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Demonstrators are seen in a traffic mirror in Manama, Bahrains capital.… (Caren Firouz, Reuters )
Reporting from Manama, Bahrain — Mohamed Albuflasa was different from everyone else taking the stage on the second day of Bahrain's protests. He was a Sunni Muslim.
The 34-year-old Salafist favored government reform, and he believed he should speak at the rally to promote unity among the country's Shiite Muslim majority and Sunnis at Manama's Pearl Square.
Within hours, a security agency had detained him, and he has not been seen since. Even as hundreds of political prisoners were freed this week by King Hamed ibn Isa Khalifa, Albuflasa remains jailed and his whereabouts a mystery.
"Mohamed's speech was meant to reduce the fire going on where people create differences between Shiites and Sunnis. He was there to show there is no difference between them. We are all Bahraini," his brother, Rashid, told The Times this week. "He is not against the royal family and government."
Bahrain's popular uprising had been motivated by a wish for democratic reforms, including a stronger parliament and a crackdown on corruption. The goals are shared by all, but the fact that the protests originated from the island's Shiite majority has frightened many of Bahrain's Sunnis.
The royal family has played on the Sunni Arab world's fears of Iran's Shiite theocracy to hold off on sharing power in Bahrain, analysts and rights activists say.
"The protesters and bloggers over nearly a decade now have made a conscious effort to downplay sectarianism in their rhetoric and demands, focusing on democracy, human rights, accountability, corruption," said Marc Lynch, the head of the Middle East studies program at George Washington University. "The regime has always tried to play the [Sunni-Shiite] card to delegitimize those demands."
The ability to divide the population has helped the few thousand-strong-member Khalifa clan preserve its privileged status. Bahrain's powerful neighbor, Saudi Arabia, has also viewed the state as a bulwark against the spread of Iranian influence. If the Shiites gain greater power in Bahrain, similar demands for reform could be made in the oil-rich Saudi province of Dhahran, which is largely Shiite.
The demonstrations in Pearl Square have been burdened by the history between the two communities: brutal repression of Shiite demonstrations for greater rights over four decades; deep-seated Sunni anxiety over losing power; and searing memories of Islamist Iran's threat to sow revolution across the Middle East.
Ibrahim Sharif, a Sunni who heads the liberal Waad party and who supports the demonstrations, bemoaned the fact that those shouting slogans against the king in the square are tone-deaf to the Sunni community. He also worried that Saudi Arabia could try to sabotage the mass protest movement.
"In Saudi, there is not one decision maker, there are hundreds who can take matters into their own hands," Sharif said, adding that he thought the toppling of leaders from Cairo to Tunis had unnerved the two desert kingdoms.
"If [reform] can jump from Tunis to Egypt, then it can jump the Saudi-Bahrain causeway," he said. He worried that a covert group — whether from Saudi Arabia or Bahrain's royal family — might try to spark violence and discredit the protest movement, which until now has practiced nonviolence.
Most Sunnis, in reaction to Pearl Square, have now rallied around the government-sanctioned National Unity coalition, headed by the Sunni cleric Sheik Abdel Latif Mahmoud. On Tuesday, the cleric hosted tens of thousands at a pro-government rally.
In his speech that day, Mahmoud made it clear that his followers believed in dialogue and government reforms. But even as he called for conciliatory measures, including the release of political prisoners, others at his rally accused the demonstrators in Pearl Square of wanting to create an Iranian satellite state.
Mahmoud told The Times that such views do not represent his own and urged the sides to sit down and start negotiating. However, he stressed that the king and his family need to stay in control of Bahrain's political process. "We believe … the government coming from the royal family gives security to both the Shiites and the Sunnis. The royal family are the ones who create a balance," Mahmoud said.
Despite the tensions, a few Sunnis quietly visit the rallies at Pearl Square. Khadija Hammadi, a television presenter, has been coming to the square because she believes it is the best place to campaign for her rights.
"Most Sunnis want a change in government, but they are afraid about what comes next," she said.
But the case of Albuflasa is a chilling reminder for those Sunnis who might reach out to the protesters at Pearl Square.
Some pity the fate of the young Bahraini, an Islamist who had run for parliament and won accolades for his nationalist poetry. They see him as someone who delivered a speech at the wrong place at the wrong time.
"Islamist Sunnis historically have supported the government," said human rights activist Nabeel Rajab. "That's why they won't allow this to happen. They will punish him." | <urn:uuid:12905470-c73b-4767-8e76-4863b2806dff> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.latimes.com/2011/feb/25/world/la-fg-bahrain-sunnis-20110225 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973443 | 1,082 | 1.804688 | 2 |
1). How to Protect Yourself While Internet Banking By : Joseph Kenny
There is no doubt about the fact that identity theft is on the increase. More and more people are losing their identities and money each year due to the efforts of a select few individuals who know how to use the Internet to their advantage.
5). Business Banking - An Overview By : Joseph Kenny
Making a success of your business depends on planning and judgement. ‘The bottom line’ is all about managing your finances wisely, whether that means sourcing the funding you need to start up or keeping on top of your accounts.
7). Offshore Banking - Does It Pays To Go Abroad? By : Joseph Kenny
While you might presume anyone with ‘money in offshore accounts’ is involved in some scurrilous business affairs, the truth is that anyone can use this form of investment as a totally legitimate way to defer or reduce your tax payments.
9). Bad Credit Cash Advance Services By : Ryan Arsendatama
Bad credit cash advance services fulfill the needs of people who need quick emergency cash but their bad credit history disqualifies them for getting a loan. These bad credit fast cash loan lenders do not worry about the bad credit history. They provide cash loan with guaranteed approval as quick as 24 hours.
11). Unsecured Loans Your Solution to an Improved Credit Score By : Mika Hamilton
A bad credit score used to make it impossible for individuals and families to borrow money for home and car financing. Today, there are several companies which not only give individuals with bad credit unsecured loans but actually cater to people who have extremely low credit scores.
13). The Virgin Banker By : Barney Garcia
There are a number of things to consider before opening your first bank account. The first thing to consider before opening your first bank account is whether or not you have enough money to warrant opening such an account.
15). A Guide To Discover Card Services By : Bob Hett
Credit card companies are changing. There are so many of them out there that they need to do things that set them apart from the tons of other credit card services available. In addition to being a major credit card company, Discover card services also offers a great scholarship program to high school juniors. Their support of education is one more thing to like about the Discover card.
17). Accumulating Credit Card Points In Exchange For Travel Miles By : Nicky Pilkington
The convenience of using credit cards for everyday purchases has allowed a lot of people in the US to get the services offered by credit cards. Credit cards these days are used in almost everyday purchases as it offers more security because people won’t have to walk the streets anymore carrying bundles of cash in order for them to go an appliance store to buy a brand new HDTV that may cost thousands of dollars.
19). 8 Golden Rules For Safe And Secure Online Banking By : Nazir Hussain
Online banking is the future of banking. However, safe and secure banking is the ultimate goal. Following the 8 golden rules of safe online banking will go a long way towards protecting the customer and the banks. So follow these rules. | <urn:uuid:43911854-06d5-4c1e-9b74-43df51990c5b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://redsofts.com/articles/category/653/date/desc/1/Banking.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946846 | 644 | 1.703125 | 2 |
The archives currently
houses over 20,000 photographic prints, including the Canadian
Jewish Congress organizational photo archives, photos donated in
small groups by individuals, and those belonging to several large
organizational and private collections. Photographs of unknown
provenance are included in the general (PC 1) collection. Subjects
include immigration, family life, city life, small communities
across Canada, Jewish organizations, business, and religion. The
photographs are indexed on computer and can be searched according
to subject, date, location, photographer, format, and even
The photograph collections are probably the most requested of all
our holdings. Virtually all documentary filmmakers dealing with
antisemitism in Canada in the 1930s have used images from our
collection. Commercial films, such as Enemies: A Love
Story, have used photos from family collections to depict
characters mentioned in the screenplay, and museums have used them
as adjuncts to exhibited items. Well-known Canadian Jewish history
texts such as Irving Abella's and Harold Troper's None Is Too
Many and Gerald Tulchinsky's Taking Root have drawn
their illustrations almost exclusively from our visual archives. In
addition, CJC itself draws heavily on the photo collection for its
Major photo collections of the CJCCC National Archives:
PC 1 Canadian Jewish Congress and related organizations
This extremely large collection includes individual photos
donated to the archives over the years, as well as community event
and notable building photos and portrait photos of hundreds of
individuals of note in the Canadian Jewish community.
Alan Rose, then Canadian Jewish Congress
Executive Vice-President, greets Pope John Paul II in Montreal,
September 10, 1984. At centre is Bernard J. Finestone, then CJC
Quebec Region officer.
PC 2 Jewish Immigrant Aid Services
These photos of immigrants arriving and settling into Canada
since 1920 have been used in many contexts to depict our history in
this country. Approx. 1000 photos.
Montreal, 1950s: Recently immigrated Jewish
children pose outside the JIAS headquarters, then located on
PC 3 National Council of Jewish Women
This charitable organization documented its activities vividly
through photographs, in particular from W.W.II on. Approx. 1000
During World War II fundraising by the
National Council of Jewish Women of Canada paid for these
PC 4 Joint Distribution Committee
The living conditions of Jews around the world, from 1938
through the 1950s, can be seen in these moving press
Ourika, Morocco, 1950s - Winnipeg Rabbi
Arthur Chiel and his wife visited Morocco representing the Joint
Distribution Committee and furthering their relief
PC 5 Allan Bronfman
Both private and public views of the life of Allan Bronfman and
other members of the family can be seen in this large collection,
which includes photos from the just-formed state of Israel.
Montrealer Allan Bronfman met with Albert
Einstein at a Zionist fundraising event in the 1950s.
PC 6 Frances Goltman
A beautiful collection of family photos, many of them from the
previous century, depicting family life. Some of the photos were
taken by Montreal's Notman Studio.
A Russian Jewish family in St. Petersburg
posed for this studio portrait at the end of the 19th
PC 7 William Gittes
Depicts Mr. Gittes' many community activities and includes many
persons of renown (approx. 500 photos, 1925-1980.)
William Gittes is pictured, centre left,
among his philanthropic peers, in this Combined Jewish Appeal
tribute caricature from the late 1940s.
PC 8 Rosa Finestone
This family collection of approx. 600 photos includes views of
Outremont and NDG in the 1920s and 1930s, as well as wartime army
photos of Bernard Finestone.
Photographed by his mother, Rosa, Bernard
Finestone (at left), and a friend, stand outside the family cigar
store near the old Montreal Forum on Mount Royal Avenue, circa
PC 9 Harry Hershman War Orphans
The 146 orphans who came to Canada from the Polish Ukraine in
1920-1921 are depicted in individual and group portraits, taken in
Europe. The collection also includes vintage greeting cards.
From Harry Hershman's case files, two of the
World War I Polish Jewish orphans who were brought to Canada from
an orphanage in Rovno in 1921.
PC 10 Leon Crestohl
Important Jewish community meetings of the 1940s and 1950s are
the focus of this collection.
On a visit to Israel in 1948, Leon Crestohl
is seen here with Arab leaders.
PC 11 Ethel Ostry
Social worker Ostry documented the work she carried out in
Europe with post-W.W.II displaced persons and refugee youth, many
of whom she assisted in immigrating to Canada.
Maccabean Club members at the Fohrenwald
Displaced Persons Camp, immediately after World War II.
PC 12 Jewish Colonization Association
Fascinating photographs (1909-1963) of the inhabitants,
buildings, cattle, machines, and cemeteries of Canadian Jewish
farming colonies, including Edenbridge, Eyre, Montefiore, Hirsch,
Lipton, Coalfields, Sonnenfeld, and Souris Valley, Saskatchewan,
and Rumsey, Alberta, as well as those of the Niagara Peninsula,
Ontario. Also includes Jewish refugees established in Manitoba in
1939 by CJC.
A Sukkah (temporary structure used for meals
during the holiday of Sukkot) in the Lipton Jewish farming colony,
PC 13 Ruth Colton Lehman
Approximately 500 Jewish Montreal photos taken by photographer
(the late) R. Lehman in the 1980s.
Two Hassidic children from Montreal's
Outremont neighbourhood, 1988.
PC 14 Monty Berger
Accompanying his textual records, the Berger photo collection
depicts community and private activities, including W.W.II army
service and Israel experiences.
In the company of other Montreal Jewish
community leaders, Monty Berger (second from right) signs for the
construction of the United Jewish Services building (Cummings
House) in 1973.
PC 16 Drummond Photo Collection
This immense collection contains an estimated 223,000 (8.6
metres) of negatives in black and white and colour, dating from
1960 to 1991. Jewish community organization negative subjects
include AJCS (Allied Jewish Community Services) and CJA (Combined
Jewish Appeal); Zionist organizations such as JNF (Jewish National
Fund), ORT, and the annual Negev Dinner; the Jewish General
Hospital and the Hope and Cope Foundation of the hospital; Orthodox
groups such as Chabad (Lubavitch organization), Mizrachi, and
Emunah Women; Jewish day schools such as JPPS (Jewish People's and
Peretz Schools), Hebrew Academy, Herzliah and the Ecole Sépharade;
foundations such as Canadian Friends of Ben Gurion University and
Claridge; as well as synagogues and Jewish businesses. Negatives of
individuals and families include individual and family portraits,
"sweet sixteens" and anniversaries, weddings and Bar Mitzvahs, as
well as some Bat Mitzvahs, and brits (circumcisions). Privacy
restrictions apply to many of the family photos. Of particular
interest in the negatives of family events are shots depicting the
interiors of Montreal synagogues as well as aspects of Jewish
Montreal, early 1960s: A Jewish wedding in a
hotel ballroom, showing the wedding party under a decorated Chuppah
Photo Reproduction Services
For prices of reproductions, please see the | <urn:uuid:35385796-6550-4eb4-8255-4b56e60f8cf0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cjccc.ca/en/cjccc-national-archives/major-collections/photograph-collections/ | 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 | 0.917045 | 1,651 | 2.25 | 2 |
European Union finance ministers on Friday started laying out new, tougher rules for their public finances in the hopes of winning back market confidence and preventing a repeat of the debt crisis that is threatening the euro.
Some nations are pushing for penalties and punishments — from stripping countries of voting powers to ejecting them from the euro zone — for repeated debt offenders. The aim is to avoid an EU bailout for another country, as happened with Greece, by tightening checks sooner.
Europe's stock markets, however, remained cautious. They continued to slide Friday despite the approval by Germany's lower house of parliament for a 750 billion euro ($937 billion) "shock and awe" package of cash and state guarantees to protect euro zone countries from bankruptcy.
Germany's 16 states also voted in favor of the package in the country's upper house and Germany's promise to contribute up to 147.6 billion euros in loan guarantees will be finalized after President Horst Koehler signs the bill — expected to be a formality.
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told lawmakers in Berlin that the country had to make the rescue package a reality "because markets will only trust when it is actually in effect."
The approval failed to assure markets. The FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was down 2 percent while Germany's DAX tumbled 2.3 percent and the CAC-40 in France dropped 2.5 percent.
The euro was also trading close to a four-year low against the dollar. It has shed some 18 percent of its value since December.
As they arrived in Brussels for a late meeting, European Union finance ministers called for stronger government action to cut debt and stressed the need for credible budget rules.
Their Friday meeting is just the start of EU reforms that will be decided in October.
Germany has pushed hard for aid to debt-laden European countries to be coupled with requirements to bring down deficits. That seeks to compensate for fears that the financial backstop effectively removes the pressure on indebted euro nations to cut debt fast.
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble says he wants to make life far harder for euro zone governments that break widely ignored rules limiting debt and deficit.
He suggests making a 3 percent deficit limit legally binding and adding sanctions to deter countries from running up debt — such as losing voting rights at the EU, losing EU funds or ultimately being ejected from the euro.
France says it supports the German proposal. French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde said the German program was "very interesting and really going in the right direction."
Spain and Portugal have been pressed into making more spending cuts and EU officials have warned that other euro zone countries with large deficits — such as Ireland — may have to do the same.
Sweden's finance minister Anders Borg — whose nation does not use the euro — called for "stronger commitments from countries with high debt" and "stronger sanctions" at an earlier stage.
Another country outside the euro, Britain, has already signaled discontent with some proposals for all 27 EU nations to coordinate budgets before governments send detailed spending plans to national parliaments.
British treasury chief George Osborne said he had "many allies" among EU countries who agreed that parliaments "have to be the first people told about the important tax and spending decisions that countries like Britain have to take."
He said he will set out new budget cuts on Monday, saying he was "very conscious" that Britain has the EU's largest budget deficit.
© Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. | <urn:uuid:2d62fecf-8f7c-41d7-abea-870b9c3a2999> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.moneynews.com/Economy/EU-Europe-Financial-Crisis/2010/05/21/id/359743 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953852 | 726 | 1.859375 | 2 |
Fatigue is one of the commonest and most disabling diabetes symptoms. Exhaustion can disrupt and interfere with all aspects of daily living.
What causes diabetes fatigue, and why is it so common?
We’ve written about fatigue before here and here and received tons of great comments on those posts. But this time let’s go deeper and find the whole range of causes and solutions, even if it takes a few weeks. Hopefully, everyone will find something that might help them, because this is a serious problem.
For example, Melanie wrote, “[Fatigue] really takes a toll on my family and things we can do. I just want to have the energy to play with my son and to do things around the house or with friends…I can’t drive more than 30 minutes because my husband is afraid I will fall asleep…and wreck [the car]. (I have dozed while driving before.)”
Maria commented, “Fatigue is a constant and I have had to learn to do only what I can. I don’t push myself anymore as I pay for it dearly. I get tired of explaining why I don’t feel good, don’t want to do anything. Some understand and some don’t.” And Jan wrote, “I sleep from midnight to noon each day. Then I get depressed because I wasted half a day.”
Because of my multiple sclerosis (MS,) I live with fatigue sometimes, and I know how limiting it is. I know how difficult it can be to manage. There are more than 15 known causes for fatigue. It helps to figure out what is causing yours, so you can address it. Here are some possibilities.
First, diabetes can directly cause fatigue with high or low blood sugar levels.
• High blood glucose makes your blood “sludgy,” slowing circulation so cells can’t get the oxygen and nutrients they need. Margaret commented, “I can tell if my sugars are high in the morning, because ‘groggy’ doesn’t begin to describe it. ‘Drugged’ is how it feels.”
• Low sugars levels also cause fatigue, because when blood sugar is low, there is not enough fuel for the cells to work well.
• In addition, high blood glucose can cause fatigue through inflammation. Blood vessels get inflamed by the sugar. When this happens, according to new research, immune cells called monocytes come into the brain, causing fatigue.
But your fatigue may not be caused by diabetes at all. Other medical conditions causing fatigue include:
• Anemia, or low red blood cell counts. It’s easy to be tested for anemia. If you’ve got it, it’s usually due to deficiency of iron, folic acid, or vitamin B-12, or to heavy menstrual bleeding in women (which results in iron deficiency).
• Low thyroid (“hypothyroidism”) — people with diabetes are more likely than others to have thyroid problems. If your thyroid level is low, you are likely to feel tired, sleepy, and depressed.
• Low testosterone levels, especially in men. Men with diabetes are much more likely to have low testosterone.
• Infections: People with diabetes often have infections they don’t know about. Infections take energy to fight, which can cause fatigue and raise blood sugar levels. A common source is urinary tract or “bladder” infections. They often hurt, but sometimes have no symptoms, except for the fatigue. Silent dental infections and vaginal infections are also common and fatiguing.
• Undiagnosed heart disease: If you get tired after tasks that you used to sail through, it could be time to for a heart check-up.
• Conditions like chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia. These are much more common in women, but men get them too. Fatigue is the main symptom. Many other diseases cause fatigue — you can see the government’s list here.
• Medication side effects: Many drugs for diabetes, blood pressure, depression, pain, and other issues can cause fatigue. Read labels, ask your doctor or pharmacist.
Then there are causes that aren’t entirely medical:
• Lack of sleep or poor sleep — Some people are too wound up or too busy to sleep. Or they’re up to use the bathroom all night, or they have obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), which can wake them up many times an hour. If that is happening to you, you are likely to be fatigued during the day.
• Shift work — rotating shifts or working nights — can cause fatigue directly by messing with your body clock or indirectly by disrupting sleep.
• Depression is very common with diabetes. Most depressed people feel fatigued, even if they don’t feel sad. Even at low levels, depression can sap your motivation. Why get up? You can take a free test to see if you are depressed here.
• Doing too much: If you’re ripping and running all day, not taking breaks or even stopping to breathe much, you are courting fatigue. Patti wrote, “I think that forcing myself to do everything is just causing the fatigue to worsen.” She’s probably right.
• Stress: In small doses, psychological or physical stress can give you energy, but if it goes on too long, it will wear you out.
• Diet: Too much carbohydrate — especially refined carbs — can make anyone tired, especially with diabetes. Kat wrote, “now that I am eating a higher protein/fat, lower-carbohydrate diet, I have shaken off that really sleepy/extreme fatigue that I used to have every day.”
• According to WebMD, too much caffeine can cause fatigue through a rebound effect. They also say that dehydration, or not drinking enough liquid, is a major cause of fatigue.
• Being out of shape or having weak muscles: Not moving our bodies contributes to fatigue. Of course, it’s hard to exercise when you’re fatigued. We’ll discuss that next week.
• Aging: It is normal to have less energy as we age, but this slowing down should not be dramatic. If loss of energy is rapid or severe, there is something else going on.
This list is getting ridiculously long, and it’s not complete. If you’re dealing with fatigue, perhaps start by evaluating yourself for these possibilities. In the coming weeks, we’ll get into solutions professionals and our readers have found. | <urn:uuid:22843a2b-3554-4417-a93a-059cb872c0e1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.diabetesselfmanagement.com/Blog/David-Spero/what-causes-diabetes-fatigue/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94158 | 1,383 | 2.546875 | 3 |
I think we all know that this issue of technical patents has simply got entirely out of hand. It’s partly that such silly things seem able to attract patent protection these days and partly that the patents themselves are not being used to protect intellectual property so much as to stifle any competition at all.
There are two little stories, one good and one bad about this in relation to Apple from the last couple of days.
The bad one is that Apple has just been granted a patent on….wait for it…the wedge design of the MacBook Air.
Apple has been awarded a patent for the wedge design of the MacBook Air. The definition of the design is broad enough to cover many ultrabooks, extending Apple’s apparent ownership of black rectangles to thin, vaguely katana-like triangles.
As Gizmodo goes on to say, that’s some half or so of the Ultrabook market now stymied. And this really isn’t what the patent system was set up to achieve in the first place. There’s a resonance with the title of this blog: to be patentable in the past something had to be non-obvious. And I’m afraid that given that people have been cutting other things into wedges (cheese for example) for millennia then making a computer in that shape is not the sort of non-obvious thing that is really crying out for patent protection.
It is true that in the EU there is a different set of laws which protects designs, and this might well succeed under those laws as indeed Apple has used them against the Galaxy tablet recently.
But this is just trivialising the patent process.
The good news is that enforcement of patents needs to be done by the courts. And while the US Patent Office might have been getting out of hand in what it is willing to grant a patent to it appears that the courts are rather changing their minds on what to enforce. In the Apple v. Google/Motorola case we’ve had Richard Posner essentially saying, once you translate it out of legalese, please, these aren’t enforceable patents, none of you have lost any money now get out of my courtroom:
A U.S. judge yesterday threw aside a much-anticipated trial between Apple and Google-owned Motorola Mobility over smartphone patents. The decision and a blog comment by the same judge could prove to be a watershed moment for a U.S. patent system that has spiraled out of control.
In his remarkable ruling, U.S. Circuit Judge Richard Posner stated that there was no point in holding a trial because it was apparent that neither side could show they had been harmed by the other’s patent infringement. He said he was inclined to dismiss the case with prejudice — meaning the parties can’t come back to fight over the same patents — and that he would enter a more formal opinion confirming this next week.
A bit more of this sort of robust dealing with the circles of patent lawyers and we’ll be able to get the patent system back on track.
We need to recall what is the economic justification for the patent system in the first place. It is that a new invention is a public good: once someone has designed something then it’s very difficult indeed to stop someone else making something to that design. This means that those who do the inventing have a very hard time making money out of having done so. Which, in turn, means that in a capitalist society we’ll not get enough inventing done: for people cannot capture the value of what they create.
But intellectual property is not property in the traditional sense: there is no “right” to intellectual property. It’s a purely pragmatic invention, to encourage people to invent and create. And the other side of that is that we don’t want patents to be too broad, nor too easy to get, nor for too trivial or obvious a matter, that we prevent people from creating derivations of previous inventions and creations.
Patents and copyrights should exist, indeed they should. But they need to be narrow and only for non-obvious inventions. | <urn:uuid:e73986ba-e80e-4b83-b2a9-5edf8b92ee79> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/06/09/good-news-and-bad-news-on-apples-patents/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965368 | 865 | 1.9375 | 2 |
This squash, which is also referred to by its Latin name, Curcurbita maxima, was obtained by James Robinson from Amish gardeners in the mountains of Maryland. The oval shaped and slightly pointed squash measures up to five inches thick and can weigh up to 60-80 pounds.
The Amish Pie Squash has pale orange flesh that is thick, sweet and moist. It is an excellent squash for making pies and for freezing. Seed Savers Exchange calls it “one of the best processing pumpkins we have ever grown”.
Seed Savers Exchange
3094 North Winn Road
Decorah, IA 52101
Click a category to view products | <urn:uuid:b1f2ff94-c078-4f12-a5b0-6f8246087405> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.slowfoodusa.org/index.php/programs/ark_product_detail/amish_pie_squash/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948231 | 139 | 1.859375 | 2 |
Thu 2 May 2013
In the previous two posts, we've built up a whole range of applicatives, out of Const, Identity, Reader, Compose, Product, Sum, and Fix (and some higher-order analogues). Sum has given us the most trouble, but in some sense has been the most powerful, letting us write things like possibly eventually terminating lists, or trees, or in fact any sort of structure with branching alternatives. In this post, I want to think a bit more about why it is that Sum is the trickiest of the bunch, and more generally, what we can say about when two applicative structures are the "same". In the process of doing so, we'll invent something a lot like Traversable en passant.
Let's do some counting exercises.
Product Identity Identity holds exactly two things. It is therefore isomorphic to
((->) Bool), or if we prefer,
((->) Either () ()). That is to say that a pair that holds two values of type
a is the same as a function that takes a two-valued type and yields a value of type
a. A product of more functors in turn is isomorphic to the reader of the sum of each of the datatypes that "represent" them. E.g.
Product (Product Identity Identity) (Product (Const ()) Identity) is iso to
((->) (Either (Either () ()) ()), i.e. a data type with three possible inhabitants. In making this move we took Product to Either -- multiplication to sum. We can pull a similar trick with Compose.
Compose (Product Identity Identity) (Product Identity Identity) goes to ((->) (Either () (),Either () ())). So again we took Product to a sum type, but now we took Compose to a pair -- a product type! The intuition is that composition multiplies the possibilities of spaces in each nested functor.
Hmm.. products go to sums, composition goes to multiplication, etc. This should remind us of something -- these rules are exactly the rules for working with exponentials. x^n * x^m = x^(n + m). (x^n)^m = x^(n*m). x^0 = 1, x^1 = x.
Seen from the right standpoint, this isn't surprising at all, but almost inevitable. The functors we're describing are known as "representable," a term which derives from category theory. (See appendix on representable functors below).
In Haskell-land, a "representable functor" is just any functor isomorphic to the reader functor
((->) a) for some appropriate a. Now if we think back to our algebraic representations of data types, we call the arrow type constructor an exponential. We can "count"
a -> x as x^a, since e.g. there are 3^2 distinct functions that inhabit the type 2 -> 3. The intuition for this is that for each input we pick one of the possible results, so as the number of inputs goes up by one, the number of functions goes up by multiplying through by the set of possible results. 1 -> 3 = 3, 2 -> 3 = 3 * 3, (n + 1) -> 3 = 3 * (n -> 3).
Hence, if we "represent" our functors by exponentials, then we can work with them directly as exponentials as well, with all the usual rules. Edward Kmett has a library encoding representable functors in Haskell.
Meanwhile, Peter Hancock prefers to call such functors "Naperian" after John Napier, inventor of the logarithm (See also here). Why Naperian? Because if our functors are isomorphic to exponentials, then we can take their logs! And that brings us back to the initial discussion of type mathematics. We have some functor F, and claim that it is isomorphic to -^R for some concrete data type R. Well, this means that R is the logarithm of F. E.g.
(R -> a, S -> a) =~ Either R S -> a, which is to say that if log F = R and log G =~ S, then log (F * G) = log F + log G. Similarly, for any other data type n, again with log F = R, we have
n -> F a =~ n -> R -> a =~ (n * R) -> a, which is to say that log (F^n) =~ n * log F.
This gives us one intuition for why the sum functor is not generally representable -- it is very difficult to decompose log (F + G) into some simpler compound expression of logs.
So what functors are Representable? Anything that can be seen as a fixed shape with some index. Pairs, fixed-size vectors, fixed-size matrices, any nesting of fixed vectors and matricies. But also infinite structures of regular shape! However, not things whose shape can vary -- not lists, not sums. Trees of fixed depth or infinite binary trees therefore, but not trees of arbitrary depth or with ragged structure, etc.
Representable functors turn out to be extremely powerful tools. Once we know a functor is representable, we know exactly what its applicative instance must be, and that its applicative instance will be "zippy" -- i.e. acting pointwise across the structure. We also know that it has a monad instance! And, unfortunately, that this monad instance is typically fairly useless (in that it is also "zippy" -- i.e. the monad instance on a pair just acts on the two elements pointwise, without ever allowing anything in the first slot to affect anything in the second slot, etc.). But we know more than that. We know that a representable functor, by virtue of being a reader in disguise, cannot have effects that migrate outwards. So any two actions in a representable functor are commutative. And more than that, they are entirely independent.
This means that all representable functors are "distributive"! Given any functor f, and any data type r, then we have
distributeReader :: Functor f => f (r -> a) -> (r -> f a) distributeReader fra = \r -> fmap ($r) fra
That is to say, given an arrow "inside" a functor, we can always pull the arrow out, and "distribute" application across the contents of the functor. A list of functions from
Int -> Int becomes a single function from
Int to a list of
Int, etc. More generally, since all representable functors are isomorphic to reader, given g representable, and f any functor, then we have:
distribute :: (Functor f, Representable g) => f (g a) -> g (f a).
This is pretty powerful sauce! And if f and g are both representable, then we get the transposition isomorphism, witnessed by
flip! That's just the beginning of the good stuff. If we take functions and "unrepresent" them back to functors (i.e. take their logs), then we can do things like move from
((->) Bool) to pairs, etc. Since we're in a pervasively lazy language, we've just created a library for memoization! This is because we've gone from a function to a data structure we can index into, representing each possible argument to this function as a "slot" in the structure. And the laziness pays off because we only need to evaluate the contents of each slot on demand (otherwise we'd have a precomputed lookup table rather than a dynamically-evaluated memo table).
And now suppose we take our representable functor in the form
s -> a and paired it with an "index" into that function, in the form of a concrete
s. Then we'd be able to step that
s forward or backwards and navigate around our structure of
as. And this is precisely the Store Comonad! And this in turn gives a characterization of the lens laws.
What this all gives us a tiny taste of, in fact, is the tremendous power of the Yoneda lemma, which, in Haskell, is all about going between values and functions, and in fact captures the important universality and uniqueness properties that make working with representable functors tractable. A further tiny taste of Yoneda comes from a nice blog post by Conal Elliott on memoization.
Extra Credit on Sum Functors
There in fact is a log identity on sums. It goes like this:
log(a + c) = log a + log (1 + c/a)
Do you have a useful computational interpretation of this? I've got the inklings of one, but not much else.
Appendix: Notes on Representable Functors in Hask.
The way to think about this is to take some arbitrary category C, and some category that's basically Set (in our case, Hask. In fact, in our case, C is Hask too, and we're just talking about endofunctors on Hask). Now, we take some functor F : C -> Set, and some A which is an element of C. The set of morphisms originating at A (denoted by Hom(A,-)) constitutes a functor called the "hom functor." For any object X in C, we can "plug it in" to Hom(A,-), to then get the set of all arrows from A to X. And for any morphism X -> Y in C, we can derive a morphism from Hom(A,X) to Hom(A,Y), by composition. This is equivalent to, in Haskell-land, using a function
f :: x -> y to send
g :: a -> x to
a -> y by writing "functionAToY = f . g".
So, for any A in C, we have a hom functor on C, which is C -> Set, where the elements of the resultant Set are homomorphisms in C. Now, we have this other arbitrary functor F, which is also C -> Set. Now, if there is an isomorphism of functors between F, and Hom(A,_), then we say F is "representable". A representable functor is thus one that can be worked with entirely as an appropriate hom-functor. | <urn:uuid:d59f8e83-0263-407c-911c-4cfbb131d4ae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://slipwave.info/reader/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92701 | 2,230 | 2.78125 | 3 |
First of all, it might be fruitful having a discussion about what happens when a body suffers from the gastrointestinal disorders. As a matter of fact, it is concerned not just with the healthy digestion of the foods. Sometimes, you may have problem in the wastes excretion even after the food has been digested well. This may be the problem in large intestines. Gastrointestinal health will also be affected badly if digestive enzymes are not at good work. Hence, one can suffer from digestive disorders if he is having problems in any of the digestive organs.
There are different ways to resolve issues with gastrointestinal health. However, it is the main guideline to stay with the organic solutions.
For the better health of digestive system, one must eat right and in the right way too. This is to be noted that all nutritious and healthful foods don’t meet the needs of everyone. This is because of the different body requirements. Here, you will need to make sure that you are not eating the foods which contain more fats and are dangerous for the digestive organs. The most important matter of concern is maintaining the health of probiotics. You can consider gastrointestinal tract a home for the probiotics. These probiotics cover the internal walls of gastrointestinal organs. The gap in this covering means the organ is prone more to the bad microorganisms’
With the good foods, make sure you are drinking a lot of water every day. Water is usually helpful in the removal of wastes and it also helps the food to be digested well. Moreover, you can avoid fats, exercise daily and eat fresh and organic foods to stay healthy by maintaining the gastrointestinal health.
For the better gastro intestinal health, you can consider the intake of several good supplements available in the market. Again, you will need checking whether the supplement is organic or not. For the better gastrointestinal health(http://www.healthdesigns.com/
For the people who want to earn money online in the better way, Health Designs presents Health Designs Referral program(http://www.healthdesigns.com/ | <urn:uuid:840c78cf-96dc-41cc-a2fc-783f53dc7d1c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.prlog.org/11974616-important-concerns-about-gastrointestinal-health.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953254 | 419 | 2.6875 | 3 |
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(Updates share price in fifth paragraph.)
Sept. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s largest retailer, today unveiled a multibillion-dollar women’s initiative, three months after winning dismissal of a gender- bias case from the U.S. Supreme Court.
The plan includes buying $20 billion of products from U.S. female-owned businesses in the next five years and training women to work in factories and retail around the globe. The world’s largest private employer also will provide more than $100 million in grants to non-profit organizations aiding women.
Wal-Mart will ask some companies such as ad agencies it works with to hire and promote more women, said Deisha Galberth, a spokeswoman. The move mirrors programs the retailer has previously announced, including efforts to buy more food from farmers located near its stores.
“We’re stepping up our efforts to help educate, source from and open markets for women around the world,” Chief Executive Officer Mike Duke said in a statement.
Wal-Mart, based in Bentonville, Arkansas, rose 61 cents to $52.20 at 4 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares have fallen 3.2 percent this year.
The U.S. Supreme Court in June rejected an effort on behalf of as many as 1 million female workers to sue Wal-Mart for discrimination. Filed in 2001, the suit aimed to cover every woman who worked at the retailer’s Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club’s stores at any point since December 1998, including those not hired until years after the suit was filed.
The justices said the lawyers pressing the case failed to point to a common corporate policy that led to gender discrimination against workers at thousands of stores across the country.
Wal-Mart may still face smaller gender discrimination lawsuits in lower courts and claims with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
“The Wal-Mart public-relations machine is spinning overtime on this,” said Brian Sozzi, an analyst at Wall Street Strategies in New York. “They are doing their best job to try and get out in front of any potential future lawsuits, while at the same time appear better in the cases remaining.” Sozzi recommends holding the shares.
