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Portrait of Yarrow Mamout (Muhammad Yaro)Made in Georgetown, Washington, District of Columbia, United States, North and Central America
Charles Willson Peale, American, 1741 - 1827
Oil on canvas
|Purchased with the gifts (by exchange) of R. Wistar Harvey, Mrs. T. Charlton Henry, R. Nelson Buckley, the estate of Rictavia Schiff, the Edith H. Bell fund, the McNeil Acquisition Fund for American Art and Material Culture, the Edward and Althea Budd Fund, and with funds from the proceeds of the sale of deaccessioned works of art, 2011|
Yarrow Mamout, an African American Muslim who won his freedom from slavery, was reputedly 140 years old in 1819, when Charles Willson Peale painted this portrait for display in his Philadelphia Museum. Although Peale learned this was a miscalculation, the story of eighty-three-year-old Yarrow (c. 1736–1823), a native of the West African country of Guinea who was literate in Arabic, was still remarkable. As Peale noted, Yarrow was “comfortable in his Situation having Bank stock and [he] lives in his own house.”
A rare representation of ethnic and religious diversity in early America, and an outstanding example of Peale’s late naturalistic style, the picture is distinguished by the direct and sympathetic encounter between the artist and his subject and the skilled rendering of the details of physiognomy and age. Yarrow’s knit cap suggests a kufi, a hat traditionally worn by African Muslim men to assert their religion or African identity, but Peale artfully employs its yellow band to highlight his steady gaze with its glint of humor and wisdom.
Seventy-seven years old when he created this portrait, Peale was seeking a record of the personal traits that he believed supported a long life. In his writings and museum displays Peale celebrated making wise choices to maintain good health and a positive attitude, and he perceived Yarrow’s perseverance through his difficult life as a model of resourcefulness, industriousness, sobriety, and an unwillingness to become dispirited.
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* Works in the collection are moved off view for many different reasons. Although gallery locations on the website are updated regularly, there is no guarantee that this object will be on display on the day of your visit. | <urn:uuid:1eccc8ec-47c0-4c4c-8d5f-81e795fd6d2c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/319114.html?mulR=30070%7C3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953687 | 598 | 2.859375 | 3 |
By Andre Sapir
Imagine the US was facing the current crisis with the following situation: only 30 of its 50 states belong to the dollar area; most of the southern states are outside the dollar area and so is New York, home of the US financial centre; the seat of the US government is in Washington, but dollar area chairman Ben Bernanke operates from Pittsburgh and secretary Tim Geithner is mainly governor of Vermont, one of the smallest US states, with a population of roughly half a million.
Absurd? Yet this is exactly what the European Union looks like, with only 16 of its 27 member states belonging to the euro area; most of the eastern states and the UK, home of the EU financial centre, outside the euro area; the seat of the EU institutions in Brussels, but ECB president Jean-Claude Trichet operating from Frankfurt and Eurogroup chairman Jean-Claude Juncker mainly the prime minister of Luxembourg. Read more | <urn:uuid:b4d0662d-f1d2-41fd-88c3-5f5763d1518c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.ft.com/economistsforum/2009/08/23/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948536 | 192 | 2.40625 | 2 |
Rising from the ashes
An Illinois furniture exhibition displays pieces made from ash trees killed by an invasive beetle.
Mon, Apr 27 2009 at 4:02 PM
In every crisis, there are those who panic, and those who see the opportunities. Ash trees are dying by the millions in the Midwestern United States due to an invasive pest called the emerald ash borer, a shiny green beetle a half-inch long that preys on ash trees. The upshot is that ash wood—long relegated to utilitarian uses in tool handles, baseball bats, and firewood—is finally getting its due: Under the apt title “Rising from Ashes,” the Chicago Furniture Designers Association is organizing a series of exhibitions that, starting this August at the Morton Arboretum in Chicago, will feature furniture made of ash wood from trees killed by the emerald ash borer.
“This is one heck of an education tool,” says Bruce Horigan, a member of the association who owns Horigan Urban Forest Products, a hardwood sawmill in Skokie, IL. Horigan says the exhibition is a chance not just to clue people in about the ash borer and invasive species in general, but also to show them there “are better uses for [ash wood] than firewood or mulch.”
Ash is a hard yet springy wood (it was once used in snowshoe frames), ranging in color from creamy white to chocolate brown – perfect for durable, attractive furnishings. “This is visual lumber,” Horigan says. “It’s not the two-by-four behind the wall; it’s the paneling in front of the wall.” But most people don’t think of it that way – or didn’t, until ash suddenly became very available.
Though the emerald ash borer probably arrived in North America from Asia in the 1990s, it was first detected in Michigan in 2002; it has since spread across the Midwest and as far as West Virginia. It’s of particular concern in Illinois’ urban areas, where 20 percent of the trees are ash wood. The pest lays its eggs just under the bark of the ash tree, and when the larvae hatch, they feed on that sub-bark layer, eventually killing the tree. But it can be difficult to tell when a tree is infested: Dieback is gradual, and the tiny larvae lie dormant in winter and remain in the wood even after the tree dies.
The danger is that people don’t realize that the wood they’re transporting is infested, says Edith Makra, Community Trees Advocate at the Morton Arboretum and a member of the Illinois Emerald Ash Borer Wood Utilization Team, a consortium of around 80 foresters, arborists, and anyone interested in using ash wood and fighting the ash borer. Since then, the Illinois Department of Agriculture has embarked upon an awareness campaign and enforces strict quarantines on firewood to keep the ash borer contained – though Makra says it’s still hard to detect.
So a traveling furniture exhibition featuring previously infested ash wood sounded like an ecological disaster waiting to happen – that is, until Bruce Horigan explained the process under which he’s licensed to treat ash wood. The outermost layers of the tree—where the ash borer lives and eats—are ground up into tiny pieces too small to support the larvae. The rest of the wood – which technically is free from infestation because the ash borer’s larvae can’t penetrate the core of the tree – is heated in a kiln for 48 hours, just to be sure. Ash wood furniture, as long as it’s made from the heart of the tree, is perfectly safe. The only battle is getting people to want it.
“The idea of wood utilization has been around with urban foresters for years,” says Makra. “We’ve talked about how frustrating it is that we take down all these valuable trees in urban areas and nobody [uses] that timber.” Trees in urban areas are seen as less desirable, Makra explains, because they may have imperfections (like a nail from an old garage sale sign), or because a city may lack the infrastructure or extra budget to mill individual trees. But that could change, especially if exhibitions like “Rising from Ashes” have their intended effect.
Studies show that if urban timber (trees that succumb to disease or injury) were fully utilized, it could provide up to 30 percent of the United States’ timber needs. That would mean fewer trees logged from forests. How that timber is used matters, too: According to Horigan, burning firewood and spreading mulch release a lot of carbon directly into the atmosphere, whereas “higher” uses – like furniture – that leave the tree intact keep that carbon sequestered in the wood. With all the ash trees dying, there will be a surplus of ash wood no matter what, so using some of it for furniture might be preferable to having a bunch of extra mulch lying around.
John Kriegshauser and Dolly Spragins, co-chairs of the “Rising from Ashes” exhibition, say they expect up to 30,000 people to view the work of their 29 designers. After two weeks at the Morton Arboretum, the exhibition will visit furniture companies and conservation centers around Illinois through next spring. The featured pieces can be sold, but Spragins says they have to stay in the show – so designers who make a sale must craft duplicates for their customers.
The exhibition comes with the support of urban wood utilization groups like the Illinois Emerald Ash Borer Wood Utilization Team, which received a $100,000 Forest Service grant last year. Similar grants have gone to groups in Michigan that seek to combine urban wood utilization with education about the ash borer.
No one’s saying the emerald ash borer is a good thing. In addition to quarantines and monitoring, scientists are looking for solutions –some ideas that have been batted around include introducing parasitic wasps that eat ash borer larvae, cross-breeding American ash trees and their more resistant Chinese counterparts, or injecting trees with pesticides. But as long as the trees are falling, why not keep their beauty – and their carbon – around in the form of artistic design? It’s a simple case, in Horigan’s words, of making lemonade out of lemons.
Story by Alexa Schirtzinger. This article originally appeared in Plenty in June 2008.
Copyright Environ Press 2008 | <urn:uuid:350cfae3-5795-4f01-b8cf-b58c1581afba> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mnn.com/your-home/remodeling-design/stories/rising-from-the-ashes | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959553 | 1,388 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Gerald of Wales:
Barnacle Geese should convince the Jew of the Immaculate Conception, 1188
There are here many birds that are called Barnacles [barnacoe] which in a
wonderful way Nature unnaturally produces; they are like wild geese but smaller. For
they are born at first like pieces of gum on logs of timber washed by the waves.
Then enclosed in shells of a free form they hang by their beaks as if from the moss
clinging to the wood and so at length in process of time obtaining a sure covering of
feathers, they either dive off into the waters or fly away into free air. . . I have
myself seen many times with my own eyes more than a thousand minute corpuscles of this
kind of bird hanging to one log on the shore of the sea, enclosed in shells and already
formed. . . . Wherefore in certain parts of Ireland bishops and religious men in times of
fast are used to eat these birds as not flesh nor being born of the flesh. . .
Be wise at length, wretched Jew, be wise even though late. The first Generation
of man from dust without male or female [Adam] and the second from the male without the
female [Eve] thou darest not deny in veneration of thy law. The third alone from
male and female, because it is usual, thou approvest and affirmest with thy hard beard.
But the fourth, in which alone is salvation, from female without male, that with
obstinate malice thou detestest to thy own destruction.
Blush, wretch, blush, and at least turn to nature, She is an argument for the faith and
for our conviction procreates and produces every day animals without either male or
[Editors note: It is not to be wondered at if the Jews remained obdurate to this
kind of argument. it seems however that they believed in the existence of these birds, see
supra p. 54. Gerald of Wales was one of the original conquerors of Ireland and his
testimony is another point against Professor M. Muller's derivation of the legend from
Hibernic geese. Against the Irish origin is the fact that Gervase of Tilbury
mentions the myth (Otia Imp. iii. 138) and locates the birds on the Kent shore.]
Source: Gerald of Wales, Topographia Hiberniae, v. 47, ed. Joseph Jacobs, The Jews
of Angevin England: Documents and Records (London, 1893), p. 92-93.
Scanned by Elka Klein.
This text is part of the Internet
Medieval Source Book. The Sourcebook is a collection of public domain and
copy-permitted texts related to medieval and Byzantine history.
Unless otherwise indicated the specific electronic form of the document is copyright.
Permission is granted for electronic copying, distribution in print form for educational
purposes and personal use. If you do reduplicate the document, indicate the source. No
permission is granted for commercial use.
© Paul Halsall, November 1998 | <urn:uuid:fdbb69f1-291e-41a1-bd3a-8ecebf8a518e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fordham.edu/Halsall/source/1188geraldwales-barnacle.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924372 | 662 | 2.921875 | 3 |
There are 33 free-to-air TV channels and 12 AIR channels available throughout India, except Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Doordarshan is trying to reach those TV homes having no cable & satellite connection, through its DTH service ‘DD Direct Plus’.
The areas uncovered by terrestrial transmission along with rest of the country have been provided with multi–channel TV coverage through Doordarshan’s free to air Direct to Home (DTH) service “DD Direct Plus”. DTH signals can be received in the entire country (except Andaman & Nicobar Islands) with help of a small sized dish receive units.
The Direct-to-Home TV channels materialized after launching the Ku band transmission of “DD Direct plus” in December, 2004.
Click here to read the full article. | <urn:uuid:497fb9ab-5356-47ef-9699-f39e1642ff52> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mediaworldasia.dk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=171:dd-dth-to-increase-free-to-air-channels-from-59-to-200&catid=40:articles&Itemid=256 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941331 | 174 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Don’t ask professional mountaineer, North Face Global Team member and Telluride mom Hilaree O’Neill how accomplished (and rad) a mountaineer she is. She won’t tell you. Even after her most recent feat.
On May 25, at around 5 a.m. Nepalese time, O’Neill summitted Mount Everest (elevation 8850 meters) as a member of The North Face and National Geographic Everest Expedition 2012. But that isn’t the impressive part.
After summitting Everest, instead of returning to Camp 2 (6500 meters) or Base Camp (5400 meters) to recover, she descended to Camp 4 (7926 meters) to rest with teammate Kris Erickson for just over 12 hours. At 10:30 that same night, O’Neill and Erickson suited back up – this time to climb nearby Lhotse (8516 meters). They left Camp 4 early the next morning – around 1:30 a.m. – and, according to O’Neill, reached the summit of Lhotse in about three hours.
In a 24-hour period, the two successfully summitted two 8,000-meter peaks.
O’Neill is rumored to be the first woman to pull off these two peaks in that timeframe – an accolade she cannot confirm, and doesn’t seem to be concerned about.
O’Neill was in the Himalayas as one of six North Face athletes as part of National Geographic’s Everest Expedition 2012, an event commemorating the 50th anniversary of the first American summit of the world’s highest mountain. The trip was sponsored by National Geographic and The North Face, with collaboration from Montana State University and the Mayo Clinic, and included mountaineers, writers, medical researchers, geology professors, and live feeds from base camp.
According to O’Neill, between the Mayo Clinic scientists and media, there was a lot going on Base Camp to provide welcome distractions from the waiting – the part of mountaineering she claims is the hardest. And this year, because of high winds (on Everest this means winds of over 100 mph) and drier-than-normal conditions, there was a lot of waiting.
O’Neill arrived at Base Camp on April 10. It wasn’t until 45 days later that her opportunity to summit arrived. For the rest of her team, the wait was longer – 54 days. Because she is the mother of two young boys, and because the expedition would take so long, O’Neill arrived after the rest of the group.
“Our plan was to get there early and give ourselves time for this late summit,” she said. “But the vision was to get an early summit. In the last few years there were summit windows on May 5, and in the second week of May – like the tenth to the fourteenth.”
On Everest, the winds persisted and the summit windows came later than normal.
“The jetstream wouldn’t move off the summit,” O’Neill said. “There were winds of 100 miles an hour plus. It sounds like a fricking freight train over your tent; it’s one of most disturbing sounds I’ve heard – that jetstream charging over your tent.”
While on the mountain, O’Neill and her team used the time to acclimatize by progressively making trips up to the higher camps. During their first rotation up the mountain they climbed to Camp 2 (6500 meters); the second and third to Camp 3 (7400 meters); and then during their fourth rotation they made their summit bid.
On May 24, at around 9 p.m., the team consisting of North Face Team members Kris Erickson, Sam Elias, Emily Harrington and O’Neill left Camp 4 for the summit. Conrad Anker, who was also a part of the team and originally slated to climb a western route called the Hornbein Route, opted to stay at Camp 4.
In her blog, O’Neill wrote, “From the minute I left the tent, I just knew it was going to be a constant struggle. I put my crampons on wrong and within minutes of leaving camp, one fell off and then the other. I missed the start of the fixed ropes and ended up scrambling on blue ice trying to find them. I couldn’t get my oxygen mask to fit well and it kept fogging up my goggles which then iced over. The weather was not what it was supposed to be, the wind was blowing a steady 20 mph and when we left the tent, the temperature was already -28 degrees Celsius, way too cold.”
In retrospect, O’Neill believes she fumbled because she was a scared – not of the climbing in front of her, but of the crowds. She explained that this year the crowds were particularly bad because there simply weren’t as many summit windows as in years past. For the most part, she explained, the majority of western climbers, of which she estimated there were 300, plus another 300 Sherpas, had to summit on one of three days – the May 19, 25 or 26.
O’Neill and her team had already bypassed trying for the summit on May 19 – the day on which four climbers died – because of the anticipated crowds. She was disheartened on May 25, when the mountain was still apparently crowded with climbers.
“The crowds force you to climb at a pace you don’t want to climb at,” O’Neill said. “It’s way too slow to where you are like freezing, then you have to run past like ten people at a time. Then you’re dying [from the effort] – you have no control of your pace.”
O’Neill and her team had hoped to leave Camp 4 for the summit late enough to give the crowds enough space, so as to not catch up with them too quickly, but early enough to give themselves enough time to summit and descend. Within an hour of climbing, they had already caught up with the earlier groups, and found themselves in a line of climbers.
“I was terrified the morning we left,” O’Neill said. “I thought we left too early; it was anywhere between 30 to 50 below with wind chill and we had to step over three bodies of people who had died days earlier.”
Additionally, the dry conditions of the mountain made it more challenging for most; instead of walking on snow with their crampons for the majority of the climb, there was more rock exposure than usual. Climbing on rock with crampons is difficult for climbers who are untrained, which applies to many attempting to climb Everest. And when one person moves slowly, it causes backups.
On the descent, O’Neill recalls waiting at the climb’s most technical part, the Hilary Step, for an hour.
“At the end of the hour, there were 60 people waiting to get down, one at time,” O’Neill said.
O’Neill explained that this is where the danger lies – in exposure. Folks can literally freeze to death as they wait in lines, and/or run out of oxygen and die from exhaustion.
“I underestimated what an obsession it is for people, who may have never climbed anything in their lives, to climb Everest,” she said. “People are obsessed with it. They put in a lot of time, a lot of money and a lot of sacrifice. They make bad decisions.”
This year, 10 climbers died attempting Everest; 240 summitted.
But even with the waiting and the crowds, O’Neill is grateful she got to summit. “I finally got to go to Khumbu, to see all the mountains I’ve heard about my entire climbing career. To stand on the summit of Everest you’re looking at Cho Oyu, Kangchenjunga, Manaslu. You can see curvature of earth; it’s amazing.”
The highlight for O’Neill, however, was to turn around and attempt Lhotse, literally 12 hours after getting down from Everest.
“It made Everest better,” O’Neill said. “I was depressed after; it was not my thing. The weather was so cold – Oh my God – it was so cold and I was beat up after.”
In fact, O’Neill was coughing up blood for a few hours at Camp 4 as she rested. But as she waited, the wind died, the weather warmed and according to her, “It was one of those days in the mountains; you don’t want to talk about too much so as not to jinx it.”
As Erickson and O’Neill readied for Lhotse, Anker, waiting (for more than 32 hours) at Camp 4 since the team left for Everest, felt good enough to summit, without oxygen.
“Conrad stayed at Camp 4 without oxygen from 1p.m. on the 24th until 1 a.m. on the 26th,” O’Neill recalled incredulously. “Camp 4 is at 7950 meters, which is basically the summit of most 8000 meter peaks. He just hung out there for 32 hours without oxygen, [and] then climbed Everest without oxygen.”
Using oxygen while climbing Everest, and other 8000-meter peaks, has been a source of controversy in the mountaineering world. According to a National Geographic blog, To Os or Not to Os, famed Italian mountaineer Reinhold Messner notoriously said that “climbing Everest with oxygen is like climbing a 6,000-meter peak, not an 8,000-meter peak.”
Although O’Neill would have preferred to have climbed without oxygen, given the conditions, she chose to use it.
“I don’t think it’s a big deal [to use oxygen or not],” O’Neill said, “but for me personally, I want to climb without oxygen. Not because I don’t think the mountain should be climbed without O2, but I know my body could do it.”
Tests run by the Mayo Clinic at Base Camp substantiate her claim. O’Neill explained that the Mayo Clinic team didn’t find a lot of differences between the North Face athletes and others, except for in one test measuring lung profusion – the ability transfer gases from your lungs into you blood and muscles, and for your body to then actually use it.
“We’re there [in places like Everest] because our body does good at altitude,” O’Neill said, of the team. “The surface area of our lungs is massive compared to someone who doesn’t do as well at altitude. It’s not so much their volume, but the ability for lungs to profuse the O2, that is in our system.”
Additionally, the Mayo Clinic team found that O’Neill and Erickson were able to recover after increasing their heart rates extremely quickly.
“At Base Camp, when we did VO2 testing, we’d get our heart rate up to 120 [beats per minute]; then, within 10 seconds of rest, it would go down to 60,” she said. “It would drop like a stone.”
Ultimately, O’Neill decided to use oxygen and try for both summits. Back home in Telluride now, with a little distance from the expedition, she feels satisfied with her decision, and extremely grateful to have had the opportunity to summit Lhotse.
“Lhotse has the most amazing view of Everest,” O’Neill said. “We sat down, had a snack and watched the headlamps move up Everest. It was just quiet and cool.”
On Lhotse, she noted, there was just one other group of climbers that day.
While on the expedition, O’Neill garnered a lot of attention, not because she is a talented mountaineer, but because she is a mother – something she believes gives her motivation and a beneficial perspective to her mountaineering pursuits.
“I think my mindset is different [because I’m a mom],” she said. “If I’m taking all of this time away from my family, I want to make the most of it.”
However, in a May 4 Outside Online interview from Base Camp, titled The Mother on the Mountain, readers responded to O’Neill’s choices with a mixture of admiration and harsh criticism.
“Obviously, it’s something that is a topic,” O’Neill said. “There are a million fathers up there – a ton – but not so many moms. It doesn’t affect me when I’m climbing, and it isn’t a big deal amongst my team.”
What’s next? O’Neill sighed and looked at the unpacked boxes from her family’s recent move as she picked Goldfish and Pirate’s Booty out of one of her son’s snack bowls.
“Tomorrow, we leave for Mexico,” she said.
Now all she needs to do is find her swimsuit. | <urn:uuid:1037b112-30c8-41f3-a71f-b63e1e34a6f8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.watchnewspapers.com/pages/full_story/push?article-Back+From+Everest%20&id=19065293 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973861 | 2,850 | 1.882813 | 2 |
Ever since we discovered it a few years ago we have been keen to find out about the history of the mysterious factory at la Gâtineau, situated on the Creuse River, between La Roche Posay and Lésigny. At last, and quite by accident, we have come across some information, both official, and from a local source.
The factory consists of a hydro-electric plant on a weir (barrage), which presumably powered whatever industrial activities took place in the extensive range of buildings and caves - that much is clear just by observation. There is a workshop (maybe a joiner), an office, stables, pulleys, an oven, and a good many random, industrial looking, objects. Unfortunately, one cannot enter the caves and explore because they are privately owned, dangerous, and in the winter, a roost for hibernating bats which must not be disturbed.
A couple of weeks ago we drove past and realised that work was being done on the weir. We took a photo for the record, but it was only luck that we happened upon the explanation. The Office Nationale de l'eau et des milieux aquatiques (ONEMA) has carried out a check on the weir and required the owner to install a fish ladder for migrating Atlantic salmon, lamprey, shad, sea trout and eel, and to allow the natural movement of sediment. From its source in the Massif Central, the Creuse runs nearly 300 km to its confluence with the Vienne. The lower section, up to the impassable hydro-electric complex at Eguzon, is potentially accessible to migratory fish. However, this 124km stretch of river has 31 weirs or dams along its route - one every 4 km on average - that slow or block the flow of migrants.
This all seems good news, and it will be interesting to see if the migratory fish make it this far. Our local source was extremely skeptical, saying that anglers would catch and eat any salmon that poked its nose into the Creuse long before we ever saw it. Even if the fish don't return, it's still an atmospheric and beautiful place, and we hope it can continue to be maintained in an informed and sustainable way. | <urn:uuid:181ba891-15bc-4b62-a4a4-282de57baf5a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://daysontheclaise.blogspot.com/2010/10/we-learn-little-about-mystery-place.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959279 | 467 | 2.390625 | 2 |
As a student or an individual who is a participant throughout the workforce, becoming aware of the correct typing posture to ensure that your physical health is maintained is extraordinarily important. There are a variety of different steps that can be implemented in order to ensure that an individual achieves the correct posture for typing so that productivity is increased and also so that the overall comfort of the individual is maintained. If you find that you are one of the many people who have a kink in their neck or their back throughout the day, following the below steps will help to ensure that you acquire the proper posture for typing.
Step 1: Acquire a beneficial desk chair.
There are a variety of different desk chairs available on the market today and so it is imperative that you become aware of all of the benefits that can be brought forth via choosing the appropriate chair. Adjusting the height of the chair so that your legs form a direct 90 degree angle will help to straighten your back and provide you with a sufficient amount of lumbar support.
Step 2: Find the proper placement for your keyboard.
One of the largest complaints from people who are unable to achieve the proper posture for typing is that their wrists begin to hurt at the end of the day. To assist in maintaining healthy wrists, place your keyboard so that it is sloped away from you so that your wrists can be held within a neutral position. If necessary, there are an assortment of gel wrist rests that you can place at the bottom of your keyboard so that your wrists can be comfortable.
Step 3: Take regular breaks when you are using the computer.
Although you may have achieved the correct posture for typing, taking regular breaks also helps to maintain the longevity of your work/school day. After an hour of use, getting up from the computer and taking a walk around the office will help to rest your muscles and to prepare you for the remainder of the day.
There are a wide variety of different individuals who seek to be in a more comfortable position throughout their day at the office or at school. With the aforementioned correct typing posture tips you are now enabled to achieve a comfortable position and to increase your overall productivity meanwhile ensuring that your body stays strong and healthy. | <urn:uuid:5faf8ab0-72cb-49ca-b124-3909fa85139d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://typefastnow.com/typing-tips/what-is-the-correct-typing-posture-at-the-computer.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958049 | 446 | 2.359375 | 2 |
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Information about click-use licences. | <urn:uuid:19fb55d2-c15f-4fc0-9a46-23397e7ef9c2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.education.gov.uk/help/legalinformation/a005237/use-of-crown-copyright-material | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.906412 | 397 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Choose a Mediterranean Diet and do Your Brain a Favor
Posted Apr 30 2010 11:05pm
A latest study has shown that eating similar to the Greeks and lesser of the classical American way would really be doing a major favor to one’s brain.
One of the recent researches on the health advantages of following the Greek’s way of eating showed that adults in the older age group who followed a heart healthy Mediterranean diet replete with fruit, veggies, legume, fishes, olive oil and reasonable wine intake appeared to be having lesser cognitive decline as they aged.
Christy Tangney, an investigator from the Rush Univ. Medical Center in Chicago stated that people who as much as possible followed the Mediterranean diet were observed to perform alike when they were 2 years younger.
Presenting the study results in the yearly Experimental Biology Meeting, Tangney, PhD, elucidated that the precise reasons to why the Mediterranean diet with its heart healthy benefits could safeguard the brain functioning is still unknown. However, she states that her investigation tends to build up on the other research outcomes which show that the diet aids in preserving thinking and cerebral skill sets.
Tangney states that there is a compelling heart constituent to the diet like the phytochemicals found in fruit and veggie forms which are deemed to shield from loss of neurons.
Adhering to the Mediterranean Diet
Study researchers Tangney and associates did a follow-up on 3790 males and females from the on-going Chicago Health and Aging Project. The age of the study entrants averaged at seventy-five years, however all of them were above seventy-five years of age. The study entrants were followed for an average of over 7 years.
All the study entrants were asked to fill up a foods frequency feedback form where they had to spell out what constituents of the diet they consumed and the regularity of consumption. The maximum possible scoring for sticking to the Mediterranean diet was fifty-five, however none appeared to strictly follow it.
Tangney then did a classification of their observance to the diet into low (12-25), moderate (26-29) or high (30-45).
After administration of numerous tests for cognitive functioning was done by the study investigators that involved short, long term recall and then compilation of the scoring was done as a global cognitive scoring. Administration of these tests was done in every 3 yearly time intervals.
Those people in the top set were observed to knock off 2 years from their test scoring. For instance, in case they were sixty-five years of age, they had a scoring in the classical range of what a sixty-three year old person would score.
Some effects were observed in the moderate set whereas zilch effects were observed in the set that has the least possible observance.
The best aspect about this study outcome was the perfect adherence to the Mediterranean diet was not a must for getting a brain-shielding outcome. Incorporating a diet high in fruit and veggie intake, unrefined grain types like cereal, bread and breaking it up a moderate intake of wine seems to offer some shielding from mental decline.
Although the investigators did not query regarding exercising habits of the study entrants, they believe that engaging in some form of physical activity would be a perfect adjunct to the Greek-similar diet. The proper Mediterranean dietpromotes plentiful physical activity.
Since, the investigators were looking at the diet in its entirety, it was tricky to segregate out which sort of food or foods were actually the contributor to safeguarding brain power. | <urn:uuid:f64c60a4-047e-4aa9-8c06-bdfb82e58c45> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wellsphere.com/healthy-living-article/choose-a-mediterranean-diet-and-do-your-brain-a-favor/1095383 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975259 | 718 | 2.015625 | 2 |
---- — You don't need your driver's license to vote on Tuesday, Nov. 6. As always, you need to be a legally registered voter in the county where you live, but you don't need a photo ID or any special documentation to prove your identity. Your right to vote in Pennsylvania is a right guaranteed by the Constitution and you are free to exercise that right next week on Nov. 6.
Polling places will be open throughout the state next Tuesday from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Some groups have made efforts to enact special voter-identification laws, using the spurious contention that there are dangers of people impersonating voters. In fact, there have been extremely few documented cases of voter-impersonation fraud in recent years. Groups who don't want retired people, minorities and students to vote have sought to frighten and discourage them with voter ID laws and have encouraged state governments, such as Pennsylvania's, to pass special-identification laws shortly before and election like the one just ahead of us.
In all, 11 states have enacted laws that would require voters to present official identification cards, in many cases with a photo, at polling places. The most common is a driver's license: people who don't have one are mostly poor, or students away at college, or retired people who have health problems. Such citizens can get substitute ID cards but only after burdensome efforts, often requiring them to travel considerable distances to official card-dispensing offices.
The anti-democratic intent of voter ID laws has barely been disguised, even in Pennsylvania. When Pennsylvania's new voter ID law was challenged in court, lawyers for the state said they did not rest their case on the assumption that voter fraud was a serious problem. Whether or not someone at a polling place asks for a special ID card, can't prevent you from voting.
So, it's official, on Nov. 6 you don't need your driver's license to vote.
Vote. It's especially important in this election. | <urn:uuid:31b00858-437d-49be-861f-88c262e02c11> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dailyitem.com/0111_letters/x1499657689/Vote-with-ID-or-not/print | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968912 | 412 | 1.890625 | 2 |
Today, we look for the first modern digital
computer. The University of Houston's College of
Engineering presents this series about the machines
that make our civilization run, and the people
whose ingenuity created them.
The Sperry-Rand Corporation
sued Honeywell in 1967. Honeywell was making
digital computers, and Sperry claimed Honeywell
owed them a royalty. After WW-II, Sperry had bought
the patent rights to ENIAC, the first digital
electronic computer. Honeywell came back at Sperry
with a countersuit. They made the extraordinary
claim that Sperry's patent was invalid -- that the
digital computer had already been invented before
Honeywell won its case six years later, and Allan
Mackintosh tells us that they did it by correcting
history. They found their way back to the winter of
1937. A young physics instructor at Iowa State
Atanasoff was struggling with the problem of
mechanizing computation. Things were going badly
this particular evening. Finally, in frustration,
he jumped into his car and sped off into the night.
Two hundred miles later, he pulled up at a
roadhouse in Illinois for something to drink.
And there it came to him. A machine could easily
manipulate simple on-off electrical pulses. If
computations were done in the "either-or" number
base of 2 -- instead of base 10 -- a machine could
do calculations naturally. Sitting in that road
house, 200 miles from home, he made the crucial
step in inventing the digital computer.
Two years later Atanasoff and a colleague named
Berry started to build a computer. But in 1942 they
were drafted, and the almost-complete computer was
set aside without being patented. Meanwhile, the
government started work on the ENIAC digital
computer. ENIAC differed in some ways, and it was
Besides, an unfinished, unpatented machine doesn't
make a very strong claim in a priority dispute. But
there's a catch here. One of the major inventors of
ENIAC -- John Mauchly -- had known Atanasoff.
They'd corresponded. Mauchly had even visited
Atanasoff in Iowa for a week in 1941. In the end,
it was clear that the ideas that made ENIAC had
come from Atanasoff.
Atanasoff did all his work with only $6000 of grant
money. But the military funded the ENIAC project.
They wanted to make artillery firing tables, and
they put a half-million dollars into ENIAC -- a
huge sum in 1942.
So the next time you use your pocket calculator --
the next time you spend 30 seconds doing what would
have taken all afternoon -- think about a man
clearing his mind one winter night in 1937. Think
about a man gazing at a yellow line for five hours,
until he was suddenly able to see through the dark.
I'm John Lienhard, at the University of Houston,
where we're interested in the way inventive minds | <urn:uuid:07f7d9ab-4bb4-4cd4-ba07-13d93696771e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi152.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954313 | 660 | 3.390625 | 3 |
MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109. TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011
Mars Polar Lander Mission Status
December 4, 1999 11:15 p.m.
Mission controllers for NASA's Mars Polar Lander are
proceeding with their checklist in a continuing attempt to
communicate with the spacecraft.
On Sunday, Dec. 5 from 10:50 to 11:00 a.m. Pacific Standard
Time, they will try to hear the lander's signal by using NASA's
currently-orbiting Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft as a relay
system for the lander's UHF radio. Until this point, engineers
have tried to reach the lander via its medium gain antenna.
Controllers did not hear from the spacecraft during a
communications opportunity on Saturday, Dec. 4 at 8:30 p.m. PST.
They hoped to make contact during that window if, after landing,
the spacecraft had successfully pointed its antenna toward Earth,
then entered a safe, or standby mode.
"Now we can cross that scenario off the list," said Mars
Polar Lander project manager Richard Cook of JPL. "We're ready
to move on to the next possibility on Sunday morning, which we
hope will work if the spacecraft is not in safe mode, but has its
antenna pointed incorrectly. We're sprouting ideas as we go
along about how to contact the lander."
If contact is not established during that attempt,
additional attempts scheduled at this point will be made as
- Sunday, Dec. 5, from 10:10 to 11:10 p.m. using the
lander's medium gain antenna scan if it is in safe mode
but its antenna is not pointed correctly.
- Tuesday, Dec. 7, at 12:20 a.m. PST using Mars Global
Surveyor if Mars Polar Lander is in safe mode.
Analysis of the landing site reveals the spacecraft would
have touched down within 10 kilometers (6 miles) of the target
site on the Martian south pole, according to Dr. Sam Thurman at
JPL, the lander's flight operations manager. He said they see no
surface features that would obstruct the lander's view of Earth
and therefore hamper its communications capabilities.
Engineers for the Deep Space 2 microprobes are continuing
their attempts to communicate with the probes every two hours.
The microprobes, designed to impact Mars about 60 kilometers
(about 35 miles) north of the lander, will transmit data through
Mars Global Surveyor.
"The probes may have arrived in an area of high slopes,
rough terrain or sand dunes," said Deep Space 2 project manager
Mission engineers believe the probes have entered a phase
where they broadcast their data automatically for one minute out
of every five. "It's also possible that the probes' batteries
have not warmed sufficiently to power up the communications
system. We're checking into all possibilities."
Mars Polar Lander is part of a series of missions in a long-
term program of Mars exploration managed by JPL for NASA's Office
of Space Science, Washington, D.C. JPL's industrial partner is
Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver. JPL is a division of the
California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. | <urn:uuid:4da4065c-ec58-4767-bd60-53cf466943d8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/msp98/ds2/news/pressreleases/mpl991204.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 | 0.902139 | 746 | 2.015625 | 2 |
Welcome to the new research commons! Filling the center of the northern side of the first floor, this facility offers flexible, technology-enabled spaces in which students and faculty can utilize library resources, conduct research, and collaborate with one another.
Some two hundred users can be accommodated in wireless computing environments for small and large groups. Features include pods with work surfaces configured around large-screen monitors; group study rooms; a classroom; laptop lending service; a small number of computer workstations; and printers, a copier, and a scanner.
Open Commons Area
This large space features open "pods" for collaborative research, including study groups, office hours, and small seminars. Designed for up to ten users, the twenty-two pods are equipped with large LCD monitors operated by laptops. Intended to stimulate interdisciplinary exchange and discovery by serendipity, the pods are ideal for groups that are happy to share their projects and discussions with other users.
Group Study Rooms
The fifteen rooms accommodate groups of two to six people, and ten are equipped with wall-mounted, thirty-inch LCD screens operated by laptops.
It is equipped with twenty-four moveable desks and wireless laptops, ceiling-mounted projector and screen, and multi-regional DVD player. | <urn:uuid:2ad2a819-5817-4ca6-b595-d2715be23a9c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/researchlibrary/research-commons | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945493 | 260 | 1.5 | 2 |
Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall today announced that 1,994,905 passengers traveled through the Airport in October. That figure, an increase of 7.2 percent over October 2009, was an all-time October record for passenger traffic at BWI Marshall.
