basis. Yet, the depth and meaning of friendship certainly go beyond the simple and the common. Throughout history friendship has been a favorite theme for many writers. The following passages highlight what others have said about friendship in the past.
Strategy is buying a bottle of fine wine when you take a lady out for dinner. Tactics is getting her to drink it.
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love. | <urn:uuid:d0cd9af8-b5ed-4615-8862-11adffb604db> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.iwise.com/vid/Kenneth_A_Wells_video | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972853 | 325 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Facebook was on Tuesday granted a U.S. patent for aspects of its news feed, as was first reported by AllFacebook. The patent, which covers methods for dynamically parsing and distributing information about what users have done on a social network to other users of that social network, names CEO Mark Zuckerberg as inventor along with other Facebook engineers and product people. It was originally filed in August 2006, before the Facebook news feed launched that September.
The patent is particularly valuable because news-feed style communication has become pervasive since it was launched on Facebook. However, it’s not clear that there aren’t precedents for the technology; for instance, the social network Multiply.com had a similar interface for keeping track of friends’ actions before Facebook launched its own.
Facebook, which said in a statement it was “humbled” and “pleased” by the patent, may well choose not to enforce it. In fact, one of the more important social networking patents, from the early site Six Degrees, was bought by LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman and Tribe.net/Zynga’s Mark Pincus explicitly to promote an open playing field for the sector by taking it away from people who might choose to enforce it in the courts. However Friendster, which was recently bought by a Malaysian company, made much of the fact that had obtained five U.S. social networking patents, at times using the patents to scare off the competition, at least in the press.
The core invention of the Facebook patent is as follows:
A method for displaying a news feed in a social network environment is described. In some embodiments, the method includes generating news items regarding activities associated with a user of a social network environment and attaching an informational link associated with at least one of the activities, to at least one of the news items. The method further includes limiting access to the news items to a predetermined set of viewers and assigning an order to the news items. The method further includes displaying the news items in the assigned order to at least one viewing user of the predetermined set of viewers.
Here’s Facebook’s statement, provided by email:
The launch of News Feed in 2006 was a pivotal moment in Facebook¹s history
and changed the way millions of people consumed and discovered information
on the site. We¹re humbled by the growth and adoption of News Feed over time
and pleased with being awarded the patent.
Related content from GigaOM Pro: Monetizing the Social Web Isn’t One Size Fits All
Please see the disclosure in my bio with regards to Facebook. | <urn:uuid:c25178e3-d41f-4143-8d5f-c727e0d9c715> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gigaom.com/2010/02/25/facebook-granted-news-feed-patent/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96412 | 545 | 1.921875 | 2 |
NSF grant for spectrometer to enhance biology, chemistry studies
(Note: This article contains updated information and replaces an earlier announcement that appeared on Daily Digest and Gallaudet's online news page.)
Gallaudet's science program will be greatly enhanced from a grant proposal approved by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the amount of $290,000 for a Varian 400 modern research-caliber nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometer, an instrument used in organic chemistry and biology teaching and research. The grant was awarded to the University of the District of Columbia (UDC), in partnership with Gallaudet and The Catholic University of America (CUA).
The NMR spectrometer will be housed at UDC, and access to the instrument will be shared with faculty and students at Gallaudet and CUA. Because UDC's proposal also requested funding for the interface modules and software that allow remote access, along with consoles to be located on the partner campuses, Gallaudet will be able to access the NMR data and process it virtually from Kendall Green.
"The acquisition of this instrument is beneficial to Gallaudet University's chemistry and biology departments," said Dr. Paul Sabila, an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Physics, and co-principal investigator for the project. "The NMR Spectrometer will be useful in teaching organic chemistry classes and for providing Gallaudet chemistry students with critical instrumental and research skills required for internship, work, and graduate school."
NMR instruments, just like MRI (magnetic resonance imaging), use radio frequency radiations and are used by scientists to identify or determine the bond connections and three-dimensional structures of simple organic molecules like glucose, as well as complex ones like DNA and proteins, Sabila explained.
The collaboration on the grant opens new avenues for the partnering universities to write proposals for other important instruments in the future and for faculty and students to interact and share ideas. "As a way of making our students more competitive in the job market, the Chemistry and Physics Department has been aggressively reaching out to other institutions for more collaborative ventures and new opportunities to provide internship and training experience before graduation," said Sabila. "The broad impacts include making the chemistry major more attractive, and thereby ensuring that Gallaudet University is the university of first choice among deaf and hard of hearing individuals."
"We are excited about the possibilities of our students having access to the equipment and being lead by Dr. Sabila on a project specific to the use of that equipment," said Dr. Christine Katsapis, director of Gallaudet's Office of Sponsored Programs. "He should be congratulated heartily for developing an advantageous partnership with other institutions that increase Gallaudet's capacity for scientific activities and research."
An announcement about the NSF grant award also appeared in UDC's Firebird.
(This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under CHE-1040094. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.) | <urn:uuid:08ac45f6-609a-4679-a95e-329539cfc992> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gallaudet.edu/News/NSF_grant_spectrometer.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932173 | 640 | 2.09375 | 2 |
Planning and showing accounting facts are not just a mechanised process that can be for every?formed entirely with a personal computer and even by well-trained paperwork staff. A characteristic present with all recognized vocations, including medication, law, and also accounting, will be the requirement for skilled individual professionals to fix difficulties using their expert common sense and using powerful honest requirements. The difficulties encountered inside the exercise of the profession in many cases are complex, as well as the certain circumstances unique. Most of the time, the actual well-being of others will be straight impacted by the work of the expert.
To illustrate the importance of competence, professional view, and also ethical behav?ior inside the preparing of economic claims, look at the pursuing intricate problems that should be addressed through the accountant:
At what point possess certain intricate purchases really occurred, thereby which makes it required to include them in fiscal reports that are delivered to traders as well as creditors?
At what point should a great venture account for transactions which carry on over a long period of time, such as a long-term contract to create a good interstate freeway?
Just what makes up adequate disclosure of information that might be anticipated by way of a fairly educated consumer of monetary claims?
At what point certainly are a company’s economic problems sufficient to question whether it will likely be in a position to remain in company for the long run, so when need to that details end up being conveyed to be able to users of their fiscal reports?
When have initiatives simply by management to improve (which is, “window dress”) its fiscal reports crossed a line that is inappropriate, making the actual financial statements actually inaccurate to buyers and also creditors?
Common sense always requires some risk of error. Some mistakes in common sense derive from neglect or perhaps lack of experience on the part of the preparer of financial info or perhaps the delaware?cision maker that uses in which information. Other folks occur simply because potential events are uncertain and do not work out as expected if the information was well prepared.
In the event the open public would be to have confidence in the particular common sense associated with professional an accountant, these accountants initial need to illustrate that they possess the manifestation of competence. Both the accounting occupation and state governing bodies have got measures to assure the actual bar?lic with the technical proficiency regarding certified public accountants (Certified public accountants). CPAs are certified through the states, in quite similar method as states licence doctors as well as attorneys. The accreditation requirements fluctuate somewhat from state to state, however in basic, a great individ?ual has to be of good persona, have a schooling with a key within accounting, move a rigorous evaluation, and possess a few years associated with data processing experience. Additionally, many declares need all CPAs to invest at least 40 several hours per year inside ongoing professional education throughout their professions.
From the year 2000, the AICPA needs it’s sign ups to possess finished One hundred fifty term hrs of school work. This kind of symbolizes about 1 further year beyond any college degree, which will needs roughly 120-125 term several hours. Many says are usually altering their licensing needs to mirror this kind of expectancy of better-educated entrants into the sales occupation.
Management an accounting firm aren’t necessary to end up being licensed because CPAs. Nevertheless, they will vol?untarily may make a Certificate in Management Accounting (CMA) or a Document inside Interior Auditing (CIA) because evidence of their professional competence. These certificates are issued by the IMA and the IIA, and symbolize competence within management data processing and interior auditing, respectively. The requirements with regard to being a CMA and Pro’s are similar to individuals regarding being a CPA.
