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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
An internal review of how the United Nations handled the bloody final months of Sri Lanka’s civil war in 2009, when as many as 40,000 civilians were killed, has concluded that the response was “a grave failure of the U.N.,” according to a leaked draft of the report.
The investigative panel, led by Charles Petrie, a former United Nations official, criticized what it called “a sustained and institutionalized reluctance” by staff members in Sri Lanka at the time “to stand up for the rights of the people they were mandated to assist.” In blunt language, the report’s executive summary states that “many senior U.N. staff simply did not perceive the prevention of killing of civilians as their responsibility.”
The report, copies of which were given to the BBC and The New York Times, also found fault with the way the crisis was dealt with by senior United Nations officials in New York. “Decision-making across the U.N. was dominated by a culture of trade-offs – from the ground to U.N. headquarters,” the draft report states. Officials chose “not to speak up” about “broken commitments and violations of international law” by both the Sri Lankan government and Tamil Tiger rebels because that “was seen as the only way to increase U.N. humanitarian access” to victims of the conflict.
The report does note that “the last phase of the conflict in Sri Lanka presented a major challenge” to the international body.
The U.N. struggled to exert influence on the Government which, with the effective acquiescence of a post-9/11 world order, was determined to defeat militarily an organization designated as terrorist. Some have argued that many deaths could have been averted had the Security Council and the Secretariat, backed by the U.N. country team, spoken out loudly early on, notably by publicizing the casualty numbers. Others say that the question is less whether the U.N. should assume responsibility for the tragedy, but more whether it did everything it could to assist the victims.
The internal review panel was established by Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general. A spokesman for Mr. Ban refused to comment on the leaked draft on Tuesday, but told reporters that the secretary general planned to meet Mr. Petrie on Wednesday morning and that the final version of the report would be made public soon.
Lyse Doucet, the chief international correspondent for BBC News who obtained the leaked draft, reported on Tuesday that United Nations sources said that the “brief executive summary, which sets out the panel’s conclusions in stark terms, has been removed,” from the final report. | <urn:uuid:964c5800-d716-4f2b-806f-bf4433645002> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/13/leaked-report-on-sri-lanka-critical-of-u-n/?ref=world | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974133 | 570 | 1.914063 | 2 |
|HISTORY: The history of Maine Coons is not fully understood. But there are numerous theories as to how Maine Coons came into existence. Some biologically impossible ideas indicate a colonial house cat bred with a raccoon. Other ideas suggest modern Maine Coons are descendants of the Angora cats Queen Marie Antoinette sent to America in advance of her planned escape from France during the French Revolution. Regardless of how this beautiful breed began, however, it is known that Maine Coons were the first recognized American cat breed. In fact, a Maine Coon was the recipient of the first Best Cat award at the first major cat show in America. Their increasing popularity was threatened to the point of near extinction, however, as more and more exotic felines, including Persians and Angoras, were brought to America. But the past and future of the breed was secured with the development of the Maine Coon Breeders and Fanciers Association in 1968. Today, Maine Coons are considered the second most popular cat breed in America.
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS: Maine Coons are one of the largest domestic cat breeds. Males commonly weigh 13 to 18 lbs; females average between 9 and 12 lbs. Their bodies are well-proportioned and muscular with a broad chest and an overall rectangular shape. Interestingly, the breed develops slowly and individuals do not achieve their full size until they reach three to five years in age. Everything about Maine Coons, however, is adapted to life and survival in the harsh winter climates of forested Northeastern America. They have silky, heavy, water-resistant coats that tend to be heavier on the stomach, ruff, and britches for protection from wet and cold. Their long, bushy tails easily wrap around the torso for added warmth. Their big, round, and tufted feet helped serve as a natural snowshoe. They also have heavily furred ears and large eyes. Traditionally, the Maine Coon is a brown tabby cat; however, the coat can be of any color except pointed colors or patterns. Eyes are typically green, gold, or copper though blue or odd (one blue and one gold) eye colors are often seen in white colored cats.
TEMPERAMENT: Though easy-going and good-natured, Maine Coons retain a fair amount of kitten-like energy throughout their lives. As such, they require daily play sessions with suitable cat toys. However, Maine Coons are not particularly demanding of their owner's attention. In fact, though the typical Maine Coon will follow her owner around the house and investigate the day's activities and chores, most prefer the proximity of companionship over full-time interaction with their owners. Additionally, the Maine Coon is not a very vocal breed, though they will use their distinct, chirping trill to express their intelligence and independence when necessary.
PREFERENCES: Maine Coons, like their human companions, tend to be creatures of habit. As a result, most train easily to fetch cat toys or accept a harness and leash for supervised excursions outdoors with their owners. Unlike many breeds, however, Maine Coons are usually not big climbers. Instead, they often prefer to chase objects on the ground and catch them with their large paws, which probably stems from their history as mousers on colonial farms. Though Maine Coons are typically easy to groom, they do require regular grooming sessions with a suitable brush or comb to help avoid mats and tangles of the fur. Typically, Maine Coons are very tolerant of dogs and other pets and generally favor children but may be leery around people they do not know very well.
BEST FEATURE: With their clown-like personality, affectionate nature, and relative ease of care, Maine Coons are well suited for life in large, active and animal-loving families. Though large in size, Maine Coons are not overbearing, provided they have plenty of avenues to explore their playful nature and intelligent, curious disposition. They also have a fairly long life expectancy of twelve to fifteen years when kept in good health.
BIGGEST CHALLENGE TO OWNERS: Since Maine Coons remain energetic throughout their lives, keeping them active and healthy can be a problem for the unprepared owner. In the past, Maine Coons often inherited health problems such as hip dysplasia and cardiomyopathy. However, responsible breeders routinely screen against these conditions. To help keep a Maine Coon healthy throughout their long lives, owners need to be prepared to stimulate this curious, intelligent, and playful breed with a variety of interactive toys and active companionship. To help control weight issues, Maine Coons should be fed a high-quality cat food or, if necessary, a low-calorie adult cat diet with a fresh supply of clean drinking water at all times. | <urn:uuid:dcf93109-b1e5-47e7-97ad-a9db673c7e93> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.drsfostersmith.com/pic/article.cfm?c=3261&articleid=2025&d=156&category=359 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960502 | 992 | 3.15625 | 3 |
Under Linux, there is a special FileSystem mounted under /proc that gives access to the Linux Kernel settings and information.
Some of the information you can find includes:
- a subdirectory for each current process. You can find things like the command line, the environment, memory and file usage. There is a special directory called "self" that refers to whichever process accesses it. For example, you can do less /proc/self/status to find out about the less process, or you can do cd /proc/self ; less status to find out about your shell process.
- /proc/cpuinfo gives information about the detected CPU(s), including manufacturer, id, known bugs, and extensions.
- FileSystems and peripherals. For example, when you attach a USB device such as a DigitalCamera, your programs communicate with the device through a file with a name like /proc/bus/usb/001/003.
- sysctl's are available via /proc/sys/
- network devices and status.
Also, the SuperUser can change some Kernel settings by writing to particular files. For example, to allow your Linux machine to act as a router by forwarding packets from other machines, it is necessary (but usually already automated) to do echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward.
Writing programs that get information from /proc is a good way to make them non-Portable to other Unix(-like) systems. | <urn:uuid:0ba02137-a64a-4d0c-a9a3-19182f23bb23> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wiki.linux.net.nz/ProcFileSystem | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.900547 | 309 | 3.609375 | 4 |
Poverty and Personal Responsibility (Part 2)
[ ...continued from part one]
So how do we help people who have been hurt so much psychologically and emotionally that they don't believe in themselves and don't believe they deserve better? How do we help children who have never heard a parent say, "I love you, you are special, talented, and will do great things one day"? Or those who watched their parents harm themselves through substance abuse or alcoholism? Is there hope for these men, women, and children? If we believe in God and the power of God to give us beauty for ashes, then the answer is yes!
For many people living in poverty, their change will not come through programs and policies, but it will come through personal responsibility. What I mean is that it will come through our personal responsibility to walk alongside them and show them through our actions that we are not going to give up on them. It will require that those of us who no longer live in poverty or have never known poverty develop substantive relationships with people who are poor. We must go out and meet people where they are and show them how we got out, show them through our interaction with them that they are loved. Invite them into our homes so that they can be exposed to a better life, see what healthy relationships look like, and hear us talk to our children using words of empowerment. When people see living, breathing examples of what God can do, that's when they believe God can do it.
And yes, I understand that this notion of stepping out of our comfort zones to have deeper personal relationships with people whom we don't know and perhaps don't understand, is not very appealing or makes us uncomfortable. But is this not what Jesus did? Every person he encountered was a stranger before that moment. In fact, we were strangers when he found us. But as it was when Jesus walked the earth, reaching out to those in need of change, touching people who had never felt a compassionate hand, so it is today.
Yes, in our own power and limited ability we cannot do this, and I would daresay that some may not want to do it, but with God all things are possible. If we humble ourselves and say, "God, I cannot move this mountain, I need you to move it for me, increase my faith," then and only then can we truly eliminate poverty by liberating the poor from the psychological bondage of their circumstances.
I know this is possible because it is my story. Had it not been for men and women who believed in me when I didn't believe in myself, people who refused to leave when I tried to force them out of my life, had it not been for them I would either still be living in poverty, selling drugs, in a gang, or dead. But thanks be to God for those men and women who refused to give up on me simply because they realized that in their own lives, God refused to give up on them. Yes, we need better policy, new programs, and personal responsibility, but perhaps what we need most is to stand alongside the people who need us most. | <urn:uuid:edd247e0-e2c3-4f7d-8803-f78aa78225ce> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sojo.net/blogs/2008/07/24/poverty-and-personal-responsibility-part-2?quicktabs_blog_homepage_tabbed_block=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984478 | 639 | 1.71875 | 2 |
8th period History Timeline 2
Created by higbegra000 on Oct 11, 2010
Last updated: 10/11/10 at 09:50 PM
Grant Higbee History Timeline 2 has no followers yet. Be the first one to follow.
The treaty that officially ended the revolution. America was now independent from Britain. All acts passed by England are abolished.
A lack of disipline proved catastrophic for the British troops. Unorganized after the sloppy performance at King's Mountain, the British Army could not recover in time. The redcoats were slaughtered by the Contenintal Army and General Cornwallis continued to retreat toward Yorktown.
Major Ferguson proved to be more trouble than he was worth. His threat sent out over King's Mountain provoked the mountain men in the area to attack. This closed off Crnwallis's path into Virginia and a forced him into a retreat.
The Battle that ended the American Revolution. The Continental Army defeated the British. Geeral Cornwallis is captured.
At the Conclusion of the Battle of Saratoga, France became convinced that maybe America had a chance of winning the war after all. Considering what was to be gained by driving the arch rival England out of the Americas, France joined the war on the colonists side. Now the colonists had a navy and could compete with England in the water as well as on land.
The major turning point in the war. The Colonists win the battle at Saratoga. At this point, the French ally with America, giving the Contenintal Army the Navy it needs to challenge the British at sea.
The continental Army spent a harsh winter in Valley Forge. They were threatening to give up. They desperately needed help but endured the torture nontheless.
The contenintal army is in a state of desperation. They have decided to launch a surprise attack the day after christmas while the British troops and their Hessian allies are hung over from the christmas drinking the day before. The plan works and the colonists win the battle.
A document that officially declared the colonies seperate from Britain is passed. The Document is given the simple name Declaration of Independence. The document only works of course if America emerges victorious in the War.
Common Sense was a book written by Thomas Paine. The book lists reasons why the colonies should break away from England. The book viciously attacks Britain and Paine risked being arrested for High Treason if America lost the war.
The Contenintal Congress formed the Contenintal Army. This is the army that they would use to challenge the British Redcoats. They used war bonds to pay the soldiers.
American sharpshooters were stationed on Bunker Hill. As the British troops began advancing the sharpshooters picked them off, mowing down line after line and inflicting massive casualties on the British soldiers. Britain still managed to win the hill however because the colonists ran out of supplies.
Washington is appointed general of the American troops. This move was more political than it was for Washington's military genius. A Virginian serving would further help unite the colonies for the cause.
The Battles that started the American Revolution. The "Shot Heard round the World" was fired at Lexington. Nobody knows which side fired first, but it started the first battle of the war. The colonists then later won a major victory at Concord.
This was a meeting held in Philadelphia. Twelve of the thirteen colonies sent delegates. The hope was the a meeting of this magnitude would finally be recognized by King George.
Passed in Retaliation for the Boston Tea Party. King George ordered the closing of Boston Harbor and also stationed redcoats in Boston. Now the tensions between the colonies and England are higher than ever before.
Colonists dressed as mohawk Indians dumped loads of British tea into Boston Harbor. This was done in protest to the tax placed on tea. In response to this, England shut down Boston Harbor.
British recoats stationed in Boston are harrassed by an angry colonist mob. In self-defense, the soldiers fired on the mob. This was described as a massacre by the colonists to further anger their bretherin to stand against the king.
The taxation act that truley outraged the colonists. The act ment a tax on all paper goods, including letters, cards, and documents. The colonists boycotted British goods until the act was repealed.
A tax is placed on sugar. Supposedly this one done to raise money for the British troops after the French and Indian War. The tax included both sugar and molasses. | <urn:uuid:cf502991-c649-4c86-ad39-4e57255d75c1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dipity.com/higbegra000/History/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959774 | 941 | 3.625 | 4 |
Introduction to Program Evaluation for Public Health Programs: A Self-Study Guide
Step 6: Ensure Use of Evaluation Findings and Share Lessons Learned
The ultimate purpose of program evaluation is to use the information to improve programs. The purpose(s) you identified early in the evaluation process should guide the use of the evaluation results. The evaluation results can be used to demonstrate the effectiveness of your program, identify ways to improve your program, modify program planning, demonstrate accountability, and justify funding.
Additional uses include the following:
- To demonstrate to legislators or other stakeholders that resources are being well spent and that the program is effective.
- To aid in forming budgets and to justify the allocation of resources.
- To compare outcomes with those of previous years.
- To compare actual outcomes with intended outcomes.
- To suggest realistic intended outcomes.
- To support annual and long‑range planning.
- To focus attention on issues important to your program.
- To promote your program.
- To identify partners for collaborations.
- To enhance the image of your program.
- To retain or increase funding.
- To provide direction for program staff.
- To identify training and technical assistance needs.
What’s involved in ensuring use and sharing lessons learned? Five elements are important in making sure that the findings from an evaluation are used:
- Making Recommendations
Recommendations are actions to consider as a result of an evaluation. Recommendations can strengthen an evaluation when they anticipate and react to what users want to know, and may undermine an evaluation’s credibility if they are not supported by enough evidence, or are not in keeping with stakeholders’ values.
Your recommendations will depend on the audience and the purpose of the evaluation (see text box). Remember, you identified many or all of these key audiences in Step 1, and have engaged many of them throughout as stakeholders. Hence, you have maximized the chances that the recommendations that you eventually make are relevant and useful to them. You know the information your stakeholders want and what is important to them. Their feedback early on in the evaluation makes their eventual support of your recommendations more likely.
Here are some examples, using the case illustrations, of recommendations tailored to different purposes and for different audiences:
Audience: Local provider immunization program.
Purpose of Evaluation: Improve program efforts.
Recommendation: Thirty-five percent of providers in Region 2 recalled the content of the monthly provider newsletter. To meet the current objective of a 50% recall rate among this population group, we recommend varying the media messages by specialty, and increasing the number of messages targeted through journals for the targeted specialties.
Purpose of Evaluation: Demonstrate effectiveness.
Recommendation: Last year, a targeted education and media campaign about the need for private provider participation in adult immunization was conducted across the state. Eighty percent of providers were reached by the campaign and reported a change in attitudes towards adult immunization—a twofold increase from the year before. We recommend the campaign be continued and expanded emphasizing minimizing missed opportunities for providers to conduct adult immunizations.
Audience: County health commissioners.
Purpose of Evaluation: Demonstrate effectiveness of CLPP efforts.
Recommendation: In this past year, county staff identified all homes with EBLL children in targeted sections of the county. Data indicate that only 30% of these homes have been treated to eliminate the source of the lead poisoning. We recommend that you incorporate compliance checks for the lead ordinance into the county’s housing inspection process and apply penalties for noncompliance by private landlords.
Audience: Foundation funding source for affordable housing program.
Purpose of Evaluation: Demonstrate fiscal accountability.
Recommendation: For the past 5 years, the program has worked through local coalitions, educational campaigns, and media efforts to increase engagement of volunteers and sponsors, and to match them with 300 needy families to build and sell a house. More than 90% of the families are still in their homes and making timely mortgage payments. But, while families report satisfaction with their new housing arrangement, we do not yet see evidence of changes in employment and school outcomes. We recommend continued support for the program with expansion to include an emphasis on tutoring and life coaching by the volunteers.
Preparation refers to the steps taken to eventually use the evaluation findings. Through preparation, stakeholders can:
Strengthen their ability to translate new knowledge into appropriate action.
Discuss how potential findings might affect decision-making.
Explore positive and negative implications of potential results and identify different options for program improvement.
Feedback occurs among everyone involved in the evaluation. Feedback, necessary at all stages of the evaluation process, creates an atmosphere of trust among stakeholders. Early in an evaluation, giving and receiving feedback keeps an evaluation on track by keeping everyone informed about how the program is being implemented and how the evaluation is proceeding. As the evaluation progresses and preliminary results become available, feedback helps ensure that primary users and other stakeholders can comment on evaluation decisions. Valuable feedback can be obtained by holding discussions and routinely sharing interim findings, provisional interpretations, and draft reports.
Follow-up refers to the support that users need throughout the evaluation process. In this step it refers to the support users need after receiving evaluation results and beginning to reach and justify their conclusions. Active follow-up can achieve the following:
Remind users of the intended uses of what has been learned.
Help to prevent misuse of results by ensuring that evidence is applied to the questions that were the evaluation’s central focus.
Prevent lessons learned from becoming lost or ignored in the process of making complex or political decisions.
Dissemination involves communicating evaluation procedures or lessons learned to relevant audiences in a timely, unbiased, and consistent manner. Regardless of how communications are structured, the goal for dissemination is to achieve full disclosure and impartial reporting. Planning effective communications requires
Advance discussion of the reporting strategy with intended users and other stakeholders
Matching the timing, style, tone, message source, vehicle, and format of information products to the audience.
Some methods of getting the information to your audience include
- Web sites
- Community forums
- Media (television, radio, newspaper)
- Personal contacts
- Organizational newsletters.
If a formal evaluation report is the chosen format, the evaluation report must clearly, succinctly, and impartially communicate all parts of the evaluation (see text box). The report should be written so that it is easy to understand. It need not be lengthy or technical. You should also consider oral presentations tailored to various audiences. An outline for a traditional evaluation report might look like this:
- Executive Summary
- Background and Purpose
- Program background
- Evaluation rationale
- Stakeholder identification and engagement
- Program description
- Key evaluation questions/focus
- Evaluation Methods
- Sampling procedures
- Measures or indicators
- Data collection procedures
- Data processing procedures
- Discussion and Recommendations
The three standards that most directly apply to Step 6—Ensure Use and Share Lessons Learned—are utility, propriety, and accuracy. The questions presented in Table 6.1 can help you to clarify and achieve these standards.
Do reports clearly describe the program, including its context, and the evaluation’s purposes, procedures, and findings?
Have you shared significant mid-course findings and reports with users so that the findings can be used in a timely fashion?
Have you planned, conducted, and reported the evaluation in ways that encourage follow-through by stakeholders?
Is the format appropriate to your resources and to the time and resources of the audience?
Have you ensured that the evaluation findings (including the limitations) are made accessible to everyone affected by the evaluation and others who have the right to receive the results?
Have you tried to avoid the distortions that can be caused by personal feelings and other biases?
Do evaluation reports impartially and fairly reflect evaluation findings?
Evaluation is a practical tool that states can use to inform programs’ efforts and assess their impact. Program evaluation should be well integrated into the day-to-day planning, implementation, and management of public health programs. Program evaluation complements CDC’s operating principles for public health, which include using science as a basis for decision-making and action, expanding the quest for social equity, performing effectively as a service agency, and making efforts outcome-oriented. These principles highlight the need for programs to develop clear plans, inclusive partnerships, and feedback systems that support ongoing improvement. CDC is committed to providing additional tools and technical assistance to states and partners to build and enhance their capacity for evaluation.
- Identify strategies to increase the likelihood that evaluation findings will be used.
- Identify strategies to reduce the likelihood that information will be misinterpreted.
- Provide continuous feedback to the program.
- Prepare stakeholders for the eventual use of evaluation findings.
- Identify training and technical assistance needs.
- Use evaluation findings to support annual and long-range planning.
- Use evaluation findings to promote your program.
- Use evaluation findings to enhance the public image of your program.
- Schedule follow-up meetings to facilitate the transfer of evaluation conclusions.
- Disseminate procedures used and lessons learned to stakeholders.
- Consider interim reports to key audiences.
- Tailor evaluation reports to audience(s.)
- Revisit the purpose(s) of the evaluation when preparing recommendations.
- Present clear and succinct findings in a timely manner.
- Avoid jargon when preparing or presenting information to stakeholders.
- Disseminate evaluation findings in several ways.
|I need to communicate to this audience||This format would be most appropriate||This channel(s) would be most effective|
|The following will follow up with users of the evaluation findings||In this manner||This support is available for follow-up|
Tom Chapel, Chief Evaluation Officer
Evaluation Team, Office of the Associate Director for Program
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
1600 Clifton Rd
Atlanta, GA 30333
TTY: (888) 232-6348
New Hours of Operation | <urn:uuid:1a5eff42-43f2-4e9a-b4ef-66c3a0e3777d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cdc.gov/eval/guide/step6/index.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.905697 | 2,073 | 3.015625 | 3 |
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrived in Cairo on Tuesday ahead of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation’s (OIC) 12th session. Ahmadinejad’s visit marks the first time an Iranian head of state has visited Egypt since the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
After President Mohamed Morsi received his Iranian counterpart at the airport, Ahmadinejad met with Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Ahmed el-Tayeb, a historic visit given the current sectarian divide between Shi’as and Sunnis.
El-Tayeb asked Ahmadinejad to have fatwas issued from religious institutions in Iran against insulting historic Sunni figures such as Al-Sayyeda Aisha, Abo Bakr, Omar, and Othman. He also called on the Iranian leader to guarantee Sunnis in Iran their full rights as citizens and asked Ahmadinejad’s government to seek ending the bloodshed in Syria
In a press conference following his meeting with the grand imam, Ahmadinejad stressed that Iran and Egypt both hold prominent positions in global affairs and that he would continue bilateral talks to strengthen relations between the two countries.
Central Security Forces bolstered security around Sayeda Zeinab mosque, as the Iranian president was scheduled to visit the mosque following his presser with el-Tayeb.
The Salafi Calling publicly denounced Ahmadinejad’s visit to Cairo and called on Morsi to prohibit the Iranian president from visiting any Egyptian mosques or Tahrir Square.
Morsi visited Tehran last August for the Non-Aligned Movement summit being the first Egyptian head of state to visit Iran since the 1979 revolution. Relations between the two countries had been strained due to a number of factors, including Egypt’s participation in the Camp David Accords.
Speaking to reporters before his departure from Tehran, Ahmadinejad told reporters that he looked forward to expanding relations between the two countries. He added that he believed his visit would “definitely affect” the ties between the two nations and that he would seek to lay the groundwork for increased cooperation.
As world leaders continued arriving to Cairo ahead of the OIC summit, Morsi also met with President of the Palestinian National Authority Mahmoud Abbas and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki to discuss a wide range of regional issues. | <urn:uuid:36519a82-e613-410c-9b06-52dc0f15ed6c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dailynewsegypt.com/2013/02/05/ahmadinejad-arrives-in-cairo-2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963473 | 463 | 1.640625 | 2 |
FORT WAYNE, Ind. (Indiana’s NewsCenter) - The city water filtration plant is the place where your water is made clean and safe to drink and use.
But the cost of that water could very well be going up in the not too distant future.
This Wednesday, the Fort Wayne Board of Public Works approved a 40-percent rate hike request for increases that are proposed to take place in 2013 and 2014.
The average city water customer, we're told, would see their monthly bill go up by about $7.00 over that time frame.
A sewer rate hike that kicks off July first would add maybe another $3.00 to your monthly utility bill.
One reason given for pursuit of the first rate hike since 2006 is the condition of aging water mains in need of upgrade.
Another, EPA mandates requiring the city to treat its water to a higher standard, including a $22-million upgrade to the filtration plant to treat a specific microorganism in water that threatens public safety.
Interestingly, part of the budget problems for City Utilities relates to a 15-percent drop in water consumption in recent years, that follows a national trend.
More efficient plumbing, for instance, cuts down on water usage.
City Utilities says even with the rate hike, Fort Wayne water remains one of the best values in the state, but officials recognize that message may not play well with customers.
Mary Jane Slaton with City Utilities says, “We don't enjoy doing those, because we know that there are people who already struggle paying their bills. I think the nice thing, if there is a nice thing about this increase, is people are going to have some time to get used to the idea, and maybe look at their finances and figure out how they can pay this increase.”
The approval by the Board of Works is not final and still needs an okay from the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission, after getting a thumbs up from Fort Wayne City Council.
Council could vote on the rate hike as early as Valentine's Day.
What are your thoughts CLICK HERE to leave us a "Your2Cents” comment.
© Copyright 2013 A Granite Broadcasting Station. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. | <urn:uuid:7df6e430-0be5-4d89-8a94-4a34e28059b5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.indianasnewscenter.com/home/Fort-Wayne-Board-of-Public-Works-OKs-40-Water-Rate-Hike-137100708.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962281 | 472 | 2.046875 | 2 |
It's Official: EPA Issues Draft Regulation for Power Plant Greenhouse Gas Emissions
We’ve heard about it already, but last week EPA made it official: First ever greenhouse gas regulations for power plants hit the Federal Register. EPA’s move is the next step in a process that started with the 2007 Supreme Court case Massachusetts vs. EPA, a decision that gave EPA the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions if they pose a threat to human health and the environment. EPA claimed its authority with a 2009 endangerment finding, and has been taking steps to toward this regulatory action ever since.
Last week’s regulation limits the amount of carbon dioxide a power plant can emit per unit of power produced to 1,000 pounds per megawatt-hour. To put this in perspective, new natural gas facilities emit just under that limit; coal plants emit as much as 1,800 pounds per megawatt-hour. Good news for gas; bad news for coal.
Still, EPA doesn’t deem this regulation to be “economically significant,” meaning it won’t impose an impact of more than $100 million. How does that add up? First, the regulation doesn’t apply to any existing facilities. Second, the Obama EPA has been hard at work issuing waves of burdensome regulation on traditional air pollutants that make coal substantially less competitive. Third, natural gas – coal’s chief competitor – is hovering at its lowest prices in 10 years. Put it all together, and this regulation isn’t economically significant, because the EPA has already regulated the coal industry into oblivion and natural gas prices are taking care of the rest.
The EPA says that new coal can be built as long as it employs carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology. They even give facilities a lengthy compliance window, allowing them to average facility emissions over 30 years. But CCS hasn’t yet been employed at a commercial stage and there are considerable technological, legal, and infrastructure challenges to overcome before the technology can be viable. This all adds up to an effective death knell for King Coal, a strategic fossil fuel that has dramatically fallen from favor while still supplying half of the nation’s electricity.
Limiting the cost impacts of killing coal hinges on cheap natural gas for the foreseeable future. This seems like a viable reality, with fracking (and mild winters) putting a glut of natural gas on the market, driving down prices. With prices this low, we can expect new generation to be natural gas heavy, sidelining not just coal but also nuclear, wind, solar, and other alternatives.
Natural gas, however, has a volatile price history, swinging between $2 and $11 per MMBtu over the past decade. And there are forces that could cause prices to swing again. Pending EPA and Interior regulations may slow the pace at which we get natural gas out of the ground and drive up the costs to develop, process, and transport the fuel. The natural gas industry itself is desperate for higher profits, and is looking for new markets, like a natural gas-fired automobile fleet and exports overseas. Counting on natural gas now commits us a future in which natural gas price swings can change the tide of our economy.
At its core, government command-and-control regulation of greenhouse gases is an expensive proposition. Carbon dioxide is wholly unlike traditional air pollutants; it doesn’t result from fuel impurities or any limitation in combustion. Carbon dioxide is the emission that drives our economy, producing 70% of our electricity and fueling virtually all of our transportation. No matter how you slice it, EPA greenhouse gas regulations will be “economically significant,” even if they’ve found a way around that tag for now. | <urn:uuid:fe817e40-aba5-4bad-8e85-627d815fff6f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://americanactionnetwork.org/topic/its-official-epa-issues-draft-regulation-power-plant-greenhouse-gas-emissions | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937559 | 771 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Dear Dr. Eisenberg: Someone told me that Jews believe that an infant doesn't become fully human until the eighth day after birth, hence the timing of circumcision. Would you please comment on this?
B.D., University of Texas
While Jews perform the circumcisions of their sons on the eighth day because the Torah commands it, there are multiple reasons given for why the bris mila (circumcision ceremony) is performed on the eighth day. None of these reasons are related to the baby becoming a person at eight days.
There is a particularly meaningful reason given for why the bris mila is on the eighth day. Rabbi Moshe Isserles describes the custom of having a "welcoming" party (commonly known as a shalom zachor) for a newborn baby boy on the Friday night after the birth. Many commentaries ponder the question of why the party is held specifically on Friday night. Rabbi David HaLevi Segal, known as the Taz, brings a midrash to explain the choice of day. The midrash comments on the command of the Torah that a sacrifice not be brought before the newborn animal is eight days old:
"Rabbi Levi says that it is analogous to a king who decrees that anyone who wishes to see the face of the king must first see the face of the queen. Similarly says Hashem: do not bring a sacrifice before me until at least one Sabbath has passed for there are no seven days without a Sabbath and there is no mila (circumcision) without a Sabbath."
Why the importance of the Sabbath? Keeping the Sabbath is compared to keeping the whole Torah and breaking the Sabbath is considered tantamount to transgressing the entire Torah, since the Sabbath is a testimony that God made the world. According to the Torah, the exact times of the Jewish holidays are determined empirically by observing the appearance of the new moon and are set by the Sanhedrin. However, the Sabbath occurs every seven days without the input of man. Therefore, we see that while the holiness of the Jewish holidays derives at least partially from man, the holiness of the Sabbath comes directly and exclusively from God.
Circumcision represents the completion of the human being.
In Judaism, circumcision is considered a symbol of the covenant between God and the Jewish people. In fact, bris literally means "covenant." The bris is on the eighth day so that the newborn baby will by necessity live through a complete week which must include a Sabbath. Once the baby has experienced the "holiness" of the Shabbos, he may enter into the covenant of the Jewish people.
Why should circumcision be the sign of the covenant between the Jews and God? Circumcision represents the completion of the human being. According to Jewish tradition, Adam, the first man, was born without a foreskin. Only when he sinned did he create a barrier between himself and God and at that point developed a foreskin. The removal of the foreskin represents the physical act by which man attempts to come close to God again. The evil Roman ruler Turnus Rufus asked Rabbi Akiva why Jews perform circumcision. If God wanted men circumcised, would he have not created them that way? Rabbi Akiva answered that God provided circumcision as an act for man to improve himself, something that even God cannot do for him.
Historically, Jews have undergone great sacrifice, sometimes even risking death, to perform circumcisions on their sons and bring them into the covenant of Abraham. More than once in Jewish history, during times of persecution from the Greeks and Romans to the Nazis, rulers have recognized that circumcision was at the core of Jewish identity, and have tried to ban it, often on pain of death.
It is important to recognize that while some medical studies have shown health benefits to circumcision, Jews do not circumcise their sons for that reason, but because of the covenant that it represents with God. While the American Academy of Pediatrics has changed its position several times, the Jewish people have always been steadfast in their commitment to bris mila.
Nevertheless, despite rare media reports and rabid blogs to the contrary, ritual circumcision is a very safe procedure. Dr. Avraham Steinberg, author of the Encyclopedia of Jewish Medical Ethics (and a pediatric neurologist himself) reports that:
"...although ritual circumcision is usually performed by non-physicians, complications are extremely rare. A summary of several large studies comprising more than 24,000 newborn circumcisions found complications in only 0.06% to 0.25%. The medical literature between 1953 and 1980 contains only two instances of fatality as a result of circumcision.
By contrast, in a report of 500,000 circumcisions in New York and 175,000 in the U.S. Armed Forces, not a single fatality occurred. These large studies are more reliable than reports of individual cases. The fact that isolated reports occur in the literature attests to the extreme rarity of death following circumcision."
It should be apparent that the timing of bris mila is meaningful and profound. Circumcision has been an integral part of Jewish tradition for thousands of years and we reaffirm our unique connection to God with each bris that we perform.