October 2010 was the sixth-straight monthly record for passenger traffic at BWI Marshall, including July, the busiest month in the history of the Airport. Passenger traffic has increased at BWI Marshall for 16 of the past 17 months. The only exception was February 2010, when record winter storms seriously impacted airline flight schedules throughout the nation.
“The strong demand and consistent growth that we have seen at BWI Marshall Airport are indicative of the strength of this market,” said Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley. “We remain committed to providing convenient, easy travel for our residents, businesses, and visitors.”
Southwest Airlines, the largest airline at BWI Marshall Airport, served 1,085,361 passengers in October, a 9.2 percent increase over October 2009. Southwest recently announced that it would serve two new destinations from BWI Marshall starting in March 2011—Charleston and Greenville-Spartanburg, South Carolina. Along with other additions, Southwest will offer 192 daily departures during the peak summer months of 2011, an all-time record for the airline. Southwest provided 182 daily departures during the summer of 2010.
AirTran Airways, the second leading carrier at BWI Marshall Airport, reported 298,463 passengers for October, an increase of 10.7 percent. Other airlines that posted solid growth at BWI Marshall Airport for October 2010 included US Airways, American Airlines, and JetBlue Airways.
“The record level of passenger traffic that we saw this summer has continued in September and October,” said Paul J. Wiedefeld, Executive Director of BWI Marshall Airport. “We thank our customers for using BWI Marshall Airport for their travels.” | <urn:uuid:4fe577f2-6f0e-47f4-9e85-c4a4a07b0805> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bwiairport.com/en/about-bwi/press-releases/220 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954684 | 403 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Claims that there has been a huge jump in structural unemployment — that is, unemployment that can’t be cured by increasing aggregate demand — are playing a large role in the argument that we should basically do nothing in the face of a terrible economy. No need for the Fed to do more; no need for more fiscal stimulus — hey, it’s all about defective labor markets, and we should work on structural reform, one of these days. And don’t expect improvement for years to come. Structural unemployment is invoked by Fed presidents who want to raise rates, not cut them, by economists who want austerity now now now, and in general by almost everyone in the pain caucus.
Legend aside, this is not mainly about displaced construction workers — and there are no other dying industries to point to. Lousy labor markets span the country, except in a handful of states with almost no people. It’s a terrible job situation for college graduates as well as high-school graduates.The idea that this economy is primarily suffering from mismatch is simply bizarre.
First let me say that I agree with Krugman in the essentials, but I find myself wondering if we can be confident that there really is not a larger structural problem embedded within the obvious acute problems of high unemployment and depressed aggregate demand? For example, suppose that there have been massive and pervasive distortions of human capital and labor and other markets resulting from massive distortions in or induced by financial markets. Suppose those distortions lasted at least 10 years and maybe a long as 30 years. Then many sectors of the economy and the workers in them have been shaped by the distortions in ways that may be difficult to discern.
The fact that the financial sector's share of GDP has grown so dramatically over the last 30 years suggests that other sectors have lost out in terms of the growth and productivity they might otherwise have delivered to the benefit of us all. A massive drain such as this must have affected both physical and human capital in those sectors as well as affecting the larger economy we would otherwise expect to see. Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing what is the conterfactual economy we would have observed without the bubble(s). (Note that if George Soros is correct and the last 30 years have been superbubble, then I think the effect I'm trying to describe is even more entrenched and difficult to detect.)
If my conjecture is right, might an economy, shaped by persistent and pervasive distortions in combination with a massive downturn and tightened credit, be characterized by no new and thriving sectors requiring new workers with new skills (because much of the capital that would have fueled them has been siphoned into contingent markets and housing) even as the existing sectors and workers languish? Could there be a larger structural problem, but we can't see it because the economy has been so distorted?
My point here is that Krugman is right (as usual) that there is no evidence consistent with structural unemployment, but are we missing something bigger? A perspective perhaps that would argue that we have something worse than short-term structural unemployment such as we might see in an economy characterized over the long-term by well-functioning markets and by rapid progress and growth, at least in some sectors other than finance. What if the misalignment is so long-standing and has been so destructive to real innovation and productivity that real growth and innovation have been effectively squelched in many sectors? Perhaps not everywhere and always, but enough that now when we look for signs of structural unemployment as Krugman has done, we find no indication of it because sectors where there might have been innovation and growth that would now be demanding workers with different skills, were not able to compete effectively for capital? As I write this, I think this can't really be possible. Even crippled markets would allocate some capital correctly, yes?
The beauty of capitalism and commercial exchange when they work is that they coordinate, communicate and equilibrate the demand for and supply of capital, human, financial, and physical, to those places where productivity is highest and output most valued. The false signals of bubbles do the exact opposite. Instead of producing growth in new technology, in new and better products, and in new jobs, our recent bubble most likely produced underinvestment in human and other forms of capital not directly beneficial to Wall Street along with immense amounts of unsecured risk, granite countertops and en suite baths.
I find myself asking, what would our and the world economy look like if Wall Street had been doing it's job? If I'm right, they would be dramatically different. In that case, as Krugman points out there is no mismatch between the jobs of that distorted economy and the skills of the workers who have been working in the economy that we have. If I'm right, the mismatch is between the workers of the economy we have and the workers of the economy we want and need to have to set us back on the counterfactual trajectory of more diverse growth and productivity; the counterfactual economy we would have had if Wall Street had been doing it's job. If I'm right then we have a major structural problem and I don't think anyone will be able to argue credibly that government should be shrunk and drowned in a bathtub. If it took years of misplaced private sector "enthusiasm" to create the misalignments, it will almost certainly require government to take a larger role in righting them. Thank you, Wall Street.
Let me make my case.
Earlier this year I observed that the price of casino-like finance is higher than we think. Specifically, not only did it siphon off trillions of dollars that created a surplus of homes and commercial real estate, not only did it siphon equity out of existing homes and transform it into bigger, more expensive cars and pickup trucks, and RVs, along with extra baths and state of the art kitchens that may or may not recoup value for homeowners, it also siphoned talent into the financial sector (and into the construction sector).
Now I’m going to ask you to imagine the counterfactual of the world in which the housing bubble occurred. Imagine that over the last 20 or so years our future mathematicians, social and physical scientists, and social workers had left undergraduate or graduate school in a world in which the financial sector had not become so large, so distorted by short-term private incentives, and therefore so personally lucrative. Moreover, imagine a world in which capital had not been siphoned to housing and real estate, but instead had been allocated (as we in the economics profession like to believe it will be) to those areas of the economy where potential returns to capital are highest, where technology is advancing (and presumably yielding benefit to us all). In the counterfactual world, the efficient allocation of capital would have blazed the efficient, productive trail into the steadily improving future we have for the most part observed since Adam Smith and others first noticed that the division of labor and the willingness of the owners of capital to seek its highest return appeared to take us all to something that was better than feudalism.
Now ask yourself: In that counterfactual world, where the financial sector was doing what it is supposed to do, what would the economy have looked like? Where would have been the jobs? How would individuals have adjusted their investment in human capital in order to increase their competitiveness for the counterfactual jobs? How would investors have invested? What would manufacturers have produced?
I believe that the answers to these questions tell us something about the nature of unemployment we are facing now and the policy options that are likely to drive us out of the (shallow thanks to the stimulus) unregulated-finance-sector-induced crater we find ourselves in.
The financial sector has muddied the waters for many years, not just the last quarter or two, signaling reductions in risk and returns to financial, physical and human capital that were highly distorted in many cases and that have consequently created large discontinuities in the demand for and supply of all types of capital and, consequently, in supply and demand in goods and services markets. The net effect in labor markets is that we now have a good match between skills and the jobs in the economy we used to have, but we may not have a good match between skills and jobs in the economy we could have had or the economy we would like to have. This is a structural problem, but not one that is likely to fix itself without some major restructuring in which the government and government policy must take active roles. Thank you, Wall Street.
If I'm right that we have a long-term structural problem, it will require remedies and restructuring that benefit more than the top 1% of wage earners. For this reason, shrinking government, while simultaneously refusing to stimulate aggregate demand, will almost certainly make the recession longer and deeper. On the other hand, stimulating aggregate demand in ways that preserve the old economy rather than reshaping it to produce the human and physical capital and public infrastructure that the counterfactual economy would have given us will only leave us mired in a dysfunctional economy.
Either way, when the private sector has been the problem, it's hard to imagine an effective solution that doesn't involve a safety net that includes health insurance combined with government action aimed at strategically boosting aggregate demand by targeting those most at risk and most likely to spend while also adopting public policies aimed at remedying the gross distortions in capital markets, human, physical, and financial, over the last 30 years.
Krugman's response, a clarification with which I am in full agreement, here. | <urn:uuid:d19b9393-b9fd-4fe5-9aa8-6017c734f94e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/09/structural-misalignment-and-a-counterfactual-economy.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00051-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970871 | 1,951 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Patient self-monitoring (PSM) of oral anticoagulation therapy (OAT) can improve anticoagulant control, but poor uptake and high dropout rates have prompted suggestions that PSM is suitable for only a minority of patients in the UK.
To determine whether PSM could be a viable alternative to regular hospital anticoagulant clinic attendance, if offered from the start of treatment.
318 consecutive patients referred, for the first time, to an anticoagulation clinic were assessed for eligibility using established criteria. Patients electing for PSM attended training and, following successful assessment, performed a capillary blood INR every two weeks or more frequently if directed to do so by the anticoagulation clinic. Primary outcome measures were uptake of PSM and the percentage time in target therapeutic INR range (TIR) compared to patients electing for routine clinic care.
Of 318 patients referred for OAT, 188 were eligible for PSM. 84 (26%) elected to self-monitor, of whom 72 (23%) remained self-monitoring or had completed their course of treatment at the end of the audit. Self-monitoring patients had significantly better anticoagulant control than those receiving routine hospital anticoagulation clinic care (TIR 71% vs 60%, p = 0.003) and significantly less time outside critical limits, ie, INR <1.5 or >5.0 (0.45% vs 2.04%, p = 0.008).
Patients offered PSM from the start of treatment show increased uptake compared to previous UK studies and a level of oral anticoagulation control comparable to that reported in previous clinical trials. | <urn:uuid:62ccdb12-92d5-438b-a65c-e3b95c66cad9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pubmedcentralcanada.ca/pmcc/solr/reg?pageSize=25&term=&sortby=score+desc&filterAuthor=author%3A(%22Hills%2C+J%22) | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946776 | 347 | 1.5 | 2 |
PostgreSQL is an object-relational database management system (ORDBMS) based on POSTGRES, Version 4.2, developed at the University of California at Berkeley Computer Science Department. The POSTGRES project, led by Professor Michael Stonebraker, was sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Army Research Office (ARO), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and ESL, Inc.
PostgreSQL is an open-source descendant of this original Berkeley code. It provides SQL92/SQL99 language support and other modern features.
POSTGRES pioneered many of the object-relational concepts now becoming available in some commercial databases. Traditional relational database management systems (RDBMS) support a data model consisting of a collection of named relations, containing attributes of a specific type. In current commercial systems, possible types include floating point numbers, integers, character strings, money, and dates. It is commonly recognized that this model is inadequate for future data-processing applications. The relational model successfully replaced previous models in part because of its "Spartan simplicity". However, this simplicity makes the implementation of certain applications very difficult. PostgreSQL offers substantial additional power by incorporating the following additional concepts in such a way that users can easily extend the system:
Other features provide additional power and flexibility:
These features put PostgreSQL into the category of databases referred to as object-relational. Note that this is distinct from those referred to as object-oriented, which in general are not as well suited to supporting traditional relational database languages. So, although PostgreSQL has some object-oriented features, it is firmly in the relational database world. In fact, some commercial databases have recently incorporated features pioneered by PostgreSQL. | <urn:uuid:1d803419-514b-4ffa-8bce-412f02e4d203> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rootr.net/doc/postgresql/user-preface.html | 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 | 0.933247 | 353 | 3.09375 | 3 |
Join Dr. Julia Brock at the Cobb County Public Library on October 10th at 5 p.m. for "Conversations with the Curator." Brock, curator at the Museum of History & Holocaust Education, coordinated an online exhibit created by students from Kennesaw State University and the Ben M'sik Community Museum, Casablanca, Morocco. The exhibit, "Identities: Understanding Islam in a Cross-Cultural Context," explores the lives and experiences of Muslims in metro Atlanta and Ben M'sik neighborhood of Casablanca. Brock will explore the process of building an online exhibit, the important role of student work, and the challenges of trans-Atlantic collaboration.
Information about the exhibit: Identities: Understanding Islam in a Cross-Cultural Context explores Muslim communities in metro Atlanta and in Casablanca, Morocco, the commonalities between Moroccan and American life, as well as common stereotypes and misperceptions about Islam. A collaborative effort by student project members in Kennesaw and Casablanca, the online exhibit fulfills a grant awarded by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and the American Association of Museums.
For more information about the exhibit, please visit http://www.kennesaw.edu/historymuseum/onlineexhibits.shtml.
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Marietta, GA 30060
Website: Click to Visit | <urn:uuid:e4a07da6-890c-4962-a242-1c6affdedc52> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cobbcat.org/calendar/index.php?eID=2695 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.906575 | 292 | 2.46875 | 2 |
Mighty Rise of Food Revolution and What it Means to You
Posted By Dr. Mercola | August 20 2010
In the article linked below, author Michael Pollan reviews five books that address the heart of the food movement:
- Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal: War Stories from the Local Food Front, by Joel Salatin
- All You Can Eat: How Hungry Is America?, by Joel Berg
- Eating Animals, by Jonathan Safran Foer
- Terra Madre: Forging a New Global Network of Sustainable Food Communities, by Carlo Petrini
- The Taste for Civilization: Food, Politics, and Civil Society, by Janet A. Flammang
Food in America has been more or less invisible, politically speaking, until very recently. However, according to Pollan, writing in AlterNet, these books show that:
"... Food is invisible no longer and, in light of the mounting costs we've incurred by ignoring it, it is likely to demand much more of our attention in the future, as eaters, parents, and citizens. It is only a matter of time before politicians seize on the power of the food issue, which besides being increasingly urgent is also almost primal, indeed is in some deep sense proto-political."
Dr. Mercola's Comments:
The food system in the United States is in desperate need of an overhaul, and with resources like Michael Pollan, Joel Salatin and others -- who are either getting the word out through books and the media or are working right in the field to grow food according to the laws of nature -- the tide may finally begin to turn.
At the forefront of any revolution is knowledge, and that is the stage many are at right now with regard to the food system. Finally, many are realizing that the bulk of the packaged, processed foods found in supermarkets are not real "food" at all, but conglomerations of excessive subsidized farm crops and chemicals manipulated to taste and look edible.
In many parts of the United States, the small farmers who once prided themselves on supplying wholesome foods to neighboring towns have long since closed their doors, replaced by giant CAFOs -- Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations -- and expansive fields ofgenetically modified corn, soy, cotton and canola.
Why are these crops making up the majority of U.S. farmland? U.S. food subsidies are grossly skewed, creating a diet excessively high in factory-farmed "corn-fed" meats, grains and sugars, with very little fresh fruits and vegetables or healthful fats from nuts and seeds.
U.S. Government Subsidizes Junk Food
The food crops currently subsidized are corn, soy, wheat and rice. With these crops making up the bulk of the harvest, what do you end up with?
A fast food diet!
If growers of subsidized fresh vegetables were in a clear majority, you might start to see some fine advertising campaigns promoting the consumption of those veggies …
Unfortunately, the Department of Agriculture is deeply entrenched with agribusiness, and current legislations protect the profits of these large industries at the expense of public health.
In fact, the agriculture lobby is more powerful than even the pharmaceutical industry! You don't hear about it as often, but the ramifications of their political influence are just as hazardous to your health as that of Big Pharma.
As this recent New York Times article states, "Thanks to lobbying, Congress chooses to subsidize foods that we're supposed to eat less of."
Is Food Reform on a Political Level Realistic?
Real reform on a political level is a long way off, but as Michael Pollan points out in The New York Review of Books article linked above, even on a national level there are small signs of change apparent. For instance, environmental groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Environmental Working Group are attacking the food system for its massive environmental pollution.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention acknowledges that 75 percent of U.S. health care spending is for the treatment of chronic diseases, most of which are preventable through healthier eating. Even Michelle Obama told the Grocery Manufacturers Association, a prominent food industry trade group:
"We need you not just to tweak around the edges but to entirely rethink the products that you're offering, the information that you provide about these products, and how you market those products to our children."
These are admittedly small ripples in an ocean overrun with agribusiness scruples. As Pollan wrote:
" … industry-friendly appointments suggest that while the administration may be sympathetic to elements of the food movement's agenda, it isn't about to take on agribusiness, at least not directly, at least until it senses at its back a much larger constituency for reform."
Yet as Pollan also explains, our food policy reaches VERY deep into our everyday lives -- from the rise of diabetes all the way to our national security. Unless the food policy is addressed and corrected, little progress will be made to improve the current health care crisis, increase our energy independence, and reduce the negative impact on our environment and climate.
It is ALL connected and at the root of the problem lies the broken U.S. food system.
Beyond Policy: A Return to a Food-Centered Culture
Moving beyond Washington, there is much more to the food movement than the passage of new laws and regulations. What is attracting many to the myriad of "food movements" out there -- the locavores, the foodies, the supporters of the slow food movement -- is a love for real, pure food -- and the community it builds along with it.
For those looking to enhance their health and remove themselves, at least partially, from the corporative society in which we live, there is no better starting point than food.
"It makes sense that food and farming should become a locus of attention for Americans disenchanted with consumer capitalism. Food is the place in daily life where corporatization can be most vividly felt: think about the homogenization of taste and experience represented by fast food.
By the same token, food offers us one of the shortest, most appealing paths out of the corporate labyrinth, and into the sheer diversity of local flavors, varieties, and characters on offer at the farmers' market."
Nowadays, 90 percent of foods Americans purchase every year are processed foods, a relatively new phenomenon. It has only been in the last several decades that the concept of "food" expanded from meat, vegetables, raw dairy products, fruit and other such natural items to include the highly processed, preserved, artificially flavored and often brightly colored concoctions that now exist in supermarkets.
Sadly, this quasi "food" really caught on, but the good news is that when you hear the term "what's old is new," it can now be applied to food. That is, increasing numbers of people are reverting BACK to the ways of our ancestors, and choosing to purchase food directly from local farmers, and cook it using slow, traditional methods.
For instance, after declining for more than a century, the number of U.S. small farms has increased 20 percent in the past six years. This is in large part a result of the growing demand for higher quality, pure and fresh locally grown foods, which is slowly but surely shaping the business of food in the United States.
Ready to Join the Food Revolution?
With nearly 7 out of 10 Americans being overweight, and 1 in 4 being affected with diabetes or pre-diabetes, the American diet is clearly in dire need of a radical overhaul. Drugs won't fix these dismal health statistics. Only a return to sane, healthy eating habits will.
If you still have not taken a long, hard look at your diet, I urge you to evaluate what you're really feeding yourself and your family on a daily basis.
Unfortunately, many people simply don't know how to cook with fresh ingredients anymore. That's how far we've strayed from our roots. British chef, Jamie Oliver, has realized this travesty and has launched a campaign to teach Americans how to cook again.
Most chefs teach you how to switch up the flavor. Oliver teaches basic skills to save your life -- cooking is that important!
I've said this for many years, and it's worth repeating many times over because it's one of the main solutions to the health hurdles facing much of the United States -- you've got to prepare your food at home!
I also encourage you to support the small family farms in your area. You'll receive nutritious food from a source that you can trust, and you'll not only be supporting the health of your own family but the health of your entire community.
A great Web site to check out along the way is www.localharvest.org. There you can find farmers' markets, family farms, and other sources of sustainably grown food in your area where you can buy produce, grass-fed meats, and many other healthy goodies.
Try as they may, industry lobbyists still cannot force you to buy junk foods and foods raised in unhealthy "agribusiness" conditions. The choice is entirely yours, and consumer demand will always win eventually, so the more you demand healthy, unadulterated foods, the more they must produce, one way or another.
Further, knowledge truly is power, and the more people become informed, the faster it will prompt real change to come about. Several wonderful movies that will give you an excellent overview of the problems with modern agriculture and the need for a food revolution, which I highly recommend you watch and share with your friends and family, are:
- Food, Inc.
- The Future of Food
- Food Matters
- Fast Food Nation
- The World According To Monsanto | <urn:uuid:b097f89f-8e3b-4eb9-9cfb-3b1bf4705171> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.foodconsumer.org/newsite/mobile/Politics/food_revolution_2008100105.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957133 | 2,002 | 1.820313 | 2 |
The national unit of currency is the lempira, often shortened to “lemp” by English-speaking Hondurans and expatriates. Bills come in denominations of 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, and 500 lempira, while coins are worth 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, and 50 centavos. Coins are worth so little they’re more of an annoyance than an asset. A slang word for cash is pisto. At the time of writing, the lempira was trading at 19.1 to US$1. A good website for checking the current rate is www.xe.com.
Note: It can often be difficult to change 500 lempira notes, especially in smaller towns, so try to carry lots of smaller bills and change whenever possible. It’s also better to avoid beaten up or torn notes, as they can be hard to spend.
© Chris Humphrey and Amy E. Robertson from Moon Honduras, 5th Edition | <urn:uuid:c8cc799d-675b-4427-9d20-690bfc937fa8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.moon.com/destinations/honduras/essentials/information-and-services/money | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.914728 | 212 | 3.140625 | 3 |
Explore EMU Oct. 18 and see how an EMU education can launch careers
YPSILANTI —High school students and transfer students can learn more about prospective careers and how an EMU education can help by attending the University’s Explore Eastern program, Saturday, Oct. 18. The program runs 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the EMU Student Center, 900 Oakwood Street, EMU’s main campus in Ypsilanti. The event is free.
Prospective students can meet with representatives from various academic programs, housing, dining, career services, leadership and involvement, financial aid and scholarships. Campus tours, led by current EMU students, leave every 10 to 15 minutes.
All students attending Explore Eastern can apply for admission, free of charge – a $20 savings. One high school senior who enrolls at EMU will receive 12 free credit hours of in-state equivalent tuition. One transfer student who enrolls will receive six free credit hours of in-state equivalent tuition.
To register for Explore Eastern or for more information, go to http://www.emich.edu/explore/
Eastern Michigan University is a public, comprehensive university that offers programs in the arts, sciences and professions. EMU prepares students with the intellectual skills and practical experiences to succeed in their career and lives, and to be better citizens.
Editor's Note: Looking for an expert source for a story? Check out EMU's Eastern Experts online at www.emich.edu/univcomm/easternexperts. | <urn:uuid:f9123a66-2c91-4e3c-8a87-846e7926a503> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.emich.edu/univcomm/releases_archived/092508explore.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93491 | 323 | 1.617188 | 2 |
View alphabetical lists of all artists currently featured on the site.
Select the initial of the artist's name that you are looking for. Scroll down the list until you find the name, and select it for more information about the artist and his or her work.
Artists are organised by their most commonly-used names. This is usually but not always their surname e.g. Leonardo da Vinci is under L, Van Gogh is under V and Raphael is under R.
Auguste Herbin (French, 1882 - 1960)
French artist Auguste Herbin studied art in Lille before moving to Paris in 1903. Initially he painted in an impressionist style, but his work began to show influences of Cubism from around 1909. From 1917 to 1920 Herbin's work moved towards abstraction, but in the early 1920s he reverted to a figurative style of painting, and painted landscapes and portraits. From 1926 Herbin's work was purely abstract and after the Second World War he developed a personal theory of abstract art, painting simple geometric shapes in pure colours. | <urn:uuid:2ba13bc6-ecdc-4059-8171-dc3895ee8114> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nationalgalleries.org/collection/artists-a-z/H/6042/artist_name/Auguste%20Herbin | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96428 | 219 | 2.3125 | 2 |
'Freshman 15' A Myth: Study
A new study from Ohio State University reveals that the much-mythologized 'Freshman 15' is just that -- a tall tale.
College students do gain an average of 2 to 3 pounds in their first year of school, according to OSU researcher Jay Zagorsky.
The Houston Chronicle has more:
Zagorsky's study used data from more than 7,000 young Americans who as part of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 were interviewed between the ages of 13 and 17 in 1997 and then interviewed each year since.
Only 10 percent of respondents gained 15 or more pounds during their freshmen years, while one-quarter of the study participants lost weight during their college years.
Zagorsky also said that college wasn't the culprit of late-teenage weight gain. "Most students don't gain large amounts of weight. And it is not college that leads to weight gain - it is becoming a young adult," he said, according to Psych Central.
Read the report's abstract here.
What do you think? Did you gain the freshman 15? Share your thoughts in the comments section. | <urn:uuid:0d521994-81e5-46bd-ab73-c091bd2a8643> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/01/freshman-15-a-myth-study_n_1069201.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968226 | 241 | 2.296875 | 2 |
Train Carries Biofuel Across Border 24 Times, Never Unloads, Earns Millions in Taxpayer Funded Green Energy Money
In The Myth of the Robber Barons: A New Look at the Rise of Big Business in America, author Burton W. Folsom told astory about the creation of the railroads in America. It seemed the government gave railroads more money if they ran across inclines or in more adverse areas. Generally where it was more difficult to build, they received more money. So railroads that took government money had very convoluted routes and were built in areas it wouldn’t have been if there was no government money.
The railroads back then knew how to get blood out of a stone.
Things haven’t changed that much, it seems:
A cargo train filled with biofuels crossed the border between the US and Canada 24 times between the 15th of June and the 28th of June 2010; not once did it unload its cargo, yet it still earned millions of dollars. CBC News of Canada was the first to pick up on this story on the 3rd of December 2012, and began their own investigation into the possible explanations behind this odd behaviour.
CN Rail, the operator of the train, stated their innocence in the matter as they had only “received shipping directions from the customer, which, under law, it has an obligation to meet. CN discharged its obligations with respect to those movements in strict compliance with its obligations as a common carrier, and was compensated accordingly.” Even so, they still managed to earn C$2.6 million in shipping fees.
During their investigation CBC managed to obtain an internal email which stated that the cars of the train were all reconfigured between each trip but that the cargo was never actually unloaded, because “each move per car across the border is revenue generated”, the sale of the cargo itself was inconsequential.
As taxpayers we have just had a mop handle shoved up our asses. | <urn:uuid:8f2ea88f-6314-425d-9b6c-e0e40c302822> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.conservativeunderground.com/forum505/showthread.php?54103-Train-Carries-Biofuel-Across-Border-24-Times&mode=hybrid | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984683 | 411 | 1.984375 | 2 |
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said that one of its servers was hacked and the names of more than 100 people working for the IAEA were exposed.
The hack originated from a "previously unknown group critical of Israel's undeclared nuclear weapons program," according to the AP, which asked for an open investigation in Israel's nuclear activities. With the exception the names exposed and a request to sign a petition. the group called "Parastoo" apparently did not cause further damage.
The IAEA apologized for the hack and said that only one old server that was shut down a while ago was affected. Spokeswoman Gill Tudor said that work to close vulnerabilities had been done to the server prior to the hack and the agency is now doing "everything possible to help ensure that no further information is vulnerable." | <urn:uuid:059648be-a942-4260-867f-3196b0d1d69f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tomshardware.com/news/un-iaea-hack-security,19371.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978795 | 169 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Meta-data has existed for centuries. Card catalogs and handwritten indexes are examples long before the electronic age. See Meta Data Coalition.
The Most Glaring Lack of Meta-Data
The music CD should have been designed with meta-data, such as album name, artist and song titles. With 650 million bytes of storage, a few thousand could have easily been reserved for future use. In the early 1980s, readouts to display this information were expensive, and the future was not considered. The result was a circuitous route of searching by track length for the missing data on the Internet when a CD was played on the computer (see CDDB), as well as conflicts in older stand-alone CD players when meta-data was finally added to the format.
(2) (The Metadata Company, Brentwood, TN, www.metadata.com). Formerly Metadata Information Partners, it is a software firm specializing in data management products as well as providing consulting and custom information systems to the healthcare and government industries. Although the term "metadata," spelled the same with lower case "m," is widely used to refer to data about data (see definition #1 above), the company trademarked the word in 1986 and was granted "incontestable" status in 1991. | <urn:uuid:99fd771a-46cf-4b73-877e-be04e316117e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia/term/46848/metadata | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970694 | 261 | 2.15625 | 2 |
Wauwatosa School District studying big changes in high school science curriculum
Poor performance drives change in high school curriculum
Lagging performance in science and an audit that found a lack of connection in science offerings is driving change in the high school science curriculum for next year, said David Dentinger, secondary coordinator for student learning for the Wauwatosa Public Schools.
The change includes requiring core science classes in biology, chemistry and physics - which were previously one-semester, full-year classes - and adding, as an option, an "advanced" full-year course in each of the three subjects.
The advanced courses would be offerings at a level in between the regular courses and the advanced placement courses for college credit in each topic.
Earth science, a ninth-grade staple, will be embedded in the new courses, based partly on feedback from some students that they had already studied the subject in middle school, Dentinger said.
Three years of science will be required for graduation, including one year of biology and one year of a physical science such as chemistry or physics, according to the curriculum plan.
A clearer path
The new, more rigorous model replaces a curriculum that may have seemed to offer more choice, especially to upperclassmen, but allowed students to move ahead by taking courses such as astronomy or advanced earth science without delving more deeply into the core sciences.
No fewer than nine options were offered to 11th- and 12-graders, ranging from Advanced Earth Science to AP Physics C, a math-heavy physics course recently added to the curriculum.
The choices aren't fewer in the new plan, but the chart shows a clearer path for each of the grade levels and offers APs and the earth science and astronomy courses as electives.
Both old and new curricula offer four engineering classes in fulfilling the district's commitment to Project Lead the Way/STEM education.
Why change was needed
Dentinger said various data pointed to the need for beefing up the science curriculum.
In comparing science scores on the ACT college admission test, Wauwatosa has ranked near the bottom of nine area school districts for the last five years. The other eight districts are Elmbrook, Whitefish Bay, Mequon-Thiensville, New Berlin, Shorewood, Nicolet, Pewaukee and Menomonee Falls.
Last year - the 2011-12 school year - Wauwatosa's ACT science scores were the lowest in the group.
Comparing college-readiness within the district using four skills and subject matters, science ranked a distant fourth compared to English, math and reading.
The data, again based on ACT scores, show that over the last five years, only half of the students tested were college-ready in science. This compares poorly to the roughly 70 percent of students college-ready in math and reading and the 80-plus percent of students college-ready in English.
Data from WKCE tests, state Department of Public Instruction assessments, also show declining achievement in science.
"We're certainly not seeing improvement," Dentinger said.
In addition to the quantitative measures showing low performance in science, Dentinger said, there was qualitative evidence in the form of an audit performed by LeRoy Lee, executive director of the Wisconsin Science Network.
"He did a comprehensive study of the K-12 science program here in Tosa, and that revealed that at the high school level there is a lack of connection among the different semester courses, among the concepts, etc.," Dentinger said.
The audit also found that the high school science curriculum was topics-driven - based on delivering information - rather than on developing skills, which is recommended by organizations that develop educational standards such as the Next Generation of Science Standards and the Common Core State Standards, he said.
Dentinger said a scan of high-performing state schools also found that "none of them were using a semester model" for some of the science classes that Wauwatosa was offering in a semester. In addition, a negative by-product of the semester model is that a student may have to take three semesters to be ready for an AP class, rather than two.
The audit included a survey of "hundreds of kids," Dentinger said, and found that the students said the semester courses in ninth- and 10-grade - biology, earth/space, chemistry and physics - were not needed to do well in the subsequent courses, which were year-long courses termed "advanced."
A phased-in approach
The plan recommended a phase-in of the new curriculum, beginning by offering the new biology and advanced biology courses next year, the chemistry and physics classes in 2014-15, and taking a harder look at electives in 2015-16.
AP courses would be unchanged.
Creating the new curriculum was the work of a science content team that includes four meetings of all high school science teachers.
Dentinger, Director of Student Learning Beth Erenberger, and science teachers Judy Patrick and Tom Schnieder presented the plan for change to the School Board last week. The board is likely to take action on the proposal Monday.
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- Police concealing more information due to federal court ruling
- Summer sizzle brings plenty of entertainment to Wauwatosa
- City needs to fund senior center if it has hopes of a future
- Eschweiler preservation saga not over yet in Wauwatosa
- Roosevelt Elementary students place in dance competition
- Police Report: May 23
- Fire department offers lessons on car seat safety
- $100 million in sewer costs loom over Wauwatosa
- Safe Routes to School in Wauwatosa continues to spread word | <urn:uuid:5fba6343-c521-4090-91e6-ee0339ee86b8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wauwatosanow.com/news/wauwatosa-school-district-studying-big-changes-in-high-school-science-curriculum-s696mhe-199012511.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958596 | 1,214 | 1.96875 | 2 |
October 25, 2010
The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 -One of the bailout measures taken by Congress in 2008 to help repair the damage from the subprime mortgage crisis. The act gives the Treasury Secretary the authority to buy up to $700 billion of troubled assets and restore liquidity in financial markets. The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (EESA) was originally created and proposed by Henry Paulson...The original form of the EESA was rejected by the House of Representatives in September of 2008 and was therefore revised. A revised version was passed the following month. Proponents of the plan felt that it was vital to minimize the damage done to the economy by the mortgage meltdown, while detractors felt that the cost of the plan was way too high.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 - An act initiated and signed by U.S. President Barack Obama in February, 2009. The act was set into motion as a response to the weak economic state facing the country. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was created to stimulate the economy through individual and corporate tax cuts, leniency in unemployment benefits, increased domestic spending, and increased social welfare funding.
[Just two notes to self. I've read so many times this year that the current administration is to blame for "the bailout" of banks and Wall Street that I sometimes need a reminder of what actually happened].
October 25, 2010 | Permalink | <urn:uuid:a41c171d-6ffd-4101-abf4-550431e2f420> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/business_law/2010/10/from-investopedia.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972729 | 289 | 2.859375 | 3 |
The harsh realities of annual budget deficits, declining tax revenue and a backlog of street repairs will make Fort Wayne's current spending levels unsustainable without changes, fiscal experts were expected to tell City Council on Tuesday.
City Controller Pat Roller said Tuesday the city will face a deficit of up to $6 million in its 2013 budget and likely each year for the foreseeable future, forcing spending cuts, tax increases or a combination of measures.
"Our citizens have kind of grown to expect certain services," Roller said. "The question is, what are citizens willing to pay for?"
A panel of fiscal policy experts convened by Mayor Tom Henry earlier this year was set to present its initial findings to council Tuesday evening.
Henry launched the study largely to examine how Fort Wayne ought to cope with property tax caps that were added to the Indiana constitution in 2010 and have reduced the city's overall tax revenue by about $13.5 million each of the last two years. That impact is likely to be even greater next year as more property owners hit the caps, which limit property taxes to 1 percent on homes.
The study group was expected to outline a variety of options available to the city, including a new local income tax, fees for services provided by the city and deeper spending cuts.
"Is it a crisis? I wouldn't call it a crisis," said John Stafford, director of the Community Research Institute at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne. "Will it involve some pain? Yes." | <urn:uuid:13c8842a-b25b-4ebe-aa73-ab9c2f665a7e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fortwayne.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120731/NEWS/320110219/1005/NEWS09 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968326 | 298 | 1.867188 | 2 |
In a robot lab at TEDGlobal, Raffaello D'Andrea demos his flying quadcopters: robots that think like athletes, solving physical problems with algorithms that help them learn. In a series of nifty demos, D'Andrea show drones that play catch, balance and make decisions together - and watch out for an I-want-this-now demo of Kinect-controlled quads.
Today on Engineering Newswire, we’re building Hyperloop transportation, putting paralyzed people behind the wheel, and riding futuristic airplanes that carry passengers in pods.
On this episode of The Pulse, rewired nerves from amputated limbs allow for prosthetic control with existing muscles, a bioengineered blood vessel is transplanted, diabetes is diagnosed through breath analysis alone, and a new technology is paving the way for low-cost electronic devices that work in direct contact with living tissue inside the body.
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University are putting the finishing touches on their version of a driverless car that, they say, lays the groundwork for computers to replace humans in the driver seat within a decade.
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have developed an interactive touch interface that can be projected onto any flat surface. Called 'World Kit', the system is geared towards allowing users to interact with their environment in the same way they do their smart phones and tablets.