In a conference call today with reporters Sarah Thorn, a company spokeswoman, said increased support for women-owned suppliers wasn’t related to the lawsuit.
--With assistance from Greg Stohr in Washington. Editors: Robin Ajello, Kevin Orland
To contact the reporters on this story: Ashley Lutz in New York at firstname.lastname@example.org; Matthew Boyle in New York at email@example.com
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Robin Ajello at firstname.lastname@example.org | <urn:uuid:ac644696-3b5a-4f2f-8e8c-606e5ba6b1a7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-09-14/wal-mart-announces-multibillion-dollar-women-s-initiative.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95071 | 619 | 1.859375 | 2 |
2011 Census data covering: Detailed characteristics for local authorities in England and Wales
The employment rate was 71.4%, down 0.2 percentage points on the quarter. There were 29.71 million employed people, down 43,000 on the quarter.
Part of the ONS Measuring National Well-being Programme, this article focuses on the economy and describes how the UK has fared relative to other countries.
This report examines the characteristics of households with property debt. For example, it compares property debt by region and looks at the self-reported burden of this debt.
The UK’s deficit on seasonally adjusted trade in goods and services was £3.1 billion in March 2013. The deficit on trade in goods was £9.1 billion. The surplus on trade in services was estimated at £5.9 billion.
The total volume of construction output rose by 12.1% comparing March 2013 with February 2013, in constant prices, not seasonally adjusted. | <urn:uuid:7d803d64-7200-4b42-8ff1-6745fc168370> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/index.html?translation-component=&calling-id=77-27049&cardisp=1&currLang=English&format=normal | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96286 | 199 | 2.15625 | 2 |
As much as blogging is a conversation between blogger and reader, it is also a conversation between blogger and blogger. One of the things I like to do is to draw attention to some blogs that I think readers of this blog will appreciate. I find the posts in each of these blogs thoughtful, engaging, and often provocative. One’s an oldie but goodie, while another is relatively new to the scene in its present format, although it has deeper roots in past blogging, a situation with which I’m familiar.
Robert Moore’s Cenantua’s Blog has more going for it than its unusual name. Robert’s a white southerner who reflects on his region and those who claim to speak for it. The blog’s a fascinating mix of primary sources, commentary, personal reflections, and the like, a rather diverse presentation that keeps one’s attention. Robert is one of those people who doesn’t make the mistake of confusing the South with the Confederacy, or of reducing all of southern history to the story of four years of war. He’s attentive to issues of southern diversity and division.
Another blog, Jubilo! The Emancipation Century, is the work of lunchcountersitin. It looks at African American history from slavery to freedom, with reflections on present day perceptions as well. I happen to think that one of the challenges confronting the present group of bloggers is that there is all too little about African American history in the nineteenth century, although this is in part, I think, an observation made in ignorance of what’s out there (something I’m working on ending). Not any single blog can do everything, and each of us looks at different things, but I believe the dialogue needs to be richer and that it needs to grow beyond its current contours and pathways, some of which have become somewhat predictable and well-worn. Over the next several months I’m looking towards integrating various worlds of discussion in the hope that a broader conversation might benefit us all. | <urn:uuid:98090edc-2110-45f6-a23d-fcbdf5080f97> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cwcrossroads.wordpress.com/2011/02/19/two-more-blogs-worth-reading/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965271 | 424 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Significance and Use
This guide provides procedures enabling the recording of qualitative performance information under controlled test conditions. This information can be used together with quantitative data to comprehensively evaluate a particular spill removal device or as a means of comparing two or more devices.
Although the qualitative assessment described in this guide can be somewhat subjective, it is an important part of the overall evaluation of a spill removal device. This guide covers performance factors other than recovery rate and efficiency that will affect the device's performance in an actual spill. Their consideration allows the comprehensive evaluation or comparison of spill removal devices.
Caution must be exercised whenever test data are used to predict performance in actual spill situations as the uncontrolled environmental conditions that affect performance in the field are rarely identical to conditions in the test tank.
Portions of this guide are specifically intended for skimmers with hydraulic power supplies. This is not intended to limit application of this guide to skimmers with other power supplies such as electric or pneumatic.
1.1 This guide covers evaluating a number of qualitative performance parameters for full-scale oil spill removal systems or individual components of those systems. It is intended to complement the quantitative testing covered in Guide F631.
1.2 This guide is intended for potential purchasers of oil spill removal equipment to ensure that suppliers meet their needs and expectations.
1.3 This guide requires a subjective evaluation that could vary widely when completed by different organizations. As such, its main use would be as a means of comparing different skimmers for a particular organization or application.
1.4 Not all of the items in this guide would apply to a particular skimmer or to a particular cleanup application. Prior to using this guide, users should carefully review the entire contents and note those areas that are most important to their needs. In particular, qualitative evaluation of items such as workmanship of construction may not be applicable to prototype skimmers.
1.5 This standard does not purport to address all of the safety concerns, if any, associated with its use. It is the responsibility of the user of this standard to establish appropriate safety and health practices and determine the applicability of regulatory limitations prior to use. Specific safety precautions are given in Section 9.
2. Referenced Documents (purchase separately) The documents listed below are referenced within the subject standard but are not provided as part of the standard.
F625 Practice for Classifying Water Bodies for Spill Control Systems
F631 Guide for Collecting Skimmer Performance Data in Controlled Environments
F1607 Guide for Reporting of Test Performance Data for Oil Spill Response Pumps
Oil spill control systems; Oil spill recovery system effectiveness; Performance--oil spill control materials/systems; Qualitative analysis/measurement; Skimmer systems; ICS Number Code 13.020.40
ASTM International is a member of CrossRef.
Citing ASTM Standards
[Back to Top] | <urn:uuid:ae69ffec-487d-4a02-b87e-6afdd8e0632d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.astm.org/Standards/F2008.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.905705 | 594 | 1.96875 | 2 |
Inflation is a daily reality for many of the families CFCA serves. Despite these and other economic challenges, we remain committed to helping families find long-term, sustainable solutions to poverty.
The following post has been adapted from an article written by Janet Tinsley, CFCA project director.
By now, we are all familiar with the nearly constant news about economic crises around the world:
- a stock market crash sends economic shock waves across the globe
- a civil war impedes the distribution of oil and drives up transportation costs
- severe drought conditions cut off peopleís access to adequate food supplies and means of income, etc.
All people worldwide are affected in some way by fluctuations in the global economy.
Since 2006, the worldwide purchasing power of sponsorship contributions ñ $30 a month ñ has decreased 5 percent, and in some countries where we work it has fallen more than 20 percent.
We hear from projects all the time about rising prices, inflation and economic crises in the countries where we work.
Meanwhile, we often hear from sponsors about how difficult it is for them to meet their monthly contribution in the midst of rising prices, inflation and economic crises in their own country.
What does this mean for project teams struggling to provide quality benefits and services for sponsored friends?
Embedded in our Hope for a Family program are practical strategies for sponsored members and their families to help them move toward economic stability and lessen their overall dependency on monthly sponsorship benefits.
CFCA projects have begun implementing programs to help families be more self-sufficient. Here are some examples:
Staff members in India’s Hyderabad project say that for many sponsored friends, the idea of building personal savings is a new concept. Everyday life is a struggle for them.
However, experience around the CFCA world has shown that even when it seems that a family does not have extra income, they can be encouraged and given incentive to save even small amounts of money each month.
As we tell mothers of sponsored children the implications of inflation and ask them to save some money for emergency periods, they have been able to build up even a small amount of savings, becoming better equipped to survive difficult economic circumstances.
Social safety nets
Through the Hope for a Family program, many projects have built programs that promote mutual accountability and support among sponsored friends and their families.
Families who interact with other families in the sponsorship program regularly are more likely to build relationships that develop into support networks.
Through these networks, families are better equipped to make it through difficult times.
In the effort to withstand unstable economic conditions and food insecurity, several CFCA self-help groups have developed a food production program that ensures that each sponsored friend and their family has at least 200 cassava plants and 10 banana plants in each familyís garden, according to members of the Kampala project in Uganda.
Increased family income
Helping families build their own ability to earn income is key to helping them achieve economic self-sufficiency.
Joel, 58, is sponsored through CFCA’s Hope for a Family program in Timau, Kenya. The water pump that sponsorship benefits helped him buy is bearing fruit.
Through the Hope for a Family program, many project teams have proactively created opportunities for families to increase their own income.
These include providing access to credit, offering skills training and capacity building, and supporting families in developing income-generating activities that will provide them the ability to handle more of their financial needs.
The Meru project in Kenya says when families embrace and develop their own capacity for personal and economic growth rather than just receiving material goods, then they will be able to adapt to changes around them.
When families are able to maintain multiple means to bounce back, they are not as affected by the volatile economic conditions.
If our overall goal is to help families over time rely less on sponsorship benefits and more on their own income-generation activities, our programs must be focused on helping families increase their earning potential.
Through implementation of the Hope for a Family program, we offer families so much more than material benefits in uncertain economic times.
Helping families meet some of their immediate material needs through benefits is only the starting point.
Our goal is to go well beyond simple, material handouts and offer spaces where families can develop their own sources of income and economic stability for long-term resiliency. | <urn:uuid:b0b0632d-d7c1-42b8-839d-46723ea6c168> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.cfcausa.org/2011/10/10/helping-sponsored-friends-despite-economic-insecurity-inflation/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=ea0388e61b | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964519 | 900 | 1.953125 | 2 |
The US is strongly considering providing direct humanitarian assistance to favored opposition groups in Syria. Humanitarian aid organizations are expressing deep concerns about this strategy because their ability to be granted access to conflict situations relies heavily on their political neutrality and strict agenda of responding to humanitarian needs alone. If the US plans go ahead, the Assad government may not only restrict access, but perceive aid agencies as a front for a US military agenda. This has multiple consequences. Humanitarian aid agencies could be blocked from entry, or even become military targets themselves. Also, if aid is selectively given to some groups over others, the aid itself can become a source of conflict, thus fostering more violence. Regardless of political affiliation, children in need of food should be given assistance. This is the principle of humanitarian aid, which can be damaged beyond repair in a situation like Syria, if its apolitical reputation is tarnished by intervening powers.
By Mark Leon Goldberg
The Obama administration is weighing proposals to channel humanitarian aid directly to the Syrian opposition. This “Plan B” for Syria already has supporters in US Congress and was given a boost last week by Marc Lynch in a Center for a New American Security policy brief. The Washington Post reported yesterday that the administration is strongly considering the merits of providing direct humanitarian assistance to rebel groups in order to prop up those groups it favors.
Humanitarian aid organizations, however, are expressing deep reservations about this strategy.
“This is the wrong approach,” says one aid expert for a humanitarian relief organization working in Syria that receives funding from USAID. “The ability of US-backed humanitarian actors to get aid into Syria depends on us being an impartial actor and responding to real needs.”
The concerns are manifold. If the Assad government considers humanitarian relief to be a front for an American military agenda, humanitarian organizations will be barred from the country; or worse: targeted as part of a military campaign. Also, channeling food, medicine, and blankets directly to rebel groups in Syria for the expressed goal of boosting the legitimacy of one group over another could mean that aid becomes something over which various rebel factions will fight.
“Who gets credit for aid is heavily politicized and people get killed for it,” says the aid worker. He argues that determining aid recipients by their political affiliation is an impractical way to deliver aid. Should aid groups act as the tip of the spear of an American-led charge to pick favorites, they may become targets in inter-nicene battles and cease operations.
“It is very tempting in the course of a war that aid be used for political ends, especially when diplomacy is not working and external military intervention is off the table,” says Sam Worthington CEO of the NGO umbrella group InterAction. “Our concern is that the broader UN and NGO humanitarian effort already in place will also become politicized. A limited yet very important humanitarian assistance operation happening in the country could be jeopardized if there is a perception that aid is another instrament of conflict.”
The principle of neutrality is sacrosanct in the humanitarian community not only for the basic moral reason that a hungry child suffering in Assad controlled territory is as much deserving of PlumpyNut as a child suffering in rebel territory. Rather, neutrality in word and deed is a pragmatic solution to operating in challenging war zones. If humanitarian relief workers are seen as serving ends beyond feeding starving people, they will be barred from accessing populations in need. That is what makes proposals to harness aid for extraneous purposes so dangerous.
“When we have seen aid extensively politicized, the humanitarian window does begin to close,” says Sam Worthington. “Our fear is that this will impact peoples’ lives.” | <urn:uuid:7fc7ffc4-d119-4015-a068-708e46c10790> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/266-security-council-and-syria/52307-humanitarian-groups-warn-against-direct-aid-to-syrian-rebels.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949986 | 761 | 2.015625 | 2 |
Atlantic Ocean off Cape Canaveral, Fla.; Air Force missile testing area, Patrick Air Force Base, Fla.
(a) The danger zone.
An area in the Atlantic Ocean immediately offshore from Cape Canaveral defined by a line 3 nautical miles from shore, said area terminating in the north at a line on a bearing of 70° from a point on shore at approximate latitude 28°35′ north and in the south at a line on a bearing of 115° from a point on the shore at approximate latitude 28°25′ north.
(b) The regulations.
All unauthorized persons and vessels are prohibited from operating within the danger zone during firing periods to be specified by the Commander, Air Force Missile Test Center, Patrick Air Force Base.
Warning signals will be used to warn persons and vessels that the danger zone is active. These signals will be in the form of a large red ball and a red flashing high intensity beacon. One signal will be located on a 90-foot pole near the shoreline at the north end of the danger zone, and one signal will be located on a 90-foot pole near the shoreline about one-half mile north of the south limit of the danger zone. An amber rotating beacon and warning sign will be erected on the north side of the Port Canaveral ship channel to indicate to vessels about to leave the harbor that the danger zone is in use.
When the signals in paragraph (b)(2) of this section are displayed, all persons and vessels, except those authorized personnel and patrol vessels, will immediately leave the danger zone by the most direct route and stay out until the signals are discontinued.
The regulations in this paragraph shall be enforced by the Commander, Air Force Missile Test Center, Patrick Air Force Base, Fla., and such agencies as he may designate.
[22 FR 4814, July 9, 1957, as amended at 23 FR 3716, May 29, 1958; 27 FR 4778, May 19, 1962. Redesignated at 50 FR 42696, Oct. 22, 1985, as amended at 62 FR 17554, Apr. 10, 1997] | <urn:uuid:b784e03f-46b1-40fe-8f2a-94d63d9f4a32> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/33/334.590 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926835 | 429 | 2.4375 | 2 |
Other approaches to course design
Many viable approaches to course design exist. In many respects, all of the approaches listed below are variations on a theme that involves articulating objectives, goals, or outcomes, designing assignments, selecting instructional formats, and developing assessments. All of these approaches are valuable. Our course design model is another variation on the theme, one that focuses on having faculty articulate what they want students to be able to do after completing the course. We have found this approach to be both highly successful in a workshop setting and transformative in terms of participants' thinking about course design overall.
- Diamond's model of course design involves a recursive process that includes designing the "ideal" course and then modifying it based on specific local constraints (Diamond, R.M., 1997, Designing and assessing courses and curricula: a practical guide: San Francisco, CA; Jossey-Bass Publishers).
- Wiggins and McTighe suggest a "backwards design" approach that begins with identifying desired results, followed by determining acceptable evidence and planning learning experiences and instruction (Wiggins, G. and McTighe, J., 2000, Understanding by design: Englewood Cliffs, NJ; Prentice Hall).
- Fink presents a model focused on creating significant learning experiences for students (Fink, L.D., 2003, Creating significant learning experiences: an integrated approach to designing college courses: San Francisco, CA; Jossey-Bass Publishers).
- Walvoord and Breihan describe workshops that help faculty design assignment-centered courses (Walvoord, B.E., and Breihan, J.R., 1997, Helping faculty design assignment-centered courses: To Improve the Academy, v. 16, p. 349-371).
- Saroyan and Amundsen advocate beginning the course design process by focusing on main concepts, rather than on specific content (Saroyan, A. and Amundsen, C., 2004, Rethinking teaching in higher education: from a course design workshop to a faculty development framework: Sterling, Virginia; Stylus Publishing).
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©2005 On-line Course Design Workshop and Tutorial developed by Dr. Barbara J. Tewksbury (Hamilton College) and Dr. R. Heather Macdonald (College of William and Mary) as part of the program On the Cutting Edge, funded by NSF grant DUE-0127310. | <urn:uuid:ebd20d54-d11e-4eb1-bd4b-77ec8aea482a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/coursedesign/tutorial/developers_other.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.901547 | 501 | 2.34375 | 2 |
Born in Germany in 1944, Candida Höfer is one of the leading figures in contemporary German art photography. Having studied film at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, she went on to study photography under Bernd and Hilla Becher. Höfer was included in Documenta XI in Kassel, Germany, in 2002. In 2003 she represented Germany, along with Martin Kippenberger, at the Venice Biennale. Recent solo exhibitions include Sonnabend Gallery, New York, 2007; Galerie Friedrich, Basel, 2007; Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco, 2008; Johnen Galerie, Berlin, 2008 and Kukje Gallery, Seoul, 2008. IMMA acquired Höfer’s photographic work Irish Museum of Modern Art Dublin III in 2004.
View edition piece | <urn:uuid:1a78b4cc-d846-4165-b0f1-a74ff6cc1cba> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.immaeditions.com/artists.php?id=9 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.908936 | 171 | 1.5625 | 2 |
In the first installment of this series, you learned why incorporating an environmental management system as part of a broader business plan is becoming an essential part of running any company. Here the discussion continues with a look at on-press cleaning materials and practices with a focus on identifying VOC risks.
So the unintended consequence of this labeling scenario is that the lower volatility solvent might have caused the printer to choose the chemical that creates a greater risk to health and a greater environmental impact. Interestingly, the law in Europe has changed so that the exposure scenario is an integral part of the information on a material safety data sheet (MSDS) and will help guard against this type of problem. The new legislation is known as REACh (Registration Evaluation & Authorization of Chemicals), and it became effective June 1, 2008.
The main point is that you must carefully assess the MSDS of any cleaning solvents you are considering. Remember to ask the manufacturer as many questions about what is not on the MSDS as about what is on it. If specific sections are blank, find out why.
There is a further and important consequence of labeling of solvents as harmful under EU regulations. Many highly volatile, lower-cost solvents, such as toluene, cyclohexanone, mineral spirits, etc. are classified as harmful by inhalation. There are other harmful solvents that are classified as harmful by ingestion. Clearly, the distinction is important in the context of screen cleaning where inhaling a highly volatile solvent represents a very real risk, as opposed to the more theoretical risk of ingesting the solvent. Our processes are hands on and the operators are close to the evaporation. Therefore, a careful study of the MSDS is essential to confirm which category of harmful the raw materials fall into.
We don’t encourage the use of harmful solvents. But there are times when economics make it very hard for a printer to choose a label-free solvent, particularly if the shop is using an ink that requires a more hazardous formulation to effectively remove the ink from screens. In those cases, the printer should be encouraged to go for the lowest volatility that works to minimize the risk to staff and waste to the atmosphere.
Bringing green to the reclaiming room
This discussion concentrated on screen cleaning that occurs on press, where printers expect specific performance properties from cleaning chemicals, such as slower evaporation and leaving no oily residue. The requirements of the chemicals used here differ from those used in the screen-reclaiming process, in which printers need chemicals that have good water miscibility so that they and stencil residue can be easily rinsed away. In the next part of this series, we’ll address those products and the consequences of disposing of reclaiming chemicals down the drain.
Author’s note: My thanks to the other MacDermid Autotype employees who contributed valuable information for this article, including Simon Jones, commercial manager, and Dr. Sem Seaborne, regulatory affairs compliance officer.
Neil Bolding is MacDermid Autotype’s business-support manager. He is a 25-year veteran of the printing industry with experience in quality control and technical customer support. He has written articles for a variety of trade publications, spoken at numerous industry events, and regularly contributes to SGIA training programs. He currently sits on the SGIA’s Environmental Committee and the Membrane Switch Council. In 1994 he was the industry co-chair (product- testing subcommittee) for the US EPA’s Design for the Environment Program. Bolding also is a member of the Academy of Screen Printing Technology.
Professor Steven Abbott is technical and research director at MacDermid Autotype, Wantage, England. After receiving a PhD in chemistry at Oxford for work he carried out at Harvard and serving in a post-doctoral position in Strasbourg, he went to work at ICI on new product development. In his role as research and technical director of MacDermid Autotype, Abbott has been responsible for ensuring a constant stream of new products and also for providing the science behind the coating and printing techniques used. He frequently collaborates with researchers at the University of Leeds, where he serves as a visiting professor, and is a frequent speaker at international conferences related to coating and printing. Abbott is a recipient of the Swormstedt award for technical writing from the Specialty Graphics Imaging Association.
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Flattening, Blending and Globalizing the Learning World
Education is as old as the concept of knowledge. In our new era of complex diversification of disciplines and university faculties, it is a system of learning that has the potential to elevate individual and collective ideas, from the classroom out into the community and the global sphere, forming a working and creative environment of productivity and ingenuity.
Dr. Curtis Bonk Ph.D, is a
professor of instructional
systems technology at
Bonk is striving once again to make the world flat by teaching people how technology, together with high-quality instruction, can shift paradigms for the better understanding of human potential.
His approach is impactful; standing at the front of the seminar room yielding a hockey stick and Friday the 13th goalie mask, he gets the audience to pay attention to his ideas. He utilizes humour as a grounding point to get his knowledge out into the educational forum of teaching, and learning minds. He brings in Dr. Evil and Mini Me from the Austin Powers movies on the large media screen-Bill Gates wearing alien enemy headgear speaking of things like world domination and the observer senses; these light interpretations of humanities characteristics might play a deeper symbolic role in his belief in the power of blended learning-on a worldwide sphere. The message is there in his teaching, for the need to take control of these learning tools, as autonomous and collective thinkers in each respective area of learning and beyond.
Through this model of the global dispersion of blended learning, Bonk explains the quantum leaps the ethical use of technology could make, when coupled with face-to-face interaction in educational institutions within our own societies, and all over the world.
He believes change in the educational spectrum is inevitable whether you jump on the rapidly traveling technological vehicle, or not. His myth # 5 states: Universities can just teach the same way they always have.
Students in today’s era are immersed in a high-tech industry. This is not subsiding; they are a generation of learners who are born into a socially, and technologically advanced environment. According to Bonk, the educational system must adjust its protocol to accommodate this ongoing shift, and fast evolving high-tech society.
“The educational sphere is heading towards e-learning as its method of post-secondary education. We need to create virtual institutes that engage the student and instructor. Effective monitoring and structuring of the virtual learning environment is imperative for impactful learning.”
According to him, the program of on-line teaching and learning must engage the learner, provide motivation, build positive relationships, and encourage innovation and creativity, while adapting to the individual needs of the student. Bonk is a strong proponent of an open forum of shared knowledge in an effective model of teaching that offers both structure, and the opportunity for creative expression and the birth of individual ideas.
Bonk believes virtual institutions alone, without instruction, can foster isolation among higher learners. As a result, educational facilities need to grasp hold of the accelerating advancement of on-line learning, to create environments where instructive collaboration and individual virtual teaching become one. He also stresses the danger of institutions falling to the wayside by not adopting the trend of blended and e-learning in any form-not heeding the new breed of learners’ technological agendas; having the false belief that change is not necessary in academic institutes.
This is a paradox; technology evolves in quantum leaps every day. According to Bonk, the research shows technology has the ability to influence our cognition and psychological make-up. This would suggest a higher- need to develop systems, and virtual environments with ideal models of teaching and learning, that have control over the technological instruments that are now permanently placed in the world. Creating safe, effective methods of incorporating these mechanisms of change, and the new minds born into them, in ethical, transformative ways is imperative so that individuals use the technology, the technology does not use them.
Bonk’s presentation’s show that there are already complex systems in place in the veins of technological infrastructure. Anyone can now discover and utilize on-line virtual violin lessons, neurosurgical suites, and interactive fashion shows. Today in fact, students inside the homes of small rural villages, are being lectured by art history professors directly from museums such as the Louvre, (want to browse hundreds of online museums, just access the Museum of Online Museums (MoOMI) see http://www.coudal.com/moom.php). The potential to reach more people, and for more individuals to access any type of knowledge, is limitless in the e-learning forum.
However, Bonk stresses that instructors and educational institutions must maintain full involvement in the learning process of post-secondary students: “You do not want technology and on-line learning to be the driving force behind education. We want people talking about learning in the area of instruction first.” This philosophy he says, will promote the healthy and productive integration of e-learning into the physical, and virtual organizations of higher education.
“A major trend of e-learning is the sharing of one one's knowledge base, which means as an instructor or student at a university institution you are not operating in isolation. Your impact will be beyond your 30 students and classroom, and you have the potential to influence every single instructor teaching that content, in your own domain, and potentially beyond to encompass a larger sphere, depending upon where you want to place your emphasis.
“You can be working with someone in
This ideology of blended learning is being translated beyond the walls of the educational forums, to include cross disciplinary, cross-cultural collaborations, creating a global network of shared knowledge that has implications far more than job creation, and individual success. The student raises their bow in the virtual auditorium to strike the violin; the sound encircles a new ideology, amplifying the endless possibilities in learning. This system of global dissemination of knowledge could produce unlimited ideas and innovations, in an effort of better understanding the global arena and the make-up of the many minds that exist in it.
Dr. Bonk has been expanding his ideologies and knowledge into the global sphere in many areas, through his worldwide on-line teaching, presentations and networking with international colleagues.
He addresses this idea in his book The Handbook of Blended Learning: Global Perspectives, Local Design: “There is a trend of the global collaboration and sharing of knowledge so we can have the perspectives of others around the world, and understand cultural differences and similarities.”
“Technology can be used to expand education outside of higher learning.” This will have a global impact on education and connectivity related to many areas of learning in the corporate, non-profit, health, art and educational worlds.
The eloquent brain, inside a system of blended learning can perhaps maintain, and optimize creative control as the technological brilliance of the era continues to illuminate the path of learning. With Bonk’s model of local as well as global dissemination of blended learning, it is possible the concept of learning will continue to expand at an accelerating pace out into our own formal, and informal learning arenas and global spectrums. The symphony will assemble with many forces interacting together and individually, in a system of ongoing learning, uncovering the limitless potential of human growth and innovation. | <urn:uuid:dd49f846-89f4-469f-968c-a5b41de5d8af> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.trainingshare.com/flatteningthe_learningworldfinal_b.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943632 | 1,506 | 2.421875 | 2 |
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How are your Chakras Affecting Your Life?
Chakras - Energy Hubs of Life
The object of this page is not to re-invent the "Wheel" (no pun intended), but rather to offer information specific to each area of life with a relative and helpful Empowerment to either develop it further (in the case of a desirable attribute), or to heal, or resolve it (in the case of an un-desirable attribute). The word Chakra translates to mean "Wheel" as in a Chariot Wheel, but if the person viewing the Chakra clairvoyantly is developed enough, they will observe that it resembles a Lotus Flower and not a Wheel. Many people are of the misconception that they are balls of energy. Actually, the Crown Chakra is a Lotus facing upward, and the Base Chakra is a Lotus facing downward. All of the Chakras in-between these two are actually facing front and back, like two Lotuses which are back to back.
Oh, by the way, if you have been noticing that high pitched "Dog Whistle-like" ringing in your head (inner ear) - It is probably not a medical condition, but more likely your Clairaudience (subtle hearing) kicking in. If this is the case, then you will most likely hear it more obviously when you are either waking-up or falling asleep (when you are relaxed). It is actually the sound that your Chakras make when they are vibrating simultaneously. If you increase or decrease your Chakra system's vibratory rate, you will notice that the tone also changes as well. (Please see our disclaimers on the "Services and Disclaimers" page).
Within Lord Shiva's Mantra "OM Nama Shivaya," You will find the sacred seed syllables who's resonance frequency matches that of each of the 7 corresponding Chakras
("AUM" - "OM" is for the 7th and 6th Chakras respectively).
"OM Nama Shivaya"
Crown Chakra (7th) Chakra
Location: The Top of the Head.
Seed Syllable: "AUM" (sound to activate this Chakra)
Gems and Minerals: Diamond, Quartz Crystal.
Color: Violet or White.
Desirable Attributes: Knowingness, Wisdom, Cosmic Consciousness, Buddha Consciousness.
Undesirable Attributes: Feeling Lost, Sense of being Un-Guided, Depression, Feeling Disconnected.
Working with your Crown Chakra (7th) Chakra: Receive the "Axiatonal" Initiation, the "Atlantian Crown" Initiation, Connecting to the "Order of Melchizedeck," Activation for Guidance and Healing, "Trance-Medium Loop" Meditation (Meditate While You Sleep).
Third Eye Center (6th) Chakra
Location: Between the Eyebrows and also at the Center of the Forehead (2) locations.
Seed Syllable: "OM" (sound to activate this Chakra)
Gems and Minerals: Amethyst.
Color: An Indigo Blue.
Desirable Attributes: Intuition, Imagination, Visualization, Clairvoyance, Seeing God in Everything.
Undesirable Attributes: (when not spiritually awake) - Living in Illusion, Limited Intuition, Living in Duality Consciousness.
Working with your Third Eye Center (6th) Chakra: Receive the "Cleansing your Clairvoyant Triangle" Activation, "Clairvoyant - Grounded Cosmic and Earth Loop" Meditation, and also Visualization practices.
Throat (5th) Chakra
Location: Throat Area.
Seed Syllable: "Na" & "Ham" (sound to activate this Chakra)
Gems and Minerals: Lapis Lazuli, Sodalite, Blue Quartz.
Color: Deep Blue and Silver Mix.
Desirable Attributes: Loving Communication, Expression, Singing, Honesty.
Undesirable Attributes: Lying, False Communication, Difficulty Communicating, Anger, Rage, Verbal Hostility.
Working with your Throat (5th) Chakra: Receive the "Connecting to Your Spiritual Soul Group" Activation for Healing, and Contacting Your "Akashic Records Librarian" Activation, Verbal Consciousness, Sweet Words of Kindness, Sing Spiritually Uplifting Songs, Chant Sacred Mantras.
Heart (4th) Chakra
Location: The Heart Area in the center of the chest and 2 inches below (2) locations.
Seed Syllable: "Ma" & "Yam" (sound to activate this Chakra)
Gems and Minerals: Emerald, Malachite, Green Jade.
Color: Green and also Pink.
Desirable Attributes: Knowingness, Joy, Unconditional Love, Forgiveness, Compassion, Group Consciousness, Peace, Tolerance.
Undesirable Attributes: Anger, Attachment, Selfishness, Closed Heart Energy, Rigidity, Lack of Love.
Working with your Heart (4th) Chakra: Receive the "Radiating Christ Light and Energy" Activation, "Lyran Planetary System Heart" Initiation, and the "Solar Heart Chalice" Initiation, Serve Others, Love and take care of Yourself, Acts of Kindness, Donate to Charities.
Solar Plexus (3rd) Chakra
Location: The Solar Plexus between the chest and the navel and also 2 inches above, and 2 inches below (3) locations.
Seed Syllable: "Shi" & "Ram" (sound to activate this Chakra)
Gems and Minerals: Gold, Tiger's Eye.
Color: Yellow (like the sun.)
Desirable Attributes: Personal Power, Empowered Creativity, Fearlessness.
Undesirable Attributes: Lack of Will, Over-emphasis on Power and Control, Anger, Rage, Fear.
Working with your Solar Plexus (3rd) Chakra: Receive the "9 Subtle Body Cleanse" Activation, and the "Buddha's Perfect Blue Light of Mushin" Activation. You can also rub your belly 36 times counter-clockwise, and then 24 times clockwise in large messaging circles to benefit digestion (according to Japanese tradition), Breathe using your Diaphragm.
Sacral (2nd) Chakra
Location: Sacral Area two finger widths below Naval in the Center of the Body and 2 inches below (2) locations.
Seed Syllable: "Va" & "Vam" (sound to activate this Chakra)
Gems and Minerals: Amber, Citrine.
Desirable Attributes: Creativity, Sexual Energy, Feeling Alive and Youthful.
Undesirable Attributes: Sexual Problems, Jealousy, Possessiveness, Desire.
Working with your Sacral (2nd) Chakra: Receive the "Micro and Macro Cosmic Orbit" Meditation, Sexual Healing, Creativity, Dance, Sensual Movement, Physical Self Expression.
Base (1st) Chakra
Location: (1st Chakra) The base of the spine at the Perineum, located between the Anus and Scrotum for men, and the Anus and Vagina for women.
Seed Syllable: "Ya" & "Lam" (sound to activate this Chakra)
Gems and Minerals: Red Jasper, Ruby, Garnet.
Desirable Attributes: Grounded and Good Focus, Earthy, Mobility, A feeling of Well-Being.
Undesirable Attributes: Stubborn, Violence, Anger, Light Headed - Feeling Ungrounded and Lack of Focus, Survival Fears.
Working with your Base (1st) Chakra: Receive the "Axiatonal" Initiation, "Meditate While You Sleep," and "Clairvoyant - Grounded Cosmic and Earth Loop" Meditations, Ground Yourself, Spend some time each day sitting or walking barefoot (preferable) directly on the Earth, Dancing, Gardening, Movement (Tai Chi, Chi Kung, Paqua, Hatha Yoga).
You can request a highly affective Custom Spiritual Healing Session with
Chakras are in direct relation to the corresponding Gland in your Endocrine System.
(all except the Crown Chakra, and the Perineum at the Base)
There are 9 orifices (openings) in both the male, and female body, and we are able to lose spiritual energy through these portals. The 3 most important areas through which we lose spiritual energy are the Eyes, Mouth and the Anus. This is the reason that we are taught to keep our eyes and mouth closed, and to tighten our sphincter muscles (at the Anus) during meditation. This problem is completely by-passed when you activate the "Trance-Medium Loop" Meditation (Meditate While You Sleep). You merely activate this amazing meditation before going to sleep, and it literally works on its own, all night long, while you sleep. Then you merely turn it off in the morning, and start your day feeling fantastic! After using this Meditation for around two months or so, you will notice that you are feeling more emotionally detached, more focused, have improved memory, and you are less fearful even throughout your normal day!
(L - female - Moon side - Ida Nadi) (R - male - Sun side - Pingala Nadi)
Men and women each have a male and female side. Interestingly enough, the right side of the body is always the "Sun" side, also known as the "Male" side of the body, and it is associated with Heat and the color gold. The Left side of the body is the "Moon" side, also known as the "Female" side of the body, and it is associated with Coolness and the color silver. When you have pain on the right side of your body, you are experiencing blockages relating to your male side, and often from your interaction with your father (father Karmas). Similarly, when you have pain on the left side of your body, you are experiencing blockages relating to your female side, and often from your interaction with your mother (mother Karmas).
Right side of the body:
Male, Pingala Nadi, Sun side, hot energy, color gold, dynamic energy, giving, external.
Left side of the body:
Female, Ida Nadi, Moon side, cool energy, color silver, magnetic energy, receiving, internal.
Many years ago, when Yona first began working with healing energies, he was experiencing a tremendous pain in his left knee for several days in a row, and he could not figure out how to resolve it. A spiritual friend of his took a look at the situation clairvoyantly, and advised Yona to release his mother's energy from his left knee. Once Yona activated his "Breaking Spiritual Contracts" with his mother, and then began sending healing energies to that area, the pain was finally released. When he attempted to heal the knee prior to "Breaking Spiritual Contracts" with his mother, nothing happened. As an obvious result to his releasing his mother's Karmas from his body, she almost immediately developed a pain in her left knee.
What you must realize is that everyone comes into this incarnation with certain Life Lessons they wish to go through in order to learn those particular lessons. If you "Take-On" their Karmas, then you are actually depriving them of their learning experience, and slowing down their growth potential. In addition to that, you are also adding extra Karmas to negotiate for yourself, which your soul did not intend for you to go through in this lifetime. The result is that you end-up being frustrated, and further burdened by them (the additional Karmas). Yona utilized the "Breaking Spiritual Contracts Activation" on many occasions since then in order to release Karmic energies from the body, and being of his client's, with great success.