Integrity within data processing information needs integrity along with a powerful commitment to eth?ical conduct-doing the right thing. For a expert accountants, moral habits is equally as significant as competence. Nevertheless, it is far more challenging to analyze or even enforce.
Several expert organizations possess codes associated with ethics or even professional conduct in which direct the activities of their members. The particular AICPA, for example, has a program code regarding specialist carry out in which conveys the particular sales profession’s acknowledgement of its duties to the open public, in order to customers, and to fellow workers. The particular concepts within the code manual AICPA members inside the efficiency of the professional duties. This particular program code conveys the fundamental tenets regarding eth?ical as well as professional conduct and it has already been codified directly into regulation in lots of says.
An individual being a Professional Accountant
You’re expert accountancy firm working for the open public accounting company and find yourself in the hard circumstance. You have found some problems inside the fi?nance records of your business’s client. You are unsure regardless of whether these irregulari?jewelry are the consequence of neglect on the part of the business’s staff or perhaps signify purposive actions taken to cover up questionable actions. A person approach your own exceptional relating to this and she or he indicates that you need to neglected. Her response is “These things hap?pen constantly and usually tend to be quite minor. We are on the really restricted time timetable to complete this wedding, let’s quickly simply maintain the eye on the objective of completing our own perform towards the end from the 30 days.” How would you react? | <urn:uuid:70bcca32-1d96-428d-b0f1-5b4320b04add> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sedonare.com/competence-common-sense-and-also-moral-conduct | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959703 | 1,123 | 2.328125 | 2 |
Tue August 4, 2009
The Methamphetamine Epidemic --- and How It's Ravaging Smalltown America.
By Rich Fisher
Tulsa, Oklahoma – On this edition of StudioTulsa, we look at the methamphetamine epidemic in this country --- and especially at its ravaging effects on smalltown America. Our guest is journalist Nick Reding, whose new book is "Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town." Reding's book tells the story of Oelwein, Iowa (pop. 6,159), which, like thousands of other villages across the nation, has been left behind by Big Agriculture, a depressed local economy, and a dramatic outward-migration of people. On top of all this, a very cheap, long-lasting, and highly addictive drug has arrived in town.... As Walter Kirn writes in his review of this book in The New York Times: "Think globally, suffer locally. This could be the moral of...Reding's unnerving investigative account of two gruesome years in the life of Oelwein, Iowa, a railroad and meatpacking town of several thousand whipped by a methamphetamine-laced panic whose origins lie outside the place itself, in forces almost too great to comprehend and too pitiless to bear. The ravages of meth, or 'crank,' on Oelwein and countless forsaken locales much like it are shown to be merely superficial symptoms of a vaster social dementia caused by, among other things, the iron dominion of corporate agriculture and the slow melting of villages and families into the worldwide financial stew." | <urn:uuid:4f1596a6-fbc8-4bda-857d-329c71880b27> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kwgs.org/post/methamphetamine-epidemic-and-how-its-ravaging-smalltown-america | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937397 | 327 | 2 | 2 |
A medical and industrial isotope production factory in Belgium has been shut down after an unusual release of one of its products, iodine-131, through its chimney stack.
The emission began during the weekend 23-24 August and the factory's operator, the Institute of Radioelements (IRE), informed safety regulators at 5.30pm on 25 August. An official from the Federal Agency for Nuclear Control (Fanc) travelled immediately to the plant, at Fleurus about 40 km south of Brussels, and ascertained that 40 GBq of radiation had passed through the chimney. It was then decided that the factory should be shut down.
Iodine-131 is a product the plant produces for medical diagnosis and therapy applications. It also manufactures the radioactive elements xenon-133, yttrium-90 and rhenium-188 for similar uses as well as molybdenum-99/technetium-99m for cancer treatment.
Fanc's French counterpart was informed of the incident on 27 August, while an alert via the Europe's Ecurie system was sent very early this morning. Sharing information from the alert, Spanish authorities said a person who remained at the facility's perimeter fence would receive a maximum radiation dose of 0.10 mSv - one tenth of the standard regulatory annual dose limit for a member of the public. For comparison, the typical limit for workers in a nuclear plant is around 20 mSv, with up to 50 mSv in a single year. Workers at IRE received no additional exposure.
Despite the low levels of radiation involved, Fanc discovered some elevated readings on grass near the plant and advised nearby residents not to eat leafy vegetables or use rainwater from their gardens. Drinking fresh milk from the area was discouraged. Iodine-131 has a half life of eight days.
Not far from the Belgian border, France's Chooz nuclear power plant has heightened its environmental monitoring but has not detected anything abnormal.
Because the incident involved a release of radiation beyond a plant boundary it has been given a preliminary rating on the International Nuclear Events Scale of 3, a 'major incident'. This could be subject to revision, however, as that rating would normally require greater potential radiation exposure.
The cause of the release is as yet unknown. | <urn:uuid:0777bc08-8c05-43e9-8bbf-41d0d444022d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS_Medical_plant_shut_down_after_emission_2908081.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969868 | 469 | 2.75 | 3 |
Along with dairy, can you name other agricultural commodities that contribute to Wisconsin’s $60 billion agricultural industry? If you guessed cranberries, Christmas trees, ginseng, maple syrup and vegetables – including potatoes, snap beans, sweet corn and peas – you’re right!
Wisconsin’s vibrant and varied agricultural industry supports 350,000 jobs throughout the state and has an economic impact on all 72 counties.
A series of brochures produced by the University of Wisconsin-Extension, Cooperative Extension shows the total impact of agriculture – the direct effect, including sales of commodities and processed products, the indirect effect, generated by agriculture-related companies, and the effect of agricultural workers spending their earnings in the local economy for Wisconsin’s 72 counties.
“The brochures are a useful tool to help residents learn more about the value and economic importance of agriculture in Wisconsin counties,” said Dave Williams, associate director of UW-Extension’s Agriculture and Natural Resources program.
“It adds up to some pretty impressive numbers. For example, you might not think agriculture would have that much impact in urban counties. But that’s actually where it has the greatest impact.”
Urban counties such as Milwaukee, Dane and Brown rack up the highest numbers in terms of sales, income and employment because many of the state’s major dairy processors and employers are based in these counties.
For example, dairy processing accounts for $2.3 billion in sales and 6,713 jobs in Brown County and $2 billion in sales and 3,822 jobs in Sheboygan County.
Agriculture may not have as great a monetary impact in the state’s rural counties, but these counties rely heavily on agriculture.
In Lafayette County, for instance, more than half the county’s workforce works in agriculture, and farmers own or manage 85 percent of the county’s land. Likewise, in Richland County, 41 percent of the workforce works in agriculture, and farmers own or manage almost 70 percent of the county’s land.
In addition to economic impacts, the newly updated brochures show the makeup of farm ownership and describe farming trends.
Diversification is a long-term trend, with counties boasting a mix of livestock, crops and processing in addition to dairy.
Many counties report an increase in the number of smaller farms raising vegetables and specialty foods to meet growing demand for fresh, local products.
Williams and Steve Deller, a professor with the University of Wisconsin’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, authored the study that provided the data for the county brochures.
The brochures can be found online at www.uwex.edu/ces/ag/wisag.
For more information about agriculture in your county contact your local UW-Extension agriculture agent at www.YourCountyExtensionOffice.com
- Dane County, where agriculture accounts for almost $3.5 billion in sales, is number 1 in the value of agricultural products sold. Dane County farmers own and manage 70 percent of the county’s land.
- Green County has more cheese-making plants – 13 – than any other county.
- Langlade County grows 11,000 acres of potatoes a year, and is No. 1 in the state in the production of seed potatoes.
- Waushara County is the number 1 Christmas tree producer in the state and 17th in the nation.
- In 2007 Brown County dairy generated $200.7 million in sales; in comparison Green Bay Packer revenue was $197 million.
- Fond du Lac County is home to four cheese and four vegetable processing plants. | <urn:uuid:6c3742ec-aa05-456f-bc4b-0cb856d6068c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dairyherd.com/dairy-news/Agriculture-yields-big-bucks-in-Wisconsin-counties-130973443.html?view=all | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.906482 | 759 | 2.84375 | 3 |
Source: GMA News Online
November 16, 2012
"Construction of so-called “fish condos” has started in the Visayan Sea to help rehabilitate coral reefs there and support the government’s ban on sardine fishing.
