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Costly gene therapy approved for commercial use in Europe
A pioneering gene therapy treatment has been cleared and approved for commercial use in Europe.
The European Commission has given market authorisation to Glybera, meaning it can be sold throughout the EU. It is the first treatment of its kind to be approved in Europe.
Glybera is a gene therapy treatment for lipoprotein lipase deficiency, a rare disease that leaves sufferers unable to process fat.
The disease means fat builds up in the blood leading to abdominal pain and life-threatening inflammation of the pancreas (pancreatitis).
The treatment’s manufacturers say it will be available next year.
Gene therapy as a concept is relatively simple, if there is a problem with part of a patient's genetic code then change the code. The field is plagued with problems, however. Patients have developed leukaemia and in one trial in the US a teenager died.
In Europe and the US, the therapies are used only in research labs.
Developed by UniQure, the therapy uses a virus to infect muscle cells with a working copy of the gene responsible for breaking down fats.
UniQure chief executive officer Jorn Aldag said: "The final approval of Glybera from the European Commission marks a major step forward in making gene therapies available not only for lipoprotein lipase deficiency, but also for a large number of rare diseases with a very high unmet medical need."
The company said it would apply for regulatory approval in the US and Canada.
The downside to the treatment is its cost, Glybera will cost around 1.2 million euros ($1.6 million) per patient.
Aldag argued that a high price was justified because gene therapy restored natural body function and did not just offer a short-term fix. | <urn:uuid:abd99114-8887-4624-8f02-cf9350add014> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theinformationdaily.com/2012/11/05/costly-gene-therapy-approved-for-commercial-use-in-europe | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941429 | 378 | 2.375 | 2 |
Lymphangioleiomyomatosis (LAM) is an indolent, progressive growth of smooth muscle cells throughout the lungs, pulmonary blood vessels, lymphatics, and pleurae. It is rare and occurs exclusively in young women. Symptoms are dyspnea, cough, chest pain, and hemoptysis; spontaneous pneumothorax is common. Diagnosis is suspected on the basis of symptoms and chest x-ray and is confirmed by high-resolution CT. Prognosis is uncertain, but the disorder is slowly progressive and over years often leads to respiratory failure and death. Treatment is with sirolimus or lung transplantation.
LAM is not an interstitial lung disease, but patients are occasionally misdiagnosed as having interstitial lung disease (and also asthma or COPD).
LAM is a rare disease exclusive to women, typically affecting those between 20 and 40 yr. Whites are at greatest risk. LAM affects < 1 in 1 million people. It is characterized by proliferation of atypical smooth muscle cells throughout the chest, including lung parenchyma, vasculature, lymphatics, and pleurae, leading to distortion of lung architecture, cystic emphysema, and progressive deterioration of lung function.
The cause of LAM is unknown. The tempting hypothesis that female sex hormones play a role in pathogenesis remains unproved. The disease usually arises spontaneously, but LAM bears many similarities to the pulmonary findings of tuberous sclerosis (TS—see Neurocutaneous Syndromes: Tuberous Sclerosis); LAM occurs in some patients with TS and is thought by some to be a forme fruste of TS. Mutations in the tuberous sclerosis complex-2 gene (TSC-2) have been described in LAM cells and angiomyolipomas (benign renal hamartomas made of smooth muscle, blood vessels, and adipose). Angiomyolipomas occur in up to 50% of patients with LAM. These observations suggest 1 of 2 possibilities: (1) somatic mosaicism for TSC-2 mutations within the lungs and kidneys results in foci of disease superimposed against a background of normal cells within these tissues (although multiple discrete sites of disease might be expected) or (2) LAM represents a low-grade, destructive, metastasizing neoplasm, perhaps of uterine origin, that spreads through the lymphatic system.
Symptoms and Signs
Initial symptoms are dyspnea and, less commonly, cough, chest pain, and hemoptysis. There are few signs of disease, but some women have crackles and rhonchi. Many patients present with spontaneous pneumothorax. They may also present with manifestations of lymphatic obstruction, including chylothorax, chylous ascites, and chyluria. Symptoms are thought to worsen during pregnancy. Renal angiomyolipomas, although usually asymptomatic, can cause bleeding if they grow large (eg, > 4 cm), usually manifesting as hematuria or flank pain.
Diagnosis is suspected in young women with dyspnea plus interstitial changes with normal or increased lung volumes on chest x-ray, spontaneous pneumothorax, or chylous effusion. HRCT is done in all patients suspected of having the disorder; findings of multiple, small, diffusely distributed cysts are generally pathognomonic for LAM.
Biopsy (surgical) is indicated only when HRCT findings are nondiagnostic. Findings of an abnormal proliferation of smooth muscle cells (LAM cells) associated with cystic changes on histologic examination confirm disease.
Pulmonary function tests support the diagnosis and are especially useful for monitoring. Typical findings are of an obstructive or mixed obstructive and restrictive pattern. The lungs are usually hyperinflated with an increase in the total lung capacity (TLC) and thoracic gas volume. Gas trapping (an increase in residual volume [RV] and RV/TLC ratio) is commonly present. The Pao2 and diffusing capacity for carbon monoxide (DLco) are commonly reduced. Exercise performance is decreased in most patients.
Prognosis is unclear because the disorder is so rare and because the clinical course of patients with LAM is variable. In general, the disease is slowly progressive, leading eventually to respiratory failure and death, but the time to death varies widely among reports. Median survival is likely > 8 yr from diagnosis. Lung function declines 2 to 3 times faster than it does in healthy people. Women should be advised that progression may accelerate during pregnancy.
Standard treatment is lung transplantation, but the disorder can recur in transplanted lungs. Recent data suggest that sirolimus (an mTOR inhibitor) can help stabilize or slow the decline in pulmonary function among patients with moderate lung impairment (forced expiratory volume in 1 sec [FEV1] < 70% predicted). Alternative treatments, such as hormonal manipulation with progestins, tamoxifen, and oophorectomy, are largely ineffective. Pneumothoraxes may be difficult to manage because they are often recurrent, bilateral, and less responsive to standard measures. Recurrent pneumothorax requires pleural abrasion, talc or chemical pleurodesis, or pleurectomy. Embolization to prevent bleeding should be considered for angiomyolipomas > 4 cm.
Air travel is well-tolerated by most patients.
In the US, Patients can receive education and psychologic support from the LAM Foundation (The LAM Foundation).
Last full review/revision April 2013 by Harold R. Collard
Content last modified April 2013 | <urn:uuid:9314abfa-ca07-4b6c-a8e3-e15d7d85ec8c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.merckmanuals.com/professional/pulmonary_disorders/interstitial_lung_diseases/lymphangioleiomyomatosis.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934632 | 1,186 | 2.859375 | 3 |
There’s a lot of talk right now in Washington of opening up new areas to oil drilling. Companies have been drilling for oil for decades in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, on the Arctic Ocean.
Deadhorse, a town not far from Prudhoe Bay, is not so much a town, but a way station. A dusty moonscape where oil workers try to stay for as short a time as possible. The place is littered with rusty hulks of equipment, old pipes and tall cranes. But in and among the human-made infrastructure, nature has kept a few pockets to herself.
"What I’m hearing out there right now is the old squaw doing the little clucks before he dives, and there's the snow buntings singing in the background to each other."
That’s Jake Schas, a birder who works at the environmental data center at Toolik Field Station, where I’m headed. He’s giving me a kind of nature tour of Deadhorse, before driving me the 140 miles south to Toolik.
"The red neck phalaropes about hundred yards in the background there. They're really small birds, so you can see them by the pipes to the right. There's three of them."
These are male birds wearing their mating plumage of rust-colored feathers around their long necks right next to a rusty building. The birds are feeding in one of the many fresh water ponds that flourish amid the oil company structures. There are a couple of hotels nearby--although I‘d be hard pressed to stay in one of them--a post office and even a store.
"I'm Stephanie Hill." Stephanie Hill is behind the counter. She's worked in this store since 1982. "I was going to come up here for 6 months and pay off my college loan and 26 years later I'm still here."
It’s hard to imagine what would keep someone working here. Hill says her three weeks on three weeks off schedule gives her time to travel.
Behind Hill there’s a cat named Deadhorse Denver, the only cat in town. And surprisingly there’s all kinds of stuff to buy: even flash drives and memory cards and bumperstickers about the road I’m about to drive on.
"The ride of your life via Dalton Highway. That’s where we are about to go right?"
The Dalton Highway climbs unpaved from the coastal plain to the foothills of the Brooks Range. The sky is big. The tundra lush and green. There are no trees, just shrubby willows and lots of tiny flowers.
"I’m just going to get out for a second. Oh boy, it's windy."
I stop to examine the cotton grass, small green spikes topped with a white feathery sphere. But more than the individual plants, I’m struck by the vast green expanse and a sky to match.
"I feel like this is like the Wizard of Oz where Dorothy was going to the wizard."
Ok, well maybe I was having a touch of tundra fever. But this is a luscious place, even with the pipeline, a shimmer of human-industry that snakes along the road, keeping us company as we head south to Toolik Lake. | <urn:uuid:b8667589-8257-40dd-96ab-aa67758e3215> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cpbn.org/wnprs-nancy-cohen-visits-deadhorse-alaska?mini=calendar/2013/03/all | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96477 | 704 | 2.234375 | 2 |
Why does my dog chew and scratch herself all of the time?
I've checked her for fleas/ticks and she's not been eating anything different from usual. Could it be something environmental or health related? She just started really chewing and scratching in the last week or so and it's literally keeping me up at night. She'll just stand around and scratch her belly or chew on her legs/feet. Her skin on the inside of her hind legs is really red and she has chewed two hot spots on her one hip. I've tried gving her oatmeal bathes and spraying her skin with some anti-itch spray and it'll help for a short while and then it will flare up again.
- This question is closed.
Ouch! It sounds painful.
Continue giving the oatmeal baths as often as you see necessary.
This sounds like an environmental allergy problem. Benedryl can help keep allergies under control for short periods of time, but your vet might need to administer steriods later on to keep her comfortable.
Keep your dog indoors and away from any type of plant or grass might also help calm down the scratching.
Murphy doesn't really have fleas either and just because you can't see them doesn't mean they're not there. She might have a flea allergy because he's the same way. He just digs and scratches and he's suffering from hair loss from it. Our groomer told us to just put him on some frontline and see what happens. It's only been a few days but I do notice the difference it's made already.
Murphy answered on 10/22/07. Helpful? / 0
Sheba is a 14 year old blue doberman. Every winter she goes through the chewing. We haven't found anything whatsoever that helps her. We have tried Oatmeal baths, different foods, allergy medications, but the only thing that works is the steroid shots. She just received one about a month and a half ago, and now it isn't working. Since she is 14, we may go ahead and give her another shot since it is about quality of life at this point in time. I hope you find out how to help Audrey!
Sheba answered on 10/22/07. Helpful? / 0
When we got Joey all he did was scatch at his hind legs and nip at his tail. It was so bad that he was pulling out his hair. After visit the vet and doing several skin scrapes, she determined that he had scabies (a mange). He is now on revolution - a flea medicine - as well as antibiotics for the scars cause by his scratching. It seems to help.
Joey answered on 10/22/07. Helpful? / 0
I live in Monmouth County NJ.My dog started with a wet dog smell on his bed two months ago.My vet localized the source comming from his ear.Cleaned and treated for mites.Seemed to have worked.Then a few weeks later he started uncontrollable scratching,which puzzled me.He was under routine vets care and recieved frontline treatments as schedualed.Vet kept telling me it was allergies from outside.All of a sudden he started to lick and chew his paws which rapidly acting like he was trying to rip his own nails out.I tried every know factor known to man by specialized antiseptic and hypo allergenic shampoos hydrocortizone treatments and also antibiotics both pill and creams given by his vet.After about 10 visits within one month period,I decided to switch vets.Its sad to say he was diagosed with staph.He seemed to be responding good for a few days with introvenous antibiotics,all of a sudden he turned for the worse.His kidneys started shutting down.
Rest in peace Chance I love and miss you | <urn:uuid:afd83a35-4b1a-4889-be17-9518d03ce829> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dogster.com/answers/question/why_does_my_dog_chew_and_scratch_herself_all_of_the_time-1184 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987556 | 795 | 1.65625 | 2 |
|Paving has an important structural role in the garden and should look attractive as well as being functional. Paving and patios are the framework of the garden linking different parts of it together both physically and aesthetically and providing firm surfaces to walk on, which dry out quickly after rain.|
It can be used for constructing all types of areas ranging from patios and driveways to paths, steps etc. It can also be used creatively, by making interesting paving features and using paving in a practical way to make raised beds for easy access to planted areas of shrubs and flowers.
Mícheál Quinn Landscaping uses a wide variety of paving materials from natural stone such as Indian Sandstone to precast concrete products.
The choice of materials is almost endless and the ways in which paving can be laid is equally varied. Mícheál Quinn Landscaping offers expert advice in the selection and use of materials appropriate to your garden requirements and budget. | <urn:uuid:334a0be3-4bd7-4f45-b8d5-96c03de25479> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mqlandscaping.com/mqlandscaping/Main/PavingServices.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950097 | 197 | 2.34375 | 2 |
Forest Landscape Restoration to meet Ghana’s deforestation challenges
08 February 2006 | News story
In Ghana, the total forest cover has declined from 7.5. million hectares to 6.3 million hectares between 1990 and 2000, and the current rate of deforestation is estimated at three percent per year. Forest Landscape Restoration, which aims at regaining ecological integrity and enhancing human well-being in deforested or degraded forest landscapes, is the World Conservation Union's response to Ghana's challenges.
In Ghana, the total forest cover has declined from 7.5. million hectares to 6.3 million hectares between 1990 and 2000, and the current rate of deforestation is estimated at three percent per year.
The World Conservation Union’s approach to help Ghana meet its challenges is Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR), which is a process that aims to regain ecological integrity and enhance human well-being in deforested or degraded forest landscapes.
In order to validate the analysis of forest landscape change in the country, and to build capacity on forest landscape restoration through various learning activities, a national workshop organized jointly with the Forestry Research Institute of Ghana, the International Tropical Timber Organization and the Union was held last week in Ghana. An action plan was prepared as a practical step towards implementing Forest Landscape Restoration in the field.
The regional minister Nana Kwadwo Seinti of Ghana’s Brongo-Ahafo region pointed out that the workshop was timely and of prime importance to the national economy taken the recent government policies on sustainable forest management including activities aimed towards employment generation, afforestation as well as sustainable livelihood generation and poverty reduction.
The workshop was one in a series of ten national workshops on Forest Landscape Restoration that the Union is organizing jointly with ITTO and Intercooperation.
For more information:
Contact Virpi Stucki at firstname.lastname@example.org | <urn:uuid:2e7e720a-1747-466a-8c3e-b3de1613cc02> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cms.iucn.org/es/noticias/noticias_por_fecha/anos_anteriores_new_sp/2006_news_sp/?732/Forest-Landscape-Restoration-to-meet-Ghanas-deforestation-challenges | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942169 | 390 | 2.671875 | 3 |
In Jordan, Caritas is distributing food and essential items like diapers to hundreds of Syrian families in Mafraq and Zarqa. Caritas Jordan also arranged a free one-week medical campaign for Syrian refugees to provide blood pressure, sugar level, and ultrasound tests, in addition to consultations and medication.
In Lebanon, many Syrian refugees are living with host families who are already struggling to make ends meet. There are concerns that Lebanese communities hosting Syrian refugees have reached their limit and cannot absorb more. In northern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley, job opportunities are already inadequate and living spaces are scarce. The addition of tens of thousands of Syrians seeking work has only increased the pressure on these areas.
Caritas Lebanon is providing food parcels with rice, lentils, beans, tuna and more to Syrian refugee families, as well as to impoverished Lebanese families who are hosting people or are affected by the refugee influx. Caritas Lebanon also distributed hygiene kits with supplies like soap and towels, along with blankets and bedding.
Caritas Lebanon provided medical aid through its Mobile Clinic in the Bekaa Valley to assist Syrian refugees, mainly children, by providing consultations, medical information, nursing care services and medication.
Because many refugees’ homes in Syria were destroyed by bombs, their future is uncertain even if the conflict ends. “The situation has drastically evolved this week, with thousands more Syrian refugees flooding in,” says Najla Chahda of the Caritas Lebanon Migrant Centre.
“All of them are so anxious about their unstable situation,” says Chahda. For now, she says, “Hope is keeping them alive.” | <urn:uuid:a239d76a-2ea1-49e2-9d81-aa226cecc488> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.caritas.org/2012/07/20/as-syrian-refugee-crisis-grows-caritas-aids-families-in-lebanon-and-jordan/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=428bad2630 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967934 | 337 | 2.234375 | 2 |
British scientists have developed a system to help protect navigation and communications satellites from potentially devastating solar storms, they said on Friday.
The Supreme Court for the first time ruled on Monday that police use of a GPS device to monitor a suspect's vehicle was a search and protected by constitutional privacy rights, a test case involving new surveillance technology
As of Monday, TTC passengers can use a real-time GPS-tracking website to find out when their next bus will arrive. The site, run by California-based NextBus, uses “satellite technology and advanced computer modeling,” to track TTC buses along their routes.
Comment by David Seymour Technology will eventually make Toronto’s taxi troubles quaint. It’s an industry that is troubled on several fronts. Drivers are divided between those who hold Ambassador plates, which can only be used by one driver and never sold, and those who hold regular plates that can be transferred and used around the […]
Powered by WordPress.com VIP | <urn:uuid:03470a92-759d-4513-bbab-0fdfb33281a1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.nationalpost.com/tag/gps/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957689 | 199 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Letter: Let's crackdown on speeders
Let's crack down on speeders
Editor, The Item:
A woman was hit by a car in Millburn last week while legally crossing Main Street in front of Starbucks.
On March 26, a 14-year-old boy was struck by a car in downtown Millburn.
In February 2011, a 32-year-old man was struck on Millburn Avenue near Campbell Road.
We all know that cars speed on Millburn Avenue in the downtown area every day. Why aren't the police stopping speeders? Why are drivers holding and using cell phones? Why aren't drivers checking the crosswalk before turning a corner? What will happen when Stop & Shop opens a supermarket on Millburn Avenue?
In the 1970s and early 1980s, a policeman directed traffic at the corner of Millburn Avenue and Main Street. Left turns were not legal onto Main Street from Millburn Avenue.
The Township Committee and the police department must tackle this issue and stop the speeding in Millburn Township. Speeding is rarely seen in Roseland because tickets are issued by police on major and minor thoroughfares. Millburn also could develop a reputation of intolerance for speeders.
We don't need more speed bumps, we need more enforcement of the existing speed limits. | <urn:uuid:94e98380-59aa-4a2d-8865-197c9020efdd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.northjersey.com/news/opinions/174814641_Letter__Let_s_crackdown_on_speeders.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97197 | 266 | 1.882813 | 2 |
Information contained on this page is provided by NewsUSA, an independent third-party content provider. WorldNow and this Station make no warranties or representations in connection therewith.
/Penn Mutual) - Communication is a necessary foundation for any good relationship, even the one you have with your financial professional. Regular meetings and connecting through conversation, not just email, create the basis for trust that will sustain your relationship and, ultimately, enable a promising financial future.
Few people are comfortable "getting personal" in the beginning of a relationship. A good financial professional will be able to put you at ease and work to develop a financial plan
that will achieve your goals. He or she will want to know about your income, savings, debt and life insurance coverage. Your attitude toward risk, different types of investments, need for security and financial priorities will also be examined. In preparation for your meeting, you should be ready to discuss these subjects.
Life events: A new baby, job loss or purchase of a home affect your finances and should prompt conversations with your financial advisor.
Market fluctuation: While the recent economy has instructed investors to stay the course, it's important to address any concerns you have about the short- and long-term effect on your portfolio.
Tax law: During the first quarter of the year, ask your financial professional about any changes to the tax code that could affect you.
College funding: If you have children, don't be reticent about reviewing your strategy for saving for higher education.
Life insurance: Ask your financial professional to evaluate the amount of coverage you have and whether your policy aligns with your needs and goals.
Regular conversations are key. It's important that you set the expectations for the kind of relationship you desire with your financial professional. Because your financial plan should not be a "once and done" transaction, you'll want to set up regular visits to address any changes in your life that would affect your plan. You might be satisfied with once-or-twice-yearly meetings, but a quarterly check-in wouldn't be excessive.
Finally, make sure your financial professional's goals are aligned with yours. To find a qualified financial professional, please visit www.Pennmutual.com
or contact Larry Singer of NJL&C, LLC in Livingston, N.J., at (973) 535-0955 x 142. | <urn:uuid:1ba530d6-6566-4959-b28d-44e4763de2ed> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.foxcarolina.com/story/18256918/new-jersey-financial-expert-urges-consumers-to-communicate | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944161 | 486 | 1.601563 | 2 |
OER 2011 Rapid fire: Ralph Wolff, President, Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC)
Cloud created by:
30 March 2011
Accreditation – described as one of the biggest barriers to OER. Need to bust the system, which is not sustainable. Both students and employers not satisfied with the current situation. But people are afraid of OER – it is disruptive change and people remain in denial that change is needed. BUT accreditation and “credentialing” matters and brings connections. But more regulation is coming, more accountability, more information, more requirements of “classroom contact” and more models – will we accept the alternative models. Cartoon: “These new regulations will require new ways to get around them”. Private solutions are in trouble stories of fraud and abuse– University of Pheonix numbers down 40% and its share value down as well. Student loan value exceeds mortgage debt in US. University of people aim to get accreditation but may take 6 years. Straighterline – low cost but not accredited as too much (>25%) outsourced. For DIY-U approach may need to accredit the learner rather than the institution. Plan is to create an OER unit within WASC – what does it need to do?
Comment 1 by Muvaffak Ilhan GOZAYDIN
Muvaffak Ilhan GOZAYDIN
12:04pm 7 April 2011 (Edited 12:07pm 7 April 2011)
Two aspecfts of ONLINE Education are overlooked by the world.
1.- To develop a good perfect ONLINE course requires a team of 10 people may be more.
It has to be designed by the best institution in order to insure QUALITY.
That costs $ 500,000 for a one semester long online content.
2.- ONLINE is for millions.
All online contents should be allowed to be shared by all accredited universities of the world.
Not free but a nominal fee of $ 10 per course.
That is to be shared by millions of students so that cost per students is nill.
This was the comment made by Obama 8 months ago at Carnegie Mellon. SHARE .
Carnegie Mellon is sharing its contents with colleges in Pennsylvania.
3.- Any accredited university can adopt these contents, assigns an ONLINE Instructor to it and give credit and at the end counts those credits toward a degree they give .
Simple isn't it ?
So why not share the courses from academicearth.org in your university. Assign an online instructure to it.
If you pay $ 15,000 for the instructor and instructor can handle 200 online students cost of instructor is 15,000/200 = $ 75
per course per student.
1.- No financing problem. One course costs only $ 75 per course per person .Vow !!!!! + $ 10 to Harvard donation
2.- No investment for new building, no expense for heating cooling, cleaning
3.- Best contents available in the world from Harvard, MIT, Yale in your curriculum.
I suggest you make some donations to academicearth.org in order to be sustainable .
VISION. Right . If you have all your students take 50 % online courses, then you increase your capacity by 100 % .
Ask me . firstname.lastname@example.org
More info in my LINKS website
it is only a click away .
Comment 2 by Muvaffak Ilhan GOZAYDIN
Muvaffak Ilhan GOZAYDIN
12:14pm 7 April 2011
There are many good free online courses available from accredited universities in the world.
It is up to accredited univerties to adopt them in order to increase their space for new students.
people are concerned about credit and degrees at the end in order to make a living more comfortable.
Therefore accredited institutions are a must .
Help and support academicearth.org and similar organisation in every front.
I hope Duncan can read these comments as well . | <urn:uuid:0a41f1c1-0cdd-461a-8958-d24799bf0227> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloud/view/5247 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918779 | 834 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Q&A with Elizabeth Spires
Elizabeth Spires is one of our favorite authors for readers young and old. Her book The Mouse of Amherst was PW's Children's Book of the Year, and she is also the author of several adult titles published by Norton---Worldling, Now the Green Blade Rises, and The Wave-Maker.
Her latest book from FSG is I Heard God Talking to Me: William Edmondson and His Stone Carvings.
This is one of the rare titles that appeals to children and adults
alike. It's an artistic and fascinating look at the life and work of William Edmondson (1874–1951). Born just outside Nashville, TN, Edmondson began carving beautiful creatures out of rocks from a nearby quarry at the age of 57. Throughout his life, Edmondson held fast to the belief that all his pieces were divinely inspired. And in 1937 Edmondson was the first black artist to have a solo show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Elizabeth revives Edmondson’s story through her well-crafted poems---artfully
incorporating fragments of Edmondson’s own words from archived interviews. ---Alyson Sinclair
FSG: When and how did you first discover William Edmondson's sculptures?
Elizabeth Spires: I fell in love with William Edmondson's sculptures about ten years ago on a trip to Nashville. Edmondson lived and worked in Nashville in the 1930s and 1940s, and a large number of his carvings are still there. Some are in the collections of the Cheekwood Art Museum and the Tennessee State Museum, and others are in the hands of private collectors.
FSG: Why were you drawn to Edmondson and his work and how does it speak to you?
ES: I think Edmondson's style is terrifically original, like no other stone carving I've ever seen. His human and animal figures are vital, individual presences, full of zest and verve. There's also a sense of playfulness in some of the figures that I find very appealing. And at the same time, the work seems fresh and hopeful. There’s a timeless quality to it that speaks to me of human persistence and endurance.
FSG: What is your favorite piece by Edmondson and why?
ES: I feel guilty having a favorite, but if I do, it would be “Angel with a Pocketbook.” I like the rock-solid, no-nonsense quality of the angel, the way Edmondson gives a heavenly figure a very down-to-earth incarnation. She is a definitely an angel that a person in need could depend on!
FSG: What was your process? How much did you research Edmondson’s art and life?
ES: I read just about everything that has been written on Edmondson, including several books that have been out of print for years. I also wrote and talked with collectors and museum staff and tried to see as manyEdmondson sculptures as I could, not just in Nashville but in New York, Philadelphia, and Washington. I tracked down old photos and slides ofEdmondson’s work from all over the country. Along the way, I met a few people who had actually known him. One collector had bought her Edmondson carvings from Edmondson himself in the 1930s when they only cost five or ten dollars.
FSG: What is your relationship with Edmondson's hometown, Nashville?
ES: My husband, the novelist Madison Smartt Bell, is from Nashville, and we go back several times a year to visit his father. So I've had a lot of opportunity to deepen my knowledge and appreciation ofEdmondson on our trips. Recently, I found six of Edmondson 's tombstones still standing in a small hillside cemetery only two or three miles from my father-in-law’s farm. That was exciting!
FSG: Who do you hope the book will appeal to?
ES: When I began working on I Heard God Talking to Me, I was simply hoping to introduce children to Edmondson’s amazing art and life story. I thought his wit and humor would appeal to young readers, and that combining poetry with photographs would inspire children’s own creative efforts. But the project began to take on a life of its own that outgrew my original intentions. Given the early enthusiastic reactions to the book from adults, I’m now thinking I Heard God Talking to Me might appeal to all ages—both to a general audience, and to readers interested in American folk art and African-American history. | <urn:uuid:9f4684bb-e0dc-4203-a855-5556ebeac169> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fsgpoetry.com/fsg/2009/04/elizabeth-spires-is-one-of-our-favorite-authors-for-readers-young-and-oldher-book-the-mouse-of-amherst-was-pws-childrens-boo.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976046 | 981 | 1.734375 | 2 |
American Eagle Foundation (AEF) is a not-for-profit organization of
citizens and professionals founded in 1985 to develop and conduct bald
eagle and environmental recovery programs in the United States and
assist private, state and federal projects that do the same. Our goal
is to fully restore the bald eagle, the U.S.A.'s National Symbol, to
lands and skies and to "Build A Nest-Egg" for their future
care and protection. We are headquartered at the Dollywood entertainment
in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.
In addition to our commitment to conduct projects that ensure the restoration
and protection of eagles in the wild, we are dedicated to caring for eagles
that are injured and orphaned. At our Pigeon Forge eagle center, we are
federally licensed care-givers to over 60 birds of prey daily. These birds
are non-releasable due to permanent physical disabilities or accidental
imprinting on humans. Many of the non-releasable eagles residing at our
facility have successfully reproduced while in our care. We operate the
largest Bald Eagle breeding facility in the world, and have released dozens
of captive-hatched eaglets into the Great Smoky Mountains area, Tennessee
and other places. We have been a party to releasing hundreds of eaglets
into the wild in cooperation with Federal and State agencies, and have
also supported numerous eagle recovery and protection projects in various
In addition, our organization is deeply involved in environmental education.
Since 1991, we have educated millions of people at the Dollywood entertainment
park and at schools, conventions and events throughout the country. We
have successfully performed more than 8,000 "free flight" birds
of prey education programs since 1991 using non-releasable, permanently
disabled trained birds of prey. All of our efforts to save and protect
America's eagles do little good if we cannot teach respect and appreciation
for these magnificent birds and their natural habitat ... and that is
our number one goal.
Our activities and programs are recognized by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife
Service, Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, Independent Charities of
America, Animal Funds Of America, Office of Personnel Management, Internal
Revenue Service, and numerous State fish and wildlife agencies. | <urn:uuid:09a80ce7-39f8-4d69-9f7f-ba522d8a3ff5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://eagles.org/about.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919469 | 485 | 1.765625 | 2 |
What is a cataract?
One of the most comman problems which can affect vision is a cataract. Almost everyone who lives a long life will eventually develop cataracts.
The term cataract is used to describe a natural lens that has turned cloudy, usually as part of the natural aging process. Cataracts are not a growth, a film, or a type of cancer. Light cannot pass through a cataract easily, so the retina only receives blurred and distorted images. The retina is the unable to send clear signals to the brain, and vision is gradually impaired. If cataracts are not removed, blindness can eventually result.
Cataracts develope for a number of reasons, but the most common cause is aging. Age-related cataracts develop as a result of natural changes within the lens. In other cases, an injury or blow to the eye may cause a traumatic cataract. Some cataracts may also result from the use of certain drugs, exposure to harmful chemicals, excessive amounts of ultraviolet radiation, or some diseases. In addition, a small amount of babies are born with congenital cataracts as qresult of unusual prenatal factors. Very infrequently, cataracts can develop during childhood. Fortunately, almost all cataracts can be successfully removed, snd vision restored through modern microsurgery.
Because cataracts form in different ways, the symptoms of cataracts are variable. Most people notice that their vision gradually deteriorates--objects may begin to look yellow, hazy, blurred or distorted. Many people also find that they need more light to see clearly, or that they experience glare or haloes from lights at night. Other common problems include increasing nearsightedness, double vision, or the appearance of dark spots or shadows in the vision. In advanced cases, the cataract may be visible as a white or yellow-looking pupil.
Modern cataract surgery begins with a very small incision, between 1/8 and 1/4 of an inch, in the eye. A special kind of incision, called a no-stitch incision, is generally used. These incisions are preferable, because they seal themselves immediately after surgery and heal over the following weeks. No stitches are used, and normal daily activities can be maintained during this period. Another advantage of no-stitch incisions is that they are less likely than other incisions to cause a focusing problem known as astigmatism. In fact, depending upon where the surgeon makes the incision, no-stitch incisions can actually reduce astigmatism which existed naturally before surgery.
After the incision has been made, the surgeon gently inserts a small instrument into the eye which is used to tear a small round opening, known as a continuous curvilinear capsulorhexis, in the lens capsule. Another instrument, called a phacoemulsification tip, is then inserted through this round opening.
Once the cataract has been removed, a lens implant is placed in the lens capsule to replace the focusing power of the natural lens. Lens implants are very small and are designed to fit permanently within the lens capsule, where they fill most of the functions of the natural lens. They are made of special materials which require no care and which will not be rejected by the eye. Lens implants come in different powers, as do glasses or contact lenses, and are selected to improve the eyes focusing ability.
Many people discover that lens implants improve their vision and give them greater freedom from their glasses than they enjoyed before they developed cataracts.Post-operative care:
A cataract operation is relatively brief--usually lasting between 10 and 20 minutes. Once the surgery has been completed, the patient is escorted into the recovery area. After being monitored by a nurse and receiving some simple instructions on eye care, people are free to leave. Most people appreciate being able to resume their regular activities immediately after surgery.
Risks and Benefits:
Fortunately, cataract surgeries are highly successful procedures. The few complications which exist are becoming even more unlikely with new developments in anesthesia and surgical techniques. Potential complications include infection or hemorrhage within the eye, retinal detachment, or persistent double vision. The odds of experiencing any of these complications are very low--between one in 1,000 for hemorrhages and one in 10,000 for infections. Usually, such rare complications can be treated or controlled, either during the surgery or afterwards.
The very small risks associated with cataract surgery are more than offset by the excellent results. [At Gimbel Eye Centre, over 99 percent of cataract surgery patients enjoy good vision after their surgeries] when no other serious eye problems existed before the surgery. Eye diseases or problems with the retina or optic nerve may limit the potential for clear vision even when the cataract surgery itself has been successful. Furthermore, there are numerous benefits of cataract surgery, many of which cannot be measured statistically. These include:
- Improved color vision:
Colors are brighter and more vivid after cataract surgery.
- Greater clarity of vision:
Vision is crisper and sharper after cataract surgery.
- Improved quality of life:
Studies have repeatedly shown that people enjoy improved quality of life after successful cataract surgery. Many people can resume driving, thereby gaining greater independence. Favorite activities such as reading, sewing, carpentry, baking, or even using a computer are generally easier after cataract surgery. Even when retinal diseases or other problems prevent a total restoration of vision, the remaining vision is usually improved by a cataract surgery.
- Greater freedom from corrective lenses:
Because lens implants are selected to compensate for pre-existing focusing problems, most people find that their vision improves considerably after surgery. Ideally, people are able to see clearly without glasses after surgery, although glasses may be necessary for some activities such as reading or driving. Even people who still need to use glasses most of the time can usually use thinner lenses than they relied upon in the past. The only minor drawback of this improved eyesight is that most people will need to replace their glasses after surgery, even if they only need to use them occasionally.
back to procedures | <urn:uuid:f09beda9-6d5b-4d03-9342-efe008f9a5d9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lomalindahealth.org/health-care/our-services/ophthalmology/conditions-and-treatments/cataract-procedures/cataract-index.page | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954892 | 1,274 | 3.234375 | 3 |
At 104 and counting, Sadie Kaplan has achieved the lifespan so many of us say we want, without ever popping a pill or lifting a finger to pursue longevity.
The secret behind her long, healthy life remains a mystery to the New York matriarch, belle of the local Jewish senior center, who still lives in her own apartment and likes to sneak past well-meaning neighbors for a solo dinner at the nearby Popeyes chicken joint.
“I keep myself so occupied, I haven’t time to get old,” she tells her children.
Daughter Fran Marton says family members feel blessed, but a little surprised, to have had Kaplan around so long. “It started to dawn on me when she was in her 90s that she was unusual,” says Marton, the youngest of five siblings who range in age from 62 to 80. “She has survived just everybody, miraculously.”
But to researchers who have studied Kaplan and other centenarians, her longevity is less a miracle than the key to a scientific puzzle. When Kaplan agreed four years ago to enroll in the Longevity Genes Project run by the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, she joined the oldest of the old willing to supply some answers.
In March, for instance, Kaplan’s biological information was part of a study that showed short women may have a genetic mutation linked to long life. (In her prime, Kaplan was 5 feet, 2 inches; now she barely tops 5 feet, her daughter says.) The researchers, who are studying some 450 Ashkenazi Jews ages 95 and older, also have found that centenarians and their offspring have far more HDL cholesterol — the "good" kind — than other people, and that the size of their HDL proteins is larger than normal. And they've used genes from Kaplan and others to detect longevity markers that not only allow people to live longer, but appear to increase mental agility and protect against dementia.
Human studies of people like Kaplan plus laboratory work with yeast, worms, flies and rodents are propelling scientists closer to understanding what causes aging, how to delay it — and how to translate such progress from the lab to real life.
Biologically, it could be possible one day to extend the average nearly 80-year human lifespan by five to 10 years, and eventually, perhaps, to 110 years, says Dr. Nir Barzilai, a professor of medicine and molecular genetics and director of the Institute for Aging Research at Albert Einstein. Even more important, lives could become not only longer, but healthier, thanks to a medical midlife intervention.
