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Lee Noble McEachern You wouldn't know from the smile on that young man's face in the photo above that he was about to embark on a dangerous wartime mission in which he and his fellow airmen risked their lives in ways that no one ever had before. Lee Noble McEachern, Pfc. Radio Operator-Mechanic, survived nearly 200 air transport flights over the Himalayas "The Hump" during World War II, ferrying munitions and supplies from India to China. Threading the unarmed C-46 aircraft between the highest peaks in the world and the occasional Japanese Zero fighter planes, the men of this famed airlift braved conditions no previous aviators had faced: High altitude ice build-up on their wings, which could crash a plane in five minutes, temperatures below zero in cabins with heaters removed to save on weight, unreliable charts and few navigational aids to guide them home. A high percentage of the flights ended in tragedy and as the months went by, Lee counted an increasing number of bright aluminum reflections shining up from the ground below. He accepted the Distinguished Flying Cross with pride but refused a Purple Heart, which he was awarded due an injury suffered in an attack on his airbase, reasoning that he deserved it less than men who were more badly wounded. It was all so very far from home for Lee, born in Birmingham, Alabama, February 15, 1921 and a recent graduate of the University of Alabama. And it felt so very, very far from his wife and the love of his life, Anne Farrar (Smith), whom he had married in a brief ceremony officiated by an Army chaplain just before flying to the other side of the world in defense of his country. The airlift over The Hump kept China in the war against the Japanese, which was vital to the Allied war effort. But Lee never talked in such grand terms; he was just glad when it was all over and he was back home with Anne Farrar. They settled in Memphis, Tennessee, where Lee began his career as a radio and television broadcaster at WHBQ radio and television, hosting shows with a success that brought him and the family to the Bay Area in 1958. His broadcasting career extended another 20 years at KFRC radio, KRON TV and the FM radio stations KRON and KFOG. During those years Lee and Anne Farrar raised a close family of four children in Corte Madera. Lee Noble McEachern died in San Francisco on January 27. Anne Farrar passed away three years earlier and Lee looked at death as his golden opportunity to be reunited with her. Dad is survived by Linda and Chet Wood of Danville, Lee McEachern Jr. and Cris Jones of Greenbrae, Laura and Terry Bart of Jackson, Wyoming, and Lon McEachern and Carol Czyzewski of Santa Clara. Granddad is survived by Matthew Wood, Brian Wood and Carla Wood Mallol, Emily Wood, Lee III and Aimee McEachern, Britt McEachern and India McKinney, Kyle McEachern, Ryan McEachern and Colleen McEachern. And he is survived by Juliana Laura Wood, born just 27 days before her great grandfather's death at the age of 91. The family suggests contributions to Big Brothers and Sisters of the North Bay, 1618 2nd Street, San Rafael, CA 94901. Services will be private.
Published in Marin Independent Journal from February 6 to February 10, 2013 | <urn:uuid:dba2c87b-bc57-4af9-b78a-9d233e53110b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/marinij/obituary.aspx?pid=162894444 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979175 | 724 | 2.015625 | 2 |
Scituate’s Board of Health will look more deeply into complaints about noise associated with the town’s wind turbine and is considering whether to turn it off at night, as residents continue to rally against the 400-foot-tall structure.
Residents have been complaining about effects from the turbine for several weeks, and met with Board of Health officials on Sept. 24 to discuss shutting down the turbine entirely.
Meetings continued last Monday night, when Gordon Deane, president of Palmer Capital Corp. and manager of Scituate Wind LLC, met with health officials to offer his perspective. Palmer Capital is a major investor in Scituate Wind, which owns and operates the turbine.
According to Deane, the idea that the turbine is disrupting people’s lives is not based on scientific evidence, as shown in studies by the state Department of Public Health, the Department of Environmental Protection, and several reports out of Ontario, Canada.
“[Some reports] talked about the ‘nocebo’ effect, which has been reported in The Boston Globe and New York Times . . . if you tell enough people, it can have an effect. Some people can come down with [symptoms] as if they are taking a placebo. We’re concerned about misinformation campaigns out there about what can happen to people, because people believe those things,” Deane said in a telephone interview after the meeting.
Furthermore, Deane said, the turbine is meeting all regulations.
“We went through the proper permitting process,” he said. “We did the required studies, answered all the Planning Board’s requests, stated finding of fact, and went through the town bylaws, and we met the terms and conditions for installing the wind turbine. We believe it’s up and operating in compliance with its permits and state and federal regulations.”
At this stage, Deane said, he is not open to shutting the turbine down at night.
Yet a partial shutdown of the turbine could be in the cards.
According to Jennifer Sullivan, director of Scituate’s Board of Health, the board has asked Scituate Wind to discuss the feasibility of shutting down the turbine part time while the machine’s effect is determined.
The town also will look into hiring a consultant to study the noise, though Sullivan said her agency does not have the budget for such a study.
In the meantime, a group of residents is calling for a permanent shutdown of the machine by Nov. 15, said Tom Thompson, a Third Cliff resident and an opponent of the turbine.
If not, the opposition plans to meet and take some type of further action, though Thompson would not specify what that might be.
“We’ll have to consider the appropriate response,” Thompson said. “At this point in time, [the Board of Health] are well-intended individuals and will make the right determination in defense of their residents.”
Although the Board of Health did not allow residents to give another presentation on their issues at last week’s meeting, Thompson said they will continue to be a presence at meetings as the issue moves forward.
Thompson added that opposition to the turbine is continuing to grow.
“There are probably 30 families anyway that have submitted e-mails and complaint forms to the Board of Health resulting from their personal experiences,” Thompson said, “and those run the gamut — headaches, nausea, dizziness . . . it’s sad what’s happened to some of our neighbors here.”
The Board of Health will meet on Oct. 29 to discuss its next steps. | <urn:uuid:226dc637-89b0-4950-99f3-976e58a1b701> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/regionals/south/2012/10/20/scituate-considers-shutting-down-wind-turbine-night/zqh0stvyEvJop9FPp52YNK/story.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961591 | 761 | 1.851563 | 2 |
Poems About: CAT
Poems on / about :
- carpe diem
A mouse, all gray with tiny ears
was crying salty rodent tears.
A cat had cornered him and planned
to eat him as he ate his aunt. read more »Herbert Nehrlich
314.Nightstalker On A Mission
A fat and lazy pussycat
was eying, up a tree, a rat.
The pussycat had been neglected
since nasty flaws had been detected read more »Herbert Nehrlich
A cat I have,
its a sweet cat,
fine to look at, read more »subrata paul
316.Someone Stole My Cat!
I think somebody stole my cat.
It was here last night before I went out drinking and
having sexual relations with truck drivers. read more »Newamba Flamingo
317.Midnight Cat -new-
I once knew a cat who was black as could be
This cat was a rat and this cat hated me
If I was around he would snarl and he'd spit
I often tried to catch him but it ain't happened yet read more »Randy Crossette
318.you and I, and the cat
we shared a cup of coffee- you and I,
as the cat looked on.
you had two lumps of sugar, a shot of cream.
mine was black. read more »Hm. Nes
319.Wild Cat, Domesticated Cat and Sparrows
Hey, elegant cat,
you think you can
rest there sitting so prim and well-brought up
and think I’ll bring you some sparrows I catch read more »Raj Arumugam
320.Tough cat Sam returns
Tough cat Sam is restless
he wants to box again
retirement is boring he says
he misses the action and even the pain. read more »Kevin Halls
I was talking to my cat one day
Yes I realize it is quite strange
But in the middle of our obviously
One-sided conversation read more »Plague Rose
322.Three Mice Who Hoped
Six mice stared out their door.
The Cat was crouching there.
“Have hope! ” one cried.
“The Dog will come and scare it away! ” read more »Sophia White
323.Do Not Hate Your Neighbour's Cat Mandy
Do not hate your neighbour's cat Mandy for he feels he has not done wrong
By killing the golden billed blackbird and robbing your garden of his song
He does not have a guilty conscience a bird to him is only prey
Our own kind are far greater killers though you do not see it that way. read more »Francis Duggan
324.Cat Among The Pigeons
An alley cat with scruffy hair
got into the old pigeon house.
And all it wanted was its share
of pigeon meat, because a mouse read more »Herbert Nehrlich | <urn:uuid:cee29a81-0eb6-4bdc-9497-bf087dda504d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://poemhunter.com/poems/cat/page-27 | 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 | 0.921768 | 634 | 1.84375 | 2 |
A marina in Alderney's Braye Harbour took a step closer last month.
Two groups made presentations to the local government, consisting of ten elected officials, two local business specialists and two civil servants.
The announcement was then made that the group chosen to go ahead with their proposal was made up of the founder of Walcon Marinas, an architect and a local retired telecoms director.
Earlier in the process The States of Alderney had dismissed plans for an all new development on East shore of the harbour. Also declining one at the foot of the existing shops and restaurants in the heart of the port.
The accepted plan is to build a SE wall part-way along the famously long breakwater, reducing waves inside the marina to 1ft in the event of bad weather. To protect boats and marina users from the surf and rock combination that is common when waves hit the outside of the breakwater, the marine will be 15m away.
No news about a fuel berth has been released yet, though the development team plan to build space for more marine businesses. It is hoped they can part-fund the project by leasing four luxury apartments, in what is currently a historic fort at the base of the breakwater, for £1-2 million each. | <urn:uuid:222d7dc5-1506-49c6-80be-763c9b980699> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sportsboat.co.uk/forum/index.php?p=29773&rb_v=viewtopic | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965508 | 260 | 1.648438 | 2 |
The Clean Augusta Downtown Initiative was hired four years ago as the service of choice to be paid by the Business Improvement District, a special tax district spanning roughly 25 blocks bound by Reynolds and Greene streets from Eighth to 13th streets, plus a few facing parcels.
When the management plan was approved by the Augusta Commission in 2007, the Business Improvement District contract stated that in addition to sidewalk cleaning, landscape maintenance, and graffiti and panhandler removal, it also would offer “night safety patrol” and “police weekend night patrol.” all within an anticipated district budget of $335,400.
After the contract was approved, however, hiring special-duty police or paying private security was deemed by those in charge as too expensive and unnecessary.
“It tremendously increased the cost of it,” said accountant Sanford Loyd, who serves on the board established by the Downtown Development Authority to guide the Clean Augusta Downtown Initiative. At the time, “security issues did not appear to be a major concern,” Loyd said.
“We felt like to try to do all of those things in the Business Improvement District for here would not work,” he said.
Instead, the initiative has focused on cleaning. Armed only with radios to call for help, its eight staffers work mostly weekdays, removing debris from sidewalks, a service that authority Director Margaret Woodard and a handful of downtown business owners say is invaluable.
Bill Merry, who owns an antiques market among his 15 tracts in thedistrict, said the initiative provides a service on which the city was falling short.
“The city doesn’t have the money to take care of it daily,” said Merry, who paid about $3,600 in extra taxes for the initiative’s services last year, according to tax records.
One of the district’s largest property owners, Julian Osbon, acknowledged support for the district is waning, however.
“I think it’s in trouble right now. Maybe it’s the economy, maybe it’s a lot of other things,” said Osbon, whose companies own 17 district parcels.
“The original idea was to increase the amount of security and cleanliness,” Osbon said. “I supported it years ago, before we got in it. It doesn’t seem to have accomplished what we tried to accomplish.”
Osbon and others want to make sure security and cleanliness are sufficient when Augusta Convention Center opens in January and draws more tourists downtown.
“Those conventions ... are the first impression (of Augusta) for a lot of people,” Osbon said.
Sae Shin, who owns Blue Sky Kitchen and Soy Noodle House and co-owns 1102 Downtown Bar and Grill, all Broad Street restaurants inside the BID, said the cleanup workers were “kind of slack” when it came to cleaning and dispersing panhandlers.
“If you’ve got five or six guys, they should get it done,” Shin said.
Max Bolgla is one of several property owners who said he opposed the tax district five years ago and will again when the development authority distributes ballots. He loves his downtown apartment building but says empty storefronts remain downtown while the initiative offers nothing to customers.
“All my tenants worry about is their tattoos,” Bolgla said.
CoCo Rubio, the owner of The Soul Bar who helped pioneer a revival of downtown nightlife, said he supported the district the first time around but no longer. Restaurateur Jai West, who rents space in the J.B. White’s building, said she, too, was disappointed by the cleanup initiative’s performance.
“We kind of all thought it was going to be one thing, and then it just turned out to be something different,” West said.
Woodard said she’s preparing surveys now to distribute to downtown property owners for their opinions about the cleanup services and will later distribute ballots to owners. The development authority unanimously voted in May to continue the tax district and potentially increase its boundaries and obtain letters of support from the Augusta Convention and Visitors Bureau, Augusta Tomorrow and the Augusta Metro Chamber of Commerce.
The approximately 260 property owners inside the district are assessed an additional 6 or 7 mills on their properties’ taxable value, resulting in extra taxes ranging from a few hundred dollars to more than $35,000 annually, depending on a parcel’s value.
Augusta businessman Clay Boardman, who owns properties in the district, said he supports the continuation of the district and the cleanup program. He doesn’t expect any change in the program without an increase in the district tax.
This Friday, the Clean Augusta Downtown Initiative has agreed to work late for First Friday. The events at the monthly festival will include a concert on Augusta Common and a nighttime concert at the Jessye Norman Amphitheater. | <urn:uuid:ffd8e7ca-a8fd-420f-a391-3d0d9ae36436> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://chronicle.augusta.com/news/business/local-business/2012-07-28/dissatisfaction-growing-over-clean-augusta-downtwon?v=1343523338 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965046 | 1,031 | 1.515625 | 2 |
A Look at 1 Corinthians 7:15
A current misconception with regard to divorce and remarriage is the notion that 1 Corinthians 7:15 is “later revelation” which “modifies” or “clarifies” Matthew 19:9. It is argued that 1 Corinthians 7:15 permits the Christian, who is deserted by a non-Christian mate, to remarry on the sole ground of that desertion. On the other hand, Matthew 19:9, which permits remarriage only on the ground of fornication, applies strictly to a Christian married to a Christian and therefore is not to be considered applicable to the Christian who is married to a non-Christian. Several factors make such a viewpoint untenable:
First, the context of Matthew 19 is divorce (Matthew 19:3), while the context of 1 Corinthians 7 is not divorce, but the propriety of marriage (1 Corinthians 7:1ff.). Jesus applied God’s original marriage law (paraphrased from Genesis 1:27 and 2:24 in Matthew 19:4-6) to the question of divorce and remarriage in Matthew 19:9. But Paul applied God’s general marriage law (paraphrased in 1 Corinthians 7:10-11) to several different questions which relate to celibacy and the legitimacy of marriage for widows/widowers, Christian/non-Christians, and singles.
Second, it is fallacious to hold that if 1 Corinthians 7:15 relates to a Christian married to a non-Christian, Matthew 19:9 must refer exclusively to a Christian married to a Christian. Matthew 19:9 was uttered in context to a group of Jews who were seeking an answer to their question concerning Jewish divorce (Matthew 19:3). Jesus gave them an answer that was intended for them—as well as for all those who would live during the Christian age. He appealed to Genesis 2 which resides in a pre-Jewish context and clearly applies to all men—the totality of humanity. Genesis 2 is a human race context. It reveals God’s ideal will for human marriage for all of human history—pre-Mosaic, Mosaic, and Christian. Though divorce and remarriage for reasons other than fornication was “allowed” (though not endorsed—Matthew 19:8) during the Mosaic period, Jesus made clear that the Jews had strayed from the original ideal because of their hard hearts. He further emphasized (notice the use of δε [“but”] in Matthew 19:8-9) that the original marriage law, which permitted divorce and remarriage for fornication alone, would be reaffirmed as applicable to all persons during the Christian age. Prior to the cross, ignorance may have been “unattended to” (Acts 17:30), that is, God did not have a universal law, as is the Gospel (Mark 16:15-16), but with the ratification of the New Testament, all men everywhere are responsible and liable for conforming themselves to God’s universal laws of marriage, divorce, and remarriage. God’s original marriage law was and is addressed to all people (Genesis 2:24; Matthew 19:4-6). Christ’s application to the question of divorce was implied in the original law and is addressed to all people (Matthew 19:9). Paul’s application to questions of sex, celibacy, and non-Christian mates is addressed to all people (1 Corinthians 7). Scripture harmonizes beautifully and God treats all impartially. Thus “to the rest” (1 Corinthians 7:12) cannot be applying to other marriage relationships since Jesus had already referred to all marriages (whether Jew or non-Jew, Christian or non-Christian).
Third, 1 Corinthians 7 does not address different “classes” of marriages. The Corinthian letter was written in response to correspondence previously sent to Paul by the Corinthian (cf. 1:11; 5:1; 7:1; 8:1; 12:1; 16:1). Thus, 1 Corinthians amounts to a point-by-point response to matters previously raised by the Corinthians themselves. When Paul refers to the general question of sexual activity/celibacy (7:1), he is alluding to the method by which he is organizing his remarks in direct response to questions asked by the Corinthians. Thus, “to the rest” (7:12) refers to the rest of the matters or questions about which the Corinthians specifically inquired (and to which Jesus did not make specific application while on Earth). These matters (not marriages) are easily discernible from what follows. The “rest” of the questions would have included the following:
Should a Christian husband who has a non-Christian wife sever the relationship (vs. 12)?
Should a Christian wife who has a non-Christian husband sever the relationship (vs. 13)?
Are Christians somehow ceremonially defiled or rendered unclean by such a relationship (vs. 14)?
Are children born to such relationships ceremonially unclean (vs. 14)?
Is a Christian guilty of sin if his or her non-Christian mate severs the relationship (vss. 15-16)?
Does becoming a Christian mean that one should dissolve all conditions and relationships which were entered into before becoming a Christian (vss. 17-24)?
What should be the sexual and/or marital status of virgins and widows in light of the current period of distress (vss. 25-40)?
All of these questions may be answered in light of and in harmony with Jesus’ own remarks in Matthew 19. Jesus did not specifically make application to these unique instances. He did not address Himself to the application of God’s general marriage law to every possible scenario (specifically, to the spiritual status of a Christian married to a non-Christian). Yet, His teaching applies to every case of marriage on the question of divorce.
Fourth, the specific context of 1 Corinthians 7:15 relates to the person who becomes a Christian, but whose mate does not. The unbeliever now finds himself married to a different person (in the sense that his mate underwent a total change in thinking and morals, and began to live a completely different lifestyle). The unbeliever consequently issues an ultimatum, demanding that his mate make a choice: “either give up Christ, or I’m leaving!” Yet, to live in marriage with an unbeliever who makes continuance of the marriage dependent upon the believer’s capitulation (i.e., compromise of Christian responsibility or neglect of divinely-ordained duty) would amount to slavery (i.e., “bondage”—being forced to forego the Christian life). But neither at the time the marriage was contracted, nor at the present time, has the Christian been under that kind of bondage (such is the force of the perfect indicative passive in Greek). God never intended or approved the notion that marriage is slavery. Christians are slaves only to God—never to men or mates (Matthew 23:10; Romans 6:22; Ephesians 6:6; Colossians 3:24; Philemon 16; 1 Corinthians 7:15). So, Paul is saying that, though a believer is married to an unbeliever (and continues to be so), the believer is not to compromise his or her discipleship. To do so, to back away from faithful loyalty to Christ, at the insistence of the unbelieving mate, would constitute a form of slavery which was never God’s intention for marriage. To suggest that δεδουλωται (“bondage, enslaved, reduced to servitude”) refers to the marriage bond is to maintain that in some sense and in some cases the marriage bond is to be viewed as a state of slavery. But God does not want us to view our marital unions as slave relationships in which we are “under bondage.” Yes, if our marriage is scriptural, we are “bound” (δεο—1 Corinthians 7:27,39; cf. Romans 7:2), but we’re not “enslaved” (1 Corinthians 7:15). So Paul was not commenting on the status of a believer’s marital status (i.e., whether bound or loosed). Rather, he was commenting on the status of a believer’s spiritual responsibilities as a Christian in the context of marital turmoil generated by the non-Christian mate and calculated to derail the Christian’s faithfulness to Christ. Paul was answering the question: “How does being married to a non-Christian affect my status as a Christian if he/she threatens to leave?” He was not answering the question: “How does being married to a non-Christian affect my status as a husband/wife (with the potential for remarriage) when the non-Christian departs?” Jesus already answered that question in Matthew 19:9—divorce and remarriage is permitted only upon the basis of your mate’s sexual unfaithfulness. Paul, too, spoke more directly to this question back in verses 10-11 when he ruled out remarriage.
Summarizing, though God’s marriage law is stringent (for everybody), and though God hates divorce (Malachi 2:16), nevertheless, there are times when an unbelieving mate will actually force the believer to make a choice between Christ and the unbelieving mate. To choose the mate over Christ—to acquiesce to the non-Christian mate’s demand to compromise one’s faithfulness in any area of obligation to God—would be to subject oneself to, and to transform the marriage into, a state of slavery (i.e., “bondage”). Yet, the believer is not now and never has been in such enslavement. Thus, the believer must let the unbeliever exit the relationship in peace. The believer must “let him depart”—in the sense that the believer must not seek to prevent his departure by compromising his loyalty to Christ. Of course, the Christian would continue to hold out hope that the marriage could be saved. If, however, the non-Christian forms a sexual union with another, the Christian is permitted the right to exercise the injunction of Matthew 19:9 by putting away the non-Christian solely on the grounds of fornication, freeing the innocent Christian to marry an eligible person.
Fifth, one final factor to consider. Verses 17-24 cannot be requiring an individual to remain in whatever marital state he or she is in at the time of conversion. Paul uses the examples of slavery and circumcision to show that, merely because a person becomes a Christian, he is not absolved of his pre-Christian circumstances. If he is a slave prior to baptism, he will continue to be a slave after baptism, and should not think that becoming a Christian gives him the right to shirk his legal status as a slave. Such is why Paul instructed Onesimus to return to his position of servitude (Philemon 12). So, Paul was encouraging the person who becomes a Christian, but whose mate does not become a Christian, to remain in that marriage rather than think that becoming a Christian somehow gives him or her the right to sever the relationship with the non-Christian mate. Being married to a non-Christian mate is not sinful in and of itself (see Miller, 2002). But Paul was not placing his stamp of approval upon relationships, practices, and conditions that were sinful prior to baptism and encouraging Christians to remain in those relationships. Such would contradict what he later tells the Corinthians concerning unequal yokes (2 Corinthians 6:17) and repentance (2 Corinthians 7:8-10). He was referring to relationships and conditions that were not sinful prior to baptism. Christians still have the same obligations to conduct themselves appropriately (i.e., according to God’s laws) within those pre-conversion situations, though they have now become Christians. Such instructions apply to any relationship, practice, or condition that was not sinful (i.e., in violation of Christ’s laws) prior to baptism. But this directive does not apply to any practice or relationship that was sinful prior to baptism (i.e., adultery, homosexuality, evil business practices, etc. cf. 1 Corinthians 6:9-11).
May God grant us the humility and determination to conform our lives to His will concerning marriage—no matter how “narrow” it may seem (Matthew 7:14). May the church of our day be spared any further harm that comes from the promotion of false theories and doctrines which are calculated to re-define God’s will as “wide” and “broad” (Matthew 7:13). May we truly seek to please, not men, but God (Galatians 1:10).
Miller, Dave (2002), “Be Not Unequally Yoked,” Apologetics Press, http://www.apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=11&article=431&topic=37. | <urn:uuid:1c67c42c-0b4d-4ef5-a307-5268a2e37e26> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=11&article=4183&topic=37 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956243 | 2,753 | 1.960938 | 2 |
Sept 10, 2012
Israel is discussing with the US what kind of “red lines” need to be drawn to keep Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said on Sunday.
Netanyahu, in a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation interview, said this could be “a clear delineation of a line which Iran cannot cross in its pursuit of the development of nuclear weapons capability. If Iran saw that, there is a chance, I won’t say it’s guaranteed, but there’s a chance they might pause before they cross that line.”
The CBC interview came two days after Ottawa severed ties with Tehran, a move Netanyahu praised as an important act of “principle and conviction.”
Just before the interview was taped, diplomatic officials expressed reservations to The Jerusalem Post about Israeli leaders giving the Canadians a too crushing “bear hug” following this decision, saying this only strengthened Iran’s line that Ottawa was doing Israel’s bidding.
This article was posted: Monday, September 10, 2012 at 1:34 am | <urn:uuid:9101751f-5060-46af-8d13-7c903d58f01d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.prisonplanet.com/pm-israel-discussing-red-lines-for-iran-with-us.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945905 | 225 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Water Quality and Conservation
Learn more than you ever thought you'd know about water: where it comes from, where it goes, and how to conserve it. Choose a book from the library, link up with local water organizations, or check out the quality of your water online.
Ogallala Blue: Water and Life on the Great Plains
S616.U6 A78 2006
An environmental and natural history writer based in Ashland, Oregon, Ashworth discusses the huge Ogallala aquifer, which lies just below the semi-arid High Plains of North America in the rain shadow of the Rocky Mountains from South Dakota south to the Texas panhandle. He looks at the underground ocean; the ghosts of ancient rivers; and the use, overuse, and depletion of the water. See also John Opie's Ogallala: Water for a Dry Land
Water: Life in Every Drop
Julian Caldecott reveals where the water we use comes from, and at what social and environmental cost. He explains the history, science, economics and politics behind the looming water crisis, and reveals what the future holds, and what we can all do to make a difference.
Edited by the coauthors of the notorious zine The Guerrilla Graywater Girls Guide to Water, this collection of original essays, drawings, and photographs is part radical history of water and part DIY guide to disengaging one's home, school, or workplace from the wasteful water grid.
Masood, Ehsan (Editor); Schaffer, Daniel (Editor)
Learn about the vast array of life that is carried on precariously yet proudly on the earth's dryest lands.
The Big Thirst: The Secret Life and Turbulent Future of Water
Fishman shows that we’ve left behind a century-long golden age when water was thoughtlessly abundant, free, and safe and entered a new era of high-stakes water. But he also shows how we can use our water more productively and conserve more. Read more in the NPR article: The Worldwide 'Thirst' For Clean Drinking Water.
Unquenchable: America's Water Crisis and What to Do About It
TD223 .G578 2009
"In a book that is both frightening and wickedly funny, Glennon captures the tragedy - and irony - of water in America. From the Vegas Strip to faux snow in Atlanta, from our super-sized bathrooms to mega-farms…Unquenchable tells the shocking stories of extravagances and waste that are sucking the nation dry."
Water from Heaven: The Story of Water from the Big Bang to the Rise of Civilization, and Beyond
Kandel, a Brooklyn-born scientist at the National Scientific Research Agency of France (C.N.R.S.), begins by tracing the peculiar compound of hydrogen and oxygen from the beginning of the universe.
Green Blue Book: The Simple Water-Savings Guide to Everything in Your Life
Hundreds of useful tips on how to save water along with directions on how to calculate your water footprint. Once you learn that it "costs" 42.8 gallons of water to produce one book and 18.5 gallons to grow one apple, you may start thinking about water quite differently.
TD348 .W377 2010
This title is part of the Opposing Viewpoints Series which provides an overview of various points of view on the topic, in this case water supply and water resources development are covered. An efficient way to get an introduction to the subject.
Aqua Shock: The Water Crisis in America
HD1694 .A5 M37 2009
An award-winning journalist looks at the fact that "water is the new oil - a precious and diminishing resource, one ultimately far more important and far less replaceable."
Running Out of Water: The Looming Crisis and Solutions to Conserve Our Most Precious Resource
In this ground-breaking and forward-looking book, Harvard professor Peter Rogers and former general manager of the San Francisco Utilities Commission Susan Leal give us a sobering perspective on the water crisis —- why it’s happening, where it’s likely to strike, and what puts the worst strain on our supply.
Written in Water: Messages of Hope for Earth's Most Precious Resource
GB662.3 .S25 2009
A publication of the National Geographic Society that includes 25 essays that address the "book's central message, that water conservation is not about scarcity but rather its careful use and fair distribution."
Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization
CB482 .S65 2010
A fascinating political history of water and how it has been pivotal to the rise and fall of great powers and the achievements of civilization.
Dry Spring: The Coming Water Crisis of North America
Canadian journalist Wood investigates the water crisis in the southwest and the ramifications for Canada.
(DVD) HD1691.B596 2009x
This 2008 documentary film is based on the book Blue Gold: The Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World's Water by Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke. It examines corporate and governmental control of fresh water supplies and citizens' reactions to how those supplies are managed.
(DVD) HD1691.D4279 2006x
This Canadian documentary examines the growing trend to privatize water resources in response to water shortages throughout the world.
(DVD) HD1691.F595 2008x
A look at the world's water crisis and how the causes of the depleting water supply is connected to pollution, human rights, and even politics.
Browse the Catalog
For additional titles browse the library catalog under the subjects:
3 Rivers QUEST
The 3 Rivers QUEST water quality monitoring project covers 3 river basins: Allegheny, Monongahela, and Upper Ohio and is led by the West Virginia Water Research Institute (WVWRI).
Allegheny County Health Department: Public Drinking Water
ACHD monitors and inspects public drinking water systems to ensure compliance with safe drinking water standards; investigates citizen complaints about water quality; and offers County residents free bacteriological testing of water samples from private wells.
Allegheny Front: Who Should Manage Western Pennsylvania's Water?
Droughts and floods are happening more frequently on this side of the Mississippi. And eastern states are thinking about how much fresh water should be pulled from their waterways and who should decide how much water is withdrawn. (May 25, 2011)
Environmental Working Group: Chromium-6 Is Widespread in US Tap Water
Pittburgh, with .88 parts per billion (ppb), has one of the highest levels of the carcinogenic hexavalent chromium of the 35 cities tested. In 2009, California officials proposed setting a “public health goal” for hexavalent chromium in drinking water of 0.06 parts per billion to reduce cancer risk.
National Academies Press: Regional Cooperation for Water Quality Improvement in Southwestern Pennsylvania
Jan. 6, 2005: "A comprehensive, watershed-based approach is needed to effectively address water quality problems in southwestern Pennsylvania, says a new report from the National Academies' Water Science and Technology Board. The report outlines a technical framework to deal with these problems, and suggests ways to better unify and coordinate the region's efforts. Currently, water planning and management in southwestern Pennsylvania is highly fragmented; federal and state governments, 11 counties, hundreds of municipalities, and other entities all play roles, but with little coordination or cooperation."
Three Rivers Wet Weather Demonstration Program
a partnership of ALCOSAN and the Allegheny County Health Department established to provide county communities with the institutional, technical and financial tools to eliminate wet weather sewer overflows.
Water & Sanitary Authorities
ALCOSAN (Allegheny County Sanitary Authority)
"Located along the Ohio River on Pittsburgh’s Northside, the Allegheny County Sanitary Authority (ALCOSAN) provides wastewater treatment services to 83 communities including the City of Pittsburgh. ALCOSAN’s 56-acre treatment plant is the largest wastewater treatment facility in the Ohio River Valley, processing up to 225 million gallons of wastewater daily."
Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County
The Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County (MAWC) provides 17 billion gallons of potable water to more than 350,000 residents in a five county area of Southwestern Pennsylvania.
Pittsburgh Water & Sewer Authority
PWSA provides water and wastewater services to approximately 250,000 consumers throughout the City of Pittsburgh and surrounding areas.
AMR Clearinghouse - Abandoned Mine Reclamation Clearinghouse
AMRClearinghouse.org is an information clearinghouse for Pennsylvania watershed associations, especially those associations dealing with abandoned mine reclamation issues.
American Water Works Association, Pennsylvania Section
The American Water Works Association (AWWA) is an international nonprofit scientific and educational society dedicated to the improvement of drinking water quality and supply.
Homeowner's Guide to Stormwater Management
This is a .pdf file from the Philadelphia Water Department website explaining how to be a responsible homeowner who doesn't pollute the watershed.
Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection: Water Standards & Facility Regulation
Information on drinking water, wastewater management, and water quality standards.
Pennsylvania Water Resources Education Network (WREN)
A project of the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania. WREN publishes a quarterly newsletter, Water Policy News, maintains a Resource Center in the LWVPA office in Harrisburg, provides funding for local coalitions to carry out community based educational projects and provides information on local water resource projects throughout the state.
PennVest (Pennsylvania Infrastructure Investment Authority)
Since its inception, PENNVEST has continued its service to the communities and citizens of Pennsylvania by funding sewer, storm water and drinking water projects throughout the Commonwealth. PENNVEST's low cost financial assistance helps make the water that is consumed every day by thousands of Pennsylvanians safe to drink.
US Geological Survey: Water Resources of Pennsylvania
The Pennsylvania District of the USGS collects basic hydrologic data and makes interpretive investigations of Pennsylvania's water resources. Look here for streamflow and groundwater measurements.
ORSANCO: Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission
Established on June 30, 1948 to control and abate pollution in the Ohio River Basin, ORSANCO is an interstate commission representing eight states and the federal government. Member states include: Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia.
A citizen volunteer monitoring program for the Ohio River and selected tributaries includes 31 groups in six Ohio River Basin states, including Pennsylvania. It involves schools students in monitoring the water quality of the river.
West Virginia Water Research Institute
The West Virginia Water Research Institute (WVWRI), located at West Virginia University, serves as a statewide vehicle for performing research related to water issues. In monitors the water quality of the Monongahela River.
American Water Works Association
The American Water Works Association (AWWA) is an international nonprofit scientific and educational society dedicated to the improvement of drinking water quality and supply. There are 50,000 members including 4,000 utilities.
Clean Water Action
Clean Water Action is a 700,000 member national citizens' organization working for clean, affordable drinking water, reduction of health-threatening pollution, the creation of environmentally friendly jobs, businesses, and solutions for community problems through citizen participation in the legislative process.
Clean Water Network
The Clean Water Network (CWN) is a national advocacy coalition of more than 1,200 local, state and national non-profit public interest organizations working together to protect the health, safety and quality of our nation's waters.
Environment America: Dirty Energy's Assault on Our Health: Mercury
Environment America released a report in January 2011 about the mercury that power plants emit. They found that Pennsylvania power plants emit 2nd most mercury pollution nationally, behind Texas.
EPA: US Environmental Protection Agency
Office of Water
EPA enforces federal clean water and safe drinking water laws, provides support for municipal wastewater treatment plants, and takes part in pollution prevention efforts aimed at protecting watersheds and sources of drinking water.
