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A discussion that explores how Sarasota evolved into a destination for visual artists and insights about whether or not Sarasota remains an art colony today. Who were the major players then and who are they now?
Artists attending a class on the beach in the early 1950s. Photo, Sarasota History Center.
How did Sarasota evolve into a thriving art colony during the mid 20th century and who were the major influences and inspirations in painting and sculpture responsible for that phenomenon?
Is Sarasota a viable art community today?
Can visual artists make a living here today and sell their art locally as well as internationally? These are some of the questions that panel moderator Kay Kipling will put to panel members Kevin Dean, William Hartman and Heidi Connor at the January 15 Conversations at The Crocker.
Kay Kipling is the Executive Editor at SARASOTA Magazine and has a 30 year history of writing about the visual and performing for many publications. Heidi Connor is a gallery professional, art consultant and freelance curator. Additionally, she worked for many years with the artist John Chamberlain. Kevin Dean is Director of Selby Gallery, Ringling College of Art and Design. He has 27 years experience teaching art history and has been gallery director for 18 years, during which time he has organized more than 200 shows. A working artist, Dean has his work exhibited in museums, college galleries, alternative spaces and currently at Allyn Gallup’s contemporary gallery in Sarasota. Kevin Dean is also the co-author (along with Marcia Corbino and Pat Rignling Buck) of the book A History of Visual Art in Sarasota. William Hartman, owner of the Hartman Gallery in downtown Sarasota, grew up surrounded by artists. “My folks, the artists William and Marty Hartman, met in 1946 while attending Ringling School of Art; my dad on the GI Bill and my mother working as a student for Mr. Kimbrough in the front office. In 1951 my parents opened their art school and gallery in the old Times building on 1st Street and became life long contributors to the Sarasota art scene.”
Hartman said Sarasota owes its visual arts legacy to many outstanding artists such Jerry Farnsworth, Helen Sawyer, Wells Sawyer, Hilton Leech, Ben Stahl, Jon Corbino, Robert Larsen, Judy Axe, Thornton Utz, Robert Chase, Julio De Diego and Syd Solomon. His own parents certainly contributed tremendously as working artists, teachers and gallery owners.
“Sarasota will always be a beautiful location for artists to live and work,” continued Hartman, “however, as a place to market their work Sarasota has always had shortcomings. But, Ringling School has been a player central to our story, if we were to remove John Ringling from the equation, we might never have acquired the distinction as an art colony.”
The art history event at the Crocker Memorial Church is the fourth in a series of year-long panel discussions.
Conversations at The Crocker events highlight specific aspects of Sarasota’s past and examine pivotal events and people who have influenced Sarasota today.
All Conversations take place at The Crocker Memorial Church and proceeds from this panel discussion series help to maintain the Historical Society’s two heritage properties at Pioneer Park – the Bidwell-Wood House (1882, Sarasota’s oldest private residence) and the Crocker Memorial Church (1901). Docent-led tours of both buildings are available an hour before each of the Conversations at The Crocker events. Chairs of Conversations at The Crocker are Lynn Harding and Marsha Fottler. President of the Historical Society of Sarasota County is Howard Rosenthal. Site Manager is Linda Garcia.
Conversation at the Crocker January 15: How Sarasota Became an Art Colony starts at 7 p.m. at the Crocker Memorial Church in Pioneer Park at 1260 12th Street, Sarasota. The program is free to members of the Historical Society of Sarasota County and $10 for the public. Conversations at The Crocker is organized and presented by the Historical Society of Sarasota County with program support from SARASOTA Magazine.
And don’t miss future Conversations at the Crocker:
February 12: Pay Dirt – How We Became a Real Estate Destination with moderator Bob Plunket.
March 12, Why We Look The Way We Do: Architecture with moderator Harold Bubil.
April 9, A City of the Performing Arts with moderator Howard Millman. | <urn:uuid:6d0eeee0-b10d-48fc-8d5d-94e492a828e7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hsosc.wordpress.com/2013/01/06/conversation-at-the-crocker-january-15-how-sarasota-became-an-art-colony/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949313 | 939 | 2.171875 | 2 |
‘Violence ends where love begins’ -Sri Sri Ravi Shankarji
The village of Senari in Bihar, is infamous for frequent massacres by the Naxalites (Ranveer Sena, Communist Party of India (ML), People’s War Group, and Mala, are some of the Naxal outfits that are active in Senari), leaving the villagers in a state of terror. Mrs. Indu Sinha, a faculty of The Art of Living, mustered the strength to venture into this area, to sow the seeds of nonviolence.
In August 2000, Mrs. Indu Sinha came across a news report in one of Bihar’s local newspapers, about a massacre that had taken place in the village of Senari; nearly 67 people were beheaded by a Naxal group. It was an everyday feature in the villages of Bihar to hear such shocking news, and most people had accepted this as a normal way of life. From childhood, people had been hearing and reading of violence and killings being carried out. Mrs. Sinha was deeply moved when she read about the massacre in the village, and decided that she had to do something about it.
In a meeting with His Holiness Sri Sri Ravi Shankar in Delhi, she expressed her feelings regarding the depleting human values in these villages of Bihar. Sri Sri encouraged her to start a school in the village of Senari. She set off for the village, with a mission to change the conditions there. Access to the notorious village was not easy. She reached the village after three hours of battling through watersheds. As expected, the massacre had drawn a lot of media attention, and other social organizations had attempted to send in their representatives to improve the situation, but no one was successful. The first and foremost task before Mrs. Sinha, was to convince the parents in the village to send their children to attend school. On the flipside, this was the last thing in the world that those parents wanted to do. Mrs. Sinha started taking personal responsibility foreach child, and the school gradually materialized in the violent village of Senari. There were not many men to be seen in the village. This made her task even more difficult. Quite a few of the men folk in the village had been killed by the terrorist groups, and the ones that had escaped were tucked away in prison cells. Convincing the women left at home, was rather difficult. However, they gradually realized the genuineness and love behind The Art of Living, and its school project, and began supporting the cause.
Once the school was successfully started, Mrs. Sinha returned to Patna with the idea of starting a ‘Prison Smart Course.’ Something definitely had to be done for the inmates. In fact, she thought that the jails would be the only place where she would get the opportunity to meet the members of different Naxal groups. She felt that she could bring about a transformation while they were still under the watchful eye of the law. It would be a new beginning for them and their families. This inspired her to organize a ‘Prison Smart’ course for the inmates of Beur Jail.
The District Magistrate had certain reservations about allowing a woman into the jail premises with hardened criminals. Despite the obvious problems, Mrs. Sinha started the ‘Prison Smart’ program with the jail inmates, under tight security. The ‘Prison Smart Course’ was one of its kind; a progressive, practical and result-oriented program, providing compassionate, innovative and effective solutions for breaking the cycles of violence, and tackling the escalating global crime rates. This course also gave the prisoners the opportunity to rehabilitate, and integrate themselves into the society at large. The benefits are primarily possible due to the ‘Sudarshan Kriya,’ a breathing technique devised by Sri Sri. Sudarshan Kriya completely roots out stress, which is the main cause of crime.
The prisoners in Beur Jail were hard-core criminals, who were imprisoned for more than two hundred crimes. Mrs. Sinha told the jail authorities that such tight security was not really necessary. In fact, she told the prisoners that they were her security personnel. The basic nature of all human beings is not of violence, but of love. What really changes a person is the environment, and what all is going through in their lives. Sri Sri says that ‘There is a victim hidden behind every culprit. With love, compassion, understanding and patience, there is no way that the change will not happen.’ With extreme sensitivity and gentleness Mrs. Sinha explained to the inmates that hatred and violence is futile, and a transformation was possible, even inside the jail. The most important thing that matters is to change the present situation, and in the place of violence usher in the feeling of love and peace. Love one another and forget whatever happened in the past.
In the end, the inmates were full of gratitude. The jail superintendent Mr. Surendra Kumar Gupta, observed the overall change in the behaviour and in the attitude of the inmates. He was surprised to see a visible change in four of the most dreaded prisoners. Reformist cop Ms.Kiran Bedi, had once said, “The inmates behind bars go through stress because of being away from their families, and the worry of their family’s well being always haunts them. Even the police, dealing with the offenders undergo severe stress. The Art of Living course has special relevance for these two sections.” The same men, who had evoked terror in the hearts of people, and were a source of constant worry for the jail security staff, became harmless and obedient. Their menacing looks were replaced with benign expressions.
Rama Chandra Singh, a fifty-five year old man had been in the prison for four years. He was considered to be a very dangerous man with a penchant for engineering discord. He has now vowed not to indulge in any criminal activity, ever. He said, “Pehle kuch bhi karta thaa galat hi karta thaa” (Earlier, whatever I did was always wrong). Hari Badan Singh, another dreaded criminal, is now able to keep his anger under control, and enjoys complete peace of mind. He suddenly developed feelings of love and affection for everyone. Largely, a participation in the course brought about a sense of well-being, and lot of the participants got cured of their physical ailments too.
The course conducted by Mrs. Sinha came to an end on the 13th of January 2001, but the prisoners would not let her leave that very day, she accepted their request and stayed for one more day. She left on the auspicious day of ‘Sankaranti’. The prisoners saw their ‘didi’ (elder sister) off with tears of gratitude and love.
Since then, similar programs have been conducted in all the Central and District Jails of Bihar and the results have been revolutionary. In Patna, Aara, Gaya and Muzzafarpur over 4,000 prisoners have experienced the ‘Prison Smart Program’ with more than 2,500 inmates in Beur Jail alone. It wouldn’t be wrong to say, “Once a jail, now an Ashram”
Times of India, June 15, 2009:
*Times of India, October 10, 2001
India Today, March 3, 2009
The Art of Living Course for Prison Inmates
Please write to us at firstname.lastname@example.org with your comments and ideas.
Writer: Eben Felix | <urn:uuid:696c31a3-f719-48e2-8bad-b940360a97bc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.artofliving.org/in-en/once-jail-now-ashram | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979762 | 1,590 | 2.15625 | 2 |
CHALLENGE PROJECT SPOTLIGHT
BROOKLYN TECHNICAL HIGH SCHOOL:
BUILDING STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS
In difficult economic and political times, Brooklyn Technical High School Principal Randy Asher wondered, how could he and his staff build and sustain strategic partnerships that would provide ongoing resources for America’s favorite high school? That question became the 2010 Cahn Challenge project of this veteran school leader and builder. “As an educator and architect, I knew that I had to design a benchmark model as well as the infrastructure for negotiating and evaluating our strategic partnerships,” Asher said.
After four years as principal of the High School of Math, Science & Engineering at the City University of New York, Randy took the helm of Brooklyn Tech in 2006. He then began to envision new partnerships and resources that would transform the 90-year old high school’s antiquated classrooms into state-of-the-art laboratories and digital spaces. Principal Asher needed individual and corporate sponsors to build a computer-integrated manufacturing shop, a robotic prototyping center, a moot court room and an advanced DNA/Genetics Lab. Randy’s proposed fiscal campaign to raise $21-million for school renovations and services would consume his time and his cabinet’s energy for the next two years.
Along with his Assistant Principal and 2010 Cahn Ally Crystal Bonds, their school challenge project began with the daunting tasks of defining standards and expectations to evaluate the effectiveness of Brooklyn Tech’s existing partnerships and resource needs. Bonds said, “First we developed an evaluation criteria to assess our existing partnerships and then identified areas in need with a strategic action plan and timeline for implementation.”
Since 2008, Asher has served as the Vice President of the National Consortium for Specialized Secondary Schools of Math, Science and Technology. Part of his field research for his Cahn Fellowship year included inter-visitations with consortium schools in Virginia, North Carolina, Massachusetts and New Jersey.
“Inspired by the leadership strategies and conversations with Cahn faculty advisors during the Summer Leadership Institute, I decided to create a focus group with our consortium schools to share best practices,” Randy added. “We also wanted to establish a national endeavor to influence educational policy relating to public-private partnerships, so I visited Boston Latin to discuss the only more well-established public Alumni foundation than Tech’s.”
Through its Alumni 21/21 fiscal campaign, Brooklyn Tech has since acquired funding to create unique instructional labs, as well as fiscal support and academic advising from numerous corporations, universities and community based organizations.
Principal Asher said, “Using Alumni and corporate funding to provide transformational learning experiences for students, promote strategic professional development for the faculty, enhance curriculum, and renovate facilities has created a truly unique setting to usher the next generation of innovators into higher academia and the workforce.”
Brooklyn Technical High School is the largest public school in the United States with over 5,000 students, 200 teachers and 50,000 active Alumni. This legendary 594,000 square-foot building covers several city blocks, 10 floors, and features an original 3,000 seat auditorium, swimming pool, foundry, bowling alley and rifle range. In order to generate financial and physical contributions that could be leveraged for matching funds from elected officials and alumni donors, BTHS Principal and 2010 Cahn Fellow Randy Asher had to significantly increase funding opportunities that would improve student and faculty services.
BROOKLYN TECHNICAL HIGH SCHOOL
2010 CAHN ALLY CRYSTAL BONDS
Assistant Principal of Pupil Personnel Services
“While we were building strategic partnerships at Brooklyn Tech during our Cahn Fellowship year, Randy Asher was simultaneously cross-training me to become a principal,” said 2010 Cahn Ally Crystal Bonds, who now heads The High School for Math, Science & Engineering at the City University of New York. “My first role at Tech was Assistant Principal of Organization, managing the school budget and operations. I later transitioned to Assistant Principal of Pupil Personnel Services where I supervised guidance, college services, special education, service providers and all student support services.”
Cahn Allies work closely with their mentor principals to complete their school Challenge Project and present their yearlong research at the June Leadership Conference. Bonds added, “This training under Randy’s aegis helped me tremendously as a new Principal. Additionally, I have applied the work from the Cahn Project to codify the partnership process at HSMSE.” Since 2011, Bonds has also served as Vice President of the National Consortium of Specialized Secondary Schools of Math, Science & Technology.
Asher said, “The Cahn Fellows Program’s focus on mentoring and coaching helped me to prime not only my own development and leadership skills, it gave me the impetus to train my Cahn Ally and another Assistant Principal for their new roles as principals and advocates for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Math) education.”
“In my new role as school leader at HSMSE, I vowed to improve strategic partnerships, communication and transparency with all constituents -- teachers, alumni, parents and students alike - just like my Cahn Fellow and I did at Brooklyn Tech,” said Bonds. | <urn:uuid:24fb6e59-5dac-4114-aea6-eedc497f8ea9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tc.columbia.edu/centers/cahnfellows/index.asp?Id=CAN-TAINER+NEWSLETTER&Info=CHALLENGE+PROJECT+SPOTLIGHT | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955831 | 1,105 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Depression in the Elderly (cont.)
In this Article
How is insomnia related to depression in the elderly?
Insomnia is usually a symptom of depression. New studies reveal that insomnia is also a risk factor for depression onset and recurrence -- particularly in the elderly.
To treat insomnia, experts recommend the newer "hypnotic" drugs that are safe and effective in elderly people. If there's no improvement in the sleep disorder and/or depression, a psychiatrist or psychopharmacologist may prescribe medications and/or psychotherapy.
What are risk factors for depression in the elderly?
Factors that increase the risk of depression in the elderly include:
Physical conditions like stroke, hypertension, atrial fibrillation, diabetes, cancer, dementia, and chronic pain further increase the risk of depression. Additionally, the following risk factors for depression are often seen in the elderly:
Brain scans of people who develop their first depression in old age often reveal spots in the brain that may not be receiving adequate blood flow. Chemical changes in these cells may enhance the likelihood of depression separate from any life stress.
Reviewed on 5/17/2012
Get the latest health and medical information delivered direct to your inbox FREE! | <urn:uuid:79edb8eb-f701-43f3-96c7-feabccfdb851> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.medicinenet.com/depression_in_the_elderly/page2.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.914436 | 248 | 2.828125 | 3 |
The Risk-Informed Safety Margin Characterization (RISMC) pathway is a set of activities defined under the U.S. Department of Energy Light Water Reactor Sustainability Program. The overarching objective of RISMC is to support plant life-extension decision-making by providing a state-of-knowledge characterization of safety margins in key systems, structures, and components (SSCs). The methodology emerging from the RISMC pathway is not a conventional probabilistic risk assessment (PRA)-based one; rather, it relies on a reactor systems simulation framework in which physical conditions of normal reactor operations, as well as accident environments, are explicitly modeled subject to uncertainty characterization. RELAP 7 (R7) is the platform being developed at Idaho National Laboratory to model these physical conditions.
Adverse effects of aging systems could be particularly significant in those SSCs for which management options are limited; that is, components for which replacement, refurbishment, or other means of rejuvenation are least practical. These include various passive SSCs, such as piping components. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is developing passive component reliability models intended to be compatible with the R7 framework. In the R7 paradigm, component reliability must be characterized in the context of the physical environments that R7 predicts. So, while conventional reliability models are parametric, relying on the statistical analysis of service data, RISMC reliability models must be physics-based and driven by the physical boundary conditions that R7 provides, thus allowing full integration of passives into the R7 multi-physics environment. The model must also be cast in a form compatible with the cumulative damage framework that R7 is being designed to incorporate.
Primary water stress corrosion cracking (SCC) of reactor coolant system Alloy 82/182 dissimilar metal welds has been selected as the initial application for examining the feasibility of R7- compatible physics-based cumulative damage models. This is a potentially risk-significant degradation mechanism in Class 1 piping because of its relevance to loss of coolant accidents. In this report a physics-based multi-state model is defined (Figure ES-1), which describes progressive degradations of dissimilar metal welds from micro-crack initiation to component rupture, while accounting for the possibility of interventions and repair. The cumulative damage representation of the multi-state model and its solutions are described, along with the conceptual means of integration into the R7 environment. | <urn:uuid:38bb4a2a-9a04-4718-954e-4d7947cb72df> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://energy.gov/ne/downloads/physics-based-stress-corrosion-cracking-component-reliability-model | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937758 | 492 | 2.234375 | 2 |
Criticism is what critics write in their reviews. They may say good or bad things about what they are reviewing.
The word 'criticism' is often used in general life when someone 'criticizes' someone else (says that what they are doing or have done is not good'). Criticism does not have to be unkind, it can be given in a helpful way. For example, an adjudicator in a music competition may give helpful criticism ('constructive criticism') to the performers so that they can learn from the experience and make their playing better.
The adverb critically (as in 'talking critically') usually means criticism that can hurt.
As an adjective, critical also has a different meaning. Someone who is 'critical' may be in danger of dying from their injuries. A 'critical moment' may be a moment which will show whether something is going to work or not. | <urn:uuid:0a1a936b-5c07-4132-a09e-4a85c3565b07> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticized | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969021 | 183 | 3.484375 | 3 |
Did Fixing Libor Keep Financial Crisis From Getting Worse?: Bove
CNBC.com Senior Writer
If banks such as Barclays had not tried to manipulate lending rates during the 2008 financial crisis, the panic around the financial system might have been worse.
That, at least, is the thinking behind those who believe the scandal behind crisis-era rates for Libor — the London Interbank Offered Rate—probably won't produce criminal prosecutions.
Those on the other side of the argument, though, say the Libor scandal is a big deal and the factors that led to it still haven't been addressed.
Dick Bove, the widely followed banking analyst at Rochdale Securities, is one who believes that while there is plenty of evidence to suggest that Barclaysand others lied about rates, and that regulators even were aware that it was going on, the regulators probably acted properly in not making more of it at the time.
Bove acknowledged holding what "may be a contradictory stance," but he is sticking to it.
"It will be recalled that the regulators were dealing with a significant financial crisis. To stem the panic, they lowered interest rates, invested in banks, loaned trillions of dollars to these institutions and guaranteed trillions more in bank liabilities," he said in an analysis for clients.
"If the dollar Libor rate had risen sharply in this period all of this activity would not have succeeded."
Setting Libor is a complicated process, and the role it played in the financial crisis is no less so.
Libor is set each night when leading banks estimate the rates they would be charged when borrowing from each other. The concept is important because it reflects the risk that each institution applies to its financial position. Overnight borrowing is a key part of the large banks' business models to fund operations.
Barclays admitted to fudging its Libor numbers during the crisis because, according to transcripts the Federal Reserve released last week, it feared that a true rate reflecting its credit risk might cause concern among investors and impact its stock price.
Bove said an artificially low Libor also may have helped prevent further global tumult "because it is the dollar Libor rate, and not the Federal Funds rate, that is used to determine the interest rates charged on the bulk of the loans in the United States, and financial securities around the globe.
"If this rate had jumped precipitously in late 2008, the 'tax' on the United States economy would have been enormous. Households and businesses would have been forced to increase their payments on virtually all of their debt by very sizable amounts."
But was it really a case of no harm-no foul?
Kevin Ferry, who runs Cronus Futures Management in Chicago, doesn't think so.
"They'll sat it's counterfactual, but it's the core of the argument. They're trying to get PR language out there saying the rates were down, so who was hurt by it?," Ferry says. Answering the question, he offers: "Anyone who was anticipating higher rates."
That's no small consideration, with hundreds of trillions, notionally, in derivatives floating around the marketplace and dependent on accurate rate-setting.
From traders in the futures pits to governments hedging against their credit exposure, there were plenty of victims of Libor cheatingwho no doubt would like to see someone get some comeuppance. (For the record, Ferry had taken out futures contracts anticipating lower rates, so he was not individually harmed.)
Lots of traders try to make money off the rate differences, particularly the "Ted Spread," which is the difference between three-month Treasury yields and eurodollar contracts of the same expiration. Wider spreads indicate greater financial stress.
"The Fed harmed you because their facilities, policies and public statements were designed to drive that spread in on you," Ferry says. "You're materially harmed if you're long the Ted."
Like many others, Ferry says Libor manipulation was an open secret at the time, and talk of investigations has been around the markets for years. Regulators at the New York Federal Reserve, headed then by current Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, have said they were on top of the matter during the crisis.
Geithner reiterated as much during the "Delivering Alpha" conference presented Wednesday by CNBC and Institutional Investor magazine.
"I know they were on top of it because I was talking to people during the crisis. 'We know this, Kevin,' is what they said," Ferry says. He adds: "As those spreads move out, the ability of the system to fund itself becomes more expensive. It seizes up. So there's no conspiracy in the Treasury Department or the Fed to do what they did. They wanted that to happen."
The one point that both sides in the discussion agree on is that the system needs to be changed, which may be the one great result of the scandal.
"They wonder why the economy doesn't come back, they wonder why the financial system isn't doing anything," Ferry says. "It's the Karen Ann Quinlan of financial systems. It's being kept alive while they develop the processes that will constitute the new financial system. They don't want banks to fund themselves this way anymore."
Bove objects to the near-exclusion of U.S. banks in setting the lending rate, with only three American institutions among the 18 surveyed.
"It should be controlled by Americans, and it should be flexible enough to allow central bankers to intervene in times of crisis," he says. "These are the issues that should be under discussion now, not baiting the banks one more time. It is time that this society realizes that it must understand the banking industry and how it interacts with the economy rather than dissolving into meaningless hyperbole again."
Questions? Comments? Email us at NetNet@cnbc.com
Follow Jeff @ twitter.com/JeffCoxCNBCcom
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Facebook us @ www.facebook.com/NetNetCNBC | <urn:uuid:757ffdca-1df0-4bde-8bd3-55336dbf1571> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cnbc.com/id/48245331 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978737 | 1,244 | 1.882813 | 2 |
The Need for a Better Approach
Yet, the most common methods used for assessing risky decisions are shown to provide mostly a “placebo” effect – management feels better but there is no measurable improvement in decisions or forecasts. Traditional accounting-style cost/benefit analysis does not quantify uncertainty and often excludes factors that are thought to be unquantifiable. Other methods attempt “soft” analysis techniques that add their own errors to the decision process while causing management to feel they are doing something about the problem.[/three_fourth_last]
If you are an executive in a position to make big decisions in your organization, you probably have asked yourself many of the following questions:
- How can I compute a return on an investment if most of the benefits seem “intangible”?
- How do I measure and manage risk when there is little historical data on this kind of investment?
- How do I calculate the value of more, better, or faster information?
- Is there any alternative to our subjective and politically driven decision process?
The AIE Solution
Applied Information Economics (AIE) is the first truly scientific and theoretically sound method developed for addressing the dilemmas even when they are thought to be too soft or uncertain for such methods. AIE uses methods that show independently, scientifically measured improvements to management forecasts and decisions. Even so-called intangibles like information value have proven economic formulae used for years in other areas of business.
Applied Information Economics
The key to AIE is how it focuses the analysis on measuring what matters. AIE computes the value of information for the uncertainties in a decision and targeted measurement efforts are applied only where they have the most effect on the decision. This has been widely used in many practical business environments including insurance, manufacturing, transportation, utilities, banking, .com startups, and media. AIE is a complete-solution methodology that includes training, tools, process documentation, and initial consulting. Unlike methods that produce arbitrary “scores” or unrealistic ROI’s, AIE conducts a true “Risk/Return” analysis that would be recognizable to actuaries, economists, and financial analysts. All measurements are real measurements that are based on proven methods and have a known statistical validity.
AIE provides a measurable improvement for management decisions. This is the only method that can actually compute its own information value. Based on information value, AIE can be shown to be one of the most valuable investments in your portfolio of decisions. And the cost of AIE averages 1% or less of investments that it is used to assess. In short, the best way to spend 1% of a budget is to figure out how to spend the other 99% in an economically rational way. Contact us to find out how AIE can solve your management dilemmas. | <urn:uuid:f2f4be0f-694f-4e46-aefa-01c7bf330dcf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hubbardresearch.com/about-us/applied-information-economics/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936527 | 585 | 2.625 | 3 |
From Las Vegas, Nevada, USA:
My four year old son was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when he was 17 months old and has been on a pump with diluted Humalog for about four months. At the time he went on the pump, his doctor told us never to bolus more than once within a two hour period. However, his new endocrinologist says he can bolus every time he eats, no matter how often. The proximity to the last bolus is irrelevant. Aside from a correction bolus, how often can we safely bolus?
You can bolus whenever he eats. However, you don't want to correct him more often than every three to four hours and will need to not do a correction based on a blood sugar obtained after he's been eating.
In our practice, we only have very young children on pumps give full corrections at breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a "1/2 corrective dose" at bedtime snack. Their Humalog or NovoLog tends to have effects at least up to three to four hours after it's been given.
Original posting 22 Sep 2003
Posted to Insulin Pumps
Last Updated: Tuesday April 06, 2010 15:09:50
This Internet site provides information of a general nature and is designed for educational purposes only. If you have any concerns about your own health or the health of your child, you should always consult with a physician or other health care professional.
This site is published by Children With Diabetes, Inc, which is responsible for its contents.
© Children with Diabetes, Inc. 1995-2013. Comments and Feedback. | <urn:uuid:2f939bbc-a53d-4e18-af54-b8997ea1680d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.childrenwithdiabetes.com/dteam/2003-09/d_0d_b83.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96962 | 331 | 1.960938 | 2 |
Although this is a book about a boy successful in sports, it is much more in terms of social commentary. Eddie Ball is a young boy living with his mother in a small trailer; since his father died they have been struggling to survive financially. Annie is a young African-American girl whose mother died when she was young so she lives with her father in another trailer. Both parents work for the Finkle snack company, Finkles are high calorie and fat snack foods and it is one of the town's main employers. Annie and Eddie become best friends almost immediately, creating problems between Eddie and his male friends.
The Finkle company holds a contest where young people submit their poems and the winner will be allowed to shoot one foul shot during halftime of the first game of the NBA finals. If the shot is made, the shooter wins a million dollars; a miss and they get nothing more than their expenses for the trip. While Eddie has no talent for poetry, Annie does and she writes a simple poem that Eddie submits under his own name. Eddie wins the contest and he begins preparations for his big chance. Annie's father is a former college basketball star so he becomes Eddie's coach. Both Eddie's and Annie's parents are laid off from their jobs, giving Eddie even more incentive to make the shot.
Eddie goes through some difficult times, the owner of the Finkle Company offers Eddie a bribe to deliberately miss the shot and there is some additional harassment. Through it all, Eddie learns a lot about the need to work for success and he faces the challenge very well. He is thrown off a bit when he sees his mother and Annie's father embracing as he does not want to give up the memory of his father.
The strength of this book is in the social commentary, the simple friendship between Eddie and Annie, the treatment of the interracial romance as just another romance and the dirty tricks of a corporate personality all are problems faced daily in the United States. In this book, they are treated as context to the real story, which allows them to be a significant part of the story, yet be dealt with in a realistic and less intense manner. | <urn:uuid:3ecd22b0-2b02-44f7-b9c7-40b8f98ce477> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.amazon.co.uk/Million-Dollar-Shot-Lib-Gutman/dp/0613118693 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98472 | 437 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Recognizing the causes of fear and stress, and how to address them in thought, is important in improving health.
Changing the approach to health and healing by including a new concept of oneness among the individual and his relationship with those in his world.
Is there value in looking for the source of consciousness outside biomedical and body-based research?
Gaining a "mental edge" can make the difference between victory and heartbreaking disappointment.
Patients are driving change in available health care options.
The obesity problem may need to be addressed with spiritual solutions as well as social and fitness programs.
Spirituality and prayer - at the core of health.
A person's environment is important for health, but so is the thought of that person.
Positive emotions, including prayer, can reduce negative emotions and unhealthy symptoms.
The Warrior Code is a compendium of wisdom developed into a simplified code of 365 aphorisms. | <urn:uuid:aed86390-9d46-42f4-8979-9941ada9248f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogcritics.org/tag/mind-body/page-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964254 | 189 | 2.125 | 2 |
Pride And Prejudice, in regards to our profession, but alas it is possible, and I believe I have.
The scene occurs at the start of Chapter 5 in Volume 3, shortly after the main character, Elizabeth, has learned that her younger sister, Lydia, has eloped with the once respected, more recently loathed, military officer Wickham. Elizabeth's uncle reflects upon what has occurred: "It appears to me so unlikely that any young man should form such a design against a girl who is by no means unprotected or friendless, and who was actually in his Colone's family, that I am strongly inclined to hope the best. Could he expect that her friends would not step forward? Could he expect to be noticed again by the regiment after such an affront to Colonel Forster? His temptation is not adequate to the risk." (emphasis added) In other words, Surely this man, Wickham, must weigh the risks of his actions and realize that they are such that to put Elizabeth's sister in any jeopardy isn't worth it.
Being aware of the risks is a critical part of investing, whether it's an investment of our money, time, or emotions. Too often investors don't consider the downside of their actions. As is often stated, risk isn't bad, what is bad is not taking the risks into consideration or knowing what those risks portend. One could argue that the gifted Jane Austen was offering some advice which is worth considering, did she not? | <urn:uuid:c2a45d33-483f-41b1-be2f-7ba38ec40a49> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://investmentperformanceguy.blogspot.com/2011/02/jane-austens-guidance-on-risk.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985844 | 304 | 1.828125 | 2 |
2012 Trafficking in Persons Report - Micronesia, Federated States of
|Publisher||United States Department of State|
|Publication Date||19 June 2012|
|Cite as||United States Department of State, 2012 Trafficking in Persons Report - Micronesia, Federated States of, 19 June 2012, available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/4fe30cac1.html [accessed 22 May 2013]|
MICRONESIA, FEDERATED STATES OF (Tier 2 Watch List)
The Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) is a source and, to a limited extent, a destination country for women subjected to sex trafficking. Some reports suggest FSM women are recruited with promises of well-paying jobs in the United States and its territories and are subsequently forced into prostitution or labor upon arrival. The most vulnerable groups of persons at risk for sex trafficking in FSM include foreign migrant workers and FSM women and girls. Pohnpei State Police have reported the prostitution of FSM and foreign women and children to crew members on fishing vessels in FSM, or in its territorial waters. Some Micronesians allegedly transport women and girls to the fishing vessels and are involved in their prostitution in restaurants and clubs frequented by fishermen. Other vulnerable groups include FSM nationals who travel to the United States. In addition, the Transnational Crime Unit (TCU) has received and investigated labor trafficking complaints from foreign nationals on fishing boats for lack of payment and inhuman treatment. Data on the prevalence of human trafficking in the FSM is not available, as the government does not collect and maintain crime data, nor has it conducted any studies or surveys on human trafficking.
The Government of the Federated States of Micronesia does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so. Because the assessment of these significant efforts is based in part on the government's commitment of future actions, FSM is placed on Tier 2 Watch List. During the current reporting year, the FSM acceded to the 2000 UN TIP Protocol, and the FSM congress passed new legislation that revised the country's criminal code to include anti-trafficking provisions. However, the Government of the FSM did not prosecute any trafficking cases, made no efforts to identify or assist victims of trafficking, and failed to make substantive efforts to prevent trafficking or increase the general public's awareness of trafficking in 2011.
Recommendations for the Federated States of Micronesia: Publicly recognize and condemn all acts of trafficking; make robust efforts to criminally investigate, prosecute, and punish all trafficking offenders; develop and implement procedures for the proactive identification of trafficking victims among vulnerable populations, such as foreign workers in the FSM, fishermen on fishing vessels, women and girls in prostitution, and FSM nationals migrating to the United States for work; establish measures to ensure that victims of trafficking are not threatened or otherwise punished for crimes committed as a direct result of being trafficked; train officials on human trafficking and how to identify and assist trafficking victims; support and facilitate comprehensive and visible anti-trafficking awareness campaigns directed at employers of foreign workers and clients of the sex trade; make efforts to notify foreign workers of their rights, protections, and ways they can report abuse; establish a registration system for overseas employment recruiters as agreed to in the Compact of Free Association as Amended (2004); initiate monitoring mechanisms for recruitment agencies both domestically and abroad; investigate and prosecute recruiters who may be engaged in fraudulent recruitment acts that lead to trafficking in persons; and develop a national plan of action for anti-trafficking matters.