No one’s promising such an anti-aging drug any time soon, says Dr. Evan Hadley, director of the geriatric and clinical gerontology program at the National Institute on Aging in Bethesda, Md. For one thing, it would take decades to conduct trials to confirm safety and effectiveness of such drugs in humans. For another, no current research comes close. “We’re not seeing any of those that will produce any quantifiable increases in lifespan,” Hadley says. Still, anti-aging is a fertile field for research, he notes.
Surprisingly, potential anti-aging tools that have received considerable public attention — stem cell replacement therapy, injections of human growth hormone and testosterone, tissue engineering — don't rank high on the list of most promising techniques cited by Hadley, Barzilai and others. Barzilai's research, for instance, shows that lower — not higher — levels of a protein that correlates with HGH are linked to long life.
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Public imagination has been sparked by researchers such as Aubrey de Grey, the British scientist who claims that aging is an "engineering problem" that can be solved by identifying basic causes of aging and creating nuts-and-bolts medical and biomedical solutions. These may include growing new organs or tissues for use in aging bodies, or other techniques promised by the burgeoning field of regenerative medicine. But some scientists who study the underlying causes of aging say such benefits aren't likely to extend lifespan in the near future.
"It's easy to say that aging is an engineering problem, but we're pretty elaborate pieces of engineering," says longevity researcher Brian Kennedy, an assistant professor of biochemistry at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Nonetheless, leading anti-aging researchers are pursuing several approaches that they hope may one day extend lifespan. Here are the top candidates, according to scientists:
Eating way, way less
Known as caloric restriction, or CR, the practice of reducing food intake by at least 30 percent and as much as 70 percent has been regarded for decades as the gold standard for boosting longevity. It’s the single therapy reliably shown to extend lifespan and reduce disease in yeast, worms, flies and rats and to promise the same for primates and, perhaps, people.
Peter Voss, 54, of Los Angeles, has been practicing CR for more than a decade. At a little over 5 feet, 10 inches, he limits himself to 1,850 calories a day, about 300 calories less than recommended for a man of his stature. The lure of a longer, healthier life was the primary motivator for Voss, who won’t even guess how long he might live.
“Ask me that again in a hundred years, I’ll have a better idea then,” he says.
Interactive: How the body agesCR proponents report reduced cholesterol, disappearing cardiac risks, lower levels of infection and inflammation, plus other benefits prompted by the process that appears to alter vital metabolic enzymes that create new proteins and remove damaged ones.
The downside, of course, is that it requires substantially reducing food intake. As Dr. Lenny Guarante, a molecular biologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology notes, people who follow CR might live longer, but they’ll seem “unusually miserable.”
That certainly was the case for Micky Snir, 42, of Redmond, Wash., who combined CR with strenuous weight lifting and other exercise for a few years, hoping to extend his life by at least 10 percent. But he found that subsisting on 2,200 calories a day — about 800 calories a day less than recommended for someone at his activity level — left him shaky, edgy and obsessed with food and thoughts of death.
After a difficult divorce, Snir gave up CR, began eating more and seeking new ways to cultivate happiness. He still pursues a healthy diet and regular exercise, but he’s more at peace with the process. “I decided that spending my life in that state was no good,” Snir says.
Also, some scientists worry that the effects of CR on the immune system are unknown and that it may be possible for humans to grow too thin.
Early results from the first clinical trials in humans, conducted at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Mo., and Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, support claims of protection against heart disease, high blood pressure and high cholesterol, but they also show it may be difficult and impractical for people to maintain the practice over time.
Drugs or supplements that mimic the effects of CR without requiring starvation would be a boon, researchers say. But there’s one big problem: “There are a lot of theories, but the actual mechanism by which CR works is not known,” Hadley says.
So far, the most promising candidates appear to be those that affect a series of proteins known as sirtuins, which may influence the processes that govern cell metabolism and death. In humans, one of the most important seems to be SIRT1, a gene that appears to help regulate the metabolic pathways linked to aging, particularly those linked to diabetes and obesity.
“SIRT1 is a gateway to drugs that would be calorie-restricted mimetics,” says Guarante.
That could include drugs like SRT501, a proprietary formulation of the sirtuin-booster resveratrol, a natural substance found in the skin of red grapes and in trace amounts in red wine. Last year, SRT501 was unveiled by Sirtris Pharmaceuticals as a promising treatment for Type 2 diabetes. Drugmakers emphasize that it would be developed only to treat that disease, but scientists say doctors and patients likely won’t ignore possible effects on aging.
Such drugs work by activating SIRT1 in mammals, apparently reproducing the positive effects of CR at a cellular level. They appear to be safe and well-tolerated in early clinical trials in people with Type 2 diabetes in India, Guarante says.
“I’m absolutely excited. The benefits are going to hit the market in one to two years,” he says. “It’s farther along. It’s close to having actual molecules that we could use.”
Not everyone is convinced. Kennedy and his research partner Matt Kaeberlein, an assistant professor of pathology at the University of Washington, are among scientists who say that sirtuins have been overhyped and that more study is needed to determine whether they increase longevity and moderate disease in healthy, normal rodents, let alone humans.
“The story is not as clear and put together as we would like it to be,” says Kaeberlein.
Uncertainty also surrounds resveratrol itself. In 2006, researchers reported that resveratrol protected obese mice from the effects of a high-fat diet and dramatically extended the rodents’ lives as well. The news sparked a huge demand for resveratrol supplements, which began flooding the health-food market almost immediately.
Barzilai says that when he asked for volunteers to help study the supplement, he got 250 candidates in one day.
Missing in the excitement was the acknowledgment that the substance had a lifespan-enhancing effect only in obese rats. The benefit has not been reproduced in normal-weight animals, scientists say.
“Right now, we’re nowhere near a basis to say taking resveratrol makes you live longer,” Hadley says. More study of resveratrol’s long-term effects on people is needed, he says.
In the meantime, scientists caution those eager to try it to be aware that most of the products marketed as resveratrol might include only minute amounts of the supplement — or none at all.
Tinkering with growth pathways in cells
Scientists also have experimented with altering the pathways that regulate growth and nutrition in cells. Two promising options appear to be the insulin/insulin-like growth factor 1 pathway, known as IGF1, and the mammalian target of rapamycin pathway, known as mTOR.
IGF1 governs a series of hormonal signals that trigger growth in childhood, and, to a lesser extent, throughout life. Mutations that decrease insulin/IGF1 signaling and impair growth have been shown to increase significantly the lifespan of worms, flies and mice. It was information about the levels of insulin/IGF1 in Sadie Kaplan and her daughters that contributed to Barzilai’s recent findings that such mutations may link shorter stature and increased longevity in humans as well.
The mTOR is a protein involved in the signaling responses of cells and its activity may account for the lifespan extension found in CR. “By tinkering with those pathways, it’s possible we can alter the cells’ aging processes,” Kennedy says.
Research on mTOR by Kennedy and Kaeberlein was recently boosted by the discovery of 25 shared genes that regulate aging in yeast and worms, organisms separated by 1.5 billion years of evolution. Equally remarkable, researchers found that 15 of those genes are present in humans.
“It’s exciting because there are human diseases we can model in worms,” Kennedy says. “If we intervene with aging, we can affect the disease.”
Altering mTOR activity has been found to slow aging in yeast, worms and flies, but Kennedy acknowledges that it’s still a long way from the lab to practical therapies in humans.
Telomeres, antioxidants and stem cells
The same might be said of other scientific research touted as potential routes to longevity. Take telomeres, the chemical caps of DNA that keep our strands of chromosomes from fraying. Like a string of beads losing a pearl at a time, telomeres shorten with aging. When the telomere caps become too short, cells die. Researchers have experimented with an enzyme called telomerase that aims to preserve or lengthen the strand, but the results remain preliminary, Hadley and other scientists say.
It’s a similar story with antioxidants, natural substances regarded as antidotes to the damage that occurs as tissue ages. Vitamins E and C, zinc, selenium, manganese and certain foods all have been thought to buffer or reverse harm caused by so-called “free radical” molecules that contribute to disrepair.
“Most results with antioxidants have been negative,” Hadley says.
Stem cell transplants, frequently mentioned as a possible aging therapy, are in that category, too, researchers say. Restrictions on and controversy over the use of embryonic stem cells are one problem. But much work remains before it's clear how stem cells might renew aging tissues and extend life, scientists say.
"We're far away on telomeres, and in stem cells, we're even farther away than that," Barzilai says.
Despite the hopes of an aging world, the prospect of extending longevity — or even adding a few extra years to lifespan — remains elusive, scientists say. People have to keep in mind that human longevity is increasing, but incrementally. In the U.S., average life expectancy has inched up during recent decades, from less than 60 years in 1930 and nearly 71 years in 1970 to nearly 78 years in 2005.
“Scientists and people in general want single answers, but biology is complicated and aging is complicated,” Kaeberlein says. “I don’t think there’s anything that’s going to revolutionize medicine in the next five years, unless resveratrol turns out to be a miracle.”
Until then, the scientists remind us, the best hopes for promoting a long life aren’t found in the lab at all. Not everyone can be like Sadie Kaplan, who was always active but never a health nut, and who has avoided most medical care because she's a little wary of doctors, her daughter says.
"Her hearing is impaired, but she refuses to get a hearing aid," says Fran Marton. "She's only had one mammogram in her life."
Clearly, something in Kaplan's make-up has allowed her to live so long, says Marton, who expects to celebrate her mother's 105th birthday on June 18. Part of it might be a certain spirit — "She has lived life as if she were not going to die," Marton says. But the Longevity Genes Project has shown there's almost certainly a genetic basis as well.
Until scientists tease out the mysteries of longevity genes, or until they mimic the effects with drugs, most people need to rely on practical — albeit boring — interventions like regular exercise, avoiding obesity and limiting dangerous habits, experts insist.
Marton says she tries to eat right and stay fit because she doesn't know whether she takes after her mother or her father, who died at the more typical age of 80. She's not even sure she'd want to live to be older than 100, given the losses of family and friends and no guarantee of good health.
"It's mixed, certainly," Marton says. "But it's nice to feel you have an option."
© 2013 msnbc.com Reprints | <urn:uuid:174cc0b1-6887-449f-a1d8-680b446d21f5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nbcnews.com/id/23359040/ns/health-aging/t/longevity-quest-moves-slowly-lab-life/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959971 | 3,458 | 2.421875 | 2 |
March 14, 2012
On Wednesday, March 7, Jumpstart-Queens at St. John’s
University, in collaboration with Kappa Delta Pi, hosted a Dr.
Seuss event at two of our preschool programs we partner with:
Starlight Child Center and Bright Beginnings. We had 13 Corps
Members and volunteers and worked in 5 preschool classrooms with
about 70 children in the Jamaica area. The volunteers read
Green Eggs and Ham with the kids and then made their own
Sam-I-Am breakfast plates and Dr. Seuss hats, while discussing
colors, foods, and rhymes. The children wore green shirts in honor
of the book and event and everyone in attendance had a
splendiferous (to use a Dr. Seuss word) time!
We want to thank everyone for their participation! | <urn:uuid:3a344181-c4ab-4698-9eb2-d9aee251d736> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://new.stjohns.edu/academics/undergraduate/education/currentevents/news/jumpstart_celebrates_dr_seuss.news_item@digest.stjohns.edu%2Facademics%2Fundergraduate%2Feducation%2Fjumpstart_celebrates_dr_seuss.xml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951178 | 174 | 1.867188 | 2 |
With a 9,4 million euro budget, a group of European researchers are collaborating to investigate nuclear fuel manufacturing and recycling for the fourth generation nuclear power systems. The aim is to produce safe fuel that can be 80 per cent recycled, compared to the current 1 per cent. Chalmers University of Technology is in charge of the initiative.
Fourth generation nuclear power systems can lead to a reduction of the amount of high-level, long-lived nuclear waste...
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Be where innovation begins – become a member. Click here to learn more. | <urn:uuid:19ee55ed-ed26-444a-a716-ed85d29fb311> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sciencebusiness.net/news/75626/Chalmers-colaborates-in-%E2%82%AC9.4M-nuclear-waste-recycling-project | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924346 | 257 | 2.375 | 2 |
IASE News September 2011 - ICME Study Group
12th International Congress on Mathematical Education (ICME-12) TSG12
July 8-15, 2012, Coex, Seoul, Korea: http://www.icme12.org/
IASE Announcement of ICME-12 Topic Study Group 12 (TSG12)
Teaching and Learning of Statistics
Call for Papers
Being able to provide sound evidence-based arguments and critically evaluate data-based claims are important skills that all citizens should have. It is not surprising therefore that statistics instruction at all educational levels is gaining more students and drawing more attention than it has in the past. The study of statistics provides students with tools, ideas and dispositions to use in order to react intelligently to information in the world around them. Reflecting this need to improve students’ ability to think statistically, statistical literacy and reasoning are becoming part of the mainstream school and university curriculum in many countries.
As a consequence, statistics education is a growing and exciting field of research and development. Statistics at school level is usually taught in the mathematics classroom in connection with learning probability. Our topic includes probabilistic aspects in learning statistics, whereas research with a specific focus on learning probability is being discussed in TSG11 of ICME-12.
Within this broad domain and across educational levels, TSG12 welcomes presentations on the following topics:
The purpose of TSG12 is to provide a forum for presentations of high-quality studies and discussions on the current state-of-the-art in these themes seen from an international perspective as well as perspectives of different countries and cultures. During the conference, TSG12 will convene for four one-and-a-half hour time slots.
How to Contribute
The final program of TSG12 will be decided by the Organising Team. We plan to include invited talks, selected oral presentations, posters and rigorous discussions around key issues in the study of statistics education.
November 1, 2011: Proposal submission
January 15, 2012: Notification of acceptance
April 10, 2012: Submission of final manuscript
TSG12 Organising Team
TSG12 Website: http://icme12.org/TSG12.brd?shell=none
On this Website, TSG12 participants will be able to submit their papers and presentations, follow the planning process, and eventually access all relevant documents including papers, presentations and the time table for TSG12 sessions. | <urn:uuid:3eedade9-4ceb-4d67-b765-8f82e12a41f3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.isi-web.org/component/content/article/14-news/news/471-2011-sep-iase-news-icme-study-group | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926491 | 507 | 2.09375 | 2 |
Respiratory Tract Inflammation in Children With Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD)
Recruitment status was Not yet recruiting
The purpose of this study is to determine whether inflammatory bowel disease in children involve the respiratory tract as expressed by increased levels of the Fraction of exhaled Nitric Oxide (FeNO) and spirometry.
Inflammatory Bowel Disease
|Study Design:||Observational Model: Case Control
Time Perspective: Prospective
|Official Title:||Pulmonary Inflammation in Children With Inflammatory Bowel Disease as Expressed by the Fraction of Exhaled Nitric Oxide Levels and Spirometry|
- Fraction of exhaled Nitric Oxide (FeNO) [ Time Frame: 1 year ] [ Designated as safety issue: No ]
- Spirometry [ Time Frame: 1 year ] [ Designated as safety issue: No ]
|Study Start Date:||December 2009|
|Estimated Study Completion Date:||May 2011|
|Estimated Primary Completion Date:||March 2011 (Final data collection date for primary outcome measure)|
Inflammatory bowel disease, Crohn's disease (CD) and Ulcerative colitis (UC) are chronic inflammatory diseases with remissions and exacerbations. CD and UC are associated with a variety of systemic (extra-intestinal) manifestations. In some studies, clinical and subclinical pulmonary abnormalities are described in active IBD as well as in the stable situation.
Nitric oxide (NO) is an important mediator of inflammation in several pathological conditions.Patients with lung diseases, like asthma, have higher levels of the Fraction of exhaled Nitric Oxide (FeNO) in active disease in comparison with healthy volunteers. One study in adult IBD patients showed increase in FeNO levels in those patients, with positive correlation with the disease activity and negative correlation between the disease activity and pulmonary functions.
We hypothesised that respiratory tract inflammation as expressed by FeNO and spirometry in pediatric IBD patients will correlate to the activity of the primary disease.
Methods: FeNO levels and spirometry will be assess for 40 patients with CD or UC (age 4-18 years) during remissions and exacerbations, calculated by the Pediatrics Crohn's Disease Activity Index (PCDAI) and the Pediatrics Ulcerative Colitis Activity Index (PUCAI), respectively.
Two aged matched groups, the first of healthy children and the second of chronic abdominal pain will serve a controls. | <urn:uuid:012146e0-796a-43b1-a96b-bd53bce6c935> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01000272?recr=Open&cond=%22Intestinal+Diseases%22&rank=18 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.912515 | 520 | 2.125 | 2 |
October 24, 1863
THE ELECTION yesterday passed off very quietly, so much that a stranger in our city, or even those who were not previously aware of it, on walking around the place, would not have dreamed it was election day. One intelligent man, to our knowledge, said he went to his precinct to vote, but seeing no one outside, concluded it must have been a mistake that Congressman and members of the Legislature were to be elected yesterday from this State. The vote is small, but pretty much all one way. The following are all the returns we were able to obtain last evening:
For Congress Blair 91; De Hass 7.
Senate Atkinson 93.
House of Delegates Lamb 94; Ross 80; Logan 75; Shriver 15; Weber 11.
Assessor City, Day, 96. County, Maxwell 74, Bedillion 21.
For Congress Blair 334; De Hass 17.
Senate Atkinson 324.
House of Delegates Lamb 340; Ross 260; Logan 202; Shriver 195; Weber 43.
Assessor City, Cay 309. County, Maxwell 210; Bedilion 102.
For Congress Blair 157.
Senate Atkinson 161.
House of Delegates Lamb 139; Ross 121; Logan 86, Shriver 36; Weber 71.
Assessor City, Day 161; County; Maxwell 139; Bedillion 12.
For Congress Blair 22.
Senate Atkinson 25.
House of Delegates Lamb 25; Ross 17; Logan 18; Shriver 11; Weber 4.
Assessor City, Day, 24; County, Maxwell 16; Bedillion 8.
We shall probably be able to give our readers the official vote of this county and to hear from the whole district by tomorrow. There can be no doubt of the election of Blair to Congress, and it is quite likely that the members of the Legislature elect are Messrs. Lamb and Ross.
Timeline of West Virginia: Civil War and Statehood: October 1863 | <urn:uuid:b9f2f20e-50fa-4b87-9432-d652a590d063> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wvculture.org/history/sesquicentennial/18631023.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944049 | 401 | 1.976563 | 2 |
This is another post in a series pointing you to noteworthy XenSummit presentations. This week I will be covering Xen integrations with Apache Cloudstack and OpenStack:
- Xen and CloudStack: Ewan Mellor describes the CloudStack project and explains why Xen is the pre-eminent hypervisor in public clouds today. He describes the changes coming in CloudStack in the next 12 months, and how they are going to change the way that Xen is consumed in public and private clouds.
- Openstack, Xen and XCP: John Garbutt takes a look at how OpenStack and Xen work together, and shows how you can get more involved.
Xen and CloudStack
Also see: Presentation | <urn:uuid:7250ea0b-c8b4-40d7-921c-b703278c62ed> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.xen.org/index.php/2012/09/29/xensummit-videos-xen-apache-cloudstack-xen-openstack/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.904654 | 145 | 1.578125 | 2 |
May 22, 2013
As designs progress and new technologies emerge, the authors present a value proposition for robust, reliable, cost-effective sensors.
As wind turbines have gotten larger over the last couple of decades, it is difficult to imagine the limitations in size or the future innovation that will be part of next-generation designs. Over time the industry has continued to develop larger utility-scale wind systems to leverage the economies of scale and capitalize on wind resources available at higher elevations. Although wind systems today look much like the ones 20 years ago, both experience and fundamental knowledge has been applied to current designs, enabling them to be cost effective and reliable.
Although most machines today share the same architecture as the older models, advancements in sensors, controls, and power electronics has provided opportunities for designers to develop algorithms and operational strategies that continually attempt to maximize energy capture, load management, and reliability.
A typical turbine today relies on hundreds of sensors for their effective operation and survivability. The role of those sensors vary from control observers—wind speed, high-speed shaft RPM, pitch position—and fault detections, including generator over temp and cable twist, to conditional health monitoring of gearbox lubricant quality and vibration levels, etc. The effective operation of these sensors is crucial for the safe operation of the machine and must operate reliably throughout the design life, which is typically 20 years. This strategy is increasingly important for offshore systems, as machines are more complicated and have limitations in access when compared to land-based systems.
In the future sensor systems may play an even larger role on wind turbines. Currently, U.S. and European laboratories are engaged in the development and application of sensor and operational measurement methods. Some of the key objectives include: determination of inflow loads and damage state (Sandia), advanced condition monitoring of gearboxes (NREL), and monitoring localized aerodynamic flow conditions (Risø DTU National Laboratory). These technologies are all targeted at building a smarter wind turbine that can itself identify the loads being applied by the wind, the damage created by these loads, and deploy control strategies to mitigate the loads while maintaining optimal power productions.
In order for newer, higher-fidelity sensors to be adopted there are several challenges/observations that must be addressed: sensor arrays and interrogator must have minimal cost, simple installation, and an operational life on the order of years, and tens of years. Over these long durations of application the sensor must also maintain calibration and sensitivity, otherwise type 1 and 3 errors (false positive and false negative) will reduce the reliability and usefulness of the technology. Sandia’s sensor program is focused on identifying sensor technologies that can potentially fulfill these design requirements. Currently, Fiber Bragg strain sensors interrogated over fiber optic lines, ruggedized accelerometers, hot-film aerodynamic sensors, and aerodynamic surface pressure taps are all simultaneously being investigated. Each sensor technology is evaluated to determine the relative cost which is dictated by the number of sensors required to accurately monitor the rotor blade, the cost of the interrogator used to measure the sensor signal, and the optimal/reliable method for integrating and protecting the sensor to maximize survivability.
Examples of the adoption of new sensor technologies can be seen in several commercial machines, with several wind manufacturers relying on fiber optic networks on the blades to enhance operation and control strategy. These sensors offer flexibility, in that many sensors can be placed in a single fiber line and incorporated into the manufacturing process.
As we foresee future designs, it is important to acknowledge that innovation will continue to play a key role in making wind systems more reliable and cost-effective. Sensor technologies are just one of those key elements that will continue to contribute to turbine optimization. It is conceivable that sensors will not only contribute to single turbine improvements in the future, but will also be utilized for wind-plant operations, as machines could have the ability to adapt to address real-time conditions. | <urn:uuid:21f1372b-e704-41bd-9fb5-fea11bf8e110> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://windsystemsmag.com/article/detail/79/technology | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933755 | 795 | 2.8125 | 3 |
In our 12th grade physics class we have been given a project in which we have invented a windmill that runs off of solar power. Our new product consists of the process that we used to create our solar powered windmill. We are asking if someone from your company with the proper knowledge would be able to revise our project and evaluate the product we produce. Hopefully we can learn from having someone with your knowledge and experiences revise our product, and someone could be able to better our product. Please let me know if this would be possible and I could further explain to you our product and project.
While finishing my last year in high school in Physics class we have come across an opportunity to become inventors. During this project I and a group of three other students have chose to create/invent something using solar thermal energy. From the research I have done, having you technical advisor/ mentor would help immensely. Understanding the way solar thermal energy works is important and to conduct something using this you would have to have great understanding. Being this is your profession and what you do if it could be possible that you mentored us throughout our project by answering questions we struggle to find, and using your wider range of thought on the subject, it would be an enormous help. Hopefully we are able to fulfill the requirements that would be needed to come up with our invention, and also are able to function with the information we know. Please get back to me and let me know if your help could be possible. Thank you, 12th grade Physics student.
Task One: Two companies that use Thermal Energy and product produced
Solargenix Energy: The Winston Series CPC is a patented Compound Parabolic Collector utilizing non-imaging optics to focus sunlight onto a high efficiency absorber tube.
SEIA, Solar Energy Industries Association: Solar collectors: Absorb the sun's energy to provide low-temperature heat used directly for hot water or space heating and cooling systems for residential or commercial buildings. Collectors can be flat panel or evacuated tubes
Task Two: professional Association or trade organization
Name: Solargenix Energy
Description: Solargenix Energy, LLC is a limited liability company with worldwide experience in energy and environmental engineering, solar design and building construction. The primary strategic plan of Solargenix Energy is to design, market, and manufacture; as well as; install and maintain a patented solar system capable of producing hot water, steam or electricity for residential, industrial, institutional, commercial, and utility customers.
People/ companies involved: Solargenix Energy has partnered with the top evacuated tube manufacturers in the world to meet the demand for its high efficiency collectors. Solargenix Energy has five operating division or business units. Experts in the associated technologies and business operations manage each of the divisions
Task Three: Propose and describe new products based on your teams NCT technical application.
The creation of a solar power box that is easy accessible and can be used very frequently in many different conditions. This box will be sun operated and can be useful in many different conditions. It will be an a size that is convenient for people and a tool that can keep safety in dangerous environments. | <urn:uuid:a100a74c-f554-4783-91bc-7d6ee0f2233e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.manoogian.org/projects/10-2230/C2.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947564 | 645 | 2.0625 | 2 |
Gaiseric (gĪˈsərĭk) [key] or Genseric gĕnˈsərĭk, jĕnˈ–, c.390–477, king of the Vandals and Alani (428–77), one of the ablest of the barbarian invaders of the Roman Empire. He led (429) his people from Spain into Africa, possibly at the request of Boniface, and quickly subdued a large territory, which was later (435) ceded to him by treaty. He took Carthage in 439, sent a fleet to raid Sicily in 440, and gained recognition of his independence in 442. He then dispossessed many Roman landowners and persecuted the Roman Catholic clergy, meanwhile gaining control of the Mediterranean through his pirate fleets. In 455 he sacked Rome. In 460 he caused the failure of an expedition sent against him by Majorian, and in 468 he undermined a similar attempt by Leo I. By the time of his peace (476) with Zeno, his lands included Roman Africa, Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, and the Balearic Islands.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
More on Gaiseric from Fact Monster:
See more Encyclopedia articles on: Ancient History, Late Roman and Byzantine: Biographies | <urn:uuid:4305b780-d852-4bee-9c20-76eaa8823739> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.factmonster.com/encyclopedia/people/gaiseric.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961882 | 289 | 3.421875 | 3 |
Much about the city is unique: The lively pedestrian zone with its lovingly restored half-timbered houses and former noble courts or the city museum. The Region's oldest half-timbered house can be found there: the Walderdorfer Hof, which is a wine tavern today. The former noble court was constructed around 1470.
In the district and air health resort Auerbach, the majestic walls of Auerbach Castle, which was built around 1230 by the Counts of Katzenelnbogen, can still be found and also the Staatspark Fürstenlager - State Park Fuerstenlager, former summer residence of the Hessian Landgraves and later Grand Dukes of Hesse and Rhine. All buildings, which were indispensable for a princely summer residence, such as the manor or guard house and depots have not been altered or reconstructed for more than 200 years. Trees of all continents can be found at the wonderful landscape park. On the so-called "Herrenwiese" Germany's oldest redwood may be admired.
Schreiben. Schenken. Schule. | <urn:uuid:9308fc95-e155-49e2-91b5-83d99a1de4eb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.diebergstrasse.de/index.php?id=65&L=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923392 | 235 | 1.945313 | 2 |
For many students, finals produce stress levels that are through the roof. Fortunately, CU-Boulder’s Counseling and Psychological Services, CAPS, offers a variety of programs to help students manage those feelings of anxiety.
Postdoctoral CAPS employee Dina Matic Kriakova explains stress is the response people experience during periods of pressure. Though stress manifests itself differently based on the individual experiencing it, students can learn to identify the symptoms.
CAPS volunteer and peer educator Emmie Matsuno explains that there are four categories of symptoms: physical, cognitive, behavioral, and emotional.
The body’s physical reaction to stress includes responses such as muscle tension, shallow breathing, and sleep loss, while emotional responses include moods swings and scattered thoughts. For these symptoms, Kriakova recommends practicing meditation for basic relaxation.
CAPS offers two meditation programs, Feel Good Fridays and Take a Break Meditate, which vary depending on the level of guidance the mediator is interested in. Students can also enroll in Tai Chi classes, which focus on connecting with the body to relieve stress.
In addition to the activity-based classes, CAPS has a few educational options, including a coping skills development group and Stress Break, a volunteer program in which residence halls, sororities and other student groups host CAPS peer volunteers for a lesson on relaxation.
Matsuno is one of the CAPS peer volunteers who leads the Stress Break program. “Stress can be a good thing and can help motivate us,” says Masuno, “but if the amount of stress is too large then we might want to take steps to cut that back.”
Stress Break discusses steps for stress reduction and leads a guided relaxation. The relaxation session emphasizes breathing as well as using your mind to relax muscles by focusing on various body parts and focusing on each muscle individually.
In addition to the programs CAPS offers, the office is available to students for free walk-in counseling sessions. The office is located in C4C and is open Monday through Friday between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.
Although finals are a difficult time for all students, the key to managing stress is learning to understand it. For more information about the workshops and groups that CAPS offers, visit https://counseling.colorado.edu/index.php. | <urn:uuid:9d44ea6c-f8b2-40f4-9563-87fec4c03925> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.colorado.edu/news/multimedia/feeling-stressed-cu-boulder-counselors-offer-advice?qt-main=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950675 | 487 | 2.34375 | 2 |
HISTORY: From its beginnings, the St. Louis Mercantile Library sought to provide its rooms as a gallery for art as well as for books to its members-the early populace and citizenry of a frontier city. In many ways, the Mercantile was founded by business leaders not only as a general library for all readers, but also as an art museum, one of St. Louis' first and longest lasting, in which such merchants exercised a high degree of taste and knowledge in collecting art for the viewing public. Many special exhibitions were presented by the Library in its earliest days, some to raise funds for various causes. Library leaders, such as James Yeatman and Henry Bacon, were deeply interested in the fine arts, and distinguished connoisseurs and patrons in their time, and these individuals infused the Mercantile with the art-loving spirit. The Mercantile was often the recipient of a gift of art, or of a long-term loan which was never recalled, and almost by default the founders frequently saw to it that paintings of great merit were preserved which otherwise would have been lost to subsequent generations.
SCOPE: The Sculpture Collection spans the years 1830 to 1890, and with but three exceptions, celebrates great men of the nineteenth century.
HOLDINGS: 23 sculptures, all sculpture listed is marble unless otherwise noted:
- Beatrice Cenci, by Harriet Hosmer, 1856
- Bust of John Napier Dyer, by R. Bringhurst, bronze, 1890
- Bust of Thomas Hart Benton, by J. Wilson MacDonald, one of the earliest sculptures made west of the Mississippi, mid-19th century
- Bust of Henry Shaw, by H.S. Kretschmar, 1878
- Bust of George Washington, after Houdon, plaster, ca.1859
- Bust of James Yeatman, by Robert Portser Bringhurst, 1895
- Bust of James Harrison, by J. Wilson MacDonald, ca.1815
- The West Wind, by Thomas Gould, ca.1876
- Daniel Webster, by Louis Verhaegen, ca.1850
- Death Mask of Napoleon Bonaparte, by Francesco Antommarchi, plaster, 1830
- Bust of Christopher Columbus, by J. Gott, ca.1855
- Bust of Robert Burns, by William Brodie, ca.1865 with ornately carved wooden pedestal depicting images from Burns' life and work
- Bust of Sir Walter Scott, by John Hutchison, 1872
- Venus de Milo, by M. Geiss, zinc, 1862
- Portrait of Dante, by Guiseppe Moretti, 1911
- Courtship of Sleepy Hollow, by John Rodgers, plaster, 1868
- Rip van Winkle at Home, by John Rodgers, plaster, 1871
- Rip van Winkle on the Mountain, by John Rodgers, plaster, 1871
- Rip van Winkle Returned, by John Rodgers, plaster, 1871
- The Favored Scholar, by John Rodgers, plaster, 1873
- Abraham Lincoln from Life, by Leonard W. Volk, plaster, 1862
- Mark Twain, by Robert Porter Bringhurst, terra cotta with applied patina, ca. 1910
- Abraham and Isaac, by Ruth Keller Schweiss, bronze, ca. 1965
ACCESS: The Art Collection is available for viewing during service hours 7:30 A.M.- 10:30 P.M., Monday-Thursday; 7:30 A.M.-5:00 P.M., Friday; 9:00 A.M.-5:00 P.M., Saturday; and 1:00 P.M.-9:00 P.M., Sunday, and by appointment.
Researchers are advised to call ahead concerning changes in hours due to University intersessions and holidays. The St. Louis Mercantile Library is located on levels one and two of the Thomas Jefferson Library building.
Question about this collections should be referred to:
Curator of Fine Art Collections
In observance of security procedures, certain services may not be available shortly before the daily closing time.
Direct questions or comments regarding this site to
The Saint Louis Mercantile Library at the University of Missouri-St. Louis
St. Louis Subject Specialist | <urn:uuid:580b1884-83ef-44e7-b933-ac50f47d1f6a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.umsl.edu/mercantile/collections/mercantile-library-special-collections/special_collections/slma-sculpture.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929869 | 892 | 2.265625 | 2 |
A Michigan woman is being charged with a misdemeanor offense and is facing up to 93 days in jail. Her crime? Planting a vegetable garden—in her own yard. Her front yard, that is.
Like many consumers today, Julie Bass, of Oak Park, Mich., appreciates the taste and healthfulness of organic vegetables, but isn’t much of a fan of how much going organic costs at the store. So, like many health-minded consumers, she planted a vegetable garden on her property.
But Bass chose to take the unusual step of installing neatly arranged raised beds of vegetables in her front, rather than back, yard. Bass explained her unorthodox garden location (and showed off how neat and organized it is, for those curious) to a local TV station:
“We thought it’d be really cool to do it so the neighbors could see. The kids love it. The kids from the neighborhood all come and help,” she said.
Front yard or back, it’s her property, and she’s allowed to do with it what she pleases, right? Wrong, say the local authorities, citing local codes that require front yards to have only “suitable” live plant material. City planners say that vegetables, for some reason, don’t qualify for the standard, even though they are certainly alive, and certainly are planted. To some, this sort of code enforcement makes the restrictions against drying clothes on a clothesline seem reasonable.
Bass was given a warning, then a ticket, and now she has been charged with a misdemeanor for violating the City of Oak Park’s planning code. A pretrial hearing is scheduled for July 26, and Bass is facing up to 93 days in jail.
For growing vegetables.
On her own property.
Bass isn’t giving in, however, and it looks like she has plenty of support on her side. A thread at Reddit with information on rallies and petitions to stop the prosecution has already generated 299 comments (and counting).
Bass does have a backyard, but she has no plans to uproot and replant her garden back there any time soon:
“They say, ‘Why should you grow things in the front?’ Well, why shouldn’t I? They’re fine. They’re pretty. They’re well maintained,” said Bass. | <urn:uuid:23654247-d360-44b7-8504-b8f1e95b5c47> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://business.time.com/2011/07/08/woman-faces-jail-time-for-planting-organic-vegetable-garden/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964983 | 501 | 2.078125 | 2 |
Utah State Court Surveys
Public Trust and Confidence Survey
Public Trust and Confidence Survey - PDF
The Public Trust and Confidence Survey was conducted to determine the current perceptions the public has of the Utah State Court system. Salt Lake City-based Valley Research surveyed 1,201 Utah households June 28 through July 20, 2006, asking 53 questions about the public's perception, familiarity, experience, confidence, expectations, and performance of the state courts. The survey was funded in part by a $15,000 grant from the State Justice Institute.
2006 Survey of Self-Represented Parties in the Utah State Courts
2006 Survey of Self-Represented Parties in the Utah State Courts - PDF
The Utah Judicial Council's Staning Committe on Resources for Self-Represente Parties began meeting to study the needs of self-represented parties, and to develop policy recommendations concerning those needs. Self-represented parties and those who work with them were surveyed about their experiences in Utah's courts. Self-represented parties were surveyed at clerk's offices and in courtrooms. Judges, clerk staff, and attorneys were also surveyed.
Access and Fairness Survey
The Access and Fairness Survey was administered during the summer of 2006. Responses were collected for one day at each of the court sites. Every person at the courthouse that day was eligible, except people visiting an agency other than the court. The survey was administered as people left the courthouse. If a justice court is co-located in the courthouse, justice court responses are included, but the survey was not administered at justice court facilities.
This survey was developed under grant number SJI-06-N-065 from the State Justice Institute. The points of view expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the State Justice Institute. | <urn:uuid:ab24441c-5f73-4958-895f-9ea1273490b7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.utcourts.gov/survey/index.html?site=mobile | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971422 | 369 | 1.859375 | 2 |
Recent statistics released by the FBI and the CDC show that more women are being stopped and arrested for driving under the influence. When asked, most people answer that they believe that more men would be restrained. This is based on the belief that more males consume alcohol than females. Oddly, it is true that more men drink alcohol than women, but are stopped less often. The reasons for this may astonish you.