“Fish condos” are a simple and inexpensive way of building fish shelter, according to the non-government organization School of the Sea and Earth Advocates (SEA), which is spearheading the project.
Tony Oposa, the group’s prime mover in Bantayan Island, said they have partnered with the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) for the construction of “fish condos.”"
To read the full text of this article, click here . | <urn:uuid:6543a9dc-268a-44f9-a9b5-a90e7618dc72> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://coral.org/print/6100 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927653 | 158 | 1.976563 | 2 |
The Community Health Center of Branch County (CHC)’s Medical Records Department is changing their name. As of January 1, 2012, CHC Medical Records will be called the CHC Health Information Management Department.
The name change reflects CHC’s position in keeping with the industry standards in securing quality and accuracy in the way health care information is collected, processed, and managed. These industry changes will ensure improvement in patient care, safety, confidentiality, and privacy. The changes will also allow CHC to work within the hospital and with other agencies to control the cost of health care.
Why Health IT?
Health information technology (health IT) makes it possible for health care providers to better manage patient care through secure use and sharing of health information. Health IT includes the use of electronic health records (EHRs) instead of paper medical records to maintain people's health information.
Improving Patient Care
With the help of health IT, health care providers will have:
- Accurate and complete information about a patient's health. That way they can give the best possible care, whether during a routine visit or a medical emergency.
- The ability to better coordinate the care they give. This is especially important if a patient has a serious medical condition.
- A way to securely share information with patients and their family caregivers over the Internet, for patients who opt for this convenience. This means patients and their families can more fully take part in decisions about their health care.
- Information to help doctors diagnose health problems sooner, reduce medical errors, and provide safer care at lower costs.
Improving Our Nation's Health Care System
Widespread use of health IT can also:
- Make our health care system more efficient and reduce paperwork for patients and doctors.
- Expand access to affordable care.
- Build a healthier future for our nation.
In recent months the Health Information Management Department not only managed the change from paper medical records to electronic records, but staff also has the responsibility of safeguarding the confidentiality of protected health information by obtaining proper authorization for disclosure. Staff collects, analyzes, and reports statistical health information. The Health Information Management Department works with other departments to develop policies for accurate documentation of health information. They work with other departments and regulatory agencies to analyze and evaluate the requirement that maximizes reimbursements while providing quality care to the community. CHC advocates a system to electronically exchange health information in times of emergencies as well as day to day patient care.
The Community Health Center of Branch County is a non-profit acute care hospital providing access to safe, comprehensive, high quality healthcare services and accredited by The Joint Commission. For more information about CHC, please call the CHC Marketing Department at 517-279-5282 or visit the CHC website at www.chcbc.com or health website at myhealth.chcbc.com. Join us on Facebook today! | <urn:uuid:ba5b7a5f-d28a-498d-9041-fe1d2ed8f3d7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wtvbam.com/blogs/post/pwhelan/2011/dec/29/chc-medical-records-gets-name-change/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917992 | 593 | 2.25 | 2 |
Ocean Renewable Power Company (ORPC) is selling the first-ever renewable energy certificates (REC) generated from a grid-tied tidal power facility. 3Degrees is the sole purchaser of the RECs which are being generated by ORPC’s Maine Tidal Energy Project. The project is located in the Bay of Fundy, between eastern Maine and Canada, which has a tidal range [...]
16th Annual Congressional Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency EXPO + Forum Efficiency + Renewables = Economic & National Security! Cannon House Office Building – Caucus Room U.S. House of Representatives Wednesday – June 12, 2013 The EXPO is free, open to the public, and no RSVPs are required. WHEN Wednesday, June 12, 2013 9:30 [...]
Reproduced with permission. Copyright 2013, E&E Publishing, LLC. www.ClimateWire.net Julia Pyper, E&E reporter Published: Thursday, April 11, 2013 In meeting America’s energy needs, the marine hydrokinetic industry could be the wave of the future. Harnessing tides, currents and waves produces clean, domestically sourced power that could generate up to one-third of the United States’ total electricity [...]
NEWS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Sean O’Neill (301) 325-5099 April 15, 2013 Carolyn Elefant (202) 297-6100 DOE Investment in MHK Technology Poised to Grow The Department of Energy made major announcements the week of April 8 that will significantly advance marine hydrokinetic technology (MHK) and their role in the US power generation sector. [...]
OREC’s sixth annual Global Marine Renewable Conference concluded yesterday – for photos, visit our Facebook page. And what better way to cap off a successful conference than to share news of three DOE funding opportunities. First up is a funding opportunity sponsored by DOE in conjunction with various offices and agencies, entitled DE-FOA-0000816: Marine & Hydrokinetic [...]
OREC’s newsletter for March 2013 is available online now. To subscribe, click here. Click here to read the March 2013 newsletter. If you have any questions, please ask a member of Team OREC at the 6th Annual Global Marine Renewable Energy Conference.
Congress Passes Spending Plan for the Balance of FY2013 – DOE Water Power Program Funded at FY2012 Level On March 22, Congress finalized legislation to provide funding for federal programs through the end of Fiscal Year (FY) 2013, averting a government shutdown. The final measure maintains the five percent across-the-board cuts known as the sequester. [...]
FERC will hold a workshop on Wednesday, March 27, 2013 to discuss technical details related to the proposals in its January 17 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR) on Small Generator Interconnection Agreements and Procedures. Click here for details on the workshop, and also take a look at OREC’s summary of the proposed rule.
As February draws to a close with Congress no closer to a deal on the domestic sequester, $85 billion in automatic budget cuts are scheduled to begin tomorrow, with potentially disastrous effects on the renewable energy industry. Speaking at the Offshore Wind Power USA conference earlier this week, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said, “The potentially [...]
FERC RM13-2-000: Small Generator Interconnection Agreements and Procedures Proposed Rule, Feb. 1, 2013 Read the full text of the proposed rule here. OVERVIEW: In response to a request from the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), FERC has proposed to revise the pro forma Small Generator Interconnection Procedures (SGIP) and pro forma Small Generator Interconnection Agreement [...] | <urn:uuid:1ff56f7c-9a65-49f2-8cd7-0112ae62dbda> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.oceanrenewable.com/category/blog/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917795 | 766 | 1.648438 | 2 |
What is Scholar Launch?
Scholar Launch connects private businesses offering scholarships with universities eager to inform their students of available scholarship opportunities.
Many students seeking scholarships are simply not aware of those being offered by the private sector. This is where Scholar Launch enters the picture. We work for select private businesses to maximize the public awareness of their company scholarship, often times by helping universities to effectively promote the scholarship to their students.
Tuition Costs at Record Highs
Ten years ago tuition costs, including room and board, peaked at $13,600 for a 4-year public institution. Today, a decade later, that number has nearly doubled and an average 4-year degree can cost $22,000 or more for instate tuition at a public institution. These numbers, along with a recession and struggling job market, can cripple any student attempting to gain an education from a university.
Scholarships Help Students
$35 million in scholarships are available through private companies and Scholar Launch helps universities to direct students to the right scholarships offered from private companies. When students receive scholarship money it aids in many aspects of their careers.
Student loans offer temporary relief from high tuition costs, but scholarships offer a lifetime of relief. Students have more time to spend learning and growing, and spend less time worrying about the high costs they are paying, or will be paying when they eventually pay student loans back immediately after graduation.
Businesses Help Students
Private businesses are helping students every day to launch their careers with an education that will help them gain the knowledge they need for a competitive job market. By contributing to scholarship funds or creating new scholarships private businesses are helping the future of all involved. | <urn:uuid:e9ddf3de-0fa5-40d1-93f6-aa1805a07104> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.scholarlaunch.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966166 | 337 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Decent wages key to U.S. fiscal crisis
Published: Sunday, November 25, 2012 at 6:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Friday, November 23, 2012 at 4:10 p.m.