The Government of the Federated States of Micronesia demonstrated modest progress in its anti-trafficking law enforcement efforts during the reporting period. During the reporting period, the FSM congress drafted and passed anti-trafficking legislation that prohibits all forms of trafficking in persons, and acceded to the 2000 UN TIP Protocol. The newly enacted legislation prescribes penalties of 15 to 30 years' imprisonment and fines not exceeding $50,000, which are sufficiently stringent and commensurate with penalties prescribed for other serious offenses, such as rape. While there were limited investigations of entertainment sites suspected of involvement in sex trafficking, authorities did not report any prosecutions, or convictions for trafficking crimes. The government did not cooperate with any international organizations or NGOs to offer anti-trafficking training and support to government officials during the reporting period. During the year, there were no investigations, prosecutions, convictions, or sentences of government employees complicit in human trafficking.
The FSM government's efforts to identify and protect trafficking victims during the reporting period remained inadequate. FSM has never identified a trafficking victim within the country and does not have a proactive system in place to identify victims of trafficking systematically among vulnerable groups, such as foreign workers and women and children in prostitution. In addition, the FSM government made no efforts to identify, protect, or refer trafficking victims to services during the reporting period; no NGOs provided services to any trafficking victims. The government reported that any identified victims would have access to the very limited social services and legal assistance provided to victims of any crime. Although victims have the legal right to bring personal injury civil suits against traffickers, because no victims have ever been identified, no suits have ever been filed. FSM officials did not provide legal alternatives to the removal of foreign trafficking victims to countries where they may face hardship or retribution.
The FSM government did not substantially expand efforts to prevent trafficking or increase the general public's awareness of trafficking during the reporting year. Two members of the FSM congress made several outreach presentations over the course of 10 days within Yap, Chuuk, and various outer islands in order to promulgate awareness of trafficking and immigration issues. However, the government did not conduct or support any other informational or educational campaigns solely about human trafficking and the prevention thereof. Also, FSM officials did not develop or implement any monitoring or enforcement measures to govern the activities of labor recruiters and brokers. Government entities did not develop or disseminate campaigns aimed at reducing the demand for commercial sex acts and child prostitution, nor were specific populations targeted. The FSM government did not draft a national action plan against trafficking in persons and sufficient resources were not designated to this regard. | <urn:uuid:31852cd4-762f-4b46-8530-1662f81ede23> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.refworld.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/rwmain?page=topic&tocid=4565c22535&toid=4565c25f42b&publisher=&type=ANNUALREPORT&coi=FSM&docid=4fe30cac1&skip=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949081 | 1,288 | 1.671875 | 2 |
This is the fourth post in a series of six blog posts by Adam Westbrook, each with six tips for the next generation of freelance multimedia journalists, republished here with permission.
While the news industry is still in an uncertain and uncomfortable state of flux, one certainty has already emerged: journalists can no-longer just be journalists – they must be entrepreneurs too. It’s the difference between the ‘passive’ freelancer who writes to a few editors and waits for the work to come to them, and the ‘active’ freelancer who runs themselves as a mini-business.
Until j-schools start adding business skills to the curriculum this will be something we’re all going to have to teach ourselves.
If you went into journalism to become a TV news reporter, and just a TV news reporter, the sad news is those days are over. As are the days of being paid to stay in nice hotels in foreign lands drinking cocktails.
In order to maximise your income, you will need to diversify your skills base. That means selling a range of skills and service, and not just journalism-related ones. I know radio journalists who have a nice sideline designing websites; video journalists who run training courses; and photojournalists who work for non-profits.
Training can often be the most lucrative of these – but only consider this if you really know what you’re doing!
Diversify too in your client base. Pity the news-snob who just pitches to the New York Times and The Guardian. The digital revolution means there are more online-only news outfits and they can be easier to pitch to.
Freelance science journalist Angela Saini offered me this advice recently: “I think it’s almost impossible to survive right now unless you freelance in more than one medium – so as well as doing VJ work, you may have to do radio and print too.”
If you’re a radio journalist you won’t survive as a just a radio journalist. Pitch for video, online, print… everything! Profiling multimedia journalist Jason Motlagh, David Westphal notes:
“Motlagh doesn’t just write stories. He shoots still photos. He shoots and edits video. He does audio. He blogs. He narrates slide shows. And because he does all of those things, he says, he has a huge advantage over freelance foreign correspondents working in a single medium.
“Having multiple media skills is ‘still unusual’, he said. ‘There aren’t a whole lot of people yet who have gotten up to speed. If you are, you can make clients an offer they can’t refuse.’”
2) Find new markets
The entrepreneur, although a business profession, requires a lot of creativity. Just ask Richard Branson. From what I’ve gauged you have to be constantly brainstorming new markets and potential clients. And thinking outside the box reaps rewards.
Career evangelist and author of the popular new book ‘Career Renegade: How to Make a Great Living Doing What You Love’ Jonathan Fields explores how to sidestep traditional career paths to forge your own unique way. He talks about ‘moving beyond the mainstream’ and finding new markets in six different places:
- finding a hungrier market
- finding the most lucrative micro-markets
- exploiting gaps in information
- exploiting gaps in education
- exploiting gaps in gear or merchandise
- exploiting gaps in community
The first two are about digging deeper into the industry and possibly connecting two unrelated ones. A great example comes from a friend of mine, filmmaker Oliver Harrison. He loves cooking, and loves making films but couldn’t find a way to make any money out of either. After a lot of searching, he and business partner Simon Horniblow started talking to universities – and combined the two. They now run studentcooking.tv a very successful online cookery website for students. Would you think to do that? Think outside the box!
To Jonathan Fields:
“In thinking about potential alternative markets, or trying to find smaller, more lucrative submarkets, think about fields, careers, jobs, or paths where the elements of what you love to do are valued, but in short supply. You are looking for a market where your passion leads to: differentiation, hunger [and] price availability.”
Be practical and realistic though: is there really a demand for your new idea?
Here are three examples of journalists who digged a bit deeper to find new markets:
Bootstrapping means starting your freelance business with little or no cash. It means learning how to get things done for free – and most valuable of all – learning to be careful with money.
The great news is you don’t need any money to start out and market yourself. A website domain name will cost you a small amount. But social media means you can market your talents absolutely free (see the previous 6×6 on branding).
Josh Quittner, writing in Time Magazine uses the term LILO – to mean ‘a little in, a lot out’: “At no other time in recent history has it been easier or cheaper to start a new kind of company. Possibly a very profitable company,” he says. “[Bootstrapping] means your start-up is self-sustaining and can eek out enough profit to keep you alive on instant noodles while your business gains traction.”
If this recession has taught us anything, it’s that the best business is built from the bottom up, on the funds available (not borrowed).
4) Dealing with inflexible income
The biggest fear of starting a freelance career is money. Oh, and failure. ‘What if I don’t get any business?’ ‘How will I be sure I’ll always pay the rent?’ Truth is you won’t ever be sure, but that’s part of the thrill, right?
Still there are some things you can do to make the ebb and flow of freelance income a little more stable.
A good tip is to open up a separate bank account for your business earnings. Get Rich Slowly offers this advice: “Every month as you earn income, receive it (and leave it) in your business account. This is where you accumulate your cash. Because it’s in a high-yield account, it earns interest as it waits for you to use it.”
They recommend paying yourself a monthly salary from that business account – and leaving the rest for tax and other investments. The worst thing is to use the profits from a bumper month to pay for a bumper holiday, only to return to slim pickings.
But the best advice for living on an irregular income? Learn to live lite. Cut back on unnecessary spending wherever you can. Back to David Westphal profiling Jason Motlagh: “He lives modestly and accepts that there may be periods in his work where he’ll have to do something besides journalism to pay the bills.”
5) Find your creative time
Sure, for some freelancers the appeal of being your own boss is getting up at 10, watching some TV, doing some work, heading out on a night out without the guilt… and that might work for some. But the creative entrepreneur’s life is most likely to be a different one.
“After scanning my diary and surveying the tasks in hand, I was faced with a depressing conclusion. I was going to have to get up early.”
He’s up at 6 in the morning, every morning, getting the crap out the way, like emails and the like. He then says he has several hours free to work solidly on creative tasks, before the rest of the world gets up and the phone starts ringing. Know when you are at your creative best and ring fence it, so you can’t get disturbed. It might be 6am, it might be midnight. Whatever, just make sure it’s protected.
“[W]hen I look back over the last couple of years, the time when I’ve created most value, for myself and my clients, has been those first hours of the day I’ve spent writing blog posts, essays, seminars and poems. It’s the creative wellspring that feeds into all the coaching, training, presenting and consulting I do when I’m face-to-face with clients.”
Treat it like a full time job too. If you can, work somewhere where you can commute to, or have some ringfenced office space at home. I recommend Mark’s excellent (and free) ebook ‘Time Management for Creative People‘.
6) Be lean, but don’t be mean
If you’re dreaming of going freelance, you might be thinking about holding off until after the recession. No need, says Leo Babauta 0f Zenhabits fame:
“This is the best time to start. This is a time when job security is low, so risks are actually lower. This is a time to be lean, which is the best idea for starting a business. This is the time when others are quitting – so you’ll have more room to succeed.
“And with social media and networking taking off, this is the easiest time to start a business, the easiest time to spread the word, the easiest time to distribute information and products and services.”
Starting now though won’t be easy – and you’ll need to be lean. But that is such an important skill to keep things afloat later on. Be sensible with your money, don’t overspend. It’s the thing the big companies can’t do, and the reason they lose money hand over fist. And don’t be mean: journalism is a small village – make friends and keep ‘em!
The final word:
Journalism.co.uk offer some great practical advice for freelancers, which cover things like registering as self-employed, pitching for new work and managing finances. And if you’re still unsure of taking the entrepreneurial route, just watch this video.
Tags: 6x6, Adam Westbrook, angela saini, author, creative entrepreneur, David Westphal, Freelance, Freelance science journalist, information and products, Jason Motlagh, Jonathan Fields, Josh Quittner, Journalism.co.uk, Leo Babauta, Mark McGuinness, markets The entrepreneur, Martin Lewis, media skills, multimedia journalist, Oliver Harrison, online cookery website, Radio journalist, Richard Branson, separate bank account, Simon Horniblow, social media, storytelling Journalist, The Guardian, the New York Times, time magazine, TV news reporter
- Next Generation Journalist: the portfolio career
- Future of News meet-up: Pick a big market, be your own marketing, wear red shoes
- JEEcamp: Kyle Macrae on Scoopt: We’re all entrepreneurs now
- New blog series: Mad to start freelancing in the recession?
- Adam Westbrook: 6×6 how to make things happen as a freelancer | <urn:uuid:cef47a76-e7b5-4635-86fa-69932dbf1d0a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.journalism.co.uk/tag/markets-the-entrepreneur/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931344 | 2,377 | 1.507813 | 2 |
A Transformational Opportunity for South Carolina: A Statewide, Wireless Broadband Network
A perfect storm creates a unique, transformational opportunity for South Carolina to use publicly owned wireless spectrum to develop a statewide, wireless broadband network. A statewide WiMAX cloud allows enhanced government, education, and health care services to be provided to the citizens of South Carolina. As WiMAX is deployed globally over the next several years, a statewide WiMAX cloud catalyzes economic development for South Carolina companies to develop these emerging wireless services here and then market them globally, and for those in rural areas to connect to the knowledge economy through the Internet.
The Legislature created the South Carolina Broadband Technology and Communications Study Committee to develop a plan for deploying and leveraging this spectrum. Last week I had the opportunity to present a vision of what could be done with this spectrum. You can review that presentation here. | <urn:uuid:197852e4-bdf2-43a5-8b5c-e52e884769a2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.swampfox.ws/2007/11/26/wireless-broadband | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923848 | 175 | 1.585938 | 2 |
In 1974, in response to a growing interest in the development of the paralegal profession, eight paralegal associations founded NFPA. It is a professional, non-profit organization comprised of state and local paralegal associations and represents paralegals throughout North America and foreign countries.
NFPA reflects a broad diversity of paralegals and offers a forum for practicing paralegals in all sectors, including private law firms, corporations, legal service agencies, financial institutions, courts, trade associations, federal, state and local government, insurance agencies and other traditional and non-traditional settings.
NFPA Mission Statement
The National Federation of Paralegal Associations, Inc. promotes a global presence for the paralegal profession and leadership in the legal community.
As adopted July 2004,
NFPA was formed to:
- Foster and promote the paralegal profession;
- Monitor and participate in developments of the paralegal profession;
- Maintain a nationwide communication network among paralegal associations and other members of the legal community;
- Advance the educational standards of the paralegal profession; and,
- Conduct seminars, research and handle other work relative to the paralegal profession.
NFPA supports the independent role of the paralegal and the vital role paralegals provide in the delivery of quality legal services.
NFPA—The Standard for Excellence
Since 1974, NFPA has supported the growth and expanded role of paralegals. The voice of the profession, NFPA represents paralegals in many areas.
- Legislative Matters—NFPA will present written and oral testimony at government hearings and meetings held by local, state and the national bar associations.
- Representation—NFPA presents paralegals' interests by preparing letters and amicus briefs to educate attorneys and judges on the vital role played by paralegals in the delivery of quality legal services.
- Professional Development—As the profession develops, paralegals can depend on NFPA to offer innovative opportunities for growth. Recent examples include development of the Paralegal Advanced Competency Exam (PACE) for becoming a Registered Paralegal and review/approval of textbooks and other reference manuals for practicing paralegals and student paralegals.
- Professional and Ethics Issues—NFPA continues to research and analyze issues that affect the paralegal profession. Recent issues include exempt vs. non-exempt, ethics, recoverability of fees, and definitions of a paralegal.
- Representation with National Legal Associations—NFPA works closely with the American Bar Association, (ABA), the American Association for Paralegal Education (AAfPE), International Paralegal Management Association (IPMA), and other legal national associations.
- Committee and Commission Representation— NFPA sponsors a representative on the ABA's Approval Commission, which works with the ABA's Standing Committee on Legal Assistants.
- Educational Issues—NFPA will support the growth and expansion of the paralegal profession by addressing educational issues for the practicing paralegal and paralegal students
WHEREAS, when this profession was first developed, the preferred term for those working in this field was "legal assistant". However, throughout the years, legal assistants came to also be called "paralegals"; and in 1995, a majority of NFPA's members voted to approve policy that NFPA prefers the term "paralegal" over the term "legal assistant"; and,
WHEREAS, despite the fact that statements were made early on that paralegal/legal assistant were equal and interchangeable terms for a single profession, there has traditionally been confusion and conflict within the public and the legal community as to these terms, and the roles and responsibilities associated therewith; and,
WHEREAS, our profession is facing additional confusion and conflict because in the last few years, an ever increasing number of: 1) law firms and other entities have begun calling their legal secretaries "legal assistants" and/or have begun tiering our profession such that individuals in entry-level positions are labeled "legal assistants" and those in more experienced positions are labeled "paralegals"; 2) legal secretaries have begun calling themselves, and signing correspondence which refers to themselves as, "legal assistants"; and,
WHEREAS, we, as paralegals and members of the legal community, have an ethical obligation to avoid misconceptions and to prevent confusion and even the appearance of an impropriety; and,
WHEREAS, the term "legal assistant" is now being used to refer to positions outside the paralegal definition, including, but not limited to, assistant county attorneys in some states and legal secretaries, it is no longer synonymous with the term "paralegal"; and, NFPA believes that it is in the best interest of our profession to promote the term "paralegal" as the proper nomenclature for members of this profession.NOW
THEREFORE, BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that NFPA hereby reaffirms Resolution 95M-4 that "Paralegal" is the preferred term for this profession; and, BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that Resolution 87-16 be revised as follows: RESOLVED that the NFPA adopt the following definition for Paralegal:
A Paralegal is a person, qualified through education, training or work experience to perform substantive legal work that requires knowledge of legal concepts and is customarily, but not exclusively, performed by a lawyer. This person may be retained or employed by a lawyer, law office, governmental agency or other entity or may be authorized by administrative, statutory or court authority to perform this work. (emphasis added.) History Adopted 2002
Opportunities to Network and Debate Issues. Annually, member associations meet at NFPA's convention to exchange ideas, discuss and debate critical issues facing the paralegal profession, and vote on the future direction of NFPA. Nowhere else can you participate in the same discussion and exchange of ideas that impacts your profession.
During the Annual Convention, the delegates elect the NFPA Officers and Board of Directors. The NFPA Board is composed of twelve members, which includes five Region Directors. The Region Directors give each region's concerns a strong voice on the Board. The delegates also approve the NFPA budget at the Annual Convention. As a member-driven organization, the voting associations truly have the ability and exercise the privilege of shaping the future of the profession.
According to the NFPA bylaws, the NFPA Board implements policy that is established by the delegates and handles the day-to-day administration of NFPA.
The Vote. The most important benefit of NFPA membership is the right to vote on all questions brought before the policy meetings which takes place at the conventions. Delegates have debated and voted on such matters at the annual conventions as the definition of a paralegal, adoption of model language on numerous topics that may be adapted in full or in part by others, and development of PACE. Through its careful research and its insistence on local input, NFPA has been prepared with verifiable information and established positions to assist other groups such as bar associations, legislatures or committees thereof, and other organizations interested in the paralegal profession. These decisions have directly impacted the profession's development. | <urn:uuid:58bb741b-787a-4a94-98c3-368b38a2966a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pacoparalegals.org/NFPA.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913083 | 1,504 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Anti-Islamic rhetoric has become heated in the US recently, as efforts to build Islamic community centers and mosques have been met with protests and vandalism, culminating in threats to burn copies of the Koran on the anniversary of 9/11. At the same time, powerful and persuasive voices are speaking out in defense of American Muslims, in a growing chorus of religious tolerance.
In these twin developments we can see the simultaneous processes of integration and disintegration that are playing out in the world today in this difficult age of transition from an anachronistic social order steeped in conflict and division, to a new order based on global interdependence.
When we turn on the news, we can see disintegrative processes playing out in every sphere of human activity. They are becoming particularly acute in the religious sphere, where, through the manipulations of self-interested leaders of thought, the deepest sources of human meaning and motivation are being channeled toward fanaticism, intolerance, and violence.
One response to this trend is to reject religion itself as an anachronism, as the new atheists and others have done. Another response is to recognize religion as an inextinguishable feature of human consciousness — but to understand it as an evolving system of knowledge and practice that progresses, just like science, through revolutionary advances that are initially dismissed, then debated, then gradually accepted as their validity is recognized.
It is this latter conception of religion that informs an open letter from the international governing body of the Baha’i community, that was written and distributed in 2002 to thousands of the world’s religious leaders. At the heart of this increasingly relevant letter is an appeal to discard all those doctrines of religious exclusivity and finality that lie at the heart of most religious conflict, and to realize the integrative potential of religion at this critical historical juncture. As this open letter concludes:
“With every day that passes, danger grows that the rising fires of religious prejudice will ignite a worldwide conflagration the consequences of which are unthinkable. Such a danger civil government, unaided, cannot overcome. Nor should we delude ourselves that appeals for mutual tolerance can alone hope to extinguish animosities that claim to possess Divine sanction. The crisis calls on religious leadership for a break with the past as decisive as those that opened the way for society to address equally corrosive prejudices of race, gender and nation… At this greatest turning point in the history of civilization, the demands of such service could not be more clear. “The well-being of mankind, its peace and security, are unattainable”, Bahá’u’lláh urges, “unless and until its unity is firmly established.” | <urn:uuid:898a6e0a-ce4d-44ef-b6a6-34690b04ad5c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://agencyandchange.com/2010/09/08/fanaticism/ | 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 | 0.955971 | 552 | 1.984375 | 2 |
Support LOVE146 in helping to Abolish Child Sex Slavery.
October 6th 2012 we have created a sponsored walk, run or jog to raise money for the abolition of child sex slavery.
What you need to know;
1.5 Million Children are sold in to slavery every year.
Children as young as 8 years old.
It is a 7.5 Billion Pound a year industry.
Find out more today at: http://www.runforlove146.org | <urn:uuid:30887681-9e4b-449c-835e-def9396b70c7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://twibbon.com/Support/END-CHILD-SLAVERY-RUNFORLOVE | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913131 | 100 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Your aviation enthusiast won’t believe his eyes when he sees the newest addition to the Frontiers of Flight museum in Dallas. Starting Monday, the antique military craft known as “The Flying Pancake” will be on display for all to see. This aircraft is actually a Vought V-173, but received its nickname due to its flat disc-shape design. The aircraft was recently restored and is truly a one of a kind WWII artifact. Click here for more information on this and other exhibits at the Frontiers of Flight Museum. | <urn:uuid:83764f6c-1390-4e11-863e-79f0188592b6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dallaschildblog.com/tag/the-flying-pancake/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969827 | 110 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Endeavour's Launch Finale
Endeavour lifts off Monday morning on its final mission. Photo credits: Mike Steineke
May 16, 2011 —The space shuttle Endeavour is at the International Space Station after launching from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at 8:56 a.m. EDT Monday. Endeavour’s 25th and final mission, and the second to last of the shuttle program, is scheduled to last for 16 days after being delayed for two weeks by mechanical issues.
“This mission represents the power of teamwork, commitment, and exploration,” Commander Mark Kelly said shortly before liftoff. “It is in the DNA of our great country to reach for the stars and explore. We must not stop. To all the millions watching today including our spouses, children, family, and friends, we thank you for your support.”
Kelly’s wife, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), who was seriously wounded by a gunman in Tucson in January, was also on hand to see her husband launch into space.
The crew will deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2 (AMS) and critical supplies to the space station, including two communications antennas, a high-pressure gas tank, and additional parts for the Dextre robot. AMS is a particle physics detector designed to search for various types of unusual cosmic matter. The crew also will transfer Endeavour’s orbiter boom sensor system to the station, where it could assist spacewalkers as an extension for the station’s robotic arm.
Other crew members are Pilot Greg H. Johnson and Mission Specialists Mike Fincke, Drew Feustel, Greg Chamitoff, and Roberto Vittori of the European Space Agency. Endeavour is scheduled to dock to the station at on Wednesday morning and its first landing opportunity at Kennedy is June 1. For more on the mission, click here. | <urn:uuid:12797190-6af6-4a6b-b32c-59f7fba56374> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.eaa.org/news/2011/2011-05-16_endeavour.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94413 | 405 | 1.75 | 2 |
Greetings junkbunny :)
A couple of ways you could look at it :
1. I believe it is not speaking of time at all, but is connecting it as an adjective to the age it is referring to. In other words, it is basically speaking of having either punishment that is pertaining to the age, or life that is pertaining to the age. That age is referring to the Messianic age, the one they were looking for. Because it is not speaking of time, there are other terms that describe our condition, such as putting on immortality. The punishment that is pertaining to the age is nowhere said to never end. It, being corrective in nature, accomplishes its purpose, and thus, is no longer needed.
2. Some believe it is referring to a length of time, described as age-abiding, or age-lasting. In this case, again, the life or punishment is only being described as lasting as long as that age. In this case, the belief is that that age will end, and when it does, that punishment will as well...however, again, the life a person has must continue on because we must put on immortality. The life we have after that age will not be age-abiding life, but simply life outside of the ages, for the ages will end. | <urn:uuid:ff66bd82-f57a-4955-a7b9-76c015c138ad> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tentmaker.org/forum/discussions-on-universal-salvation/the-new-land/?prev_next=next | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985193 | 270 | 1.703125 | 2 |
This study would not have happened had it not been for the encouragement, support, and assistance of many people. It was during my second year of graduate school at Washington State University (WSU) when I was hired by National Park Service (NPS) to write a historic resource study (HRS) of the Aniakchak National Monument and Preserve (ANIA). The study not only supported me financially during the school year, but the HRS launched my academic study of this region. Much of the research conducted for the HRS also formed the foundation of my doctorial work. Therefore, I thank both the NPS and the history department at WSU, especially my doctorial committee, including Orlan Svingen, Leroy Ashby, and Paul Hirt, for supporting my multi-layered, multi-purpose research and helping me achieve my goal of blending academic accomplishment and public service.
In Anchorage, my circle of supporters consisted of dedicated NPS cultural resource staffers, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) scientists, and university academics. Frank Norris, the senior historian at the NPS regional office in Anchorage, pioneered historical study in the Aniakchak region and provided me guidance, not to mention many sources, throughout the entire project. Frank's careful read of the first draft questioned a few misguided facts and kept my prose clean. Katie Myers, who manages the park collections now held at the Alaska Regional Curatorial Center, helped me locate a number of hard to find sources, including many Hubbard photographs. Barbara Bundy, with her expert knowledge of Adobe Illustrator, not only made some of the maps based on the historical information I provided to her, but was a constant source of support. My officemates, Karen Gaul and Dale Vinson, were always there, acting as sounding boards as I wrote.
Besides my colleagues at NPS, many other professionals and academics contributed to the HRS. Tina Neal, a USGS geologist, gave numerous interviews and read early versions of chapter one. Tina, and her colleague, Game McGimsey, probably know Aniakchak better than anyone, and both were open with their research, their photograph collections, and shared many stories with me about their fieldwork in the Caldera. Roger Bloggett took time to discuss the history of Kanatak with me, and provided numerous photos of his fieldwork there. Jenn Adleman, another USGS specialist, also read an early draft, and together these geologists helped me to better understand the geological processes at work in our earth. If mistakes exist in this text, they are mine alone.
Emeritus professor of Anthropology at the University of Oregon, Dr. Don Dumond, read an early draft of chapter two. Not only did he spare time to discuss with me archeological interpretations on his way through town to lead an elder hostel group into Katmai National Park and Preserve, but Dr. Dumond made sure my discussion of the ancient cultures of the central Alaska Peninsula was correct, at least as much as current archeological scholarship can tell us. Richard VanderHoek spent numerous hours talking to me about his current theory as to how the catastrophic eruption of the Aniakchak Volcano 3,500 years ago affected both the ecological and the human landscape. Archeologists Brian Hoffman and Ross Smith, who are currently working on site at Aniakchak with a field crew of archeological students from Hamlin University, helped me formulate a current historical interpretation of the region's ancient past. Barbara Sweetland Smith, an expert in Russian-America history, read drafts of chapter three and four. Ever since our first coffee meeting, in which we discussed for hours the "Russian factor," I have become very involved in the history of this era in Alaska history and hope to pursue it in future projects. U.S. Fish and Wildlife biologist Steve Ebbert read and commented on my discussion of fox farms and Elmendorf's historians John Haile Cloe, James Frank and Karlene Leeper provided me with important military documents, photos, and expert advice on Fort Morrow and other military resources in the surrounding area. Likewise, the U.S. Department of the Navy generously provided reproductions of William F. Draper's oil paintings which depict life at war in southwestern Alaska. I also must thank the archivists who assisted in retrieving the numerous photographs in the HRS. They include: Arlene Schmuland, archivist at the University of Alaska Anchorage, Sandra Johnston at the Alaska State Library, and Shelia Conway and Ann McMahon, archivists at Santa Clara University. Molly Logan, who edited the final manuscript, also played a major role in the completion of this five year project.
I especially need to thank historian Kathy Price, who provided key insights into Father Bernard Hubbard and his ultimate aims in Aniakchak. In her graduate work at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, Price argues that the Glacier Priest developed his "Hubbard Mystic" while exploring the Aniakchak Crater. Much of Price's research has contributed greatly to this study. I also must thank Orin Seybert, Greg Kingsley, Ace Grietchen, Patricia Partnow, Brian Hoffman, Tina Neal, Brian Hoffman, and Tony Fiorillo, all of whom gave interviews or contributed photos and personal essays about Aniakchak that are dispersed throughout the study in sections entitled: Anecdotes from Aniakchak.
Although numerous professionals helped to polish the final product, those who provided the HRS with its voice are the people who actually call the Aniakchak region their home. A few of those people include: Suzanne Deater, Michael Grunert, Angela Gregorio, Laura Stepanoff, Shanna Stepanoff, Diana Moore, Alec (Teetum) Pederson, Peter Bumpus, Aaron and Michelle Anderson, David, Ian, and Sasha Anderson, Clarence (Bobby) Erickson, Julius Anderson, and the many teachers, administrators and students at the Lake and Peninsula School District. Residents of the villages of Pilot Point, Ugashik, Port Heiden, Chignik Lagoon, Chignik Lake, and Chignik Bay maintain strong ties to the Aniakchak landscape. They continue to hunt, fish, pick berries, dig clams, and raise families in this region.
Thus, what I find most significant about writing a new history of this little known part of the world is that it challenges previous ideas about, and interpretations of, the landscape, and most notably, the people who dwell within it. The new history discussed in Beyond the Moon Crater Myth will be applied by land managers, resident leaders, and local communities to help explain what happened on the central Alaska Peninsula. In other words, this work will directly impact the future of this region and hopefully, add meaning for the people who interact with the land and resources, and literally make this region's history. As the grandson of an Aniakchak trapper, Peter Bumpus expressed to me, "Aniakchak has so much history, but no story has yet to tie it all together." For the opportunity to tie the story together, I must thank Jeanne Schaaf, chief of Cultural Resources for Lake Clark National Park and Preserve, whose program funded this project and gave it creative direction. Jeanne has been my boss and mentor for the last eight years, and I applaud her tireless energy, her dedication to cultural resource preservation and discovery, and her top-notch staff at the Lake Clark Katmai Studies Center in Anchorage, Alaska.
Finally, I must acknowledge my husband, Eric Ringsmuth, who still asked me to marry him while I wrote.
Katherine Johnson Ringsmuth
Last Updated: 03-Aug-2009 | <urn:uuid:2ee1e44d-b3f2-4fc4-84a8-28dd1b8106d6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/ania/hrs/ack.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95284 | 1,586 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Culpepper begins with a close examination of the relationship between John and the Synoptics and a summary of John's distinctive thought and language. He then looks at the origins of the Gospel and the letters, the history of the Johannine community. After a brief orientation to narrative criticism, readers move to the traditional concerns of John's theology. The student is then led through the texts of the Gospel and the letters. The final chapter examines the challenges and potential of these writings as documents of faith.
Customer Questions & Answers: | <urn:uuid:1f67ca60-02c4-47d9-8585-047683a29a2b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://answers.christianbook.com/answers/2016/product/7008514/abingdon-press-the-gospel-and-letters-of-john-interpreting-biblical-texts-series-questions-answers/questions.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939036 | 107 | 3 | 3 |
From: George Murphy (firstname.lastname@example.org)
Date: Wed Jun 18 2003 - 05:56:30 EDT
Iain Strachan wrote:
> George Murphy:
> > gordon brown wrote:
> > >
> > > I just looked at the ASA web page's link to the Nicene Creed, and it
> > > raises a question in my mind. The discussion indicates that there is
> > > than one version. Which one is intended by our statement of faith--the
> > > with the filioque clause or the one without it? In other words, are
> > > Eastern Orthodox thereby excluded from the ASA?
> > I'm glad you brought this up because it does highlight a problem in
> linking to a
> > text of the creed. We were deliberately non-specific about this for just
> the reason you
> > point out. Our intention was certainly _not_ to exclude Orthodox
> > It might be a good idea to drop the link until a proper treatment of this
> can be
> > discussed. A suitably placed asterisk may be in order.
> > FWIW I think that the filioque is correct as a theological opinion but
> that the
> > western church had no business unilaterally inserting it in the creed.
> But hold on a minute ... even without the link, you can still find the creed
> if you really want to & possibly get offended by it if you're an Orthodox
> Christian. The real issue here is whether you want to say you accept the
> creed at all. It's no good just saying you believe it, but then making it
> difficult to find because you think someone might get offended by it!
No, because the Orthodox - with good historical justification - will say that
the "Nicene Creed" is the text _without_ the filioque, and that the text containing it
is a much later western interpolation. (Actually it's the Niceo-Constantinopolitan
Creed that's usually referred to by both east & west as "Nicene".)
George L. Murphy
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Wed Jun 18 2003 - 05:58:19 EDT | <urn:uuid:69ca7fb4-3472-4b17-afa2-2d22ede86d9b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www2.asa3.org/archive/asa/200306/0236.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939378 | 482 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Subtle Signs Show Wealthy Are Worried
CNBC Reporter & Editor
Last weekend, market strategist Nicholas Colas of ConvergEx Group was in the Hamptons at a gas station. He looked across the pump and witnessed an event that he could only describe later with “horror.”
“A fellow dressed in typical ‘I’m an affluent hedgie but still a really chill dude’ polo shirt and white linen shorts filled up his Ferrari with regular gasoline rather than the recommended high-octane blend.”
Colas wondered “Things can’t be that bad, can they? Saving a few bucks on gasoline but potentially ruining one of Maranello’s artistics creations?”
Colas started noticing other disturbing signs of rich-people austerity. At Pierre's, a go-to gathering place for the wealthy in Bridgehampton, reservations are no longer necessary on a Saturday night. Delta’s direct flight from JFK to Nice, on the French Riviera, Colas found, still had seats for the same day. And the Hotel de Paris in Monaco still had plenty of rooms and suites available – as did the Hotel de Crillon and the Ritz in Paris.
“Despite the old saying that ‘There are no bears on Park Avenue’, there does appear to be a distinct chill in the air when it comes to the mood” of the financial elite, said Colas.
Colas’ horror stories from Richistan echo similar findings in recent surveys. The wealthy are pulling out of stocks, dumping money into hard assets, and generally feeling down on the economy and government. Instead of confident capital, we have miserable millionaires.
It’s not that their own bank accounts look so bad, but the rich don’t see the world’s wealth-creation machine sputtering back to life anytime soon. And when your chief priority becomes saving your fortune rather than making one, you stop jetting to the Riviera and taking risk, and you look to save cash – even on gasoline.
This would all be merely a source of amusement for the non-rich public, except for the fact that the one percent do the lion’s share of investing and spending right now.
Their chill could soon become the world's cold.
-By CNBC's Robert Frank
Follow Robert Frank on Twitter: @robtfrank | <urn:uuid:a764d3dc-7525-4168-b981-24c4135627e0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cnbc.com/id/47833774 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933696 | 502 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Connect to share and comment
Victims of the Mogadishu bomb attack are being taken to Turkey, as Somalia struggles to cope with casualties.
