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In a sunny, closed-off section of the House of Dreams cat shelter, 16 cats nap, play and groom each other.
They look and act just like the other 33 cats that live in the white bungalow in Northeast Portland, but they can never interact with them because of one major distinction that sets them apart.
The cats in the back area have all tested positive for feline leukemia, an uncommon but life-threatening virus that can weaken a cat’s immune system and leave it susceptible to anemia, cancer or other serious illnesses.
“In the past, a lot of volunteers didn’t even want to come in this room because it made them sad,” says Kelley Tom, a House of Dreams volunteer.
The back room is essentially a sanctuary for these cats. If not for House of Dreams, they might not still be around to play and comfort each other.
House of Dreams is one of the only Portland-area shelters where these cats can go to be cared for, aside from The Oregon Cat Project in Lake Oswego.
Founder Eileen Shatrosky decided to open the shelter 14 years ago after volunteering at another shelter that took cats with the virus and adopting an infected cat herself. Luckily for them both, the cat survived for 11 years after that.
“I just decided that they all deserve a chance,” she says.
Feline leukemia virus affects about 1 percent to three percent of cats, the majority of which are stray and feral, says Dr. Marla McGeorge of The Cat Doctor in Southwest Portland.
It’s not necessarily a death sentence for cats - if they’re given a chance. Sadly, most usually don’t have one. Those that wind up at public shelters will likely be put down after a positive diagnosis, and they’re not accepted at many no-kill shelters. Most shelters test cats for the virus before admitting them.
Many people have misconceptions about how the disease is spread, Tom says.
It’s true that cats that test positive can’t be around healthy cats or risk infecting them. But it can’t be spread to people or other animals.
The virus is shed in an infected cat’s saliva, blood and nasal secretions, as well as its waste and milk.
“It’s a really fragile virus,” McGeorge says. “Once it’s outside the cat, that virus will die within seconds. I think that’s part of the reason why incidence of the disease is so low.”
It takes extended, continuous contact between cats under the right circumstances in order for it to spread, she says.
Grooming is a common way it’s transmitted, but they can get it from fighting. Sharing water and food bowls can also cause infection, and infected female cats can pass it on to her kittens.
Kittens are much more likely to get sick because their immune systems haven’t developed.
Some cats don’t get show symptoms at all and become carriers, while others can remain perfectly healthy for years and then become acutely ill.
Most of the cats McGeorge confirms as testing positive are not sick at the time of the diagnosis.
“Usually the recommendation is that if a cat tests positive, then we repeat the test at various points to see whether they remain positive,” she says.
Sometimes the virus moves into the bone marrow and remains latent for years, so it may be hard to tell if a cat is has cleared the infection or if it is just "hiding out" in the marrow.
“I’ve had patients that repeatedly tested negative,” she says. “My longest one was 17 when he died.”
At House of Dreams, two siblings named Mitzi and Bailey were likely born with the virus. They’re now five-and-a-half years old and still seem fine.
Shelter volunteers watch them closely for any signs of illness, such as an upper respiratory or eye infection.
The cats at House of Dreams may or may not find permanent homes; the response to ads featuring feline leukemia-positive cats is much lower than those featuring negative cats, Tom says.
Montero, a cuddly, friendly black and white cat with feline leukemia virus, was featured in an Oregonian “Pet of the Week” ad in June 2009. He is still at the shelter.
“I think it’s the whole term ‘leukemia,’ Shatrosky says. “I think there is a misunderstanding about that. There is a fear that the cat will get ill. But whether a cat is negative or positive, its time will come.”
Even if you adopt a seemingly healthy cat or kitten, it can still become ill, she points out.
After working with them for such a long time, Shatrosky believes that cats with feline leukemia virus are special.
When a cat gets sick, she notices the others taking care of it, often sitting quietly with them.
“To me there is a sweetness to them that no other cat possesses,” she says.
Adopting an infected cat is just like having any other cat, she says. They don’t require all that much except an indoor home, good nutrition and an observant owner.
“It’s like taking in any other cat,” she says. “They just want to be loved, taken care, have a roof over their heads and be well-fed. You take them in and you want them to know the human touch. You will get back three-fold what you give.”
If you go: House of Dreams will hold its annual "Pretty Kitty Holiday Craft Bazaar," 10 a.m.-4 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 10, at Tabor Space, 5441 S.E. Belmont St., Portland. More info.: kittydreams.org; 503-262-0763.
Tips on caring for cats with feline leukemia:
- Keep it indoors
- Feed it solid nutrition, such as a feline probiotic, to support its immune system
- Reduce stress
- Control parasites
- Address infections immediately
- Unvaccinated, free-roaming cats that get in a fight should be tested for both feline leukemia virus and FIV six weeks later | <urn:uuid:54ed372f-d955-4e11-84b3-09c5604fa3c6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.oregonlive.com/pets/index.ssf/2012/10/pet_talk_house_of_dreams_one_o.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953445 | 1,352 | 2.109375 | 2 |
By Will Soutter
mPhase Technologies has announced that it is investigating potential ways to make its Smart NanoBattery rechargeable.
The Smart NanoBattery is a flagship product of the company. It is touted to be the first power management solution that combines the properties of extended life, reliability, and safe disposal. The battery is convenient to use and is inexpensive. It demonstrates its capabilities in emergency situations that matter between life and death. It is considered to be a green solution, as the disposal of the product at the end of its life has been incorporated into the design of the product.
mPhase Technologies has announced that it is investigating the potentiality of the Smart NanoBattery in upgrading it as a rechargeable product. The company considers that if within the next one year it was able to acquire more capital for conducting research, then it will be able to make significant progress towards achieving a rechargeable Smart NanoBattery.
Earlier, mPhase had announced that it was utilizing advanced new materials such as graphene in increasing the potential of Smart NanoBattery with additional new printing technologies. In July, 2012, the company had reported that it had entered into an official agreement with a New Jersey-based academic institution for collaborating in government projects that involved study of graphene-based methods for performing ink jet printing of electronic circuits and batteries.
The present focus of the company is to develop a battery that has a long shelf life and also has the ability to be recharged with a short time period. | <urn:uuid:19a9ce17-562d-4b65-9579-b1df95b0fbbd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.azonano.com/news.aspx?NewsID=25445 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976541 | 297 | 2.671875 | 3 |
(Page 2 of 2)
I challenge every community, every school, and every state to adopt national standards of excellence, to measure whether schools are meeting those standards, to cut bureaucratic red-tape so that schools and teachers have more flexibility for grassroots reform, and to hold them accountable for results. So tonight I issue a call to action: action by this Congress, action by our states, by our people, to prepare America for the 21st century; action to keep our economy and our democracy strong and working for all our people; action to strengthen education and harness the forces of technology and science; action to build stronger families and stronger communities and a safer environment; action to keep America the world's strongest force for peace, freedom, and prosperity; and above all, action to build a more perfect Union here at home. It is a time to build, to build the America within reach, an America where everybody has a chance to get ahead with hard work; where every citizen can live in a safe community; where families are strong, schools are good, and all our young people can go on to college; an America where scientists find cures for diseases from diabetes to Alzheimer's to AIDS; an America where every child can stretch a hand across a keyboard and reach every book ever written, every painting ever painted, every symphony ever composed; where government provides opportunity and citizens honor the responsibility to give something back to their communities; an America which leads the world to new heights of peace and prosperity.
By 2032, the Trust Fund will be exhausted and Social Security will be unable to pay the full benefits older Americans have been promised. Tonight I ask you to work with me to make a bipartisan downpayment on Social Security reform by crediting the interest savings from debt reduction to the Social Security Trust Fund so that it will be strong and sound for the next 50 years.
Year after year in Washington, budget debates seem to come down to an old, tired argument: on one side, those who want more Government, regardless of the cost; on the other, those who want less Government, regardless of the need. My budget supports three great goals for America: We will win this war; we will protect our homeland; and we will revive our economy. In a whirlwind of change and hope and peril, our faith is sure; our resolve is firm; and our Union is strong.
We can press on with economic growth and reforms in education and Medicare, or we can turn back to old policies and old divisions. Now, as we see a little gray in the mirror—or a lot of gray— [laughter]—and we watch our children moving into adulthood, we ask the question: What will be the state of their Union? Will we choose to build our prosperity by leading the world economy, or shut ourselves off from trade and opportunity? With enough good sense and good will, you and I can fix Medicare and Medicaid and save Social Security.
The strength—the secret of our strength, the miracle of America is that our greatness lies not in our Government, but in the spirit and determination of our people. While our economy may be weakened and our confidence shaken, though we are living through difficult and uncertain times, tonight I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before. It's because of this spirit, this great decency and great strength, that I have never been more hopeful about America's future than I am tonight.
God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America.
Matt Welch is editor in chief of Reason magazine. | <urn:uuid:805fd6da-7596-44a5-b327-81a131fc913d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://reason.com/archives/2012/01/24/the-eternal-state-of-the-union/1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945036 | 736 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Social media - everything from Facebook to Digg to Twitter to Flickr - has been quickly snagging the attention of small business owners and employees of big companies across the world. The business applications for these tools are being explored and many are finding success.
But is this all hype? Are businesses really adopting these tools and, if so, why do they succeed (or fail)?
In this post, I will give you proof that the use of social media in business is expanding rapidly, illustrate what social media offers your customers, and give you some questions so you can determine whether it's the right strategy for your company.
Social Media: What's The Big Deal?
Some businesspeople scoff that social media is a passing fad. Thanks to a recent study from The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research, we have proof that it's not. Social media is becoming more familiar - and more applicable to business - to a much wider audience. From the social media in the Inc. 500 study:
"Just over one quarter of the Inc. 500 reported social media was very important to their business/marketing strategy in 2007. That number has increased to 44% just one year later."
So why the sudden and dramatic increase? I contend that businesses figured out where their customers were congregating online and are learning a new way to communicate with current and potential customers.
Go Where Your Fans Are
In David Meerman Scott's e-book, The New Rules of Viral Marketing, he tells a story about a business finding its customers online and communicating directly with them (which also turns out to be cheaper and more efficient).
Cindy Gordan, VP of New Media and Marketing Partnerships with Universal Orlando, was tasked with promoting a new Harry Potter theme park. She told only seven people, but those seven people reached 350 million potential customers through social media.
What I find interesting is Gordan's insistence that she was compelled to use the social media channels and websites where those Harry Potter fans gathered and shared news.
"'If we hadn't gone to the fans first, there could have been a backlash,' Gordan says. She imagined the disappointment dedicated Harry Potter fans might feel if they learned about Universal Orlando's plans in, say, The New York Times rather than an insider fan site."
Customers expect you to meet them where they are. In overwhelming and still increasing numbers, they are online and frequently reading blogs, checking in with friends on MySpace or Facebook, and sharing what they find online with their friends.
Sure, customers are online, but must businesses join them? | <urn:uuid:ea7d74c0-6496-4ffd-92c6-d04721fbcaa7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fastcompany.com/992199/social-media-passing-your-business | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960822 | 527 | 1.6875 | 2 |
For the first time of life I have seen Sting in concert and it was in rouen : my city. It was great ! It was really great ! Thank you Sting for this awful moment ! This concert will remain etched in my memory. Ok I’m a fan!
RD = marks routes with an ‘id’. This ‘id’ is composed by two terms (IP_ASN:number)
IP_ASN : IP address or ASN
Number : which identify the VPN
I recommand to use IP in IP_ASN. I understand it is really easy to read : 3215:100 and not 184.108.40.206:100. The last one is less easy, but when you deploy a large MPLS cloud and you must supply some load-balancing or fail-over on different PE, the RR(Route Reflector) will choice the best route in the two : 3215:100:192.168.1.0 which is received). With IP1:100:192.168.1.0 and IP2:100:192.168.1.0 the two routes will be used, so you will be able to load balance trafic over two links.
RT = has for job to tell to PE in which VPN the route belongs to.
A route in a VPN is named a VPNv4 route. This route contains :
RD (see above)
RT : RT is a special extended community which flag the route such as ASN:300
Label = 2 labels (outer=per hop label ; inner label : identify the VPN)
In MPLS transit, IP packets are routed by label. No existence for P router of RD, RT. So the VPN existence is carried by inner tag. inner tag <=> 1 VPN.
A simple MPLS lab :
MP-iBGP between R3 and R5
OSPF Area 0 includes : R3, R4, R5
MPLS enabled on R3, R4 and R5
I think I don’t have to give the topology for a so easy topology.
So : you exchange vpnv4 routes by means of MP-iBGP and access to nexthop by the corresponding tag and route to mpls nexthop MPLS friend (here R4).
Also, to access 10.0.0.0/8 from 2 : R5 must push tag 20 (vpnv4 route to this subnet) and push label 16 (to 220.127.116.11 loopback of R3).
NetSBD 6.0 is currently being copied to ftp.netbsd.org. Sometime in
the next 24h it will be made world-readable so mirrors can
begin the process of copying it.
It will be announced sometime on Wednesday. | <urn:uuid:ddb9d028-4546-473a-8425-8fb4f9d70264> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.clucas.fr/blog/?article644/some-fun= | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.916789 | 602 | 2.046875 | 2 |
By Genevra Pittman
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A mercury-containing preservative should not be banned as an ingredient in vaccines, U.S. pediatricians said Monday, in a move that may be controversial.
In its statement, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) endorsed calls from a World Health Organization (WHO) committee that the preservative, thimerosal, not be considered a hazardous source of mercury that could be banned by the United Nations.
Back in 1999, a concern that kids receiving multiple shots containing thimerosal might get too much mercury - and develop autism or other neurodevelopmental problems as a result - led the AAP to call for its removal, despite the lack of hard evidence at the time.
"It was absolutely a matter of precaution because of the absence of more information," said Dr. Louis Cooper, from Columbia University in New York, who was on the organization's board of directors at the time.
"Subsequently an awful lot of effort has been put into trying to sort out whether thimerosal causes any harm to kids, and the bottom line is basically, it doesn't look as if it does," Cooper, who wrote a commentary published with the AAP's statement, told Reuters Health.
In a 2004 safety review, for example, the independent U.S. Institute of Medicine concluded there was no evidence thimerosal-containing vaccines could cause autism. A study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention came to the same conclusion in 2010.
With the exception of some types of flu shots, the compound is not used in vaccines in the United States, which are distributed in single-dose vials.
And nobody is arguing that should change, according to Dr. Walter Orenstein, a member of the AAP Committee on Infectious Diseases and a researcher at the Emory Vaccine Center in Atlanta.
But in countries with fewer resources - where many children still die of vaccine-preventable diseases - it's cheaper and easier to use multi-dose vials of vaccines against diphtheria and tetanus, for example.
Thimerosal prevents the rest of a multi-dose vial from getting contaminated with bacteria or fungi each time a dose is used.
Researchers estimated it could cost anywhere from two to five times as much to manufacture vaccines for developing countries without thimerosal, and both transporting vaccines and keeping them refrigerated would be much harder as well.
"If we had to take the thimerosal out of those multi-dose vials, we're having a hard time completing the task of getting every kid immunized now, that would add a tremendous burden," Cooper said - and more children would probably die as a result.
"Children who can now be protected from these life-threatening diseases could become vulnerable," Orenstein told Reuters Health.
The new statement is published in the AAP's journal Pediatrics.
Thimerosal contains a type of mercury called ethyl mercury. Toxic effects have been tied to its cousin, methyl mercury, which stays in the body for much longer.
Earlier this year, the WHO said replacing thimerosal with an alternative preservative could affect vaccine safety and might cause some vaccines to become unavailable.
Mercury, however, is still on the list of global health hazards to be banned in a draft treaty from the United Nations Environment Program - which would mean a ban on thimerosal.
Reducing mercury exposure "is a wonderful thing," Orenstein said.
However, "We need this exception because thimerosal is so vital for protecting children."
He said keeping thimerosal in vaccines is essential mostly for humanitarian reasons - although preventing childhood diseases in the developing world could also help the U.S. because other countries can serve as reservoirs for illness.
"For American parents, this is more looking at the world and our role and responsibility in protecting the children of the world than it is a direct impact," Orenstein said.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/cxXOG Pediatrics, online December 17, 2012. | <urn:uuid:65e40cd3-d850-4570-93c3-8bc4f029eee2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://q106fm.com/news/articles/2012/dec/17/keep-thimerosal-in-vaccines-pediatricians/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960757 | 831 | 2.65625 | 3 |
XFiles Friday: Defining “Miracle”July 4, 2008 — Deacon Duncan
(Book: I Don’t Have Enough FAITH to Be an ATHEIST, by Geisler and Turek, chapter 8 )
It’s time at last for Geisler and Turek to define what, exactly, a miracle is. They’ve been talking about miracles all chapter, and have given us a few pointers as to traits that miracles must possess, but now at last it’s time for a formal definition. To lend their definition a little extra authority, they define a “miracle” in terms of their arguments for the existence of God, telling us that miracles ought to reflect the attributes we “discover” about God via our “scientific” examination of Creation. According to Geisler and Turek, therefore, true miracles ought to meet at least the following criteria:
A. An instantaneous beginning of a powerful act, as evidenced by the Cosmological Argument (the beginning of the universe);
B. Intelligent design and purpose, as evidenced by the Teleological Argument (the precise design of the universe for the purpose of supporting life, and the specified and complex design of life itself);
C. The promotion of good or right behavior, as evidenced by the Moral Argument (the Moral Law pressing on us).
Conspicuously missing from this list is attribute D, which should have been based on God’s inability to give us real proof of His existence (as Geisler and Turek claim on page 200, citing C. S. Lewis for support). But we’ll get to that in a moment. For now, let’s start by looking at the list they do give us.
First, letter A, an instantaneous beginning of a powerful act, as in the creation God allegedly worked as the prototype for all subsequent miracles. I suppose that’s not a bad start; after all, if you are arguing that miracles are supposed to function primarily as God’s “royal seal” on His divine communications, then it makes sense for miracles to produce (pardon the expression) a big bang so that people will notice that God has done something.
Of course, right off the bat this eliminates such alleged miracles as The Virgin Birth and the 1948 rebirth of the nation of Israel. Some of Jesus’s Biblical miracles also fail to pass this test, like the fig tree that took a whole day to die, and the blind man who took two tries to get his vision back. Various Old Testament instances of “divine judgment” are also suspect, such as the Babylonian Captivity and the Exodus.
Not to worry, Geisler and Turek don’t really mean it. As they explain in their discussion of attribute A, what they really mean is that a miracle must be supernatural, i.e. something that cannot be explained naturally. So if that’s what they mean, why didn’t they just say, “A: Miracles must be supernatural”? Apparently they wanted to tie their definition of miracles back to their so-called “proof” of God, and they couldn’t find any straightforward way to link “must be supernatural” with the cosmological argument. (Doesn’t seem that hard to me, but…)
Let’s move on to attribute B, the “intelligent design and purpose” attribute. This one sounds more solid: if God is going to work a miracle on purpose, then we would expect that the miracle itself would be purposeful, even though (as believers often remind us) God’s ways are not our ways, and His purposes may not be readily apparent to us lesser mortals.
But there’s a hidden agenda behind attribute B, and you can see just a little of it in Geisler and Turek’s discussion of what it means.
[A]ny sign done without an obvious purpose—to confirm a truth or a messenger of truth or to bring glory to God—is probably not a sign from God. In other words, God is not likely to do miracles for mere entertainment purposes.
There’s a bit of a contradiction there, because “entertainment purposes” are still purposeful. Plus God works in mysterious ways, and there’s really no practical limit to what far-out, inscrutable “miracles” might satisfy the purpose of bringing glory to God. Attribute B, on the face of it, does very little to distinguish between what might be a genuine (if obscure) miracle, and what would not be.
But notice that little seed in there: the reason for a miracle is that it is supposed “to confirm a truth or a messenger of truth.” There’s nothing about the Teleological Argument that implies the purpose of miracles has to be limited to confirming the Gospel and the prophets, but Geisler and Turek are slipping this in now so as to prepare themselves an “out” for when it comes time to explain why God does not give us the same kind of signs He allegedly gave to the fine folks in the Bronze Age.
On to Attribute C: a miracle has to promote “morality.” Boy there’s the magic loophole for you. We only know what morality is because God tells us in his special book. We know it’s God’s special book because He confirms it by genuine miracles. And we know the miracles are genuine because they promote morality. Whoops, that’s a circle, isn’t it? Are we really receiving signs from God, or are we merely picking and choosing what “revelations” and/or “miracles” are acceptable based on how well they reflect our personal moral preferences?
California recently ruled that gays are entitled to marry one another, a ruling that prompted a number of Christian organizations to try and legislate away this kind of tolerance, and to restore traditional discrimination against homosexuals. Immediately after they launched these unjust and oppressive efforts, God punished them by sending devastating wildfires all across the state, thus miraculously confirming His divine, moral indignation at their bigotry, discrimination, and lack of love for their fellow man. We know this is a valid miracle, because it promotes the moral virtues of tolerance, human dignity, and individual freedom.
But of course, if you promote a different morality, then you have a very different view of what God’s “miracles” are promoting, don’t you? Attribute C is merely the back door by which you get to inject whatever moral principles seem right in your own eyes, claiming them as God’s moral law.
On to Attribute D, the attribute that is so conspicuously absent from Geisler and Turek’s list. Let’s recall their original argument, from the beginning of Chapter 8:
Why couldn’t [God] appear to each one of us? He could, but that might interfere with our free will…
[Quoting C. S. Lewis] [T]he Irresistable and the Indisputable are the two weapons which the very nature of His scheme forbids Him to use. Merely to over-ride a human will (as His felt presence in any but the faintest and most mitigated degree would certainly do) would be for Him useless.
Thus, attribute D is that a miracle cannot be either Irresistable or Indisputable, but must allude to the existence of a God or gods in only the faintest and most mitigated degree. If a miracle could give us verifiable and indisputable evidence that God existed, then there would be no explanation for why God could work miracles without being able show up in person to participate in that tangible, visible, personal relationship that both He and His faithful supposedly desire so much.
This, of course, creates major problems for the believer in miracles. A miracle profound enough to put a divine seal of authenticity on a genuinely prophetic revelation cannot fail to give us that Irresistable and Indisputable confidence of God’s existence which, according to Lewis, is so unthinkable as to prevent God from enjoying what He desires most (i.e. to be together with each of us). Each miracle that would be adequate to serve as a sign would thereby prove that God does not need to limit Himself to out-of-date and easily-misinterpreted documents. Thus, to be consistent with the whole philosophical context within which miracles make sense, miracles cannot be signs, and cannot serve as “royal seals” on any human-written document.
(By the way, the royal seal was an invention intended to overcome the king’s limitations: he could not be everywhere at once, and therefore he needed some material means of conveying his authority in his absence. If God, however, can give us so much evidence of His existence that it would take more faith to be an atheist, then He can also show up in real life, and since He is (allegedly) omnipresent, He does not have the king’s limitations, and therefore does not need the king’s seal.)
Geisler and Turek close Chapter 8 by glancing briefly at the most telling difficulty believers face in trying to “witness” to the reality of miracles: the complete absence of any such phenomena in our real-world experience.
So why don’t we see biblical miracles today? Because if the Bible is true and complete, God is not confirming any new revelation and thus does not have the main purpose for performing miracles today.
As I said before, this is the reason for having attribute B and its sneakily-insinuated message that the sole purpose of miracles is to validate the Bible and the people who wrote it. Which brings up another missing attribute in their list of things a miracle must have: a miracle must be experienced first-hand in order to have any validity as a sign. If God turns rocks into bread on the back side of Pluto, He does nothing to authenticate anybody’s claim as a prophet. If no one sees it, it’s not a sign.
Likewise, if I see a miracle, then for me it is a sign, and I can justify having faith in God, because I’ve seen the sign. If you did not see it, then the most you can accomplish is to put your faith and trust in me and in my claims. An angel from heaven bringing long-lost golden plates inscribed with the forgotten revelations of an ancient Gospel may be a very impressive, miraculous sign, but if you weren’t there to see it, and if you don’t have any faith in the honesty and reliability of Joseph Smith, who claims to have been given this sign, then the “miracle” has no value as any kind of “divine seal” for the Book of Mormon. A genuine sign, and someone who claims to have seen a genuine sign, are two different things.
For God to actually and reliably confirm the authenticity of the Bible, therefore, He must continue to provide the confirming miracles to at least each new generation that receives the Gospel. Otherwise, people are not believing the signs (since they’ve never experienced any to believe), they are merely taking someone’s word for things that are inconsistent with what we actually find in the real world. In short, if the miracles are not given to us as well, our options are limited to being skeptical and being gullible. Either we choose skepticism, and only accept the things that are consistent with what we find in real life, or we choose gullibility and accept things just because someone says so, even knowing they conflict with reality.
Defining miracles in terms of all of what Geisler and Turek have said in various places, we find that miracles must be both purposeful and pointless, both powerful and faint, both authoritative and unreliable, and ultimately, a pretext for putting one’s own moral preferences on par with divine fiat. And that, my friends, is a pretty accurate definition of what a miracle must be. | <urn:uuid:eea645c4-e5d8-4fbd-9d2d-59c940e03bbf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.evangelicalrealism.com/2008/07/04/xfiles-friday-defining-miracle/ | 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 | 0.947594 | 2,565 | 2.15625 | 2 |
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - Tensions in small towns downstream from New York City's upstate Ashokan Reservoir have flared over muddy water releases.
The city has released water into the Lower Esopus Creek when the reservoir is particularly clouded with silt to help protect a water supply that serves 9 million people to the south. But many residents around the Esopus say the surges are killing fish, devaluing their property and ruining the creek.
Plans being reviewed by state regulators to manage the releases have done little to ease concerns.
New York City officials who run the upstate reservoir system say they are attempting to balance the needs of people downstate who drink the water and of the upstate watershed residents.
(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) | <urn:uuid:41535b14-7b05-4f78-b79a-af9b294e676c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.news10.com/story/18867050/watershed-unhappy-with-nyc-reservoir-releases | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960789 | 165 | 1.984375 | 2 |
Enhancing hole mobility in III-V semiconductors
Transistors based on III-V semiconductor materials have been used for a variety of analog and high frequency applications driven by the high electron mobilities in III-V materials. On the other hand, the hole mobility in III-V materials has always lagged compared to group-IV semiconductors such as germanium. In this paper, we explore the use of strain and heterostructure design guided by bandstructure modeling to enhance the hole mobility in III-V materials. Parameters such as strain, valence band offset, effective masses, and splitting between the light and heavy hole bands that are important for optimizing hole transport are measured quantitatively using various experimental techniques. A peak Hall mobility for the holes of 960 cm2/Vs is demonstrated and the high hole mobility is maintained even at high sheet charge. | <urn:uuid:40cdd0da-2300-419a-8c50-7fb2df1d3182> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.citeulike.org/user/nanophilip/article/11560759 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.908284 | 176 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Dr. Simmons' research group focuses on systematics and evolutionary biology of bats (Chiroptera). Projects range from large-scale phylogenetic studies of bats and their place in the Mammalian Tree of Life to descriptions of new species.
Dr. MacPhee studies the historical biogeography of the West Indies. This program of research has been in operation for more than 20 years and has involved work on all major and many of the smaller islands in the West Indies.
Dr. Voss's primary research interests are the evolution of marsupials and the systematics and biogeography of other Neotropical mammals that inhabit moist-forest habitats in Amazonia and the Andes. | <urn:uuid:0151b944-5324-4ece-9925-b37897241f4f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.amnh.org/our-research/vertebrate-zoology/mammalogy/research-activities | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.901219 | 140 | 1.90625 | 2 |
Nashville, TN – The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency has been informed that the Tennessee’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) has recently received $778,044 in additional funding to help crop and livestock producers through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP).
Producers in areas designated as either D3 Drought, Extreme or D4 Drought exceptional on the recent July 2012 U.S. Drought Monitor maps for Tennessee are eligible to apply for selected conservation practices. These areas include Benton, Carroll, Crockett, Dyer, Fayette, Gibson, Haywood, Henry, Houston, Humphreys, Lake, Lauderdale, Montgomery, Obion, Shelby, Stewart, Tipton, and Weakley counties. «Read the rest of this article»
Agriculture Secretary Vilsack Delivers Targeted Financial and Technical Assistance to Drought-Stricken Producers and Landowners in 19 States
Nashville, TN – Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced that USDA will target nearly $16 million in financial and technical assistance to help eligible crop and livestock producers in 19 states cope with adverse impacts of the historic drought gripping the nation.
“President Barack Obama and I continue to work across the federal government to provide relief for those farmers and ranchers who are affected by the severe drought conditions impacting many states across our nation,” Vilsack said. “This additional assistance builds on a number of steps USDA has taken over the past few weeks to provide resources and flexibility in our existing programs to help producers endure these serious hardships.” «Read the rest of this article»
Clarksville, TN – Volunteers for USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) come from all walks of life.
In Tennessee, we’ve been lucky enough to have U.S. Army soldiers, who were injured while serving our nation, volunteer at the Clarksville NRCS Field Office.
Clarksville is only eight miles from Fort Campbell, Ky., a large Army base which straddles the Kentucky and Tennessee border. Fort Campbell is the home of the 101st Airborne Division, Special Forces units, a combat support hospital and sizeable medical facilities.
Earth Team Volunteer Sgt. Patrick Bower, Soil Conservationist Janet Coleman and District Conservationist Kevin Hart inspect a streambank protection jetty.
«Read the rest of this article»
Washington, D.C. – USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) today announced that the ranking period cut-off date for the Conservation Stewardship Program (CSP) is January 13th, 2012. Producers interested in CSP should submit applications to their local NRCS office by the deadline so that their applications can be considered during the first ranking period of 2012.
“CSP is one of our most popular conservation programs, and we expect to receive many applications,” NRCS Chief Dave White said. “I encourage all farmers and ranchers who are interested in applying to contact their local NRCS office as soon as possible so they can meet the deadline.” «Read the rest of this article» | <urn:uuid:1e40c355-8765-443e-98d2-0fe26cfe639c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.clarksvilleonline.com/tag/nrcs/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92053 | 654 | 2.0625 | 2 |
Birding in Kenya
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The variation in habitat across Kenya means that different areas of the country have very different bird lists, making it a fascinating part of the world for birders to visit. Since so much of the coutry is open grassland or bush the birds are also relatively easy to see. Some specialist tours reckon on 5-600 species in a two week tour. Taking it fairly gently, without a specialist bird guide, but going on some of the bird walks available at lodges we've managed 350 species in two weeks; there's a lot of birds out there.
There are a number of different types of organised tours available in Kenya. Probably the most common is the classic wildlife safari. This offers a good chance to see a number of different parks and habitats. It can however be very frustrating for birders. The tours are generally aimed at "the big 5" (Lion, Elephant, Cape Buffalo, Leopard and Rhino). This can often mean whizzing past a tree full of interesting looking birds in pursuit of a herd of elephants; and persuading five or six non-birders that it's worth spending 20 minutes watching and identifying an insignificant looking little brown job is something of a lost cause. That's not to say that such tours are a waste of time- they're not. Many of the guides are quite knowledgeable and quite happy to point out interesting looking birds and many of the lodges are themselves home to lots of species and often have their own bird walks through the grounds. You'll still see plenty of species but are more likely to miss out on a few good opportunities.
There are also a number of companies doing specialist bird tours. From watching them (almost as interesting as watching the birds sometimes) they vary from tours where people actually stop and watch the birds in a fairly leisurely manner to ninety-mile an hour twitcher specials where the apparent aim is to rack up as many species as possible in the shortest possible time. As noted above, some of them are very successful with a trip lists in excess of 500 birds in a couple of weeks.
Some companies offer a variation on the standard safari where you pay extra and have the safari-bus or car plus driver/guide to yourself, and even draw up your own itinerary. This can be fairly expensive, but has the great advantage that on game drives you stop when you want, watch what you want and with only a few people in a safari-bus you can always get to a window on both sides. Alternatively take one of the standard tours, but book with a group of birders. It should then be possible to get all the birders on the same bus. Your only problem then is persuading the driver that yes, you really do want to stop to look at that tiny brown bird perched on the reed instead of chasing after another lion with everyone else.
With the growth in the number of birders visiting Kenya a number of lodges now employ bird guides to take guests around the grounds. In our experience the quality of the bird walks on offer is variable. For example at Lake Baringo Lodge the chief ornithologist (Simon) is an active member of the Kenyan birding community and has a deep interest in the subject. His knowledge of the local birdlife including migration patterns, nesting habits and rare and unusual sightings is impressive. At some other lodges we have been disappointed to find that our own knowledge far outstripped that of the resident expert. However for some places the concept of birding as an interest is really rather new and novel and the quality of the guides is gradually improving.
When to Bird?
For sheer numbers the best time is between October and April when more than 120 migrant species have arrived from the Northern hemisphere, mostly from the Palearctic but with some African migrants such as Forbes-Watson's Swift; there is also the chance of finding one of the passage migrants such as the Sooty Falcon in March-April and October-December. If you're interested in bird-ringing, the latter period is when there's a large bird ringing exercise at Ngulia in Tsavo National Park. The coast is particularly good during this period with large flocks of water birds congregating at Mida Creek and Sabaki Estuary, while The Rift Valley lakes and Amboseli attract a lot of northern waterfowl.
From April to October the Northern Migrants are replaced by birds from the southern hemisphere and Madagascar, but these are much fewer, no more than 10 or 12 species. It is however the time when many of the birds are in breeding plumage following the long rains, which makes species such as the various weavers much easier as well as much more colourful. This is also the best time of year for big game. In July and August the huge herds of wildebeest and zebra enter the Maasai Mara and provide spectacular game watching. This also makes vultures much easier to find because of the numbers of animals that don't survive the migration. The Mara River regularly collects mixed flocks of vultures and Marabou feeding on the animals that failed to cross the river. There's usually a fair number of crocs as well!
The other variable is the weather, Kenya's seasons come in two basic flavours - wet and dry. Aside from the obvious disadvantages of trying to peer through binoculars in a tropical storm the rainy seasons can leave many roads and tracks unusable, especially if you don't have the advantage of 4WD. This can leave some parks, or parts of some parks, totally unreachable. The long rains are usually between March and June with the highest levels of rainfall in April and May. The short rains start in late October and go through to December. It does however vary throughout the country and Northern Kenya is generally happy for any rain it can get.
Despite the importance of tourism to the Kenyan economy, the road system, like much of the country's infrastructure, is poor. Long stretches are rutted and full of pot-holes, with frequent gaps where the road surface has been washed away. This makes any journey a bit of an adventure and you have to be prepared to spend time just waiting for someone to come and pull you out of the mud. On the plus side drivers in Kenya seem to react well to this adversity and always stop to help one another out. This is particularly true with safari companies, whose drivers always look out for one another and never leave a tourist in the lurch.
However it is advisable not to be out on the roads at night in many areas of the country. Some regions are notorious for putting glass and nails down to stop cars/buses so that they can rob the passengers. In daylight these occurences are rare, although you are advised to put valuables out of site and away from the windows when travelling through Nairobi.
Most of Kenya is perfectly safe for foreign tourists, and certainly we have never encountered any problems. On some routes in the south, notably between Amboseli and Tsavo National Parks you are advised to take advantage of the local armed guards who will travel with you to deter bandits. The North of the country is a very different matter with frequent bandit attacks near the borders. In fact Kenya currently has a problem with militia groups from Ethiopis crossing the border and terrorising Kenyan villagers. We err on the side of caution and avoid travelling in these northern border areas.
Some people do find the attention of hawkers selling fruit, masks, animal carvings, souvenir spears and shields rather intimidating. We find that simply saying "no thank you" in a polite, friendly but firm tone does the trick. Also having a small stock of biros which can be given to children for school helps smooth the way. Other than that we have relied on the advice and good sense of our local guides to provide advice on where to shop and what to watch out for.
The information on these pages is drawn partly from our own personal experience but also from a number of other sources. These include magazines such as Kenya Birds (mentioned above) and also a number of books, including:
Birds of Kenya and Northern Tanzania by Zimmerman, Turner et al. | <urn:uuid:fbedf380-05b8-4ee8-acb8-cb4d46eac395> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kenyabirds.org.uk/ | 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 | 0.964585 | 1,736 | 1.75 | 2 |
Disney’s second theme park in Asia, Hong Kong Disneyland, is still struggling to gain traction in its market. They’ve just revealed the latest negative numbers in a string of years of negative numbers.
Disney’s troubled Hong Kong Disneyland theme park made a net loss of HK$1.315 billion last year while attracting 4.6 million visitors, in its first major admission of its financial performance since opening in 2005. (.via)
The park is the smallest in Disney’s collection, but those numbers are mighty pathetic. Hong Kong’s other theme park, Ocean Park, had 500,000 more visitors in 2008. The one good sign is that this represents a narrowing of the numbers by 16%. But 85% percent of a billion and a half is still a huge loss. | <urn:uuid:1df5a6cb-9fc3-4633-908e-5b116b7dc750> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thedisneyblog.com/2010/01/19/hong-kong-disneyland-reveals-loss-but-closes-gap/comment-page-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92823 | 165 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Can Lightning Strike Twice?
On the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King's I Have A Dream speech at the 1963 March On Washington, many are hoping that tonight Barack Obama can somehow recapture the excitement and optimism of that day.
Many veterans of the march will gather at televisions in their living rooms Thursday night, or sit with friends and old comrades and watch an event they would have considered impossible not just in 1963, but perhaps in 1983, or 1993. Theirs is often a cautious optimism; time has left them with a sense of the provisional nature of progress.Some of you have written to ask that I make sure to mention today that the March On Washington would not have happened without Bayard Rustin, the openly gay advisor to MLK and the chief organizer of the march. In 1986, the year before he died, Rustin said, "The barometer of where one is on human rights questions is no longer the black community, it's the gay community. Because it is the community which is most easily mistreated." Tonight Barack Obama should honor Bayard Rustin and make a strong and unwavering statement of support for the LGBT community during what will surely be the most watched speech of his life. I have a dream.
David R. Jones, now president of the Community Service Society in New York, recalled milling about in Washington in 1963, a 15-year-old there with classmates from a lefty school in Manhattan. Then Dr. King began to speak, and they fell quiet. “I never saw that kind of a speech,” Mr. Jones said. | <urn:uuid:e30b9fad-1ad8-44eb-97be-941e9d50fbf5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2008/08/can-lightning-strike-twice.html | 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 | 0.97158 | 325 | 2.09375 | 2 |
Planning and decision-making for the manufacture of biopharmaceuticals are becoming more complex as companies continue to
implement cost-saving efforts, including outsourcing many support and even critical tasks. Companies must make difficult strategic
decisions about commercial manufacture earlier in product development. A recent BioPlan Associates analysis found that essentially
all biopharmaceutical developers use outsourcing services of some kind for the manufacture of clinical or commercial supplies,
process development, R&D, assay services, fill–finish, or other activities (1).
Cost-cutting not a factor
The BioPlan survey, which included responses from 302 representatives from biopharmaceutical companies and CMOs in 29 countries,
evaluated 23 key outsourcing areas in biomanufacturing (1). The study showed that companies are incorporating outsourcing
as a manufacturing strategy rather than as an ad hoc method of adding flexible capacity or to simply eliminate overhead costs
associated with lower value production activities. Data also show a spike in the percentage of biopharmaceutical companies
projecting outsourcing of analytical testing, validation services, and fill–finish activities.