Includes information on combined sewer overflows. Wet weather overflow of storm drains that are linked to sewers is a problem in the Northeast US, especially in the Pittsburgh area where many municipalities have combined storm/sewage systems.
- Office of Water
A website from the California Urban Water Conservation Council providing advice on how to create a water-efficient home. It tells you how to save water in the garden, laundry, bath, and kitchen.
National Academies: Water Reuse: Potential for Expanding the Nation's Water Supply Through Reuse of Municipal Wastewater
January 2012: Expanding water reuse--the use of treated wastewater for beneficial purposes including irrigation, industrial uses, and drinking water augmentation -- could significantly increase the nation's total available water resources. A report from the National Research Council.
National Drought Mitigation Center
Links to information on droughts around the country.
National Ground Water Association: Consumer Information Sheets
Do you get your water from a well? Here are some fact sheets about ground water quality and contamination.
New York Times: Water Pollution
News about water pollution, including commentary and archival articles published in The New York Times.
USGS: Water Resources of the United States
Information from the US Geological Survey
United Nations: Water
"The UNESCO Water Portal is intended to enhance access to information related to freshwater available on the World Wide Web. The site provides links to the current UNESCO and UNESCO-led programmes on freshwater and will serve as an interactive point for sharing, browsing and searching websites of water-related organizations, government bodies and NGOs, including a range of categories such as water links, water events, learning modules and other on-line resources."
The Water Channel
View videos about water sorted into different categories.
World Water Council
The World Water Council is an international multi-stakeholder platform established in 1996 to promote awareness, build political commitment and trigger action on critical water issues. It believes in the "human right to water" which entitles everyone to sufficient, safe, acceptable, physically accessible and affordable water for personal and domestic uses. | <urn:uuid:d9655aa3-3b71-4d3d-a536-2d6135cd47d1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://carnegielibrary.org/research/scitech/environment/water.html | 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 | 0.900231 | 2,926 | 2.9375 | 3 |
Hamilton’s Curse by Thomas J. DiLorenzo
May 20, 2010 by Bob Livingston
History can be a funny thing. Sometimes the sands of time obscure facts from those with only a passing knowledge of the truth.
So it is with some of the Founding Fathers. As a group they are revered by many for their knowledge, wisdom and forethought. They are seen as selfless defenders of liberty.
But that view is not completely accurate. Take the case of Alexander Hamilton, described by Thomas J. DiLorenzo in Hamilton’s Curse as essentially the anti-Thomas Jefferson—a man who would be pleased with America’s economic system today.
Hamilton’s Curse is not a biography of Hamilton. Rather it describes “his core political and economic ideas; the intellectual, legal, and political battles over those ideas; and the consequences America has suffered since his ideas were implemented,” DiLorenzo writes.
Although he was a principal author of The Federalist Papers and championed the adoption of the United States Constitution to replace the Articles of Confederation, he began to work immediately to undermine its tenants as President George Washington’s first Treasury Secretary.
What Hamilton really favored was a strong central government. In fact, as DiLorenzo writes, Hamilton opposed the Articles of Confederation because it did not empower a centralized government. He wanted America to be ruled by a king that would have supreme power over all the people. He favored making the states provinces with governors appointed by—and therefore loyal to—the king.
Under such a regime, all political power in the nation would be exercised by the king and his circle of advisors, which undoubtedly would include Hamilton. Essentially, Hamilton wanted to turn the United States into Britain.
But what Hamilton wrote in The Federalist Papers sounded quite Jeffersonian, leading many to believe later that he was being less than sincere in the writings, DiLorenzo writes.
“More likely, his writings were intended to goad the public into acquiescing in the adoption of a document that he hoped would become a ‘living constitution,’” according to DiLorenzo. Hamilton later described the Constitution as “a frail and worthless fabric.”
Among the legacies of Hamilton and his acolytes is the idea that the Constitution granted the Federal government “implied powers”—powers that were not actually in the Constitution but that statists like Hamilton wish were there.
He favored a central bank, activist judges and mercantilist system modeled after the British system.
DiLorenzo writes that Hamilton was likely the first to twist the meaning of the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, claiming the clause was an all-inclusive term for all commercial activities in society, and therefore that the government had a “right” to regulate and control all commerce—not just trade but intrastate commerce as well.
Hamilton believed “public” debt was a blessing, and he favored high taxes and paying subsidies (corporate welfare) to certain businesses.
While small government advocates in the Jeffersonian tradition won out over the Hamiltonians in the beginning, the Hamiltonians—or nationalists, as DiLorenzo calls them—never relented in their efforts.
Finally, in 1913 with the establishment of the Federal Reserve and the passage of the 16th Amendment (granting the power to lay and collect taxes) and 17th Amendment (changing the way Senators are selected), the Hamiltonian philosophy prevailed.
Hamilton’s economic philosophy is in play today, and is the source of our country’s economic ills. DiLorenzo lays this all out in excellent fashion and peels back the layers of historical revisionism that have lionized Hamilton and others who believed as he did.
DiLorenzo makes an excellent case that if we are to return to the republic the Founding Fathers like Jefferson and James Madison envisioned we must end the Federal Reserve and repeal the 16th and 17th Amendments.
Freedom-loving Americans who are interested in devolving themselves of the glossed-over public school history they learned—and the false history being perpetuated today—must read this book. | <urn:uuid:672bfe37-1c02-48cd-a6b4-49a370c36e93> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://personalliberty.com/2010/05/20/hamiltons-curse-by-thomas-j-dilorenzo/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=756b7883e4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97162 | 861 | 2.921875 | 3 |
Rashes or Sores in the Groin
Rashes in the groin or genital area are usually caused by irritation of the skin from many sources, such as clothes rubbing against the skin. Rashes that occur without other symptoms are usually minor and often go away with home treatment.
A common cause of a rash is contact with a substance that causes irritation or an allergic reaction (contact dermatitis). People who work with soaps, solvents, or detergents might splash these liquids onto their clothes at waist level. Over time, the body can develop allergies to these substances.
Contact dermatitis is rarely serious, but it is often very itchy.
Other rashes in groin or genital area
- Jock itch (ringworm of the skin of the groin)
- Scabies caused by tiny mites that burrow into the outer layers of the skin
- Pubic lice
- Yeast infection (cutaneous candidiasis)
- Psoriasis . There are two types of genital psoriasis: inverse and penile. Inverse psoriasis causes bright red patches and may be itchy. Penile psoriasis causes pale red, scaling patches, and does not itch or burn.
- Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) . Sores, blisters, or ulcers, especially in the groin or genital area, may be the first symptom of several STIs. If you have a rash or growths in the groin or genital area, do not have sexual contact or activity until you have been evaluated by your health professional. This will reduce the risk of spreading a possible infection to your partner. Your sex partner may also need to be evaluated and treated.
Certain diseases may increase your risk of a serious infection. People with diabetes, peripheral arterial disease, or an impaired immune system may require medical treatment at the first signs of infection.
|Primary Medical Reviewer||Kathleen Romito, MD - Family Medicine|
|Specialist Medical Reviewer||H. Michael O'Connor, MD - Emergency Medicine|
|Last Revised||March 15, 2011|
To learn more visit Healthwise.org
© 1995-2012 Healthwise, Incorporated. Healthwise, Healthwise for every health decision, and the Healthwise logo are trademarks of Healthwise, Incorporated. | <urn:uuid:1a388d4e-9b2c-460c-b7b9-933a65b4988c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cheshire-med.com/health_wellness/health_encyclopedia/sig51596 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.908605 | 475 | 2.8125 | 3 |
“Ganassi is a group dedicated to the dissemination of Renaissance and Baroque music, which brings together musicians who have played and loved period music for over a decade. Its name comes from Silvestro Ganassi (1492 -?), One of the most important theorists of the Renaissance, who also has the merit of being the first to write a treatise devoted exclusively to the recorder: The Fontegara, printed in Venice in 1535.
Since its founding in 2004, Ganassi has distinguished itself by reviving the sounds of Renaissance and Baroque music through the use of reproductions of original instruments from different eras, as well as respect for the canons of interpretation of the same .”
Visit website for more information. (ed.)
Category: Ensembles/Performers/Associations/Societies / Ensembles/Consorts
Added on: Feb 27, 2012 | Hits: 155 | <urn:uuid:7f0eac50-0ca5-42de-905b-3bf2fe0e32df> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.earlymusicnews.org/index.php?module=weblinks&type=user&func=viewlinkdetails&lid=2568 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940146 | 192 | 1.8125 | 2 |
By Tom Wrobleski Staten Island Advance
Staten Island 9/11 first responders and other workers who were sickened with cancers, respiratory diseases and other illnesses after working at the World Trade Center site are now taking a hit to their wallets.
Two years after Democratic President Barack Obama signed the $2.7 billion James Zadroga Act to provide health care for the first responders here and elsewhere, not a penny of the money has been paid out.
“I think it’s a disgrace,” said Charlie, a Staten Island firefighter who developed leukemia and lung problems because of his work on the pile. “They promise you the world. I don’t understand it. I guess there’s a lot of red tape.”
Charlie asked that his last name be withheld to protect his privacy.
Congress appropriated $2.7 billion for a reopened Victim Compensation Fund to dole out $875 million to the 9/11 first responders in the first five years, and the rest in 2016.
But none of the money has been released, leaving some 9/11 first responders and downtown office workers with mountains of medical bills.
Charlie said he has paid thousands of dollars out of pocket for a prescription he has to take for his condition.
He said he “no doubt” that his ailments stem from the work he did on the World Trade Center site following 9/11.
Grasmere attorney Lloyd Thompson represents other Islanders who are waiting on the Zadroga money.
“They earmarked so much money to help workers with 9/11-related diseases,” he said. “That money should be distributed as soon as possible. The red tape should be kept to a minimum.”
Thompson said his clients have been made to “jump through so many hoops,” including “extensive paperwork,” in dealing with the government.
“They always want more documentation,” he said. “These are serious ailments, respiratory problems, cancers. These people shouldn’t have to wait.”
Sheila Birnbaum, special master of the fund, said in a published report that most applications arrived incomplete, missing signatures or key details.
Payments, including pensions or a settlement in the mass lawsuit against the city, will be deducted from the awards.
She said she hopes to start making awards in January.
U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) called upon fund managers to start getting the money out by Christmas.
House lawmakers from New York last week urged their colleagues and the White House to protect the Zadroga fund from any cuts as a result of the fiscal cliff crisis. | <urn:uuid:31d3a18c-d6c8-4e8f-96fd-d85451f7253e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://911families.org/staten-islanders-still-waiting-for-zadroga-money/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972176 | 565 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Rwandan opposition politician jailed for eight years
By Jenny Clover
KIGALI (Reuters) - Rwanda's high court on Tuesday sentenced a leading opposition politician to eight years in prison, in a case linked to the 1994 genocide and seen as a test of the judiciary's independence.
Victoire Ingabire, leader of the unregistered FDU-Inkingi party, had faced six charges and was found guilty of two: conspiring to harm the country through war and terror and minimising the genocide.
Ingabire had pleaded not guilty. She was accused of transferring money to FDLR Hutu rebels and of questioning why no Hutu victims were mentioned in a genocide memorial.
More than 800,000 people were killed in the central African country when an ethnic Hutu-led government and ethnic militias went on a 100-day killing spree in April 1994, indiscriminately killing Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
BARRED FROM ELECTION
Ingabire, a Hutu, returned to Rwanda in January 2010 from exile in the Netherlands to contest presidential elections but was barred from standing after being accused of crimes linked to genocide denial. The vote was won overwhelmingly by President Paul Kagame.
In mid-April this year, Ingabire began to boycott the trial, saying her "trust in the judiciary has waned".
Iain Edwards, Ingabire's British lawyer, argued that the evidence against her was fabricated and that some of the charges were against Rwanda's constitution.
On Tuesday, Edwards said Ingabire would appeal the verdict.
"I'm not surprised, (but I am) disappointed. I firmly believe that she should have been acquitted of all of the counts on the indictment," he told reporters.
"But we will go to appeal on what it is that she has been convicted of," he said.
"She will be disappointed ... but she's an intelligent person who recognises that the likelihood of her being acquitted of all of these allegations was unlikely."
There was no immediate reaction to the verdict from members of her party. A handful of her supporters were in court but left quietly after the verdict.
Some Western diplomats also attended the session, which lasted about four hours.
PRAISE AND CRITICISM
Kagame's final presidential term expires in 2017. He has led his country's recovery from the 1994 genocide, receiving praise for his efforts to transform Rwanda into a middle-income country by 2020.
But critics accuse him of being authoritarian and trampling on media and political freedoms. He rejects the accusations.
"Political space in Rwanda barely exists, I would say, for opposition parties in the real sense of the word," said Carina Tertsakian, senior researcher in the Africa division of Human Rights Watch.
"The verdict today is the culmination of a long and flawed trial for Victoire Ingabire which included several charges which in our view were politically motivated."
Ingabire was arrested by Rwandan police on October 14 after they said investigations into a former rebel commander facing terrorism charges had also implicated her.
Phil Clark, a lecturer at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies, said the prosecution of Ingabire sent a message to other Rwandan political groups.
"I think this verdict will certainly cause concerns that if they contest they may find very serious charges brought against them as well," he said.
"It sends a warning to other parties who may want to run in future elections."
(Writing by James Macharia; editing by Andrew Roche) | <urn:uuid:4e385488-797b-41ca-bcfc-bfc7f869f5ce> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2012/10/31/worldupdates/2012-10-30T154431Z_1_BRE89T15B_RTROPTT_0_UK-RWANDA-COURT | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983393 | 734 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Leaders as Dreamers
Often branded ‘the leaders of tomorrow’, young people around the globe are already leading, inspiring, and ‘walking the talk’. Elizabeth Wainwright meets some of them.
At a time when global financial systems are failing, peak oil has been reached, environmental disasters seem a weekly occurrence and people are questioning the ‘business as usual’ leadership paradigm, there are change-makers from the new generation who are rolling up their sleeves and taking action to literally change the world.
Undeterred by the barrage of stories of doom and gloom, these people are already turning ideas into action and, through this passion and commitment, inspiring leadership, belief and enthusiasm in others.
From the Cordillera in the northern Philippines, Jennifer Awingan is a young Igorot leader who coordinates the Asia Pacific Indigenous Youth Network (APIYN), which mobilises Indigenous youth for the promotion and protection of Indigenous peoples’ rights to self-governance, ancestral land, cultural integrity and socio-economic development that is, most importantly, consistent with their values.
“A leader should be a dreamer,” she says. “Leadership is about being part of a movement and a struggle. Leaders can be individuals or whole groups.”
Since 1990, Jennifer has helped to re-establish the Progressive Igorots for Social Action, and also works with the Cordillera People’s Alliance Youth Center: “I am trying to develop the kind of leadership I believe in,” she says. “Leadership should keep hold of identity, but promote harmonious living between tribes. When there are boundaries, there is only chaos.”
Jennifer also played an active role in the organising and running of the Asia Pacific Climate Youth Camp in the Philippines last November: a lesser-known Indigenous antidote to the media-frenzied but apparently fruitless top-level Copenhagen talks of the previous year. “The number of Indigenous peoples’ movements across the globe is growing,” she explains. “Global leadership has to take this into account. It must be participatory. And it must involve the new generation.”
Kelvin Cheung is founder of Foodcycle, which brings together young volunteers, surplus food and free kitchen space to simultaneously tackle waste and poverty in Britain. Foodcycle helps volunteers set up an operational structure that will allow them to collect, cook and deliver food to various beneficiaries every week.
Kelvin talks about what defines him and motivates him, saying that he is a ‘doer’, and someone who channels his energy into solving a problem, not moaning about it. “How can food poverty and food waste happen side by side, on the same street?” he asks, adding, “We really are going to be the change we want to see in this world.”
In Kibera, the slums that surround Kenya’s sprawling capital, Nairobi, Salim Mohamed co-founded and served for eight years as executive director of Carolina for Kibera, which fights abject poverty and helps prevent violence through community-based development.
“A leader is a change-maker,” Salim says, and this defines him well. At just 16, he became involved in the development of the largest youth sports programme in Africa. Subsequently, the British Council has twice employed Salim as a consultant to help launch youth sports programmes in Ghana and Nigeria.
In 2002, Salim was nominated to serve on the Diversity for Peace Advisory Board with various Nobel Peace Laureates. He was selected as a TED Conference Africa Fellow for 2007.
“Leadership has several forms,” he says. “You can be a servant, and a leader at the same time. But whatever kind of leader you are, you have to care. You have to be able to communicate.” | <urn:uuid:a3a4528b-ddf7-4af3-b626-6dbaac617e03> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://resurgence.org/magazine/article3288-leaders-as-dreamers.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963074 | 811 | 2.125 | 2 |
Of course, that's not what they say it does.
The Patriot-News reports,
Sponsors of what's called the "Pennsylvania Open Workforce Initiative" -- a package of Right to Work bills -- along with leading Right to Work advocates, are hosting a press conference this morning to introduce what they bill as "zero-cost legislative measures to create jobs and restore basic freedoms to Pennsylvania workers."
Today's announcement could signal the commencement of a bruising political debate over workers' rights and the status and power of labor unions vs. Pennsylvania employers. It would echo pitched battles in other Rust Belt states...
However, Pennsylvania is one of only four states having a Republican governor and a Republican-controlled legislature that does not have a right-to-work law. And recently, Gov. Tom Corbett said Pennsylvania “lacks the will” to pass a right-to-work bill. His spokesman has said that the governor supports the legislation and would sign it, but that a bill is unlikely to pass the Legislature. Previously-introduced right-to-work bills have languished in Pennsylvania’s Legislature.They languished in Michigan, too. Look what happened there. | <urn:uuid:a1ecc6d2-aaa3-4f73-8164-3aeffb08e47b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://teamsternation.blogspot.com/2013/01/ruh-roh-no-rights-at-work-coming-to.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964125 | 242 | 1.609375 | 2 |
During the week preceding Memorial Day, just prior to a scheduled American Legion Memorial Ceremony, the village of Bridgeport erected in Monument Square a historical artifact, namely a portion of the railing from the Bridgeport Bridge which recently was demolished.
The problem, in our humble, collective opinion, arises because the location chosen for the artifact, which is substantial in size, is directly in front of and fewer than ten feet from the "Doughboy" Monument which has stood in the village for nearly one hundred years. The "Doughboy" honors the village's fallen heroes who gave the supreme sacrifice in wars since World War I. During that long period, from its original location on the east side of Lincoln Avenue to its present location in Monument Square, it has stood alone and unobstructed as a hallowed memorial.
The decision to place the bridge artifact on this hallowed ground and to desecrate the honored monument is even more unconscionable when one considers that at least one half acre of available land could have been used for its placement, and it would have been much more visible to traffic and passers-by if placed in Monument Square directly west of the original bridge approach from Lincoln Avenue.
We applaud the Chamber of Commerce for the foresight and the expense involved in preserving the bridge railing as a significant piece of history for "The Gateway to the West", but we seriously question the decision for placement. It appears that the decision was made without regard for reaction from military veterans who consider the site as hallowed ground or from the old established families of the village with names of relatives enshrined on the plaques on the "Doughboy".
We urge Mayor Callarik, the Village Council, the Chamber of Commerce and any other parties involved in the placement decision to reconsider that decision and relocate the bridge artifact to another area of Monument Square. The "Doughboy" once again should stand without obstruction or impingement in its original glory.
For the Officers of American Legion Post 227 and the Veterans of the Vietnam War, Ohio Post 1:
Ronald L. Salvador
US Army, Retired | <urn:uuid:21531d1b-5dac-47db-82ca-0a0d34a0d6ad> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://timesleaderonline.com/page/content.detail/id/539211/Veterans--Memorial.html?nav=5007 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96059 | 428 | 1.59375 | 2 |
The U.S. Air Force is putting an Air Staff office in charge of coordinating the service’s virtual training efforts. This comes in the wake of a Government Accountability Office report that revealed that the absence of a single overseer has allowed fragmentation and inefficiencies.
The July 19 document said such training is now overseen by three major commands (Air Mobility Command, Air Force Special Operations Command, and Air Combat Command), which lack common standards for acquiring and fielding virtual training systems, and these systems don’t always play well together.
GAO recommended that “the Air Force designate an entity to integrate its virtual training efforts” and “develop a strategy to align virtual training initiatives and goals.”
GAO noted that this tactic has been adopted by the Army and Navy, which have dedicated organizations to oversee all of their virtual training: the Program Executive Office for Simulation, Training and Instrumentation (PEO STRI) and the Naval Air Warfare Center, respectively.
In theory, this will increase interoperability of devices and create common standards, meaning individuals won’t have to find workarounds when devices don’t integrate.
The report said that such issues of compatibility can cause “diminished training quality, fewer training opportunities due to lengthy preparation times, and increased costs.”
In its response, DoD said that the Air Force had “taken initial steps” to create a point of authority that will oversee interoperability and standards across both virtual and constructive training. That point will be the Air Staff’s AF/A3/5 (Operations, Plans, and Requirements) office.
The GAO report also found that while the Air Force estimated it would save $1.7 billion over four years by replacing live flying hours and training with simulators, the branch neglected to factor in costs incurred by using the alternative technology. This includes expenses such as transport to sims, additional staff to run training sessions, or the purchase of additional simulators. Such financial information is scattered and difficult to collect.
Naturally, the GAO recommended — and DoD supports — adopting a consistent way of “accounting and tracking” the costs of virtual training. More accurate figures should allow for better planning and cost estimates when the Air Force lays out its training plan. | <urn:uuid:92d7c98c-f49d-4897-b099-b308c377e242> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.defensenews.com/article/20120725/TSJ01/307250002/Air-Force-Establish-Training-Overlord?odyssey=tab%7Ctopnews%7Ctext%7CTraining%20&%20Simulation%20Journal | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946773 | 475 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Famous Black Filmmakers
From comedies to history to modern-day dramas, black filmmakers like Tyler Perry, John Singleton, Spike Lee and Gordon Parks have contributed their unique cultural perspectives in Hollywood, and have inspired countless other aspiring black directors and producers to do the same.
Featured Black Filmmakers
Explore our famous black filmmakers group and learn about the lives and careers of Lee Daniels, Morgan Freeman, Forest Whitaker, Oprah Winfrey, Janet Jackson and the Wayans brothers.
Film Actor, Entrepreneur, Filmmaker, Playwright, Screenwriter / 1969 -
Writer, actor, producer, and director Tyler Perry has built an entertainment empire that consists of successful films, plays, and a best-selling book.
Film Actress, Entrepreneur, Producer, Philanthropist, Talk Show Host, Television Producer / 1954 -
Billionaire Oprah Winfrey has hosted her own internationally popular talk show since 1986. She is also an actress, philanthropist, publisher, and producer.
Film Actor, Filmmaker / 1961 -
Actor, producer and director Forest Whitaker won an Academy Award for his portrayal of dictator Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland. He’s also known for films like Bird, Ghost Dog and The Butler.
Film Actor, Theater Actor, Television Actor, Producer / 1937 -
Respected actor Morgan Freeman has appeared in such films as Driving Miss Daisy, The Shawshank Redemption, Million Dollar Baby, Unforgiven and Batman Begins.
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Travel back in time with the cast of Doctor Who, the long-running and incredibly popular British sci-fi series starring Matt Smith, Karren Gillan, Alex Kingston, Arthur Darvill, Christopher Eccleston and more. Explore our collection of Doctor Who cast members to learn more about the stars and the history of this acclaimed series.
10 people in this group
They've been referred to as a sign of happiness, luck, good fortune, sexuality and wanderlust. Cultures all around the world have their take on gap teeth, and now—thanks to prominent figures who proudly flash the space in their smile—they're considered a mark of beauty and individuality. Here are a few of the stars who helped to make gap teeth fashionable, proving to men and women everywhere that they no longer need to be ashamed of their grins.
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Get more on the members of 'N Sync, including Justin Timberlake, Lance Bass, JC Chasez, Joey Fatone and Chris Kirkpatrick. The group's first album, No Strings Attached, sold a record-breaking 2.4 million copies its first week, launching 'N Sync as an unrivaled force in pop music. The band released a second album, 2001's Celebrity, before breaking up in 2002.
5 people in this group | <urn:uuid:5afa5cf5-7c77-4d9f-b16f-5cdb54a20b8f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.biography.com/people/groups/filmmakers/african-american | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.912507 | 839 | 1.671875 | 2 |
California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) dedicated its new Hall of Science this fall. It is the largest capital building project in the campus’ 62-year history, and it is also the largest and most expensive building project in the California State University (CSU) system.
The $105 million project encompasses nearly 165,000 gross square feet and completes the Natural Sciences Complex. Within the complex, the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics (CNSM) provides CSULB’s principal curriculum for majors leading to careers in science, technology, engineering and the health professions.
“This new facility will further our commitment as a university to educating scientists and future generations of scientists. Cal State Long Beach has become a national leader in graduating scientists with more than 3,100 last year alone,” said CSULB President F. King Alexander. “We are confident that this new state-of-the-art facility will give us one of the most complete and modern science complexes in the United States and will have invaluable impact on California and this nation for decades to come.”
The new Hall of Science opened this fall and houses 31 directed studies laboratories, 29 teaching laboratories, several large lecture halls and a science learning center. Other features of the building include a marine biology lab, three rooftop greenhouses and a rooftop astronomy platform.
The new space is being used by several departments, including biological sciences, chemistry and biochemistry, physics and astronomy, science education and geology. In fact, two-thirds of all science courses at the university are being taught in the new building.
“To paraphrase a National Science Foundation study, improved spaces have a significant impact on campuses. Our new Hall of Science will enhance our efforts to attract and keep first-rate faculty and students,” said Laura Kingsford, CSULB’s dean of the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics. “In addition, it will enable the integration of research and education, and the cross-disciplinary collaborations that are the hallmarks of science in the 21st century.”
Construction on the Hall of Science broke ground in 2008 and was completed in earlier this year. CSULB officials noted that the campus utilized a design-build process—a common approach in the UC system but the first ever in the CSU system—whereby the architect and contractor worked as a team to present a design that met CSULB’s specific needs for one cost. The building was completed on time and on budget despite a 3-month hiatus in 2009 when the state halted all bond-funded projects.
Hunt Construction Group, Inc. of Irvine served as contractor for the CSULB Hall of Science project, and Smith Group, Inc., based in Los Angeles, served as the project architect.
“Together with the Molecular and Life Sciences Center, which opened in 2004, and the existing Microbiology Building, the Hall of Science gives our campus an outstanding science complex,” Kingsford pointed out, “which allows students to engage in research and discovery-focused learning using laboratories and classrooms equipped with technology and instrumentation not commonly found in undergraduate programs.”
The keynote speaker at the dedication was Robert Decker, founding member of the Feinberg Cardiovascular Research Institute and professor emeritus of medicine and cell and molecular biology at the Northwestern University School of Medicine. Decker is also a CSULB alumnus who earned a B.S. in zoology with a minor in chemistry at the university.
Other speakers at the event included CSU Chancellor Charles Reed and CSULB Provost and Senior Vice President Donald Para.
“Cal State Long Beach has long been a campus of choice and a leader in undergraduate research,” Kingsford said. “The new Hall of Science will only enhance CSULB’s appeal to students who wish to pursue degrees in STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) fields and help ensure its position as first in the nation among master’s-granting universities in producing graduates who go on to earn doctoral degrees in science and technology research fields.” | <urn:uuid:0e9a6855-732d-4108-8db4-0ca6cd7779b5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.csulb.edu/sites/leadership/fall-2011/cal-state-long-beach-dedicates-new-hall-of-science-largest-capital-project-in-the-campus-62-year-history/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944466 | 845 | 2.1875 | 2 |
JERUSALEM SUMMIT MEETS GERMAN CHRISTIAN ZIONISTS
Between April 29 and May 1, a series of meetings were held in Berlin and Dresden between Israeli and German public figures. The meetings were scheduled around the Holocaust Memorial Day commemorating the catastrophe of European Jewry.
Israeli delegation included Knesset members Rabbi Benny Elon (leader of National Union opposition) and Shai Hermesh (member of Kadima ruling party), Josh Reinstein (Director of Knesset's Christian Allies Caucus) and Dr. Dmitry Radyshevsky (Director of the Jerusalem Summit). The visit included meetings with members of Deutsche Bundestag (German Parliament), representing different parties, and with senior officials of German Foreign Ministry.
The Jerusalem Summit is an international conservative think-tank whose objective is developing an effective and Bible-value-based strategy of fighting terrorism of radical Islam. Jerusalem Summit advocates diplomatic and economic sanctions against countries practicing gender and faith apartheid, i.e. depriving women and religious minorities of equal rights.
Knesset's Christian Allies Caucus was established in Israeli Parliament in 2004 as a lobby for building a direct line of communication, cooperation and coordination between the Knesset and Christian leaders around the world.
The visit to Germany was organized by International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ). The participation of Israeli group in the German commemoration of Shoah was co-sponsored by Israeli philanthropist Michael Cherney (Mikhail Chernoy).
ICEJ organized the joint visit of the Israeli delegation and German pastors to Villa Wannsee, the site of the Wannsee Conference in January 1942, where the “Final Solution” became official Nazi Policy, and to the Holocaust Memorial – the new main German centre of Remembrance of the Holocaust.
The Israeli delegation spoke at the biggest Christian pro-Israel event in Germany called "Saxon Christian Friends of Israel", timed to commemorate the Holocaust Memorial Day. The event was organized by approximately a dozen pro Israel Christian groups based in Germany.
“Today, the best way to remember the Holocaust in Germany would be a determined effort of German politicians and the entire society to check radical Islam, which is a reincarnation of Fascism, and the fanatical regime of Iran, which is preparing for a nuclear Holocaust,” said Jerusalem Summit's director Dr. Dmitry Radyshevsky in his speech. "I hope that Europeans do realize that this is not merely a question of morality, but of their survival as well, since after Israel the Islamists’ next target will be Christianity as a whole and Christian Europe in particular.” | <urn:uuid:c2b10bf0-9e19-4d9c-895e-38ac10b8aa4a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://jerusalemsummit.org/eng/index_js_germany.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952269 | 529 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Area cornea shortages could benefit from national study showing older corneas suitable for transplantation
DALLAS — April 1, 2008 — Surgeons and patients from UT Southwestern Medical Center and UT Southwestern Transplant Services Center joined in a landmark study showing that corneas from older donors are as successful for transplants after five years as is tissue from younger donors, allowing possible expansion of the donor pool.
Based on findings from the study, the age pool of corneas for transplant should be expanded to include donors up to 75 years of age. The study was funded by the National Eye Institute (NEI), one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and published in the April issue of Ophthalmology.
“The majority of donors have been older, but there has been a great prejudice against using older tissue for fear it was going to wear out faster. So many doctors pass on tissue from older donors,” said Dr. Dwight Cavanagh, professor and vice chairman of ophthalmology at UT Southwestern, which transplants more than 200 corneas annually. Dr. Cavanagh served as principal investigator for the Dallas study.
“The data is very convincing — in fact, it is ice cold — that there isn’t a difference between old and young tissue. What matters is how many cells are alive in the tissue regardless of the age of the donor. And there are plenty of people of older age who have high cell counts,” said Dr. Cavanagh, medical director for the Transplant Services Center, which serves as the eye bank for Dallas-Fort Worth and surrounding areas.
UT Southwestern was one of 80 sites that participated in the Cornea Donor Study, which tracked patients over five years. Included were more than 20 patients from
UT Southwestern’s corneal transplant program.
“The results are exactly what you’d hope for — that there is absolutely no difference between a 25-year-old and a 65-year-old in terms of how long it’s going to last. That means we can use a whole bunch of tissue now that there was prejudice against using,” said Dr. Cavanagh, who was among the researchers who conceived and encouraged implementation of the study.
Expanded testing for cornea donors is expected to limit the number available for transplants, along with the increasing popularity of laser surgeries, which often rule out the cornea for transplants. Donated corneas not used for transplants are still used in research.
The findings are particularly important around Dallas-Forth Worth, which needs more donors, said Ellen Heck, a study co-author and executive director of the Transplant Services Center. The center has to import more than 200 corneas annually from outside the area’s donor pool to meet local need.
“The reason this is important to look at is because we’re an aging population,” Ms. Heck said. “People are older now at the time of death than they used to be, so to meet an increasing need for corneas, we needed to know whether we can use corneas from older donors.”
The Transplant Services Center currently accepts corneal tissue from donors up to age 70 and is reviewing the results of the study to determine whether it should expand the age range to 75, she said.
“We don’t want to exclude potentially usable tissue when there is a waiting list,” said Ms. Heck, who sits on the executive committee for the Cornea Donor Study. “We’re always looking for donors and we always have people listed for corneal transplants. We do transplants every week in this community.”
Locally, the Transplant Services Center had 642 corneal donors in 2007. Of those, 379, or about 60 percent, were age 50 or older. The center provides corneas for the North Texas region’s roughly 15 corneal transplant surgeons on a first-come, first-served basis. Nationally, about 33,000 corneal transplants are performed annually, to replace diseased corneas or those damaged by trauma.
Cornea transplants have a high success rate (80 percent to 90 percent) and don’t have the same rejection issues common to solid organs, such as livers and hearts. Nor do they require tissue matching. Donors with vision problems such as near- or far-sightedness or even glaucoma are not excluded unless their corneas are damaged.
Interested donors can contact the Transplant Services Center at 214-648-2609 or go to www.utsouthwestern.edu.
Dr. James McCulley, chairman of ophthalmology, Dr. Wayne Bowman, professor of opthalmology, Drs. Vinod Mootha and Steven Verity, both associate professors of opthalmology, and Dr. Henry Gelender, clinical associate professor, were also involved in the study.
Visit http://www.utsouthwestern.org/ophth to learn more about UT Southwestern’s clinical services in opthalmology.
Media Contact: Russell Rian
To automatically receive news releases from UT Southwestern via e-mail, subscribe at www.utsouthwestern.edu/receivenews | <urn:uuid:60a98a90-9db0-458a-bfa9-c18d32dfaa77> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.utsouthwestern.edu/newsroom/health-watch/year-2008/area-cornea-shortages-could-benefit-from-national-study-showing-older-corneas-suitable-for-transplantation.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958474 | 1,113 | 2.265625 | 2 |
Your first and second pictures have what looks very much like Hydrilla verticillata
, a plant which is on the Federal Noxious Weed List.