Dozens of those most severely hurt in Tuesday's suicide attack in the Somali capital of Mogadishu are being flown to Turkey for treatment.
The news comes amid reports that Mogadishu's main hospital is struggling to cope with the wounded.
The BBC reported that 37 patients were taken to Mogadishu airport on Thursday morning, “but one person died before the flight took off.”
It reported that patients on board included teenagers who had been at the education ministry to see if they had won scholarships to study in Turkey.
Somalia's Justice Minister Ahmed Bile said the most of those on the flight were suffering from severe burns.
(Read more on GlobalPost: Inside Somalia: Al Shabaab, ally of Al Qaeda)
After visiting Mogadishu hospital on Wednesday, President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed announced that a $100,000 fund would be established to treat the victims and assist the families of those who were killed.
Both the United States and United Nations condemned Tuesday's car-bomb attack on a government compound, which killed over 70 people.
The Islamist al-Shabaab group has claimed responsibility. | <urn:uuid:3af8ded2-3fb3-42dc-ab73-f0664026454f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/africa/111006/mogadishu-bomb-victims-airlifted-turkey | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970724 | 263 | 1.765625 | 2 |
HOUSTON (CN) - Owners of some hurricane-damaged homes in Galveston are not entitled to FEMA buyouts, as they have no constitutionally protected right to the money, a federal judge ruled.
After Hurricane Ike smashed Galveston on Sept. 13, 2008 President George W. Bush declared Galveston County a disaster area, automatically qualifying it for assistance under FEMA's Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, or HMGP.
Source: Courthouse News. Read full article. (link) | <urn:uuid:06dc109d-db13-42db-8997-b814d11eceaf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://reason.com/24-7/2013/03/15/court-fema-buyouts-not-a-guaranteed | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920795 | 102 | 1.609375 | 2 |
A Resolution to Encourage Parents and Caregivers of Children to Refrain from the Use of Corporal Punishment
Author: Ron Goldman
Brookline, Massachusetts - May 2005
WHEREAS the nation’s pediatric professionals and children’s advocates oppose the use of corporal punishment of children;
WHEREAS research shows that corporal punishment teaches children that hitting is an acceptable way of dealing with problems and that violence works;
WHEREAS there are effective alternatives to corporal punishment of children;
WHEREAS national surveys show that corporal punishment is common and 35% of infants are hit before they are one year old;
WHEREAS adopting national policies against corporal punishment has been an effective public education measure in various countries;
WHEREAS accumulated research supports the conclusion that corporal punishment is an ineffective discipline strategy with children of all ages and, furthermore, that it is sometimes dangerous;
WHEREAS studies show that corporal punishment often produces in its victims anger, resentment, low self-esteem, anxiety, helplessness, and humiliation;
WHEREAS research demonstrates that the more children are hit, the greater the likelihood that they will engage in aggression and anti-social behavior as children imitate what they see adults doing;
WHEREAS in a study of 8000 families, children who experience frequent corporal punishment are more likely to physically attack siblings, develop less adequately-developed consciences, experience adult depression, and physically attack a spouse as an adult;
WHEREAS, according to human rights documents, children, like adults, have the right not to be physically assaulted;
WHEREAS the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child has consistently stated that persisting legal and social acceptance of corporal punishment is incompatible with the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child;
BE IT HEREBY RESOLVED that Town Meeting encourages parents and caregivers of children to refrain from the use of corporal punishment and to use alternative nonviolent methods of child discipline and management with an ultimate goal of mutual respect between parent and child.
Town Meeting requests that appropriate Town groups explore how they can further raise awareness of this issue, and organizations that deal with children's welfare shall be informed of this resolution.
This voluntary resolution is in no way intended to undermine parental authority or familial autonomy. Its goal is to promote and advocate mutual respectful relationships between children and their parents and encourage thoughtful determination of discipline methods. It seeks to bring attention to this issue and is meant to be a gentle, reasonable, and respectful suggestion. It could result in more support and discussion of options for disciplining children.
Corporal punishment is the intentional infliction of physical pain for the purpose of punishment. Examples of corporal punishment include assault and battery that do not cause bodily injury, slapping, spanking, hitting with objects, shaking and pinching. Such incidents are not reported to any agency. Child abuse is already subject to State law and is not the focus of this resolution. Discipline is training to act in accordance with rules of conduct.
This resolution is supported by the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, Massachusetts Citizens for Children, and the Massachusetts Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers.
A large-scale meta-analysis of 88 studies (Gershoff, 2002) published by the American Psychological Association, found strong associations between corporal punishment and ten negative outcomes, including eroded trust between parent and child, more aggression toward siblings, bullying, spousal abuse as adults, and other anti-social behavior.
American Academy of Pediatrics Recommendations
Parents should be encouraged and assisted in the development of methods other than spanking for managing undesired behavior. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, the following consequences of spanking lessen its desirability as a strategy to eliminate undesired behavior.
Spanking children <18 months of age increases the chance of physical injury, and the child is unlikely to understand the connection between the behavior and the punishment. Although spanking may result in a reaction of shock by the child and cessation of the undesired behavior, repeated spanking may cause agitated, aggressive behavior in the child that may lead to physical altercation between parent and child.
Spanking models aggressive behavior as a solution to conflict and has been associated with increased aggression in preschool and school children.
Spanking and threats of spanking lead to altered parent-child relationships, making discipline substantially more difficult when physical punishment is no longer an option, such as with adolescents.
Spanking is no more effective as a long-term strategy than other approaches, and reliance on spanking as a discipline approach makes other discipline strategies less effective to use. Time-out and positive reinforcement of other behaviors are more difficult to implement and take longer to become effective when spanking has previously been a primary method of discipline.
A pattern of spanking may be sustained or increased. Because spanking may provide the parent some relief from anger, the likelihood that the parent will spank the child in the future is increased.
Consequences of Corporal Punishment
Children whose parents use corporal punishment to control antisocial behavior show more antisocial behavior themselves over a long period of time, regardless of race and socioeconomic status, and regardless of whether the mother provides cognitive stimulation and emotional support (Gunnoe & Mariner, 1997; Kazdin, 1987; Patterson, DeBaryshe, & Ramsey, 1989; Straus, Sugarman, & Giles-Sims, 1997).
A consistent pattern of physical abuse exists that generally starts as corporal punishment, and then gets out of control (Kadushin & Martin, 1981; Straus & Yodanis, 1994).
Adults who were hit as children are more likely to be depressed or violent themselves (Berkowitz, 1993; Strassberg, Dodge, Pettit, & Bates, 1994; Straus, 1994; Straus & Gelles, 1990; Straus & Kantor, 1992).
The more a child is hit, the more likely it is that the child, when an adult, will hit his or her children, spouse, or friends (Julian & McKenry, 1993; Straus, 1991; Straus, 1994; Straus & Gelles, 1990; Straus & Kantor, 1992; Widom, 1989; Wolfe, 1987).
Corporal punishment increases the probability of children assaulting the parent in retaliation, especially as they grow older (Brezina, 1998).
Corporal punishment sends a message to the child that violence is a viable option for solving problems (Straus, Gelles, & Steinmetz, 1980; Straus, Sugarman, & Giles-Sims, 1997).
Corporal punishment is degrading, contributes to feelings of helplessness and humiliation, robs a child of self-worth and self-respect, and can lead to withdrawal or aggression (Sternberg et al., 1993; Straus, 1994).
Corporal punishment erodes trust between a parent and a child, and increases the risk of child abuse; as a discipline measure, it simply does not decrease children's aggressive or delinquent behaviors (Straus, 1994).
Children who get spanked regularly are more likely over time to cheat or lie, be disobedient at school, bully others, and show less remorse for wrongdoing (Straus, Sugarman, & Giles-Sims, 1997).
Corporal punishment adversely affects children's cognitive development. Children who are spanked perform poorly on school tasks compared to other children (Straus & Mathur, 1995; Straus & Paschall, 1998).
The anti-social behaviors associated with corporal punishment may not be exhibited in most cases. However, the increase in the prevalence of such behaviors is significant.
Alternatives to Corporal Punishment
Set firm, consistent, age-appropriate, and acceptable limits. For example, although a 5-year-old child may be able to resist the urge to touch things, it is not reasonable to expect that a 2-year-old will be able to handle such limits. Therefore, parents may need to childproof their homes to protect breakable items, and to keep children away from dangerous objects.
Teach children conflict resolution and mediation skills, including listening actively, speaking clearly, showing trust and being trustworthy, accepting differences, setting group goals, negotiating, and mediating conflicts. Reason and talk with children in age-appropriate ways. Verbal parent-child interactions enhance children's cognitive ability.
Model patience, kindness, empathy, and cooperation. Parents and teachers should be aware of the powerful influence their actions have on a child's or group's behavior.
Provide daily opportunities for children to practice rational problem solving, and to study alternatives and the effect of each alternative.
Encourage and praise children. A nonverbal response such as a smile or a nod, or a verbal response such as "good" or "right" not only provides incentives for accomplishment, but also builds primary grade children's confidence.
Allow children to participate in setting rules-and identifying consequences for breaking them. This empowers children to learn how to manage their own behavior. Provide consistency, structure, continuity, and predictability in children's lives.
Encourage children's autonomy-allow them to think for themselves, and to monitor their own behavior, letting their conscience guide them. | <urn:uuid:e7861896-996b-487b-8310-ba4307e74411> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://stophitting.blogspot.com/2006_02_01_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936839 | 1,901 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Numbers of sauger Stizostedion canadense declined in the Peoria Pool of the Illinois River from the 1970s to the 1990s. Stocking was evaluated as a means of supplementing natural reproduction in the pool. Marked fry were stocked in 1991–1994 (20–176/ha), and marked fingerlings were stocked in 1990–1995 (,1–20/ha). In 1990, fingerlings with a mean total length of 44 mm were stocked in June, and 92-mm fingerlings were stocked in September and October. Relative survival was 4.9:1 in favor of the 44-mm fingerlings. During 1991–1994, relative survival averaged 440:1 for stocked fingerlings (39–61 mm) versus fry. From 1990 to 1995, contribution of stocked saugers to the year-classes averaged 33.9% at age 0. Because of the immigration of wild saugers into Peoria Pool and emigration of stocked and wild fish to other pools, contributions of stocked saugers to individual year-classes decreased each year subsequent to stocking. Mean contribution of stocked saugers at harvestable ages (age 2 and older) was 9.1%. Total contribution of all stocked saugers after 6 years to all year-classes was 22.8%. | <urn:uuid:eb8aa9a5-6e55-4929-a2c4-6876c68ee5a9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/fiaq_pubs/43/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964383 | 266 | 2.765625 | 3 |
Daily Word: Enjoy Your Blessings!
TO HEAR THE AUDIO VERSION OF THE DAILY WORD **CLICK HERE
appy Tuesday my blessed and highly favored! Welcome to the day that you realize that everything you need in life is already in your possession! Today’s Daily Word is dedicated to counting your blessings! Oprah Winfrey once said “Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.” Many times we spend so much energy concentrating on how to fix what we think is wrong that we don’t even realize that we are chasing away what is right! We concentrate on the negative and on what we think we lack then wonder why abundance doesn’t seem to come our way! Effective immediately I need you to understand that at this moment you are blessed beyond measure! You have a perfect life and everything in it will bring you your bliss! Even if at times it seems all bad, know and understand that it is always ALL good! And at any moment you begin to think negative remember these words from Ralph Marston which say… “Every positive thing in your life represents a single unique blessing. Every negative thing in your life has the opportunity to become a double blessing. For when you turn a negative into a positive, you gain twice. You are no longer burdened with the negative situation, and in addition to that you are strengthened by a new positive force.” Think positive, Count your blessings, and take everything that you deserve! Life is abundant for those who seek it and make it so!
“The unthankful heart discovers no mercies; but the thankful heart will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings.”
-Henry Ward Beecher
“The secret of happiness is to count your blessings while others are adding up their troubles.”
“If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.”
“There are no mistakes, no coincidences, all events are blessings given to us to learn from.”
“It is always wise to stop wishing for things long enough to enjoy the fragrance of those now flowering.”
“Just because it isn’t perfect, doesn’t mean it isn’t awesome.”
“An attitude of gratitude creates blessings.”
-Sir John Templeton
“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive- to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love-then make that day count!”
Ash’Cash is a Business Consultant, Motivational Speaker, Financial Expert and the author of Mind Right, Money Right: 10 Laws of Financial Freedom. For more information, please visit his website, www.IamAshCash.com | <urn:uuid:bb6f2b44-d43c-48c6-826e-bfb212b8ac17> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://allhiphop.com/2013/03/12/daily-word-enjoy-your-blessings/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922478 | 621 | 1.546875 | 2 |
CHAMPIONS OF CHANGE
Turning the Corner on Chronic Disease ManagementCambridge Health Alliance decided that a new approach was needed to help patients with asthma and other chronic illnesses manage their disease more effectively. The Alliance committed to utilizing the planned care model, developed by Dr. Ed Wagner and his colleagues at the MacColl Institute for Healthcare Innovation.
The Planned Care Model envisions productive interactions between a prepared provider team and an informed, activated patient. Providers utilize evidence-based guidelines, and are supported by information technology and community resources. These elements are all part of a health care institution that has made the effective management of chronic disease a central part of its mission.
“We and most other institutions are not very effective, and thereís I think ample evidence either asking individual patients, or looking at the outcomes on how theyíve faired in the health care system to suggest we donít do a job worthy of their illness and worthy of the amount of resources put into it,” says Dr. David Link.
According to Cambridge Health Alliance CEO, Dennis Keefe, “The whole approach with planned care is to be working with patients, helping them develop a plan to manage their disease, making sure they stick to that plan on an ongoing basis, making sure they understand what that plan is, making sure they actually have a copy of that plan so if they go anywhere they can present this is the treatment plan that Iím on.”
The Alliance has adopted the planned care model across many of its primary care practices. Instead of being reactive and treating chronic illness when it becomes acute, providers and patients are encouraged to become proactive by managing symptoms, maintaining a healthy lifestyle, and preventing hospitalizations.
Technology plays a critical role in the program. For example, the Alliance has implemented a disease specific database containing information on its youngest patients with asthma. Not only can the providers within the Alliance Network access the information but so can other institutions, including nurses in the Cambridge school system.
“Itís a connector for everybody. It reaches into the school where the child is during the day, it reaches into the office where we treat them, it reaches into the pharmacy where they get their medications, it connects to the Healthy Homes Program. It goes into the emergency department, if they have to turn up in the emergency department. It reports to the physician in an aggregate way, how theyíre doing with their patients, what elements of the illness havenít been addressed,” according to Dr. Link.
Says school nurse Sharon Jones, “The physician will only see the child when the child is ill. We maintain the illness. We're able to be hooked up into the computer and we're able to see what kind of medications the child's on so everyone's on the same page.”
The Alliance has also established a Healthy Homes project which allows trained case workers to visit the homes of asthma patients to identify molds and other problems that trigger attacks, and then help clean up the environment the child lives in.
To provide parents with valuable information they can use at home, group meetings with other patients and families are regularly offered.
“It was very, very helpful to hear from the other parents their experience and what itís like, and for me to kind of expect or prepare myself in case I get into those situations. It was very helpful for me to know those thoughts and what other people go through, not just him alone,” says Lomalee Houston whose son has asthma.
Every parent is provided with written instructions identifying the medications his or her child is on plus telephone numbers to call in case of emergency. To ensure a continuum of care school nurses are provided with the same information, just in case they are unable to access the Allianceís database.
Cambridge Health Alliance is making significant changes in how it treats patients with chronic diseases. Preliminary results show a dramatic decrease in the usage of the emergency department and hospitalizations by asthmatic children.
While Dr. Link is happy with these early results heís also keeping his eye on a longer-term goal.
“We havenít solved chronic illness. However, weíre working very, very hard on this. Weíve got to get there. There is no choice. Itís an absolute imperative.”
Purchase the DVD | <urn:uuid:937f9c1c-d33a-495b-877b-f417ba1cea80> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pbs.org/remakingamericanmedicine/link.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96006 | 889 | 2.109375 | 2 |
Put together as many equations as you can - using addition, subtraction, multiplication and division - the player or team with the most cards is the winner. Students will be learning and developing their mind while also having fun.
This unique card game can be easily adjusted to each student's ability by choosing different numbers or operations. Even high school students can be challenged when fractions and other advanced math operations are incorporated into the game. For 1-4 players or more if playing in teams.Game includes over 150 number and operations cards, dice, and instructions.
Teachers say - "Students that play MathTwister will be algebra ready."
Students say - "Love this game. It's exciting and you have to be fast." | <urn:uuid:4a29517b-3083-4e71-a923-60787225a9a1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.didax.com/shop/productdetails.cfm/GradeID/11/SubjectID/3/Sort/Item/Order/Asc/StartRow/41/ShowAll/No/ItemNo/910300.cfm | 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 | 0.965426 | 147 | 2.15625 | 2 |
I have this phrase in my JLPT textbook, as one example of the use of
The translation offered in the book is:
Waste time and money among others
The English is both awkward and lacks context, so it doesn't help me understand the Japanese at all. The only thing I gain from it is that my own somewhat literal translation is almost certainly wrong. I would translate the Japanese as something like "look only at oneself (to a ridiculous degree)".
Is this some kind of idiomatic usage? What exactly does it mean and why? | <urn:uuid:49857afa-f4d5-49b5-9b7d-87fc558ccb8c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/11097/what-is-a-better-translation-for-%E3%80%8C%E8%87%AA%E5%88%86%E3%81%A0%E3%81%91%E3%83%90%E3%82%AB%E3%82%92%E8%A6%8B%E3%82%8B%E3%80%8D | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968273 | 114 | 1.828125 | 2 |
With the VGA cooler lying face down, place the VGA card face down onto cooler, allowing the mounting screws to pass through the card's mounting hole. Be careful with this step!
Next, place an insulation spacer on each mounting screw
Attach a spring nut to each mounting screw and fasten with a screwdriver. Give each spring nut a few turns until it is secure:
Our air cooled MSI 7600 GT is ready to roll! Note that now our card is double the width and will take up an extra backplane slot.
The copper core has enough distance between it and the surrounding components, not to cause any damage:
The time has come to install your card. There shouldn't be any problems here, just find two adjacent backplane slots and make sure that the card wont interfere with any nearby chipsets that could prevent the card from being installed correct. In our case (Asus P5B Deluxe), there is a capacitor close by, so we had to be careful when installing or removing the VGA card:
As we mentioned earlier, you need at least two empty backplane slots for the VGA card and the iCEBERQ 6 cooler.The photo below shows the setup at the rear of the case. Note the ventilation holes of the iCEBERQ 6, which blows hot air out of the case.
A panoramic view of the the MSI 7600GT cooled with Vantec's iCEbErQ6. As a last minute tip, don't forget to plug-in the cooler's power connector to a 3-pin fan header: | <urn:uuid:71124d66-8808-4b80-8e5a-c2e5ff5947bc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/Reviews/Specific.aspx?ArticleId=20242&PageId=3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933037 | 327 | 1.554688 | 2 |
ITIF has filed these comments in response to the Notice of Inquiry from the Depart of Commerce’s Internet Policy Task Force seeking input on the challenges of protecting copyrighted works online and the relationship between copyrights and innovation in the Internet Economy. In these comments, ITIF argues that unchecked digital piracy is a threat to the economic welfare of the United States and that more can, and should, be done to limit unauthorized use of copyrighted content online.
Better Enforcement of Online Copyright Would Help, Not Harm, Consumers
Legislation introduced in Congress last month (the “Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act”) would take an aggressive and needed stand against online piracy, a growing problem that hurts American consumers and costs Americans jobs. Critics of the legislation argue that this bill would hurt free speech, encourage censorship in foreign countries, and cripple the technological infrastructure on which the Internet runs. Not only is this criticism unfounded, but more robust enforcement of digital copyrights would likely lead to a stronger Internet ecosystem and more innovative content and services for consumers.
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Innovation Policy
Innovation has become the central driver of economic growth and thus a key focal point of countries’ economic development strategies as they seek to gain competitive advantage. Accordingly, countries are increasingly designing national innovation strategies that seek to coordinate their policies toward skills, scientific research, information and communications technologies (ICTs), tax, trade, intellectual property, government procurement, standards, and regulations in an integrated approach designed to drive economic growth through innovation. While a focus on innovation is positive, countries can implement policies that are either,
- “Good,” benefiting the country and the world simultaneously;
- “Ugly,” benefiting the country at the expense of other nations;
- “Bad” failing to benefit either the country or the world; or
- “Self-destructive,” actually hurting the country while benefiting others.
Notwithstanding the fact that countries can readily implement a range of “Good” innovation policies, there remain far too “Ugly” and “Bad” (and occasionally “Self-destructive”) mercantilist strategies that are neither sustainable nor productive. Moreover, these Ugly, Bad, and Self-destructive mercantilist strategies suffer from three other failures. They: 1) undermine confidence in the international trading system, while reducing global GDP growth; 2) fail to recognize that neither the United States nor Europe—nor even both combined—can indefinitely absorb imports if Brazil, China, India, Japan, Russia, and others continue to promote exports while limiting imports as their primary path to prosperity; and 3) ignore that raising the productivity across-the-board of all sectors, traded and non-traded, is the surer path to lasting economic growth.
The world must move beyond perceiving the pursuit of economic growth through innovation among nations as a zero-sum game to embracing a perspective that views mutual global prosperity as the goal. The report also provides policymakers a concrete guide to promoting constructive innovation policies while avoiding the ruinous ones. Among those steps are the following:
- Urging institutions such as the World Bank, the IMF, U.S. AID and others to steer nations away from export-led growth strategies and other mercantilist policies.
- National leaders should promote win-win innovation policies and avoid zero-sum strategies.
- The World Trade Organization should publish annually all new trade barriers (including non-tariff barriers), whether they are allowed by the rules or not.
- Establish trade zones of nations that exclude nations that persist in pursuing mercantilist policies that violate the principle of free and fair trade.
- Educate policy makers that export-led growth, often abetted by mercantilist practices, is unnecessary, counterproductive, and unsustainable. It misses the far greater opportunity to achieve economic growth through raising domestic productivity levels.
Who's Who in Internet Politics: A Taxonomy of Information Technology Policy
The debate about the future of the Internet is more politically charged than ever. Internet policy issues are becoming more central. All groups involved in Internet policy share a goal of a robust Internet ecosystem but have sometimes vastly different definitions of robust and different views on how to achieve that goal. In this report we identify nine distinct groups shaping Internet policy and how these groups view key Internet policy issues, including net neutrality, copyright, and privacy.
Network Policy and Economic Doctrines
Disagreements over how to craft Internet policy have become more and more contentious and political. Beyond the technical and engineering aspects are economic questions. The points of view of various stakeholders and participants on such matters as privacy, net neutrality, copyright and other issues stem from four major economic philosophies: conservative neo-classical, liberal neo-classical, neo-Keynesian and innovation economics.
In this paper presented at the 2010 Telecommunications Policy Research Conference, ITIF President Robert D. Atkinson analyzes how prevailing economic philosophies drive approaches to network policy in four key areas: broadband competition, net neutrality, copyright and privacy.
This article was published in the June 2011 issue of Telecommunications Policy. | <urn:uuid:a2cbffb2-3ead-4bd3-add0-f8a82fae10dc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.itif.org/category/policy-issues/intellectual-property?page=8 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.907164 | 1,069 | 2.234375 | 2 |
New Delhi, (IANS) The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Sunday voiced concern over the constitutional crisis in neighbouring Nepal, terming it a “serious setback”.
“Major political parties and their leaders in Nepal have not been able to form any consensus on major issues despite repeated assurances that they would deliver a fully democratic constitution to meet the people’s aspiration…,” former BJP president Rajnath Singh said in a statement.
“A failure to honour such promises would be a serious setback to Nepal’s quest for peace, democracy, political stability and economic prosperity,” he said.
The term of Nepal’s constituent assembly expired Sunday, and despite several extensions, the political parties of the Himalayan nation have not been able to frame the constitution.
“The BJP appeals to the Nepalese people not to let their society and country be divided on caste and ethnic lines as it has all along had a glorious past that practised cultural, religious and ethnic harmony,” Rajnath Singh said. | <urn:uuid:9ca49179-0731-4645-a8c3-810e9542228f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nvonews.com/2012/05/28/nepals-constitutional-crisis-worries-bjp/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963313 | 221 | 1.953125 | 2 |
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The issue is not about plastic bags but of a greater problem which is litter. If the city council directs its attention to plastic bags then get ready for what will come next.
How about cans?Styrofoam cups?How about the plastic ice bag at Stripes?Or the plastic bags at the produce market at HEB?Next, dirty diapers at the Wall-Mart parking lot?Don’t forget outlawing the plastic trash bags in our kitchens?Yard bags?How about tourists who bring in bags from outside our city?
Litter is the issue and cloth bags will not replace plastic. Actually, cloth bags are known as a breeding ground for germs as raw produce and cans are packed in and not everyone washes them.
I have seen law enforcement drive by people who have surrounded their picnic area with litter and simply wave at them. Instead law enforcement should get out of their car and perhaps give the picnickers a plastic bag and request they pick up the litter, write down the license plate and on return, give them a ticket if the trash is not picked up.
If we have a zero tolerance for graffiti, why can’t we have it for litter? If the city council focuses on plastic bags, then what politely correct litter item are they going to have to address in the future?
Let’s go after the problem not part of it.
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Feels Like: 92°
Feels Like: 90°
Feels Like: 93° | <urn:uuid:8ee473fd-e55c-47d5-aa6d-e74e73342ad0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.caller.com/comments/reply/?target=61:132830&comment=866391 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945917 | 357 | 2.09375 | 2 |
Researchers Robert Balfanz and Joanna Fox of the School of Education’s Everyone Graduates Center (EGC) recently coauthored a report with good news on the nation’s dropout crisis. The report – Building a Grad Nation: Progress and Challenge in Ending the High School Dropout Epidemic – showed that most states increased their graduation rates while the number of high schools referred to as “dropout factories,” where only 60% or fewer students graduate on time, have decreased. Sponsored by AT&T with support from the Peterson Foundation, the report was released in March by the EGC, Civic Enterprises, American’s Promise Alliance and the Alliance for Excellent Education.
The report found that 24 states increased their high school graduation rates by modest to large gains, while the number of “dropout factories”— decreased by 457 between 2002 and 2010, with the rate of decline accelerating since 2008. The number of “dropout factories” totaled 1,550 in 2010, down from 1,634 in 2009 and a high of 2,007 in 2002. The number declined by 84 between 2009 and 2010. As a result, 790,000 fewer students attended dropout factories in 2010 than 2002. These numbers and additional analysis are detailed in the report also authored by Johns Bridgeland and Mary Bruce of Civic Enterprises.
“The good news is that some states have made improvements in their graduation rates, showing it can be done. But the data also indicate that if we are to meet our national goals by 2020, we will have to accelerate our rate of progress, particularly in the states that have shown little progress,” said Robert Balfanz, director of Everyone Graduates Center.
In addition to the information on states and school districts making significant gains, the report shares best practices from nonprofits, businesses, media, educational and governmental institutions across the country, and five case studies in: Dothan, AL, the State of Georgia; Henry Grady High School in Atlanta, GA; Houston, TX; and Washington County Public Schools in Maryland. Click here to see the full report. | <urn:uuid:1e297a92-975e-46d6-b855-fe6667a4e7ae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://education.jhu.edu/newsroom/articles/balfanz-fox-find-improvement-in-grad-rate | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957214 | 438 | 2.34375 | 2 |
Daan Vreeken [PA4DAN]
Danovitsch at Vitsch.net
Thu Jan 22 05:15:59 PST 2004
On Thursday 22 January 2004 09:44, Khoi - San Zulu wrote:
> Good day.
> I would like to extend to you, whomever you are, my
> heartfelt gratitude for this operating system.
> I come from a poor community in the heart of South
> Africa. I learned about computers and how they work,
> using Microsoft operating systems. I have had no
> experience with any other operating system besides
> Windows NT, 2000 and XP. I was given a copy of FreeBSD
> release 5.0 by a gentleman I happened to meet whom is
> into the Unix Operating system. He gave me 2 CD-Rom
> disks and 2 Stiffy disks. I have read your site, I
> found it most informative. I installed the FreeBSD
> Operating System onto a Pentium II computer. It worked
> first time, Great!!!! I searched on Google for
> commands and have found some.....
> I searched your site, but my burning question is, How
> do I start the Graphical Interfaces, KDE and Gnome? I
> did a Custom Installation following the directions of
> the website. I installed all the packages and Ports. I
> want to learn everything.
You should have XFree86 and KDE or Gnome installed. When you're done with that
it's time to configure your video card. This can be done in 2 ways :
graphical or in text-mode by selecting your hardware from a list.
The command to start the graphical configuration utility is :
And the command to start the text-based configuration utility is :
When you're done, make sure that you have the config-file that has been
generated in /etc/X11/XF86Config .
Now when you type "kdm" you should get a graphical login-screen where you can
login with your username and password. After logging in KDE should apear.
> I am of the understanding that the Operating System
> loves command line. I dont feel that I am at that
> level yet to configure from the command line. An old
> adage in South AFrica goes, work from what you know,
> to what you don't know. I want to learn everything
> about the Operating System. I see its Potential is
> GREAT.... So much can be done for the people who
> cannot afford old or new computers never mind the
> licenses for the Other operating systems here like
> Novell and Microsoft. I desperately want to learn
> about this. I have come to an internet cafe to educate
> myself further. My problem is that resources are
> limited here regarding our access to Alternative
> Operating Systems and equipment. The potential that
> the discovery of this Operating System and what it
> offers makes me salivate with happiness. I can make a
> meal of this and do so many things within the
> community along the lines of empowerment.... I have
> heard about Linux, but have read from a few sources
> that the FreeBSD Operating system is amongst the more
> secure out there as well as that FreeBSD 5.0 has the
> ability to emulate linux. So In my understanding I get
> multiple Operating Systems, with Multiple capabilities
> all roled into 1 ( well 2 disks!).
> Please help in this regard. If possible, please help
> me with the commands or where I can find them!!! I
> would appreciate this greatly!!!!!!!!!!!!
First of all : Remember, Google is your friend :)
With Google you can find a lot of shell introduction pages (searching for
things like "shell script commands" or "learning shell scripts" )
A good example of a page that explains some basic shell commands can be found
Good luck finding your way into FreeBSD !
More information about the freebsd-questions | <urn:uuid:3b89762d-24a5-4170-bb59-1eb80beef547> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions/2004-January/033077.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922324 | 848 | 1.710938 | 2 |
From 2003 to 2007, Italy is implementing a national plan to eliminate measles and congenital rubella . In addition to efforts to reach 95% coverage with the first MMR dose by the age of 24 months, ongoing activities include increasing coverage with the second dose at 5-6 years of age, and catch-up of 6-13 year old children in primary and lower secondary schools. In Toscana (often known in English as Tuscany - a region of central Italy with approximately 3.5 million inhabitants), coverage with the first measles-containing-vaccine dose by 24 months of age was 44% in 1993, 65% in 1998, and 89% in 2003 , according to three cluster sampling surveys. In 6-10 year old children attending primary school, MCV coverage was estimated to be 88% for the first dose, and 66% for the second dose by December 2004. Although the elimination plan has so far been very successful in achieving its goals, a continually insufficient coverage rate for measles vaccine during the past 15 years has created a large pool of susceptible adolescents and young adults.
Description of the outbreak
Between 20 January and 5 May 2006, 40 cases of measles were reported to the local health unit in the province of Grosseto in Toscana. The population of the province, which includes the town of Grosseto and the surrounding area, is approximately 200 000. Twenty three of the cases (58%) were in males and 17 (42%) in females. Seventy five percent of the cases occurred between mid-February and the end of March 2006, with a peak in March (Figure 1). Ninety five per cent of the patients were over 15 years old (Figure 2), and the mean age was 27 years.
The index case was a 23 year old woman who showed symptoms suggestive of measles after returning from a visit to India. She initially presented with fever, and was treated with antibiotics. She then developed a generalised rash, which was diagnosed as a drug reaction, and she was admitted to hospital in Grosseto on 20 January 2006. During her admission to hospital, she came into contact with a nursing student, who developed measles 14 days later, on 3 February 2006, and was the first secondary case to be reported.
As patients were not always properly isolated (for example, during transportation between different wards), 12 patients (30%) in this outbreak were thought to have acquired infection through nosocomial transmission. Eight of the cases (20%) were in healthcare workers.
Figure 1. Number of measles cases by week of onset. Grosseto, Toscana, Italy, 2006
Figure 2. Number of measles cases by age group, outbreak in Grosseto, Toscana, Italy, 2006
Twenty six cases (65%) were laboratory confirmed, (65%) were laboratory confirmed, while the remaining 14 were epidemiologically linked. Measles virus genotype D4 was confirmed in samples from seven patients. No biological samples for measles confirmation were collected from the first patient, the 23 year old woman who had returned from India, as samples should be taken within seven days of rash onset, and the diagnosis was too late. However, measles virus was isolated from the first secondary case and had the same genomic sequence as all the other cases.
Of the 40 patients, 14 were admitted to hospital (35%), including 8 of the 12 patients who acquired measles by nosocomial transmission, and 6 of the remaining 28 cases. Complications recorded in the hospitalised patients included cholestatic hepatitis with cytonecrosis (7 cases; 50%), thrombocytopaenia (2; 14%), respiratory distress (1 case; 7%), brain oedema (7%), otitis media (7%), haemorrhagic lesions (7%), bacteraemia with isolation of Streptococcus capitis, (7%), and candidiasis of the mouth (7%). None of the patients died.
Only one patient reported having received measles vaccination, in 1982.