The BioPlan study further evaluated how companies are addressing cost issues in biopharmaceutical manufacturing. The survey
identified activities biomanufacturers undertake to reduce costs. The study showed that outsourcing activities ranked in the
bottom quarter of measured factors to reduce costs although outsourcing increased slightly for certain functions as a strategy
for cost-containment during the past 12 months (see Figure 1). There was an increase in respondents using outsourcing of jobs in manufacturing to cut costs: 14.5% in 2012, up from 11.8%
in 2011. Approximately 13% of respondents outsourced jobs in process development and 8.8% did in R&D. An equal number of respondents
(9.4%) reported outsourcing manufacturing activities to domestic and nondomestic service providers. (see Figure 1).
Figure 1: Outsourcing actions taken by biomanufacturers to reduce costs at facilities during the past 12 months. (ALL FIGURES
ARE COURTESY OF THE AUTHOR)
Outsourcing budgets flat
The survey showed clear evidence that budgets are bouncing back in all areas in 2012, except outsourced manufacturing. The
uptick in areas other than outsourcing represents a change from two years ago when budgets decreased in areas ranging from
production, hiring new scientific staff, and new facility construction.
The survey also separately asked respondents to indicate how their outsourcing in R&D and manufacturing will change during
the next 12 months. On average, future outsourcing at individual facilities will see moderate overall increases for all types
of outsourcing not just manufacturing (9.3% during the next 12 months). These increases are more heavily distributed on key
outsourcing areas (see Figure 2) rather than broadly seen as increases across all operations.
Figure 2: Select outsourcing activities projected to be done at significantly higher levels. | <urn:uuid:919df306-9256-4d0a-afba-8975c8a03a49> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pharmtech.com/pharmtech/Outsourcing+Outlook/Gauging-Biopharm-Outsourcing/ArticleStandard/Article/detail/783928?contextCategoryId=40939 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947922 | 593 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Visit Olive-Drab.com's sister site for
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M-56 Scorpion SP Anti-Tank Gun
The requirement that led to the M-56 Scorpion was set in 1948, for an air-portable self-propelled anti-tank gun (SPAT). After refinement of the design, the Cadillac Division of General Motors was awarded the contract for the vehicle which was produced from 1953 to 1959.
M-56 Scorpion Self Propelled Anti-Tank Gun
The full track self propelled M-56 Scorpion mounted a 90mm gun that used rounds similar to the standard 90mm tank gun but with a reduced charge. The vehicle's light weight and powerful gun resulted in violent recoil. Its crews disliked the M-56 for many reasons, primarily because there was no protection from enemy fire or the elements. They were used by airborne battalions and airborne infantry tank companies of the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions until withdrawn from service in the 1960s. | <urn:uuid:37465a27-31fd-421c-9dc7-ec1ed46b546e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://olive-drab.com/idphoto/id_photos_m56_scorpion.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965401 | 205 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Unlike virtually all online services we have no idea what information you are storing on our servers. We use multiple levels of encryption to protect your data from prying eyes, including our own.
We employ technology to circumvent traffic analysis, IP monitoring, or other techniques that invade your privacy. We have NO idea what you are doing. Isn’t that the way you want it?
Numerous parties including hackers, advertisers, corporations, governments, and criminals, monitor email. Whether it is benign or malicious, you don’t need to submit.
One thing that we don’t offer is password recovery. Anyone who offers that service can see your data. We do not know your password and do not have the ability to recover it. This means that we have no way to pry into your data. It also means that if you lose your password, no one can recover your data. You, and you alone, can back up your data on a local machine that your trust its physical security. | <urn:uuid:68752b15-84a3-4783-84ac-79a816dfdef0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://shofarportfolio.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941669 | 205 | 1.5625 | 2 |
How to Practice Mayan Astrology
From "How to Practice Mayan Astrology" by Bruce Scofield and Barry C. Orr
The day counts-the day-signs, a pulse of 20 days; the trecena, a pulse of 13 days; and the Night Lords, a pulse of 9 days-represent complex biorhythms that run from birth onward. The year, a pulse of 365 days and one that measures day-length, establishes a longer rhythm.
The focal point of our Mayan horoscope chart is a three-tiered pyramid viewed from above. Each of the four sides of the pyramid face one of the four directions. In keeping with Mayan and Mesoamerican custom, east is at the top of the page, north to the left, west to the bottom, and south to the right.
The top level of the pyramid is for the day-sign. This is the crown of the persona, the form through which the individual speaks to the world. It is the tonal of Carlos Casteneda, the form that the self takes so that it can be recognized and sustained. The directional quality of the day-sign determines its placement in the quartered summit of the pyramid.
The second level of the pyramid concerns the trecena. The trecena at birth is descriptive of instinctive behaviors. These are reflected in the desires, interests, and responses of the individual. They may not be conscious factors in personality, themes that individuals know to be a part of themselves, but they may be perfectly obvious to others. This level may be that of the nagual of Carlos Casteneda, the unformed impulse that drives one forward. The directional component to each 13-day period determines where the trecena of birth is registered in the time-grid.
The base of the pyramid and the opening at the top are where the nine Lords of the Night are displayed. The Lords of the Night are symbols that describe a series of pulses, possibly of darkness-the nine nights. It may be that those born during the night are more responsive to this set of symbols, but we are assuming they mean something to everyone. They represent a kind of inherited or genetic impulse, drives that are very deep and yet represent an extension of the parental ancestry. Since the first Lord rules the center, anyone born with that Lord in effect will need to place it on the central opening at the top of the pyramid-an opening that descends into the heart of the structure where it meets the base. The other Lords are noted in the corners of the lower pyramid level facing the appropriate directions.
The outer level of the pyramid-the offset base below the three main levels of the pyramid-is for the year. This offset base level describes the link of the individual to the collective world from which he or she is Mayan Horoscope Pyramid Grid. The three levels of the pyramid are used to register the personal data for the Night Lords, the trecena, and the day-sign. emerging. During the course of a year, the sun is seen to change altitude in the sky and to rise in different places. The light cycle of the year may be a factor in establishing personality, which is probably how the Western zodiac works, but it may also act as a kind of extended day in itself. The return of the sun to its birth position may stimulate an imprint in the brain, and these returns may be counted in groups. The directionality of the year offers information on the more collective structuring of the self.
The phase of Venus is noted using the Maya glyph, the cross and four dots, or a five-pointed star. It is placed around the pyramid, within the outer circle. Venus at inferior conjunction is placed in the north, morning star in the east, superior conjunction in the south, and evening star in the west. Knowing about where in its cycle Venus was at birth can determine the exact location of Venus in the time-grid. For example, someone born two months after the inferior conjunction might have the Venus symbol placed to the left of center in the eastern portion of the grid.
Examples: Oprah Winfrey (1/29/1954)
Night Lord: G-8
Venus Phase: Superior Conjunction
Born under the day-sign Muluc, Oprah is a natural performer and has captured the public in ways few have. She relates emotionally to her audience and her emotional intensity is not diminished by broadcasting-a television image is all she needs to get her messages across. She is obviously not afraid of taking risks-this has been a key component of her success as a public figure. Her struggle with her weight is a sign that she experiences compulsive and addictive behaviors, but her will is strong and she has transformed herself several times. There is no question that she is a dominant personality and her influence on what books people read is enormous. Her trecena, 1-Ik, suggests that she has a strong need to communicate and indeed she does both verbally and through her reading recommendations. Oprah is essentially a teacher/performer and she has many messages to convey on many topics. Like others born during a West year, Oprah engages others in a big way.
Oprah was born under the eighth Night Lord. She is a talker, in some ways more a counselor or group psychologist. She is a complex person not afraid to face her inner world and she knows how to get to the center of things. She reacts to stimuli very quickly and is fast on her feet. Venus was at its superior conjunction at her birth, indicating that Oprah is very deep emotionally and very concerned with right and wrong. She is interested in human problems and she brings these out into the light of day through her television show. As a result, many people have become more comfortable talking about things that were taboo years ago.
Printed with the permission of Inner Traditions Bear and Co.
DailyOM © 2004-06 DailyMedia, Inc. - All Rights Reserved | <urn:uuid:7b74263b-02b6-4e13-949a-f733ce1d7a30> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dailyom.com/cgi-bin/display/printerfriendlylib.cgi?articleid=980 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961528 | 1,229 | 2.390625 | 2 |
Audion Golden Dream 300B PSET Vacuum Tube Monoblock Power Amplifiers
You can buy more powerful audio amplifiers. Quieter ones too. Even cheaper on both counts. But you cannot today exceed the sheer tonal richness and emotive density attainable from the Audion Golden Dream 300B SET amplifier (monoblock pair needed for stereo). If you have the combination of speaker efficiency, room size, and habits to live your audio life within 28 watts per channel, this is as far as you need to look for landmark multi-decade sound. The equivalent of alt- or indie music in the audiophile realm is "SET," Single-Ended Triode amplification. SET is embraced and admired by what the Best Buy and Magnolia crowd thinks of as the lunatric fringe of hifi, for its beautiful, holistic, liquid tone, honest presentation, and achingly emotive fidelity to the original music. In an SET amp, there is no splitting of the positive and negative waveforms during amplification, as there is in the more common "Push-Pull" topology. The price of having one tube (or a pair in parallel) do all the work is inefficiency. On a per-dollar basis, you don't get much power in conventional terms, but you do get heat. But well-executed, an SET amp can deliver uniquely glorious sound. The Golden Dream uses a pair of legendary 300B triode power tubes in each monoblock in a "PSET," Parallel Single-Ended Triode configuration, to coax 28 watts from a pair of tubes that normally will only deliver 7 watts each in SET mode alone. Audion also trimmed out the bass bloat all too typical of 300B SET amps, so you get the bass depth and linearity of a pentode below 100Hz, instead of euphonic harmonic distortion down low. Like its brother the Elite 845 amp, the Golden Dream is loaded with silver in the signal path and in the transformer secondary windings. Parts quality is uniformly high and components are hand-matched during assembly. Even on speakers much less expensive than the $16,000/pr. cost of the Golden Dream, a pair of these amps plainly exhibit their unrivalled midrange magic of human tone. Nothing screams fraud like a reproduced human voice missing its expression and humanity. The Golden Dream seemingly reconstructs convincing tone from shards of fidelity left unmolested on your CDs and even tone-barren MP3s. Vinyl through these amps just plain kills. The 845 tube Elite has a little more jaw-busting drive, while the Golden Dream bests it in refinement, grace and sheer emotive tone. As with its younger brother, the Golden Dream monoblocks include input level controls and the input sensitivity to be driven by a disc player directly. Still, the right preamp makes the sound whole. If you have the beans to pair these up with the Audion Quattro preamp, you'll be immersed in the deep-water music expression only reachable in the context of aurally holographic fidelity. Short on Benjamins but want as much of the same sound as you can possibly afford? Check out Audion's more affordable 300B, KT88 and EL34 tube amps in their Silver Night, Golden Night and Sterling ranges. The title link goes to the US distributor, while the link below leads to Audion's UK international site. | <urn:uuid:0ab698c3-b19d-4c2d-a6e6-9039eef4a9f1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thisnext.com/browse/stereo/hifi/300b-tube-amp/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935789 | 698 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Dieting is the most essential component of weight loss. Regardless of nutrient content of the food eaten, weight loss occurs when there is a decrease in total caloric intake as opposed to the caloric usage of the body. There are no real diet food. Dieting in an overweight person has the same principles for all healthy normal weight people. That is, a diet low in fat, high in complex carbohydrate, high in fibre and some amount of proteins. Minimise on nutrition-less calories like alcohol.
Most people who are unable to lose weight are people who have higher intake of calories. Most of these comes from fats which are tasty and easily available in fried food or fast food. The overall aim of dieting to lose weight is therefore to reduce calories while keeping enough nutrient and vitamin content. In particular, care must be noted that completely avoiding one class of food (like fats) may need to malnutrition as fats are necessary for absorption of fat soluble vitamins like Vitamin A, D, E and K.
In general, a food diet plan that creates a caloric deficit of 500 kcal a day less than the usual diet a person is taking will produce stable weight loss. The easiest way to do this is to replace 1 meal of high fat diet (eg fast food) with 1 meal of food high in nutrients and fibre (keeps you full) like salad with fruits, banana, or low fat yogurt with oat cereals. The usual problem is weight loss is not attempting the diet programme, it is maintaining it. It is therefore important that anyone who wants to diet should keep the regime simple (no heavy cooking) and continue to enjoy food they love eg.ice cream) but in lesser quantity.
Filed under: Food and Diet | <urn:uuid:4660e2c5-dc3d-4c0f-8efe-0a6bcb01433a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.howfasttoloseweight.com/food-and-diet/food-and-diet-dieting-to-lose-weight/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945109 | 351 | 3.15625 | 3 |
Morse Family History
Morse Surname History
Morse family history has a complex evolution of which the particulars have been accumulated over the years by Morse family members. This page is a hub for a detailed history of the Morse surname, Morse origins, and stories of Morse ancestors. The Morse family is an old lineage that has spread all across the world for many generations, and as the Morse family has migrated, it has evolved making its origin challenging to unearth.
No content has been submitted here about Morse. The following is speculative information about Morse. You can submit your information by clicking Edit.
The evolution of Morse begins at it's earliest origins. Even in the early generations of a name there are changes in that name simply because surnames were infrequently written down that long ago.
As these families emigrated between countries and languages, the Morse name may have changed with them. It was common for a surname to change as it enters a new country or language. Morse ancestors have migrated around the world all throughout history.
Morse country of origin
No content has been submitted about the Morse country of origin. The following is speculative information about Morse. You can submit your information by clicking Edit.
The nationality of Morse is often complicated to determine because regional boundaries change over time, making the original nationality indeterminate. The original ethnicity of Morse may be in dispute based on whether the surname came in to being naturally and independently in multiple locales; e.g. in the case of family names that come from professions, which can come into being in multiple regions independently (such as the surname "Fisher" which was given to fishermen).
Meaning of the last name Morse
No content has been submitted about the meaning of Morse. The following is speculative information about Morse. You can submit your information by clicking Edit.
The meaning of Morse come may come from a craft, such as the name "Archer" which was given to people who were bowmen. Many of these profession-based last names might be a profession in another language. For this reason it is essential to know the ethnicity of a name, and the languages spoken by its family members. Many names like Morse originate from religious texts such as the Quran, the Bhagavadgītā, the Bible, and so forth. Commonly these family names relate to a religious phrase such as "Grace of God".
- Richard F Morse 1936 - ?
- Porter Morse 1832 - ?
- Ruth Morse Blaisdell 1755 - 1844
- Polly Morse Weed
- Jedediah Morse 1726 - 1819
- Frances E Morse 1877 - ?
- Frank W Morse 1870 - ?
- Levi Morse / Moss Moss, Sr. 1722 - 1802
- Jonathan Morse 1705 - 1788
- Donald E Morse
- Mary J Morse 1834 - ?
- Estella G Morse 1869 - ?
- Florence M Morse 1887 - ?
- Sally (Morse) Compton 1947 - ?
- Fred A Morse 1865 - ?
- Vera A Holt Morse
- Sarah Childs Morse 1722 - 1805
- Jennette Ramsdell Morse 1880 - ?
- Eliza Josephine Morse 1847 - ?
- Jonathan Morse 1673 - 1725
Morse Family Tree
Famous people named Morse
No famous people named Morse have been submitted. You can submit your information by clicking Edit.
Nationality and Ethnicity of Morse
No content has been submitted about the ethnicity of Morse. The following is speculative information about Morse. You can submit your information by clicking Edit.
We do not have a record of the primary ethnicity of the name Morse. Many surnames travel around the world throughout the ages, making their original nationality and ethnicity difficult to trace.
More about the name Morse
Fun facts about the Morse family
We have no fun facts about Morse. You can submit your information by clicking Edit.
Morse spelling variations
No content has been submitted about alternate spellings of Morse. The following is speculative information about Morse. You can submit your information by clicking Edit.
Researching misspellings and alternate spellings of the Morse name are important to understanding the etymology of the name. In times when literacy was uncommon, names such as Morse were transcribed based on how they sounded when people's names were recorded in government records. This could have resulted in misspellings of Morse. Family names like Morse change in their spelling as they travel across communities, family unions, and languages over the years. | <urn:uuid:96ee67b0-92b5-4744-8919-58e210943fba> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ancientfaces.com/surname/morse-family-history/2521 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941153 | 933 | 2.484375 | 2 |
When Republicans agreed to raise the debt ceiling last year, not only did they credit Obama’s credit card by $2.1 trillion, they also gave him a lifeline until after the election. At the time, it was projected that $2.1 trillion in new debt allowance was sufficient to last until January 2013, sparing Obama the embarrassment of raising the debt ceiling right before the election. Well, it appears that we’ve blown through the new debt so quickly that we might bump up against the $16.394 trillion debt ceiling before November 2012.
Last week, Senator Rob Portman released an analysis showing that we will reach the debt ceiling before the end of the fiscal year:
According to Table 6-2 in the President’s Budget’s “Analytical Perspectives” volume, the President estimates the total debt subject to the statutory limit – growing by $132 billion per month – will reach $16.334 trillion at the end of FY 2012 (September 30, 2012). This is just $60 billion below the current debt limit. Thus, without a change in the debt trajectory, the debt ceiling will be eclipsed by October 15, 2012 unless the Department of Treasury again uses emergency protocols to shift that date past Election Day 2012.
Keep in mind that with passage of the extenders package, we will incur an additional $100 billion in debt by the end of the fiscal year. At this pace, we will blow through the new debt limit by a rate of almost $5 billion per day. Geithner is claiming that the deadline will be after the election, but it is still likely to come before Obama leaves office. Moreover, these projections are predicated on higher levels of revenue, not lower levels of spending. If economic growth stalls again, particularly due to higher oil prices, the revenues will tail off, bringing us closer to the debt limit at an even earlier date.
It is becoming quite evident that the two months leading up to the election will look at lot like July of last year, when DC was enmeshed in the heated battle over the debt ceiling. It will also be a propitious time for Republicans to grow a spine.
We rarely get a second chance to do the right thing, but it looks like we will get another opportunity to stand strong and force transformational change in exchange for raising the debt ceiling. This time the stakes will be sky-high. All the Republicans who pledged to cut spending and fight against more debt, but failed miserably last year, will have one more opportunity to stand behind Cut, Cap, and Balance (CCB).
Last August, only 66 House Republicans, or 27% of the Republican Conference, voted against the debt ceiling deal. The rest voted to kill CCB. Just 19 Republican senators voted against this travesty. Ever since last August, many of the yea votes have been inveighing against the debt deal and complaining that they were dealt a bad hand. As primary challenges to these members begin to mount, they are stepping up their outrage over the debt. Well, it’s never too early to start repenting. In the likelihood that we will reach the debt ceiling before Obama’s term expires, how many of them are willing to commit to CCB or bust?
Cross-posted from The Madison Project | <urn:uuid:e2991829-c448-48f6-8e1b-cb053adb77a4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.politifreak.com/new-debt-limit-brings-new-opportunity-for-cut-cap-balance/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959948 | 679 | 1.796875 | 2 |
While the Department of Defense (DoD) is putting plans on hold for a national parade honoring the Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans, many U.S. cities are stepping up with their own events.
For example, 2 men in St. Louis managed to gather a crowd in the thousands to honor our recent veterans in a matter of weeks, drawing national attention. Now, the city of Rome, GA is hoping to achieve the same with a parade and festival dedicated to honoring the Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans.
On Saturday, June 16 starting at 11:00 a.m. EST, the city will hold a parade followed by live entertainment, food, and children’s activities at the Forum. The Veterans Affairs of Atlanta organization will be on hand to assist disabled veterans and their families in attending and enjoying the festivities.
The DoD has shown support for the idea of holding a national parade to honor the Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans, but is reluctant to plan such an event. Current statements suggest they will make plans for a national celebration once all of the troops have returned from deployment.
While we still have service members active in the Middle East, the potential for service-related injuries and conditions remains a risk for all active duty military. If you’re injured while serving in the military or develop a disabling condition due to your service you have the right to file for veterans disability benefits.
If you are a disabled veteran who has been denied disability compensation or have not yet applied for benefits from the VA, a South Florida disability attorney from LaVan & Neidenberg is ready to help. To learn if you are entitled to certain programs and benefits contact our veteran’s disability rights firm today – 1-888-234-5758. | <urn:uuid:729fe7a3-e6ee-4aea-88a6-cab605aa18c4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theveteransblog.org/blog/2012/02/rome-georgia-holding-parade-for-iraq-and-afghanistan-war-veterans/ | 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 | 0.93919 | 354 | 1.546875 | 2 |
This is a guest post.
Having a home of your own can be immensely satisfying, even if you haven’t come close to paying off your mortgage, but it’s not without its problems. Although it’s not quite as costly as renting somewhere to live, it can be expensive to run even the smallest home, especially with the cost of living rising ever higher, as new figures calculated by a variety of insurer. They estimate that it costs on average around £10,000 to run the average home, with anywhere between 50-60% of that amount going on mortgage payments.
Mortgage payments can be hard to keep up with, especially if money’s tight, so getting helpful tips from emortgagecalculator.co.uk might prove to be useful. However, the total payments made on mortgages have fallen, which is sure to be welcome news for hard-pressed homeowners looking at keeping a tight grip on their finances. While the cost of mortgages has generally fallen, any discounts have been effectively wiped out by a rise in the cost of essentials such as energy and council tax.
The cost of gas, electricity and water has skyrocketed in the past couple of years by around 15%, which has resulted in the average household paying an extra £200 per year on utilities. This has hit many households hard, as is the case with the rise in the cost of home insurance, which has gone up by several percentage points, although savings can be made simply by shopping around for the best deal. However, many people have looked at cutting out some form of insurance such as buildings cover or content cover to ease the strain on their finances.
One of the largest expenses involved in owning any home is home improvement and maintenance. The average home in 2012 is expected to spend £1,100 on this, which can be attributed to a rise in VAT, with the cost going up by 8.2% compared to 2011. This includes painting and decorating, electrical and plumbing work and flooring. The fact that running a home can be so costly has given homeowners an excuse to cut costs wherever they can, which, providing it doesn’t come at a price, is well worth doing. | <urn:uuid:181b009e-2bea-499b-baba-c0bce1b8f0ce> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mybrokencoin.com/cost-of-running-a-home-in-2012/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983789 | 451 | 2.015625 | 2 |
From No-How to Know-How
“If we always do what we've always done, we will get what we've always got.”
- Adam Urbanski
As my esteemed realbuzz colleague and fitness editor Suzanne Olson continues to report: There are many paths to fitness. Whether you are stuck in an exercise rut or eager to jump feet-first into any and every exercise du jour, it may be helpful to examine your learning patterns and how they can help or hinder your progress towards your long-term healthy living objectives.
Understanding how you move through the learning process (or don’t), helps to identify what you’ve always done and, perhaps even, give you an “aha” or two of a new way to do. To illustrate the learning process, let’s explore the four stages using a popular fitness trend, Pilates:
Stage 1: Unconscious Incompetence
At this stage, you don’t know what you don’t know. For instance, you may not even know what Pilates (puh-lot-teez) is. If you have heard of it, you may feel ambiguous or iffy about trying it. Perhaps you feel satisfied with your present regime and uninterested in trying a new way to stay fit.
In order to move out of this stage, you need to be aware that Pilates exists (awareness), that you don’t know how to do Pilates (knowledge), and that it’s something you want to learn (inner-motivation).
Stage 2: Conscious Incompetence
At this stage, you know what you don’t know. Pilates hits your fitness radar. Everyone’s raving about it and you run into a friend who credits her super flat belly to performing “The Hundreds.” You may still not understand the concept of Pilates, but you are motivated to sign- up to learn it. In this humbling beginner phase, you must deal with the frustrations and failures of learning something new.
In order to move out of this stage, you must practice, persist, and persevere.
Stage 3: Conscious Competence
At this stage, you know how, but it takes effort. You finally understand how to perform the entire mat routine with precision and skill, but it still takes lots of concentration and determination to use proper form.
In order to move out of this stage, the movements need to no longer master you; you must become the master over the movements.
Stage 4: Unconscious Competence
In this stage, you know what you know! Performing the exercises feel like second nature. Indeed, you may find that you can mentally plan your evening menu while executing your workout.
At this stage, you may find yourself at a crossroads: Some may be satisfied with obtaining mastery while others may desire new challenges such as shifting from student to teacher or taking a crack at a new skill level (and returning to Stage 1).
In exploring the four stages, can you spot where potential speed bumps occur for you?
a.) Is it Stage 1 where lack of knowledge keeps you in the dark or you lack the motivation to learn something new?
b.) Is it Stage 2 where you have to embrace a beginner’s mind?
c.) Is it Stage 3 which requires practice, precision, and patience?
d.) Is it Stage 4 where, once you achieve mastery, you become complacent, bored, or dissatisfied?
If so, it just may be time to embrace a new “do” . . . or two.
Until next time . . . Mare
- See latest blog post | <urn:uuid:41d399ac-7689-4c9e-85f7-602943a36fa9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.realbuzz.com/blogs/u/Mare_Petras/life-with-a-twist/posts/from-no-how-to-know-how/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920859 | 765 | 1.96875 | 2 |
the doctrine that kings derive their right to rule directly from God and are not accountable to their subjects; rebellion is the worst of political crimes; "the doctrine of the divine right of kings was enunciated by the Stuarts in Britain in the 16th century"
the act of giving a formal (usually written) authorization
a legal document giving official permission to do something
freedom to deviate deliberately from normally applicable rules or practices (especially in behavior or speech)
excessive freedom; lack of due restraint; "when liberty becomes license dictatorship is near"- Will Durant; "the intolerable license with which the newspapers break...the rules of decorum"- Edmund Burke
authorize officially; "I am licensed to practice law in this state"
a religious rite or service prescribed by ecclesiastical authorities; "the offices of the mass"
place of business where professional or clerical duties are performed; "he rented an office in the new building"
professional or clerical workers in an office; "the whole office was late the morning of the blizzard"
(of a government or government official) holding an office means being in power; "being in office already gives a candidate a great advantage"; "during his first year in office"; "during his first year in power"; "the power of the president" | <urn:uuid:d6c7205f-bb14-419d-a128-49e8f88f63b1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wordage.info/vicarious+authority/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954188 | 268 | 3.015625 | 3 |
My seven year old daughter struggled today with her reading assignment about the life of George Washington Carver. Usually, she’s the child who eagerly embraces all homework and quickly complies with directions. For some reason, she dawdled her way to the school table and reluctantly listened as I gave her the new reading assignment. On the verge of tears, she quietly refused to pick up the book I asked her to read. I questioned her attitude and demanded she read the book before afternoon play time.
Distracted, I left the table to help her brother with an online class. When I returned to her, she sat joyfully reading a library book about princesses. I paused and listened to her reading the story out loud. The look on her face showed me how excited she was to be reading something that interested her.
This small phrase, “make it interesting”, summarizes one key to educational success. When students personally connect to the material, they embrace learning. Every subject can be fun when the teacher relates it to the student’s interests. While I believe students must at times be challenged to read and study uninteresting topics, successful educators work as much as possible to include relavent material that piques the child’s natural curiosity and interests.
My princess-loving daughter did read her assignment today, and she enjoyed the story. I am grateful that she loves to read, and I vow to give her every opportunity to read what interests her as I cultivate my students at home. | <urn:uuid:60fb6412-3c34-4ae7-8b55-15716ad1e42e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://studentsathome.wordpress.com/2012/02/22/make-it-interesting/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972245 | 309 | 2.421875 | 2 |
Alternatives to Exercise
Fitness that Feels like Fun
Did you enjoy jumping rope, swimming, playing tag, or riding your bike as a kid? You probably didn't realize it was exercise because you were having fun. Well, working out can be fun. As long as you're physically active every day, you're getting exercise. Once you know your fitness level, think about lifestyle activities that can help you reach your exercise goals and enjoy it, too.
Gardening, yoga, and walking are simple activities that many people enjoy. They are also good alternatives to traditional exercise. Do not overlook them just because they are easy, or because you enjoy them. If you do any of these gentle exercises regularly, you will improve your overall health.
Got kids? Stroller fitness and other activities with children make sense for busy parents. While many moms are motivated to lose weight gained during pregnancy, stroller fitness and similar programs are great ways for the whole family to build healthy habits. Studies have shown that when parents provide good exercise examples, their kids are more likely to maintain healthy weights and fitness levels throughout their lives. Talk about a win-win situation!
Got older kids? Play around.Playgrounds are not off limits to parents! Start a pickup game of basketball or challenge your kids to some backyard badminton. Before you know it, you have yourself a workout.
Working overtime? You can stay fit even when you are in the office all day. Working in a little exercise at work is smart, and it can be as easy as doing some neck and shoulder stretches at your desk, taking a walk at lunchtime, or stashing a set of handheld weights in your desk - and then using them, of course.
Take a hike, or get back on your bike. Take dance lessons. Try canoeing or kayaking. Whatever you do, keep moving your body to look good, feel good, and be healthy. Want more suggestions? Check with your doctor for specific exercise advice, or ask the fitness expert [link to Courtney's blog] about other activities to keep your exercise habit, and your body, going strong.
Next: Exercising to Lose Weight: Move it to Lose it | <urn:uuid:212d9a55-868b-4660-a4f9-ea97e72b896c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wakehealth.edu/Health-Central/MCN/Alternatives-to-Exercise.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971859 | 451 | 2.015625 | 2 |
Higher Education Offers Advancement
In a region noted for progress, Gainesville-Hall County is served directly by three outstanding institutions of higher learning with countless others within an hour's drive.
Brenau University, is a private institution based in downtown Gainesville that offers undergraduate and graduate programs that attract students from, Georgia, other states and abroad. Founded in 1878, Brenau provides a unique curriculum that blends professional preparation and with the breadth of liberal arts education. The heart of Brenau is its residential Women’s College. The university also offers coeducational programs in Gainesville, at other regional campuses around Georgia and online. The Brenau complex in Gainesville also includes Brenau Academy, a grades 9-12 residential and commuter girl’s school that offers a unique program for students to receive a two-year college degree with their high school diplomas.
Gainesville State College is a unit of the University System of Georgia. GSC offers courses leading to a Bachelor of Applied Science and Bachelor of Science degrees, in addition to Associate of Arts, Associate of Science, and Associate of Applied Science degrees and certificate programs in a variety of areas. With 9,000 enrolled between its Gainesville and Oconee Campuses, GSC integrates academic and extra-curricular activities in order to emphasize development of the “whole person”. Students can participate in student activities such as: intramurals, clubs, organizations, bands, chorus, theatre, and international-intercultural studies programs. www.gsc.edu
Lanier Technical College is a unit of the Technical College System of Georgia, offers technical certificates, diplomas, and two-year degrees to over 6,000 students every year. In addition the college also serves over 15,000 students in Economic Development Programs and Adult Education to total over 20,000 citizens that receive workforce development services each year. The college has five campuses located throughout Northeast Georgia and is the foremost provider of workforce development services in the area. The main campus in Oakwood is host to Georgia's Center of Innovation for Manufacturing, offering customized training using the latest in advanced and automated manufacturing technology. The college also offers GED and ESL training and testing through its Adult Education department, which helps thousands of students acquire high school diplomas every year.
Higher Education Institutions Nearby
Within an hour's drive of Greater Hall County, students and adults have a number of public and private colleges and universities they may choose from:
Gainesville-Hall County Area Colleges and Universities
- Gainesville State College www.gsc.edu
- Brenau University www.brenau.edu
- Lanier Technical College www.laniertech.edu
- Atlanta University Center, www.aucenter.edu
- Emory University, www.emory.edu
- Georgia State University, www.gsu.edu
- Georgia Tech, www.gatech.edu | <urn:uuid:a4f49ddd-c209-4107-9aa4-9f85ac278316> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ghcc.com/education/higher-education.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943291 | 601 | 1.679688 | 2 |
The Tea Party made head-waves in late 2009 through organized protests against federal laws. In my eyes, they have become a political force to be reckoned with but with the current controversy that has surfaced, the may hinder their own progress to impact the political system.
The NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) is pointing fingers at the Tea Party for harboring racist elements within its political agendas and has asked them to renounce “ultra-nationalist and racist factions within the organization,” according to NAACP President Ben Jealous.
“For more than a year we’ve watched as Tea Party members have called congressmen the N-word, have called congressmen the F-word. We see them carry racist signs and whenever it happens, the membership tries to shirk responsibility,” Jealous said.
“If the Tea Party wants to be respected and wants to be part of the mainstream in this country, they have to take responsibility.”
Jealous specifically pointed to signs at rallies portraying President Obama as a witch doctor, and to claims made by Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., and Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., that Tea Party protesters opposing health care reform hurled racial slurs at them according to an online news post from ABC.
“They need to be unequivocal and they need to be responsible and get the bigots out of their organization. It’s that simple,” Jealous added.
Tea Party leaders have denied allegations of racism and argue that there is no proof to support the NAACP’s claims. Conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart even offered $100,000 to anyone who could produce an audio recording or video footage of the “N-word” being hurled at Rep. Lewis and other members of Congress.
The St. Louis Tea Party coalition passed a resolution of its own condemning the NAACP for “hypocritically engaging in the very conduct it purports to oppose.” The resolution calls on the NAACP to withdraw its resolution. It even urges the IRS to reconsider its tax-exempt status of the NAACP because of what the Tea Party coalition dubbed the organization’s “habitual partisan political behavior.”
Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin also weighed on the issue and stepped in to protect the Tea Party’s integrity.
“The charge that Tea Party Americans judge people by the color of their skin is false, appalling, and is a regressive and diversionary tactic,” according to a statement Sarah Palin on Facebook. As a result she has asked Barack Obama to “refudiate” such racist claims.
Organizer of the Tea Party Express Mark Williams discredited the NAACP and accused them of being racist themselves. He also went as far as to write a satirical letter on a blog post that ridiculed the NAACP.
It was purportedly written to Abraham Lincoln by “colored people,” saying in part: “We Coloreds have taken a vote and decided that we don’t cotton to that whole emancipation thing. Freedom means having to work for real, think for ourselves, and take consequences along with the rewards. That is just far too much to ask of us Colored People and we demand that it stop!”
Williams meant to make a satirical point but the letter was deemed offensive because it made sweeping generalizations that African-Americans are lazy and ignorant. As a result, Williams was expelled from the National Tea Party Federation led by Co-Founder of the New York City Tea Party David Webb. However, Webb stated the letter was offensive but not racist.
Webb also stated NAACP’s claims are agenda based and that the Tea Party can not be responsible for all its members’ beliefs.
“I think the NAACP in its march toward irrelevancy as an organization, needs an enemy to maintain its power base,” Webb said.
Webb was then asked about the signs and posters that compared Barack Obama to monkeys and brandish the N-word in several Tea Party rallies.
“They are offensive, they don’t belong there but there will also be fringe elements,” Webb said on CNN before he expelled Williams from the National Tea Party Federation on July 18, 2010.
In all fairness to the Tea Party I haven’t actually seen signs from protesters that have specifically used the N-word. In addition there have been no video or audio showing Tea Party members hurling the N-word at John Lewis. In truth I haven’t seen much enthusiasm from the NAACP to battle the racist statements from the New Black Panther Party to “kill crackers and their white babies,” so the NAACP could be guilty of partisan claims.
As a result, everybody organization needs to fold up their sleeves and take responsibility. The NAACP should also go to all lengths to condemn all acts of racism not only when it affects African-Americans. There have been too many instances where they get criticized for a selective bashing of racism and that is racist in a sense.
In addition just because Tea Party leaders say they haven’t witnessed any racial elements within their groups does not make it dismissible. The fact is there have been signs that have racial slurs and ignorant messages. Some include “Send Obama back to Kenya,” “Obama’s Plan: White Slavery” and “The American Taxpayers are the Jews for Obama’s ovens,”
Note, the Tea Party is not a racist movement but I believe the Tea Party is more at fault. The fact is there are racist elements within the Tea Party, and all Tea Party leaders should address that. Like it or not the Tea Party has moved from a grassroots movement to a notable and well respected organization and they have a social responsibility to maintain a positive image. It would be in their bests interests to take such action if they want to have a strong influence in the upcoming elections in November. If they want to get back to the important issues involving health care and limited government they need to deal with the internal problems that they are having. Who will take them seriously when they have bigots among themselves putting up extreme posters that compare Barack Obama to a monkey and make threats to hang congress members? Personally, I don’t think they have heard of the saying one bad apple spoils the bunch. | <urn:uuid:2ba3061c-5e33-4388-8d3c-7493d854bc19> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kuukusblog.com/tag/ben-jealous/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971465 | 1,314 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Sharing life’s legacies: Writers workshop leads to new body of authors
By Melanie Tucker | (firstname.lastname@example.org)
A group of people who mostly didn’t know each other and who certainly had never published a book before, bonded during a recent writers workshop at Maryville Vineyard Church.
The finished product is one we can all work off of as we seek to leave behind our own footprints upon this earth.
The writers workshop was led by Phyllis Dolislager, a part-time resident of Townsend who herself has published several books.
She attends Maryville Vineyard and agreed to present this three-month workshop as a small groups session.
Vineyard members and the community at large were invited to take part.
Little did they know that at the end of the workshop they would have in their hands a book full of each’s personal stories.
The group — Al Adams, Brian Stevens, Cindra Ellen Boring, Deborah Adams, Erin Mobley, Michelle Wright, Dolislager and her husband Ronald, Samuel Turnmire and Sarah Small — self-published it through http://create.com .
Proceeds from the sale of the book, entitled “Lives & Legacies — Stories from the Vine" — will go to The Box, the benevolent fund at Maryville Vineyard.
Not your typical small group
Getting together in a small group setting to write stories isn’t the format of most church small group settings, but that didn’t prevent the Vineyard from wanting to offer it.
“I was amazed that a church valued the arts so much that they had a small group on writing,” Small said.
She said self-publishing used to have a stigma attached to it since it usually meant no one else wanted to publish what you had written.
That’s not the case anymore. Lots of people go this route because they want editorial control.
This workshop gave her the confidence to write and share stories from her childhood and beyond.
It also was the spark she needed to take on another project her family is thrilled about.
Her dad, who is 88, has been writing down his own memories of the time he was a young boy to his days in the Army.
Small went to his house, obtained the stories from his computer and compiled them into a book she gave her dad for Christmas.
It was the Christmas presents of all Christmas presents, Small said.
Setting plots into motion
Deborah Adams, who said she had never been a writer, took the course because she was friends with the Dolislagers and was up to the challenge. She said the first session grabbed her.
“She has us draw a map of the street where we grew up,” Adams said. “We sat down and started drawing the street and what we could remember, this neighbor or that shop.
You would be amazed at what a map of your neighborhood will look like and how that triggers memories that were just in the back of your mind.”
Dolislager gave writing assignments each week and the students came in the following week to read what they had written.