Since the results of the Nov. 6 election, we have been bombarded with letters and comments concerning the demise of the “good ol’ U.S. of A.” by our obviously Republican brethren. I suspect that the angst and unmitigated anger about President Barack Obama’s re-election has nothing to do with the country’s welfare in general but outright lingering fear of the 2008 recession into which we slid and the continuing disrespectful tone coming forth about the president. I’m sorry, but he has been re-elected.
Before continuing this assault on the president’s record of the past four years — wherein the only thing the Republicans have contributed is “No!” — I suggest we all do some math and see where the real $16 trillion deficit originated. This is not difficult and does not take a lot of time.
Simply use the beginning and ending dates of the three administrations of the predecessors to Obama and look at only the deficit upon entering and leaving office.
President Jimmy Carter left office in 1981, and the national debt was $706 billion.
President Ronald Reagan, 1981-89, debt was $2.601 trillion
President George H.W. Bush, 1989-93, debt was $4.001 trillion.
President Bill Clinton, 1993-2001, debt was $5.628 trillion.
President George W. Bush, 2001-2009, debt was $9.654 trillion.
Using arithmetic, the debt increased by $7.9 trillion under Republican presidents as opposed to $1.6 trillion under a Democrat president. Using those figures, it would have taken 4.9 Democratic presidents to equal the debt amassed by three Republican presidents. Also remember that during the Clinton and Bush II terms, Republicans controlled the House for 12 of the 16 years. How could we have possibly gone so far in debt under that Republican control? Just asking.
We can solve this debt problem, but not by continuing to talk about tax cuts for the “job creators” and wasting time worrying about who is “taking” and who is “giving.” The job creators have got to create jobs and hire workers at a decent wage. Job creation that creates positions paying $7.35-$9 an hour is not job creation, but rather enslavement. One cannot live on $15,000-$18,000 a year, much less feed and clothe a family of even two. Our debt is going up because so many unemployed are not paying income taxes because they have none, and many are in low- or lower-wage jobs. Read your newspaper, and look at the jobs that are advertised and the pay being offered.
We have no business having Social Security and Medicare on the budget and talking about the costs of those programs. They have income and are the only budget items with income. Remove them from the budget process and see what our debt is then.
We need to stop the 2 percent decrease in the payroll tax immediately and build upon the $1.3 trillion surplus presently held in U.S. Treasury notes. We will never know the true deficit until we have set the so-called “entitlement” programs separate from the budget. Please note, I did not include Medicaid, as it is a separate program and should not be discussed in connection with Medicare.
If the “job creators” do some hiring and we institute the Affordable Care Act, we should be able to decrease the present costs to both the federal and state governments for Medicare.
Finally, to my fellow white males out there, I have a piece of advice. Stop worrying whether you are the majority, and accept that you are now part of a multicultural society in which we are no longer that majority. Also gentlemen, remember there also are more white females than white males. We can all do this if we but remember, as someone once said, you can’t go back, no matter what it is that you feel we have to go back to.
Lorne Lister retired from the U.S. Navy after a 20-year career as a personnel administrator. He lives in Ocklawaha.
All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission. Links are encouraged. | <urn:uuid:4651a1cf-b174-42e8-8682-903f343eab1a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ocala.com/article/20121125/OPINION/121129862/1259/realestate?Title=Decent-wages-key-to-U-S-fiscal-crisis | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961435 | 926 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Lewis Gets NAACP Image Award Nod
Posted at 7:22 p.m. on Dec. 13, 2012
Georgia Democrat and civil rights leader Rep. John Lewis has been nominated for an NAACP Image Award for his autobiography, “Across That Bridge: Life Lessons and a Vision for Change.”
This marks the first time Lewis has been recognized by the organization for an artistic endeavor. He was honored with the Spingarn Medal — the NAACP’s annual outstanding achievement award — in 2002; Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., received the Spingarn Medal in 2007.
Lewis faces stiff competition for the literary prize in biography/autobiography, squaring off against authors Tom Reiss (“The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo”), Will Allen (“The Good Food Revolution: Growing Healthy Food, People, and Communities”), RJ Smith (“The One: The Life and Music of James Brown”) and former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan (“Interventions: A Life in War and Peace”).
A Lewis aide told HOH the pol remained noncommittal about attending the 44th annual Image Awards ceremony, scheduled to take place in Los Angeles on Feb. 1. | <urn:uuid:1706e024-3900-47e5-8ecb-673a7aaddbd0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hoh.rollcall.com/lewis-gets-naacp-image-award-nod/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920027 | 274 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Dimples of Mother Nature
Photo and caption by Taber Bartoshesky
The magnificence of Mother Nature can be appreciated from almost anywhere on the planet. Flying hundreds of feet above the earths surface is the last place one would expect to feel energy that Mother Nature has to offer. This birds eye view of Hawaii's island of Oahu almost forces an understanding of how "larger than Life" the earth really is; for humans are merely a microscopic spec among its existence. This beauty is truly one to be respected.
Location: South Shore of Oahu, Hawaii. Just outside Honolulu. | <urn:uuid:cce2b230-573f-4e37-afe2-20f3afba7312> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/photo-contest/2012/entries/182027/view/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925295 | 123 | 1.640625 | 2 |
BARWANAH, IraqDespite a recent rash of insurgent attacks, Marines in
Barwanah , Iraq, say they are making notable progress equipping the Iraqi Army with the skills to take over security operations in this city of 30,000 nestled along the Euphrates River northwest of Baghdad.
Less than a month ago the soldiers and Marines formed a mounted mobile assault platoon – or “MAP,” as the Marines call it – capable of responding quickly to enemy attacks against Coalition Forces on foot.
The new platoon proved to be a big step for Iraqi forces – the MAP platoon captured 8 insurgents after responding to a firefight between Marines on foot and local insurgents.
Mounted in humvees, the mobile assault platoon gives Iraqi Security Forces here the means to respond to incidents much quicker than on foot, said Capt. Michael Hudson, commanding officer of Lima Company of 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment.
The Hawaii-based Marine battalion has spent four-plus months now in the Haditha Triad region, which includes Barwanah, fighting insurgents, working with locals to improve local economy and quality of life, and training Iraqi soldiers. | <urn:uuid:67e51775-bea5-48a3-ac4e-9a22f908f1fd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.onemarinesview.com/one_marines_view/2006/08/security_in_had.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93675 | 237 | 1.53125 | 2 |
There are a variety of points when students dealing with their argumentative essay writing and find out themselves in difficult situation and need a knowledgeable support to go ahead. At that point the consultant will be the most excellent mean accessible for the candidates to get back up for writing and research.
The argumentative essay writing and doing research responsibility for it, the consultant will definitely support the candidates. They provide help from subject matter choosing till submission. They will support the candidates to take care of the entire parts of argumentative essay writing, no matter the candidates are facing complicatedness to decide on an ideal subject matter or having issues with introduction, stuck with main body or not capable to take care of conclusion, or they provide help with any other part of argumentative essay. The consultant will make accessible the entire guiding principles and tricks to take care of the essay project.
The most excellent that what will consultant do for the candidates is that they can proofread the work plus they can do editing as well. The students can get affordable argumentative essay right now from experts of best online essay writing company of the world.
and research responsibility, and research work Investigate, and research work is not, and uniqueness to get, argumentative essay, argumentative essay writing, be provided to the students, being a high-quality piece, Business essay writing, but it doesn’t mean that the, by giving good finishing, can base with their argumentative, can be presented by giving, candidates have done, creativity The candidates, Deciding on an exact, dissimilar and difficult job, essay subject matter, essay topics that will, essay writing and, essay writing and research, Follow the exact strategy, for their business essay, for this academic, forward a small number, from online services, if they get help form, in any way An upcoming, individuality of students, intensely on the preferred, is the most excellent, knowledge of it This, link with the routine workouts, much more than that, observations The wrap up of, of efforts to bring into, of impressive points, of information to fulfill the, of research is essential, of work Executing abundant, online and the candidates, outstanding business, piece of work The candidates, reader It can be done, required executing, required to put abundant, required word count and, research work is important, responsibility, responsibility is a much, responsibility This writing, small or fundamental, strategy to choose an, students can get perfect, students supposed to have, subject matter and, subject matter for business, subject matter for their, that involves innovation, that sense good to the, the candidates and the, the job However the candidates, the students need to put, the work The, their area of interest of, to attain the function of, variety of business, views on different analysis, way to select an ideal, will also be provided, with fresh thoughts, writing and research | | Comments (2) | <urn:uuid:b273c51e-3fd9-430b-bf30-32ccb3c0d207> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.researchpaperspot.com/blog/?tag=essay-writing-and-research | 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 | 0.934275 | 590 | 1.515625 | 2 |
The Master of Architecture program focuses on the critical role of architects in society and culture.The School has a strong history of practice-based education that has been expanded to include depth in issues of sustainability and digital design.