Nidda 44a
Devarim Rabbah 6:1 states that God had pity on the child and instead of requiring circumcision immediately after birth, waited until the baby was stronger. This strength may be physical (Moreh Nevuchim 3:49) or spiritual (as discussed above regarding the Sabbath). Other reasons given are so that the baby is given time to "mourn" for the Torah that it learned in utero and has now forgotten (Taz, Yoreh Deah265:13), and that the parents are happier at eight days when "tumas leidah" no longer applies (Nidda 31b). Interestingly, the baby's coagulation factors appear to peak at the eighth day. See the essay entitled "A Tapestry of Eights" in Bris Milah by Rabbi Paysach Krohn (Mesorah Publications) for a detailed discussed of the significance of the eighth day for circumcision.
Rama, Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah 265:12
Vayikra Rabbah 27 (parshas Emor)
Leviticus 22:27
The Sabbath is commonly compared to a queen.
Mishneh Torah, Hilchos Shabbos 30:15
Avos D'Rebbe Nosson 2:5
Sanhedrin 38b
Midrash Tanchuma, Tazria 5
For study references, see Steinberg, A. Encyclopedia of Jewish Medical Ethics; Feldheim: New York, p. 199 | <urn:uuid:62f15976-0a46-4e8a-95c1-c8ee19a784b4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aish.com/ci/sam/48964686.html?s=mbaw | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949664 | 1,390 | 2.6875 | 3 |
For Pharaoh will say of the children of Israel, They are entangled in the
land, the wilderness hath shut them in.
And I will harden
Pharaoh's heart, that he shall follow after them; and I will be honoured
upon Pharaoh, and upon all his host; that the Egyptians may know that I am
the LORD. And they did so.
And it was told the king of Egypt that the people fled: and the heart of
Pharaoh and of his servants was turned against the people, and they said,
Why have we done this, that we have let Israel go from serving us?
And he made ready his chariot, and took his people with him:
And he took six hundred chosen chariots, and all the chariots of Egypt,
and captains over every one of them.
14:8And the LORD hardened
the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and he pursued after the children of
Israel: and the children of Israel went out with an high hand.
But the Egyptians pursued after them, all the horses and chariots of
Pharaoh, and his horsemen, and his army, and overtook them encamping by the
sea, beside Pihahiroth, before Baalzephon.
And when Pharaoh drew nigh, the children of Israel lifted up their eyes,
and, behold, the Egyptians marched after them; and they were sore afraid:
and the children of Israel cried out unto the LORD.
And they said unto Moses, Because there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou
taken us away to die in the wilderness? wherefore hast thou dealt thus with
us, to carry us forth out of Egypt?
Is not this the word that we did tell thee in Egypt, saying, Let us alone,
that we may serve the Egyptians? For it had been better for us to serve the
Egyptians, than that we should die in the wilderness.
And Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the
salvation of the LORD, which he will shew to you to day: for the Egyptians
whom ye have seen to day, ye shall see them again no more for ever.
14:14The LORD shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.
(14:14) "The LORD shall fight for you."
And the LORD said unto Moses, Wherefore criest thou unto me? speak unto
the children of Israel, that they go forward:
But lift thou up thy rod, and stretch out thine hand over the sea, and
divide it: and the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the
midst of the sea.
And I, behold, I
will harden the hearts of the Egyptians, and they shall follow them: and
I will get me honour upon Pharaoh, and upon all his host, upon his
chariots, and upon his horsemen.
(14:18) "And the Egyptians shall
know that I am the LORD, when I have gotten me honour."
(14:19-20) God's special cloud was a cloud of darkness to the Egyptians, but a cloud of light to the Hebrews.
(14:19) "And the pillar of the cloud went from before their face,
and stood behind them."
(14:20) "It was a cloud and darkness to them, but it gave light by night to these."
(14:21) "Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the LORD ... made the sea dry land."
14:18And the Egyptians shall
know that I am the LORD, when I have gotten me honour upon Pharaoh, upon his
chariots, and upon his horsemen.
And the angel of God, which went before the camp of Israel, removed and
went behind them; and the pillar of the cloud went from before their face,
and stood behind them:
And it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel; and
it was a cloud and darkness to them, but it gave light by night to these: so
that the one came not near the other all the night.
And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the LORD caused the sea
to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land,
and the waters were divided.
And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry
ground: and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on
14:23And the Egyptians pursued, and went in after them to the midst of the sea,
even all Pharaoh's horses, his chariots, and his
(14:23) "And the Egyptians pursued ... all Pharaoh's horses."
The Egyptians chased after the Israelites
with "all Pharaoh's horses." But according to Exodus 9:3-6 there wouldn't
have been any horses, since God killed them all in "a very grievous murrain."
(14:24-25) "The Lord ... took off their chariot wheels."
God (the devious mechanic) personally removed the wheels from the Egyptian chariots.
(14:26) "And the LORD said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand over the sea, that
the waters may come again upon the Egyptians."
And it came to pass, that in the morning watch the LORD looked unto the host
of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the
And took off their
chariot wheels, that they drave them heavily: so that the Egyptians
said, Let us flee from the face of Israel; for the LORD fighteth for them
against the Egyptians.
14:26And the LORD said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand over the sea, that
the waters may come again upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots, and upon
And Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to
his strength when the morning appeared; and the Egyptians fled against it;
and the LORD overthrew
the Egyptians in the midst of the sea.
(14:27-28) "The LORD overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of the sea And ... there remained not so much as one of them."
God drowns the Egyptian army.
(14:29) "But the children of Israel walked upon dry land in the midst of the sea;
and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left."
14:28And the waters
returned, and covered the chariots, and the horsemen, and all the host of
Pharaoh that came into the sea after them; there remained not so much as one
14:29But the children of Israel walked upon dry land in the midst of the sea;
and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left.
Thus the LORD saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians; and
Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea shore.
14:31And Israel saw that great work which the LORD did upon the Egyptians: and
the people feared the LORD, and believed the LORD, and his servant Moses.
(14:31) "And Israel saw that great work which the LORD did upon the Egyptians." | <urn:uuid:5956dbee-fcaf-4149-aefc-98e5374aab0a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/ex/14.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958305 | 1,550 | 1.828125 | 2 |
2011 ORS § 376.310¹
Definitions for ORS 376.305 to 376.390
(1) Forest road means any county or public road, or part thereof, outside the corporate limits of a city, which is within or extends into or toward a mountainous or timbered area, and which is under the control and supervision of a county court of this state.
(2) Contract forest road means a forest road improved or maintained pursuant to a contract made under ORS 376.305 (Policy and purpose of Act) to 376.390 (Payment of taxes and fees by forest road contractor).
(3) Logging operator means any person having the right to cut and remove timber or forest products in this state, or who is engaged or desirous of engaging in this state in the transportation of forest products, by motor vehicle, to market or processing plant.
(4) Forest road contractor means a logging operator who has entered into a contract under ORS 376.305 (Policy and purpose of Act) to 376.390 (Payment of taxes and fees by forest road contractor) to improve or maintain, or improve and maintain, a contract forest road.
(5) Motor vehicle includes any motor vehicle with or without a trailer or semitrailer.
(6) Person means any person, firm or corporation, or group or combination thereof. | <urn:uuid:47281ddb-fcef-41d0-a8a3-10438d1673ae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.oregonlaws.org/ors/376.310 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00051-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931499 | 282 | 1.742188 | 2 |
The UK’s largest professional doctors network has launched a new mobile app for smartphones which is designed to keep doctors updated with happenings at medical conferences.
Doctors.net.uk has launched the Conference Highlights app which enables its members to watch videos, read reports about latest research and scrutinise specific questions put to opinion leaders.
The first highlights package available on the app is of the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s 2011 annual meeting in Chicago.
Doctors will be able to view everything that was discussed at the conference, including the latest thinking on tumours and videos featuring leading oncologists from across Europe and North America.
READ MORE FROM THE WDM CONTENT NETWORK:
To read the latest edition of Healthcare Global, click here
- Plaster casts could be phased out by new technique
- Study shows pills prevent HIV, as drug access increases
- Drinking eight glasses of water is bad for your health
The Conference Highlights app is only available to Doctors.net.uk members and is compatible with the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.
The app is free to download and it will also enable users to view Twitter feeds of upcoming conferences.
“We know that with funding restrictions and clinical workload, doctors are finding it increasingly difficult to attend conferences in person,” said the Medical Director of Doctors.net.uk, Dr Tim Ringrose.
“This is a concern because such events give access to new thinking and a unique opportunity for doctors to learn from senior colleagues.
“This app is therefore a really useful resource for busy doctors who want the latest conference updates while on the go,” Ringrose added.
“It’s a quick and simple way for them to obtain everything from a quick topic overview to detailed information about a specific medical condition.”
The Conference Developments app will join the other Doctors.net.uk app Medical News, which streams the latest news and clinical development direct to doctors’ phones.
Doctors.net.uk has a membership of more than 184,000 doctors and 97 percent of users say the network is their most trusted source of information. | <urn:uuid:631cdfd6-4f7b-43ed-a60e-5f57e9db7b70> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.healthcareglobal.com/healthcare_technology/conference-highlights-app-keeps-uk-doctors-up-to-date | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931407 | 437 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Developments over the past few years bode well for bringing the countries of Asia into the new era of voice and data communications. Great strides are being made in driving the deployment of high-capacity (or "broadband"), long-haul backbone networks. These networks enable delivery of the new, robust applications being developed globally to drive communications and commerce, which are requiring greater speed and capacity than are available over current-generation networks.
There is no doubt that the global nature of this evolution in communications is affecting Asia. Demand for broadband capacity in the region is booming. According to a report by the Yankee Group and Technowledge Asia, by 2003 broadband subscriptions in Asia will increase more than 23-fold over the current base of approximately 483,000 users - to a total of 11.2 million users. The regions leaders understand that modern voice and data communications is an important vehicle for broader economic progress. Having mostly recovered from the 1997 economic crisis and fearing a stall in economic growth, many of the regions leaders have pushed telecommunications development to the top of their agendas as part of a strategy to ensure that they are part of the information age. Despite the deployment of many new backbone networks, another hurdle remains to bringing the full benefits of the broadband Internet to a critical mass of the regions population: a lack of sufficient bandwidth in the local loop to connect users to these networks. The next step is for carriers and network operators in Asia to look into developing infrastructure for the critical so-called "last mile" to deliver these benefits to the end user. Full consideration of all the different options available for bringing broadband to the local loop is especially important in Asia, where market factors differ from other regions currently deploying broadband. Furthermore, highly differ-entiated national markets mean there is no single technology that is appropriate for bringing access to the end user across all countries. Legacy systems, as well as varying demand, rates of infrastructure development, existing penetration, regulatory environments and rates of economic growth all make it necessary to consider options on a market-by-market basis. Fortunately, carriers and network operators have a variety of alternatives when considering what technologies to deploy. Below we illustrate different access options as they are appropriate in different markets. Landline Access Landline, or terrestrial, networks include wire, fibre and microwave circuits. Although optical fibre is the preferred high-speed, high-capacity access medium in the United States, the cost of bringing fibre into the home makes it a less than ideal option for the countries of Asia (although Japan is currently doing this). In countries where strong levels of basic telephone or cable penetration have already been achieved, landline alternatives exist which can leverage the existing infrastructure, such as India, China or Korea. Digital Subscriber Line Digital subscriber line (DSL) enables telephone companies to use existing twisted pair copper wires to deliver broadband services over ordinary phone lines. Essentially, DSL provides the means to deliver next-generation broadband services over existing carrier networks enabling a quick time-to-market advantage without additional infrastruc-ture, costly outside plant additions and reinvestment. DSL is likely the most promising access technology for the majority of these markets due to cost and is likely to take off in those parts of the region where telephone lines outstrip cable hookups. South Korea is a champion of DSL technology and currently the second largest world market in terms of asymmetric DSL (ADSL) outside the United States. Rollout of ADSL continues with millions of lines contracted for installation throughout the country over the next couple of years. Other areas where DSL has a strong position are Hong Kong and Singapore, countries in which significant DSL penetration already exists. It is forecast that major cities in China will experience strong DSL growth in the near future as well, since twisted copper pair wires account for 93% of Chinas access lines. With the recent development of a DSL variant that does not cause technical interference with the Japanese version of integrated services digital network (ISDN), DSL deployment in Japan is now expected to occur on a large scale. The drawback to this technology option is that end users must be located within a mile of the central switching office to get DSL deployed, making it unrealistic that remote areas not currently served by landline infrastructure will gain access. Cable Modem Access Cable networks provide another popular alternative for broadband access in Asia. A "cable modem" is a device that allows high-speed data access (such as to the Internet) via a cable TV network. Like telecommunications carriers, cable operators have expansive existing networks. The advantage of cable, however, is that cable operators have already been installing much higher bandwidth coaxial cable connections since the inception of their networks. Countries such as Singapore and Hong Kong are ahead in this area, with cable modem-ready infrastructure already in place, making the transition to broadband service provision relatively quick and easy. This creates a potentially faster rate of broadband subscription from the start for these two economies. Cable modem access in countries with fewer cable-ready modems is still an attractive alternative for providing broadband - especially for China, which will reach a cable TV penetration of 100 million households by the end of the year. Furthermore, major cities like Guangzhou, Beijing and Shanghai already have cable penetration between 80% and 90%. Wireless Access Broadband wireless access is another technology providing a cost-effective, reliable and rapidly deployable high-capacity last mile solution. DSL and cable, as last mile solutions, are attractive mainly when the necessary landline infrastructure is already in place. Given the extremely low levels of basic access in many Asian countries due to a lack of landline infrastructure, broadband wireless is an option that allows countries to "leapfrog" traditional infrastructure problems. In fact, countries such as China and India are already in a position to adopt advanced broadband wireless access solutions, completely bypassing the need to lay down traditional infrastructure, thus achieving full coverage in both major metropolitan and remote areas in both basic voice and broadband service. Wireless operators can provision service quicker and exploit the superior cost-efficiency of point-to-multipoint operation. Satellite Access One example of a wireless access technology is point-to-multipoint radio communication via satellites. Satellite platforms for broadband access are often considered to provide the best low-cost broadband network access in locations not served by DSL or cable modems. This option is especially attractive in those countries with insufficient fixed line infrastructure, such as Indonesia and Philippines. These two nations rely heavily on satellite infrastructure because, as archipelagos, they have no land on which to build a landline infrastructure. Residential broadband satellite service has been tremendously popular in the region, and Asia is the second largest market for broadband satellite service behind North America. The use of satellite for broadband access will continue in Asia, especially in remote areas. However, one factor that has dampened the enthusiasm for satellite technology is the 1997 economic crisis, which spurred a general shift in the region toward technology ventures requiring lower capital investment and, thus, terrestrial wireless networks. Local Multipoint - Distribution System One of the most powerful terrestrial solutions for providing extensive and affordable broadband local access is local multipoint distribution system (LMDS) technology. LMDS is a wireless, cell-based technology capable of handling broadband applications. LMDS offers an alternative to the traditional fixed line cables by providing comparable quality and reliability to wired networks with the benefit of fewer construction constraints. LMDS has met with success in Korea, but some countries in Asia with rainy season have been hesitant to adopt the technology due to "rain fade". The reach of LMDS equipment is limited by this phenomenon, which is distortion of the signal caused by raindrops scattering and absorbing the millimeter waves. However, test trials conducted in Taiwan have proven that this distortion effect occurs at much lower levels than previously thought, making LMDS a local access technology of higher consideration. Conclusion This much is simple: This is an important time in the development of the region in terms of its communications and information capabilities. Aggressive, market-based promotion of broadband access technologies is crucial for the economies of Asia if they are to keep up in the fast-moving broadband age. What is not so simple is deciding what types of networks should be deployed to achieve this. The types of broadband access that will ultimately prove the best fit and meet the needs of the region are not limited to the examples mentioned above. As the Asian markets continue to be deregulated, making more of the products available to Asian countries, and as the rate of economic growth continues to rise, the options will surely continue to grow, as well. Partly because the regions decision-makers are still in the process of deciding the future of their networks, tremendous business opportunities exist for service providers and equipment manufacturers who can successfully partner to gauge, and then meet, the demands of their target markets. Now is the time to take advantage of these opportunities by learning about the unique set of market factors in each of the Asian countries, as well as the companies and products that can bring the region into the broadband age. | <urn:uuid:bf617ff6-3689-4b16-8837-8f721522e302> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.connect-world.com/~cwiml/index.php/home/item/2528-broadband-in-asia-making-the-local-connection | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940471 | 1,811 | 2.421875 | 2 |
Bratislava City Museum - allowance organization of the Bratislava City - the Capitol of the Slovak Republic
EXHIBITION OF PHARMACY
This collection containing 8,500 items and 2,880 volumes of ancient pharmaceutical literature is one of the largest of its kind and is unique in Slovakia. It contains original items of pharmaceutical equipment, the oldest originating from the 16th century. The Baroque and Classicist furniture and most of the faience, stoneware, glass, wooden and tin vessels for preserving medicines were made in Slovakia. The oldest dispensing containers, simple tools for the production of medicines, lab-ware and metallic sign-boards were also produced within the territory of Slovakia. Up to the time of the unification of pharmacies in the second half of the 19th century, these producers contributed to the special and unique character of every individual pharmacy.
The surviving literature documents the expertise of pharmacists who tried to acquire latest knowledge and achievements in pharmacy. Among the literature from the 16th century, the original publication of files by Paracelsus from 1574 can be found here. From the mid-18th century is the first quadri-lingual tariff of medicines entitled “Taxa pharmaceutica posoniensis“ published in 1745 in Bratislava valid throughout the Hungarian Empire which is prized as an example of the earliest Slovak pharmaceutical terminology.
Responsible: Beáta Husová
Created / changed: 20.1.2007 / 20.1.2007
Display search form »
Mode No graphics is currently switched on. Therefore you see the web page with no decorative graphics as well as any advanced formatting. If your browser supports CSS2, you can switch a graphic mode on.
webmaster: Beata Husova, editorial system: vismo | <urn:uuid:b87888ce-e7aa-4ae6-9d33-37a2c523fc75> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.muzeum.bratislava.sk/en/vismo/dokumenty2.asp?id_org=700016&id=1035&p1=1030&grafika=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.909608 | 374 | 2.234375 | 2 |
FYBROMYALGIA GOOD HEALTH HINTS
I have been fighting Arthritis for many, many
****A few years ago I was also diagnosed with Fibromyalgia............
****Fortunately, I was able to attend a Fibromyalgia group at our local
****Perhaps I can help others with my helpful hints for living with
aches and pains and eliminating them.
****One of the most helpful things I have tried is shower exercises
first thing in the morning.
****Caution: Be sure you have very secure footing in bathtub.
****The nice warm water loosens the muscles which tighten during the
night. I do five repeats of each exercise, by putting plug in tub the warm
water soothes the feet too.
****A Warm Herbal Bath is Relaxing for the Muscles.
****I have started pool exercises and they are also very helpful.
****Claustrophobia is also a problem.
****Lights may need to be dimmed or the vision can blurr, especially
those bright fluorescents.
****Medication may help for a short time and then may have to be
changed to something new.
new thing I have tried is Sun Tanning. My friend suggested this and it is
relaxing and the warmth is great. The added bonus, of course, is a suntan
****I also take a daily walk even if it is through a mall or large
store. This also loosens the muscles.
For Books about Fibromyalgia, Arthritis, Fitness, Health
To The Books Stores Page
****Fibromyalgia..occurs when the neuromuscular systems are not working
properly. This is the system of blood and nerves that run through the
body. They supply us with oxygen and nutrients and eliminate byproducts.
Stories Book 1$24.95 S&H included
****Fibromyalgia can cause much pain, loss of elasticity and stiffness
in the muscles not the joints. One never knows when these are going to
occur.... This is the biggest problem.
****The myofacia and synapse are the two places where problems occur.
Myoficia is a thin film of tissue that covers tiny muscle fibers. Synapse
is the nerve conduction chemical holder. When there is a disruption in
nerve transmission..then there is a problem. Being under stress is not a
****Dampness and cold or draughts are the worst things and warmth feels
****Please remember that these are only my observations and those from
others I have known.
GOOD HEALTH IS YOUR MOST IMPORTANT ASSET
Got that bad old Flu???...My Dad always had the cure..he would
drink a whole bottle or frozen can of Orange Juice in one day and his cold
was on the run.
An alternative is to take extra Vitamin "C" tablets
OLD FASHIONED HOME REMEDIES
Colds and Flu Relief
Doctors still recommend:
Plenty of rest
Chicken Soup really does work
Add some Cayenne Pepper
Drink some Peppermint Tea or Ginger Ale
Zinc and Echinaucia
Wash hands to keep germs from spreading
Flu can be beaten...there are always flu shots and now the
pneumonia shot too.
ASA is good (but should be used by Adults only)
Humidifiers will help for those who are having trouble
I have also found the new Herbal Cough Drops are great.
Chewing regular gum even helps a raw throat by keeping it
OLD FASHIONED HOME REMEDIES | <urn:uuid:0f8fef5d-cd34-4e65-8062-de93f0cee119> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://connectionsecrets.com/healthandfibromyalgia/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93092 | 761 | 1.59375 | 2 |
As long as we still need bills banning reparative therapy, it should be news when people like Sam Champion of ‘Good Morning America’ come out One recent morning I awoke to the earth-shaking news that Sam Champion of Good Morning America fame was getting married to his longtime boyfriend, and yes, they look great together. [...]
I’m having a feeling of déjà vu. Four years ago, I was waiting to see if Barack Obama would be elected president; waiting to see the outcome of a ballot measure in California that would decide the legality of marriage equality in that state; and baffled that a patron of a Colorado library had [...]
Mark Regnerus’ flawed study on gay parenting — paid for by anti-gay Witherspoon Institute — casts dark shadow over University of Texas A notorious, scientifically unsound University of Texas study on gay parenting funded by national anti-gay-rights moneybags is being wielded as a political weapon against LGBT victims in U.S. courts and elections, as well as [...]
Fort Worth gay Pride was visited by Pastor Joey Faust and members of his congregation, Kingdom Baptist Church.
Anti-LGBT teachings have driven many away from fundamentalist churches, helping to fuel increase in those with no religious affiliation A new poll by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life reveals that a record number of Americans (19.3 percent) have abandoned faith and now consider themselves unaffiliated with any particular religion. According to [...]
Annual event in Dallas this weekend continues legacy of giving a voice to groups who’ve often been excluded from mainstream Pride celebrations A bystander shouted, “Gay power!,” someone began singing “We Shall Overcome,” and the crowd reacted with amusement and general good humor mixed with growing and intensive hostility. This personal account, recorded by David [...]
The 4 words of this common refrain reflect an attitude that’s even more to blame than our enemies for the too-slow pace of LGBT equality There’s a refrain, one you hear quite often if you work to make things better, that I’m trying really hard not to grow accustomed to. I heard it again at the [...]
Have you heard the news about Obama? He’s gay.
Anti-gay leaders from states where issue is on ballot this year sound pessimistic at Values Voter Summit — a sign their streak is set to end Anti-gay activists have never lost a referendum on marriage equality (32-0), but that might be about to change. (Well, they did lose once in Arizona, but voters reversed themselves [...]
I had an aunt, or a great-aunt who served in the Women’s Army Corp during World War II. After she returned from the war, she and her best friend from the service lived together for the rest of their lives. Now, if you’re LGBT or have been around the LGBT community for any length of [...] | <urn:uuid:59bfe4e4-5e21-410d-8de4-d166c0fea46b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dallasvoice.com/category/viewpoints/columns/page/4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966431 | 601 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Ben Atkinson Building
Description: 802 Alumni Drive
In 1960, with new buildings being built on campus and an antiquated power plant, the university needed a bigger and more modern plant. President William Ransom Wood considered building a nuclear reactor to supply power, but the board of regents decided on a $3.5 million coal-fired generating plant to be built next to the railroad tracks below College Hill where trains could feed coal directly into the plant.
The Ben J. Atkinson Building includes a central heating and power plant that supplies all the electricity, water and heat for the university. Built in 1963 and operating since January 1964, it has a capacity of 100,000 pounds of steam and 3,700 kilowatts per hour. George Greenamyer's sculpture 16 Revolving Flying Machines, purchased through Alaska's One Percent for Art Program, is mounted on the plant's steam vents.
The cluster of buildings, designed by Ralph R. Stefano and Associates, includes pump houses, boiler rooms, water treatment facilities, the chiller house, storage spaces and a coal lab. The university, which has its own well, built a reservoir in 1961, its first water treatment plant in 1966 and a second water treatment plant in 1981.
In December 1998, a tube ruptured in one of the original 50,000-pound coal-fired boilers. The entire plant filled with steam. Windows broke, power failed and safety systems didn’t activate, and the control systems had to be shut down. The university lost all power and heat generation for 12 hours. Golden Valley Electric Association helped the university get alternate boilers running and return heat and power to campus.
Construction to upgrade the facility began in June 2002. The project added a new egress tower and control room on the north side of the power plant.In 2006, three new chillers were installed to replace the 30-year-old central chiller and distribution system. In 2009 the campus high voltage electrical distribution system was upgraded and the central switchboard from the power plant was relocated to a new building. New utlidors were constructed adjacent to the powerplant to contain future electrical cables and connect the new switchboard to existing utilidors.
Ben J. Atkinson graduated from the University of Alaska in 1947 with a bachelor degree in civil engineering. He was the first director of the university's Office of Physical Plant and Campus Planning and played a key role in planning new facilities during a period of rapid growth. The plant, considered one of the most modern and efficient in the country when it was built, is one of the major buildings erected during his service to the university. He died in 1966, and the heating plant was dedicated to his memory on May 19, 1968.
“Dedication of the Ben J. Atkinson Building,” Special Events 1966-72 (A12.D5), UAF Alaska and Polar Regions Archives, Facilities Services Web page, 2002-3 Construction Overview; Statewide Web site, “ The Cornerstone on College Hill,” by Terrence Cole; UAF Master Plan 1991; University Relations files; UAF Facilities Services Web page; Facilities Services Division of Design and Construction 2006 construction overview. | <urn:uuid:522fc886-f2ea-4cb0-9c81-8b87c8a8bd86> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.alaska.edu/uajourney/buildings/atkinson-building/index.xml?request=classic | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9587 | 651 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Western Illinois University: Macomb Campus
Web Tools and Search Bar
The following web links will help you to acquire more relevant information as to what sort of career opportunities are available to you when choosing an academic major:
The Occupational Outlook Handbook (U.S. Department of Labor)
This site will provide specific information about careers including what the career entails, the education and training needed, the future outlook, and salaries.
This site will provide occupational information and allow the user to conduct a "skills search" to match-up with specific occupations.
This site has many useful resources including a Majors Database with "What Can I do With a Major In?". There are Career Databases and Self-Assessment Inventories.
The information and websites are representative of typical career paths associated with each major and not a comprehensive list.
The websites listed are not maintained by the Career Services Office but are provided as a convenience to students.
Start your career exploration by looking at the following websites:
The College Grad Job Hunter
On this site you will be able to get specific job information. Scroll down the page until you see "keyword search". Click on this link and type in a job title, i.e. 'advertising sales agent', click search and you will be taken to a page that will provide you a complete definition of the occupation, the education, training, and qualifications you need. In addition you will get related occupations, the future job outlook, and salary information.
The Career Interests Game
This interactive "game" will allow you to select a personality type that you believe best describes you. By clicking on the "type", it will take you to a list of careers, descriptive words, and character traits that fit the personality. By clicking on the related careers/occupational titles, you will be taken to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics site that will provide complete definitions of the selected occupation.
Career Info Net
On this site you will be able to obtain detailed information about specific jobs. Click on 'Occupational Information', go to 'Occupational Profile' and type in a specific job title, i.e. 'advertising sales agent'. Click on search and you will be asked to choose a state. Click on the appropriate state and continue. You will then be able to find out specific career information as well as salary information for the selected state and how it compares with the entire United States. | <urn:uuid:81d13140-0c6e-4647-9bf4-f2de7da6a9ee> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wiu.edu/student_services/careers/decision/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913953 | 495 | 2.5 | 2 |
Whether you’re a dog enthusiast or a first time dog owner, you have probably come across a runner before. These dogs are called runners; they have owners, but they chose to run away, not being aware of the danger. Most of these dogs wouldn’t hurt a fly on the wall and are just out and about having fun without a care in the world until a driver doesn’t see the dog until it is too late or a non-dog person decides to take matters into their own hands. If you own a dog, it’s understandable that you want it to enjoy its freedom; yet, allowing it to run away isn’t a good idea. Now, due to technological research, you have the option to offer your dog an illusionary freedom, while keeping it safe from harm. This system is called the invisible dog fence.
These fences work through the installation of sensors around the area you want you want to allow your dog to play in and a special collar that is placed around your furry friend’s neck. The collar is programmed to read when the dog is getting too close to the sensor and will start beeping as a warning sign, telling your dog not to go any further. If the dog still doesn’t listen, and get closer to the immaginary fence, the collar will trigger a mild shock. Your dog will learn very quickly not to get too close; just a couple of shocks and he will stay well within his designated area.
Even if this imaginary fence is extremely efficient, many pet owners live with the impression that it hurts their animals. These people are uninformed, as dog fences have evolved since they were first invented, in 1971. The new invisible dog fence is completely harmless. The dog collar associated with the fence only sends the dog a mild shock, that cannot hurt him. It doesn’t harm the dog at all; it simply startles your pet. Almost all types of collars have adjustable intensity of the shocks so you can set the collar to administer milder shocks if your dog is very young or very small. Compared to the experience of losing your pet in a car accident, it is much better to purchase such a mechanism.
It’s been many years now since dog owners have enjoyed the benefits of the invisible dog fences. It is worth the cost of the fence, as it offers you peace; you don’t have to worry about your pet whenever you go out. When your dog gets used to not crossing the line of the fence, both your and its lives will be easier. It will also be able to see the surroundings of the area, as there are no physical borders. Do yourself and your puppy a favor, and get an invisible fence for him or her to play around in. You won’t regret it.
Many dog owners believe that the invisible dog fence is dangerous for their pets. In reality, the new generations of dog fences are harmless. Make an informed decision about the utility of a invisible dog fence!
Tags: electronic dog fence | <urn:uuid:66bae13f-5bd4-4a8c-9035-63a3c947f711> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.havanese-puppy-guide.com/havanese/dog-containment/the-invisible-dog-fence | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970209 | 625 | 2.296875 | 2 |
WeissenhofmuseumThe semi-detached homes designed by Le Corbusier, one of the most influential architects of the Twentieth Century, make clear the aesthetic, social and technical upheavals of the Moderne. Following extensive restoration of the interiors, the façades and the grounds, the structure is now open to visitors. The tour takes the visitor through the two halves of the building, where differing aspects are emphasized.
Building 1: Information center
In the left half of the building, the floor plan of which was profoundly modified since the 1930s, there is an exhibition explaining the genesis and history of the Weissenhofsiedlung. The museum's fittings echo the original floor plan without blurring the traces of structural changes undertaken in the meantime.
Building 3: A "walk-in” exhibit
The right half of the structure is oriented on the year 1927, when the Werkbund Exhibition was opened at the Weissenhof. It was possible to restore Le Corbusier's arrangement of spaces, the coloration and a part of the furnishings. Thus the visitor encounters a "snapshot” from the exhibition at that time. | <urn:uuid:288a11f5-c809-4480-a966-cbb8bb04c771> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.stuttgart.de/weissenhof/index.php?objecttype=item&id=182402§ion=182408 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92051 | 243 | 2.359375 | 2 |
I am not sure that the sacred authors of the Gospels each had a theme as they wrote their brief summaries of the life of Jesus, but those who have studied them over the centuries have certainly tended to pick out one or another aspect of each Gospel and use that as a theme.
In St. Luke’s Gospel, we have Jesus walking to Jerusalem. Time after time in different segments, the commentary will begin, as it does in today’s Gospel excerpt, “Jesus went through cities and towns teaching, all the while making his way towards Jerusalem.” There is this large section where Jesus is simply walking, walking, walking – headed towards Jerusalem and, of course, that meant heading towards death, resurrection and redemption for the rest of us.
As he walks along, his teachings are presented in very dramatic ways and today’s is no exception as this excerpt stresses that we are responsible for how we have lived our lives and our salvation depends on whether or not we have made every effort to walk in his footsteps. In today’s Gospel, there is real stress that many people who are very important in various aspects of life will, after Judgment Day, lose that importance. The sentence for today is “Some who are last will be first, and some who are first will be last.”
Where will you and I be in the line? | <urn:uuid:e1b9658b-001b-4a80-8257-b2c66702c8b9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bishopjohnmccarthy.com/tag/line/ | 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 | 0.981688 | 283 | 2.46875 | 2 |
22 The Healing of a Blind Man at Bethsaida
22 They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. 23 He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man's eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, "Do you see anything?"