Processing Through the Liver
When alcohol enters the system, it is processed through the liver and distributed through the body. Women have smaller organs due to the different sizes of their body make up than men. The smaller organ does not process alcohol as quickly as a man’s, leaving them intoxicated for an extended period of time.
Contraceptives Have Adverse Effects
Contraceptives can impact how alcohol is processed in the body. Many females report that they need to drink more to attain a high when drinking while taking contraceptives. This is also the case with many diet pills or supplements.
Dieting Can Make Your System React Differently
When a woman is using a very restrictive diet, it may not take as much to become intoxicated. So, someone who is accustomed to having three drinks at a party, may only need one because of the current state of their metabolism.
Fruity Drinks Are Easy To Consume
Women have a tendency to drink fruity cocktails. These concoctions are easy to ingest and do not have the taste of alcohol, making it seem as if it is safe to consume more. However, these drinks are loaded with rums and vodkas, creating the perfect way to become quickly intoxicated.
Driving Under The Influence
Even though ladies have many excuses for being more easily intoxicated than their counterparts, the facts about DUI remain the same. Whether you speak to DUI lawyers in Pennsylvania or driving instructors in New York they would all agree it is never safe to operate a vehicle when you have been drinking even a small amount. If you are going to consume intoxicants, make sure you have arranged a way to get home.
While drunk driving fatalities and accidents have declined over the last decade according to the Department of Highway Safety, they still occur at a rate of over 32,000 per year. In fact, 31 percent of all highway accidents are related to driving under the influence.
Additionally, the penalties for a DUI are very harsh, and you must realize that these penalties can impact your life. Many states impose an automatic loss of driving privileges, even if it is a first offense, fines that range from $500 – 2,000, mandatory jail time, and community service requirements. In some states, the Court can impose all of these punishments at once if they desire.
As a woman, you must take into account that your body size, your medications, and your choice of drinks will all have an impact on how you react to the alcohol and how quickly or severely you become intoxicated. If you chose to drink while you are away from your home, make arrangements to arrive home safely.
Author Ieda Vincent has taught many anatomy classes and is amazed by the chemistry and physiology of the human body. Kellis, Law Offices of Steven E. has DUI lawyers in Pennsylvania with numerous hours engaged in DUI hearings and court cases. They will investigate and scrutinize blood tests to accurately challenge the charges commonly used to convict intoxicated offenders. | <urn:uuid:8dac474c-3c4f-4d5b-ae5d-72ed310d6773> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.getholistichealth.com/19719/are-women-more-likely-to-get-a-dui/ | 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 | 0.97053 | 688 | 1.929688 | 2 |
(HealthDay)—Of all the diseases people worry about getting, viral hepatitis is usually way down on the list. Most often it's thought of as a disease that affects only drug addicts or the sexually promiscuous. ...
Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Dec 21, 2012 | not rated yet | 1
A new study suggests that human papillomavirus (HPV) infection in women at or after menopause may represent an infection acquired years ago, and that HPV infections may exist below limits of detection after one to two years, ...
Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Dec 13, 2012 | not rated yet | 0
Just 20 percent of people infected with the hepatitis C virus (HCV) begin the recommended treatment regimen and less than 5 percent go on to successfully overcome the virus, according to a new review in General Ho ...
Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Dec 10, 2012 | not rated yet | 0
New research reveals that the greatest demand for liver transplantation due to hepatitis C (HCV)-related liver disease occurs among Americans born between 1941 and 1960. Findings in the December issue of Liver Transplantation, a jour ...
Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Dec 06, 2012 | not rated yet | 0
(HealthDay)—A U.S. task force suggests that people at high risk for the hepatitis C virus should be screened, which includes those with a history of intravenous drug use and those who received blood transfusions ...
Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Nov 26, 2012 | not rated yet | 0
For baby boomers, the peak interest in health issues comes at about age 51, with a second peak coming near age 65, according to a new study.
Health Nov 15, 2012 | not rated yet | 0
(Medical Xpress)—The oldest old are doing better and those approaching late life are doing worse, but Americans between the ages of 65 and 84 are experiencing about the same level of disabilities as they ...
Health Nov 02, 2012 | not rated yet | 0 |
(Medical Xpress)—New research from the University of Adelaide shows that Generation X is already on the path to becoming more obese than their baby boomer predecessors.
Overweight and Obesity Nov 01, 2012 | 5 / 5 (1) | 1
New strategies to reduce obesity among baby boomers in the workforce are urgently needed, according to a report released today by University of Adelaide researchers.
Overweight and Obesity Sep 27, 2012 | not rated yet | 0
(Medical Xpress)—Older adults are asking more questions about liver health now that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has formally called for baby boomers to get tested for Hepatitis C, says ...
Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Sep 24, 2012 | not rated yet | 1
(Medical Xpress)—The vast majority of the post-war baby boomers have had at least one medical condition requiring regular GP visits in the run-up to retirement, and just one in six was completely condition free, according ...
Health Sep 21, 2012 | 3 / 5 (1) | 0
(HealthDay)—No one thought Sherry S., a 91-year-old former sociologist with dementia-related short-term memory loss, could write.
Alzheimer's disease & dementia Sep 04, 2012 | 5 / 5 (1) | 0
Popeye inspired a generation of growing Baby Boomers to eat its spinach. Today, role models such as Batman can prompt children to develop their own healthy eating habits, a recent Cornell University study finds.
Health Jul 19, 2012 | not rated yet | 0
(HealthDay) -- It's not good news for baby boomers with arthritic knees: Injections of hyaluronic acid have little effect on pain and no effect on function, according to a new analysis.
Arthritis & Rheumatism Jun 12, 2012 | not rated yet | 0
While the elderly represent the fastest growing segment of the population, too little is known about the nature and scope of crime impacting this generation. Victoria Titterington of Sam Houston State University is trying ...
Health May 31, 2012 | not rated yet | 0 | <urn:uuid:8df18ec0-365a-42b5-8340-01a97d0b3660> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://medicalxpress.com/tags/baby+boomers/page2.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952545 | 876 | 1.875 | 2 |
How to Make Cash From Your Crafts: 9 Helpful Resources
This past weekend I got to indulge in one of my favorite weekend activities by visiting a crafts fair. I’m not quite sure why I enjoy crafts fairs so much, but there is something about the combination of being outdoors, munching on kettle-corn and seeing good old-fashioned entrepreneurship in action that I find hard to resist.
As I strolled among the booths, I found myself thinking that in many ways being a crafter is a perfect lifestyle career (although having to work the occasional weekend might be a deal-breaker for some). It allows you to be creative, work a flexible schedule, deduct travel expenses and meet interesting people. And thanks to sites like Etsy.com, it is now possible for people to sell their crafts while working from home as well.
The amount of income you can potentially earn from your crafts will depend upon a number of variables (skill level, demand for your products, pricing strategies, etc). But if you’re willing to take the time to learn the “business of the business” it is possible to turn your passion for crafts into real profits.
If this sounds like an income option you’d like to learn more about, here are nine resources to help you get started:
1. The Craft and Hobby Association: An international association that hosts two industry expos, ongoing training programs and offers a full-suite of purchasable benefits (health, life, long-term care etc.) to association members. Among their many offerings, they have an online craft supplies buying guide and Craftsplace.org, an online community where crafters can share ideas, resources and inspiration. Click here to learn more.
2. Etsy: In addition to hosting the world’s largest online marketplace for crafters, Etsy has an impressive educational and community component to their site. This is a great place to learn regardless of whether you want to sell online or not.
3. Festival Network Online: With over 22,000 event listings, this is an informative resource for people who want to sell their crafts at art shows, fairs and festivals.
4. Barbara Brabec: I must admit that I hesitated to include Brabec’s site as the crafts section has not been updated in some time. Nonetheless, her knowledge about the business of crafting is tested, extensive and impressive. She wrote three excellent books on the topic and the site still has a number of articles worth reading.
5. Craft Classes: As crafting gains in popularity, the number of schools offering classes in the business of crafting is increasing as well. Your local craft store, continuing education program or local community colleges often have useful classes. The Learning Annex is a good online source.
6. The Mommy Sites: As many of you know, I’ve spent a lot of time in the “mommy” space online. Two sites that are particularly useful for people wanting to learn more about how to make cash from crafts are Mompreneurs Online and WAHM (Work-at-Home Mom) and no, you don’t have to be a mom to take a look! There are numerous mommy bloggers who blog in the craft space (soap making, food products, jewelry, etc.) — a good place to find them is on Blogher.com.
7. The Handmade Marketplace: How to Sell Your Crafts Locally, Globally and Online by Kari Chapin: As the name implies, this a guide that gives you the “how-to” of selling your crafts in different venues.
8. Grow Your Handmade Business (also by Kari Chapin): This book helps crafters who are ready to take their business to the next level. Offers advice on everything from creating a business plan to legal issues to marketing tips.
9. Craft, Inc. Revised Edition: The Ultimate Guide to Turning Your Creative Hobby into a Successful Business by Meg Mateo Ilasco: This book offers a nice combination of practical advice and helpful resources for both newbies and experienced crafters.
Enjoy this list? Please feel free to share this post with friends and if you know of any other resources that are helpful, please let me know in the comments section below.
Similar Topics: Biz Ideas: Great Ways to Profit From Your Passions, Sites | <urn:uuid:543ac2ec-c129-4436-95b0-98a1de5eb8fe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mylifestylecareer.com/career-reinvention-2/lifestyle-career-options/how-to-make-cash-from-your-crafts-9-helpful-resources/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93876 | 906 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Full reserve banking is also known as 100% reserve banking
A collection of resources for anyone interested in this alternative monetary system.
Some people dismiss Full Reserve Banking (the opposite of Fractional Reserve Banking) as a
crazy system not taken seriously by any leading economists. This is entirely false. As recently as 2010,
Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England, said in a letter to a full reserve banking supporter...
You might be aware that I have said publicly that I think ideas in this spirit – such as those advocated by John
Kay – certainly merit serious consideration in the debate as to how we reform our financial system. I remain
sympathetic to these views.
If the governor of the Bank of England takes its seriously, then perhaps we all should. The purpose of this website is to be a starting point for anyone wishing to research this
common sense, rational and quite practical banking system. Had we had Full Reserve Banking in place all along,
it is almost certain that the financial crash of 2007/2008 and its lingering aftermath would never have occurred.
New! Check out our sister site FractionalReserves.com.
New! IMF produce paper extolling the virtues of full reserve banking.
Laurence Kotlikoff on "Limited Purpose Banking" - a form of full reserve banking
Khan academy on how full reserves work.
Debt Free Money * Limited Purpose Banking * Islamic Banking * Alternative Currencies * Bitcoin * Monetary Reform * The Gold Standard * Commodity Money * Money as Debt * Monetary Systems * Fiat Money * Narrow Banking * Chicago Plan
Read "What Went Wrong with Economics" for a more detailed examination of
how our current fractional reserve system leads to economic instability → | <urn:uuid:d19e3dc2-317f-468c-bb96-a2a751115607> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://fullreservebanking.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953161 | 360 | 2.46875 | 2 |
The acting CEO of Westpac, Australia’s biggest bank, has claimed that today’s homeowners are paying off their mortgages at twice the average rate for the past 30 years.
Speaking in Canberra at last week’s Senate enquiry into the strength of the Australian banking sector, Westpac’s John Tate declared that “people are paying off debt faster than we have ever seen.” He stated that whilst Australia still has a high level of household debt, mortgage holders are anxious to repay it as quickly as possible because of the fear generated by the financial downturn.
According to Mr Tate Australian mortgage-holders now have an average of 40% – 50% equity, with many people taking advantage of lower interest rates to improve their equity percentage. He claimed that global economic conditions over the past few years had made both home and business owners extremely anxious.
At the same enquiry the Reserve Bank of Australia’s assistant governor Guy Debelle defended bank lending rates, which remain considerably higher than the cash rate, acknowledging that banks have to consider risk factors and market conditions when setting mortgage rates.
Sources: AAP, news.com.au | <urn:uuid:02b02803-7556-4cdb-8f6e-c53df6da0ae2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.realestateportdouglas.com.au/blog/page/5/ | 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 | 0.97461 | 237 | 1.65625 | 2 |
explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
A neurotic character chooses to lie about an odd game he is playing instead of describing the loonesy.
add a comment!
- [Two characters walk on a floor tiled in black and white.]
- First: Why are you walking funny?
- [Second panel consists of second character's thought cloud in which the second character points to an easel mounted diagram of the floor tile pattern]
- Second, thinking: Well, my instinct is to step only on black tiles, but they're too far apart. So I'm letting myself walk on the tiles directly in line with the black ones, but that means that when we walk diagonally, I have to step in a pattern where...
- [Returns to situation in first panel]
- Second: I'm not walking funny.
I wond what HE thinks:
The explanation fails to mention the link with Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Stepping on, or avoiding particular floor tiles can be an example of OCD-induced behaviour. Moreover OCD is positively correlated with high IQ and therefore within the "nerd" scope of XKCD.
The reason why Cueball simply denies walking funny (sic) instead of offering the correct explanation, apart from simplicity, may also be because he is embarrassed by the awareness of his own disorder.--18.104.22.168 10:03, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
Personally, I have this walking obsession too. Curiously, my friends can understand my algorithm after observing me in my natural habitat for 2 minutes.
My edit/observation that the title text alludes to an Old wives' tale "if you step on a crack you will break your mother's back" was removed. I'm just hoping for additional discussion. "Sidewalk cracks ... out-of-sync with your natural stride" seems to be a clear reference to the wives' tale in question. As I reread my edit I realize this doesn't explain Cueball's behavior, so I was wrong on that point, but my assertion that the title text does point to the wives' tale seems valid enough. Thoughts?
--Smartin (talk) 00:10, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
- Additional: I am confounded why Wikipedia does not recognize "step on a crack" as a wives' tale, childrens' taunt, etc. Is there some pondian aspect to this I am missing? In the Midwestern US where I grew up, "step on a crack" is (or was) a common meme; it was even exposited in song (sorry for the lame lyric link) --Smartin (talk) 04:51, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
- It's not so much referencing the step on a crack and break your mother's back child's game so much as many of those with obsessive compulsive tendencies are really annoyed that each footstep cannot be classified as a digital step, meaning that your foot is only one one tile at a time. It's not so much that you don't want to "break your mother's back" it's just a matter of personal pride that you don't walk on cracks. Same problem with steps that are just barely too long that you always end up taking the next one with the same foot. You just start to feel off kilter. lcarsos_a (talk) 07:52, 3 January 2013 (UTC) | <urn:uuid:20c6565b-259d-47c6-b435-8a2505c5717f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php?title=245:_Floor_Tiles&oldid=11267 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965794 | 719 | 2.171875 | 2 |
Title IX Protections From Bullying & Harassment in School: FAQs for Students
Click here to download a PDF version of this fact sheet.
Have you experienced sexual harassment and bullying in school? Under Title IX you have a right not to be sexually harassed in school. Your school must protect you by preventing harassment and stopping any harassment that does occur. Below are answers to frequently asked questions from students about how Title IX can make them safer in school.
What is Title IX and how does it apply to bullying?
Title IX is not just about sports! It is a federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex—including harassment and bullying—in schools that receive federal funding. This means that school districts may violate Title IX when sex-based harassment by classmates (or peers) is so serious that it creates a hostile environment for the victim and such harassment is encouraged, tolerated, not adequately addressed, or ignored by school employees.
Does Title IX apply to discrimination against boys and men?
Yes. Title IX protects every student from sexual harassment or gender-based harassment in schools. It also applies to school employees, such as teachers.
What is “harassment”?
Harassment can take many forms. It can be verbal acts, like name-calling, images and graphics, written statements, or other actions that may be physically threatening, harmful, or humiliating. Harassment can include the use of cell phones or the internet (sometimes known as “cyberbullying”). It does not matter whether the harasser intends to harm or not, and harassment does not necessarily require repeated incidents. For the harassment to be prohibited by Title IX, it must be “on the basis of sex,” which includes sexual harassment and gender-based harassment.
What is sexual harassment?
Sexual harassment is unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature. It comes in many forms, and can include sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, or other conduct—both verbal and non-verbal—of a sexual nature. Sexual touching, sexual comments, jokes, gestures, graffiti, drawings, pictures, and writing can all be examples of sexual harassment.
What is gender-based harassment?
Gender-based harassment means harassment or bullying because a student does not conform to gender stereotypes—for example, harassment of a female student because she does not act the way that her peers think that girls should act.
Examples of harassment:
- A female student “hooked up” with a boy at her school, and now a group of girls are repeatedly texting her and tweeting about her at school, calling her a “slut” and a “whore.” This is gender-based harassment.
- Another female student sent her boyfriend “sexts” and pictures of herself naked. Then they break up. The boyfriend shares these sexts and photos with his friends at school to get back at her. He also spreads rumors about her sexual behavior. This is sexual harassment.
- A male student has mostly female friends, he sings Lady Gaga songs in the hallway and is on the dance team. Fellow students call him a “fairy,” “gay boy,” or “queer,” and tell him he should run for homecoming queen. This is gender-based harassment.
Do the harassing student and victim have to be of the opposite sex?
No. As long as the harassment or bullying is on the basis of sex, it does not need to come from a student of the opposite sex to be prohibited by Title IX.
When does harassment create a hostile environment?
Harassment creates a hostile environment when it is sufficiently severe, pervasive, or persistent that it interferes with or limits a student’s ability to participate in or benefit from school, including all activities and services.
What must my school do to protect me?
A school must do something about harassment that it knows about or reasonably should know about. If harassment is reported, or if it is widespread or well-known to students and staff, the school has to respond. A school is required investigate the harassment in a prompt, thorough, and fair way. If a school determines that sexual harassment has occurred, it must take effective steps to end the harassment and prevent it from happening again.
What if my school has an anti-bullying policy?
An anti-bullying policy does not mean the school’s work is done. Even if it has policies in place that prohibit bullying and harassment, your school is responsible for investigating, ending, and preventing harassment.
What can my school do if I’m experiencing harassment or bullying?
There are many ways that your school can respond to your harassment. It could separate your harasser from you, provide counseling for you and/or the harasser, and provide training to the school community as a whole so that all students, families, and school staff can recognize harassment and know what steps to take. Your school should not discipline you because have been bullied or harassed, and should not require you to change your class schedule or make other changes to your educational program to avoid the harasser.
Is there someone in my school or district who should know about Title IX?
Yes. Hopefully more than one person knows about the law’s requirements, but Title IX requires that a district designate at least one employee as a “Title IX Coordinator,” to make sure the school is following the law. As part of this requirement schools must investigate any claims of sex discrimination.
What are my legal options?
Schools are responsible for complying with Title IX, and this responsibility can be enforced by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR)—you can file a complaint with OCR online—or through a lawsuit in federal court. You should talk to a lawyer to find out your options.
Are there any other anti-bullying laws?
Yes. Almost every state has its own anti-bullying laws, which add other protections and requirements to those of Title IX. Check the Department of Education’s recent report on state bullying laws and policies, or ask an attorney to find out if you have additional protections.
For more information, please contact the National Women’s Law Center at firstname.lastname@example.org, or (202) 588-5180. | <urn:uuid:bdedd3a5-e938-4b6b-b6b2-d977d0cdcc6c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nwlc.org/resource/title-ix-protections-bullying-harassment-school-faqs-students | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95303 | 1,318 | 3.484375 | 3 |
- Tech & Gadgets
- BRW. lounge
Published 01 October 2012 05:37, Updated 21 November 2012 07:10
According to a survey of 11,000 MBA graduates, people who become entrepreneurs rate themselves happier than all other professionals and rate their work-life balance as better too.
A survey of 11,000 MBA grads has found entrepreneurs are generally happier than people in more conventional jobs.
The survey, which polled 30,000 graduates of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, also found that money does, in fact, buy happiness. However, having little money but working for oneself can deliver a similarly satisfactory result.
The Street takes a look at the Wharton questionnaire, which drew 11,000 responses from graduates of the school’s MBA program, 20 per cent of whom ended up starting their own business. Among the key findings, graduates who became entrepreneurs rated themselves happier than all other professionals and rated their work-life balance as better too.
All this despite the fact many barely scraped together a living – only 56 per cent who went into business for themselves made a profit.
“We were surprised that entrepreneurship was such a dominant factor,” The Street quotes Wharton management professor Ethan Mollick as saying. “Entrepreneurs are working really hard ... But there’s a sense that they have control over their own time, even if they’re putting in a huge number of hours.”
The survey also finds that entrepreneurship is increasingly become part of the career arc, with people switching back and forth between running their own business and working for others.
According to The Street, Mollick and fellow Wharton wonk Matthew Bidwell are now further crunching the numbers to find out if entrepreneurial experience – even if it’s a flop – contributes to overall career satisfaction.
MORE TIPS FOR ENTREPRENEURS: | <urn:uuid:8efdd2d1-8aca-45d0-a506-ecd11e5e62dc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.brw.com.au/p/sections/emerging_companies/entrepreneurs_are_happier_KxXknNR2Cyc3HOELXege8N | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965982 | 396 | 2.09375 | 2 |
The only real way to go is to let packagers handle the packaging. Don't try to package yourself. There are far too many distros out there. If you want it to be packaged for distro XYZ, then contact a packager/maintainer. Static linking is frowned upon for a number of reasons, some people do it anyway and still have problems. Take osmos as example, it's much smaller/simpler, apparently extensively tested (http://www.hemispheregames.com/faq/#linux_distros) and yet they had a number of issues (http://www.hemispheregames.com/forum/vi ... ?f=8&t=378). And those are not all, the osmos demo managed to completely lock up my machine, something that basically never happened in all the years that I run Linux. So let distros do the packaging, let distros take care of the distro specific problems.
You can in fact compile Spring with the libraries so that it will work on ANY distro and not depend on external libraries. However that makes bigger files and none does that. In Linux the compiled programs are linked to external libraries in your system and thus if some library is missing, the program won't compile/run until you install that library. However you can make a copy of the libraries inside the binary itself so not external linking is used. That's essentially what .exe files in windows are and I find it a much better design than the Linux design as there are NO dependencies nonsense. With some terabytes of space on computers nowadays I don't get why this is not the default way of compiling. That's also how some commercial binaries come in a single .bin file and run smoothly on any distro. They can be installers(Google Earth) or the program itself(Firefox).
You can in fact compile Spring with the libraries so that it will work on ANY distro and not depend on external libraries
I'd like to see you demonstrate proof of that claim. I could really use it.
That's essentially what .exe files in windows are
I don't get why this is not the default way of compiling
I guess users don't like to depend on thousands of people rebuilding and repacking their software every time a (potentially system-compromising) bug has been fixed in any of the potentially dozens of libraries that software was statically linked against.
There is such program which can create backup or something from existing installation and that backup runs on any linux distro, I read and tryed (poor amarok 1.4) it year or two ago cant remember name though... So one way or another it is really possible to make universal package for all linux, it just depends on how much libraries you must add and how big percentage of linux will be covered.
That's also how some commercial binaries come in a single .bin file and run smoothly on any distro. They can be installers(Google Earth) or the program itself(Firefox).
There are lots of issues with those programs. They are generally slow to pick up API changes and thus break often. Often there is only a version for 32 bit and then Linux users and distros must double installed libraries (flash, games), or they were compiled against a specific version of an external library (and wrapper-hacks follow), they don't integrate properly into DE, because they ship with their own TK (eg FF and GTK2 file-opener) etc. Lots of problems... ask distro maintainers, it's a mess.
terabytes of space on computers
On harddisks, but not in memory!, and statically linked libs do not share mem, but are loaded with each app again, thus being slower and using much more memory.
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You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot post attachments in this forum | <urn:uuid:80a55ca8-47ed-457e-8459-c0e79bd75480> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://springrts.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=25738&start=20 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940812 | 833 | 1.867188 | 2 |
The Hopi Tribe will conduct an assessment of golden eagles in Arizona, the Poarch Band of Creek Indians will restore longleaf pine habitat in Alabama, the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe will develop a Tribal Wildlife Management Plan for their reservation in New York, and in Washington state the Jamestown S’Kllalm Tribe will work towards restoring the Dungeness Elk Herd to its historic range.
The U.S. Forest Service will receive $40 million more to address public safety concerns and forest health needs arising from the millions of acres of dead and dying trees killed by bark beetles in the West, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Colorado Governor Bill Ritter announced Tuesday.
This week marks an historic turning point for people who love the wild canyon country and sweeping mesas of Southern Utah. For the first time, the U.S. House Subcommittee on National Parks, Forest and Public Lands will consider a bill designed to protect millions of acres of spectacular Utah lands as wilderness.
All of these lands—some of the last great places on earth—are owned by the public, but most of them remain vulnerable to industrial development. America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act would protect them from oil and gas development, uranium mining, and off-road vehicle use. Meanwhile, hunters, anglers, hikers, and families could continue to enjoy them, including the renowned Cedar Mesa, San Rafael Swell, and the Book Cliffs.
This is our chance to be present at the creation. If we pass the Red Rock Wilderness Act, we can tell our grandchildren we helped birth the latest Yellowstone. We can say we preserved treasures equal to Zion, Arches, and Canyonlands National Parks. We can add to the wilderness inheritance of future generations, and they will thank us for it. | <urn:uuid:65f055c8-7dd4-4a4c-9fbf-b998b52e9f31> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sundancechannel.com/blog/tag/forest/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918901 | 365 | 1.867188 | 2 |
Note : We are constantly
adding items to our repository. Please visit again for more.
technology forces the processes more logically. The computer
can handle only things to which the answer is yes or no. It
cannot handle may be. It is not the computerisation that is
important; it is the discipline you have to bring to your processes.
You have to do your thinking before you computerise it or else
the computer simply goes on strike." | <urn:uuid:0e2d71a0-90cd-4e8a-a4a4-b7b5e9e7d97e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nleague.com/rCenter.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.911462 | 95 | 1.671875 | 2 |
The civilization of ancient Egypt that flourished along the Nile Valley for over three thousand years left a wealth of material remains of unparalleled scope. These objects relate primarily to the extraordinary efforts devoted by theEgyptians to the pursuit of immortality. Their sophisticated funerary cult, together with the dry climate of the Nile Valley, helped preserve mummified bodies, magnificently decorated and opulently supplied tombs, and an abundance of written sources.
The desire to achieve eternal life, shared by all ancient Egyptians, is expressed in their monumental temples and elaborate tombs, which yielded the great majority of objects here on display. The primary function of these objects was to provide their owners with magical protection against perils threatening their eternal survival.
Comprising statues, amulets, stelae, and various funerary items, these objects reflect the Egyptians’ fascinating culture and shed light on their perception of their gods, their kings, and themselves, within the environment in which their civilization developed. | <urn:uuid:ecd787ee-3804-4cea-835f-67ec95846012> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.english.imjnet.org.il/page_967?c0=14420&bsp=14385 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949637 | 198 | 3.234375 | 3 |
To locate metal, glass, stone, plastic, bone and other dense foreign objects in packaged food, rely on our decades of application experience and our wide range of Thermo Scientific* X-ray inspection systems.
Stringent food and beverage safety standards are placing escalating demands on producers for greater levels of contaminant detection and inspection capability in packaged goods. In addition, the use of metalized film or foil packaging for packaged convenience meals is growing fast. While these materials extend shelf life and improve product appearance, they trigger sensitive metal detectors, rendering them useless.
Utilizing an innovative X-ray generation and processing approach, our systems can find virtually any metallic and non-metallic substance that is denser or sharper than the object it is contained in. X-ray systems are designed to enable the highest level of quality assurance. They feature state-of-the-art image analysis software that optimizes sensitivity and probability of detection. Using X-ray technology, food producers can detect the smallest of contaminants, as low as 1 mm in diameter.
X-ray systems are safe to use as they are certified to very stringent standards. Also, since X-rays are generated electrically, there are no worrisome active radiation sources that are difficult to manage and dispose of. | <urn:uuid:41d6cb47-c778-4eb1-86b7-20d4665e44ba> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thermoscientific.com/ecomm/servlet/applicationscatalog?storeId=11152&langId=-1&taxonomytype=1&relatedTab=Related+Products&taxonomyTo=4&navigationId=L11756&categoryId=80920 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933487 | 256 | 2.25 | 2 |
New World Bank figures suggest the Tiger may outpace the Dragon by 2012.
The figures, released last Sunday, predict China’s growth will slow from 8.7% in 2011 to 8.4% next year. India, meanwhile will speed ahead, with growth 8.4% to 8.7%. The figures are calculated using a measure called purchasing power parity basis, or ‘PPP,’ which is economist slang for ‘what can I get with 10% of my wage?’
The indicator, popularized by the Economist’s Bic Mac Index, isn’t perfect, but it does convey a more realistic sense of what’s going on in the street.
Still, it’s worth keeping in mind that, though growth rates are important , they don’t tell the whole story. China’s economy is about 4 times bigger than India’s economy, with the panda dwarfing the tiger 5.5 to 1.3 (trillion dollars, that is).
So, who wins? The Indian Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee says economic growth is not a competition, telling NDTV that “India is trying (to achieve high growth rate), but I am not going to compete with anybody.”
Ok sure, but tell that to China. | <urn:uuid:ffa6bcef-1fe4-43a7-8467-1f20974f430e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/01/19/it%E2%80%99s-not-a-race-but-will-india-grow-faster-than-china/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947783 | 278 | 2.015625 | 2 |
The Dutch of today are a peaceful, contented nation known for their liberal ways and easy-going lifestyle. Who indeed could believe that here is a nation that only three centuries ago ploughed the seas of the world in search of land and riches, slaves and spices, not to mention converts to their puritan brand of Christianity known as Calvinism.
Whether it was their love for God or the lure of gold that drove this virile and adventurous race to venture forth and conquer new lands we will perhaps never know. Nevertheless, the impress the Dutch left in Sri Lanka following their sway over the island's maritime provinces from 1658 to 1796 has been a lasting one. Many hangovers or rather relicts of Dutch rule survive to this day. This is seen in the spheres of law, cuisine, pastimes, architecture and many other aspects of social and cultural life. Roman-Dutch Law
An important area in which the Dutch have influenced Sri Lanka is in the legal sphere. The Roman-Dutch law which today serves as the general law of the land was introduced by the Dutch during their sway over the island's littoral.
Originally applied to the Burgers or Dutch colonialists and the Sinhalese elite serving the Dutch regime, it was conveniently continued by the British and extended to include all low-country Sinhalese and other ethnic groups that had no law of their own. The application of Roman Dutch law which emphasized on the ideal of monogamy, the sanctity of marriage and the private ownership of property is said to have had a considerable impact on the transformation of Sinhalese society not only in the low-country but also in the upcountry where Kandyan law has traditionally prevailed.
Roman-Dutch law is primarily based upon the Latin and Dutch language treatises of the early Dutch Jurists, the foremost among them being Grotius or Hugo de Groot (1583-1645) whose Inleiding is by far the most authoritative work on Dutch jurisprudence. These Dutch Jurists were considerably influenced by Roman law with which they sought to blend the old Germanic laws prevailing in their homeland. Thus Roman Dutch-law could be said to represent a combination of the Roman legal tradition and Germanic convention. Curiously enough, the only other country where Roman-Dutch law survives today is South Africa, a former Dutch colony. Roman-Dutch law ceased to exist in its home country, Holland, ever since it adopted the Napoleanic Code in the early part of the nineteenth century. Dutch architecture
Another area in which the Dutch left a lasting impression was in the field of architecture. Dutch period buildings still survive in Colombo, Galle and Matara, bearing ample testimony to the fine tastes and aesthetic sense of the Hollander. Many of these buildings were evidently designed after the manner of the townhouses of metropolitan Holland which served to remind the Dutch colonialists of their beloved Vaterland. Some of the finest specimens of Dutch architecture in the island are to be seen in the Fort area of Galle. Besides the old style Dutch residential houses, Galle also boasts of De Groote Kerk 'the Great Church', a gift from Commandeur Casparus de Jong in gratitude for the birth of a long awaited daughter in 1752.
The church, with its two gables and stained glass windows is perhaps the most beautiful and best preserved building of the Dutch period.It was due to its profoundly Dutch character that Galle was recently twinned with the beautiful city of Velsen in Holland. Another remarkable architectural feat of the Dutch is seen in the Star Fort of Matara built by Baron Van Eck in 1763. The fort has been built in the shape of a six-pointed star so that its guns could cover approaches from all directions, a fitting reminder of Dutch ingenuity. The Dutch Church at Wolvendaal in the heart of Colombo is yet another fine specimen of Dutch colonial architecture in Sri Lanka.
The Beira lake in Colombo probably takes its name from De Beer who is believed to have been an engineer in charge of the Dutch water defences. A granite plaque inscribed with the words 'De Beer 1700' recovered from an old Dutch sluice which controlled the flow of water from the lake has altered the hitherto accepted view that the lake takes its name from the Portuguese beira meaning 'bank or edge (of a lake)'. In the far north, the Dutch term Delft given to the island of Neduntivu still survives. The Dutch names given to the other islands of Jaffna such as Hoorn, Leiden, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Middelburg and Enkhuizen have all but disappeared and have been replaced by their local Tamil names.
The lower classes of society however persisted in using Dutch names.Names such as Karolis, Harmanis, Girigoris and Tepanis which were still in use in the early part of the last century have arisen from the Dutch Carolius, Hermanus, Gregorius and Stephanus. Such names, though no longer found among the modern-day Dutch were fairly common among the Hollanders of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Bruder has its origins in the Dutch broodje 'bread' and kokis in the Dutch coekje 'cookies'. Another item which seems to have been introduced by the Dutch is the stew. This is suggested by the Sinhala term for 'stew' ismoru which has derived from the Dutch smoor. There were also a number of Dutch delights widely consumed by the elite of yore, but not commonly partaken of nowadays. These included poffertje 'light dough fritters' and wafel 'waffles made in a fish-shaped gridle-pan from a rich batter and served hot with sugar syrup'.
This the bride wore until it was time for her to change her clothes before leaving her parental home with her husband. Gooneratne relates that superstition placed a heavy responsibility on the slender shoulders of the bridesmaid, for if, during the festivities that followed the rest of the day, the koronchi were to come adrift from its moorings,it was regarded as an indication that the bride does not go a virgin to her nuptial bed and that unavoidable misfortune would attend both husband and wife from that day forward.
In the matter of pastimes, it was the Dutch who introduced the playing of cards and hence we find that the names of the cards in the pack are of Dutch origin. Thus asiya 'ace' (D.aas), Buruva 'knave' (D.boer), hera 'king'(D.heer) and porova 'queen' (D.vrouw). The Dutch also introduced the playing of draughts to the country and hence we find that the Sinhala term for 'draughts' dam is in fact a loan from the Dutch language.
There also exist a number of expressions in both the Sinhala and Tamil languages which have been influenced by Dutch. Among the Sinhala expressions of Dutch origin may be cited kapoti 'finished'(D.kapot), bankolot 'bankrupt' (D.bankroet) and puspas 'hotch-potch' (D.poespas). The Dutch duit, an old copper coin of which eight went to make a stuiver, has found its way into the Jaffna Tamil language as tuttu and survives in a number of Tamil expressions involving value.
Thus the English idioms 'not worth a two pence' and 'good for nothing fellow' is rendered in Tamil as oru tuttukutap peratu and oru tuttukkum utavan respectively. The word has also found its way into Sinhala slang as seen in the expression tuttu deke '(worth) two tuttus' which has come to mean 'useless' or 'worthless'. @Sunday Observer | <urn:uuid:d51ee595-8ac2-46c6-927b-5ae60db66f68> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.infolanka.com/org/srilanka/cult/53.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971996 | 1,640 | 3.421875 | 3 |
The Exeter Farmers Market has been established in order to give local producers of fruit, vegetables and foodstuffs, as well as a limited range of craft and products made locally with local materials, a retail outlet that enables them to sell direct to the public.
Time: Every Thursday, 9am - 2pm
Shoppers keen on sampling West Country foods are able to try and buy a wide range of produce at the Exeter Farmers Market. The market has become a vibrant and enjoyable place to buy and sell, giving the producer a chance to meet and talk directly to the consumer of the produce that they grow or make.
Customers visiting the market have the opportunity to buy a delicious range of foods such as cheeses, venison, pork, lamb, beef, chicken, organic fruit & vegetables, apple juice, fish, chicken, preserves, cakes, bread, pies and much more.