On this week's EEVblog Teardown, what's inside a 1980 vintage Yugoslavian digital multimeter, the Digimer 10 from Iskra.
As a novelist, Daniel Suarez spins dystopian tales of the future. But on the TEDGlobal stage, he talks us through a real-life scenario we all need to know more about: the rise of autonomous robotic weapons of war. Advanced drones, automated weapons and AI-powered intelligence-gathering tools, he suggests, could take the decision to make war out of the hands of humans.
A dramatic drop in the price of solar power technology last year helped the continued growth of renewable energy, according to a U.N.-backed report published Wednesday. Global energy-generating capacity from renewable sources rose by 115 gigawatts in 2012, compared with 105 gigawatts the previous year, the report by the Paris-based think tank REN21 showed.
Lockheed Martin will develop reactor protection systems for China's next generation of nuclear reactors. The aerospace and defense contractor said it will develop a safety instrument and control platform for the protection systems.
Researchers at the Vienna University of Technology quantum mechanically couple atoms to glass fiber cables. Now, they have shown that their technique enables storage of quantum information over a sufficiently long period of time to realize global quantum networks based on optical fibers.
Microchip Technology (Chandler, AZ) has announced the MPLAB REAL ICE Power Monitor Module, which enables designers to identify and eliminate code that consumes high current, in real time. Microchip’s Power Monitor Module provides programmable power to the target, as well as sampling intervals, enabling users to run at specific voltage levels and see tailored measurements.
New research shows that exposing polymer molecular sieve membranes to ultraviolet irradiation in the presence of oxygen produces highly permeable and selective membranes for more efficient molecular-level separation, an essential process in everything from water purification to controlling gas emissions.
A new material has the potential to improve the sensitivity of photographic image sensors by a factor of five. In 2011, an EPFL team led by Andras Kis discovered the amazing semi-conducting properties of molybdenite, and they have been exploring its potential in various technological applications ever since.
A team of researchers from the Nanoengineering Research Centre and the Department of Electronic Engineering at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTech has found a way to make the manufacture of crystalline silicon materials faster and more affordable.
Nemicon (Japan) has announced its 7S Series Incremental Rotary Encoder. At just 7.2 mm in diameter, and based on Nemicon’s successful line of 18 mm and 12 mm diameter miniature encoders, the 7S Series shaft type encoder features high resolution, high noise immunity, and high reliability. | <urn:uuid:7adce6a0-4920-4a06-96ba-56a8a1d7b6d3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pddnet.com/all-content/all?items_per_page=15&page=6&%3Bamp%3Bamp%3Bamp%3Bqt-recent_blogs=0&%3Bamp%3Bamp%3Bitems_per_page=15&%3Bamp%3Bamp%3Bpage=7424%2C8264&%3Bqt-most_popular=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.908058 | 851 | 2.265625 | 2 |
No Denying Deflation: Will It Eventually Kill Content?
In classic economics, deflation - a downward trend in prices - is a dangerous force that leads to recessions (see: Japan, economic disaster - a case study). In the world of the Internet, deflation viewed as a positive force, leading to massive consumer gains. How can we reconcile these two competing beliefs? And what impact will this deflationary pressure have on the production of high quality content?
I've been thinking a lot about deflation and its impact on the Internet economy since reading two articles in two different newspapers this last week. The first was this article in The Economist about the music business. The article contained a chart showing music industry revenues peaking in 1999 at $27 billion and dropping consistently as a result of the disruptive power of digital music and iPods/iPhones. Industry revenue may have finally flattened out at $16.5 billion, but the bigger story is that over $10 billion of value has been taken out of the music business thanks to over a dozen years of digital disruption. Artists are still producing a ton of music (I would guess music proliferation has grown during this period, although I haven't seen the data), yet the Internet has produced massive deflationary pressure.
The second article that I was struck by was in the Wall Street Journal, depicting the explosion of online video. Titled, "Web Video: Bigger and Less Profitable", the article reports on the rapid growth in online video views (39 billion in December), yet the fact that prices are dropping rapidly due to the oversupply of video inventory. The CPM (cost per thousand views) that advertisers are paying has dropped from $17-25 in 2011 to $15-20 in 2012. Advertisers and content producers are used to this trend. Whenever a new advertising medium emerges, prices are high at first, and then steadily drop as inventory swells (I wrote about this in a post that provided a bearish analysis of Groupon back in 2010). Every content business today faces this rapid drop in CPMs across every category, resulting in severe cost pressures.
So if the producers of music, video and other content are getting hammered on deflation, who is benefiting? Consumers. Consumers are getting access to music, video and other sources of content for less. They're also getting subsidized by business advertisers through social networks and search. McKinsey did a study a few years ago that sized the consumer surplus from the Internet at over 100 billion euros. Interestingly, they concluded that in measuring this surplus, consumers have benefited 85% of the gains from the Internet as compared to 15% for producers.
Thus, while the business press is full of stories of disruptive gains in business transformation, the real story of the Web is the power of the consumer and the massive gain consumers are receiving.
Although I am thrilled with the consumer surplus, I struggle with where this logical chain is eventually leading us. I worry that if there is too much deflation in content, that this consumer surplus will hit a natural limit. That natural limit will be that content producers will stop investing to produce high quality content. After all the inefficiencies have been wrung out of the system, eventually fewer producers of content will be willing to produce great content because the rewards just are no longer there. If this were to happen, consumers would be all the poorer for it.
My conclusion: although deflation has produced awesome consumer gains in the last decade, it is emerging as a real threat to content producers. But at some point, perhaps soon, it will tip to being a negative force that will cause high quality content produers to turn away and pursue other methods of financial gain. If that were to happen, we might regret allowing deflation to run rampant on the Web. | <urn:uuid:31adf833-481e-4b6b-899d-2f3f68266ce9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bostonvcblog.typepad.com/vc/2013/03/no-denying-deflation.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96382 | 766 | 2.015625 | 2 |
For better or for worse, academic success in law school means success on exams – especially first-year exams. With only a few weeks left before the end of the term, here are a few ways to avoid making rookie mistakes.
1. Prepare your own outlines: There are some very good commercial outlines for the standard first-year courses. Don’t use them. Ideally, the end product of your outlining will be a useful guide from which you can do further study, but the real benefit is the process of synthesizing a semester’s worth of material by yourself. The best study guide is the one that you make for yourself.
2. Make time for practice exams. Lots of them: Law school exams aren’t like undergraduate exams. Don’t let exam day be your first run. Do at least one practice exam for every course, preferably an exam that was given by the same professor in a previous term. Get used to spotting issues and writing fast. It’s also not a bad idea to practice hand-writing a few answers in case you have problems with your laptop on exam day.
3. Self-impose time limits: You can’t earn points for a question that you don’t answer. When you get the exam, flip through it to determine how many questions there are. Try to estimate how long it will take to answer each question, and allocate your time accordingly. When you hit your allocated time limit, wrap up and move to the next question. If you have time, you can go back and expand on your answer.
4. Read the whole question. Then take a breath: You think that you don’t have time to think. But the truth is that you don’t have time not to think. According to Professor Orin Kerr, a common mistake among exam takers is to start writing immediately, before you really get a sense of the fact pattern. Instead, read the entire question, think about what is really going on in the fact pattern, and then jot down a short outline on scratch paper. You are more likely to finish with an answer that looks not only complete, but also polished and thoughtful.
5. Never leave early: Use all of the time allowed for the exam. Go back and refine your answers. If you get to the end and have a substantial amount of time left, chances are you missed something. | <urn:uuid:565a5274-a8c1-4ef7-a980-a91dcdc9923c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://minnlawyer.com/jdr/2012/11/30/final-answers/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956543 | 496 | 2.078125 | 2 |
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A physician who specializes in psychiatry.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. One who practises psychiatry; a psychiater.
- n. medicine A medical doctor specializing in psychiatry.
- n. a physician who specializes in psychiatry
- From psychiatry + -ist. (Wiktionary)
“A psychiatrist is under the impression that he is being followed by a patient; the feeling of being pursued increases day by day.”
“Next, ask yourself if seeing a psychiatrist is necessary, or if a licensed mental health professional is a good alternative.”
“He almost immediately struck gold, with a project he started in 1997 with Klaus-Peter Lesch, a psychiatrist from the University of Würzburg.”
“Close, but no, poor bunnies, a follower of William Reich, an around the bend psychiatrist from the last century.”
“WASHINGTON – Just when liberals thought it was safe to start identifying themselves as such, an acclaimed, veteran psychiatrist is making the case that the ideology motivating them is actually a mental disorder.”
“It sounds like your psychiatrist is one the same manic/depressive meds that * I* am on.”
“Bell's character Alison is a pretentious psychiatrist from the Upper West Side, and is against the orgy taking place.”
“Yalom, himself a psychiatrist, is gently didactic about both the earliest days of his own profession and Nietzsche's philosophy, and even manages to work the two into something resembling a plot.”
“I call my psychiatrist the candy man because he prescribes the good drugs.”
“In October, my doctor was clearly angry that I had still not been put on the psychiatrist's schedule, despite having been put on the short list as an urgent case, so he called the psychiatrist's office again.”
These user-created lists contain the word ‘psychiatrist’.
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
also psych- , psi- ; relating to the mind or psychology
Recently learned words that I like.
Looking for tweets for psychiatrist. | <urn:uuid:5c3d9e14-7181-41d8-b84f-f14e0e0e13e2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wordnik.com/words/psychiatrist | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925728 | 477 | 2.828125 | 3 |
How Great Coaches Bring Out The Best In Others
Applying it to work: Take a lesson from Torre's playbook and get to know your team in and out of the office. What are their personal and professional interests? What are their families like? What are their hobbies? Knowing your "players" shows you care.
Vince Lombardi, NFL CoachWhat he's done: In 1959, Lombardi took over coaching duties for the Green Bay Packers. An organization that was in complete disarray when he joined, Lombardi transformed the Packers into one of the most successful teams in the history of American football -- winning three consecutive NFL championships between 1965 and 1967.
What you can learn: Lombardi's motivational skills are legendary. He once said: "Coaches who can outline plays on a blackboard are a dime a dozen. The ones who win get inside their players and motivate." And motivate he did; Lombardi's players were devoted to him and his philosophy of hard work and winning.
Applying it to work: For Lombardi, second place was not an option. He put his players through the NFL's most grueling workouts and expected singular devotion to the cause of winning. While it's questionable whether Lombardi's approach would work as well today, he did reinforce the concept of leader as motivator. In the office, accept this role for yourself; employees and colleagues are searching for motivation, and if you don't provide it, they'll search elsewhere.
Pat Riley, NBA CoachWhat he's done: Riley was the "coach of the '80s," leading the Los Angeles Lakers to four championships. His 1987 team is considered one of the greatest of all time. And in addition to winning six NBA world championships, he is the only coach in the NBA to be named Coach of the Year for three different teams.
What you can learn: During a 1987 championship parade, Riley promised a crowd in downtown Los Angeles that the Lakers would repeat their triumph again the following year. The 1988 Lakers did just that, becoming the first team in 19 years to win back-to-back championships.
Riley's strongest trait was his ability to transfer his vision of success to his players. For example, between the 1986 and 1987 seasons, Riley convinced his athletes to improve their game skills by 1%. The result would seem minimal initially, but as 12 athletes improved their performance by 1% -- across various skill levels -- the combined improvement would mean a team that was 60% better. In fact, the players went beyond Riley's request and improved by 5%.
Applying it to work: Identify aspects of yourself and your subordinates that need improvement, then make steady, incremental steps toward rectifying your team's performance in these areas.
How did Bill Walsh ensure the 49ers wouldn't stop until they got to the endzone... Next Page >> | <urn:uuid:a56cdfe9-028a-492c-a178-76f69a59bbf9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.askmen.com/money/successful_150/150b_success.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984105 | 581 | 1.820313 | 2 |
FAQ: Utah's "Show Me Your Papers" Law
Frequently Asked Questions About Utah’s “Show Me Your Papers” Law
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What is wrong with Utah HB 497?
HB 497 effectively turns Utah into a police state. Like the Arizona “show me your papers” law that inspired it, this law compels all people in the state of Utah, citizens and non-citizens alike, to carry identification documents on them at all times, just in case they are stopped by police officers and asked to prove their citizenship or immigration status. The law requires police to ask for and examine the identification documents of anyone they stop, detain or arrest. Depending on the level of alleged offense and identity-verification process, it either requires or authorizes the police to investigate the immigration status of that person. Even if someone who is stopped has one of the acceptable forms of identification, police officers can still reject it if they have “reasonable suspicion” that the documents are false. These “police state” tactics are more commonly associated with totalitarian regimes than with robust democracies.
Moreover, the law invites racial profiling. By borrowing and even expanding the undefined “reasonable suspicion” standard used in Arizona’s law as a basis to reject identification documents, the law effectively endorses a policy of harassment and profiling of those who look or sound “foreign.” The law also permits a person without the right kind of document to make a statement attesting to U.S. citizenship, but the law permits the police officer to discredit that attestation if the officer has “reasonable suspicion” that it is false. Under Utah’s scheme, an officer has broad discretion whether to require additional proof of immigration status. And, where traffic stops are concerned, the law allows police to detain not just the driver but also all the passengers in order to investigate their immigration status; again, all that is necessary is “reasonable suspicion” to believe a passenger is undocumented. These provisions put police officers in the position of relying on stereotypes and characteristics such as race, ethnicity, or accent in deciding whom to stop and investigate.
Ultimately, the Utah law undermines public safety and makes everyone less safe by diminishing trust in law enforcement by immigrants, Latinos, and others presumed to be “foreign.” Many immigrants will not come forward with vital information about crimes for fear that they or their family members will be subject to detention and investigation. Everyone’s safety, including citizens’, is put in jeopardy when victims and witnesses don’t feel safe coming forward with critical information about crimes committed against them, their families, or members of the larger community. Police depend on the cooperation and trust of these communities to ensure public safety. Salt Lake City Chief Chris Burbank has joined other law enforcement leaders in speaking out against HB 497 for these and other reasons.
What is the ACLU doing about the law?
The ACLU and the National Immigration Law Center (NILC) have filed a lawsuit in federal court to stop HB 497 from taking effect. The lawsuit charges that the law violates numerous provisions of the U.S. Constitution, including the right to be free from unreasonable stops and seizures at the hands of police. By interfering with the federal government’s authority to regulate and enforce immigration laws, it also violates the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution.
This bill was signed into law on March 15, 2011 by Utah Governor Gary Herbert. It is scheduled to go into effect on May 10, 2011.
How does the law cause racial profiling?
By telling police officers to investigate the citizenship or immigration status of anyone they stop when they have “reasonable suspicion” to second-guess their statements or identification documents, the law invites police officers to rely on stereotypes when determining who is and who is not in the country lawfully. Police officers are put in the position of relying on race, ethnicity, or accent to decide whose status to investigate. On what other conceivable basis could an officer form “suspicion” that a person is in the country unlawfully other than based on how he or she looks or sounds?
Language in HB 497 prohibiting an officer from relying on race, color, or national origin is a fig leaf, designed to cover the fact that, apart from appearance, it’s hard to imagine any way a police officer could suspect that someone is not in the country legally. The same language was added to the Arizona law in a symbolic attempt to address public outrage over racial profiling. Relying on a person’s appearance is not “reasonable” and is not constitutional.
Like the Arizona law that inspired it, this law invites racial profiling at two junctures. First, law enforcement might find a reason to stop people for minor infractions based on the way they look, and then demand to see their papers. Or law enforcement may stop them for an unbiased reason and then, based on appearance or accent, demand their papers and decide to subject them to a lengthy investigation of their immigration status. Either way, racial profiling undermines fundamental American values of fairness and equality for all people. Americans come from every background and every corner of the earth, and no one should be subject to discriminatory or unequal treatment by law enforcement because of their race, ethnicity, or national origin.
Moreover, recent studies have shown that, when local law enforcement agencies are involved in immigration enforcement, it results in a race-based increase in the number of stops of Latinos for low-level, non-violent offenses. Similar policies have led to dragnets of Latino neighborhoods, discriminatory traffic checkpoints, and targeting of immigrant populations—all in an ill-disguised effort to detain them or get more people who look or sound “foreign” booked into jail so that their status can be checked.
What’s wrong with having Utah police enforce federal immigration laws?
As many top law enforcement officials, including Salt Lake City’s own police chief Chris Burbank, acknowledge, the law will significantly harm the public trust on which law enforcement necessarily relies in order to protect the people of Utah. It will also alienate police officers from the communities they serve. The law will compel police officers to divert scarce resources away from solving serious crimes and toward investigating false threats. The criminal justice system is compromised when crime victims are unwilling to report crimes and witnesses are afraid to cooperate out of fear that they will be detained or targeted. Local police will be put in the difficult position of having to rely on biased presumptions—and racial profiling—when asking people who look or sound foreign to confirm their citizenship or immigration status.
How does this law interrelate with other bills passed by Utah this year that seek to regulate the presence and employment of immigrants in the state?
In March of this year, the Utah Legislature enacted a package of four bills—HB 497, HB 116, HB 466 and HB 469—that were designed to regulate the presence and employment of immigrants in the state. HB 497, as explained above, creates a “police state” and invites racial profiling by imposing responsibilities on local police officers to demand identification documents from people they stop, and detain people to verify their immigration status under specified circumstances. HB 116 essentially seeks to establish a state guest worker program, separate and apart from federal programs regulating the employment of immigrants in the United States. HB 466 creates a Utah state commission on migrant workers that is to propose ways in which Utah can confer immigration status on foreign workers. Lastly, HB 469 seeks to establish a way for citizens of Utah to sponsor individuals outside the United States to live and work in Utah, again outside the parameters of federal immigration law. All were signed into law by the Governor.
Of this package of bills, only the “show me your papers” bill, HB 497, is slated to take effect imminently (on May 10, 2011); even if it were possible for the State of Utah to implement HB 116, HB 466 or HB 469 without the authorization of the federal government—which it is not—those bills are not scheduled to take effect until 2013. Although all four pieces of legislation were touted by the Governor and other elected officials as a “package,” implementation of HB 497 is not contingent in any way on the other three bills. HB 497 takes effect without regard to the availability of the illusory and constitutionally suspect state work permits or state-based immigration sponsorship contemplated by HB 116 and HB 469.
In essence, although it enacted a package of four different bills and promoted them as a “kinder, gentler” alternative to Arizona’s SB 1070, Utah has established a harsh enforcement-only, “papers, please” approach to immigration that is very much modeled after Arizona’s unconstitutional law.
Why doesn’t this law live up to the ideals of “The Utah Compact”?
The Utah Compact is a well-intentioned statement of five fundamental principles designed to promote a civil policy debate over immigration in Utah. The Compact was proposed following the passage of Arizona’s racial profiling law last year. It brought together community leaders and individuals reflecting a broad set of backgrounds and experiences, including business, law enforcement, faith, and civil rights, among others.
Some politicians have suggested that the package of bills passed in Utah this year represents a realization of the Compact. In reality, however, HB 497 and the package of bills passed along with it fall short of the Compact’s lofty ideals.
For starters, the very first sentence of the Compact states plainly: “Immigration is a federal policy issue between the U.S. government and other countries—not Utah and other countries.” It is difficult to understand how this touchstone can be squared with the intrusive immigration regulation and enforcement scheme adopted by the Utah legislature. Indeed, if every state took Utah’s approach, it would leave us with an unworkable patchwork of 50 different immigration laws around the country.
The Compact also supports keeping families strong and united: “Strong families are the foundation of successful communities. We oppose policies that unnecessarily separate families. We champion policies that support families and improve the health, education and well-being of all Utah children.” But HB 497 does nothing to support families; instead, it expressly authorizes policies that will have the effect of separating undocumented individuals from family members who are lawfully present in the United States, and that will drive wedges between family members. One of the undocumented plaintiffs in this litigation lives in constant fear that she will be stopped by law enforcement and separated from her children, who are citizens, even though the federal government dismissed her removal action years ago. Another plaintiff, a man in his early 20s, will no longer drive his mother to run errands, because he fears being racially profiled and asked to produce identification papers, not just for him but also for his mother. HB 497 thus stands in direct opposition to the Compact principles of opposing “policies that unnecessarily separate families” and supporting policies that promote “the health, education and well-being of all Utah children.”
Finally, on the role of local police in federal immigration enforcement, the Compact could not be more clear: “We respect the rule of law and support law enforcement’s professional judgment and discretion. Local law enforcement resources should focus on criminal activities, not civil violations of federal code.” Yet HB 497 invites, and indeed mandates, local police officers to play an expansive, unconstitutional role in the enforcement of civil immigration laws, diverting them from their principal duty of serving and protecting the public.
What is the difference between this law and the federal law?
Utah’s mandate that state and local police officers demand the identity documents of anyone they stop, along with the broad discretion to investigate and detain people in order to verify their citizenship or immigration status, go well beyond what is permitted or even contemplated by federal immigration law.
Utah’s HB 497 oversteps the limits of a state’s authority to engage in the enforcement of civil immigration laws, in violation of the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause and the Fourth Amendment. States are not constitutionally permitted to create their own mandates on state and local police for the enforcement of federal immigration laws outside the authorization and supervision of the federal government. The alternative would be a patchwork of 50 different immigration-enforcement systems in this country, which would seriously undermine the ability of the federal government to regulate and enforce the nation’s immigration laws.
By imposing its own immigration-enforcement obligations on state and local police officers, Utah is essentially turning its officers into state-directed immigration agents. This interferes with the federal government’s authority to establish its own priorities and strategies to protect national security, ensure public safety, and enforce the immigration laws. HB 497 also imposes burdens on the federal government by requiring Utah police officers to inundate the federal immigration agency with tens of thousands of requests for immigration status verification during traffic stops. This diverts ICE from the work it has prioritized – removing non-citizens who have been convicted of crimes.
HB 497 also departs from federal law by authorizing state and local police officers to make warrantless arrests of people based on broad presumptions about their deportability from the United States for civil immigration violations. Even federal immigration agents do not have such broad authority to conduct warrantless arrests away from the border or international points of entry. See 8 U.S.C. § 1357 (a)(2). The Utah law also impermissibly seeks to expand the limited circumstances in which federal law expressly allows state and local officers to arrest immigrants. See 8 U.S.C. § 1252c.
For these and other reasons, the federal district court blocked similar provisions in Arizona’s SB 1070, on which HB 497 was modeled, from taking effect. A panel of the federal court of appeals affirmed that decision.
How is this law like Arizona’s SB 1070?
Although the language of Utah’s HB 497 is not identical to SB 1070, its impact on average residents of the state is the same. Both laws compel all people, citizens and non-citizens alike, to carry specified identification documents on them at all times, or else risk prolonged investigation into their citizenship and immigration status if stopped by police. Utah’s law goes even beyond Arizona’s in that it: (1) mandates all police officers to inspect the identification documents of all people they stop, detain, or arrest (Arizona’s law limits this inspection to those whom police officers have “reasonable suspicion” to believe are in the country unlawfully); and (2) permits police officers to reject identification documents or statements about citizenship based only on some “reasonable suspicion” that the documents or statements are false.
The “reasonable suspicion” standard in HB 497 is drawn from the much-criticized use of that phrase in SB 1070. In both laws, it is an open invitation for racial profiling based on someone’s appearance or accent. As discussed above, how else is a police officer on the street, untrained in the complexities of federal immigration law, supposed to form “suspicion” about who is and who is not in the country lawfully? Police officers will be put in the position of relying on someone’s race, ethnicity, or accent. Latinos, Asian Americans, and others presumed to be “foreign” will bear the brunt of these unconstitutional assumptions.
Both laws also give state and local police the authority to arrest people without a warrant for presumed violations of civil immigration laws. Even federal immigration agents do not have this type of broad warrantless arrest authority.
The Utah legislature experimented with the language of HB 497 in an effort to distinguish its provisions from those in SB 1070. Language changes alone are not enough to cure the law of its constitutional defects. | <urn:uuid:c3b249bf-ef36-40f9-934d-1065c92f8700> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aclu.org/immigrants-rights/faq-utahs-show-me-your-papers-law?quicktabs_content_video_podcasts=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955173 | 3,306 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Letters to the Editor
Subject: Swissair 111 accident
From: Victor Herkoian firstname.lastname@example.org
As an ATP pilot, do you think if the MD-11 aircraft had been a three-member
cockpit crew, the outcome would have been different? It is my opinion that all
commercial heavy airliners should have a 3-member crew as a cushion for safety,
in case of an emergency.
No. I cannot see, in light of the limited knowledge we now have, that a
third pilot/engineer would have made any difference. It didn't help in eight of
those past in-flight fire accidents recently posted (Inflight
Fires), that had three-pilot crews. To the contrary, four of those which had only
two-pilot crews managed to land safely (the Air Canada DC-9 had fatalities after
landing). When an in-flight fire is so bad that it will burn thru critical
controls/structures or asphyxiate the crew, the thing that counts is how fast
you can get it on the ground. The plane can descend as fast with two pilots as
it can with three. Historically, the accident rate has continued to decline
despite the transition from 3-pilot to 2-pilot crews. That makes it very
difficult to argue that costs associated with a 3rd pilot/engineer
would be a wise expenditure.
As to workload in an emergency, it does get pretty high. However, the state
of technology and automation has made it much less than it was in the old DC-6
days. I think my workload was much higher, with 3 pilots on a DC-6, than it is
today with two on a B-777 or B-747, because so many former tasks are now
The B-777 has one key on its FMC/CDU labeled "alternate." If you
punch that key, it will show you the four closest alternate airports, what time
you would arrive at each and how much fuel will be left (without dumping). Then,
when you select one, it will put in a direct course and the autopilot will take
We used to have to put a lot of time into controlling the pressurization
system. Now, it is fully automated. The computer knows the altitude of whatever
airport you select and will automatically program and control the cabin rate of
descent to arrive at the right altitude and at the right time. You don't have to
touch anything other than to set a new destination.
The amount of dollars that can be spent on improving safety is limited and
finite. To make significant improvements in airlines safety, it is imperative
that those finite expenditures be made in areas that will produce the most
"bang for the buck," i. e., the most lives saved per dollar spent.
Currently, the airlines are spending hundreds of millions for the installation
of enhanced ground proximity warning systems (EGPWS) and improved wind shear
warning systems, that give better notice than in the past. Those two
improvements address the year-after-year cause of the majority of worldwide
airline fatalities and, in my opinion, will save the most lives per dollar
If we were to spend enormous sums on a third cockpit crewmember
(pilot/engineer – additional salary, fringe benefits and retirement costs),
because it may provide a slight potential increase in safety, we
would be doing so at the expense of other safety improvements that we know
will save many lives.
Robert J. Boser
Return to the Letters to the Editor page. | <urn:uuid:4c94280b-eed0-41cf-bfd6-a2295848a176> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://airlinesafety.com/letters/swissair.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95751 | 763 | 1.6875 | 2 |
June 13, 2013 | 14 comments
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January 22, 2013 | 6 comments
Gov. Chris Christie has made clear to the New Jersey supreme court that the Time for Choosing has arrived.
As he transitioned away from New Deal liberalism to Goldwater conservatism in the 1950s, Ronald Reagan began to speak out against “the enemy within” in a series of powerful speeches that celebrated America’s founding principles. In his commencement address at William Woods College in 1952, and at Eureka College, his alma matter, in 1957, the future president described America as a divinely inspired, historically distinct country.
This idea of “American exceptionalism” also figured into the 1964 “Time for Choosing” speech, Reagan delivered on behalf of Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona, the Republican candidate for president. But the 1964 speech included an additional component that foresaw the dangers of a renegade judiciary; one that willingly bypasses constitutional restraints. The conflict between Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey and his state’s Supreme Court interconnects with the anti-constitutional impulses of unelected elites that Reagan foresaw during the Goldwater campaign.
Even as he remained focused on the external threat of Soviet communism during the Goldwater campaign, Reagan also felt a special need to uplift the political system created in 1776 and to defend it against a growing domestic menace. George Nash, a historian and author, who has written extensively on the modern conservative movement, has carefully traced Reagan’s political journey.
Nash, who is also a senior fellow with the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal, discussed Reagan’s contributions to the concept of American exceptionalism and the timeless appeal of his message during a symposium on the Reagan presidency held earlier this year at Regent University in Virginia Beach.
“He [Reagan] began to speak about the enemy within, the assault at home from those who are either wittingly or unwittingly steering us toward a bureaucratized all powerful state in which government would be a big brother and the individual would be absolutely powerless,” Nash explained in his presentation. “In speech after speech, he railed at the growing complexity, profligacy and unaccountability of centralized government.”
The notion of self-government that was so central to American Revolution was in jeopardy and could be lost to centralized planners, Reagan warned in his 1964 speech.
“If we lose freedom here, there’s no place to escape to,” he said. “This is the last stand on earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except the sovereign people, is still the newest and the most unique idea in all the long history of man’s relation to man. This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capitol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.”
Unfortunately, New Jersey has succumbed to the power and influence of its unelected judiciary; the very sort of entity that Reagan identified as a potentially lethal threat to the American constitutional order. Despite its own rich revolutionary history, the state has followed a progressive trajectory over the past few decades divorced from constitutional government. As much as contemporary residents relish and revere the “Spirit of 1776,” they actually inhabit a world that was reshaped by the N.J. Supreme Court with a series of rulings on education policy that reach back to Robinson v. Cahill in 1973. That would be the year self-government died in the Garden State.
AT A TIME WHEN the nation is commemorating the 100th anniversary of the former president’s birthday, Christie has very appropriately invoked Reaganesque language in an effort to restore constitutional checks and balances for the benefit of his overtaxed, underrepresented constituents. Christie explicitly campaigned on reforming the N.J. Supreme Court, which has a long history of intruding upon the policy-making authority of the executive and legislative branches. Before the end of his first term, Christie will get that chance. Up until now, elected officials in both parties have permitted the judiciary to interject itself into the public arena at taxpayer expense without a vigorous response.
“We’ve had an unholy alliance of Republicans and Democrats in this state who have the same belief in a progressive interpretation of the constitution that ignores fixed meanings,” Assemblyman Michael Patrick Carroll laments. “This goes a long way toward explaining where we are right now. Judges have consistently substituted their own public policy views for the actual language of the constitution.” An outspoken conservative, Carroll has been sharply critical of his own Republican governors for selecting activist judges who have appointed themselves as the high authority on policy matters that fall outside of the court’s purview.
At issue now, is the latest Abbott v. Burke ruling, which orders the governor and state lawmakers to spend an additional $500 million on schools. In a 3-2 decision, the N.J. Supreme Court has once again declared that it alone has the final say in determining what level of funding satisfies the constitution’s requirement of a “through and efficient” education system. The Newark-based Education Law Center, which brought the suit, argued for a larger restoration of funding to the tune of $1.7 million for the 205 school districts that were not sufficiently funded in their estimation. In a separate concurring opinion, Associate Justice Barry Albin expressed his preference for this larger settlement. But in the end, the court narrowed its ruling to cover just the 31 Abbott districts that were part of the original case in 1985. The dissenting justices rebuked the court for further burdening the state’s already beleaguered taxpayers. But what’s really at issue here is a long overdue effort on the part of a tenacious chief executive to restore the court to its proper station in constitutional orbit. Unlike his predecessors, Gov. Christie has been willing to call out unelected judges who have coerced their overpriced, ineffectual policy preferences on the public and usurped the power to tax and spend from elected lawmakers.
The N.J. Supreme Court justices do not see themselves as a co-equal branch of government, but as a superior branch of government, Gov. Christie explained during a town hall meeting in Robbinsville, N.J. in June last year.
“Now this [Abbott v. Burke] has been an experiment that has been going on for 20 plus years and yet we don’t see much improvement in our public schools,” Christie said. “So, the Supreme Court’s theory that if you put more money in it [the schools] it’s just going to get better by magic has proven to be wrong. And, so, if people wonder why I want to change the Supreme Court, it’s because I don’t have the flexibility to change the school funding formula…They’ve taken the power out of hands of the legislature to make this judgment and out of the hands of the governor and the courts are making it. We’ll that’s wrong, if judges want to legislate, they should run for the legislature.”
Under the N.J. Constitution ratified in 1947, all lower-court judges, and Supreme Court justices, are appointed by the governor. After a period of seven years, they become eligible for reappointment by the governor with tenure until mandatory retirement at 70. The N.J. high court is comprised of seven members, including a chief justice and six associated justices. At present, the court includes four Democrats, two Republicans and one independent.
When Associate Justice John Wallace petitioned for reappointment last year, Christie took the opportunity to deliver on his campaign pledge to remake the judiciary and settled on an alternative nominee. It was the first time in 63 years that a N.J. Supreme Court judge seeking tenure was denied. Wallace had been part of the problem, Christie explained in his talk. Senate President Stephen Sweeny blocked confirmation hearings for Anne Patterson, Christie’s nominee, for a full year. They reached a compromise in May when Sweeney agreed to have Patterson replace Rivera-Soto instead, who is stepping down come September. Patterson, a former deputy state attorney general, was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee in an 11-1 vote and last week is expected to secure approval from the full Senate.
A man of faith in a godless age is hitting Americans where it hurts.
Mr. and Mrs. American Spectator Reader, let P.J. O’Rourke talk sense to your kids.
In Britain, defending your property can get you life.
The debacle of this president’s administration is both a cause and a symptom of the decline of American values. Unless Congress impeaches him, that decline will go on unchecked. An eminent jurist surveys the damage and assesses the chances for the recovery of our culture.
It won’t take long for conservatives to scratch this presidential wannabe off their 2008 scorecard.
The American Christmas, like the songs that celebrate it, makes room for everybody under the rainbow. Is that why so many people seem to be hostile to it?
Was the President done in by the economy, or by the politics of the economy? | <urn:uuid:1b43950f-b17a-4e23-9b87-ca01d3998fec> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://spectator.org/archives/2011/06/10/reagan-christie-and-those-unel | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96241 | 1,977 | 1.929688 | 2 |
In an unusual goodwill gesture, the top rabbi of the nation's largest Jewish movement pleaded with American Muslims on Friday to transcend the differences that have divided their people for decades and join Jews to confront the extremist factions and prejudice that plague both religious traditions.
"It is ... our collective task to strengthen and inspire one another as we fight the fanatics and work to promote the values of justice and love that are common to both our faiths," Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, told members of the Islamic Society of North America at their annual meeting in Rosemont. "We know nothing of Islam -- nothing. The time has come to listen to our Muslim neighbors speak in their own words about the spiritual power of Islam and their love for their religion."
Frequently interrupted by ovations, Yoffie introduced a joint initiative to launch conversations between Muslims and Jews across the country. In a separate interview, Yoffie envisions mosques and synagogues initially forging partnerships in 10 cities.
"There is nothing simple or easy about the project that we are about to undertake," he said. "But interconnected since the time of Abraham, thrust into each other's lives by history and fate and living in a global world, what choice do we really have?"
Sayyid Syeed, who directs the Islamic Society's national interfaith outreach, welcomed Yoffie to the stage, saying the appearance was long overdue.
"Today we are making history," Syeed said. "What you can ask him today is 'What took you so long?'"
For many in the audience, the answer was simple. For decades, most American Jews and Muslims have been unable to forgive or forget the deadly conflict between Israelis and Palestinians in the Middle East. Many attempts to engage in dialogue have reached an impasse.
Others who were not in the audience said the Muslim organization's invitation to Yoffie marks a significant and symbolic shift in approach. In years past, interfaith receptions have been scheduled on Friday nights, when Jews observe the Sabbath, making some Jews feel unwelcome.
"I think it's a healthy step forward," said Rabbi Ira Youdovin, executive vice president of the Chicago Board of Rabbis. "The important thing is to be able to talk to people."
Yoffie said Jews and Muslims should indeed start talking and stop arguing. They should present a unified front when urging the American government to work toward a peaceful resolution overseas and to stop racial profiling and discrimination on American soil. Yoffie joined Muslim leaders in private meetings with government officials Friday.
Along with other major American Muslim groups, ISNA's tax records and prison ministries have been investigated by the federal government in search of terrorist connections. No wrongdoing has been found. U.S. military and government officials have job booths at the convention to recruit chaplains and others who speak Arabic.
Yoffie acknowledges the trepidation some Jews might feel about the partnership, especially if they equate the Islamic Society with other Muslim organizations that have been targets of government investigations.
"Our view is that it's important to talk to people that you don't agree with and not simply those that you do agree with," he said in an interview. "It would be impossible to enter into this kind of program with a group that is somehow not unequivocally clear in its condemnation of terror. ISNA is not in that category."
