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July 01, 2011
| by Lisa Montgomery
How is it possible to hide a 100-inch screen? It’s easier than you might think—as long as you plan ahead. The screen is actually the easiest element to hide, provided you spring for one that can be retracted via a motorized mechanism into a housing mounted to the ceiling or located above the ceiling. With your massive screen tucked safely out of sight, your media room is once again just a room.
Hiding a projector is usually more complicated, but a well-designed soffit can function as an effective cloaking device. Consider adding removable panels to the soffit for cable and projector access, and definitely make sure the soffit is properly ventilated to ensure sufficient airflow. When all is said and done, you should see only a hole for the lens.
To make more equipment disappear, consider using in-wall or in-ceiling speakers and an out-of-sight, out-of-mind equipment rack. And since you’re already dealing with a motorized screen, consider motorized draperies and triggered lighting control. With the push of a button, your projector revs up, the screen drops down, the lights dim and the drapes close.
To achieve this level of home automaton trickery, look for a front projector with at least one integrated 12-volt trigger and an RS-232 serial data port. A simple 12-volt trigger can signal the screen to lower as soon as the projector is turned on, for example. Similarly, when the projector is turned off, the screen can return automatically to its hiding spot.
In this room, by Starr Systems Design, the 120-inch screen disappears with the touch of a button.
Lisa Montgomery has been writing about home technology for 15 years, with a focus on the impact of electronics on a modern lifestyle. | <urn:uuid:bb9e9094-a743-40c9-a00d-ccbf818e1be2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.electronichouse.com/article/blending_in_how_to_fit_a_projector_and_screen_in_your_room/Installer/P1015/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938218 | 386 | 1.90625 | 2 |
Web site planning: get it right the first time!
When building a web site, planning is often an afterthought. It doesn't have to be that way.
As a veteran designer, developer and project manager on more sites than I can count, I’ve identified a common problem with many web projects: failure to plan. As the same issues come up repeatedly in my work, I’ve written this guide in order to help my clients, other designers, businesses and organizations plan and realize successful web sites.
Who this guide is for
Written in relatively non-technical language, this guide provides a broad overview of the process of developing a web site, from the initial needs assessment through site launch, maintenance and follow up. It is appropriate for:
- Small and medium-size businesses
- Web designers, developers, and design/development firms
The guide walks you through the entire web site process, from definining content all the way to launch. Need help planning and developing your project? Get in touch. | <urn:uuid:b8b243d1-8493-48f4-900b-5ff514dbe5db> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://versastudio.com/articles/web-site-planning-get-it-right-the-first-time/smashing-mag/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926166 | 210 | 1.71875 | 2 |
The Lancet, Volume 362, Issue 9377
, Page 49, 5 July 2003
doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(03)13852-4Cite or Link Using DOI
Sri Lanka opens vaccine-safety centre
On June 9, Sri Lanka was chosen by WHO as a training centre for immunisation safety, an increasingly critical issue as more vaccine-preventable diseases are eradicated.
The centre was launched in Colombo and is the third of its kind. The University of Cape Town, South Africa, was the first training site and since 1999 has trained 154 people in 53 countries. The second centre was opened in Tunisia for francophone countries, and a fourth is in the pipeline for Russia later this year.
Lahouari Belgha ...
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Abuse at Native residential schools in Canada
Government apology & compensation
According to Wikipedia:
"In 1998, the [federal] government made a Statement of Reconciliation ? including
an apology to those people who were sexually or physically abused while
attending residential schools ? and established the Aboriginal Healing
Foundation. The Foundation was provided $350 million to fund community-based
healing projects focusing on addressing the legacy of Indian residential
schools. In its 2005 budget, the government committed an additional $40 million
to continue to support the work of the Aboriginal Healing Foundation."
In mid-1999, the federal government decided to try another method of avoiding
the litigation process. They
are seeking a series of out-of-court group settlements. Each of these might include
all of the students abused at a single school, or all of the victims who live in
a given community. Shawn Tupper, Senior Advisor with the Indian Affairs
Department, said: "We are looking for groups with shared interests."
As of 2000-APR-14, the federal government is faced with
close to 7,000 claims. Most allege abuse at schools run by Roman Catholic or Anglican groups.
are approximately 350 claims against The United Church of Canada. In most cases
the United Church is named as a co-defendant with the federal government. As
well, principals and former workers in the schools are sometimes named as
defendants. Some of the claims name specific acts of sexual and/or physical
abuse. The larger number of claims focus mainly on loss of language and culture
as a result of the residential school experience...The Presbyterian Church,
which was involved in two schools following 1925, has a fewer...claims."
Government compensation package:
According to Wikipedia: On 2005-NOV-23,
"... the Canadian government announced a $1.9 billion compensation package
to benefit tens of thousands of survivors of abuse at native residential
schools. National Chief Phil Fontaine of the Assembly of First Nations
said the package covers, 'decades in time, innumerable events and countless
injuries to First Nations individuals and communities.' Justice Minister
Irwin Cotler called the decision to house young Canadians in church-run
residential schools 'the single most harmful, disgraceful and racist act in
our history.' At a news conference in Ottawa, Deputy Prime Minister Anne
McLellan said: 'We have made good on our shared resolve to deliver what I
firmly believe will be a fair and lasting resolution of the Indian school
"The Settlement Agreement in May 2006. ... [proposed], among other things,
some funding for the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, for commemoration and for
a "Truth and Reconciliation" program in aboriginal communities, as well
as an individual Common Experience Payment (CEP). Any person that can
be verified as attending a federally run Indian residential school in Canada
is entitled to this Common Experience Payment. The amount of
compensation is based on the number of years attended by a particular former
student of residential schools: $10,000 for the first year attended plus
$3,000 for every year attended thereafter."
"The Settlement Agreement also proposed an advance payment
for former students alive and who are 65 years old and over as of 2005-MAY-30.
The eligible former students had to fill out the advance payment form
available for download on the IRSRC website to receive $8,000 that was
deducted from the Common Experience Payment. The deadline for reception
of the advance payment form by IRSRC was 2006-DEC-31."
"Following a legal process including an examination of the Settlement
Agreement by the courts of the provinces and territories of Canada, an
'opt-out' period occurred. During this time, the former students of
residential schools could reject the agreement if they did not agree with its
dispositions. This opt-out period ended on 2007-AUG-20."
- "Canadian Indian residential school system," Wikipedia, 2009-MAR-15, at:
- "Residential schools update," 2001-APR-14, United Church of Canada,
Copyright © 2000 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Originally written: 2001-JUN-03
Latest update: 2009-MAR-16
Author: B.A. Robinson | <urn:uuid:9f42548d-dfd5-4dfa-a2f3-50c06a44b8ca> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.religioustolerance.org/sch_resid9.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945083 | 908 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Once upon a time, a long time ago -- well, about forty years ago -- there was a big debate among women about the usefulness of the princess in the fairy tale. What sort of role model was that? A princess waiting to be rescued?
There were early attempts to rewrite these tales, in children's books, mostly, and some of them were good. But in the big wide world of Hollywood films and their associated marketing to kids, glitz and bubble reigned, and the idea of girls as little princesses became really commercial again. Look around any child care centre or supermarket and you are sure to see a tiny female tot or two running round wearing spangly skirts. With no irony at all, I should add. It's hard for four-year-olds to do irony
The second wave of Hollywood has hardly made much of an impact on this princess story, despite Princess Fiona from the Shrek stories, and a slew of female warriors in action films like Terminator; and so forth.
Brave is a really heroic attempt to recast the princess myth. It’s from Pixar, in partnership with Disney, and set in Scotland, where, back in the days of the warring clans, the days when bears still roamed the forests -- a young girl called Merida is being raised to take the place of her mother Queen Elinor. By tradition, the first-born of the other three clans must compete at tournament to win her hand.
But Merida is a tomboy and a champion archer who roams the forests on her one free day. When assorted first-born sons arrive for the tournament, she nominates archery and decides to compete herself. And, of course, wins.
Her mother is furious, and as Merida flees in the forest she meets a rather absentminded witch who gives her a spell to change her mother’s mind, and hence Merida’s destiny.
And Merida’s mother, Queen Elinor, is changed into a bear. A huge female black bear, alternating between the apologetic and maternal, and bursts of bearish savagery. Which is a pretty dicey situation, because Merida’s Dad, King Fergus, is The Champion bear slayer of the clans.
This is a sweet film. While it may not be as edgy as other Pixar animations, it has enormous resonance. Because it is told, quite clearly, from the point of view of the princess, with princelings relegated to the periphery. They are McGuffins. Indeed, one of them is from the clan McGuffin. They are all very grateful to be liberated from their destiny.
Indeed the real dramatic conflict in Brave is between Princess Merida, voiced by the lovely Kelly McDonald, and her mother (Queen Elinor), voiced by Emma Thompson.
Psychologically, it rings absolutely true. In terms of characterisation expressed through animation, Queen Elinor, even as a bear, is a wonderful maternal figure, alternating between embarrassment and care.
They are two smart women, and the conflict between the Queen and her teenage daughter is psychologically astute. Every woman who has ever had a stompy, tearful teenage daughter, or indeed, been one, will recognise what’s happening here. Merida, feisty and attractive, has to separate from her mother and assert her own independence, but also learn to marry her female, maternal side with the masculine.
The story was created by Brenda Chapman, who drew on her own conflicts with her daughter, and is co-credited as screenwriter and director. She was replaced by Mark Andrews some way through the film. So there may have been a behind the scenes tussle at Pixar.
There are brawny Scottish brawls, and capers from Merida’s three red-headed young brothers, to divert boys big and small. Maybe this was Andrew’s contribution.
But it’s a female take on the fairy story, all right. Angela Carter -- another Scottish lass -- would have been proud.
Brave is rated PG. Oh yes, and Billy Connolly’s Fergus does bare his braw bum as well. But then, I always enjoy men in skirts.
- Julie Rigg | <urn:uuid:ddbb2961-bb62-4ef7-ae61-a887f28c88bf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/movietime/brave/4084436 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971742 | 886 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Irony and the Holocaust is a combination usually best avoided. If one needed any
proof, it came from Estonia on Monday.
Jewish groups expressed outrage
after a newspaper in Estonia published a fake ad that they said disrespected
victims of the Holocaust.
The Eesti Ekspress, a popular daily in the
Baltic nation, ran a piece in its satirical pages that used notorious war
Josef Mengele and the Nazi concentration camp Buchenwald to
sell weight-loss pills.
“One, two, three: Dr. Mengele’s diet pills work
miracles on you,” it read. “There were no fatties in Buchenwald.”
members of the small Jewish community lambasted the publication saying it was an
example of the country’s “major problems with moral and ethical
Efraim Zuroff, the Israel director for the Simon Wiesenthal
Center, said it was a “sick attempt at humor.”
“It is incomprehensible
that a leading and ostensibly respectable news weekly in a country which is a
member in good standing in the European Union will publish such a perverted
attempt at humor at the expense of the Nazis’ millions of victims,” he
But Sulev Vedler, the deputy editor of Eesti Ekspress, said the
piece was ironic. Vedler told the The Jerusalem Post in an email that the ad was
meant to spoof a real one run by the Estonian national gas company
In the controversial ad that was pulled shortly after it first
appeared late last month, the Estonian GasTerm Eesti company used a photo of the
infamous gate at the entrance to the Auschwitz concentration camp, which read
“Arbeit match frei” (Work makes you free).
“The ridicule was not at the
expense of any nation or anyone who has suffered in concentration camps, but at
the expense of the Estonian company in question,” said Vedler.
apologized for any offense the attempt at satire might have caused, but Zuroff
dismissed Vedler’s explanation of a simple misunderstanding saying the flap tied
into the larger battle over how the Holocaust is remembered in the
The Jewish activist – who for years has been fighting what he
says are attempts by authorities in the Baltics to cover up local complicity in
the mass murder of Jews during World War II – said Eesti Ekspress has a history
of animosity towards Jews.
As proof, he sent a cartoon it ran on August
21, 2001, that portrayed himself as the devil incarnate, complete with horns and
a pitchfork, drinking the blood of suspected war criminal Harry Mannil out of a
cup handed to him by the Estonian prime minister at the time.
very negative on the war crimes issue to the point that they portrayed me, a
person that tried to facilitate the prosecution as a devil,” Zuroff
Mannil was investigated by Estonia for alleged war crimes against
Jews during World War II when he was a member of the local police, but never
charged. He died in 2010 in Costa Rica.
Vedler on Monday said he had
never seen the cartoon Zuroff complained about before and that he was unaware of
its context or background or when it appeared.
“But I know,” he added,
“that we are not against Jewish people. We don’t hate Jews.” | <urn:uuid:21d33bd9-0262-401e-92c4-121e8c751b33> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-News/Fake-ad-for-Mengele-weight-pills-causes-furor | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949178 | 750 | 2.03125 | 2 |
Judge Clark Douglas will trade you his George Wallace card for your Strom Thurmond card.
"I ain't responsible for all that."
You have probably heard of George Wallace. He is remembered by history as being one of the primary opponents of the civil rights movement. You have probably heard the story of the time that Wallace symbolically barred the door to the University of Alabama in order to prevent black students from entering. You may also recall Wallace's most famous words, from his inaugural speech as Governor of Alabama in 1963: "In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever."
John Frankenheimer's 1997 television biopic George Wallace makes an attempt to examine the life of this controversial political figure, and does so by employing the sort of "factual" pop-psychology that was used to mixed effect in Oliver Stone's recent W. (and to a lesser degree in Stone's Nixon). The film begins with a mystery of sorts by showing us two slices of George's life. We begin during the mid-1950s, when George (Gary Sinise, Ransom) is a young, semi-progressive liberal who was regarded as a moderate on racial issues. He is married to a very sweet woman named Lurleen (Mare Winningham, Swing Vote), and has several young children. Fast forward to the early 1970s, and George is bitter and vehement segregationist who is paralyzed from the legs down. He is married to a young trophy wife named Cornelia (Angelina Jolie, Wanted), and is a candidate for President of the United States.
Frankenheimer offers us these very different portraits of Wallace, and then proceeds to fill in the details in a non-linear manner. His portrayal of George Wallace as a human being is a surprisingly kind and understanding one, and I have somewhat mixed feelings about it. I'm okay with the Frankenheimer's portrayal of Wallace's rationalizations. The film seems to indicate that racism never really served as Wallace's primary motivation. It suggests that Wallace was a man who loved the adoration of the public, and loved being a politician who had a feel for "the common man." However, as time went by, Wallace became convinced that "the common man" wanted segregation, and found that segregation would bring him political attention. This idea seems credible, according to what we know about Wallace. Once Wallace told a supporter, "You know, I tried to talk about good roads and good schools and all these things that have been a part of my career, and nobody listened. Then I started talking about n—-- rs, and they stomped the floor."
However, George Wallace plays some tricky guessing games when it comes to understanding some of George's deeper emotions. In order to try and give viewers a perspective of race relations during the Wallace years, Frankenheimer creates a fictional character named Archie, played by Clarence Williams III (Reindeer Games). Archie is a convicted murderer serving as a trustee in the governor's mansion. He meets Wallace during the '50s, and eventually becomes Wallace's personal servant. There's nothing wrong with the performance, but the inclusion of the character was a poor decision. The portrayal of the relationship seems dishonest and completely speculative, and never really manages to work on any sort of fictional dramatic level.
That crucial mistake aside, George Wallace is a fairly compelling film fueled by a dynamic lead performance from Gary Sinise. I've long felt that Sinise is one of America's most underrated actors, as he almost always manages to create a convincing and credible character. His turn as Lt. Dan in Forrest Gump was far and away the best thing in that film, and he's given very strong performances in just about everything he has participated in. Here he gets the opportunity to bite into a complex and colorful character, and he really delivers. Sinise accurately captures the Wallace that the public saw, and becomes genuinely frightening when delivering his bile-filled speeches promoting segregation. The characters develops and changes quite a lot over the course of the film, and Sinise handles each aspect of Wallace's life with considerable subtlety. He's backed by a strong supporting cast, including a young Angelina Jolie, who radiates star quality here.
The ending is undoubtedly the most controversial portion of the movie. Wallace is wheeled into the home church of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and requests to say a few words to the congregation. The request is granted. Wallace offers a sincere apology for the mistakes he has made in his life, and asks everyone in the congregation to forgive him. The congregation grants Wallace forgiveness, and so does the film, which goes on to describe what a good man Wallace was during his later years. Some will be moved by this. Others will be offended, and say that Wallace is not deserving of forgiveness. Frankenheimer's feelings on the matter are without question: we should forgive all those who seek redemption, and work together to create a more harmonious world. I was surprised by how touched I was by the conclusion, considering that I regarded Wallace with nothing but disgust before viewing the film.
The transfer here is disappointing. The film suffers from lots of noise, and there is notable color bleeding all over the place. The opening title sequence, featuring lots of red, white, and blue, looks simply awful. The flick is watchable, but looks absolutely no better than it would if you caught it on television. Audio is okay, but sometimes the score and sound design overwhelm the dialogue just a bit. The only extra on the "two-disc special edition" is a featurette on the making of the film. Gary Sinise, Angelina Jolie and others talk about making the film and offer memories of Frankenheimer. It's a nice featurette, but hardly enough to make this set qualify as a "special edition." The film has a running time of 184 minutes, with each disc offering one half of the film. You would think this would serve to enhance the video quality, but that is not the case. The film is not guilty, but due to the poor transfer and a minimum of supplemental material, I'm going to recommend a rental.
Note: This film was made in 1997, and concludes with some of the details of
Wallace's later years, including with the fact that he was still living in
Alabama. Wallace died in 1998. A rather fitting epilogue to this story that
brings us into the present day can be found in the "accomplices"
section. It is an article by Wallace's daughter, Peggy Wallace Kennedy, written
the day after Barack Obama was elected President.
Give us your feedback!
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Scales of Justice
Studio: Warner Bros.
Review content copyright © 2009 Clark Douglas; Site design and review layout copyright © 2013 Verdict Partners LLC. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:362c750a-d7f8-4c01-9e98-255b914a8c62> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dvdverdict.com/reviews/georgewallace.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974405 | 1,452 | 1.8125 | 2 |
By DOUG LIVINGSTON
Within three hours of his release from the New Castle Correctional Facility, Mark Moore Sr. was standing in the residential hallway at Ohio Valley Teen Challenge.
“The camaraderie, the love,” said Moore, a heroin addict of 29 years making his second visit to a Teen Challenge center, as he described his welcome. “I knew I was home.”
Home for New Castle native Moore and 42 other drug- and alcohol-addicted men is 1319 Florencedale Ave. on Youngstown’s North Side. The community surrounding the center reflects the very elements that put these 43 men into the rehabilitation program: heroin dealers, crack houses, crime and poverty.
“With this neighborhood — phew,” said OVTC intern and Youngstown resident Ron Strait, motioning to the buildings outside. “Right over here, over there, about six places right within a seven-block radius — drug lords.” While nearby Wick Park anchors a revitalization discussion for Youngstown’s North Side, six of the 10 homes that line Broadway Avenue are boarded up.
It’s similar to what surrounded the first Teen Challenge center, founded by Dave Wilkerson in 1958. In the crime- and poverty-stricken streets of Brooklyn, N.Y., the first center was built to combat drug addiction and the advent of street gangs among the youths. Teen Challenge has since grown to incorporate 242 national facilities and more than 1,000 worldwide. It also facilitates the rehabilitation of women and children.
It’s essentially a labor of love for the 15 staff members and six interns who run the Youngstown site. The total payroll is nearly $210,000. As part of the rehab, the men enrolled in the OVTC program work as many as seven days a week.
“Working here ain’t a job,” said director of operations Bob Pavlich, who runs the expansive work program. “No. 1: They don’t get paid. No. 2: They don’t get a day off.”
The men’s labor affords them a safe place to sleep and three meals a day. The money raised through the work program, along with donations, funds the facility’s overall $390,000 budget.
OVTC leaders are pleased at the growth the program has experienced in its first 19 months. In the first six months of 2010, the work program revenues totaled more than $100,000; $155,000 was budgeted for the entire year.
“We can give the community a service in a capacity that has never been done,” said Bruce Paulette, a volunteer for the group.
From Heinz Field to the Covelli Centre, the OVTC team works security at concerts and football games. Mahoning County employs the men to landscape vacant properties. The in-house catering service delivers boxed lunches and provides banquet dining. A carwash is open on Meridian Road nearly every day. Officials said the work program gives the men dignity while restoring the community.
But work is only part of the program.
When Mahoning County Judge R. Scott Krichbaum was first introduced to Teen Challenge, he was a young lawyer seeking an alternative to jail for his clients. He worked closely with Youngstown native Kevin Rauch, who is now OVTC program director.
“He and I had common interests because he was willing to offer some sort of rehabilitation for my clients,” Judge Krichbaum said.
After sending his first client to Teen Challenge facilities as a lawyer nearly 30 years ago, Krichbaum now sends men to OVTC as a judge.
“They’ve always been successful with people that I represented and the people that I’ve sent there,” he said. “I don’t believe I’ve ever had a problem with anybody I’ve sent there, either, as far as violating the program.”
After dealing with his own troubled past, Rauch pulled men from the streets, jails and courtrooms of Mahoning County and placed them in Teen Challenge centers across the nation. His Greater Youngstown Teen Challenge Crisis and Referral Center closed its Mahoning Avenue operations in 2008 and shifted to what is now the OVTC site.
It was then that Executive Director Roy Barnett took on the task of creating a residential facility and secured a rental contract from Frank Vennes, a former Minneapolis Teen Challenge board member. Vennes had OVTC in mind when he purchased the former Youngstown Osteopathic (Cafaro Memorial) Hospital for nearly $73,000 in 2008.
For an initial payment of $1 a month, OVTC rented a wing of the building that had been abandoned for nearly a decade. Already tenants in other parts of the building were MYCAP, Safehouse and a minority drug-abuse counseling program.
And OVTC inherited all the problems that came with an aged building.
“I was really overwhelmed,” Barnett said. Repairs and amenities were needed before the building could house residents. To meet the requirements for occupancy, the building first needed a kitchen. The price: $150,000.
“How much money do you have?” Paulette recalls asking.
“None,” Barnett answered.
“Well, either you or Jesus has a sense of humor,” said Paulette.
Barnett said that within a week of securing the contract, “People came out of the woodwork.”
Area churches donated money. Pittsburgh and Detroit Teen Challenge centers pitched in. Beds, tables, chairs, couches and desks were donated by the Lincoln Behavioral Center. Appliances, tools and clothing are donated almost daily from local business owners and citizens. And the kitchen: Hope For Youngstown, a former foundation that provided homes for the needy, donated $111,000 for deep fryers, grills, prep tables, ventilation hoods and a lavish walk-in freezer and cooler.
No one expected the program to take off so quickly. Paulette was a cynic when OVTC officials asked for his help more than 18 months ago.
“I figured it was going to be another project that would be good for the Valley that wouldn’t happen,” Paulette said.
And in 19 months, 166 men have made that same journey as Moore through the residential hallway. When men are admitted, they undergo a rigorous search. Any drug or fluid containing alcohol is taken. One man’s boxer shorts were confiscated. When he asked why, the staff member pointed to the beer logo printed on them. While vulgarity is strictly prohibited, the men carry on with the demeanor of wisecracking altar boys.
The guidelines are essentially created by the men and enforced by the men. If there is a rule, it exists because someone broke it before it existed. Still, the place is rife with chaos and mischief.
If you can think of it, residents have done it -- from sneaking out windows to sneaking in drugs.
“The best actors ain’t in Hollywood,” Pavlich joked. “They’re running around the streets of Teen Challenge, and I was one of them. I’ve won Grammys. I’ve won Oscars for the stories I’ve told and the acts I’ve put on.”
While it takes several people, from directors to counselors to 11 board members to operate the center, the residents are the lifeblood of the facility, said Barnett.
“It takes the biggest bunch of sinners to run Ohio Valley Teen Challenge.”
This story continues Thursday in The Vindicator and on Vindy.com.
The NewsOutlet is a joint media venture by student and professional journalists and is a collaboration of Youngstown State University, WYSU radio and The Vindicator. | <urn:uuid:9be635d4-f53f-48b2-b73e-f60c0206d408> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.vindy.com/news/2010/nov/02/amid-rubble-there-rebuilding/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964287 | 1,667 | 1.65625 | 2 |
It's a big deal, and EU visitors must have been happy to see that almost every country in Europe was included on the list, as well as the US, Russia, and Japan.
Actually, that's country in Europe except one. Norway.
Norway's exemption seems a little odd. Chinese authorities say that the list was based on the number of visitors the countries had sent between 2009-2011, but Norway should have been included based on that method. One official the FT spoke to said that certain countries that had not been included were left off as citizens or government are “of low-quality” or “badly behaved”.
The strange snub has something of a history, of course. Observers believe that China is still angry about the award of a Nobel Peace Prize to Chinese Activist Liu Xiaobo in 2010. Since that point in time multiple Norwegians — such as former Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik — have mysteriously been denied visas to China, usually with no explanation at all.
Of course, Norway hasn't taken all of this lying down. China has spent years cozying up to Denmark, Greenland and Iceland in the hope of gaining a permanent observer seat at the Arctic Council and thus getting a say in all the resources and shipping routes that will be up for grabs when the ice melts. Norway, who have a seat on the Council due to geography, have been vetoing.
However, many had been hoping that the arrival of Xi Jinping and a new Chinese government elite could have heralded a change in tactics. The Norway snub, coupled with the ongoing passport drama, suggests otherwise. | <urn:uuid:30f76101-39b6-425f-9d7a-17954bdf46da> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.businessinsider.com/china-snubs-norway-with-visas-2012-12?pundits_only=0&get_all_comments=1&no_reply_filter=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984389 | 341 | 1.992188 | 2 |
Some States Reconsider Common Core Involvement
A handful of states are reconsidering their commitment to the Common Core education standards adopted recently by 45 states under heavy federal incentives.
In the summer of 2010, 45 states committed to adopting the Common Core standards and related tests in math and English language arts. The standards comprise grade-by-grade lists of what students should know in each subject. With little public discussion, state boards of education agreed to adopt them, in large part due to incentives created by the Obama administration.
More than $4 billion in competitive Race to the Top grants were partly conditioned on states adopting the standards and tests. More recently, the U.S. Department of Education conditioned No Child Left Behind waivers on states adopting standards only the Core met.
Given this federal involvement and recent revelations about the costs of overhauling state tests and textbooks and retraining teachers, some state leaders are reconsidering their commitment.
Utah plans to revise its involvement with Common Core tests and will likely downgrade from a “governing” member to an “advisory” member in a consortium working to create the tests. This will mean the state is no longer fully committed to using the tests by 2014-2015. The Colorado Board of Education voted in April against joining the same consortium.
The Alabama Senate passed a resolution in May to “encourage the State Board of Education to take all steps it deems appropriate, including revocation of the adoption of the [Common Core] standards if necessary, to retain complete control over Alabama’s academic standards, curriculum, instruction, and testing system.”
Growing Public Awareness
“There is a little more light being shed on the federal coercion behind Common Core adoption than there was when Race to the Top was in full effect. Unfortunately, it has come too late to stop most states from adopting the de facto federal standards,” stated Neal McCluskey, associate director of the Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom. “Recent efforts by some states to ratchet down their commitment probably reflect moderately growing public awareness of the standards and the federal power behind them.”
More states may reconsider their involvement when further implementation takes place, he said.
“I don’t think there will be enough public awareness of the standards until states start putting the new tests in place. Then the public will notice, and the train will likely come off the tracks because states won’t rigorously apply the standards, or Washington will punish schools based on Common Core test scores,” McCluskey said.
The Colorado and Utah moves away from Common Core tests signal larger discontent with centralizing education, said Lance Izumi, director of education studies at the Pacific Research Institute.
“These state leaders are finding out that the Common Core is the catalyst for nationalizing education through national testing and a national curriculum, all of which will disempower governors, legislatures, local school boards, the taxpaying public generally, and parents specifically,” Izumi said.
Image by Iowa Department of Education. | <urn:uuid:4ab007c3-5117-4dcd-8deb-e5e1f1b6a9d1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2012/05/17/some-states-reconsider-common-core-involvement | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948239 | 626 | 2.140625 | 2 |
noun - A move by one swimmer over the ankles, knees, upper legs or lower back of another swimmer during a race in order to change direction or move to the other side of the swimmer in front. The move can be performed by swimming over the opponent in the normal freestyle stroke or by rolling over on one's back and doing a stroke or two of backstroke over the legs of the opponent. However, if the swimmer impedes the forward momentum of another swimmer while making the cross-over move, a yellow card or disqualification may be called by the referee.
The swimmer in back made a quick cross-over move during the race and was able to shift into a better position for the turn.
Synonyms: cross-over stroke. | <urn:uuid:b75c41d2-02df-4621-be74-1c140d5c97db> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.openwaterpedia.com/index.php?title=Cross-over_Move | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962206 | 159 | 2.3125 | 2 |
Ever wonder how card processors and administrators sift through the thousands of products offered at grocery stores and pharmacies to determine which ones to approve or reject? And do it in real time for customer convenience without significantly increasing the pricing model for cards? We did.
Or ever wonder how merchants, vendors and card processors are held to approving only eligible 213(d) expenses, and who monitors them to keep everyone honest -- and the industry on good terms with the IRS.
The solution to these questions (among others) led to the formation of an industry group -- Special Interest Group for IIAS Standards, known simply as SIGIS.
The IRS made the use of electronic payment cards a reality with revenue ruling 2003-43. Cards were to be used only for eligible health care expenses. Restricting cards to merchants with health merchant category codes emerged as a solution. Many card processors also permitted the cards to be used at grocery stores and discount retail stores as long as cards could be restricted to specific terminals (i.e. in-store pharmacies).
The IRS became increasingly concerned with stories of lawn chairs, soda and other non-health related expenses being purchased along with prescriptions. Three years later, the IRS issued revenue ruling 2006-69, which made it mandatory for all grocery and discount retailer stores and drugstores to implement an inventory information approval system to assure expenses remained legitimate health-related expenses.
The devil is always in the details, and this was no exception. With much lobbying by members of the Employers Council for Flexible Compensation and others, the IRS granted an extension so grocery, retail and mail-order prescription stores were given until the end of 2007 -- and drugstores until the end of 2008 -- to implement IIAS. The efforts of the lobbying group then shifted to a search for a standard solution, and SIGIS emerged.
Fast forward to today. SIGIS consists of all the key players in the electronic payment card arena: employers, third-party-administrators, health plans, issuers/processors, payment card networks, merchant acquirers and merchants. Membership includes most national grocery store and pharmacy merchants; smaller regional and Mom & Pops are added weekly. In addition to creating and maintaining (in accordance with IRS regulations) an eligible products list, which is the basis for IIAS, SIGIS also offers a certification program for merchants indicating their compliance with standards and plays the industry watchdog role in investigating reported infractions of the standards.
Having one standard product list of eligible 213(d) expenses levels the playing field for all parties. The concern that smaller merchants would be left without a solution has been addressed. The employer/plan sponsor fear that each administrator and card processor would use different lists resulting in customer confusion has been addressed. Administrators' concerns that competitors might use more liberal lists, resulting in further IRS restrictions, has been addressed.
This is a great enhancement for all of us as we will not be required to ask for documentation for any purchases made at IIAS-certified stores, thereby making electronic payment card use more straightforward for card participants. Even more exciting is seeing the merchant world come together with the Visa and MasterCard associations to make this work.
For additional information, e-mail Kendall Hall at firstname.lastname@example.org or log on to the SIGIS site at www.sig-is.org. | <urn:uuid:ea6ab833-befe-4d23-98bb-028f3719d780> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.benefitspro.com/2008/10/01/electronic-payment-cards-sigis-creates-gold-standard-for-iias | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949304 | 678 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Back in America, the spying on citizens continues: Intelligence: The Pentagon—Spying in America?:
- Ever since the 1970s, when Army intel agents were caught snooping on antiwar protesters, military intel agencies have operated under tight restrictions inside the United States. But the new provision, approved in closed session last month by the Senate Intelligence Committee, would eliminate one big restriction: that they comply with the Privacy Act, a Watergate-era law that requires government officials seeking information from a resident to disclose who they are and what they want the information for. The CIA always has been exempt—although by law it isn't supposed to operate inside the United States. The new provision would now extend the same exemption to Pentagon agencies such as the Defense Intelligence Agency—so they can help track terrorists. A report by the Senate Intelligence Committee says the provision would allow military intel agents to "approach potential sources and collect personal information from them" without disclosing they work for the government.
They get your emails, too: Interception of E-Mail Raises Questions :
- In an online eavesdropping case with potentially profound implications, a federal appeals court ruled it was acceptable for a company that offered e-mail service to surreptitiously track [and read] its subscribers' messages.
And let's not forget that TIAS is still on the move: What Price Freedom?
- Despite Congressional action cutting funding, and the resignation of the program’s controversial director, retired admiral John Poindexter, DARPA’s TIA program is alive and well and prying into the personal business of Americans 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
“When Congress cut the funding, the Pentagon – with administration approval – simply moved the program into a ‘black bag’ account,” says a security consultant who worked on the DARPA project. “Black bag programs don’t require Congressional approval and are exempt from traditional oversight.”
DARPA also hired private contractors to fill many of the roles in the program, which helped evade detection by Congressional auditors. Using a private security firm like Cantwell, instead of the Federal Protective Service, helped keep TIA off the radar screen. . . .
“Basically, TIA builds a profile of every American who has a bank account, uses credit cards and has a credit record,” says security expert Allen Banks. “The profile establishes norms based on the person’s spending and travel habits. Then the system looks for patterns that break from the norms, such of purchases of materials that are considered likely for terrorist activity, travel to specific areas or a change in spending habits.”
