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With a view to the utmost economy and expedition in producing maps which fulfill not only the broad needs for standard or principal maps, but also the reasonable particular needs of individual agencies, standards of accuracy for published maps are defined as follows:
Horizontal accuracy. For maps on publication scales larger
than 1:20,000, not more than 10 percent of the points tested shall be in error
by more than 1/30 inch, measured on the publication scale; for maps on publication
scales of 1:20,000 or smaller, 1/50 inch. These limits of accuracy shall apply
in all cases to positions of well-defined points only. Well-defined points
are those that are easily visible or recoverable on the ground, such as the
following: monuments or markers, such as bench marks, property boundary monuments;
intersections of roads, railroads, etc.; corners of large buildings or structures
(or center points of small buildings); etc. In general what is well defined
will be determined by what is plottable on the scale of the map within 1/100
inch. Thus while the intersection of two road or property lines meeting at
right angles would come within a sensible interpretation, identification of
the intersection of such lines meeting at an acute angle would obviously not
be practicable within 1/100 inch. Similarly, features not identifiable upon
the ground within close limits are not to be considered as test points within
the limits quoted, even though their positions may be scaled closely upon
the map. In this class would come timber lines, soil boundaries, etc.
Vertical accuracy, as applied to contour maps on all publication
scales, shall be such that not more than 10 percent of the elevations tested
shall be in error more than one-half the contour interval. In checking elevations
taken from the map, the apparent vertical error may be decreased by assuming
a horizontal displacement within the permissible horizontal error for a map
of that scale.
The accuracy of any map may be tested by comparing the
positions of points whose locations or elevations are shown upon it with corresponding
positions as determined by surveys of a higher accuracy. Tests shall be made
by the producing agency, which shall also determine which of its maps are
to be tested, and the extent of the testing.
Published maps meeting these accuracy requirements shall
note this fact on their legends, as follows: "This map complies with National Map accuracy Standards."
Published maps whose errors exceed those aforestated shall
omit from their legends all mention of standard accuracy.
When a published map is a considerable enlargement of a
map drawing (manuscript) or of a published map, that fact shall be stated
in the legend. For example, "This map is an enlargement of a 1:20,000-scale map drawing," or "This map is an enlargement of a 1:24,000-scale published map."
To facilitate ready interchange and use of basic information for
map construction among all Federal mapmaking agencies, manuscript
maps and published maps, wherever economically feasible and consistent with
the uses to which the map is to be put, shall conform to latitude and longitude
boundaries, being 15 minutes of latitude and longitude, or 7.5 minutes, or
3-3/4 minutes in size.
U.S. BUREAU OF THE BUDGET
Issued June 10, 1941
Revised April 26, 1943
Revised June 17, 1947 | <urn:uuid:105b82d6-9328-4c4f-b72a-6f74466914ab> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nationalmap.gov/standards/nmas647.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919292 | 728 | 2.78125 | 3 |
By Maj. Gen. Jerry R. Curry, US Army Ret.
Clash Daily Guest Contributor
On April 19, 1775, a British Expeditionary Force set out to capture and destroy guns and ammunition believed stored by American Colonists at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts. To counter the British action the American Colonists mobilized their militias and, using guns kept in their houses, defeated the British forces and forced them to retreat back to Boston.
The British believed it was perfectly acceptable for the government to be armed, but that private citizens should not be armed because they might challenge the actions of the British Government. They thought it reasonable for the British to confiscate the colonist’s guns and ammunition. The colonists believed that private citizens should have access to firearms to defend themselves and in case the government became too tyrannical.
It seems we have forgotten the lesson that the colonists fought the Battles of Lexington and Concord to prevent the British Government from disarming the American Colonists. The colonists’ intent was that never again would only the government have access to guns and ammunition and the American people be stripped naked of the right to own and bear arms and left without the means to protect themselves and their interests. Now that same specter rises once again to threaten the freedom of the American people and once more the government is making an all-out effort to seize the guns and ammunition of America’s private citizens.
The British attempt to disarm the colonists is one of the actions that led to the Revolutionary War and, later on, to the adoption of the Second Amendment which reads, “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” Are the Congress and the President now fomenting another revolution? They seem to have forgotten that the clear purpose of the Second Amendment is not to restrict the private citizen’s ownership of guns and ammunition, but to restrict the possible tyranny of the central government.
The subject of discussion today in Washington and throughout the nation is, “Shall the American people have the right to bear arms and protect their interests, or will the government be able to circumvent or abrogate the constitution and force the government’s will upon the American people in violation of our founding documents and principles?”
Of course this is all done under the subterfuge of being helpful and protective of our citizens. Those politicians in charge of finding a way to reduce gun violence speak of the efficacy of curbing it, of making video games less violent, closing loop holes that allow unqualified gun and ammunition purchasers to make purchases, eliminating high-capacity rifles and magazines, keeping guns away from the mentally disturbed, more use of metal detectors, and on and on it goes.
But we citizens aren’t so easily fooled. We recognize that we are again fighting the battle of Lexington and Concord all over again. It is not a question of a culture of violence taking over our society, or of whether or not a single-shot rifle is more violent than a semi-automatic firearm. They are equally violent.
It is a constitutional issue, not just one of gun violence, or of semi-automatic versus fully automatic, or small versus long magazines of ammunition. Gun and ammunition ownership rights, among others, are what our Founding Fathers fought and died for at Lexington and Concord; they fought for the constitutional right to bear arms and to limit the paternalism of government. Do Americans today have the constitutional right to own and store guns and ammunition? The answer today is the same as it was back in colonial days.
Actions by political leaders in the Congress and the White House indicate that they do not trust the people of America with guns, so restricting private gun ownership must be good and restricting the government’s fire arms ownership is bad. That is, the people of America cannot be trusted to own and handle guns and ammo. However, the government that shamelessly forced American Indians along the Trail of Tears, and rejoiced over the Dred Scott Decision supposedly can be trusted to regulate guns and ammunition.
Someone suggested that school teachers should have the right to be armed and licensed if they so choose. This makes sense in spite of all the derogatory comments made about the idea. Ask the teachers and see how they feel about it. And we wouldn’t need a separate governmental agency to implement the arming of school teachers. Their training and arming could be done voluntarily, at the local level.
Today the Second Amendment means exactly what our Founding Fathers intended it to mean in colonial times, “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”
Image: The First Blow for Liberty. Battle of Lexington, April 1775; copy of print by A. H. Ritchie after F.O.C. Darley, 1870 – 1900; National Archives and Records Administration, College Park; Source: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration; public domain
General Jerry Ralph Curry (D.Min.) is a decorated combat veteran, Army Aviator, Paratrooper and Ranger. He enlisted in the Army as a Private and retired a Major General. For nearly forty years he and his wife Charlene have served this country both in the military and while he was a Presidential political appointee. | <urn:uuid:4b07947d-df35-42ab-aca8-5e7a0bd92395> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://clashdaily.com/2013/01/2nd-amendment-and-guns-and-ammo-same-issue-today-as-in-colonial-times/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958818 | 1,111 | 2.3125 | 2 |
I don't really eat that bad. After all, I recently lost more than 25 pounds, and I didn't do it by eating a ton of fake food. Just a little fake food. But seriously, ask my family. I've been eating a lot of whole foods. Nevertheless, I do eat processed foods and (gasp) I do drink soda. High fructose corn syrup, caffeine. The whole nine yards. Judge away. Believe me, I'm judging myself.
We discovered my sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG) levels were out of the normal range in the blood work my gyno (Dr. B.) did earlier this year. Low, to be specific. SHBG is a type of protein produced mostly in the liver that attaches to sex hormones. Lower than normal levels of SHBG is often associated with conditions like (surprise, surprise) polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), type 2 diabetes and hypothyroidism.
Although I've told a few people close to us, I was trying to be casual about coming out and saying so here on Somebody Heal Me or on Facebook, but the timing of this conversation and decision won't make much sense otherwise: We're officially trying to have a baby. So all these ways that my reproductive health is jacked up are seriously important to get straight ASAP. Now is the time. The sugar has got to go.
From the research I've been doing it has become crystal clear to me that the SHBG deficiency, PCOS and diabetes (and the fact that I'm not ovulating) are all tied in together and caused by the same issues. I can't keep ignoring the truth.
I recommend two key resources for a nice summary of how this all fits together:
- This blog post by Sweet Poison author David Gillespie for a nice summary: Why eating super impairs your ability to conceive.
- #32 of the Balanced Bites Podcat: Women's Wellness (Part 2) discusses sugar and fertility.
So I'm moving past the point of reading about what's going on with my body and taking that next step to planning how I'm going to make the necessary changes in my behavior.
I've been reading this book on my Kindle FIre to get me started. I like that it takes a practical, supportive and nonjudgmental approach to the issue.
- Overcoming Sugar Addiction: How I Kicked My Sugar Habit and Created a Joyful Sugar Free Life by Karly Randolph Pitman
These websites have been helpful sources of information, too:
I'm not going paleo/primal, but I am finding sources about that lifestyle incredibly helpfu as it eschews processed foods. Anything about eating real, whole foods is right up my alley right now.
For now it's about making simple choices: Water over soda and scrambled eggs over protein bars. And continuing to learn as much as I can and find ideas to help me develop new habits. Reaching for a protein bar in the morning and considering that a healthy choice is pretty deeply ingrained. These changes are going to be hard.
Do any of you have suggestions for resources I should be exploring that focus on fertility and/or eliminating sugar/processed foods? I'm all ears!
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Content by Diana E. Lee.
DISCLAIMER: Nothing on this site constitutes medical or legal advice. I am a patient who is engaged and educated and enjoys sharing my experiences and news about migraines, pain and depression. Please consult your own health care providers for advice on your unique situation. | <urn:uuid:8a940fdd-812c-415e-8bb8-9b6876ca01d6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://somebodyhealme.dianalee.net/2012/05/pcos-fertility-sugar-major-reality.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961707 | 759 | 1.726563 | 2 |
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Entrepreneurship isn’t for everyone. The work is hard, the financial rewards elusive, and the pressures immense. To be even remotely successful, you need to have some basic business skills, be willing to work like a Volga boatman, and be oblivious to all the reasons why what you’re doing can’t be done.
But, most importantly, you need passion. Without it, you have nothing. It is passion for the idea that gets you through those long nights on the road. Passion is what helps you persuade prospects and venture capitalists that your idea is a winner. It’s what excites the press and convinces them that your story is worth writing about.
And it is your passionate conviction that reassures your family you are not leading them down the path of financial ruin.
The trick is not to lose it.
Passion must be balanced against two other sometimes-opposing forces: vision and practicality. The vision is how you articulate your passion — how you will define, guide, and build your business. The vision must be live, agile, and adaptable to take advantage of rapidly changing conditions, current events, and outside forces or business pressures.
Be willing to continually reassess what is happening around you, and don’t be afraid to alter your vision to integrate what you see. That is how you keep it fresh and relevant.
So, where does practicality come in? It’s in how you handle money, people, and growth, which is the execution side of your vision. Make “Cash is King” your motto, and define a metric to live by.
For me, it’s the 6-8 rule: Before we can hire additional staff, the cash on hand and accounts receivables must equal 6 months operating capital, or the total of cash, accounts receivable, and contracts must equal 8 months operating capital. Yes, it is conservative, but that’s what practicality means.
But holding on to the passion, above all, is the key to turning your great idea into the thriving entrepreneurial venture that you know it can become.
Founder and CEO | <urn:uuid:64dc5bb5-cbeb-44df-8a59-d6a082937bc7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2005-11-17/balance-passion-against-vision-and-practicality | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93613 | 465 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
Add to: Goodreads
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Format: Hardcover, 320 pages
Release Date: February 26, 2013
For some reason, this book just struck me with WANT as soon as I saw it. (This may or may not have been influenced by that cover that I adore to pieces.) I love the simplicity of a novel just about love and trying to make it work in high school. Sounds like a good time! Plus, Gayle Forman blurbed it. I must read it."Bono met his wife in high school," Park says."So did Jerry Lee Lewis," Eleanor answers."I’m not kidding," he says."You should be," she says, "we’re sixteen.""What about Romeo and Juliet?""Shallow, confused, then dead."''I love you," Park says."Wherefore art thou," Eleanor answers."I’m not kidding," he says."You should be."Set over the course of one school year in 1986, ELEANOR AND PARK is the story of two star-crossed misfits – smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try. When Eleanor meets Park, you’ll remember your own first love – and just how hard it pulled you under. | <urn:uuid:2bf7d33c-7fda-4477-ad97-3e73fc954ad6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thestoryqueen.blogspot.com/2013/02/waiting-on-wednesday-54.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975041 | 277 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Bask in the valve glow and warm tones of this compact vintage-styled system
Vacuum tube electronics may be "obsolete," but like other enduring vintage technologies (think vinyl), those glowing glass cylinders still have a place in many an audiophile heart, and lately there's been something of a rennaissance in small, affordable tube products, with old school technology finding its way into everything from headphone amp kits to do-it-all docks from major CE firms. There's a tube solution, it seems, for almost everybody.
Blue Aura's v30 Blackline system ($549) is a little different, a luxury desktop system meant to evoke the sound, look, and feel of old-school gear, but designed by a young British firm with a focus on wireless and desktop products to serve a computer-audio savvy consumer. While the amp clearly looks back, through a warm glow, to a simpler era of audio componentry, it sports a USB input too, and it's companion speakers are conveniently sized to fit alongside a computer monitor.
Does it belong on your desk? | <urn:uuid:b3ec6887-e55e-4c27-972c-144c284203a5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/category/site-channel/gear/speakers/desktop?quicktabs_1=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95282 | 221 | 1.53125 | 2 |
San Jose Museum of Art
Ranu Mukherjee is fascinated by the idea of the contemporary nomad and the experience of repeated relocation that is common for so many of us today. For this ongoing project that she calls the “nomadic archive,” Mukherjee collects images that represent people’s very personal experiences of moving or up-rootedness.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
From July 28 through November 4, 2012, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) will present the work of one of Japan's most important contemporary photographers in the exhibition Naoya Hatakeyama: Natural Stories.
Museum of Craft and Folk Art
This exhibition explores a new art that is emerging from a remarkable fusion of Japanese artisanal and industrial textile making. Coaxed from materials as age-old as hemp and newly developed as microfilaments, a varied array of works by artists from multiple generations are on view in this important two-part exhibition.
Asian Resource Center Gallery
Presented by Kearny Street Workshop and East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation, Movement In Many Parts explores systems of human infrastructure — through the architectural, ecological, biological, political, industrial, and fantastical — and the way we organize ourselves as a society.
Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive
The journey of Himalayan Pilgrimage continues with Liberation Through Sight, a reinstallation that focuses on artworks created as vehicles to enlightenment. New art in the recently reinstalled gallery includes an exceptionally rare set of seven paintings depicting the lineage of the Great Fifth Dalai Lama, painted around 1815 upon the death of the ninth Dalai Lama, as well as images of compassionate and wrathful deities of the Tibetan pantheon. | <urn:uuid:c6c30d27-bf8c-46b4-9452-ca09d60ee7e3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.asiancontemporarysf.org/events/2012-08-30/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939437 | 355 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Nov. 10, 2011
Trent J. Perrotto
Donna Weaver/Ray Villard
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
NASA'S HUBBLE OBSERVES YOUNG DWARF GALAXIES BURSTING WITH STARS
WASHINGTON — Using its near-infrared vision to peer 9 billion years back in time, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has uncovered an extraordinary population of young dwarf galaxies brimming with star formation. While dwarf galaxies are the most common type of galaxy in the universe, the rapid star-birth observed in these newly found examples may force astronomers to reassess their understanding of the ways in which galaxies form.
The galaxies are a hundred times less massive, on average, than the Milky Way, yet churn out stars at such a furious pace that their stellar content would double in just 10 million years. By comparison, the Milky Way would take a thousand times longer to double its star population.
The universe is estimated to be 13.7 billion years old, and these newly discovered galaxies are extreme even for the young universe — when most galaxies were forming stars at higher rates than they are today. Astronomers using Hubble's instruments could spot the galaxies because the radiation from young, hot stars has caused the oxygen in the gas surrounding them to light up like a bright neon sign.
"The galaxies have been there all along, but up until recently astronomers have been able only to survey tiny patches of sky at the sensitivities necessary to detect them," said Arjen van der Wel of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany, lead author of a paper on the results being published online on Nov. 14 in The Astrophysical Journal. "We weren't looking specifically for these galaxies, but they stood out because of their unusual colors."
The observations were part of the Cosmic Assembly Near-infrared Deep Extragalactic Legacy Survey (CANDELS), an ambitious three-year study to analyze the most distant galaxies in the universe. CANDELS is the first census of dwarf galaxies at such an early epoch.
"In addition to the images, Hubble has captured spectra that show us the oxygen in a handful of galaxies and confirmed their extreme star-forming nature," said co-author Amber Straughn at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "Spectra are like fingerprints. They tell us the galaxies' chemical composition."
The resulting observations are somewhat at odds with recent detailed studies of the dwarf galaxies that are orbiting as satellites of the Milky Way.
"Those studies suggest that star formation was a relatively slow process, stretching out over billions of years," explained Harry Ferguson of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Md., co-leader of the CANDELS survey. "The CANDELS finding that there were galaxies of roughly the same size forming stars at very rapid rates at early times is forcing us to re-examine what we thought we knew about dwarf galaxy evolution."
The CANDELS team uncovered the 69 young dwarf galaxies in near-infrared images taken with Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 and Advanced Camera for Surveys.
The observations suggest that the newly discovered galaxies were very common 9 billion years ago. However, it is a mystery why the newly found dwarf galaxies were making batches of stars at such a high rate. Computer simulations show star formation in small galaxies may be episodic. Gas cools and collapses to form stars. The stars then reheat the gas and blow it away, as in supernova explosions. After some time, the gas cools and collapses again, producing a new burst of star formation, continuing the cycle.
"While these theoretical predictions may provide hints to explain the star formation in these newly discovered galaxies, the observed bursts are much more intense than what the simulations can reproduce," van der Wel said.
The James Webb Space Telescope, an infrared observatory scheduled to launch later this decade, will be able to probe these faint galaxies at an even earlier era to see the glow of their stars, reveal their chemical composition, and offer better details on their formation.
The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. Goddard manages the telescope. STScI conducts Hubble science operations and is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy Inc. in Washington.
For images and more information about Hubble and the CANDELS results, visit: | <urn:uuid:fe83c6da-de17-420e-9bd9-dc3da6d3e612> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2011/31/text/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929126 | 910 | 3.75 | 4 |
The Advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS), a cross-track scanner with 22 channels, provides sounding observations needed to retrieve profiles of atmospheric temperature and moisture for civilian operational weather forecasting as well as continuity of these measurements for climate monitoring purposes. Like the long heritage of its predecessors, ATMS combines all the channels of the preceding AMSU-A1, AMSU-A2, and AMSU-B sensors into a single package with considerable savings in mass, power, and volume.
Like the long heritage of its predecessors, ATMS is a cross-track scanner, but ATMS combines all the channels of the preceding AMSU-A1, AMSU-A2, and AMSU-B sensors into a single package with considerable savings in mass, power, and volume. 22 channels in bands from 23 GHz through 183 GHz are included. ATMS will fly on NPP mission & JPSS (note that there are likely to be subtle differences between the NPP version of ATMS and the JPSS version(s) of ATMS.
The Crosstrack Infrared Sounder (CrIS) and the advanced Technology Microwave Sounder (ATMS) together represent the latest addition to a long series of atmospheric satellite sounders that originated in the late 1970's. CrIS is a hyperspectral sounder that will make it possible to continue the great advances in atmospheric observations and research that started with the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) launched by NASA on the Aqua research satellite in 2002, and ATMS will similarly continue the series of observations that started with the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU) first launched by NOAA in 1998.
Since clouds are mostly opaque in the infrared part of the spectrum while they are largely transparent at microwave frequencies, there is tremendous synergy between the two, and by operating them together as a system it is possible to cover a much broader range of weather conditions than with the infrared sounder alone. The CrIS-ATMS system (called CrIMSS) continues this approach.
The most immediate use of the data from the sounders is in "numerical prediction", which forms the basis for modern weather forecasting. In that application, lightly processed data are immediately "assimilated" into a complex computer model of the atmosphere that is used to extrapolate the current weather into the near future. A large variety of data are used for this purpose, ranging from weather balloon measurements to satellite observations, but the microwave sounders have had the greatest impact on forecast accuracy, with the hyperspectral infrared sounders now a close second. We expect that CrIS and ATMS will continue to play this key role in weather forecasting.
Geophysical parameters derived from AMSU and AIRS data have also been playing an important role in weather and climate research. The primary focus is on research related to the atmospheric components of the "hydrologic cycle", i.e. water vapor, clouds and precipitation. The infrared sounder is generally most accurate and can reproduce the global temperature and humidity distribution as long as it is not too cloudy, while the microwave sounder can provide a picture inside and below the clouds and can also be used to probe into storms, including hurricanes.
In addition, it has turned out that the broad and detailed spectral coverage provided by the hyperspectral infrared sounders has enabled new research related to atmospheric trace gases that play an important role in the global "energy budget", such as carbon dioxide and monoxide, ozone, and methane. We expect that data from CrIS and ATMS will also play a major role in this research.
Climate research naturally progresses from studies of "atmospheric processes" - which typically require small data sets, through studies of "climate variability" - which may require longer time series, to studies of "climate trends" - which may require many years of data. In this progression, the data must be more and more accurate, since the effect being studied is generally of smaller and smaller magnitude.
Therefore, it is of great importance to not only collect and keep the data as it accumulates - to form long time series, but also to "validate" against references that are known to be close to the truth and to "characterize" the inevitable errors in the data. Those tasks are as important as and usually form an integral part of the research.
Similarly, great effort goes into constantly improving the "retrieval systems" that are used to derive geophysical parameters from the raw data. As improvements are made, it is also necessary to reprocess the entire data set that has been accumulated. These apparently mundane tasks - archiving, characterizing, validating, improving, and reprocessing - provide the backbone of the research, and progress will be hindered without them.
The frequency dependence of atmospheric absorption allows different altitudes to be sensed by spacing channels along absorption lines. ATMS has 22 channels, mostly the same as its predecessor with a few modifications/additions.
|Envelope dimensions||70x60x40 cm|
|Operational average power||100 W|
|Operational peak power||200 W|
|Data rate||30 kbps|
|Absolute calibration accuracy||0.6 K|
|Maximum nonlinearity||0.35 K|
|Frequency stability||0.5 MHz|
|Pointing knowledge||0.03 degrees|
Image Above : Microwave images are created when data from NASA's Aqua satellite AIRS and AMSU instruments are combined. This microwave image of Typhoon Mirinae suggests cold, high thunderstorms have developed and an eye is forming. Credit: NASA | <urn:uuid:043c0d3d-8208-4404-aa91-59af165c8296> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://jointmission.gsfc.nasa.gov/atms.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938645 | 1,157 | 2.75 | 3 |
Keeping it Fresh – Cleansing Rituals
Yoga is a ancient healing technology. The asana practice is just one element of a vast system of understanding and relating to the human experience or humanology.
Here are some interesting techniques to add to your cleansing rituals.
A Neti Pot is a small pot used for irrigating the nasal passages. Typically it has a spout attached near the bottom, and often a handle on the opposite side.
Neti Pots are used in yoga to assist in clearing the nasal passages, since controlled breathing plays a central role in yoga. The Neti Pot is used to pour warm salt water through one nostril and then either runs out of the other nostril. The Neti pot used with a saline solution has been shown to be an effective treatment for hay fever, sinusitis, rag weed and other nasal conditions.
Alum and Salt
This mixture is used to cleanse the mouth and tongue. Take two parts powered Potassium Alum mixed with one part salt and use like a tooth powder to brush your teeth and your tongue.
During the night our mouths turn into an incubator for a host of different
bacteria and germs. Cleaning the tongue and mouth first thing in the morning ensures that germs and bacteria are eliminated from the mouth before you eat or drink.
Make sure to reach all the way back and clean the
tongue until you gag and cough up the brown mucus that is hidden back
there. These germs and bacteria not only form on the tongue but on
two little glands at the back of the throat that need to be cleaned of
mucus, too. The gag reflex has the added benefit of causing the
eyes to water, which in turn, helps to flush and cleanse them out. This
aids in the prevention of cataracts and eye related disease. You may
follow this brushing your teeth with toothpaste as the alum is bitter tasting. You can buy alum at most grocery stores in the spice section.
An essential oil is a concentrated, liquid containing aroma compounds from plants. The oil carries a distinctive scent, or essence, of the plant. Essential oils can be found in perfumes, flavoring food and drink, and for scenting incense and household cleaning products.
Essential oils can be used medicinally for sore muscles, headaches, skin inflammation.
Essential oils have been used in the form of aromatherapy which claims that the specific aromas carried by essential oils have curative effects. Oils can be diluted in a carrier oil and used in massage, diffused in the air, heating over a candle flame, or burned as incense. Try a few drops of lavender oil in your bath for relaxation and use a few drops of lemon oil in water as a natural cleaning agent for the bathroom. Most health food stores carry a selection of essential oils. Look for organic, non-synthetic brands for best effects.
Yogic hydrotherapy, or a cold shower, develops the body’s deep capacity for healing and staying well.
During a cold shower, blood is released from the liver, and moves from the extremities of the body to the core primary organs and then back to the extremities, carrying oxygen and neural and glandular secretions. The lungs have an opportunity to clear, toxins are removed, and lymphatic circulation is improved. The entire nervous system is strengthened. In addition, areas of restriction in the body are now opened to new blood and lymph circulation. You may notice a deep inner heat.
Take a cold shower when your body temperature is normal. Cold showers are not recommended when the body is overheated do to exercise, fever, when menstruating or after the 120th day of pregnancy.
Col Shower Technique
Rub Almond oil on the body before shower. Put on a long pair of shorts to cover your mid thigh area (to prevent depletion of minerals), Chant your favorite mantra and take the plunge. Shower for 3 minutes, rubbing your body vigorously. Towel dry and enjoy the benefits.
Almond oil is used as an effective massage oil, skin and hair moisturizer. Almond oil eases itching, soreness and dryness, rashes and muscle pain.
Almond oil can be used for massage and either before or after a cold shower to moisturize the skin.
Want more? Drop me a line with story suggestions. | <urn:uuid:67e3f70c-77bc-4ccc-8a2d-8d03f6171069> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.yogavision.com/my-body-my-temple/keeping-it-fresh-cleansing-rituals/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925327 | 912 | 2.234375 | 2 |
The Sun on March 30, 2001. You can see the huge sunspot in the upper, right hand part of the Sun. Though it doesn't look like much, this area is equivalent to the surface area of 14 Earths! The sunspot has since moved so that it is on the far side of the Sun from Earth.
Click on image for full size
Courtesy of Spaceweather.com
Massive Sunspot! (Updated!)
News story originally written on April 4, 2001
There is a huge sunspot on the the Sun right now. It is the biggest in 10 years!
It let off the largest solar flare and coronal mass ejection (CME) in ten years on Monday, April 2!
This flare and CME won't hit Earth directly. But, there's still a good chance you'll be able to see the auroral lights the nights of April 4th-5th. To see the aurora, you just need a clear, dark night.
Good luck and stay tuned to Spaceweather.com for updates!
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Trees and plants are a very important part of this Earth. Trees and plants are nature's air conditioning because they help keep our Earth cool. On a summer day, walking bare-foot on the sidewalk burns,...more | <urn:uuid:cdcfc1b5-7043-4e99-afd3-b21379b82da3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.windows2universe.org/headline_universe/huge_sunspot2.html&edu=elem | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00051-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951029 | 584 | 3.546875 | 4 |
How to Protect Yourself from Credit-Repair Scams
Equifax Credit Team
If you’re drowning in debt, you might be tempted to partner with a debt-relief service or a credit-repair company to help you pay down your debt. In recent years, some companies have preyed on consumers’ financial insecurities, prompting the federal government to get involved by passing new laws regulating the industry.
Credit-repair companies promise to restructure your debt or settle with creditors on your behalf to change the amount you owe. They may also offer budget counseling or classes, or create a debt-management plan for you.
New Federal Trade Commission regulations require that these companies be clearer with customers about what they can do, how long it will take, and how much the customer may or may not save.
The FTC regulations also make it illegal for such companies to charge a fee before they are successful in helping a customer with his or her debt.
Keep in mind that these rules apply only to companies offering services by phone or over the Internet. If you meet with a company face-to-face before signing up, these new rules do not apply.
How Can You Protect Yourself?
Before you get involved with a credit-repair company, ask your state attorney general or Better Business Bureau if any complaints have been filed against the company.
You can also check with your state attorney general’s office to see if the company has a valid license. Remember: just because a company claims to be a nonprofit organization, it doesn’t mean it is.
A reputable credit counseling agency should provide you information without requiring you to provide money or details about your situation. The company should tell you your rights and what you can do for yourself for free.
Ask how the company will handle your sensitive financial information to make sure it stays private.
Finally, be sure it is clear how much you are expected to pay the company, and get that number in writing.
Credit-Repair Scam Red Flags
Be cautious if the credit-repair company
To file a complaint or ask questions, visit ftc.gov, or call toll-free at 1-877-FTC-HELP.
Equifax maintains this interactive forum for education and information purposes in order to allow individuals to share their relevant knowledge and opinions with other members and visitors. We encourage you to participate in discussions about personal finance issues and other topics of interest to this community, but please read our commenting guidelines first. Equifax reserves the right to monitor postings to the forum and comments will be published at our discretion. Do you have questions or comments about your Equifax credit report or customer-service issues regarding an Equifax product? If so, please contact Equifax directly. All opinions and information expressed or shared in blog comments are solely those of the person submitting the comments, and don't necessarily represent the views of Equifax or its management. | <urn:uuid:1a4d88dc-5cf5-4e5d-91c1-80ac345eb251> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.equifax.com/credit/how-to-protect-yourself-from-credit-repair-scams/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934654 | 598 | 1.585938 | 2 |
It’s been three years since Alzheimer’s researcher Dr. Victor Aaron lost his wife, Sara, a playwright, in a car accident when the 58-year-old neuroscientist and head of Alzheimer’s research at Maine’s Soborg Institute finds a stack of index cards in a book on his wife’s desk. The cards, an assignment from the couple’s brief stint in marriage counseling, are Sara’s handwritten account of the turning points in their 40-year relationship. As he reads them, Victor must confront his long-suppressed feelings about their marriage, her death, and his flaws as a husband, lover, and friend.
In You Lost Me There, the debut novel of Rosecrans Baldwin ’99, Victor’s first-person account tracks his emotions and doubts as he processes the stories on the cards. Through his wife’s notes, Victor finds that he and Sara had very different memories of their lives together, and he begins to realize that perhaps he isn’t the person he perceives himself to be. Sara saw Victor as emotionally distant, coldly analytical, and dismissive of her feelings. Sara on turning 40:
I was still furious over how easily [Victor had] turned forty the year before. When, worse, he hadn’t seen why it should be such a big deal to me. ‘It’s a number, not a milestone,” he said “… People last century were lucky to even make forty.
For Victor aging was an issue to be confronted with simple logic. For Sara the birthday was part of a six-month-long roller coaster of stress that inspired her to write her Broadway debut, Woman Hits Forty—a milestone in her life that doesn’t even register in her husband’s memory.
By surrounding the emotionally stifled Victor with a startling cast of characters, Baldwin draws him from his shell. And, while Victor does not change outwardly (he’s still doing research at the novel’s end), the story is of the inner process that sees him become whole. | <urn:uuid:b36b7971-e05f-4d06-b576-b0393f8d2a38> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.colby.edu/colby.mag/issues/57/article/1244/all-in-the-cards/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978648 | 443 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Gearld Fry 193 Fry Rd. - Rose Bud, AR 72137
The objective for a well-balanced and functional bull is to get 85% of his cow's settled on first service and do that job on grass and or hay and maintain his body weight. The libido must be high and he must have at least 85% of his sperm cells alive with forward motion.
Masculinity has to be the primary objective in selecting a yearling bull to breed your cows. Masculinity is in the head, neck, and shoulders. The neck must have a large crest with a short neck. The shoulders must be very wide with meat or muscling covering the blades. The legs must be very wide where the exit the chest cavity. The front feet and legs must be straight and lined with the body for ease of traveling. The lower jaw of the bull must be heavy, with a wide mouth and large nostrils, and lots of guts. The head hair must be coarse. A bull of any breed must have coarse, masculine hair on the head, neck and upper front limbs and on the thighs and dark in color. The hair on the tail switch is coarse, masculine and very often curly. A masculine bull will have a thick hide covering his neck and shoulders. A masculine bull will shed hair early in spring with short thick hair replacement. Yearling bulls with heavy short neck, wide and meaty shoulders controls the birth weight of his calves and also correlates with uniform gestation and uniform weaning weights. All of this results in more pounds of beef. The bull described will deliver calves within 2-3 pounds of his birth weight (either side). If a bull is not masculine at twelve month of age than he is a bull only in gender. The chest of the bull must be deep and convex (flat, not pinched) for ease of keeping.
The bull must have the heavy front as just described. The rump area must match the neck and shoulders with a well rounded, deep rump with lots of meat (not flat muscled). The rump area must be at least 45% (wider is better) as wide as the bull's hip height. The flat muscled bull normally is too tall and will have a square rump thus causing his daughters to have calving problems.
The testis must be a minimum of 38-40 centimeters at 12 months of age. They must hang straight down and not tucked up in the back, both being the same size and shape. They must hang side by side (not twisted) with no enlargement of the teats. The scrotal sack must have a buckskin look with a short fine hair covering. The bull must have proper tons of the testicle and epididymis. The length is as important as the circumference. The bull must have a well-formed sphincter muscle to close the sheath opening (no hanging of the prepuce or “foreskin”). All bulls should have pigmentation of skin on scrotal, eyes and hide with dark hoofs. Adaptation to location is of utmost importance.
Questions? Comments? Contact:
193 Fry Rd.
Rose Bud, AR 72137
Telephone - (501)-556-5040
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(NaturalNews) This interview is an excerpt from Kevin Gianni's Raw Food Summit which can be found at (http://rawsummitarchives.com
) . In this excerpt, Happy Oasis shares on living with tribes around the world and the insights she's gleaned from these experiences.Raw Food Summit Excerpt with Happy Oasis, the founder of The Raw Spirit Festival.Kevin:
Today, I have another incredible guest on the line. She has traveled all around the world, living with tribal societies and learning their healing techniques and most recently has been organizing a yearly raw event for like-minded people like you to gather and share the message which is
called the Raw Spirit Fest. So today, I'd like to welcome Happy. Happy, how are you?Happy:
I am content beyond measure.Kevin:
Well, that is an awesome way to start this call. Let's start by talking about who you are and let's just give a little bit of background and then we'll get right into the details of what we want to talk about today.Happy:
Alright. Well, I'm the founder, the chief visionary officer of the Raw Spirit Festival which is the biggest raw, vegan, organic, eco-sustainable solution world peace festival on the planet.Kevin:
Wow. Listen, We talked before this call when you had mentioned you had been out traveling to different cultures in Southeast Asia, is that correct?Happy:
Well, throughout Asia, Central America, and Canada and about 30 countries I've lived in.Kevin:
Okay. And you have done some research and you've lived with some Tribes. Why don't you start and just kind of tell us some of the things that you've done and some of the distinctions that you've gotten and I'll ask you questions as we go.Happy:
For more than 10 years, I was adopted by a variety of tribes in Asia and as an adventure anthropologist living up high in the Himalayas, in the swamplands of Bangladesh, in the hinterlands of Thailand, in Burma and on the islands of Malaysia and Thailand and many other countries and in
Australia and because I was so young and so keen to learn their ways, they basically adopted me.
I would live with them for months on end and learn their languages. One of the things that I learned from the Yogis who lived up high in the Himalayas is the power of water. Yogis advocate using water as their primary medicine not only as an enema but if somebody has a skin ailment or from diseased skin or an insect bite or a cut, the prescribed technique is to put that body part under the bubbling- near-freezing-water for as long as the person can stand it repeatedly through the course of the day and it's considered most powerful to do this at sunrise and sunset because there's something about the interplay of solar radiation at those times that accentuates the power of very cold water and in fact,
one of the practices that I do is baptism every morning if I can and every evening and throughout America, we can do this around the planet, when we're traveling we seek out the relatively pristine streams wherever we're traveling and bathe in them instead of going to the motel aid or going to a public shower and it cleans the body, mind, and spirit and I'd love to ask you, when is the last time you watched the sunrise?Kevin:
It was a couple of days ago. We were away and I watched the sunrise.Happy:
Isn't that beautiful?Kevin:
Because I was thinking it's summer right now and it's such an important spiritual practice that the tribal people
who I lived with did this every day. The word soul actually means sun as in solar radiation and a person who has a lot of soul has a lot of sunshine in their heart and the word sole as in only, had also come from the word sun
because it was considered the only source of life and the one to who we give reverence.