If it has thorns on the underside of the midrib of the leaves as shown in the picture, it is definitely that, and should not be sold or distributed. Of all the aquatic plants on the Noxious Weed List, this is one of the most damaging when it gets loose.
Your last picture shows Rotala rotundifolia
. The next to last picture also shows the Rotala
, but with a mat of Riccia fluitans
growing on top of it. The one before that also shows the Rotala | <urn:uuid:6a3458f9-5265-4f85-9cb8-231cc6a663b6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/sale-trade/84414-sale-cuttings.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95809 | 147 | 1.710938 | 2 |
TODAY | February 22, 2013
>>> now to california where a very big and unusual problem is lurking in the waters of lake tahoe , joint gold fish .
>> uh-uh heard me, giant gold fish . kristen dahlgren has the story.
>> reporter: ever wonder what it's like to be a big fish in a big pond ? these giant-sized gold fish know. they've invaded one of the country's most pristine bodies of water , lake tahoe .
>> not your average-sized gold fish .
>> warm water gold fish not native to lake tahoe . as the lakes have gotten warmer, scientists say the gold fish are thriving. oversized creatures measuring a foot and a half long, weigh in at four pounds. substantially larger than typical pets in a fish bowl and it's their size that shocked researchers from the university of nevada , reno.
>> we know we have a giant gold fish . the question now is how long has it been there and how many others are there in the lake?
>> reporter: gold fish are carp that eat almost anything, potentially throwing off the lake's ecosystem and threatening other native fish. how did gold fish get in to lake tahoe ? the presumed culprit, people dumping aquariums along the shoreline.
>> there are a lot of people that still don't understand that it seems like a very minor thing can add up to major ecologic and economic consequences.
>> reporter: no longer a little fish , the big gold fish are now causing big problems in lake tahoe . for "today," kristen dahlgren, nbc news, los angeles . | <urn:uuid:24a12046-d244-4fd0-91c7-b834825965d3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.today.com/video/today/50903284 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959388 | 347 | 2.421875 | 2 |
Charles Aznavour is perhaps the best-known French music hall entertainer in the world -- renowned the world over for the bittersweet love songs he has written and sung, which seem to embody the essence of French popular song, and also for his appearances on screen in such wildly divergent fare as Shoot the Piano Player, Candy, and The Tin Drum. His status as the quintessential French popular culture icon is something of an irony for a man who identifies himself most closely with his Armenian heritage. Born Shahnour Varenagh Aznavourian, his French roots derive from the fact that his family fled the threat of massacre by the Turks -- his father was a singer and sometime-restauranteur, while his mother was an actress and part-time seamstress. His father's singing, done in a notably impassioned style, heavily influenced Aznavour's approach to singing as a boy. Although he had a voracious appetite for music, he also had a serious impediment growing up, in the form of a paralyzed vocal cord that gave his voice a raspy quality. He channeled some of his energy into theater, making both his stage and screen debuts at age nine, in 1933, in the theater piece Un Bon Petite Diable and in the film La Guerre des Gosses. As an adolescent, he danced in nightclubs and sold newspapers, as well as touring with theatrical companies, and he wrote a nightclub act in partnership with Pierre Roche -- Aznavour wrote the lyrics to their songs and it was through that material that he began his singing career. Early on, he learned to overcome his fears about his vocal limitations, in part with help from singing legend Edith Piaf, for whom he worked as a chauffeur, among other capacities; with her help, he developed a style that suited his capabilities and played to his strengths and also continued writing songs in earnest, some of which were performed by Piaf. | <urn:uuid:18f63e91-0f84-4746-b104-575ca1c18095> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wpoc.com/iplaylist/artist/23756/bio.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.993571 | 401 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Prehistoric stringed instrument found in Skye
28 March 2012
Experts believe they have found the remains of the earliest stringed instrument ever found in Western Europe - dating to more than 2,300 years ago - at an excavation on the Island of Skye.
Cabinet Secretary for Culture Fiona Hyslop today revealed the small wooden fragment that it is believed comes from a lyre. It has been burnt and broken, but the notches where strings would have been placed are easy to distinguish on the artefact.
Music archaeologists Dr Graeme Lawson and Dr John Purser studied the fragment which was discovered at High Pasture Cave.
Dr Lawson, of Cambridge Music-archaeological Research, said:
“For Scotland – and indeed all of us in these islands – this is very much a step change. It pushes the history of complex music back more than a thousand years, into our darkest pre-history. And not only the history of music but more specifically of song and poetry, because that’s what such instruments were very often used for.
“The earliest known lyres date from about 5,000 years ago, in what is now Iraq: and these were already complicated and finely-made structures. But here in Europe even Roman traces proved hard to locate. Pictures, maybe: but no actual remains.
“But it’s the location of the find that keeps amazing – and delighting - us. Here is an object which places the Hebrides, and by association the neighbouring mainlands, in a musical relationship not only with the rest of the Barbarian world but also with famous civilisations. It now becomes a world that was held together not just by technology and trade but also by something as ephemeral and wonderful as music and poetry and song.”
Cabinet Secretary for Culture and External Affairs Fiona Hyslop said:
“This is an incredible find and it clearly demonstrates how our ancestors were using music and ritual in their lives. The evidence shows that Skye was a gathering place over generations and that it obviously had an important role to play in the celebration and ritual of life more than 2,000 years ago.
“A project like this brings so many organisations and individuals together. The site has revealed insights into the practises of people who continued to use the cave complex over a very long period.
“This find is exciting and shows the variety of expertise there is in archaeology. The skilled excavation team realised immediately that they had something special, the finds were then passed onto the laboratory and then specialists in musical traditions were able to support that initial realisation. All of it leading to today and us being able to unveil this replica of what the lyre would have looked like.”
The bridge was found during the excavations of High Pasture Cave.
Archaeologist Steven Birch said:
“Access to the natural cave at High Pastures was of prime importance to the people using the site and throughout its use the entrance was modified on several occasions which included the construction of a stone-built stairwell. Descending the steep and narrow steps, the transition from light to dark transports you out of one world into a completely different realm, where the human senses are accentuated. Within the cave, sound forms a major component of this transformation, the noise of the underground stream in particular producing a calming environment.
“The cave provided a major focus for a wide range of activities including metalworking, craft specialisation and the deposition of everyday objects, human remains and the debris from some major feasting events. These activities took place at the site over a period of some 800 years between the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age, although the use of the site extends back in time for at least 5000 years.
“The discovery of the wooden bridge from the musical instrument represents a fitting end to the excavations at the site and conjures up a vivid image of the past, showing people gathering together for religious ceremonies, feasting on pig and cattle, and drinking to the accompaniment of music.”
Cultural historian Dr John Purser said:
“What, for me, is so exciting about this find is that it confirms the continuity of a love of music amongst the Western Celts.
“Stringed instruments, being usually made of wood, rarely survive in the archaeological record; but they are referred to in the very earliest literature, and, in various forms, were to feature on many stone carvings in Scotland and Ireland, and to become emblematic in both countries.
“Such an instrument would traditionally have been used in a number of contexts, but in particular for accompanying song, declamation and recitation. The panegyric tradition is deeply embedded in Gaelic culture, and within that tradition includes praise songs, funeral elegies, and incitement.
“In the Gaelic tradition there were three basic types of music – “Sleep strain”, “Wail strain” and “Laughter strain”. We may legitimately imagine the musician who owned and played this instrument, performing such music both as a soloist, in combination with other instruments and especially, with the human voice.”
The project was supported by Highland Council, Historic Scotland and the National Museums of Scotland.
Convener of The Highland Council, Councillor Sandy Park said:
“The Highland Council is delighted to support the research at High Pasture Cave and we are very excited about the implications of this extremely significant find. The Island of Skye has long been a seat of musical tradition but we had no idea how far back in time people were playing in this area.
“The discovery of a fragment of the oldest stringed instrument in Western Europe, will not only put the Highlands of Scotland firmly on the musical map of ancient Europe but it will benefit tourism on the island immensely. I am looking forward to hearing the full results of this research which I am sure will be a major feature in the Highland Archaeology Festival seminar in October.”
Dr Fraser Hunter, Principal Curator, Iron Age and Roman Collections, National Museums Scotland, said:
“This find puts sound into the silent past. National Museums Scotland is delighted to be supporting the project by carrying out work on a wide range of finds from the site. This new research is casting fresh light on the lives and beliefs of people 2000 years ago.”
When fieldwork was completed in 2010 the artefacts were transferred to AOC Archaeology in Loanhead, Edinburgh, for conservation.
Dr Andy Heald, MD of AOC Archaeology said:
“Previous to this the earliest musical representation we had encountered had been a carved concert lyre and plectrum on the side of an exquisite Roman altar we excavated from Musselburgh in 2010 but to have an actual fragment of an even earlier lyre really fires the imagination. It brings another dimension of our Iron Age antecedents to life.”
Notes for editors:
- Historic Scotland is an executive agency of the Scottish Government charged with safeguarding the nation’s historic environment. The agency is fully accountable to Scottish Ministers and through them to the Scottish Parliament.
- The Year of Creative Scotland began on January 1, 2012 and will spotlight and celebrate Scotland’s cultural and creative strengths on a world stage. Through a dynamic and exciting year-long programme of activity celebrating our world-class events, festivals, culture and heritage, the year puts Scotland’s culture and creativity in the international spotlight with a focus on cultural tourism and developing the events industry and creative sector in Scotland. More information about the programme can be found at: www.visitscotland.com/creative
- The Year of Creative Scotland is a Scottish Government initiative led in partnership by EventScotland, VisitScotland, Creative Scotland and VOCAL. More information and resources to help businesses engage with Year of Creative Scotland are available at www.visitscotland.org/yearofcreativescotland-toolkit | <urn:uuid:a4d911ee-b4d5-44c1-a106-dfdc55ec5756> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.historic-scotland.gov.uk/news_search_results/news_article.htm?articleid=35693 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960331 | 1,654 | 3.25 | 3 |
Okay, you probably won't really die if you don't join. But why take the chance?
Just kidding. But we will mourn the loss of you as a member if you don't join. To join or renew, click here: JOIN OR RENEW NOW
The Join, or Die image was an early political cartoon by Benjamin Franklin first published in 1754 to convey the dangers of disunity in early America. We hope you appreciate this mix of history and humor as you can rest assured we don't mean to offend anyone. We just hope you will decide to join our fun Germanna group!
If a man cares not for his roots, how then can he care for his branches. -- Doyle M. Davis
If your ideas live in others, then you have indeed made a contribution to the immortality of the human spirit. If an idea lives in you that was born in others, you are benefitting from a grand continuity of the human spirit.
Take part in the exciting experience that is Germanna!
Become a member today and start enjoying all the benefits of membership. Of course, the most important benefit is the knowledge that you are helping an important work of preserving the historical legacy of those who blazed a trail in the frontier of colonial Virginia.
As if that weren’t enough to become a member, you will also enjoy the following benefits of membership:
- The ability to post messages on the Germanna Message Board;
- Access to data on the Germanna website reserved for members;
- The new and improved Germanna Newsletter;
- A listing in the Germanna membership directory;
- and future benefits as they become available to members.
Your membership dues help sustain the operations of Germanna which is a non-profit foundation sustained primarily by the volunteer efforts of its members. Thank you for exploring Germanna.
Join the Foundation or Renew your membership today!
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You can also support the Germanna Foundation by obtaining the Germanna Foundation Visa Card. To apply for your card, click here | <urn:uuid:d1caf076-f598-4aa6-86d9-c02df670b8e3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.germanna.org/join_germanna | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951813 | 431 | 1.796875 | 2 |
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hart2228.jpg | TRUMBULL John | Death of General Mercer at the Battle of Princeton 3 January 1777.| c. 1831-1834 | American | History Painting | Oil; Canvas | United States. | | ŠKathleen Cohen | George Washington on horseback is in the center of the scene. Replica of Trumbull's original version from the late 18th c. At that time he created a series of paintings depicting events from the American War of Independence (originally planned 14; only 8 were completed).
Your current search criteria is: Death of General Mercer at the Battle of Princeton 3 January 1777. | <urn:uuid:4ca37d07-8e3c-4d1a-ba61-3f86cee3b226> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://worldimages.sjsu.edu/VieO52603 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.908449 | 142 | 2.140625 | 2 |
United States presidential election, 1960
President Eisenhower was leaving office and his Vice President, Richard Nixon, who had worked hard for the Republican party, was the unchallenged successor. The Democrats were divided between young Massachusetts Senator, John Kennedy, and Texan Senator, Lyndon B. Johnson. When Kennedy won the Democratic nomination he offered Johnson the position as his running mate.
Nixon and Kennedy both campaigned long and hard. Nixon had experience as the Vice President and other advantages, but there were more Democrats in the electorate.
Religion proved a major issue, as Kennedy's strength among Catholics was numerically more powerful than the doubts harbored by many Protestants about the dangers of a president under the control of the Pope in Rome.
Kenedy gained in the live televised Presidential Debates. In the debates Kennedy looked confident and handsome, while Nixon looked pale and out of place. In the book THE MAKING OF THE PRESIDENT 1960 it was revealed that Nixon was recovering from a painful knee injury and re-injured his knee the day of the second debate. This caused him excrutiating pain throughout the evening, and was no doubt responsible for the pale and sweaty appearance he was later lambasted for in the media. The election was still very close, but in the end Kennedy claimed the victory.
|candidates||popular vote||electoral vote|
|John F. Kennedy||34, 220, 984 ||303|
|Richard M. Nixon||34, 108, 157||219|
|Unpledged electors / Harry F. Byrd||286, 359||15 |
--See also==
- Donaldson, Gary A. The First Modern Campaign: Kennedy, Nixon, and the Election of 1960 (2007), the standard scholarly history
- Matthews, Christopher J. Kennedy and Nixon: The Rivalry That Shaped Postwar America (1997) 400pp, popular history
- Pietrusza, David. 1960--LBJ vs. JFK vs. Nixon: The Epic Campaign That Forged Three Presidencies (2008), 544 popular history
- White, Theodore. The Making of the President 1960 (1961), very good reporting
- ↑ Encyclopedia of Presidents, John F. Kennedy, by Zachary Kent, Children's Press, 1987, pp. 59-63.
- ↑ 1960 Presidential Election Results
- ↑ This number includes the total Democratic vote for Alabama, which state's slate of electors was by prearrangement split, with 5 pledged to Kennedy and 6 unpledged. (The unpledged electors ultimately voted for Harry Byrd.) If the Alabama votes are proportionally allocated between Kennedy and the unpledged slate, Kennedy receives fewer popular votes nationally than Nixon.
- ↑ Virginia Sen. Harry Byrd received the votes of 8 unpledged electors in Mississippi, 6 unpledged Democratic electors in Alabama, and one "faithless" Nixon elector in Oklahoma.
- ↑ A Pictoral History of the U.S. Presidents, by Clare Gibson, Gramercy Books, 2001, p. 125. | <urn:uuid:230c4d47-9923-47bb-bf6f-94ffc801b547> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://conservapedia.com/United_States_presidential_election,_1960 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947856 | 624 | 3.296875 | 3 |
To illustrate, consider a single-parent version of a simple mutation algorithm analyzed by McKay .The reader may be interested in McKay's analysis of a simple mutation algorithm, and follows the reference:
D. J. C.MacKay, Information Theory, Inference and Learning Algorithms. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2002.Thankfully, David J.C. MacKay (he seems to prefer this spelling) put his book online. And yes, it is a book, a textbook with over 600 pages. It's covering a wide range, so at least, Dembski and Marks should have given the pages which they thought to be relevant. Which they thought to be relevant is a key phrase, because a skimming of the book doesn't render anything resembling an analysis of a simple mutation algorithm like the one in the article: yes, there is Chapter III, 19 :Why have Sex? Information Acquisition and Evolution - but this is explicitly about algorithms with multiple parents, it just doesn't fit a single parent version - MacKay assumes for instance that the fitness of the parents is normally distributed, something you just can't have for a single parent version. So why do Marks and Dembski give MacKay as a reference? I have no idea.
And it's going on
Just checking the next reference: A. Papoulis, Probability, Random Variables, and Stochastic Processes, 3rd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1991, pp. 537–542. for this little piece of marginal information
When μ << 1, the search is a simple Markov birth process that converges to the target.You may say: At least, they are giving a page number. But it's the wrong one! Take out your 3rd edition of Papoulis's very good introduction to the theory of probability, and you'll find Markov birth processes on pp. 647 - 650: why can't they get at least the details right? | <urn:uuid:db788fa4-5f1e-4d01-8de2-eaa82add384e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dieben.blogspot.de/2009/10/im-annoyed.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.921722 | 413 | 1.585938 | 2 |
2·6 million women have breast cancer in the USA and another 1·6 million do not know they have the disease. Worldwide, every 30 s a new diagnosis is made, and every 3 min another woman dies.
For the past 15 years, I have been personally responsible for devastating the lives of thousands of women and their loved ones. I have maimed, deformed, and defaced these women. I have robbed many of their sexuality, sent them into a state of deep depression, induced premature menopause, and accompanied hundreds to the grave. Yet I have no answers for any of my patients or their family members. The truth remains we still do not know what causes breast cancer, or how to cure it.
I agree with your editorial1
that comforting breast cancer patients is important. But the only comfort they will receive is to know that attempts are being made to curb this fatal disease. For this reason, almost 2 years ago, I began a campaign to urge the US postal service to issue a voluntary 33-cent stamp—the additional cent directed towards cancer research.
Last year alone the National Institute of Health was only able to fund 26% of the funding requests for breast cancer research. Any funds derived from the optional stamp would help to make advances in our management of the disease, and may also have a correlative effect on the management of other cancers.
Breast cancer is undeniably a formidable disease and one in which very little progress has been realised in the past few years. Prevention is the key to breast cancer, and I cannot help but think that additional funds for research directed towards breast cancer may some day lead to a cure. The US Congress and President Clinton took the first step towards prevention when they signed the breast cancer research bill into law. Now it is up to the US public to buy the stamp and contribute to a cure for breast cancer. | <urn:uuid:f246994e-623b-4a3b-ad85-1a8541448e6f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(05)70463-3/fulltext | 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 | 0.978354 | 380 | 2.109375 | 2 |
Visitors come to the Fisher Towers for a chance to experience one of the most unique geological formations in the southwest. Rising as high as 900 feet from the ground, these towers are a popular destination for hikers and rock climbers.
- Located approximately 16 miles north east of Moab.
- The towers are accessible via a 4.2 mile (round trip) trail.
- There is a primitive campground at the trail head.
The Fisher Towers include a series of towering sandstone and mud monoliths that rise as high as high as 900 feet from the ground. These towers have become popular destinations for rock climbers and hikers.
Location & Information
The Fisher Towers are located approximately 16 miles north east of Moab. From Moab, drive north along Highway 128 to Fisher Towers Road. The trailhead is located the roads end.
Bureau of Land Management
Phone: (801) 539-4001
The Fisher towers are world renowned for their technical rock climbing, but remember, this is one of the most challenging climbing destinations in the southwest. The rock is crumbly and can sometimes be unstable. Only experienced climbers should attempt this climb.
The trail to Fisher Towers is about 4.2 miles and takes about 3 hours to hike. With only 650 feet of elevation change, the trail is great for hikers of all ages and ability levels. Along the path you’ll pass several large sandstone monoliths including the 900 foot Titan.
There is a small, primitive campground located at the Fisher Towers Trailhead. Facilities include a vault toilet, fire grills and picnic tables. No water is available, so be sure to bring an adequate supply. | <urn:uuid:2f961a20-a5c1-455c-9bfc-bc652aa755bd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.allmoab.com/nature/fisher_towers.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948869 | 343 | 1.59375 | 2 |
The Violence Policy Center (VPC) — the anti-gun rights group that Barack Obama repeatedly voted to fund while he was a director of the Joyce Foundation — believes that African-Americans are too violent to deserve the entire Constitution. Thus, it wants to reduce their access to firearms. From the Violence Policy Center’s latest report:
Blacks in the United States are disproportionately affected by homicide. For the year 2007, blacks represented 13 percent of the nation’s population, yet accounted for 49 percent of all homicide victims.
As noted at the beginning of this study, the devastation homicide inflicts on black teens and adults is a national crisis, yet it is all too often ignored outside of affected communities.
For blacks, like all victims of homicide, guns — usually handguns — are far and away the number one murder tool. Successful efforts to reduce America’s black homicide toll must put a focus on reducing access to firearms.
For an organization to make a public declaration that suggests an entire race be denied the same level of constitutional protections as others is both shocking and bewildering. The study received financing from left-wing groups dedicated to social engineering, including the David Bohnett Foundation, the Joyce Foundation, and the Public Welfare Foundation.
While progressive groups such as these typically have a stated goal of helping underprivileged minority communities, some of their attempts to affect what they view as positive social change can be viewed by critics as ham-handed and condescending — or, as in this instance, verging on outright racist.
The VPC and the left-wing foundations that bankroll it have decided that black-on-black crime is unacceptably high, and they believe the best way to handle that is to make it more difficult for African-Americans to legally obtain handguns.
The VPC refuses to even touch on the cultural issues that are the most significant variable in the massive discrepancy between the rate of black homicide victims (20.86 per 100,000) and white homicide victims (3.11 per 100,000). The VPC also won’t acknowledge that the vast majority of African-American homicide victims are murdered by young African-American men. Identifying, targeting, and removing the cultural factors that most specifically contribute to this problem would seem to be the most responsible way to decrease the excessive violence rates, but the VPC’s goal clearly isn’t problem resolution. | <urn:uuid:fe630491-ae3e-4140-a341-1e2c105f58cb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pjmedia.com/blog/violence-policy-center-reinstate-the-black-codes/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95669 | 494 | 2.09375 | 2 |
Special Instructions for Teachers and Group Leaders
The Museum offers a vivid educational setting to support your course or class objectives. Many groups combine a visit to the Museum with a visit to the Old Capitol Museum next door. Our tour times are synchronized with the Old Capitol Museum to make the most efficient use of your time.
Bus groups may be discharged at the bus stop on Jefferson Street (along the north side of the building) or in the adjacent loading zone.
Buses may be parked in the loading zone on the south side of Jefferson Street, northeast of Macbride Hall. Drivers must remain with the vehicle as this is also a lane for fire trucks and other emergency vehicles. Otherwise, the bus may be left in UI Parking Lot #11 on the corner of Madison and Prentiss Streets or the Hancher Auditorium Parking Lot. Parking in these lots is free of charge.
School Group Guidelines
- Elementary and junior high or middle school students should be accompanied by at least one adult per 10-12 students. We recommend at least one adult per five students with preschool groups. Adults are responsible for their group's behavior, and groups will be asked to leave if Museum policies are not followed and/or the safety or enjoyment of other visitors is jeopardized.
- Large groups should break up into smaller units of no more than 25 for tours through Iowa Hall. Other members of the group may visit the Bird and Mammal galleries, the Biosphere Discovery Hub, or the Old Capitol Museum (with prior reservation).
- Please review museum manners with your class prior to arrival and plan to supervise your class during the visit. The Museum shares Macbride Hall with several University business offices and many professors and students. Please remind your class to be considerate as they walk through the building.
- If your students are completing worksheet assignments, have each bring a clipboard or notebook. Exhibits or glass should not be used as a writing surface.
- Please be on time for your tour, and perferrably a few minutes early. If you are late, your tour will be shortened to remain on schedule for tours that follow.
- Please remember that no food or drinks are allowed in the Museum galleries. If you plan to have lunch during your visit, you may eat out on the Pentacrest lawn when weather allows or you may utilize the Iowa Memorial Union common areas just down the hill from the Museum.
Spring Museum Visits
The March, April, and May tour reservations fill quickly each year. If you have a specific time or date preference, please contact us to make your reservations early. | <urn:uuid:9d8a44d1-f098-4f68-ab8c-92075a783c93> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.uiowa.edu/mnh/specialinstructions.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933264 | 530 | 1.648438 | 2 |
The Helix is at once easy
and difficult to observe. By far the largest of the planetary
nebulae in our sky, the low surface brightness of the Helix makes it
difficult to spot unless you know what you are looking for. Any size
scope can reveal it, and even binoculars will show it as a round,
hazy, smudge of light.
The trick to
successfully observing the Helix is to use a wide field of view. You
will need relatively light-pollution-free skies and your
lowest-power eyepiece. At least a 1/2o
field of view is required to find this nebula. Something closer to 1o
is optimum. This nebula extends some 13', making it over ten times
as large as it's cousin, the famous Ring Nebula.
Look for a round spot
in the sky that is slightly brighter than the background. Once
found, use averted vision to see the large, slightly darker central
The view in a 6"
telescope at 50x. North is down and East is right. An image of the
nebula derived from the Digital Sky Survey has been overlaid to
provide a realistic representation of what you may see in the
eyepiece. You may need to adjust your monitor to see the nebula. | <urn:uuid:77ff9988-1178-4cdb-8370-8278ff44c54c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://observing.skyhound.com/archives/sep/NGC_7293.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924233 | 283 | 3.125 | 3 |
The homemade bombs, also called improvised explosive devices or IEDs, are responsible for between 70 percent and 80 percent of the casualties among U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan and have become a weapon of "strategic influence," said Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz in Washington.
The attacks Tuesday came after one of the deadliest days for the U.S. military operation in Afghanistan -- grim milestones likely to fuel the debate in the United States about whether the conflict is worth the sacrifice.
Obama has nearly finished gathering information on whether to send tens of thousands more American forces to quell the deepening insurgency, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said. A meeting Friday with the Joint Chiefs of Staff will be among the last events in the decision-making process, Gibbs said.
Both attacks Tuesday took place in the southern province of Kandahar, said Capt. Adam Weece, a spokesman for American forces in the south. The region bordering the Pakistan frontier has long been an insurgent stronghold and was the birthplace of the Taliban in the 1990s.
The Americans were patrolling in armored vehicles when a bomb ripped through one of them, killing seven service members and an Afghan civilian, U.S. forces spokesman Lt. Col. Todd Vician said.
The eighth American died in a separate bombing elsewhere in the south, also while patrolling in a military vehicle, Vician said.
The number of effective IED attacks in Afghanistan has grown from 19 in September 2007 to 106 last month.
"It's a weapon system that the enemy has figured out has strategic impact," said Metz, who leads the U.S. military organization tasked with defeating improvised explosive devices. "It really hampers our ability to execute a counterinsurgency doctrine. And it's a weapon system that has to be fought, and I don't think we can back off or shy away from fighting it."
Nine coalition forces were killed and 37 were wounded by IEDs in Afghanistan in September 2007. In September 2009, 37 coalition forces were killed and 285 were wounded by IEDs, according to the figures.
Several other Americans were wounded in the Tuesday blasts. The military said the deaths occurred during "multiple, complex" bomb strikes, but gave no details.
"Complex" attacks usually refer to simultaneous assaults from multiple sides with various weapons -- including bombs, machine guns and grenades or rockets.
In Washington, a U.S. defense official said at least one of the attacks was followed by an intense firefight with insurgents after an initial bomb went off. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to release the information.
The casualties bring to 55 the total number of Americans killed in October in Afghanistan. The next highest toll was in August, when 51 U.S. soldiers died and the troubled nation held the first round of its presidential election amid a wave of violence.
By comparison, the deadliest month of the Iraq conflict for U.S. forces was November 2004, when 137 Americans died during a major assault to clear insurgents from the city of Fallujah.
"A loss like this is extremely difficult for the families as well as for those who served alongside these brave service members," said Navy Capt. Jane Campbell, a military spokeswoman. "Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends who mourn their loss."
The deaths came one day after 11 American soldiers were killed in separate helicopter crashes, marking the biggest loss of American life on a single day in four years.
One chopper went down in western Afghanistan as it left the scene of a gunbattle with insurgents. Seven soldiers were killed along with three Drug Enforcement Administration agents -- the agency's first deaths since it began operations here in 2005. Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of opium and the trade is a major source of funding for insurgent groups.
Two other U.S. choppers collided while in flight in the south Monday, killing four Americans.
Casualties swelled at the start of the month when eight U.S. soldiers were killed Oct. 3. Several hundred militants had launched a coordinated attack on a pair of remote U.S. outposts in mountainous Nuristan province's Kamdesh district. U.S. troops pulled out days later as part a new strategy by the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, to shut down difficult-to-defend posts and redirect forces toward larger population areas to protect more civilians.
Also Tuesday, NATO-led forces announced they had recovered the remains of three American military contractors from the wreckage of a U.S. Army reconnaissance plane that crashed two weeks ago in Nuristan.
The trio was employed under a Lockheed Martin contract for "counter-narcoterrorism" operations, said Thomas Casey, a spokesman for Lockheed Martin Corp. He said the pilot and co-pilot worked for a company called Avenge Inc., while the technician was employed by a contractor called Sierra Nevada Corp.
The Army C-12 Huron twin-engine turboprop went down Oct. 13 while on a routine mission. The military likely delayed announcing the crash site's location because it did not want to tip off insurgents. Nuristan is believed to be crawling with anti-American militants.
U.S. forces spokesman Col. Wayne Shanks said the crew were the only ones aboard when the craft went down without giving off any distress signal. "We just lost contact," Shanks told The Associated Press.
NATO it was investigating the crash and did not believe hostile fire was involved.
The military also said a UH-60 helicopter traveling to the crash site four days later "experienced a strong downdraft and performed a hard landing" nearby. The helicopter's crew members were rescued, and the chopper was stripped of sensitive and useable parts and destroyed to keep insurgents from salvaging anything in the wreckage.
Associated Press writers Heidi Vogt and Robert H. Reid in Kabul and Pauline Jelinek and Richard Lardner in Washington contributed to this report. It was written by Heidi Vogt and Todd Pitman. | <urn:uuid:05d9ba91-3841-49ae-bab8-29e4e2a2f382> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/10/post_47.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977192 | 1,245 | 2.109375 | 2 |
Nothing in her professional credentials suggested the Australian pop singer Helen Reddy as a feminist icon prior to 1972. She'd made her way to the United States from her native Australia on her own to pursue stardom, and she'd paid her dues working on the periphery of the music business for a number of years before making a breakthrough. Yet when that breakthrough came, it was in the form of a 1971 cover version of "I Don't Know How To Love Him" from Jesus Christ Superstar—hardly a song about women's liberation. But a feminist icon is exactly what Helen Reddy would become the very next year, when the anthem-to-be "I Am Woman" charged up the pop charts, reaching the #1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 on this day in 1972.
With lyrics that could have been lifted straight from the pages of the recently launched Ms. magazine, "I Am Woman" took the message of personal empowerment being espoused by the second-wave feminists of the early 1970s and put it out where it could do some real consciousness-raising—on the same AM airwaves that had been sending out very different messages about gender relations for many years. For a generation of American women raised on songs like "Johnny Angel," "It's My Party" and "Will You Love Me Tomorrow," "I Am Woman" represented something almost entirely new in mainstream pop: A song about female identity that made virtually no reference to men.
Helen Reddy wrote the lyrics to "I Am Woman" out of frustration. "I was looking for songs that reflected the positive sense of self that I felt I'd gained from the women's movement," she told Billboard magazine, "[but] I couldn't find any." True to the message of the hit song she would eventually write, "I realized that the song I was looking for didn't exist, and I was going to have to write it myself."
Released as a single in the spring of 1972, "I Am Woman" initially sputtered in its attempt to gain a foothold on the pop charts. It had fallen completely off the charts by late that summer, in fact, before re-entering the Hot 100 in September and beginning a steady climb upward thanks to Reddy's frequent appearances on television that fall and to the volume of call-in radio requests those appearances generated—mainly from women.
Helen Reddy would have two further #1 hits in the 1970s with "Delta Dawn" and "Angie Baby," but "I Am Woman"—the only hit song that Reddy penned herself—remains her signature achievement. | <urn:uuid:929e384a-de93-4db0-93ed-51d2a08f963d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/quoti-am-womanquot-by-helen-reddy-tops-the-us-pop-charts | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983768 | 531 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Diamond's article in the New Yorker was called "Vengeance Is Ours," and described a young New Guinean man, called Wemp, and his violent quest for revenge after his uncle Soll was killed by another tribe. Diamond claimed Wemp was out to destroy a tribal leader called Isum, and that to do so he went on a murderous rampage, recruiting dozens of "soldiers" to aid him, and ultimately killing 17 people as well as injuring several others grievously. One of the injured was supposedly Isum (pictured, at far right), whom Diamond describes as being in a wheelchair.
Diamond used the men's story to illustrate a story from his own life, about how his father-in-law had the opportunity to kill the man responsible for murdering his family in a Polish prison camp during World War II. Instead of killing the man, Diamond's father-in-law turned him into police, who released him a year later. Apparently Diamond's father-in-law regretted for the rest of his life that he did not take violent revenge, and it weighed on his conscience.
But the New Guineans, Diamond claims, have no such neuroses because unlike civilized European guys they exact violent revenge on each other all the time.
The problem is that Diamond's notion of tribal culture is based on a fantasy of Diamond's own - one that was propagated by the New Yorker, which never fact-checked his story with the two men it featured as main characters. Wemp killed nobody, and Isum is not in a wheelchair - as you can see from the picture above. Indeed, the two men say they have never met and Isum has suffered no injuries at all. After the story went up online, Wemp suffered tremendously: He'd been accused of heinous crimes, which the men's lawsuit says he did not commit. Other mistakes Diamond made include extremely basic facts, such as which tribes the men are associated with.
If the men's allegations turn out to be correct, it seems that Diamond cobbled together Wemp's story out of several different tales he told while driving Diamond around when Diamond visited the island for the World Wildlife Fund. Essentially, Diamond took the stories his driver told him without ever asking permission, turned them into a lesson about his own life, and published them.
And now, say Wemp and Isum, they have to pay the price for Diamond's tidy little story.
According to StinkyJournalism, a watchdog site that investigated Diamond's New Yorker story:
Despite Diamond's claims, Wemp was no Handa tribal leader, nor was Henep Isum a violent leader of the Ombals. Isum isn't even an Ombal tribesman; he is a Henep, hence, his full name: Henep Isum Mandingo (tribal name, first name, last name) . . . Even though Diamond's article says the quotations by Wemp were made in 2001-2002, this was untrue. The several long and complex (and erudite) quotations attributed to Wemp-that Wemp vehemently denies saying-were apparently composited together by Diamond into a single narrative, along with bits and pieces of Wemp's stories Diamond remembered from years before . . . Diamond's many other errors range from mistakenly saying that two villages are tribes (Aralinja and Ungupi are villages) to creating an entire history of conflict between two tribes where only the smallest fragments of truth can be found and then traced back to the seeds of real events that actually took place . . . By Diamond connecting false assertions of crimes to real people-all sourced to Wemp-he has put [Wemp] in danger among tribes.