Patterns that fit pre-defined criteria result in an investigative alert and the individual becomes a “person of interest” who is referred to the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security, Banks says. | <urn:uuid:e9c1b003-cdd9-40fc-b999-ae9b86133fa8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogcritics.org/culture/article/we-are-the-free/page-4/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951646 | 593 | 2.203125 | 2 |
Preliminary Study of Phthalate Exposure in Humans Finds Association with Sperm DNA Damage
For immediate release: December 10, 2002
Boston, MA—In a study of the possible association between phthalate exposure and human semen quality, researchers at Harvard School of Public Health’s Occupational Health Program have found an association between monoethyl phthalate (MEP), the metabolite of di-ethyl phthalate, and DNA damage in sperm.
The study currently appears in the online edition of Environmental Health Perspectives, the journal of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, which funded the research. It is available at: http://ehpnet1.niehs.nih.gov/docs/2003/5756/abstract.pdf.
Phthalates are a class of compounds used to hold color and scent in many cosmetics and personal care items such as soaps, detergents, skin preparations and after shave lotions, and they also find their way into food through packaging materials. Di-ethylhexyl phthalate, one form of phthalate, is used to soften a wide range of plastic goods, which includes medical devices. Phthalates are also present in drinking water and air. Federal studies, conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), have found MEP present in more than 75 percent of U.S. subjects sampled.
The researchers, led by Susan M. Duty and Russ Hauser of HSPH, have termed the study preliminary, as it evaluated semen and a single urine sample from a limited number of subjects, just 168 men at an infertility clinic associated with the Vincent Memorial Obstetrics and Gynecology Service, Massachusetts General Hospital. The researchers plan follow-up studies with larger groups of men to confirm the results.
Measurements were made of five different urinary phthalate metabolites, but only one yielded a significant association with sperm DNA damage, and that was MEP, which was found in all of the urine samples and at higher levels than the other metabolized phthalates. The “comet assay” was used to measure DNA integrity in sperm. A sperm cell with fragmented DNA that has been treated with fluorescent dye has the appearance of a “comet” with the relative length of the comet representing increasing DNA damage. The highest levels of urinary MEP were found to be associated with increased comet length. The comet assay is not a measure of DNA mutation.
“This study represents the first human data on a relatively small sample of men,” said Dr. Duty, lead author of the study and a post-doctoral fellow at HSPH. “We found an association between MEP and DNA integrity, a general measure of DNA damage. These findings are interesting and warrant further exploration with a larger sample of men. Although phthalates are found in many products, the relative contribution of phthalates from cosmetics versus other sources of phthalates is unclear, therefore no recommendation can be made at this time concerning the use of phthalates in cosmetics.”
For further information, please contact:
Director of Communications
677 Huntington Avenue
Boston, Massachusetts 02115 | <urn:uuid:c02565a4-08ce-488e-824f-9181104d9c2d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://archive.sph.harvard.edu/press-releases/archives/2002-releases/press12102002.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950736 | 647 | 2.796875 | 3 |
It's June 1st so it must be Hurricane Season!!!
Published Sunday, June 1, 2008 at 7:20 a.m.
Last updated Sunday, June 1, 2008 at 7:20 a.m.
MIAMI — Check the expiration date on that canned food and dust off the hurricane shutters, the 2008 Atlantic Hurricane Season has officially begun.
Hurricane season began Sunday, the first day of June, and runs through November. The first tropical storm of the season, Arthur, didn't wait for the start of the season. It formed Saturday and quickly made landfall at the Belize-Mexico border.
Federal forecasters in May said there was a good chance the Atlantic season would produce 12 to 16 named storms and two to five major hurricanes. They put the probability of that outcome at 60 to 70 percent. Overall they said there's a 90 percent chance the season will be normal or above average. | <urn:uuid:20c201f9-dded-4cf0-ab75-c439f80b2009> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.conservativeunderground.com/forum505/showthread.php?165-Hurricane-season-begins-with-storm-present | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973467 | 187 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Free find: Read me a story
By Sheri McWhirter-O'Donnell, Graphic editor
Local libraries always have something to offer families, whether a great story or an educational program.
Parents and children can check out books, music or movies, use a computer or even participate in any number of educational offerings local libraries host. Among the most popular and frequently occurring activities is story time, held at libraries in Boyne City, Boyne Falls, Charlevoix, East Jordan, Harbor Springs, Petoskey and Walloon Lake. Some of these events are intended for children three or five years and younger, while other sessions are meant for older kids. The idea is to engage children in reading from a young age and stimulate their imaginations.
"It really does help promote early literacy and the more kids are read to, the more it helps them have a life-long love of reading," said Monica Kroondyk, children's librarian at Boyne District Library.
Call your local library to inquire about story time schedules, as they vary among the local towns: Boyne City, (231) 582-7861; Boyne Falls, (231) 549-2277; Charlevoix, (231) 547-2651; East Jordan, (231) 536-7131; Harbor Springs, (231) 526-2531; Petoskey, (231) 758-3123; and Walloon Lake, (231) 535-2111.
Kroondyk said not only are story times offered at area libraries, but organizers also often schedule musical performances, workshops and art classes at libraries across the region.
Sheri McWhirter-O'Donnell can be contacted at (231) 439-9346 or firstname.lastname@example.org. | <urn:uuid:f38778c9-737a-43a3-9f5f-977b07656912> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thegraphicweekly.com/2012/nov/free110112.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.910362 | 385 | 1.96875 | 2 |
A key Foreign Office (FCO) report has praised the suspended former ambassador to Uzbekistan for drawing attention to human rights abuses in the country.
Mr Murray was outspoken during his two years in Uzbekistan
Craig Murray highlighted the case of the imprisonment of the mother of a man apparently tortured to death with boiling water in 2002.
He also criticised use of intelligence obtained under torture in Uzbekistan.
Jack Straw refused to comment on Mr Murray's case but agreed there was concern about abuses in the country.
The annual FCO report on human rights says the dead man Muzafar Avazov's mother, Fatima Mukadirova, was subsequently imprisoned "we believe...for publicising the case of her son".
It goes on: "Our ambassador to Tashkent Craig Murray publicly criticised the Uzbek authorities' handling of Mukadirova's case in BBC media interviews. We believe this played a significant role in bringing the case to the attention of the international community.
"...we subsequently welcomed her release... following the reduction of her penalty to a fine."
Mr Murray claims he was recalled from his Tashkent posting because he criticised the use by the UK of intelligence obtained under torture in the country.
The Foreign Office has said the decision was "operational".
Mr Straw has insisted all UK ambassadors had Foreign Office support in tackling such issues but said he could not comment on the specifics of Mr Murray's case
Facts about Uzbekistan
Has a population of 25m
Capital city is Tashkent
Main languages are Uzbek, Russian, Tajik
Principal religion is Islam
Became independent in 1991 after more than a century of Russian/Soviet rule
Most populous Central Asian country. Has largest armed forces
President is Islam Karimov
During a news conference in central London Mr Straw outlined some of the wide range of areas where Britain had worked to try to improve human rights records.
He said that respect for human rights often boosted a state's stability.
Mr Straw said help from the UK ranged from tackling countries on their use of the death penalty through to trying to provide practical help on humane methods of incarceration.
For example he said 40,000 copies of a prison manual had been distributed in Brazil alone.
On the issue of Uzbekistan Mr Straw said human rights remained the biggest issue in the country.
"The government in Uzbekistan has continued to use the fear of Islamic terrorism, so called, as a pretext for the oppression of opposition groups," said the foreign secretary.
"We remain extremely concerned at reports that prisoners have been tortured to death in custody."
Until "real practical improvement in the situation" was achieved human rights would remain the main issue in exchanges with the country.
The Foreign Office confirmed some time ago that Mr Murray was suspended, despite earlier statements that he was not facing disciplinary action.
Mr Murray said he became a "victim of conscience" after a memo in which he claimed MI6 had used information obtained under torture.
The FCO has said Mr Murray had lost the confidence of senior officials and colleagues. | <urn:uuid:8d190192-7e42-4746-85e9-3555e2b4e2f3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4000089.stm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972853 | 630 | 1.773438 | 2 |
President Obama dispatched two top Cabinet officers to Louisiana on Thursday and said the federal government would "continue to use every available resource at our disposal" to contain a huge oil slick
threatening the coastline there.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, one of those tapped by Obama to get a handle on the situation, said the spill was a matter of "national significance," a designation freeing up federal aid from all regions of the country to combat it, the New York Times
"We will continue to push BP to engage in the strongest response possible," Napolitano said at a White House briefing. "We will continue to oversee those efforts, and add to those efforts where we deem necessary."
An explosion last week on a BP oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico left 11 workers missing and sunk the rig, disconnecting it from an oil well 5,000 feet below the surface. The amount of oil leaking from the uncapped well is now estimated at five times greater than first believed, the Times said.
Clean-up crews hope to contain the slick on the surface with controlled burning before it reaches the coastline, where it's feared the floating oil could cause extensive damage to willdlife, fisheries and beaches. But windy conditions Thursday delayed action on the plan.
Obama said Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson are also going to Louisiana to help coordinate the effort and "ensure that BP and the entire U.S. government is doing everything possible." The president ordered inspections of other rigs and platforms in the Gulf, and said he would use resources of the Department of Defense if neceessary.
In late March, Obama said his administration would lift a decades old moratorium on offshore drilling
and consider leases for potential new areas of development off the mid and south Atlantic coast, parts of the Gulf, and Alaska. The announcement disappointed environmentalists.
, Gulf of Mexico
, Louisiana coast
, offshore oil rig
, water pollution | <urn:uuid:5f5492e3-9ba2-48ca-ae73-2d888e4ba271> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/04/29/obama-u-s-will-use-every-available-resource-on-gulf-oil-spill/ | 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 | 0.932715 | 396 | 1.765625 | 2 |
No More Period Pain!
Posted by Editor
Been feeling a little grumpy, moody or bitchy? Yep, periods are something we wish we could say good riddance to. But what if women could manage the symptoms so that unwanted side effects such as moodiness, irritability, puffiness, bloating or stomach cramps wouldn’t rear their ugly heads too?
“Women don’t have to suffer from painful periods and most definitely shouldn’t put up with them," leading Sydney based naturopath Victoria O’Sullivan. "But before you go reaching for short-term fixes such a paracetamol and a hot water bottle, start thinking long term. By making just a few small changes you can permanently manage the symptoms in as little as three cycles,” says Victoria.
Victoria’s top tips for reducing period pain in as little as three cycles:
1. Are you a sugar or caffeine addict?
“Processed sugar can create a yeast overgrowth in the stomach, causing bloating and stomach cramps. Limit the sugar intake to natural sugar, and have no more than two pieces of fruit a day. Caffeine contains a compound called xanthine which aggravates inflammation in the body, causing the muscles to spasm which is what happens when we experience stomach cramps. Avoiding caffeine altogether will make it more likely for the period pains to reduce. If you can’t go without caffeine, have 1-2 cups of green tea a day instead,” Victoria says.
2. Herbs can help
“Ginger and turmeric both contain anti-inflammatory properties and can work as natural painkillers. They are also a lot less hard on the stomach than regular painkillers, which can eliminate good bacteria. Another important herb when dealing with period pains is chaste berry, also known as vitex agnus castus. This works well with balancing out the hormones oestrogen and progesterone,” Victoria says.
3. Don’t neglect those delicious greens
Vegetables of the broccoli family such as broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and brussels sprouts are high in indoles which makes them excellent for maintaining a hormonal balance. “Ideally, women should have 6-7 cups of veggies a day and I encourage all my clients to measure this out to get an idea of how much we need daily,” Victoria says.
4. Feeling stressed?
“Stress is very much linked with period pain,” Victoria says. “When stressed, our body produces increased levels of the stress hormone cortisol and lower-than-healthy levels of progesterone. This causes a hormonal imbalance between our oestrogen and progesterone levels.” Victoria says a good solution is to work on decreasing stress. “A great reliever of stress is exercise, which releases the feel-good hormone endorphins in the body. Endorphins reduce pain and affects emotions,” Victoria says.
5. Don’t go overboard on the salt
Salt will draw fluids, causing you to retain water and bloat. Water retention in the body is also often the cause of sore breasts, which a lot of women experience in connection with their period. “The limit for women is 3-5 grams of salt a day,” Victoria says.
6. Essential fatty acids
“Period pain is a sign that the body is inflamed, and fish oil is high in Omega 3 essential fatty acids, which is an excellent anti-inflammatory. Other foods high in essential fatty acids are primrose oil, nuts, seeds and chia. We do not produce essential fatty acids internally which makes it quite important that we eat foods that contain them, if we are trying to reduce the inflammation in the body,” Victoria says.
7. Get a check-up
“It is important for me to underline that no woman should accept pains in connection with their period. If these tips do not relieve your pains or if the pains are becoming increasingly more painful, there could be underlying issues such as endometriosis or fibroids and you should go see your doctor or a health specialist such as a naturopath,” Victoria says.
For more information visit www.victoriaosullivan.com.au. | <urn:uuid:0c3cfe61-c9b1-4977-965a-305a377591a6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.shesaid.com.au/article.aspx?n=45209705&v=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941657 | 904 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Environmental News: Media Center
WASHINGTON (Aug. 30, 2012) --- The Department of Interior on Thursday agreed to allow Shell Oil to begin preparing to drill in America’s Arctic.
Following is a statement from NRDC senior attorney Niel Lawrence:
“Secretary Salazar is right to keep repeating that he will hold Shell accountable to make sure drilling in America’s Arctic is safe. But today’s action looks like the administration is playing right into Shell’s game of acting like drilling is inevitable.
“While this is an interim step only, this is like a building inspector letting a developer start construction on a skyscraper on shaky ground before the safety plans are even complete.
“It’s premature, it’s unwarranted and it’s wrong – especially when it’s happening in one of the most pristine places on earth.” | <urn:uuid:36517eb3-e58a-43d4-aa80-5d822850cbe4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nrdc.org/media/2012/120830a.asp?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NRDCPressReleases+%28NRDC+Press+Releases%29 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.904566 | 186 | 1.921875 | 2 |
Toilet training is an important developmental milestone for children, and it also can be one of the greatest challenges for parents. Not all children are ready at the same age, and they often respond differently to the various training methods. With conflicting advice from friends, relatives, and the media, parents can quickly become confused and frustrated. The AAP Guide to Toilet Training cuts through the confusion to provide practical information, proven techniques, and expert advice to ensure the best toilet-training experience for children and parents—must reading for every new parent, from the organization representing the nation’s finest pediatricians.
A complete guide to every phase of the toilet-training process
- Recognizing when your child is ready
- How to choose and install a potty
- What to do when a child resists
- Positive responses to the inevitable “accidents”
- Handling constipation and other common problems
- Toilet training for children with special needs
- Special tips for boys, girls, and twins
- Coping with bed-wetting and soiling
- And much more! | <urn:uuid:49bb8f3f-41f6-4910-9500-41cfa534dd19> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.healthychildren.org/English/bookstore/pages/Guide-to-Toilet-Training.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934893 | 222 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Cleric magic is divinely inspired, and is granted to Clerics through prayer.Whether these powers are granted to Clerics by higher powers, if thesehigher powers are what the Cleric believes them to be, or if all Clericalspells are merely ritualized forms of sympathetic magic, are all subjectsfrequently debated. Only one thing is for sure: Clerical magic is indeedmagic of a sort, as even though Clerical spells are formalized in a waythat Magic-User spells are not, their results cannot be duplicated bynon-Clerics.The process of gaining, preparing, and casting Cleric spells are indeedformalized, but only within a religion. Different religions, and evendifferent sects within the same religion, execute their magical ritualsdifferently from one another.
Clerics may cast any spell on their spell list, and do not use spell books.So all first level Clerics have full access to all first level spells, for instance.
Preparing Spells Each Day
A Cleric must rest for six continuous hours before preparing spells. After resting, the Cleric must meditate and pray for a number of hours equal tothe highest level spell being prepared. This process is sometimes calledmemorizing spells.Spells remain in memory until they are cast, and once they are cast, the power of the spell leaves the caster. However, the same spell may be prepared multiple times. The Cleric’s spell charts give the maximumnumber of spells that may be memorized at each level and the Cleric maynever have more than this number prepared at one time. Clerics maysimply dismiss spells from the mind uncast, clearing their “spell slot” for other spells when preparing them as usual. | <urn:uuid:706e8a36-2b76-4a4b-a206-167f12af957f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.scribd.com/doc/124245208/55/Divination | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928572 | 370 | 2.1875 | 2 |
Re: Tell Me I'm Wrong...Is'nt This Masonic Symbolism? Local Picture
Heraldry is the science and art of describing coats-of-arms, also referred to as achievements or armorial bearings. Its origins lie in the need to distinguish participants in battles or jousts and to describe the various devices they carried or painted on their shields.
“...I realized I had to gain more knowledge to protect against evil and to protect myself from not becoming evil myself. This is our major goal in life...\" Terry Lee | <urn:uuid:bd924c69-5c51-4a3e-9e18-c9f3d1c47da9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.clubconspiracy.com/forum/showthread.php?mode=hybrid&t=2006 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946472 | 111 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Brief SummaryRead full entry
The sexes are similar in appearance, but the female has a narrow silver band across the upper breast. Juveniles resemble adults, but have shorter wings and tail and somewhat darker plumage. Silver-breasted Broadbills are generally silent, with calls heard mainly around the nest. Robson (2005) describes the voice as a melancholy “pee-uu” (uu lower pitch) and a staccato trilled “kitikitiki".
The diet consists of invertebrates, mainly insects. Birds forage in pairs or in groups of up to 20 (usually fewer) and may join mixed flocks foraging in the understory. The nest, built by both sexes (sometimes with helpers), is a pendant ball with a long loose “tail”; construction takes 5 to 10 days. The nest is typically placed 1 to 7 (usually 3 to 5) m high over open spaces such as roads or small streams. Clutch size is 2 to 7 eggs, usually 4 to 5 but reportedly 2 to 3 in peninsular Malaysia. Both sexes, sometimes with helpers, incubate eggs and feed chicks. The Silver-breasted Broadbill is a documented cuckoo host in southern Burma and Sumatra.
This species is a year-round resident over most of its range, but is apparently an altitudinal migrant in the Himalayas. It was formerly very common over most of its range, but is now only locally common. It has not been recorded from Nepal since the 19th century and is rare and local in Bhutan. Populations are probably much much reduced from northeastern India to Burma. It is uncommon in northern Thailand, but fairly common in other parts of the country, where it still supplies the domestic cagebird market. Populations have significantly declined in Indochina, although the species is still being discovered in new localities. It is very rare in China and uncommon to locally common in the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra. Robson (2005) reported the geographic abundance of this species as uncommon to locally common in Southeast Asia with the exception of central Thailand, Singapore, and Cochinchina (=the southern third of Vietnam).
(Bruce 2003 and references therein; Robson 2005) | <urn:uuid:8e8e78fc-7e51-48a1-bdce-1590ade79f01> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://eol.org/pages/1050525/overview | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960171 | 461 | 2.921875 | 3 |
(Poem #284) 'MOST ANGLERS ARE VERY HUMANE'--Daily Paper
The kind-hearted angler was sadly pursuing His calling unhallowed of choking the fishes; He bitterly wept, for of course he was doing An action most strongly opposed to his wishes! His vertabra shook as he musingly planned How kindly to threadle the worm he'd begun--it Was plain had the reptile possessed a right hand The penitent angler would gladly have wrung it! He cast in his float filled with tearful emotion And murmured "How fearful, how terrible this is!" And just at that moment, amid some commotion, He jerked out a panting and rather small /piscis/! "Unfortunate fishlet, what dread impulse brought you To meddle with bait which I carelessly threw in? My dear little swimmer, I'm sorry I caught you, So please don't blame me for contriving your ruin!" "O barbel and salmon-trout, tench, dace and gugdeon, O ev'ry fat jack and each eel (not a conger) Why, why will you grieve me and stir up my dudgeon? Go, die on his hooks who has eyes that are stronger!" But, however, whilst moaning he pulled out a score, And continued his wonderful luck till at last--it Was plain that his soft heart could bear it no more, Too deep were his groans, and--too full was his basket!
A type of poem that has always intrigued me is one written in response to a specific incident or situation. This is particularly true when the poem is humorous - there's an extra piquancy to the fact that the incident the poet has so amusingly described is indeed true, or, more accurately, that the poet has produced so wonderfully appropriate a response to the situation. Today's gently sarcastic poem is a nice example of the genre. The form is also one very popular among writers of light verse - the predominantly triple verse, and the heavy use of feminine rhymes, give it a light, tripping feel (in particular, ending with a feminine rhyme avoids the risk of closing on a heavy note). Again, it is a somewhat 'playful' form - the poet often willing to sacrifice the mot juste in favour of a clever rhyme or unexpected polysyllabic word. Of course, like most such poems, it was never destined for greatness; but equally, greatness was never its aim. In fact, even the fact that it has withstood the test of time is not the point - I like it more for its topicality, for the fact that it was a wonderful rejoinder to a careless headline (one wonders where the poets are to immortalise more recent examples, such as the famous 'Man Found Dead in Graveyard'). m. Links: Another lovely 'incidental' poem (though in a much harsher vein) is O'Kelly's Litany for Doneraile poem #266 Norman Gale seems to be another of those poets without an accessible biography, though you can read several of his poems at the Poets' Corner [broken link] http://geocities.com/~spanoudi/poems/poem-gh.html | <urn:uuid:56e42285-f312-4681-a756-50300e310fe5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wonderingminstrels.blogspot.com/1999/12/anglers-are-very-humane-paper-norman.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9681 | 677 | 1.90625 | 2 |
Wheels are a key part of any movable chicken coop, except for some of the very smallest box-style chicken tractors, where one end can be lifted and the rest dragged along the ground.
Ensure enough clearance for your terrain - bigger wheels for bumpy, uneven ground, and smaller ones for level, short-cut grass. Wheels that are too big will allow birds to slip out from under the bottom frame as you move.
When you move your hens across the pasture, go slowly and watch for any getting caught under the back of the frame. Ours do seem to figure out to walk along with their house. | <urn:uuid:9d2b60e6-6943-47c4-99c3-87188d110263> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://smallfarm.about.com/od/farminfrastructure/ss/sbscoopbuild_9.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947438 | 131 | 1.703125 | 2 |
From Robinson Crusoe to the Swiss Family Robinson, tales of shipwrecks and survival have always been a source of escapism and inspiration for many a fertile mind. This article highlights four fantastic literary works that do just that.
Photo by John McNab on Flickr.com. Used under Creative Commons Licence.
With shipwrecks old and new in the public eye many land-lubbers may prefer to stick to fictional sea travel, rather than embark on their own ocean voyage. Yet being cast away on a desert island somewhere, miles from civilisation, surely has its own benefits. If you have ever dreamt of getting away from the rat race and having your own space to think and contemplate the wonders of the universe, there is no better place to do so than at sea. Here are a few select works of literature that truly capture the spirit of the cast-away, and may inspire you to set sail yourself.
Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe
Daniel Defoe’s sea-faring classic from 1719 really established the cast-away genre in the modern world. Taking inspiration from ancient texts such as Homer’s Odyssey, the book documents the marooned Crusoe as runs away from home and voyages around the world, eventually eking out a living on a desert island, befriended only by the ingenious native Man Friday. The book has been turned into several movies, and has inspired dozens of homages, pastiches and rewritings down the years, but the thrilling original is still the best. Perfect reading for anyone setting sail on a bareboat charter by themselves, if only to ensure they don’t get cast adrift and end up suffering the same shipwrecked fate as the poor Crusoe.
The Swiss Family Robinson, Johann David Wyss
Published barely a century after Defoe’s ground-breaking novel, the Swiss Family Robinson is a lighter, more family orientated take on the cast-away theme. The book deals with the Swiss family named in the title who are washed up on an East Indian island after their journey to Australia is interrupted by a storm. The family, overseen by their father, quickly get to grips with life on the island, building homes, mastering the wild animals, implementing agriculture, and living by a rigorous set of morals. The book was intended as a kind of manual for young people, setting out both practical advice for living in the wild, and spiritual guidance to help them grow and mature into adults. Yet the book is no dry sermon, and generations of children have enjoyed reading this fun filled classic.
Life of Pi, Yann Martel
When sailing into the vast unknown oceans it can often seem like we have entered into an alternate reality, far away from our previous life on land. And no book characterises this sense of strange discovery better than Yann Martel’s Booker Prize winning novel the Life of Pi. A magical realist piece charting the eponymous cast-away, the book takes from Buddhist philosophy, Latin American poetry and 19th century sea-faring novels to weave an incredible and enlightening story. Anyone who has travelled great distances across the sea on a boat charter will recognise the otherworldly feel highlighted in the book, though, unlike the novel, they were unlikely to have shared deck space with a Bengal Tiger named Richard Parker who happens to be perfectly fluent in English!
Lord of the Flies, William Golding
While the rest of the books on this list show how the experience of becoming a cast-away can be a rewarding one, William Golding’s seminal work Lord of the Flies charts the rather unsavoury aspects of being cut adrift from society. A chilling work, the book documents the survival, and animal savagery, of a group of boys who end up on a desert island far from home. While the boys soon organise themselves into a society of sorts, matters soon get out of hand, and murder, intrigue and subterfuge all combine to make this a hair-raising thriller of epic proportions.
John is a travel writer who has authored dozens of articles on sea-faring subjects, bareboat charter breaks and cruise holidays. | <urn:uuid:24b1b3eb-b647-4ae3-99c9-a706a4a1eeec> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bookstove.com/book-talk/four-great-works-of-literature-that-capture-the-spirit-of-the-cast-away/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94291 | 859 | 2.5625 | 3 |
A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money
–Senator Everett Dirksen
On Terence Tao’s blog a few weeks ago he had a very interesting post about the federal budget of all things. If you watch the news you might remember that the President announced that he had asked the cabinet to cut $100,000,000 from their budgets. On the one hand, 100 million dollars sounds like a heck of a lot of money. But as Greg Mankiw, a Harvard professor of economics, pointed out, if you rescale that to make it comparable to a more real world amount of money, then the cut was comparable to a family with an annual spending of $100,000 and a deficit of $34,000 deciding on a spending cut of $3.
Not very impressive.
Dr. Tao explains how to make that rescaling and also applies the same rescaling to a bunch of different items related to the federal budget. It’s pretty eye opening. For example, the math and science research budget of the National Science Foundation (the government agency which funds virtually all research in math) is $37.50, and the 2008 budget for the wars in Irag and Afghanistan was $5760 (above and beyond the budget for the Department of Defense).
It puts everything in perspective. | <urn:uuid:09aa30c2-b9b4-49b0-9a19-c1b8341b18be> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://oumathclub.wordpress.com/2009/06/04/putting-it-in-perspective/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954143 | 278 | 1.960938 | 2 |
Boulder officials are reaching out to residents of unincorporated Boulder County subdivisions that might be affected if the city decides to create a municipal energy utility.
City officials have raised the possibility that Boulder might annex some neighborhoods to obtain access to substations and other parts of the electrical distribution system if it decides to separate from Xcel Energy. A discussion earlier this year at a City Council study session on possible annexation sparked fears of forced annexation in some county neighborhoods.
To ease those concerns, city officials have met with neighborhood representatives in Gunbarrel, in the Cherryvale area and in the north Boulder neighborhoods of Orange Orchard, Githens Acres and Palo Park. Today they sent a letter to all residents in the neighborhoods that might be affected.
"As is often the case with these issues, there is a lot of speculation about what the city may or may not do," the letter says. "The fact is that much research remains to be done before we can provide concrete answers about whether the city will create a utility, what customers the city would seek to serve if it does and what that might mean for residents in enclaves and areas adjacent to our current city limits."
Boulder spokeswoman Sarah Huntley said the city wants to be as open as possible with concerned residents, but it simply doesn't have that much information to share yet.
The city is now doing a request for proposals from electrical engineers who will map the electrical distribution system and identify infrastructure the city might want to have and possible separation points from the broader Xcel system.
The city hopes to have that information by early 2013. Huntley said that report will determine the "technical and geographical issues," but it isn't intended to resolve the "financial and political issues."
If important infrastructure is located in a neighborhood that doesn't want to join the city, the City Council will have to decide whether it makes more sense to build new infrastructure or push for annexation.
It may also be possible to provide city electrical service to unincorporated areas without annexing them. The city now provides sewer and water service to several unincorporated areas.
"We will explore technical solutions, and depending on the separation options, it is possible that the city will begin to evaluate the pros and cons of either providing out-of-city electric service to and/or seeking to annex some enclaves or neighborhoods that are on the edge of existing limits," the letter says.
The letter goes to say the city knows that "issues around annexation are complex and vary from neighborhood to neighborhood" and promises to work closely with residents.
"We are attempting to be as transparent as we can with the limited information we have," Huntley said.
In the past, many residents of unincorporated areas have opposed annexation because they preferred the more rural character of their neighborhoods and didn't want to bring their streets up to city standards -- including adding sidewalks and streetlights -- at their own expense.
Huntley said the city wants to have a new conversation about the types of services and benefits it could provide to unincorporated residents if they agree to annexation.
Jennifer Eiss, president of the Orange Orchard Homeowners Association, said people in the past enjoyed living in a more rural neighborhood and paying slightly fewer taxes. However, many residents are frustrated that the county won't pay for street maintenance within subdivisions and has placed a ballot measure before the voters asking them to create a public improvement district to levy additional taxes for that purpose.
"My opinion is that people are feeling a little disillusioned with the county about them not maintaining our subdivision roads," Eiss said. "Before we felt like we enjoyed being rural and we paid a little lower tax rates. Now, we're wondering, what are we getting?"
Eiss said she appreciated the outreach from the city, and she was open to hearing its proposals, should Orange Orchard be one of the areas the city would want to annex.
In Gunbarrel, where residents have repeatedly rejected annexation, longtime resident Gina Hyatt also said she would listen with an open mind, but she cautioned that people are attached to their status as an unincorporated area. In particular, people want to keep service from Boulder Rural Fire Department, she said.
State Rep. Dickey Lee Hullinghorst, who represents the Gunbarrel area, said she would work with residents and the city to reach a resolution.
"There's a long way to go here, and I'm very grateful that the city has expressed an interest in making sure the citizens are involved," she said.
Contact Camera Staff Writer Erica Meltzer at 303-473-1355 or firstname.lastname@example.org. | <urn:uuid:6dab6fc2-a4e4-43dd-9fa4-5b7e5aeccb11> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dailycamera.com/energy/ci_21857836/boulder-reaches-out-unincorporated-areas-over-possible-annexation?source=most_viewed | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972216 | 952 | 1.679688 | 2 |
In his early years, Hemingway was very close to Sherwood Anderson, a writer he highly admired. Anderson found a willing, enthusiastic pupil in Hemingway. Gurko has pointed out that like Anderson, Hemingway thought the mind was "treacherous and abstract", and the senses were always to be trusted (18). Hemingway used his senses at the center of his writing. In Modern Critical Views: Earnest Hemingway, Robert Penn Warren comments that "this intense awareness of the world of the senses is, of course, one of the things that made the early work of Hemingway seem, upon its first impact, so fresh and pure." He adds, "Physical nature is nowhere rendered with greater vividness than in his work, and probably his only competitors in the department of literature are William Faulkner, among the modern, and Henry David Thoreau , among the old American writers" (45). Not long after the relationship that started with Anderson, people began labeling Hemingway as Anderson's disciple. Hemingway didn't like this because he wanted to be his own man. What resulted was The Torrents of Spring in which Hemingway "ridiculed and parodied Anderson's style of writing, his characters, and his most cherished ideas about life." Obviously, their friendship ended. (Gurko 29)
Hemingway was greatly disturbed by his father's suicide. He questioned his father's courage, or lack of courage. His father had taught him to admire courage. Once, Hemingway defined courage as grace under pressure. Yet his father could not handle this extreme pressure. He felt his father had somehow failed him. Soon, Hemingway assumed the nickname Papa, which he held to the end of his life. He was taking on the burden of being the person, or ideal papa, that his own father had failed to be. (Gurko 35)
By 1952, Hemingway had become the most publicized writer in America. Gurko notes that "everything he said and did was avidly recorded by the columnists" and "his emphatic personality supplied newspapers and magazine editors with endlessly colorful copy" (Gurko 48).
Hemingway's stories are concerned with death. In Our Time is
a good example of how his stories
relate to death. There are fourteen brief italicized scenes between the short tales. These are numbered as chapters. The keynote of these interchapters is violence which contains the threat of death in its most aggressive form. Gurko comments that "loss and approaching death may be the unavoidable fact of human existence" and that "the central lesson of existence, however, is that death must be accepted, faced without demoralization, and thereby mastered." He adds, "Hemingway's stories are as much a demonstration of the lesson as they are of the fact; their drama arises from the tension between them" (Gurko 177-78).
Hemingway has had an enormous influence on American writers, mainly
because of his unique writing style. He used simple nouns and verbs and
was still able to capture the scene precisely. He provided detached descriptions
of action in that he avoided describing the thoughts and emotions of his
characters in a direct way. In an interview from Modern Critical Views:
Ernest Hemingway, Hemingway was asked how detached from and experience
must he be before writing about it in fictional terms; i.e., the African
air crashes. Hemingway responded:
It depends on the experience. One part of you sees it with complete detachment from the
start. Another part is very involved. I think there is no rule about how soon one should write
about it. It would depend on how well adjusted the individual was and on his or her
recuperative powers. Certainly it is valuable to a trained writer to crash in an aircraft which
Hemingway made the reading of the story as close to the actual experience as possible. Authenticity in writing was important to him and he felt that one's treatment of a subject in writing was more honest if the person had actually experienced it or observed the subject closely.