Mother Earth has seven Chakra Centers just as we do, and her Meridians (the lines shown on the Globe above) are called Axiatonal Lines. We know them as Earth's Lei Lines. Wherever the Meridian Lines intersect, there is a "Tsu-Bo" point (pressure point in Japanese - minor points are "Tsu," and major points are "Bo"). Wherever the meridians come together, you end up with powerful electromagnetic fields which have a direct affect upon anyone who visits. Stonehenge in England is one such juncture. If you visit one of these points, the affect is that you will feel spiritually supercharged. We offer an Empowerment which will enable you to actually feel spiritually supercharged whenever you activate it. It is called the "Meridian Flush Activation." It literally flushes out layer, after layer of Karma from your meridian system. You will experience a light state of Equanimity, and a very enlivening feeling will come over you. Your cells will feel excited, all the while you will feel Calm, at-Peace and Relaxed, with No Thoughts and Emotionally Detached.
May God Shower Endless Love, Blessings and Joy Upon You Always, Yona Jyotiananda.
* To Call Yona and receive a Healing, Initiations or Counseling, click here.
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The term “just enough knowledge to be dangerous” comes immediately to mind with this one. The official description is “a large scale pan and tilt propane Flame Effect” but that hardly does this thing justice. The Anti-Sanecraft ARTillery Cannon is a three-barrel fire cannon that can move around like its namesake and launch massive propane bursts from two 1″ diameter barrels. The third barrel is somewhat special, it is constructed of stronger steel and can be pre-fed with oxygen to create one massive intense propane-O2 mixed fire burst.
The trick about the whole thing is that when oxygen and propane are mixed it is a highly volatile and dangerous thing, in a closed space they classify as an explosive. Instead oxygen is filled directly into the open ended barrel separately and is allowed to sit until propane fires it out. This mixes the two fuels in the open air where it is safer and far away from any bystanders. We would not suggest you try this at all ever, as the effect was so loud during the Transformus festival that neighbors, miles away from the large festival ground, were complaining about rattling windows. This is the kind of place where several thousand watt sound systems are pushed near the red with no issue, just to give a bit of a comparison.
We can’t seem to find a video of this thing in action either [Beyond Joy] just posted a video of this crazy contraption in action (without the O2 effect), check it out after the jump! Don’t forget to check the facebook photo album for all the NPT pipe fitting action, (warning some images of the phallic controls are very mildly NSFW).
Photo Credit: [Bert Reed Photography] | <urn:uuid:0ec9694b-a3cf-4542-bd1f-a9c85d637f41> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hackaday.com/2012/07/05/anti-sanecraft-artillery-cannon-is-farm-boy-engineering-at-its-finest/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958293 | 357 | 1.632813 | 2 |
PRE-OWNED MOTOR CARS's Maintenance Tips
Does my transmission ever need service?
Most car care experts advise having an automatic transmission’s fluid and filter changed every two years or 24,000 miles, to keep it in good working order. This is especially important if the vehicle is more than five years old. Many vehicles newer than five years old may need scheduled service less often and some new vehicles have transmissions that need no scheduled service for the life of the car.
By-the-book service, however, may not be adequate if your vehicle is driven hard, tows a trailer, goes off-road or carries a camper. Under these conditions, the fluid and filter may need to be changed more often -- every 12 months or 12,000 miles --because dirt and moisture buildup in the fluid can cause internal damage. Heat buildup can also be a problem. The harder the transmission works, the hotter the fluid gets and the quicker the fluid breaks down. To find out the recommended service schedule for your vehicle’s transmission, check the owner’s manual or talk with your local automotive service provider.
Manual transmissions generally need no regularly scheduled service, but may need service due to worn clutch and throw-out bearings and broken synchromesh gears. Check your owner’s manual for specific information on manual transmission service or talk with your local automotive service provider. | <urn:uuid:d67664be-a3b8-4019-94bc-a9c569e9a983> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.procarcarezone.com/topshop/web/web_template/questions/question10.asp?id=132308 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923159 | 284 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Mexico's road to economic sanityMarch 15, 2013: 10:58 AM ET
Mexico is poised to take on a few of the country's biggest monopolies and moguls by enacting new legislation. But the nation needs to do much more.
By Shannon O'Neil
FORTUNE -- With a bill introduced by the president and backed by all three political parties, Mexico is poised to take on a few of the country's biggest monopolies and moguls. But for Mexico to truly engage in economic competition, it needs to do much more.
A lack of competition pervades the Mexican economy, as one or a few companies dominate sectors as diverse as glass, cement, flour, soft drinks, sugar, and tortilla flour, not to mention the state's control of energy and electricity. This hits consumers' bottom lines -- an OECD study estimates that it increases the costs of basic goods for households by some 40%. It hurts Mexico's working and middle classes the most, as they must spend a larger proportion of what they earn on these goods and services. It also hits the burgeoning manufacturing sector, which has to pay more for raw materials and basic inputs.
Few question the need to reform telecommunications and broadcasting, as the dominance of a few companies has hurt Mexico's broader economy and, at times, warped its politics. Consumers and businesses alike pay far more for their phone calls than the OECD average (over 30% and 80%, respectively), even though Mexico's telecom investment lags all other OECD countries. And Mexico trails not just China or Russia, but even Bosnia in broadband access.
The nation's television duopoly has not only made significant profits, but it has also thrown its weight around in Mexico's politics. Where once the PRI famously controlled the press, now it often seems the reverse. Both Televisa and TV Azteca have shown themselves able and willing to both make and destroy political reputations, scaring many politicians and officials into silence or acquiescence. The 2006 "Televisa law" was perhaps the most blatant example, when, on the eve of elections, Mexico's Congress passed legislation that would have guaranteed the duopoly's ongoing control -- by automatically renewing their licenses and giving the firms preferential access to new bandwidth. Mexico's Supreme Court later overturned the unpopular legislation.
This isn't Mexico's first try at reining in these companies' power. Legislative changes in 2006 gave Mexico's regulators a few more teeth, including the power to investigate anticompetitive behavior, to block mergers, and to impose heftier penalties on businesses. In 2011, Felipe Calderón signed a bill that upped fines on monopolies to some 10% of their revenues and jail terms for their CEOs to up to 10 years. The Supreme Court jumped into the fray as well, ruling that the regulations would go into effect immediately, rather than waiting for years as the companies exhausted all legal means and appeals. Each of these efforts has chipped away at what is a decidedly uneven playing field.
Still, the new telecommunications bill, if implemented, would bring sweeping changes to the sector. It would create a new regulator and strengthen current ones, giving these entities, at least in theory, the power to take away licenses and even break up monopolies on their own. It redefines as "dominant" any company with more than 50% market share -- for which companies like Telmex, Telcel, and Televisa all qualify. In the television network space, it introduces "must offer/must carry" provisions that should help smaller cable providers by ensuring access to popular Televisa and TV Azteca content, all for free. And it finally opens the broadcast market by putting at least two new national television channels up for auction (off limits to the current players), and opens the telecom market to 100% foreign ownership.
Mexico is known for its elegant laws but less refined practices. And even as these reforms were being announced, Mexico's courts quietly ended the legal wrangling that had held up Televisa's entrance into the cellphone market through its joint venture with provider Iusacell -- a step many worry will concentrate rather than open up the sector. Still, if passed and implemented, these regulatory measures would bring about remarkable change.
If Mexico's government can push through this bill and follow through with the other reforms it has promised (such as energy and fiscal overhauls) it could tip the balance in the right direction. But even with these new tools, regulators will continue their David and Goliath struggle. Until this changes, Mexico's competitiveness problems will affect not just its increasingly global manufacturing sector and growing middle class, but also the United States, whose economy is ever more connected to its southern neighbor.
Shannon O'Neil is senior fellow for Latin America studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of Two Nations Indivisible: Mexico, the United States, and the Road Ahead. | <urn:uuid:fec5d007-702f-41fc-a35a-b2adf70f13d7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2013/03/15/mexico-monopolies/?cnn=yes | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968946 | 997 | 1.921875 | 2 |
Nature of Light: Unit-Grades 7-8
(3 resources, 6 subfolders
This is a 7-day model unit that explores fundamental properties of light in a multimedia approach. It draws upon recent education research on adolescents' understanding of light, which indicates that middle school students have very little comprehension of the nature of light and multiple firmly-held misconceptions about the topic. The research recommends teaching about light and the electromagnetic spectrum before teaching about vision, color, or lenses. In this unit, students discover that light is much more than what we perceive with our eyes; it is part of a huge spectrum that includes UV, infrared, x-ray, radio waves, and gamma rays. They will get hands-on exposure to reflection, refraction, diffraction, and more.
SEE FOLDERS AT BOTTOM OF PAGE for day-by-day lesson plans, data sheets, warm-up questions, and assessments. | <urn:uuid:121c345d-ff14-4a0e-9c7d-4f992c05ad14> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thephysicsfront.org/filingcabinet/share.cfm?UID=3404&FID=16729&code=3B9D7499DA | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913733 | 191 | 4.375 | 4 |
By BRET MOSS Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma
DURANT, Okla. – The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma (CNO) will be repatriating 124 of their ancestor’s remains this coming spring. This is a great success in more ways than one, and for more tribes than just the Choctaw Nation.
The remains of ancestors are sacred to many Native American tribes, and the Choctaw Tribe is no exception. These 124 remains are believed to be around 500 years old, based on cultural material and records from the past, and hold great significance to members of several tribes from the Southeastern United States. The people of the Choctaw Nation have long believed that the deceased will become one with the earth. “It is a traditional Choctaw belief that when people die, their spirits take a journey to the Land of Souls, and part of that is their body going back into the ground,” explains Dr. Ian Thompson, Choctaw Tribal Archaeologist. These remains were taken from their place of burial decades ago during two separate excavations, one in the 1950s and the other in the 1960s. This was a time when archaeologists were looking to amass large quantities of Native American remains for their collections. These remains were taken without the consultation of the tribes to which they belong. Most consider this desecration a tragedy of the severest kind. Now that the Choctaw Nation has reacquired their ancestor’s remains, they plan to rebury them. This is done out of respect to the individuals who have passed away, as well as the family that originally laid them to rest in the earth centuries ago, said Thompson. Other than sheer respect for the departed, the Choctaw belief is that “where they were buried, the soil around them is part of them,” mentions Terry Cole, Tribal Historic Preservation Officer. Cole went on to explain that, when a body starts to deteriorate, the physical body is absorbed into the ground around the grave. This makes the area around the grave sacred. The remains are not only important to the Choctaw people, but are significant to numerous other tribes. The remains are believed to be those of the Taensa tribe, who lived in the area at that time. They are identified as such by the material culture, location, early written records and the way that the burials were put in the ground, said Thompson. “They are one of tribes who lived near the Choctaw, and for a time they lived among the Choctaw and they intermixed,” therefore some of today’s Choctaw people have Taensa lineage, continued Thompson.
The Taensa also lived near and intermixed with the Alabama and the Chitimacha at different times, therefore, those same tribes of today can also trace their linage back to the group being repatriated. Today, several tribes have affiliation with these remains, such as the Jena Band of Choctaw Indians, the Alabama-Coushatta and several others. This reburial act of respect is for more than just the Choctaw Nation, but is a great success for multiple tribes. The return of these remains is a significant and spiritual event for Choctaw Nation that has been guided by a NAGPRA Advisory Board, made up of distinguished Choctaw people from various walks of life.
Similarly, the reburial is a very spiritual process and will be handled with great care by all involved. Several Choctaw spiritual and religious advisors will direct the reburial, and out of respect for the departed, no large equipment will be used to put the remains back into the ground. Individuals working on the reburial will hand dig every grave with a shovel in order to keep the process as respectful and traditional as possible. The remains will be placed in the most precise way as can be determined to match how they originally came from the earth. This may seem like a great deal of work, but to those involved, it is worth every bit of work. “It is not something great that we do, it is something great that we are allowed to do. Its a privilege to get to honor the ancestors,” said Thompson as he described his feelings toward the repatriation. Cole followed by mentioning that the ancestors have handed down responsibilities to the generation of today and one of those responsibilities is to take care of those who have passed away. “It is our responsibility and our job.” This great honor is not just for the Choctaw Nation, but for all the tribes to which the remains are affiliated. The Choctaw Nation Department of Historic Preservation has invited those certain tribes to partake in this event as well. The process of obtaining the remains was not completed by just a dedicated few, but by a dedicated many. The Coalition of Southeast Tribes, which includes a number of Native Tribes, has been working to improve the process that tribes must use to obtain remains. This process is dictated by the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), which is a federal law passed in 1990. The road that led to this particular reburial began when the tribe was first consulted in 2002 when a federal institution, the Natchez Trace Parkway, under requirements of NAGPRA, went through their collection of human remains and found that particular remains could be traced to the Choctaw Nation. Since then, the research compiled about these remains had lead to the conclusion that they are of Choctaw affiliation. The Choctaw Nation filed a Repatriation Claim in 2009 and in turn, the institution published an Intent to Repatriate to a national publication - the Federal Register. In working with the Natchez Trace Parkway, the Choctaw Nation requested a Ground Penetrating Radar survey of the original burial site to better understand how the remains were buried and subsequently removed. The Natchez Trace Parkway then took a thorough inventory of their collection and found that some of the collection had been dispersed to other locations. The Choctaw Nation had them assemble the collection as a whole. Cameron H. Sholly, Superintendent of the Natchez Trace Parkway, and Christina Smith, Cultural Resource Manager for the Natchez Trace Parkway, who have been working very closely with Choctaw Nation through the repatriation process, will be at the Choctaw tribal headquarters on Feb. 23 in Durant to sign the Repatriation Agreement. This document officially transfers the custody of the remains to the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. Within Choctaw Nation, this work is of such a sensitive and important nature, a NAGPRA Advisory Board has been assembled within the tribe to give the Historic Preservation Department direction on how to proceed with repatriations and reburials. This is a group of ten members, including tribal elders, traditional people and tribal council members. A great deal of effort has been poured into this endeavor; individuals throughout the Choctaw Nation and many others who have handled various aspects of the repatriation. Through this work, the Department of Historic Preservation has made progress that will help with future repatriation. “Through this, we are building positive relations with the National Park Service in the Southeast, and those relationships will make it much easier to repatriate other ancestors who need to be brought back to their homes, ” said Thompson. Thompson went on to tell, that in times past, that burial sites like this one have been subject to grave looters and other malicious activity. He stressed that to disturb the reburial site, and those like it, would be to commit a federal offense. | <urn:uuid:63a5cb4b-de40-47b4-b91d-726fe0de6468> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.choctawnation.com/news-room/press-room/media-releases/choctaw-nation-to-repatriate-124-ancestors/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976475 | 1,564 | 2.953125 | 3 |
When I was about five years old, I saw a map of the world on the wall of my Moscow home. I noticed that the USSR is very, very big. And that it has a lot of rivers, like Ob, Yenisey, and Lena. “Lena”, I thought, “How nice. Like a name of a girl.”
On the Lena river I saw a city called Yakutsk. The name sounded a bit funny to me, but I became curious about it somehow.
And last month I went there.
Yakutsk is the capital of the Sakha Republic, also known as Yakutia – the largest administrative region in the world that is not a country. The largest native ethnic group of Sakha, after which the republic is named, speak a Turkic language of the same name, although it is also frequently called “Yakut”. Even though I spent almost all of my Soviet life in Moscow, I was always very curious about all the other regions and languages of the USSR, so when I discovered Wikipedia, I devoted a lot of time to reading about them and to visiting Wikipedias in these languages, even though I cannot really read them.
A request to start a Wikipeda in Sakha was filed in 2006, and I was quick to support it. After a few months of preparations it was opened. It is now one of the relatively more active Wikipedias in languages of Russia – it has over 8,000 articles, and for a minority language, most speakers of which are bilingual in another major language, this is a good number.
I kept constant and positive contact with Nikolai Pavlov – the founder and the unofficial leader of the Sakha Wikipedia – since the very start of this Wikipedia. It was great to give these people technical and organizational advice: how to write articles effectively, how to choose topics, how to organize meet-ups of Wikipedians. For a long time I dreamt of meeting them in person, but because Yakutsk is so far away from practically any other imaginable place, I didn’t think that it will ever happen. But in April 2012 I met Nikolai at the Turkic Wikimedia Conference in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
A few days after that conference Nikolai suggested that I submit a talk for an IT conference in the North-Eastern Federal University in Yakutsk. At first I thought that I’m not really related to it, but after reading the description, I decided to give it a try and wrote a talk proposal about my favorite topics: MediaWiki and Software Localization. Somewhat surprisingly, the talks were accepted and I received an invitation to present at that conference.
I flew from Tel-Aviv to Moscow, and then six more hours from Moscow to Yakutsk. Yakutsk is apparently a modern, bustling and developed city, but with interesting twists. Most notably, because it is in the permafrost area, all the houses are built on piles and all the pipelines are above ground. But actually this is just a small detail, because the general feeling is that it was a whole different country from the European part of Russia, to which I was used, and in a very good way.
I was most pleasantly surprised by the liveliness of the Sakha language: practically all people there know Russian, but the Sakha speech is frequently heard on the streets, Sakha writing is frequently seen on advertising and store signs, and Sakha songs are played from many passing cars.
The conference was very varied – with presenters from South Korea, China, Bulgaria, Switzerland and major Russian cities – Moscow, St. Petersburg and others. The topics were very varied, too, but the central topic was using computer technologies for education and human development, so I felt that my talks about Wikipedia and software localization were fitting.
Except participating in the conference itself, I also attended many meetings that Nikolai organized for me. It was fascinating to meet all these people.
I spoke to the editor and the manager of the republic’s largest book publishing company – they told me that the local literature has great artistic value, but since less than half a million people speak this language, it’s hard to earn a lot of profit from it and to develop it. They also complained that some authors – as well as some deceased authors’ families – are too harsh about copyrights. I suggested them to try to talk with authors and release some works under the Creative Commons license and see whether it gets them more exposure, and they promised to read Lawrence Lessig’s “Free Culture” book.
I also met with linguists from the university, who work on researching and documenting the Sakha language and other languages of the region, such as Evenki and Yukagir. I suggested them to use Wikimedia resources for storage and documentation of the works they gather, and they liked the idea; I am definitely going to follow up with them on that.
Another great meeting I had was with local tech people – a community of proud local IT geeks, who had lots of ideas for promoting Wikipedias in regional languages, and also the management and the employees of the local Internet portal ykt.ru. Their offices look just like a building of a hi-tech company in the Silicon Valley or in Israel – with cozy rooms and lounges, and a Kanban board. The people made an excellent impression on me, too: we had a very professional and engaging conversation about developing web applications and agile management methodologies.
I also spoke to several journalists and to the local TV and radio stations, inviting people to read Wikipedia in their own language and to contribute to it. I felt a bit like a celebrity, and well, I hope that it made somebody realize how effective can the Internet be in promoting local cultures and how proud should people be about their own languages.
One last comment is about the Sakha literature, which I mentioned earlier. I return from almost all my trips abroad with a lot of books about the local languages and cultures. And I actually read them. It happened in this trip, too, except this time most of the books were given to me as gifts by all those very nice people that I met. Sakha prose and Olonkho poetry in translation to Russian are simply wonderful. In all honesty. This is beautiful world-class literature and it deserves more exposure. If this little blog post made you curious about it, then it’s the most important thing that it could achieve.
(All photos were taken by Nikolai Pavlov, except the one in which he appears.) | <urn:uuid:f69052f2-916f-414a-8796-9831f8e0cbd5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://aharoni.wordpress.com/2012/07/23/yakutsk-2012/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977476 | 1,367 | 1.679688 | 2 |
New research has shed light on arsenic's ability to work as a cancer treatment in patients with leukaemia.
Arsenic is known to be effective in patients with a type of cancer called acute promyelocytic leukaemia, but the reasons for its effect had remained unclear.
Now, scientists from Cancer Research UK have discovered that arsenic helps molecules called SUMO to stick onto leukaemia-related proteins, enabling the cancer-causing proteins to be identified by enzymes and broken down.
The finding is of particular interest as, ironically, arsenic is one of the chemicals found in cigarettes that causes lung cancer.
Dr Lesley Walker, director of cancer information at the charity, commented: "Discovering which molecules are involved in this process is an exciting step forward in understanding this complex paradox - how can a chemical that causes cancer also cure it?
"It's a great piece of science that will hopefully lead to the development of drugs that home in on specific cancer-causing proteins to beat the disease."
The findings are published in the journal Nature Cell Biology.
© Adfero Ltd
Cancer treatment news : 22/04/08 | <urn:uuid:67b1ddf8-db9f-442a-b97d-cc4b263dd9bb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.privatehealth.co.uk/news/april-2008/study-shows-arsenics-role-as-cancer-treatment-1005/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954856 | 237 | 2.859375 | 3 |
Eating Right … or at Least Right Enough
by Dana Whitney
We all know “one of those moms.” You know who I’m talking about: Her kids don’t know what an Oreo is, her family eats more than the recommended five servings of fruits and vegetable daily, and dessert means an apple. If you’re one of those moms, I admire you. And these suggestions are not for you. You’re already doing it right. These ideas are for the rest of us. The moms who have occasionally served popcorn for dinner (it’s a whole grain, right?). And who have wondered if there’s any actual corn in corn dogs. These ideas won’t turn you into super mom, but they will give you a gentle nudge in the right direction.
- Put some germ in it. Wheat germ is full of fiber, vitamin E and folic acid, among other things. You can sprinkle wheat germ on oatmeal, cottage cheese, applesauce or just about anything else. You can also add it to baked goods.
- Baby your family. Steam some vegetables until they’re really soft, (carrots work well) and run them through the food processor until they look like baby food. You can freeze the puree in ice cube trays and then put the frozen cubes in a bag in the freezer. As you cook, thaw them out and add them to food. My son actually likes his macaroni and cheese better with a cube or two of “super orange power” mixed in.
- Be a pick-up artist. Let your kids shop at the grocery store’s produce section or farmers’ market and pick out whatever looks interesting to them. Just because you don’t like a certain fruit or vegetable doesn’t mean they won’t. They may surprise you and find something new that the whole family can enjoy.
- Be a cut-up. My husband once referred to the vegetable drawer in our refrigerator as the compost drawer. After I started cleaning and cutting up a week’s worth of leftover vegetables at a time, the vegetables disappeared into our family’s tummies instead of the garbage.
- Get dirty. Plant a garden with the kids. It can be as big as an acre or as small as a pot on the window sill. Kids like to taste things they have grown, and it’s fun watching seeds turn into food.
Small changes are easier than big changes. But if you add enough small changes together, they will soon become big changes. Maybe one day I’ll overhear someone talking about “one of those moms” and I’ll smile when I realize they’re talking about me.
Dana Whitney is a freelance writer and mother of two from Bigfork, Montana. She’s a member of Bigfork MOPS. Find her blog at triflesandtruffles.wordpress.com | <urn:uuid:bb483c39-143d-458c-9777-17338fb20e72> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mops.org/page.php?pageid=3223&srctype=linklist&src=3223 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941651 | 625 | 2.265625 | 2 |
It's All Politics
$85 Billion Versus $42 Billion: The New Sequester Argument
Originally published on Thu February 28, 2013 2:01 pm
Just how much will the sequester cut? It depends on whom you ask.
The White House has been saying spending will be reduced by $85 billion this year, unless the automatic spending cuts set to take effect Friday are averted.
The Congressional Budget Office, however, just released a new report saying the cuts will only amount to $42 billion.
Why do they differ so much?
They don't, really. It's a technical difference, more than anything.
The White House figure refers to how much money agencies have permission to spend (which is known as budget authority), while the CBO is looking at the amount they'd actually spend this year (outlays, in budget-speak).
It's kind of like your credit card. Your limit says you can spend $1,000, but you end up only spending $500. The difference is that once Congress gives agencies budget authority, they will spend all the money eventually — maybe just not in the same year that they were given permission to do so.
It may take more than a year to build a bridge, for example, even if all the money to pay for it was approved in the first year.
As a result, not all of the $85 billion would have been spent this year, even if sequestration weren't to happen, CBO explains: "Some would have been used to enter into contracts to buy goods or services to be provided and paid for next year or in subsequent years. Acquiring major weapons systems and completing large construction projects, for example, can take several years."
The reduction in spending due to the sequester may not happen all at once, but it will result in smaller disbursements over time, says budget consultant Chuck Konigsberg, a former Democratic Senate aide.
"In programs where most of the funding is for personnel, most of the outlay reductions will occur in the current fiscal year," Konigsberg says.
This may just be an argument only an accountant could love. Still, there is a difference between $42 billion and $85 billion.
Choosing the larger budget authority number is an example of the White House trying to paint a dark picture of sequestration's effects, says Rich Meade, a former Republican staff director of the House Budget Committee.
It's better to use the CBO numbers, he says, because then you're talking about the cash the government is actually spending — or not spending — in any given year.
"I've become increasingly frustrated by the way the White House has been portraying the effects of sequestration," Meade says. "There will be notable changes in government, but it's not going to be cataclysmic, as they want to make you believe." | <urn:uuid:b2ac460d-3802-4e38-a38d-5501b6ce2ba2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wvasfm.org/post/85-billion-versus-42-billion-new-sequester-argument | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969986 | 587 | 1.859375 | 2 |
Virtual-machine software maker VMWare announced on Wednesday a way for security programs to access the company's software and protect virtual systems in a way not possible today.
The company unveiled the technology, called VMSafe, two days after security researchers disclosed an issue in VMWare for Windows that could allow an attacker to run malicious code in a virtual machine and affect the underlying host operating system. By using VMSafe, security software could detect and block such attacks, the company said.
Twenty security companies have announced support for the technology and are expected to build applications to take advantage of the features, VMWare stated.
"The industry has come out in full force to support VMWare VMSafe technology with plans for a whole new class of security products that offer customers new advantages to running applications in virtual machines," Raghu Raghuram, vice president of data center products and solutions for VMWare, said in a statement.
Virtual machines continue to be considered a way to add security to otherwise insecure operating systems, though the security benefit of running operating systems in a software sandbox has increasingly been questioned. Some security researchers have maintained that a small software shim, or hypervisor, could be inserted between the guest and host operating systems, invisibly compromising the system. Microsoft and other companies have used virtual machines to create a multitude of client-side honeypots, or honeymonkeys, to check out potentially dangerous Web sites.
Like other machine virtualization technologies, VMWare uses a small software program, or hypervisor, running on a host operating system to emulate a physical computer system and manage one or more guest operating systems. The VMSafe application programming interface (API) will allow access to the virtual machines' memory, CPU, disk and I/O subsystems, the company said in a statement. The API should allow security firms to create software defenses that can prevent malicious programs from infecting, or otherwise accessing, the guest operating systems.
Symantec, the owner of SecurityFocus, is among the companies that have announced support for VMSafe.
If you have tips or insights on this topic, please contact SecurityFocus.
Posted by: Robert Lemos | <urn:uuid:ab99ef25-53b4-4946-8541-ec2a6deb400b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.securityfocus.com/brief/690 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926693 | 448 | 2.359375 | 2 |
You know, if they were really pro-life, they would also criminalize masturbation and menstruation. Every sperm is sacred! Every egg is a potential baby!
Snark aside, I do think it’s interesting that anti-choicers will put significant effort into a bill like this and into, say, prosecuting women who use drugs while pregnant, but they do absolutely nothing about the fact that enormous numbers of fertilized eggs — unique, individual lives, they argue — naturally fail to implant and are flushed out of a woman’s body. When I bring this up with anti-choice people, they always point to the causation factor — abortion is bad because a woman takes steps to end a pregnancy. It’s the difference between murder and natural death. Prosecuting women who used drugs while pregnant and gave birth to stillborns is acceptable because the woman did something which may have ended the baby’s life (that’s scientifically debatable, but a detour from the actual point of this post, so I’ll leave it alone for now). The Utah miscarriage law is understandable because it targets women who intended to have miscarriages.
I understand that. We do hold people more culpable for things that they do on purpose; we also hold people accountable for a lot of things that they do negligently. My question, though, isn’t with the punishment aspect, but with the activism aspect. Let’s say that we take anti-choicers on their word that they really, truly believe that a fertilized egg is a unique, individual human being, and that the death of that egg is like the death of a person. If that’s the truth, then why no activism around trying to find a cure for the close to 50 percent of fertilized eggs that naturally don’t implant, and are flushed out of the woman’s body? Sure, it’s not intentional, but if there were some disease that killed 50 percent of all five-year-olds, I’m pretty sure we’d be doing something about it, no?
I realize this is all pretty far afield from the actual Utah legislation, but it’s illustrative, I think, insofar as it demonstrates that the concern here isn’t really about fetuses or life or any of that. It’s about punishing women.
- I think it’s about time we started protecting the innocent, adorable spermies by Jill November 15, 2007
- Dear Rep. Franklin: I submit my used tampon as evidence. by Jill February 25, 2011
- Well, as long as we’re speaking slowly. by Jill September 8, 2008
- Personhood Amendments and the Pro-Life Long Game by Jill November 14, 2011
- Responsibility. by Jill June 8, 2009 | <urn:uuid:f954f48b-de45-44aa-882c-96da2a4227bb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2010/02/23/utah-bill-would-criminalize-miscarriage/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958107 | 591 | 1.671875 | 2 |
What is a general X-ray (General Radiology)?
An X-ray (radiograph) is a noninvasive medical test that helps physicians diagnose and treat medical conditions by producing visual images of the inside of the body. X-ray imaging involves exposing a part of the body to a small dose of ionizing radiation. X-rays are the oldest and most frequently used form of medical imaging.
What are some common indications for an X-ray ?
A chest X-ray is typically the first imaging test used to help diagnose symptoms such as: shortness of breath, a bad or persistent cough, chest pain or injury, fever, pneumonia, heart problems and emphysema.
Other uses of bone X-ray procedures include: diagnosing broken bones or joint dislocations, determining proper bone alignment, stabilizing bony fragments following treatment for a fracture, looking for injuries, infections, arthritis, etc., and detecting changes in bone growth due to metabolic conditions.
How should I prepare for an X-ray?
Chest X-rays require no special preparation. Patients may be asked to remove some or all of their clothing, jewelry, dentures, eyeglasses, and any other metal objects that may interfere with the X-ray procedure.
Women should always inform their physician and X-ray technologist if there exists any possibility they may be pregnant. Many imaging tests are not performed during pregnancy for the general safety of the fetus.
What does the equipment look like?
Our X-ray machine is a tube-shaped device suspended over an exam table. A drawer located under the table holds the digital recording plate. Our X-ray unit is state-of-the-art and does not require any films, but instead uses plates or chemical processing materials. The integrated computer system records all the data digitally.
How is the procedure performed?
The chest X-ray procedure is typically performed with two views: back and side. The X-ray technologist, a specially trained professional, positions the patient to stand against the imaging plate with their hands on their hips to generate the back view. For the side view, the patient stands facing sideways against the imaging plate with their arms elevated. Patients not able to stand may be positioned lying down on a table for chest X-rays.
To ensure clear imaging results, patients are asked to remain still and hold their breath for a few seconds during the X-ray procedure. For his or her safety, the X-ray technologist temporarily steps out of the room to initiate the actual X-ray transmission.
Upon completion of the X-ray test, patients are asked to wait a few moments until a determination can be made on the adequacy of the test results. The technologist may need to re-take the test or perform additional views to meet the requests of the attending physician. The X-ray test procedure is normally complete within 15 minutes. | <urn:uuid:aff1e291-4357-4ca2-b0fa-856c33e593fd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://maranahealthcenter.org/our-services/radiology/general-x-ray/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934642 | 596 | 3.890625 | 4 |
|The Universe of Discourse|
12 recent entries
Wed, 12 Sep 2007
The loophole in the U.S. Constitution: the answer
Apparently, the "inconsistency" noted by Gödel is simply that the Constitution provides for its own amendment. Suber says: "He noticed that the AC had procedural limitations but no substantive limitations; hence it could be used to overturn the democratic institutions described in the rest of the constitution." I am gravely disappointed. I had been hoping for something brilliant and subtle that only Gödel would have noticed.
Thanks to Greg Padgett, Julian Orbach, Simon Cozens, and Neil Kandalgaonkar for bringing this to my attention.
M. Padgett also pointed out that the scheme I proposed for amending the constitution, which I claimed would require only the cooperation of a majority of both houses of Congress, 218 + 51 = 269 people in all, would actually require a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. He says that to be safe you would want all 100 senators to conspire; I'm not sure why 60 would not be sufficient. (Under current Senate rules, 60 senators can halt a filibuster.) This would bring the total required to 218 + 60 = 278 conspirators.
He also pointed out that the complaisance of five Supreme Court justices would give the President essentially dictatorial powers, since any legal challenge to Presidential authority could be rejected by the court. But this train of thought seems to have led both of us down the same path, ending in the idea that this situation is not really within the scope of the original question.
As a final note, I will point out what I think is a much more serious loophole in the Constitution: if the Vice President is impeached and tried by the Senate, then, as President of the Senate, he presides over his own trial. Article I, section 3 contains an exception for the trial of the President, where the Chief Justice presides instead. But the framers inexplicably forgot to extend this exception to the trial of the Vice President.
[ Addendum 20090121: Jeffrey Kegler has discovered Oskar Morgenstern's lost eyewitness account of Gödel's citizenship hearing. Read about it here. ]
[ Addendum 20110525: As far as I know, there is no particular reason to believe that Peter Suber's theory is correct. Morgenstern knew, but did not include it in his account. ] | <urn:uuid:4d682c2b-7be2-49ef-a390-e58b01c741ca> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.plover.com/law/Godel-dictatorship-2.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961665 | 508 | 2.078125 | 2 |
Written by Juliet Culliver Crutchfield, Ed.D. Saturday, 05 May 2001 10:11
Juliet's Genealogical GemsThe 2001 West Coast Summit on African American Genealogy
By Juliet Culliver Crutchfield, Ed.D.
The African American Genealogical Society of Northern California, Inc. (AAGSNC) held the First Annual West Coast Summit on African American Genealogy, Saturday, March 31, 2001 at the We the People Conference Center, near Jack London Square in Oakland. Participants numbered well over 225 enthusiast individuals. West Coast Summit co-sponsors were the California African American Genealogical Society, the Black Genealogy Research Group, the African American Genealogy Society of Sacramento, and the San Diego African American Genealogy Research Group.
Sincere thanks go to those AAGSNC members who helped behind the scenes to make this event such a success. Special appreciation goes to Ranie Smith, AAGSNC President and Lisa B. Lee, Conference Coordinator.
The Summit's highlight was Dr. Dee Parmer Woodtor's keynote speech. Dr. Woodtor is the author of Finding a Place Called Home: A Guide to African American Genealogy and Historical Identity. This work won the Black Caucus of the American Library Association 2000 Literary Award. Her topic was "An Introduction to Slave Genealogy and Courthouse Records."
Dr. Woodtor explained that it is necessary to complete a whole community study, rather than solely focusing on ancestors. She urged those in attendance to lay a solid research foundation with oral history and family interviews. She emphasized the important link between African American genealogy and historical preservation. Dr. Woodtor told workshop participants to rely on intuition and creativity. She encouraged the audience to examine vital, census, tax, probate, property, will, plantation, military, slave sale, Civil War, and Reconstruction records, along with family documents, letters, photos, memorabilia, tract books, planter migration patterns, slave owner genealogies, and county newspapers. She directed researchers to study state archive Web sites; locate state, county, and local historical area guides on African Americans; and complete ancestor biographical profiles.
In alphabetical order, other conference high points included presentations by Ron Batiste, Sherry Covington, Denise Griggs, Paul E. Lee, Margaret A. Lewis, and Barbara Tyson. Sherry Covington and Barbara Tyson spoke of Mississippi connections. Margaret Lewis talked about the importance of placing ancestors in timelines and offered several Web sites to assist researchers in doing so. Denise Griggs made the audience sigh as she described in detail the 1940 African American nightclub fire in Natchez, Mississippi where many lost their lives. Ron Batiste explained the importance of documentation and evidence in completing creditable genealogical research. Paul D. Lee clarified how genealogical techniques enhance historical study. He explored Southern African American migration to Kansas and Oklahoma during the last quarter of the 20th century and the creation of black governed towns and settlements.
The First Annual West Coast Summit on African American Genealogy was an enormous success. Many participants left the conference with a wealth of new information and expressed a desire to see this event repeated in the future.