An important part of getting back into the tribal way of thinking is to sleep alfresco on the earth to feel the rhythm of the body called the earth, to feel the magnetic radiation, to feel the love emanating from the earth and its daily nightly rhythm.
One other aspect of a natural way of living is to embrace the night, to embrace the darkness and to revere and to commune with the starlight and starlight could be our most overlooked nutritional deficiency. Another aspect of tribal living is vigorous exercise. Tribal people exercise at least two hours a day with sweat, with a racing heart, with deep-end, vigorous and loud respirations, and so all of these is part of the raw
vegan lifestyle; stretching, growing a garden, growing sprouts as a beginning to a garden.
As we're hitchhiking, we can eat wild food and so it's really important as part of a daily sacrament to touch, to sniff and to gently ingest at least one wild plant wherever we are to literally get in touch with our ambience, to literally let ourselves on a sunny little level commune with the ambience,
with the soil that's right beneath our feet.Kevin:
So when you went to these areas, I mean how old were you and how did you get invited or how did you present yourself to these different cultures?Happy:
Well, I received a scholarship to study at Hobart Matriculation College in Tasmania when I was 16 and 17 and while I was there, part of the program was a work program to go out into the professional force and so I joined the Tasmanian Forest Service and I was the only apprentice
there who was not part aboriginal.
The aboriginal leaders welcomed me into their forest service family and so I learned a lot of the ways from them and then I felt so at home with them, more than I had in fact in the English culture of Tasmania that I realized that there's an enormous vast world of wisdom and since I was 12 years old, I had been cognizant of the fact that certain aspects of Christianity might have certain limitations at least on my mindset and I was seeking out wisdom.
My path, I call it adventure anthropology but it was actually the path of someone who was just thirsting and hungering for wisdom and so I went from tribe to tribe seeking out better ways in doing things that are more, we call today, eco-sustainable with more gentle and simple loving kindness and humor and spontaneity.
I would stay with one tribe and I would think, "This is it. I'm never leaving." And then they will become victims of genocide. For example, I was in Bangladesh and the tribes that I was just leaving just to re-supply were attacked by the Bengali government.
There was another tribe I lived with on the border of Thailand and when I left their refugee camp one day, I came back the next day and they had been burnt to the ground and so had all of my friends with it, so I've been in one experience after another.
The Moken people who I lived with became virtual servants of the Thai Forest Service. The Thai Forest Service would pay the teenage girls for an entire day of sweeping the forest clean because it's a jungle. They would get paid two bags of potato chips, the very small ones and they had to do it. They didn't really have a choice.
They were also setup on reservations and they became the tourist attraction so they had to stay on this island and the Forest Service had them build certain buildings that they thought the tourists would like to see them in and then they were no longer allowed to go in their sailing canoes from island to island and experience their free lifestyle because before that, they used to go all the way to India almost every year through the Andaman Sea to fish and hunt and they have a very easy, beautiful, adventurous lifestyle.
What's happening in a lot of the developing countries, and there's a reason why it's called developing because it's developing into what we've developed into. That the tribal people are going through the same thing that our tribal people, our native people went through a hundred to two hundred years ago.Kevin:
Let's pick a tribe and whatever one that you're closest to or you were closest to, you know, what is the daily activity? What do they eat? You said that everyone sleeps on the ground. I mean, what's the activity? What do they do? What do they hunt? I mean, it's so fascinating to me and I need to know.Happy:
Alright. Well, one of the people I lived with was the Khasi people and they're pineapple farmers and so we would collect herbs everyday. They live deep in the forest and then they have this conical huts entirely comprised of mud and they were the cleanest mud huts imaginable. Everything was tidy. They had very few possessions, almost none. They have one little treasure chest full of their very few earthly possessions like an outfit of intricate lacy beauty each and otherwise, they wear very little and they live a very simple life, in a very simple way and we would collect herbs early in the morning. We would offer prayers to the sunshine.Kevin:
What are the prayers about?Happy:
One translation could be which I have been saying for many years, "Oh divine sun, bearer of all life, giver of all beings, may you live forever, and may we live forever, at one with
you so that we can make it homewards to you eternally. Oh, divine sun, bearer of all life, giver of all beings." We would go up our little moles and it reminds me of the people who are like squirrels, like birds, like mountain lions, all these people they have different tribes, they happen to be different species live by the same religion. Let's say it's the religion of the sun, the religion of a natural rhythm, the breathing of day and night and fully feeling the breath of the season, living as close to the mother earth as possible and really feeling as if we are sleeping on the breasts of a
mother every night.
A lot of these people I live with never wore shoes. They smile a lot. They radiate a smile like sunshine and not just in their eyes or in their smile but their whole body. They tend to be very affectionate, a lot of hugging, a lot of touching, a lot of massage, foot massage.
Part of our community here, the Happy Oasis Raw Retreat which is a long-term raw vegetarian community of about 6 to 10 people at any given time, we've adopted these tribal ways of having a lot of freedom to do whatever we like. There's no guru here. Everybody is self-actualizing continuously and sharing.
There's just a lot of affection verbally, encouragement, communion, becoming intimate as much as we can, not necessarily as much physically as a group but more in a way of the heart through
communication because communication comes from the root of communion and commune. I realize that the only true communication is that in which our speaking and our listening results in this feeling of oneness.To read the rest of this transcript as well as access more information on living a natural and raw food lifestyle, just like Happy Oasis, please visit (http://rawsummitarchives.com) .
About the author
Kevin Gianni is a health advocate, author and speaker. He has helped thousands of people in over 85 countries learn how to take control of their health--and keep it. To view his popular internet TV Show "The Renegade Health Show" (and get a free gift!) with commentary on natural health issues, vegan and raw food diets, holistic nutrition and more click here
His book, "The Busy Person's Fitness Solution,"
is a step-by-step guide to optimum health for the time and energy-strapped. To find out more about abundance, optimum health and self motivation click here
... or you're interested in the vegan and raw food diet and cutting edge holistic nutrition click here
. For access to free interviews, downloads and a complete bodyweight exercise archive visit www.LiveAwesome.com
Have comments on this article? Post them here:
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The General Program (GP)
The General Program introduces basic Buddhist view, meditation and action, along with various other teachings and practices, all within the Mahayana Buddhist tradition of Atisha and Je Tsongkhapa, to help practitioners deepen their knowledge and experience of Buddhism.
All the teachings are based on commentaries by Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso.
The General Program is taught at every Kadampa Buddhist Center and is an ideal starting point for those interested to find out more about Buddhism and meditation.
The program consists of drop-in classes (evening and lunchtimes), usually supplemented by optional day courses, weekend courses, and meditation retreats.
All classes are open to everyone.
Some centers also provide special classes for children.
Subjects covered by the program
- Who was Buddha?
- Understanding the mind
- Past and future lives
- What is karma?
- Our precious human life
- What is meditation
- The Buddhist way of life
- What is liberation?
- Developing renunciation
- The three higher trainings
- Becoming a Bodhisattva
- The Bodhisattva’s way of life
- Ultimate truth
To find out more about General Program classes near you, contact your local center. | <urn:uuid:87c234eb-56e2-4ebc-b1b0-a955682c48a6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kadampa.org/en/buddhism/general-program | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.909516 | 267 | 2.15625 | 2 |
Praise for Screenwriting is Storytelling from Amazon.com:
For the Beginner and the Advanced Storyteller
The first advice I read is - in order to have a career as a screenwriter you have to learn to be a storyteller.
With that in mind I bought books, took out books at the library and read all the positive and negative articles on the internet that made me want to give up before I started.
I took out Ms. Wright's book from the library and after having so many "aha" moments as I read it, I returned the book to the library after ordering a copy for myself on Amazon. I knew I had to own this book.
Ms. Wright breaks down the process of writing into simple terms and chapters. Through the book I saw that successful storytelling involves all the characters perspectives.
I highly recommend this book to the inexperienced storyteller, for it's simplicity and to experienced storytellers as a reminder of what a screenplay needs to be a hit.
--Mary (New York)
"New at this"
Hollywood's "Secret" Ingredient
Screenwriting Is Storytelling by Kate Wright knocked my socks off.
Though I've been a professional writer for two decades, I have avoided books that outline the theories of creative storytelling as I feared such books would be intrusive rather than helpful. I assumed most writers learned to write by writing. This book turns that idea on its head.
In her effort to break down the script writing process, Kate Wright digs deeper than plot, character, and theme. She investigates the connection between great storytelling and the sources of it's subsconscious affect on the audience. She scrutinizes several vastly popular movies in detail, movies that have drawn audiences from all generations, all countries, all ethnic backgrounds. This effort leads her to find the one key ingredient these great movies have in common -- a spiritual connection with the audience. Spiritual connection? Surely, this must be the most "secret" ingredient in the Hollywood formula. Wright bravely explores this spiritual connection through the ethical or moral (if you must) dilemnas of the protagonists and antagonists in these popular movies. This fearless approach has forever changed my way of experiencing motion pictures.
I recommend this book to movie lovers everywhere, it will enhance their enjoyment of motion pictures. I also recommend it to screenwriters who have already internalized the technical aspects of script writing and are searching for something more -- the source of that special connection that can exist storyteller and audience. The author of this book serves as a wonderful guide on that exciting and worthwhile journey.
--Georgia Ocean (New York)
Writer and movie lover | <urn:uuid:46b153ed-f742-4630-a764-7c4dc728a868> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.katewright.com/Books.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959898 | 544 | 1.539063 | 2 |
UMES Small Farm Outreach Initiative offers spring series
PRINCESS ANNE, MD- (Feb. 14, 2012)– Plans are underway on the campus of the University of Maryland Eastern Shore for a series of events that will support area farmers who are preparing for a successful 2012 growing season.
The 2012 Small Farm Workshop Series begins on Saturday, March 3, with a pesky workshop of sorts. Drs. Jerry Brust of the University of Maryland, Tom Evans of the University of Delaware, and Kate Everts of the University of Maryland and the University of Delaware offers “What’s Eating My Plants?” The workshop, to be held in the Food Science and Technology Building from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., is a comprehensive review of below and above ground creatures that suck and chew growing vegetation, airborne fungi, and viruses. Participants will learn how to identify what is causing the damage as well as the appropriate chemical and organic controls.
On Saturday, March 10, Dr. Gary Felton of the University of Maryland presents a “how to” workshop, “Farm Scale Composting.” The classroom portion will explore the science of composting and nutrient management. There will also be a field demonstration on how to build the compost pile, with an emphasis on composting horse manure. A quality composting handbook is included in the registration fee. The event will be held in the Food Science and Technology Building on campus from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., with registration being held from 9 – 9:30 a.m.
An Integrated Pest Management Workshop is reserved for Saturday, March 17, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Richard A. Henson Center. Dr. Cerruit Hooks, University of Maryland College Park, will talk about different IPM techniques used to identify and treat pest infestations. Dr. Lauren Kolbs, University of Maryland College Park, will focus on ecologically-based weed management on small-scale vegetable farms.
The final workshop of the series will be held on Saturday, March 31, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Participants will explore the ins and outs of High Tunnel Raspberry & Blackberry Production. Dr. Harry Swartz, Five Aces Breeding, Garrett County, Md.; Dr. Tom Handwerker, Small Farm Institute, UMES; and Michael Sigrist, Small Farm Program, UMES, will lead the discussions and share their field experience. The workshop will begin at the UMES Food Science and Technology Building and will include a visit with hands-on demonstrations in the UMES high tunnels.
The 2012 Small Farm Workshop Series is sponsored by the UMES Small Farm Outreach Initiative. The registration fee for each workshop is $10 and includes lunch and all educational materials. Participants may register for every workshop offered at once and for a March 7 Update Dinner Meeting for a discounted price of $40. For participants who wish to register for the dinner meeting separately, the registration fee is $10. Representatives from USDA agencies and local agricultural organizations will be on hand to provide updates, share farm program opportunities, and address concerns as they relate to small-scale agriculture. The Update Dinner Meeting will be held in the Richard A. Henson Center from 6 – 8 p.m.
For more information about these events and more, contact Kayla Parmar at 410-651-6070 or by email at email@example.com. Pre-registration is required. To pre-register for one or all of the workshops, go to www.umes.edu/1890-mce.
Suzanne Waters Street, agriculture communication specialist, UMES – University of Maryland Extension, 410-651-6084, firstname.lastname@example.org. | <urn:uuid:99df104c-f524-457c-af6d-4a6b633030ee> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lkclark@umes.edu/PR/Article.aspx?id=39158 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922739 | 781 | 1.828125 | 2 |
One of the four big anomalies which the new catastrophism explains and which nothing else does, is the former super-continent, Pangaea. There is simply no reason to believe that the continental masses of the world should have ever simply ended up in one place for no particular reason. Further, assuming that the land masses had ended up in Pangaea 100 million years ago, that should have been a terminal condition; it should still be here.
Lynn Rose and a number of others have noted that the continental mass of the world would not end up in one place for no reason, and that it would have to be pulled into one place by some titanic force of attraction.
Rose notes that the antique solar-system alignment which did this also pulled the Earth itself into a spun cam, or egg-shape.
He notes that the Tethys sea is therefore an anomaly; if the land mass is pulled into one place by an attractive force, you expect it to be pulled into a circle or pie shape, and Pangaea was more like a pie with one wedge (Tethys) cut out and eaten.
Rose notes that Pangaea would have been sitting on top of the high (narrow) end of this former egg-shaped world, and that the world subsequently became spherical as it is now when the antique system broke up.
Picture my slicing a grapefruit in two and putting half of it on top of a basketball (my eggshaped world orbitting a small double star system with one pole pointed straight at the near star in perpetuity). Picture me mashing the grapefruit skin down on top of the basketball (the present sun capturing the old system, the Earth breaking into a much wider orbit of the sun with something like the present polar alignment).
I'm forcing the grapefruit skin to lie on a surface of less curvature; it's going to split. Tethys is thus seen as the split caused by the collapse of the former egg-shaped world into the present spherical one.
Aside from every other problem with Pangaea, it has been shown tht it would not fit on our present world and requires either a smaller world to lie on top of, or the high end of an egg-shaped world.
Among the comments to come in when my basic article on dinosaurs was published in "The Velikovskian" was the following:
"Are you aware of the "expanding earth" theory, which is an alternative to continental drift? In 1983 H.G. Owen published "Atlas of Continental Displacement, 200 Million Years to the Present" in the prestigious Cambridge Earth Science Series of the Cambridge University press (England). It is a book of maps that shows how the continents looked at various intervals in the past beginning 200 megayears ago. In Owen's words:So we see that, aside from every other problem which uniformitarianism is causing students of various disciplines, it forces you to believe in a world-expanding fairy. I have a hard time seeing how that's any whackier than anything which Velikovsky ever had to say.
'In 1976 I presented a spherical geometric analysis of the bulk of the ocean floor spreading made available up to 1974. During this task, it was found that the continents would only fit together to form Pangea, according to geological evidence, when the Earth's diameter was 80% of its modern mean value. Below that figure, Pangea could not be reformed without intra-continental dislocations. Above that figure, gores appeared in the reconstructiond.'
"This should reduce "g" by at least 20 percent. Actually, Owen was carrying on the work started by S. Warren Carey in his book, "The Expanding Earth", published by Elsevier in 1976 in their Developments in Geotectonics series. Later a symposium entitled "The Expanding Earth" was held at the University of Sydney in Australia Feb. 10-14, 1981 and sponsored by the Australian Academy of Science and the proceedings were published under that title. In 1988, Carey published "Theories of the Earth and Universe" through the Stanford Univ. Press. In this book he advances the theory that matter is being created in the center of the earth and that is why the earth is expanding - I've talked to several physicists about this and they see no problem with it. I'm not in a position to make an independent judgement."
"However, if the earth is expanding and Carey is right about the cause, the new material could well be as heavy as iron or heavier and the change in "g" could be more than the 20% that I roughed in. I wrote to Carey several years ago and I'm not sure that he's still alive, but I plan to send him a copy of Holden's paper... | <urn:uuid:bddf391c-9c1d-4138-929b-a784d2c6db95> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bearfabrique.org/Catastrophism/rose.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972207 | 989 | 2.96875 | 3 |
A quote from P. J. O’Rourke (from a collection of his essays titled Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut - a collection just good enough to make you want to read more of his essays, but with enough mediocre entries to realize why these were “previously uncollected”.)
“Jim Fixx, author of The Complete Book of Running, died of a heart attack while jogging. He was fifty-two. Among the manifold attributes of God, we must not forget sense of humor.”
Please, do not forget a sense of humor. That is, auditors must have and exhibit a sense of humor if we are to be relevant in any way, shape, or form. True, such an attitude (in most parts of business, not just auditing) is often dismissed, if not actively frowned upon. “It’s not professional” is the most common litany, “If people are laughing, they are not taking us seriously.” If you have ever caught yourself saying these (or similar) phrases, I have two thoughts for you:
1) “Lighten up.” 2) “Humor is hard but valuable work.”
Humor has been analyzed to death (Why did the researcher cross the road? To see what was so danged funny), but it is quickly evident that there is much more to humor than just telling a few jokes. Among other things, humor is about looking at things sideways; about a deeper understanding of what is happening; about approaching the profession with reason rather than argument. And, for purposes of our time together today, there are three aspects that are important to remember.
First, approaching any aspect of life and work with a humorous bent forces one to think about things differently. Much humor springs from the unexpected. So, if you are approaching life/business/auditing with humor, it means you are looking at things differently than most anyone else in the room. And that means you are coming up with ideas and approaches and thoughts that are not being contemplated by anyone else. You have become an idea factory. (It’s a whole ‘nother discussion about whether you are a good idea factory. And, no, you’re not allowed to ask my co-workers which category I belong in.)
Second, humor allows a safe way to say dangerous things. Some of the most famous humor/satiric pieces (think Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland or Swift’s “A Modest Proposal”) made damning statements in a way that was almost hidden. I’d love to give you examples of this in the workplace, but I don’t have any. (That is, I don’t have any I can share. I will only suggest that, if one were to closely read some of my humor pieces, additional insights might be gained. Further deponent sayeth not.)
Third, (and the one that is really the reason I brought this whole thing up) humor really helps keep an appropriate perspective and frame of mind. Let’s face it; we are in a cra-azy profession. We are paid to tell people what they already know. We are paid to tell them things they don’t want to know. We are paid to tell them things they should have known. We have no authority, but we can bring down a corporation. We don’t have a direct impact on the bottom line, but we can help achieve a profit. We have to convince people they need our help. We are often vilified. If not vilified, we are tolerated. If more than tolerated, we are embraced with open arms until such time as we say things people don’t like to hear. We are housed in the basement, behind the cafeteria, in a separate building. We are where accountants go to die, where new employees are sent to see if they can survive, where talent incubates to go off somewhere else. We are second-class citizens, we are also-rans, we are the child that is patted on the head and told to go off and play. We are not an animal! We are none of these. We are all of these. Auditors and the treatment of same are a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. Every one of these statement is a lie except when it isn’t.
Whether we can admit it or not, there are grains of truth in every sentence above. But it is just this multichotomy (yep, I made that word up) that makes auditing as much fun as it is. Humor helps us see the ludicrosity (yes, that one, too) of our situation, and helps us accept it for the joy it is.
Put it all together and, while it might not spell Mother, it does show that humor used in an audit situation helps shine lights of wisdom on hidden issues. (And, in some instance, hidden treasures.)
All this to say – do not quell the funny in you or any of your co-workers/direct-reports/bosses. Just like anything, there is a time and a place. But recognize there is a place for humor and, to be honest, with an open mind and an open approach, it is harder to find times when it is not appropriate than when it is. | <urn:uuid:9bf9e0fb-5351-4375-bf0a-9b1e063cfd3d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theiia.org/blogs/jacka/index.cfm/post/A%20Humorist%20on%20Humor%20and%20Why%20We%20Should%20Humor%20the%20Humorous | 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 | 0.968347 | 1,132 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Searching for a fan page on Facebook yesterday, my faith in humanity took a typographically-challenged hockey puck to the junk. People on Facebook just can't spell.
I was doing a quick search for the official Lamborghini Facebook page, and as I typed the letters L-A-M-B-O-R into the social media site's search field, up popped a fan page I didn't expect to see — the "Lamborgini fan page. Fine, a fan misspelled a fan page. Someone made a small mistake. No big deal, right? Then I noticed how many followers it had. How the hell did over 150,000 people become fans of a page for a misspelling of the storied Italian brand? That's just heartbreaking.
I mean, whatever, misspelling something? It happens. Just ask anyone who's ever edited my work. I do it all the time. But this isn't a simple misspelling. If you think about it, accruing that many fans requires three levels of fact-checking on the part of the brain of the Facebook user. First, they have to search for a car manufacturer page on Facebook, then, after seeing the results pop up, they have to click on the choice they're given. Then, finally, they need to click the "Like" button on said page once it pops up. This isn't an accidentally missed keystroke — it's a colossal spelling failure.
We really need to do something about this and our somewhat-esteemed editor think it starts here in our comments. Wert says he's now going to start warning starred commenters if they misspell something. You get enough warnings and you lose your star. Maybe he's on to something.
Just as long as he doesn't start doing it with me.
Anyway, it turns out that "Lamborgini" fans aren't the only Facebook car lovers with a propensity for misspellings. We've assembled the gallery above to show you the best of the worst.
Correct Spelling: Porsche
# of Users: 659
Perhaps worse than the thousands of people who can't spell the extremely Italian and complex Lamborghini are the 659 people who spell the German automaker Porsh.
Correct Spelling: Ferrari
# of Users: 17,273
Italian names are hard to spell.
Correct Spelling: Aston Martin
# of Users: 64
Not only is this an easy name to spell, we're thinking "Astun" is the least phonetic way to describe it. I blame the Germans mostly populating this page.
Buggatti Veryon <3
Correct Spelling: Bugatti Veyron
# of Users: 247
Congratulations, by misspelling both the name of the car company and the model of the car you've been able to attract 247 fans. We "<3" you as well. Or is "<3" another special edition Veyron?
Correct Spelling: Koenigsegg CCX
# of Users: 247
Ok, no judgment here. This is a hard word to spell. Some of these people may actually be Koenigsegg employees. | <urn:uuid:385b6726-18c8-4afe-9c60-ad17b43ec027> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://jalopnik.com/5838066/proof-people-on-facebook-cant-spell/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931712 | 656 | 1.851563 | 2 |
The Death and Life of Great American Cities
by Jane Jacobs
Jane Jacobs sets out to produce an attack on current city-planning and rebuilding in America and to introduce new principles by which these should be ... Show synopsis Jane Jacobs sets out to produce an attack on current city-planning and rebuilding in America and to introduce new principles by which these should be governed. Throughout the post-war period, planners temperamentally unsympathetic to cities have been let loose on the urban environment. Inspired by the ideals of the Garden City or Le Corbusier's Radiant City, they have dreamt up ambitious projects based on self-contained neighbourhoods, super-blocks, rigid "scientific" plans and endless acres of grass. Yet they seldom stop to look at what actually works on the ground. The real vitality of cities, argues Jacobs, lies in their diversity, architectural variety, teeming street life and human scale. It is only when we appreciate such fundamental realities that we can hope to create cities that are safe, interesting and economically viable, as well as places that people want to live in. | <urn:uuid:b2114604-ee1c-42d0-ab8b-8e297bade4fe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.alibris.com/booksearch?qwork=1527159&matches=132&qsort=p&cm_sp=1rec-_-RHS-_-p1-0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941415 | 220 | 2.640625 | 3 |
I first came to West Virginia when I was 8 years old while on a camping trip with my father, brother, uncle and cousins. I thought of it as the most wonderful place in the world. (This was years before the wild and wonderful slogan). I told myself on that June, Grant County day that I would move to the state when I grew up. Years passed and I got stuck in the maelstrom of working in a big city. But I always knew West Virginia was still there unchanged, as it would be when I finally got there. This is where some of the oldest mountains on earth reside, and how could you change a mountain?
But I was dead wrong. A legion of forces have been arraying against the mountain state, radically destroying in a few short years what it took nature millions of years to construct. These changes were totally unthinkable a few short years ago.
How many of you could have envisioned mountain-top removal where a whole mountain is annililated? The entire mountain ridge, along with the treeline and the holler, is gone along with all the rock so somebody somewhere can hook into the "grid" and burn more kilowatt hours. The underground deep mines never obliterated the mountain, only worked beneath it.
Or take this fracking business, which is causing earthquakes and ruining local underground water. Where I live in Preston County, a spring has been flowing, I expect, for thousands of years providing drinking water to the people, and it is especially important to farmers who fill up their big containers in times of drought when their wells are running low. I am not sure how long this water is going to be drinkable with fracking close by. Or what happens when the time comes for our own local earthquake.
And these windmill farms going up on our highest and proudest ridges: Most of this power is going out of state into the grid. Most of the workers are not local people and, of course, the manufacturing of the blades, takes place far away. Huge tax credits are issued concerning the wind farms, the oil companies get these tax credits to reduce their fair share of corporate taxes. Many animals are losing their lives near the giant blades especially bats. The large road system required to maintain these windmills permanently alters the mountain ridge habitat and beauty. One of our most important state mottos, provided by the UMWA since 1890, is the term "one and indissoluble." Indissoluble means unable to be destroyed, but in fact our state is being rapidly destroyed by mountaintop removal, fracking and giant windmill farms.
Another important motto is montani semper liberi. I don't know how a mountaineer can be free if their mountain has been removed. Also, how can a mountaineer be free if there is no water to drink due to fracking? And how can a mountaineer be free if there is a giant windmill on every mountain obstructing their view?
In a few short years these scourges have reared their heads and are threatening our beautiful state. We all need to do something now before it is too late. | <urn:uuid:ceba4f7f-daea-4d93-90b6-f1c62d07c634> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://journal-news.net/page/content.detail/id/592179/-Scourges--threatening-our-beautiful-state.html?nav=5061 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974723 | 642 | 1.882813 | 2 |
In the past I’ve written about ways to keep seniors active and tools to keep a senior mobile but I haven’t delved into why it is important to keep active as we get older. A lot of aging is unavoidable. As an elder law attorney I speak with many seniors who have been affected by the passage of time. Sadly many of my clients also don’t have much to do after they have retired and their children have grown and started families of their own. Research is showing us that maintaining a physician-approved active lifestyle in our golden years not only keeps us from being bored but can help increase our lifespan, reduce the risks for cognitive issues, increase our emotional states, and actually help us get more sleep.
Keeping Active Keeps Your Brain Healthy
According to a study published in the Archive of Neurology, physical activity in people over the age of 65 can provide protection from mental decline like dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. The study also mentions that as long as the senior is not overworking themselves, the activity they take part in does not matter. Almost any activity is good including golf, swimming, yoga, taking a walk or just doing stuff around the home. The study also mentions that taking part in less strenuous activities, like the hobbies that I wrote about a couple months ago, also seems to cause a reduction in mental decline.
Staying Active Keeps You Happier
Through our lives at work and raising a family we all maintain a network of relationships. As we get older we lose touch with friends and our kids grow up. Keeping our network of friends becomes harder. The good news is that if we take part in a social activity, it usually means that we are spending time with other people. A paper by the Rochester Institute of Technology points out that social support, when coupled with physical health, can improve the mental health of everyone, not just seniors. Basically a healthy level of activity can increase our social support network which also keeps us happier and mentally healthy.
Continue Reading » | <urn:uuid:a11b30b0-1659-4328-a644-291a08094511> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.deloachandhofstra.com/media-center/blog/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973607 | 411 | 2 | 2 |
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Q. Both our dog and cat like to eat cantaloupe. Is it safe?
A. Although there are notable exceptions (such as raisins, onions and some nuts, among others), most foods that are unprocessed or minimally processed and are considered healthy for people to eat are also fine for pets. In fact, I recommend treats such as carrot sticks and apple slices for dogs, especially those who need to lose weight.
While most dogs will take any handout they’re offered, from pizza crusts and chocolate chip cookies (not recommended) to many raw fruits and vegetables and cooked bits of lean meat (just fine), many cats turn up their noses at anything but their regular fare. There are a couple of reasons for this, including the tendency of cats to “imprint” on a particular food format, shape, texture or brand as well as the fact that cats lack a “sweet tooth.”
You are not the first person to tell me of a cat who loves melon slices, though, so there must be something feline-approved to that fruit — perhaps the texture? Who knows?
All things in moderation, of course. While cantaloupe is just fine as a treat, don’t let either animal eat so much of it that it takes the space of foods with more species-specific nutrition, or that it contributes to excess weight.
Like this article? Have a point of view to share? Let us know!
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Thanks to a microchip, Brandon Peterson found his Welsh Terrier, who went missing while he was serving in Iraq.
The group Dogs on Deployment arranges temporary homes for all kinds of animals, from canines to chinchillas.
Dr. Ann Hohenhaus explains why this procedure provides critical information for determining the prognosis of a pet.
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Slugs, Pugs, hummingbirds and crows are just a few of the many creatures we spotted in the trailer for Epic.
The big, affectionate Ragdoll will love to snuggle in your lap and gaze at you with her beautiful baby blues.
If the video doesn't start playing momentarily,
please install the latest version of Flash. | <urn:uuid:3dac961f-5898-4a18-8223-43db519dae8a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.vetstreet.com/dr-marty-becker/is-it-ok-to-feed-our-pets-cantaloupe?Wt.mc_id=jctwitter | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94134 | 562 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Learn A Shape For The F#/Gb Minor Chord!
Here is a shape for the F sharp / G flat minor guitar chord. This chord diagram uses one of the more common bar chord voicings. The lowest root note of this chord is the F# / Gb on the 2nd fret of the 6th string. When a note can be called by more than one name, in this case F sharp or G flat, that note is said to be enhamonic. If you need more help on playing bar chords you can always go to the bar chord lesson. | <urn:uuid:3619647f-b0f0-4ae9-97ef-63f13a8f4afe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.guitarlessons.com/guitar-lessons/guitar-chords/f-sharp-gb-minor-chord/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936766 | 118 | 2.859375 | 3 |
LOS ANGELES — Most Americans believe that the government’s economic stimulus has fallen short of their expectations in creating jobs, according to the latest IBD/TIPP Poll. One outcome of the letdown is that they are not placing their hopes on the stimulus to create future jobs.
A whopping 66 percent believe that the economic stimulus program has fallen short of their expectations when it comes to job creation. One in five (22 percent) say it met their expectations and 6 percent believe it exceeded their expectations.
A majority (56 percent) says that they are not confident that the economic stimulus will create jobs in the next six months with 29 percent saying they are “Not At All Confident” and another 26 percent “Not Very Confident”. Only 43 percent has confidence that the stimulus will create jobs in the next six months.
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The President’s economic advisers cautioned in January that unless Congress passed the $787 billion stimulus package the unemployment rate would hit 9 percent by 2010. They said the stimulus would help the unemployment to level off at 8 percent and then fall.
The unemployment rate hit 10.2 percent in October.
The feeling that the economic stimulus has fallen short of expectations in creating jobs is universal -- 48 percent Democrats as well as 80% of Republicans and 73 percent of Independents think so. By ideology, 76 percent of Conservatives, 60 percent of Moderates, and 48 percent of Liberals shared the feeling.
Only Democrats (73 percent) expect the stimulus to create jobs in the next six months. Most Republicans (84 percent) and Independents (63 percent) are not hopeful.
The job situation may be affecting how Americans grade the President’s handling of the economy. Just over one-third gives the President a good grade -- 13 percent give him an A and 24 percent a B. Majority gives him a C or lower – 22 percent give him a C, 18 percent a D and 22 percent a F.
IBD/TIPP completed the latest poll of 928 Americans on Saturday. The margin of error is +/- 3-percentage points.
ABOUT THE IBD/TIPP POLL
The IBD/TIPP Economic Optimism Index is the earliest take on consumer confidence each month and predicts with 80% reliability monthly changes in sentiment in well-known polls by The Conference Board and the University of Michigan. The IBD/TIPP Economic Optimism Index is based on a survey of 900-plus adults chosen at random nationwide. The poll is generally conducted in the first week of the month. | <urn:uuid:72d700c3-d2eb-4c14-8f07-90c26e382c28> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newsmax.com/InsideCover/obama-poll-stimulus/2009/11/11/id/336156 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920639 | 544 | 1.78125 | 2 |
I love reading Carl Jung, especially his book Memories, Dreams, Reflections. His work is very challenging, however, so to get a Jung fix, I read a bunch of interviews that he gave, which were printed in the collection, C.G. Jung Speaking.
In 1960, journalist Gordon Young asked Jung, "What do you consider to be more or less basic factors making for happiness in the human mind?" Jung answered with five elements:1. Good physical and mental health.
2. Good personal and intimate relationships, such as those of marriage, the family, and friendships.
3. The faculty for perceiving beauty in art and nature.
4. Reasonable standards of living and satisfactory work.
5. A philosophic or religious point of view capable of coping successfully with the vicissitudes of life.
Jung, always mindful of paradox, added, "All factors which are generally assumed to make for happiness can, under certain circumstances, produce the contrary. No matter how ideal your situation may be, it does not necessarily guarantee happiness."
I did disagree strongly with Jung on one point. He said, "The more you deliberately seek happiness the more sure you are not to find it." I know, Carl Jung vs. Gretchen Rubin, who is the authority? But though many great minds, such as John Stuart Mill, make the same point as Jung, I don't agree.
For me, at least, the more mindful I am about happiness, the happier I become. Take Jung's five factors. By deliberately seeking to strengthen those elements of my life, I make myself happier.
What do you think of Jung's list? Would you add anything else, or characterize any element differently? And do you think it's helpful to think about happiness directly, or not?
* Several months ago, I posted an interview with the writer and humorist Andy Borowitz, and I also linked the podcast of a story he told, The time I almost died (a true story). Because people responded so warmly to the story, I suggested to Andy that he might consider publishing it in written form-and he has! An Unexpected Twist is the #1 Kindle Single. It's hilarious and also deeply moving. I love any gold star, so I have to admit I got a huge kick when, in an interview on the New Yorker site, Andy mentioned that I'd given him a nudge to write it.
* Count down to March 1! If The Happiness Project can hang onto the New York Times list for eight more days, it will have been there for a solid year. Yes! One year. Amazing. So, if you're thinking about buying the book, go right ahead.
Order your copy.
Read sample chapters. | <urn:uuid:a5affcee-6c25-4f4d-bee7-c6117636fd97> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://shine.yahoo.com/healthy-living/carl-jungs-five-key-elements-happiness-145000488.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961984 | 565 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Posted by SR on December 09, 2004
In Reply to: Re: This was of ten put forward posted by R. Berg on December 09, 2004
: : The context:
: : "In view of the high rate of divorce, this was of ten put forward as a reason for avoiding marriage". Can anyone clarify the meaning of "ten put forward".
: : Thanks. Braza
: Remove a space and it becomes clear. "This was often put forward."
Braza, as I read it, there were ten reasons put forward for avoiding marriage, and the high rate of divorce is but one of them. SR | <urn:uuid:48a0a72f-1011-416e-8424-05c2be123b17> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/37/messages/1011.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988923 | 131 | 2.28125 | 2 |
Efforts by a number of organizations to end distracted driving are being applauded by attorneys who would like to end to the pandemic.
Newport Beach, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 11/29/2012 -- Recently a group of national car accident attorneys went on record applauding the various efforts nationwide to raise awareness of the dangers of driving while distracted. From coast to coast more groups, organizations and public agencies are speaking out about the consequences of distracted driving. Just recently the State of Florida’s Department of Transportation in conjunction with the USAA, the Shriner’s Hospital for Children and the Distracted Drivers Association held the first-ever distracted driver summit. This important event was hailed across the nation as an important way to raise awareness and present the facts of the distracted driver epidemic.
When most think of distracted driving they think of cell phones and texting, but distracted driving can be the result of eating in the car, talking with others, applying makeup and any number of activities that can lead to a personal injury accident . There have even been stories of people reading the newspaper while driving. According to the latest statistics, distracted drivers killed nearly 3,100 people and injured another 416,000 in 2010 alone.
As more and more jurisdictions begin to take distracted seriously, the consequences for such activity are going up and many distracted drivers find themselves quickly in need of legal help as their victims seek a personal injury lawyer. The consequences of distracted driving are both apparent and hidden. Obviously a distracted driver will understand the consequences if they harm another person or damage their vehicle, but as more jurisdictions start to clamp down on distracted drivers they will also start to understand that these types of incidences are coming to be viewed less as accidents and more as negligence. Those found to be driving distracted after an incident can also expect their driving privileges to be curtail greatly.