Fundamental to the graduate curriculum is the architectural design studio sequence. Each semester students select from a range of vertical studio options organized around projects and topics offered by different design instructors. These studios emphasize the development of strong conceptual abilities, thoughtful integration of technical information, and convincing representations of architectural ideas in two- and three-dimensional form, and through a variety of media. The ultimate goal is for each student to develop clear design principles, strong technical resources, and an independent, critical position on the making of architecture in the world. The independent character of a student’s abilities is demonstrated and tested in the final semester through the Degree Project.
Informing and enriching the studio experience for students in the Master of Architecture program are courses in architectural history and theory, building technology and structural principles, urban design, professional practice, landscape design and sustainability, and representational and digital media studies. Great emphasis is placed on a student's ability to integrate and synthesize the information in these courses into appropriate architectural form in the design studio. While these topics have consistently been a part of the graduate curriculum, their specific content, sequence, and method of instruction is under constant review and development.
The Master of Architecture degree can be combined with study in other divisions at Washington University. To learn more, visit our Dual Degrees page. | <urn:uuid:42055393-5f6d-4628-be2b-b2c8df1b265e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://samfoxschool.wustl.edu/programs/march | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933557 | 309 | 1.945313 | 2 |
Tina Turner turns her back on America to become Swiss citizen
Tina Turner is following in the recently trodden footsteps of French actor Gerard Depardieu and renouncing her citizenship to her mother country, as the legendary singer has decided to say so long and farewell to the United States for good as she has become a fully-fledge Swiss citizen.
The ‘Proud Mary’ singer, who was born in Nutbush, Tennessee, has been living in the Swiss city of Zurich for close to twenty years now and decided that it is time to make things official as she has handed her US Passport in and picked up a shiny new Swiss one instead.
Although Turner has yet to make any official declaration of her new citizenship, local newspaper Zuerichsee-Zeitung has said that the singer has been granted citizenship in the country already and that it is only a matter of time now until things become official.
One source close to Tina told the paper, “She appreciates the beautiful scenery, the friendly people, the game of the four seasons,” adding, “She is happy, as it was included here, as they are treated in a friendly and unobtrusive.”
Beautiful scenery, mountains of chocolate, friendly people and of course, tax benefits on an unprecedented scale, whats not to like? | <urn:uuid:2f6c914c-364d-4884-b71a-fec19a03d792> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ghanamma.com/2013/01/tina-turner-turns-her-back-on-america-to-become-swiss-citizen/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986699 | 275 | 1.710938 | 2 |
DHA and Pregnancy
You really are what you eat.
Prior and throughout pregnancy, nutrition plays a major role not only in your health as an expectant mother, but also in the health of your unborn baby.
Years ago, a healthy pregnancy meant following a diet rich in essential perinatal nutrients such as folic acid and calcium. But the latest science demands another important nutrient be added to that diet: DHA, docosahexaenoic acid, an omega-3 fatty acid.
DHA is brain nutrition. It's to our brains as calcium is to our bones. In fact, optimal infant brain and eye development and function depends on it.*
Throughout life, we all need DHA – it's one of the good fats in our bodies. Its job is to go straight to the tissues, like those in the brain, to keep them functioning to the best of their ability.
On average, pregnant and nursing women in the U.S. consume 60-80 mg of DHA a day, from food and drink, which is only 20-25% of the recommended intake.* That's why DHA is one of the most important supplements for pregnancy.
Give them DHA along with your DNA.
While you have to wait to see if your baby will have your nose or eyes, you can know ahead of time you've given your baby every benefit when it comes to brain development.
Major brain growth occurs during the second trimester of pregnancy – and throughout the first two years of life – so these are when the need for DHA is greatest.
However, like you, your unborn baby can't efficiently produce DHA and must rely on the placenta during pregnancy, and breast milk or DHA-enriched formula after birth. When you take a DHA supplement during pregnancy and nursing, it significantly enhances the level of DHA available to your baby in and out of the womb.
In fact, studies show maternal DHA supplementation resulted in mental development advantages in children including improved psychomotor development (such as eye-hand coordination) at 2.5 years of age and improved attention skills at 5 years of age. (View the clinical research.)
What's in it for you?
- If you begin prenatal supplementation when you start trying to become pregnant, continue through pregnancy and while breast feeding, you can ensure your baby will get the essential nutrition necessary from the beginning.
- DHA can help keep your pregnancy healthy, and aid in the healthy development of your baby's brain and eyes.* | <urn:uuid:55e1ea54-1ca1-46be-96c0-b5a3df9421c2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.brainstrongdha.com/expectant_moms/dha_and_pregnancy | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951451 | 519 | 2.65625 | 3 |
The US war in Afghanistan will end by late 2014, President Barack Obama vowed, saying that another 34,000 American troops will come home over the next year, AFB reports.
"This drawdown will continue. And by the end of next year, our war in Afghanistan will be over," Obama said in his annual State of the Union address.
Obama also vowed to take "firm action" alongside US allies against the "provocations" of North Korea after the communist state carried out its third nuclear test.
"The regime in North Korea must know that they will only achieve security and prosperity by meeting their international obligations," Obama told Congress.
Obama told Iranian leaders it was time they ended a standoff over the country's nuclear program, just two weeks before fresh talks with world powers.
"The leaders of Iran must recognize that now is the time for a diplomatic solution, because a coalition stands united in demanding that they meet their obligations." | <urn:uuid:059fcb0b-288c-421f-a6a9-b12ac0421269> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.trend.az/news/politics/2118905.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972758 | 191 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Get the skinny on athletic equipment
CHICAGO — After enjoying the lazy days of summer, many people return to a more consistent workout routine. With the marketplace filled with different athletic equipment, it is important to invest money wisely in products that will help achieve fitness goals. When you make the decision to get back in shape, it is easy to get distracted by different advertisements that claim fast results, but it is important to make cautious decisions when making purchases.
“Consumers often buy into products that promise quick results,” stated Steve J. Bernas, president/CEO of the Better Business Bureau serving Chicago and Northern Illinois (BBB). “But it is important to do research first and find a product that will fit a personal lifestyle and bring positive results.”
The BBB offers these tips to consumers when purchasing athletic equipment:
• Avoid products that claim to focus on one certain area. Some products claim that they can burn off belly fat or tone legs. Be skeptical of these types of work out items. Experts advise only with a consistent routine that works the whole body can results be achieved.
• Buy what you will use. While the “newest and trendiest” work out machine may seem like a necessity, if it is not practical for everyday use, it is probably not worth the investment. Make sure that buying decisions fit with your personal daily routines and help you reach the results you want.
• Read the fine print. It is important to do the math when looking into purchasing workout equipment. What does “three easy payments” really add up to, or be aware of deadlines when trying a “free trial month.” Also, look for hidden fees that may not be included in the cost like shipping and handling or restocking fees.
• Don’t be fooled by the fit models in the advertisements. Be aware the “satisfied” customer in the advertisement may be a result of the product in conjunction with a good exercise routine and healthy eating habits. The before and after results may not be proof that the item works.
• Check every business with the BBB. Research the company that you are purchasing from and make sure that other customers were happy with their product.
Look for the BBB Accredited Business seal on both websites and only purchase with businesses that have a good rating with BBB.