Below are more excerpts from an interview edited by George Plimpton
in Modern Critical Views: Ernest Hemingway.
Interviewer: Would you admit to there being symbolism in your novels?
Hemingway: I suppose there are symbols since critics keep finding them. If you do not mind, I dislike talking about them and being questions about them. It is hard enough to write books and stories without being asked to explain them as well. If five or six more good explainers can keep going why should I interfere with them? Read anything I write for the pleasure of reading it. Whatever else you find will be the measure of what you brought to the reading. (128-29)
Interviewer: How complete in your own
mind is the conception of a short story? Does the theme, or the plot, or
a character change as you go along?
Hemingway: Sometimes you know the story. Sometimes you make it up as you go along and have no idea how it will come out. Everything changes as it moves. That is what makes the movement which makes the story. Sometimes the movement is so slow it does not seem to be moving. But there is always change and always movement. (131)
Interviewer: We've not discussed character.
Are the characters of your work taken without exception from real life?
Hemingway: Of course they are not. Some come from real life. Mostly you invent people from a knowledge and understanding and experience of people.
Interviewer: Could you say something about the process of turning a real-life character into a fictional one?
Hemingway: If I explained how that is sometimes done, it would be a handbook for libel lawyers. (132)
Interviewer: Finally, a fundamental
question: namely, as a creative writer what do you think is the function
of your art? Why a representation of fact, rather than fact itself?
Hemingway: Why be puzzled by that? From things that have happened and from things as they exist and from things that you know and all those you cannot know, you make something through your invention that is not a representation but a whole new thing truer than anything true and alive, and you make it alive, and if you make it well enough, you give it immortality. That is why you write and for no other reason that you know of. But what about all the reasons that no one knows? (136)
"The Snows of Kilimanjaro" | <urn:uuid:fc123b16-a3b6-4979-95de-014f0cb822c4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.uncp.edu/home/canada/work/canam/hemingwa.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979636 | 1,371 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Saturday, December 03, 2005
Direct Etymological Latin Legacies
If you pay attention to the topics dealt with in this newsletter each week, you can get a glimpse into my life. Recently, I’ve been watching the excellent HBO series Rome, about Julius Caesar and playing the extremely addictive computer game Rome: Total War. These two sources are the inspiration for this week’s article.
We all know that many English words are derived from Latin roots. Most commonly, these words come to us from Old French as a result of the Norman Conquest of England in 1066 or are modern scientific and technical terms created in modern times from Latin roots. But there are a few that come to us directly and mostly unaltered from the traditions and practices of ancient Rome. Here are some of those words. | <urn:uuid:e97794cb-5ca4-4156-b7cd-4178455125fb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.calvin.edu/weblogs/language/direct_etymological_latin_legacies/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955831 | 166 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Ok, those Germans are just showing off now. Not only has the nation announced plans to shut down all of its nuclear power plants and started the construction of 2,800 miles of transmission lines for its new renewable energy initiative, but now the village of Wildpoldsried is producing 321% more energy than it needs! The small agricultural village in the state of Bavaria is generating an impressive $5.7 million in annual revenue from renewable energy.
It’s no surprise that the country that has kicked butt at the Solar Decathlon competition (to produce energy positive solar houses) year after year is the home to such a productive energy-efficient village. The village’s green initiative first started in 1997 when the village council decided that it should build new industries, keep initiatives local, bring in new revenue, and create no debt. Over the past 14 years, the community has equipped nine new community buildings with solar panels, built four biogas digesters (with a fifth in construction now) and installed seven windmills with two more on the way. In the village itself, 190 private households have solar panels while the district also benefits from three small hydro power plants, ecological flood control, and a natural waste water system.
All of these green systems means that despite only having a population of 2,600, Wildpoldsried produces 321 percent more energy than it needs – and it’s generating 4.0 million Euro (US $5.7 million) in annual revenue by selling it back to the national grid. It is no surprise to learn that small businesses have developed in the village specifically to provide services to the renewable energy installations.
Over the years the village’s green goals have been so successful that they have even crafted a mission statement — WIR–2020, Wildpoldsried Innovativ Richtungsweisend (Wildpoldsried Innovative Leadership). The village council hopes that it will inspire citizens to do their part for the environment and create green jobs and businesses for the local area.
As a result of the village’s success, Wildpoldsried has received numerous national and international awards for its conservation and renewable energy initiatives known as Klimaschutz (climate protection). The council even hosts tours for other village councils on how to start their own Klimaschutz program. The Mayor has even been doing global tours ever since the Fukushima disaster.
Mayor Zengerle has gone to Romania, Berlin and the Black Sea Region to speak about how these places can transform their communities and make money in the process. Speaking to Biocycle, Mayor Zengerle said, “The mitigation of climate change in practice can only be implemented with the citizens and with the Village Council behind them 100 percent of the way. This model cannot be forced from only one side. We often spend a lot of time talking to our visitors about how to motivate the village council (and Mayor) to start thinking differently. We show them a best practices model in motion and many see the benefits immediately. From the tour we give, our guests understand how well things can operate when you have the enthusiasm and conviction of the people.” | <urn:uuid:bc5a606b-be54-47cb-b746-7d418fd2f752> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.zeitnews.org/node/2263 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955118 | 645 | 2.546875 | 3 |
HOUSTON, TX.- The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
(MFAH) will host Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs, an acclaimed exhibition featuring more than 100 artifacts, most of which had never been shown in the U.S. prior to this tour. The exhibition opens October 13, 2011, and will be on view through April 15, 2012. Visitors will have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to view the spectacular treasures, more than half of which come from the tomb of King Tutankhamun. These include the golden sandals that were found on the boy king´s mummy, a gold coffinette that held his stomach, golden statues of the gods, his rings, ear ornaments and gold collar.
"This exhibition is a landmark event for Houston," said Dr. Peter Marzio, director of the MFAH. "I am thrilled that the MFAH will bring these extraordinary treasures here, and that Houston is among the few cities, along with Vienna, Atlanta, Denver and Toronto, that have had the privilege of hosting the most important exhibition of art from ancient Egypt since the original King Tut show toured the world in the 1970s. It´s a Who´s Who of Egypt´s most important ancient rulers."
The exhibition is organized under the direction of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities and its Secretary General, Dr. Zahi Hawass, by the National Geographic Society, Arts and Exhibitions International and AEG Exhibitions. Major proceeds from the tour will support the preservation and conservation of antiquities and monuments in Egypt, as well as the construction of the new Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
"Tutankhamun´s magic still captures the hearts of people all over the world, even though nearly 90 years have passed since the discovery of the amazing tomb," said Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of Egypt´s Supreme Council of Antiquities.
Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs features treasures associated with the most important rulers of the 30 dynasties that ruled Egypt over a 2,000 year span. The exhibition explores the splendor of the pharaohs, their function in both the earthly and divine worlds and what "kingship" meant to the Egyptian people. Visitors will encounter master sculptures of powerful Egyptian rulers, including Khafre, builder of the Great Sphinx and one of the pyramids at Giza; Hatshepsut, the queen who became a pharaoh; statues of the warrior pharaohs, Tutmosis and Ramesses the Great; as well as King Tut´s father Akhenaten, the pharaoh who changed Egypt´s religion to the worship of one omnipotent sun god. The magnificent golden death mask of Psusennes I will also be on display. The spectacular exhibition also showcases the largest likeness of King Tut ever discovereda 10-foot statue of the pharaoh found at the remains of a funerary temple.
The exhibition was curated under the direction of Dr. Zahi Hawass by Dr. David Silverman, the noted Egyptologist from the University of Pennsylvania, who also served as a curator during the 1970s tour. Silverman describes the exhibition: "There´s mystery. There´s excitement. It´s exotic and foreign, but it´s recognizable." To promote understanding and put these artworks in context, the exhibition reflects environments that help convey the story of the artifacts, such as the great pyramids at Giza and the four rooms of King Tut´s tomb.
Tutankhamun will be on view in the 22,000-square-foot Upper Brown Pavilion of the Caroline Wiess Law Building at the MFAH. Its introduction features a National Geographic documentary narrated by award-winning actor Harrison Ford. The final galleries are dedicated to King Tut´s tomb, including an area devoted to its discovery by British explorer Howard Carter in 1922. There, visitors will encounter legendary treasures from the tomb´s antechamber, annex, treasury and burial chamber in corresponding galleries.
"Houston has a history of embracing exhibits surrounding ancient Egypt. This is the first time since 1962 that treasures from the tomb of King Tut have visited Houston," said John Norman, president of Arts and Exhibitions International.
New scientific discoveries continue to provide insight into King Tut´s legendary life and death. The exhibition features the first CT scans of the young king´s mummy, which were obtained as part of a landmark Egyptian research and conservation project, partially funded by the National Geographic Society.
"Egypt´s ancient treasures are among the world´s greatest cultural legacies," said Terry Garcia, executive vice president, National Geographic Society. "Visitors to this exhibition will not only see stunning artifacts spanning ancient Egyptian history, but they will also learn more about the life and death of Tutankhamun through CT scans conducted on his mummy." | <urn:uuid:ef4a2adc-36bf-4889-8f84-17c83e05f3f6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=11&int_new=41416&int_modo=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945495 | 1,009 | 1.65625 | 2 |
THE CRIMSON PLAYGOER
Excellent Acting by Arliss Hidden in Mediocre Movie and Hindered by Over-Ambitious Cast
Although George Arliss is essentially a character actor, he possesses that rare ability to inspire in his audiences the "will to believe" which is so essential to all great flction, and which is so lacking in contemporary drama. His popularity rests in his ability to idealize, not convincingly to render the personality of whatever part he may be acting, but the film currently at the University seemed to make it unmistakable that the producers are quite oblivious of the true value of Arliss' work.
The plot of "A Successful Calamity" concerns the attempts of Arliss as an aged but active captain of finance to keep his family at home for dinner. The action in the picture comes as a result of the butler's advice to Arliss that "the poor don't get to go out much." Feigned ruin on the part of the successful financier follows in short order, and the true storing qualities of his family are brought out when his son tries to got a job, and his daughter runs off to marry a boy whom she dislikes, in order that she may be able to support her father and step-mother. All is saved in time, however; the son unwittingly makes several million additional dollars for his father, and the girl marries her big, strong polo player, whom she loves.
The film shows an obvious attempt on the part of the producers to provide Arliss with a vehicle, however crude, in which to display his often repeated and admittedly delightful mannerisms. The whole performance was rendered so obvious by overacting on the part of the supporting cast, and lack of imagination on the part of the author that Arliss' already overworked portrayal of a twinkling gentleman of leisure failed utterly to produce the desired effect.
It is impossible to raise the standard of a poor picture by means of the reputation of a great actor without reducing that reputation to a corresponding degree in the process. If Warner Brothers, incorporated recognizes that fact, and comes to the realization that the strength of Arliss' personality transcends limitations of appearance and manner, a few more productions like "Disraeli" might almost be expected to appear in the future.
"Hold em Jail," the companion picture, is another of Wheeler and Woolsey's uproarious, inane vehicles, in which the two protagonists get railroaded into jail and proceed to win the football game in an inter-prison league. Stadium tactics are hardly in order when our two heroes let loose their bag of tricks, not the least among which are a chloroform-soaked handkerchief and a boomerang pigskin. | <urn:uuid:954d6cf5-690d-46c3-8857-07dcd466a306> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1932/10/18/the-crimson-playgoer-palthough-george-arliss/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976611 | 568 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Embargo expired: 10/1/2012 12:00 PM EDT
Source Newsroom: McMaster University
Newswise — Hamilton, ON (Oct. 1, 2012) - Moderate alcohol consumption increases the risk of atrial fibrillation in older people with heart disease or advanced diabetes, says a study by McMaster researchers.
“Moderate alcohol intake, with or without episodic binge drinking, is associated with an increased incidence of atrial fibrillation in older and high risk cardiovascular disease or diabetes patients,” said Dr. Koon Teo, an author of the study and a professor of medicine at the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine at McMaster University. “Among moderate drinkers, the effect of binge drinking on atrial fibrillation risk is similar to that of habitual heavy drinking.”
The study was published today by the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ). Atrial fibrillation, or an irregular heartbeat, is a concern because it increases the risk of stroke.
The findings come from a large study involving more than 30,000 individuals 55 years or older from 40 countries who had a history of cardiovascular disease or advanced diabetes with organ damage. Data came from the clinical trials which followed participants for four and half years.
Moderate alcohol consumption was measured as one to 14 drinks a week for women and one to 21 drinks a week for men. Binge drinking was classified as five or more drinks a day.
The incidence rate of atrial fibrillation rose to 6.3% of the low intake group, 7.8% in the moderate and 8.3% in the high intake groups. The increase in atrial fibrillation cases linked to higher alcohol consumption was found in each age group.
The report said that since moderate drinking is common for more than a third of the population, these findings suggest the effect of increased alcohol consumption, even in moderate amounts, on atrial fibrillation risk in patients with pre-existing cardiovascular disease may be considerable.
Limited data from other studies indicates that binge drinking in healthy people may increase the risk of atrial fibrillation, although moderate drinking in healthy individuals does not appear to be linked to increased risk.
“Recommendations made about the protective effects of moderate alcohol intake in patients at high risk of cardiovascular disease may need to be tempered with these findings,” the report said.
For further information and to arrange interviews, please contact: | <urn:uuid:02170f5f-5606-4d4f-82eb-2e35c38ab698> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newswise.com/articles/moderate-alcohol-consumption-may-increase-risk-of-atrial-fibrillation-in-people-with-heart-disease | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945339 | 501 | 2.25 | 2 |
What Would Jesus Do? And Should We Do The Same?
This post was written by Pastor of Counseling Jim Ricci
What would Jesus do? And is that what we should do?
WWJD is a very popular expression, especially among young Christians. I am going to suggest that we, as mere humans, should not be doing everything that the Lord did.
There are some things that Jesus did that we should not do. Jesus is God. We are not. Jesus proclaimed His authority from His deity. We can only proclaim our authority through the deity of Jesus. The difference is not a subtle one.
Jesus was constantly accusing people of being hypocrites. I am not saying that we should never do this. However, since He was omniscient, Jesus knew when people were being hypocrites, whereas we can only guess. Jesus warned us not to judge other people unless we could be sure that our judgment was correct.
If we judge someone incorrectly, we are threatened with a similar judgment by God. Obviously, we should not judge people unless we are absolutely certain that we are correct – using scripture as our guideline.
The concept of “What would Jesus do?” is not completely without merit for disciples of Jesus Christ. We are to have the mind of Christ. However, to know what Jesus would do, we would need to know what Jesus did do. Jesus is not a modern humanist interpretation of righteousness. Jesus is the reality of the eternal morality of God. Those who claim to do what Jesus would do must know the New Testament in detail, preferably with an insight on first century Jewish culture. The truths of the New Testament transcend the culture of first century Israel, but the interpretation and understanding of the details of the parables and stories can only be understood with knowledge of the culture of the day.
For example, the parable of the prodigal son is a powerful example of the love and forgiveness of God. However, the extent and depth of that love can be fully understood only when examining the parable from a first century Jewish perspective.
In conclusion: I would like to propose that we believers do what Jesus told us to do, rather than what Jesus Himself might do. The standard should be WDJTUTD – What did Jesus tell us to do? I don’t think the new initials will fly, but hopefully we believers would be willing to do what Jesus told us. | <urn:uuid:3390356d-8bf2-4568-ae15-1f4295819719> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ccfchurch.net/2011/06/what-would-jesus-do-and-should-we-do-the-same/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976837 | 495 | 2.25 | 2 |
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This paper deals with the comparison between the overall whole-of-life costs of overhead lines (OHL) and those of underground insulated cables (UGC). Almost all the investigations published so far, when analyzing maintainability issues, take into account only the costs of planned/periodical maintenance; here, a method for assessing also the expenses sustained for repair after random failures is proposed. The number of random failure events for each kind of component over the entire service life of a transmission line can only be predicted on a probabilistic basis: its expected value is estimated by making use of the relevant mean failure rates from recent statistical surveys. The entire procedure is shown by carrying out a particular case study as an example; the break-even point between the OHL-UGC overall costs, corresponding to a typical rural land Italian market value wx = 26.9 Euros/m2, is identified. Nonetheless, the method may be widely applied to any type of OHL-UGC comparison.
Date of Publication: July 2012 | <urn:uuid:212b5b64-3e4e-4654-a432-ad1a4a33824a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?reload=true&tp=&arnumber=6222056&contentType=Journals+%26+Magazines&sortType%3Dasc_p_Sequence%26filter%3DAND(p_IS_Number%3A6222050) | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923047 | 209 | 1.632813 | 2 |
(Editor's note: This paper from Microsemi Corp. is obviously somewhat "biased" towards their products and technical approaches, of course. But it also contains some useful insight and information which makes it worthwhile for all device designs at this level.)
With the trend towards miniaturization comes the requirement for improved security to maintain patient confidentiality. Reliability is also a requirement, both in terms of product longevity and assurance that the device is working as specified. This is crucial for the rapidly expanding market for devices used in emergency interventions.
For instance, an automated external defibrillator must be safe to use. At the same time, paramedics and other trained personnel need assurance that the device is working properly—that it will deliver the precise electric shock required and will not discharge inappropriately. Similarly, designers must assure performance, reliability, safety, and security for devices such as a portable insulin pump, see Figure 1.
Figure 1: Portable insulin pump block diagram, showing functions
that can be implemented by Microsemi FPGAs
Typically, designers of portable medical applications have relied on microcontrollers, application-specific standard product (ASSP) chips and small programmable logic devices to glue them together in order to build human-machine interface (HMI) and miniature motor controllers. These combinations are less than ideal with the demand to miniaturize equipment, while not compromising on channel count for critical sensors and actuators.
A solution based on field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) makes it easier to fit more functionality into less space. ASSPs do not provide design flexibility or the ability to upgrade functions after manufacture. If the design needs to change to reflect new standards or to upgrade functionality, Microsemi's flash-based FPGAs can be reprogrammed in the field and have security mechanisms built in to ensure that only legitimate upgrades can be applied to equipment.
To read the entire paper, click here. | <urn:uuid:c17a5751-2ba8-482c-8c3a-729fa9987f23> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.eetimes.com/design/medical-design/4229930/FPGAs-for-meeting-size--reliability--security-goals-in-medical-devices | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930862 | 393 | 2.484375 | 2 |
If you think the State Department passport privacy debacle is an oddity, it isn't. Data voyeurism is actually a sign of the times. Low-level employees at government agencies and private companies browse personal information for sport all the time. Outside of the occasional public flogging, little has been done to stop this unnerving practice.
It now appears no candidate will win extra sympathy points for the passport privacy invasion at the State Department, because all of them have been victims. It's too early to know if any of the culprits saw data that could have hurt any of the candidates politically, but that matters little. In fact, let's give all those involved the benefit of the doubt, and say this was merely a database joy ride. The real question is this:
If the State Department can't protect presidential candidates' personal information, how can anyone protect ours?
Data voyeurism stories can be found across the news spectrum. Hospital workers caught browsing celebrities' medical records; cops caught checking out cute women by running their license plate numbers. Computer security expert Avivah Litan, a consultant at Gartner, said most firms don't go to great lengths to keep employees away from such data.
"When I saw this article the first thing that crossed my mind was that this kind of thing happens all the time," she said. "It's not uncommon at all kinds of organizations. It brings up the question of how private our data is. It's not."
Didn't need the data
The State Department incident could have been something much more serious than a computerized peep show. These data thieves could have been looking for information, like Social Security numbers, to commit identity theft. Identity thieves often begin their crimes by obtaining data stolen by employees. One study conducted several years ago by Michigan State University researcher Judy Collins found that in most cases of ID theft traced to an employee, that the employee did not need access to the victim's data to do his or her job.
In other words, there were lax or no internal controls.
Privacy consultant Larry Ponemon recently completed a survey of security professionals about the lack of internal data controls, and his results were alarming: 78 percent said employees at their company have too much access to data, and 69 percent said access rules were poorly enforced. The longer an employee stays at a firm and changes jobs, and the more often that firm changes systems, the more difficult it is manage database access rules.
"Even at the most sophisticated companies, identity management is often an Achilles' heel," he said.
Litan says things don't have to work this way. Employees' access to databases with personal information should be strictly limited. Instead, many workers have blanket permission to look at everything.
"It's called identity access management, or access controls," she said. "No one has to see that information unless they have privileged access."
Either the State Department had no such access rules to data belonging to Sens. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain – which would be crazy, since they are surrounded every day by men in black suits sporting concealed weapons and wireless ear pieces -- or someone with high-access privileges was involved in the data snooping. Both prospects are disturbing. And both could easily happen to you.
Now, which candidate will be the first to support a new, comprehensive privacy law? | <urn:uuid:bb8c56e2-7a98-4284-a441-fd9481b9536f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://redtape.nbcnews.com/_news/2008/03/21/6345889-data-voyeurism-is-common?lite | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97278 | 685 | 1.78125 | 2 |
“Muhammad,” Deepak Chopra’s fictionalized biography about the life of the Prophet Muhammad, will go on sale early in e-book form, weeks ahead of the print book’s publication date of Sept. 21.
HarperCollins, the book’s publisher, authorized Amazon and other e-book retailers to sell the book beginning Wednesday, trying to meet demand for the book since the national conversation has turned to Islam and the planned community center and mosque near ground zero.
It was the first time that HarperCollins had placed an e-book for sale before the print edition.
Dr. Chopra, an Indian-born spiritual guru and leader of alternative medicine, has written other so-called teaching novels about the founders of world religions, including his best-selling books “Buddha” and “Jesus.”
“Books spark conversations, and in this case a national conversation has erupted,” Michael Morrison, the president and publisher of HarperCollins’s general books division for the United States and Canada, said in a statement. “As the publisher, we want our titles to be available in a timely manner to meet consumer demand and increase readership for our authors; digital publishing allows us to react quickly to achieve these goals.” | <urn:uuid:12a76fee-393b-4b02-bc13-98ff9fb3c54b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/deepak-chopra/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947565 | 270 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Puzzle No. 6 - world cup medallions
If you're one of those people who dropped a grade in your Maths GCSE because you were too busy watching the World Cup then here's your chance to make amends...
This issue's puzzle is quite hard, so we've provided a hint. Thanks to Don Kite and the pupils at The Netherhall School, Cambridge, for bringing it to our attention.
During the World Cup, PASS Maths' local supermarket was running a World Cup medallions promotion. Each time you spent a certain amount of money you got a free coin embossed with the face of one of the members of the England squad.
There were 22 players in the squad, so there were 22 medallions to collect. If we assume that each time you get a medallion it is equally likely to represent any one of the 22 players the question is: on average how many will you need to collect before you get a full set?
This problem is quite hard to do all in one go, so if you need help, look at the hint
We will publish the best explanation in the next issue, along with the answer to the problem itself. | <urn:uuid:e0e17a6b-db3c-4eb6-8c3d-fae072c0b577> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://plus.maths.org/content/puzzle-no-6-world-cup-medallions | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97099 | 245 | 2.09375 | 2 |
So here’s the deal… I think I have a broken molar. It’s way in the back right next to the spot where my wisdom tooth used to be. I have very painful sensations in my cheek and jaw and up into my sinuses. Now the pain has radiated to my head, ear, and even into my neck. The best way to describe it is that the pain starts in my ear and moves all the way around into my neck.
Do you think this is a dental emergency? I don’t have dental insurance and don’t have the money for a tooth extraction? It may not be the tooth at all and maybe is more related to my sinuses. Can you tell me if I’m in any danger or give me an idea of what is going on?
- Cindy in Georgia
What you have described sounds very dangerous. It sounds like you have a tooth infection from the broken tooth. And now it is spreading which will continue if you don’t get it taken care of as soon as possible.
You may check with a local hospital or dental agency to see if they will help you out. Many areas will treat residents that need serious procedures done. Keep calling around and if you can’t find someone to help, just go to the emergency room. They will be able to help you temporarily.
Antibiotics is important to treat the infection. But most importantly you need to have the tooth taken out or repaired so the you don’t build up resistance to the antibiotic. If you only take the antibiotic and don’t take care of the tooth, you risk a more serious problem than you already have. The reason for this is that the medication will not get inside the infected tooth. What needs to be done is a tooth extraction or root canal treatment.
Act soon before it gets worse!
This post is sponsored by Gilbert dentist Vista Dorada Dental. | <urn:uuid:655e0dd3-5f26-4472-b66b-e27e6de3c718> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.vistadoradadental.com/blog/?p=66 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952742 | 400 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Posted by T.Gracken on March 29, 2001 at 12:14:28:
In Reply to: A 16 sided geometric shape is called what? posted by Annette on March 27, 2001 at 16:53:32:
: I can't seem to find the answer to this. What on earth is a 16-sided geometric shape called.
: thanks :) firstname.lastname@example.org
One of the names used for a 16 sided polygon is "hexadecagon".
For other names of polygons (or other names used for a 16 sided polygon) do a web search on names of polygons.
Post a Followup | <urn:uuid:82475508-aa30-41aa-b8cb-bdaca734f2e8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://library.thinkquest.org/20991/gather/main/messages/4345.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944318 | 138 | 2.765625 | 3 |
Photos from the Kaesŏng old town, DPRK, North Korea. We were not allowed to walk there, only take pictures from a viewpoint from high above.
A visit to the Koryo Dynasty Tombs outside Kaesong, DPRK, North Korea.
- Welcome to North Korea, We Hope You Enjoyed Your Flight! (americaninnorthkorea.com)
- Citizen Actors North Korea – Part 2 (americaninnorthkorea.com)
- Kaesong, North Korea (americaninnorthkorea.com)
- Kaesong, North Korea (josephferrispics.wordpress.com)
A busy morning street scene – photos all taken from the gate of the Folk Hotel (with no freedom to explore further), Kaesong, North Korea.
Yesterday’s most viewed North Korea pic from my Flickr account – below is a picture of myslef in front of the big Kim II-sung statue, Kaesong, North Korea – and a prime example of why I don’t normally let other people use my camera.
Yesterday’s most viewed North Korea pic from my Flickr account – below is a view of the small city of Kaesong (Kaesŏng), North Korea. This picture was taken while holding my 300mm lens nice and study on the walk back from the imposing Kim Il-sung statue that overlooks the city. Kaesong looks amazing, just a few miles north of the DMZ, it was the first destination outside Pyongyang we visited. What I wouldn’t give to have had the chance to walk around and photograph this small city, but alas, we only got to visit museums, statues, stamp shops, and old tombs.
- US Vs North Korea (demagape.wordpress.com)
My North Korea picture of the day
A bustling afternoon on the main boulevard of Kaesong, North Korea. | <urn:uuid:9f94a2bf-6696-4ab0-a35e-7f1738c19725> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://americaninnorthkorea.com/category/kaesong/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.902785 | 406 | 1.585938 | 2 |
The Haldimand County Public Library maintains a CNIB deposit collection of 600 DAISY audiobook titles. Select a category below to view a complete list of titles in your favourite genre:
Or search the library catalogue for "CNIB Daisy audiobook" titles.
Borrowing Period: 4 weeks
Renewals: 1 renewal per title
What is a DAISY Audiobook?
DAISY (Digital Accessible Information System) is an international format standard developed by libraries for the blind. DAISY audiobooks have superior sound quality and functionality compared to other audio formats. Special features include chapter, paragraph, phrase and word navigation, bookmarking, skimming, sleep modes and reading speed control.
DAISY titles fit on a single compact disc. These discs are meant to be played in special DAISY-compatible machines such as VictorReaders. For a list of player vendors, visit the DAISY marketplace. Because of their special formatting, DAISY discs cannot be played on standard CD players unless those players are MP3-compatible. If your CD player was manufactured in the last five years, there's a good chance it is MP3-compatible and will also play DAISY audiobooks, although many of the special navigation features will not be available. At present, the Haldimand County Public Library owns one VictorReader DAISY playback device. Upon request, this unit can be made available at any branch for in-library use.
DAISY titles can also be listened to on your computer, using DAISY playback software.
How to Participate
You can register to borrow DAISY audiobooks if you have difficulty reading traditional print material because of a visual, physical or learning disability. Library staff will guide you through the registration process, or you can register on your own by completing the CNIB's self-registration form. During the registration process, you will be asked to identify your print disability and to enter your library card number. Medical documents are not requested. You will also be asked to select a service type: access to the library's circulating DAISY audiobooks only or access to other online resources direct from the CNIB, or both. Once you are registered, you will be contacted by CNIB staff to set up and verify your account and services.
Are There Other Resources Available?
In addition to the Library's DAISY audiobook deposit collection, other DAISY titles can be requested from the CNIB Library collection through interlibrary loan procedures. Thousands of fiction and non-fiction titles are available along with popular magazines such as Maclean's, Canadian Geographic, Reader's Digest, Chatelaine and many more. Library staff will assist you in finding titles of interest and will initiate a loan request on your behalf. Interloan titles will be delivered to the library and you will be notified of their arrival.
The CNIB Digital Library collection also offers access to more than 80,000 books, newspapers, magazines, music and descriptive movies in alternative formats. Material for all ages and interests as well as titles in French, a Summer Reading Club for children, and both e-text and braille resources are available. Many resources, such as newspapers, are available for direct online viewing while others can be requested through interloan procedures and delivered to your local library branch. For more information visit the CNIB Digital Library website. | <urn:uuid:a9eb6788-23eb-4d77-bc4d-4fdf08fae430> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.haldimandcounty.on.ca/residents.aspx?id=16525 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.921241 | 700 | 1.648438 | 2 |
To evaluate evidence appropriately, you need to compare probabilities of the evidence under two different propositions. These propositions are usually those put forward by the prosecution and the defence. There are advanced statistical methods for doing this (for readers who are technically inclined, they are based on likelihood ratios or Bayes’ factors). Much theoretical work has been done in the development of these methods. Calculations based on them might sometimes be fairly straightforward, though it also often turns out that there are non-standard issues to consider.
One example of casework that a forensic statistician may be involved with is DNA profiling, which is a powerful method of identification using genetics. Often, the evidence to be evaluated involves human (or sometimes animal) biological material such as blood, semen or vaginal fluid. Considerable work has been done in statistical and population genetics in assessing the importance of such evidence. Applications, however, are often not restricted to simple cases with one sample of DNA left at the scene of a crime and one suspect. Complications very often arise, for example because relatives may be involved, or the suspect may have been identified by a search through a DNA profile database, or the sample found at the crime scene may be a mixture of body fluids from more than one person. More advanced statistical methods are required in such situations.
Another role of a forensic statistician relates to sampling problems and determination of sample size. In some cases, it is necessary to examine a consignment of similar-looking items, and it is often not practical to examine every item. This may be purely on financial grounds but may be on health grounds also. The question then arises as to how many items should be examined on a sampling basis. For example, the consignment to be examined may be a set of CDs, some of which are thought to contain pornographic material. Then it is desirable for the examining officers to examine as few CDs as is commensurate with a good description of the proportion of the CDs which are illicit. The sample size determination is really just a quality control problem; there are UN Guidelines where the problem concerns drugs.
Finally, an important part of being a forensic statistician, as indeed it is for any statistician, is the ability to communicate results effectively to non-statisticians. Forensic statisticians may be required to attend court cases as “expert witnesses”. This involves reporting calculated probabilities, or other statistical measures, to the jury, and explaining to them how the calculations were performed. This is a challenge in itself, as the jury will typically consist of people who have little knowledge of statistical methods, and is further complicated by the need to choose careful wording (so as not to “lead” the jury into a decision on guilt or innocence of a defendant). | <urn:uuid:efc1b70d-be65-4ba3-a6bf-e70e0d68904a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.careersinstatistics.co.uk/index.php/job-profiles/forensic-statistician/what-does-being-a-forensic-entail/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96774 | 558 | 2.890625 | 3 |
Weeks after the U.S. Southern Command began investigating reports that 12 troops engaged in misconduct during President Obama's visit to Cartagena, Colombia, the entire matter is still being reviewed to see if the evidence is strong enough for the military to take disciplinary action against those alleged to have been involved.
Military lawyers at U.S. Southern Command "are evaluating evidence obtained during the investigation to determine admissibility and strength of the evidence," the U.S. Southern Command said in a statement updating the status of the investigation.
The individual military services have reviewed the evidence against the 12 individuals and made their recommendations to Gen. Douglas Fraser, the commanding general of Southern Command. It is now up to him, pending advice from his legal team, to make the decision on how to proceed.
There are three options if there is a decision to take action. One is adverse administrative action, which could include a letter of reprimand or admonishment. Generally these types of actions end careers. A second is nonjudicial punishment, which could include withholding pay, reduction in ranks or confinement. These actions can be appealed by a service member, who can challenge the evidence and call witnesses. The third is military court-martial, which can lead to trial and conviction.
"Gen. Fraser is also carefully reviewing the information and is required by law to consider numerous factors to include the nature of the offenses, any mitigating or extenuating circumstances, the character and military service of the suspects and the recommendations of subordinate commanders. The goal is a disposition that is warranted, based on admissible evidence, just, appropriate and fair," the Southern Command statement said. | <urn:uuid:011270fd-736e-429f-8e64-1e0a6dfcb030> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.channel3000.com/news/politics/Military-reviews-Colombia-trip-behavior/-/4030/14793228/-/jya7jkz/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972105 | 334 | 1.570313 | 2 |
One thing working boomer women are learning: When it comes time to retire, married is usually better than single.
The same does not necessarily apply to men if their spouses are stay-at-homes.
The financial burden of retiring when single is best relieved by planning and then tracking the plan, said Lisa Banning, a financial advisor with Financial Management Network, Inc., in Mission Viejo.
PAUL RODRIGUEZ, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Tips for retirement
•Understand your resources.