Copyright ©2001 by Juliet Culliver Crutchfield, Ed.D. Reprints require approval by the author. | <urn:uuid:ea7c9318-1d36-45fe-9589-2c79fd222992> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aagsnc.org/?option=com_content&view=article&id=125%3Athe-2001-west-coast-summit&catid=60&Itemid=68&fontstyle=f-smaller | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913183 | 675 | 2.21875 | 2 |
Revista médica de Chile
versão ISSN 0034-9887
PONCE, Ernesto; PEREZ, Jesús; PONCE, Daniel e ANDRESEN, Max. Mathematical simulation of mild brain injury in children heading soccer balls. Rev. méd. Chile [online]. 2011, vol.139, n.8, pp. 1089-1096. ISSN 0034-9887. doi: 10.4067/S0034-98872011000800017.
Background: Heading professional soccer balls can generate mild traumatic brain injury in children. The long-term consequences could include difficulty in solving problems and deficits in memory and language. Aim: To assess the impact of a professional adult soccer ball on a child´s head, using the finite element method and dynamic effects to predict brain damage. Material and Methods: The minimum conditions of an adult game were considered: the ball speed was 6 m/s and the diffuse blow was 345 and 369 Newtons (N), on the forehead and top of the head, respectively. A head was modeled in order to know the stresses, strains and displacements generated by the impacts. The extent of the alteration was determined by comparing the strength of brain tissue, with predictions of computed stresses. The geometric characteristics of the head were transferred from medical images. The input data of the materials of a child´s head was obtained from the literature. Results: In the case of heading with the forehead, mathematical simulation showed frontal lobe alterations, with brain stresses between 0.064 and 0.059 N/mm2. When the heading was with the upper head zone, the brain alterations were in the parietal lobe, with stresses between 0.089 and 0.067 N/mm2. In the cerebral spinal fluid the pressure was 3.61 to 3.24 N/mm2. Conclusions: The mathematical simulations reveal evidence of brain alterations caused by a child heading adult soccer balls. The model presented is an economical and quick tool that can help predict brain damage. It demonstrates the ability of the cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) to absorb shock loads.
Palavras-chave : Brain injuries; Models; theoretical; Soccer. | <urn:uuid:d13a8586-23d6-4b1e-b652-557605968a26> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.scielo.cl/scielo.php?script=sci_abstract&pid=S0034-98872011000800017&lng=pt&nrm=iso&tlng=en | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.915513 | 459 | 2.25 | 2 |
Landmark Legal Opinion Finds that Indigenous Brazilian Tribe in Amazon owns carbon-trading rights
16 December 2009 | News story
Finding Comes During Global Climate Talks in Copenhagen; Could Impact Other Indigenous Groups Seeking to Protect Land, Way of Life
COPENHAGEN, DENMARK (10 December 2009)-
A new legal opinion released today from one of the world's largest law firms has found that a vulnerable Brazilian tribe in the Amazon region owns carbon-trading rights in future global warming deals, a development that could preserve vast areas of the rainforest. The groundbreaking finding, said advocates, should apply to other indigenous groups in Brazil, home to 40 percent of the world's rainforests, representing a major step forward in protecting indigenous people's land rights.
The opinion on the carbon rights of the Surui tribe by international law firm Baker & McKenzie was commissioned by Forest Trends, a conservation group based in Washington, D.C., that works to protect forests around the world.
The significance of the finding, said Forest Trends officials, is that when climate change negotiators strike a new deal to reduce harmful emissions, indigenous groups such as the Surui won't be left behind-and, in fact, can benefit and help save vast swaths of the rainforest. Those protected forests will play a major role in absorbing carbon emissions, limiting the release of dangerous gases into the atmosphere.
"This really is a landmark opinion," said Michael Jenkins, President and CEO of Forest Trends. "What we have been able to demonstrate here is that there will be opportunity and a path forward for indigenous groups to participate in emerging markets from a global warming deal. In fact, the indigenous groups would now be part of the solution."
Over the last several years, many indigenous groups have expressed concern that a climate change deal would be yet another international agreement that eroded their rights. In response, Forest Trends asked Baker & McKenzie to research whether Brazilian law would allow the Surui and other indigenous groups in Brazil to claim benefits under any deals involving the Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) arrangements, now being considered as a centerpiece of global warming talks during the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.
Baker & McKenzie's work was done through its Brazilian-associated office, Trench, Rossi e Watanabe Advogados. Its finding-which is not binding but comes against the political backdrop in Brazil of strong federal government support for indigenous groups-said that under REDD deals, the Surui indigenous group would be able to oversee management of the forest as well as reap any economic benefits from carbon trading arrangements.
The finding said the conclusion was based on the Brazilian Constitution and legislation, which "provides for a unique proprietary regime over the Brazilian Indians land...which reserves to the Brazilian Indians...the exclusive use and sustainable administration of the demarcated lands as well as...the economic benefits that this sustainable use can generate.''
Another important element raised by the opinion is the need for the Surui to secure financial returns that are compatible with the environmental services provided by managing the vast forest on Surui land, and to provide transparent and price competitive proceedings for the commercialization of the credits, which will be in alignment with Brazil's overall national sovereign interest.
"This study confirms that we have the right to carbon, and is also an important political and legal instrument to recognize the rights of indigenous people for the carbon in their standing forests,'' said Chief Almir Narayamoga Surui, leader of the Surui tribe. "It helps in our dialog with the government, businesses, and other sectors, strengthening the autonomy of indigenous peoples to manage our territories."
The finding could be a huge boost to the survival of the Surui tribe, which has endured many threats to its existence. The Surui, with support from Forest Trends and other partners, have developed a project looking to international carbon offset finance to help them preserve their imperiled forest and way of life. With just 1,200 members overseeing 600,000 acres of land in the Amazon basin-three-quarters the size of the state of Rhode Island-the Surui tribe first came in contact with Brazilians of European descent only 40 years ago, and it resulted in an almost immediate series of tragedies; their population was reduced from over 5,000 to 290 people from disease for which members had no immunity. In more recent years, illegal loggers invaded the Surui's land threatening the community. And 11 regional indigenous leaders have been assassinated in recent years-killings believed to be directed by logging and mining captains.
But the tribe has organized simultaneous efforts on different political and legal fronts in recent years, winning major support from the Brazilian national government, conservation organizations such as Forest Trends, and through a major mapping project with the Amazon Conservation Team and Google Maps that, in rich detail, documented the natural and human history of the land over the years.
Chief Almir, who has received several assassination threats in the past and for a time fled to the United States for his safety, has been one of several Surui leaders trying to win national and international support on environmental issues.
"This finding should greatly help the Surui and, by extension, other indigenous groups in Brazil,'' said Beto Borges, Director of Communities and Markets Programs at Forest Trends. "Not only do the indigenous groups have the ethical right for carbon credits projects on their land and because of their stewardship role over the generations, but this finding now means they have the legal right as well. It's a major step forward.''
### Forest Trends > is an international non-profit organization that works to expand the value of forests to society; to promote sustainable forest management and conservation by creating and capturing market values for ecosystem services; to support innovative projects and companies that are developing these new markets; and to enhance the livelihoods of local communities living in and around those forests. We analyze strategic market and policy issues, catalyze connections between forward-looking producers, communities and investors, and develop new financial tools to help markets work for conservation and people. | <urn:uuid:79efa4ed-2ea1-436d-a87d-f933cf76a95b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.iucn.org/es/noticias/noticias_por_fecha/2009_news_sp/diciembre_news_2009/?4383/Landmark-Legal-Opinion-Finds-that-Indigenous-Brazilian-Tribe-in-Amazon | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960813 | 1,229 | 2.34375 | 2 |
Bilingual Siblings & Disparities in Fluency
Today I read a post called “Pocho studies” on Lotería Chicana. I started to leave a comment but by the time I finished it, I realized the comment was long enough to stand alone as a blog post, so here I am.
Cindy of Lotería Chicana writes about how her Spanish fluency is different from that of her siblings. (I encourage you to click through – it’s worth reading and the photos make it all the more special.) This is a really fascinating topic because most people would assume that bilingual children raised in the same household would be equally fluent, but most parents raising bilingual children know this isn’t true.
Just like children raised in the same household may end up with different eating habits, religious beliefs, or athletic abilities – the same goes for language. I imagine there are an endless number of possibilities in each family depending on all kinds of circumstances – many of which are only apparent in hindsight.
Here is the comment I started to leave but which I’m pasting here instead.
I was raised in an English only Anglo home but married a Salvadoran. It’s always been my goal to raise our children to be bilingual. This was something I had my heart set on before they were born, before I married my husband, Carlos. It was a desire borne out a love of language and the knowledge that I would want to share that with my future children because of all the beauty and opportunity the gift of bilingualism can bring.
At some point my idealism was hit with a major dose of reality.
Our older son will soon be 14 and his little brother is 10 – While I have tried to raise them to be bilingual, the journey has been long, inconsistent and not nearly as easy as I had imagined. Their language abilities are both so different that it sometimes feels like they weren’t raised in the same household — in some ways, they weren’t.
When we had our first son we were both really young. My Spanish was very basic and I lacked confidence. I never said more than a couple words here and there in Spanish to the baby. My hope had been that my husband would speak Spanish to the baby, but Carlos was struggling with English and our focus at the time was his fluency – not our child’s. During the first year of our first son’s life, we lived with my (English-speaking) family. This was good for Carlos’s English but meant a very English dominant environment for our son. Once we moved out, we still spoke English most of the time since Carlos needed the practice. Most of the Spanish our son heard the first couple years was when my husband was on the phone to El Salvador or when he watched TV, (mostly Spanish-language news.)
When I had my second son, life was very different. Our household had become a place where Spanish was very frequently spoken and heard throughout the day. (Our older son was 3 or 4 at this point.) My mother-in-law had moved in with us and she didn’t speak English. My new baby, myself and my older son were now immersed in an environment with 2 native Spanish-speakers, (one of whom we had no choice but to communicate with in Spanish.)
As my skills and confidence in the language grew, I tried to speak and read to the kids more in Spanish and encouraged my husband to do so as well. Still, I didn’t use Spanish with them much of the time because English had become my “code language” – a safe haven to speak to my husband and children in, a place where my mother-in-law couldn’t understand me, (and I desperately needed that privacy.)
In 2010, realizing that my kids weren’t on grade level with their Spanish from the limited interactions with their live-in grandmother, I decided to speak Spanish to them almost full time. Since then I’ve slacked off here and there but there has definitely been a much more concentrated effort on my part to ensure they’re bilingual. Seeing how much more comfortable the kids are in Spanish, my husband has joined the effort. It comes naturally now – not the awkward way it once was, but it took a long time to get here. (Coincidentally, their grandmother moved out a year ago, so speaking Spanish to them has become even more vital.)
At this point both boys understand spoken Spanish very well but prefer to answer in English or Spanglish. My older son, when he does speak Spanish, has a great vocabulary, but the accent is very “gringo.” His reading and writing was not very good but it’s grown by leaps and bounds the past year because he’s studying Spanish as his “foreign language” at school – having the basic foundation made it an easy “A” for him even though he started the class a year ahead of his peers and was given “native speaker” work.
Our younger son, perhaps because he heard native speakers since infancy, has a fantastic natural accent in Spanish. (He can pronounce the “rr” but his older brother can’t.) Our younger son’s vocabulary is probably not as big as his older brother’s though, and I think maybe it’s because he’s the “consentido” and his older brother always does things for him, including translating things he doesn’t understand. His ease at reading written Spanish aloud is probably better than his older brother though, because I read books in Spanish to him more than I did to my older son.
Another interesting development occurred this past week. Our older son is away at science camp and our younger son is home with me all day. Suddenly my younger son has begun to respond to me in Spanish when we’re alone together… Yesterday he came to me and completely unprompted, offered me half of his snack saying, “Mamá, ¿Quieres compartir?” (and “compartir” is a word I’ve never even heard him use before.)
I’ve come to accept that there will be disparities in their fluency – that one may be better at one skill than the other, just as they have their own unique talents when it comes to sports or art, but it’s harder to get over the feeling that I failed them. I couldn’t have spoken Spanish to them any earlier than I did, and I tried to convince my husband to do it but, like many immigrant parents, he worried more about their English fluency until it was “too late.”
I continue to speak Spanish to them, determined that they will be as bilingual as possible, but knowing that the ship has sailed as far as them being native speaker fluent, makes me incredibly sad sometimes.
What are your experiences with your bilingual siblings or your bilingual children? How are their skills different? | <urn:uuid:264d3f18-03c0-413e-b68b-179a223d69bf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://latinaish.com/2012/07/19/bilingual-siblings-disparities-in-fluency/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=1241f9cf41 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987815 | 1,472 | 2.078125 | 2 |
|1. Reduce and Reuse.
Buying less is one of the best ways to reduce trash. Like buying toys or food that is packaged in the smallest amount of packaging, or none at all. Don’t buy stuff that you’ll need to throw away, like paper plates or plastic utensils.
Also, there are lots of ways to reuse items instead of filling up our trash cans. We can pack “Earth safe” lunches with reusable lunch bags. Rechargeable batteries can be used over and over. Washable dishes can be used for years. Reuse a sponge or rag for cleaning up spills instead of using paper towels. How many shopping bags do you collect each week? Use a reuseable one instead and help the Earth.
|3. Shop Green.
When you shop, check out the Earth safe items before you check out. Look for products made out of recycled materials or that are reusable or that can be easily recycled. School notebooks, napkins, toilet tissue, and all kinds of paper products are made out of recycled paper. Even toys can be made from recycled plastic.
Buying "green" also means buying household products that are not toxic or hazardous. Lots of paints and cleaning products are very hard to dispose of and can hurt the Earth and the people on it. Read labels carefully! Buy safe paints!
Recycle means making stuff that would otherwise become trash, into useful items. Park benches and building materials can be made out of recycled soda bottles. Old paper can be made into new paper, so be sure not to throw paper (even junk mail) into your trash. Soup cans can be made into something new - like a swing set, so don’t throw them away. Recycle them!
New things are becoming recyclable each year. Did you know that juice boxes are recyclable in some cities? Be an internet detective and learn where you can recycle plastic bags, styrofoam, glass, plastic bottles, steel, aluminum, newspapers, and other items in your city.
4. Compost Power.
At home or school find a spot to make a compost pile. It’s a way to turn dead leaves and plants and even certain kitchen scraps (no meat or milk products) into rich “power dirt” instead of dumping it into your garbage. Every few weeks add a little water to the pile and mix it all up. In a few months your “power dirt” will look like soil and act like a fertilizer for your lawn or garden.
When you mow your grass, you should keep grass clippings on the lawn - not in the trash. It’s good for the lawn! In some communities, some of the big stuff like large branches can be dropped off at composting centers. Find out what Kentwood Elementary did with BEartha! Check it out!
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Back to Home | <urn:uuid:010be90c-3b42-4198-bdfb-d5abd7637057> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kidsforsavingearth.org/teaching_grownups/teach3.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943889 | 613 | 3.4375 | 3 |
The Donald Young Gallery is exhibiting the works of artist Thomas Schütte in February. On the occasion of Thomas Schütte’s visit to Chicago, the Goethe-Institut presents a symposium with Thomas Schütte, Jörg Kreienbrock, Susan Bernofsky, and Michal Pawel Markowski on Robert Walser's microscripts.
Thomas Schütte is best known for his sculpture, prints, drawings, and watercolors. His work has been exhibited widely throughout the world and is included in top museum collections including the Art Institute of Chicago. In 2005, he was the recipient of the Golden Lion Award at the 51st Venice Biennale. Schütte has had a long standing interest in Robert Walser's writings. For the symposium Schütte will pose the question why Walser's exquisite, interesting, and extensive writings could not sustain his existence and why he rather choose to disappear for nearly 40 years.
Jörg Kreienbrock will present "Bad Careers: Kafka (Not) Reading Walser." As early as 1909, Franz Kafka predicted Robert Walser’s (as well as his own) unsuccessful career as a writer. What does Kafka see in Walser’s work that makes such a prediction possible, and what does it mean to talk about literature in terms of success and failure, the great and the small, the healthy and the insane? Kreienbrock received his Ph.D. in 2005 from the Department of German at New York University. In 2006 he joined the German Department of Northwestern University as Assistant Professor. Professor Kreienbrock is the author of Kleiner. Feiner. Leichter: Nuancierungen zum Werk Robert Walsers.
Susan Bernofsky has translated six books by Robert Walser. She received the 2006 Helen and Kurt Wolff Translation Prize as well as awards and fellowships from the NEH, NEA, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Lannan Foundation. She currently serves as Chair of the PEN Translation Committee and teaches in the MFA program at Queens College of the City University of New York. Her most recent translation of Walser is Berlin Stories. The topic of Bernofsky’s presentation is "Secrets, Not Code: On Translating Robert Walser's Microscripts," reflections on the particular difficulties and quirks of microscript translation.
Michal Pawel Markowski, the Hejna Chair in Polish Language and Literature and head of the Slavic Department at UIC. He is author of books on literature and philosophy, a translator of Roland Barthes, Julia Kristeva, and Gilles Deleuze, and editor of Friedrich Schlegel's Fragments in Polish. Michal serves as the Artistic Director of the Joseph Conrad International Literary Festival in Krakow. The most recent edition of the Festival held an exhibition, discussion, and events on Robert Walser.
Recorded Sunday, February 26, 2012 at Goethe-Institut Chicago. | <urn:uuid:ecceff3e-8f31-4849-a786-fe8eb20a51ee> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wbez.org/story/we-dont-need-see-anything-out-ordinary-we-already-see-so-much-97216 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945231 | 650 | 1.765625 | 2 |
The Borssele nuclear power plant is situated in the Dutch town of Borssele. It has a pressurized water reactor (PWR). Borssele is the only nuclear power plant still operational for electricity production in the Netherlands. It is a maximum security power plant.
Sign up and download this Dutch nuclear power plant watching image for as low as $0.20 for high resolution.
Registered users can download free images, access high-resolution image comps or sell their own photos! | <urn:uuid:84336c13-2597-4571-9c96-39525d1112c9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-images-dutch-nuclear-power-plant-watching-image4312124 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940733 | 103 | 1.921875 | 2 |
Maine Introduces Parent Empowerment Legislation
Maine is the latest to join at least 15 state legislatures considering a bill to establish a Parent Trigger law, empowering parents of children at failing public schools to petition for reforms.
State Rep. Amy Volk (R-Scarborough) is the author of the Maine House bill, designated LD 1417, “An Act to Enhance Parental Roles in Education Choice.”
Flexibility Is a Goal
Volk’s bill, modeled after California’s 2010 Parent Empowerment Act, would require implementation of school-level reforms if half of the eligible parents at a school designated “program improvement” for three years under No Child Left Behind “petition for the restructuring of a school that is not making adequate yearly progress.”
Restructuring may include transferring students to another school, reopening the institution as a charter school, replacing school leadership and granting greater flexibility in choosing teachers and curriculum, or implementing a “turnaround strategy” with greater state oversight.
Cosponsors of the bill include Senator Garrett Mason (R-Lisbon Falls) and Reps. Heather Sirocki (R-Scarborough), Beth O’Connor (R-Berwick), Melvin Newendyke (R-Litchfield), and Deborah Sanderson (R-Chelsea).
“The bill was intentionally drafted in short form,” explained Volk. If passed, LD 1417 would allow “the Commissioner of Education great flexibility in developing rules to apply the core concept to Maine-specific circumstances,” she said.
Parents ‘Back in the Equation’
Ken Capron, chairman of the Maine Center for Constitutional Studies (MCCS), says Volk’s bill “is all about choice, and parental choice of the education path of their children.”
“The trigger puts parents back in the equation,” Capron said.
Although the political climate in Maine is volatile after a recent Republican takeover of both houses of the state legislature, Capron says the Parent Trigger is essentially nonpartisan. As in many other states, fiscal issues are front and center. Capron says he is hopeful this year will yield real and substantial progress in educational reform.
Capron says advancing parent choice should be a legislative priority. “The government would like you to believe they know better what’s best for your kids,” he said. “We need to put education back in the hands of parents.”
Although Volk’s bill currently has no Democratic cosponsors, a prominent Democrat wrote the California law upon which her legislation is based.
“I’m as Democrat as you can get,” said Gloria Romero, the former chairwoman of the California State Senate’s education committee.
“Feudalism ended a long time ago, but we are bound still by the land when it comes to education,” explained Romero, who now directs the California chapter of Democrats for Education Reform. “Schools don’t have to respond to their customer base, because in K-12 you’re stuck based on your ZIP code.”
“The system isn’t built to change, the force to change has to come from the outside from those who want change—and that is parents,” Romero said. “We’re going beyond involvement. Parents should be the CEOs and architects of their children’s future.”
Ashley Trim (firstname.lastname@example.org) writes from Los Angeles, California. | <urn:uuid:d44d7ef0-24b8-4ad2-89dc-81fd167842a5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2011/04/25/maine-introduces-parent-empowerment-legislation?quicktabs_4=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943194 | 756 | 1.789063 | 2 |
The Circulation Foundation
The Circulation Foundation is the UK’s only national charity dedicated to providing support and information to people who are affected by diseases of the veins and arteries, including abdominal aortic aneurysms. The Circulation Foundation also raises money for research into the causes, prevention and treatment of vascular disease. You can find out more information at www.circulationfoundation.org.uk or by phoning 020 7304 4779.
The Vascular Society
The Vascular Society of Great Britain and Ireland was established in 1966 as a professional membership organisation to represent vascular surgeons, radiologists, angiologists and others involved in independent vascular practice. The Society is a registered charity and is based at the Royal College of Surgeons of England, London.
The objectives of the Society are to relieve sickness and to preserve and protect health by advancing the science and art of vascular surgery. These objectives are achieved through a number of means, which include:
- Advising on the provision of vascular services
- Advising on the education and training of vascular surgeons
- Promoting clinical audit and governance
- Promoting and disseminating the results of research into vascular disorders
- Providing continuing medical education through regular meetings
- Providing information and advice for patients
- Visit the Society's website at www.vascularsociety.org.uk
Cardio & Vascular Coalition
The Cardio & Vascular Coalition (CVC) is an alliance of 41 voluntary organisations with an interest in promoting and protecting cardiac and vascular health in England. The CVC is committed to working with and influencing central and local government, health and social care commissioners, service planners and policy makers to ensure that cardiac and vascular health is high on their agendas.
Founded in 2007, the majority of CVC members have a national focus on improving cardiac and vascular health in the UK. The interests of the CVC membership cover the breadth of cardiac and vascular conditions - heart disease, diabetes, stroke and kidney disease - from pre-birth to end of life care. The CVC draws on expertise from across the voluntary and patient advocacy sectors, and from eminent medical, research and academic professionals.
Visit their website at http://www.bhf.org.uk/cvc/
The British Heart Foundation
As the nation's heart charity, the British Heart Foundation focuses on investing in pioneering research, supporting and caring for heart patients and providing information to help people reduce their own risk of dying prematurely from a heart or circulatory related illness.
Visit their website at http://www.bhf.org.uk/
The Family Doctor website has more information on abdominal aortic aneurysms and the problems that they cause.
You can also view the NHS AAA Screening Programme care pathway on the Map of Medicine website.
National AAA Quality Improvement Programme
The National AAA Quality Improvement Programme works with a wide range of healthcare providers and patients to improve the quality of care offered to people with aortic aneurysm.
To see patient views from groups held around the U.K or read about real life AAA experiences visit the AAA Quality Improvement Programme website at http://www.aaaqip.com/. | <urn:uuid:4363de92-db3e-43fb-a67d-fde5d9e8362f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://aaa.screening.nhs.uk/stakeholders | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928704 | 654 | 2.109375 | 2 |
…if the only form of tradition, of handing down, consisted in following the ways of the immediate generation before us in a blind or timid adherence to its successes, “tradition” should positively be discouraged.... Tradition is a matter of much wider significance. It cannot be inherited, and if you want if you must obtain it by great labour. It involves, in the first place, the historical sense [which] involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence; the historical sense compels a man to write not merely with his own generation in his bones, but with a feeling that the whole of the literature of Europe from Homer and within it the whole of the literature of his own country has a simultaneous existence and composes a simultaneous order….
No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone. His significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists. You cannot value him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among the dead... what happens when a new work of art is created is something that happens simultaneously to all the works of art which preceded it. The existing monuments form an ideal order among themselves, which is modified by the introduction of the new (the really new) work of art among them.… Whoever has approved this idea of order… will not find it preposterous that the past should be altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past…Of course a lot of people, my students among them, do find it preposterous that the present can modify the past (and it is preposterous, in the root meaning of that word: "preposterous" originally meant a confusing of time periods, a placing of the pre- and the post- in the wrong positions). But there's some sense to Eliot here. Consider Satan. Or, at any rate, consider Satan from Milton's Paradise Lost. Milton means for him to be a villain, but William Blake famously observed in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell that Milton was "of the Devil's party without knowing it," meaning that Milton was more of a rebel than he thought he was, that a poem intended as a defense of obedience to God was really more in love with individualism than anything else. And after Romanticism — after Blake's Milton and Shelley's Prometheus Unbound and a thousand other poems and plays and novels that echo and reinterpret Milton — it's difficult to see Paradise Lost as one could see it before Romanticism. Milton's initially villainous Satan now seems to have had many of the positive qualities the Romantics found in him.
By the time we get to modernism, this kind of revisiting and revising of the literature of the past has become one of the major poetic moves: Eliot scrapes together the fragments that make up his Waste Land, Pound reworks Homer in The Cantos, David Jones mines Welsh literature and legend, H.D. reworks the classics in Helen in Egypt, and so on. (It's important to make a distinction here between modernism and the avant-garde, which often wanted to shrug off the past).
The age demanded an image
Of its accelerated grimace,
Something for the modern stage,
Not, at any rate, an Attic grace;
Not, not certainly, the obscure reveries
Of the inward gaze;
Than the classics in paraphrase!
The "age demanded" chiefly a mould in plaster,
Made with no loss of time,
A prose kinema, not, not assuredly, alabaster
Or the "sculpture" of rhyme.
There's another issue involved, too, which we might think of as political. When a poet talks to dead people, you're not going to understand the conversation if you, too, haven't tuned in to the past and done the (pleasurable, luxurious) work of acquiring a sense of the appropriate traditions. Many people find this off-putting right at the start. Many, too, find it elitist: it sets up a certain barrier to instant understanding for the reader, and, if you take it as a principle not just of reading but of writing, it sets up a very high cost of entry for anyone seeking to set up as a poet.
It’s often said that “difficult” poems exclude potential readers. This can certainly be true, but I feel excluded by poems that give me nothing to do as a reader, that offer me no new experience and nothing I didn’t already know. It’s wearying to read such poems, and it makes me want to watch music videos instead, where at least one sometimes gets glimpses of shirtless guys with six-pack abs. Any good poem gives the reader something, what Allen Grossman calls the interest of the world: feelings, sensations, experiences.
Reginald may have looked for different things in music videos than I do, but we have turned to poems for the same reasons.
With regard to the charge that the approach to becoming a poet that Eliot outlined in "Tradition and the Individual Talent" is elitist and restrictive — one can only respond that it's true. If you want to be the kind of poet who talks to dead people (and that's not the only kind of poet), you're going to have to spend a lot of time in conversation with old books. There's certainly an elitism to this, in that it requires a great deal of time and effort, and there's a material and financial reality behind the opportunity to take that time and make that effort. Of course the old modernist path to becoming a poet does not propose as great a material and financial burden as the new, 21st century way of becoming a poet we have in America: the completion of an MFA program. It's what our age demands, and in a way, the existence of these programs has shown the inexorable progress of the very forces of modernity — standardization, credentialing, commercialization, and commodification — that led so many modernists to turn against modernity itself and immerse themselves in the splendid alterity of the past. | <urn:uuid:37813093-a7e5-4c48-a96f-2b56bb14ef00> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://samizdatblog.blogspot.com/2012_03_11_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971135 | 1,284 | 2.5 | 2 |
The rapid adoption of next generation mobile devices like the Apple iPhone, Google Android based smart phones as well as the increased traffic originating from these devices has taken network operators and equipment manufacturers by surprise. Mobile data traffic surpassed voice traffic at the end of 2009 and is currently growing at close to 100 percent year on year in developed countries. It is no longer about voice or SMS in a two-way communication; a single user with a single device communicates with multiplicity of applications over the mobile web. The user and application communication has escalated bandwidth demand while the device and application communication has increased signaling traffic. While everybody has had their eyes on coping with bandwidth demand, and data offload strategies have received extensive coverage, the dimension of increased signaling traffic has not received adequate treatment.
In mobile networks, signaling messages are exchanged between terminal and the network to set up and tear down connections. There are also messages exchanged to notify the network of terminal location and new calls as well as notifying terminals of network ability and new calls. These signaling messages use separate channels from those used by data traffic but affect the overall bandwidth and compute resources.
With smart phones, the situation is exacerbated. For instance, smart phones have an impressive repertoire of functions and features and support applications such as IM, push email, social networking. Such applications have the proclivity to maintain “heart-beat” connectivity with the network by sending messages as often as every 30 or 60 seconds. These messages cause terminal state changes for which signaling messages are exchanged with the network. Indeed, as many as 30 signaling messages are generated equivalent to what would be needed to set up a voice call. Imagine the impact, when such messages are exchanged every minute or so to maintain the refreshed state required by these applications. In such scenarios, it is the signaling traffic which dominates as opposed to the data traffic. From figures published by network operators, the profiled traffic showed on the average smart phones generated 8x the signaling traffic than a PC/laptop dongle. This is understandable, given the fact that with PC/laptop dongle usage, signaling traffic is only generated with each new page request, and further PC/laptops have bigger batteries allowing them to keep connections open for a longer duration.
Operator networks powered up by conventional base station and packet core network element configurations and designs are now recognized as increasingly unable to handle the traffic patterns that are emerging from these devices. The dimensioning of network resources was based on requirements for PC/laptop dongle users. In addition, the Long Term Evolution (LTE) of 3G as defined and standardized in 3GPP is emerging as a global standard for mobile broadband embraced by operators in North America, Europe and Japan. LTE promotes a flat architecture where base stations, or eNodeBs as they are called, are directly connected to a gateway node eliminating the need for a base station controller node. Further, a standalone Mobility Management Entity (MME) has been defined dedicated to handle signaling traffic in LTE networks. The absence of a controller node adds more processing burden on the eNodeBs and MMEs. This situation will be further amplified by the proliferation of Machine-to-Machine (M2M) devices which are connected through a web of WPANs, WLANs to cellular WAN networks across to various segments of the industry such as transport, energy, and heath care. These intelligent M2M devices provide a host of functions such as energy monitoring, home automation, security, and fleet management, and they support e-health and m-health functions. As new apps proliferate and leverage network connectivity and location aspects for the expanding m-life, signaling issues will need to be dealt with carefully.
Let us consider the case of M2M or mobile user device connected to the cellular WAN using an HSPA module.
An HSPA module may exist in one of the states as shown in Figure 1 (a). State 1 HSPA: In this state the mobile device is allocated a dedicated transport channel in the downlink and in the uplink along with a requisite number of physical channels, depending on the required bandwidth. When a mobile device is in Cell_DCH it is consuming the most network resources, both RNC processing and air interface resources, while the drain on the battery is also at its highest level.
State 2 FACH: In Cell_FACH (Cell Forward Access Channel) the mobile device is communicating with the network and the network (RNC) knows where the mobile device is located, thus the mobile device is consuming network resources – both in terms of air interface capacity as well as with respect to RNC processing power. In the current implementation of HSPA, small bits of data can be transmitted while in Cell_FACH state at a relatively low data rate, or up to 64 kbps in the downlink and 8-16 kbps in the uplink.
State 3 Cell/URA PCH: In URA the network (Radio Network Controller or RNC) knows that the mobile device exists, but other than having that basic knowledge the RNC/network does not dedicate any resources to the phone.
State 4 Idle: When in Idle mode the mobile device is basically dormant and not communicating with the network although it does listen for certain broadcast messages. In this state the device is not consuming any network resources, and it consumes the least amount of power.
Figure 1(b) shows the state diagram for an LTE mobile device.
All changes between states involve signaling in order to prepare the networks and device for the state change and then also perform the change. This signaling increases the signaling load in the network and has to be handled by appropriate dimensioning of the signaling capacity.
Thus, with respect to power usage, data throughput and use of maximum network resources, the drain on device battery is at its peak in the HSPA state. Since the device stays dormant in the Idle state and no data transmission is involved, the device battery is at its minimum usage.
Device manufacturers with a penchant for differentiation implemented features such as fast dormancy without realizing network consequences. With fast dormancy, the device signals the RNC for connection release as soon as the transaction is over (instead of waiting for timers to expire before going to lower states), so that the device can return to Idle state sooner and preserve battery life. While this extended battery life, what was lost on the device manufacturers was the fact that the device needed to traverse the higher states more often every time there was a request to connect to the network. This action resulted in increased signaling traffic between the network and devices. Soon after the negative impact on network was realized due to increased signaling traffic, fast dormancy as a feature was no longer supported.
A well thought out strategy working across networks, systems, and devices is needed to combat signaling overload while meeting the goals of network optimization, efficient use of system resources and increased battery life for the end devices.
At the network level, approaches such as 3G Direct Tunnel have been employed for 3G networks, where SGSN is bypassed for direct connectivity to GGSN for data traffic. This provides opportunities for scaling signaling capacity in SGSN to deal with smart phones. Further opportunities for scaling include pooling of SGSNs such that a shared compute farm with load balancing can be created, providing the needed scalability, agility and elastic computing resources for handling signaling messages. In LTE networks, MME is a dedicated entity for handling signaling traffic. In co-existent 3G/LTE networks, SGSN-MME pools can be organized to efficiently handle signaling traffic. I-HSPA is another approach, where the device connects directly to the Internet with only the base station in between. This approach works well where no mobility is expected but portable PC/laptop dongles can be used for Internet access, leaving more capacity for the mobility-prone smart phones to use extra capacity traversing the path through the RNC and SGSN. RNCs can be designed where the signaling capacity is available as a shared pool and can be flexibly used as opposed to being hard partitioned across various Node Bs.
Femto cells provide an attractive alternative to offload mobile core network from the impacts of increased signaling traffic by carrying signaling traffic over the wire line network for indoor environments.
Device management is another area of focus where the device is configured with appropriate settings to prevent unnecessary pinging from devices. For example, some social apps tend to poll the servers every 30 seconds or so to find new social data, contributing to a large number of signaling messages. Other apps such as those for patient monitoring and financial trading require periodic connectivity to the network. By optimizing protocol behaviors across the server and clients, the impact of signaling can be mitigated to some extent. For instance, instead of polling every 30 seconds for social updates, a push approach may be employed for every configurable threshold level of event updates. Further, by controlling the states of transition, the number of signaling messages can be reduced. For example, it has been shown that by keeping the device in Cell URA/PCH state, as opposed to going to Idle state, allows for a connection to be restored to active state with significantly fewer signaling messages. Further, coordination between device OS and radio layers can enable a handshake whereby the network is made aware of application characteristics and can use this information to select the most appropriate state. For instance, periodic unattended status updates can be treated differently relative to user involved updates. The network can move the former to lower states after the transaction while keeping the latter on higher states, knowing this to be an on-going session.
At the processor level, design approaches that can distinguish control plane traffic and user plane traffic and can scale to handle each type will be needed. Signaling messages (control plane) require a lower number of processing operations per event and have lower throughput; but they require high scalability for signaling process. User plane traffic, on the other hand, has very high throughput requirements and in many cases requires deep packet inspection to handle application flows with given policy and connection attributes. Therefore, the processors not only need to provide for fast path offload engines with high speed cores but also require higher compute performance per core. In other words, standard multicore processors or standard network processors will experience a signaling “bias” for the same number of subscribers and data traffic per subscriber if the capacity is not flexibly tunable in these two dimensions. A design approach that carefully calibrates performance to match the requirements of the traffic mix is needed. Higher signaling traffic leverages the capacity of higher performance compute engines, while the higher throughput data traffic leverages fast path processing engines to effectively deliver applications that require both multicore and high performance per core capabilities. These types of capabilities are usually required in network elements such as eNodeB, RNC, SGSN to support both user plane traffic and control plane for smart phones. | <urn:uuid:402273ba-b579-441e-814f-b50065d2e70d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ecnmag.com/articles/2011/10/mitigating-strategies-smart-phone-signaling-overload | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940634 | 2,220 | 2.6875 | 3 |
A seething powerhouse of malevolent drow, each striving tirelessly for supremacy in the eyes of their fell goddess, Menzoberranzan is the pinnacle of conceited depravity. Nevertheless, peer deep through the strata of selfishness, debauchery, and vice and one can behold a grand civilization rich in history, culture, and artistry. It’s this tantalizing dichotomy between the beautiful and the profane that draws great interest toward drow society. Presented in this book is the fabled Underdark city of Menzoberranzan, birthplace of famed drow ranger Drizzt Do’Urden. But this isn’t his story—it’s many stories, yours chief among them.
