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General Tournament Information
The Tournament Director is in charge of the tournament. Any questions, disputes or concerns should be addressed to the Tournament Director. The Tournament Director has final say resolving any issues relating to the tournament. The Tournament Director makes "pairings" (decides who plays whom), acts as the referee, keeps score and names the winners at the end of the tournament. If you think your opponent is breaking the rules of chess, or if you have any other problem, let the Tournament Director know immediately.
There are three Divisions:
K-5th Grade Division;
6-8th Grade Division;
9-12th Grade Division.
Each Division is a separate tournament. Players enter the Division that corresponds with their current grade level. For players not enrolled in a school with grade levels, a grade level will be determined the first year a player enters the CFS tournament. The grade level will be the one that most closely matches the player's age and traditional grade level. In the following years it will be assumed that the player will advance a grade annually and will play at the corresponding grade level. The Executive Director of CFS must grant any exception to this practice.
You will play only other players in your own Division. For example, if you are a 7th grader, you might play 6th, 7th or 8th graders, but never someone from 5th grade on down, or 9th grade on up. You won't play someone from your school unless maybe in the last one or two rounds. You will never play the same player twice. The Tournament Director decides whether you will have white or black in each game. Sometimes you get white or black two rounds in a row, but almost never three in a row. If an error is made in whom you are playing, or your score is written down wrong, tell the Tournament Director immediately.
Each school may enter up to 10 players per Division. Home schooled students who actively participate in the chess club of the public school for the area where they live are eligible to participate on the team for that public school. The public school chess-club advisor decides if home-school students "actively participate" and selects the team members. Home school students who do not actively participate in their public school chess club, and players who attend schools without chess clubs, must register as "individual" players.
How to Register: We encourage you to register on the web site. Schools should register by filling out the School Registration Form. Other players should fill out the Individual Registration Form. Chess for Success is a non-profit organization. The entry fees are used to pay for statewide mailings, room rentals, trophies and other costs for the tournaments.
Number of Games:
In each Division, everyone plays the same number of games. Nobody is eliminated. Be prepared to stay as long as needed to play all rounds. If you must leave early for any reason, notify the Tournament Director before you leave.
The games are played in "rounds." When all the games in a round are finished, the Tournament Director makes pairings for the next round. Your opponent in each round is someone whose score is the same as yours or very near the same. Tournaments will be five rounds unless player attendance is low enough to require fewer rounds. The Tournament Director will announce the exact number of rounds for each Division at the start of the tournament. Whoever has the highest score after all the rounds is the winner.
About 9am the Tournament Director will briefly explain the rules and make pairings for everybody's first round at about 9:30. You play one game with that person and then report to the Tournament Director whether you won, drew or lost. You score 1 point for a win, 1/2 point for a draw and 0 for a loss.
Spectators: Spectators must be passive and silent while any game is in process. Spectators should stand or sit well away from the players and make no gestures of recognition; even a nod of the head could be misconstrued as approving a position or a move. If you need to communicate with a player who is playing, talk to the Tournament Director (or an assistant). The Tournament Director may do whatever is needed to make each chess game a fair contest, including banning spectators from the playing area.
Quiet During Games: It's good sportsmanship to call "check" when you put your opponent in check, but you are not required to do so. Before you move, examine the position carefully. If you overlook a check and touch one of your pieces, and you can use that piece to get out of check, you must move it. If you think you are hopelessly lost, you may give up by saying, "I resign."
Do not talk during the game except to say "check," "checkmate," offer a draw, resign or to get help from the Tournament Director. If there are any disagreements about your game, if your opponent makes a move you don't understand, or if you forget some of the rules, get help from the Tournament Director immediately. If you wait until somebody moves, you lose most of your rights to make a claim. When you finish a game, report the score of that game to the Tournament Director's designated scorekeeper.
Rules of Chess: You must know the basic rules of chess. You can find copies of the rules with the instructions that come with chess sets, in books on chess, on the internet or in encyclopedias. The rules that cause the most trouble for new tournament players are: touch move, castling, en passant capture, pawn promotion and drawn games.
Recording Moves: In all Divisions players may record moves. Even if only one of the players is keeping a record of the moves, the move record will be used to help settle disputes about the position, drawn games and what moves were made. If one player is recording his moves and the other player is not, the non-recording player cannot use his opponent's move record to make a repetition of position draw claim or a 50-move draw claim. If the Tournament Director places a clock on a game in progress, the players are not required to continue recording their moves.
Chess Clocks: The rules governing the use of chess clocks are different for each section.
Chess clocks will not be used in the K-5th grade Division games except: If the Tournament Director puts a clock on a slow game. If there is a clock available and both players request at the start of the game that there be a clock on the game. (Time control will be game in 30.)
Chess clocks will not be used in the 6-8th grade Division games except: If the Tournament Director puts a clock on a slow game. If there is a clock available and both players request at the start of the game that there be a clock on the game. (Time control will be game in 45.)
In 9-12th grade Division games, clocks may be used in games, if approved or required by the Tournament Director (Time control will be game in 60.)
What to bring to the Tournament:
Chess set: Pieces should be the standard Staunton pattern. Sets with a different color or design or sets that are too small can be used only if both players agree. The Tournament Director settles disputes about which set or board to use.
Sack lunch and drinks.
Something to do between games: If your game finishes early, you may have a long wait before the next game.
Regional and Other Tournaments Information
The City of Portland and other Chess for Success Tournaments may be limited to specific grade levels. Information will be posted here if they differ from the information below.
You must qualify at the Regional Tournament to attend the State Tournament. Players finishing high enough in a regional tournament then qualify to advance to the State Tournament.
Regional Tournament Date and Location: The description of the boundaries of each region and the date and sites of the Regional Tournaments may be seen on the Registration Form. Select "Regional Tournaments" and then "Region descriptions."
Time: Arrive at the Regional Tournament site between 8:15 and 8:45am. Players who arrive after 8:50 may forfeit the first round game. Most tournaments end by 4pm for K-5th grade, 5pm for 6-8th grade and 6pm for 9-12th grade. These are not set times. Please do not drop children off and expect to pick them up at these times as tournaments may end earlier (or later).
Titles: Players compete for titles in the following sections:
Teams (there must be a minimum of 4 players to have a team eligible for a title)
Elementary Team (K-5)
Middle School Team (6-8)
High School (9-12)
Players who attend public or private schools with a chess club enter as a team in the region where their school is located.
Players who attend public or private schools without chess clubs register as individual players in the region where their school is located.
Home school students register as individual players in the region where they live. Home school students who actively participate in the chess club of the public school for the area where they live are eligible to participate on the team for that public school.
Team Play: Players from a public or private school also compete for the team division title. Four or more students, up to 10, from a school are considered a team (whether or not they register together). The total of the top four scorers from a school determines the school's score for the tournament. There are titles available in each Region for K-5th grade Team and 6-8th grade Team. 9-12th grade players compete as individuals only. For information about the high school team championship tournament contact the Oregon High School Chess Team Association.
All registrations and fees must be submitted by the dates outlined on the registration form. Note: Participants who qualify for the State Tournament must register for the State Tournament. The registration for the Regional does not cover the cost or registration for the State Tournament.
State Championship Tournament Information
The Chess for Success (CFS) State Tournament, formerly the OMSI/CFS Tournament, has been held annually since 1967. It is open to all students in grades K-12 who reside in Oregon. The tournament has two steps: (1) Regional Tournaments and (2) State Championship Tournaments. Players who finish high enough in a Regional Tournament then qualify to advance to the State Tournaments. You must qualify at a Regional Tournament to participate in the State Tournaments -- the only exceptions are the Automatic Qualifiers: see below.
The State Championship Tournaments for 2013 will be held Friday March 15 and Saturday March 16 at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland. Chess for Success has reserved a block of rooms at the Red Lion Convention Center. For reservations call 1-800-343-1822 and be sure to mention Chess for Success for the discounted rate.
Automatic Qualification: Some of last year's Chess for Success State Championship Tournament individual participants automatically qualify to play in this year's Chess for Success State Championship Tournaments.
In the 9-12th Division, anyone who scored within one point of the winner; in other Divisions, anyone who finished first or second. If an automatic finalist decides to play in the Regional Tournament, he/she must register using the same form as other players. If automatic qualifiers compete at a Regional Tournament, their score is made invisible so that other finalists may be qualified. Automatic Qualification is only applicable for the next year State Tournament.
The 2013 State Tournaments will be held at the Oregon Convention Center in downtown Portland Oregon on March 15 and 16, 2013.
High School individual players compete both Friday and Saturday.
Elementary and Middle School Teams compete on Friday.
Elementary and Middle School individuals compete on Saturday.
Time: Players should arrive at the site between 8:00 and 8:30am. Players arriving after 8:45 may forfeit the first round game.
Titles: Players compete for titles in the following divisions:
Elementary Team (K-5)
Middle School Team (6-8)
Individual (Friday and Saturday):
High School (9-12)
Team Play: Qualified teams must consist of 4 students and may have an additional 2 alternates. All players must be students enrolled and attending the school they are representing unless they are an eligible home school student.
Individual Play: Qualified individuals register the same way they did for Regionals.
Registration: All registrations and fees must be submitted by the dates outlined on the State Tournament registration form. Participants must separately register for both the team and individual tournaments if participating in both. | <urn:uuid:1b24f093-fb36-4efe-b34e-bd2a90c20b60> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.chessforsuccess.org/tournaments/rules | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952468 | 2,618 | 1.648438 | 2 |
The Idea in Brief
The Idea in Brief
In order to motivate others, managers must be motivated themselves. The key issue here is the source of the motivation—the way the manager defines success. Some equate success with personal achievement; some see it as being liked by others. In order to succeed in a complex organization, a manager needs to have a power motivation, which is not a dictatorial impulse but rather the desire to have impact, to be strong and influential. This power must be disciplined and channeled in ways that benefit the organization, not the manager himself.
The Idea in Practice
In terms of motivation, there are three types of managers:
1. Affiliative managers score high in inhibition—that is, they are very capable of curbing their own impulses and using power for the benefit of the organization. But they need to be liked more than they need to have power; thus, instead of using their self-control to benefit the organization, affiliative managers often use it to ensure that they’re liked. Such managers tend to have direct reports who have little pride in their work group, and who feel that they have little responsibility and that organizational procedures are unclear. The reasons are easy to understand: affiliative managers tend to disregard procedures in favor of ad hoc decisions, which enable them to act based on how they anticipate people will feel about the decision.
2. Personal power managers are those for whom the need for power outweighs the need to be liked. These managers score low in inhibition: lacking self-control, they tend to act impulsively or arbitrarily. Personal power managers are usually more effective than affiliative managers, better able to generate team spirit and a sense of responsibility in their direct reports. But they are not good institution builders; their lack of self-control translates into direct reports who are loyal to them instead of the organization. Thus, when a personal power manager leaves the organization, the team spirit and sense of organization rapidly dissipate.
3. Institutional managers, like personal power managers, need to have power and to be able to influence others more than they need to be liked. But they differ from personal power managers in one key respect: they score high in inhibition. Institutional managers care more about using power for the benefit of the organization than for their own aggrandizement. As a result, they are the most successful of the three types at creating an effective work environment—one in which employees have high morale and feel a strong sense of responsibility and organizational clarity. Two additional characteristics of institutional managers: they tend to have a more democratic leadership style, one that emphasizes coaching rather than commanding, and they possess greater emotional maturity than the other types.
In a retrospective commentary written in 1995, coauthor David McClelland notes that the need for achievement takes on greater importance in small companies, and that the need to influence others can even be a handicap. The reason, he explains, is that “a constant concern for improvement, for growing the business in a cost-efficient way,” is more crucial to the work of small-company managers.
Most HBR articles on motivation speak to managers about the people whose work they oversee. Curiously, the writers assume that the motivation of managers themselves—that is to say, of our readers—is so well aligned with organizational goals that it needs no examination. David McClelland and his colleague David Burnham knew better.
They found that managers fall into three motivational groups. Those in the first, affiliative managers, need to be liked more than they need to get things done. Their decisions are aimed at increasing their own popularity rather than promoting the goals of the organization. Managers motivated by the need to achieve—the second group—aren’t worried about what people think of them. They focus on setting goals and reaching them, but they put their own achievement and recognition first. Those in the third group—institutional managers—are interested above all in power. Recognizing that you get things done inside organizations only if you can influence the people around you, they focus on building power through influence rather than through their own individual achievement. People in this third group are the most effective, and their direct reports have a greater sense of responsibility, see organizational goals more clearly, and exhibit more team spirit.
What makes or motivates a good manager? The question is enormous in scope. Some people might say that a good manager is one who is successful—and by now most business researchers and businesspeople know what motivates people who successfully run their own small businesses. The key to their success has turned out to be what psychologists call the need for achievement, the desire to do something better or more efficiently than it has been done before. Any number of books and articles summarize research studies explaining how the achievement motive is necessary for a person to attain success.
But what has achievement motivation got to do with good management? There is no reason on theoretical grounds why a person who has a strong need to be more efficient should make a good manager. While it sounds as if everyone ought to have the need to achieve, in fact, as psychologists define and measure achievement motivation, the need to achieve leads people to behave in ways that do not necessarily engender good management.
For one thing, because they focus on personal improvement, achievement-motivated people want to do things themselves. For another, they want concrete short-term feedback on their performance so that they can tell how well they are doing. Yet managers, particularly in large, complex organizations, cannot perform by themselves all the tasks necessary for success. They must manage others to perform for the organization. And they must be willing to do without immediate and personal feedback since tasks are spread among many people.
The manager’s job seems to call more for someone who can influence people than for someone who does things better alone. In motivational terms, then, we might expect the successful manager to have a greater need for power than a need to achieve. But there must be other qualities besides the need for power that go into the makeup of a good manager. We will discuss here just what these qualities are and how they interrelate.
To measure the motivations of managers, we studied a number of individuals in different large U.S. corporations who were participating in management workshops designed to improve their managerial effectiveness. (See the sidebar “Workshop Techniques.”) We concluded that the top manager of a company must possess a high need for power—that is, a concern for influencing people. However, this need must be disciplined and controlled so that it is directed toward the benefit of the institution as a whole and not toward the manager’s personal aggrandizement. Moreover, the top manager’s need for power ought to be greater than his or her need to be liked.
Power without discipline is often directed toward the manager’s personal aggrandizement, not toward the benefit of the institution.
Measuring Managerial Effectiveness
What does it mean when we say that a good manager has a greater need for power than for achievement? Consider the case of Ken Briggs, a sales manager in a large U.S. corporation who joined one of our managerial workshops. (The names and details of all the cases that follow have been disguised.) About six years ago, Ken Briggs was promoted to a managerial position at headquarters, where he was responsible for sales-people who serviced his company’s largest accounts.
In filling out his questionnaire at the workshop, Ken showed that he correctly perceived what his job required of him—namely, that he should influence others’ success more than achieve new goals himself or socialize with his subordinates. However, when asked, with other members of the workshop, to write a story depicting a managerial situation, Ken unwittingly revealed through his fiction that he did not share those concerns. Indeed, he discovered that his need for achievement was very high—in fact, higher than the 90th percentile—and his need for power was very low, in about the 15th percentile. Ken’s high need to achieve was no surprise—after all, he had been a very successful salesman—but obviously his desire to influence others was much less than his job required. Ken was a little disturbed but thought that perhaps the measuring instruments were not accurate and that the gap between the ideal and his score was not as great as it seemed.
Then came the real shocker. Ken’s subordinates confirmed what his stories revealed: He was a poor manager, having little positive impact on those who worked for him. They felt that little responsibility had been delegated to them. He never rewarded them but only criticized them. And the office was poorly organized, confused, and chaotic. On all those scales, his office rated in the tenth to 15th percentile relative to national norms. | <urn:uuid:1cbfdfd8-d3b4-4b16-ad87-5162d308463d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hbr.org/2003/01/power-is-the-great-motivator/ar/1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979222 | 1,803 | 2.765625 | 3 |
From Laurence Freeman OSB, “The Power of Attention,” THE SELFLESS SELF (London: DLT, 1989), pp. 31-35.
There has always been a great danger, but one that exists especially for us today in our self-conscious and narcissistic society, of mistaking introversion, self-fixation, self-analysis, for true interiority. The great prevalence of psychological woundedness and social alienation exacerbates this danger while calling for gentle tact and compassion in dealing with it. . . .
To be truly interior is the complete opposite of being introverted. In the awareness of the indwelling presence, our consciousness is turned around, converted, so that we are no longer. . .looking at ourselves, anticipating or remembering feelings, reactions, desires, ideas, or daydreams. But we are turning towards something else. And that is always a problem for us.
It would be easier, we think, to turn away from introspection if we knew what we were turning towards. If only we had a fixed object to look at. If only God could be represented by an image. But the true God can never be an image. Images of God are gods. To make an image of God is merely to end up looking at a refurbished image of ourselves. To be truly interior, to open the eye of the heart, means to be living within the imageless vision that is faith, and that is the vision that permits us to “see God.”
In faith, attention is controlled by a new Spirit, no longer the spirits of materialism, self-seeking and self-preservation, but the ethos of faith which is by its nature dispossessive. It is always letting go and continuously renouncing the rewards of renunciation, which are very great and so all the more necessary to be returned. . . .We can glimpse it simply by calling to mind those moments or phases in life where we experienced the highest degree of peace, fulfillment and joy and recognize that those were times, not when we possessed anything, but when we lost ourselves in something or someone. The passport into the kingdom requires the stamp of poverty. [. . . .]
And yet learning to be other-centered is a discipline, it is discipleship and it means an ascesis. There is nothing more difficult than to learn to take the attention off ourselves. . . . We are all too prone to let our attention wander, to drift back into self-consciousness, self-infatuation, and distraction. There is then a simple truth to discover. When attention is in God, with the vision of faith, everything reveals God to us. When our attention is on ourselves, in the image-blindness of the ego, everything is a distraction from God.
It seems a demanding challenge to place our attention always in that vision of faith, until we realize that that is precisely what we have been created for.
After meditation: from THE JOURNALS OF THOMAS MERTON: Volume Five 1963-1965 (New York: HarperCollins, 1997), p. 224.
April 4, 1965. Passion Sunday.
Light rain all night. The need to keep working at meditation—going to the root. Mere passivity won’t do at this point. But activism won’t do either. A time of wordless deepening, to grasp the inner reality of my nothingness in Him who is. Talking about it in these terms is absurd. Nothing to do with the concrete reality that is to be grasped. My prayer is peace and struggle in silence, to be aware and true, beyond myself. To go outside the door of myself, not because I will it but because I am called and must respond.
Carla Cooper - firstname.lastname@example.org | <urn:uuid:12bdb2f6-198f-4c7b-99cd-061c41ccfc4a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wccm.org/print/content/readings-2242012?page=4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945032 | 792 | 2.1875 | 2 |
By Nilantha Bandara,
14th of Nov.
If you think the car is safer in the road, but think twice...
No car can rescue unless you drive your car safely.it may be worlds safest car in the planet but you don't obey the road rules & discipline yourself then it's the end of your journey.
Especially drink alcohol and driveis very very dangerous because then you tends to speed up and that happens unconsciously while your reaction time for obstacles in front & for breaks takes more time.
A millisecond of lateness of above can create a disaster,
Have a look at below pictures of Audi,Ferrari, Hummer 12, Lamborgini diablo, Mercedes, Honda,Ford cars for a while..they even can't identify the brand name..
Have a safe journey.... | <urn:uuid:3327ced0-6ae9-4d81-9b30-bb68a9554458> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://slautoblog.blogspot.com/2012/11/no-car-is-safeunless-you-dont-drive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935719 | 169 | 1.679688 | 2 |
There is a whooping cough epidemic happening in Washington state and around the country. Seattle Mama Doc, Dr. Wendy Sue Swanson, was on KING 5 with information about the outbreak and what parents can do to protect their children.
Pertussis/Whooping Cough Shots:
- Infants/kids get TDaP 2,4,6 & 15 months
- Teens & adults get Tdap once
- Protections from the shot wears off. Need boosters!
- All those over 11 need a Tdap booster, even grandparents
What Parents Can Do:
- Make sure your child is up to date on their shots.
- "Cocoon" newborn babies -- surround them with immunized people
- TDaP is especially important for pregnant moms
- See doctor if concerned. Whooping cough can come even when immunized
- WA State Pertussis Epidemic Data
- Does The Whooping Cough Shot Last?
- How to "Cocoon" A Newborn
- What Is The Tdap Shot? | <urn:uuid:9118b286-209f-431b-b843-0ddc189a2b0f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.king5.com/health/dr-wendy-sue-swanson/The-whooping-cough-epidemic-theres-a-vaccine-for-that-174597281.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.914328 | 222 | 2.0625 | 2 |
PEDIG | HTS1
Why we are doing this study:
This is a study for children age 1 year to less than 5 years old who are farsighted and have not received previous treatment. We are trying to find out if children with moderate farsightedness have better outcomes when prescribed with glasses or if they do better without any correction.
Who can be in the study:
Children age 1 year to less than 5 years with moderate farsightedness with no eye turns or lazy eye.
Specific screening questions will be asked before scheduling a study appointment.
What the study involves:
There are six visits over the course of 3 years. The length of the visits will depend on how old your child is. Visits can range from 1 ½ hours to 3 hours. At the end of your first study visit, your child will be randomized (like the toss of a coin) to either glasses or observation. At each visit, your child will
- Have his/her visual acuity checked.
- Have stereoacuity checked (if old enough).
- Complete other procedures designed to see if there is any change to your child’s vision.
Once a year, your child will also have his/her eyes dilated.
Will you directly benefit from the study?
Being in this study won't directly benefit participants. If your child is randomized to glasses, one pair will be provided. You will receive $30 for each visit for your time for the study.
Other things you should know about the study:
Parental permission is required for minors (under age 18) to participate in this study, so a parent will need to be present during the enrollment visit.
Principle Investigator: Robert Duckman
For more information, contact the Clinical Vision Research Center. | <urn:uuid:c1afca9c-fdab-4dff-889b-f670f07d8db6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sunyopt.edu/cvrc/research/pedig_hts1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.909466 | 372 | 2.421875 | 2 |
One of the many distinguishing features of freedom-loving den of Reaganites California is that the voters, in their infinite wisdom, chose long ago to cap property taxes by law—one of those special kinds of laws that very specifically helps people who are already wealthy. Congratulations, wise self-disinterested voters of California! The rich are very happy that law exists right about now.
Oh, hmm, huh, it's a WSJ story about how America's cities are generally financially fucked and desperate and teetering on the edge of hopelessness for the foreseeable future. But what about The Golden State??
While many municipalities nationwide have offset property-tax declines by raising tax rates, California's 1978 law dubbed Proposition 13 caps property taxes at about 1% of a home's value and forbids major tax increases unless a home is sold or rebuilt, though it permits taxes to fall if a home's value drops.
Thank god that law passed a generation ago—otherwise, California's wealthiest homeowners could be at risk of having their property taxes raised to the point that the state could, in a sort of worst case/ apocalypse scenario, fall off the list of the states with America's lowest property taxes. Thanks to Prop 13, California only has to worry about stuff like its poorest citizens living in squalor due to a lack of government funds for affordable housing, instead. Whew.
This is a great illustration of that old adage, "Voters today will always have perfect foresight into economic conditions a generation hence, so why not put pass as many broad, inflexible laws as possible?"
[WSJ. Photo of glorious low-tax California community: AP] | <urn:uuid:32d28972-b686-4d45-8f9f-1dc555d7016e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gawker.com/5934303/how-do-you-like-your-property-tax-limits-now-jerks | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946742 | 340 | 1.75 | 2 |
La Jolla, Calif.– A newborn baby moves, breathes and cries in part because a network of nerves called motor neurons carry signals from the infant's brain and spinal cord to muscles throughout its body.
Thanks to new research by scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, we are closer to understanding how these complicated network connections are wired up during embryonic development. Salk researchers have discovered that the same chemicals (called neurotransmitters) that are responsible for nerve signals are also involved in the wiring of synapses, the network's crucial contact points between nerves, or between nerves and muscle cells.
The study, published in the May issue of the journal Neuron, showed that as the motor neurons grow from their home base in the spinal cord towards muscles throughout the body, they release two opposing chemical signals. These signals act to preserve synapses that link a motor neuron to its correct muscle cell. 'Spare' sites for potential synapses that fail to team up with a motor neuron are dismantled.
"Our study provides the first evidence in a living animal system that the neurotransmitters themselves are sculpturing the developing nervous system," said Kuo-Fen Lee, Associate Professor at the Salk, who heads the research team reporting its results in Neuron.