•Know and prepare for the implications of inflation.
•Be informed about your Social Security.
The Census Bureau says 43 percent of seniors 65-plus are single – widowed, divorced or never married. Simple math says married with two incomes – even two retirement incomes – guarantees a bigger pot than singles maintaining a home on one income.
Susan Farris Foy, a Fullerton-based attorney, understands this all too well.
"It's scarier to think about," says Foy, 50, now in the middle of a divorce after 24 years of marriage. "There is definitely less to fall back on. I expect to work until I'm 70."
Dan Sudit, a wealth adviser with Harris Private Bank in Seattle, says people who are "suddenly single" often underestimate their costs and don't have the same ability to defray expenses as they did when they had two incomes.
"But those who have always been single know they can't share the cost of retirement, and they have an obligation to save more money," he said.
"Just about everyone underestimates what they will need because we are all living longer and are more active and spending money longer."
What does it all mean?
Understand your resources, Sudit says. Know and prepare for the implications of inflation. Be informed about your Social Security because every time it changes, reliance on individual resources will increase.
"The biggest impact, however, will be cost-of-living increases from inflation, health care and other necessary expenses," Sudit said.
And while he says there is no one amount for individuals to save, "the earlier on someone approaches and identifies goals, the greater the chance for success."
"What's important is for people to identify what retirement means to them – freedom to spend time with family or to travel? Everyone has their own bucket list."
Planning is easy. It's the execution that's difficult, says Leslie Moreau, a Mission Viejo-based corporate secretary.
"Sometimes I think about the pros and cons, and I'm grateful to be single," Moreau said. "I've been working for 39 years (she's with a national manufacturing company), and I've always had to take care of myself.
"My mother and two aunts – when they were widowed – were not stupid, but they were less comfortable making financial decisions by themselves. It makes a difference when you are used to having a husband.
"Like, should you buy a house or play the stock market? How do you find a financial adviser?
"I've always wanted to know the answers so I can take care of myself."
The financial burden of retiring when single is best relieved by planning and then tracking the plan, said Lisa Banning, a financial adviser with Financial Management Network Inc. in Mission Viejo.
"Yes, married couples can leverage economies of scale and share expense, but this also implies the couple is coordinating their plan," Banning said.
"For those suddenly single, their burden is lighter if plans were coordinated and considered the unexpected. Often the older husband wants only to plan for his death and the care of his younger widow. By switching that long-held assumption to the unexpected by having the younger wife die first, the couple can adjust savings plans, consider providing for caregiving through insurance and identify their support network."
The suddenly single who are left without the spouse's Social Security and pension income can be thrown into a struggle if they mistakenly assumed there would be benefits, she said.
"It's critical to plan for the 'what-ifs,'" she said.
For those who never married, a change in health or mobility raises the burden and derails a retirement plan unless they have a roommate or a well-identified support network of friends or informal caregivers, Banning said.
"Remember," she said, "there are a few of our neighbors who choose not to remarry so they continue to receive financial benefits from prior spouses."
Then there are those who marry later in life. Sara Bouroudjian-Giusti, also a corporate employee, married four years ago at 41.
"The extra income definitely helped," she says. "But he is nine years older than I am, and I definitely want to retire with him. Plus, we have a 20-year mortgage to pay off.
"So we have lofty goals. Including $500,000 in a savings or investment plan."
They have a way to go, she acknowledges, as between them they have only $90,000.
"We have separate savings plans – pure procrastination – and a single account for paying household bills. Part of our plan is to provide for our long-term care."
Double-income retirement is better than single, she said. But everyone I talked to agrees they will be working longer (if possible) because they hope one day to retire.
There are no sure avenues to success.
Contact the writer: email@example.com | <urn:uuid:2786dda4-d93d-4c2c-8870-af11858675f4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ocregister.com/articles/single-374661-says-plan.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 | 0.972879 | 1,140 | 1.757813 | 2 |
MLK Teach-In Addresses Prison Reform, Political Prisoners
Invoking the words and ideals of Martin Luther King, Jr. and his 1966 visit to Wesleyan, a campus teach-in explored human rights issues related to prison reform and political prisoners.
Wesleyan to Honor Martin Luther King, Jr.
Illinois Wesleyan will celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day with a teach-in focused on prison reform and human rights, and the 23rd annual MLK Gospel Festival.
Burke's New Book Explores Difficult Dialogue on Race
In a new book, Racial Ambivalence in Diverse Communities: Whiteness and the Power of Color-Blind Ideologies, Assistant Professor of Sociology Meghan Burke grapples with the struggle for dialogue about race and racism.
Summer Enrichment Program Participants Honored
Twelve minority students participated in the Summer Enrichment Program, which involves formal professional training, an internship and social service project.
New Leadership for Multicultural Student Affairs
George E. Jackson, III is Illinois Wesleyan's new director of Multicultural Student Affairs, joining Tonya Daniel, the new assistant director.
Students Explore Race, Identity at Engaging Diversity Program
Some members of the incoming class will come to campus early for discussions and activities aimed at helping them meaningfully engage diversity while at Illinois Wesleyan.
Summer Reading Selection Explores Ethics, Race, Social Justice
New students will join the campus community in discussing issues raised in Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the 2012 Summer Reading Program selection.
International Office Supports Students Here & Abroad
With study abroad programs around the world and advising for international students at Illinois Wesleyan, the International Office fosters global education for the entire University.
Wesleyan Community Demonstrates Against Hate Crimes
Illinois Wesleyan faculty, staff and students gathered on the Eckley Quadrangle on Tuesday, March 27 to express disapproval of recent national events seen as hate crimes.
Wesleyan Forges New Ties With Moroccan University
Illinois Wesleyan has announced an agreement with Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco that includes a student exchange program beginning in the 2011-12 academic year.
Senior Receives ASIANetwork Honor
Chao Ren '11 won the ASIANetwork’s first annual Marianna McJimsey Award: 2011 Student Paper Competition for his work exploring the celebrated Bengali poet Tagore.
Alumnus Creates Opportunities for Latinos in Chicago
Although he's earned many accolades, for Juan Salgado '91 the real prize is his progress in creating educational and workforce opportunities for Latino communities in Chicago.
Alumnus Welcomes IWU Students to Barcelona Study Abroad Experience
Rich Kurtzman '98 directs the Barcelona Study Abroad Experience, which will partner with the Illinois Wesleyan Barcelona Program in the spring of 2011.
Senior Aims To Bring Lessons from South Africa to Chicago's South Side
First-generation college student Bianca Spratt '11 hopes to use what she learned in a hands-on study abroad experience to become a trailblazer in her Chicago neighborhood.
Robinson Chosen as Peace Fellow
Senior Gwen Robinson has been named the 2010 Peace Fellow at Illinois Wesleyan, and will focus her independent study on violence against women.
International Colloquium Bridges Cultures
A weeklong colloquium at Illinois Wesleyan, which brought scholars from Moscow to explore global experiences of childhood, stimulated the sharing of ideas across borders, languages and cultures.
New Program Engages Diversity at Illinois Wesleyan
A new Engaging Diversity Program offered first-year students the opportunity to have open conversations about race and identity, learning "being color blind is not the answer."
Student Wins Community Partnership Grant
Kristy Hosack '11 won a grant from the University's Action Research Center and State Farm Insurance, which she will use to support outreach efforts for Illinois Wesleyan's "Radio Latino" program on the campus radio station. | <urn:uuid:114d4eae-ef9c-427e-b452-09a8d96e74aa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.iwu.edu/diversity/News.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 | 0.902873 | 822 | 1.671875 | 2 |
A top United Nations envoy is in western Myanmar after an outbreak of religious violence that has left dozens dead.
Vijay Nambiar, UN chief Ban Ki-moon's special adviser on Myanmar, flew into Sittwe, the capital of restive Rakhine state, on Wednesday.
Nambiar will later visit Maungdaw -- on the border with Bangladesh -- where the latest spate of violence began on Friday.
"We're here to observe and assess how we can continue to provide support to Rakhine," Ashok Nigam, UN resident and humanitarian co-ordinator, told AFP news agency.
The UN has evacuated most of its foreign staff from Maungdaw, which is its main base in the state and has a large population of stateless Rohingya Muslims.
About 25 people have been killed and a further 41 people were wounded in five days of unrest, an official said.
That death toll does not include 10 Muslims who were killed on June 3 by a Buddhist mob in apparent revenge for the rape and murder of a woman, which started the violence in Rakhine.
Fleeing to Bangladesh
On Wednesday, New York-based Human Rights Watch urged Bangladesh to keep its border open to people seeking refuge from sectarian violence in western Myanmar.
The group said in a statement that Bangladesh should also allow independent humanitarian agencies free and unfettered access to the border areas.
It expressed its concern after Bangladesh on Tuesday turned away three boats carrying 1,000 Muslims fleeing violence in neighbouring Myanmar.
"By closing its border when violence ... is out of control, Bangladesh is putting lives at grave risk,'' said Bill Frelick, Refugee Program director at Human Rights Watch.
"Bangladesh has an obligation under international law to keep its border open to people fleeing threats to their lives and provide them protection," Frelick said.
It also urged other governments to provide humanitarian assistance and other support for the refugees. | <urn:uuid:9db1473d-3f23-4051-9a9b-459100366022> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-pacific/2012/06/201261345357676234.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96837 | 398 | 1.867188 | 2 |
In the summer of 2005 the district council of Reinickendorf approached the association with the question, if we would be interested in putting together a concept for the use of an operating theatre bunker located on the grounds of the Humboldthain hospital on Teichstrasse. Upon inspection of the site, it was clear that this was an extremely well preserved structure for its type. Members of the association then visited the responsible building authorities and found the plans for the area, which would be useful in an exhibition. The concept presented by the association, which was welcomed by the owners, envisioned using the structure for tours and an exhibition, which would document the history of the hospital grounds. A few months later we received the keys for the building, which first of all had to be cleaned. At first, other projects of the association hindered us for a time, so we were not able to put as much work in as we would have liked. Though on the 9th of December 2004, we were finally able to begin with the restoration work. With the addition of the bunker into the list of memorials on the 27th of April 2009, one of the most important project goals was accomplished, namely the permanent protection of the structure. | <urn:uuid:0651eca5-05dd-4517-b35d-4f38853f6a27> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://berliner-unterwelten.de/operating-theatre-bunker-on-teichstrasse.52.1.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988733 | 247 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Seachem PhosGuard 1 Liter container
PhosGuard rapidly removes phosphate and silicate from marine and freshwater aquaria. It is not recommended for phosphate buffered freshwater. PhosGuard is highly porous for high capacity and bead-shaped for optimum water flow. It outperforms all competing products.
Detailed description below:
Why It's Different
PhosGuard is spherical. Its shape allows for maximum water flow through the media. Granular phosphate removers can become compacted, dramatically limiting their capacity to remove phosphate. If the media can't come into contact with the water, it can't remove phosphate from it. PhosGuard is the only spherical phosphate remover on the market. ***Aluminum Oxide IS NOT REGENERABLE. No matter what anyone tells you, baking an aluminum oxide media does not restore its capacity to remove phosphate. This misconception comes from the product's original intended use: industrial air drying. Obviously, if a product absorbs moisture, the best way to remove that moisture is to bake it out. However, that only removes the water, not the contaminants contained in that water.***
Aluminum Oxide, Soluble Aluminum, and Coral Toxicity
In recent years, there has been speculation that aluminum oxide based phosphate removers like PhosGuard release aluminum into the water and subsequently damage corals. The evidence to support this claim was largely anecdotal.
So, through a series of controlled experiments in both freshwater and saltwater, we intended to address both the question of aluminum solubility and aluminum toxicity. The results of these experiments show that under reef conditions (pH near 8) there is no detectable soluble aluminum released from alumina. Under conditions of low pH and high dosage levels, soluble aluminum can be released from alumina; at three times the label dosage rate, we detected 0.2 mg/L aluminum at a pH of 5.3.
Additionally, aluminum oxide is not easily absorbed into the cell to cause negative reactions. Even at three times the dose of PhosGuard, soft-bodied corals such as Sarcophyton remain unaffected.
Directions for use
For best results, PhosGuard should be placed so as to maximize the flow of water through it. It may be used in a canister filter, box filter, or any high flow area of a trickle filter. In some situations it may be necessary to use in a filter bag. Use 250 mL (~1 cup) for every 300 L (75 gallons*). Leave product in place for 4 days, then test phosphate or silicate concentrations with either MultiTest: Phosphate or MultiTest: Silicate. If the concentration of the component you are trying to decrease has not dropped to around 0.02 mg/L, then replace the PhosGuard, otherwise leave in place until levels begin to climb again. As long as concentrations remain under control, the product is not exhausted. Each 500 mL of PhosGuard treats over 600 L (150 gallons*) (i.e. will remove up to 30 mg/L phosphate in 600 L (150 gallons*) of water, depending on the initial phosphate/silicate concentrations and the current biological load. Over treating is not recommended. PhosGuard is not an exchange resin, it does not release anything into the water. It does not leach phosphate or silicate back into the water and may be removed, dried, and returned to service until exhausted. Continuous use of small quantities is better than intermittent use of larger quantities.
May generate heat on initial contact with water. Pre-wet by adding to a double volume of freshwater (e.g. 250 mL of product in 500 mL water), followed by a rinse.
Availability: Usually Ships in 1 to 2 Business Days | <urn:uuid:f5669ff6-425e-4a27-860c-50779f4af9b2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ocreef.com/seachem_phosguard_1l?tab=desc | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.921156 | 763 | 1.90625 | 2 |
So, let me axe you something?
If you were a world famous and unique museum featuring ancient Minoan and Cretan artifacts, and in your collection had giant double headed axes of stupendous size—wouldn’t you include something in a photo of the artifacts for scale? Wouldn’t you provide the dimensions of the objects in the official descriptions of the artifact?
Is the fact that these ancient axes are much taller than a human being desciptions I’ve read about the artifacts, even the one from the museum housing them fails to provide that detail.
Now, the fact that these objects are very large, does not prove that they were wielded by giants; perhaps as the museum and other sources claim, they were just votive or worshipful objects. However, the fact that the size detail is often omitted and the objects shown without anything that could provide scale makes me slightly paranoid. We get a sense of their size primarily from tourist photographs.
In a ”prior article, Ted Twietmeyer wrote about giant sledgehammers that had been found in an ancient copper mine. Clearly those hammers were wielded by very large men for purposes that were anything but votive. The point is, the notion that giant implements were wielded by giants in the past has been demonstrated over over again–to the open minded.
Returning to the giant double headed axes from up to 1700 years before Christ; there are reasons to at least consider the idea that they could have been made to be used by men of large stature. That information follows. | <urn:uuid:495853f0-0335-4870-a8a8-80e6c2c9fe29> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://s8int.com/WordPress/tag/labrys/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98328 | 380 | 2 | 2 |
In response to teacher Devitta Baker’s online request, the USDA Food Safety Discovery Zone traveled to Gwynn Park Middle School in Brandywine, Maryland this past Tuesday. From 8:30 a.m. until noon, the Discovery Zone staff taught 132 students and 16 teachers and parents how to Clean, Separate, Cook, and Chill—just in time to use their new food safety knowledge at lunch.
The favorite feature for the Gwynn Park Middle Schoolers was the Food Safety Wheel Game, and the visit was considered a huge success despite some early doubt among the students. One student commented, “I didn’t think I was going to like it, but I learned about bacteria and it was fun!”
The fun continued the following day for the Discovery Zone staff as they reached out to consumers at the Shoppers Food Warehouse at Vista Gardens Marketplace in Bowie, Maryland. Before the exhibit was fully set up until the very last minute before closing, shoppers wandered over to see what the “big yellow truck” was all about. Hundreds of families, with children big and small, visited the Discovery Zone and tried their luck at the Food Safety Wheel Game. Those who correctly answered Be Food Safe questions won reusable grocery bags provided by Shoppers.
The FSDZ looks forward to its trip to the 71st annual Arkansas State Fair on October 16. From 11:00 a.m. until 7:00 p.m., CDT, food safety fun will be provided at the largest and most visited entertainment event in the Natural State. For Arkansans unable to make the fair, the Discovery Zone will also be stopping at the Kroger store located at 2509 McCain Blvd., North Little Rock, Arkansas, from 11:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. CDT on October 17.
Educators, grocery store owners, and anyone else concerned about food safety awareness can request a visit from the USDA Food Safety Discovery Zone here. If you don’t get a chance to see the exhibit yourself, you can still follow its travels via Facebook and Twitter. | <urn:uuid:59a53de9-fff1-4394-90da-ad280b5d8c4b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.usda.gov/2010/10/14/students-shoppers-surprised-that-food-safety-can-be-%E2%80%9Cfun%E2%80%9D/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961695 | 432 | 2.203125 | 2 |
|Art and Democracy Film Series presents "War Child"|
The Institute for Philosophy in Public Life will be presenting the film "War Child" 7 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 27, at the Empire Arts Center. This event is free and open to the public.
Hip hop artist Emmanuel Jal, a former child soldier in Sudan’s brutal civil war, was “forced to sin” but determined to “never give up and never give in.” Today, wounded but still hopeful, he fights a new battle: bringing peace to his beloved Sudan and building schools in Africa. This time, his weapon is a microphone. See why audiences from New York to Berlin to London rave about the award-winning film, War Child, and have embraced the hip-hop artist with a terrifying past and a gentle soul. See the trailer at http://www.warchildmovie.com/.
-- Chelsea Stone, IPPL Student Intern, Institute for Philosophy in Public Life, email@example.com, 789-1415 | <urn:uuid:73762547-ad07-43e7-8bd1-25e749bd8c84> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www2.und.edu/our/uletterArchive/print_article.php?uletterID=7850 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929723 | 219 | 1.609375 | 2 |
ATTENTION: College offices closed for business through Jan. 1. More.
Mid Year Discussion
The Mid-Year Progress Discussion (MYD), is a meeting between a supervisor and an employee that takes place between December and January at the mid-point of the performance year. Its purpose is for both the supervisor and the employee to review the Planning Guide and ensure that every employee is on track to be successful in meeting performance goals and expectations by the end of the performance year. Progress toward accomplishments and challenges should be documented for each key responsibility, competency and goal. Based on these discussions, changes or revisions can be made to goals and standards if conditions or priorities have changed.
Additional benefits include:
- Comparing perceptions about performance and resolving any differences
- Clarifying standards of performance and expectations
- Identifying areas where problems or challenges exist or are emerging, and providing an opportunity to correct them before the end of the review period
- Recognizing accomplishments and reviewing documentation
- Providing specific feedback on performance outcomes and behaviors
- Ensuring goals will be accomplished
- Identifying areas where professional development might be needed
While only one performance progress discussion is required to be documented during the performance year, the key to the success in any working relationship is effective two-way communication and feedback. It is expected that beyond the Mid-Year Progress Discussion there are many other formal and less formal conversations occurring throughout the year. This is what constitutes the coaching process.
It is important for both the employee and supervisor to document examples of how an employee meets and does not meet expectations for the various components of the Planning Guide and any successes or barriers. This information will be useful when it is time to complete the annual review.
Changes to the Planning Guide can be made at the Mid-Year Discussion by the supervisor. Once the Mid-Year Discussion is completed in COOL it needs to be marked complete so the information will then populate the Annual Performance Review. | <urn:uuid:c0996887-5429-41e5-94a5-a20502af234e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cscc.edu/about/hcd/performs/midyear.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945612 | 394 | 2.15625 | 2 |
To view an abstract, select an author from the vertical list on the left.
2011 Grants - Kiosses
Home-Delivered Intervention for Depression in Alzheimer's Disease
Dimitris N. Kiosses, Ph.D.
Joan & Sanford I. Weill Medical College of Cornell University
White Plains, New York
2011 Investigator-Initiated Research Grant
Depression is common among elderly individuals, and is especially common among those with Alzheimer's disease. Currently available drug therapies for depression are effective in fewer than half of affected persons who have both Alzheimer's disease and depression. Among those with Alzheimer's disease living at home, supportive therapy is one approach that has been used to alleviate depression.
Dimitiris N. Kiosses, Ph.D. and colleagues have proposed a clinical trial to compare supportive therapy for depression with a new approach known as Problem Adaptation Therapy (PATH). PATH focuses on both the individual and the environment, including caregivers' services and the home setting. It addresses behavioral problems associated with both depression and limitations in the individual's ability to perform normal activities of daily living.
For the clinical trial, elderly persons with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease, depression and limitations in their activities of daily living will be randomized to typical supportive care or to PATH for a period of 12 weeks. The trial will determine which approach is best at reducing symptoms of depression and increasing the individual's and caregiver's abilities to perform common daily tasks. Both treatment approaches will be provided by trained social workers. This study will answer important questions about the best way to reduce depression and improve functioning in persons with Alzheimer's disease and depression. | <urn:uuid:8c7ddd30-899c-4f64-9ac4-86dcd34e9577> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.alz.org/research/alzheimers_grants/for_researchers/overview-2011.asp?grants=2011Kiosses | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938244 | 334 | 1.820313 | 2 |
President Obama's speech in Cairo yesterday was an attempt to
create deeper understanding between Americans and Muslims
throughout the world. However, the feel-good impact of the speech
is unlikely to last long or significantly change opinions about
America among those who oppose U.S. policies in the Middle East and
Many Muslims were receptive to President Obama's efforts to
demonstrate respect for Muslims and to stress common values. But
Obama missed an opportunity to clearly identify the common enemy:
Islamist extremists. Instead, he spoke of "violent extremists,"
shied away from using the term Islamist, and glossed over
terrorism, which continues to be a threat not only to Americans but
to Muslims as well.
A New Beginning with Muslims
President Obama called for a "new beginning" in U.S.--Muslim
relations based on "mutual interest and mutual respect." He
recognized the important contributions made by Muslims in arts,
sciences, mathematics, philosophy, and medicine and pledged to
fight against negative stereotypes of Muslims.
He also emphasized the need for more tolerance and the
safeguarding of diversity in Muslim-majority countries. He noted
the importance of protecting religious freedom for minorities and
suggested that Muslims need to be mindful of one another's
differences. He was also right to emphasize the importance of
The President also highlighted the success of Muslims in
America, noting that people from all races, creeds, and religions
have opportunity in America. But he should have gone further to
make the point that this is possible because of the rule of law and
democratic checks on authority.
It was also important that he talked about the founding
principles of America. This should happen more often in our public
diplomacy. It is much more productive than trying to promote
popular American culture as an instrument of public diplomacy,
which is a losing proposition.
He could have been more explicit, however, about non-violent
Islamist extremism and the dangers it poses to individual freedom
and religious liberty. He addressed it indirectly by expressing the
U.S. commitment to democratic values, but he should have provided
more moral support for Muslims around the world who are themselves
fighting against such ideologies.
By avoiding using the word Islamist, he is downplaying
the ideological underpinnings for terrorism and oppression. Obama
is right that we should not equate terrorism with the religion of
Islam, but we also need to be ready to engage in the battle of
ideas and be clear when Islamist ideologies contradict the ideals
of individual freedom and religious liberty.
Missteps on the Arab--Israeli Conflict
and Other Middle East Challenges
President Obama shared his personal experience of living in a
Muslim-majority country and sought to connect the civil rights
movement in the U.S. with the Palestinians' struggle for an
independent state. The problem with this comparison is the
Unlike the struggle for civil rights in America, there are
significant extremist and sometimes violent movements in the
Palestinian territories and broader Middle East dedicated to
Israel's destruction. This makes for a much more treacherous
problem. Establishing an independent Palestinian state is not
likely the end of Israel's existential insecurity. In fact, such a
state could pose a much more severe threat to Israel's security if
it reverts to terrorism and allies itself to Iran or other hostile
Moreover, President Obama also failed to make the point that
Muslims living in Israel have more civil rights and freedoms than
Muslims living under Hamas repression.
Obama also grossly understated the threat posed by Hamas to
Israel and to Palestinians themselves. He vaguely talked about
Hamas as if it is just another political party, without
acknowledging its revolutionary Islamist ideology, which rejects
not only peace negotiations but Israel's very existence.
And he echoed the Arab narrative in talking about "occupation"
and "humiliation" without mentioning the Arab attacks on Israel
that triggered repeated wars and the Palestinian terrorism that has
sabotaged past peace efforts. The Arabs could have created a
Palestinian state after 1948 but did not. Jordan occupied the West
Bank and Egypt occupied Gaza.
By raising Muslim expectations of a rapid movement to a peace
settlement that downplays Israel's security requirements and the
threat of continued terrorism, the President may be creating the
conditions for a dangerous backlash if these hopes are
Terrorism and the refusal to accept Israel's existence--not
Israeli settlements--are the chief obstacles to peace. In Israel,
the speech is likely to be perceived as an attempt to appease
Muslims at Israel's expense. There will be growing concern that the
Obama Administration is giving short shrift to Israel's security
needs and underplaying the threat of terrorism.
Iraq and Iran
Obama also criticized the Bush Administration's decision to go
to war in Iraq, calling it "a war of choice," without mentioning
that Saddam Hussein stubbornly failed to respond to several years
of multilateral diplomacy and instead chose to flout 16 U.N.
Security Council resolutions. If the U.S. had not led a coalition
to enforce those resolutions, Saddam's regime today would still be
systematically repressing and murdering Iraqis, threatening Iraq's
neighbors, and disrupting the peace and security of the Middle
President Obama also broke from past American foreign policy by
taking a very soft line on the threat posed by Iran's nuclear
weapons program and its strong support for terrorism. He repeated
his offer to engage Iran without preconditions and even went out of
his way to become the first sitting President to admit that the
U.S. played a role in overthrowing Iran's Mossadegh regime in 1953,
thereby implicitly vindicating the narrative of Iran's Islamist
revolutionaries. While this may earn the President some personal
popularity, it is unclear, to say the least, how this advances
American national interests in Iran or the Middle East.
Al-Qaeda Attempts to Upstage Obama
Al-Qaeda failed in its attempt to upstage the Obama speech.
Releasing two successive tapes this week, one on Tuesday by
al-Zawahiri and one on Wednesday purportedly recorded by Osama bin
Laden, al-Qaeda sought to portray Obama as an enemy of the Muslim
world who was sowing hatred among the Muslim community,
particularly with regard to U.S. policies toward Pakistan.
The videos demonstrate that al-Qaeda is worried about Obama's
ability to appeal to the Muslim community and is desperately
searching for ways to blunt his ability to do so. Al-Qaeda is
focusing its efforts on Pakistan, where U.S. policies are often
blamed for the rash of suicide bombings in the country over the
last two years.
Al-Qaeda may have erred by mentioning the situation in the Swat
Valley, however, since the Pakistani public has recently galvanized
behind the Pakistani military operations to oust the Taliban from
the region. Pakistanis are increasingly viewing the Taliban as
malevolent actors seeking to undermine the Pakistani state and its
Greater Clarity Needed
The al-Qaeda messages aimed at denigrating Obama's speech are a
reminder of the very real threat posed by a common nihilistic
enemy. In future speeches, President Obama should outline how the
U.S. and Muslims can cooperate to defeat that enemy.
Obama will also eventually have to address issues related to
Islamist ideologies that contradict ideals of individual freedom
and religious liberty. Speaking with greater clarity and authority
and devising a broader public diplomacy strategy to take them on is
necessary to counter the intellectual underpinnings and
justification for the terrorism and oppression that continues to
emanate from some Muslim countries.
Lisa Curtis is Senior
Research Fellow for South Asia in the Asian Studies Center and James Phillips is Senior
Research Fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs in the Douglas and Sarah
Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, a division of the
Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International
Studies, at The Heritage Foundation. | <urn:uuid:2674c515-6001-412b-a882-b864a9486d91> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2009/06/obamas-cairo-speech-stresses-common-interests-but-fails-to-identify-the-common-enemy | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943209 | 1,678 | 2.453125 | 2 |
The Hult International Business School and its annual Hult Global Case Challenge were selected by former U.S. President Bill Clinton in a Time magazine as one of the “top five ideas changing the world.”
The cover story of the October issue of the monthly magazine, Clinton highlights programs in the fields of technology, health, green energy, female equality and justice. Hult Global Case Challenge was identified for bringing together many cultures to problem solve the world’s biggest issues. Clinton writes:>
“My last example of why I’m optimistic concerns one of my favorite partnerships, the Hult International Business School and its annual Hult Global Case Challenge. Each year the school joins with leading NGOs to pose a series of real global social challenges, and teams of four or five university students from around the world compete to find the best solution. The NGO partners then receive seed funding for implementing the winning ideas through a $1 million cash grant.
One of the winners this year was from the Abu Dhabi campus of New York University, and the team was four students: one from India, one from Pakistan, one from China and one from Taiwan. When they came onstage to receive their award and pose for a picture, I asked them, ‘Are you sure you guys want this in the local paper?’ And they said, in various ways, ‘We are so over this.’ The differences between India and Pakistan over Kashmir are real, as are the tensions between China and Taiwan, but these students are living 10 years from now. They have something to look forward to, and they set a wonderful example for the rest of us to follow.“.
The complete article can be read at Time‘s World website.
The Hult Global Case Challenge is the brain-child of Hult MBA ’09 Ahmad Ashkar. Open to students worldwide, on-campus and online, the Challenge asks competitors to provide a business solution to global problems. The winning project earns $1 million in seed money to put the project into play through one of Hult’s three non-profit partners in the education, energy, and housing sectors. This year, Carnegie Mellon, Hult International Business School and New York University-Abu Dhabi were awarded as winners in the education, housing and energy categories, respectively.
–Alanna Stage, @AlannaTweets | <urn:uuid:81439bfa-e861-40f1-ba3b-fe7009caff63> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.onlinemba.com/blog/hult-global-case-challenge-receives-presidential-praise/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954939 | 489 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Last DSIRE Review: 10/08/2012
|Eligible Renewable/Other Technologies:
||Solar Water Heat, Solar Space Heat, Solar Thermal Electric, Solar Thermal Process Heat, Photovoltaics, Landfill Gas, Wind, Biomass, Solar Pool Heating, Anaerobic Digestion, Renewable Fuels
||Commercial, Industrial, Local Government
|Amount:||100% abatement of Michigan Business Tax*, state education tax, personal and real property taxes, and local income taxes|
|Maximum Incentive:||None |
|Terms:||Tax abatements last up to 15 years, phased out in 25% increments over last 3 years |
MCL § 125.2681 et seq.|
07/12/2006 (subsequently amended)
In 2006, Michigan enacted legislation allowing for the creation of Renewable Energy Renaissance Zones (RERZ). Renaissance zones offer significant tax benefits to facilities located within their boundaries. Facilities within a renaissance zone do not pay the Michigan Business Tax*, state education tax, personal and real property taxes, or local income taxes (where applicable). These taxes may be abated for up to 15 years, with the abatements being phased out in 25% increments over the last three years of the zone designation. For residents of renaissance zones designated before 2012, taxpayers are exempt from paying certain income taxes, if they have been a resident of the renaissance zone for 183 consecutive days.
For the purposes of renaissance zone designation, “renewable energy facility” means a facility that creates energy, fuels, or chemicals directly from the wind, the sun, trees, grasses, biosolids, algae, agricultural commodities, processed products from agricultural commodities, or residues from agricultural processes, wood or forest processes, food production and processing, or the paper products industry. Renewable energy facility also includes a facility that creates energy, fuels, or chemicals from solid biomass, animal wastes, or landfill gases. Renewable energy facility also includes a facility that focuses on research, development, or manufacturing of systems or components of systems used to create energy, fuel, or chemicals from the items described in this subdivision. Renewable energy facility also includes a facility that focuses on research, development, or manufacturing of systems or components of systems that involve the conversion of chemical energy for advanced battery technology.
The original law allowed for the designation of up to 10 RERZs, but a 2008 amendment expanded the number to 15 and added a requirement that at least 5 of the zones focus primarily on the production of cellulosic biofuels. In order to have an area designated as an RERZ, a county or community must submit an application to the Michigan Strategic Fund Board (MSF). Renaissance zone designations are approved by the Michigan State Administrative Board based upon recommendations from the Michigan Strategic Fund (MSF). Evaluations will be made based on local economic impacts, job creation, project viability, and other relevant criteria. Renaissance zones must be one distinct, continuous geographic area and must be supported by a tax abatement resolution from the city, village, or township in which the facility is located.
Interested communities and businesses are encouraged to contact the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) to discuss potential projects in detail.
* Public Act 38 of 2011 repealed the Michigan Business Tax (MBT) and implemented the Corporate Income Tax (CIT). Public Act 39 was passed in conjunction with the CIT and allows for credits awarded under the MBT to be retained for the duration of the agreements. Businesses receiving certain credits, including Renaissance Zone credits, may choose to either continue to file under the MBT to continue claiming their credits, or file under the CIT. No additional Renaissance Zone credits will be awarded after 2011. | <urn:uuid:b53b683b-c1b5-4e16-943f-bc5883fffca7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dsireusa.org/incentives/incentive.cfm?Incentive_Code=MI21F&re=1&ee=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.910597 | 775 | 1.867188 | 2 |
The federal and New South Wales governments have reached an agreement about how to fund the National Disability Insurance Scheme, with each agreeing to pay for the scheme, 50-50.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard told reporters in Canberra on Thursday that NSW had been the first state to reach an agreement on how to support the NDIS in the long-term.
''What it means is the Commonwealth and the state will share around half of the burden,'' she said.
The announcement comes ahead of tomorrow's Council of Australian Government meeting where the NDIS is expected to be discussed, along with electricity prices and green tape.
Ms Gillard said that when the full scheme is up and running in 2018, the federal government would pay 51.4 per cent of the costs at $3.319 billion. The NSW government will pick up the remaining costs, putting in $3.133 billion.