Reading her stories out loud wasn’t something Wright was thrilled about at first.
She said their first assignment was to write about something from their childhood.
As each began reading, Wright realized most have picked a light-hearted moment to write about.
Like Samuel Turnmire, who told the story of how he almost burned down the kitchen as he experimented making rock candy.
Wright’s story was about being an elementary school student and having to wear a brace on her leg. She wrote how one child had come out and asked her “Are you a cripple?”
Wright said she didn’t know how to answer because she had never heard that word before. But that experience of letting out her emotions and revealing a hard time in her life helped her see the value in what they were all doing: searching their souls and their past to leave part of themselves behind for others.
Wright now has several ideas she wants to put into print.
The next step
Boring, the librarian at William Blount’s Ninth Grade Academy, has been a writer most of her life.
She worked as newspaper reporter years ago. The workshop, she said, was a good way for her to learn how to publish her work.
For Mobley, this opportunity is one she wishes everybody else would take.
She taught second grade for years and said the public school systems aren’t set up to encourage creative writing. It’s not a skill that a lot of students have, she said.
Turnmire is now working on another writing project because of the positive experience he had at the workshop. He said he didn’t know any of the others before signing up.
He wanted to be able to put his memories on paper for his family and future generations.
“It is almost like telling our legacy,” he said. “Really, you are telling your own story.
Now whenever I go to family events and people start telling stories, I tell them ‘You need to write that down.’”
Tears and laughter were part of the process. One week, Turnmire was telling how he was able to cope with the death of his father. Another time, the story of his kitchen nightmare brought huge laughter.
Stevens shared stories about his electrical engineer grandpa and his own battle with ulcerative colitis while in college, in the book.
That narrative is part of the chapter entitled Life-Changing Events. Stevens was also responsible for getting the book into print.
Boring has introduced her students to her writing in hopes they will be inspired to test their own creative writing skills.
She is also working on another project, a book she started years ago.
Wright has been trying to research her great-great-grandfather who was a soldier in the Civil War.
Turnmire wants to make recordings of family members and help his daughter gain a better understanding of who her grandfather was. He died before she was born.
Be a detective
Mobley learned in recent years that her grandmother was engaged to a man who died at Pearl Harbor. Mobley had run across an old photograph and didn’t recognize him so she simply asked.
“We all need to talk to our families and find out those rich stories,” she said.
Matt Farrand is worship and communications pastor at Maryville Vineyard. He gives credit to Dolislager for being able to draw these stories out of people who may not have realized the gems they uncovered.
“Without Phyllis’ prompting they maybe would have never written that story,” he said.
As Farrand sees it, we sometimes let life get in the way of what we care about. Creative writers get bogged down in the everyday scenarios and quit writing. The next group at the Vineyard will tackle writing songs. There will be another small groups session for visual artists.
“A lot of people think there is no place for stuff like that inside the church,” Farrand said. “I think there is a new renaissance coming and these guys are a part of that.” | <urn:uuid:e0617b63-8d28-4239-b3a4-f2f492a32433> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thedailytimes.com/Blount_Life/story/Sharing-lifes-legacies-Writers-workshop-leads-to-new-body-of-authors-id-032605 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987116 | 1,530 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Kernux is a fully kernel-mode http-daemon for Linux. Currently Kernux is in it's developing stage. Similiar developments in the same area were khttpd by Arjan van de van and Tux web-server by Ingo Molnar. Khttpd was included in the linux testing kernel 2.5 by Linus Torvalds. But it was actually not in kernel-mode of operation. Also it handled dynamic requests which is assumed to be insecure for the server OS by the Linux kernel developers. Tux is another implementation of kernel mode http-daemon, being developed by RedHat. The developer is Ingo Molnar, the creator of O(1) scheduler, which control the procsses from Linux version 7.2 onwards.
Working of Kernux :
Kernux works as a kernel module, like a device driver. It uses low-level socket operations to handle the client requests. Kernux consist of a number of threads running parallely in the OS level (kernel_threads). An idle kernel-thread receives a connection from a wait queue, maintained at the Operating System level and serves it. The pacularity is that, it uses no duplication of sockets like that in other servers, but a single socket, which is accessed by multiple kernel-threads and is maintained by a mutual exclusion system. Each thread, after analysing the request type, ie. whether it is static or dynamic, serves the client. The system is presently configured to handle only static requests. The dynamic requests are handed over to a user-mode webserver of user's choice, like Apache.
Click here to download the first release of Kernux 1.0 source. It currently supports only the Fedora Core 4 with kernel version 2.6.11-1.1369.
Kernux was developed by Girish A., Krishnendusekhar J. and Tony Augustine, a group of three Linux newbies. They coded it as their academic main project for the Bachelor of Technology Degree course in Information Technology under University of Kerala, from Amrita Institute of Technology and Science, Kollam, Kerala, India.
E-Mails can be sent to : kernux at linuxmail dot org
E-Mail IDs of developers are:
girishadat at yahoo dot com
krishnendusekhar at yahoo dot com
tonyaugustine123 at yahoo dot com
Hope this software goes through the hands of a lot of freelance developers and thus become able to compete with it's opponents.
Any suggestions are whole heartedly welcomed. | <urn:uuid:01ae5fb3-a412-4d9e-a96f-be1d51366905> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kernux.sourceforge.net/?source=navbar | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918728 | 544 | 2.125 | 2 |
The US Youth Soccer National League competition is for the nation's top teams in the Under-15, Under-16, Under-17 and Under-18 boys and girls age groups, consisting of a total of 16 teams per gender age group. The National League offers additional exposure to collegiate, professional and U.S. National Team coaches and offers the highest level of competition in the country as each team must earn their place in the league. National League teams continue play in their respective US Youth Soccer Regional Leagues and State Championships to complete their competitive calendar.
Teams play a seven-game schedule over two weekends, facing each team within its age group division one time. The League consists of three weekends of play per gender, with each team playing two of the three weekends.
The top two teams from each division (Blue and Red) advance to the US Youth Soccer National Championships, the oldest and most prestigious youth soccer national championship in the country. The four National League representatives will join the four Regional Champions in the U-15 through U-18 age groups to play for the National Championship. The top two teams from each age group division also secure a spot to return to National League play the following season. | <urn:uuid:a80fcb0c-ff9a-4eab-8b38-ad75a7ddac55> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.usyouthsoccer.org/programs/NationalLeague/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954818 | 243 | 1.90625 | 2 |
New York invites designers to invent Future of Phone Booths
But where will Superman* change now?
The Mayor of New York has kicked off a competition for those with ideas on the future of the city's 11,000 phone boxes, with a view to deploying something new when the existing contract runs out in 2014.
The Mayor is looking for something interesting, and something which will help New Yorkers communicate, especially in an emergency when the cellular infrastructure might not be up to scratch. The competition is also supposed to "foster innovative, data and design-driven ideas that will help modernize payphone infrastructure".
Twenty years back there were 35,000 payphones on the streets of New York, but in common with payphones everywhere their use has been steadily declining and these days there are only 11,000 of them left. Those boxes are covered by a contract signed by the city in 1999, but that expires in 2014 which is prompted this competition.
There are some next-generation boxes around Times Square, with wi-fi and touch-screen ad hoardings, but this competition is intended to throw up something more iconic to replace all the existing, familiar, boxes.
Submissions are invited from "urban designers, planners, technologists and policy experts" who can sign up online then go along to an open briefing session on January 23 and will have to get their prototypes in by February 18 with 15 of those submissions being publicly showcased on March 5. The city isn't promising anything beyond then, but it seems likely that one of those 15 will then be selected to grace the streets of the Big Apple.
*We know Mr. Kent spent most of his time in Metropolis rather than New York as such, but Spiderman always found a convenient alley in which to change - essential when one hasn't got superspeed to cover one's modesty. | <urn:uuid:cfe686fe-5864-4cbf-8f84-83f2ee815234> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/12/10/ny_payphones/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966246 | 374 | 1.679688 | 2 |
The similarities between Iraq and Darfur are remarkable. The estimate of the number of civilians killed over the past three years is roughly similar. The killers are mostly paramilitaries, closely linked to the official military, which is said to be their main source of arms. The victims too are by and large identified as members of groups, rather than targeted as individuals. But the violence in the two places is named differently. In Iraq, it is said to be a cycle of insurgency and counter-insurgency; in Darfur, it is called genocide. Why the difference? Who does the naming? Who is being named? What difference does it make?
The most powerful mobilisation in New York City is in relation to Darfur, not Iraq. One would expect the reverse, for no other reason than that most New Yorkers are American citizens and so should feel directly responsible for the violence in occupied Iraq. But Iraq is a messy place in the American imagination, a place with messy politics. Americans worry about what their government should do in Iraq. Should it withdraw? What would happen if it did? In contrast, there is nothing messy about Darfur. It is a place without history and without politics; simply a site where perpetrators clearly identifiable as â€ËœArabsâ€â„¢ confront victims clearly identifiable as â€ËœAfricansâ€â„¢.
A full-page advertisement has appeared several times a week in the New York Times calling for intervention in Darfur now. It wants the intervening forces to be placed under â€Ëœa chain of command allowing necessary and timely military action without approval from distant political or civilian personnelâ€â„¢. That intervention in Darfur should not be subject to â€Ëœpolitical or civilianâ€â„¢ considerations and that the intervening forces should have the right to shoot â€" to kill â€" without permission from distant places: these are said to be â€Ëœhumanitarianâ€â„¢ demands. In the same vein, a New Republic editorial on Darfur has called for â€Ëœforce as a first-resort responseâ€â„¢. What makes the situation even more puzzling is that some of those who are calling for an end to intervention in Iraq are demanding an intervention in Darfur; as the slogan goes, â€ËœOut of Iraq and into Darfur.â€â„¢
What would happen if we thought of Darfur as we do of Iraq, as a place with a history and politics â€" a messy politics of insurgency and counter-insurgency? Why should an intervention in Darfur not turn out to be a trigger that escalates rather than reduces the level of violence as intervention in Iraq has done? Why might it not create the actual possibility of genocide, not just rhetorically but in reality? Morally, there is no doubt about the horrific nature of the violence against civilians in Darfur. The ambiguity lies in the politics of the violence, whose sources include both a state-connected counter-insurgency and an organised insurgency, very much like the violence in Iraq.
The insurgency and counter-insurgency in Darfur began in 2003. Both were driven by an intermeshing of domestic tensions in the context of a peace-averse international environment defined by the War on Terror. On the one hand, there was a struggle for power within the political class in Sudan, with more marginal interests in the west (following those in the south and in the east) calling for reform at the centre. On the other, there was a community-level split inside Darfur, between nomads and settled farmers, who had earlier forged a way of sharing the use of semi-arid land in the dry season. With the drought that set in towards the late 1970s, co-operation turned into an intense struggle over diminishing resources.
As the insurgency took root among the prospering peasant tribes of Darfur, the government trained and armed the poorer nomads and formed a militia â€" the Janjawiid â€" that became the vanguard of the unfolding counter-insurgency. The worst violence came from the Janjawiid, but the insurgent movements were also accused of gross violations. Anyone wanting to end the spiralling violence would have to bring about power-sharing at the state level and resource-sharing at the community level, land being the key resource.
Since its onset, two official verdicts have been delivered on the violence, the first from the US, the second from the UN. The American verdict was unambiguous: Darfur was the site of an ongoing genocide. The chain of events leading to Washingtonâ€â„¢s proclamation began with â€Ëœa genocide alertâ€â„¢ from the Management Committee of the Washington Holocaust Memorial Museum; according to the Jerusalem Post, the alert was â€Ëœthe first ever of its kind, issued by the US Holocaust Museumâ€â„¢. The House of Representatives followed unanimously on 24 June 2004. The last to join the chorus was Colin Powell.
The UN Commission on Darfur was created in the aftermath of the American verdict and in response to American pressure. It was more ambiguous. In September 2004, the Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, then the chair of the African Union, visited UN headquarters in New York. Darfur had been the focal point of discussion in the African Union. All concerned were alert to the extreme political sensitivity of the issue. At a press conference at the UN on 23 September Obasanjo was asked to pronounce on the violence in Darfur: was it genocide or not? His response was very clear:
Before you can say that this is genocide or ethnic cleansing, we will have to have a definite decision and plan and programme of a government to wipe out a particular group of people, then we will be talking about genocide, ethnic cleansing. What we know is not that. What we know is that there was an uprising, rebellion, and the government armed another group of people to stop that rebellion. Thatâ€â„¢s what we know. That does not amount to genocide from our own reckoning. It amounts to of course conflict. It amounts to violence.
By October, the Security Council had established a five-person commission of inquiry on Darfur and asked it to report within three months on â€Ëœviolations of international humanitarian law and human rights law in Darfur by all partiesâ€â„¢, and specifically to determine â€Ëœwhether or not acts of genocide have occurredâ€â„¢. Among the members of the commission was the chief prosecutor of South Africaâ€â„¢s TRC, Dumisa Ntsebeza. In its report, submitted on 25 January 2005, the commission concluded that â€Ëœthe Government of the Sudan has not pursued a policy of genocide . . . directly or through the militias under its control.â€â„¢ But the commission did find that the governmentâ€â„¢s violence was â€Ëœdeliberately and indiscriminately directed against civiliansâ€â„¢. Indeed, â€Ëœeven where rebels may have been present in villages, the impact of attacks on civilians shows that the use of military force was manifestly disproportionate to any threat posed by the rebels.â€â„¢ These acts, the commission concluded, â€Ëœwere conducted on a widespread and systematic basis, and therefore may amount to crimes against humanityâ€â„¢ (my emphasis). Yet, the commission insisted, they did not amount to acts of genocide: â€ËœThe crucial element of genocidal intent appears to be missing . . . it would seem that those who planned and organised attacks on villages pursued the intent to drive the victims from their homes, primarily for purposes of counter-insurgency warfare.â€â„¢
At the same time, the commission assigned secondary responsibility to rebel forces â€" namely, members of the Sudan Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement â€" which it held â€Ëœresponsible for serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law which may amount to war crimesâ€â„¢ (my emphasis). If the government stood accused of â€Ëœcrimes against humanityâ€â„¢, rebel movements were accused of â€Ëœwar crimesâ€â„¢. Finally, the commission identified individual perpetrators and presented the UN secretary-general with a sealed list that included â€Ëœofficials of the government of Sudan, members of militia forces, members of rebel groups and certain foreign army officers acting in their personal capacityâ€â„¢. The list named 51 individuals.
The commissionâ€â„¢s findings highlighted three violations of international law: disproportionate response, conducted on a widespread and systematic basis, targeting entire groups (as opposed to identifiable individuals) but without the intention to eliminate them as groups. It is for this last reason that the commission ruled out the finding of genocide. Its less grave findings of â€Ëœcrimes against humanityâ€â„¢ and â€Ëœwar crimesâ€â„¢ are not unique to Darfur, but fit several other situations of extreme violence: in particular, the US occupation of Iraq, the Hema-Lendu violence in eastern Congo and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Among those in the counter-insurgency accused of war crimes were the â€Ëœforeign army officers acting in their personal capacityâ€â„¢, i.e. mercenaries, presumably recruited from armed forces outside Sudan. The involvement of mercenaries in perpetrating gross violence also fits the occupation in Iraq, where some of them go by the name of â€Ëœcontractorsâ€â„¢.
The journalist in the US most closely identified with consciousness-raising on Darfur is the New York Times op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof, often identified as a lone crusader on the issue. To peruse Kristofâ€â„¢s Darfur columns over the past three years is to see the reduction of a complex political context to a morality tale unfolding in a world populated by villains and victims who never trade places and so can always and easily be told apart. It is a world where atrocities mount geometrically, the perpetrators so evil and the victims so helpless that the only possibility of relief is a rescue mission from the outside, preferably in the form of a military intervention.
Kristof made six highly publicised trips to Darfur, the first in March 2004 and the sixth two years later. He began by writing of it as a case of â€Ëœethnic cleansingâ€â„¢: â€ËœSudanâ€â„¢s Arab rulersâ€â„¢ had â€Ëœforced 700,000 black African Sudanese to flee their villagesâ€â„¢ (24 March 2004). Only three days later, he upped the ante: this was no longer ethnic cleansing, but genocide. â€ËœRight now,â€â„¢ he wrote on 27 March, â€Ëœthe government of Sudan is engaged in genocide against three large African tribes in its Darfur region.â€â„¢ He continued: â€ËœThe killings are being orchestrated by the Arab-dominated Sudanese governmentâ€â„¢ and â€Ëœthe victims are non-Arabs: blacks in the Zaghawa, Massalliet and Fur tribes.â€â„¢ He estimated the death toll at a thousand a week. Two months later, on 29 May, he revised the estimates dramatically upwards, citing predictions from the US Agency for International Development to the effect that â€Ëœat best, â€Å“only†| <urn:uuid:fd204007-8828-4266-8b6b-c5d115e3bf8c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.zcommunications.org/the-politics-of-naming-genocide-civil-war-insurgency-by-mahmood-mamdani | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958203 | 2,643 | 2.546875 | 3 |
By: Eames Yates
February 1, 2013
Valdosta, GA - The Lowndes County School System held its spelling bee on Friday in Valdosta.
20 students participated from ten different schools around the county. The kids ranged from the fourth to eighth grade. The winner -- Alexis Herring -- will be participating in the district spelling bee at the end of the month in Moultrie. If she wins there she could go to Atlanta for the state competition. She spoke about how she gets ready for the big event.
She said "my dad calls the words out to me and I spell them. And if I get them wrong he makes me spell them again until I get it right. And I don't know it's just great."
The spelling bee was sponsored by the Lowndes Association of Educators who provided a pizza lunch after the competition. | <urn:uuid:633ab8c3-4865-4335-a635-404daadca353> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wctv.tv/home/headlines/Fifth-Grader-Wins-Lowndes-County-Spelling-Bee-189441321.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957525 | 177 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Learn to look before you eat and you'll live longer and feel better.
5 Scrumptious Skin Savers
I can't tell you how much skin-saving sun stuff I have stashed at home, at work, and in my car . . . hats, UV-proof sunglasses, lotions/sprays/lip balms with SPFs from 15 to infinity . . . and I still blow it sometimes. Forgetting my neck, or weeding for an hour when I only intended to pull out one offender, or . . . well, you know.
When that happens, the first thing I do is head for the fridge. Why? Because certain foods not only can boost your skin's defenses but may even help heal sunburns and undo deep-down damage. In particular, scientists have pinpointed 5 delicious inflammation-fighting, antioxidant-spiked foods. All, happily, delish. Sure, you still need a shotglass of sunscreen (at least) and your sexy shades, but these age-proofing edibles can pick up where your SPF leaves off . . . and maybe compensate when you blow it too.
1. Spinach. After the, ugh, spinach/e-coli scare almost three years ago, this vital green has re-habbed itself. Good thing. People who eat three servings of spinach a week slash their risk of skin cancer by 55 percent! That's because spinach contains an amazing cocktail of nutrients (including folate; vitamins A, C, and E; and two carotenoids, lutein and zeaxanthin) that boosts skins resistance to sun damage. Looking for something to do with spinach besides salads and sides? Try this terrific 10-minute Spinach Pesto. Your skin and your stomach will love you.
2. Tomatoes. Lycopene-loaded tomatoes reduce your risk of sunburn and skin cancer. And while its tempting just to slice and eat these juicy fruits, the biggest lycopene bang comes from cooked tomatoes. So make room on your summer menu for whole-wheat pizza topped with lots of tomato sauce, room-temp pasta salads tossed with a fragrant blend of cooked tomatoes and basil, or this Slow-Roasted Cherry Tomato Bruschetta.
3. Black raspberries. If bramble-like black raspberries are growing wild around your yard, dont complain if the pesky vines try to take over your garden. Instead, eat every dark-purple berry you can (freeze those you can't). While all berries are good cancer fighters, black raspberries are all-stars. They're so good at preventing the Big C on the cellular level (eat more, eat more!) that in the lab, scientists have also made them into a skin gel that takes the sting out of sunburn, slows the growth of squamous cell skin cancer, and squelches inflammation from UVB rays. Toss fresh or thawed frozen berries into everything from salads and smoothies, or just eat them right off the vine. You cant do your body anything but good.
4. Pomegranates. Not that this fruit needs more good press, but those brilliant red (and flavanoid-rich) pomegranate seeds have proven their sun-strength in the lab: They too can shield skin cells from inflammation and UVB damage. Try topping grilled salmon with this super-easy pomegranate-avocado salsa. Just toss together lots of lime juice, onion, sliced avocado, and pomegranate seeds to taste. Spoon over salmon. Devour. (And if youre ambitious enough to extract your own seeds from the fruit, not a jar, make it much easier by breaking open the pomegranate beneath the waters surface in a deep bowl. The seeds will float free of the white pith.)
5. Dark chocolate. This is another food with an already-great health rep: Its happy effect on taste buds makes your brain release feel-good endorphins, plus it improves blood flow (good for your skin as well as the rest of you), and may be the only thing that gets many women through PMS. But can chocolate help your skin? You bet your dark-fudge sundae it can. It can take the red out of sunburn. It boasts more cancer-fighting chemicals than green tea and red wine. And in a study that thrilled chocolate lovers, women who drank a daily cup of cocoa made from 3 ounces of good dark chocolate (70% or more cacao) had thicker, moister, smoother skin that was also more resistant to sun damage . . . in just three months, thanks to chocolates potent flavonols. Sweet.
All of which is not to say that you shouldn't get any sun (or should go totally crazy on chocolate; it does have a few calories). Your body needs some sunlight about 15 minutes a day to make vitamin D, and to warm your psyche. Fine. Safely getting enough sun can make your RealAge as much as 1.7 years younger. But if you get more than enough, head for the greenmarket. | <urn:uuid:e9e3ffe1-b564-4a07-b51e-f7c9374f4d67> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.delish.com/food/healthy-food/skin-saving-foods | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9314 | 1,060 | 1.9375 | 2 |
MassHealth (Medicaid) Programs for Kids
February 4, 2009
Some children don’t have private health insurance coverage through their parents, as a matter of fact, lots of kids – one in four Massachusetts children is on MassHealth (Medicaid).
Applying for MassHealth is very confusing – there are several programs, they each have different enrollment criteria, and they provide different levels of coverage. Check out this guide, produced by Children’s Hospital and the Boston Bar Association – chapter 3. Scroll down to page 10 for a good overview of several different MassHealth programs. The guide is written for parents of kids with mental health issues, but the insurance chapter applies to all kids.
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No comments yet. | <urn:uuid:2c03e08d-a847-4a89-8349-1c232e2c9a4d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.alexislevitt.com/2009/02/04/masshealth-medicaid-programs-for-kids/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953434 | 151 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Schwartz Lecturer Drew Fudenberg explains how learning plays a role in games — and what that means for Nash equilibrium
4/22/2009 - Game theorists have studied the concept of Nash equilibrium since it was defined by mathematician and economist John Forbes Nash in 1950.
But what is Nash equilibrium? And how does it fit into the “games” that theorists study?
Drew Fudenberg, the Frederick E. Abbe Professor of Economics at Harvard University, addressed both questions during his April 15 talk, “Learning in Games,” at the Kellogg School. A renowned scholar of game theory, Fudenberg was the invited speaker at the school’s 2009 Nancy L. Schwartz Memorial Lecture. The annual series addresses important issues in current economic theory.
The first half of Fudenberg’s lecture was intended to be accessible to a general audience, and he began his talk with a brief history of game theory. A mathematical science that studies behavior in strategic situations, the field was established in 1944 when John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern published Theory of Games and Economic Behavior
. The tools of game theory are now applied most frequently in economics, biology, engineering, political science and computer science.
A “game” has two or more players who must choose between a set of strategies, with each strategy resulting in a specific payoff, Fudenberg explained. As an example, he cited Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s “stag hunt game,” in which hunters in a forest must decide between collectively hunting a stag — and potentially sharing a large payoff — or independently setting a rabbit trap, and receiving a smaller payoff. Capturing the stag requires cooperation from all hunters, while hunting the rabbit independently does not.
In this example, if everyone’s strategy is to go after the stag, and there are sufficient hunters, it makes sense for every hunter to participate in capturing the stag. On the other hand, if some hunters pursue the rabbits, there will be an insufficient number of hunters chasing the stag. The hunters, then, would lose the incentive to hunt the stag. In other words, “Nash equilibrium is the strategy profile where each player’s strategy maximizes that player’s payoff, given the strategies used by the other players,” Fudenberg said. “That is, no player can get a higher payoff by changing their own strategy, holding fixed the strategies of other players.”
In most games, Nash equilibrium is reached after players play several times and learn from the outcome. “You start off not having equilibrium, but by repeated play and having common observations, you end up at Nash equilibrium,” Fudenberg said.
However, in “dynamic games,” as opposed to “static games,” players move sequentially multiple times and learn from their moves. In these games, “before the agent plays the game, he thinks about every possible solution that could possibly arise in the play of the game, and decides how he would play in that situation,” said Fudenberg.
In these instances, “instead of Nash equilibrium, other equilibrium concepts would be more appropriate,” said Fudenberg. “The nature of equilibrium — what the right equilibrium concept is — should be a theorem. It should be derived from assumptions about the learning process, as opposed to an axiom.” Fudenberg proceeded to illustrate such examples in which what he calls “self-confirming equilibrium” emerges as the right solution concept. The Nancy L. Schwartz Memorial Lecture
series was founded in 1983 by the family members, colleagues and friends of Nancy L. Schwartz, the Morrison Professor of Decision Sciences and the first female faculty member appointed to an endowed chair at the Kellogg School. Eleven of the 26 speakers featured at the Nancy L. Schwartz Memorial Lecture have won the Nobel Prize. The lecture series is administered by the Kellogg School’s Center of Game Theory and Economic Behavior and housed within the school’s Department of Managerial Economics and Decision Sciences. | <urn:uuid:21c3b8fa-460f-4f0a-8eca-bae15da7c9e6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/News_Articles/2009/schwartzlecture09.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956892 | 853 | 3.40625 | 3 |
What is endometriosis?
Endometriosis (say "en-doh-mee-tree-OH-sus") is a problem many women have during their childbearing years. It means that a type of tissue that lines your uterus is also growing outside your uterus. This does not always cause symptoms. And it usually isn't dangerous. But it can cause pain and other problems.
The clumps of tissue that grow outside your uterus are called implants. They usually grow on the ovaries, the fallopian tubes, the outer wall of the uterus, the intestines, or other organs in the belly. In rare cases they spread to areas beyond the belly.
How does endometriosis cause problems?
Your uterus is lined with a type of tissue called Reference endometrium Opens New Window (say "en-doh-MEE-tree-um"). Each month, your body releases hormones that cause the endometrium to thicken and get ready for an egg. If you get pregnant, the fertilized egg attaches to the endometrium and starts to grow. If you do not get pregnant, the endometrium breaks down, and your body sheds it as blood. This is your Reference menstrual period Opens New Window.
When you have endometriosis, the implants of tissue outside your uterus act just like the tissue lining your uterus. During your menstrual cycle, they get thicker, then break down and bleed. But the implants are outside your uterus, so the blood cannot flow out of your body. The implants can get irritated and painful. Sometimes they form scar tissue or fluid-filled sacs (cysts). Scar tissue may make it hard to get pregnant.
What causes endometriosis?
Experts don't know what causes endometrial tissue to grow outside your uterus. But they do know that the female hormone Reference estrogen Opens New Window makes the problem worse. Women have high levels of estrogen during their childbearing years. It is during these years—usually from their teens into their 40s—that women have endometriosis. Estrogen levels drop when menstrual periods stop (menopause). Symptoms usually go away then.
What are the symptoms?
The most common symptoms are:
- Pain. Where it hurts depends on where the implants are growing. You may have pain in your lower belly, your rectum or vagina, or your lower back. You may have pain only before and during your periods or all the time. Some women have more pain during sex, when they have a bowel movement, or when their ovaries release an egg (ovulation).
- Abnormal bleeding. Some women have heavy periods, spotting or bleeding between periods, bleeding after sex, or blood in their urine or stool.
- Trouble getting pregnant (Reference infertility Opens New Window). This is the only symptom some women have.
Endometriosis varies from woman to woman. Some women don't know that they have it until they go to see a doctor because they can't get pregnant or have a procedure for another problem. Some have mild cramping that they think is normal for them. In other women, the pain and bleeding are so bad that they aren't able to work or go to school.
How is endometriosis diagnosed?
Many different problems can cause painful or heavy periods. To find out if you have endometriosis, your doctor will:
- Ask questions about your symptoms, your periods, your past health, and your family history. Endometriosis sometimes runs in families.
- Do a Reference pelvic exam Opens New Window. This may include checking both your Reference vagina Opens New Window and Reference rectum Opens New Window.
If it seems like you have endometriosis, your doctor may suggest that you try medicine for a few months. If you get better using medicine, you probably have endometriosis.
To find out if you have a cyst on an ovary, you might have an imaging test like an Reference ultrasound Opens New Window, an Reference MRI Opens New Window, or a Reference CT scan Opens New Window. These tests show pictures of what is inside your belly.
The only way to be sure you have endometriosis is to have a type of surgery called Reference laparoscopy Opens New Window (say "lap-uh-ROSS-kuh-pee"). During this surgery, the doctor puts a thin, lighted tube through a small cut in your belly. This lets the doctor see what is inside your belly. If the doctor finds implants, scar tissue, or cysts, he or she can remove them during the same surgery.
How is it treated?
There is no cure for endometriosis, but there are good treatments. You may need to try several treatments to find what works best for you. With any treatment, there is a chance that your symptoms could come back.
Treatment choices depend on whether you want to control pain or you want to get pregnant. For pain and bleeding, you can try medicines or surgery. If you want to get pregnant, you may need surgery to remove the implants.
Treatments for endometriosis include:
- Over-the-counter pain medicines like ibuprofen (such as Advil or Motrin) or naproxen (such as Aleve). These medicines are called anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDs. They can reduce bleeding and pain.
- Birth control pills. They are the best treatment to control pain and shrink implants. Most women can use them safely for years. But you cannot use them if you want to get pregnant.
- Hormone therapy. This stops your periods and shrinks implants. But it can cause side effects, and pain may come back after treatment ends. Like birth control pills, hormone therapy will keep you from getting pregnant.
- Laparoscopy to remove implants and scar tissue. This may reduce pain, and it may also help you get pregnant.
As a last resort for severe pain, some women have their uterus and ovaries removed (Reference hysterectomy Opens New Window and oophorectomy). If you have your ovaries taken out, your estrogen level will drop and your symptoms will probably go away. But you may have symptoms of menopause, and you will not be able to get pregnant.
If you are getting close to Reference menopause Opens New Window, you may want to try to manage your symptoms with medicines rather than surgery. Endometriosis usually stops causing problems when you stop having periods.
Frequently Asked Questions
|By:||Reference Healthwise Staff||Last Revised: Reference July 7, 2011|
|Medical Review:||Reference Adam Husney, MD - Family Medicine
Reference Kirtly Jones, MD - Obstetrics and Gynecology | <urn:uuid:930954bd-4123-46c8-949a-9554f717d332> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pamf.org/healtheducation/healthinfo/index.cfm?A=C&hwid=hw102998 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936317 | 1,419 | 3.4375 | 3 |
Electronics Components: Resistors
A resistor is a small component that's designed to provide a specific amount of resistance in an electronic circuit. Because resistance is an essential element of nearly every electronic circuit, you'll use resistors in just about every circuit that you build.
Although resistors come in a variety of sizes and shapes, the most common type of resistor for hobby electronics is the carbon film resistor. These resistors consist of a layer of carbon laid down on an insulating material and contained in a small cylinder, with wire leads attached to both ends. The resistor itself is about 1/4″ long, and the leads are about an inch long, making the entire thing about 2-1/4″ long.
Resistors are blind to the polarity in a circuit. Thus, you don't have to worry about installing them backwards. Current can pass equally through a resistor in either direction.
In schematic diagrams, a resistor is represented by a jagged line, like the one shown in the margin. The resistance value is typically written next to the resistor symbol. In addition, an identifier such as R1 or R2 is also sometimes written next to the symbol.
In some schematics, particularly those drawn in Europe, the symbol shown in the margin is used instead of the jagged line.
Resistors are used for many reasons in electronic circuits. The three most popular are
Limiting current: By introducing resistance into a circuit, resistors can limit the amount of current that flows through the circuit. In accordance with Ohm's law, if the voltage in a circuit remains the same, the current will decrease if you increase the resistance.
Many electronic components have an appetite for current that must be regulated by resistors. One of the best known are light-emitting diodes (LEDs), which are a special type of diode that emits visible light when current runs through it.
Unfortunately, LEDs don't know when to step away from the table when it comes to consuming current. That's because they have very little internal resistance. Unfortunately, LEDs don't have much tolerance for current, so too much current will burn them out.
As a result, it's always prudent — essential, in fact — to place a resistor in series with an LED to keep the LED from burning itself up.
You can use Ohm's law to your advantage when using current-limiting resistors. For example, if you know what the supply voltage is and you know how much current you need, you can use Ohm's law to determine the right resistor to use for the circuit.
Dividing voltage: You can also use resistors to reduce voltage to a level that's appropriate for specific parts of your circuit. For example, suppose your circuit is powered by a 3 V battery but a part of your circuit needs 1.5 V. You could use two resistors of equal value to split this voltage in half, yielding 1.5 V.
Resistor/capacitor networks: Resistors can be used in combination with capacitors for a variety of interesting purposes. | <urn:uuid:43a149ff-ac25-4908-9efb-daf1d0466442> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/electronics-components-resistors.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947362 | 633 | 4.21875 | 4 |
Progress in the world of biometrics should cause us all to shudder. Cameras in public locations can now employ facial recognition to direct advertising to us based upon an assessment of our age, sex, and other characteristics. Cameras can determine our reaction to and engagement in video games and movies. It sounds a bit like a world composed of two-way mirrors. But instead of shuddering, we sometimes knowingly, sometimes carelessly, support the technology – and other data collection practices – through our online and commercial activities.
How many of us constantly update and tag our Facebook pages with pictures of us and our loved ones and where we’ve been? How many take advantage of product/service discounts by scanning our smart phones and “liking” products on Facebook? How many of us are now buying into dating apps and social apps that are based on facial recognition technology? The fact is that much of our data can be, and is being, collected and we consumers (especially in the United States) seem to have no problem with it, even volunteering for it.
Perhaps fortunately, some regulators are stepping in and keeping a watchful eye on these developments and looking for ways to curb the potentially nefarious use of consumer data. The FTC and its Division of Privacy and Identity Protection recently published its list of best practices for companies who use facial recognition technologies. The publication, “Facing Facts: Best Practices for Common Uses of Facial Recognition Technologies,” underlines important concerns about being able to identify anonymous individuals in public and about attendant security breaches such as hacking. The FTC’s proposed best practices include the following:
• Companies should maintain reasonable data security protections to prevent unauthorized information “scraping” of consumer images and biometric data.
• Companies should maintain appropriate retention and disposal practices.
• Companies should consider the sensitivity of information when developing facial recognition products and services, e.g., they should avoid placing signs in sensitive areas, such as bathrooms, locker rooms, health care facilities, or places where children congregate.
• Companies using digital signs capable of demographic detection should provide clear notice to consumers that the technologies are in use, before consumers come into contact with the signs.
• Social networks should provide consumers with (1) an easy-to-find, meaningful choice not to have their biometric data collected and used for facial recognition; and (2) the ability to turn off the feature at any time and delete any biometric data previously collected.
• Companies should obtain a consumer’s affirmative express consent before using a consumer’s image or any biometric data in a materially different manner than they represented when they collected the data.
• Companies should not use facial recognition to identify anonymous images of a consumer to someone who could not otherwise identify him or her, without obtaining the consumer’s affirmative express consent.
The guidelines come only a few months after the FTC’s March 2012 Privacy Report (“Protecting Consumer Privacy in an Era of Rapid Change: Recommendations For Businesses and Policymakers”) and are a logical follow-on to the report. They incorporate the Privacy Report’s core principles: privacy by design, simplified consumer choice, and transparency. These principles and guidelines are a step in the direction of responsible data collection and responsible technological advancements.
We should point out that neither the Privacy Report nor the Best Practices in Facial Recognition are binding or enforceable as they do not fall under FTC’s legal authority. And the FTC prominently makes this disclaimer, noting that the guidelines are merely recommendations without the force of law. It is clear, however, that the FTC is appropriately preparing to assume enforcement authority, should Congress pursue privacy legislation (something the FTC recommends in the Privacy Report). That is obvious from the mere fact that the agency has established a Privacy and Identity Protection Division.
Companies that are developing or seeking to employ biometrics – or that employ other data collection practices – would be well advised to pay attention to the FTC’s recommendations. The guidelines provide insight into how an enforcement authority is likely to approach biometrics and other data collection practices. The guidelines also provide a framework for responsible use of consumer data. And even though consumers currently seem passive or dismissive about biometrics and data collection, it would take just one scandal or highly publicized incident for public opinion to change. Companies will benefit in the long run by building good will among consumers. | <urn:uuid:7e3d9940-54b1-4725-b94c-7a26b3b0ed78> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ftcbeat.com/tag/facial-recognition/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928459 | 906 | 2.59375 | 3 |
)A representation, consisting of rows and columns of dots, of a graphics image in computer memory. The value of each dot (whether it is filled in or not) is stored in one or more bits of data. For simple monochrome images, one bit is sufficient to represent each dot, but for colors and shades of gray, each dot requires more than one bit of data. The more bits used to represent a dot, the more colors and shades of gray that can be represented.
The density of the dots, known as the resolution, determines how sharply the image is represented. This is often expressed in dots per inch (dpi ) or simply by the number of rows and columns, such as 640 by 480.
To display a bit-mapped image on a monitor or to print it on a printer, the computer translates the bit map into pixels (for display screens) or ink dots (for printers). Optical scanners and fax machines work by transforming text or pictures on paper into bit maps.
Bit-mapped graphics are often referred to as raster graphics. The other method for representing images is known as vector graphics or object-oriented graphics. With vector graphics, images are represented as mathematical formulas that define all the shapes in the image. Vector graphics are more flexible than bit-mapped graphics because they look the same even when you scale them to different sizes. In contrast, bit-mapped graphics become ragged when you shrink or enlarge them.
Fonts represented with vector graphics are called scalable fonts , outline fonts , or vector fonts. The best-known example of a vector font system is PostScript. Bit-mapped fonts, also called raster fonts, must be designed for a specific device and a specific size and resolution.
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- Before you implement a private cloud, find out what you need to know about automated delivery, virtual sprawl, and more. » | <urn:uuid:6d93d646-ae43-43a6-961a-ad7a3a1ca71f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/B/bit_map.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92269 | 474 | 3.78125 | 4 |
Healthcare Hiring to Continue, Albeit Slowly, in 2011
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported this month that hospitals created 50,100 jobs in 2010, nearly double the rate of job creation from 2009, and the entire healthcare sector - everything from allergists to X-ray technicians -- created 265,800 jobs for the year.