24 He looked up and said, "I see people; they look like trees walking around."
27 Jesus and his disciples went on to the villages around Caesarea Philippi. On the way he asked them, "Who do people say I am?"
28 They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets."
29 "But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?"
30 Jesus warned them not to tell anyone about him.
31 He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again. 32 He spoke plainly about this, and Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
33 But when Jesus turned and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter. "Get behind me, Satan!" he said. "You do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men."
34 Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever wants to save his life[c] will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. 36 What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? 37 Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? 38 If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels."
1 And he said to them, "I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power."
Top 10 sermons on Mark 8
- The Da Vinci Code: Fact Or Fiction (Part Three: Was Jesus Married?)
- Windows from History
- FIVE MEN AND FIVE TREES
- "The Burden Of The Cross"
- TAKE UP YOUR CROSS | <urn:uuid:9b8fb9c8-2aa7-4a38-be34-f3688d7d412a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sermoncentral.com/bible/NIV/Mark-8.asp?passage=Mark+8%3A22-9%3A1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984919 | 527 | 1.898438 | 2 |
Morningside Pharmacy Stress Importance of Allergy Relief Products Morningside Pharmacy, a UK registered pharmacy operating both online and in chemists across the UK, highlight the necessity for allergy sufferers to invest in allergy relief products.
GardenNews.biz - Apr 10,2011 - Leicester, United Kingdom (XX March 2011) - Morningside Pharmacy, a UK registered pharmacy operating both online and in chemists across the UK, highlight the necessity for allergy sufferers to invest in allergy relief products.
Following a focus on allergies as a phone-in discussion topic on several BBC radio shows, Morningside Pharmacy wish to highlight the necessity of allergy relief products during the springtime, when allergies tend to be at their most prevalent and uncomfortable for sufferers.
BBC Radio 4 revealed that the number of allergies in the UK has tripled in the last thirty years, with one in three children suffering from allergies. The radio station also publicised that allergies are becoming more complex and difficult for sufferers to curb, whilst Radio 2 revealed in February that more and more adults are being diagnosed with late onset allergies.
"BBC Radio listeners with allergies phoned in whilst this topic was being discussed, highlighting how difficult it is becoming to cope with their allergies - especially during the spring - and how serious certain allergies can be," commented a spokesperson for Morningside Pharmacy. "We stock effective allergy relief tablets, decongestants and nasal sprays from the most renowned manufacturers in the industry, including Benadryl, Clarityn Otrivine, Piritize; offering sufferers a solution no matter their preferred method of administration or allergy type, and for varying degrees of severity.
"We invite any allergy sufferers to contact us or drop into one of our pharmacies to view the selection of products on offer. We will be more than happy to offer expert advice to any unsure sufferers about which products would be best for them."
For more details on the full range of allergy prevention and relief products available from Morningside Pharmacy, please visit http://www.morningsidepharmacy.co.uk/ or call 0845 45 999 65.
About Morningside Pharmacy:
Morningside Pharmacy is a registered UK pharmacy with over 20 years of experience in the healthcare industry. A family-run business, Morningside Pharmacy has a group of several independent pharmacies based in Leicester, Glenfield, Derby and Northampton, as well as an official website and online chemist. The pharmacy places an emphasis on maintaining strong relationships within the local community and offering great customer service. | <urn:uuid:545d6dc9-d7f8-45fe-9938-8f00ecd60e3f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gardennews.biz/?id=5119&keys=online-chemist-online-pharmacy | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932388 | 531 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Looks like you've got yourself a Phidippus Regius, AKA Regal Jumping Spider. At first I thought it was a "Red Johnson Jumper/Phidippus Johnsoni" but the pattern did not match--those spiders are typically black on the back of their head, and your beautiful spider has red on her head! It appears that you have a female of the "orange" color variety. They're gorgeous, aren't they? The brighter colors are also very common in Florida.
Jumping spiders are tricky to find. They're my favorite spider and sometimes I can't find -any- on a perfect day when I know they are out! They're fast, small, and blend in really well.
I don't know how much you know about jumpers but they are NOT dangerous to people. In fact, most will "play" with you--put out your hand and see if your spider crawls on it! They're jumpers, so they will probably get excited and jump off your hand. They spin a drag thread before they jump in case they miss, and that way can pull themselves back up without injury. They're fun to play "hand over hand" with
Typically they don't bite, unless handled roughly, squeezed, half smushed or if they feel trapped/in danger. The bite would hurt pretty good and swell a little but no worse than a bee sting, and you'd be fine.
Spiders can have incredible colors without being dangerous to people. As they're so small they're really only adapted to be dangerous to bugs. We're nearly always fine after a spider tussle.
Congrats on a gorgeous find.
Dang! I should have read the whole thread, I was looking to see if I could find it, but you already did A google image search for 'orange florida jumping spider' comes up with a photo that looks just like this little guy, and is labeled 'Regal Jumping Spider'
A couple more things that I can add to this discussion:
1) All jumping spiders belong to the salticid familiy (salticidae).
2) Something else that I learned about jumping spiders in my "Biology of Spiders" class at the University of Kansas is that they have the best visual acuity of any spider out there. Depending on the size of the spider they can see up to a foot away with the same type of image clarity as humans. They are also the only species that can move their eyes to look at something, though it is only their main pair of eyes that can do this (the priciple eyes, which are the anterior median, or the lower middle pair).
I was surprised she was able to handle such a large katydid but was soon reminded how awesome jumpers are when she started strutting around on my door with the thing dangling down from her fangs like it was nothing! | <urn:uuid:1a13ed26-8620-44c1-8e58-0bd978e9e7ba> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showthread.php?172778-Spider-at-the-range&p=1855525 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977118 | 603 | 1.648438 | 2 |
The School Program
Heartland Ranch School works in cooperation with the SW/WC Service Cooperative and Benson Public Schools to provide education for the residents of Heartland Girls’ Ranch, a private non-profit group home licensed by the Department of Corrections.
The Heartland Ranch School is an MDE accredited educational setting staffed by both regular and special education certified teachers.
Classes are offered for both junior high and senior high levels. Subjects include the core areas of English, math, science, and social studies, as well as classes to build skills in the areas of job readiness. Strong emphasis is placed on improving basic skills, securing credits needed for graduation and passing the MN GRAD tests. A primary goal is to prepare the girls to be successful in future learning whether it is upon re-entry to their previous school, or at a post-secondary setting.
As part of the work-based learning class, students have the opportunity to work in the school run business of “In Stitches ~ The Heartland School Embroidery Shop”.
Small classroom sizes are maintained to best meet student needs. Average student to teacher ratio is 6:1.
Our behavior modification program is directly tied to the ranch program. This means that the students’ behavior and completion of assignments are tied to all activities and privileges. Additionally, the teachers are supported by case managers to deal with issues that are beyond the scope of the academic program.
We are a self-contained school located within the Benson Junior-Senior High School. Our location makes it possible to provide for transitioning to a mainstream setting. Residents earn access to mainstream classes based upon behavior and school progress.
Heartland Ranch School has an 8 period day with classes meeting 45 minutes each. The school year is divided into two semesters and each semester has two quarters. Grades and credits (.25 per passing class each quarter) are given at the end of each quarter. Fees for educational services are billed by the school district to the child’s home school district.
Over the years, the ranch school has become an integral part of the Ranch Program, where education and therapy happen simultaneously. | <urn:uuid:b6314543-7134-4cfc-b5a9-4b4a28ead1ec> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://heartlandgirlsranch.org/school/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961566 | 436 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Head lice are tiny insects that live on the skin covering the top of your head, called the scalp. Lice can be spread by close contact with other people.
Head lice may also be found in eyebrows and eyelashes.
Lice - head; Nits; Pediculosis capitis - head lice
Head lice infect hair on the head. Tiny eggs on the hair look like flakes of
Head lice...Read more
On MySkinCareConnection we always know when school begins because we get more questions about head lice. Although anyone is susceptible to... Read more » | <urn:uuid:a99df3c6-7eb8-4154-9512-29802a7568ee> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.healthcentral.com/skin-care/h/how-to-tell-if-you-have-lice.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933662 | 124 | 2.71875 | 3 |
1) Opening prayer
All-powerful and ever-living God,
direct your love that is within us,
that our efforts in the name of your Son
may bring mankind to unity and peace.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
2) Gospel reading - Mark 4,35-41
With the coming of evening that same day, Jesus said to his disciples, 'Let us cross over to the other side.' And leaving the crowd behind they took him, just as he was, in the boat; and there were other boats with him. Then it began to blow a great gale and the waves were breaking into the boat so that it was almost swamped. But he was in the stern, his head on the cushion, asleep. They woke him and said to him, 'Master, do you not care? We are lost!' And he woke up and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, 'Quiet now! Be calm!' And the wind dropped, and there followed a great calm. Then he said to them, 'Why are you so frightened? Have you still no faith?' They were overcome with awe and said to one another, 'Who can this be? Even the wind and the sea obey him.'
• The Gospel today describes the storm in the lake and Jesus who sleeps in the boat. Sometimes our communities feel like a small boat lost in the sea of life, without much hope of arriving to the port. Jesus seems to be sleeping in our boat, since no divine power seems to appear to save us from the difficulties and the persecution. In view of this desperate situation, Mark puts together several episodes which reveal how Jesus is present in the midst of the community. In the parables the mystery of the Kingdom is revealed which is present in the things of daily life (Mk 4, 1-34). Now he begins to reveal the Mystery of the Kingdom present in the power which Jesus exercises in favour of the disciples, in favour of the people and, above all, in favour of the excluded and marginalized. Jesus overcomes, dominates the sea, a symbol of chaos (Mk 4, 35-41). ¡A creating power acts in him! Jesus conquers and drives out the devil (Mk 5, 1-20). The power of life acts in him! ¡He is the victorious Jesus! There is no reason for the communities to be fear (Mk 5, 21-43). This is the reason for this passage of the storm calmed by Jesus on which we are meditating today in the Gospel.
• Mark 4, 35-36: The starting point: “Let us cross over to the other side”. It had been a heavy day, with much work. Once the discourse on the parables was finished (Mk 4, 1-34), Jesus said: “Let us cross over to the other side!” They take him on the boat just as he was, the boat from which he had made the discourse of the Parables. Because he was extremely tired, he went to sleep on the stern, his head on the cushion! This is the first picture or image which Mark presents. A beautiful painting, but very human!
• Mark 4, 37-38: The desperate situation: “Do you not care? We are lost!” The Lake of Galilee is surrounded by mountains. Sometimes, through the cracks in the rocks, the wind blows on top of the lake and provokes sudden storms. A very strong wind, the agitated sea, the boat full of water! The disciples were experienced fishermen. If they think that they are going to sink then the situation is really dangerous. Jesus does not even wake up, he continues to sleep. This profound sleep is not only a sign of great fatigue; it is also the expression of a calm peaceful trust which he has in God. The contrast between the attitude of Jesus and that of the disciples is very great!
• Mark 4, 39-40: The reaction of Jesus: “Have you still no faith?” Jesus wakes up, not because of the waves, but because of the desperate cry of the disciples. First, he addresses himself to the sea and says: “Quiet now!” And the wind dropped and there followed great calm. Then he spoke to the disciples and said: “Why are you so frightened? Have you still no faith?” The impression that one has is that it is not necessary to calm down the sea, since there was no danger. It is like when you go to a house and the dog, at the side of his master, begins to bark. One should not be afraid because the dog is with the master who controls the situation. The episode of the storm which was calmed recalls Exodus, when the people, without fear, passed through the water of the sea (EX 14, 22). It recalls the Prophet Isaiah who told the people: “If you go across the water I will be with you!” (Is 43, 2) Jesus does the exodus again and carries out the prophecy announced by Psalm 107 (106), 25-30.
• Mark 4, 41: The disciples did not know: “Who can this be?” Jesus calms the sea and says: “Have you still no faith?” The disciples did not know what to respond and they ask themselves: “Who can this be? Even the wind and the sea obey him”. Jesus appears as a stranger to them! In spite of the fact of having been with him for such a long time, they do not know well who he is. Who can this be? With this question in mid, the communities follow the reading of the Gospel. Y even today, this is the same question which leads us to continue reading the Gospel. It is the desire to know always better the significance of Jesus for our life.
• Who is Jesus? Mark begins his Gospel saying: “The beginning of the Gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (Mk 1, 1). At the end, at the moment of his death, the soldier declared: “Truly this man was the Son of God!” (Mk 15, 39). At the beginning and at the end of the Gospel, Jesus is called the Son of God. Between the beginning and the end, there are many other names of Jesus which appear. The following is the list: Messiah or Christ (Mk 1, 1; 8, 29; 14, 61; 15, 32); Lord (Mk 1, 3; 5, 19; 11, 3); Beloved Son (Mk 1, 11; 9, 7); the Holy one of God (Mk 1, 24); Nazarene (Mk 1, 24; 10, 47; 14, 67; 16, 6); Son of Man (Mk 2, 10.28; 8, 31.38; 9, 9.12.31; 10, 33.45; 13, 26; 14, 18.104.22.168); Bridegroom (Mk 2, 19); Son of God (Mk 3, 11); Son of the Highest God (Mk 5, 7); Carpenter (Mc 6, 3); Son of Mary (Mk 6, 3); Prophet (Mk 6, 4.15; 8, 28); Teacher (frequent); Son of David (Mk 10, 47.48; 12, 35-37); Blessed (Mk 11, 9); Son (Mc 13, 32); Shepherd (Mk 14, 27); Son of the Blessed One (Mk 14, 61); King of the Jews (Mk 15, 2.9.18. 26); King of Israel (Mk 15, 32),
Each name, title or attribute is an attempt to express what Jesus signifies for persons. But a name, no matter how beautiful it is, never reveals the mystery of a person, much less of the person of Jesus. Besides this, some of these names given to Jesus, including the more important ones and the more traditional, are questioned, doubted by Mark the Evangelist. Thus, as we advance in the reading of the Gospel, Mark obliges us to revise our ideas and to ask ourselves, once again: “In last instance, who is Jesus for me, for us?” The more we advance in the reading of the Gospel of Mark, the more these titles and criteria fall. Jesus does not fit into anyone of these names, in no schema, in no title. He is the greatest! Little by little, the reader gives up and ceases to want to frame up Jesus in a known concept or in an idea made up beforehand, and accepts him as he is presented. Love seduces, but not the head, NO!
4) Personal questions
• The waters of the sea of life, have they threatened you sometimes? Who saved you?
• Which was the agitated sea at the time of Jesus? Which was the agitated sea at the time when Mark wrote his Gospel? Which is, today, the agitated sea for us?
5) Concluding prayer
God, create in me a clean heart,
renew within me a resolute spirit,
do not thrust me away from your presence,
do not take away from me your spirit of holiness. (Ps 51,10-11) | <urn:uuid:232b26fd-2b89-4669-9a0f-58f10604145e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ocarm.org/en/content/lectio/lectio-mark-435-41 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962774 | 1,970 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Career Decision Process
Factors Involved in the Career Decision Process:
There are many factors involved in choosing a major and a career. Understanding each of these factors helps in the decision-making process.
- Am I Choosing a Major or a Career?
Not all life plans have a single or specific academic major that leads directly to them.
- Understanding the World of Work
Sometimes just knowing what is out there and available can help.
- Self Assessment
Understanding who we really are is a lifelong process. Having a good picture of who you are presently and where you want to go is a great tool in the decision making process.
- Decision Making
Not everybody has taken time to look at the components of decision making but by doing so you may be able to identify just where it is that you are stuck.
- Understanding Major Requirements
A close examination of the requirements of a degree may help you identify if a major is going to be congruent with your interests. | <urn:uuid:1530a71f-cc4d-4679-a927-2169333361e8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.suu.edu/uc/career-factors.html | 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 | 0.954051 | 202 | 2.5 | 2 |
4. Miriel's Fall
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion, "Akallabêth"
I stood below Meneltarma and watched as the fleet formed. Ship after ship, setting sail from Eldalondë and Andunië, and dropping anchor off the coast until I could see no sea. As each vessel joined the others, the banner of the King was raised, gold and sable. A banner that once I had loved, as the sign of Númenor's greatness. Now, it stands only for the hatred I bear my husband, my usurper.
He came to me, nigh on forty days ago, as the harbours emptied, and looked long on me. His eyes were filled with pride, and the knowledge of his power over me and over this land. "Ah, Zimraphel," he said, using the name I hate, "so cold and so fair. I will send for thee when I have conquered the Deathless, that you may see my victory. Until then, farewell." He bent, and kissed me, and went down to Alcarondas. A short while after I saw his standard raised high on the main mast, and I turned from the west.
In the morning, the fleet had gone, and the gold and black had vanished from the horizon. Those left whispered that other banners were still to be seen, laid off to the east - the banners of the lord Elendil and his sons, my kinsmen. I see them even now, even as I climb desperately upwards. Somehow, those banners, fluttering bravely in this sudden storm, give me hope.
The air is hot with fire and the stench of smoke. The temple to Sauron burns, but the tower built by Elros stands yet. That is my aim; I must reach that tower, I must reach it!
I glance east, and see Elendil's standard begin to move. The sea is foaming, the waves growing, sweeping from the west. The sky now is dark, and the earth seems to move beneath me. I am almost there, I can see the tower.
And as I climb tears are running down my cheeks unchecked. I am weeping for the fall of my land, for the fall of that mighty banner. The power and glory of Westernesse, Númenor the Golden, before it vanished into shadow and darkness.
In the west the sea is rising, a crest of foam. I call out into the tumult, a plea to whoever is listening, but my voice is lost. I am lost.
Númenor has fallen.
This is a work of fan fiction, written because the author has an abiding love for the works of J R R Tolkien. The characters, settings, places, and languages used in this work are the property of the Tolkien Estate, Tolkien Enterprises, and possibly New Line Cinema, except for certain original characters who belong to the author of the said work. The author will not receive any money or other remuneration for presenting the work on this archive site. The work is the intellectual property of the author, is available solely for the enjoyment of Henneth Annûn Story Archive readers, and may not be copied or redistributed by any means without the explicit written consent of the author. | <urn:uuid:e5be9050-9b42-4aa5-8034-de61bfc6b0ec> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://henneth-annun.net/stories/chapter_view.cfm?stid=2223&spordinal=4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963503 | 686 | 1.945313 | 2 |
Facts and Figures
Making the world a little better with RFID
Industry surveys and reports show that many consumer products – particularly certain groceries and certain electronic devices – are not on the shelves 7 to 8 percent of the times that customers go to the store to buy them, even though there may be more available in the stockroom or from the manufacturer. Items that are on sale are even more frequently unavailable on shelves: on average, they are missing 20 percent of the time! These "out-of-stock" situations, as they are called in the retail business, are a real problem for consumers and businesses alike. RFID is helping to lower these rates. There are companies across the entire supply chain – from production factories on the one end to grocery and electronics stores on the other – that are using RFID technology to better manage their inventories. Their goal? To never have a shelf be empty when you are looking for something you want. | <urn:uuid:876dd528-df93-4ba5-833c-acad9e76af60> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.discoverrfid.org/how-it-works/facts-and-figures/product-availability.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963029 | 192 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Tag Archives: late nineteenth century
Wychwood Park is a neighbourhood enclave and former gated community located north of Davenport Road, just west of Bathurst Street. All of Wychwood Park’s houses are listed on the Toronto Historical Board’s Inventory of Heritage Properties.
The neighbourhood proper is one of the smallest in Toronto, composed on only the one single street, Wychwood Park, with only 57 houses on it. The surrounding area may be called Wychwood, but it is not the same.
A handful of the first Wychwood Park houses were built in the late 1800s, however most of the houses in Wychwood Park were built in stages between 1906 and 1935. A few houses were also built in the early 1950s.
Many of the older Wychwood Park houses were designed by Eden Smith, an architect who specialized English Arts and Crafts style houses. The influence of Smith’s traditional English design forms is evident throughout Wychwood Park.
Wychwood Park was originally founded as an artists’ colony in the late nineteenth century as a private project by Marmaduke Matthews and Alexander Jardin. The area was still a rural region on the edge of the city then, and Matthews planned out a bucolic community and named it after Wychwood in his native Oxfordshire. It is considered part of the overall Wychwood official neighbourhood as designated by the City of Toronto.
In 1874, Matthews built the first house in the community, at number six Wychwood Park. The second Wychwood Park house, at number twenty two Wychwood Park, was built in 1877, by Matthews’ friend Alexander Jardine. Matthews and Jardine jointly bought the land that abutted their estates and in 1891, registered a plan of subdivision for what is now the Wychwood Park neighbourhood.
The land was divided into irregularly shaped lots, with a central park built around a pond and tennis courts designed by the architect Arthur Edwin Whatmough (born 1884, Toronto) who put careful restrictions upon what could be built in the community. Whatmough designed many of the houses that were built in the Arts and Crafts style. A few others were also designed by prominent architect Eden Smith, who lived in the neighbourhood.
One of Toronto’s ravines ran through the heart of the neighbourhood, and this was preserved as parkland. Taddle Creek once ran through the ravine, and it was dammed to create a large pond in the middle of the park. This is now one of the only parts of the city where Taddle Creek is still visible above ground (nay, one of the only areas in Toronto where ANY of the old creeks can still be seen unburied).
While the area was amalgamated into the city of Toronto in 1909, it remains a private community. The streets and amenities are paid for by the local residents, and the community is managed by an executive council. It is one of Toronto’s more exclusive neighbourhoods with house prices well over a million dollars. Several prominent figures have lived in the area, including Marshall McLuhan and Anatol Rapoport. In 1985 the area became the first residential zone in Ontario to be granted heritage status.
Wychwood Barns, a former Toronto Transit Commission streetcar maintenance facility located immediately to the north of Wychwood Park, was transformed into a community park, while the original structure remains.
Contact the Jeffrey Team for more information – 416−388−1960
Laurin & Natalie Jeffrey are Toronto Realtors with Century 21 Regal Realty.
They did not write these articles, they just reproduce them here for people
who are interested in Toronto real estate. They do not work for any builders.
Incoming search terms | <urn:uuid:b3b1e720-a2b9-425f-ab13-6d4dfdfe451c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jeffreyteam.com/blog/torontorealestateblog/late-nineteenth-century/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977796 | 790 | 2.875 | 3 |
Lee University was awarded a 2012 grant from the Dr. Scholl Foundation to fund a Chicago summer internship program in May of 2013.
Over the past 10 years Lee students have been given the opportunity to participate in internships in the city of Chicago. Originally this program entailed seven weeks of student teaching internships. However, within the past five years the program has shifted to a service focus.
Students now spend three weeks in Chicago participating in a summer internship through which they fulfill class requirements and earn 20 service hours by serving an inner-city Chicago community. While the internships have varied over the years, the past two years students have worked with Richard Edwards Elementary School and New Life Centers (NLC) of Chicago.
Throughout the 10 years that Lee has offered this program, the Dr. Scholl Foundation has awarded grants totaling $55,000 to allow 41 students to serve and intern in Chicago. The newly awarded 2012 grant will provide an additional $5,000 for four students to participate next summer.
The foundation was established in 1947 by William M. Scholl, M.D. Dr. Scholl was born to Indiana dairy farmers and earned his M.D. degree in 1904. While Scholl never practiced medicine, he is best known for creating one of the world’s best-known name brands through his successful Scholl Manufacturing Company. In 1947 he created the Dr. Scholl Foundation which aims to provide financial assistance to “organizations committed to improving our world” and has since contributed millions of dollars to organizations that reflect that mission. When Scholl died in 1968 he left the greater part of his estate to the foundation.
In May 2012, a grant from the foundation allowed four Lee students to intern in Chicago by providing each student with $1,250 to help cover cost of tuition and expenses. The students who participated in the 2012 Chicago service internship include Corey Greer, Megan Grebe, Michelle Hernandez, and Paige Dement. These students were also joined by Karina Castro, a 2011 participant and scholarship recipient who returned as a team leader.
The program is currently directed by Dr. Rolando Cuellar, associate professor of intercultural studies at Lee. Dr, Cuellar recruits students, teaches the class that is connected to the experience and arranges the internship opportunities in Chicago.
During the course of their internship these students worked as English tutors and teachers assistants during the school days at Richard Edwards Elementary School. When they were not volunteering at the school they were working in an after-school program at the NLC in Humboldt Park. They also assisted the NLC with the “Bling” project teaching women and girls’ jewelry-making skills.
“After living and serving among the poor, our students have returned with a greater understanding of the major challenges that people face in the inner-city as well as a deeper passion to serve Christ in similar contexts where they could promote the values of God’s kingdom” said Dr. Cuellar. “This internship has been of mutual benefit not only to Lee students but also to the children and young people to whom they have made an impact through New Life Community Church of Humboldt Park and Richard Edwards Elementary School.”
For more information about the Dr. Scholl Foundation please visit http://www.drschollfoundation.com
For more information about the Chicago Service Internship Program please contact Dr. Cuellar at firstname.lastname@example.org or 303-5120. | <urn:uuid:52ca0d80-427a-42a9-aa03-1a6408de5ea0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.chattanoogan.com/2012/11/14/238604/Dr.-Scholl-Grant-Allows-Lee-Students.aspx | 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 | 0.969213 | 723 | 1.695313 | 2 |
While analysts will argue for a long time what effect Hurricane Sandy had on the outcome of the election (some people think it tipped the close race to Obama), a question not getting enough attention is whether Sandy was a hurricane at all when it made landfall. The answer, it turns out, may depend more on insurance regulation than science. The question is additionally important because hurricane warnings were never issued for some areas.
Roger Pielke has a long post up at his fine science and policy blog about the multi-billion-dollar importance of how the National Hurricane Center classified Sandy as it approached landfall along the New Jersey coastline. We know that Sandy, like Katrina, would be politicized, but you have no idea how much so. I’ll let Roger explain it:
Some 18 states implement what is called a “hurricane deductible” as part of insurance policies. While a normal deductible (i.e., the amount the homeowner must pay in the event of a loss, before the insurance kicks in) for property damage might be set at $2,000, the “hurricane deductible” says that if the event causing the loss is a “hurricane” then the deductible is instead set at a much higher level, such as $25,000.
The “hurricane deductible” became important following Sandy because just about one hour before the storm made landfall, the National Hurricane Center re-categorized the storm from a “hurricane” to a “post-tropical cyclone.” . . .
For a storm like Sandy the invocation of the “hurricane deductible” is a decision with tens of billions of dollars in consequences, as losses were spread over hundreds of thousands of homes. Either individual homeowners would bear these costs (if the deductibles were invoked) or insurance companies would (if they were not). Given the massive stakes, not surprisingly in the immediate aftermath of the storm politicians were quick to act.
You won’t have to work hard to guess where politicians have come down in this question. Sandy was a “tropical storm,” not a hurricane!
US Senator Charles Schumer, a Democrat, sent a letter to NOAA (the parent agency of the NHC) reminding them of the political consequences of their storm categorization. He explained why to a local radio station:
“Today, we’ve sent a letter to NOAA, the weather agency, as well as to the insurance companies that we’re looking over their shoulder. We want NOAA to keep this classified as a tropical storm and to save homeowners in New York and Long Island thousands of dollars and we don’t want the insurance companies to play any games.”
A few years back, when politics-science issues were more fashionable, there might have been outrage from scientists and other observers at the idea of a US Senator “looking over the shoulder” of a federal science agency and telling it how to make a scientific judgment. But I digress.
With the politicians breathing down their neck (Gov. Chris Christie joined the bandwagon, threatening insurance companies who might dare to invoke the hurricane deductible on their policyholders), the National Hurricane Center and its parent, NOAA, are treading reluctantly in making their final determination about whether Sandy was or was not a hurricane at landfall. NOAA abruptly canceled an early assessment effort, in part because one of the early questions the assessment was going to answer appears to have been too politically hot: “Was there a decision not to call Sandy a ‘hurricane’ regardless of its meteorological characteristics? If this decision was made, was it made Friday (October 26th) or Saturday morning? If so, who made the decision and why?”
Gee, when this sort of thing happened under Republican administrations, it was called a “war on science.” As Piekle explains,
All of this still matters because the NHC still has not rendered a final determination on Sandy’s actual status at landfall. . . While I have every confidence in the scientists at NHC, can you imagine the consequences if they were to re-categorize Sandy as hurricane at landfall? The implications would be enormous and the political fallout immense.
There’s more in Roger’s long and comprehensive post. But one irony here is that if the government sticks with the story that Sandy was a “mere” tropical storm, it rather undercuts the global warmist narrative that storms are getting stronger, doesn’t it? It’s fun watching liberalism’s instinct to loot the wealth of others and ignore contractual language run headlong into their other cherished memes about science and catastrophe. For this, Hurricane Tropical Storm ??? Sandy gets Power Line’s Green Weenie Award. | <urn:uuid:e6b968ec-371d-4e3a-9e86-f55278737ce8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/12/green-weenie-of-the-week-hurricane-sandy.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964971 | 990 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Burma Cycling Holiday
After years of isolation from the outside world Burma (Myanmar) is starting to emerge as a tourist destination. It has recently been given the all clear by Tourism Concern, which had previously boycotted the country, following Aung San Suu Kyi's request for visitors to return.
The highlights of Burma, include the mystifying Thousand Temples of Began, Rangoon’s colonial charm and glittering Shwedagon Pagoda, Inle Lake and Mandalay Hill are just a few of the places this amazing country has to offer.
Join Exodus for a Burma cycling holidaythis year. | <urn:uuid:66f271af-6757-43b7-a78e-a1b09e99f1fd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.exodus.co.uk/activities-experiences/cycling/destination/burma | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943015 | 129 | 1.546875 | 2 |
The US military already has a kennel-load of bomb-sniffing dogs.
But getting those four-legged weapons-hunters ready for war
requires a ton of time and patience from a human trainer. No more,
the Army hopes. They want an automated system that can prep
dogs and rodents to spot bombs. Good call, Pentagon! As they surely
learned on the internets, dogs love
In the military's latest round of small
business research awards, the US Army doled out three contracts
to create computerised animal coaches. Their plan is to come up
with "a rugged automated trainer system" that would prep "large
quantities of animals" to seek out explosives and landmines.
The initiative, Rugged Automated Training System, or, yes, RATS,
is the latest in a series of Pentagon-backed ventures to turn furry
mammals into mine hunters. Dogs remain the military's
best explosives detector -- boasting an 80 percent
success rate -- much to the chagrin of top brass who've doled out
more than $19 billion (£12.11 billion) for high-tech bomb-detection
research since 2004. Rodents, including giant African pouched rats,
sniffed out land mines across Africa and are
military-funded study for their potential to track
down mines in warzones.
But for all their explosive sniffing potential, animals -- as
anyone who's used a puppy pee pad can attest -- are kinda tricky to
train. Right now,
dogs typically train with a single human handler for
up to two years before being deployed on a detection mission. The
pups are conditioned to treat explosive hunting like a game, with
balls, treats and human affection acting as the reward. The process
is simpler for rats and other rodents, but still relies on a human
trainer and hours of Pavlovian conditioning. Plus, the animals
require refresher training on an ongoing basis, making it a
full-time job just to keep the sniffing squad in top shape.
If RATS is successful, human trainers would be off the hook.
Instead, an automated system would run several animals through
detection drills, and then submit "detailed data on training status
and performance feedback" to human supervisors. The computerised
systems would probably operate a lot like the human training
process: Animals experience "an involuntary physiological response"
to odors they've been trained to recognise. So stimulus like food
would be distributed whenever the system detected, via sensors,
that an animal had found an explosive. Researchers at the
University of Virginia, one of the institutes pursuing the Army's
plan, anticipate plopping each animal into an "automated chamber,
controlled by custom software." Each animal would be decked out
with a "sensor backpack" to relay data on their progress.
The systems could very well train up more animals, more quickly.
But it's highly unlikely that RATS could entirely replace every
human trainer. For one thing, we kinda doubt those automated
chambers are gonna be completely pee-proof. | <urn:uuid:011bc1bd-07d0-4493-b9b6-73acc98c5508> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-01/31/automated-dog-whisperer | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92037 | 661 | 2.1875 | 2 |
|Spreading, multi-stemmed, shrubby tree reaching up to 25 feet in height and width. Ovate leaves are long, bronze and hairless when young turning green in summer and red or orange in the fall. Pendant racemes of white flowers bloom in spring followed by very sweet, juicy, edible, blue-black fruit. Because roots are not aggressive and shade is not dense, this lovely plant is a superb choice for a perennial border or entryway. Flowers are best seen when plant is located in front of dark background such as an evergreen border or wall. | <urn:uuid:89b427c3-ff06-4d6c-a615-64fd50616ec7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.backyardgardener.com/plantname/pda_20cb.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942652 | 119 | 2.203125 | 2 |
At a recently archived EE Times webinar May 1, representatives of Cadence, ARM and TSMC noted three important points about the 20nm process node. Number one, its adoption is inevitable. Number two, the design and manufacturing challenges are significant. Number three, the challenges are manageable given the right tools and methodologies, and solutions are becoming available now.