It turns out all the crimes that Diamond describes can be traced back to one outbreak of tribal violence in the early 1990s, when 4 men died. It was not an ongoing vengeance cycle, nor did it have anything to do with Wemp's uncle Soll.
It would seem that the person most interested in violent revenge is Diamond himself, on behalf of his father-in-law. Why did he need to exaggerate and fabricate a tale about tribal warfare in New Guinea to tell it? | <urn:uuid:6b7c0e05-fba2-4bfb-a98c-86a7adc93d1e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://io9.com/5226368/jared-diamond-sued-by-new-guinea-natives-for-crimes-of-anthropology?tag=science-scandal | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985762 | 859 | 2.015625 | 2 |
Henry Craik, ed. English Prose. 1916. Vol. V. Nineteenth Century
By John Henry Newman (18011890)
OF course it is very common in all matters, not only in religion, to speak in an unreal way; viz., when we speak on a subject with which our minds are not familiar. If you were to hear a person who knew nothing about military matters, giving directions how soldiers on service should conduct themselves, or how their food and lodging, or their marching, was to be duly arranged, you would be sure that his mistakes would be such as to excite the ridicule and contempt of men experienced in warfare. If a foreigner were to come to one of our cities, and without hesitation offer plans for the supply of our markets, or the management of our police, it is so certain that he would expose himself, that the very attempt would argue a great want of good sense and modesty. We should feel that he did not understand us, and that when he spoke about us, he would be using words without meaning. If a dim-sighted man were to attempt to decide questions of proportion and colour, or a man without ear to judge of musical compositions, we should feel that he spoke on and from general principles, on fancy, or by deduction and argument, not from a real apprehension of the matters which he discussed. His remarks would be theoretical and unreal.
Another still more common form of the same fault, and yet without any definite pretence or effort, is the mode in which people speak of the shortness and vanity of life, the certainty of death, and the joys of heaven. They have commonplaces in their mouths, which they bring forth upon occasions for the good of others, or to console them, or as a proper and becoming mark of attention towards them. Thus they speak to clergymen in a professedly serious way, making remarks true and sound, and in themselves deep, yet unmeaning in their mouths; or they give advice to children or young men; or perhaps in low spirits or sickness they are led to speak in a religious strain as if it was spontaneous. Or when they fall into sin, they speak of man being frail, of the deceitfulness of the human heart, of Gods mercy, and so on;all these great words, heaven, hell, judgment, mercy, repentance, works, the world that now is, the world to come, being little more than lifeless sounds, whether of pipe or harp, in their mouths and ears, as the very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice and can play well on an instrument,as the proprieties of conversation, or the civilities of good breeding. | <urn:uuid:dccd0e6b-da9c-434c-8ca1-1140ea116c14> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bartleby.com/209/1097.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978188 | 548 | 2.6875 | 3 |
A Mother's Day for Peace
Julia Ward Howe, best known for writing "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" in 1862, began working to heal the wounds of the Civil War once the war had ended. In her work with widows and orphans, as well as with wounded veterans on both sides, Howe witnessed the devastating long-term effects of war.
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By 1870 Howe had become convinced that working for peace was just as important as her efforts working for equality as an abolitionist and suffragette. In that year she penned her "Mother's Day Proclamation," calling women everywhere to come together to "bewail and commemorate the dead" and to "solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace." She also called to the nation: "Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
For a few years, funded by Howe, women's groups across the U.S. responded to Howe's call to gather and work for peace, though Howe never succeeded in getting a national holiday declared.
Anna Jarvis brought forward Howe's vision as well as that of her mother (also named Anna Jarvis) and succeeded in establishing Mother's Day, a memorial day for women, with the first such day held in a West Virginia church in 1907. Mother's Day was declared by Woodrow Wilson as a national holiday in the U.S. in 1914 and in Canada a year later.
This Mother's Day, it behooves us to remember the historical roots of the holiday. Mother's Day this year falls in the same week as the death of Osama bin Laden. With national celebrations and blood lust, voices like Julia Ward Howe's need to be raised up. With thousands dead on all sides in the "war on terror," we need to "bewail and commemorate the dead" and to "solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace."
Feeling relief at the death of Osama bin Laden is one thing; rejoicing in his killing is another. With this watershed event, the U.S. needs to reassess its wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. This is a perfect opportunity for the U.S. to declare victory and bring the troops home. It's time to led go of strategies of violence that breed more violence.
This Mother's Day, remember its origin as a Mother's Day for Peace. Ask yourself, "What can I do to sow seeds of peace in an atmosphere of revenge? How can I speak up when I am uneasy with the words of those around me? What is my part in influencing my legislative representatives, my president?"
Remember Howe's words: "Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice." Make your Mother's Day this year a Mother's Day for Peace.
Margaret Benefiel, Ph.D., author of Soul at Work and The Soul of a Leader, works with leaders in health care, business, churches, government, and nonprofits to help them stay true to their souls. Visit her website. | <urn:uuid:7ce8225c-e8a4-43ab-84e1-f769c11606ef> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sojo.net/blogs/2011/05/06/mothers-day-peace?quicktabs_blog_homepage_tabbed_block=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969979 | 649 | 3.734375 | 4 |
An industrial robot is comprised of a robot manipulator, power supply, and controllers. Robotic manipulators can be divided into two sections, each with a different function:
Arm and Body - The arm and body of a robot are used to move and position parts or tools within a work envelope. They are formed from three joints connected by large links.
Wrist - The wrist is used to orient the parts or tools at the work location. It consists of two or three
Robot manipulators are created from a sequence of link and joint combinations. The links are the rigid members connecting the joints, or axes. The axes are the movable components of the robotic manipulator that cause relative motion between adjoining links. The mechanical joints used to construct the robotic arm manipulator consist of five principal types. Two of the joints are linear, in which the relative motion between adjacent links is non-rotational, and three are rotary types, in which the relative motion involves rotation between links.
The arm-and-body section of robotic manipulators is based on one of four configurations. Each of these anatomies provides a different work envelope and is suited for different applications.
Gantry - These robots have linear joints and are mounted overhead. They are also called Cartesian and rectilinear robots.
Cylindrical - Named for the shape of its work envelope, cylindrical anatomy robots are fashioned from linear joints that connect to a rotary base joint.
Polar - The base joint of a polar robot allows for twisting and the joints are a combination of rotary and linear types. The work space created by this configuration is spherical.
Jointed-Arm - This is the most popular industrial robotic configuration. The arm connects with a twisting joint, and the links within it are connected with rotary joints. It is also called an articulated robot. | <urn:uuid:33f585bf-b772-422c-9787-78dd77df82ba> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.robots.com/faq/show/what-is-a-robot-manipulator | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953748 | 379 | 3.84375 | 4 |
On June 30, a handful of demonstrators gathered outside Westminster touting an eight-foot carbon fibre dummy of media tycoon Rupert Murdoch as a puppet master. From his hands dangled the marionettes of British Prime Minister David Cameron and MP Jeremy Hunt.
The protest was about Rupert Murdoch’s potential takeover of media organization BSkyB, which Hunt, in charge of culture, sport and media, was expected to approve.
On July 6 the puppet master appeared again, and photos of it spread while the media chronicled the phone-hacking scandal that led Murdoch to close News of the World, his empire’s crown jewel.
It’s an image that sticks: the shadowy, larger-than-life character pulling the strings of British policy. In a theatre, he would be hiding behind heavy velvet curtains.
It took a phone-hacking scandal to pull the drapes apart. But before that even happened, requesters under the Freedom of Information Act were already tugging at the fringes, looking to bring decision-making back into the public realm.
According to the FOI tracker whatdotheyknow.com, at least three requesters asked about Murdoch and his meetings with government ministers. One request was refused, two were partially successful – no information about the content of the meetings was disclosed – and the last one, sent only recently, is awaiting response.
Carl Bernstein, the famed journalist who, with Bob Woodward, discovered the Watergate scandal, wrote an article in Newsweek suggesting some similarities to Nixon’s wiretapping.
Almost every prime minister since the Harold Wilson era of the 1960s and ’70s has paid obeisance to Murdoch and his unmatched power. When Murdoch threw his annual London summer party for the United Kingdom’s political, journalistic, and social elite at the Orangery in Kensington Gardens on June 16, Prime Minister Cameron and his wife, Sam, were there, as were Labour leader Ed Miliband and assorted other cabinet ministers.
In fact, newspapers have documented meetings between Murdoch and former Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, though not much information was obtained on their content.
Details of Blair’s contacts with Murdoch in the nine days before the start of the Iraq War were released in June 2007, four years after Liberal Democrat peer Lord Avebury sent the initial FOI request. They were released as soon as Prime Minister Gordon Brown took over.
But because the content of most of the discussions were not revealed, the media was left to attach official events to phone calls in hopes of getting an idea of what was said.
BBC’s FOI Specialist Martin Rosenbaum was skeptical and as puzzled as everyone else,
In the few days leading up to the start of the Iraq War, Tony Blair had three phone conversations with Rupert Murdoch. One of these was ‘official’ and minuted by civil servants. The other two must have been either ‘personal’ or ‘party political’ or not significant enough to be minuted, if the Cabinet Office is to be believed. What they talked about at this time of extreme international tension we do not know.
Avebury was in the process of appealing this to the Information Tribunal, when his legal team were staggered to be told by government solicitors that the Cabinet Office would give in and disclose the information.
Funnily enough, this capitulation was communicated to them on the day after Gordon Brown became prime minister. So did revealing the dates when Blair talked to Murdoch figure prominently on day 1 of his grid for his first 100 days as PM?
Brown was targeted in the News of the World phone-hacking scandal – as was everyone who is anyone, it seems – but back when all of this was still secret, he was equally reluctant to share details of his own meetings with the media mogul.
The Independent, which issued an FOI request asking for “details of any meetings” between the two was told by a Downing Street official there were no minutes to show.
The Prime Minister has promised to respect “the public right to know” and bring in “new rights to access public information where previously it has been withheld.” Last October, he scrapped plans by Tony Blair to make Freedom of Information requests more expensive to deter more frivolous requests. Mr Brown released details of Mr Blair’s contacts with Mr Murdoch only days after becoming Prime Minister last June. But he is remaining coy about his own discussions with him.
Liberal Democrat MP Nick Clegg called Brown a hypocrite and that was that.
In May 2010, The Mirror reported that “the media baron sneaked in by a back door for a private meeting with Prime Minister” David Cameron, and heavily influenced the current government media policy.
Mr Murdoch stands accused of writing the Conservatives’ media policy. The Tories have already agreed to two of his key demands – abolishing the media regulator Ofcom and axing the BBC Trust. All four of Mr Murdoch’s UK newspapers backed Mr Cameron in the general election. When Mr Cameron was the Opposition leader, he accepted £34,000 of free private jet flights to talk with the tycoon on his yacht off Greece.
The Mirror also hit a brick wall when asking what the meetings were about.
This week, both Brown and Cameron publicly condemned the phone-hacking, after it was revealed that The Sun obtained confidential information in 2006 that Brown’s son had cystic fibrosis.
While Brown accused Murdoch of employing criminals to obtain private information about his family, private finances and ordinary people who were at “rock bottom,” Cameron called it “yet another example of an appalling invasion of privacy and the hacking of personal data.”
Cameron took a step further in opposing the BSkyB bid, striking another blow at Murdoch’s News Corp, which has already lost $7 billion, or £4.4 billion in market value in the past four days.
Bernstein doesn’t think Murdoch will ever end up in jail, even though feigning ignorance of his staff’s illegal practices has not proven to be a very convincing defence.
Could Murdoch eventually be criminally charged? He has always surrounded himself with trusted subordinates and family members, so perhaps it is unlikely. Though Murdoch has strenuously denied any knowledge at all of the hacking and bribery, it’s hard to believe that his top deputies at the paper didn’t think they had a green light from him to use such untraditional reportorial methods. | <urn:uuid:df9156cd-c6ac-469d-a747-e530edea0d6b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://constitution-unit.com/author/fluxus23/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981003 | 1,342 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Salt Lake businesses launched their third annual campaign to discourage panhandling on city streets during a Thursday news conference.
The appropriate - and most effective - way to help people who are homeless is to put a donation in one of more than 200 donation receptacles placed in area businesses, said Roger Dean, First Security Bank vice president and chairman of the Downtown Alliance Security Committee. That money is collected and given to Travelers Aid Society, operator of Utah's largest homeless shelter network.The campaign's slogan is "Say YES to the Homeless . . . Say NO to Panhandling." The message is conveyed throughout the downtown area by posters, check stuffers, tent cards and labels attached to donation boxes.
In fact, the Downtown Alliance collected $8,048.01 last year. During the press event, supporters presented the king-sized check to Maun Alston, Travelers Aid Society director.
"We see a lot of panhandlers who are professionals," said Salt Lake Mayor Deedee Corradini.
Encouraging them to panhandle on city streets by donating to them "hurts the feel of the community . . . and is not helping the truly needy and homeless."
The mayor spoke of a particularly bold panhandler who has "hit almost every citizen of Salt Lake up" with his tale of a lost bus ticket.
"Let's all give to the homeless, but let's say no to panhandlers," Corradini said.
While members of the Downtown Alliance and the mayor agreed that panhandling has decreased since the campaign started, not everyone gathered outside the mall for the press conference liked the message.
The campaign is "mean," said Bonnie Jepson, 16. "There are people who have homes, but not money for food. Most I've met ask for spare change because they're not getting other help.
She said it's particularly hard for homeless youths, who don't stay in the family shelter and don't benefit from the campaign.
Her friends, Clayton Streeval and Charlie Swasey, both 18, had mixed emotions.
"I've seen con artists - the guy with the broken leg who gets up after he's collected enough," said Swasey. "And people who really need help."
"I do think it keeps the money away from alcoholics," added Stree-val. "But some of the kids really do need it. Maybe someone could set up something for them - a snack bar for homeless kids."
Alston said the money collected in the anti-panhandling campaign will be used to help people in the homeless shelter become self-reliant, focusing on case management and supportive services.
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- Doug Robinson: Utah man's new running... 20 | <urn:uuid:730c5855-67e1-4511-85dd-cbe365a1716d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.deseretnews.com/article/433178/BUSINESSES-JUST-SAY-NO-TO-PANHANDLING.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945861 | 737 | 1.601563 | 2 |
The West Virginia University History Department and the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in Weston are working together on a recent project called The Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum Oral History and Interpretation Initiative.
Graduate students Ashley Whitehead and Jay Smith from the history department at WVU will be working with the director of public history at WVU, Dr. Melissa Bingmann, and the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum to record oral histories of former workers at Weston State Hospital, residents of Weston, who lived in the town while the hospital was still active, and former patients treated at the hospital who might be willing to share their stories about the hospital.
The project members recognize the significance of the hospital not only as a historic and architectural structure, but also as a key tool for analyzing change over time in American perceptions and treatments of mental illness, as well as in the evolution of the administration and operation of state hospitals.
The oral histories seek to preserve stories about the daily experiences, working conditions and lifestyles of former workers and patients at the hospital, as well as stories about the town's residents' interactions with or perceptions of the hospital. These oral histories are being recorded with the ultimate goal of having them transcribed and preserved for future research at the State Archives in Charleston, and potentially including them in an "acousti-guide" tour of the asylum for visitors to the site.
WVU also plans to hire an assisting visiting scholar to tour TALA, provide suggestions on the creation of potential future exhibits at the asylum by future public history students at WVU and deliver a lecture to the town of Weston on the significance of the site and the public history opportunities at the asylum.
Weston residents and any former hospital workers, who are willing, will have the opportunity to contribute to the content development of these exhibits by providing feedback, by way of a community forum, about potential interpretive themes and/or personal anecdotes about the asylum during its operation that they feel would enhance the interpretive experience at TALA.
Simultaneously, the team hopes that their project will help to stimulate visitation to the asylum and will help to rejuvenate the economy of the surrounding community through heritage tourism.
Additionally, the project hopefully will help to re-instill within the community a sense of pride for its traditionally close ties with and support of this important institution and historically significant landmark. By rejuvenating community pride in the asylum, the team hopes to help foster greater collective stewardship of this currently privately owned and operated historic site for the purpose of preservation, education and interpretation. By stimulating heritage tourism to TALA and community interest in the stewardship of TALA, the project can help to increase TALA's year-round, education-based source of income for necessary preservation projects at the asylum.
Through such simultaneous enhancement of interpretation and preservation, TALA might serve as a future model for other similar institutions that are looking to improve their own interpretive and preservation efforts.
The project team is still looking for additional potential interviewees for the oral histories and would like to encourage any willing former Weston State Hospital workers or patients, as well as long-term residents of Weston with any stories pertaining to the hospital, to contact the project team for more information about the interview process. Call Ashley Whitehead at 339-234-0265 or e-mail firstname.lastname@example.org for more information. | <urn:uuid:7241cdcf-bb84-488f-9b0f-f5ca95edccaf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theintermountain.com/page/content.detail/id/538778/TALA--WVU-working-together-on-interpretation-initiative.html?nav=5288 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954654 | 700 | 1.898438 | 2 |
Improper Fishing Methods Silt and Polluted Runoff Tourists Coral Mining Clearing of Mangroves
Improper fishing methods used on the reef are both for human consumption as well as for the growing aquarium industry.
One widely used method to obtain live fish is the use of cyanide. Cyanide is a strong poison that could potentially kill fish, however in smaller amounts it merely stuns the fish temporarily. This method of fishing is used widely in the Indo-pacific region, such as in the Philippines and the Indonesian archipelago, to supply the fast growing aquarium industry in North America and Europe with fish. It is estimated that more than one million kilograms of cyanide has been squirted onto Philippine reefs alone. Fish caught this way die with a week or two. Larger fishes such as grouper species are also taken this way to supply restaurants in Hong Kong and other Asian capitals where the people are willing to pay high prices for the live fish.
The effects of cyanide fishing on coral reefs have been much researched on, and tests have shown that even a dilute amount of cyanide can kill coral polyps and other marine life. Corals can also be damaged when the fisherman pries reefs apart in search of fleeing fish.
Another fishing method that causes irreparable damage to reefs is blast fishing. Blast fishing involves using explosives to stun large numbers of fish at a time. Not only does it kill fish, but it also damages the reef structure itself, which may take decades to recover.
Over-fishing can cause ecological problems that can affect the entire reef and threaten it. Because all reef animals are directly or indirectly linked, a threat to one species may be a threat to all.
Human activities such as land reclamation and eroded soils due to deforestation cause seawater or waterways eventually meeting the sea to become murky due to sediments. High levels of sediment in seawater can substantially block out the sunlight that corals require for proper growth, even killing them. Sediment settles on the coral polyps as well, causing them irritation.
Water runoff containing organic wastes, phosphates or nitrates from fertilizers encourage the growth of alga mats, which compete with corals for light and space and eventually smothers them. Other chemicals from pesticides of factories may also cause problems for reefs.
Although now there is a trend for eco-tourism, tourists still sometimes have a negative impact on reefs. Ignorant tourist physically damage corals when diving or snorkeling, and encourage the local people to collect shells and coral skeletons to sell as souvenirs to the tourists.
The coral reef itself is basically limestone with a layer of living corals on the top. Coral limestone and sand are being mined for construction purposes in some Caribbean and Indo-pacific areas, taking away what took the coral colonies centuries to build.
Mangrove forests near coral reefs are import to the ecology of the reef. Without mangrove swamps to hold the silt and mud on the swamp, it is washed out to sea and eventually choke the reefs.
Silt and Polluted Runoff
Clearing of Mangroves | <urn:uuid:078a6f05-6610-45ac-aa23-0422c20a981a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://library.thinkquest.org/28445/man/threats.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94294 | 642 | 3.359375 | 3 |
"Kevin Quealy, graphics editor
at the New York Times
, has published another
fascinating behind-the-scenes look at how the Times
creates data visualizations for print and online. In his latest post, he looks at how a visualization of the Yankee's Mariano Rivera performance compared to other Major League Baseball pitchers was created
. (Detail below, click for the full image.)
The infographic began
its life as a hand-drawn sketch, that begat a line-chart created using R
(based on data scraped from the Web). The R chart was was then cleaned up and annotated using Adobe Illustrator for publication. One interesting detail of the process: the source R graph is deliberately created using garish colours (purples, greens, etc.) to make the color-selection process easier in Illustrator.
Check out the ChartsNThings archive for other great studies of the process of data journalism. Many of the case studies involve the use of R code, such as these visualizations of visitors to the White House, Santorum's primary support, Santorum/Romney exit poll data, NFL players mentioned on ESPN, the defense budget and the richest 1%.
ChartsNThings: Sketches: How Mariano Rivera Compares to Baseball’s Best Closers" | <urn:uuid:11805b41-98e2-4f72-8e21-854d8ebbcf9c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://xmmlbchat.blogspot.com/2012/05/ny-times-graphics-of-baseball-closers.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917835 | 271 | 1.9375 | 2 |
With legislation for sustainable construction incentives imminent, look at the advantages
BY: Bipartisan legislation is expected to be introduced in the next few weeks that will promote sustainable construction in the state of Michigan designed to make the state a leader in "green" design of new and rehabilitated buildings. The legislation will provide financial incentives to construction and rehabilitation projects that achieve Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design ...
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- Print and Digital - | <urn:uuid:b568035b-8efd-4422-900c-c50a04fde0ec> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://milawyersweekly.com/news/2009/05/04/with-legislation-for-sustainable-construction-incentives-imminent-look-at-the-advantages/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917236 | 141 | 1.710938 | 2 |
struggle for existence
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...which Darwin did not attempt to explain, present in all forms of life; (2) heredity—the conservative force that transmits similar organic form from one generation to another; and (3) the struggle for existence—which determines the variations that will confer advantages in a given environment, thus altering species through a selective reproductive rate.
philosophy of biology and evolutionary ethics
...form of evolutionary ethics is social Darwinism, though this view owes far more to Herbert Spencer than it does to Darwin himself. It begins with the assumption that in the natural world the struggle for existence is good, because it leads to the evolution of animals that are better adapted to their environments. From this premise it concludes that in the social world a similar struggle...
What made you want to look up "struggle for existence"? Please share what surprised you most... | <urn:uuid:3cdd72ff-1999-4b33-8a57-49ed164ead69> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/569705/struggle-for-existence | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.921702 | 214 | 2.890625 | 3 |
In the German Army there was an organization that was responsible for the construction of aircraft sheds and hangars, it was Hallenbau-Kompanie Nr.1 and Nr 2. established 5 April 1916
In the Bavarian Army was the Bayern Flieger-Bau Batl. composed of Zelle-Bau Trupp 26,27, 57, 58, 59 und 60. established 17 April 1917.
Sheds built by the Hallenbau had flat plain boarded fronts, The sheds built by the Zelle-Bau Trupp had an open truss work across the top front of the shed.
These units set up these sheds and when the field was closed they took down the sheds and moved them to the new field.
I would imagine that there was a simular organization in the Navy. The airship hangars were built by civilian contractors. I think the Zeppelin Werke had a Hangar Construction Company too.
The Tent hangars were set up by personnel within the unit. Generally each Flying unit would have two personnel for the maintenance of the tents. The aircraft ground crew pitched in in setting-up the tent hangars. The hangars and work sheds were lighted with electric lights. Power was provided by the engine driven generator truck(lorry).
Blue skies Johan,
Last edited by Dan_San_Abbott; 22 March 2005 at 03:52 PM. | <urn:uuid:6a3833cb-844a-4f6b-b442-7a6810ced727> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/202767-post5.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979132 | 294 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Ask The Expert
September 21, 2012
Your symptoms certainly could be explained by a thyroid problem. Typical symptoms for an underactive thyroid gland (hypothyroidism) include:
Women may also have changes in the menstrual period.
Your doctor can order a simple blood test to see if your thyroid is working properly. The test is called TSH, which is short for thyroid stimulating hormone. If your symptoms are caused by hypothyroidism, a daily dose of thyroid hormone medicine may dramatically improve your symptoms within weeks.
Thyroid disease is very common, especially in women. It is also the main condition that would explain all of your symptoms.
But if your major concern is the excessive sleepiness, there are other diagnoses to think about. These might include:
Excessive drowsiness can also be caused by simply not getting enough sleep. This is a common and generally under-appreciated problem. Many people try to get by on five or six hours per night. But over a period of time that adds up to a significant sleep deficit.
I recommend trying to get eight or more hours per night for at least a week. If your symptoms donít begin to improve, see your doctor for a more thorough evaluation. | <urn:uuid:a02b7097-b39c-4499-a963-6b9cc5dcdde4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.intelihealth.com/IH/ihtPrint/WSIHW000/23741/4581/1455466.html?hide=t&k=basePrint | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955765 | 253 | 2.671875 | 3 |
|Wednesday, July 9, 2008|
We love to plant many different varieties of each vegetable, in an effort to find out which does best. Lettuce is a good example, and I like the summer crisp, or Batavia, kinds. While the romaines and others are bolting, during the first week of summer, the summer crisps are still crisp.
Nevada makes a pretty, light green head that holds up well in the field. Concept is a darker green, bigger head. Both of these varieties are tender and crisp. The other summer crisp lettuce we grow is a beautiful red-tinged one called Magenta.
Jericho comes from Israel, where it was bred for heat tolerance. It’s a romaine type, but doesn’t make a tight head. The light green heads can get huge. Paris Island and White Cos are the two other romaines we grow, and they bolted quickly in the dry June weather. They do better in the fall garden.
Red Sails is a Grand Rapids variety that makes a loose head that is really red. It wilts after harvest faster than the others. The loose heads are called leaf lettuce. Black Seeded Simpson is the most common.
Our favorite bibb lettuce is Buttercrunch, with thick outer leaves and a blanched, buttery heart. They don’t like hot weather. Winter Density is taller and like a bibb/romaine cross.
The Lollo lettuces are the real frilly ones. They come in light green or dark red colors, and are harvested when young. We don’t grow these anymore. I found them to be pretty but not as good eating quality as the others.
Oak leafs are lobed, and also come in colors ranging from green to red. I’m not crazy about these, either. Many of them were bred for looks rather than flavor.
It’s important to me to run research trials on how different varieties do under organic growing practices in middle Tennessee. The research done at colleges has a different focus. I learned about this when I was growing up.
Land grant colleges do research projects, but the practices are not organic. They test agricultural products such as fertilizers, herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, and pesticides. The funding these colleges receive comes from large corporations which make these products.
Professors whose research shows that such products may not be necessary are quickly fired. This has caused the widespread belief that chemicals are needed in farming. Follow the money trail and we find agricultural extension recommendations that reflect the corporate funding.
On the other hand, I don’t think you should buy stuff for farming. Obviously, organic research is not a good idea if you are trying to sell stuff to farmers. So organic farmers over the last 30 years have been doing their own, on-farm research.
A variety that does well with chemicals doesn’t interest me. I need to know how it performs under organic growing conditions. Unfortunately, my research projects are flawed from lack of time, money, and knowledge. Fortunately, they are chronicled each week in these articles. | <urn:uuid:c66dbe8a-a2e7-4765-a5e7-c89abcbc52ca> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.maconcountychronicle.com/blogs/barefoot-farmer/379-lettuce-varieties | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964021 | 653 | 2.421875 | 2 |
Humanists are defined as people who believe that conduct should be based on reason, evidence, understanding and tolerance. They believe there is no supernatural force, nor is there certain knowledge of laws of historical progress - people must therefore face their problems with their own moral and intellectual resources, using the accumulated knowledge and experience of mankind. Since they tend not to believe in life after death, their concern is with this life, which they strive to make worthwhile. They claim no special knowledge or final answers, since they regard the search for understanding as a continuing process.
For more information, visit our main site,
contact Len Ainsbury at:
37, Vicarage Court,
St Pauls Street,
Telephone 01905 612402. | <urn:uuid:50451633-bbac-47f4-97ea-2f68e6219740> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.communigate.co.uk/worcs/worcshumanists/index.phtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946334 | 151 | 2.09375 | 2 |
|Harry Potter: A Pop-Up Book|
Lucy Kee (Text by)
16 November, 2010
Described as being "based on the film phenomenon," the book features a pop-up look at various locations and events within the Harry Potter films. It includes both pop-ups and flaps, some which can be raised and lowered to create the illusion of motion.
The text of the book includes a number of behind-the-scenes facts regarding the films from various individuals involved in their creation, including the producers, actors and J. K. Rowling.
- A wide version of the cover artwork of Harry Potter riding Buckbeak
- Harry Potter: Undesirable No 1 Ministry of Magic Wanted Poster
- Ministry of Magic Advice Poster (Be Vigilant!)
The book is available for order on Amazon.
Table of Contents
- Dumbledore's Office (Not presented as a pop-up, includes holders for the extras included with the book)
- Diagon Alley
- Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
- Magical Creatures (Including the Forbidden Forest and Rubeus Hagrid's cabin)
- Magical Games and Sports
- The Dark Arts | <urn:uuid:00d92742-97b7-456e-8d3e-092e5187a9c4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Harry_Potter:_A_Pop-Up_Book?direction=prev&oldid=742745 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.905864 | 243 | 1.679688 | 2 |
SINGAPORE: The percentage of school students obtaining GCE ’A’ Level passes for 2012 fell marginally — by 0.2 per cent, compared to the year before.
90.6 per cent of the cohort obtained at least three H2 passes with a pass in General Paper or Knowledge and Inquiry.
School candidates received their results from 2:30pm on Friday.
Private candidates will receive their results by post.
They may also access their results through the SEAB website at
At Hwa Chong Institution, there were five pairs of twins receiving their ’A’ Level results on Friday afternoon.
One pair said having a twin sometimes means double power.
Ang Jia Xi, said of her twin Ang Jia Wei: "We didn’t do the same subjects, she took Biology, and I took Physics, she took Geography and I took Economics, so we didn’t really share much in terms of notes. I think what we helped each other in is the moral support because you know, you have to do better than her — friendly competition."
Jia Wei added: "It’s like having someone who’s there, going through very similar things as you are. I think we like to talk to each other and debate about issues together, so that helps us to sharpen our way of thinking and to really consider both sides of an issue."
They say good things come in pairs, and such is true for Jia Xi and Jia Wei, who got eight and seven distinctions each.
The twins will be separated for the first time in their lives, now that Jia Xi is heading abroad on a government scholarship.
Jia Xi said: "We’ve been in the same class and the same school since kindergarten, so I think this opportunity to develop in our own ways will be good as well."
Hwa Chong said this year’s results is its best in five years, with more than 60 per cent obtaining three or more distinctions.
Hwa Chong is one of several schools that have decided not to highlight the number of perfect scorers of nine distinctions in the cohort. This follows the Education Ministry’s move away from focusing solely on academic results.
For Raffles Institution, it is the first time the school has produced 10 perfect scorers with nine distinctions.
Many students who have good grades also held leadership positions in their co—curricular activities while contributing to community service.
Aloysius Lim from Millennia Institute has a rare form of genetic vision loss, which makes it difficult for him to read.
He reads with a bubble magnifier and uses a magnifier CCTV during exams and for home study.
Despite the odds, Aloysius has consistently done well in class and participated actively in school events.
For the ’A’ Levels, examiners gave him extra time to complete his papers and he scored A, B and D for his three H2 subjects.
He said: "Writing on the foolscap, sometimes I will write under the line, and sometimes I need more time to study. Whenever I feel like giving up, I just think of my parents, how they work hard and encourage me."
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Former Palme d'Or winner Roman Polanski returns to the Croisette with 'Venus in Fur', a new adaptation of a play about the infamous sadomaso... More Former Palme d'Or winner Roman Polanski returns to the Croisette with 'Venus in Fur', a new adaptation of a play about the infamous sadomasochistic novel by Sacher-Masoch. Duration: 01:06
Date 3 hrs ago, Duration 1:06, Views 3 | <urn:uuid:0d856903-663e-468f-9ddf-9cbdb703940a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.xin.msn.com/en/singapore/906percent-pass-2012-gce-%e2%80%99a%e2%80%99-level-exam | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972599 | 781 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Wojciech Plewiński, Polish Salon of Architecture, 1958
27th february – 3rd april 2012
The exhibition is the first part of Polish Design Photo, a research, exhibition and editorial project initiated by the Asymetria Gallery, the Archaeology of Photography Foundation, and the Raster Gallery. Our intention is to take a closer look at the history of a specific photographic genre – design photography. Through a series of exhibitions and a recapitulating publication, we shall try to rediscover an intriguing, but little known, part of Polish photographers’ oeuvre and, in the process, present the history of 20th-century Polish design from a new perspective. We are interested not only in photography’s role in creating the product’s aura and ‘iconicity’ and the significance of photographic documentation for historiography, but also in the object and product as a photographic subject, the relationship between photography’s artistic and commercial dimensions.
The proportions of the shows are determined here by the history of Polish photography rather than the ‘cult’ practice of design, whose career accelerates as production technologies become more and more advanced. The contemporary American designer Joshua Porter argues that design should have nothing to do with art, because whereas the former simply makes products easier to use, the latter serves to trigger feelings and reflections. This view might be shared by the classic Polish designer Krzysztof Meisner (the author of the Osa moped and the Druh photo camera, amongst others), according to whom the term ‘design’ refers to the free-market civilisation and its needs, serving to invent such products and their decorations so as to elicit a purchase decision from the consumer.
‘In the name of participating in this free-market adventure, the term “design” has replaced the earlier German Formgebung and Formgestaltung, the French esthetique industrielle or the Polish projektowanie form przemysłowych. These terms are closer to the marginalised today meaning of design as designing for man rather than for the market, closer also to the crucial trend of soc-design’, says Meisner. The gap between design as a function of the market and soc-design was to be filled by completely new thinking during the ‘Thaw’-era liberalisation after 1956.
Łukasz Gorczyca’s observation seems highly pertinent in this regard: ‘The second half of the 1950s was a period of a particularly strong cultural revival and post-“Thaw” enthusiasm. Ten years after the war and following the traumatic experience of Stalinist socialist realism, artistic and visual culture entered an era of modernity. Modernity became everyone’s catchword, key to describing a new cultural paradigm, a return to the modernist project and the promise of a new, cosmopolitan opening of Polish art. Modernity was the embrace of a new, universalistic aesthetics, but it obviously also had a political aspect. Its power lay not only in rejecting the socialist realist doctrine imposed by the communist regime, but also in the qualities and contents of a new formal language. Totality was the modern project’s fundamental feature, since everything was now to become modern: art, architecture, science, but also dwellings, furniture, fashion, photography and, above all, man’.