"I do want to reinforce that this deal now sets the benchmark,'' Ms Gillard said, later noting that other states and territories would not be getting a better deal.
NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell said the deal was not just fair but necessary for people with disabilities and their carers.
"This gives them the guarantee they've always deserved,'' he said on Thursday.
Following the last COAG meeting in August, NSW and the federal government agreed upon a trial site for the NDIS in the Hunter Region. | <urn:uuid:be5e0d04-497c-4dd0-8045-8292e170472b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.examiner.com.au/story/1169021/gillard-reaches-agreement-with-nsw-on-disability-scheme-funding/?cs=12 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965082 | 286 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Never before has grinding poverty had such a shiny silver lining. At least that is how the 600 corn farmers who inhabit the remote mountain hamlet of Luotuowan in north China are feeling in the weeks since Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping (習近平) dropped by to showcase their deprivation.
With a gaggle of local Chinese Communist Party (CCP) chiefs and photographers in tow, Xi ducked into ramshackle farmhouses, patted dirt-smudged children on the head and, with little prompting, nibbled on a potato plucked from Tang Rongbin’s (唐榮斌) twig-fueled cooking fire.
“It was as if we had met Mao [Zedong (毛澤東)],” said a still-incredulous Tang, 69, who shares a bed with five family members.
The visit to the village in Hebei Province, broadcast on national television, was meant to highlight Xi’s concern for China’s rural poor. However, it was also an important propaganda flourish intended to burnish the new leader’s “bona fides” as an empathetic man of the people.
“I want to know how rural life is here,” he said at one point as the camera lingered on the unvarnished details of the Tang family’s poverty: a single light bulb, a tattered straw ceiling, a huddle of grimy pots and mounds of detritus. “I want to see real life.”
However, for all Xi’s celebrity wattage, the real manna began to rain down on Luotuowan after he and his entourage left. Money, quilts and pledges of government help have been pouring in from across the country. The government arranged for each household to receive US$160 in cash, a bottle of cooking oil and a sack of rice, a precious commodity where corn gruel and corn cakes are often the main course.
That was just the beginning. A businessman from China’s northeast was so moved by Luotuowan’s suffering that he drove 804.7km with more cash and a carload of flat-screen televisions. A government work crew whitewashed the village’s stone walls, adding a band of turquoise paint for good measure.
Then came the government researchers, who were instructed to solve Luotuowan’s intractable poverty, perhaps by pursuing Xi’s suggestion that, with outside expertise, “the people can make yellow soil into gold.”
However, whether the official visit by Xi, who was recently named CCP general secretary and is scheduled to be anointed president in March, will have a lasting impact on this isolated community — much less others like it — remains to be seen. The average per capita income in the village, about US$160 a year, is less than half the official threshold for poverty, and it is a tiny fraction of the average urban income of slightly less than US$4,000. Most young people have long since fled for jobs in distant cities.
The challenge to lift up impoverished backwaters like Luotuowan is a daunting one for the CCP, which has vowed to address a yawning wealth gap that some experts say threatens social stability, perhaps even the party’s hold on power. Although official statistics released this month suggested that income inequality has eased in recent years, many outside analysts say it has actually gotten worse, making China among the world’s most unequal societies.
In China’s rural hinterland, where half the nation’s 1.3 billion people live, incomes are, on average, less than a third of those in cities. During the party’s 18th National Congress in November last year that elevated Xi, Chinese leaders pledged to double per-capita incomes by 2020.
“The most arduous and heavy task facing China in completing the building of a moderately prosperous society is in rural areas, especially poverty-stricken regions,” Xi said during his visit to Luotuowan, which is 289.7km from Beijing.
Tang, at least, seemed convinced that Xi’s visit would somehow drastically improve their lives.
“We have to believe something good will come of this,” Tang said. “Otherwise, why would the party secretary have come all the way here?”
Asked what the government had done before Xi’s visit, he paused and shook his head.
“Not much,” he said.
Indeed, given China’s rampant corruption, another big question surrounding the anti-poverty campaign, announced a few days after Xi’s visit, is how much of the additional US$40 million that provincial authorities will funnel to Luotuowan and other villages in the surrounding county of Fuping next year will actually reach those in need.
While Chinese leaders certainly inhabit a cosseted world, tradition — and the tenets of good public relations — dictate that they occasionally mingle with the masses. According to popular lore, emperors would remove their dragon robes and venture out of the Forbidden City to see how their subjects were faring.
Mao’s choreographed rural tours were less successful, in part because the officials who arranged them often shielded him from peasant suffering, most notably during a famine, the result of an ill-conceived industrialization push, that began in the late 1950s and killed tens of millions.
“Every leader has their own way of doing it, but these days, they are surrounded by TV cameras,” said Lei Yi (雷頤), a historian at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶), who is affectionately known as Grandpa Wen, played well to the cameras as he consoled victims of natural disasters or donned an apron to stuff dumplings alongside ordinary Chinese during the Lunar New Year holiday.
In contrast, Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤), who is scheduled to leave office in March, often comes off as wooden. It did not help that some of his encounters were poorly planned or clumsily staged. Two years ago, after he sought to spotlight the nation’s low-income housing program by visiting the apartment of a beneficiary, Internet sleuths accused the woman of living elsewhere and renting out the apartment for a US$300 monthly profit.
Despite her tearful denials to the state news media, the episode proved to be a public-relations debacle for Hu.
Xi, who is known as a “princeling” because of his pedigree as the son of a revolutionary hero, often displays a natural ease in the company of farmers and factory workers. Recently, party propagandists have worked hard to polish his image as a “secretary of the people.”
In a lengthy profile published last month, Xinhua news agency lingered on his years as a “sent-down youth” during the Cultural Revolution, when he lived in exile among the cave-dwelling inhabitants of a village in Shaanxi Province.
Once he became inured to the fleas and the arduous labor Xi helped transform the villagers’ lives by organizing a cooperative for blacksmiths and building a methane collection tank Xinhua said.
“He arrived in the village as a slightly lost teenager and left as a 22-year-old man determined to do something for the people,” Xinhua said.
Xi’s arrival in Luotuowan late last month appears to have been relatively impromptu. Tang said he got only a half-hour warning that China’s most powerful official was arriving, although the village party chief, Gu Rongjin (顧榮金), said he had a week’s notice.
A jovial, gravel-voiced man, Gu, 60, says he lost count of the Chinese journalists, agricultural advisers and antipoverty specialists who have descended on the village in recent weeks.
“In the beginning, I was getting calls at 2 in the morning,” he said over dinner at the large guesthouse he and his wife operate during the summer.
Some of the experts have proposed turning Luotuowan’s stony fields into walnut groves or ginseng farms; one ominously suggested that residents clear out so the area, which is surrounded by breathtakingly craggy mountains, can be developed as an eco-tourist destination.
“Once the weather warms up, the development will begin,” Gu said with gusto.
Down the road, Tang and his wife, Gu Baoqing (顧寶青), proudly re-enacted how Xi sat on their communal bed, legs crossed, and asked about their daily struggles, including details of Tang’s untreated ailments, including circulation problems and heart disease.
“He had none of those officialdom airs,” his wife said.
To their surprise, a doctor from Beijing arrived a few days later and drove Tang to a hospital in the capital. He returned home with a bottle of medication, which he boasted costs about as much as he makes in a year.
However, one detail tempered Tang’s elation: The complimentary pills would last only a month. Asked what he would do when they ran out, he seemed perplexed.
“I guess I’ll just go without,” he said. | <urn:uuid:e7402d59-78e1-4169-8f83-06ab17bed543> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/print/2013/01/31/2003553850 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975712 | 2,026 | 2.375 | 2 |
FROM THE PASTOR – August 16, 2009
As human beings, we are social animals. We are “hard wired” for community. We see this at the beginning of the book of Genesis when the Lord God, having molded Adam out of clay and breathed life into him, looks at the first man and declares: “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a suitable partner for him” (2:18). God then proceeds to fashion – also from clay – “various wild animals and various birds of the air” (v. 19) and to let the man name them; but “none prove[s] to be [a] suitable partner for the man” (v. 20). So God puts Adam into a deep sleep, extracts one of the man’s ribs, and builds it up into the first woman. “When God [brings] her to the man, the man [says]: ‘This one, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh’” (vv. 22-23).
The problem in the modern “civilized” West is that we seem almost to have forgotten our communal nature and all that it implies. We have become so focused on individual rights and freedoms that we sometimes forget that “my” choices have an impact on others. So, for instance, we want more and more services from local, state, and national governments; but we don’t expect to have to fund those services through our tax dollars. Also, many of our neighbors proclaim themselves to be “spiritual, not religious” – I suspect because membership in a church means that one will be expected to contribute one’s time, talent, and treasure. Affiliation with an organized church also means having to rub elbows with real people, many of whom I may not particularly like; and it may mean having to struggle with certain church teachings and positions which I disagree with, or which at least make me uncomfortable.
Ironically, our unfettered individualism nudges us more and more toward increased isolation and loneliness. Anthropologists of speech argue that we talk about and yearn for community and connectedness in direct proportion to our progressive loss of any sense of how to achieve those things. Yet participation in a culture – i.e., a system of shared meaning – remains essential to rooting us and grounding us and giving us a sense of security and identity. It was John Donne – poet and Anglican priest of the late 16th and early 17th centuries – who affirmed our common nature and our shared mortality when he wrote, in his Meditation XVII: “No man is an island, entire of itself…any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”
Lucky for Donne, he lived in an age when that all seemed much clearer. We denizens of post-modernity are far more apt to wonder whether as humans, we really are like one another in any meaningful sense. We wonder, for instance, if there really is a “Mr. or Ms. Right” out there for me; we wonder, in fact, if anyone really can or will ever truly “get” me. Perhaps we are tempted to escape by distracting ourselves, believing that we have “no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry” (Ecclesiastes 8:15, KJV). Scratch the surface deeply enough, however, and the old communal nature will still reveal itself.
I learned this in my own life through a particularly powerful human experience which I shared with strangers. I was working on the staff of a summer family retreat program; and one day a week, it was part of our routine to pack the participating families into vans and transport them to a lake in a nearby state park for an afternoon of swimming and relaxing on the beach. All was going well until I noticed the lifeguards walking along, speaking quietly in turn to each adult they came to. When they reached me, they explained that a small boy – maybe five or six years old, as I remember it – had gone missing. They were asking for adults to volunteer to join hands in a human chain and to slowly walk the entire roped off swimming area to be sure that the boy was not under water somewhere – unconscious or worse.
And so, we did. We joined hands and walked side by side through the murky water, feeling our way in front of us with our feet. I recall vividly that absolute silence reigned while we did this – not only among us who were part of the chain, but also among all those observing from the beach, from oldest grandmother down to youngest toddler. It was solemn work, imbued with a strong sense of shared purpose. We had a clear sense that together we were more effective than any one or two of us could ever have been alone. At the same time, we held our collective breaths – searchers and observers alike – hoping against hope that no one of us would step on anything other than sand or seaweed. And you certainly could feel the collective exhale of relief when our search turned up nothing.
Suddenly we all found ourselves chattering with the strangers next to us as if we were old friends, releasing our nervous energy, comforting the family, and so on. Thanks be to God, the little boy showed up shortly afterwards – I don’t exactly remember, but I think he had wandered off in search of a restroom or some such thing. Anyway, everyone applauded and cheered. We all rejoiced with the family, as if the child had been our own; and in some way, maybe he was. Isn’t that the point? “No longer strangers,” says a contemporary hymn by my friend, Catholic singer-songwriter David Haas. “No longer lost and alone. No longer strangers – now we are saints! We are one in the love of the Lord!”
©2009 Fr. Daniel M. Ruff, S.J. | <urn:uuid:9f0d6618-ca80-45ca-972e-f1e48774a8fd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://oldstjoseph.org/blog/?p=228 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975675 | 1,284 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Maths in a minute — geodesic domes
The dramatic curved surfaces of some of the iconic buildings created in the last decade, such as 30 St Mary's Axe (AKA the Gherkin) in London, are only logistically and economically possible thanks to mathematics. Curved panels of glass or other material are expensive to manufacture and to fit. Surprisingly, the curved surface of the Gherkin has been created almost entirely out of flat panels of glass — the only curved piece is the cap on the very top of the building. And simple geometry is all that is required to understand how.
One way of approximating a curved surface using flat panels is using the concept of geodesic domes and surfaces. A geodesic is just a line between two points that follows the shortest possible distance — on the earth the geodesic lines are great circles, such as the lines of longitude or the routes aircraft use for long distances. A geodesic dome is created from a lattice of geodesics that intersect to cover the curved surface with triangles. The mathematician Buckminster Fuller perfected the mathematical ideas behind geodesic domes and hoped that their properties — greater strength and space for minimum weight — might be the future of housing.
To try to build a sphere out of flat panels, such as a geodesic sphere, you first need to imagine an icosahedron (a polyhedron made up of 20 faces that are equilateral triangles) sitting just inside your sphere, so that the points of the icosahedron just touch the sphere's surface. An icosahedron, with its relatively large flat sides, isn't going to fool anyone into thinking it's curved. You need to use smaller flat panels and a lot more of them.
Divide each edge of the icosahedron in half, and join the points, dividing each of the icosahedron's faces into 4 smaller triangles. Projecting the vertices of these triangles onto the sphere (pushing them out a little til they two just touch the sphere's surface) now gives you a polyhedron with 80 triangular faces (which are no longer equilateral triangles) that gives a much more convincing approximation of the curved surface of the sphere. You can carry on in this way, dividing the edges in half and creating more triangular faces, until the surface made up of flat triangles is as close to a curved surface as you would like.
You can read more about geodesic domes on Wikipedia and about Buckminster Fuller on the MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive. And you can read more about the Gherkin, geodesics, engineering and architecture on Plus. | <urn:uuid:d8d61044-9648-4b0f-9bc2-48e777da0907> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://plus.maths.org/content/maths-minute-%E2%80%94-geodesic-domes | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951355 | 547 | 4.1875 | 4 |
By Gillian Fawcett, head of public sector, ACCA
ACCA’s fourth International Public Sector Conference ‘Rebalancing the economy – boosting growth’ held on 13 December 2012 focused on what the future holds for the public sector and how to account for it.
In a time when sovereign debt issues are prominent around the world and the measures taken to resolve the crisis have been described as no more than dispensing a ‘financial aspirin’, the conference provided a timely opportunity to consider how the economy can be rebalanced and how public services can help boost growth. You can view webcasts of the conference to find out more about what a range of high profile speakers had to say on the state of the economy, sustainable public finances and financial reporting.
- Carl Emmerson, deputy director, Institute of Fiscal Studies
- Gary Gillespie, director and chief economist for Scotland’s government
- Mario Marcel, deputy director of the Public Governance and Territorial Development Directorate, OECD
- Fabian Zuleeg, chief economist, European Policy Centre
- Brian Quinn, director, Loan Department, World Bank
- Richard Hughes, economist, IMF
- Alexandre Makaronidis, head of unit – GFS quality management and government accounting at DG Eurostat.
The first half of the conference focused on the economic outlook and trends. We heard from Emmerson that we are in for eight more years of financial pain. Quinn stated that liquidity drying up and the on-going lack of confidence is having a lasting knock on effect. He went on to highlight that inadequate government financial reporting practices have contributed to the depth and longevity of the current downturn. However, he pointed to a ray of hope as governments are beginning to re-examine their financial reporting practices.
The second part of the day focused on how to re-build an effective economy, introduce greater transparency of public spending and explore how public services can contribute to boosting economic growth, both internationally and at local levels. Hughes set the scene by highlighting the importance of fiscal transparency providing clarity and reliability to the public of the government’s fiscal policy-making process. All expectations are that the crisis will be lasting, so we need the best possible information about the state of government finances.
Overall, it was positive to see finance professionals, economists and statisticians sharing views on and thoughts on how best to deal with the economic crisis and put public services on a sure footing! | <urn:uuid:3dd03b2c-514c-4ae6-ac3c-cb46fc69456d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.accaglobal.com/2013/01/09/review-accas-fourth-international-public-sector-conference/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=c1c9c39881 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940264 | 501 | 1.5 | 2 |
State-run media, meanwhile, said government forces killed scores of 'terrorists' outside Damascus. The government routinely uses the term to describe opposition fighters, though members of Jabhat al-Nusra -- which the United States calls a terrorist group -- have reportedly joined the rebels in fighting.
In neighboring Turkey, a U.S. ship carrying Patriot air defense systems landed Wednesday at Iskenderun Port, according to the semi-official Anadolu Agency.
The spokesman for the Turkish general staff, Major Cengiz Alabacak, said that the systems would be deployed in the southeastern province of Gaziantep and would be operational by the middle of February.
NATO foreign ministers decided in December to deploy the batteries after Syria launched Scud missiles near the Turkish border. In October, errant Syrian artillery shells hit the Turkish border town of Akcakale.
The first of six Patriot missile batteries intended to protect Turkey from Syrian threats is operational along the countries' shared border, NATO said Saturday.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said this month that the missile batteries will stay only as long as there is a threat.
The Syrian crisis started nearly two years ago, when President Bashar al-Assad's forces cracked down on civilians peacefully protesting government policies.
The violence led to an armed uprising and escalated into a civil war, with al-Assad trying to defend four decades of family rule against rebels demanding his ouster.
But with neither side showing any indication of backing down, it's unclear how many more thousands of civilians may die. | <urn:uuid:6f33333c-2792-40fe-96b3-e09cebf8afc0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ktvz.com/news/World-push-for-1-5-billion-in-aid-for-Syria/-/413192/18333828/-/item/1/-/yga6yt/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956643 | 319 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Fat-soluble VITAMINS like vitamins A, D, and E that are processed as water-soluble emulsions. While not true solutions, emulsions consist of microscopic particles uniformly dispersed and stabilized so that oil and water do not separate. Like FAT, these vitamins are normally
insoluble in water. Emulsified fat-soluble vitamins are absorbed directly by intestinal cells. Emulsifica-tion facilitates their uptake, an important consideration for individuals with MALABSORPTION.
emulsifiers (stabilizers, surfactants)
A class of FOOD ADDITIVES widely used in manufactured foods to suspend oily materials in water. These chemicals, related to detergents, can suspend oils and lipids (water-insoluble materials) such as dyes in water as tiny droplets that do not coalesce or separate upon standing.
The most common commercial emulsifiers are DIGLYCERIDES, MONOGLYCERIDES, LECITHIN, POLYSOR-BATES, and sorbitan mono-stearate. Emulsifiers are used to keep bread from becoming stale; to stabilize fat in NONDAIRY CREAMERS for COFFEE; to keep cakes fluffy; to suspend flavors and food coloring in processed foods; and to stabilize ice cream. Egg lecithin is used to emulsify vegetable oils and vinegar to create MAYONNAISE. | <urn:uuid:6f47fec0-9185-45b1-9b72-3737c02ea302> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pagerankstudio.com/Blog/2011/03/what-is-emulsified-vitamins/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920031 | 299 | 3.21875 | 3 |
Flash flood watch issued for Northern California
Published: Thursday, November 29, 2012 at 4:58 p.m.
Last Modified: Thursday, November 29, 2012 at 4:58 p.m.
The National Weather Service has issued a flash flood watch for a large portion of Northern California, including the North Coast, saying small stream and creek flooding is possible Friday, and urban flooding likely in Petaluma and elsewhere with the arrival of a fresh storm.
Several inches of rain were expected in the coastal hills before a pause in the weather predicted Friday night, and with the ground already saturated, trouble was expected.
“We're very concerned actually,” Petaluma Fire Chief Phil Sutsos said Thursday, shortly after arranging for the city community center to be put into use as an emergency shelter, if needed.
After a respite earlier Thursday, heavy rain was predicted to hit the North Bay by Thursday evening, continuing through much of Friday and dropping 3-to-6 inches of rain on the region.
An even wetter storm was forecast for Saturday night, with total rainfall by Sunday exceeding a foot in the wettest locations - places like Cazadero, Venado and other coastal hill locations that typically receive heaviest rainfall, National Weather Service Meteorologist Diana Henderson said.
But stream and creek flooding is possible as early as Friday morning because of saturated soils, the collection of runoff from Wednesday's drenching and the return of rain Thursday night, the weather service said.
The weather service stopped short of issuing a flash flood warning, which would suggest a more immediate and certain breach of creek banks.
But “we're thinking — with all the water that has accumulated and how saturated the ground must be now — what we're expecting to come in is just going go raise the creeks and small tributaries, and we just want to give people a heads up if they live close to those things,” Henderson said.
Downpours also may overwhelm culverts and storm drains, or channel leaves and debris that could lend to street flooding.
Emergency officials also put residents on alert for the possibility of mud slides, fallen trees and downed power lines, particularly given the likelihood of gusting winds, in combination with saturated soils.
“Keep an eye on the stuff around you - the trees and power lines and other stuff,” Henderson said. “And slow down on the freeway, normal common sense stuff... People tend to kind of forget common sense stuff whenever there's weather.”
The Russian River was predicted to crest several feet shy of monitor stage in Guerneville and was not expected to present a flood risk this weekend, forecasters said.
(You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan at 521-5249 or email@example.com.)
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Upload your photos of community events, holidays, pets, cute kids, breaking news and more, and vote for your favorites!
Submit your area events to encourage others in your community to attend. | <urn:uuid:c9018382-5389-4c89-8724-dfd684571e29> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.petaluma360.com/article/20121129/COMMUNITY/121129547/0/PTPRIVACY | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951671 | 712 | 1.96875 | 2 |
The Texas Clean Rivers Program
Working together for clean water and science-based decisions.
The Long Term Plan outlines the program's objectives and strategies.
Established in 1991, the Texas Clean Rivers Program (CRP) is a state fee-funded, non-regulatory program that was created to provide a framework and forum for managing water quality issues in a more holistic manner. The focus of the program is to work at the watershed level, within each river basin, by coordinating the efforts of diverse organizations.
The TCEQ and its regional water quality partners work together to implement the program as laid out in Texas Water Code, Section 26.0135 and in the Clean Rivers Program Rule, Texas Administrative Code, Chapter 220.
Video About the CRP
Watch a 12-minute video:
The majority of the fee funds allocated to the program (approximately $4.5 million annually) are used to conduct the monitoring, quality assurance, and data management functions of the program. | <urn:uuid:218b847f-661a-47e7-af74-b0f721984f18> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tceq.texas.gov/waterquality/waterquality/clean-rivers/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.904173 | 200 | 3.1875 | 3 |
About the rugs that inspired the socks:
The Yomut are a Turkmen tribe now found mostly along the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea in Turkmenistan and Iran. Little is known of their history.
Yomut rugs show more variation than other kinds of Turkmen rugs though the differences still appear slight to those not well versed in the rugs of the region. They are always predominantly red and often feature diagonal stripes of large, lozenge-shaped, geometric forms called guls. These socks echo the strong diagonals and vibrant color of the Yomut rugs. | <urn:uuid:7bd77ec6-37ad-43ed-9d93-6eda8ba526e0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/yomut | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957546 | 127 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Ethics group urges Congress to examine Google's copyright controls
An ethics group is urging Congress to scrutinize Google Inc.'s copyright controls after finding hundreds of apparently pirated movies available on the Internet search leader's website.
In letters sent to several lawmakers Wednesday, the National Legal and Policy centre excoriated Google for allowing its video-hosting service to become an online theatre for showing and promoting illegally copied movies.
The nonprofit group, which says it has no financial ties to the movie industry, is best known for helping to expose a 2003 corruption scandal involving the Air Force and Boeing Co. that landed two executives in jail.
The grievances made to Congress focused exclusively on content found on Google's website rather than the company's more popular YouTube subsidiary that is being sued by Viacom Inc. for alleged copyright infringement.
The harsh critique echoes similar complaints that have asserted Google is more interested in boosting its audience _ and potential profit _ than protecting the intellectual property of Hollywood studios, record labels, authors and publishers.
Google says it adheres to federal law by removing unauthorized content whenever asked by copyright owners.
But that method has proven to be woefully inadequate, said Ken Boehm, chairman of the nonprofit National Legal and Policy centre.
"They clearly have the technological and economic wherewithal to do something more about it," Boehm said. "Instead, they are making money off other people's intellectual property. That's wrong."
Google probably remains on solid legal ground, said Bruce Sunstein, a Boston lawyer specializing in intellectual property rights. "The law will favour Google as long as they are diligent in taking down videos, but they could be in trouble if they have a cavalier attitude."
In a statement, Google said it is working on new technology that will be introduced in the "not-too-distant" future to help copyright owners block unauthorized material from being posted on the site. Earlier in the year, the Mountain View-based company indicated the filtering tools would be introduced as early as September.
Other sites, including News Corp.'s MySpace.com and Microsoft's MSN.com, already have copyright filters set up.
"As a company that respects the rights of copyright holders, we work every day to help them manage their content, and we are developing state-of-the-art tools to let them do that even better," Google spokesman Gabriel Stricker said.
The National Legal and Policy Group found plenty of room for improvement after poring through Google's video site from Sept. 10 through Sept. 18.
That review uncovered 300 apparently pirated movies that that had been viewed a combined 22 million times. About 60 of the movies were recent theatrical releases, including popular films like "Shrek The Third," "Oceans Thirteen" and "The Bourne Ultimatum" that aren't even available on DVD yet.
In some instances, the movie titles were misspelled in apparent attempt to skirt detection. Some of the copyright violations were egregious, Boehm said, because it was obvious the movies had been taped in a theatre with a video camera. Some of the movies also included Web links to sites specializing in pirated video, Boehm said.
To help hunt for apparent copyright violations, Boehm said he hired his 18-year-old nephew for $10 (euro7.08) per hour. He suggested Google might be able to afford to hire more copyright cops, given the company earned nearly $2 billion (euro1.42 billion) on $7.5 billion (euro5.31 billion) in revenue during the first half of the year.
Boehm thinks Google's ineffectual policing efforts raise serious questions about the company's motto, "Don't Be Evil."
"We are hoping to shame Google into doing something," Boehm said. "What they are doing is inexcusable corporate behaviour. When big companies do something unethical, it sends a message to everyone else that it's OK."
On The Net:
National Legal and Policy centre: http://www.nlpc.org
Google Video: http://video.google.com
This story is sourced direct from an overseas news agency as an additional service to readers. Spelling follows North American usage, along with foreign currency and measurement units. | <urn:uuid:01301a2c-7198-42f3-9edf-fabfd5273284> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.smh.com.au/news/Technology/Ethics-group-urges-Congress-to-examine-Googles-copyright-controls/2007/09/27/1190486443670.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958832 | 874 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Weber has also expressed skepticism that Ulloa would have loaded a fortune on board his vessel and then sailed north from Mexico, rather than back to Spain. Other historians have documented Ulloa's return to Mexico and Spain after his voyage on the Trinidad, which further undermines the notion that he died near Oceanside. But Warren said he is convinced that the man who returned to Spain is not the same Ulloa who commanded the Trinidad.
Talking to Others
Warren conceded that his research has consisted primarily of talking to others who searched for the wreck, including Markey.
"I met (Markey) at his house in Oceanside, and at his office, several times. He was a gruff man, very defensive about his findings," Warren said.
"But he shared information with me--I think he wanted me to find the Trinidad. He was older and couldn't do much himself (to locate the ship), I guess."
Warren said that, rather than furnish all the equipment needed to uncover the ship himself--an expense that could top $500,000--he hopes to get professional salvors to donate equipment and time in return for a share in the treasure. One local resident has already donated an old 40-foot boat that can be used as a diving platform, and Warren is trying to arrange private financing for a film he plans to make of the salvage effort.
The work will take only a few weeks, he said.
"One way or another, it will be a relief to find out what's out there under the ocean. If we bring up the loot, I won't have to struggle any more as a singer," he said with a smile.
"If we don't find it, then I guess I'll go to the Philippines," he said. "There's a Japanese ship that sank out there during World War II with $1 billion to $2 billion in gold that belonged to the Philippine government." | <urn:uuid:2282092f-db68-4688-acf1-6ab68eedd3fe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.latimes.com/1987-01-08/news/vw-2944_1_treasure-hunter/3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9886 | 398 | 1.890625 | 2 |
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - West Virginia would continue to experiment with shifting more government power to the local level by inviting 10 more cities or towns to take part through a measure unanimously endorsed Thursday by the state Senate.
The Municipal Home Rule Pilot Program would continue for another five years under the bill passed to the House. While opening it up so towns with 2,000 or fewer people could also apply, the legislation would greatly limit tax changes while putting several other topics off-limits.
Government in West Virginia is highly centralized. Charleston, Huntington, Wheeling and Bridgeport took part in the initial five-year pilot. Overseen by a state board, home rule allowed those cities to reduce taxes, streamline regulations, collect delinquent fees and target abandoned and blighted buildings. A legislative audit declared the pilot a success last year.
But Huntington also used home rule to replace the city's user fee with a 1 percent occupation tax. A lawsuit blocked that move, and Thursday's bill would void any occupation taxes enacted during the initial pilot. With a new mayor opposed to the tax, Huntington City Council is scheduled to vote Monday on repealing it.
Executive Director Lisa Dooley of the West Virginia Municipal League, said Huntington provided a learning experience for the pilot program but also revealed its built-in safeguards and ultimate worth.
"We're not used to home rule, and that's what happened in Huntington," Dooley said Thursday. "The home rule philosophy works, and that's what we're trying to convince the Legislature of."
Thursday's bill would preserve the other changes made by the four cities, and allow them to continue to participate. But the renewed pilot program would forbid any new taxes except a 1 percent sales tax if that city or town reduces or erases its business and occupation tax. Charleston Mayor Danny Jones, a vocal supporter of home rule, recently proposed such a measure.
The pilot's power-shifting would also not extend to several other areas: annexation, pensions, criminal justice, projects funded through tax revenue sharing, environmental laws, and coal mining or other natural resource extraction. No proposed changes could apply to people or property outside municipal boundaries.
The Municipal League supports expanding the pilot, as opposed to allowing home rule statewide as last year's audit recommended. Dooley said her group would seek such minor changes as ensuring that the ban on environmental laws would not interfere with efforts to demolish blighted buildings that may contain asbestos, for instance.
"This bill is the vehicle that we'll be working on to reach a final bill," Dooley said.
Each city or town wanting to apply must first hold a public hearing to explain its plans, after providing 30-days' advance notice. That prior notice must include making a written copy available. The municipalities selected by the board must then repeat that public hearing process to detail any proposed ordinances, rules or other changes. It must then provide all comments received during that public hearing to the oversight board. | <urn:uuid:29e5fbb9-d8e3-411e-9302-5653ea692661> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dailymail.com/News/statehouse/201303070131 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964882 | 604 | 1.765625 | 2 |
When trying to install a new course, A message stating: "This Operation Requires Administrative Rights " appears and you can not continue.
This error means that the user that is currently logged in is not registering as a Local Administrator. LearnKey software can only be installed with the built-in Local Administrator account if you receive this message.
*Note user name required is: "Administrator ". This is the only account that will work. You will not be able to install with any other account even if it has administrative rights assigned to it.
Put your course CD into the CD drive. Cancel the Auto Run and explore the CD ROM drive by right clicking on it and choosing "Explore or Open " from within "Computer or My Computer ".
Right click on the "Setup.exe " file and choose "Run as...(Windows XP) or Run as Administrator (Windows Vista/7) ". You will need to run the program with the built-in Local Administrator account and type in the password.
Afterward, please test the program.
If the above solution doesn’t resolve the issue, please continue following the instructions below.
Locate the files/folder seen in the screen shot below and allow the user "Write " access to them all. | <urn:uuid:1739c6a3-ebd4-4f6a-b6e0-322769fcbce2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://learnkey.com/Knowledge_Base/View/cdromSupport/22/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.905924 | 256 | 1.820313 | 2 |
|Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV: Thai Red Cross Zidovudine Donation Programme (UNAIDS, 2001, 39 p.)|
THE ROLES OF THE ROYAL FAMILY
As its patron, Her Royal Highness Princess Soamsawali has taken an active role in guiding and overseeing the zidovudine donation programme. Her Royal Highness has devoted her time to participate in numerous events related to this programme, has chaired the programmes annual meeting, and has regularly donated funds and infant formula for the programme. One main event is the Spiritual Candle Light Ceremony on the World AIDS Day, when Her Royal Highness specifically meets with patients, volunteers and those who work in the field of HIV. On Her Royal Highnesss birthday, there are abundant activities related to HIV/AIDS throughout the country. As the result of her dedication, Her Royal Highness has been acknowledged, both by Thai and by the international community, including UNAIDS and UNICEF, as the foremost figure in HIV prevention and education in Thailand.
Her Royal Highness Princess Soamsawali is not the only royal family member involved with the Thai Red Cross. Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn is the patron of the Thai Red Cross Society. Although Her Royal Highness may not have an active role in the zidovudine donation programme, Her Royal Highness oversees all activities of the Thai Red Cross Society, including those related to HIV/AIDS, and has provided valuable inputs for the operation of the Thai Red Cross AIDS Research Centre. In addition, parts of this programmes fund have come directly from Her Royal Highnesss donations.
MINISTRY OF PUBLIC HEALTH
The Thai Ministry of Public Health, particularly the Division of AIDS, has played an important role by providing information on the programme to all hospitals throughout the country. The Ministry has helped streamline the process by which hospitals participate in the programme, and it continues to monitor and evaluate each hospitals participation. Such intervention has helped tremendously in the smooth operation of the programme at these hospitals. In addition, the Ministry has contributed zidovudine to be used in the programme.
One reason that explains the success of this programme is its community-to-community nature. The donation from the community eventually returns back to the community. Being Buddhists, Thai people strongly believe that it is religiously important to support charities. Preventing one child from this deadly disease is considered by Thai as one of the most favorable and charitable attainments. Therefore, the programme is very well received and fits very well in Thailand.