The webinar was titled "Industry Leaders Unveil Shared Vision for 20nm." It was followed by Cadence webinars May 2 (on digital 20nm implementation) and May 3 (on custom/analog 20nm implementation). The May 1 EE Times webinar included the following speakers:
- David Desharnais, group director, Silicon Realization Group, Cadence
- Tom Quan, deputy director of design methodology and service marketing, TSMC
- YK Chong, senior principal engineer, Physical IP Division, ARM
Around 400 people registered for one or more of the webinars, and they answered a few questions as they did so, making for some interesting findings. Around 32% are working at 28nm today, 14% are working at 20nm, and 20% are using a mix of these two process nodes. Of those not yet at 20nm, 70% said they expect to be doing 20nm design in the next 6-12 months. "You can see there's a pent-up desire and demand to drive to 20nm," Desharnais commented.
There's good reason for that. According to Desharnais, the 20nm node can provide 2X the gate density, 20% better performance, and 25%-30% lower power than the 28nm node. These capabilities will help enable and differentiate the next generation of mobile devices. "But none of this comes easily," Desharnais said. "We can help you get down that path, but there are some things you need to know."
Tom Quan of TSMC - The Foundry View
Quan cited a similar value proposition for 20nm. Compared to 28nm, he said, it can offer a 2X gate density improvement, 20% better performance at Vdd=0.85V, and 25% switching power reduction at the same speed. Multiple threshold voltage (Vt) and long gate (Lg) options extend the performance envelope further.
However, double patterning -- which splits metal layers into two masks - is necessary to overcome the limits of lithography at 20nm. But TSMC is making it easier with its "G0" rule, which helps validate whether a layout is separable, or decomposable, into two masks. The G0 rule can detect and help fix potential violations, and it works with EDA tools from Cadence.
Layout decomposition is indicated by assigning different colors to patterns that will be made by different masks. However, Quan said, "most of the time you don't have to worry about coloring. The tools from Cadence will be able to decompose the layer into two different masks and assign colors itself." However, there are cases where designers might want to place high-speed nets or differential pairs on the same mask. In this case a manual "pre color" process is available - and design rules will make sure it's done correctly.
Design for manufacturability (DFM) is also a big concern at 20nm. Quan described a 20nm DFM solution that avoids critical patterns (CPs), uses CP-aware routing and wire spreading, and then uses design rule checking that allows users to clean up potential yield problems. Another challenge is RC extraction, which must account for additional variation from the possible misalignment of masks. This results in more corners than currently exist at 28nm.
Additional RC corners means more static timing analysis runs, and traditional static timing methodologies are no longer accurate enough to analyze pattern shift (mask misalignment) effects in a single run. "The solution we're working on with Cadence is to create a multi-value SPEF [standard parasitic exchange format] file so we can achieve double patterning signoff accuracy and eliminate excessive static timing analysis runs," Quan said.
Quan concluded by talking about the importance of early engagement with EDA partners, and the importance of 20nm EDA tool certification. 20nm engagements started with a V0.01 design rule manual, much earlier than previous process nodes, and now TSMC is working with partners to come up to "V1.0 maturity" - and Cadence, Quan said, has "completed phase one certification as of today."
Dave Desharnais of Cadence - The EDA View
Since 2009, Desharnais said, Cadence has been making serious investments in 20nm. To date, Cadence has collaborated on 12 20nm tapeouts, with 13 more in progress. "We've been able to put together a flow that includes foundry and ARM qualification, and we have libraries, PDKs and rule decks," he said. "This is coupled with the work we're doing around IP, where we're building high-performance interfaces. We also have 20nm mixed-signal IP that will be pre-integrated with the digital controller, the drivers, and the package and board."
Desharnais said that most of the test chips use ARM processors and many of the customers are in the mobile market. "We've learned a ton," he said. One discovery is that mask shifts can add 10%-15% timing variation, and this is something that needs to be analyzed rather than patched up with guardbands.
Desharnais identified three "success factors" at 20nm - manufacturability/variation, "giga scale" design productivity, and power, performance and area (PPA) optimization. According to the pre-registration survey, manufacturability and variability are the key concerns for the webinar audience. This includes double patterning and the explosion of new layout rules, resulting in some 5,000 design rule checks at 20nm.
For the digital designer, Desharnais said, double pattering is done automatically. However, "you need to comprehend it, you need to understand the variation that occurs as a result of it, and you need to understand things like mask shifts and how they impact timing variation." He noted that the Encounter Digital Implementation System is "completely double patterning aware" throughout placement, optimization, clock tree synthesis, routing, extraction, and physical verification.
In the custom/analog world, automatic colorization is driven by constraints. "We worked closely with TSMC to embed that intelligence into our software," Desharnais said. Another big issue for custom/analog designers at 20nm is layout dependent effects (LDE), due to effects such as stress, shallow trench isolation, length of diffusion, and well proximity effect. Cadence has built an understanding of LDE into its Virtuoso custom design solution, which can generate rapid prototypes and provide early layout information that lets designers resize circuits.
A second success factor is "giga scale" design productivity. At 20nm, digital designers are dealing with 100M-plus instance designs and partitions with several million instances. This can easily choke the tools. GigaFlex is a new modeling technology, available in the Encounter 11.1 release, that can provide just the right level of detail that's needed at any given level of abstraction. Desharnais told of placements that normally take 15 hours taking only a little over 1 hour with GigaFlex FlexModels.
On the custom/analog side, Cadence is attacking complexity with semi-automated techniques such as the rapid prototyping mentioned earlier. In-design signoff verification is another important technique. But the "real magic," Desharnais said, comes with the Cadence mixed-signal solution, which is built on the OpenAccess platform. This is key because all 20nm SoCs will be mixed-signal SoCs.
The third success factor is PPA optimization. Here, Desharnais talked about clock concurrent optimization (CCCopt), a new technology available with Encounter 11.1 that integrates timing-driven placement, clock tree synthesis (CTS), incremental logic sizing, and post-CTS optimization into a single step. Results have included a 48MHz performance gain, a 10.4% clock power savings, and a 31% clock area savings, all without trading off one versus the other.
YK Chong of ARM - The IP Provider View
Chong noted that ARM has "invested a lot of resources to ensure the SoC designer has a smooth transition to 20nm." On the physical IP side, this includes high-density and high-performance architectures, multi-Vt and multi-channel devices, a comprehensive set of standard cells, and a rich set of memory types, performance and size ranges. The alpha release of a complete set of physical IP for TSMC 20nm is planned for the second quarter of 2012 for lead partners.
Chong spoke about the importance of early collaboration, and he noted that ARM, Cadence and TSMC successfully taped out the first Cortex-A15 20nm test chip in September 2011. Built on the TSMC N20G process, it includes a single CPU with 32KB L1 cache, 512KB L2 cache, and 2 million instances. The chip "trail blazed and optimized" the 20nm design flow and provided valuable information for process debugging, he said.
Chong's list of key 20nm challenges included metal pitches reduced to 64nm, accurate delay modeling, increased wire resistance, double patterning, signal integrity, electomigration, and increasing variability.
"20nm introduces many new challenges for SoC implementation," Chong concluded. "Early collaboration between foundry, IP and EDA partners is essential to address these challenges. TSMC, ARM and Cadence are addressing these challenges through the Cortex-A15 test chip. We will continue to collaborate to ensure that when the customer is ready, the processor and physical IP will be there."
The overall takeaway from the webinar? "We're ready to engage when you are," Desharnais said.
An archived version of this webinar is available here. | <urn:uuid:512909f6-eeb1-4b4f-8396-2a44dffca9af> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cadence.com/Community/blogs/ii/archive/2012/05/02/cadence-arm-and-tsmc-reveal-20nm-challenges-and-solutions.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946269 | 2,105 | 1.546875 | 2 |
in the October, 2011, issue of The Lancet Infectious Diseases
discusses innovations for polio eradication. We agree that social factors are one of the most important barriers to a polio eradication initiative. The essential problem is that the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) is not consistent with current local priorities. Moreover, the Ministry of Health in Pakistan was devolved, and the relevant federal programme disappeared in June, 2011. Therefore, local governments take more responsibility for immunisation programmes than before.
When Pakistan introduced a biannual oral polio vaccine campaign in 1994, the number of polio cases substantially decreased, and vaccinators and health workers realised the value of the vaccination campaign. However, as the frequency of the campaign increased to four, six, eight, and sometimes ten times per year in selected areas, and the case numbers did not decrease much after 1999, vaccinators began to lack confidence in repeated campaigns. Additionally, vaccinators’ original work—ie, routine immunisations—was hampered by the oral polio vaccine campaign, since these workers had less time for their regular work.2
As a result, parents and caretakers found it difficult to accept the campaigns.2
For these reasons, we recommend some strategies that meet local needs and could be accepted by local residents.
First, a polio eradication initiative should be combined with other health interventions, in which local people easily find benefits for their health and clearly see positive results. For example, combination of nutritional supplements or water sanitation and relevant infrastructure campaigns could be more readily accepted than oral polio vaccine campaigns alone.
Second, the balance of workload for vaccinators in terms of routine immunisations and polio eradication should be re-evaluated.3
Currently, vaccinators have little time to visit remote villages to give routine vaccines, where poliovirus is believed to circulate silently. Thus, the frequency of the polio campaign should be reduced from eight to four times a year3
to improve both the polio campaign and allow time for routine immunisations.
Third, the local and international Islamic community should be more involved. Contributions from neighbourhood non-governmental organisations and halal oral polio vaccines produced by Islamic countries could greatly improve residents’ acceptance of immunisation. North-western Pakistan has an extremely conservative culture, and we must keep this in mind.
We declare that we have no conflicts of interests. | <urn:uuid:7686b041-69b3-4231-ba79-589e082787e0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(12)70103-2/fulltext | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940147 | 483 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Design for reliability - Part 3 of 6
What does the word performance mean to your organization? When I hear the word performance I envision a Formula Race Car at the head of the pack or an Olympic athlete crossing the finish line.
What does the word performance mean to your organization? When I hear the word performance I envision a Formula Race Car at the head of the pack or an Olympic athlete crossing the finish line. Thinking specifically of the finish line and high performance, I think of all the stages it took to get to the point of crossing the finish line as number one. When I think of high performing electrical or mechanical systems at work I realize whether in a refinery, offshore platform or in 5,000 feet of water sitting on the ocean floor, there are some common themes.
While subsea reliability programs have heavily relied on models and activities developed and mastered in manufacturing and refining, subsea reliability is forced into a philosophy that creates a systems approach in its operations.
Systems reliability in subsea considers the degree of standardization in the equipment and in the tools used to repair and maintain the equipment. It allows for almost any operation to be suspended if operational limits are on the edge of being exceeded. Listed below are measures taken when limits are on the edge of being exceeded:
- Equipment such as valves and sensors have redundancy built-in
- Components are used that have a high resistance to wear and corrosion
- Condition monitoring is performed continuously on all critical pieces of equipment and on equipment that have key interfaces with critical equipment.
High performance may cost time money and resources whether you are an athlete, race car driver or a high-head pump in a refinery or an electric submersible pump in 6,000 feet of water, the payback on high performance lends to value creation.
Not all reliability high performance measures have to be gold plated to create value. Early design of the system is much like the training the athlete puts himself through. Anything that can be addressed before start up creates higher performance. These include small process improvements in the areas of:
- Spare parts identified early on for the system is commissioned
- Systems interfaces defined
- Cost on “Effort of Maintenance”
- KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)
- Failure Assessments before start-ups; with contingency measures in place
- Preparing for operational limits before they occur.
Subsea design, engineering, construction and operations integrates small process improvements along with redundancy and maintenance thought out in the design yielding performance targets that it can give back to traditional and core reliability methods.
Subsea reliability integrates improvements in design, construction, commissioning and operations. Each one of these stages considers the long term performance and how maintenance planning can be improved to deliver better system reliability. The performance targets set for subsea systems are a best practice that traditional reliability methods can leverage.
Case Study Database
Get more exposure for your case study by uploading it to the Plant Engineering case study database, where end-users can identify relevant solutions and explore what the experts are doing to effectively implement a variety of technology and productivity related projects.
These case studies provide examples of how knowledgeable solution providers have used technology, processes and people to create effective and successful implementations in real-world situations. Case studies can be completed by filling out a simple online form where you can outline the project title, abstract, and full story in 1500 words or less; upload photos, videos and a logo.
Click here to visit the Case Study Database and upload your case study.
2012 Salary Survey
In a year when manufacturing continued to lead the economic rebound, it makes sense that plant manager bonuses rebounded. Plant Engineering’s annual Salary Survey shows both wages and bonuses rose in 2012 after a retreat the year before.
Average salary across all job titles for plant floor management rose 3.5% to $95,446, and bonus compensation jumped to $15,162, a 4.2% increase from the 2010 level and double the 2011 total, which showed a sharp drop in bonus. | <urn:uuid:f6a1acd0-accc-405a-a477-6b931c4e95ab> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.plantengineering.com/single-article/design-for-reliability-part-3-of-6/b263ef54c5db9a7ffb32e23b579bacae.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939446 | 823 | 2.078125 | 2 |
CARRINGTON, Edward, a Delegate from Virginia; born in Goochland County, Va., February
11, 1748; member of the county committee in 1775 and 1776; served in the
Revolutionary Army; commissioned lieutenant colonel of Artillery November 30,
1776; served as quartermaster general on the staff of General Greene; commanded
the Artillery at the Battle of Hobkirks Hill, April 24, 1781, and at Yorktown;
Member of the Continental Congress 1786-1788; appointed by President Washington
marshal of Virginia in 1789; foreman of the jury during the trial of Aaron Burr
for treason in 1807; died in Richmond, Va., October 28, 1810; interment in St.
BibliographyHopkins, Garland Evans.
Colonel Carrington of Cumberland. With a Brief Sketch of the
Carrington Family Appended. Winchester, VA: Privately Issued, | <urn:uuid:4d7b2d47-5aeb-4be4-90ca-f977342467c8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=C000183 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953204 | 200 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Peregrine Diamonds has discovered a number of precious gems that could soon find their way into diamond engagement rings.
The firm has recovered an 840kg microdiamond sample from CH-31 – a kimberlite at the Chidliak project in Canada – including 223 gems larger than the 0.106mm sieve size.
Among the haul us a 1.15-carat diamond and Eric Friedland, chief executive of Peregrine, described the find as "very significant".
"CH-31, at five hectares, is the largest kimberlite discovered at Chidliak to date and the fifth kimberlite with economic potential in arctic settings," he explained.
Mr Friedland added the company is considering carrying out more exploration work at Ch-31 during 2011, including recovering a mini-bulk sample.
Peregrine has uncovered two new diamond districts in Canada since 2007 – Chidliak and Qilaq on southern Baffin Island and Banuq, located in the eastern Arctic region.
Although diamond searches are its primary focus, the company also looks? for metal deposits. | <urn:uuid:d9a03abb-ec9a-4033-9210-d41ed60ea314> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.diamondgeezer.com/blog/tag/arctic-region/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953643 | 236 | 2.1875 | 2 |
21 June 2012Turkish construction firms have hit the proverbial jackpot in Turkmenistan, taking on $3 billion in projects in the country since January 2012.
Turkish construction firms have signed up for projects to build sports arenas, ports, schools, hospitals, roads, infrastructure, bridges, railways, drilling platforms, pipelines, textile factories, hotels and entertainment facilities.
Most recently, Turkey’s Polimeks construction firm won the bid to build Turkmenistan’s $147 million Techno Park project and the second phase of the country’s Olympic city for $1.4 billion.
Another Turkish firm, Soyak, has also signed on board to build a train station and residences in the country’s Balkan province.
Norsel, which is active in the textile sector, is getting ready to build a 6,000 ton capacity cotton processing plant in the city of Seydi, as well as revamping an existing cotton plant in the province of Lebap. The total cost of these projects is estimated at $110 million.
Çalýk Holding’s GAP construction firm is building emergency rooms in five different provinces in Turkmenistan for $105 million. Efor Construction is also building a cardiology in the capital Ashgabad for $65 million.
Turkish construction firms recorded $3.2 billion in revenues for the completion of 63 different projects in Turkmenistan in 2011, despite the global economic crisis. In 2010, Turkish firms were awarded $4.5 billion in construction projects, and since 1991 Turkish firms have raked in a total of more than $30 billion in projects in Turkmenistan. Currently, Turkish firms are continuing with around 500 different projects in the country worth $32 billion. | <urn:uuid:d2e0d44a-7861-4506-8534-fe5a902c2eee> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.turkishweekly.net/news/137480/turkmen-construction-dominated-by-turks.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9442 | 359 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Social Media is “Pay-it-Forward” Marketing
If your business’s social marketing efforts don’t seem to be paying off like you’d hoped, try changing the way you think about social media.
Social media breaks the marketing mold. Traditional marketing measures success based on how many leads, views and clicks you’re getting against how much time, money and resources you put in. With social media, you cannot think this way if you want to be successful!
Understand that social media is about choices. Engaging with consumers through social media provides several different options on how you give content to your consumers and how they receive that content. Consumers will engage with companies based on the type of communication that resonates with them the most.
In traditional marketing, the business owner chose exactly how to market to the consumer. But, with social media, the consumers are more in control. Consumers have a choice on how they prefer to interact with businesses. If the ways you’re communicating with your consumers don’t seem to be delivering, try something else, or try a combination of techniques to find what clicks with your consumers.
You must “pay-it-forward” to your customers. This means you need to be providing quality content, information and insight without expecting a payoff. Then you must believe and trust in your consumers, and ultimately, they will pay you back for your quality engagement.
Remember to start small with your social media marketing. Set expectations for you company and come up with a strategy and timeline to keep you on track. Consider hiring social media specialists to handle your accounts, or teaching a couple employees to run your social media campaigns.
The bottom line is that you must know that social media marketing’s purpose is to GIVE to consumers. By providing them with enthusiasm and information, they will be appreciative and you will see results. | <urn:uuid:91efb8d1-93c4-4c92-b038-3afc36b46317> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://boundlesssem.com/social-media-pay-it-forward-marketing/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943214 | 391 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Genetics and Genomics
Gene Therapy: On the road again
by Michelle F. Pflumm, PhD
David Vetter got his very own spacesuit in 1977, and for 30 minutes, he could finally explore the outside world. But then, unable to fight off the simplest infections, he had to return to his germ-free bubble. He died from complications of a bone marrow transplant at the age of 12.
Twenty-five years later, children like David with severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) still face an uncertain future. New gene-therapy-based strategies provide great promise, but fatal complications have stalled their progress toward the clinic. Now, a team of experts hopes to change that with a new fleet of gene delivery vehicles.
SCID: a fatal disease
The most common form of "bubble boy" syndrome, SCID-X1, strikes boys shortly after birth; without intervention, most die from bacterial or viral infections before their first birthday.
"These children have no mechanism to fight off even a simple cold virus," explains David Williams, MD, director of Translational Medicine at Children's Hospital Boston and chief of the Division of Hematology/Oncology. "Simple infections become deadly infections."
The only curative treatment is bone marrow transplantation, but most children, like David, never find a perfectly matched marrow donor. Parents often step up to the plate, but provide only a partial match, so their children typically must remain on immunoglobulin transfusions for life.
A promising alternative
Gene therapy emerged as another option in the 1990s. It is similar to a bone marrow transplant, but uses the child’s own cells instead of cells from a donor. The cells are removed, the blood stem cells are isolated and their genetic defect is corrected. The corrected cells are reintroduced into the patient, and go on to create the specialized cells needed for a functional immune system, ultimately curing the disease.
The critical component of gene therapy is the "vector," a debilitated virus that serves as the gene delivery vehicle. This virus infects the cell, carrying the therapeutic gene, and, depending on the virus used, inserts that gene into the chromosomes.
A healthy copy of the affected gene is introduced into the patient's stem cells by means of a gene delivery vehicle called a vector, a genetically altered virus that can penetrate cells but does not cause ongoing infection. The process begins by isolating blood stem cells from the patient's bone marrow. The therapeutic gene, inserted into the vector's genome, is then delivered into the patient's stem cells. The patient's stem cells, now corrected for the defect, are infused back into the patient in the clinic.
Two teams in England and France pioneered the gene therapy strategy for SCID-X1, and by 2000, 18 out of 20 treated children had been cured of the disease. But the team had little time to celebrate. Five children developed leukemia as a complication of gene therapy, causing one of them to die. The Food and Drug Administration placed a hold on U.S. trials in SCID-X1, deciding that this therapeutic strategy was not worth the risk of a second potentially fatal disease.
United we stand
Williams, like his collaborators around the world, refused to be deterred. He knew that gene therapy could sometimes be curative, while bone marrow transplantation could lead to potentially fatal graft-versus-host disease, in which children are actually attacked by the newly transplanted immune system.
"The advantage of gene therapy is that you are using the patient's own cells and repairing them," explains Williams. "The risk of having graft-versus-host disease is minimal, probably zero."
With collaborators Adrian Thrasher, MD, of Great Ormond Street Hospital, London, who led the original trials in England, and Chris Baum, MD, of Hannover Medical School in Germany, an expert on gene delivery vectors, Williams founded the Transatlantic Gene Therapy Consortium (TAGTC). Its mission: bring gene therapy back into the clinic--safer and cancer-free.
"The commitment of researchers and investigators all around the world was simply amazing," Williams noted. "As the TAGTC, we could now share resources and expertise in an effort to move forward as fast as possible."
Back to the lab
Joining forces, the French and British teams that led the original trials took a closer look at the treated patients who contracted leukemia, and zeroed in on the culprit. A small stretch of DNA in the gene delivery vehicle had switched on a cancer-causing gene when it was inserted into the patient's genome.
The team had a choice to make. They could switch to one of the newer vectors being developed, but not yet tested in humans. Instead, they chose to work with the same retroviral gene delivery vehicle that had cured the children of SCID-X1.
"We have a lot of experience with these vector systems which we developed," explains Williams. "What we are trying to do is improve upon a vector that's already been used successfully, just make it more safe."
To guard against side effects, the researchers removed the cancer-triggering elements and powered down the expression of the SCID-X1 gene. Subsequent laboratory testing of the redesigned vehicle suggested a significantly reduced risk of activating cancer-causing genes. Furthermore, in mouse models, the animals were cured of SCID and remained cancer-free.
A New Hope
With this safer vector, the FDA gave the team the green light. An international trial, now enrolling patients, will soon treat a total of 20 children with SCID-X1 at Children's Hospital Boston, Mattel Children's Hospital at UCLA, Cincinnati Children's Hospital, Great Ormond in London and the Hopital Necker-Enfants Malades in Paris.
Children's Hospital Boston serves as the lead investigative site for the U.S. portion of this trial and has received a grant of approximately $5 million from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the NIH to carry out the trial. The patients' stem cells will be genetically corrected at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
The children will be tested at six months to see if they are indeed cured of SCID-X1, and will be followed for 15 years to be sure that they don't develop leukemia.
"There is a strong emphasis on safety," says Luigi Notarangelo, MD, director of the Research and Molecular Diagnosis Program on Primary Immunodeficiencies at Children's. "We will monitor these patients very, very carefully."
One size does not fit all
With a potentially life-saving cure for this rare immunodeficiency disease, researchers had hoped these same retroviral delivery vehicles could be used to treat more common genetic blood diseases such as sickle cell anemia and the thalassemias. But so far, they have not succeeded, unable to get sufficient expression of the healthy gene to cure the disease.
The problem is that genes that are introduced often need to be switched on at just the right time, in the right place and in the right cells. The complex regulatory regions of these genes that control their expression are often extremely large, and often are unstable and switch off over time.
Lentiviruses have recently emerged as an alternative gene delivery vehicle, appearing to power more therapeutic genes stably and long-term. And better still, these viral vectors appear to hop into the genome outside of gene regulatory regions, and therefore may be less likely to switch on cancer-causing genes.
"Lentivirus vectors appear to choose different parts of the genome into which to insert the gene payload and therefore may prove to be safer," explains Williams. "The target cells also appear to require less manipulation in the laboratory for successful gene transfer. This characteristic of the vector may be important for some specific human diseases."
Scientists at Brigham and Women's Hospital, led by Philippe Leboulch, MD, are using lentivirus-based systems to develop a treatment strategy for beta-thalassemia and sickle cell disease. The team has successfully treated mice and is currently testing the therapy in a small group of patients with these diseases in France.
At Children's Hospital Boston, Sung-Yun Pai MD, of the Division of Hematology/Oncology, will lead a trial testing out a similar lentiviral strategy to treat Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome, a rare genetic disorder affecting boys that causes both platelet deficiency and immunodeficiency.
"Like SCID, Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome is typically treated with bone marrow transplantation, and is plagued with the same problems of donor availability and graft-versus-host disease," says Pai. "Gene therapy promises to obviate these problems. We are particularly excited to offer this therapy to older boys without a suitable donor because they are at higher risk of graft-versus-host disease."
When stem cells are in short supply
But gene therapy is not always an option. In patients with Fanconi anemia, the very disease results in blood stem cells that are fragile, tricky to handle and simply too few and far between. Scientists simply cannot easily generate enough corrected cells to treat the disease.
Teaming up with George Daley, MD, PhD, director of the Stem Cell Transplantation Program at Children's, and Alan D'Andrea, chief of Radiation and Cancer Biology at Dana-Farber, Williams hopes to change that by creating more blood stem cells for patients with Fanconi anemia in the laboratory.
Their plan, funded by a new $4 million translational research grant from the NIH, is to obtain skin cells from the patients and correct them by inserting the critical gene. Then, these cells would be genetically reprogrammed and used to make new blood cells to treat the patients' disease.
"Reprogramming technology may revolutionize medicine in the future by allowing the generation of needed cells for regenerative medicine in many diseases," says Williams. "Already, we are beginning to utilize this technology to gain a new understanding of the pathophysiology of human diseases, including Fanconi anemia."
Still the one
Gene therapy is finally beginning to deliver its promise. More and more children suffering from immunodeficiencies will soon be able to live their lives, free of the fear of infections or graft-versus-host disease. With further research, Williams hopes these lifesaving strategies can reach thousands more children--with other blood diseases and diseases beyond the blood system.
"It is clear that the many years of research investment and development are now paying off," says Williams. "We believe that continued investment in basic and translational research using this technology will lead to additional advances, bringing new therapies to children worldwide."
SCID-X gene therapy trial launched
The Wall Street Journal features the gene therapy trial recently launched at Children's Hospital Boston for "bubble boy" syndrome.
Fanconi anemia initiative
David Williams, MD, teams up with George Daley, MD, PhD, director of the Stem Cell Transplantation Program and Fanconi anemia expert Alan D'Andrea, MD, of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute to develop a strategy to more effectively treat children with Fanconi anemia.
"Boy in the Bubble"
Wired's slideshow of the story of SCID patient David Vetter, who because of his illness had to live inside a plastic bubble for twelve years. | <urn:uuid:2522cc08-df06-445b-b800-67b58d1d6afb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://childrenshospital.org/research/Site3067/mainpageS3067P10.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948544 | 2,371 | 3.21875 | 3 |
Nitrogen's advantages in seal gas applications:
24/7 Operation to prevent oil blow-by.
Nitrogen is commonly used to provide seal gas for large process compressors to prevent oil blow-by during the start up and shut down procedures. Gas Systems Corporation's on-site nitrogen generators are designed to produce a very low nitrogen dew point for this application. Nitrogen PSA and membrane generators provide a reliable and inexpensive source of seal gas, especially when the requirement is for an offshore platform or remote location where liquid or cylinder nitrogen is not readily available. In addition, Gas Systems' nitrogen generators have the capability to fill nitrogen cylinders to 2200 psig on-site for emergency backup supply in the event of power loss or maintenance downtime. This capability provides added security and reliability for seal gas application requirements.
The nitrogen generator system comes complete in a totally self-contained skid-mounted package with or without air compression. It is designed to utilize the customer's available air source, such as plant and instrument air. Gas Systems' nitrogen generator systems are engineered for 24/7 operation with automatic start up and stand-by. We supply only the highest quality instruments and components to ensure safety, reliability, and product gas quality.
Request a Quote
If you'd like a custom solution built for this application, contact us.
Submit an RFQ
Send us detailed specs for small or huge projects submit now.
Contact Gas Systems
Call (214) 592-4311 or click here to learn more about how we create a lasting solution for seal gas applications. | <urn:uuid:8bc45265-a511-4e86-a291-0fbf01f4b020> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gassystemscorp.com/Seal-Gas-Applications.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.910358 | 319 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Since January 2007, SQA has issued a revised, easier to use and understand Scottish Qualifications Certificate (SQC) to candidates. The SQC is a candidate's life-long record of their qualifications. As a result of feedback and in consultation with candidates, the certificate is designed to make it a clearer layout and easier to read.
The certificate has three sections:
The certificate also gives Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF) information. The SCQF describes qualifications in terms of level and credit points which makes it easier to understand and compare different types of qualifications. The level indicates the complexity of the learning and the credit points shows the learner effort needed to achieve the qualification. One aim of the SCQF is to help make easier credit transfer between different learning programmes. The SCQF level and credit points of SQA's qualifications are shown on the certificate. The Profiles section shows the total credit points at the SCQF level achieved by the candidate.
The guide below explains these changes and shows you how to read the certificate.
If you have any questions on the new SQC, please speak to your Business Development Manager.
Where can you take this course? | <urn:uuid:83fd6fe3-0140-456c-882d-0f9a10e057d4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/14098.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938977 | 245 | 1.648438 | 2 |
19 October 2010, 13:15
Aggressive religious war is led against Muslims of Russia
Head of the Central Spiritual Board of Muslims of Mordovia Fagim Shafiyev told Interfax-Religion what challenges Russian Muslims face today and how to oppose them.
- Dear Mufti, Russian ummah has many problems of its own. Why even regional Russian leaders are so concerned with the situation in the Middle East?
- Because they better than ordinary Muslims understand that threats are coming from there and stabilization of situation in the Middle East influences domestic political life in Russia. Thus making certain statements they want to remind Muslims abroad about their position so that no one is mistaken what and in what circumstances Russian ummah will support. In frames of Islamic dialogue we try to make them understand that as millions of Russian citizens are traditionally Muslims and spiritual mood of our foreign brothers sometimes unpredictably penetrate in minds of our Muslims and influence spiritual atmosphere in the country, sometimes in not the best way, and we see it, we fight against it and we are not going to put up with it.
- Isn't it considered as limitation of freedom to express religious views, freedom of conscience?
- We have to choose between unrestrained freedom and spiritual security. We didn't initiate such a situation. Such is the situation and we have to take it into account. Freedom of conscience and religion resulted in growing threats of religious radicalism and schism. In other words, everyone got freedom, but many of them didn't get more conscience. I mean that spiritual environment of traditional religions is grasped by various destructive trends that destroy centuries-old traditions, national identity of peoples, testaments of our forefathers.
- In what way is it displayed?
- By all possible means mosques are occupied, new orders are set in them, orders of "new believers." Their morals differ from centuries-old norms, morals and traditions of Russians and, first of all, Muslim part of Russians. Honest and pious hearts of our not sophisticated parishioners are attracted with the fact that these preachers sometimes come from sacred places - Medina and Mecca. "New Muslims" say they are guided by spiritual values of sacred for Muslims places and first cradle of Islam, but in fact using the slogan "For the purity of faith!" they enhance arabization of Muslims. Muslims don't even suspect it as they can't always tell whether certain things are connected with Islamic traditions and rites or with peculiarities of Arabic lifestyle. Our Muslims consider every Arab or natives of the East a true Muslim though there are Christians, representatives of various sects and trends of Islam among them, there are non-believers, absolutely secular people. They preserve their identity even here in Russia. Then why we, Russian Muslims, representatives of various nationalities should lose our unique national identity to please the newcomers? It is unacceptable!
- Why does it happen?
- It is a result of intended propaganda that was launched to destabilize spiritual life of Muslims, to divide them. Aggressive religious war is led against Muslims of Russia. Discussions that we have never had are imposed on us and they lead to schism and division. We can't coordinate and celebrate together even great religious feasts Uraza Bairam and Kurban Bairam. Divided and separated Muslims ardently argue and insist on various attitudes to setting up the dates of Ramadan and the feast crowning the month of fast: some natives of the Middle Asia prefer to stick to the opinions adopted in their country, others follow authorities of the Saudi Arabia. Such situation really separate Muslims of Russia. I believe in these questions we should strive to reach canonical unity at least in every country as so far there is no hope to achieve the unity of world ummah on the question. It is absolutely unacceptable that adherents of Islam in every city are divided in opinions when to start and end the fast.
I am sure that distinct position of our brothers in the Russian Orthodox Church to Muslims of Russia and their struggle against evil they face will be fruitful and will form a new stage in respectful spiritual dialogue between main country's religions. | <urn:uuid:362ccfc3-088a-4783-8f9d-60cc34f7fdff> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.interfax-religion.com/?act=interview&div=86 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957713 | 836 | 1.773438 | 2 |
In a recent post on how RomneyCare is increasing health insurance costs in Massachusetts (by encouraging healthy residents to purchase coverage only when they need medical care) and how ObamaCare will do the same, I linked to a Boston Globe article where an insurance-company spokeswoman made this odd claim:
We believe…the gaming in the system…is adding as much as $300 million dollars to the health care system in Massachusetts.