Using mice as a model for human biology, Lee and colleagues showed that each long, thin muscle cell in the developing embryo prepares for the arrival of its motor neurons by creating sites for many potential synapses along its length. However, three weeks after conception, all the sites have disappeared, except those that connected with a newly arrived motor neuron and formed a fully functioning synapse. The scientists wanted to know: how does the embryo 'weed out' the potential synapse sites that are not needed? The answer to this question is crucial because it might shine light on how the nervous system could make new connections in medical conditions such as spinal cord injury.
Lee, along with Salk colleagues Weichun Lin, Bertha Dominguez, Jiefei Yang, Prafulla Aryal, Eugene Brandon and Fred Gage, discovered that the creation of synapses is controlled by the nerves themselves. As they grow towards the muscle cells, the nerve cells release a powerful chemical messenger from their growing ends. Called acetylcholine, this neurotransmitter 'edits out' the potential synapse sites on the muscle cell not destined to connect to a nerve. In mature animals, acetylcholine is a key neurotransmitter responsible for transmitting signals between nerve cells and muscle.
Using a combination of genetic and pharmacological techniques to block the various components of the chemical pathways involved, the Salk researchers painstakingly showed that acetylcholine works in tandem with another chemical produced by nerve cells, called agrin. Where the end of the nerve touches the muscle cell, agrin is concentrated enough to overcome the 'editing' effect of the acetylcholine. Further away from the nerve end, the levels of agrin are not high enough to overcome the more powerful influence of acetylcholine, and the redundant synapse sites are dismantled.
"The result is an interesting mechanism whereby two opposing forces work together to create the crucial synaptic connections between motor neurons and muscle cells," said co-author Prafulla Aryal.
"Although we have suspected for 25 years that something like this was happening, until now no-one has been able to demonstrate it in a living system," said Lee. "It is likely that this process occurs all over the nervous system. If you're going to repair or regenerate nerves in, for example, spinal cord injury you need to know how to form synapses for the right connections to be made."
Source: Eurekalert & othersLast reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 21 Feb 2009
Published on PsychCentral.com. All rights reserved.
Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt | <urn:uuid:d428cfb0-1306-4a90-bd90-5ad49e602526> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://psychcentral.com/news/archives/2005-06/si-dns060205.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949057 | 803 | 3.59375 | 4 |
WASHINGTON - Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar, who arrived on Tuesday evening for a four-day visit to the US capital, had a "candid" exchange of views on Afghanistan and other issues with the members of the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence at Capitol Hill on Wednesday, officials said.
Hina is scheduled to meet US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday in an effort to push US-Pakistan relations forward.
During a one-hour meeting, the foreign minister apprised the committee members of the extraordinary efforts and sacrifices Pakistan has made to eradicate the scourge of terrorism and build a peaceful, stable South and Central Asia, a press release of the Pakistan embassy said. The foreign minister told the senators that Pakistan attached great importance to its relationship with the US and that the people of Pakistan wanted their contributions and sacrifices in fighting terrorism recognised and appreciated.
She said it was important that Pakistan's priorities, concerns and constraints were better understood by the US. Hina said she was in Washington to have in-depth discussions on how best to deal with the challenges in the bilateral relationship and to build on the recent positive momentum in strengthening the special relationship between Pakistan and the United States.
The foreign minister informed the members of the Senate Intelligence Committee that Pakistan aimed to have a genuine dialogue with the US on Afghanistan. She reaffirmed Pakistan’s commitment to use the trilateral mechanism to promote an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned reconciliation process.
Instability in Afghanistan, she said, threatened Pakistan more than any other nation on earth. She reiterated that Pakistan was a critical part of the solution to the Afghan dilemma. | <urn:uuid:fc318f4f-3a8d-4cb8-a8d1-4b9d5c636cdb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/editors-picks/20-Sep-2012/hina-urges-us-to-recognise-pakistan-s-sacrifices | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957658 | 328 | 1.507813 | 2 |
“The Picture Of Dorian Gray” – Stage Play (Adaptation)
From the novel by Oscar Wilde.
UK national tour in 1997 by SNAP Theatre Company.
Company: SNAP Theatre Company
M 5, F 5 Some doubling possible.
The portrait takes on all the sins of Dorian Gray, and the image slowly changes, as his wickedness and self-indulgence combine, into that of an old, lined man. It is only a matter of time before the wages of sin have to be paid! An atmospheric comic drama, including some of Oscar Wilde’s biting aphorisms, set in the 1890′s.
Currently unpublished. Contact Roger to obtain a reading copy, and for royalty details | <urn:uuid:da1dc323-a484-4bcb-8b21-699afa7853c9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rogerparsley.com/plays/the-picture-of-dorian-gray/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931608 | 150 | 1.546875 | 2 |
On one hand, divemasters constantly urge us to look for the detail in the reef, the small critters like the blennies and the cleaner shrimp which may be no more than an inch long. That implies getting really "up close and personal" with the reef.
On the other hand, the same divemasters constantly warn us, "Don't touch anything!" And there's the problem: It's fairly easy to get close without touching, by swimming forward gently. But backing up again without hammering the reef with your fins, your knees or your elbows can be difficult.
The close-up view is just another of life's many situations that are easier to get into than out of. Nevertheless, skilled underwater photographers (and skilled sightseers too) are able, time and again, to get their masks within inches of a delicate soft coral and retreat without doing harm. What's the secret?
There are many tricks, but pinpoint buoyancy control is the fundamental skill. Precise control of your buoyancy is what enables you to hover completely motionless, then back out of the area without using your hands at all.
You can back out by simply ascending if you've approached from above, with your head well below your fins. And you can ascend without adding air to your BC by controlling your breathing. In fact, you'll improve your buoyancy control by using your BC less, not more.
At first glance, buoyancy control looks like a simple matter of balancing the downward force of your ballast weights against the upward force of your BC inflation. When the two cancel out, you're neutral and can hover in the water. Since the weight on your belt doesn't change after you enter the water, it seems as though you have only one variable to contend with: the upward thrust of your BC. It sounds easy, so why isn't it?
In fact, pinpoint buoyancy control requires getting at least six things right. There's good news, though: Once you get all six variables dialed in, it's easy.
The six factors that affect your buoyancy are your ballast weight and your BC inflation, of course, and also your trim, your exposure suit buoyancy, your depth and your breath control. Your ballast weight and your trim are the only two factors that, once you've selected them, stay put. All the others are variables, changing during the dive along with time or depth or both. Some you can control, some you can't. Buoyancy control isn't as easy as it looks.
The ballast weight you carry doesn't change during a dive, but it's often the biggest problem. Many if not most divers are overweighted, carrying more lead than they need. That makes buoyancy control more difficult because every extra pound of lead has to be balanced with an extra pound of buoyancy. To displace a pound of water and balance the pound of lead requires an air bubble in the BC of about one pint in volume.
But because an air bubble expands and contracts with depth changes, you have to be constantly adding or subtracting air from the bubble to keep its volume at one pint. Five extra pounds, which is not uncommon, means a five-pint bubble that grows and shrinks five times as much with depth changes and needs five times as much adjustment in order for you to maintain neutral buoyancy. So extra lead means extra thrust up or down when you change depth, and requires extra fiddling with your BC valve controls. Sometimes it means nearly constant fiddling.
Most dive instructors agree that overweighting is a common problem, and a few admit that it's their fault. The instructor is worried about embolizing his students, and he overweights his students for the same reason your dad put training wheels on your first bike. Like the training wheels, the extra weight has to come off before you can graduate from the novice stage. Unfortunately, once you complete your checkout dives, your dive instructor typically moves on to other students. You have to take off the training wheels yourself.
The first step is to just do it--take off two pounds before your next dive. Can't get below the surface? Before you reach for the lead again, make sure you really need it. Getting below the surface, especially on the first dive of the day, can be surprisingly difficult and can trick you into carrying more lead than you really need. Here are a few tips:
The plush lining of a dry wetsuit can trap a surprising amount of air, and therefore buoyancy, in its fibers, and it takes a minute or so to get fully wet.
Hold the inflator hose over your head and stretch it upward a little so its attachment point to your BC is highest. At the same time, says Linda Van Velson, a PADI course director, "dip your right shoulder and squeeze the BC against your chest with your right arm." This maneuver encourages the last few bubbles to find the exit.
Many BCs trap a bubble of air just behind your head. Rocking backward as if you are in a La-Z-Boy recliner moves the exhaust hose over the bubble and lets it escape.
Many of us move our hands and feet more than we realize, especially at the beginning of the dive. It's nerves: Without realizing it, your body is trying to climb out of the water. That generates upward thrust, making you seem lighter than you are. To counteract that, hold your right arm still at your side (your left is holding up your exhaust hose), extend your legs and point your fins straight down so they have the least resistance to sinking.
Another manifestation of nervousness is a tendency to hold your breath, and a lungful of air adds as much as 10 pounds of buoyancy. Exhale and hold it until you start sinking, then take shallow inhales until you get below five feet.
Another option is to use your body weight to generate some downward momentum by lifting part of it out of the water, then letting it fall back. Lying on your face, jackknife your upper body downward, then lift one leg, then another, out of the water. The weight of your legs will drive you downward, and once your fins are in the water you can kick down.
What's the ideal amount of weight? With a nearly empty tank, say 500 psi, with lungs half full and with no air in your BC, you should be close to neutral at the surface--floating with the water at eye level, for example--and only slightly negative at your 15-foot safety stop. Some divers will be even lighter than that, so they're neutral at 15 feet. That makes them slightly positive as they ascend to the surface, but they can counter that by holding less air in their lungs and taking only shallow breaths. With a full tank, you should be about five pounds heavier, the weight of the other 2,500 psi of air. There are sometimes reasons to be heavier. When there is a lot of surge, some extra lead helps you stay glued to the bottom, for example. But in general, buoyancy control is easiest with the minimum amount of ballast weight.
Once you get close to the right amount of lead, you can fine-tune it at your safety stop when your tank is nearly empty and you don't have much else to do for three minutes anyway. Here's one way:
- Carry your smallest weight, one or two pounds, loose in a pocket or clipped to a D-ring so you can take it off easily.
- When you reach your safety stop with 500 psi left, hand it to your buddy temporarily or put it on the bottom if the water is shallow.
- Now, try to get neutral again. Remember to keep your hands and fins as still as possible. Do the test next to the mooring rope for security if you want, but remember you can always overcome a pound or so of positive buoyancy by exhaling and kicking downward. When you're making adjustments so small, there's no reason to fear an uncontrolled ascent. If you can stay neutral at 15 feet without that small weight you took off, you don't need it, and your next dive will be easier without it.
- Now retrieve your weight from your buddy and do the same favor for him.
The next variable to worry about is your trim--the position your body takes in the water when you're neutral and still. This matters for buoyancy because if your fins are lower than your body, kicking to go forward will also make you go up. It will seem that you've suddenly become buoyant, so you'll vent air from your BC. Then, when you stop kicking, you'll be too heavy and you'll sink.
In order for your kicking not to disrupt your buoyancy, your body needs to be trimmed so your legs are nearly horizontal and your fins push you only forward. Here's how to check your trim:
Once you are exactly neutral, hold your body absolutely still with your legs stretched out behind you. If your legs sink, you should move a little weight from your waist to a point higher on your body.
Your scuba cylinder gets lighter as you dive and use up the air in it. The 80 cubic feet of air pumped into your full tank weighs almost exactly six pounds, and when you breathe it down to 500 psi, you've used up five pounds of that air, so the tank weighs five pounds less. That's a buoyancy shift that has to be countered by venting five pounds of buoyancy from your BC. And that explains why you have to start the dive five pounds heavy--so you have five pounds of buoyancy in your BC to lose and be neutral at the safety stop.
Fortunately, this weight loss and buoyancy gain is gradual. If a tank can last you 60 minutes, it gains only one pound in 10 minutes and you hardly notice it. Also, the tank's buoyancy gain is affected by depth only in the sense that you use up air faster when you are deeper. Because the tank is rigid, its buoyancy does not change immediately just by going 20 feet deeper or shallower.
So you will have to adjust for the tank's buoyancy change, but it won't take you by surprise. You probably won't notice any change until nearly halfway through the dive.
Incidentally, it's not true, as many divers believe, that you can escape this buoyancy gain by using a steel tank. Steel tanks are typically less buoyant than aluminum to begin with so they may end the dive slightly negative while an aluminum tank is positive. But 80 cubic feet of air weighs just as much in either tank, and the buoyancy gain when you use it up is just as much. Using a steel tank allows you to take a few pounds of weight off your belt, but you have to carry some or all of it in the tank itself, which is typically heavier.
Wetsuits float. There's no escaping the fact, because the same thing that makes neoprene warm makes it buoyant: the gas trapped in thousands of tiny bubbles. Their buoyancy (and warmth) varies, but, in general, a new men's wetsuit has two to three pounds of buoyancy for every millimeter of thickness. So a thin tropical suit might have less than two pounds of buoyancy at the surface while a thick cold-water suit might have 20 pounds or more.
It's tempting to minimize the neoprene to make buoyancy control easier. Some tropical divers wear no neoprene at all. But that might be a bad bet, because getting cold is fatiguing and increases your risk of decompression sickness.
The buoyancy of your wetsuit won't change noticeably from one dive to the next, but over time it does lose buoyancy because the thousands of tiny bubbles in the neoprene lose their resiliency and collapse or fill with water. At that point, the wetsuit has less buoyancy and less insulation than when new.
The good news here is that if you don't change depth, your wetsuit's buoyancy doesn't change either. Once you have your buoyancy dialed in for a given depth, you can forget it. More good news: The very thin wetsuit you'd wear in the tropics has so little buoyancy to begin with that you can pretty much ignore any changes with depth.
Whatever the surface buoyancy of your wetsuit, it will change dramatically with depth. Because pressure flattens those thousands of gas bubbles, your wetsuit gets thinner and displaces less water. In effect, it gets heavier. The change is not linear. You lose half of your surface buoyancy in the first 33 feet of your descent and a third in the next 33 feet. Below 66 feet, there's only one-sixth of the original buoyancy left to lose no matter how deep you go. The single larger bubble in your BC behaves the same way.
Buoyancy changes fastest in the first few feet below the surface--three times as fast at one foot as at 60 feet. That's why it's often hard to get submerged, but once you're down five feet or so, you seem to get heavier and sink easily.
Unlike the buoyancy change in your tank, this buoyancy shift is immediate and goes in both directions. When you ascend, you get back the buoyancy of your wetsuit and your BC instantly. So you have to be alert to buoyancy changes whenever you change depth, and especially when you ascend.
Your lungs are a natural buoyancy compensator with about 10 pounds of buoyant lift. A normal, resting breath expands your lungs by about one pint, giving you one pound more buoyancy. Breathing in and out, your buoyancy fluctuates within a range of about one pound. But you can place that one-pound fluctuation almost anywhere in the total 10-pound range. You can breathe from nearly full lungs and cycle between eight and nine pounds of buoyancy, for example, or you can breathe with nearly empty lungs and cycle between two and three pounds. So as long as you are nearly neutral with a half-breath, you can rise or fall at will just by controlling your lungs.
Putting It Together
Once you get your ballast weight and trim dialed in, you've come a long way toward perfect buoyancy control. Now you can fine-tune your BC inflation to compensate for the very predictable changes due to breathing down your tank and changing depth and use only breath control to drop gently down to that cleaner shrimp, hover inches above it as long as you want and lift away from it harmlessly. The divemaster will applaud. | <urn:uuid:5c347562-7d4f-4abc-b78b-1d0bdedbfb90> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.scubadiving.com/training/basic-skills/6-secrets-buoyancy-control | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956603 | 3,023 | 2.171875 | 2 |
HealthAlert - Radiation Dangers
Living Fuel is greatly concerned about the dangers of radiation in the world we live in. You will find many warnings about radiation dangers on this page, including ways you and your family can avoid a lot of the radiation out there. We invite you to read this information, watch our videos and use the many resources available on this page. Current categories of radiation danger include: Medical Radiation, Tanning Bed Radiation, Airport Scanner Radiation, Cell Phone Radiation Electromagnetic Frequency Radiation, and Solar Radiation.
We introduced a LivingFuelTV video about the dangers of Medical Radiation in 2009. Your response has been overwhelming! We're so glad the video and the Internet references we shared with you have helped in your personal and family health decisions.
Recently, the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Service's Preventive Services Task Force changed the routine mammogram recommendation by 10 years, from 40-years-of-age to 50-years-of-age. That started a firestorm of controversy on all sides of the issue. Much of what has come from that firestorm, and from media reports, has led to confusion by the people who need to know the truth. What are the facts concerning mammograms? Health expert and best-selling author K.C. Craichy shares the information you need to know to make well-informed decisions about your health. We'll also include links to the Preventive Services Task Force recommendation and other informational and video references at the bottom of this page.
Dangers of Medical Radiation
"...a very great deal of future cancer and ischemic hearet disease (IHD) could be prevented by reducing the dose-levels customarily administered during x-ray imaging procedures."
These powerful words were written at the beginning of this century by one of the world's leading experts in the dangers of medical radiation. Dr. John Gofman estimated that a major shift in the way the medical community in the United States used x-ray imaging could prevent about a quarter-of-a-million deaths every year! We first invite you to watch this special video with Living Fuel Founder & CEO K.C. Craichy. Following the video, please link to the many reference sites we've included on this page to help you learn more about the dangers of medical radiation and what you can do to protect your family's health.
Medical Radiation Dangers
"Medical radiation, introduced into medicine in 1896, became and remains a necessary causal co-actor in over half of the fatal cases of cancer in the USA, and became and remains a necessary causal co-actor also in over half of the fatal cases of ischemic heart disease (coronary artery disease) in the USA. From these conclusions plus the fact that x-ray harm is approximately proportional to accumulated x-ray dose, it follows that a very great deal of future cancer and ischemic heart disease (IHD) could be prevented by reducing the dose-levels customarily administered during x-ray imaging procedures, especially CT and fluoroscopy. Indeed, it is very often feasible to get good images with half (or less) of the customary dose. Doing so could prevent about 250,000 premature deaths every year in the USA, by our estimate. The conclusions above are obviously so important for human health that they demand thoughtful, independent scruitiny, i.e., peer-review."
November 2002 by John W. Gofman, M.D., Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Molecular & Cell Biology, Univ. of Calif. Berkeley
Americans Get Most Radiation From Medical Scans
Americans get the most medical radiation in the world, even more than folks in other rich countries. The U.S. accounts for half of the most advanced procedures that use radiation, and the average American's dose has grown sixfold over the last couple of decades.
Too much radiation raises the risk of cancer. That risk is growing because people in everyday situations are getting imaging tests far too often. Like the New Hampshire teen who was about to get a CT scan to check for kidney stones until a radiologist, Dr. Steven Birnbaum, discovered he'd already had 14 of these powerful X-rays for previous episodes. Adding up the total dose, "I was horrified" at the cancer risk it posed, Birnbaum said.
Radiation is a hidden danger — you don't feel it when you get it, and any damage usually doesn't show up for years. Taken individually, tests that use radiation pose little risk. Over time, though, the dose accumulates.
Special Internet References:
Two more hospitals report CT scan radiation overdoses
After Stroke Scans, Patients Face Serious Health Risks
Mammograms Cause 7,000 Women To Receive False Positives Each Year In The UK
CT Scan Radiation May Cause Cancer Decades Later, Study Finds
U.S. Preventive Services Task Force Routine Mammogram Recommendation
Patients Receiving High Radiation at Cedars Sinai File Class Action Lawsuit
The Dangers of Unnecessary Medical Tests
Medical Radiation Exposure Of The U.S. Population Greatly Increased Since The Early 1980s
Radiation Overdoses Point Up Dangers of CT Scans
How Dangerous Are CT Scans?
CT Scan vs. MRI
Avoiding the Radiation Dangers of Cardiac CAT Scans
Exposure to Low-Dose Ionizing Radiation from Medical Imaging Procedures
Radiation From CT Scans Can Increase Risk of Cancer
Just Say No to X-Rays!
Radiation Overload? Medical imaging usage has grown, and some are concerned it's too much
X-Rays vs. Sonograms: Does Overuse of X-Rays and Underuse of Sonograms Endanger Patient Health?
Can radiation treatment hurt others?
Study Verifies Mammography Screenings Cause Cancer
Guidance on Potassium Iodide as a Thyroid Blocking Agent in Radiation Emergencies
American Nuclear Society: Radiation Dose Chart
Potassium Iodide Tablets
Antioxidant in Ginkgo may protect cells from radiation damage
Toronto Hospital for Sick Children (`SickKids`) acquires Biospace med`s 2D/3D ultra low dose X-ray imager, EOS
CT Scans and Cancer: How to Minimize Your Risk
Thermography In Early Detection Of Breast Cancer
Dr. William Amalu On ABC News On Thermography
Fox News About Thermography
Tanning Bed Radiation
June 11, 2010
Tanning Beds Can Quadruple Risk for Dangerous Skin Cancer
The Oregonian, Portland, Ore.
The biggest study ever done on tanning beds and melanoma finds that indoor tanning can raise the risk of that cancer roughly two to four times.
Scientists have long known that heavy exposure to ultraviolet rays, including sunburns and heavy tanning, can cause skin cancer. That link is one reason tanning businesses were taxed in the recent health reform law, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration may beef up warnings and ban teens from using tanning beds.
But doctors are still trying to figure out just how risky indoor tanning is. After studying more than 2,200 tanners and their pale peers, scientists report that regular indoor tanning raised a person's risk of melanoma -- the deadliest skin cancer -- between 74 percent and 340 percent. People who tanned longer had higher risk, as did people who tanned in beds that mostly use UVA radiation, not a related kind known as UVB.
"Too many teenagers tend to live a life ignorant of risk," said researcher Electra Paskett. "We need to encourage a shift in social norms about tanning similar to what was done with smoking because the risk is that high." Read more here
Airport Scanner Radiation
Radiation Risks Cited In Full-Body Airport Scans
We have heard many radiation concerns about the new full-body security scanners at airports. Here is an update from June 1, 2010.
Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
Full-body airport security scanners manufactured by Torrance-based Rapiscan Inc. expose the skin to high radiation levels that may lead to cancer and other health problems, according to researchers from the University of California, San Francisco.
Particularly at risk, the researchers said, are travelers who are pregnant, elderly or have weakened immune systems.
The machines emit X-ray energy levels that would be safe if they were distributed throughout the body, but a majority of that energy is delivered to the skin and underlying tissue at levels that "may be dangerously high," the researchers wrote last month to the White House Office of Science and Technology.
Two Rapiscan backscatter machines have been tested over the past two years at Los Angeles International Airport, with more expected to arrive by the end of the year as part of a nationwide deployment.
Read more about these concerns here.
Cell Phone Radiation
Did you Know?
More than 200 million Americans use a cell phone every day
An estimated 4 billion people use cell phones worldwide
Many doctors and health researchers believe radiation from cell phones can cause cancer
Some believe the cancer risk from cell phone usage could be as dangerous as smoking
The U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee heard testimony just last week as part of its probe into potential links between cell phone use and cancer
This is an important subject to all of us. Cell phones and computers are a reality (and have become a necessity) in today's world. I use my cell phones and computers daily, and most likely you do, too.
Electronic devices such as these emit electromagnetic frequencies (EMFs) - radiation that, at high levels, can be environmental hazards. As with all hazards, we need to learn how to minimize our exposure to them and protect ourselves from them. Science tells us that every living and non-living thing has a natural electromagnetic frequency level. You've seen the video of a wine glass shattered by a high pitch sound - a high frequency. In the same way, there are external frequency levels that have the potential to harm you, such as EMFs.
Our friends at the Environmental Working Group (EWG) just published an insightful report on cell phone radiation. They studied and tested over 1,000 cell phones currently on the market. They also report the best (and worst) cell phones tested and publish a practical guide to reduce cell phone radiation exposure.
Click on the graphic below to see how your cell phone tested!
Did you Know? Scientists estimate that our daily exposure to electromagnetic radiation is 100 million times higher than when our grandparents were children. A top emitter of this potentially harmful radiation is our ever-present cell phones.
Here are some practical tips to protect yourself and your family from cell phone EMFs:
Purchase a low-radiation cell phone recommended by the Environmental Working Group (click here
for EWG-recommended phones).
Use the "speaker phone" options and place the phone down on a desk or table away from your head.
Purchase a "skin" or rubber case as an insulator for your cell phone. This is important when texting or emailing from your cell phone.
TEXT or E-MAIL instead of calling whenever possible. This is especially important for children using cell phones.
Choose a "land line" phone whenever available and keep your cell phone conversations as short as possible, particularly when your phone is placed up to your head.
Avoid wearing "Blue Tooth" headsets all day. Use them only when on a call and keep these these calls as short as possible.
NEVER have a cell phone on both ears and never be between a cell phone an a computer.
Keep your cell phone away from your vital organs. For example, don't place your phone in your lap or in a coat pocket.
Carry your cell phone in your purse, bag or briefcase rather than using a belt holster or carrying it in your pocket.