Because more and more lives are being adversely affected by distracted drivers, groups, organizations and government agencies are stepping up the efforts to make the dangers of distracted driving apparent to all, especially the groups that are most prone to driving distracted, teenagers and new drivers. It is hoped that by raising awareness of the dangers of distracted driving and making clear the consequences of such actions these groups will help decrease the number of distracted driver incidents and prevent future catastrophic events.
The groups lining up to make the public aware of the consequences of distracted driving are varied and include governments, safe driving advocacy groups, schools, hospitals, car accident attorney groups and personal injury lawyer groups. All of these groups are unified in their efforts to reduce the number of distracted driving accidents in the United States.
About American Attorney Awards
American Attorney Awards is a resource for people who are in need of an attorney. We offer a number of different resources for anyone in need of legal help.
For more information go to http://www.americanattorneyawards.com/
Copyright © 2005-2013 - SBWire, The Small Business Newswire - All Rights Reserved - Important Disclaimer
Contact Us: 888-4-SBWIRE (US) - 920-321-1250 (International) | <urn:uuid:05d00a22-55ec-4ab0-a7e1-70b3d7e4253e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sbwire.com/press-releases/national-lawyer-group-applauds-efforts-to-increase-awareness-of-distracted-driving-183865.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968445 | 633 | 2.140625 | 2 |
Dictator Kim Jong Eun delivers North Korea's New Year's message with a speech to his citizens, reviving a tradition that seemingly died with his grandfather. The WSJ's Evan Ramstad explains the significance of the new leader's public address.
This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.
I ... the only tech chance on me and has delivered the country's annual New Year's message ... and to find out what the secretive state had to say we're now joined by reporter Evan Ramstad in Seoul ... and then and this is an annual insurance for the leader she did have a dress to the country and at the beginning of each year so what is Jinjiang and have to say this year ... well he said pretty much the same thing that ... they always say ... that it's it's a it's a calm and molested by the government ... um it's been a aam pink eighty in newspapers ... during the regime of Kim Sun Il Kim said his father ... and ... so it was significant in a change for content and to come out and deliver the message himself ... he's doing that in the way that his grandfather did ... before Kindle song did this for many many years The was the kind of a tradition in North Korea to wake up on new years morning ... and put on good clothes ... and then go to a common sign it sometimes the political on a school or something ... and watch TV as Kindle son gave this new year's message ... and then as I said during the continuing euro and the missus was painted instead of delivery ... and now yesterday that once again ... returned to the ... deliberate on ... radio and TV broadcasts ... mainland and hear that came down and is a sharing in public ... more so than his father did that in at the beginning of ... his that ... leadership me we were seeing and then use impacts them out of balance ... back in and Pyongyang is so could this all be part and I'm you know forming a new news in age for the leader ... separately a hammer ... appearing to ... be more approachable ... and be working on behalf of the people ... you know it's really focused on ... building a ... base of support and legitimacy for continuing the family regime in continuing the ... rule of the family into a third generation ... than she said that he's spoken in public that several times he has on and things that ... you know kind of more informally as you mention going to amusement parks even talk about amusement parks ... in a speech on yesterday ... and and most significantly I would say is that he started showing up in public with the woman who they later repealed Adidas why ... and that the most recent pictures of her of course ... that make it look like she's pregnant so ... that's the ... news that a lot to people ... who watch the Kim family regime are now watching for next ... a lot and that message is that come from the data may include a lot of anti US rhetoric one of this time along that amount in ... Jinjiang and say anything ... about the US is the draft ... that thing and in fact ... I was that the firm years messages to not mention in the United States ... they will talk about probably the idea of external forces are outside forces ... or were foreigners who aam it came to our putting pressure on ... North Korea ... but they did not ... ever mention United States directly ... and yesterday's message was no exception to that it didn't mention ... the United States record it didn't keep up this narrative go of a country ... that is under siege ... that is challenge day and that isn't a struggle ... and and then ... you know much of the statements are ... made to encourage this is this I have ... no the camaraderie and then rallied together ... aam to work for a common good ... and then work for a better economy foreign stance and a stronger military et-cetera ... it's all in one of the regimes constant message a mean that ... when the siege ... and between regime are protecting you and we need you all the people to kind of work to support us to protect ourselves from ... outsiders to me this um not well ... again emphasizing the economy and in in in a country that is to shut off from the rest of the world did he give any hints ... as to which direction on North Korea would be headed ... in terms of its economy ... well he does think that it saw written and exclaimed and ... I encourage people to do more for the economy it's the same message that they say every year ... I will say that that aims to notice this year what is that there seem to be a little bit of an attempt to put the logic behind the ALM that encourage women exhortations to do more of the country ... there was for instance are no mention of science and technology ... applied scientific principles apply logical ... aam planning ... to improving ... your workplace improving your factory ... and therefore that Mitt building of a better economy for North Korea ... do is nothing ... of the kind of thing that outsiders would like to see foreigners diplomats and investors would like to see from North Korea ... in terms of ... the regime saying hey let's do business with people from outside the country ... let's ... try to develop an export economy but stupid thing was that most countries do to try to build a bigger and better economies we didn't see anything like that ... okay thanks Fran much and am sad reporter training us from | <urn:uuid:3fb59ba5-7c4d-4528-b4e8-b9186b3d123d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://live.wsj.com/video/lo-que-corea-del-norte-quiere-en-2013/A743671E-E132-4F1A-8D57-C8DA59BA3854.html?mod=WSJP_inicio_VideoCarousel_2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982869 | 1,091 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Kimball County, Nebraska
As of the census2 of 2000, there are 4,089 people, 1,727 households, and 1,136 families residing in the county. The population density is 2/km² (4/mi²). There are 1,972 housing units at an average density of 1/km² (2/mi²). The racial makeup of the county is 96.99% White, 0.22% Black or African American, 0.66% Native American, 0.10% Asian, 0.02% Pacific Islander, 0.66% from other races, and 1.35% from two or more races. 3.33% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race.
There are 1,727 households out of which 26.30% have children under the age of 18 living with them, 56.10% are married couples living together, 6.70% have a female householder with no husband present, and 34.20% are non-families. 30.50% of all households are made up of individuals and 15.40% have someone living alone who is 65 years of age or older. The average household size is 2.33 and the average family size is 2.89.
In the county the population is spread out with 24.70% under the age of 18, 5.90% from 18 to 24, 23.00% from 25 to 44, 25.30% from 45 to 64, and 21.00% who are 65 years of age or older. The median age is 43 years. For every 100 females there are 95.60 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there are 91.20 males.
The median income for a household in the county is $30,586, and the median income for a family is $35,880. Males have a median income of $28,300 versus $16,863 for females. The per capita income for the county is $17,525. 11.10% of the population and 9.10% of families are below the poverty line. Out of the total population, 12.30% of those under the age of 18 and 5.90% of those 65 and older are living below the poverty line.
Cities and towns | <urn:uuid:141b62bf-6afa-4185-8351-3639b229a7de> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://enc.slider.com/Enc/Kimball_County%2C_Nebraska | 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 | 0.954499 | 473 | 2.359375 | 2 |
This book offers a rigorous, concise, and nontechnical introduction to some of the fundamental insights of rational choice theory. It draws on formal theories of microeconomics, decision making, games, and social choice, and on ideas developed in philosophy, psychology, and sociology. Itzhak Gilboa argues that economic theory has provided a set of powerful models and broad insights that have changed the way we think about everyday life.
This book by a leading authority on monetary policy offers a unique view of the subject from the perspectives of both scholar and practitioner. Frederic Mishkin is not only an academic expert in the field but also has been a high-level policymaker. He is especially well positioned to discuss the changes in the conduct of monetary policy in recent years, in particular the turn to inflation targeting.
Guns and Butter examines the causes and consequences of war from a political economy perspective, taking as its premise that a consideration of the incentives and constraints faced by individuals and groups is paramount in understanding conflict decision making. The chapter authors—leading economists and political scientists—believe that this perspective offers deeper insights into war and peace choices than the standard state-centric approach. Their contributions offer both theoretical and empirical support for the political economy perspective on conflict.
In today's globally integrated food system, events in one part of the world can have multiple and wide-ranging effects, as has been shown by the recent and rapid global rise in food prices. Transnational corporations (TNCs) have been central to the development of this global food system, dominating production, international trade, processing, distribution, and retail sectors. Moreover, these global corporations play a key role in the establishment of rules and regulations by which they themselves are governed.
The legacy of environmental catastrophe in the states of the former Soviet Union includes desertification, pollution, and the toxic aftermath of industrial accidents, the most notorious of which was the Chernobyl disaster of 1986. This book examines the development of environmental activism in Russia and the former Soviet republics in response to these problems and its effect on policy and planning. It also shows that because of increasing economic, ethnic, and social inequality in the former Soviet states, debates over environmental justice are beginning to come to the fore.
Many countries have experienced major economic changes since the mid-1980s as a result of the deregulation and liberalization of national financial systems—two key aspects of globalization—with some experiencing boom and bust in rapid succession. The small Northern European country of Finland has been hailed as a success story for achieving renewed economic growth and prosperity after a financial crisis and deep depression in the early 1990s.
What has happened to the German economic miracle? Rebuilding from the rubble and ruin of two world wars, Germany in the second half of the twentieth century recaptured its economic strength. High-quality German-made products ranging from precision tools to automobiles again conquered world markets, and the country experienced stratospheric growth and virtually full employment. Germany (or West Germany, until 1989) returned to its position as the economic powerhouse of Europe and became the world's third-largest economy after the United States and Japan.
This comprehensive introduction to economic growth presents the main facts and puzzles about growth, proposes simple methods and models needed to explain these facts, acquaints the reader with the most recent theoretical and empirical developments, and provides tools with which to analyze policy design.
High inequality in incomes and assets and persistent poverty continue to plague Latin America and remain a central economic policy challenge for Latin American policymakers. At the same time, dramatically improved methods and data allow researchers to analyze these problems and how they are affected by economic policy. In this book, experts on Latin American economic affairs use these new approaches to examine the dynamics of poverty and inequality in Latin America and the ability of policy to address them.
Debates over post-Kyoto Protocol climate change policy often take note of two issues: the feasibility and desirability of international cooperation on climate change policies, given the failure of the United States to ratify Kyoto and the very limited involvement of developing countries, and the optimal timing of climate policies. In this book essays by leading international economists offer insights on both these concerns. | <urn:uuid:06e5ae06-551c-4c50-8f2d-9cee1d858969> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mitpress.mit.edu/disciplines/political-science-public-policy/political-economy?page=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949618 | 843 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Handout/The Run to Live
Scott Cannata is running across Canada for cancer research (theruntolive.com) and thinks many of us throw up too many barriers to doing seemingly impossible things.
Ben Kaplan, National Post · Aug. 9, 2011 | Last Updated: Aug. 9, 2011 6:21 PM ET
“Today is my 75th straight marathon,” says Scott Cannata, reached just outside Caledon, Ont., as the 25-year-old makes his way across the country from St. John’s to Port Renfrew, B.C. Cannata, a 25-year-old anthropology student at Trent University in Peterborough, Ont., had only completed one marathon prior to lacing up his Nikes for a (literal) cross-country run, but he believes that, in general, people have become too timid in terms of their expectations.
“I have lots of time to think on the road in the middle of nowhere, and I believe we create these boundaries and restrictions on our day-to-day actions,” says Cannata, who has adopted his girlfriend’s vegan diet since beginning his run on May 1. “If you can convince yourself that the seemingly impossible is possible, you can absolutely do anything that you like.”
Call it the power of positive thinking or else just runners with loose screws, but as recreational running becomes more popular, extreme running events are gaining more attention, too. The question is: Why would an otherwise rational human being want to run something like the Canadian Death Race, a nasty 125-kilometre trek across the Canadian Rockies?
“If you’re not in the subculture, it’s very difficult to communicate, but I don’t think of ultra-running as something like skydiving,” says Dr. Nick Holt, an associate professor in the Faculty of Physical Education at the University of Alberta, and a two-time finisher of the Death Race (and one-time dropout). Holt describes his Death Race experience in terms similar to how a returning soldier might describe war. He began his race at 8 a.m. and, after running up and down mountains all day, he reached a 6,000-foot cliff at 10 p.m.
“You fight through it when you can barely keep going and there’s a lot of falling over, but I went in with the mantra: ‘I’m just going to keep getting up,’ ”
says Holt, who is currently working on a paper about his experience and training for next year’s race. “You feel worse than you’ve ever felt before, but you have to keep going, and there’s just very few circumstances in life where you have to push forward when every fibre of your body tells you to stop. Once you’re in it, it consumes you.”
Dr. Greg Wells works at the Faculty of Physical Education and Health at the University of Toronto and he calls extreme athletes “outliers.” He says folks such as Scott Cannata and Candace Sutherland, a 17-year-old from Winnipeg who ran across the country last year, are making even recreational runners re-examine what they can do.
“There’s always going to be human beings who push the limits — that’s why we went to the moon,” says Wells, who once spent four months cycling across Africa and specializes in the physiology of extreme athletes. “These people are expanding the notion of what we’re capable of and giving us new answers to the question: ‘How far can we go?’ ”
For Cannata, that question began with a passion to take a stand against cancer. After watching his mother battle through cervical cancer and then his grandfather succumb to the disease, Cannata decided to get involved. Hoping to raise awareness through a grand gesture, he took a page from Terry Fox and headed out across the country. He says that when he gets stiff or tired or has to battle through cramping or bad weather, he makes the race about more than himself. He makes it about all of the people who are battling the disease.
“My mom was diagnosed when I was 12, and watching her go through surgery and radiation treatment and becoming so sick had a really heavy impact on my life,” Cannata says. “Then, when I lost my grandfather, I felt like we’ve got to do something in terms of research and development. If my contribution is calling attention to this, then I can and I will run a marathon every day.”
• For more on Scott Cannata, and to contribute to his Run to Live project, please see theruntolive.com. To keep tabs on the Marathon Man and his latest runs, tips and contests, visit the NP Running Facebook page, and follow Ben Kaplan on Twitter: @NP_RunningBen. | <urn:uuid:b7edeb6a-2749-46c3-bc9e-ad4568de0075> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nationalpost.com/life/They+going+distance+could/5229714/story.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97316 | 1,043 | 1.867188 | 2 |
New Breakthroughs In AIDS Treatment
For decades, the battle against AIDS followed a forked road: one led researchers to seek ways to stem the transmission, and the other had them trying to treat those with HIV, who are more susceptible. Oddly, it took this long for someone to entertain the idea of doing both.
Anyway, it’s in the works now, and the results are nothing short of impressive. The HIV Prevention Trials Network, an organization funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, recently found in a series of trials that a treatment can both suppress HIV levels and stop the patient from passing it on.
The trial, known as HPTN 02, was carried out on 1,763 couples in which one partner was infected with HIV and the other was not. Ninety-seven percent of the respondents were heterosexual, and the remaining 3% were homosexual; they came from 13 sites across Asia, Africa, and North and South America. They were selected in a way that the infected partner did not display enough symptoms to qualify for conventional treatment, partly so that side effects did not cloud the results and partly to avoid spurning drug-resistant strains.
Half of the couples were given conventional treatment following current protocol. The HIV-infected partners were given drugs only if their condition began to develop into AIDS or if their conditions fell below critical levels, measured according to the presence of a particular cell in their blood. Infected partners in the other half were given the drugs right away. All were taught techniques to avoid transmission, given condoms, treated for existing sexually transmitted diseases, and given regular checkups.
Since the study began in 2005, only 28 of the infected respondents had transmitted HIV to their partners. All but one were in the control group (the one given HPTN 02), proof that drugs can cure and stop transmission at the same time.
The results were so decisive, according to The Economist, that the study had to stop ahead of schedule. Doing so would mean denying the subjects of the treatment, which was so effective that cutting it off for science would be immoral.
The approach was first put forward by Julio Montaner, director of the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS at the University of British Columbia. He has been pushing for the use of the drug for several years, and this study is the first big step towards it. A full cure may still take some time, but it looks like we’re well on our way. | <urn:uuid:0ea6265a-0c71-4aa9-8123-bafe2546763b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.scipolicy.net/new-breakthroughs-in-aids-treatment/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984153 | 508 | 2.375 | 2 |
It was the 45th IRIS Nights Lecture and the very last lecture during our "Water" exhibition. Annenberg Foundation Executive Director Leonard Aube and Director of Operations Sylia Obagi were there to welcome our lecturer, the former elected district attorney of Los Angeles, Gil Garcetti.
Garcetti wasn't making another routine stop made by politicians every election year, that is, he isn't running for office. In fact, the purpose for his visit was to deliver one of many portfolio presentations by Gil Garcetti, the critically acclaimed (by the New York Times!) photographer.
Although he's given up his role prosecuting criminals, Garcetti has taken up a new advocacy defending our world most crucial resource, water.
Just prior to the lecture, Aube took an informal poll of the crowd to see how many people were regulars - and he found a large number of hands in the air when he asked how many people had been to more than 10 of our lectures!
...and there was one gentleman who had attended 43 of the 45 lectures!
Now that's dedication.
Garcetti has documented water and the empowerment of women in West Africa, hoping to bring global attention to issues of safe water and economic stabilization.
He helped inspire the creation of Wells Bring Hope - a nonprofit org that helps dig wells for underserved communities in Africa.
Who would have ever believed that after years as a high profile D.A., Garcetti would transition into a career as a highly regarded photographer?
Garcetti told of how his first published images of the Walt Disney Music Hall earned him praise from photographic greats (and previous exhibitor/lecturers) like Julius Schulman and David Hume Kennerly.
Early work showed the steel workers on the project
- and he described how his chosen form of expression became his passion and his post-political career.
Eager to start a new trend here in America, Garcetti also shared some stories from his current work Women in Bikes,
a collection of images of fashionable women who bicycle in Paris as an everyday means of transportation.
His presentation at the Space secured a whole new audience of followers.
At the book signing following the lecture, Garcetti helped raised over $1,275 from book sales to go to Wells Bring Hope.
and received a donation of over $6,000 from a foundation in attendance!
What a great way to close an incredible exhibit
...and what a nice surprise for our final lecturer for Water: Our Thirsty World!
Thank you Mr. Garcetti for helping us demonstrate the many ways in which philanthropy can take shape!
(All images © Unique for the Space) | <urn:uuid:e155af93-c20b-4c61-a637-5182ca1168a4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.annenbergspaceforphotography.org/the-shot-blog/gil-garcetti-our-45th-iris-night-lecture?page=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980537 | 547 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Table of Contents | Executive Summary
The strength, prosperity, and vitality of our communities is a
fundamental measure of our nation's success. As part of its effort
to create a national action strategy, the President's Council on
Sustainable Development established the Sustainable Communities
Task Force to examine and articulate the leadership role communities
are playing in creating a sustainable United States. The ten
Council members on the task force were charged with developing
consensus-based policy recommendations on how the United States can
create opportunities, reduce barriers, and encourage collaborative
partnerships to implement sustainable development locally.
The work of the task force began with a simple theory: local
communities are providing much of the initial impetus and
practical leadership for implementing the concepts of sustainable
development. Any national strategy for sustainable development must tap
into this energy and momentum and be rooted in the lessons learned
from these communities. Accordingly, task force members sought input
from community activists, business leaders, trade unionists,
developers, academics, architects, policy experts, and elected officials
and agency staff at all levels of government. In addition, through
a series of meetings, briefings, and roundtables, the task force
solicited the expertise and involvement of hundreds of
additional community leaders throughout the country.
Many of these community leaders participated in the six
working groups established by the task force as well as sharing
their knowledge on innovative programs and policies that are already
underway and achieving measurable results. The working
groups addressed a wide range of issues relevant to building
sustainable communities, including economic development and jobs, social
infrastructure, environmental justice, transportation and
infrastructure, housing and land use, financing, and public participation.
The working groups provided the foundation for the task force's
work. In a bottom-up process, materials developed by working groups
were integrated into task force draft issue statements, goals,
and policy recommendations.
To further ensure that the task
force's work was rooted in the realities facing
communities today, the task force worked with communities
to draft case studies, and asked the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency's Urban and
Economic Development Division to commission a compilation
of 51 community profiles. The case studies and
community profiles are not intended to serve as models,
but rather to highlight the diversity of
initiatives already underway, and to share lessons learned
by communities that are developing integrated approaches to social, economic, and environmental issues while emphasizing opportunities for broad public participation.
It is with immense gratitude that we recognize and thank the
hundreds of individuals who contributed to the Sustainable
Communities Task Force.
This final report reflects the synthesis of three years of
work, and it represents the consensus of council members who served
on the task force. While the task force's goals were ambitious,
its recommendations only begin to deal with the wide range of
challenges facing our nation's communities. But by addressing the
most important issues the task force identified, we hope this
report will stimulate a national discussion on how the concepts of
sustainable development can be applied in local decisionmaking to
make all of our communities better places in which to live.
Thomas R. Donahue
Task Force Co-chair | <urn:uuid:246f00fa-cdc9-415b-b907-aed9fda807cc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://clinton4.nara.gov/PCSD/Publications/suscomm/suscopre.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920151 | 677 | 2.78125 | 3 |
expert advice MORE
SLD Classes and Higher Ed
Q: My daughter is in seventh grade and a SLD part-time student. She is being weeded out for social studies. Her first grade was a D. The second grade was a C. In SLD classes she maintains a A-/B average. When she goes to high school will there be SLD help for her? Will colleges turn her down because of being in SLD classes?
A: By SLD, I assume you mean specific learning disability (the terms may vary from state to state). When you say she was "weeded out" (a very interesting use of the phrase, by the way), you probably mean that she is mainstreamed or included in a regular social studies class which is not a part of the SLD or special education program. In some schools, a regular social studies teacher might have consultation from the SLD teacher, or even team teach the course with the SLD teacher. I don't know if either of those things is happening in your daughter's class, but I wanted to let you know that the model exists, and is very helpful for children with LD. You might find that this type of program exists (or you could request it) in the high school.
You wondered whether your daughter's status as an SLD student might hinder her chances of getting into college. An important issue here is whether your daughter's A-/B grades in the SLD classes are "equal" to the same grades earned by kids outside the SLD program. In some SLD classes, the curriculum is modified by essentially making it easier. If this is true for your daughter, she just might have difficulty getting into (and staying in) some colleges. In other programs for students with LD, modification means changing teaching strategies (so that they match the learning needs of the students) without compromising quality or lowering standards. If your daughter is working up to her capacity (that is her intellectual potential -- usually determined at least in part by IQ test scores), then her grades are probably a valid measure of her performance.
The fact that your daughter earned lower grades in the social studies class could be due to several things. It is possible that the course is not being modified as much as it needs to be (the teachers may not be teaching in the way she learns best). Also, if the regular education teacher does not have training or experience with students with LD, he or she may need more help from a special educator in order to teach your daughter in the appropriate manner. Another explanation is that your daughter is slowly but surely making the difficult adjustment from a self-contained special program to the environment of the regular class. The regular class might simply be more challenging than the SLD program. The fact that your daughter's grades have improved a bit is a good sign. I hope this trend continues.
You should be aware that having a learning disability should not impair your daughter's chances to get into a good college. Many colleges have excellent programs for students with learning disabilities. Descriptions in a college guide book will include this information, or your daughter's college counselor can help you.
More on: Expert Advice
Jerome (Jerry) Schultz is the founding clinical director of the Learning Lab @ Lesley University, a program that provides assessment, tutoring, and case management services for children with learning challenges. Schultz holds a Ph.D. from Boston College, and has completed postdoctoral fellowships in both clinical psychology and pediatric neuropsychology. | <urn:uuid:0e92754f-c13c-4381-8f16-2120319756fb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://school.familyeducation.com/special-education/college-prep/42618.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973328 | 716 | 1.929688 | 2 |
Forgiveness is the best charity. (It is easy to give the poor money and goods when one has plenty, but to forgive is hard; but it is the best thing if one can do it.)
Be pure and simple, and love all because all are one. Live a sincere life; be natural, and be honest with yourself.Honesty will guard you against false modesty and will give you the strength of true humility. Spare no pains to help others. Seek no other reward than the gift of Divine Love.
If God can be found through the medium of any drug, God is not worthy of being God.
To love Me for what I may give you is not loving Me at all. To sacrifice anything in My cause to gain something for yourself is like a blind man sacrificing his eyes for sight. I am the Divine Beloved worthy of being loved because I am Love. He who loves Me because of this will be blessed with unlimited sight and will see Me as I am.
Don't worry, be happy.
Happiest is he who expects no happiness from others. Love delights and glorifies in giving, not receiving. So learn to love and give, and not to expect anything from others.
This whole universe, with all its vastness, grandeur and beauty, is nothing but sheer imagination. In spite of so many discoveries, researches and scientific knowledge, the creation remains a great unsolved riddle.
God is Infinite and His Shadow is also infinite. The Shadow of God is the Infinite Space that accommodates the infinite Gross Sphere which, with its occurrences of millions of universes, within and without the ranges of men\'s knowledge, is the Creation that issued from the Point of Finiteness in the infinite Existence that is God.
The experiences are so innumerable and varied, that the journey appears to be interminable and the Destination is ever out of sight. But the wonder of it is, when at last you reach your Destination you find that you had never travelled at all! It was a journey from here to Here.
All this world confusion and chaos was inevitable and no one is to blame. What had to happen has happened; and what has to happen will happen. There was and is no way out except through my coming in your midst. I had to come, and I have come. I am the Ancient One.
The experiences which drugs induce are as far removed from Reality as is a mirage, from water. No matter how much you pursue the mirage, you will never quench your thirst, and the search for Truth through drugs must end in disillusionment.
The book that I shall make people read is the book of the heart, which holds the key to the mystery of life.
God is Love. And Love must love. And to love there must be a Beloved. But since God is Existence infinite and eternal there is no one for Him to love but Himself. And in order to love Himself He must imagine Himself as the Beloved whom He as the Lover imagines He loves.
Whether men soar to outer space or dive to the bottom of the deepest ocean they will find themselves as they are, unchanged, because they will not have forgotten themselves nor remembered to exercise the charity of forgiveness.
Absolute honesty is essential in one\'s search for God (Truth). The subtleties of the Path are finer than a hair. The least hypocrisy becomes a wave that washes one off the Path. It is your false self that keeps you away from your true Self by every trick it knows. In the guise of honesty this self even deceives itself. For instance your self claims, I love Baba. The fact is, if you really loved Baba you would not be your false self making the self-asserting statement! | <urn:uuid:d5258145-d375-4dbf-a6cc-08ebd5efb050> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.finestquotes.com/author_quotes-author-Meher%20Baba-page-0.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96651 | 779 | 1.890625 | 2 |
Word 2010 has a feature that makes inserting screenshots very easy.
1.To insert the screenshot, have the window open that you would like to insert.
2. Then click on the screenshot button in the Illustrations group on the Insert tab.
2. Then select the screen shot that you would like to be added into the document. It will show up in your document and you can edit the shot from there.
3. You can also do a screen clipping by selecting the screen clipping option under screen shots.
4. When using the screen clipping option, make sure you have the window open and available directly from your Word document.
5. Once you select screen clipping, your Word document will minimize to show you the last available window where you can drag and select the area of the screen that you would like to clip. This will then be added automatically to the document. | <urn:uuid:7d472c28-997e-4fab-a20e-aa521c37eed1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.scad.edu/training/2013/01/28/adding-screenshots-to-word-documents/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.914462 | 179 | 1.96875 | 2 |
The blue waters off the Tanintharyi coast of Southern Myanmar are home to a race of people called Salons in the Myanmar language. Also known as Moken, they are a nomadic people. They roam the seas in their fragile canoes looking for sea cucumbers, pearls and otherwise searching the sea bed for their livelihood. Even the deadly sea urchins with their prickly and poisonous spikes are handled with ease by them. The Salons families hop from island to island, making their canoes their home, never touching land except when the seas get rough during monsoon time. All their worldly possessions are piled in their small boats, not excluding the household dogs even, as they wander from one deserted island to another as their forefathers had done thousands of times in as much years. And this had earned them an epitaph as Sea Gypsies.
There are many theories as to their origin. One source says they are of Austronesian ethnic group. Another says they migrated from southern China some 4,000 years ago It was speculated that in the late 17th century, while moving through what now is Malaysia, this group split off from others and made the sea their habitat. And more recently, Jacques Ivanoff, a Frenchman who had studied these nomads of the sea, had categorized them as the spearhead of a littoral civilization that began colonizing the Taninthayi region from the south, escaping from the ensnaring clutches of the dominant religion of that region and mercantilism and had made poverty a symbol of their identity within the Malay social chrysalis.
But one thing for sure is that they had been in the area for decades if not centuries. Many islands in the Myeik Archipelago have Moken indigenous names: Kyun Mei Gyi is Lui (its previous English name was Clara) in Moken spoken language. Lebi in Moken has evolved into Lumpi, but during the colonial period it was called Sullivan Island. Bo Cho Island as we now call the island facing Lumpi Marine National Park was called Pu Nala or Luark in Moken language but in the British Admiralty Charts, the name is Eyles. So this shows that the Salons were in this region even before the British arrived. It was only in 1783 that a British mariner Capt. Forrest sailed these waters and give English names to most of these islands in the Myeik Archipelago. However, the Myanmar government had renamed almost all these isolated islands with Myanmar names in 1990.
Researches show that the earliest mention of these people appeared in the Calcutta Government Gazette dated March 2, 1826. Also in the East India Gazetteer, vol (ii) page 226 published in London in 1928, it was mentioned that “A race of men, termed by the Burmese(Myanmar) Chalome and Pase are to be found scattered throughout the Mergui9Myeik) Archipelago. But their dread of Malayan and other pirates has compelled these poor creatures to adopt an unsettled mode of life.” By inference, Chalome might be what we now call Salon and the Pase could be Pashus, a mixed Malay race.
A British author W.G White had also written about them in 1922. He wrote that “a Burmese (Myanmar) King at Ava (Innwa) had sent for some of these Sea-Gypsies, had taught them how to read and write and sent them back”.
The islands and the seas the Salons call as their home is beautiful. More than 800 islands dot this area. Many of the islands are bigger than some island-nations in some parts of the world but some are just jutting rocks barely above the lashing waves. Most are uninhabited but there are also islands where quite a large community of squid fishers and others had established themselves. The common thread of these villages is the availability of fresh water for although the islands are all surrounded by water the sea water is unfit to drink. One of the most important of these is the Ma Gyun Galet Salon(Moken) village situated on Bo Cho Island, opposite the Lumpi Marine National Park. This village now has a mix of both Salon and other people from land who had settled her. But the most important industry here is squid fishing. The squid fishing boats are conspicuous with their long arms attached with lights extended over the water. These are lit at night (squid fishing is mostly done at night) to lure the squids to the surface and are caught in nets. Then there is Nyaung Wee village, another Salon village, clinging onto the narrow strip if the shore. The Salons at these villages still dive into the clear blue waters for sea urchins and pearls the traditional way. They can dive deep and long without any external breathing apparatus. Even the children treat the sea as their playground, somersaulting happily into the waves from their small rocking canoes.
Now there is change in the air. International tourists had discovered these once restricted areas and now come with live aboard dive boats and wonder at the underwater beauty at many dive sites .It is hoped that the Salons can still retain their age old and distinctive lifestyles and customs in this modern age
The islands in the Myeik Archipelago are accessible by air from Yangon via Kawthoung. Another option is to arrive from Ranong in Thailand to Kawthoung by boat.
The visitors then transfer at Kawthoung Jetty to the pre-arranged live aboard dive boats or to hotels situated on some of these islands. There are currently two hotels catering to international visitors: one is Andaman Club Hotel at Thahtay Gyun just opposite Kawthoung, the other is Myanmar Andaman Resort on Khayingwa Kyun, some 40++miles offshore.
The visitors have many options once they arrive at the islands. They can go scuba diving or visit the Ma Gyun Galet and Nyaungwee Salon(Moken) villages. They can also visit the Lumpi Marine National Park opposite Ma Gyun Galet Salon vllage. | <urn:uuid:4b6388e3-e30a-4035-8b79-88d57af7d8a4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.enchantingmyanmar.com/2011/01/salons-sea-gypsies-of-myanmar/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974647 | 1,278 | 3.3125 | 3 |
This week on Q&A, co-authors Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy discuss their newly released historical narrative “The Presidents Club: Inside the World’s Most Exclusive Fraternity.” They describe the history of private and public relationships among modern American presidents dating back to Harry Truman and Herbert Hoover. Duffy describes a townhouse, purchased during the Nixon administration, located across the street from the White House. The townhouse is used as an informal residence and meeting place for former presidents. The co-authors recount instances of back channel communications between presidents, often from different political parties. Michael Duffy suggests the book offers an insight into how the presidents relate to each other, how they got along, how they fought, how they cooperated, and sometimes how they stabbed each other in the back. We learn how Gibbs and Duffy divided their research and writing duties. In addition, the authors discuss their early careers in journalism as well as influential teachers in their lives.
Nancy Gibbs is Deputy Managing Editor at Time magazine. Named by the Chicago Tribune as one of the ten best magazine writers in the country, she is the author of more than 130 Time cover stories. Michael Duffy is Time magazine’s Washington Bureau Chief, and he directs the coverage of presidents, politics and national affairs for both the magazine and Time.com. Their first book was “The Preacher and The Presidents: Billy Graham in the White House” published in 2007. | <urn:uuid:b7a0b5de-a9db-4b7d-9201-fa6e96155559> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.c-span.org/History/Events/QampA-with-Nancy-Gibbs-amp-Michael-Duffy/10737430533/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964758 | 292 | 2.015625 | 2 |
Massachusetts poultry farmer Jennifer Hashley has a problem. From the moment she started raising pastured chickens outside Concord, Mass. in 2002, there was, as she put it “nowhere to go to get them processed.” While she had the option of slaughtering her chickens in her own backyard, Hashley knew that selling her chickens would be easier if she used a licensed slaughterhouse. Nor is she alone in her troubles. Despite growing demand for local, pasture-raised chickens, small poultry producers throughout Massachusetts, Connecticut, and even New York can’t or won’t expand for lack of processing capacity.
It isn’t only small producers who are feeling the pinch — a widespread lack of processing infrastructure appropriate for small farmers has caused supply chain problems for the big retailers as well. Whole Foods — the world’s largest natural-foods supermarket — wants to aggressively expand its local meat sourcing, according to its head meat buyer, Theo Weening. But it faces the same limitation as Hashley. Most regions of the country have “lots of agriculture but nowhere to process,” Weening told me, adding that the phenomenon is most acute in the northeast.
Whole Foods wants to change all that. In a move that has national implications, the retail giant has confirmed to Grist that it is working with the USDA as well as state authorities to establish a fleet of top-of-the-line “mobile slaughterhouses” for chicken. Starting with a single unit serving Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Hudson Valley, N.Y. area, Whole Foods hopes to offer small farmers an affordable way to process chickens as well as to vastly increase the amount of locally-sourced chicken it sells. If successful, this program could be expanded to any region of the country with similar infrastructure shortages.
Consolidation Is for the (Big) Birds
That Whole Foods would undertake a move into meat processing serves to underscore the extent of the meat industry’s consolidation. Today, 90 percent of beef processing, 70 percent of pork processing and nearly 60 percent of poultry processing are handled by the top four companies in each sector (with new mergers occuring almost monthly). As processing giants like Tyson scale up and buy competitors, they shutter smaller facilities. Farmers like Hashley have to truck their livestock dozens — sometimes up to a hundred — miles to get to the nearest slaughterhouse for the privilege of paying premium prices to process a small herd. And in some cases, small producers can’t get access to these large facilities at any price; they simply won’t accommodate small growers, often due to rigid “biosecurity” protocols.
What might be an inconvenience transforms into a Catch-22 considering the maze of requirements for the legal sale of meat — this is not an area where DIY is easy or welcome. Generally speaking only meat processed at USDA-inspected facilities can be sold to the public. About half of all states allow for state inspectors to stand in for federal inspectors, but even then, that meat may only be sold within state lines. Poultry farmers are somewhat exempted from this — they can process some of their own birds on the farm and then sell them directly to consumers. But, with a few state-specific exceptions, beef, pork, and lamb simply may not be sold — even direct farm-to-consumer — unless it has been processed at a state or federally inspected slaughterhouse.
Given the high costs and uncertain prospects of building new small-scale slaughterhouses, there is a growing interest among farmers in these mobile slaughterhouses–interest that got Whole Foods’ attention in the first place. Currently, many farmers rely on on-farm slaughter by “ranch killers,” such as one in California profiled recently profiled by Mother Jones. But there are many legal restrictions on how and where such meat can be sold, so they often end up operating in a legal gray area. USDA-certified mobile slaughterhouses–complete with a permanently assigned USDA inspector–are a much better solution, and are beginning to pop up around the U.S. The first such approved unit operates on a small island off the coast of Washington state. Bruce Dunlop, the farmer/engineer who built it for a farmer co-op, now sells plans and kits. He also consults on the paperwork process for gaining USDA-inspected status.