To the Muslim audience, Yoffie insisted that Jews and Muslims must overcome the fears and suspicions that stem from clashes overseas.
"Will we, Jews and Muslims, import the conflicts of the Middle East into America, or will we join together and send a message of peace to that troubled land?" Yoffie asked. "If Israel is portrayed as 'a dagger pushed into the heart of Islam,' rather than a nation-state disputing matters of land and water with the Palestinians, we are lost. As religious Jews and religious Muslims, let us do everything in our power to prevent a political battle from being transformed into a holy war."
This is not the first time the Reform movement and national Muslim leaders have attempted to launch a dialogue in Chicago. Rabbi Herbert Bronstein, senior scholar of North Shore Congregation Israel, spearheaded negotiations in the early 1990s that broke down when neither Muslims nor Jews could avoid taking sides in the Middle East conflict. He called efforts to revive the conversations "nothing short of momentous."
He said liberal Jews can help Muslims who are seeking to become more moderate while retaining the authenticity of their beliefs.
"That's the North American experience," Bronstein said. "There's a kind of mutual illumination taking place that we should be proud of as Americans."
Dr. Zaher Sahloul, president of the Mosque Foundation in Bridgeview, said that while agreeing to disagree may sound easy to some, "it takes time to build trust and confidence just like any relationship."
"They have to look at us as partners, not a threat," he said.
Niger Rehman of Long Island, N.Y., said she was pleasantly surprised by Yoffie's ability to give a balanced perspective.
"I do hope we can find common ground," she said. "One step at a time. Though the world is moving fast, we don't have too much time."
ISNA, based in Plainfield, Ind., is the largest umbrella group of Muslims in North America, claiming more than 100,000 members and 300 constituent organizations, including mosques, campus groups and professional organizations. About 30,000 members from the U.S. and Canada are expected to attend the annual meeting, which runs through Monday. Yoffie leads 1.5 million progressive Jews in the U.S. | <urn:uuid:0b43512a-7986-46df-9e6a-2d9dbccbbcd2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2007-09-01/news/0708311099_1_american-jews-and-muslims-rabbi-eric-yoffie-islamic-society | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966573 | 1,166 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Modern operating systems have introduced features and functionality within their windowing system to aid in efficient manipulation of open applications. For example, Windows Aero allows you to slide a window to either side of the display and have the application automatically resize to take up half the screen. With a few flicks of the mouse you now have two applications running side by side – a huge productivity boom if you are using two programs in tandem to accomplish one goal.
As more and more traditional applications make their way to the web, the concept of the split-screening of applications continues; only this time with two browser windows. Workable, sure, but a more elegant solution exists for this circumstance.
Tile View is a Firefox extension that tiles open tabs so that multiple websites can be viewed at the same time, within the same tab. Why use this approach over something like Aero? Tile View is extremely simple – the entire effect is initiated with one click. There is no need to open a second browser, load the desired site, and then drag each window to either side of the display. One click.
Once installed you will need to add the Tile View button to Firefox by right-clicking on the toolbar and choosing Customize. Then drag and drop the Tile View button onto the toolbar.
With browser tabs already opened initiate Tile View via the button. If Firefox isn’t already maximized you can use the keyboard shortcut Win Key + Up Arrow. | <urn:uuid:4c9c4825-b3c0-4b44-b24c-e8de153cd641> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.howinthetech.com/displaying-two-websites-within-the-same-tab-in-firefox/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.902714 | 291 | 1.992188 | 2 |
The Turks and Caicos are home to one of the longest coral reefs in the world. There are an incredible number of opportunities to view wildlife under the water here. You can try "beginner" courses at Coral Gardens right off Grace Bay Beach, or head to the to sea mounts with the chance to encounter migrating humpback whales in the Turks and Caicos passage.
Take daily trips with our friends at Ocean Vibes to Grace Bay, Northwest Point, The Channel, West Caicos, French Cay or Pine Cay. Dive site trips are based on the weather and the experience levels of our divers.
If you're not yet certified, there are dive lessons that will have you underwater in a matter of hours. Once we know you are comfortable in the pool then Ocean Vibes will schedule you for a dive.
While diving and snorkeling are popular and well-known activities, if you want to experience diving but don't yet have a certification, SNUBA is also available.
Here are some suggestions for self-guided tours, or popular spots to visit for snorkeling and diving.
A barrier reef protects Provo's leeward coast, to the north of Grace Bay Beach (the north, Leeward coast of Providenciales). The deep blue ocean on the north side of the reef is over a thousand feet deep, and features an incredible wall suitable for exploration by experienced scuba divers.
The turquoise side is about ten to twenty feet deep with numerous coral heads rising to within inches of the water’s surface.
Also known as Bight Reef, the Coral Gardens snorkeling area just down the beach from the Sands at Grace Bay is one of the most famous and popular snorkeling areas in the Turks and Caicos. The shallow waters that can be accessed right from the beach, the diversity of fish, and clearly marked-out boundaries make this a great spot to bring children.
Smith's Reef is actually an array of reefs located close to Turtle Cove, a resort area to the west of Provo and the international airport. Smith's Reef is somewhat isolated and is little harder to find than other popular areas on our island. This means the reefs will be less busy than Bight Reef, but Smith's Reef is also harder to find. | <urn:uuid:f32a3e1d-d5b6-4edc-92f6-d96cdef2f15a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thesandstc.com/book-turks-caicos-tours/turks-and-caicos-diving-information/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939948 | 477 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Pioneers of the futureNaturally, as part of a globally active enterprise we make our own contribution to global
issues such as climate protection.
Only by using natural resources responsibly, only by orienting our decisions towards
sustainability aspects, and only by including ecological considerations in the continuous
improvement of our operating processes, will we secure the basis of life for following
generations. So we are making a start.
We have put in place an environmental management system based on international
standards in compliance with ISO 14001. In this way we put environmental protection
into practice within the firm – to the benefit of everyone, including future generations.
By selecting certified paper as the basic material for print products, environmental
protection can be practised directly. FSC, PEFC and Climate Neutral certificates
guarantee sustainable forestry, a transparent process chain and CO2-neutral manufacture of
the finished product. Thus we make it possible for our customers to make their own decisions. | <urn:uuid:4c7cc1ea-364a-4dd4-b0a5-fd1760ad7ec6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.elanders-hungary.com/e/html/umweltmanagement.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93426 | 202 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Along with malachite, Lapis Lazuli is one of the first treasured stones of human kind, and has been mined for over 7,000 years. Its name stems from the Latin word "lapis" meaning stone and from the Arabic word "azula" meaning blue. This treasured blue stone can be found throughout many ancient civilizations. Before a synthetic substitute was created, it was often ground and used as a pigment, making blue paint, "Ultramarine" the most expensive and valuable paint available. For this reason, blue paint was most often reserved for royalty and holy figures such as the Madonna. Much of the worlds Lapis Lazuli is mined from mountains in northern Afghanistan.
JBB International is a major manufacturer of superior Sterling Silver, Brass, Copper and Pewter cast beads, findings and charms. JBB International Findings are well known for their quality, design innovation and consistency. It's easy to satisfy nearly all your jewelry findings needs with JBB whether you're searching for high end Sterling silver items or more affordable plated pewter alternatives! | <urn:uuid:8a69f059-5955-4341-ab98-fd85c67fd80d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.shipwreckbeads.com/catalog/Beads/Gemstone-Beads/Lapis-Lazuli/orderBy/sku/itemsPerPage/20/page/1/item/30ST402-D2/item/30ST402-D | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962625 | 218 | 2.078125 | 2 |
The Royal Society of London had its beginnings in the English Civil War, which engulfed much of Great Britain in the middle of the 17th century. In 1640, two years before the onset of civil war, several individuals calling themselves "natural philosophers" began holding regular meetings in private homes and taverns. These meetings continued in erratic fashion during the troubled civil war period, often centered on Gresham College, to which many of them were connected. By 1658, life under Cromwell's Commonwealth had compelled the natural philosophers to suspend their meetings.
Events began to move swiftly in 1660, with the end of the Commonwealth and the restoration of the Stuart monarchs. Meetings resumed, a Society of Philosophers was founded, and in December, they obtained the patronage of King Charles II. Thus the Royal Society of London was born. Among the first Fellows of the Royal Society were Christopher Wren, John Wallis, Robert Boyle, and Robert Hooke. The years immediately following 1660 were productive ones: the Society found formal accommodations at Gresham College, began a library, and in 1665 published its first volume of the Philosophical Transactions.
Unfortunately, this growth was severely curtailed in 1666 with the Great Fire of London. While the fire did not damage the Society's rooms at Gresham College, it did destroy most of the old city that lay within the Roman walls. To accelerate the city's recovery, the Lord Mayor of London compelled the Society remove itself from Gresham College so that space could be made available for the Mayor's offices, as well as for city merchants. Meetings were held at various private homes before finding more permanent space at Arundel House, the residence of the Duke of Norfolk. On a side note, Hooke developed and submitted a rebuilding plan to the king, and Wren was instrumental in designing and supervising the reconstruction of the city.
One might expect that after recovering from the Great Fire, the Royal Society would begin a period of growth. However, the opposite was true. During the next 25 years, the Society diminished both in stature and membership. What was once an institution with 200 dues-paying Fellows had decreased to 113 by the end of 1694, many of whom were derelict in their contributions. Consequently, the Society was deep in debt, and its scientific work was only able to continue when Robert Boyle lent his own personal equipment for Society use.
Some recovery of previous status had been effected by the close of the 17th century, but it was in 1703 with the election of Isaac Newton as Society President that circumstances began to improve significantly for the Royal Society. A more organized system of fee collection was introduced, and many more individuals were elected as Fellows. By 1729, membership had recovered to 254, and in 1740 it reached 301. Some notable Fellows of the Royal Society of this period were John Flamsteed, Edmond Halley, Hans Sloane, and Brook Taylor.
One of the most notable features of the Royal Society was its continuity. Many other academic institutions suffered from political instability and were renamed and reorganized several times. While its first years were somewhat unstable, from the mid-18th century onward, the Royal Society of London functioned as an established part of British academic life. Although its residence changed many more times in the years to come (ultimately settling on its present location of Carlton House Terrace), its relative stability remained unique in 18th century Europe. | <urn:uuid:5a1cda50-c522-40fc-b95c-ed3a820dc4e7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.math.dartmouth.edu/~euler/historica/places/london.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983046 | 709 | 3.234375 | 3 |
For the more information about the air resources of the National Park Service, please visit http://www.nature.nps.gov/air/.
Mt. Greylock Old Growth Spruce
The Mt. Greylock Old Growth Spruce site contains potentially virgin, pure stands of old-growth red spruce. Occurring on the steep, northwest slopes of Mt. Greylock, the highest mountain in Massachusetts, they are the only old-growth, red spruce stands known to occur in southern New England.
Location: Berkshire County, MA
Year designated: 1987
Please remember, National Natural Landmarks (NNLs) are not national parks. NNL status does not indicate public ownership, and many sites are not open for visitation.
Last Updated: June 28, 2012 | <urn:uuid:87ddb6b1-2aa8-4717-b2ea-b182d4084c7c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nature.nps.gov/nnl/site.cfm?Site=MTGR-MA | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.910642 | 163 | 2.578125 | 3 |
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Home HIV testing ‘should be considered’
HIV researchers say Australia should remain open-minded about home HIV testing.
This month the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved an over-the-counter rapid HIV test which people can use to find out their HIV status with a self-administered test.
Since the approval, concerns have been raised in Australia over the effectiveness of the test and the lack of support for people who might get a positive test result while home alone.
A group of researchers, led by National Centre in HIV Social Research fellow Dr Martin Holt, said a more positive discussion on home testing is needed.
“It may not be the only solution, but the more options the better,” Hold told the Star Observer.
The home testing kit allows users to swab their upper and lower gums, then placing the swab into a vial of solution which can detect antibodies to both HIV-1 and HIV-2. A result is then given in around 20 minutes.
Holt said home testing could be particularly effective for people who do not engage with health services and are unlikely to seek testing at all.
“Although gay men present for testing at far higher levels than their heterosexual peers, there is always a persistent group of men who have never tested for HIV or who don’t test as often as recommended (at least once a year),” Holt said.
“Research tells us that many men can’t get appointments in busy practices, [or] dislike the wait for test results or having to go to the doctor twice.
“Rapid ‘point-of-care’ tests … appear very popular, however home tests would give us another way to simplify testing and to encourage more people to know their HIV status.”
Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations (AFAO) Executive Director Rob Lake said AFAO would not push for home testing as a priority until supervised rapid testing — which is currently being trialled in Australia, but is yet to receive the necessary licencing approvals — is introduced.
“We still haven’t got rapid testing; we’re still waiting on that approval … so that’s our priority,” Lake told the Star Observer.
“Down the track I’m sure there are people who would benefit from being able to do home testing, but at the moment there are some questions around the accuracy of the self-test and the results.
“We need to be cautious about that because these are self-administered and making sure someone doesn’t do it the wrong way or not long enough… and suddenly, by mistake, end up with a negative result. That’s a problem.”
Home testing for HIV is currently not allowed under Australia’s National HIV Testing Policy. | <urn:uuid:c9e5b597-2f8e-41ca-b96d-c34208b81fac> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.starobserver.com.au/news/2012/07/17/home-hiv-testing-should-be-considered/81067 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933991 | 713 | 1.882813 | 2 |
Office of Public Relations
WWII Film to Be ScreenedSUBTITLE
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STEUBENVILLE, OH— The Franciscan University Film Society will be screening "Sophie Scholl: The Final Days" on Friday, April 18, at 8 p.m. in Anathan Theatre. This acclaimed German film was nominated for Best Foreign Film at the 2006 Academy Awards.
The film tells the real-life story of Sophie Scholl, a 21-year-old German college student who led a campus resistance movement against the Nazis during World War II. She was arrested and tried for her leadership of the movement. The script was based upon court transcripts and focuses on her stand against the Nazis during six days of interrogation.
“Sophie Scholl” is in German with English subtitles. It is rated PG for mild language, violence, and adult situations. The U.S. Catholic Bishops’ rating is A-II, adults and adolescents. Admission is one dollar, or 75-cents for students with IDs. For more information, contact Dr. David Schaefer in the Communication Arts Department at 740-284-5391. | <urn:uuid:a1a6e66f-6f3b-439e-b29c-a69c47fd18bc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.franciscan.edu/about/Default.aspx?id=1342 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00051-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948755 | 254 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Published 11/21/2012 in Features : ColumnsIt's November and winter will be here soon. During the chillier months, it can be tempting to hunker down by the fireplace with a mug of hot chocolate, but this time of year, it is just as important for seniors to be active and engaged. Make the effort to get out and about. But first, take a few simple steps to be sure your time in the "Winter Wonderland" is safe.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention offers tips for winter outings. These are great ideas for anyone, and are especially important for older adults, who are at greater risk of cold weather safety challenges.
* Take precautions if you travel. Listen for radio or TV reports of travel advisories issued by the National Weather Service. Avoid travel in low visibility and on ice-covered roads. If you must travel in ice or snow, let someone know your destination and when you expect to arrive. Bring a mobile phone with you.
* Dress warmly and stay dry. When it's cold, wear a hat, a scarf or knit mask to cover the face and mouth, mittens (rather than gloves, which are not as warm), water-resistant coat and boots, and several layers of loose-fitting clothing. Be sure the outer layer of your clothing is tightly woven, preferably wind-resistant, to reduce body-heat loss. And if you begin to feel too warm, shed a layer or two. Excess perspiration increases heat loss.
* Avoid hypothermia. Hypothermia occurs when the body begins to lose heat faster than it can be produced. Hypothermia is most common when temperatures are very cold, but can occur even at temperatures of about 40 degrees if a person becomes chilled from rain, sweat or submersion in cold water. Body temperature that is too low affects the brain, making it difficult for the victim to think clearly or move well. This makes hypothermia particularly dangerous because a person may not know it is happening and won't be able to do anything about it.
* Avoid frostbite. Frostbite is an injury to the body that is caused by freezing. Frostbite causes a loss of feeling and color in affected areas. It most often affects the nose, ears, cheeks, chin, fingers or toes. Frostbite can permanently damage the body, and severe cases can lead to amputation. The risk of frostbite is increased in people with reduced blood circulation and among people who are not dressed properly for extremely cold temperatures.
* Avoid exertion. Cold weather puts a strain on the heart. If you have heart disease or high blood pressure, follow your doctor's advice about shoveling snow or performing other outdoor tasks.
* Avoid ice. Many cold-weather injuries result from falls on ice-covered sidewalks, steps, driveways and porches. Keep steps and walkways as free of ice as possible by using rock salt or another chemical de-icing compound. Sand may also be used on walkways to reduce the risk of slipping.
Thanks for help
This year, 2012, is the 40th anniversary of Meals on Wheels in Garden City. Many thanks to the Home Town Real Estate volunteers and Duane Riley who delivered Meals on Wheels last week.
Are you interested in helping with Meals on Wheels? Substitute drivers are always needed. If you would like to help, call Patti at 272-3620 or 260-6282.
It is time to renew your eligibility to ride the Mini Bus in 2013. Be sure to ask the next time you schedule the bus. Don't delay so you don't lose your service!
Never ridden the Mini Bus? Get an application now before the weather turns bad. Let us do the driving.
Thursday and Friday, the senior center and Finney County Transit are closed for the Thanksgiving holiday. Services resume on Monday.
Saturday, the pool room is open from 1 to 4 p.m. Fiddlers, Pickers and Singers meet from 5 to 9 p.m.
Monday begins with walking at 8:30 a.m. Call Hope at 272-3620 to learn where they are walking this week. The Humdinger Band practices at 12:30 p.m. Double Pinochle begins at 12:30 p.m. Zumba begins at 5:30 p.m. Duplicate bridge starts at 7 p.m.
Tuesday, gentle exercise begins at 11 a.m. Pitch begins at 12:30 p.m. Bridge starts at 1:15 p.m. Bingo is played at 1:30 p.m.
Nov. 28 has line dancing at 8:30 a.m. Pinochle begins at 12:30 p.m. Completely Unraveled starts at 1 p.m. The regular Wednesday night dance begins at 7:30 p.m. Music is provided by Jim Calhoun. The recommended donation is $5. Bring finger food for the break.
Lunch is served at noon.
Thursday and Friday: Closed for the holiday.
Monday: Creamy noodles and ham, peas, Brussels sprouts with cheese, wheat roll, pears.
Tuesday: Swiss steak and tomatoes, baked potato, asparagus, wheat bread, applesauce.
Nov. 28: Oven-fried chicken, potatoes and gravy, cabbage, wheat roll, pudding.
Check out our website at www.seniorcenterfc.com.
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This is an excerpt from a blog post I wrote last week on taxonomies and chunking.
Last October, the StartWithXML team wrote a post called “To Chunk or Not To Chunk,” where we discussed tagging and infrastructure issues, and a discussion ensued about what happens when you don’t know what you’ll be using chunks for. How do you tag those?
We have taxonomies for book-level content. These include formalized code sets such as theLibrary of Congress subject codes, the BISAC codes, the Dewey Decimal System, among others. There are also informal code sets, like the tag sets on Shelfari or Library Thing. There are proprietary taxonomies at Amazon and B&N.com that enable effective browsing.
But nothing like this exists for sub-book-level content. It’s never been traded before. We’ve never really needed a taxonomy for it before.
Other industries that traditionally distribute “chunks” have their own taxonomies that might prove useful in building a book-chunk schema. These include the IPTC news codes,
which identify the content of a particular news story — that’s the closest analogy I can find for small gobbets of content that require organization.
Industries have proprietary taxonomies to identify certain concepts — culinary arts, music, agriculture, engineering, the sciences, literature and criticism, education, and on and on and on.
But these do not necessarily identify concepts within a book.
Some might argue that we don’t necessarily need taxonomies — why can’t we use natural-language search and the semantic Web to “bubble up” the “right” concepts? I’d argue that words don’t always mean what we think they mean. A classic example from my library days is the term “mercury.” That could mean the planet, the car or the element. Proponents of semantic search would say that the context in which “mercury” is mentioned should take care of defining that term. I’d say that’s true in about 50 percent of all cases but not definitively true enough in 75-100%. | <urn:uuid:efa3d599-bcc7-46e1-9b90-0065df0102c8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://toc.oreilly.com/2009/02/taxonomies-and-starting-with-x.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.907854 | 476 | 2.1875 | 2 |
ACMP Publishers Code of 1948
- Sexy, wanton comics should not be published. No drawing should show a female indecently or unduly exposed, and in no event more nude than in a bathing suit commonly worn in the United States of America.
- Crime should not be presented in such a way as to throw sympathy against the law and justice or to inspire others with the desire for imitation. No comics shall show the details and methods of a crime committed by a youth. Policemen, judges, Government officials, and respected institutions should not be portrayed as stupid, ineffective, or represented in such a way to weaken respect for established authority.
- No scenes of sadistic torture should be shown.
- Vulgar and obscene language should never be used. Slang should be kept to a minimum and used only when essential to the story.
- Divorce should not be treated humorously or represented as glamorous or alluring.
- Ridicule or attack on any religious or racial group is never permissible. | <urn:uuid:04b50e8f-ba21-45c0-aaee-eec177df7fb7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://seductionoftheinnocent.org/TheComicsCode.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93253 | 206 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Architecture - some variations
Three houses on Caroline Street differ on the front from the standard designs.
As soon as houses were sold to individuals, some decided to make changes.
The first permit for a modification that we have found was number 1066 given on 21 July 1884 to owner M G Gerard, for an open porch 20 feet by 5 feet to be added to 1506. Estimated cost of construction, and some interior repairs, was $85. The permit does not say whether the porch was on the front or back, but there is no sign is was on the front. Presumably it was on the back, a feature found on a few other houses in the neighborhood.
On 6 July 1888 new owner of 1506 E Betz was given permit number 29 to build a third story with a mansard front. The estimated cost of construction was $600. Note in the photo that the original cornice for a two-story house was preserved.
On 2 July 1889 owner W R Brown was given permit number 12 to build a front bay and a rear extension on 1505. The estimated cost of construction was $600. Today it has a bay, a covered porch, elaborate iron work, and an extension on the side to the property line. No permit has been found for the side extension, which was obviously built in two stages. Part may have been done in 1889, without a permit.
In 1979 there was a collapse at 1524 Caroline Street. The then owner set out to create a basement rental unit, which required lowering the floor of the basement. The excavation was not shored or underpinned properly. A heavy rain greased the bare clay inside, allowing the base of the side wall to slip in and the upper part of the wall to bulge out. Faced with impending uncontrolled collapse, the owner helped the wall collapse - which brought down the floor joists and roof. The entire side wall, part of the back wall, and the setback section of the front wall with the front door came down.
During reconstruction in 1980, the entrance and steps were moved to the side.
Memories of eyewitness Dan Gamber
Photos by Dan Gamber
Last update 2 August 2008
Copyright Richard Busch, 1993, 2004-8
Blanket permission for downloading and reproduction for personal use is given.
Any commercial use without explicit written permission is prohibited. | <urn:uuid:50488aa4-5b3d-42e0-be1e-bae7610329ca> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gamber.net/caroline/except.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970674 | 486 | 1.671875 | 2 |
This worksheet is great for reinforcing shapes and shape names. They are to choose 10-11 shapes (I used store bought foam shapes) that will fit in the basket but they cannot use ovals. This makes the students discriminate between shapes and allows you to assess whether they know the shape names. By writing the shape names at the bottom, they are able to practice their handwriting as well as how to spell the shape words. I had my students color in the basket too! The basket clipart was free from clker.com.
If you are using sign language in your classroom, this is a great way to introduce or reinforce the signs for the shapes too! Come check out my new blog for signing in the classroom at http://toocutesigning.blogspot.com/ | <urn:uuid:a9cfeb02-3bbb-455b-94c3-d09a06826981> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Easter-or-Spring-Basket-with-Shapes-225842 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968496 | 158 | 3.703125 | 4 |
Sports Festival is here! Make sure the kids are here for their class May13th-18th. It is time for the kids to show off their skills.
Congrats U.S. Gold Level 8 Gymnasts.
Virginia is the Level 8 Regional All Around Champion!
Emma is the Level 8 Regional Vault and Beam Champion!
Gymnastics is one of the most comprehensive “lifestyle exercise programs” available to children, incorporating strength, flexibility, speed, balance, coordination, power, and discipline. Children learn cognitive skills more effectively in an environment that includes the body as well as the mind. Gymnastics, childhood movement education, is directly attributed to developing students and promoting reading readiness. Children who have participated in movement education activities have longer attention spans, increased communication skills, general problem solving skills, and improved self-esteem.
U.S. Gold Gymnastics specializes in the fundamental development of the preschool and the elementary student, which provides a solid foundation that is the catalyst for many other sports, academic pursuits, and lifelong endeavors.
But Gymnastics ALWAYS remains....Their #1 Sport!!
Congratulations to our very own
Alie was awarded Big Ten Freshman of the week!!
This award was given after she recieved 1st All-Around against Michigan State and Illinois-Chicago with a 39.05!
We are so proud of you!!
Click picture for all of Alie Glover's scores.
2013 Brockport Golden Eagles
Our very own Alina Swafford was named to the Dean's List at The College of Brockport.
We are so proud!!
Home of Beach Elite Cheerleading
U.S. Gold is the official training facility for the National and State Champions:
Fort Walton Beach Cheerleaders
Also training at our facility are:
Meigs Middle School
Bruner Middle School
Pryor Middle School | <urn:uuid:caf61c85-6e61-4f4f-a03d-ed9c0fdae6e8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://usgoldgymnastics.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94352 | 391 | 1.53125 | 2 |
"Does it trouble you, Mikhail Timofeyevich, that your creation has killed so many people around the world?"
The kind-eyed old gentleman had heard the question before. Clearly, he has even put it to himself at times, in those long winters hidden away in the Russian heartland.
"All I can say," he replied, "is that terrorists would have found something else to kill people with, even if there weren't my Kalashnikovs."
Forget Clinton. Forget Yeltsin. Forget Marx and Mohammed. For the gun boys of Somalia and the old boys of Vietnam, for the gangs of Los Angeles and the grunts of Bosnia, the name that matters is the name whose parts--\o7 kah-LASH-nik-OFF--s\f7 nap and click into place like a fresh magazine of high-velocity ammunition.
Mikhail T. Kalashnikov, still cherub-cheeked if silver-haired at 74, was almost a boy himself, age 23, when he began designing the assault rifle they eventually dubbed the AK-47--"Avtomat Kalashnikova 1947."
If, as Mao said, power grows from the barrel of a gun, this was the gun.
In 40 years as the standard issue for Soviet-bloc forces, as the weapon of choice for guerrillas from 'Nam to Nicaragua, as the everyday tool of terrorists, perhaps 50 million copies of the "AK," its descendants and clones have been produced in almost a dozen countries.
Rugged, dependable, cheap and 600-rounds-a-minute lethal, the no-frills Kalashnikov is history's most widely distributed piece of killing machinery, the curve of its "banana" clip familiar to generations of TV news viewers.
And over the years it has done great damage, a toll that weighs on its creator.
This Siberian peasant's son has told friends, for instance, that he sometimes wishes he had become an agricultural engineer instead of a weapon designer. Last year, he said publicly he wanted to establish a "fund for gunshot victims."
When asked about the fund in an interview, he was interrupted by Elena, his daughter and traveling companion. That impractical idea was "a mistake," she said.
Kalashnikov, offering no further explanation, moved on to another concern, his longtime hometown, Izhevsk, a city of a half-million people in the highlands west of the Ural Mountains.
Izhevsk was a major Soviet arms-manufacturing center, a "closed city" where Kalashnikov's design team worked over the years to improve the AK-47 for the giant Izhmash defense enterprise. Now, he said, "these are very bad times."
"In our region, everyone was in the military business. Now that there's not such a demand, people are losing their jobs at Izhmash. It's a mess."
Kalashnikov feels the pinch himself, not having been showered with royalties like U.S. gun designers. "But the government was never against giving me medals," he joked.
The hard-pressed local arms plants have hit on a Western-style marketing inspiration, capitalizing on the great designer's name by forming something called "The Kalashnikov Joint Stock Co." The shareholders are all old state enterprises.
In a telephone interview from Izhevsk, an Izhmash deputy director, Alexander G. Likhachev, explained that the new company is gearing up for an export push. He threw in a pitch for Kalashnikov rifles:
"They're highly reliable and have a long service life. . . . They are better than, say, similar American products."
But Kalashnikov himself seems out of the corporate loop. He thought his namesake company had never gotten off the ground. Then again, he acknowledged with a laugh, he has no head for business. "I'm just a designer."
It's evidence of the confusion that reigns as Russians try to reorganize their post-Soviet economy.
The looser times at least have set the old designer loose to see the world, including America, where he was interviewed while attending a recent gun show in Dallas.
"They really kept him prisoner all those years," said American friend and host Berge Boghossian, an arms dealer who calls Kalashnikov "the sweetest man on earth."
Emerging from his shell means facing questions, however, about sharing responsibility for a violent world. And that means retelling the story of the AK-47's origins:
In 1941, tank commander Kalashnikov was wounded in a battle with Russia's German invaders. In the hospital, other wounded men complained of their army's deficit in infantry weapons--ancient bolt-action rifles versus the Germans' modern firearms. Sgt. Kalashnikov, a clever mechanic, decided to spend his recuperation building a machine pistol like the Germans'.
His pistol was never put into service, but it established him as a weapons maker. In 1943 he competed with other designers on Russia's first assault rifle--a weapon firing light rounds at a rapid rate, and also capable of single-round semiautomatic fire. When they dragged the Kalashnikov weapon through swamp water and it still fired, he was on his way.
The moral of the AK-47 story: "I built it to protect my country."
Today, Kalashnikov still designs weapons, but only hunting rifles.
"I'm not going to work on any more military things," he said.
Has he sworn off man-killing devices?
The cheerful old father of famous guns hesitated and smiled. "No," he said. "It's just that, into the next century, nothing is going to be made better than my rifle anyway." | <urn:uuid:a43269f7-3425-42fc-822c-397c27266177> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.latimes.com/1994-03-13/news/mn-33558_1_mikhail-t-kalashnikov-ak-ural-mountains | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974618 | 1,209 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Last modified: 2011-12-16 by rick wyatt
Keywords: winston-salem | north carolina | forsyth county |
Links: FOTW homepage | search | disclaimer and copyright | write us | mirrors
image located by Valentin Poposki, 10 November 2008
City of Winston-Salem Flag Description
Adopted: March 19, 1962
Description: The ratio of length to width shall be 4:3. The emblem, which is the dominant element in the design, shall have a diameter equal to 6/10 of the flag’s width and shall be centered on the horizontal and vertical axes of the flag. The flag will comprise the same colors as the North Carolina State flag, plus golden brown for tobacco leaves, and green for trees. The flag will show the official emblem of the City of Winston-Salem on a field of dark blue. The coloring of the emblem will be as follows:
Winstion-Salem, North Carolina, has a very interesting and unusual history which is reflected in its name. Winston was established by British settlers, whereas Salem was founded by adherents of the Moravian Church (Unitas Fratrem). This was and is a Pietistic church with a strong commitment to behaving with common decency and courtesy. Despite being in the South, the Moravians were always noted for their social and theological progressivism and were all the more respected for it by their neighbors. The Moravians established Salem College, which still exists, and which was and is was one of the few women's colleges in the Southern United States which took its educational responsibilities very seriously and which has always been one of the top educational institutions in the Southern United States.
Winston-Salem was also noted for its central role in the bright-leaf tobacco industry, and was the home of such tobacco giants as the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company; both Winston and Salem cigarettes reflect the name of the city. Also, Winston-Salem has long been a major center of the furniture industry in the United States as well.
Ron Lahav, 15 November 2008 | <urn:uuid:48b6815a-a592-4e3b-bcad-f540bd995449> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fahnenversand.de/fotw/flags/us-ncwsm.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973714 | 435 | 2.59375 | 3 |
ALTOONA, Pa. — They're a crucial link in the healing of the sick, but in many places, pharmacists are finding it harder to escape being agents of the culture of death.
So-called emergency contraception, taken by women soon after sex when it is thought contraception has failed, may cause the abortion of a newly formed embryonic life more often than thought, three physicians assert in the March issue of The Annals of Pharmacotherapy. The article, by Drs. Chris Kahlenborn, Joseph Stanford and Walter Larimore, was published at www.theannals.com.
Kahlenborn, the lead author of the article, works in the internal medicine department at Bon Secours Hospital in Altoona, Pa.
“Catholic hospitals that … allow hormonal EC (emergency contraception, for rape victims) prior to ovulation may wish to reassess their policies given the findings that EC use does not consistently stop ovulation and has the potential of causing a post-fertilization effect (abortion) even when used prior to ovulation,” the authors wrote.
But attempts are increasing throughout the country to make emergency contraception more easily available and to force even Catholic hospitals to dispense it in emergency rooms. California began the year by allowing women to purchase emergency contraception without a prescription. Washington state already has such a law, and Virginia is considering similar legislation.
Pope John Paul II, in his message for World Day of the Sick on the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, Feb. 11, wrote: “The Church insists on the principle that not all that is technologically feasible is morally admissible. The tremendous progress in medical science and skills in recent times places a supreme responsibility on us all with regard to God's gift of life — which always remains a gift in all its stages and conditions. We must be vigilant against every possible violation and suppression of life.”
The Pope said that on the annual celebration, which includes prayers for the sick, his thoughts would also go out to “the countless men and women who are active in the field of health care,” including pharmacists.
A growing number of pharmacists are facing disciplinary action for refusing to fill prescriptions for emergency contraception as well as for birth control pills.
“Pharmacists who still have a conscience are being harassed and getting fired,” said Bo Kuhar, executive director of Pharmacists for Life International. The organization wants state laws to allow objecting pharmacists to refrain from dispensing the medications without facing punishment.
Most states have some form of legislation providing for a conscientious opt-out for abortions. But, on the reasoning that a pregnancy begins when an early life is implanted in a woman's womb rather than at the moment of fertilization, abortifacient contraception would not be covered by many of those laws. (It should be noted that this reasoning is scientifically unwarranted. The new life, at this stage, is already a boy or girl.)
An exception is South Dakota, where no pharmacist may be required to provide medication if there is reason to believe that it would be used to cause an abortion, destroy an unborn child (defined as an organism of the species homo sapiens from fertilization until birth) or cause anyone's death by means of assisted suicide or euthanasia.
In Illinois all health care providers, including pharmacists, can refuse on the basis of conscience to provide any kind of service.
Michigan and Kentucky are considering conscience protection bills. The Kansas Pharmacists Association opposes that state's proposed bill because it lacks assurances that patients can still get legally prescribed drugs.
“We recognize the right to conscientious objection,” said Robert Williams, the Kansas Pharmacists Association's executive director, but “patients’ rights outweigh providers’ rights.” Every pharmacy should have a procedure in place for accommodating a patient when a pharmacist refuses to fill a prescription, he said, suggesting that the pharmacist in charge might have another pharmacist fill it or require the objecting pharmacist to offer a referral to a nearby pharmacy.
But referral would be material cooperation in the immoral act, Kuhar said. “That's like telling someone, ‘I'm not going to sell you this gun so you can go shoot your cousin Betty, but I'll tell you where you can buy one.’”
Added Kuhar, “Our approach is total protection of the [unborn] child.”
“He's entitled to his opinion,” Williams responded. “But the patient is not asking for an illegal product.”
Pharmacists are objecting not only to so-called emergency contraceptives but also to birth control pills, which also can act as abortifacients. Manuel Rodriquez, a pharmacist for almost 35 years, ended up resigning from Albertson's Pharmacy in Albuquerque, N.M., part of a large supermarket chain, after some soulsearching following the events of Sept. 11.
Rodriguez was praying a novena to Our Lady of Lourdes and thinking about the 3,000 or so lives that were lost in the terrorist attacks two weeks earlier. “And I thought, ‘Well, I'm really no better because I've been dispensing birth control pills all these years.’ But I'm not going to do it any more.”
He informed his boss of his decision and proceeded to turn down patients who come with prescriptions for birth control pills and told them why. But he did not get too far. The first woman he turned down went to his supervisor, who suggested he speak to the pharmacy supervisor.
The pharmacy supervisor expressed support for Rodriguez, but questioned whether birth control pills were as bad as the morning after pill. He said he would speak to Rodriguez again, but in the meantime the pharmacist submitted his resignation.