Traders at the market include:
Please note: Producers may not attend every week please check with the market office if you want to know if a specific producer is booked to attend a market.
Once you get to know Exeter Farmers Market, why not shop and cook with the seasons, its fun and simple. Don't fret about what's in season when. Just look for the best-looking produce. If you don't know how to cook it, ask the farmer. To help you eat with the seasons see the following guide:
If you are interested in trading at the Farmer's Market please download the Farmer's Market Application Form [46kb]
March and April
May and June
July, August and September
This is peak season. In addition to the spring crops, look for:
'Everbearing' strawberries are still in season, as well as red raspberries and currants. In August, blackberries are added to this list.
If it's been a hot and sunny summer, the earliest eating apples, Discovery come to market as early as August. By September, most apples and pears are coming in.
October, November and December
Apples and pears are at their best. Plus all the late autumn/winter vegetables: | <urn:uuid:7b51888e-06df-4d0c-872c-33f38e1084f3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.exeter.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=9082 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970014 | 443 | 1.765625 | 2 |
I was going to incorporate this into another post I am doing but didn’t want to muddy the waters. This needs to stand alone. Joe B. steered me to bringing up the importance of OPSEC and what it means to our daily lives. I have posted on this issue before but the importance of it keeps occurring in news stories and with political pundits. That is, the LACK of it.
In WWII, there were many slogans posted throughout the US for the citizens to see. It had to do with not talking about anything considered useful information that the enemy (“we have spies everywhere”) could use against us. It was a process of indoctrination and maybe it is time to bring that program back. There are cleared spouses out there who can’t even discuss things between themselves because of disseminating information that the other might not have privilege to. The way secrets are kept is with the understanding that you only get to know what is directly related to your contribution and need on the subject. I have stated this before: Congress is EXEMPT from having to be polyed or having a clearance. Clearances are a lengthy and in-depth process to discern who can be trusted with classified information. Every organization uses some of their own requirements in this vetting process. Organizations have a “death” clause that that states any information received can not be disseminated until death do us part. That means regardless when you received that information or procedure or way of doing business, and regardless when you have left that position or organization, you may NEVER discuss anything learned…..until you are dead. Serious stuff. So why is it politicized?
You have had your Pentagon Papers and your Watergate and these “news” people did the general public a great service by bringing the truth out in the open. Or did they? We have internal ways of dealing with politicians who wrong America and desecrate their oath of office. There are things that the “people” of America just don’t need to know or get involved with. 50 years ago, John Kennedy had done some pretty heady things that put America in jeopardy, some of which we are still learning about today, but for the most part had been kept “secret”. So why does Mr. Transparency think it is allowable to tell OPSEC to the general public, which puts everyone in this country (and others) in grave jeopardy yet we aren’t allowed to know how political parties deceive the citizens with bills (behind closed doors) or even find out about rouge operations directly attributable to the White House and its cronies? Operations where people die and the only secrets involved are the ones that “cover our ass cause we really screwed up”.
Citizens need to understand OPSEC and how it affects their lives. ANYONE with access to any classified material should always be put through the process to see whether they qualify to have that access. Any individual, from the President on down, should be held accountable through fines, dismissal, imprisonment and death for disclosing that information to others who DO NOT HAVE the need to know. If severe acts of recourse are put upon those who leak, maybe then the individuals who take OPSEC lightly and the US citizens who don’t have the understanding of importance, would view this in the light of which it belongs. Bottom line is: When secrets are told-people will die. Of that you can be assured. | <urn:uuid:9bc358fc-5a77-4131-a1f8-9434a4e285e6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://novatownhall.com/2012/08/15/secrets-and-politics/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975294 | 704 | 1.945313 | 2 |
When teachers are the bully's target
Study: 80% of teachers surveyed felt victimized
Several years ago, Brendesha Tynes was taken aback when she received an email from one of her former students.
The note directed her to a Facebook event for an all-night bar crawl -- an event with which Tynes, an assistant professor at the time, had nothing to do. But it featured an offensive image and listed Tynes as the host; another former student had set it up.
As an educator and researcher, Tynes had spent years looking into cyberbullying. Now, she was a victim.
Tynes said she was prepared to tackle the eye rolls and sharp tongues that can come with molding young minds, but being publicly humiliated by a student wasn't in her lesson plan.
Reports from teachers say her case isn't an anomaly. A 2011 study, "Understanding and Preventing Violence Directed Against Teachers," reported 80 percent of about 3,000 K-12 teachers surveyed felt victimized by students, students' parents or colleagues in the past year.
Teachers reported that students were most often behind the verbal intimidation, obscene gestures, cyberbullying, physical offenses, theft or damage to personal property.
But few teachers or researchers are talking about it.
"People are very eager to talk about (teacher victimization) amongst co-workers and amongst friends, but they're very hesitant to report it to authorities or to the media," Tynes said. "People want to protect their students, even though they're being victimized by them, and they're worried about the reputations of the schools they work at."
Dorothy Espelage, a professor of educational psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, ran the 2011 study and found little research available regarding violence directed toward teachers.
Only 14 studies have been conducted internationally about violence directed at teachers, Espelage wrote in a follow-up report published this year in the journal American Psychologist. In the new report, she suggests developing a national, anonymous database for teacher victimization to help researchers pinpoint "the how and the why" about violence against teachers, prevent it and better train educators.
Bullying among students and peer groups is a hot topic, Espelage said, but talking about teacher victimization is considered taboo.
According to her 2011 study, 57 percent of teachers surveyed said they brought an incident to the attention of administrators.
The study found that 44 percent of teachers said they've experienced physical victimization. Men who participated in the study were more likely than women to report obscene remarks and gestures, verbal threats and instances of weapons being pulled on them. Women, on the other hand, were more likely than men to report intimidation.
Because there's so little information available, Espelage said she can only speculate about the gender differences: Male teachers might be more likely to break up fights between students, subjecting themselves to more acts of violence, while women might be victimized in other ways. Espelage said she's had students demean her gender, and make obscene gestures and sexual remarks to her. A student once wrote on an exam about having sex with her.
Despite feeling disrespected, Espelage said she, like the majority of teachers in her study, didn't report the "low-level stuff."
Staying quiet doesn't make sense for teachers, she said. Her research showed that the No. 1 reason teachers leave the profession is because "they can't handle the disrespect."
MetLife's 2012 Survey of the American Teacher revealed that job satisfaction is the lowest in more than 20 years. The survey reported that 29 percent of teachers said they are likely to leave the profession. That's 12 percent higher than the number of teachers who said they would leave in 2009.
"It's intimidating to walk in front of a group of students," said Bill Bond, a former teacher and high school principal who's now a specialist for safe schools with the National Association of Secondary School Principals. "They are going to challenge you academically, socially, and I hate to say it, but they will even challenge you physically. Kids just want to see where the limit is."
Bond said young teachers especially might be afraid to talk with a principal about being victimized in the classroom because they believe it means "they're being ineffective somewhere."
But a good principal or mentor will be there to help that teacher look at the issue at hand and correct it, he said.
Teachers aren't innocent, either, he said -- it's more common for a teacher to humiliate or bully a student than the other way around. When students feel disrespected by a teacher, they'll start to challenge them and eventually, they'll make it personal, Bond said.
Mutual respect is key, he said.
"It's tough to take control of 30, 35 teenagers with their hormones raging and all their opinions," Bond said. "The key to surviving is having peers you can go to and help you master your craft."
Tynes, now an associate professor of educational psychology and psychology at the University of Southern California, said being cyberbullied in 2007 left her stressed and anxious. Tynes said a mentor helped her to report the incident, and the student who created the Facebook event was required to complete diversity training.
"People were incredibly supportive," she said.
Tynes said she has learned from experience that opening the lines of communication between teachers and students' parents can prevent teacher victimization by students -- and by their parents. The 2011 study found that 37 percent of teachers who reported they'd been victimized felt that way because of a student's parent.
Keeping pupils engaged will also prevent an imbalance of power between teacher and student, she said. When a teacher constantly hands out work sheets and offers little support, she added, it can make students feel like the teacher doesn't care, and that's when they disconnect.
The cyberbullying experience fueled a desire to understand better how bullying affects young people. Through her research, she's found that young victims of cyberbullying often experience depressive symptoms and anxiety, just as she did once.
Despite the struggles, there's no better time than now to be a teacher, she said.
"We have so many technological tools and new media at our disposal," she said. "We can really enhance and promote learning in more ways than we could in the past."
Copyright 2013 by CNN NewSource. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. | <urn:uuid:4518e6c4-ae91-4295-9257-9dc9095180dc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kcra.com/news/national/When-teachers-are-the-bully-s-target/-/11797450/19273528/-/view/print/-/6ytto3z/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981206 | 1,341 | 2.390625 | 2 |
HORATIO SHARPE, Esq; Governor.
continued for seven years, &c. by the act of March,
1778, ch. 6; but by the act of 1785, ch. 77, the act
of November, 1769, is continued for seven years, &c. so that the act
of 1750 has again expired.
An ACT for the building a vestry-house at Chester church, in Kent county,
enclosing the church-yard, and for other purposes.
The vestry of Chester parish, is empowered
to apply the surplus of the 130,000lb. of tobacco, lately allowed
for building a parish church, and also the quantity of 16,000lb. part of
the savings of the present
year, by reason of a vacancy in the church, to the building and completing
a vestry-house, and the fencing
or paling of the church-yard. The vestry of St. Paul's is ordered
to render them an account of
the 30 per poll, from the death of the late incumbent, Mr. Sterling, until
November, 1765, and to pay
them the balance for the uses mentioned in the act of November, 1765, ch.
32; should any part thereof
remain unpaid by the sheriffs, they likewise are commanded
to render the first named vestry an account
thereof, and to pay it into their hands, to be applied to the same uses.
An ACT to empower the justices of Somerset county to levy on the taxable
of Somerset parish, in the said county, the quantity
of one hundred and
forty-four thousand pounds of tobacco, for the uses
Viz. For enabling a majority of
the vestry and wardens to purchase, in the name of the rector, vestrymen,
and wardens, a quantity of ground in Princess-Anne town, not exceeding
two acres, and to contract
for building thereon a chapel of ease; and to contract for enlarging the
parish church at Monie. The
tobacco is to be levied at three equal assessments in 1766, 1767, and 1768.
The vestry and wardens
shall receive it, and apply 128,000lb. thereof, together with the money
which they may raise by the sale
of King's-mill chapel, and of the land belonging thereto, at public vendue,
in purchasing the ground and
building the chapel. The remaining 16,000 they are to lay out in
enlarging the parish church.
An ACT for the adjournment and continuance of Frederick county court.
Viz. to the first Tuesday in December
An ACT to repeal part of an act, entitled, An act for the encouragement
persons as shall undertake to build water-mills.
| BE it enacted,
by the right honourable the lord proprietary, by and with the advice
and consent of his lordship's governor, and the upper and lower houses
assembly, and the authority of the same, That the act, entitled, An
the encouragement of such persons as will undertake to build water-mills,
clause, matter and thing, therein contained, shall be, and do stand hereby
except the last enacting clause therein that followeth the recital; " for
" prevention of the abuse frequently committed by persons keeping water-mills,
" by taking excessive toll," together with the said recital; which said
and enacting clause, it is hereby declared,
shall stand in full force and virtue.
|Part of the
act of 1704,
ch. 16, repealed.
| II. Provided
always, That such person and persons as hath or have, before
the first day of this present session of assembly, taken out, obtained
any writ or writs of ad quod damnum, under or by virtue of the said
shall have the same benefit and advantage under and by virtue of the said
act, as if this act were or had not been made, any thing herein to the
An ACT continuing an act, entitled, An act for relieving the inhabitants
province from some aggrievances in the prosecution of
suits at law, and for
continuing the supplementary act thereto.
The acts of 1714, ch. 4, and 1728,
ch. 21, are continued for seven years, &c. They have since been
continued for twenty-one years, &c. by the act of November, 1773, ch.
An ACT to enable the justices of Charles county court to assess and
levy on the
taxable inhabitants of Trinity parish, a quantity of
tobacco for building a chapel
of ease in Benedict hundred, in said parish, and for
other purposes therein
The quantity of 50,000lb. is to be
levied, by three equal assessments, in 1767, 1768, and 1769. The
vestry and wardens are therewith to purchase an acre of land, in Villet's
old fields, near the main road
from Bryan-town to Benedict, and to erect thereon a chapel of ease. | <urn:uuid:f6dc3daf-f42a-41e2-9d4e-122939999795> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://aomol.net/000001/000203/html/am203--14.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928416 | 1,098 | 1.5625 | 2 |
A Healthy Weeks Menu for the Older Person (menopause and after!)
It is sometimes hard to maintain an interest in food and mealtimes. To overcome this:
•Try to eat different foods each day
•Maintain an interest in cooking and experiment with new recipes
•Share meals with family and friends
•Try to make each mealtime an important occasion, even if it’s only beans on toast!
To help you get started we have devised a week s plan that is tasty, healthy and won’t make you gain extra weight.
The ground rules:
•Wherever possible use the wholegrain version of foods, e.g. wholemeal bread, brown rice, wholemeal pasta.
•You can have butter, spread or low fat spread on your toast, bread, teacakes, crackers or in sandwiches, but use sparingly.
•If you cannot shop regularly for fresh vegetables or find preparing them is a chore, than frozen are just as nutritious
•Tea and coffee can be drunk throughout the day but see note at end for dangers of drinking these to excess. Try herbal teas or the decaffeinated versions of some of these caffeine containing drinks.
Half a grapefruit
Toast with yeast spread
Toast with jam or marmalade
Ham and salad sandwich
Small pot of yoghurt
Grilled chop: 120-180g (4-6oz) raw weight is fine per person. Trim off all the fat before eating
Potatoes boiled in their skins
Broccoli and Carrots Baked apple
Custard sweetened made with lower fat milk
Glass of unsweetened fruit juice
Bowl of cereal (avoid sugar coated ones) e.g. Weetabix, Shreddies, Muesli
Slice of toast marmalade /jam/honey
Sardines on Toast (one or two slices according to appetite)
Tomato and cucumber
Small chocolate wafer biscuit
Shepherds pie: allow 120g (4 oz) of mince/quorn mince (for lowwer fat version) per person, fry the mince and drain off the fat before using.
Mash the potatoes with milk, a little pepper.
Peas and sweetcorn
Tinned fruit with 1 scoop of ice-cream or low fat custard
Slice of melon
1 crumpet topped with scrambled egg.
1 crumpet with small amount of honey
Baked potato with filling of tuna mixed with reduced fat mayonnaise. As the filling is moist, there is no need to use extra butter in the potato. Salad with low fat dressing
Stir-fry: Use a base of onions and add whatever vegetables you have in your store, but peppers, mushrooms and beansprouts go well. Add some lean bacon or strips/tofu/ quorn pieces of chicken breast.
Unsweetened fruit juice
Porridge made with lower fat milk and fruit and little honey to sweeten
Beans on toast: 1-2 slices depending on appetite. There is no need to ‘butter’ the toast first, as the topping is moist.
Small slice of plain or fruit cake
Cauliflower or Macaroni cheese: Half a pint of milk is sufficient for two people. Make the white sauce by thickening the milk with cornflour, so that there is no need to use fat. Use strong cheddar cheese so that you don’t have to use so much.
Mousse or sorbet
Small bowl of unsweetened prunes/canned in fruit juice
Fresh sliced/canned plum tomatoes on toast
Egg and cress sandwiches. (If using mayonnaise then used the reduced fat version)
Small carton of yoghurt or fromage frais
Pasta with tomato sauce: As with the stir fry, start with an onion fried in a little olive or sunflower oil, then add a tin of chopped tomatoes and whatever else takes your fancy! Tuna, cooked prawns, quorn or chicken can also be added.
Top with a little grated cheddar or Parmesan cheese.
Banana custard, made with lower fat milk
Unsweetened fruit juice
Grilled bacon, mushrooms and tomatoes with a poached egg
Toast with lower fat spread
Home made soup: Lightly fry some onions and add vegetables of your choice, or add cooked left over vegetables. Add stock and blend.
Bread roll or crackers
Apple with small cube of cheese
6oz lean grilled steak
Salad with lower fat dressing
Fresh fruit salad with natural fromage frais
Unsweetened fruit juice
Grilled kippers Grilled tomatoes
Toast with low fat spread
Lean Roast Meat: Make sure that you cook the meat on a trivet so that all the fat drains away. Do not use the meat juices to make the gravy, but you may use the vegetable water and lower salt gravy granules
Roast potatoes cooked in a small mount of vegetable oil
Milk pudding, such as rice pudding, made with lower fat milk
Cold meat, pickles and salad
Toasted tea cake
Notes · If you are particularly hungry or extra active, then you may need some extra snacks between meals. Below are some healthy snack ideas: •A bowl of unsweetened cereal (with low fat milk).
•A sandwich (with low fat filling).
•A ‘low calorie’/'diet’ yoghurt or fromage frais.
•A plain biscuit, e.g. Digestive, oatcake, semi-sweet biscuits e.g. Rich Tea or Marie.
•Any of the following with a scraping of either low-fat spread or jam/honey: Crispbreads or crackers with hummus, peanut butter or other topping.
•Bread, crumpets or teacakes.
•Plain scones or buns.
•If you have your evening meal early in the evening or have difficulty getting to sleep at night, then a milky drink at bedtime, such as a lower fat malted milk or chocolate drink may aid sleep.
•Try and include a pint of semi-skimmed milk in you diet every day to maintain bone health
. A third of a pint of milk can be substituted for a piece of cheese the size of a small matchbox or a small pot of yoghurt.
•If you are over 65, you should take a supplement daily of Vitamin D
. •Drinking plenty is important to help avoid constipation and dehydration. Aim to drink at least 6-8 cups of fluid (fruit juice, squash, water or tea) each day.
•Drinking too much tea and coffee and other caffeinated beverages may cause anxiousness and sleeplessness. . It is therefore advisable not to drink more than 10 cups of all caffeinated beverages each day (e.g. 2 cans of coke, 5 cups of tea and 3 cups of coffee would be the upper limit for the day)
If you drink remember to stick to less than 14 units a week and try and have at least 2 alcohol free days a week | <urn:uuid:22f65713-4d29-4706-bb26-f4e99e7c2d1d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.womensnutrition4health.com/index.php/category/the-older-woman/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.904527 | 1,511 | 2.046875 | 2 |
Enter an pressure quantity to convert, and select the from and to units.
Pressure = Force / Unit Area
The ratio of force applied per unit area, is pressure. The equation would be Force / Unit Area = Pressure. Force is created by the weight an object exerts onto another object. The measurement of pressure is clear cut for solid on solid, however liquid and gas are a little different. These types of matter need to be confined.
In this lesson you will learn:
• What the pressure is when a solid applies physical force to another solid?
• What results when solid applies physical force on confined fluid?
• What are the results when the applied force is gravity?
Pressure of Solid on Solid
When applying force to a solid object, pressure represents the amount of force applied divided by the surface area of which the pressure is applied. The equation we use for pressure is:
P = F / A
• P is for Pressure
• F is for Applied Force
• A is for the surface area for which the force is applied
• F / A represents F divided by A
Push on an object with the force of 20 pounds, and lets say your hand is the area of 10 square inches, the pressure exerted would be represented as 20 / 10 = 2 pounds per square inch.
Pressure = Force / Area
Mathematically speaking, the smaller the surface area the greater the pressure. Furthermore the greater the surface area, speeding out the pressure, the less pressure per unit area.
Solid Object Applying Pressure to a Restricted Fluid
When confined in a cylinder or container, pressure can be calculated on a liquid or gas. By using a piston to exert force, pressure would be created. The pressure would be calculated by using the area of the piston. Therefore the force exerted divided by the area of the piston would equal the pressure created: P = F / A.
Thus the pressure is equal thought the container or cylinder, pressing equally on all inside surfaces. Using a bicycle pump for example, pressure is created inside the pump and transported through a hose and into the tube of the tire. Therefore the air continues to be confined.
Pressure is exerted in all directions in a fluid.
The greater the Force the greater the Pressure in the container or cylinder.
Caused By Gravity
Weight of an object is the force caused by gravity. Therefore we can substitute weight for force in the pressure equation. Thus the weight (W) of an object divided by the surface area (A) where the weight is exerted equals the pressure (P) created by that object.
P = W / A
When placing an object on the floor, the weight of the object divided by the area of the floor is the pressure over the area of contact.
Pressure = Weight / Area
Example With Shoes
For example women's high heel shoes have a very small surface area at the heel, therefore creating greater pressure per area of the floor. Thus shoes of this type often cause damage to some types of flooring due to the increased pressure at the heel.
The average shoe distributes a persons weight over 20 square inches. Using a 100 pound person for example the equation would be 100 / 20 = 5 pounds per square inch on the floor.
A spiked heel however is only 0.25 square inches. Again using a 100 pound person the equation would be 100 / 0.25 = 400 pounds per square inch at the heel on the floor. Remember the smaller the surface area the greater the pressure. Thus creating enough pressure to damage some floors.
The weight of a container or cylinder full of liquid would press on the bottom, similar to that of a solid object. The pressure would be calculated the same as if the weight was from a solid object:
P = W / A
One difference in a fluid is that the pressure is exerted equally in all directions for both the sides and the bottom.
Contained gases and liquids present pressure due to weight at all points in the fluid.
Pressure is the amount of Force on an object over a area. The equation for calculating pressure is P = F / A. Pressure can be calculated when a solid is being pressed on to another solid. Pressure can also be determined on fluid when liquids or gases are confined in a container. The weight of an object can also create force. | <urn:uuid:a40ad44b-5d86-4a42-b9d0-9eee00292922> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.convertauto.com/pressure-conversion | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925079 | 888 | 4.375 | 4 |
Saint Aldhelm relates from her acts, that Fabricius, the governor of Cæsarea, in Cappadocia, inflicted on her most cruel torments, because she refused to marry, or to adore idols: that she converted two apostate women sent to seduce her: and that being condemned to be beheaded, she converted one Theophilus, by sending him certain fruits and flowers miraculously obtained of her heavenly spouse. She seems to have suffered under Dioclesian. Her body is kept in the celebrated church which bears her name, beyond the Tiber, in Rome. She is mentioned on this day in the ancient Martyrology under the name of Saint Jerom. There was another holy virgin, whom Rufin calls Dorothy, a rich and noble lady of the city of Alexandria, who suffered torments and a voluntary banishment, to preserve her faith and chastity against the brutish lust and tyranny of the emperor Maximinus, in the year 308, as is recorded by Eusebius and Rufinus: but many take this latter, whose name is not mentioned by Eusebius, to be the famous Saint Catharine of Alexandria.
The blood of the martyrs flourished in its hundred-fold increase, as Saint Justin has well observed: “We are slain with the sword, but we increase and multiply: the more we are persecuted and destroyed, the more are added to our numbers. As a vine, by being pruned and cut close, shoots forth new suckers, and bears a greater abundance of fruit; so is it with us.” Among other false reflections, the baron of Montesquieu, an author too much admired by many, writes: “It is hardly possible that Christianity should ever be established in China. Vows of virginity, the assembling of women in the churches, their necessary intercourse with the ministers of religion, their participation of the sacraments, auricular confession, the marrying but one wife; all this oversets the manners and customs, and strikes at the religion and laws of the country.” Could he forget that the gospel overcame all these impediments where it was first established, in spite of the most inveterate prejudices, and of all worldly opposition from the great and the learned; whereas philosophy, though patronized by princes, could never in any age introduce its rules even into one city. In vain did the philosopher Plotinus solicit the emperor Gallienus to rebuild a ruined city in Campania, that he and his disciples might establish in it the republic of Plato: a system, in some points, flattering the passions of men, almost as Mahometism fell in with the prejudices and passions of the nations where it prevails. So visibly is the church the work of God.
- Father Alban Butler. “Saint Dorothy, Virgin and Martyr”. , 1866. Saints.SQPN.com. 5 February 2013. Web. 19 June 2013. <> | <urn:uuid:673c1f33-0eac-44b9-9316-d427124dc79a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://saints.sqpn.com/butlers-lives-of-the-saints-saint-dorothy-virgin-and-martyr/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965549 | 611 | 2.359375 | 2 |
For Your Library
Beyond Kübler-Ross: New Perspectives on Death, Dying and Grief edited by Kenneth J. Doka and Amy S. Tucci, Hospice Foundation of America, 2011.
Elizabeth Kübler-Ross' five stages of grief-denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance-found in her book, On Death and Dying, published in 1969 have had remarkable staying power. Although these stages came from her clinical observations and were never validated by her or anyone else's research, this five-stage approach to understanding grief continues to be taught and understood as the standard approach for many still today. Fortunately we have learned a lot about grief and mourning since 1969 and this book does a very effective job of summarizing many of the important insights gained about our response to loss in the past forty plus years while giving credit to Kübler-Ross for being the pioneer that she was. In the nine chapters of the book, stage and task models of grieving are compared and contrasted, ideas of post-loss growth are explored and cross-cultural perspectives of grief are considered. In the very useful concluding section on "implications for practice," contemporary conflicts in the current "grief world" are discussed regarding the diagnosis of "complicated grief" proposed for the coming DSM-5 and whether or not grief counseling is helpful, harmful or of little use. Robert Neimeyer's closing chapter, From Stage Follower to Stage Manager: Contemporary Directions in Bereavement Care will be appreciated by counselors and therapists looking for ways to apply some of the newer insights in their work with grieving people. This is a brief book-only 152 pages-but it covers a great deal of needed ground for those wanting to take advantage of the grief insights gained since Kübler-Ross gratefully brought the discussion of death, dying and grieving front and center. We owe her a great debt for her pioneering work, and yet as Ken Doka remarks in his introduction to the first section of the book, "would a cancer patient wish to be treated by an oncologist steeped in the approaches offered in 1969?"
The Other Side of Sadness: What the New Science Tells Us About Life After Loss by George A. Bonanno, Basic Books, 2009.
One of the paradoxes when thinking about the grief that comes in response to death is that while many of those who have written about it, both professionally and personally, describe an overwhelming experience and struggle with finding a way to live it death's aftermath, most people find ways to cope and live well without needing the assistance of professionals, support groups, medication, etc. The death of an important person in our lives is undoubtedly a significant and challenging event but most of us find a way through to living well on the other side. George Bonanno has been intrigued by this puzzle and spent his professional life researching the experience of grief, especially in the Western world. What he has found and written about in this very accessible book is that many of the concepts that have often been taken for granted as true-concepts like "grief work", stages of grief, the need to fully explore a loss in order to detach from the person who died-do not hold up to objective scrutiny when researched. What he has found is that most people are resilient and that humans are wired to grieve and cope in adaptive ways. This doesn't mean, he asserts, that there are not those who struggle mightily and chronically and deserve special assistance. Most of us find a way with the internal and external resources we possess when the death occurs but this is not the story that is usually told. In his exploration of our responses to death, Bonanno brings a researcher's perspective to experiences of relief and laughter, enduring connections with the dead and the possible influence of underlying death anxiety in our society. As a scientist and researcher, he is skeptical about concepts of an afterlife but writes about the different ways that cultures consider an afterlife and an ongoing relationship with the dead and how these different approaches may affect grief experiences. Along the way he explores Chinese bereavement rituals which he describes from the outside and also the inside as he meaningfully participates in a ritual in honor of his deceased father. Bonanno's work and writing are and have been an important contribution to our understanding of grief and his writing style is engaging and thoughtful.
Two quotes are especially worth repeating-one from Bonanno in his first chapter and one from a mother whose adult daughter died and whose experience is referenced throughout the book (along with other case examples):
If we understand the different ways people react to loss, we understand something about what it means to be human, something about the way we experience life and death, love and meaning, sadness and joy. (Bonanno)
It's a bit like a fading light. It grows dim but it never goes out, never, not completely anyway. I find that enormously reassuring. I used to worry that someday the light would disappear-that I would forget, and then I would have really lost Claire. I know, now, that doesn't happen. It can't. There is always a little flicker there. It is a bit like the small glowing embers you see after a fire dies down. I carry that around with me, that little ember, and if I need to, if I want to have Claire next to me, I blow on it, ever so gently, and it glows bright again. (a mother's response to the question of what bereavement feels like years after the death of her daughter) | <urn:uuid:6d9cc1c8-9322-4e18-b150-075f58f22619> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.archildrens.org/News/Publications-Newsletters/The-Mourning-News/For-Your-Library/For-Your-Library-January-2012.aspx?LargeFonts=true | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969105 | 1,133 | 2.03125 | 2 |
Last winter, the Vermillion area received 40 inches of snow. The year before that brought 55.6 inches.
This year, only 16 inches has fallen – and that total won't be much higher even after the winter weather pattern that hit many parts of the state this week fully dissipates.
Nor will that pattern be a sign of any major changes in climate or precipitation in the future, said Kyle Weisser, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Sioux Falls.
"Right now, it's more of a singular thing. It's not a real huge pattern change," Weisser said Tuesday. "It's not even really going to get cold behind the system.
"I think we're lucky – it's one big system coming out, and then we're going back into relatively quiet weather here for the next few days," he said.
Not only that, it could get even warmer.
"Overall we're looking at mid- and upper-30s for highs the next several days, and then as we get into next week there are quite a few signals that we could get into a very warm pattern," Weisser said. "That's one thing that's very helpful with this system coming out warmer.
"With all of this rain, we're melting any snow that's out there, getting rid of a lot of it, and when this warmer pattern does set up next week, we'll have a much better chance of realizing some of those warmer temperatures," he said.
Those temperatures could reach the mid-50s by Monday and Tuesday, he added.
But why has it been so unseasonably warm and dry – the driest since 2005-2005, which saw only 13.6 inches of snow overall? Weisser said it's a combination of factors.
For one, we currently are experiencing a la niña pattern, which helps to decrease the strength of the jet stream, he said.
Secondly, there is a weaker North American oscillation.
"That's a little lesser-known, but (we're) starting to gain ground on understanding circulation that's up to our north," Weisser said. "We had two very strong North
American oscillations in 2009-2010, and 2010-2011, those two winters. And we had very snowy, very cold winters.
"This year it's much weaker, and we're having a very mild winter with not much precipitation. That's starting to be a stronger indicator, you could say, as we learn more and more about it," he said.
Weisser said that unfortunately, it's difficult to determine if we'll be seeing similar patterns over the next few winters.
"At times they try to forecast la niñas and el niños, and it doesn't always pan out. We don't understand ocean currents quite as well, and some of the large-scale currents," he said. "At least if they can see something like that a month or two or three in advance it's going to maybe give them a little confidence on what the upcoming months might be."
It also is difficult to determine what the spring and summer months will bring.
"There's some anecdotal information," Weisser said. "At least for Sioux Falls – which would apply to Vermillion – we looked at the 15 least-snowy winters, and of those 15 winters, 12 of the summers ended up with below-normal rainfall."
Weisser stressed that there is "no proof of a direct correlation" between winter snows and spring rains, however.
"Things can change," he said. "Sometimes these circulations can absolutely disappear much faster than anything would be expected. That's part of the learning curve there on trying to use new tools to forecast." | <urn:uuid:383043a5-ab14-4aa3-8e26-195e750fc20e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://plaintalk.net/2012/03/after-rain-sleet-and-lightning-this-week-local-residents-can-expect-calm/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981802 | 769 | 2.1875 | 2 |
There are certain things that every adult needs to know how to do: apologizing graciously when they're wrong, cooking an egg, and bravely pulling the gunky stuff out of the kitchen drain. For me, sewing on a button falls solidly in this category. There's no need for a tailor to do this; it's easy!
The button (If you've lost the button, finding a match may be the hardest part of this entire process. Make sure to check inside the jacket; often the manufacturer sews an extra one inside.)
Wooden skewer or a toothpick
Here's what to do:
• Measure out about 16 inches of thread. Don't be stingy. Nothing is more frustrating than running out of thread when you've almost finished a project. On the other hand, don't go crazy either. Thread that's too long will tangle up.
• Thread your needle and knot the end of one layer of thread. Try licking you finger and rolling the final inch of thread around until it knots up.
• Line up your button, making sure the holes are straight. Notice which way the other buttons are sewn and copy it.
• From the inside of the coat, push the needle through the fabric and one buttonhole and pull it taut.
• Place your skewer between the button and the fabric and sew down through another buttonhole and the jacket, trapping the skewer in between. The skewer is a placeholder so the button isn't sewn on too tightly which, especially with a thick coat, makes it tough to button up.
• Keep sewing through those two holes until they're secure, and then do the same with the other set, so the button is balanced.
• Remove the skewer and make a shank by wrapping your thread several times around the threads holding the button to the jacket (in between the button and the jacket). This protects those threads and helps them last longer.
• Push your needle through to the inside of the jacket and tie off your work by nipping a bit of fabric with your needle, then making a loose loop with the thread. Before you close the loop, pull your needle through it and pull tight. Repeat several times in the same place until it's secure. Trim the excess thread.
• Paint a dab of clear nail polish over the threads on the top of the button to seal and secure them even further. You're done!
I've been putting off this project for about five months, but it took me only five minutes to finish. I hate having a jacket out of commission, so next time I won't wait so long.
(Images: Jennifer Hunter) | <urn:uuid:f0db377a-bcc6-4c37-8666-b042941ceb6b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/how-to-sew-a-button-on-a-jacket-166747?img_idx=3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944664 | 548 | 2.140625 | 2 |
In the astoundingly popular best-seller Freakonomics, Steven D. Levitt argues that people with absurd names have trouble landing jobs not because of their names, but because people with ludicrous names tend to come from poor backgrounds, and it is a crummy education that creates the roadblock to success.
This may be true, but it fails to address the repercussions of living in a society where stupid names are fast becoming the norm. It was one thing when frivolous people in Laurel Canyon started naming their progeny Dweezil, Cheyenne, and Brooklyn, but what happens when the epidemic of idiotic nomenclature hits bedrock Middle America?
Not long ago, a friend moved from Princeton, New Jersey, to Boise, Idaho. Here, she enrolled her six-year-old daughter in a ballet class. The roster was dominated by names like Cody, Kelsee, Ciera, Allegra, Colette, Cataline, Sarraye, Maren, Koreen, Oakley, Avery, Sadi, Jade, Kinsey, Leela, Kendall, Ashlee, Michaela, Ayla, Terace, Becca, Tymer, Kieron, Brandi, Kelsey, Taylor, Morgan, Whitney, Brittany, Kaela, Ireland, Amari, and Storm.
While in Boise, my friend took a kick-boxing class with a young woman named Rhiannon. She did not ask how the woman got her name, assuming that it derived from the late-'70s Fleetwood Mac smash hit. She conceded that it was hard to keep a straight face during class because she could not stop visualizing Stevie Nicks enmeshing herself in her bewitching womanly shawls while the instructor's namesake --or even the instructor herself--was taken by, taken by the wind: Sometimes she took to the sky like a bird in flight / Other times she rang like a bell in the night, my friend recalls. She was like a cat in the dark / And then she was the darkness.
Obviously, no one can be held responsible for having the name Rhiannon. True, cynics might argue that a person can be blamed for keeping the name Rhiannon, but in doing so, they unfeelingly ignore the psychic substructure that animates contemporary nomenclature. For most of us grow into the names we are given, and cannot discard them without sacrificing a certain measure of our personality. Lucky Luciano could not have traded in his moniker for Spanky McGettigan. Cher could not suddenly become Madonna; this would only make a bad situation worse. Nor can those hamstrung by unfortunate names toss them overboard without implicitly repudiating their parents, or at least questioning their judgment.
If we assume that Rhiannon's parents were Fleetwood Mac fans, there is every possibility that she has siblings bearing late '70s Easy Listening names like "Sara" and "Tusk." This can be written off as the folly of youth: It seemed like a good idea at the time. But what if her parents, despite the decisive cultural and chronological evidence linking them with Stevie Nicks, captiously insist that they did not name their child Rhiannon because of the band's single, but because of an entirely different Rhiannon? Then they force their child to spend the rest of her life insisting that she was not named after the Fleetwood Mac Rhiannon, but for a beloved progenitor, Granny Rhiannon or Tugboat Rhiannon, or perhaps even a mythical proto-Rhiannon who provided the original inspiration for the song.
This makes the girl with the marquis name seem petulant and affected. It's like saying, "No, my parents didn't name me Vito Corleone after the guy in The Godfather; they named me after the Vito Corleone who invented the mosh pit."
The kick-boxing arts, or what the French refer to as les dons pédicombatiques, are not to be scorned, disparaged, or heaped with contumely. But if it is true that those possessing names like George, James, and Nancy are more likely to ascend to high public office than those named Melchior, Babarina, or Crustacea, we are justified in assuming that certain career options--Archbishop of Canterbury, CEO of Intel--may have closed themselves off to Rhiannon at a very early date.