Overall, the healthcare sector employed 13.9 million people at the end of 2010, including 4.7 million jobs at hospitals, 6 million jobs in outpatient ambulatory services, and 2.3 million jobs in physicians' offices, BLS preliminary data show.
For December, the healthcare sector recorded 35,700 payroll additions, including 8,000 hospital jobs. However, ambulatory healthcare services continues to be the major driver of healthcare job creation, with 20,600 payroll additions in December, and 160,200 payroll additions recorded in 2010, BLS preliminary data show.
So, we're not quite where we want to be, but it's not that bad, considering where we have been.
John Commins is a senior editor with HealthLeaders Media.
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- Q&A: Catholic Health Initiatives' New Senior VP for Capital Finance | <urn:uuid:42e89331-0849-4b9c-965f-7ab84fde6e90> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/page-3/HR-261698/Healthcare-Hiring-to-Continue-Albeit-Slowly-in-2011 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923823 | 361 | 1.84375 | 2 |
George Walker Petit and Walkerecordings Jazz
“ Hell, if you are about to part with a lot of money to do a CD you'd better trust your recording team and not just your players. ”
When listening to recorded jazz music it's easy to take for granted the dynamics of what took place behind the scenes in the recording studio. The final listening experience is the culmination of meticulous skill, creativity, and hard work, of not only the performing musicians but also skilled technicians who work diligently to capture the essence of the music that we hear.
Technology has changed both the playing and recording field. All genres of music have been affected to varying degrees by technology and the changing nature of the industry. Whether in the performance, the recording, the mixing, or the mastering stage, the process of realizing the final product has been changed fundamentally by technology for better or worse. Even the initial creative process leading to composition has been altered by the new tools of the trade. It is not uncommon to meet a self professed "musician" that really hasn't any facility on what we once recognized as an "instrument." Almost anyone can make a musical statement by learning to manipulate technology rather than learning to actually "play" an instrument. And when you combine this new paradigm with some of the now industry-standard recording platforms, the creation of music can exist totally in the virtual world.
With technology easily at the musician's fingertips, why is a recording studio even needed? Think about it. What can't you do with a top of the line VST plug-in, a great sounding "modeling" reverb, a few carefully edited loops, and a lap-top computer?
Well thankfully there are indeed some things that can't be done in the virtual world. A few of the tangible factors that exist in creating Jazz music are things such as interplay, improvisation, human error, and expression in the moment. They are all accounted for in real time in real studios such as Walkerecordings Jazz.
In what is likely the most competitive city in the world, New York, and with the present confused state of the music industry, trying to survive as a recording studio is a constant battle to say the least. Some say that the days of the "Big Studio" are obsolete. With home studios, hard disc recording, loops, and plug-ins, the business of recording music has changed profoundly. Many say that the secret to survival in this environment is to specialize - to do what you do best and carve out a niche. That is precisely what the Walkerecordings studio is doing by exclusively recording jazz music.
Walkerecordings opened in 2001 by producer/engineer/musician George Walker Petit on 21st street in Manhattan. The studio comprises two live rooms and a spacious control room all designed by an award-winning acoustician. Petit made careful decisions when buying top of the line recording gear with names such as Neve, Amek, Neumann, AKG, Lexicon, Slingerland, Sennheiser, Royer, and Martech. Petit's technical insight led him to acquire "signal paths" as opposed to "pieces" of gear which help to answer musician questions such as What is the best microphone, preamp, and compressor to use when taping an instrument? The end results are recordings that sound great.
What makes Walkerecordings different is Petit. Petit picked up his engineering chops over the last 25 years working in and/or owning recording facilities in New York, L.A., and even in northern Vermont. He has learned over the years that each player is different and has a sound that might not be recorded as well as one would expect by using the "normal" gear or approach. He states "For example, every drummer has a different touch and method of expression'if the drummer has a light, traditional approach to brushes the music being performed is subtle. Microphone choices and placements must be made to correctly translate this player's performance to recorded sound, right? Well of course, but there are a lot of engineer/producers out there that setup the same old snare microphone every time'and are used to tracking R&B sounds, not Jazz." Petit has studied and been exposed to the music and has accumulated thousands of hours of sessions over the years ranging from producing for Columbia records in the 1980's to writing music for commercial television advertising. It's his passion, his hobby, his job, and he loves his work. | <urn:uuid:a1f37422-2efc-4cb8-b3f7-d07ccc963a59> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=15407 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971648 | 927 | 1.984375 | 2 |
University of New Hampshire
Dept. of History
Horton Social Science Center, 20 Academic Way
Durham, NH 03824-3586
U.S. and Comparative U.S.
Its location in the center of New England and the close working relationship between faculty and students makes the University an especially appealing environment for the study of history. The style of the department is informal, with ample time for each student to develop individual interest under the direction of faculty advisers. Students are encouraged to refine their own research and education within the scope of faculty expertise. A number of our graduate students have published papers in both regional and national journals, including the Journal of American History and the William and Mary Quarterly. Several have gained practical experience working in museums such as Strawbery Banke in nearby Portsmouth, in historic preservation projects, historical societies, and archives. The history department has attracted a nationally recognized faculty with particular strengths in Comparative and American history. The department has special research and teaching expertise in Atlantic history, social and intellectual history, maritime and environmental history, the history of race and ethnicity, and the history of religion. The Ph.D. is intended to prepare students for professional careers as active scholars and teachers. In this department, all Ph.D. students specialize in U.S. history. Students with a particularly strong secondary field outside of U.S. history may write dissertations that involve comparative studies of U.S. history. Before writing any dissertation, Ph.D. students must demonstrate competence in reading a foreign language, as well as pass a set of written and oral comprehensive examinations.
Special Programs or Resources
Students may pursue a Cognate in College Teaching under the aegis of the university's Graduate School.
Most new doctoral students receive a multi-year funding package with a stipend and Teaching Assistantship.
1) Coursework. The Department has only a few specific requirements for students in the Ph.D. program. Before taking the comprehensive exams, they must (1) take at least one Research Seminar in Early American History and one in Modern U.S. History, History 939 and 940; (2) take the General Reading Colloquia in Early American and Modern U.S. History, History 989 and 990; (3) take History 875, Historical Methods; (4) demonstrate competence in reading one foreign language.
2) Seminars. Research seminars are small, advanced courses that require an article length research paper. They are usually numbered 988 to 993. Note that Colloquia, for which students read intensively and usually write bibliographical essays, do not count toward the seminar requirement.
3) Historical Methods. History 875 is normally offered annually. Students who can demonstrate completion of a graduate level historical methods course at another university or college may petition for exemption from this requirement.
4) Foreign Language Exam. All Ph.D. students must demonstrate competence in reading in at least one foreign (non English) language. Most language exams are administered by history faculty. Occasionally students have good reason for taking an exam in a language for which no faculty are competent to give an exam; in such cases, students need to arrange for an exam elsewhere. Students who have passed a comparable graduate-level language exam at another institution may request exemption from an exam in that language. Students may also fulfill the foreign language requirement by taking a foreign language class at UNH.
Information from Department of Education
(Includes information on the size, location, and general characteristics of faculty and student body)
Information from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
(Includes rating of the institution's rating of the graduate instructional program and size and setting)
Full-time Faculty: 22
Relative Size based on Number of Full-time Faculty: Medium [Explain]
Student Demographics (Fall 2011):
Number of Doctoral Students in Program: 18
New Doctoral Students Entering Program: 1
Proportion of Doctoral Students Receiving Financial Aid: 60%
Number of Graduate Students Enrolled: 50
Relative Size Based on Graduate Student Enrollment: Medium [Explain]
First PhD conferred: 1974
History PhDs conferred to Date: 96
Number of PhDs Conferred (2011–12): 3
Relative Size Based on PhDs Conferred: Medium [Explain]
Last Updated: October 19, 2012 | <urn:uuid:fd2f6d13-474e-41ad-9ffb-20c13f60f199> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.historians.org/projects/cge/PhD/schools/Template.cfm?DeptID=183044 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927528 | 904 | 1.609375 | 2 |
I have dealt with some loss in my life. I understand hurt. You could say I am good at hurt, as well as one could be good at such things. It is never something that one wants to be good at, but many of us are. I know that when I write I tend to be very blunt, but this isn't one of those times. I want to look at loss and hurt a little bit, and how we live with it.
Loss is inevitable. Loss is an inherent by product of gain. So why does loss hurt more than gain feels good? Corrie ten Boom said, "Hold everything in your hands lightly, otherwise it hurts when God pries them from your hands." We view loss as a landmark on life's road. We receive hurt as curse. Pain is there because we have either a void in our lives that needs to be filled, or somethings as been put in void that doesn't belong. No matter if we experience betrayals, loss of fortune, or even death we all understand that the pain of life is coming to us.
Lets look at hurt from the three realms that we all dwell in
Physically, hurt is your body's way of telling you that there is a risk of serious injury if you continue.
Emotionally, hurt reminds us of the importance we give, or have given to certain things or people.
Spiritually, hurt exists to help us grow to a place of healing so that others may be healed to.
Physically and emotionally those definitions look at the inward effect, but spiritually the effect is outward. Our ultimate goal is to have these three areas of our life in harmony. That is not to say that we shouldn't feel pain and grieve loss, but dwelling in that loss is where we realize the selfishness of the physical and emotional and disregard the need to grow.
You never lose the memory of the pain and what happened, but the way we look at the pain changes. I never look back at my losses as things I would want to relive, but I do look at those losses joyfully since those were allowed to be there to grow me into looking more like Him. It is hard not to feel the pain of losing a loved one. We want our loved ones to be with us, but remember...
We have never seen Heaven, and it is a place of indescribable perfection that is there for us all. Press forward to that goal. Not the goal of worshiping at the altar of our greatest defeats. | <urn:uuid:544af913-4495-4983-b3e8-50a0f3d7414e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ericmightberight.blogspot.com/2011/10/maybe-we-miss-few-things.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981474 | 519 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Top Misconceptions About Islam
Muslims are violent, terrorists, and extremists!
This is the biggest misconception in Islam, no doubt resulting from the constant stereotyping and bashing the media gives Islam. When a gunman attacks a mosque in the name of Judaism, a Catholic IRA guerrilla sets off a bomb in an urban area, or Serbian Orthodox militiamen rape and kill innocent Muslim civilians, these acts are not used to stereotype an entire faith. Never are these acts attributed to the religion of the perpetrators. Yet how many times have we heard the words 'Islamic, Muslim fundamentalist. etc.' linked with violence.
Politics in so called “Muslim countries" may or may not have any Islamic basis. Often dictators and politicians will use the name of Islam for their own purposes. One should remember to go to the source of Islam and separate what the true religion of Islam says from what is portrayed in the media. Islam literally means 'submission to God' and is derived from a root word meaning 'peace'.
Islam may seem exotic or even extreme in the modern world. Perhaps this is because religion doesn’t dominate everyday life in the West, whereas Islam is considered a 'way of life' for Muslims and they make no division between secular and sacred in their lives. Like Christianity, Islam permits fighting in self-defense, in defense of religion, or on the part of those who have been expelled forcibly from their homes. It lays down strict rules of combat which include prohibitions against harming civilians and against destroying crops, trees and livestock.
NOWHERE DOES ISLAM ENJOIN THE KILLING OF INNOCENTS... The Qur’an says: "Fight in the cause of God against those who fight you, but do not transgress limits. God does not love transgressors." (Qur’an 2:190) "If they seek peace, then seek you peace. And trust in God for He is the One that heareth and knoweth all things." (Qur’an 8:61) War, therefore, is the last resort, and is subject to the rigorous conditions laid down by the sacred law. The term 'jihad' literally means 'struggle'. Muslims believe that there are two kinds of jihad. The other 'jihad' is the inner struggle of the soul which everyone wages against egotistic desires for the sake of attaining inner peace.
Islam oppresses women.
The image of the typical Muslim woman wearing the veil and forced to stay home and forbidden to drive is all too common in most peoples’ thoughts. Although some Muslim countries may have laws that oppress women, this should not be seen as coming from Islam. Many of these countries do not rule by any kind of Shari'ah (Islamic law) and introduce their own cultural standpoints on the issue of gender equity.
Islam on the other hand gives men and women different roles and equity between the two is laid down in the Qur’an and the example of the Prophet (peace be upon him). Islam sees a woman, whether single or married, as an individual in her own right, with the right to own and dispose of her property and earnings. A marriage gift is given by the groom to the bride for her own personal use, and she keeps her own family name rather than taking her husband's. Both men and women are expected to dress in a way which is modest and dignified. The Messenger of God (peace be upon him) said: "The most perfect in faith amongst believers is he who is best in manner and kindest to his wife."
Violence of any kind towards women and forcing them against their will for anything is not allowed. A Muslim marriage is a simple, legal agreement in which either partner is free to include conditions.
Marriage customs thus vary widely from country to country. Divorce is not common, although it is acceptable as a last resort. According to Islam, a Muslim girl cannot be forced to marry against her will: her parents simply suggest young men they think may be suitable.
Muslims worship a different God
Allah is simply the Arabic word for God. Allah for Muslims is the greatest and most inclusive of the Names of God, it is an Arabic word of rich meaning, denoting the one and only God and ascribing no partners to Him. It is exactly the same word which the Jews, in Hebrew, use for God (eloh), the word which Jesus Christ used in Aramaic when he prayed to God. God has an identical name in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; Allah is the same God worshiped by Muslims, Christians and Jews. Muslims believe that Allah's sovereignty is to be acknowledged in worship and in the pledge to obey His teaching and commandments, conveyed through His messengers and prophets who were sent at various times and in many places throughout history.
Islam was spread by the sword and is intolerant of other faiths
Many social studies textbooks for students show the image of an Arab horseman carrying a sword in one hand and the Qur’an in the other conquering and forcibly converting. This, though, is not a correct portrayal of history. Islam has always given respect and freedom of religion to all faiths. The Qur’an says: "God forbids you not, with regards to those who fight you not for [your] faith nor drive you out of your homes, from dealing kindly and justly with them; for God loveth those who are just." (60:8) Freedom of religion is laid down in the Qur’an itself: "There is no compulsion (or coercion) in the religion (Islam). The right direction is distinctly clear from error". (2:256)
Christian missionary, T.W. Arnold had this opinion on his study of the question of the spread of Islam: "... Of any organized attempt to force the acceptance of Islam on the non-Muslim population, or of any systematic persecution intended to stamp out the Christian religion, we hear nothing. Had the caliphs chosen to adopt either course of action, they might have swept away Christianity as easily as Ferdinand and Isabella drove Islam out of Spain, or Louis XIV made Protestantism ..."
It is a function of Islamic law to protect the privileged status of minorities, and this is why non-Muslim places of worship have flourished all over the Islamic world. History provides many examples of Muslim tolerance towards other faiths: when the caliph Omar entered Jerusalem in the year 634, Islam granted freedom of worship to all religious communities in the city.
Proclaiming to the inhabitants that their lives, and property were safe, and that their places of worship would never be taken from them, he asked the Christian patriarch Sophronius to accompany him on a visit to all the holy places. Islamic law also permits non-Muslim minorities to set up their own courts, which implement family laws drawn up by the minorities themselves. The life and property of all citizens in an Islamic state are considered sacred whether the person is Muslim or not.
Racism is not a part of Islam, the Qur’an speaks only of human equality and how all peoples are equal in the sight of God. "O mankind! We created you from a single soul, male and female, and made you into nations and tribes, so that you may come to know one another. Truly, the most honored of you in God's sight is the greatest of you in piety. God is All-Knowing, All- Aware." (49:13)
All Muslims are Arabs
The Muslim population of the world is around 1.4 billion. 1 out of 4 people in the world is a Muslim. Islam is the fastest growing religion in the World and North America. They are a vast range of races, nationalities, and cultures from around the globe--from the Philippines to Nigeria--they are united by their common Islamic faith. Only about 18% live in the Arab world and the largest Muslim community is in Indonesia. Most Muslims live east of Pakistan. 30% of Muslims live in the Indian subcontinent, 20% in Sub-Saharan Africa, 17% in Southeast Asia, 18% in the Arab world, and 10% in the Soviet Union and China. Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan make up 10% of the non-Arab Middle East. Although there are Muslim minorities in almost every area, including Latin America and Australia, they are most numerous in Russia and its newly independent states, India and central Africa. There are about 8 million Muslims in the United States.
The Nation of Islam is a Muslim group
Islam and the so called “Nation of Islam'" are two different religions. Muslims consider this group to be just one of many cults using the name of Islam for their own gain. The only thing common between them is the jargon, the language used by both. "The Nation of Islam" is a misnomer; this religion should be called Farrakhanism, after the name of its propagator, Louis Farrakhan.
Islam and Farakhanism differ in many fundamental ways. For example, Farrakhan followers believe in racism and that the 'black man' was the original man and therefore superior, while in Islam there is no racism and everyone is considered equal in the sight of God, the only difference being in one's piety. There are many other theological examples that show the 'Nation's teachings have little to do with true Islam. There are many groups in America who claim to represent Islam and call their adherents Muslims.
Any serious student of Islam has a duty to investigate and find the true Islam. The only two authentic sources which bind every Muslim are 1. The Quran and 2. Authentic or sound Hadith. Any teachings under the label of "Islam" which contradict or at variance with the direct understanding of fundamental beliefs and practices of Islam form the Quran and authentic Hadith should be rejected and such a religion should be considered a Pseudo-Islamic Cult. In America there are many pseudo-Islamic cults, Farrakhanism being one of them. An honest attitude on the part of such cults should be not to call themselves Muslims and their religion Islam. Such an example of honesty is Bahaism which is an off-shoot of Islam but Bahais do not call themselves Muslims nor their religion, Islam. In fact Bahaism is not Islam just as Farrakhanism is not Islam.
All Muslim men marry four wives
The religion of Islam was revealed for all societies and all times and so accommodates widely differing social requirements. Circumstances may warrant the taking of another wife but the right is granted, according to the Quran, only on condition that the husband is scrupulously fair. No woman can be forced into this kind of marriage if they do not wish it, and they also have the right to exclude it in their marriage contract.
Polygamy is neither mandatory, nor encouraged, but merely permitted. Images of "sheikhs with harems" are not consistent with Islam, as a man is only allowed at most four wives only if he can fulfill the stringent conditions of treating each fairly and providing each with separate housing etc. Permission to practice polygamy is not associated with mere satisfaction of passion. It is rather associated with compassion toward widows and orphans. It was the Quran that limited and put conditions on the practice of polygamy among the Arabs, who had as many as ten or more wives and considered them "property". It is both honest and accurate to say that it is Islam which regulated this practice, limited it, made it more humane and instituted equal rights and status for all wives. What the Qur'anic decrees amount to, taken together is discouragement of polygamy unless necessity for it exists. It is also evident that the general rule in Islam is monogamy and not polygamy. It is a very tiny percentage of Muslims that practice it over the world. However, permission to practice limited polygamy is only consistent with Islam's realistic view of the nature of man and woman and of various social needs, problems and cultural variations. The question is, however far more than the inherent flexibility of Islam; it also is the frank and straightforward approach of Islam in dealing with practical problems. Rather than requiring hypocritical
and superficial compliance, Islam delves deeper into the problems of individuals and societies, and provides for legitimate and clean solutions which are far more beneficial than would be the case if they were ignored. There is no doubt that the second wife legally married and treated kindly is better off than a mistress without any legal rights or expermanence.
Muslims are a barbaric, backwards people
Among the reasons for the rapid and peaceful spread of Islam was the simplicity of its doctrine-Islam calls for faith in only one God worthy of worship. It also repeatedly instructs man to use his powers of intelligence and observation. Within a few years, great civilizations and universities were flourishing, for according to the Prophet (pbuh), 'seeking knowledge is an obligation for every Muslim man and woman'.
The synthesis of Eastern and Western ideas and of new thought with old, brought about great advances in medicine, mathematics, physics, astronomy, geography, architecture, art, literature, and history.
Many crucial systems such as algebra, the Arabic numerals, and also the concept of the zero (vital to the advancement of mathematics), were transmitted to medieval Europe from Islam. Sophisticated instruments which were to make possible the European voyages of discovery were developed, including the astrolabe, the quadrant and good navigational maps.
Muhammad was the founder of Islam and Muslims worship him
Muhammad (pbuh) was born in Mecca in the year 570. Since his father died before his birth, and his mother shortly afterwards, he was raised by his uncle from the respected tribe of Quraysh. As he grew up, he became known for his truthfulness, generosity and sincerity, so that he was sought after for his ability to arbitrate in disputes. The historians describe him as calm and meditative. Muhammad (pbuh) was of a deeply religious nature, and had long detested the decadence of his society.
It became his habit to meditate from time to time in the Cave of Hira near Mecca. At the age of 40, while engaged in a meditative retreat, Muhammad (pbuh) received his first revelation from God through the Angel Gabriel. This revelation, which continued for 23 years, is known as the Quran. As soon as he began to recite the words he heard from Gabriel, and to preach the truth which God had revealed to him, he and his small group of followers suffered bitter persecution, which grew so fierce that in the year 622 God gave them the command to emigrate.
This event, the Hijra 'migration', in which they left Mecca for the city of Medina, marks the beginning of the Muslim calendar. After several years, the Prophet and his followers were able to return to Mecca, where they forgave their enemies and established Islam definitively. Before the Prophet saw dies at the age of 63, the greater part of Arabia was Muslim, and within a century of his death Islam had spread to Spain in the West and as far East as China. He died with less than 5 possessions to his name.
While Muhammad (pbuh) was chosen to deliver the message, he is not considered the "founder" of Islam, since Muslims consider Islam to be the same divine guidance sent to all peoples before. Muslims believe
all the prophets from Adam, Noah, Moses, Jesus etc. were all sent with divine guidance for their peoples. Every prophet was sent to his own people, but Muhammad (pbuh) was sent to all of mankind. Muhammad
is the last and final messenger sent to deliver the message of Islam. Muslims revere and honor him (pbuh) for all he went through and his dedication, but they do not worship him. "O Prophet, verily We have sent you as a witness and a bearer of glad tidings and a warner and as one who invites unto God by His leave and as an illuminating lamp." (33:45-6)
Muslims don't believe in Jesus or any other prophets
Muslims respect and revere Jesus, upon him be peace, and await his Second Coming. They consider him one of the greatest of God's messengers to mankind. A Muslim never refers to him simply as 'Jesus', but always adds the phrase 'upon him be peace' (abbreviated as (u) here). The Quran confirms his virgin birth (a chapter of the Quran is entitled 'Mary'), and Mary is considered the purest woman in all creation. The Quran describes the Annunciation as follows: "Behold!" the Angel said, "God has chosen you, and purified you, and chosen you above the women of all nations. O Mary, God gives you good news of a word from Him whose name shall be the Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, honored in this world and the Hereafter, and one of those brought near to God. He shall speak to the people from his cradle and in maturity, and shall be of the righteous." She said: "O my Lord! How shall I have a son when no man has touched me?" He said: "Even so; God creates what He will. When He decrees a thing, He says to it, "Be!" and it is" (Quran 3:42-47)
Jesus (u) was born miraculously through the same power which had brought Adam (u) into being without a father: "Truly, the likeness of Jesus with God is as the likeness of Adam. He created him of dust, and then said to him, 'Be!' and he was." (3:59) during his prophetic mission Jesus (u) performed many miracles. The Quran tells us that he said: " I have come to you with a sign from your Lord: I make for you out of clay, as it were, the figure of a bird, and breathe into it and it becomes a bird by God's leave. And I heal the blind, and the lepers, and I raise the dead by God's leave." (3:49) Neither Muhammad (pbuh) not Jesus (u) came to change the basic doctrine of the brief in One God brought by earlier prophets, but to confirm and renew it.
In the Qur’an Jesus (u) is reported as saying that he came: "To attest the law which was before me. And to make lawful to you part of what was forbidden you; I have come to you with a sign from your Lord, so fear God and obey Me. (3:50) The Prophet Muhammad(pbuh) said: "Whoever believes there is no god but God, alone without partner, that Muhammad(pbuh) is His messenger, that Jesus is the servant and messenger of God, His word breathed into Mary and a spirit emanating from Him, and that Paradise and Hell are true, shall be received by God into Heaven. "(Hadith related by Bukhari) | <urn:uuid:90184600-f94d-4a29-a264-5bb827160aeb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sunniforum.com/forum/showthread.php?2911-Top-Misconceptions-About-Islam | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970399 | 3,890 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Preparing Youth for a Bright Future
ABCD has been helping low-income youth prepare for college and work for over 45 years through its signature SummerWorks program. During the school year, youth can also participate in Career Exploration programs, which introduce younger workers to career fields and job skills that teach the importance of work and contribute to family income and stability.
ABCD neighborhood sites also offer an array of programs for youth populations locally at the neighborhood level from further job training and placement programs, to before and after school programs, workshops, youth boards, and other enrichment programs.
Explore this section to learn more about ABCD's youth programming. | <urn:uuid:eeef4ac0-bbff-4dd0-afe9-85101f1054a3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bostonabcd.org/youth-programs.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962131 | 129 | 2.109375 | 2 |
Closing the gap between art and life online
Thu Feb 9 2006
In the past 24 hours, the odds are good you've sent an e-mail, Googled somebody or downloaded music. Our lives are wired and so, increasingly, is our art. Last week, the Chelsea nonprofit Electronic Arts Intermix hosted "Net Aesthetics 2.0," a panel about the 10-year-old medium of online art, organized by Lauren Cornell, executive director of the new-media art organization Rhizome. TONY invited Cornell to moderate a similar discussion (conducted online) with six panelists: Bay Area artist Marisa Olson; New York artists Cory Arcangel, Michael Bell-Smith and Wolfgang Staehle; British Film Institute curator Michael Connor and Caitlin Jones, a researcher at the Guggenheim Museum.
Lauren Cornell: When artists started working online, the Internet wasn't nearly as assimilated into everyday life as it is now. Popular culture is clearly influenced by e-mail, blogs, eBay and social software like Myspace. Do you use these platforms in your work?
Marisa Olson:In between my jobs, art and personal life, I'm online nearly 24/7. I think my recent work and that of many of my peers puts this consumption on display. I frequently work in blog format. In American Idol Audition Training Blog, I documented my attempt to become a contestant on the TV show. I was simultaneously indulging in and critiquing media culture.
Cory Arcangel:I just did a performance at P.S. 1 where I committed Friendster suicide (when you delete your account). Five years ago it would have been impossible; the concept of a compelling online identity didn't exist. But today everyone in the audience knew what I was doing and got superstressed when I hit the delete button.
Wolfgang Staehle: I follow these developments from the sidelines. What I am aiming for in my work is an escape from all the entertainment and distraction that the media promotes.
LC: With so many people online, memes or individual actions (like the guy who quit his job to go to every Starbucks in the world) stand in for conceptual art or performance. How do you distinguish between what is art and what isn't these days?
Michael Bell-Smith: I think memes and other kinds of "Internet folk art" are some of the most interesting stuff happening online. The challenge, I find, is to take things I find amazing and recast them so others understand what I see in them. There's a curatorial aspect to the approach but, ultimately, I am trying to make something of my own while respecting the original, whether it's art, nonart or something in between.
CA:As a conceptual artist, its tough because chances are that some 14-year-old kid from Brazil has already beat you to your new project.
Michael Connor: British cult writer Stewart Home says that art is bureaucracy, that the line between what is and is not art is often just a decision made by a curator or gallerist. I think a lot of the best art of our time is out there waiting to be labeled as such by forward-thinking art bureaucrats.
LC: Does Internet art need to take place online?
MO: No. What I make is less art "on" the Internet than it is art "after" the Internet. It's the yield of my compulsive surfing and downloading. I create performances, songs, photos, texts, or installations directly derived from materials on the Internet or my activity there.
Caitlin Jones: A lot of the structures and aesthetics of the web are moving offline. A group like Paper Rad has a tremendous website and also takes content from the web to use in their gallery installations.
CA: Internet art can be anything. The Internet is a research tool and a place for new cultures to emerge. Lots of artists are making Internet art, although outwardly their work may have nothing to do with computers.
WS: The Internet is a means in my work. It simply moves data from A to B. I use it the same way I use my Olympus camera and that doesn't make me an Olympus artist.
LC: What are the challenges in exhibiting Internet-related art?
MO: Getting people to take it seriously and to see that it is a diverse practice that produces diverse objects, many of which are not strictly computer-based.
MC: In a gallery context, the primary problem is that it's difficult to recreate the psychological space of the personal computer in a public space. Surfing the web in a public gallery can make you feel like you're a performer; the computer itself can feel like a sculpture. These aren't insurmountable problems, but they make things tricky.
LC: How will current legal battles about copyrights and file-sharing affect artistic practice?
CJ: Nam June Paik wrote an essay circa 1970 about how television stations and corporations were hoarding information and inhibiting visual communication. The similarity between his argument and the current debate about copyright is astounding. Maybe I'm naive but I think creative people will always find a way around uncreative measures and restrictive structures.
For more information visit www.rhizome.org | <urn:uuid:35c77234-c53f-4b9a-a083-17e8b9a2c0d3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.timeout.com/newyork/art/net-results | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955577 | 1,083 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Not getting enough sleep could be the number one thing that’s hurting your GPA.
Simply put, if you study while you’re tired your retention rate will be down. I teach students and professionals my Guinness Record winning memory techniques all over the country and sleep deprivation is one thing I just can’t overcome. If the members of my audience are tired or fatigued, even the best memory techniques just won’t stick.
If you’re studying while you’re tired in addition to the fatigue factor that will be holding you back, you’ll also be ingraining bad habits that your body will remember. That’s right! Your body will remember that you were tired while studying and equate that with the act of studying. It’s called State-based Memory or State-Dependent Learning. In other words, things learned in one environment or under one condition are best recalled in that environment or condition. The reverse of being tired while studying is to be an energetic go-getter when working on assignment. Your brain will remember that energy state and will do it again the next time you study.
And if there could be worse news, there is. If you’re tired, slugging down gallons of coffee to stay awake, are constantly interrupted by distractions, and constantly studying in a state of exhaustion you’re also training your brain to feel exactly that way in the middle of an exam!
You can help counteract your pre-study fatigue by psyching yourself up for study.
Get energetic. Jump up and down. Movements like this help fill the brain with serotonin which helps your memory and cognitive functions. Deficiencies in serotonin can lead to fatigue, disturbances in sleep patterns like insomnia and frequent waking, and difficulty thinking and concentrating. Do some quick jumping jacks before study. This may look very weird in the library but they’ll boost your energy levels and get the serotonin pumping. You’ll be surprised at the difference and you’ll be training the brain for high-energy study.
But the best solution of all is to get a good night’s sleep – consistently!
There have been studies that show that while sleeping, your brain processes its memories and decides what to keep and what to trash. If you’re not sleeping well on a consistent basis your memory, your studying, your performance during exams, and your grades are all going to suffer.
While you’re in college it’s time to form the habit of taking study seriously and to learn a study skill or study technique. Successful studying should not be based on effort. Because study is a skill effort is not enough. You have to use strategies and methods to maximize your ability and your results. Whether you use my techniques or someone else’s, you’ve got to stop winging it, stressing and cramming. Good intentions just aren’t good enough to compete in this global enviroment.
Dave Farrow is today's most requested Guest Expert on Memory, two time Guinness World Record Holder for Greatest Memory, an outspoken literacy and education spokesperson and busy speaker and trainer. Because Dave has ADHD and dyslexia he studied memory techniques and developed powerful techniques of his own out of necessity. He used those techniques to become a successful student, businessman and speaker. He's been recognized for his memory programs, speed reading programs, programs for children with learning disabilities, memory competitions and more. Dave is available to speak and deliver ADVANCED MEMORY TRAINING and STUDY SKILLS on college campuses worldwide. | <urn:uuid:a290a54e-c8ef-4490-b631-69ae23928f6c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.campustalkblog.com/if-youre-tired-so-are-your-grades/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944453 | 740 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Entries in Malcolm X (2)
As Salaam Alaikum!As Salaam Alaikum!For the first time ever, I am offering a copy of my book, Chronology of Nation of Islam history, online…for FREE. It has been more than 10 years since this book was releases (1997) and I still get inquiries from people asking me about this book. It’s truly humbling.
For those who’d like a copy of it simply click the link or image below:
For those reading it for the first time, I hope you enjoy it. For those who have enjoyed it already, I encourage you to share this electronic copy.
Your feedback is welcome. If you have any comments, corrections, additions, etc. please feel free to contact Toure Muhammad at http://www.nationofislamhistory.wordpress.com.
Actually, I BEG YOU to send helpful information, including anecdotes, oral history, or documents. We are working on the second edition which will include history from 1930 to 2010. | <urn:uuid:9dc47b8b-60b7-450b-90ef-422a4e56ad7d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://beansouptimes.com/home/tag/malcolm-x | 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 | 0.926686 | 220 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Two Over One - Introduction
In the so-called ďTwo Over OneĒ (aka 2/1) style of bidding, an auction such as 1♥ 2♦ is game-forcing. Opener starts with one of a major, and Responder bids a new suit at the two-level, and the force is on. But not if the new suit at the two-level is a jump Ö an auction such as 1♥ 2♠ is a jump shift, and not the start of a 2/1 auction.
As Responder, in this style, you basically need opening values to venture into a 2/1 auction. What are you supposed to do if you have a good but less than game-forcing hand? If you have support for Partnerís major, then the problem is solved. But, with less than game-going values, and without support, you must bid the Forcing No Trump. Thus, in an auction which starts 1♥ 1NT, or 1♠ 1NT, Responder might actually have a pretty decent hand, just one which is not good enough to force to game.
Based on the above scant information, it might seem premature to present you with a Quiz, but sometimes getting thrown into the deep end is a good way to see if you can swim. Partner opens 1♥, itís your call:
♠ 65 Not quite a game force, so bid the Forcing 1NT.
♠ KQ65 No, you donít bid the Forcing No Trump if it means
♥ 87 by-passing a 4-card major. So, bid 1♠ here.
♠ KQ65 Here we have the values to make a 2/1 bid, and that is
♥ 87 exactly what you should do. Bid 2♦, create the force,
♦ AKJ54 and get those Spades into the auction later.
♠ 65 Forget about the Forcing No Trump here, you must clearly
♥ AK87 raise Partnerís Hearts, one way or another, depending upon
♦ QJT84 your methods.
♠ 5 It may seem strange to bid 1NT with a singleton in an
♥ 87 unbid suit, but that is exactly what you should do.
♦ KJ654 Remember that the Forcing No Trump does not show a
♣ AQ743 balanced or No Trumpish hand Ö it merely says that you
have no other bid available.
♠ 876 When we make a 2/1 bid we normally show a 5-card
♥ 76 suit, but sometimes we just have to stretch the truth a bit.
♦ AQ84 So, bid 2♣ here, creating the force. Bidding some number
♣ AKJ2 of
No Trump here, with that Spade holding, is not a good
For the time being, at least, letís keep things simple. Just make all bids natural and descriptive. So, after a start of 1♠ 2♣, try the following hands:
♠ AQJ654 Bid 2♠, showing a 6th Spade.
♠ AQ9654 Yes, get that 4-card Heart suit into the auction, you can
♥ KJ65 always show your extra Spade on the next round of
♦ Q6 bidding.
♠ AJ964 Should you raise Partner or bid 2♥? We would bid 2♥,
♥ AJ95 hoping that weíll get the chance to bid 3♣ later. As
♦ 8 usual, in the search for the best game, we emphasize the
♣ K75 majors.
♠ AJ964 Yes, this looks like a 2NT rebid to us!
♠ AJ964 Some players (us included) would have opened this 1NT
♥ KJ7 originally, but if you donít like to open 1NT with a 5-card
♦ KJ7 major then, after 1♠ 2♣, you have a perfect rebid of 3NT.
For examples of Two Over One from actual play, please follow this link to the Archives
© BES, Inc
All Rights Reserved
|Home PlayArchives BiddingArchives Conventions| | <urn:uuid:077b4af3-79dd-422f-8996-42df811544ed> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wednesdaygame.com/ba/1ofsuit/twooverone1.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.901646 | 881 | 2.671875 | 3 |
“The Bible speaks of this need to ‘wise up’,” Wisbey said. “In fact, it seems to me that from the very beginning of Genesis to the final chapter of Revelation, the Bible is the story of men and women, very much like us, who are searching for God and for purpose. Of men and women …whose hearts grow cold far too fast, who step away from God’s plan and God’s love far too quickly. Of men and women who desperately need to wise up.”
“At the beginning of a new academic year, God has a word for each of us. It is a promise from the book of James—‘If any one of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given to you,’” Wisbey said.
He continued, “throughout time, the relationship between a teacher and a student has been focused on attaining wisdom and understanding.” Wisbey told students their professors, who have dedicated their lives to helping them reach their goals, will prod, guide and “ask questions that will make you think.”
“At times we will see the world very differently, yet as we address issues together, we will find that we all will grow in our understanding of what it means to be wise—and who it is that truly and fully exhibits the fruits of wisdom,” Wisbey said.
Finally, true wisdom emanates from God and is “first pure, then peaceable, gentle, accommodating, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and not hypocritical,” he said. “Wisdom would make our face shine and the hardness of our countenance would be changed.” | <urn:uuid:3c1313d0-48cc-4e45-a790-32d6d3c2050f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lasierra.edu/library/library/lurp/index.php?id=7965 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976435 | 375 | 2.671875 | 3 |
HPV Vaccine for Boys?
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is considering recommending that young boys be vaccinated against human papillomavirus (HPV) as well as young girls. There are currently 2 HPV vaccines approved by the FDA: Cervarix (GlaxoSmithKline) and Gardasil (Merck). Only Gardasil is licensed for use in males.
The Gardasil vaccine, approved for girls in 2006, prevents against 4 types of HPV. Two of the HPV types targeted by the vaccine cause approximately 70% of cervical cancers. A study in March 2011 showed that approximately half of the US male population could be infected with HPV. Until recently, it was the CDC’s position that the best way to eradicate HPV was to vaccinate as many women and girls as possible.
Men are more likely to pass HPV on to sexual partners, however, because they usually show no symptoms and the virus goes undetected, according to the CDC. Gardasil not only protects the spreading of the virus from men to women, but also protects men against 90% of genital warts cases and most anal cancers.
Although the HPV vaccine is not yet on the CDC’s vaccination schedule for boys, parents can still choose to have their sons vaccinated. Young men and girls who are not yet sexually active will benefit most from the vaccine.
Prostate Biopsies Lead to Hospitalization
A study by John Hopkins researchers shows that men were more than twice as more likely to be hospitalized within 30 days of having a prostate biopsy as men who did not receive one. The study, which will be published in the November 2011 issue of The Journal of Urology, was posted online ahead of print.
The study was the largest analysis to date of the Medicare records of American men 65 years and older who had prostate biopsies in the past 20 years. The data showed that prostate cancer biopsies were associated with a 6.9% rate of hospitalization, compared with a 2.9% hospitalization rate in the control group.
The patients who became hospitalized after their biopsies had complications including bleeding and infection, as well as heart failure and breathing issues. Death rates in men undergoing the procedure did not increase; however, men who underwent biopsies and were hospitalized with related infections had a 12-fold higher risk of death than men who did not have a biopsy.