If Whole Foods’ mobile-slaughterhouse strategy succeeds, this farmer-friendly method of processing birds will come into its own. To some, it’s a welcome effort to increase options for farmers. To others, it’s an ominous sign that the government is siding with a powerful retailer in a way that will, intentionally or not, squeeze farmers even more.
Photo courtesy of Whole FoodsWhole Foods to the Rescue?
Whole Foods’ Weening, architect of the initiative, doesn’t see it that way. He only sees the difficulties small producers have with getting their chickens processed at large slaughterhouses. For him, if Whole Foods can help the little guy while also providing an expanded market for locally-produced meat, everyone wins.
And experts in local agriculture are tempted to agree. Mary Hendrickson, a rural sociologist who specializes in regional food systems at the University of Missouri, told me that “processing capacity is an absolutely critical link that we’ve struggled to fill — mobile slaughtering has a hope of filling the gap.”
Weening is certainly trying to do just that. The mobile units aren’t designed as a money-maker for Whole Foods. While Whole Foods will have a minimum “buy” of around 500 chickens, farmers who sell chickens to Whole Foods will be able to process as many birds as they want with the unit. Since the processing cost will be included in the price Whole Food pays the farmer, processing of additional chickens will essentially be free. Crucially, Weening also intends to allow farmers who don’t sell to Whole Foods use of the mobile units (though pricing is yet to be determined). Farmers can then sell those chickens however they like — to other retailers (remember, it would be USDA certified), at farmers markets, or directly on the farm. If all goes to plan, the first Whole Foods’ processing unit will be on the road and operating by May 2010.
But support for Whole Foods effort is not universal. There is growing concern over the power large national retailers have over farmers, and the prospect of Whole Foods moving into the meat processing business does little to allay it. Fred Stokes, executive director of the Organization for Competitive Markets, a group dedicated to resisting agricultural consolidation, lauded Whole Foods for trying to provide an alternative to the large slaughterhouses, but suggested that individual farmers lacked the power to go toe to toe with such a dominant player. Hendrickson also questioned how small farmers could “maintain their competitive bargaining position” with an entity as powerful as Whole Foods.
Stokes — along with Fred Kirschenmann, a farmer as well as a leading advocate for sustainable agriculture and president of the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in upstate New York — took serious issue with one significant element of Whole Foods plan: the set of very specific guidelines any farmer who hopes to sell to Whole Foods will have to follow. To Whole Foods’ Weening, this is about providing a “consistent” product to consumers; to ensure that all Whole Foods chickens — in Weening’s words — “look and taste the same.” Weening explained that the company will require participating small farmers to raise a specific breed of chicken supplied by a specific (local) breeder, feed them a specific brand of feed (no antibiotics or animal byproducts allowed) and raise them according to Whole Foods standard poultry production style, which requires “access to pasture” but does not require actually keeping the birds on pasture.
Big Buyer, Small Seller
These experts expressed concerns that, despite Whole Foods’ good intentions, such a strict set of guidelines when applied to small farmers put the whole enterprise dangerously close to “contract farming.” In contract farming, a farmer raises birds under contract for sale to a large processor like Tyson Foods or Purdue. With large processors like Tyson, the farmer doesn’t even own the birds, but is still responsible for the land, the equipment and all the infrastructure required to raise the animals, often making significant investments to satisfy the needs of the processor. But if the processor ultimately refuses the sale for whatever reason (and these contracts are very favorable to the processor), there is no backup plan. The farmer raised the birds specifically to satisfy the contract. Without the sale, it’s a total loss. In such cases, the farmer has a nasty tendency to go bankrupt. Too often, farmers “essentially become,” as OCM’s Stokes put it, “indentured servants on their own land.”
Now, Whole Foods denied that it has any interest in “contract farming” — there will be no contracts signed in advance — and the company strongly asserts that it is trying to give small farmers more options, not fewer. But Hashley, the Massachussetts farmer, painted a scenario whereby small East Coast farmers are forced by Whole Foods to compete on price with the large scale “natural” poultry growers in California that currently supply the retailer’s stores. If that’s the case, according to Hashley, farmers may find themselves pushed to expand their operations, making up on volume what they can’t make per bird, and investing large sums of money in chicks, feed, and even barns with only Whole Foods as a buyer. If Whole Foods then refuses the sale for a declared violation of one of its guidelines, the financial loss to the farmer will be disastrous.
Hashley is clearly skeptical that partnering with Whole Foods is a good idea for individual small farmers. And worst of all in her view, Whole Foods guidelines will effectively preclude pasture-raised birds. With space in Massachusetts, and most of the northeast at a premium for farmers, providing adequate supply to a buyer the size of Whole Foods will inevitably lead farmers to move their birds indoors, since barn-raised chickens can be more densely packed. Aside from the financial implications, Hashley resented the idea of replicating the Whole Foods “access to pasture”-style of intensive poultry production: birds that in reality rarely if ever step outside despite an open barn door.
Tipping the Scale
There are, of course, alternatives to a reliance on Whole Foods as a local food enabler. Hashley herself has been working hard with state regulators and local boards of health to create a farmer-owned solution to the infrastructure problem, which she had hoped would be funded by a USDA Rural Development grant. As I finished reporting for this article, Hashley learned (and I confirmed) that her grant proposal will be rejected, though she continues to seek funding from other sources. Hashley passionately believes that a farmer cooperative should own the processing units, which would initially be certified by the state for direct sales by farmers (i.e. at farmers markets or on the farm) but not for sale to retailers. Small farmers would no longer have to haul their chickens halfway across the state for processing, but they would still have to sell their birds directly — something that many farmers are happy to do. Over time and with the coops having proved the model, USDA certification and inspection could follow. In any event, access to the unit would not be controlled by a private entity with a substantial financial interest in how it’s used.
Resolving these sorts of market-oriented conflicts and helping farmers is, of course, the role of state and federal regulators. Where do they stand on the Whole Foods effort? Jay Healy, Massachusetts State Director for USDA Rural Development, the office that turned down Hashley’s grant proposal, is more sanguine about Whole Foods’ effort. One obvious appeal: unlike Hashley, the retailer isn’t asking for any federal money for its initiative. Healy also praised Whole Foods “state of the art,” stainless steel, Italian-built unit, a version of which already has regulatory approval in Europe, for addressing to his satisfaction all the relevant food safety and environmental concerns. While Healy appreciates the coop’s efforts and hopes to fund them in the future, he felt that their unit still needed further refinement. The Whole Foods unit seems to him poised to get federal certification, which is the ultimate goal if mobile slaughterhouses are to become a mainstream solution.
Healy’s was exactly the response that Hashley herself feared when she first got word of the Whole Foods proposal. Aside from her concerns about the guidelines, Hashley doesn’t have a blanket objection to Whole Foods effort overall since her processing options are virtually non-existent. But she is concerned that, Healy’s statement notwithstanding, state and federal regulators will eventually lose total interest in working with farmer cooperatives as a result of the Whole Foods’ move into small-scale processing. Like the other experts I talked to, she’s also deeply skeptical of relying on Whole Foods’ good intentions. While a breakeven project now, the company’s processing units may transform into a revenue center later, which would be a threatening development for farmers.
The good news for Hashley is that Massachusetts’ top agricultural official Scott Soares appears to share her concerns. In a recent meeting with Whole Foods, Soares strongly encouraged the company to work with the farmer coops to avoid a conflict over the dueling proposals. He wants to be “certain we have a level playing field for all the players out there.” That means balancing the concerns of farmers as well as the interests of Whole Foods. Soares has requested detailed information from Whole Foods on its inititative, including pricing and provisions for access to the units, and emphasized in his discussions that coops do have an important role to play. While Soares has a limited regulatory role in approving the unit, he will continue to seek assurances that Whole Foods will operate fairly and in good faith.
But Healy’s and Soares’ comments make clear that, while Whole Foods is neither enemy nor savior for farmers, the danger is real that state regulators and the USDA will view large processors and large retailers as their ideal partners. Ag experts like Stokes, Hendricksen, and Kirschenmann all agree that regulators should instead side with farmer coops as entities best suited to counterbalance the market power of industry giants, even well-intentioned ones like Whole Foods.
It’s also clear that no one really wants to stop Whole Foods’ move into meat processing — though that fact has more to do with the lack of processing infrastructure than with Whole Foods itself. And the retail giant’s initiative may yet collapse if the USDA proves unwilling to certify the units themselves. But should Whole Foods succeed and launch mobile slaughterhouses, regulators, farmers, and consumers will be relying on a corporate behemoth to address problems created by the existence of other, larger behemoths. While it may be the best available solution to an entrenched problem, it doesn’t seem a robust one. | <urn:uuid:94aa467c-ad8b-47f6-be25-24e631c726d9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://grist.org/article/2009-11-20-whole-foods-chicken-farms/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954859 | 3,158 | 2 | 2 |
Important - Corrected Lupine Award Press Release
To Whom it May Concern:
Yesterday Down East sent out a press release by email announcing the Lupine Award recipient, our children's book, Many Hands. We apologize, but there is one line of inaccurate information contained in that release. It is the first line in the third paragraph:
In researching the book, author Angeli Perrow, a descendant of Penobscot heritage, discovered the importance of community in her native culture.
This line should be removed from the release entirely.
A corrected version of the release is included in this email. Again, we apologize for this error, and thank you for any help you can give us in correcting it. Please contact me with any questions or concerns you may have.
Down East Books
207-594-9544, ext. 424
Maine Author and Illustrator Honored with the 2010 Lupine Award
Down East Books is proud to announce that Many Hands, written by Hampden resident, Angeli Perrow and illustrated by Heather Austin, was unanimously chosen as the 2010 Lupine Award Winner in the picture book category. Established by the Maine Library Association in 1998, the prestigious Lupine Award honors a Maine author and/or illustrator who has created a work of outstanding merit for young people.
Many Hands is a beautiful Penobscot Indian tale of a girl who tries to understand why all the members of her family do not give her full credit for her wonderful accomplishment of making a traditional basket. Through the course of the story she comes to appreciate the contribution of others in the making of the basket and learns the meaning of the Penobscot saying, “Many hands make the basket.”
With the help of Penobscot master basket maker Pam Cunningham, Perrow’s tale of pride and place rings true. Maine native Heather Austin created the vibrant watercolor illustrations that bring the story to life. | <urn:uuid:d5a8ded4-8f37-43b4-8d21-45879e079e4a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://downeast.com/node/24544 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935056 | 397 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Comedians exercise a curious privilege, which allows them to peddle controversial conclusions and uncomfortable insights without suffering the usual scorn and admonishment that comes with challenging systems of power or bringing indelicate knowledge about the world to the surface. For instance, the suggestion that Americans are deeply divided by race and class usually causes people to fidget, yet Chris Rock was greeted with laughter and applause when he unabashedly criticized the racialized wealth gap in the United States. Similarly, Louis C.K. received a rousing applause when he discussed his privilege as a white male, and Hari Kondabolu made an entire room burst into laughter by exposing the nonsensical logic underlying stereotypes aimed at Mexican immigrants.
But comedy is just as likely to reinforce stereotypes as it is to criticize them. Consider Jeff Dunham’s act featuring his popular dummy, “Achmed the Dead Terrorist.” In the clip below, from a 2007 performance, Dunham draws upon a number of stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims, many of which have been around since well before the attacks on September 11th, 2001:
Dunham is not deploying social criticism, but is instead uncritically drawing on racist representations for laughs. Arabs and Muslims, like the Achmed character, are typically portrayed as religious fanatics. They are often depicted as irrationally angry, even as self-proclaimed terrorists. But if they are dangerous, they are dangerous buffoons and are often too incompetent to pull off their own deadly plots.
Comedians can be understood as articulators of knowledge about the world. They contribute to the persistence of stereotypes at times, but can also articulate convincing arguments against them. This holds for other types of comedic performance as well. Political cartoons, comedy sketches, and even situation comedies all peddle indelicate knowledge about the racialized Other. For instance, in “Ali-Baba Bound,” a Looney Tunes cartoon from 1940, Porky Pig runs up against Ali-Baba and his “Dirty Sleeves.” The humor is constructed around a basic scaffolding of the Arab as dirty and sneaky. They are too primitive to competently use rockets and must strap explosives to their heads:
The sneak attack on Pearl Harbor the following year ignited a discursive explosion surrounding the Japanese, those living in America and abroad; for a time Arabs and Muslims occupied a relatively small sliver of American concern. It is striking how eerily similar representations of Japanese persons were to those of Arabs and Muslims. However, fed by photographic evidence of the destruction of Pearl Harbor and the tangible realities associated with the American war machine, dominant representations of the treacherous Japanese Other went further and faster. Each representation of the “Jap” became more and more fanciful, each illustration seemingly emboldened by the last to push the caricature even further.
Celebrated children’s author Dr. Seuss published a cartoon only weeks before the United States would forcibly relocate 120,000 ethnic Japanese persons living in the United States to internment camps. The cartoon depicts a buck-toothed, fifth column of Japanese Americans lining up from Washington to California for their very own box of TNT. A man scales the rooftop of the explosives depot “waiting for the signal from home”:
“Waiting for the Signal from Home…” Dr. Seuss. February 13, 1942
Or consider a Looney Tunes cartoon from the period, “Tokio Jokio,” which similarly presents Japanese people with buck teeth and buffoonish behavior:
Whereas the Seuss cartoon presents extant fears about a treacherous Japanese enemy living among us, the Looney Tunes cartoon lampoons them as bumbling idiots. In the Seuss cartoon, their tribal-like loyalties to the Emperor mean they are capable of doing just about anything, but in the Looney Tunes cartoon they are too incompetent to prevent their own Fire Prevention Headquarters from burning to the ground. Such seemingly contradictory representations permeated the American imagination of the time, alternately stoking anxieties while assuring Americans of their national and even racial superiority.
These racist representations aimed at the Japanese were not buried by the detonation of two atomic bombs over Japanese cities; they have proven to be free-floating and transferable to our emergent enemies. Today, Arabs and Muslims are routinely depicted in comedy as incompetent. They are again the bumbling idiots, simultaneously too stupid to successfully perpetrate an attack and just stupid enough to commit truly heinous crimes. The imagined fifth column has become the terrorist sleeper cell. In 1942 we feared Japanese Americans were blindly loyal to “their” Emperor. Today we are bombarded with ideas about the tribal loyalties of American Muslims. So powerful are these loyalties, it is often suggested, Muslims would happily kill themselves to bring about the demise of Western civilization. The fanatical Middle Eastern suicide bomber is the new banzai charger and Japanese Kamikazi pilot.
A joke making the rounds of the internet goes something like this: “A friend of mine has started a new business. He’s manufacturing land mines that look like prayer mats. It’s doing well. He says prophets are going through the roof.” This joke, Dunham’s comedy sketch, and the Looney Tunes cartoons all mark historical moments when the racialized Other became so thoroughly demonized and devalued in the public consciousness, our undifferentiated “enemies” became so feared for their treachery and immorality, that it became possible to make light of hypothetical and real violence perpetrated against them. One might speculate that it is strangely intoxicating to spot the boogieman tripping on his shoelaces, embarrassing himself, or dying by his own venom. The Achmed character’s tired threat, “I kill you!” is funny, perhaps, because his voice cracks like a thirteen-year-old boy, and we are entertained by the irony that someone so evil could appear so weak.
This comedy, which uncritically trades in the negative stereotypes aimed at Arabs and Muslims and is able to make an audience laugh at references to suicide bombing, is only possible because Arabs and Muslims have been successfully demonized and devalued. Comedians write jokes to get laughs, but they also operate from a space which grants them temporary license to openly discuss controversial ideas. Comedians contribute to the discourse, just as readily they respond to it, and their sets are just as capable of exposing hidden discrimination as reinforcing it.
Lester Andrist is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Maryland, College Park, specializing in the role of social capital and personal networks in finding jobs in India and Taiwan and cultural representations of groups in indefinite detention. He is a co-editor of the website The Sociological Cinema, where a longer version of this post first appeared.
If you would like to write a post for Sociological Images, please see our Guidelines for Guest Bloggers. | <urn:uuid:964b5e9e-429d-4792-9221-be503ec75305> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2011/07/09/comedy-that-kills-us-demonizing-arabs-and-muslims-in-the-u-s/ | 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 | 0.96234 | 1,435 | 2.328125 | 2 |
Title - From Here to Diversity: Social Impact of Lesbian and Gay Issues in Education in Australia and New Zealand
|From Here to Diversity: Social Impact of Lesbian and Gay Issues in Education in Australia and New Zealand|
Robinson/ Irwin/ Ferfolja
Explore ways to reduce the impact of heterosexism on students, teachers, and educational institutions!
Focuses on lesbian and gay issues in education, demonstrating why and how educational administrators, teachers, and teacher educators need to re-evaluate their policies and pedagogy to create better learning environments. It explores the social and educational impact of homophobia and heterosexism upon students, teachers, and school systems--and suggests ways to limit the damage.
With in-depth interviews, case studies, and cutting-edge research, this pioneering book examines:how representations of masculinity and sexuality in schools limit opportunities for male students how the needs of lesbian and gay youth are defined in educational contexts--and the consequences of framing those needs as they are a lesbian motherís experiences with the schooling and education of her children
why queer theory can be useful in the general education of a surprising number of groups of students how heterosexism and homophobia are addressed--or not addressed--in teacher training how sexuality-based discrimination affects people working in education how definitions and understandings of homophobia are often caught in academic debates about whether it is a psychiatric disorder or simple prejudice in homophobes (HP)
|Price: $32.95 |
Add to Trolley
Number of pages: 109pp
Publisher: Harrington Park
Date Of Publication: 200303 | <urn:uuid:bf92533b-c706-4907-9568-bc26c54483ae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hares-hyenas.com.au/book.asp?RecID=11474 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.912144 | 325 | 2.890625 | 3 |
Minority Report December 2002
by Alexis Buss
Most union campaigns get off the ground by finding out what problems exist in a workplace or industry. Workers form union committees, a campaign is launched, and workplace issues are articulated to attract more and more support for the union's cause. Most often, this organizing is done with the goal of the union being formally recognized by the boss, either by a card-check agreement or an election of some sort, so that a contract can be bargained.
But what usually happens when it is time to sit down and bargain the contract? It isn't true to say that at negotiation time the boss and union come to the table as equals and work out the best possible deal for both parties. The union most usually comes to the table from a very weak position, because it has been built not to fight for and enforce its demands, but rather to ask the boss to give it legitimacy.
This method came about when NLRA was enacted in 1935. "Labor peace" was a desirable concept for the bosses, the government and entrenched union bureaucracies. The bosses were tired of dealing with rising labor militancy -- factory takeovers, strikes, walk-outs, sit-ins, etc. Government officials had to deal with helping their pals in big business recover from the effects of this kind of organizing. And the labor bureaucrats were worried by workers who were getting too uppity and demanding the same kind of respect from them that they were demanding from the bosses. So a system was created for bosses to be given a legal mandate to bargain with the unions, and a set of laws and rules were created so that bargaining became a gentleman's game.
The expected way that unions and bosses dealt with each other was that the contract was improved upon with each new set of negotiations, so long as the company was in good health. This has changed. It is now routine for companies, ones with and without unions, to shut down plants and offices, downsize jobs, reduce pay and benefits, and generally show no consideration to workers, even during profitable times.
But here's something that has been true ever since our present set of laws was enacted: it is usual and expected for contracts to contain completely useless (worse than useless, positively harmful) language for workers -- the management prerogatives clause, and no-strike clause.
Because most unions accept that workers are on earth to be managed, and bosses should run the world as they see fit, it isn't a surprise that most union contracts allow management to have total control over a workplace. During the term of a contract, when the union is entitled to collect dues from workers through dues check-off, limiting the ability of workers to strike is also desirable for many unions to make sure that their main revenue streams are not cut off. Let alone the added benefit of avoiding the hassle of "managing" uppity workers.
When we think of how we can turn around the labor movement, we must keep these things in mind. We can't just accept "more organizing." Because even if we had more organizing of the kind we have now, we would still have to address the issue of unions not helping workers to pursue job control. We would still have to deal with concessionary bargaining.
How are we going to get off of this road? We must stop making gaining legal recognition and a contract the point of our organizing. Our unions and networks of solidarity must be able to deal with the issues that inspire most campaigns -- wages, benefits, working conditions. But just as necessary is to have a way for us to organize to address the respect (or lack of respect) workers feel on the job, our ability to control how we work, how our workplace is going to interact with our community and our world.
We have to bring about a situation where the bosses, not the union, want the contract. We need to create situations where bosses will offer us concessions to get our cooperation. Make them beg for it.
This is one of the potentials of minority unionism (by the way, this is the last column that I'll be using this term -- in the next month, I'd like your help in figuring out a new name to describe the kind of unionism we've been talking about in the pages of the Industrial Worker). The point of unionism as the IWW sees it is to organize workers in ways that our power cannot be ignored or co-opted. Minority unionism is one way to do this, because we can organize around demands without worrying about if we have a contract or legal standing. As much as possible, we should seek to avoid situations where our power is replaced by laws and contracts.
If contracts and agreements help us hold bosses to their promises, that's great. But if bargaining becomes an exercise in what rights we will give up, and deciding that bosses should in fact have total managerial control over our working lives, we're going about it the wrong way. | <urn:uuid:2ecebfb1-1604-4abb-95db-b1030e447b9c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://forworkerspower.blogspot.com/2010/10/minority-report-december-2002.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978932 | 1,009 | 2.203125 | 2 |
Being founded in 1978, the University Museum of History of Medicine of Armenia (MHMA) was formed partially through the collection of academician Levon Hovhannisyan and private collection of famous medical historian Vladimir Martirosyan, who was the founder and long-term director of the museum.
In 1985, on the initiative of RA Ministry of Health, the property of University Museum was transferred to the Ethnographic Museum of Armenia located in Sardarapat; though creating a subdivision of history of medicine within the ethnographic museum was projected, it was never brought into life. Hence; the Museum of the Medical University was reopened in accordance with the decree No 2147 issued by RA Minister of Health in 1990. Afterward; the Republican Museum of History of Medicine of Armenia was chartered on the base of the Medical University Museum according to the Minister’s decree No 550 of 24 September 1998.
Collections, including over 8000 objects, range from portraits, providing a pictorial and sculptural record of meritorious scientists and distinguished professors, their manuscripts and memoirs, to the exquisitely displayed medical instruments, and appliances used in traditional medicine best illustrating different stages of progress of medicine in Armenia throughout the history.
The MHMA also houses Armenian medical research centers along with the vast array of exhibits demonstrating their activities. The museum and archives record and depict the humanitarian work Armenian doctors and health care professionals have undertaken and conducted in peace and in war; from the Great Patriotic War to the disastrous Earthquake in 1988 and on the battlefield in Artsakh.
The Museum extensive collections include the complete YSMU annals, its founding charter, papers and documents depicting key events in history. Exhibits in the museum sterling halls feature different historical eras – from ancient times to pagan periods, from middle ages to the 19th century leading to the gates of the 20th century. These collections have a global scope and coverage probably not bettered in Armenia and serve as a comprehensive resource platform for students and medical research fellows studying the discipline “History of Medicine”. Given what has been said, collections concerning this specific field of study account for the organization of relevant classes for university first-year students. Visitors of the museum can safely be characterized as researchers, physicians, health care officials and students of various Armenian institutions.
The University Museum displays remarkable collections, exhibits of which undergo specific scientific development and cataloguing. Research projects are also carried out at the MHMA, in RA National Archive, libraries and archives of RA Ministry of Health, as well as in other academic institutions.
The Director of the Museum is Dr. Narine Ghazaryan, who also runs Armenian health care chronology portion in one of the leading Armenian magazines titled “Health”. | <urn:uuid:cb16383f-1287-41f7-b64b-08590300871c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ysmu.am/en/about-ysmu/museum | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954945 | 559 | 2.328125 | 2 |
The war waged by legitimate online security companies for control of the online universe is only set to intensify. The reason why this industry even exists can be attributed to rogue security threats such as Antivirus 8. This revolutionized rogue takes the online assault to another level.
Encapsulating every trait normally associated with rogue antispyware, Antivirus 8 further turns up the ante. The reason why Antivirus 8 attracts so much attention is due to its propensity to surpass the usually vicious antics associated with common rogues. This is further exemplified in the reports by users infected with this nasty rogue.
Many symptoms of an Antivirus 8 infection include a constant redirection of search and internet browsers, as well as incessantly persistent popup messages. These popups are used to inform intended victims that their system is either under attack, or has already been compromised by internet viruses. It will further go on to inform consumers that the only way to stave off this attack, or delete these fake infections is to purchase a full license key of Antivirus 8.
At this point in Antivirus 8’s attack, many victims will succumb to the fake panic created by these criminals and naively hand over their credit card details. This is one of the worst things consumers can do, as they will open themselves up to other scams such as identity theft and credit card fraud.
The only remedy is to never trust any correspondence from these people, and to simply delete Antivirus 8 as soon as it’s discovered on the PC. Never pay for any of its products, and use antispyware tools to thoroughly remove Antivirus 8 once and for all.
Fighting to keep your PC healthy and protected might seem like a losing battle. The only recourse available to consumers to protect their PCs against threats such as rogue Antivirus 8 is to continuously invest in updated, well designed and properly functioning security tools.
- Installs itself without permissions
- Connects to the internet without permission
- Shows commercial adverts
- Slow internet connection
- System crashes
- Annoying Pop-up's
- Slow Computer | <urn:uuid:a63e9e54-d360-4012-860a-924da1259731> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pcthreat.com/parasitebyid-12021en.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952042 | 435 | 1.875 | 2 |
“I’ve seen a lot of boys go to war, and not all of them have returned. So many have left without a chance for me to say goodbye that you’d think it would be impossible to keep track of. I’ve never forgotten the name of a single one of them…because I can’t…and I consider that a privilege.” – Steven Rogers
The history of Captain America spans over 70 years so below is the abridged version of the First Avenger’s history.
Steve Rogers was born July 4, 1922 to Sarah and Joseph Rogers and grew up a frail youth during the Great Depression. Little is known about Steve’s early life, but his father died when he was a child and his mother died when he was in his teens. When watching newsreel footage of Nazis ransacking Europe, Rogers attempted to enlist in the Army, but was rejected due to his frailty and sickness. However, General Chester Phillips offered Steve the opportunity to take part in the top-secret experiment called Operation Rebirth. Rogers agreed and was taken to a secret laboratory in Washington, D.C. where he was introduced to Doctor Abraham Erskine, the creator of the Super-Soldier Serum. After weeks of tests, Rogers was administered the serum and emerged with a perfect human body, but a Nazi spy who observed the experiment murdered Dr. Erskine minutes afterward which left Steve the sole beneficiary of the serum. Steve was then put through an intensive physical and tactical training program that taught him gymnastics, hand-to-hand combat and military strategy. Three months later, he’s given his first assignment to stop the Red Skull and given the trademark red, white and blue costume, becoming Captain America.
Originally, Steve was issued a traditional kite-shaped shield made of mundane steel while his original helmet served as his mask, but a protective neck-plating hood was later added as well as his now-legendary disc-shaped shield by President F.D. Roosevelt. During the war, Cap served as both a symbol of freedom and as America’s most effective special operative and in addition to working with Bucky, Cap regularly fought alongside Namor and the original Human Torch as part of the Invaders. Rogers also came into contact with James Howlett and usually faced Germans or Japanese while also facing many other villains. During the final days of World War II, Cap and Bucky were trying to stop a bomb-loaded plane launched by Baron Zemo and when the plane exploded, Bucky was supposedly killed while Cap was thrown into the icy Arctic waters of the English Channel. Due to the Super-Soldier Serum, Caps body entered a state of suspended animation until Namor stumbled upon his frozen body years later and threw him into the ocean after finding an Inuit tribe worshiping him. The Avengers then discovered Steve’s thawing body and revived the legendary hero so he joined the team as a retroactive founding member and the heart and soul of the team.
The team’s early missions with Cap included a run-in with Zemo who organized the first incarnations of the Masters of Evil and kidnapped Rick until Zemo was killed in a rock slide. The remaining founding Avengers decided to take a leave of absence so Cap led a new team which included Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, and the quartet defeated several threats to include Kang and Doctor Doom. When Cap took his first leave of absence, Black Panther stepped in to take his place, but when Rogers discovered one of T’Challa’s motives was to spy on the team so the relationship between the two became strained until their friendship was restored later on. Later, Red Skull returned and stole the Cosmic Cube from AIM which led to the first post-war clash between the two. Cap also crossed paths with Nick Fury after he had become Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., teaming with him many times and maintaining a close working relationship. Steve also worked with Sharon Carter, eventually sharing a deep romantic relationship and eventually admitting his love for her. When a Cosmic Cube-empowered Sam Wilson later attacked Rogers after a plot by the Red Skull, Steve managed to break Sam free of the Skull’s control and the two teamed together to defeat him, with Sam becoming the Falcon and Steve’s most reliable friend.
When Cap was badly severely injured, Sam actively succeeded him as Captain America, but returned the role when Steve recovered. Later, while investigating the Secret Empire, Steve discovered the leader as a high-ranking official and after the incident; Steve abandoned his Captain America identity, taking up the alias Nomad. Roscoe Simmons then succeeded Rogers as the new Cap, but died at the hands of the Red Skull so Steve became the Sentinel of Liberty once again. When Avengers Mansion was conquered by the Masters of Evil, Cap was captured by Baron Helmut Zemo to avenge his father’s death and forced to watch the torture of Edwin Jarvis. In the final battle, Cap defeated Wrecker and Zemo in a rooftop duel. Cap continued to come into conflict with many foes and later informed he had never officially been discharged from the U.S. Army so he received back-pay dating to the end of World War II. However Rogers was demanded to become an active member of the armed forces once again as a government-directed operative so he resigned the identity of Captain America once again and surrendered his legendary shield to John Walker. During this time, Rogers used an Adamantium shield and adopted a new costume as the Captain.
Not long after, the Avengers were temporarily disbanded so Rogers put a new lineup of members together as well as an unofficial team during the same time. It’s later discovered Red Skull was behind the Commission so he and Walker confronted the Skull and afterward, Walker resigned as Captain America so Steve took the mantle once again while Walker later resurfaced as USAgent. During a time, Cap wore a powered exoskeleton designed by Tony Stark and Hank Pym after removing the serum from his body from a meth lab explosion that reacted dangerously with it. Eventually Steve was again placed in suspended animation and given a blood transfusion from the Red Skull who also adopted some of Cap’s serum which cured his condition and stabilized him. When the Avengers learned of the Kree/Shi’ar War, Steve proposed to send diplomatic teams to each superpower during Operation Galactic Storm with Steve leading the team bound for the Kree Empire while also clashing with Iron Man who led a team of Avengers to execute the Kree Supreme Intelligence for war crimes. After returning to Earth, Cap rescued Diamondback from Crossbones and the two began an on/off romantic partnership afterwards.
Cap was then part of the force gathered to battle Onslaught and seemingly gave his life to absorb Onslaught’s energy, but instead was sent to an alternate dimension created by Franklin Richards, escaping later. When the Scarlet Witch suffered a breakdown, the team was devastated and disbanded shortly after Avengers Disassembled, but later re-assembled the team as the New Avengers when he was among the heroes present during Breakout. Although Maria Hill was opposed to the idea, Steve reminded her that he was authorized by S.H.I.E.L.D. to assemble any team he deemed necessary for any mission of his choosing. Meanwhile, Steve, Sharon and Nick Fury began investigating Aleksander Lukin and Kronas who was in possession of the Cosmic Cube and Winter Soldier, leading Steve to discover Barnes was still alive. After the death of Jack Monroe, Rogers and Barnes clashed and Cap used the Cosmic Cube to restore Bucky’s memory so Barnes used the cube himself to teleport to Camp Lehigh to cope with his past. Months later, Cap and Sharon tracked Bucky to a small Midwestern town that was controlled by AIM, but were unable to catch up with him when coming in contact with Crossbones and Sin.
When S.H.I.E.L.D. suggested the Superhuman Registration Act, Hill ordered Rogers and the Avengers to enforce it, but he refused and then attacked, but managed to escape the Helicarrier while the Watcher appeared at the Baxter Building to tell the other heroes of Cap’s actions. Cap then becomes leader of the resistance of the Act and even allowed the Punisher to join against Iron Man and his Pro-Registration unit. The two former allies attempted to meet twice during the conflict, but each time resulted in combat and Cap was nearly captured by Paladin and escaped with the aid of Shang-Chi and Heroes for Hire. In the final battle when a crowd of civilians approached in support of Stark, Cap surrendered to Iron Man after realizing his fight against the Act was endangering the people he was trying to protect. Following his surrender, Steve was indicted on several criminal charges and a successful assassination was completed which involved Crossbones as a sniper when he fired the first shot, hitting Cap in the back and Sharon Carter shot him in the stomach and chest three times after a hypnotic suggestion by Doctor Faustus.
Cap was given a state funeral, but the body at Arlington was a fake while his real body was taken to S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters until it was returned to the Arctic accompanied by Tony Stark, Hank Pym, Janet Van Dyne and Namor. Many people mourned Cap’s loss while Bucky and Wolverine swore to avenge his death. Before his death, Steve prepared a package for Tony in the event he doesn’t survive containing a photo of himself as Cap and Bucky in World War II and his final request to save Bucky as well as continue the mantle of Captain America. Thor later communicated Steve’s spirit on the anniversary of his death and granted Steve a minute of silence by using his powers to cut off all electronic media in America for sixty seconds. It’s later discovered Rogers’ essence was locked into a fixed point in space and time which forced his mind to relive certain segments of his life to include World War II and becoming Captain America. While reliving the Kree/Skrull War, Cap was able to ask Vision to record a message about his time travel condition to Reed Richards and Wasp in the future with Reed deducing Sharon being the key to bringing Steve back, but was too late when Red Skull came into control of Steve’s body.
Bucky and Steve fought to drive Red Skull from his body and succeeded with Steve considering retirement from the role of Cap, allowing Bucky to continue operating in his place. Steve then visited the President who gave Captain America (not Steve) a full pardon for his actions during Civil War. Steve then set out to remove Norman Osborn from power as the head of American national security as well as assisting in the return of Tony Stark from a vegetative state who had his memory of the Superhuman Registration Act (SRA) removed. After reviving Tony, Steve learned Osborn was laying siege to Asgard so he assembled the New Avengers, Young Avengers and Secret Warriors to provide support for the Asgardians and helped bring Osborn down. After the Siege, Steve was called to the White House where he agreed to become new head of security on the condition he would be able to do the job his way so he repealed the SRA as Commander Steve Rogers. After a brief mission involving the grandson of Abraham Erskine, Skadi freed the Serpent during Fear Itself, which caused seven hammers to fall to Earth and Steve was present when each hammer landed so he gave orders to send Avengers to each location.
When Bucky is seemingly killed by Skadi in Washington, D.C. during a blitzkrieg, Steve decided to avenge Bucky by resuming the role of Captain America once more and joined the Avengers in New York to stop Skadi. After the Serpent broke his shield during the fight, the fight moved to Oklahoma where Steve used Mjolnir to defeat Skadi. When Cap was captured by the Jackal during Spider-Island, he was mutated into a giant spider mutant called the Spider-King and was impregnated with thousands of spider eggs to spread the virus that gave people spider-like powers. He was eventually captured by Venom but escaped captivity, but was recaptured and put into suspended animation while Venom disguised himself as Spider-King to infiltrate Jackal’s organization. When the cure for the virus was discovered, Steve was returned to normal and later joined Venom in his fight against the Spider-Queen where other heroes joined the fight while Spider-Man distributed the cure and Kaine killed the Queen. After a plot by Baron Zemo to kill Captain America was thwarted, Steve and the rest of the Avengers were tracking down the Lethal Legion during Avengers: X-Sanction and Sam Wilson is shot down by Cable.
Steve soon realizes Sam is missing and follows Redwing to a shipping container where he immediately fought Cable until he was incapacitated and strapped into an inhibitor chair and shot with an EMP gun. Eventually Cable is brought down by the Avengers and Cap agrees to let Cyclops take him back to Utopia on the condition the Avengers are able to keep all the weapons used against them. When Nova crashes on Earth during Avengers vs. X-Men (AvX), Steve and Tony discover the Phoenix Force is heading towards Earth so they send a team into space in an attempt to stop the entity while also visiting the White House. While there, Tony picks up a source of the entity on Earth and head to the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning to consult with Wolverine who states the X-Men’s belief the entity’s new host is Hope Summers. Cap then heads to Utopia in order to negotiate with Scott and have Hope turned over to the Avengers for protection but he refuses and blasts Steve with an optic blast which causes Cap to give an invasion order to the Avengers. The Avengers seemingly defeats the mutants on Utopia while Hope escapes, but the surrender turns out to be a ruse and Cyclops teleports away from Utopia with several other mutants.