And here we lock horns with a phenomenon known as the Greenspan Algorithm: the inescapable truth that while the public might allow someone who once worshipped Ayn Rand to set interest rates, it would never let anyone actually named Ayn do it, because people named Ayn sound like they may be Sith Lords. By and large, the American people are loath to tolerate cabinet-level weirdness--unless, as in the case of Condoleezza Rice, one is given a pass because of membership in a free-wheeling ethnic group that makes its own rules.
By contrast, in the case of a white woman named Rhiannon, the American people would be reluctant to accept her ascendancy to chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or chief CBS White House correspondent not because of the distressing pop cultural connotations but because the name Rhiannon smacks of the occult and the druidic, both of which are verboten in a Judeo-Christian society where people justifiably fear sorcery at both the state and federal level. Inevitably, it would lead to whispers about the Illuminati, the Freemasons, and the Knights Templar: the whole Da Vinci Code complex. This does not play well in Peoria.
Why should the plight of a victim named Rhiannon concern the rest of us? Partially because we are compassionate human beings and understand that a child named Rhiannon or Brooklyn or Skyler will spend the rest of his life fending off ridicule from thugs named Cheech the Mook. There is also concern that one of our sons could enter into a morganatic marriage with a femme fatale named Rhiannon, vastly increasing the likelihood that our grandchildren will be named Mordred, Banquo, or Xena.
But there is another, far more selfish, reason why we should be concerned about the proliferation of astoundingly stupid names. Suppose a few decades down the road the president of the United States is forced to choose between two candidates for chairmanship of the Federal Reserve. As luck would have it, the woman named, say, Rhiannon Cougar Mellencamp, is far more gifted than her rival. But because the president fears that he will be mocked if he chooses a Fed chairman named Rhiannon, he opts for the safer choice: Brandi or Tiffany.
The nitwit he selects immediately raises interest rates, triggering a housing market collapse and a devastating global depression. All because someone, somewhere, decided to name their child after a Stevie Nicks song. Dreams unwind, love's a state of mind.
Purists may argue that previous generations also had ridiculous names like Elmer, Caleb, and Purvis. But these were real names, not synthetic ones. And the people who named their children Elmer were probably doing their level best under difficult circumstances; they had hogs to feed or a bad case of rickets. What should concern us is that each generation of stupid names encourages the next generation to be even stupider. It was Anson that begot Heath. It was Morgan that begat Kyla. And one day Rhiannon will beget Clytemeghan or Zugwah.
So if you're reading these lines, and you have an unnamed child on the way, I implore you to heed the words of Fleetwood Mac themselves: Don't stop thinking about tomorrow / It'll be better than before.
But not if your kid's named Rhiannon.
Joe Queenan is the author, most recently, of Queenan Country: A Reluctant Anglo phile's Pilgrimage to the Mother Country. | <urn:uuid:de2e0e8e-5e74-482f-bc2a-c88ec31872ac> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.weeklystandard.com/print/Content/Protected/Articles/000/000/013/054jedui.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955996 | 1,674 | 1.8125 | 2 |
The idea for Pushpin Numbers came from Big Brother’s preschool teacher, who has been using this method for one of the alphabet centers in her classroom. It is super simple, great for teaching letter and number formation, and helps your child develop the proper grip needed for writing.
Rest assured, there was no one poked in the making of this post. ;)
Here’s what you’ll need: corkboard, pushpins, construction paper, and a marker.
1. Write the number/letter on a piece of construction paper and then secure it to the corkboard with 4 pushpins. I also added the corresponding number of dots to the bottom for some one-to-one correspondence as well.
2. Give your child an extra pushpin and instruct him/her to start at the top and poke holes on the number.
Notice the grip of his fingers…the same grip he uses when he holds a pencil.
Little Brother also got a turn and did surprisingly well!
Little Brother has NEVER held a pencil correctly. But notice how he is holding the pushpin! :)
We took the activity to another level by putting it on our overhead projector to see what would happen.
Ta-Da! Look at the numbers!
Each of the boys pointing to their numbers.
Have you ever let your child use a pushpin? | <urn:uuid:00eaab6a-f43a-47a9-8a53-9995f980c736> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.icanteachmychild.com/2012/09/pushpin-numbers/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953443 | 282 | 3.53125 | 4 |
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Bulletin HASKINS & SELLS 23 Investment Trust Trends WHEN investment trusts were first introduced in the United States there was a tendency to operate along strict trust lines by selling participating certificates or trust shares in a trust fund which was invested in a diversified group of securities and deposited with a trustee. The holder of a participating certificate had a proportionate interest in the total value of, and income from, the fund. However, the trend is now away from the strict investment trust type of organization and toward the investing company type. Most of the so-called investment trusts today issue their own bonds or debentures, which bear a fixed rate of interest, and invest the proceeds in a variety of outside securities. Any profit made on the securities over and above the annual interest charges on the bonds and debentures belongs to the corporation. Despite the present trend, there are still many points peculiar to an investment trust which the auditor should investigate while making an audit of such a company. Perhaps the most important phase of the so-called investment trust organization which the auditor should investigate is whether the company's investments conform with the standards of value and standards of diversification prescribed in the articles of incorporation. The standards of value usually permit investments only in securities having a certain earning power, issued by companies established for a certain length of time, and which conform to other similar requirements. Standards of diversification prescribe the proportion of the funds which may be invested in any one security, company, country, type of industry, or type of security. The matter of earned surplus available for dividends also requires the attention of the accountant. He should assure himself that the company is not taking into earned surplus available for cash dividends any increase in the market value of the securities in which its funds are invested. The accruals for the period also should be tested rather thoroughly. The manner in which the management is compensated for its services should be investigated and the correctness of such compensation verified. It is desirable also that the auditor determine if any of the officers or directors of the company are connected with any other financial organization which issues and sells securities. If so, it is possible that unsound securities which the issuing company was unable to move may have been "unloaded" onto the investment trust. While in the case of a company organized upon a purely investment trust basis it is probably best to show the company's accountability for the participating certificates as a deduction from the trust investments on the asset side of the balance sheet, there appears to be no reason for varying the form and arrangement of the balance sheet of an investing company from that ordinarily used by corporations generally. Of course, all contingent liabilities should be shown in the balance sheet. No matter what the trend of investment trusts may be, the fundamental principle of diversified investment in marketable securities still remains, and the accountant should bear that in mind while auditing such companies.
Investment trust trends
Haskins & Sells Bulletin, Vol. 11, no. 03 (1928 March), p. 23
|Source||Originally published by: Haskins & Sells|
|Collection||Deloitte Digital Collection|
|Digital Publisher||University of Mississippi Libraries. Accounting Collection|
|Identifier||HS Bulletin 11-p23| | <urn:uuid:7dd485d9-1cfc-4d72-b2d6-404bebb280a6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://clio.lib.olemiss.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/deloitte/id/38622/rec/17 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941779 | 667 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Map of the coastal marine habitat
classification for New Zealand
The Marine Protected Areas (MPA) Policy seeks to protect marine biodiversity by establishing a network of MPAs that is comprehensive and representative of New Zealand’s marine habitats and ecosystems. The policy aims to protect representative examples of the full range of marine habitats and ecosystems, as well as outstanding, rare, distinctive or internationally or nationally important marine habitats and ecosystems. While it aims to achieve a target of protecting 10% of New Zealand’s marine environment, the ultimate extent of protection will be determined by what coverage is required to establish a comprehensive and representative network of marine protected areas.
This report provides an analysis of which coastal habitats in the New Zealand Territorial Sea are currently represented in areas that meet the New Zealand MPA Protection Standard (the Protection Standard). The report maps approximate, predominantly physical, surrogates of habitats derived from broad categories of environmental drivers such as depth, substratum, exposure and the actions of biogenic, habitat forming organisms. It does not however, aim to assess outstanding, rare, distinctive, internationally or nationally important habitats or ecosystems, or finer scale species associations and ecosystem processes.
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Some documents are currently only available as PDFs or other files such as Word or Excel. If you can't view these files please get in touch with the listed contact to request another format or a hard copy. About PDFs and other alternative formats. | <urn:uuid:48df494f-7326-458d-9b3c-e26f48004b24> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://doc.govt.nz/publications/conservation/marine-and-coastal/marine-protected-areas/coastal-marine-habitats-and-marine-protected-areas-in-the-new-zealand-territorial-sea-a-broad-scale-gap-analysis/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.909628 | 294 | 2.921875 | 3 |
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Authors: Sherman & Ewing
Date: November 3, 1858
One of the partners addressed this letter regarding the use of military land warrants in the territory to Thomas A. Thompson at Summit Point, Jefferson Co., Virginia. "Sherman & Ewing informed Thompson that such warrants could not be used to acquire land until after the public sale in July 1859, but some advice was offered for the interim.
Keywords: Ewing, Thomas, 1829-1896; Land sales; Land speculation; Land titles; Leavenworth County, Kansas Territory; Leavenworth, Kansas Territory; Preemption law United States; Sherman & Ewing; Sherman, William T. (William Tecumseh), 1820-1891; Springfield, Missouri; Squatters; Summit Point, Virginia; Warrants (Law)
Letter, John A. Halderman to S. N. Wood
Authors: Halderman, John Adams
Date: November 20, 1859
In this brief but cordial letter from Leavenworth, Halderman asked Wood to reprint an "enclosed" article from the Herald of Freedom in the Kansas Press; the piece "seems to have been written by a political opponent who is inclined to do me justice." He then mentions "the meeting of the squatters on the Kaw Reserve" and his sympathy for their plight.
Keywords: Halderman, John Adams; Herald of Freedom; Kansa Indian lands, Kansas Territory; Kansas Press; Leavenworth, Kansas Territory; Squatters
Letter, Harrison Anderson to R. J. Hinton
Authors: Anderson, Harrison
Date: January 27, 1860
The elder brother of Harpers Ferry raider Jeremiah G. Anderson wrote Hinton to provide information on his brothers activities in Kansas Territory, beginning in "June or July 1857," when he settle in norther Bourbon County. J.G. Anderson was actively engaged in free-state activities in southern Kansas, including efforts to defy the bogus authority through the establishment of what was called a "Squaters court." (According to a January 29, 1860, letter--also in this folder--from another brother, John Q. Anderson of Eddyville, Iowa, brother Harrison was still living in at Little Osage, KT, and he had "frequently entertained" John Brown.)
Keywords: Abolitionists; Anderson, Jeremiah G.; Bogus laws; Border disputes and warfare; Bourbon County, Kansas Territory; Brown, John, 1800-1859; Fort Scott, Kansas Territory; Free State Party; Free state cause; Free state settlers; Hinton, Richard Josiah; Lane, James Henry, 1814-1866; Proslavery activities; Squatters
Letter, Tho. Ewing Jr to Dear Father [Thomas Ewing, Sr.]
Authors: Ewing, Jr., Thomas , 1829-1896
Date: March 9, 1860
Thomas Ewing, Jr., wrote from Leavenworth to his father in Ohio seeking his assistance with a legal matter involving claims to the land "reserved to certain half breeds of the Kansas tribe." Most of this land was occupied by squatters and questions of legal title and transfer were being litigated in the territorial and federal courts.
Keywords: American Indians (see also Native Americans); Courts; Elmore, Rush; Ewing, Thomas, 1789-1871; Ewing, Thomas, 1829-1896; Kansa Indian lands, Kansas Territory; Kansa Indians; Kansas Territory. Supreme Court; Land claim disputes; Land speculation; Lawyers; Leavenworth County, Kansas Territory; Leavenworth, Kansas Territory; Native Americans; Ohio; Pettit, John; Squatters; Territorial Supreme Court (see Kansas Territory. Supreme Court)
|See previous results| | <urn:uuid:83a54fef-501b-4f23-b249-812180f11959> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.territorialkansasonline.org/~imlskto/cgi-bin/index.php?SCREEN=keyword&selected_keyword=Squatters&sort_by=true&submit=Go&startsearchat=5 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.91858 | 864 | 1.9375 | 2 |
Homeopathic Materia Medica by Farrington
(cham)The Chamomilla of the homeopathic materia medica is the German variety, the Chamomilla matricaria. The drug acts best apparently upon patients with a morbidly sensitive nervous system. It is like COFFEA, IGNATIA and BELLADONNA then, in so far as it lessens nervous excitability.
Slight impressions produce distress and anguish of mind; pains often result in fainting. Here it is similar to VALERIAN, HEPAR and VERATRUM ALBUM. It is especially applicable to these symptoms when they appear after long-continued use of narcotics.
In every disease in which Chamomilla is indicated, we notice this peculiar excitability. The patient, whether it be child or adult, a woman in labor or with toothache, is cross and excitable. Unless this mental state is present, Chamomilla will most likely fail you.
When violent emotions, as anger, affect the viscera, as, for example, the liver with jaundice, you may think of the drug under consideration. In this condition it stands related to a few drugs.
STAPHISAGRIA is indicated in children when colic follows a fit of anger.
BRYONIA has gastro-enteric symptoms after anger. Under this remedy, however, the. symptoms are associated with chilliness, under Chamomilla with heat; under Bryonia the face is dark red, under Chamomilla it is hot. The Bryonia tongue is coated white, that of Chamomilla yellow.
Continuing the nervous symptoms of Chamomilla, we find the drug useful for insomnia of children, when they start during sleep and the muscles of the face and hands twitch. With these symptoms there is apt to be colic; the face is red, especially one cheek, and the head and scalp are bathed in a hot sweat. A word of explanation is here necessary : Sometimes, during an attack of fever in a child, the cheek on which it lies becomes red; now that is not a Chamomilla symptom. These nervous symptoms of Chamomilla are generally reflex from the abdomen. There is very little evidence of delirium in these cases. When brain complications are present Chamomilla ceases to be the remedy, and Belladonna comes in.
When, during dentition, Chamomilla fails, BELLADONNA is the remedy, because it is suited to a farther advanced state.
This same nervous state of Chamomilla may be applied to the use of the drug in rheumatism. Rheumatic pains drive the patient out of bed and compel him to walk about. He is thirsty, hot, and almost beside himself with anguish.
The analogous remedies here are RHUS, which lacks the excitement of Chamomilla; FERRUM METALLICUM, which has rheumatism better from moving about slowly ; VERATRUM ALBUM, which has maddening pains, compelling the patient to walk about. With the latter remedy there is not the feverishness and excitement which characterize Chamomilla.
Chamomilla also acts on mucous membranes, causing symptoms of catarrh. It is indicated in the catarrhs of children, when the nose is "stopped up," and yet there is a dropping of hot, watery mucus from the nostrils; there are sneezing, and inability to sleep, and with these a dry teasing cough, which keeps the child awake, or may even occur during sleep; or there is rattling cough, as though the bronchi were full of mucus. Especially is Chamomilla useful in colds brought on by cold windy days.
NUX VOMICA is also indicated in catarrhs, when there is a "stopped-up" feeling in the nose, but there is no secretion whatever.
SAMBUCUS is indicated in catarrh, when the child starts up suddenly as if suffocating.
STICTA suits a hard, dry, barking cough ; the nose is "stuffed up" and dry; the real condition is this, the nasal secretion dries so rapidly that it cannot be discharged.
Chamomilla has a number of gastric symptoms. It is useful in biliousness produced by anger. We find it also indicated in gastralgia, especially when the food eaten seems to lie like a load in the stomach. There is distension of the hypochondria; the tongue is coated yellowish-white and there is a bitter taste in the mouth ; there are colicky pains in the abdomen, which are relieved by drinking a cup of coffee.
Chamomilla produces a diarrhoea with hot, yellowish-green stool looking like chopped eggs, and often mixed with bile, causing soreness at the anus, and having an odor of sulphuretted-hydrogen; it is especially worse towards evening; it is apt to occur during dentition.
Chamomilla is here frequently followed by SULPHUR', because both remedies produce the same stools with soreness of the stomach. If there is much tenesmus with these symptoms MERCURIUS the remedy.
If the stool is worse in the morning, and comes with a gush, we should think of PODOPHYLLUM.
Chamomilla is an invaluable remedy in the lying-in room; it is indicated when labor pains begin in the back and pass off down the inner side of the thighs. There is great nervous excitement; the labor seems to be exceedingly painful; after the labor is over, the lochial flow seems to be dark and too profuse, and the after-pains are violent and intolerable.
Chamomilla may be used in threatening abortion caused by anger, when the pains are of the character just described, and there is a flow of dark blood.
VIBURNUM is useful in threatening miscarriage when these pains come down the lower part of the abdomen and go into the thighs. It will stop the pains, even if it cannot prevent the miscarriage.
From the MELANTHACEAE we obtain the following medicines : VERATRUM ALBUM, VERATRUM VIRIDE, SABADILLA, and COLCHICUM. Of these drugs, I may say that I am pretty well persuaded that the Veratrum album and Veratrum viride are pretty well understood, and are, therefore, not easily misapplied. I am also well persuaded that Colchicum has not the place in practice it deserves. True, it comes to us from the allopathic school as a remedy highly recommended for gout. We ought not, however, from the exorbitant use of the drug by that school to go to the opposite extreme, and neglect it as a remedy altogether. | <urn:uuid:60ed6e9c-2ee5-484a-9767-19bbe9b5cd51> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.vithoulkas.com/en/component/content/article/2897.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942806 | 1,431 | 2.453125 | 2 |
Vacuuming 101 – Chicago, IL
Proper vacuuming is the easiest and most effective way to keep your carpet clean. It may come as a surprise that something as simple as regular vacuuming can also have the largest impact on the air you breathe. Removing loose soil while it remains on the carpet surface prevents dirt from being ground into the carpet pile and can help preserve the cushiness of your carpet. Keep in mind green cleaning starts with vacuuming.
How to vacuum
On carpet, use slow, repetitive front-to-back motions in an overlapping sequence. A quick once over doesn’t do much. On the other hand, don’t press down or make too many passes over the same spot. Instead, move slightly to the left or right about every four strokes. To get the most out of your vacuuming regime, remember these few easy tips:
- When vacuuming, don’t ignore those corners and crevices where dust builds.
- “Top-down” cleaning saves you the step of vacuuming again after dusting. Dust blinds, windowsills, and furniture surfaces first and then vacuum away any fallen dust.
- Remember to remove and replace or empty vacuum bags when they are half to two-thirds full.
Understanding the attachments
Attachments allow vacuums to do more than clean carpets. They can tackle many other projects, such as cleaning bookshelves and other items that tend to collect dust. Your particular vacuum may feature some of the following attachments:
- The all-purpose or universal brush works well on books and shelves.
- The crevice tool (long and thin) reaches into narrow slots and corners.
- The dusting brush details items that need a softer touch.
- The radiator brush cleans radiators and narrow spaces.
- The upholstery nozzle is good for vacuuming chairs, sofas, cushions, drapes, mattresses, and fabric furniture covers.
Setting the right vacuuming frequency
As a rule of thumb, you should vacuum at least once a week with a CRI Seal of Approval/Green Label vacuum cleaner. However, the more foot traffic over your carpet, the more you need to vacuum. The general formula is:
- Vacuum daily in high-traffic or pet areas.
- Vacuum twice weekly in medium-traffic areas.
- Vacuum weekly in light-traffic areas, using attachments at carpet edges.
Vacuum care tips
- For the best cleaning results, periodically inspect your vacuum keep it in tiptop shape and functioning properly:
- Keep the instructions that came with your vacuum and refer to them periodically.
- Keep hoses and attachments free from obstructions. Most vacuums that are discarded as nonfunctional often are only clogged somewhere in the unit. Learn where these likely places are from the manufacturer’s instructions.
- Grip the handle, not the hose.
- Keep brushes clean (for example, remove tangled hair) and replace them when worn. Typically, worn brushes are stiff, and they cause surface texture change on carpet.
- Empty containers or replace bags when half full. (Just as you would not top off a car’s gas tank until it overflows, you would not want your vacuum bag to spill over.)
- Look for rough edges or bent metal on your machine that can snag carpet. | <urn:uuid:d4efc56d-056e-4635-ac41-c740f93ea6c2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.koshgarianrugcleaners.com/vacuuming-101/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928037 | 714 | 1.78125 | 2 |
U can calculate the days of ur cycle when u r most likely to get pregnant as follows:
How many days ar there usually from the 1st day of ur period to the 1st day of ur next period? Usually, this is 28. Divide this duration of ur cycle by 2 (28/2= 14). Dat means, in the case, the 14th day of ur cycle (counted as 14 days from the 1st day of ur period) is the day u ovulate, ie-the day ur egg leaves ur ovary.
U can get pregnant on this ovulation (14th) day + upto 4 days before this day, as the sperm can survive in ur body and fertilize an egg ovulated, upto about 4 days. Also upto 3 or 4 days after the ovulation (14th) day u can get pregnant because the ovulated egg can survive in ur body for about 3-4 days.
So, in summary, if u have a 28 day cycle, u have the highest chances of getting pregnant (ur fertile period) is from the 10th to 17th-18th day, counting from the 1st day u get ur period.
(For another eg, if u have a 21 day cycle, ur fertile period is 7th to 14th-15th day)
However, remember that there are cases of getting pregnant on other days of the cycle as well, during the so-called 'infertile phase' of the cycle, so best use birth control. (While on ur period, u r generally considered to be in this infertile phase)
Hope this was of help:-) | <urn:uuid:506fc5be-2732-4408-ad5e-046b40467f51> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081005111308AAjUrqV | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941646 | 341 | 2.765625 | 3 |
Profound meditation in solitude and silence frequently exalts the mind above its natural tone, fires the imagination, produces the most refined and sublime conceptions. The soul then tastes the purest and most refined delight, and almost loses the idea of existence in the intellectual pleasure it receives. The mind on every motion darts through space into eternity; and raised, in its free enjoyment of its powers by its own enthusiasm, strengthens itself in the habitude of contemplating the noblest subjects, and of adopting the most heroic pursuits.
Our very strength as lesbians lies in the fact that we are outside of patriarchy; our existence challenges its life
A god who let us prove his existence would be an idol.
Zen, like life, defies exact definition, but its essence is the experience, moment by moment, of our own existence -- a natural, spontaneous encounter, unclouded by the suppositions and expectations that come between us and reality. It is, if you like, a paring down of life until we see it as it really is, free from our illusions; it is merely a divestment of ourselves until we recognize our own true nature.
The best argument I know for an immortal life is the existence of a man who deserves one.
Medicine, the only profession that labors incessantly to destroy the reason for its existence
The entire sum of existence is the magic of being needed by just one person.
All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom.
The fact that no limits exist to the destructiveness of this weapon [i.e. the atomic bomb] makes its very existence and the knowledge of its construction a danger to humanity as a whole. It is necessarily an evil thing considered in any light. For these reasons, we believe it important for the President of the United States to tell the American public and the world what we think is wrong on fundamental ethical principles to initiate the development of such a weapon.
There is a limit to the number of lands of shoreline on the lakes; there is a limit to the number of lakes in existence; there is a limit to the mountainous area of the world, and... there are portions of natural scenic beauty which are God-made and... which of a right should be the property of all people.
Men go back to the mountains, as they go back to sailing ships at sea, because in the mountains and on the sea they must face up, as did men of another age, to the challenge of nature. Modern man lives in a highly synthetic kind of existence. He specializes in this and that. Rarely does he test all his powers or find himself whole. But in the hills and on the water the character of a man comes out.
The potential output of the 9,000 million acres of world forest...indicate(s) that the forests can be made to produce about 50 times their present volume of end products and still remain a permanently self-renewing source for our raw-material supplies. Only forests -- no other raw-material resource -- can yield such returns. The forest can, and so must, end the chronic scarcities of material goods that have harassed man's existence since the beginning of history.
The education of the will is the object of our existence
The explanation of the propensity of the English people to portrait painting is to be found in their relish for a Fact. Let a man do the grandest things, fight the greatest battles, or be distinguished by the most brilliant personal heroism, yet the English people would prefer his portrait to a painting of the great deed. The likeness they can judge of; his existence is a Fact. But the truth of the picture of his deeds they cannot judge of, for they have no imagination.
The mystery of existence is the connection between our faults and our misfortunes.
The life of inner peace, being harmonious and without stress, is the easiest type of existence.
One has to accept pain as a condition of existence. One has to court doubt and darkness as the cost of knowing. One needs a will stubborn in conflict, but apt always to the total acceptance of every consequence of living and dying.
I write songs and I sing them from the deepest part of my existence and I hope they connect with the deepest part of yours.
Life is raw material. We are artisans. We can sculpt our existence into something beautiful, or debase it into ugliness. It's in our hands.
From wonder into wonder existence opens.
To deny the possibility, nay, the actual existence of witchcraft and sorcery, is at once flatly to contradict the revealed word of God in various passages both of the Old and New Testament, and the thing itself is a Truth to which every nation in the world hath, in its turn, borne testimony, by either example seemingly well attested or by prohibitory laws, which at least suppose the possibility of a commerce with evil spirits.
Silence is the absolute poise or balance of body, mind and spirit. The man who preserves his selfhood is ever calm and unshaken by the storms of existence ... What are the fruits of silence? They are self-control, true courage or endurance, patience, dignity and reverence. Silence is the cornerstone of character.
Two strongly influential movements--naturalism and absurdism--have polarized western theatre, arguing respectively for a tidy global perspective of human behavior or for an idiosyncratic local vision, in which ultimately no human behavioral patterns can be abstracted. One is left to choose between existence represented as strict linear determinism or as utter randomness.
The existence of forgetting has never been proved: We only know that some things don't come to mind when we want them.
The only reason for the existence of a novel is that it does attempt to represent life. | <urn:uuid:2434ea25-0cd5-4d58-bebd-ca77b545aefc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.finestquotes.com/quotes/on/Existence/6 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955118 | 1,219 | 1.875 | 2 |
Politicizing Iran's ties to Al Qaeda
8:15 AM, Mar 12, 2012 • By THOMAS JOSCELYN
According to the Treasury Department, the “MOIS has facilitated the movement of al Qaeda operatives in Iran and provided them with documents, identification cards, and passports.”
The MOIS has also “provided money and weapons to al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI)...and negotiated prisoner releases of AQI operatives.”
That is three times in less than one year that Obama’s own officials have made a big deal about Iran’s relationship with al Qaeda. Contrary to Obama’s remarks in September 2007, the Bush administration rarely discussed the issue of Iran and al Qaeda. In January 2009, the Bush administration designated several senior al Qaeda members who received safe haven inside Iran after 9/11. But the Bush administration did not claim that the Iranian government has an ongoing agreement with al Qaeda, as the Obama administration has said.
During the 2008 presidential campaign, John McCain said Iran was working with al Qaeda in Iraq. The media wrongly claimed this was a gaffe. Extensive evidence shows that McCain got it right. Senator Obama, however, took the opportunity to criticize McCain’s supposed ignorance.
Here is how the Huffington Post reported Obama’s remarks in March 2008 (emphasis added):
Senator McCain claimed that Iran was training al Qaeda operatives and sending them back into Iraq. The Obama administration has not addressed that aspect of the collusion between al Qaeda and Iran. Other evidence shows that McCain was right on that specific count. Ironically, however, the Obama administration’s own designations make it clear that McCain was generally right – Iran has supported al Qaeda in Iraq in a variety of ways.
And McCain was not simply confusing, in Obama’s words, “Sunni and Shiite, Iran and al Qaeda.” McCain was pointing to a dangerous nexus that Obama and his many allies pretended did not exist. Many of Obama’s supporters still pretend it doesn’t exist, even though the Obama administration has repeatedly said it does and it is worrisome.
President Obama and his supporters like to claim that their political opposition has politicized the intelligence on Iran, including the mullahs’ terrorist ties. This is a type of projection. Obama repeatedly politicized the relationship between Iran and al Qaeda during the 2008 campaign.
Thomas Joscelyn is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. | <urn:uuid:722e3091-3d2c-4364-ba77-ab28ac3c77b1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/politicizing-irans-ties-al-qaeda_633436.html?page=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975787 | 511 | 1.507813 | 2 |
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NARSAD National Awards Dinner, Symposium, and Scientists’ Dinner
On October 28 and 29, NARSAD hosted three very exciting and important events in the mental health community. First, Thursday night was the 2010 Scientists’ Dinner honoring the 2010 Outstanding Achievement Award Winners, worldwide leaders in mental health research. The dinner took place at a beautiful hotel in Manhattan on the top floor in a room with an entire wall of windows (and a terrace) overlooking Central Park and much of New York City!
The 2010 NARSAD Outstanding Achievement Award Winners are:
- Ming T. Tsuang, M.D., Ph.D., D.Sc. from University of California, San Diego and Harvard Institute of Psychiatric Epemiology and Genetics
Lieber Prize in Schizophrenia Research
- Lars Vedel Kessing, M.D., D.M.Sc. from University of Copenhagen
Mood Disorders Research Prize
- Avshalom Caspi, Ph.D. and Terrie E. Moffitt, Ph.D. from Duke University and Institute of Psychiatry and Neuroscience/King’s College London
Ruane Prize in Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Research
- · Robert C. Malenka, M.D., Ph.D. from Stanford University School of Medicine
Goldman-Rakic Prize in Cognitive Neuroscience
- Stephen J. Glatt, Ph.D. from State University of New York, Upstate Medical University
Sidney R. Baer Jr. Prize for Innovative Schizophrenia Research
Besides the spectacular view from the hotel ballroom, the night was defined by the speeches given by each of these incredible scientists. They spoke about the research they are currently conducting related to understanding the causes of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and other brain and behavior disorders with the goal of finding better treatments and preventive measures for mental illness. Having worked at NARSAD for over seven months now, the importance of this research and the research being done by every scientist in the field has never been clearer to me.
Friday morning consisted of the National Mental Health Research Symposium. This free event was well attended by the general public and offered a first-hand look at the impressive and broad range of scientific work being done to discover the causes of mental illness, in addition to developing new treatment options and identifying the pathways toward prevention and recovery. Each of the above award winners gave presentations about their work in the morning, followed by an afternoon session of current NARSAD Young Investigators explaining their innovative research projects.
Friday night’s National Awards Dinner, themed From Discovery to Recovery, wrapped up the events with a bang! Held at the Pierre Hotel in New York City, the large ballroom was packed with about 250 people. This esteemed guest list consisted of loyal NARSAD donors, family members, friends, some of the world’s leading researchers (including the 2010 Outstanding Achievement Award Winners leading Discovery), three highly accomplished individuals living with mental illness (demonstrating Recovery), and the NARSAD Board of Directors and staff team. During the dinner, the Outstanding Achievement Award Winners accepted their prizes, and Kay Redfield Jamison, Ph.D. Elyn R. Saks, Esq., Ph.D. and Andrew Solomon were presented with the 2010 NARSAD Productive Lives Awards. Throughout the night, NARSAD presented videos and photos on two large screens in the front of the grand ballroom, a first for NARSAD events…and certainly….not a last!
Overall, the three events were successful – the scientists were happy to receive their prizes and the honor that goes along with the awards, the public was grateful to receive such great information directly from the researchers themselves, and NARSAD was happy that the hard work of each and every employee paid off without a hitch (including the audio/visual presentations that I was responsible for!). If you missed these events, please stay tuned to the NARSAD Events page on the website for the latest details and sign up to receive eNews from NARSAD in order to hear about upcoming events before anyone else!
Photos coming soon… | <urn:uuid:f98aeff6-485d-4b8b-9995-999187270cfe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bbrfoundation.org/National%20Awards%20Dinner%20Symposium%20and%20Scientists%20Dinner | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948663 | 881 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Squid gather by the thousands to spawn in what look like chaotic orgies. But that appearance is deceptive. A team of biologists recently had a rare opportunity to study spawning squid off the coast of South Africa. They found that the tentacled couplings are anything but random. The mating behavior of squid, it turns out, is surprisingly complex and competitive.
Roger Hanlon of the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, and other divers videotaped the spawning underwater. They also implanted radio tracking devices on some of the squid that allowed them to track the animals’ movements day and night. The researchers found that the squids’ behavior varied with their distance from shore. Offshore, away from the crowded orgy, isolated pairs apparently mate in a head-to- head position, and the male places a packet of sperm in a receptacle below the female’s mouth, where she can carry it for months. So if they meet that one special guy early on, they can hang on to his sperm, says Hanlon.
Inshore, close to where the females deposit their eggs, the crowds grow, and large males fight for mates. The victors approach females differently when inshore. Grasping the female from underneath, they place their sperm in her mantle cavity, near her egg chamber.
After mating, the female withdraws a string of 200 jellylike eggs from her mantle, giving the sperm of the large males the first shot at fertilizing them. Then she holds the string in front of her and has the chance to release the stored sperm of her earlier mate from the receptacle below her mouth. But as she holds the eggs in her arms, smaller males make their move. They can’t beat big males in a fight, so they sneak, Hanlon says. When they see the female with the eggs in her arms, they make this rapid dart--they leap onto her arms and deposit sperm directly onto the eggs.
By the time the female squid deposits her eggs in a communal seafloor bed, at least three males have had a chance to fertilize them. Hanlon suspects that the big males fertilize the most eggs because their sperm usually have the first chance. Squid have been getting fished harder over the past five years, he says. If the fishing selectively picks large males, then you have to worry. But it’s good to know these animals have a very robust mating system. | <urn:uuid:e5836860-4eca-4ce1-8cae-4916399b17bc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://discovermagazine.com/1997/oct/squidsex1255 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967484 | 499 | 3.390625 | 3 |
Talking to your grandchildren about safe sex and STD (Sexually Transmitted Disease) prevention might not be at the top of your “bonding with my grandkids” list of things to do, but it is necessary and appropriate in 2011. HIV and STDs are more prevalent than ever, and although having “the talk” with your grandchildren might be uncomfortable, it could save their life.
Grandparents have an “in” with their grandkids in a way that parents don’t. Grandparents are the ones who love more than they reprimand, and the generation gap alone gives your stories and lectures an angle that can capture their attention while allowing you to implant some wisdom in their minds that will stick with them in the future. Use your age to your advantage — you have the wonderful gift of history, out of which you can tell stories to your grandkids that are absolutely foreign to them.
For example, one of my clients recently said his grandson had complained that condoms “didn’t feel good” during sex. To which my client replied, “If you think they don’t feel good now, you should try the condoms we used to have in the ’40s: rabbit skins and rubber bands!” Can you imagine the shock on his grandson’s face? Regardless of the humorous response, it was a bold statement that will stay with his grandson forever.
So what’s appropriate, and how do you approach this kind of conversation? You approach it the same way you approach any advice-giving conversation: Level with your grandkids. Don’t overload them with information (details about your sex life aren’t necessary). Keep the conversation normalized and never tell them more than they’re interested in. Just make sure to focus on these three main points:
• Nobody is too special, too perfect or too beautiful to catch an STD. Typically it’s those who don’t think they can get it and don’t take the precautionary measures who end up with an STD.
• You’re not telling them not to have sex; you’re teaching them to be smart and proactive.
• Condoms are a must — to protect against not just STDs but pregnancy too. And the life they save may be their own.
Bottom line to the conversation: You can’t stop your grandkids from playing, but if they’re going to play, they need to play smart.
“Where can I get the best info?
• CDC.gov/std/stats/: STD statistics
• STDHELP.org: STD prevention, education programs, resources and community forums
• TalkWithKids.org: How to talk to kids about various topics, including sex, HIV/STDs, and violence
• And as always, you can submit questions through DrDorreeLynn.com!
Dr. Dorree Lynn is a psychologist and life coach committed to helping people have better relationships and fulfilling sex lives. Dr. Lynn is AARP’s “Sexpert” and has
appeared on Good Morning America, MSNBC, CNN, PBS and other national programming. Her book, Sex for Grownups, is available on Amazon. Visit Dr. Dorree’s online library at FiftyAndFurthermore.com, and follow her online at DrDorreeLynn.com and Facebook. | <urn:uuid:d9f1e266-5ab2-45b0-bceb-1820b5778451> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.grandmagazine.com/news/2011/09/you-your-grandkids-and-the-new-world-of-stds/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950265 | 715 | 2.140625 | 2 |
Rob Shaddock, CTO of TE Connectivity, discusses how looking beyond connectors to connectivity helps engineers tackle design challenges from a broader perspective – to speed installation, reduce weight, and build intelligence into systems.