Edward Schaeffer, MD, PhD, the study’s senior investigator and a Johns Hopkins urologist and oncologist, said, “Prostate biopsy is an essential procedure for detecting prostate cancers. Coupled with appropriate screening, prostate biopsies save lives.” The authors of the study note, however, that the procedure is not without risks, which health care providers and patients must weigh when considering a biopsy.
Fathers Have Lower Testosterone Levels
Testosterone levels drop dramatically in men after fatherhood, according to a new longitudinal study. The crosssectional design of previous studies made scientists unsure if fatherhood was the cause of declining testosterone levels or if men with lower levels of the hormone were more likely to settle down.
The researchers measured the testosterone levels of more than 600 men in the Philippines who were 21 years old and single at study onset. Testosterone levels were measured again 4.5 years later. At follow-up, 162 men had gotten married and had children, whereas 257 stayed single and childless.
The testosterone measurements showed that the men at the start of the study with the highest levels were more likely to settle down and become fathers. Although testosterone levels decline naturally with age, the new fathers’ levels were reduced by 26% in the morning and 34% at night. The childless men only saw a decline of 12% in the morning and 14% at night.
The study, which was published online ahead of print in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, also found that men who dedicated 3 or more hours to caring for their children had lower levels of testosterone compared with fathers who were not as active in raising their children.
Raising children involves being calm and caring, qualities that are not often linked with high levels of testosterone. The results suggest that men are wired hormonally in a way that helps them commit to their families after the birth of a child. | <urn:uuid:96a83c62-a21f-453a-af98-794888cd6233> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pharmacytimes.com/print.php?url=/publications/issue/2011/October2011/Mens-Health-Watch | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980417 | 890 | 2.8125 | 3 |
FDA OKs Drug for Advanced Lung Cancer
Avastin Already Approved for Treating Colorectal Cancer
Oct. 12, 2006 -- The FDA has approved the colon cancer drug Avastin for use
with chemotherapy in treating advanced lung cancer.
Avastin may now be used with the chemo drugs carboplatin and paclitaxel as
an initial treatment for advanced cases of non-squamous, non-small cell lung
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death for U.S. men and women.
Non-small cell lung cancer is the most common type of lung cancer. It
accounts for three out of four of the 174,400 new cases of lung cancer that are
expected to be diagnosed this year, according to the FDA.
"[The] FDA believes it is crucial for cancer patients to have many
treatment options available to them in their battle against this disease,"
says the FDA's Richard Pazdur, MD, in the FDA news release.
"With the approval of Avastin, patients with this type of lung cancer
will not only have access to another treatment option, but one that has been
shown in clinical trials to increase survival time," Pazdur says.
Avastin Starves Tumors
Avastin, which is given intravenously, is not a new drug.
The FDA first approved it in February 2004 for use in combination with
chemotherapy to treat metastatic colorectal cancer (cancer that has spread beyond
the colon or rectum).
Avastin is believed to target a growth factor called VEGF (vascular
endothelial growth factor). By blocking the action of VEGF, Avastin hampers the
growth of new blood vessels that bring blood to tumors.
Basically, the strategy is to deprive tumors of their blood supply, thereby
starving them. Such drugs are called angiogenesis inhibitors.
Avastin is made by Genentech.
Avastin plus chemotherapy "is the first therapy in 10 years to improve
on standard first-line treatment for advanced lung cancer and the first FDA
approved therapy ever to extend survival for these patients beyond one year in
a large, randomized clinical study," Alan Sandler, MD, says in Genentech's
Sandler headed the study upon which the FDA based Avastin's new approval. He
is the director of medical thoracic oncology at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center
in Nashville, Tenn.
The American Cancer Society (ACS) also weighed in on Avastin's new
"The approval of Avastin represents an important new option for patients
with the most common type of lung cancer," says Len Licthenfeld, MD, in an
Licthenfeld is the ACS' deputy chief medical officer.
"For decades, we've known that standard chemotherapy can improve
survival for lung cancer patients, but we have not made improvements in
survival beyond the gains made using that approach," Licthenfeld notes.
"That makes even the modest improvement in survival provided by Avastin
important," he says.
Avastin's new approval is based on a study that showed a 25% improvement in
overall survival in patients taking Avastin with chemotherapy, compared with
chemotherapy alone, says Genentech.
That study included 878 patients with advanced non-squamous, non-small cell
The patients had not received chemotherapy before the study. They were
randomly assigned to get chemotherapy or chemotherapy plus Avastin.
Fifty-one percent of those receiving Avastin plus chemotherapy survived for
at least one year, compared with 44% of those who got chemotherapy without
Avastin, according to Genentech.
On average, patients who received Avastin plus chemotherapy lived one year,
compared with 10 months for patients treated with chemotherapy alone.
The FDA says the most serious adverse events associated with Avastin,
including some deaths, were gastrointestinal perforations (holes in the stomach
or intestines), wound healing complications, bleeding (hemorrhage), blockage of
the arteries, abnormally high
blood pressure, low blood levels of a protein called albumin, and congestive heart
The most common adverse events in patients receiving Avastin included
weakness, abdominal pain, headache, diarrhea, nausea, and vomiting, says the FDA. | <urn:uuid:b8954963-4fe9-4383-9f5b-f8522a74c1b3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.webmd.com/lung-cancer/news/20061012/fda-oks-drug-advanced-lung-cancer | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927811 | 931 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Progress Energy Florida announced a program that will continue to expand the company’s use of renewable energy sources. The SolarWise for Schools program advances the use of renewable energy through the installation of solar energy systems at schools throughout the utility’s service territory. It also supports solar-energy education initiatives for students.
Progress Energy already has partnered with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the Florida Solar Energy Center to install photovoltaic (PV) systems at 11 schools throughout the company’s service area as part of the SunSmart Schools program. The new SolarWise for Schools program will significantly accelerate the rate at which new PV systems can be installed at schools, to expand the use of renewable energy in Florida.
Progress Energy customers can take part in SolarWise for Schools if they are enrolled in EnergyWise, the company’s energy management program. EnergyWise enables Progress Energy to temporarily cycle off power to select electrical equipment—such as central heating and air units, water heaters and pool pumps—during periods of peak demand. In exchange, customers receive monthly credits on their electric bill that can total more than $145 annually. Customers have the option to keep these credits or automatically contribute these monthly savings toward SolarWise for Schools. Currently, there are 350,000 customers enrolled in EnergyWise.
“SolarWise for Schools is a great way for our customers to help educate young minds about the potential of renewable energy sources like solar and, at the same time, manage energy wisely,” said Jeff Lyash, president and chief executive officer of Progress Energy Florida. “Through this program, we hope to install a photovoltaic system at every school in our service territory.”
Participation in both programs is free for Progress Energy customers. EC | <urn:uuid:ca2f5ef6-1982-4856-be33-b50d0b4d3b32> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ecmag.com/section/your-business/progress-energy-expands-solar-energy?qt-issues_block=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935575 | 368 | 2.109375 | 2 |
10 December 2009
The role of religion in preserving the environment
The gathering of thousands of individuals representing the myriad religions of the world for the Parliament of World Religions in Melbourne this year is a testament to the power that religion has to bring people together, to unite them in a search for truth, and to inspire them to work towards the betterment of this world.
This year the Parliament is focusing on issues of the environment through some of its subthemes, and I would like to add my voice to what I consider to be one of the most important conversations that we can have today.
Islam has a rich spiritual tradition of personal development, but it is also a religion that places a great amount of emphasis on what we do in the world and how we treat those who surround us, whether they be other human beings, members of the plant or animal kingdoms, or more ephemeral beings such as the angels.
Our mindfulness of God must not be reserved for times of prayer and spiritual devotion alone, it must colour all of our actions. This mindfulness of God can manifest itself in many ways, such as feeding the poor and hungry, struggling against injustices, and working to establish peace.
In our day we are struggling with a number of issues related to the environment such as climate change, the pollution of the air, oceans, seas, and waterways, and the challenges of feeding a growing global population.
While many of these issues are relatively new so that our forebears did not address them explicitly, our religious traditions do offer us worldviews and principles that aid us in finding solutions to our contemporary problems.
For example, the Qur an states "Do not sow corruption in the earth after it has been set in order: this is better for you, if you are believers" [7:85]; and the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said, "Those who plant a tree and patiently tend to it until it bears fruit will have the reward of giving charity for everything that it produces."
Similar principles can be found in all religions. I mention here one of the basic guiding principles that forms an Islamic vision of humanity s relationship with the environment, which is our role as God's deputies on earth.
Islam considers human beings to be vice gerents or deputies of God on earth. Our mission as God's deputies means that we are charged with the responsibility to care for and maintain the world.
On the other hand, the fact that God has placed the world at our disposal means that we may benefit from what it has to offer us. In both cases, we must collaborate with our brothers and sisters in humanity.
Believers consider themselves to be servants of God, created by Him like the rest of creation, whether they be animals, plants, or inanimate objects. God has entrusted humanity with the world, but they are not meant to appropriate it for their own purposes to the exclusion of others, or to abuse their control over it, because it is a shared right that God has established for all living beings and we do not have the authority to deprive even animals of their rights.
Human beings are responsible for this trust that they carry; they have an obligation to do their utmost and to carry out their work with excellence in order to properly fulfil their mission, and they will be held accountable if they cause corruption or harm.
One of the key characteristics of humankind s role as deputies in the world is balance. We must find a balance between benefiting from the blessings that the world has to offer us, and preserving the order that God has established.
We must find a balance between securing our own needs while not depriving others of theirs, whether those others reside in different parts of the world, such as less powerful nations, or in different times, such as our children and grandchildren.
The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said: All of creation are God's dependents, and the most beloved of God's servants to Him are those that are the most beneficial to His dependents.
If we take seriously our role as God s deputies on earth, not just by benefiting from the environment, but by preserving it and ensuring that other communities and generations will have the same possibilities to drink clean water, breath fresh air, and live in a world that is in harmony with itself and with ourselves, we may hope to be among those who are beloved to God due to their care for His creation.
It is my prayer that we may be united in combating the environmental crises with which we are now faced, and that we may look to our rich religious traditions for inspiration, support, and resolve. | <urn:uuid:9d960c03-daa5-4793-93a7-c27293d99701> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/27648.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96424 | 939 | 2.640625 | 3 |
The number eleven is a prime number in numerology, including Abjad numerology, which is the basis of much popular belief in the Moslem world. Officially, numerology is not part of Islam. Given the recurrence of the number eleven in events surrounding the Attack on America, it seems possible that the terrorists were believers, and made an effort to 'empower' their attack by connecting it to as many '11s' as possible. Eleven is, among many other things, the number of faith, creativity and revelation.
Date of the attack: 9/11 = 9 + 1 + 1 = 11.
September 11th is the 254th day of the year: 2+ 5 + 4 =11.
After September 11th there are 111 days left to the endof the year.
Twin Towers - standing side by side, look like thenumber 11.
The first plane to hit the towers was Flight 11.
State of New York - The 11th State added to the Union.
New York City - 11 Letters.
The Pentagon - 11 Letters.
Afghanistan - 11 Letters.
Ramzi Yousef - 11 Letters (convicted of orchestratingthe attack on the WTCin 1993).
Flight 11 - 92 on board - 9 + 2 = 11.
Flight 77 - 65 on board - 6 + 5 = 11
These strange coincidences were first mentioned on the X-Zone Radio Show.
In Numerology, the number 11 is associated with a higher spiritual plane. Many people involved in spiritual search feel that this terrible tragedy is challenging us all to reach toward a higher level.
NOTE: This news story, previously published on our old site, will have any links removed. | <urn:uuid:bfd5cd4a-6505-4c5e-bb97-4e922f04b488> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.unknowncountry.com/news/mystery-eleven-and-attack-america | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94553 | 355 | 2.234375 | 2 |
So, you're trying to figure out the spell level and version of a creature's spell-like ability. Here is the information you may have been seeking!
Determining a Spell Level for a Spell-Like Ability
It's often necessary to determine what level spell a spell-like ability duplicates. For example, you'll need to know the spell level whenever someone uses a detect magic spell to study a spell-like ability's ongoing effects. Also, as noted earlier, you'll often need to know the ability's level to determine the DC for any Concentration check the user might have to make when employing the ability.
The spell level also affects the saving throw DC for the spell-like ability, but that information usually is included in the user's creature description.
Exactly what level spell a spell-like ability duplicates often proves unclear, because most spells become available to casters of different classes at different levels. To determine the spell level for a spell-like ability, always use the level for the sorcerer/wizard version of the spell. If the spell has no sorcerer/wizard level, use cleric, druid, bard, paladin, or ranger level, in that order. Sometimes a creature's description will specify a kind of caster for the creature's spell-like abilities. If this is so, use the appropriate level for the spell-like ability.
You also can calculate a spell-like ability's level from the saving throw listed for it. Simply subtract 10 + the user's Charisma modifier from the listed DC and the result is the ability's spell level.
As noted earlier, some spell-like abilities don't duplicate spells. For example, a paladin's ability to call a special mount is a spell-like ability gained at 5th level. This ability is very similar to the 1st-level mount spell and can be treated as a 1st-level effect.
Determining the Version of a Spell
Some spells work differently for different kinds of casters. In such cases, use the sorcerer/wizard version of the spell. If the spell has no sorcerer/wizard version, use cleric, druid, bard, paladin, or ranger level, in that order. Sometimes a creature's description will specify a kind of caster for the creature's spell-like abilities. If this is so, use the version for the spell-like ability.
Coming in Part Four of All About Spell-Like Abilities
Skip discusses how you use a spell-like ability, conditions that can affect using a spell-like ability, and the frequency with which a creature can use a spell-like ability.
About the Author
Skip Williams keeps busy with freelance projects for several different game companies and has been the Sage of Dragon Magazine since 1986. Skip is a co-designer of the D&D 3rd Edition game and the chief architect of the Monster Manual. When not devising swift and cruel deaths for player characters, Skip putters in his kitchen or garden (his borscht gets rave reviews). | <urn:uuid:f9674b9d-7f69-45da-8c42-e38d0e2508a2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/rg/20040427a | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.914018 | 625 | 2.28125 | 2 |
Work Starts on State-Of-The-Art Storage and Retrieval System for British Library
02 May 2008
FKI Logistex® begins installation of a new, high-density, automated handling system with an unprecedented 70-year life expectancy
FKI Logistex – a leading global supplier of automated handling systems have started the installation of a high-density automated handling system designed to help the British Library to reduce their storage footprint and increase productivity.
The British Library receives a free copy of every book and journal published in the UK. The British Library is currently building a new, specialist, low-oxygen storage unit at Boston Spa, West Yorkshire to house the growing national collection.
Making best use of the available space and maintaining a suitable environment for the collection, are key priorities in the new building. The automated handling system, designed by FKI Logistex, allows for the highest possible density in order to reduce the storage footprint and associated costs. The system combines 262 linear kilometres of fully-automated storage with seven mini-cranes, six staff workstations and 140,000 custom containers.
Jerry Woodhouse, Managing Director, FKI Logistex Europe, explained, "Every inch of space is used to its maximum capacity. To this end, the containers were custom-engineered to within 5% tolerance of the handling equipment, and also had to be constructed from special material to eliminate the chemicals associated with conventional plastics, which would be harmful to the collection. It was therefore vital to ensure that the critical engineering tolerances were maintained throughout the installation, whilst never compromising on the importance of caring for the collection of materials being stored within the building. This delicate balance required expert engineering management within the overall management of the project, which was led by Owen Morgan, Senior Project Manager, FKI Logistex."
As the British Library is tasked with storing the collection in perpetuity, the specification was a complex one, which FKI Logistex more than met. Hence, the new storage unit will provide sufficient capacity for expansion over the next ten years utilising the current warehouse footprint. Along with this, FKI Logistex are supplying equipment with an unprecedented 70-year life expectancy so that it will not be necessary to replace the system in its entirety within that period.
Explaining why FKI Logistex was awarded the contract, The British Library's Head of Development Projects Julian Taylor commented, "It was essential that the company chosen to design, install and maintain the automated materials handling system should not only demonstrate that their solution was the most cost-effective, but also have the stability to provide a long-term partnership, to ensure the continued integrity of the collection. FKI Logistex was recommended to us by our project consultants as the leading provider of automated material storage systems, with the ability to design, and maintain, a system which was capable of meeting the unique challenges of the project."
The installation of the automated system is scheduled for completion in 52 weeks and will not only enable the library to reduce its carbon mile per warehouse, but also to increase productivity in order to minimise cost to the British tax-payer.
In meeting the combined challenges of reducing the warehouse footprint and safeguarding the UK's national collection of books and journals, the new storage unit and automated handling system represent a ground-breaking approach which is expected to generate high levels of interest from national libraries around the world.
Part of FKI plc, FKI Logistex is a leading global provider of automated material handling solutions, supplying customers with an integrated set of leading-edge technologies in high-speed sortation, conveyor systems, robotic and conventional palletising, paperless pick products, AS/RS, controls, order fulfillment systems, RFID implementation, EDS integration, baggage handling systems, warehouse control systems, and total material handling automation.
The company provides material handling solutions for airports, postal facilities, parcel distribution, manufacturing operations, library automation and for warehouse and distribution facilities. With projects that include many of the world's largest and most advanced material handling operations, FKI Logistex has manufacturing, engineering and support facilities around the world.
Tel: +44 (0) 1536 480611 | <urn:uuid:cba226ab-34c4-4514-a5dd-ebbb3d99d747> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mhwmagazine.co.uk/NewsArchive/2008/May/Work_Starts_on_State-Of-The-Art_Storage_and_Retrieval_System_for_British_Library-2504.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937815 | 860 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Hubble Zooms In on Heart of Mystery Comet
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has probed the bright core of Comet 17P/Holmes, which, to the delight of sky watchers, mysteriously brightened by nearly a millionfold in a 24-hour period beginning Oct. 23, 2007.
Astronomers used Hubble's powerful resolution to study Comet Holmes' core for clues about how the comet brightened. The orbiting observatory's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) monitored the comet for several days, snapping images on Oct. 29, Oct. 31, and Nov. 4. Hubble's crisp "eye" can see objects as small as 33 miles (54 kilometers) across, providing the sharpest view yet of the source of the spectacular brightening.
The Hubble image at right, taken Nov. 4, shows the heart of the comet. The central portion of the image has been specially processed to highlight variations in the dust distribution near the nucleus. About twice as much dust lies along the east-west direction (the horizontal direction) as along the north-south direction (the vertical direction), giving the comet a "bow tie" appearance.
The composite color image at left, taken Nov. 1 by an amateur astronomer, shows the complex structure of the entire coma, consisting of concentric shells of dust and a faint tail emanating from the comet's right side.
The nucleus-the small solid body that is the ultimate source of all the comet's activity- is still swaddled in bright dust, even 12 days after the spectacular outburst. "Most of what Hubble sees is sunlight scattered from microscopic particles," explained Hal Weaver of The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., who led the Hubble investigation. "But we may finally be starting to detect the emergence of the nucleus itself in this final Hubble image."
Hubble first observed Comet 17P/Holmes on June 15, 1999, when there was virtually no dusty shroud around the nucleus. Although Hubble cannot resolve the nucleus, astronomers inferred its size by measuring its brightness. Astronomers deduced that the nucleus' diameter was approximately 2.1 miles (3.4 kilometers), about the length of New York City's Central Park. They hope to use the new Hubble images to determine the size of the comet's nucleus to see how much of it was blasted away during the outburst.
Hubble's two earlier snapshots of Comet Holmes also showed some interesting features. On Oct. 29, the telescope spied three "spurs" of dust emanating from the nucleus, while the Hubble images taken on Oct. 31 revealed an outburst of dust just west of the nucleus.
The Hubble images, however, do not show any large fragments near the nucleus of Comet Holmes, unlike the case of Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 (SW3). In the spring of 2006 Hubble observations revealed a multitude of "mini-comets" ejected by SW3 after the comet increased dramatically in brightness.
Ground-based images of Comet Holmes show a large, spherically symmetrical cloud of dust that is offset from the nucleus, suggesting that a large fragment broke off and subsequently disintegrated into tiny dust particles after moving away from the main nucleus.
Unfortunately, the huge amount of dust near the comet's nucleus and the comet's relatively large distance from Earth (149 million miles, or 1.6 astronomical units, for Holmes versus 9 million, or 0.1 astronomical unit for SW3), make detecting fragments near Holmes nearly impossible right now, unless the fragments are nearly as large as the nucleus itself.
The Hubble Comet Holmes observing team comprises H. Weaver and C. Lisse (The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory); P. Lamy (Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille, France); I. Toth (Konkoly Observatory, Hungary); M. Mutchler (Space Telescope Science Institute); W. Reach (California Institute of Technology); and J. Vaubaillon (California Institute of Technology). | <urn:uuid:7e5fb23f-b61b-4b4f-8200-f7e33840f81c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.redorbit.com/images/pic/17273/hubble-zooms-in-on-heart-of-mystery-comet/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917563 | 820 | 3.296875 | 3 |
At first glance, this looks like a very cool and sustainable project. Conceived by Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill, Park Gate is a mixed-use development that showcases six curving towers with solar-powered canopies and a host of other green features. But in a city that has no freshwater supply and is already overburdened with vacant towers, does Dubai really need to develop yet another 4.7 million square feet? We think not.
Normally we love shipping container conversions. Done right, they can be transformed into beautiful VIP lounges, eco-hotels, and temporary housing. But if slapped together in a hot desert environment, they aren’t fit for human habitation. Already the government has to impose laws on contractors to stop working their employees when temperatures become unbearable, so it is unlikely they can be trusted to provide adequate housing. Despite a small air-conditioning unit on the side of each of them, these containers house up to 8 people each – a suffocating environment when the temperatures outside are pushing 120 degrees Fahreinheit and more. Dubai does everything in extremes. These shipping containers are just one more example of that.
We saved the best (or worst) for last! In case you had any doubt that Dubai often inspires maniacal ideas with no basis in reality, then perhaps you never heard of the Blue Crystal? A so-called “sustainable iceberg lodge,” it features giant ice sculptures that have to be kept frozen in higher than usual desert temperatures, along with an underwater lounge and ballroom. Frank and Sven Sauer, the designers, tried to convince the world that Blue Crystal would harness natural energy sources in order to maintain itself, and that it would recycle its energy, but we’re not buying it. | <urn:uuid:21a17d35-5e99-4894-831b-99df0b8f83a0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://inhabitat.com/6-most-dubious-green-projects-from-dubai/2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955765 | 362 | 2.09375 | 2 |
The fact the federal funding emphasis under the Affordable Care Act shifts from hospitals to prevention and primary care physicians doesn't mean hospitals won't continue to be a vital part of the health care system.
Reading Hospital contributed $182.8 million in health services to the Berks County community in 2011. Part of that contribution was $146 million in unreimbursed Medicare and Medicaid costs, $16 million in unpaid bills and $6 million in uncompensated charity care.
But to hear Michael Strazzella tell it, the ACA and the possible fiscal cliff deadline on Jan. 1 are going to bankrupt hospitals in the state.
Strazzella, senior vice president of the Hospital Association of Pennsylvania, said in a recent telephone conference that facilities like Reading Hospital and St. Joseph Medical Center already are running on the thinnest of margins.
Potential cuts in federal funds and reimbursements to hospitals could cause mass retirements by older physicians and moves out of state by younger doctors and the loss of 37,000 other health care jobs statewide, according to Strazzella.
"It is a constant struggle for hospitals to meet the financial demands at the same time as meeting patient care and needs of the community," Strazzella said. "Any reductions from the federal government could jeopardize those hospitals."
With all that said, Strazzella said HAP endorsed and continues to support the Affordable Care Act.
"We did support the act," Strazzella said. "We thought there was a shared sacrifice needed to ensure that 33 million Americans were insured."
Distributed by MCT Information Services
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The arrival of the first permanent Ottoman Turkish ambassador to the kingdom of Prussia in 1791 is remembered by two exotic silver commemorative medals struck by Daniel Friedrich Loos in his private medallic mint in Berlin.
European ambassadors and envoys were generally wealthy and well-educated noblemen who went about in great state, accompanied by retinues whose magnificence reflected the glory of the sovereign they represented.
Since the 1400s, war between the European powers and “the Sublime Porte,” as the Turkish sultan was known, was more or less continuous. After a series of significant defeats by Russia and Austria in the fighting of 1787 to 1792, Ottoman Sultan Selim III (1789 to 1807) set about modernizing his ramshackle realm and securing relations with European powers.
Internally, the empire was descending into chaos as the powerful Albanian vassal Ali Pasha of Janina set up his own court and diplomatic service after 1788. Up to this point, the Ottomans spurned normal diplomatic contact, permitting European ambassadors in Constantinople, but freely harassing and insulting them at will. This was now to change as Ottoman envoys arrived in the chaos of revolutionary France and the austere militaristic kingdom of Prussia.
The ambassador to Paris had the more scintillating role. In great demand at public and private functions, he handled such challenges as the entrancing women’s fashions of the day with aplomb. Introduced to one of the belles of fashion in her gauzy see-through bodice he exclaimed in exotically accented French, “Public beauty!”
Staid Berlin offered no such challenges, and if Ambassador Asmi Achmet Effendi is recalled at all today, it is for his two silver medals.
Struck in 29.2 and 31.5 millimeter diameters, both bear a very similar bust facing left in turban-wrapped tarbush, ermine collar and court tunic within the legend ASMI ACHMET EFFENDI. Neither known medal bears an artist’s signature.
The medal illustrated is 29.2 millimeters in diameter. The reverse bears an eight-line German inscription, ZUM / ANDENCKEN/ BEY SEINER / ANWESENHEIT / ALS GESANDTER / ZU BERLIN / IM FEBRUAR / 1791, “In Remembrance of his Presence as Envoy to Berlin 1791.”
The other known medal is inscribed “Monument (Remembrance) of the Turkish Ambassador to Berlin in February 1791.” Neither medal is a great rarity.
After suffering defeats in Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt and facing mounting opposition to his attempts at modernization, Selim III was overthrown in 1807 by Janissary troops and his empire continued its slide into oblivion.
David T. Alexander is a Senior Numismatist and researcher for Heritage Auctions, at email@example.com. He is author of American Art Medals, 1909-1995. | <urn:uuid:18544650-794b-40ff-a637-cff64ec3efd1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.coinworld.com/articles/printarticle/diplomatic-visit | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95469 | 639 | 2.609375 | 3 |
E-Prime as a Revision Strategy
by Daniel Zimmerman, Middlesex County College
A simple, systematic editing technique offers access to dynamics of language ordinarily subliminal.
Seven years ago, I learned about E-Prime -- a dialect of English using no forms of the verb to be -- as a technique to clarify thinking. Looking through drafts and final copies of my own prose --papers, news articles, reports, speeches, video scripts -- I found, in every case, many fewer be forms in successive drafts, though I had not especially tried to reduce their incidence. Of course, teachers and handbooks have long -- and ineffectually -- suggested that writers seek stronger alternatives to this overused verb, but E-Prime advocates like E. W. Kellogg III insist on its extirpation. In a National Public Radio interview with All Things Considered's Robert Siegle, he mentioned a book on the subject, To Be or Not; I eventually located a copy in the Omaha Public Library. Meanwhile, I decided to try E-Prime in my Individualized English classes.
While grading papers, I circled each form of to be, provided students with a list of all the forms, and asked them to eliminate them in their revisions. The first student arrived -- haggard, complaining about the difficulty of the assignment, but proud that she had finally expunged the verb from her paper. As I read through the paper with her, her eyes widened in disbelief, her face grew pale, her breath came in gasps and groans: fourteen forms of to be appeared on the first page alone. After ruling out narcolepsy, we began to appreciate and examine I. A. Richards' caveat that "[o]f all the snares in language, those set for us by be are (sic) without doubt the sliest" (162). Still, be forms continued to appear in most students' second and even third revisions, much to their chagrin.
Much to my chagrin, I quickly discovered, first, that many attempts to translate Standard English to E-Prime revealed appalling failures to grasp English sentence structure; second, that the instrument we used to test for sentence structure often failed to identify some important weaknesses in fluency and, third, that such weaknesses function at an unconscious level, reinforced by reliance on be-form patternings.
It seems axiomatic that a reader who cannot paraphrase a text cannot demonstrate an understanding of it; most students acknowledge that principle for assigned readings, but balk at applying it to their own writing. Using E-Prime, I require students to paraphrase about half their sentences -- admittedly, in a special way, but using as stylistic models the best of the rest of their sentences, already written in 'native' E-Prime. The more gracefully and effectively they learn to do this, the more they begin to sound like themselves as writers, rather than like all the other writers around them sound about half the time. However, the first stage of mastering E-Prime usually bristles with infelicities, and so provides a handy diagnostic tool to determine each student's specific suite of weaknesses. Barbarisms of diverse etiology characterize this stage; for example:
- Both ESL and native speakers sometimes resort to creolization when translating into E-Prime,
"[d]oing without be as both copula and auxiliary:
She a fine scholar." (Todd & Hancock 498)
We going to Miami for spring break.
- They may fail to recognize the transitivity or intransitivity of a 'replacement' verb: not
John is tall.
John exists tall; not
The laws are upheld due only to fear.
The laws uphold due only to fear.
- Sometimes they switch degrees of ostensive reality or certainty: not
Helen is dressed.
Helen seems dressed.
- Sometimes the attempt produces a dangling modifier: not
While he is dedicated to his work, his family comes first.
While dedicated to his work, his family comes first.
- A hasty choice may warp the context: not
Bill is bleeding.
Bill appears bleeding.
We have all seen writers commit errors like these naïvely--errors most would never say. Here, however, a revision technique consciously (?)applied elicits them, suggesting that the misunderstandings which permit such errors run deep, papered over with formulaic, be-ridden, 'safe' structural choices or, better, reflexes. This first stage of E-Prime usage invites intervention where the usual assessment instruments have failed to detect problems. Like therapy for stuttering, this stage focuses on remediating 'production errors.'
I suspect that multiple choice, identification and short answer tests bear much of the responsibility for the valorization of the copula, as do the slogans so dear to our hearts e.g., "Writing is discovery." To experienced writers, this means something; to the inexperienced, no doubt, something considerably less --a mere advertisement for an overpriced luxury item. However, E-Prime can open the conceptual horizons within such a statement, much as developing a roll of film allows others to appreciate it more than perusing it fresh from the camera, rolled tight as a bud. We might begin by asking whether the "is" here means "equals" and, if so, whether it implies commutativity: does "Writing is discovery" mean the same thing as "Discovery is writing"? If not--and most students agree that it does not--what scalar relationship(s) might we predicate between the terms? Does writing (weakly) allow discovery, or (more strongly) produce discovery? Does writing (weakly) use discovery, or (more strongly) require discovery? Do all four verbs apply? Under what circumstances? I urge my students to use the strongest verb(s) they can justify. Such questions can reveal the cognitive opacities which creolization, transitivity mistakes and other errors signal. This approach offers a systematic, focused technique to explore the shorthand of be-fogged ideas, and to generate thoughtful, wiry paragraphs from flaccid sentences.
Beyond the revision of their own writing, E-Prime can also help students determine whether to quote a source directly or to paraphrase. In an essay called "Who Shall I Be?" (sic), freelance writer Jennifer Crichton, commenting on the transient condition of students away at college, writes that "Moving is the American way, after all" (216).
An inescapable false corollary haunts this sentence, even if the writer never intended it or if she remains unaware of it: "Not moving is not the American way." It also unnecessarily links 'moving' with the patriotic phrase "the American way," suggesting that, for instance, someone whose family has lived in the same New England saltbox since the Mayflower qualifies as 'less American' than a nomad seeing the USA in a Winnebago. More objectively, E-Prime might say:
Americans tend to change their residences often.
Describing a particularly demanding class, a student wrote:
"By the time we were ready to take the final exam, most of us were worried that we would fail the course. . ." (Bobnack 57)
As a teacher, I immediately saw this as both self-deceptive and self-exculpatory: self-deceptive because students truly prepared for a test would not fear failing it, and self-exculpatory because it shifts the blame for the anticipated failure from the students (who, after all, "were" ready) to (guess who?) the teacher. E-Prime avoids both traps:
When the time came to take the test, we all feared failing.
In a piece called "Being a Man," novelist and travel writer Paul Theroux complains:
"The youth who is subverted, as most are, into believing in the masculine ideal is effectively separated from women and spends the rest of his life finding women a riddle and a nuisance" (428).
A student eager to quote this sentence in a research paper on "Masculinity in America" because of its reference to "finding women a riddle and a nuisance" will pass on to the reader the sentence's failure (due to the passive "is subverted") to indicate who does the subverting--information which the student might have determined from the context, and ought to have passed on to the reader by paraphrasing most of the sentence and quoting only the phrase "finding women a riddle and a nuisance." In this and similar cases, E-Prime offers a specific way to test whether to paraphrase or to quote.
Many advocates tout E-Prime as an epistemological panacea; my ambitions for it remain more modest, my enthusiasm deriving more from practice than from promise. As a permanent feature of revision assignments, E-Prime offers students an unambiguous technique that they already use spontaneously in half their sentences and, by comparing rewrites with originals, the teacher can see exactly how often and how well each student has applied it. Students gain measurable, definite senses of mastery, dispelling self-hobbling rationalizations that see the assignment as 'impossible.' They can also learn how to develop genuinely individual 'voices' after seeing kneejerk alternatives (like using seem, exist or appear ten times on a page) prove awkward or unworkable.
After seven years of experience with this technique, I must agree with Dr. Kellogg (who even speaks in E-Prime) that, to work effectively, E-Prime requires the total elimination of be forms, since we use them addictively, even compulsively, as their subliminal residuum even in third drafts attests. On a recent foray into cyberspace, for instance, I found a Web Page featuring four sentences 'rewritten' in E-Prime--two of them containing be forms! Old habits of attribution and predication die hard, as my student with fourteen be forms on her first page also demonstrated.
I find that E-Prime works best when supported by real-time tutorial instruction, even though (or perhaps because) most writers use it without thinking half the time already. Teaching the elusive and largely grammatical rules underlying the graceful transformation of Standard English into E-Prime to students woefully undereducated in the vocabulary of grammar requires them to rely on abstract, memorized rules; E-Prime invites them to use imagination in concrete instances. My individualized classes allow me to edit sentences silently which students have failed to convert from Standard English, letting them figure out the principles on their own--which they often do. If they do not recognize the E-Prime version I propose as an adequate paraphrase of their originals, I ask them to clarify their objections, then incorporate the terms of their explanations in new versions until they feel better about the E-Prime versions than they did about the originals. Only after we have arrived together at a concrete instance of improvement via E-Prime do I decide whether to discuss the grammatical principle involved or to go on to another instance of concrete problem solving.
Also, to encourage students to use E-Prime as a technique to move their thoughts forward, rather than as an exercise in backward looking error correction, I ask that they find at least two E-Prime alternatives to each of their target sentences, then choose the best one or combine two to produce an even more appropriate sentence. Such choices often involve distinguishing between the best 'standalone' sentence and the one which best fits the context of a paragraph, and the attention to thinking in paragraphs further dissociates E-Prime from mechanical error correction.
We can sometimes translate Standard English into E-Prime by simple cancellation: not
"A practical man is a man who practices the errors of his forefathers" (Disraeli),
"A practical man practices the errors of his forefathers."
Often, a metamorphosis proves most rewarding: not
"A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose" (Stein),
"Each rose incarnates every other."
Substitution, too, can work wonders: not
"It makes my hair stand up and my heart sprout wings."
Somewhat less majestically, though no less usefully, contextualization may serve: not
"John is tall" (Who cares? Why waste a sentence to establish a mere -- and accidental -- fact?)
"Because of his height, John reached the fire extinguisher on the top shelf fast enough to save twenty people."
Replying to skeptics in his "Introduction2" to More E-Prime: To Be or Not II, D. David Bourland, Jr., the semanticist who coined the term, writes that "[w]hen one really gets down to it, I believe that we cannot hope to go beyond saying, with Dr. Albert Ellis, that E-Prime, like [his] Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, 'becomes and remains effective with many (not all) people much (not all) of the time.' This probably will not satisfy some people. Sorry about that" (xxvii). Recognizing the limitations of the technique, I do not require or even encourage students to use E-Prime for first drafts or in-class exams; recognizing its benefits and the reluctance of some students to expend the necessary effort I weigh their success in its employment for revisions more heavily as the course progresses, and extend my office hours as necessary to assist them. The technique should not squelch spontaneity, but invite students to extend, refine, and build upon their initial formulations.
Like DolbyTM or the FM band, E-Prime filters noise; it helps to bridge the gap between private notation and public communication. It can catalyze a permanent boost in its practitioners' attention to language, allowing writers to construct their own filters and discover their own strategies, rather than to ape and clone 'inherited' and, frequently, maladaptive predilections.
"He who will not write," says novelist Phillipe Sollers, "shall be written" (qtd. in Roudiez 71); that means, writes Leon Roudiez, who quotes then paraphrases him, "[the reader] must write the text as much as possible in order to avoid being written by the text's ideology" (75). As a revision technique, E-Prime encourages students to do just that: it prompts them, both as readers and as writers, to uncover and evaluate the unstated assumptions, questionable corollaries, and imprecisions of excessive abstraction or excessive literalism which threaten to "write" them and do in fact "write" them dozens of times daily via the automatisms of be form usage alone. It provides a technique to avoid "being written" by the language's unconscious ideology, tenaciously present in first drafts. Even more importantly, it invites students to discover that they, like other writers, have more to say and can say more than they may have expected.
Bobnack, Laura. "The Price of Silence." Patterns of College Writing: A Rhetorical Reader and Guide. Ed. Laurie G. Kirszner and Stephen R. Mandell. New York: St. Martin's,1995. 57-59.
Bourland, D. David, Jr. Introduction2. More E-Prime: To Be or Not II. Ed. Paul Dennithorne Johnston, D. David Bourland, Jr. and Jeremy Klein. Concord CA: International Society for General Semantics,1994. xix-xxx.
________and Paul Dennithorne Johnson, eds. To Be or Not: An E-Prime Anthology. San Francisco: International Society for General Semantics, 1991.
Crichton, Jennifer. "Who Shall I Be?" Muscatine and Griffith. 216-220.
Muscatine, Charles, and Marlene Griffith, eds. The Borzoi College Reader. 7th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1992.
Richards, I. A. How to Read a Page. New York: W. W. Norton, 1942; rpt. Boston: Beacon Press,1959.
Roudiez, Leon S. "Notes on the Reader as Subject." semiotext(e) 1.3 (1975): 69-80.
Theroux, Paul. "Being a Man." Muscatine and Griffith. 428-431.
Todd, Loreto, and Ian Hancock. International English Usage. New York: New York UP, 1987.
See also D. David Bourland's essay " TO BE OR NOT TO BE: E-Prime as a Tool for Critical Thinking" at http://www.crl.com/~isgs/tobecrit.htm
Forms of to be:
- (as well as colloquial ain't and the sandhi forms: 'm, 're, 's).