Actions taken and conclusions
In response to the first secondary case, active tracing of contacts began on 6 February 2006, and MMR vaccination was administered to individuals who were not vaccinated or who had previously received only one dose of measles-containing vaccine. In total, 27 contacts were vaccinated: 26 received their first MMR dose, and one was vaccinated with the second dose. No further cases were reported after 5 May.
Measles virus genotype D4 has been found to circulate in India , and outbreaks related to importation of this genotype were recently reported in Europe [4-6]. In this outbreak, measles transmission following importation occurred in a hospital. A similar experience recently occurred in northern Italy, in the autonomous province of Bozen , where a cluster of five measles cases, three of which were related to nosocomial transmission, were reported. This underlines the importance of verifying immunity and offering MMR vaccination to susceptible healthcare workers.
A high rate of admission to hospital was also observed. This is expected when measles infection is acquired by adults, who are more vulnerable to severe complications.
It must be stressed that recognition of this outbreak was only possible thanks to the implementation of the elimination plan for measles and congenital rubella and to the efforts of healthcare workers to implement laboratory confirmation of cases. The outbreak was extremely showed that a system of early warning and laboratory confirmation is feasible in Toscana. It will be crucial to properly investigate all suspected measles cases as the goal of measles elimination approaches. | <urn:uuid:dc18ffe9-a22f-48fc-ab12-e9bd72b3f9a1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.eurosurveillance.org/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleId=3015 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980824 | 1,112 | 3 | 3 |
Source code: connectingLines.pde
From the starting position the head moves on to the 2nd, 3rd, 4th or 5th closest feature point. The tail lines are left visible. This is a projection of the activities in three dimensions on to the applet plane. Click inside the frame to clear the space and give birth to a new line.
Also in this animation a small amount of randomness gives a exotic touch to the anomation. The choise of feature point is random. | <urn:uuid:e08d34cf-9ffb-4a17-aefc-efc959473774> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://carljohanrosen.com/processing/index.php?page=a_connectingLines&topic=4.4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913503 | 105 | 1.882813 | 2 |
> I don't think Linux is any older, and certainly not "much". Be Inc.
It is considerably older on 'normal' hardware. The early BeOS was multi-core in an age when multi-core PCs, and even multi-core workstations, were quite rare.
There architecture on the x86 hardware of the time would have been epic-fail. Even the ringed security architecture of NT 3.5 a few years later was brutal on the hardware at the time [hence the faster but in some ways inferior NT 4.0 that followed].
>and BeOS claims to date back to 1991.
I remember it. And it ran on very proprietary and very expensive hardware. It got some press in the excellent UNIX Workstation magazine and some others [back when there were interesting IT periodicals... sigh]. | <urn:uuid:f222bf2e-b654-4ef9-bdac-27d42b57fbee> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lwn.net/Articles/495369/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976656 | 173 | 2.1875 | 2 |
Boumber and Issa provide a useful review of the development of agents that target the epigenome—primarily DNA methyltransferase (DNMT) inhibitors and histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors. The authors provide a summary of agents approved for clinical use: the DNMT inhibitors azacitidine (Vidaza) and decitabine (Dacogen), and the HDAC inhibitors vorinostat (Zolinza) and romidepsin (Istodax). In addition, they summarize available clinical trial data from a number of novel drugs that target the epigenome. As the authors indicate, this list is selective. There are at least another 12 to 15 “epigenetic drugs” in clinical trials, and many more in various stages of preclinical development.[1,2]
While Boumber and Issa state that HDAC inhibitors lead to activation of genes, several studies have shown that about the same number of genes are up-regulated as are down-regulated by these epigenetic modifying agents. The mechanism of action of the HDAC inhibitors is not well understood.
Both DNMT inhibitors and HDAC inhibitors cause alterations in proteins that regulate cell cycle progression, apoptosis, and other pathways that affect the survival of transformed cells. Choudhary et al identified 3600 acetylated lysines in 1750 proteins; of these acetylated sites, vorinostat altered only about 10%. The proteins whose structure and function were altered by the HDAC inhibitor have a role in many cellular pathways—including DNA damage repair, cell cycle progression immune pathways, cell migration and adhesion, and angiogenesis. These studies and others show that the alterations to gene expression and protein structure that are induced by DNMT and HDAC inhibitors are complex. As Boumber and Issa discuss, gaining a better understanding of the changes that are consequent to the alterations in the structure and function of these proteins should lead to improved strategies for combination therapy with other “targeted” anti-cancer agents. Given the modest efficacy of the DNMT and HDAC inhibitors as monotherapy, particularly for solid tumors, combination therapy is likely to be a more promising path to effective use of these agents.
Developing the most potent inhibitors of DNMT or HDAC on the basis of in vitro assays or in vivo animal studies may not yield the best therapeutic agent. For example, the HDAC inhibitor vorinostat has a moderate binding constant to the HDAC enzymes. Its inhibitory activity is rapidly reversible upon removal of the agent. This may account for vorinostat’s relative selectivity for neoplastic cells—and may explain why normal cells are relatively resistant to HDAC inhibitor–induced cell death. It has been shown that normal cells—but not transformed cells—can repair DNA damage induced by HDAC inhibitors. The failure of cancer cells to repair the damage induced by these inhibitors reflects the fact that the vast majority of transformed cells have multiple gene and protein defects. In a study of 10 samples of colon cancer and 10 samples of breast cancer, over 600 gene mutations were identified in one or more tumors.[8,9] More highly potent HDAC inhibitors currently being developed may have more toxicity than vorinostat.
Understanding the biological activities of the 11 zinc-dependent HDACs and the different members of the DNA Mtase family of enzymes is a work in progress. The development of isoform-selective inhibitors of these enzymes will be useful in dissecting their biological function, and such compounds may prove to be therapeutic agents with more targeted efficacy and possibly fewer undesirable side effects.
Epigenetic targeted therapy is in an early stage of development. Both at the mechanistic level and at the clinical/therapeutic level, much remains to be learned. Which cancers are likely to be responsive? What combination with anti-cancer drugs will enhance the efficacy of the epigenetic drugs? What are the molecular markers that may predict resistance or sensitivity to these drugs? We can anticipate the discovery of many new and, hopefully, better epigenetic drugs. Progress in this area of cancer therapeutics is promising; however, it is also challenging.
Financial Disclosure: Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) and Columbia University own the patents on suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid and related histone deacetylase inhibitors, which are licensed exclusively to Merck. Dr. Marks receives royalties from MSKCC related to this license. | <urn:uuid:ad884524-9bcc-451e-ac2f-25b7a36af106> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cancernetwork.com/cancer-genetics/content/article/10165/1822124 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928225 | 922 | 1.898438 | 2 |
INTECH Electromagnetic Interactive Whiteboard is a new
interactive product series designed by INTECH R&D department.
This new solution has many advantages as below:
Classroom Tough Product:
The electromagnetic signal passes through any non-metallic material, so it is possible to use a very hard Formica surface. The surface material is well suited for harsh environments.
Shock and Vibration Resistance:
The wire grid is bonded (glued) in place so that the wire grid maintains its precise position even if the board is submitted to extreme shock and vibration. There are no moving parts to be damaged.
Write as small as possible - the 1000 lpi resolution insures that details will be visible on the printed copy.
The electromagnetic technology is linear; decoding the signal is relatively simple.
INTECH Electromagnetic IWB has lower cost than Infrared IWB and the same products from other suppliers, which could meet the customers who require cost-effective products | <urn:uuid:7bbd861d-79f0-4198-8848-a9fa6bebddbb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tradeindia.com/fp607982/Electromagnetic-Interactive-Whiteboard.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926203 | 200 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Italy is big into protecting their food-and-wine making techniques of the past. They know a good thing when they see it. Fresh buffalo mozzarella is made exclusively from water buffalo milk; cow’s milk mozzarella is also called fior di latte.
Buffalo Mozzarella—specifically Mozzarella di Bufala Campana—is the most notorious of mozzarella cheeses in all of Italy—and really, of all the world. Why wouldn’t you want to put a fence around that? Associations are created to represent a group of producers, monitor production, compliance and marketing—and ultimately protect a brand. In this case, the Protection Association was founded in 1993, when the cheese achieved DOC status—and includes 95 producers from seven provinces in Central-South Italy: Caserta, Salerno, and parts of Benevento, Naples, Frosinone, Latina and Rome. Then in 2008 the European Union granted ‘Mozzarella di Bufala Campana’ the PDO stamp: Protected Geographical Status.
How its made: the milk is curdled, drained to eliminate whey, then this ‘curd’ is cut into small pieces and ground in a mill. The crumbles are put in hot water and stirred. When they achieve the proper PH/look/feel they are kneaded and spun into ropes—then consequently ‘lopped off’ and formed into balls or plaits. The mozzarella balls are put into cold water then soaked in brine. It is about an 8 hour process, start to finish. Many believe this famous fresh mozzarella—with no preservatives—should be consumed within days of production.
Make sure it is fresh: the surface should be tight, smooth and humid but not dry or wet. Slice into it: it should have a grainy surface, appear to be composed of layers and pearls of milky whey should seep out. Taste it: notice the liquid separate from the solid, it should melt in your mouth. It should be soft and delicate, not rubbery. It might have the tang of milk whey, but shouldn’t be distractingly sour.
Use it: traditionally, you will find it in Italy’s caprese salad, with nothing more than tomatoes and basil and a drizzle of olive oil. Another simple way to consume these authentic morsels is to cut it into bite size pieces, drizzle with the best olive oil you can muster and grind on coarse pepper (the cheese is salty enough on its own, thanks to brining). You can transform the first salad by adding some balsamic vinegar and green leaves… and the second by laying it gingerly on some just-grilled and garlic-rubbed crostini. If those simple measures aren’t enough, aim for some more involved recipes:
- for a fun twist on tomatoes-and-mozzarella, sub in roasted beetroot
- I have made rosti before; this recipe calls for individual rosti (for purposes of this recipe, think potato cakes); I can picture this appetizer of Potato and Zucchini rosti with Buffalo Mozzarella—your guests will be impressed
- big bonus: a fantastic pizza dough recipe thrown in! Add to my list of things to try: Pizza Napoletana Margherita (with Mozzarella di Bufala)
- Emeril is always good for a recipe: try his fried fresh mozzarella with mushroom ragu | <urn:uuid:a9622d2c-90d7-41d2-a2d5-235ee5177d9c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.talkoftomatoes.com/2010/07/buffalo-mozzarella-101/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934729 | 742 | 2.125 | 2 |
November 7/07 9:21 am - Triumph In Sight for Canadian 'Silk Route' Cyclists
Posted by Editor on 11/7/07
Triumph In Sight for Canadian 'Silk Route' Cyclists
With just two weeks and 1200 kms to go, the 37 cyclists of the inaugural Silk Route Bicycle Expedition - 19 of whom are Canadian - are nearing Beijing, the final destination of this ground breaking trans-continental bicycle odyssey.
Having set off on their historic journey from Istanbul, Turkey on August 4th, the Silk Route cyclists are close to achieving their goal of being the first modern bicycle caravan to have ever cycled from the Mediterranean Sea to Beijing - a distance of 11,000 kms in just 107 days.
"It's been a magic expedition" said Expedition Leader and Torontonian Shanny Hill.
"Over the past three months, we have traveled through eight countries and while we've experienced radical extremes in temperature, elevation and road conditions, we've been rewarded with incredible adventure, hospitality and cultural and scenic diversity."
Silk Route is the third expedition in an exciting new cycling category that the company, Tour d'Afrique, is pioneering - Trans Continental Bicycle Races and Expeditions. Their other two renowned annual events are Tour d'Afrique (12,000 km from Cairo to Cape Town) and Orient Express (4000 km from Paris to Istanbul).
Apart from experiencing the sheer joy, exhilaration and freedom that comes with crossing a continent by bicycle, one of the goals of the company is to raise awareness of the damage being done to the environment through society's increasing use of motorized transportation.
"We do these epic journeys because we like the adventure, but also because we believe that the bicycle is an important tool in fighting global warming." said Henry Gold, Company Founder and environmental activist. "By cycling 11 000 kms in 107 days, we are sending out a message and pointing a way towards how bicycles could be used in every modern city as a means of alternative, sustainable transportation."
No stranger to trans-continental bicycle expeditions, Sault St. Marie cyclist JJ Hilsinger is a veteran of the Tour d'Afrique expedition through Africa. Reinforcing the call to the world to stop global warming, Hilsinger decided to participate in the Silk Route to bring focus to the cause. 'My challenge is to pedal 11,000 kms, riding continuously for an average of 110 kms per day. Your challenge is to make a personal pledge to save emissions of one tonne or more towards the goal and in doing so, adopt a more sustainable lifestyle." states Hilsinger's website, www.youbetican.com. His overall challenge is to get enough pledges to save a total of 11,000 tones of CO2 emissions, one tonne for every one kilometre of the journey.
Having followed in the footsteps of Marco Polo, General Zhang Qian and Genghis Khan, through Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and China, the Silk Route has been an experience like none other.
"For 2 months I was on a drug-free high - that is if you don't include vodka & beer!" said sectional rider Lilli Hrabchak from Selkirk. "Every day brought fun, adventure and triumph. I laughed enough to add 10 years to my life. I tasted new foods, danced to new music, shared stories, food and drink with the locals, learned about parts of the world of which I was ignorant, and shared the experience with some fantastic fellow cyclists who I shall remember always."
Yet another Tour d'Afrique veteran, Lorrie Schmidt from Calgary, is one of a handful of cyclists on the Silk Route who have managed to retain EFI status. EFI riders have the distinction of having cycled Every Fabulous Inch of the road from start to finish.
Both an expedition and a race, the current race leaders are Scott Miller (America) Sandra Simon (Austria) and Chuck Giles (America).
The cyclists will cross the official finish line at approximately 13h00 on Sunday 18th November at approximately 13:00 hours at Jia Long Sunny Hotel, 75 Chaohei Dajie, Dongcheng District, Bejiing.
Registration for 2008 Silk Route, Orient Express and Tour d'Afrique is now open.
Register online at www.tourdafrique.com. | <urn:uuid:5c562b54-3948-439a-8339-2c2170e75bc9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.canadiancyclist.com/dailynews.php?id=13504 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93137 | 917 | 1.804688 | 2 |
"Not All Hay Is Good Hay"
by: Dr. Mario Villarino
Hopkins County AgriLife Extension Agent
Earlier in the week, I had a visit from a beef producer in our county who had lost several head of cattle recently. He was concerned about the hay he was feeding and suspected toxins were involved.
There are toxic components affecting hay during drought, including nitrates and prussic acid. These toxic components create different problems in cattle, but both can be present during hay production, during drought, and as we all know, drought has been prevalent in the Southern U.S. for several months.
If forage contains too much nitrate, the animals cannot complete the conversion process and nitrite levels build up. Nitrite is absorbed directly into the bloodstream through the rumen wall, where it combines with hemoglobin to form methemoglobin. Hemoglobin carries oxygen in the blood, but methemoglobin does not. The formation of methemoglobin can cause an animal to die from asphyxiation, or lack of oxygen. The animal's blood turns brown instead of the normal bright red.
Signs of nitrite poisoning usually appear suddenly due to tissue hypoxia and low blood pressure as a consequence of vasodilation. Symptoms include rapid, weak heartbeat with subnormal body temperature, muscle tremors, and animals appear weak and cannot coordinate their legs. Under certain conditions, adverse effects may not be apparent until animals have been eating nitrate containing forages for days to weeks.
Prolonged exposure to excess nitrate coupled with cold stress and inadequate nutrition may lead to the alert downer cow syndrome in pregnant beef cattle: sudden collapse and death can result.
The other major toxin on hay harvested during drought is prussic acid. Drought stressed plants produce cyanogenic glucosides (prussic acid) as they grow. Glucosides are sugar compounds that break down in the rumen, freeing they cyanide from the sugar and forming hydrocyanic acid (HCN) -- which is commonly known as cyanide. The HCN combines with hemoglobin to form cyanoglobin which does not carry oxygen. Livestock poisoned by cyanide have respiratory stress similar to that caused by nitrate poisoning.
A blood test can quickly distinguish between nitrate and prussic acid poisoning. If prussic acid is the the toxic agent, the blood will be cherry red, unlike the chocolate brown color seen in nitrate poisoning.
If you are concerned about unexpected cattle mortalities and suspect toxic hay, there is an inexpensive test that can be used in the laboratory to identify nitrates and prussic acid in hay! | <urn:uuid:b941669c-a90f-4132-85b0-fcb33df63fe3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.frontporchnewstexas.com/mariocolumn012812.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947648 | 543 | 3.734375 | 4 |
Are you managing your online reputation properly?
Are you managing your online profiles properly? Here's how to protect and monitor your online reputation
By Shane O'Neill | CIO US | Published: 16:30, 25 January 2012
This Saturday, 28 January, is Data Privacy Day. DPD, as it's known, is a day to "increase awareness of privacy and data protection issues among consumers, organisations and government officials and help industry, academia, and advocates to highlight consumer privacy efforts."
Hear, hear. Data privacy, we can all agree, is important. Nobody, from the teenager posting party photos on Facebook to the Fortune 500 CIO in charge of terabytes of data, wants their information compromised.
To honor DPD, Microsoft commissioned a survey (conducted by Blueocean Market Intelligence) of 5,000 people (children between ages of 8 -17 and adults between 18-74) throughout Canada, Germany, Ireland, Spain, and the United States. The results indicated that most of us are not vigilant about protecting our online profiles and reputations.
Related Articles on Techworld
Your "online profile", according to the Microsoft survey, is the sum of online content about you (credit card purchases, medical records), content that you've created (emails, videos, posts on social networks) and content about you created by others (someone posting a picture or comments about you on a social network or website).
Your "online reputation" is the image created of you through information you or others shared online in blogs, posts, pictures, tweets and videos.
The Microsoft survey indicates that 67 percent feel they are in control of their online reputations but only 44 percent actively think about the long-term consequences of their online activities.
Shouldn't we all - not 44 percent of us - think about the consequences of our online footprints? As social media sites like Facebook and Twitter have opened up the world, for better or worse, and as we do more banking and bill paying online, managing online reputations has never been more important.
After all, many employers use Facebook to assess job candidates, and colleges and insurance companies may search for photos and web postings to evaluate applicants.
So how do we become better digital citizens? Here are some steps you can take, according a company blog post penned by Microsoft chief privacy officer Brendon Lynch.
Stay vigilant and conduct your own 'Reputation Report'
-Search all variations of your name in search engines, and evaluate whether the results reflect the reputation you'd like to share with the world, including current or future employers, colleagues, friends and family members. Microsoft research found that 37 percent of adults never do this.
-If you find information about yourself that is inaccurate or less than favorable, respectfully request that the person who posted it remove it or correct an error.
Consider separating your professional and personal profiles
-When you are job hunting, applying to a school or looking for new insurance or a loan, remember that your online image can be a determining factor for hiring managers and application reviewers. Be sure to use different e-mail addresses, screen names, referring blogs and websites for each profile, and avoid cross-referencing personal sites.
-Fifty-seven percent of adults think about taking steps to keep their work and personal profiles private. However, 17 percent said information intended to remain private had inadvertently been made public online.
-Be judicious about adding personal information to your professional profile. Only include information appropriate in a professional context.
Adjust your privacy settings
-In Internet browsers, social networking sites, personal blogs and other places where you maintain personal data, use privacy settings to help manage who can see your profile or photos, how people can search for you, who can comment and how to block unwanted access. According to Microsoft research, 49 percent of adults do not use privacy settings on social networking sites.
-If you use Internet Explorer 9, use the browser's tracking protection, which helps block unwanted tracking by third parties. You can also use Internet Explorer's "InPrivate" browsing mode.
-Periodically review who has access to your content. It's OK to remove people whom you feel no longer need access.
Think before you share
-Think about what you post (particularly personal photos and videos), who you share the information with, and how it reflects on your reputation. Let others know what you do and do not want shared, and ask them to remove anything you don't want disclosed.
-Microsoft research showed that only 38 percent of adults and 39 percent of kids actively think about the long-term impact their online activities might have on someone else's reputation. | <urn:uuid:d8b230cb-7ac4-4758-b740-b17b3aa09a0b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://howto.techworld.com/mobile-wireless/3332682/are-you-managing-your-online-reputation-properly/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933254 | 954 | 1.984375 | 2 |
Your Support and My Education is Way to Stop Violence Against Afghan Women.
Dear President Obama, Secretary Clinton, and members of Congress,
Life has a very bottomless mystery in term of the places that we are living with our original identities, and with these identities we are beckoning our ways to end this exhausted but shortened journey by traveling on a broken ship in the vast with lots corrugated ocean of this desert. This desert is my Afghanistan and the broken ships are our future hope that is on corrugated ocean of the dried Afghan land. We women are part of this broken ship, no one knows it in Afghanistan. However, we Afghan women want to make sure that we are also traveling in this broken ship, and we are part of this land.
It is our Afghan lifestyle in Afghanistan.
Life enforces us for sleeping under the shade of a green tree like a satisfied silkworm, which feeds itself with a fallen and useless leaf of the tree.
Life takes us to the highest peak of the mountains, where we find ourselves a striking, blissful, liberated, determined, and watchful butterfly.
Two years before, I was like this silkworm which was depended on the tree’s leaves, which was busy whole nights and days for knitting its silk with its unique skills.
Now, I am that watchful butterfly, who is looking for her better life by getting my citizenship at AUW “Asian University for Women” and now I have gotten the thought of my personal and professional identity from this territory to see and make Afghan women part of Afghanistan.
I was Parwana, now I am Parwana Fayyaz. I am from Ghazni Province ‘the Home of the Taliban’ on the central curve of Afghans’ land. I have had horrible memories during war in Afghanistan and still I hear and see the same situation in Afghanistan. Now, I am an international university student, who has flown toward high mountains from an unwitting angle toward everything by accepting every kind of enemies, by putting my family life in danger of dragon’s attack, and by breaking the closest relationship with my uncles, aunts, cousins, neighbors, and friends. AUW “Asian University for Women” brought me to a state where, now I am a self-governing woman with my two true wings in the wide and full of star sky of my life, where my wisdom is brighter than the burning and lightening sun of the universe. In this place, my education is the gloomy nice moon and the glimmer and dazzling stars of my life. So, who will and what will change other hopeless Afghan daughter’s destiny, a miserable Afghan mother’s present life, and a helpless sister’s future life in Afghanistan?
Honestly, I can’t distinguish between white and black colors, I don’t know the secret of nights and days passing in everyday of life, and I don’t care about rainy, snowy, sunny, and burning days.
However, I can distinguish women’s situation in Afghanistan in the present and future time; I also do know the secret of Afghan women’s gloomy nights and dusty days in everyday life, as an Afghan woman. I do care about my little fellow sisters about 5 years who have been victims of male rappers in the every week’s head line, also kidnapping of young girls and then finding of their dead bodies after several days, with their whole body drowning in blood or whole body has shaved with acid, also killing of professional women officers in their own house, and being of a suppressed wife of an oppressor husband. How can I rise my voice to the world that Afghan women’s situation is getting worse in the near future?
We do need help of other women around the world for saving this part of the world’s women. We want to remain as Afghan women, and we want to say it out loud to the world to hear us that we are not ashamed of being Afghan women, but we afraid of saying it.
A man asked with an affectation smile, “Where are you from?”
I answered with the same smile, “Afghanistan”
The man changed his face expression and said, “Do not joke with me, you are not an Afghan woman?”
I said, “Why not? Do Afghan women have any natural golden crown on their head, or do they look like monsters.”
He said, “No, I mean, I am shocked to see that being an Afghan woman, you are alive and walking on Bangladesh streets.”
I spoke out after getting my patient mind back, “I was part of this wilderness even while the Taliban were shooting toward us on the way to Pakistan, still I am alive and I will make sure that every Afghan woman is alive too. Enshallah.”
The man’s thought was both annoying and inspiring for me. So, I thought and came up to this believe that I am pleased that I am not anymore among to the Afghan women, who are experiencing every kind of misery in everyday life in Afghanistan.
But I am really worried and distracted that I am not besides them who kill themselves by throwing oil soil on themselves and burn their entire life’s pieces by lighting of a lighter. Why there is no one to take the oil and the lighter from their hand? And how will dare to do so?
Sometimes, I feel that luckily, I am not any longer witness of the dead bodies of those young sterile mothers and their new born able and disable babies on the mattress of hospital without any veil on their head or a piece of cloth on their face, and those women who had relaxed in peace without farewell with their families on the streets of Kabul after a huge explosion.
However, I always had the fear of revealing of Afghan women’s secret in a society where no one could feel, know, and help me that what was I saying about Afghan women? However, there is no more fear and discouragement elements in me. Now, in this society, I am talking on behalf of Afghan women, I am their voice, and they are my tone. Now, I am talking in a same way they want me to, I am walking on the path that they do not know it, and I am watching the real bright future of Afghanistan through the shininess of their eyes.
Alas, You Afghan women, who had killed herself for being rapped, abused, and disobeyed the Taliban tradition; we needed your support in every term of life for other oppressed Afghan women in Afghanistan.
Why did you kill yourselves? Why did not you share your problems with us? We might be good listeners of your stories and supporters of your rights.
But, Afghan women are not hopeless anymore. Since I am in this land, there is always something sparking in my mind with lots of joy and hope because I am glad, blissful, and grateful. The gloomy days of my life has change, when I changed the dark curtain of my own wisdom into a bright and white color. Because I am running on life’s path for changing of Afghan women’s situation especially my grandmothers’ fearful life, my mother’s colorless life, my aunts’ unjust life, my cousins’ uneducated life, and my sister’s present but old life.
Today, I can go toward white, pink, and yellow flying butterflies by opening my own wings, I feel the pure wind of the honest morning touching my whole body with lots of joy, and I can say the words of my mind and heart because I am not anymore in the cage. I am free. I want every Afghan Woman to feel the same I do. I want Afghan women to be empowered, to live for their lives, work for their betterment, and think about their present and future life under the sky of Afghanistan.
The Afghan women are living in a cage, and the cage is securing by male’s weapon. I know I am completely alone in this mission, but I will try that at first to dismiss these male guards and then to open the cage’s door and then to free the Afghan women from the big cage of called Old Afghanistan.
Ghazni Province, Afghanistan
Please join the PulseWire community in speaking out against violence and urging the U.S. government to pass the International Violence Against Women Act (I-VAWA). Write your letter in your PulseWire journal to share your personal and observed experience in gender-based violence, both in your life and within your community. Tag your journal "IVAWA", and World Pulse will send your letter directly to President Obama, along with letters from women around the world. Learn more: http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire/programs/international-violence-agai... | <urn:uuid:f286fba5-eeed-48cf-833c-888c7670d64d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://worldpulse.com/node/31269 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961715 | 1,839 | 1.6875 | 2 |
This word is from the Greek penta, “five” and teuchos, “a tool.” It refers to the first five books of the Bible known as Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. All five were authored by Moses and are also known as “the Law.”
The NET Bible is an extraordinary new translation of the Bible with 60,932 translation notes! Read More
The bible.org staff and supporters share the vision to harness the Internet for God and freely provide the NET Bible and trustworthy Bible study material to everyone on earth so they become equipped for global impact, able to complete the Great Commission in one generation.
Would you consider sharing your time, talents, monies, and prayers to achieve meaning to this life and in heaven receive your crowns and hearing Christ say well done….. Matthew 25:23More... | <urn:uuid:3b22f3d5-881b-44bc-83d2-211a1c3cc1af> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bible.org/illustration/what-it | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94789 | 184 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Discus Fish Lover and Enthusiast
How to Set-Up a Discus Fish Aquarium in 5 Easy Steps
Caring for Discus fishes is a popular hobby for many fish lovers. Most of them choose the Discus because of its personality. Unlike other fish breeds, Discus fishes know how to interact with the owner and it’s pretty observant of its surroundings.
Starting up a Discus fish aquarium is pretty simple, even if you are a newbie. Setting-up a new habitat for your Discus is a rewarding task that won’t take too much of your time.
What do You Need in Setting-up a Discus Fish Aquarium?
The things that you need for a Discus fish aquarium can be easily bought from a pet store. Here are some tips:
- Choose the right Discus aquarium. The fish tank for the Discus must be large enough for your pets to swim freely inside it. Don’t settle for a fish bowl because it won’t be big enough for you to place other fishes with your Discus, should you want to later on. The minimum tank size for your Discus fish aquarium should be 55 gallons.
- Choose the right Water Filter. You can either purchase a bacterial starter culture or a cultured sponge filter. Both filters are very effective in cleaning the Discus fish aquarium. Just make sure that the tank doesn’t have excessive water flow, as this disturbs the discus fish.
How to Set-Up a Discus Fish Aquarium?
- Start by preparing the Discus fish aquarium. Before you purchase the Discus from the pet store, you have to set-up its home first. Put some water inside the fish tank and be sure that the pH level is 6.5. If you think the aquarium is too bare, place some plant decorations or pebbles in it.
- Place the water filter inside the discus fish aquarium. Turn on the water filter and make sure it is working properly. Make sure that the water flow is not that high, so that the Discus can be comfortable enough swimming inside of the tank.
- Make the water conditions inside the aquarium similar from the tank at the pet store. The pH level, water temperature and filter flow should be very similar to the tank where your discus fish was living, when you bought it from the pet store. Doing this will make it easier for your pets to adopt to its new aquarium
- Gently introduce the Discus to its new home. Let it swim around and get accustomed to the new environment.
- Understand the Discus’ needs. Once the Discus has adjusted to its new home, be mindful of any behavioral changes that it will show. Check it every day so that you will see if the Discus has adapted to its new home or not.
Are You Ready?
As you have read above, setting-up a Discus fish aquarium isn’t as hard as think it is. Once you have lived with your Discus for quite some time, both of you will adjust to each other’s needs and I assure you, you’ll both get along just fine.
A Professional discus fish keeper (and breeder) reveals the system that he uses for care, disease control and breeding his discus fish, using this systematic approach to discus fish care will restore your fishes energy and vitality!
If your fish regularly experience problems with water conditions, disease, lack of colour or no appetite.
Click here to read more about the Discus Fish Aquarium Guide e-book...
- Learn how to stabalize your tank without resorting to too many chemicals and additives to your tank.
- Get Soild advice from a discus fish proffesional, keeper and breeding consultant.
- Read tips and tricks you didnt know from real gathered experence rather than just guesswork.
- Free email support included for sticky problems.
- One of the best-selling discus fish aquarium guides on the internet.
Discus Fish Aquarium Guide is written by Tom Rollins, a proffesional discus fish expert, keeper and breeder...
Start tackling your discus fish aquarium today - Click Here to find out more about the Discus Fish Aquarium Guide e-book! | <urn:uuid:888462ee-cf44-4c28-a088-be9dc012f2d5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.discusfishpro.com/discus-fish/discus-fish-aquarium/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926446 | 892 | 2 | 2 |
- Walk to School Day
- What's Happening
Safe Routes to School (SRTS) is a growing movement across the US that brings together parents, schools, and community leaders to encourage students, including those with disabilities, to walk and bike to school. SRTS activities and resources focus on improving walking and biking conditions around schools while building healthy habits and safety skills.
The South Carolina Department of Transportation has created the Safe Routes to School Resource Center to help schools, school districts, and communities throughout South Carolina to build and sustain SRTS programs.
Partners of the Resource Center receive technical assistance and program support at no cost. We encourage you to get in touch with us and become a partner of the South Carolina Resource Center! | <urn:uuid:aa6d6683-06b0-4fc3-8dbb-1a7dc327c6f1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://scsaferoutes.org/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958121 | 150 | 3.390625 | 3 |
DDoS attack in details has been explained here. Complete DDoS attack tutorial.
Do you remember the day when Twitter, the latest rage across the web right now wasn’t accessible to any of its users for tens of hours(and remained unstable for a couple of days). At the same time, many other popular web services such as Facebook and LiveJournal suffered a significant downtime due to similar cause.
And the cause was DDoS Attack.
A couple of days passed by and most of us forgot that fatal attack which almost killed Twitter for a while.
Even after creating such a havoc, there’s hardly(barring tech minority) anyone who may exactly be knowing what DDoS Attacks are all about.
In this write-up, we would explain everything about DDoS Attacks, how are they invoked and how are they can be counter-acted.
What is DoS Attack ?
Denial of Service(DoS) Attack is a fatal attempt by an external agent to cause a situation where the actual resource(victim undergoing attack) becomes unavailable to the actual visitors or users. This is usually done by overwhelming the target victim with illegitimate traffic in the form of broken/unsolicited page access requests.
Distributed Denial of Service(DDoS) Attack is an advance form of DoS where the attacking agents are distributed over the huge network (or internet)
How DoS Attacks are executed ?
DoS Attacks are usually executed by flooding the target servers with unsolicited data packets in unprecedented manner. This may be done by misconfiguring network routers or by performing smurf attack on the victim servers. This results in ‘Capacity Overflow’, followed by Max Out of system resources, which makes the target service unavailable, either temporarily or permanently(In case of hardware targeted DoS attack) to the intended users.
In case of DDoS attack, the origin of unsolicited data packets (for the purpose of flooding the bandwidth/resource of the victim servers) are distributed over a large network(or internet).
The overall mechanism of DDoS Attack involves a huge quantity of compromised network nodes (computers connected to internet), governed by agent handlers, which are further controlled centrally by the actual attacker.
The massive number of compromised computers on the internet are then unknowingly governed by the source attacker to demand access to the targeted victim within a minimal time span, which further causes saturation of limited system resources and results in eventual shutdown of the targeted service.
The most common method employed to compromise massive amount of user agents on the internet (to actually execute DDoS Attack) is by plaguing as many computers as possible over the internet with malware/trojan, meant for that particular purpose.
Such trojans can either spread via email attachments or via Peer-to-peer networks. Whatever be the method of spreading out, once the intended trojan is silently installed on the uninformed computer agent, that user agent has actually been compromised, which is then called as a Zombie or Botnet.