The Avengers and X-Men both begin their search for Hope, but Hope finds Wolverine first, who later betrays her by telling Steve her location. The Avengers arrive on the Blue Area of the Moon to take her into custody, but they are greeted by the X-Men who have also arrived, but just before a fight breaks out, Thor crash lands followed by the Phoenix. Iron Man then uses a disruptor in his Phoenix-killer armor and divides the entity into five parts which possesses Cyclops, Namor, Emma Frost, Magik and Colossus, who then begin changing the world into a better place. Knowing the Phoenix’s ultimately destructive power would bring chaos, Steve and the Avengers try to get Hope from Utopia with the help of Scarlet Witch, with success, so Scott decides to hunt down every Avenger. The team is offered safe-haven in K’un L’un by the Thunderer as well as an area for Hope to train in order to face the Phoenix, but before the entire team could reach K’un L’un, Wakanda is attacked by the Sub-Mariner with a full army of Atlanteans. After Namor is defeated, his part of the entity disperses between the remaining four and the Avengers leave for K’un L’un.
The team is later attacked by Scott who now possesses half the Phoenix Force and makes quick work of the team, but Hope combines the powers of Iron Fist, the flames of Shao Lao and Scarlet Witch to teleport Scott to the moon. The Avengers then team-up with several X-Men who realize Scott and Emma had lost control of the Phoenix and attack the duo, gaining the upper hand until Scott is forced to take the final piece from Emma and he succumbs to the Dark Phoenix. With the help of the X-Men and Nova, the Avengers manage to fight Scott around the world while also attempting to contain the destruction throughout the world, but in the end Hope and Scarlet Witch defeat Scott after the death of Professor X and Hope becomes the host of the Phoenix. Hope manages to maintain control and repairs the damage caused by Scott and finally uses the power of Wanda to manipulate reality and destroys the Phoenix which causes millions of mutants around the world to manifest their powers. After Scott is incarcerated, Steve realizes the Avengers should’ve done more to help mutants so he begins putting another team of Avengers together in hopes to unify mutant and humankind and chooses Havok to lead his team and become the new face to represent mutants. After the formation of the team, a brain-washed Avalanche was sent by Red Skull in order to create chaos and increase the fear against mutants but the Avengers manage to save innocent citizens from Avalanche’s destruction while he escapes.
The Super-Soldier Serum (SSS) is the main product which metabolized and enhanced all Steve’s bodily functions to the peak of human potential which allows him to be as intelligent, strong, fast, agile and durable as much as possible for a human without being considered superhuman. The serum enhances Cap’s physical strength which makes him as physically strong as a human being can be without being a superhuman and has been seen bench-pressing 1,200 pounds, which enables him to snap steel handcuffs/chains, and capable of breaking through wooden walls and steel doors with a single kick. Rogers can also run at speeds of up to 30 miles per hour and can run a mile under duress in 73 seconds and can coordinate his body with balance, flexibility and dexterity, being able to leap 50 yards in a single bound and 20 feet in the air without a running start. Cap’s reflexes also enable him to dodge gunfire at point blank range from multiple gunners and he’s also durable enough to survive forms of extensive punishment and falls from several stories. Steve’s sense of sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch are also at the highest limits of human potential, once stating he’s able to dodge bullets because he sees faster than them.
Steve is also an expert in hand-to-hand combat, being skilled in many martial arts which began under combat experts Rex Applegate and William Fairbairn whose expertise were European martial arts and Chinese martial arts during World War II. Cap is also well versed in Boxing, Judo, Jujitsu, Fencing and Wushu, becoming one of the finest martial artists on Earth. His years of training with his shield allow Rogers to accomplish amazing feats, allowing him to throw it with perfect aim and can hit multiple targets with the same throw by means of ricochet and can also achieve a boomerang-like effect. Steve is also an accomplished strategist and is considered one of the greatest tacticians on the planet which allows him to alter any strategy to fit the changing need of any situation. Rogers is also a master acrobat and is a very strong-willed person, allowing him to overcome most forms of temptation and can resist the effects of extreme pain, drugs and toxins to great extent. | <urn:uuid:4b164f0a-a9b3-4a79-b0ae-8c2f011469f5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.examiner.com/article/sentinel-of-liberty-captain-america?cid=rss | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977885 | 3,926 | 2.765625 | 3 |
WFP-FAO co-led Post 2015 Global Thematic Consultation on
Hunger, Food Security and Nutrition
The FAO-WFP led thematic consultation on food and nutrition security consists of three phases, meant to engage the broadest range of possible actors, and collecting their views on both lessons learned from MDGs as well as on the Post 2015 Development Agenda.
- An on line discussion, moderated by the Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition (FSN Forum), which yielded an Issues Paper available in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, Spanish
- WFP-FAO convened consultation of the Committee on World Food Security stakeholders, which refining the emerged issues in the on line consultation and yielded a vision and building blocks for a global agenda EN/ES/FR
- A High level consultation hosted by the Governments of Spain and Colombia, to be held in Madrid on April 4th
Background and Agenda of the Madrid High-Level Consultation
WFP-FAO convened consultation of the
Committee on World Food Security stakeholders
11th February 2013 – This meeting aimed at refining the emerged issues in the on line consultation and define key messages for the Post 2015 Framework on Food Security and Nutrition.
To watch a recording of the event please follow the link:
Written contributions to the WFP-FAO convened consultation of the Committee on World Food Security stakeholders:
- Government of Spain
- UN Women
- International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty
- Government of Japan
- Olivier De Schutter, Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Government of Switzerland
- United Nations Standing Committee on Nutrition
- Government of the Netherlands
- Civil Society organisations
- Private Sector Mechanism
Short progress report
The FAO-WFP led thematic consultation on food and nutrition security consists in the following three phases, meant to engage the broadest range of possible actors, and collecting their views on both lessons learned from MDGs as well as on the Post 2015 Development Agenda.
- An on line discussion, moderated by the Global Forum on Food Security and Nutrition
(FSN Forum), which preliminary findings are summarized below.
- WFP-FAO convened consultation of the Committee on World Food Security stakeholders, to be held the 11th of February, and which will aim at refining the emerged issues in the on line consultation and define key messages for the Post 2015 Framework on Food Security and Nutrition. (live webcast available)
- A High level consultation hosted by the Governments of Spain and Colombia, to be held in Madrid in early April.
Summary of key themes emerged from the FSN moderated Post 2015 on-line consultation on food security and nutrition
The online consultation elicited over 270 contributions from a diverse set of respondents. This included views from governments, from NGOs and CSOs, from academia, from professional bodies and interest groups, the private sector and individuals. The geographical scope was wide, drawing from all countries in most of the regions, north and south, developed and developing. Contributions were essentially policy positions and views - views were not systematically supported by a review of the evidence.
Distribution of comments received
The overall feedback provided strong implicit and explicit support for priority emphasis on food security, and nutrition in the next iteration of global development goals. Contributors conveyed both an appreciation of the central importance of good nutrition and healthy diets as a precondition for attaining a range of human development goals, and a sense of unfinished business. While stopping short of detailed policy prescriptions – which contributors stated are probably best developed principally at the national level. Contributors agreed there is a need for ambitious objectives, and a stronger, better-targeted framework to guide and prioritize action to eradicate hunger and all forms of malnutrition. The Zero Hunger Challenge was mentioned as a good example.
A number of key issues were proposed to sharpen the formulation of a next set of hunger and nutrition related goals:
- The issue of sustainability – food security and nutrition should be achieved while ensuring the well being of future generations
- Increasing resilience of agriculture production and food systems, and livelihoods, especially to the effects of climate change and (possibly) economic shocks
- A stronger emphasis on rights based perspectives, including for food security and tenure of land, forestry, and fisheries, with links to promoting good governance, a reduction in inequality and a legislative base for action
- A concern with a much more explicit emphasis on gender equality. In the context of this thematic discussion it is seen as an important precondition for accelerating progress to reducing hunger and malnutrition.
- The need to integrate food-based responses with public health interventions at all levels was stressed.
Several contributions emphasized the need to keep pace with the projected rapid growth in global demand for food. Part of the response, it was argued, requires continued increases in productivity – in ways that are sustainable, equitable and resilient. Small-holder agriculture was highlighted repeatedly as being essential for achieving multiple goals in many developing country contexts. In addition many contributors asserted that food availability can be significantly improved through a reduction of the estimated 30% waste of food produced. Some advocated reducing the diversion of limited food resources to bio-fuels and animal feeds.
Several contributors highlighted the importance of ensuring food access: As the affordability of food relates largely to questions of incomes, this has cross-over with other goals and the wider anti-poverty agenda, such as the desire for decent jobs. Boosting smallholder and rural incomes, and establishing a social protection floors, including food assistance, with expanded access to safety nets was a priority in many contributions. Contributors also differed on food price policy, with some contributors advocating market liberalization, and others calling for state interventions in food markets.
Concerning national policy issues, several contributions called for an intermediate goal calling for political commitment to hunger reduction by all states. Strengthening land tenure rights especially for women – based on the respective voluntary guidelines was seen by many contributors as an essential objective. A second element was the level budgetary commitment to food security and nutrition – by all countries not just donors.
The online consultation is now closed. | <urn:uuid:c6f37a06-d4e8-4f59-939b-1da593facabd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.worldwewant2015.org/food2015 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938289 | 1,248 | 1.84375 | 2 |
The Great North Walk
The Great North Walk is a 250 km walking path connecting New South Wales' largest and oldest cities: Sydney and Newcastle. Download book summary.
The Great North Walk is a truly wonderful trail following many tracks through a bewildering array of natural and urban environments. Formally, the Great North Walk starts in Macquarie Place in central Sydney where a short stroll is followed by the first water section in the form of a ferry from Circular Quay. Its southern sections pass historic locations and heritage homes in the Sydney suburbs before arriving in the Lane Cove River National Park. The Great North Walk follows this river as far as Thornleigh and then the Berowra Creek before heading through part of the Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park to arrive at Brooklyn, on the Hawkesbury River. Either the train or boat crossing of this majestic river are superb as are The Walk’s middle sections through Brisbane Water National Park and the Ourimbah Valley before reaching the Watagan State Forest. . After heading almost due north, the only serious ‘bend’ in the Great North Walk’s route is near Congewai (about 10 km south of Millfield) where the track turns almost due east to follow the Myall Range as far as Teralba, passing many signs of the impressive industrial history of this region. The trail crosses Five Islands Bridge and skirts the northern end of Lake Macquarie, taking the scenic route around the bay’s edge and then through the southern fringes of Newcastle to the official finishing point of The Walk at Queen’s Wharf in central Newcastle, close to the main railway station. Created in 1988, the Great North Walk is maintained by the Land and Property Management Authority.
The Great North Walk can be undertaken all in one super trek (allow about 2 weeks with quite a few nights’ bush camping) or as several day or weekend walks. There are plenty of access points along the route and the spurs to/from the Great North Walk proper are often as interesting as the main trail. You can go in either direction or switch northward and southward journeys as the mood takes you and your time allows. Many sections are readily accessible by public transport. Alternatively, groups can car-pool.
Walking and Great North Walk Tour Companies
There are several companies offering tours along all or part of the Great North Walk. You can also download all the chapter trails and enjoy your own self-guided tours. | <urn:uuid:44d07958-0435-4c5d-8546-cad467fb68e2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thegreatnorthwalk.com/tours | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932258 | 507 | 1.992188 | 2 |
Nearly 80 percent of U.S. overseas trade by volume travels into and out of the country through our nation’s nearly 400 ports. Waterborne cargo alone contributes more than $742 billion to the U.S. Gross Domestic Product and is responsible for more than 13 million jobs. Ensuring that the maritime commerce system is able to operate requires detailed, accurate and up-to-date maps and charts of U.S. waterways.
President Thomas Jefferson understood the value of safe, efficient marine transportation when he created the nation’s first scientific agency, the Survey of the Coast in 1807. The Survey, now known as the Office of Coast Survey is an integral part of NOAA’s overall mission to support the nation's commerce with information for safe, efficient and environmentally sound transportation. The Office of Coast Survey works closely with NOAA’s Office of Marine and Aviation Operations to chart the 3.4 million square nautical miles in the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone.
In creating the nation's nautical charts, NOAA hydrographic survey ships scan the seafloor to identify navigational hazards and obstructions while also acquiring water depth data. Often, NOAA shore-based survey teams are among the first to respond after land-falling hurricanes to help survey and re-open port areas vital to recovery.
Now a separate program, NOAA's National Geodetic Survey also traces its roots to President Jefferson's 1807 Survey of the Coast which established for the United States a national system of coordinates using longitude and latitude that today is know as the National Spatial Reference System. This grid provides the foundation for all air, land and sea transportation and communications; mapping and charting; and a multitude of scientific and engineering applications.
Among well known examples of this NOAA data are the nation's air traffic transportation management system, coastal levees and building elevations. This science of geodesy is the basis of all land surveys. These surveys were originally recorded through brass markers that are now being computerized through NOAA's Continuously Operating Reference Station Network, which is based on the rapidly expanding use of the global positioning system (GPS). | <urn:uuid:a4906af6-4a15-4977-bb77-b5d238ffddd0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mailto:releases@www.noaa.gov/charts.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920164 | 438 | 3.46875 | 3 |
The journey so far
By Hassaan Zafar
It took me all of 15 seconds to decide that I was all for this peace initiative. I started to telephone Ronnie Philip but cancelled the call. I punched in the number again...It was the first time I ever talked to an Indian
"An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind" - Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.
My father taught me the meaning of this quote when I was in the seventh grade. I used to wonder why the world seems so ignorant of these words - so simple and yet so meaningful.
For years I thought of the people living across the border as enemies. As a child when I watched Bollywood movies, which like every Pakistani I am a big fan of, I used to ask myself, how can someone who looks just like me and talks like me be an enemy?
I remember that June day this year so clearly. After returning from my internship, I checked my email. My inbox contained an email from a guy named Ronnie Philip. It had travelled to me via Dr A.H. Nayyar (a faculty member at LUMS SSE) and Beena Sarwar of Aman ki Asha. The email talked about a student level peace initiative between IIT-Bombay Techfest and students at LUMS; it invited SPADES (Society for the Promotion and Development of Engineering and Sciences, a student run organisation that I am a part of) to collaborate in this regards.
I am usually not quick to make decisions but it took me all of 15 seconds to decide that I was all for it. Without contacting my team, I started to telephone Ronnie Philip. Then something struck my mind and I cancelled the call. Should I talk in Urdu? I punched in the number again. Deciding to play cool, I went for English. Conversing very formally we talked about the peace initiative Ronnie had mentioned. He sounded as enthusiastic as I was after reading his email. It was the first time I ever talked to an Indian. I assured him of complete assistance from my side.
When the call ended I felt a bit nervous. I should have talked to my team first to ask if they agreed. Was I committing to something I wouldn't be able to do? Would my team give the approval? I decided to make a formal plan about the collaboration with Ronnie's help. When I presented it to my team, they loved the idea. Everyone supported it.
A series of calls and emails with Ronnie resulted in conceptualising this initiative. I was now conversing with him informally in Urdu, just as I would with any of my friends here. With people from IIT Bombay wishing me "Happy Independence" on August 14th and Eid Mubarak, all the stereotypes were being proven wrong.
The question now was, what should we call the initiative. The name had to be powerful enough to touch people's hearts. With suggestions from both sides, we finally agreed upon "Ummeed-e-Milaap".
The initiative had two parts: the qualifier event for Techfest 2012 for which we invited teams from all over Pakistan to participate in a robotics competition, and a Peace Diary which had to travel across Mumbai-Lahore-Karachi inviting the youth to comment and give their messages to the brethren across the border. Since our semester was to start late in September all we could do then was to talk about the details and finalise them.
With a very short time for execution we got the LUMS administration's approval on this. I was a bit worried as that was a potential hurdle, but as they say, where there's a will there's a way. Our administration applauded the initiative and despite the time constraints, they helped us firm things up.
Ummeed-e-Milaap, which was initially just found in my inbox - I saw it happening. We announced our event and got an overwhelming response.
Around 25 teams registered for the event with just one week's notice. While decorating the venue, we decided to put up Indian and Pakistani flags together as the theme. Since participants were from different cities of Pakistan, I wasn't sure what their response would be at seeing Indian flags around. Nervously we received the participants - and to our surprise found them very much at ease with it. In fact, they appreciated our team for this wonderful initiative.
A team from GIKI even insisted on running their robot with the Indian flag on it to send a message of friendship across the border. Thus came upon me a moment of realisation that the youth which makes up the majority of the population of both countries wants peace. I felt the essence of "Ummeed-e-Milaap". It wasn't about arranging a robotics competition, nor was it about some Pakistani students going to India. It was all about such gestures of peace from the participants, expressed also in our mission statement: "There is no way to Peace - Peace is the way".
I would like to thank all those who helped make "Ummeed-e-Milaap" a success. Aneeq Zia (President SPADES) and Farrukh Feroze (Executive Officer SPADES) worked tirelessly for the execution of the event. The LUMS administration gave its complete support to make it a success and of course, the invaluable help of Ronnie Philip and Anish Sankhe from across the border.
My experience with this initiative not only cleared my misconceptions about the youth across the border but also about the youth in my own country. What the common man wants is peace and prosperity. Taking this vision further, we at SPADES plan to continue this interaction and are planning to invite Indian students to participate in our annual Science Olympiad, Psifi'12.
I believe that the youth can change a lot of things. As a student I would humbly request both governments to introduce academic and cultural exchange programmes for students so that the coming generations can remove misconceptions that have festered for the past 65 years.
The writer is General Secretary SPADES (Society for the Promotion and development of Engineering and
Friday, November 11, 2011
PUNE: A bit of shopping, a touch of laughter -- some good food
-- and a whole lot of bonhomie made for a day well-spent on Wednesday w .....more
Page 108 of 175
The News on Sunday Special Report: India Pakistan prisoners more editions
We probably didn't need to do this Special Report. Newspaper stories don't matter when it comes to Indians in Pakistani jails and vice versa. In fact, 'vice versa' sums it up. We do to them what they do to us.
Except when the two countries decide to begin talking, yet again! This time a little before the foreign secretary level talks, some Pakistani prisoners were released by India (and vice versa must have happened) and some more were release....read more
For the past 2 years the Jang Group and Geo have been working on a project of great national interest; one that we hope will help usher in an era of peace and prosperity in the country and indeed, in the region. And one that hopefully all Pakistanis can be proud of. more
The Jang Group has entered into an agreement with the Times of India Group, the largest media group of India, to campaign for peace betw | <urn:uuid:65975df3-03df-47b3-bdd4-8ddb2adb76b2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.amankiasha.com/detail_news.asp?id=565&page=108 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971619 | 1,513 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Saturday, October 13, 2012
Each day in the 100 days leading up to Election Day, nhregister.com and Face the Facts USA will be partnering to bring you one exhaustively researched and vetted, non-partisan fact about a major issue facing our nation.
FACT #76: Unmarried moms and dads are far more common
Forty-one percent of the babies born in the US in 2009 were born out of wedlock. That’s 1.7 million children – more than the population of our fifth largest city, Philadelphia. Thirty percent of white children were born to unmarried parents, 50 percent of Hispanic children, and 70 percent of African-American children.
The marriage-optional trend didn’t arrive out of the blue. Out-of-wedlock births have been rising steadily in the US since 1980, when the figure was 18.4 percent. In today’s infographic, we provide a 50-state map showing the out-of-wedlock birth rate for each state. Click to see it full-size and compare your state with others.
Then compare your views with others in today’s discussion thread. Why do you think this is happening? Are you concerned? If not, say so. If so, what do you think government, institutions, or individuals should do?
How do we know? Check the original sources behind the fact:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: “Births: Final Data for 2009”
US Census Bureau: "Family Structure And Children’s Living Arrangements: Percentage Of Children Ages 0–17 By Presence Of Parents In Household And Race And Hispanic Origin, 1980–2011" | <urn:uuid:86efc7dd-ce56-4df4-bb99-9698a2fd1dd9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.registercitizen.com/articles/2012/10/13/news/doc507968c0e8129588736849.prt | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928359 | 347 | 2.734375 | 3 |
NANGAL: World Camera Day was celebrated at Madhuban Park Nangal today. An NGO 'Jagriti Sanstha' organised an exhibition of the photographs of birds on the occasion.
A painting competition on the topic of ‘Nature’ and ‘Environment’ was also organised on the occasion,in which students of various school took part.
Urvashi Narotara of St. Soldier School bagged first prize in the competition while Pranavi Sharma and Yukti Sharma bagged second and third prize respectively.
Chief guest Dr. Sanjeev Gautam and social worker Rakesh Nayyar informed the children about the invention of camera and its utility in the daily life.
Jagriti Sanstha director Parbhat Bhatti, Rakesh Sharma Pinki, Ashok Manocha, K.K. Sood, Sonia Saini, Kuldeep Singh, Shashi Pal Singh, Phulwant Manocha, Master Nanak Singh were also present on the occasion. | <urn:uuid:3401b580-e9dc-441e-9b15-cda567119732> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.punjabnewsline.com/news/Camera-Day-celebrated-at-Nangal.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951235 | 218 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Providing a victory for President Barack Obama, and maintaining a key campaign argument for Republican Mitt Romney, the U.S. Supreme Court today upheld key components of Obama's controversial healthcare reform law.
In a 5-4 decision, including conservative Chief Justice John Roberts' supporting the ruling, the court found that the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act violated commerce laws, but could still stand because it can be levied as a congressional tax.
The mandate, a key element of Obama's healthcare law, sparked intense outrage from conservatives who have argued the government does not have the right to force citizens to pay for a government service.
The court's four liberal justices, Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, joined Roberts in the outcome. Justices Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented.
Though derided by critics as “Obamacare,” the healthcare overhaul was the product of elaborate compromises by the president, and was based on a Heritage Foundation proposal and Romney's own healthcare reform while governor of Massachusetts.
The ruling provides Obama with a precious election-year policy victory on an issue critics in his own party said he failed to properly communicate to the nation. He'll now be able to use the court's decision on his move to provide coverage for more than 30 million uninsured Americans as a platform to re-cast the law to the nation.
But the decision also allows GOP nominee Romney to continue railing against the unpopular law on the campaign trail. The law was a central rallying point for the right during the Republican primary process, stirring all GOP presidential contenders to pledge it's immediate repeal once in office.
And it continues to galvanize conservatives against Obama.
“People tend to stay madder about losing than winning,” said Andrew Rudalevige, a political science professor at Dickinson College.
James Broussard, a Republican Party expert at Lebanon Valley College, agreed that the ruling could benefit Romney.
“His people will be disappointed and angry and it might increase their intensity to turn out in November,” Broussard said. “It'll increase Romney's ability to say 'The only way we can protect ourselves from this enormous overreach of federal power is to elect me and give me a Republican Congress'.”
The ruling stunned political observers, most of whom had expected the court to negate all or part of the historic law.
The ruling will have also come as a blow to Gov. Tom Corbett, who as attorney general joined 13 other states challenging the healthcare act. Within minutes of the historic ruling, Corbett and current Attorney General Linda Kelly were being offered up to reporters by the Republican National Committee as surrogates to speak on the decision.
Other prominent Republicans took to Twitter expressing disbelief at the ruling.
- “I thought @barackobama said it wasnt a #tax,” tweeted Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.
- Former GOP vice presidential candidate Sara Palin wrote: “Obama lied to the American people. Again. He said it wasn't a tax. Obama lies; freedom dies.
- House Majority Leader John Boehner was already hunkering down for a future fight to overturn the law. “Today's ruling underscores the urgency of repealing this harmful law in its entirety,” Boehner wrote on the social media website.
- Added former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a midstate native: "Obamacare ruling guarantees repeal will be the biggest issue this November."
Obama supporters expressed exasperated relief.
- “Victory for the American people! Millions of American families and children will have certainty of health care benefits + affordable care,” tweeted House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who was a key figure in the law's passage.
- Donna Brazil, a prominent Obama surrogate, applauded the court for upholding coverage for the nation.
- “Over 32 million Americans will now have a path to health care,” Brazil wrote. “What's morally wrong with that folks? Consumers will get more choices. Amen!”
- Added liberal documentary filmmaker Michael Moore: “Most impt part of Obama victory today is that insurance companies can no longer deny coverage because someone has a pre-existing condition.”
But despite the elaborate media buildup to the ruling and the outpouring of emotion on both sides of the issue, others said the decision won't affect the presidential election at all.
“It'll be a moot point,” said Shirley Anne Warshaw, a presidential scholar at Gettysburg College. “Both sides will move on. The Romney people want to focus on the economy because that's a better issue for them.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report. | <urn:uuid:4c6242b9-e489-4804-8c9e-8b09dd83f703> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2012/06/supreme_court_upholds_key_comp.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955906 | 979 | 1.671875 | 2 |
A Look At Medical Billing
Medical billing services cover a wide range of activities but the main goal of any medical biller is to process physician super-bills (treatment description) and file claims with insurance companies to ensure that their clients are paid the proper amount in a timely fashion.
A typical medical billing business, working independently from a hospital or clinic, uses medical billing software to input clients’ new billing data and send it to the appropriate insurer, while also adhering to all the appropriate laws and standards. Medical billing services also include answering patient and insurance company questions and concerns, and follow-up in the case of overdue payments. Using the medical billing software at their disposal, medical billing companies often generate reports for their clients so they can see a cash flow analysis and discover what insurance contracts are making them money and which ones are not.
Medical billing services combine the skills of interpersonal communication, bookkeeping, office and computer skills, with basic medical knowledge to provide clients with an accurate and efficient method to be reimbursed for their services.
Other medical billing services can be to provide information to a client on how to more effectively manage their practice. Physicians and hospital/clinic staff often find themselves at odds with one another over billing issues, especially when it comes to how to process billing information. Medical billing businesses sometimes offer training to teach hospital and clinic employees how to more efficiently and correctly process claims and follow-up on collections. | <urn:uuid:71d790d1-9773-46ca-bf6a-1706da2024d6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bibliohealth.com/medical-billing/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958996 | 291 | 2.09375 | 2 |
When I was a kid, there was one tradition that was always my favorite. The advent calendar. We got the disposable variety with the cheap chocolate that kids find appealing. Now, my family uses a re-usable one with drawers to hold whatever treasures we choose to put in. Sometimes it is candy. Other times, coins.
As a child, I knew it was a countdown tool to Christmas Day. As an adult, I realize that the advent calendar is so much more than just a countdown. It is a symbol of a great story. A story of bondage and freedom. A story as relevant today as in the day it was lived and written.
It is also a time that can specifically relate to the pursuit of simplicity.
What is Advent?
Not everyone celebrates Advent during the four weeks leading up to Christmas. So, I want to give a little bit of background before I compare this to the idea of simplicity.
Advent is a faith-based celebration anticipating the arrival of Christmas. The focus of the season is to understand the wait endured by the people of Israel as they anticipate the arrival of a promised savior. If you are familiar with Bible stories, then you know that the first chapters of the book called Genesis tells the story of Adam and Eve, the first man and woman. In this story is the first promise from God that he will send a savior.
This raises a question… why does anyone need a savior?
As the story goes, God gave an instruction that was not followed by Adam and Eve, and their disobedience caused a rift between them and God. It was like a door had closed to which they didn’t have the key. A door much too solid to kick down, much too thick to cut through. They were trapped and unable to open the door. Immediately, God told them that He would fix it, as only a perfect and all-powerful being can. It was not something they would have to figure out for themselves.
The Bible, then, is an intricate story of how God fixes the problem. Much of the Old Testament is focused on a single people group: the Israelites. Throughout many years, working through many people in many situations, God reveals more and more of His plan. The Old Testament gives a set of laws for how people are to interact with God until the plan is carried out. It is cumbersome, burdensome. The people grow from a family, into a nation. That nation becomes enslaved and then is freed. But then enslaved again and freed once more. Throughout a 4000-year history, the people of Israel continually wonder when their long-awaited savior will come.
They suffer the consequences of humanity’s broken relationship with God. Meanwhile, the disobedience of Adam and Eve gets passed down from generation to generation, and each person finds that even when he wants to do good, he often finds himself doing bad things. So, it is no longer just the “sins of the father” that are causing problems, but every individual adds more fuel to the fire. Eventually, part of the nation is lost, but a remnant remains. And from this remnant, comes Jesus.
Jesus is a man who claimed to be God’s promised savior, the one sent to deliver humanity from bondage. The one they had been waiting for for generations. Beyond simply being a man, Jesus also claimed to actually BE God. The Christian faith is built on the belief that he is who he claimed to be.**
Jesus, through his perfect life, maintained the relationship with God that humanity couldn’t maintain. Through his undeserved death, Jesus took the full punishment that humanity deserved. He saved humanity from the rift that it had caused between itself and God. He had opened the door leading to a relationship with God, allowing anyone who wishes to enter.
What’s this have to do with simplicity?
Plenty. Because whether the story of Christmas is something sacred to you or whether you consider it some ancient myth, the story of Christmas has nothing to do with materialism. It has everything to do with healing broken relationships. It has to do with humility and self-sacrifice. It has to do with understanding that good things are worth waiting for. And isn’t that what we’re all waiting for? Isn’t that what simplicity is about? Isn’t about realizing that we don’t want to be in bondage to things? Isn’t about realizing that we don’t need everything we are able to have just because we can? Isn’t it about realizing that others are worth sacrificing for?
For the next 4 weeks, I will be writing some thoughts on Advent. And to help me, I will be using some ideas from an initiative called Advent Conspiracy. For a quick introduction into what Advent Conspiracy is, you can check out this video.
I’m looking forward to anticipating Christmas with you through simplicity.
**It’s not my intention in this post to offer the evidence to support or deny the claim of Jesus, but simply to give an understanding of what the Christian roots of Christmas are. It’s also not my intention to discuss previous religious festivals that Christmas has borrowed dates and traditions from, but I do highly recommend the book Augustus Caesar’s World by Genevieve Foster for an account of how many of these holidays from around the world intertwine.
Thanks for reading! | <urn:uuid:c7ada69a-5498-4d7f-b218-a6b1313437a0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://guynameddave.com/2012/12/advent-conspiracy-what-are-they-waiting-for/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971657 | 1,115 | 2.234375 | 2 |
One of the defining moments of the American Revolution was Williamsburg's Gunpowder Incident of 1775. Before dawn on April 21, 1775, British marines, acting on orders from Royal Governor Lord Dunmore, removed the colonists' gunpowder from the Magazine. The next morning, when residents of Virginia's 18th-century capital discovered that the gunpowder was missing, they took to the streets and threatened retaliation against the governor. The series of events surrounding the removal of the powder has become known as the Gunpowder Incident.
Williamsburg Magazine. The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
Buildings can also be primary sources. They can tell stories about their purpose, location, and the people who used it. The history of the Magazine in Williamsburg has many twists and turnsperhaps most famously, its involvement in the Gunpowder Incident of 1775.
The Next Electronic Field Trip
is A More Perfect Union
October 13, 2011
Downloadable American History
Lesson Plans from
and Colonial Williamsburg
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If you are searching for federal funding sources to help purchase Electronic Field Trips we can help. Download the helpful "Federal Funding Resources Chart" from our website. The Electronic Field Trips Series is a unique distance learning content experience that blends media and downloadable print (PDF) resources for your classroom! Don't miss out on this great opportunity!
New Interactive George Washington Portrait
A new and improved interactive version of Charles Willson Peale’s portrait of George Washington has joined the Kids Zone! Discover the symbols hidden in this famous American portrait and decode their meanings. Also compatible with iPad and iPhone.
05/02: Immortal Bricks and Mortar
(podcast and vodcast)
05/09: Women in Wartime
05/16: What Makes a Good President?
05/23: Making History Live
05/30: Pirates of the Past
The Idea of America
A digital American history program that inspires and prepares high school students for active citizenship, developed by Colonial Williamsburg and distributed by Pearson Education.
Colonial Williamsburg for Teachers
20112012 Electronic Field Trip Scholarships
History can be described as a series of individual choices coming together to create events. In this lesson, students will examine the Gunpowder Incident from the perspectives of five different historical characters. They will discuss their characters' actions in small groups, and then present their characters' point of view to the class and take notes on each others' presentations. Those notes will be used to help students as they draw comic strips depicting what they think really motivated the Gunpowder Incident.
Colonial Williamsburg offers a variety of quality
instructional materials about American history topics, including:
- Story of a Patriot (DVD)
- Soldier's Haversack (Hands-on History Kit)
- Life in the Continental Army (Lesson Unit)
Check out our special offers!
Games, activities, and resources about life in colonial America.
21st Century Award
for Best Practices in Distance Learning, preK–12
United States Distance Learning Association, 2010
Finalist, Distinguished Achievement Award, Association of Educational Publishers, 2011
Quotation of the Month
"The monstrous absurdity that the Governor can deprive the people of the necessary means of defense at a time when the colony is actually threatened with an insurrection of their slaves ...has worked up the passions of the people there almost to a frenzy."
Dunmore's justification for the incident, mocked in the June 6 edition of the South Carolina Gazette
Reminder to EFT subscribers:
The 2010-2011 Electronic Field Trip materials will be removed from the website on August 31 to make way for our exciting new season! Please download or print any teacher and student materials you may need. | <urn:uuid:13c5c822-5d16-4ec1-a74c-bd23caf5dd94> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://history.org/history/teaching/enewsletter/archives/enews0511.cfm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924228 | 774 | 4.03125 | 4 |
It's winter 1944 and the second World War is entering its most crucial state. A few months ago Ali Banana was a blacksmith's apprentice in his rural hometown in West Africa; now he's behind enemy lines, trekking through the Burmese jungle. He is fourteen years old. Led by the unforgettably charismatic Sergeant Damisa, the unit has been given orders to go behind enemy lines and wreak havoc. But Japanese snipers lurk behind every tree - and if they manage to escape the Japanese, infection and disease lie in waiting. As torrential rains turn the landscape into a muddy death trap, the losses mount up. Homesick and weary, the men of D-Section Thunder Brigade refuse to give up.
Taut and immediate, at once somber and exhilarating, The King's Rifle is the first novel to depict the experiences of black African soldiers in the Second World War. This is a story of real life battles, of the men who made the legend of the Chindits, the unconventional, quick strike division of the British Army in India. Horrific and always brilliantly executed, this vividly realized account details the madness, the sacrifice and the dark humor of that wars most vicious battleground. It is also the moving story of a boy trying to live long enough to become a man.
Overall, The King's Rifle is an exceptional work that gains depth as
it progresses toward its compelling and unforgettable dénouement. Bandele's
writing style may not appeal to all readers, but those interested in the story
of this mostly unheralded band of soldiers will want to put The King's Rifle
high on their lists. (Reviewed by Kim Kovacs).
Bandele favors a straight-ahead style fueled by imagery and wordplay, and his perspective on heavily traveled literary territory is refreshing and even endearing.
Starred Review. A revelation of unsung heroism, distinguished by love of language and lightness of touch.
The New Statesman - Dinaw Mengestu
While, as a writer, I know better than to believe narrative alone can change the way our nations respond to each other, I do believe, however irrationally, that it's harder to say that our lives are "hell" and that our conflicts are unavoidable when the truth is sitting right in front of you.
The Financial Times - Jonathan Gibbs
As war novels go, it's a departure from the norm, leavening the gruesome depictions of combat with jokes, proverbs and stories from the lives the soldiers left behind.
The Guardian - Giles Foden
It would spoil the ending of this short, powerful book (rarely does one wish a novel longer) to say what happens. ... Burma Boy is all the stronger for keeping its presentation of racial politics implicit rather than explicit.
The Guardian - Robert Collins
The absurdity of war has been done before, of course, but what's invigorating about Bandele's novel is his fine detail, and the fresh perspective of the Africans who took part.
The Independent - Tony Gould
[A] taut, tense and utterly riveting tale of comrades-in-arms undergoing conditions of such adversity as to defy belief.
The Times - David Grylls
Although racial tension is only lightly touched on, the author’s sharp awareness of ethnic identity is what makes the book original and moving. Highlighting the heroism and absurdity of war, it also illuminates a forgotten byway of African experience.
Major General Orde Charles Wingate was a controversial figure in the British
military during WWII. He was abrasive and opinionated, with ideas about warfare
that struck those around him as either idiotic or sheer genius. Many of his
superiors were impressed by him; others thought him a madman.