I consider it my privilege to host this essay by Prof. Daniel Zimmerman. It used to have a web page of its own, but the CyberEther swallowed it, as it occasionally will do. It also appeared in ETC: A Review of General Semantics 58.3 (Fall 2001): 340-347.
E-Prime as a Revision Strategy - © 2003 Daniel Zimmerman | <urn:uuid:270d26e2-e45f-48e9-acd2-2969497f872a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ctlow.ca/E-Prime/zimmerman.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935771 | 3,590 | 2.296875 | 2 |
Michelle O’Neil is the Acting Under Secretary of the International Trade Administration.
We have always known the importance of exports to the American economy here at the International Trade Administration and we are thrilled that President Obama recognized exports and the National Export Initiative in yesterday’s State of the Union Address.
If we needed any more confirmation of the importance of our role at ITA, we heard it last night. One of the pillars of the new foundation of economic growth rests on exporting more American goods and services – a message the nation heard loud and clear directly from President Obama.
There is no time for us to waste and no reason for the country to have to wait to see the results of the challenge the President laid at our feet: To double exports by the end of the next five years and support new jobs in America.
The President mentioned just about everything that we do here at ITA – but now we are going to step it up a notch to help create the two million jobs that doubling exports will generate.
We must help more farmers and small businesses expand their exports; seek new markets for American products; continue to pursue free trade agreements and find ways to enforce them; continue to push for concluding the Doha round; expand our trading relationships with Asia and other key trading partners; and, above all, work together.
In doing our jobs and doing them well, we will have confirmed the faith the President has in us. | <urn:uuid:6f7db6cd-bff5-4f1d-8d79-fe68839fd4a3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.trade.gov/tag/nei/page/4/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946606 | 291 | 1.601563 | 2 |
School as we know it is doomed. And every attempt to improve—but fundamentally preserve—the present system will only prolong its death throes and add immeasurably to its costs, both financial and social. By the year 2010, if we are to survive as a democratic society, our children will have to learn in a variety of new ways, some of them already on the drawing board, some unforeseen. None of them will involve a teacher in the front of a classroom presenting information to twenty or thirty children seated at desks.
Ironically, the success of a highly publicized school-reform movement has most clearly revealed the failure of school to meet the challenges of these times. The movement began on April 26, 1983, with the publication of a report by the National Commission for Excellence in Education. A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform asked for a longer school day and year. It called for the assignment of "far more homework." It demanded higher standards for college admissions, more rigorous grading, better textbooks, and a nationwide system of standardized achievement tests. Like most of the dozens of reform proposals from other organizations which followed, A Nation at Risk was preoccupied with course requirements at the high school level—four years of English, three of math, three of science, and so on. As if four rather than three years of English for students already turned off by the present system would really make much difference.
The interesting thing about the National Commission report (along with most of the other proposals) is that with all its talk of "fundamental" change, it proposed nothing really new. Let's ratchet up the present system, the report seemed to say. Let's get tough on students and teachers. Let's have the same, but better and more of it.
A Nation at Risk set off a firestorm of interest and approval. All three television networks did shows on education. Newsmagazines ran cover stories on the subject. Governors throughout the nation scrambled to get on the band-wagon and create their own commissions and task forces on school reform. Public-opinion polls showed a willingness, even an eagerness, to spend more on the schools. In an amazingly short time—as touted in the Department of Education's follow-up report, The Nation Responds—the more-of-the-same movement was well under way.
No movement to improve the schools gets all it asks for, but this one got more than most. From 1978 to 1983 total spending per public school student, from kindergarten through high school, adjusted for inflation, had remained stable. From 1983, when A Nation at Risk was published, to 1991 per capita spending, adjusted for inflation, increased by 30 percent.
With what results? Blacks and Hispanics have shown some real improvement in reading and writing, and students in general have made small gains in math scores. But even with more and more teachers devoting up to half their time preparing pupils for achievement tests, today's students nationwide are scoring little better, or even worse, in reading and writing than did their predecessors. The painful truth is that despite the spotlight on schooling and the stern pronouncements of educators, governors, and Presidents, despite the frantic test preparation in classrooms all over the country and the increased funding, school achievement has remained essentially flat over the past two decades.
The failure of this well-intended, well-executed movement toward reform summons us to think the unthinkable: we can no longer improve the education of our children by improving school as we know it. The time has come to recognize that school is not the solution. It is the problem. Take a look:
• Clearly, human beings learn at different rates. This doesn't mean that slow learners are less intelligent than fast learners; they're just slower. Yet by and large, school as we know it forces everyone to learn at the same rate or be declared uneducable.
• When we human beings first emerged on this planet, our ability to cooperate gave us an advantage over larger and more powerful creatures. Throughout history we have worked together and learned together to further ourselves and our species. Today if you need help, you're likely to find a friend or a fellow worker who will bat the problem around with you, check out your ideas, offer suggestions. Yet for the most part school is set up to teach competition rather than cooperation.
• A certain amount of self-confidence and self-respect is an essential precondition to learning. Yet by and large, school is set up to humiliate publicly those who, for whatever reason, are unable to come up with the right answer when called upon.
Middle school and high school make it worse. The day is divided into periods of some forty minutes. You sit in a room with twenty or thirty other people with whom you are discouraged from talking over what you are hearing, listening to a presentation that's probably either too demanding or not challenging enough for you. Then a bell rings, and you go sit in another room, with twenty or thirty different people, listening to another presentation that's probably either more or less than you want, on another subject. The teacher in this room probably doesn't know what the teacher in the other room has said or done, nor will any of the teachers in still other rooms know what the other teachers have said or done.
But how about the good old days? Didn't school work then? In 1900 the number of high school graduates was equal to only 6.3 percent of the nation's seventeen-year-olds. As late as 1940 the comparable percentage was only 49—and included a rather high proportion of the same kind of academically motivated kids who can get something out of present-day schooling. Academically successful kids, both past and present, have learned for the most part in spite of, rather than because of, school. The emphasis of today's reformers on the importance of homework and family support points up the fact that school on its own does not and cannot do the job of educating our children.
"In the old days people used to go to doctors to get cured," says Albert Shanker, the president of the American Federation of Teachers and one of the few true visionaries among today's education reformers, "but for several centuries doctors were actually harming their patients, indeed sometimes resulting in deaths, because they didn't realize they had to wash their hands and sterilize their instruments. In other words, in the normal course of practice doctors were doing things out of ignorance that were harmful to their patients. We need to ask whether schools in the normal course of education do things that are harmful to students."
School as we know it is not inevitable. From the beginning it was an administrative expediency, an attempt to adapt the tutor-learner system to mass education, a crude way of handling a large number of learners with a much smaller number of teachers. We were able to get away with it in the past chiefly because our society required few academically or technically educated citizens. In 1900 farming alone absorbed 37.5 percent of the American work force. As late as the 1950s, even the 1960s, unskilled jobs were still relatively easy to come by. What has happened is that the demands and stresses of today's multi-ethnic, technological society have revealed the fundamental flaws in a system we have long taken for granted.
In spite of the best of intentions, the commissions, foundations, task forces, governors' conferences, national and state administrations, and departments of education have missed the point. Longer bad school days and years don't add up to a good education. Cranking up the assembly line a bit tighter, spending all year teaching to the achievement tests, might increase the scores a few points, but at the cost of whatever love of learning remains in our students' hearts. Raising graduation standards without radically improving the mode of instruction will only increase the dropout rate or worsen the cheating that is already rampant in our schools. The assumption that higher quality textbooks, or teachers who "really know their subject matter," can set things right crumbles beneath the boredom, cynicism, and despair produced by the present system. Even if the top graduates from the most prestigious universities were to go into teaching, their best efforts would founder within an essentially unworkable system. | <urn:uuid:6deaf769-c337-4ca7-be13-d245b0f24d96> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1992/05/the-end-of-school/305192/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974857 | 1,685 | 2.640625 | 3 |
In 1911-12, for only the second time in the club’s history, Southport Central reached the first round proper of the F.A Cup. Home victories over Padiham, Rossendale United and Colne and a 1-0 win at Heywood(after a 1-1 draw at Ash Lane) had already brought Frome Town to Southport. The secretary of the Frome club caused some amusement by writing to Edwin Clayton to ask if accommodation could be obtained in the village! A crowd which numbered 3566 responded by shouting “Play up Villagers!” and Southport duly obliged by winning 4-1.
Reading, members of the Southern League, provided the opposition in the firs round proper. This time Southport turned down an offered £125 guarantee to take the game to Berkshire. For the cup-ties the ground admission had to be raised according to F.A rules from 4d. to 6d. and the stand charges were increased from 6d. to a shilling. Although the Southport players refrained from their ordinary work during the week preceding the cup-tie and went into extra training, their efforts were unrewarded. With the scoresheet blank after half an hour’s play Eddie Mosscrop shot straight at the Reading goalkeeper from the penalty spot: the chance had gone and Southport were beaten by two clear goals before a crowd of between 5 and 6000 who paid £174 13s 1d.
There were those in the crowd who never forgave Mosscrop for that miss.
The following season he was not invited along for pre-season trials by the club and was persuaded instead by his old Blowick Wesleyan colleague Billy Watson to attend Burnley’s trial matches where he shone and was duly signed up. He was subsequently twice capped by England in 1914 and in later life was Headmaster of Birkdale Council School in Bury Road for a number of years.
Another Southport product to make his mark around this time was centre-half Teddy Lightfoot, who had joined Tottenham Hotspur the previous summer. During the Edwardian period Southport was widely considered to be a footballing nursery for larger clubs. Besides the aforementioned Eddie Holdsworth and Billy Watson other local successes in League football were half-backs Lol Abram, not long transferred from Stockport County to Hearts, and Jimmy Fay at Oldham Athletic, who was originally with Southport Working Lads Club.
On December 16th, 1911 Southport Central suffered a record League defeat when Burnley Reserves thrashed them 12-3. Jack Flynn, son of the Birkdale stationmaster was the unfortunate goalkeeper on the day.
With the following season in mind, Central paraded four new signings on Good Friday 1912, one of whom, outside-left Billy Semple, had just been secured from Haslingden. Few would have predicted the monumental significance of this signing at the time. Later the same month Torn Dorward was signed from Arbroath Dorward himself gave splendid service to the club, as indeed did right-half Harry Schofield, signed some time earlier after excelling for Walkden in an F.A. Cup-tie against Southport. | <urn:uuid:f1a598bb-bb41-4103-af11-1309aa2acabc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.southportfootballclub.co.uk/home/summary.php?season=106 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979717 | 653 | 1.5 | 2 |
For anyone who has wondered how many large great white sharks lurk off California, researchers for the first time have produced a science-based estimate: 219.
That's the number of adult and sub-adult white sharks -- those about nine feet or longer -- believed to be utilizing California waters after an innovative photo-identification study conducted at seasonal shark haunts off Central California.
The number is surprisingly and perhaps alarmingly low given the key role white sharks, as apex predators, play in maintaining a healthy marine environment.
The study's lead author, UC Davis doctoral student Taylor Chapple, stated in a news release: "It's lower than we expected, and also substantially smaller than populations of other large marine predators, such as killer whales and polar bears. However, this estimate only represents a single point in time; further research will tell us if this number represents a healthy, viable population, or one critically in danger of collapse, or something in-between."
One prominent scientist has disputed the number, calling it a significant underestimation, based largely on his theory that not all large white sharks in California utilize those Central California haunts. Chapple said his group was not accounting for every shark in the northeastern Pacific, but acknowledged that the 219 figure was an estimate for California waters.
The collaborative study, published today in the journal Biology Letters, involved some of the world's foremost white shark experts. They collected 321 photographs of dorsal fins from what, based on distinctive markings, turned out to be 130 individual sharks. Data from this study -- and previous studies that determined the same sharks were visiting the same areas year after year -- were extrapolated to determine a population estimate.
Involved in the study were 69 male white sharks, 19 females and 42 sharks of undetermined sex.
White sharks, once they reach 8-9 feet, begin to shift from fishes and rays as food items to seals and sea lions. In California this also marks the point at which they travel from Southern California to rookeries off Central California. (The study area included the Farallon Islands west of San Francisco and Tomales Point to the north on the mainland.)
Late summer and fall are feeding periods at the rookeries. During the winter, these large sharks migrate to a vast offshore area between the mainland and Hawaii, where they spend about five months of each year.
The population study did not take into account juvenile or young-of-the-year white sharks. Also, the 219 figure does not include white sharks that utilize waters around Guadalupe Island, a seal rookery 150 miles west of Ensenada in Baja California.
That's because there's no evidence of Guadalupe white sharks visiting Central or Southern California coastal waters; those sharks, therefore, are believed to belong to a separate sub-population.
If both studies are accurate, that places the entire northeast Pacific population of large white sharks at 352.
The only known mixing of these sub-populations -- based on satellite tagging studies -- occurs within the offshore area.
Chapple, while he was surprised by the low number produced at the Central California study area, stressed that it's simply a baseline number, an important starting point that will aid scientists as they strive to learn more about population fluctuations and trends.
"Even though it's lower than you might expect, we don't know if this is a healthy number or something we should be worried about right now," Chapple said in an interview. "I think that the big statement is that we need to follow up with more studies to try to find out whether the population is increasing or decreasing. Because with the size it's at now, just taking out a few or even one individual may have a significant negative effect on the population."
Perhaps, but Dr. Chris Lowe, a professor of biological sciences at California State University Long Beach, believes that white shark numbers have increased over the last 15 years and that the actual number of large white sharks is much higher than 219.
Lowe, who has studied juvenile white sharks off Southern California, cites factors such as a longstanding ban on fishing for white sharks in state waters; a longstanding ban on commercial gill-net fishing close to shore, and the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972, which has led to a population explosion of California sea lions -- a reliable and more spread-out food source for adult white sharks.
"My suspicion is that there's another sub-population of white sharks that hang around the Channel Islands [off Southern California] and that they're there year-round," Lowe said. "They're not showing the same sort of seasonal fidelity [toward the Central California rookeries].
"They may go to the middle of the Pacific too, but very few tagged sharks from Guadalupe or the Farallon Islands have come to Southern California, but we see sharks down here at the same times of year. So I think the population is more spread out because the rookeries are more spread out. People are seeing more sharks down here, particularly around the offshore Channel Islands, and more sea lions are getting hit by white sharks down here."
The population study, entitled, "A First Estimate of White Shark, Carcharodon carcharias, Abundance off Central California," alludes to there being "little evidence for long-term occupation at other coastal sites" besides the historic Central California aggregation sites.
Chapple, in response to Lowe's statement, replied via email: "The idea that there is a year-round sub-population of large white sharks that go, and have gone, undetected for many years in an area with such high human use (i.e., Channel Islands, etc.) seems incredibly unlikely."
In any event, the number of white sharks appears to be lower than most people might have believed, yet it remains unclear how this compares to historic levels because nobody knows what they were. That's why establishing a baseline figure is so important.
Said Barbara Block, a leading shark expert from Stanford University, and study co-author: "We've found that these white sharks return to the same regions of the coast year after year. It is this fact that makes it possible to estimate their numbers. Our goal is to keep track of our ocean predators."
-- Pete Thomas
-- Editor's note: A version of this post also appears on the GrindTv outdoors blog
-- Images: 1) Unique markings on white sharks' fins can be used to identify individuals. Credit: UC Davis; 2) A white shark investigates a fake seal decoy used by UC Davis researchers. Credit: UC Davis; 3) Researchers photograph a white shark. Credit: Stanford University | <urn:uuid:bb58b059-1cf6-4e5d-945e-1aa966dfd112> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.petethomasoutdoors.com/2011/03/only-219-large-white-sharks-off-california-study-says.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951507 | 1,359 | 3.359375 | 3 |
Fearfully, I thought I'd gotten it wrong, that somehow slavery had not ended and colored folks truly weren't free.
It was the early 1960s in Illinois. The family was gathered around the lone black and white Zenith, watching some guy named King being interviewed, and all I could think about was how this was a colored king and I had never seen or heard of a colored king before.
Then mom and dad began talking about the marches and demonstrations and how we were doing it to be free — which prompted my fearful question: "But I thought we were already free."
They explained the distinctions of freedom in America and how something called the Emancipation Proclamation by President Abraham Lincoln had made us free, but yet not completely free to have the same freedoms that white Americans had.
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That was long ago. Much has changed for the better in America. Tuesday, at Hartford's Capitol, on the first day of this New Year, I attended a commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, the document signed by Lincoln that set in motion the freedom that the descendants of slaves in America have today.
It was my first emancipation commemoration.
That it took this long in my life to attend a ceremony that honored the document that brought what I call the first stage of freedom to Americans of African descent caused me to wonder. I simply don't recall ever hearing about a commemoration for the emancipation, which is striking considering the magnitude of the document and what it meant to those who walked before me.
On the first Emancipation Day, as it was called, there was rejoicing across the land.
In Boston's Tremont Temple, the Emancipation Proclamation was read and "welcomed with unbounded enthusiasm," reported the Jan. 3, 1863, Hartford Daily Courant.
In Norwich, there was a salute of 100 guns fired and "In New London, salutes were fired and flags raised, and the colored folks indulged in a general illumination in the evening," reported the Jan. 6, 1863, Courant.
On the 100th anniversary, "the Hartford branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People will participate in a nationwide emancipation program on New Year's Day," said The Courant on Dec. 28, 1962.
But for many years since, there was little note.
Time passes — as do people. Memories fade, lights go out, stories get untold. What was once an annual recognition becomes every five years, 10 years, 25, then 50, then 100.
At the 150th commemoration at the Capitol on Tuesday, there was drumming, an invocation, poetry readings, songs by a choir, a litany responsive reading of the proclamation, a keynote address and a ringing of the Capitol's bell.
I tried hard to feel what those before me felt at the first occasion and in the years shortly after. I tried to feel what those who had been slaves felt. But I couldn't. I can never feel that moment of freedom with the passion and joy that those under the yoke of slavery felt. It is true of any individual or group. We can never feel what others long gone felt firsthand — and the further in time the event from the present, the less connected we feel, though connected we forever remain.
So we commemorate and give thanks to Lincoln for signing the document. Commemorate and give thanks — though with open eyes.
As one born in the land of Lincoln, elementary school on through high school was infused with the positives of Lincoln. Lincoln abhorred slavery. He freed the slaves. But several months before the emancipation, he said his object was "to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy slavery." He also was actively seeking to remove blacks from America by colonization to such places as Liberia and Central America.
Then there are those words he uttered at 44-48 Market St. in Hartford's old city hall — one mile from Tuesday's commemoration — on March 5, 1860, several months before he became president. Something the history books and movies never mention.
He referred to those of African descent in America as — "niggers." | <urn:uuid:e082cbd2-eef9-4bf3-b7b6-b40b745486bc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mcall.com/news/opinion/hc-op-harris-emancipation-proclamation-the-beginni-20130102,0,6565926.column | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977971 | 888 | 2.6875 | 3 |
anchored in our bravery,
a loosed reality…
the need for what is free.
This time of lines and boundaries,
founded in a fear that falters,
a bruised alter…
the greed of love and need.
We are ripe
and ready to grieve.
anchored in our bravery,
The breed of our own type
is really just a state of mind…
it takes and breaks and then it climbs.
And, though the mountain may seem kind,
it eventually falls,
like the sway of a rhyme.
Its good to be free…
but you have to know how to be.
So, create what you need,
fear what you feed,
and take heed.
The truth isn’t as simple,
as you may read.
“To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society. I am not solitary whilst I read and write, though nobody is with me. But if a man would be alone, let him look at the stars. The rays that come from those heavenly worlds, will separate between him and what he touches. One might think the atmosphere was made transparent with this design, to give man, in the heavenly bodies, the perpetual presence of the sublime. Seen in the streets of cities, how great they are! If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God, which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.
The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible; but all natural objects make a kindred impression, when the mind is open to their influence. Nature never wears a mean appearance. Neither does the wisest man extort her secret, and lose his curiosity by finding out all her perfection. Nature never became a toy to a wise spirit. The flowers, the animals, the mountains, reflected the wisdom of his best hour, as much as they had delighted the simplicity of his childhood.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
The heart I found inside dark water,
the sound of rocks against each other,
beneath the sky and all its wonder…
how long have I been sleeping?
I dreamed of love and what it longs for,
this heart of mine and all its armor,
a gentle grace for every falter,
and light inside the darkness.
What is true and what has just been told?
I want my eyes to open.
Can you hear the songs that escape when you breathe…
the sounds that arise from your seams?
And do you know that they sing me to sleep?
What a terrible thing to awake from a dream…
to discover the vacant nature
of an imagined entity.
A beautiful speech…
rich, in a lack of meaning.
A destined shore disappearing
from a path across the sea.
Broken bones beneath white wings…
Lay me back down to sleep.
You are not your ugly parts.
Your ugly parts are just the result of you not knowing who and what you REALLY are.
Love can not exist,
if you don’t believe in it. | <urn:uuid:e90cea81-708e-4cc8-804e-0d26d3ae3c28> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lightalongtheoceanfloor.tumblr.com/page/4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959652 | 690 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Reporters Without Borders is very disturbed by the Indian government’s disproportionate and inappropriate censorship of the Internet in response to the inter-ethnic violence of the past two weeks in the northeast of the country.
Rumours of reprisals between communities in the state of Assam, circulating on the Internet and mobile phones fuelled an exodus of more than 200,000 people from the region and at least 80 deaths in acts of violence.
"While taking action to protect the population is legitimate and curbing hate speech is necessary – especially as hate speech itself limits freedom of expression – we urge the authorities not to impose excessive restraints on freedom of information,” Reporters Without Borders said. "Instead of resorting to administrative filtering, the content that incites hatred and violence should be better targeted, and no decision should be taken without reference to the courts.
"Preference should be given to removing offensive content rather than blocking access. The authorities must also be more transparent about the methods they use and their legal basis, to restore trust at a time of widespread disinformation. Censorship cannot be the only appropriate response to baseless rumours, which continue to circulate despite the website blocking."
In response to the emergency, the Department of Communication and Information Technology issued four directives to Internet Service Providers from 18 to 21 August ordering them to block access to more 300 online locations including Facebook pages, blogs, websites and Twitter accounts. The ISPs were asked to "not mention the name of URLs in the compliance letter."
The blocked posts, blogs and websites included content inciting violence or spreading rumors. But the government’s censorship also trapped other kinds of content, including media reports on violence between Muslims and Buddhists in Burma, pages on the websites of Al-Jazeera and the Australian broadcaster ABC, and Agence France-Presse photos (see the list posted by the Centre for Internet and Society).
One of India’s ISPs, Tata Photon, went even further, blocking access to the entire WordPress.com blog platform in response to the government’s request for certain URLs with offensive content to be blocked. Bloggers unable to access their accounts tried in vain to obtain redress from Tata Photon.
Anja Kovacs, a specialist in Internet freedoms in India, said one reason why ISPs do as they are told is because they fear losing their licences.
"The fact that their licence agreements contain provisions with regard to the blocking of content is not without significance," Kovacs said. "The inclusion of vague blocking and filtering requirements as an integral part of their licence has increased the pressure on ISPs, as well as heightened their vulnerability."
The government also appealed directly to social networks and blog platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and WordPress to remove "inflammatory and harmful" content.
Several Indian experts have questioned the legality of the government’s methods. Pranesh Prakash of the Centre for Internet and Society said blocked content notification and appeal procedures were not followed. Instead of ordering ISPs to blocked web pages or entire sites, the authorities should have asked them to remove the calls for violence, which are already banned by the conditions of use on the main sites, he said.
A representative of TwoCircles.net, a website that was blocked in India although it had not relayed rumours or calls for violence, said: "No one from the government has reached out to us or asking us to take down the ’objectionable content’ and we will gladly entertain any request from government, organizations or even individuals if there are grounds for legitimate concerns."
Sushil Kumar Shinde, India’s home minister (interior minister), insisted that the government was only "taking strict action against those accounts or people which are causing damage or spreading rumours."
A coalition of bloggers called the Indian Bloggers’ Forum announced plans to submit a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petition to the supreme court for all their blogs and websites to be reinstated.
In a separate recent development, phone service operators suspended services in the northern Kashmir Valley on 15 August, the anniversary of India’s independence, at the behest of the Jammu and Kashmir state government.
India was added to the list of "countries under surveillance" in the latest Reporters Without Borders report on "Enemies of the Internet." Citing national security and the need to protect the public, the government has stepped up Internet surveillance and pressure on ISPs since the 2008 Mumbai bombings. | <urn:uuid:b08f044a-2321-40c7-af1f-f2805dac1b2c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.rsf.org/india-internet-censorship-in-response-to-29-08-2012,43292.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947514 | 909 | 2.015625 | 2 |
New York circa 1902. "Metropolitan Museum of Art." The Fifth Avenue addition to the original 1874 structure nearing completion. The pyramids of rough-hewn limestone blocks in the Beaux-Arts cornice, intended to serve as the basis for four sculptural groups, remain unfinished to this day.
| Click image for Comments. | <urn:uuid:a004fb86-5091-4a1c-a712-6ebac444b906> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.shorpy.com/node/11961?size=_original&ref=129449 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.907063 | 70 | 1.710938 | 2 |
How to stop Ageing ( getting older )
What is ageing?
Ageing is a natural process that affects most, but not all, living things. We used to believe that ageing was programmed into us by some kind of biological clock, but that view is no longer widely held. It is now thought that ageing is the result of accumulated damage to the cells and tissues of our bodies; over time, microscopic faults impairs normal functioning and may lead to disease. If we can understand cell ageing and find ways of reducing the accumulation of cell damage, or increase the effectiveness of our repair mechanisms, we might be able to delay the onset of disease and improve the quality of old age.
The kinds of damage most likely to cause age-associated or degenerative disease are in the genetic material (DNA) of cells and the accumulation of altered components within cells. Altered cell proteins are implicated in the development of diseases as diverse as Alzheimer's disease and cataract, while DNA mutations play a part in cancers and in muscle weakness.
Much of this cellular damage arises as a by-product of normal living. For example, some of the oxygen we breathe gives rise to highly reactive molecules called free radicals which can damage DNA and proteins. Our bodies have excellent natural defence mechanisms against these free radicals, which is why we live as long as we do, but some faults slip through.
Although much research has been and is
being done on ageing, there is still much we do not know. Ageing is an exciting
and fascinating field of study for scientists in disciplines as diverse as
molecular biology, nutrition, medicine, neuroscience, psychiatry and genetics.
Higher living standards have played a key role. Today we have better diets than our relatives of a century ago, with the result that our immune systems are in better shape to withstand infections like bronchitis and influenza that previously caused many early deaths. We no longer live in over-crowded, damp or unsanitary housing where disease was common and easily spread.
We now have safe, clean drinking water, proper sanitation and much higher standards of hygiene in public places and the home. These measures have helped eliminate preventable illnesses like typhoid, cholera and dysentery. Although air pollution is still a major health issue, our air is much cleaner than it was a century ago when factory chimneys and domestic fires belched smoke and gave rise to chronic chest problems in a high proportion of the population.
Medical science has also made a major contribution. The twentieth century saw the big breakthroughs in vaccination and immunisation, with the result that killer diseases like diphtheria, tuberculosis and polio were held in check. Smallpox became the first disease to be eliminated altogether by an international programme of vaccination. The development of antibiotics gave the first effective treatment against other serious infections, enabling people to survive illnesses like pneumonia. Better medical care has also meant that few women now die in childbirth and it has dramatically improved the life chances of small or premature babies.
The significance of all these advances is that they have enabled more people than ever before to survive the rigours of childhood and young adulthood. Of a million babies born in England and Wales in the1880s, more than a quarter (263,000) died before their fifth birthday, and just over half were still alive at 35. It was these early deaths that kept average life expectancy so low. Of a million babies born in the 1990s, more than four-fifths (831,000) will still be alive at 65, so average life expectancy is much higher.
There are two answers to the puzzle as to why women last the distance better than men do. Lifestyle plays a very important role in our life expectancy, and men often make unhealthy choices. Men are more likely than women to smoke, with the result that more die before their time of lung cancer, other smoking-related cancers, and heart disease. Excessive intake of alcohol is a factor in men's premature deaths in some societies, while in many industrialised countries deaths from occupational causes inflict a greater toll on men than on women. It may also be true that women are physically more active throughout life; women do more of the 'physiotherapy of daily living', such as getting the shopping in and doing the housework, and exercise protects against many age-related conditions.
But there are also biological answers. There is growing evidence that women are biologically tougher than men. For example, we now know that female hormones protect women from heart disease, at least until the menopause. The reasons for women's biological resilience have to do with the way we have all evolved to play our reproductive roles. Put simply, we have evolved to reproduce and pass our genes on to future generations. Our genes stand a better chance of survival if the nurturing parent - the mother - survives to care for her offspring until they are able to fend for themselves. In biological terms, men are expendable at younger ages because their genetic investment does not depend on their personal survival.
What is the best way to stay healthy
in later life?
Smoking is the biggest single health risk any of us take. Smokers have shorter lives due to lung cancer, cancer of the bladder, mouth and other organs, heart disease, bronchitis, asthma and other conditions. It is by no means easy to give up smoking, but doing so gives immediate benefits, no matter how old you are or how long you have been a smoker.
A good diet is vital to good health. Our
food does not just provide the energy we need for daily living, it also provides
the raw materials for healthy cell turnover and fuels our natural repair system.
A healthy diet includes:
Being overweight will seriously reduce the chances of a healthy older age as there is a greater risk of heart disease, stroke, arthritis and diabetes. If you have a weight problem, talk to your doctor about ways to tackle it.
Regular exercise helps to prevent high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, poor circulation, depression, obesity, joint and bone problems… in fact a very long list of the ailments of later life! An enjoyable form of activity, be it walking, cycling, swimming, dancing or whatever, undertaken for three or four 20 minute sessions a week, can make the difference between good health and sickness and immobility. The right exercise not only keeps us healthy, it enhances general enjoyment of life because it puts the vitality into our years. Older people are advised to take medical advice before starting unaccustomed exercise however, and it is always a good idea to build up exercise tolerance gradually.
The brain needs exercise too, as research shows that our cognitive functions can be kept agile by doing regular mental gymnastics. Crosswords and puzzles are excellent mental gyms, as are discussion groups and many kinds of voluntary work. Learning something new is a good way to exercise the brain and we are never too old to learn a new skill, whether it is how to use a computer and go surfing the Internet, or a new language, or a craft skill. Developing new interests in later life is also a good strategy for avoiding depression.
The best time to adopt a healthy lifestyle is when we are young - it is, after all, an investment in our own future. But it's never too late to start. Our exercise research has shown that people in their 80s and 90s can regain muscle strength and mobility by regular gentle exercises.
( Courtesy: http://www.ageing.org/ ) | <urn:uuid:334704a3-e182-400e-86cf-4c75d742da6b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.srikumar.com/personality-development/how_to_stop_ageing.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966085 | 1,533 | 3.453125 | 3 |
Tax policy is a key issue in the November election. (Daily Press file photo )
At the center of the fall campaigns, from the presidential race on down, is whether to extend all or some of President George W. Bush's temporary tax cuts which are set to expire at the end of the year.
President Barack Obama wants the Bush-tax cuts to expire for people making over $250,000 a year as a way to help rein in a nearly $1.2 trillion federal budget deficit and more than $16 trillion national debt. The president has said the "wealthiest Americans" need to pay their "fair share" in helping to deal with the deficit crisis, which includes steering the country away from driving over the fiscal cliff of the looming sequestration cuts.
Approximately 19,500 households of the 620,000 households in Hampton Roads, roughly 3 percent, make more than $200,000 dollars a year, according to 2010 U.S. Census estimates.
A July study by accounting firm Ernst & Young points out, however, that increasing tax rates for higher income earners would affect more than just individual households, as many small-business owners file their taxes using the individual taxpayer rate. The Congressional Joint Taxation Committee estimates that 53 percent of net positive business income is taxed this way.
Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney wants to extend the Bush tax cuts for all income levels, provide additional tax cuts, and reduce the corporate tax rate. Romney has said he wants to "bring tax rates down for everyone" while keeping any tax cuts revenue neutral, meaning despite lower tax rates overall, the federal government would still bring in the same amount of money.
An August study by the Brookings Institution/Urban Institute joint Tax Policy Center said it would be difficult under Romney's plan to keep his tax cuts revenue neutral without shifting the tax burden to middle- and lower-income earners by reducing or eliminating tax exemptions and deductions.
No easy way out
Quentin Kidd, director of the Wason Center for Public Policy at Christopher Newport University, said both Republicans and Democrats realize the need to deal with the structural deficit but there is "no easy way out" of the problem.
Simply put, a structural deficit develops when spending outpaces revenue. The federal government now spends 23 percent to 24 percent of the Gross Domestic Product, which measures the value of all goods and services produced in the country.
Current revenue is roughly 17 percent of GDP.
To make up the difference, the federal government borrows roughly 40 cents on every dollar it spends. That has led to the rapidly growing national debt, which most economists agree is unsustainable in the long run.
Jesse Richman, professor of political science at Old Dominion University, said the deficit can be overcome by the cuts-only approach favored by most Republican lawmakers and candidates, most of whom have signed political activist Grover Norquist's "no-new-tax pledge."
Richman said to make up the gap, the cuts must be large and deep and must affect many key, popular government programs. But, he said, it's not clear that either large cuts or significant tax increases are "politically palatable."
Kidd said Americans are looking at economic pain going forward regardless of which side's policy argument wins out, or even if a compromise is reached. The question, he said, is who will carry the largest burden.
Richman and Kidd said the studies by Brookings and Ernst and Young are both legitimate. The difference between them is which issues they focus on. The Brookings Institution, a center-left think tank, bolsters Democratic arguments against Republican policy goals. Ernst and Young, which Kidd describes as "chamber of commerce conservative," favors Republican arguments against Democratic policy plans.
"Both are saying legitimate, real things," Kidd said. "They're not cooking the numbers."
The Brookings' study looked at Romney's plan to extend all Bush-era tax cuts, reduce tax rates by 20 percent, repeal the alternative minimum tax, eliminate the estate tax and end taxing of investment income earned by most taxpayers, while keeping the tax code revenue neutral.
Romney has proposed eliminating certain tax preferences and exemptions to compensate for the cuts. He has not detailed which preferences and exemptions he would target.
To achieve that balance, the Brookings study says, Romney would have to severely reduce or eliminate some of the biggest and most popular tax exemptions, such as the mortgage interest deduction, the deduction for charitable contributions, the earned income tax credit and the child tax credit.
The study concludes that the plan "will result in a net tax cut for high-income taxpayers and a net tax increase for lower- and/or middle-income taxpayers."
The Obama campaign referenced the study in a TV attack ad to support its claim that Romney wants to raise taxes on the middle class. | <urn:uuid:8c392cee-48e2-4008-8353-af7765b679fd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.dailypress.com/2012-09-15/news/dp-nws-election-taxes-20120915_1_tax-cuts-tax-rates-tax-burden | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963497 | 978 | 2.34375 | 2 |
What is the key to their long and happy marriage?
“We don’t know, but love, a good sense of humor and respect for each other helps,” Lucy said.
The Chiles’ story began as children on the schoolyard of Annie West Grammar School during the Great Depression.
“We grew up in Atlanta in the Ormewood Park area about three blocks from each other. I was making use of playground equipment provided by the WPA (Works Progress Administration). Lucy, however, was (on the playground) with her cat and blue ribbon it had just won at the cat show. Lucy was 11 and I was 13,” said Cecil, 90.
“It was not love at first sight because we didn’t start dating for several years after we met,” Cecil said.
Lucy maintained a presence throughout Cecil’s life. Cecil graduated from Boys High in 1940 and Lucy from Girls High in 1941.
“I proposed to her the night she graduated,” Cecil said.
Marriage plans were put on hold when Lucy and Cecil learned, while horseback riding together at Chastain Park in Atlanta on Dec. 7, 1941, that the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Although Cecil joined the U.S. Navy on Feb. 12, 1942, Lucy remained on his mind.
On Dec. 10, 1942, Cecil called from New Orleans and asked Lucy to arrange for them to marry on Saturday evening, Dec. 12 at Ormewood Park Presbyterian Church. Lucy secured the church, the organist and pastor.
“The maid of honor notified the others in the wedding party and spread the word to friends and relatives,” Lucy said.
The couple met along with their mothers on Saturday morning and applied for their wedding license.
“I immediately went to Rich’s Dept. Store and purchased a light blue suit to marry in and a few other clothes for my trousseau. I still made it to the church on time,” she said.
“A lot of planning in a short time paid off as the church was packed and everything went well.”
The Chiles spent their wedding night at the Dinkler Plaza Hotel.
“Many (of our friends) followed and we had a reception of sorts in our room until the wee hours of the morning. The next morning we had a deluxe breakfast in bed for two costing $1.30, no tax. I still have the menu,” she said.
The following afternoon, the newlyweds boarded a train to New Orleans for their weeklong honeymoon before Cecil went to his assignment in Virginia. A family friend who worked at the terminal station was able to get them an upper birth ticket on the sold out train.
“(The train) was packed with servicemen and I was the only female on board,” Lucy said.
Like Cecil, Lucy did her share during the war as one of the first women to work at the Naval Air Station in Atlanta. She also worked in Marietta at the Bell Bomber Plant (now Lockheed Martin) as a temp for employees who were out. Lucy joined Cecil who was stationed in Alameda, Calif., for a short time. She worked at Hurley Marine Shipyard before returning home after Cecil left for the Pacific.
When the war ended, Cecil returned home to Atlanta where housing was difficult to find.
“A lady next door to Cecil’s family moved in with her son so that we could live in her house until we could find other housing,” Lucy said.
In 1949, a new chapter of their lives began when Cecil earned his college degree from Emory University through the G.I. Bill. He took a job with Southern Bell where he worked for 34 years until he retired in 1982. The Chiles also started a family. They have two daughters, Kathy Pilcher of Marietta and Cindy Allen of Huntsville, Ala., and now five grandchildren.
Through the years, the couple developed a love of traveling. They journeyed extensively throughout the world and all but one state in the U.S. To celebrate their 70th anniversary, they will take a second honeymoon in New Orleans and will travel there by train.
“This time we will be on the Crescent Line with a private room,” Lucy said. | <urn:uuid:6f756b4d-6ca2-4784-82bd-812dc369614b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mdjonline.com/view/full_story/21073321/article-Seventy-years-of-wedded-bliss--Lucy-and-Cecil-Chiles-remember-their-courtship--marriage-during-World-War-II?instance=home_lifestyle | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982976 | 915 | 1.90625 | 2 |
[ietf-dkim] General Feedback loop using DKIM
sager at agitos.de
Fri May 29 00:04:31 PDT 2009
Franck Martin schrieb:
> I'm curious to see if the feedback loop mechanism could be extended
> using DKIM. ...