MONITORING AND EVALUATION
From February 1996 to August 1999, there had been almost 2,900 HIV-infected pregnant women receiving free zidovudine from this programme (see graph). They were from 81 hospitals in 40 provinces throughout Thailand. The analysis of the transmission rate was performed by the Thai Red Cross in August 1999. The analysis was limited to a subgroup of 719 mother-infant pairs among whom dried blood spot HIV tests were available on infants at or after 4 weeks of age. The mothers started zidovudine during pregnancy at 14-34 weeks gestation and continued till delivery, and the infants received zidovudine for 6 weeks after birth. The transmission rate in this group was 5.9 per cent, which is agreeable with the rates reported from developed countries where zidovudine ATCG 076 regimen was implemented. Therefore, the scientific strength of this programme exists as it is now proven that zidovudine remains effective in reducing mother-to-child transmission of HIV outside the setting of clinical research in the less-developed region of the world. Our analysis also confirmed that zidovudine is effective in the population with predominant HIV subtype E infection. Of note, HIV subtype E is the most common subtype in Thailand whereas subtype B is the most common subtype in the western world. The ACTG 076 study was performed in the United States and France where HIV subtype B is predominant.
Cumulative Number of HIV-Infected Pregnant Women Receiving Zidovudine from Thai Red Cross Zidovudine Donation Program (1996-1999)
This programme has demonstrated that the community can work effectively together to overcome the obstacle of the high cost of zidovudine. Donation of medication has proved feasible and can be used as one of the strategic tools to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV in less-developed countries. | <urn:uuid:bbdd3450-2d39-4c2e-8af3-bd41f2b5763e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nzdl.org/gsdlmod?e=d-00000-00---off-0unaids--00-0----0-10-0---0---0direct-10---4-------0-0l--11-en-50---20-help---00-0-1-00-0--4----0-0-11-10-0utfZz-8-00&a=d&c=unaids&cl=CL1.4&d=HASH01ff4c8a2f8e4677b05bbeaf.7 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950177 | 933 | 1.859375 | 2 |
Ivory signature carvings, known as “chops” in China, and hanko to the Japanese. A sign of wealth.
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The Slichot Scroll that is recited in the city of Przemysl on the eve of Rosh Chodesh Nissan, the fast day in memory of the libels against and the martyrdom (Sanctification of the Divine Name) of the aforementioned Rabbi Moshe.
|Oh G-d and G-d of our fathers
You are the G-d of gods and the L-rd of lords
Unique, you are first among the early ones and last among the latter ones
Where is your zealousness and might about which our forefathers have told
The great, mighty and awesome G-d who does not play favorites?
|With Your word, the Heavens were made, and with the breath of Your mouth all their hosts
You created, You formed, You fashioned them all for your honor, everything accordingly
At the end You created man to tell of your mercies and faithfulness that he sees
With the word of G-d the heavens were created, and with the breath of Your mouth all their hosts.
|Great are Your deeds the Creator and Spreader of the Heavens
Many nations You have created, and have chosen for Yourself a place among them
The righteous convert was Abraham, the chief of their believers
Great are the works of G-d, fulfilling all their needs.
|His generation cleaved to foreign beliefs and worship of images
He and his entire household cleaved to Your beliefs throughout all the days
He talked about Your godliness to the men of his generation, You the Rock of the Worlds
Your rule is a rule for all eternity.
|He was cast into the fiery furnace, and in Your mercy You saved him and took him out
He held fast to your faith and was tested with ten trials
He brought up his son Isaac for an offering, remember today his binding for us
The priest offered before G-d and brought his sin offering and burnt offering.
|And Jacob and his sons went down to Egypt and remained true to their faith
The verse And your children will be a stranger in a land not theirs and serve them and afflict them was fulfilled in them.
You remembered for them the covenant of the fathers and you took them out with fine spoils
G-d protected them from around just as He had sworn to them
|A reason was given that it was for their benefit
Watch over their sittings and their risings, I am their protector.
|On Sunday, the 11th of the month of Cheshvan of M H M H H Tz R H
The accursedness arrived, with captivity in prison
Evil people incited against a Jewish man Moshe whom they did not know..
Why did G-d stand afar and ignore the time of trouble?
|When Tuesday night arrived the unfortunate one was afflicted with a non-severe affliction
According to their first words, they incited against the man Moshe
Sore evil was determined by the evil ones and masters
And they sought to murder Moshe.
|The evil ones did not stumble, and they gathered all their masses in the middle of the Night
Their only thought was only to murder and destroy all the Jews, Heaven forbid.
The Mighty Guardian of Israel would not slumber or sleep
If thieves came to You, robbers at night.
|Armed with their weapons and implements of destruction, a great crowd came to the Street of the Jews
They broke doors and windows as robbers and thieves
Whomever came into their hands was captured and led to prison
To everywhere where the words of the king and his faith come, there was great mourning for the Jews.
|The holy Hassid and wise man Reb Moshe the son of Reb Yisrael was captured in their murderousness
Several Jews were captured with him
They were placed in special prisons, the place of which was not known to anyone who asked or inquired
And this is the Torah that Moses placed before the children of Israel.
|Their secret evil designs grew more severe until morning
The city was closed and sealed for several days, so that any Jew could not go out to intercede or search
The Tester of Hearts fed them a vial of poison
So they would go down and awaken in the morning
|Their craftiness concluded on the Friday before the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Passover)
The set up wood, and burned the unfortunate one rapidly with implements of torture
So that he would not expose the secrets of their incitement and instigation outside
He did not forge them as the dust of the earth and the mud outside.
|With one opinion, they agreed to torture the holy one that day
They opened their mouths at the time of the Evening service, and stretched him out over a ladder three times
They decided to to spread him with liquor, embers and sulfur, and they ignited it to destroy him
Show us Your justice before the eyes of the gentiles.
|They tortured him with all types of torments, and asked him about eleven things
He shouted out Shma Yisrael Hashem Elokeinu Hashem Echad
He cried out with the bitterness of his innocent soul, I am enduring this, and with all their tortures, all of Israel are friends
Our inheritance was turned over to strangers, our homes to gentiles
|The holy one sanctified the Unique Name before the eyes of the cruel ones
He tore his cloak from his holy body when the boors came to him
Avenge your Name and threaten the accursed wanton ones
A voice is heard from high, lamenting and bitter weeping
|They wanted to know after the torture and cruelty
Most of them said that they were unable to suffer the agony, and died in honor
Oh G-d, fight my battle and pay back everyone according to his deeds
G-d desires those who fear him, and those who await his mercies.
|The evil ones commanded to call the physicians and ordered them to heal him
They heard the cries of his wife and children and promised to return him to his home
They appointed watchmen over him to ensure that he would be healed
If you torture him, if he cries out to Me, I will hear his cries.
|The gentiles were astonished over his fortitude for suffering and his strength of heart
He remained firm in his faith, for the spirit of G-d was within him
The words of G-d are refined, and He is a protector to all that put their faith in Him.
|Destruction and scandal were in the land
Who paid attention to this and estimated his sword to be so powerful
Hear our cries, avenge the innocent blood, and repair the breech
Their mouths look Heavenward and their tongues walk on the ground.
|When they saw that he had been healed from his wound
On the Sabbath eve of the portion of Shmini they again tortured him
Adding pain and difficult afflictions, the evil ones tortured him all night
Moses the man of G-d blessed the children of Israel before his death.
|My mouth will speak the praises of G-d, the righteous man drips wisdom
He was pure in his generation, doing good deeds without shame and embarrassment
The Torah of truth was in his mouth, upholding the commandments without blemish
This statute you shall keep at its correct time for all days.
|The continued to torture him with a double portion of the aforementioned afflictions
Furthermore, they tore off his skin and his toenails
They tore off the skin of his heel and covered his lower body in embers
Remember Oh G-d for the sons of Edom the day of Jerusalem.
|Who can find a scribe to tell of all the difficult tortures
It is impossible to write them in a book were the oceans ink and the Heavens parchment
The storm of G-d is hot, it should go out and storm around the heads of the evil ones
Thus decrees G-d upon all who dwell in evil.
|With a razor they shaved off all the hair of his head and beard
Saying there is sorcery in his hair for he does not acknowledge his suffering at all
Blessed be the true judge he uttered with his lips
May G-d redeem all of Israel from their tribulations.
|Look oh G-d and gaze upon their cruelty
Their heads they turned to turn the hearts of the king and minister with their false
They wanted to expel the Jews from their city of dwelling
Destroy all who mock Your laws for they give forth falsehood.
|On the Sabbath day of the 24th of the month, they decided to burn him
His wife and children went out of the house to the house of torment to greet him with weeping and screaming
I knew him that he would command his sons and household
The evil one waits for the righteous one and wishes to kill him.
|The evil ones agreed and set up wood for the pyre
The Holy one accepted the judgment upon himself as per the law and tradition
Rock of the Worlds, avenge him and add onto them a thousandfold
Then the anger of the king will be assuaged.
|They hurried at the fifteenth hour and took him to the place of the pyre
Their destructive net was waiting for him for every measure
G-d desired in His righteousness to receive his soul in purity on the day that is read in the refined Torah
Their brethren the entire House of Israel shall weep for the burning.
|The holy one went into the fire as if going to offer a Musaf or Mincha offering
He accepted upon himself the judgment of Heaven with love, desire, and joy
In the community of Przemysl women and children wept with bitter agony and sighing
And G-d called out on that day for weeping, lamentation and desolation.
|Cruel ones led him with joy in their hearts to the place of burning
The holy Hassid remembered to recite the confession prior to his death
His merit shall stand for us and for all of Israel His flock
All the ways of G-d are kind and true to those with whom he forged a covenant.
|The Righteous one was raised into the pyre with fire, stubble, sulfur and pitch
They bound his arms and legs to the pyre so that the event would not be ruined
The enemies caused smoke to rise up to his nose, and blood dripped from his nose
As the spirit of G-d hovered.
|Before all the gentiles, he prepared his heart to declare the unity of the Unique Name
At the time that the entire crowd of gentiles gathered together as one
He raised his voice and shouted out Shema Yisrael Hashem Elokeinu Hashem Echad
On that day G-d shall be one and his Name shall be one.
|He repeated and completed the entire verse of Shema Yisrael a second time
Death overtook him during as he concluded the word Yisrael of the third recitation
He returned his soul to G-d who had given it with Jewish holiness
Behold, now I know that there is a G-d in Israel.
|He was diligent in his study to the best of his ability, as well as in praying with devotion
He was careful in charity, good deeds, and honest business dealings
His merit shall stand for us and for the innumerable community
G-d, are not your eyes toward faith.
|The holy Reb Moshe sanctified Your name in public with all his might
The crowd of gentiles were astonished and confounded until his soul and spirit left him
Be zealous for Your name and avenge his vengeance, and he will have double spirit
Peace will come, and he will rest in peace, and walk with Him.
|And it was when they ignited the fire and the flame ascended
And the holy Reb Moshe lovingly gave up his soul in sanctification of the Divine Name
Every one of Israel shouted woe woe when they saw the flame, and talked about how the Oppression has come
His voice fled from him, and they did not see good.
|To the sublime G-d who dwells in the Heavens
The ashes of the holy one shall always be seen before you as the ashes of Isaac
About which you have promised to always see them and to save Israel from all oppression
His crown will be prepared for ever and ever in the Heavens.
|Only ashes and a few of his bones remained of his body
They worked very very hard to collect them and bury them in the grave of his fathers
Who can hear of this matter and not weep and shed tears
In the grave where the man of G-d is buried near his bones.
|G-d you are just and your ways are righteous
Order the salvation of Jacob and redeem Your children
May our eyes see the righteousness of the holy one along with all the martyrs
May the utterances of my mouth and thoughts of my heart be acceptable before You.
|May you keep Your promise to turn our mourning to joy
Build Your Holy temple speedily and we will offer burnt offerings and meal offerings
May our eyes witness the vengeance upon our enemies, and may sighing and grief depart
For Your sake we were killed throughout the day and considered as sheep for slaughter.
May Your words be established and may You save the afflicted nation
May You send the Messiah the son of David and display Your might
G-d, your deeds will be throughout the years, and will be displayed throughout the years.
G-d is a G-d of vengeance, may the G-d of vengeance appear.
I expect that the final verses in each fourfold stanza, which usually start with a letter different than the starting letter of the preceding three verses, also form an acrostic, but I did not work that one out. For the last 5 pages, they are as follows:
Beit vav zayin kaf he
Beit tzadi chet chet vav
Kaf vav beit beit he
Beit yud kaf kaf he
I cannot figure out what this would stand for. Perhaps it is a numerological reference to a year.
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Updated 30 Dec 2007 by LA | <urn:uuid:b04dbe32-5f9e-4800-b34e-20f9fd25428d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/przemysl/prz901.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970591 | 3,116 | 1.929688 | 2 |
A British Christian woman suffered religious discrimination when British Airways told her not to wear a visible cross over her uniform, a top European court ruled Tuesday.
However, three other British Christians lost related religious discrimination claims at the European Court of Human Rights.
British Airways violated the article of the European Convention on Human Rights that guarantees freedom of religion when it stopped employee Nadia Eweida from wearing her cross openly, the court said.
Eweida said she experienced discrimination from 2006 to 2007, when she started displaying the cross while working as a member of check-in staff. She was first sent home and then offered another role where she'd have no contact with customers. She refused to take it.
The airline changed its policy on uniforms in 2007 to allow employees to wear religious or charity symbols, at which time Eweida returned to the check-in desk.
In its ruling, the court weighed Eweida's desire to show her religious belief against the airline's wish to project a certain corporate image.
"While this aim was undoubtedly legitimate, the domestic courts accorded it too much weight," it said, referring to British Airways' position.
However, the court found that three other British Christians who argued they'd been unfairly dismissed from their jobs had not been subjected to religious discrimination.
They are nurse Shirley Chaplin, who also wanted to wear a cross at work, registrar Lilian Ladele, who declined to register gay civil partnerships, and Gary MacFarlane, a relationship counselor who did not want to give sex therapy to same-sex couples.
In the case of Chaplin, the court ruled that the concerns of hospital managers for health and safety outweighed the nurse's desire to wear a cross visibly in the workplace.
The cases of the registrar and the relationship counselor had been fairly considered in the national courts, the court said.
"In each case the employer was pursuing a policy of nondiscrimination against service-users, and the right not to be discriminated against on grounds of sexual orientation was also protected under the Convention."
The parties in the cases have three months in which to lodge an appeal.
The Christian Legal Centre, which directly supported Chaplin and MacFarlane, issued a statement saying the ruling "raised questions about the future involvement of Christians in professional and public life."
Gary McFarlane said he was "amazed" by the court's decision, and added that there had been no need for him to be dismissed from his job.
"What happened to me was deeply illiberal. I simply wanted to do my job in light of my Christian identity but I was policed and punished for my thoughts, for my beliefs. In a truly tolerant society we make room for one another," the Christian Legal Centre quoted him as saying.
"Today's judgment is a worrying sign not just for those who bring their Christian faith to bear on their work but for all those who hold viewpoints that differ from the reigning orthodoxy."
Rights groups hailed the outcome, however.
Shami Chakrabarti, director of the Liberty human rights group, said the judgment was "an excellent result for equal treatment, religious freedom and common sense."
The British courts had "lost their way" in considering Eweida's case, she said.
"Nadia Eweida wasn't hurting anyone and was perfectly capable of doing her job whilst wearing a small cross. She had just as much a right to express her faith as a Sikh man in a turban or a Muslim woman with a headscarf."
But, Chakrabarti added, the European court "was also right to uphold judgments in other cases that employers can expect staff not to discriminate in the discharge of duties at work."
The British Humanist Association also praised the European court for "applying the right principles" to the cases -- those of equality and human rights.
The association's chief executive, Andrew Copson, said the political Christian lobby and socially conservative media had sought to whip up a "victim narrative" around the cases that had no basis in reality.
"What they describe as discrimination and marginalization of Christians is in fact the proper upholding of human rights and equalities law and principles -- principles which protect all people against unfair treatment -- and we are pleased that the court has recognized this," he said in a statement. | <urn:uuid:1c7f05c2-f868-4cb1-b3f5-c3e297f1e56f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/UK-Christian-wins-battle-over-wearing-cross/-/1719418/18133186/-/xkj2mbz/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977346 | 886 | 2.046875 | 2 |
Fresh Egg Pasta
- Yield 4-8 servings
- Prep 15 mins
- Cook 0 mins
These home-made noodles come out thicker and softer than purchased noodles, but they hold an abundance of sauce.
Homemade egg pasta is not made with the same flour (durum semolina) as factory macaroni, but actually from the same kind of flour that we use for pastry and biscuits; that is, soft wheat flour. Don't use semolina, even if it's labeled "pasta flour." All-purpose flour, which is a blend of hard and soft wheat, is an acceptable alternative.
- 18 ounces soft wheat flour or all-purpose flour
- 4 large eggs, room temperature
- Water, as needed
- Mound flour on a smooth work surface (wood is ideal, plastic laminate will do). Make well in center. Break eggs into bowl, lightly beat to mix, and pour into center of flour. Gradually work flour into eggs until dough is formed, adding sprinkles of water as needed for a smooth but fairly stiff dough.
- Knead dough, working vigorously, until smooth and even, about 8 minutes. Cover with damp towel and let sit 15 to 30 minutes.
- Have fillings ready for stuffed pasta. Cut small sections of dough; lightly flour, and roll out using pasta rolling machine or long, narrow pasta rolling pin (available at kitchenware stores). Keep remaining dough covered as each piece is rolled out. Roll very thin for stuffed pasta, a little thicker for noodles. Pasta is ready to be used.
- To cut into noodles, use cutting roller of machine or lightly flour sheet of dough, roll like jelly roll, and cut crosswise. Spread on lightly floured towels until dry enough to gather and coil into nest shapes without sticking together. May be cooked immediately or dried (about 24 hours) for prolonged storage. To fill pasta, refer to individual recipes. Makes enough for 8 servings of stuffed pasta, 4 to 6 servings if cut into noodles.
Recipe by Damon Lee Fowler.
Saucing Notes: Olive trees do not grow in the fertile valleys around Parma, and until recently, olive oil was all but unheard of in the region’s cooking. Pasta is most often sauced generously but simply with a rich butter that is almost as celebrated as the region’s signature cheese. Liberal does not, however, mean careless. | <urn:uuid:fde04483-127c-4ff0-848f-984c13dfc052> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://relish.com/recipes/fresh-egg-pasta/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938955 | 500 | 1.78125 | 2 |
California – Scientists claim to have gathered new evidence supporting the inflationary theory of expansion. They feel indebted to NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) for the new data. The spacecraft has been making continuous observations of the cosmic background radiation; the afterglow of the Big Bang, the scientists claim.
I contacted Dr. Raj Baldev, Cosmo Theorist from India, to give his opinion how far this finding matches with that of TOPU (Theory of Parent Universe or two big bang theory) or otherwise.
Dr. Raj Baldev said: “the scientists have of course been able to trace how microscopic fluctuations in the primordial Universe were magnified in a trillionth of a second of rapid expansion to create the stars and galaxies we see today. This brings the Astronomers closer to my theory rather than Big Bang theory.
“My difference with Astronomers is that the Universe is not expanding. It is only the material composed of mixtures of particles of dust, iron, mineral and gases, which primarily exploded at a drastic speed much higher than the speed of light and ultimately formed the galaxies and planets. The galaxies are only moving from one circuit to another and give an impression that the Universe is expanding while the space is eternal and limitless.
“This material later on got closer and formed the stars and planets as and when required and the remaining material took different shapes like Asteroids, Comets and other lumps, which are floating in the deep space. Nothing is useless in the space, even a bit of material floating in the space is important to keep the balance of any order in any Universe”. (According to Dr. Raj Baldev, there are many Universes, ours is not alone).
Dr. Raj Baldev added that NASA’s Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) is close to the theory of Parent Universe or the theory of two big bangs. It states “with a richer temperature map and the new polarization map, WMAP data favor the simplest versions of inflation. Generically, inflation posits that, at the outset of the big bang, quantum fluctuations – short-lived bursts of energy at the subatomic level – were converted by the rapid inflationary expansion into fluctuations of matter that ultimately enabled stars and galaxies to form. The simplest versions of inflation predict that the largest-sized fluctuations will also be the strongest. The new results from WMAP favor this signature”.
Dr. Raj Baldev specifically said, “The universe in fact is not expanding, since the space is eternal and unlimited. Even if we admit for a moment that universe is expanding, but where? It can only expand in space and nowhere else. Whether the space is transparent or non-transparent, it is eternal like dark. Space never was created, it has been in existence before the Big Bang, the basic theory which the scientists are escaping from.
He further said, “The material of the primordial universe or parent universe is just being shifted or getting transferred or moving from one Circuit to another with the help of dark energy. It is a process of filling up all the Circuits with galaxies. If you go through the TOPU (Theory of Parent Universe) it shall enlighten your brain with some close similarities even if you do not wish to agree.
“Our Solar system is located within the Close Circuit with a radius of 100,000 trillion miles (1023). If the Universe were expanding as the scientists assume, the Solar System would have collapsed long ago. The distances of the earth, and other planets from the Sun and the distance of the Sun from the Home Galaxy and so on had naturally widened and would have created havoc in balance of gravity thereby forcing the Solar System to collapse in addition to collision of all planets.
Some excerpts of “Two Big Bang Created the Universe (Formed in Eternal Space)” state:
“As we find different belts in the Solar System in its limited area, so is the case with the Universe, its division is theoretically based on colossal scale of Seven Circuits, which govern the whole Universe. The distance is based on the ratio of the Central Reservoir to the Outer Reservoir, which burst the second and final explosion 14 billion years ago. (Central Reservoir was a Primeval Black Hole, the cause of the creation of the Parent Universe).
(According to Raj Baldev, who is considered one of the authorities on Black Hole and theory of Universe Creation, is of the opinion that he gave in his book in 2003 that it was the Primeval Black Hole which helped create the Parent Universe. The Black Hole on one hand destroys and sucks the material and on the other it recycles and reproduces new material to form fresh stars and planets like Supernova).
Dr. Raj Baldev said, “Close Circuit had a presumed radius of 100,000 trillion miles (1023) in the first billion years. As a result of the 2nd and final explosion, it filled the creative material to shape into stars and galaxies. Some of its material was also passed on to the Deep Circuit, which accelerated only when the Close Circuit was completely set with the early Universe.
“It looked to the scientists that the Universe had halted or slowed down. For the last 1.2 billion years, the transfer or shifting of material has been going on towards the Deep Circuit. When it began its movement, the scientists presumed that the Universe was expanding at an accelerated speed.
“There is no doubt that the force of Dark Energy is shifting the galaxies but it is just a transfer of material from Close Circuit to Deep and other Circuits. It does not suggest any expansion of the Universe but indicates simple re-arrangements of organizing the galaxies in new Circuits and also the material of stars and planets from one circuit to another.
“At 1.2 billion years, the radius of the Close Circuit was about 100,000 trillion miles (1023). The shifting started thereafter from 5 to 10% per thousand million years and this calculation fits in with the average distance of the Deep Circuit, which has an approximate radius of 100,000 sextillion miles (1041), where four supernovae appeared and exploded about 4.1×1025 miles or 7 billion light years away.
Dr. Baldev said,”Some expansion of the stars and galaxies looked to be moving fast and some new stars are added to the Deep Circuit. Normally, the stars and galaxies in one circuit do not disturb the other circuit barring exceptional situations. Probably this is the reason why our Solar System is safe being in the Close Circuit.
“Next to the Deep, there is Broad Circuit, which has a presumed radius of 100,000 duodecillion miles, (1077). As regards other four circuits, which fall thereafter are Large Circuit, Wide Circuit, Outer Circuit and Free Circuit. However, it is not possible even to presume the measurement of the Large Circuit, what to think of the Free Circuit, which is unlimited and endless”.
“There is no doubt that the majority of scientific aspects support the theory of Big Bang but it is not fully acknowledged as perfect and it cannot be unless the Astronomers take trouble of going into the pre-history of the Big Bang,” said Dr. Raj Baldev while concluding his interview. | <urn:uuid:be8c17b6-57c4-440e-a13d-1fc59894694a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.internationalreporter.com/News-973/universe-not-expanding-galaxies-moving-to-other-circuits.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944407 | 1,514 | 2.671875 | 3 |
The Great Shift Away From Driving
Anna Eshoo wants to hear the case for HSR on the Peninsula, and we’re going to make sure she hears it loud and clear. Starting today, with an examination of the great shift away from driving.
As I’ve argued many times before, the debate over HSR is fueled in part by a generational divide. Older Californians who are convinced that driving will always be our primary form of travel don’t see the need for passenger rail, and in an era of declining real estate values, it’s easy for them to see HSR as a threat that isn’t necessary to the community’s survival.
Younger Californians, however, generally don’t have the same attitude. They recognize that driving is not the basis of travel on the Peninsula even today, and have no desire for it to be so in the future. Instead, they are joining their counterparts across the country in moving away from driving.
It is a fundamental and massive shift with enormous implications for the future of California, the Peninsula included. As a recent article in Advertising Age explains, the digital revolution is driving a decline in car culture:
The internet has wreaked havoc on the music industry, airlines and media, but it just may be doing the same thing to automobiles.
It’s a rarely acknowledged transformational shift that’s been going on under the noses of marketers for as long as 15 years: The automobile, once a rite of passage for American youth, is becoming less relevant to a growing number of people under 30. And that could have broad implications for marketers in industries far beyond insurance, gasoline and retail.
For generations – as far back as at least the 1920s – the automobile was THE symbol of freedom for American youth. If you were a teenager, you wanted a car so you and your friends, or your sweetheart, could escape the oppressive gaze of your parents and the rest of society and go off to your own place, to your own world. I can still remember being in high school in the early 1990s and counting down the days until I turned 16 and could get my driver’s license and experience that freedom for myself.
But that appears to have undergone a dramatic change since 1995 (the year I finally turned 16). In the 15 years since, there’s been a huge decline in the number of young Americans who have driver’s licenses and own cars, part of a 30-year trend as shown in the following Ad Age graphics:
Ad Age delves into the numbers to show this is no fluke:
Certainly it’s hard to believe for anyone stuck in traffic on the way to O’Hare airport in Chicago, a bridge or tunnel into Manhattan, any freeway in Los Angeles, or the newly repaved four-lane highway to a suburban Walmart. But look around, and the people in the other cars are likely to be in their 40s or older….
It’s not just new drivers driving less. The share of automobile miles driven by people aged 21 to 30 in the U.S. fell to 13.7% in 2009 from 18.3% in 2001 and 20.8% in 1995, according to data from the Federal Highway Administration’s National Household Travel Survey released earlier this year.
Meanwhile, Census data show the proportion of people aged 21-30 increased from 13.3% to 13.9%, so 20-somethings actually went from driving a disproportionate amount of the nation’s highway miles in 1995 to under-indexing for driving in 2009.
What’s driving the shift? Part of it is the internet, which is radically changing how we get around, why we need to travel, and which modes of travel suit our new online lives:
William Draves blames the internet. Mr. Draves, president of Lern, a consulting firm which focuses mainly on higher education, and co-author of “Nine Shift,” maintains that the digital age is reshaping the U.S. and world early in this century, much like the automobile reshaped American life early in the last century.
His theory is that almost everything about digital media and technology makes cars less desirable or useful and public transportation a lot more relevant. Texting while driving is dangerous and increasingly illegal, as is watching mobile TV or working on your laptop. All, at least under favorable wireless circumstances, work fine on the train. The internet and mobile devices also have made telecommuting increasingly common, displacing both cars and public transit.
The environment is the reason Gen Y-ers most often give for wanting to drive less, Mr. Draves said. But he sees the fundamental economic transformation wrought by the internet (and, apparently on the internet; research firm J.D. Power & Associates found that Gen Y-ers don’t talk about cars nearly as much as their elders in social media). This demographic will be working on “intangibles” in professional jobs, not on tangible things that require physical presence, Mr. Draves said. “Time becomes really valuable to them,” he said. “You can work on a train. You can’t work in a car. And the difference is two to three hours a day, or about 25% of one’s productive time.”
As someone just barely in the Millennial/Gen Y category, I can vouch for this. I would much rather take a train or a bus than drive if I can help it. Why? Because on a train or on a bus, I can still use my laptop, my iPhone, my soon-to-arrive iPad. I can get work done that I simply cannot get done if I am driving.
I learned this just last weekend. I spent 12 hours of my weekend driving from Monterey to Anaheim and back. I fell behind in emails, work, and even blogging. I would have loved to have had those 12 hours back, but sitting behind the wheel of a car driving somewhere between 75 and 80 mph, I couldn’t have interacted online without risking my own life and posing a serious hazard to others on the roads.
It’s not just HSR advocates and consultants who have noted the shift. The auto companies themselves are very well aware of this trend, which risks their long-term business strategy:
Ford Motor Co. sees the trend as well, which is why it has introduced features such as Sync in its cars. “I don’t think the car symbolizes freedom to Gen Y to the extent it did baby boomers, or to a lesser extent, Gen X-ers,” said Sheryl Connelly, global trends and futuring manager. “Part of it is that there are a lot more toys out there competing for the hard-earned dollars of older teens and young adults.”
Digital technology “allows teens to transcend time and place,” she said, “so they can feel connected to their friends virtually.” New options like Zipcar also make it easier to do without permanent car ownership, she said.
Millennials “are an important customer to us,” said Ford’s Ms. Connelly. “But we also understand the context in which they use cars has changed. … It has nothing to do with performance or getting you from point A to point B. It’s just a change in what people expect to be delivered.”
Ford understands exactly what I was saying earlier – that the notion of “car = freedom” that was so dominant in the 20th century is no longer dominant in the 21st century. For the young people I know – especially those still under 18 – having their own cell phone, their own laptop, their own Facebook page is generally more important than having a car.
Having a license and a car is still important, but primarily as a means of transportation – getting to school, getting to work. And since that can be achieved by other means, especially if we provide the trains and buses to do it, it correspondingly reduces the desire and need to drive. When gas prices rise again, younger people will desperately seek out alternatives.
Why? Because in addition to the changing nature of American life, which renders car ownership/driving much less important and desirable, the cost of driving is another huge factor that is “driving” younger Americans to alternative means of transportation (forgive the pun):
The economy, rather than any longer-term secular trend, has impacted driving and licensing among younger people, said Paul Taylor, chief economist with the National Automobile Dealers Association. Unemployment has led some younger consumers to drive less, and the cost of insuring a 16-to-19-year-old driver alone can discourage cash-strapped parents from allowing them to get licenses. State licensing requirements and restrictions by many high schools and colleges on driving are also a factor.
Mr. Draves, however, notes that the shift began well before the recession or the preceding run-up in gas prices. The real-estate markets most profoundly affected by the bursting housing bubble — such as Las Vegas and other Sunbelt metro areas — are boom towns built around highways with no substantial train transportation. Real-estate markets that have been less affected or quicker to recover include Boston and San Francisco, which have strong urban rail systems. In New Jersey, Connecticut, Boston, Denver and Chicago, housing prices near new or existing train stations have either been among the first to recover or have seen less depreciation during the bursting of the housing bubble.
The stats in the Ad Age charts seem to bear out Draves’ point. And keep in mind that NADA has a clear economic interest in framing the shift as a temporary one, since they want to sell more cars to young people. Draves is also bolstered by the evidence he gave showing that real estate markets with strong urban rail systems have held up pretty well. That includes the Peninsula, by the way.
Some argue that as the Millennials get older, they’ll buy more cars:
Driving is more likely “delayed than denied,” argued NADA’s Mr. Taylor. “That age cohort may eventually get married and have children. Living near work is something you do when you’re young and single, and when you start picking out schools and amenities you want for your children’s development, people are less willing to live near the office.”
Again, NADA is missing the boat here, deliberately so. Taylor assumes that Millennials wil start to act like their parents and grandparents once they start families. But why would they do so when they haven’t exhibited the same behavior when they’re young?
In fact, from what I can see, Millennials are keeping to their less-dependent-on-driving habits as they start families. A number of my urban Seattle friends have bought houses and started families in the last 2 or 3 years. Every single one of them bought a house in the city of Seattle. Every single one of the prioritized access to a bus or light rail line in that purchase. Some bought townhomes or condos over homes they were looking at in the suburbs because the urban home freed them from dependence on the car.
“OK,” you might say, “that’s Seattle. What about California?” While some Millennials do still move to the suburbs, many more aren’t – or are prioritizing buying homes in places where they don’t have to drive as much. My sister is a good example of this. She’s unlike me in a lot of ways, including the fact that she’s much more comfortable with driving, sprawl, and the 20th century model of California urban life than I am.
But when she bought her new home in Anaheim, she and her husband (a car fanatic) also prioritized ways to reduce their need to drive. They bought near a Metrolink station so he could get to his job in LA without having to drive. They bought near the school where she teaches so she didn’t have to spend a lot of time in her car. They bought near a major shopping center so they could walk to the stores without always having to drive there.
The article goes on to mention that State Farm insurance is also noticing this trend and acting accordingly:
The trend of Gen Y driving less is definitely on the radar of State Farm, said Tim Van Hoof, director-marketing communications at the No. 1 insurer, and it’s changing how it goes to market. The company just launched a new campaign targeted at younger customers that “tries to start a broader conversation,” about life, renters and homeowners policies, rather than just auto, he said. Of course, cars won’t disappear, nor will the changes happen overnight. Mr. Draves predicts that by 2020, the combination of younger people driving less and boomers retiring will cut mileage driven in the U.S. by half.