Further, it becomes a prerogative of the source attacker to indirectly command some or all its Zombie agents(or botnets) for demanding access to the target service.
What are other variants of DoS attacks ?
There are many other attacks of similar nature and purpose such as smurf attack, nuke bomb, ping of death, banana attack, phlashing among many others.
How are they counteracted ?
The best way to defend a web service from faltering due to DDoS attack is to keep backup resources of the system intact. As the aim of such attack is to max out system resources, if the system resources are already abundant and well prepared to face that sudden peak of traffic at any moment, most chances are that your web service will survive DoS (or even DDoS) attack.
What implications can DDoS Attacks have ?
If the attack is only limited to overwhelming and resource consuming traffic, the implications are limited to service unavailability for couple of hours (or few days in exceptional cases). This not only stresses the website administrators financially but also results in loss of market reputation and puts a question mark on the reliability of the web service.
In case of hardware targeted DoS Attacks, financial losses can magnify to great extent as hosting infrastructure has to be replaced on urgent basis. This can also lead to critical data loss, if backup procedures aren’t up to the mark.
With more and more DDoS attacks happening these days, companies and Internet properties are using various types of DDoS Mitigation strategies to avoid any worst case scenario.
Update: For those who want to get expert information on DDoS attacks, here’s the recommended ebook you should buy: | <urn:uuid:eae36476-bade-46fb-8572-03ca9253eedc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.techpluto.com/ddos-attack-tutorial/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934162 | 965 | 3.0625 | 3 |
Volume 10, Number 10
Christmas is considered a ?Christian? holiday, even though its biblical connections are tenuous. Its customs have more in common with ancient European pagnism than Christianity. Does its supposed honoring of Christ make it a legitimate holiday for Christians to celebrate? (Holce)
Personal from John W. Ritenbaugh
Christmas, Syncretism, and Presumption
Many think keeping Christmas is fine because it honors Christ, yet God never tells us to celebrate the day of His Son's birth. John Ritenbaugh explains that it is presumptuous on many Christians' parts to believe that such a syncretized holiday could please God.
The Whole Truth
by John O. Reid
Most of us have heard the courtroom mantra, "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." John Reid, however, applies these criteria to our behavior, showing that many of us shy away from "nothing but the truth"!
Globalism (Part Six):
Tide and Countertide
by Charles Whitaker
Globalism has an equal and opposite counterpart: tribalism. Charles Whitaker explains what tribalism is and how it affects the world and the church.
by Mark Schindler
Some of us cannot seem to realize a blessing if it slaps us across the face! Mark Schindler, in recounting a personal story, shows how ingratitude can hold us back in our relationship with God.
by David C. Grabbe
A survey of news, events, and trends in relation to Bible prophecy for December 2001.
by Martin G. Collins
Many churches understand tithing but do not believe that God commands them for today. This Bible Study shows that tithing has always been God's way of financing His work on earth.
Copyright 2001 Church of the Great God. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:80015058-6cc6-4323-b4b4-cc6a3a302aef> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cgg.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/Library.forerunner/ID/1010 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929031 | 380 | 2.171875 | 2 |
In its continuing effort to crack down on companies making deceptive claims that omega-3 promotes healthy brain and eye development in children, the FTC has just announced deceptive advertising charges against NBTY, a marketer of children’s vitamins.
In February, the FTC issued warning letters to 11 companies that make products like this one (“pediatrician recommended,” yet).
The FTC said the companies had better get busy and make sure they are not violating the law by “making baseless claims about how the supplements benefit children’s brain and vision function and development.”
The FTC cautioned the companies to make sure they had:
“scientific evidence to support claims that their products boost, improve, enhance, or support brain and vision function and development in children…[and]claims relating to intelligence, cognitive function, learning ability, focus, mood, memory, attention, concentration, visual acuity, and eye health.”
Now, the FTC has reached a settlement with the companies for $2.1 million in refunds, not only because of the unsupported health claims but also because the products did not contain the advertised amount of omega-3′s (see legal complaint):
the multivitamins featured characters such as the Disney Princesses, Winnie the Pooh, Finding Nemo, and Spider-Man. Product packaging and print ads promoting the vitamins had bold graphics highlighting that the products contained DHA, but in reality, the products allegedly had only a trace amount of DHA.
While the vitamins’ packaging touted the purported health benefits of 100 milligrams of DHA, a daily serving of the Disney and Marvel multivitamins for children ages four years and older contained only one thousandth of that amount (0.1 mg or 100 mcg), according to the FTC’s complaint.
- Bars NBTY, NatureSmart, and Rexall Sundown from misrepresenting the amount of any ingredient contained in any product.
- Bars them from misrepresenting that any ingredient, including DHA, promotes brain or eye health or provides any other health benefit, unless the claim is true and backed by competent and reliable scientific evidence.
- Specifies that any violations could subject the NBTY, NatureSmart, and Rexall Sundown to civil penalties.
- Any yogurt, dairy drink, or probiotic food or drink reduces the likelihood of getting a cold or the flu (unless FDA says it’s OK)
- Activia yogurt will relieve temporary irregularity or help with slow intestinal transit time, unless the ad conveys that three servings of Activia yogurt must be eaten each day.
- Any other yogurt, dairy drink, or probiotic food or drink will relieve temporary irregularity or help with slow intestinal transit time unless the company has two well-designed human clinical studies that substantiate the claim.
- The health benefits, performance, or efficacy of any yogurt, dairy drink, or probiotic food or drink, unless the claims are backed by competent and reliable scientific evidence.
The FTC wants science to back up health claims. What a concept! | <urn:uuid:541febad-ede7-4e82-8d5d-32707502af90> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.foodpolitics.com/2010/12/ftc-goes-after-kids-vitamin-claims/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.921756 | 636 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Online reputation-monitoring has increased – 57% of adult internet users now use search engines to find information about themselves online, up from 47% in 2006;
Young adults actively manage what they share online –71% of social networking users ages 18-29 have changed the privacy settings on their profile
WASHINGTON – More than half (57%) of adult internet users say they have used a search engine to look up their name and see what information was available about them online, up from 47% who did so in 2006. Young adults, far from being indifferent about their digital footprints, are the most active online reputation managers in several dimensions. For example, more than two-thirds (71%) of social networking users ages 18-29 have changed the privacy settings on their profile to limit what they share with others online.
These findings form the centerpiece of a new report from the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project that looks at reputation and online identity management in the age of social media. The report is based on a telephone survey conducted in August and September of 2009 of 2,253 adults, ages 18 and older, including 560 cell phone interviews.
Reputation management has now become a defining feature of online life for many internet users, especially the young. While some internet users are careful to project themselves online in a way that suits specific audiences, other internet users embrace an open approach to sharing information about themselves and do not take steps to restrict what they share.
“Search engines and social media sites now play a central role in building one’s identity online,” said Mary Madden, Senior Research Specialist at the Internet & American Life Project and lead author of the report, “Many users are learning and refining their approach as they go–changing privacy settings on profiles, customizing who can see certain updates and deleting unwanted information about them that appears online.”
As internet users increasingly post personal information on social networking sites and other virtual spaces, activities tied to reputation monitoring have taken on increased relevance:
Monitoring the digital footprints of others has become more common: 38% of internet users have searched online for information about their friends, up from 26% in 2006.
People are more likely to be found online: 40% of internet users say they have been contacted by someone from their past who found them online, up from 20% who reported the same in 2006.
Social networking users are especially attuned to the intricacies of online reputation management: The size of the adult social networking population has more than doubled since 2006, and 65% of these profile owners have changed the privacy settings for their profile to restrict what they share with others online.
When compared with older users, young adults are more likely to restrict what they share and whom they share it with. Those ages 18-29 are more likely than older adults to say:
They take steps to limit the amount of personal information available about them online - 44% of young adult internet users say this, compared with 33% of internet users ages 30-49, 25% of those ages 50-64 and 20% of those ages 65 and older.
They change privacy settings - 71% of social networking users ages 18-29 have changed the privacy settings on their profile to limit what they share with others online. By comparison, just 55% of SNS users ages 50-64 have changed their privacy settings.
They delete unwanted comments - 47% social networking users ages 18-29 have deleted comments that others have made on their profile, compared with just 29% of those ages 30-49 and 26% of those ages 50-64.
They remove their name from photos - 41% of social networking users ages 18-29 say they have removed their name from photos that were tagged to identify them, compared with just 24% of SNS users ages 30-49 and only 18% of those ages 50-64.
“Contrary to the popular perception that younger users embrace a laissez-faire attitude about their online reputations, young adults are often more vigilant than older adults when it comes to managing their online identities,” said Madden.
This report is based on the findings of a daily tracking survey on Americans' use of the internet. The results in this report are based on data from telephone interviews conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International between August 18 and September 14, 2009, among a total sample of 2,253 adults, age 18 and older including 560 cell phone interviews. Interviews were conducted in both English (n=2,179) and Spanish (n=74). For results based on the total sample, one can say with 95% confidence that the error attributable to sampling and other random effects is plus or minus 2.3 percentage points. For results based on internet users (n=1,698), the margin of sampling error is plus or minus 2.7 percentage points. In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting telephone surveys may introduce some error or bias into the findings of opinion polls.
About the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project
The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project is one of seven projects that make up the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan, nonprofit "fact tank" that provides information on the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. The Project produces reports exploring the impact of the internet on families, communities, work and home, daily life, education, health care, and civic and political life. The Project aims to be an authoritative source on the evolution of the internet through surveys that examine how Americans use the internet and how their activities affect their lives. Learn more » | <urn:uuid:9b4f97cd-3242-43f2-a394-be9ba7c9cb34> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pewinternet.org/Press-Releases/2010/Reputation-Management.aspx | 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 | 0.943669 | 1,154 | 2.3125 | 2 |
Jurandir Moura is an Important figure in the Jiu Jitsu and Vale Tudo (no holds barred) history of Brazil, specially in the Northeast region of the country. Having passed away on January 2010, Jurandir Moura was an 8th Degree Instructor (Coral Belt) and the man responsible for the tuition of several important fighters in the 1950’s and 1960’s era.
Jurandir Moura in Detail
Full Name: Jose Jurandir Moura
- Jurandir Moura competed almost exclusively in Vale Tudo competitions (no holds barred within 1960 and 1964) though his exact record is not known.
Jurandir Moura Biography
Jose Jurandir Moura earned his instructor status from George Gracie, at the time the belt system was different from what it is today and the only belts separating an instructor from a student was the navy blue belt. Jurandir Moura also spent time with Pedro Hemeterio (one of the Carlos Gracie’s top students) and Takeo Yano in Fortaleza, Brazil.
In 1955 Jurandir Moura established his first Jiu Jitsu academy in Pernambuco, North East of Brazil. From that academy he created several important fighters, one of the first being Euclides Pereira, who was also Moura’s neighbour and who Moura invited to come and train when he opened his academy. In 1959 Mora sent one of his students, José Maria to Campina Grande (state of Paraíba), there Jose Maria met and taught Ivan Gomes (another man who would become a big star in Brazil’s fighting circuit).
Jurandir Moura also fought in No Holds Barred from 1960 until 1964 at the “Clube Português” venue (Portuguese Club). He maintained his academy for many years, establishing himself as one of the beacons of the sport in the remote region of Pernambuco.
He passed away on the 28th of January when he was 86 years old. He was buried at the Parque das Flores cemetery. | <urn:uuid:6d71e43f-916b-4a0f-9627-e82c869a70da> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bjjheroes.com/bjj-fighters/jurandir-moura | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967668 | 444 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Talk given by Alex Pouget of the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, at the University of Rochester. Given on May 6, 2009 to the Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience at UC Berkeley.
A wide range of behaviors can be formalized as instances of probabilistic inferences. This includes odor recognition in insects, navigation in rodents, auditory localization in barn owls, decision making in primates and causal reasoning in humans, to name just a few. In all cases, the probabilistic inferences involve products of distributions and marginalization. We will show that, given the type of variability reported in neural responses, products of distributions can be implemented through linear operations over firing rates, while marginalization requires a particular nonlinearity known as quadratic divisive normalization. Both operations are conspicuous in many neural circuits raising the possibility that seemingly unrelated behaviors could in fact rely on very similar neural mechanisms across different species. | <urn:uuid:fb1827cb-e1d6-48d6-9e12-ddf8a5a131b6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://archive.org/details/Redwood_Center_2009_05_06_Alex_Pouget | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929017 | 187 | 2.046875 | 2 |
A high court judge in Uganda has banned all media from outing gays and lesbians.
Judge Vincent Musoke-Kibuuke said lives were being put at risk by newspapers identifying people known or thought to be gay.
In October, Ugandan tabloid Rolling Stone – no relation to the US magazine – caused controversy by publishing the names, photos and addresses of people it accused of being gay and calling for them to be hanged.
At least four of those named were subsequently attacked, gay activists said.
Judge Musoke-Kibuuke granted a permanent injunction against Rolling Stone, ordering it not to publish the information again.
Lawyer John Francis Onyango, who represented the gay campaigners who brought the case against the newspaper, told AFP: “The judge granted a permanent injunction against Rolling Stone from publishing these names.
“But the ruling went beyond these applicants and extended to all media,” he added.
The three gay activists also received just over £400 each in damages.
The Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights and Constitutional Law in Uganda said that the ruling was a “landmark” and could help gays and lesbians in other homophobic countries by setting a precedent.
Speaking to the Guardian in October, Rolling Stone editor Giles Muhame defended his story, saying it was his duty as a journalist to “expose the evil in our society”.
Homosexuality is illegal in Uganda and a bill introduced in the country in 2009 called for life imprisonment and even execution for gay men and lesbians.
The current status of the bill is unclear. Reports said it had been quietly shelved, although other sources say it remains in the committee stage.
Enjoyed this article? Add Pink News to your Facebook news feed | <urn:uuid:3f1bfc23-07de-4417-9773-2cd4fc2c2631> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2011/01/04/judge-bans-ugandan-media-from-outing-gays-and-lesbians/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973386 | 356 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Today, Easter Monday 2012, is a reminder in more ways than one of our history. The Titanic is taking centre stage this month. The big political centenaries of the Easter Rising and the Ulster Covenant are yet to come.
As the pages of history are reopened to recall events of a century ago, what message do they convey to us — another excuse for one side or the other to celebrate or a time for more realistic reflection by all of us?
The forthcoming spate of centenaries marking the Rising of 1916 and the signing of the Covenant in 1912 present a major challenge. Handled insensitively, they have the capacity to knock the peace process seriously off course. Commemorated objectively, they can enlighten us as to the rights and wrongs of unionism and nationalism on this island in the past century.
If those who built the Titanic or marched rebelliously against Home Rule, or occupied the GPO in Dublin, could return to this island now, what might they think?
These anniversaries offer an opportunity to set our history in proper perspective. To recognise that behind the simplicity of flags and emblems lies a far more complex story just as the Titanic centenary has told us so much we never knew about the people who built it and its sinking.
The more we delve into the past, the more facts are uncovered, the more likely the myths which distort so many minds on this island can be rectified.
The Titanic anniversary has led to factual and fictional representations, documentaries and Sunday night serials, opening windows on a bygone age. Film makers and TV producers should do the same with regard to Home Rule and the Easter Rising and, if they do so, they will also help to dispel more myths. For example, what might James Connolly or Edward Carson make of the modern Ireland, north or south?
No matter how revered they are by one section of the community or the other, the reality is that neither Carson nor Connolly got his way. The Republic of today is a far cry from Connolly’s vision of a socialist state. Its very independence, for which so many, like Connolly, were prepared to give their lives, is now seriously compromised. Even the relationship with Britain, totally fractured by the Rising, is better than at any time in living memory.
As for Edward Carson, had he known that the partition of his native island would become so permanent, would he have signed the Covenant? Or as a Dubliner had he known that his broad concept of Irish Unionism would be redefined so narrowly as the domain of northern Protestants, might he have had second thoughts about his Home Rule rebellion?
In respect of the leaders of the Easter Rising and the signators against Home Rule, I hope historians will pose questions some may not wish to ask. There will be answers some may not wish to hear.
There are hopeful signs. Ministers at Stormont, in the Dail and at Westminster appear to recognise the requirement to keep the centenaries on an even keel. This is no time for partisan politicking. Rather we have a chance to open our eyes, see the full picture of the past, and begin to bridge the gulf in understanding which has beset this island since the days of Carson and Connolly.
We live in a very different society on this Easter Monday 2012 from that which provoked Carson and Connolly to act as they did a century ago. Home Rule is Rome Rule no longer. The Stormont Executive is the very antithesis of a Protestant parliament for a Protestant people. The British Government is even bailing out the Irish economy. The Irish state has rolled out the welcome mat for a British monarch.
One unionist leader has just delivered his pluralist 21st century vision of Carson’s Unionism on Irish state television while another, just elected, says he will attend or even address a Sinn Fein conference. Unionist leaders are falling over themselves to attract nationalists. Republicans are acquiescing to, if not accepting, partition as never before.
Despite the worst efforts of republican dissidents, the war looks truly over. The shibboleths of unionism and nationalism are being sidelined in the interests of political and economic pragmatism. In turning back the clock to 1912 and 1916 we shouldn’t kid ourselves that the past has much, if any, relevance to today.
Our world has moved on from Edward Carson and James Connolly. We cannot ignore our history as the thousands who are flocking to see the new Titanic centre are demonstrating. But in revisiting the politics of the 20th century, through the coming centenaries, we should be reinforcing a message to our minds. There is no going back. | <urn:uuid:b8aa4bdb-d0d2-492e-97b1-ebe81ae0e817> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/columnists/ed-curran/ed-curran-so-what-would-carson-and-connolly-make-of-us-today-28737365.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961069 | 953 | 2.765625 | 3 |
Mexico City Metro Linea 1 Strip Map
If you’re going to use icons for each of your stations, as Mexico City does, then why not make them nice and big and simply arrange them in the correct order?
More from Wikipedia on the iconography of the Mexico City Metro:
Each station is identified by a minimalist logo related to the name of the station or the area around it. This is because, at the time of the first line’s opening, the illiteracy rate was extremely high, so people found it easier to guide themselves with a system based on colors and visual signs. The design of the icons and the typography are a creation of Lance Wyman, who also designed the logotype for the 1968 Summer Olympic Games at Mexico City. The logos are not assigned at random; rather, they are designated by considering the surrounding area, such as:
The logos’ background colors reflect those of the line the station serves. Stations serving two or more lines show the respective colors of each line in diagonal stripes, as in Salto del Agua.
(Source: Universe’s universe/Flickr) | <urn:uuid:2567cbac-786a-4424-b49e-c29e4bb50411> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://transitmaps.tumblr.com/tagged/Mexico-City-Metro | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951528 | 233 | 1.984375 | 2 |
Amidst the fathomless sea of suffering on earth and endless troubles and tribulations of life, there is a soundless sound coming from the innermost depth of every one’s heart that the wind of God’s grace is always blowing. What you need to do is unfurl your sails. Give up the burden of all deeds to the Lord; give up both good and bad. Have only one idea of God that He is an eternal help.
Involved headlong in worldly affairs and deeply engrossed in the meshes of endless desires, a question arises in the mind of man sooner or later, “What is Real?” Even if someone is swept away completely by his daily engagements that this question does not raise its head, then death comes to everyone – saint or sinner, rich or poor, pure or scoundrel, high or low. It spares none irrespective of caste, color or creed.
Unity in diversity is the plan of the universe. Waves are many but sea is one. Leaves are many but tree is one. Beads are strewn apart. The thread makes a beautiful necklace of these beads. Flowers are scattered and a thread makes a beautiful garland out of these flowers. That thread, that unity is love. Love unites and discard divides. It is the love for the country that martyrs sacrifice their lives.
“Life is a continuous struggle,”; “Life is misery”; “Life is not a bed of roses, Life is Dukkha” are the common comments which people doing about life. Obviously living such a life will be drudgery. Our Upnishadic Rishis have said, “Life is good, Life is a blessing. To live life is a game. Play it fully. God has given you the opportunity, play it to its full but don’t get identified with it.
In this evanescent world of dualities of pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, good and bad, sun and shade, light and darkness, day and night, life and death and so on, it is very difficult to decide what is right and what is wrong or what is good and what is bad. The same phenomenon that appears to be bad now may appear to be good tomorrow. The same thing that produces misery in one may produce happiness in another.
“Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.” It is one of the evils of Western Civilization that it takes of intellectual education alone and takes no notice of the heart. It makes men devoid of all human values. When there is a conflict between the heart and brain, let the heart be followed because intellect has only one state, reason and within that intellect works and cannot go beyond.
Generally our life is ruled by impulse, whims, moods habits and environment. We are caught in the meshes of our flickering mind and make all sort of blunders. Then we have to reap the bitter fruits of our bad deeds. “As you sow, so shall you reap and cause must bring the same effect: good, good: bad, bad and none escape the law – but whosoever wears a form must wear the chain.” It is true but beyond both name and form is, Inner Voice which is Pure, Free and Voice of your Self.
The way to kindle up your inner lamp can be illustrated through the following graphical process-
We are so much attracted to the glamour and grandeur of material prosperity that we hardly think of Spiritual prosperity. We fret and fume to earn and accumulate as much wealth of the world as possible thinking that it is a source of pleasure and en
Inner Strength within everyone is immense and unlimited but its manifestation outside is limited. Water in the ocean is unlimited but water in the jug, jar, cup and glass is limited. Clay mouse is different in size and shape from clay elephant but once they are melted, it is all clay. | <urn:uuid:373a1bcf-a920-481f-83b1-79efdeb25c69> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.vishvas.org/resources/vishvas-elibrary?start=70 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960345 | 821 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Hair removal describes any method that gets rid of unwanted or excess body hair. Hair removal is usually dictated by cultural and societal values. Excess hair, especially in women, continues to be a taboo subject. The female skin must be clean, smooth and hairless. Hair growth in an area that should be free from any body hair, such as in the armpits or face, is unacceptable and unattractive.
Excessive and unwanted body hair is usually caused by heredity or hormones. A few really hairy people get a double dose of hormones and genes. Both of these causes can be safely managed by professionals or you can do it yourself at home. The most commonly accepted successful methods of excessive body hair removal are electrolysis, laser hair removal, waxing, (pulling the hairs out by the roots), depilatory creams that dissolve the hair, and shaving.
In today’s society facial and body hair have become increasingly unwelcome. These unwanted hairs disturbs the beauty of the women. They have become curious to remove them. There are many procedures for the removal of these unwanted hairs.
Excessive hair on the face can be removed by electrolysis, but this is a tedious and somewhat expensive process. Laser is normally a permanent method of hair removal, although there are no 100% guarantees. It doesn’t work very well on darker skins or on lighter hair. Essentially the hair that responds best to laser treatment is dark, thick hair on lighter skin.
Home Remedies For Hair Removal
- Using a face mask prepared by mixing a tablespoon of lemon juice in four tablespoons of honey is one of the most popular natural home remedies for Hair Removal from face.
- For best results, apply the mixture in the direction of hair growth and scrub it off when after 15 minutes when it dries. Follow this therapy at least two times in a week.
- Prepare a sticky mixture of an egg white, one teaspoon of sugar, some corn flour and apply it on the face for about 15 minutes. Finally, peel it off. This is an effective natural treatment for removing facial hair. Do this 3-4 times in a week.
- Sugaring is one of the oldest Hair Removal home remedies. For this, squeeze half a lemon and add some molasses in a mixture of a cup of sugar and a quarter cup of honey. Heat the mixture until it becomes thick, smooth and brownish in color.
- You can heat in a microwave or thick saucepan (bring to boil on medium flame and then simmer on low flame) till you get the aroma of cooked lemon and let it cool for 15 minutes. Next, spread the mixture on your skin with a butter knife in the direction of hair growth.
- After 10-15 minutes, use a clean cloth or waxing strip to get rid of hair on legs, arms and other parts of the body. Like waxing, the cloth or wax strip being used needs to be pulled against the direction of hair growth. Preferably, dust some corn flour on the skin before using this home remedy. Various sugaring products are also available in the market.
- Lemon is natural bleach, so apply that with an equal amount of honey and leave on for ten to fifteen minutes. Do this everyday.
- When bathing, apply soap and scrub your hands and legs gently with a pumice stone everyday. This will take some time, but with patience your hair will gradually reduce and diminish.
- Mix lemon, sugar, and honey in a bowl. Microwave on high for about 2-3 minutes, until it bubbles into a smooth consistency. Spread a thin layer on your leg. Cover with a strip of fabric, and rubbing the strip the opposite way of hair growth, about 3 times. Grab the fabric end and pull it off very quickly against the direction of the hair growth. This is an effective home remedy for hair removal.
- A healthy lifestyle supplemented with proper diet is the magic key for healthy and beautiful hair.
- Sandpaper is also effective for the removal of unwanted hairs.
- Wash the ingrown hair area twice a day with a Panoxyl bar, an antibacterial soap of 10 percent benzoyl peroxide found at your local drugstore. This is one of the best home remedies for hair removal.
- Apply an over-the-counter hydrocortisone preparation such as Cortaid around the ingrown hair according to package directions.
- If ingrown hairs are inflamed and infected, change your razor blade each time you shave until the ingrown hair is gone.
The reader of this article should exercise all precautionary measures while following instructions on the home remedies from this article. Avoid using any of these products if you are allergic to it. The responsibility lies with the reader and not with the site or the writer. | <urn:uuid:6ccd36be-701b-4723-99ba-0a68ce1df1ee> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.yusrablog.com/hair-removal/natural-ways-for-hair-removal-with-home-remedies/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93838 | 989 | 1.648438 | 2 |
The best kept secret to losing weight is to eat. For decades we have thought to lose weight you had to eat less. That is a bad idea. If it worked everyone would be thin because everyone has tried cutting calories at least once right? The real secret is not how much you eat but what you eat and when you eat it. We are designed to eat and be lean. Here are a few foods that are particularly good at helping you do just that. I think you might be pleasantly surprised.
A grapefruit a day in addition to your regular meals can speed weight loss. The fruit’s acidity slows digestion, meaning it takes longer to move through your system, and you’ll end up feeling fuller, and more satisfied, for longer. People who are deficient in vitamin C cling more stubbornly to fat. And the vitamin C-packed grapefruit also works to lower cholesterol and decrease risk of stroke, heart disease, and some types of cancer. My favorite breakfast is scrambled eggs with vegetables and a whole grapefruit.
This delicious spice slows the passage of food through your stomach. It also lowers your blood sugar levels by stimulating glucose metabolism. You can also sprinkle this spice in your oatmeal, stews or coffee.
Chia may prove to be your best weapon in the battle for weight loss as well as improved health and even a higher level of fitness. Chia seeds curb cravings, attacks “middle fat”, and gives you a full and satisfied feeling. It is also very high in omega-3′s, (which reduce inflammation, risk of heart disease, cancer, mood swings, dry skin, poor circulation and arthritis), high in protein, contains all eight essential amino acids, high in anti-oxidants, high in calcium, increases endurance and lubricates joints. You can buy it online, at the Co-op, at Natural Grocers on Milwaukee or Bob’s Red Mill has it at Fred Meyer sometimes. Eat it plain, put it in any food or beverage or find recipes online. It has little taste and a long storage life. There is no need to grind it. When I eat one tablespoon in the morning I am not hungry for hours but eat anyway! For more information go to http://www.azchia.com/
Anytime you choose a whole-grain product over one made from nutrient-stripped white flour, you wage war against belly fat. Penn State researchers found that dieters who ate whole-grains lost twice as much belly fat as those who stuck to white-flour products—even though they’d consumed the same number of calories. What’s more, quinoa contains twice the protein as regular cereal grains, fewer glucose-raising carbohydrates, and even a handful of healthy fats. So start your day off with a cup of cooked quinoa combined with a ½ cup of milk and ½ cup of blueberries—microwave for 60 seconds, and you have a delicious (and slimming) alternative to your traditional oatmeal. Bob’s Red Mill Organic Quinoa won “Best Grain” in Men’s Health’s Best Foods Awards 2009.
First of all, calcium in any typical form helps control hunger but when consumed in dairy products it is markedly more effective. It appears that the other ingredients in dairy act synergistically with the calcium. In a study by University of Tennessee researchers showed that eating three servings of dairy significantly reduced body fat in obese subjects. And if subjects restricted calories while consuming dairy, fat and weight loss accelerated. Consuming dairy immediately after a whole-body resistance training and again one hour later can also increase fat loss and allow greater muscle gains. Check out the BSU Bronco’s endorsement of milk at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5NOZ2VrPLY&feature=fvst
You might increase the benefits of dairy again by drinking kefir. Think of kefir as drinkable yogurt, or an extra-thick, protein-packed smoothie. In either case, this delicious dairy product is a belly blasting essential. Beyond the satiety-inducing protein, the probiotics in kefir may also speed weight loss. British scientists found that these active organisms boosted the breakdown of fat molecules in mice, preventing the rodents from gaining weight. The researchers still need to prove the finding in humans, but there’s no danger in downing probiotic-packed products.
Never fear this full-fat Mediterranean-diet staple: It’s teeming with healthy monounsaturated fats (also found in olive oil), which have been linked to lowered LDL cholesterol levels and weight loss. In fact, a recent longitudinal study published in The New England Journal of Medicine found that the healthy-fat Mediterranean diet was more effective than a diet that avoided fats altogether – so go ahead and indulge!
A British study found that people who increased the percentage of protein-based calories in their diet burned 71 more calories a day (that’s 7.4 pounds a year!). More studies support the growing body of research on the nutritional benefit of egg consumption including that eggs promote weight loss and aid brain and memory function. A randomized study at Louisiana State University found that overweight and obese women who consumed a breakfast of 2 eggs a day for 5 or more days a week for 8 weeks, lost 65% more weight, had an 83% greater reduction in waist circumference and reported greater improvements in energy levels than the women who consumed a bagel breakfast with the same number of calories. Jump start your metabolism as soon as you wake up with a protein-rich breakfast of scrambled eggs. Please don’t dump the yolk. That’s where all the nutrition is!
The old weight loss paradigm of “fat makes you fat” just won’t go away. Fats are necessary for absorption of many nutrients, protect organs, improve skin and leaves us feeling more satisfied. Coconut oil is sweet and rich and was shown to do some great things for abdominally obese women in a study out of Brazil, including decreasing waist circumference and improving cholesterol. One study in the International Journal of Obesity and Metabolic Disorders found that the MCTs (medium-chain triglycerides) in coconut increased fat burning and calorie expenditure in obese men, and also led to diminished fat storage. Another study in the same journal found that consumption of coconut oil fats over the course of 27 days increased both fat burning and calorie expenditure in women as well. All the results are not yet in, but there seems to be something to the idea that coconut oil, with its rich concentration of MCTs, may increase fat burning and calorie expenditure, especially if MCTs replace other fats in the diet such as safflower oil, soybean oil and other typical high omega-6 vegetable oils.
Comprised of fructose and glucose, honey is different from sugar in its sweetness and flavor complexity. Honey is a delicious and sweet product that has gained notoriety for being a health food and preferable choice to sugar and artificial sweeteners. It provides minerals and vitamins not found in sugar, and it is touted as causing weight loss, although the mechanisms are not explained. Honey is a food as opposed to table sugar, which is a chemical devoid of any nutrient. Honey is known to be antibacterial, antiviral, antifungal has a wide range of health benefits and may improve blood sugar control and immunity. Local, raw honey is always best but don’t feed it to babies.
Muscle building, blood pressure lowering, mitochondria revving, blues-chasing, antiviral, anti-allergic, anti-platelet, anti-tumor, and anti Alzheimer’s. Reduces heart disease by 37%, diabetes by 31% and stroke by 29% and might even make you smarter. Best of all for dieters is it is very satisfying and curbs appetite. Eat chocolate that is at least 70% cocoa. My favorite is Green & Blacks 85%. Available at Fred Meyers, Walgreen’s and now in some Albertson’s stores. Theo is also a great brand. Both use whole sugars and better quality ingredients.
And you thought losing weight was about eating celery sticks! | <urn:uuid:4bb369b5-aec6-4c3d-bc5c-251b249ea26d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://fitmaniaboise.com/nutrition/5-flat-belly-foods/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947308 | 1,701 | 1.6875 | 2 |
SYDNEY—Only a handful of ADHD kids are being prescribed stimulant drugs by a trained psychiatrist, with the vast majority getting treated by paediatricians who dish out varying doses, a report has found.
Population health experts are calling for a national plan to standardise treatment of the controversial condition after a new study showed "significant inconsistencies" in prescribing by psychiatrists and paediatricians.
A new report published in the Medical Journal of Australia today shows major differences in prescribing patterns between, and even within, the two clinical specialities that treat children with Attention Deficient Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
The study from Western Australia, where prescribing rates are 3.5 per cent higher than the national average, showed that the vast majority of ADHD children, 92 per cent, are treated by paediatricians, who have less mental health training than psychiatrists.
They generally prescribe lower doses of stimulant drugs Ritalin and dexamphetamine, though levels varied significantly from doctor to doctor.
Child and adolescent psychiatrists were more likely to give higher stimulant doses, and partner them with other medications like anti-depressants and anti-psychotic drugs.
Lead researcher David Preen, director of the Centre for Health Services Research at the University of Western Australia, said the results show significant inconsistencies in treatment for children with the disorder.
Differences in medication prescription between the two specialties may be because psychiatrists are more often referred children with psychiatric or behavioural disorders requiring multifaceted medication regimens, Dr Preen said.
"It is also feasible that the observed differences are due to fundamental variations surrounding ADHD diagnosis and treatment as a result of differing levels of mental health training."
A WA parliamentary review in 2004 suggested that paediatricians were largely responsible for soaring prescribing rates because they had inadequate training on ADHD diagnosis and alternative non-drug treatment.
Dr Preen said there was a strong case for a federal plan to standardise treatment.
"A case could be made for the standardisation of diagnosis and treatment of ADHD within and between specialities," he said.
"A state or national ADHD plan with consistency across clinical disciplines appears to have merit."