Wingate was born in India in 1903. He gained a commission in the Royal
Artillery in 1922, beginning a lifelong career in the military. During the years
that followed he served in the Sudan and later in Palestine. In 1940-41 he
formed a commando unit, "Gideon's Force," which operated on the
Ethiopian-Sudanese border, where it was very successful against the Italian
Army. He was sent to Burma in 1942 to form a force to combat the Japanese. These
soldiers became the Chindits (named after the Burmese word for a mythical winged
The Chindits were the largest of the allied
Special Forces in World War II. They were an international force including
British Infantry, Royal Engineers, Burma Rifles, Hong...
The devastating story of war through the eyes of a child soldier. Beah tells how, at the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By thirteen, hed been picked up by the government army, and became a soldier.
Set in the haunting landscape of eastern Australia, this is a stunningly accomplished debut novel about the inescapable past: the ineffable ties of family, the wars fought by fathers and sons, and what goes unsaid.
These are 2 of the 6 readalike suggestions for The King's Rifle. Members have full access to all readalikes. If you are a member, please login. To find out more about membership, click here.
U.S. ebook sales up in 2012, but rate of growth is slowing(May 16 2013) In 2012, trade book sales (i.e. non academic book sales) rose 6.9%, to $15.049 billion, and e-book sales continued to grow, although the rate of growth... | <urn:uuid:0a8e0e11-dffa-47a9-82d4-a1c31028fb3d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bookbrowse.com/reviews/index.cfm/book_number/2246/the-kings-rifle | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960787 | 1,159 | 1.789063 | 2 |
The FTQ is the equivalent in Quebec of the CLC of which it is a sort of member. A «sort of», because it runs its politics in total independence from the CLC. FTQ regroups militant trade unions like CUPE, the CAW, and many others unions including US-led pseudo unions inherited from the cold war. It claims over 400 000 members but in reality, member-unions are very loosely associated with the FTQ itself. But the FTQ has another big card in its hands. It controls the Fonds de solidarité des travailleurs du Québec, which is a multi- billion union-led investment fund that was created with the support of the PQ back in the 1980s. The FTA pretends that it is saving thousands of jobs with that scheme. Critics say it is major bifurcation from traditional union work whereas FTQ officials are busy all year long in selling shares instead of organizing. But that's another debate.
Why the FTQ supports the Nationalists? There are many reasons for that. Historically, Quebec workers have faced a dual system of oppression and exploitation, as workers and as part of a Nation without a State. When I grew up in Montreal in the 1950s, business and work was almost completely controlled by an Anglo-Canadian elite which
was the descendants of the British conquerors. Pierre Vallières wrote a provocative book about us, «White Niggers of America». It was hardly an exaggeration.
That situation changed over the struggles of the 1960s and the 1970s
when mass movements surged around social and national issues. A
minority of the activist's crowd was dreaming of a left alternative,
but the majority thought that the best way out of our misery was
through the PQ which was at that time a left-center alliance. In its
early years, the PQ had many of its leaders coming out of the labor
movement, like the extremely popular Robert Burns. As time went by,
the PQ was defeated in the first referendum, then had to «manage» the
fiscal crisis of the 1980s and turned «social liberal» by the early
1990s. Most of this left legacy was dilapidated.
But not completely. In the last PQ government for example (1995-1999),
the then Minister of health (and today leader of the party) Pauline
Marois established a universal daycare system with very low prices,
making Quebec the lead in this matter. Time and again, various
policies were put in place along the lines of the Keynesian
«compromise» although it became less and less with the big neoliberal
So now Canadian readers should understand why there is this historical
alliance. But that's only one part of the explanation. The flip side
is less buoyant. The FTQ, like many big institutions have avoided
tackling the difficult issue of an independent popular alternative.
The CSN and the CSQ (the other big confederations) have initiated the
debate many times: should trade unions and other social movements form
their own political voice? Often, these organizations have taken the
risk of coming together with social and militant social movements, and
even supporting here and there political alternatives, not to the
point however of putting their full weight into these new projects as
the Brazilian trade unions did with the PT in the 1980s. But with the
FTQ, never ever. The leadership is content with supporting the
Nationalists, running the trade union «business» and avoiding rocking
the boat. For example, it refused to participate in the quite
successful Quebec Social Forum (August 2007) where over 5000 activists
from labor and community movements gathered to develop new strategies.
With Harper, the FTQ is justified to be worried. The manufacturing
sector with its relatively well-paid and secure jobs is crashing. Only
a strong interventionist State could save it while establishing other
measures to defend its competitiveness and sustainability. Obviously,
it's not on Stephen's radar. The same fear is about the continuation
and consolidation of the public sector which is mostly provincial
managed but holds on because of federal payments. To be honest, it was
the Liberals under Chrétien and Martin that already started to destroy
Keynesianism. Harper is about consolidating these policies and giving
them an «ideological flavor».
The hope of the FTQ, and in fact many others in Quebec, is that a
strong Bloc presence in the House of Commons will be able to prevent
Harper of imposing his views and that along with the other opposition
parties, it will be able to slow down the neoconservative revolution.
You could think that is the reason why people will (or should) vote
for the NPD. But in Quebec, the NPD is out of the game mostly, except
where they can hope to tackle a «left» federalist vote which is a
reality that exists in a few sub-regions where are concentrated anti
rightwing and anti-Harper Anglophones and immigrants.
In many ways, I share the FTQ view on the «useful vote» («anything but
Harper», which in reality means, in most areas of Quebec, voting for
the Bloc). However, I still think that progressive forces, on the long
term, should detach themselves from the Nationalists and create their
own political alternative. There is embryo -just an embryo- of this
called Quebecsolidaire. We can discuss this in the future. | <urn:uuid:021f4f7c-fee3-4e0b-b54c-928b7b43e781> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/why-ftq-backs-bloc | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959423 | 1,166 | 1.882813 | 2 |
Search Engine Optimization All-in-One For Dummies, 2nd Edition
Buy this book from:
Search engine optimization (SEO) is an essential tool for getting a handle on web site promotional tactics and tools. With this complete reference, you'll explore issues not covered anywhere else, including international SEO, how to optimize servers for SEO, and much more. Ten separate books join forces to provide you with a comprehensive, straightforward guide to the benefits, details, and tricks of SEO.
Coverage devotes time to topics such as keyword strategy, competitive positioning, SEO web design, search marketing, and more. You'll also look at how search engines work and how to create content, link, optimize the foundations, and analyze results.
- Details the capabilities and benefits of search engine optimization (SEO) for gauging the success of online promotional tactics and tools
- Explains how search engines work, nuances of keyword strategy, how to deal with competitive positioning, and more
- Walks you through working with SEO web design, creating content, linking, optimizing the foundations, and analyzing results
- Touches on topics not covered anywhere else, including international SEO and optimizing servers for SEO
Search no further! This book is one-stop shopping for everything you need in order to start your engine and embrace the potential of SEO today. | <urn:uuid:1989d41a-48ab-4405-8257-4e5ba9ced933> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dummies.com/store/product/Search-Engine-Optimization-All-in-One-For-Dummies-2nd-Edition.productCd-1118024419,descCd-buy.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.911376 | 273 | 1.757813 | 2 |
- Does Medela have something going on with American Airlines?
- Why Nestlé is Evil…it goes beyond just infant formula….
- Hey Weston A. Price Foundation – Language Matters: How NOT to be a Breastfeeding Advocate
- The Weston A. Price Foundation’s Dangerous Breastfeeding Advice Should NOT Be Ignored
- A Guest Blog – Dear Texas Representative Debbie Riddle…A response to your comments on House Bill 1706
- Boy Scouts of America
- breastfeeding in public
- extended breastfeeding
- full term
- guest blog
- long term
- nursing in public
- storage and handling
Category Archives: breastmilk
The Weston A. Price Foundation (WAPF) is an organization that promotes a diet based on traditional nutrient-dense foods. They have a large following which we examined in my last blog article. Since they are so influential, we must not ignore … Continue reading
So, you may be asking, “What is the Weston A. Price Foundation? Why do I care what they say about breastfeeding?” Well, let me give you a quick description about them: They are a non-profit that advocates “whole foods and … Continue reading
Breastfeeding: A Feminist Issue Penny Van Esterik reposted from World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action: http://www.waba.org.my/resources/activitysheet/acsh4.htm Breastfeeding is an important women’s issue, human rights issue, and feminist issue, since breastfeeding empowers women and contributes to gender equality. Women who wish to breasted … Continue reading
How can a breastfeeding ad with a cigarette as a nipple get deleted off facebook, but these other photos remain?
I just got blocked from facebook twice in less than 24 hours…you can see the two offending photos here: http://unlatched.wordpress.com/2012/09/13/a-collection-of-all-photos-that-facebook-removes-from-unlatched/ The second photo to get me blocked was this ad about breastfeeding and smoking: but how does it differ from the … Continue reading
“The fact is, if you know you are going to be in a jam packed place, pump into a bottle! It’s that simple!”
Yes, this is a real quote. Yes, I laughed out loud when I read it. Back in March 2012, there was a NIP incident at a waterpark and the issue blew up all over their Facebook page. It got very … Continue reading
Let’s play a game… What do you think? Is this just an old wives’ tale? For thousands of years, people have been brewing beer and using it to increase their milk supply. There are written accounts of Greek doctors in … Continue reading
Here is a link to the radio show I was on that covered breastfeeding issues and what Columbus area hospitals are doing to help increase breastfeeding rates. I come on around the 40 min mark and I cover the Ohio … Continue reading | <urn:uuid:dad5e210-b828-4aec-821a-8ea89cdd3595> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://unlatched.wordpress.com/category/breastmilk/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917903 | 629 | 1.515625 | 2 |
9th Floor: 17th century Yorkshire or is that 18th?
The York Room is a late 17th or early 18th century room that was moved from Yorkshire, England to the 9th floor of the north Ross Tower at York University in Toronto. It's a wonderful, intimate room used for thesis dissertations, signing ceremonies, and other special functions. It's located opposite the Senate. Today, I was there for the second time in as many years to cover for YFILE (our campus news) the visiting delegations from DePaul University and Loyola University in the USA and from Universidad de Guanajuato and Universidad Iberoamericana. They are meeting with us and Concordia University in Montreal to arrange for a tri-national exchange program focusing on human migration and immigration issues. It's been interesting being a fly on the wall for two days. Nice folks, everyone.
Read about the York Room - our hidden gem. My photos are more true to the real colour of the room which is quite pale. The photos on the wall are past YorkU chancellors. I have no information on the painting. | <urn:uuid:15986348-d331-4c2a-be2e-827b90ab24dd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.blipfoto.com/entry/1551492 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954348 | 235 | 2.3125 | 2 |
A derelict former North Lawndale synagogue could get substantially closer to the wrecker's ball this week as Department of Buildings officials begin putting the edifices' demolition contract out to bid, according to a city spokesperson.
Building Department spokesperson Bill McCaffrey said the agency will bid out the contract to demolish the former temple at 3411 W. Douglas Blvd. within "the next couple of days." Due to the building's size--it is big enough to have once sat 3,500 worshippers--department officials will allow prospective bidders to tour the structure before drafting their bids, McCaffrey said.
The shuttered and deteriorating brick and limestone Byzantine Revival structure was once a center of a Jewish--and later, African American--life in the West Side community. Built in 1913 as Anshe Kenesseth Israel, the former temple was once among the largest synagogues in North Lawndale, a predominantly Jewish community in the early and mid-20th century. And for now, the building belongs to a distinctive, but shrinking collection of architecturally high-quality synagogues, schools and public buildings built during that era.
In the 1960s, the area became mostly African American and the synagogue became an early home for Friendship Baptist Church (which later moved to 5200 W. Jackson) and hosted the Rev. Martin Luther King. The building was Shepherd's Temple Baptist Church when it closed years ago. Abundant Life World Outreach, a North Side ministry, bought structure in 2007 but was unable to make a go of rehabbing and reusing the building. A city inspection last month led to an agreed order between the city and owners to demolish the structure.
The group Preservation Chicago placed the edifice on its 'Chicago Seven'-most endangered buildings list in 2011. This blog visited the vacant building in 2010 to discuss its architecture, history and condition. In addition to the above photo, here are two more from that visit.
And here is what the building looked like in its prime.
There is an online petition drive aimed at persuading Mayor Rahm Emanuel to stay the building's demolition. And there has been discussion in preservation circles about parties interested in stepping up to save the building. McCaffrey, the building department spokesperson, said anyone looking to rescue the building would have to demonstrate to the city their financial ability to do so. | <urn:uuid:ac984559-1740-473e-94c4-6ac594dc141b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wbez.org/blog/lee-bey/2012-01-09/time-grows-short-historic-north-lawndale-synagogue-95330 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969872 | 484 | 1.625 | 2 |
PeterD wrote:Can we say that the proleptic aorist, unlike the future tense, stresses the the unequivocal outcome of the event at some unknown time in the future? It is going to happen, but the time is not defined (aorist = undefined).
Yes, that seems like a good definition of the proleptic aorist.
You raise an interesting issue with regard to the meaning of 'aorist'. Dionysisus Thrax and his commentators apply the term 'aorist' (undefined, indefinite) to both the aorist and future tenses. They would seem to mean that both tenses are indifferent with respect to nearness in time. "I went to the store" could mean I went yesterday or 10 years ago. Similarly, "I will go to the store" could mean in the next 5 seconds or some day in the far future.
Later authors like Goodwin regard the meaning of 'aorist' from a more aspectual perspective, e.g., having to with freedom from the limitations imposed by aspectual concepts like completion, progress, repetition, etc.
The proleptic aorist must take its force from aorist aspect
and not from any past temporal reference.
A particularly good example of the proleptic aorist is Jude 1.14:
[face=SPIonic]le/gwn )Idou\ h)=lqen Ku/rioj e)n a(gi/aij muria/sin au)tou=[/face]
"saying 'Behold, the Lord is coming
with his many saints'.." | <urn:uuid:65511466-734d-4499-a717-e0d0bf703fb6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.textkit.com/greek-latin-forum/viewtopic.php?p=16002 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939115 | 343 | 1.867188 | 2 |
Monckton Myths - a one-stop-shop for Monckton misinformation
Posted on 1 February 2011 by John Cook
To loosely paraphrase an old saying, a piece of misinformation can travel halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to put its pants on. This is the conundrum facing climate scientists as they attempt to communicate the realities of climate change, amidst the noise and fury of the internet. The problem is global warming skepticism is a renewable resource. When you take the time to closely follow online discussions, blog posts and op-eds, you find the same skeptic arguments appear repeatedly, well after they've been thoroughly debunked in peer-reviewed research.
Christopher Monckton is a prolific climate skeptic. Perusing all the articles published by Monckton and the arguments he uses, Monckton appears to be zealous about recycling skeptic arguments. The same ideas appear over and over again. Recycling is usually good for the environment but sadly not in this case.
Of particular interest are the arguments Monckton uses most often. There are several sitting atop the pile which presumably are Monckton's killer blows. A close examination of these favourite arguments reveals much about how Monckton presents the science to the public.
Monckton's most popular argument is that climate sensitivity, a measure of how much the earth warms from rising CO2, is low. As our planet warms from increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere, Monckton suggests negative feedbacks suppress the warming. This is supposedly our Get Out Of Jail Free Card - we can pollute as much as we like and nature will take care of things. To back up this claim, Monckton cites the work of Richard Lindzen who uses satellite measurements of outgoing radiation as evidence for negative feedback.
However, Monckton only presents half of the story. A number of subsequent papers have examined Lindzen's work and found fatal flaws in his analysis. As well as a questionable choice of end-point dates in his data, Lindzen looks only at the tropics. A number of other analyses using similar satellite observations spanning the entire globe find positive feedback that enhances global warming.
On top of this, many studies using a range of different observations find that the overall climate feedback amplifies global warming. Climate sensitivity has to be high to explain the dramatic climate changes we see in the past. To argue low climate sensitivity based on one study presents only half the story. In fact, not even that. It gives you barely a fraction of the full body of evidence.
Monckton's other favourite argument is that sea levels are not going to rise much in the future, citing the words of Nils Mörner who claims it's physically impossible for sea level to rise much above its present rate. Again, this gives you only a fraction of the full picture. The expectation of future sea level rise is based on many different observations. Recent research into glacier dynamics in Greenland and Antarctica yield a prediction of 80 cm to 2 metres sea level rise by 2100. Another recent study takes a different approach, matching past sea level rise to past temperature change to yield a prediction of 75 to 190 cm sea level rise by the end of this century.
Meanwhile, the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets are losing ice at a faster rate every year. Two decades ago, the Greenland ice sheet was in approximate mass balance - as much ice was growing in the middle as was being shed at the edges. One decade ago, the ice sheet was losing ice at a rate of 100 billion tonnes per year. Currently, it's losing ice at a rate of over 200 billion tonnes per year. Greenland's glaciers are sliding faster down into the ocean.
A clearer picture of our future can be found in the past. Around 120,000 years ago, global temperatures were about 1 to 2 degrees warmer than now. At that time, sea levels were over 6 metres higher than current levels. Many lines of evidence indicate we're facing significant sea level rise this century.
In Unsound Advice, Monckton describes "one of the shabbiest tricks of the climate-extremist movement" is to give only one half of the story. Misleading the public by giving only half the story is indeed shabby behaviour. Giving them barely a fraction of the story is even worse.
For this reason, at Skeptical Science we've developed a resource Monckton Myths. We've compiled a database of Monckton's articles and the skeptic arguments he uses. As Monckton publishes new articles with the same recycled arguments, let us know and we'll add it to the database. While misinformation may burst out of the blocks quickly, by the time it's circled the world to start all over again, perhaps this time it will find the full facts dressed up and ready for action. | <urn:uuid:e8becb63-0cb2-40b9-b12f-bbf69efd3ba9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?n=544 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942563 | 988 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Alcohol abuse, which can progress to alcoholism, is the desire for alcohol and the continuation of drinking even when faced with alcohol-related job, legal, social, health, or family problems. In alcoholism, the individual is physically dependent on the effects of alcohol to avoid symptoms of withdrawal. More
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True or False?
Is there any truth to the saying, ‘beer before liquor, never been sicker; liquor before beer, you’re in the clear’?
Should a girl try to keep up with the guys while drinking at a party? Though some people think otherwise, women and men do process alcohol differently.
Just as you can’t sober up by taking a cold shower and having a cup of black coffee, there is no simple remedy for a hangover. | <urn:uuid:98c46365-270e-4f8f-9475-d6786b3b33e4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://memorialhospitaljax.com/your-health/?/33691/Alcoholism-Center | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940951 | 275 | 2.109375 | 2 |
Spike Lee brings the life of African-American leader Malcolm X (an intense Denzel Washington in an Oscar-nominated performance) to the big screen in this sprawling, epic biographical drama. Born Malcolm Little, son of a Nebraska preacher, on May 19, 1925, he became one of the most militant leaders and charismatic spokesmen of the black liberation movement before his assassination at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City on February 21, 1965. The film sweeps through his early life as a small-time hustler and thief with his friend Shorty (Lee), his conversion to Islam in jail, and his subsequent life as a controversial spiritual leader and husband of Betty Shabazz (Angela Bassett). Malcolm’s tragic assassination is presented as a conspiracy of Nation of Islam leaders; the film shows how his philosophy has been realized in the lives of others who have been moved by his words. Filmed with great visual flair by Lee, the film is a work of entertainment as much as it is a historical artifact. Washington captures the spiritual conversion of the hero with a sincerity that is entirely as believable and ultimately moving as it was in the book that inspired the film. —Denver Film Society
As a writer, director, actor, producer, author, and entrepreneur, Spike Lee has revolutionized the role of black talent in Hollywood, tearing away decades of stereotypes and marginalized portrayals to establish a new arena for Afro-American voices to be heard. His movies, a series of outspoken and provocative socio-political critiques informed by an unwavering commitment toward challenging cultural assumptions not only about race but also class and gender identity, both solidified his own standing as one of contemporary cinema’s most influential figures and furthered the careers of actors including Denzel Washington, Wesley Snipes, Samuel L. Jackson, Angela Bassett, and Laurence Fishburne. Born Shelton Jackson Lee in Atlanta, GA, on March 20, 1957, he was raised in the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn. After attending Atlanta’s prestigious Morehouse College, returned to New York to make his first movie, 1977’s Last Hustle in Brooklyn, a portrait of the area’s Black and Puerto Rican communities… read more
Spike Lee gives solid directing in the way he depicts the electrified, and angered 1960s African American Civil Rights movement, lead by Malcolm X. Denzel Washington gives us a performance that shows us a character true and honest to what he represents, a man who not only fought for civil rights but died for them. | <urn:uuid:8b65f03b-4661-45be-85eb-0af4d9f728c7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mubi.com/films/malcolm-x | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963213 | 519 | 1.960938 | 2 |
Updated October 27, 2009.
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European Hardware Enjoying Increased Interest
March 15, 2009
FEATURE ARTICLE | Design & Performance, Materials & Components, Aesthetics & Style
Today’s economic climate has window and door fabricators and suppliers alike searching for new strategies to acquire additional market share in order to survive the financial turmoil. No single approach is likely to enable companies to reach that goal, but one area of the market that appears to be a target opportunity is the growing niche for European-style window and door products.
These products, manufactured with European-style hardware and functioning in different ways than traditional North American windows and doors, have been available for many years. Recently, however, there has been marked increase in demand and interest in tilt/turn windows, as well as lift-and-slide and fold- and-slide doors.
Before looking at the demand side of this equation, it might be helpful to look at what makes these products different, notably the “European hardware.” In most cases, European hardware requires a euro-groove in the sash or door panel profile to accommodate the installation of the hardware. This euro-groove accepts a metal bar, typically 16 or 20 mm wide, which connects with the operating gear and the handle, thus allowing activation of locking points and/or other functional components located around the perimeter of the sash.
Some of the terminology is quite different for basically the same parts. For example, with European hardware, what North Americans might call a faceplate is called an espagnolette. Another part that has interchangeable terminology are rollers, otherwise known as bogies in Europe. Otherwise, many key parts, such as keepers or strikers, have common names both here and abroad.
In addition, the profiles are generally thicker and stronger than the traditional profiles necessary for North American hardware, such as casement, sliding patio door, and sash locks. Fabrication tooling and machinery required for the application of European hardware is typically more intricate and expensive. And without a doubt, European hardware and the fabricated products to which it is applied are more expensive for the fabricator and the consumer.
Why is there a growing demand for European products in the marketplace during a difficult financial period in our history? For one, security is becoming more important to consumers looking at doors and windows. Tilt/turn windows provide a range of security levels, which are unparalleled versus traditional casement and in-line sliding windows. The hardware required to operate a tilt/turn window encompasses the perimeter of the sash with multiple locking points for the utmost in security. Some suppliers of European hardware offer concealed hinges to provide the window with a clean, aesthetic look; the only piece of hardware that can be seen is the handle when in a closed position.
In the tilt position, tilt/turn windows
provide both ventilation and security.
Functionality is also a driving factor when consumers select tilt/turns. The window can be tilted into the interior of the dwelling for ventilation purposes, or the unit can be opened up to 180 degrees to provide full access to the outdoors, without disrupting the curb appeal of the home. Arrestable stays are available to control the degree of opening, if desired.
Given the potential for tilt/turn windows to completely open up and provide access to outside, child safety windows are available in the marketplace that “lock out” the turn function and only allow the operator to utilize the tilt function only. As the name indicates, this type of tilt/turn unit typically finds a place in children’s bedrooms.
Security and functionality are important features of tilt/turn windows, but equally so is their capability to provide expanded options in the sizes and shapes of operable windows in residential or light commercial projects. Tilt/turn hardware is generally very robust, and significantly increases the size potential for window openings. Higher load can be achieved with these units, which enables builders and architects to satisfy the desire for larger openings and still meet code requirements. Traditional North American operable windows are mostly limited to rectangular shapes. The flexibility of tilt/turn hardware in specialty shape products also factors well into the plans for many architecturally designed homes.
Larger and larger doors
When it comes to European doors, the name of the game is “large.” No matter what the type of door, engineered quality and functionality are essential ingredients in the hardware used. One of the most popular types of European door hardware is called lift-and-slide. This hardware is designed to support extremely large door panels, primarily wood panels, that slide open, and in some cases, slide into wall pockets creating an environment where the interior of a home closely overlaps with the exterior and nature. Hardware to support the ease of movement for these large and heavy panels must function smoothly, making operation by the homeowner almost effortless. In addition, flush mount handles are extremely important, especially in pocketing applications.
Based on observations at the recent International Builder’s Show in Las Vegas, along with customer requests in the market, there appears to be a significant spike in demand for multi-panel, fold-and-slide doors in North America at the moment. A large percentage of this demand is being generated on the West Coast, for both high-end residential dwellings and light commercial applications. As the name indicates, the sash or panels of these doors are conveniently opened and folded to the side. Hardware for these types of fold/slide doors is available for wood, PVC, and aluminum profiles. Both lift/slide and fold/slide doors can be used to create the large openings that serve to expand the “living space.”
Large doors that can effectively join interior and exterior spaces are enjoying a "spike" in
demand that has translated into greater interest in European style hardware systems
that can accommodate the large panels and assure they function smoothly.
Another style of European door that more closely resembles North America’s standard sliding patio door is the tilt-and-slide door. The sightlines of the two doors are very similar, but the functionality of the hardware to operate the doors sets the two styles worlds apart. Tilt/slide hardware utilizes tilt/turn window properties to activate the movement of the door. In a closed position, the two sash or door panels are “flush” to one another. The sash can be tilted into the interior of the room for secure ventilation with one motion of the handle, and then with a second motion can slide into a parallel position with the fixed panel.
Operating in the current market conditions means adopting a philosophy or strategic effort that will set a company apart from the competition. The overall market for European windows and doors is still quite small in the U.S. and Canada, but there are many window and door fabricators and dealers that are consciously moving a portion of their product offering in this direction. European-style products offer window and door companies a means to provide customers with added value and themselves a point of differentiation. A shift to add these products, of course, can also add enhanced margins to the bottom line.
Making the decision to add products incorporating European hardware will certainly benefit many window and door companies, but an equally important decision to assuring success is the selection of the right hardware supplier. To satisfy the security, functionality, size requirements and aesthetic properties demanded in European products, a hardware supplier needs to offer much more than product. A window and door fabricator will need to find a supplier that can provide effective product support in both the technical and marketing arena. Most of this type of hardware is manufactured in Europe and other countries around the world, so it is important that sufficient inventory levels are here. Finally, it is important that the hardware supplier has a long-term commitment to the North American market. This is easier said than done, and some suppliers accomplish these tasks better than others. Aligning with a strategic partner that can satisfy all these requirements is key. | <urn:uuid:e5399b8f-d45f-441b-a39d-7b8b11d4c45e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://windowanddoor.com/article/marchapril-2009/european-hardware-enjoying-increased-interest | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942079 | 1,625 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Jul 11, 2012
“I have an older computer with a small hard drive, and I’m unhappy about the computer’s speed. Will installing a bigger hard drive make my computer faster?”
Installing a bigger hard drive may improve the speed of your computer, but perhaps not for the reasons you think. Size, independent of other factors, does not influence the speed of a hard drive. In fact, there are several factors influencing a hard drive’s performance, and installing a faster one may provide one of the most dramatic speed boosts that you can give your computer.
I became fascinated by the topic of hard drive performance when I read this document many years ago. While it’s a bit outdated now, the principles are sound and continue to apply to hard drives today. The only things it doesn’t account for are relatively recent developments such as hybrid hard drives and solid-state drives. In case you don’t have a few spare hours available to read it, I’ll explain the two factors that most greatly influence the performance of a conventional hard drive: areal density and rotational speed.
A hard drive stores data on rotating metal platters using magnets. A typical hard drive spins at a constant speed — 5,400 RPM, for example. So, suppose your computer has a hard drive with 500 GB of data on each platter, and you replace it with a hard drive that has 1 TB of data on each platter. If both hard drives have the same rotational speed, then in any given length of time, twice as much data will pass under the read/write heads of the larger hard drive. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the larger hard drive will be twice as fast due to error correction, computational overhead and other factors — but it will be faster.
The rotational speed of a hard drive refers to the speed of the motor that spins the drive’s platters. The two most common rotational speeds are 5,400 and 7,200 RPM, and you may also see hard drives with speeds of 4,500 RPM, 10,000 RPM and 15,000 RPM. Like areal density, increasing the rotational speed of a hard drive increases the amount of data that passes under the read/write heads in a given length of time. If your new hard drive has a higher areal density or higher rotational speed than your current one, it will be faster.
Conventional hard drives have physical limitations that are becoming increasingly difficult to overcome — increasing areal density or rotational speed leads to issues with error correction, heat and power consumption. The solid-state drive is a relatively new invention that has only recently started to become affordable and resolves these problems by storing information on flash memory chips rather than metal platters. Freed of these physical limitations, solid-state drives achieve incredible data transfer speeds. For example, the 3 TB Seagate Barracuda desktop hard drive — one of the highest-performing hard drives on the market with sustained read speeds of up to 193 MB/second — pales in comparison to the OCZ Vertex 3, which reads data at 520 MB/second. This difference is even more remarkable when you consider the fact that the Vertex 3 can sustain this speed from the beginning of the drive to the end. As the Seagate Barracuda reaches the end of the drive, the read speed slows to 93 MB/second. Installing a solid-state drive can make an aging computer feel brand new; Windows launches in seconds and programs load almost instantly.
However, as is typical with computers, there is a bit of a trade-off. If you buy the OCZ Vertex 3, $360 gets you a drive with just 240 GB of storage space. In a desktop computer, you can use your existing conventional hard drive for storage of files that don’t require high-speed access such as pictures and videos, while installing your operating system and programs on the solid-state drive. In most laptops, however, you’re limited to only one drive, which brings us to a new type of hard drive developed by Seagate as a compromise between the two: the hybrid hard drive.
Hybrid Hard Drives
At the present time, the only product of note in the hybrid hard drive field is the Seagate Momentus XT. This $200 laptop hard drive combines 750 GB of conventional hard drive storage space with a flash memory cache of 8 GB. As you use your computer, the Momentus XT copies the most frequently used information to the flash memory cache, allowing it to access the cached data nearly as quickly as a solid-state drive. While a conventional 750 GB laptop hard drive loads Windows in about 30 seconds and launches Adobe Photoshop in about 10 seconds, the Momentus XT loads Windows in about 15 seconds and launches Photoshop in about 4 seconds. In most cases, the 8 GB cache should be sufficient to store your operating system data as well as the programs you use most often. Although it isn’t as fast as a pure solid-state drive, the Momentus XT is a good compromise between price, storage capacity and performance.
Benefits of a Faster Hard Drive
Having a faster hard drive will improve the speed at which your computer can read and write data, which means that any task or application that depends heavily on data transfer speed will be improved by this upgrade, such as starting Windows, launching applications, loading game levels and opening large files. The things that a faster hard drive won’t help are tasks that depend more heavily on the speed of the computer’s processor or graphics card, such as games. If you are unhappy with your computer’s gaming performance, consider upgrading the video card instead. | <urn:uuid:4ada01f1-e84c-41af-8e43-6c60a1f685ff> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://macgateway.com/help-and-support/bigger-hard-drive-computer-faster/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941637 | 1,178 | 3.15625 | 3 |
I didn’t attend the big “Restoring Honor” rally in Washington over the weekend, nor did I watch any of the proceedings. But what I’ve read about it gives me some serious concerns.
There was apparently a great deal of religious talk at the rally, amidst all the other political rhetoric. There were calls for people to “return to God” in order to effect certain changes in our nation’s policies. Several speakers described the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence as “sacred texts”. There were also comments about how “our faith has driven us to become the greatest people the world has ever known”, and how we “must restore the faith that once guided us.”
Those kinds of expressions are typically described as part of American “civic religion”, a quasi-faith in our nation and our Constitutional order. They are not unusual in modern politics — and certainly have been common throughout our history.
Now, I think it can be fairly said that I’m a pretty patriotic person. I love my country, and I hate to see it criticized, especially from abroad. I fly the flag every day, I serve in my state’s military forces, and I’m a proud Fourth Degree Knight of Columbus — the patriotic degree of our order. Several times, I have worked in government positions that have required me to swear to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution”, and I have always been glad to do so, with no mental reservations. I get all teary-eyed when reading the Declaration of Independence or the Gettysburg Address.
I also believe that it is a requirement of my Catholic faith that I respect and honor my nation. Patriotism is a form of piety, and is mandated by the Fourth Commandment. As the Catechism says, “The love and service of one’s country follow from the duty of gratitude and belong to the order of charity.” (2239)
But when we start talking about our country in overtly religious terms, as if our founding documents are somehow part of revelation, or as if the United States is a holy nation of divine institution, then I start to get nervous.
Perhaps I’m hyper-sensitive, and this is just another of my strange obsessions. I certainly don’t cast aspersions on the good will and patriotism of anyone who observed or spoke at that rally. And, to be honest, I would probably agree with much of the political agenda proposed at the rally.
But this kind of language, to my ears, starts to come alarmingly close to the sin of idolatry, and I will have nothing to do with it.
In the early years of Christianity, the “civic religion” of emperor-worship was a significant problem for the Church. Many, many saints were tortured and put to death because they wouldn’t offer even the token sacrifice to the emperor, because they rightly saw that as idolatry. They refused to be disloyal to the true King, the one whose empire was founded on the Cross. They were much more concerned about being citizens of the City of God, rather than the City of Man.
Here’s how that played out in the case of the glorious St. Perpetua:
Another day as we were at meal we were suddenly snatched away to be tried; and we came to the forum… And my father appeared there also, with my son, and would draw me from the step, saying: “Perform the Sacrifice; have mercy on the child.” And Hilarian the procurator… said: “Spare your father’s gray hairs; spare the infancy of the boy. Make sacrifice for the Emperors’ prosperity.” And I answered: “I am a Christian.” And when my father stood by me yet to cast down my faith, he was bidden by Hilarian to be cast down and was smitten with a rod. And I sorrowed for my father’s harm as though I had been smitten myself; so sorrowed I for his unhappy old age. Then Hilarian passed sentence upon us all and condemned us to the beasts; and cheerfully we went down to the dungeon.
I love my nation. But I’m sure that Byzantines loved their Empire, the Franks loved theirs, and the Romans loved theirs. Those nations all passed away, into the dustbin of history. Sad as I am to say it, the United States is not an entity of divine origin, and will someday pass away. The Lord never promised that “the powers of death shall not prevail against it”. (Mt. 16:18)
We can, and must, love our country. We must respect our laws, take an active part in public life, promote the common good, and bring our religious values into the public square to advocate for policies that defend human life and dignity.
But St. Perpetua had it right. We must not do anything that would treat our nation as a graven image. | <urn:uuid:00edca28-7f45-40a8-9c4e-0016beb7150b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.archny.org/steppingout/?p=1205 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972397 | 1,073 | 1.882813 | 2 |
Burin from the French burin meaning "cold chisel" has two specialised meanings for types of tools in English, one meaning a steel cutting tool which is the essential tool of engraving, and the other, in archaeology, meaning a special type of lithic flake with a chisel-like edge which was probably also used for engraving, or for carving wood or bone.
An engraving burin is used predominantly by intaglio engravers, but also by relief printmakers in making wood engravings. Its older English name, still often used, is graver. The burin consists of a rounded handle shaped like a mushroom, and a tempered steel shaft, coming from the handle at an angle, and ending in a very sharp cutting face.
In use, it is typically held at approximately a 30-degree angle to the surface. The index and middle finger typically guide the shaft, while the handle is cradled in the palm. Of note is the 16th century Flemish engraver Hendrik Goltzius, whose malformed hand was ideally suited for the cradling and guiding of a burin.
Burins typically have a square or lozenge shape face, though several other types are used. A tint burin consists of a square face with teeth, enabling the creation of many fine, closely spaced lines. A stipple tool allows for the creation of fine dots. A flat burin consists of a rectangular face, and is used for cutting away large portions of material at a time.
In the field of lithic reduction, a burin is a special type of lithic flake with a chisel-like edge which prehistoric humans may have used for engraving or for carving wood or bone. Burins exhibit a feature called a "burin spall", in which toolmakers strike a small flake obliquely from the edge of the burin flake in order to form the graving edge. Burin usage is diagnostic of Upper Palaeolithic cultures in Europe, but archaeologists have also identified it in North American cultural assemblages, and in his book Early Man in China, Prof. Dr. Jia Lanpo of Beijing University lists dihedral burins and burins for truncation among artifacts uncovered along the banks of the Liyigon river near Xujiayao.
An example of a type of burin diagnostic of the archaeological stratum where they are found is the "Noailles" burin, a small multiple burin characteristic of the Upper Paleolithic cultural stage called the Gravettian, ca. 28–23,000 BP; these flake tools have been restruck and refined to give several chisellike edges and a blunt, grippable rear edge.