Rodriguez is working part time at a pharmacy he says is more understanding of his position, and is spending more time helping families understand the Church's teaching that contraception is immoral. He has organized a retreat in his parish in Belen, N.M., with family issues such as this on the agenda.
Birth control pills use one of 72 combinations of artificial hormones, and “every one of them is hostile to the uterus,” Rodriguez said.
He has tried to provide medical information to women who were having prescriptions of the pill filled, but he found that in most cases the explanation of the hazards involved “was going over their heads.”
Lamented Rodriguez, “It's so ingrained [in society] that they don't see any other possibility.” | <urn:uuid:dbddbc60-a584-43be-b442-63ca5d0e9611> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ncregister.com/site/article/pharmacists_struggling_to_defend_their_right_to_say_no/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963992 | 1,374 | 1.71875 | 2 |
A fiercely contested bill to block the Public Utilities Commission from regulating voice-over-internet services used by millions of Californians has been signed into law Friday by Gov. Brown, culminating a high-stakes lobbying battle.
The action had been sought by the telecommunications lobby, which waged a full-court press in the Capitol to get the measure through. Consumer groups and their allies denounced the plan as a veiled attempt to phase in the deregulation of land lines over time – a contention the governor and the industry rejected.
“The bill does not affect the authority of the California Public Utilities Commission regarding the construction and maintenance of facilities, and access to utility support structures, including pole attachments,” Brown wrote in his signing message. “Importantly, the bill emphasizes the commission’s authority to monitor, track and report complaints from VoIP customers to the Federal Communications Commission …”
Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Pacoima, the author of SB 1161, said his measure “preserves all federal and state consumer protections for VoIP, which include requirements to offer 911 service and pay 911 fees, make facilities accessible to disabled users, protect customer privacy, notify customers of battery backup power requirements, and report network outages, among others.”
But consumer groups and their allies, led by The Utility Reform Network, said the point of the legislation was to ease the companies’ transition from copper wires to VoIP, or voice over internet protocol, in which telephone calls are placed through the internet instead of land lines. VoIP is less costly than land-line service, making it increasingly attractive to customers.
“The bill cuts a huge swath out of the CPUC’s jurisdiction prospectively, leaving it with no ability to protect consumers in even the most basic ways. The Commission could no longer enforce service quality and line maintenance standards,” TURN’s Mark Toney noted earlier. “Deregulating VoIP today means total phone deregulation tomorrow,” he wrote.
The Padilla bill, backed by a coalition of hundreds of communications companies, including AT&T and Verizon, precludes the PUC from regulating IP-enabled communications services, including VoIP, without explicit legislative approval. Such regulation, if needed at all, is better handled at the federal level, they said.
But there is interconnectivity between VoIP and landlines, which means the PUC’s regulatory clout over telephone services ultimately would be crippled, critics noted. AT&T, a supporter of the bill, has some 7 million land lines in the state.
A trade association called TechAmerica, with hundreds of companies, and TechNet, a powerful technology lobbying group, along with the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, sponsored the bill.
The PUC, which has broad authority over communications, railroads and electrical and natural gas utilities, does not regulate VoIP -- yet.
But comments by some commissioners raised the possibility that such regulation is on the way and Padilla’s bill was seen in the Capitol as a pre-emptive strike.
At stake is a lucrative industry.
AT&T and Verizon – the two largest carriers in California – had a 29 percent increase in the number of their VoIP customers in just six months during 2011. There are some 3.5 million interconnected VoIP subscriber lines in California, serviced by some 125 VoIP companies, according to a Senate analysis. Nationwide, a third of all the 87 million residential telephone subscriptions were VoIP-based – a number that increased nearly 50 percent in three years. Meanwhile, traditional, land-based line customers dropped by some 17 percent.
One 2008 state study found that 96 percent of households have basic broadband access, placing California as a leader in broadband availability among all 50 states, but only about half the households actually used broadband. Of those with access, only half were able to link to broadband at speeds greater than 10 Mbps.
To residential consumers, VoIP is attractive: The roughly $30 per month cost for broadband-based service typically includes such features as unlimited long-distance calls in the U.S. and Canada, automatic switching of missed calls to a customer’s mobile phone and emailing voice mail files. In one year, VoIP subscribers rose by 22 percent to 32 million.
“To discuss ‘IP-enabled’ goes far beyond the new cool whizz-bang technology or ‘ap’ for the internet,” said Christine Mailloux of TURN, a nonprofit group that advocates on behalf of consumers and ratepayers. “This isn’t about regulating the internet, it’s about regulating technology that millions of Californians rely on every day and that this Legislature and commission up to this point have found to be an essential service.” | <urn:uuid:298fca30-5031-42a2-8f28-90407f1e306a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://capitolweekly.net/article.php?_c=10wvkfpxyz1ty2p&xid=10w7s5d1b2ixonl&done=.10wvkfpxyz22y2p | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950781 | 989 | 1.507813 | 2 |
The 12-Step process is utilized as a basis for the treatment programs at Sierra Tucson, and individuals are encouraged to use the 12-Step process in their recovery. Research has shown that the quality of recovery from all addictive and mental health disorders is enhanced by the many components of the 12-Step Process, such as mutual support, honesty, accountability, acceptance, and spirituality.
The 12 Step process and the 12 Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous have been effectively adopted by other self-help organizations.
(Adapted from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous)
1. We admitted we were powerless over ______* — that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to others and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
* Alcohol, Drugs, Tobacco, Codependency, Food, Sex, Work, Money, Power, Religion, Gambling, Excitement, People, Places, Things, etc.
1. Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon AA unity.
2. For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority—a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.
3. The only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking.
4. Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or AA as a whole.
5. Each group has but one primary purpose—to carry its message to the alcoholic who still suffers.
6. An AA group ought never endorse, finance, or lend the AA name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property, and prestige divert us from our primary purpose.
7. Every AA group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.
8. Alcoholics Anonymous should remain forever nonprofessional, but our service centers may employ special workers.
9. AA, as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.
10. Alcoholics Anonymous has no opinion on outside issues; hence the AA name ought never be drawn into public controversy.
11. Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films.
12. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities. | <urn:uuid:b919bc97-309f-4290-8a66-1ec79361d44e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sierratucson.crchealth.com/therapy/12-step/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942506 | 722 | 2.265625 | 2 |
Women are increasingly prominent in medicine, law and business, yet not in science, math and engineering. A new report released by the American Association of University Women points to environmental and social factors.
The report cites a promising statistic: the rapid increase in the number of girls achieving very high scores on mathematics tests (once thought to measure innate ability) suggests that cultural factors are at work. Thirty years ago there were 13 boys for every girl who scored above 700 on the SAT math exam at age 13; today that ratio has shrunk to about 3:1.
In a nutshell, from the report, these are the cultural factors at work:
1. Stereotypes that boys are better than girls in math.
2. Beliefs about innate intelligence that are influenced by stereotypes.
3. Girls assess their math abilities lower than do boys with similar math achievements.
4. Boys outperform girls in spatial skills.
5. There's a need for more courses that provide a broader overview of the STEM fields in introductory courses to attract more females.
6. Departmental culture in STEM fields can be improved to promote the integration of female faculty.
7. People have an implicit bias to associate science and math fields with "male" and humanities and arts fields with "female".
8. There's a workplace bias because people often hold negative opinions of women in "masculine" positions, like scientists or engineers, making it more difficult for women to succeed.
These nuggest are just scratching the surface of the 134-page report, which goes into depth about each of these barriers.
I personally find implicit bias to be very fascinating. Mahzarin Banaji, who's one of the leaders in that work, has an online implicit bias test that people can take to identify and understand biases they may not realize they had so that they can work to compensate for them. It may surprise you!
Steven Strogatz strikes again! Don't miss the latest installments of this wonderful series of articles on math for the general, adult public. He is working his way up the curriculum, the latest article dealing with geometry and square roots.
One of the highlights for me was his suggestion that we use little square crackers to mess around with the Pythagorean theorem, satisfy ourselves that it works, and understand why. Cheez-Its came immediately to mind.
What I love about this series is that it aims to take some of the bad mystery out of topics in math and replace it with good mystery -- decreasing that ratio in our systems, perhaps a bit like bad cholesterol and good cholesterol.
While keeping things interesting for the math conversant, he speaks directly to the math-apathetic, the math-fearful, and the math avoiders, and is probably changing more than a few minds.
It's all too familiar: A student prepares for a math quiz by looking at the example problems and solutions and thinks to himself, "Yep, that makes sense," and proceeds to not do any of the practice problems. He thinks he knows the math, but he doesn't, and his grade confirms that.
What happened and how can it be prevented?
In a Washington Post blog post last week, Daniel Willingham tackled that question through his lens as a cognitive scientist and researcher.
Feeling that you understand material as it is presented to you is not the same as being able to recount it yourself. And that false "feeling" comes from familiarity with the information (which, in the above example, was accomplished by looking at example math problems) or knowledge about related material. Willingham goes into depth about research studies that illustrate how our mind can trick us:
"...subjects saw a set of trivia questions, some of which used words that the subjects had just been exposed to in the previous task. Subjects were asked to make a rapid judgment as to whether or not they knew the answer to the question - and then they were to provide the answer. If the trivia question contained key words from the previous task...those words should have seemed familiar, and may have led to a feeling of knowing. Indeed, researcher L.M. Reder found that subjects were likely to say that they knew the answer to a question containing familiar words, irrespective of whether they could actually answer the question."
To combat cognitive roadblocks, Willingham suggests making it clear to students that the standard of "knowing" is the "ability to explain to others," not "understanding when explained by others." In other words, knowing is not simply familiarity. From personal experience, I couldn't agree more. One of my favorite professors would give us time to solve review chemistry problems at the start of class before showing the answers, walking down the aisles to see when the majority of the class was done. Those couple of minutes were key to my learning. So many times, my feeling of knowing was challenged once I put my pen to paper, which kept me on my toes day to day.
Maybe it would be helpful to have a lesson on the tricks of the mind for both teachers and students.
M.K.T. stands for Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching - and could be the key to more effective math teaching. M.K.T. is not a new concept, but was featured at length in this weekend's beefy New York Times piece, "Building a Better Teacher", by Elizabeth Green.
M.K.T. is the brainchild of Deborah Loewenberg Ball, one of the nation's foremost experts in teaching education. The article describes M.K.T. neatly:
"Mathematicians need to understand a problem only for themselves; math teachers need both to know the math and to know how 30 different minds might understand (or misunderstand) it... This (is) neither pure content knowledge nor what educators call pedagogical knowledge... It (is) a different animal altogether."
This means that an algebra teacher, for example, needs instantaneous access (think ACME delivery) to a deep understanding of the many, many ways their students might go wrong - enough to get there with them, AND bring them back.
Ball has done research showing a correlation between a teacher M.K.T. and student performance that outshines any other. But as you'll see if you read the full article, figuring out how to convey M.K.T. to student teachers has proven elusive.
There's tons of food for thought in this comprehensive article, and I've touched on only one aspect. Be warned: it may have you jumping up and down in excitement, or rage, or both.
Photo credit: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~dball/
This was the question posed by James Gee of Arizona State at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. ("First_Person Solvers: Learning Mathematics in a Video Game")
Stay with me; this not the usual old wine. Gee is basically inviting us to steal ideas that work, and points out that we can do this with or without technology.
Think about your basic video game environment. I mean really think about it, if you can bear it. (This part is hard for me.) What works? Break it down to its elements, and then picture how those might translate to the classroom. Gee highlights the following:
- Feedback is immediate, continuous and plentiful.
- Information is provided when it is needed, near to the point when it will be used (rather than all at once, as is often the case in the classroom).
- Game designers encourage "modding," and this invites meaningful engagement. ("Modding" is when players use the actual game software to modify or add to the game.)
- The environment is a big "problem-solving space" which Gee calls "pleasantly frustrating. The tasks are challenging but doable. That's a very motivating state for human beings," says Gee.
If you know your video games and what makes them tick, let us hear from you. What you might add to this list? A sense of accomplishment and progress? A game's multiple entry points? The ability to personalize an experience? Is it modding when your students write a story problem? (Do you like just using the word "modding"? I do.)
Most importantly of all, what do these things look like in the math classroom? What are you already doing that has a parallel in the world of video games? What features, small or big, could you see yourself adopting? It's an interesting thought experiment -- please do let us know if you make it a real experiment. | <urn:uuid:3a8095ec-c99b-408d-ac52-66e046e56775> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.tomsnyder.com/math-hub/?month=3&year=2010 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963692 | 1,774 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Experimental system for studying
lobster diets in small American lobsters
Close up of experimental rearing system
An 18 month old lobster
eating an experimental diet
American lobsters, have been successfully reared in hatchery operations for over a century, yet commercially formulated diets were never developed. In recent years however, commercial Artemia replacement (CAR) diets have been developed and marketed for use in aquaculture production of postlarval marine shrimp.
Three experiments assessed the utility of rearing American lobsters on these shrimp CAR diets. First, survival and growth of stage IV American lobsters fed one of three CAR diets (Artemac 5, Economac 4, or Progression 3) was compared to those of animals fed frozen adult n-3 fatty acid enriched Artemia.
Survival was highest for animals fed Progression 3, while animals fed Artemia had the greatest growth. A cost/benefit ratio analysis showed that Economac 4 was the most cost efficient for juvenile production because of its low overall purchase cost.
Second, stage IV lobsters were fed either Economac 4 or frozen adult n-3 fatty acid enriched Artemia exclusively, or in combination (2:5, and 5:2). Again, Economac 4 was the most cost effective feed to use, even as a partial replacement for Artemia. Survival was higher in diets that included Economac 4, and feeding it two days per week compensated for low quality Artemia.
Finally, 1.5 year old lobsters fed Economac 4 for six months survived and grew equally well compared to lobsters fed Artemia or a custom formulated maintenance diet. Overall, this study demonstrates that commercial feed developed for marine shrimp can also be used to grow out both early benthic and older juvenile American lobsters. Additional benefits of formulated feeds include consistent quality, low cost-to-benefit ratios, and the potential to match animal color to the substrate where animals will be released, thus potentially increasing the effectiveness of enhancement programs. | <urn:uuid:1bbe96b4-706c-4191-90ff-e430813b5058> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://neaq.org/conservation_and_research/projects/fisheries_bycatch_aquaculture/aquaculture_research/american_lobster_aquaculture_research/projects/juvenille_lobster_research.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943886 | 406 | 2.8125 | 3 |
This is a full day that will help you decide if the alpaca business meets your needs and expectations. For many people in the alpaca industry, this is their first attempt at raising livestock, starting their own business, or doing something that is really "out of the box". It is a financial and time commitment that needs careful consideration and lots of information in order to make educated decisions. We will spend a day looking into the alpaca business... from financial aspects to taking care of alpacas on a daily basis. When you are finished with this workshop, you should have a good idea if this is something you can pursue.
Sunday: Overview of the alpaca business, facility and equipment recommendations, financial considerations, tax advantages, evaluating fiber and conformation, and business opportunities within the alpaca industry. Our workshop area allows for comfortable small group discussions for the morning session. The afternoon will be spent in the barn evaluating alpacas. One of the most important decisions you can make in getting off to a good start is the selection of your foundation herd. This part of the day will focus on what to look for in a quality alpaca.
We understand the apprehension and concerns that face many new
prospective owners and take care to represent the industry, ownership
responsibilities, and alpaca "realities" in a straightforward manner. We
love the business and want others to have the same positive experience
we have enjoyed.
DATE: June 2, 2013
COST: $45/person. Two people from one farm (or future farm!) can attend $80
INCLUDED: Lunch, workshop notebook, refreshments
Registration is limited to insure individual attention. Contact us for registration details. | <urn:uuid:f4baa0ec-f9c6-4a4e-b970-094d20a04c53> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.highlandalpaca.com/pages/463/highland-alpaca-new-breeder-workshop | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945453 | 356 | 1.5 | 2 |
The Beauchamp Lab studies the neural mechanisms for multisensory integration and visual perception in human subjects. Many everyday tasks require us to integrate information from multiple modalities, such as during conversation when we make use of both the auditory information we hear in spoken speech and the visual information from the facial movements of the talker. Multisensory integration is especially important under conditions in which one modality is degraded, such as in a noisy room. Even in healthy young adults, there is considerable variability in people's ability to integrate auditory and visual speech, but this difference in even more pronounced when other populations are examined. Very young children rely exclusively on auditory information to understand language, but in normal lifespan development visual speech plays an increasing role, sometimes becoming dominant as hearing declines with age. Other populations also show interesting differences: deaf children commonly use a cochlear implant to allow them to hear, but the early lack of auditory input sometimes prevents them from ever properly integrating auditory and visual speech. To understand the neural mechanisms of multisensory integration and visual perception, our primary method is blood-oxygen level dependent functional magnetic resonance imaging (BOLD fMRI). fMRI experiments are conducted using the research-dedicated 3 tesla scanner in the UT MRI Center adjacent to the lab. Because of the limited temporal and spatial resolution of fMRI, we often combine it with other methods. Our main supplemental technique is transcranial magnetic stimulation, which temporarily inactivates a region of the brain. By combining fMRI and TMS in the same subject, we can determine if a region of activity observed in fMRI is truly important for the cognitive operation of interest. Another useful technique is electrical recording from patients implanted with electrodes for the treatment of medically intractable epilepsy, because it allows direct recording of the activity of small populations of neurons. Anatomically, the primary focus of the lab is on the superior temporal sulcus, a brain area critical for both the integration of auditory, visual, and somatosensory information and for the perception of complex visual motion, such as mouth movements. | <urn:uuid:3e86c130-43c9-4b85-9124-e64aa7419988> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.openwetware.org/index.php?title=Beauchamp&oldid=494758 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.916323 | 422 | 2.765625 | 3 |
So once again Islamic fanatics are taking violent umbrage at an insult to the Prophet Muhammad — this time the offending material is a chum-laden YouTube video released by untalented provocateurs — and once again I'm baffled.
Why would a robust, enduring worldwide faith pay any mind whatsoever to assorted pesky critics? Don't their conniptions over the blasphemies of infidels betray weakness rather than strength? What good is respect for one's religion if it's maintained through the fear of violent retribution and, in many countries, imprisonment?
I don't get it. If a being, a text or a symbol is magnificent enough to inspire worship, shouldn't it also be durable enough to absorb a few spitballs? Mighty enough to douse the fires, literal and figurative, that are lit to degrade it?
And yes, I'm referring to the periodic frenzies over mockery of Muhammad and desecrations of the Quran, but I'm also thinking of the misguided efforts in this country to criminalize defiling the U.S. flag — efforts that ought to sober anyone tempted to preen about our commitment to the majestic First Amendment.
The good news is that moderate voices in the Islamic world are similarly dismayed.
Shortly after all hell broke loose in the Middle East last week, Nihan Awad, national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, released a statement saying "Islamic traditions include a number of instances in which the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) had the opportunity to retaliate against those who abused him, but refrained from doing so.
"One tradition, or hadith, states: 'You do not do evil to those who do evil to you, but you deal with them with forgiveness and kindness.' …
"We must not let extremists control the political or religious discourse. That means that people of all beliefs should repudiate those who would commit acts of violence in response to intentional provocations and repudiate those whose only goal is offending religious sentiments."
Repudiate? Sure. Shame on them. Better, though, to roll our eyes and ignore them; deny them the attention they crave and that they're employing to make Muslims appear unhinged.
Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi did not help the situation when he reportedly asked his embassy staff in Washington to take "all legal measures" in the United States against the moviemakers, reinforcing a dangerous misunderstanding overseas that impugning religion is against the law here as it is in so many nations.
The misunderstanding is dangerous because it causes protesters to blame the United States, not for commissioning the puerile propaganda, for surely they don't believe that, but for not suppressing it.
And this misunderstanding will no doubt continue to cause ugly flare-ups and cost lives until public officials and clerics in these politically volatile lands become brave enough and secure enough to permit true freedom of speech.
When will Romney apologize for his 'apology' rants?
One of the more infamous themes of Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's campaign has been to attack President Barack Obama for "apologizing" for America, even though Romney's team and media cheerleaders can produce no quotations in which Obama offers specific apologies to anyone.
What evidently gets Romney riled is Obama's refusal to be dismissively, swaggeringly arrogant in his dealings with other nations, and his willingness to offer candid admissions — they're more statements of historical fact — that the U.S. has not always been pure, wise and blameless in the conduct of foreign affairs.
Again last week Romney and his surrogates were beating this tired drum, claiming that a message released from the U.S. embassy in Cairo condemning "the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims," amounted to the Obama administration apologizing for American values when it should have been condemning the attack by protesters on the embassy.
Well, first, the statement expressed no regret for anything. Second it came from embassy employees and was never OK'd by the White House. Third, the statement couldn't have condemned the attack because it was released six hours before the attack.
And finally, what's wrong with a little humility anyway?
"We're a freedom-loving nation. If we're an arrogant nation, (other countries will) view us that way. But if we're a humble nation, they'll respect us as an honorable nation."
Which pants-wetting peacenik said that? George W. Bush in an October 2000 presidential debate. | <urn:uuid:0aca5601-df1d-4a2f-bcdd-cead7d82afeb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-oped-0916-zorn-20120916,0,4783950.column | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955931 | 924 | 1.5 | 2 |
The term neurosteroid refers to steroids formed in the brain. It was created in 1981 by Dr. Etienne-Emile Baulieu and colleagues, following the remarkable discovery that the brain appeared to have the capacity to synthesize its own steroids in situ. In a set of rodent experiments, these researchers determined that the steroid dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEAS) was present in adult rat brains at concentrations up to 20-fold greater than plasma (Corpechot et al., 1981). Moreover, brain DHEAS concentrations persisted unchanged for over two weeks following adrenalectomy and gonadectomy in these animals, demonstrating that central nervous system DHEAS levels were likely independent of peripheral DHEAS formation in the adrenals or gonads. Hence, the brain itself appeared to be a potential site of steroidogenesis, and subsequent efforts confirmed this possibility. These molecules became known as neurosteroids, since they can be synthesized de novo in the brain from cholesterol or from peripheral steroid precursors that cross the blood-brain barrier readily.
A closely related term, neuroactive steroids, includes steroids formed in the brain and periphery that exhibit rapid actions on neuronal excitability. Unlike classical steroid mechanisms that involve the binding of intracellular receptors and the regulation of gene transcription, neuroactive steroids have nongenomic actions (Paul and Purdy, 1992). Specifically, neuroactive steroids bind to membrane-bound ligand-gated ion channel receptors. As a result, their actions occur very rapidly (over the course of seconds to minutes), in contrast to steroid genomic actions that require hours to days. Interestingly, certain neuroactive steroids with rapid nongenomic effects, such as progesterone(Drug information on progesterone), also exhibit traditional genomic steroid actions. Progesterone is considered to be a neurosteroid if it is synthesized in the brain, hence, the terms neurosteroid and neuroactive steroid are often used interchangeably.
Neurosteroids can therefore alter neuronal excitability very rapidly by binding to receptors for inhibitory or excitatory neurotransmitters at the cell membrane. Neurosteroid actions at inhibitory -amino-butyric acid type A (GABAA) receptors are the most extensively characterized to date, but neurosteroid activity has also been demonstrated at excitatory glutamatergic (N-methyl-D-aspartate [NMDA], -amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazoleproprionic acid [AMPA], kainate), 5-HT3, glycine(Drug information on glycine), sigma type 1 and nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (Rupprecht and Holsboer, 1999). Neurosteroid actions at GABAA receptors can occur at low nanomolar physiologic concentrations, while neurosteroid activity at other receptor types frequently requires higher concentrations of 1.0 x 10-7 M or greater. In addition to the characterization of neurosteroid actions at membrane-bound ligand-gated ion channel receptors, in the last decade it has also been established with certainty that enzymes leading to neurosteroid biosynthesis are present in glia and neurons in the brain (Compagnone and Mellon, 2000). In other words, the enzymatic biosynthetic machinery facilitating steroid formation from cholesterol in peripheral endocrine organs (such as the adrenals, ovaries and testes) is also present in the brain.
Currently, there are relatively few neurosteroid clinical studies, however, converging evidence suggests that these molecules may be relevant to the pathophysiology and pharmacological treatment of psychiatric disorders such as depression and schizophrenia. Specifically, neurosteroids are differentially regulated in males and females and may, therefore, modulate the neurobiology of gender differences observed in a variety of psychiatric illnesses. Neurosteroids are important in neurodevelopment and regulate neuronal cytoarchitecture (Compagnone and Mellon, 1998), suggesting a potential role for these molecules in the pathophysiology of psychiatric disorders demonstrating a neurodevelopmental component and neuronal cytoarchitectural alterations such as schizophrenia. Finally, neurosteroids modulate GABAergic neurotransmission, are linked to antidepressant and antipsychotic drug action, act as neuroprotective agents, modulate the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, and represent potential targets for pharmacological intervention. These latter neurosteroid properties are discussed below.GABAA Receptor Actions
Certain neurosteroids bind with very high affinity to GABAA receptors. For example, the neurosteroid 3-hydroxy-5-pregnan-20-one (allopregnanolone) is synthesized by the reduction of progesterone via the enzymes 5-reductase and 3-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (3-HSD). Astonishingly, allopregnanolone potentiates GABAergic neurotransmission with 20-fold higher potency than benzodiazepines and 200-fold higher potency than barbiturates (Morrow et al., 1990, 1987). Indeed, the neurosteroid progesterone metabolites allopregnanolone, its stereoisomer 3-hydroxy-5ß-pregnan-20-one (pregnanolone) and the deoxycorticosterone metabolite 3,21-dihydroxy-5-pregnan-20-one (THDOC) are the most potent known modulators of GABAA receptors. Many of the physiologic functions of these endogenous molecules in the human brain remain to be determined, but it is likely that allopregnanolone and other neurosteroids with GABAA receptor activity might play an important role in the regulation of GABA, the major inhibitory neurotransmitter in the mammalian central nervous system.
Neurosteroid interactions with GABAA receptors are not completely understood. The GABAA receptor is a pentameric complex with at least 21 subunit types involved in receptor assembly: 1-6, ß1-4, 1-4, , , , , 1-3 (Bonnert et al., 1999; Bormann, 2000; Penschuck et al., 1999). As a result, more than 500,000 different GABAA receptor subunit combinations are theoretically possible (Lambert et al., 1996). Adding yet another level of molecular complexity, subunit composition appears to determine the pharmacological profile of GABAA receptors. For example, benzodiazepines bind to GABAA receptors but require the presence of a 2 subunit to potentiate GABAergic neurotransmission (Pritchett et al., 1989), suggesting that benzodiazepine activity may be limited to a specific subset of GABAA receptors. In contrast, the neurosteroid allopregnanolone acts at a wide variety of GABAA receptor subtypes with similar potency and efficacy and does not exhibit stringent GABAA subunit specificity, possibly reflecting a broad spectrum of action in the central nervous system (Puia et al., 1990). | <urn:uuid:dacf0e15-cfb0-45f2-a607-ab3a2136365b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/mdd/content/article/10168/48836 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.900306 | 1,465 | 3.5625 | 4 |
Tue November 13, 2012
Pakistan Fears Afghan Spillover Of Chaos, Refugees
Originally published on Tue November 13, 2012 8:21 pm
Burhan Khan can't remember exactly when he fled from Afghanistan to Pakistan. He thinks it was about 30 years ago.
"Because there was war. There was killing, there was murdering, there was firing, and they wanted to kill me, and they wanted to kill my children, so I had to come here," he says.
It was the final phase of the Cold War, and CIA-armed Afghan guerrillas were fighting to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan.
Khan and his family wound up where they are today, in a mud hovel on a patch of wasteland outside Pakistan's capital, Islamabad.
Khan is 60, though his full white beard and deeply lined face make him look a lot older. He survives by hauling vegetables in a market.
He has never returned to his home, in northern Afghanistan's Kunduz province. He feels it's still too dangerous to try. "We can't go there because if we go, we will die there, our children will be killed; everybody is still killing us there," Khan says.
Each big new conflict in Afghanistan over the past three decades has unleashed a wave of refugees, many of whom have returned home.
Yet Pakistan still has some 1.7 million refugees — mostly Afghans — on its soil. Pakistanis fear another wave will arrive because of the fallout after 2014 from the drawdown of U.S. and NATO forces.
There is widespread concern the drawdown will be followed by a civil war in Afghanistan that will spill over into Pakistan, causing more violence in an already unstable nation. Leading Pakistani analysts say that prospect has led their country's policymakers to change tactics toward its neighbor.
External And Internal Threats
Pervez Hoodbhoy, a leading Pakistani political activist and commentator, says he thinks civil war in Afghanistan is "almost a certainty" after the departure of the international troops.
He wants U.S. forces to leave Afghanistan but says their withdrawal should be gradual. Even so, Hoodbhoy is very worried about what happens next. "It's going to be ugly, bloody, and no one is looking forward to 2014, except for the Taliban," he says.
Pakistan is going through a particularly rocky period in its turbulent history. The economy is in crisis. Conflict between Pakistani government forces and homegrown Islamist insurgents, including the Pakistani Taliban, has claimed tens of thousands of lives.
Hoodbhoy believes if he's right — and there is an Afghan civil war — refugees won't be the only threat to Pakistan.
"We will see the Taliban will become much bolder," he says. "There will be a feeling among Islamist forces in this country, and not just the Taliban, that with the Americans now out of here, it is now time for an Islamic revolution in Pakistan."
Fear that they'll soon face another bout of chaos and bloodshed is preying heavily on the minds of Pakistan's rulers.
A Shift In Policy
Pakistan's military and intelligence services determine the country's Afghan policy. And some analysts see a significant shift in that policy, brought about by Pakistan's desire to avoid more instability and violence.
"I think Pakistan has learned its lesson," says Tariq Fatemi, a former Pakistani ambassador to Washington. "It recognizes that in Afghanistan peace can prevail only where there is power sharing among the various ethnic groups."
Fatemi says he has spoken to many people in key positions, who tell him "that they now recognize that these ambitious plans of wanting to determine Afghanistan's destiny was not only a failed policy, but was a policy that caused us immense harm."
That policy is linked to Pakistan's constant worry about being sandwiched between two hostile countries.
Its old enemy, India, lies to the east. So for years, Pakistan sought to influence events in Afghanistan, to the west, by supporting its majority ethnic group, the Pashtuns.
Pakistan helped the Taliban come to power in the mid-1990s. In recent years, Islamabad has often been accused of covertly supporting certain Pashtun militant groups, including the Taliban and the Haqqani network.
With its own large population of Pashtuns, Pakistan has worked on the assumption that a Pashtun-run Afghanistan would be friendly and, it hoped, compliant.
Maleeha Lodhi, also a former Pakistani ambassador to Washington, says that's all changed.
"One of the biggest mistakes that Pakistan made in the past is that it saw somehow a Pashtun solution to Afghanistan, whereas now it sees an Afghan solution to Afghanistan," Lodhi says.
She says Pakistan no longer talks about seeking a friendly government in Kabul, just a stable one.
"If any group is excluded from power then there will be trouble in Afghanistan. That is the lesson from history that Pakistan has learned," she says.
Deep Divisions Remain
But have Pakistan's policymakers really learned that lesson?
Zahid Hussain has written several books about Pakistan and Islamist militancy. He is convinced that Pakistan's military fully signed on to the new Afghan policy a while back.
"It cannot be a policy without the approval of the Pakistani military establishment," he says. "I think there is complete unanimity on that."
Pakistan's military and intelligence establishment is highly secretive, and it's hard for outsiders to know what's going on within it.
Hoodbhoy, the analyst, points to deep internal divisions.
"The army is torn from within," he says. "There is a party which is seriously at war with one part of the Taliban. On the other hand, there is a substantial group which aspires to right-wing Islamist ideology."
Still, those seeking to forge peace in Afghanistan will surely welcome Pakistan's apparent new approach.
Everyone knows, though, that it won't necessarily avert disaster. There are so many unanswered questions: What if Afghanistan's presidential elections, slated for spring 2014, end in turmoil? Will an Afghan peace process ever get off the ground?
Deep distrust prevails between Afghanistan's ethnic groups.
Back in his mud hovel, Burhan Khan, the Afghan refugee, is unsure whether there will ever be peace back home — or if he'll ever be able to return.
Everyone back home knows one another; everyone remembers who supported whom in Afghanistan's wars, he explains. And that means there are many unsettled scores. | <urn:uuid:bc5a5f15-f0c0-4d52-9519-8a1a4f7980ff> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wdiy.org/post/pakistan-fears-afghan-spillover-chaos-refugees | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973274 | 1,336 | 2.109375 | 2 |
DRG (Diagnosis-Related Group) Codes - 15 Codes
DRG (Diagnosis-Related Group) Codes ("15" Codes):
* Note: Codes may not be sequential. Back to list of DRG (Diagnosis-Related Group "1" Code Groups
What are DRGs?
A diagnosis-related group (DRG) is a system to classify hospital cases into one of approximately 500 groups, also referred to as DRGs, expected to have similar hospital resource use, developed for Medicare as part of the prospective payment system. DRGs are assigned by a "grouper" program based on ICD diagnoses, procedures, age, sex, discharge status, and the presence of complications or comorbidities. DRGs have been used in the US since 1983 to determine how much Medicare pays the hospital, since patients within each category are similar clinically and are expected to use the same level of hospital resources. DRGs may be further grouped into Major Diagnostic Categories (MDCs).
The original objective of diagnosis related group (DRG) was to develop a patient classification system that related types of patients treated to the resources they consumed. Since the introduction of DRGs in the early 1980ís, the healthcare industry has evolved and developed an increased demand for a patient classification system that can serve its original objective at a higher level of sophistication and precision. To meet those evolving needs, the objective of the DRG system had to expand in scope. | <urn:uuid:a58520ef-fb03-4089-a049-052dde98b845> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.chirocode.com/medical-codes/drg/drg-15-codes.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00051-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943237 | 300 | 2.390625 | 2 |
Just a few years ago, social media was something the kids were doing; a trend or fad that wasn’t going to last long. As social media networks have come and gone, a few have risen to the top and are now often incorporated into the advertising, PR, and customer service departments in leading companies, according to a new report.
Campaigns to Capabilities: Social Media and Marketing 2011, from Booz & Company and Buddy Media, shows that Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are now considered cornerstones of most social media strategies in larger companies. Ninety-four percent of respondents said Facebook is one of their top three social media platform priorities. Twitter was second with 77 percent, and YouTube trailed with 42 percent, though this is sure to rise as online and mobile video continues to grow in popularity and importance.
Leading Companies Use Social Media for a Variety of Reasons
Not surprisingly, social media is most often used for advertising and promotions, PR, and customer service. Companies are also using social now for market research, sales/commerce, product development, internal communications, and more. As it has been integrated into different departments, more CEOs are recognizing its value over the long term; nearly 40 percent reported that social media is a CEO-level agenda item.
Respondents identified a number of “critical success factors” within the company that drive the success of social media campaigns. The ability to react and adapt quickly, having a clear champion/owner, and clearly communicated support from executive management were listed as top elements in social media success.
How Companies Measure Social Media Success
Of the benefits of social media, brand building, interactivity and buzz building were listed as the areas it made the most difference. However, respondents also noted that social media can offer consumer insights, offers a broad reach, and almost half offered sales and lead generation as a benefit.
Over 90 percent of companies measure engagement and participation to help gauge the success of their campaigns. Other popular metrics include reach, advocacy, and buzz. Only 38 percent of companies are able to tie leads and sales to their social media campaigns.
Social Media Continues to Gain Importance for Large Brands
Looking forward, companies plan to continue incorporating social media into the marketing mix, though they don’t believe it will overtake or replace traditional methods. Ninety percent of respondents agree or strongly agree that social metrics should be tailored to the needs of the campaign. Almost two-thirds said their organization will integrate social media into all advertising and marketing.
Only 65 percent of companies have a social media policy in place; 29 percent plan to build one soon or are already in the process, while 7 percent do not have nor plan on building one.
Over half of companies have the capability to monitor and respond rapidly to activities in the social media landscape, and slightly fewer have KPIs and dashboards in place. Only 15 percent have revenue-generating platforms built from social media in place, though an additional 44 percent are either currently working on one or plan to in the near future.
Most Companies Are Willing to Invest in Social Media Strategy
96 percent of leading companies plan on increasing their spend in social media. 57 percent plan to hire full-time employees, and only 14 percent are looking to freelancers, contractors, or pert-timers. Clearly, respondents felt social media was best handled in-house. The majority are looking for Community Managers, though creative talent, analysts, and developers are also desired.