> This would provide a mechanism similar to FBL but allowing small
> receiving mail systems to participate.
with http://www.dkim-reputation.org we offered automatic FBLs for valid
DKIM signed messages in the following setup from approx. Sept 08 to Jan 09:
- feedback is provided for mails hitting a spamtrap
- destination address of the feedback: I discussed with Murray the use
of an r= entry (there was once a discussion about its use as reporting
address) but since this is not supported I chosed the following: a)
lookup the first public IP in the received header b) lookup an abuse
address in the whois entry of the IP
- the ARF reports contained headers with garbled destination addresses
to hide spamtrap addresses
- trusted signers get ungarbled mails: there is an extended mode,
offered in http://service.dkim-reputation.org that allows the sending of
feedback to registered users (so we have some control). Currently just
Google and Yahoo! wanted to get ARFs from us.
Why using abuse-addresses from the whois? 'Cause I expected that sending
feedback to the signer of the message could mean that I directly help
spammers to do list-washing.
LESSONS LEARNT with this setup:
1) even abuse-addresses in the whois lead to spammers: one wrote an
email to me and asked why content is garbled. I explained that I want to
hide destination addresses. He said he sends identifiers in the email
body that shows the destination address to him, so he removed the
spamtrap address. Maybe as a consequence of this open feedback the
spamtraffic in the spamtraps dropped a bit so I decided to switch open
FBLs off in Jan 09.
2) even datacenter's abuse contacts just forwarded the reports to the
3) ISPs like earthlink.net with a high spam ratio didn't respond to our
offer to send them FBLs (I think they didn't understand the system,
professionality in abuse departments is very different)
we just send ARFs to trusted, manually confirmed feedback addresses
(that were entered in http://service.dkim-reputation.org)
With this experience I think FBLs should be provided to a very coarse
granular entity on the network administration level. Some guys in our
email working group in Germany started http://www.abusix.de that sends
reports based on AS numbers. The according network administrators can
process ARFs (a) more professionally (b) are more likely farest away
from spammers (c) can escalate the processing internally if necessary
(d) would get more reports that can be aggregated and analyzed by
"significant peaks" (e) can take serious actions [McColo].
More information about the ietf-dkim | <urn:uuid:f6d51859-6aa3-4a8b-bbec-7969083921c9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mipassoc.org/pipermail/ietf-dkim/2009q2/012122.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922298 | 689 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Social Intelligence has collected the following articles about the use of social media as a valuable source of information for our government solutions clients and partners.
Homeland Security May Up Social Media Intelligence Gathering
The use of social media in the uprisings that started in December in Tunisia shocked some officials into attention and prompted questions of whether the U.S. needs to do a better job of monitoring domestic social networking activity. READ MORE
How Law Enforcement Uses Social Media for Forensic Investigation
According to the results of a September 2011 survey conducted by the International Association of Chiefs of Police Center for Social Media, 88.1% of the 800 law enforcement agencies that responded utilize social media in some capacity. READ MORE | <urn:uuid:a5facac1-b15f-4cdd-91e8-e7d4e8200ccd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.socialintel.com/resources/government-articles/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918502 | 139 | 1.804688 | 2 |
May 21, 2009 Most cancers are rare in people with Down syndrome, whose overall cancer mortality is below 10 percent of that in the general population. Since they have an extra copy of chromosome 21, it's been proposed that people with Down syndrome may be getting an extra dose of one or more cancer-protective genes.
The late cancer researcher Judah Folkman, MD, founder of the Vascular Biology Program at Children's Hospital Boston, popularized the notion that they might be benefiting from a gene that blocks angiogenesis, the development of blood vessels essential for cancer's growth, since their incidence of other angiogenesis-related diseases like macular degeneration is also lower.
A study from Children's now confirms this idea in mice and human cells, and identifies specific new therapeutic targets for treating cancer.
Publishing online May 20 in the journal Nature, cancer researcher Sandra Ryeom, PhD, and colleagues from Children's Vascular Biology Program show that a single extra copy of Dscr1 (one of the 231 genes on chromosome 21 affected by trisomy, with three copies rather than two) is sufficient to significantly suppress angiogenesis and tumor growth in mice, as well as angiogenesis in human cells. The team also found its protein, DSCR1, to be elevated in tissues from people with Down syndrome and in a mouse model of the disease.
Further study confirmed that DSCR1 acts by suppressing signaling by the angiogenesis-promoting protein vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). In a mouse model of Down syndrome, endothelial cells (which make up blood vessel walls) showed a decreased growth response to VEGF when they had an extra copy of Dscr1. An extra copy of another chromosome 21 gene, Dyrk1A, also appeared to decrease cells' response to VEGF.
Finally, Ryeom and colleagues showed that these extra genes suppress VEGF signaling via a specific signaling pathway inside endothelial cells -- the calcineurin pathway. Until now, Ryeom says, little has been known about the internal pathways VEGF activates once it binds to cellular receptors; most existing anti-VEGF drugs work by simply binding to VEGF (like Avastin) or blocking its ability to bind to its cellular receptors.
"We're now moving further downstream by going inside the cell," Ryeom says. "When we targeted calcineurin, we suppressed the ability of endothelial cells to grow and form vessels. While it's likely not the only pathway that's involved, if you take it out, VEGF is only half as effective."
Ryeom and her group next validated the mouse findings in human cells. In collaboration with George Daley, MD, PhD, and colleagues in the Stem Cell program at Children's, she worked with induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) created from skin cells from a patient with Down syndrome -- one of 10 disease-specific lines recently developed in Daley's lab.
Knowing that iPS cells tend to induce tumors known as teratomas when inserted into mice, Ryeom guessed that teratomas grown from iPS cells with an extra chromosome 21 would have far fewer blood vessels than teratomas from iPS cells with the normal number of chromosomes. She was right: blood vessels budded in the Down teratomas, but never fully formed.
"The studies in the iPS cells helped validate and confirm that the suppression of angiogenesis that we saw in mouse models also holds true in humans," says Ryeom. "It suggests that these two genes might point to a viable cancer therapy."
Ryeom's group has identified which part of the DSCR1 protein blocks calcineurin and is testing to see whether that fragment can be delivered specifically to endothelial cells, to prevent them from forming new blood vessels, without affecting calcineurin pathways in other cells and causing side effects. "Immunosuppressive drugs also target calcineurin in T-cells," Ryeom notes. "We think that Dscr1 blocks calcineurin specifically in endothelial cells, without affecting T-cells, but we need to check."
Folkman's interest in why patients with Down syndrome have such a reduced risk for cancer focused on endostatin, an anti-angiogenic compound made by the body. Discovered in the Folkman lab, endostatin is a fragment of collagen 18 -- whose gene is also on chromosome 21. People with Down syndrome reportedly have almost doubled levels of endostatin because of the extra copy of the gene.
"I think there may be four or five genes on chromosome 21 that are necessary for angiogenesis suppression," says Ryeom. "In huge databases of cancer patients with solid tumors, there are very few with Down syndrome. This suggests that protection from chromosome 21 genes is pretty complete."
The study was funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and the NIH Director's Pioneer Award (supporting George Daley, MD, PhD); as well as the Smith Family Medical Foundation, the Garrett B. Smith Foundation and Annie's Fun Foundation (supporting Sandra Ryeom, PhD). Kwan-Hyuck Baek, PhD, of Children's Vascular Biology program was the paper's first author.
Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
- Kwan-Hyuck Baek, Alexander Zaslavsky, Ryan C. Lynch, Carmella Britt, Yoshiaki Okada, Richard J. Siarey, M. William Lensch, In-Hyun Park, Sam S. Yoon, Takashi Minami, Julie R. Korenberg, Judah Folkman, George Q. Daley, William C. Aird, Zygmunt Galdzicki & Sandra Ryeom. Down's syndrome suppression of tumour growth and the role of the calcineurin inhibitor DSCR1. Nature, 2009; DOI: 10.1038/nature08062
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead. | <urn:uuid:27499e42-88be-4ad6-b397-77c5a2ca5e78> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090520140359.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938524 | 1,274 | 3.375 | 3 |
This past week, the Catholic church was scandalized when a prominent friar was quoted as saying that victims of sex abuse are sometimes to blame for the abuse they suffer at the hands of first-time offending priests. He even said he felt sorry for Jerry Sandusky.
CNN excerpts two of Rev. Benedict Groeschel, of the Franciscan Friars of Renewel’s statements:
“People have this picture in their minds of a person planning to – a psychopath. But that’s not the case. Suppose you have a man having a nervous breakdown, and a youngster comes after him. A lot of the cases, the youngster – 14, 16, 18 – is the seducer,” he said.
Regarding Sandusky, the Friar said:
“Here’s this poor guy – Sandusky – it went on for years. Interesting: Why didn’t anyone say anything? Apparently, a number of kids knew about it and didn’t break the ice. Well, you know, until recent years, people did not register in their minds that it was a crime. It was a moral failure, scandalous; but they didn’t think of it in terms of legal things.”
Now, Groeschel clarifies that he did not intend to blame the victims, and the National Catholic Register also issued an apology for printing such damaging statements.
“Child sexual abuse is never excusable,” the newspaper said in a statement. “The editors of the National Catholic Register apologize for publishing without clarification or challenge Father Benedict Groeschel’s comments that seem to suggest that the child is somehow responsible for abuse. Nothing could be further from the truth.”
What do you think the newspaper should have done with Groeschel’s statements? What should be done with Groeschel now? Is there a way in which it’s better to have Groeschel put this twisted, faulted logic of victim-blaming out in the public so that it can be challenged and dismantled? | <urn:uuid:b0b6985c-9b4b-45a3-81db-9120d107ae6c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://goodmenproject.com/good-feed-blog/priest-and-publication-apologize-for-comments-about-victims-seducing-priests/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969054 | 429 | 1.789063 | 2 |
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Ancient Aliens: “Perhaps the most familiar and most mysterious megalithic structure in all the world is the Great Pyramid of Giza. The enormous size and weight of the stones, multiplied by the sheer number of them, makes one thing certain: the construction of the Great Pyramid remains one of the greatest marvels and mysterious of architectural engineering.”
The pyramids at Giza are marvels of engineering and there are many theories, from the mundane to fantastic, surrounding their construction.
“There are all kinds of theories on how the Great Pyramid of Giza was built – so many theories that you just sit back and shake your head. That includes ET visitations, levitating the blocks with some sort of sound system.”
One place we can learn a lot about Egyptian stone-cutting methods is from the so-called unfinished obelisk.
Here we have a 1,000-ton obelisk made of granite, abandoned midway through the project because of a crack that developed. This stone, because it is unfinished, gives us direct insight into how they cut and shaped granite, as well as other stones.
On the sides we can see how these stones were separated from the quarry. A team of workers would line-up side by side and pound their sections with a diorite pounding stone. Such pounding stones can be found all over this quarry and others in Egypt. This pounding only broke off millimeters of granite at a time, but eventually these troth-like sections would emerge at each workers station.
After that they would do the same thing on the bottom of the block until it was supported only by a thin spine in the middle. Then it would be snapped off using levers. The people who created the Moai statues at Easter Island used very similar methods for quarrying stone, as did many other groups around the world – as we will see.
After the stones had been roughly shaped using pounding stones, they would begin to polish them with grinders. There have been many types of stone grinders, or polishers, found in ancient Egypt. They usually had a handle and a flat surface which they would use to rub against the stone, using sand as the abrasive. They were, well… sanding the stone.
The various mineral particles found in sand are indeed hard enough to polish hard stones like granite, but also to do what Ancient Aliens tries to make people think is utterly impossible – that is, to cut granite.
The Egyptians had a variety of ways to cut granite, mostly involving copper and sand. There are plenty of saw marks on granite stones in Egypt, such as at the granite quarries, as well as notable ones like the famous granite sarcophagus in the Great Pyramid.
The person who was doing the sawing on the sarcophagus sawed, for a while, at the incorrect angle before realizing his mistake and going in the right direction. This left us a pretty large mark to study.
These copper saws came in three basic styles. One was a two-person saw, like an old time lumber saw. Another type was a small, hand held saw with a wooden handle. And finally there was a tubular saw for making holes in granite and other stones.
These saws are depicted in several Egyptian reliefs. Interestingly they didn’t require saw teeth to work. They only required sand to be placed between the saw and the stones. The sand was what did the cutting.
This particular method of stone cutting has been tested by ancient Egyptian tool experts and, not only was it done, it was apparently quite easy to do.
However, sawing granite with copper was expensive because the copper would wear out quite quickly. Thus, you mostly see granite being worked with pounding stones finished with grinders and chisels. The saw work was reserved primarily for royal projects, like that of the sarcophagus.
All of this information severely dents Ancient Aliens’ credibility due to the fact that, all throughout the series, they try to make it seem like working with granite was only possible through the use of diamond-tipped alien power tools.
However, as all of this relates to the great pyramid’s construction, it’s important to remember that almost none of the pyramid is made from granite – except for a few things such as the roof supports for the king’s chamber. Most of the stones used were sandstone and limestone. About 85% of the stone used in the construction of the pyramids was relatively soft sandstone which was quarried right on site.
That’s right! The great pyramid was built right in the middle of a massive sandstone quarry, which was no doubt at least one factor in choosing the location to build it.
The other 15% of the stones, like limestone and the granite, would have to be brought in from a slightly further away location. So this raises another question:
Okay, so what about moving these stones? Surely, as Ancient Aliens claims, the only option is levitation…
AA: “In order to really move massive amounts of stone like that, they would have had to have been levitated, somehow made weightless and then moved through the air by some sort of device. Perhaps even a handheld device like some sort of beam weapon.”
If levitation was how the ancient Egyptians moved stones, they had a funny way of showing it. This is because there are plenty of depictions of them using wooden sleds to move everything from blocks the size and shape of the ones used for the pyramid, to massive 1,000 ton monuments and obelisks – all using wooden sleds.
They even had a hieroglyph for the world “sled”, which they used often. In fact three such sleds have been found in tact by archeologists and they have all kinds of places to attach ropes to.
Speaking of ropes…
Ropes made out of papyrus and other materials have been found in Egypt, some of them with a massive circumference, suggesting that they were used for extremely heavy objects.
Boats were used for stones that needed to be imported. In fact a channel was dug from the Nile to the construction site, so no stone had to be dragged very far anyway
So, what about the construction of the Pyramids? How exactly was it done?
Part of the reason the Ancient Aliens perspective is attractive is because some of the other popular theories concerning the pyramid’s construction have serious problems, such as the single ramp theory which would have had to extend out more than a mile, and would have had to have had more stones in it than the pyramid itself.
Another one is the spiral ramp theory. This one is problematic because some of the ledges only had about two feet or less to work with, certainly not enough to hold a ledge that would carry workers and stones the size of the ones used.
Also, a structure like the pyramid would have had to have been constantly monitored for geometric accuracy as it progressed upwards, because being even a few inches off on a lower level could cause the top to be off by a huge amount. And a spiral ramp would have made it impossible to survey the geometric accuracy of the pyramid as it progressed.
Add to this that there is no actual evidence for either of those theories and you can see why people are looking for alternatives.
While doing research for this documentary I came across a new theory about the pyramids construction that I had not heard before. At first I planned to mention it only briefly, but the more I heard of this theory the more convinced I became of its validity.
It was proposed, not by an Egyptologist, but by and eccentric French architect named Jean Pierre Houdin.
And if Jean Pierre is correct, knowing how the blocks were raised in the pyramid also happens to explain some of the other mysteries, like the purpose for the odd shaped Grand Gallery, as well as the purpose of the granite blocks above the kings chamber and why there were three burial chambers cut in at different levels in the pyramid two of which were unused.
I will very briefly explain this theory, but I highly encourage you to visit the links at the website on your screen because the specifics of this theory are something that any pyramid enthusiast should be, in my opinion, very familiar.
The basic idea is that there was an internal ramp in the Great Pyramid, and workers dragged the blocks through it until they reached the corners, at which point the block was repositioned for another team to pull it up the next ramp.
Also, the exterior limestone blocks with the polished finish would have been positioned and aligned first to ensure geometric accuracy, and then the sandstone blocks would have been positioned behind them as filler.
This would mean that all the internal chambers, like the Queen and King’s Chamber, were built as the pyramid progressed upwards in the light of day.
This internal ramp theory, unlike some of the others is actually supported by quite a lot of physical evidence. For example in the 1980s a French team looking for hidden chambers conducted a full scale gravimetric survey of the Great Pyramid – kind of like a giant x-ray map of the entire pyramid.
They actually found evidence of this internal ramp through their study, but had no idea what to think of the spiral pattern they saw at the time, so they simply filed it away until they heard about Jean Pierre’s internal ramp theory 14 years later.
In addition there is a notch high up on the Great Pyramid which, according to Jean Pierre, rests exactly on the 7% grade where you’d expect to find the internal ramp, and would be at the exact place where the workers would have lifted the blocks and changed the direction for the pullers.
Bob Brier, an Egyptologist working with Jean Pierre, was only allowed a few minutes to survey this notch and take a few pictures and measurements. They found that there was indeed a large space behind theses stones, and made extensive computer models with the pictures that were taken.
As of 2012, the team is still waiting for clearance from the Egyptian authorities to conduct a full scale survey of this notch.
But perhaps even more interesting is the purpose for the Grand Gallery and the granite stones above the Kings Chamber. I mention them together because, according to Jean Pierre, they are intimately connected.
First, it is important to know that the main difference between the Great Pyramid and the other two pyramids at Giza is that the Great Pyramid’s burial chamber was inside the pyramid. The other two were underground, cut directly into the bedrock, which meant that in those two pyramids they did not have to worry about the hundreds of thousands of tons of stone above it collapsing onto the tomb.
The Great Pyramid was different. Its chambers were in the middle of the pyramid, and because of this the designer had to get creative to prevent the stones from collapsing in on the chambers. In earlier pyramids in the area this had been accomplished using a stone roof that came together at an apex, which distributed the weight of the blocks away from the chamber.
But for the Great Pyramid the designer wanted to be more ornate, opting for a flat roof in the Kings Chamber, which would have easily collapsed if he didn’t find a way to distribute the weight of the stones above it away from the roof.
He ingeniously added a series of large granite blocks, spaced out evenly above the chamber, capping those stones with the same apex roof idea from the earlier pyramids, which distributed the weight safely away from the Kings Chamber ceiling.
This did indeed solve the problem of the weight of the stones collapsing the chamber, but it caused another problem. How could you get those granite stones up there for placement? They would have been too big for the internal ramp, and too heavy, even at a 7% incline.
For the solution we look to the Grand Gallery. The Grand Gallery has puzzled Egyptologists ever since it was discovered. It is such an odd shape, and it doesn’t seem to make sense to construct it the way it’s constructed if it is simply a path to get from point A to point B. This has led to much speculation about its purpose.
Jean Pierre has proposed that the Grand Gallery was used as a massive counterweight system, where a wooden trolley was loaded with stones and rigged with ropes and used to provide the force to lift the heaviest objects. Basically it was the equivalent of a freight elevator.
There is actually a lot of physical evidence for this too, and it explains all kinds of peculiar details about the Grand Gallery. For example, the odd holes in the so called “benches” of the Grand Gallery were used to connect a wooden guide system for the trolley. It also explains why there are remnants of grease as well as scratches along the bottom of the chamber where the trolley would have rubbed against the stone. It was apparently lubricated to make it run smoother.
It explains the odd way the stones were worn at the so called top “step” of the Grand Gallery exactly where the ropes would have had to be. This area has now been cemented over to make a step, but you can see in old pictures what it looked like when explores first arrived.
This freight elevator would have required a small external ramp, which there is some evidence for, and even those who oppose the long single ramp theory agree there was probably a small ramp at the beginning of the construction. This ramp would have been dismantled after the completion of the Kings Chamber, and the stones would have been dragged up the internal ramp to finish the rest of the pyramid.
Jean Pierre and his team have made a lot of converts to this idea, including a number of well-respected Egyptologists and pyramid experts. But as of 2012 they are still in the final stages of being approved by the Egyptian government for more work on the site.
Heiser: “Houdin’s idea of an internal ramp is coherent. I think there is good circumstantial evidence for it. If you watched the National Geographic special on his view I think you’d agree that there is good circumstantial evidence for it. It has a lot of explanatory power for a lot of the fundamental questions. I think it’s important because Houdin’s theory depends on a very simple idea in engineering, both in the ancient world and today’s world, and that is the use of weight and counterweight – using the weight of one object to lift one of greater weight.”
Whether or not this theory proves to be perfectly true in every respect will, hopefully, soon be seen. I at least hope that by now most of us can see that these construction techniques are well within the capability of mankind to conceive and achieve without the intervention of aliens.
NOVA – Peter Tyson. “The Unfinished Obelisk.” The Unfinished Obelisk, March 16, 1999. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/egypt/dispatches/990316.html
Tyson 1999
Dieter Arnold. “Building in Egypt; Pharaonic Stone Masonry.” Building in Egypt; Pharaonic Stone Masonry, n.d. http://hbar.phys.msu.ru/gorm/ahist/arnold/arnold.htm.
Archae Solenhofen. “Ancient Egyptian Stoneworking Tools and Methods.” Ancient Egyptian Stoneworking Tools and Methods, March 31, 2002. http://www.oocities.org/unforbidden_geology/ancient_egyptian_copper_slabbing_saws.html.
Dieter Arnold (see 7.)
Solenhofen 2002
Dieter Arnold (see 7.)
Solenhofen 2002
Dieter Arnold (see 7.)
Bob Brier, Jean-pierre Houdin. The Secret of the Great Pyramid: How One Man’s Obsession Led to the Solution of Ancient Egypt’s Greatest Mystery. Smithsonian, 2008.
Dieter Arnold (see 7.)
Brier, 2008.
Jean-Pierre Houdin’s Theory 2011 update (video) http://vimeo.com/26769564
Brier, 2008.
Brier, 2008. | <urn:uuid:ef14cfe7-0ada-4956-87b8-a3cf87ae47a6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ancientaliensdebunked.com/references-and-transcripts/the-pyramids/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970821 | 3,383 | 3.109375 | 3 |
|Vol. IX, No. 7||© James B. Jordan, 1997||July, 1997|
JOHN SAILHAMER WEIGHS IN (IV)
by James B. Jordan
We conclude our analysis of John Sailhamer's book Genesis Unbound: A Provocative New Look at the Creation Account (Multnomah Books, 1996), which argues that Genesis 1:2ff. is not about the creation of the whole world, but about the preparation of the Land of Eden, which is also the Promised Land.
THE THIRD DAY
In chapter 12, Sailhamer discusses the third day. He states that "In Hebrew, any `pool' of water regardless of size is called a `sea'" (p. 126). I don't know where he gets this. It is not evidently true. A sea in the Bible is a large body of water.
In a note he refers to the Bronze Sea in the Temple of Solomon. The Bronze Ocean, mounted on a pedestal, represents the waters above the firmament, the heavenly ocean. It is not a pool.
Sailhamer goes on to say that the gathering of the waters "into one place" clearly does not refer to the oceans, but to the various seas and lakes of Palestine, which are gathered into that one place. But it is a fact that there is only one world ocean. The continents are but large islands in this one world sea. Sailhamer has several seas in one place, but the text indicates one large sea. Rather clearly, a world-wide order rather than a localized one is in view.
In a bizarre mistake, Sailhamer goes on to say that only fruit trees were made on the third day. For him, this means God specially planted these trees in the land of Eden. But the text clearly says that grain plants as well as trees were made on the third day. Sailhamer then goes on to ask what the animals and birds and fishes were supposed to eat if the only vegetation in the world was fruit trees. The answer is: grains. (Aquatic vegetation does not come into view in Genesis 1-2.)
Then Sailhamer says that since God planted fruit trees in the garden in Genesis 2, that planting is to be identified with the planting on the third day. But Sailhamer can only make this association because he has completely ignored the grains. It seems to me that Sailhamer is so enthralled by his thesis that he is simply blind to certain matters in the text.
THE FOURTH DAY
Chapter 13 deals with the 4th day. Sailhamer generates some non-existent problems that supposedly show that God did not make the sun, moon, and stars on the fourth day. He writes: "But does the text actually say that the sun, moon, and stars were created on the fourth day? I don't believe it does. Yet if the text did say those heavenly bodies were created on the fourth day, a major problem would confront us. How could the universe which includes the sun, moon, and stars have been created `in the beginning' (1:1) and also on the fourth day? And how could the author speak of a `day and night' during the first three days of creation if the sun had not yet been created? Furthermore, are we to understand that plants and vegetation were created on the third day, before the creation of the sun?" (p. 129).
Gentle reader, do these strike you as real problems? Of course not. Nothing hints that all the contents of the heaven and earth were created "in the beginning." Sailhamer has asserted that they were, but has provided no evidence to support that assertion. The alternation of day and night was provided by the waxing and waning of the light source established on the first day. No problem here. Trees and grains existed for a mere 24 hours before the sun was made, and in the meantime the light set up on of day one sustained them. So where is the problem?
Sailhamer informs the unwary reader that many exegetes have wrestled with these problems over the centuries. They have? No one did before the rise of evolutionary science. He cites the work of only two men, C. F. Keil and John Calvin, both of whom appear not to have had any problem with the text at all. They said God made the sun on the fourth day.
Now Sailhamer turns to his own position. He starts by telling us that it is clear that the sun was made "in the beginning." At the risk of boring you, courteous reader, let me state again that Sailhamer has provided no evidence for this assertion.
Retranslating Verse 14
Then he tells us that the proper translation of 1:14 is not "Let there be lights in the firmament to separate the day and night," but "Let the lights in the firmament be for separating the day and night." Now, if this be correct, then Sailhamer does have a case for arguing that the sun already existed. But is it correct?
First, if Sailhamer is right, then every expositor for the past several thousand years has been wrong. I find nobody who takes 1:14 the way Sailhamer does. Hirsch and Cassuto, Calvin and Keil, Wenham and Hamilton, etc. nobody agrees with Sailhamer or even raises the issue.
Second, Sailhamer asserts that there is a clear difference in the Hebrew phrasing of verses 6 and 14. Verse 6 says, "Let there be a firmament between the waters, AND LET IT BE for separating," while verse 14 says, "Let there be lights in the firmament-heavens TO SEPARATE between the day and between the night." Sailhamer's own discussion is not very clear, but he is arguing that if the traditional view is correct, verse 14 should read, "Let there be lights ... AND LET THEM BE for separating...."
Let me try and make this clearer. Verse 6 says God made the firmament, and then it says He gave it the purpose of separating the waters. Verse 14 "ought to say" that God made the lights, and then add that He gave them the purpose of separating day and night. This would make it clear that God made the lights as He made the firmament, and then assigned them their purpose. Because the verb is not repeated, Sailhamer argues, verse 14 should be read that on the fourth day God made (appointed) the lights to separate day and night. This implies that they already existed.
Now, as I mentioned above, no other exegetical expositor seems to think that this distinction in phrasing amounts to anything other than a simple variation in the way the text is expressing matters. I am not sufficiently skilled in advanced Hebrew syntax to express more than a very meagre opinion (see below). But I can point out that if Sailhamer's reading were correct, it would create a significant problem, to wit: The light set up on the first day ALREADY separated day and night. If that light is the same as the sun, then what is God doing on the fourth day? What does it mean for God to appoint the sun to this task on the fourth day, if the sun already had this task from the first day?
Now, it is to Sailhamer's credit that he recognizes this problem and attempts to deal with it on pages 134-35. He affirms that the sun (on his view) was already marking day and night. What is new on the fourth day, he states, is that God announced the purpose of the lights. That works as far as the lights being for signs and festivals, etc., is concerned, but it does not work so clearly as far as the lights being to separate day and night. On Sailhamer's view, the text has already told us this in verse 4. Why repeat it here?
I submit that for Sailhamer's view to be tenable, verse 14 should simply read, "Let the lights in the firmament-heaven be for signs and for festivals and for days and for years," without repeating the business of separating day and night, since it is clear that they already had that purpose.
Now, Sailhamer asks, "Why did God wait until the fourth day to announce the purpose of the sun, moon, and stars?" (p. 135). His answer is that days 4-6 parallel days 1-3. "On the fourth day, God commanded the sun, moon, and stars to distinguish day and night and all the signs and seasons (1:14-15). On the fifth day, God commanded the seas to swarm with fish and sea creatures, and on the sixth day, He commanded the land to bring forth animal life" (p. 135). This parallelism looks good until we notice that on the fifth day God also made birds to dwell upon the land (v. 22) and the land was made on the third day, not the second. Moreover, the second day is not focally concerned with the seas, which are not named until the third day, but with the firmament. It is the firmament that is in focus on the second day, not the seas.
Additionally, Sailhamer says that the first three days are days of preparation, while the next three announce the purposes of the things made on the first three. But that's not true either. The firmament made on the second day is given a purpose immediately (v. 6). If Sailhamer's parallelism were correct, the fifth day should announce the purpose of the firmament, something it does not do.
My conclusion is that Sailhamer has not at all solved the problems his translation of verse 14 creates. On his reading, verse 14a is simply a redundant repetition of what has already been said in verses 3-4.
A Correct Understanding
The traditional understanding is that on the fourth day the sun, moon, and stars simply replaced the primordial light of day one, which was the light of the Spirit and glory of God. Eventually, the sun, moon, and stars will be gone, because the firmament-boundary between heaven and earth will be gone, and the light of the Spirit of Christ will return as the light of the cosmos (Revelation 21:23). In the meantime, the firmament stands between us and God, while we live out the course of history by faith and not by sight, "under the sun" (as the book of Ecclesiastes tells us).
With the traditional understanding in view, we may be able to account for the slight difference in grammar between verses 6 and 14.
Verse 6: "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the water, and let it separate the waters from the waters." Were the waters already separated? No.
Verse 14: "Let there be lights in the firmament-heavens to separate the day and the night, and let them be for signs and for festival assemblies and for days and for years." Were day and night already separated? Yes, by the light of the first day.
Now, if the text read, "Let there be lights in the firmament-heavens, and let them separate the day and the night," someone would say, "Aha! This contradicts verse 4, which says there was already a light separating day and night." But no one can make this mistake because of the way the grammar stands. Originally there was (Divine) light above the earth separating day and night. Now God makes lights in the firmament for that purpose.
Notice how verse 14 continues, "and let them be for signs and for assembles and for days and for years." Did the light of the first day do these things? No. They are added here, and so a finite verb rather than an infinitive is used to introduce them.
"Let there be a firmament, and let it divide the waters," because dividing the waters is new.
"Let there be lights, and let them be for signs, etc.," because these functions of light are new.
"Let there be lights to separate day and night," because this function is not new, but is now taken over by the newly-created lights.
This distinction fully accounts for the grammatical difference, and it does so simply and in line with the flow of the passage.
One other matter may be addressed here. I have asserted that the light that shone on the first day is the light of the glory-Spirit of God. This may stand to reason without a prooftext, but is there anything in Genesis 1 that points to this? Yes, there is.
Notice verses 6-7 again: "Let there be a firmament ... And God made the firmament."
Verses 14-16: "Let there be lights ... And God made the lights."
Now verses 3-4: "Let there be light. And there was light." We don't read that God made the light. The contrast indicates that God Himself was the source of the light. To be sure, there are creational aspects of God's light when it shines into the creation: photons carry the packets of light (to use one way of speaking about it), and such photons are creatures. But the Source of the light in verses 3-4 is, by implication, God Himself.
THE FIFTH DAY
Another large problem awaits Dr. Sailhamer on the fifth day. Up to now, he has been able to argue that when God is said to "make" things in Genesis 1, this really means that He "appoints them" or "sets them up" (pp. 106-08). He has been able to assert that these things already existed, but were appointed to their various purposes during the creation week. The verb translated "make" can indeed have this meaning, though Sailhamer has not convinced us that it has that meaning in Genesis 1.
On the fifth day, however, God did not "make" the great sea monsters; He "created" them (v. 21). On the face of it, this is something brand new. In chapter 14 of his book, Sailhamer wrestles with the sea monsters.
He points out the traditional understanding, which is that there are three acts of creation in Genesis 1: the heavens and earth, the living creatures, and humanity. Each is a radically new "wondrous work" of God, indicating a beginning of something radically new. But for Sailhamer, this is not acceptable, because he maintains that the animals had been created during the "beginning period." Because he is absolutely certain of this, he argues that "Genesis 1:21 is best explained as a comment on verse 20. It is a comment to remind the reader that God `created' all kinds of animals `in the beginning' (1:1)" (p. 138).
He states, "The author does not say God created all the animals on the fifth day; he merely says it was God who created all the animals and that now He commands some to fill the waters and the skies over the promised land" (p. 139). But that is NOT what the text says. It does not read: "And it was God who had created the great sea monsters, etc." If that had been the writer's intention, the word order in Hebrew would be different. As it stands, the Hebrew reads, "And (He) created, God, the great sea monsters, etc." The verb comes first, stressing the action, as it does routinely in Genesis 1. For Sailhamer to be correct, the Hebrew should put the noun "God" first: "And God, (He) created the great sea monsters, etc." In fact, if the stress is on the fact that it was God who created, the Hebrew would likely include the pronoun explicitly: "And God, He Himself created the great sea monsters." But that is not how the text reads.
It is not necessary to survey the remainder of Dr. Sailhamer's book, some of which we have dealt with already. Nothing he writes after his discussion of the fifth day adds any new arguments for his thesis. His discussion of the sixth and seventh days is, in the main, unproblematic. The last section of his book is a return to general principles, and those parts that are relevant have already been discussed.
Our conclusion is that while Dr. Sailhamer's thesis is interesting, it is not correct. The author's arguments, such as they are, consist mainly of statements of his thesis over and over, and an attempt to interpret Genesis 1 in the light of them. We have found his thesis to be unsupported by any credible argument, and his interpretation of Genesis 1 to be replete with errors.
Copyright 1997, James
Institute for Christian Economics
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Gender Focus welcomes new contributor Kim Mackenzie. Kim is a recent graduate from the University of the Fraser Valley in Abbotsford, BC where she completed her BA in Psychology and Criminology. She is passionate about social justice and hopes to pursue a graduate degree centered on women’s rights, with a focus on sex workers’ rights.
An inquest into the circumstances of how Ashley Smith died in a Canadian federal prison five years ago has finally begun. Hopefully some questions will be answered as to how Ashley managed to commit suicide as prison guards watched from the other side of her cell door. Instead of just looking at why the guards did not intervene, I think it is important to question the entire system. How did the system let Ashley down?
Ashley had originally been incarcerated for throwing crabapples at a mailman, but due to her oppositional and defiant behavior, she was kept in custody for more than three years and most often forced into segregation for periods longer than Corrections Canada technically allows. Her life ended in the Grand Valley Institution for Women- an institution that is supposed to have more gender-responsive programming.
Clearly the biggest problem in this case was the mismanagement of someone dealing with mental illness. Ashley engaged in repeated self-harm. Research suggests that over half of federally-sentenced women engage in self-harm. The truth of the matter is female offenders have different needs compared to male offenders, especially those suffering from mental illness. It is not enough to create a female-centered facility; the gender-specific programming needs to be followed and staff need to be properly trained. Instead of focusing on control and punishment, female offenders dealing with mental illness need to be treated. They need to have access to mental health and community resources. Read more | <urn:uuid:a8028f5a-346b-4312-baa9-51a0464d9ddc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gender-focus.com/tag/restorative-justice/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976364 | 356 | 1.828125 | 2 |
The World Bank has named US doctor Jim Yong Kim its next president. The appointment came as Mr Kim's only rival, Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, lashed out at Washington's perennial lock on the job.The US nominee faced a challenge for the first time ever.But there was little doubt that the Bank's most powerful shareholders - the United States, Europe and Japan - would support the Korean-American for the powerful job doling out money to developing countries.
Japan's finance minister signalled Tokyo's willingness to support Jim Yong Kim, the US nominee for the next World Bank chief, a report said. ||| Japan's finance minister on Tuesday signalled Tokyo's willingness to support Jim Yong K... Read Post
(WASHINGTON) — Senior administration officials say President Barack Obama is nominating Dartmouth College President Jim Yong Kim to head the World Bank. It’s a surprise choice for the World Bank’s top job. A physician by training, K... Read Post | <urn:uuid:807b6b2b-eaf0-4847-b692-fb11e25aa8f3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://regator.com/p/255689523/us_doctor_named_as_new_world_bank_head/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925433 | 203 | 1.890625 | 2 |
SCHOOL OF INTERIOR DESIGN
Experience how a specialized interior design school in California can help you gain access to a rewarding career in interior design. Wherever you are in your life - recent high school graduate, transferring college student, or someone searching for a new satisfying career - Design Institute of San Diego provides the education for tomorrow's interior design leaders.
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- Read the Message To Students from the Program Director
- View the Interior Design Degree Program at DISD
- Review DISD's Interior Design Courses
- What makes Interior Design Schools & Colleges different?
DISD Student Amber Style “Takes a Seat” for a Great Cause
- May 16, 2013
The Klines Awarded Prestigious San Diego Art Prize
- May 14, 2013 | <urn:uuid:6104a376-8dd6-4ed4-8069-92de5586aef6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.disd.edu/index.php?L=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928816 | 286 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Les noms des biens figurent dans la langue dans laquelle les Etats parties les ont soumis.
The introduction of the camel in the 1st century AD by the Arab traders facilitated trade between North Africa and the Savannah belt. Peace, tranquility and prosperty in the area gave rise to emprires such as Ghana, Mali and Songhai. Invariably almost all the Arab traders were muslims who were bent on converting the people of the Sahara to Islam. As majority of the converts traded with their southern neighbours, they also tried to convert them as well. HISTORICAL BACKGROND OF THE MOSQUES The Sudanic style mosques in the north of Ghana are historical evidence of the Islamic diaspora that followed the rise of Sudanese states and mark the trade routes of the muslim Dyula traders who migrated southwards from Djenne across the savannah towards the gold and kola producting arears in the rainforests of southern Ghana. Following the Moroccan invasion of Songhai in 1591, and the sacking of Timbuktu and Gao, battalions of Mande warriors followed traders southwards. They conquered the indigenous people in the north-west among whom the Djula had been trading peacefully and established their rule. This penetration of Neo-Sudanese influence led to the formation of Islamic states such as Wala, Dagbong, Gonja and Mamprugu. Of these states the Sudanic style mosques are mostly concentrated in the Wala and Gonja states as these lay directly on the western routes used by the Mande warriors, Missionaries and traders. BUILDING TECHNIQUES OF MOSQUES OF GHANA The mosques are built of sun-dried mud bricks and have massive mud columns supporting flat roofs which consist of mud on frame works of bush poles. Short lengths of bush poles are buried into buttresses and left jutting out, and these help to give these mosques their characteristic appearance. Traditionally, the flat mud roofs are well made impervious by a mixture of cow-dung and laterite soil well rammed and provided with gentle slopes to drain off rain water. Deep slopes are provided for fast drainage of water from the roof. This type of structures obviously need constant attention to keep them in good state. To save these ancient examples of a unique architectural style from total disappearance, the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board has been making tremendous efforts through comprehensive maintenance and restoration programmes. TYPOLOGY The Islamic architectural style introduced into the country are of two types: Sudanic and the Djenne Types. SUDANIC TYPE: This has a timber frame structure supporting a flat roof of mud construction. It has a series of buttresses with pinnacles projecting above the parapet, and usually has two pointed towers. One of these towers is over the 'MIHRAB' which always faces the east (or Mecca) as is the case with all mosques. The tower contains the 'HALUWA' (a small room for meditation), and access to it is usually by means of steps leading from the interior of the mosque to the roof. Generally the Sudanic style mosque have bush pole re-inforcements which also serve as scaffolding during the building operation. Above the entrance lintels are triangular recesses, forming decorative features. In some places, the area surrounding the mosque is usually reserved for burial and the graves are marked by rocks. Sheep-skins and woven mats serve as pews or praying mats in the mosques. These are either rolled up or left spread in the mosque aÎter each prayer session. A receptacle is usually kept in the mosque to hold water for ablution. An example of the Sudanic style mosque is the one at Larabanga (described in detail later in this paper). DJENNE TYPE: The mosque at Wuriyanga near GARU in the Bawku district is an example of this architectural style. It is rectangular on plan and has no buttresses. Its' walls are load bearing with a flat mud roof surrounded by a parapet. There is only one tower which is over the 'MIHRAB', the HALUWA is in this tower and access to it is from the roof. The epitome of this type of Islamic architecture can be found in Djenne in the state of Mali, further north of Ghana. | <urn:uuid:20e2ab3b-ac07-4aee-b923-ceac68928b15> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://whc.unesco.org/pg.cfm?cid=326&l=fr&id=1395&action=doc | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955302 | 901 | 3.328125 | 3 |
If you wish to drive a tank vehicle, you must receive a tanker endorsement. A tank endorsement is required for certain vehicles that transport liquids or gases. The liquid or gas does not have to be a hazardous material. A tank endorsement is only required if your vehicle needs a Class A or B CDL and you want to haul a liquid or liquid gas in a permanently mounted cargo tank rated at 119 gallons or more or a portable tank rated at 1,000 gallons or more.