For more consumer tips, visit www.bbb.org
More Local News
- Area towns announce Memorial Day services
- Three arrested for check cashing/burglary ring
- Banking on the past
- OK on federal aid
- Tiskilwa residents learn about new library addition | <urn:uuid:82e47ebb-2b83-4256-9606-fb73f07a4a96> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bcrnews.com/2012/09/25/get-the-skinny-on-athletic-equipment/ajvjhzf/?page=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941866 | 548 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Items tagged with 'Albany parking permits'
Justin emails with an observation about Albany's residential parking permit system:
As a resident of Zone A [Center Square] I was very pleased to see how there were always a few spots available on our block when the parking permit program first went into effect. However, now there never are but often there are 10-15 "Visitors" on the block. Who knew we were so popular?
I've begun monitoring the permits and notice repeat offenders. Some have been "visiting" for several weeks now.
Justin notes that the city has asked for people to report complaints and instances of permit abuse. But he says he finds that frustrating because he doesn't think enforcement is adequately monitoring the situation.
While I think it is ridiculous that we are paying people to enforce this and are being asked to volunteer to make it work, it seems like our only option. ... Because right now the parking permit system essentially is a $25 tax on anyone who lives in the neighborhood who doesn't want to get towed. There still are no spots available due the visitor tag abuse.
Justin followed up this past Monday morning: "There are no available spots on my block right now. However, there are 14 Visitors permits. Several of the same people who were 'visiting' on Friday but were gone for the weekend and are now back 'visiting'."
It's been about three months since the parking permit system took effect. Any new system is bound to have quirks, bugs, problems -- that's just the nature of new things.
So if you live in neighborhoods covered by the system -- or frequent them because of work or whatever -- what's your take on how it's working so far? And if you've noticed problems, how would you fix them?*
* Honorary bonus points for constructive ideas.
Earlier on AOA: Maps of the Albany parking permit system's three zones
Albany's residential parking permit system takes effect January 15 (Tuesday) -- and today the Albany Police Department distributed official maps of the street segments covered by the system. The maps are post jump -- they'll will be familiar if you've been following the issue.
The parking permit system will be in effect from 8 am-6 pm Monday through Friday (holidays excluded). People without permits will still be allowed to park in any spot -- but there will be a two hour time limit. Violations of the system are a $50 ticket with a $15 surcharge.
Alternate side parking, snow emergencies, and other similar regulations trump the permit system.
Here's information on how to get a permit (doc). They're $25. Permits are also available for non-resident business owners ($25, limit 3) and visitors ($10, one per household in the covered zones).
The city is taking complaints related to system via an online form. More info at the city's website (scroll down).
The Albany Common Council approved the final slate of streets for the new residential parking permit system Monday night. A map of the three zones is above. After the jump: a list of the designated streets with individual zone maps -- along with a copy of the resolution designating them.
Not every parking space in the designated areas will be subject to the permit system. But there many be some whole blocks designated within the zones, according to councilman Richard Conti, who headed up the design of the system. The state law allowing the system limits it to no more than 2,750 spots.
The target start date for the permit system is October 1. The spaces will be subject to permit parking from 8 am-6 pm on weekdays -- though two-hour parking will be allowed for people without permits. The permits will cost $25, and permit holders will get guest passes.
The public hearing for the proposed Albany residential parking permit system is tonight (Monday) at 7 pm at city hall. The public hearing is one of the last steps before the system could potentially be passed and moved toward implementation.
We suspect there will be plenty of suggestions/questions/concerns about the system, particularly about which spots will be subject to the permits. Richard Conti, the common councilman heading up the project, touched on that topic in his ward newsletter last week:
... the street designations on the zone maps are preliminary subject to revision after the public hearing. I've discussed the inclusion or non-inclusion of streets at neighborhood meetings during the month of October, and have received other communications, and am aware of some of the concerns regarding preliminary street designations. Under the state authorizing legislation, we are limited to the designations of 2,750 spaces spread across three zones. After the current proposed map was finalized we discovered additional spaces that had not been allocated. So we have a margin to play with to address concerns. ...
Resolving the street designations is the major issue that needs to be resolved; once that is completed the remaining pieces should fall into place.
As proposed, the system would cover three zones around the Empire State Plaza:
+ Zone A - 1946 spaces in Center Square/Hudson-Park/Washington Park/parts of Park South,
+ Zone B - 443 spaces in the Mansion neighborhood
+ Zone C - 163 spaces in Arbor Hill around the Ten Broeck Triangle
Details and maps of these proposed zones are available from the city's website -- and we've also posted them after the jump here for easy scanning.
The state law giving the city the right set up the system allows for 2,750 spaces within a 3/4 mile radius of the ESP. Once implemented, the system will run for two years and then be up for review.
Car sharing: We hear that car sharing advocates will also be at the hearing tonight pushing their case. In the past, advocates have touted sharing as another way of addressing the parking problem in congested neighborhoods.
The task force developing the Albany residential parking permit system released its report and recommendations last week. The file that we received from Common Councilman Richard Conti, the task force's chair, is embedded after the jump.
The report includes many of the provisions Conti mentioned when we talked with him about the system in June. But there are few bits that caught our eye -- we've highlighted those.
If you live/work/visit the area around the Empire State Plaza, it's worth taking a look at this report. There will be a public comment period after an ordinance is introduced. There's also lobbying/emailing/stopping your council person on the street to talk about suggestions or changes. (And based on the comments from June, it sounds like people will have suggestions.)
It's been just about a year since the state legislature passed a bill allowing the city of Albany to set up a residential parking permit system near the Empire State Plaza. So, where's all that at now?
Albany Common Councilman Richard Conti is heading up the task force in charge of developing the system. We had a chance to talk with him last week about how the system is potentially shaping up...
Not every street within the proposed area would be subject to residential parking permits
Via Bob Conner comes word that a bill allowing residential parking permits near the Empire State Plaza is moving through the legislature again.
Among the bill's provisions:
+ The City of Albany would be allowed to "pilot a residential parking permit system with a two year sunset" within a 3/4 mile radius of the ESP.
+ No more than 2,750 spaces would be allowed in the permitted area.
+ Permit parking would not be allowed on streets where adjacent properties are zoned "commercial, office [and]/or retail use."
(The full text of the bill's provisions is after the jump.)
One possible hitch:
the Assembly version of the bill differs from the Senate version in the size of the allowed area for permits -- 3/4 mile vs. 1 mile. Bob reports that CSEA dropped its opposition to the bill because of the reduced radius. Update: Albany common councilman Richard Conti stopped by in the comments to note the Senate bill is identical to the Assembly bill and includes the 3/4 mile radius (it appears the Open Senate entry for the bill hasn't been completely updated, yet).
Jerry Jennings told AOA last October that he wants permit parking -- and would pursue it if the legislature allowed it. | <urn:uuid:e63b30fb-58cb-4bd3-a4a8-a421a8676cb5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://alloveralbany.com/mt/mt-search.fcgi?blog_id=1&tag=Albany%20parking%20permits&limit=500 | 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 | 0.96132 | 1,727 | 1.5 | 2 |
- Shopping Bag ( 0 items )
Children's LiteratureIn conjunction with Creative's The Stolen Smile (from which several of Gary Kelley's illustrations are borrowed), this book is part of the "What in the World" series that examines the Renaissance through Da Vinci and his most famous painting. The strategy of the series is interesting: wrap the entire world's existing culture at one particular moment in time around an extraordinary focal point. A discussion of The Mona Lisa itself thus encompasses brief explorations into Greek and Roman "Humanism," voyages of discovery, and highlights of the Florentine Renaissance—not to mention a biographical discussion of Leonardo himself within his period. It is a formidable task, but Kalz's text flows from one concept to another fairly seamlessly. The illustrations are generally well-chosen and brilliantly reproduced on glossy stock with a handsome library binding. The book is worthy of adding to buy lists for middle school libraries. 2004, Creative Education, Ages 8 to 12. | <urn:uuid:f62a2499-0e67-4daf-861a-9d27fd489757> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/mona-lisa-jill-kalz/1005628908 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951919 | 199 | 2.796875 | 3 |
Oracle Girds VirtualBox for Enterprise Use
Oracle has updated its open source VirtualBox virtualization software to make it more suitable for widescale enterprise deployments, the company announced Tuesday.