EMarketer expects social network ad revenues to hit just over $5.5 billion this year, with $2.74 billion of that coming from the U.S. market. Social media ad revenue is poised to rise substantially, predicted to reach almost $10 billion by 2013.
Where will the budget come from? Companies expect that social media spend will become a significantly larger portion of digital marketing spend, with 79 percent reporting this portion of the budget as that most likely to fund social media activities. Far fewer plan to pull from television, magazine, outdoors, newspaper and radio budgets.
Know your Ambiguous Customer: Effective Multi-Channel Tracking
Wednesday, June 5 at 1pm ET - Learn why a move from the "batch and blast" email approach enables better conversations with your customers.
Register today - don't miss this free webinar! | <urn:uuid:518609c4-516a-409f-8be0-8d8e087186dd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2115350/Social-Media-is-Serious-Business-for-Leading-Companies-Study | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962137 | 881 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Vol State Student Tackles Mechanical Engineering as a Way to Help Kids
Submitted on July 16, 2012 at 2:28 PM
Jon VanDoran wanted to use a wheelchair. His parents wouldn’t let him. Born prematurely, VanDoran had a blood clot in his spine that left him paralyzed for the first year of his life. Even after his legs started working again miraculously, it was with greatly diminished strength.
“My parents were very old fashion and they weren’t willing to take it easy on me,” VanDoran said. “I wanted to use my wheelchair and my father wouldn’t let me. They just wanted me to develop the discipline to be successful. They wanted to push me hard, but not too hard. Their big challenge was finding that balance.”
Today VanDoran can be seen moving along the campus sidewalks at Volunteer State Community College using crutches, as he has since his youth. He goes at a pretty good clip. It took his wife Talia to get him to use a wheelchair, even occasionally. He admits that at first he didn’t want to do it and now he feels better having the option.
His drive to succeed helped him earn a second degree black belt in San Soo Kung Fu. He also built a motorcycle that he can use without his legs.
“I found an old ’92 Harley Fatboy. I met up with a guy who works on motorcycles and we figured out what I needed to do to modify it for me. The biggest trick was the shifting, but I never found a good answer to that problem. I started doing research to do it better. I put it all together and made my own design. I machined all the pieces myself. It’s a jockey shift set-up with the clutch on the handle of the shifter.”
A sidecar, painted with the bright red jaws of a shark, holds the Harley upright. The motorcycle project and years of thinking led him in a new direction. His wife helped to put it in focus.
“She knew that I was intelligent and had more to offer than the jobs I was working. She wanted me to live up to my potential.”
Now VanDoran is working on his Mechanical Engineering degree at Vol State. He has a vision for his future.
“The field is called adaptive technology. You have someone with a disability that has something they want to do and you design it for them. I want to go into children’s outdoor sports. That stems from me growing up as a child with a disability and there not being many options for me. Going hiking, rock climbing and repelling was tricky. I was always involved in the outdoors, but it was really hard.”
VanDoran knew from experience that adaptive technology is often cumbersome and clunky.
“Kids want something that is cool. I want to develop pieces that kids would be proud to have.”
To that end, VanDoran is building new skills, which isn’t easy for a 30 year-old.
“I grew up hating math. When I was in machinist school I became comfortable with numbers. Once I decided to become an engineer I knew I had to learn to love math. Now I’m a complete math nerd and I love it. The math and science program here has been great in helping me with that.”
The next step will be transferring to Tennessee Tech for its well-known engineering program. From there it will be a matter of following the dream.
“I could imagine owning my own company and providing kids with a way to not be afraid to be handicapped. In my mind, that’s the end goal.”
For more information on Math and Science at Vol State visit: www.volstate.edu/mathscience
Pictured: Jon VanDoran of Mt. Juliet modified a Harley to meet his physical needs and found a new dream: to help kids at play.
A service provided by the Office of Public Relations. | <urn:uuid:78ff92c3-bc45-4b28-bd2f-4cfe5d326c87> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.volstate.edu/Stories/?id=422 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988081 | 854 | 2.03125 | 2 |
Informal consultation of NGOs in official relations with WHO on the draft WHO action plan for the prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases
Date: 6 March 2008
Place: Geneva, Switzerland
An informal consultation of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in official relations with WHO will take place on 6 March 2008, on the draft WHO action plan for the prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases.
The purpose of the consultation is to allow NGOs an opportunity to comment on the draft action plan which is part of the annex to document EB122/9 -- Prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases: implementation of the global strategy -- presented at the 122nd session of the WHO Executive Board in January 2008.
Written comments and queries can be sent to email@example.com. | <urn:uuid:27467404-a099-464a-8a7e-c5f36033f248> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://who.int/mediacentre/events/meetings/ncd_ngos/en/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.906827 | 163 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare
Jerald Silverman, DVM, Column Coordinator
The Unofficial Official?
An anonymous call to Great Eastern University’s hotline led to an unfortunate sequence of events involving its IACUC. The caller alleged that Dr. Paul Samuels, an experienced research veterinarian, was performing unauthorized surgery on calves at one of the university’s farms. The university made a preliminary investigation, verified the allegation, and determined that the surgery was related to basic medical research. When confronted with this information and asked for an explanation, Samuels readily admitted that he was performing the studies. He claimed, however, that because his work was with farm animals, it was his understanding that he did not need IACUC approval.
The IACUC met in a formal session with Samuels. It discovered that Samuels, who recently joined the university from an Australian veterinary school, had not yet attended Great Eastern’s IACUC training course. He had been performing surgeries for three months, and performing them very professionally. His academic department was aware of the work he was doing, but assumed he had IACUC approval. Samuels apologized profusely and volunteered to immediately stop his work until he completed all required university training and obtained IACUC approval.
After Samuels left the room, the IACUC Chair asked for opinions on how to resolve the matter. Some argued that there are animal care and use committees in Australia, and, as an established investigator, Samuels should have known that what he was doing was wrong. Others argued that animal welfare was not compromised; a new faculty member made an unfortunate but honest error; and, since he had agreed to halt the project and follow all university policies, the institution need not take any further action.
After some heated discussion, the majority of the IACUC agreed to suspend the project until all university requirements were met. Unfortunately, the Institutional Official (IO), who was at the meeting, was opposed to a formal suspension and the consequent notification of appropriate governmental agencies. He said Samuels’ self-imposed suspension would have the same result, and he simply would not agree to anything more. The IACUC Chair made it very clear that once the IACUC suspended the protocol, the Animal Welfare Act Regulations (AWAR) state that the IO must meet with the IACUC, take appropriate corrective action, and report the same to the federal government. He emphasized that the AWAR uses the word "shall," not "should."
The IO was equally adept at wordsmanship. He pointed out that the AWAR allows the IACUC to suspend a previously approved activity, but, since nothing had ever been approved, the IACUC had nothing to suspend. He added that he regretted this particular study had begun, and that the university and the IACUC would certainly have to quickly review the way it notifies new personnel of its animal use policies. Nevertheless, the IO felt the decision was his, not the IACUC’s. Since he was in the room and heard all sides of the issue, he would stand by his decision.
Clearly, Great Eastern has to review its policies, but is the IO on solid ground? How would you resolve this problem?
In the Spirit of the Law
Lawrence H. Herbst, DVM, PhD and Diane J. Gaertner, DVM
We believe that the IO has correctly interpreted the law: the IACUC should accept the investigator’s voluntary suspension of research activities until all required training and IACUC approvals are completed. The section of the AWAR [2.31, (c), 8] on suspension of activities involving animals refers specifically to suspension of previously approved activities. We believe this wording is intended to empower the IACUC, making it clear that "approval" is an ongoing process, not a permanent status. The spirit of the law is that regulatory bodies should be informed when major problems of humane concern occur during experimentation under an approved protocol.
Samuels made an honest error but was not intentionally noncompliant; animal suffering did not occur as a consequence of his mistake. It appears that the IACUC’s true and appropriate intent is to withhold approval of this investigator’s study until he meets all of the university’s requirements, including IACUC review. As long as Samuels stops his work as promised, withholding approval does not need to be reported to the federal government. Thus, the IACUC should accept Samuels’ voluntary cessation of work; assist him in preparing an acceptable protocol; and concentrate on ensuring that all new investigators at Great Eastern are aware of the need for IACUC approval for all species prior to initiating studies.
The IO is not intentionally concealing problems from regulatory agencies, but is rightfully concerned with avoiding negative publicity and embarrassment to the institution and the investigator. The issue, its discussion, and its resolution will be documented in IACUC minutes, semiannual program review reports, and OPRR assurance reports–all of which regulatory agencies have access to and routinely review.
One larger problem that the IACUC and the IO need to address is that there may be a systematic failure to provide timely and adequate investigator (personnel) training. If this investigator’s lack of proper information reflects a deficiency in the institution’s program for animal care and use, this should be a subject for discussion at the IACUC’s semiannual program review and its report to the IO. Further, if changes in the mechanisms of training new personnel are major changes in the program, then these should be included in the annual OPRR assurance report if the institution is NIH-funded.
Another problem is that the Regulations intend that the IO take appropriate action in consultation with the IACUC, not unilaterally. The statement, "The decision was his, not the IACUC’s" seems to violate this intent. Rather than attempt to dictate to the IACUC, the IO should convince them of the validity of his arguments by citing the text of laws and regulation so that the action he takes reflects a consensus. The IACUC and the IO need to develop and implement institutional policies together. If they fail to reach consensus and the IACUC Chair and the majority of the voting members believe the problem should be reported, they should seek a pre-report clarification from OPRR.
Herbst is affiliated with the Institute for Animal Studies and Department of Pathology, and Gaertner with the Institute for Animal Studies and Department of Microbiology and Immunology, at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY.
Daniel D. Myers, Jr, DVM and Howard G. Rush, MS, DVM
In the above scenario, the first issue to address is which regulatory agencies are involved, since the source of Samuels’ funding is not stated. If the funds are from PHS, then PHS Policy on Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals would apply. The IACUC could also voluntarily choose to apply PHS Policy to this case. However, if no PHS funds are involved, the IACUC would be within its rights not to report the incident to OPRR. On the other hand, since cattle are covered under the AWA Regulations when used in biomedical research, the reporting requirements under the AWA Regulations apply.
The second issue for the IACUC to address is what constitutes a suspension under the AWA Regulations and, if applied to this case, PHS Policy. Under section IV, F of PHS Policy, the IACUC must report any activity that it has suspended. Suspension is further defined in an OPRR Report (January 12, 1994) as an IACUC intervention that results in the temporary or permanent interruption of an activity involving animals. The AWA Regulations [2.31, (d), 7] state, "If the IACUC suspends an activity involving animals, the Institutional Official (IO) in consultation with the IACUC,...take appropriate corrective actions and report that action...to APHIS and any Federal agency responsible for funding that activity." However, no definition of suspension is provided in the AWA Regulations [Definitions, section 1.1] or the Animal Care Policy Manual.
The IO is correct in believing that the matter could be effectively resolved without suspending Samuels formally. In both the AWA Regulations and PHS Policy, suspension is an IACUC action. In this scenario, however, Samuels has voluntarily stopped his work pending completion of all required university training and IACUC approval. The IACUC therefore need not take further action with regard to suspension. If it takes no action to suspend the activity, the IACUC need not report it to OPRR or APHIS. It is important to note that the welfare of Samuels’ animals was not compromised, and he fully cooperated with the IACUC in resolving the issue. In this case, the IACUC would be justified in withholding approval of Samuels’ research until it has reviewed and approved a written proposal of his research activities, and he and his staff have completed Great Eastern’s IACUC training course.
Another issue to resolve is that the IO must realize that he cannot overturn a majority vote for the IACUC. It is imperative that the IO understand his role in association with the IACUC as per the AWA Regulations [2.31, (d), 8].
In this case, Samuels and his staff needed a more complete orientation to university polices and procedures. It would be beneficial for all parties concerned if, in the future, academic departments hiring new investigators who use animals notify the IACUC, so it can arrange orientation and training sessions.
Myers is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow, and Rush an Associate Professor of Laboratory Animal Medicine/Assistant Director, Unit For Laboratory Animal Medicine, with The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI.
File a Report
Todd A. Jackson, DVM, dipl. ACLAM
The Great Eastern IACUC has handled the situation properly so far. It investigated the problem, met with the researcher, and stopped further activity pending investigator training and protocol approval.
Given that the IACUC is handling everything appropriately, the main issue is the IO’s reluctance to see the IACUC’s actions as a suspension of animal activities. One would assume that the IO’s stance stems from a desire to avoid tarnishing the reputation of the university and its new investigator by reporting the suspension. Unfortunately, the IO’s reluctance to fulfill his reporting responsibility is more likely to tarnish the university’s reputation.
OPRR has provided written guidance on this issue. In a "Dear Colleague" letter1, OPRR acknowledged that IACUCs should use professional judgement in deciding which incidents to report. However, it specifically lists conduct of animal activities without IACUC review and approval as an example of an incident that should be reported. OPRR has also suggested that assured institutions should report suspensions of animal activities, even if the suspended activity is not directly PHS-funded
2. The IACUC Chair should present these documents to the IO.
The IACUC Chair may also ease some of the IO’s qualms by suggesting that the investigator’s name be omitted from the report. The IO could submit a detailed report documenting the IACUC’s actions without specifically naming Samuels. It is likely that USDA and OPRR would be more concerned with how the problem was resolved than with the name of the person involved. Overall, it would be less damaging to Great Eastern’s reputation to document and report proper handling of a problem, than to have it discovered at a later date that IO ignored his responsibility to file a report.
One would also expect the IACUC to look for deficiencies in the animal care program that allowed unapproved surgeries to remain undetected for three months. How were the calves purchased? Many institutions require all animal purchases to be ordered through a central service unit so that it can verify IACUC approval before placing an order. This also simplifies tracking the number of animals the institution uses. Where were the calves housed? The manager of the animal facility should be certain that all animals are appropriately identified. The lack of a protocol number on the calves’ cage cards could have triggered someone to verify IACUC approval of the project. Where were the surgeries performed? The surgical support staff would have detected the problem early on if they had attempted to review the protocol to learn what pre-operative and post-operative care the calves would need.
1. OPRR Reports. January 12, 1994.
2. ILAR News; 35(3-4):47-49, 1993.
Jackson is the Associate Director of Laboratory Animal Medical Services at the University of Cincinnati, OH.
The View from USDA and OPRR
NB: The issues discussed in this hypothetical case study are highly context-specific. We caution readers not to over interpret or apply out of context the comments on this specific case. Changes in any of the assumptions or variables described will have a significant effect on the "right" answers.
Under PHS Policy and USDA Regulations, the IO is on very shaky ground. The USDA Regulations are applicable to the research because of the biomedical nature of the farm animal involvement.
The PHS Policy may be applicable to this scenario, due to direct or indirect PHS support for the project, or by voluntary inclusion in the PHS Animal Welfare Assurance of all activities involving animals, regardless of funding source. If so, the incident would include serious noncompliance with the PHS Policy and would be reportable on multiple grounds, and the issue would not be limited to the technicality of whether the IACUC action constitutes a suspension.
The most serious regulatory noncompliance in this example is the conduct of animal activities outside of all institutional oversight mechanisms. Such conduct not only leaves animals without institutional protection, it also may place the institution’s Assurance and eligibility for receiving PHS support in jeopardy.
While it is debatable whether the IACUC can technically suspend an activity that it has not previously approved, PHS Policy, USDA Regulation, and the Guide language presume that all ongoing animal activities have received prospective review and approval. Accordingly, the IACUC’s authority to suspend unauthorized activities is always implied, if not explicit.
OPRR has defined "suspension" as any IACUC intervention that results in the temporary or permanent interruption of an animal activity (OPRR Reports; January 12, 1994). If the IACUC places an ongoing project "on hold" or requires a "temporary cessation," these actions are synonymous with suspension, and are reportable. The IO is therefore proposing to compound the seriousness of the incident by placing the institution in violation of prompt reporting requirements of the PHS Policy (IV, F, 3) and the implied requirements of the USDA Regulations [2.31, (d), (6 and 7)]. It is through reporting, with full explanation of circumstances and corrective actions taken, that institutions remain in compliance in spite of identified serious deficiencies.
The IO is correct that he has the authority to take corrective action, in consultation with the IACUC, on suspensions. He may not, however, usurp the IACUC’s authority to suspend an activity, nor may he block a prompt report to OPRR or USDA once initiated by the IACUC.
Corrective actions should include attention to the required involvement of the Attending Veterinarian in planning procedures that may involve pain and distress, adherence to applicable training requirements, and prevention of the issuance of animals to investigators without approved protocols. Even when the applicability of PHS Policy or USDA Regulations is uncertain, the respective agencies recommend that institutions report incidents of this nature. Initial contact could be by telephone. There are many benefits and few disadvantages to doing so. OPRR and USDA view the self-reporting of appropriate institutional oversight actions in a positive light. Others are likely to report this incident by making a formal complaint or allegation (an anonymous caller initially reported the incident to the university hotline). If so, the federal agency would be in a position to quickly confirm that the institution is addressing its problems in compliance with the PHS Policy and USDA Regulations.
A less desirable outcome would be for OPRR or USDA to have to initiate an investigation to gain the necessary information, especially if either agency discovers reporting irregularities. From a public relations standpoint, the adoption of uniform standards for all animal activities, regardless of funding source, is a positive declaration that the institution does not apply a double standard to the care of its animals.
Nelson L. Garnett, DVM
Director, Division of Animal Welfare
Office for Protection from Research Risks
National Institutes of Health
W. Ron DeHaven, DVM
Acting Deputy Administrator,
Animal CareAnimal Plant Health Inspection Service
US Department of Agriculture
Certain Protocol Review columns address problems that can potentially lead to differing interpretations of applicable federal laws, regulations, or policies. As a service to our readers, Drs. W. Ron DeHaven (USDA/APHIS/Animal Care) and Nelson Garnett (NIH/OPRR) graciously provide the interpretation and policies of their respective federal agencies. Readers and column respondents who disagree with these interpretations are encouraged to voice their opinions through Letters to the Editor. | <urn:uuid:a0ca825e-067a-4695-a2fc-2702c5b9816d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://grants2.nih.gov/grants/olaw/references/laba98v27n9.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95863 | 3,612 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Sukhbat Aflatuni (May 2009) / Image courtesy of A. Stepanenko and Interpoezia
In doing some reading lately on Sukhbat Aflatuni (a.k.a. Yevgeny Abdullaev), the influential Russian-language poet from Tashkent, Uzbekistan, I came across an interview with him that I thought worth translating and excerpting here. Aflatuni is one of the writers, along with Andrey Volos, Gary Shteyngart, Lara Vapnyar, and David Bezmozgis, who Julie A. Buckler claims have prompted scholars to broaden their conceptions of Russian culture. In the interview, he makes several intriguing comments on how he views his own cultural identity and his position as a poet.
Here’s how the interviewer, Sandzhar Yanyshev, initiated the conversation:
Sukhbat, after what happened in the former Russian [sic] colonies, when the country itself emigrated from under one’s feet and people found themselves emigrants in their own homes without taking a single step, many native speakers of Russian preferred to “return” to the place where Russian language and culture reside—that is, they left for Russia. You, a Russian poet and Russian philosopher, stayed. Why?
And here is Aflatuni’s reply:
Every poet has his diagnosis… Some leave, others get stuck with their wings in their nests. Notice that I don’t say, “Every poet has his fate.” Fate is something heroic, something theatrical. But how is it that one can exist when we’re talking about a mix of passions, habits, dreams—that is, the very things that hold us to the place where we were born? That’s a diagnosis. It’s some kind of Oedipal complex. We all circle around it—the homeland—irrespective of whether we “left” it or didn’t leave it. You circle it, I circle it. We zigzag differently and our circling bears different fruit, but it’s the same mechanism of unquenched attraction to that place where you breathed your first breath and cried your first cry. […] And as for where language resides… Language, like the speech organ with which it shares a name [the word язык means both “language” and “tongue” in Russian], is always inside the author. If it’s outside, then it’s no longer language, but rather some kind of microphone or loudspeaker. For me, Russia, and especially Moscow with its literary salons and thick journals, is the acoustic environment, the amplifier, that allows me to be heard and not just mumble something into my scarf.
I find it fascinating that Aflatuni sees the question of Russian identity as a disorder that must be diagnosed—and he implies that everyone suffers an “Oedipal complex” about their home, not just writers on the periphery. | <urn:uuid:3a31976c-7106-4318-985f-a34e9ec27526> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://flaxenwave.blogspot.com/2011_03_01_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960621 | 643 | 2.015625 | 2 |
Keeping up with the mega-millions and billions in aid for refugees displaced by Hurricane Katrina is like nailing down a spilled tractor-trailer load of mercury as it skitters across the highway. Two recent announcements have left me scratching my head. On the surface, it seems to make sense, but the numbers leave me with questions.
On the plus front, a recent press release from Tennessee government via Lola Potter, reads that "evacuees and landlords should not be alarmed by a FEMA form letter":
"NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Tennessee officials say property owners renting to hurricane evacuees should follow new directives from the federal government, but they nor evacuees should fear that leases will be broken without notice. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has sent new messages – through a contractor, Corporate Lodging - telling property owners who are leasing interim shelter units (apartments) for evacuees to sign up for a new program for future payments.
FEMA has not indicated how many of the 3,700 individuals or families now housed in interim sheltering in Tennessee might be eligible for the new program. Over 1,600 are housed in Memphis, 900 in Davidson and surrounding counties, over 250 in Hamilton and surrounding counties, 302 in Knox County, and over 100 in Northeast Tennessee.
"For now, we are not making any changes in the program that provides apartment housing for evacuees in Tennessee,” said Finance and Administration Commissioner Dave Goetz, whose department is responsible for statewide coordination of evacuee housing in Tennessee. Landlords are now signed up for Tennessee’s program – and although we recommend they follow the new federal instructions – they will remain in our program until we work through this difficulty with FEMA.”
Goetz said evacuees should not be alarmed that they may be asked to leave their housing without the 30-day notice assured by FEMA – and property owners should not worry about losing rental income.
In a February 27 letter to FEMA, Tennessee officials reminded FEMA that the agency has an obligation to honor its commitment to the State to reimburse the expense of the leases until we can provide the 30 day advance notification to the lessors. In a letter to the State one week earlier, FEMA indicated all leases ending February 28, 2006, would no longer be paid by FEMA. However, Tennessee negotiated an automatic month-to-month renewal clause after the initial lease term, unless and until the lessor is provided with thirty days notice of intent to abandon the lease. Tennessee officials this week reminded FEMA of its commitment to fulfill those obligations.
State assessment of evacuees participating in the housing program indicates that over 80 percent of the evacuees have no resources available to pay rent and utilities in the apartments where they now reside. The families remaining in Tennessee are among over 20,000 that fled the Gulf Coast last year in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Initial commitments from FEMA indicated interim housing would be paid for up to one year, or September 2006."
Yet, on Friday, an State Briefs article from the Knox News Sentinel (reg. required) includes comments by Senators' Frist and Alexander that about $2.8 million in federal funds have been "earmarked" for the state's K-12 education system for the "more than 3,700 children driven out of the Gulf Coast by Hurricane Karina last summer moved to Tennessee schools."
The first press release mentions the 3,700 families or individuals now housed in TN being assured their leases should remain intact. But the Senators's comments specifically refer to more than 3,700 children now a part of the state's school system.
How many of the refugees - whoops! - make that "evacuees" - are actually kids in school and what are the the actual number of families who relocated here? | <urn:uuid:91285a24-a8b7-44af-b749-39667ce1fe95> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cupofjoepowell.blogspot.com/2006/03/katrina-cash-confusion-in-tennessee.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946072 | 782 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Tucked away in a quiet neighborhood, Cleveland High officials take pride in the achievements of their 4,000 students. The school was recently accredited by the prestigious Western Association of Schools and Colleges. A banner tacked above the entrance reminds visitors this is a California distinguished school. George Sanchez in the Daily News.
The school’s students, including more than 700 English-language learners, have consistently outpaced state and local averages on academic achievement scores. But even amid the gains, the school struggles with inadequate resources.
There are a little more than 120 Cleveland High teachers – 1 for every 32 students. There are just nine full-time counselors – 1 for every 422 students who attend either the traditional high school or a separate magnet program. | <urn:uuid:f6a68097-a9bf-444a-a613-689c819bdc9b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.dailynews.com/politics/2008/09/29/cleveland-thrives-despites-cut/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954308 | 149 | 1.921875 | 2 |
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A crane tipped over while working on the new eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge on Thursday, but there were no injuries and nothing leaked into the bay, authorities said.
The crane was on a barge underneath the new span helping to remove a temporary support structure and was holding a piece of the structure when it fell around noon, according to bridge spokesman Andrew Gordon.
Gordon said officials were investigating what caused the crane to tip over and whether the new span was damaged.
The new bridge is expected to open over Labor Day weekend. It will connect Oakland to Treasure Island and replace a structure that was damaged during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
The supports the crane was taking down were installed years ago to hold up the bridge superstructure during construction, according to Bay Area Toll Authority spokesman John Goodwin.
Goodwin said when the cabling system for the suspension span was installed last year, the weight of the bridge transferred to the cable system and the temporary supports were no longer needed.
Their removal was expected to take months. The process had begun in the past couple of weeks, Goodwin said.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Star-studded event raises millions for AIDS research. (Photos)
Cockroaches are so adaptive, their brains may reject some foods.
The Galapagos Islands are now just a click away. (Photos)
A study has a gloomy forecast for U.S. amphibians. | <urn:uuid:6b181cf6-c7d1-41e4-b86a-3753fc4a1124> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wtop.com/209/3230944/Crane-working-on-new-Bay-Bridge-span-falls?nid=1229 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965803 | 323 | 1.710938 | 2 |
February 26, 2012: the pre-history
Earlier today two readers linked and quoted “George Zimmerman: Prelude to a Shooting,” Reuters’ article on Zimmerman’s background and the events at the Retreat at Twin Lakes in the period preceding his confrontation with Trayvon Martin. I’ve now read the article. It is dynamite. There is more in it that can be summarized. Let’s just say that it establishes the entire context for the events of February 26: the wave of burglaries by blacks (including a break-in by two men into a house while the woman of the house hid in terror from them) which had put the Twin Lakes community in fear; and an incident in which Zimmerman spotted a known burglar and called 911, but the police took so long arriving that the man got away. That was why Zimmerman was so aggressive in following Martin. That was why he said to the 911 dispatcher, “These assholes, they always get away”—a remark converted by the media into the fumings of a hopped-up racist set on killing blacks.
One of the lessons to be derived from this important article is this: the more society is threatened by black criminals, the more society is condemned as “racist” for trying to defend itself from black criminals. Also known as Auster’s First Law of Majority-Minority Relations in Liberal Society (see “Clarifying the First Law”). George Zimmerman, symbolically and culturally a white man, and the target of a national lynch mob unparalleled in historic memory, is perhaps the biggest victim of the First Law that has yet been seen.
Chris Francescani of Reuters is to be praised for writing this article. The fact that a news agency which is normally a source of pure leftist bilge has published this piece is perhaps a sign that the propaganda campaign against Zimmerman has been so egregious, so evil, that even the left-wing media are recognizing it and are now starting to bring out the truth.
Most people know blacks love pit bulls. The name of the dog, Big Boi, makes it even more likely owned by a black as that is the name of a rapper.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 26, 2012 07:49 PM | Send | <urn:uuid:d2895b8a-4466-415f-a299-a98f0d155832> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/022292.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972279 | 470 | 2.171875 | 2 |
This photo was one of over 300 submissions in Lehigh's environmental photography contest.
Pennsylvania may have turned its attention this past Tuesday to the Democratic Presidential Primary, but a group of Lehigh faculty, staff and students didn’t let another important observance that day go unnoticed: Earth Day.
As students headed to class down Memorial Walkway, tossed Frisbees on the University Center lawn, and tour groups strolled through Lehigh’s campus, they were greeted by students armed with information on how to “Make Lehigh Green.”
“With environmental awareness enhanced by Earth Day and many educational programs at Lehigh and worldwide, we can begin to find a way to sustain indefinitely the services provided by our environment locally, nationally, and globally,” said Dork Sahagian, director of the Environmental Initiative
and professor of earth and environmental sciences
The Earth Day celebration brought the Lehigh community together to learn about recycling, wind power, sustainable internship opportunities, eco-friendly school supplies, vegetarianism, green buildings, and environmental jobs from over 20 local and on-campus groups. Visitors could sample free trade and organic foods, sign their name in chalk in support of the environment, and even leave with free t-shirts.
“We wanted to have a fun approach to this,” said Jessica Mauro, coordinator of the Environmental Initiative who organized the event along with the student-run Environmental Coalition. “We wanted to have people come for a fun day, but leave with an education.”
"Earth Day is a bit like Mother's Day"
Another highlight of the Earth Day event was an environmental photography contest which drew over 300 submissions. Students cast their vote for photos in six categories, with the overall winner receiving an Olympus camera. Later in the afternoon, a tree was planted in front of Packard Hall and a local band closed out the day.
“I grew up with the idea of sustainability, but that might not be as normal as I once thought,” said Meg Busch, a civil engineering student who represented Green Action at the event. “Maybe the changes we make on campus will make people think about how we can change things on a bigger scale.”
Other events were scheduled for the remainder of the week. On Tuesday evening, Sahagian joined scientists, engineers and architects at the DaVinci Science Center for a discussion “Everybody’s Talking about the Environment.” The Environmental Initiative also conducted outreach at Illick’s Mill in Bethlehem in conjunction with the Bethlehem Area School District.
“Earth Day is a bit like Mother’s Day—we do not love our mothers only one day each year,” said Sahagian. “In the same way, we need to ensure that we preserve the natural environment every day, not just on Earth Day … It’s not as if we live somewhere else the rest of the year.”
The week’s worth of events wrapped up April 24 at 4 p.m. when representatives from the Lehigh Environmental Advisory Group (LEAG) and the city of Bethlehem joined faculty and environmental experts for a panel discussion entitled “Earth, Wind, Fire, Water.” The discussion took place in Lewis Lab 270. | <urn:uuid:f2576bf9-b4f7-4b20-bb91-c08db3593af2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www4.lehigh.edu/news/newsarticle.aspx?Channel=%2FChannels%2FNews%3A+2007-2008&WorkflowItemID=fa0751dd-c742-4f0c-bc12-ebf9fcb19a19 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957718 | 679 | 2.21875 | 2 |
Did you know that in 1800, not L.A., not New York, but Philadelphia was our largest city, a distinction it held until 1830.
The top five were Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore, Boston, and Charleston, S.C.
But we defy anyone to name the sixth largest American town in 1800. It was Northern Liberties, now part of Philadelphia.
And seventh was Southwark, now also part of the present Philadelphia. Read here about the early days of the City of Brotherly Love.
The City of Philadelphia | <urn:uuid:2f94b1b1-a042-4079-aa6e-90eba41ab693> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ushistory.org/Philadelphia/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964332 | 110 | 2.4375 | 2 |
Love… 10 Crazy Scientific Facts
Did you know that most people lean to the right when they kiss? It’s true…and so are these other fascinating truths.
1. It’s like looking in a mirror!
It turns out we all have a little something in common with Narcissus—the mythical fellow who fell in love with his own reflection. Scientists at the University of Liverpool recently concluded that our brains favor people with familiar faces. The research team asked over 200 participants to view a number of digitally altered human faces. They found that subjects preferred the features they were most familiar with—whether that means our own visage or that of a family member. This may explain that common phenomenon of couples looking like they could be siblings.
2. Manner, schmanners: Go ahead and stare
A new study says that when a woman walks into a room, she is considered more attractive if she turns her eyes directly toward
a certain man. Men would rate the same woman as less desirable if she doesn’t make strong eye contact. In the study at Dartmouth University, lead researcher Malia Mason had male participants sit and view a series of faces of fashion models, digitally enhanced to either be gazing toward or away from the participant. The study authors asked the viewer to rate the likeability of each model and found that those who turned away were seen as less agreeable. The study’s researchers went on to suggest that a woman’s gaze can be a powerful arousal cue and that our impressions are largely formed by nonverbal communications such as eye contact. So start locking eyes, ladies!
|The tendency to remain faithful is governed by both genes and societal factors.|
3. You’ll know it when you see it
A recent study at the University of Pennsylvania reveals that regardless of what people say they are looking for in a dating situation, they don’t need a lot of time with or information about a person to tell if they’re interested. Single people’s behavior suggests that individuals know “it” (a person who appeals to them) when they see it—almost instantly. Lead researcher Robert Kurzban and his colleagues studied data from 10,000+ daters. They found that men and women assessed potential compatibility within moments of meeting, using primarily visual cues such as age, height, and attractiveness. Says Kurzban, “Somewhat surprisingly, factors that you might think would be really important to people—like religion, education, and income—played very little role in their choices.”
4. Listen up
The next time you call up a potential love match, pay special attention to how they sound. Researchers at the University of Albany had 149 men and women to rate the attractiveness of a series of recorded voices on a scale from 1 to 10. The researchers also gathered information about the sexual histories of the people whose voices they recorded. They found that the voices found to be the most appealing belonged to people who had sex at an earlier age, had more sexual partners, and were more prone to infidelity than those rated as having less appealing voices. So know that what’s a seductive voice to you may be linked to a person with a bit of a past…
5. I couldn’t help it baby, it’s in my genes
There may be a genetic component to infidelity, says a professor at the Twin Research Unit at St. Thomas’ Hospital, London. This is based on the fact that if one twin exhibits infidelity, the other twin strays 55% of the time. In the general population, the number is 23%. The tendency to remain faithful is a component of personality, the scientist elaborates, which is governed both by a number of genes and societal factors.
6. It’s official: Love makes us crazy
For one thing, it causes serotonin levels in the brain to drop, which may lead people to obsess about their lover. (The levels of serotonin, a chemical
produced by the body, are also low in people who have obsessive-compulsive disorder.) Next, it ramps up production of the stress hormone cortisol, leading to slightly higher blood pressure and possibly loss of sleep. Finally, a scientist at the University of London has found that when people look at their new loves, the neural circuits that are usually in charge of social judgment are suppressed. All in all, love kind of leaves you obsessive, stressed, and blind. And we love it.
|Rosy cheeks are crucial for success in the dating game, says a new study.|
7. Why broken hearts hurt…
A new study suggests the psychological hurt of a break-up is just as real as a physical injury. Two areas of the brain that respond to physical pain also become activated when a person is dealing with social pain, such as being dumped. The study’s authors at UCLA used an MRI to monitor brain activity in participants while they played a game simulating social rejection. The researchers believe that the pain of being rejected may have evolved as a motivating force that led humans to seek out social interaction, which is crucial for the survival of most mammals.
8. Blushing is best
If we take our cue from apes, rosy cheeks are crucial in the dating game, says a new study. Scientists at Stirling University in Great Britain have found that primates prefer mates with red faces. A rosy glow might also act as a similar cue in humans, say the British researchers, sending a message of good health. They speculate that it could explain why women use blusher.
9. Kiss this way
Did you know there is a “right” way to kiss? People are more likely to tilt their heads to the right when kissing instead of left, says a report published recently in the journal Nature. A scientist from Ruhr University in Germany analyzed 124 pairs of smoochers and found that 65 percent go toward the right.
10. Meet for drinks before dinner
Researchers at NYU and Stanford have discovered that hungry men prefer heavier women. By staking out a dining hall, scientists had hundreds of students fill out questionnaires about their preferences in a mate. Men who filled out the questionnaire just before they entered the hall described their ideal woman as an average of three or four pounds heavier than men interviewed after they ate. Incidentally, researchers did not find the same change in women’s preferences, so guys: Go ahead and schedule that drinks date for before or after dinnertime.
Laura Schaefer is the author of Man with Farm Seeks Woman with Tractor: The Best and Worst Personal Ads of All Time. | <urn:uuid:0b970a0c-9608-4be5-a030-e12acde16355> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.match.com/magazine/article/6278/Love-10-Crazy-Scientific-Facts/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961959 | 1,370 | 2.4375 | 2 |
From the book
RAPP secured the gray nylon rope to a cast-iron vent stack and walked to the edge of the roof. He glanced at the balcony two floors below and then looked out across the City of Light. Sunrise was a few hours off and the flow of late-night revelers had faded to a trickle. It was that rare moment of relative inactivity that even a city as vibrant as Paris fell under once each day. Every city had its own unique feel, and Rapp had learned to pay attention to the ebb and flow of their natural rhythms. They had their similarities just like people. For all of the hang-ups about individuality, few understood that for the most part, people's actions were habitual. They slept, woke, ate, worked, ate some more, worked some more, ate again, watched TV, and then went to sleep again. It was the basic drumbeat of humanity the world over. The way people lived their lives and met their basic needs.