Avoid sleeping near a cell phone that is on. It has been reported that an alarming number of kids sleep with a live cell phone under their pillow and text their friends in the middle of the night. This is extremely dangerous!
Avoid using a cell phone as an alarm clock. Instead invest in a wind-up travel alarm.
San Francisco Chronicle article about cell phones affecting brain activity.
For more information about the invisible dangers of EMF radiation, click on the link below to watch an informative video:
Electromagnetic Frequency Dangers
Electromagnetic frequencies are part of the electromagnetic spectrum that consist of electromagnetic waves like gamma rays, X rays, visible light, ultraviolet light, and radio waves. Magnetic fields are created with the flow of electric current. The magnetic field is stronger as the electric current becomes stronger. They are present everywhere in our environment, but are invisible to the human eye.
We’ve heard for many years about the potential danger from electromagnetic frequencies and radiation. The potential for cell damage in humans, animals and other living things gave birth to the term “electromagnetic pollution.” It comes from every electrical and electronic device imaginable from televisions to microwaves to light bulbs to cell phones. Scientists estimate that our daily exposure to EMF radiation is 100 million times higher than when our grandparents were children.
Electricity and electronics are an important part of our lives, so how do we live with them while protecting ourselves from them? As we saw in last week’s Living Fuel e-mail newsletter, you can buy a low-radiation phone, use a headset or speaker, hold the phone away from your body, and text more than talk. Here are ways you can protect yourself and your family from EMF’s:
Purchase a low-radiation cell phone recommended by the Environmental Working Group (click here
for the EWG's recommended phones).
Use your phone's "speaker phone" option often and put the phone down or get rubber case for your phone as an insulator when you are holding it.
Use TEXT or EMAIL instead of TALK whenever possible and again use a rubber case on your phone as an insulator when you are holding it. THIS IS EVEN MORE IMPORTANT FOR KIDS.
Don't wear a blue tooth headset EXCEPT when on a call and ONLY use it if you must during a call. Keep the call as short as possible.
NEVER have a phone on both ears and never be between a cell phone an a computer.
NEVER put a cell phone near major organs.
NEVER sleep near a cell phone that is on. Invest in a wind-up small travel alarm clock - it could save a life! It has been reported that an alarming number of kids sleep with a live cell phone under their pillow to text their friends in the middle of the night. THIS IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS!
Check out watches that can help protect you from EMFs, including our favorite - the Philip Stein Teslar watch www.philipstein.com
Use a corded telephone whenever possible.
- Use a Gauss meter to check your home and office for high levels of electromagnetic radiation.
- Avoid any area that has a level higher than 1 mG.
- Sit as far from your computer and television as you can while using them.
- Stand as far away from your microwave oven as you can – or remove it from your house.
- Move all electrical appliances at least six feet away from your bed.
- Place all major electrical appliances against outside walls to keep from creating EMF fields in the next room.
- Move all electrical and electronic devices several feet away from your bed – especially from your head.
- Eliminate wires running under your bed.
- Replace fluorescent lighting with incandescent lighting.
- Make sure the wiring in your home or office is up to date and installed correctly.
- Eliminate dimmers and 3-way switches.
For more information about the invisible dangers of EMF radiation, click on the video link below.
For more information about managing environmental hazards, see Chapter 6 of my book Super Health 7 Golden Keys to Unlock Lifelong Vitality.
During these hot summer days, our first impulse before stepping on the beach, the pool deck or the golf course is to lather ourselves with sunscreen. Do you know for sure that the SPF 100 that you just sprayed on your five-year old daughter is effectively blocking the harmful UV rays? Does it contain any ingredients that could compromise her overall health?
We encourage you to read the 2011 Sunscreen Guide from the Environment Working Group (EWG). Click here
for the full report. The EWG offers their thoroughly researched recommendations for the top sunscreens and lip balms, gives practical sun safety tips and much more. It's definately one of this summer's best beach reads! | <urn:uuid:a6633625-ce4c-40ab-8393-64ddb50d136d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.livingfuel.com/Radiation_Dangers.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927237 | 3,480 | 2.546875 | 3 |
- Let's go!
- Uttered during the launch of Vostok 1 (12 April 1961); quoted by Sergey Viktorovich Novikov, in Большая историческая энциклопедия [The Greater Historical Encyclopedia] (2003) by Olma Media Group, p, 943
- Variant translations: Let's ride!
- Let's drive!
- I am a friend, comrades, a friend!
- First words upon returning to earth, to a woman and a girl near where his capsule landed (12 April 1961) The woman asked: "Can it be that you have come from outer space?" to which Gagarin replied: "As a matter of fact, I have!" As quoted in The Air Up There : More Great Quotations on Flight (2003) by Dave English, p. 118
- Rays were blazing through the atmosphere of the earth, the horizon became bright orange, gradually passing into all the colors of the rainbow: from light blue to dark blue, to violet and then to black. What an indescribable gamut of colors! Just like the paintings of the artist Nicholas Roerich.
- Statement of April 1961, as quoted in Warrior of Light : The Life of Nicholas Roerich : Artist, Himalayan explorer and visionary (2002) by Colleen Messina, p. 46
- If all those people are getting wet to welcome me, surely the least I can do is get wet too!
- Asking for the roof of his car to be put back despite the pouring rain, during his visit to Manchester (12 July 1961), as quoted in "Yuri Gagarin: Mankind's first giant leap" in The Economist (3 August 2011)
- Облетев Землю в корабле-спутнике, я увидел, как прекрасна наша планета. Люди, будем хранить и приумножать эту красоту, а не разрушать её!
- Orbiting Earth in the spaceship, I saw how beautiful our planet is. People, let us preserve and increase this beauty, not destroy it!
- Russian phrase, handwritten and signed after his historic spaceflight, photo of facsimile published in Syny goluboi planety 3rd.edition (1981) by L. Lebedev, A. Romanov, and B/ Luk'ianov; the first edition was translated into English as Sons of the Blue Planet (1973) by L. A. Lebedev
- What beauty. I saw clouds and their light shadows on the distant dear earth.... The water looked like darkish, slightly gleaming spots.... When I watched the horizon, I saw the abrupt, contrasting transition from the earth's light-colored surface to the absolutely black sky. I enjoyed the rich color spectrum of the earth. It is surrounded by a light blue aureole that gradually darkens, becoming turquiose, dark blue, violet, and finally coal black.
- As quoted in Earth's Aura (1977) by Louise B. Young
- When they saw me in my space suit and the parachute dragging alongside as I walked, they started to back away in fear. I told them, don't be afraid, I am a Soviet like you, who has descended from space and I must find a telephone to call Moscow!
- Recalling his meeting with workers in a field, upon his landing, as quoted in "Life on Mars?" by Jesse Skinner in Toro magazine (14 October 2008)
Quotes about Gagarin
- Trying to describe the experience of going to space has been difficult from the very beginning. When Yuri Gagarin, the first man who went into space, returned to Earth, there was a huge reception in his honor. As his close friend and cosmonaut colleague Alexei Leonov tells it, then-premier Nikita Khrushchev cornered Gagarin "So tell me, Yuri," he asked, "did you see God up there?" After a moment's pause. Gagarin answered, "Yes sir, I did." Khrushchev frowned. "Don't tell any one," he said. A few minutes later the head of the Russian Orthodox Church took Gagarin aside. "So tell me, my child," he asked Gagarin, "did you see God up there?'" Gagarin hesitated and replied "No sir, I did not." "Don't tell anyone."
- Anecdote in New Age Journal, Vol. 7 (1990), p. 176
- He was like a sound amplified by a mountain echo. The traveller is small, but the mountains are great, and suddenly they merge into a single whole. Such was Yuri Gagarin.
To accomplish a heroic exploit means to step beyond one's own sense of self-preservation, to have the courage to dare what today seems unthinkable for the majority. And to be ready to pay for it. For the hero himself, his feat is the limit of all possibilities. If he leaves something "in reserve", then the most courageous deed thereby moves into the category of work: hard, worthy of all glorification, but — work. An act of heroism is always a breakthrough into the Great Unknown. Even given most accurate preliminary calculations, man enters into that enterprise as if blindfold, full of inner tension and ready for any outcome.
- Valentina Malmy, in Star Peace (1988), p. 218
- Gagarin - detailed biography at Encyclopedia Astronautica
- Photo, Audio and Video with Yuri Gagarin (in Russian), online version of CD created to his 70th anniv. on the homepage of Russian state archive for scientific-technical documentation (RGANTD).
- Transcripts of Gagarin's conversations from space (MS Word document, in Russian)
- Article in online Encyclopedia of cosmonautics A lot of information about the first human's flight to space (in Russian).
- Various information about Yuri Gagarin (in Russian) | <urn:uuid:f5526ca3-6cdc-4af6-9960-775121a30678> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Yuri_Gagarin | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942167 | 1,367 | 1.578125 | 2 |
This excerpt taken from the CYBS 10-K filed Mar 11, 2008.
Enterprise Software: CyberSource Payment Manager
The CyberSource Payment Manager product is based on modular systems architecture that allows this server to be installed into large customer infrastructures where a dedicated payment gateway interface will be used. The CyberSource Payment Manager is designed as a three-layer software architecture well suited for enterprise deployment. These layers include the multiple sales channel interface, core server, and database. The CyberSource Payment Manager core server supports a common programming interface that can be adapted to multiple sales channel enterprise systems. These sales systems could be used in conjunction with a call center in order to accept orders through an interactive voice response unit, from a Web server using hypertext transfer protocol, from a point-of-sale terminal, or from a wireless application protocol device. The database layer is based on a standard structured query language interface, offering a choice of implementations with any of the standard relational database management systems on the market. Database platforms currently used by our customers include Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, and Sybase. | <urn:uuid:0247297d-ec5e-442f-ba1c-e8ff2a238e25> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wikinvest.com/stock/CyberSource_(CYBS)/Enterprise%20Software%20Cybersource%20Payment%20Manager | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.903322 | 220 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Why register climate damages
A matter of justice.
Already today, climate change is causing more damage than any other man-made phenomenon. In the future, several hundred million people will lose their property due to climate change. Many of them will even lose their livelihoods. These people deserve and need compensation. Registering climate damages and securing proofs thereof is the crucial first step on the way to compensation.
A matter of reason.
People know better than organisations and aid bureaucrats how to build-up a new life. So it makes sense to compensate individually rather than pouring money into organisations.
Maybe even a matter of survival.
Everybody who is about to cause damage to mankind should be made liable. Liability would make people think twice before putting the earth at risk, be it by the emission of greenhouse gases or by uncontrollable technologies. Worldwide liability would increase our chances of survival on earth. Fighting for climate compensation might have a pioneer role. | <urn:uuid:7697a413-728a-4610-9ed3-ddbf18d3daac> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.claimer.org/whyregister | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951365 | 191 | 2.859375 | 3 |
You may need (or want) to run Windows, or other operating systems, alongside Mac OS X, and Parallels Desktop ( ) is the best-known of several programs on the market for that purpose. (Full native Windows support, of course, is also available via Apple’s Boot Camp, but it requires you to reboot out of OS X and into Windows.) A new-to-the-Mac player now brings a formidable challenger to the arena, however. VMware, an expert in x86 virtualization—that is, the ability to run one or more x86 operating systems as “guests” under a “host” x86 operating system —has released Fusion 1.0, its first OS X offering. Like Parallels, Fusion allows you to run many versions of Windows and other operating systems from within OS X. And unlike Boot Camp, you don’t have to log out and restart in order to use it.
VMware Fusion supports more than 60 operating systems: Windows coverage extends from version 3.1 to betas of Windows Server 2008. If Linux is your cup of tea, you’ll find support for Red Hat, Ubuntu, SUSE, Mandrake, and more. You can also install Novell Netware, Solaris 9 or 10, FreeBSD, and MS-DOS systems. Even 64-bit releases of Windows and some families of Linux, such as Red Hat and SUSE Enterprise Linux, are supported.
As a Windows machine
Fusion runs Windows quite well —I tested it with Windows XP Pro and Windows 2000. Fusion also supports Vista, although some features (such as Unity and driver support) aren’t fully functional with that OS. Given that Vista is brand new, this isn’t surprising.
One of the key factors that differentiates Fusion from Parallels is Fusion’s ability to use two CPU cores within a virtual machine; Parallels can’t, and this makes a big difference in the performance of CPU-intensive tasks. It also seems to pay off by giving you a generally more responsive Windows experience.
Fusion has an Easy Install mode for Windows Vista, XP, and 2000. I tested this with a fresh XP Pro installation, and it worked perfectly—installing Windows in a virtual machine via Easy Install is actually easier than installing Windows on a real PC.
After Windows boots for the first time, you need to install VMware Tools on top of it using the Virtual Machine: Install VMware Tools menu item. This package improves graphics performance, adds support for shared folders and drag-and-drop, automatically grabs and releases the mouse pointer when in the virtual machine, and much more. VMware Tools can (and should) be installed on top of both Windows and Linux virtual machines.
Other paths to Windows
You may already have Windows installed on your Mac via either Parallels or Boot Camp, and Fusion will let you use either (or both) of those installations as Fusion virtual machines. Setting up your Boot Camp partition as a Fusion virtual machine is quite simple, and it worked perfectly in my tests. I wasn’t asked to reactivate Windows again, although some users have reported this problem. To avoid this and other issues, make sure you follow the instructions in VMware’s help documents (Help: VMware Fusion Help, then search for Boot Camp ) exactly as they are written.
The process of converting a Parallels virtual machine is more complicated. You’ll need to read the instructions in the Converting a Parallels Virtual Machine to Run in VMware Fusion PDF file, which you can download from the VMware site. I worked through the conversion process (including adding multiple CPU support), and while it took about an hour to process my 10GB Parallels virtual machine on my Mac Pro, it did work as described. The process isn’t overly complicated, but there are a number of steps to follow. (To help, we’ve written a set of instructions you can use alongside the VMware documents ). When it’s done, you’ll have your Parallels Windows installation up and running in Fusion, with the exact same programs and files as you had in Parallels.
Performance and usability
I tested a number of standard applications in Fusion, including Office 2007, Adobe Reader 8.1, Firefox 184.108.40.206, Apple’s Safari 3.0.3 and QuickTime 7.2, Windows Media Player 11, and the Trillian Basic 3.1 chat program. Office 2007 ran just fine, and I was even able to open and run one of my Mac Office 2004 Excel spreadsheets with embedded macros—something that I won’t be able to do in the upcoming Mac Office 2008, as Microsoft will drop macro support from the Mac version of Office.
Adobe Reader, Firefox, Safari, and Trillian all ran as expected—compatibility in Fusion with typical Windows applications such as these is excellent. The programs load quickly, are stable, and work as well as they do in a native Windows environment.
Video playback in Windows Media Player, even using high-definition demo clips from Microsoft, was smooth. I had a bit of trouble with audio lag and skipping in a few of the QuickTime video clips, but they were generally still easy to watch.
I was also able to use the DVD burner on the Mac Pro to add files to a CD-RW disc, and the iSight camera works, so long as you install the iSight drivers from Apple’s Boot Camp Windows drivers disc.
Fusion also supports some 3-D games, though the support is limited to older DirectX 8.1 games. Fusion’s release notes list only 11 supported games, all much older than the 40 or so listed on Parallels’ site. (Fusion 1.1, now in beta, will add support for DirectX 9.0, which should expand the list of supported games.) I was able to find and run demos for a few of the games on the list, and they worked reasonably well—my steering wheel worked in the driving games, for instance, though the force feedback did not. If you really want to play games on your Windows Mac, though, Apple’s Boot Camp provides the best performance.
Fusion includes excellent USB 2.0 support, so you shouldn’t have any trouble with most third party devices—not even products such as GPS receivers and Windows Mobile phones. I wasn’t able to get my Wacom tablet working in the Windows XP virtual machine; a search of the VMware forums revealed that this is a known issue.
Fusion’s Unity mode intermingles and fully integrates your Windows applications alongside your OS X applications. Any open Windows window becomes an independent, fully drop-shadowed OS X window—and running Windows applications have their own dock icons.
Fusion supports Windows XP in Unity mode, and has experimental support for Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Vista—meaning that you might see some visual glitches if you try to use Unity with one of those operating systems. Unfortunately, Unity only supports one monitor, so you won’t be able to drag your Windows windows onto a second screen. There’s no Start menu like the one you get with Parallels’ analogous Coherence mode; instead, you use a floating Launch Applications window, and the Applications menu mimics most, but not all, of the Start menu’s features. (Fusion 1.1 will optionally show the Start menu and task bar in Unity mode—though this option is off by default.)
Fusion also lets you create snapshots of your virtual machines, which makes it simple to undo changes. Take a snapshot before you install a program, for instance, and you can then revert to that snapshot via the menu if you decide you don’t want that program installed. Unlike Parallels, which accommodates multiple snapshots per virtual machine (allowing you more flexibility to work in stages), Fusion permits just one.
Sharing files between the Mac and the virtual machine is quite simple, too. You can create shared folders that are visible within Fusion, or you can (at least with Windows virtual machines) simply drag and drop files between the Finder and the virtual machine, and vice-versa.
Fusion can run multiple virtual machines with much less RAM usage than you might expect. It does this by sharing the RAM that’s used for identical features among the opened virtual machines. So if you’re running two different Windows XP virtual machines, much of the RAM is shared, saving memory for additional virtual machines. In practice, I was able to run three Windows virtual machines and a Fedora Core Linux virtual machine simultaneously on my 4GB Mac Pro without running into any notable slowdowns.
Finally, Fusion tries to minimize its impact on native OS X applications, so that you won’t see slowdowns in Pages, for instance, because your Windows XP Outlook is busy checking your e-mail. I ran many OS X programs alongside Windows apps in Fusion, and never noticed any problems.
Run many different systems
Fusion supports VMware’s Virtual Appliances, ready-to-run virtual machines, many of which can be downloaded and installed free of charge from a library of nearly 600 different choices. If you’ve ever wondered what it might be like to run Linux, Virtual Appliances are a great way to take a test drive. For instance, the Fedora 7 Virtual Appliance, can be downloaded, expanded, and then opened—and presto, you’re running Fedora Core, with no installation required.
Help and support
While VMware has many enterprise customers, Fusion is clearly targeted to consumers. Unfortunately, support options are somewhat limited. Your purchase includes 30 days of free online support that covers installation as well as help using the VMware Converter to convert your Parallels virtual machines.
There’s also extensive help available via the application’s Help menu. The help file loads in your browser, but it includes a full table of contents, index, search feature, and the ability to mark certain sections as Favorites for easy future reference.
Online, you’ll find a free knowledge base and the VMware forums. The forums, at least based on what I saw during my time there, have a lot of good information, and both users and VMware employees often answer questions quickly. There’s also a free (registration required) collection of Fusion training videos that cover topics such as converting Parallels virtual machines, using USB storage and iSight cameras, printer setup, and more. If you need additional support, you can buy per-incident e-mail support in packs of one ($25), three ($70), and five ($100), each of which are good for one year. Various additional onsite support plans are available for business customers.
E-mail support was prompt (VMware lists a response time of no more than 24 hours) and useful, and the support staff resolved an issue I had with the VMware Converter.
Both Fusion and Parallels have their strengths and weaknesses when it comes to support. Parallels offers unlimited e-mail support, but response time may be slow, and telephone support is $30 per call. Fusion has a very good manual, training videos, and a strong community forum, but there’s no telephone support.
Overall, as with Parallels, you may find that it’s often faster and cheaper to use the Web and your favorite search engine to find answers to your problems.
Macworld’s buying advice
Fusion 1.0 is a viable competitor to Parallels, and for consumers, that’s a good thing. Already, the release of Fusion has inspired an incremental upgrade in Parallels so that its Coherence feature more closely matches what you get with Unity—and there’s the upcoming Fusion 1.1 that will add better 3-D graphics support, improvements in Unity mode, support for the Eject key, and a host of other improvements.
I found Fusion easy, fast, stable (I had no hard lockups during my testing), and very well thought out. Its game support doesn’t match that of Parallels, but if you’re serious about gaming in Windows, you’re not going to be using either of these programs anyway.
Although it’s a very close call between these two excellent virtualization programs, I currently prefer Fusion for its low impact on other OS X applications, support for multiple virtual CPUs, and huge library of virtual appliances.
[Macworld Senior Editor Rob Griffiths runs the Mac OS X Hints Web site. ]Fusion 1.0 supports some older DirectX 8.1 games; here’s a pre-start shot of Microsoft’s RalliSport Challenge demo. (Fusion 1.1, currently in beta, will support newer games that require DirectX 9.0.) Frame rates at 800-by-600 resolution worked well on my Mac Pro, and my steering wheel operated, albeit without force feedback.In Unity mode, Windows and OS X windows freely intermingle. A floating launch window lets you start additional Windows applications. In Unity mode, Windows’ windows function the same way as OS X windows—they can be minimized, and they work correctly with Exposé. | <urn:uuid:b0f5608c-9836-4464-b3c0-6f1e27397b70> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.macworld.com/article/1060236/vmwarefusion.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922831 | 2,779 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Benazir Bhutto at Willamette University
Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister of Pakistan and the first woman to head the government of an Islamic state, will deliver the Willamette University spring Atkinson Lecture Feb. 18, 2004, in Smith Auditorium at 8 p.m. Ticket information will be released in January.
Benazir Bhutto was born in 1953 in Karachi, Pakistan, to a prominent political family. At age 16, she left her homeland to study at Harvard's Radcliffe College. After completing her undergraduate degree, she studied at England's Oxford University, where she was awarded a second degree in 1977. Later that year she returned to Pakistan where her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, had been elected prime minister, but days after her arrival, the military seized power and her father was imprisoned. In 1979 he was hanged by the military government of General Zia Ul Haq.
Bhutto herself was also arrested many times over the following years and was detained for three years before being permitted to leave the country in 1984. She settled in London, but along with her two brothers, she founded an underground organization to resist the military dictatorship. When her brother died in 1985, she returned to Pakistan for his burial and was again arrested for participating in anti-government rallies.
She returned to London after her release and after martial law was lifted in Pakistan at the end of the year. Anti-Zia demonstrations resumed and Benazir Bhutto returned to Pakistan in April 1986. The public response to her return was tumultuous and she publicly called for the resignation of Zia Ul Haq, whose government had executed her father.
She was elected co-chairwoman of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) along with her mother, and when free elections were finally held in 1988, she herself became prime minister. At 35, she was one of the youngest chief executives in the world and the first woman to serve as prime minister in an Islamic country.
Only two years into her first term, President Ghulam Ishaq Khan dismissed Bhutto from office. She initiated an anti-corruption campaign, and in 1993 was re-elected as prime minister. While in office, she brought electricity to the countryside and built schools all over the country. She made hunger, housing and health care her top priorities and worked to continue to modernize Pakistan.
At the same time, Bhutto faced constant opposition from the Islamic fundamentalist movement. Her brother, Mir Murtaza, who had been estranged from Benazir since their father's death, returned from abroad and leveled charges of corruption at Benazir's husband, Asif Ali Zardari. Mir Murtaza died when his bodyguard became involved in a gunfight with police in Karachi. The Pakistani public was shocked by this turn of events and PPP supporters were divided over the charges against Zardari.
In 1996 President Leghari of Pakistan dismissed Bhutto from office, alleging mismanagement, and dissolving the National Assembly. A Bhutto re-election bid failed in 1997 and the next elected government was overthrown by the military. Her husband was imprisoned, and once again Benazir Bhutto was forced to leave her homeland. Today, Benazir Bhutto lives with her two children in London, where she continues to Advocate for the restoration of democracy in Pakistan.
Ms. Bhutto is the author of "Foreign Policy in Perspective" (1978) and her autobiography, "Daughter of Destiny" (1989). She received the Bruno Kreisky Award for Human Rights in 1988 and the Honorary Phi Beta Kappa Award from Radcliffe in 1989. | <urn:uuid:e495e313-a99c-48af-bf47-4d6db122f89e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://willamette.edu/news/library/2003/10/benazir_bhutto_2.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985931 | 759 | 1.875 | 2 |
GALLIPOLIS, Ohio — A new exhibit titled “Stitch Wizardry” featuring the textile work of artist Sue King will be opening at the French Art Colony (FAC) on Friday, Nov. 2.
Continuing through Nov. 25, the display of King’s work at the FAC features several different pieces constructed of a variety of materials including cottons, denim, wool, viscose, velour, re-purposed clothing, many which are enhanced with various dyes and paints, as well as beads.
Employed as a social worker and living in Lancaster, Ohio, King grew up on a small farm in central Ohio and learned to embroider and sew from her mother. Reportedly, King loved the beauty and textural quality of fabrics and began to make quilts, but then became bored with the traditional patterns.