That seems a reasonable conclusion to me. It’s not that Millennials won’t drive, it’s that we’re driving less, a shift driven by economic realities and the new, digital way we live. Electric cars aren’t going to make any difference, since they’ll cost about the same and won’t enable us to use our digital devices while driving anyway. In other words, electrifying cars won’t make a damn bit of difference to this trend.
It’s yet another reason why HSR is a necessary part of California’s future. It will help enable the shift already under way to a future where driving is much less central a part of our lives, where our transportation needs match our digital and economic needs.
It’s also a way that HSR will improve life on the Peninsula, enabling it and other California cities with HSR stations to benefit from the new 21st century economy and way of life, where young people can bring their incomes, families, jobs and spending to these communities and keep them prosperous and thriving well into this century.
Those who insist on seeing HSR as a threat basically want to turn the Peninsula – or whatever city they live in – into a giant old folks’ home, where there’s no new economic activity, where young families and new jobs have gravitated to cities and regions that didn’t shun mass transit, where people are shackled to their cars because those who had wealth and power insisted on trying to pretend the 20th century was still viable, like Canute trying to hold back the tides.
UPDATE: Matt Melzer reminded me of this Wired Magazine article from February pointing out that young people understand there is an inherent conflict between using online tools – in this case text messaging – and driving, and that the response should be to shift away from driving:
So what can we do? We should change our focus to the other side of the equation and curtail not the texting but the driving. This may sound a bit facetious, but I’m serious. When we worry about driving and texting, we assume that the most important thing the person is doing is piloting the car. But what if the most important thing they’re doing is texting? How do we free them up so they can text without needing to worry about driving?
The answer, of course, is public transit….
Texting while driving is, in essence, a wake-up call to America. It illustrates our real, and bigger, predicament: The country is currently better suited to cars than to communication. This is completely bonkers.
Once again: America is changing. The way we interact is changing. The way we travel is changing. Anyone who thinks that we’ll just keep on driving the way we did for the last 60 years is simply not paying attention to the nation around them. | <urn:uuid:f896f2aa-9258-4549-81f8-9446ab7a2b68> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cahsrblog.com/2010/06/the-great-shift-away-from-driving/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967829 | 3,316 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Change: Romney Courts Black Vote, Obama Passes
I've done at least two posts on why Obama may be weak enough among blacks to hurt him in November. One involved Essence magazine. Also, as you may recall, Morgan Freeman recently claimed Obama isn't America's first black president. Now, despite 14.4 percent unemployment among blacks, Obama is passing on the NAACP? Meanhile, Mitt Romney will address them. And Obama dispatched … Joe Biden, instead? What could go wrong?
Four years ago, Barack Obama captured 96 percent of the black vote. But this year, in an election in which every vote may matter, Mitt Romney is not giving up on that front.
On Wednesday, Mr. Romney will make a pitch to the nation’s premier civil rights group, testing President Obama’s overwhelming support among black voters by trying to pry away defectors with his pro-jobs message at a time of 14.4 percent unemployment among African-Americans.
Mr. Obama is passing up the chance to address the group, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and sending Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. instead. | <urn:uuid:c17269a8-3ff1-4b8d-931c-5911d17a779a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.riehlworldview.com/2012/07/change-romney-courts-black-vote-obama-passes.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941513 | 238 | 1.632813 | 2 |
New Fort Story training range creates combat scenarios for SEALs
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — When you're a Navy SEAL on the front lines of urban combat, the bad guys might be anywhere: inside an elementary school classroom, behind a soda machine at the bus station, cowering next to a hospital-room bed.
They might even hide in the bathroom.
Anything is possible, which is why the Navy special warfare community is excited about the $11.5 million training range dedicated Monday at Fort Story. The facility features 52 rooms spread over 26,500 square feet, an area about the size of a grocery store. Groups of local SEALs will use it as a live-fire range — the ammunition in their guns will be real, even if their targets are life-sized cut-outs zipping across a built-in track.
The walls are made of half-inch steel plates covered with a layer of rubber and a few inches of Styrofoam. The steel and rubber trap bullets and keep them from ricocheting. The decorative Styrofoam layer, created by a California company that used to design Hollywood sets, creates the vibe of a third-world country.
The range — often referred to as a "kill house" — is divided into four zones by steel doors, meaning four groups can train simultaneously. Scenarios include a mosque, bank, post office, market and residential compound. In one section, nine chairs painted in primary hues sit behind desks in an elementary school classroom. Other rooms are more sinister, like a torture chamber accessed through a bus station wall.
Many of the details were taken from actual raids over the past decade, said Capt. Tim Szymanski, the commodore of Naval Special Warfare Group Two.
"I don't think there's anything comparable in the continental United States," Szymanski said during a brief ribbon-cutting ceremony.
Instructors will observe from above, using catwalks that criss-cross the building.
Larry Pacifico, who manages the complex, said instructors will control each scenario using an iPad to adjust the lighting and movement of the targets. Cameras will record the action, so SEALs will find out where the bullets they fired came to rest, he said, down to specific bones and organs.
For years, Hampton Roads-based SEALs have traveled to a privately owned range in Mississippi for close-quarters combat training, or reserved time at select Army bases with similar ranges. Travel costs and rental fees totaled about $1.6 million a year for Szymanski's teams.
Szymanski, who oversees SEAL teams 2, 4 and 8 at nearby Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek, said SEALs spend about 70 percent of their time between deployments away from their families, in training. So giving the men extra time at home fits in with an initiative to provide special operations members more predictability.
Each training cycle used to require three weeks in Mississippi. With the Fort Story range now open, he said, they'll have to be away only for a week.
The new range will allow each one to "spend more time with their head on their own pillow," he said.
The pillows on beds and couches at the range were some of the only props not made of Styrofoam.
Pacifico was particularly proud of a couple of features, including the Styrofoam toilets in a deliberately filthy bathroom. It's rare to find a bathroom scenario in a close-quarters combat range, Pacifico said, but it makes sense: "It's another place where bad guys can hide."
Pacifico said he'll be able to make the training experience even more vivid using "smell generators." Two of the options: rotting meat and third-world bathroom. | <urn:uuid:7f0e7b90-2917-4e32-8a27-8b48fbcac681> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.stripes.com/news/us/new-fort-story-training-range-creates-combat-scenarios-for-seals-1.181429 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955975 | 778 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Intensive English Program (IEP)
The mission of the Intensive English Program is to help international students to achieve their academic and professional goals through the development of their English language skills.
The IEP is a full-time program featuring four eight-week sessions during the academic year and one eight-week session during the summer. Classes are offered at six levels, from beginning to advanced. Students spend approximately 20 hours per week in class, taking courses in grammar, reading, listening/speaking, writing, and academic preparation. The program is flexible, and every effort is made to meet individual student needs.
The successful completion of the highest level of the Intensive English Program (Academic Preparation Course) is the equivalent of a 550 TOEFL score and can be substituted for the TOEFL requirement.
All members of the Intensive English Program faculty hold at least a master's degree in teaching English as a foreign language. Many of the instructors have teaching experience both in the United States and overseas. Most faculty members have successfully mastered a foreign language, making them aware of the language learning process that their students face. | <urn:uuid:bcb66a31-88d5-4475-a1b6-c8aba800b6fa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pittstate.edu/department/intensive_english/home/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966867 | 228 | 1.875 | 2 |
When I watched the TV mini-series, John Adams, I was amazed at how messy the start of our country had been. It is so easy to read history books and assume that the delegates from the thirteen colonies were all like-minded collaborators who gathered as a team to purposely draft the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. The television program gave a glimpse into how difficult the process actually was, with people pulling in different directions and with no clear vision of where the group was heading. Such is one of the gifts of John O’Malley, SJ’s new book, What Happened at Vatican II.
This book offers a fascinating glimpse into what really occurred during this historic Catholic event of our time. It’s almost funny to read that the calling of a Council was a shock to almost everyone. “What was the Pope thinking?!” many wondered. As the book explains, there were no obvious, major crises in the Church. So why would the Pope decide to convene such a milestone event? Usually Councils were convened to address heresies or other crises.
Filled with interesting tidbits, this book at times reads like a novel. But there are so many facts woven together that it becomes an enlightening account of the often messy, often disjointed, but definitely Spirit-led gathering. O’Malley doesn’t dive deeply into the theological issues, since these are covered in many other books. But he gives enough information that the average Catholic will find this account extremely helpful.
I’ve heard people say that they would have loved to have been a “fly on the wall” at Vatican II. This book comes as close as possible to that. It’s a great book for every curious Catholic to read. | <urn:uuid:ef07b145-fe97-485e-835f-03c4a74c0876> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.activeparishioner.com/tag/vatican-ii/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982286 | 364 | 2.484375 | 2 |
In response to:
Whose Life Is It, Anyway? from the January 20, 1983 issue
To the Editors:
Although Irwin [sic] Ehrenpreis’s review of Katherine Anne Porter: A Life [NYR, January 20] credits Joan Givner for exploding the many legends Porter invented about her life, it mainly offers readings of several of Porter’s stories, apparently to demonstrate the inadequacy of Givner’s readings. For instance, he calls her discussion of “Hacienda” “only the shabbiest example of her mischief.” The question is where the mischief lies.
Professor Ehrenpreis argues that “Porter uses pulque as her symbol for the inner death-life of Mexico” in contradiction to Givner’s contention that “the hacienda itself” supplies the story’s “symbolic pattern.” But Porter did call her story “Hacienda,” showing over and over that the hacienda in all its aspects has remained a corrupt, oppressive feudal institution despite “the true revolution of blessed memory.” Even Velarde, “the most powerful and successful revolutionist in Mexico,” owns several haciendas. Velarde is based on Mexican strongman, Plutarco Elias Calles, whom Porter knew and admired in 1921, ten years before her visit to the Hacienda Tetlapayac. Clearly, she uses the hacienda to express deep disillusion over the failure of the revolution to change the country. And because Porter uses a pulque hacienda as her multi-faceted symbol, Givner discusses the symbolic corruption of pulque as an aspect of the hacienda, quoting much the same passages about it that Ehrenpreis quotes and reaching the same conclusions. This Professor Ehrenpreis inexplicably fails to point out.
Professor Ehrenpreis also claims that the mural depicting the discovery of pulque is “so undistinguished that Porter dismisses it in a vague sentence,” questioning Givner’s statement that it is described “in detail” and “shows the Indian’s ability to transform his superstitious veneration of the liquor into a work of art.” In the sentence in question, the narrator describes “a faded fresco relating the legend of pulque; how a young Indian girl discovered this divine liquor, and brought it to the emperor, who rewarded her well, and after her death she became a half-goddess.” Porter does not dismiss the fresco. Another sentence tells us about how the old legend “has something to do with man’s confused veneration for, and terror of, the fertility of women” and in the next paragraph Betancourt calls the fresco “the perfect example” of the same legend the Spanish found painted on the walls of pre-Columbian pulquerias: “So it goes. Nothing ever ends”—like the hacienda itself.
The actual fresco that Porter found in the vat-room at Tetlapayac in 1931 is a copy of a painting by José Obregón (1832-1902) entitled “El Descubrimiento de Pulque,” which depicts Xochitl presenting the liquor to the Toltec king Tecpancaltzin. In “The Children of Xochitl,” a manuscript composed in 1921, Porter describes Xochitl as a “fruitful” deity who satisfies all the earthly needs of the Xochimilcan Indians who live in complete harmony with nature. But this view of Mexico as paradise quickly vanished. In 1931 the goddess of pulque is the goddess of death, her fertility inspiring terror and her liquor drugging rather than nourishing her children. Her role is more explicit in the first version of “Hacienda,” where she and Maria Santisima together are “anodynes” as the Indians “call upon the Mother of God,” drink “the corpse-white liquor,” and “swallow forgetfulness.” Porter uses the fresco scene to show that the Indian’s devotion to the goddess and her pulque is an ironic aspect of his enthrallment on the hacienda. There is no evidence that the fresco is undistinguished, as Professor Ehrenpreis claims in his attempt to make it serve his argument about good and bad art.
Although Professor Givner incorrectly refers to Kennerly as the American director instead of business manager, as Ehrenpreis points out, her over-all analysis of “Hacienda” is sound and undeserving of his harsh attack. Her purpose was to write a biography and she has written one that critics of Porter’s works cannot neglect. I doubt that Professor Ehrenpreis could have speculated about Porter in the first six paragraphs of his review if he had not read it.
Thomas F. Walsh
Irvin Ehrenpreis replies:
The real issue is Givner’s limitations as a critic, which I tried to document. Professor Walsh does not mention the errors I mentioned in my review of Givner’s book, except for the treatment of “Hacienda.” Instead of listing those errors again, I shall briefly add some that I passed over, and then return to “Hacienda.”
Writing about the story “Theft,” Givner says that the protagonist’s “indifference” invited the theft of her beautiful purse by a janitress. According to Givner, the protagonist is the guiltier party because she is responsible for the “moral decline” of the thief (p. 206). Yet in the story, the lady is explicitly, deeply attached to the purse, and in an “almost murderous anger” strives to recover it (The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter [Harcourt Brace, and World, 1965], p. 63). Porter nowhere suggests that the janitress has suffered a moral decline or that the lady thinks so. It is herself alone that the lady’s ill-founded trustfulness injures.
Givner fails to consider the sexual symbolism of an empty purse made of gold cloth. She fails to notice that the purse was a gift from a lover who has just ended an affair with the lady. She fails to remark that the lady impulsively offers to let the thief keep the purse because a speech made by the janitress reminds her that the present now betokens not love but loss (Collected Stories, p. 65).
Writing about “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall,” Givner says that the indomitable woman’s error, recalled as her life closes, lay in not giving voice to anger when her first finacé, George, left her standing at the altar (p. 198). Yet one point of the story is that John, who did marry her, died young anyhow; and the matriarch established a thriving family by unaided, independent energy. Even losing her favorite child, Hapsy, she kept her absolute self-reliance. As death inescapably comes to her, she searches for an omen of God’s blessing, but finds once more that the bridegroom eludes her.
Nowhere in the story does Porter suggest that Granny Weatherall had less than appropriate feelings in response to George’s treachery. What we do hear constantly is that the lady turned inward, not upward, and chose to succeed by her own powers. The death of John, the death of Hapsy, never directed her to the heavenly bridegroom. Why should he enter her life only as it closes?
Givner’s habit of seeing what is not there, and ignoring what is, makes her a dangerous biographer. Instead of letting knowledge bring insight, Givner substitutes hard-won data for critical sympathy. In “Hacienda,” Porter gives three-sevenths of the story to an account of a railway journey across Mexico. Here she dwells on the essential character of the humble Mexican people, contrasting their patience, gentleness, and repose to the busy arrogance of the American manager. Pictures displayed by a Russian film maker illustrate the natives’ tragic acceptance of suffering, their dignified acceptance of death. Porter draws a contrast between the Mexico revealed during the journey and the style of the decadent family in the hacienda.
Givner says the hacienda is Porter’s symbol for the varied elements in Mexico as a whole (p. 239). This is untrue. The disruption of the family in the hacienda is opposed to the closeness of the native families. Don Genaro’s grandfather, alienated from mindlessness of the young, stays as far as he can from the master of the household. Julia, the wife of Genaro, says they never really live in the hacienda anyhow. She has a perverse liaison with an actress whom Genaro has made his mistress. The discontent, feverish activity, depravity, and utter selfishness of Genaro’s kind convey the corruption of the rulers of Mexico.
As for Professor Walsh, who cannot spell my name, his complaint is that I deal with the story rather than its sources. Like Givner (whom he supplied with information about Mexico), he offers data where the reader wants insight. Givner does quote two passages concerning pulque, in addition to the sentences about the fresco. She also says the liquid smells nasty and has a menacing character. But when examining the exploitation of the Indian, she opposes that process to his rich artistic heritage (p. 240). She blames the exploitation on his “refuge in superstition and narcotics.” She connects the fresco, which represents the discovery of pulque, with the artistic ability of the Indian, and she passes over the consequence that pulque would then be identified with an admirable artistic heritage. She does not observe the poisonous, pervasive omnipresence of pulque in the whole story, nor does she state that it symbolizes the techniques of corruption used by the rulers of the nation.
Professor Walsh objects to my statement that Porter gives no detailed description of the fresco. Actually, Porter has one sentence on the fresco as a picture, and all she says of its appearance is that it is “faded” and covers the walls of the vat room. She then summarizes, in two clauses (twenty-eight words), the legend that inspired the picture (Collected Stories, p. 165). Professor Walsh’s information is beside the point. | <urn:uuid:5c8666a2-6c30-4424-bf26-3dd530e94459> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1983/jun/16/in-porters-hacienda/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949601 | 2,264 | 2.0625 | 2 |
On Homeland, Claire Danes’ Carrie Mathison is a brilliant and ambitious CIA analyst, gifted with a beautiful mind that sees connections and hidden patterns that others around her can’t. She’s driven to an obsessive fixation on Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis), a recently returned POW whom she believes to be a terrorist sleeper agent. Carrie, to her horror and ours, is right.
However, Carrie suffers from bipolar disorder, a crippling psychological condition that is sometimes known as manic-depression, which affects roughly 5.7 million Americans, or 2.6 percent of the U.S. adult population, according to data from the National Institute of Mental Health. The illness includes “dramatic shifts in mood, energy, and activity levels that affect a person’s ability to carry out day-to-day tasks” that “are more severe than the normal ups and downs that are experienced by everyone.” (Other symptoms can include but are not limited to erratic behavior, hypersexuality, rapid cycling between mood states, and even delusions and hallucinations.)
What makes Carrie such a superb intelligence agent is also her Achilles’ heel, and her journey over the course of the first season of Homeland was one of frustration, error, and ultimately being right. Her words go unheeded when her condition is discovered by her employers, making her a modern-day Cassandra, a woman too smart for the room, too close to the truth, whose viewpoint is discarded by men who believe they know better. Danes’s stunning performance is one of several new groundbreakingly realistic depictions of mental illness, particularly bipolar disorder, on television.
“A lot of women in particular have responded to this idea that Carrie was right and that nobody knows she was right,” Homeland’s cocreator/executive producer Alex Gansa told The Daily Beast. “There’s a real sense of tragedy in that.”
It’s rare to see a bipolar character at the forefront of a television drama; they’re typically shoved to the sidelines, a crazed killer in a police procedural or an unstable individual in a chance encounter. In fact, one can count on both hands the few bipolar characters who have appeared on television in recent years: Jeremy Sisto’s Billy Chenowith on Six Feet Under, 90210’s Erin Silver (Jessica Stroup), ER’s Maggie Wyczenski (Sally Field, in an Emmy Award-winning turn), Friday Night Lights’ Waverly Grady (Aasha Davis), and NYPD Blue’s Dr. Jennifer Devlin (Chandra West), to name a few. Film and theater haven’t been absent of bipolar characters, either. Films like Shutter Island, Michael Clayton, Mad Love, and The Informant! have all tackled the subject matter to different degrees, while Broadway rock musical Next to Normal depicted bipolar disorder’s effects on a family. (TNT will join the crowd this summer with Perception, which stars Eric McCormack as a paranoid schizophrenic neuroscientist who solves crimes through his hallucinations.) But as individuals become more open about their diagnoses, these portrayals have evolved significantly to become more realistic.
Two specific bipolar characters have captured our attention in recent months, and both appear on Showtime dramas: Homeland’s Carrie, for which Danes won a Golden Globe, and Chloe Webb’s Monica Gallagher on Shameless. The two shows are incredibly dissimilar (one is a psychological thriller, the other a family dramedy) and the two roles are vastly different—one is a CIA operative, the other an errant Chicago mother—but the two women’s portrayals are inherently complementary, with Danes’s Carrie taking us inside an “unquiet mind” and Webb’s Monica serving as a prism through which to see the effects of a bipolar family member on the lives of those around her.
“The interesting thing about bipolar disorder … is that even at the hypomanic stage, which is a degree below the manic stage, these people are incredibly interesting to be with and they are more alive in a way,” Gansa said. “They fly closer to the sun than the rest of us, and there is an incandescence about them.”
On last week’s season finale of Shameless, Monica’s story arc came to a close for now. The second half of the season depicted the Gallagher matriarch yo-yoing between a hypomanic state—in which she rearranged the furniture, took the kids on a shopping spree (spending their “squirrel fund” in the process), bought a car and a carpet cleaner—and a depressed one, in which she couldn’t move or get out of bed. She slit her wrists during the family’s Thanksgiving dinner, drenching the kitchen in her blood, but surviving
“We were all cognizant that it shouldn’t be melodramatic,” said Shameless writer/producer Etan Frankel. “We wanted to make it as real as possible.”
In preparation for the season, the writing staff of Homeland researched the disorder, consulted with bipolar individuals, and drew on insights from An Unquiet Mind, a classic book written by Kay Jamison.
Monica’s suicide attempt felt real and shocking, even in a series set in a slightly heightened reality. There was a sense of verisimilitude and brutal honesty to the sequence, and to Monica’s decision afterward to get help, checking herself into a mental-health facility and getting back on her medication.
“There are parts of Monica that want to change, that want to be there for her children,” said Frankel. “But there are also parts of her that want to do things differently, that don’t want to be numbed by medication ... It’s a battle within her and it's why she changes her mind.” Following her voluntary hospitalization, Monica—true to her wandering and erratic ways—chooses to break out of the facility. But instead of going home, she steals a car and flees with a fellow patient, played by Jenna Elfman. Her giant step backward, a return to noncompliance, comprises a sad if familiar aspect to many of these stories.
It’s the exact opposite trajectory of Danes’s Carrie, in fact. Carrie opted at the end of Homeland’s season to get help and to take her treatment a step further, choosing to undergo electro-convulsive treatment (ECT) in an effort to attain some semblance of stability and responsibility.
“Carrie has reached the point in that last episode where she just can’t take the secrecy anymore, can’t take the bouts of depression anymore, can’t take her thoughts of suicide, can’t take how she’s certainly negatively affected people’s lives around her,” said Gansa. “She has to wrest control of her life back and decides to do this thing, which also has a certain stigma attached to it, and she voices those concerns. Next season, you’ll see a somewhat different Carrie as a result of the new therapy that she’s committed to.”
Carrie’s decision was instantly controversial, despite the fact that ECT has come a long way since the days of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, though its efficacy in treating severe depression and mania, among other conditions, has been variable. (Some decried the risk of memory loss as too driven by a demand within the narrative.) However, Gansa pointed to the accounts written by Dr. Leon Rosenberg, a doctor and teacher with bipolar disorder, of his own ECT therapy how it “really quieted his suicidal tendencies and his depression.” Preparing for the season, the writing staff of Homeland researched the psychological disorder, consulting with bipolar individuals, and drew heavily on An Unquiet Mind, a classic book on the subject written by Kay Jamison.
“That was really our bible, our bipolar-illness bible,” said Gansa. “Kay Jamison is a mental-health professional with a mental illness. There was a real parallel, we felt, between a woman in the CIA who had to keep her illness a secret and Kay Jamison, who had to keep her illness a secret from the people that she was practicing with because there was this stigma involved.”
Reluctance to discuss the disorder remains today. “[Carrie] hopefully opens up some dialogue about what it means to have this particular disease,” said Gansa. “In 2002 there were 30,000 suicides in this country directly attributable to bipolar illness, and for all 30,000 that actually completed suicide, there were over a million suicide attempts. Maybe Carrie’s character can … create opportunities for people to get help.”
Meredith Stiehm, a writer and consulting producer on Homeland, has a bipolar sister, Jamie, who recently wrote a New York Times op-ed piece about her struggles. “It was a painful testament to my sister’s skill that scenes that might have been of just passing interest to other viewers pushed me to tears, because in a real way they carried an uncanny emotional resonance,” wrote Jamie Stiehm. “And yet for all that, I feel the show’s creators, writers, and producers, and Ms. Danes, have done us all a public service: perhaps, with the show’s glowing reception, Americans can finally talk openly about bipolar disorder.”
Over at Shameless, Frankel’s father is a psychologist; he said many of the writers on Shameless have family members who are bipolar and they were able to draw on personal stories as well as medical research. “It wasn’t Monica’s story as much as it was the family’s story,” Frankel said. “What is it like to be with someone who has bipolar disorder and goes through these incredible ups that can be so energizing and really fun for the people around her and these crashes that are so low and awful?”
Frankel watched Homeland, riveted by the tension of the terrorism plot and captivated by Danes’s performance and the show’s handling of bipolar illness. “It did really strike me that in Homeland you’re going through the journey with [Carrie],” he said. “On our show, you’re going through it with the family living with it. It’s a different perspective and, juxtaposed, it gives you a really interesting portrait of what it’s like to live with this disorder.”
For Danes’s character, her decision to take control of her life and her psyche once more, even at the risk of her short-term memory, is a positive development, a sign that Carrie is more accepting herself and her limitations, and she’s moving back towards therapy and self-worth. However, any chance of immediate reconciliation between the disgraced analyst and the CIA seems slim at this point.
“Not in the traditional way,” said Gansa. “I don’t think it’s going to be easy for Carrie to come back and work for the intelligence community the way that she has up to this point. Her insights and her experience are going to prove valuable to any intelligence organization even though she suffered this breakdown and this disease. She’s still who she was before. People will consult her, and there are many ways to insinuate herself back into that world without giving her a formal job.”
But in order to break through the stigma associated with this condition, storytellers should offer both sides of the bipolar individual’s crucible: the highs and the lows.
“If you only tell part of that story, it’s not being completely honest,” Frankel said. “If you just tell the story of the bipolar person who is depressed, that’s not really the full picture of what it’s like to go through that and what it’s like to be a family member of someone who goes through that. Sometimes, it can be fun and exciting and … that, to me, leads to a more profound low for everybody. The low was inevitable, but you just want to hope against hope.”
“You want to believe, and unfortunately with that character and the way that she conducts her life, it’s just not in the cards for her to change all that much yet,” he continued. “Maybe one day.” | <urn:uuid:aa0ae30f-abc7-4181-9e2e-80b6831b526d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/04/10/homeland-and-shameless-television-tackles-bipolar-disorder-with-realism.print.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970677 | 2,691 | 1.640625 | 2 |
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SEMINAR ON GREEN ENERGY A Southern Regional Railway seminar on “Green Energy” was conducted at Southern Railway at Tiruchchirappalli on 25th Nov’ 2011.
Ms. Mamta Banerjee during this year’s Railway Budget speech had declared the year 2011-12 as the year of ‘Green energy’.She further mentioned that Railways will take all out efforts to promote Green Energy and set a goal for utilizing 10 % of its energy requirement from renewable sources by the year 2020.
Taking a step in this direction and to create awareness among the Railwaymen of southern region, consisting of Southern, South Western, South Central Railways and the production units... Read more...
- Integral Coach Factory, Chennai and Rail Wheel Factory, Bengaluru, a technical seminar has been organised by Southern Railway at Tiruchchirappalli on 25.11.2011.This is the second such event during the year.The first one was conducted on 26.05.2011 by Southern Railway at its Headquarters, Chennai.
Shri. M.C. Murali, Chief Electrical Engineer/ Southern Railway addressed the gathering on global warming issues and the need to use more renewable energy sources.He listed out various steps taken by Southern railway to achieve this.
He said that new generation AC locomotives capable of regenerating energy during brakingwere deployed on Chennai – Bangalore sectorwhich saves about 12% of total energy consumed by these trains per round trip.
Shri.P.V.Vaidialingam, Divisional Railway Manager, Tiruchchirappalli division during his presidential address also stressed upon the need to control global warming and the use of green energy.He further mentioned that global warming can be controlled by Energy conservation also and suggested various steps for energy conservation in day to day life.
Technical papers were presented by Professor G. Subbaiyan of NIT/Trichy on the concept of Green building and Dr. V. Arunmozhi Selvan also of NIT, Trichy on Bio fuels.Shri Vishnukant, Deputy Chief Electrical Engineer explained the efforts by South Central Railway in constructing “Green Building” at Secunderabad.Shri P. Raveendra Babu, detailed the experience of Southern Railway in the use of bio-diesel being produced at Loco works/Perambur.
More than One Hundred and Fifty Officers and Supervisors from the Railway network of Southern Region, ie. SR, SWR, SCR, ICF & RWF attended the seminar.
The seminar was followed by a stage play named “Mr.Green”performed by ‘RailPriya’,a fine arts group of Railway Employees from Chennai. | <urn:uuid:1a7fa129-9b6a-4aab-b34d-a371a046a361> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://indiarailinfo.com/news/post/47357 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954568 | 629 | 1.953125 | 2 |
The Hunger Games Trilogy is takes place in a post apocalyptic future were the United States of America has collapsed and supplanted by Panem, a country divided into the Capitol and 12 districts.
Each year, two young representatives between the ages of 12 and 18 are selected from each district to participate in The Hunger Games. The televised games are broadcasted throughout Panem as the 24 participants are forced to eliminate their competitors, literally, with all citizens required to watch.
If you can get over the brutal concept of young kids fighting each other to the death for people’s entertainment and the fact that this series was originally written for a very young audience, we feel that you will come to enjoy this series like millions of people around the world have.
Cliff and Stephanie invite you to join them as they share their initial reaction to this story as they are reading it for the the first time.
If you like this podcast, you may also like the Twilight Saga Fan Podcast, Lord of The Rings Fan Podcast or the Family From The Heart podcast. Of course we invite you to check out our complete list of podcasts.
Thanks For Subscribing To The Hunger Games Fan Podcast: | <urn:uuid:11d3bc8d-ff98-4095-a2d4-7d379236b9a9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gspn.tv/category/hungergames/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959928 | 238 | 1.914063 | 2 |
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GEN’s editor in chief, John Sterling, interviews life science academic and biotech industry leaders on important research, technology, and trends. These podcasts will keep you informed with all the important details you need.
A team led by Yale University researchers has used nanosensors to measure cancer biomarkers in whole blood for the first time. Their findings, which appeared December 13 in the advanced online publication of Nature Nanotechnology, could dramatically simplify the way physicians test for biomarkers of cancer and other diseases. The team, led by Yale's Dr. Mark Reed used nanowire sensors to detect and measure concentrations of two specific biomarkers: one for prostate cancer and the other for breast cancer.
During this week's podcast, Dr. Reed provides additional details on the research reported in the Nature Nanotechnology paper. He explains why the team employed a label-free biomarker detection technology and how his group was able to overcome the challenge of whole blood detection. Dr. Reed describes the advantages the new method has over other biomarker detection techniques and looks at the ways doctors might be able to use these novel nanosensor devices in daily medical practice.
Prof. Mark A. Reed received his Ph.D. in Physics from Syracuse University in 1983, after which he joined Texas Instruments. In 1990 Mark joined Yale University where he holds the Harold Hodgkinson Chair of Engineering and Applied Science. He was chairman of the Department of Electrical Engineering from 1995 to 2001. He is presently the Associate Director of the Yale Institute for Nanoscience and Quantum Engineering.
Mark's research activities have included the investigation of electronic transport in nanoscale and mesoscopic systems, artificially structured materials and devices, molecular scale electronic transport, plasmonic transport in nanostructures, and chem/bio nanosensors. Mark is the author of more than 180 professional publications and 6 books, has given 20 plenary and over 300 invited talks, and holds 25 U.S. and foreign patents on quantum effect, heterojunction, and molecular devices. He is the Editor in Chief of the journal Nanotechnology, an Editor for IEEE Transactions Electron Devices, and holds numerous other editorial and advisory board positions.
Mark has been elected to the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering and Who's Who in the World. His awards include; Fortune Magazine “Most Promising Young Scientist” (1990), the Kilby Young Innovator Award (1994), the Fujitsu ISCS Quantum Device Award (2001), the Yale Science and Engineering Association Award for Advancement of Basic and Applied Science (2002), Fellow of the American Physical Society (2003), the IEEE Pioneer Award in Nanotechnology (2007), and Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (2009). | <urn:uuid:8c13c6db-ba0e-4099-910a-cd7b614817bd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.genengnews.com/gen-podcasts/first-use-of-nanosensors-to-measure-cancer-biomarkers-in-blood/291/?kwrd=Breast%20Cancer | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934843 | 576 | 2.140625 | 2 |
The city of Coos Bay has drafted an ordinance to allow wind turbines in town.
The World of Coos Bay reports that turbines have been under a moratorium, but the city plans to take public comment in early 2013.
The draft ordinance would allow turbines no higher than 70 feet - industrial wind turbines are more than 250 feet.
For large turbines, residents would have to show that noise would be minimal, viewsheds would not be disturbed and that the device would meet tough safety standards. Restrictions would be reduced for smaller devices.
An Oregon State University expert tells the paper that urban settings aren't generally favorable for turbines: Both wind speed and elevation are low. | <urn:uuid:70b94cd6-2b4d-4de5-87a4-586933891caa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thedove.us/news/2012/11/16/draft-proposal-accept-wind-turbines-coos-bay?page=146 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962928 | 136 | 2.546875 | 3 |
For those who are home, and for those who are on the way. For those who support the historic and just return of the land of Israel to its people, forever loyal to their inheritance, and its restoration.
A debate over whether it is appropriate for an Israeli orchestra to play the music of the notorious anti-Semite Richard Wagner has again been resurrected.
The Jewish boycott of Wagner's music was initiated in 1938 following Kristallnacht when the Nazis burned synagogues and instituted massive nationwide pogroms against Jews. In 2001 during the Israel Festival in Jerusalem Daniel Barenboim conducted a selection of Wagner's music which led to demonstrations and the then mayor Ehud Olmert condemned Barenboim's initiative as "brazen, arrogant uncivilized and insensitive."
A few weeks ago Katherina Wagner, the German composer's great granddaughter, sought to visit Israel to formally invite the Cameri Israeli Chamber Orchestra to inaugurate the forthcoming session of the Bayreuth Festival in Germany - an annual event promoting Wagner's music. Her intentions were leaked to the media and created such a maelstrom, that she canceled the visit. But Cameri announced that it still intended to perform at the festival, although it undertook not to play or even rehearse Wagner's music in Israel.