"VirtualBox is part of Oracle's VDI [virtual desktop interface] solution, so a lot of the enhancements we worked on were driven by the VDI team building a new product," said Wim Coekaerts, Oracle senior vice president of Linux and virtualization engineering.
The new version enjoys a number of new features that could make it more suitable for widescale deployment in organizations, such as the ability to clone virtual machines and the ability of the software to utilize more working memory on a server.
German company Innotek first developed VirtualBox as a commercial product, one that users could deploy on x86-based machines to easily run additional operating systems encapsulated in virtual machines.
Sun Microsystems purchased Innotek in 2008 and Oracle purchased Sun in 2010.
Oracle claims the software has been downloaded over 46 million times since Innotek made it available in 2007, at no cost, under the GNU General Public License version 2.
Oracle uses VirtualBox as the base hypervsior for Oracle VDI (virtual desktop interface) offering, which organizations use to stream virtual desktops to worker computers. The software can run on Windows, Linux, Solaris and Macintosh x86-based computers and can run Windows, Linux, Solaris as virtual machines.
Cloning is one of the major new features of VirtualBox 4.1, Coekaerts explained. The software has long offered the ability to capture snapshots of the guest OS at a certain point in time, allowing developers and others to roll back changes to an OS to an earlier version. A downside with snapshotting is that it would steadily increase the size of the virtual machine, as more and more snapshots are saved. With clones, an administrator can simply make a copy of a virtual machine that does not incorporate earlier changes.
Cloning technology will be handy for administrators who wish to run multiple copies of the same virtual machine, Coekaerts said. "If you want to run two VMs in parallel you can clone one and then both will run without any issue," he said.
A lot of work has also been done on preparing VirtualBox 4.1 for large-scale deployments. This is the first version of the software that can utilize an entire terabyte of memory on a single server, which it could use to accommodate up to 200 virtual machines. This version can also allow administrators to create networks among virtual machines that span multiple servers. "It's almost like a VLAN [virtual local area network] but within the VirtualBox level itself," Coekaerts said.
Oracle also improved the visual interface, and updated the wizards for commonly executed tasks. The software now fully supports the advanced Windows 7 Aero interface. It includes an experimental new feature called pass-through that allows hardware devices to bypass the host OS and communicate directly with a specific VM. The usual assortment of bug fixes also accompanies the new release. | <urn:uuid:08de7dc6-be01-4f67-9fed-0d693edae8c5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pcworld.com/article/235993/Oracle_Girds_VirtualBox_for_Enterprise_Use.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931807 | 627 | 1.664063 | 2 |
"I'm confident that they'll find the cause of this," said Gene Corley, a private engineer who has investigated numerous disasters including the World Trade Center collapse on Sept. 11, 2001.
"We normally don't like to get involved unless we have assurances that we are given a free hand to really perform a thorough and totally unbiased investigation..." Velivasakis says.
His firm, Thornton Tomasetti, specializes in stabilizing disaster sites and determining why structures collapse.
I couldn't figure out how to display this image in the blog, but here's the link:
These are characteristic features indicating the use of explosives:
1) Outward arching dust plumes
2) Formation of debris cloud that is symmetrical around the vertical axis of the structure
3) Heavier material is propelled out ahead of the dust
I have been spending the last few hours trying to come up with a way to compare the explosive forces between the '93 bomb and the plane impacts of 2001. However, my lack of expertise in this area of physics, pertaining to kinetic energy, explosive force, pressure, etc. is preventing me from making any sort of informed conclusion. On the other hand the information I have gathered suggests ( and I use that term lightly) that a bomb ( on the order of magnitude used in the '93 bombings: The bomb exploded in the underground garage at 12:17 P.M., generating a pressure estimated over one GPa (Giga Pascal) and opening a 30-meter-wide (98 foot) hole through four sublevels of concrete. The detonation velocity of this bomb was about 15,000 ft/s (4.5 km/s). Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Trade_Center_1993_bombings#Bomb_chara...) planted in the sub-level basement (which houses the critical main support for the tower) had a much larger probability of collapsing the building than an impact of a 767 carrying 10,000 gallons of jet fuel nearly 1,000 feet up from the basement.
One of the main arguments defenders of the official story have made against the controlled demolition of the Twin Towers is that demolitions never start at the top of the building. In other words, they claim that demolitions always start at the bottom and proceed upwards.
However, a new video shows an example of a top-down demolition of another building:
Someone read her on-screen notes a bit too literally.
Was WTC7 a Controlled Demolition?
By Matt Hutaff, Sep 18, 2007
When a reporter hears a building fall 23 minutes before it does, is there a sound?
The view from BBC reporter Jane Standley's window was a spectacular mess. Thick plumes of smoke rose above the New York City skyline, blotting out sunlight and choking the morale of rescue workers trying to salvage human life from the wreckage of the just-collapsed World Trade Center.
It was the afternoon of September 11, 2001, and Standley was responding to questions posed by colleagues in England. "New York very much a city still in chaos," she said. "The phones are not working properly, the subway lines are not working properly, and we know that down there near the World Trade Center there are three schoools that are being turned into triage centres for emergency treatment."
Anybody know about blasting caps or detonators that self-destruct?
The triumphant statement by a " demolition expert" on the History Channel that he saw no detonation cord, wiring or remnants of blasting caps at Ground Zero has given courage to OCT supporters.
This has come up in a long-running debate I'm running on an industry forum. The latest rejoinder I got was this
"you have not produced one blasting cap, nor one piece of wiring"
What I could find on the Web on the subject was all about detection of
A. detonators before they explode, or
B. explosives by means of chemical taggants after the blast
but nothing about detecting remnants of detonators post-blast (except that "stealth explosives" has been used as a term of ridicule for the controlled demolition argument.)
Re A, I found this: "Plastic weapons, plastic detonators, explosives enclosed into plastic cases and plastic mines are very difficult to detect."
I am beginning to suspect that the problem of detectability might actually be the other way around.
This video shows you not squibs but actual blasting charges possibly going off and
rare shots of the making of the WTC "SPIRE".
All the video has been stabilized by me for clarity. The sound has been enhanced and syncronized.
Demolition proof hidden in plain sight.
Download HD version. http://www.filefactory.com/dlf/f/8fe7e8/b/6/h/0c2cbcae529c9b62/j/9819025811
Lower Quality Streaming Webfives video
Watch and share full screen at www.webFives.com
and worse quality YOUTUBE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ma19Vsu5PgQ
This video reveals yet more charges going off.
Sleight of hand. To support the theory of controlled demolitons at the WTC with out it being to obvious, the best thing to do would to seperate the demo sequences.
While everybody is watching the obvious, look at whats hidden in plain site.
I had to use webfive coz' youtube is poor quality.
This video is not new, it actually has been used with fake explosion sounds to prove demolitions at the wtc.
This video is the original with no sound edits, it is stabilized, zoomed, 1/4 speed to reveal a demolition sequence 40 floors below going off diagonally reaching the service floor.
Not a conspiracy or fact?
SLIGHTY BETTER QUALITY DOWNLOAD CAN BE DOWNLOADED HERE = http://www.sendspace.com/file/deiled
A video that compares aspects of well known, 'obvious' building demolitions with the almost hidden ones of WTC 1 & 2 on September 11th 2001. I say almost because ANYONE can watch this video and see it for themselves.
See hundreds of demolition charge flashes before and during the implosions of the towers.
Watch as huge horizontal blasts eject steel and concrete far below the collapsing section.
Its clear cut folks....those towers were absolutely laced with demo charges, fact.
And that creates all sorts of horrible thoughts....
We must expose the 9/11 Inside Job...for the victims, their families, subsequent war deaths and for everyone on this planet.
Thanks to the video "9/11: The Explosive Reality" - which inspired me to put this little video together.
911 Mysteries – The New Version
by Nila Sagadevan
Last evening I attended the screening, in Laguna Beach, of the updated version of this excellent movie. I’m pleased to report it’s absolutely brilliant. Now completely updated, it includes clips of the BBC’s premature announcement of the demolition of WTC 7 and many other rich tidbits, as well as a superb new musical soundtrack. It’s truly a first class piece of moviemaking.