It’s hard to know what she meant. Taken literally, this claim is obviously untrue. The gamers aren’t adding revenue to “the system” – they’re withholding revenue. Nor are they adding costs, in the sense of additional medical spending. If anything, overall spending falls because the gamers are less often insured, and therefore consume less medical care.
She might have meant that the premiums the gamers aren’t paying (or the difference between what they pay and the medical care they receive) amounts to $300 million, and that the gamers are imposing that cost on non-gamers in the form of higher premiums. But that doesn’t hold water, either. The gamers have zero power to impose costs on non-gamers; only the government has that power. All the gamers are doing is responding rationally to the incentives RomneyCare creates and avoiding — lawfully, I might add — a $300 million tax.
So if that was her meaning, this spokeswoman should have said:
RomneyCare is imposing a $300 million tax on insured Massachusetts residents by encouraging other residents to game the system.
Instead, she blamed consumers and argued for laws that make it harder for consumers to avoid RomneyCare’s private-insurer bailout individual mandate.
So now we’ve got President Obama, who signed a law requiring health insurers to pay for more stuff, blaming insurers for rising premiums. We’ve got pro-RomneyCare politicians doing the same in Massachusetts. And we’ve got health insurers, who support laws forcing consumers to buy their products, blaming consumers for the cost of those laws.
Remember how RomneyCare and ObamaCare were supposed to promote responsibility? | <urn:uuid:9aadd19e-2e77-481a-9cb9-aa611baafe6b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cato.org/blog/tags/medical-care | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960944 | 435 | 1.664063 | 2 |
The Sex Pistols were an iconic and highly influential English punk rock band, formed in London in 1975. The band originally comprised vocalist Johnny Rotten, guitarist Steve Jones, drummer Paul Cook and bassist Glen Matlock (later replaced by Sid Vicious). Although their initial career lasted only three years and produced only four singles and one studio album, the Sex Pistols have been described by the BBC as "the definitive English punk rock band." The Pistols are widely credited with initiating the punk movement in the United Kingdom and creating the first generation gap within rock and roll.
The Sex Pistols emerged as a response to what was perceived to be the increasingly safe and bloated progressive rock and manufactured pop music of the mid-1970s. The band created various controversies during their brief career which captivated England, but often eclipsed their music. Their shows and tours repeatedly faced difficulties from authorities, and public appearances often ended in disaster and riot. Their 1977 single, God Save the Queen, released to coincide with the Queen’s Silver Jubilee, was widely regarded as an attack on the British monarchy and British Nationalism.
The group broke up in 1978 amid a turbulent tour of the United States, but reunited in 1996 for the "Filthy Lucre" tour, and have staged subsequent reunion tours in 2002 and 2003. On 24 February 2006, the Sex Pistols were officially inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame but they refused to attend the induction, calling the museum a "Piss Stain". | <urn:uuid:6ae75897-fe88-446f-ba53-5c0d1cce0a68> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.absolutepunk.net/artists/showlink.php?showlink.php?do=showdetails&l=3877 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97336 | 305 | 1.851563 | 2 |
OU Torah Insights ProjectParashat Noach
Secular scholars speak of the story of the flood as if it were a myth, or a fairy tale. Not surprisingly, several ancient documents report striking parallels to the story of the flood.
Perhaps, the most famous document is the Babylonian "Epic of Gilgamish," which tells the story of a man by the name of Utnapishtim. The gods decide to destroy the earth, there is a great flood, and because Utnapishtim is the favorite of one of the gods, Eau, he is saved.
Despite the parallels between the "Epic of Gilgamish" and the Torah's story of Noach, they are strikingly different. In the Babylonian story, the gods arbitrarily decide to destroy the earth as if it were a plaything. Furthermore, the gods choose to save Utnapishtim only because he is a "favorite" of theirs, not because he is worthy of being saved.
In Parshas Noach, however, there is a moral imperative. The world is flooded not because G-d arbitrarily decides to destroy the world, but because it had become corrupt and destructive. Noach is not arbitrarily saved. He is deserving. He is a "righteous man, perfect in his generation. With G-d, Noach walked."
But the flood changed Noach. After a year on the ark, Noach is finally commanded by G-d to leave. A normal person would have been jumping out his skin to get out of the ark. But Noach is hesitant to leave. Why?
Elie Weisel, the great writer, offers a poignant insight. Weisel calls Noach the first "survivor." The world had experienced a Holocaust, and Noach was reluctant to walk out of the ark because he knew that the entire world was one giant graveyard for all the people he had knownand he just couldn't face it.
Once on dry land, after giving thanks to G-d and bringing sacrifices, the Torah tells us that Noach's reaction to the flood is to plant. Planting after a great destruction is surely a meaningful and satisfying response. It represents hope and belief in the future.
But what does Noach plant? He plants a vine and drinks the wine of the vineyard. He becomes drunk and wallows in the muck in his tent. Poor Noach. He cannot face the fact that everybody except himself and his immediate family were destroyed in the flood. He is unable to face reality. He needs an escape and resorts to alcohol. He becomes a drunkard.
Noach's response to the flood is not dissimilar to the reactions of some Holocaust survivors in our own generation. Some survivors were just not capable of facing the fact that they were singled out to live, while their beloved friends and relatives, mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters, had been murdered.
What is the reaction of those who behold Noach in this desperate state? The Torah tells us that Noach had three sons: Sheim, Cham, and Yefes.
Cham "saw [Noachs] nakedness" and told his two brothers outside. Our Sages note that this expression has sexual connotations, and, in fact, Cham did not just mock is father; he sodomized or castrated him.
Sheim and Yefes respond to Chams claim by taking a cloak and walking backwards into Noachs tent, so that they would not see their father's nakedness. They took the cloak and covered him.
When Noach awoke from his stupor, he knew what his youngest son, Cham, had done to him. Noach cries out, "May Canaan be cursed." Oddly enough, Noach doesn't curse his own son, Cham, but Cham's son, Canaan. "He will always be a slave to his brothers."
Very intriguing. Why does Noach curse his grandson and not his son?
Perhaps it is because, of all the children, Cham was the only one who was himself a father. Cham should have been aware of how difficult it is to be a parent. Of all the children, Cham should have been most sensitive to Noach's plight. Yet he was the least sensitive!
Noach says, if that's the way you behave, if that's the model you intend to provide for your children, if you respond to a person in need by acting insensitively, the end result will inevitably be that your own child, Canaan, will be a slave. Just like you, he will be unable to control himself. He will be a slave to his own passions and needs.
The story of the flood is not at all a myth. It is a narrative replete with endless fascinating insights, as is the entire Torah. All we need do is study and review it, and in it we shall find the secrets of all human life and human relations.
Rabbi Ephraim Z. Buchwald
Rabbi Buchwald, Director, National Jewish Outreach Program, New York City. | <urn:uuid:884a8d9b-66d8-452c-af96-a559a2cfaa9b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ou.org/torah/ti/5760/noach60.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981867 | 1,053 | 3.703125 | 4 |
(June 19, 1934, ch. 652, title IV, § 409,48 Stat. 1096; July 16, 1952, ch. 879, § 16,66 Stat. 721; Pub. L. 87–192, § 4,Aug. 31, 1961, 75 Stat. 422; Pub. L. 90–578, title IV, § 402(b)(2),Oct. 17, 1968, 82 Stat. 1118; Pub. L. 91–452, title II, § 242,Oct. 15, 1970, 84 Stat. 930; Pub. L. 101–650, title III, § 321,Dec. 1, 1990, 104 Stat. 5117.)
References in Text
of this title, referred to in subsecs. (b), (c), and (d), was redesignated section
of this title by Pub. L. 97–259
, title I, § 105(b),Sept. 13, 1982, 96 Stat. 1091
This chapter, referred to in subsecs. (e) and (k), was in the original “this Act”, meaning act June 19, 1934, ch. 652, 48 Stat. 1064
, known as the Communications Act of 1934, which is classified principally to this chapter. For complete classification of this Act to the Code, see section
of this title and Tables.
In subsecs. (a), (b), and (c)(1), “adjudication (as defined in section
)” substituted for “adjudication (as defined in the Administrative Procedure Act)”, in subsec. (c)(2) “section
” substituted for “subsection (c) ofsection
of the Administrative Procedure Act”, and in subsec. (d) “subchapter II of chapter 5, and chapter 7, of title
” substituted for “the Administrative Procedure Act” and “that Act”, respectively, on authority of Pub. L. 89–554
, § 7(b),Sept. 6, 1966, 80 Stat. 631
, the first section of which enacted Title 5, Government Organization and Employees.
1970—Subsec. (l). Pub. L. 91–452
struck out subsec. (l) which related to the immunity from prosecution of any individual compelled to testify or produce evidence, documentary or otherwise, after claiming his privilege against self-incrimination.
1961—Subsec. (a). Pub. L. 87–192
substituted provision for filing of initial decisions, with stated exceptions, formerly contained in first sentence of subsec. (b) of this section but amplified to include tentative or recommended decisions, for provision relating to assignment of cases to examiners.
Subsec. (b). Pub. L. 87–192
provided for filing of memoranda in support of exceptions to initial, tentative, or recommended decisions, to be passed upon by the Commission or the designated authority within the Commission, and eliminated provisions for oral argument on the exceptions, filing of initial decisions, with stated exceptions, incorporated in subsec. (a) of this section, and making all decisions part of the record and requiring the decisions to include a statement of findings, and conclusions upon all material issues of fact, law, or discretion and the appropriate decision, order, or requirement. See section
, Government Organization and Employees.
Subsec. (c). Pub. L. 87–192
continued requirement of notice and opportunity for participation by all parties when person seeks to make any additional presentation of case, having previously participated in the presentation of or preparation for presentation of the case, made applicable provisions of section
to applications for initial licenses and eliminated provisions for separation of functions of examiners from the investigative and prosecutory functions of persons engaged in performance of such functions, prohibition against consultation with Commission or any member or employee thereof with respect to initial decisions or exceptions taken to findings, rulings or recommendations, prohibition against members of Office of The General Counsel, Office of the Chief Engineer or the Office of the Chief Accountant from making any presentations respecting a case, and prohibition against persons engaged in performance of investigative or prosecuting functions for the Commission from consulting in any case of adjudication.
Subsec. (d). Pub. L. 87–192
inserted references to section
of this title.
1952—Act July 16, 1952, amended section generally, inserting subsecs. (a) to (d) and redesignating former subsecs. (b) to (j) as (e) to (m), respectively.
Change of Name
“United States magistrate judge” substituted for “United States magistrate” in subsec. (h) pursuant to section 321 ofPub. L. 101–650
, set out as a note under section
, Judiciary and Judicial Procedure. Previously, “United States magistrate” substituted for “United States commissioner” pursuant to Pub. L. 90–578
. See chapter 43 (§ 631 et seq.) of Title 28.
Effective Date of 1970 Amendment
Amendment by Pub. L. 91–452
effective on sixtieth day following Oct. 15, 1970, and not to affect any immunity to which any individual is entitled under this section by reason of any testimony given before sixtieth day following Oct. 15, 1970, see section 260 ofPub. L. 91–452
, set out as an Effective Date; Savings Provisions note under section
, Crimes and Criminal Procedure.
Section 5 ofPub. L. 87–192
provided that: “Notwithstanding the foregoing provisions of this Act [amending this section and sections
of this title], the second sentence of subsection (b) ofsection
of the Communications Act of 1934 [subsec. (b) of this section] (which relates to the filing of exceptions and the presentation of oral argument), as in force at the time of the enactment of this Act [Aug. 31, 1961], shall continue to be applicable with respect to any case of adjudication (as defined in the Administrative Procedure Act) [see sections
et seq. and 701 et seq. of Title 5, Government Organization and Employees] designated by the Federal Communications Commission for hearing by a notice of hearing issued prior to the date of the enactment of this Act.” | <urn:uuid:87c3f388-545c-404f-94bd-182d40838c59> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/409 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913492 | 1,337 | 1.671875 | 2 |
The measure allows not only a no-fly zone but effectively any measures short of a ground invasion to halt attacks that might result in civilian fatalities. It comes as Colonel Qaddafi warned residents of Benghazi, Libya, the rebel capital, that an attack was imminent and promised lenient treatment for those who offered no resistance.
“We are coming tonight,” Colonel Qaddafi said. “You will come out from inside. Prepare yourselves from tonight. We will find you in your closets.”
Speaking on a call-in radio show, he promised amnesty for those “who throw their weapons away” but “no mercy or compassion” for those who fight. Explosions were heard in Benghazi early Friday, unnerving residents there, Agence-France Presse reported.
The United States, originally leery of any military involvement in Libya, became a strong proponent of the resolution, particularly after the Arab League approved a no-fly zone, something that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called a “game changer” | <urn:uuid:dfc26a2f-47a3-4dd0-90b3-8d9e9f2b2ee2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://uhitsjayvee.tumblr.com/tagged/libya | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953859 | 215 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Last week, several public interest groups filed acomplaint with the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights alleging the Obama Administration’s US trade policy violates international human rights obligations. Specifically, the groups charge the White House has used the US Trade Representative’s ‘Special 301′ status toward foreign intellectual property law standards to promote policies that restrict access to affordable medicines ( background). We spoke with Sean Flynn, who is the associate director of the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual at the Washington College of Law, about why this step was taken...
Pharmalot: So why was this complaint filed? And why now? The issues raised are not new. Flynn: Here’s the background. After the US Trade Rep’s 2009 report came out, which was the first under the Obama administration, there was a series of meetings between the administration and global health groups (such as Health Gap and Doctors Without Borders) and the objective was to push the administration to follow through on what the Obama campaign discussed – which was to change Bush administration policies on trade and promote more access to medicine.
His campaign literature and early administration policy expressed concern about access to medicines and adopted a platform to ‘break the stranglehold that a few big drug companies have on life-saving drugs.’ And he pledged support of sovereignty for nations to access low-cost generic medicines. That was interpreted and intended to be an expression to roll back Bush administration policies - using 301 and free trade agreements and other kind s of trade pressure to promote constantly escalating intellectual property laws, especially on pharmaceuticals – data exclusivity, linkage between patent status to registration approval systems, restricting a country’s freedom to define patentability criteria and restrictions on countries’ regulatory authority to control drug prices.
Pharmalot: So you’re saying what? Obama didn’t follow through? Flynn: No, the Obama administration had expressed a policy change, but its first 301 report in 2009 was essentially identical to previous Bush administration reports – there was no expressed no policy change. And so that’s when global health groups intervened and released a policy platform and pushed for a new global health centric trade agenda (here is the 2010 USTR report).
The one element of that proposal put in place in 2010 was that the Obama administration opened up the participation within the 301 process. For the first time, the US Trade Rep held an open public hearing on the 301 report. And in that hearing, the majority of those who testified were public health groups advocating for a change – essentially for Obama to implement his campaign pledge and not use the 301 program to push TRIPS-plus measures on pharmaceuticals – IP rules or regulatory restrictions not required by TRIPS agreement earlier this year (see here for background on TRIPS).
So when the US Trade Rep’s 2010 report came out, it essentially continued the same policies from 2009. It was a little better around the margins - there was better language on DOHA and a slight reduction in the number of countries cited for public health concerns, but that was about all.
Pharmalot: But why now? Why not three years ago when the Bush administration was in place? Flynn: The reason was to really try the escalate the attention within the Obama administration. There’s a sense that trade policy on IP and access to meds is still being formulated by the same bureaucrats at the USTR, but it’s not getting a significant level of political attention. Part of the goal is to escalate the political attention the issue receives. Another goal is to call attention to the 301 report, because we believe it violates not only Obama policies but also human rights…
...There’s been a series of UN reports and statements over the last five years stating that access to medicine is a human right and that IP policies can impact that right and, therefore, wealthy countries such as the US must not use their bargaining power and trade pressure to push TRIPS-plus measures on developing countries. And that’s what global health groups were asking the Obama administration to do. So this was a logical step.
Pharmalot: Still, why wasn’t this pursued when Bush was in the White House? Why is the Obama administration portrayed as the human rights violator when health groups were equally upset with Bush? It would appear Bush got a pass. Flynn: It’s not entirely true. Challenging 301 in a similar way could definitely have been done then. I think one reason was because the Bush administration wasn’t putting any time or effort into changing 301 policies. And with the Obama administration, there was a sense policy change could be achieved and these groups were frankly surprised meaningful change was expressed…The same groups were challenging Bush administration polices, but more generally in human rights terms.
Pharmalot: So what if anything can come of this? Flynn: The special rapporteur is appointed by the human rights council, but is an independent authority . And his mandate is approved by the UN General Assembly, and one of the mandates he has is to investigate complaints in the form of allegation letters, which is what we filed. And there’s a specific series of actions that are taken after a letter is filed. He corresponds with the US ambassador to the UN HR council and seeks a reply. And then the complaint and reply will be published at some point. It is essentially, a diplomatic process, not a court process. There won’t be any adjudication. And that’s because the US has not entered into any of the human rights instruments that authorized adjudication of penalies. It’s not like the World Trade Organization, where there could be trade sanctions.
Pharmalot: Do you get the sense that the Obama administration’s relations with industry are substantively different on this issue than what you saw coming from the Bush administration: Flynn: I think it’s a little unclear at this point. The facts on the ground suggest policy has not changed dramatically, but the assumption is that the reason for a lack of policy change may be because issues have not achieved the level of attention because policy leaders are not in favor of changing. But we’ll be figuring that out. I think there is a sense that there’s more policy space on these issues than in the previous administration, but not yet clear that will translate into policy change. | <urn:uuid:a6b75f07-3947-419e-9a31-d0b0cf95281b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pharmalive.com/us-trade-policy-human-rights-flynn-explains/feed/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957191 | 1,312 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Rundu Airport is situated 5km southwest of the town of Rundu, the capital of the Kavango Region, bordering southern Angola. The vast landscape affords the airport excellent storage facilities for outbound cargo to Angola. The two runways are in excellent condition and fuel facilities are available for smaller aircrafts.
Customs and Immigration officers are on call from the Rundu border post. The airport benefits largely from chartered flights by tourists and business travellers, mostly to wildlife parks such as Khaudom, Mahango, Popa Falls and Bushman land.
Rundu Airport Map
* We rely on Google's mapping service, and the location information supplied to
us to show street view images. Please use street view as a guide only as we cannot
guarantee its accuracy.
*Distances are shown as the crow flies and not necessarily the actual travelling | <urn:uuid:2f2bb56e-81b1-4b60-a99e-157fc0625558> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.safarinow.com/destinations/rundu/Airports/Rundu-Airport.aspx/4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926351 | 182 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Afterwards: Wilfred Owen - 'The Send Off'
Wilfred Owen - 'The Send Off'
Focus on the following lines:
'Shall they return to beating of great bells
In wild train-loads?
A few, a few, too few for drums and yells,
May creep back, silent, to village wells,
Up half-known roads.'
What does Owen suggest will happen to survivors?
How does he use language to make this explicit?
How is contrast used here?
This Pathway is to be used for revision purposes, predominantly. Whilst the over-arching theme is ‘Afterwards,’ several further themes ('Disillusionment,' 'Memoirs,' 'Sacrifice') emerge and pupils should be encouraged to explore these.
The main aim of the Pathway is to enable pupils to draw connections between works. This is especially useful for those sitting the AQA Unit 6 paper, ‘Reading for Meaning.’ They should also be encouraged to analyse literature of different forms (poetry & prose), focusing on how the pieces fit in to literary tradition / the canon.
The tasks relating to the various sources are listed within the ‘Page Details’ section of the page. Feel free to add to these where necessary.
Created by Hannah. | <urn:uuid:527830c9-9e71-4f2e-9bee-31eb99fcca3b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/education/pathways/path/yaipin/13 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924507 | 270 | 3.203125 | 3 |
Like painted kites, those days and nights
went flyin' by
The world was new, beneath a blue
Then softer than a piper man,
one day it called to you
And I lost you, I lost you to
the summer wind...
NASA engineers are hoping those words, famously crooned by Frank Sinatra, don't come true this summer for the unflappable Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity.
Summer is approaching on Mars, and with it comes the onset of huge wind storms that kick dust around the twin Mars Exploration Rovers and their life-giving solar panels. | <urn:uuid:e181a0e7-9115-4c50-8e96-20d84cac6989> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.popsci.com/category/tags/martian-weather | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944902 | 125 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Social Media and the Rise in Online University Attendance
Today’s younger generation of students is well-versed in the social media world. Most have Facebook, MySpace and Twitter accounts. They read several daily blogs, keep up with friends over Skype and rely on bookmarking sites such as Del.icio.us, Reddit and Digg for their news. Almost all of their communication is done via computer and cell phone. Most of their free time is spent online. It only makes sense that as the use of social media continues to increase so too does the number of students seeking out an education at an online university.
The number of students attending online university programs is on the rise. Each year 30% more students enroll in an online university. In fact, University of Phoenix alone boasts an enrollment of more than 250,000 students! With growing technology use these numbers should continue to grow, and quickly.
Social Media in the Traditional Classroom
If you dropped in at one of thousands of traditional university classrooms around the country today you’d see rows of students with laptops set up in front of them. If you looked closely you may be surprised to see that the majority of these students are not typing notes. Instead, they’re probably surfing the internet, e-chatting with friends, posting to Twitter or catching up on the latest celebrity gossip. Some professors would be upset that their class was not paying attention. However, many professors are beginning to understand that this is not, in fact, that case.
Today’s students have been dubbed “master multi-taskers”, meaning they do not need to pay singular attention to one thing in order to understand. The advents of laptops, smart phones and social media outlets have all led to this phenomenon. Just think of how many times you’ve been having a conversation with someone while typing an email, doing a quick Google search, or checking Facebook. How often have you sent a text message while watching TV? These are all examples of multi-tasking with technology that have “programmed” us to be able to pay attention in a classroom with all of these other distractions.
Teachers who understand this trend have embraced the use of social media as a means to engage students. Classroom blogs are now available to students for extra instruction. Some teachers have incorporated texting and Twitter as a way for students to ask questions. Lecture videos are being made available on YouTube and previously unavailable guest speakers are now about to present to students via Skype.
Colleges and universities are using social media to reach their students as well. Many have their own Facebook and Twitter accounts to post upcoming events and alert students to school news. Never before have schools been able to reach all of their students with information so quickly, and never before have traditional colleges and universities so closely resembled the workings of an online university.
Social Media in an Online University Program
The advent of social media has only helped online university programs become more convenient and interactive for their students. New technologies have allowed the online university experience to be more personal. Online chatrooms, virtual classrooms, email, instant messengers and web cams are making earning an online university degree almost as interactive as a traditional classroom. Add to that experience the use of social media and students begin to feel like an online university education is second-nature.
While the use of these new technologies and social media outlets may scare off a few potential online university students (usually the older generation without much tech-savvy), it appeals to the larger audience – the younger population who spends the majority of their time online. Online university teachers continue to embrace the new technology and most have incorporated social media into their curriculums. If you are wary about this new technology, read our article Online University Learning and Chat Rooms.
Classes have online discussion groups and course blogs where students can comment and ask questions. Instead of email, some teachers prefer to get student questions and answers through Twitter or text. They send students to social bookmarking sites such as Digg and Del.icio.us to search for current news. Maybe best of all, students have been able to develop closer relationships with one another through Facebook, MySpace and other social networking sites. It has made the online university experience more personal and, for many students, a much better option than a traditional university.
How has social media shaped your online university experience? | <urn:uuid:1730a505-e964-4ce2-a198-0c47f5a4e605> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.universityfacts.com/online-universities/social-media-and-the-rise-in-online-university-attendance/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954944 | 898 | 2.4375 | 2 |
Israel Looking For Gay Volunteers to Promote Diversity
Israel is looking for gay and lesbians to volunteer as unofficial envoys in order to promote the country’s diversity, the Associated Press reported in a Jan. 5 article.
Israel’s ministry of Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs wants to promote the country’s international image by having diverse volunteers speak about Israel around the world. In a recent posting on the organization’s website, it calls for members of the LGBT community to volunteer.
Ministry spokesperson Gal Ilan said that the organization wants to promote the country’s strong diversity and that many people are unaware of Israel’s gay culture.
Even though Israel is one of the most forward-thinking countries in the Middle East in terms of gay issues, some have criticized the country for exploiting gays to promote gay tourism.
In a Nov. 2011, article by the New York Times, the term "pinkwashing," or the "deliberate strategy to conceal the continuing violations of Palestinians’ human rights behind an image of modernity signified by Israeli gay life," is mentioned. Law professor at Tel Aviv University, Aeyal Gross, claims that the gay rights movement has been used as a public relations tool.
Nevertheless, even its most severe critics acknowledge that the tiny Jewish state is not only the nation in the region that is progressive about gay rights, it is also the only one that isn’t actively attacking its LGBT citizens when they are perceived to be practicing or even manifesting their sexual identity.
Although same-sex marriage is not legal in Israel, it is the only country in the Middle East and all of Asia to recognize same-sex marriages that were performed elsewhere.
The Civil Service Commission grants spousal benefits and pensions to partners of gay employees and the Israeli State Attorney’s Office has extended spousal tax benefits to gay couples.
In addition, Tel Aviv, the country’s second biggest city, recognizes unmarried couples, including same-sex couples, as a family, which allows them to receive discounts for municipal services.
Gays are also allowed to openly serve in the military and any discrimination against gay and lesbian soldiers in recruitment, placement and promotion is prohibited as is harassment based on sexual orientation. The Israeli military also recognizes same-sex couples and same-sex widows and widowers.
When it comes to anti-discrimination laws, a 1992 legislation was passed, which prohibits employment discrimination based on sexual orientation.
Michael Lucas, an American-Russian-Israeli, gay porn actor, director and entrepreneur has become an activist for Israel over the past few years. He has criticized many aspects of Middle Eastern culture, especially its treatment of gays.
"I have many identities and I am proud of all of them," Lucas writes in an April 2010, article for the Advocate. "And while the state of Israel respects all my identities, the Islamic world would like to murder me for any single one of them."
Lucas goes on to say that the war between Israel and Palestine is not between two political views but suggests that Palestine is "stuck in the Middle Ages" and Israel "belongs in the 21st century."
"It’s a conflict between ... those who treat gay people with respect and those who murder them, jail them, torture them, and dismember them; between those who treat women like equals and those who treat women like camels." | <urn:uuid:ab69dd8f-0853-41e1-857b-82928da32ddd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.edgenewengland.com/news/international/128599/israel_looking_for_gay_volunteers_to_promote_diversity | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966001 | 704 | 1.929688 | 2 |
- Top to bottom are Faith Ringgold, Tanya Aguiniga,
Randall Darwall, and Clary Illian
Why do artists create? That’s the question the Peabody Award-winning documentary series Craft in America continues to probe. Now in its fourth season, the series continues its exploration with two new episodes: Threads and Crossroads. (Check local PBS stations for viewing times.)
Threads examines how four artists use fiber to create their diverse works. Faith Ringgold uses paintings and mosaic tiles to tell stories in her work. Randall Darwall, a weaver, uses dyes and yarns for his “kinetic sculpture.” Terese Agnew uses densely embroidered quilts to “draw with thread.” Consuelo Jimenez Underwood uses unconventional materials, including barbed wire and safety pins, as well as painting, sewing and applique to document her Mexican-American heritage.
Crossroads, the ninth and newest episode, explores places where change and innovation meet global influences to impact handmade tradition. Tanya Aguiniga makes furniture, jewelry and accessories that combine recognizable shapes and unconventional materials. Lia Cook merges jacquard weaving with modern brain-mapping techniques to create expressive, emotional portraits. And in Minnesota’s St. Croix Valley, a group of potters uses traditional Japanese Mingei elements in their work to achieve simplicity with modern functionality.
Far from being a simple overview of each artist’s work, the two episodes attempt to answer the questions: How did they think of that? And how do they do that? | <urn:uuid:eec021ca-5f33-4962-9f06-9d823245dc2a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.americanstyle.com/2012/10/style-spotlight-two-new-%E2%80%98craft%E2%80%99-series-episodes/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936393 | 332 | 1.75 | 2 |
- Italian: chamberlain
Title borne at Rome by three ecclesiastics -
1) The Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church administers the property and revenue of the Holy See, verifies the death of the pope, directs the preparations for the conclave, and manages the same.
2) The Camerlengo of the Sacred College administers all fees and revenues belonging to the College of Cardinals, pontificates at the requiem Mass for a deceased cardinal, and is charged with the registry of the Consistorial Acts.
3) The Camerlengo of the Roman Clergy is elected by the canons and parish priests of Rome. He presides over the ecclesiastical conferences of the parochial clergy and acts as arbiter in all questions of precedence. | <urn:uuid:1ed11f86-f720-4f0f-801f-fa3d50e63af5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://saints.sqpn.com/camerlengo/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.916801 | 162 | 2.359375 | 2 |
Lie detectors and sex offenders: response by the University of Kent
After I wrote a piece for our science page a week or so ago about lie detectors, the authors of a Kent University study that I mentioned got in touch to ask to respond. Here's Dr Jane Wood, of the university's Centre of Research and Education in Forensic Psychology:
In Tom Chivers’ article “The awkward truth about lie detectors” claims are made that offender managers may send paroled sexual offenders back to prison if they lie during a polygraph test. Although our research found that sexual offenders being polygraphed made twice as many clinically significant disclosures than did sexual offenders not being polygraphed, we found that deception indicated polygraph results resulted only in more in-depth discussions between offenders and offender managers. These discussions resulted in many offenders admitting behaviours that they either didn’t realise violated their licence conditions, or that they didn’t want to reveal. Thus, our research suggests that undergoing polygraph testing increases the chances that sexual offenders will reveal relevant information to their offender managers.
The article also included claims of serious methodological flaws in our research due to potential bias regarding offender managers’ decisions of what a clinically significant disclosure is. An important point here is that within our research, clinically significant disclosures were clearly defined to all offender managers as information leading to a change, ie: ‘new information that the offender discloses, which leads to a change in how they are managed, supervised, or risk assessed, or to a change in the treatment intervention that they receive’. We further found that most offenders’ clinically significant disclosures related to alterations in their circumstances or risk (for example, the offender had increased access to children, or had contact with other known sexual offenders). Consequently, we found that most clinically significant disclosures related to offenders’ admitting to behaviour that gave offender managers cause for concern.
During our interviews with offenders nearly half of those undergoing polygraph testing admitted that they would not have revealed as much as they did to their offender managers if they weren’t being polygraphed. More than half of the offenders we interviewed also admitted that undergoing polygraph testing helped them to think about their behaviour and to think about, and adhere more closely to, their licence conditions.
Some offenders also admitted during interviews that polygraph testing had helped them to demonstrate to their families and their offender managers that they were being truthful about not reoffending. This, they believed, had increased others’ trust in them and interviews with offender managers supported this belief. Our findings further showed that a number of offenders and offender managers believed that the polygraph was beneficial, particularly with sexual offenders – since both groups maintained that some sexual offenders are devious.
I don't see anything to disagree with here, but it does slightly miss my main point, which is that lie detectors don't work as lie detectors. They may work as a bogus pipeline to the truth – convincing offenders to be more truthful, because they believe they cannot lie. And it's interesting to find that offenders and probation staff both appreciate it. But the evidence suggests that they simply are not very good at detecting lies (or, more accurately, too good at detecting lies, even when lies aren't being told).
'Edginess' is banter, repackaged for hipster idiots
June 18th, 2013 16:06
Save our Science Museums
June 17th, 2013 16:08
Welcome back, Ozzy Osbourne, the tongue-in-cheek Prince of Darkness
June 17th, 2013 12:05
Reefer madness? If 'super skunk' is causing mental health problems, the perverse drug laws are to blame
June 13th, 2013 11:56
Lying prostate on the floor in the Large Hardon Collider won't win you much pubic sympathy
June 12th, 2013 16:03 | <urn:uuid:79d23e3a-e648-4cf0-b43c-1b8b4b00b364> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tomchiversscience/100175680/lie-detectors-and-sex-offenders-response-by-the-university-of-kent/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974272 | 791 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Oct. 7-13 is National 4-H Week, and Appanoose County is celebrating the 4-H youth who have made an impact on the community, and are stepping up to the challenges of a complex and changing world.
Last year, the Appanoose County 4-H Program had a 16 percent growth in membership.
There are two additional clubs in Appanoose County this year, in addition to the 11 clubs that already existed. One of the new clubs is a Cooking Club. In addition to cooking, the club members will learn about food safety, kitchen measurements and many more food and kitchen related lessons. The hope is that this club will be able to send teams to the Iowa State Fair and participate in the “Cook This” Culinary Challenge.