The Asymetria Gallery exhibition presents such a photographic view that, thanks to artistic values, recapitulates the term toward soc-design (as Krzysztof Meisner understands it). Commercial photography was reportedly pursued by all Polish photographers, but only the most outstanding ones managed in their artistic documentations, pursued at the margins of the necessary ‘potboilers’, to recover the humanist dimension of design in its original meaning.
In the first place we are showing the works of the classic Polish photographer Zbigniew Dłubak who in the 1960s created also what Urszula Czartoryska called the most interesting photography-based shop interior design. His design of the Adam men’s fashion store at Świętokrzyska Street (1962) is full of ambiguous humour – an elegant young man, lying on the wall and elongated to infinity, is shown in photography in the store’s other sections in a surreal perspective.
We are also showing, for the first time ever, the design photographs of Tadeusz Sumiński, best known for his landscape work. Sumiński was a long-time freelancer with the Institute of Industrial Design, photographing design, fashion, and architecture. His 1963 documentation of Warsaw’s train stations reflects the author’s artistic credo: ‘I regard documentariness as photography’s highest value, but I still can’t resist the desire to aestheticise’.
Finally, we will see a follow-up to Wojciech Plewiński’s brilliant reportage from the 1958 National Salon of Interior Design in Cracow, where modern furniture – mass-market prototypes shown in a ‘Thaw’-era aesthetics – gain an intimate, erotic feel thanks to the presence of a female model (Krystyna Zachwatowicz).
The featured photographs, published by the Asymetria Gallery in the form of unique collector’s portfolios (edition 9), will be for sale at a promotional price during the exhibition.
The exhibition design by Piotr Duma and Aneta Faner is to reveal in the course of the successive shows the idea of play between ornamentation and sign, creating a visually characteristic cabinet of modern forms.
Jakubowska st. 16
03-902 Warsaw, Poland | <urn:uuid:dc7dae36-ae82-4a76-970a-8106da0b8dba> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en1.artclue.net/asymetria-gallery-warsaw-soc-design-photo-50-60/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93891 | 1,219 | 2.015625 | 2 |
In our eyes, the BBC is nearly perfect. We love its TV stations, its Web sites and all of its radio stations that don't have One in the title. But when it comes to iPlayer support on mobile devices we have a bee in our bonnet and that bee is angry and very stingy. Why? Because we think the BBC is being very unfair about who can access iPlayer, and on what device.
We recently reported that the BBC had requested the unofficial beebPlayer app be removed from the Android Market. beebPlayer's creator Dave Johnston confirmed how his app worked in a recent blog post -- it wasn't doing anything illegal, only making a BBC stream available to people on another mobile platform. It was using BBC-created streams, and abiding by all the rules for accessing BBC content, namely geographic restrictions and respecting copy protection.
beebPlayer used 3G video streams that were designed for phones such as the Nokia N series and other Symbian-based handsets. So you'd assume there would be no problem using them on any device, right? Wrong, because the BBC says it won't allow unauthorised applications access to iPlayer. And that, right there, is nonsense -- pure and simple.
Does the BBC really think it's acceptable to tell us what handsets can and cannot access publically available streams that the British public has paid for? Would it be okay if the BBC said, "You can only use Internet Explorer to watch iPlayer online"?
The BBC does, however, support the iPhone and the iPod touch. These devices get a stream of their own, leading us to wonder why Android can't make use of those files. The answer, it turns out, is that although the Apple streams -- which use the H.264 video format -- are perfectly compatible with Android phones, they're contained in a file wrapper (MOV) that isn't. Apple handsets could cope with video in a non-Quicktime wrapper quite easily, and that would open the streams up to any device that wanted to use them.
This would produce another issue for the BBC, in that any device could then access its mobile iPlayer content. If video was ever available on all devices, it's been proven by scientists that the Earth would cease to spin and all life on it would come to an end. Oh no, wait, that's not what would happen at all. In fact, the BBC is entirely too restrictive with iPlayer, and as much as we love the service, we're bitterly disappointed that we can't access it on our choice of devices.
The BBC is giving Android 2.2 users access to iPlayer, but that doesn't go far enough. Many Android phones on the market won't support 2.2, and more potentially won't run Flash 10.1. So while every iPhone user gets iPlayer functionality, only a fraction of those on Android will enjoy the same luxury. Plenty of other platforms are being ignored too, such as Palm's WebOS and BlackBerry.
What do you think? Is it reasonable of the Beeb to restrict its mobile development in this way? Let us know in the comments section below or scrawl something on our Facebook wall. | <urn:uuid:995474ba-57c1-4700-a0b2-4d80b9683ab9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://crave.cnet.co.uk/mobiles/no-iplayer-on-android-we-call-shenanigans-over-bbc-blog-post-49306167/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00076-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972012 | 655 | 1.601563 | 2 |
For the latest news from the Education Department click here April 2013
Education has always been a feature of life in and around this ancient building. In monastic times the monks provided a school for young boys in the cloister, as well as being a place of theological learning for the monks. Later, following the Dissolution of the monastery, The Kings school was established and that long relationship continues today as they provide the choristers for the choir, and their King's and Queen's scholars take their place in the ‘Cathedral College'.
Education through various means reaches out to all ages and groups - those who regularly are members of the cathedral community in study groups; the wider Diocese, the City and County in conferences and seminars; and those in school, college and University who visit to enhance their study in particular curricular areas. | <urn:uuid:ec19bd7b-d690-4547-a880-ecb50627c37e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://worcestercathedral.co.uk/Education.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978303 | 169 | 1.882813 | 2 |
WASHINGTON (AP) The federal government is spending nearly $1.9 million on newspaper ads around the country that disclose hospital satisfaction rates, part of a unique campaign to improve health care through the power of publicity.
The full-page ads will show for better or worse how patients rated more than 2,500 hospitals nationwide.
The ads feature two questions: The percentage of patients who always got help when they needed it. And the percentage of patients who got antibiotics one hour before surgery. The latter question reflects broad interest in curbing infections acquired at the hospital.
The ads reflect an emphasis by the Bush administration to increase transparency in the health care system. Officials say greater public disclosure of costs and quality will drive providers to improve on both fronts.
While some hospital administrators might not like being singled out, the industry supports the effort and helped craft the comparison questions. Patients will benefit because the information is educational and will lead to better care, said Charles Kahn, president of the Federation of American Hospitals.
"It's a twofer for the consumer and any efforts to promote it are useful," Kahn said.
The ads are running in 58 newspapers in 49 states. The lone exception was Delaware, but hospitals in that state will be cited in the Philadelphia newspapers.
In the ads, the government will list the percentage of patients who always got help when they needed it, along with a statewide average. For example, in the District of Columbia, the percentage of patients who always got help when they needed it ranged from 41% at Sibley Memorial Hospital to 57% at Georgetown University Hospital. The average for the four hospitals in Washington was 49%.
Sheliah Roy, director of public relations and marketing at Sibley, noted that the information was provided voluntarily.
"We're being open because we do want to always improve the quality of care," she said.
Roy said the two measurements will be useful for consumers, but she stressed that the federal government has other data that gives a more complete picture of the quality of care.
"There's a lot more information consumers should look at when making decisions about where to look for care," Roy said.
Kerry Weems, acting administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, agreed, but said the two measures in the ad were selected because they will get people's attention.
"Nobody wants to be treated like a number," Weems said. "Many hospitals provide good, quality, patient-centered care, and this is a pretty good measure of that."
Overall, there are 26 measurements of quality of care on the government's website: www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov
The latest enhancement to the website was the inclusion of 10 questions measuring patient satisfaction.
Hundreds of hospitals did not release data measuring patient satisfaction but are expected to do so in the months ahead. The data was collected in October 2006 and June 2007 from a random sample of patients 48 hours to six weeks after discharge from a hospital.
Rich Umbdenstock, president and CEO of the American Hospital Association, said consumers shouldn't assume a problem if a hospital is not listed in the ads. He also urged consumers to go to the government's website to get a more complete picture of how their local hospitals fared.
The Department of Health and Human Services has spent large amounts of money on previous ad campaigns, including about $3.3 million in 2002 on a similar comparison effort for nursing homes. It also spent about $200 million alerting consumers to the new Medicare drug benefit and helping them enroll.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. Read more. | <urn:uuid:7ec897d3-c7db-4a19-8610-39a1143d60d3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-05-20-hospitals-government-rate_N.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957398 | 793 | 1.625 | 2 |
Astronomy Packet: 6
Finding in the Sky:
After six astronomy packets, you are now almost ready to be certified as a junior astronomer. One of the most difficult things you will have to master as a junior astronomer is learning how to find things in the sky.
There are millions of exciting and beautiful things to look at in the sky, but you have to know where to look. If you randomly point your telescope or binoculars at the sky, chances are all you are going to see is either darkness or a few stars.
If you want to see neat things in the sky, you have to learn how and where to find them. The first and most important thing you must do is learn the constellations. You must learn where they are in the sky. If you cannot look up at night and quickly recognize what part of the sky you are looking at, you will never be able to find fun things to explore with your telescope or binoculars.
Take a week and just learn the constellations.
Secondly you will need a skymap. You can print free skymaps every month at www.skymaps.com. If you want a really good skymap, I recommend you buy a book called "Roger Tory Peterson's Astronomical Guide" or "National Geographic Astronomical Guide." In these books you can find each constellation on a separate page.
All you have to do is look up a constellation you know, such as Orion. The book will tell you every galaxy, nebula, star cluster and other interesting things to find in Orion. Simply lie on your back and look for these objects one by one. You already know where Orion is, the hard part is done.
Some telescopes have setting circles. These circles are like dials. If you have a telescope with setting circles, simply look up the right ascension and declination of the object you want to see. Set your dials (setting circles) to those numbers and look through the telescope. Your telescope will be pointing directly at the object you were looking for.
Note: To use setting circles you have to polar align your telescope. This is very easy to do. If you have setting circles your telescope mount or tripod probably looks like a "T". Simply point the top part of the "T" at the North Star. Your telescope will come with directions on how to do this.
You will also have to adjust your telescope for the latitude of your city. Your telescope will have directions for this as well.
Assignment # 3.
Setting circles are a nice accessory for a telescope, they make it much easier to find things in the sky. But do you need setting circles to find your way through the sky? Why or why not? If you do not have setting circles, what is another way to find objects in the sky? | <urn:uuid:e9cdf658-1030-4faf-95af-d7935a85f030> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kidsastronomy.com/academy/lesson110_assignment3_6.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949207 | 584 | 3.515625 | 4 |
For many of us, our first introduction to figs came from eating Fig Newtons.
If you’ve never actually seen a fresh fig, this fruit — which is actually a flower inverted into itself — has a smooth outer skin, a soft, chewy interior, and a wonderful sweet flavor that complements many foods. Figs have a soft flesh with numerous edible tiny seeds.
Figs, one of the oldest fruits known to man, are good raw or cooked. They were thought to be sacred to ancient civilizations. Before the invention of refined sugars, figs were used as a sweetener. It is believed that Spanish missionaries brought the fig to America in 1520, leading to the name the “mission” fig.
Figs grow well in warm climates and do best in Mediterranean climates, with hot, dry summers and cool, wet winters. There are many varieties of figs, usually available fresh in stores from May through December. Dried figs are available year-round.
Fresh figs are perishable and need to be refrigerated. The skin is fragile and will often have scars from leaves that rub against the fruit during growing, which don’t hurt the flesh inside. Fresh figs will keep for about five to seven days or up to 6 months if frozen.
Nutritionally, 100 grams of fresh figs provide about 74 calories, 3 grams of fiber and 35 milligrams of calcium. One cup of dried figs contains 186 calories, 2 grams of protein, 7 grams of fiber and 121 milligrams of calcium.
Figs are considered rich in antioxidants and rank with other high-antioxidant foods such as red wine and green tea. Figs are rich in calcium and are an excellent source for people allergic to milk or for those who are lactose intolerant. The calcium and potassium in figs help to prevent bone thinning and promote bone density. Potassium also helps to maintain blood pressure.
Figs are a great source of dietary fiber, which can be beneficial in weight-management programs as well as helping to control blood glucose. Additionally, the soluble fiber in figs, called pectin, helps in reducing blood cholesterol.
The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (formerly the American Dietetic Association) offers the following recommendations for incorporating figs into your diet:
• Dried figs can be enjoyed fresh from the tree or in prepared dishes.
• Soak a handful of dried figs in balsamic vinegar for one hour. Drain, cut the figs in half, and serve in a salad.
• Soak a handful of dried figs in orange juice for one hour. Drain, dice the figs, and mix with your favorite rice.
• Cut figs in half, drizzle a little honey on each half and top with crumbled pistachio nuts.
• Place a small dollop of goat cheese on halved, fresh figs and place under the broiler on high until the cheese begins to melt.
Instead of cake for dessert, serve a plate of fresh figs with low-fat frozen yogurt or ice cream.
Figs can be incorporated as a snack or included in an entree. They go well with chicken dishes or pasta entrees. For more recipes, visit www.valleyfig.com.
Creamy Baked Four-Cheese and Figs Pasta
This recipe is from Cook’s Country.
Serves 4-6 as a main course, 6-8 as a side.
Bread Crumb Topping
3–4 slices white sandwich bread with crusts, torn into quarters
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
Pasta and Cheese Recipe
4 ounces fontina cheese, shredded (about 1 cup)
3 ounces Gorgonzola cheese, crumbled (about 3/4 cup)
1/2 cup grated Pecorino Romano cheese (1 ounce)
¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese (1/2 ounce)
1 cup chopped figs (about 6 ounces)
1 pound penne pasta
1 tablespoon salt
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 teaspoons flour
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1/4 teaspoon table salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1. For the topping: Pulse bread in food processor until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. You should have about 1 1/2 cups. Transfer to small bowl; stir in Parmesan, salt and pepper. Set mixture aside.
2. For the pasta: Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 500 degrees.
3. Bring 4 quarts water to rolling boil in stockpot. Combine cheeses and figs in large bowl; set aside. Add pasta and 1 tablespoon salt to boiling water; stir to separate pasta. While pasta is cooking, melt butter in small saucepan over medium-low heat; whisk flour into butter until no lumps remain. Gradually whisk in cream, increase heat to medium, and bring to boil, stirring occasionally; reduce heat to medium-low and simmer 1 minute to ensure that flour cooks. Stir in remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt and pepper; cover cream mixture to keep hot and set aside. When pasta is very al dente, drain, leaving pasta slightly wet. Add pasta to bowl with cheeses and figs; immediately pour cream mixture over, then cover bowl with foil or large plate and let stand three minutes. Uncover bowl and stir with rubber spatula, scraping bottom of bowl, until cheeses are melted and mixture is thoroughly combined.
4. Transfer pasta to 13-by-9-inch baking dish, then sprinkle evenly with reserved bread crumbs, pressing down lightly. Bake until topping is golden brown, about seven minutes. Serve immediately.
Georgia Clark-Albert is a registered dietitian and adjunct nutrition instructor at Eastern Maine Community College who lives in Athens. Read more of her columns and post questions at bangordailynews.com or email her at GeorgiaMaineMSRDCDE@gmail.com. | <urn:uuid:10a0ca1a-c590-4098-90cb-e1fd84d9d200> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bangordailynews.com/2012/12/03/health/fig-facts-theres-more-to-this-fruit-than-newtons/print/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918448 | 1,261 | 2.90625 | 3 |
Bank window opens for India Inc
Corporates, conglomerates — whether in the public or private sectors — as also non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) can now apply for a banking licence using a non-operative financial holding company (NOFHC) structure. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which issued final guidelines for new banks on Friday, refrained from restricting entities that had a significant presence in the real estate and broking sectors from setting up a bank although it had put in some caveats in the draft guidelines. The central bank, which appears to have conquered its fears of ‘self-dealing’, will cherry-pick prospective bankers checking out if their “credentials and integrity” are sound; it has stipulated that the new bank cannot have any exposure — whether credit or investments in debt or equity — to the “promoters, group entities or individuals associated with the promoter group or the NOFHC” and will count on feedback from investigative and tax agencies to issue licences on a “very selective basis”.
The NOFHC must hold a minimum of 40% of the paid-up equity capital of the bank for five years with the stake being pared to 15% within 12 years, the RBI said. While the minimum initial capital needed to set up a bank of R500 crore is relatively small and will lower entry barriers, the condition that 25% of the branches need to be located in unbanked areas is a tough one and will favour large promoters with deep pockets. The mandatory presence in rural
Be the first to comment. | <urn:uuid:f4b67e27-a4ae-4fe5-b67c-c09fb3efeac9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.financialexpress.com/news/bank-window-opens-for-india-inc/1078425 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952693 | 329 | 1.609375 | 2 |
The Class-based Kernel Resource Management
(CKRM) project is an effort at IBM to provide the hooks for better control
over resource consumption by processes. The CKRM project sees the existing
resource management tools (nice
) as not being up
to the task. So the CKRM hackers have set out to provide a whole new
infrastructure for process control. The ideas were presented at the Ottawa
Linux Symposium last July; now, the first set of patches has been posted.
The overview posting
describes the other
patches in the set and gives some pointers to further information.
The core concept behind CKRM is the division of processes into distinct
classes, each of which has a separate set of policies applied to it. A
kernel API has been provided which enables the loading of classifier
modules, enabling different sites to have entirely different ways of
classifying processes. Most would likely stick with the rule-based classifier, which is provided with
the CKRM patch set; it allows
classification based on various task structure fields. So, for example,
processes can be classified based on their UID, which program they are
Tasks can be reclassified any number of times over their lifetime. The CKRM core patch places hooks in the logical
spots where a process could change classification: when a user or group ID
is changed, when a program calls exec(), when a new process is forked,
etc. There is also a plan for a system call allowing a process to request
reclassification at any time, but that call does not appear to be present
in the current patches.
Once a task is classified, the system can apply policies to that task. So,
for example, the CPU control patch enforces
CPU usage policies on processes. Essentially, each class (as a whole) can
be restricted to (and guaranteed) access to a administrator-specified
percentage of the available processor time. To implement this policy, the
patch modifies the scheduler by creating a new run queue for each class.
Before the scheduler picks a new process to run, it first decides which
class has the highest-priority claim on the CPU. The process to run can
then be chosen from that class's queue in the usual way.
The memory control patch, instead,
implements policies stating how much physical memory each class can use.
The patch hooks into the page reclamation code, making that code rather
more selective in how it choses pages to kick out of main memory. Whenever
possible, the page reclaimer only choses pages from classes which are going
over their maximum allowed share of physical memory. As memory gets
tighter, each class will be trimmed down to its minimum share, as set up by
the administrator. If there is no real pressure on memory, however,
processes are allowed to grow beyond the bounds set for their class.
The memory control problem is complicated by shared pages: what happens
when pages are shared between processes in different classes? The
documentation on the CKRM web site describes an elaborate mechanism where
classes are set up in a hierarchy and shared pages are divided across the
appropriate parts of that hierarchy. What the current code appears to do,
however, is to simply assign shared pages to the class with the largest
share of physical memory.
The CKRM team also describes mechanisms which allow control over the disk
I/O bandwidth used by each class and the number of incoming network
connections each class can be handling at a given time. The I/O
limitations are implemented by adding per-class queues to the disk I/O
scheduler and merging requests into a single dispatch queue with the
bandwidth policies taken into account. The networking policies involve the
creation of yet another set of class-specific queues; in this case,
incoming connections are divided into classes through the use of iptables
rules. Patches for I/O bandwidth and incoming network connection control
have not been released at this time, however.
CKRM is clearly a work in progress; much of the structure is in place, but
not everything has been implemented and the code is full of "this needs to
be cleaned up" comments. The CKRM hackers hope to get their work into 2.7,
however, so they have some time yet to work things into shape.
to post comments) | <urn:uuid:5813ea82-2fbd-458a-a02a-13ffdb8f0169> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lwn.net/Articles/47537/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932265 | 928 | 2.03125 | 2 |
Pugh's Directories of Queensland, the best known of the Queensland ones are hard to come by, but thanks to Archive CD Books Australia and their association with various archives and lenders - these are being released for all to see and use.
This Almanac and Directory for 1865 is one of the earliest, as prior to 1859 Queensland was part of New South Wales. Consisting of not only a Brisbane Directory, as well as a Country Directory, but also an Almanac, and numerous other miscellaneous information, such as meterological observations, postal information, population, ports and harbours, and more. This is an incredible publication.
The country towns trade directory lists the towns together with their stations, and stationowners (so it is not as comprehensive as latter years of these directories). The Brisbane directory lists the occupations alphabetically with names under each, together with their street name.
Originally produced by Archive CD Books Australia in 2006, this title has now been remastered and re-released, and includes better searching capability. This CD contains high quality scanned images of the whole of the original book, and has been bookmarked for easy navigation. Pages can be searched, browsed, enlarged and printed out if required. | <urn:uuid:e4f33ba3-9e1e-4f4d-9cbb-0038c3ba2561> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gould.com.au/Pugh-s-Almanac-Queensland-Directory-1865-p/au4115-1865.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965788 | 247 | 1.945313 | 2 |
|Japanese Prints||Sign In | Register | Contact us | New User?|
Auction End: Thursday, May 23, 2013, 8:00:00 PM in 1 day, 3 hours, 26 minutes and 17 seconds
Akio Onda graduated in 1956 from Musashino Art Collecge. He had studied under Munakata Shiko and was greatly influenced by him. The artist had his first one man shows at the renowned Yoseido Gallery and Tanseido Gallery in Tokyo in 1969 and 1970. Akio Onda works in woodblock technique and uses similar methods as his teacher such as painting or printing from verso.
Auction Catalog by Artist Akio Onda born 1924 - artelino
Chikanobu had studied under Tohohara Kunichika whose surname he took. Favorite subjects are historical scenes, female images and prints showing emperor and empress Meiji in an environment that documented the rapid progress in adopting Western technology and customs. Chikanobu had adopted some Western styles and techniques, but his subjects were rather retrograde.
Auction Catalog by Artist Chikanobu Toyohara 1838-1912 - artelino | Biography Chikanobu Toyohara
Notes: also Chikanobu Yoshu
Gekko Ogata worked as a painter, printmaker and decorator of pottery and lacquerware. His favorite subjects were genre scenes from everday's life. During and after the Sino-Japanese war he produced a considerable number of war prints. Gekko won several prizes at exhibitions. His print style reminds more of paintings than of traditional woodblocks. Gekko's designs required great skill by the carvers and printers.
Auction Catalog by Artist Gekko Ogata 1859-1920 - artelino | Biography Gekko Ogata
Gen Yamanaka is a woodblock artist. His subjects are often expressed in abstract forms featuring stars, the sky and water.
Auction Catalog by Artist Gen Yamanaka born 1954 - artelino
Gesso Yoshimoto designed woodblock prints of landscape scenes and kacho-e - images of birds and flowers. The large number of designs and their variety have long been in the shadow until the Robert O. Muller Collection came into the public awareness with a large number of beautiful designs by this artist.
Auction Catalog by Artist Gesso Yoshimoto 1881-1936 - artelino | Woodblock Prints by Gesso Yoshimoto
Ginko Adachi worked as a war correspondant and illustrator during the Sino-Japanese war. Besides war prints he produced actor portraits. Little is known about his life. He was born under the real name of Adachi Heishichi. Ginko studied with the Western-style painter Goseda Horyu I. Ginko made designs for prints of the Boshin rebellion in 1870.
Auction Catalog by Artist Ginko Adachi fl.ca.1860-1890s - artelino
Hajime Namiki had originally studied the art of sculpter under Shigeru Ogura. Today he is better known by his woodblock prints which he began to create at the end of the 1970s. And among his woodblock designs, the intricate images of trees are the collectors' favorites. Art works by Hajime Namiki are in the White House and in major museum collections.
Auction Catalog by Artist Hajime Namiki born 1947 - artelino | Biography Hajime Namiki
Hideo Hagiwara was born in Yamanashi. He is one of the best known Japanese artists of the 20th century. In 1983 he was honored by the Japanese goverment with the 'Purple Ribbon'. His artworks are in leading museums of the world. Hideo Hagiwara uses a broad variety of printmaking techniques - woodblock, lithograph, etching and stencil.
Auction Catalog by Artist Hideo Hagiwara 1913-2007 - artelino | Biography of Hagiwara Hideo
Hirosada started as a pupil of Kunimasu Utagawa. He was one of the masters of the Osaka School. His favorite subjects were Kabuki scenes and Kabuki actors. He is possibly the same artist as Sadahiro Utagawa.
Auction Catalog by Artist Hirosada Utagawa active ca. 1820-1860 - artelino | Biography Hirosada Utagawa
Notes: also Hirosada Konishi | <urn:uuid:d924703b-d31f-4763-a867-c1fb403f9fa4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.artelino.com/auction/artists.asp?art=1738&cay=0&evt=0&pp=1&pp1=1&rp=1&rp1=10&rp2=1&lvl=2&sea=&suy=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966797 | 935 | 2.046875 | 2 |
Bathing on Shabbos
7. It is forbidden, on Shabbos, to bathe in water that one would usually
only enter for medicinal purposes ("Refuah"), for example, noxious or foul
water, because it is obvious that one is doing so for the purpose of
When does this apply? When one lingers in it (2). If one does not linger,
it is permitted, for it appears that [one is immersing] to merely cool off.
(3). In hot springs like those of Tiberias, if, in general, people only
immerse in them for medicinal purposes, it is forbidden to immerse in them
on Shabbos, even when one does not linger (4).
(1) The Sages prohibited doing anything for healing purposes on Shabbos,
except where absolutely essential, because they were concerned that one may
come to grind substances for use as medicine; "grinding" ("Tochen") is one
of the 39 Avos Melachos (prototype prohibited activity - see
Halacha Yomi 80:15, note (1)).
(2) If one lingers, it is clear to all that one is certainly immersing for
medicinal purposes, for that is the only reason one would remain in
disgusting water for more than a short time.
(3) People could assume that the person was unable to find cleaner waters
in which to cool off. Remaining in this type of water for a short time is
permissible even if one's intent is for healing purposes, as long as it is
not obvious to onlookers that this is the intent.
(4) Obviously, in the case of hot springs, onlookers can't assume that the
person is cooling off, and thus, even immersing for a short time is
prohibited. However, according to the Mishna Berura 328:137, immersing in
hot springs for a short time is permissible. Also, the prohibition only
applies to someone who is bathing in these springs to alleviate slight
discomfort, however, when one is actually ill, it is permissible to bathe | <urn:uuid:13ac297d-e000-495a-b6f5-459fb259669c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.torah.org/learning/halacha/classes/class86-7.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957904 | 459 | 1.875 | 2 |
To add to all of this speculation is a post on GameCubicle.com which seems to suggest various marketing ploys and campaigns for such a feature. The most prominent seems to be the picture of a young boy in the woods holding a Nintendo DS. Going further, it seems that the words, "Find Me" seem to be a big part of this rumored campaign. In addition to the lone boy in the woods, there are images of puppets (marionette) with the words, "Find Me." Think of the word "marionette"....Mario Net? Yes, it would seem a great marketing ploy to suggest that stringed marionettes are the image we'll associate with Mario Net.
Going even further, it seems that in the words, "Find Me," there is a faded "s" after the "d" and before the "M". In other words, "FindsMe" with a faded "s". The middle of that phrase is now "DS".
And, why not add one more myth to this growing story. It seems that there is also a lot of reference to the 15th century explorer, Magellen, who was the first to circumnavigate the globe. Perhaps Nintendo will be suggesting that the DS will be the first network to do the same.
Hmm? Well, it would be quite an amazing feat if Nintendo could pull this off and if it did actually work. Then, you'd have free world-wide long distance in addition to a great gaming platform.
Again, don't believe any of this until you hear confirmation. It is very fun to think about but don't get too excited. | <urn:uuid:29d70b72-0d3e-4bd7-af39-0c849e2d2ca9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lunabean.com/news/000674.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973918 | 340 | 1.5 | 2 |
It's pretty easy, but you do need to make a couple of changes.
The whole wheat flour will carry more water than your regular white flour. You will need to experiment to find the exact amount of extra water to add, but for starters, I'd recommend adding 8 to 10% more water. Since the whole wheat flour is slower to hydrate than white flour I suggest using a "soaker". To do this, put the whole wheat flour in a suitably sized container, and add the full amount of water to the flour, stir until the consistency of wet oatmeal (it should look sloppy). Set aside and allow to hydrate for at least 1-hour. More time won't hurt it. I have even put it in the fridge to hydrate overnight for use on the following day. Transfer the soaker to your mixing bowl and add the remainder of ingredients and mix just until the dough comes smooth and springy to the touch. From that point on, you should be able to manage the dough in your normal manner. Keep in mind that whole wheat doughs do not hold up very well for more than about a day in the fridge after it has been mixed as a dough. Some ideas for consideration:
1) Use butter as your source of fat.
2) Use 3% NONDIASTATIC malt syrup to replace any sugar in the dough recipe/formula.
3) After opening the dough into a pizza skin, wet the edge of the dough with a little water and sprinkle the edge only with some sesame seeds. The flavor compliments the whole wheat.
4) If you can find whole white wheat flour give it a try since the flavor is better than the flavor of whole wheat flour made from a dark red wheat variety.
Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor | <urn:uuid:fe3ee3f5-d930-404d-b95b-ea798f9da3eb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php?topic=23350.0;prev_next=prev | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936463 | 367 | 1.554688 | 2 |
This article was originally distributed via PRWeb. PRWeb, WorldNow and this Site make no warranties or representations in connection therewith.
SOURCE: Zehnder Communications
Lung presentation is latest in cancer treatment center’s string of pioneering studies
HAVERTOWN, Pa. (PRWEB) February 21, 2013
Philadelphia CyberKnife physicians are set this week to present innovative research findings demonstrating the effectiveness of stereotactic body radiation therapy for treating primary and recurrent lung cancer.
Two studies will be presented Feb. 22 at the Radiosurgery Society’s 2013 SRS/SBRT Scientific Meeting in California. These are the latest studies from Philadelphia CyberKnife, which has carved a niche for trailblazing clinical research focused on stereotactic body radiation therapy. CyberKnife® is a robotic technology that provides stereotactic body radiation therapy, or SBRT, a noninvasive method of treating tumors with very precise, high-dose radiation beams in five or fewer procedures.
The first study focused on lung cancer patients who were previously treated and had tumors grow back. Such cases can be difficult, doctors say, because patients typically have undergone radiation therapy previously and are near the maximum amount of radiation medically allowed. These patients typically have very limited options with little prior research on SBRT’s effectiveness on recurring tumors reported.
Dr. Rachelle Lanciano, chief of radiation oncology at Delaware County Memorial Hospital, says these patients had limited options before CyberKnife technology. “We’re now able to offer patients extended survival with good quality of life by managing these patients collaboratively with medical oncologists,” Dr. Lanciano says.
In a second study, CyberKnife treatment destroyed tumors in all but three of the 90 patients with primary lung cancer.
“The results were so extraordinary, we believe the study shows how the medical community needs to find more ways to incorporate stereotactic body radiation therapy in the regular treatment of lung cancer patients,” says Dr. John Lamond, Philadelphia CyberKnife’s associate medical director, who authored the second study.
Philadelphia CyberKnife is part of Delaware County Memorial Hospital in Drexel Hill, Pa. Since opening in 2006 through a partnership with the hospital, Philadelphia CyberKnife radiation oncologists and medical physicists have become regular faces at radiation therapy conferences, presenting a growing number of studies regarding treatment of lung, liver and prostate cancers.
“We were the first CyberKnife center in the region, and when we opened there was little data on radiation dosing,” says Dr. Lanciano, who co-authored the first lung study. “We realized early on that, especially with the number of unique cancer cases we were treating, we owed it to our patients and their referring doctors to let them know what our experience was and how we’re doing.”
She and other staff members credit Dr. Luther Brady, the center’s founder, medical director and a pioneer of radiation oncology, for making clinical research a priority. Dr. Brady, professor and chairman emeritus of radiation oncology at Drexel University, established a formal relationship to enable residents to rotate through Philadelphia CyberKnife. In addition to getting hands-on experience, residents offer crucial assistance with the center’s research efforts and gain opportunities to co-author and present research findings at major conferences.
“When we started out, our treatment was in large part relying on other centers’ data,” says Dr. Lamond. “We’ve treated almost 2,000 patients, so we’re able to publish our own data and point to our own results.”
Additionally, Dr. Jun Yang, Ph.D., Philadelphia CyberKnife’s chief medical physicist, has served as lead author on other studies involving technical aspects of SBRT. His most recent was published online in late 2012 by the International Journal of Radiation Oncology, also known as the Red Journal and one of the world’s most respected sources of research in the field. Dr. Yang’s study is due in print later this spring.
His research focused on the way tumors and healthy tissue react to radiation, which requires doctors to carefully plan radiation doses and time intervals over the course of treatment. Long-held standards call for spreading the radiation dose throughout a long course of treatment to protect healthy tissue exposed to radiation.
Dr. Yang’s findings documented how SBRT affects tumors and healthy tissue differently than traditional radiation therapy methods. Essentially, he explained the physics of how higher radiation doses could be delivered to the tumor while the healthy tissue received significantly lower exposure from stereotactic body radiation therapy.
“This scientific data is essential as the underlying reason for why retreatments are possible with CyberKnife,” Dr. Yang says. “With conventional radiation therapy, lower doses are administered over time, but we found with SBRT, pinpoint delivery of higher doses delivers better results.”
In a prostate cancer study published last fall, Philadelphia CyberKnife made a similar kind of discovery. Cancerous cells in the prostate gland are somewhat unique in that they tend to grow more slowly than other kinds of tumors. Dr. Yang says that when comparing low- and high-dose regimens, the center found a quicker course of treatment with higher radiation doses worked better, which is contrary to conventional radiation therapy.
The center is currently finalizing studies on brain and gynecological cancers, while others are in earlier stages of research.
Philadelphia CyberKnife is a service of Delaware County Memorial Hospital, a member of the Crozer-Keystone Health System, and is located off the hospital’s main campus at 2010 West Chester Pike in Havertown, Penn. For more information, call (610) 446-6850.