Before loading, unloading, or driving a tanker, inspect the vehicle. This makes sure that the vehicle is safe to carry the liquid or gas and is safe to drive.
The Tanker Vehicles written test contains twenty (20) multiple choice questions. Drivers must answer 16 questions correctly in order to receive a passing score of at least 80%.
The Tanker Vehicles exam will test you on the following topics covered in Chapter 8 of your state CDL manual:
We continously update our free database with new CDL questions, so please come back often. If you like these practice questions, please make sure to like us on facebook and follow us on twitter below! | <urn:uuid:9f69d42e-067f-4a4b-8cfc-f9b58aadcfa0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cdl-testing.com/tanker-vehicles.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.916161 | 231 | 2.21875 | 2 |
Rig Runs Aground in Alaska, Reviving Fears About Arctic Drilling
One of Shell Oil’s two Arctic drilling rigs is beached on an island in the Gulf of Alaska, threatening environmental damage from a fuel spill and calling into question Shell’s plans to resume drilling in the treacherous waters north of Alaska in the summer.
Fiscal Cliff Deal Extends Wind Tax Credits One Year
The wind energy industry in the U.S. breathed a sigh of relief as Congress passed a fiscal cliff deal on Tuesday that included an extension of the wind energy tax credits for wind projects that start in 2013.
West Antarctic Ice Sheet Warming Twice Earlier Estimate
US researchers say they found the first evidence of warming during the southern hemisphere's summer months. They are worried that the increased melting of ice as a result of warmer temperatures could contribute to sea-level rise.
Gas Prices Hit Record High in 2012
Annual gas prices hit a record high in 2012, the AAA motor club said Monday. On average, the national gas price for the year was $3.60 per gallon, eclipsing last year’s record of $3.51 per gallon. AAA attributed the increase to weather events and global turmoil.
Chernobyl Mammals Tracked in Snow
Scientists studying the ecology of the Chernobyl exclusion zone in Ukraine have made the most of freezing conditions there - using footprints in the snow to study the population of mammals. (Slideshow)
Emerald Coal Sued In Pennsylvania For Allegedly Polluting Waterways
A citizens' group has sued a longwall mining company in southwestern Pennsylvania, claiming it is polluting key waterways — including at least one high-quality fishing stream — that feed the Monongahela River.
12 Eco-Stories to Restore Your Faith in Humanity
We often hear people complaining that there is much more bad news in the media than good news. This is even frequently the case with eco-news. Looking back over 2012, it turns out that there were plenty of upbeat eco-stories this year that demonstrate how individuals, schools, companies and even cities are making positive impacts. Click through to see a dozen stories that might just help restore your faith in humanity.
Leading Environmentalist Rebecca Tarbotton of Rainforest Action Network Dies at 39
In case you missed the sad news, Leading environmentalist and human rights champion Rebecca "Becky" Tarbotton, executive director of the organization Rainforest Action Network (RAN), has died at the age of 39. Tarbotton was vacationing in Mexico with her husband and passed away after a swimming accident. | <urn:uuid:5545d52d-8315-45ab-9dad-59434edc6bd5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://occupyamerica.crooksandliars.com/taxonomy/term/14483 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930787 | 534 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Genre: Historical Drama
Directed by: Andrzej Wajda
Starring: Gérard Depardieu, Wojciech Pszoniak, Anne Alvaro, Roland Blanche, Patrice Chéreau
Polish filmmaker Andrzej Wajda's historical drama about the final showdown between two key figures of the French Revolution — Danton (Gérard Depardieu) and Robespierre (Wojciech Pszoniak) — eschews historical pageantry in favor of a more intimate approach. Danton (1983) — made while the director was living briefly in France — is very close to being a great film. It is compromised by being both overlit and by Wajda's insistence on casting Polish actor Wojciech Pszoniak as Robespierre, necessitating his dialogue to be distractingly dubbed by a French actor. (There are other dubbed Polish actors in the film, but none so up close and personal as Pszoniak.) Still, the film is amazingly vibrant and compelling. Gérard Depardieu's Danton is one of the actor's best performances — a careful balancing act between buffoonish clown and a deeply concerned champion of the people against Robespierre's Reign of Terror. It's a role that fits Depardieu as few have done. At the film's center is Danton's trial — a put-up job with an inevitable outcome — and it's one of the best such depictions of a trial ever put on film. In many ways, it clearly draws from Ken Russell's The Devils (1971) — even to the hair-cutting scene (that isn't carried as far) and a dissonant musical score by Jean Prodromidès that recalls Peter Maxwell Davies' unsettling score for Russell's film. Wajda's film is ultimately less shattering, but it is undeniably powerful. Catch this one.
Classic World Cinema by Courtyard Gallery will present Danton Friday, Jan. 25 at 8 p.m. at Phil Mechanic Studios, 109 Roberts St., River Arts District, upstairs in the Railroad Library). Info: 273-3332, www.ashevillecourtyard.com
Read more articles in:Movies | <urn:uuid:061cb2e3-398d-46a8-8ae5-664f75c9450a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mountainx.com/article/47970/Danton | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932426 | 466 | 1.640625 | 2 |
NORTHERN NEW YORK
Genealogical and family history of northern New York: a record of the achievements of her people
in the making of a commonwealth and the founding of a nation.
New York: Lewis Historical Pub. Co. 1910.
Transcribed by Coralynn Brown
This is an old German name transported to Pennsylvania by those known in the vernacular as "York State Dutch." It is composed of two German words, the first of which is equivalent in meaning to the same word in English, the second syllable a German word meaning a brook, and it is probable that this name was adopted when surnames came into use by one who lived by a brook which abounded in fish. According to the family tradition the family of Fishbeck was founded by three brothers who came from Holland to New York at a very early date. They had been given money by their father to invest in lands on the German Flats, and this money was placed in charge of the commander of the vessel on which they sailed. On their arrival in this country the captain concealed the fact that he had received money for their passage and for investment, and according to the custom of the times hired them out in servitude to pay for their passage. One brother applied his first earnings to the payment of passage back to Holland; another went south, and the third remained in New York.
During the civil war members of this family in the Union army met with persons of the name in Virginia, and as near as could be learned from the tradition preserved they were descendants from the brother who went south.
(I) The first of the family of whom any knowledge can now be procured were Jacob Fishbeck and his wife, Elsie Storrin, who resided in Montrose, Susquehanna county, Pennsylvania.
(II) Adam, son of Jacob and Elsie Fishbeck, was born Oct. 20, 1805, in Montrose, and moved, when a young man to De Peyster, St. Lawrence county, New York, where he died in 1808. He located in 1825 with several others in what was known as the "Fishbeck settlement." This was the year of the organization of De Peyster as a township. He later removed to Macomb, where he was an industrious and prosperous farmer. He was a quiet citizen, and sought no part in political affairs, acting politically with the Democratic party. He married, 1829, Arathusa, youngest daughter of Amos (1) and Sarah (Harvey) Partridge, born Oct. 30, 1805, in Peacham, Vermont, died March 13, 1891, in Macomb. (See Partridge, VI).
Almeda, became wife of Julius Bishop, resided in Macomb and Gouverneur, and is now in Holyoke, Mass.
Maria, wife of John Wright, resided successively in Macomb, De Peyster and Wegatchie, and is now (1910) in Gouverneur.
Nancy, married Nathan Ward, a farmer of De Peyster.
Ephraim Freeman, mentioned below.
Hezekiah, killed while serving as a soldier in the civil war.
Simeon, a farmer and hotel proprietor.
(III) Ephraim Freeman, eldest son of Adam and Arathusa (Patridge) Fiskbeck, was born Nov. 14, 1832, in De Peyster, and grew up on the parental homestead, attending the common schools of the town. Before attaining his majority he purchased a tract of fifty acres in Macomb, which he cleared and subsequently extended until he was the possessor of one hundred and fifty acres. This he cultivated and retained until he sold it in 1901 and removed to Gouverneur, where he has since resided. He has been an active and useful citizen, serving as a school officer.
He enlisted in 1861, as a member of Company B, 60th New York Volunteer Infantry, in which he served nearly three years. He participated in numerous battles, and received an injury at Harper's Ferry which caused his discharge before the completion of his term of enlistment.
Mr. Fishbeck is a member of the Presbyterian church, and is a respected citizen. Since 1858 he has been a member of the Masonic order, and is now the last charter member living of De Peyster Lodge, No. 573, A. F. and A. M., in which he has held the office of senior deacon.
He married Margaret Fiddes McLellan, born Oct. 5, 1844, in Ox Bow, N.Y., daughter of Thomas McLellan, who was born Dec. 24, 1818, in Glasgow, Scotland, and died Dec. 24, 1894, at Macomb, St. Lawrence county, N.Y. The last named married Margaret Lockie, born Dec. 20, 1820, in Rossie, N.Y., of Scottish parentage, and died April 27, 1895, in Macomb, N.Y. He settled in Rossie in 1818. Margaret Lockie was descended from George Lockie, a shepherd at Muttonhole, in the village of Maxton, county of Roxburgh, North Britain. His son, George (2) Lockie, was born May 2, 1778, and married, June 22, 1804, Margaret Fiddes. Soon after this he came to the U.S. and settled in the town of Rossie, St. Lawrence county, N.Y. They were the parents of the following children: John, David, Agnes, George, James, Andrew, Mary and Margaret, all recorded in the parish register of Maxton. Margaret, daughter of George (2) and Margaret Lockie, was born Dec. 20, 1820, and became the wife of Thomas McLellan, as above noted. Thomas McLellan was born in Glasgow, Scotland, dec. 24, 1818, and recieved the ordinary education of his time. He learned the trade of cooper, and came to this county before 1843 and engaged in farming in the town of Macomb. He was a soldier of the civil war, serving in Company B, 142nd regiment, New York Infantry. He was a member of the Independent Order of Good Templars, and of the Presbyterian church, and was a steadfast Republican in political sentiment. He married, Dec. 21, 1843, in the Scottish settlement, in the town of Rossie, Margaret Lockie, as above mentioned, and they had children: Margaret Fiddes, John, George, William Clark, Alice Jane, Franklin Oliver, and Janett Lockie. All of these are now deceased except the eldest and Franklin Oliver, who is a farmer in Benden, Michigan. Thomas McLellan was a sonof John and Jane (Anderson) McLellan, who were born and married in Glasgow. The father was a weaver of fine underwear and hosiery.
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Census Records | Vital Records | Family Trees & Communities | Immigration Records | Military Records Directories & Member Lists | Family & Local Histories | Newspapers & Periodicals | Court, Land & Probate | Finding Aids | <urn:uuid:7fabe9d3-d3e9-474c-a170-7e6f0efe7803> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~hubbard/NNY_index/fishbeck.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984926 | 1,540 | 2.953125 | 3 |
Apostle of Seamus Heaney
How do I poem a verse for a god of letters,
stumble out crafted phrases fit for a grandfatherly face?
"Give up, sit down, keep your head below the parapet .
Leave the Heaney to treat with Zeus and fired-stone syllables."
The soul in my fingers hesitates before putting pen on to the line,
before lighting flame from Seamus’ easter candle.
I remember what it was like before we were introduced,
the soil without any hyphens growing there.
A moan, a lament, a complaint, sans esperance,
but it’s well-faded now
like the whistle of corncrakes
in the thickening growth of fresh sedge. | <urn:uuid:101e3c44-1a72-4618-9c44-fb66fda52183> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://omaniblog.blogs.ie/2009/04/12/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913457 | 163 | 1.765625 | 2 |
The New York press is flooded with stories and editorials about the fight over Columbia University’s expansion plans, but most accounts ignore a key part of the story. Unlike the opponents who successfully fought Columbia’s 1968 plan to build a gym in Morningside Heights, today’s community residents and students, while they too protest Columbia’s proposals, have their own plan for the area.
Columbia proposes to build 17 acres worth of campus in the Manhattanville area of West Harlem. The university would develop about seven million square feet of building space. The $7.4 billion project would take 25 to 30 years to complete and, according to Columbia, result in 2,000 construction jobs and another 9,000 permanent jobs. The project includes rezoning 35 acres and displacing some 400 people and 1,600 jobs.
Columbia has made much of its willingness to listen to and meet with community residents and businesses, to help relocate those displaced, and to mobilize their signature architect, Renzo Piano, to design a new campus that is more inviting to the community. Piano’s designs purport to open up the new campus to the street grid, promote ground floor retail, and generally create quality urban space instead of a campus enclave.
But other people – in the community, on campus and elsewhere – see a future for the area that includes a different kind of Columbia expansion – and much more than the university’s plan to rezone the area to spur new growth.
The Community Plan
After scores of community meetings, Manhattan Community Board 9, which includes West Harlem, put together their own vision of the future. Drawn up with the help of the Pratt Institute Center for Community Development and the Department of City Planning, the plan was submitted to the City Planning Commission in the fall of 2005, at the same time the commission saw Columbia’s proposals to rezone the area. The commission ruled that the community plan met minimal requirements for consideration under Section 197-a of the City Charter. This provision allows community boards to do their own plans and submit them for official approval by the borough president, planning commission and City Council.
The community’s broad-ranging 197-a plan differs from Columbia’s rezoning scheme in several ways. The community plan includes, but is not limited to, rezoning the area so that Columbia can expand. The plan calls for preservation of existing housing and businesses as well as new development in keeping with the existing built environment. It would protect and expand low cost housing. Instead of eliminating industrial and auto-related activities, the mixed-use character of the neighborhood would be expanded. Redevelopment would be achieved without the use of eminent domain to force existing owners and tenants to leave. And any rezoning would be done to help implement the community plan, whereas Columbia's rezoning proposal reflects mainly its own development needs.
While Columbia’s proposals for rezoning leaves the future of the neighborhood to the vagaries of the real estate market, the community plan calls for a different kind of development that would shape instead of succumb to the market. This would include limiting the amount and scale of new residential development. The community plan favors the use of innovative green or environmentally friendly building technology, zero waste development, and proposes specific measures to improve the quality of the environment. This responds, in part, to community concerns about Columbia’s plans to build a biotech facility that could pose risks to community health. The plan also calls for expanded social services for those in the community so that neighborhood residents get services on a par with Columbia’s student services.
Columbia’s rezoning plan would allow the university to pursue its expansion plans, but create uncertainty for the rest of the neighborhood. The proposed rezoning from manufacturing to residential and institutional uses will increase land prices and rents, feeding neighborhood concerns about displacement and gentrification. The phenomenon has already had effects in other parts of Harlem, creating concern among people with modest incomes about whether they will be being able to stay in their neighborhoods.
Columbia President Lee Bollinger has been adamant that his vision of the university’s future requires that Columbia build on the entire tract of land between 125th and 133rd Streets. Nearby residents have a role he said – but should not be all powerful. “We are trying to do things that help the world more broadly. The community is not everything," he told the Times
Meanwhile, the City Planning Commission, the city’s main decision-making body on planning and zoning, has looked at both the community plan and Columbia’s zoning proposal and told both parties to “enter into a dialogue and make good faith efforts to achieve consensus.” Some discussions are taking place but so far no one seems to have budged very much. Community representatives recently created a local development corporation that will negotiate a legally binding “community benefits agreement” with Columbia. Agreements like this can be useful when consensus can’t be reached, but once those discussions start it is hard to imagine where the consensus will come from.
While the city’s planning department worked closely with Columbia and the community to devise their respective proposals, the planning department and commission have stayed on the sidelines. This poses the risk that the planning commission could act hastily and without adequate information when the plans finally get submitted for their approval.
Columbia’s Iron Fist and Velvet Glove
According to some community activists, Columbia’s relations with its neighbors had improved substantially until a few years ago. A decade ago, the university put together a working group involving a number of community representatives to explore options for the school’s expansion. The university’s administration worked quietly to develop trust and partnerships with local groups and activists.
Then a couple of years ago the velvet gloves came off. As if to remind everyone that, in any partnership, Columbia would always be the senior partner, the school’s administration floated the idea that, if they had to, they would get the Empire State Development Corporation to condemn the property needed for the university expansion. This provided a sharp reminder to all that Columbia had access to the pinnacles of government.
The threat of condemnation has often been called “planner’s blight” because it can force owners to sell and businesses to close decades before anything new goes up on the site. Under Governor George Pataki, the state development corporation has let developers use the threat of eminent domain to force deals with local property owners and create the impression that nothing can be done to stop the development bulldozer (as in Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards, for example).
Despite the relatively good years of the 1990s, some community activists think Columbia never took community participation seriously. According to Nellie Bailey of the Coalition to Preserve Community, “Columbia created an image of engagement and their dialogue was not of substance. For years they have worked behind the scenes to push their agenda. They pressured business owners to sell and the city’s housing agency to get rid of tenants.”
Now, with the threat of condemnation facing them, residents worry they cannot be equal partners in the University’s Community Advisory Committee. And it is not only residents: Columbia’s own students have formed the Student Coalition on Expansion and Gentrification and neighborhood residents and businesses have come together in the Coalition to Preserve Community. According to the student coalition, “we are unified in our commitment to continue to work and stand in solidarity with those most affected by the process of gentrification, and in our commitment to educate and mobilize the student body towards a goal of greater university accountability.”Tom Angotti is Professor of Urban Affairs and Planning at Hunter College, City University of NY, editor of Progressive Planning Magazine, and a member of the Task Force on Community-based Planning. | <urn:uuid:04097804-5c06-4d38-abf0-4b9fabcc9183> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gothamgazette.com/index.php/topics/open-government/3285-zoning-versus-planning-in-manhattanville | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954875 | 1,628 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Here you can find all info about VPN.
By means of Virtual Private Networking (VPN) you have the possibility to work outside the TU/e campus as if you were on it. You can for instance connect to your network shares, or connect to your mail with your mail client program.
In the following links you can find the instructions to install VPN and other useful information.
HowTo VPN (link)
HowTo VPN faq (link) | <urn:uuid:323ebd57-23b7-4131-a111-938e4e8d467c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://w3.tue.nl/en/services/dienst_ict/notebook_service_centre/a_z_index/vpn_information/?no_cache=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938031 | 95 | 1.546875 | 2 |
House Speaker John Boehner says he would support legislation to allow the Obama administration to spend an estimated $150 million to help a uranium enrichment project in Southern Ohio move forward.
The Columbus Dispatch reports that a bill is expected to be introduced by members of the Ohio congressional delegation and could reach the House floor next month.
The Piketon plant would be at the site of a former gaseous diffusion plant that enriched uranium during the Cold War. It would produce enriched uranium for use in generating electricity at nuclear power plants.
This Season 6 finale of Radio Rounds features physician and social activist Patch Adams, founder of the world-renowned Gesundheit! Institute. In this episode, Patch energetically discusses his outlook on medicine, life, and the human community, and he shares his feelings about the 1998 film “Patch Adams” starring Robin Williams.
In the last fifty years, global agricultural practices have favored growing ever fewer varieties of high-yielding crops, leading to fears that the loss of genetic diversity in food leaves the growing human population exposed to risks of food shortages.
With the ongoing East African drought crisis, the persisting threat of global climate change, and the world population now estimated at 7 billion, global concerns about food insecurity are again in the news. Little mentioned, however, is the continuing loss of genetic diversity of the foods we eat today—a trend that has rapidly accelerated since the twentieth century and that raises troubling questions about the vulnerability of the world’s food supply. One attempt to maintain plant biodiversity has been the establishment of gene banks—giant vaults to store seeds collected from around the globe.
Poor Will's Almanack for the Second Week of Early Winter.
Several years ago, I took our two bulldogs out for a walk in the woods. It had snowed a few more inches over night, for a total of several feet in some places, and we were the first to navigate the path.
In this episode, host John Corker sits down with current first-year medical student and Radio Rounds staff member, Sam Roberto, as well as second-year medical student and students admissions committee member, Nick Hountras, to discuss the secrets to success in medical school admissions interviews.
Poor Will’s Almanack for the First Week of Early Winter.
My diaries have become timetables, lists of annual events in nature. The obsession with detail is sufficient in itself; it is a peaceful neurosis of record taking. But I often think the notebooks ought to be useful for something other than tracking the seasons. | <urn:uuid:c432b14e-87da-427f-aa11-296ea701b25a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wyso.org/taxonomy/term/1250?page=36 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957487 | 522 | 1.976563 | 2 |
The city changes, and has often changed in mainly stable ways. Sometimes, a single address tells the story. When we look at the northeast corner of 10th Street and Greenwich Avenue, we can see over a century of simple shifts, ending with an explosion, not just of fire.
NYPL, 1933, the Cushman Bakery
A Cushman Bakery stood here once. It was the original bakery in a local chain started in 1854 by Mr. Horatio Benzil Cushman. He died in 1918, but this shop stayed awhile longer.
So was said, "there is not a customer who can move to any part of New York proper and not see a Cushman bakery wagon pass his door." About those wagons, a commenter at Serious Eats recalls "putting a card in the window on days when we could actually afford to buy dessert from Cushman's Bakery--which went door-to-door."
NYPL, 1941, Antiques Shop
By 1941, the bakery was gone and an antiques shop had taken its place.
In the background, on 6th Avenue, we can see a brick wall had been painted with a sign for real estate broker Emil Talamini. The paint is new. The broker's telephone number is Algonguin 4-1817.
Robert Otter, 1964, Sutter's Bakery
Then the three-story building came down. A tower did not take its place, but rather a little one-story brick box. In 1948, it became the home of another neighborhood bakery--Sutter's--which had moved here from Bleecker. That beloved place shuttered in 1976 when the rent took a major jump. (Read more here.)
The paint on the Emil Talamini's 6th Avenue sign began to fade. The broker himself passed away in 1970.
I don't know what stood here in the 1980s. Sometime around 1990, the Village Paper stationery store moved in to the spot. It also became a beloved small business. Then, in February 2010, the store exploded into a two-alarm fire. The owner, Sun Wong, could not rebuild and the place has sat vacant since.
Immediately, bar and restaurant owners began fighting over the corpse. For awhile, the top contender was Bobo, an upscale restaurant that hosts parties with glittery masks and inspires Yelpers to say: "Prices are a little high, if i made as much money as my friends with financial and consulting salaries I feel like this would be a normal brunch place and a great bar to hang out at later in the night."
But Bobo has dropped out of the race and Keith McNally now holds the lease. He recently presented his plans to turn this spot into a Pulino's Cafe--but a group of locals opposed him with concerns about crowding, noise from open windows, and too many liquor licenses.
The New York Times called the Bowery Pulino's "insanely crowded" and talked a bit about how McNally's many restaurants "have introduced or enhanced neighborhoods all over downtown: Pravda and Balthazar in SoHo, Pastis in the then-quiet meatpacking district, Schiller’s on the Lower East Side, Morandi and Minetta Tavern in the West Village."
For over a century, the corner of 10th and Greenwich has been a quiet spot. Locals bought their bread here. They browsed for antiques. Saved their pennies for a cookie. They shopped for greeting cards and Halloween masks. How might Pulino's Cafe enhance it now? Some neighbors are saying "No McNally" in graffiti on the site.
Meanwhile, in the background, that crusty overseer of change for 70 years, Mr. Talamini's advertisement continues to vanish into a ghost sign. I keep waiting for it to be painted over with a billboard for Coach or Juicy Couture. Because that's the way it goes. Today, when the city changes, it makes big, luxurious leaps, not small, restrained ones. | <urn:uuid:d748d695-a8cc-417a-9f15-ce68f35cf6a3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://vanishingnewyork.blogspot.com/2010/09/10th-and-greenwich.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970801 | 844 | 1.804688 | 2 |
The frenzy of reporting the Greek election is coming to a close. The world is now, quite understandably, swivelling its antennae toward Spain, Italy, Mexico and the G20. It is, therefore, a good moment to take stock of the main lesson the Greek crisis’ recent twist should teach a wary world: Beware of free riders paralysed by the fear of others’ free riding!
The Greek people voted in favour of a simple proposition: Bow to a loan agreement that is commonly known to be unsustainable but which Europe insists upon. Why? To buy time in the hope that the rest of Europe will, in the meantime, find some workable solution within which Greece may have a future.
A couple of weeks before that, the Irish people voted ‘yes’ in a referendum to a Fiscal Pact commonly known to be unworkable and impossible to implement but, nonetheless, a Pact that Europe insisted that the Irish must adopt (or else!). Why? Again to buy time in the hope that, meanwhile, the rest of Europe will work out policies that will allow Ireland to breathe.
In the very same period, the governments of Spain and Italy, while sinking fast into the same mire that has consumed Greece, Ireland and Portugal, are committing to austerity policies that they know will accelerate that ‘sinking feeling’. Why? Because it is expected of them to do so and they hope that, before long, the rest of Europe will end its denial and create institutions that will allow their countries to stop the rot.
Thus the deficit countries, the so-called Periphery, are free riding. They keep doing as they are told hoping against hope that the rest of Europe will ‘do the right thing’ (instead of just committing to ‘doing it’). But, who is this ‘rest of Europe’ that will sort things out? The answer, of course, is Germany. But Germany is itself paralysed not only both by the fear of the Periphery’s free riding but also by a penchant towards a free-riding of its own.
Germany free riding on the Crisis’ coattails? But of course. As long as this crisis is pushing Germany’s own borrowing costs to zero, and causing tsunamis of capital to shift from Italy and Spain to its own enfeebled banks, Germany’s eagerness to sort this crisis out is severely circumscribed. Or, at the very least, weakened. Especially if crisis resolution requires large steps that will diminish Germany’s own relative power within Europe. For instance, why should the Federal Republic tie itself irreversibly to the euro-mast (by means of a unification of the Eurozone’s banks or debt mutualisation) when it is benefitting from the current state of affairs not only in terms of the financial ebbs and flows but also politically (i.e. in terms of ever increasing bargaining power vis-à-vis deficit nations like France, Italy and Spain)?
The Greek election is about to produce a government whose raison d’ etre is to continue the sort of free riding that is wrecking Europe. It is the latest reflection of a common thread of determined free riding that runs throughout the Eurozone, connecting the Greek vote, the Irish referendum, Spain’s and Italy’s reluctance to speak out against the silliness imposed upon them, and of course Germany’s obstinate denial of the slow-motion train wreck that is the Eurozone. Everybody free rides at the expense of everyone else, hoping that the rest of Europe will sort things out. The end result is a postmodern variant of Thomas Hobbes’ state of nature which guarantees that the euro’s life will prove nasty, brutish and short. | <urn:uuid:b3fb7746-ae85-4ba1-9892-631352a9b8d5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2012/06/19/the-greek-election-as-a-manifestation-of-europes-hobbesian-moment/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955516 | 783 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Taryn and Michael Aiello of Oxford were the first parents to enter their children in this year’s Beautiful Baby Photo Contest. The contest is a charitable fundraiser, this year raising funds for Newtown’s First Responders and the My Sandy Hook Family Fund.
The usually placid Gill Corn Farm in Hurley, N.Y., an expansive cornfield in the southern foothills of the Catskill Mountains, was alive with the sights and sounds of rocket engines during Connecticut Rocket Association’s (CTRA) bimonthly rocket launch on Saturday, May 4. Powerful rockets, some exceeding eight feet in length, ripped off the launching pads with a roar and reached heights of up to 6,000 feet before floating safely back down to earth with the aid of parachutes. Approximately 30 spectators, many of them members of CTRA, and among them a few residents of Newtown, watched scores of adrenaline-producing launches from a dirt road that cut through the field.
After about two hours of community input, deliberations and two failed amendments, the Legislative Council voted 9-3 to further reduce the school district’s budget request by $300,000. If approved at a planned third round referendum June 4, that would drop requested Board of Education increase to 3.93 percent
Voters already passed the municipal budget request in a split May 14 referendum. Upon approval, the district budget would stand at $71,045,304.
Prior to this week’s reduction, the district budget increase stood at 4.37 percent. If voters support the latest proposal, it would deliver a total budget increase of 3.58 percent, and a 2013-14 tax rate of 33.32 mills. [read more]
The Town of Newtown has launched a new recovery website called onenewtown.org. This website has been developed to bring information on recovery together in one place and is different from the town’s website which focuses on town departments, meeting agendas, minutes and other details. According to a release, Onenewtown.org provides information, support resources, and the opportunity to ask questions. It details the ideas and stories that will help the community to heal. “Onenewtown.org is focused on connection and communication, being engaged with one another and sharing experiences that refresh and inspire us,” said First Selectman Pat Llodra. “Our hope is that the site will be a key source for critical and timely information on our recovery, promote community participation, and detail our collective path forward.” Mrs Llodra extended a personal note of thanks
Following an executive session, the Board of Education unanimously voted on Tuesday, May 21, to name a principal and assistant principal for Sandy Hook School.
Kathleen Gombos, the current principal at R.M.T. Johnson School in Bethel, was chosen as the new principal for Sandy Hook School, and Timothy Napolitano, who currently teaches at Reed Intermediate School, was appointed as assistant principal.
According to a press release from the school district, Dr Gombos “has been viewed by her staff as intelligent, compassionate, a true leader, and a person who empowers others but yet holds them accountable...
Dana Sellner of Minnesota stood on the curb near Edmond Town Hall Wednesday afternoon, repeating: “The turn is here” to the many bicyclists coming off Main Street following their trip from Waterbury.Remarking on the ride that morning she said, “They have climbed a lot of hills in the past couple of days.” Wednesday afternoon saw more than 80 of the roughly 140 registrants taking part in all or some of the Muddy Angels National EMS Memorial Bike Ride (NEMSMBR) from Maine to Pennsylvania (see MuddyAngels.com for more information).The long-distance cycling event honors EMTs and paramedics who have become sick or injured while performing...
The View From Newtown
Contribute your Instagram view of Newtown at #viewfromnewtown ! | <urn:uuid:7eb06296-a76e-41e8-baf9-764ae269bf3b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://newtownbee.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955474 | 827 | 1.609375 | 2 |
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the almost four-decade-old deal among the world’s nuclear and non-nuclear states to control the spread of nuclear technology that can be used for weapons, is on its back. In addition to the five declared “nuclear states” party to the treaty, three non-parties, India, Pakistan and Israel, have developed and deployed nuclear weapons in highly tense and unstable political environments and with unknown safeguards against theft or accidental launch. Moreover, North Korea has all but confirmed a minimal nuclear arsenal, which may already be deployed and aimed at Seoul, and at US forces in the demilitarized zone between the two Koreas. Those weapons could even, loaded on missiles like the Nodong-2 and the Taepodong, hit Japan and US bases in Asia. It hardly requires recapitulation that Iran’s nuclear program is the single greatest threat to global peace and stability today. Whether or not Tehran develops a serviceable nuclear deterrent, its brash defiance and calculated ambiguity in the face of Western pressure has pushed more responsible players to plan for what nobody wants: a US or Israeli preemptive strike on Iran.
We are in these dire straits largely thanks to the breakdown of the NPT’s central bargain: that if non-nuclear states gave up the right to develop nuclear arsenals, the five nuclear states would grant them reasonable access to peaceful nuclear technology, and would themselves undertake robust and credible efforts to reduce their deadly nuclear stockpiles. While the treaty’s five nuclear powers (coincidentally, also the five permanent UN Security Council members) hardly bear direct responsibility for other states’ choices, they certainly have not helped. Aside from a few Cold War driven reductions in US and Russian nuclear stockpiles, the nuclear states have done decidedly little to deliver on their promise. It should not be a surprise, therefore, that leading non-nuclear states, especially those facing what they consider existential military threats, have bucked international censure to develop the ultimate deterrent.
Whether this worrying trend is reversible depends on whether the US, Russia, and the other leading nuclear powers can restore strength and credibility to the bargain underpinning the NPT. Some experts believe there may be a way to do that.
The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), opened for signature in 1996, prohibits all states parties from undertaking or assisting other states to undertake nuclear weapons tests, including nuclear explosions of any kind. Although the US signed the treaty in 1996, the Senate has as yet not ratified it, sending the signal to aspiring nuclear powers that the world’s leading nuclear weapons state may still intend to test and deploy new, even more destructive nuclear weapons. Under such circumstances, why should an India, a Pakistan, or even an Iran, refrain from developing its own modest nuclear deterrent? On the other hand, if the US were to ratify CTBT, even after more than a decade, the move could give gravitas to a renewed commitment to the NPT, and offer proponents of that venerable treaty as the basis for future non-proliferation the life support they need.
On the domestic front, ratification will be no easy task. First, it will require a sea change in attitudes on the Hill. Senators will have to acknowledge, as our British allies recently have, that we cannot call for universal compliance with the letter and spirit of the NPT without offering it ourselves. Our national laboratories and related executive agencies must abandon plans for future nuclear tests, and confirm that policy change publicly. Top weapons experts acknowledge that even the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) program, ostensibly essential to ensure the durability of the US nuclear deterrent, does not require testing in violation of the CTBT. They might be persuaded to cooperate by a deal explicitly linking full funding for the RRW with CTBT ratification. Finally, the President should make a major speech endorsing ratification, reaffirming the US commitment to reducing our own nuclear stockpiles pursuant to the NPT, and at least aspiring to eventual nuclear disarmament. After all, if the most heavily nuclear armed juggernaut cannot hope for and imagine a world without nuclear weapons, how can we ask more vulnerable states to make that aspiration a reality? | <urn:uuid:c802cb8c-43ed-4fc3-a486-85ac39594793> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.psaonline.org/2007/10/24/reviving-one-acronym-with-another-npt-and-ctbt/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937822 | 866 | 2.59375 | 3 |
|Picture provided by Fotolia|
November was American Diabetes Month. Before now, I never paid much attention to diabetes because I never had to. All that changed when my little cousin was recently diagnosed with Type II Diabetes. According to St. Joseph's Hospital Cardiac Center, 215,000 people in the US under the age of 20 have been diagnosed with this disease. What is specifically alarming about this is the fact that it used to be a disease that only affected adults! Excess weight and low levels of physical activity can be blamed for the staggering number of children dealing with Type II Diabetes. Luckily, as I have started doing with my little cousins, parents can lay the foundation for their children to lead healthy, active lifestyles while still having fun.
Making healthy choices can become second nature after you remember a few easy tips:
- It's important to limit foods loaded with sodium and solid fat, like pizza and baked goods, to every so often. Good fats can be found in protein and dairy, like yogurt, milk, and cheese.
- When choosing protein, try to go for lean meats and add some variety with fish, eggs, cheese, and beans.
- Try switching your milk from whole milk to skim or 1 percent, to help you get in your daily serving of dairy and eliminate extra fat. (You may also choose to drink a milk alternative such as almond milk or soy milk.)
- Vegetables are a great way to get essential vitamins and nutrients. Look for dark green, red, and orange vegetables like sweet potatoes, tomatoes, and broccoli, to add to your diet.
Also, taking kid-friendly foods and turning them healthy was another trick. Instead of fried chicken fingers, we had oven-baked chicken fingers with sweet potato fries and a glass of milk; instead of steak and mashed potatoes, we tried baked fish and mashed cauliflower. (Believe me, they couldn't believe they were eating cauliflower instead of potatoes!) Additional things like using fruit and vegetables to make yummy smoothies was a big-time hit with the kiddos, and substituting frozen yogurt with healthy toppings over ice cream allowed them to get in something sweet without all the unhealthy parts.
Time to Get Active!
Another important aspect of diabetes prevention is to be active on a regular basis. Like with nutrition, it takes a little creativity, but there are many ways you can get kids to be active without even realizing they are exercising!
Using Video Games
A lot of people will blame technology and video games for low levels of physical activity in today's children, but I think video games can be a great way to get moving! Games like Just Dance and Wii Fit are fun and can give the whole family a great workout. It was fun to get the boys dancing, and the laughter alone from watching some of them seemed to be a workout in itself!
The benefits of yoga are great and varied. Yoga is a good way to relax stressed out children and adults and can be taken as a class or from the comfort of your home. Yoga is great for building flexibility and balance, and for building overall strength as you advance from easier poses to more advanced ones. It is also a great exercise for overweight kids as there are many levels to start at so no one is starting at a point they are not comfortable with.
Skip! Run! Jump!
Using games that kids learn in school and from neighborhood buddies is a great way to get them active without realizing they are exercising. Playing games like tag, hide-and-seek, kickball, etc. are always a hit. We got a big neighborhood game of kickball going one night, and the kids loved it so much that the next night we did a big game of capture-the-flag. Additional activities like nature hikes, ropes courses, and obstacle courses are all great ways to get kids to be active while also having fun!
It can seem daunting to think about a child developing such a serious disease, which has some pretty serious consequences. When I first learned about my cousin I was scared and sad all at the same time. But then I realized that that wasn't doing anything for me, and it was action that I needed. Being creative with food and activities, no matter how big or small, will allow you to get kids on track to a healthier life and teach them lessons that they can carry with them throughout the rest of their lives. And perhaps one of the most important takeaways yet: BE THE EXAMPLE! If you are willing to eat healthy and be active, the chances are that your child will too!
Carolyn is a 20-something-year-old with a passion for life, fitness, and overall well-being. She is an avid cycler, golfer, and has known to bust some serious moves on the dance floor. Check out Carolyn's blog at http://fullonfit.blogspot.com!
©2011-2013 A Slice of Homeschool Pie. All rights reserved. All text, photographs, artwork, and other content may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written consent of the author. http://www.asliceofhomeschoolpie.com | <urn:uuid:87e5f9ee-6d35-4a50-af1b-8c67eb25f00d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.asliceofhomeschoolpie.com/2013/01/guest-post-how-to-help-your-children.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968073 | 1,061 | 2.890625 | 3 |