The medical field has come under fire for supposed over-diagnosis and over-prescribing of stimulants to create a so-called "Ritalin generation".
However, a NSW Government review released last month stated that prescribing in the state mirrored international best practice and most of clinicians were "thoughtful and cautious" in their approach. | <urn:uuid:3cd0d2ef-21c1-424e-bbe8-d98a275a7ed9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theepochtimes.com/news/8-3-16/67609.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953571 | 504 | 2.546875 | 3 |
This is another post in our ongoing look at innovators using open business models to leverage the Internet, new media, and consumer interest for more choice in meeting customer need. By studying innovations in open source strategies you may identify opportunities to create customer interactivity around products and services in your own market.
Earlier we looked at SellaBand from Germany that is revolutionizing music by engaging the consumer as investor in new music where everyone has a chance to make music and make money.
Today we look at Magnatune and its founder John Buckman who was a very early entrant into “open music” as a viable third strategy for creating a more healthy music business. If Buckman’s name is familiar it should be. He founded Lyris the list serv software company. He has another start up called BookMooch (a global community for exchanging used books) and serves on the Creative Commons board of directors.
Buckman believes the future of the music industry is in a state of crisis:
“The old music industry is in crisis. What worked for so long is failing rapidly, and there isn’t enough flexibility in what exists today to try to find things that might replace the old ways. There’s also the very real possibility that the music industry will simply be smaller, and that people will simply spend less on music than they did in the past.
Today we see three trends, all colliding:
1. Increasing piracy, now responsible for approximately for 30% of all Internet bandwidth usage.
2. A move toward near-perfect rights enforcement, through a combination of operating-system enforced DRM, lawsuits and raids, and government laws.
3. A massive increase in open music (and other open media) inspired by the success of open source software.”
Rather than protectionism or piracy both of which Buckman feels will kill the music business, the industry should embrace open source approaches that are presently being innovated “where distribution channels are freed up, people listen to a much greater variety of music, and individual musicians have a chance of getting their music heard and making a living at it.”
Open Music Is About Creating New Ways to Make Money and Customer Interaction
Buckman believes that if musicians and music industry players can open up their overly restrictive copyrights and permit non-commercial use, remixing, sharing and downloading then it will be these same techniques that build a 21st Century fanbase and develop different ways to make money.
Open source businesses commonly offer completely new ways for people and companies (supply and demand or content creators and consumers) to create value. Buckman sees such innovations already that follow the making/sharing model of Youtube. A music remixing website under Creative Commons license called CCMixter.org let’s fans listen to music and then rework the music to create new versions and ways for people to interact with music content. Says Buckman, “It’s not that different from the phenomena of mix tapes: people want to be in control, and they’ve got their own ideas of what they want to do with their music.”
To see what he means let’s look at Magnatune.
A Web-based Record Label That Gives Musicians A Greater Share of Their Own Work AND Visibility
Magnatune wants to change today’s world of the musician. The following experienced happened to Buckman’s musician wife.
“When my wife was signed to an Indie record label, we were really excited. In the end, she sold 1000 CDs, lost all rights to her music for 7 years (even though the CD had been out of print for many years), and earned a total of $137 in royalties paid (some of it paid to her as CD copies of her own CD which she then gave away for promotion). The record label that signed her wasn’t evil: they were one of the good guys, and gave her a 70/30 split of the profits (of which there were few). The label got screwed at every turn: distributors refused to carry their CDs unless they spent thousands on useless print ads, record stores demanded graft in order to stock the albums, and in general, all forces colluded to prevent this small, progressive label from succeeding.”
Meanwhile, the music consumer experiences the following:
- Radio is boring: good music is rarely played on the air nor are the variety of genres accessible.
- CDs cost too much, and artists only get 20 cents to a dollar for each CD sold. If they’re lucky.
- Napster, Gnutella and Kazaa proved that people love music, and they want to share it. Lawsuits may shut Kazaa down (and Kazaa obviously promotes copyright violation), just as Napster was shut down. Clearly there’s a huge public demand for Open Music.
- Using the Internet to listen to music is usually tedious: there are too many ads, too many clicks, and the sound quality is usually bad. It’s too much work, not enough reward. A well run Internet radio station (such as Shoutcast, or Spinner) solves that, but the entrenched record industry wants to kill that too, with onerous licensing terms and odd “rights limited” playback schemes.
Now back to the musician:
- Online sales often cost the artist 50% of their already-pathetic royalty (due to a common record contract provision). International sales and mark-downs often net the artist no royalties.
- Record labels lock their artists into legal agreements that hold them for a decade or more. If it’s not working out, labels don’t print the band’s recordings but nonetheless keep them locked into the contract, forcing them to produce new albums each year. Even hugely successful artists often end up owing their record label money.
- People who listen to music in the background while they do other work (i.e. office workers [or any traditional "radio" market]).
- Fans of music that gets little radio airplay or major record distribution, but has a fairly large audience.
The Magnatune experience (it’s free) looks like this:
- Radio station experiences of very high-quality artists, tailored to each listener’s specific tastes.
- It’s easy to listen to the music and what they play is a diverse genre with extremely high quality.
- A simple interface to save favorite artists and songs; come back to them, build a collection.
- A wide variety of music that can be freely previewed and put on a ‘temp track” on a work-in-progress. If the music is then proven to work for your use, you can then pay to license it for advertising, films, business, etc.
- Downloadable albums at a low price: $5 to $18: buyer determines the exact price.
- Sub-licensed music for commercial purposes (i.e.: trade shows, advertising and web sites), priced from $150 to $5000, depending on length and type of use. This is their fastest-growing and most profitable business area.
- Merchandise: posters, clothing, mugs with artist’s likeness. They’re not currently offering this, but may in the future.
How the artist makes money:
- 50% of the sale price of each album goes directly to the artist.
- 50% of any commercial sub-licensing (ads, web sites, trade shows, films, etc) goes directly to the artist.
- 50% of merchandise profits goes directly to the artist.
- Wider distribution of the artist’s music means more gigs and more fans.
Magnatune’s mp3s are available under the “Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike ” license from Creative Commons. Specifically, this means:
- You can listen to Magnatune Internet radio stations, download their free music, and share with anyone you like.
- Derivative works (for example: remixes, cover songs, sampling) are explicitly allowed. Some of their artists publish the “source code” to their music so you can rework and improve it. This includes scores, lyrics, MIDI files, samples and track-by-track audio files.
- Non-commercial use of Magnatune music and its “source code” is free. However, if the consumer makes money (“commercial use”) with Magnatune music, the remixer must “share the wealth” and provide Magnatune and their artists a share.
More on Open Source vs Piracy vs Protectionism
John Buckman’s presentations on this topic are quite interesting. He presented recently in Antwerp at Meeting of the Minds 07 – The User is the Content. You can follow the podcast (here) and download his slides (here). Also you can find his presentation “Piracy vs Permission Society” (here) presented at Reboot 9.0 another TED-styled conference held annually in Europe. Reboot 9.0 has yet to post the video from that presentation but promises to do so shortly.
Open Source in Your World?
Are there innovators coming online with businesses or products based on open source strategy in your industry? Are you tracking them? What can you learn from their business models, means of producing and distributing content, and customer contact? | <urn:uuid:0d2a9d3f-b7c5-47e4-bf1a-240026b0e6c4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://freethinkr.wordpress.com/2007/06/05/piracy-protectionism-or-open-source-how-open-music-may-offer-a-better-way-in-the-music-industry/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947801 | 1,971 | 2.203125 | 2 |
I have heard lots of arguments that defend piracy. Some people are convinced that there’s nothing wrong in software piracy. While I don’t agree with claims that suggest that one pirated copy would equal one sale lost, I think it’s developer’s right to decide how his work is used.
Anyway, here are some arguments I’ve heard to support piracy.
The “don’t make crap games” statement
Some people argue that “because developers make such a crappy games there’s piracy”. I agree that developers should focus on improving their games and improve the player’s experience about the game, but I still disagree that this should be the reason for copying games illegally. Developers – especially indies – need all the money they can to make better games, and if software piracy harms their sales they might be out of business before they get chance to finish those better games. It’s a tough business, even when it might not look like it for all players.
The “I just wanted to test the game to see how it looks like” claim
Many games developed today offer demo and trial versions where you can test the game for 30 days or 60 minutes or so. Since casual games are typically found from different portals, one could download the same game from different portals and play it for hours to see what the game looks and feels like.
Many games come with a money back guarantee. Some people say they were disappointed after buying the game and that’s the reason why they use pirate copies. I recommend checking the guarantee terms: some sites offer you to test their game for a month or even months, and if you don’t like the game – you get your money back. If there’s a money back guarantee, why not buy the game first, and ask your money back if you aren’t satisfied with the purchase.
The very common “I don’t have money to buy games” explanation…
…from people who owns a $1000 computer, spend $50 on clothes per month, drink beer using $50 per month, go to movies using $50 per month, talk in cellphones for $50 per month, spend $50 on gas per month… and has seven hundred other things where he spends his money. Yet – he says he cannot afford to buy computer games. Maybe one should take a look at where he spends money, and suddenly he might find money for buying games legally?
One claim is: “if the games would be half priced, I would buy them”. I must point out that many games are already half-priced. Casual games cost around $20. They are just as fun as some $50 games. If you check a local bargain bin, you can find couple of years old games for $10 or $20 – games that originally were $50 or so. There are half-priced games if you just look for them.
And if you really think you would buy a casual game for $10 but not for $20, then consider buying the game together with your friend. If one game for $20 is too much, then get a friend of yours (or 3-4 friends) and let everybody put $10 (or $5 or whatever) and buy the game together. Technically this is illegal, but if the another option is that you were going to get it for free (by ways of piracy), then I think this is much better option. I’ve done this to buy some games (not all, but some) when I was a kid: we gathered about 3 guys together and suddenly $50 game cost us only about $15-20 (the one who got the game package would pay more). I think for kids this is an okay option if you really cannot afford to buy (and also nice way to get games for those in countries with lower income). When I got older, I spent those full priced $20 or $50 for games and continue doing so.
Now you have no more reasons to continue using pirated copies, right? | <urn:uuid:c6bb4933-0322-47c7-96d0-c2c3c911b545> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gameproducer.net/2007/02/19/3-reasons-for-software-piracy/comment-page-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973076 | 851 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Oracle Programming with PL/SQL Collections
PL/SQL applications typically consist of SQL statements intermixed with procedural logic to process data retreived from the database. If compiled as a stored procedure, your PL/SQL code will reside on the server, an ideal place for programs that require intensive database interaction. Having said that, anytime a software application links up with a database, there is a performance price to be paid. Not only that, programs that continually switch off between code and SQL can become quite complex. PL/SQL collections can address some of these concerns.
Just about all modern programming languages provide support for collections. A collection can be loosely defined as a group of ordered elements, all of the same type, that allows programmatic access to its elements through an index. Commonly used collection types used in the programming world include arrays, maps, and lists.
Storing elements in a collection can provide a number of advantages. For starters, collections can help to simplify code. If you need to process a number of items of a similar type, storing these items in a collection will allow you to loop through each element with ease, referencing each one by an index. In addition, most languages define collection types that contain built-in methods to operate on the collection. For example, a method might allow you to remove all elements from a collection in a single command.
Probably the biggest advantage a collection can provide is improved application performance. Developers utilize collections to 'cache' static data that needs to be regularly accessed. This results in reduced calls to a database. As I stated earlier, PL/SQL programs are a good place to make expensive SQL calls but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to keep those calls to a minimum.
Oracle provides three types of PL/SQL collections: nested tables, varrays, and associative arrays. We will review each of these collection types in turn. But first, let's take a quick look at traditional approaches to collections programming. At its conclusion, this article will offer some suggestions on when to use each of them.
With the release of Oracle 7, Oracle introduced the PL/SQL Table. By using PL/SQL Tables, it was possible to create a collection of items, all of the same type, indexed by an integer.
TYPE book_title_tab IS TABLE OF book.title%TYPE INDEX BY BINARY_INTEGER;
The only way to access the elements of a PL/SQL Table was through its numeric index. Still, it was the first construct that gave PL/SQL developers array-like access to data.
PL/SQL tables were often combined with PL/SQL Records. By creating a PL/SQL Record, developers could define a composite type that allowed you to group items of varying type together. Combining PL/SQL Tables and Records together was often referred to as a 'PL/SQL Table of Records'.
--Define a PL/SQL record type representing a book: TYPE book_rec IS RECORD (title book.title%TYPE, author book.author_last_name%TYPE, year_published published_date.%TYPE)); --define a PL/SQL table containing entries of type book_rec: Type book_rec_tab IS TABLE OF book_rec%TYPE INDEX BY BINARY_INTEGER; my_book_rec book_rec%TYPE; my_book_rec_tab book_rec_tab%TYPE; ... ... my_book_rec := my_book_rec_tab(5); find_authors_books(my_book_rec.author); ... ...
In version 8, Oracle introduced two collection types, Nested Tables and Varrays. At this time, the PL/SQL Table was renamed to 'index-by table'. As of Oracle 9i, PL/SQL Tables (index-by tables) have again been renamed to Associative Arrays. The Associative Array functions much the same way the PL/SQL Table of old did. However, the Associative Array does contain some enhanced functionality, as we will see.
Oracle Collections Today
Let's fast forward to today and take a good look at Oracle's three collection types: nested tables, varrays, and associative arrays. | <urn:uuid:e7a7b050-6697-4807-a80c-5a3b02862652> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.developer.com/db/article.php/3379271/Oracle-Programming-with-PLSQL-Collections.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.909188 | 873 | 2.90625 | 3 |
EPA has proposed standards to limit mercury, acid gases and other toxic pollution from power plants. This rule will replace the court-vacated Clean Air Mercury Rule.
- Mercury and Fish
- Revision of December 2000 Finding
- Cap and Trade Basics
- For More Information
- EPA Press Release
On March 15, 2005, EPA issued a rule to permanently cap and reduce mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants.
- The Clean Air Mercury Rule was built on EPA’s Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR) to significantly reduce emissions from coal-fired power plants -- the largest remaining sources of mercury emissions in the country. The goal of these rules regarding mercury was to reduce utility emissions of mercury from 48 tons a year to 15 tons, a reduction of nearly 70 percent.
- The Clean Air Mercury Rule establishes “standards of performance” limiting mercury emissions from new and existing coal-fired power plants and creates a market-based cap-and-trade program to reduce nationwide utility emissions of mercury in two distinct phases. The first phase cap is 38 tons. In the second phase, due in 2018, coal-fired power plants will be subject to a second cap, which will reduce emissions to 15 tons upon full implementation.
- New coal-fired power plants (“new” means construction starting on or after Jan. 30, 2004) will have to meet stringent new source performance standards in addition to being subject to the caps.
- Mercury is a toxic, persistent pollutant that accumulates in the food chain. Mercury in the air is a global problem. While fossil fuel-fired power plants are the largest remaining source of human-generated mercury emissions in the United States.
- The Clean Air Mercury Rule is expected to make reductions in emissions that are transported regionally and deposited domestically, and it will reduce emissions that contribute to atmospheric mercury worldwide.
Mercury and Fish
- Concentrations of mercury in the air are usually low. However, atmospheric mercury falls to Earth through rain, snow and dry deposition and enters lakes, rivers and estuaries. Once there, it can transform into, methylmercury, and can build up in fish tissue.
- Americans are exposed to methylmercury primarily by eating contaminated fish. Because the developing fetus is the most sensitive to the toxic effects of methylmercury, women of childbearing age are regarded as the population of greatest concern. Children who are exposed to methylmercury before birth may be at increased risk of poor performance on neurobehavioral tasks, such as those measuring attention, fine motor function, language skills, visual-spatial abilities and verbal memory.
Revison of December 2000 Finding
- Also on March 15, 2005, in a separate but related action, EPA revised and reversed its December 2000 finding that it was “appropriate and necessary” to regulate coal- and oil-fired coal-fired power plants under section 112 of the Clean Air Act.
- EPA has issued two complementary rules – CAIR and the Clean Air Mercury Rule, issued under sections 110(a)(2)(D) and 111 of the law, respectively. These rules will allow us to limit mercury emissions from these plants.
Cap and Trade Basics
- The Clean Air Mercury Rule established a cap-and-trade system for mercury that is based on EPA’s proven Acid Rain Program. The Acid Rain Program has produced demonstrable results, reducing SO2 emissions faster and at far lower costs than anticipated, and resulting in wide-ranging environmental improvements.
- In the Clean Air Mercury Rule, EPA has assigned each state and two tribes an emissions “budget” for mercury, and each state must submit a State Plan revision detailing how it will meet its budget for reducing mercury from coal-fired power plants. Two tribes that have coal-fired power plants that will be affected by this rule also have been assigned a mercury emissions budget.
- The Clean Air Mercury Rule contained stringent emission monitoring and reporting requirements ensure that monitored data are accurate, that reporting is consistent among sources – and that the emission reductions occur.
For More Information
- More information about mercury, EPA’s efforts to reduce mercury emissions, and today’s rule is available at www.epa.gov/mercury.
- More information about EPA/FDA’s fish advisory go to Web site www.cfsan.fda.gov/~frf/sea-mehg.html | <urn:uuid:aff5466f-1ed6-42bf-8b97-c7ff7d0e3ef4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://epa.gov/air/mercuryrule/basic.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925063 | 914 | 3.703125 | 4 |
Cooperstown was also the home of author
James Fennimore Cooper, whose father, a wealthy landowner, judge and
congressman, founded it. James, one of America’s first great authors and perhaps
one of its best, wrote several novels, including The Pathfinder, The
The Last of the Mohicans, which have presented us with much of our
concepts about the people, frontiersmen and natives, who once lived there. In
those books he often referred to Glimmerglass Lake, which was, in fact,
Lake Otsego in that area.
Another river beginning in New York, the Delaware, reaches the coast as Delaware Bay, about twenty-five miles east of the Chesapeake. Along the way it connects Philadelphia to the sea. It doesn’t take more than a quick glance at a map to see the relationship between the whiskey producers of Eastern Pennsylvania (which include those in Maryland, New Jersey, and Southern New York) and the marketplaces of Baltimore and Philadelphia. Within this area, we believe, lies the birthplace of American whiskey.
It’s no coincidence that it’s also the birthplace of America. The Eastern Pennsylvania/Maryland area has a rich heritage of whiskey-distilling, as does every place where pioneers settled. It also developed a rich heritage of COMMERCIAL whiskey production, with distinct regional characteristics and, beginning with one of the best-known of these, we will explore places where a few of these distilleries once stood.
For they are all gone now.
Not a single commercial producer of aged whiskey exists east of the Appalachians today.
So, what kind of whiskey did these folks make? Well, mostly the whiskey produced was sold locally, and it was probably unaged spirits, distilled from corn and rye. Old Isaiah Morgan, of Jackson County, West Virginia, whose primary business was as a dealer and shipper of hay, may have produced just such a whiskey. Today, a very similar-tasting product is available as Isaiah Morgan Rye Whiskey, which is available in West Virginia state-licensed liquor stores and also onsite at the distillery in the Kirkwood Winery, just outside of Summersville, West Virginia. You can learn more about Isaiah Morgan (which is true, unaged rye whiskey bottled at a reasonable 80 proof) and their equally impressive Southern Moon "corn liquor" by clicking HERE.
Of course, in the 18th and early 19th centuries most farm-produced whiskey was for personal consumption or traded locally. And that was certainly true in Pennsylvania as well. Another example you can visit along with us in these pages is the small distillery that Israel Shreve built to augment George Washington’s grist mill in Perryopolis in 1790.
But nearly forty years before even that, all the way back in 1753, John Shenk (another Swiss Mennonite farmer) built a similar home-farm distillery near Schaefferstown, Pennsylvania, in Lebanon County. Known today as Michter's, it is more recognizable now than it was when Pennsylvania whiskey was being distilled there.
Click Here to visit the remains of some of these legendary distilleries...
Oh, and by the way -- according to Tom Heitz of the National Baseball Library in Cooperstown, New York, Alexander Cartwright, not Abner Doubleday, invented the game of baseball, adapting it from the English sport of Rounders in 1845. As fine, upstanding Americans who value our traditions, however, we shall continue recognizing Abner Doubleday as the Father of Baseball. Nor shall we allow our beliefs to be swayed for one single moment by the fact that the very same Baseball Hall of Fame has a copy of the Delhi (N.Y.) Gazette with a public notice concerning an upcoming game of baseball, to be played on July 13, by organized teams of nine men.
So who really cares that the newspaper
article was published twenty years earlier, in 1825?
Story and original photography copyright ©1999 & 2006 by John Lipman. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:73620ab3-5abf-490c-9896-05cfb08e984d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ellenjaye.com/eastpa.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962816 | 842 | 2.203125 | 2 |
May. 22, 2003
Darwin of the mind
By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH
Eminent psychologist Steven Pinkers has raised eyebrows - and some ire - with his claim that human intelligence evolves and is entirely mechanical.
How do you define a brilliant mind? It could be described as one that sifts through data and manages to use the facts in unconventional ways to create new connections, thoughts and concepts. By any measure, Prof. Steven Pinker's mind is brilliant; he is a unifier who ties a lot of big ideas together. Few of his colleagues would be surprised if a Nobel Prize is in his future.
This 49-year-old evolutionary psychologist in the department of brain and cognitive sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - who will soon move to Harvard - has been called many things. He was described as "science's agent provocateur" by The Guardian, an "evolutionary pop star" by Time magazine, a wunderkind by The Washington Post and by The Times of London as a "world-class cognitive psychologist." In 1995, Newsweek put him on its list of One Hundred Americans for the Next Century. But the praise seems not to affect him, like water off a duck's back. In an interview with The Jerusalem Post earlier this week during his first visit to Israel in three decades, the illustrious scientist and thinker seems very modest indeed.
Since Pinker argues in many of his six major published works that the human mind - like the human body - has been designed by natural selection through the process of biological evolution, perhaps he can't really take much credit for his brilliant mind; maybe it's just his Jewish genes or its derivation is long before the first Jew appeared?
A striking looking man with grey-blue eyes and chin-length curly salt-and-pepper hair, he received his BA from McGill University in 1976 and his doctorate in psychology from Harvard in 1979. After serving on the faculties of Harvard and Stanford, he moved to MIT in the early 1980s, where he wrote his major and mostly bestselling books, including How the Mind Works , The Language Instinct and Words and Rules: The Ingredients of Language. He has been asked to edit the prestigious Best Science and Nature Writing 2004, and plans to complete a book on language and thought in 2006.
Two of Pinker's books were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize (the most recent, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature, was near the top of the list for 2003), and he has received many honors. The latest, for which he came to an Israel that looks and feels very different from the one he last witnessed in pre-Yom Kippur War 1973, is an honorary doctorate from Tel Aviv University. He also came to attend the opening on the TAU campus of the Lieselotte Adler Lab for Research in Child Development, headed by Prof. Sidney Strauss, who took Pinker and his Singaporean-born wife Ilavenil on a tour of Jerusalem.
Pinker, a native of Montreal who grew up in a warm Jewish home, said he had wanted to see Israel more recently, but the last time his trip was cancelled due to the Gulf War at the end of 1990. Although some colleagues were surprised that he was coming now - seven Jerusalemites were murdered at the French Hill intersection a few hours before our interview - he was not deterred.
Having long studied the human mind, he still can't really explain in evolutionary terms how over 100 young Palestinians in the past 31 months have buckled explosives to their bodies and gone out to murder people they don't even know.
"They have an ideology and religious belief that they will be reincarnated and be rewarded for such a deed. As a result, you lose deterrent. There is no ordinary way to deter such horrible acts. They don't care if they lose their life," Pinker noted. "They believe the soul is separate from the body. In Judaism, the observant also believe in the soul being separate from the body, and in an afterlife, but not one that can be reached as a kamikaze by committing violence against another."
Pinker attended Hebrew school and Sunday school in Montreal, and even taught at a school in a synagogue, but doesn't remember more than a few words of Hebrew. Nevertheless, he found Hebrew to be a source of inspiration for his scientific studies of language, the use of regular and irregular verbs, and the rules of grammar. Working with Prof. Joseph Shimron of the University of Haifa's School of Education and Israeli-born Iris Berent of the psychology department of Florida Atlantic University, he wrote an 80-page article on "Default Nominal Inflection in Hebrew: Evidence for Mental Variables." In his "inflectional morphology" research on regular (such as walk-walked) and irregular verbs (come-came) to understand language in general, he states that irregular verbs are idiosyncratic and have to be memorized because they are not decided by rules. Regular verbs, he says, can be freely generated even by children, and new words can be created by following these rules, such as "faxed," "spammed" or "googled."
He has examined the ability to derive the regular "walked" from "walk" or the irregular "mice" from "mouse" as a case study of the interaction between memory and rule-processing in language. A key idea, he said, is that "regular forms like 'walked' may be generated by a mental rule, whereas irregular forms like 'mice' must be retrieved from memory. In the past the lab has studied how the system works computationally, how it is learned, how it varies across languages, how it is used in language production and comprehension, and how it is represented in the brain."
He is currently comparing identical and non-identical twins' use of incorrect irregular verbs and corresponding nouns to see whether there is a genetic influence.
His paper on Hebrew shows that Israelis use the regular masculine inflection automatically as a default despite the overlaps in the distribution of regular and (the few) irregular Hebrew masculine nouns. He and his colleague proved that "regular inflection is productively applied to novel nouns regardless of their similarity to existing regular nouns. In contrast, the inflection of irregular-sounding nouns is strongly sensitive to their similarity to stored irregular tokens... Hebrew speakers assign the default regular inflection to borrowings and names that are identical to existing irregular nouns. The convergence of the circumstances triggering default inflection in [Semitic] Hebrew and [Indo-European] German and English suggests that the capacity for default inflection may be general."
Got that straight now?
Although this psycholinguistic subject is certainly esoteric and elusive to the layman, others investigated by Pinker have raised blood pressures around the world. His notions about the biological basis of human nature, while highly praised by many, have aroused much opposition and even savage attacks by both the Left and the Right. Extreme left-wingers have claimed that evolutionary psychology is baseless speculation, while right-wing writers in the US and Europe claim Pinker wants to undermine the religious basis of morality, and oppose his support for evolution.
"Some of the issues I explore are concerns of the Left, which sees evolutionary and genetic approaches to the mind as reactionary. Others annoy the Right, which thinks that a materialist view of the mind that incorporates computation, neuroscience, evolution, and genetics undermines the basis of morality and leaves us with only a dangerous amoralism," Pinker said in a previous interview.
He has his own arguments with the man whom he calls the world's "most famous and active linguistic scientist," his MIT colleague Prof. Noam Chomsky. It was the very left-wing Chomsky - a Jew who is highly critical of Israel - who gave MIT such an illustrious reputation in linguistics.
"He is 74 and very active. He says language is an innate human ability. If so, where does it come from? I say it comes from evolutionary biology, while Chomsky says it's more complicated than Darwin. Chomsky proposed that there's a universal grammar in the world's 6,000 languages. And he is a socialist anarchist, so he thinks man is by nature good and that people can naturally live in harmony and don't need police forces to keep them under control. I am neither a socialist nor an anarchist. I am more pessimistic," Pinker declared.
Pinker, who confides that he preferred Al Gore to George Bush in the US presidential elections, calls himself a "classical liberal, which many today would call a conservative. I am pro-science, pro-reason, moderate in politics." After 21 years at MIT, "the world's best place for linguistics," Pinker said he decided to make the move "a few subway stations away" to Harvard. He was motivated to switch because his interests have ballooned beyond pure linguistics, and Harvard offers a wider range of subjects, he said.
A growing number of experts around the world are beginning to agree with Pinker that "neuroscience is showing that all aspects of mental life - every emotion, every thought pattern, every memory - can be tied to the physiological activity or structure of the brain. Cognitive science has shown that feats that were formerly thought to be doable by mental stuff alone can be duplicated by machines, that motives and goals can be understood in terms of feedback and cybernetic mechanisms, and that thinking can be understood as a kind of computation. Not computation the way your IBM PC does computation, but computation nonetheless, a kind of fuzzy analog to parallel computation.
"So intelligence, which formerly seemed miraculous - something that mere matter could not possibly accomplish or explain - can now be understood as a kind of computation process." | <urn:uuid:04700d28-18d7-4e52-ba22-a4ea992dfdf6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/about/media/2003_05_jerusalempost.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974645 | 2,019 | 2.296875 | 2 |
We found the Caribbean heat south of Hispaniola. Not a cloud in the sky with light wind from the east. Our speed of 10 knots equals the breeze, making our stack gases rise vertically - it feels like 100 degrees out there in the blazing sun.
Today is exam day one. All cadets will experience some form of examination -
most classrooms and lab spaces are occupied. You can tell when they switch from
one 4/C section to another because they meander up to the Helo Deck to grab
some sun. But the bridge and engine room are lonely as the cadets may leave
watch for their exams. Kind of a tease as this afternoon most exams are
completed, watches and maintenance will resume, and of course all cadets will
be preparing for the pre-port Captain's inspection at 1900 this evening.
Tomorrow morning at 0800 we'll arrive at Montego Bay in Jamaica, discovered by
Christopher Columbus on his second voyage to the New World in 1494 - and
(according to Admiral Gurnon) the island nation was last discovered by Mass
Maritime 61 years ago. That sounds about right, as political turmoil in the
fifties and sixties were a prelude to when drug dominance began in the sixties
- which clearly influenced port selection. I know since I've been at the
Academy we often mention the island, but only the last few years have the ports
of Rio Ochos and Montego Bay added more piers, which has given us the
opportunity to moor for our required three days.
So, our third port, before I know it we'll be underway again off on an eight
day island tour before we call at Aruba. | <urn:uuid:60419a61-b4d8-4a7f-baa8-ba6460631cd0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mmaseaterm.blogspot.com/2013/02/captains-blog-2113.html?pfstyle=wp | 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 | 0.949581 | 358 | 1.703125 | 2 |
By: Liz Christoffersen , Founder & CEO
As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.
Businesses face complex challenges that involve a competitive marketplace, leadership development and organizational change. Asked to do more with less and respond faster to change, leaders are connecting people to profit in environments that encourage exploration and learning. Through innovation they continuously refine their business, setting new standards of operation and re-entering the market with a fresh approach.
When markets and economies shift, it is easy to get caught up in the day to day and find little or no time to develop leadership. More than ever businesses and communities of every shape and size need great leaders at all levels. Great leaders are willing to adapt and change, to study and grow, and to step outside their comfort zone. With the ability to see opportunities where others do not, they take what is in front of them and create something new and better. They instinctively know how to build on tradition and bring new thoughts and visions to life. Leaders are committed to the process of evolution knowing great rewards lie ahead.
Looking ahead to the future instead of behind to the past, great leaders have a clear vision and focus on positioning their company for the future. They seize opportunities gathering momentum by innovating and executing to gain a competitive advantage. They achieve results through others, and they value quality strategic thinking. They recognize the importance and the value of maintaining focus and improving performance. They plan for the long term and the short term, collaborating with their team to ensure each member knows what they need to do to get to the goal.
Imagine is one of the most powerful words in our language. Great leaders leverage the power of imagination by challenging their team with “how can we be better?” They believe in better because they know people don’t want quantity they value quality. They foster a “thinking and doing” environment, encouraging new ideas, and concepts. Innovating becomes a natural way of operating.
What action will you take to enhance your leadership skills? How are you using imagination and innovation to create a new vision of the future for your organization?
Connect with Liz at firstname.lastname@example.org | <urn:uuid:ade2acc8-e84f-4855-bc8d-d5a8f2c59669> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://go2ecg.com/the-power-to-lead/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953619 | 452 | 1.859375 | 2 |
How to Use Layer Styles Basics in Photoshop CS6
Adobe Photoshop CS6 makes creating effects using Layer Styles Basics as easy as selecting an option. Back in the day, creating a drop shadow in Photoshop took a concerted effort. And beveled or embossed type? You really had to have the inside scoop on some Photoshop tricks.
You may see the terms effect and style used interchangeably. Technically, however, Adobe says that after layer effects are applied to a layer, they become part of a layer’s style. You can save and load styles, but not effects. So, if you apply a bunch of effects and want to be able to easily re-create the look, save it as a style.
When you get started with layer effects and styles, keep the following tips in mind:
You can apply layer effects to regular layers, shape layers, fill layers, and type layers, but not to backgrounds, completely locked layers, or layer groups.
Layer effects are dynamically linked to the contents of a layer. If you move or edit the contents of the layers, the effects are updated.
When you apply effects, they become part of the layer’s style. A styled layer has an fx symbol next to the layer’s name in the Layers panel. You can expand (to view the individual effects) or collapse the layer style by clicking the triangle icon next to the florin.
Drag the fx symbol from one layer to another to move it. Or Alt+drag (Option+drag on the Mac) the fx symbol from one layer to another to copy the style easily.
If you create a style so fantastic that you want to save it for later use, you can save a custom style as a preset and store it in the Styles panel.
Feel free to cut loose and have some fun. Layer styles are completely nondestructive. They don’t muck around with your actual pixel data. If you don’t like them, edit them. If you really don’t like them, delete them to go back to your original unstylized image. | <urn:uuid:bde1b6e9-347a-4d1c-8c98-904c0f1e5cd3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-use-layer-styles-basics-in-photoshop-cs6.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.912535 | 443 | 2.046875 | 2 |
The name Santa Claus has his roots in the informal Dutch name for St. Nicholas, Sinterklaas (an abbreviation of Sint Nikolaas). St. Nicholas was a historic 4th-century Greek saint (from an area now in modern day Turkey) who had a reputation for secret gift-giving, such as putting coins in the shoes left out for him. He was also famous for presenting the three impoverished daughters of a pious Christian with dowries so that they would not have to become prostitutes
Being the patron saint of children St. Nicholas has long been associated with giving gifts to children. The parallels to the modern day Santa Claus don’t end there. In his Dutch form of Sinterklaas he was imagined to carry a staff, ride above the rooftops (on a huge white horse) and have mischievous helpers who listened at chimneys to find out whether children were being bad or good. These features all also link him to the legend of Odin, a god who was worshipped among the Germanic peoples in North and Western Europe prior to Christianization.