Menzoberranzan: City of Intrigue
is designed for maximum utility. No matter what edition of the Dungeons & Dragons rules you’re using, you’ll find almost all of the material in this book usable in your game. You can use this book to run a campaign set during the years before the birth of Drizzt, in the midst of the War of the Spider Queen, or during the current era of the Forgotten Realms campaign setting. Menzoberranzan is a whole environment waiting for you and your players to explore, in whatever way you want to use it.
In today's excerpt for Menzoberranzan: City of Intrigue, we look at the chapter contents for Chapter 4: City of Spiders.
A Menzoberranzan Campaign
Running a group of evil drow characters through adventures rife with intrigue and treachery can be quite a different experience from most Dungeons & Dragons campaigns. These six characteristics best encapsulate the spirit of a Menzoberranzan: City of Intrigue campaign.
1. You’re a Drow
In this campaign setting, you’re no goody two-shoes surface dweller visiting the City of Spiders on holiday. No, you’re a resident. Whether drow or slave, noble scion or commoner, you call Menzoberranzan home. This is your opportunity to disregard the spiteful propaganda of the surface elves and step into the role of one of D&D’s most iconic and insidious races.
2. Evil Reigns
Menzoberranzan is a nasty place. In drow culture, treachery and murder are commonplace, as are acts of debauchery. Drow in this setting routinely have orgies with demons and engage in despicable acts of bloodletting. Although the tenets of drow society are presented tactfully, players should be under no illusions; Menzoberranzan is populated by vile and capricious sadists, who seek to improve their personal standing through the suffering and misery of others.
3. Lolth Is Supreme
No other force in drow society is as pervasive as the Church of Lolth. Although other divine entities have appeared in drow religious rites over the millennia, all are secondary to Lolth and are barely visible in the shadow of the Spider Queen. Beings such as Vhaeraun and Ghaunadaur have adherents in some eras, but few are worshiped with the same devotion—and fear—as Lolth. It is she, and she alone, who stands at the heart of drow religion.
4. Station Is Everything
Despite its members being born of chaos, drow society is governed by a deeply entrenched hierarchy. Each drow divides everyone else—including other drow—into three categories.
- Those with more power, who must be appeased and placated (at least until they can be replaced).
- Those who are useful to one’s own advancement, who must be exploited in all ways possible.
- The weak, who are worthless except as labor or disposable troops.
As drow see it, each day is a new chance to improve your station or to eliminate those in your way.
5. Secrets Are Currency
Drow are not mindless brutes who charge headlong into the unknown. In fact, the residents of Menzoberranzan, called Menzobarranyr, are meticulous and calculating in their endeavors. Although wealth and might are certainly respected, the true currency of the drow lies in secrets. Information is power, and with it an individual can wield influence far beyond his or her station. The machinations of the drow are legendary, and these sorts of long-term schemes should be part of any Menzoberranzan campaign.
6. The Underdark
High adventure isn’t confined to the city alone. The myriad intrigues of the drow can send the player characters deep into the gloom of the Underdark. Although drow are renowned for their ruthlessness and villainy, there are creatures in the deep places of the world that give even them pause. Despite the dangers, few Menzoberranyr shy from an opportunity to exploit the myriad riches of the Deep Realms. From the neighboring Dark Dominion to the Shadowed Ways and beyond, adventure in the Underdark awaits.
Bart Carroll has been a part of Wizards of the Coast since 2004, and a D&D player since 1980 (and has fond memories of coloring the illustrations in his 1st Edition Monster Manual). He currently works as producer for the D&D website. You can find him on Twitter (@bart_carroll). | <urn:uuid:6c434ee7-79d3-4e6d-a5c7-31005f2633b3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ex/20120726 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927735 | 1,123 | 1.5 | 2 |
Inspiring the next generation of researchers: school students to present findings from their scientific research
12 December 2012
The scheme, which is supported by a Wellcome Trust Society Award, enables students to take part in research projects in their own school under the guidance of university researchers. Owing to the success of the pilot project Myelin Basic Protein Project, initiated four years ago by Dr Dave Colthurst at the Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys, four more collaborations have been instigated this year between schools and universities in Sheffield, Bristol, Southampton and London. Students taking part in the scheme will present their work at the inaugural Authentic Biology Research Symposium on 17 December.
The University of Bristol, University of Sheffield, University of Southampton and Queen Mary (University of London) each selected a local school to work with. Each school receives a grant to pay for a senior teacher and senior technician to have half a day per week to run and organise their research project. The grant also enables the schools to buy basic laboratory equipment to run their project.
Supported and guided by researchers from the School of Biosciences at the University of Kent, students from the Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys have been looking at the human protein myelin basic protein (MBP), which is a major constituent of the myelin sheath, the insulating layer surrounding nerve cells in the central nervous system.
They are studying the hypothesis that when this protein is modified in the myelin sheath, by the addition of phosphate groups to specific amino acids (phosphorylation), the structure of the protein alters. This then somehow triggers the immune system to send antibodies into the central nervous system to attack and break down the myelin sheath, which can lead to symptoms seen in conditions such as multiple sclerosis.
Over the past four years, the students have cloned the human gene for MBP and genetically engineered it into Saccharomyces cerevisiae, brewers' and bakers' yeast. Yeast cells have almost the same biochemical pathways as humans. The students have used this as a model for investigating what affects the structure of MBP. They hope to publish their findings in a peer-reviewed science journal.
Dr Colthurst said: "We aim to inspire students by giving them opportunities to work alongside scientists and take part in original, innovative research. When we started the project, we had 50 students taking part; this year we have over 170, demonstrating how popular it is among students. Four years in and we can already see the positive effects this is having: four years ago there were 90 students studying biology at A level, and this year there are 200."
Students from Tapton School in Sheffield will be working on genes linked to cardiovascular disease. Researchers at the University of Sheffield have studied patient populations in the region, and they have identified genes that may be associated with cardiovascular disease and that could help with the diagnosis and prevention of heart failure. The students will use original research data to learn how to interpret the function of novel genes from gene sequences and how to model the disease in zebrafish.
St Paul's Way Trust School in Tower Hamlets, London, has a high proportion of students from a Bangladeshi background and students at the school are studying diabetes, which is very prevalent among this community. Working with researchers from Queen Mary (University of London) and a local medical practice, they aim to carry out a lifestyle questionnaire on the local population and then link this to a screen of possible candidate genes for the onset of diabetes.
Students at Peter Symonds Sixth Form College in Winchester have taken a different approach to their work. Academics at the University of Southampton have identified experimental approaches that can readily be transferred to the classroom setting and have assembled a portfolio of protocols encompassing invertebrate models such as the nematode worm and the fruit fly, retinal microscopy, and a computer-based visual perception study. Students at the sixth form have selected from these protocols to study topics including diabetes, alcoholism, Alzheimer's disease and the evolution of the eye.
Cotham School in Bristol, which joined the initiative in September, is developing a programme that marries two major strengths at the University of Bristol - genome-wide association studies and cell biology - to investigate genes linked to arthritis and cancer, which are both pathologies associated with chronic inflammation. Their goal will be to learn more about these disease genes with cell biology studies in living zebrafish larvae, which are translucent and allow observation of cell behaviours in the living organism.
Clare Matterson, Director of Medical Humanities and Engagement at the Wellcome Trust, said: "In the research world, scientific conferences provide the platform for scientists working in different places to present and share their findings. Based on this concept, the inaugural Authentic Biology Research Symposium will give students the opportunity to present their work as young researchers, learn new skills and experience a formal scientific meeting environment."
"We're delighted that the project has expanded and more students now have the opportunity to take part in this innovative collaboration. The Wellcome Trust has a long-standing interest in science education and is committed to helping make inspiring, high-quality science education available to all young people."
Image: Dr Dave Colthurst, science teacher at Simon Langton Grammar School for Boys, in front of sixth-formers working on the MBP project. Credit: Wellcome Library, London.
T +44 (0)20 7611 8726
About the Wellcome Trust
The Wellcome Trust is a global charitable foundation dedicated to achieving extraordinary improvements in human and animal health. It supports the brightest minds in biomedical research and the medical humanities. The Trust's breadth of support includes public engagement, education and the application of research to improve health. It is independent of both political and commercial interests. | <urn:uuid:d7215c8f-0900-4f5d-b7b7-a1123287a185> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/News/Media-office/Press-releases/2012/WTP041053.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944303 | 1,185 | 2.921875 | 3 |
Russia continues to tighten restrictions on political opponents of President Vladimir Putin, who approved a law last week allowing treason charges against anyone who possesses state secrets.
One such dissident, Pavel Stroilov, is a Russian historian living in London after he stole more than 50,000 secret Kremlin documents from the Gorbachev Foundation in 2003. He edited a book with Alexander Litvinenko, a critic of Putin who was poisoned in London in 2006.
Stroilov’s latest book is called “Behind the Desert Storm: A Secret Archive Stolen from the Kremlin that Sheds New Light on the Arab revolutions in the Middle East.” He recently sat down with The Daily Caller’s Ginni Thomas.
One of the documents he obtained showed that a 1979 U.S. Senate delegation, led by Joe Biden, assured Soviet Union negotiators that the United States was bluffing when it expressed concerns over human rights of USSR dissidents during the Cold War.
In the interview, Stroilov alleged a Soviet connection with al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri and discussed President Barack Obama’s foreign policy, the facade of the Arab Spring, whether Russia remains a threat to the United States and how modern-day Russia silences dissidents.
Click the links below to fast-forward to each question:
For more information:
Note: The linked documents are dated “19-20 April 1979,” but the delegation met with USSR officials on Aug. 29, 1979, according to an Associated Press story published at the time.
Mrs. Thomas does not necessarily support or endorse the products, services or positions promoted in any advertisement contained herein, and does not have control over or receive compensation from any advertiser. | <urn:uuid:984d10cb-54c9-4d2e-8714-25be97d08b63> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dailycaller.com/?p=3496630/?seek=682 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929412 | 357 | 1.875 | 2 |
For news and views from Triodos
Organic food (Environment)
Based in Chichester, Veg Out runs an organic vegetable box scheme and also farms sheep and cattle.
Apart from being environmentally friendly, Organic food doesn't use hydrogenated fats and controversial additives including aspartame, tartrazine, MSG, leading to a healthy, balanced lifestyle. Lending in this sector include food shops, butchers and restaurants. | <urn:uuid:b1e333b4-d6de-4e84-bcf1-2093bb1050f8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.triodos.co.uk/en/about-triodos/what-we-do/who-we-lend-to/results/?projectId=105376&name=veg_out | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913593 | 88 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Powerful 10 Security Measures for your Enterprise Mobile
Corporates have gone mobile and started developing their own app and in this process, their workforce is allotted smartphones; using which they access the specified company application from everywhere. Proliferation of smart phone usage comes with pre-defined safety measures which are listed below.
- Avoid unknown software installations which are available free or at economical rate
- Beware of pirated software’s that could infect your phones within seconds.
- Traditional malwares affecting desktops like Trojan horses, viruses, and worms do not significantly infect smartphones currently; although there is mounting consensus between technical security professionals that mobile handsets will soon be a hot target.
- Choose a complete security solution for smartphones with automatic updates
- Safeguard your personal and confidential data with strong passwords
- Stay alert on your Bluetooth, WIFI, and Infrared. Switch these off or set it on a non discoverable mode after use.
- Avoid storing or e-mailing classified documents through mobile
- Never leave your phone unattended or unlocked
- Always keep a copy of the IMEI (International mobile Equipment number) handy, so that you can ask your operator to block your SIM from being used after its gets stolen or lost. Smartphone theft or loss is the most prioritized security hazard that in turn affects the critical data and thereby decreases productivity.
- Never try to download catched or malicious content. Business transactions over smartphones have increased with time, sensitive data transfer is a major cause for concern, as these can be intercepted through the Internet networks, cloud computing, via tapped phone lines, or interfering wave transmissions. | <urn:uuid:805095ea-3fe2-498a-9bf0-5ec959226de6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.dronamobile.com/powerful-10-security-measures-for-your-enterprise-mobile/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.906939 | 335 | 1.828125 | 2 |
This isn't your average trip across the pond.
Mooney tried three years ago to row a boat from Africa back to the States, but was derailed when his homemade rowboat filled with water off the coast of Senegal.
This time he recruited professional help in building the boat and sponsors for the trip and commenced a six-week intensive training program to physically prepare himself for a second try. Three years later, he's ready to set sail.
"This is a mission I'm grateful for," said Mooney, who lost one brother to the AIDS virus in 1983 and is coping with another HIV-positive sibling.
Mooney raised money Wednesday at an HSBC bank in downtown Brooklyn, where he urged passersby to donate to the AIDS cause. Any money he makes after trip expenses will go directly to AIDS research.
The journey could begin as soon as next week will be documented via a blog Mooney intends to keep during the trip and video footage he will shoot along the way, the Times reported. Mooney estimated the journey could take around 20 weeks.
"Now," he said, "I just have to make it back home." | <urn:uuid:8bb13941-be70-4d02-96c6-e0c2dc504501> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/weird/Row-Row-Row-Your-Boat---Across-the-Atlantic-Ocean.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976634 | 231 | 1.679688 | 2 |
ISLAMABAD: The United States has established contacts with elusive Taliban leader Mullah Omar to negotiate an end to the conflict in Afghanistan. A former Afghan Taliban spokesman has played a key role in the US-Taliban communication, a source told The Express Tribune.
Former Afghan Taliban spokesman is said to have facilitated the contact.
Abdul Haqiq, who was operating under the alias of Dr Mohammad Hanif as an Afghan Taliban spokesman, is said to have helped Washington reach out to Mullah Omar.
Dr Hanif was arrested by US and Afghan intelligence agents from a secret location in Afghanistan in June 2007. He was one of the high-profile Afghan Taliban spokesmen along with Yousuf Ahmadi, appointed after chief spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi was arrested in October 2005 in Pakistan.
So far, several claims have been made by the US about negotiations with the Taliban but Islamabad and Kabul have never been taken into confidence over the much speculated-about talks.
According to reports, the US had offered the Taliban control over the south of Afghanistan, while leaving the north for the other political forces under American influence. However, this was rejected by the Taliban.
“The acceptance of such a proposal could not be possible for the Taliban as it could lead to the disintegration of Afghanistan,” said former Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief Gen (retd) Hamid Gul.
However, a Pakistani diplomat in Kabul remains optimistic about the talks. “The Taliban are aware that it will be difficult to defeat foreign troops in Afghanistan, or capture the entire country,” he said, adding, “Similarly, the US is also aware that it cannot defeat the Taliban in the next few years.”
On the other hand, a senior official in the Foreign Office is not as sure of the success of the US-Taliban talks. “Such talks are bound to fail as Washington is trying to achieve its goals without taking [Afghan President Hamid] Karzai into confidence. If at all the Afghan Taliban agree to the reconciliation talks, their preference will be with Afghan leaders over foreign forces,” the official argued.
Central Asian diplomats in Islamabad have also expressed their doubts about the practicability of the US-Taliban talks.
“On the one hand, the US is building six permanent military bases in Afghanistan, and on the other, talking about the withdrawal of its troops from the country,” an ambassador of a Central Asian state was quoted by a Foreign Office official as saying .
Iranian and Russian diplomats in Islamabad are also doubtful of an actual and meaningful US-led foreign troops’ pullout from Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, chief of the Afghan High Peace Council Prof. Burhanuddin Rabbani told the Afghan House of Representatives earlier this month that his council had made contacts with the Afghan Taliban. He further told the house that the Taliban were not willing to trust the Afghan government’s reconciliation process. “The Taliban nurse doubts about Kabul’s initiative,” he said.
The council during the last five years also contacted other armed opposition leaders such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar as well as the Haqqani network, Rabbani claimed.
The council had previously said it had made direct and indirect contacts with the Afghan Taliban leadership, but the Taliban still seem to be insistent on their call for a withdrawal of US and Nato forces from Afghanistan as a pre-condition for talks with Kabul.
However, the Afghan parliament said that the achievements of the council have so far been satisfactory.
Former Pakistani ambassador to Afghanistan Rustum Shah Mohmand is also doubtful about the sincerity on the part of Kabul for the success of the so-called Afghan reconciliation effort. Mohmand told The Express Tribune that those who are enjoying government privileges in Afghanistan are not interested in the success of the effort.
“In real terms, such privileged people are opposed to the withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan as they are very well aware that they will also have to pack up as soon as foreign troops are withdrawn,” he observed. | <urn:uuid:3cc74486-de22-42c5-9e16-565933e90d92> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ghalibsultan.wordpress.com/tag/us-taliban-talks/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978763 | 840 | 1.53125 | 2 |
The Gay Games movement recognizes that gender identity is an important consideration for participants in the Gay Games. In order to best promote inclusion, the Gay Games has endeavored to develop and implement a gender policy that will allow for inclusion of every person, including those who have unique circumstances regarding gender, as well as a safe and fair competition for all.
The policy of Gay Games will provide competitive opportunities for women, as well as mixed-gender or gender-neutral divisions whenever possible.
All participants will identify in which gender they will compete, either male or female. Participants will need to indicate their gender at least twice as part of their Gay Games 9 Cleveland + Akron experience, as follows:
- While registering online: Each participant will choose a gender during the registration process. The participant will choose a gender twice during registration:
- A Participant will list his or her legal gender based on a government-issued identification with photo. Examples of this identification are a driver’s license, national ID, or passport.
- A Participant will list his or her gender in which he or she will participate in the Gay Games.
At accreditation in Cleveland: Gay Games 9 will require all participants to present a form of government-issued identification with photo at accreditation for security and other purposes. For most participants, this identification will provide proof of gender identity.
Accreditation documents will indicate the gender of competition for each participant.
Transgender participants who wish to provide alternatives to legal proof of their gender may provide documentation, in English or in the original language with certified translation into English. For most sports the following applies:
- A participant may demonstrate his or her gender by providing proof in the form of a letter or certificate from the participant’s medical practitioner that he or she has been undergoing uninterrupted hormone treatment for at least one year prior to the beginning of the Gay Games unless there is a medical reason that may have resulted in short breaks from that treatment. Any breaks in treatment should be outlined in the medical practitioner’s letter; or,
- A participant may demonstrate his or her gender by providing documentation that he or she has been living as the chosen gender for at least two years. Proof may be provided by legal documents such as a driver’s license; evidence of employment as the chosen or self-identified gender; substantive personal letters, testimonials or statutory declarations; bank or brokerage accounts; or property-related documents such as leases, property titles, etc. Where possible, the participant should provide original documents or notarized copies, and should obtain translations of the documents into English when possible. Considering the challenges that may be involved in obtaining such documents in some countries, Gay Games 9 Cleveland + Akron will exercise discretion when evaluating the adequacy of the type of documentation provided for proof of an individual's gender. All cases will be handled with the greatest of discretion. The final decision about the participant’s gender status will be within the sole discretion of Gay Games 9.
Note that these alternate methods do not apply to all sporting due to requirements of a given sport’s sanctioning body. Participants should consult the specific sport webpage for more information.
For any question about Gender Policy at Gay Games 9, please send an email to firstname.lastname@example.org. | <urn:uuid:18c65ee5-11ed-4078-ac69-101b92b2f4ff> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gg9cle.com/sports/gender/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930495 | 665 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Cities add most construction jobs since 2008
Construction employment expanded in 56 out of 337 metropolitan areas between August 2009 and August 2010, according to a new analysis of federal employment data released by the Associated General Contractors of America.
More cities added construction jobs during the past year than at any point since September 2008, indicating that the worst of the industry’s job losses may be over, association officials noted.
Kansas City, Kansas, added more construction jobs (2,500 jobs, 13 percent) than any other metro area, while Hanford-Corcoran, California, added the highest percentage (22 percent, 200 jobs).
Even as the employment outlook improves in a growing number of metropolitan areas, construction unemployment remains nearly double the national average, association officials report. | <urn:uuid:eaee599d-2699-400e-9e74-9b903ce3c7fe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aggman.com/cities-add-most-construction-jobs-since-2008/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920254 | 157 | 1.742188 | 2 |
One of the big botanical finds last year was the population of stinking hawk’s-beard Crepis foetida at Dungeness, possibly the only extant native population of this species in the UK. More than 2000 plants were present. How would it survive this years drought, and would it benefit from additional scarification of neighbouring land? Well, the answers are not very well and No!
At least 229 plants were counted on the site this year (though not all of the grassland was accessed) and no plants were found on the scarified strip. This had lots of bare ground however and offers ideal germinating conditions this summer.
Many of the plants Read the rest of this entry » | <urn:uuid:4056dc3e-d67e-4d86-9584-1d050a53b08a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://rxwildlife.org.uk/2011/07/05/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984359 | 146 | 2.78125 | 3 |
|Connecticut's Framework for RTI: A Family Guide|
Using Scientific Research-Based Interventions: Improving Education for All Students
This booklet reviews what SRBI are and includes questions you might want to ask your child’s school or program to learn more about how they are using SRBI as a framework to improve teaching and learning. Also included here are ways families can be a part of the decision-making process and what to do when you have concerns about your child’s progress.
Download the Family Guide to RTI (pdf, 494kb) | <urn:uuid:eca4f9af-7ee5-41c5-946c-b3207b72691f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ctserc.org/s/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=494:connecticuts-framework-for-rti-a-family-guide&catid=82:families-as-partners-initiative&Itemid=110 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.921999 | 118 | 2.921875 | 3 |
We were just one of thousands of families affected—not the ones featured in the paper or on TV—just regular people
Stu Alpert at work in the American Stock Exchange.
This is a rewrite of my original 2001 story of the September 11, 2001 New York City World Trade Center Attack. Our hardships are minor compared to many who were hurt far worse than we were. This document is to testify that we were innocent bystanders hurt by the actions of a few.
I nearly lost my husband on Tuesday, September 11, 2001, the day of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.
He’s a Floor Broker at the American Stock Exchange on Trinity Place in NYC, one block from the WTC. He was outside having a cigarette when the first plane hit. He thought it was a sonic boom — until pieces of burning debris started raining down. He’s an Exchange Floor Official, and started herding people back into the building, where it was decided that people should stay, because there was no place to go and oily smoke and debris was raining down. He called me at home to say he was ok for the moment.
Later, when the second plane hit, many people were evacuated to the basement, or others left the building. He was helping conduct a floor-by-floor sweep of the Amex when the first tower collapsed. The windows blew out and smoke, ahs and burning debris began to flood inside. He and others put wet paper towels over their faces and ran for their lives through the black smoke. He made it south to the Battery and saw that tug boats were volunteering to load people to get them off Manhattan. While he got on the tugboat, he saw the second tower go down and a wall of smoke began moving south towards them. The boat set off and took the people to Hoboken NJ where the Red Cross put blankets and wet towels on the people.
He had no way to call and I thought for a while that we had lost him. When I saw the second tower fall, I began to prepare myself for the worst. No one could live through the devastation, I thought. My 12 year old daughter kept repeating the mantra “He’ll be all right he’ll be all right he’ll be all right”. Who could tell her that her Daddy may be gone?
At Hoboken he was met by Red Cross workers. He was in shock, but, typically, refused help. He was obsessed with the idea that he had to get home to our small town about 20 miles southwest of NYC. His car was parked in the Journal Square parking garage in Jersey City. “How do I get to Jersey City?” he asked. “Hold on, buddy. Sit down and relax” he was told. They wrapped a blanket around him and put wet towels on his head. “No, give these to someone who really needs them — just tell me how to get to Jersey City” he responded.
He couldn’t make out why the Red Cross workers looked bemused when they directed him to the bus stop in Hoboken. From there, he got on a crowded bus and made it to Journal Square in Jersey City. No fares were charged.
Journal Square was closed. The cops tried to tell him, he couldn’t get to his car and he became frantic and upset. “Don’t tell me I can’t get to my car! I’ve just been in a bombing!”
“Okay, Buddy. Calm down. We’ll get you in there,” said the cops, and escorted him to his car.
“Oh, Jeez — I left my car keys in my briefcase back at the Amex”.
He had a valet key in his wallet, but it only opened the car and wouldn’t start it. He was able to get his cell phone out of the car to call home. This was the first contact we’d had from him in 2 hours. My 12 year old daughter and I were frantic, watching the destruction on TV and crying.
The highways were blockaded, and I wasn’t allowed to drive the 10 miles to Journal Square to pick him up. He was able to crowd onto a bus to Newark Penn Station and from there boarded a NJ Transit commuter train.
We met him at the train. He was a little wobbly, and covered from head to toe with white soot. I was so relieved to see him, and we held each other for a long time. He cried later, when we were home and alone. He described it as “Armageddon”.
Ready to trade: Workers install conduit for power lines along Wall Street in preparation for September 16, 2001 opening of the stock markets. In the longest shutdown since
World War I, markets have been closed since the attack on the World Trade Center. (Sun photo by John Makely)
The week before, we had a big fight, and I was so mad at him. Today, I almost lost him forever, and right now, he looks very, very good to me!
Four of his work pals were found to have been attending a business breakfast at Windows on the World Restaurant on the top of the WTC. They, along with a hundred other brokers, traders and customers and 50 members of the restaurant staff are gone. Only one of his friend’s bodies has been identified so far, and we’ve attended one funeral and a memorial service so far. Six men from our small town are presumed dead, including the father of one of my daughter’s school mates. The next town over lost 8. Another, lost 11 people.
Two weeks later, he’s still not back to work. The Amex building is structurally sound, although filthy. There is limited phone, electric, and water service.. Trading will not resume there for at least another week. Specialists and brokers are being sent to the NYSE or Philadelphia Options exchange — but for a self-employed small businessmen like my husband and his partner, there will be no business transacted for a while. This means, also, no money coming in for our family or the small cadre of employees they support.
A telephone network of friends, associates, and Amex employees has developed to talk, reassure and worry together. My husband is holding up well, although I found him crying again the other day. One fellow was very close to the edge for a few days, but seems to have calmed down now, and is getting therapy.
Of course we’ll get through this, but I’m looking over my shoulder a lot. Thousands of our construction workers, firemen, police officers, friends and neighbors have dropped whatever they were doing to help in the rescue/clean-up effort in NYC. The rest of us pick up the slack for them. Last week (Friday) there was a spontaneous candlelight vigil, as people in our neighborhood gathered on street corners to light candles and talk.
Our daughter (right) and two pals raising money for the Red Cross at a local street fair. They made the ribbons and signs themselves.
We all hurt here in New Jersey. Knowing we’re all in the same condition around here, helps a bit — and hinders. We’re all very nice to each other in our daily business dealings, and offering huge amounts of labor, money and supplies to charity — but it’s hard to talk to anyone about our feelings, because the next guy has as much — if not more — to tell US in return. And we are looking over our shoulders all the time.
I was holding up pretty well for a while, but it started to get to me while I was reading the Sunday paper last week. Suddenly I was very overwhelmed by everything. A plane flying overhead makes me jump. When a newscaster “interrupts this program for a late-breaking news report” I get a gnawing feeling in my stomach. There could very will be more — or worse — attacks to come, and no one knows WHY.
Addendum October 1, 2001
The New York Stock Exchange building reopened on September 30, 2001. My husband returned to work for the first time since the attacks. He said everything within a 20 block radius is covered with a gritty gray ash, and that he had to take a very round-about way to get to the building because of police barricades. The wreckage is visible through the window in the DK room, and seeing it in person is nothing like seeing it on TV. It is staggering in size, towering 15 stories high.
Most people in the area seem to be very subdued and many people report that they are depressed by having to come in to work in that area.
The New York Daily News Said this in the 10/02/01 issue (“Bodies of 16 Bravest Found” MICHELE McPHEE and CORKY SIEMASZKO Daily News Staff Writers):
Candlelight vigil in one of our neighboring towns.
“A few blocks away from the wreckage, the American Stock Exchange’s 2,400 traders and clerks returned to their trading floor at 86 Trinity Place for the first time since the attacks.
Mixed Feelings Among Workers
Workers had to present identification at the police checkpoint at Trinity Place and Rector St. and pass through metal detectors at the building. Some had their bags inspected. Others were patted down by security guards.
“I’m scared to be here,” said 19-year-old Daniel Chipaio, a trader’s assistant from Bensonhurst. “If it was easy for [the terrorists] to do it the first time, why couldn’t they do it again?”
Elizabeth Fogerty of Manhattan, an Amex public relations worker, covered her face with her rabbit-fur shawl to avoid the pungent stench of burned metal and ash lingering in the air. “It can’t be good for you,” she said.
But as Gov. Pataki presided over the ringing of the opening bell, many employees said they were just happy to be back at work.
“A bell ringing is a good symbol that everything is beginning again,” said John Riccardi, 37, of Manalapan, N.J., who works in research. “I’m sure some people are nervous, but it’s nice to be back.”" | <urn:uuid:6c833230-344b-4194-a046-a5913c0eaefa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.robopug.com/nest/?cat=7 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983384 | 2,204 | 1.585938 | 2 |
I believe we all have a right and the duty to live doing what we really love. Which means being able to learn about what interests us most and, if it requires a special talent or dexterity, to get good at it and to become acquainted with people of similar persuasions so that, ultimately, we are able to share what we’ve learned and motivate others.
Ever since I was very young, I’ve loved the art of Ancient Egypt. I remember playing with red clay from our neighborhood construction site and modeling miniature sphinxes and pyramids. I was fascinated when I read in our local paper a report about the relocation of the temples of Abu Simbel during the construction of the Aswan Dam. That colossal image of a smiling Ramses the Great always intrigued me. I never saw the pharaohs as ruthless dictators; they always possessed benign features, never a hard gaze but rather a still and quiet one.
My father, Clemente Morales Rodriguez, was an illustrator and from him I learned the first steps of the art of drawing. Through copying ancient Egyptian pictures from magazines and books, I became aware of the core aspects of the Egyptian style and how those anonymous artists were capable of depicting royalty with individual characteristics.
I also marveled at the hieroglyphs. What a fantastic idea to write with pictures and arrange them in almost every possible direction, combining images and words thousands of years before man invented advertising.
Advertising was my career for nearly two decades. It began with my art studies in San Francisco in the 1980′s. I wanted to become an illustrator, and my teacher encouraged me in this, but my graphic design and art direction instructor persuaded me to develop my sense of design and my creativity in developing communication concepts. I learned a good deal and earned a substantial income from my career, which enabled me to travel and to at last fulfill my dream of visiting Egypt. Witnessing the mighty head of Ramses the Second at Abu Simbel took me back to my childhood. If you’ve ever experienced moments in your adult life that bring you back to your days of innocence and wonder, you’re very fortunate.
I’ve always wanted to make a living doing what I know best and what I love. Ideally, everyone should have the freedom to pursue happiness. One way to achieve this goal personally was to unite my two passions—Art and Ancient Egypt. In 1992, I established a workshop/store to manufacture and distribute replicas of antiquities, primarily Egyptian, Greek and Roman. I almost went broke but, rather than give it up, I put my design and advertising skills to work producing catalogs of my ancient Egyptian tomb painting replicas while placing ads in Archaeology Magazine. That was before the internet made it easier and fashionable to generate revenue globally. My replicas were acquired by collectors in North America, Europe and Australia.
At the dawn of the new century, I felt ready to embark in the field of fine arts at a professional level. In the medium of painting, I set out on a creative journey working both in abstraction and in the figurative genre, choosing what best suited the concept or subject matter I was striving to convey. What unifies my body of work is a sense of composition and design, for which I am indebted to the masters of ancient Egyptian art. Since then, I’ve had six solo shows and participated in various collective exhibitions. I was also asked to conduct basic painting courses for two semesters at the Continued Studies Department of the School of Fine Arts of Puerto Rico. At present, I teach basic and advanced drawing and painting in the San Juan metro area.
Contemporary visual artists are inevitably confronted with the medium of photography. Unlike the Old Masters, a great deal of what we perceive today is seen through the photographic lens. I couldn’t ignore this reality and so have done some photography, not as an end in itself but as a way of reference to painting. Notwithstanding, I was awarded First Prize at the Amateur Archaeology Photography Contest in Archaeology Magazine and featured with a center spread in the November 1998 issue.
In 2005, I created BMC PhotoArt, my first formal website, an art and photography tutorial site utilizing Photoshop software. It recently surpassed 1,000,000 page views. My photoart tutorials are experimented with around the world and in the U.S. have been used at college level in computer art courses. | <urn:uuid:13b0a532-3f7b-4fd6-bdd7-8b4c69ece393> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bmcphotoart.com/from-the-artist/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965786 | 901 | 1.695313 | 2 |
In the spirit of Schott’s Miscellany, The Magic of Reality, and The Dangerous Book for Boys comes Big Questions from Little People—a smart, illuminating, essential, and utterly delightful handbook for perplexed parents and their curious children. Author Gemma Elwin Harris has lovingly compiled weighty questions from precocious grade school children—queries that have long dumbfounded even intelligent adults—and she’s gathered together a notable crew of scientists, specialists, philosophers, and writers to answer them. Authors Mary Roach and Phillip Pullman, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, chef Gordon Ramsay, adventurist Bear Gryllis, and linguist Noam Chomsky are among the top experts responding to the Big Questions from Little People, (“Do animals have feelings?”, “Why can’t I tickle myself?”, “Who is God?”) with well-known comedians, columnists, and raconteurs offering hilarious alternative answers. Miles above your average general knowledge and trivia collections, this charming compendium is a book fans of the E.H. Gombrich classic, A Little History of the World, will adore.
Illuminating and essential, Big Questions from Little People is a timeless gift, a handbook for curious children and their perplexed parents.
Many of the questions children ask in the course of growing up can stump even the best educated adult: Why can't I tickle myself? Are we all related? Who named all the cities? Do aliens exist? What makes me me? Is it okay to eat a worm? Who invented chocolate? If the universe started from nothing, how did it become something? How do you fall in love? Who is God? How do chefs get ideas for recipes? Why are some people mean?
This charming and informative collection has been compiled from schoolchildren's actual questions, which are answered by the world's greatest experts, including Mary Roach, Richard Dawkins, Philip Pullman, Bear Grylls, David Eagleman, Philippa Gregory, Noam Chomsky, and Mario Batali. | <urn:uuid:9ad3c811-868b-4118-a9cb-2a8fb13e2c71> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://harpercollins.com/books/Big-Questions-Little-People-Gemma-Elwin-Harris/?isbn=9780062223227 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.910331 | 433 | 2.203125 | 2 |
Each workday at The Bee, members of the editorial board gather and decide what editorials we will pursue for the next day's page or the pages to come. Often, in deliberating on topics we haven't commented upon for a while, we ask ourselves this question:
What did we say in the past?
We ask this question because readers expect an editorial page to stay true to its convictions. If you saw us zigzagging down the highway of opinion saying one thing one day and another the next we'd have a credibility car wreck.
Yet there have been times when The Bee has stopped and taken a U-turn, reversing a longstanding editorial position. One of the biggest came last week, when we ended the editorial board's long-standing support for California's death penalty.
We didn't make this change lightly. It came after years of debate and discussion that preceded the current makeup of the editorial board. It came after many months of research and meetings with legal scholars and groups on both sides of the death penalty debate.
The position we took that the death penalty is unworkable and unfixable in California was crafted with several considerations in mind. We wanted to respect those Californians and previous members of the editorial board who believe that executions are a just punishment for convicted murderers who commit the most horrible of crimes.
But we also wanted to make a forceful argument that there is no way in California to carry out that punishment swiftly, equitably and in accordance with our laws and constitution. As we stated in the first installment of our editorials, "The death penalty in California has become an illusion, and we need to end the fiction the sooner the better."