All men also had their own unique attributes, and these often manifested themselves in habits--habits that Rapp had learned to exploit. As a rule, the best time to strike was this witching hour, between dusk and dawn, when the overwhelming majority of the human race was asleep, or trying to sleep. The physiological reasons were obvious. If it took world-class athletes hours to warm up before a major event, how would a man defend himself when yanked from deep sleep? However, Rapp could not always choose the appointed hour, and occasionally a target's habits created an opening that was so painfully obvious, he simply couldn't ignore the opportunity.
Three weeks earlier Rapp had been in Athens. His target walked the same bustling sidewalk every morning from his apartment to his office. Rapp had considered shooting him on the sidewalk, as there was plenty of cover and distraction. It wouldn't have been difficult, but witnesses were always a concern, and a police officer could always stumble by at the wrong moment. As he studied his target, he noticed another habit. After arriving at work, the man had one more cup of coffee and then went down the hall with his newspaper and took a prolonged visit to the men's room.
Other than catching people asleep, the next best thing was catching them with their pants down. On the fourth day, Rapp waited in the middle stall of three and at the appointed hour his target sat down on his right. Rapp stood on the toilet seat, leaned over the divider, called out the man's name, and then after their eyes met, he smiled and sent a single 9mm hollow-tipped round through the top of the man's head. He fired one more kill shot into the man's brainpan for good measure and calmly left the building. Thirty minutes later, he was on a ferry slicing through the warm morning air of the Aegean Sea, headed for the island of Crete.
Most of the kills had been like that. Unsuspecting fools who thought themselves safe after years of the United States doing little or nothing to pursue them for their involvement in various terrorist attacks. Rapp's singular goal was to take the fight to these men. Bleed them until they began to have doubts, until they lay awake at night wondering if they were next. It had become his mission in life. Inaction was what had emboldened these men to continue with their plots to attack innocent civilians. The belief that they were secure to continue to wage their war of terror had given them a smug confidence. Rapp was single-handedly replacing that confidence with fear.
By now, they were aware that something was wrong. Too many men had been shot in the head in the last year for it to be a...
Author: Vince Flynn
Bio: Vince Flynn is a graduate of the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. He lives in the Twin Cities with his wife and three children. Visit his website at ... | <urn:uuid:82de6f54-4009-4a5b-b423-567067ea5d76> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.booksamillion.com/p/Kill-Shot/Vince-Flynn/Q401739160?id=5361218226027 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.993325 | 803 | 1.703125 | 2 |
U.S. Department of Energy - Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
Vehicle Technologies Office
First Leaf Delivered, First Volts Shipped to U.S. Customers as EVs Advance
December 15, 2010
The Chevy Volt has been shipped to its first customers as the Nissan Leaf is also delivered to the first buyer.
Credit: GM Corp
Nissan made the world's first delivery of its new electric vehicle (EV), the Leaf, to a San Francisco Bay area resident on December 11. Olivier Chalouhi, the first person in the United States to place a Leaf order, received his car at a Petaluma dealership. Other primary launch markets for the new vehicle, designed to travel 100 miles on an average battery charge, include Southern California, Arizona, Oregon, Seattle, and Tennessee. Nissan said it is aiming to roll out EVs to Hawaii and Texas next in early 2011. The Leaf is among the highest-profile cars in the expected wave of alternative vehicles, including hybrids and EVs.
General Motors' Chevy Volt hybrid is also expected to be in showrooms this month. GM said on December 13 that the first Volts left the Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant for initial retail launch markets. Customers in California, New York, Texas, and Washington D.C., could receive their vehicles in a matter of few days, part of 350 vehicles to be shipped this week. The Volt runs for the first 35 miles on a single battery charge, then can go another estimated 340 miles on gas.
Owners of new Leafs in several markets are participating in the EV Project, a research and charging infrastructure deployment project funded by DOE. Additionally, San Francisco already has begun preparing for more EVs. In November, the city joined Coulomb Technologies to begin installing the first new EV charging stations in San Francisco with contactless payments. The two EV charging stations are part of the ChargePoint America program, funded in part by a $15 million American Recovery and Reinvestment Act administered by DOE. See the Leaf press release and official post, Volt press release, EV Project Web site, ChargePoint America Web site, and San Francisco mayor's press release. | <urn:uuid:0f75f41d-f4e0-4d76-a985-01eaa99e52b2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www1.eere.energy.gov/vehiclesandfuels/news/printable_versions/news_detail.html?news_id=16573 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94616 | 438 | 2.125 | 2 |
A comprehensive reference for elementary teachers that provides handy, reproducible lists relating to the core subjects they need to teach: language arts, math, science and social studies, as well as lists that will help them do their jobs and help their students learn.
An essential reference for all elementary teachers This comprehensive resource contains useful lists on all the subjects elementary teachers need, from core content to tips on classroom management to advice for students on study skills. The lists highlight vital areas of interest including reading, writing, mathematics, science, social studies, developing social skills, developing effective study skills, and working with an inclusive classroom. 350 reproducible lists on a wealth of subjects of interest to elementary teachers Advice for setting up the classroom, interacting with parents, and making classroom modifications Tips for use with students on studying for tests, organizing homework, and taking good notes All the lists are correlated to national content standards and will be helpful as quick study aids as well as for general reference.
Gary Robert Muschla
taught reading, writing, and math for more than twenty-five years in Spotswood, New Jersey. Judith A. Muschla taught mathematics in South River, New Jersey, for over twenty-five years. Erin Muschla teaches 7th grade math in Monroe, New Jersey. Gary and Judith are the coauthors of The Math Teacher's Book of Lists, Hands-on Math Projects with Real-Life Applications, Math Starters, Geometry Teacher's Activities Kit, Math Smart, The Math Teacher's Problem-a-Day, and Algebra Teacher's Activities Kit, all published by Jossey-Bass. Gary, Judith, and Erin are the coauthors of the Math Teacher's Survival Guide, also published by Jossey-Bass. | <urn:uuid:9dc592bf-117e-479a-98fd-44d65d91484f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thenile.com.au/books/Gary-Robert-Muschla/Elementary-Teachers-Book-of-Lists/9780470501986/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931353 | 355 | 3.078125 | 3 |
Prospective Announcers Have Chance To Try Out Vocal Chords Tomorrow
Candidates Need No Experience In Announcing to Join New Crimson Network
Potential Ted Husings and Milton Crosses will have the chance to face a battery of mikes tomorrow evening fom 7 to 9 o'clock when the Crimson Radio Network holds its competition for announcers.
With its programs due on the air April 15. Harvard's first radio station offers undergraduates an opportunity to use their vocal chords in four ways: as classical music commentators, jazz commentators, news analysts and station announcers.
Experience Not Necessary
Men who have already proved themselves in debating societies, glee clubs or drama leagues will find themselves particularly adapted to the airwaves. Experience, however, is not a necessity, as the microphone produces starting changes, and a Ned Sparks will often find himself transformed into a William Jennings Bryan.
The organization of the Crimson Network is the result of a growing movement among college to develop high standards in broadcasting. Started first at Brown four years ago, the "wired-network" has spread to such an extent that during February an Intercollegiate Broadcasting System was founded.
The idea was first brought to Harvard by Kenneth Richter '43 and Lawrence Lader '41, who became Coordinating Secretary and Program Director when the CRIMSON decided to back the station.
As Executive Editor of the CRIMSON. William W. Tyng '41 is ex-officio Chairman and Charles W. Oliphant '41 is Technical Director. On Oliphant's staff are Gordon McConch '41, Technical Engineer, and Charles W. Davis '41, Production Engineer. Members of the Program staff are William F. Braden '41 and Nelson R. Gidding '41. | <urn:uuid:37ac0414-c0dd-44a3-a14f-f091c09dde5c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1940/3/25/prospective-announcers-have-chance-to-try/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00076-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948672 | 363 | 1.914063 | 2 |
Design Technology forms an area of the curriculum that develops skills of quite a different nature from other subjects. Design Technology enables students to develop their awareness of the world around them, to develop an understanding of and capability in the technological world. Instead of theoretical problem solving, design is about the creative application of science and technology to solve everyday problems.
‘the creative application of science and technology to solve everyday problems’
Design Technology at The King’s (The Cathedral) School is being developed year on year to provide the most up to date and relevant design and manufacturing methods. Students are taught around a basis of equipping them with new skills and then asking them to apply these skills to a design problem, students are always encouraged to develop their drawing, CAD and CAM skills independently so as to enhance their design work.
Key Stage 3
All student study design in years 7 to 9, completing four projects per year covering:
· Resistant Materials
· Computer Aided Design & Manufacture
· Food Technology
· System & Control
· Product Design
Projects include, laser cut vase, can crusher, wind sock, LED mood light, cast pendant, MP3 speakers and a 'bag for life'. These projects develop a range of problem solving skills and industrially applicable manufacturing knowledge.
In years 10 and 11 students can choose to study 3 distinct disciplines, all these follow the AQA syllabus:
Students build upon their Key Stage 3 learning, being provided with opportunities to develop their skills, knowledge and understanding of design by applying them to everyday circumstances. Students are taught to be creative thinkers while still understanding the limits imposed by finance, materials and manufacturing processes. Students also develop their ability to manage their time carefully to produce high quality work within deadlines.
At A-level students can choose to study Product Design in one of two areas:
A-level students are taught to look at the issues in the world at large to draw inspiration for their work, looking at sustainability, our changing population, education, developing societies, disabilities, the effects of a commercial society, products for public use and good old fashioned problem solving. A-level students are encouraged to think closely about the route they wish to take after school when choosing their coursework topic. Design staff will help students choose projects which will benefit their future studies, especially for students wishing to study design, fashion or engineering. Our students have progressed to study a wide range of university disciplines, including industrial design, architecture, fashion design, mechanical engineering and many more. There are annual visits to design lectures from eminent designers, annual trips to the New Designers exhibition. Also Year 12 students prepare and run our annual Art and Design Exhibition in conjunction with the Art department.
Design Technology CADCAM Resources
All design courses make use of CAD/CAM where possible, students are introduced to a full package of products as they progress through the school. TechSoft 2D design is introduced to students in year 7. In year 8 students learn how to use Google Sketch-up and as students progress into GCSE’s and A-levels they can adapt these skills to use industry standard software such as SolidWorks and Autodesk Inventor, Revit, AutoCAD and 3D studio Max. Many of the projects undertaken make use of our CAM equipment including the laser cutting machine, CNC milling machines, RapMan 3d Printer and computer controlled embroidery machine.
Design Technology Student Home Learning Resources
The Design Technology Department has decided to purchase home use licences for many of the CAD programs taught in lessons. All GCSE and A-Level students studying Product Design are expected to install this software on their home computers to help further their studies. Students in Key Stage 3 are also encouraged to do so, especially if they are wishing to study Design at GCSE and above.
TechSoft 2D Design (available to borrow from the school library)
Google SketchUp (free internet download)
SolidWorks Educational Edition (available to borrow from the school library)
Design Technology Staff
Mr Dewi Matthews
– Curriculum Area Manager - Product Design, Graphics, Resistant Materials,
Systems and Control, CADCAM
BA (Hons) 3d Design (furniture specialism)
Mr David Hughes
– Product Design, Graphics, Resistant Materials, Systems and Control, CADCAM, ICTAC.
BSc (Hons) Industrial Product Design
B Ed (Hons) in Fashion and Textiles | <urn:uuid:36c9431c-faa9-42e5-a53d-50acc0fbd5ae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kings.peterborough.sch.uk/page/default.asp?pid=64&title=Freedom%20of%20Information | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938888 | 921 | 3.40625 | 3 |
Single site data files
- Data delivery formats
- Naming conventions and methods of data delivery
- Acknowledging Receipt
- Contact Us
The Bureau has set a constraint that a data file should only contain data for a single site and that the data for that site can be split across two transfer file types. If required, data of each file type can be provided independently of the other.
The two file types and their contents are described below.
Continuous time series data
Continuous time series data file is used to transfer data that is continuously monitored. It is typically of high temporal density and is usually recorded electronically.
All other site data
This file type can contain all site data other than time series. It can contain discreet water quality sample data.
We ask organisations not to deliver all data relating to multiple monitoring stations in a single file. Should the Bureau receive such files, organisations will be asked to provide data files for each site. | <urn:uuid:b75e2512-728b-4fdf-a5dd-21ed1bb7ba51> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bom.gov.au/water/regulations/dataDelivery/overview/singleSite.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92374 | 195 | 2.203125 | 2 |
WASHINGTON -- Will religious voters have clout in November's presidential election? Will the Fortnight for Freedom called for by the U.S. bishops June 21 to July 4 become a political movement? Will it affect the Catholic vote? "We don't know yet," said one noted Catholic observer of U.S. politics, but he admitted to being concerned.
"There are some of us who worry that this could end up looking like a partisan campaign, even if many bishops don't want that to happen," Washington Post columnist and Georgetown University professor E.J. Dionne said at a May 30 symposium at Georgetown University here.
Questions of religious freedom and the recent U.S. Health and Human Services mandate on contraceptive health care coverage occupied a central place May 30 in wide-ranging panel discussions for Catholics and evangelicals on the approaching presidential election.
Both the U.S. Catholic bishops and the Obama administration came under heavy criticism for the postures they have adopted in the current standoff over the HHS rules.
Dionne said, "I think there is a substantial minority in the bishops' conference that is either hostile to or highly critical of President Obama -- I've heard estimates around 35 percent of the bishops," he said.
"Speaking from the more progressive Catholic point of view, I'm very worried that this religious liberty focus could be used to push Catholic social justice teaching to the rear and to have a whole new set of issues up front ... in terms of where the muscle of the church and the money of the church gets put," he said.
He said that if the bishops' religious liberty campaigns bring a Catholic voting shift away from Obama by just a few percentage points, it could have a significant effect on the election.
Dionne also said, "Among younger Catholics, I'm very fearful that the church is losing large numbers of moderate and progressive Catholics altogether, and it's something I'd like our bishops to think hard about as they proceed in this election."
The panel also featured Margaret Steinfels, founding codirector of the Fordham Center on Religion and Culture in New York, and before that editor for 15 years of Commonweal; and Michael Gerson, an author, Washington Post columnist and former speechwriter for President George W. Bush whom TIME magazine once called one of the 25 most influential evangelicals in America.
Gerson said, "Four years ago Barack Obama set out consciously to fight the long-term trend" of voters who frequently attend church to vote in increasing numbers for Republican candidates. He reached out to churchgoing Catholics and evangelicals and "made marginal gains" with those groups in 2008, he said.
"I think that there is very little evidence right now in the electoral process that the Obama campaign is fighting that trend," he said.
Instead, he suggested, Democratic strategists seem to be focusing this year on what has been called "the coalition of the ascendant" -- minorities, women, college-educated young people and others who find the growing political-religious alliance on the right distasteful.
Steinfels seconded Gerson's view. "I do not detect that the Obama campaign has yet shown any particular positioning to secure a Catholic or evangelical vote, or the vote of any particular religious group," she said.
"Nor do I detect that the Republicans have such a positioning strategy vis-à-vis Catholicism," she added. "I think they may be hoping that the Catholic bishops will do this for them. ... With a Mormon candidate at the top of their ticket, the Republicans may be very leery of raising any religious questions at all."
While Obama does not seem to be wooing the Catholic vote, "the bishops, including the head of the bishops' conference [New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan], seem to be yearning to put the Catholic vote on the line," Steinfels said.
The bishops' Fortnight for Freedom plans "seem to have elements that would rally conservative Catholics to Mr. Romney," she said. "The recent filing of multiple legal suits against the HHS mandate by some 40 Catholic organizations would seem to have the [intent] of keeping these mandates before the electorate -- though the electorate may soon weary of the lawsuits, the ins and outs of the controversy, and of the bishops themselves."
She said, "Many Catholics, younger ones in particular, are put off in a serious way by religious leaders involving themselves directly in politics, such as telling us how to vote."
On the HHS contraceptive coverage mandate and the bishops' religious freedom challenge to it, she said, "This is a controversy that neither church nor state needs to have or should be having. ... It seems to me it is imprudent of [the bishops] to have chosen contraception for their battle -- as imprudent as it was for the administration in requiring Catholic institutions to provide it."
Dionne opened the panel with a prediction for this fall "that white evangelicals will vote overwhelmingly for Mitt Romney, that African-American evangelicals and Catholics will vote overwhelmingly for Barack Obama, that Latino evangelicals and Catholics will also vote for President Obama."
"White Catholics will vote marginally for Mitt Romney," he added, "and Catholics as a whole will vote for the winner, because they always vote for the winner. ... It is a fascinating fact of American politics that, of all the religious groups in the country, Catholics tend to consistently pick the winner."
He joked that this might be seen as the work of the Holy Spirit, but more likely it's due to the demographic diversity of Catholic voters -- as an overall group they tend to vote just like the rest of the country.
The key issue as the election approaches is that "there could be substantial change at the margins; that is to say, a few points either way could make an enormous difference," he said.
[Jerry Filteau is NCR Washington correspondent. His email is firstname.lastname@example.org.] | <urn:uuid:cbfbf601-4a65-497e-b543-95bb47762b54> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ncronline.org/print/news/politics/catholic-evangelical-panelists-address-religious-freedom | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975054 | 1,214 | 1.703125 | 2 |
By John W. Miller
As we reported Thursday, most Members of the European Parliament would prefer to scrap their expensive second home in Strasbourg.
On Friday, France fought back, reminding parliamentarians that Europe, at least in this case, is a continent ruled by treaties, not men.
The survey, said government spokesman Bernard Valéro, was “regrettable.” Be there no mistake, he went on, “the seat is legally fixed by the treaties. This initiative is not a formal parliamentary action, and certainly does not implicate its president, Jerzy Buzek.”
Mr. Valéro praised the “plurality” of different locations for EU government buildings which “reflect the diversity of the European Union.”
Still, the porte-parole threw in some peace-making reassurances, hinting that France would ease the Brusselites’s lives some by jazzing up Strasbourg.
French authorities, he said, “will continue to implement concrete actions to affirm Strasbourg’s European dimension and to make working life easier for European MEPs, especially by improving the accessibility and attractiveness of the city.” | <urn:uuid:93192b6d-dc52-410e-a983-0bdec4fc7b0b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.wsj.com/brussels/2011/02/11/france-to-meps-strasbourg-stays-deal/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947601 | 248 | 1.59375 | 2 |
If you ever want to really learn a subject, try teaching it. I never knew how much I didn't know about my own native language until I became an English teacher in Japan, and it was a great experience for me. You become aware of so many aspects of your own language when you teach it. I also paid attention to the rules that govern English pronunciation. For example, North American speakers of English usually stress the second syllable of a three syllable word -- my son's name (Kazuki) is usually pronounced ka-ZOO-ki by English speakers, rather than with a slight stress on the first syllable. This "American accept" of Japanese sounds cute and pleasing to the Japanese however, and sometimes they go out of their way to use it -- TV commercials for the Konami game company here always end with an American saying the name of the company as "ko-NAH-me."
It's always interesting to compare the U.S. and Japan. In Japan, American-style breakfast cereal is slowly taking root, as Kellogg's Japan and Calbee battle for market share with their Corn Frosty and Choco Crispy products. (I never buy Kellogg's cereal here, it's way too expensive.) When I was growing up, I loved to find the little toys that came in cereal, but here, manufacturers haven't taken that approach. Instead of breakfast cereals, Japanese children can get their fix of silly toys from the monthly kids magazines that are so popular here, like Tomodachi and Tanoshii Yochien, which are magazines for kids which are also filled with fun things, from punch-out cardboard robots to Pokemon stickers or cards, little cardboard sushi so the girls can play "mother," and more. The competition among the magazines is fierce, though, and these magazines are always trying to come up with cooler things for the kids than their competitors.
Calling all big and little guys and girls! J-List has made a name for itself with funny and bizarre T-shirts with Japanese messages like "Hen na gaijin" (I'm a straight foreigner) and "watashi wa H" (I'm H). We're closing out our current T-shirts to make room for new designs, and we're just about there -- however, several of our shirts have sold out of sizes L and XL, leaving a few mediums and several size XXL shirts in stock. To help you help us get rid of these shirts, we've reduced the prices on them even more. Several of the shirts still come with free shipping, too, so they're really cheap. Check out the Wacky Japanese T-shirts page, now!
For this evening's update, we've got some more excellent items for you, including the following:
- First, we've got some great new magazines, including the charming new Video Boy and Best Video, which feature all the latest lovely AV idols from Japan, and Aishite Ageru ("I'll love you"), a popular sperm-fetish magazine
- We have some more of our popular "one shot" magazines, single issues posted at low prices. See them on near the top of magazine page 2
- For photobook lovers, we've got some nice items, including Kawai Azusa's busty photobook and several new hardcover items. We've also gotten in fresh stock of some items that had sold out recently, so check out the photobooks page
- We have another update to our manga pages, both Page 1 and Page 2 -- check out the all-new manga volumes we've posted (we think you'll like them)
- Also for manga and doujinshi fans, we've got fresh stock of the very cool Denno Buto Musume (Electronic Fighting Daughter), a series of super "game girl" hentai dojinshi stories compiled into a nifty anthology manga
- For dojinshi collectors, we've got a great selection of some cool single-issue dojinshi. However, since the automatic shopping cart is not working right now, the books might be sold already despite their appearing on the page as available. If the doujinshi you want to buy isn't available, we apologize in advance
- We have two excellent new DVDs in from Soft on Demand. In "Hitomi Ryo Best Selection," enjoy the best moments of this stylish AV idol's AV career. In "An Ideal Day of the Married Woman," see the unfaithful sexual acts of two Tokyo "hitozuma" (married women)
- Also very nice -- Kanazawa Bunko's Lovely Heroine, reissued on DVD at a lower price by Uchu Kikaku
- In the first Blue Sexual Desire series video, acclaimed AV director TOHJIRO got tired of filming Morishita Kurumi's sex and decided to taste her himself. Now, in volley two, he's going after the innocent Nagase Ai, in a self-directed adult video featuring himself as both cameraman and AV actor
- For fans of Japan's lovely swimsuit idols, we've got a new region-free DVD featuring the charming and lovely Ue Sayaka as she is filmed in bikini, sexy costumes, and even boxing gloves
- If you're a fan of Japan's zany professional wrestling characters, we've got a treat -- two very cool toys based on the Great Muta, a popular Japanese wrestler who "transforms" from his "normal self" into a supernatural being
- As noted above, we've reduced the prices on our remaining Funny Japanese T-shirts
- If you're a Pokemon fan, we've got exactly one copy of the 2001 desktop calendar in stock, discounted, on the anime and toys page
- Ever needed to write something in Japanese? Check out the katakana stickers on the stickers & signs page, wacky but also very useful
- Just in time for summer, a product that we at J-List love very much: Japanese mugi tea, a barley tea that is the runaway favorite of Japanese during the unbearable summer months. Now you can enjoy healthy mugi tea all the time, with the cold water tea bags we've got on the Japanese snacks and food page
- We've gotten in fresh stock of several of our unique flavors of Japanese gum
- Finally, our new Wacky Things from Japan include a bizarre new keychain/camera strap/key holder that's a zipper (yes, a zipper) -- zip it around your wrist to keep from losing your keys. Also, new katakana story books (for anyone trying to learn to write Japanese), and more!
There's been some kind of weird change in how credit card processing for the UK works, and the result has been some confusing address verification errors with UK buyers. We apologize in advance for any confusion, and will work to push your orders through with as little hassle as possible. | <urn:uuid:c4191c45-204f-4764-954b-de37f5c25b16> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.peterpayne.net/2001_06_10_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963084 | 1,423 | 1.890625 | 2 |
Reader comments are listed below. Comments are currently closed and new comments are no longer being accepted.
it's worth a tweet
Spanish kisses sounds like fun
'Micro-bloggers ... wrote “Bo” in English'---as opposed to writing “Bo” in Spanish, is it?
or as opposed to any languages which use Latin alphabet...
The Latin alphabet isn't particularly good at conveying the sound of words to others. The Poles and Lithuanians are now in a highly emotional fight in Spanishover differences in the writing of their languages, particularly the lack of the letter "W" in Lithuanian.
Choosing "B" as an example is interesting.
The letter "B" represents a different sound in English and Spanish.
In Spanish as with Russian and modern Greek, what looks like "B" sounds more like "V." To write the sound of "B" in modern Greek, the Greeks use a mu followed by a pi.
Chinese and Japanese (and I assume many other languages here) require more information per character. One should compare not the number of characters, but the amount of data. Typically, asian character sets use two bytes for each character where western languages use a single byte per character. I would suggest the study is understating the East-Asian languages by half. Is anyone familiar with how Arabic, Urdu, Tagalog, etc are stored?
The Economist does the count by the final characters shown in a tweet.
Even if considering so-called double bytes, the English tweet, cited in the Economist article, has 78 characters, while the Chinese one has still only 24*2, which is 48.
Twitter and Sina Wēibó Web Systems use Unicode UTF8. Assuming text is also stored as Unicode UTF8, which it most likely is, then:
Arabic requires 2 bytes
Chinese requires 3 bytes
Latin requires 1 byte for basic characters (ASCII) but requires 2 bytes for other Latin characters. eg e requires 1 byte but é requires 2 bytes
Actually I should add that some Latin characters require 3 bytes eg h requires 1 byte but ḥ requires 3 bytes
The first sentence could be shorted in chinese: 此七十八字英语推若用中文仅十六字
16 characters = 32 bytes
Great job : ) I was going to post my version which shortened it to 19 characters but you beat me.
Actually can shorten it still to 15 characters if in lieu of 七十八, use 78 as in the English version.
Chinese is harder to learn but once you learnws it, it can be much faster to read and write in it. I have lived for more years in the U.S. than in China and I read and write English for a living, but I am still a faster reader in Chinese. I think one reason is mechanical -- the amount of space to be scanned is smaller in Chinese.
one thing to add -- writing Chinese by hand is not fast at all and I think if one counds the number of strokes instead of characters, Chinese is probably longer than English. But this disadvantage disappears with computer input.
A wonderful chart.
Not just in Weibo (microblog), Chinese writing was developed over thousands of years ago when writing or making imprint was difficult.
As a result and over time, a most scientific writing system was evolved, as it is so structured that it literally needs no punctuation marks without losing its meaning (to a causally trained eye) and is independent of speaking variations or changes that must have been happening continuously over the course of time and locals, a fitting feature for man-machine communication or computer language application in fact.
Succinct, precise, brevity in beauty are the key operatives and essence of classical Chinese writing.
Most Chinese classics are so written and that’s one of the reasons why Chinese can read books, letters and document today written hundreds or thousands of years ago without much difficulty.
Weibo provides a rejuvenation of classical Chinese writing, along with new inventions of sort of internetnese in Chinese. A rather nice modern play of innovation over the legacy of Chinese writing of human kind treasures indeed, IMO.
You should read RLG's (the Johnson blogger) book You Are What You Speak. No language, written or spoken, is intrinsically superior to another.
Also, just last week I was given a counter-example to this statement of yours: "why Chinese can read books, letters and document today written hundreds or thousands of years ago without much difficulty."
I separately showed a 120 year-old piece of writing to two Chinese friends of mine, both told me it was VERY hard to understand for them, partly because the characters have evolved, partly because there is no punctuation, partly because the language has evolved.
I know I shouldn't reply to your posts, but I had to bite this time.
This is a very interesting subject. In an earlier time, people used many standard abbreviations in writing formally in English.
Even before the internet, the Chinese, as well as others who used or understood characters, could communicate with the Chinese Telegraphic Code.
This system provided for 10,000 characters encoded with a four digit decimal number, (0000 to 9999). Even people who don't understand the language but who had a code book in their own language may look up the character and read its meanings from the number. This would take 2 bytes to encode each character; there would be room for additional characters and emoticons. Conceptually, the two byte system could be used for 65536 emoticons.
I understand that some British consulates still require people with names written in Chinese characters to write their names in the telegraphic code for identification.
There are other coding methods with advantages beyond brevity. Unicode, which takes four bytes to encode a single character is useful for encoding in most writing systems in use in the world.
You may have noticed a warning about it when sending a message with foreign writing.
There are coding methods possible with even more brevity. The fingers of one hand may be tapped or pressed on a recording surface (think of the keys of a piano) in 31 different ways. That's enough to send lower case letters in most languages.
If Gamilaraay,an indigenous Australian language,has only 3 living speakers and only one is tweeting who is he/she tweeting to ? Outer space ?
She/He tweets to conserve the language! (Even with no one to tweet back...)
I have friends who won't even do email. Perhaps the tweeter knows the other two and is trying to strike up a conversation. The situation for him/her is better than for those who transmit to extraterrestrial aliens in outer space. The Gamilaraay speakers are known to exist, but aren't answering. The aliens may not exist. On to the other hand, they may be reading the human signals but might just not be interested.
Evidently there are two linguistic system. One is composed of Hieroglyphics characters like Chinese,way like,"人"(two legs) mean human being,another is from Latin like English. Comparing them,Hieroglyphics characters can express more using less characters but it's inconvenient on programming.
Chinese is an ideographic language, not Hieroglyphics. The Chinese characters are formed in way more structural ways than hieroglyphic pictures or signs.
A similar analysis would be interesting applied to spoken languages, rather than written. In that case I believe the number of syllables has to be counted instead. And English, which for instance has very long monosyllabic words, is still advantageous over latin languages (e.g.: Italian syllables are never longer than 3 letters).
An interesting thought. A way to "tweet" a representation of sound without the sounds themselves, possibly coding sound with the International Phonetic Alphabet might be possible, but extending it to such things as tone would be needed. Coding the "signs" of sign language might also be profitable. I speak only enough Italian to help me travel and enjoy the country, but the first word that I thought of was "ciao," which I think is one syllable and has four letters. Of course, it has only three sounds.
I think that many English words are polysyllabic. I might have used the word "romance" instead of Latin, because many of the modern romance languages incorporated elements of other Italic languages rather than classical Latin. One such as Ladin (Ladinish" as the Germans call it, that I encountered while skiing in the Dolomites seem to have been spoken long before The Roman Empire made Latin a standard.
There is also a problem when the sounds of one language have quite a different meaning in another. I do speak Russian, and there is an anecdote about Russian sailors on a submarine passing by Italy and listening to to the song, "Amore" on the local radio. Ivan says to Oleg: "Listen, they are singing a song about the sea..." I write the name of the sea song in lookalike Cyrillic with Latin letters. "O Mope."
Thanks for the provocative post.
Yes, I'm sorry, though being Italian, on that day I had a mental void, which disallowed me to figure out any syllable longer than 3 characters! :-) There are more than a few indeed.
And also, by latin languages I meant romance languages.
Thanks for your enthusiastic reply!
I have a proposal to make English more brief and efficient for the Twitter Era:
-Lose all vowels, except for first letter vowels
-Eliminate the word spaces
-Each new word begins with a capital.
It requires a little work but is still somewhat intelligible.
It cuts down sentence space by 30-50%.
or just give each word in the dictionary an alphanumeric code and use that code to tweet... :-)
Isn't the whole point of micro-blogging to limit the amount of information that can be relayed at one time with a completely arbitrary character limit? It's not like micro-blogging exists in order to conserve bandwidth.
If the point of micro-blogging were, in fact, to use the least bandwidth or screen real-estate, then yes, Chinese is an ideal micro-blogging language.
If, however, the point is to enforce conciseness, then it is not any more ideal for microblogging than any other language.
I agree. The article also fails to take into account that each character requires several key strokes to form, though this is obscured in the final sentence. If English could use .gifs for every unit of meaning, i.e. go + ing = 2 .gifs then Chinese's edge would be reduced.
No "fiddly accents"? They're only "fiddly" from an English-speaking perspective – and a monolingual one, at that.
Classical Chinese would make Twitter even more useful. Four characters in Classical Chinese is equivalent to a full sentence of seven or eight characters of a modern Chinese language. Not to mention a more rigorous grammar. The packed efficiency makes me wonder why the Chinese started trending towards the modern languages of today.
A con of utilizing Chinese characters is the font and size. At times, I had to enlarge the font of the page to be able to recognize the characters used.
LoL now I know why Spanish and Italian people talk so much
I was interested to see how Esperanto compared and did a brief study using some convenient data from Twitter: http://blog.bierfaristo.com/node/525
Ah,Tweeting is rly a effective and efficient way to protect rare language before it vanished. Researchers can also have access to studying them.
What is the English translation of Twitterbird's metremenkemet utterance that has the Sinophone flying eyeball so confounded? Looks like 'ba'ijaranad' but its meaning is lost on me...
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See a selection of The Economist's articles, events, topical videos and debates on Facebook. | <urn:uuid:3c50a5ee-ef96-4569-9568-665156e778e3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.economist.com/node/21551466/comments?sort=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947964 | 2,565 | 2.859375 | 3 |
Williamsport Mayor Gabriel J. Campana is indicating that without concessions from the city's unions, the city's budget is about to become unsustainable for taxpayers.
Whether you agree with his thinking matters less than the math, which says it all.
The city reportedly faces an increase of $1.7 million to meet its minimum pension obligation.
It's facing sharp increases in health care costs.
The fire and police departments comprise 68 percent of the city budget.
To avoid a tax increase, layoffs and outsourcing of services, something has to give.
The key numbers of the city budget are becoming unaffordable for Williamsport's limited tax base.
The fact is, whether it's the federal, state or local government, the pension and health care benefits of public employees are simply much more generous than those provided to private-sector employees.
We are not here to begrudge these employees their benefits, but the fact is, someone else is paying for those benefits and they are no longer sustainable.
And in cities such as Williamsport, these salaries, benefits, pensions and health care costs make up such a high percentage of the budget that there is no way to solve a budget problem without addressing them.
Given the situation, this is a rare time when we can understand a tax increase, unless the key elements of the city's budget are changed significantly.
At the very least, all of the city's unionized personnel should be paying the $500 deductible the city police pay on their medical coverage. And unionized personnel hired today should be under pension and retirement rules that more closely resemble the terms the private sector works under.
We understand the need for public unions and how essential their original founding was. Many years ago public sector workers made significantly less money than private sector employees and generous benefits were a way to reward public servants for their career choices. But today's reality is that most public employees have salaries and benefits that outpace those of the taxpayers in the private sector who are paying for them and it is time for some concessions.
Desperate times require desperate measures. The unions and administration need to talk frankly and openly now about what changes can be made in current labor agreements to bring the city's costs to a point where layoffs and hefty tax increases can be avoided.
And, if it hasn't already happened, the administration and council's finance committee need to start looking closely at drastic changes in the city's budget for next year to avoid a financial crisis. | <urn:uuid:7c50541d-c822-4e90-bf25-24f31861521e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sungazette.com/page/content.detail/id/583873/Unsustainable-costs-put-city-on-the-edge-of-financial-crisis.html?nav=5004 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958586 | 501 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Education's value will grow in Florida's new economy
David A. Denslow Jr.
Published in Tallahassee Democrat
The current economic recession is severe, particularly in Florida. Most of its consequences are painful. It would be unfortunate to suffer the pain without making changes that will enable us to emerge with an economy strengthened for the long haul.
Florida's economic downturn began well before the nation entered a recession, if the number of jobs is the criterion. From March 2007 through December 2008, we lost 287,000 jobs.
If forecasters are correct, the nation still has nearly a year of recession ahead. But Florida's recession is likely to last three months longer, because it will take that amount of time for retirees to sell their houses up North before moving here.
During this severe downturn, the structure of the state's economy is changing, and some of the changes will be permanent:
- The population growth rate over the next 20 years is projected to average about half of what it was over the past 20; that means a reduced role for industries related to growth, such as construction and real estate. They will remain important, but diminished, as a share of overall economic activity.
- There will be an acceleration of the long decline in the state's manufacturing jobs, including industries that feed directly into construction and those that process food crops.
- Jobs in retail trade will become a smaller share of the total, partly because Floridians won't be spending as much and partly because the Internet makes information about products readily available, reducing the need for in-store guidance.
- Finance is becoming a smaller share of the economy, nationally and in Florida.