As with viewing any artist’s work, one wonders what image or inspiration King draws from when working on her textile pieces. King does briefly explain her ideas behind her art in the FAC’s exhibit, and her statement includes the following:
Always fascinated by history and enthralled with old photographs, my work is often a dialog with the past. My textile pieces call forth the ghost into the room, searching for a way to connect our present condition with the human experience of those who came before. As a clinical social worker, I am ever searching for connections with others: the emotions and commonalities of experience binding us together and defining what it means to be human. The eyes of the human face often betray the mask people present to the world at large. Through portraiture, I seek to penetrate this facade and expose the emotion hidden from view.
FAC gallery hours are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, and 1-5 p.m. on Sunday.
For more on King’s work, visit www.suekingarts.com. For more on the FAC, visit www.frenchartcolony.org. | <urn:uuid:3de4b036-3c19-4c33-8bc7-847b55991889> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mydailyregister.com/pages/full_story/push?article-Textile+talent%20&id=20686812 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959244 | 435 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Cure is a powerful word and one that should be used with care, particularly when discussing cancer. Although less headline-grabbing, the term disease-free survival is accurate and cautiously optimistic. And when it comes to cancer, any cause for hope has to be a good thing.
A study in this week's Lancet
gives a glimmer of such hope. The latest results of the Intergroup Exemestane Study (IES) suggest that switching to the aromatase inhibitor exemestane after 2—3 years of treatment with tamoxifen improves disease-free survival in postmenopausal women with breast cancer, even after they have stopped treatment. An accompanying Comment puts these results in perspective. While its authors agree that these findings provide some limited evidence to advise all women on tamoxifen to switch to exemestane, this approach might have potentially serious side-effects. Exemestane is one of three aromatase inhibitors that show promise in the treatment of breast cancer, but their use is not without risk. As a study in this month's Lancet Oncology
shows, switching from tamoxifen to exemestane has a detrimental effect on bone mineral density.
There could be additional cause for hope in breast cancer. The US Food and Drug Administration recently cleared for marketing a test that may be able to determine disease-free survival after breast cancer. Using microarray analysis, the test measures the activity of each of 70 genes that are potentially involved in cancer recurrence in a sample of a woman's breast tumour. An algorithm produces a score which could predict the woman's risk of recurrent disease. The FDA is planning to produce guidance on the use of such tests, but its approval of this one may lead to similar tests becoming more widely available.
US cancer statistics also offer hope. As we recently highlighted in a World Report
, the number of cancer deaths in the USA declined for the second year running, suggesting that the trend is real and not a statistical fluke. Screening and improved treatment, particularly for colorectal cancer and breast cancer, are thought to be partly responsible for the drop in death rate.
In light of such progress, it is worryingly short sighted that President Bush plans to cut the budget of the National Cancer Institute for the second consecutive year by almost 1%—nearly US$36 million. This cut will affect a study evaluating whether aromatase inhibitors can prevent breast cancer. In a recent interview published in the newspaper USA Today, the vice-president of the American Society of Oncology said that this approved study was now “positively on hold”. However, the budget cut also means that research into rarer cancers, such as sarcomas, is likely to be curtailed or stopped altogether. Since so little research is done by the international research community into rare cancers, perhaps the NCI should divert funds into studying less common tumours, as research by others into the more common types is always likely to be plentiful.
With the caveat that Europe consists of a heterogeneous group of countries and pooled data do not necessarily reflect the situation in individual EU member states, the latest European figures on cancer incidence and mortality show that Europe as a whole lags behind the USA. A recent report studying 18 cancers in 39 European countries, published in the Annals of Oncology, shows that incidence of all forms of cancer increased from 2·9 million in 2004 to 3·2 million in 2006. Over 1·7 million Europeans died from cancer, a figure will continue to rise until 2015 due to an ageing European population. For example, despite earlier detection and improved treatment, deaths from breast cancer, the leading cause of death from cancer in European women, are still rising as the population ages. Breast cancer is the most common cause of cancer diagnosed overall in Europe. But hopefully, this is a temporary situation due to increased detection because of improved screening practices, and as with the US pattern, incidence may start to level off in a few years.
Although the old adage that prevention is better than cure is arguably most relevant when it comes to cancer, developing new treatments for patients should remain a priority. But the other key aspects of cancer management should not be forgotten. Prevention, screening, diagnosis, treatment, and palliation all deserve equal attention from the international research community. Despite many resources and much attention, one of the main pursuits of medicine—finding a cure for cancer—still remains elusive. But as the study in this week's Lancet highlights, rather than a giant leap forward, perhaps this goal is more likely to be achieved through small, incremental steps. | <urn:uuid:c824699a-7886-4182-9ae9-413ef2771937> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(07)60243-8/fulltext | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955082 | 944 | 2.875 | 3 |
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I'm a leek novice and as a result, hadn't really thought through the practicalities of growing them - I didn't realise they had such a long growing time I've planted some seeds in modules, currently sitting in cold frame with nothing doing. Problem
garden was designed for a family of nine, which we used to be, but now I am on my own I keep over-producing - so hard to adapt - and i don't get the same satisfaction from a bunch of my own flowers. My gardening "Bible" tells me that leeks will only grow
Home-grown leeks are far superior to those bought in shops. They are very easy to grow from seed, and if you sow at intervals from February to June you can harvest from late August, through winter until the following February.Like most other
How long does the fleece stay on? My guess that is to stop birds pulling the leeks out of the ground until they are rooted??-so not long-have to admit have never heard of this before I always grow mine in modules and wait until they are a few inches
This has been a very productive year on my veg plot. Most of my favourite crops have performed extremely well, with good yields of delicious, fat vegetables. But, I have to admit, the leeks have been very disappointing. I’ve never known such a
Has anyone here grown them? Got some from a seed swap some months back. Planted the bulbs some weeks ago in modules but no sight of life yet. Weatherwise I can understand why they haven't since It's been raining for at least 40 days and 40 nights here in Bristol (it feels like it...
Monty Don demonstrates how to plant out leek plants from plugs to grow smaller, more tender leeks.summerMore video advice on growing vegetablesPlanting out leeks.Growing carrots in a container.Growing early potatoes.Harvesting garlic.
Monty Don demonstrates how to plant out leeks without damaging their roots, offering advice on planting depths and watering frequency.summerMore video advice growing vegetablesPlanting out leek plugs.Growing courgettes.Harvesting carrots
My local garden centre is advertising leek plants for sale, could this be a misprint or can you plant leeks this late? ref lizzie and leeks no this is not a misprint maybe flying a bit close time wise but leeks are pretty hardy,buy them water them
The leeks on my allotment have gone to seed. Are they still alright to use for cooking.? The centre seem to be a bit soft. Also any hints on growing show leeks, I am taking part in a local competition only a bit of fun, but I would like to have a | <urn:uuid:83b9cb43-b0b6-4621-bd72-7311aa776e03> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gardenersworld.com/search/growing-leeks/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96069 | 575 | 2.0625 | 2 |
UN Global Compact turns a blind eye to corporate malpractices
Corporate lobbying within UN negotiations has managed to block effective solutions for global problems related to climate change, food production, poverty, water and deforestation. Instead, false solutions are being promoted that serve business interests, while further concentrating the control of corporations over land, resources and the lives of people.
That is the core premise of the Joint Civil Society Statement 'Ending Corporate Capture of the United Nations'‚ initiated by Friends of the Earth International and nine other organizations in the run up to the UN Rio+20 Conference.
The statement, which has circulated since 19 April, is currently endorsed by more than 250 society organizations from around the world.
In response to the statement, the UN Global Compact office says it has always been careful to make clear that 'the UN and the business community do not share the same core objectives; merely, that in some key areas, business, civil society, the UN, and governments have common areas of interest' (1).
However, the initiators of the statement maintain that the UN Global Compact initiative turns a blind eye to corporate malpractices, and facilitates corporate co-optation of UN processes and outcomes.
Thus while the Global Compact claims that businesses that have signed 'adhere to internationally accepted standards', in reality many of them consistently fail to comply. That is because, contrary to what the Global Compact says, there is no credible accountability mechanism. The Global Compact only expels companies if they don’t report on human rights violations, not for perpetrating these violations as such.
According to Paul de Clerck, Corporates Campaign Coordinator with Friends of the Earth International, 'The Global Compact response completely ignores the core of the message, which is that they give far too much influence to the private sector and have forgotten that it is the UN's role to protect people and nature against corporate crimes. As a result, the UN is increasingly promoting false solutions that do not serve the public interest but mainly help companies to increase their profits'.
This observation is not only shared by the ten initiators of the statement but by the international NGO-community at large. In a recent statement made by the NGO Major Group at the UN Rio+20 talks in New York, civil society has warned governments and UN organizations alike precisely against the danger of corporate capture. The NGOs call on governments to adopt a strong regulatory framework for large corporations with mandatory reporting requirements and accountability mechanisms, rather than relying on mere voluntary commitments or corporate social responsibility.
Rio+20 negotiations in NY ended last week with no major agreements but to extend the talks for another round before Rio+20 conference itself.
“We believe that if Rio+20 outcomes are expected to be the real ‘Future We Want’, the resumption of informal negotiations on May 29th will need to shift towards addressing the structural imbalance in power between corporations and UN Member States. The Green Economy is being used as a mechanism to allow corporate interests to capture the environment and development agenda at the UN”, says AnilNaidoo of the Council of Canadians, one of the ten initiators of the Civil Society Statement to end corporate capture of the UN.
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT
Paul de Clerck, Corporates Campaign Coordinator, Friends of the Earth International (in Brussels), Tel + 32 494380959
Lucia Ortiz, Economic Justice International Program Coordinator, Friends of the Earth International (in Brazil), Tel: + 55 51 98418707
NOTES TO EDITORS
(1) Global Compact response to CS Statement
(2) Remark by NGO Major Group on the green economy at Rio+20 talks in New York, May 1, 2012:“Civil society remains deeply uncomfortable with the green economy concept, that is being used forgreenwashing the old discredited model of unsustainable development as exemplified by the yawning gap between the conditions of the 99% and the 1%. This is particularly evident in the over emphasis by some countries which insist on promoting the leading role of the private sector in the green economy. At the same time there is opposition to proposals for stricter regulatory mechanisms for large corporations, in particular Transnational Corporations. The stress on market-based mechanisms for the green economy which by definition supports trading of carbon, forests and biodiversity and water, for example are major concerns for us and which for which we remain firmly oppose.” | <urn:uuid:fbf3134c-9f18-44ec-ab7d-a44470c358b8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.foei.org/en/media/archive/2012/un-global-compact-turns-a-blind-eye-to-corporate-malpractices | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933061 | 899 | 2.03125 | 2 |
Example Enrollment Form
Are you currently in the Fond du Lac School District and want to enroll your student in the lottery for the Fond du Lac STEM Academy? Follow the directions and use the PDF link below to help you out.
1. Obtain an In-District Open Enrollment Form. You can get one from any school in the district or from the District Administration Offices. Please keep in mind that this is a new, separate school and not just an after-school program.
2. Fill out the form with the information it requests. Make sure in the "School Requesting" box to write "STEM Academy" by number 1.
3. Flip the page over and read the back. It has extra information about enrolling into the STEM Academy that parents need to know.
4. Sign and date the back of the form as well. Turn the form back to your child's current school or the Fond du Lac School District Main Office.
IF YOU DO NOT CURRENTLY RESIDE IN THE FOND DU LAC SCHOOL DISTRICT: Please visit http://dpi.wi.gov/sms/psctoc.html. Fill out the form to open enroll into the Fond du Lac School District. When picking the school, you'll have to choose "other" and then write in "STEM Academy."
**This PDF is NOT an actual Open Enrollment form. Please use it as a guide if you need help filling the form to assure that your student is entered into the STEM Academy lottery. You can get In-District Open Enrollment froms from any school in the district or the District Offices.
Sample Enrollment Form
Please click here to view the areas of the Enrollment form that you will need to complete for consideration for enrollment at the STEM Academy.
Please note: THIS IS NOT THE ACTUAL IN-DISTRICT OPEN ENROLLMENT FORM. You will have to obtain the form from your child's current school or the District Offices.
posted 1/26/2012 in Example Enrollment Form | <urn:uuid:e92af4b3-31c5-4925-9959-a7ade5558688> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fonddulac.k12.wi.us/article/example-enrollment-form/1955 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924888 | 423 | 2.15625 | 2 |
An Ounce Of Prevention
Sometimes a $1,000 disaster can be prevented with a $4 hose. That’s the finding of many Wilmington NC homeowners who end up paying a lot for repairs that could have been prevented with just an ounce of inexpensive prevention.
One of the best places to check first is any place in your home that can be damaged by water. A survey by the American Society of Home Inspectors found that 40% of home maintenance problems are related to water. Water seeping into the basement or crawlspace, leaks from neglected washer and dishwasher hoses, and leaking pipes can leave you wet and poor.
Pay attention to the following items in your home regularly:
• Check for leaks from appliance hoses (washer and dishwasher), connections to the hot water heater and humidifier, outside spigots, exposed plumbing. Tighten all connections.
• After a heavy rain, check for water in attics, basements and crawlspaces. Make repairs as soon as the area is dry.
• Backed-up gutters can cause water to seep back up into the attic. The solution is simple, though: regularly remove leaves and debris from the gutter system.
• Check the circuit breakers about every six months.
• Check switches when lights seem to blink when the switch is touched.
• Keep wall-socket plates secure and replace broken ones.
A/C and Heating System
• Check these systems at least once a year; have them cleaned and serviced. You could save thousands in repair/replacement bills later, and improve operating efficiency thereby lowering monthly costs.
• If you have a fireplace, make sure it is professionally inspected and cleaned annually. Wood-burning fireplaces can cause creosote to build up in their chimneys–a dangerous fire hazard.
To Search all Wilmington NC real estate please visit www.cbbaker.com | <urn:uuid:236ca840-fe99-4824-ac55-9addfd759434> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wilmingtonncrealestateguide.com/tag/buying-wilmington-nc-real-estate/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928876 | 395 | 1.898438 | 2 |
Fridays are tip days at SimpleProductivity blog.
I’ll start by saying this isn’t my idea. I saw a picture of something similar on Facebook and decided that I needed to give it a try.
A hostage box is a place where we put all the things that were left out, and they can only be redeemed by doing a chore. The purpose behind this is to get people in the habit of putting stuff away after it has been used.
My daughter, and to a certain extent myself, have a habit of not putting things away. After clearing piles of toys, papers, books and video games off the kitchen table so we could eat dinner, I watched my daughter dump everything into the living room. I decided it was time to give the hostage box a try.
How It Works
A hostage box is simply a storage container in which you place things that have been left out. They reside in the box until the person who owns them redeems them by doing a chore picked from the chore pocket.
Making A Hostage Box
I picked up the supplies for the hostage box at my local department store, and from what I had laying around. First was the box. I didn’t have one available, so I opted to purchase one that is somewhat see through. This allows people to see that the box isn’t empty.
I used packing tape to attach 3 sheet protectors to the box: one on top, to hold the rules, one on the side to label it the “hostage box” and one as a backdrop to the chores pouch.
I made the three signs on my computer, but you could just as easily handwrite on printer paper and put it in the protectors.
The chore pouch is made out of a pencil pouch from a previous school year. That is taped to the chore backdrop using packing tape.
Choosing The Chores
The chores were typed up on paper and put into the pouch, folded. They include the less-than-fun things for housecleaning or things that continually get whining.
- Practice your musical instrument 30 minutes without stopping
- Clean the outside and base of the toilet
- Wipe down one shelf in the fridge
- Dust the kitchen lights
- Vacuum the couches
- Wash the car
There is also a single “get out of jail free” card in there as well that allows the redemption of an item with no chore.
Making It Fair
My husband is not participating in this experiment, but my daughter and I have some ground rules.
- Bedrooms are off limits.
- Things on our desks are off limits.
- Mailboxes are off limits.
- Items have to be left 10 minutes or longer before they are eligible for the box.
- General use items like tape and scissors have to be put away immediately.
We also did a cleanup of our stuff first, then let the other person do a walk through before we started the initial collection. This gave us a clean slate to start from.
Results So Far…
I have been pleased. Stuff has stopped collecting in my kitchen and living room, and even I am remembering to put things away. The whole house seems better for the lack of clutter lying around.
My daughter has managed to snag me a couple of times as I left my iPad lying around. Since I work with it, I was prompt to redeem it from the box. She has redeemed a few items, but a few have been in the box for weeks. We may have to come up with a way to deal with objects that are obviously not wanted or used.
Do you have a way to put a lid on clutter? Share below.
Photo by Moi | <urn:uuid:1f6f4a73-2811-4c90-8c15-910987695b57> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.simpleproductivityblog.com/keeping-things-picked-up-with-a-hostage-box/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974143 | 772 | 1.929688 | 2 |
The chance of another Tunguska-size impact somewhere on Earth this century is about 30%. That isn’t the likelihood that you will be killed by an asteroid, but rather the odds that you will read a news headline about an asteroid impact of this size somewhere on Earth. Unfortunately, that headline could be about the destruction of a city, as opposed to an unpopulated region of Siberia.
The chance in your lifetime of an even bigger asteroid impact on Earth—with explosive energy of 100 megatons of TNT—is about 1%. Such an impact would deliver many times the explosive energy of all the munitions used in World War II, including the atomic bombs. This risk to humanity is similar to an individual’s odds of dying in a car accident. That risk is small, but would you drive a car without air bags and seat belts? The question is apt because our society is effectively doing so with regard to the risk of a devastating asteroid strike.
I’ve been concerned about this for years (actually decades, ever since Alvarez first came up with his dinosaur theory, which seems to have been recently confirmed). | <urn:uuid:435f2028-a19b-4923-8487-00ae1b5de186> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.transterrestrial.com/?p=47771 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959879 | 230 | 2.984375 | 3 |
Post RNC Reflections
A short way into his speech, Bush said of Kerry, "To pay for that spending, he is running on a platform of increasing taxes-and that's the kind of promise a politician usually keeps." That would be a 180 roll from Bush himself, who prefers to spend limitlessly without paying for it at all. But I digress. It reminds me once again that Bush should know what kinds of promises are usually kept. Indeed, his campaign promises regarding taxes are the only ones he seems to have bothered remembering once he got into office.
First it was because the economy was going great, and would go on being great as far as the eye could see, and the government was getting too much extra money. Then it was because we were in a recession, and the tax cuts would help pull us out. Now it's being argued that making them permanent will help push us over the top, at the same time that they say the economy they inherited was doing badly before they even got there. Oh, the flip-flopping.
It's one thing to get new evidence and change your mind. Not to do so would be considered plain stubborness; of the kind that some people call 'steadiness', and that others call 'boneheadedness.' It's another to radically change your explanation of an action or event based not on new information, but to manipulate the opinions of others. But now that we're all participating in the live action version of short attention span theater, it hardly matters:
..."Let me tell you what I think makes someone unfit for duty," Kerry said, turning his aim to Bush. "Misleading our nation into war in Iraq makes you unfit to lead this nation. Doing nothing while this nation loses millions of jobs makes you unfit to lead this nation. Letting 45 million Americans go without health care makes you unfit to lead this nation.
"Letting the Saudi royal family control our energy costs makes you unfit to lead this nation. Handing out billions of government contracts to Halliburton while you're still on their payroll makes you unfit.
"That, my friends, is the record of George Bush and Dick Cheney -- and that only begins to scratch the surface."
Steve Schmidt, a spokesman for the Bush campaign, called the speech "another example of John Kerry trying to divide America over the past." ...
Ah yes, the past. Which, according to Schmidt, should apparently be reckoned in terms of mere hours. It could once be said by William Faulkner that "The dead past isn't dead -- it isn't even past." If only that were true in this country today beyond the small handful of people who watch politics as though it were a sport, endlessly reliving Nixon-McGovern and Bush-Dukakis.
Of course, the media is the ultimate in aiding the loss of attention span, watching politics as though it were a fashion show. But as Richard at Seeing the Forest reminds us, they're just doing their jobs. So maybe the Bush campaign will get away with trying to suggest that the last four years should be put behind us, spilled milk. Maybe they've taken this as their motto:
"Nobody with a good car needs to be justified. ...Where you come from, is gone. Where you thought you were going to, weren't never there. And where you are, ain't no good unless you can get away from it." - Ministry Jesus Built My Hotrod, extended version
So let's go with something that's in progress, and see if the administration can get away from it. The September edition of the Harper's Index reports that over $85 million set aside for water programs in Iraq will be diverted to the operating costs of the U.S. embassy in that country. That's some brass. Apparently no one has explained to Ambassador Negroponte the nontrivial chance that if the water doesn't get going again, that embassy may end up acting as the last staging area for an ignominious retreat.
Here's what other people had to say about the proceedings:
John McCain suggests that Zell might not play right with swing voters. And if McCain says it, we all have to sit up and take notice. For some reason. But let's hope he's right.
MyDD inspires some discussion about how to talk like a Republican while making use of the gift of the Bush record.
Political Animal: Kevin Drum has his own Zell roundup, and points to a debunking of the claim that Kerry voted against all modern military equipment. Ezra Klein talks about the unexpected play to the base, when everyone expected the convention to be geared to the swing vote.
American Prospect Online: Robert Reich talks about what an ownership society really means. Mark Goldberg on the Kerry haters.
DailyKos is apparently swamped in traffic, so clicking through is dicey, but Kos relates that the letter Bush read that was supposedly from a soldier was indeed too good to be true. Kos pointed to Oliver Willis, who finds that it was written by someone who also happens to be a fellow at a conservative think tank. | <urn:uuid:e793f7b6-ae90-4b32-a099-d72f0fe24339> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kcdems.blogspot.com/2004/09/post-rnc-reflections.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979133 | 1,044 | 1.554688 | 2 |
In the past month there have been numerous thoughtful recommendations for improving the state's mental health system, and Connecticut is, from a policy perspective, well-positioned to implement most of these proposals.
Since the Report of the Blue Ribbon Commission on Mental Health was issued in July 2000, the state has pursued evidence-based practices and become a national leader in promoting a community-based, family- and consumer-oriented system of care.
Unfortunately, many of these innovative measures have been funded through federal grants that are limited in scope and time, or hampered by state budget constraints that have prevented their full implementation. In addition, funding for private nonprofit agencies that provide many community supports and services has not kept pace with state-operated counterparts. In short, Connecticut has the programmatic building blocks to construct the comprehensive community-based system of care it promised when state hospitals were closed, but not the resources to support it.
For example, it is well-documented that supportive housing is a cost-effective way to provide a stable living arrangement for families and individuals with mental illness, which reduces hospital expenditures and promotes self-sufficiency. However, despite recent investments by the state, housing subsidies fall well below the demand, forcing vulnerable people into shelters, and leaving discharge-ready people in expensive state hospital beds. Similarly, a federally supported initiative to expedite Social Security disability applications for people with mental illness is understaffed, and people with mental illness are being released from the state Department of Correction facilities are homeless.
Funding to expand school-based clinics and programs for children and youth have been cut, as the number of homeless youth rises. And despite a mental health parity law, private insurers routinely deny claims for mental health treatment services, particularly for children.
Although Connecticut has been recognized as having one of the best mental health systems in the country, accessing services and supports is still a futile effort for many. In fact, persons with mental illness routinely seek legal services because their services have been denied, reduced or terminated by agencies with limited funds.
Given this context, it is troubling that legislative proposals to authorize involuntary outpatient treatment for persons with mental illness have again been raised. The appeal of such a measure, which on its face sounds eminently reasonable, is understandable. However, it is fraught with complexities, starting with the fact that determining whether a person who is not currently a danger to self or others or gravely disabled, but is "potentially dangerous" is not straightforward. There is no system for identifying persons who might be dangerous, and violent behavior is not linked to a psychiatric diagnosis.
Because a forced medication or treatment law would restrict the fundamental civil rights of people with mental illness, there are questions about whether it would violate Connecticut's constitutional protections for these individuals. Certainly, it would require an enforcement system and court proceedings comparable to those used in New York, which cost more than $32 million per year. Consequently, it would be very costly, and use money that would be better spent on community services.
A Task Force Report on Issues Related to Involuntary Outpatient Commitment and Alternatives, which was issued in January 1997, rejected outpatient commitment and recommended specific alternative measures which were subsequently pursued by the state. Last year, the Judiciary Committee had a full hearing on similar legislation, which was opposed by groups as diverse as state agencies, psychologists and police officers, and rejected by the committee. This is the time to invest the state's limited resources into constructing a comprehensive system of screening, services and housing supports for children, youth and adults with mental illness rather than pursue a course that would divert funds from the real problem. It is the wrong tool for Connecticut.
Janet Van Tassel, a lawyer, is executive director of the Connecticut Legal Rights Project and founder and co-chairwoman of the Keep the Promise Coalition. | <urn:uuid:369101c4-f4da-440e-b78f-3ed58afe67d7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ctnow.com/news/hc-op-vantassel-forced-mental-health-treatment-wro-20130107,0,6154626.story | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972904 | 772 | 2.046875 | 2 |
Hanukkah Latkes: Increasing Our Dependence on Oil?