Recent findings from Tufts University's 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development indicate that young people in 4-H are three times more likely to contribute to their communities than youth not participating in 4-H. Notably, the Tufts research discovered that the structured learning, encouragement and adult mentoring that 4-H'ers receive play a vital role in helping them actively contribute to their communities. In Appanoose County, more than 225 4-H members and 50 volunteers are involved in 4‑H.
Learn how you can Join the Revolution of Responsibility at 4-H.org/revolution, or contact Courtney Chapman, county youth coordinator, at Iowa State University Extension and Outreach, Appanoose County at (641) 856-3885 or email@example.com. | <urn:uuid:539f88d8-20b7-486e-98c4-c40d9f57aaba> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dailyiowegian.com/agnews/x371809842/National-4-H-Week-Oct-7-13/print | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950849 | 323 | 1.71875 | 2 |
I’ve been reading Alberto Manguel‘s A Reader on Reading. Some random thoughts:
x—“Over the years, my experience, my tastes, my prejudices have changed: as the days go by, my memory keeps reshelving, cataloguing, discarding the volumes in my library; my words and my world—except for a few constant landmarks—are never one and the same. Heraclitus’s bon mot about time applies equally well to my reading: “you never dip into the same book twice.””
–In my own experience, a central experience, if not THE central experience through which my tastes, prejudices and memories have changed has been the experience of reading itself. That is, books, are not infinitely malleable pieces of dough to be made in to what the reader wants them to be at a whim—what seems to be Roland Barthes notion in The Death of the Author. On the other hand, neither do books show the same and constant aspect regardless of time and circumstance. Rather books are agents of change, shaping me in to something different than what I was before. I do not say, as might seem logical, that books shape us into the readers they need. This might follow from something like Iser’s notion of the Implied Reader or the Holland’s theory of the Ideal reader. I don’t think books have that kind of agency or that authors have that kind of knowingness. But some books are like mountains that must be scaled, others like fires that must be endured, others streams to be forded. A book’s agency is found in the kind of action it demands of me, and it’s nature changes for me to the degree that I am changed by the action it affords. I may by turns and by age turn from the mountain as too daunting, gasp and crawl halfway up its face before giving up in or scale it with the ease of an Olympian. In every case I am experience the mountain as it is, as it shows its face to me. It is not that the Olympian truly knows the mountain for what it is, because the climber who scales its height without a second breath cannot see what is there to seen by the man crawling in exhaustion, his breath in the dirt.
x—“I believe there is an ethic of reading, a responsibility in how we read, a commitment that is both political and private in the act of turning the pages and following the lines. And I believe that sometimes, beyond the author’s intentions and beyond the reader’s hopes, a book can make us better and wiser.”
–I wonder, if it is beyond the author’s intentions and the reader’s hopes, how is it that books make us wiser? We cannot say, I think, that the words on the page have a power unto themselves apart from their human utterance and reception. Manguel ridicules this notion as a form of magical thinking elsewhere in the book. But what is it then, in the experience of books that makes us wiser? I agree with the sentiment, but can’t define the agency of such making. Indeed, it often seems to me that when writers—fiction writers at least—set out to impart wisdom they more often impart tedium and irritation. Fiction writers should not be oracles; those who try would be better off becoming essayists or preachers. Nor am I particular taken by readers who approach books as if they contain wisdom, as if Melville or Faulkner or Morrison were a secondary scripture. If there is wisdom, it does seem to me that the wisdom might come as an accidental gift of the act of reading itself, not in what is read or who is reading or who is being read. But at this point I may merely be trying to be oracular. | <urn:uuid:d4b062fd-348e-42fc-a5f6-71735cacf27f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://readwritenow.wordpress.com/tag/alberto-manguel/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968037 | 802 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Despite rumblings from Capitol Hill that the recently-defanged SOPA legislation not see the light of day, Wikipedia has announced that "the Internet must remain free" and that it is joining the blackout protests scheduled for January 18th, nonetheless.
Founder Jimmy Wales made the announcement via Twitter today. The English-language Wikipedia site will be unavailable for for 24 hours beginning midnight EST of January 18th. Instead of entries, users attempting to access the site will be redirected to a page with the "The Internet Must Remain Free" banner above.
Wikipedia is the latest in a growing number of websites and companies, including Minecraft, Reddit, Major League Gaming, and the entire Cheezburger network, that have announced plans to suspend operations on Wednesday to raise public awareness about the SOPA and PIPA bills.
These protests, as well as vocal public opposition, may have already had an effect—on the House's bill, at least. According to House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, a hearing on the DNS blocking provisions has been postponed after being the Chairman was assured by SOPA's supporters that the bill would not be put up for vote until a broader consensus is reached.
Chairman Issa stated today,
While I remain concerned about Senate action on the Protect IP Act, I am confident that flawed legislation will not be taken up by this House. Majority Leader Cantor has assured me that we will continue to work to address outstanding concerns and work to build consensus prior to any anti-piracy legislation coming before the House for a vote. The voice of the Internet community has been heard. Much more education for Members of Congress about the workings of the Internet is essential if anti-piracy legislation is to be workable and achieve broad appeal.
Chairman Issa went on to urge the House to instead adopt the competing OPEN act, which does not employ provisions that could undermine the Internet's neutrality or structure. The Senate's anti-piracy legistlation, the Protect IP Act, or PIPA, recently removed its DNS Blocking provisions but could still potentially go up for a vote within the next two weeks. [Tech Radar - TechCrunch - House Oversight Committee]
Update January 17, 2012: Google announced today that it will be joining Wednesday's anti-SOPA protest. It will not (thankfully) shut down operations but will highlight the issue on each of its homepages. The bill's sponsor, Rep. Lamar Smith, called the protests a "Publicity Stunt" and announced that SOPA hearings would resume in February. [PC Mag] | <urn:uuid:a56c319c-f59f-4f31-83ad-958e2dad02c3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gizmodo.com/5876660/wikipedia-will-go-offline-wednesday-in-protest-of-sopa?tag=sopa | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963711 | 521 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Alaska public records:
All public record information about Alaska can be obtained at Public records online. This website provides the information according to the county; in that specific county more detailed information can be obtained by adding the town name or zip code of that particular county. The website provides information about :
1. Sex Offender Registrations
2. Employee directory
4. Laws and codes
5. Crime and Crime data
On the same website, there is information about searching for a particular person with his first name, last name and report type. Report types are:
1. Public record
2. Background check
3. Marriage record
4. Divorce record
5. Criminal check
6. Death Records
Another very good source that provides all the public record information is Public records search system . They provide all the information required for free.
Another very good source is Alaska public record finder, which provides all the information needed for a person. This website also provides all the contact information required. A few categories available on the website are:
1. Judicial system
2. Department of correction
3. Department of labor
4. Alaska workers compensation benefit site etc.
All the Alaskan code is provided in this website Information on Alaska courts according to government norms. Few of them are shown below.
This website provides the state Archives of Alaska, with all the information required to obtain the required certificates like:
1. Alaska birth certificate
2. Death certificate etc all the certificates are provided for some amount of money.
The information that has been included and excluded by the government for free public records can be seen in this website Alaska public record source.
Alaska Legislature's website provides information about Alaska Statutes. These are the laws of the state from 1993 to present. You can also retrieve the print versions of the current laws at Alaska Court System law libraries.
The complete collection of Alaskan status can be obtained from the Anchorage Law Library. You can also contact them trough the toll-free number, 1-800-446-3410.
All the information has been made legal to be viewed by everyone. More information is given in this website RCFP Alaska.
Nearly any public record information is available through online sources with little cost to you. Beware of sites that ask for payment to obtain records that you can access freely through government web sites.
Alaska's government records are not as transparent as some would like. The laws provide for secret government meetings and those that like to keep tabs on government activities are sometimes disappointed. But most records that are available to anyone in other states is not much different in Alaska.
In Alaska, public records, pursuant to the Alaska Public Records Law (APRA), are any books, papers, files, accounts, writings and other items, that are created by or given to a public agency, or those same records created by or given to a private contractor for a public agency. The definition under the law was extended in 1990 by the state legislature to include any drafts or memorializations of conversations to also be considered as public records in Alaska. The public records in Alaska are open to the public for inspection during business hours, unless otherwise specified in the Statute, and there can be a fee for obtaining same.
The APRA laws were created as a guarantee that there will be public access to public records in Alaska for all levels of government. The law is defined in Statutes 40.25.100-40.25.125 of the Alaskan state legislature. | <urn:uuid:80a979a7-117e-4f6e-8212-1f922ca2d27e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://recordsproject.com/public/alaska.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933999 | 719 | 2.03125 | 2 |
Cloud computing brings both performance and cost benefits to the enterprise: self-service capabilities, task automation, resource pooling, demand aggregation, and application elasticity. It has completely transformed the way TIBCO customers can build, deploy, and manage their IT infrastructure.
Users now expect an experience that is available on-demand, managed, scalable, highly responsive, and disposable. These expectations often require a cloud environment that can respond to constantly changing requirements, priorities, resources, and usage. Cloud computing also gives service producers the opportunity for greater efficiencies in how their services are delivered to users.
TIBCO's solution for public, private, and hybrid cloud environments supplies fast paths to cloud deployments and better control over cloud resources. For example:
- Provision key applications with one click, and set rules that automatically provision additional instances when business-rule conditions are met.
- Leverage the benefits of cloud computing for performance, cost savings, and elasticity.
- Support real-time decision-making by scaling automatically as needed, using business rules to provision resources for fast execution of millions of events as well as to reduce resource use as soon as event frequency diminishes.
- Quickly build and deploy complex stacks comprised of different enterprise technologies.
Benefits of a Cloud Platform
- Increase Flexibility: Create a private cloud in order to pool your resources—compute, storage, and networking—and dynamically provision and scale applications and resources as needed.
- Support Self-Service: Deliver applications and resources as services, enabling users to request, configure, and manage IT services through an interactive portal that allows for automated provisioning.
- Automate: Quickly expand or contract services through automation or workflow, scaling IT services almost instantly to meet business requirements.
- Account for Resource Allocation: Charge for resource utilization to help users understand costs and operational efficiencies.
- Combine the flexibility and elasticity of the public cloud with the security and control of your own data center with efficient management software for the private cloud
- Leverage performance, scalability, and cost-saving using a subscription-based TIBCO platform as a service (PaaS) for the public cloud
Stephen DiFranco of HP speaks on what drives our technology decisions at TUCON 2012
TIBCO Silver - See How It Works
Interview with Georges Bory, Co-Founder Quartet FS | <urn:uuid:f57fd26b-278c-4923-8575-60d69c1c97c0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tibco.com/products/cloud/default.jsp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.916887 | 487 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Friday, November 10, 2006
As a teenage boy, Cesare F. Rosati quickly figured out that the jocks got all the girls.
"I went out of my way to get a letter sweater," Rosati recalled. "It was a big deal, so I went out and got a letter in cross country."
Life lessons such as that helped Rosati write "Love & Life: Advice for a Teenage Boy." The collection of poetry was published recently.
The poems in the book never take up more than a page - you have to accommodate a teenager's short attention span, Rosati said. His advice is written in straightforward language and is loaded with humor.
Rosati has been writing poetry for nearly 50 years.
"It's always been my first love, as far as writing goes," he said.
His book-signing event coincides with Off the Beaten Path Bookstore's next poetry slam, both of which take place Thursday.
Rosati has read many of the poems from this book - which he completed in 1998 - in poetry slams and has received good responses from teenagers, he said.
Although it has been a long time since he was a teenager, the themes and lessons of adolescence haven't changed.
"When we went to school, alcohol was our problem. Now they have to deal with drugs," Rosati said. "We had switchblade knives, and now they have weapons. But a weapon is a weapon. There will always be good guys and bad guys and two guys falling for the same girl - it's universal. The underpinnings of human nature are the same."
His favorite poems are the ones bestowing advice from a bartender, an artist and a lawyer regarding dating, marriage and occupation.
Rosati said his book also gives advice young men might not accept from their parents, but his audience shouldn't be limited to the male gender.
"I think teenage girls would like to know what teenage boys are being told about them," Rosati said. | <urn:uuid:4355c869-7c58-4660-8d5f-88a11cb793d0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.steamboattoday.com/news/2006/nov/10/poets_reflections_adolescence/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987358 | 413 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Spring is in the air at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
as the museum looks forward to celebrating the fresh perspectives of young local artists in its 12th annual Community Creations exhibition, on view from June 13-21, 2009. Continuing the legacy of support for emerging young artists and the tradition of community involvement begun by Isabella Gardner herself, the Gardner Museums Community Creations exhibition presents works of art created by students from neighboring communities, including Bostons Fenway area, Dorchester, Roxbury, Mission Hill, Jamaica Plain, and West Roxbury.
Isabella Gardner was a community philanthropist, sponsoring garden and student musical competitions to enrich the lives of the young people living in the areas surrounding her museum, says Anne Hawley, Norma Jean Calderwood Director of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Today, the Gardner remains committed to supporting and enriching the lives of young people in our community by encouraging creative expression and providing access to art and beauty for all. This exhibition showcases the creative talents of our citys youth and celebrates the connections they have made with art, each other, and the museum.
Now in its twelfth year, the Community Creations exhibition is the culminating event of an entire year spent looking at, learning about, drawing inspiration from, and creating art at the Gardner Museum through the museums Community Partnership Program, a unique collaboration with six local community organizations, including the Alternative School at Little House (Dorchester), Dorchester Alternative School (Dorchester), Fenway High School (the Fenway area of Boston), Hawthorne Youth and Community Center (Roxbury), Mother Caroline Academy (Dorchester), and Peace Drum Project (Jamaica Plain), as well as teens from the Gardners own Teens Behind the Scenes program.
Community Partnership Program students, ranging in age from 8 through 18, experience an in-depth, multi-visit approach to learning at the Gardner Museum each year. Students visit and explore the museums galleries regularly over the course of the year, learning to look closely at art and develop their own opinions. Toward the end of their tenure at the museum, they are encouraged to draw inspiration from these experiences to create original two- and three-dimensional works of art for the Community Creations exhibition. At the end of the exhibition, each work of art is returned to the community organization for permanent display, serving as a continual reminder of the students time at the Gardner.
The Gardner Museums education programs improve critical thinking skills in young learners, as demonstrated in Thinking Through Art, a three-year nationwide research study funded by the U.S. Department of Educations Arts in Education Model Development and Dissemination grant program, completed in 2007.
Weve learned through research that helping students to look closely at art makes a major difference in the development of the critical thinking skills they will need to do well in school and throughout their lives, says Peggy Burchenal, Curator of Education and Public Programs. In this way, the museums Community Partnership and Teens Behind the Scenes programs make an important contribution to the future of young people in our community.
Community Creations connects the Gardner Museum and the surrounding neighborhoods in a meaningful and inspiring wayand has a lasting impact on the students learning and confidence in many ways, adds Johnetta Tinker, Director of Community Programs. The opportunity to showcase their works alongside over thirty centuries of art in a place that they have come to know intimately empowers them to discover and share their own creative expression. | <urn:uuid:a20c0565-e4fe-4755-9fad-28c800ec6bf9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=11&int_new=30980&int_modo=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949731 | 707 | 1.695313 | 2 |
albrecht at act-net.com
Wed Feb 25 11:25:43 CST 2004
> The following is not a rhetorical question: I asked this once before &
> did not see an answer posted.
> Does the CW, or any C debugger, debug at the source code level?
> Can the C testing environment take you directly to the line of code
> generating a runtime error? ...and let you change the offending code,
> close the script, and continue testing without recompiling & relinking?
Depending on the environment you use: Yes, this is possible. We used SAS
C for some years and it allows you to include line information in the
object chunk. Since C is not an interpreted but a compiled language you
always have to recompile, naturally.
And: C is not the only "choice". For prototyping or even for online
applications, where speed isn't the major issue, I use PHP. Although it
has its drawbacks I found it very productive - from the first hour I
And: Again, I am sure that taking some time (depending on the
intelligence available - I am dumb, unfortunately, I do not like to
learn new things in general) Transcript must be the holy bible. I can
not judge about it, currently (sic!) it is a closed book for me. That's
all I am saying.
The question starting this thread was for "serious apps" - aside from
this terminus not being "defined" I tried to express my own problems. I
apologize that I sounded like attacking Transcript - I did not mean to,
as you all noticed, I can not judge about Transcript.
A.C.T. / level-2
Glinder Str. 2
More information about the use-livecode | <urn:uuid:ccfb57c2-2ec8-40d6-aa0d-1c6fba8fb3cb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lists.runrev.com/pipermail/use-livecode/2004-February/032417.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.903889 | 379 | 1.9375 | 2 |
Timothy D. Hau obtained his B.A. from Stanford University and Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley. He taught at the University of California at Davis before joining the University of Hong Kong. Timothy was an economist at the World Bank in Washington D.C. in 1990-4. As a World Bank official, he participated in several missions to China, Korea, India and Chile. His World Bank publications on the theory and practice of road use charging have been widely circulated and cited. He argues that road pricing - in one stroke - saves much wasted travel time and fuel, raises government revenues, as well as improves the environment. Without the differential pricing of road use by time-of-day, road capacity enhancements are self-defeating due to the fundamental law of traffic congestion.
Timothy's recent research involves exploring the relationship between income and vehicle ownership across countries. He finds that income does not appear to be as strong a determinant of car ownership as is commonly believed. Because the rate of car ownership in industrializing economies such as Hong Kong is much higher than in mature economies, he recommends that traffic restraint via fiscal measures ought to be sharpened. Timothy's expert views on Hong Kong's chronic traffic congestion problem have been aired on television and radio programs, as well as in magazine and newspaper interviews.
As a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Transport, Timothy has served the community as a Council Member for over a decade and contributed to public policy proposals on transport problems. He has helped to strengthen the interface between transport research and practice by founding the Hong Kong Society for Transportation Studies, where he currently serves as a Board Member. In addition to serving on the Editorial Advisory Boards of three international journals, Timothy is a delegate of Hong Kong SAR's Transportation Working Group to APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) and PECC (Pacific Economic Cooperation Council). As a delegate, he was invited to present his recommendations on how to achieve an efficient transport system to the Second APEC Urban Transport Forum in Taipei last fall.
Some of Timothy's interesting ideas have percolated in a new third-year course he designed called "Project Evaluation and Financing", in which topics of current interest on infrastructure financing such as BOT (Build, Operate and Transfer) road projects by the World Bank, the Western Harbour Tunnel Co. Ltd. and Sir Gordon Wu's Hopewell Holdings are discussed. At present he is working jointly on a book on domestic transport policy with Stephen Ching of City University of Hong Kong, to be published by the City University Press. | <urn:uuid:cda33dcd-d254-42a4-8ccc-aeb0bcd3e70b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sef.hku.hk/people/faculty/timothy_hau.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969786 | 525 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Were I to give advice to an officer on this subject I would say, read and study. Idleness in a naval officer soon makes him rusty and of little value to his country or the service. Commodore Roe, in his admirable work, says: "The naval officer is always at school. The very routine of his profession changes day by day. Progress and invention changing, keep him ever learning new things, solving new problems. To keep pace with the progress of his profession he must be a scholar as well as a laborer."
Some time since, when the subject of naval education was under discussion before the Royal United Service Institution, in England, Admiral Ryder, an officer of high attainments in that navy, remarked: "It has been truthfully said that it is almost impossible to name any scientific acquirement which a naval officer may not find professionally useful at some period or other in his career, so multifarious are the duties which fall within the sphere of a naval officer's action."
Another officer: "We all must agree that the more scientific an officer is, the better officer he is."
Another said: "Our naval officers must be educated in all the subjects that come before them, not only scientific, but those that relate to the changes in our material. Having under them educated and trained seamen whom they must command by their knowledge of their profession in its entirety, which constitutes power, there would be less trouble on board ship, discipline would be better kept up, and our officers would be in a position to deal with any subject that came before them."
Commodore Goodenough, who strove so hard and untiringly for a higher education in the English navy, and whose sublime and heroic death won the admiration of the world, said: "I have been told that it is not desirable to make the navy a scientific service. Science indeed! We are far from that. We are safe enough from any charge of that sort. I only wish for such an education and training as shall enable an officer to understand a few elements of the laws by which their ships float and move and are guided. Such an education would excuse them from asking the impossible in a ship, while it prepares them to comprehend the simple phenomena and acts of nature. I believe I may boldly say that we have scarcely a man in our naval history, distinguished as a naval commander in action, who has not also been distinguished in some other pursuit, professional and otherwise, practical or scientific. Nothing you can learn will come amiss to you in your profession. Nothing you can learn will be useless to you. If you wish to serve your country as a commander of any force, great or small, you must nourish yourself with study. Opportunities come in vain to men who are not prepared."
"The thousands of naval officers whose race is gone, or going by, have sunk and are now sinking to repose with each his little meed of success or fame apportioned or appreciated according to his opportunities. But the State in the past time is the same State still, and who shall say what may not have been lost irrevocably through the very want of study? What discoveries in science, what combinations of philosophical reasoning, what deathblows to one's enemy's resources may not have been missed solely because our officers have not travelled out of the usual routine of professional duties!
"The opportunities enjoyed by them of original observation are incomparably greater to those possessed by any other body of men; their leisure is even a burden to themselves. And yet how few of them have assisted the progress of science by any great original discovery."
Firstly. Study the means of increasing the fighting power, and would suggest the following subjects:
Increase of Fighting Power.
Tactics of Battle,
Improvement of Men,
Improvement of Ships,
Improvement of Guns,
Improvement of Projectiles,
Improvement of Torpedoes.
Secondly. Hydrographic Information.
Currents of air and water.
It would be better for an officer to confine himself to one or two subjects, and to follow them up; and since the various ramifications of science are interwoven with, and to a great extent depend upon, each other, he could not fail in gaining a thorough knowledge of one to acquire a certain insight into others.
Tactics of Battle. With the many changes in the construction of vessels, their motive power, their armament and means of defense, as many changes will be necessary in fighting them. Indeed, the circumstances of different naval engagements are rarely the same; the arrangements and maneuvers for one would not be applicable for another. In all battles in which fleets were engaged the combinations were different. This is strikingly illustrated in the battles of Trafalgar and Aboukir. In our late war, at Port Royal, where the fleet underway delivering their fire in succession, being in itself a movable target. At Mobile, when to lessen the chances of being disabled in passing the forts, the vessels were lashed in pairs, and thus if one was disabled the other would carry her to the front. At Fort Fisher, where an immense fortification had to be silenced, the vessels were arranged so as to bring the most effective to bear full on the forts, with the others to fill up the gaps, and in a short time not a gun could reply. The Kearsarge and Alabama maneuvered in a circle, which was unprecedented. Fifty years ago, to have fought end on would have been madness and the result destructive from the raking fire. To-day, with modern ironclads and rams, to engage end on would be the proper thing to do. It should be borne in mind that successful naval commanders have originated their plans of attack and action, not on the spur of the moment, but have studied them out beforehand.
We can discuss them afterwards and see how they might have been frustrated; but how much better to have thought and studied beforehand, and been ready.
To Improve the Ship's Company. To do this does not simply mean to exercise and drill them, but to make thinking men of them; to intelligently study the means of retaining their health and increase their powers of endurance.
With the improvements in ships and guns the seaman must advance. Anybody could train and fire an old-fashioned broadside gun; but with breechloaders of delicate mechanism, and gun-carriages worked by steam, the recoil controlled by intricate mechanical contrivances, where one shot equals in weight a broadside of a sailing sloop-of-war, and in destructive power is beyond comparison—all require a superior intelligence and training widely different from that of a few years ago. The officer to give this training must keep well in advance himself.
In a conversation with the late Admiral Tegethoff, the hero of Lissa, he informed me that he owed his success to the superior training and discipline of his men, as his vessels were inferior to those of the Italians.
Our successes in the war of 1812 were largely due to our superior seamen. The best sailors in the world not ably commanded would never gain a victory.
Improve Ships. Increase the fighting qualities of those we have and plan new ones. In one short year the monitor-type of vessel made a revolution in ships for war purposes. Had we possessed a fleet of these vessels when the late civil war broke out a few months would have ended it. The change then made from wood to iron in construction was only the beginning of the changes in form and material which to-day gives us steel vessels with compound armor and a high speed.
The change of the Merrimac, in a few months, under adverse circumstances, from what was considered the finest steam frigate in the world, to an ironclad that was more than a match for several of her former class, was wonderful, and is an evidence of what can be done. We might be called upon to do the like should an enemy threaten our shores.
Guns and Torpedoes. It is still a mooted point which of the three, ships, guns or torpedoes, are the most effective. That the limit in weight of guns that can be carried on board ship with safety has been reached seems to be settled. But the explosive agents and projectiles that can best be used are yet to be determined. The torpedo is yet a matter of experiment, and who can tell how important a part it will take in future actions? How to construct them, how to use them effectively, are problems to be solved, and worthy of our earnest thought and study.
The immense charges of powder, on account of their bulk, are inconvenient to handle, and the space required for stowage makes it necessary to seek for other explosive agents, both for guns and torpedoes.
To find such an agent is no easy matter; but a study of chemistry might lead to such a discovery. An officer then could render no better service to his profession and his country than to study in this direction, as the result of study might give his country a very decided advantage.
Hydrographic Information. The necessity of which is so apparent as to need no argument. I would have it taken in its broadest sense, including the tides, currents of the ocean, as well as geography.
History. History is said to repeat itself. The rise and fall of a nation is an interesting as well as a necessary study for a naval officer. Did the rise result from warlike proclivities? If so, were they natural, or can they be cultivated? If cultivated, what were the means, and can such means be used now? Then their decline and fall. What contributed to it? What have navies had to do with either? And would the possession of an efficient navy have changed the result?
Almost every memorable epoch in the history of nations has been connected more or less intimately with a battle on the sea. For example, the battle of Lepanto checked the spread of Mahometism and sealed the fate of the Turkish Empire, gave courage to the Christians, and restored their religion to a large part of Europe. Again, had England had no navy to baffle the Spanish Armada, who can say what the condition of Europe would be to-day?
Naval history cannot be too closely studied, and we must gather from it that naval heroes were self-made, and that no power behind a throne can insure a naval victory.
The war of 1812, on account of our victories on the seas, gave a prestige to the United States which they have never lost.
We should study history to learn the' character of the various peoples; their fighting powers and qualities; their resources, agricultural and mineral; their armies and navies; and last, but not least, whether there may be certain portions of the countries which are bound to the main portion by the strong arm of might rather than by common consent. The condition of the merchant marine, in vessels and men, as this is the chief source of supply to a navy in time of war.
A knowledge of the agricultural resources is very important, because when these are deficient a rigid blockade would have to be maintained. Besides, the necessity of knowing the ports whence a ship's provisions can be had; and as States change from agricultural to manufacturing, or vice versa, we should keep ourselves continually posted. So also the mineral productions should be known, not only on account of the material for making cannon, &c., but coal to supply the navy. A modern ironclad without coal is powerless. New coalfields are continually being discovered, and to know where to get this important article is our duty.
The condition of their armies and navies: Did we have a powerful neighbor on this continent the necessity would be more apparent.
How unfortunate it would be for a commander to engage in a battle with a fleet or vessel of which he knew nothing, neither the strong nor vulnerable points, and yet this might happen if the commander did not read and study of the various types of vessels.
So with the army. While the navy is not expected to engage an army, still it can create a diversion by attacking at some remote point, rendering necessary a division of the enemy's army. Had the French navy done this during their recent war with Germany the result might have been different. Its inactivity, it is believed, enabled the Germans to concentrate their forces and thus overwhelm their enemy.
Modern Languages. It requires no argument to show how the sphere of usefulness of a naval officer can be extended by a knowledge and study of modern languages. It is only necessary to call to mind how the services of naval officers who are linguists are sought after in times of peace as well as of war.
I have so far mapped out what an officer may accomplish with the facilities they all have, and with the education the government has given them they ought to be able to pursue.
There are other subjects, Natural History, Natural Philosophy and Physics, which require aid to commence, but once fairly started can be readily followed.
In the navy, as a rule, the naturalist has a very wide field, as well as a very interesting one. Nearly every cruise extends over many degrees of latitude, thus ever varying the climate, and consequently the productions, vegetation, winds, weather and the many phenomena so engaging to a naturalist.
Professor Munroe remarks, in a letter addressed to the Honorable Secretary of the Navy: "While in the ordinary practice of their profession it might serve only as an improving pastime, yet when sent, as they often are, on expeditions to unfrequented lands, it becomes very useful; and when engaged in the work of the Coast Survey and the Fish Commission, and surveys of the ocean bottom, such knowledge is essential to complete efficiency."
How useful to the service and to the country would it be did officers possess such a knowledge of some branch of natural history as would enable them to study intelligently the land or water they might explore.
Facilities are now given at the National Museum in Washington to study this interesting subject in some of its branches, and it is to be hoped that future expeditions will have naval officers as naturalists.
The navy has been called upon in the past few years to explore the isthmus between North and South America, and to locate routes for canals. How essential to reliable reports was a knowledge of natural history and natural philosophy.
Lastly, Physics. The mere mention of the subjects under this head is enough.
Let an officer pursue any one of them and the result will show the utility.
Steam generated from water by heat from coal is the motive power of to-day, but it must be developed more economically, either by using coal or other fuel, or it will be erelong replaced by electricity as a motor.
These subjects then present another opportunity for a naval officer to be useful to his country and the service in time of peace.
The maintenance of a navy is largely increased by the consumption of coal. An officer inventing means of reducing this expenditure will most certainly have extended his sphere of usefulness to the country and the service.
"An officer who has improved his time by study would not only have effective claims to selection for the conduct of almost any special service, but would be qualified to make a special service of the most ordinary routine by the capacity he would have of blending scientific inquiries with every department of duty.
"Should any novel emergency of either attack or defense arise in a squadron in which he might be serving, with what advantages would he enter into council; with what deference would his opinions be listened to. In whatever corner of the world their lot of service might be cast they seize the passing or permanent phenomena of nature with the understanding of men acquainted with whatever is known on the particular subject, and ready to notice and to reason on the peculiar variety, should any occur. Should they visit a country for the first time, their account would be complete in all its parts, its capacities, natural and political, would be appreciated with judgment, and the manners, customs, institutions, civil and religious, of its inhabitants would be reported without exaggeration, and connected probably with the history of the species at large by some minute analogy of practice or community of belief, the observation of which might have escaped a less gifted traveler." | <urn:uuid:1a9529b9-025b-4bb9-91c4-26f32cba0071> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.usni.org/print/7118 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977885 | 3,345 | 2.296875 | 2 |
Timeline Fatima Secrets – (Under Construction)
The First World War (Fatima’s First Secret).
1938 – 1945
The Second World War (Fatima’s Second Secret).
The last cycle of the Mayan calender starts, US attacks Iraq in connection with Kuwait.
North Korean famine with over 3,500,000 deaths.
Izmit earthquake Turkey kills over 45,000 on August 17, 1999. Vladimir Putin becomes Acting-President of Russia. (He was : Antichrist)
Putin is elected Head of the 10 nations Commonwealth of Independent States and he becomes President of Russia 2 days after the May 5 rare alignment of planets. On May 13 putin creates 7 districs in Russia, the 7 heads of the red beast in revelations. Vladimir Putin brings back the old stalinist Soviet National Anthem and the Czarist flag ! Putin signs “friendship” treaty with China and Germany. (Biblical Recelations)
The 10 Nations CommonWealth of Independent States
Between the years of 2003 and 2005, three CIS member states experienced a change of government in a series of colour revolutions: Eduard Shevardnadze was overthrown in Georgia, Viktor Yushchenko was elected in Ukraine, and, lastly, Askar Akayev was toppled in Kyrgyzstan. In February 2006, Georgia officially withdrew from the Council of Defense Ministers, with the statement that “Georgia has taken a course to join NATO and it cannot be part of two military structures simultaneously”,but it remained a full member of the CIS until August 2009, one year after officially withdrawing in the immediate aftermath of the 2008 South Ossetia war.
9/11 or the 188.8.131.52 prediction of Nostradamus. In my opinion the WTC, Twintowers are the “Two witnesses of Revelation” : Reports and images of Palestinians from East Jerusalem, Nablus and Lebanon taking to the streets in celebration, were broadcast around the world. Read this : 3 days after 9/11 (In the Bible after 3 days the witnesses came “alive”) Bush Iraq Talks 3 days after 9/11 ! The US and UK attack Afghanistan in connection with 9/11.
The day Putin arrives in Rome, there is a large Solarflare ! US and UK attack Iraq in connection with 9/11. Russia deploys new Topol-M strategic nuclear missiles. Bam earthquake in Iran kills over 30.000 on December 26.
Russia holds large “nuclear wargames” 60 years after the “siege of Leningrad” in WWII. Putin gave a speech where he called the collapse of the Soviet Union a “national tragedy”. A Tsunami kills over 300.000 people in Sumatra, Indonesia and also affected India, Sri Lanka and the Maldives.