For industrial control applications, or even a simple assembly line, that machine can go almost 24/7 without a break. But what happens when the task is a little more complex? That’s where the “smart” machine would come in. The smart machine is one that has some simple (or complex in some cases) processing capability to be able to adapt to changing conditions. Such machines are suited for a host of applications, including automotive, aerospace, defense, medical, computers and electronics, telecommunications, consumer goods, and so on. This radio show will show what’s possible with smart machines, and what tradeoffs need to be made to implement such a solution. | <urn:uuid:cc15eb43-9c32-4a80-8372-dd1773f0a502> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.designnews.com/video.asp?section_id=1375&doc_id=249351&piddl_msgorder= | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922762 | 181 | 2.25 | 2 |
It happened so subtly that I hardly noticed.
From junior high through the beginning of college, I got fat. At just over six feet tall and weighing more than 270 pounds, I was positively obese – nearly 100 pounds over my ideal weight. I felt isolated and humiliated every time I went clothes shopping for the next size up, only to eventually discover that I had reached the size limit of what most stores carry.
Honestly, I was in denial. I knew I ate too much, and I knew I my diet was unhealthy, but I didn’t care. I had decided to enjoy whatever morsels I wanted, and I would deal with the consequences later. I still remember seeing my own pudgy face in the mirror after weighing in at 275 pounds during my second year of college. I was angry with myself and I knew I needed to make a change.
My sister Natalie, now a registered dietitian, had been preaching to me for a while the virtues of a healthy diet.
“It’s an investment in your future,” she would always say. Eventually, her advice began to creep into my subconscious. More vegetables, less meat, fewer processed foods and more exercise now will really pay off later, she repeated. I didn’t like vegetables, but I loved meat and junk food, so I decided to start with the one change I could stomach: exercise.
I tentatively took up running – just a few minutes on the treadmill or down the street a few blocks – and I eventually began to notice that I had more energy, a smaller appetite and more self-confidence. More importantly, I began to lose weight. It was slow at first – almost as slow as the rate at which I had gained it – but that accelerated as I intensified and diversified my workout. That wasn’t enough.
My diet was still pretty poor, and I still carried plenty of extra weight. It wasn’t until I made a commitment to eating better – mainly through becoming a vegetarian – that I fully realized the power of a healthy diet. Almost immediately after I replaced fast food with fresh veggies and began to eat smaller portions, my weight started to correct itself.
To date, I have lost 60 pounds, run two half marathons and never felt better. For me, exercise is an addiction of sorts that still battles my love of food, but now I relish waking up early to run several miles before work or lifting weights until my muscles burn with exhaustion. It hasn’t always been easy, but it has definitely been worth every mile, every bicep curl and every broccoli floret to know that I’m looking good, feeling great and living well.
Adopting a healthy, active lifestyle can pay off in big ways later on. According to the Centers for Disease Control, obesity can lead to diabetes, heart disease, cancer, stroke, arthritis and a host of other problems. It affects more than just health, however. CDC says obese people spent $1,400 more on average per year in medical care costs than people at a normal weight in 2006, and obesity-related medical care costs ran as high as $147 billion nationwide in 2008.
Eating a healthy and diverse diet can also help prevent injury and speed recovery. Getting adequate iron, zinc and calcium, for example, helps strengthen bones and is necessary for the proper healing of fractures. Getting enough protein provides the basic building blocks of cells – particularly muscle, the cells we all want more of. When we reach seniority, living a healthy, active lifestyle can help promote mobility and blunt the effects of aging. That’s to say nothing of the confidence boost that looking good provides.
How can someone start living healthier? As with any major health decision, it’s important to get input from a qualified expert – in this case a doctor or dietitian. But there are small steps anyone can take that will make a difference over the long term.
One of the most important pillars of a healthy diet is portion control. That simply means eating an appropriate amount of food. A serving of meat, for example, should be about the size of a deck of cards, while a serving of potatoes is about the size of a tennis ball. Try to approach eating as sampling rather than gorging, and make your portions reflect that.
To start eating healthier foods, start small. Substitute one unhealthy snack a day with a healthy one. Once that’s no longer a challenge, shift one of your meals in a healthier direction. Pretty soon, you’ll be eating from an entirely different and healthier menu. This is one area where a dietitian’s input can be very valuable.
Finally, incorporate some activity into your day. Start with something comfortable, such as walking around the block, and work toward ever more challenging goals. Don’t go too fast or too hard at first, or you may burn out or injure yourself. Most importantly, don’t get discouraged if you don’t see results immediately. When I first started running, I didn’t notice any difference for weeks. My sister gently reminded me, “It took a long time for you to gain weight, so you shouldn’t expect to lose it overnight.” Seek to make a healthy diet and exercise part of your daily life and stick with it; you will see results eventually.
Many people have made New Year’s resolutions, which most will promptly forget about. Instead of making a resolution this year, consider making a lifestyle change. Consider it an investment in your future.
Contact Patrick Yeagle at firstname.lastname@example.org.
Original cover artwork by: Jessica Gottstein (Springfield graphic artist) | <urn:uuid:34b86685-dd60-4754-b9d7-9c0ecbea2ce8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.illinoistimes.com/Springfield/article-8207-just-get-started.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971608 | 1,187 | 1.515625 | 2 |
by Platon Scheblykin
05/26/2008 | 11:45 AM
A home router is quite an ordinary piece of hardware nowadays. It comes in various flavors, designs and technical specs, but mostly has such typical traits as four LAN ports, a WLAN module (if it is a wireless router), and one WAN port. Some routers offer extended functionality by means of USB ports, yet they are not anything extraordinary, either. Still, the market of home network equipment occasionally produces a router that stands out among the rest with some special feature. It is about such a device that we are going to talk today. The router is called BR-724 and is manufactured by Edimax. The mentioned name is for the American market. In Europe the router goes under the name of BR-6624.
So, the special feature of the BR-724 is that it has two WAN ports. It is not something unique, yet such models are indeed rare. What benefits can you get from two WAN ports? It depends on what functions are implemented in the router’s firmware for with these ports, of course. There are obvious advantages, though. You can have a backup Internet connection, increase the overall bandwidth by joining the two channels together, and connect two different WANs (e.g. a local network and an ADSL modem).
We will check out the BR-724 as a router and will test its Load Balancing technology that can distribute the load on the available WAN ports.
2 RJ-45 ports (10/100 BaseT) Fast Ethernet 10/100Mb/s auto MDI/MDIX
4 RJ-45 ports (10/100 BaseT) Fast Ethernet 10/100Mb/s auto MDI/MDIX
External power supply
140 (L) x 245 (W) x 34 (H) mm
Load Balancing I/O
The box contains:
Being radically different from a typical home device externally, the BR-724 resembles an industrial router rather. It has a square case made from 1mm steel with a straight outline and sharp angles. No decorations can be seen here. This approach is understandable as the BR-724 is positioned as a workhorse rather than a piece of furniture.
The router is ventilated by means of the holes in the side panels of the case. This is the only way for the air to circulate inside the case. The router’s indicators and connectors are traditionally placed on the front and back panels of the case respectively. The BR-724 has the following indicators (from left to right):
Each port has a dual indicator. One LED (Link-Act) shows that data is being transferred through the port while the other LED (10M/100M) indicates the speed at which the connection is established. Perhaps quite handy, this way of indication is rather old-fashioned because 10Mbps network cards are but rarely used today. The indicators are large and bright enough to be visible from a long distance in a brightly lit room.
The connectors of the BR-724 can be found on its back panel (from left to right):
The Reset button between the ports is for resetting/rebooting the router.
We’ll check out the router’s internals next. It is easy to take this device apart. You only have to unfasten two screws at the back of the case and take its top part off together with the back panel. By the way, a metallic case is preferable to a plastic one because the details of a metallic case usually fit together better and are a real pleasure to deal with.
Well, it is not quite clear why the developer chose such a large housing for this router. The PCB is much smaller and the remaining space is not used for indicators or connectors or anything. Four more screws need to be unfastened for you to be able to take the PCB out.
There is nothing special about the PCB, either. The piece of green textolite accommodates few components, all of which populate the face side of the PCB. A quick glance is enough to distinguish the main subunits: power circuit, system logic, connectors, and indicators. The PCB has quite a lot of free room, too. The mounting quality is high. Every element is positioned properly, there are no smudges or anything.
There are but few chips on the PCB. Nearly each of them represents a noteworthy unit.
The ADM5120 chip from Infineon must be the most important chip on board the BR-724. It is a System-on-Chip controller featuring a 175MHz RISC processor with MIPS architecture.
There are seats for two consoles (UART and JTAG) to be used with the ADM5120.
The router’s firmware is stored in an EN29LV800 chip from EoN. It has a capacity of 1MB.
The BR-724 comes with 16 megabytes of system memory in two EM638165TS chips from EtronTech.
The ADM5120 has only one WAN port. The other WAN port is based on an external controller. It is an IP101A chip from IC+.
As you’ve learned from the previous section, the BR-724 is not exceptional on the hardware level. Running a little ahead, it is much more exciting from the firmware aspect. We were actually surprised that the router’s firmware file was only half a megabyte large. The router doesn’t have much of flash memory, yet even the available amount is not utilized fully. You will see shortly what features the developer managed to squeeze into 500KB. As for re-flashing the router, you can do this in two ways: via the Web-interface or via TFTP. We didn’t have to update the firmware, though. The firmware from the BR-6624 model didn’t work while the downloadable native firmware available on the Web was an earlier version than what our router came with. People have long worked on alternative firmware for ADM5120-based devices. The results are presented in the Midge distribution but it lacks support for the BR-724 (as well as for the BR-6624). The router is not supported by such popular projects as OpenWRT mostly because their distribution cannot be fitted within 1MB, let alone 500KB. So, we will be talking about official firmware version 2.0 our router came to us with.
The router’s web-interface is not very pretty. The page is painted blue tones and consists of three parts. The header is decorative while the other two parts are functional. The left frame contains a menu of pages with settings. There are eight menu items, each regarding a particular aspect of the router’s functioning. These items are further divided into subsections which are nothing else but pages with settings. This two-level menu is quite easy to navigate. The larger part of the browser window is occupied by the right frame that displays the current page with settings. By the way, the first page you see on entering the router’s web-interface is the status page, which is usually very handy. Although most pages contain lots of settings, it is easy to find your bearings among them (after a short period of adaptation) because the settings are separated with colored markers. Besides, some web-interface pages contain links to other relevant pages. It is a very handy feature especially as most of the linked pages have a button to return to the previous page.
The Help system is bad, unfortunately. You can open it by clicking the Help button in the top right corner of each page with settings. The Help page opens instead of the settings page but its information is scanty and cursory. Such information is usually given as tips right on the settings page in other manufacturers’ devices while the Help system is much more detailed.
We’ll give you a brief description of the options available in the router’s firmware.
Opening the settings menu, the Basic Configuration section contains two pages, Primary Setup and LAN&DHCP. On the first page you can select the connection type for both WAN ports, specify external DNS servers, and enter the router’s domain name and MAC address. On the second page the parameters of the LAN interface and integrated HDCP server are specified.
The Advanced Port section contains settings of the router’s WAN ports. The Port Options page allows you to enter the address for checking the status of the network connection and specify the parameters of the WAN port for the Bridge mode, i.e. when NAT is disabled for this port.
The Load Balancing page contains the parameters of the namesake service and shows WAN connection statistics.
The Advanced PPPoE and Advanced PPTP pages contain additional parameters of these VPN connection types.
The next menu item is called Advanced Configuration. Nearly all of the router’s network services are set up here. The first page of this section is called Host IP. Here, individual machines on the router’s local network are specified so that they could be identified later for various purposes (e.g. to reserve IP addresses).
On the Routing page you can enable dynamic routing and fill in a static route table.
The Virtual Server page contains an editable list of machines on the local network that are going to be visible from the outside via certain protocols.
The Special Application page is where you can define ranges of ports that will be open for specific applications.
The Dynamic DNS page is for entering the parameters of your DDNS account.
The Multi DMZ page is especially interesting. You can set up not one, as in most SOHO routers, but several servers in a DMZ. And you can specify arbitrary external IP addresses for each WAN port individually.
The UPnP Setup page allows establishing UPnP connections via the router.
NAT service parameters are specified on the NAT Setup page.
The BR-724 allows you to view its ARP cache and add static records into it. You can do this on the ARP Status page.
The Advanced Feature page offers infrequently used settings such as port binding.
Security Management is the fourth item in the menu. You can define the parameters of various filters here. The section opens with the URL Filter page where you can create a list of permitted/prohibited websites using keywords or IP addresses.
Protocol filter settings can be found on the Access Filter page.
The Session Limit page is where you can specify the limits on the quantity or duration of network sessions.
On the SysFilter Exception page you can specify the rules for packets that won’t be processed by the integrated firewall.
The QoS Configuration section contains two pages, QoS Setup and QoS Policy, for setting QoS up on the router.
The next menu item is called DNS Configuration. It contains two pages, DNS Setup and Map Host URL. You can enter new records into the integrated DNS server here.
The last group of settings is called Management Assistant. It offers all settings pertaining to the BR-724 as a device. The first page of this group is Admin Setup. You can set up remote access to the router’s settings, change the administrator password and schedule the device’s reboots.
Notifications about failures can be set up on the Email Alert page.
Notifications can be sent via SNMP. To set this up, go to the SNMP page.
Remote logging can be set up on the Syslog page. You can also view the integrated log and specify the parameters for setting the system time.
The Diagnostic Tools page allows testing the passage of the main types of router requests.
The Upgrade Firmware page is the last one in the list. Besides loading new firmware you can save a backup copy of the router settings or reset them to their defaults.
The settings menu has one more item, Network Info. It contains two informational pages.
A detailed description of all the settings would take a lot of space because the BR-724 offers lots of parameters for you to play with. The settings themselves are an exhaustive description of the available parameters. You may only want Telnet and SSH access to be absolutely happy.
Benchmarking the bandwidth of the BR-724 at different variants of connection is going to be interesting. In the beginning of the review we noted that the two WAN ports could be used to increase the overall bandwidth of the external connection. On the other hand, the router features load balancing – we’ll check it out, too.
We used the following for our tests:
The first test is about the router’s maximum bandwidth, i.e. the bandwidth of its LAN section. You can’t expect surprises from this test as most routers deliver similar results in it.
The next test is going to be more interesting as it concerns the WAN ports. First, we will measure the bandwidth of each of the router’s WAN ports in two directions (into the LAN/from the LAN). We use the default settings and disable Load Balancing.
The results are disappointing. The BR-724 is one of the slowest modern SOHO routers. Its processor must be the reason for that. Not even the processor as such but the overall implementation of the functional subunits found in the ADM5120 chip. The use of all-in-one chips is not good for the parameters of devices they are installed in. If Edimax didn’t save on external network controllers, the router might have better results.
Now that we know the speed of the router’s network interfaces, we can proceed to the final part of our tests. We will see how the bandwidth grows if the two WAN ports are used simultaneously and how Load Balancing works.
The processor load indicator on the router’s status page reported only 64% when we were testing one WAN port, so we can expect a performance growth when using both WAN ports at once. In this test two desktop PCs with Gigabit Ethernet controllers and running endpoints are connected to the router’s WAN ports. A notebook with an IXChariot console is connected to a LAN port of the router. We enable NAT and disable Load Balancing.
WANs-LAN (LB off):
Strangely enough, the processor load does not increase to 100% and the performance remains on the same level. The load is distributed unevenly between the WAN ports, which is not good.
Now we turn Load Balancing on and run the tests again using the four algorithms this service supports on the BR-724. We change the network connection scheme to create real-life conditions: we connect both WAN ports of the BR-724 to the local network of another router that plays the role of a WAN. A PC is connected into the same network segment to work as a remote host.
WANs-LAN (LB Bytes):
WANs-LAN (LB Packets):
WANs-LAN (LB Sessions):
WANs-LAN (LB IP Address):
The load is distributed better now and we finally see the peak bandwidth of the WAN-LAN connection. It is about 52Mbps. The tests suggest that the four algorithms (balancing based on the amount of bytes or packets transferred, on the number of sessions established, on the amount of addresses used) are roughly similar in performance. The choice of the particular algorithms depends on your personal preferences. By the way, Load Balancing takes up the rest of the processor’s speed. The processor load indicator showed 100% during these tests!
The last test we will perform is meant to show us the operation of Load Balancing technology at different balance ratios. We use two algorithms – balancing based on bytes and packets transferred. We select a radical ratio of 80% to 20% for more clarity.
WANs-LAN (80%+20% Bytes):
WANs-LAN (80%+20% Packets):
That’s a rather odd outcome. The diagrams show that our changing the load ratio has but little effect. One port is loaded more than the other by only 10%, not 60%. Perhaps the implementation of this technology is not quite correct. On the other hand, we performed the test in a simplified environment and the technology may work better with a real network.
It is hard for us to evaluate the BR-724 objectively because we haven’t tested other devices of this type yet. This router is not the only model with two WAN ports available on the market and we hope to test other such devices soon. We can appreciate the BR-724 basing on some general requirements to home network equipment, though.
One fact against the BR-724 is that it is very slow. Of course, it is the slow processor that limits the router’s bandwidth. It is quite a common thing when the developer wants to put all the subunits into one chip. Such solutions often have mediocre performance. Is it compensated by functionality? We guess it is. Few developers manage to squeeze so many functions into such small firmware as in this model.
The BR-724 is obviously a niche product because the problems it can solve do not usually arise before an ordinary user. It will be a good buy for people who want to establish home hosting as well as for those who want to combine two external channels at home (or in the office) especially if one of the channels is ADSL. | <urn:uuid:56a3ed6f-8837-45b1-b009-0423fee708b7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/networking/print/edimax-br724.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920457 | 3,652 | 1.773438 | 2 |
By Jon Bashor, email@example.com
November 17, 1998
Andrew Canning, a member of NERSC's Scientific Computing Group,
and collaborating scientists at Oak Ridge National Lab, Pittsburgh
Supercomputing Center and University of Bristol (UK) were named
winners of the 1998 Gordon Bell Prize for the best achievement in
The award was announced last Thursday near the end of SC98,
an annual conference on high-performance computing and networking.
The group's modeling of metallic magnet atoms was run on progressively
more powerful Cray T3E supercomputers, starting with NERSC's 512-processor
machine, and won the prize with a top performance of 657 Gigaflops
(657 billion calculations per second). However, the group later
gained access to a machine on Cray's manufacturing center floor
and achieved 1.02 Teraflops (trillions of calculations per second).
Funded as one of the U.S. Department of Energy's Grand Challenges,
the group developed the computer code to provide a better microscopic
understanding of metallic magnetism, which has applications in fields
ranging from computer data storage to power generation and utilization.
According to NERSC Division Director Horst Simon, NERSC’s strong
showing in the awards, the conference technical program and on the
exhibition floor clearly demonstrates that Berkeley Lab is taking
a lead role in unclassified high-performance computing in the Department
of Energy and in the nation.
"As the Department of Energy’s national facility for computational
science, we see this achievement by the Grand Challenge team as
a major breakthrough in high-performance computing," said Simon.
"Unlike other recently published records, this is a real application
running on an operational production machine and delivering real
scientific results. NERSC is proud to have been a partner in this
Also during the SC98 awards ceremony, NERSC's Phil Colella
was presented with the 1998 Sidney Fernbach award for "an outstanding
contribution in the application of high performance computers using
innovative approaches." Finally, the Gordon Bell Prize for best
price/performance on a computer went to a team which includes Greg
Kilcup, a physics researcher at Ohio State University who has been
a visiting researcher at the Lab and is a long-time user of NERSC.
Although parallel supercomputers are the world's fastest computers
capable of performing hundreds of billions of calculations
per second realizing their potential often requires writing
complex computer codes as well as reformulating the scientific approach
to problems so that the codes scale up efficiently on these types
In developing this magnetism modeling code for parallel computers,
the researchers were forced to rethink their formulation of the
basic physical phenomena. The code was originally developed with
Intel Paragon machines at ORNL's Center for Computational Science
(CCS) in mind and has exhibited linear scale up to 1024-processors
on an Intel XPS-150.
"One of the goals of this project is to address critical
materials problems on the microstructural scale to better understand
the properties of real materials. A major focus of our research
is to establish the relationship between technical magnetic properties
and microstructure based on fundamental physical principles,"
said Malcolm Stocks, a scientist in Oak Ridge's Metals and Ceramics
Division and leader of the project. "The capability to design
magnetic materials with specific and well-defined properties is
an essential component of the nation's technological future."
In May and June of this year, the research team ran successively
larger calculations on a series of bigger and more powerful Cray
supercomputers. After the simulation code attained a speed of 276
Gflops on the Cray T3E-900 512-processor supercomputer at NERSC,
the group arranged for use of an even faster T3E-1200 at Cray Research
Inc. and achieved 329 Gflops. They were then given dedicated time
on a T3E-600 1024-processor machine at the NASA Goddard Space Flight
Center which allowed them to perform crucial code development work
and testing before the final run at 657 Gflops on a T3E-1200 1024-processor
machine at a U.S. government site.
"These increases in the performance levels demonstrate
both the power and the capabilities of parallel computers
a code can be scaled up so that it not only runs faster but allows
us to study larger systems and new phenomena that cannot be studied
on smaller machines," said Andrew Canning, a physicist in NERSC's
Scientific Computing Group who worked with the Oak Ridge team on
The Gordon Bell Award work was part of a larger Department
of Energy Grand Challenge Project on Materials, Methods, Microstructure
and Magnetism between ORNL, Ames Laboratory (Iowa), Brookhaven National
Laboratory, NERSC and the Center for Computational Science and the
Computer Science and Mathematics Divisions at ORNL.
In addition to Canning and Stocks, the team included Balazs
Ujfalussy, Xindong Wang, Xiaoguang Zhang, Donald M. C. Nicholson,
and William A. Shelton, Oak Ridge National Laboratory; Yang Wang,
Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center; and B. L. Gyorffy, H. H. Wills
Physics Laboratory, UK. | <urn:uuid:18d54cba-3397-46af-b850-6259ac934441> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lbl.gov/cs/Archive/othernews11-17-98.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.914769 | 1,143 | 2.046875 | 2 |
Creating a Good Learning Environment at Home
- Have high expectations for your child's learning and behavior, both at home and at school.
- Praise and encourage your child.
- Emphasize effort and achievement, and be a role model for getting work done before play.
- Establish rules and routines in the home.
- Monitor television viewing.
- Limit after-school jobs and activities.
- Encourage your child to share information about school and respond with empathy.
- If you don't do anything else, read to your young child or have him or her read to you every night. Encourage older children to read by reading yourself and by having interesting and appropriate materials available. | <urn:uuid:270f33d2-386f-49dc-933c-ac0eb36cbf04> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ieminc.org/create_good_learning_environment_at_home.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940108 | 144 | 4.21875 | 4 |
Children’s milk consumption decreased dramatically from 1977 to 2001, and their sweetened beverage consumption more than doubled. The fact that these two trends happened simultaneously has led some to suggest that sweetened beverages displaced milk in children’s diets, but the authors of this latest study claim that this is not the case.
Researchers examined data from 7,445 children who filled in beverage consumption questionnaires when they were in the fifth grade in 2004 and again when they were in the eighth grade in 2007.
They found that milk consumption fell more among children who drank any sweetened beverages, but consumption of 100% fruit juice increased over time, independent of sweetened beverage consumption. Meanwhile children who drank more milk also drank more fruit juice.
After controlling for demographic and nutritional factors, the researchers concluded that milk and juice were complementary to each other in children’s diets, but there was no significant relationship between their consumption of milk over time and their consumption of sweetened beverages.
“Reducing the intake of caloric beverages is a priority, given the high prevalence of overweight and obesity,” the researchers wrote. “This focus is especially important because the results presented here indicate that caloric beverages tend to be complementary with each other—as children increase their intake of one caloric beverage they also increase their intake of the others.”
They said the main concern was that children who increased their consumption of one high-calorie beverage also increased their consumption of others. They added that consumption of all caloric beverages should be viewed as part of total diet.
Source: Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics
“Beverage Displacement between Elementary and Middle School, 2004-2007”
Authors: Reena Oza-Frank,Madeline Zavodny, Solveig A. Cunningham | <urn:uuid:e0eb9814-4017-4773-8852-251e0e7396bf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/content/view/print/657680 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973355 | 370 | 2.90625 | 3 |
More than my diagnosis – Youth and IBD
Written by Alyssa Zeldenrust, a 22-year-old Crohn’s patient, political science student and passionate blogger
My name is Alyssa Zeldenrust and my guts have been misbehaving since 2003, when I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. I am 22 years old and have had a permanent ileostomy since 2010.
My declaration: I am more than my disease! I am a Christian. I am a student. I am a lover of the earth, art, good food and good company. I love fighting pain and injustice with compassion. I am a hugger. I choose to have these statements to define who I am beyond my diagnosis.
I am empowered to manage my health, fight the stigma of gut disease and become a patient advocate because I have embraced a powerful community of empathetic friends. My exploration of the Crohn’s and colitis community yields new discoveries every year and my fabulous “gut buddies” are a welcome refuge from a world full of people who just don’t understand our health issues.
Since my diagnosis, life has been all kinds of crazy, which is why I got involved in various CCFA programs almost immediately. I have participated in Take Steps walks, Camp Oasis, and the annual Educational Symposium in Chicago. Whether you’re newly diagnosed or a veteran, I encourage you to take full advantage of everything this organization has to offer!
If you want to get involved, but don’t know where to start, you can browse the major events listed on this site or talk to your local CCFA chapter about upcoming opportunities. My chapter has a Facebook page where they post updates about local events and volunteer requests, so I always know what’s going on.
Fundraising events are fun, but they also provide an opportunity to educate your family, friends, classmates, and teachers about IBD. The Educational Symposium is a great place to pick up new information, swap stories, and check out new products.
My absolute favorite way to get involved in the IBD community is Camp Oasis. I went to the camp in Waupaca as a camper and as a junior counselor 6 years ago and I still keep in touch with my camp friends.
Aside from camp, I have met most of my IBD friends online through blogs and Facebook groups. In addition to sharing words of encouragement during rough times, we all understand each other.
My dear friends have taught me that you can offer and receive support no matter what physical or emotional issues trouble you. One of my personal aspirations is to use my voice for the benefit of people like me. My current focus is sharing information with others in order to combat the isolation we often feel.
I want everyone to know that they are not alone, and that they are more than their diagnosis.
Please visit my blog: http://loveformutantguts.wordpress.com/.
For further information, call CCFA at our Information Resource Center: 888.MY.GUT.PAIN (888.694.8872).
The Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America provides information for educational purposes only. We encourage you to review this educational material with your health care professional. The Foundation does not provide medical or other health care opinions or services. The inclusion of another organization’s resources or referral to another organization does not represent an endorsement of a particular individual, group, company or product.
About this resource
Published: June 1, 2012 | <urn:uuid:82ddf5ee-8bd5-47d7-9c6b-dfddfce7a9b7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ccfa.org/resources/more-than-my-diagnosis-youth-and-ibd.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943052 | 742 | 1.554688 | 2 |
In the latest Facebook trend, students from high schools and colleges across the state have created "confession pages," a way of posting stories about themselves through an anonymous administrator.
"It's causing some emotional distress among high school kids," explained Glacier High School Resource Officer Jason Parce. "Their reputations are being targeted. In some cases its caused them to leave school on a few instances. Parents are pretty upset about it."
Parce tells NBC Montana students have been approaching him daily about new posts.
"It's really just a venue for people to slander others," Parce explained.
Students at Glacier are not allowed to use their phones during class, so Parce notices a flurry of activity on the sites during lunch. Montana lacks a cyber-bullying law, but authorities fired off an email to Facebook anyway, asking them to look at the pages for any violations in their use policy. So far, no answer.
"They're not there to tell people what they can and cannot post as long as its not pornographic, sexually explicit, bullying, harassment, intimidating, or threatening," Parce continued. "However, if anyone were to view these pages they'd see that these post are clearly in violation of their own policies."
In a surprising twist, some students have broken the gossip barrier and created "compliments pages" and asking for nice posts only. Still, Parce reminds parents and guardians to take a proactive role in monitoring their students' web activity.
"There's really no excuse for not having your son or daughter's Facebook account," Parce said. "If [parents] saw some of the things their kids were posting you would hope they would be appalled."
For now, Parce and school administrators say they hope it's a passing fad, and they'll continue to comb through the pages for any comments that may be hurtful to students. | <urn:uuid:818c356b-750b-4c95-bf22-573fa9472305> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nbcmontana.com/news/Confession-pages-sweep-through-MT-schools/-/14594602/19055886/-/bt7xd1/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981482 | 382 | 1.867188 | 2 |
A 'privacy notice' spreading on Facebook claiming to protect a user's photos and posts from being copied has been outed as a hoax.
Thousands of Facebook users around the world have posted the fake disclaimer text to their profile pages in a bid to protect their data against pilfering.
The text begins: "In response to the new Facebook guidelines I hereby declare that my copyright is attached to all of my personal details, illustrations, graphics, comics, paintings, photos and videos, etc. (as a result of the Berner Convention). For commercial use of the above my written consent is needed at all times!"
It then goes on to claim that anyone who copies and pastes the disclaimer to their Facebook wall will be protected against copying and dissemination of their data.
The viral message started spreading earlier this week shortly after Facebook posted its new privacy guidelines, Mashable reports.
In signing up to Facebook, users agree to privacy terms allowing the social media giant permission to use, distribute and share the things you post.
According to PC World blogger Tony Bradley, users who post a disclaimer to their wall cannot retroactively negate the conditions of their Facebook account.
"If you’re using Facebook then you’ve already agreed to abide by the legal terms laid out by Facebook," wrote PC World blogger Tony Bradley.
The notice closely resembles text from a similar hoax which spread in July this year after Facebook publicly listed. | <urn:uuid:5d79c29f-81d9-4ab0-bd96-dc285e7479c4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.ninemsn.com.au/sitecore/content/news/news/technology/2012/11/27/07/52/facebook-privacy-notice-a-hoax | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935643 | 291 | 1.820313 | 2 |
If you live in the UK, chances are that you have used rapid addressing on numerous occasions. Have you ever been asked:
Rather than typing or spelling out your whole address, you simply give the postcode and confirm your house name or number. The full correct address is captured correctly with minimum of fuss.
That, in essence, is rapid addressing. Broadly speaking it refers to one of two typical actions:
The most common term for rapid addressing tends to be 'postcode lookup'. Other names can be 'address lookup', 'address auto fill' and a few other, less common terms.
If you don't know any real postcodes, try AA11AA. The example below illustrates how a full address can be obtained quickly from only the postcode.
It takes five minutes to create an account and there is no obligation to buy. | <urn:uuid:c83bc5b7-9f6a-47d7-a3c3-72aada0bcce4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.craftyclicks.co.uk/postcode-lookup-introduction | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938007 | 173 | 2.375 | 2 |
C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
We strive as hard to hide our hearts from ourselves as from others, and always with more success; for in deciding upon our own case we are both judge, jury, and executioner, and where sophistry cannot overcome the first, or flattery the second, self-love is always ready to defeat the sentence by bribing the third. | <urn:uuid:ce71e754-9b3a-409f-91f8-84b55db8d7f7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bartleby.com/348/367.html | 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 | 0.96154 | 93 | 1.710938 | 2 |
During a television interview recently a well known prime time commentator made the statement that Christmas is a holiday that Christians and others celebrate to mark the birth of a philosopher named Jesus. This commentator has been known for some time for his defense of Christianity and Judeo-Christian culture against what he terms progressive secularists.
This article is not to criticize the commentator or his worthy cause. Rather it is to point out how terms and definitions matter; and how in this instance the subject at hand is not done justice by the terms the commentator chose to use.
Ideas matter. Being humans we express and learn ideas by words. This cannot be separated. Thus when we undertake to defend or propose a great truth we must be careful what words we choose because the listener will take our ideas only as well as we can express them.
I understand fully why in a forum charged with political catch-phrases and correctness the commentator may have chosen to frame Jesus Christ as a philosopher.
Indeed in the arena of human morality and relations to our neighbor the words of Christ seem to resonate well with Socrates, Cicero, Buddha, and Confucius. Their core messages of human respect and love for oneís neighbor as the highest ideals can be readily seen as a common theme among all great historical philosophers. Taken in that light the commentator and those who share that view are quite right. If you are looking for a philosophical code that defines the best human conditions and relations then would do well to choose from any of those great men and place them right alongside Jesus as teachers.
The problem is that Jesus made no claim and apparently had no intent to be considered one of the great teaching philosophers. He largely restated what the Hebrews had already heard from the Prophets. No, His greatness was not in the message, which men knew then and now in their hearts to be true, it was in His position. He stated that He was, was believed to be, and in fact is the Son of God. This is going far beyond philosophy. This is changing the way humans understand existence itself. The moral code He set forth was not largely different from what others before had said. The difference was in the deliverer. He said do this because it was the will of the Father, and as He did the Fatherís will so should all who love Him. It was authority clothed in love. It had then and does now have a power beyond any philosophy even though it may be similar in some respects to them. In the message and person of Christ are bound up both a moral(philosophical) code for this life but also redemption and the promise of eternal life to come. This is something no earth bound set of ideals could ever match.
It is also the point on which I believe that the well intentioned commentator is mistaken. If we treat Christianity as a philosophy, and Christ as a philosopher we stand in great danger of losing the core of the faith and its beliefs. This is because at its center the faith is that, faith. It is bound up in the supernatural and the authority of an all-powerful, all-knowing and loving Father when sent His Son from beyond this world into it to redeem all who would love and accept Him. It is further defined by a belief that the Spirit of the Father indwells in those who believe and accept. This is as far removed from earth bound philosophy as you can get.
To label Christianity as a philosophy for political reasons is equally dangerous. This equality with other systems makes the faith just one of many competing sets of ideals. When you strip it from its claims for being The Way, you strip it of its ability to hold itself as it should, above and beyond earthly systems. Unless we can accept the supernatural uniqueness of Christianity and fight on those terms, we reduce our faith to something barely worth defending. Socrates was a great man with great ideas, but hardly worth dying for. Do we equate Jesus Christ with that? Heaven forbid.
Read more articles by C.L. Ingram or search for articles on the same topic or others. | <urn:uuid:e19a5920-312b-410b-8c5c-a3caf2a71ed7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.faithwriters.com/article-details.php?id=36384 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97493 | 825 | 2.140625 | 2 |
Phalaenopsis orchids are very suitable for city dwellers who have limited space and no gardens. Since Phalaenopsis orchid is quite easy to grow and generally likes the light and temperature condition of our homes, it is an excellent choice for the first time orchid growers, as well as indoor gardeners.
Below . . . → Read More: How to Grow and Care for Phalaenopsis Orchids
Cattleya orchids are among the most beautiful and satisfying of all orchid species to grow and care for. Since the care of Cattleya orchid is easy, gardening beginners who are interested in growing orchids but haven’t had any experience before, can start with Cattleya orchid. With simple growing conditions, most of us can obtain outstanding results.
And here, let me share with you what I have learned about Cattleya orchids.
The growing area of Cattleya orchids needs to be covered with 50-60% shade cloth. If the light is too strong, the leaves of the Cattleya orchids will be burned. On the other hand, if the light is too weak, the plant will be very weak, and won’t blossom.
Continue reading How to Grow and Care for Cattleya Orchids
Deciduous Dendrobium orchids are peculiar-looking plants. Before the orchid enters its dormancy, it will get dry and shrivel, showing its bamboo-like canes after all its leaves have dropped off. And amazingly, and lovelier by contrast, the orchid flowers bud and bloom from the nodes of these day canes once the orchid has come out from its dormancy.
And after sharing what I know about Cattleya orchids, let me share what I know about Dendrobium orchids here.
Continue reading How to Grow and Care for Dendrobium Orchids
Since I have learned how to do cutting propagation, I rarely buy plants in garden shops or nurseries. Cutting propagation is a cheap and easy way to obtain new plants. I have shown how to do cutting propagation in an earlier post – Plant Propagation from Cuttings – Coleus, and here, I would like to talk more about the rooting media of cutting propagation.
The Ingredients of Rooting Media
It is important to use a good sterile rooting media to get your plants off to a healthy start. While soil and compost are not good choices as the rooting media for cutting propagation since they may contain diseases, potting mix that is available in local gardening nurseries may also not be suitable for cuttings. Since it is not difficult to make rooting media for cuttings, we can just make our own as well.
A good rooting media contains equal parts of coarse, sharp sand and peat moss. Instead of sand, we can use perlite, and instead of peat moss, we can use vermiculite. However, I often will pot my cuttings with just coarse sand alone. By this method, the cuttings grow just fine. Continue reading Potting Media for Cutting Propagation
Zinnia Elegans is a gorgeous choice for gardens. Zinnia comes in a wide variety of colors, and its large, bright blooms really give a garden a sense of cheer. There are even varieties of zinnia that are as jumbo as three feet in height! Moreover, Zinnia Elegans can easily be grown from seeds. All these factors make Zinnia a very popular flower in gardens.