The fried potato pancakes called latkes are the traditional food of Hanukkah, the Jewish holiday which begins this year on the night of December 21. Explanations about the connection between the Eastern European potato pancakes and the commemoration of a battle against the ancient Assyrians generally involve a comparison of cooking oil and lamp fuel. An equally tenuous association between the triangular cookies called hamentashen and the tri-cornered hat of the biblical villain Haman are part of the Purim holiday tradition.
In 1946, Jewish intellectuals at the University of Chicago started what would become an annual event called the Great Latke-Hamantash Debate to explore the meanings of those two holiday foods. Over the years, topics have included historian Hanna Gray's assertion that "Renaissance humanism grew out of the revival of the latke" and Michael Silverstein's linguistic deconstruction--he pointed out that the English translation of the letters on the sides of the Hanukkah dreidl spell out T-U-M-S. Presenters have also included philosopher Martha Nussbaum and Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman. At the Harvard debate in 2007, Lawyer Alan Dershowitz accused the fried latke of increasing U.S. dependence on oil.
Over the years, the absurdist event has replicated and spread to numerous campuses including Harvard, Princeton and M.I.T. The latke debates follow in a long tradition of Jewish humor mimicking Talmudic study. In 2005, a book titled The Great Latke-Hamantash Debate which includes a compendium of debate topics was published by the University of Chicago Press.
At this year's 62nd Annual Latke-Hamantash Debate at the University of Chicago, it was noted that the round shape of the latke resembled the letter "O" and could therefore be associated with Barack Obama and a new spirit of diversity. Bumper stickers mimicking Obama's campaign graphics were handed out to attendees promising "Potatoes for Change: Latkes '08."
Julia's Crispy Latkes
Here's Julia Walsh's recipe for basic crispy latkes. If you're more ambitious, you can find recipes for butternut squash latkes and all sorts of gourmet latkes in the December Bon Appetit.
2 large russet potatoes, washed
1 large onion, peeled
1 egg, lightly beaten
Eighth of a cup flour
2 teaspoons kosher salt
Pepper to taste
Shred the potatoes and then pour them into a mixing bowl. Shred the onion, making sure to drain excess liquid before adding to the potatoes in the bowl. Add the egg, flour, salt and pepper and mix well.
Pour oil into a frying pan to the depth of one inch and heat on medium high heat. The oil is hot enough when a small shred of potato bubbles loudly. Take a handful of potato mixture and squeeze out excess moisture, then form it into a patty. Drop into the hot oil and flatten with a metal spatula. Cook for about 7-10 minutes on each side, or until it reaches the preferred shade of brown. Serve hot. Traditional toppings are sour cream and applesauce, but latkes are also excellent with meat and gravy.
Makes 6 to 8.
-- Robb Walsh
Photos by Julia Walsh | <urn:uuid:5386107c-be05-4018-8bfd-29b6cf3b4787> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.houstonpress.com/eating/2008/12/hanukkah_latkes_increasing_our.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934556 | 699 | 2.71875 | 3 |
With his suddenly aggressive second-term agenda, President Obama is recasting the Democratic Party around the priorities of the growing coalition that reelected him—and, in the process, reshaping the debate with the GOP in ways that will reverberate through 2016 and beyond.
On issues from gay rights to gun control, immigration reform, and climate change—all of which he highlighted in his ringing Inaugural Address last week—Obama is now unreservedly articulating the preferences of the Democratic “coalition of the ascendant” centered on minorities, the millennial generation, and socially liberal upscale whites, especially women. Across all of these issues, and many others such as the pace of withdrawal from Afghanistan and ending the ban on women in combat, Obama is displaying much less concern than most national Democratic leaders since the 1960s about antagonizing culturally conservative blue-collar, older, and rural whites, many of whom oppose them.
This pattern may partly reflect the sense of liberation that close allies say Obama feels because he will never have to run for office again. But even more important than the fact of his reelection may be the nature of it. Obama in 2012 faced even larger electoral deficits than he had four years earlier among the culturally conservative white voters whom Democrats have often feared to alienate by moving too far left, particularly on social and foreign policy issues. Yet his strong support from the key groups in his coalition allowed to him to not just win but to win comfortably, capturing 332 Electoral College votes and becoming only the third Democratic president ever to reach at least 51 percent of the popular vote twice.
In his victory, Obama reshaped the Democratic coalition by both addition and subtraction. Because so many of the blue-collar and older whites who formerly anchored the conservative end of the Democratic base abandoned Obama, and because more-liberal voters took their place, the coalition that reelected him was much more ideologically unified around a left-leaning agenda than has been usual for a Democratic nominee.
That outcome, insiders acknowledge, gives the president greater confidence to move forward aggressively on these issues without fear of dividing his supporters. Equally important, the fact that Obama’s key groups are all expanding within the electorate has stirred optimism among his advisers that the coalition of the ascendant could provide Democrats a durable advantage in presidential elections.
“If these things are accomplished in the next few years, if he can make progress on his agenda, I think that will help the coalition that elected him knit together more and create an identification with the Democratic Party that will endure beyond his presidency,” says David Axelrod, the senior strategist of the reelection campaign.
Obama’s ambitious agenda will create some pointed challenges for Democrats. By making it more difficult to recapture culturally conservative whites, his approach will increase the pressure on his successor to maintain lopsided margins and high turnout among minorities and young people; Republicans believe that will prove more difficult without Obama on the ballot in 2016. Even if the president deepens his affinity with his coalition’s cultural values, failing to deliver better economic growth by 2016 could also sour supporters. And while Obama’s agenda could help Democrats solidify a presidential majority, it could simultaneously make it tougher for them to control Congress, at least until demographic change ripples through more states and House districts still largely unaffected by it.
But Obama’s new thrust will also create risks for the Republican Party, especially in presidential politics. If congressional Republicans over the next four years block Obama’s initiatives on guns, immigration, climate, and other issues, they could deepen their party’s identification with shrinking parts of the electorate and widen their estrangement from the growing groups powering the coalition that has allowed Democrats to win the popular vote in five of the past six presidential elections. “These votes are going to continue the Democratic narrative that we are hostile to these groups,” worries Tom Davis, a former chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. “From a demographic point of view, this is a winner for the Democrats and a loser for the Republicans. They are putting a wall around these groups, and that makes it harder for Republicans” to retake the White House.
ADIOS, REAGAN DEMOCRATS
For decades, liberal political strategists have asked how the Democratic Party would behave if it could reduce its reliance on culturally conservative white voters. Throughout the past year, Obama has systematically provided an answer.
Over that period, he has accepted collisions with Republicans, as well as the most conservative members of his own party, to advance traditionally liberal positions on an array of issues, particularly social and foreign policy concerns. During the campaign, that impulse was evident in his requirement that employers providing health insurance offer no-cost contraception coverage (despite fierce opposition from the Roman Catholic Church); his move to administratively legalize young people brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents; his endorsements of gay marriage; and his call for comprehensive immigration reform that includes a pathway to citizenship for those here illegally. | <urn:uuid:18f24493-36dd-498a-b229-0005726bbf5a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/why-obama-is-giving-up-on-right-leaning-whites-20130131?page=1 | 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 | 0.970241 | 1,021 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Smith was born in Belfast, Ireland and immigrated to the United States in 1855 with his parents, who settled near Plymouth, Ohio, where he attended the public schools. He moved to Charlotte, Michigan, in 1867 where he engaged in agricultural pursuits and also worked as a mason. He graduated from the academic department of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in 1879 and from the law department in 1880. He was admitted to the bar in 1882 and commenced practice in Detroit. He was married to Lena Parkhurst in 1887.
Smith served as prosecuting attorney of Eaton County 1885-1888. He was president of the First National Bank of Charlotte in 1898 and also engaged in manufacturing and agricultural pursuits. Smith was a member of the board of aldermen in 1903 and a member of the State constitutional convention in 1908.
Smith was elected as a Republican to the Sixty-second and to the four succeeding Congresses, serving from March 4, 1911 until March 3, 1921. He was chairman of the United States House Committee on Labor in the Sixty-sixth Congress. Smith was not a candidate for renomination in 1920, but returned to Congress when he was elected to the Sixty-seventh Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the death of William H. Frankhauser, who died in office on May 9, 1921. Smith was reelected to the Sixty-eighth Congress, serving from June 28, 1921, until his death in Charlotte. He is interred in Maple Hill Cemetery in Charlotte. | <urn:uuid:80dd6dd2-e0de-4f07-b5ae-502bd791e2d0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.reference.com/browse/John_M._C._Smith | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.990668 | 313 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Video Vortex 9 submissions are due August 31.
VideoVortex #9 proposes that now is a time to re-engage with a ‘structural’ analysis of online-video culture. By calling for this re-engagement with structural questions and an analysis of ‘assemblages’, we point to the often loose forms of influence between components and processes each not fully determined by the other. Using this lens we do not aim to confine the analysis to particular theory brands (such as STS/ANT, Post-Marxist or Deleuzian approaches), we rather want to open up structural questions and to suggest a certain slicing.
Object-oriented approaches are as welcome as relational ones, critics as well as theorists and practitioners
From the overview of the event I noted these platforms to look into in more detail:
….videos get re-embedded and re-annotated in teaching platforms such as Sophie, Scalar and MediaThread, or in sub-curated diaries such as Facebook Timelines.
Mediathread is CCNMTL’s innovative, open-source platform for exploration, analysis, and organization of web-based multimedia content. Mediathread connects to a variety of image and video collections (such as YouTube, Flickr, library databases, and course libraries), enabling users to lift items out of these collections and into an analysis environment. | <urn:uuid:98f9cc4b-c401-4559-8f9b-3575f018dceb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sethkeen.net/blog/2012/08/29/video-vortex-assemblages/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942463 | 286 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Communication is the key
"Your son is an excellent communicator."
Marie Duggan had never heard those words until 1994 when she took her 4-year-old autistic son, Michael, to visit Howard Shane, PhD, director of Children's Hospital Boston's Communication Enhancement Center (CEC). Doctors told Marie and her husband that their son would never speak, and he would eventually have to be institutionalized, but the Duggans refused to send Michael away, hoping the CEC could help him communicate.
As Marie brought Michael to his first CEC visit, he was hysterical, kicking and screaming as she held him. Used to playing guessing games with their son, the Duggans tried to figure out what he wanted, as Dr. Shane quietly observed. "Right away, I knew he had the goods [to communicate],"
Dr. Shane says. "We just needed to provide him with the tools."
As a pediatric speech-language pathologist, Dr. Shane is very familiar with the situation the family experienced. Since 1977 he has worked at Children's with children who have communication problems. He solved their issues "a la carte" up until 1985, when the hospital developed the CEC at his urging. "More children were remaining at home, who normally would've been institutionalized," he says. "Technology was evolving, and I was interested in finding better solutions for children who couldn't communicate."
The CEC is now internationally renowned for providing comprehensive, state-of-the-art evaluation and treatment. They care for children and adults with congenital or acquired disorders like autism, cerebral palsy, traumatic brain disorders, as well as others that affect hearing, voice and speech. The staff includes speech-language pathologists, occupational therapists and computer specialists with expertise in augmentive communication. They determine communication options for patients with speech impairment and suggest the most appropriate educational technology solutions.
Clinicians at the CEC strive for each patient to be able to organize, understand and express themselves. They go through a systematic process of "feature matching," where each patient is evaluated to determine their language, thinking processes, motor skills and hearing. The specialist then determines which assistive technology will most improve the patient's ability to communicate.
Additionally, CEC clinicians are always searching for new ways to improve communication for their patients. The CEC's innovations include touch-screen activated communication devices, software programs and the use of voice recognition to help patients understand visual language.
Dr. Shane determined that a touch-activated communication device was an ideal assistive technology for Michael. The CEC taught all eight members of the Duggan family to use the device, and Michael's five brothers and sisters have recorded their voices into the system, which he loves.
After years of working with the device, trying other strategies and visiting the CEC, Michael began to speak in 2002. Marie credits Dr. Shane and the rest of the CEC team for her son's progress, and is grateful for all of their help. "Dr. Shane was the only person who always gave me hope," she says. "If it weren't for him, Michael wouldn't be speaking."
"Autism is such an isolating disease," she adds. "It's great to be treated so wonderfully, especially when you are used to being stared at in public. I always look forward to going to the CEC. I feel like everyone there ‘gets it'."
According to Dr. Shane, "Children who are the most successful receive strong support from their families and schools. While [the CEC] can't be all things to all people, we do research, develop assistive technologies and work with other professionals to help our patients communicate to their best ability."
While Michael still needs work with his articulation, he is speaking, which other doctors deemed impossible. "My other sons and daughters get so excited when Michael calls them by name," says Marie. Recently, Michael told his mother, "I love you. I need a hug." She immediately emailed Dr. Shane to tell him what happened. "Thanks to Dr. Shane and the CEC, I'm never giving up on this kid." | <urn:uuid:940074e9-9be9-43c5-b305-1b1e18712882> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.childrenshospital.org/views/december04/key.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983096 | 851 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Third Place Books
They call it the Espresso Book Machine, but even the spiffy new Version 2.0 won't brew up a double latte.
It will, however, print a book for a fledgling poet or deliver an individual copy of War and Peace in less than the time it takes you to drink that latte.
Maybe it's the name, but the biggest concentration of the newest Espresso Book Machines is in the Puget Sound region, already in operation at Village Books in Bellingham and Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park, and coming this month to the University of Washington Bookstore. Oscar's Art Bookstore in Vancouver, B.C., will install an EBM this year as well.
Introduced commercially in 2007 at the New York Public Library, the EBM is the brainchild of publishing executive Jason Epstein and inventor Jeff Marsh, who formed On Demand Books to market the machines, a marriage of robotic binding machinery and a commercial copier. The unit takes less space than a pair of commercial bookshelves, but has the potential of printing from a menu of millions of titles.
It's another way for independent booksellers to stay alive in a market threatened by online retailers, big-box discounters and electronic books.
Both Robert Sindelar of Third Place Books and Chuck Robinson of Village Books see three primary markets for their EBMs: 1) either public-domain (out of copyright) books or copyrighted books with very limited or specialized audiences; 2) self-published books by amateur authors or writers with specialized subjects; and 3) specialized books they can publish using their own bookstores.
Sindelar, looking for a "signature book" to launch his enterprise, is reprinting copies of Arthur Denny's 1892 book, Pioneer Days on Puget Sound, long out of print. Robinson is printing and marketing Impressions of the North Cascades: Essays about a Northwest Landscape, out of print for several years, and The Birth, Death and Resurrection of Fairhaven, a collection of reminiscences by George Hunsby from the early 20th Century.
None of these three books is readily available in bookstores, although used copies exist if they can be found. All EBM editions will be available for the cost of a standard paperback.
Retrieving lost book titles figures to be a steady use for the machines. The EBM gives independent bookstores a reserve of millions of public-domain books, whose copyrights have expired but for which there is a market, without holding an inventory. "There's a huge number of titles that sell a few books a year," says Village Books owner Robinson. "Together these books amount to something, but economy precludes keeping them in print and on the shelf."
Sindelar sees these lost titles as "expanding our title base as a bookstore," and as a method of retaining customers. On Demand Books boasts over 1.6 million public-domain titles, and added another 2 million through a contract with Google, which has been copying books in several of the nation's major university libraries. In addition, ODB has permission to copy over 200,000 books still under copyright; these will be available to Espresso Book Machine outlets.
Issues of copyright haunt every attempt to broaden the list of titles available through systems like the EBM. An ongoing struggle between Google — which has now scanned roughly 7 million titles in leading university libraries — and an array of authors, publishers and scholars, was settled in October, but limitations remain on the availability of copyrighted works to On Demand Books and holders of EBMs.
Congress in 1999 extended copyright protection to 70 years beyond the death of an author, even longer for corporate publication, and Google's agreement with On Demand Books covers only those books out of copyright. But that's still a very large library, full of specialized titles out of print for many years. Readers may read them digitally from Google, but the EBM machine allows them to order a printed volume at a reasonable cost.
Many of these books, less known than the relatively small number handled by the big publishers, are what Chris Anderson, in an influential 2004 Wired magazine article, dubbed "the long tail." His theory works for any element of mass culture; essentially the "long tail" is the trailing edge of a distribution curve, long and slender to represent very few sales of a specific item. Visualize the profile of a crouching rat. The large body represents the Robert Ludlums and J. K. Rowlings of the book world; the slim, tapering tail represents millions of books you've never heard of but might like if you knew about them and could get them inexpensively. (Hey, a couple of my books are in that tail!)
According to Anderson, Internet retailers such as Amazon.com have learned that selling "long tail" titles works. "If the Amazon statistics are any guide," he wrote, "the market for books that are not even sold in the average bookstore is larger than the market for those that are. In other words, the potential book market may be twice as big as it appears to be, if only we can get over the economics of scarcity." The EBM and the partnership of Google and On Demand Books is an attempt to deal with this phenomenon.
In the long run, depending upon copyright protections and the inevitable challenges of new technology, taking advantage of search engines and "long tail" requests is likely to be the future of booksellers investing in the EBM. But in the short run, their investments may require the patronage of folks with an idea for a book.
Booksellers Robinson and Sindelar need to attract self-publishing authors to bring in sufficient revenues to justify the $100,000 machines, which Robinson has leased but Sindelar has purchased. The possibilities for self-publishing are particularly great in well-educated communities such as Bellingham, Lake Forest Park and Seattle. Obvious subjects are poetry, community or family histories, memoirs, cookbooks, local guidebooks and other specialized publications that are not attractive or feasible for traditional publishers.
An author would purchase a publication package, depending on how much assistance is needed in preparing the copy and whether the author or the bookstore is to be the publisher. A basic package for 200 pages, black-and-white with a color paperback cover, could range from $7.50 to $12.50 per copy at the two stores.
Books are individually printed and bound as you watch. The drawback of this is the loss of any economy of scale. The 100th book costs exactly the same as the first one to print; don't look for Jeffrey Archer or Elizabeth George to be using the EBM. Another major limitation is the lack of color printing for the text; only the cover can utilize color. Color would open up large new fields for self-publishing, but at a much higher cost per-page, as is the case with copy machines.
Individual printing eliminates the costly guesswork of deciding on a press run that may not sell, leaving boxes of books in warehouses after costly printing and shipping. Since most of the operation is handled electronically, a copy can be ordered and shipped almost overnight without ever taking up shelf space at a bookstore. Authors will have access to the bookstores' marketing and online presences.
Like what you just read? Support high quality local journalism. Become a member of Crosscut today! | <urn:uuid:73d42e4c-8d9b-4a93-9d27-6f5f33030716> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://crosscut.com/2010/01/08/books/19492/Espresso-books-steaming-hot-off-press/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945414 | 1,524 | 1.515625 | 2 |
INAHTA (International Network of Agencies for Health Technology Assessment) a non-profit organization was established in 1993 and has now grown to 57member agencies from 32 countries including North and Latin America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. All members are non-profit making organizations producing HTA and are linked to regional or national government.
Many organizations throughout the world assess healthcare technology. There is an evident need to cooperate and share information from different cultures. INAHTA serves this purpose.
INAHTA´s mission is to provide a forum for the identification and pursuit of interests common to HTA agencies. The network aims to:
Accelerate exchange and collaboration among agencies
Promote information sharing and comparison
Prevent unnecessary duplication of activities.
To read more about INAHTA activites, click here.
May 17, 2013
For further information about voting in the 2013 Board Election, please visit the Member's Only area
May 10, 2013
Therefore a transitional arrangement, with SBU and ASERNIP-s working together as interim Secretariat, has been put in place and will remain until a new secretariat is elected at the annual meeting.
March 18, 2013
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INAHTA – International Network of Agencies for Health Technology Assessment e-mail: INAHTA@surgeons.org | <urn:uuid:e35c5c6b-7194-445d-9724-2aea78e5a82a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.inahta.org/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.901899 | 292 | 1.5 | 2 |
By Jacques Tardi
Published by Fantagraphics
I’ve been pretty delighted to see the crew at Fantagraphics translating and publishing some of the excellent work of acclaimed French BD artist Jaques Tardi over the last year or so (with more to come), but I’ve been especially keen to read the translation of his It Was the War of the Trenches, having first come across it in French a few years ago, just a few pages from it extracted in a French comics mag I’d picked up. Even those few pages made quite an impression on me and I’ve had a strong desire to read the whole book ever since, so before we start kudos to Fanta for publishing this and other works by Tardi for the English language readership.
Where do you start when your subject is the Great War? How do you approach a conflict which had casualties running into the millions? Which brought new levels of unbelievable, mechanised, mass-produced horror and slaughter to the world, which saw the fall of governments and whole empires, redrew the map, shattered an entire generation and broke social divides? The statistics from the First World War are mind-numbing; they become mere numbers after a while. Our brains simply cannot really process the fact of millions of deaths – we need the personal level in order for us to emotionally engage with the savage events and, like Mills and Colquhoun did with the classic British WWI series Charley’s War, we get that personal, soldier’s level view of events. The men in these trenches may only represent a fraction of the millions from many nations dug into the scarred earth of the trenches, but they are personalised, they’re real and that makes it much easier to identify with them and empathise with the awfulness of trench warfare.
(Tardi captures the industrialisation of the slaughter of war and contrasts the awful effectiveness of manufactured steel and explosives against human bodies and the very earth itself, a Hellish landscape where even the dead cannot rest; (c) Tardi, published Fantagraphics)
Lacking the ongoing characters of a serial strip like Charley’s War, Tardi opts for a more documentary approach, selecting scenes from the war and following a short story of a small group or an individual caught up in a collective madness beyond their control (reminiscent of Burns’ approach in the highly respected Civil War series, using personal tales and reminiscences to give us a human, personal face to vast events). Starting with an even-handed scene setter showing the daily routine of shelling from both the German and French, which then introduces the trenches and the hell of No Man’s Land, cleverly introducing the first man he will follow, Binet. Alas, when we first see him, Private Binet is already dead and rotting away in No Man’s Land, so we already know that he’s going to be one of those vast numbers of statistics. As Tardi goes back to fill in some of Binet’s life he becomes a person, not another number. I think it’s quite brave of Tardi to have as his first character a man who’s quite misanthropic and unlikeable; he’s not trying to paint all of the fallen as saints or heroic paragons of virtue and honour, they are people, some good, some miserable, some funny, some selfish. Binet is not very likeable, but he doesn’t deserve the dreadful death he will endure.
And that’s surely part of Tardi’s point, that this huge, mechanical, industrialised war swallowed all who came before it, regardless of their character, the good and the bad, the poor and the noble born. The suffering Tardi portrays is universal to all of the front line troops – on both sides – and civilians caught up in the maelstrom of events too. A scene from the earlier, more mobile segment of the war shows advancing German troops driving Belgian refugees in front of them to act as human shields, uncaring of the vicious immorality of their actions. It sounds like a piece of the (rather obvious to modern, media savvy eyes) propaganda that was circulated in Allied nations about the ‘monstrous Hun’, but actually it is based on real events. Not that Tardi paints only the decisions like this by war-mongering Prussian generals, he shows the French commanders as uncaring and immoral as the German ones, when they order their men to fire anyway because, after all, the human shield isn’t composed of their countryfolk…
(Belgian refugees caught between equally uncaring French and German troops in the early days of the war, (c) Tardi, published Fantagraphics)
A burning sense of injustice and anger runs throughout War of the Trenches, and rightly so; to anyone who has read the history of that disastrous, monstrous start to the last century it isn’t hard to see why anyone should still be angry about it ninety years after the Armistice. He highlights the sheer ridiculousness of the war, of how nations and entire empires were prepared to spend their entire wealth and resources on slaughtering millions and yet for far less they could have housed, educated and fed every single one of their own citizens (including the many who lived in squalor and poverty, ignored by their countries until their countries required them ‘to do their duty’). He sketches the global nature of the conflict, of regiments drawn from the far corners of the world empires of the French, British and others, the Sikh soldiers from India fighting for the British Empire that had happily taken their country, the Algerian and Vietnamese troops from French colonies who, as Tardi points out, were pressed into service for the glory of France and who would, only a few decades later, be killing French troops as they fought for their own freedom, making a few pages of a single war into a shorthand for the seemingly constant conflicts which litter that entire century around the world.