The response to the series has broken down along some interesting lines. Some legal scholars and readers praised the series and the practical argument we posed against continuing capital punishment in California.
But that same argument disappointed many opponents of capital punishment.
They asked why we did not take a moral stand against executions, arguing they are a barbaric form of punishment that makes a mockery of a society that claims to abhor violence.
There's a reason we didn't take such a stand. The editorial board was divided. Some members have moral objections to the death penalty. Others do not.
Despite that divide, there was one thing we could all agree upon: The death penalty isn't working in California. With Proposition 34 on the ballot, this was the year to seek an end to capital punishment and replace it with life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
For my part, I sit somewhere in the middle of this divide. I find the continued refinement of the death penalty in the United States moving from hangings to the electric chair to the gas chamber to endless debates over the drug cocktails for lethal injection to be not humane but ghoulish.
Even where executions are carried out swiftly, as in Texas, I am unconvinced they provide a scintilla of deterrent value. Yet I'm not someone who ever stood outside of San Quentin holding a candle. I didn't lose any sleep when the government executed Timothy McVeigh or any other number of horrific mass murderers.
As we prepared to publish our series, I wondered how long it would take for a death penalty proponent to blast us for wanting to "save" condemned murderers. As it turned out, it took just a few hours.
"Instead of the editorial board holding the government's feet to the fire on this issue, it has befriended the mass murderers and child killers populating death row," wrote Jonathan Schrader of Elk Grove in a letter we published online Monday.
Sorry to pick on Schrader, but the effort to vilify everyone and anyone who questions the death penalty is a tired tactic, an obvious attempt to stifle discussion on this issue. It doesn't matter how costly or ineffective the death penalty is, or how randomly it is applied. If you even raise these issues, you are a collaborator with serial killers.
Fortunately, the vast majority of responses which you can read in today's Forum and dozens of other letters at www.sacbee.com have been thoughtful, civil and focused upon the points we raised.
When we launched this series, we wanted to make an argument for Proposition 34, but more than that, we hoped to elevate the debate on an issue that too often sinks under the weight of emotion.
The Bee has a long history of strong commentary on the death penalty. Steve Wiegand documented much of it in a detailed, dispassionate column we published last Sunday. As Wiegand revealed, The Bee's initial support for the death penalty was born in the frontier era and reflected the popular sentiment of the state well into the last century.
Yet in recent years, California has become increasingly ambivalent about the death penalty, and The Bee's editorials of the past decade have reflected that ambivalence.
That's a dangerous place for an editorial page to be. If we are going to offer opinions, we shouldn't be equivocating, writing in conditional phrases, dancing around an issue or avoiding it.
By changing our stance on the death penalty, we've allowed ourselves to do what our readers expect an editorial page to do take strong stands on the leading issues of the day and provide a forum for the public to debate them. | <urn:uuid:38fba6c8-d4b7-4d21-a6fb-304fee722de5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sacbee.com/2012/09/16/4822219/stuart-leavenworth-why-we-changed.html?mi_rss=Stuart%20Leavenworth | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957739 | 1,078 | 1.890625 | 2 |
Youth Granted ‘DACA’ Status Should Also Get Healthcare, Say Legislators
By EGP Staff Report
U.S. Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard is one several members of Congress calling on President Obama to reverse Department of Health and Human Service policies restricting eligibility for health coverage to DREAMers granted deferred action through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy.
Roybal-Allard, whose efforts led 81 of her colleagues to send a letter to the president to take action on making healthcare available to young people who, under a policy the president himself implemented, are being allowed to remain in the U.S. without fear of deportation.
“These young people are Americans in every respect except on paper, and they deserve the same access to health care as all other children in this country,” said Roybal-Allard in a statement releases this week. “Excluding them from services will not only deny these kids the care they need, but will also lead to increased health care costs for everyone if they are forced to seek care at the emergency room instead of a doctor’s office,” Roybal-Allard added.
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) earlier this week released the latest numbers on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) initiative. According to the agency, during the first five months of the program, August 15, 2012 – December 13, 2012, 368,000 of the estimated 1.8 million young people potentially eligible have applied for DACA status. To date, nearly 103,000 individuals have been granted deferred action status and another 157,000 applications are under review.
In August, however, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued an Interim Final Rule that explicitly excludes youth granted deferred action from key features of the Affordable Care Act including participation in the state health insurance exchanges, according to Roybal-Allard.
Health and Human Services has also taken steps to prevent children and pregnant women, who prior to the new policies would have been eligible to secure affordable health insurance under the state option available in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), from enrolling in affordable health coverage programs.
In their letter to the president, the legislators wrote: “There is no principled reason to treat differently young people who received deferred action through DACA and any other person who has received deferred action. The unfairness of singling out DACA beneficiaries is also clear when you consider that many of them will now be studying alongside students with nonimmigrant visas who have not been excluded from the ACA.”
The letter went on to say that the signors to the letter, many of them members of the Congressional Black, Hispanic, Asian Pacific American and Progressive Caucuses, look forward to working with the president “to reform our broken immigration system so that newly classified immigrants can become full participants in our society, including having access to affordable health care through the ACA.”
They went on to urge the president to “take the necessary steps to enable these young people who are American in every way but on paper to obtain the basic coverage and care they so clearly need and deserve.”Print This Post
December 20, 2012 Copyright © 2012 Eastern Group Publications, Inc. | <urn:uuid:0ae17fe4-7519-4121-957d-cf53a3f26195> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://egpnews.com/2012/12/youth-granted-%E2%80%98daca%E2%80%99-status-should-also-get-healthcare-say-legislators/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964672 | 683 | 1.882813 | 2 |
JOHNSON SPACE CENTER, Houston--A presidential panel wrapping up a review of future U.S. manned space flight options delivered a grim assessment Wednesday, showing NASA's current plan to retire the shuttle, finish the space station and return to the moon by the early 2020s is not remotely feasible without a significant restoration of previously cut funding.
In the absence of a major spending increase, "our view is that it will be difficult with the current budget to do anything that's terribly inspiring in the human spaceflight area," said Norman Augustine, chairman of the Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee.
Augustine's committee was set up by the Obama administration to examine NASA's current plans for retiring the shuttle, completing the space station, and returning to the moon as well as alternative strategies for moving beyond low-Earth orbit.
The committee also is assessing how long NASA and its partners should operate the International Space Station. NASA currently has no money in its projected downstream budget to operate the $100 billion lab complex beyond 2015.
The Augustine committee believes the station cannot be operated without direct U.S. mission control and management and that it will cost some $1.5 billion to safely drive the huge complex out of orbit at the end of its life, whenever that might be.
NASA's current long-range plan, developed by the Bush administration in the wake of the 2003 Columbia disaster, is to complete the space station, retire the shuttle fleet, and develop a Apollo-like Orion crew capsule that will be launched to the station by new Ares 1 rockets.
During the gap between shuttle operations and the debut of Ares-1/Orion, U.S. astronauts will have to hitch rides to the station aboard Russian Soyuz rockets. NASA managers have assumed all along the station program would be extended and Ares 1/Orion would be used to deliver crews and supplies.
NASA also plans to develop a huge new unmanned heavy lift rocket called the Ares 5 that eventually will boost Orion capsules and Altair lunar landers to the moon for long-duration exploration. The Orion capsule, Ares rockets and lunar landers are the central pieces in NASA's Constellation program.
But during a final public hearing Wednesday in Washington, the Augustine panel provided a sobering look at NASA's projected budget and the requirements of various manned space flight scenarios.
Considering the Constellation program as the "program of record," panel member and former astronaut Sally Ride said NASA would need an additional $50 billion or so through 2020 to implement the program as currently planned. This scenario is known as the "unconstrained budget" case.
It assumes the shuttle is retired on schedule and that the space station is deorbited in early 2016, an option no one on the panel seems to favor. In that scenario, the new Orion/Ares 1 system would have no destination until the Ares 5 heavy lifter debuted and moon flights began after 2021.
"In the unconstrained budget, Orion and Ares 1 arrive shortly after ISS is deorbited," Ride said. "And then you get human lunar return in 2021."
Assuming NASA is forced to live within the 2010 budget guidelines provided by the Obama administration, the Ares 5 heavy lift moon rocket would not be ready until the 2028 timeframe.… Read more | <urn:uuid:baf1ae56-897d-4aff-9c2f-b68f2dd466a4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://reviews.cnet.com/8300-5_7-0-1.html?keyword=constellation | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943812 | 672 | 2.84375 | 3 |
Do you want to engage in a conference with the latest insights on impact evaluation? Are you a policy maker, evaluator, M&E professional, manager with M&E or RBM responsibilities or researcher facing challenges in impact evaluation? Then this conference may be for you!
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Subject: Much is at stake
Impact Evaluation (IE) has been at the centre of attention within the evaluation field for several years. IE addresses the fundamental question: what works for whom, and under what conditions? Governments, civil society organisations and companies want to know if their money has contributed to positive changes in peoples’ lives, and if so: how and why. They want clear answers to shape and improve on future policies. Those implementing publicly funded initiatives want to understand if their efforts have rendered envisaged effects, and if not, what can be done differently. Companies, increasingly taking social and supply chain responsibilities, want to ensure and communicate how their business benefits planet and people. Governments and the tax payers that vote them in look to development with critical eyes – is it ‘value for money’? Researchers, intrigued by the quest for evidence, are innovating with new IE approaches. Jointly, these actors add to the body of knowledge about ‘what works’ and what doesn’t. Many stakeholders with much at stake.
Challenge: what influences
evaluation design, communication and utilization
Evaluation is not – and never has been – neutral. So too within the specific area of IE, different perspectives and interests vie for central stage and power relations shape what transpires. Who defines what is IE? Who defines what is to be evaluated? Who sets methodological boundaries? Who interprets data and uses results? Different values and different paradigms influence the evaluation process, findings and use. What are the issues that need attention as we balance power, rigour, robustness and utility of IE?
During the 2-day conference the following questions will be explored:
- How is utilization of IE findings influenced by IE design and communication?
Sub questions include:
* What influences IE design?
* What influences communication of IE findings?
- What can be done in design and communication to enhance utilization of IE findings? | <urn:uuid:dbcfc96a-d67b-42d8-9e87-a1eeb5f6cc90> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wageningenur.nl/en/show/CDIconference_impact_evaluation2013.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934763 | 478 | 1.640625 | 2 |
A Sweeper-Up After Artists
A Memoir by Irving Sandler
- ISBN 9780500238134
- 23.50 x 15.90 cm
- Quarter bound with jacket
- 34 Illustrations, 0 in colour
- First published 2004
‘His close-quarter observations of the artists that surrounded him and were his friends cannot be beaten and will be required reading for years to come’ – Art Monthly
‘Vivid and entertaining’ – ARTnews
‘Vivid testimony to life in what now seems an artistic golden age’ – The Sunday Telegraph
‘An absorbing memoir, as rich in perceptive criticism as in anecdote’ – The Scotsman
Irving Sandler has been a friend or acquaintance of virtually every important American artist of the postwar period, and his art criticism and books constitute the first and most comprehensive critical and historical account of this extraordinary time. There is no one else whose personal chronicle is also the living memory of the New York art world, from abstract expressionism to the present day.
Beginning in 1952, his memoir captures the anguished intensity of the period, with World War II an immediate memory and the imminence of nuclear disaster an everyday presence.
Here are striking encounters with Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Ad Reinhardt, Barnett Newman and David Smith. He was also a witness to the heated critical warfare between Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg. We watch the first generation of abstract expressionists succeeded by the artists of the 1960s – Stella, Rauschenberg and Johns – to be followed by pop and minimalism.
At every turn, there was Irving Sandler, intimately conversant with the art and artists.
In this vivid memoir, critical judgments and personal experience are uniquely intertwined. Readers will be captivated by the intelligence, the unassuming confidence and the sheer personableness that have kept Sandler at the centre of the art world for over half a century.
Irving Sandler’s four-volume history of postwar American art includes The Triumph of American Painting, The New York School, American Art of the 1960s and Art of the Postmodern Era. He is currently the Chairman of the Artists’ Advisory Committee of the Sharpe Foundation. | <urn:uuid:c87908af-8d31-413e-8c6b-cf4bd60b0550> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thamesandhudson.com/9780500238134.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932325 | 465 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Ambient sounds such as the sounds of Mother Nature are now regarded as effective healing tools that can relax and calm us enabling us to rest and refresh our minds. These tools have been used by clients suffering from depression, anxiety and insomnia and have been found to be effective.
There are seven natural sounds included:
- Running River
- Shore Birds
It is recommended that you listen to these ambient sounds using headphones to provide a more personal and intense effect. Find a comfortable place, where you will not be disturbed. Ensure that the temperature in the room is sufficient to keep you warm whilst listening as your body temperature may drop as you relax. Please drink a glass of water when you have finished.
When you begin to listen to these ambient sounds your mind may start to wander, thoughts about everyday things in your life may enter your mind but try to return your focus to the sounds in your head. After about 5 minutes you may have strong visual reactions or strange feelings of altered consciousness. Simply allow any images to come into your mind, go with the flow. Keep a journal and record your experiences after each session to reflext upon later.
Warning: Please do not use whilst driving or operating machinery. Because of the repetitive and hypnotic nature of these mp's, those who suffer from fits, seizures, epilepsy or are pregnant should avoid using them. | <urn:uuid:c46bf873-7852-4e12-b7e1-2f1130ec5fd9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.worldwidehealth.com/product_view.php?id=1203&categoryID=126 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943103 | 273 | 2.1875 | 2 |
Is there any other design or architectural practice as charming as Heatherwick Studio? Can we imagine anyone else going to such extremes of inventiveness to realise their projects? The word “innovation” has been used to the point that it has become hackneyed, but rarely would its use be so justified as describing, for example, a project that required the invention of a machine with a spike covered roller used on sheets of foil, in order to exert a precise amount of crinkling, allowing it to become an insulation material for the exterior of a building. Or in another case by solving the problem of how to retract a bridge, not by swinging it or lifting it, but by rolling it up like a millipede. This bridge is made up of eight triangular segments so that when it is fully contracted it makes a perfect octagon, combining functionality, a reference to nature, and pure geometry all at once, none of which are perhaps as important as the aspect of wonder and strangeness that this helpful animated object conveys.
The Rolling Bridge in Paddington Basin is one of the studio’s better known projects, along with the Seed Cathedral (the UK pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai Expo), East Beach Café in Littlehampton, the B of the Bang sculpture, and most recently the new Routemaster bus. Apart from revisiting these “greatest hits”, the main requirements of this exhibition must be to bring other lesser known projects of the studio to light, and to reveal something of their thinking and process. These requirements are satisfied through an array of means: segments of objects such as actual parts of buildings, and the bus, are displayed along with models, sketches, prototypes, finished pieces of furniture and large scale photographs. These objects are stacked on densely clustered plinths, allowing many to be seen at the same time from any position in the room, which upon entering provides the view of a great abundance of forms, giving the exhibition the enjoyably visual aspect of a good sculpture show. The various exhibits are supported by video clips and by recordings of Thomas Heatherwick, the studio’s founder, talking about the processes of developing the projects.
Thomas Heatherwick’s character is evident throughout the projects, and listening to him explain how they come is a good addition to the show as his excitement about the work is infectious. Something that surely drives his colleagues, who may need the motivation when working on projects as demanding as Bleigiessen, a scultpural installation at the Wellcome Trust which required a team to work in shifts for weeks to hand attach the 142,000 glass spheres to the wires that suspend them, filling an eight storey high atrium. Or for those who worked for six months to construct Autumn Intrusion as a window display for Harvey Nichols. But both of these projects must have been rewarding to be involved in, as the results would be so satisfying (and acclaimed). Autumn Intrusion far exceeded the usual remit of a window displaying by weaving in and out of the building along its whole façade. Bliegiessen is a beautiful cascading form whose shape was found by plunging molten metal into water.
The behaviour of materials under different conditions provides the forms for several of the projects, this is sometimes to purely to produce a shape as in Bleigiessen, and on a larger scale with a Buddhist Temple in Kagoshima, Japan. Here the idea came from looking at the folds in a monks robes, but the studio experimented with different materials to produce a form for the building, eventually choosing rubber to ripple, hang and sag into shape.
To my mind the projects get more interesting when it is the properties of the materials that are at play in the buildings and object. The strength of glass under compression is the source of another bridge project, proposed for King’s Cross. Here over a thousand sheets of glass will be clamped together under tremendous pressure to create a bridge that has no support other than the friction between them. This instance of using glass is a telling one, as it is one of the few appearances of the material in this exhibition, despite being the most ubiquitous material in contemporary architecture. If Heatherwick Studio use a common place material, it is used in an extraordinary way. For example the bench made by forcing aluminium through a die (cut out shape), which creates a functional piece of furniture at one end that tapers towards a crumpled twisted sculpture-like shape at the other.
A ready-made product, a roll of zip, is the source for one of the most pleasing products the studio have produced, Zip Bag. A great demonstration of their lateral thinking, a bag is made of one long continuous zip that spirals around up it’s whole height, when unzipped it doubles the size of the bag, and, as if this wasn’t enough, makes it stripy. The Zip Bag has the lightness of touch that really gives these projects their charm, none of them are embellished by needless decoration – or any other form of complication – when decisions are made to affect the buildings and objects aesthetic qualities, the modifications the studio have made are always meaningful, revealing either a quality of a material (such as the woven steel of Boiler Suit, a facade wrapping around a boiler house which both cools it and helps it contribute to a legible environment), a geometric play (such as the winding triangles of Vents in Paternoster Square, their shapes created by folding an A4 sheet of paper) or (more rarely) making reference to some aspect of the site, such as Worthing Swimming Pool. This building is made from stacks of planks, ordered toward the rear, becoming chaotic towards the front of the building. A direct reference to the event of a “wood slick” washing up on Worthing Beach in 2008 after the Ice Prince was wrecked and lost her cargo.
I have not yet mentioned one of the most charming aspects of the exhibition, the inclusion of the studio’s Christmas cards. Here the ingenuity and craft of the studio is distilled into something small, cheaply produced, and ephemeral. Perhaps with the restrictions of the format the studio becomes its most resourceful, setting itself challenges such as making a card with the minimum elements (just the postage and offical stamp), and using all its wits, such as a card that makes an illustration of a christmas tree using just 1p and 2p stamps up to the necessary value to post it, and another which uses 24 tiny envelopes and cards as one, creating a Christmas card as an advent calendar. To achieve some of these the studio went to the lengths of making friends with the staff of the Kings Cross Post Office sorting room and hand stamping centre, so that stamps could be captured floating in a block of resin or made into a ring of stamps that were cut out after stamping, amongst other technical feats. This willingness to collaborate and to be involved with all stages of production, even after a project would normally have left their control is a crucial element of their design approach, without which most of the Heatherwick Studio projects would not have been conceivable, never mind possible.
Bringing together all of these projects in one place makes it clear that Heatherwick Studio have achieved something remarkable: they have created a coherent and recognisable body of work, covering a variety of scales and applications, that is able to be spectacular, sensitive, unique, and useful, without using any kind of repetition or following any kind of architectural style, other than perhaps a kind of modernism based on the maxims of form, function, and truth to materials, but by far exceeding the conventional application of these established norms.
Heatherwick Studio: Designing The Extraordinary, 31/05/2012 until 30/09/2012, the V&A, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 2RL. www.vam.ac.uk
1. UK Pavilion Seed Cathedral, Shanghai Expo China (2010) © Iwan Baan
2. New Bus for London (2011) © Heatherwick Studio
3. Teeside Power Station, Stockton-on-Tees, Teeside (2011) Heatherwick Studio © Iwan Baan
4. Installation image from Heatherwick Studio: Designing the Extraordinary © V&A Images
5. Rolling Bridge, Paddington Basin London (2004) © Steve Speller
Text: Paul Hardman | <urn:uuid:0e52d557-0674-4698-bebf-9e343a99fb9d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aestheticamagazine.com/blog/heatherwick-studio-designing-the-extraordinary/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957096 | 1,726 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Q: Working at Albany Medical Center, I drive through the intersection on Myrtle Avenue going across New Scotland every day.
Most times, the traffic light goes through a normal cycle. Sometimes, in the morning and afternoon rush hour, the traffic on Myrtle gets backed up to maybe a dozen cars or so. However, every so often the red cycle facing Myrtle can extend far longer than anyone expects.
One recent week, as I approached the intersection at about 6 p.m., the light stayed red for longer than 5 minutes. The line of traffic looked to extend back to Robin Street. Lights were flashing and horns honking. Finally, the driver ahead of me got out of her car and approached the lead car and strongly suggested that the light was "broken" and that he should drive on. Just then, an ambulance glided in to the emergency entrance at the hospital, although with no lights and no siren. As soon as the ambulance got fully into the AMC driveway, the light turned green.
Is it possible that AMC's Emergency Room has an "ambulance hold" on that traffic light, to allow inbound ambulances priority access to the emergency entrance? If so, I think that there should be some signage to that effect, so impatient drivers do not try to drive against a longer-than-usual red cycle and get in the way of an inbound ambulance.
— Chris Jensen, Colonie
A: There are some vehicles that can change a traffic signal in Albany, but ambulances are not among them.
"Both our security departments and our department of emergency medicine assure me that we have no such authority to hold the light," said Sue Ford, a spokeswoman for Albany Med.
Neither can drivers in the ambulances, said Steve Smith, a spokesman for the city.
Fire trucks, however, do have the ability to cause some traffic lights to stay red while they rush to a burning building, said Albany Deputy Fire Chief Warren Abriel.
Called the Opticon system, it works only at a limited number of traffic signals that have been upgraded, including on Pearl Street and Hackett Boulevard. He was uncertain if the Myrtle and New Scotland intersection had the updated traffic signal.
Fire trucks cannot halt the red light if they are just driving through it, he added.
"It's tied in with your emergency lights. Your emergency lights have to be running," Abriel said.
Some CDTA buses are also now equipped with technology that also enables them to get a green light to keep the buses moving. So your question is certainly a reasonable one. There are places in the country where such technology is used by ambulances, but I am told by Mohawk Ambulance Service that its vehicles cannot do it anywhere in the Capital Region.
All that said, we do not have a clear answer on why the light malfunctioned as you described.
We do know it can be a challenge driving past Albany Med sometimes, but drivers of course should not be surprised to find their trips delayed by the arrival of an ambulance there. And Smith took the opportunity to remind drivers that when they see or hear an ambulance or other emergency vehicle coming with its siren or lights on, they should not simply stop in the road or, worse, veer to the left.
"Always pull to the right," he said.
"Getting There" is compiled by staff writer Tim O'Brien. Do you have a question about transportation? Call 454-5020 or e-mail email@example.com. Please include your name, town and telephone number.
What to watch for this week:
Western Gateway Bridge, Scotia to Schenectady: One lane will be closed in each direction on the Western Gateway Bridge carrying Route 5 over the Mohawk River between Scotia and Schenectady. One lane in each direction will remain open. The lane closures will accommodate bridge repairs and will remain in place through next year.
Ferry Street, Troy: The street is reduced to one lane between Walter F. Uccellini Avenue and Eighth Street. | <urn:uuid:69171b99-9d01-45be-b1af-07be4c6eec31> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Getting-There-Can-ambulances-make-signals-near-4304686.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965224 | 835 | 1.9375 | 2 |
A little bit about a lot of things...
- There's more than one way to preserve a family history. Take Ardis Parshall, for instance. She started "a needle-and-thread doodle" one day and 12 years later she had an impressive piece of stitchery that included names from her pedigree charts and pictures representing family stories. It's impressive. Take a look.
- Ancestry.com will soon begin the first fully-integrated external marketing campaign in its history. Look for interest in family history to grow even more when the Ancestry spots hit cable TV, nationally syndicated radio and a variety of publications in the Time, inc., family. The campaign is scheduled to run throughout 2007.
- The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has provided some 10.2 million genealogical records, including Irish Famine passenger and ship records and World War II Army Enlistment Records, to WorldVitalRecords.com. The records are free to access until April 6.
- A grant for March from Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak at Roots Television goes to The Wachusett Writers and Poets Club in Westminster, Mass. This lively group of seniors self-publishes a collection of their short stories, poems and other writings once a year.
- He said it: "The life of an ordinary man, if accurately captured, would be the best and most complex piece of literature ever captured.” – Russian writer Leo Tolstoy | <urn:uuid:05c77df6-a9a5-495a-baa7-07a7bbe1bc5b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://whenwordsmatter.typepad.com/passing_it_on/2007/03/needling_grandm.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948771 | 309 | 1.828125 | 2 |
14/03/2011: Why not look out for some low cost tyres?
Low cost tyres are likely to be in demand for a good while now so if you want some then it’s a great time to start looking. The recent news that new car registrations across Europe fell 5% during 2010 is only going to drive up demand even further. Indeed low cost tyres are likely to be on the shopping list of a good many of those motorists who have decided to keep their existing car for longer rather than buying a new one. So is this the end of the road for low cost tyres you might well ask?
The truth is that low cost tyres are not likely to become an endangered species just yet. World tyre production is booming whilst falling new vehicle sales may lead to stockpiling. In this situation, it’s likely that low cost tyres may be offered by online and traditional retailers as discounted new stock in order to get sales moving. These can be a real bargain because discounted better quality tyres can last longer and wear better than cheap low cost tyres so you may save over the life of the tyre.
At the same time, prices of low cost tyres may be affected by the increasing cost of natural rubber which has been increasing for some time now and has already risen by 50% in the last six months alone. Natural rubber is used in low cost tyres just as in more expensive brands so costs will increase. Part of the problem is because poor weather conditions have affected the yield from natural rubber plantations whilst demand has increased in the Indian and Chinese economies.
One of the questions it’s worth asking is what do people really mean when they talk about low cost tyres? After all, for some people low cost tyres will mean the least amount they can possibly pay whilst for others it can mean paying less than they might have done before in order to save money. Others too might consider that low cost tyres are actually the tyres that cost them least in the long run so they may be looking out for the least wear and highest mileage to save in the longer term.
So remember that low cost tyres don’t have to be the cheapest you can buy but should certainly be the best value for money. A good tip is to go online and look for your low cost tyres on the website of a leading retailer like Tyre Shopper (www.tyre-shopper.co.uk). Most retailers rank their products in groups like ‘bargain buy’ or ‘best value’ and you should be able to find something in your price range. Some low cost tyres are actually budget brands made by leading manufacturers. | <urn:uuid:76a582b9-fd1e-4287-b7d2-efe7f40911d1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tyre-shopper.co.uk/blogs/14032011-why-not-look-out-for-some-low-cost-tyres | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969125 | 536 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Standard and Itemized Deductions
When it comes to deductions, you have two choices. You can take the standard deduction, which is a fixed dollar amount that you deduct from your taxable income, or you can itemize deductions. For 2007 the standard deduction is $5,350 if you're filing single, $10,700 for married filing jointly, $5,350 for married filing separately, and $7,850 for head of household.
If your actual allowable deductions total more than the standard deduction, you'll save money by itemizing. To see if you qualify, use a copy of Schedule A from Form 1040 to list the amounts of each of the deductions that apply to you, such as home mortgage interest, real-estate taxes, state income taxes, and personal-property taxes. If the total is more than the standard deduction, itemize.
So many deductions have disappeared over the years that if you have no mortgage interest or very low mortgage interest, you probably won't be able to itemize unless you have extremely large medical expenses or charitable contributions. | <urn:uuid:9de660ea-d1f7-4d86-ba08-60e9dc0b2644> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.netplaces.com/money-for-20s-30s/minimizing-income-taxes/standard-and-itemized-deductions.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960078 | 218 | 1.726563 | 2 |
For a few brief moments last week, people power came to Africa. In the days before the upsurge of popular protest, a ham-fisted military man had rigged an election to ensure himself victory in the West African nation of Ivory Coast. Later came bloody clashes between supporters of rival politicians and a growing sense that Ivory Coast, once a symbol of peace and stability, could slip into anarchy. But during the hours in between something astonishing occurred: ordinary people forced an unpopular ruler from power. Crowds sang the national anthem. Soldiers and policemen hugged marchers. People rushed to reclaim their normal lives. On Boulevard de la Republique in Abidjan, a man in a green and white nylon tracksuit picked his way around piles of broken glass and burning trash. "We're trying to hold onto hope," said Abdul Akeem, 21, as he celebrated with friends in the city.
Successful popular uprisings are rare in Africa. Protests are usually crushed by force or manipulated into irrelevance at the ballot box. Ordinary Africans shrug and get on with their lives. But this time, inspired by the popular uprising that felled Serb strongman Slobodan Milosevic, Africans took a stand Ś and won. The man they wanted rid of was General Robert Gue´, 59, a former military chief who seized power on Christmas Eve last year. The coup, the first since the country's independence from France in 1960, was initially popular; many Ivorians had grown unhappy with ousted President Henri Konan Bedie's authoritarian and ethnically divisive rule. But the general proved to be as corrupt and incompetent as his predecessor. Soldiers mutinied twice and the economy went into a tailspin. When Gue´ announced he would run in fresh elections, Ivorians feared they would be denied the very thing the Christmas coup had promised: a chance to have their say at the ballot box.
The election was a farce. The Supreme Court declared 14 of the 19 presidential hopefuls ineligible, leading as many as two-thirds of voters to boycott the poll. Early returns gave veteran opposition leader Laurent Gbagbo 51% to Gue´'s 40%. But then the electoral commission stopped counting. Ivorians glued to state television awaiting official results got a hospital soap opera instead. Two days after the vote, the Interior Ministry announced that because of irregularities with ballot papers the electoral commission had been dissolved. The winner: General Robert Gue´. "Today's success belongs to you," he told Ivorians. "It is your victory over the cruel maneuvers of Ivory Coast's enemies."
Protesters saw a different enemy. They took to the streets in Abidjan demanding that Gue´, who in chants and placard slogans they likened to Milosevic, step down. The international community condemned the electoral process. Gue´ ordered the army to break up the protests and for a few hours the two sides fought running battles. Six protesters were killed. But then the momentum changed. Gue´'s presidential guard remained loyal but rank-and-file soldiers waved on thousands of demonstrators as they surged toward the radio and television stations and the presidential palace. Many simply laid down their arms. "They told me they were tired of firing at the people," said a guard in one city building in which four troops took refuge.
With support slipping away, Gue´ fled with his family, reportedly to nearby Benin. Gbagbo ordered a recount and declared himself the new President. "Ivory Coast could not accept this electoral coup d'etat," he said on state television. "You came out in hundreds of thousands into the streets to ensure that right will prevail over might." Unlike in Serbia, however, the euphoria did not last. Within hours, supporters of Alassane Ouattara, a popular former Prime Minister and one of the 14 candidates the Supreme Court barred from running, took to the streets to demand new elections in which all aspirants could participate. The streets again rang to the sound of gunfire. Gbagbo loyalists attacked Ouattara's plush lagoon-front home, forcing him to take refuge in the German Embassy.
Gbagbo, 55, says new elections are unnecessary because he will form a government of national unity. But unity will be hard to achieve. "Yesterday, the people marched. We marched in the face of guns. They killed two of my friends," says Kouana Zonti Edmond, 25. "And at this moment, when we want reconciliation, Alassane [Ouattara] calls on his people to come out and march again." Ivorians proved they can stand up to a bully; now they have to learn to live together in peace again. | <urn:uuid:8b5ae35f-2e7f-4079-b159-8a2c1133e575> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2056284,00.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975266 | 968 | 2.078125 | 2 |
Teenagers' Latest Bad Idea: Drinking Hand Sanitizer
Teenagers can be pretty creative in their pursuit of a cheap buzz. Last month we reported on the "cinnamon challenge," which involves snarfing down a spoonful of the powdered spice.
Now we've got teens quaffing hand sanitizer, and ending up sick in the ER.
A spike in the number of teenagers who became ill after drinking hand sanitizer in Los Angeles County — 16 cases in March and April, according to the California Poison Control System. Now there's a flurry of reports from other parts of the country, too.
Hand sanitizer kills germs because it's made with ethyl alcohol. That's the same stuff that gives a glass of wine its pleasant buzz. I've never imbibed hand sanitizer, but my guess is that it lacks the complex bouquet of a good cabernet. Indeed, I'd guess that it tastes nasty.
But don't take my word for it. Check out the reaction of comedian Jimmy Kimmel, who did hand sanitizer shots with actor John Cusack on Kimmel's show last night. "I feel cleaner inside," Kimmel said in the video (below). "And I also feel like I'm going to die."
Teenagers apparently agree, and some have been using salt in an attempt to separate the gel from the alcohol.
Hand sanitizers are typically about 60 percent alcohol, according to Cyrus Rangan, an assistant medical director for California Poison Control. That's 120 proof, on a par with some really strong vodkas. His organization has tracked about 2,600 cases of hand sanitizer ingestion since 2010, most of them in small children who ate it by mistake.
The spike in hand sanitizer poisonings among teenagers is "unusual," Rangan says, which led him to turn to Children's Hospital of Los Angeles to help publicize the issue. No one has died from ingesting hand sanitizer, he says, but ethyl alcohol is toxic.
"Parents should regard hand sanitizer as you would a medication," Rangan says, and keep it tucked away. Inconvenient, to be sure, but "it does give you some measure of control." The other option, he told Shots, is to go for less appealing foam hand sanitizers.
Those of us who weren't born yesterday may recall teenagers' attempts to get a buzz by drinking mouthwash, or Robitussin cough syrup, or even vanilla extract.
Mouthwash now has much less alcohol in it as a result, Rangan says. And many retailers have moved cough syrups with dextromethorphan, the ingredient that provides a bit of a buzz, behind the counter.
Will Purell be the next victim of teenagers' pursuit of mind-altering chemicals, no matter how dopey the form? | <urn:uuid:000816b2-c14f-48d7-8a3d-f33447180064> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wbur.org/npr/151372857/teenagers-latest-bad-idea-drinking-hand-sanitizer | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967945 | 598 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Deaths from asbestos-related diseases will surge in Asia over the next 20 years, a recent study has warned.
Asia now accounts for 64 percent of the world’s asbestos use, according to the study in Respirology, the journal of the Asian Pacific Society of Respirology, but for only about 13 percent of the asbestos-related deaths in World Health Organization mortality data.
It takes 30 to 50 years after exposure to develop asbestosis, mesothelioma or a related lung cancer.
Asbestos is a mineral used as fireproofing in construction, and sometimes in cars and ships. In the United States and Europe, most uses have been banned, and workers must wear respirators to keep from inhaling fibers 1,000 times finer than a human hair.
In Asia, asbestos has many uses, from roofing to cement to power plants. Companies in India that make cheap roofing sheets like those pictured above employ 100,000 people, many in badly ventilated factories, according to a recent article in the Indian business press. They import asbestos from Russia and Canada.
India, China and some other large Asian countries do not record asbestos data, so their official death counts are probably artificially low, the study said.
Several countries, including Japan and South Korea, banned the mineral after they saw deaths climb.
Dr Ken Takahashi, the lead author and director of a W.H.O. occupational health group, warned that Asian governments must brace themselves for an “asbestos tsunami.”-By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr. | <urn:uuid:27081a96-1b57-463b-9c61-57449b8b4984> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.intellasia.net/asias-heavy-use-of-asbestos-is-expected-to-cause-rise-in-deaths-in-coming-decades-160890 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936156 | 325 | 2.96875 | 3 |
Over fifty percent of the world’s sorghum production area is located in sub-Saharan Africa.
Sorghum originated in northern Africa and has spread to many tropical and subtropical regions of the world. It can tolerate poor soils and thanks to some unique features of its anatomy, resist drought. Sorghum plants have a very large root-to-leaf surface area. The leaves have a waxy cuticle for protection and under water stress the leaf margins roll up to reduce transpiration. Plants will go into dormancy if the stress is too great. This makes sorghum a very important crop for millions of poor farmers around the world. Sorghum is the 5th most widely grown crop in the world. The largest area of sorghum production is in India, followed by Nigeria, Sudan and Niger. Fifty three percent of the world’s production area is located in sub-Saharan Africa. In sub-Saharan Africa sorghum covers the 2nd largest area after maize. Behind the USA, Nigeria is the 2nd largest producer; Sudan and Ethiopia are 5th and 8th, respectively. In Western and Central Africa the area devoted to sorghum has more than doubled since the 1970s, but yields have not grown at the same rate. In the same period, the production area in Eastern and Southern Africa expanded by about 40%, although yields have also not followed at the same rate in these regions.