When we finally emerge from the recession, tourism will remain a major sector, and there will be more jobs providing services to retirees. The baby boomers, born from 1946 to 1964, are hitting their 60s. Many will retire and move to Florida once they sell their houses in the Midwest and Northeast.
As the economy recovers, will Florida diversify toward more high-value-added workers?
Florida has only 68 percent of its expected share of the nation's managers, 64 percent of its scientists and 74 percent of its engineers. As a high-amenity state, Florida has the potential to attract more and more professionals. The quality of life will continue to persuade affluent retirees to locate here.
For Florida's potential to be realized, most important is improving education. At the postsecondary level, the crucial issue is whether universities and the Legislature will reach agreement on funding.
Will the Legislature grant universities the right to raise tuition substantially and deal creatively with the constraints imposed by the Bright Futures and Florida Prepaid programs?
Will universities find a way to assure the Legislature that they will use additional funds to create smaller classes, hire more advisers, boost graduation rates and increase need-based scholarships?
This will require trust and political courage, but it is certainly feasible. The economic value of higher education to a state has been confirmed by recent empirical analyses. Typical is a July 2008 report by Jaison Abel and Todd Gabe of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. They estimated the economic effect of having one more college graduate in a state's work force.
Applying their results to Florida, I find that having one more college graduate working in Florida would lift the state's output by $120,000 a year. At first this seems unreasonable, because a college graduate generates only $40,000 in additional output. The extra $80,000 results from the boost a college graduate gives to other workers with whom he works and the capital (equipment and structures) they use. In the language of economics, college workers have strong positive externalities.
This effect will be multiplied if we attract more high-value-added workers from other states. One of the most important amenities enabling states to attract and keep more educated professionals is excellent K-12 schools. But improving primary and secondary schools may be more challenging than raising the quality of higher education.
If education can be both reformed and adequately funded, many of the students emerging from the system should remain in Florida, creating a pool of talented workers who will attract their peers from other states. These workers will want to increase their own productivity by working with proficient teams, further boosting the supply of high-value-added workers.
To attract and retain businesses, the regulatory and legal environments must provide adequate protection for workers and customers without being capricious or overbearing. Courts must be properly funded and judges well-paid. Too much of Florida's tax burden has been shifted from households to businesses. There should be a rebalancing so that the businesses, especially those that export goods and services, pay only their fair share of taxes.
Just as the housing boom came to an end, so will the recession. Emerging from it with a stronger and more balanced economy will not simply happen. Reforming and funding education and attracting and keeping businesses that employ high-value-added workers are the critical components.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- David A. Denslow Jr. is a distinguished service professor of economics and is active in the Bureau of Economic and Business Research at the University of Florida's Warrington College of Business Administration. He was on the Governor's Council of Economic Advisors, authored numerous articles in economic publications, and co-authored (with Carol Weissert) "Tough Choices: Shaping Florida's Future" for the Collins Institute. Contact him at firstname.lastname@example.org. | <urn:uuid:deac00e8-6c88-4f6e-8399-f8f060156ea5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.flbog.edu/pressroom/news.php?id=292 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956965 | 1,121 | 2.15625 | 2 |
NEW YORK< NY.- Fitzroy Gallery
presents Country, a solo exhibition of new work by London-based artist Gerry Judah, which is comprised of six large-scale monochrome paintings. This is Gerry Judahs first exhibition in the United States and is on view until January 29 2011.
Judahs work is a direct response to landscapes of destruction and explores war, conflict, peace, natural disasters and devastation. Urban landscapes, constructed from buildings, complete with internal structures, communication wires and water towers are fixed onto canvas, and then systematically destroyed resulting in frozen vignettes of silence and loss.
The rubble and debris are fused onto a background of empty canvas with layers of acrylic gesso to create monochrome and quasi-abstract compositions. The white on white, black on black and red on red constructions are epic in scale and story.
The paintings, based on aerial photography, are inspired by conflict - particularly in the Middle East, whether it be in Iraq, Afghanistan or Gaza. Judahs work also reflects global concerns for the environment, and the decimation that follows natural disasters, such as the flooding of New Orleans in 2005, and the recent Australian bushfires.
Gerry Judah was born in Calcutta, India in 1952, and studied art at Barnet College of Art. In 1970, he obtained a First-Class Honors degree in Fine Art at Goldsmiths College, University of London, and studied sculpture as a postgraduate at the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London.
Judah transgresses the traditional boundaries of the gallery space, utilizing the democratic nature of the public arenas of theatre, film, television and museums. His innovative work includes sets for BBC, Channel Four, British Museum, Natural History Museum, Imperial War Museum, and for artists including Paul McCartney, Michael Jackson, Led Zeppelin, Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, and The Who. He has also produced sculptures for Ferrari, Porsche, Audi, Jaguar, Mercedes Benz, Rolls Royce and Alfa Romeo at the annual Goodwood Festival of Speed, and has designed bridges in London and Cambridge.
Judah has had solo exhibitions and projects at Louise T. Blouin Foundation, London, Imperial War Museum, Manchester, and the British High Commission, Delhi. | <urn:uuid:35f85973-a720-4c6d-8713-4f8a1dffdac6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=11&int_new=43741&int_modo=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936953 | 464 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Favors federal Paul Revere legislation
National hero Paul Revere has emerged as a symbol for a new day that is dawning in the United States.
Revere galloped through the streets of the rebellious colonies to warn of threats on a distant horizon, declaring:"The British are coming!"
Revere's simple message is as familiar to most Americans as any other event from our Revolutionary War.
In late February, several modern day whistleblowers gathered in a congressional hearing room to sound alarms, for a time of national crisis.
Receiving the most attention was Bogdan Dzakovic, a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) agent for the last 14 years who has led special teams to test airport security.
Dzakovic's message for Americans was the number one or two televised news stories on ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and the Black Entertainment Network, as well as the lead story in the newspaper USA Today.
According to special agent Dzakovic, the FAA had ignored repeated warnings before Sept. 11, 2001 that security was inadequate at most of the nation's airports.
Even after the tragic events last September, airport mock terrorist readiness exercises resulted in fatal penetrations 90 percent of the time.
The federal agency publicly left the false impression that the protective forces' success rate was 90 percent.
Then there were the two whistleblowers whose revelations have brought national attention to security problems at nuclear weapons facilities.
Ron Timm heads a small firm that has evaluated security at U.S. Department of Energy sites for 17 years.
Timm has found that mock terrorist assaults on DOE facilities succeed more often than the attacks fail.
Matthew Zipoli, the other nuclear weapons whistleblower, is the vice president of the security officers union at Lawrence Livermore Laboratories in the Bay area of northern California.
Zipoli has revealed how farcical security operations have become at the University of California facility.
During a recent bomb threat at the University of California, the untrained security force reportedly acted in ways reminiscent of Keystone Cops.
The security personnel were purportedly looking for bombs with no earthly idea what an explosive device would look like or how to deal with it, herding the entire security force into the targeted structure and keeping all employees in the threatened building rather than evacuating it.
More ominously, Zipoli reported that the mock terrorists had obtained access to the facility's plutonium 100 percent of the time. In addition, 80 percent of the time, the mock terrorists had managed to escape the facility's secure area with a package that represented plutonium - the key ingredient for nuclear weapons.
After the security officers union vice president raised the nuclear-related concerns, the University of California fired Zipoli.
Also at the gathering in Washington, D.C., former U.S. Customs special agent Darlene Catalan blew the whistle on the vulnerability of the nation's borders.
Catalan reported security lapses on the border that offered opportunities for human migration as well as the smuggling of drugs and weapons. She noted that each day from 5,000 to 10,000 uninspected tanker cars roll into the country from Mexico.
Randy Robarge raised security concerns at the Seabrook nuclear power plant. He identified weaknesses in the program to screen potential employees and vulnerabilities of key areas of the facility to airborne assault by commercial airliners.
Several Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. Congress, including Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa and Rep. Steve Israel of New York, have responded to the whistleblowers by offering a Paul Revere bill.
The proposed federal legislation would provide a remedy for government and corporate employees who are retaliated against for communicating with Congress and public agencies about their concerns.
Paul Revere succeeded in sounding an alarm because the Americans who heard the message rose to the occasion and defended our new nation.
The least the U.S. government and citizens can do today is defend the courageous employees who have risked jobs and careers to warn us of potentially catastrophic dangers. | <urn:uuid:0b02b717-a37a-4024-b507-bd4067062e1a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sunadvocate.com/index.php?tier=1&article_id=643&poll=265&vote=results | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953724 | 812 | 2.0625 | 2 |
Ban criticised the Iranian comments as against the UN charter
UN chief Ban Ki-moon has said he was "shocked and dismayed" at recent comments by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad about Israel.
Iran's official news agency reported Mr Ahmadinejad saying that the world would soon see Israel's destruction.
He said the war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006 showed for the first time Israel's weakness.
The Iranian leader is a outspoken critic of Israel and has said the Holocaust of European Jewry is a myth.
"The secretary-general points out that the state of Israel is a full and longstanding member of the United Nations with the same rights and obligations as every other member," the UN statement read.
"Under the United Nations Charter, all members have undertaken to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state."
Mr Ahmadinejad was quoted by Irna, the official Iranian news agency, as saying: "The hegemony of the occupier regime [Israel] had collapsed, and the Lebanese nation pushed the button to begin counting the days until the destruction of the Zionist regime."
"God willing, in the near future we will witness the destruction of the corrupt occupier regime," Mr Ahmadinejad said.
In October 2005, the Iranian president made a statement in which he envisaged the replacement of Israel with a Palestinian state. This was widely translated as a call for Israel to be "wiped off the map".
While he has repeated similar comments many times, he has insisted that Iran is not a threat to Israel.
Israel failed to achieve its stated aims in the war with Hezbollah last year.
An Israeli inquiry into the war concluded in April that Israel's political and military leaders were guilty of "very serious failings" in handling the war. | <urn:uuid:8caa5eea-d087-4e2e-9341-b6f96494d588> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6733487.stm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974818 | 369 | 1.804688 | 2 |
For the US house of representatives foreign affairs committee to decide that the killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915 constituted genocide, as it did Thursday by a one-vote margin, would be acceptable and even praiseworthy if it were part of a serious historical effort to review all the great atrocities of modern history. But the singling out of Turks for censure, among all the killers of the 20th century, is something quite different. This vote was a triumph of emotion, a victory for ethnic lobbying, and another example of the age-old American impulse to play moral arbiter for the world.
Turkey recalled its ambassador in Washington immediately after the vote, which was broadcast live on Turkish television. The resolution now goes to the full House of Representatives. Given the pull of moneyed politics, and President Obama's unwillingness or inability to bring Congress to heel on this issue, as Presidents Bush and Clinton did, it could pass. That would provoke much anger in Turkey, and might weaken the US-Turkish relationship at the precise moment when the US needs to strengthen it.
In the past few years, Turkey has taken on a new and assertive role in the Middle East and beyond. Turkey can go places, talk to factions, and make deals that the US cannot. Yet it remains fundamentally aligned with western values and strategic goals. No other country is better equipped to help the US navigate through the region's treacherous deserts, steppes and mountains.
Would it be worth risking all of this to make a clear moral statement? Perhaps. What emerged from Washington this week, though, was no cry of righteous indignation. Various considerations, including the electoral power of Armenian-Americans, may have influenced members of Congress. It is safe to surmise, however, that few took time to weigh the historical record soberly and seek to place the Ottoman atrocity in the context of other 20th century massacres.
Two questions face Congress as it considers whether to call the 1915 killings genocide. The first is the simple historical question: was it or wasn't it? Then, however, comes an equally vexing second question: is it the responsibility of the US Congress to make sensitive judgments about events that unfolded long ago? The first question is debatable, the second is not.
Congress has neither the capacity nor the moral authority to make sweeping historical judgments. It will not have that authority until it sincerely investigates other modern slaughters – what about the one perpetrated by the British in Kenya during the 1950s, documented in a devastating study that won the 2006 Pulitzer prize? – and also confronts aspects of genocide in the history of the United States itself. Doing this would require an enormous amount of largely pointless effort. Congress would be wiser to recognise that it does not exist to penetrate the vicissitudes of history or dictate fatwas to the world.
This vote has already harmed US-Turkish relations because it has angered many Turks. If the resolution proceeds through Congress, it will cause more harm. This is lamentable, because declining US-Turkish relations will be bad for both countries and for the cause of regional stability. Just as bad, the vote threatens to upset the fragile reconciliation that has been underway between Turkey and Armenia in recent months.
In this episode is encapsulated one of the timeless truths of diplomacy. Emotion is the enemy of sound foreign policy; cool consideration of long-term self-interest is always wiser. Congress seems far from realising this. | <urn:uuid:414a2673-8fb8-4c66-b9fc-caeade19f332> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/mar/05/turkey-armenia-genocide-us-vote | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962819 | 697 | 2.25 | 2 |
This week, the Open Government Partnership (OGP) will convene its first annual meeting in Brasilia. The OGP is a coalition of member countries that have made documented commitments to making their government more open and accountable (you can find a list of country specific commitments here). The OGP has five grand challenges, one of which is increased corporate accountability. This is a subject near and dear to our heart, particularly as it relates to those corporations that have interactions with the government, such as with contracting or campaign finance. Today, OpenCorporates releases a new report that surveys the availability of open corporate data in the participating OGP countries (including the U.S.). The results? The Czech Republic and Albania are killing us!
The report ranked the OGP countries in four main areas: Basic online data availability at no cost or registration, an open license, bulk data availability, and the depth of data available. In the U.S., this data is generally available at the state level. It's surprising how many states don't think this information should be publicly available at no cost. If you're asking why this data should be available, check out this World Bank report on how the ability of corporate structures to shield ownership facilitates corruption. Or read this news story on how one family used multiple shell corporations to get around the political giving limits. You could also peruse this report by members of the Federal Reserve Board on how opaque corporate hierarchies make it very difficult to evaluate the financial risk in a global market. Obscuring corporate relationships and ownership structures make it even harder to predict the kind of domino effect we witnessed in the recent financial crisis.
It's great the OGP picked increased corporate accountability as one of its five challenges, but as you can see from the graphic below, most OGP countries aren't living up to the ideal. The U.S. is being surpassed by the Czech Republic, Albania and the Slovak Republic (and in a couple of months, the UK). No offense is meant to those countries, but the longstanding democratic government of the U.S. should be in a better position than this.
One step we can take in the U.S. is to start collecting more corporate ownership information than we currently do. Right now there's a bill in both the House and Senate that would take concrete steps towards solving this problem. Write or call your representatives and ask them to support S.1483 or H.R.3416.
Disclosure: Kaitlin is on the OpenCorporates advisory board | <urn:uuid:a178ca31-9d9b-42ac-ad03-00eae0801a6b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2012/04/16/survey-on-open-corporate-data-ranks-former-soviet-countries-as-more-transparent-than-the-u-s/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953189 | 517 | 2.046875 | 2 |
Two Enloe Magnet High students beat out more than 24,000 other participants for top spots in America’s largest high school essay contest conducted by the Bill of Rights Institute.
Freshman Stuart Wells earned Second Place and $1,000 and freshman Qingyang Xing earned third place and $500. Wells and Xing’s sponsoring teacher, Cameron O’Quinn, received matching cash prizes. The students represented the South Atlantic Region in the fifth annual national Being an American Essay Contest.
Wells, Xing, and O’Quinn also won paid trips to the nation’s capital, where they were honored on March 22 at an awards gala emceed by Juan Williams and featuring a keynote address by John Stossel. The Washington, D.C. trip also included a Capitol Hill luncheon and tours of the U.S. Capitol, Supreme Court, and National Archives.
The students shared their thoughts on American citizenship by answering the following question: “What civic value do you believe is most essential to being an American?”
In his essay, Wells selected “responsibility” as the civic value topic and thought James K. Polk, eleventh President of the United States, most embodied the American character. In his essay, Wells wrote, “Responsibility is the Civic Value that keeps America strong. Through its binding nature, responsibility keeps people on the right track, and gives the average American power over the government that they would otherwise not have. It is only through our citizen’s responsibility that America stays strong in this ever-changing world.”
In her essay, Xing selected “initiative” as the civic value topic and thought Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motor Company, most embodied the American character. Xing wrote, “In America, if one takes chances and works hard, one can succeed beyond one’s wildest dreams: from the leaders of the fledgling country of America, to the pamphlets written by Thomas Paine, to Henry Ford, the prominent American industrialist who revolutionized the automobile industry, to the millions of immigrants who arrive here to start a new life. The pivotal step to success is to take the leap of faith, taking initiative to get the show on the road.”
You can find more information on the Being an American Essay Contest at www.BillofRightsInstitute.org. | <urn:uuid:d2856fba-cb02-40a9-b50a-8752f3fc8b8a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wcpss.net/blog/2011/03/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945986 | 500 | 2.21875 | 2 |
Are we in a recession?
Recession street sign
Steve Chiotakis: I don't think anyone will dispute the fact that our economy is out of sorts -- it's certainly off its A-game. But whether or not we're in a recession may be just a technicality at this point.
Fortune magazine's Allan Sloan is with us now
with his take on it. Good morning Allan.
Allan Sloan: Good morning, Steve.
Chiotakis: The economy's already in the tank. I mean, why does anyone care if we're in a recession?
Sloan: Well, I don't know if people care, but the one thing I can tell you is, it's going to take a long time to find out if in fact we're in a recession now, we won't know for probably at least a year, maybe longer.
Chiotakis: What's the official definition of a recession?
Sloan: It's whatever something called The Business Cycle Dating Committee says is a recession.
Chiotakis: That's not what it sounds like, I'm sure.
Sloan: No, it is not an Internet pick-up operation. It's a bunch of very serious and pretty nice and smart economists working at something called the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Chiotakis: Who is so obsessed about these definitions? Does it really matter? People are hurting; the jobs aren't being created as fast as they should. The economy is not doing very well.
Sloan: I think that's clear, but if you're looking for someone to blame, I think you and I could probably look in the mirror, and a whole lot of our colleagues, because you've got to have something to talk about. So we talk about, 'Are we in a recession? Are we not in a recession?' And A) We're not going to find out for a long time, and B) What good does it -- unless you're a politician -- what difference does it make? You already know the situation.
Chiotakis: You know Allan, we may not technically be in a recession, but will we be sometime soon?
Sloan: Who knows. Maybe we're in a recession now, maybe we aren't. You'll be glad to know that the end of the last recession, which the committee decided ended in June 2009 -- they announced that in September 2010, which was 15 months later. So ask me in 13 months whether we're in a recession now, and I'll have an answer for you.
Chiotakis: We'll have to go to the dating committee.
Sloan: Hey, hey, I'm a married man, you be careful.
Chiotakis: Fortune magazine's Allan Sloan. Allan, thanks.
Sloan: You're welcome, Steve. | <urn:uuid:c99ef914-2921-4056-818c-0476b914e39e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.marketplace.org/topics/business/are-we-recession | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975374 | 592 | 1.882813 | 2 |
There is no test for SAD. Your health care provider can make a diagnosis by asking about your history of symptoms.
The health care provider may also perform a physical exam and blood tests to rule out other disorders that are similar to SAD.
As with other types of depression, antidepressant medicines and talk therapy can be effective.
MANAGING YOUR DEPRESSION AT HOME
To manage your symptoms at home:
Get enough sleep.
Eat a healthy foods.
Take medicines the right way. Ask your health care provider how to manage side effects.
Learn to watch for early signs that your depression is getting worse. Have a plan if it does get worse.
Try to exercise more often. Do activities that make you happy.
Do not use alcohol and illegal drugs. These can make depression worse. They can also affect your judgment about suicide.
When you are struggling with depression, talk about how you are feeling with someone you trust. Try to be around people who are caring and positive. Volunteer or get involved in group activities.
Your health care provider may prescribe light therapy. Light therapy uses a special lamp with a very bright light that mimics light from the sun.
Treatment is started in the fall or early winter, before the symptoms of SAD begin.
Follow your health care provider's instructions about how to use light therapy. One way that may be recommended is to sit a couple of feet away from the light box for about 30 minutes each day. This is usually done in the early morning, to mimic sunrise.
Keep your eyes open, but do not look straight into the light source.
Symptoms of depression should improve within 3 to 4 weeks if light therapy is going to help.
People who take medicines that make them more sensitive to light, such as certain psoriasis drugs, antibiotics, or antipsychotics, should not use light therapy.
A checkup with your eye doctor is recommended before starting treatment.
With no treatment, symptoms usually get better on their own with the change of seasons. Symptoms can improve more quickly with treatment.
The outcome is usually good with treatment. Some people, though, have SAD throughout their lives.
Calling your health care provider
Get medical help right away if you have thoughts of hurting yourself or anyone else.
Byrne B, Brainard GC. Seasonal affective disorder and light therapy. Sleep Med Clin. 2008;3:307-315.
Fava M, Cassano P. Mood disorders: major depressive disorder and dysthymic disorder. In: Stern TA, Rosenbaum JF, Fava M, et al., eds. Massachusetts General Hospital Comprehensive Clinical Psychiatry. 1st ed. Philadelphia, PA: Elsevier Mosby; 2008:chap 29.
Fred K. Berger, MD, Addiction and Forensic Psychiatrist, Scripps Memorial Hospital, La Jolla, California. Also reviewed by A.D.A.M. Health Solutions, Ebix, Inc., Editorial Team: David Zieve, MD, MHA, Bethanne Black, Stephanie Slon, and Nissi Wang. | <urn:uuid:ced6e1cb-5d9d-46b9-aff9-a9170f4fdaa5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nhrmc.org/body.cfm?id=2891&action=detail&AEArticleID=001532&AEProductID=Adam2004_117&AEProjectTypeIDURL=APT_1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918961 | 639 | 2.828125 | 3 |
The Tasmania Fire Service's Community Education Unit delivers a number of programs to the community to enhance community safety. These programs are free-of-charge.
The School Fire Education Program delivers fire safety information to all Tasmanian primary school students, promoting awareness of fire safety and fire hazards, and steps to take if fire breaks out in the home.
The Juvenile Fire Lighter Intervention Program is for children who engage in unsafe fire lighting behaviour at home or in the bush. Program content is tailored to the age and maturity of the children attending.
Project Wake Up! provides opportunities for people with disabilities and aged people to get advice from firefighters about fire safety matters in their homes, and when necessary, to have free smoke alarms installed. | <urn:uuid:2dc28fe7-eaee-4a7c-978f-3970ba719f6e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fire.tas.gov.au/Show?pageId=colCommunityPrograms | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937838 | 147 | 2.9375 | 3 |
In Robert Bolt’s play, A Man for All Seasons, the aging Cardinal Wolsey admonishes Sir Thomas More: “You’re a constant regret to me, Thomas. If you could just see the facts flat on, without that horrible moral squint; with just a little common sense, you could have been a statesman.” Wolsey’s heirs are quick to upbraid our latter-day Mores for their sentimental “moral squint” at public policy. Yet even statesmen of Wolsey’s stripe seldom see the “facts” flat on. Invariably, our perceptions betray our moral squints and prejudices.
Beginning with Leo XIII’s magisterial encyclical on the rights of workers to a living wage (Rerum novarum, 1891), the Roman Catholic Church looks at public policy through the moral squint of its social teaching. In the words of Benedict XVI’s “Message for the 92nd World Day of Migrants and Refugees,” “the Church sees” the suffering of our sisters and brothers “through the eyes of Jesus, who was moved with pity at the sight of the crowds wandering as sheep without a shepherd. (Cf. Mt 9:36).” How then, as citizens of faith, do we fulfill the Gospel’s prophetic mandate, in our present day?
Inspired by the great biblical injunctions of justice or righteousness (sedaqah), right judgment (misphat), and love of neighbor (agape) marking the reign of God, modern Roman Catholic social teaching turns to the distinctively modern idiom of human dignity and the rights that follow from it. The bishops elaborated on these rights in their 1986 pastoral letter:
Catholic social teaching spells out the basic demands of justice...in the human rights of every person. These fundamental rights are prerequisites for a dignified life in community. The Bible vigorously affirms the sacredness of every person as a creature formed in the image and likeness of God. The biblical emphasis on covenant and community also shows that human dignity can only be realized and protected in solidarity with others.
The appeal to human dignity “in solidarity with others” serves as a proximate foundation of human rights, permitting us to speak prophetically to the world. Yet in specifying the “minimum conditions” for the realization of such dignity, the bishops not only ratify, but enrich our notion of rights. For in the church’s social teaching, basic human rights encompass not merely the “negative” civil-political liberties enshrined in our American tradition—e.g., the freedoms from interference or coercion, such as our rights to freedom of worship, assembly and speech—but the “positive” socio-economic rights of security and subsistence, including employment, minimal health care and education: rights necessary for “a dignified life in community.” The theme is echoed in Faithful Citizenship (2007):
The basic right to life implies and is linked to other human rights to the goods that every person needs to live and thrive–including food, shelter, health care, education, and meaningful work. The use of the death penalty, hunger, lack of health care or housing, human trafficking, the human and moral costs of war, and unjust immigration policies are some of the serious moral issues that challenge our consciences and require us to act.Free to Serve
Christian freedom, then, is not merely the freedom from interference by others, but our freedom for service to the community in love: the “end” of freedom is thus not merely private satisfaction, but the “common good” of every person. Solidarity, writes John Paul II, is the characteristic virtue of the common good. In modern Catholic teaching, the common good is conceived distributively, not en masse, as “the sum total of those conditions of social living” that protect and promote the dignity and rights of every person. The common good thus comprises the institutional protection of basic human rights including, a fortiori, the rights of effective participation of those historically denied place and voice.
While recognizing legitimate plurality in a democracy like our own, the common good sets a threshold for dignified life in community. In Faithful Citizenship, our bishops write, “While the common good embraces all, those who are weak, vulnerable and most in need deserve preferential concern. A basic moral test for our society is how we treat the most vulnerable in our midst” (2007: no. 50).
In other words, our moral entitlement to equal respect or consideration, in concert with the ethical ideal of the common good, justifies preferential treatment for those whose basic rights are most imperiled—in Camus’s phrase, our taking “the victim’s side.” Aquinas’s observation that a servant who is ill merits greater attention than a son who is not, is pertinent here: the fulfillment of equal basic rights, in materially dissimilar conditions, justifies a discriminate response. Precisely our concern for equal dignity and equal rights requires that we ask, Whose dignity and rights are unequally threatened? The church’s moral squint, her “option for the poor,” bids us ask: “Who is missing from the table of policy, whose voice suppressed?”
Finally, as our bishops observe, our solidarity, ordered to the common good, bids us to “be careful stewards of “God’s creation and to ensure a safe and hospitable environment for vulnerable human beings now and in the future.” How, then, does our “moral squint” guide our thinking on public policy? What lessons for voting might we draw?Lessons for voting
A. Worthy persuasion: The norms that govern personal choice, such as my opposition to abortion or racism, likewise govern social choice, but differently. For personal choice, I must ask what moral rules, attitudes and beliefs form my conscience. And these rules, attitudes and beliefs may be distinctively religious. If I believe certain actions are wrong, especially if they are always wrong (intrinsically evil), I can never perform them—or intentionally (formally) cooperate in their performance—whatever the consequences might be. I am categorically obliged by the dictates of my conscience.
But suppose, as in politics, the question is not merely my obligation to form my conscience, but my obligation, as a citizen of faith, to influence yours. I must, as Dignitatas Humanae (nos. 7, 4) reminds us, engage in “worthy persuasion.” I must find the very best arguments that will persuade you. For those who share my Christian or Catholic beliefs, I will look to Scripture and Tradition, including magisterial pronouncements. In a religiously pluralist society, however, worthy persuasion will typically entail public reasons: reasons that we share, or should share, as citizens. And here we appeal to the modern lingua franca of dignity and human rights. On questions of immigration, abortion, or health care, for instance, we appeal to the basic human rights of the most vulnerable in our midst. As citizens of faith, then, we seek not to impose or legislate our particular morality, but rather to legislate morally, in accordance with the basic human rights that underlie the legitimacy of law and public policy.
B. Precepts are not policy. Like moral rules generally, such rights oblige us to behave in certain ways. But precepts, typically, do not immediately determine policy. For social policy, I must ask the further question of how we best fulfill such rights through the imperfect instrument of law. And here our reasoning is, in Amartya Sen’s words, “consequentially sensitive.” Indeed, as we saw, in the Catholic tradition is ordered to the common good—to the institutions and laws that best preserve, protect and promote basic human rights.
Voting, then, is not simply a referendum on values. Rather voting constitutes an exercise of prudential deliberation which enables us, in the words of the Catechism, “to discern our true good in every circumstance and to choose the right means of achieving it” (no. 1806; Faithful Citizenship, no. 19). In a democratic society, as we seek to discern our true good, we vote not so much for values or precepts as from them. Clearly we vote for candidates who, to a greater or lesser degree, embody values we cherish. But chief among these values that mark character is wisdom, and wisdom looks to consequences. Which program, policy, or candidate, we must ask, will best preserve, protect, and promote the common good?
As Aquinas reminds us, not all precepts of natural law are fittingly legislated as civil law, nor are violations of natural law necessarily proscribed by criminal sanction. Coercive law remains an imperfect instrument. We have generally agreed, for instance, that not all “intrinsically evil” actions (e.g., artificial contraception) are fit subjects for criminal prosecution. Neither is the wisdom of a particular law exhausted by what it says; wise leaders will look at what it does: once implemented, is the law likely to protect or harm the most vulnerable?
C. Be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Can a Catholic, then, vote for a candidate who in turn votes for a policy permitting abortion? Or to put the question more precisely, is it morally permissible for a legislator to vote for a policy permitting what is morally impermissible? And could I vote for such a candidate?
The question we face is how best to “limit the evil aspects” of prevailing policies, laws or practices. We must ask which feasible proposal will best promote and least violate the rights of all affected, especially the most vulnerable. In the words of our bishops:
Prudence shapes and informs our ability to deliberate over available alternatives, to determine what is most fitting to a specific context, and to act…As Catholics seek to advance the common good, we must carefully discern which public policies are morally sound. (Faithful Citizenship, no. 20).
Such prudential reasoning, legitimately and properly, pertains to abortion policy. In voting for a candidate, I must ask, not only what candidate X explicitly professes, but whether electing her or him will likely contribute to a decrease in abortions. David Hollenbach, S.J., writes, “Whether the number of abortions can be reduced more effectively by taking economic and other preventative measures that reduce pressures on women to consider abortion or by passing legislation that simply bans abortion outright is clearly a matter of practical wisdom. Reaching a judgment on such a matter calls for the exercise of the classic virtue of prudence” (Journal of Religion and Society).
With the virtue of practical wisdom, we recover our “moral squint.” And it is a squint that looks to all morally relevant issues, precisely because “the basic right to life implies and is linked to other human rights and goods that every person needs to live and thrive—including food, shelter, health care, education and meaningful work” (Faithful Citizenship).Political Temptations
Let me conclude, then, by touching upon the temptations that beset faithful citizens today:
A. Hiding our light under a bushel basket (Mt. 5:14). As we argued earlier, the wisdom of our Roman Catholic heritage is also “catholic” or universal in the lower case sense of the word. Catholic Social Teaching rests upon revelation and reason; there is no “double truth.” Thus to those who share our biblical texts, we speak in the cadences of Scripture. But faithful citizens engage in “worthy persuasion.” We must translate the great biblical injunctions and deposit of tradition into the persuasive rhetoric of human rights if the Gospel is to be heard in our present today.
Much hinges on this. For if we fail to engage in public reasoning, we play into the very rhetoric we so adamantly oppose. For many who accept abortion, after all, the issue is settled by choice; there is no public, common good to be adjudicated in public policy. And in the absence of such a common good, negative liberty—the rights of choice—typically prevail. Indeed, if we oppose abortion merely because we are Catholic, we effectively concede the primacy of choice in a religiously pluralist polity like our own.
But we are not imposing our morality, as if it were merely a form of Catholic etiquette. No, we appeal to a common good that should shape our common life as citizens—this is the wisdom of our Catholic heritage. We are not biblical or magisterial positivists. We have a rich heritage of worthy persuasion; let us not hide it under a bushel basket.
B. Doing the wrong deed for the right reason. T. S. Eliot memorably wrote in Murder in the Cathedral that “the last temptation is the greatest treason: to do the right deed for the wrong reason.” But the converse is also true. Our good intentions do not absolve us from making wise, prudential decisions. Citizens of faith must look at all policies and the consequences of implementing them from the perspective of the most vulnerable. And here we may differ, not on whether, but on how what Pope Benedict calls “social charity” (Deus caritas est, no. 29) is best practiced “in the present today.
Our bishops remind us, “As Catholics we are not single-issue voters. A candidate’s position on a single issue is not sufficient to guarantee a voter’s support,” even if a candidate’s support for “an issue that involves an intrinsic evil, such as support for legal abortion or the promotion of racism, may legitimately lead a voter to disqualify a candidate from receiving support.” Our bishops follow Benedict when they write that
There may be times when a Catholic who rejects a candidate’s unacceptable position may decide to vote for that candidate for other morally grave reasons. Voting in this way would be permissible only for truly grave moral reasons, not to advance narrow interests or partisan preferences or to ignore a fundamental moral evil. (Faithful Citizenship, no. 35).
The virtue of prudence summons us to vote reflectively, never ignoring grave reasons that bear on the common good. What might such grave reasons be? A faithful citizen who opposes Roe vs. Wade may doubt whether electing a given candidate will be effective: since 1973, the majority of Supreme Court justices have been appointed by Republican presidents, and the decision remains. So too, citizens may doubt whether overturning Roe will resolve the question: reversing Roe would merely remand the issue to the states, the majority of which would likely preserve abortion. Concern for other issues such as poverty, where one’s vote could make a greater difference, may then prevail.
And finally, as we observed above, a faithful citizen may believe that social and economic policies that support pre- and post-natal care would more likely reduce the incidence of abortion. Others, to be sure, may believe that the possibility of reversing Roe vs. Wade outweighs such considerations. What is in dispute for faithful citizens, then, is not so much the relative gravity of the issues but the wisdom of our reasons in adjudicating them. Indeed, precisely because I am so opposed to the intrinsic evils of abortion and racism, I must prudentially deliberate about which policy or candidate will best protect the rights of the most vulnerable, including the unborn. By the same token, neglecting such grave reasons—disregarding Roe vs. Wade or merely voting for a candidate because of his or her stated position on Roe without weighing the consequences—is imprudent: Doing the wrong thing for the right reasons is not noble; it is simply wrong. Just as a failure to engage in “worthy persuasion,” belies our Catholic wisdom, so a failure to develop the virtue of prudence betrays both faith and citizenship.
C. Be wise as serpents and innocent as doves—and not the other way around (Mt. 10:16). We have a rich tradition of public reasoning. We must, like the scribe whom Jesus commends in Matthew’s Gospel (13:52), be adept at drawing out what is old in Scripture and Tradition, when we speak to co-religionists, and drawing out what is new when we speak to citizens. Faithful citizenship requires no less.
So too, our public reasoning looks to the common good. The virtue of prudence, as the Catechism states, bids us “to discern our true good in every circumstance and to choose the right means of achieving it.” Such good is specified by the principal themes of Catholic social teaching—the dignity and rights of all, the common good and a preferential concern for the most vulnerable. These “binding universal principles” in the bishops’ words, comprise our moral squint. These are the values we must seek to preserve and promote in the public realm.
Prudence guides us in their fitting application. About these values we cannot as faithful citizens differ. Indeed, only with such prior consensus, can faithful citizens make sense of their differences on how best to apply them. For precept is not policy: Thus citizen A may express her opposition to abortion by favoring a candidate who seeks to overturn Roe vs. Wade; while citizen B may favor a candidate who seeks to reduce the incidence of abortion by promoting pre- and post-natal health care, income support for poor, expectant mothers, and adoption programs.
Which is right? There is no simple answer. Wisdom must finally prevail and wisdom is something we share in common. We, who believe in reason and natural law, above all should not fear public debate. And we show our wisdom, not by hiding it under a bushel basket, but by civil argument. For faithful citizens, the choice is not between lacking all conviction and passionate intensity! Our passion, after all, is principled. Intemperance, derision of those with whom we differ, even hatred: these poison the well of worthy persuasion. But let us drink deeply here: we have something to say as faithful citizens, in the present today. Let us say it well. | <urn:uuid:894dc2e7-c674-47e7-977b-236fb90df973> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://americamagazine.org/print/issue/673/100/guide-perplexed-voter | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936247 | 3,815 | 2.625 | 3 |