(past conflicts may have ranged across the world – the French and British empires fighting from the Indies to the Americas, for example – but it took the Great War to make conflict so truly global. Not the best way to bring together the peoples of the world… (c) Tardi, published Fantagraphics)
It isn’t an easy read – there are moments of humour, but it is of the gallows variety (a pair of police who harassed soldiers end up strung up in a ruined village in front of the Charcuterie – the pork butcher’s shop, a macabre pun on referring to police as pigs). But for the most part it is, as you would expect given the subject matter, often grim reading. Which isn’t to say you shouldn’t read it, quite the reverse – yes, it is grim and frequently horror-filled, but Tardi draws on history and personalises it, bring huge events down to a human scale we can understand and empathise with in a way that we don’t always get from a large history volume (although for those who do want to learn more I’d recommend the highly respected Hew Strachan’s The First World War as a very accessible single volume introduction). I have actually read quite a bit of the history over the years but the visual aspect that comics bring to the human aspect of the history adds enormously to its impact, even more so than other visual medium, such as film, can manage (the classic WWI film J’Accuse – obviously an influence on Tardi – is a masterpiece in imagery, but unlike a comic you go at the filmaker’s pace; here you can pause on a scene, a frozen moment, an expression, a detail).
(several times Tardi uses a page layout which is reminiscent of some of the illustrated gazettes of the era; (c) Tardi, published Fantagraphics)
When I was a boy, first reading comics, most of the strips of the time made warfare seem like something of a Boy’s Own Adventure, with the notable exception of Mills and Colquhoun’s Charley’s War, which left a lifelong impression on me. So when I say Tardi’s War of the Trenches is the most powerful comic I’ve read on World War One since Charley’s War, you’ll understand what a compliment that is. The black and white art is perfectly suited to the era being covered, an era we are most used to seeing in monochrome film and photographs, while Tardi, not for the first time, proves himself a master of expression, the looks on the faces of the men caught up in the war speaking absolute volumes (a hallmark of a true master comics artist, a single frame depicting men’s expressions is worth pages of eloquent prose) and some pages are laid out in a fashion reminiscent of an illustrated gazette of the era (a nice touch). It’s a hugely powerful work, both moving and horrific and filled with anger for the suffering and injustices one group of ‘civilised’ humans can visit upon another (and in some scenes on their own people); as I said it isn’t the easiest read though, but then it shouldn’t be. And it does deserve to be read; as the last voices of those who were actually there are fading into silence works like this are needed to remind us of the monstrous acts we can be capable of in service to the beasts of jingoism and nationalism and hubris, that we should read them and take cautionary lessons from them. Never forget.
This review first appeared on the Forbidden Planet blog
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Quiddler, the short word game, is a breakthrough in word games. Because short words can lead to winning, even young readers can play and win. The challenge is to arrange your entire hand into words. Try to use those high point letters, but don't get caught with them uncombined! It's a fast-paced game because you can play using everyday words. This set contains 118 cards and instructions on how to play the game. Quiddler is a delightful challenge for both rookies and word game lovers! Recommended for 1 to 8 players, ages 8 to adult.
Customer Questions & Answers: | <urn:uuid:3d04b0af-666a-4e07-b8a6-7b9e588262be> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://answers.christianbook.com/answers/2016/product/738003/set-enterprises-quiddler-the-short-word-game-questions-answers/questions.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954744 | 122 | 1.578125 | 2 |
To Create a Better Future
Speaking the Language of GeographyGIS
The geoprocessing framework in ArcGIS 9 provides great flexibility. The same operations, commands, and tools can be accessed using dialog boxes, run from the command line, incorporated in a visual model (e.g., ModelBuilder), or automated with the use of scripts written in a variety of scripting languages, such as Python, VBScript, and JScript. ModelBuilder is an interactive environment that provides a graphic programming framework for designing and implementing geoprocessing models. Models are data and process flow diagrams that link together tools and data.
ArcGIS 9 also makes major improvements in annotation and labeling, increasing the productivity of users who create, edit, and manage labels and geodatabase annotation.
ArcGIS 9 implements a complete system for raster data management. This provides an out-of-the-box solution to store, manage, update, access, analyze, and distribute collections of aerial photographs, satellite images, digital elevation models, and other types of raster data, such as scanned documents and maps. ArcGIS 9 supports very fast loading, pyramiding, display, and mosaicking.
ArcGIS 9 supports standards-based interoperability by incorporating Open Geospatial Consortium standards on the server and in Esri clients. We've also integrated CAD data more closely with our GIS with zero loss of data flow. This will better support the engineering community and CAD users.
ArcGIS 9 includes many extensions, which are specialized tool sets for enriching the basic platform of particular communities.
Maplex is a specialized extension for cartographic labeling.
The ArcGIS Publisher extension has been extended at 9.0; in addition to the free ArcReader deployment, there is also a free embeddable map control. ArcGIS Publisher also includes a new data compression and protection capability for protecting data sets being used for widespread dissemination. This means that ArcGIS Publisher becomes an ideal platform for creating free CD-based applications that embed GIS functionality in a custom application and package large data sets that need to be compressed and protected (consumer products, etc.).
A new extension, built jointly with Esri Canada Business Partner Safe Software Inc., the world's leader in interoperability technology, is ArcGIS Data Interoperability. This extension adds many interoperability capabilities for direct reading and writing of proprietary data structures from a variety of other vendors and allows users to convert to and from standards-based formats (GML, SVTS, VPS, F57, etc.). There is also a tool in the extension that allows users to develop custom translators that can literally read any format and translate it.
Interoperability is important and will become even more so as we develop GIS networks. For GIS networks to work, either everyone buys the same software and uses the same data format and data models (virtually impossible) or they use interoperability procedures and technology such as this new extension.
The ArcGIS Data Interoperability extension ensures Esri users that the ArcGIS platform is and will continue to be open and interoperable with other leading GIS standards and technologies and other vendors' proprietary data types.
ArcGIS Network Analyst enhances the overall ArcGIS suite of products by adding routing, service area analysis, and the ability to create and manage network data sets. ArcGIS Network Analyst is a sophisticated visualization and analysis tool that can be used for simple or complex applications. ArcGIS Network Analyst is designed for users who need the logical network for their routing and network analysis requirements in modeling realistic network conditions and scenarios. Tools to create and manage sophisticated network data sets and to generate solutions for routing problems, such as path, tour, service area, and closest facility, are provided with the soon to be released extension.
The Server Side
Esri has three server products: ArcSDE, ArcIMS, and the new ArcGIS Server. ArcSDE is a gateway to multiple DBMS systemsDB2, Informix, Oracle, and SQL Server. In this release, even though ArcSDE has always been fast, we have again improved scalability and performance. Version 9 also allows users to export an XML version/copy of the geodatabase for sharing a complete geodatabase.
ArcIMS 9 improves quality and performance. It includes the two extensionsArcIMS Route Server, which adds routing to your ArcIMS Web site, and ArcIMS Data Delivery, which publishes data in all the standard spatial formats used within the industry. There are also a number of enhancements. ArcIMS is a complete solution for map data and catalog publishing.
GIS Portal Toolkit, which is based on Esri's ArcIMS and ArcSDE server technology in support of the Geospatial One-Stop project, is free to students taking an Esri training class. There are more than 100 organizations that have now implemented these portals in 47 countries.
Esri's newest server technology involves implementing ArcObjects in a server environment. This software, called ArcGIS Server, implements mapping, data, and editing functionality and supports a very rich and powerful developer environment. Later, we will extend ArcGIS Server with full geoprocessing and catalog services.
The Road Ahead
The next release of ArcGIS Desktop will see more focus on making things easier. Conversely, on the server side, we are growing the basic server capability with primary focus on adding functionality, quality, and scalability. We'll also be supporting tools that facilitate more collaboration.
A more usable desktop means easier editing, fewer clicks, faster draw speed, better and faster printing, and multiple viewer windows and layouts.
ArcGIS Desktop will also implement a new cartography concept that allows users to manage cartographics in the geodatabase. This means a collection of maps and map elements-different data frames, layers, north arrows, scale bars, etc., as well as multiple layouts that can be stored and shared across an enterprise as components for mapmaking. We're also making cartography more intelligent and providing a single environment for cartographic production. The ArcMap application is being extended for full cartographic editing, and the geodatabase is being extended to persist these rendered cartographic data sets. The human artistry of a cartographer will be integrated with computer-generated mapping. This will provide a platform to solve many problems in the areas of generalization, map series, and multiple representations.
Other advancements will be in managing multidimensional data sets, dynamic modeling, and geoprocessing. A host of ArcGIS Server enhancements will include globe services, personal peer-to-peer GIS services, and serverside modeling and geoprocessing.
Esri's goals and purpose are primarily focused on the advancement of GIS and serving our users and Business Partners around the world. Other goals include the education and development of a professional GIS workforce.
While Esri is mostly a software company, we also provide education, technical support, and professional services. We are organized as a network of interoperating teams that focuses on our users. We place much emphasis on empowering smart individuals and teams within an overall organizational structure.
Esri education activities focus on the development and delivery of classroom and Virtual Campus courses and various publications. We train more than 60,000 students each year in a classroom setting and more than 200,000 students via the Web. We are offering a variety of new courses that support the 9.0 release. In 2004, Esri has begun to develop "curriculum packages" by bundling our courses (both on the Web and instructor led) and providing certificates of completion. The first of these bundles ("pathways") has been released and is called GIS Analysis.
We also offer Virtual Campus training. This is an easy way for people to learn in their own time frame about the technology and some of the science and application dimensions of GIS. The Virtual Campus includes approximately 140 hours of free training. Esri has approximately one-quarter million students taking Virtual Campus courses.
In 2003, we introduced Web-based live training seminars. They are one-hour sessions presented approximately twice a month and feature interactive sessions with Esri's technical staff. Subjects include GIS technology, methods, and implementation. These are free sessions and are viewable online after the training occurs. We encourage our users to look at this new method of learning.
Some years ago, our users suggested we start publishing books on best practices and other aspects of GIS. Now we have more than 60 publications and another 20 on the way, authored by some of the best GIS knowledge sources in our field. New publications include Cartographica Extraordinaire, David Rumsey's new atlas of historical maps copublished with Edith Punt; Mapping the Future of America's National Parks; and Measuring Up: The Business Case for GIS. The latter book uses case studies to assess the cost/benefits of GIS implementation. A book that I would like to encourage all users to acquire is called Designing Geodatabasesfor me, it is the fundamental text to understand geodatabases.
Esri technical support is improving. We've increased the knowledge of our staff and improved our own work flow for faster incident response. Our big investment, however, is in our Online Support Center (support.esri.com). Recently, we added one more component called the Project Center, which is systematically taking everything we know from an application implementation standpoint and making it available on the Web for our users.
This year, Esri is 35 years old. We are financially strong, thanks in part to our users support. We are growing. We have zero debt. We are profitable. We have a very good team of professionals at Esri (about 4,400 worldwide). They care about our usersmore than 120,000 organizations and more than one million people. We have many Business Partners (more than 2,000) that also support our users in the areas of data, technology, training and consulting, system integration, and value-added software products.
We take our relationships seriously and treat them with importance. They include many nongovernmental organizations, universities, and educational organizations. We also have many institutional partnerships, including the Association of American Geographers, Global Climate, National Center for Atmospheric Research, National Geographic Society, and many agencies of the United Nations. This year we've added a new onethe Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)which is focusing on using GIS for both earth and planetary sciences. This fascinates us, and we'll be working closely with them.
Imagining a Better World
I'd like to close with a couple of comments. As important as it is to describe the actual world using GIS and geography, I think it's far more important to use GIS to imagine a better world. Languages help us define what's possible. Albert Einstein, the physicist, used the language of mathematics to define the concepts and theories of relativity, and as a result, our whole concept of the world and how it works changed. John Lennon used the language of music to set off a whole movement of thinking and humanistic behavior that also changed our global culture. Martin Luther King used spoken language to articulate the vision and the concepts of civil rights, and as a result, we saw a fundamental change in equal opportunities for all citizens. And Nelson Mandela and Jimmy Carter languaged with words the concepts and actions of human rights, and the world became a better place.
GIS is a new language. It encompasses many opportunities for us to advance science, design with nature in mind, make communities livable, increase efficiency, support economic development, improve human health, and mitigate conflicts.
GIS is especially well designed and suited for imagining our future. Actually, I think it's essential. Empowering geography with a languageGISwill help us create a better future. GIS is becoming intelligent and collaborative. Connecting GIS into the societal infrastructure of the Web will lead to widespread collaboration, will bring about a better understanding, and will allow us to create a better future. GIS professionals will be the people who apply this language, creating a better future. That's how I see it. | <urn:uuid:771aa5f0-bf36-42e0-92cf-0b186b7a9624> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.esri.com/news/arcnews/fall04articles/speaking-the-language2of2.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930855 | 2,522 | 2.171875 | 2 |
Homemade Paneer Cheese
If you love cheese, learning to make it at home can open a whole new world of culinary adventure. While some cheese requires special ingredients and tools, many cheeses can be made with equipment you probably already have in your kitchen.
Basically, making cheese requires heating milk to a certain temperature, using some kind of acid or enzyme to curdle it, and then adding flavorings or bacteria to the curds. Depending on what kind of cheese you are making, the process can be remarkably fast and simple (as with paneer or queso fresco) or long and complex (as for cheddar).
My own home cheesemaking experiences started on a sour note (pun intended). I found a recipe online for homemade mozzarella that was reputed to be easy and a good cheese for beginners. I tried it twice, and both attempts ended as miserable failures. I just couldn’t seem to get the milk to curdle properly.
I decided perhaps I wasn’t cut out to be a cheesemaker. Even so, I kept thinking it would be fun to customize cheese flavors to my personal tastes..
Then, here on Lummi Island, our Grange recently developed a new series of “country living” classes. Friends and neighbors are teaching each other how to bake bread, grow grains, make compost, can foods, and–most exciting to me–make cheese! Last Saturday Mary Stack showed a group of us how to make paneer, queso fresco, and feta cheeses. It was a revelation!
Making these cheeses truly is simple, but there are a few basic principles which need to be done correctly. First, the pan and utensils used for heating the milk need to be nonreactive. A stainless steel pot with a heavy bottom is best. A pan lined with enamel (no chips) works well, too. A wooden spoon is perfect for stirring the milk as it warms.
Secondly, the temperature of the milk has to be right before you add the acid to curdle it. I think that’s where my previous attempts went wrong. I had tried to use a meat thermometer which didn’t show enough detail to be accurate at cheesemaking temperatures. A candy thermometer works much better, and usually comes with a clip to hold it in place on the pot.
Finally, you have to use the right kind of milk. Some cheeses, for example, specifically require cows’ milk or goats’ milk. Either is fine for the paneer recipe below..
Thanks to Mary’s expertise and guidance, I finally can make cheese. I hope you’ll enter the cheesemaking adventure, too, by trying the basic Paneer recipe below.
Note: To keep this cheese completely local, use apple cider vinegar from BelleWood Acres instead of lemon juice. For my first effort, I followed the directions exactly as I received them. However, I’ve since learned that apple cider vinegar will work just as well. You can purchase BelleWood vinegar at the Community Food Co-op stores in Bellingham.
- ½ gallon whole milk (Edaleen Dairy, Lynden)
- 3-4 Tbsp lemon juice (or vinegar)
- 1 tsp salt, or to taste
- (Optional) 1 clove garlic, minced (Rabbit Fields Farm, Everson)
- (Optional) 2 tsp dried basil (Half Acre Farm u-pick, Ferndale)
- Prepare a large colander or strainer for draining the cheese curds later by lining it with four layers of cheese cloth or a clean linen dishtowel. The cloth should be large enough to hang over all sides of the bowl. Put the colander into a larger bowl to catch the liquid (whey). Set the bowl with the colander into your sink.
- Put lemon juice and a tablespoon measure next to your stove.
- Pour milk into a pot made from a non-reactive material, such as stainless steel or enamel with no chips. A pot with a heavy bottom will help prevent scorching.
- Using a candy thermometer to measure the temperature, heat the milk over medium or medium high heat until it reaches 180 degrees F. Stir occasionally with a wooden spoon to ensure the milk doesn’t scorch on the bottom.
- When the milk reaches temperature, turn off the heat and add lemon juice one tablespoon at a time, stirring the milk gently after each addition until curds begin to form. Continue to add lemon juice gradually until the curds have separated enough that you can also see the watery, slightly green colored whey between the curds. If curds are forming but you don’t see the whey, you may need to reheat the milk back to 180 degrees F. to finish the curdling process.
- Pour the curds and whey into the lined colander and allow to drain for 15-20 minutes. You may need to pour off the whey from the bowl after about 10 minutes.
- Twist the top of the cheesecloth or towel to squeeze out additional water by hand. Place the curds in a bowl and add salt to taste and other desired seasonings, if desired.
- Then place the curds back in the cheesecloth, twist the cloth again to squeeze the curds together, then wrap the cheesecloth tightly around the curds. Put in a wide pan or bowl in your sink. Set something heavy on top, such as a milk jug full of water or a bowl containing a clean rock or brick, to press out more water. Let stand for an hour or so, depending on how firm you want your paneer.
Put finished paneer into an airtight container and store in the refrigerator. Cut into cubes for use in recipes, or don’t drain as long and use the softer cheese as a spread.
The Islander, across from the ferry dock, Lummi Island | <urn:uuid:8cb716b7-a84b-49d8-88a2-04f2b693cbfd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://whatcomlocavore.com/homemade-paneer-cheese | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935711 | 1,247 | 2.375 | 2 |
48 Go Green film race in Portland makes a worldwide environmental footprint
Published: Friday, February 11, 2011, 5:00 AM Updated: Wednesday, February 23, 2011, 10:50 AM
All in 48 hours.
Portland hosts its first "48 Go Green " film race next weekend, Feb. 18-20, along with seven other U.S. cities. The idea for a fictional eco film produced in a mere 48 hours started in Athens last year. Its success convinced the 48 Hour Film Project in Washington, D.C., to go worldwide.
Film competitions attract uber creative types who thrive on adrenalin and no sleep and love a deadline. Anyone can enter a team from anywhere in the world, and shoot their film anywhere. But only the eight U.S. cities will screen the finished films. Portland teams' films will be screened at the Hollywood Theatre. The public can also vote online for the best film after a panel of judges has winnowed the entries from around the world down to five.
The films will be a window into how people in far-flung locales view climate change.
How powerful is that?
It's one thing to see a news clip or read that people everywhere care, but it's something else to witness that concern through the creative prism of film. So far, teams from Nicaragua, Israel, Netherlands, Singapore, South Africa, Albania, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Malaysia among others have entered.
"With film you can show things and say things and do it with emotion -- film touches many of us in ways that reading an article never can," says Liz Langston, co-executive producer of the 48 Hour Film Project in Washington, D.C., and 48 Go Green. "We see this as a very hopeful endeavor."
The winning eco-film from Greece last year showed young people playing games on the beach but when the camera pulled back, it was just someone's apartment balcony covered in sand. The real ocean was presumably too polluted and so the beachgoers created what they remembered from their childhoods.
The 48 Go Green Web site exhorts filmmakers to show they care: "Shout out against all that provokes you. Leave your mark against everything you condemn and everything that should not be happening. Save the planet, with one strong message."
Doug Whyte, executive director of the Hollywood Theatre, has experience running film racing events and figured 48 Go Green would be a great fit for the city.
"We have an international reputation as an environmentally conscious green city," he said. "It's top of mind all the time (here)."
Contestants can't prepare ahead of time. They will be given a line, a prop and a character at the Ecotrust kickoff as well as one of nine topics to save: the environment, water, the forest, animals, earth, the next generation, energy, the sea, the planet.
Lane, 25, just knows he doesn't want "the planet" as his topic because it's too open-ended. When there's a deadline of 48 hours, it's nice to have a narrow subject, he says. And he knows what he's talking about as a veteran film racer who studied film in college. This past summer -- just three months after he moved to Oregon from Minnesota -- he won the 48 Hour Film Project contest in Portland, which mandated contestants use an "artist" character and certain genre.
The one genre Lane didn't want, he got: a Western. But he and his film partner, Aaron Toy, shot a short film about the artist who drew WANTED posters in the Old West. It was a hit.
The top three winners of 48 Go Green from around the world receive $5,000, $2,000 and $1,000 respectively. Those three also win a trip to the National Association of Broadcasters show in Las Vegas where their films will be screened along with others. The top five films get screened at the Cannes Film Festival.
Back in Portland, Lane never worries about the deadline of film competitions.
"I work better under pressure."
When it comes to addressing climate change, maybe the 48 Go Green films will apply a little more pressure.
-- Carrie Sturrock | <urn:uuid:7a05bd2b-c259-469f-8e67-a1a13338f19e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.oregonlive.com/pdxgreen/2011/02/48_go_green_film_race_in_portl.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963748 | 868 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Monday, January 28, 2013
The Thatcher Fire Department just got burned by a seven-month-old fire.
On Jan. 10, the Industrial Commission of Arizona Division of Occupational Safety and Health issued two citations to the Thatcher Fire Department regarding a June 16 fire training mishap that caused injuries to firefighters. The notification listed one citation as serious and issued a $3,750 fine to the Fire Department.
During the live-fire training exercise, Fire Captain Rob Casillas suffered second- and third-degree burns to his hands, head and portions of his upper and lower back when he found himself without water in a burning room where temperatures soared near 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit.
The citation lists numerous subsections of the serious violation that attributed to firefighters being burned. The subsection violations include that the department's written Incident Command System procedure was not followed, and training fires were lit during a planned rehab period; a fire was lit with the purpose of setting the structure on fire instead of the planned type of fire for interior firefighter training meant to be confined to a specific area; a series of three fires were lit in sequence instead of one fire being lit and then extinguished, and firefighters were ordered to enter the structure without a safety monitor being posted to check and account for the firefighters entering and exiting the structure.
A second serious violation listed in the first citation deals with firefighters having the potential to be exposed to blood during rescue work without having a written Exposure Control Plan. The department was also issued various non-serious violations, including not being in accordance with OSHA guidelines regarding keeping injury and illness records, testing respirators and allowing the assistant fire chief to wear a respirator while having a beard, which is a violation because the facial hair comes between the sealing surface of the face piece and face, or interferes with the valve function.
Town Manager Terry Hinton said that, while the town is still reviewing the report while considering challenging the findings, all of the violations that were pointed out have already been remedied.
"We knew it was coming," Hinton said. "The things they mentioned have been taken care of."
Thatcher Fire Chief Mike Payne disagreed with the citation's analysis of the training exercise's plan but admitted the other violations were accurate and has been corrected.
"It's a wake-up call for us to try to do better," Payne said. "Our plan was very well laid out and everything; it's just that some things went wrong. Some things went bad when they weren't supposed to, and we ended up with an unfortunate situation. At this point, we take a look at it, see where we did wrong and what we can do better next time and, hopefully, move on."
Payne said there is a possibility that the fine could be reduced upon further review and that the department and Town Council are currently still poring over the findings.
The injury incident occurred at the last station in a series of training exercises involving a controlled structure burn of a house on the 3200 block of Church Street between Second and Third avenues.
According to Payne, a crew entered into the structure through the rear with the intent of putting out a room that was on fire.
Unbeknownst to the firefighters, their hose had burned and became useless when they attempted to drown the flames. As the men made their way out of the building on their hands and knees, two of them suffered blistering on their knees.
The crew became separated as they attempted to leave the residence due to low visibility caused by thick black smoke. Casillas was unaware the other men had followed the hose line through the back door, and he returned to the burning room. When he couldn't locate his crew, he began to make his exit and the room experienced a flashover. That’s when Casillas suffered second- and third-degree burns to his hands, head and back, according to Payne. A flashover is the near-simultaneous ignition of most of the directly exposed combustible material in an enclosed area.
Casillas was eventually transported to the Arizona Burn Center at Maricopa Medical Center in downtown Phoenix. He endured days of doctors scraping the injured areas in hopes new skin would grow in its place, according to statements Payne made to the TFD at a meeting shortly after the incident. Casillas is no longer a member of the Fire Department. | <urn:uuid:11dab7d5-aac1-436f-944a-b05ca51d301a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.firefighterclosecalls.com/news/fullstory/newsid/180365 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982167 | 888 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Day by day, the St. Charles Streetcar whirrs and clanks down the tracks, pervading the soundscape of Uptown New Orleans just steps from Southern Comfort Bed & Breakfast. Like the New York City subway, the streetcar’s distinct rumble and brakes can be heard from several blocks away. The oldest operating rail system in the country, this line of historic, green streetcars is an iconic piece of New Orleans’ colorful backdrop.
The line begins at S. Carrollton and Claiborne avenues at the front of Palmer Park, home of the monthly Arts Market. Traveling up Carrollton’s tree-lined neutral ground, streetcar riders pass a number of large, classic homes. Carrollton Station, a streetcar barn where the “Green Ladies” go to rest, is nestled just passed the crisscrossed tracks at Willow St. Beyond Willow stretches a more commercially condensed strip of shops and restaurants, with menu fare from all corners of the globe—Mexican, Lebanese, Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese, Italian, Creole, classic American, and everything in between.