- Media related to Burins at Wikimedia Commons | <urn:uuid:fc590992-bedb-4783-889d-aacc08d0ff05> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burin | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943619 | 580 | 3.421875 | 3 |
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Friday, May 17, 2002
We're all narrow-minded
By ROWAN HOOPER
It's a commonly held belief that we lose brain cells as we age. But, in fact, although our brains may not work as well when we get older -- learning becomes harder, memories fuzzier -- the number of cells they contain remains the same, about 28 billion. Scientists think the real problem is that the myelin sheaths around neurons wear down, like the tires on an old car, and consequently the brain can't move as fast.
A child's brain, on the other hand, is like a superabsorbant sponge. It will mop up anything -- rules not to cross the road, drink bleach or look at the sun through a telescope. At the same time, children will happily believe in things as dotty as Father Christmas and hellfire. Yet at birth, the brain is far from fully developed. Major changes occur in the brains of babies, changes that affect the function of the brain in future life.
For example, 6-month-old human babies can easily distinguish between individual humans and individual monkeys, but adults, while automatically able to recognize different humans, are almost completely unable to tell one monkey from another. At first sight this may seem like a wantonly bizarre fact, but it might help explain "perceptual narrowing." A good example of this phenomenon is our diminishing ability, as we grow older, to differentiate between different speech sounds if they don't occur in our mother tongue.
Perceptual narrowing is well-known in Japan. Under a certain age, infants can distinguish the sounds of R and L, but if young children are exposed only to the Japanese language, which does not distinguish between the two, the brain develops only one category for these sounds. This is why American passwords during the Pacific War were things like "rabble rouser" and "rubbernecker," words that a Japanese soldier would have trouble pronouncing.
As for the differentiation of monkeys' faces, the University of Sheffield's Olivier Pascalis and colleagues report this week in Science that while 6-month-old babies can do it, 9-month-old ones can't.
"There are these really remarkable changes, in the first year of life, in the face-processing system," said Michelle de Haan, a co-author at the Institute of Child Health, University College London. "Face recognition is one example of the way we study how the brain is divided up into different areas that serve different functions.
"We usually think about development as a process of gaining skills, so what is surprising about this case is that babies seem to be losing ability with age. This is probably a reflection of the brain's 'tuning in' to the perceptual differences that are most important for telling human faces apart and losing the ability to detect those differences that are not so useful."
The paper also suggests that perceptual narrowing in face recognition and sound recognition are linked, part of a more general change in the neural architecture of the brain.
"The overlap between cognitive systems, such as language- and face-processing, is not that surprising, as they are both learned at the same time," said Pascalis in an e-mail interview. "Most of the time we are seeing the face that we are talking to. There is also a general idea that the brain is specialized differently in infants than in adults, i.e. the neural networks involved in language during infancy are not exactly the same as those in adults."
Pascalis and colleagues' experiment, called a visual paired-comparison procedure, assessed recognition abilities in babies and adults. Adults and 6-month-old and 9-month-old human babies were shown pairs of male and female Caucasian faces and the faces of monkeys (Macaca fascicularis). Of the two pictures, one had never been seen before and the other was familiar from a prior viewing. Recognition was detected by videotaping and assessing the participant's tendency to stare at the new face longer.
"Our work is revealing how experience influences face-recognition, but other factors, such as emotion, might also play a role," said Pascalis. "Several studies of depressed mothers, or children who were maltreated, are showing how experience is crucial for 'normal' development."
So children without the experience of love and affection may grow up without "normal" neural development. "The Jungle Book's" Mowgli, raised by animals, would probably have face-recognition and facial-expression systems poorly developed for interacting with humans.
However, with a staggering 10,000 billion connections between its neurons, predicting what the brain is capable of is never simple, as the case of John Sabunya illustrates.
Sabunya was abandoned as an infant toward the end of the 1986-1995 civil war in Ugandan. He was later spotted scavenging for food with monkeys, apparently having been sheltered and fed by them. The man who found him, Paul Wasswa, adopted the boy, who was then about 4. He was half-starved and unable to communicate. Despite an infancy apparently without human contact, the child learned to speak, and it turned out that he had a beautiful singing voice. He later toured in London with a choir raising money for African orphanages.
You can e-mail Rowan Hooper at firstname.lastname@example.org | <urn:uuid:ce6ff9e1-1f67-4a92-95bc-beabafcd3942> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://info.japantimes.co.jp/text/fe20020517rh.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969451 | 1,179 | 2.921875 | 3 |
Networks Flip Flop on Jobs: Executive Summary
Unemployment under President Barack Obama is at a 26-year-high. The last time the economy had 9.7 percent or higher unemployment was under President Ronald Reagan. But despite similar periods of rising unemployment, Obama and Reagan received almost exactly opposite treatment from the network news media.
Under Obama reporters have gone to great lengths to spin rising unemployment by finding 'positive trends' in the job losses, even focusing on as few as 25 jobs being 'saved' by the economic stimulus package. But when Reagan was president journalists showed unemployed families living out of their cars under a bridge in Texas and quoted Democrats or union leaders' attacks on the president's 'wicked' and 'sadistic' fiscal policies.
ABC's George Stephanopoulos looked on the bright side for Obama Sept. 4, 2009, telling viewers, 'the unemployment rate nears 10 percent, but the numbers aren't all bad.' Rewind to May 7, 1982, when unemployment hit 9.4 percent three-tenths of a percentage point lower than it would be in August 2009. That night, NBC found people in Seattle in dire straights.
'The lines for free food at food banks are four times what they were six months ago,' NBC's Don Oliver told 'Nightly News' viewers. Oliver's report focused on the 'new poor' and the emotional effects of unemployment, including suicide and battering.
Network Reports 13 Times More Negative Under Reagan than Under Obama: An overwhelming majority of stories mentioning the Reagan administration were negative 91 percent (20 out of 22) while only 7 percent (1 out of 15) of Obama administration mentions were negative. Additionally, Obama mentions were favorable 87 percent of the time, but there were zero positive mentions of Reagan. Networks Connect Reagan White House to Negative Jobs Numbers Almost Twice as Often as Obama: Unemployment stories in 1982 mentioned the Reagan administration 71 percent of the time (22 out of 31), but 2009 stories mentioned the Obama administration only 40 percent of the time (14 out of 35). Charles Gibson: 9.4% Unemployment 'Good News' (Obama) and also 'All' Bad (Reagan): The unemployment rate reached 9.4 percent under Reagan and Obama. But ABC's Charles Gibson covered the identical rate very differently in 1982 than in 2009. Gibson told viewers May 7, 1982, '[T]here really isn't any good news in the statistics. All the numbers are bad.' But by 2009, Gibson had turned into an optimist citing 'good news' June 5 and 'hope the economy may be finally turning the corner' Aug. 7. | <urn:uuid:d0b04528-d69e-4f7a-be0e-4329cdf4bb1e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mrc.org/special-reports/networks-flip-flop-jobs-executive-summary | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94963 | 536 | 1.875 | 2 |
Die Veneris, Maii 30, 1645.
A Letter from Colonel Massie, from Evesham, was this
A Letter from the City of Gloucester, of Maii 24 1645,
was this Day read; desiring, That Care might be had in
preventing the Distractions and Dangers that would happen, upon the Removal of Colonel Massie from those Parts.
Ordered, That Mr. Hodges, and the Committee of Gloucester, do write a Letter to the City of Gloucester; to give
them Satisfaction, That this House had notice of their. Petitions; and will take care of them, that they shall suffer
no Prejudice by the Removal of Colonel Massie.
Ordered, That the Examination of the late Mutiny at
Guernesay be referred to the Consideration of the Committee of Examinations: And that the Examinations taken in
this Business be referred to this Committee: And they have
Power to send for the Prisoners; and to commit them;
and to report the whole Business to the House.
An Ordinance for giving the Power of Martial Law to
the Committee that has the Government of the Garison of
Plymouth, was this Day read; and, upon the Question,
passed; and ordered to be sent unto the Lords for their
An Ordinance for continuing the Kentish Regiment under the Command of Colonel Birch at Plymouth, for Four
Months longer, was this Day read; and, upon the Question, passed; and ordered to be sent unto the Lords for
Ordered, That the Votes for the Two Ten thousand
Pounds charged upon the Excise, to be employed for the
Reducing of Oxon only, be sent up to the Lords for their
WHereas the several Sums of Ten thousand Pounds and
Ten thousand Pounds are charged upon the Receipts
of the Excise, for the Carrying-on of the Siege against
Oxford: Mr. John Ash, \?\Edward Ash, Mr. Spurstowe,
Mr. Jennour, Lord Wenman, Mr. Whitlock, Mr. Beddingfield, Mr. James Fiennes, Sir Peter Wentworth, Mr. Winwood, Mr. Lisle, Mr. Recorder, Mr. Lane, and Mr. Nathanael Stephens, are appointed to treat with the Commissioners of the Excise, and with any other particular Persons,
for the Advance and Lending of the said Twenty thousand
Pounds: Which said Commissioners, and every other particular Person, shall be secured and repaid such Sum and
Sums of Money, as they shall so advance and lend, out of
the said Receipts of the Excise, in Course: And the Care
hereof is especially recommended to Mr. Whitlock and Mr.
Ordered, That Mr. Rigby do make his Report, concerning such Members as are to have a Maintenance allowed
them for their Support, To-morrow Morning.
IT is Ordained, by the Lords and Commons, assembled
in Parliament, That the Committee, who now have the
Government of the Garison of Plymmouth, or any Three
of them, shall have Power, and are hereby authorized, to
execute Martial Law within the Garison of Plymouth, according to the Articles published by the Earl of Essex, and
used in the Army under the Command of Sir Thomas Fairefaxe.
The House being informed, That divers Divines were
at the Door;
They were called in: And Mr. Arrowsmyth did prefer a Petition, signed with the Names of divers Heads of
Colleges of the University of Cambridge; desiring the Earl
of Manchester may continue in the Authority he hath over the University of Cambridge. The which was read.
Resolved, &c. That the Earl of Manchester's Answer to
the Charge against him in this House; and the Business
concerning the continuing the Earl of Manchester in the
Government of the University of Cambridge; be peremptorily taken into Consideration, the first Business: And
that Mr. Speaker put the House in mind hereof.
Mr. Nicoll carried to the Lords, for their Concurrence,
an Ordinance for continuing the Kentish Regiment under
the Command of Colonel Birch at Plimmouth, for Four
Months: An Ordinance for executing Martial Law within
the Garison of Plymmouth: Two Votes, whereby Ten
thousand Pounds and Ten thousand Pounds is charged upon the Receipts of the Excise, for the Carrying-on of the
Siege at Oxford: An Ordinance to discharge Sir John Kaye's
Estate from Sequestration.
Ordered, That Mr. Green do, To-morrow Morning, peremptorily, report the Declaration for giving Satisfaction
to the States of Holland, and all other Parts of Christendom, touching the Matter of Reprisals, and free Trade.
Ordered, That the Committee for the Admiralty and
Cinque-Ports do call in the James from the Downs; and,
in the room, shall have Power to set out one or more
small Ships, of equal Charge: And this to be done with
all convenient Expedition.
Sir Tho. Widdrington reports, from the Committee to
which Two Ordinances were referred, concerning the
Northern Association, That the Committee had considered
of the said Ordinances; and, out of them both, had prepared and framed one Ordinance, intituled, An Ordinance for the Associating of the several Counties of Yorke,
Lancaster, Nottingham, Durham, Northumberland, Cumberland, and Westmoreland: The which was twice read;
and, upon the Question, re-committed unto the same
Committee: Who are to meet upon it on Monday next at
Two of Clock, in the Exchequer-Chamber: And the Letter from the Town of Hull, and the Letter from the Committee at Yorke, and the Petition from the Town of Newcastle, are referred to the Consideration of this Committee.
Mr. Nicoll brings Answer, That the Lords do agree to
the Ordinance for continuing the Kentish Regiment at Plymouth, for Four Months longer: To the Ordinance for
Martial Law in Plymouth: To the Two Votes for charging
Two several Ten thousand Pounds upon the Excise, to be
employed for the Reducing of Oxon: And, as to the Ordinance for discharging the Sequestration of Sir John Kaye's
Estate, they will send Answer by Messengers of their own.
WHereas there hath been a late Agreement between the
Committee for the Safety of Plymouth, Poole, and
Lyn, &c. and the Committee for the County of Kent, for
a Continuance of a Kentish Regiment of Foot, under the
Command of Colonel Birch, at Plymouth, for Four Months,
from the First of February last, according to such Articles
and Propositions, and upon such Consideration, as is expressed in a late Ordinance of Parliament of the Fifteenth
of March last past: And whereas, at the Instance of the
said Committee for the Safety of Plymouth, the said Committee for the County of Kent, having taken into their
Consideration the Importance of the further Continuance
of the said Regiment in the West, for Four Months next
ensuing the First of June, upon certain Articles agreed
upon between the foresaid Committees: The Lords and
Commons, assembled in Parliament, taking the Premises
into serious Consideration, do hereby approve and confirm
the same, as an acceptable Service to the Parliament and
Kingdom: And do Ordain and Declare, That the Accompts of the said Committee for the County of Kent, for
the Sum of Six thousand Forty-one Pounds Thirteen
Shillings and Six-pence, now by them given in unto the
said Committee for the Safety of Plymouth, be and are
hereby approved and allowed unto the said Committee of
Kent, as Part of the Sum of Seven thousand and Seventy
Pounds, charged, or to be charged, upon the said County
to the Tenth and last Month's Proportion by the Ordinance of the new Model, without any further Accompts
to be given thereof by them unto the Treasurers at Guildhall, London, or to any other Person or Persons whatsoever. And it is further Declared and Ordained, That the
said Committees for the said County of Kent shall be and
are hereby authorized and impowered, by their Order, fignified unto the Colonel or other chief Officer of the said
Regiment for the Time being, to call back the said Regiment into the County of Kent, at the End of the said
Four Months: And that the said Regiment, being so called
back, shall and is hereby discharged from the aforesaid
Service. And it is further Ordained and Declared, That
the aforesaid Sum of One thousand Twenty-eight Pounds
Six Shillings and Six-pence, being the Remainder of the
said Tenth and last Month's Proportion, shall be and is
hereby allowed unto the said Committee for the County of
Kent, towards the aforesaid Charges of paying and maintaining the said Regiment during the said Four Months,
without any Accompt by them to be given for the same
to any Person or Persons whatsoever, other than the said
Committee for the Safety of Plymouth; any former Order
or Ordinance to the contrary notwithstanding. | <urn:uuid:113d661e-ac55-4e4b-ace8-b6b7749545db> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=23409 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929382 | 2,035 | 1.53125 | 2 |
When I got home from work today I went out to check on the garden. One of our cats was in the garden, hunting what looked to be a Curve-Billed Thrasher. Between Mr. A and I, we were able to catch him and set him free.
This means there is a way into the garden for both birds, and cats. Drat! Thankfully the dogs had not discovered the bird or they would have been trying to find a way in as well.
I also spotted these two little cotyledons. But I know what they are. They’ve popped up in my garden in the past. They are Little Mallow Malva parviflora Mallow Family ( Malvaceae ) Little Mallow: Also called Cheeseweed, Alkali Mallow, or Small-Whorl Mallow. A weed, but an edible weed. Our goats LOVE them. This weed grows freely all over our property. A few years ago when we got a lot of rain, they grew to be taller than me! I knew this weed was edible, but check out these blogs for more information on eating mallow: Homegrown Evolution and Your Edible Landscape by Linda Runyon. Awesome, I will definitely have to try this weed as it comes up this year.
These two babies will have to come out, though. They’d overwhelm the small garden area they are growing in.
What does this have to do with personal finance? Well, Paid Twice got me thinking with her post about saving money on her homegrown tomatoes. I hope to save us some money on salad ingredients and vegetables over the next few months – cool season planting in the desert runs from September to March/April. I bought my seeds in November of 2006, which were produced to be planted in 2007. I bought 31 packages of seeds, and paid $5.25 shipping. $40.70 total. That is the most money I’ve ever spent on seeds in one year, and I never got my garden planted in the winter of 2006/2007.
I love radishes, but I have stopped buying them since they are running $0.89 per bunch (10-12 small radishes). My package of radishes cost me $0.75 and contains 300 seeds. If only 150 seeds germinate, my radishes will cost me about $0.005 each. So we’re looking at one dozen radishes for six cents. Whoooo! We haul our own water and pay $4.00 for each 1000 gallons, so the amount of water to produce these radishes may cost about a nickel for a whole bunch of them. Thankfully I don’t have to purchase compost, since my dairy goats and chickens and in the past turkeys, have produced enough soil enhancing product to plant an acre’s worth of garden.
I may be counting my chicks before they hatch again but I am trying not to get my hopes up too high. Over the last eight years we’ve lived here I’ve battled the following:
- cottontail rabbits
- fire ants
- ground squirrels
- ground chipmunks
I may have to work out a secondary ground cover while the baby plants are getting a start. I am so anxious to have some fresh Swiss Chard. At least Frugal Babe doesn’t have to worry about all these pests in her hydroponic garden. I was wondering about gnats, and wondered if those might become an issue as they have for me in the past when I have started my tomatoes indoors.
I’d like to try this recipe once the kale comes up. Speaking of kale, I’ve never grown it in my garden, but it’s AJ’s favorite. I don’t much care for the store bought variety, but garden fresh often tastes much better, so I’m eager to try it fresh.
OUT OF DEBT AGAIN is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to AMAZON.COM. OUT OF DEBT AGAIN is an affiliate for several companies and may be compensated through advertising and marketing channels. This post may contain affiliate links. | <urn:uuid:fcc23584-9cf8-4543-ba1d-29602e57d5e8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.outofdebtagain.com/2008/09/visitors-in-garden/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967927 | 892 | 1.6875 | 2 |
To the Editor,
The United States is on the brink of a fire crisis. New lightweight construction methods and materials are making it harder and more dangerous for firefighters to safely extinguish blazes and for occupants to escape safely.
It’s estimated that most homes built within the past 20 years contain these dangerous lightweight materials, which are designed to carry a greater load with less material by using prefabricated components. While these lightweight construction materials are touted as being more cost-effective and environmentally friendly, they also allow fires to spread much more rapidly, significantly reducing the time occupants have to escape a fire, and the time firefighters have to safely extinguish the blaze. In my hometown of Carmel, New York tragedy struck this spring when a fire claimed four lives, spreading so quickly that the entire structure fully collapsed within 10 minutes. Firefighters attributed the quick collapse to the home’s lightweight construction materials.
Materials used in today’s home furnishings are also contributing to the accelerated pace of home fires. Newer plastic fillings in sofas, chairs, and mattresses burn much faster than older fillings like cotton, reducing the time it takes for a room to heat to 1,100 degrees and reach flashover -- the temperature point at which the heat in an area is high enough to ignite all flammable materials simultaneously. The tragic 2007 Charleston, S.C. furniture warehouse fire that took the lives of nine firefighters is a strong indication of just how dangerous these materials can be in a home during a fire.
While many states have rejected the International Code Council’s requirement for all new one- and two-family homes to include fire sprinklers, the fact remains that fire sprinkler systems would offset the danger created by lightweight construction methods and today’s synthetic furnishings, providing greater protection to building occupants and emergency first-responders.
Currently, California and Maryland are the only states that require fire sprinklers in new homes. I urge you to educate yourself on the current mandate in your own city and state and learn how to protect yourself, your loved ones and your community from the ravages of fire.
Properly installed and maintained fire sprinklers control and typically extinguish a fire before the fire department even arrives on the scene. More importantly, the presence of fire sprinklers mitigates the risk to individuals affected by the blaze, including firefighters who battle the fire.
Fire sprinklers are the only proactive form of fire protection, providing firefighters the time they need to do their jobs effectively and as safely as possible while helping to avoid potential injuries and devastating tragedies.
How prepared would you be if fire struck where you live? Fire sprinklers save lives and property.
President, National Fire Sprinkler Association | <urn:uuid:f063f9da-d878-49e1-bacb-49f6e88ec9c3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sammamish.patch.com/groups/opinion/p/letter-to-the-editor-fire-sprinklers-save-lives-and-property | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92783 | 559 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Montana Animal Field Guide
The Montana Natural Heritage Program zoologists, working in partnership with Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks (FWP) recently completed a major upgrade to the on-line “Animal Field Guide”, a joint project of the two programs. This encyclopedic website combines information from the Natural Heritage Program databases and FWP to provide extensive, detailed profiles of nearly 650 species of vertebrate animals in Montana, including fish, birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians.
The Animal Field Guide offers a broad range of information, including species description and recognition, range, habitat, reproduction, food habits, ecology and management, and references. Photos, Montana range maps, and in some cases sounds, are also provided. Users can view lists of species by animal group or search by name. | <urn:uuid:82491668-0372-4d12-9e30-2bf1ffb2b29d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nris.mt.gov/new/displayRelease.asp?relNum=205 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.904293 | 164 | 2.671875 | 3 |
- Latest available (Revised)
- Original (As made)
This is the original version (as it was originally made). UK Statutory Instruments are not carried in their revised form on this site.
(This note is not part of the Regulations)
1. These Regulations impose health and safety requirements with respect to lifting equipment, which is defined in regulation 2(1).
2. Save as regards the matters mentioned in paragraphs 4 and 5(b) the Regulations give effect as respects Great Britain to Article 4a in respect of lifting equipment, to point 3.2 of Annex I, and to the final paragraph of point 3.2.5 of Annex II, to Council Directive 89/655/EEC (OJ No. L393, 30.12.89, p.13) on the minimum health and safety requirements for the use of work equipment by workers at work (“the Directive”) as amended by Council Directive 95/63/EC (OJ No. L335, 30.12.95, p.28).
3. Save in the case of regulation 10(1) and (2), the Regulations place duties on employers. In addition (not required by the Directive) Regulation 3 (application) places those duties on self-employed persons, and certain persons having control of lifting equipment, of persons at work who use or supervise or manage its use, or of the way it is used, to the extent of their control (regulation 3(3) to (5)).
4. The Regulations have limited application to ships (regulation 3(6) to (11)).
5. The Regulations make provision with respect to—
(a)the strength and stability of lifting equipment (regulation 4);
(b)the safety of lifting equipment for lifting persons (regulation 5);
(c)the way lifting equipment is positioned and installed (regulation 6);
(d)the marking of machinery and accessories for lifting, and lifting equipment which is designed for lifting persons or which might so be used in error (regulation 7);
(e)the organisation of lifting operations (regulation 8);
(f)the thorough examination (defined in (regulation 2(1)) and inspection of lifting equipment in specified circumstances, (regulation 9(1) to (3));
(g)the evidence of examination to accompany it outside the undertaking (regulation 9(4));
(h)the exception for winding apparatus at mines from regulation 9 (regulation 9(5));
(i)transitional arrangements relating to regulation 9 (regulation 9(6) and (7));
(j)the making of reports of thorough examinations and records of inspections (regulation 10 and Schedule 1); and
(k)the keeping of information in the reports and records (regulation 11).
6. The Secretary of State for Defence may grant exemptions from the Regulations in the interests of national security (regulation 12).
7. Enactments and instruments replaced by these Regulations are repealed or revoked; consequential amendments are made (regulations 13 to 17 and Schedule 2).
8. A copy of the cost benefit assessment prepared in respect of these Regulations may be obtained from the Economic Adviser’s Unit, the Health and Safety Executive, Rose Court, 2 Southwark Bridge, London SE1 9HS.
Latest Available (revised):The latest available updated version of the legislation incorporating changes made by subsequent legislation and applied by our editorial team. Changes we have not yet applied to the text, can be found in the ‘Changes to Legislation’ area.
Original (As Enacted or Made):The original version of the legislation as it stood when it was enacted or made. No changes have been applied to the text. | <urn:uuid:e3f6dd70-0e07-4090-8e02-9d271fcaed0b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1998/2307/note/made | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927881 | 763 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Forget counting sheep. Behavioral therapy and pharmacotherapy work better for treating persistent insomnia. Interestingly, both methods work equally as well, finds a meta-analysis by University of Rochester psychologists.
The research, led by Michael T. Smith, PhD, and Michael Perlis, PhD, reviewed 21 studies of a total of 470 participants and compared the short-term outcomes of people with insomnia who were treated with benzodiazepines or benzodiazepine-receptor agonists with those receiving behavioral sleep therapies, including stimulus control, which reduces the anxiety associated with falling asleep, and sleep restriction, which reduces the time spent in bed to increase sleep efficiency.
Overall, pharmacological treatment reduced the time it took participants to fall asleep by 30 percent, compared with a 43 percent reduction by behavioral interventions. Both treatments eliminated about one awakening each night. Wake time after sleep onset--how long a person is awake in the middle of the night--was reduced by 46 percent with pharmacotherapy and 56 percent with behavioral therapy. Both therapies increased the participants' total sleep time: pharmacotherapy by 12 percent and behavioral therapy by 6 percent. Sleep quality improved by 20 percent with pharmacotherapy and 28 percent with behavioral interventions.
"Under optimal conditions, in which patients choose their method of treatment, the behavioral and pharmacotherapeutic treatments yield equivalent outcomes," write the authors. "The question, then, is which treatment modality should be used?" Pharmacotherapy may be best for situations where immediately reducing a patient's insomnia symptoms is most important, say the researchers, while behavioral therapy may be more appropriate for a long-term fix or when there is the potential for drug interaction or a history of substance abuse.
Ultimately, they point out, the difference in treatment cost is likely to be a deciding factor: A 35-day trial of a sleep-inducing drug can cost about $166, while five weeks of behavioral treatment cost about $350, the authors write. On the other hand, the researchers caution that cost-benefit analyses must also consider that insomnia symptoms can return when pharmacological treatment is discontinued, while behavioral interventions have been proven effective up to two years later.
"The article chips away at that common myth that drug therapies are always more potent than behavioral treatments," says Smith. "It shows that behavior therapy for chronic insomnia should be a first-line treatment, which is currently not the case."
The paper, "Comparative meta-analysis of pharmacotherapy and behavior therapy for persistent insomnia," appears in the January 2002 American Journal of Psychiatry. | <urn:uuid:8b5fd649-ca43-4496-9330-edaba000006d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.apa.org/monitor/mar02/studyfinds.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943501 | 510 | 2 | 2 |
Randall, Ruth Painter
VIAF ID: 11867044
- The courtship of Mr. Lincoln
- Mary Lincoln : biography of a marriage
- Lincoln's sons
- I Varina, 1962:
- Lincoln's animal friends; incidents about Abraham Lincoln and animals, woven into an intimate story of his life.
- I, Varina; a biography of the girl who married Jefferson Davis and became the First Lady of the South.
- I, Ruth: autobiography of a marriage; the self-told story of the woman who married the great Lincoln scholar, James G. Randall, and through her interest in his work became a Lincoln author herself.
- I, Jessie; a biography of the girl who married John Charles Frémont, famous explorer of the West.
- I, Elizabeth; a biography of the girl who married General George Armstrong Custer of "Custer's last stand."
- Colonel Elmer Ellsworth; a biography of Lincoln's friend and first hero of the Civil War.
Countries of Publication (1)
Selected Publishers (1)
History of VIAF ID:11867044 (9) | <urn:uuid:603d9258-0f04-4322-bea5-1a32ab92e552> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://viaf.org/viaf/11867044/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.901763 | 241 | 1.960938 | 2 |
A ray of good news sneaked into the city unannounced this
month: Online giant Amazon finished construction of a distribution center
here, complete with many of the promised 1,000 jobs.
And it happened two weeks ahead of schedule.
Mayor Pat Morris heralded the opening as a step toward recovery for a city whose Aug. 1 bankruptcy filing he said was largely based on a lack of sales tax revenue and jobs, along with "bad decisions."
"We are ecstatic about the fact that they're employing -- right now they're ramping up to employ for the season probably 1,500 people," Morris said. "They've already got hundreds on board, and many more to come."
Amazon will announce the number of jobs at a news conference Thursday, said Laurie Duffy of Taylor Strategy, speaking on behalf of Amazon. Company spokeswomen said they would comment at the conference, timed for the day after the first package is shipped today.
Amazon announced its holiday hiring rate for the first time Monday. Nationwide, it plans to hire more than 50,000 seasonal workers at so-called fulfillment centers like the one in San Bernardino, compared to 69,000 full- and part-time employees worldwide and 20,000 full-time employees at U.S. fulfillment centers, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The company calls facilities like the 950,000-square-foot one it built at the corner of Tippecanoe and Central avenues, at the site of the former Norton Air Force Base,
fulfillment centers. Such facilities handle shipments of Amazon products bought online.
California law allows Amazon to designate which city is a "point of sale" for the purposes of sales tax, with the point of sale -- San Bernardino -- receiving one cent on the dollar for all sales processed through the fulfillment center.
That gives Amazon leverage to demand that some of the sales tax revenue be "shared" with the company, but city and company officials have consistently said that no such agreement was requested.
Work finished Oct. 1, an impressively quick construction pace, said city planner Tony Stewart.
"The building didn't start construction until April, so the fact that they're done so fast shows you how serious everyone is, especially with the lack of staffing we have (at the city)," Stewart said, noting that unlike many projects it was constructed exactly according to plan. "It's one of the better jobs I've seen in my career."
Stewart said the city's planning division has been busy in recent months, largely because of projects by Hillwood, the developer that brought in Amazon.
"We've got a lot of activity going on that I think a lot of cities would be scrambling for," he said.
Councilwoman Virginia Marquez, whose ward includes the center, said she was excited by the opening.
"There's a lot of good going on in the city now, and Amazon is one of those things," she said. "I think this is great for the city."
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On a Roll
THE MARATHON IS SET for April 18, and chances are that we already know the winners of the wheelchair division. Ernst van Dyk has won nine of the past 10 wheelchair Boston Marathons. (Before him, Franz Nietlispach took five of six and Jim Knaub three in a row.) On the women’s side, Wakako Tsuchida has won the past four, which is nice, but nothing compared with Jean Driscoll, who came in first every year from 1990 to 1996, and again in 2000. In case it isn’t obvious, when you win a wheelchair Boston Marathon, you tend to keep winning…and winning…and winning. What are the keys to perennial glory? We talked to van Dyk and Driscoll, the race’s two greatest champions, to get the breakdown.
1. Head A fast start in the hilly first 10 miles is critical to a racer’s confidence. “Winners in Boston all use the same strategy: They get away, then they stay away,” van Dyk says. Once you get the lead, the hills become your friend; they make it hard for your trailers to see you. “And if you can’t see the guy, you can’t chase him.”
2. Upper Body The most powerful competitors can push down hardest on the wheels rather than whip through reps the fastest; they hold the advantage on the uphills.
3. Back Muscles Your back is the most important place to have strong muscles, according to Driscoll. First, she says, since you hold your head out in front of your body, you must be able to support it. “Next, to be able to keep lifting your arms to come in for the next stroke, you need really good back strength.”
4. Abs and Spine Many racers were disabled after suffering a spinal injury; the location on the vertebrae is significant. With lower-spine injuries, ab function is usually retained. With higher-spine injuries, core strength suffers. Driscoll, who suffered a lower-spine injury, says that being aerodynamic on the downhills is crucial. You’ve got to be able to lean over to become as compact as possible, and the stronger your abs, the farther down you can get.
5. Legs For wheelchair marathoners, legs can be an impediment — they’re dead weight, and mess with aerodynamics on the way down. “It does play an advantage,” says van Dyk, who was born without legs. “Boston’s the perfect course for me.”
Photo illustration by Jesse Lenz / Photographs by Brian Snyder/Reuters/Landov (Van Dyk); Jérôme Eno (crowds) | <urn:uuid:c9d6b951-37d8-46e0-8146-0ef1612a8d07> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bostonmagazine.com/2011/03/on-a-roll-how-to-win-the-marathon-wheelchair-division/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953529 | 599 | 1.507813 | 2 |
by Anton Shilov
10/28/2008 | 11:40 PM
A vice president of Nvidia Corp. said in an interview that implementation of new physics effects into video games with the help of PhysX application programming interface (API) will substantially improve their appeal, which will transform into considerably higher sales numbers for titles. In addition, Nvidia believes that improved physics implementation is a key to the next level of visual effects in video games. But will it happen?
Nvidia Corp. recently enabled GeForce hardware-accelerated physics effects in its ForceWare drivers allowing gamers to enjoy improved physics effects in games that take advantage of PhysX API developed by Ageia and Nvidia. While currently implementation of physics effects is still very modest, which Nvidia admits, if game developers work hard enough on future titles, physics effects will improve dramatically. According to Nvidia’s Roy Taylor, some game developers expect their sales to go up radically once effects are improved.
Nvidia: Improved Physics
“Most of the developers and publishers will sell anywhere between 2 and 7 million copies of a good console game. They will sell on average anywhere between 0.5 – 1.2 million copies of the PC version. They do that because the PC version is very profitable (its cost of development is already paid for). All they believe is that the GPU physics gives them a second bite at the apple. It is those additional effects in the PC version, which means that the PC version might now sell in two million copies more, because if offers effects consoles just cannot process. Or even more. Those are estimates publishers are telling us about,” said Roy Taylor, vice president of content business development at Nvidia, in an interview with The Bright Side of IT blog.
In fact, PC versions of video games already do have many advantages over console versions: higher resolutions, better detailed models, more comfortable controls for certain types of video games, higher quality graphics and visual effects as well as other improvements. However, sales of PC games cannot keep up with sales of console games. One of the reasons for that are high system hardware requirements. Not a lot of gamers can acquire trophy PCs with $499 graphics cards and $400 microprocessors in order to get maximum from video games.
To make the matters worse, even highest-end graphics cards usually cannot provide enough performance in many high-profile PC titles. For example, Crysis cannot be considered as an easy game for a graphics adapter a year after release. With more physics effects that should be accelerated by graphics processing units implemented, PC video games will become even more demanding and will require not one, but two GPUs per system. Since mainstream gamers nowadays are unwilling to buy graphics cards that are more expensive than $199 - $299, it is hard to believe that they will invest twice as much just to get additional physics effects. It is even harder to believe that the market of PC gamers will expand by two times with the help of improved physics effects quality since casual PC gamers will definitely not acquire ultra-expensive graphics sub-systems to experience advanced physics.
Advanced Physics Implementation Is “The Only Viable Way to Enhance Interactivity”
Physics effects add visual appeal, but do not affect gameplay. For example, it is still impossible to destroy a building or a wooden door in video games, which means that actual realism is pretty low. If implementation of physics effects is relatively easy, the implementation of gameplay physics is a tough task that requires a lot of effort from game developers. But Nvidia claims that eventually physics effects will affect gameplay too.
“Physics gameplay is whole another ballgame. This requires a lot of work on developer side, so we expect that it will take time to implement. Physics gameplay is introducing the in-game physics at a higher level, so that you can entirely change the game. […] These [effects] are what we call physics effects, and these were just the examples coming from the games we’re working on,” said Mr. Taylor.
In general, Nvidia believes that enhancements of physics effects is the only way to improve interactivity and quality of video games, hence, high-quality physics implementation can be considered as a new revolution in visual computing.
“The new world of physics started last month, with the introduction of our beta driver that did GPU-accelerated physics scaling. Now, developers are going to have a whole new world to think about when it comes to physics development. We need new levels of interactivity, and we strongly believe that physics is the only viable way to enhance interactivity,” said Roy Taylor. | <urn:uuid:4f06a6b2-c48a-4379-8154-680b0773d3de> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/multimedia/print/20081028234106_Nvidia_Expects_Improved_Physics_Effects_to_Dramatically_Popularize_Video_Games_on_PC.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949112 | 938 | 1.9375 | 2 |
There could be a mistake in it that could cost you money or keep you from getting a mortgage or a car loan.
As many as 42 million Americans have errors in their credit report.
That's according to a report from the Federal Trade Commission.
20 million have significant mistakes.
The Consumer Data Industry Association is hitting back, saying 98-percent of credit reports are accurate.
Just to be sure, it's important to look at your credit report from all three major credit bureaus. | <urn:uuid:fc704d26-c4b7-44f4-8b5b-76c0f7dde235> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://permianbasin360.com/fulltext%3Fnxd_id%3D236902?nxd_id=250042 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977742 | 102 | 2.15625 | 2 |
When Google sent out an army of automobiles, each equipped with nine cameras on a single pole, each armed with a GPS and three laser range scanners, each pointing the cameras at nothing and everything at the same time, I wonder what exactly Google thought they were mapping?
Montreal-based artist Jon Rafman delved into this question with The Nine Eyes of Google Street View, a strangely intimate collection of screenshots taken from Street View blogs and his own virtual searching.
“The world captured by Google appears to be more truthful and more transparent because of the weight accorded to external reality, the perception of a neutral, unbiased recording, and even the vastness of the project,” Rafman wrote in an essay about the project for Art Fag City.