Pope John Paul II dies in the Vatican and is the Funeral of Pope John Paul II was held on April 8 2005, six days after his death on 2 April. On April 8 there was a Solar Eclipse as predicted by St-Malachy, note that Pope John Paul II was also born on the day of a Solar Eclipse ! On July 7 2005, there where the London bombings. Hurricane Katerina Strikes like Nostradamus predicted : The cities of Tours, Orleans, Blois, Angers, Reims and Nantes are troubled by sudden change. Tents will be pitched by people of foreign tongues; rivers, darts at Rennes, shaking of land and sea. Kashmir earthquake in Pakistan kills 79,000 people on October 8.
In February, Georgia officially withdrew from the Council of Defense Ministers, with the statement that “Georgia has taken a course to join NATO and it cannot be part of two military structures simultaneously”.
On August 8, 2008 (8-8-8) Russia attacks Georgia, the 2008 South Ossetia war start. Cyclone Nargis kills over 150,000 people in Myanmar on May 2. Sichuan earthquake in China kills over 80,000 on May 12.
As of April 2009 Seasonal influenza kills over 250,000 annually.
Port-au-Prince, Haiti earthquake with over 300.000 deaths. Russian heat wave kills over 56,000 people. Other disasters where the Chile Earthquake, the Iceland Volcanic eruption, Pakistan Flooding and the Tibet Earthquake, in 2010 there where 250% more natural disasters then normal.
Earthquake destroyes ChristChurch, maybe a sign Christ & Church, Mega 9.0 Earthquake strikes Japan with over 30,000 kills, also 4 Nuclear Reactors go into meltdown causing a worldwide disaster without people knowing (they don’t want to know it) a poison “fog” goes around the planet. Check the Prophecies of Edgar Cayce and Nostradamus). The EarthQuake in Japan was the Opening of the Seventh Seal ! Half an hour (1/2 hour) after the quake the first nuclear reactor exploded (1/2 hour of Silence in the Bible). Also this will be the Revelation of the Third Secret of Fatima !
Vladimir Putin will be elected the new President of Russia, this time for 6 years (Read the prophecies of the AntiChrist changing the law, Putin changed the term for a russian president from 4 to 6 years). He was … is not … and will be. | <urn:uuid:660612a9-33e0-4f99-a1e1-1f2cc359500d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.alamongordo.com/tag/2011/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925119 | 1,114 | 1.679688 | 2 |
WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 24: US President Barack Obama (C) speaks as he signs a bill in the Oval Office designating the Congressional Gold Medal to commemorate the four young girls killed during the 1963 bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, as (L-R) Surgeon General Regina Benjamin, Birmingham Mayor William Bell, Dr Sharon Malone Holder, Attorney General Eric Holder, Rep Terri Sewell (D-AL), Thelma Pippen McNair, mother of Denise McNair, Lisa McNair, sister of Denise McNair, Dianne Braddock, sister of Carole Robertson, Rev Arthur Price, Jr, pastor 16th Street Baptist Church, and former U.S. Attorney Gordon Douglas Jones look on May 24, 2013 in Washington, DC. The medal, the highest Congressional civilian honor, was given posthumously to Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley and Denise McNair who died September 15, 1963 when a bomb planted bywhite supremacists exploded exploded at the church. (Photo by Mike Theiler-Pool/Getty Images
Content engaging our readers now, with additional prominence accorded if the story is rapidly gaining attention. Our WSJ algorithm comprises 30% page views, 20% Facebook, 20% Twitter, 20% email shares and 10% comments. | <urn:uuid:ca0130d2-cb39-4db9-8cfc-af78eb7e5ba2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://topics.wsj.com/person/h/eric_h-holder/6924/photos/0d399f61f96242739f6e83376df47827 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.921945 | 265 | 1.9375 | 2 |
Although the Sun is a star, just like all those twinkling points of light in the night sky, not many stars closely resemble it. Most stars are much fainter than the Sun, while a few are much brighter; most stars are cooler, while a few are hotter; and most stars are a good bit younger or older. But a few stars are near twins to the Sun, including one that’s visible in the southwestern sky tonight: 18 Scorpii, which is faintly visible to the unaided eye.
Astronomers in Brazil reported the star’s remarkable similarity to the Sun in 1997. They found that its light output was nearly identical to the Sun’s, as were its color, temperature, and mass. It’s also about the same age as the Sun, with a similar abundance of heavy, planet-forming materials, so it could have a planetary system like ours. So far, no one has actually discovered planets orbiting 18 Scorpii, but the search continues. And if any planets orbit the star at about the same distance that Earth is from the Sun, conditions could be just right for life.
18 Scorpii is just 45 light-years away, so it’s visible to the unaided eye — if you have a dark sky and know just where to look. As darkness falls tonight, it’s high above the lineup of the Moon and the beautiful orange star Antares to its left or lower left. A good star map should show you the way from Antares to 18 Scorpii — a near neighbor to our Sun in more ways than one.
We’ll have more about the Moon and Antares tomorrow.
Script by Ken Croswell, Copyright 2012
For more skywatching tips, astronomy news, and much more, read StarDate magazine. | <urn:uuid:826a712a-1f5e-49e5-ae25-16b18357212a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://stardate.org/print/9071 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955757 | 376 | 3.140625 | 3 |
Table of Contents
TITLE VI - THE FUNCTIONING OF THE UNION
CHAPTER I - PROVISIONS GOVERNING THE INSTITUTIONS
SECTION 1 - THE INSTITUTIONS
Subsection 7 - The Court of Auditors
1. The Court of Auditors shall examine the accounts of all revenue and expenditure of the Union. It shall also examine the accounts of all revenue and expenditure of any body, office or agency set up by the Union insofar as the instrument establishing that body, office or agency does not preclude such examination.
The Court of Auditors shall provide the European Parliament and the Council with a statement of assurance as to the reliability of the accounts and the legality and regularity of the underlying transactions which shall be published in the Official Journal of the European Union. This statement may be supplemented by specific assessments for each major area of Union activity.
2. The Court of Auditors shall examine whether all revenue has been received and all expenditure incurred in a lawful and regular manner and whether the financial management has been sound. In doing so, it shall report in particular on any cases of irregularity.
The audit of revenue shall be carried out on the basis of the amounts established as due and the amounts actually paid to the Union.
The audit of expenditure shall be carried out on the basis both of commitments undertaken and payments made.
These audits may be carried out before the closure of accounts for the financial year in question.
3. The audit shall be based on records and, if necessary, performed on the spot in the other institutions, or on the premises of any body, office or agency which manages revenue or expenditure on behalf of the Union and in the Member States, including on the premises of any natural or legal person in receipt of payments from the budget. In the Member States the audit shall be carried out in liaison with national audit bodies or, if these do not have the necessary powers, with the competent national departments. The Court of Auditors and the national audit bodies of the Member States shall cooperate in a spirit of trust while maintaining their independence. These bodies or departments shall inform the Court of Auditors whether they intend to take part in the audit.
The other institutions, any bodies, offices or agencies managing revenue or expenditure on behalf of the Union, any natural or legal person in receipt of payments from the budget, and the national audit bodies or, if these do not have the necessary powers, the competent national departments, shall forward to the Court of Auditors, at its request, any document or information necessary to carry out its task.
In respect of the European Investment Bank's activity in managing Union revenue and expenditure, rights of access by the Court of Auditors to information held by the Bank shall be governed by an agreement between the Court of Auditors, the Bank and the Commission. In the absence of an agreement, the Court of Auditors shall nevertheless have access to information necessary for the audit of Union expenditure and revenue managed by the Bank.
4. The Court of Auditors shall draw up an annual report after the close of each financial year. It shall be forwarded to the other institutions and shall be published, together with the replies of these institutions to the observations of the Court of Auditors, in the Official Journal of the European Union.
The Court of Auditors may also, at any time, submit observations, particularly in the form of special reports, on specific questions and deliver opinions at the request of one of the other institutions.
It shall adopt its annual reports, special reports or opinions by a majority of its component members.
However, it may establish internal chambers in order to adopt certain categories of reports or opinions under the conditions laid down by its Rules of Procedure.
It shall assist the European Parliament and the Council in exercising their powers of control over the implementation of the budget.
It shall adopt its Rules of Procedure. Those rules shall require the consent of the Council.
1. The members of the Court of Auditors shall be chosen from among persons who belong or have belonged in their respective States to external audit bodies or who are especially qualified for this office. Their independence must be beyond doubt.
2. The members of the Court of Auditors shall be appointed for a term of six years. Their term of office shall be renewable. The Council shall adopt a European decision establishing the list of members drawn up in accordance with the proposals made by each Member State. It shall act after consulting the European Parliament.
The members of the Court of Auditors shall elect their President from among their number for a term of three years. He or she may be re-elected.
3. In the performance of their duties, members of the Court of Auditors shall neither seek nor take instructions from any government or from any other body. They shall refrain from any action incompatible with their duties.
4. Members of the Court of Auditors shall not, during their term of office, engage in any other occupation, whether gainful or not. When entering upon their duties they shall give a solemn undertaking that, both during and after their term of office, they will respect the obligations arising therefrom and in particular their duty to behave with integrity and discretion as regards the acceptance, after they have ceased to hold office, of certain appointments or benefits.
5. Apart from normal replacement, or death, the duties of a member of the Court of Auditors shall end when he or she resigns, or is compulsorily retired by a ruling of the Court of Justice pursuant to paragraph 6.
The vacancy thus caused shall be filled for the remainder of the member's term of office.
Save in the case of compulsory retirement, members of the Court of Auditors shall remain in office until they have been replaced.
6. A member of the Court of Auditors may be deprived of his or her office or of his or her right to a pension or other benefits in its stead only if the Court of Justice, at the request of the Court of Auditors, finds that he or she no longer fulfils the requisite conditions or meets the obligations arising from his or her office. | <urn:uuid:fad017cb-7cb6-4e6d-95e8-e762571f841d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/econpart3art384.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947343 | 1,243 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Let’s face it, despite official “explanations,” the $22-plus million that the Wilmorite Corporation’s subsidiary Rochwil owes Rochester is a convoluted mess. Rochwil was created during the Ryan administration for the sole purpose of owning the Sibley Building, with no clear responsibility to pay Rochester anything in the way of taxes, or to repay its loans from the city. The purpose of that was to keep the Sibley Building open.
That was twenty-some years ago, when Rochester still had plenty of money to waste, and nobody looked too closely at the antics of Citygov. Life was good, and the creation of an entity such as Rochwil was seen as sufficient unto the day.
But if the current administration hasn’t recognized that the twentieth century has been over for some time now, they also haven’t noticed that the twenty-first century has already begun. They have been public outcries over High Falls, Midtown, the Fast Ferry, Sahlen Stadium and Pier 45, to name a few. That hasn’t stopped Citygov from pursuing those expensive projects while our tax-base and population continues to decline, but they no longer have the comfort of public silence anymore.
Hence the desperate need of so many of our elected officials to quote or allude to Edmund Burke!
Everyone is fed up with the situation involving the Sibley Building and Rochwil, but what to DO about it?
That’s the $64,000 question!
Some people hope that Rochwil can find a buyer for the building. But why should Rochwil DO anything like that? MCC leases parts of the building, and pays their multi-million dollar annual rent to Rochwil, of which Rochester gets not a sniff.
Some people think that Citygov should foreclose on the Sibley Building, and apply the rent that MCC pays to the city treasury. Curiously enough, the same people are opposed to what they call the city’s practice of “corporate welfare” ( i.e., “Collegetown,” for example ). They are the same people who are opposed to Citygov’s interference in business.
A quick trip west is called for here, to Storey County, Nevada. It is the location of Virginia City, made famous by the long-running television western series “Bonanza.”
It was also the site of the Mustang Ranch, one of the numerous legal bawdy houses that can be found in Nevada. It was also the largest.
In 1999, owner Jon Conforte was brought up on charges of racketeering and tax evasion. Finding the change in the weather not to his liking, Conforte thought that the more salubrious climate of Brazil would be better for his health and fled there. Brazil must have found Conforte refreshing, as well, because they refused to allow the US to extradite him.
So the federal government seized the Mustang Ranch. Contrary to popular belief, the federal government never actually “ran” the bawdy house, although it IS a related business. While the Mustang Ranch was closed, Storey County went broke; the sales taxes from the bawdy house for services rendered kept that county solvent. The Mustang Ranch was Storey County’s biggest taxpayer!
What would the Cartwrights think?
In 2002, the contents of the Mustang Ranch were auctioned off; in 2003 the buildings were sold to another “businessman,” who moved them five miles down the road to his already existing bawdy house. He finally got the rights to use the name “Mustang Ranch” in 2006.
Hopefully, Storey County’s finances got back on track after several years of government interference.
As we fly back east, you might ask what has this got to do with foreclosing on the Sibley Building?
First of all, foreclosing on a large property is a long drawn out process, especially if the owners are big contributors to the elected officials who make up Citygov. Unlike Jon Conforte, they haven’t been prosecuted for committing any crimes.
Secondly, would Rochwil willingly agree to pass into oblivion while they are still making millions in rent from MCC? That makes no sense whatsoever, especially since they were desperate NOT to have MCC move!
Finally, MCC IS planning on moving to the site of the Kodak Office Building on State Street within the next few years. By the time Citygov forecloses on the Sibley Building, MCC will be gone, and there will be no rent to be gotten from an empty store. But Citygov will be responsible for its maintenance AND trying to find a buyer for it. Citygov’s dealings with Paetec in a similar matter are hardly an inspiring precedent.
Rochester might end up owning an empty building for years!
Given the fact that Rochester is stuck with a rather stupid arrangement about the Sibley Building, ANY solutions about it would be worth discussing. But unless the foreclosure on the Sibley Building occurs immediately ( so we can get something from the rent MCC pays before they vacate the building in a few years ), we’ll be stuck paying out more for it in the long run.
Any other suggestions out there? | <urn:uuid:3404fd14-46cb-4f71-8482-c058b4b2578b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.democratandchronicle.com/rochester/?tag=edmund-burke | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969594 | 1,135 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Bush Administration Achieves Scientific Breakthrough: Time Travel Mastered!
by Karen Kwiatkowski
One of my husband's favorite movies is the 1980 Somewhere in Time, starring Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour. The movie isn't all that memorable, but with lovely music, settings and costume, it managed to combine desire and fantasy and time travel into solid entertainment.
I don't know whether Somewhere in Time is one of George W. Bush's favorite movies. The Bush Administration does, however, appear to know something about the idea of writing scripts that mix passionate desire, fantasy and time travel, entangling truth and fiction and emotion in a way inviting mass suspension of disbelief for a shared, if short-term, national thrill. While Reeve and Seymour didn't get an Oscar, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld certainly deserve one.
Passionate desire was there. We have the Project for a New American Century's letter to Bill Clinton in 1998, demanding a completion of what we started in 1991, and Richard Perle's 1996 vision of a different Middle East, one where an "effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq — an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right — as a means of foiling Syria's regional ambitions." (He forgot to mention all that democracy and self-determination we wanted to bring to the long suffering and oppressed Iraqi people. A simple oversight, I'm sure.) After the signers of these missives were emplaced via political appointment into positions at the Pentagon and State and in the office of the Vice President, the desire was excited and inflamed by the very real and imminent possibility of the act itself.
Never mind that the invasion of Iraq reminded some of our Vietnam experience, the last big American adventure in overseas guerilla warfare and domestic political puppetry. Today's comparisons of our future in Iraq to our Vietnam experience miss the point — we have already exceeded Vietnam in many ways. U.S. and British military enforcement of the no-fly zone and bombs over Iraq since 1991 have cost at least a billion a year, and at twelve sustained years, exceeds the duration of our primary military involvement in Vietnam. Today, routine costs (after the spike in American expenditures required for invasion and occupation) are running at $4 billion a month, according to recent congressional testimony by senior Pentagon officials. For comparison, by 1966, the taxpayers were spending about $2 billion a month on the Vietnam war. The debates over the lack of an exit plan and the use of napalm in Vietnam versus fire-bombs in Iraq are more decorative, but ultimately less substantial commonalities.
As for fantasy, we've had plenty provided by the mouthpieces of neo-conservative imperialism in the media and the administration, folks who haven't known war, never wore military uniforms nor allowed their children to serve, yet seem to believe waging war using other people's children for narrow political purposes is part of our collective American destiny. We've had presidential and vice presidential speeches filled with the imagery of imminent U.S. destruction at the hands of the evil Saddam, via mushroom clouds courtesy of Iraqi UAVs. We've even had a few Gulf of Tonkin-style fables broadcast, then retracted, to help motivate the public and Congress at key times. While Iraq was on a watch list of poorly led countries with potential to do harm (and had been for decades), it had never been the most serious or most imminent threat to the United States, and had limited potential to become that threat until we decided we needed to occupy it.
This is old news to those who follow the news. Passion and fantasy make good entertainment. But what strikes me today is the Bush administration's discovery of the power of time travel. This goes beyond the Oscars, and is indeed Nobel Prize material! And to think our down-home president, who promised a foreign policy of humility during his campaign and in his early speeches as President, has taken a quiet vacation from Washington instead of taking full credit for his discovery!
I came across the discovery while reading in the Washington Post the updated summary of last autumn's National Intelligence Estimate about Iraq's real status as a nuclear, biological and chemical threat to the United States. George Tenet tells us that "We [in the intelligence community] encourage dissent and reflect it in alternative views." He even lists those views for our reading pleasure.
Earlier this week, I heard a hint of the discovery in what Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz said to Laura Ingraham on national radio. In response to her question, "And when did you start to think that perhaps Iraq had something to do with it [9-11]?" Wolfowitz says disarmingly "I'm not sure even now that I would say Iraq had something to do with it." Laura herself should have flipped out, and expressed the kind of insightful incredulity she is known for, given that she was a major purveyor of neo-conservative talking points pushing for war in Iraq all last year.
Further evidence of this momentous discovery is seen daily as the NSC, CIA and other policy and intelligence bureaucracies frantically stumble over each other to take credit for the infamous "16 words" regarding yellowcake, and other out-of-context or dead wrong statements that filled presidential and vice presidential speeches last autumn in the run up to invasion and occupation of Iraq's oil fields and major cities.
Where in the world were these qualifiers, these long-held opinions, these people who are happy to admit they made a mistake and allowed lies to be loudly and proudly uttered from the lips of our straight shooting Texan in the White House?
All I can think of to explain this sudden appearance of objective intelligence, reasoned and reasonable deputy secretaries of defense, and love of honesty is the Bush administration's discovery of a mechanism for political time travel. Suddenly, the world that actually existed in the autumn and winter of 2002 has been projected forward to August 2003! It is bright, it is honest, it is rational.
What were we all doing ten months ago? It seems as if we, like Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour in Somewhere in Time, were as a nation falling in love with a beautiful lie. A lovely vision of a world made safer for Americans if we could only stop — as soon as possible via decapitation of Baghdad and occupation of Iraq — the evil Saddam Hussein before he delivered his vast stockpiles of WMD to St. Louis and Chicago directly or via his treasured and rich alliance with Osama bin Laden.
As with other types of time travel, the vision we had before is now confusing to us as we see the reality of our current moment. It is even more confusing when the same people, the narrators of the story as it were, who pushed and justified a pre-emptive war in Iraq now say "Really, I never believed it, not at all."
I think a congressional investigation into the political time travel discoveries of the Bush Administration is overdue and worthwhile. A scientific breakthrough this spectacular should be shared with the rest of the country, and indeed the world.
August 11, 2003
Karen Kwiatkowski [send her mail] is a recently retired USAF lieutenant colonel, who spent her final four and a half years in uniform working at the Pentagon. She now lives with her freedom-loving family in the Shenandoah Valley.
Copyright © 2003 LewRockwell.com | <urn:uuid:d3b00179-eaf0-405e-8508-ec84986cde85> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lewrockwell.com/kwiatkowski/kwiatkowski32.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96079 | 1,520 | 1.914063 | 2 |
Ron R. Rodgers | University of Florida
Speed Bump is a simple grid broken into two columns and in as many rows as a story has paragraphs. A story to be edited goes into the left-hand column – one paragraph to a row. The student’s editing notes on the story go in the right column. Then, a fully edited version of the story goes below this grid.
After many years of working with students, reporters and editors, I concluded that many of the problems with editing copy stems not from the level of the editors’ intellectual wherewithal but from what is essentially intellectual laziness. In other words, they have a solid skills set, but they fail to focus word by word and line by line. Instead, I find, they edit as they read, often eliding over what would be obvious if they just slowed down and focused on the task at hand. Thus, I created this two-column grid. Each row is a speed bump that helps focus the mind on the parts of a story. It does so by forcing the editor to break the story into parts by placing each graph in a separate row. Then it requires the editor to explore each graph and make notes on it in the right-hand column.
- Student puts slug of story in top left-hand row and then each paragraph of story goes into subsequent rows.
- Student then focuses on each paragraph and notes in corresponding right-hand column any editing problems – to include problems with grammar; punctuation; AP style; spelling; accuracy; concision; fuzziness in language; and issues of law, ethics, taste, sensitivity, gender, diversity, or other.
- Students are encouraged to talk to one another about any problems with the story just as editors would in a newsroom.
- Student then places an edited version of story under the grid.
I have found that this Speed Bump exercise, which I do not use for every story during the semester, forces students to think more deeply about the text they are editing. This is reflected in the comments they make in the right-hand column. I have not measured this quantitatively – but anecdotally I have seen an improvement in the quality of their editing. For example, since I have begun doing this I have seen a dramatic drop-off in students’ missing inconsistent spellings of names and other proper nouns. Also, I have seen fewer headlines unsupported by the text. The grid has also been a good way to discuss issues in a story – both one-to-one and as a class when I put a grid or two up on the screen.
You'll find an example of the exercise as a PDF download to the left, under Resources. | <urn:uuid:54440a7e-ee74-4395-a195-d463139e687f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.editteach.org/tools?tool_entry_id=588 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962385 | 554 | 3.625 | 4 |
|This just appeared in the Times of London; sounds like an outstanding idea, I just wondered if anyone else knew where I could find a more in-depth analysis of it (costs, drawbacks, other advantages):
Star Wars airships
By Tim Reid
THE Pentagon has turned to technology first used in
Napoleonic France to defend the United States from
attack in the 21st century: the giant airship.
Sixty-five years after the Hindenburg disaster sent the
airship?s prospects crashing to the New Jersey earth,
Pentagon officials plan to ring the American continent
with giant unmanned craft to spot incoming missiles
The US Missile Defence Agency has asked the
country?s largest military contractors to develop a
high-altitude airship that can float at 70,000ft, aiming to
have an operational fleet by 2010. The agency, charged
with protecting America from ballistic missiles, has
given the companies until February to submit designs.
In the post-September 11 world, the technology could
also enhance monitoring terrorist activities on the
ground, the Pentagon believes. Each airship would
carry 40ft radars with a sweep of about 750 miles,
ringing the US coastline.
Initially they would not carry weapons, but the Pentagon
hopes that later they could use lasers to attack
missiles, a marriage of Great War and Star Wars | <urn:uuid:33df7257-f694-45ac-afaf-58ddaf533bd1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.strategypage.com/militaryforums/7-48.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.910708 | 287 | 2.578125 | 3 |
- Story Ideas
- Send Corrections
Courts have determined that fortunetelling is protected as free speech, so let’s freely indulge in some First Amendment-related predictions for 2013:
Given that there is no major lineup of First Amendment cases this term in the U.S. Supreme Court, the main focus here will be legislative.
On the national-security front, expect Congress and the nation to visit again the free-speech and free-press issues surrounding news sources and the leaking of secrets and classified documents. The major prompt: Army Pfc. Bradley Manning’s military trial on charges of aiding the enemy for his massive “data dump” to WikiLeaks. The trial begins in mid-March unless it’s preempted by a guilty plea on lesser charges.
Either way, such leaks will be back in the headlines. One immediate impact: It will be harder for advocates of a federal “shield law” to gain congressional approval to extend into federal courts a protection for the confidentiality of news sources, which now exists in most states. Another unresolved issue is who gets protection as a “journalist” in a way that excludes non-press outlets and people such as WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange.
The Senate is expected to take action next year on the Intelligence Authorization Bill for 2013, approved months ago in the House. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., has a “hold” on the bill pending resolution of questions over requiring the executive branch to notify Congress whenever classified information is disclosed. Freedom-of-information groups have raised concerns about the bill’s provisions to give agency heads extraordinary authority to penalize employees who leak information, and also about proposed new limitations on who may speak to the public about classified matters.
Whistleblowers — sources who leak information about perceived government abuses or wrongdoing — received additional federal protections under a new law signed in November by President Barack Obama. But there remains the question of whether his Justice Department’s vigorous investigation and prosecution of staffers thought to have leaked information will continue in Obama’s second term.
A range of FOI experts expect the administration in 2013 to focus on improving the timeliness and content of responses to Freedom of Information Act requests.
Open-government advocates initially gave Obama positive marks for directing agencies to better respond to public inquiries. Many say access to government information has improved in the last four years. However, a report Dec. 18 by Bloomberg News showed Cabinet-level departments were the worst at responding to its FOI request for travel-expense data, and that across the federal government there was increased use of exemptions to block information requests. Earlier this year, a report by The Hill showed wide variance among agencies in disclosing the FOI requests they had received.
There is little doubt that the new Congress will revisit campaign-finance issues after record spending in the 2012 elections fueled by the new ability of corporations, unions and others to spend in direct support or opposition to federal candidates. The record levels were made possible by the Supreme Court’s controversial 2010 Citizens United decision to strike down long-standing bans on such spending.
Though record amounts were spent, early assessments are that the estimated $6 billion in campaign spending was not as effective — or damaging, depending on your point of view — as critics had predicted. However, supporters of restoring limits or of public funding pledged soon after the Nov. 5 presidential election to push for legislative counters to the Court’s decision.
The massacre in Newtown, Conn., has provoked talk-show and lawmaker criticism of violence in movies, on television and in video games. The discussions may breathe new life into congressional attempts to circumvent a 2011 Supreme Court decision that such video games have First Amendment free-speech protection.
One constant for 2013: The controversial Westboro Baptist Church members will continue their self-aggrandizing but legal protests in the wake of tragedies such as Newtown — and virtually everyone else will continue to be disgusted by such tactics.
Gene Policinski is senior vice president and executive director of the First Amendment Center, 1207 18th Ave. S., Nashville, Tenn., 37212. Web: www.firstamendmentcenter.org. E-mail: email@example.com | <urn:uuid:30a91843-dcd0-4cdb-96f6-60947d707617> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pottsmerc.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20121226/OPINION03/121229658 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949028 | 871 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Apr 17, 2009, 9:53 PM
Post #3 of 4
Zurrapas de carnitas and chicharrones or literally pork crumbs are the fine bits of pork mixed with lard left over at the bottom of the big frying vats after making deep fried pork and available from any of the guys who make carnitas in town. The flavor is similar to NOB bacon bits and local Mexican families often spread it like peanut butter on tortillas for breakfast. We usually dry zurrapas out on paper towels first though to get rid of most of the lard factor and keep them in a jar in the refrigerator for addition to refried beans, bean soup and other dishes. This sounds like what is known as 'asiento' in other regions of the country. In Oaxaca, it's spread on tlayudas (big toasted tortillas) and then topped with other ingredients: black beans, quesillo, etc.
Poverty food at it's best imo. ;-) | <urn:uuid:13a98c0c-1e98-4e39-95f6-600c9f4e4b47> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mexconnect.com/cgi-bin/forums/gforum.cgi?post=127199;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;forum_view=forum_view_expandable;guest=45717663 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.903091 | 211 | 1.679688 | 2 |
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) _ Kansas lawmakers are getting a full immersion in education spending and policies, with another week of joint meetings by the House and Senate Education Committees.
The meetings are meant to bring the large number of new legislators up to speed on school finance issues and related topics.
Members of the two panels heard Monday from State Board of Education member Ken Willard, who also chairs the School Efficiency Task Force created last fall by Gov. Sam Brownback. The task force was charged with finding ways for public schools to put more of their state funding directly into classrooms.
Willard outlined the panel's 12 recommendations for the lawmakers Monday. He says the goal isn't to cut funding for schools but to reduce inefficiencies in such areas as purchasing and data collection.
Designed by Gray Digital Media | <urn:uuid:002d5c7d-4104-4571-8cd9-a1076725d61c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wibw.com/home/politics/ksleg/Kansas-Lawmakers-Catch-Up-On-Efficiency-188747771.html?site=mobile | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976185 | 166 | 1.859375 | 2 |
As computer access expands, Mikko Hypponen asks: What's the next killer virus, and will the world be able to cope with it?
The chief research officer at F-Secure Corporation in Finland, Mikko Hypponen has led his team through some of the largest computer virus outbreaks in history. His team took down the world-wide network used by the Sobig.F worm. He was the first to warn the world about the Sasser outbreak, and he has done classified briefings on the operation of the Stuxnet worm -- a hugely complex worm designed to sabotage Iranian nuclear enrichment facilities.
As a few hundred million more Internet users join the web from India and China and elsewhere, and as governments and corporations become more sophisticated at using viruses as weapons, Hypponen asks, what's next? Who will be at the front defending the world’s networks from malicious software? His work offers a peek into the post-Stuxnet future.
He says: "It's more than unsettling to realize there are large companies out there developing backdoors, exploits and trojans."
Read his open-season Q&A on Reddit:"My TEDTalk was just posted. Ask me anything." >>
See the full documentary on the search for the Brain virus >>
"Hypponen believes that malware attacks will increasingly be directed at social networks."The Inquirer
“[Computer viruses] switch from one country to another, from one jurisdiction to another — moving around the world, using the fact that we don't have the capability to globally police operations like this. So the Internet is as if someone [had] given free plane tickets to all the online criminals of the world.”
“Privacy is implied. Privacy is not up for discussion.” | <urn:uuid:c47834a8-0b3b-4b45-a349-6064c568c0e1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ted.com/speakers/mikko_hypponen.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958245 | 365 | 2.390625 | 2 |
That’s why the light of even one small menorah on a hilltop in Judea and Samaria, in Beit Horon or Michmash, where the Chanukah battles were waged, shines more brightly than all of the gigantic menorahs in the foreign gentile lands, “For from Zion shall go forth the Torah, and the word of the Lord from Yerushalayim.”
About the Author: Tzvi Fishman was awarded the Israel Ministry of Education Prize for Creativity and Jewish Culture for his novel "Tevye in the Promised Land." For the past several years, he has written a popular and controversial blog at Arutz 7. A wide selection of his books are available at Amazon. The views expressed in this blog are solely those of the author and do not represent the views of The Jewish Press
You might also be interested in:
You must log in to post a comment. | <urn:uuid:e3b82cfd-de82-485e-941f-779aa0418af9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jewishpress.com/blogs/felafel-on-rye/the-biggest-menorah-in-the-world/2012/12/10/2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970529 | 195 | 2.03125 | 2 |
BEIJING (AP) - The youngest climber to reach the peak of Mount Everest hugged his tearful companions and told them he loved them. Then 13-year-old Jordan Romero took the satellite phone and called his mom.
"He says, 'Mom, I'm calling you from the top of the world,'" a giddy Leigh Anne Drake told The Associated Press from California, where she had been watching her son's progress minute by minute on a GPS tracker online.
"There were lots of tears and 'I love you! I love you!'" Drake said. "I just told him to get his butt back home."
With Saturday's success on the world's highest mountain, at 29,035 feet (8,850 meters) above sea level, Jordan is just one climb from his quest to reach the highest peaks on all seven continents.
The teenager with a mop of long curly hair — who climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa when he was 9 years old — says he was inspired by a painting in his school hallway of the seven continents' highest summits.
"Every step I take is finally toward the biggest goal of my life, to stand on top of the world," Jordan said earlier on his blog.
Before him, the youngest climber to scale Everest had been Temba Tsheri of Nepal, who reached the peak at age 16.
Also Saturday, officials said a Nepalese Sherpa who lives in Salt Lake City broke his own world record by climbing Everest for the 20th time. Apa, who goes by one name, went up to collect garbage, a growing environmental problem on the mountain.
Several climbers took advantage of Saturday's clear weather to reach the summit, Mountaineering Department official Tilak Pandey said. May is the most popular month for Everest climbs because of more favorable weather.
Jordan had never climbed above 8,000 meters (26,240 feet), but his team climbed quickly along the final ridge to arrive at the peak hours ahead of schedule.
"The first thing, they all hugged each other and said, 'I love you, I can't believe we're finally here' and started crying," said Rob Bailey, the team's spokesman, by phone from the United States.
"I don't think it ever dawned on them to say, 'Oh my gosh, Jordan, you're the youngest to get up here,'" Bailey said. "It's never been about setting a record, besting anybody else."
Jordan, from the San Bernardino Mountains ski town of Big Bear, California, was climbing Everest with his father, his father's girlfriend and three Sherpa guides.