Collecting seeds of Zinnia Elegans is fairly easy. As the blooms fade, air dry the flowers by hanging them upside down.
(Left: Zinnia seeds that are not yet ripened Right: ripe Zinnia seeds)
Continue reading Zinnia Elegans: Collecting and Saving Seeds
There is one thing we should keep in mind when fertilizing our plants – the more isn’t the better. Even though I knew this rule-of-thumb very well (I thought I did…) and practiced what I preached (for most of the time), recently, I’d over-fertilized my African violet – Frosted Denim – and burnt most of its flower buds
Real Life Example of Bad Fertilizing Practice
A few weeks ago, my African violet – Frosted Denim – was growing beautifully with many flower buds. Since African violets like to be continually fertilized during their blooming period, I diligently fed mine in a regular basis with diluted fertilizer. Continue reading Plant Fertilizer – When More Isn’t Better
In the gardening class which I took last weekend, I have learned how to transplant a tree. While I have never thought that transplanting a tree is an easy task, I wouldn’t expect that it could be quite difficult either (especially on a hot summer day). And here, I would like to share some key points of tree transplanting.
Root pruning can greatly increase the chances of successful transplanting, especially for big trees. We should prune the roots 3 months – 2 years in advance. By severing the roots at or just beyond the drip line of the tree to be moved, the long unbranched roots will be broken. This will prompt growth of new roots near the main trunk, compact the existing root system, and increase the tree’s chances of survival once it is moved. Continue reading Transplanting a Tree
I bought a pot of Episcia (aka Flame Violet) seedling in October last year. Since then, it has been growing beautifully in my room, with its first flower blooming in April.
Thru some research, I have learned that Flame Violet can be propagated by stolon cuttings. This is my first time growing Flame Violet. Everything to me is new and interesting. And surely, I would like to try stolon propagation. While I was wondering when I should cut the stolons of my Flame Violet for my experiment, my dear brother accidently cut off two stolons from the plant with the rotor blades of his newly bought remote control helicopter. Ok. That’s great! At least I was saved from thinking too much more before taking any action. Continue reading Propagate Flame Violet by Cutting
I bought my first pot of African violet a few months ago. While the newly acquired African violet is blossoming beautifully, I didn’t aware but only until another gardener pointed out to me that my African violet actually had multiple crowns.
As a curious gardening novice who like to try different things, I decided to take up this challenge and separate the crowns. It has been almost three months since I separated the crowns. Seeing that the separated crowns of my African violets are now growing healthily, I consider this “operation” as a successful one. And here, let me share with you how I did it.
Continue reading African Violet Care – How to Separate Crowns
We know that good drainage is the key to healthy plants, but the containers that we find most attractive are often the ones without drainage holes. But we can drill the drainage holes by ourselves, and it is much easier than what most of us would expect. All we need is an electric drill and steady hands.
And here, let me show you how to drill holes on our containers.
Continue reading Drilling Drainage Holes by Ourselves | <urn:uuid:3fa5da7e-149b-4b1a-a80b-83d1c74b2a71> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gardeningoncloud9.com/category/how-to/how-to-gardening-techniques/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952517 | 1,569 | 2.15625 | 2 |
On the first of 50 nights that Chinese human rights attorney Gao Zhisheng endured torture at the hands of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) agents in the fall of 2007, Gao was told, “Today your uncles want nothing but to make your life worse than death. I tell you the truth, your matter is not only between you and the government,” according to a letter by Gao published at his request in 2009.
The “chief uncle” for whom Gao’s torture was of personal interest is commonly assumed to be Zhou Yongkang, the head of the powerful Political and Legislative Affairs Committee (PLAC), a member of the Politburo Standing Committee that runs the CCP, and one of the main enforcers of the persecution of Falun Gong.
Almost 5 years later, Gao and Zhou’s names are again linked, as the March 24 visit by two of Gao’s family members to the remote Shaya Prison in Xinjiang Province is seen as evidence that Zhou’s political fortunes have plummeted.
Gao has been called the “conscience of China” for his legal work defending the poor and those whose human rights had been violated. He ended up in that torture chamber somewhere near Beijing because of his investigation into the torture of Falun Gong practitioners.
Gao had published in 2004 an open letter to the National People’s Congress calling for the state to treat practitioners according to the law. He followed that in 2005 with two open letters to Party chief Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao that called for an end to the persecution. [ Letter 1 | Letter 2 ]
Gao was given a three-year prison term in December 2006, but released on five years probation. While released, Gao endured constant abuse and occasional abductions. In September 2007, just before he was abducted and tortured, Gao had written an open letter to the U.S. Congress that also called for an end to the persecution of Falun Gong. In September 2007 his torturers in particular blamed him for having written that letter.
With an enemy as powerful as Zhou Yongkang, Gao was assured of no leniency. Prior to the prison visit, there had been no news of Gao since March 2010, and he was feared to have possibly died.
Changing Political Climate
Gao’s wife, Geng He, believes that the visit by Gao’s father-in-law and brother was allowed “due to the change in the main political climate in China.”
Gao Zhisheng’s brother, Gao Zhiyi, had three times traveled the almost 750 miles from his hometown in northern Shaanxi Province to Beijing seeking news of Gao Zhisheng, to no avail.
Geng He said that the family has been watching the political climate, looking for a chance to do good for Gao Zhisheng. On Feb. 6, when Wang Lijun, the former police chief of Chongqing sought asylum at the U.S. Consulate in Chengdu, deep divisions in the top Party leaders were exposed.
Click this tag or www.ept.ms/ccp-crisis to read about the most recent developments in the ongoing power struggle within the Chinese communist regime. Intra-CCP politics are a challenge to make sense of, even for veteran China watchers. Here we attempt to provide readers with the necessary context to understand the situation. Get the RSS feed. Get the Timeline of Events. Who are the Major Players?
The family believed things might now be different, and Gao Zhiyi traveled to Beijing a fourth time on Feb. 24. This time the family was given hope.
“The answer given by Beijing was different from what we got before,” Geng He said. “They asked us to go back and wait and said that they would arrange it. In the middle of March my family was informed that they could travel to Xinjiang to see him.”
On March 15, Bo Xilai, the former head of CCP in the province-level city of Chongqing, was sacked and then later rumored to have been placed under house arrest. On that same day, Gao Zhisheng’s family were told that they could arrange a visit to see Gao, although they were told not to speak of it publicly.
Bo Xilai had been Zhou Yongkang’s firm ally and had been handpicked by Zhou to succeed him in heading the PLAC and in the Politburo Standing Committee. The firing and possible arrest of Bo could only have come over Zhou’s objections.
Continued on the next page: Crumbling Power | <urn:uuid:2f3985d4-4681-42f3-8cef-6d49fe0a95f1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/china-news/gao-zhisheng-visit-shows-chinese-security-chief-s-loss-of-power-212897.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98243 | 987 | 2.046875 | 2 |
Drying Beans on the Farm, Sanford, ca. 1900Item 22049 info
Sanford Historical Committee
Farming in Maine preceded the arrival of European settlers in Maine in the early seventeenth century. Some Indians already had been farming, growing beans, squash, and corn.
Early settlers needed to farm for sustenance, growing crops that could feed themselves and their animals.
Farming has changed considerably since the seventeenth century, but remains a factor in Maine's economy and community life. | <urn:uuid:dd0ca3b3-86c7-4887-8427-75ccf4e282c2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mainememory.net/sitebuilder/site/161/slideshow/192/display?use_mmn=1&prev_object_id=420&prev_object=page&slide_num=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959259 | 100 | 3.21875 | 3 |
14:30 26 October 2010
NASA has teamed up with craft website Etsy to celebrate the end of the space shuttle programme in homemade style. They are on the lookout for handmade craft pieces and artwork inspired by space exploration. The wining entries may even enjoy a trip on board the final shuttle launch
Image 1 of 7
Retro the Rocket
Inspired by rockets depicted on the covers of science-fiction pulp magazines from the 1930s to the 1950s, Retro the Rocket, otherwise know as October Sky, was crocheted by Etsy user Trinlayk
from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Using hand-spun, hand-dyed alpaca yarn, the rocket may be the most cosy spacecraft yet built. "Alpaca is one of my favourite fibres to work with," says Trinlayk. "It's just sooooo soft and so warm." | <urn:uuid:a6b676b6-48ba-40e5-80ea-f78a1bd838a1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newscientist.com/gallery/putting-the-craft-in-spacecraft | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950656 | 178 | 1.695313 | 2 |
— The Syrian army says it will suspend military operations to mark the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, declaring a cease-fire from Friday morning to Monday. The army added that it reserves the right to respond to rebel attacks and bombings.
In an announcement read on state TV late Thursday, the Syrian military said it will act if "terrorist groups [are] trying to reinforce their positions by arming themselves and getting reinforcements."
It also warned neighboring countries against facilitating the smuggling of fighters across borders during that period.
A commander for the rebel Free Syrian Army said his fighters would commit to the truce, but would respond to any attacks.
Both sides have violated previous cease-fires after agreeing to them. However, an Islamist group active in Syria, Ansar al-Islam, is reported to have said that its fighters will not commit to the truce.
UN hails cease-fire
In New York, United Nations spokesman Martin Nesirky said the world body welcomed the cease-fire.
"Obviously, the world is now watching to see what will happen on Friday morning," he said. "It’s in everybody’s interest, not least the long suffering Syrian people, that the guns fall silent tomorrow morning for the Eid holiday."
Rebel commanders in various cities told Arab satellite channels that they would respect the cease-fire if the government did.
But one Free Syrian Army officer said, however, that the cease-fire was contingent on the government's releasing prisoners and lifting the blockade of Homs.
The cease-fire announcement came after reports that the rebels had made significant advances in Syria's northern commercial hub of Aleppo. Government forces were reported to have pulled out of one Kurdish and two Christian districts inside the city.
The reports could not be confirmed and the Syrian government did not comment.
Syria scholar Joshua Landis, who heads the Center of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Oklahoma and has been monitoring reports coming from Aleppo, said government forces appear mired in a fluid battle with rebels.
"The government has been flailing about in Aleppo for the last several weeks, bombing neighborhoods where it can't send men in," he said. "It doesn't have the manpower to overtake the city and by some estimates — pretty well-educated estimates — there are about 70,000 rebel troops in Aleppo and the regime just cannot hang on. They just don't have the manpower.”
Rebel commander Abdel Jaber al Okeidi told al Arabiya TV that the government had used field artillery throughout Thursday, across much of Aleppo. Other witnesses reported that heavy rains prevented government forces from bombing the city.
Government forces are reported to have remained in control of Aleppo's airport in the southeast of the city. But rebels appear to control a military airport to the west.
Elsewhere, amateur videos posted on the Internet showed Syrian government troops and tanks pulling out of parts of what appeared to be the southern city of Daraa. Heavy government shelling was also reported in the rebel stronghold of Harasta, outside Damascus.
UN rights demands
In Geneva, meanwhile, United Nations investigators said they have sent a letter to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, asking for a meeting regarding the deteriorating human rights situation in Syria.
It is the first time the U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Syria has asked for a face-to-face meeting with the Syrian president. The Syrian government has refused to grant access to the commission during its previous fact-finding missions.
There was no immediate response from the Syrian government.
In previous probes, U.N. investigators have gathered information from eyewitness testimonies, human rights defenders, U.N. agencies and other organizations in neighboring countries.
Given the intensified fighting and worsening human rights situation in Syria, the commission chairman, Paulo Pinheiro, said he hopes that he and his colleagues can meet with Assad.
"We do not have a crystal," he said. "I do not know if he will accept us. But, it was our duty to have access."
An investigators' report presented to the U.N. Human Rights Council in August accused both the Syrian government and opposition forces of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The report blames the highest levels of the government, as well as security and armed forces for committing atrocities including murder, torture, attacks against civilians and acts of sexual violence.
While the investigators say opposition forces also have committed war crimes, they say these violations and abuses are not of the same gravity, frequency and scale as those committed by the government and its allies.
The U.N. Human Rights Council extended the mandate of the commission at the end of September, increased the number of investigators to four, and provided more money and people to support its work.
As part of its investigation, the commission says it will determine which high-ranking Syrian political and military figures are responsible for crimes in Syria.
Investigators say it will be up to the U.N. Security Council to decide when and if the list should be made public.
A support team will be going to the Mideast in the coming weeks to lay the groundwork for the commission's fact-finding mission. The group plans to complete a report on its findings in January and submit it to the U.N. Human Rights Council in March. | <urn:uuid:ddb19192-0a23-42f3-9d29-ecc4ddd9dfe5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.voanews.com/content/syrian-rebels-advance-in-aleppo-truce-hopes-fade/1533221.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96954 | 1,080 | 1.59375 | 2 |
The following is an excerpt from Michael J. Casey's The Unfair Trade: How Our Broken Global Financial System Destroys the Middle Class, which went on sale this week. Michael Casey is a managing editor for the Americas at DJ FX Trader, a foreign exchange news service jointly produced by Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
Roni Rubinov runs two firms: New Liberty Loans, a pawnshop that lends money against pledges of jewels and other keepsakes, and New York Estate Buyers, which mostly buys and sells items made of gold. Their offices sit side by side up a flight of stairs from the chaotic, multiethnic sidewalk of Manhattan's 47th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, a strip of jewelry stores known as the Diamond District. While I waited half an hour to talk to Mr. Rubinov, two street scouts kept escorting prospective clients up the stairs, each toting bags of wares to exchange for cash. Depending on whether they were borrowing or selling, Mr. Rubinov would exit one office and enter the other while his tall blond secretary would dutifully vacate one room's desk for the other.
It was July 2010 and Mr. Rubinov's twin gold-related businesses occupied a plum position in the middle of a post-crisis stand-off in the global economy. On the one hand, China's undervalued exchange rate, along with other savings-dependent and export-oriented policies, had produced a global glut of cheap goods that undercut U.S. producers and contributed to a slow, jobless recovery in America, where debt-laden, unemployed people remained desperate for cash. But on the other, the Fed's futile efforts to combat these global forces with monetary stimulus were feeding the fears of a growing number of cash-rich savers, who were equally desperate to exchange their dollars for gold out of fear of future inflation. This contradictory coexistence between deflationary realities and inflationary expectations created ideal demand and supply conditions in the gold market for Diamond District middlemen like Mr. Rubinov.
With the sidewalk littered with "We Buy Gold" pamphlets and crowded with scouts jostling for clients, the gold boom was not to the liking of everyone on the strip. Established in the 1940s by Orthodox Jews who fled the diamond districts of Antwerp and Amsterdam in response to the Nazi invasion, the District had for most of its existence been a center for the fine art of appraising and dealing in diamonds. Now the families who descended from those immigrants saw their District overrun with what many regarded as crass loan sharks.
There wasn't much they could do about it, however. By then, 47th Street was caught up in a nationwide bout of gold mania. Americans were being barraged with TV commercials and online ads touting investments in gold coins, gold bars, and gold-only investment funds, while others offered new ways for people to sell their gold jewelry for cash, all with the aid of celebrity endorsements. Bullion marketer Goldline International put former senator, presidential candidate, and actor Fred Thompson in its camp. Rosland Capital, which also sells gold coins and bars, hired convicted Watergate operative and loose-tongued conservative radio host G. Gordon Liddy for a series of ads. Glenn Beck's and Bill O'Reilly's shows on the Fox Network were heavily sponsored by gold sellers.
Cash-4gold.com, an outfit controlled by Green Bullion Financial Services of Florida, ran a Super Bowl spot in February 2009 featuring hip-hop star MC Hammer and TV legend Ed McMahon riffing about mailing in their gold sledgehammers, gold toilets, and gold microphones. Mr. T, star of the A-Team television series, became the spokesman for pawnbroker Cash America's gold mail-in service, telling a Bloomberg TV interviewer he believed in it because gold was one of the gifts given to the Baby Jesus. Meanwhile, people started hosting gold-selling parties. As the blurb on one promoter's website put it, "Think Tupperware party, [but] instead of spending, everyone leaves with large sums of CASH!"
Many profited from this merry-go-round of money. But an economy that incentivizes pawnbrokers to gather family keepsakes so that gold refiners can melt them into uniform 400-ounce gold bars is hardly a policy maker's dream. For far too many Americans, the economy remained in a sickly state, which most members of the Fed's rate-setting committee saw as a reason to prioritize policies that boosted jobs over those that fought inflation. Almost two years after the Lehman Brothers collapse, unemployment was still near 10% and inflation was lower than 2%, which meant that the march of bag-toting customers into pawnshops was accelerating.
The customer flow was a "gradual process," in which people's will to hang onto their valuables eventually broke, Mr. Rubinov explained. "It is not a sudden assault as if someone robbed them. It's that the well is slowly drying up," he said, describing the economic conditions as "the worst I have seen in thirty years of business."
Yet the U.S. central bank's response -- to keep short-term interest rates anchored near zero while conducting periodic "quantitative easing" bond-buying campaigns through which it would pump fresh dollars into the economy -- produced more unintended consequences than desired results. Growth stayed in an anemic state, and yet even the hint of a second round of "QE" from Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke sent commodity and foreign asset prices soaring. Hedge funds and other speculators saw it as a signal that the dollar would depreciate and so exchanged cash for hard assets. These investors sent their dollars almost anywhere but to the sectors of the U.S. economy that needed them, pushing the prices for oil, agricultural commodities, Asian real estate, and precious metals ever higher.
Gold captured this speculative energy more than any other market. After the Fed's November 2010 launch of "QE2"and its continuation through the first half of 2011, the 47th Street sidewalk became an even noisier, bustling bazaar as the price of gold reached a record $1,900 per ounce by September 2011, triple its level three years earlier. Later, concerns about the euro zone debt crisis prompted many institutional investors to do as Mr. Rubinov's customers were doing, and liquidate their gold for cash. Even so, the price never fell far below $1,600 an ounce, which left big gains in place and sustained the incentive for struggling Americans to haul their jewelry down to the Diamond District.
The gold rally had far-reaching global implications. It meant that families of Indian brides had to save three times as much for their dowries, for example. It turned the South African rand, the currency of one of the world's biggest gold producers, into the top or second-top performing currency for four years running, much to the chagrin of the country's winemakers. And it inspired tens of thousands of young men to risk their lives in precarious, 200-foot-deep makeshift mines dug into the red clay of northern Peru.
So while the Fed was virtually powerless to boost the U.S. economy, its actions were a potent source of disruptive, inflationary pressure elsewhere -- not a healthy combination. That worst-of-both-worlds outcome could be traced to some stark imbalances in the global financial system, both in the multi-trillion-dollar savings glut that an export-orientated China had built up and in the United States' economy's unhealthy dependence on credit and a gargantuan financial sector.
In this environment, the Fed was both constrained by and a driver of the sweeping global forces of our age, forces that both steered cash-strapped clients to Roni Rubinov's pawnshop and drove Peruvians into the suffocating darkness of a dangerous mine.
Reprinted from the book The Unfair Trade by Michael Casey. Copyright 2012 by Michael Casey. Published by Crown Business, a division of Random House, Inc. | <urn:uuid:bb7041b1-7a1b-412c-8f7b-e650d3260e4f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.smartmoney.com/invest/markets/behind-the-gold-boom-1338482401523/?link=SM_inv_cu_res | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966373 | 1,659 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Part of the genius of Jesusí ministry was that he didnít spend much time trying to convince people. He just spoke the truth, did good things and let the chips fall where they may.
Those open to Godís grace were drawn to him. Those wrapped up in their own wrongheadedness fought him.
In the Gospel for the Fourth Sunday of Lent, Jesus heals a man born blind. You would expect those who witnessed this to be astonished and overjoyed.
But for those looking to condemn Jesus, it was just one more piece of evidence to use against him.
Their issue was the seeming audacity Jesus showed in healing an undeserving person. If the man was blind, they reasoned, it was obviously punishment for his sinfulness or that of his parents.
Such perverse logic let the movers and shakers of society off the hook for their failure to help the disadvantaged.
If the blind, lepers, widows and others who were marginalized deserved their fate, then changing their condition would violate Godís will.
Stycy, a sponsored child in India.
For those with wealth and influence ó who, by implication, must be Godís favored ó it was a cozy belief system. But it was also wrong, and Jesus had no problem in naming it as such.
By healing the blind man Jesus put his critics in the absurd position of denouncing as evil an action that was clearly good.
In so doing, they exposed the illogic of their beliefs and proved themselves to be the truly blind ones.
Their blindness, unlike that of the man now gifted with sight, was all the more tragic because they stubbornly chose to remain in it despite the opportunity for conversion offered by Jesus.
Now, as in Jesusí day, hardness of heart keeps some from seeing past their own narrow interests.
But the good news is that generous, loving hearts are opened up to new vision every day.
CFCA sponsors often tell us how sharing in their sponsored friends’ lives has given them new insight into the talents, gifts and potential of those living in poverty.
Those who are sponsored tell how sponsorship has given them permission to see a future full of hope.
For both groups, CFCA is an avenue of a brighter vision, and we take great satisfaction in that.
As we continue our Lenten journey, let us each take a deep look into our own hearts.
May we allow Godís word and the companionship of others to penetrate our moments of blindness and flood our lives with warm, loving light. May we have the courage to see clearly and act justly.
And may the Christ ó he whose passionate love cures all variety of blindness ó always be our guide.
- Read the first Lenten reflection: Learning to love others more deeply
- Read the second Lenten reflection: Learning to listen for the voice of God
- Read the third Lenten reflection: Discovering our best selves
- Read the fifth Lenten reflection: Rising again from small, everyday ‘deaths’
- Read the sixth Lenten reflection: Embracing the reality of the cross
- Read the seventh Lenten reflection:†Making sense of the empty tomb | <urn:uuid:4319b36a-3088-4f21-a367-2b74fcd4e920> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.cfcausa.org/2011/03/30/lenten-reflection-opening-our-eyes-and-hearts-to-a-new-vision/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=ea0388e61b | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967258 | 660 | 2.015625 | 2 |
What Lies Behind the Law
In this chapter, Lewis continues to build upon his argument for the Law of Nature that I have already written about. He goes on to bring science into the discussion, as there have long been two views on how the universe came into being: The materialist view and the religious view (he shares in a note at the end of the chapter that there are beliefs in-between these two, but he desired brevity in the original radio address). The materialist view argues that the universe was created through a series of random chances, while the religious view states that all of reality came into existence because a mind willed it to. (As of yet, Lewis has refrained from labeling this mind as being the Christian God, he will get to that). Lewis also makes a rather convincing argument that science cannot prove which view is right. Science is all about observation and experimentation on observable things. To determine the existence of whatever moved behind the creation of the universe is impossible from a scientific standpoint (science cannot prove the existence of God, nor the existence of random chance. We suppose these things exist, largely because of our own observations).
Lewis is quick to point out that science has a place and is very important. He even argues that science can help us understand the existence of the Law of Nature. We have an inside track on humanity, since we are humans. We can understand ourselves better than we can understand anything else on the planet. By observing ourselves (internally) we can see that this Law of Nature really does exist, telling us what we should do, especially when we are not doing what we should be doing.
I think my favorite piece in this essay was when Lewis explains why science cannot prove or disprove a power outside the universe which has created the universe we reside in. Such a power could not show us itself to us as a fact within the universe any more than an architect of a house could be a wall or a staircase inside the house that he has built. The only way we can expect God to show Himself in our reality is through His Law placed in our souls, guiding and directing us in the ways that we should go.
And we do find that inside of ourselves. Some label it as being the conscience, but it is God’s stamp on our souls, trying to help us line ourselves up with Him so that we may one day be able to see the architect of our reality face-to-face.
And I find that incredibly comforting. | <urn:uuid:21c01852-d9a5-446e-a574-39d435c65317> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://doctorheadly.wordpress.com/2012/04/02/what-lies-behind-the-law/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968502 | 507 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Despite global sanctions, Iran continues to export terrorism worldwide while importing nuclear weapons technology in a quest to impose Islam on the world. The United States and its Western allies must step up the pressure against Tehran.
Part of the export of terrorism turned up Tuesday when U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced federal authorities had foiled an Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the United States and bomb the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Washington.
U.S. authorities concerned about Iran’s terrorist activities have taken new action to limit the illicit activities of the Islamic regime in Tehran, but it’s not enough.
In conjunction with U.S. sanctions, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) suspended the sale of Iran Air tickets through its Billing and Settlement Plan system, which serves as the central point through which data and funds flow between travel agents and airlines worldwide.
According to one official at IATA, the suspension went into effect last week and was a direct response to U.S. sanctions against illegal activities conducted by the Iranian government through Iran Air. Within the framework of these sanctions, travel agencies must refuse the sale of Iran Air passenger tickets.
While sanctions are exerting some pressure on the Islamic regime in Iran, they have failed to stop it from illicit activities of money laundering, transferring of arms and explosives in support of its terror network worldwide and, most important, its pursuit of a nuclear bomb program.
The United States, in collaboration with our allies in the European Union, must exert much more pressure against Iran. These actions could include the closure of all offices of Iran Air, Iranian shipping lines and bank offices in Europe.
In addition, an oil embargo would drastically affect the Iranian economy, forcing its leaders to change their behavior or face the wrath of their own people, who for decades have paid dearly to gain freedom from their radical rulers. We have to realize once and for all that a regime change in Tehran would go a long way in securing peace and stability not only in the region, but in the world.
Iran repeatedly has violated international laws, one of which strictly prohibits the use of passenger flights for security or military purposes. According to the opposition group Green Experts of Iran, the Iranian government on at least three recent occasions has smuggled large sums of money out of the country using Iran Air passenger flights.
One such money-laundering case involved transferring millions of euros to the Iranian Embassy in Germany, intended for expanding intelligence operations as well as funding Iranian-supported Islamic centers across Europe, such as the Islamic centers in Hamburg, Germany, and Vienna, Austria, and one Sudanese Islamic center based in Europe.
The second case involved transferring large sums of U.S. dollars to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, through Iran Air flights. Portions of these funds were moved later to the Philippines, and the final destination is unclear at this time.
The third case of the Iranian government’s money-laundering scheme via Iran Air is connected to Iranian-Pakistani joint nuclear activity. For this purpose, hundreds of millions of dollars in cash has been paid to the Pakistani government to purchase necessary components as well as the expertise of Pakistani nuclear scientists.
As I have reported on several occasions, known because of my experience as a CIA agent inside the Revolutionary Guards of Iran, Iranian intelligence agents occupy every office and entity in connection with the Islamic government in Iran. These include consulates and embassies, Iran Air and Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines offices, Iranian banks abroad, Islamic and cultural centers, mosques and every extension of the Iranian government in businesses throughout the world.
Not only money is smuggled to support Iranian intelligence activities. As I have reported to the CIA, arms and explosives are smuggled using Iran Air flights. In one such case, the explosives smuggled by Iran Air were transferred from the airport via an Iranian consulate convoy, which has diplomatic immunity. These actions have resulted in many assassinations and acts of terrorism worldwide.
Iran Air flights are also used to transport terrorists. These flights, though commercial, often show as being fully booked many months in advance so that no regular passengers can fly. These mystery flights are used routinely to transfer funds and arms to Syria and carry known terrorists back to Iran.
Iranian Quds Forces and Hezbollah use the same Iran Air mystery flights to transfer members to Venezuela to strengthen their terror network in Latin America. These terror cells, in collaboration with drug cartels, get into Mexico, from which they enter the United States.
Mohammad Hussein Babai, the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, recently revealed that the Iranian terror cells, in coordination with Hezbollah, have infiltrated into the heart of Europe and America. Their mission, Mr. Babai said, is to help create an Islam-dominated world.
Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym for an ex-CIA spy who is a fellow with EMPact America and the author of “A Time to Betray,” about his double life in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (Threshold Editions, Simon & Schuster, 2010).
© Copyright 2013 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.
By Andrew P. Napolitano
The president's men trash the Constitution to pursue antagonists | <urn:uuid:5f6f8f8c-a662-4374-a19e-c6aed138590f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/oct/14/putting-an-end-to-iran-air-terror-flights/?page=all | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956861 | 1,062 | 1.625 | 2 |
Yellowstone National Park unveiled its new visitor center with interactive displays and a 130-seat theater.
How would you celebrate your 94th birthday if you were the National Park Service? You’d open a $26 million, 26,000-squarefoot visitor center at Yellowstone’s Old Faithful geyser. “Most visitors leave not knowing why the geyser is so special,” said Christine Weinheimer, the Yellowstone Park Foundation’s communications director. “Seeing Old Faithful erupt can give you some great photos, but it doesn’t give you a basic understanding of geysers, which are more abundant here than anywhere else in the world.”
The new visitor education center, a contemporary take on classic log-and-stone “parkitecture,” opened on August 25, the anniversary of the park service’s founding. (The former center, 40 years old and crumbling, was just half its size.) With Old Faithful itself in clear sight through towering front windows, visitors enter a 130-seat theater to take a virtual flight around the Upper Geyser Basin. Elsewhere, they sidle up to an interactive display to learn why earthquakes are good for geysers and to picture how the park would look if it weren’t for the volcanic rock called rhyolite. (307) 344-7381, nps.gov/yell .
Photography by Robert Landau /Alamy
This article was first published in September 2010. Some facts may have aged gracelessly. Please call ahead to verify information. | <urn:uuid:0e2544b5-68c5-4d6f-85fe-ac6371d65e7a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.viamagazine.com/print/attractions/old-faithfuls-new-visitor-center | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929201 | 331 | 2.203125 | 2 |
Many a kitchen is bespeckled with out dated, less than attractive elements. Items such as faded cabinets, deeply scratched sinks, broken drawers, countertops with nicks and stains, oh I could go on with this list for another couple of pages. And while the overall design might be practical, these other things take away from those assets. And while more often than not, big things such as replacing appliances from an era gone by is not an option, actions can be taken to make a big improvement to the space. So, my advice is not to say, “if we can’t change the large things it is not worth fixing up the others.” Instead think of tackling the small as taking steps down a path that eventually could lead to the exchange of the 1980’s appliances.
Here is a list of potential home improvement projects to get you underway.
- Build window benches
- Retile the floor
- Bring in new window treatments
- Paint cabinets
- Attach new pulls/knobs to drawers
- Remove old grout and insert new
- Remove old caulk and insert new
- Paint the face of your refrigerator with chalkboard paint
- Paint the walls a new colour, or even just a fresh coat of the same colour
- Cut inserts out of cabinets and replace with frosted glass | <urn:uuid:ba93a8e0-94e2-4dd0-8e55-d70979147d93> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gardenandabode.com/big-impact/potential-home-improvement-projects-to-get-you-underway/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94612 | 277 | 1.523438 | 2 |
New York is running out of cash. It is expected that the state's general fund will end the month of November in the red, forcing the government to borrow money from its short term investment pool in order to meet its scheduled payments.
And that isn't the biggest problem. The state faces an escalating deficit and Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli has estimated that New York could face a $38 billion dollar spending gap by 2013.
The message from Gov. David Paterson and his budget director, Robert Megna, has been clear: State spending has to be reigned in or New York will end up like California, a state that has had to issue IOUs and seen its credit rating cut to near junk bond status.
Paterson's way out of this mess, a deficit reduction package worth $5 billion, would make significant cuts to health care and education and provide for one-time influxes of cash into state coffers with a tax amnesty program and transfers from quasi-governmental public authorities.
This is not the first time Paterson has tried to reduce spending -- and indications are that he will, once again, meet opposition, Already representatives of education and health care groups have warned of disaster, and some senators have resisted the governor's call. Many, hoping to avoid slashing services, see salvation in reports from Wall Street promising bigger bonuses and higher profits in the finance industry in the months to come.
In December the state is scheduled to make $2.5 billion in payments for STAR, the property tax relief program, as well as $1.6 billion in School Aid Funding, $500 million in funding for city governments and $500 million in funding for county governments. According to current projections, it will have to borrow to meet those obligations.
Estimates of the state's long term fiscal crunch vary but they all paint a fairly dire picture. By the end of the year, the state's deficit is expected to reach anywhere from $3.2 billion to the $4.1 billion. The Paterson administration now predicts the state faces a deficit of $44.2 billion over the next two-and-a-half years.
A recent financial condition report issued by DiNapoli's office shows that state spending has increased by 21 percent over the last four years. Revenues have drastically decreased. And New York is the second most indebted state in the nation, behind only California.
Although DiNapoli's office warns the deficit will be $4.1 billion by the end of this year, the Department of Budget is proposing only $3 billion in cuts. Even so, when asked to preview his plan earlier this month Paterson said simply "Pain."
The Way Out?
For a number of sectors -- and for New York City -- pain is exactly what Paterson's plan delivers. More than two third of state spending goes to health care and education, so both sectors face hefty cuts.
Under Paterson's proposal, school aid would be reduced by $686 million this year. That translates into $223 million in cuts for the five boroughs. Paterson's plan also includes reductions in tuition assistance and cuts to the budgets of the city and state universities. CUNY tuition will increase from $4,000 a year for undergraduate students to $4,600. The state will reduce per-student aid to the college by around 10 percent.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority would lose $113 million.
The health care sector, including Medicaid and health service providers, will be cut by $471 million. AIDS programs and home care providers are also scheduled to for reductions.
The city would lose $41 million in Aid and Incentives Payments -- state assistance funding for municipalities that was just added in the 2008-2009. The city will still receive a payment of $205 million for 2008 '09.
"It's not clear yet how the city will absorb the cuts," said Doug Turetsky of the city Independent Budget Office, adding, "The thing to keep in mind is that there is a hit directly to the city budget, and then cuts that don't flow through the city budget that hit non-profit organizations and cut services that we don't measure."
Others are more certain about how the plan will affect the city and the state.
James Parrot of the Fiscal Policy Institute said Paterson's plan is potentially disastrous for New York's economy. Parrot estimates that the state could lose 25,000 jobs if the cuts to education and health care funding go through. He said the job loss will not "prime" New York's economy, as Paterson has said his cuts will do, but hurt it.
E.J. McMahon, director of the fiscally conservative Empire Center for New York State Policy, sees things much differently. McMahon said that Paterson's cuts should only be the first of many. "He keeps talking about this December," said McMahon. "This is just the beginning."
Is There Another Way?
Most observers would like to see an alternative to cuts -- and some think there may very be one.
Parrot wants Paterson and the legislature to wait until the end of the fiscal year before making any drastic cuts to see if revenue collection improves. "The way to address the cash flow problem in December is to borrow short term 'til the end of the fiscal year," said Parrot, who further suggests the state tap into its rainy day funds to get through December.
Paterson, though, has insisted that he does not want to tap the state's rainy day funds or do anything that might downgrade the state's financial rating.
Parrot believes borrowing short term will not hurt the state's financial rating, and he notes that short-term interest rates are low. "It's foolish not to do it," he said. Parrot also expects the federal government to continue the stimulus program that has sent cash directly into the state budget.
McMahon disagrees. "It gets worse after this," McMahon said. He thinks those who expect Washington to extend the stimulus are dreaming and playing dangerous games with the state's finances. He said the state will see stimulus funding drop off and be left with even larger deficits.
Looking to Wall Street
The collapse on Wall Street helped get the state into its current mess. So can the improved situation in the finance industry save the state? Parrot said he expects tax collections to improve by January, spurred by expected bonuses on Wall Street. "There has been a quick recovery on Wall Street. It is clearly much better than it was last year. I would want to wait to see the collections," said Parrot.
Others agree. "I think it would be prudent to wait and see what happens at the end of the year with Wall Street," said Billy Easton of the Alliance for Quality Education. "You hear everyday about executives getting bonuses that could offset fiscal problems."
Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said that he expects Wall Street to help bolster the city budget.
State officials though, do not share that optimism.
Matt Anderson, spokesperson for the state budget office, said that early indications are that the bonuses and money from Wall Street will not be significant enough to dig the state out of its financial hole. "The rebound is a good thing, but we are tempering our enthusiasm when it comes to bonuses," said Anderson.
Anderson pointed out that a number of firms that paid bonuses last year no longer exist, At the same time many firms have been paying bonuses in stock, which does not send money into the state's coffers.
The budget office is expected to release a revenue update this week, and, Anderson said, "There isn't much sign for optimism for a rapid rebound."
"You'd need $20 billion in bonuses for it to make a difference," said McMahon, who warned that the state can't delay making significant budget cuts.