“The collections of Street Views both celebrate and critique the current world. To deny Google’s power over framing our perceptions would be delusional, but the curator, in seeking out frames within these frames, reminds us of our humanity.”
“Street View collections represent our experience of the modern world, and in particular, the tension they express between our uncaring, indifferent universe and our search for connectedness and significance. A critical analysis of Google’s depiction of experience, however, requires a critical look at Google itself.” - Jon Rafman
“The artist/curator, in reasserting the significance of the human gaze within Street View, recognizes the pain and disempowerment in being declared insignificant. The artist/curator challenges Google’s imperial claims and questions the company’s right to be the only one framing our cognitions and perceptions.” - Jon Rafman
“In theory, we are all equally subject to being photographed, but the Street View collections often reveal it is the poor and the marginalized who fall within the purview of the Google camera gaze.
Even though Google places a comment, ‘report a concern’ on the bottom of every single image, how can I demonstrate my concern for humanity within Google’s street photography?” - Jon Rafman
Images: Jon Rafman
Jon Rafman’s full essay: Art Fag City | <urn:uuid:4018d023-12c4-48c4-bb43-7e72bb84bdde> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/cities/google-street-view-photos-uncover-the-unexpected/5095 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.907818 | 451 | 2.015625 | 2 |
Haunting images of love, attraction, alienation, death, and other universal human experiences in the work of Norwegian artist Edvard Munch (18651944) will be presented in a fascinating exhibition of nearly 60 of his most important prints. On view at the National Gallery of Art
, Washington, from July 31 through October 31, 2010, Edvard Munch: Master Prints examines the artists stylistic approach to each of these themes, a process that involved transforming ideas into an evocative motif and exploring that image through numerous variations over a lifetime.
Such variations are evident in several of print series shown here, selected not only from the Gallerys own holdings but also from two exceptional private collections: the Epstein Family Collection and the Collection of Catherine Woodard and Nelson Blitz Jr. The Gallery has presented five exhibitions on Munch: Woodcuts, Lithographs, and Etchings by Paul Gauguin and Edvard Munch (1947); Prints by Edvard Munch from the Rosenwald Collection (1972); "The Sick Girl" by Edvard Munch (1975); Edvard Munch: Symbols and Images (1979); and Edvard Munch: Master Prints from the Epstein Family Collection (1990).
"We are pleased to display exceedingly rare works by Munch, including stunning prints from the Epstein and Blitz Collections. We offer our profound thanks to the lenders who have made this exhibition possible," said Earl A. Powell III, director, National Gallery of Art. "The series brought together for this unique occasion will engage visitors as they experience Munchs fascinating engagement with printmaking."
Organized in five sections, the exhibition features side-by-side comparisons of related prints, revealing how Munch changed a particular image over time, in terms of color, line, texture, and pictorial detail. His persistent experimentation and virtuosic handling of woodcut, lithography, and intaglio enabled him to vary not only the form but the meaning of individual impressions. Such alterations, which could be both subtle and radical, are also seen in his paintings and drawings.
Building on new research, Master Prints is the first exhibition that considers the exact dating of different impressions of Munchs fundamental images. A woodblock from 1898, for instance, might have been printed 1898 and again in 1907, 1915, and 1925, each time with some variation. The exhibition and catalogue will clarify how Munchs artistic ideas evolved through multiple versions of a subject and how the artist reinterpreted powerful memories through new ideas and experiences.
The first section of the exhibition presents various impressions of The Kissfirst as an etching and later as a woodcut. This is a prime example of the development of an image over time, through a succession of new starts using different printmaking matrices (a "matrix" is an object such as an etching plate or a woodblock on which a design has been created and which is then impressed on a piece of paper to make a print).
The second section reveals a more radical reassembling of images, with Munch simplifying and abstracting compositional devices and adding color for dramatic effect. Scenes of starkly frontal figures in landscape settings, their eyes wide in fear or anxiety, progress from the only known impression of the lithograph Evening on Karl Johan Street (c. 1895) to the famous existential image of The Scream. Munch developed that image compositionally and stylistically into the two-color lithograph Anxiety, which he then reprised in a single woodblock hand inked to print a two-color version.
The third section considers examples of Munch making a print from a matrix but developing the image further after printing. Conceptually and practically, the simplest way Munch accomplished this is exemplified by two different versions of Ashes, where he took an impression of the two black-and-white lithographs and enhanced each with hand coloring.
The fourth section describes six examples in which Munch refined a scene or a theme, beginning with a single matrix and then altering that image through a variety of means, some quite bold and some less obvious: he redrew the original matrix, combined matrices, printed them in different sequences and colors, masked part of the matrix, changed the paper support, hand colored the impression. As a sophisticated printmaker, Munch creatively adapted or invented graphic techniques to produce some of his most complicated prints, including Vampire, Madonna, The Sick Child, Sin, Moonlight, and Girls on the Jetty.
The fifth and final section pulls together all of the artistic approaches seen earlier, with Munch varying his initial images over many decades through his masterful manipulation of printmaking media. In his color aquatint The Lonely One and color woodcuts The Lonely Ones, Toward the Forest, and Two Women on the Shore, Munchs creative alterations of the basic scenes have a purely experimental character, exploring what could be drawn out of the image through continual variation.
Edvard Munch (18651944)
Edvard Munch was the most powerful and influential of the modern Norwegian artists. He produced more than 700 woodcuts, lithographs, and intaglio prints, constituting one of the major accomplishments in the graphic arts of the past century.
Personal events such as the deaths of his mother and sister, which occurred when he was a child, his own close brush with death at age 13, and his intense love affairs had a profound effect on his work. Munch translated many of his psychological experiences into visually condensed but potent and popular images, such as the delicate head of his sister seen in profile against the pillow of her deathbed in The Sick Child.
After studying in Oslo, Munch received an art scholarship that enabled him to visit Paris in 1885. During the next two decades he traveled throughout Europe, producing paintings that were heavily influenced by impressionism and symbolism but later developed an intensity that anticipated the later expressionist movement. By the 1890s Munchs paintings were being widely exhibited.
Dire poverty in 1894 may have contributed to Munchs decision to take up printmaking for the first time. In 1895 his friend Julius Meier-Graefe produced Munchs first portfolio of eight etchings and drypoints, which revealed his immediate grasp of the medium. His distinctive working method lent itself naturally to printmaking, which accommodated both his personal psychological needs and his commercial interests.
In 1908 Munch settled in the town of Kragerø, Norway. Proceeds from the more extensive sale of his work enabled him to live comfortably beginning in 1909. Although he traveled occasionally, he spent his later years living a solitary existence on an estate in Ekely, outside Oslo. He continued to create works of art until the time of his death from pneumonia in 1944. | <urn:uuid:5c2c37a7-09da-433a-a09f-69e17ea9a9c6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.artdaily.com/index.asp?int_sec=11&int_new=39642&int_modo=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961269 | 1,385 | 2.015625 | 2 |
Hamaayan / The Torah Spring
Edited by Shlomo Katz
Volume XII, Number 13
19 Teves 5758
January 17 1998
When Moshe first appears before Pharaoh in this parashah,
Pharaoh asks him, "Who is Hashem that I should listen to Him?"
The prophet Yechezkel further tells us (Yechezkel 29:3) that
Pharaoh used to say, "The Nile is mine, and I created myself."
How does a person become so arrogant? Can anyone really believe
that he created himself?
R' Shalom Mordechai Schwadron z"l (the "Yerushalmi Maggid" -
see page 4) explains, quoting R' Saadiah Gaon z"l, that denial of
G-d stems from throwing off the yoke of G-d. One who is depraved
is not so because he does not believe in G-d; rather, he chooses
not to believe in G-d because that denial frees him to be
depraved. After all, how can any thinking person deny G-d's
existence? Has anyone made a thorough scientific inquiry to
prove that G-d does not exist?
This idea is found in Tehilim (14:1), writes R' Schwadron.
There we read, "The depraved one says in his heart, `There is no
G-d'." This means: The person who is already depraved says
"There is no G-d."
Chazal interpret the first part of this verse, "The depraved
one says in his heart," to mean, "The wicked are controlled by
their hearts." The desires buried in their hearts control their
every move. For example, there was no one in history who
performed the mitzvah of honoring his father better than did
Esav, yet after Yitzchak blessed Yaakov instead of Esav, the
latter said (Bereishit 27:41), "May the days of mourning for my
father draw near, and I will kill my brother Yaakov." Esav, who
honored his father so perfectly, actually hoped for the death of
his father, and all for material gain. Significantly, that verse
in Bereishit opens, "And Esav said _in_his_heart_." Like all
depraved people, he was controlled by the desires in his heart.
(Ma'amar Avdei Ha'lev Ve'adonav printed in Da'at Torah, Orach
Chaim Vol I.)
"He said to his daughters, `Then where is he? . . . Summon
him and let him eat bread'." (2:20)
The gemara (Sanhedrin 103b) teaches as follows: "R' Yochanan
said in the name of R' Yose ben Kisma: `The mitzvah of feeding
guests is so great that it distanced two families from the Jewish
people [i.e., the nations of Amon and Moav, who refused to feed
the Jews when they sojourned in the desert].' R' Yochanan
himself said: `It distances those who are close; brings close
those who are distant; causes G-d to ignore the evil of the
wicked; enables false prophets to experience true prophecy; and
one who neglects it is considered like an intentional sinner'."
R' Eliyahu Lopian z"l (see page 4) observes that the nations of
Amon and Moav began their history very close to the Jews, not
only geographically, but because their founders were nephews of
our Patriarch Avraham. Nevertheless, the bad trait which Amon
and Moav demonstrated by refusing to feed the Jews near the end
of their 40 years in the desert caused the Torah to prohibit the
men of those nations to marry Jews (even if the men convert to
Judaism). There simply is no place for such traits among the
Jews. (This is the meaning of, "It distances those who are
On the other hand, the nation of Midian was situated farther
from Eretz Yisrael, but the descendants of Yitro the Midianite
sat on the sanhedrin/high court. Why? All because Yitro fed
Moshe Rabbenu, as described in the above verse. (This is the
meaning of, "It brings close those who are distant.")
When the wicked feed guests, Hashem ignores their wickedness
and defers their punishment. For example, there was a man named
Michah [not the prophet Michah] who openly carried an idol with
him across the Yam Suf/Red Sea and who later established a temple
to idolatry in Eretz Yisrael. Imagine the wickedness of this
man! says R' Lopian. He witnessed the awesome miracles of the
splitting of the Yam Suf, and yet he enticed others to practice
idolatry! [Ed. Note: See page 1.] Why, therefore, asks the
gemara, is Michah not listed among those who have no portion in
the World to Come? Because his temple was situated at a
crossroads where many hungry travelers passed, and he fed them.
Similarly we find that Hashem rewarded a false prophet with
true prophecy because of his hospitality. How hard did the
prophets work on their characters to achieve prophecy, and to
this false prophet it came without preparation! Such is the
power of feeding guests!
"It was on the way, in the hotel, that Hashem encountered
him and sought to kill him." (4:24)
Just one verse earlier, Hashem told Moshe that he was to tell
Pharaoh, "Behold! I shall kill your firstborn," and here Hashem
is ready to kill Moshe himself because he delayed a few
minutes in circumcising his son! How could two crimes that are
so different both incur the death penalty?
R' Leib Chasman z"l (see page 4) explains that this is an
example of how stringently Hashem judges the righteous. For the
smallest infraction, even one barely discernible to ordinary men,
a tzaddik incurs the death penalty. Why? Because, as Rashi
writes in his commentary to Bereshit 1:1, ideally Hashem would
operate the world with strict justice. Only because man could
never exist that way did Hashem introduce the concept of mercy.
Tzaddikim, however, are judged very strictly; in the long run,
this is for their benefit, as it entitles them to greater reward
(Ohr Yahel Vol. II)
An Astonishing Midrash
"Send through whomever You will send" (4:13) - this refers
to Rabbi Akiva.
R' Yitzchak Schwadron z"l (see page 4) explains as follows:
Chazal teach that Hashem created 50 levels of wisdom and Moshe
achieved 49 of them in his lifetime. The sage Rabbi Akiva,
however, reached higher; he achieved the 50th level.
How is this possible? Because after Moshe's death, Moshe, too,
achieved the 50th level. Since we are all students of Moshe, we
can now go where he has gone, even to the level which he did not
achieve in his lifetime.
Chazal also teach that Hashem rushed the redemption before the
Jews descended to the 50th level of impurity. Moshe, who did not
reach the 50th positive level, would not have been able to take
the Jews from the 50th negative level.
But, said Moshe, Rabbi Akiva will reach the 50th level! Use him
as Your messenger!
"Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh" (6:1) - Hashem
said to Moshe, "I have written in My Torah that you are
humble - and now you question Me? You should know (in the
words of Kohelet 7:8), `The end of a thing is good from its
R' Shalom Mordechai Hakohen Schwadron z"l (the elder - see page
4) explains: Hashem's statement, "Now you will see," was in
response to Moshe's question (Shemot 5:23), "From the time I came
to to Pharaoh to speak in Your Name, he did evil to this people."
Moshe wanted to know why Bnei Yisrael's lot had gotten worse,
instead of getting better. Hashem answered Moshe as follows:
It is written in the Torah (Bereishit 1:26), "Elokim said, `Let
us make man in Our image . . .'" Why does Hashem speak in the
plural form in that verse? Chazal give two answers: First,
Hashem wishes to imply that He consulted advisors. This teaches
humility, i.e., it teaches that even the wisest person should
consult advisors. Second, G-d has written the Torah in such a
way that those who want to misunderstand it can do so. [Ed. Note:
See page 1.] This is one of the verses that Hashem placed in the
Torah for sinners to stumble over; specifically, one can conclude
from this verse that there is more than one god.
In Pharaoh's time, there was a prevalent belief that good and
evil were carried out by different gods. To Pharaoh, it might
have appeared at the end of our parashah that the good god wanted
to take the Jews out of Egypt, but that the evil god prevailed
and allowed Pharaoh to further subjugate the Jews. Of course,
Moshe knew that this was not true; he knew that there is only one
G-d. Indeed, Moshe learned the other lesson from the verse, "Let
us make man," for Moshe became the humblest of all men. As
Hashem says to Moshe in the midrash, "I have written in My Torah
that you are humble."
How then are we to understand the fact that the same G-d does
good and bad? The midrash answers, "The end of a thing is good
from its beginning" - in the long run it becomes apparent that
nothing that Hashem does is bad.
R' Shalom Mordechai Hakohen Schwadron z"l
("The Maggid of Yerushalayim")
born 5673 (1913) - died 22 Kislev 5758 (December 21, 1997)
This week marks the shloshim of R' Schwadron, one of Israel's
senior Torah leaders, who was well known to the English-speaking
public through Artscroll's The Maggid Speaks series.
R' Schwadron was born in Yerushalayim. His father, R'
Yitzchak, was a noted scholar, and his grandfather, after whom
he was named, was the leading posek/halachic authority in Galicia
before World War I. The future maggid/preacher lost his father
at age seven, and for a time lived in an orphanage. After his
bar mitzvah he studied in the Lomzer Yeshiva in Petach Tikvah,
and later in the Chevron Yeshiva in Yerushalayim. In the latter
school he came under the influence of R' Yehuda Leib Chasman,
whose mussar/ethical discourses he later edited for publication.
R' Schwadron also was responsible for the publication of Lev
Eliyahu by R' Elya Lopian. (Through R' Chasman and R' Lopian, R'
Schwadron was a third generation student of R' Yisrael Salanter.)
After his marriage to Leah Auerbach (sister of R' Shlomo Zalman
Auerbach), R' Schwardon continued his studies in Kollel Ohel
Torah led by Chief Rabbi Yitzchak Isaac Halevi Herzog. The
kollel's members included R' Yosef Shalom Elyashiv and R' Shmuel
Wosner, who today are among the world's leading poskim.
Thereafter, R' Schwadron began his own teaching career, holding a
number of positions during his long lifetime.
R' Schwadron was best known, however, for his career as a
maggid and for editing and publishing approximately 25 of his
grandfather's works. As a maggid, R' Schwadron traveled
throughout Israel, Europe and the U.S., exhorting his listeners
through stories and parables to improve their service of Hashem.
(As noted, many of his thoughts are recorded in the The Maggid
Speaks series by R' Paysach Krohn.) Many of R' Schwadron's trips
abroad were as a fundraiser on behalf of Chinuch Atzmai, a chain
of religious primary schools in Israel.
The elder R' Shalom Mordechai Hakohen Schwadron, who died in
1911, left behind dozens of halachic manuscripts, and his
grandson, our subject, prepared these for publication. Among the
important halachic works which the younger R' Schwadron published
were She'eilot U'teshuvot Maharsham and Da'at Torah. (The latter
is a work similar to the Mishnah Berurah, though less
comprehensive.) Throughout his grandfather's works which he
published, R' Schwadron graced many pages with his own notes and
halachic opinions. In addition, some volumes are prefaced by
mussar discourses written by the younger R' Schwadron. (Source:
Encyclopedia Le'chachmei Galicia, p.13; Yated Ne'eman, 27
Kislev 5758; The Maggid Speaks)
Copyright © 1998 by Shlomo Katz
and Project Genesis, Inc.
The editors hope these brief 'snippets' will engender further study
and discussion of Torah topics ("lehagdil Torah u'leha'adirah"), and
your letters are appreciated. Web archives at Project Genesis
start with 5758 (1997) and
may be retrieved from the Hamaayan page.
Text archives from 1990 through the present
may be retrieved from
to HaMaayan are tax-deductible.
Pesach Sheni: Second Chances
Rabbi Osher Chaim Levene - 5766
Rabbi Mordechai Kamenetzky - 5762
And Now, a Word From Our Sponsor
Rabbi Pinchas Winston - 5763
Rabbi Label Lam - 5769
Flipped Upside Down
Rabbi Pinchas Avruch - 5762
Payback Time Comes Years Later
Rabbi Yissocher Frand - 5761
Who is More Important?
Rabbi Aron Tendler - 5760
Man of the Masses
Rabbi Eliyahu Hoffmann - 5758
Fish & Chips (On the Shoulder)
Rabbi Mordechai Kamenetzky - 5757
When You Rise
Rabbi Berel Wein - 5766
The Lesson of the Menorah: Focus
Rabbi Berel Wein - 5772
Rabbi Pinchas Winston - 5769
What He Wants Will Be
Rabbi Raymond Beyda - 5763
The Missing "So"
Shlomo Katz - 5759
Control Your Life
Rabbi Pinchas Winston - 5770
A Taste of Heaven
Rabbi Naftali Reich - 5768 | <urn:uuid:098d4d4d-c82c-4df7-bf20-c89090ba7574> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://torah.org/learning/hamaayan/5758/shemos.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948978 | 3,444 | 2.515625 | 3 |
On October 16, 2002, Pope John Paul II observed the 24th anniversary of his papal election with a dramatic gesture. He issued an apostolic letter in which he proposed five new mysteries to the Rosary. I am sure many of you have prayed the Luminous Mysteries. The central mystery (third of five) is what we heard in today’s Gospel: Jesus’ proclamation of the Kingdom of God, with his call to conversion.
The paramount importance of that proclamation can be seen from the fact it contains the first words of Jesus recorded in Mark’s Gospel:
"This is the time of fulfillment.
The kingdom of God is at hand.
Repent, and believe in the gospel." (Mk 1:15)
I don’t know about you, but I need to hear that call on a daily basis. I try to make an examination of conscience each evening – to thank God for the blessings of the day and to ask pardon for my often lukewarm response.
While the Gospel does give us a “blessed assurance” of salvation, it allows no room for presumption.* Presumption means to take things for granted, to assume all is fine when it really is not.
A local Christian congregation gave an extreme example of this attitude. The pastor’s wife was murdered and everyone felt great sympathy for the man. However, when the police investigated, all the evidence pointed toward her husband. They arrested the pastor who was tried, convicted and sentenced to prison. A reporter interviewed members of the congregation. Of course, they were devastated, but some of them said, “As far as his salvation, it does not matter. That was assured the day he accepted Christ.”
One hopes the trial and imprisonment would bring remorse and repentance, but suppose the man got away with it. After an appropriate time of mourning, he marries the other woman, continues his pastorate and eventually retires, basking in the admiration of his congregation and the community. With no sincere repentance, is that man’s salvation assured?
Shakespeare got it right. Repentance requires more than words. In the play Hamlet Claudius had killed his brother in order to marry his sister-in-law and himself become King of Denmark. At one point he attempts to pray, but realizes he must first ask forgiveness. However, words are not enough:
My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer
Can serve my turn? 'Forgive me my foul murder'?
That cannot be; since I am still possess'd
Of those effects for which I did the murder,
My crown, mine own ambition and my queen.
No one can repent and still cling to ill-gotten gains. Like many people today, King Claudius remained paralyzed, “My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words without thoughts never to heaven go.”
Jesus began his ministry with a serious wake-up call. “The time is fulfilled.” It’s not enough to have repented yesterday or to plan on doing so tomorrow. When we say the Hail Mary, we mention the only moments that matter: now and the hour of our death. And those two moments are closer to each other than we think.
*When asked if she were in the state of Grace, St. Joan of Arc gave an answer which showed assurance, but avoided presumption: "If I be not in a state of Grace, I pray God place me in it; if I be in it, I pray God keep me so."
From the Archives:
Seapadre Homilies: Cycle A, Cycle B, Cycle C
Bulletin (Animal Rights & Human Rights; Reflection on Cloning, 30th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade)
Financial Report (July 1 - December 31, 2002)
Simple Catholicism (New! Thanks to my niece Sara Bloom)
Pictures from Peru
Are these homilies a help to you? Please consider making a donation to St. Mary of the Valley Parish | <urn:uuid:a49cc2c2-23ba-4949-9412-960620271a7f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://stmaryvalleybloom.org/3ordinary-b.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966848 | 841 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Events on February 16, 2013
Directions to this location: Children's - Main
Summary: Investigate places that were vital on the path to freedom and the people who were instrumental in the Abolitionist Movement. Participants will create a handmade book giving them the opportunity to express their interpretation of these historical events.
Found 2 results (of 38 total). | <urn:uuid:3f16d123-7670-4207-b964-bc81a6f579a8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://carnegielibrary.org/events/index.cfm?by=date&month=2&year=2013&day=16&type=37 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955988 | 72 | 2.953125 | 3 |
One of the key changes made by the IASB is to require immediate recognition of all gains and losses arising in defined benefit plans. Today, under the “corridor” method actuarial gains and losses on pensions can be deferred and recognised in net income in later periods. Actuarial gains and losses arise from changes in the fair value of pension plan assets, changes in interest rates or in life expectancy, for example. Deferred recognition will no longer be allowed. Instead, all actuarial gains and losses will be recognised in full in the period they arise, as part of other comprehensive income – i.e., outside net income.
Commenting on the revisions, Lukas Marty, Member of the Executive Committee of KPMG Switzerland, said: “The global economic crisis increased the focus on the off-balance sheet pension liabilities that can result from the corridor’s deferred recognition. In order to illustrate the magnitude: The unrecognized net actuarial losses of the seven SMI entities applying the corridor method as per end of 2010 amounted to approx. CH 6.5 billion. The IASB’s proposal to eliminate this deferral, internationally received widespread support and mandating their recognition in other comprehensive income (OCI) will increase comparability in this area. Actuarial gains and losses can be volatile and this presentation solution keeps that volatility out of net income and earnings per share.”
Another key change might, though, significantly affect many entities’ net income. The net interest component of pension expense will now be calculated by applying a single interest rate – the rate used to discount the obligation – to the entity’s net pension asset or liability. If the pension plan’s assets are expected to generate a higher return in the long-term than the discount rate applied to calculate the pension liability, then that higher expected return will no longer be credited to net income.
Lukas Marty continued: “The abolition of the corridor method may well be the headline story. But entities shouldn’t overlook the expected increase in pension cost and corresponding reduction in net income resulting from the Board’s new way of calculating net interest on the pension asset/liability. The new way of calculation will increase substantially net pension cost of Swiss entities applying IFRS. The increase in pension cost is likely to exceed 50% in many instancies.”
The revisions include some expanded disclosure requirements, which focus on the risks arising from sponsoring employee benefit plans.
The revisions are effective for accounting periods beginning on or after 1 January 2013.
For further information, please contact:
Head of Public Relations & Public Affairs
Telephone: +41 44 249 48 20
Mobile: +41 79 335 75 06 | <urn:uuid:933719db-fbb0-417d-8f4b-0de3ec41ecfa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kpmg.com/CH/en/Library/MediaReleases/Pages/revised-IASB-standard-leads-to-increase-in-pension-cost.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.906889 | 558 | 1.609375 | 2 |
John, age 72, appears to be fairly healthy, but he takes several medicines regularly. There are pills for his high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and arthritis, plus a multi-vitamin. It's a little hard to keep track of them all. What he would really like is a "fountain of youth" pill. Maybe he'll try some of those dietary supplements. His daughter says exercise, eat well, and keep your mind active—you'll stay young at heart. She wants him to get a computer and learn how to email his grandchildren. He says, "You can't teach an old dog new tricks."
So, since more Americans are living longer, will there be many more people who are 100 or older in the future?
28. In 2007 there were an estimated 80,771 centenarians, people over the age of 100, in America. The estimated number of centenarians in the U.S. in the year 2050 could be:
Fecha de publicación: Julio 2010
Última actualización: Abril 23, 2012 | <urn:uuid:48355406-acf5-4404-a433-3cd56981559b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nia.nih.gov/espanol/node/829 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968477 | 225 | 2.5625 | 3 |
July 12, 2006 Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have isolated a new source of adult stem cells that appear to have the potential to differentiate into several cell types. If their approach to growing these cells can be scaled up and proves to be safe and effective in animal and human studies, it could one day provide the tissue needed by an individual for treating a host of disorders, including peripheral nerve disease, Parkinson’s disease, and spinal cord injury.
“We are very excited about this new source of adult stem cells that has the potential for a variety of applications,” says senior author Xiaowei (George) Xu, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Pathology. “A number of reports have pointed to the fact that adult stem cells may be more flexible in what they become than previously thought, so we decided to look in the hair follicle bulge, a niche for these cells.” Xu and colleagues report their findings in the latest issue of the American Journal of Pathology.
Hair follicles are well known to be a source for adult stem cells. Using human embryonic stem cell culture conditions, the researchers isolated and grew a new type of multipotent adult stem cell from scalp tissue obtained from the National Institute of Health’s Cooperative Human Tissue Network.
The mutipotent stem cells grow as masses the investigators call hair spheres. After growing the “raw” cells from the hair spheres in different types of growth factors, the investigators were able to differentiate the stem cells into multiple lineages, including nerve cells, smooth muscle cells, and melanocytes (skin pigment cells).
The differentiated cells acquired lineage-specific markers and demonstrated appropriate functions in tissue culture, according to each cell type. For example, after 14 days, 20% to 40% of the cells in the melanocyte media took on a weblike shape typical of melanocytes. The new cells also expressed biomarkers typical of pigment cells and when placed in an artificial human skin construct, produced melanin and responded to chemical cues from normal epidermis skin cells.
After 14 days, about 10% of the stem cells in the neuronal cell line -- a type of cell not present in skin or hair -- grew dendrites, the long extensions typical of nerve cells and expressed neuronal proteins. The neurotransmitter glutamate was also present in the cells, but the neurotransmitter dopamine was not detected.
Thirdly, about 80% of the stem cells grown in the muscle media differentiated into smooth muscle cells. These new muscle cells also contracted when placed in a collagen matrix.
Overall, the researchers showed that human embryonic stem cell media could be used to isolate and expand a novel population of multipotent adult stem cells from human hair follicles. “Although we are just at the start of this research, our findings suggest that human hair follicles may provide an accessible, individualized source of stem cells,” says Xu. The researchers are now working on inducing other cell types from the hair sphere cells and testing the cells in animal models.
Study co-authors are Hong Yu, Suresh M. Kumar, and Geza Acs, all from Penn; and Dong Fang, Ling Li, Thiennga K. Nguyen, and Meenhard Herlyn, all from the Wistar Institute, Philadelphia.
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Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead. | <urn:uuid:332cf914-df3d-4b5c-8ec5-c9a5f1bdeebd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/07/060712180513.htm | 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 | 0.940631 | 722 | 3.078125 | 3 |
An audiometer is an instrument used to measure how well a person hears. The ear is a complex organ. It receives sound in the form of vibrations that strike the eardrum. These vibrations move from the eardrum through the bones of the middle ear to the cochlea (a spiral-shaped organ filled with fluid). The vibration sets the fluid in motion and sensory cells along the cochlea's basilar (at the bottom or base of) membrane (a thin covering through which things can pass) send messages of the sound to the brain.
The brain distinguishes many distinct sounds. Pitch
The Audiometer Test
An audiometer consists of four parts. These parts are the oscillator (used to change the frequency of sounds heard), an audio amplifier, an attenuator (used to control volume loudness), and a pair of headphones. The person being tested wears the headphones. The amplitude of a tone is slowly increased until the person hears the sound. The lowest decibel level at which a sound is heard is called the threshold. The oscillator is used to change pitch so a range of sounds can be tested. When manufacturing audiometers and performing audiometer testing, care is taken to eliminate background noise.
The result of a hearing test using an audiometer is called an audiogram. The audiogram is a graph that shows the lowest decibel level at which each frequency is heard. The graph gives a profile of the person's threshold of hearing. It compares the profile to a line representing normal hearing in order to detect hearing loss. Using the audiometer, frequency is varied from 64 hertz to over 8,000 hertz. Amplitude can be varied in five decibel increments. In addition to pure tones, speech sounds are sometimes used as test signals. Hearing is considered good if every tone sounded between 64 and 8,192 hertz is heard at a volume of 20 decibels. Hearing loss is generally greatest at the high frequencies. This seems to occur in many people over fifty.
The pure-tone audiometer was invented by Georg von Békésy (1899-1972; winner of the Nobel Prize), a Hungarian-American physicist. His machine was a patient-operated instrument released in 1946. Békésy studied the transmission of sound for a Hungarian telephone company. The testing the telephone lines was routinely carried out and often done with pure tones (tones of one frequency). Bekesy listened to everything he heard over the telephone lines—he even listened to the clicks when phones were being connected and disconnected! He started using the clicks as test signals. The clicks themselves were a combination of many pure tones that came along the telephone lines in a single short pulse. Bekesy's early experiences helped him study hearing in great detail and arrive at his audiometer design. | <urn:uuid:78a151c8-65fe-4fc6-8b3e-fd32c14f6bf5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.discoveriesinmedicine.com/Apg-Ban/Audiometer.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950305 | 573 | 4.125 | 4 |
Despite the Afghan killings, presumed to be performed by Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, a decorated combat soldier and reportedly strong family man, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta holds firm to his position that the U.S. military should not be dismantled.
Bottom line: Success in Iraq and the drawdown in Afghanistan do not mean the U.S. military should be dismantled, according to Panetta.
Panetta shared that foreign leaders, from old allies to new partners, consistently tell him they want to increase their partnerships with U.S. military forces. These goals can only be achieved with U.S. military members who are willing to serve their nation or put their lives on the line to protect their country.
In addition, Panetta states that we owe it to our service members and their families to learn the lessons of the past and to build a better future for them and for their children.
In simple terms, despite the actions of recent, this means as our service members return home, we must embrace them and support them in all our communities across the country.
By helping our transitioning service members pursue an education or providing assistance in finding a job or starting a business, we add value and provide hope for not only the recipients but for this country.
To understand more about this topic, please click: http://1.usa.gov/A9RRMv | <urn:uuid:003ac448-4068-4550-8910-f8daf8db7b9d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.seattlepi.com/militarywire/tag/staff-sgt-robert-bales/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962265 | 279 | 2.03125 | 2 |
So, archaea are apparently the topic of the week. While I wrote here about the pathogenic potential of some species of these organisms, a new essay in Nature and a new review in Science focus more on their evolution (and the evolution of the other two domains of life) than any health application.
In the essay mentioned, Norman Pace discusses the eukaryote/prokaryote dichotomy. Currently the archaea are classified as prokaryotes since they, like bacteria, lack a true nucleus. However, molecular sequence analysis has shown that the archaea and eukaryotes are actually more closely related to each other than either group is to bacteria (see figure, from Pace’s Nature essay). As such, nomenclature that places the bacteria and archaea together into a group is misleading.
Pace mentions that one argument in favor of maintaining the status quo is that “prokaryote” is useful as a characterization for non-eukaryotes. However, he argues that this is a definition using what a prokaryote isn’t, instead of what it is. Pace concludes:
I believe it is critical to shake loose from the prokaryote/eukaryote concept. It is outdated, a guesswork solution to an articulation of biological diversity and an incorrect model for the course of evolution. Because it has long been used by all texts of biology, it is hard to stop using the word, prokaryote. But the next time you are inclined to do so, think what you teach your students: a wrong idea.
One problem stems from the etymology of “prokaryote” and “eukaryote.” I’m no language scholar so I’m relying on what I’ve been taught by others (and, of course, good ol’ Wikipedia) for the origin of the word: “from Old Greek pro- before + karyon nut or kernel, referring to the cell nucleus”. Eukaryote, then, means “true nucleus” (or “good nucleus“, according to Wiki). These terms suggest that prokaryotes came before eukaryotes–which indeed, is the generally-accepted scheme. A second publication in today’s Science takes a closer look at the evolution of all of these domains of life, and suggests that some commonly-held views may be a bit backward.
It is now generally accepted that some organelles in eukaryotes–specifically, mitochondria and chloroplasts–were originally free-living bacterial species, and that a symbiotic relationship between these bacteria and the primitive eukaryotes (or their ancestors) resulted in their retention and subsequent specialization as organelles. However, the suggestion in the Science review turns this a bit on its head–rather than viewing eukaryotes as kind of a souped-up model loaded with features lacking in their precursors, it suggests that eukaryotes may have actually been the precursors themselves, and that the bacteria and archaea then split from the early eukaryotes (rather than being a product of a bacteria-archaea symbiosis, as some have suggested). While I doubt it will reverse common thinking regarding the evolution of the three domains of life, it’s an interesting read, and they draw on a large body of molecular analysis to support their case.
Of course, the news write-ups of this are rather predictable. MSNBC asks, “can evolution make things less complicated?” It’s also stated that, assuming this new research is confirmed, it will be “contrary to our cherished notion that evolution makes organisms more complex.”
Um, huh? Whose cherished notion?
3 paragraphs later they even note that “if bacteria did take the road toward greater simplicity, they would be in good company. Scientists have identified several cases of genome reduction in organisms…” Indeed, we’ve seen this in several pathogenic species of bacteria (Mycobacterium leprae, the causative agent of leprosy, for one). Additionally, in the same issue of Science that the Kurland review was published is a study showing some benefits to E. coli due to selective elimination of parts of the genome:
Genome reduction also led to unanticipated beneficial properties: high electroporation efficiency and accurate propagation of recombinant genes and plasmids that were unstable in other strains.
So if “complexity” is defined as genome size, certainly there are many examples of where it has decreased over time, or where a huge genome doesn’t necessarily represent what most people consider a “complex” organism (or at least, one that’s less “complex” than humans, if you follow the “evolution as an increase in complexity to the ultimate organism, man” line of reasoning). I think these types of thought are more important to get right in our students than worrying so much about what to call the main groups of organisms (though “the organisms formerly known as prokaryotes” has a nice ring to it–perhaps we can just start referring to them with a symbol).
Pace, NR. 2006. Time for a change. Nature 441:289.
Kurland, GC et al. 2006. Genomics and the irreducible nature of eukaryote cells. Science 312:1011 – 1014.
Images from http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v441/n7091/images/441289a-i1.0.jpg and http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/312/5776/1011/FIG1 | <urn:uuid:0f84ff69-b6cb-4936-8a14-675ab635a98f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://scienceblogs.com/aetiology/2006/05/19/are-we-teaching-a-wrong-idea/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940175 | 1,212 | 2.671875 | 3 |
With this year being the International Year of Forests, during 6 – 9 September 2011 the corrugated industry joined the forest sector in the European Parliament to showcase how European forests are a fundamental part of modern life. Counter to popular belief, today’s forests are doing just fine and are on the increase year on year.
Due to the deforestation of tropical forests by other industries in other continents, the paper-based industry has been accused of reducing and destroying Europe’s great forests too. Clearly we’ve not been very good at getting the facts out there, so over the coming months Corrugated of course! will show you how wood is sourced in a sustainable manner for corrugated products, and how Europe’s beautiful woodland is being managed. | <urn:uuid:6904f6a7-c28a-4adc-a95f-126d8eb258f8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.corrugated-ofcourse.eu/tag/forest-sector-event | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962493 | 157 | 2.265625 | 2 |