For the original version on PRWeb visit: http://www.prweb.com/releases/prweb2013/2/prweb10453629.htm | <urn:uuid:482aa253-53d5-41f1-8eee-faf46feb7e92> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ksfy.com/story/21297791/philadelphia-cyberknife-continues-trailblazing-cancer-research | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944817 | 1,251 | 2.0625 | 2 |
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Five lines of text are displayed, all the same color. However, the first is a title and is formatted with a larger font size. The second is the author's name and is in italics. The remainder of the paragraph has no special style. The lines are:
Fredrick the Great meets Bach Johann Nikolaus Forkel One evening, just as he was getting his flute ready and his musicians were assembled, an officer brought him a list of the strangers who had arrived.
Return to image. | <urn:uuid:b919c456-a527-41e1-98b6-3ac4b0f353f0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/images/longdesc/bach2-desc.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978756 | 116 | 2.5 | 2 |
By now you're savvy enough to raise an eyebrow at a suspicious health “fact” when you hear one. Tampons contain asbestos? Drinking lemonade will make you lose 10 pounds in five days? You’re just not buying it. Unfortunately, some misinformation is only slightly off from the truth, so it’s a little trickier to spot. Watch out for these easy-to-fall-for myths.
Myth 1: You only need to worry about cholesterol if you’re overweight.
While it’s true that women who are overweight are at higher risk for having elevated cholesterol levels, there are also plenty of slender people who have cholesterol problems, says Jo Parrish, vice president of the Society for Women’s Health Research. The organization surveyed women and found that 83 percent knew how much they weighed in high school but only 21 percent knew their total cholesterol number.
Unfortunately, weight isn’t the only thing that matters when it comes to your cholesterol. Your genes and lifestyle—what you eat, how active you are—also play a role. So be sure to get your cholesterol checked regularly, even if you’re at a healthy weight.
Myth 2: It’s normal to always be tired.
We all have days when we feel droopy, but if you’re dragging for longer than four weeks or have a week or two of feeling so tired you can’t keep up with the kids or perform at work, check in with your doctor, says Michelle Lentner Foye, MD, an internist in private practice in Bethel, Connecticut. Fatigue can be a symptom of many conditions, ranging from anemia, thyroid problems and sleep apnea to heart disease. Even if it turns out to be nothing serious, medication or other therapies may help you feel more rested.
Myth 3: Older women don’t get STDs.
Just because you can’t get pregnant anymore doesn’t mean you can cross worrying about safe sex off your list. You’re still at risk for sexually transmitted diseases. In fact, a recent study found that the number of people 45 and older with STDs has doubled in the past decade.
Since the vaginal wall thins and lubrication decreases with age, postmenopausal women are more likely to get small tears in the vaginal tissue, which ups the risk of STD transmission, says Jennifer Wider, MD, coauthor of The Savvy Woman Patient. So unless you’re 100 percent sure that you’re in a long-term monogamous relationship with someone who’s also STD-free, use condoms.
Myth 4: If you’re having a heart attack, you’ll feel chest pain.
We all have an image of the classic heart attack victim who clutches his chest and falls to the ground. This is often true: Both men and women tend to experience shooting chest pain that radiates to the left arm and pressure that feels like an elephant sitting on your chest.
But that’s not always the case. Some people—women in particular—have shortness of breath that seems to come out of nowhere, or pain in the arms, neck, jaw or back (particularly on the upper left side). Sweating, feeling anxious or extremely tired, and color draining from your face can also be signs that you’re having a heart attack, says Jennifer Mieres, MD, a cardiologist at NYU School of Medicine in New York City.
“Never be embarrassed to go to the emergency room and say, ‘I think I’m having a heart attack,’” says Dr. Mieres, especially if you have a family history of heart disease or other known risk factors, such as high cholesterol. And don’t hesitate to call 911: “Time is crucial. There is a window of six to 12 hours in which treatment can save the heart muscle. After that, the damage may be irreversible.”
Myth 5: Colon cancer is primarily a man’s disease.
We’re not sure how this notion got started, because the lifetime risk is only a smidge higher for men. In fact, colon cancer is the third most common cancer in women. That’s why everyone should get screened starting at age 50, such as with a colonoscopy every 10 years. (If you have a family history or other risk factors, you may need to be screened earlier and/or more often.) “If colon cancer is caught early, it has a very good prognosis,” says Dr. Wider.
Understandably, no one looks forward to a colonoscopy, but it’s probably not as bad as you think (the prep is usually the worst part). You shouldn’t have pain or bleeding afterward; if you do for some reason, call your doctor right away.
Myth 6: For vaginal itching, just use an OTC yeast treatment.
Self-treating is probably OK for women who’ve been previously diagnosed with a yeast infection by a doctor. But if this is the first time you’ve had itching, burning and pain, call your ob-gyn ASAP.
“So many women have these symptoms and assume it’s a yeast infection, but they can also be signs of something more serious, like a urinary tract infection, bacterial vaginosis, or even an STD like herpes, chlamydia or gonorrhea,” says Kim Alumbaugh, MD, an obgyn at Total Woman in Louisville, Kentucky.
Myth 7: With OTC meds, taking more than the recommended dose will help it work faster/better.
Many OTC drugs—like Zantac and Zyrtec—started out as Rx remedies, and all medications have potential side effects. Yet 44 percent of people surveyed by the National Consumers League admitted to taking more than the recommended dosage of OTC pain relievers. Your liver and kidneys (which break down and eliminate toxins) can only process a certain amount of medication at once, so if you overdo it, you could end up with organ damage. And some OTC drugs, like certain cold medicines, can make your blood pressure and heart rate dangerously high if you take too much. Automatically using a yeast infection cream without checking in with a doctor delays getting an accurate diagnosis and the right treatment—which may make symptoms worse. Dr. Alumbaugh cautions that women who have had previous yeast infections should see their doctor if the OTC remedy doesn’t help clear things up within two to three days.
Myth 8: You don’t need to see a gynecologist every year.
True, the latest guidelines from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists say that most women ages 21 to 29 can get a Pap smear every two years, and that women 30 and older can get one every three years (assuming they’ve had three normal test results in a row). But a Pap isn’t the only reason to go to your gynecologist, says Dr. Alumbaugh. During an annual checkup, she should be physically examining your entire reproductive system (including your breasts, ovaries and vulva). Even women who’ve had a hysterectomy should get this annual exam.
Myth 9: Supplements aren’t as potent as “real” drugs.
You don’t need a prescription from a doctor to get dietary supplements and herbal remedies, and they’re not classified as over-the-counter drugs, but that doesn’t mean they’re harmless.
“People forget that prescription drugs are often derived from natural sources,” and that some supplements can affect your body in the same way that a prescription drug can, according to Tim Davis, pharmacist and owner of Beaver Health Mart Pharmacy in Beaver, Pennsylvania. That means that supplements (including herbs and vitamins) can definitely have side effects and potentially interact with any medication, food or other supplements you’re taking.
That’s why it’s always smart to talk to your doctor before taking any supplement—especially if you’re also on any OTC or prescription medications. For example, you may be using ginkgo biloba to boost your memory, but this herb also thins the blood, so combining it with a prescription blood thinner like Coumadin would be very dangerous. don’t believe it! Continued
Another issue: Herbal remedies aren’t closely regulated by the FDA, so there’s no way of knowing exactly what each bottle contains, Davis explains. There could be more or less of the active ingredient and even other fillers. Your doctor can point you in the direction of reputable brands and help you keep an eye out for side effects.
Myth 10: If my doctor doesn’t call with test results, everything must be fine.
Don’t assume no news is good news. “Things can get lost in fax heaven, or one person in the office may assume that someone else has already contacted you,” says Dr. Lentner Foye.
It’s particularly easy for communication to break down if your doctor sends you elsewhere for tests and the results have to be sent to her office. “If more than two weeks have gone by and you haven’t received test results, call and ask for them,” says Dr. Lentner Foye. It doesn’t matter whether you had standard blood work or a biopsy. You don’t want to risk valuable time if you end up needing further treatment or evaluation. | <urn:uuid:4b7a4394-c70d-4170-9bf1-082ce0614b76> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.womansday.com/health-fitness/10-harmful-health-myths-102393?src=shelter_footer | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937597 | 2,020 | 2.4375 | 2 |
Taxes necessary, but not necessarily fair
Paying taxes is as American as mom and apple pie. According to our latest poll results, 92 percent of Americans understand the necessity of paying taxes and feel that it is everyone's duty to pay their fair share.
However, many think the system is unfair. Three in five respondents (60 percent) think the tax system is skewed to benefit the rich.
|•||Two-thirds of Americans would prefer to maintain control over their tax returns (65 percent) rather than let the government prepare their returns, if given that option.|
|•||Even though two-thirds claim to feel comfortable with tax planning (67 percent), nearly four in 10 (38 percent) look forward to getting a big tax refund each year because they have more money withheld from their paychecks than necessary. This amounts to a tax-free loan to Uncle Sam. Don't expect reciprocity.|
|•||Nearly three out of 10 Americans (28 percent) admit they feel clueless when it comes to doing their taxes.|
Bankrate commissioned GfK Roper to conduct a random survey of Americans' attitudes about taxes as part of this month's focus in our yearlong Financial Literacy series.
|Taxes are important|
Americans 'get' taxes
"Despite our complaints about paying taxes, people overwhelmingly understand their necessity and feel it is a duty to pay our fair share," says Bankrate's senior financial analyst Greg McBride.
Even the tax policy director at Americans for Tax Reform, the group calling for all incumbents and candidates to sign its no-new-taxes pledge, agrees with three of the four statements shown in the adjacent table.
Says Ryan Ellis, the tax policy director who is an enrolled agent as well as a tax lobbyist: "Most people, of course, think that taxes are necessary, that they shouldn't be abolished and that everyone should pay their fair share. Even the most radical anti-government position -- which I share -- anticipates a border-securing military, a crime-preventing police and a civil/criminal court system. Less than that and you're in the Dark Ages." | <urn:uuid:8a4cd2e2-55c9-4802-b929-fcf0911b04e4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bankrate.com/finance/financial-literacy/taxes-necessary-but-not-necessarily-fair-1.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965468 | 444 | 2.28125 | 2 |
The State of Wisconsin has entered into gaming compact agreements with all eleven (11) federally recognized Tribes of Indians in Wisconsin, as permitted by the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988, 25 U.S.C. sec. 2701 (Act). Tribal/State gaming compacts are negotiated between a Tribe and the State to set forth the rules, regulations and conditions under which a Tribe may conduct Class III gaming, as defined in the Act. Compact documents for each Tribe include the original compact document, first and second amendments and relevant memorandum of understanding of government to government and technical matters. The multiple documents unique to each Tribe may reference each other and are all inter-related.
Please click on the Tribal name below to obtain all compact documents related to that Tribe. | <urn:uuid:42774560-31ad-4c4b-9208-17a68c841cc8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.doa.state.wi.us/section_detail.asp?linkcatid=694&linkid=117&locid=7 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947524 | 153 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Residents: Coyotes Killing Animals in their Neighborhood
MADISON COUNTY, Tenn. - An entire community is on alert after they fear coyotes killed a neighborhood dog.
It happened in East Madison County, where homeowners said they now fear their other animals, even their children, could fall prey to the wild dogs.
Terry Flatt said his neighbor came for help after she thought two coyotes were attacking a neighborhood poodle.
"She heard a dog screaming and hollering in the horse pasture, and she said that she saw two coyotes got ahold of it, and by the time I got out here to check it, the coyotes had already drug it back into the woods," Flatt said.
Now he is concerned for his two horses. His pasture runs right into the woods.
"There's nothing stopping them from coming into the fence," he said.
The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency said they have not gotten any recent complaints about coyotes in West Tennessee. That does not mean they are not out there.
"I hear them a lot back there at night, you know, hollering and everything," Flatt said.
According to wildlife officials, coyotes move to find food, and when it is colder, they are more active in order to stay warm.
They target easy meals, which are usually smaller animals like mice or rabbits.
Residents with small cats, dogs and children are concerned.
"We have a lot of children in the neighborhood that play out here, and I wouldn't want the coyotes to get a hold of them," said resident Wendy Milam.
TWRA officials said coyotes are likely to leave you alone if you are outside with a small animal, but they also suggest keeping an eye on them.
Officials told WBBJ 7 Eyewitness News there are regulations for how and when you can hunt coyotes. They encourage you to contact them with any questions. | <urn:uuid:62cae70f-4408-45b4-ac8d-4256d8edef6d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wbbjtv.com/news/local/Residents-Coyotes-Killing-Animals-in-their-Neighborhood-178009001.html?skipthumb=Y | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982045 | 394 | 1.75 | 2 |
A new false advertising action filed by jewelry retailer Sterling Jewelers Inc. in the Northern District of Ohio (Sterling Jewelers Inc. v. Zale Corp.) presents a unique question about the line between puffery and misleading advertising claims, specifically claims based on product testing. The defendant in the case, Zale Corporation (Zales), also a jewelry retailer, recently began promoting its line of “Celebration Fire” diamonds as “The Most Brilliant Diamond in the World.” Some of its advertisements explain that the claim is “based on independent laboratory testing conducted in 2012 of round-cut diamonds from select leading national jewelry store chains.”
Sterling challenges the truth of Zales’s claims, arguing in part that because the laboratory tests were limited to “diamonds from select leading national jewelry store chains,” Zales necessarily did not test all of the diamonds “in the world.” According to Sterling, “Zales’s claim that it has proven its Fire diamonds to be more brilliant than any other cut of diamond in the world can be true only if its Fire diamonds have been tested against every other cut of diamond in the world.”
Sterling also asserts that because the brilliance of a diamond is a recognized property within the jewelry industry and is capable of being objectively measured, Zales’s claims are not mere puffery—i.e., an exaggerated, subjective opinion about a good or service. Typically, the vaguer a statement is with respect to a product’s specific characteristics, the more likely the statement is to be puffery. For example, courts routinely find that a general claim to be the “best…in the world” constitutes puffery. Statements amounting to puffery are not actionable under false advertising law because consumers recognize them as such, and are therefore not deceived or misled by them.
Certainly, the fact that Zales singled out a specific product characteristic—the brilliance of its diamonds—distinguishes its advertising claims from most common types of puffery. Zales’s own reference to its laboratory testing also indicates that it intended to go beyond a subjective opinion in describing its diamonds as the most brilliant in the world. Yet, the phrase “in the world” is one that often appears in statements of puffery and some courts have, in fact, explained that the phrase is precisely the sort of exaggerated generalization that consumers do not interpret literally. As a result, Zales’s advertising claims are not easily categorized.
While the court has yet to weigh in on the issue, the case raises a number of questions about how false advertising law should apply to advertising claims that may contain both puffery and non-puffery. If the court or jury were to treat the entirety of Zales’s advertising claims as non-puffery, for example, Zales’s failure to test its diamonds against all other diamonds in the world could be fatal. But are consumers really deceived on this point? Do they truly expect Zales to have tested every other diamond in the world? Is that even possible? At the same time, it makes little sense to treat the entirety of Zales’s advertising claims as mere puffery.
Instead, Zales’s claims would seem to require a nuanced approach, one that distinguishes between puffery and non-puffery. Even this approach presents challenges, however. For example, if Zales need not have tested every diamond in the world in order to support its claims, how many did it need to test, and which ones? In the end, the issues of consumer deception and puffery both present questions of fact, and there will likely be no bright line to draw.
Regardless of the outcome, this case is a helpful reminder of the need to balance effective, consumer-friendly marketing jargon with careful phrasing that lowers the risk of a false advertising suit. Advertisers should be aware of the inherent tension present in an advertising claim that both relies upon product testing and uses puffery. More specifically, they should be aware of what terms and phrases in their advertising could be problematic if interpreted literally. | <urn:uuid:38feb3f2-2753-4b47-9b18-a05bf9825681> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.insidecounsel.com/2012/12/20/litigation-product-testing-and-puffery-collide-in | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954065 | 859 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Perhaps you see the same collarless cat day after day. Should you feed it? Does it have a home? How can you tell?
Dr. G. Robert Weedon is a shelter veterinarian at the Champaign County Humane Society who lectures on shelter medicine as an adjunct professor at the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine in Urbana. He reminds good Samaritans that what appear to be stray pets often have homes.
“People need to remember that when a stray dog or cat is found, it is very likely that someone is looking for it,” says Dr. Weedon. “While we may be tempted to keep the animal, and provide it a good home, at a minimum we need to make sure it is scanned for a microchip, and a thorough description is given to local humane societies and animal control. A distraught owner may be frantically searching for the lost pet.”
Here is a step-by-step guide to doing all you can to ensure that a “stray” cat has the very best chance to be reunited with its people—or to find a new home. And if you are a cat owner, reading these ideas may prompt you to take steps to ensure that your pet is “findable.”
Step One: Take the cat to your local veterinary clinic.
A veterinarian can help you obtain information about the cat. Ask for the cat to be scanned for the presence of a microchip. Increasingly, responsible owners are having their pets microchipped—a process very similar to getting a shot in which a tiny chip is implanted under the pet’s skin with a needle. The chips are encoded with a number that identifies the animal’s owner. If the cat has been microchipped, the clinic should be able to contact the owner.
If no chip is present, ask the veterinarian whether the cat is male or female and whether it appears to have been spayed or neutered. You may also want to determine whether the cat has been declawed and its approximate age (whether young, senior, etc.).
Step Two: Make a “found” sign.
Like a “lost” sign, this should include information about the cat: its sex, sterilization status, whether it is declawed, and more. It will also be extremely helpful to include a clear photograph of the cat. Be sure to mention the area where and when the cat was found.
Step Three: Distribute the sign.
Take the sign to animal control, the humane society, and any local veterinary clinics and pet stores. When at animal control, check the current lost reports for possible matches among the cats reported missing. Be sure to scan the “lost” fliers for a cat matching the description of the one you found.
Step Four: Place an ad in the local paper.
Most newspapers do not charge for “found” ads. Craigslist is another place to post a found animal; it’s free, and you can upload the cat’s picture.
If, after all these steps have been completed, a week goes by and no one has attempted to re-claim the animal, you may consider taking the cat to the humane society or a local rescue organization or even providing the cat with a permanent home.
Susan Norris is an Information Specialist at University of Illinois’ College of Veterinary Medicine. | <urn:uuid:8297e42d-f43a-4d71-b404-541f0f1945c7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2012/02/08/health-and-family/pets-animals/stray-cats.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941792 | 701 | 2.546875 | 3 |
We get it. You've got a huge amount of work to do within a very short window of time. You must get the harvest in - it's your and your family's livelihood. That urgency is likely what causes more accidents and damage during harvest than at any other time during the year. Some of these are devastating and life changing.
We want you to accomplish it all on time, but we want you to do it safely. Take a deep breath and 10 minutes to read this. It's that important.
Step 1: Save time by getting organized
1. The loss of use of harvesting, grain handling or grain drying equipment will cause lengthy delays if they occur at the wrong time. So, before harvest begins:
Collect owners and operators manuals for all your harvesting equipment.
Review the operational information and maintenance schedules to determine if specific calibrations, service or preventative maintenance needs to be completed before harvest begins.
Make sure regularly scheduled equipment maintenance is being completed throughout the harvest season by creating a written maintenance/servicing checklist.
Perform operational checks on fans, augers, conveyors and other mechanical equipment before harvest begins.
Find and organize parts, tools and equipment needed to facilitate immediate servicing, maintenance or repairs to all harvesting or grain handling equipment.
Consider the purchase of spare parts or additional maintenance/servicing tools for critical pieces of equipment.
2. Complete a basic safety walk around of your grain facilities.
Look for slip, trip and fall hazards -- like loose ladders, platforms, handrails and steps. These should be checked and repaired.
Get rid of protruding objects that could cause injury from a trip or fall.
Clean up debris, weeds or other obstructions that can cause potential injury or impede your ability to work without hindrance.
Check for loose or missing safety covers and access panels on your equipment and structures.
Inspect and test LP or natural gas lines, connections or fittings.
•nstall warning signs, safety locks and have a first aid kit at each of your grain sites.
3. Complete a facilities electrical check.
Electrical boxes and connections should be weather and water tight and properly grounded.
Make sure there is no open conduit or exposed wiring.
Panels and switches should be operationally checked and if something is not working perfectly it should be repaired or replaced now rather than during harvest.
What about overhead wiring? Make sure it is addressed as part of any pre harvest electrical inspection and safety program.
4. Take time to educate or train your employees, family members or workers on the safe operation of your harvest vehicles and equipment.
Consider if it may be necessary to train them when to stop doing something and get help to prevent bodily injury or damage to equipment.
If new or substitute equipment has been installed, the best time to refresh everyone's training and understanding is before an incident happens.
We also suggest special attention be given to restricting access to your grain handling and storage location. These structures and the equipment associated with them are a visual attraction, especially to young children.
Impact of Drought on Summer Harvest and More:
Join us on Thursday for AccuWeather LIVE as we will discuss the debate of climate change and hurricane frequency and the top five things you need to know about summer weather.Read Story > | <urn:uuid:745ef64e-0485-4e80-b299-42311761e22d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.accuweather.com/en/outdoor-articles/farming/staying-safe-during-harvest-2/56288 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936225 | 675 | 2.015625 | 2 |
This must seem a radical statement given The Wall Street Journal's "What They Know" series, the New York Times editorial calling for a federal Do Not Track list, and December's FTC report on privacy, all of which sound a shrill alarm on the risks to consumer privacy from online, interest-based advertising.
The fact is that online, interest-based advertising is the only form of advertising that puts the control 100% in the hands of the consumer. Ours and other companies that provide targeted online advertising services adhere to privacy best practices, and we all provide a simple opt-out for consumers. The backstop to all of these efforts is the fact that the targeting in question fundamentally depends on a cookie placed on the consumer's computer -- and therefore fully under his or her control at all times.
To end targeted advertising -- at any moment a consumer chooses -- consumer need only delete their cookies. A consumer can even delete selected cookies. Privacy advocates say this feature is "hidden" or too complicated for the average consumer. But popular browsers, such as Firefox, provide menu items one click away from the main menu that enable anyone to delete cookies and browse in private. Popular security software provides built-in features for regularly scheduled cookie deletion. Any consumer who knows how to buy something online knows how to manage cookies or even manage his or her browsing history. This isn't as complicated as the so-called privacy advocates would have us think.
No other form of advertising offers consumer the level of control this implies. I can't control the print advertisements I see in magazines or newspapers that are targeted based on data collected offline (other than by not reading the publications). I can't avoid targeted direct mail, or control which direct mail I get, despite various attempts by the DMA to institute a Do Not Mail list. Let's face it, none of us can avoid spam, despite Can-SPAM, and the "Do Not Call" list only applies to certain firms, but not to nonprofits and certainly not to the political campaigns whose recorded messages so often interrupt our family dinner. Compared to just about every other form of advertising, online, cookie-targeted display advertising looks pretty consumer friendly.
Where is the market failure?
Most regulation is driven by market failure. The idea is that there are situations where the market can't deliver the outcome desired by a plurality because of an inherent flaw in institutions or incentives. These situations, market failures, require a government to step in.
There is an increasing drumbeat from government agencies and politicians about the need to regulate online cookie-targeted advertising. The implication is that the market has failed, so the government needs to protect the consumer.
The history of regulation is replete with robust debates as to whether the market had or had not failed in a particular instance, and therefore whether or not the government truly needed to intervene. The situation around cookie-based online ad targeted is not one of these cases. There is simply no market failure. The companies involved have provided mechanisms for managing any targeted ads that may be displayed, and consumers themselves have easy and absolute control over any cookies placed on their computer.
No, really: Where is the failure?
The only failure that I'm aware of is the failure of privacy advocates and certain legislators to find any harm done to consumers. Even the aforementioned NY Times editorial confused data-scraping with behavioral advertising -- and the Times should know better, because it employs more behavioral tags on its site than most publishers.
We're told that the opt-out facilities provided by interactive media and marketing companies are too complicated. We're told that cookie deletion in the browser is too difficult. But, as described above, these steps are pretty easy. The real frustration of privacy advocates seems to be that most consumers don't care enough even to take these steps. This frustration is driving the desire for the government to step in and "fix" a failure that doesn't exist.
I don't believe consumers are as dumb as privacy advocates make them out to be. An alternative interpretation of the current situation is that consumers can manage their own browsing experience, and they've by and large voted with their mice. Consumers have concluded that tons of free content and great applications coupled with full control of their browsing experience via their browsing software is a pretty fair deal.
|ABOUT THE AUTHOR|
Jay Habeggeris the CEO of OwnerIQ. | <urn:uuid:24ac0e24-d9ec-4e5b-a94c-bcb146fd0ee1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://adage.com/article/digitalnext/online-behavioral-advertising-consumer-friendly/147685/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964599 | 892 | 2.03125 | 2 |
“Action will be required by governments at all levels and the private sector to deploy broadband infrastructure to the last 5 percent of households at a reasonable cost and to promote broadband usage and adoption by increasing digital literacy and making broadband services more affordable for certain populations, especially the elderly and the economically disadvantaged,” the report said.
Much is dependent on how effectively federal agencies and the private sector will be able to co-operate, say observers.
The U.S. currently ranks 15th for both deployment and adoption of broadband in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development list. Out of the seven countries the GAO studied, it was found that the governments provided funds and public and private partnerships to promote the network.
The public-private domain cooperation might be difficult as the FCC is trying to implement ‘net neutrality’ rules to govern broadband service providers. The proposed policy is being opposed by many big broadband providers. The National Broadband plan also requires broadcasters to give up some spectrum for wireless broadband access.
Related Dailywireless articles include; Net Neutrality Legislation Dead, Why Cops Don’t Just Use Cell Phones, Riot in D Block, FCC Okays 21 Public Service Nets, FCC: Stop Complaining about Interoperability, The 700MHz Network: Who Pays?, The National Broadband Plan, National Broadband Plan Previewed, TerreStar Phones Home, New York Cancels Statewide Wireless Network, Oregon’s Statewide Wireless Network $100M Over Budget.` | <urn:uuid:87ed3835-86bd-4b09-bdf2-781ff76141c1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dailywireless.org/2010/10/15/gao-fccs-broadband-plan-challenging/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.914308 | 308 | 2.375 | 2 |
George Wein and the Newport Jazz Festival.
Then a friend suggested he run a jazz club. He leased a Boston hotel room and in 1950 opened the Storyville club. His drummer at the time was "Big" Sid Catlett, who had played with Louis Armstrong. When the trumpeter came to town, Wein asked Catlett to persuade Armstrong to drop in to Storyville. When one by one the band walked on stage, and finally Armstrong himself singing "Sleepy Time Down South", "I felt the electricity ... I said this is where I have to be, I have to be working with these people ... I made a decision that I had to work with the greats. I realised that you have to deal on a certain level ... I was losing money anyway, but I got to hang out with Art Tatum, Billie Holiday, Duke and Ella."
By the time Elaine and Louis Lorillard, the Storyville customers who were bored by their Newport summers, offered to put up $20,000, Wein had a contacts book to match his experience. Even so, he never predicted the festival's impact – no one had set up a commercial stage in a field before and there was huge press coverage – especially of the last day, when it poured with rain and photos of 5,000 people on a field listening to jazz under their umbrellas ran around the world. Wein's first bill included Billie Holiday re-uniting with Lester Young and, innovatively, had traditionalists and modernists sharing the same bill. "It was like a convention of the whole jazz world," he said. "Everybody came: managers, agents, the press, the critics."
The excitement of Newport's early years was caught in the 1958 film Jazz on a Summer's Day. Dave Brubeck and Gerry Mulligan, Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughn drew big crowds, as did Duke Ellington's comeback concert. There was also room for the new music of Cecil Taylor and Sun Ra.
A year later, in 1959, Wein produced the Newport Folk Festival, with Joan Baez and Bob Dylan headlining, and took the first of many Newport packages on tour. In 1960, he had to contend with newspaper headlines screaming "Riot at Newport Jazz Festival" after troublemakers made the most of the bars staying open late. The National Guard was summoned and Wein's festival suffered a one-year hiatus.
That year, his energies went into his consultancy and other festival productions. New Orleans was an early would-be customer but, in 1962, Wein turned the city down. "I said, 'I'd love to do a festival, but you won't allow black musicians to stay in the hotels.' They spent the whole day trying to get around their own laws." Much civil rights legislation later, Wein oversaw 1970's New Orleans Heritage Festival.
By this time free jazz had come and gone – Coltrane introduced his late-period expressionism to Newport in 1963 – and rock was steamrolling all. Wein's response was to book rock heavyweights such as Sly Stone and Led Zeppelin for the 1969 festival. But, he said, "It was the nadir of my career. I had no control. You couldn't produce with these rock and roll guys, they push you around. They were money."
The problem was that jazz was no longer self-sufficient. Sponsorship was the answer, and Wein got there first with a celebration of big bands awkwardly titled the "Schlitz Salute to Jazz"; "Kool Jazz" soon followed. Sponsors came and went. The Newport festival moved to New York and became multi-venue (another Wein innovation) before returning to Rhode Island a decade later. Wein became less involved and Newport developed into committee-driven predictability. In 2009 the festival's sponsors pulled the plug, and it seemed it was to be a victim of the credit crunch. Wein stepped in to save it, however, and has been back in charge ever since. He has lined up acts such as Michael Feinstein & Wynton Marsalis, Esperanza Spalding and Ambrose Akinmusire for this summer.
He goes to New York's jazz clubs three times a week, keeping tabs on rising musicians, and still performs himself. "I'm not necessarily more modern, but I get into modal playing sometimes, and swing a little differently." A recent line-up included the 79-year-old drummer Jimmy Cobb and 22-year-old Esperanza Spalding on bass. "I was 82," he said. "We went in and swung for two shows a night for six nights. We broke up the place. Never stopped, and so that's where I am with jazz."
Comparing past and present, Wein identified a peculiar paradox of jazz today. "There are 1,000 nights of jazz every month in New York, but the days when you could fill Carnegie Hall are gone. Jazz is bigger than ever, but there are no big names."
The audience has changed too. "When I had my club, people drank and they smoked, you could hear the tinkling of glasses. Now you go to a jazz club, it's like a church service", he said. "If you say something, people turn round and say 'sssshhhh'. I get very mad, I'm going there to have a drink and listen to some music."
Mike Hobart writes about music for the Financial Times. | <urn:uuid:2cb93c58-7775-42ad-a2ff-43d73c7d0096> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.slate.com/articles/life/ft/2011/07/jazz_man.2.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982524 | 1,110 | 1.898438 | 2 |
The U.S. dollar has been the world’s reserve currency since World War II.
In March, China (and then Russia) openly attacked the greenback, calling for the dollar to be replaced as the world’s reserve currency. This call by China is particularly disturbing since China holds more U.S. debt than any other country—about $1.3 trillion—and the further the dollar drops, the less the value of the U.S. debt owed to China. If the dollar were completely replaced as the world’s reserve currency, the dollar would be quickly and dramatically devalued and the purchasing power of China’s $1.3 trillion in T-bills would be diminished by hundreds of billions of “dollars”.
Thus, by calling for replacement of the dollar as world reserve currency, China shows that it is willing to sacrifice much of the value of its hoard of US T-bills for the sake of overthrowing the U.S. dollar. This is not the simple economics of greed. Such enormous self-sacrifice is normally evidence of serious, economic warfare.
Read the rest of this entry » | <urn:uuid:800e105b-5348-4eca-b9c5-84fc17e064aa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://adask.wordpress.com/2009/10/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953186 | 242 | 2.5625 | 3 |
No matter what reason is behind your choice of doing gardening, the fact remains that it is an excellent activity. There are many rewards that can be derived from doing it. You will have an excellent source of naturally grown herbs and vegetables if you choose to have those plants. Gardening is also extremely relaxing that people who are under a lot of stress have tried it out and has become successful in being relaxed and relieved of stress.
If you are just starting out in this activity and you still don’t know much about it, then here are some tips that you can try out:
These are just some of the things to keep in mind when doing gardening for the first time.
One of the first things that you will learn when you start gardening is that using a garden bed can come in handy. There are several advantages to using a raised bed for a garden. Here are just a few examples from Oneflare:
1. It can extend the season of planting since the raised ground would not be too affected by changes in the weather conditions.
2. If designed in the right way, then this method of gardening can reduce the amount of weeds that would grow there.
3. It also makes it possible to use a different kind of soil if the one native to the area is quite poor.
By using a raised bed for you garden, you can virtually control the conditions there. The soil can be as rich as you choose it to be and drainage is generally not a problem because it is built into the wall of the bed.
If you would like to build your very own raised garden bed, then here are some steps that you can follow:
These are just some of the things that you can do in order to install a garden bed.
Choosing the right landscaper is more than just picking the cheapest one. If you do that, you would end up hiring someone who might not be able to do the job that you need. There are a lot of things that you have to consider in order to pick the right landscaper to hire. Here are some of those:
Having a garden means a great amount of work and responsibility. It’s not something that you can get from a store, setup and then forget about. You have to build it and create it from the ground up, put in the plants that you want and then maintain it. Again, a garden means a great deal of work
Or you can hire a gardener to take care of it for you. By doing this you can relieve yourself the trouble of having to worry about plants, compost, mulching and all the other stuff about gardening. Your only concern now would be how to hire a good gardener.
In order to make sure that you can find the right garden professional for your needs, here are some steps that you can take:
These are some ideas that you can use when it comes to hiring a gardener. One other thing that you can keep in mind is to try using the internet in looking for the right gardener. That would make things a lot easier and convenient for you. | <urn:uuid:6b4702e4-910d-4c07-8c13-21ef7a78a55c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nmmastergardeners.org/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976717 | 631 | 2.28125 | 2 |
OpenScholar is described as a “full-featured open-source web site-creation package designed for the academic community. It was developed at Harvard using Drupal. A common usage of the platform seems to be for faculty profile sites, but can be used for any kind of personal site, as well as for project sites. It comes with a number of “pluggable content features” including those for blogs, booklets (collections of hierarchically organized pages), events, publications and…. classes. This does not mean that OpenScholar is a learning management system (LMS), but is can be used to distribute class material, such as a syllabus, reading assignments…etc. | <urn:uuid:56972db3-46b5-4c8a-92b1-e1e2858e7168> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sites.middlebury.edu/achapin/page/2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966796 | 143 | 1.859375 | 2 |
For those of you with the 3G, you may have noticed an issue with a rather short battery life. Well, Mobilefun has a solar powered case that will help you with that problem. The solar case can provide enough charge for functional use in less than 3 hours, but it will take a full 10 hours to fill the battery. Maybe the thing to do is leave the case on the dashboard or window sill all day, then charge your phone up at night.