The movie was extremely well received. I helped answer questions afterwards, and can unequivocally say there wasn’t a skeptic left in the house, so compelling is its message. 90 minutes of pure demolition evidence and analysis, laced with eye-opening witness testimonials. Until something better comes along, this is the vehicle that will take the message out to our complacent mainstream.
I think I own every 9/11 movie made, so I feel I can voice an informed, albeit obviously personal, opinion: the new version of “9/11 Mysteries: Part I – Demolitions” is the best 9/11 movie out there at the moment.
And it seems I’m in good company:
"Excellent. The best of the 9/11 movies."
"In addition to manual dexterity, sleight of hand depends on the use of psychology, misdirection and natural choreography in accomplishing a magical effect. Misdirection is perhaps the most important component of the art of sleight of hand. Using misdirection, the skillful magician choreographs every movement in a routine so even the most critical and observant spectators are compelled to look where the magician wants them to. Two types of misdirection are time and movement. Time is simple; by allowing a small amount of time to pass after an action, events are skewed in the viewers mind. Movement is a little more complicated. A phrase often used is "A larger action covers a smaller action." - Wikipedia: "Sleight of Hand"
Example 1: Comment
Indeed, the perpetrators of 9/11 did not want you to see the coordinated and timed explosion set to occur exactly when the 2nd plane hit.
Certainly, fire and damage cannot coordinate explosions...
I made this short video a few days ago:
www.rosie.com Q & A section of her blog
Teri writes: Do you believe in many conspiracy theroy’s?
Do you think if you were not a celeb you would still suffer from depression?
Please don’t take offence to my ?’s they are ment well.
rosie: i believe there is more to 9 11 than we have been told
depression runs in my family - so yes
vicki writes: Have you seen BBC vid of reporter telling of collapse of bldg 7 with bldg 7 still in background and 20 minutes before it collapsed? Weird to the max. So much we don’t know. Truth will out. Peace.
rosie: i have
the plot thickens
Leslie writes: Bush’s reaction to attack on 9/11 should b compulsary viewing. He didn’t move a muscle, didn’t look at who gave him the news but it’s his expression that’s so alarming & it wasn’t shock
rosie: shock was the look on everyone elses face
I had to buy online the pretty expensive PDF to this article, so I would love to pass it on to anyone who wants a copy. Just email me if you're interested.
Mechanics of Progressive Collapse: Learning from World Trade Center and Building Demolitions
J. Engrg. Mech., Volume 133, Issue 3, pp. 308-319 (March 2007)
Zdenek P. Bažant,1 F.ASCE and Mathieu Verdure2
1McCormick School Professor and W.P. Murphy Professor of Civil Engineering and Materials Science, Northwestern Univ., 2145 Sheridan Rd., CEE/A135, Evanston, IL 60208. E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.org
2Visiting Fellow, Northwestern Univ., 2145 Sheridan Rd., CEE/A135, Evanston, IL 60208; on leave from Ecole Polytechnique, Palaiseau, France.
(Accepted 16 September 2006)
On 9/12/2001, Peter Jennings interviews Marlene Cruz, a carpenter injured in one of the pre-collapse explosions in the WTC sub-basement level B long before the planes hit the towers. The first casualty of 9/11 admitted at Bellevue Hospital, Cruz is a living witness who proves that pre-planted explosives were used to weaken the foundations.
Direct Download: http://www.911podcasts.com/display.php?vid=201
Tuesday, February 27, 2007:
BBC World News started reporting that WTC 7 had collapsed about 23 minutes before the building actually came down, as video of news coverage on September 11th shows. The segment establishing this is available on the archive.org news service and was discovered by veritas911, a member of 911blogger.com.
(The 1-gigabyte video of BBC World News coverage on Sept. 11th starts at 4:54pm EDT and is available at http://ia311517.us.archive.org/2/items/bbc200109111654-1736/V08591-16.mpg)
Speaking from London on the afternoon of September 11th, BBC World News anchorman Philip Hayton asks reporter Jane Stanley in New York about the collapse of the "47-story Salomon Brothers Building," also known as WTC 7. Although the building is still standing and clearly visible through the window behind Stanley, its collapse is repeatedly described as a past event. Hayton asks Stanley if there were any casualties in the building, and advances an explanation for its collapse already provided by officials, that it was weakened structurally by the prior collapses of the Twin Towers.
Every adult human on the planet should see this.
Needless to say, among myriad omissions on tonight's BBC cointelproduction was any reference to the toxic dust.
January 31, 2007
A City University building badly damaged in the September 11th attacks is finally slated to be demolished. But residents of the community are concerned that the demolition might release toxins into the air. NY1's Lindley Pless filed the following report.
“A lot of stuff is being done with the first responders. We feel the residents are the forgotten people being left in the background,” said area resident Craig Hall. “And residents are now getting sick and we are highly concerned about that.”
At Tuesday night's public information session at the Borough of Manhattan's Community College, local residents were given a chance to speak out about their concerns that bringing down Fiterman Hall will release toxins into the air they breathe every day.
Five minute video comparing WTC 7 fire to other skyscraper fires, and also to controlled demolition. The video is set to The Blue Danube. A vivid example for just about anyone out of the blue who might be questioning 911. It's brief, easy to listen to, and for the coming holidays and the year ahead, it's a great way to send $20 bucks to everyone you know and love.
911 Press for Truth
Another excellent article firefighter brother, Douglas Herman!
"Not until the credible testimony of those who actually experienced the controlled demolition of the WTC is given due weight, not until the testimony of those who witnessed and experienced the destruction from the inside and outside of the buildings is properly investigated, will justice be served."
911 - Why We Fight
By Douglas Herman
Exclusive to Rense.com
"When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon." -Thomas Paine
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." - George Orwell
The first time I shouldered my Scott airpack, a self contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) and pressed the face mask and respirator to my face and mounted the ladder over the hotbox, I panicked and nearly fainted. My heart pounded; I couldn't breath! A sudden burst of air, however, from the release valve, relieved the feeling of suffocation, but drew a quick scolding from my firefighting instructor. Stop breathing in bursts, he said; remain calm, and follow your team leader.
Has anyone seen this? I got it from Rick Siegel's website (via whatreallyhappened.com).
If this is truly unedited, it's just another piece of A+ evidence that shows CD.
Video of the question and answer session following Jim Hoffman's presentation at UC Berkeley on November 11, 2006.
Professor Steven Jones joins Hoffman in addressing questions from the audience.
In this two-part presentation, Jim Fetzer gives an overview of the destruction at ground zero.
High-quality aerial photos and some interesting video are used to outline his working hypothesis.
Topics include WTC 6, a theory on WTC7 and an analysis of the destruction of the twin towers.
To watch the video:
Here is some collapse footage shown by the BBC in a programme ‘9/11:The Twin Towers’, broadcast in the UK on 7 September 2006. I hadn't seen it before, so thought I'd post it in case others hadn't seen it as well. Notice how the second building flares up during the collapse of the first building:
Some time ago you will remember the "Call to Action" by Alex Jones regarding the next false flag attack possibly on American soil. A lot of us rose to the occasion and compiled media emails for USA & Canada and fired them off.
I personally fired emails to all of Canada media and most of the USA, asking the media to stand up and report on the false flags and also the inconsistencies in the official story in general. Yesterday I received an email from THE CANADIAN NATIONAL NEWSPAPER stating that they ran a story on 911. Take a look.
Maybe the tide is now turning, however, we need to keep the pressure up.
This video straight up defies what the "official" 9/11 commision report says about the 47 Steel beams in the center of the towers not even being there... Notice a few of them still standing after the rest of the building fell?
Get this video and more at MySpace.com
The link goes to a part of the play that concerns September 11. Check out the synopsis too, while you're there. Pass it on. | <urn:uuid:7231c9eb-1517-4496-9361-46e1926f247d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://911blogger.com/topics/demolition?page=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935788 | 3,639 | 2.640625 | 3 |