At the edge of Carrollton, the streetcar line turns onto St. Charles Ave in a neighborhood known as the Riverbend, named for its curvature parallel to the Mississippi River levee. More beautiful, oak-lined streets give way to the stoic, historical structures of Tulane and Loyola Universities, with the luscious, inviting greenery of Audubon Park across the street. | <urn:uuid:7d63e2a8-1cf8-43b2-9e4c-643028270f7e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://southerncomfort-bnb.com/tag/garden-district/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.903092 | 311 | 1.851563 | 2 |
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Happy Belated Birthday Dr. Seuss
Dr. Seuss is a family favorite. Personally I'm a big fan of all rhyme and his illustrations are unconventional and entertaining. But you already know this...
What you may not know is March 2nd was Dr. Seuss's birthday. Usually I would be on top of this important day but due to my recent surgery I've been distracted. So here goes:
Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss (story stretcher)
I made this language work with a particular child in mind. My little friend was four years old and and also a BIG fan of Dr. Seuss.
I drew the rhyming combinations pictures from the book and printed the appropriate labels, next I mounted them on red poster board and had them laminated. As you can see from the photo, the book is on the shelf along side the tray (and is intended to be used as self correcting guide). This work is often chosen by a pair of children and one will read the book and the other pair up the rhyming words and pictures. A non-reading child care be successful with this work also, because of the familiarity of the book. Before putting this work out on the shelf, I read the book to the group at circle time and as an extension (and for fun) I offer green eggs for a group snack. You may be surprised to know, most of the children try them! A few even loved them!
In addition because St. Patrick's Day is also in the month of May (May 17th) many of the practical life works contain green objects and the color GREEN comes up allot in conversations and art work throughout the classroom.
If drawing is not your talent, I'm sure Dr. Seuss wouldn't mind you making color copies of his characters to create this work for your home or classroom. I don't know of anything out there like this for sale. Anyway as long as you don't sell the one you create for your classroom I think it is all good. Happy rhyming! | <urn:uuid:0078a6f5-25f6-46bf-8140-37014094afb7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://spiralmontessorimama.blogspot.com/2008/03/happy-belated-birthday-dr-s.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976561 | 426 | 2.390625 | 2 |
Sometime when you’re least expecting it, life hands you a lesson! This past week, our family had a harrowing life lesson that reminded us of the importance of awareness and preparation as our young son Cash and his nanny, Caitlin, had their lives threatened and a carjacking that ensued. Below are many tips and reminders that may help you be safer, avoiding potential issues in the future, and also a great reminder to learn to use and understand technologies that are available to us so we can help keep ourselves and our communities safe.
First and foremost, be observant and pay attention to your surroundings. Today, we’re often multitasking while we drive, eat, and go about our lives. With gadgets like radios, earbuds, smart phones, iPads, e-readers, video games, even DVD players in our cars, it’s easier than ever to be distracted and not fully tuned in to what is happening around us. Even without technology we can be engrossed in a good book, our own thoughts, our kid’s activities, or a conversation with another person. What really is happening around you? What people are there around you? Take note of any possible dangers such as dark areas or suspicious vehicles. Are your activities, such as leaving your car running in a driveway or parking lot, increasing your chances for a possible problem?
Secondly, know your escape route. Whether it’s inside your home, a hotel, a restaurant or other building, take note of entrances, exits, stairways, and know your options. While driving a car, are you leaving enough room between you and the car in front of you so you can easily maneuver around them, if need be? How well do you know the route to your work and around your neighborhood and the resources available to you as you drive about your community? While driving, leave yourself some space to drive away if you are in traffic. Park carefully in well-lit, populated areas.
Third, secure your home, office and car. While at home, keep your doors locked. Are you guilty of propping a door open at work? The same wisdom applies to a car, even while driving. Keep your car doors locked at all times to prevent someone from jumping in at a red light or in a parking lot. Be cautious when approached by others. Whether it’s someone knocking on your door, or someone knocking on the window of your car, you are not obligated to open it. It’s okay to talk to someone through a closed door or window.
If you do happen to be confronted by a dangerous individual do everything you can to get away from the situation and avoid being taken to a second location. Assist those with you to escape danger as well. Give the perpetrator whatever they want. No personal possession is worth your life. Vehicles can be replaced, you cannot.
While getting to safety, take note of the aggressor so you will be able to identify them. Notice everything you can about the person such as their weight, height, hair color, any scars or tattoos, facial hair, clothing, etc. Try to look for features and characteristics that cannot necessarily be changed (i.e. tattoos).
Once safe, contact authorities, giving them as much information as you can. Tools that we had purchased and activated prior to the incident actually led to the quick arrest of the perpetrator. Know what tools and apps are out there to help secure your home and cars as well as know how to use them. We had purchased a car equipped with a gps tracking service, OnStar. A quick call to OnStar (store their number in your phone!) allowed them to pinpoint the location of our car as well as turn off the engine making the vehicle useless to the carjacker.
In a last ditch effort to still profit from his crime the carjacker took the iPad that was in the car. Fortunately we had downloaded and installed the app “Find My iPad” which is handy when you can’t figure out where you left your phone or iPad, but we were able to use the app on our phone to not only locate the iPad but also direct police to the exact location of the criminal which led to a swift arrest.
Without a doubt we are glad we have invested in this technology that helped police apprehend the individual quickly and taken off the streets before he could hurt anyone. Using some simple common sense and awareness can save lives and help the authorities catch criminals. By doing our part, being aware and using tools that are at our disposal, we can help keep ourselves and our communities safe. Fortunately, due to some quick thinking on Caitlin’s part and technology, everyone is safe, and the perpetrator is now in jail. | <urn:uuid:fd47f354-faa4-49ab-ac60-55b5586a649e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://chrispowell.com/mind/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97497 | 975 | 2.796875 | 3 |
A crucial piece of land for a proposed park to commemorate the nation's first freed-slave village was purchased Tuesday by the Town of Hilton Head Island.
Two hours after Thomas C. Barnwell Jr., chairman emeritus of the Mitchelville Preservation Project, made a plea for continued support, the Town Council approved spending nearly $258,000 to buy the 1.8 acres.
Beaufort County will contribute half of the cost, according to the town.
The land will be purchased from 217 Beach City Road LLC using proceeds from a 2010 town bond issue.
"This land will provide a natural buffer for Fish Haul Creek Park and a possible location for Mitchelville preservation efforts," said Mayor Drew Laughlin in a prepared statement.
The town and county purchased two, one-acre parcels on either side of the property last year for the same purpose. Purchasing the third parcel provides a needed piece for the proposed educational and interpretive park, connecting it with other town-own land and giving added access off Beach City Road.
The council agreed in fall 2010 to lease 15 acres at Fish Haul Creek Park to develop the Mitchelville Project, contingent on a plan showing the preservation group's financial ability to build and maintain it.
The council also awarded the preservation group $50,000 last year in accommodations-tax money to help defray startup costs. The group requested $100,000 this year to develop a master plan for the memorial park. A town advisory panel in December, however, rejected the request after the panel's vice chairman pointed to an opinion from S.C. Tourism Expenditure Review Committee that says bed-tax revenue cannot be used for planning, but it can be used for construction, maintenance and operations.
Barnwell thanked the council for its previous support and asked for continued help from it in lobbying county, state and federal officials for grants for the park. The group's board is working with a new consultant to "fine-tune" funding needs, and Barnwell said the Leadership Hilton Head Island-Bluffton class of 2012 chose the park for its community project.
Mitchelville was created for freed slaves in 1862, before the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and a year after Union ships drove Confederate troops from Hilton Head Island. It was placed on the National Registry of Historic Places in 1988. In 2003, Congress declared the site important to preserving and understanding the nation's difficulties during Reconstruction.
Follow reporter Tom Barton at twitter.com/EyeOnHiltonHead. | <urn:uuid:a4e8a8a6-65bd-4bc0-b972-de0548728210> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.islandpacket.com/2012/01/17/1931236/town-county-to-buy-more-land-for.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93736 | 513 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Tag: "metabolism" at biology news
Friendly microbes control intestinal genes, study finds
...ted several mouse genes involved in absorption and metabolism
of sugars and fats. It also activated genes that control the integrity of the cellular barrier that lines the intestine and separates us from dangerous organisms and ingested substances. Other genes affected by the bacterium regulate how potentially ...
Rat study shows high-fat diet impairs concentration and memory
...ially energy -- in order to function. When glucose metabolism
is impeded by saturated fatty acids, it's like clogging the brain and starving it of energy," says Dr. Carol Greenwood, a professor in the Department of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Toronto and scientist at Baycrest Centre's Kunin-Lunenf...
Fetal and prepubertal growth both programme cholesterol metabolism in adulthood
Birthweight, subsequent growth, and cholesterol metabolism
in children 8-12 years old born preterm 2001;84: 212-17 The body's ability to process cholesterol as an adult is likely to be programmed by size at birth, shows research in Archives of Disease in Childhood. But just as important are the years betwe...
Scientists find great-granddaddy of enzyme family
...rocess, with one organism carrying out part of the metabolism
and a second organism doing another part, illustrates how early bacteria may have evolved together to undertake complex tasks. "This particular protein is an excellent model of very early cooperation between bacteria," Sanders says. "And that coopera...
More light makes redfish grown faster
...emical, thyroxine, which regulates fish growth and metabolism
- the way fish receive and use energy. "Although we still do not know exactly how the thyroid regulates fish growth, the work we have done indicates that animals that are happy and healthy and are growing very actively have very high thyroid hormone ...
Alcohol, sucrose and genetics influence cardiovascular risk
...ms whereby E2 and E4 alleles cause different lipid metabolism
responses to nutrients. He suggests that, in such complex research, it is important to keep in mind that multiple comparisons of genotypes and different nutrients, as well as a low frequency of some genotypes, call for additional verifications of ind...
Common genetic differences affect vulnerability to childhood leukemia, new study shows
... scrutiny of the role of folic acid and folic acid metabolism
in causing childhood leukemia. "Future studies may suggest methods to exploit folic acid biochemical pathways to treat leukemia," he suggested....
UCSD researchers create a home for liver cells on a silicon chip
...d then eliminated from the body. In general, the metabolism
of a drug by the liver will dictate its clinical value. Bhatia says that by introducing various drugs onto the bioreactor, she can test how the substances are detoxified by the liver cells without the need for whole body animal experiments. She can ...
A stomach enzyme deficit may place women at more risk from drinking alcohol
...er blood alcohol levels than men do. The stomach's metabolism
of alcohol may be a link between women's greater r...e stomach before it enters the blood stream. This metabolism
of alcohol is due to the activity of gastric alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) isozymes. The stomach's me...
Activity decrease in exercising older adults linked to decline in resting metabolism
...activity showed significant drops in their resting metabolism
in less than a week, even though they had reduced their caloric intake accordingly. Such a metabolic slowdown can set the stage for weight gain and associated problems like increased risks for cardiovascular disease and other metabolic diseases like...
Lipoprotein lipase: Location, location, location.
...f the released protein is inactive, so lipoprotein metabolism
begins in the bloodstream of transgenic mice. The generation of fatty acids within the circulation, rather than in the muscle and other tissues, profoundly alter the blood lipid profile of LpL transgenic mice, even those that also carry the normal g...
Making you fat - when you need it
...y can be used elsewhere. When normal hepatic lipid metabolism
is disrupted, it can lead to diseases such as atherosclerosis and developmental brain defects. Some of the steps controlling how lipids are made within a cell are known. A set of factors called SREBPs (for sterol regulatory element binding proteins...
When Shewanella meets goethite: Evidence found of recognition between animate and inanimate objects
...ransfer reactions. Also, Shewanella can couple the metabolism
(i.e., breakdown) of organic contaminants, many of which are found in oxygen-poor environments, to their electron transfer process. By giving Shewanella minerals, such as like goethite, to live and breath in oxygen-poor environments, we may be able t...
Genetic deficiency may explain sudden infant death syndrome
...g energy for skeletal muscle and the heart and for metabolism
in the liver, according to Jamal A. Ibdah, M.D., P...) at Wake Forest. The energy ordinarily comes from metabolism
of fatty acids. Ibdah set out to demonstrate effects in mice by "knocking out" the gene that prod...
Resistance training complements aerobic exercise for women
...burn more calories during the workout but increase metabolism
for less than an hour afterward. Results were publ...tance training could have a more lasting effect on metabolism
than aerobic exercise. It burns fat and increases muscle mass." Researchers followed a dozen women ...
Chemists characterize regulators of zinc intake and export in cells
... improve our knowledge of diseases related to zinc metabolism
as well as influence future drug design and pharma...teria E. coli, which provides a good model of zinc metabolism
in animal cells. They found that when the amount of zinc in the cell increases to a point where zinc...
'Grow-in-the-dark' algae may promise dietary supplements, glowing pigments, and more, say Science authors
...rch "demonstrates that a fundamental change in the metabolism
of an organism can be accomplished through the introduction of a single gene." They acknowledge, however, that a one-gene solution will probably be the exception and not the rule for future metabolic engineering projects. In the case of P. tricornut...
Exercise effects dependent on time of day
...that the response of the systems regulating energy metabolism
and some hormones differs according to when in the...strong evidence for substantial changes in glucose metabolism
and an array of hormonal responses to 1-hour, high-intensity exercise, dependent on the timing of th...
Acute zinc depletion affects homeostasis by reducing the rate of release from skeletal muscle
...on. The authors used a compartmental model of zinc metabolism
to explain the marked decrease in plasma zinc mass that could not be accounted for by zinc excretion. They concluded that zinc depletion was due to a 60% reduction in the rate of zinc release into the plasma from the most slowly turning over zinc poo...
Walnut consumption may reduce heart disease risk by beneficially redistributing cholesterol
...alnuts is favorable, and that walnuts affect lipid metabolism
differently than other food sources of n-3 and n-6 fatty acids, such as fish oil and soybean products....
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 | <urn:uuid:e5013635-d4e7-458d-b398-56c99fe0ca15> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.bio-medicine.org/tag-1/metabolism/6/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932084 | 1,516 | 2.34375 | 2 |
UN Under-Secretary General and UN Women Executive Director Michelle Bachelet visited Mali last week to underscore the need to protect women and girls from gender-based violence in the midst of the fighting in Mali between rebels who have taken over the north and the Malian government and its allies.
During war women are typically the perpetual victims of sexual crimes and other forms of gender violence. In remarks during Bachelet’s visit with internally displaced women at the Women’s House. Bamako, Mali. 9 January 2013 she said, “International law categorically prohibits rape and other forms of sexual violence in conflict. There cannot be amnesty for these crimes. And there must be justice for anyone who has been a victim of these crimes: Commanders are responsible for stopping it, and if they do not, they are criminally liable.”
During Bachelet’s visit to Mali some women came forward to tell their stories including a woman who recounted the assault she suffered in occupied Mali. Due to the increased incidence of gender violence UN Women have set out to:
- support the deployment of units to treat gender-based violence and the establishment of a national pool of psychologists to support women in both occupied and non-occupied areas.
- support a broad-based and inclusive political dialogue and advocate for women’s participation to be an integral part of the transition.
- launch a training program for women on mediation and conflict management, attended by parliamentarians and women leaders. UN Women is committed to making sure that the voices of women in Mali are heard and acted upon.
After Bachelet’s visit to Mali, she traveled to Nigeria to deliver remarks and recommendations to ECOWAS (Economic Security of West African States). There Bachelet commended ECOWAS for being a “a driving force for gender
equality and women’s empowerment in West Africa.” Bachelet also urged ECOWAS to use its recognition in the region and programs to advance women in greater equality roles.
Read more at http://www.unwomen.org
Photo Credits: UN Women/DFA | <urn:uuid:8cd4ec97-613f-4550-8661-c4a69059a6f4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mombloggersforsocialgood.com/2013/01/15/how-women-are-faring-during-malian-conflict/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954654 | 434 | 2.421875 | 2 |
Vanished from Victoria: Bonnie and Clyde put apartment complex on the map
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Thank you for your submission.Error report or correction
For decades before 1991, the Tracy Apartment building sat at the corner of North Glass Street and West Stayton Avenue. The street address was 508 N. Glass.
There was nothing of architectural significance about the fourplex apartment building. As a matter of fact, when the historic resources survey of Victoria was completed, this boxy utilitarian building was not even surveyed.
We do know W. C. Tracy, who served as postmaster from 1922 until his death in 1926, purchased the property his final year and had the apartments built.
It may be that Rubin Frels was originated in this building, as his parents lived there after their marriage in 1926. Who knows?
It is known for sure that something did happen there in 1932.
Sid Weisiger recounts the events in his Vignettes of old Victoria: "Sometime after noon of August 15, 1932, a Ford coupe drove up and parked at about 205 W. Stayton St., Victoria. Three people, two men and a woman, were occupants of the car. The Tracy Apartment Unit at 508 N. Glass had a four-car garage building in the rear, facing Stayton, and set well back from the street."
"One of the male passengers in the coupe got out, walked to the garage, got into a 1932 V-8 Ford sedan and drove away. This sedan belonged to C. H. Hawkins, district agent, Sinclair Oil Co., Victoria. Mrs. Hawkins had just driven into the garage, parked the car, and gone to her apartment when the Ford was stolen."
"Mr. and Mrs. Hawkins, as well as another tenant, witnessed the theft of the sedan. Leaving Stayton Street, the stolen vehicle followed the coupe and both were seen driving at a high rate of speed on Rio Grande Boulevard headed in the direction of Houston."
"The other tenant of the apartments who saw the car stealing gave chase but claimed motor trouble kept him from overtaking the vehicles. After he found out who he was chasing, his complexion got pretty pale."
"The thieves were none other than Bonnie and Clyde. Also in the car was an accomplice, Raymond Hamilton. The two cars sped down U.S. Highway 59 toward Wharton where gunfire was exchanged with lawmen at the bridge over the Colorado River."
Weisiger continues: "The Ford coupe (bearing Cherokee County license plates) that brought the trio to Victoria was found abandoned, with the windshield shot out, a few miles from the encounter with lawmen.
The outlaws went out Rancho Grande Road (present Farm-to-Market Road 961) through Glen Flora, Egypt, and on to Eagle Lake.
At Bellville they were said to have tangled up in another gun fight with officers. The next major strike of the outlaws appears to have been a bank robbery of $1,401 at Cedar Hill, south of Dallas where Hamilton parted company with Bonnie and Clyde. The Ford sedan, stolen and driven away from Victoria on Aug. 13, 1932, was recovered in Carthage, Mo., according to information received by the Victoria Sheriff's Department on Sept. 19, 1932. Fingerprints found in the abandoned coupe identified the outlaws as Clyde Barrow, Bonnie Parker, and Raymond Hamilton, three of the most ruthless law breakers Texas has ever produced."
The Tracy Apartments stood until 1990, at which time they were bulldozed.
"Vanished from Victoria" is written by Gary Dunnam and submitted by Victoria Preservation Inc. | <urn:uuid:85f9ad89-9850-46a7-a197-5c3a3911e42c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.victoriaadvocate.com/news/2012/apr/08/city_vanished_victoria_040912_172342/?news&police-courts | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976905 | 756 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Report: U.S. vows to halt Israeli building in East Jerusalem
Clinton: U.S. 'insulted' by settlement announcement; Quartet condemns Israel's 'unilateral action.'
U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell promised Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas that the U.S. will bring a halt to Israeli building in East Jerusalem, a Palestinian official told the newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi on Saturday.
"In a telephone conversation, Mitchell said the U.S. would make sure Israel stops building in the area," the Palestinian official told the London-based Arabic daily newspaper.
The U.S. has recently expressed frustration over Israel's announcement on Tuesday of new settlement construction, a move that deeply embarrassed visiting U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and imperiled U.S. plans to launch indirect negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
In an interview with CNN aired Friday night, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Israel's announcement of new construction of homes in a Jewish neighborhood in East Jerusalem was "insulting" to the United States.
"I mean, it was just really a very unfortunate and difficult moment for everyone - the United States, our vice president who had gone to reassert our strong support for Israeli security - and I regret deeply that that occurred and made that known," Clinton said during the CNN interview.
While Clinton did not blame Netanyahu personally for the announcement, she said, "He is the prime minister. Like the president or secretary of state...ultimately, you are responsible."
U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Clinton spoke with Netanyahu on the phone and told him the announcement was a "deeply negative signal about Israel's approach to the bilateral relationship...and had undermined trust and confidence in the peace process."
"The secretary said she could not understand how this happened, particularly in light of the United States' strong commitment to Israel's security," Crowley said.
"She made clear that the Israeli government needed to demonstrate not just through words but through specific actions that they are committed to this relationship and to the peace process," he said.
Clinton's rebuke of Netanyahu capped a week of tense exchanges between the United States and Israel, which on Tuesday announced it was building 1,600 new settler homes in an area of the occupied West Bank it annexed to Jerusalem.
The announcement infuriated the West Bank-based Palestinian leadership, which threatened to pull out of U.S.-brokered indirect "proximity" talks with Israel that Washington hoped would be the first step toward relaunching full peace negotiations after more than a year.
Another senior U.S. official said Friday that Netanyahu's political standing is "perilous" because of divisions within his coalition over efforts to pursue peace with the Palestinians.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, predicted "a dicey period here in the next couple days to a couple of weeks" as Washington tries to get the indirect talks launched.
Quartet condemns Israel: Unilateral action cannot prejudge talks' outcome
In addition to the U.S. condemnation of Israel's announcement, the Quartet of Middle East peacemakers also condemned on Friday Israel's announcement approving new construction in east Jerusalem.
"The Quartet condemns Israel's decision to advance planning for new housing units in east Jerusalem," the statement said. "The Quartet has agreed to closely monitor developments in Jerusalem and to keep under consideration additional steps that may be required to address the situation on the ground."
"Unilateral action by the Israelis or Palestinians cannot prejudge the outcome of (peace) negotiations and will not be recognized by the international community," the statement said.
"The Quartet will take full stock of the situation at its meeting in Moscow on March 19," the statement said.
The Quartet called on all concerned to support the urgent resumption of dialogue between the parties and to promote an atmosphere that is conducive to successful negotiations to resolve all outstanding issues of the conflict.
The group reiterated that Arab-Israeli peace and the establishment of an independent, contiguous and viable state of Palestine is in the fundamental interests of the parties, of all states in the region, and of the international community.
ADL 'stunned' by U.S. condemnation of Israel
The U.S. based Anti-Defamation League said late Friday that it was "stunned" by Clinton's "dressing down" of Israel.
"We cannot remember an instance when such harsh language was directed at a friend and ally of the United States," said Abraham Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), in a statement.
The ADL called Clinton's remarks a "gross overreaction" to a "policy difference among friends."
"One can only wonder how far the U.S. is prepared to go in distancing itself from Israel in order to placate the Palestinians in the hope they see it is in their interest to return to the negotiating table," Foxman said. | <urn:uuid:6109cc5c-12e4-4816-95d5-3e9da5438bd4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.haaretz.com/news/report-u-s-vows-to-halt-israeli-building-in-east-jerusalem-1.266466 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966186 | 1,040 | 1.59375 | 2 |
US NTSB takes microscopes to damaged Boeing 787 battery
All 50 Boeing Dreamliners remain grounded around the world, as the US, Japanese and French governments continue to investigate that fire and a separate battery-related incident that forced another 787 to make an emergency landing in Japan.
The NTSB said experts at the US Naval Surface Warfare Center laboratories were looking at a second, undamaged lithium-ion battery pulled from the same Japan Airlines plane that caught fire in Boston for signs of in-service damage and manufacturing defects. Both batteries were built by GS Yuasa , a Japanese company.
At the same time, Boeing was giving investigators relevant fleet information about its 787 airliners, which would help investigators understand the operating history of lithium-ion batteries on those airplanes, the NTSB said.
US, Japanese and French safety inspectors - aided by industry officials - have been trying to determine what caused the battery fire on the 787 in Boston and a separate smoke incident that forced the other 787 to make an emergency landing in Japan the following week.
After weeks of investigative work in Japan and various sites in the United States, officials still do not have any answers, raising concerns that Boeing and the airlines that operate the world's newest airliner will face a bigger-than-expected financial hit while it remains grounded.
The NTSB's latest
Be the first to comment. | <urn:uuid:74956c64-3b38-4c50-8fcc-2fd6028888a2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.financialexpress.com/news/us-ntsb-takes-microscopes-to-damaged-boeing-787-battery/1066734 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95358 | 280 | 2.28125 | 2 |
U.S.: Are Immigrant Women Denied Rights Under Violence Protection Laws?
(WNN) UNITED STATES: When President Obama introduced new legislation to combat domestic violence in October 2011, the U.S. administration promised a $25 million a year budget for programs that hope to bring domestic violence prevention organizations to the table along with recent $150 million dollar funded federal extension programs for Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood Grants.
Elahe Amani with Lys Anzia
“Despite tremendous progress, an average of three women in America die as a result of domestic violence each day,” said President Obama in an October 2011 Proclamation made from the White House Briefing Room for National Domestic Violence Month.