Helicopter paramedic Paul Romero and his girlfriend have trained Jordan for top-level mountaineering. Romero and Karen Lundgren are adventure racers, competing in weeklong endurance races that combine biking, climbing, paddling and climbing through wilderness areas.
Before the group set out for Nepal, Paul Romero said he wanted nothing more than to make his son's dreams come true, even as the quest raised questions over how young is too young to scale Everest, a mountain where harsh conditions have caused scores of climbers' deaths.
The group, dubbed "Team Jordan" on the teen's blog, approached the peak along the technically more difficult, less-traveled northern route from the base camp on the Chinese side.
Unlike neighboring Nepal, the other approach to Everest, China has no age limit for climbers. Jordan registered with Chinese officials in April, said Zhang Mingxing, secretary general of China Tibet Mountaineering Association.
No interview with Jordan would be possible until he returns to advance base camp, which could take a couple of days, Bailey said.
Climbers stay overnight at three or four camps before the summit, depending on their route and pace. Jordan's team spent nearly five weeks on the mountain acclimatizing and preparing for Saturday's predawn final climb.
Jordan carried a number of good luck charms, including a pair of kangaroo testicles given to him by a friend who has cancer.
"That's the one that probably meant the most," Bailey said.
At the summit, Jordan left behind his lucky rabbit's foot and planted some seeds that a Buddhist monk at a local monastery had given him for luck on his journey, Bailey said. Then he took the satellite phone and called his mom.
"He's such a good boy and he calls his mom every day," Drake said, laughing, just minutes later.
Drake said her son took two months of homework with him to keep up in school
Jordan continues the recent trend of young adventurers. Earlier this month, 16-year-old Australian Jessica Watson became the youngest person to sail around the globe solo, nonstop and unassisted. Thousands lined Sydney Harbor to cheer as she cruised past the finish line in her pink yacht.
A Dutch court late last year blocked an even younger sailor, 14-year-old sailor Laura Dekker, from pursuing a similar round-the-world voyage, ordering her to prepare more and wait at least until this year before starting.
And in January, 17-year-old Johnny Collinson of Utah became the youngest person to climb the highest peaks on all seven continents.
Just one mountain remains in Jordan's own quest to climb those peaks, the Vinson Massif in Antarctica.
Jordan's team leaves | <urn:uuid:3b0fbac5-9cbe-4850-b1df-2cb6e4094b5f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.woodtv.com/dpps/news/international/13-year-old-american-climbs-everest_3373460 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977293 | 1,105 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Which American states are the most obese?
AMERICA'S elite athletes may have topped the Olympics medal table, but the rest of the country is not in such good shape. The latest annual survey from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention reveals a state-by-state picture of the nation's battle with the bulge. The survey uses people's self-reported height and weight to determine body mass index: a BMI of 30 or over is considered obese. Outdoorsy Colorado and Hawaii are the slimmest places, but even there, over a fifth of adults—20.7% and 21.8% respectively—are obese. Tipping the scale at the other end are Mississippi and Louisiana, where obese adults make up 34.9% and 33.4% of the population. As the map below shows, these extremes correspond to a general pattern of lean western states and portly southern ones. The District of Columbia and commuter states around New York City are also notable for their relative, possibly wealth-related, thinness. The figures are self-reported, but a national study based on measured height and weight released in February put the national obesity rate even higher, at 36%. This year's survey cannot be compared with previous years' because the methodology has been changed to include households that only use mobile phones, thereby capturing poorer and younger households that lack landlines. | <urn:uuid:c62f8c86-82e0-44c9-b065-cf055113aaa4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/08/daily-chart-0?fsrc=gn_ep | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950595 | 280 | 2.4375 | 2 |
Report Title: Mobile Commerce - Reinventing the Way Consumers Shop
Publication Date: 2/8/2012
Description: It wasnt all that long ago when online shopping was viewed as a new and convenient way to shop. As technology became more accessible and as consumers became more comfortable in the online space, they began adopting other e-commerce services beyond shopping, services such as online banking, online bill pay and online ticketing. Now, as technology continues to evolve, we are beginning to see a wave of mobile technologies taking over in a world hungering for more convenience, more ease and more freedom. This new mobile revolution promises to change the landscape of how we live and how we do business.
To understand the current landscape of mobile commerce (m-commerce), as well as the future market opportunities in this space, CEA's most recent research study examines U.S. consumers level of engagement in both e-commerce and m-commerce, drivers and deterrents to engagement in m-commerce behaviors and expectations for future adoption and usage of technologies enabling m-commerce.
This analysis is pertinent to anyone involved in the manufacturing or selling of mobile electronics (smart phones, cell phones, tablets), online and brick and mortar retailers, as well as any companies involved in the creation of technologies which facilitate mobile commerce.
Topics Included In Study: Computers; Mobile Electronics; Portable; Retail; Wireless Communications
Measurements: Awareness; Expenditures (Future); Expenditures (Past); Interest; Online Behaviors; Ownership; Purchase Intentions; Satisfaction; Shopping Habits; Usage
Study Methodology: US - Online Survey
Study Population: Adults
Sample Size: 2,406
Pages: 1474 (Summary - 28 pages, Crosstabs - 1,446 pages)
File Size: 6.5 MB | <urn:uuid:89431ad8-c521-4101-ade0-34c89f1a8071> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mycea.ce.org/Mobile-Commerce--Reinventing-the-Way-Consumers-Shop_p_410.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.904558 | 371 | 1.9375 | 2 |
Joined: Jan. 2006
|Quote (VMartin @ Oct. 01 2007,12:50)|
|Quote (BWE @ Oct. 01 2007,12:01)|
|I'm sorry. I can't take it any more. VMartin, this isn't a challenge to evolution by natural selection.|
This is a micro example. Since evolution by natural selection is the force driving speciation, we can know for certain that these things evolved the way they did through natural selection. How is an academic matter with potentially no useful information flowing from the answer. Of course there could be something useful but maybe not. Anyway, raising your objection at all is a weird straw-grasping gesture that even makes the moonies at the airport avoid you.
Uf. Another "expert". Micro example, would you believe to such an "argument"?
BWE, do you know something about mimicry or not? Then go away and have a talk at "bathroom wall" with poor Arden. You have written stupid gibberish yet like him. You are not at school to deceive small children how "natural selection" created "warning coloration" you know. But I am aftraid even a small child wouldn't be persuaded by your "airport natural selection" gibberish.
Sorry V. I was hoping that if I misused the words it might help you understand.
Anyway, since you appear to be interested in whacky mimicry, here's the way out best mimic:
|Description & Behavior|
Movie 1 | Movie 2 | Movie 3 | Movie 4
This fascinating creature was discovered in 1998 off the coast of Sulawesi in Indonesia on the bottom of a muddy river mouth. For the next 2 years, scientists filmed nine different mimic octopuses, Thaumoctopus mimicus (Norman & Hochberg, 2005), impersonating sea snakes, lionfish, and flatfish—a strategy used to avoid predators. The mimic octopus reaches about 60 cm long, and is typically brown and white striped.
The mimic octopus has been observed shifting between impersonations as it crosses the ocean floor to return to its burrow.
Scientists speculate that additional mimic species will be found in muddy river and estuary bottoms in the tropics as these areas are typically unexplored.
All octopus species are highly intelligent and change the color and texture of their skin for camouflage to avoid predators. Until the mimic octopus was discovered, however, the remarkable ability to impersonate another animal had never been observed.
Norman and fellow researchers, Julian Finn of the University of Tasmania in Australia and Tom Tregenza of the University of Leeds in England, describe the mimic octopus in the September 7th issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London.
Although mimicry is a common survival strategy in nature, certain flies assume the black and yellow stripes of bees as a warning to potential predators, the mimic octopus is the first known species to take on the characteristics of multiple species. The creatures they mimic include:
» Sole fish: This flat, poisonous fish is imitated by the mimic octopus by building up speed through jet propulsion as it draws all of its arms together into a leaf-shaped wedge as it undulates in the manner of a swimming flat fish.
» Lion fish: To mimic the lion fish, the octopus hovers above the ocean floor with its arms spread wide, trailing from its body to take on the appearance of the lion fish's poisonous fins.
» Sea snakes: The mimic octopus changes color taking on the yellow and black bands of the toxic sea snake as it waves 2 arms in opposite directions in the motion of two sea snakes.
Scientists believe this creature may also impersonate sand anemones, stingrays, mantis shrimp and even jellyfish.
This animal is so intelligent that it is able to discern which dangerous sea creature to impersonate that will present the greatest threat to its current possible predator. For example, scientists observed that when the octopus was attacked by territorial damselfishes, it mimicked the banded sea snake, a known predator of damselfishes.
The movies from the site are really cool BTW. here's the link: here.
But V, don't stop. You've no idea how much fun you are at parties.
Who said that ev'ry wish would be heard and answered
When wished on the morning star
Somebody thought of that, and someone believed it
Look what it's done so far
The Daily Wingnut | <urn:uuid:cb97846b-1715-4651-89c3-31ac0782baec> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.antievolution.org/cgi-bin/ikonboard/ikonboard.cgi?s=50af2bc4330e61e4;act=ST;f=14;t=5203;st=60 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945825 | 935 | 1.945313 | 2 |
The first issue of Forest Energy Forum (known as FEF here in our Wood Energy Group) has now been distributed to over 2 000 subscribers worldwide and we have even had to make a reprint of another 500 copies! I wish to express my sincere thanks to our numerous colleagues who have sent their congratulations for the initiative and for their encouragement to continue.
In addition to the normal distribution, we are currently making arrangements for our own Forest Energy home page (within FAOs Web site: http://www.fao.org), from where, in the near future, you will also be able to access all issues of FEF and where you will be able to read about other issues and papers on wood energy sorry, forest energy ....
Many important subjects are covered in this issue, among which: the Unified Wood Energy Terminology, Definitions and Conversion Factors (UWET), the World Forestry Congress held in Turkey in October 1997, the Kyoto Protocol and the Clean Development Mechanism and the Forum on "Forests and Energy" which took place in Germany in January 1998. [For more information on all these subjects, please see Special Features.]
Last year ended (and the biennium, since our budget covers a two-year period) with many wood energy activities successfully completed. The regional studies for the collection of statistical data on wood fuel consumption (under our initiative Wood Energy Today for Tomorrow [WETT]) in Europe and the OECD countries and in Asia have been completed and the results are being distributed [see under Publications for more information]. We have also been able to compile data for Africa and Latin America, in order to prepare our Wood Energy Information System, thanks to the generous and valuable contribution of Prof. Luiz Horta Nogueira, who has taken a sabbatical from his university to work with us within the framework of FAOs Academic Programme, and who has written about his experience [see under Points of View].
Thanks to the meticulous organization of my friend and colleague Torsten Frisk (who is the Senior Forestry Officer in our FAO Regional Office in Santiago, Chile), met the National Coordinators of the Latin America Technical Cooperative Network on Dendroenergy (LAND) in Havana, Cuba, from 3 to 6 November 1997. Together with the participants from the Grupo Latinoamericano de Energización Rural Sostenible (GLAERS), we discussed the multidisciplinary aspects of the utilization of biomass for the combined production of fuel and food. [For more information, please see Mr Frisks contribution under Events of Interest.]
We have also been involved in the preparation of a paper for the World Energy Council (WEC), which will be a contribution to the Study on Energy in Developing Countries to be presented at the 1998 WEC Congress to be held in Houston, United States, from 13 to 17 September 1998. The paper provides a general description of wood energy systems with the aim of explaining the dynamics, the mechanisms and the actors involved within these systems and their interrelations within the forest and energy sectors. I hope it describes the importance of wood fuels to the forestry and energy sector and will give a greater visibility to wood energy issues in this important event. This paper will be printed by the Wood Energy Group in due course and will be available to those interested. [For more information on WEC, please see under Events of Interest.]
Finally, I am extremely happy with the level and type of contribution received from readers so far; however, I hope that for the next issues even more colleagues involved in forest energy will express their views, opinions and experiences (in English, French or Spanish) through FEF. We have created a special section, Points of View, which I hope you will feel free to use as a sounding board for any ideas, opinions or criticisms you may have. I look forward to hearing from you.
Miguel A. Trossero
[Top of page][Contents] | <urn:uuid:7271c932-80e5-4115-b218-864c62c55ecc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fao.org/docrep/W8423E/w8423e01.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944728 | 799 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Earn your diploma in nursing
Have you been looking for practical nursing programs in Oklahoma? If so, consider choosing Platt College. Our practical nursing diploma program is designed to prepare you for entry-level careers as a practical nurse where you’ll work under the supervision of a registered nurse as an important member of a healthcare team. Our coursework is designed to develop your patient care skills and theoretical knowledge of the nursing profession. Small class sizes can allow for more individual attention, while hands-on training can give you confidence performing a variety of basic nursing tasks.
As a practical nurse, your responsibilities may include monitoring patient health, administering basic care, ensuring patients comfort, assisting with bathing or dressing, and helping keep patient records.
Upon completion of your diploma in Nursing, you will be eligible to sit for the state licensing exam and work in settings such as private medical and surgical hospitals, home healthcare organizations, public hospitals and more.
If you’re looking for practical nursing programs where you can earn your diploma in Nursing, contact us today. We will be happy to answer any questions you have about this program, financial aid opportunities or our school.
*Offered at the Lawton campus only | <urn:uuid:f63c2f1d-944f-4e1b-89f2-e5feac8ece6c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.plattcolleges.edu/content/nursing-programs/practical-nursing | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945792 | 243 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Continuous entecavir can be a safe and effective treatment for patients with chronic hepatitis B, according to data released recently.
In a retrospective analysis, researchers evaluated 474 nucleos(t)ide-naive patients with chronic hepatitis who received continuous daily treatments of 0.5 mg entecavir for 4 years, with a median follow-up of 2.4 years. Hepatitis B e antigen-positive (HBeAg-positive) was detected in 47% of patients. At baseline, the mean HBV DNA level was 6.7 log10 copies/mL and the mean alanine aminotransferase (ALT) level was 70 IU/L.
HBV DNA was undetectable in 353 of 402 evaluable patients after 1 year, with ALT greater than 5x ULN (OR=11.9; 95% CI, 3.3-41.7), HBeAg-negative status (OR=8.5; 95% CI, 2.3-31.2) and DNA levels less than 7.6 log10 copies/mL (OR=10.0; 95% CI, 4.3-23.1) observed as significant predictive factors. After 2 years, 262 of 281 evaluable patients had undetectable levels, with ALT greater than 5x ULN (OR=16.7; 95% CI, 2.0-136.8) and DNA levels less than 7.6 log10 copies/mL (OR=121.7; 95% CI, 15.3-965.9) indicated as predictive factors. In 3 years of treatment, 156 of 165 evaluable patients had undetectable levels, with only a DNA level of less than 7.6 log10 copies/mL (OR=15.8; 95% CI, 43.1-79.9) as a significant factor. All evaluable patients who tested HBeAg-negative had undetectable levels of HBV DNA after 4 years of treatment, compared with 93% of patients who tested positive. An HBV DNA level of 7.6 log10 copies/mL or less was found to be an independent predictor of undetectable DNA levels after 4 years (OR=30.6; 95% CI, 5.4-173.3).
Five patients experienced virological breakthrough during the study, two of whom (0.4%) developed mutations resistant to entecavir. All five patients tested positive for HBeAg and had HBV DNA levels greater than 6 log10 copies/mL at baseline.
“Long-term treatment of treatment-naive CHB patients with 0.5 mg/day entecavir for 4 years suppressed HBV DNA to undetectable levels in more than 90% of patients, regardless of HBeAg status and genotype,” the researchers concluded. “Moreover, the drug was very safe and rarely induced resistance mutations. Further studies exploring the therapeutic efficacy over longer durations may be necessary to confirm these findings.” | <urn:uuid:bc2d8444-0416-4dd8-afec-f8a9e1484067> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.healio.com/hepatology/chronic-hepatitis/news/online/%7BF7DE65C6-270D-4BC9-A081-742327411B9E%7D/Long-term-entecavir-effective-in-treatment-naive-patients-with-chronic-HBV | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925484 | 631 | 1.96875 | 2 |
Australian Silky Terrier
Colour: Blue and tan, grey-blue and tan
Lifespan: 14 to 16 years
Australian Silky Terrier are energetic,courageous and friendly.
Energetic, alert and lively, Australian Silky Terriers make excellent watchdogs and care is needed to prevent their barking becoming excessive. They are friendly, responsive and playful.
Originally bred to be a watchdog and to kill rats and mice.
This dog is alert, reactive and playful.
Medium. Busy both at home and outside.
owners affectionate, independent
children good, puppies are very small and may be injured by young children
other pets may be problematic with small pets
unfamiliar dogs good if well socialized
Active, confident owner who will enjoy this dog's independent spirit and will be able to provide exercise, play and activities to keep this busy dog occupied.
May bark excessively. Tends to snap if frustrated or excited.
The silky coat needs careful daily brushing to prevent mats from forming. There is no undercoat so the dog may be cold in winter
Unlike those of the Yorkshire Terrier, the ears of the Australian Silky Terrier are free from long hair.
- Q: My terrier has a red rash on her underbelly, can you suggest something to soothe it?
- A: The best course of action would be to make an appointment with your veterinary surgeon to have the rash examined. The rash may be a contact reaction to something she has laid down on, or it may be an allergy... More »
Petside: Get Started
- Kitten Life
Learn about the different life stages of your Kitten and much more!
- Puppy Life
Everything you need to know about raising a Puppy, all in one place! Check it out.
- Find a Breed
Browse dog and cat breeds to find your perfect pal.
- Diagnose a Condition
Use PetVet to research what's ailing your pet.
Check out these deals picked by petside.com just for you! | <urn:uuid:d1faa43f-df96-430f-a89d-dc571366392b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://petside.co.uk/breeds/australian-silky-terrier.php | 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 | 0.915263 | 433 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Just Flight releases details on its new WWII-themed add-on for Microsoft's Flight Simulator series. First screens inside.
UK developer and publisher Just Flight has released the first screenshots from and information on The Dam Busters, a World War II-themed add-on pack compatible with Microsoft's Flight Simulator 2000 , Flight Simulator 2000 , and Flight Simulator 2000 games.
The game will focus on the sorties of the 617 Squadron, who, after their daring "bouncing bomb" mission on May 16, 1943, became known as The Dam Busters. That mission, which involved an attack on three dams in Germany's Ruhr valley, is by far the squadron's best known, but other success stories included the sinking of the Tirpitz and raids on V1 and V2 rocket sites, Bergen U-boat pens, and Hitler's infamous "Eagle's Nest" stronghold. All these sorties and more will be included in the 25 missions that make up the game.
The aircraft in the game, which were all used by the 617 Squadron at some point, will include the Wellington, the Mosquito, the Grand Slam Lancaster, and, of course, the famous modified "Bouncing Bomb" Lancaster.
The Dam Busters is scheduled for European release in early September. We'll bring you more information on the game as it becomes available.
Emmy-winning writer Jon Vitti, who penned "Mr. Plow" episode of The Simpsons, working on 2016 film based on Rovio's game. Full Story
- Posted May 20, 2013 12:23 pm PT
Bankrupt publisher hoping to bring in at least $22 million from upcoming asset auctions. Full Story
- Posted May 23, 2013 9:43 am PT
Network journalist acknowledges one-sided violent video game report; invitations to Bungie and the Entertainment Software Association were declined. Full Story
- Posted May 20, 2013 10:45 pm PT | <urn:uuid:86daef6e-cdc3-4542-a3c1-32cfdf4126a0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gamespot.com/news/first-look-the-dam-busters-2876249 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952185 | 398 | 1.554688 | 2 |
- Briefing Room
- Consumer Engagement
- Commerce 3.0
The Credit Card Accountability and Disclosure Act, signed into law in May 2009, provides an extensive set of don’ts and do’s for the card industry. It has led to sweeping changes in business practices and pricing that continue to have widespread ramifications for the card issuers, consumers, and small businesses.
The Federal Reserve Board is in charge of regulating the interchange fees that issuers can receive for cards linked to asset accounts such as DDAs under the Dodd-Frank Act which also provides for other changes in the extent to which merchants can discriminate among networks and payment methods.
The Consumer Financial Protection Board is an independent agency within the Federal Reserve Board and run by a director with considerable powers to regulate consumer financial services products. President Obama has nominated former Ohio AG Richard Cordray to be its leader.
Interchange Fees: The Economics and Regulation of What Merchants Pay for Cards
Interchange fees have become increasingly controversial. These fees constitute the bulk of the cost that merchants incur for taking cards because most consumers pay with a card from a four-party system that assesses these fees. The total interchange fees paid by merchants have increased dramatically as consumers have switched to electronic payments. Merchants have complained, have filed lawsuits, and have lobbied governments to do something about this. | <urn:uuid:0a7d5b13-222a-4c99-b34d-92aaa891cb34> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pymnts.com/regulations/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962034 | 271 | 2.1875 | 2 |
He is just blocks from the site of the firebombing of a family who called the police on drug dealers and were killed for it, and just yards from some of the most memorable scenes of urban decay in television’s “The Wire.”
At his side are Rich Blake, 32, a Marine Corps veteran; and Jeremy Johnson, 34, a Navy veteran. Like Earl (no relation to Jeremy), they are on a different kind of mission.
They’ve come to this neighborhood once synonymous with the worst of Baltimore to help it become something better. They call this mission Operation Oliver.
As the men walk, they pick up empty Seagram’s gin and Bacardi rum bottles. They point to progress — refurbished homes, a painted playground — and to vacant houses and trash-filled alleys that still need work.
“A lot of the conditions from places we’re deployed to, Iraq and Afghanistan, are not that much different from the conditions here in Oliver,” says Blake, executive director of the 6th Branch, one of several nonprofit groups involved in Operation Oliver.
“We’re not afraid to dig in and make a difference in a community that’s got a bad reputation in the city,” Blake says. “The discipline, the go-get-’em, let’s-do-this-now, aggressive attitude — it really lends itself to community service in a way traditional organizations haven’t been able to do.”
Operation Oliver, which began in July, is a one-year commitment to the neighborhood, the veterans say. It involves cleaning up alleys, rehabilitating homes, organizing volunteers and notifying police about illegal dumping sites and drug dealing.
To say the idea has caught on would be an understatement. Word of the intensive yearlong service project has spread throughout Maryland — and the nation.
Some veterans, such as Earl Johnson, a former Army Ranger who served in Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan, have moved into the neighborhood. Others, such as Jeremy Johnson and Blake, live elsewhere but visit Oliver frequently. Nearly 1,000 volunteers, including more than 100 veterans, have joined the effort.
Universities and colleges have been quick to send help too. Even exchange students from France found their way there.
“It’s their second day in America and they’re painting alleys in Oliver,” Blake says.
The improvement is noticeable. Nearly 50 homes are being rehabilitated through Earl Johnson’s organization, the One Green Home at a Time Foundation, another of the partners. Five tons of trash have been hauled away, an area that was once a site of prostitution is now a playground, an organic garden is planned for a weed-filled lot, and the veterans take residents on weekly job-hunting trips.
The neighborhood of about 5,000 people is predominantly black, and more than 70% of Oliver’s households earn less than $25,000 a year. Of its 2,600 properties, more than 1,100 are listed as vacant by the city.
The veterans’ effort hasn’t come without push-back. Their approach — hands on, no community meetings — has made established leaders bristle.
Nina Harper, executive director of the Oliver Community Assn., says she supports the veterans’ work but is critical of what she sees as a lack of communication. If people see a bunch of veterans working in the neighborhood in their military-green Operation Oliver T-shirts, it could send a bad message to those looking to move in, she says.
“We don’t want it to appear to be a war zone, because it’s not,” she says.
Earl Johnson, 30, says he wants to assure Harper and other residents that he and his volunteers are team players.
Still, he has been threatened. As the veterans cleaned up alleys and worked on vacant homes — leaving fewer places for drug dealers and prostitutes to set up shop — they encountered resistance.
One woman said her boyfriend was “going to put a bullet in my head,” Johnson says.
He says the resistance has subsided as the neighborhood has improved. His wife, Zinitha, who once threatened to divorce him over conditions in the area, sees the place differently, he says.
“When we first moved in, my wife really didn’t want to come out and associate with the neighborhood,” Johnson says. “Now this neighborhood is no longer considered a bad neighborhood. This neighborhood is a good neighborhood that’s going to be great.” | <urn:uuid:48ed4f4e-33f6-4d4b-8acd-a2e36e66ce88> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.jmls.edu/veterans/2012/01/02/war-vets-invade-an-urban-village-operation-oliver-aims-to-fix-up-one-of-the-citys-seediest-neighborhoods-some-volunteers-are-reminded-of-conditions-in-iraq-and-afghanistan/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974037 | 970 | 1.71875 | 2 |
14th to 16th of November 2013 Messecenter Graz
Specialist educational trade fair for teaching aids, equipment, culture and sport – from infant pedagogics to creative learning, supplementary adult education. With MiniWorld – trade fair for kindergartens, sport, sports equipment, exercises, nutrition
The show for everything connected with education and further training!
The INTERPÄDAGOGICA is aimed at educators and all those employed in educational occupations, at parents and at all those interested in teaching, education and further training.
A multifaceted portfolio:
- Current teaching, learning and occupational aids
- Teaching small children
- IT & digital media
- Playgroups and school equipment
- Travel, nature & culture
- Health promotion and illness prevention
- Fitness equipment and sports facilities
- Energy and the environment | <urn:uuid:2571780f-b5aa-4a93-b8b4-ab276d3b2ac1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.interpaedagogica.at/en/besucher/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932461 | 171 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Sunday this week
We interview the Scottish Moderator John Christie who is backing Scottish Government plans to replace short sentences with community payback orders.
A new exhibition of rare Hebrew manuscripts has begun at the London Jewish Museum. The 24 rare manuscripts date from the 9th Century and most are exquisitely illuminated. Simon Schama, who has a fascination with Art History launched the exhibition, Judi Herman went along to meet him.
The new Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain, Mr Farooq Murad tells us his plans and how he hopes the MCB will work with the coalition government and other faith groups.
Pope Benedict has announced creation of The Ponitifical Council for New Evangelisation - Bishop Kieran Conry explains the significance of this.
As part of the A History of the World series the Sunday programme has been featuring objects which have a story to tell about the history of belief - both in Britain and around the world. This week the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, Archbishop Vincent Nichols nominates his object: a pilgrim’s medal from the 14th Century.
Some Muslim parents have been withdrawing children out of music classes in London. Parents believe the music they learn on the curriculum is evil and will blacken the heart and soul. We talk to Dr Diana Harris an expert on Music Education and Islam.
Kevin Bocquet explores the Christian case for welfare reform.
We speak to Rev Rose Hudson-Wilkins who has been controversially appointed as the new chaplain at the House of Commons. Was she appointed because she was the best person for the job, or because the speaker refused to appoint another middle aged white male?
Archbishop Vincent Nichols' A History of The World object
Visit A History of the World pages to find out more about Archbishop Vincent Nichols' Pilgrim's Badge.A History of the World
Archbishop Vincent Nichols
The Archbishop holding the Pilgrim's Badge
Christianity to Islam, Hinduism to Judaism, Ed Stourton presents religious news and analysis of the... | <urn:uuid:cc5f721d-8c5b-49f0-805c-006ca2c32872> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00sw4vr | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948505 | 416 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Appraise real and personal property to determine its fair value. May assess taxes in accordance with prescribed schedules.
- Agricultural Appraiser
- Auditor Appraiser
- Certified General Mass Real Estate Appraiser
- City Assessor
- Commercial Appraiser
- Commercial Real Estate Appraiser
- County Assessor
- County Tax Assessor
- Determine taxability and value of properties, using methods such as field inspection, structural measurement, calculation, sales analysis, market trend studies, and income and expense analysis.
- Inspect properties, considering factors such as market value, location, and building or replacement costs to determine appraisal value.
- Explain assessed values to property owners and defend appealed assessments at public hearings.
- Prepare and maintain current data on each parcel assessed, including maps of boundaries, inventories of land and structures, property characteristics, and any applicable exemptions.
- Establish uniform and equitable systems for assessing all classes and kinds of property.
- Inspect new construction and major improvements to existing structures to determine values.
- Write and submit appraisal and tax reports for public record.
- Complete and maintain assessment rolls that show the assessed values and status of all property in a municipality.
- Analyze trends in sales prices, construction costs, and rents, to assess property values or determine the accuracy of assessments.
- Review information about transfers of property to ensure its accuracy, checking basic information on buyers, sellers, and sales prices and making corrections as necessary.
People who work in this occupation generally have the interest code: CEI.
This means people who work in this occupation generally have Conventional interests, but also prefer Enterprising and Investigative environments.
People who work in this occupation generally prize Independence, but also value Support and Working Conditions in their jobs.
- Customer and Personal Service - Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
- Mathematics - Knowledge of arithmetic, algebra, geometry, calculus, statistics, and their applications.
- Law and Government - Knowledge of laws, legal codes, court procedures, precedents, government regulations, executive orders, agency rules, and the democratic political process.
- Clerical - Knowledge of administrative and clerical procedures and systems such as word processing, managing files and records, stenography and transcription, designing forms, and other office procedures and terminology.
- Computers and Electronics - Knowledge of circuit boards, processors, chips, electronic equipment, and computer hardware and software, including applications and programming.
- Reading Comprehension - Understanding written sentences and paragraphs in work related documents.
- Active Listening - Giving full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times.
- Critical Thinking - Using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions or approaches to problems.
- Speaking - Talking to others to convey information effectively.
- Active Learning - Understanding the implications of new information for both current and future problem-solving and decision-making.
- Social Perceptiveness - Being aware of others' reactions and understanding why they react as they do.
- Writing - Communicating effectively in writing as appropriate for the needs of the audience.
Most occupations in this zone require training in vocational schools, related on-the-job experience, or an associate's degree.
In 2012, the average annual wage in Washington was $64,330.00 with most people making between $39,460.00 and $94,500.00
During 2008, this occupation employed approximately 1,880 people in Washington. It is projected that there will be 1,940 employed in 2018.
This occupation will have about 6 openings due to growth and about 34 replacement openings for approximately 40 total annual openings.
majorAccounting and Finance
collegeCity College of San Francisco
onetAppraisers, Real Estate
collegeLoma Linda University
majorBusiness Administration and Management, General | <urn:uuid:dca46617-aeae-4aa9-ad8d-f8a248588247> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.headed2.com/profile/13-2021.01 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.903893 | 831 | 2.9375 | 3 |
On Nov 29, 2009, rootsfarmer from Potter Valley, CA wrote:
i found this little beauty in wal-mart. yes, i rescue plants from big-box mall-warts, and i got a nice 6" harlana for about $7 US. im in usda 8, it has been known to drop down to about 18oF in the coldest months so she (the aloe) is in my living room window for now...interesting to myself is the Ethiopian origin of this species, as the majority of the plants from this region i encounter are unsually striking, unique, and resilient, much like their fellow Ethiopians!
On Dec 16, 2003, palmbob from Tarzana, CA (Zone 9b) wrote:
Actually grows great outdoors here in So Cal in 9b zone... nice looking Aloe with flat, wide dark green leaves and long, linear flecking of white to lime stripes. It has a short stem and is slow to sucker (if ever- usually a solitary species). Has sharp teeth along the plastic-like stiff leaves. Flowers are in spring or fall and yellow-orange to dark red and branched, usually 3-6 branches.
This aloe is often confused with the much more common, and much smaller Aloe hemmingii, which has slightly more promintent spotting and pink flowers all year round. Aloe harlana is about 1'-1.5' in diameter and is nearly always solitary, while Aloe hemingii is only about 6" in diameter and is sometimes a prolific offsetter. Aloe hemmingii has more prominent spotting and relatively larger marginal teeth. Almost all Aloe harlanas sold today are actually Aloe hemmingiis. Aloe somaliensis also looks a lot like these other two aloes, especially when young, but tends to be a bit less prominently spotted as a mature plant and is about halfway inbetween the sizes of the other two. It also is usually solitary. When young Aloe peckii, mcloughlanii and suffulta can also be confused with Aloe harlana.
On Sep 13, 2003, Happenstance from Northern California, CA wrote:
Greenhouse grown in 10a, slow growing very nice shape and attractive coloring to this Aloe. GREAT orange/red flower show in mid-late summer. Will sunburn if exposed to full hot 9b sun if moving from greenhouse to outside for summer, so aclimate it slowly for some fresh air in the summer months.
This plant has been said to grow in the following regions:
Carefree, Arizona Mesa, Arizona Brea, California Chowchilla, California Clayton, California Fairfield, California Garden Grove, California La Presa, California Orange, California Pleasant Hill, California Potter Valley, California Thousand Oaks, California Vista, California Charlotte, North Carolina Ashley, Pennsylvania Sunset Valley, Texas | <urn:uuid:07a05363-611d-4369-8a6b-1fd3a15deafd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/58446/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929184 | 600 | 1.625 | 2 |