Although in Europe the feast of St. Nicholas, typically on the 6th December, was very popular throughout the middle ages, after the reformation in the 16th century the celebration died out in most Protestant countries, apart from Holland where the celebration of Sinterklaas lived on.
Another important tributary to the image of Santa Claus was the phenomenon of Father Christmas – also known as Old Father Christmas, Sir Christmas, and Lord Christmas – a traditional figure in English folklore and identified with the similarly bearded Old English god Woden. He typically represented the spirit of good cheer at Christmas, but was not associated with either children of the bringing of gifts.
The earliest English examples of the personification of Christmas are thought to be from a 15th century carol which refers to a “Sire Christmas”. The picture above is from Josiah King’s The Examination and Tryal of Father Christmas (1686), published shortly after Christmas was reinstated as a holy day in England after being banned in post Civil War England as a symbol of “Catholic superstition and godless self-indulgence.”
Although the east coast of America was full of Dutch settlers, it was not until the early 19th century that the figure of “Sinterklaas” would make his way properly across the Atlantic and so give birth to the Americanised Santa Claus. Following the Revolutionary War the already heavily Dutch influenced New York City (formerly of course named New Amsterdam) saw a new surge of interest in Dutch customs, and with them St. Nicholas. In 1804 John Pintard, an influential patriot and antiquarian, founded the New York Historical Society and promoted St. Nicholas as patron saint of both the society and city. On December 6th 1810 the society hosted its first St. Nicholas anniversary dinner and Pintard commissioned the artist Alexander Anderson to draw an image of the saint to be handed out at the dinner. In Anderson’s portrayal he was still shown as a religious figure, but now he was also clearly depositing gifts in fireside stockings and is associated with rewarding the goodness of children. While “St. Nicholas day” never quite took off in the way Pintard wanted, Anderson’s image of “Sancte Claus” most certainly did.
A year before the New York Historical Society’s feast the author Washington Irving had written about Santa in his satirical fiction Knickerbocker’s History of New York, describing a jolly St. Nicholas character as opposed to the saintly bishop of yesteryear – one who flew in a reindeer pulled sleigh and delivered presents down chimneys. The next key step to securing the image of Santa Claus was the 1822 poem entitled A Visit from St. Nicholas written by Clement Moore, later better known as The Night Before Christmas. Moore drew upon Irving’s description and Pintard’s New Amsterdam tradition and added some more Odin-like elements from German and Norse legends to create the all-winking, sleigh-riding Saint and also the names for his flying reindeer.
As time went by, more and more was added to the Santa Claus legend. The cartoonist Thomas Nast established the bounds for Santa Claus’ current look with an initial illustration in an 1863 issue of Harper’s Weekly, as part of a large illustration titled “A Christmas Furlough”.
In later Nast drawings a home at the North Pole was added, as was the workshop for building toys and a large book filled with the names of children who had been naughty or nice.
Although Nast had gotten the paraphernalia of reindeer, sleigh, etc down to a tee, the famous red suit was still yet to be set. Over the decades Santa would be depicted in a variety of colours such as blue, green and the yellow as pictured in this 1964 edition of Moore’s “A Visit from St. Nicholas”.
In this 1968 advert for Sugar Plums we see the red of the jacket, but the hat is green and he appears to have no trousers on at all.
In this later 1881 illustration by Thomas Nast named “Merry Old Santa” the modern Santa character really begins to take shape. Present is the jolly rotundity and the all important red of the suit.
The Life and Adventures Of Santa Claus by author of The Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum, with its elaborations and much added detail went a long way to popularising the legend of Santa. However, in the cover to the first edition of Baum’s book we see the red of his suit is still yet to be ‘mandatory’.
In this cover for Puck illustrated by the Australian Frank A. Nankivell, we see perhaps for the first time a depcition of Santa which is indistinguishable from that of the present day.
In this Canadian department store brochure from 1906 we see that Santa, with his black trimmed suit and bobble-less hat, was still able to deviate from his typical image.
The illustrator Norman Rockwell, with his many depictions throughout the 1920s, was a key player in cementing Santa’s modern look. Here is an early illustration of his from before the First World War.
An Japanese illustration from 1914, showing the spread of the Santa legend had reached far wider than just Europe and America.
Santa appears in classic form in this piece of U.S. WW1 propaganda.
Pictured here are just two of Norman Rockwell’s many Santa themed covers for the Saturday Evening Post. Like Sundblom’s depictions for Coca Cola more than a decade later, these pictures of Rockwell’s give a very physiologically human and naturalistic aspect to the character as opposed to the more cartoonish features which had gone before.
Santa in Australia in 1930.
In the U.S. Second World War poster below Santa takes a radical departure from the jolly red suit and dons the dour shades of war.
Sources and Further Reading:
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While giant herbivores ruled the earth, giant carnivores ruled the seas. One such carnivore was the tremendous Carcharodon megalodon.
As imposing as the great white shark is now, Carcharodon megalodon was even more so. Each one of Carcharodon megalodon 's teeth was about the size of the palm of your hand. It had jaws six feet across! (The jaw of the great white shark is "only" two feet across). The length of Carcharodon megalodon was probably about 66 feet long, double the size of a great white shark.
Sharks started to evolve during the Devonian period. They were more effective hunters than the other jawed-fish hunters of that day and age, because they were better streamlined. One of these new terrors was Cladoselache, which was about 6 and a half feet in length. It had a strong tail, which allowed for powerful swimming.
A larger breed of sharks emerged during the Permian. Hybodus was 8 feet long. It had claspers (male reproductive organs) and special hooks on its head to attach to females during mating.
When Hybodus died out at the end of the Cretaceous, new and larger sharks came to be. This is when Carcharodon megalodon appeared. Carcharodon megalodon lasted until the middle of the Pleistocene, so our ancestors may have had a sight of this Shark of Terror
A comparison of teeth between Carcharodon Megalodon (left) and the Great White Shark (right).
Cenozoic Era: Tertiary Period: Miocene Epoch: Creature Feature | <urn:uuid:def897b9-8224-4bd0-aab8-3ac73e088213> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://library.thinkquest.org/20886/sharks.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 | 0.972724 | 352 | 4.03125 | 4 |
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Source: Job Outlook, 2011, National Association of Colleges and Employers | <urn:uuid:45909dbc-960b-4d83-b044-48935146d8c0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www01.usu.edu/career/htm/students/obtain-an-internship/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93163 | 391 | 1.523438 | 2 |
WASHINGTON — As the White House intensifies its efforts to deny international aid to the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority, several of America’s European and Arab allies are warning that such an approach could boost Iranian influence in the territories and increase support for Hamas in the Arab world.
The fear in European and Arab capitals is that a cutoff in aid could push the Palestinians deeper into the bosom of Iranian-led militant Islamism and increase Arab and Muslim support for Hamas, a terrorist organization that calls for the destruction of Israel. An additional concern, say foreign diplomats and American experts on the Middle East, is that cutting aid could create a situation in which Palestinians would blame the West for the failures of a Hamas-led Palestinian government instead of blaming the terrorist organization.
European diplomats in Washington have raised such concerns with the administration, the Forward has learned, and these concerns were raised during Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s trip to several Arab countries this week. But any effort to adjust American policy toward Hamas is likely to encounter resistance in Israel and with Israel’s friends on Capitol Hill.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee is making the isolation of Hamas its chief agenda item at its annual policy conference early next month.
Thousands of Aipac activists will gather on Capitol Hill on March 7 to lobby for the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act, which would ban all direct aid to the P.A. and severely limit indirect financial assistance. The bill, initiated in the House of Representatives by Florida Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and California Democrat Tom Lantos, poses strict conditions for the resumption of American aid.
Advocates of strong financial pressure on Hamas say that the militant Islamist organization will turn to Iran regardless of the West’s policy on assistance to the Palestinians.
“Hamas will turn to Iran anyway and receive significant aid” from Tehran, said Brig. Gen. Michael Herzog, former military secretary to Israel’s minister of defense and currently a scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The challenge, he said, was not how to prevent pushing Hamas into the arms of Iran, but how to pressure Hamas without causing a humanitarian catastrophe in the West Bank and Gaza.
Dov Weisglass, a senior adviser to Israeli Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, described Israel’s policy as putting the Palestinians on a diet. They “will feel as if they have been on a visit to a dietician,” said Weisglass, who helped draw up Israel’s economic sanctions on the Palestinian Authority. “They will become thinner, but they won’t starve to death.”
Foreign diplomats and American experts on the Middle East say that a more nuanced approach is needed.
“We should have a complex strategy, which bars certain kinds of money, allows other kinds of money and has enough just within reach that requires a policy change by the Palestinian government,” said Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East program at Washington think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “By carefully constructing incentives and punishments, we can either change the nature of the organization or demonstrate more broadly that Hamas is implacably opposed to a negotiated solution.”
In addition to punitive measures, America should offer the new Palestinian government incentives for a possible evolution of Hamas into an appropriate partner for negotiations, Alterman said. He added that there ought to be “a series of baby carrots with the concerted idea that if you get them to take carrot after carrot, then somehow the nature of the organization at the end is not as it was in the beginning.”
Since Hamas won a majority of the legislative seats in last month’s parliamentary elections in the West Bank and Gaza, the movement’s leaders have said that they can do without Western aid. This week, the movement’s leader in exile, Khaled Mashal, met with Iran’s leaders in Tehran, where the Islamic Republic’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, called on Muslim nations to fund the soon-to-be-formed Hamas-led government.
The P.A. needs at least $100 million per month in foreign funds to pay salaries to about 150,000 employees and trainees. Their salaries are believed to support about one-third of the Palestinian population. The Arab League is attempting to obtain commitments from member states to supply the P.A. with $50 million per month, increasing the current level of government support from Arab countries more than fivefold. Iran could end up matching these funds, but it has not announced any dollar-figure commitment. Some observers are predicting that Islamic organizations worldwide could turn the Hamas-led Palestinian territories into a cause for mobilizing supporters and rallying financial support.
“This set of consequences from the walls and barriers [that America is building vis-à-vis Hamas] is in many ways the worst-case scenario,” Alterman said. “It not only brings the Palestinian government closer to our foes in the Middle East, but also makes people throughout the Muslim world feel personally invested in even more immediate ways than they have been before, not only in the Palestinian cause but in the Hamas government. That’s not a win from our perspective.”
Rice indicated Tuesday, at a press conference in Cairo, that America would encourage the continuation of humanitarian aid to the Palestinians. “People’s lives are in the balance,” the secretary of state said. Rice also expressed satisfaction over what she described as the international community’s unified position that to be considered a legitimate political player, Hamas must recognize the agreements signed between Israel and the PLO, renounce terrorism and accept Israel’s right to exist.
This week Rice took part in a conference call with members of the diplomatic front known as the Quartet. On the call were Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and European Union representatives. They agreed to hold regular weekly consultations to maintain a united front on relations with Hamas.
Already, however, cracks are emerging. Leaders in Russia, as well as in Turkey, have agreed to meet with the newly elected Hamas officials.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit told Rice on Tuesday that his country is not ready to cut off a Hamas-led Palestinian Authority. Prior to her tour of the Middle East, Rice had said that Hamas’ recognition of Israel could substantially accelerate the peace process. “Nothing would be better than to have Hamas make the right choice,” she said in a roundtable with Arab journalists last week.
“You will see more cracks in Europe later on, which will complicate things for the administration,” said Robert O. Friedman, professor of political science at Baltimore Hebrew University. “America’s policy will have to be a balancing act.”
On the flip side, the administration is facing pressure from Capitol Hill.
Under the bill being pushed by Ros-Lehtinen and Lantos, with the support of Jewish organizations, several strict conditions must be met before American aid kicks in: The P.A. would have to prove that it is not employing a single member of Hamas or any other group on American terrorism lists, dismantle all terrorist groups, halt all anti-Israel incitement in any sector it controls and replace it with materials promoting coexistence, and ensure democracy and financial transparency. The conditions refer both to direct aid and to the indirect aid that the United States supplies to the P.A. through nongovernmental organizations. The only exception is for humanitarian assistance. In addition, the bill reduces U.S. payments to the United Nations commensurate with the amount of the U.N. budget that goes to the P.A. It also tightens the president’s options for circumvention, omitting any national security waivers related to aid and requiring a 15-day waiting period before humanitarian assistance goes forward.
The administration has not yet indicated its position on the new legislation, but congressional staffers expect the White House to oppose the measure’s strict restrictions on presidential discretion in extending financial assistance.
The P.A. was slated to receive $150 million this year from America, all of it through non-governmental organizations. The Bush administration last week requested that the Palestinians return $50 million in American assistance that had been earmarked for infrastructure development and was expected to be under the control of P.A. President Mahmoud Abbas. But congressional sources said, despite the tough step, the administration wants to preserve its ability to supply indirect aid for development projects in the West Bank and Gaza.
In a February 17 meeting with representatives of Arab-American organizations and representatives of American organizations that provide assistance to Palestinians in the territories, Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs David Welch and the National Security Council’s senior director for Near East and North African affairs, Michael Doran, said that America’s position on aid to the Palestinians was still being formulated. Welch reportedly promised that humanitarian aid to the Palestinians would not be impacted by any changes to this policy. He agreed to form a State Department working group that would include leaders from the Arab American community and aid organizations, to continue the dialogue on the issue. | <urn:uuid:2a985497-6f72-4b5a-a84e-8b9a7b5e2bb9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://forward.com/articles/1097/allies-warning-that-aid-cut-to-pa-could-bolster-te/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952525 | 1,907 | 1.703125 | 2 |
“[New billionaires in fast-growing countries] have to buy longer-range airplanes. If you’re flying from Mongolia to Nigeria, it’s either a three-day journey flying commercial or a nine-hour flight on your jet.”
Buying business aircraft: The board member’s role
For most corporations, the purchase of a business jet represents a major transaction that requires approval of the board of directors. What should the directors consider when the company is thinking about buying an aircraft?
To discharge their fiduciary duty to the stockholders, corporate directors must determine whether acquiring an aircraft is reasonable and prudent. The fact that the company is performing well and making lots of money may mean that it can afford a business jet, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the purchase would be justified. On the other hand, a company that isn’t performing well may find that a business aircraft would enhance its productivity and increase profitability. A study by NEXA Advisors commissioned by the National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) and others shows a direct and compelling correlation between business success and use of corporate aircraft.
Of course, directors can’t do their job properly if they have vested interest in the outcome (e.g., if the corporation is providing them with free use of its jets). A shareholder of financially struggling Chesapeake Energy Corporation recently filed a derivative action against the directors of the company, seeking to recover millions of dollars that had allegedly been wasted on personal flights. The complaint points out that the non-employee directors not only received magnanimous cash compensation (in 2011, when the board met four times, the directors’ compensation ranged from $467,026 to $620,438); the directors also awarded themselves 40 hours of personal use on the company’s NetJets shares. The complaint suggests that the board was crippled by a conflict of interest when sanctioning non-business travel by Chesapeake employees on NetJets shares.
A board is on stronger ground when a company uses its aircraft exclusively or predominately for its business. The time-saving and other advantages of using a corporate aircraft are well known. The directors may wish to retain an independent consultant to study the company’s travel patterns and advise about whether using a business aircraft makes sense. The NBAA’s “No Plane, No Gain” website (noplanenogain.org) offers valuable information for the directors to consider, including the NEXA study referred to earlier.
The directors should document the reasons for acquiring the aircraft and its anticipated use. This has many benefits, including tax deductions for business use. The directors should also consider creating a written policy that details who can use the aircraft and under what circumstances. The policy may even require key executives to use the company aircraft for reasons such as personal security and protection of confidential information.
But the elephant in the closet is personal use. Once the company has access to a business aircraft, corporate executives may wish to use it for personal travel. Should the directors reject out of hand the acquisition of an airplane that would be used–perhaps even mostly used–for non-business travel, especially on a no-charge basis?
The answer depends on the overall compensation package for executives provided by the company. The chief executive officer, for example, may receive compensation in many forms–stock options, a country club membership, a leased automobile. There is nothing wrong in concept with use of a company aircraft being a factor in the CEO’s overall compensation package. The board could require the executive to pay for the flights, which might reduce stockholder grumbles. But is there a real difference (other than proxy disclosure) between a compensation deal that includes $5 million in salary and $500,000 of free flight time on the company aircraft and one that stipulates a $5.5 million salary with the executive paying for the transportation? Note that FAA regulations impose restrictions on an executive’s ability to pay for flights and that there are tax consequences to consider for both the company and the employee in the case of personal flights.
Further, the directors could reasonably conclude that the company should acquire an aircraft specifically to provide non-business travel to certain executives or to transport them from their homes to company headquarters. Indeed, this is often a major issue in negotiations to hire a key executive who resides–and will continue to reside–far from the corporation’s offices.
If the company is public, it should carefully scrutinize non-business travel aboard its aircraft by key executives and their families to ensure compliance with SEC reporting regulations. Generally, the SEC requires that the aggregate incremental cost of the trip be reported, though the shareholder in the Chesapeake suit argued that fixed costs should also be included since a high percentage of the aircraft use was personal. Company filings must also disclose material transactions such as a lease or time share of the aircraft to the CEO.
The board has a responsibility to ensure that the company acquires the right aircraft for the right missions. It doesn’t make sense to buy a Gulfstream G550 to fly between New York and Boston. Nor does acquiring a whole aircraft (as opposed to a fractional share) make sense when the company anticipates flying an average of only 100 hours per year. The board may want to obtain advice from an acquisition consultant about the company’s best options for business aircraft travel.
Both the IRS and FAA recognize that companies may require an executive to use their aircraft even on personal trips, and taking advantage of accommodations offered by these agencies requires action by the board of directors. In response to concerns about the executive’s safety and security, the IRS offers tax advantages if the company has an overall security program or has obtained an independent professional determination that the executive should fly on company aircraft [See “How a Security Program Can Cut Flying Costs,” available at www.bjtonline.com.–Ed.]. Further, the FAA recently recognized that a company’s board of directors (or other governing body) could develop a policy designed to anticipate circumstances that loosen the restrictions on the ability of the executive to reimburse the company for flight expenses of non-business trips [See “Paying for Flights on the Company Jet,” available at wwwbjtonline.com.–Ed.].
To properly discharge their responsibility, the board should obtain independent, professional advice. If the directors make use of the significant resources available and exercise common sense, they can promote their company’s success through business aviation while avoiding the unenviable position of the Chesapeake directors.
An Action List for Board Members
• Determine whether buying the aircraft is reasonable and prudent.
• Ensure that it is the right model for the job.
• Consider hiring an independent consultant.
• Document reasons for acquiring the aircraft and its anticipated use.
• Consider creating a written policy regarding the airplane’s use.
• If the company is public, scrutinize non-business use to ensure compliance with regulations. | <urn:uuid:fdb492da-946e-4c8d-b346-444a388ad391> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bjtonline.com/business-jet-news/buying-business-aircraft-the-board-member%E2%80%99s-role | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956795 | 1,438 | 1.789063 | 2 |
The commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard said Friday the nation must decide what level of pollution cleanup response capability the agency should have along the Arctic coast as an oil company prepares to begin drilling there.
As of now, the agency is operating at a disadvantage, Adm. Robert Papp said.
"You never know the full spectrum of things that can go wrong," Papp said. "And if the Coast Guard has no resources, we have no backup, we have no way to execute a plan. So we've got to have some infrastructure up there."
Papp spoke in Anchorage to a group that would welcome additional agency assets in the state that has more coastline than the rest of the nation combined. The forum was a U.S. Senate subcommittee hosted by Sen. Mark Begich, chairman of the Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries and Coast Guard.
The Alaska Democrat said the Coast Guard faces a host of challenges.
"With an aging fleet of cutters and aircraft, the service is in the middle of a major and expensive recapitalization effort," he said.
While Congress is looking to make major spending cuts, Begich said, the Coast Guard is being asked to take on new responsibilities as melting sea ice opens the Arctic to resource development, shipping and tourism.
Shell Oil has applied to drill exploratory wells next year in the Beaufort Sea off Alaska's northern coast and the Chukchi Sea off its northwestern coast.
The company's spill response plans includes more than a dozen vessels accompanying the drilling ship, a second drilling ship to relieve pressure in a blowout well, and an oil spill containment system that could cap a blowout.
Federal law, however, ultimately gives the responsibility for spill cleanup to the Coast Guard, Papp said.
"Just like you would see in the Gulf of Mexico last year, while BP had a responsibility to clean up, it was the Coast Guard's responsibility to make sure it got cleaned up," he said.
The Coast Guard base nearest to the drilling sites is in Kodiak, more than 1,000 miles away.
"We have extremely limited Arctic response capabilities," Papp said. "We do not have any infrastructure on the North Slope to hangar our aircraft, moor our boats or sustain our crews. I have only one operational icebreaker."
The agency is reviewing Shell's plans and is "fairly confident and comfortable" that the company will provide the right resources.
But, "prudence dictates that we also acquire an appropriate level of Arctic pollution response capability," Papp said. "Presently, we have none."
Papp said he's looking for a national call for action in the Arctic, as there was in the 1950s when a nation concerned with Soviet bombers and missiles came up with the resources to construct the Distant Early Warning Line.
"Maybe if gas gets up to $5 or $6 a gallon, people will say, 'Hey, there are a lot of untapped resources in the Arctic.' Maybe the nation will start thinking that way. But we need to be thinking about that now. We can't wait to start building infrastructure up there because drilling is starting now."
Drilling is not the only change, he said. Cruise ships are freighters have begun plying Arctic waters and the fishing fleet may get there as fish stocks move north.
The Associated Press | <urn:uuid:1232b133-8fbf-4531-aa9b-65f0f7e730f1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2011/aug/12/coast-guard-arctic-response-capability-lacking/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967704 | 697 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Myth and Fact in Weight Loss Dieting. What is Scientifically Supported?
There are currently over 100 diet regimes out there that promise more or less the same thing: the body weight of a superstar, the health of an athlete and the joy of living of a youth.
A 2005 study shows that approximately 45 million Americans go on a diet each year, and spend between 1 and 2 billion dollars on weight loss programs.
Unfortunately, most dieting efforts are not successful and disheartened dieters are at risk of spiraling down into self-loathing and binge eating, and are also very likely to put any lost weight back or even gain extra pounds.
With so many ways to go and so few actual success stories, what is a dieter to eat?
Most diets promote a decreased intake in either fats or carbohydrates, elevated protein and fiber intake, and the complete elimination of tertiary processed foods and refined sugars.
For example, according to the Scarsdale diet (and the accompanying infographic, increasing protein intake over a period of two weeks will help melt your extra pounds away.
A series of popular eating regimes collectively known as the "low carb diets" advocate eating a low carbohydrate, high protein and/or high fat menu that works by changing the way your body gains access to expendable energy.
These diets claims that carbohydrates (sugars and starches) are responsible for weight gain, and drastically reducing their intake can work wonders on our weight.
Through a process called ketosis, when carbohydrates are depleted from the liver, the body is forced to start breaking down fatty acids to produce energy. This will usually result in rapid weight loss, decreased blood sugar levels and improved heart health. The Atkins diet is the most well known promoter of this approach, although scientific studies exploring this diet have produced mixed results.
Dr. Linda Stern, who led a year long study on 132 obese patients at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Philadelphia, found that those who had used the Atkins diet managed to lose significant weight without any harmful effects.Continued on the next page | <urn:uuid:e0f96631-dcf5-4ffb-8643-a4ad358a7a8a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://technorati.com/lifestyle/article/myth-and-fact-in-weight-loss/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945166 | 421 | 2.921875 | 3 |
Director Tony Kaye’s temperament is, even by Hollywood standards, legendarily dark. Watching his latest film, “Detachment,” it appears that the anger is very much still present and not entirely under control.
The film stars Adrien Brody as Henry Barthes, a substitute teacher who’s taken a month-long job in a Queens high school, where he bears witness to a crumbling educational system that is breaking the spirit of teachers, students, administrators and councilors alike. He spends his days visiting his aging grandfather who is quickly descending into dementia, as evidenced by his frequent conversations with Henry’s long dead mother, while holed up in an assisted living home. It goes without saying that Henry’s is a bleak and solitary life—even is home is a sparsely decorated studio with no TV or stereo and few books in sight.
Brody is remarkable, conveying more pain with his eyebrows than most actors can muster with the whole of their being, and his readings of screenwriter Carl Lund’s dialogue are brimming with the pain and rage that come with experience and wisdom.
Though the film is set in a high school and is clearly the focus of Kaye and Lund’s despair, the cancer they see eating at society pervades most every corner: the nuclear family, the government, the medical industry and the “marketing Holocaust” we live in that is teaching this generation’s young women that they need to be pretty to be happy, while also teaching the young men that women are little more than commodities.
“You’ve been f***** and thrown away so many times you’ve gotten used to it,” Henry tells one teenage girl.
But Lund’s story spreads itself too thin as almost every teacher—an all-star cast including Christina Hendricks, Marcia Gay Harden, Tim Blake Nelson, Blythe Danner, James Caan and Lucy Liu—gets a moment or a backstory, usually one that is pointedly polemical. When you’ve got a lot of people who want to say things, you get pressed for time and your art suffers.
Not only does Kaye fail to rein in Lund’s plot, he allows himself to thrash about as well. He nails some moments, investing them with heartfelt eloquence at times, but the swings and misses come almost as ferociously. It’s maddeningly uneven and undisciplined.
“Detachment” achieves some moments of great power thanks to Brody’s expressiveness and passion, but Kaye’s isn’t quite equal to the task.
"Detachment" is showing April 27, 29 & 30 as part of the Tribeca Film Festival | <urn:uuid:fb6ea8e2-3eb8-4fe3-8030-89413b7cec4a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nbcbayarea.com/blogs/popcornbiz/Tribeca-Review-Detachment-120729934.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963272 | 577 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Plassnik: "Those who empower women contribute to the strengthening of peace and development"
Special Envoy criticises lack of implementation of Resolution 1325
Vienna, 5 October 2009 - "In the long run, peace, security and progress are simply impossible without the comprehensive integration of women," said Ursula Plassnik, Special Envoy of the Foreign Ministry for International Women’s Issues, in a statement made today.
The UN Security Council is currently examining the worldwide implementation of Resolution 1325, adopted unanimously in 2000. "The global organisation’s highest-ranking body for the safeguarding of world peace has created the necessary awareness. In 2000, this Resolution obliged all UN Member States to ensure the integration of women in the prevention, management and resolution of conflicts. This was a milestone. However, so far the tangible effects have been extremely meagre. The record is alarmingly clear: in the meantime, the zeal to implement Resolution 1325 has slackened, and in many places implementation has not even been started," stated Plassnik.
"I expect the international community of states to show a much stronger and more credible commitment to women, their rights, opportunities and contributions, particularly with regard to peace work. Indeed, Resolution 1325 must no longer merely serve as a basic reference paper but finally become a reality," continued Plassnik.
"We must not allow things to grind to a standstill. We also bear responsibility for future generations of women. Efficiency and globality must be the key terms and guiding principles of our further work. Let’s encourage men and women throughout the world to speak out loud against violence against women. But let us also draw up the necessary framework conditions and legal safeguards!" Plassnik went on.
"There are many examples of practical work that is overdue," stated Plassnik. “The current share of women in peace-keeping operations is 15 per cent at best. This is unsatisfactory, reduces the prospects of long-term success and must be changed.”
"The next important point concerns the transformation of victims into partners. In practical terms this means that women with their experiences and talents have to be included in peace negotiations. In conflict situations women and girls are victims and sufferers. But in most cases they are also the first to build bridges beyond the boundaries of conflict and ethnicity. This potential must be officially recognised and made use of. Basically, there is an urgent necessity to have more women sitting at the negotiating table and for women in the global village to be assigned responsibility at all levels," stated Plassnik.
"It is abominable that the rape of women and girls is still among the military objectives in conflict situations. By breaking such taboos - i.e. by making women military goals - severe damage is inflicted upon society. For this reason, to complement Resolution 1325, the Security Council in 2008 unanimously adopted Resolution 1820, which calls for an end to sexual violence against women and girls in military conflicts. The United Nations has sent out a signal against shame and taboo. But again, the acid test is in the implementation of all these promising words: the punishment of perpetrators - no matter whether they are wild soldiers, war lords greedy for power or brutalised government troops - and the protection and extensive support of victims," continued Plassnik.
"As reality plainly demonstrates time and again, empowering women means strengthening peace and development. Those who invest in women invest in the future. There can be no turn for the better as long as one half of the population continues to be discriminated against. But one fact remains unchanged: the majority of the poor and deprived are women and girls. Women are deprived of their economic, social and political rights and their rights as citizens. In many countries laws prevent women from being financially independent. They are also discriminated against with regard to assets and inheritance. Women and girls have a right to both health care and education."
“The United Nations, too, can raise awareness of the necessity to strengthen its peace work by integrating more women. It is imperative, for instance, to discuss existing shortcomings and make practical suggestions for improvement at a revision of Resolution 1325 conference to be convened by the UN. This part of the UN’s remit needs an extra injection of political will. Words are not enough. Women in the global village need a signal showing them that they are being taken seriously by the world community and that their contribution is being recognised,” stated Plassnik.
“We have arrived at a decisive point. Men and women must meet the great challenges of a globalised world – peace, security, climate change, environmental protection, poverty reduction – together. Resolution 1325 may serve as a compass leading to a better future. The time remaining until the tenth anniversary of its adoption in October 2010 must be used for credible implementation steps,” concluded Special Envoy Ursula Plassnik.
Federal Ministry for
European and International Affairs
Tel.: ++43 (0) 50 1150-3262, 4549, 4550, 3739
Fax: ++43 (0) 50 1159-213 | <urn:uuid:5678725e-973c-4a0c-9e62-a6646ed14195> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bmeia.gv.at/en/foreign-ministry/news/press-releases/2009/plassnik-those-who-empower-women-contribute-to-the-strengthening-of-peace-and-development.html?ADMCMD_editIcons=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954465 | 1,047 | 2.234375 | 2 |
Click on a label to read posts from that part of the world.
TSA Removes X-Ray Body Scanners From Major Airports, But Some Will Remain
While the main goal of the change is to speed up the lines at security checkpoints in major airports, the transition will also lead to less passengers being exposed to radiation.
So far these X-ray machines, called backscatters, have been replaced at Boston Logan International Airport, Los Angeles International Airport, Chicago O'Hare, Orlando and John F. Kennedy in New York.
One concern people have with the backscatters is the fact that the radiation has been linked to cancer at higher levels. Moreover, the machines produce images of passengers' naked bodies. The new millimeter-wave scanners help these problems by instead emitting low-energy radio waves similar to those in cellphones, as well as producing generic cartoon images instead of the person's actual body.
"They're not all being replaced," TSA spokesman David Castelveter told ProPublica. "It's being done strategically. We are replacing some of the older equipment and taking them to smaller airports. That will be done over a period of time."
The upside to this is research has found the radiation emitted from the body scanners is trivial and nothing to worry it. That being said, many scientists are also arguing that if there is a safer alternative that allows passengers more privacy, the TSA should use it.
"Why would we want to put ourselves in this uncertain situation where potentially we're going to have some cancer cases?" David Brenner, director of Columbia University's Center for Radiological Research, told ProPublica last year. "It makes me think, really, why don't we use millimeter waves when we don't have so much uncertainty?"
Nothing is simple, however. Research has shown the millimeter-wave scanners have a much higher false-alarm rate, 23% to 54% compared to 5% with backscatters. The TSA hopes using both machines in different airports will lead to competition, creating better technologies at a lower cost.
[Image via Carolina K. Smith, M.D. / Shutterstock.com]
[Via Chris Elliott] | <urn:uuid:01ea0714-fe7d-440a-abf9-5efa622425a5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gadling.com/2012/10/19/tsa-removes-x-ray-body-scanners-from-major-airports-but-some-wi/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954832 | 450 | 2.5 | 2 |
published in the journal Obesity Reviews examines the link between reduced exposure to the cold and obesity in the UK and US.
We Burn More Calories When Cold
Historically, humans have lived in cold climates where they had to endure bitter cold for extended periods. Our body must burn calories at a much higher level to keep us warm during these times, and the increased metabolism helps to prevent overweight and obesity. This study review attempts to explain that seasonal cold helps to regulate energy balance and can help maintain normal body weight on a population level.
Indoor Temperatures Have Increased Over the Past Several Decades
The net effect is more calories burned for a longer period of time and this translates into lower body weight. Researchers have found that we experience a much smaller range of temperature variation than we did just 30 years ago. While this may not fully explain the skyrocketing overweight and obesity rates now seen across the US and UK, it does provide an important clue to how our environment can impact our ability to maintain a normal weight.
External Temperature Can Modify Our Fat Structure
Over the past decade, medical researchers have gained a much better understanding about the two distinctly different types of adipose or fat cells that we accumulate. White fat is metabolically active tissue that accumulates most commonly around the hips and mid-section of the body. Excess amounts of white fat are associated with inflammation, metabolic disease, heart disease and cancer.
Brown fat is a thermally active type of tissue that actually burns calories for energy and is associated with a higher metabolic rate and lower weight range. Researchers from the Obesity Reviews study found that when people spend more time in a climate controlled environment they produce less brown fat and metabolize fewer calories at rest. This was found to result in a tendency to gain weight, especially when coupled with a sedentary lifestyle.