Reference to numbers/statistics are from FAOSTAT 2010 for the year 2008 | <urn:uuid:1a83022d-23cc-4db1-9eb9-3f5d13bc6bd2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://harvestchoice.org/commodities/sorghum | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952014 | 310 | 3.828125 | 4 |
The structures that are today called Fort Mason Center San Francisco were once a military port, complete with warehouses and piers. Fort Mason Center San Francisco was at one time a harbor defense post, and has been used by the Army for warehouse purposes. Today, a part of the Fort Mason Center San Francisco is for rent to be used as a venue for certain organizations, events and programs. Many of these events are steeped in San Francisco history and culture. There is an Exploratorium, theater events, art exhibits, and more happening every day. A bit of research will unearth the discount hotels around Fort Mason Center in San Francisco.
The Fort Mason Center San Francisco hosts upward of 15,000 different events every single year. The Center is also a headquarters for the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. Antique shows, ski and snowboard festivals, classical dance companies, and many other types of events are almost constantly going on here. You can find cheap hotels around Fort Mason Center San Francisco without hassle on EasyToBook.com that are well appointed and conveniently located.
Please provide this reference number to our customer service center representative on request, so we can help you better | <urn:uuid:06eece4f-b9da-4aa7-ac2e-003e07df8b71> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.easytobook.com/en/united-states-of-america/california/san-francisco/conference-centers-event-centers/fort-mason-center-hotels/?amu=280822288¤cy=CAD | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948578 | 244 | 1.53125 | 2 |
"Pump and Dump" is a type of micro-cap stock fraud involving the use of false or misleading statements to increase stock prices and then sell the inflated stocks to the public. Micro-cap stock refers to companies with low capitalizations and typically limited assets. Many microcap stocks trade on the over-the-counter market. Microcap stocks often lack reliable, publicly available information about the company and have a limited historical record. The most common "pump and dump" scheme involves artificially inflating the price of a stock through false and misleading positive statements in order to sell the cheaply purchased stock at a higher price. Promoters may claim to have "inside" information, but in reality they may be paid by companies or may stand to gain a profit when they sell their grossly overvalued stocks. Promotion methods may include unsolicited e-mails, faxes, phone calls, or voice mail messages. Once promoters "dump" their stocks, prices eventually fall and investors lose their money.
For more information, see: | <urn:uuid:e8298a34-e35b-4723-b609-8102c3ac2831> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/investor_protection_guide_micro-cap_stock_fraud_pump_and_dump?quicktabs_3=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941519 | 207 | 1.578125 | 2 |
History: Self-perception theory Edit History Back to page | View logs for this page Browse history From year (and earlier): From month (and earlier): all January February March April May June July August September October November December Deleted only For any version listed below, click on its date to view it. For more help, see Help:Page history. (cur) = difference from current version, (prev) = difference from preceding version, m = minor edit, → = section edit, ← = automatic edit summary (cur | prev) 16:15, January 1, 2008 Dr Joe Kiff (Talk | contribs) . . (2,875 bytes) (+15) . . (cat) (undo) (cur | prev) 22:59, November 13, 2006 Lifeartist (Talk | contribs) . . (2,860 bytes) (+96) . . (undo) (cur | prev) 17:19, February 23, 2006 Lifeartist (Talk | contribs) . . (2,764 bytes) (+2,764) . . Retrieved from "http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/Self-perception_theory" | <urn:uuid:75b55dfb-b580-42c4-8e9c-f6eafe0e632e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/Self-perception_theory?action=history | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973916 | 249 | 1.851563 | 2 |
Frustrated? You're Probably Smiling Anyway
Scientists are figuring out the neural processes involved in our rose-colored views of the future in the face of reality.
CREDIT: Dmitriy Shironosov | shutterstock
Most people smile when frustrated, even if they don't notice it, suggests a new study that also found computers can do a better job than humans of telling a real smile from a frustrated one.
When people guess at how genuine a smile is, or what emotion it's portraying, we don't know exactly what cues we're responding to. The new study found that timing has a lot to do with how people interpret expressions, said study researcher Ehsan Hoque, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). How quickly someone smiles can tell us what they actually mean by it, Hoque said.
For example, former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was widely seen as having a phony-looking smile, largely because of the unnatural timing of his grin. Similarly, a campaign commercial for former presidential candidate Herman Cain featured a smile that developed so slowly — it took nine seconds to appear — that it was widely parodied, including a spoof by comedian Stephen Colbert, Hoque noted.
"Getting the timing right is very crucial if you want to be perceived as sincere and genuine with your smiles," Hoque said in a statement.
Participants were asked to act out, or fake, expressions of delight and frustration. Webcams recorded these performed expressions and compared them with each other and with spontaneous expressions of real joy and frustration, looking for ways to distinguish between the different emotional states.
When asked to fake frustration 90 percent of subjects didn't smile. But when presented with a task that caused genuine frustration — filling out a detailed online form, only to then find the information deleted after pressing the "submit" button — 90 percent of them smiled.
Still images showed little difference between these frustrated smiles and the delighted smiles elicited by a video of a cute baby, but video analysis showed that the progression of the two kinds of smiles was quite different: Often, the happy smiles built up gradually, while frustrated smiles appeared quickly but faded fast.
Participants were then asked to interpret images of people's responses; when the images were real, they were right only about 50 percent of the time, but when they looked at images of people faking happiness and frustration, they were able to tell the two apart easily, since people didn't smile when they pretended to be frustrated. When a computer was programmed with information on the timing of the two types of smiles (real joy and real frustration), it was able to tell the difference with 90 percent accuracy.
The analysis could also be useful in creating computers that respond in ways appropriate to the moods of their users. One goal of the research is to "make a computer that's more intelligent and respectful," Hoque said.
Understanding the subtleties that reveal underlying emotions is another major goal of this research. "People with autism are taught that a smile means someone is happy," Hoque said, but research shows that it's not that simple. Understanding the differences between different smiles could be helpful when training autistic kids to recognize smiles.
In addition to providing training for people who have difficulty with expressions, the findings may be of interest to marketers, Hoque said: "Just because a customer is smiling, that doesn't necessarily mean they're satisfied."
The results were published April 11 in the journal IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing.
MORE FROM LiveScience.com | <urn:uuid:47ca6597-6197-45cf-a7c6-5bce7487808c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.livescience.com/20568-frustrated-smile-real-fake.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976773 | 719 | 3.09375 | 3 |
It is no surprise that robot movies have a special place in the science fiction movieverse and, if I may add, in our hearts.
They show us how cold and very dead parts made of various materials, with a seasoning of wires, chips and circuits, come alive if we add a dash of programming, a sprinkling of power cells and a touch of personality.
To tell a story these movies show us a variety of robot types. You can find everything here from handsome two-legged boxes and cylinders with funny no-elbow-no-knee walk and machine-voice speech to exciting gynoids and androids.
Just as much as we are interested in hardware, we are also curious to see what they can do with their software. It is fun to watch how fast, strong, emotionless machines loaded with data snap to attention, ready to serve, protect or kill (hopefully, our enemies).
After all, as a friend of mine says, robots are like pancakes. They can be everything we want them to be, we just have to stuff them with the right filling, I mean, programming.
But robot films do not only tell stories about robots, they also tackle a variety of delicate and serious issues like the dangers of technology, our attitude towards "artificial persons", and the most important question of all, "What does it mean to be human?"
To quote robotics engineer Daniel H. Wilson, author of the book How To Survive a Robot Uprising:
"The basic reason we humans both fear and revere robots is that they can do what we do, and sometimes do it better. Robots remind us of ourselves, and that can be truly terrifying."
Robot movies deal with our fear of being controlled, replaced or enslaved by our own creation.
"Entertaining and informative - a great site for fans of both old and new science fiction movies."
"If you love SF movies, you've come to the right place. A fantastic resource for any fan of the genre."
They can easily make us cry or laugh showing how robots, in effort to become more human, struggle to understand our emotions or the finer points of language.
These movies also bring up the issue of discrimination and show how we reject and abandon our artificial creatures when they become more than machines by depriving them of the basic rights.
Robot movies allow us to look at the world from another perspective, to learn and explore more. This makes them a precious destination in our science fiction movie quest.
They show us enough to fall in love with robots.
And, of course, we do.
Gunslinger from the movie Westworld
Hector from the movie Saturn 3
Johnny 5 from the movie Short Circuit and Short Circuit 2
Robby the Robot from the movie Forbidden Planet
Robotic spider from the movie Runaway
Sid 6.7 from the movie Virtuosity
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The following came form a brainstorm with UBEW members at the request of locals planning an environmental defense campaign. It discusses only secure(r) communications, but does not talk about the larger ramifications of creating a security culture.
SEVEN PRACTICAL SECURITY, TRUST, AND PRIVACY SUGGESTIONS FOR YOUR CAMPAIGN
- Trust! Action planning should happen IN PERSON with people who are trusted or vouched for.
- Privacy! People should NEVER share other people's emails, names, phone numbers, and personal info without their consent.
- Separate! Use a SEPARATE organizer email list from an announcement email list.
- Outreach! Add people to the organizer list only AFTER you have physically met them and if they have been vouched for.
- Secure! Assume email is insecure. Action planning should NEVER be discussed on the internet.
- Communicate! Use the organizer list to announce MEETINGS, but never to discuss strategy or details of actions.
- Announce! Public info (open actions, etc) should be ANNOUNCED as widely as necessary at the strategically appropriate time.
- If at a planning meeting, someone isn't present to vouch for someone, ask them to leave. Also trust your intuition.
- If organizing actions, use an email that is unconnected to the rest of your life.
- Social networking may be fine to announce public info, but is otherwise terrible security-wise, since you have no control over how it is distributed. Social networking sites often provide ways for the authorities to easily gather information.
- Be aware of your email chains. Have an understanding about what can be forwarded or copied.
- Text message are more easily searchable for the authorities (legally and technically) than just about any medium. Be aware.
- If you use email of SMS, don't talk in code. Authorities have argued in court that coded words or deliberately obscured references were allusions to even worse things.
- Public members, such as spokespeople, should not participate in actions (and possibly planning), because they will be targeted. The less they know, the safer everyone is.
- If open-organizing low-risk actions, some of the above guidelines can be loosened, but be cautious.
- Note that we didn't mention email encryption. While the technology is sound, it still hampers rather than facilitates communication, since implementing secure email is still technically challenging for non-tech people. | <urn:uuid:d7ba6ad9-ac1f-49be-b243-f0b7862c9c89> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/01/02/18729307.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929958 | 523 | 1.875 | 2 |
Politicized Economy:Listen to 28 Top Experts… and Learn How to Survive and Profit in a Market Bogged Down by Crippling Government Regulations, Billion-Dollar Bailouts, Excessive Money Printing and Cronyism
Dear Concerned Investor,
The process has been stealthy and gradual, but now the truth is obvious: The US government has taken over the American economy.
As a result, there's never been more uncertainty and fear in the markets than today… and with good reason.
Zero interest rates – a losing game for savers
By artificially keeping interest rates near zero, the Federal Reserve has de facto penalized every American saver and income investor. Whether your money is in a savings or money market account, Treasury bonds or CDs – adjusted for inflation, you'll likely end up with a negative real return.
And with the continued bleak state of the economy, the next round of quantitative easing is just around the corner… which will further raise inflation and render traditional safe-haven investments worthless, possibly for decades to come.
Obamacare: Snubbing taxpayers
and investors alike
President Obama's new healthcare bill will cost taxpayers more than $4 trillion by 2020, according to the latest estimates by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
National health spending will grow exponentially, increasing on average 5.8% per year. By 2020, the government will spend $4.54 trillion, or close to 20% of GDP, on health care. (Compare that to 2010 when all federal spending combined amounted to 23.8% of GDP.)
And that's not all. On top of putting your children and grandchildren on the hook for vast amounts of debt, Obamacare is also an open declaration of war against investors.
Hidden in the bill is a slew of new taxes and tax increases, including:
- A 3.8% surtax on investment income, coming into effect on January 1, 2013.
- Capital gains taxes will rise from 15% to 18.8%.
- With the Bush tax cuts set to expire, the top rate will be 23.8% on capital gains and 43.4% on dividends.
- The impact of these two will significantly raise income taxes in 2013 – high-income families could see a tax increase of 15% or more.
The unholy alliance – government and its cronies
We all know about the taxpayer-financed, billion-dollar bailouts for too-big-to-fail banks. But the recent LIBOR scandal, which some call the "crime of the century," shows that the relationship between the US government and its cronies may be even more tight-knit than anyone thought.
Whereas Barclays at first took the fall for manipulating the all-important LIBOR rate, it now turns out that not only many of the big banks were in on the scam – but that the New York Fed knew about it and apparently signed off on it.
And as you will hear from Peter Schweizer, one of our Summit speakers, the laws of the land apparently don't apply to congressmen, for whom insider trading is business as usual. Acting on foreknowledge of events like the Crash of 2008, many politicians lined their pockets while investors lost everything.
It sure pays to have friends in high places. Unfortunately, most of us aren't so lucky.
Individual investors find it increasingly difficult to slash a path through the thicket of "Do as I say, not as I do" rules and crushing regulations. And with the stock market in disarray, profit opportunities seem to be few and far between.
So we at Casey Research, together with our friends at Sprott, Inc., thought it was high time to address this issue – and to hand investors the tools to once again make confident investment decisions…
The Summit That Helps You
Survive and Thrive
For the time being, the free market in America is, if not dead, then at least comatose – but you still have to put your money somewhere to keep ahead of inflation and build a nest egg.
And most investors are aware by now that just about every move the government makes can result in a further distortion of the markets – leaving them with questions such as:
- How will fraud and corruption in government and on Wall Street affect the US and global markets?
- What will happen to stocks, the US dollar, and precious metals if Obama wins in November – and what if Romney wins?
- When Ben Bernanke announces another QE, how big will the inflationary damage be to your net worth?
- What happens when the retiring baby boomers' Social Security and Medicare demands start exceeding the government's ability to pay?
We discussed all those topics – and many more – at the just-concluded Casey/Sprott Summit Navigating the Politicized Economy.
A blue-ribbon faculty consisting of 28 investment experts, economists and best-selling financial authors presented their views and outlook on the US and global economies – plus answered investors' most pressing questions:
- What can investors do to survive – and thrive – in this Three-Ring-Circus economy?
- How can you invest to avoid the worst of the risks and still earn a solid return on your money? (One of our Summit panels specifically addressed ways to invest outside of traditional – and now rigged – stock and bond markets.)
Even if your schedule didn't allow you to attend the Summit in person, you can still benefit from all the information – every presentation… every panel discussion… every piece of investment advice… and every stock recommendation.
Since our Summits started, we've received so much positive feedback that, a few years ago, we started to audio-record them. Available on CD and MP3, you can now listen to the whole event from the comfort of your home.
Shock & Awe: Stunning Revelations and Smart Investment Advice from the Best of the Best
I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that the topics our all-star cast presented made for a truly riveting experience. To give you a taste of what to expect, here are just a few highlights from Navigating the Politicized Economy:
In September, Comeback America is starting the "$10 Million a Minute" tour (so named because every minute the US financial hole gets deeper by about $10 million) across the United States. Even if you thought you knew all about the fiscal state of the union, you'll be surprised by the facts David Walker rolls out in his keynote speech at the Summit.
Edward is convinced that the ruling elite is aiming at installing a world government under a collectivist/feudalist model that will squash liberty and individualism – and those collectivist tendencies, he says, are becoming ever more visible in the United States today. Whether you agree with him or not, his well-researched arguments are guaranteed to make your jaw drop.
Donald is the founder of investment firm Coxe Advisors, LLC, and strategy advisor to BMO Financial Group. From his office in Chicago, he heads up the Global Commodity Strategy investment management team, a collaboration of Coxe Advisors and Harris Investments. Consulting firm Brendan Wood International named him "TopGun Investor" three years in a row, and honored him with a lifetime achievement award in 2011.
Getting investment advice directly from Donald is like getting a physics lesson from Einstein… priceless. He advises investors according to his motto, "Never invest on the basis of a story on page one – that is the efficient market. Invest on the basis of a story on page sixteen that is headed on its way to page one."
Did you know that 80% of the Department of Energy's $20.5 billion loan program went to companies owned by or connected to Obama's campaign donors? Or that Congressman and high-ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee Spencer Bachus made a small fortune on the pending Crash of 2008 – a scenario he was privy to from closed-door meetings? Or that Congressman Jim Moran sold the stock of 90 companies the day after one of those secret meetings?
Peter is not afraid to name names and make enemies – and his speech shows you a level of government insider trading and cronyism that you've never thought could exist.
John is convinced that we are currently seeing the beginning of the endgame. As he says, "There comes a moment when investors start to worry more about the return of their capital than the return on their capital." Have we reached that moment yet? And what can you do to make money regardless? Listening to John's keen insights will show you where we are headed and how to pull yourself out of the investing morass.
Thomas' famous PowerPoint brief to Vice Admiral Arthur Cebrowski on the subject of globalization and international security later developed into a New York Times best-seller, The Pentagon's New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century. His latest book is Great Powers: America and the World After Bush.
In our globalized world, a thorough understanding of the present and future of geopolitics is a must for investors, so don't miss this eye-opening speech.
Since the last Casey Summit, Dr. Hunt has accumulated brand-new data on the actions of the government and the Fed. His presentation on how discretionary monetary and fiscal policies have failed the United States packed the room at the Summit.
Over the years, Doug's reputation as an "investment guru" has been greatly enhanced by his successes in spotting life-changing investment opportunities ahead of the crowd – including gold and gold stocks in 1998 and uranium in 2000. Doug and his team have warned their subscribers ahead of serious trouble in the economy, correctly anticipating the bursting of the dot-com and housing bubbles, and of the crisis now gripping the world.
And these are only a few members of our powerhouse faculty. You'll also hear from:
- Bud Conrad, chief economist of Casey Research and a senior editor of The Casey Report.
- Karl Denninger, author of The Market Ticker, a daily market commentary, and operator of the Market Ticker Forums, an online trading community, both since 2007. Mr. Denninger received the 2008 Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award for Grassroots Journalism for his coverage of the 2008 market meltdown.
- Alex Daley, chief technology investment strategist for Casey Research and the editor of our Casey Extraordinary Technology service.
- David Webb, a Sweden-based hedge fund manager and regarded as a "hedge fund phenomenon." David managed to make handsome returns for his clients even in the worst downturns of the last decade.
- Bob Hoye, chief financial strategist of Institutional Advisors and widely recognized for his unique approach to forecasting based on previous eras of financial booms.
- Rick Rule, founder of Global Resource Investments, which is now part of the Sprott Group of Companies, is widely considered one of the world's most knowledgeable – and successful – natural-resource investors.
- Louis James, Casey Research's globe-trotting chief metals & mining investment strategist and the editor of Casey International Speculator.
- Dominick Graziano, technical analyst and co-founder of the "Jelly Donut Brotherhood" – a network of regular Casey Summit participants who work together to evaluate the specific recommendations of the faculty and create portfolio plans.
- Mark Leibovit, former market maker on the Chicago Board Options Exchange; his Leibovit Volume Reversal Indicator is well known for forecasting accurate signals of trend direction and reversals in the equity, metals and futures markets.
In addition to these speakers' individual presentations, we also included our always popular on-stage roundtables…
Four Investment Panels That Give You
a Whole Toolbox to Work With
Listening to these seasoned economists and investment pros discuss solutions and specific investment recommendations hands you all the tools you need to survive and thrive – even in a market severely impeded by government intervention…
- Navigating the Politicized Economy featuring Lacy Hunt, Don Coxe, Bob Hoye, Eric Sprott, David Webb, and Terry Coxon, identifies which moves the government is likely to make in order to kick the can down the road, and the commonsense actions that every investor can take to structure a bulletproof portfolio.
- Alternative Investments, moderated by Casey Chief Technology Investment Strategist Alex Daley, focuses on bold, new ways to profit outside of traditional stocks – or even commodity markets.
- Casey's Best of the Best, a panel of senior Casey Research analysts including Louis James, Marin Katusa, Alex Daley, Jeff Clark and Dan Steinhart, on their current top picks in large- and small-cap precious metals stocks, energy companies, technology firms and big-picture-trend opportunities (this one panel alone should pay for the conference many times over).
If you want to learn how to circumvent the many traps and pitfalls massive government meddling has set up for investors, there's no one better to listen to than these experts. And you won't even have to leave your house to get the full benefit of their advice.
Listen to Every Minute, from the
Comfort of Your Home, Car or Office
Of course, by not attending the Summit, you missed out on the chance for face-to-face conversations and Q&A with faculty and corporate presenters. But you still get every insight from their recorded presentations – along with all formal Q&A sessions – over 20 hours total. (And at a significant discount to even early-bird pricing for the Summit itself.)
The price for both CD-set and MP3 recording is $395… and it's well worth it considering the amount of valuable information and actionable investment recommendations you'll get out of it.
You'll find that the specific stock recommendations you'll hear about in the panel sessions – and that many of the speakers included in their presentations – will more than make up for the purchase price.
Ordering is easy: Simply click to order your 20+ hour Summit audio recording now.
You'll find that the specific stock recommendations you'll hear about in the panel sessions – and that many of the speakers include in their presentations – will more than make up for the purchase price.
Right after the Summit concluded on the evening of September 9, we started to put the CDs and MP3s into production. Because they are packed to the brim with timely market insights and specific, actionable investment advice, we'll have our team work overtime to rush the audio collection to you while the information is fresh.
And once they're in your hands, you can listen to every minute of every presentation from the comfort of your home or anywhere else – over and over again, until you get every last valuable piece of information our faculty shared.
The Time to Inform Yourself Is Now
Most of us still remember the times when you could have invested in just about anything – even a market index fund – and gotten respectable annual returns. Alas, those days are gone, and maybe for a long time to come.
In today's politicized economy, only the most astute and aware investors still have a chance to make consistent, inflation-beating gains. And the expert presentations by our blue-ribbon faculty will go a long way to help you accomplish that goal.
Your financial well-being is nothing to gamble with. And there's no better way to protect and grow your wealth than to get your copy of the Summit audio collection Navigating the Politicized Economy.
Order your CD set/MP3 recording now for just $395. We'll rush it to you as soon as it comes off the production line. Just one smart investment from what you hear will reimburse you many times over.
CEO, Casey Research | <urn:uuid:d5682134-e633-4777-81c9-f84867b31ace> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.caseyresearch.com/cm/2012-fall-summit-cd-set?ppref=TES459ED0812C | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950132 | 3,243 | 1.765625 | 2 |
LONDON - New research has raised further hope that adult stem cells can be used to repair the damage caused by strokes to brain cells, British scientists heard Monday.
Experiments carried out on rats indicate that transplants of adult stem cells - the "building blocks" of bodily tissue - can help stroke victims regain movement, senses and understanding.
They also show that the cells were more effective than cells from aborted babies, which have been at the center of a recent scare involving the treatment of patients with Parkinson's disease.
The researchers were presenting their findings Monday to the British Neuroscience Association's annual conference in northern England, and published them in the Stroke Journal.
The potential of stem cells to develop and translate into other types of cells has excited scientists worldwide, raising hopes they may be able to help undo the damage of strokes and help cure degenerative diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.
But the issue has also raised controversy, primarily in that many researchers want to harvest stem cells from human embryos, believing them to offer the greatest benefits. Other specialists argue that "adult stem cells" - taken for example from umbilical cords - offer an effective and ethical alternative.
Harvesting fetal stem cells alarms pro-lifers.
The early-stage human beings are destroyed after the stem cells have been removed. Adding to the debate is the recent approval by the U.K. government of cloning of human embryos for this limited purpose. An Italian scientist has already announced his intention to clone a human being within a year.
When a person has a stroke, blood supply is cut off from areas of brain tissue, leading to the loss of many mature cells, and often leaving the patient unable to control his movements.
The new study, by researchers at the Institute of Psychiatry and a biotechnology company, showed that transplanted stem cells made their way to whichever area of the damaged brain needed repair.
The cells also appeared to boost the production of an important protein that usually increases after a stroke as the brain attempts to heal itself, helping to connect damaged and undamaged parts of the organ.
The experimental rats' movement and cognitive abilities improved after the introduction of the stem cells, the researchers found.
The movement of stem cells to the damaged area of the brain differs from the behavior of fetal stem cells, which they say remain in one place when transplanted.
Scientists in the United States have been injecting cells from aborted babies into the brains of Parkinson's patients, but it was reported in early March that the experiment was being abandoned after side effects described as "absolutely devastating" were observed.
"We expect that stem cells will prove far safer and more flexible for repair of brain damage than primary fetal cells," research leader Dr. Helen Hodges was quoted as saying.
"They are not likely to worsen symptoms, as recently reported in elderly Parkinson patients."
The British study comes in the wake of an earlier one by the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, which came to similar conclusions, as did another last year by the Institute for Stem Cell Research in Milan, Italy.
Researchers at the University of South Florida in Tampa have also found that stem cells from the tiny amount of blood found in the umbilical cords of newborn babies may be able to help repair damaged brain tissue after a stroke.
The research has provided further weight to arguments that adult stem cells may hold sufficient potential to make it unnecessary to use embryonic cells - or to use therapeutic research as justification to allow embryonic cloning.
Adult Stem Cell Miracle Breakthrough Reported in Canada
Change stem-cell policy? No
Adult stem cells have now successfully treated thousands of patients of more than 100 diseases.
Adult stem cell paralysis treatment suffers major setback
Like pro-abortion activists, the media in general don't want to hear about use of ASCs (adult stem cells) to cure paralysis, or about ASCs at all. In fact, they frequently attribute ASC breakthroughs to ESCs (embryonic stem cells).
Adult Stem Cell Research Breakthrough Produces Insulin for Diabetics
British Unborn Baby Fought Off Cancer in the Womb, Now Healthy Child
CLICK HERE for ABORTION FACTS!
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San Diego Wild Animal Park
The San Diego Zoo doesn’t keep too many large animals in the confines of its limited site. To see and experience the life and times of giraffes, lions, elephants, and other natives of spacious grasslands in Africa and Asia, visit the wildly popular San Diego Wild Animal Park (15500 San Pasqual Valley Rd., Escondido, www.sandiegozoo.org/wap, daily 9 a.m.–4 p.m. or later, $28.50 adults, $17.50 children, parking $8).
Deliberately set well away from the center of urban San Diego, this huge park gives a variety of animals the space they crave to live more naturally. You could spend days in the Wild Animal Park and not see all the diverse species that live here.
Walking trails offer miles of adventure through different areas of the park, such as Condor Ridge, Lion Camp, Lorikeet Landing, and the Heart of Africa.
If you’re not up for a day of hardcore hiking, consider paying extra for one of the “Safari” tours that take guests out into different areas of the park in colorful vehicles. On Safaris, docents tell their groups about the wildlife (both animal and vegetable) as they come upon it.
You can experience the thrill of seeing a cheetah run full-speed, the simple pleasure of the grazers enjoying an afternoon munching grasses and leaves, or the vista of the full park from the air on the Balloon Safari.
The Wild Animal Park caters both to families and to adults without children seeking a more grown-up experience. Check your map for the location of playgrounds and family-themed attractions. On the website, you can find out which tours and dates are best for an adults-only day at the park.
Ample food, restrooms, and concessions cluster around the entrance area, but services get thinner as you get farther out into the park.
© Liz Hamill Scott from Moon California, 2nd Edition | <urn:uuid:8dad7be4-b0aa-4488-be2f-a108fa5f94a5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://moon.com/destinations/california/san-diego/sights/north-county/san-diego-wild-animal-park | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.915613 | 430 | 1.5 | 2 |
Series: Dear Dragon-Bilingual
Copyright Year: 2010
Grade level: K-3
Subject: Fiction, Dragons, Soccer, Sportsmanship
Lexile Level: BR
Binding: Library Hardcover
Primary BISAC: JUV002270
Secondary BISAC: FOR026000
Sportsmanship, friendships, and family are the underlying themes in these bilingual easy readers about a boy who has fun with his pet dragon. Full-bleed, entertaining cartoons provide essential sight clues. Hillert uses very simple language and repetitive phrases, adding to the books’ worth as great educational tools. Although the Spanish translations are accurate, they include words that are not commonly used among Spanish speakers. For example, the sentence “go, go, go” is translated “avanza, avanza, avanza” instead of “apurate, apurate, apurate.”
School Library Journal, March 2011
Each title includes an instructional note to caregivers and is enhanced with full color illustrations. Highly recommended for children K-2 needing educational and entertaining bilingual reading material, school and community libraries are well advised to order the complete set of four.
The Midwest Book Review, August 2010
Contains many high frequency words, sight words, and repetition. Example of writing style: "Oh, no. That was not good. Now I have no friends to play with. What can I do?" (This is after the boy told another child to go away and said "I do not want you here" --- in a tree house). Noteworthy aspect is that from the story a child would learn what s/he can do if s/he makes a poor choice with other children, as the character goes to look for the outcast, tells him he is sorry and says he wants to be friends and play with him. This is a typical situation for young children, so would be relevant and helpful. Activities depicted are also fun to young readers: playing softball and basketball, jumping rope, hanging on bars, swinging and going down a sliding board. If you have use for a bilingual reader, this series would work. Recommended.
Richardson's Independent School District's Library Media Services Book Review Program, June 2010 | <urn:uuid:53462e8c-23a5-4fb9-a497-1c2bfc0b5143> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.norwoodhousepress.com/products/es-un-buen-juego-querido-dragn-/-its-a-good-game-dear-dragon/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952741 | 459 | 2.640625 | 3 |
sea cucumber, any of the flexible, elongated echinoderms belonging to the class Holothuroidea. Although sea cucumbers have the basic echinoderm radial symmetry (see Echinodermata), they do not have arms like starfish. Instead the oral-anal distance is greatly increased, resulting in the typical cucumber-shaped body.
Sea cucumbers live with one side facing permanently down. Like other echinoderms, sea cucumbers have a water-vascular system; the locomotor tube feet are concentrated in three areas on the ventral, or under, side, in some species forming a muscular, creeping sole. Some species burrow in sand or mud and have lost all tube feet. The leathery body wall contains minute, scattered skeletal ossicles, or bonelike plates; a few species have an armor of close-set plates.
Some species eat bottom material, while others use tube feet modified as branched oral tentacles to capture particles or plankton and transfer them to the mouth. Most sea cucumbers have highly branched tubes called respiratory trees attached to the intestine near the anus. Water is pumped in and out, facilitating respiratory exchange and excretion. In some species, branches called tubules of Cuvier, attached to or near the bases of the respiratory trees, are ejected when the organism is attacked; they swell and become sticky, entangling the pursuer. Many sea cucumbers eject most of the internal organs when sufficiently irritated, later regenerating a new set.
Sea cucumbers have a single, branched gonad. Eggs are usually expelled into the sea where, after fertilization, free-swimming larvae develop. After a second larval stage, metamorphosis occurs and the adult body shape appears.
Sea cucumbers occur in all seas and at all depths. Most do not exceed 1 ft (30.5 cm) in length, but Stichopus variegatus from the Philippines may reach 3 ft (91 cm) in length. Known as trepang or bêche-de-mer, a number of species are caught along warm coasts of Australia, the East Indies, and some Pacific island nations. They are dried and sold, mainly to markets in E Asia, for use as food or in traditional medicine. Sea cucumbers are classified in the phylum Echinodermata, class Holothuroidea.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
More on sea cucumber from Infoplease:
See more Encyclopedia articles on: Zoology: Invertebrates | <urn:uuid:3eaa65ba-9dde-402b-bbbc-370c24a9150a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/science/sea-cucumber.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.90991 | 542 | 3.921875 | 4 |
UNITED NATIONS - UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on
Thursday announced that the United Nations will launch an investigation as
requested by the Syrian government into allegations that chemical weapons were
used in Syria.
"I have decided to conduct a United Nations investigation
into the possible use of chemical weapons in Syria," Ban told reporters. He said
the investigation will focus on "the specific incident brought to my attention
by the Syrian government." Syria asked Ban on Wednesday to investigate an
alleged chemical weapons attack by "terrorist groups" near the northern city of
Aleppo on Tuesday, Syrian UN Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari said.
Syrian opposition said on Wednesday that there was a second chemical weapons
attack on Tuesday in Damascus in addition to the one the government and
opposition accuse each other of carrying out in Aleppo on the same
But Ban made clear that the focus of the investigation he announced
would be the Aleppo attack.
"I am of course aware that there are other
allegations of similar cases involving the reported use of chemical weapons," he
said, adding that the United Nations would be cooperating with the Organization
for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and the World Health Organization
"Full cooperation from all parties will be essential. I stress
that this includes unfettered access," he said. "I reiterated this point in my
communications with the Syrian authorities." "There is much work to do and this
will not happen overnight, it is obviously a difficult mission," Ban said. "I
intend for this investigation to start as soon as is practically possible." | <urn:uuid:78895a71-ce39-4ddc-9149-cac306ed5a69> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?ID=307310&R=R1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965903 | 331 | 1.976563 | 2 |
Beigelii Information and Courses from MediaLab, Inc.
These are the MediaLab courses that cover Beigelii and links to relevant pages within the course.
Learn more about laboratory continuing education for medical technologists to earn CE credit for AMT, ASCP, NCA, and state license renewal and recertification. Or get information about laboratory safety and compliance courses that deliver cost-effective OSHA safety training and continuing education to your laboratory's employees.
|Match the name of each of the species of yeast listed with its corresponding microscopic appearance as illustrated in the images on the right.||View Page|
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Does Skipping Breakfast Cause Me to Binge Eat?
I think I may have binge eating disorder, and I'm trying my best to stop it. I'm a swimmer, and I exercise a lot. I find that I'm not hungry at all in the morning, so I skip breakfast. Is that bad?
The people who say it's not good to skip breakfast are right. Studies show that people who miss breakfast eat more calories during the day and have higher body mass indexes. Skipping breakfast could affect your health in other ways, too. You may not have as much energy for swimming and you could find yourself feeling tired and unable to concentrate in class.
Even if you're not hungry, it's a good idea to try to eat something light in the morning to kickstart your metabolism. Eating breakfast, no matter how small, can also prevent you from feeling so hungry that you overeat later in the day. Breakfast doesn't have to be a huge meal — a cup of plain yogurt and a piece of fruit is a great way to start the day. If you can't eat first thing, grab a bag of dry cereal, a granola bar or piece of fruit to eat on the bus or sometime before classes start.
Everyone overeats occasionally. And people may sometimes go overboard and feel like they are eating uncontrollably. But binge eating disorder is sign that you might need help to get back on track with your eating. If you worry that you have a problem with binge eating, talk to a parent, doctor, school nurse, counselor, or therapist.
Signs of binge eating disorder include eating uncontrollably more than twice a week for more than 6 months, eating a lot when you are not hungry, gaining a lot of weight, and eating in secret or hiding food.
Binge eating disorder is complicated and can be linked to other problems (like depression) — but there are lots of different experts who can help people get back on track with healthy eating.
Reviewed by: Michelle New, PhD
Date reviewed: September 2011
*Names have been changed to protect user privacy.
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Note: All information on TeensHealth® is for educational purposes only. For specific medical advice, diagnoses, and treatment, consult your doctor.
© 1995- The Nemours Foundation. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:e33d1e88-ced4-4a36-a49c-61e3d7a75829> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kidshealth.org/teen/expert/nutrition/binge_breakfast.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975545 | 478 | 1.96875 | 2 |
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MCC responds to Sandy’s devastation in Haiti
November 9, 2012
In late October flood waters flowed through tent camps, where people were still living after their homes crumpled in a 2010 earthquake. The Haitian government said Hurricane Sandy killed 54 people and caused an estimated $104 million loss to livestock, crops and infrastructure.
The impact of Hurricane Sandy, which compounded the effect of Hurricane Isaac in August, was especially destructive because 370,000 people are still living in tent camps since the 2010 earthquake, said Kristen Chege, a Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) worker from Eugene, Ore.
“Whole camps flooded as streams emerged between tents,” she wrote in an Oct. 29 blog entry on undertentshaiti.com. “Shelters fell under the weight of sitting water, dirt floors turned to mud and precious possessions were ruined. Efforts to raise mattresses off the ground using cinder blocks and to string clothes from wires inside their tent made little difference as the rain poured in through holes in the tent or seeped in below the walls.”