DiNapoli's office agrees.” Although we are seeing encouraging signs on Wall Street and there have been recent news reports suggesting a rebound in compensation, it is important to note that the securities industry is undergoing a fundamental transformation, which could result in reduced profits and therefore less tax revenue," said Robert Whalen, spokesman for the comptroller's office. "Simply put, New York cannot count on Wall Street to save the day. Further delay will only make matters worse."
"Through the lens of the city budget, Wall Street profitability certainly spells good news," said Turetsky," but he noted that Wall Street has been "extremely volatile."
Even some state senators who oppose Paterson's cuts remain skeptical about a rescue from Wall Street.
"We hope it will continue," Austin Shafran, spokesman for the Senate Democrats said of the rebound, "but it usually takes a while for the public sector to catch up with the private sector. It does not take away from the need to come up with a balanced budget."
The Political Picture
Paterson has staked his governorship on a fiscally responsible message. He has repeatedly mentioned how hard it is for him to cut education and health care but reiterated that the state's fiscal situation demands it.
It seems the majority of the New York Assembly would go along. The Assembly held hearings this month and then issued a report basically agreeing that the state's finances are in disarray. Sources say they are ready to act if they have assurances the Senate is on board.
Senate Democrats, who are concerned with retaining their majority in 2010, have seemed less ready to commit to Paterson's cuts. A number of senators have indicated that they would at least like to take their time before slashing the budget. Some have even indicated privately that they feel Paterson has blown the state's financial peril out of proportion. They defer to the message delivered by representatives of health care and education groups who would bear the cuts.
After overseeing two public hearings, Senate Finance Committee Chair Carl Kruger issued a statement attacking Paterson's plan. Kruger indicated that he agreed with Paterson's proposal to raise funds by cutting spending at state agencies and by transferring funds from authorities, but he slammed the reductions in health care and education.
"Dramatic reductions to higher education opportunity programs for low-income students and developmental disabilities services are poorly devised ideas passed off as solutions," he said in the statement. "Also, the governor’s Medicaid and healthcare cuts place disproportionate pain on hospitals and nursing homes given they have weathered a number of cuts already. We have to do better, and those who do not recognize that responsibility lack the imagination or inclination to come up with new answers to old problems."
Following a hearing on the cuts on Long Island, Sen. Bill Perkins said he was impressed that about half members of the audience stood up to protest cuts to education. Perkins said representatives from the hospitals in his upper Manhattan district have stressed what Paterson's proposed cuts would mean to health care services. "In that respect, service cuts are going to be very hard on the community," he said.
Perkins said that he had no doubt that it is important to make budget cuts in a timely fashion but said that he needed more information and time to decide how to go forward. "There is no question about the urgency, but it's most important that the cuts we make to fill our budget shortfall are done fairly," he said.
Shafran echoed Perkins' sentiment. "What is most important is for us to get it right," he said. "People have been critical in the past, and rightly so, that we were not open to the public with the scope of the deficit …. This deficit is not just for the legislature; it is for every man and woman in New York, and they must have their say."
Looking for Revenue
In the meantime, some senators and advocates from the healthcare and education sectors have urged the state to look for alternate short-term revenue until revenues improve.
A recent New York State United Teachers commercial against the cuts suggested that, to free up cash, the state reduce its Empire Zone program which gives funding and tax breaks to businesses to lure them to certain parts of the state, and tax soda and plastic bags.
Both sides also look to rainy day funds.
Paterson's office says that 95 percent of school districts have rainy day funds that could more than cover the cuts he has proposed. He has suggested that school districts offset cuts in state aid by tapping into those funds. Easton counters that a number of New York City districts do not have rainy day funds at all. Instead, he suggests the state tap into its own rainy day fund. Brian Conway, vice president of media relations for the Greater New York Hospital Association, said his industry understands the state's financial peril.
"We don't have our head in the sand at all as far as the state's fiscal situation goes," said Conway, "No one has sacrificed or given more."
He warned, though that if Paterson's cuts go into effect people can expect hospital care to deteriorate greatly. "We are not crying wolf. We are warning this will happen. Layoffs, reductions in service and possible closure." Conway said the recent closure of two Queens hospitals would look "tame" in comparison to the havoc Paterson's proposed new cuts will wreak on health care in New York City.
Moment of Truth
Paterson has pressed the legislature for months to come to a special session to propose their own cuts or to vote on his. Eventually, Paterson pushed back his requested dates to Nov. 10 to allow the Senate and Assembly to hold their hearings. "I think we will be there," one senator said, "The question is will we have an agreement."
Paterson plans to address both houses of the legislature on Nov. 9 to discuss the state's financial problems. That appears to some to be a last ditch effort to lead a group of legislators who have proven this year to be un-leadable.
At a leaders’ meeting in the governor's New York City office on Thursday, Paterson seemed to reach a breaking point. Senate Conference Leader John Sampson repeatedly expressed how important it was for his caucus to hold public meetings and hear from average New Yorkers.
Paterson reacted sharply. "In the state of California they heard from the people in that state. They had a referendum about what they would cut, and they got nothing -- except the legislators' salaries." Paterson then added, "Anybody who tries to, in any way, differentiate or confuse this issue is not serving the public."
Last Updated (Jun 06, 2012) | <urn:uuid:c4b13629-e2bc-40b4-a385-4415b03f872e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gothamgazette.com/index.php/about/374-as-money-runs-out-can-albany-avoid-the-pain | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972624 | 2,966 | 1.765625 | 2 |
This course is catered to the needs of people who are planning a trip to Latin America or Spain and would like to have a foundational understanding of Spanish prior to their trip. The content includes practical exercises like communicating in a bus station, a doctor's office, a restaurant and also working with the reception staff in a hotel.
This course also provides a basis of the conjugation of commonly used regular and irregular verbs and also a review of prepositions, pronouns and other grammatical areas which will allow the student to construct the necessary sentences.
Gastronomy is also an important theme in conversations as well as customs in the myriad of marketplaces that are so colorful and interesting to visit all around Latin America, including the Otavalo market in Ecuador, Cuzco in Peru and Chichicastenango in Guatemala.
Are you interested? Try a one-hour class for free, without any commitment! | <urn:uuid:7e144998-b11c-4f7a-a5d0-75a30357c1da> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.celasmayaonline.com/spanish-for-travelers.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963665 | 187 | 2.15625 | 2 |
New display technologies use a simple glass wedge and a Kinect to bring you touchless touchscreens and 3D without glasses.
There is a Simpsons episode where an inanimate carbon rod wins the "worker of the week award" much to Homer's irritation. You could say that the hero of much of the work at Microsoft's Applied Sciences Group is an inanimate glass wedge. This simple piece of optics is being used in a number of different smart screen designs to do things that until recently seemed too difficult. The wedge acts as a simple light guide which allows either a TV camera to see a view without getting in the way or a bank of LEDs to project a view without getting in the way.
The first application (shown in the video) is just a 3D position sensor that allows you to draw on a screen without actually touching it. You can think of it as a no-touch touch screen if you like.
The second application is probably more impressive and more exciting. Using the glass wedge the system can steer beams from LEDs to a fixed point in space. The clever part is that using this one image can be sent to the left eye and another to the right eye. Of course, and you were probably waiting for this, the head tracking necessary is performed by a Kinect camera. So a simple glass wedge plus a Kinect give you 3D display that needs no glasses to be worn and isn't as difficult to create as a real time hologram. There is also a version of the application that shows two different images to each of two people - although it is harder to see a mainstream use of this particular demo.
Finally we have a sort of synthesis of an augmented reality window. A screen that lets you peer through it as if it was a window onto a real scene - well it is Microsoft so you knew Windows would come into it somewhere.
What is really amazing is that the Kinect makes it all possible. Each time you see a new and impressive demo there seems to be a Kinect somewhere.
Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference sold out in under two minutes. Apple has now announced that video of all the conference sessions will be made available during the event and that a Tech Talks ro [ ... ]
The initial announcement of Google Compute Engine last year limited access to a small number of specifically invited developers, but Google has now widened access to the preview to anyone who wants to [ ... ] | <urn:uuid:3b6e055d-b10c-4a2b-b063-3372a20c5787> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.i-programmer.info/news/91-hardware/2058-new-display-technologies-via-simple-qlensq.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959681 | 485 | 2.390625 | 2 |
This artist developed Florentine Mannerism, influenced by Michelangelo. Figures are muscular and in inventive poses, compressed into a space which has little depth. The painting may contain several stories. Moses is the central pivot for this turbulent composition but also appears in the red drapery rushing to save his future bride. He defends the seven daughters of Jethro from men who have deprived them of water for their flocks. | <urn:uuid:a371cb32-fb26-40f9-890d-0717edc35a79> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nga.gov.au/TheItalians/Detail.cfm?IRN=161152 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976611 | 86 | 2.515625 | 3 |
This was originally posted on the Huffington Post.
Every major reform in our nation's history has suffered defeats on the path to victory. From free trade to civil rights, setbacks have been a part of progress. But ultimate victory comes to those who learn from their defeats and press forward with new determination and perseverance.
The failure of the United States Senate to pass comprehensive climate and energy legislation this year was a serious setback for America, and for the world. The continuing cascade of scientific evidence shows that we are dangerously changing our climate, and the urgent need to act remains. So what do we do?
Our view is that we must be much more aggressive in pursuing pollution reductions under existing law, through America's never-ending ability to innovate, and through partnerships with companies that can transform the marketplace. There are many companies making real change, and we intend to work with them.
However, we have well-financed enemies in this fight, and it is time to sharpen the nation's focus on the businesses that obstruct vital progress.
For EDF, that means our historic interest in cooperation over confrontation will be recalibrated. We will always negotiate where possible, and we will continue to look for collaborative opportunities and flexible solutions. That is who we are, and we will continue to pursue those goals.
But there are companies that continue to choose short-term profits over public health, and who feel they are better off opposing progress. These companies have friends in the Congress, and they believe they will have more political leverage against the Environmental Protection Agency as the balance of power shifts in Washington next year.
Meanwhile, they are already marching into the courts to challenge virtually every breath EPA takes in this area. Our view is that the public and the investor community need to have far greater awareness of the companies engaged in indiscriminate obstructionism. We will look for ways to hold them accountable through every reasonable lever at our disposal. We will learn to be as tough with them as they have been with us.
We are evaluating everything from engaging more actively in corporate governance — the annual meeting of shareholders and outreach to boards of directors — to more active involvement in state Public Utility Commissions where the rubber meets the road on the scope of pollution — or pollution reductions — associated with major capital investments. And we are looking at a variety of ways to involve the public more actively in a conversation about who the big emitters are, where they operate, and what steps they are taking to reduce their pollution.
It doesn't have to be this way, and we would rather spend our time working on smart policy and win-win solutions. But we have no choice. We cannot allow the efforts of a few powerful companies to block necessary progress for the rest of us.
At the same time, we must accept the reality that climate change has a political problem. For too many people, opposing a solution to climate change has become a political and ideological dogma. As long as many in Congress feel required to oppose any measure in this area, we will not succeed.
If we are going to de-carbonize our economy, we have to de-polarize the politics surrounding the conversation. It is worth remembering that no major environmental law has ever passed without substantial bipartisan support. This has always been the case — but the incoming Congress is a fresh reminder that bipartisanship must be the foundation of future progress.
In short, while being more aggressive and vigorously fighting to achieve critical emissions reductions, we — the environmental community — must be more open. Our response to this political problem must be to engage more widely and listen more carefully, not dismiss or belittle those with whom we disagree.
We will have to reach out to new partners, make new allies, and engage new constituencies. We have done so with a large part of the business community, and we will learn to do so with others.
We cannot expect that the public will support change without understanding the reasons for it. But we cannot browbeat our way to a broader understanding of the science behind climate change and the benefits of taking action. We need to start with the real problems people face in America today – from jobs and energy security to clean air and water — and work with them to find answers to those problems and the common challenge that faces all of us.
Fortunately, even in this difficult year, there is a path emerging that will allow us to begin to solve climate change, and there is a foundation upon which to build.
Within the last year, a controversial and overly complex but important climate bill passed the U.S. House of Representatives and received serious consideration among a number of Senate offices. Even where substantive disagreements remained, a new and significant understanding of policy issues and solutions was achieved — which is essential to move forward.
More broadly, public support for action on climate change, energy security, and clean energy remains strong. Just last month, in the largest public referendum on environmental policy, millions in California voted to keep the state's landmark climate law on the books, saying that clean energy jobs are a path forward through a difficult economic climate. Californians rejected polluter-funded attempts to overturn the law by a 22 percent margin despite 12 percent unemployment in the state.
Meanwhile, the level of business support for meaningful climate and energy policy has reached new heights. A number of cities, states and regions across the country remain committed to moving forward. Plans for 130 new coal burning power plants have been canceled. The Administration moved forward with national greenhouse gas standards for vehicles, and talks are beginning for the next phase in 2016.
In order to continue to make progress, a new openness to different solutions will be essential. For our part — long standing advocates of a cap and trade approach — we need to accept that whether policies are cap and trade or something else is less important than whether they collectively provide a clear guarantee that emissions go down. More broadly, every entity looking for solutions to climate change will need to embrace flexibility and creativity in their policy approaches.
We will be guided by three principles as we work toward our pollution reduction goal:
- We will judge ideas and policies by their potential to produce results. Performance is what matters.
- Our approaches should be cost effective. This will lead to maximum pollution reduction returns for our investments and broader and durable public support.
- We will involve as many sources of pollution, and methods for reducing and absorbing pollution, as possible.
How do we actually achieve the goal? National pollution limits established by Congress are still necessary for long term success, but in the short term we can take steps that move us in the same direction.
Our first priority must be to defend the pollution limits already in law, at the federal and state level. EPA has the responsibility under existing law to protect us from pollution, including the carbon emissions that cause global warming. It has done so thoughtfully over the years when regulating other air pollutants, and it can do so here. In fact, there may be no greater governmental success story than the Clean Air Act. We must encourage our neighbors in cities and in the countryside, to understand and protect the benefits of that law to our economy and our health, which have outweighed costs by more than 30 to 1; and to tell the stories of avoided premature deaths and childhood asthma attacks, and the shroud of smog lifted from our cities.
As with every pollution limit ever proposed, there will be some who will work to block, weaken, or delay any rules EPA tries to put on paper. We will fight them at every turn, making their full agenda clear to the American public: they seek not only to allow unlimited carbon pollution, but to derail limits on toxic mercury, lethal particulates, and other harmful contaminants in our air. We must remind America that obstructionists are attacking the fundamental public health protections of a bipartisan law that has stood for 40 years.
At the same time, we will encourage forward-thinking utilities and other businesses to reduce their pollution, and work with them to do so. And we will work on policies and programs that will allow for improved efficiency in the ways that we use and distribute energy — work that will save money as well as energy, and making our overall economy more competitive. Many businesses have already seen the benefits — lower energy bills, reduced regulatory issues, greater competitive advantage — and are making real, measurable strides.
These stories of what the world can be, both profitable and sustainable, are essential to return to a useful discussion about national limits for greenhouse gases. These examples will be more persuasive, because they are more concrete, than any other approach. There may be no more critical work that we will do over the next few years.
And we will continue to make the case that America will be stronger when we change the way we make and use energy. We cannot depend on hostile nations for so much of our energy, or slip further behind the Chinese and Europeans in creating new energy technology and jobs. Many of the issues about which we care the most — jobs, dependence, and competitiveness — are directly related to the issues of energy and pollution. But America will not support protective pollution limits or a transition to a cleaner energy economy if it does not believe that the solutions under consideration are solutions to these concerns.
In the long run we believe the path forward will be built from a continuing focus on solutions, and an aggressive approach combined with willingness to find new answers to the challenges we face. We must listen as well as speak, though speak we must. When we take this approach, we can seek out and work with people across the political and cultural spectrums with different approaches to solving our energy or climate challenges, and we can travel the path forward, together. | <urn:uuid:92d83996-0de0-40e8-988f-88f103572ac2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.edf.org/climate411/author/fkrupp/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95886 | 1,965 | 1.8125 | 2 |
This is a five-part video documentary series whose purpose is to present the suppressed historical audio, video and film recordings largely unseen by the public relating to the assassination of the Kennedy brothers, the little known classified "Black Ops" actually used to intentionally create the massive war in Vietnam, the CIA "mind control" programs and their involvement in the RFK assassination and the Jonestown massacre and other important truths of our post-modern time.
October 16, 2009 Subject:
More Official Myths Shown for the Lies They Are
In 2009 it is a difficult mental stretch (even for those who were alive and politically conscious back then as this reviewer was) to realize that forty-five years previously most average Americans sincerely believed that their government told them the truth--especially if it concerned things as serious as the assassination of a president or going to war.
As you watch part 2 of this documentary, you are seeing the genesis and the source of the cynicism, detachment, and growing antagonism of ordinary Americans towards both their government and its (as oppossed to their)military.
In 1964 most of the military was composed of draftees whose enlistment was based on the notion of serving the contrry trhat had given them so much. Today our military consists of so many "professionals" (a polite way of saying for hire mercinaries like the Hessians the British used to wage war agsint the colonists during the
Revolutionary War) whose fealty is to their chain of command and pay and benefits and not to the country or its Constitution.
In 1964 and 1965 powerful political leaders like William Fulbright, Wayne Morse, and Hubert Humphrey spoke directly for attribution. Today reporter/stenographers whisper rumors and gossip from "unnamed sources" speaking "off the record" and "not for attribution".
In '68 when Walter Cronkite called LBJ and McNamara's bluffing over the Vietnam war's winability the president realized that he had just lost middle Amerricaand declined to run for a second elected term. Today when confronted with their lying, criminal actions, and (in the case of Barack Obama) broken promises the response is either "So?!!" or indifferent silence.
I am not sure of the date of the Bishop Fulton Sheen clip (the communist scavenger) at the very end of part 2 of this documentary. However, whether it predates or came after, it is very similar to what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr had to say on 04/04/67 (one year to the day before he was assassinated) in opposition to the Vietnam war.
"It is a sad fact that because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch antirevolutionaries.
This has driven many to feel that only Marxism has a revolutionary spirit. Therefore, communism is a judgment against our failure to make democracy real and follow through on the revolutions that we initiated.
Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism.
With this powerful commitment we shall boldly challenge the status quo and unjust mores, and thereby speed the day when "every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain."
Substitute "radical Islamic fundamentalism" for "communism" or "Marxism" and you realize that essentiall nothing has changed in the 42 years since King made these observations.
If you go and listen to King's speech (The American Rhetoric website has the speech avaiable)you will be struck at how precisely right King was in all of his observations. No wonder he too was killed.
Mark Twain once observed, "The first casualty of any war is the truth" and as you watch part two of this splendid documentary series what you are watching is the assassination of the truth surrounding US involvement in the Vietnam civil war.
I gave this segment a 4 star review primarily due to the extended insertion of speculative (though informed) gossip about LBJ's involvement in the murder of JFK from the history channel's "The Men who Killed Kennedy" series.
While interesting, this material cannot be compared to the value of the straight file footage verifying the facts from the men who were there and in high positions to know exactly what went on to provoke American involvement in the Vietnam civil war.
Given the thorougness of the control exerted by the perpetrators of such crimes, the anonymiity of the producers of this documentary, and its continued availability for viewing, it is also worth wondering if this production's existence is both a boast and a warning by the perps of such crimes to any future politicians or other leaders about who is really in charge and what they are capable of doing. | <urn:uuid:a8433b5b-38f1-49fb-9d96-93fcc5b8f164> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://archive.org/details/evidenceofrevisionpart2?start=1979.5 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959011 | 1,024 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Charlotte Bunch spoke with AWID to pay tribute to her longstanding and cherished colleague and friend, Rhonda Copelon.
Posted on: Friday, June 11, 2010
Charlotte Bunch, a member of MADRE's Network of Experts, spoke with Masum Momaya of AWID.
AWID: Charlotte, can you tell us how you came to work with Rhonda?
Charlotte Bunch: I began working closely with Rhonda in the 1990s after she became part of the founding faculty of CUNY Law School and later director of the School’s International Women’s Human Rights Law Clinic, which she founded with Celina Romany. We had been on parallel tracks in our U.S. feminist work in the 1970s, although we had not worked together then. She came to our apartment in Brooklyn in 1990 to discuss with me and Roxanna Carrillo how she could bring her legal expertise to the developing global women’s human rights movement, and a close partnership began. It was clear from the outset that we shared a passion for linking global women’s struggles to feminist and human rights issues in the U.S. – to seeing ourselves and U.S. movements as part of global solidarity and a common struggle, and not as separated.
After that, Rhonda traveled with me and Roxanna to Argentina for the next regional feminist encuentro, where Rhonda rapidly picked up speaking Spanish with a French accent! We learned much from women there who had been working to bring feminism to that continent’s human rights struggles. Rhonda then became a core part of the global campaign for women’s human rights that strategized with activists from around the world on how to bring a feminist interpretation of human rights to the UN World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna in 1993, to women’s reproductive rights as human rights at the Cairo International Conference on Population and Development in 1994, and finally to full public awareness of this perspective at the Beijing World Conference on Women in 1995.
AWID: What will Rhonda be remembered for?
Charlotte Bunch: Many things as her fingerprints are all over the documents that make up the work of women’s human rights from the last two decades. All of us who have known and worked with Rhonda have experienced, witnessed and benefited from her deep human rights vision, creative legal mind, political persistence and generosity of spirit. She had keen intellectual acumen, legal strategic brilliance and was always an unswerving and courageous advocate. Throughout her life, she never ceased to persevere in the pursuit of justice for all.
Her perseverance, though, sometimes drove us crazy! For example, in the women’s caucuses for UN World Conferences, when we thought a document was finished, she often raised another critical point not seen before – after it had already gone to the printer. We wanted to say “it’s too late,” but we knew she was usually conceptually right, and something more needed to be said or done.
AWID: Can you tell us about the role Rhonda played in ensuring reproductive rights?
Charlotte Bunch: For 12 years, Rhonda served as a litigator at the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York. There, she played a critical role in the legal evolution of reproductive rights, and particularly the intersection of gender with race and class in determining women’s access to these rights in the U.S.
From her successful argument in the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of African-American teacher aides in Mississippi who were fired for being unwed mothers to her lead as counsel in Harris v. McRae, which challenged the federal amendment that cut-off of public funds for most abortions, Rhonda made connections between policy, law, and the every day realities of people for whom exercising rights was not a given, especially women of color and poor women.
Although the loss of McRae by one vote was heartbreaking, Rhonda’s contribution to that case reverberated throughout the field and influenced so many people working on reproductive rights. Her work challenged the law, and equally importantly, influenced advocates to link social and economic rights to personal ones. For her entire career, Rhonda fought for abortion to be safe, legal and fully accessible to all women.
But Rhonda’s work on reproductive rights is just one example of how she contributed her “brain waves,” both behind the scenes and on the front lines, to many of the most important breakthroughs in progressive feminist advances both in the US and globally.
Rhonda was also co-counsel in other critical cases challenging racist practices and governmental misconduct, the Vietnam War, and, ultimately, in Filartiga v. Pena-Irala, which recognized that the 1789 “Alien Tort Claims Act” encompasses torture as an international human rights norm constitutionally as part of the “laws of the United States.” Filartiga laid the foundation for work that Rhonda continued in developing gender perspectives in numerous cases involving war crimes, corporate abuses, and immigrant domestic workers.
AWID: Are there other cases in Rhonda’s career that stand out?
Charlotte Bunch: Rhonda represented Algerian journalists, feminists, and their families, persecuted and murdered by armed Islamist groups in a U.S. Court in the groundbreaking case of Jane Doe v. Islamic Salvation Front and Anouar Haddam. The case was so dangerous that the clients - including people who had witnessed the killing of their own children - had to remain anonymous.
As Karima Bennoune notes: “Rhonda is a now a legendary figure among Algerians working to oppose religious extremism in their country. They see her as a visionary who comprehends that the state is not the only source of threat to human rights and who understands that the most progressive stance toward the Muslim world even in the era of the "War on Terror" is concrete solidarity with its progressives rather than apology for fundamentalism.”
This is just one example of Rhonda taking on something that many people would not go near. Many profoundly admire her willingness to take on an uphill battle even when virtually alone, a hallmark of Rhonda’s legal career. In fact, whenever someone told Rhonda that something could not be done, she tried to do it and brought the doubters along in her effort to push the boundaries!
AWID: What about Rhonda’s contributions to ending against violence against women?
Charlotte Bunch: Rhonda was one of those who laid the conceptual groundwork for much of the legislation and resolutions in place today. She participated in the process for drafting the Inter-American Convention Against Violence Against Women in Brazil in 1992 and wrote groundbreaking articles on domestic violence as torture, which were taken up by the UN Committee Against Torture and the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture over a decade later. Even today, these articles open eyes for those new to the movement.
Rhonda’s article on war crimes in Bosnia contributed to the recognition of rape and sexualized violence as torture generally and in the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the International Criminal Tribunals, and as genocide in the Rwanda Tribunal.
Lepa Mladjenovic of Women in Black Belgrade has written that: “Rhonda is admired, read, discussed and cared for all over the world. At one point her piece on rape in war as primarily a form of male violence against woman, and not just nationalism, was a keystone. It was crucial in the particular moment of the war for us feminists from the Balkans, to have our Rhonda near, knowing that all her professional and activist self, written & spoken is behind her political belief.”
AWID: Rhonda also influenced the International Criminal Court, right?
Charlotte Bunch:One of her lasting areas of leadership was through co-founding the Women’s Caucus for Gender Justice, leading to the landmark codification of gender in the International Criminal Court (ICC) statute in 1998 – which was the first international Human Rights instrument to fully incorporate gender – rather than women having to catch up to add this later. She was unrelenting in the negotiations for this – just ask some of the men in the Coalition for the ICC.
Rhonda also trained judges on every continent and for the ICC and was sought out for advice by UN Special Rapporteurs. In fact, whenever anyone in the movement had a legal/political question – someone always said: “let’s ask Rhonda,” and she always did her best to respond.
AWID: And how do you think Rhonda will be remembered personally?
Charlotte Bunch: This question should be asked to the many who knew her. A friend from Latin America described Rhonda aptly as a “tesoro” – a treasure of the women’s human rights movement.
Ros Petchesky, a close friend of Rhonda’s wrote that: “Even more than her brilliant mind, Rhonda’s example shines in her practice of a truly feminist humanity in the everyday - her devotion to younger generations, her fierce and loving presence for her many friends; and her passionate embrace of both politics and fun. Rhonda is my model of a life fully realized.”
Rhonda was always there for you – open – probing – committed and joyful. She could be called upon at any hour, and she would call you at any hour also!
She welcomed the world into her home – in her Brooklyn apartment and especially in her home in Long Island, which she built with her friends and partner at the time to heal wounds from losing the McRae case. It has become a sanctuary for many feminist activists to renew themselves. My partner Roxanna and I considered it our second home as did many women from all over the globe. She is loved and respected by many who know that our world was better because Rhonda had been part of it – politically and personally – and we will all remember her with great love and admiration.
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Kaitlyn Soligan, Media Coordinator
PHONE: +1 212 627 0444
MADRE Makes News
Stoking Fire: Addressing the Specific Needs of Female Syrian Refugees (RH Reality Check, May 17, 2013)
An Open Letter to the Indigenous Peoples of Guatemala (Common Dreams, May 15, 2013)
Mothers Fight Back (RH Reality Check, May 9, 2013)
How Not to End the War in Syria (Common Dreams, May 9, 2013)
Conditions in Jordan Syrian refugee camp are worse for women (Women's News Network, April 19, 2013) | <urn:uuid:7611a8ed-2702-430b-bd5d-1f2dfa4aa599> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.madre.org/index/press-room-4/news/charlotte-bunch-spoke-with-awid-to-pay-tribute-to-her-longstanding-and-cherished-colleague-and-friend-rhonda-copelon-409.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975623 | 2,439 | 1.507813 | 2 |
BU Antiwar Coalition Invites Havaar: Iranian Initiative Against War, Sanctions, and State Repression
No War, No Sanctions
Iranians live with a plummeting currency, severe inflation, skyrocketing food prices, and a lack of critical medicines for various cancers and disease. This is all, in large part, the intended effect of the ‘crippling’ sanctions the U.S. and European Union have imposed on Iran. Not a decade removed from the end of the near-genocidal UN sanctions imposed on Iraq, the U.S. is at it again, this time in Iran, imposing virtually blanket sanctions intended to punish ordinary Iranians as a means to put pressure on the Iranian regime in negotiations.
To educate on the effect these sanctions are having and ways we can fight back against them, the BU Antiwar Coalition is inviting one of most important new antiwar groups to campus – ‘Havaar: Iranian Initiative Against War, Sanctions, and State Repression.’ Havaar will speak on the daily punishments ordinary Iranians are facing thanks to the ‘crippling’ sanctions the U.S. and European Union are imposing on Iran. More importantly, Havaar will also speak on ways we can fight back against the U.S.’s hostile posture towards Iran, thus both putting a stop to the slow torture the sanctions are imposing on Iranian civilians and allowing for Iranian civil society to reinvigorate itself and return to the courageous resistance we saw back in June 2009.
We urge you to come out to this event and learn how we can a build a strong anti-sanctions movement here in the U.S.! See you there!
We are a grassroots group of Iranians, Iranian-Americans and allies who have joined together to categorically oppose any military action and the U.S.-led sanctions against Iran. We stand in solidarity with the Iranian people’s struggle against war and sanctions and against state repression; we know that all of these forms of violence hurt the lives and aspirations of ordinary Iranians. | <urn:uuid:c2792c7b-c9d3-49d0-92e0-7ea8f193de96> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://justicewithpeace.org/node/4005 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933216 | 427 | 1.734375 | 2 |
KDE on OpenSolaris is like Projects/KDE on Solaris but with some extra setup steps. There are IPS packages available intermittently, when the KDE IPS package server is up (it's a VM at the end of a DSL line - see the archives of firstname.lastname@example.org to find it). Using OSOL as a build platform is possible, but you'll need at least one Nevada machine as well.
The current KDE4 IPS package server is the machine pkg in the domain bionicmutton.org; the IPS server runs on port 10000. This is a fairly standard IPS setup. The bionicmutton domain is Adriaan's and has been previously used to serve up SysV packages as well. The IPS server is in a VirtualBox at the end of a DSL line, so it's not necessarily up or fast. Eventually we will be moving to a more convention IPS repo like pending/ or contrib/.
First you need to set up a pkg authority to be able to get packages from bionicmutton at all. The first line creates the authority; the second fetches a catalog from it and the third checks that at least one of the packages can be found. Only the first is strictly necessary.
pfexec pkg set-authority \
-O http://<host.domain>:10000/ bionicmutton
pfexec pkg refresh bionicmutton pkg search -r KDEgdm-integration
Remember that KDE includes setuid code. Remember that installing packages from untrusted and unsigned third parties is insecure. Remember that the KDE codebase is huge and not extensively tested on OpenSolaris yet. Consider whether you really want to install KDE4 on the machine you're working on. Then decide to do it anyway. You will need KDEbase-apps for things like Konqueror and Konsole, and KDEgdm-integration to be able to choose KDE as a session; other KDE packages may be installed as you need them (such as KDEpim, KDEgames, etc.). There is a KDEconsolidation package as well that pulls in everything we know of.
pfexec pkg install KDEbase-apps \ | <urn:uuid:4fb52e94-665d-4383-995b-9b43df51dae7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://techbase.kde.org/index.php?title=Projects/KDE_on_Solaris/OpenSolaris&oldid=36935 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.902084 | 463 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Hong Kong Travel Tips & Guide
1. Language in Hong Kong
English and Chinese are Hong Kong's two official languages, while the Cantonese dialect is the most commonly spoken language in the territory. English is the business and service industries, such as the hotel employees, many urban Hong Kong residents, most young people and shop and service personnel understand and speak it to some degree. Other Chinese dialects, such as Mandarin, Shanghainese, and Chiu – Chow can be heard as well.
2. Superstition & Beliefs
Despite the relatively modernized way of life, Chinese superstition still plays an integral part of the culture. Concepts like Feng shui are taken quite seriously. Expensive construction projects often include the hiring of consultants that are believed to make or break a business. Other objects like bagua mirror are still used regularly to shield evils. Numbers in Chinese culture also play a role in people's everyday life. Numbers like "4"(because of its similarity to the Chinese word for "(to) die") are avoided when possible by believers. Other rituals like not using scissors on Chinese New Year are still around.
3. Holidays & Festivals
There are some distinctive holidays celebrated by Hong Kong as part of the eastern culture, not participated in the west except in select overseas Chinese communities. The most well known is Chinese New Year, which occurs after every regular New Year. Other events include Dragon Boat Festival where Zongzi is made by the millions at home as part of the tradition. Dragon boats also compete for regional awards. Mid-Autumn Festival is another highly celebrated event with massive purchase of moon cake around Chinese bakery shops.
4. Lifestyles & Leisure
When not at work, Hong Kongers devote much time to leisure. Mahjong is a popular social activity, and family and friends may play for hours at festivals and on public holidays in homes and mahjong parlors. The image of elderly men playing Chinese chess in public parks, surrounded by watching crowds, is common. Other board games such as Chinese checkers are also enjoyed by people of all ages. Among teenagers, shopping, eating out, karaoke and video games are common, with Japan being a major source of digital entertainment for cultural and proximity reasons; there are also popular local inventions such as Little Fighter Online.
5. Religion & Culture
Most Hong Kong ethnic Chinese people naturally lean toward eastern culture, because demographically they are the majority. Many, though, have adopted western ways with substantial numbers still adhering to Chinese traditions. On various social aspects, the bottom-line Chinese values of "family solidarity", "courtesy" and "saving face" carry significant weight in the culture. Heavy influence is derived from Cantonese culture from the neighboring province of Guangdong. There are also substantial communities of Hakka, Fukien, Teochiu and Shanghainese people. On the contrary, people have long been referred to by their origin in China.. Overall the background of Hong Kong Chinese born after 1965 can be classified as westernized, since they have been influenced by liberal western cultural symbols.
Hong Kong Dollar (HKD; symbol HK$) = 100 cents. Notes are in denominations of HK$1,000, 500, 100, 50, 20 and 10. Coins are in denominations of HK$10, 5, 2 and 1, and 50, 20 and 10 cents.
Foreign currency can be changed in banks, hotels and bureau de change. Banks usually offer the best rate of exchange.
American Express, Diners Club, MasterCard and Visa are widely accepted. There are also plenty of ATMs.
7. Passport & Visa
Passport valid for at least six months after the period of intended visit required by all nationals referred to in the chart above. All visitors must show evidence of sufficient funds to support themselves during their stay.
Not required by nationals referred to in the chart above for the following durations:
1. British Citizens for stays of up to 180 days (British Overseas Citizens, British Subjects, British Protected Persons and nationals of British Dependent Territories may stay for up to 90 days);
2. Nationals of Australia, Canada and USA for stays of up to 90 days;
3. Nationals of EU countries for stays of up to 90 days, except 1. British citizens for stays of up to 180 days.
8. Climate & Weather
Hong Kong experiences four distinct seasons, with the climate influenced in winter by the north-northeast monsoon and in summer by the south-southwest monsoon. Summers are very hot, with the rainy season running from June to August. Spring and autumn are warm with occasional rain and cooler evenings. Winter can be cold, but most days are mild. There is a risk of typhoons and tropical storms from April to October, although direct hits are rare.
9. Hong Kong Time
Hong Kong Time is the time in Hong Kong, and the time is UTC + 8 all year around. Hong Kong time is also the Beijing Standard Time in Mainland China, same as Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, and Philippines.
Other Related Hong Kong Maps
- Hong Kong Map(2010)
- Hong Kong Google Map
- Hong Kong World Map
- HK Districts Map
- Hong Kong Road Map
- Hong Kong Street Map
- HK Weather Map
- Hong Kong Travel Map
- Hong Kong Attractions
- Transportation Map
- Hong Kong Hotel Map
- Dining in Hong Kong
- Shopping in Hong Kong
- Hong Kong Nightlife
Recommended China Tour Itineraries
Are you planning to have a China tour? Here we provide some most valuable China tour packages for conference.
8 Days Best of China Tour(Beijing / Xian / Shanghai)
10 Days Classic China Tour(Beijing / Xian / Guilin / Shanghai)
13 Days China Yangtze Tour(Beijing / Xian / Guilin / Yangtze / Shanghai)
15 Days China & Tibet Dream Tour(Beijing / Xian / Lhasa / Chengdu / shanghai) | <urn:uuid:9922fd4c-a3fd-4ef6-991a-2baa691e6c02> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.chinatouristmaps.com/travel/hong-kong/hong-kong-travel-tips.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935514 | 1,251 | 2.9375 | 3 |