The case uses a solar panel to soak up sun, holds generated energy in a 1500 mAh battery, and then charges up your phone when you insert it. If there isn’t enough sunlight for a good charge, you can also use a mini USB; but if that’s the case you might as well charge your phone the “regular” way. The solar case is compatible with all iPhones, so if you have an older phone, you can still get your time in the sun.
Perhaps this is coming out a little late for Matthew Sparkes to test out, so we don’t know how well it will work…yet. I’m sure there will be reports on its effectiveness after it comes out in mid-August. But every little way to utilize renewable energy is a step forward. And this way, you don’t have to wait for the price to drop on the solar cell phone.
written by SocialDynamite.com, August 05, 2008
|< Prev||Next >| | <urn:uuid:bfc4e28a-567e-4a26-ac30-94b9c7b59ab1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ecogeek.org/component/content/article/1964 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933228 | 309 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Territorialization in the Region of Romagna, Italy
Under the direction of: Peter G. Rowe Gianni Braghieri, University of Bologna School of Architecture 2004
Location: Cesena, Emilia-Romagna, Italy
Sponsors: Regional Government of Emilia-Romagna, Provence of Forlì-Cesena
In large measure, territorialization is an old and venerable process by which land is settled, converted to productive use, preserved and conserved in some cases, and a geography is made. It almost goes without saying, for instance, that urbanization takes place in a broader territory. Terms and phrases like "urban region" or "urban areas and their hinterlands" certainly imply a broader terrain than the cities and towns involved and signal ideas of economic and other interaction, as well as building, across an area more extensive than the cities and towns themselves. Also, recognizable gradients, from central and inner urban zones to peripheries and per-peripheries, turn the idea of a territory inward by suggesting ways in which its urban landscape can be spatially qualified. Conversely, territories are also often the sites of non-urban production, of agriculture, forestry, coastal activity and natural preservation, inscribing different patterns of use across a landscape and placing other demands on land and its margins. Moreover, the concept of a territory is rarely fixed, changing in both predictable and unpredictable ways, as the scheme of urban and non-urban use, influencing its character, matures under the auspices of different technological, political and other circumstantial regimes. Nevertheless, in spite of these vagaries and intellectually compartmentalized depictions, the territory itself is of significance as both a registry and component in urban and non-urban development processes and, ultimately, because of how it must be considered and made.
An essential aim of the study is to develop a comprehensive and temporally longitudinal understanding of the cultural process, or processes, by which the territory in Romagna, Italy, has been and continues to be made, shaped and produced. It does not aim to yield planning proposals, specific designs, nor political blueprints. Rather, it attempts to contribute to an academic understanding of territorialization as an important contemporary phenomenon and explore various scenarios of possible spatial reconsideration and development, under varying assumptions, in a manner that allows them to qualify most closely with practices that might be inferred to as belonging to the culture production of territorial space.
The study is conducted at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, under the direction of Professor Peter G. Rowe, in collaboration with the University of Bologna's School of Architecture in Cesena, under the direction of Professor Gianni Braghieri, with support from a grant from the Regional Government of Emilia-Romagna and the Provence of Forlì-Cesena. | <urn:uuid:d2457ce6-29aa-4478-ad25-ffcfe9e8ea64> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/projects/territorialization-in-the-region-of-romagna-italy.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937157 | 584 | 2.484375 | 2 |
NPR's Norris Wonders if U.S. Can 'Afford' a Job-Creating Tax Holiday
Published: 3/16/2011 3:52 PM ET
NPR's Michele Norris expressed the liberal skepticism of any tax incentive to spur job growth on Tuesday's All Things Considered during an interview of Intel CEO Paul Otellini. Otellini proposed a tax holiday for any company that built a new factory in the U.S. Norris replied: "Can this country afford that right now?"
The host asked the CEO about job creation near the end of her interview. She began with a left-of-center premise: "What can the government do to create jobs or can the government create jobs?" Otellini offered a free market solution:
OTELLINI: Well, I mean, the most important thing that the government can do to create jobs is get out of the way, right? Make sure that the regulations for building new factories are easy to get. You can get a new permitting process. The second thing you can do is start attracting human capital....And the third thing is now a new investment capital, and one of the ideas, you know, that I happen to like is anyone that wants to build a new factory in this country, whether it's an American firm or a foreign firm, why don't we give them a five-year tax holiday? It doesn't cost anything, right? You're just deferring the tax revenues that you would ordinarily get. But, meanwhile, you get a factory and you get jobs, and the present value of that, when you look at a factory kind of environment is very, very lucrative. You say, this makes sense now to put a factory here and everybody wins.Norris then offered her liberal question about being able to "afford" a tax holiday and continued her skepticism after Otellini gave a further explanation:
NORRIS: Can this country afford that right now?
OTELLINI: Well, it doesn't cost anything, right? Right now, you're not getting the investment, you know, and you're not getting the incremental tax revenue. Here you get the investment and you'll get the tax revenue-
OTELLINI: Five years out. | <urn:uuid:5bf05194-6a5c-47b1-87e9-ac5f8b297280> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mrc.org/bias-alerts/nprs-norris-wonders-if-us-can-afford-job-creating-tax-holiday | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956681 | 460 | 1.53125 | 2 |
ITUSC General Secretary, Keith Standring presented the following Report to the International Workers' Conference 18-21 January 1997, on behalf of the ITUSC Committee. He said the Report contained a political/industrial analysis together with some important organisational proposals designed to consolidate the developments which had taken place in the ITUSC since the previous IWC in June 1996 and to improve its effectiveness in the coming struggles, as an integral part of the workers' movement. Following a detailed and interesting discussion, the IWC unanimously endorsed the Report and approved its recommendations.
'Until the third quarter of this century, in the major capitalist countries it was possible for the ruling class to grant from time to time a number of 'reform' concessions, on the basis of the profits of colonial slavery and expanding domination of world finance, trade and industry. These reforms were never inroads into capitalism but became the actual form of rule of capital, implemented through the Labour and 'Socialist' parties.
FEAR AND DIVISION
Every one of these concessions was indeed made in fear of the strength of the working-class, but the fact is that by means of them the ruling class was able to divide the workers of Europe and America from the impoverished masses in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and to divide the better-paid workers from the low-paid and unemployed in Europe and America.
The other, and most powerful, political force which held back the working-class from realising its international strength and socialist aims was the bureaucracy which usurped power in the Soviet Union after the socialist revolution of 1917. Its 'socialism in one country', which could supposedly 'peacefully co-exist' with and even overtake capitalism, has ignominiously collapsed.
SURVIVAL OF HUMANITY
This 'national' basis for the Labour and 'Socialist' (reformist) Parties and for Stalinism has ended. Capital has no way any longer of expanding globally. The future progress, indeed the very survival, of humanity now demands that the massively increased potential of higher productivity of labour with science and technique is at the disposal of free men and women. The obstacle to this is the continued existence of capital, for which living labour exists only for exploitation, profit, even at the expense of the destruction of millions of people and of nature. Capitalist 'enterprise' no longer carries humanity forward, but is turned to parasitic money-making, organised crime, the drugs and arms trades.
DEMANDS OF THE PEOPLE
The basic and elementary demands of the mass of the people- work in human conditions, a decent standard of living, free time, housing, health-care, security in old age, freedom of expression, of organisation and of movement, and so on- can no longer be conceded and are everywhere under attack. These basic demands- of those defending the environment, of trade unionists, of the unemployed, of the old and the young, of the peoples of colonial and semi-colonial countries cannot any longer be tolerated and integrated into the capitalist system. Those who fight for these demands must expect to come under attack from the repressive forces of the state. The necessity of their solidarity, combining against those attacks and turning defence into attack is a solid objective basis for the construction of the working-class movement and emphasises the importance of our work in the ITUSC.
More and more, capital destroys full-time work and job security, driving for individual contracts, part-time and low-paid work, and inflicts mass unemployment especially on the youth. Trade union solidarity actions are made illegal. These attacks come not from capital's strength but from its crisis.
WORKING CLASS MOVEMENT
Here is a vital question for the reconstitution of the class movement of the working-class. 150 years ago, Marx saw capitalist industry as the historical force which exploited the working-class but at the same time was compelled to concentrate that class, its necessary opposite, driving it to organisation and discipline, producing the very force that would bring socialism. Some ex-socialists say that today's capitalist developments (decline of manufacturing, part-time work, individual contracts, etc.) now break up and weaken the working-class, destroying the prospects for socialism. It is not true.
CAPITAL MORE VULNERABLE
The 'globalisation' in which capital has reached the limits of its expansion means at the same time a profound crisis of capital's old methods of control and rule. The international scale and the interconnections of the operations of every transnational company and bank make them more vulnerable to the united actions of the working-class, provided that these actions are united, combined internationally in solidarity.
MILLIONS MORE IN STRUGGLE
The inability of today's capital to make any important concessions to the workers of particular countries, or industries, or occupations, means that the working-class must seek a way forward as a single class, internationally. Added to this, the fact that millions upon millions of those better-off 'white-collar' workers who once helped form a base for conservatism and reformism are now driven into unemployment and insecurity, brings new potential strength and unity to the working-class. The working-class can find millions of forces among the youth, who face a future without hope under capital.
WORKERS OF THE WEST & EAST
The workers of Eastern Europe, the ex-Soviet Union and China, for so long separated from the working-class in the West, now confront a nascent class of capitalists who are, in the main, the very bureaucrats who paraded for so long as 'communists', leading the people to the victory of socialism. These budding capitalists are directly servile to the same international finance capitalists (IMF & World Bank) and transnational companies as exploit the peoples of Western Europe and the rest of the world.
NATIONAL CAPITALISTS IN EX-COLONIES
In the ex-colonial countries, for three-quarters of a century the struggles of the working people in 'national liberation' movements have been used by the national capitalists of these countries to establish their own repressive power against the working people. Now their days of balancing between the capitalist powers and the ex-Soviet bureaucracy and claiming to be 'socialists' are over.
All this means that the objective conditions for a truly internationalist movement have changed qualitatively in favour of the working-class. This is quite contrary to the view of those who bewail the collapse of the Soviet Union and of the so-called socialist camp. Facing the working class is a conscious settlement with all those false paths of 'gradual' parliamentary roads to socialism', 'socialism in one country', 'national liberation under bourgeois leadership', all of them now in the dustbin of history, and a conscious reconstitution on new foundations of the socialist, international, class movement of the workers and toilers and their communities. The work of the ITUSC is above all part of that reconstruction, and can be taken on these firm foundations.
ANTI-CAPITAL STRUGGLES GROW
There is one other, vital element in these objective conditions which favour the building of a socialist working-class movement. The crisis is global in the sense of universal (intensively as well as extensively) and threatening the end of humanity. Therefore, it provokes many, many struggles and demands, not in themselves socialist but requiring the abolition of capital.
PLURALIST, MASS MOVEMENT
The movement as a whole against capital is therefore pluralist, because capital's crisis gives rise to mass movements. This pluralism corresponds to the really mass nature of the production of a communist mass consciousness and self-emancipation, etc. As Marx stressed already in 1851, the working-class revolution is unique in that it is a social and not only a political revolution; it engages the masses in continuous struggle, beyond the conquest of power, to transform all their basic conditions of social life (' the permanent revolution', Marx).
POLITICAL AND INTERNATIONAL
With the miners' strike of 1984-85 in Britain, it was made very clear that the task facing the working-class is a political one (state repression, solidarity), and the import of Polish coal by Thatcher against the strikers proved the international character taken today by all struggles and of the necessary working-class resistance. Since then there are new and very important examples:
Liverpool dockers' internationalism (work for international solidarity, defence of Turkish workers, support for Bosnia miners' union, international conferences and now the building of a dockers international organisation which will go beyond the present dispute permanently), the youth ( Reclaim the Future) inspired by the dockers fight. Rejection by the dockers' leaders of anti-union laws, of the bureaucracy's control and of the political-industrial divide. Their anti-sectarianism. The role of women in the dispute.
FOUNDATION OF ITUSC
The foundation of the ITUSC itself in 1991 and its work since that time, including International Workers' Conferences and its work on human rights issues world-wide, based on its assertion that trade union rights are also human rights. The refugee workers and human rights organisations now frequently turn to the ITUSC for assistance in their struggles and ITUSC has taken a number of initiatives in this field e.g. PAFFAC and the address by the ITUSC General Secretary to the UN Sub-Commission on Human Rights in Geneva on behalf of the Kashmiri's.
The publication on a regular basis of the International Trade Unionist Bulletin. Eleven issues during 1996; the December issue was 12 pages (rather than 8 pages) and, in collaboration with other worker activists at LabourNet, the construction of a frequently visited website on the Internet. Equally importantly, our demonstrable ability to use the Internet to send protest and solidarity messages and comment on the struggles of the day, and to communicate with fellow activists in any part of the world. We are currently handling a prolific number of incoming and outgoing e-mail messages each day.
SOUTH KOREAN GENERAL STRIKE
One of the current struggles in which the ITUSC has acted is that of the South Korean workers' movement. We have sought to mobilise international solidarity action with the strikers and to protest the actions of the Korean government.
INTERNATIONALISM STARTS HERE
The ITUSC is an international and internationalist organisation and any body (operating from Britain) calling itself such will neither be international nor internationalist, unless, like the ITUSC, from the very start it includes as members and in its leadership men and women from the many peoples of different national origins who now live and work in Britain. Asylum seekers, immigrant workers and their fights-- internationalism starts here.
We will build on the implications of our comrade Toure's (Ivory Coast) speech at the International Workers' Conference in June 1996--- the many liberation fighters from Africa and other continents now exiled or living as refugees in Britain are part of our class and movement. We are, and will continue, bringing together workers and political refugees from amongst others Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Kurdistan, Bangladesh, Africa, Turkey and Kashmir, into the ITUSC.
The ITUSC Committee has met on 7 occasions since it was elected by the June 1996 International Workers' Conference. Every effort has been made to develop a collective approach to all the Committee's work. This process has been assisted by the frequency with which Committee members have jointly participated on demonstrations, pickets and other activities. The Committee meetings are for planning, organising and conducting the business of the ITUSC in all its aspects. They are not public meetings, yet the Committee has met with worker activists visiting Britain. These visiting comrades extended oral reports on the developments and struggles of the day in their countries of origin which included Bosnia, Gilgit Baltistan, Afghanistan, Nigeria and the USA. The Committee has greatly valued these visitors because the detailed reports they have made have extended and deepened the knowledge available to the ITUSC. In addition, important links have been forged with parts of the world where we previously had little contact, particularly Latin America.
MEETINGS OF SUPPORTERS & FRIENDS
The Committee has considered the question of organising regular and frequent meetings of ITUSC Supporters & Friends in various locations. It is strongly recommended that the IWC should authorise the Committee to organise such meetings at the earliest opportunity.
DEVELOPING OUR POTENTIAL
Prior to the IWC last June the ITUSC had operated in quite an informal fashion. That IWC recognised that the period in which we are operating is favourable to the promotion of our principles and objectives. It concluded that despite the enormity of the enterprise we have undertaken, we had a solid basis for developing our potential. That IWC adopted certain organisational measures to seek to ensure that the ITUSC was better placed to fulfil its potential. The application of those changes has taken place and in the short period since June 1996, we can begin to see the benefits accruing to the Campaign.
The Committee took the initiative to appoint 3 Regional Co-ordinators at its meeting in October 1996. This was in recognition of the need for comrades involved in organising and co-ordinating outside Britain to have proof of identity and ITUSC status. The 3 new Regional Co-ordinators are:- Balazs Nagy-special responsibility for Central and Eastern Europe; Rade Pavlovic-special responsibility for ex-Yugoslavia and; Toure Moussa Zeguan-special responsibility for Francophone Africa.
The Committee gave consideration to the need for an ITUSC constitution in light of the growth of interest in the work of the organisation and its democratic and pluralist nature. It is strongly recommended that this International Workers' Conference asks the ITUSC Committee to draft a simple constitution for consideration and endorsement by the next IWC. Whilst identifying the broad aims and principles of the organisation and the obligations and rights of members, the constitution of the ITUSC must be minimal, thus emphasising the absolute need to attract and unite all those who embrace our 3 Founding Principles and who are in struggle to remove capitalism.
MEMBERSHIP & AFFILIATION
The Committee has received a number of enquiries about membership of and affiliation to the ITUSC. It is recommended that the ITUSC Committee be authorised to introduce a mechanism and appropriate fees for individuals and organisations to affiliate to the ITUSC
DRAW LESSONS & STRIVE FOR UNITY
We in the ITUSC shall endeavour to draw all the lessons of the collapse of Social-Democracy and the Soviet bureaucracy, and of the history of sectarianism and we recognise the necessity of international reconstruction. We will strive to unite, even with some differences still to be thrashed out, into the ITUSC all those forces around the world committed to workers' internationalism; trade union democracy and trade unions independent of the state and employers. Those of us who are Marxists in the ITUSC will not be satisfied with the kind of Marxism which only knows how to win arguments, rather our task will be to develop Marxism in the real movement by combining and organising.
UNITY, SOLIDARITY & DISCIPLINE
The ITUSC does not try to impose itself on the working class, but seeks to immerse itself in all its struggles. The ITUSC must continue to have a unity of purpose and a mutual solidarity and discipline founded on a common understanding of tasks, it must not tolerate any bosses, it cannot arrive at agreement and unity of purpose without the free expression of differences and clash of opinions.
HEART OF WORKING CLASS STRUGGLES
In the seven months since the previous IWC the organisation has fought to transform itself. There is still a long way to go, however, we can confidently face up to the tasks of implementing the world-wide Programme of Action, in the knowledge that the ITUSC is always consciously seeking to be at the heart of working class struggles, wherever they happen. We are an integral part of the working class movement and as such there are few obstacles we cannot ultimately overcome.
REBUILDING WORKERS' MOVEMENT
We in the ITUSC are dedicated to rebuilding the workers' movement and to the removal of sectarianism and division in working class organisations. We fight for workers' internationalism, democracy in trade unions and for unions independent of the state and employers. We welcome into our ranks, as comrades in struggle, all individuals and organisations who support those principles, irrespective of their political outlook.
FACE THE CHALLENGES
As we face the challenges of our chosen tasks, let us never forget that the bosses everywhere represent a system in its death agony; a system which exploits the labour of the many to maintain the privileges of the few. We, the workers of the world, are a class whose time is yet to come.
They are agents of a class and a system in its death agony; we represent a class which is alive and kicking and whose time is yet to come.
They act out of weakness; we act out of strength. They represent the past; we represent the future.
They will lose; we will win.
Forward to workers' internationalism! Forward to socialism! Victory to the struggles!' ____________________________________________________________________________ _________ This is from the International Trade Union Solidarity Campaign (ITUSC) at:- e-mail: email@example.com website: http://www.itusc.org.uk 'snail' mail: PO Box 18, Epsom, Britain, KT18 7YR Tel/Fax ++44 (0) 1372 817 778 The ITUSC is an international and internationalist association of organised workers and communities, dedicated to rebuilding the workers' movement and to overcoming sectarianism and division in working class organisations. It was founded in 1991 on the following principles: 1) trade unions independent of the state and employers; 2) democracy within trade unions, and; 3) workers' internationalism. Any individuals or organisations that accept these principles and are prepared to work for them, are regarded as comrades by the ITUSC. ____________________________________________________________________________ ________
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******** The A-Infos News Service ******** COMMANDS: firstname.lastname@example.org REPLIES: email@example.com HELP: firstname.lastname@example.org WWW: http://www.tao.ca/ainfos/ | <urn:uuid:dbcdad91-591a-4f56-bf3b-6ad751c1785f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ainfos.ca/A-Infos97/1/0482.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942968 | 3,847 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Any high school rising junior or senior can apply.
Course offerings are determined by the College and the school you attend. Typically, a wide range of general education courses are offered: from English and History, to Macroeconomics and Trigonometry.
Piedmont Technical College offers more than 80 courses approved to transfer to any senior public institution in the state by the SC Commission of Higher Education. Many private colleges in the state also accept them. All four-year public senior institutions in South Carolina also have transfer equivalent guides, which list other courses that will transfer. These guides may be obtained directly from the senior institution or from PTC's Transfer Coordinator. For more information, visit Piedmont Technical College's Transfer web site, or the South Carolina Transfer and Articulation Center.
It is the student’s responsibility to contact and receive written assurance from any nonpublic institution in South Carolina or any public or private institution outside South Carolina of that institution’s willingness to accept a dual enrollment course toward degree requirements.
Before applying, you should understand that the Dual Enrollment Program is an opportunity to take courses at the college level, so the amount of work necessary to succeed is usually much greater than in high school courses. Because dual enrollment courses become part of a permanent college transcript, you must commit to doing the work required. | <urn:uuid:ab0724cd-999c-4d9b-bb2c-bc57d4e2f9c6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ptc.edu/academics/dual-enrollment/dual-enrollment-faq | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947352 | 270 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Do you want the latest data — some not yet published — and the best post-IPCC scientific predictions for the stunning collapse of Arctic ice and unexpected shrinking of the Greenland (and Antarctic) ice sheets? Then you should definitely watch
(UPDATE: this C-SPAN video) of yesterday’s American Meteorological Society seminar (see note on link below).
The seminar is by three of the world’s top cryosphere experts: Dr. Mark Serreze (NOAA), Scott Luthcke (NASA), and Dr. Konrad Steffen (CIRES) — full bios and program summary available here. I will post their presentations when AMS puts them online (which will be here).
I have spent a great deal of time studying the ice and sea level rise issue (see links below) and still found the presentations informative and startling. It is very safe to say the Arctic Sea will be essentially ice free by 2030, and I’d personally bet on 2020 — any takers?
The most interesting presentation to me was the last one, by Konrad Steffen, who made a convincing case that the IPCC is “underestimating the rate of sea level rise” this century significantly. He expects one meter or more by 2100. The modelers are busy at work trying to account for ice dynamics in ice sheet collapse — but it may take 4 or 5 years for them to do that. When they are finished, sea level rise estimates for this century are likely to double or triple. | <urn:uuid:79aa65a8-a28e-4b42-ba64-41cabfdaa9c5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thinkprogress.org/climate/issue/?m=20071127&mobile=nc | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924138 | 313 | 2.421875 | 2 |
Genetic testing for clopidogrel (Plavix) resistance offers no real advantage in cardiovascular outcomes for patients on the antiplatelet drug, a meta-analysis suggested.
Carrying one or more alleles associated with lower drug metabolism did correlate significantly with less platelet inhibition and lower risk of bleeding in clopidogrel-only studies analyzed by Michael V. Holmes, MBBS, MSc, of University College London, and colleagues.
But the 18% higher risk of cardiovascular disease events among these individuals lost significance and disappeared after controlling for small study bias, the group reported in the December 28 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Looking only at studies based on at least 200 events, the relative risk of cardiovascular events among patients predicted to be poor responders based on CYP2C19 genotype was essentially neutral at 0.97 (95% confidence interval 0.86 to 1.09).
In the studies that included both clopidogrel and comparator arms, CYP2C19 genotype had no impact on the effect of clopidogrel on cardiovascular disease events or bleeding (both P>0.05 for interaction).
Despite a good case for CYP2C19 genotyping based on clopidogrel metabolism and platelet aggregation, the "meta-analysis does not demonstrate a clinically important association of genotype with cardiovascular outcomes with the possible exception of stent thrombosis," Holmes' group concluded.
Stent thrombosis had the strongest overall link with reduced-function alleles (RR 1.75, 95% CI 1.50 to 2.03), corresponding to an absolute increase of 14 stent thromboses per 1,000 individuals.
But even for this measure, the larger studies showed a trend toward the null.
These results compellingly point to overly enthusiastic expectations for pharmacogenomics in personalizing clopidogrel dosing, Steven E. Nissen, MD, of the Cleveland Clinic, argued in an accompanying editorial.
The FDA issued a black box warning of diminished clopidogrel effectiveness in poor metabolizers that suggested testing for CYP2C19 genotype.
Although the American Heart Association and American College of Cardiology quickly countered that there was insufficient evidence for such a warning, the FDA subsequently approved tests for CYP2C19 genotype and for platelet reactivity.
"The consequences of the FDA's leap to judgment regarding CYP2C19 testing cannot be underestimated," Nissen wrote, pointing to clopidogrel as one of the most widely used drugs in all of medicine.
Until a large randomized controlled trial adequately tests the strategy, "physicians should use CYP2C19 or platelet reactivity testing rarely, if ever, and interpret the results with caution," he recommended in the editorial.
The meta-analysis included 32 studies (six randomized trials) with a total of 42,016 patients who had 3,545 cardiovascular disease events, 579 stent thromboses, and 1,413 bleeding events in all.
Most of the studies were done in the setting of acute coronary syndrome. Eight were in stable heart disease patients, largely those undergoing stenting.
When the researchers examined the 26 studies that included only individuals exposed to clopidogrel, reduced-function alleles cut the absolute risk of bleeding events by five to eight events per 1,000 individuals, but at the expense of eight to 12 more cardiovascular disease events per 1,000.
"The net potential clinical benefit of genotyping to adjust dose may therefore not be as great as initially assumed," Holmes' group wrote.
They also pointed to small-study bias as a problem (P=0.001) along with concerns over selective outcome reporting and the potential for misclassifying CYP2C19 genotype because of problems with nomenclature.
The meta-analysis was limited by lack of patient-level data, differences in composite cardiovascular disease endpoints used across the studies included, and inclusion of both acute and stable heart disease studies, which might dilute associations if the magnitude of effect of clopidogrel was greater in acute than stable cases, the group acknowledged.
Primary source: Journal of the American Medical Association
Holmes MV, et al "CYP2C19 genotype, clopidogrel metabolism, platelet function, and cardiovascular events: a systematic review and meta-analysis" JAMA 2011; 306: 2704-2714.
Additional source: Journal of the American Medical Association
Nissen SE "Pharmacogenomics and clopidogrel: Irrational exuberance?" JAMA 2011; 306: 2727-2728. | <urn:uuid:6d82c7da-acff-4f73-9bcd-cacf74844035> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.medpagetoday.com/Cardiology/Prevention/30415 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913248 | 977 | 1.585938 | 2 |
To paraphrase W. C. Fields, who was the first to add water to bourbon for the purpose of controling the proof--as opposed to "rectifying" it to extend profits? When bourbon was sold directly from the barrel (the real first single barrel, barrel proof?) the proof would obviously vary. My understanding is that BIB laws were implemented because too many unscupulous people were not only watering their bourbon but adding all sorts of other things to "improve" it. Old Forester was the first bourbon sold exclusively in bottles with a signed guarantee that you were getting the real thing.
Does anyone know at what point bourbon was sold at a deliberately pre-established proof? Obviously, every distiller had access to distilled water that could be used for that purpose. Who decided that it would be a good thing to offer 100 pf or 86 pf or whatever? And when did 80 become the "standard" proof? | <urn:uuid:dc4f0f5e-1f3c-462d-a267-066485b15eb1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.straightbourbon.com/forums/showthread.php?18746-Who-put-the-water-in-my-quot-water-quot&p=308322&mode=threaded | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988406 | 189 | 2.265625 | 2 |
To build community, an economy of gifts
Wherever I go and ask people what is missing from their lives, the most common answer (if they are not impoverished or seriously ill) is "community." What happened to community, and why don't we have it any more? There are many reasons—the layout of suburbia, the disappearance of public space, the automobile and the television, the high mobility of people and jobs—and, if you trace the "whys" a few levels down, they all implicate the money system.
More directly posed: community is nearly impossible in a highly monetized society like our own. That is because community is woven from gifts, which is ultimately why poor people often have stronger communities than rich people. If you are financially independent, then you really don't depend on your neighbors—or indeed on any specific person—for anything. You can just pay someone to do it, or pay someone else to do it.
In former times, people depended for all of life's necessities and pleasures on people they knew personally. If you alienated the local blacksmith, brewer, or doctor, there was no replacement. Your quality of life would be much lower. If you alienated your neighbors then you might not have help if you sprained your ankle during harvest season, or if your barn burnt down. Community was not an add-on to life, it was a way of life. Today, with only slight exaggeration, we could say we don't need anyone. I don't need the farmer who grew my food—I can pay someone else to do it. I don't need the mechanic who fixed my car. I don't need the trucker who brought my shoes to the store. I don't need any of the people who produced any of the things I use. I need someone to do their jobs, but not the unique individual people. They are replaceable and, by the same token, so am I.
That is one reason for the universally recognized superficiality of most social gatherings. How authentic can it be, when the unconscious knowledge, "I don't need you," lurks under the surface? When we get together to consume—food, drink, or entertainment—do we really draw on the gifts of anyone present? Anyone can consume. Intimacy comes from co-creation, not co-consumption, as anyone in a band can tell you, and it is different from liking or disliking someone. But in a monetized society, our creativity happens in specialized domains, for money.
To forge community then, we must do more than simply get people together. While that is a start, soon we get tired of just talking, and we want to do something, to create something. It is a very tepid community indeed, when the only need being met is the need to air opinions and feel that we are right, that we get it, and isn't it too bad that other people don't ... hey, I know! Let's collect each others' email addresses and start a listserv!
Community is woven from gifts. Unlike today's market system, whose built-in scarcity compels competition in which more for me is less for you, in a gift economy the opposite holds. Because people in gift culture pass on their surplus rather than accumulating it, your good fortune is my good fortune: more for you is more for me. Wealth circulates, gravitating toward the greatest need. In a gift community, people know that their gifts will eventually come back to them, albeit often in a new form. Such a community might be called a "circle of the gift."
Fortunately, the monetization of life has reached its peak in our time, and is beginning a long and permanent receding (of which economic "recession" is an aspect). Both out of desire and necessity, we are poised at a critical moment of opportunity to reclaim gift culture, and therefore to build true community. The reclamation is part of a larger shift of human consciousness, a larger reunion with nature, earth, each other, and lost parts of ourselves. Our alienation from gift culture is an aberration and our independence an illusion. We are not actually independent or "financially secure" – we are just as dependent as before, only on strangers and impersonal institutions, and, as we are likely to soon discover, these institutions are quite fragile.
Given the circular nature of gift flow, I was excited to learn that one of the most promising social inventions that I've come across for building community is called the Gift Circle. Developed by Alpha Lo, co-author of The Open Collaboration Encyclopedia, and his friends in Marin County, California, it exemplifies the dynamics of gift systems and illuminates the broad ramifications that gift economies portend for our economy, psychology, and civilization.
The ideal number of participants in a gift circle is 10-20. Everyone sits in a circle, and takes turns saying one or two needs they have. In the last circle I facilitated, some of the needs shared were: "a ride to the airport next week," "someone to help remove a fence," "used lumber to build a garden," "a ladder to clean my gutter," "a bike," and "office furniture for a community center." As each person shares, others in the circle can break in to offer to meet the stated need, or with suggestions of how to meet it.
When everyone has had their turn, we go around the circle again, each person stating something he or she would like to give. Some examples last week were "Graphic design skills," "the use of my power tools," "contacts in local government to get things done," and "a bike," but it could be anything: time, skills, material things; the gift of something outright, or the gift of the use of something (borrowing). Again, as each person shares, anyone can speak up and say, "I'd like that," or "I know someone who could use one of those."
During both these rounds, it is useful to have someone write everything down and send the notes out the next day to everyone via email, or on a web page, blog, etc. Otherwise it is quite easy to forget who needs and offers what. Also, I suggest writing down, on the spot, the name and phone number of someone who wants to give or receive something to/from you. It is essential to follow up, or the gift circle will end up feeding cynicism rather than community.
Finally, the circle can do a third round in which people express gratitude for the things they received since the last meeting. This round is extremely important because in community, the witnessing of others' generosity inspires generosity in those who witness it. It confirms that this group is giving to each other, that gifts are recognized, and that my own gifts will be recognized, appreciated, and reciprocated as well.
It is just that simple: needs, gifts, and gratitude. But the effects can be profound.
First, gift circles (and any gift economy, in fact) can reduce our dependence on the traditional market. If people give us things we need, then we needn't buy them. I won't need to take a taxi to the airport tomorrow, and Rachel won't have to buy lumber for her garden. The less we use money, the less time we need to spend earning it, and the more time we have to contribute to the gift economy, and then receive from it. It is a virtuous circle.
Secondly, a gift circle reduces our production of waste. It is ridiculous to pump oil, mine metal, manufacture a table and ship it across the ocean when half the people in town have old tables in their basements. It is ridiculous as well for each household on my block to own a lawnmower, which they use two hours a month, a leaf blower they use twice a year, power tools they use for an occasional project, and so on. If we shared these things, we would suffer no loss of quality of life. Our material lives would be just as rich, yet would require less money and less waste.
In economic terms, a gift circle reduces gross domestic product, defined as the sum total of all goods and services exchanged for money. By getting a gift ride from someone instead of paying a taxi, I am reducing GDP by $20. When my friend drops off her son at my house instead of paying for day care, GDP falls by another $30. The same is true when someone borrows a bike from another person's basement instead of buying a new one. (Of course, GDP won't fall if the money saved is then spent on something else. Standard economics, drawing on a deep assumption about the infinite upward elasticity of human wants, assumes this is nearly always the case. A critique of this deeply flawed assumption is beyond the scope of the present essay.)
Standard economic discourse views shrinking GDP as a big problem. When the economy doesn't grow, capital investment and employment shrink, reducing consumer demand and causing further drops in investment and employment. For the last seventy years, the solution to such crises has been (1) to lower interest rates to spur lending so that businesses have access to funds for capital investment and consumers have money to spend and create demand; (2) to increase government spending to replace stalled growth in consumer demand. These are known, respectively, as monetary stimulus and fiscal stimulus. In both cases, the goal is to "stimulate" the economy, to get it growing again. Government policy in the present economic crisis has been the same. Liberals and conservatives may disagree on the amount and type of stimulus required, but rarely does anyone—not Barack Obama, not even the most liberal member of Congress—question the desirability of growing the economy. That is because, in the current debt-based, interest-bearing money system, the absence of growth leads to rapid concentration of wealth and economic depression.