There certainly is a case to be made that if we were to boycott all anti-Semitic writers, artists and composers, we would be isolating ourselves from a very substantial proportion of the culture of the Western world. Besides, many pose the question "What has music got to do with politics?" Moreover, why should there be so much fuss over the music of a lone anti-Semitic composer who died nearly 130 years ago? And if we are going to ban Wagner, why not also ban music created by other anti-Semitic composers such as Richard Strauss, Sibelius and Chopin?
Yet if one drew a red line in the gradation of anti-Semites, identifying those who had a real impact on events leading up to the mass murder of Jews, Wagner would certainly stand out far beyond "traditional" anti-Semites.
I visited Hevron in November 2000 after the outbreak of the Rosh Hashanah War to see what could be done to assist in the face of the growing daily attacks on the community. After returning to work for the community in the summer of 2001, a bond and a love was forged that grows to this day. My wife Melody and I merited to be married at Ma'arat HaMachpela and now host visitors from throughout the world every Shabbat as well as during the week. Our goal, "Time to come Home!" | <urn:uuid:45d2cde9-a0a0-4400-aa9e-c737d1407226> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com/2010/10/controversy-over-wagner.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971751 | 548 | 1.953125 | 2 |
This afternoon at 1:00 p.m., the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Energy and Power will check one more box in the House GOP's ongoing effort to demonstrate its appreciation to the corporate interests that helped elect them, by holding a hearing on a proposal disingenuously called the Transparency in Regulatory Analysis of Impacts on the Nation Act of 2011, or as they acronym-ize it, the TRAIN Act.
As the name does not at all suggest, it’s a bill about undercutting environmental regulations that inconvenience the energy industry. The idea is to create a sort of non-environmentally minded Star Chamber to review the full slate of Clean Air Act and coal ash regulations, for the purpose of concluding that they cost too much. That’s not quite how they phrase it, of course, but that is the purpose.
Here’s an excerpt from the committee majority staff’s description of the bill:
In the past two years, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has promulgated numerous final and proposed rules that will require retrofitting of power plants, increased fees for new construction and operation of units from diverse sectors of the economy, potential construction delays, revisions to state plans to implement federal requirements, and the adoption of Best Available Control Technology measures to address greenhouse gas emissions from diverse sources.
EPA’s own analysis indicates that some of these rules will have significant costs; other actions have not yet been analyzed. There has not, however, been an analysis of the cumulative impacts of these regulations on global competitiveness, cumulative change in energy and fuel prices, employment, or reliability of the electricity supply. Nor has there been an analysis of the cumulative impacts on consumers; small businesses; regional economies; state, local and tribal governments; specific labor markets; and agriculture.
Of course, every rule that emerges from EPA undergoes a rigorous cost-benefit analysis, totting up every penny of cost to industry (calculated by industry, for the most part, so you can imagine they don’t under-project), and comparing it with the dollar value of the benefits that would result. For a number of reasons, that process is deeply flawed and slanted against protective regulations. It ignores, for example, the value of benefits that can’t be readily monetized, with the net effect that benefits are commonly understated, while the costs to industry are often exaggerated.
Nevertheless, these cost-benefit analyses are required by the White House. Yet if you listen to the GOP’s rhetoric on regulations these days, you’ll almost never hear any reference to the benefits of regulation, even though such calculations are readily available. They talk about the costs to industry, but never the benefits to the public. Note, for example, that the committee staff’s description does not acknowledge the benefits, and indeed, the word does not appear in their memo.
As it happens, the monetized benefits almost always exceed the costs. In the case of the Clean Air Act, for example, a recent report from EPA calculated the costs and benefits of the last 20 years of regulation. In testimony that CPR President Rena Steinzor will present to the committee this afternoon, she summarizes the findings:
Regulations implementing the Clean Air Act, especially with respect to ozone and fine particulate matter that cause cardiovascular and respiratory problems throughout the population, are uniformly recognized as a wonderful economic bargain by experts from the right to the left of the political spectrum. Indeed, if you invite John Graham, former regulatory czar under President George W. Bush, to testify before you, he would agree enthusiastically with that statement.
According to EPA’s very conservative numbers, which dramatically understate benefits and overstate costs, clean air rules saved 164,300 adult lives in 2010, and will save 237,000 lives annually by 2020. EPA estimates that the economic value of Clean Air Act regulatory controls will be $2 trillion annually by 2020; costs of compliance in that year will be $65 billion. Air pollution controls saved 13 million days of work loss and 3.2 million days of school loss in 2010. By 2020, they will save 17 million work loss days and 5.4 million school loss days.
Reiterating the dollar comparison: Clean Air Act regulations result in $2 trillion in annual benefits, against $65 billion in costs, which means that benefits exceed costs by 30 to 1. She goes on to say:
EPA’s estimates are based on exceptionally conservative assumptions regarding regulatory benefits that, if anything, low-ball these figures by orders of magnitude. For example, EPA says that when Clean Air Act protections prevent a non-fatal heart attack in a person 0-24 years old, the incident is worth only $84,000. How many of the young people in this room would accept $84,000 to undergo a non-fatal heart attack or, for that matter, would pay that amount to avoid one? The millions of parents who have asthmatic children will be interested to learn that cleaning up the air to the point they can avoid a single emergency room visit is worth only $363 per asthmatic child. Hospitals don’t give you a plastic ID bracelet for that little, and the trip to the hospital with a breathless, frantic child is worthless in these calculations.
She also pokes a little fun at the proposed name of the bill:
Although the bill has the word “transparency” in its title, the proceedings of the committee it creates to invent these estimates is exempt from the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), allowing members to meet secretly with biased stakeholders who are never publicly named. Precedents for this kind of Star Chamber process designed to cripple environmentally protective rules come readily to mind, including Vice President Richard Cheney’s secret Energy Taskforce and Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Administrator Cass Sunstein’s Cost of Carbon Taskforce, both of which met behind closed doors and did not disclose their membership upfront.
Later, noting that the name of the bill was obviously chosen with an acronym in mind, she suggests that perhaps it would be more accurate to call the bill the “So-called Transparency in Regulatory Analysis of Impacts on the Nation Act,” making both the title and the acronym – STRAIN – more accurate.
This latest attack on the authority of the executive branch to write the regulations to enforce the law is extremely unlikely to make it to the President’s desk for veto. The GOP can run practically anything it wants through the House, but the Senate isn’t likely to concur.
But the GOP obviously likes the atmospherics. They get to argue, completely without evidence, that overly aggressive environmental regulation is what’s bogging down the economy, not the lax approach to financial regulation that so defined the previous Administration. It’s a bright shiny distraction for voters. But more than that, it’s a chance to give some airtime to the policy wish lists of their corporate supporters.
One would think that with the government on the verge of shutdown, they might have something better to do. But then again, clearly not.
Matt Freeman, Media Consultant, Center for Progressive Reform. Bio.
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Asteroids hurtling past Earth, comets burning in the solar wind and frozen worlds whirling at the edge of the solar system.
Sounds more TV show than science? Get ready for both. The storied Lowell Observatory is unveiling its $53 million Discovery Channel Telescope, aimed at bringing a few of those finds, and more, into the view of astronomers, but also into your living room.
"Hopefully we will find interesting, provocative, thought-provoking things that we can share with the world," says astronomer Lisa Prato of Lowell Observatory located outside Flagstaff, Ariz. Famed as the site where Pluto was discovered in 1930, the observatory will step into the 21st century with the opening of the 14-foot telescope, the fifth-largest nationwide. The Discovery Channel plans an early September documentary on the telescope, which will be officially unveiled Saturday at an observatory gala .
"The telescope really puts the observatory back in the first ranks," says Villanova University astronomer Ed Guinan, who heads a science outreach committee of the International Astronomical Union. Other telescopes are much larger, such as the two 33-foot-wide Keck telescopes atop Hawaii's Mauna Kea, but the new telescope offers advantages over older, tightly-scheduled observatories. "Scientifically, the telescope is amazingly flexible, which should lead to a lot of discoveries ," Guinan says. "From the point of reaching the public, the idea of working with a cable channel that reaches all over the world is wonderful."
In particular, the new telescope aims to uncover the icy dwarf planets beyond Pluto and eyeball the asteroids and comets closer to Earth, hot topics in astronomy. Prato hopes to use the telescope to examine dusty disks surrounding nearby young stars, returning to view them repeatedly with the added time available on the flexible new telescope.
An exclusive "first light" image from the telescope shared with USA TODAY captures the "Sombrero" galaxy a type of nearby, dusty galaxy perfect for viewing with the new telescope./
"We wanted to find a way to 'give back' a little," says Discovery Channel chief John Hendricks, an observatory advisory board member who contributed $6 million of his and his wife's own money to the telescope, on top of $10 million donated by the cable channel. Known for its science programs, the channel will receive first dibs on publicizing discoveries made at the telescope. Astronomers hotly compete for telescope time at observatories, and Hendricks, an avid astronomy advocate, saw a chance to help science and the observatory founded by Mars astronomer Percival Lowell in 1894, he says.
"I think it is an excellent and creative idea," says Caltech astronomer Mike Brown. "There are many dwarf planets, near Earth objects, and who-knows-what-else still out there to be discovered, and this telescope is specialized to do just that," says Brown, who headed a Palomar Observatory team that found Eris, a distant dwarf planet about the size of Pluto in 2005. | <urn:uuid:c38d4b17-f938-4c1e-8236-6877ea8364ec> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://desmoines.metromix.com/movies/article/telescope-helps-discovery-channel/3131279/content | 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 | 0.942842 | 627 | 2.359375 | 2 |
Athentech Imaging Perfectly Clear As more photos are made on more types of devices, there’s a need for resultant images that aren’t just “OK” but as good as they can be. And part of the need, it would seem, is that some folks don’t want to spend a lot of time learning complex programs to get the image results they want. Companies like Athentech Imaging aim to make it a one-click affair.
Let’s say you have an image that’s two stops underexposed and has a color cast similar to a 1969 Grabber Green Mustang. Or you have 10 images like that, or 20. Or, for pros, let’s say you just shot a wedding and have thousands of images you’d like to correct for viewing and printing. No problem.
Sony Alpha SLT-A99 The new SLT-A99 is Sony’s first full-frame camera with an electronic viewfinder. While former Sony full-format cameras like the A900 or A850 offered a standard SLR system, the new A99 offers an electronic viewfinder with extremely high resolution (2.3 million RGB dots). Due to the SLT system with fixed mirror, the camera is very fast and can even utilize the AF system while recording videos.
X-Rite i1Photo Pro 2 Color Management I always enjoy trying out the best new high-end products. It’s fun, but more important it tells me how good the best performance can be. But when reviewing color management tools I realize that photographers are not color scientists or computer programming experts, so I thought I’d start this review with a bit of a tech briefing on why they are important to all photographers who want to get the most from their work.
Canon PIXMA PRO-10 Canon’s 13x19”-sized printers, the PIXMA Pro9500 Mark II and PIXMA Pro9000 Mark II, have had a longer life than most, but have been replaced with two new models that are similar to the PIXMA PRO-1, introduced over a year ago. New features on both the pigment-ink PRO-10 and dye-ink PRO-100 include Wi-Fi and AirPrint compatibility, a new plug-in to make printing easier, and a refined inkset.
While it’s true that photography is “writing with light,” shadows often play an equal and important role. They define form and space, create dimensionality, and concentrate the viewer’s eye on the main subject of the scene. Our Picture This! assignment this month was “negative space,” and we asked readers to send us images that use this important tool of the craft to good effect. We received portraits, landscapes, still life and abstract images, all of which display a thoughtful use of the “dark side” of aspects of the image. Exposure plays a key role in creating this effect, as does a strong scene contrast that allows the photographer to “read the highlights and let the shadows fall where they may.” All this stems from the old days when photographers were often forced by their use of slide film to create deep areas in their images in order to keep the highlights from burning up. Now that we have HDR and other contrast-fighting exposure tools it is a conscious exposure decision made to add so much to an image’s effect.
Sekonic Corporation and X-Rite, Incorporated announced the availability the LITEMASTER PRO L-478D and L-478DR light meters bundled with the new special edition X-Rite-Sekonic Color Checker Passport with Sekonic Gray balance Card. Using free software from Sekonic and X-Rite, this new bundle enables photographers and cinematographers to quickly and easily create an exposure profile of their cameras, calibrate their meters and create color profiles that deliver the very best images.
Nikon 1 V2 Camera
The Nikon 1 V2 camera is powerful and highly versatile. Features include a 14.2-megapixel CX-format CMOS sensor, an EXPEED 3A image-processing engine, a traditional grip with a new Command dial, a 73-point AF array, and a high-resolution 3” LCD display. The 1 V2 has full Auto/Manual controls and the modes include Enhanced Motion Snapshot, Best Moment Capture, and Advanced Movie. It is compatible with all 1 Nikkor lenses and the WU-1b Wireless Mobile Adapter. The suggested retail price is $899.95 with a 10-30mm kit lens.
The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles has announced the publication of Eliot Porter: In the Realm of Nature (Getty Publications/November 2012), presenting work from the acclaimed American photographer’s illustrious six-decade career spanning the 1930s to the 1980s. Known for his exquisite images of birds and landscapes, Eliot Porter (1901–1990) was a pioneer in the use of color photography during a time when most serious photographers were working with black-and-white film.
The 40” Parabolic Octabox OCTA 100P is a 40”/100cm diameter octagonal softbox with silver reflective lining. It includesan inner and outer diffusor as well as a soft honeycomb grid. The tapering shape decreases the angle & spread of the light cone resulting in slightly sharper shadows than common octagonal softboxes. The inner and outer baffles enhance the softness of the evenly diffused light, while the silver lining gives it a small amount of extra contrast. Used without the diffusors,the OCTA 100P produces a crisp and more direct light. The optional use of the included soft honeycomb grid directs the light cone more, producing even sharper shadows.
Phase One announced the Phase One IQ2 series: three new full-frame 645 format digital camera backs with high-speed wireless connectivity and 13 f-stops of dynamic range, plus new options to meet specific photographic goals. Building on the IQ digital back platform, the technical advances in the Phase One IQ280, IQ260 and IQ260 Achromatic go beyond delivering ultra-high megapixel resolution to introduce greater mobility and workflow flexibility for professional photographers.
The Satechi BT Smart Trigger allows photographers to easily manage their DSLR camera directly from an iOS device. The compact and lightweight wireless timer remote fits easily into any camera bag and features Bluetooth 4.0 technology with a range of 50 feet and a battery life of up to 10 years. The BT Smart Trigger is compatible with a wide range of cameras including the latest Canon EOS 5D Mark III, ESO 6D, Rebel T4i and EOS 60D. The Smart Trigger app is compatible with iPhone 5, iPad Mini and iPad.
LPA Design, manufacturers of PocketWizard Photo Products, the world leader in wireless control of cameras, flash lighting and light meters, today announces the immediate availability of its new PlusX Auto-Sensing Transceiver.
The high-quality PocketWizard PlusX is the perfect entry into the PocketWizard Wireless System with the same range and reliability of its renowned Plus line of radios. Whether new to off-camera flash or remote camera triggering, or a seasoned professional looking to expand their PocketWizard wireless triggering system, the PlusX is the perfect choice. And as the user’s technical needs grow, the versatile PlusX will continue to work with any other PocketWizard radios that a photographer adds to their gear box.
The 10 Channel PlusX uses PocketWizard’s patented “Auto-Sensing Transceiver Technology” which means it will automatically switch between transmit and receive as needed. Users just turn it on, connect it to the flash or camera and set the channel using its simple, rotary-dial. The PlusX automatically figures out what it needs to do to trigger remote flashes or cameras. Using the same side-profile design of the PocketWizard Plus III radio, the PlusX has an internal antenna to minimize obstruction and increase durability.
Edited by Georg...
Mar 22, 2013
Published: Feb 01, 2013
The Samsung NX20 is a mirrorless system camera with very high sensor resolution. Just like the Samsung NX200 it uses an APS-C-sized sensor and offers a resolution of 20MP. In contrast to the NX200 it uses an SLR-like body design and an electronic viewfinder with very high resolution. The EVF has 1.44 million RGB dots and offers a very brilliant and sharp image, which makes manual focusing very comfortable. In addition, the NX20 has a large AMOLED swivel screen on the back with a resolution of 614,000 RGB dots. | <urn:uuid:2ec35b76-98a0-412f-ba98-a7d1e49e97f8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.shutterbug.com/home?page=8 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923725 | 1,821 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Wednesday, November 07, 2012
It Seems Providing Urgent Healthcare Advice Phone Numbers Is Not All That Useful. The Benefits Are Hard To Find.
The following appeared a little while ago.
29 October 2012 Rebecca Todd
NHS 111 has not improved efficiency in the NHS and has a low probability of cost savings to the emergency and urgent care system, an independent evaluation report says.
However, a “simplistic economic analysis” concludes that national roll-out of the urgent care telephone number "could potentially" save the NHS money.
NHS 111 has dealt with more than 1m calls since its introduction in August 2010 and is live in 13 sites across England.
The University of Sheffield has published its ‘Evaluation of NHS 111 pilot sites’ report into the first four sites to go live.
It concludes that one year after launch, the pilots had “not delivered the expected benefits in terms of improving satisfaction with urgent care or improving efficiency by directing patients to urgent rather than emergency care services.”
There was no significant change in emergency ambulance calls, A&E attendances or urgent care attendances.
But there was an increase in ambulance call-outs of 29 additional incidents per 1,000 NHS 111 triaged calls per month. Researchers say this trend should be investigated.
The British Medical Association has expressed concern about the potential for NHS 111 to drive up demand for health services.
Various groups have also expressed disquiet about the government pushing ahead with a national roll-out of the service before the independent evaluation report had been released.
The report’s economic analysis for all sites estimated that NHS 111 would cost an extra £307,000 per month in these sites and that this might vary between saving £118,000 and costing £733,000.
A simplistic economic analysis of the likely effects of the national roll-out of the service – including replacing NHS Direct and the impact on GP out-of-hours call handling - said that it could potentially save the NHS money.
“Assuming 7.8m NHS 111 calls per year, the estimated monthly cost impact to the NHS would be a saving of £2.5m, although this could vary between a saving of £12million and an additional cost of £7m,” the report says.
This service seems to be rather similar to what we have had here for the last little while.
1800 022 222
healthdirect Australia is a FREE* 24-hour telephone health advice line staffed by Registered Nurses to provide expert health advice.
That’s the idea behind healthdirect Australia’s health advice line: fast and simple expert advice about any health issue and what to do next. Every time you call healthdirect you’ll talk directly with a Registered Nurse. We provide a 24-hour service you can use any time you are anxious about any health issue. We can also help with general health information and direct you to local health services. Call 1800 022 222
The 24-hour telephone health advice line is currently available to residents of the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, the Northern Territory, Tasmania, South Australia and Western Australia.
Here is the website
What is also interesting is that evaluations are hard to find - even after a decade of operation.
The following .pdf from Professor David Dunt and Ms Rosemary McKenzie of the Centre for Health Policy Programs and Economics Dated March 2012 provided a few clues on such services:
Literature review, looking at national and international literature and policies
–Fifty seven papers and reports reviewed, many from the UK based on experience of NHS direct
–Much of the literature considered telephone triage using guideline-based, decision-support software as an entry point to integrated out of hours care
–Few very clear findings on safety, effectiveness, broader demand implications and cost effectiveness
Main conclusions of literature review,
–A positive impact on GPs’ satisfaction, even if limited in some studies
–A limited impact on the satisfaction of the patients. in particular for triage and telephone consultations. Waiting times and accessibility are topics of possible dissatisfaction
–A limited impact on health system efficiency. The exception is a positive impact on GP workload for cooperatives with triage and telephone advices
–Lack of studies on the impact on clinical outcomes; in particular no studies comparing the quality of care between models (KCE, 2012)
The full presentation is found here:
This local evaluation I found was slightly encouraging:
All in all if this works and makes a difference it is odd that positive reports are not published and easy to find - or is this an evidence free initiative like good old NEHRS.
Links to formal evaluations please in the comments on this blog so we can all know.
Post Script Monday 5/11/2012.
After writing this blog on the weekend guess what we have the next day? An Australian paper in the MJA published today which says much the same as I was suggesting above:
Here are 2 links:
First we have.
Patients who refuse to heed medical advice from after-hours help lines have cast doubt on whether the telephone services prevent unnecessary visits to emergency departments.
Research conducted over nine months at the Royal Perth Hospital shows just over half of those who went to the emergency department after speaking to a nurse on the healthdirect help line were advised not to go to hospital.
The finding has prompted the doctors who carried out the study and the Rural Doctors Association to question the cost-effectiveness of taxpayer- funded help lines.
However, the government and the Consumers Health Forum say the research is irrelevant. The findings are published in the November edition of the Medical Journal of Australia but are based on data collected more than three years ago.
The survey was taken before the Rudd government announced it would plough $126.3 million into extending healthdirect into a national service where nurses could refer calls to a doctor.
“It is disappointing that conclusions have been drawn from the study when data collection ceased in April 2009, before the after-hours GP helpline was established,” said a spokesman for Health Minister Tanya Plibersek.
Lots more here:
A WEST Australian study has cast fresh doubt over the ability of telephone consultation and triage lines to reduce demand in emergency departments.
Researchers found 52.4% of patients who attended Royal Perth Hospital’s ED after contacting the healthdirect Australia phone helpline did so even after being advised not to, according to the research published in the latest MJA. (1)
The researchers also compared the number of attendees who made their own decision to go to the ED against those who were advised to by healthdirect and found both groups were equally likely to get it right.
healthdirect referrals and self-referrals were assessed as similar in “appropriateness” at 72.9% and 73.8% respectively, according to the researchers, while GP referrals scored the highest level of appropriateness at 89.7%.
The findings have raised questions over whether healthdirect represents a good use of scarce health funding.
Lots more here:
Despite all this - we still need a proper current evaluation!
Posted by Dr David More MB PhD FACHI at Wednesday, November 07, 2012 | <urn:uuid:de1a063d-2c03-4308-a49f-28296b516215> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://aushealthit.blogspot.com/2012/11/it-seems-providing-urgent-healthcare.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953061 | 1,500 | 2.109375 | 2 |
America fares badly in a comparison of health measures in rich countries
IT IS hardly news that America spends more on health care than any other country. Nor is it news that this money fails to make Americans healthy. But a new report from America’s Institute of Medicine and National Research Council illuminates the many ways in which America’s health lags that of other rich countries and tries to explain why. Health spending reached $2.7 trillion in 2011, equal to 17.9% of America’s GDP (and more than the entire GDP of Britain). Yet America performs poorly on nearly every measure. Life expectancy has risen, but not as quickly as among America’s peers. In a ranking of 17 rich countries, America’s death rate from non-communicable diseases is higher than any country except Denmark.
The statistics are particularly bleak for the young. America has the highest infant-mortality rate of the 17 rich countries examined. Its teenagers are more likely to become pregnant or die from a car accident or violence. Shockingly, deaths among under-50s account for roughly two-thirds of the gap in life expectancy between American men and those in comparable countries. The old fare better. If an American is lucky enough to reach 75, he can expect to live longer than his peers elsewhere.
America is obviously doing something wrong. But what, exactly? That is the $2.7 trillion question. The report offers a few tentative answers. The structure of America’s health system is partly to blame. Different types of care are siloed, which is inefficient. Doctors are paid for providing lots of services, rather than keeping patients well. There are fewer general practitioners. More citizens lack insurance and more find care unaffordable. The gap might also be explained by behaviour. Americans may smoke and drink less than people in other countries, but they tend to eat more, take more drugs, own more guns and are more often in drunk-driving accidents. They have sex younger, with more partners, using protection less frequently. But circumstance and behaviour cannot explain all. Interestingly, even rich, insured, non-smoking, normal-weight Americans are less healthy than adults with similar traits in similar countries.
How all these factors relate to one another is difficult to untangle. Even harder is getting politicians to agree on which problem to tackle first. Barack Obama’s health reforms, which will take full effect in 2014, expand insurance and start to tweak doctors’ perverse incentives. This new report is a reminder of how much is left to be done. | <urn:uuid:79f91de8-5c0a-4216-8e7d-a489afc0860d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.economist.com/comment/1837379 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964109 | 526 | 2.46875 | 2 |
Hidden in the ~/Library of Macs running Mac OS X 10.7 is a Mobile Documents folder that Apple users to sync iWork files between multiple devices registered to the same iCloud account. However, Macworld discovered that the feature is not limited to iWork documents -- any file can be placed in the folder and will be synced to the same folder on every Mac connected to the same iCloud account with Documents & Data syncing activated.
What is of use is that any files put into the ~/Library/Mobile Documents folder will automatically upload to iCloud and push to any other Mac you have that is signed in to the same iCloud account and has the 'Document & Data' iCloud preference checked. Lion even notifies you of version conflicts and allows you to resolve them when you open the document.
The feature is similar, but much more limited, than the popular Dropbox cloud-based file sharing service that Apple co-founder Steve Jobs unsuccessfully attempted to purchase for a reported 9-figure sum before ultimately beginning Apple's own cloud initiative.
Currently, the hidden feature lets users sync files only between Macs, as files are not pushed to iOS devices.
Still, the discovery offers concrete proof that Mac OS X Lion already includes the architecture required for Apple to not only replicate services like Dropbox that offer more advanced sharing privileges, but also to allow third party developers to have their applications easily work with iCloud by saving their data.
To enable the feature, you must activate the "Documents and Data" setting in iCloud's setting preferences. Navigating to the ~Library folder, you'll find a folder named "Mobile Documents." (If you don't, create and save an iWork document ). You should now be able to make an alias of the "Mobile Documents" folder (or a subfolder in that folder) on your dock or Finder sidebar favorites for drag and drop syncing.
How to use iCloud to sync files across Macs:
Step 1: Enable iCloud "Documents and Data" syncing.
Step 2: Navigate to ~/Library/ in your Home folder.
Step 3: Find folder "Mobile Documents."
Step 4: Make folder alias or drag and drop "Mobile Documents" to sidebar or dock.
Step 5: You should now be able to drag and drop files into "Mobile Documents" and sync with all Macs associated with your iCloud account. | <urn:uuid:90230301-f758-4706-806c-d189b89e6aab> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://forums.appleinsider.com/t/135212/hidden-drop-box-feature-in-mac-os-x-lion-lets-you-sync-files-across-macs | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.91315 | 481 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Honor and Integrity System Professional Development 2012-2013 Edition
Honor & Integrity System Basics and Being an Honor Council Member-Module 1
Follow the text and click on the blue links provided. After reading information in the blue links, simply use your BACK button to come back to this page. If you lose your way in navigating, simply return to the Honor Council Information page and click on Professional Development Modules. The links give more in-depth information about each subject. Please try to answer the questions following the reading material in each module. These do NOT need to be turned in.
HONOR & INTEGRITY SYSTEM COMPONENTS
There are three major components of the K-State Honor & Integrity System. Click on these links to read more about each.
Honor Office Staff /Honor Council Chair
HONOR & INTEGRITY SYSTEM BASICS
When HS staff speak to classes and organizations about the Honor & Integrity System, they often begin by giving a brief history and evolution of how it all began. One resource of great help in our formative years, as well as today, is the Center for Academic Integrity (CAI), a national organization whose mission is promoting integrity in educational communities. K-State has been an institutional member since 1997 and Honor and Integrity Staff and/or Honor Council members attend CAI's annual conference annually.
The Student Development Perspective speaks to the promotion of integrity in tandem with the the prevention and adjudication of dishonesty. We believe that students at the college level are still learning what it means to make ethical decisions when confronted with a dilemma (the choice on whether or not to cheat or help someone else cheat). Likewise, we believe it's never too late to help students develop a more honorable character. As an Honor Council member, you agree to uphold the spirit of the student development perspective in investigating and adjudicating students who may have violated the Honor Pledge.
Confidentiality is at the foundation of the Honor & Integrity System, so much so that members are asked to review the Honor & Integrity System Creed of Confidentiality. All parties have the right not to have their names and information broadcast to the campus community. Because this is an educational setting, identifying information about alleged violations or actual violations are not publicized like crime reports in local papers. The Honor & Integrity System web site does maintain a link to all Honor Pledge current and previous alleged violations. However, Honor & Integrity System staff take care not to use any information that might identify anyone involved in the System. Information such as name, major, college, instructor, class, Greek affiliation, residence, etc. is not given. All physical Honor & Integrity System files are kept locked in the Honor & Integrity System office. The pass-word protected Honor & Integrity System Database is maintained in the Honor & Integrity System office.
Usually, business picks up at the beginning of a semester and toward the end. A good rule of thumb for commitment is 3 sessions of professional development during fall semester and 3 hearing panels. Spring semester, first year members may add working as case investigators. For veteran members with a year's experience, being CI for 1 or 2 cases, being a Chair for a case, and being a hearing panelist twice is normal activity. TYPICALLY, CIs spend 30-40 minutes each interviewing a Reporter and an Alleged Violator, as well as hearing time. In some cases, interviewing a witness may be necessary. Chairs and Hearing panelists can count on 60 to 90 minutes AVERAGE in a case hearing. Educating your college constituency may take the form of a departmental meeting/college council meeting 10-minute presentation.
Most organizations have common terms for identifying persons and concepts within the context of everyday operations. There are also some terms that are shortened to make life easier for staff who are concerned with data entry and reporting. For this purpose and for smoother operations within Honor & Integrity System organization, please become more familiar with the terms at the link provided. More terms are defined in the other modules on investigations and hearings.Terms
As a member of the Honor Council, it is very important that you hold yourself accountable when serving in the capacity of educator, investigator, or hearing panelist. If you have committed yourself to a meeting or position (educator, investigator or hearing panelist), please be on time (or early if the situation warrants).
This completes Module 1 of the Honor Council Professional Development session.
Please answer the questions below to see if you have a good idea of the position for which you have been appointed.
Module 1 Questions-Being an Honor Council/HIPE Member. Write the answers to these questions on a piece of paper, then check this link to see how close you come to the answer.
- What are the three components of the K-State Honor & Integrity System?
- Who staffs the Honor & Integrity System office?
- The Honor & Integrity System Honor Council is made up of 54 members. How do faculty and undergraduate students become members? Graduate students?
- In order to provide diversity on the Honor Council, two campus administrators each appoint three members of the campus community at large. Who are the two administrators?
- Name two responsibilities shared by Honor Council members.
- State the Honor Pledge in its entirety.
- KSU is an institutional member of what national organization helping educational communities promote integrity in academe?
- What is meant by the Honor & Integrity System's "student development perspective?"
- Confidentiality is extremely important, period. If you are given a Case packet with sensitive information, with whom may you discuss its contents?
- What is the time committment for an Honor Council member?
- What is an "AV?" The "HC?" The "H&IS?" | <urn:uuid:91268200-d6da-4731-b066-848a071bf47b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.k-state.edu/honor/honorcouncil/module1.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930857 | 1,179 | 1.921875 | 2 |
January 24, 2005
Moorhead, Minn. — Sen. Coleman calls the legislation the COMPETE Act of 2005. COMPETE stands for Collaborative Opportunities to Mobilize and Promote Education, Technology, and Enterprise.
Coleman says the legislation would make the country more competitive in the global marketplace by expanding tax credits for research, development and education. The price tag is $40 billion spread over 10 years.
"I'm also looking for ways that we can cover that with offsets, and without adding to the bottom line of the deficit," Coleman said. "But we have to make the investment -- America cannot stand still."
The legislation includes tax credits for businesses to upgrade technology skills. The bill would make it easier for companies to get patents and trademarks on their products. Graduate students studying engineering, science and math would get tax credits.
Grants of $500,000 would be available to schools in each state, whose students make the most improvement in math and science test scores.
Coleman says a bipartisan group of 10 senators is working on the bill. They include Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee. Coleman says he and Baucuse are working closely together.
"To put together a commission, to do an 18-month study on global competitiveness. What are the things we have to do in the United States to be competitive?" said Coleman. "That study will give us both a better read on cost, and the cost of inaction, which I think we have to document better."
The proposal got a positive reaction in Moorhead. Bette Midgarden, vice president of academic affairs at Minnesota State University-Moorhead, likes the idea of giving $3,500 tax credits to graduate students who study engineering, science or math. Midgarden says the tax credits would help teachers who need to update their accrediation requirements under the No Child Left Behind law.
Midgarden hopes the tax credits would be an incentive to recruit people into the teaching profession -- especially math teachers.
"In the last four or five years, on average, we have graduated five students with mathematics majors and education preparation so they are certified. Five," said Midgarden.
Midgarden says developing workers with math and science skills is critical. She says the job market in future years will require those type of workers.
But some say the legislation is missing a critical link.
"If you're looking forward, if you're looking long-term, that is early childhood education. There is nothing in here on early childhood education," said Art Rolnick, director of research for the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
Rolnick says the money in the bill for tax credits and rewarding schools for improving math scores is a nice idea, but it isn't a long-term solution.
"The brain development research, the economic research we have seen, shows that investing in birth-to-5 has a very high public return," said Rolnick. "If you don't get the children at a very early age, many of them aren't prepared for K through 12."
Rolnick says investing money in early childhood education is the key to developing a more competitive workforce in the future.
Sen. Coleman says he's willing to listen to new ideas to incorporate into the bill. Coleman says in times of tight budgets, his colleagues might be spooked by the bill's $40 billion price tag. He says the trick will be to convince lawmakers that the money is a needed investment in the future. | <urn:uuid:d541ca40-3472-4faa-abff-496e54783e91> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2005/01/24_rehab_compete/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965893 | 733 | 2.03125 | 2 |