The researchers concluded "Research into the environmental drivers behind obesity, rather then the genetic ones, has tended to focus on diet and exercise -- which are undoubtedly the major contributors. However, it is possible that other environmental factors, such as winter indoor temperatures, may also have a contributing role. This research therefore raises the possibility for new public health strategies to address the obesity epidemic." The bottom line is to carefully control calories and remain physically active. Be mindful that external environmental factors also contribute to your ability to successfully lose weight. | <urn:uuid:f1f651c7-1266-4418-9954-45b6c40e40be> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://myoptimalhealthresource.blogspot.com/2011/01/modern-climate-control-linked-to-weight.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953174 | 471 | 3.46875 | 3 |
Posted by Mrs. Marquez on July 29, 2008
Frannie is growing up in the early 1970′s when segregation is no longer allowed, but still exists. Her town is divided in two. African Americans on one side and Caucasians on the other. Her teacher reads aloud a poem about hope to the class and it inspires Frannie to consider hope more thoroughly. She is not religious, her mother keeps having miscarrages, her brother is deaf…she is not too certain about this thing called hope. But as she looks at those around her despite their suffering she realizes they still have hope. Her brother, despite the fact that he cannot hear is still optimistic and happy. Her friend Samantha is super religious and when a new boy nicknamed Jesus arrives she wonders what if he was Jesus returned to help the world. Frannie doesn’t believe this but she admires the hope in Samantha’s eyes. When she finds out her mother is pregnant again, she is sad because she is sure her mother will lose the baby. But the way her parents talk about the new baby growing fills everyone with hope. Even the new boy, who is teased at first because of his light skin…has hope. He was adopted by an African American family when he was little and living on the white side of town he wasn’t accepted. His parents told him the African American side of town was very welcoming. It takes a while, but soon the children at school realize “Jesus” is just a kid like them looking for a place to belong.
I was touched by the hopes and of dreams of each of the characters. Anyone who has changed schools, knows how hard it can be to be the new kid. I admired the way Frannie helped the school bully up when he fell. I also admired the way Jesus Boy was no confrontational until he absolutely had to be. He used his words instead of his fists as his primary self defense. Most of all I enjoy the hope floating through the air at the end of the story. Will Frannie’s new sibiling survive? Will Jesus Boy and Frannie start dating? | <urn:uuid:d6e8eab6-30a4-45e2-a024-7bc6ee1bbf42> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://readitup.edublogs.org/2008/07/29/feathers-by-jacqueline-woodson-2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988464 | 436 | 2.234375 | 2 |
The University of Agricultural Sciences-Bangalore is all set to release six new crop varieties, including a hybrid variety of paddy and blast-resistant variety of ragi in the next six months.
Announcing this at a press conference in Bangalore on Wednesday, UAS-B Vice-Chancellor K. Narayana Gowda said the varieties had been developed after several years of research and field trials. Now, clearance had been obtained for releasing these varieties for commercial cultivation in the State.
Dr. Gowda said the new paddy variety, KRH-4, had already evoked curiosity among researchers in different parts of the country.
Explaining the features of the new varieties, UAS-B Research Director H. Shivanna said KRH-4 paddy would yield 7.8 tonnes a hectare which was 12 per cent higher than the earlier variety of KRH-2. This variety has been recommended for growing in irrigated areas of old Mysore.
The KMR-204 variety of ragi, to be released shortly, is blast-resistant and brick red in colour, he said.
Sesame GT-1 variety is known for its high oil-yielding potential that can go up to 54 per cent.
Another proposed variety is pigeon pea (BRG-10-2) that is suitable for late planting, especially in the cases of delayed monsoon.
The other two proposed varieties are vegetable cowpea AV-5 and Fodder Oats OS-6. The Fodder Oats, recommended for cultivation in irrigated areas, has high crude protein content. | <urn:uuid:2812665f-97b9-4eee-9992-4cdcd4b023c6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://m.thehindu.com/news/states/karnataka/article3304459.ece/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957462 | 329 | 1.960938 | 2 |
I usually have a variety of quilting designs kicking around in my head at any given time. But often, when I finally get around to actually designing a quilt, I draw a blank. Sometimes I'm overwhelmed by fabric and surface design choices. Other times, I just don't know where to start.
|Ana's sketchbook collage of color schemes for quilting designs.
That's when I turn to my sketchbook. There I have usually put some doodles, color swatches, or even notes to myself that remind me of ideas I've had in the past and that give me a place to start from.
Ana Buzzalino, a textile artist with a strong sense of color and an eye for modern quilting designs, has an easy system for jumpstarting her creativity through her sketchbook. Today, I'm going to share her quilt design inspiration technique with you, adapted from her article in the December/January 2012 issue of Quilting Arts Magazine.
- A sketchbook
- Old magazines, brochures, postcards, photos
- File folders
- Glue stick or liquid glue
- Paint chips
- Fabric stash
1. Gather your papers and scissors and start cutting out images that appeal to you. Sort them by color and put them in folders, by color.
|Fabric swatches for a green color scheme based on Ana's collected images and
2. Once you have several images in a particular color palette, take out your folder, sketchbook, and glue. Make a pleasing arrangement of the images on a page or a spread of the sketchbook and glue them down.
3. With sketchbook in hand, go to the paint section of your local hardware store and select paint chips that closely match the color scheme you've chosen. Paste these in another page of your sketchbook. This allows you to see how colors in the same family can vary in lightness, darkness and tone.
4. By now, working with this color scheme should be giving you a good idea of what fabrics to look for and which ones will work together in a quilt design or in quilt motifs. Pull out your fabrics that are in that scheme and decide which ones will go into your quilt. As you pull the fabrics, cut about a 2" square and glue it into yet another page of your sketchbook. Now, when you go shopping for more fabric or for thread in that color scheme, you will know exactly what colors you need.
This exercise is so much fun and an easy way to start keeping a sketchbook if you don't already.
Of course, color scheme is just one aspect of quilting design. To learn more tips, check out Ana's new Quilting Arts WorkshopTM video, "Machine Stitching and Painting Quilts: From Start to Finish." And you can also get advice, tips, and resources from our new Quilting Designs page on the Quilting Daily community. | <urn:uuid:24fb4398-8c0a-4051-888a-e726995c821d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.quiltingdaily.com/blogs/quilting-daily/archive/2011/11/30/jumpstart-quilting-designs-with-an-easy-sketchbook-exercise.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946445 | 614 | 2.15625 | 2 |
Metal theft film by police and council highlights damage
A hard-hitting film depicting how metal thefts can affect people's lives has been launched in south Wales.
It explains how thefts caused £250,000 in damage to communities across Rhondda Cynon Taf in the last nine months.
The thefts stopped hospital operations, caused funeral services to be postponed and led to school flooding.
Items stolen include street lighting cables and litter bins as well as heating boilers, copper pipes and lead flashing to waterproof church roofs.
End Quote Supt Simon Clarke South Wales Police
The actions of these criminals show that they think nothing of the damage they are causing to our communities”
"Enough is enough," said Supt Simon Clarke from South Wales Police.
"The actions of these criminals show that they think nothing of the damage they are causing to our communities.
"As well as targeting some of our most vulnerable people, including school children, they are also in some cases putting lives in danger and costing law abiding taxpayers thousands of pounds."
Rhondda Cynon Taf council and police joined forces to fight metal thefts in March.
The film is being used in the latest campaign and aims to target people responsible and encourage residents to report the "mindless " thefts.
It shows how a man ends up in hospital when he tries to steal cable from a street light and suffers electrical burns.
However, he cannot receive the treatment he needs because the hospital he is sent to has also been hit by metal thefts.
Then his funeral service is postponed due to flooding in the church where the lead flashing has been stolen.
All locations featured have been targeted by thieves, including Llandough Hospital, in the Vale of Glamorgan, where thefts led to 80 operations being cancelled.Cancelled
Religious services had to be cancelled at Glyntaff Crematorium, Pontypridd, after thieves caused £9,000 of damage.
End Quote Councillor Andrew Morgan Rhondda Cynon Taf council
We are fed up of having our communities endangered, inconvenienced and upset by the mindless theft of metal”
Councillor Andrew Morgan, the cabinet member for frontline services for Rhondda Cynon Taf, said: "Metal theft has cost the council alone over a quarter of a million pounds, money we could be spending on other services to benefit our residents.
"Apart from this, we are fed up of having our communities endangered, inconvenienced and upset by the mindless theft of metal from our street lighting columns, roads and even precious buildings such as churches and crematoriums."
A total of four schools in Rhondda Cynon Taf have been flooded and closed to pupils after boilers were ripped out and lead flashing stolen from roofs.
Meanwhile, sports fixtures in Rhondda Cynon Taf have had to be cancelled due to over £15,000 in damage.
The DVD says every week about 1,000 metal thefts occur, costing the UK economy about £770m a year.
It is being premiered at Muni Arts Centre, Pontypridd, on Wednesday at 14:00 BST. | <urn:uuid:82a6599f-3ecb-4b12-be3b-bfefb8160461> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-18697294 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971066 | 645 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Neurobiology of Violence is a thoughtful, well-written, and user-friendly discussion of the factors contributing to violent behavior. Physicians in clinical practice, especially in the major cities of the United States, have become increasingly concerned about the level of violence prevalent in urban centers. This is a book with some answers about the etiology of violence.
The author's wisdom is evident in his opening to chapter 1: "Everybody knows intuitively what violence is. Unfortunately, intuitions differ." He thoughtfully reviews the literature and how various authors have done their studies and continues with his perception of "the consensus opinion of scientists working in a given field." He then gives his own opinion, adding to our knowledge.
At the beginning of the book are definitions, which are important to worthwhile research. How violence has been reported, for example, as a part of population surveys, arrest reports, and so on is discussed, with the | <urn:uuid:f143bef8-9647-4190-b811-7eb2dd2115c8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=403552 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967346 | 186 | 2.59375 | 3 |
The Diminished President
Russ Douhat says that by all normal measures, the president should have been the winner of the debt ceiling debate. Instead he emerges as a shrunken figure.
By rights, Barack Obama should be emerging as the big political winner in the debt ceiling debate. For months, he’s positioned himself near the center of public opinion, leaving Republicans to occupy the rightward flank. Poll after poll suggests that Americans prefer the president’s call for a mix of spending cuts and tax increases to the Republican Party’s anti-tax approach. Poll after poll shows that House Republicans, not Obama, would take most of the blame if the debt ceiling weren’t raised.
Yet the president’s approval ratings have been sinking steadily for weeks, hitting a George W. Bush-esque low of 40 percent in a recent Gallup survey. The voters incline toward Obama on the issues, still like him personally and consider the Republican opposition too extreme. But they are increasingly judging his presidency a failure anyway.
The administration would no doubt blame this judgment on the steady stream of miserable economic news. But it should save some of the blame for its own political approach. Ever since the midterms, the White House’s tactics have consistently maximized President Obama’s short-term advantage while diminishing his overall authority. Call it the “too clever by half” presidency: the administration’s maneuvering keeps working out as planned, but Obama’s position keeps eroding. ...
But winning a debate on points isn’t a substitute for looking like a leader. It’s one thing to bemoan politics-as-usual when you’re running for the White House. It’s quite another to publicly throw up your hands over our “dysfunctional government” when you’re the man the voters put in charge of it. | <urn:uuid:50582679-f8d5-43bc-9525-9e5fab37de5c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.620wtmj.com/blogs/charliesykes/126569953.html?viewAll=1&viewAll=1&viewAll=1&viewAll=1&action=quotecomment&cid=71783592&page=1 | 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 | 0.93682 | 393 | 1.601563 | 2 |
(Medium Kingdom) -- The most powerful sea raiders next to their
Argossean rivals, the Zingarans are active supporters of the Zingaran
buccaneers (pirates by any other name). Zingara is a proud and rich
land, though often torn by civil strife and bitter feuds between
members of its nobility. A strong succession of kings and carefully
calculated expansion could easily see Zingara as master of the western
world -- land and sea.
Know, O young Lord of the blood, of the history and heritage of thy
kingdom. Our lineage is ancient and noble, extending back to the
earliest of our sires, Shemish adventurers who had trekked half the
length of the world before they discovered the Zingg Vallery and called
it home. These first settlers planted crops and vines while raising
cattle and building their first rude cities. The most remarkable
occurrence in our history arose when a tribe of migrating Picts swept
into the Zingg Valley, not to slay and burn as is their usual want, but
to settle and rule.
Today most of the Zingaran nobility still retain the fiery wash of
Pictish blood in their veins. Under the new Pictish lords, the land
thrived and life was simple, but good for a period of one thousand
years. To our east, the might empire of Acheron rose and fell, but her
evil Wizards and great armies seldom dared to enter our well-forested
lands. Acheron was borne down in flames by Hyborian tribes migrating
from out of the north, and from its ashes arose the kingdoms of
Aquilonia, Nemedia, Argos, and in time all of the great Hyborian
Much blood of the original Hybori has also found its way into Zingara,
for we had Hyborian forebearers who advanced through the already
settled regions of Aquilonia to rage into the Zingg Valley. How great
was the battle when the two sides of our ancient heritage fought!
Although the Hyborians were victorious in time over the original Zingg
Valley settlers, they had come to respect the people of the valley and
they, in turn, chose to rule rather than destroy what they had found.
Zingara prospered unto the present day. Now we are a great kingdom both
upon the land and upon the sea. We are a proud people and with good
reason. Argos is our rival upon the seas, but on tland they are of
little concern to us. The Picts we have always understood at least as
well as, if not better than, the Hyborian kingdoms, and they tend to
plague us less often than they do their hated foes in Aquilonia.
Aquilonia we mistrust. It has grown too fast and too strong. Poitain is
more Zingaran by heritage and culture and we like not this joining of
Poitain with Aquilonia! Heed well now my words, my Lord, and I will
report to thee of the present state of thy new kingdom. | <urn:uuid:f37a93d3-f622-4b4f-8da4-18b5a230cd3c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://grimfinger.net/Zingara.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944416 | 668 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Matanuska Glacier is one of Alaska's most accessible glaciers, a 27-mile long river of ice poking out of the Chugach Mountains that is visible for miles along the Glenn Highway in Southcentral Alaska.
Things to do
Access to get up close to the ice is at Glacier Park, a private campground and resort at Mile 102 of the Glenn Highway. Visitors follow a private road to a parking lot at the glacier’s terminal moraine. From there, a self-guided hike leads to the gravel-laced ice. Local guides are available for those who want to trek out onto the ice and will outfit clients with helmets, crampons and trekking poles.
Matanuska Glacier State Recreation Site sits at Mile 101 of the Glenn Highway and features a campground and rest area with scenic views of the glacier. The Edge Nature Trail is a 20-minute walk through boreal forest to glacier viewing platforms with interpretive signs.
There's more camping even further south at King Mountain State Recreation Site, located at Mile 76 of the Glenn Highway. The scenic campground is on the banks of the Matanuska River with views of King Mountain to the southeast. In between Matanuska Glacier and King Mountain are a number of lodges and bed and breakfasts, some with views of the glacier. | <urn:uuid:cc19641d-a43c-4c4e-a8aa-09d72036ed9b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.travelalaska.com/Destinations/Communities/Matanuska%20Glacier.aspx?tab=3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945142 | 270 | 1.5 | 2 |
Learning to Play
Born June 27, 1926, in Nashville, Tennessee, Ivan Leroy "Little Roy" Wiggins turned to the steel after hearing the Grand Ole Opry's Burt Hutcherson picking the instrument. "He played in the neighborhood at somebody's home and mother and dad took me, and I thought then that it was the prettiest thing I ever heard," recalled Wiggins in 1995. At age 13, he was expert enough on the instrument to join Paul Howard's Arkansas Cotton Pickers on the Opry. Later, he joined Pee Wee King's Golden West Cowboys as a temporary replacement for Clell Summey. When Eddy Arnold left the Golden West Cowboys, he hired Mr. Wiggins for his own band, the Tennessee Plowboys.
"Little Roy Wiggins' crying steel guitar was the hallmark of Eddy Arnold's early style, the style that made him country music's biggest star in the late '40s," said country music historian Ronnie Pugh of the Country Music Hall of Fame. "You just can't imagine the early Eddy Arnold sound without that," he said. "It would be like not having Billy Byrd on Ernest Tubb's records."
Mr. Wiggins stayed with Arnold for 25 years, providing the "ting-a-ling" sound that distinguished the singer's recordings. "When you heard him play, you knew it was him and you knew it was going to be an Eddy Arnold record," said Grand Ole Opry announcer Eddie Stubbs. "Artists' recordings aren't that easily identified in this era. There's no telling how many people took up the steel guitar as a result of hearing the records Little Roy played on."
In the late 1950s Mr. Wiggins made instrumental records for Dot, Starday and several smaller independent labels. He went on to play in the same style with George Morgan, the Willis Brothers, Ernie Ashworth and other Opry acts.
In the late 1960s he opened a music store, Little Roy Wiggins' Music City, at 427 Broadway in Nashville, near the Ryman Auditorium. When the Opry moved to Opryland, Wiggins eventually closed his store and moved to Pigeon Forge, Tenn., where he performed for tourists and ran a music shop.
Mr. Wiggins was inducted into the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame in St. Louis in 1985. "He inspired a generation of players to pursue the beauty of the smooth, pure melody line," reads Mr. Wiggins' plaque. "A man of character and quiet determination, he viewed 'artful simplicity' as a performer's first virtue for advancing the steel guitar."
Country music lost one of its most distinctive sounds with the death of steel guitarist "Little Roy" Wiggins on August 3, 1999.
If you have questions, suggestions for improvements, or additional information, please let me know. | <urn:uuid:227cc34f-867d-49d7-8bdb-adb044207f33> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.well.com/user/wellvis/wiggins.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973593 | 582 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Katz punctuates a green colour field with accents of colour, the simple, loose brushwork reminiscent of the abstract expressionist style. He has been painting flowers since the 1960s, often during summer residencies in Maine. The cropped, flattened composition and loose brushwork display a debt to Japanese art. Katz is well-known for his large paintings, whose bold simplicity and unmodulated colours are now seen as precursors of Pop Art. Small oil paintings such as this one are sketched from life and often intended to be scaled up into larger works, but their economic execution and visible brushstrokes reveal an intimate side to his practice. He says, "A sketch is very direct. It is working empirically, inside of an idea." | <urn:uuid:3bb2ac92-8822-462c-8c0c-87b243239b42> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nationalgalleries.org/collection/artists-a-z/R/20789/artist_name/Alex%20Katz/record_id/7004 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978055 | 151 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Further significance for those women taking low-dose oral contraceptives who already are at increased risk for such events because of polycystic ovary syndrome, or metabolic disorder
RICHMOND, Va. (July 7, 2005) – Women using low-dose oral contraceptives are at an increased risk for a heart attack or stroke while taking the pill – however the risk disappears after discontinuation, according to a Virginia Commonwealth University study published in the July issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.
The findings could have further significance for those women taking low-dose oral contraceptives who already are at increased risk for such events because of polycystic ovary syndrome, or metabolic disorder, according to John Nestler, M.D., professor and chair of the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism in the VCU School of Medicine.
In the study, researchers reported that the overall estimated risk of cardiovascular events – both heart attack and stroke -- among current low-dose oral contraceptive users was doubled compared to non-users.
The findings are based on a meta-analysis of peer-reviewed literature. The researchers examined several separate-but-similar experiments that were designed to assess the risk of cardiovascular disease associated with the current use of low-dose oral contraceptives in the population-at-large. The analysis included studies published between January 1980 and October 2002.
"The study suggests that women in general are at an increased risk of having a cardiovascular event while taking even these third-generation, low-dose, birth control pills," said Nestler.
"Prolonged exposure to low-dose oral contraceptives in a population at higher risk may significantly increase the incidence of cardiovascular outcomes and prompt consideration of alternative therapeutic or contraceptive interventions," he wrote.
"A number of women with metabolic syndrome or polycystic ovary syndrome already are at increased risk for heart attack, and a majority of women with PCOS are treated with low-dose oral contraceptives for a prolonged period of time," he said. "An insulin-sensitizing drug might confer better general health benefits than the oral contraceptive."
"For example, insulin-sensitizing drugs have been shown to decrease progression to Type 2 diabetes, and there is evidence suggesting that they also may lower the risk of cardiovascular disease and have beneficial effects on cardiovascular risk factors," he said.
PCOS is a condition that can affect a woman's menstrual cycle, fertility, hormones, insulin production, heart, blood vessels and appearance.
"Despite the doubling of risk associated with the pill, the absolute risk for a cardiovascular event in an individual woman taking the pill is low … Women using the pill are not going to automatically have a heart attack," said Nestler. "However, our findings do raise the issue of whether oral contraceptives are optimal therapy for certain groups of women who are at baseline risk or who are taking the pill for a longer time, such as women with PCOS."
According to Nestler, previous epidemiological studies have shown an increased risk of cardiovascular events associated with oral contraceptives in women with hypertension, migraines, or who smoke.
Nestler collaborated with Jean-Patrice Baillargeon, M.D., from the Université de Sherbrooke in Canada, and Paulina A. Essah, M.D., of VCU's Division of General Internal Medicine. The research was supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health and the Fond de Recherche en Santé du Québec.
Source: Eurekalert & othersLast reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 21 Feb 2009
Published on PsychCentral.com. All rights reserved.
Let me listen to me and not to them.
-- Gertrude Stein | <urn:uuid:499e046b-0828-4169-80eb-ef137e1a6ce9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://psychcentral.com/news/archives/2005-07/vcu-vsl070605.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944361 | 769 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Time Zone: UTC/GMT +2
With an average of 300 days of sunshine per year, it’s easy to see what makes Rhodes such a popular tourist destination in Greece. Weather in Rhodes is very hot in summer, with daytime temperatures regularly reaching above 31°C during July and August. Cooling winds usually bring relief along the coast on hot summer days, with night-time temperatures averaging 20 - 23°C. While winters are mild and sunny, it can also be quite wet with up to 60% of Rhodes’ rainfall occurring between December and February. Winter temperatures on average are 8 - 11°C at night and 15 - 17°C during the day.
- The ancient Greeks called Rhodes ‘The Island of the Sun’ and it was dedicated to the sun god Helios.
- The Apostle Paul visited Rhodes in 51AD at the end of his third missionary journey.
- Rhodes’ Golden Age is said to have been between 408 and 164BC during which time the Colossus was built and sea trade and shipbuilding were very prosperous.
- The city’s newly formed rugby team is called Colossoi of Rhodes.
- Rhodes is the largest of the Dodecanese Islands, a group of over 150 islands of varying size off the coast of Turkey. | <urn:uuid:35e55dfe-1cb9-4e66-a4cb-d1f5e4b71b47> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.trafalgar.com/tours/destinations/europe/greece/rhodes/facts | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964212 | 267 | 2.71875 | 3 |
The ethnicity question for the 1991 Census: background and issues
Ní Bhrolcháin, Máire (1990) The ethnicity question for the 1991 Census: background and issues. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 13, (4), 542-567. (doi:10.1080/01419870.1990.9993689).
Full text not available from this repository.
The Government announced on 13 November 1989 that an ethnicity question would be asked in the 1991 Census. The decision was taken following the favourable public response to the fielding of a new form of ethnicity question in the large-scale Census Test carried out in April 1989. The question asks the respondent to tick one box from among the following categories: White, Black-Caribbean, Black-African, Black-Other (with description), Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Chinese, Any other ethnic group (with description). The 1991 Census will be the first British census to include an ethnicity question, though not the first for which such a question was proposed. The 1981 Census was to have had a question on race/ethnic group but the proposal was dropped following the unsuccessful trial of a question in the 1979 Census Test in Haringey. The absence of an ethnic-group question from the 1981 Census was a cause of concern to many connected with race relations and was extensively discussed following the decision to omit the question. An inquiry into the inclusion of an ethnicity question in the census was held by the Home Affairs Committee Sub-Committee on Race Relations and Immigration. The Sub-Committee's final report was published in 1983 and, together with the memoranda and verbal evidence presented to the Committee, gives a very full account of the issues in this area.
|Keywords:||Arguments both for and against the inclusion of an ethnicity question in the 1991 British census are presented. The article focuses especially on the uses of such data in a local context, with particular reference to local-authority uses. It strongly favours an ethnicity question and considers the arguments against to be either unfounded or outweighed by the substantial benefits to be gained from such a question. Next, the article outlines the history of the development of the 1991 Census question and considers the results of the 1989 Census Test. It then goes on to consider what changes have occurred since 1979 to make an ethnicity question a practical possibility now compared with a decade ago. In conclusion, some issues for the future are identified.|
|Subjects:||H Social Sciences > HA Statistics
H Social Sciences > HT Communities. Classes. Races
|Divisions:||University Structure - Pre August 2011 > Institute of Sound and Vibration Research > Fluid Dynamics and Acoustics
|Date Deposited:||15 Jan 2008|
|Last Modified:||14 Jun 2011 10:25|
|Contributors:||Ní Bhrolcháin, Máire (Author)
|RDF:||RDF+N-Triples, RDF+N3, RDF+XML, Browse.|
Actions (login required) | <urn:uuid:d0a8f2fc-3b28-4118-a591-052e230abbd8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/34342/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.916955 | 629 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Pundits all over the Web are deconstructing Barack Obama's now infamous "bitter" remarks. By now, you know the Illinois Democrat told wealthy donors in San Francisco earlier this month that small-town Pennsylvanians and midwesterners "cling to guns or religion" because they are "bitter" about their economic situation.
Most of the Web chatter is about why or if small-town (read: white, lower-class) Pennsylvanians and midwesterners "cling" to guns and religion. But I'd like to focus on Senator Obama's use of the term bitter.
I don't think these folks are necessarily bitter about their economic status as a group. Some individuals may be, but as a group, I don't see it.
I spend a lot of time in southern Prince George's County outside of Washington, D.C., where the churches and the Wal-Marts and the Chuck E. Cheeses way outnumber the Starbucks and Urban Outfitters. Most everyone I know in the area goes to church regularly, and most of the men hunt. They're not bitter about the economy. They're worried. That's a huge difference.
They don't envy the upper class, as Obama's remarks presume.
They love their way of life as farmers, firefighters, sheriffs, and retail clerks. They're just petrified about the rising costs of their mortgages and gas—and the impact the rising energy prices have on everything in the agricultural economy (diesel to run trucks and tractors, fertilizer, transport costs for hay, grain, seeds, etc.).
My point is this: Senator Obama's use of the term bitter assumes every one of them tried to get into Yale Law School as he did, and every one of them failed, as he did not. The folks I know never tried to join and never cared for the Ivy League. It simply isn't on their radar screens. They never wanted to be rich or famous or powerful. They just want to have jobs that pay them a living wage and live their lives.
Such displays of disconnectedness from the real world make the prospect of an Obama presidency troublesome. They recall the time W's father, the first President Bush, seemed fascinated by grocery market checkout scanners. (It was at a campaign appearance in 1988, and scanners had been in use for about a decade. But it had been so long since the elder Bush had been to a supermarket, he was clearly fascinated trying to learn how they worked.)
Senator Obama is a man who also says he wants to engage in dialogue with our enemies, such as Syria. The "bitter" remark makes one wonder what kind of damage he could cause stumbling rhetorically through that kind of encounter. | <urn:uuid:b0c9dc0f-af6c-4ec1-8164-7089b7eaf53b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/erbe/2008/04/14/whos-bitter-2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976416 | 562 | 1.5 | 2 |
A Winning Strategy
How the Bush administration changed course and won the war in Afghanistan.
Rumsfeld's endorsement of a Northern Alliance attack on Kabul represented a clean break with Powell's approach. But it was also in keeping with President Bush's declaration that airstrikes would clear the way for a ground offensive to overthrow the Taliban. Two days later, therefore, Powell tried to swing things back in his direction. On October 22, Powell declared that "The Northern Alliance [was] on the march in the north toward Mazar-i-Sharif" and its forces were "gathering their strength to at least invest Kabul." The key word was "invest," by which Powell meant surround but not enter. The State Department sent officials to extract a promise from the Northern Alliance that they would not enter Kabul, and according to the Times, the Northern Alliance agreed.
Rumsfeld's partial victory within the administration did not translate into quick results on the ground. Although the United States began carrying out airstrikes against some Taliban front-line forces around Mazar-i-Sharif, they were not as sustained or as devastating as the attacks that would come later. Pentagon officials told the Times they were eager to do more to help the alliance, but they expressed some frustration with the military brass for failing "to heavily bomb Taliban front-line positions north of Kabul and other key locations."
Top NSC officials were also frustrated. And with good reason. In the third week of October, the Taliban actually launched a successful counteroffensive against the Northern Alliance and drove Alliance forces back several miles. Northern Alliance leaders now complained they were stalled four miles from Mazar-i-Sharif, waiting for the United States to start dropping heavy munitions on a sustained basis. For alliance forces to break through Taliban lines around the cities of Mazar-i-Sharif and Taliqan in northern Afghanistan, Afghan opposition leaders told the Times, several days of unyielding strikes would have to be carried out in one place. "Bomb it day and night for four days in a row," a senior Alliance official advised. "Don't let them sleep. Then we will be able to break the lines."
As Mufson and Ricks have reported, it was at about this time that administration officials began to acknowledge that the old strategy--the rapid fall of the Taliban after an initial phase of limited bombing, and the "smoking out" of bin Laden--was not working. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Richard Myers, was now warning, "This is going to be a very, very long campaign. It may take till next spring. It may take till next summer. It may take longer than that in Afghanistan." Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem, a spokesman for the chiefs, did not hide the military's sense of miscalculation: "I am a bit surprised at how doggedly [the Taliban is] hanging on to their--to power."
By the end of the third week of October, then, American officials were growing increasingly nervous that the war would, indeed, drag on interminably. In Europe, support for what was starting to look like an inconclusive air campaign seemed to be waning. At the same time, the Times's Burns reported, American officials were growing impatient with the Pakistani government. The Pakistanis were still having no luck putting together a Pashtun coalition, and the Americans began to suspect the pro-Taliban Pakistani intelligence services "of manipulating the talks to ensure that Taliban elements retain a decisive hand." The Americans became infuriated when the Pakistanis tried to present as a "moderate" a known anti-American Islamic hardliner.
The Bush administration thus began to shift more decisively toward what Michael Gordon called "the new strategy" of supporting Northern Alliance ground offensives by massive air attacks on front-line Taliban troops. Mufson and Ricks described the new "Pentagon strategy" as "fiercer, broader and far more reliant on Afghan rebels than planners originally envisioned." Having "first focused on winning over southern leaders of the Pashtuns . . . the U.S. approach now [was] to use Special Forces on the ground and bombers in the air to bolster rebel forces attacking Taliban strongholds." The "relatively restrained attacks by fighter jets off Navy carriers that characterized the first three weeks of the campaign [had] given way to body blows by heavy B-52 long-range bombers."
On October 26, American warplanes began pounding Taliban front-line forces, and for the first time dropped cluster bombs designed to obliterate troop and armor concentrations. The overall thrust of American airstrikes shifted dramatically at about this time, too. Previously, the majority of missions had been flown against Taliban strongholds in the south. But on October 26 Myers announced that the vast majority of strike missions were now being flown against the Taliban's front-line troops. Pentagon officials also told reporters they planned to increase significantly the number of Special Forces helping the Northern Alliance.
The biggest air offensive against Taliban front lines in the North began on October 30. Carrier aircraft were joined by B-1 and B-52 bombers in what Pentagon officials described as the largest strike on Taliban positions since the start of the war. The B-52s began carpet-bombing the Taliban forces that day. The bombing continued steadily into the first week of November. By November 7, the Northern Alliance was on the outskirts of Mazar-i-Sharif. On November 8, according to the Times, two additional Special Forces teams were inserted into the area where the Northern Alliance was fighting. They played a key part in the final advance. By November 9, the Taliban was announcing that its troops had abandoned that key northern city, blaming the American air onslaught for their defeat. "For seven days continuously they have been bombing Taliban positions," the head of the Taliban news agency noted. "They used very large bombs." Northern Alliance leaders agreed: "The American bombardment was instrumental."
The bombardment continued to be instrumental as the Northern Alliance advanced on Herat and Kabul. Powell nonetheless stuck to his anti-Northern Alliance strategy right to the end, getting President Bush to say on Nov. 10 that the Northern Alliance should not advance "into the city of Kabul itself." As it turned out, the United States had no capacity to stop--and Rumsfeld had no intention of stopping--the Northern Alliance. Rumsfeld calmly averred that the Alliance would "attack and take Kabul when they feel like it...and when they think that they're capable of defeating the Taliban and getting them out of there." And when the Northern Alliance did just that, the American war on terrorism scored its first substantial victory.
Can we draw the proper lessons from that victory? Surely one is that an aggressive strategy aiming at rapid victory is almost always preferable to a dilatory strategy that delays victory. The State Department's efforts to achieve the perfect political solution in Afghanistan, to minimize all conceivable friction with the Pakistanis, and to employ the minimal amount of American force, were well intentioned, but they were dead wrong. Successful diplomacy follows success on the battlefield, not vice versa. Winning the war is key to winning hearts and minds. Had the president not changed course, there would be no celebrations in the streets of Kabul today.
Perhaps the president will keep his own success in mind as we move forward now. Perhaps he will learn to trust the instincts of his secretary of defense a little more than those of his secretary of state. For even as this magazine goes to print, the secretary of state seems bent on repeating his recent errors, this time in the Middle East. At a time when the United States should be exploiting its victory and pressing hard, both in Afghanistan and against other terrorist threats, Powell has decided the time is right to appease the Arab world by leaning on Israel. Talk about choosing to slow your own momentum, or snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory. It's not too late for the president to consider a change of course here, as well.
The administration's shift of strategy at the end of October has been vindicated by the events of the last two weeks. Like every successful war commander before him, the president understands that altering strategy when circumstances so dictate is no vice. Indeed, flexibility in pursuit of victory is a virtue. President Bush may turn out to be better at running a war than some of the old pros around him.
Robert Kagan is a contributing editor and William Kristol is editor of The Weekly Standard.
November 26, 2001 - Volume 7, Number 11 | <urn:uuid:50db0fb5-a0d5-4cd0-8c01-7251b72e8074> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/000/550tmmaq.asp?page=3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973271 | 1,740 | 2.140625 | 2 |