Today, however, on the fringes of political and environmental movements, the recognition is growing that society and the planet can no longer sustain further growth. For growth—which in GDP terms means the expansion in the realm of monetized goods and services—ultimately comes from the conversion of nature into commodities and the conversion of social relationships into professional services. Consider again the social gathering I described. Why don't we need each other? It is because all the gift relationships upon which we once depended are now paid services. They have been converted into service work which the market converts into cash. What is there left to convert? Whether fossil fuels, topsoil, aquifers, the atmosphere's capacity to absorb waste; whether it is food, clothing, shelter, medicine, music, or our collective cultural bequest of stories and ideas, nearly all have become commodities. Unless we can find yet new realms of nature to convert into good, unless we can find even more functions of human life to commoditize, our days of economic growth are numbered. What room for growth remains—for example in today's anemic economic recovery— comes only at an increasing cost to nature and society.
From this perspective, a third consequence of the gift circle and other forms of gift economy becomes apparent. Not only does gift-based circulation subtract from GDP, it also hastens the demise of the present economic system. Any bit of nature or human relationship that we preserve or reclaim from the commodity world is one bit less that is available to sell, or to use as the basis for new interest-bearing loans. Without constant creation of new debt, existing debt cannot be repaid. Lending opportunities only occur in a context of economic growth, in which the marginal return on capital investment exceeds the interest rate. To simplify: no growth, less lending; less lending, more transfer of assets to creditors; more transfer of assets, more concentration of wealth; more concentration of wealth, less consumer spending; less consumer spending, less growth. This is the vicious circle described by economists going back to Karl Marx. It has been deferred for two centuries by the ceaseless opening up, through technology and colonization, of new realms of nature and relationship to the market. Today, not only are these realms nearly exhausted, but a shift of consciousness motivates growing efforts to reclaim them for the commons and for the gift. Today, we direct huge efforts toward protecting the forests, whereas the most brilliant minds of two generations ago devoted themselves to their more efficient clearcutting. Similarly, so many of us today seek to limit pollution not expand production, to protect the waters not increase the fish catch, to preserve the wetlands—not build larger housing developments. These efforts, while not always successful, put a brake on economic growth beyond the natural limit the environment poses. From the gift perspective, what is happening is that we no longer seek merely to take from the planet, but to give back as well. This corresponds to the coming of age of humanity, transitioning from a mother-child relationship to earth, to a co-creative partnership in which giving and receiving find balance.
The same transition to the gift is underway in the social realm. Many of us no longer aspire to financial independence, the state in which we have so much money we needn't depend on anyone for anything. Today, increasingly, we yearn instead for community. We don't want to live in a commodity world, where everything we have exists for the primary goal of profit. We want things created for love and beauty, things that connect us more deeply to the people around us. We desire to be interdependent, not independent. The gift circle, and the many new forms of gift economy that are emerging on the Internet, are ways of reclaiming human relationships from the market.
Whether natural or social, the reclamation of the gift-based commonwealth not only hastens the collapse of a growth-dependent money system, it also mitigates its severity. At the present moment, the market faces a crisis, merely one of a multiplicity of crises (ecological, social) that are converging upon us. Through the turbulent time that is upon us, the survival of humanity, and our capacity to build a new kind of civilization embodying a new relationship to earth and a new, more connected, human identity, depends on these scraps of the commonwealth that we are able to preserve or reclaim. Although we have done grievous damage to earth, vast wealth still remains. There is still richness in the soil, water, cultures and biomes of this planet. The longer we persist under the status quo, the less of that richness will remain and the more calamitous the transition will be.
On a less tangible level, any gifts we give contribute to another kind of common wealth – a reservoir of gratitude that will see us through times of turmoil, when the conventions and stories that hold civic society together fall apart. Gifts inspire gratitude, and generosity is infectious. Increasingly, I read and hear stories of generosity, selflessness, even magnanimity that take my breath away. When I witness generosity, I want to be generous too. In the coming times, we will need the generosity, the selflessness, and the magnanimity of many people. If everyone seeks merely their own survival, then there is no hope for a new kind of civilization. We need each others' gifts as we need each others' generosity to invite us into the realm of the gift ourselves. In contrast to the age of money where we can pay for anything and need no gifts, soon it will be abundantly clear: we need each other. | <urn:uuid:057c47da-0825-4866-8b4f-84b4931cc347> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.resilience.org/stories/2012-01-16/build-community-economy-gifts | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961607 | 3,181 | 2.171875 | 2 |
Sharing the scenes in our community
By Barbara Van Reed
Art appreciation is often left for trips and visits to museums; we sometimes forget that artists live and work right here among us.
One of our local artists is Linda Littleton, who's best known for her watercolors of Webster Lake: wonderful, fun prints of the fireworks, the Point Breeze gas dock, the Regatta, boat houses, and homes.
We asked Linda how long she's been painting. “Forever,” she said. “I started at age seven, won an art contest, and just kept on going.” Her artwork is on display locally at Booklovers' Gourmet, Point Breeze, and Webster Lake Gifts. She also has four prints hanging in Senator John Kerry's office in Washington DC. She has sold works to clients across the US and in Europe.
Linda is largely self-taught, but frequently attends art workshops and has studied with many prominent artists over the years. She's branched out recently with more abstract watercolors and acrylics. Her new style is on display now at the Silver Circle Gallery in Putnam and at Celebrations in Pomfret.
“Art is an ever-changing process of development, and although I love doing house portraits and traditional watercolors, I am always exploring new styles with new artists to further develop my own artistic talents,” she said.
She is a full artist member of the Rhode Island Water Color Society, where she exhibits regularly, the New England Water Color Society, and Worcester Arts.
Linda's life has always involved teaching as well: she was a teacher in Framingham before retiring and moving to Webster, and is today a substitute teacher in the Southbridge Public Schools. So it's no surprise that she gives lessons in watercolors, acrylics, and oils in her home studio, and teaches art to school-age children over the summer.
She laments the reduction of arts education in the public schools. “The schools have had to make serious cuts in art and music, and school-age kids really benefit from cultural education, of which they receive a minimal amount during the MCAS-packed day. I think people forget that societies are remembered for their art, music, and literature and I think we do not appreciate these talents enough in today's education. They are so important for the future of a healthy society.”
Linda was recently appointed to Webster's Cultural Arts Committee. “We have many talented artists in the area who need exposure, a place to exhibit their work, teach, and share this interest. I would love to see a community artist center/cultural center that can enhance the fine arts, theater, and musical performances in our area for all ages to enjoy. Art and artists can play an important role in rejuvenating our town for the future.”
Along with many other community activities, Linda was one of the original members and officers of the Webster Lake Association, which was founded ten years ago to protect the water quality of the Lake for swimming, boating, and fishing. She writes a periodic column for this newspaper updating residents on what's happening, the association's many fundraising events and activities. Linda has a writing background too. She told us she was the teen editor for the Salem Daily News, covering all of the high school events and stars of that age group.
Thank you, Linda, for sharing your love of art with us all. | <urn:uuid:43058926-9786-4c8c-bf74-159b1200201c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://patriotnewspaper.com/index.php/opinion-columns/letters-from-the-editor/item/local-artist-linda-littleton?category_id=300 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974652 | 716 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Military Conscription in Eritrea Straining Church
Seminarians Made to Join Army; Charity Work Restricted
| 1019 hits
LONDON, DEC. 4, 2012 (Zenit.org).- The charity organization Aid to the Church in Need is reporting that military conscription in Eritrea is killing the Church there.
A source from Eritrea, who requested anonymity, spoke with the charity about the situation, saying "compulsory military service is bleeding the Church in Eritrea to death."
The Church's work in parishes has become increasingly difficult as Christian workers, including many seminarians, have been kept in military service – many of them for more than 15 years.
The government does not set a fixed period for military service, claiming the threat of war is high.
Seminarians were technically exempt from military service between 2008 and 2011 – but reports received by ACN suggest many of those conscripted in 2008 were still in training camps.
"The government exaggerates the danger of war, as a pretext to keep people in military service," the source told ACN.
The source added: "In general, military service has led to a situation where there is a shortage of qualified workers in many professions – not just in the Church."
Those who have refused military service are among more than 2,000 Christians still imprisoned for their religious beliefs.
Most of these detained are members of non-recognized churches – a 1995 government decree only formally recognized the Orthodox Church, Catholic Church, Evangelical Lutherans and Islam.
While conscription has radically reduced the number of pastoral workers in the Church, charitable activities have also suffered from state interference.
ACN was told: "The Church has been forbidden to carry out charitable work. The government wants us to restrict ourselves to the church and vestry."
A 1995 decree reserves all social and welfare projects to the state, though the Church has so far resisted attempts to seize Catholic schools and other projects.
Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993 after a 30-year conflict.
There are about 5.2 million people in the north African country – 47.3% of the population are Christian. Most of these are Orthodox, with Catholics making up just 4% of the population. | <urn:uuid:e73d6810-99b7-4668-a135-07557dd6a611> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.zenit.org/en/articles/military-conscription-in-eritrea-straining-church | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975192 | 461 | 1.578125 | 2 |
GUMC Professor Named to Defense Health Board
November 24, 2008 – The U.S. Department of Defense has named Dr. William Blazek, S.J. to its Defense Health Board to provide independent scientific advice and recommendations on matters relating to the promotion of health and the delivery of health care to about 9.2 million members of the military and their families.
As a member of the federal advisory committee to the U.S. Secretary of Defense, the Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) professor will also look at operational programs, health policy development, health research programs and requirements for the treatment and prevention of disease and injury within the realm of the defense department.
“The questions we will address as an advisory board are the same questions any large health system would have -- and they speak to who we are as a nation,” says Blazek. “There are a number of issues facing the military health system right now that impact a huge number of people, including the impact of traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder in veterans and health issues that impact amputees.”
More than 250 nominations were reviewed by representatives from all four branches of the U.S. military, members of the White House staff and the Institute of Medicine.
”It is more critical today than ever before to have leadership on this board that understands the challenges of meeting the health needs of our U.S. service members and DOD beneficiaries,” says Carol Taylor, director of the Center for Clinical Bioethics at GUMC, where Blazek serves as an assistant professor of medicine. “First line providers are doing an excellent job of ‘saving lives’ injured in battle, but many veterans and their families face even greater health challenges upon their return home. Dr. Blazek understands both the clinical and ethical ramifications of decision-making at all levels.”
Blazek, who currently teaches courses in health care ethics to medical students, also investigates the practical application of ethical theory in the clinical workplace. His clinical work presently centers on direct provision of care to Spanish-speaking patients in the Division of Immigrant and Refugee Services of Catholic Charities in Washington, and he sits as a member scientist and vice-chair on the MedStar Research Institute-GUMC Joint Oncology Institutional Review Board.
Blazek also brings his military experience to his two-year appointment to the board. Having served for five years as an Infantry Officer in the 101st Airborne Division, the professor is a veteran of Operations Desert Storm and Desert Shield in Saudi Arabia and Iraq. | <urn:uuid:6d8b37a5-d84c-458b-ba25-34fb3885cb40> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.georgetown.edu/story/1242663858913.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968759 | 532 | 1.960938 | 2 |
Mobile Wireless Communications Today (cont.)
by Puneet Gupta
Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) Technology (IS-95) (cdmaOne)
The CDMA technology used in North America is based on the IS-95 protocol standard first developed by QUALCOMM. CDMA differs from the other two technologies by its use of spread spectrum techniques for transmitting voice or data over the air. Rather than dividing RF spectrum into separate user channels by frequency slices or time slots, spread spectrum technology separates users by assigning them digital codes within the same broad spectrum. Advantages of CDMA technology include high user capacity and immunity from interference by other signals. Like TDMA IS-136, CDMA operates in the 1900-MHz band as well as the 800 band.
Work on developing the CDMA standard is conducted mainly by the CDMA Development Group (CDG), a consortium of the main CDMA manufacturers and operators formed to standardize and promote CDMA technology. Whilst work to develop CDMA as a third-generation technology has attracted a great deal of attention over recent months, the CDG has also been working to improve the current performance of CDMA as a second-generation technology. The CDMA Development Group (CDG) has formally adopted the cdmaOne name and logo as a technology designator for all IS-95-based CDMA systems. The term represents the end-to-end wireless system and the necessary specifications that govern its operation. cdmaOne incorporates the IS-95 CDMA air interface, the ANSI-41 network standard for switch interconnection and many other standards that make up a complete wireless system.
The CDMA technology, used in the Interim Standard IS-95, maximizes spectrum efficiency and enables more calls to be carried over a single 1.25 MHz channel. In a CDMA system each digitized voice is assigned a binary sequence that directs the proper response signal to the corresponding user. The receiver demodulates the signal using the appropriate code. The resulting audio signal will contain only the intended conversation, eliminating any background noise. This allows more calls to occupy the same space in the communication channel, thereby increasing capacity. As a simple, example let us assume a user is talking into a mobile phone on a CDMA network. The transmitted portion of a voice signal has frequency components from approximately 300~3400 Hz. This analog signal is digitally encoded, using QPSK (Quadrature Phase Shift Keying), at 9600 bps. The signal is then spread to approximately 1.23 Mbps using special codes that add redundancy. Some of these codes include a device ID that is unique to the phone (like a serial number). Next the signal is broadcast over the channel. When broadcast, the signal is added to the signals of the other users in the channel. On the receiving end, the same code is used to decode the incoming signal. The 9600 bps signal is obtained and the original analog signal is reconstructed. When the same code is used on another user's signal, the redundancy is not removed and the signal remains at 1.23 Mbps.
The problems are the quality of reception and voice squeakiness. To address this major PCS carriers are using 13 kbps vocoders instead of 10 kbps. This improves quality but at the cost of capacity. The technology has been widely adopted by major cellular and PCS carriers in the United States and also internationally. CDMA networks provide operators with reliable digital systems that offer higher capacity, large coverage area and improved voice quality and above all a good 3G upgrade path, CDMA 2000 (I'll discuss this later). It also offers simplified system planning -- through the use of the same frequency in every sector of every cell.
Factors contributing to CDMA's capacity gains are:
- Frequency reuse
- Soft handoffs
- Power control,
- Variable rate vocoders
Some of the benefits of using cdmaOne are:
- Capacity gains of eight to ten times that of AMPS analog systems
- Improved call quality, with better and more consistent sound as compared to AMPS systems
- Simplified system planning through the use of the same frequency in every sector of every cell
- Enhanced privacy through the spreading of voice signals
- Improved coverage characteristics, allowing for fewer cell sites
- Increased talk-time for portables
cdmaOne technology improves quality of service through the use of soft handoffs, which greatly reduce the number of dropped calls and ensure a smooth transition between cells. In soft handoff, a connection is made to the new cell while maintaining the connection with the original cell. This transition between cells is one that is almost undetectable to the subscriber. cdmaOne technology also takes advantage of multipath fading to enhance communications and voice quality. Using a rake receiver and other improved signal-processing techniques, each mobile station selects the three strongest multipath signals and coherently combines them to produce an enhanced signal.
The cdmaOne data capabilities are based on IS-95A, which can provide data speeds of 14.4kbit/s. IS-95B and IS-95C are designed to enhance CDMA's data capability. IS-95B can provide data speeds of up to 64kbit/s by aggregating existing channels. IS 95-B can provide these enhanced data rates through software upgrades only. IS-95C aims to offer a minimum of 24.4kbit/s per channel and aggregated data speeds of more than 115kbit/s. It is expected that IS-95C will define CDMA's capability as a third-generation system. CDMA already supports asynchronous data and faxing (IS-99) and has standardized packet data (IS-657).
The major development initiatives being taken by the CDG for 2G CDMA systems enhancements include Enhanced roaming enables transparent roaming across cellular and PCS networks, with selection of networks and location services. Enhanced roaming will provide roaming between CDMA systems similar to that on GSM: registration, authentication and credit-checking are automatically carried out between the networks without users having to do anything more than switch on their mobiles. Roaming agreements will still be needed between operators.
Next: Mobile Wireless Market: Technology Forecasts | <urn:uuid:d49a8149-caef-4044-ad30-198de93aebd2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wirelessdevnet.com/channels/wireless/training/mobilewirelesstoday4.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925507 | 1,274 | 3.390625 | 3 |
Birds : Birds of May
The month of May is always refreshing, exciting and new for birders. No matter how long one has been birding, it never grows old - whether you're fresh out of the blocks and enjoying your first spring of looking at birds, or you're celebrating the 50th such annual ritual of gorgeous May days. Coupled with a varied and intensive migration, the behavior and vocalizations of resident birds, so completely different than only a few short weeks ago, make every day something special at this season.
For bird enthusiasts, missing a morning in the field during this rewarding month may mean missing a species that rarely shows itself or has a very specific flight period. Indeed, some species of warblers, thrushes, vireos, and flycatchers may only appear on a single day of the spring migration. This is the time of year to get out of bed and get out in the field a lot. Either this or have the birds go right by undetected, and you will not even know what was missed.
Much like when the fish are running, biting fast and furious, one must be there to experience it. The tried and true saying "you should have been here yesterday" rings true in many circumstances but especially when a big flight of birds occurs or when the fish are eating voraciously. Due to the vagaries of weather and the whim of migrating birds, one can never be sure that the big "flight" did not occur the previous night.
The only sure remedy is to get up and go birding every morning in May that has halfway decent weather. It is not the hardship that you might imagine and is something eagerly anticipated during long winter nights. When it finally arrives, the month seems to pass at about the speed of light. Time flies when you are having fun and birding in May is big fun.
The biggest surprise this past week was the discovery of a purple gallinule in Oak Bluffs in a small freshwater area on the Martha's Vineyard Land Bank's Farm Pond property on May 4. These colorful, chicken-like birds are a southern species and appear very infrequently on the Vineyard - about once every ten years on average. They are prone to periodic vagrancy and occasionally appear far from their southern breeding areas. The bird was still there on May 5 at the deadline for this piece.
Also noteworthy was the discovery by Sally Anderson of West Tisbury of a male summer tanager at her feeder. These southern birds occasionally overshoot in the spring and this bird fortuitously found her feeder. Not only did Sally know what it was, but she also managed to get excellent photos within a few minutes of the discovery in the pouring rain. Sally has had a great spring already with the discovery of a yellow-throated warbler on April 25 and then the summer tanager.
The fast and furious birding has been terrific both on land and sea. Many reports have been coming in to the bird line in the past week with reports of birds from as small as ruby-throated hummingbirds to very large northern gannets. Many warblers, orioles, and shorebirds were among the many and varied reports. Keep the calls coming as they help to "paint a picture", a snapshot, of bird movements and activity on the Vineyard.
Up in Chilmark along the shores of Squibnocket Pond, Tim Rich of Chilmark has been enjoying lots of activity at his feeders. Aside from the colorful male Baltimore oriole and a rose-breasted grosbeak that are gracing his feeders he has noticed some interesting bird behavior. Tim enjoys letting nature be, so his lawn has more than its fair share of dandelions and that is just fine with Tim.
This past weekend he noticed that purple finches, house finches, American goldfinches, and chipping sparrows were voraciously attacking the heads of the dandelions that were starting to seed. The next day he noticed that not one dandelion was left intact and that all the seed heads were completely demolished. The birds relished the tasty dandelion seeds and this year's crop of seeds was eaten before they started. Natural weed control always works best.
Try to make or take time to get out in the field during the next couple of weeks. Migration is amping up to full bore and mornings after a night of southwest winds should reveal lots of migrants. Remember that birds are heading north so East Chop, West Chop, and almost anywhere along the north side of the Island will have more birds than along the south side.
Until next week - keep your eyes to the sky. | <urn:uuid:77ed54b6-63e1-4ab9-ad76-2839b74964cc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mvtimes.com/2008/05/08/calendar/birds.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977808 | 958 | 2.484375 | 2 |
My 41 year old husband, diagnosed with diabetes over three years ago, is very active but has a demanding job as a paramedic which means he works 12 hour shifts (days and nights). His weight is okay, but his medication has been increased on a regular basis since diagnosis. He has maintained his blood sugar levels quite well up until a few months ago. They are always high in the morning, coming down slowly through the day. He feels tired all the time and sleeps on and off throughout the day. He says he feels as unwell now as he did when he was first diagnosed. He has never been diagnosed as having either type 1 or type 2. Is there a way you can tell? Is it possible he has type 1 and needs insulin?
This is a good question and one which is commonly asked. Your husband's presentation does raise the question of whether he has type 2 diabetes or a form of type 1 diabetes called Late-onset Autoimmune Diabetes of Adulthood (LADA).
The common tests used to answer the question include a determination of anti-GAD antibody (high with type 1), measurement of C-peptide levels (low with type 1 diabetes and a reflection of secreted insulin), and a variety of other tests that may stimulate the endocrine pancreas to make more insulin.
Your husband's doctor can help him to obtain these tests. I must say that even if he has type 2 diabetes, if he doesn't get better, he needs to be on more potent therapy which may include insulin.
Original posting 8 Jun 2002
Posted to Diagnosis and Symptoms
Last Updated: Tuesday April 06, 2010 15:09:33
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:80544d2b-4021-4ab3-b3b8-4164a91b17eb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.childrenwithdiabetes.com/dteam/2002-06/d_0d_8zq.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970461 | 423 | 2.046875 | 2 |
She is so smart.
Judith Apter Klinghoffer
DIPLOMACY IS ALSO CONTINUATION OF WAR
In Diplomacy at its Worse, Nicholas Kristof takes the administration to task for not accepting a May 2003 Iranian “Grand Bargain” proposal. “It was not clear to me that a grand bargain was reachable, but it was definitely worth pursuing – and still is today.” Well, the not particularly enticing proposal came when Iran was still reeling from the American victory in Iraq and given the administration decision to stop with Iraq, it was a significant miss. But to assume that a similar bargain is available today ignores the enormous shift in the American – Iranian balance of power since. War may be a continuation of diplomacy but diplomacy is also a continuation of war. Neither are static.
Just note the cool reception Congress and the country gave to General Petraeus. I am no great fan of the general. His previous assignment was to rebuild an Iraqi army. Enough said. But I do not believe any general would have fared better. The truth, as Brian Michael Jenkins explained yesterday is that we are all paying a heavy price for faulty strategic decisions taken by a military leadership determined to avoid another Vietnam by constructing an army suited for fighting successfully other armies but unsuited for fighting an insurgency. Counter insurgency education was downgraded. Weapon systems, marine and army unites suited for such struggle were not developed.
Once in Iraq, its generals continued to dismiss the importance of the emerging insurgency. Nothing exemplifies that dismissive attitude than the military’s adherence to a 9 month rotation cycle which virtually insured that vital knowledge about the enemy painstakingly gathered by the unit leaving the battlefield just at the moment it finally began to get a grip on the situation. This attitude doomed whatever small chance of securing Iraq the US might have had.
None of this takes the political leadership off the hook nor does it mean that the US must declare the war lost. The American army was not better prepared for the civil war or W.W.II and its loses at the beginning of those wars were far more devastating. The difference was that in 1860 and 1941 the presidents became one dimensional “Win the War” presidents. The same cannot be said about any of the post World War II presidents. Consequently, the US has not won a decisive military victory since then. Soaring Reaganite rhetoric aside, the Cold War was not a military victory and the conclusion of Desert Storm was less than awe inspiring.
George W. Bush fits neatly into his predecessors’ mold. Following 9/11 he punched back but never opted for a decisive knock-out. I remember a short exchange I had with Al Haig some months following the toppling of Saddam. I asked him if he knew where we are going next. He said he did not. I asked if he thought the administration knows. He said they better. “What if they don’t,” I persisted. “Then we lose,” he replied. It was the answered I feared.
Yesterday, John McCain and Joe Lieberman tried to explain to reporters and scholars that a thinly stretched army is far superior to a defeated one. US military and civilian leaders operate with a huge margin of error. They may still have time to refocus and turn the war around. But the Sharm Al Sheikh conference will not do it nor will Rice’s newly expressed willingness to discuss Iraq with Iran. The idea of creating a democratic Iraq in a sea of authoritarian Middle East has never been any more viable than the creation of democratic France would have been in the middle of a Fascist/Nazi Europe. Whatever remote chance of success it had was annulled by the inept US military response to the developing Iraqi insurgency.
All the bench marks and attempts to blame the Iraqis are just diversionary tactics (also used in Vietnam) which fool no one. The real question is will the current military/civilian leadership accept a Vietnam style defeat in the hope of finding another way to counter the Islamist threat or will they opt for victory by opening a second front? Much is in the balance. | <urn:uuid:d33c16c4-eb0f-4be2-906c-6dc276f77c8e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pjmedia.com/michaelledeen/2007/04/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971524 | 840 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Youths Steal Coins In Greek Display At Fogg Museum
Two youths broke into a display case at the Fogg Art Museum last Thursday morning and stole eight ancient Greek coins valued at thousands of dollars.
Although police have found neither the coins nor the youths, Daniel J. Robbins, director of the Fogg Art Museum, said that an anonymous phone caller told a museum guard on Friday that the coins would be returned sometime this week. Robbins added that a reward has been offered for the return of the coins--how much he declined to say.
The eight missing coins are part of a display of 35 coins bequested to the Fogg by Frederick M. Watkins '30, a Yale professor of Political Science who died this past summer.
The coins, depicting mythological scenes of gods and animals, were from Greek colonies in Sicily and Italy and were minted during the sixth and fifth centuries B.C.
A report, submitted by Sergeant Alfred J. Doherty, the University policeman who investigated the theft, stated that the robbery was first detected by two museum visitors who saw one of the youths ripping his shirt off in front of the display case of coins. The report said that the youth, in withdrawing the coins from the plexiglass case, had apparently cut open his hand and was using his shirt to stop the bleeding.
Robbins said that the Fogg Museum guard on the first floor, where the gallery containing the coin display is located, heard the sound of the shirt ripping and saw the two youths run out of the gallery. The guard then pursued the two youths down Quincy St. for several blocks, but was unable to stop them.
"If Harvard classes had been in session," Robbins said, "the two youths might have been stopped by the many students that normally walk down Quincy Street."
When police arrived at the museum following the theft, blood, skin, and fingerprints were found on the coin display case, and three buttons from the torn shirt were discovered on the floor.
Robert Tonis, chief of University police, said yesterday that the investigation of the theft was turned over to the Cambridge police shortly after the robbery occurred.
Sergeant James A. Roscoe, the Cambridge police detective in charge of the case, said yesterday that he had notified all hospitals in the Boston area shortly after the theft to look out for a youth with a hand wound, but that no such youth has been identified.
Robbins said that the Ancient Arts Department of the Fogg has informed all coin shops in the area to watch for the stolen coins.
Suzannah J. Doeringer, assistant director of the Fogg Art Museum, said yesterday that there was no alarm system in the coin display case. She said that economic difficulties involved in installing alarm systems for temporary exhibits like the coin display necessitated the absence of the device.
The Greek coins were part of a larger exhibit of Greek artifacts bequested by Watkins to the Fogg. The exhibit closed yesterday after a three-month display period.
Robbins said that it was ironic that originally the Watkins exhibit was to have closed a week ago. Instead, the exhibit was extended an additional week because of popular demand, and the robbery resulted.
The coin theft was the second robbery to occur in the Fogg in less than a month. According to University police, a Navajo rug, belonging to the assistant librarian of the Fine Arts Library in the Fogg, was stolen from the stack area of the library on March 19. Police said that the rug has not yet been found | <urn:uuid:28a81d96-977d-4615-bc75-6df79e1d7650> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1973/4/9/youths-steal-coins-in-greek-display/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98009 | 724 | 2.265625 | 2 |
"For us, the idea of having a work that has contradictions is very important—when, in affirming something, it includes itself and attacks itself. How can you put together all of these things that have nothing to do with each other? You use glue! Glue can be an idea, a word. You can use an ideological glue."
"’Iceberg (r11i01)’ is about stopping time. You take an animation and suspend it, so you have suspended animation of a frozen moment- a three-dimensional photograph of one moment. ‘Iceberg’ and ‘Cloud’, and other projects I’m working on, are almost literally about capturing ephemera. In the end, it’s an impossibility. You really haven’t captured ephemera; you’ve made a thing- a sculpture. You’ve negated the notion of ephemera. Then, it’s only the public moving around the piece, experiencing it, that becomes the ephemeral moment."
- Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle | <urn:uuid:6e05e442-608a-4278-aef6-0a98eb7bbbcb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.art21.org/images/i%c3%b1igo-manglano-ovalle/iceberg-r11i01-2004 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00051-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93024 | 231 | 1.734375 | 2 |
DK's Corner - Climbing Shoe Guide
Imagine walking into a shoe store...you are after a pair of your favourite Nike trainers and the helpful assistant asks you your size. You tell her your normal size, she retrieves your shoes and they fit perfectly – toes are just short of the end and they feel incredibly comfortable. Next you walk into a climbing shop to get a new pair of climbing shoes....Problem 1 - You are faced with a wall of models, brands and types of shoes all designed for different purposes. Problem 2 – the shop assistant asks your climbing shoe size...well should they hurt, should my toes curl back under so I can only see my toe knuckles, should my feet really be bent around like a banana?!?! Buying climbing shoes is one of the most difficult purchases you can make in the world of climbing and it can literally make or break your climbing experience. Therefore I have decided to do my very best to give you some sound and useful advice that you can hopefully utilise the next time you fancy a new pair of climbing shoes.
My goal in this blog post in to strip down the complications that most climbing shoes guides use. I will give you the basics, explain what the best shoes are for certain types of climbing and hopefully give some decent advice on sizing your shoes correctly. I have worn more shoes than most fashion models and I do feel like I can offer some fairly good advice.
First things first I want to give you a terminology breakdown – not a long winded essay on what all the technical specifications mean, but a simplistic key so that you can understand what the deal is.
Climbing shoes are built around a 'LAST'. This determines how a shoe fits. Traditional climbing shoes rely on creating a relaxed foot shape and therefore has quite a comfortable fit, whereas a newer modern shoe is an active last.
Some 'Lasts' are FLAT – more comfortable, but not quite as high performance. Whereas some 'Lasts' are DOWNTURNED – this creates an aggressive shape that concentrates power to the big toe area.
Situated between the shoes inner and out sole. Its shape, material and placement can determine how a shoe performs.
Thick 'midsoles' that are firm will create a very stiff shoe that is ideal for standing on small edges but will suffer on delicate smears.
Thin 'midsoles' or Curved 'midsoles' will help focus power on the toes, which will leave the inner area soft for better smearing action. However they will not perform as well on tiny edges.
Leather or synthetic – this is a determining factor on the shoes 'stretchability'.
Leather 'uppers' are renown for being more comfortable as they mould to the shape of your foot and allow a very precise fit. However with this comes a price and that is the fact that the shoes will stretch and lose the tightness that was originally there.
Synthetic 'uppers' are more consistent than real leather and will offer minimal stretch. This is a better option if you want a shoe that will fit almost the same on it's final days in the world as when you first brought them.
Has Two main purposes:
1.To reduce stretch. Unlined shoes can stretch up to a size and a half, whereas Unlined shoes will barely change.
2.To help the shoe retain its shape and also to increase the durability of the shoe.
This is quite simply an area that comes down to personal preference. There are all sorts of technical designs to ensure your foot stays in the shoe. You have laces, velcro, elastic (slippers) and other strange pulley systems.
Each one has benefits and uses:
Laces - Positive: can be fine tuned so that you are maximising the performance.
Negative: Takes time to put on and laces might break.
Velcros- Positive: Quick to get on/off, good compromise with a high level of performance.
Negative: Not quite as precise as laces for tweaking the fit.
Slippers- Positive: Perfect for the gym, soft and sensitive. Quick to get on/off
Negative: Can lose tightness and no method to tighten, very soft - need good foot power to maximise potential.
Now that I have given you all the terminology and knowledge you should ever need when faced with the barrage of climbing shoes, I will quickly explain the types of rock shoes and give you some idea of what shoes are good for what!
Bouldering Specific Shoes:
If like me you spend more time sitting on the floor looking at holds and wondering why you keep falling off then I'm guessing you will be gunning for some of these shoes. Most bouldering shoes are normally downturned and asymmetric (shape your foot in a weird way). This 'asymmetric' toe shape helps to focus power on the big toe and pull in like a claw on steep ground. Some bouldering shoes offer a rubber toe plate (on the top of the shoe) helping with those tricky toe hooks. Lastly the heel will be highly tensioned to meet the demands of modern rock wrestling.
Five Ten: Dragons, Arrowheads, Hornets
Evolv: Shamans, Talons
Scarpa: Instinct Lace-ups, Instinct Slippers
Shoes in this area an still be slightly downturned, but not as extreme as a bouldering shoe. They may be flat but with a lot of tension for more power. This is a ver
y traditional shoe shape and one that has only recently been adapted to include the downturned shape. Normally these shoes will have a fairly good midsole - not too soft and not too rigid. This is a type of shoe that will suit most people and can be used for most disciplines of climbing.
Five Ten: Anasazi Lace-ups (Verdes & V2), Anasazi Velcros
Scarpa: Vapor Lace-ups, Vapor Velcros
These shoes will normally be flat lasted and have very little tension. The idea is that you can wear them on a long climb, eat your lunch in them and even walk from the car to the crag - shocking! I would still advise buying all-day comfort shoes tightly enough that this doesn't happen - they should be sized like a tight trainer!
Evolv: Defys, Elektras
Scarpa: Reflex, Force
Hopefully you now have all the knowledge you could ever need to buy the correct shoes for your next climbing outing. Buying climbing shoes is never easy and after 8 years of climbing I still end up with shoes that I got too small and end up have a bath with my climbing shoes on - yeap! Climbing shoes have changed though and this needs to be taken into consideration. It wasn't long ago that the idea was to buy climbing shoes that had to rolling around the front room crying and walking up and down the shoe sobbing trying to break them in. Now climbing shoes are made to be sized very similar to your trainers - especially American based shoe companies (Evolv, Five Ten). The other brands - (La Sportiva and Scarpa) still need to be experimented with when trying them on as they are hand made and therefore may vary slightly. I would never advise buying climbing shoes off the internet - I have done this a long time ago and they are still sat in my cupboard untouched. They were fine when I tried them on in the shop, but completely different from the place I ordered them from. The best thing you can do is get into the shop, try on some pairs that interest you and see how they feel. Any questions feel free to track me down at the Depot or ask one of the experienced staff behind reception!
All the above shoes are in stock at the Depot Climbing Centre so get on down to the wall and try out some of the slickest models in the climbing shoe market! | <urn:uuid:b916ba1c-e98a-4478-bd12-1483463759d5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theclimbingdepot.co.uk/blogs/depot-shop/dk-s-corner-climbing-shoe-guide | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958601 | 1,642 | 1.578125 | 2 |