In response, MCC is distributing the relief kits, blankets and canned meat it had positioned in Haiti prior to hurricane season to 493 families, predominantly located in the southern part of the country. In addition, food rations will be purchased locally to supply those families for a five-week period.
The relief kits, which include soap, toothpaste, laundry detergent, towels and other hygiene supplies, are a base-line defense against cholera, which spreads through unclean water. The country especially is vulnerable because it doesn’t have proper sanitation and sewage systems.
MCC Haiti will distribute the supplies through one of its long-term partners, Network for the Defense of Human Rights/Réseau National de Défense des Droits Humains, a human rights monitoring and education group.
Contributions to MCC’s response in Haiti may be made at the nearest MCC office or online, donate.mcc.org. Gifts should be designated for Haiti Emergency Assistance. In addition, MCC welcomes contributions of relief kits and blankets to replenish its supplies. For more information, visit mcc.org/kits.
In addition to responding in Haiti, MCC also is exploring a response in Cuba, where more than 300,000 people have been evacuated, 200,000 homes damaged and 74,000 acres of crops destroyed.
MCC constituents in the U.S. wishing to support the domestic response to Sandy are encouraged to contact Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS), a sister agency that responds to disasters in Canada and the U.S. (mds.mennonite.net). Next week, an MCC East Coast partner, Kingdom Builders Construction in Philadelphia, is sending a work group through MDS to Oasis Christian Center in Staten Island, N.Y., a church located in the midst of significant destruction.
MCC constituents in the U.S. wishing to support domestic response to Sandy are encouraged to contact Mennonite Disaster Service.
Mennonite Central Committee: Relief, development and peace in the name of Christ | <urn:uuid:e764a8e5-6123-4d86-a63d-e2cf4c60d3b6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mcc.org/stories/news/mcc-responds-sandy-s-devastation-haiti | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947146 | 680 | 2.28125 | 2 |
Last week I wrote about all the different medicines available to treat chronic pain. But there are many nondrug approaches as well. Here are a few:
You can do physical things at the point of pain. Massage is good, and it doesn’t have to be professional. Any kind of caring touch may distract from pain sensations and help tissues heal. Self-massage helps, too.
Ice or heat can help healing and reduce pain. It doesn’t seem to matter which — some people like cold and others like heat, or you can alternate them. Heat and cold both compete with pain signals and so reduce pain sensations. So does gentle touch.
Exercise — stretching, strengthening, and conditioning — can reduce pain. An interesting study showed that being sedentary increased sensations of pain in mice. (They could tell by observing the mouse’s behaviors — they didn’t ask the mice to rate pain on a scale of 1–10.)
Of course, it’s hard to exercise when you’re hurting. It’s important to start slow and keep it gentle. A good physical therapist can help.
Anodyne Therapy is treatment with an infrared light. It seems effective for peripheral neuropathy, which can cause pain in the arms, legs, feet, and hands. You can read about Anodyne Therapy here.
Electrical stimulation to the nerves can be done through the skin and can block pain signals. Ask your doctor about a “transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation” (TENS) unit.
As I wrote last week, there are many medicines approved for treating pain. Ask for them, whether they are narcotics or not. As reader Gary commented, many doctors refuse to prescribe narcotics, because they are afraid of “drug seeking” or “addiction.” They seem to think those are worse than pain. But they’re not. Here’s an article about addiction in chronic pain and why it’s not a major risk if medicines are used right.
See my blog entry from last week for other categories of medicines that can help with pain.
Laughter is great pain medicine. It’s very difficult to feel pain when you are laughing. Watch comedies or watch children playing, or just laugh for no reason. Studies actually show that laughter, even forced laughter, reduces pain. It also reduces inflammation and improves circulation, so it can heal the causes of some kinds of pain.
Sex causes your body to release oxytocin and endorphins, both of which make you feel better. Of course, both sex and laughter can be difficult when you are in pain. You can take some of your medicine to make it easier to relax and have fun.
Being aware of how eating affects pain levels makes a difference for many people. It may be that some foods increase your pain, while others make you feel better. Pay attention and keep records, and you may notice patterns that help you. Then eat the things that make you feel good.
Poor sleep is pain’s twin. If you can improve sleep, your pain will almost certainly decrease. Get checked for sleep apnea. Learn sleep hygiene techniques here. Have your medicines evaluated for their affect on sleep (all medicines, not just your pain medicines.)
Many times, painful thoughts add greatly to physical pain. As I wrote two weeks ago, chronic pain is physical, emotional, and mental, a whole body experience. So getting some psychological help with changing painful thoughts (such as “I can’t stand this”) to more balanced thoughts, like “I can barely stand this” make a big difference.
Distraction makes it easier to forget pain for a while. Hobbies, volunteering — especially helping others — puzzles and games, guided imagery, or remembering pleasant times (looking at pictures, etc.) can all take your mind off pain. So can working on some project that is important to you. It doesn’t have to be important to anybody else.
Relaxation, meditation, and prayer all improve pain conditions. Learning to step back and observe your body and its sufferings with your “higher self,” or letting pain go to your “higher power,” takes a lot of pressure off. Just the act of sitting peacefully and breathing will relax muscles. Accepting what is and realizing that it won’t last forever may give comfort and help you go on.
Pain specialist Dr. Karen Burt-Amira talks of “developing a witness within,” a part of you that sees what your mind and body are going through, but does not identify as the one who is suffering. This practice helps to “open up a bigger sense of who you are” so you see that pain is only part of your experience.
But just as important as any of them is finding support and connection. People need to talk with someone who understands. They need the support and understanding of families. They need a sense of connection to the world, which can be difficult when pain makes it hard to participate.
Pain specialists have a saying: “The group is the medicine.” It’s true. We’re group animals; we feel better with support. Find yourself a support group, even if it’s only one other person. And please let us know what your experience is going forward. | <urn:uuid:60ff5b9f-4cb6-4c27-88f3-4e63cf7dcc2b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.diabetesselfmanagement.com/Blog/David-Spero/self-care-for-pain/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955277 | 1,120 | 2.6875 | 3 |
The Control Laboratory
The Control Laboratory, conducted by Dr. Julio González, has hosted 52 engineering students through completion of their Senior Design Project, which is the out-of-classroom capstone experience required for graduation. In these projects, students utilize the lab facilities to demonstrate their creativity and apply all the theoretical knowledge accumulated over 4 years of engineering studies. Some projects are of such quality that they have resulted in student co-authored conference and even journal publications.
In addition to senior design projects, the lab hosts the class “EGE 304 Control Laboratory,” where engineering students simulate control systems using the professional program MATLAB, and perform experiments using state-of the-art equipment called Educational Control Products (ECP).
This is a typical “EGE 304 Control Laboratory” session: Back, left to right: Brad Hoover, Patrick Burns, Dr. González, Ken Cheung and Ben Briggs. Front, left to right: James Green, Bela Elekes and Chris Rigoli. Not paying attention are two Rhino robots.
There are four ECP units in the lab, one for rectilinear motion, one for rotational motion, one for industrial control, and the most exciting one: the inverted pendulum. You may have experienced the inverted pendulum control problem if you have ever played with a broomstick by holding it on the palm of your hand while trying to prevent it from falling. As innocent as the inverted pendulum problem sounds, its solution is part of the control engineering necessary to prevent a space rocket from tipping at launch.
Student James Green humorously demonstrates the inverted pendulum problem. To the left, you can see the actual ECP Inverted Pendulum, which has the shape of a letter “T”. The horizontal bar of the “T” moves back and forth automatically, keeping the vertical bar in equilibrium. Motion of the horizontal bar is produced by a motor under control of a computer program, which in turn uses feedback provided by a position sensor.
But Control does not need space science to be applied. Daily life examples of control systems can be found in such common places as the cruise control and the automatic transmission of your car, or the automatic focus adjustment on your camera. Robots are fascinating devices that exemplify control of position, speed, and contact force. Industry uses an incredible amount of control systems, which always keeps control engineers in high demand.
To find out more about Control Engineering, or for a guided tour of the Control Laboratory, please call (845) 257-3724 or send an e-mail to email@example.com | <urn:uuid:846ae8c2-6c3d-4916-88ce-07ae82655bf7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newpaltz.edu/engineering/story.php?id=3719 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922668 | 546 | 2.9375 | 3 |
Microsoft’s head is in the Cloud
Microsoft Corp. (MSFT-Q) made its biggest move into the mobile, Internet-accessible world of "cloud" computing Tuesday, taking the wraps off a revamped online version of its hugely profitable Office software suite.
The world's largest software company is heaving its two-decade old set of applications—including Outlook email, Excel spreadsheets and SharePoint collaboration tools—into an online format so that customers can use them on a variety of devices from wherever they can get an Internet connection.
It wants to push back against Google Inc. (GOOG-Q), which has stolen a small but worrying percentage of corporate customers with cheaper, web-only alternatives, which remove the need for companies to spend time on installing software or managing servers.
"It puts Microsoft in a better position than they were—they now have a broad product that they can more easily sell," said Michael Silver, an analyst at tech research firm Gartner.
Microsoft shares rose on Tuesday, following a 3.7 percent jump the day before, partly buoyed by hopes that the company can ultimately boost profits by extending its software dominance to the growing cloud sector.
Microsoft has offered online versions of some Office programs—chiefly Outlook email—for its corporate customers for several years, and last year rolled out free versions for individual home users.
Chief Executive Steve Ballmer presented the overhauled and updated set of offerings—collectively called Office 365—at an event in New York City Tuesday morning, stressing that online versions and built-in conferencing tools can save users money, especially small and medium-sized businesses.
One test customer "expects to cut travel costs and reduce carbon emissions by 30 percent after they retire the 60 servers they think they will save," said Ballmer.
The market for web-based software services is heating up, and every company, government department and local authority is getting pitches from Microsoft and Google whenever they reevaluate their office software.
It's a new challenge for Microsoft, which built itself up on expensive versions of software installed on individual computers. That business model turned the Office unit into Microsoft's most profitable, earning more than $3 billion US alone last quarter.
Microsoft's plan is to make up for smaller profit margins from web-based applications—due to the cost of handling data and keeping up servers—by grabbing a larger slice of companies' overall technology spending.
"The key message is this is a great opportunity for organizations to get out of the business of trying to provide commodity yet mission-critical services," said Silver at Gartner.
Microsoft said it will charge from $2 per user per month for basic email services to $27 per user per month for advanced offerings. Google charges a flat fee of $50 per user per year for its web-based Google Apps product, which offers email, calendars, word processing and more online.
Microsoft, like Google, will host users' data remotely, and maintain all the servers in vast data centers. Unlike Google, it will also allow companies to put their data on dedicated servers should they choose, or keep the data on their own premises.
The full launch of Office 365, which has been in beta testing since last autumn, spices up the lively competition with Google for new users.
Earlier this month, Google snagged InterContinental Hotels Group as a major customer, moving 25,000 of its employees onto Google email from Outlook.
Google, which has had the most success in the small and medium-sized business range, says there are now 40 million users of online Google Apps suite. Microsoft does not publish equivalent numbers, but research firm comScore has estimated 750 million people worldwide use Office in some form.
But Internet-centric Google—whose success is based on its dominance in Web search—is confident it has the upper hand in the cloud.
"Compared to what they (Microsoft) have in the market today, they have nowhere to go but up," said Dave Girouard, head of Google's worldwide enterprise business, in an interview last week. "We feel we're years ahead of them in terms of building a viable cloud solution that just works." | <urn:uuid:d909e022-7451-498b-b300-84480c164bd4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bnn.ca/News/2011/6/28/Microsoft-puts-Office-in-the-cloud-confronts-Google.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947173 | 856 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Childrens Play Bark and Woodchips
We are often asked which is better, play area bark or play area woodchip?
There are some definite differences with these childrens play area chippings.
Play bark chippings are made from the actual soft bark coating of trees. The trees are harvested, transported to sawmills where their bark is stripped off them. There are various grades of bark, some are used for play parks, some are used for gardens.
The types of bark selected for use in childrens play areas are pine bark. This is because the bark is softer and chunkier and therefore great for a child to fall on if their play goes wrong. These pine barks are graded into 2 seperate products.
We have standard play bark or play bark nuggets. The standard play bark is perfect for most domestic, garden or school situations. The play bark nuggets are normally specified for play grounds with heavier usage (schools, local authorities, leisure resorts etc).
For bark to be classed as play bark, it must have been tested to comply with the standard: BS EN 1177:1998. See our play grade bark certification here.
So next let's consider play grade woodchip. What is it and how is it made?
Firstly you need to realise that there are 2 types of woodchip, new and recycled woodchip.
New play ground woodchip is manufactured in timber sawmills. Whenever a sawmill is producing timber products like railway sleepers or fencing, they will have offcuts left over. Some of these are manufactured into firewood or kindling but most is put through their woodchipper.
Sawmill woodchippers pulverise wood down to make 2 further products, woodchip and sawdust. These products are created by screening the pulverised material. The result of this is the woodchip that is made is very low in dust or oversize pieces. This product is then ready for kids playgrounds.
Recycled woodchip is a product of the growth in material recycling. These chippings are made of all sorts of recycled products from packaging and pallets to joiners waste.
The material is shredded, similar to the new woodchip product, but then run over both magnetic tables to remove metal such as nails or staples, but also run over a special type of metal detector that can remove non-ferrous metals such as copper and aluminium.
The result of this is a completely safe product ready to be used as a ground covering and impact absorbing childrens play ground material. This type of woodchip can also be died to a section of colours, from blue and green to red and yellow.
The advantage of both the woodchip products is that they dry out faster after rain and last longer once put down. They do initially feel a bit rougher than play bark but once the kids have played on it for a while it knits into a fantastic play grade surface.
So there you go 2 fantastic, safe and cost effective playground products. Whichever you choose, your kids will play safely and cleanly.
If you enjoyed reading this article (and I do hope you did) please use the share buttons below to spread the word. We would really appreciate it :) | <urn:uuid:d9780329-b63f-4b40-b9b3-cef2484ed33a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.turfandstuff.com/article/12/childrens_play_bark_and_woodchips/e55635410aed0750cc0a053dbe5081da | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964712 | 667 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Council of Europe Conseil d´ Europe's papers
European citizenship is still a contested concept, bringing together two notions and therefore two different debates: one around Europe and European identity, and the other related to citizenship and non-citizenship.
Europe, in an ongoing process of construction, should be shaped and defined by its citizens. Young people in particular have a special interest in and concern about what kind of Europe they want to live in. It is therefore important to reflect on how European citizenship and debate
The aim of the Council of Europe's youth policy is to provide young people — girls and boys, young women and young men — with equal opportunities and experience which will enable them to develop the knowledge, skills and competencies to play a full part in all aspects of society. The programme of activities aims at associating young people, through governmental and non-governmental youth partners, with the aims and priorities of the youth policy of the Council of Europe. The participants in the
In 1998, the Council of Europe and the European Commission decided to take common action in the field of youth. Both institutions initiated a partnership agreement with the aim "to promote active European citizenship and civil society by giving impetus to the training of youth leaders and youth workers working within a European dimension".
In 2003, additional agreements were signed in the fields of "youth research" and "Euro-Mediterranean youth co-operation". Since 2005, the partnership between
Youth work is a polyvalent and multi-faceted practice. It takes place in a wide range of settings, varies from unstructured activities to fairly structured programmes, reaches a diverse array of young people, touches upon many different themes and cuts across several other disciplines and practices. This versatility is one of the strengths of youth work, but at the same time it may lead to fragmentation and product vagueness.
In this book, we take a historical perspective that aims to identify
Albania is the seventeenth country to have undergone an international review of its national youth policy, a series which was started by the Council of Europe in 1997. The review was performed in 2009 during two one-week visits by a team of international experts working on the basis of the Albanian National Youth Strategy, published in 2007.
The report focuses on three issues identified by the Albanian government: the law, delivery mechanisms and youth participation, and three issues identified
Youth policy in Moldova, is the latest in the Council of Europe series of youth policy reviews. As Moldova is the 16th country to be reviewed since 1997, this report has been enriched by the experience gained from the previous reviews of countries in western and eastern Europe and one in the Commonwealth of Independent States (Armenia). These reviews have nurtured the development of an informed way of thinking about youth policy and strategies for implementation.
The report is based on a cross-
What is youth policy, and what major elements should a national youth policy strategy include? How can young people be consulted and otherwise involved in developing youth policy? How do institutions such as the European Union, the Council of Europe and the United Nations address youth policy, and how can this work be concretely linked to the efforts of a national government to develop a youth policy agenda?
These are some of the essential questions addressed in this publication. The Youth Poli
Given the impact that successive court rulings have had on the organisation of the sports movement in the past 15 years, the autonomy of non-governmental sports organisations has become a highly topical concern in Europe. It is also closely related to the issue of governance, the subject of previous Council of Europe studies.
The Enlarged Partial Agreement on Sport (EPAS) decided to explore the concept of autonomy in greater depth by studying the conceptual, political, legal, economic and psych
Hooliganism, violent behavior in stadiums, a notable increase in racist and xenophobic attitudes, doping, corruption,cheating, wheeling-and-dealing: has sport lost its fun side and become a serious social activity? Can it escape the influence of big business and political interference?
Does its prominence in the media give rise to violent expression? Young people who no longer recognise social values have turned sport into a means of expressing the distress and problems they are facing in thei
Si le sport est émotion, passion, épanouissement, éducation, s’il favorise l’insertion et permet parfois l’intégration, il est aussi, simultanément ou successivement, déraison et violences. Incivilités, violences morales, verbales et physiques, attitudes et propos racistes et xénophobes, dopage, corruption, affairisme et politique s’y mélangent. Mais peut-il en être autrement ? Le sport est une activité sociale « comme une autre ». A ce titre le sport doit-il et peut-il être meilleur que le rest | <urn:uuid:89246443-3f4f-475a-b9be-4621e1f57e7d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wepapers.com/Users/96994/Council_of_Europe_Conseil_d%C2%B4_Europe | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.905257 | 1,041 | 2.265625 | 2 |
Two Treatises on Government (1680-1690)
Of the State of War
§ 16. The state of war is a state of enmity and destruction; and therefore declaring by word or action, not a passionate and hasty, but sedate, settled design upon another man's life puts him in a state of war with him against whom he has declared such an intention, and so has exposed his life to the other's power to be taken away by him, or any one that joins with him in his defence, and espouses his quarrel; it being reasonable and just I should have a right to destroy that which threatens me with destruction; for by the fundamental law of Nature, man being to be preserved as much as possible, when all cannot be preserved, the safety of the innocent is to be preferred, and one may destroy a man who makes war upon him, or has discovered an enmity to his being, for the same reason that he may kill a wolf or a lion, because they are not under the ties of the common law of reason, have no other rule but that of force and violence, and so may be treated as a beast of prey, those dangerous and noxious creatures that will be sure to destroy him whenever he falls into their power.
§ 17. And hence it is that he who attempts to get another man into his absolute power does thereby put himself into a state of war with him; it being to be understood as a declaration of a design upon his life. For I have reason to conclude that he who would get me into his power without my consent would use me as he pleased when he had got me there, and destroy me too when he had a fancy to it; for nobody can desire to have me in his absolute power unless it be to compel me by force to that which is against the right of my freedom - i.e. make me a slave. To be free from such force is the only security of my preservation, and reason bids me look on him as an enemy to my preservation who would take away that freedom which is the fence to it; so that he who makes an attempt to enslave me thereby puts himself into a state of war with me. He that in the state of Nature would take away the freedom that belongs to any one in that state must necessarily be supposed to have a design to take away everything else, that freedom being the foundation of all the rest; as he that in the state of society would take away the freedom belonging to those of that society or commonwealth must be supposed to design to take away from them everything else, and so be looked on as in a state of war.
§ 18. This makes it lawful for a man to kill a thief who has not in the least hurt him, nor declared any design upon his life, any farther than by the use of force, so to get him in his power as to take away his money, or what he pleases, from him; because using force, where he has no right to get me into his power, let his pretence be what it will, I have no reason to suppose that he who would take away my liberty would not, when he had me in his power, take away everything else. And, therefore, it is lawful for me to treat him as one who has put himself into a state of war with me - i.e., kill him if I can; for to that hazard does he justly expose himself whoever introduces a state of war, and is aggressor in it.
§ 19. And here we have the plain difference between the state of Nature and the state of war, which however some men have confounded, are as far distant as a state of peace, good will, mutual assistance, and preservation; and a state of enmity, malice, violence and mutual destruction are one from another. Men living together according to reason without a common superior on earth, with authority to judge between them, is properly the state of Nature. But force, or a declared design of force upon the person of another, where there is no common superior on earth to appeal to for relief, is the state of war; and it is the want of such an appeal gives a man the right of war even against an aggressor, though he be in society and a fellow subject. Thus, a thief whom I cannot harm, but by appeal to the law, for having stolen all that I am worth, I may kill when he sets on me to rob me but of my horse or coat, because the law, which was made for my preservation, where it cannot interpose to secure my life from present force, which if lost is capable of no reparation, permits me my own defence and the right of war, a liberty to kill the aggressor, because the aggressor allows not time to appeal to our common judge, nor the decision of the law, for remedy in a case where the mischief may be irreparable. Want of a common judge with authority puts all men in a state of Nature; force without right upon a man's person makes a state of war both where there is, and is not, a common judge.
§ 20. But when the actual force is over, the state of war ceases between those that are in society and are equally on both sides subject to the judge; and, therefore, in such controversies, where the question is put, "Who shall be judge?" it cannot be meant who shall decide the controversy; every one knows what Jephtha here tells us, that "the Lord the Judge" shall judge. Where there is no judge on earth the appeal lies to God in Heaven. That question then cannot mean who shall judge, whether another hath put himself in a state of war with me, and whether I may, as Jephtha did, appeal to Heaven in it? Of that I myself can only judge in my own conscience, as I will answer it at the great day to the Supreme Judge of all men. | <urn:uuid:270a42f4-38f5-4120-86c9-a4c57f092ab1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lonang.com/exlibris/locke/loc-203.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985241 | 1,224 | 2.375 | 2 |
Robinson's many peers follow his lead
Second baseman a trailblazer for all players of color
Jackie Robinson was the pathfinder to integration in Major League Baseball, yet the entrance ramp after his arrival was not all that congested. The population of black players on big-league clubs was relatively tiny five years after Robinson's debut, and it would be more than 12 years after that historic occasion that every team in the Majors had a black player in uniform.
These pioneers played various positions and came in all sizes and shapes but only one color, the shade that had kept them out of the game for decades. It was truly a color barrier, not one of nationality, so that even such technically Hispanic players as Minnie Minoso (Cuba), Carlos Paula (Puerto Rico) and Ozzie Virgil (Dominican Republic) were finally allowed into the game despite the darkness of their skin.
Robinson began the lengthy procession playing first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947. It would be nearly three months later before another team ventured into the territory of integration, with the Cleveland Indians making outfielder Larry Doby the first black player in the American League on July 5, 1947.
Outfielder-third baseman Hank Thompson holds the distinction of helping to integrate two franchises. He made his Major League debut with the St. Louis Browns July 17, 1947. Nearly two years later, July 8, 1949, Thompson and Monte Irvin became the first black players to appear in a game for the New York Giants, for whom they would play major roles on World Series teams in 1951 and 1954.
Irvin's career would eventually take him to the Hall of Fame, as was also the case of Ernie Banks, the first black player for the Chicago Cubs. Sam Jethroe, at 32 with the Boston Braves in 1950 the oldest Rookie of the Year Award winner; Elston Howard, a future MVP with the New York Yankees; and Minoso, the first black player for the Chicago White Sox in 1951; have been under consideration for the Hall by the Veterans Committee for some time, but most of the pioneers were essentially journeymen.
Howard was passed over by his hometown St. Louis Cardinals, who instead in 1954 brought up outfielder Tom Alston, who was out of the game within three years. Bob Trice of the Philadelphia Athletics, Curt Roberts of the Pittsburgh Pirates, Chuck Harmon and Nino Escalera of the Cincinnati Reds and Paula (Washington Senators) all played for fewer than five seasons.
Virgil, the Detroit Tigers' first black player in 1958, played for nine years in the Majors but was primarily a backup catcher. The briefest career of a black pioneer was that of Philadelphia Phillies shortstop John Kennedy, who played in five games in 1957.
The Boston Red Sox were the last team to integrate with the July 21, 1959, appearance of second baseman Pumpsie Green, more than a dozen years after Robinson's entry.
Below is a list of the first black players in Major League Baseball by team and chronological order.
Brooklyn Dodgers April 15, 1947 Jackie Robinson
Cleveland Indians July 5, 1947 Larry Doby
St. Louis Browns July 17, 1947 Hank Thompson
New York Giants July 8, 1949 Monte Irvin, Hank Thompson
Boston Braves April 18, 1950 Sam Jethroe
Chicago White Sox May 1, 1951 Minnie Minoso
Philly Athletics September 13, 1953 Bob Trice
Chicago Cubs September 17, 1953 Ernie Banks
Pittsburgh Pirates April 13, 1954 Curt Roberts
St. Louis Cardinals April 13, 1954 Tom Alston
Cincinnati Reds April 17, 1954 Chuck Harmon, Nino Escalera
Washington Senators September 6, 1954 Carlos Paula
New York Yankees April 14, 1955 Elston Howard
Philadelphia Phillies April 22, 1957 John Kennedy
Detroit Tigers June 6, 1958 Ozzie Virgil
Boston Red Sox July 21, 1959 Pumpsie Green
Jack O'Connell is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs. | <urn:uuid:2a317103-0383-402f-b9aa-c4d73cb0dcf3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://miami.marlins.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070412&content_id=1895202&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972144 | 837 | 2.890625 | 3 |
Bill Gates, co-founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation gives a baby an oral Polio vaccine at the Shadnagar community health clinic in Andhra Pradesh, India, November 14, 2002.
An experimental AIDS vaccine developed in Oregon has received an $8 million investment from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The candidate vaccine quickly stamped out infections in an animal model of AIDS infection, and protection lasted for at least a year, in a study reported in May 2011. The vaccine uses a modified form of cytomegalovirus, or CMV, to prime the immune system to mount defenses against the AIDS virus, as we reported
During childhood, most people become infected with a virus called cytomegalovirus, or CMV. Because this virus persists in its human hosts for life, usually without ever causing harm, scientists at Oregon Health & Science University theorized it might serve as an ideal vehicle for vaccinating people against HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
The basic idea is straightforward: engineer the mild-mannered virus to carry a few genes from the deadly one to prime immune defenses to squelch infections. The harmless CMV virus's ability to persist indefinitely means that as a vaccine carrier, it could potentially produce lifelong immunity.
The OHSU researchers said the Gates Foundation grant will support work to boost the effectiveness of the vaccine and refine the way it is delivered. So far, it has only been tested in an animal model: the rhesus monkey.
Louis Picker and colleagues at OHSU's Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute and Oregon National Primate Research Center in Hillsboro, vaccinated 24 monkeys with the modified CMV and exposed them to SIV, the monkey equivalent of the AIDS virus. In 13 of the monkeys, the vaccine quickly stamped out infections, and protection lasted for at least a year in 12 of them, the researchers reported
in the journal Nature. Levels of SIV dropped to undetectable levels in most of the protected animals.
Years of research will be needed to found out if the CMV vaccine is safe and effective for people. Misleading animal studies set the stage for a disastrous clinical trial with a vaccine candidate made by Merck. The drug company halted the trial in 2007 when it became clear the vaccine wasn't protecting volunteers – and may have made them more vulnerable. Two vaccines used together appeared to lower the risk of infection by about 30 percent compared with placebo injections in a 2009 study in Thailand. But the two-vaccine combination probably isn't effective enough
for wider use:
A 31% level of efficacy is not high enough to warrant use of a vaccine outside a trial setting, especially for a disease as serious as HIV. Yet this was the first time an HIV vaccine efficacy trial actually showed evidence of protection against the virus, giving researchers hope that an effective HIV vaccine is possible.
The Oregon vaccine candidate failed to protect half of the experimentally exposed animals. Picker, quoted in an OHSU news release
, said HIV in people may prove more easily stopped than SIV in monkeys:
"One promising aspect of studying SIV is that it is a more potent virus than its human counterpart. Therefore, we expect that a human form of this vaccine candidate – while still some years away – would have a higher effectiveness rate than other current candidates. However, before a human vaccine is tested, there is much more work to be done in regards to safety and other areas."
Questions remain about the safety of infecting healthy people with modified CMV. Ordinary CMV can unleash damaging attacks when it infects a developing fetus with minimal immune defenses, or an adult with a severely depleted immune system caused by drugs or an illness such as AIDS. CMV causes brain damage in about 8,000 newborns each year in the U.S. when women are first infected during pregnancy. | <urn:uuid:980a2499-f88a-4e00-836b-53bf00249470> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.oregonlive.com/health/index.ssf/2012/01/8_million_grant_boosts_aids_va.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956033 | 787 | 3.125 | 3 |
LA CROSSE, WI (WXOW)—Hundreds of Primary Care Physicians from the Coulee Region gathered at Western for their annual winter conference.
Among the topics they discussed, how to care for soldiers returning from deployments.
Dr. Ward Brown, a cardiologist at Gundersen Lutheran, is a solider himself.
He talked to doctors about his recent deployment to Afghanistan and things they can expect to see in patients down the road.
He said problems might not surface right a way, but they could see unusual illnesses from things soldiers were exposed to or psychological problems years after they're back in the states.
"When you're with your fellow soldiers many times you're able to keep things under control and its when you're back and don't have those support mechanisms readily available to you that things will start manifesting themselves," Dr. Brown said.
Every day one soldiers commits suicide, on average.
Dr. Brown said suicide is something that everyone can be on the look out for, not just physicians.
Signs could be giving possessions away, going from depression to euphoria quickly.
He said if you notice any of those things don't leave the person alone and seek medical help or call a pastor.
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Janmashtami, popularly also known as Gokul Ashtami and Krishnashtami, is celebrated all over India on the 8th day of the month of Shravan in the Hindu calendar. The usual duration of the month of Shravan is from mid-August to mid-September. This festival is celebrated in honour of Lord Krishna’s birth, who is believed to be the incarnation of Lord Vishnu.
Janmashtami in Mathura.
This festival is celebrated with tremendous zest and zeal all over, especially in the city of Mathura, the birth place of Lord Krishna. Mathura is situated in the state of Uttar Pradesh and is about 145 kilometers away from New Delhi. It is also known as the Krishna Janma Bhumi. The place where Lord Krishna is believed to be born is now converted into a huge, royal temple and is known as the Krishna Janma Bhumi Mandir. The main celebrations take place here. A Pooja is performed in the midnight and the idol of Lord Krishna is bathed with milk and curd. Then the idol is placed in a cradle. Songs and hymns are sung by the devotees and a number of other Shlokas and Mantras are chanted throughout the night. The Lord is served a Prasad, which consists of 56 sweets and savories. Gopalkala is the main speciality of this day, which is served to all the devotees presented on this auspicious occasion.
Janmashtami in Maharashtra
Janmashtami in Maharashtra is celebrated with great enthusiasm. Along with other traditional rituals, the main celebration that every devotee looks forward to is Dahi Handi. An earthen pot filled with milk and milk products is hung up on a great height and the young boys and girls form a pyramid, the person on the top breaks this Handi, which symbolizes the group’s victory. The story of Dahi Handi goes back in the pages of history. Lord Krishna, a big prankster, was very fond of milk and milk products. He would often steal the earthen pots of the women in the neighbourhood, who carried these products in the earthen pots. To avoid their pots being stolen, these women (also known as the Gopis) would hand the pots on great heights, with the help of ropes. Lord Krishna, in spite of this, would steal the pots. There are competitions held all over Maharashtra to celebrate Dahi Handi. Handsome prizes are given to the winners. Young men, and now-a-days, women too, come together to participate in this celebration. The human pyramid is constructed and the earthen pot is broken by the person at the top. Often the pyramid stumbles down, but no team gives up.
Janmashtami in other states of India.
A variety of delicacies are prepared in South India, to serve as Prasadam to the Lord. The Rajagopalaswami Temple in Mannargudi in the Tiruvarur district, Bala Krishna temple at Udupi, Pandavadhoothar temple in Kanchivaram and Krishna temple at Guruvayurare are the famous Krishna temples in South India, where the Janmashtami is celebrated with great enthusiasm and joy. In Bengal and Orissa, people often observe a fast. This is considered as a noble way to offer their prayers to the Lord. The city of Dwarka, located in Gujarat, is believed to be the abode of the Lord. The celebrations of Janmashtami are celebrated with great pomp here and devotees all over the country visit the Dwarkadheesh Temple, which hosts a grand celebration. The devotees in Jammu-Kashmir celebrate this festival by flying kites. Loud music that consists of the bhajans is played while flying the kites.
This year, the Janmashtami will be celebrated on August 10th, Friday. | <urn:uuid:019b156d-aa84-4a6e-8938-c4ca401174ea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fliptalks.com/ft/janmashtami-celebrations-in-india/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962489 | 831 | 2.375 | 2 |
Grandparents need to be better informed when caring for kids
Study says some relying on old data, putting grandkid' health, safety at risk
A growing number of grandparents are raising their grandchildren and a new study suggests they may not be as informed as they need to be when it comes to safety.
While grandparents do have years of child-rearing experience, a study presented this week at the American Academy of Pediatrics conference says some are relying on old data and unintentionally putting their grandkids' health and safety at risk.
"Pediatricians need to be aware, and they need to make sure they are going over (the) most recent safety recommendations with grandparents," says lead study author Dr. Amanda Soong.
Researchers surveyed three grandparent support groups, a total of 49 participants in the Birmingham, Ala., metro area. All of the grandparents in the survey were caregivers for their grandchildren. They were given a general 15 question survey about safety for kids of all ages.
When asked, "What is the best position for a baby to sleep in?" 33 percent said the stomach, 23 percent chose the side and 43.8 percent chose the back. In 1992, the American Academy of Pediatrics began recommending that babies sleep on their backs. Since then, the number of deaths due to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome or SIDS -- the number one cause of death among infants younger than 1 year of age - has been cut in half, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Dr. Harvey Karp, pediatrician and best-selling author of "The Happiest Baby Guide to Great Sleep: Birth to 5 Years," suggests swaddling babies when you place them on their backs, since they don't naturally sleep their best in that position.
"We need to teach parents how to get babies sleeping better on their backs so (they're) not tempted to put them on their stomachs or bring them to bed with them. We need to be much more proactive about that because parents are desperate to get sleep."
When study participants were asked what should be in a crib with the baby, 49 percent said bumpers, stuffed animals and blankets were OK. Only 26.5 percent answered correctly: just a mattress with a sheet.
When asked at what age a baby should start drinking water, 42.9 percent said 2 weeks. The American Academy of Pediatrics and the World Health Organization recommend that babies are exclusively breastfed for the first 6 months of life. That means that aside from vitamins or medications if needed, infants should only be fed mother's milk (not even water).
When asked how to position a car seat, 24.5 percent of the grandparents surveyed said a 22 pound 9 month old should be facing forward. The 2011 AAP guidelines advise parents to keep their toddlers in rear-facing car seats until they are 2 years old or until they reach the maximum height and weight for their particular seat. The AAP also says that most children will need to ride in a belt-positioning booster seat until they have reached 4 feet 9 inches tall and are between 8 and 12 years of age.
While this is just a small survey, Soong says her gut feeling is that this is applicable across the board and that "pediatricians need to be aware grandparents may have knowledge deficits. " She adds that even if grandparents don't have primary care of these kids, parents need to educate their parents on safety guidelines before leaving children in their care.
Karp adds, "It's a warning to pediatricians to make sure we are repeating what we think could be obvious." Sometimes even doctors fall behind on information so it's important grandparents recognize and seek out information, not to just assume what they did in past is right.
Copyright 2012 by CNN NewSource. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. | <urn:uuid:4a1356f3-fbad-4ce4-887e-eeb461381548> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wtae.com/news/health/Grandparents-need-to-be-better-informed-when-caring-for-kids/-/9680940/17115594/-/view/print/-/qhfbg4z/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966979 | 782 | 2.75 | 3 |