The new money aims to bring domestic violence protection programs to women across the U.S. It is set to help pay for the training of staff members across the country who are working inside domestic violence services agencies. The money has been allotted so agencies can develop ‘best practices’ within the policies for domestic violence prevention.
Even with improved laws and federal programs, one in four women in the U.S. still experiences domestic violence within her lifetime. Approximately 1,400 women a year – four every day – die in the United States as a result of domestic violence.
“Domestic violence homicides are often predictable and therefore preventable in many cases,” says White House Advisor on Violence Against Women Lynn Rosenthal. “The proposed legislation encourages states and local communities to screen victims for warning signs and provide immediate intervention for those at risk.”
Key to the U.S. legislation are efforts to improve police response to domestic violence crimes. “The proposed legislation will help improve the law enforcement response to these crimes, build strong cases that can be successfully prosecuted, and link victims with services,” added Rosenthal.
“So often, victims of domestic abuse suffer in silence – they don’t know where to turn, and they often have no one to turn to…,” said then Democratic Senator Barack Obama at the Apna Ghar Domestic Violence Shelter in April 2006 before his 2008 presidential bid.
“Bruises will disappear but his words keep echoing in my minds, in my ears and even up to this day drive me crazy.”
These are the words of an abused immigrant woman who came to the U.S. on a Fiancé visa. She did not know anyone, did not speak English and for a whole host of reasons did not want to go back to her home country. WNN reporter Elahe Amani met her in one of the women’s shelters in Los Angeles County in 1990.
“Of the 1.3 billion people living in extreme poverty worldwide, the vast majority are female,” said pop music celebrity and Global Ambassador for Oxfam Annie Lenox on International Woman’s Day 2011.
Vintage 1917 United States poster sells U.S. government bonds as it depicts woman immigrants and their families coming into New York harbor as they view the Statue of Liberty. Image: Sackett & Wilhelms
Dangers of Corruption and Violence
Immigration is no longer a male dominated phenomenon. It comes with its own set of dangers that are exclusive to women. One of the dangers for women is poverty. Seventy percent of those living in extreme poverty are women.
Sexual assault during an immigrant woman’s journey to the U.S. is not uncommon. “Women and girl migrants, especially those without legal status traveling in remote areas or on trains, are at heightened risk of sexual violence at the hands of criminal gangs, people traffickers, other migrants or corrupt officials,” says Amnesty International in their April 2010 report, “Invisible Migrants on the Move in Mexico.”
“Migrants who have been raped have to deal not only with the stigma associated with sexual violence, but also with the risk that if they report the crime they may be deported or that seeking treatment will deprive them of their one chance of reaching the USA. As a result, women migrants rarely report sexual violence and are very unlikely to file criminal complaints,” continued the Amnesty report.
According to the International Organization for Migration “women and men migrate for different reasons, use different channels, and have different experiences.” Women often make decisions to migrate away from home countries to improve conditions for their family. They also often face prolonged isolation as they face the challenges and that come from immigrant discrimination.
Legal Status in Spite of Fear
Limiting a woman under what is usually a strong ‘arm of power,’ an abuser may control and limit the communication a woman has with family and friends back home. Abusers may also permit a woman to have little to no contact with neighbors or people in their community to prevent a woman from making new friends. Abusers may also control a woman’s access to using the phone or the internet. They may also stop a woman from listening to ethnic language radio or television programs. In some instances women may even be locked inside their home when their abuser is away.
“He needed a servant and a nanny for his kids.”
Regardless of being in the U.S. legally or illegally, immigrant women face challenges above and beyond other women in the U.S. Language barriers reinforce isolation for women who may-or-may-not be allowed to attend classes, or learn to speak or read-and-write in English. With an abuser’s limited help or follow up on the necessary paperwork for ‘legal status,’ women are often kept dependent, fearful and in the dark.
So why do so many immigrant women remain in abusive relationships?
The dream of a new life for immigrants in the U.S. brings with it a desire to take a chance on a new life. Unfortunately, the abusive family member is often the one who holds the key to a woman’s immigration status dreams.
Too often, an abusive husband, boyfriend or fiancé uses the family visa process to control an undocumented spouse or partner. Deportation and the fear of imminent deportation are real limitations to women who may want to report crimes but cannot free themselves from the cycle of abuse.
As immigrant women face discrimination with lack of many legal protections as undocumented members of society, the struggle for them is apparent. Women who are U.S. citizens, especially ethnic minorities or women suffering from poverty in America, struggle also to find protection.
In 1999 American citizen Jessica Lenahan (formerly Gonzales), who has a Native American and Latina heritage, was denied police protection in Castle Rock, Colorado during a legal court order of restraint against her husband Simon Gonzalez. Even with what appeared to be legal protection with the restraining order Lenahan’s process with the police was not too different than many immigrant women who try to contact law enforcement when crisis emergency situations of home violence arise.
“He beat me frequently (not in front of the kids) and he said bad words to me that crashed my self-esteem and self-respect. But, I think hitting is better than the words that mutilated my soul.”
“Slowly but surely he (Simon Gonzales) just became very controlling with what I wore and who I spoke to,” says Lenahan describing her home life with her 3 young daughters and the escalating of domestic violence in her 10-and-a-half year marriage. “It slowly crept in,” she outlines. “He started acting really erratic.” With “threats of wanting to kill himself and threatening his neighbors,” Jessica was alone in her struggle for safety. “‘I’m going to die. You’re going to die. Somebody’s going to die’,” Jessica shared as she quoted her husband’s statements.
“When you’re a victim you try to portray life like it’s fine [and] there’s nothing wrong. But when my children were starting to become affected and become frightened of him I just decided that we’re just going to tell the truth and no matter how painful or shameful I felt at that time that it was really necessary to do what I needed to do to protect my children,” added Lenahan.
In 1999 Lenahan’s restraining order against her husband legally required him to leave their home and stay at least 100 yards away from herself and her daughters. While under order for temporary restraint, Jessica’s husband kidnapped their three daughters as they were playing outside together in the front yard.
Jessica called the police immediately. But she waited hours before law enforcement showed up. When they arrived she showed the police the restraining order. But the police decided not to follow Lenahan’s request for help. “Because they were with their father,” she described.
“In my community the woman is the one who is always being blamed…”
“Throughout the evening they [the police] didn’t look for them at all,” she continued. “They were very dismissive of any requests I made and belittling to me for even asking them for help. They called me ‘ridiculous’ at one point,” she outlined.
That night in 1999 at 3:20 a.m. Simon Gonzales showed up with his daughters at the Castle Rock police station. He had purchased a gun. He opened fire on the police. They fired back killing Gonzales. When law enforcement went to open Simon’s car they found a staggering scene; Jessica’s three daughters had been shot to death in the cab of Simon’s truck.
Almost five years later after losing her children and her husband in 2004, Jessica Lenahan filed a legal case against the Castle Rock Police Department for refusing to comply with her restraining order against her husband. Her case went on to the United States Federal Supreme Court where numerous advocates were surprised it was struck down.
“The United States Supreme Court said that I had no constitutional right to police protection or enforcement of my restraining order,” remarked Lenahan. “So if restraining orders are not enforced, then they’re not worth the paper they’re written on.”
After her climb to reach the U.S. Supreme Court, Lenahan did not give up though. On October 22, 2008 she pushed her case with advocates and a legal petition against the U.S. Government before the Washington D.C. based international human rights commission the IACHR – Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Her petition – ‘Gonzales v. U.S.A.,’ before the international human rights tribunal finally granted recognition of her plea for protection. A recent IACHR August 2011 final decision in her favor has identified that all women and children do have human rights to be protected from violence in the United States. This decision brought greater examination of the issues by public advocates, laypersons, the U.S. government and foreign policy makers covering human rights and the protection of women and children.
“For everything, I had to ask for his permission.”
“I want to know why the police ignored my calls for help,” said Lenahan during her IACHR tribunal. “I know I cannot bring my children back from that night. The emptiness I feel when I remember my daughters and the great lives they might have lived; nothing can bring them back. Nothing. What I can do however is to be a voice for the voiceless and women who are promised protection in America and denied it the moment they’re in danger.”
The frustrations in getting police protection are shared by many women who suffer under poverty, discrimination and exclusion. Immigrant women, like their U.S. citizen counterparts, may become targets of not only violence by an abuser but by the very same system that is working to set up programs to help them.
“Encounters with the criminal justice system are fraught with danger for any defendant who is not a United States citizen, particularly with the recent revision of immigration laws and increasingly aggressive enforcement efforts,” said the New York State Judicial Committee on Women in the Courts (2009). “In 1984, only 1000 immigrants were deported because of criminal convictions. By 2000, this number had risen to 71,000,” continues the Committee.
Physical abuse can also come when an immigrant woman refuses to follow the code of silence that many abusers demand. As abusers threaten to withdraw a woman’s visa petition they may also threaten to call immigration authorities in an act of intimidation.
Constant fears of deportation haunt many women who live despondent lives under ongoing threats by their abusers.
Immigrant Women and U.S. Law
VAWA – the Violence Against Women Act is a landmark piece of legislation that seeks to improve criminal justice and community-based responses to domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stalking in the United States.
“I was excited to come to US, but since my arrival I have not had one happy day.”
Following the efforts of thousands of women, human rights advocates and concerned U.S. citizens, the original version of the bill was finally signed into law in 1994 after 4 years of exhaustive investigative testimony given before Congress by experts on violence, state and federal police authorities, physicians, scholars and victims of domestic violence crimes. The goal was to encourage targeted local community response to domestic violence. VAWA was reauthorized in 2000 and again in 2005, each time with new and more comprehensive program initiatives.
For the very first time in U.S. history VAWA brought local police departments together to work with social services programs and private nonprofit organizations. The results brought a new wave of women’s shelters and rape crisis centers across the U.S.
The 2000 version of VAWA also established the ‘T’ and ‘U’ visas, a federal program set up to protect and help immigrants who are forced to come to the United States against their will, as victims of sex-trafficking.
But are the all protective programs living up their promises?
In spite of VAWA’s attempt to protect women at a federal level, the state sponsored Arizona SB1070 bill has placed women immigrants living inside the state of Arizona in a troubling ‘legal limbo’ as they face quick deportation if they report any crime they see, including rape, murder or domestic violence.
“Although VAWA’s intentions are laudable there is little in terms of actual legally binding federal provisions which provide substantive protection or prevention for acts of domestic violence against women,” said Ms. Rashida Manjoo (South Africa) UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women during a special fact-finding mission to the United States which was authorized by the United Nations in February 2011.
“He threatened to ‘ship’ me back and revoke his application for my green card.”
A major provision under VAWA is the option for immigrant women to make a ‘self petition’ for lawful immigration into the United States. This is now also available for any abused spouse or child, and even abused immigrant parents.
Once the self-petition is approved, the petitioner will more easily receive protections, including protection from deportation. They will also be qualified to work legally in the United States and will be able to receive many of the same government aid programs reserved for lawful permanent residents.
“We are asking everyone to play an active role in preventing and ending domestic violence, by stepping up to stop violence when they see it,” said Obama during his October National Domestic Violence Awareness Month Proclamation.
Problems remain though for many immigrant women in reporting violence to authorities across the U.S. Until a non-citizen has ‘legal’ immigration status, they remain in danger of being deported at any time. | <urn:uuid:cbe7770f-9b3b-4392-9cd2-adf236473ea2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.awid.org/eng/News-Analysis/Issues-and-Analysis/U.S.-Are-Immigrant-Women-Denied-Rights-under-Violence-Protection-Laws | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967427 | 3,311 | 2.140625 | 2 |
First, can someone translate: "did not comport with the spirit of the principles set forth in the Geneva Conventions," which require humane treatment of prisoners." into a known language?
Having done so, how does the following:
Formica said, for example, that the forces used five interrogation techniques that were allowed at one point but had been rescinded by then: sleep or food deprivation, yelling and loud music, forcing detainees to remain in stressful physical positions and changing environmental conditions - which could include making their locations too hot or too cold.constitute "abuse" in any meaningful sense?
Food deprivation (actually bread and water)
Yelling and loud music
Forcing detainees to remain in stressful physical positions
Changing environmental conditions
Perhaps the writer should go through what is known as "Basic Combat Training" in the Army or "Boot Camp" in the Marines. Had she done so she would not have been able to type that paragraph without collapsing in laughter.
This is it? This is the "abuse"? 17 days of bread and water?
The saddest part about this report is that the brass in the Pentagon responded to it with other than ridicule. No wonder this war is taking so long.
Get a grip. Try and be worthy of the men you "command".
This ain't Miss Elizabeth's Finishing School | <urn:uuid:1f1c4d17-8ee4-4a96-89ae-3f53587da0bd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://yargb.blogspot.com/2006/06/oh-humanity.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964623 | 273 | 2.125 | 2 |
American boffin touts sugar-fuelled mobile phones
Gadgetry to run on spuds, Coke, even dead flies
But other boffins poured scorn on the safe, possibly eco-lovely sugar'n'spuds power source. Prof Phil Bartlett of Southampton Uni said the sweetness-powered gear "isn't going to cut it". He calculated that a Minteer yummy-cell unit would need four square metres of electrode to power a two-watt cellphone. Of course, lower outputs might suffice to trickle-charge a device if it was switched off.
Other researchers felt that sugar power wasn't being creative enough. Prof Chris Melhuish of the Bristol robotics lab said he had built a small robot which ran on "unrefined biomass," which turned out to mean - wait for it - dead flies. Yes, that's right: a robot which runs on corpses, albeit tiny ones for now.
Melhuish, worryingly, told The Guardian "The power that you're getting out is relatively small, but so were solar cells thirty years ago." It would seem obvious that he intends to move on to bigger and better things, perhaps powering his planned machine civilisation from farmed humans in vats, Matrix style. (Why is it always the robotics guys?)
There are of course strong incentives to make power industrial without using fossil fuels. Even if you don't believe in global warming, nobody really wants to keep relying on unsympathetic foreign regimes for energy - and even if Western consumers can continue to muscle their way to the head of the global oil and gas queues, and are happy to take the consequences, fossil stocks will eventually run out.
Nonetheless, even radical eco-hippies don't seem to view conventional solar power, hydro, wind, geothermal power etc. as having the potential to replace oil and gas. Greenpeace, for instance, reckon (pdf) that you could only supply 50 per cent of the world's energy by such means by 2050, and even that would require a lot of powersaving.
That boils down to a stark choice between cuddly biofuels or nasty nuclear power to take up the slack. There are other ideas, such as space-based solar collectors etc, but these are largely unproven or unpopular.
So it's easy to see why so many people want biofuels to work. But even at a laptop and mobile-phone level they may be a while off. Prof Peter Bruce at the University of St Andrews said that Minteer's sugar-batteries would yield outputs at least an order of magnitude less than more conventional fuel cells, and low output is already the besetting problem of such kit.
Greenpeace, too, reckon that availability of sustainable biomass is limited, and that it should be used mainly in stationary electric and heating applications already factored into their 50 per cent figure.
All in all, it may be some time before we run our portable gadgetry on a cocktail of dead flies, spuds, Coke and table sugar. ® | <urn:uuid:52fbc152-eaf1-499a-abe8-6168751d188b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/04/26/bio_fuel_cell_yumyum_batteries/page2.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963312 | 626 | 2.1875 | 2 |
Treasury at Cisco responded to the company's call to cut travel budgets by chopping more than half a million from its travel expenses over the past three years. To do that, treasury turned to Cisco's own TelePresence technology, which uses high-definition cameras and large video monitors to facilitate meetings among participants in different locations, and WebEx, which allows the sharing of documents and files online.
Cisco's far-flung treasury ranges from its operations in the San Jose, Calif., headquarters to the group in Reno, Nev., that oversees the company's investments, to an office in Rolle, Switzerland, as well as staff in Atlanta, Amsterdam and Singapore. Using three TelePresence units, in San Jose, Reno and Rolle, Cisco's 30 treasury employers reworked their processes to cut back drastically on the amount of travel, while at the same time keeping up with the company's growing business.
While Cisco cut its carbon emissions almost in half since 2007, treasury slashed its carbon emissions by almost 90% over the same period. And treasury cut its travel expenses by an average of 40% each year since 2007, for a cumulative reduction of almost 90%. That translates into cost savings to date of more than $500,000. "It's not just being green for green's sake," says Greg Bromberger, assistant treasurer at Cisco. "We've gotten huge business results from this." And those results go beyond the savings in travel expenses, Bromberger says. "We can all do our jobs better, we can collaborate quicker, we can get to better results because of this technology."
TelePresence not only enables internal meetings, it also lets treasury executives meet with people outside Cisco, like the company's bankers. Amid the financial crisis, "it was just a huge productivity and performance benefit to be able to have this face-to-face interactive access to our banking partners," Bromberger says. (While meeting via TelePresence initially meant that bankers had to catch a cab to Cisco's New York City office to use a TelePresence unit there, many of them now have TelePresence units of their own.)
In 2006, Cisco's issuance of $6.5 billion in debt securities required more than 40 round-trip flights, and the company exchanged more than 2,000 pages of pitch books with its banks. In 2009, Cisco did two debt offerings, but there was no travel at all. Treasury managed the 2009 issuances using Tele-Presence and conference call meetings and exchanging information using WebEx. Treasury estimates it saved more than 70 round trips and 4,000 printed pages in executing the 2009 debt deal.
Treasurer Roger Biscay says all the interviews of candidates for treasury positions are now conducted via TelePresence, rather than flying candidates in for meetings. "We hired our head of EMEA and AsiaPac Treasury and did all the interviews over TelePresence," he says. "On the hiring front alone, there's not a week that goes by that I'm not interviewing someone over TelePresence."
Have all in-person meetings stopped? Biscay says it's still helpful to meet face-to-face with bankers when initiating a new relationship. And existing banking partners might still stop by the office when they're making a trip to the West Coast, Bromberger says, although he points out that such visits might not occur when Cisco most needs to meet.
"With TelePresence, we can get the face-to-face interaction and the access to the right people at the bank when we need it, when there might be a major market move going on, when there might be a major trade," Bromberger says. "That's the beauty of TelePresence--we get that interaction at the right time, when it adds value for Cisco and our shareholders." | <urn:uuid:fef80d7f-1213-45e4-b019-8b9243569003> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.treasuryandrisk.com/2010/11/01/gold-aha-winner-for-best-green-strategy | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954732 | 780 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Profits From Global Hunger
By Stefan Steinberg
A series of reports in the international media have drawn attention to the role of professional speculators and hedge funds in driving up the price of basic commodities—in particular, foodstuffs. The sharp increase in food prices in recent months has led to protests and riots in a number of countries across the globe.
On Tuesday, April 22, a UN spokesperson referred to a “silent tsunami” that threatens to plunge more than 100 million people on every continent into hunger. Josette Sheeran, executive director of the UN World Food Programme (WFP), noted: “This is the new face of hunger—the millions of people who were not in the urgent hunger category six months ago but now are.”
A recent article in the British New Statesman magazine, entitled “The Trading Frenzy That Sent Prices Soaring,” notes that increases in global population and the switch to bio-fuels are important factors in the rise of food prices, but then declares:
“These long-term factors are important, but they are not the real reasons why food prices have doubled or why India is rationing rice, or why British farmers are killing pigs for which they can’t afford feedstocks. It’s the credit crisis.”
The article states that the food crisis has developed over “an incredibly short space of time—essentially over the past 18 months.” It continues: “The reason for food ‘shortages’ is speculation in commodity futures following the collapse of the financial derivatives markets. Desperate for quick returns, dealers are taking trillions of dollars out of equities and mortgage bonds and ploughing them into food and raw materials. It’s called the ‘commodities super-cycle’ on Wall Street, and it is likely to cause starvation on an epic scale.”
World prices for basic commodities such as cereals, cooking oil and milk have risen steadily since 2000, but have escalated dramatically since the developing financial crisis in the US began to bite in 2006. Since the start of 2006, the average world price for rice has risen by 217 percent, wheat by 136 percent, corn by 125 percent and soybeans by 107 percent.
Under conditions of growing debt defaults arising from the US subprime crisis, speculators and hedge fund groups have increasingly switched their investments from high-risk “bundled” securities into so-called “stores of value,” which include gold and oil at one end of the spectrum and “soft commodities” such as corn, cocoa and cattle at the other. The article in the New Statesman points out that “speculators are even placing bets on water prices” and then concludes:
“Just like the boom in house prices, commodity price inflation feeds on itself. The more prices rise, and big profits are made, the more others invest, hoping for big returns. Look at the financial web sites: everyone and their mother is piling into commodities.... The trouble is that if you are one of the 2.8 billion people, almost half the world’s population, who live on less than $2 a day, you may pay for these profits with your life.”
Investment in “soft commodities” is currently highly recommended by leading market analysts. According to Patrick Armstrong, a manager at Insight Investment Management in London, “Raw materials can prove to be the best investment class for hedge funds because the market is so inefficient. This results in more chances for profit.”
Much of the international speculation in food commodities takes place on the Chicago Stock Exchange (CHX), where a number of hedge funds, investment banks and pension funds have substantially increased their activities in the past two years. Since January of this year alone, investment activity in the agricultural sector has risen by a quarter at the CHX, and, according to the Chicago firm Cole Partners, involvement by hedge funds in the raw material sector has trebled in the past two years to reach a total of $55 billion.
Large-scale investors such as hedge and pension funds buy futures—shares in basic goods and foodstuffs to be delivered at a fixed date in the future. When the price of the commodity rises significantly between the time of the investment and the time of delivery, the investor is able to take home a large profit.
In light of the current food crisis, substantial returns of profit are guaranteed. According to CHX figures, wheat futures (for delivery in December) are expected to rise by at least 73 percent, soybeans by 52 percent, and soy oil by 44 percent.
Major ecological disasters, such as the recent drought in Australia, which hit food production and drive up basic commodity prices, are good news for the corporate investor.
Substantially reduced harvests in Australia and Canada this year have led to soaring wheat prices. Deutsche Bank has estimated that the price for corn will double, while the price for wheat will rise by 80 percent in the short term.
Such ecological disasters, which can ruin ordinary farmers and mean poverty for millions through increased food prices, are an aspect of the “inefficiency” of the raw materials market referred to above, which currently makes “soft commodities” such an attractive prospect for major speculators.
An article headlined “Deadly Greed” in the current edition of the German weekly Der Spiegel gives some details of the activities of hedge funds in food market speculation. The magazine cites the example of the hedge fund Ospraie, which is generally regarded as the biggest of the management funds currently dealing in basic foodstuffs.
The manager of the fund, Dwight Anderson, is nicknamed “the raw materials king.” Already, in the summer of 2006, Anderson was recommending the “extraordinary profitability” of agricultural crops to his shareholders. While Ospraie is reluctant to publicise its profit levels from speculation in basic commodities, a leading German investor is less reticent.
Andreas Grünewald started up his Münchner Investment Club (MIC) in 1989 with seed capital equal to just €15,000. MIC now controls a volume of €50 million, of which €15 million is from investment in raw materials.
According to Grünewald, “Raw materials are the mega-trend of the decade,” and his company intends to intensify its involvement in both water and agricultural stocks. MIC investment in wheat alone has already yielded profit levels of 93 percent for the 2,500 members of the club.
The Spiegel article points out that MIC and its members give little thought to the catastrophic consequences of their speculative investment policy for undeveloped countries. “Most of our members are rather passive and orientated to profit,” Grünewald notes.
MIC, with its €50 million, is a minor player compared to the finance giant ABN Amro, which recently acquired a unique certificate allowing it to speculate on behalf of smaller investors on the CHX.
In the wake of the hunger revolts that took place a few weeks ago, ABN Amro put out a prospectus noting that India has enforced a ban on exports of rice, which, together with poor harvests in a number of countries, has led to a worldwide decline in rice reserves. “Now,” ABN Amro notes in its prospectus, “it is possible for the first time to have a share in the number one foodstuff in Asia.”
According to the Spiegel report, those responding to the ABN Amro appeal were able to realise a 20 percent rate of profit in the space of three weeks—a period that saw a huge increase in investment in rice in Chicago and other major centres.
Another particularly lucrative investment sector contributing substantially to the current global food crisis is biofuels. Initially championed as a means of protecting the environment, biofuels have become increasingly identified by big business as a profitable alternative to increasingly expensive oil. Within the space of a few years, biofuel has become a booming private industry capable of generating large rates of profit.
Huge tracts of land across the planet have in recent years been switched from food crops to the production of ethanol or biofuel, aimed primarily as a supplement to oil-based gasoline. Next year, the use of US corn for ethanol is forecast to rise to 114 million tonnes—nearly a third of the entire projected US crop.
In the words of Jean Ziegler, the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food, the switch to biofuels at the expense of traditional forms of agriculture is nothing less than a “crime against humanity.”
Although maize production worldwide is growing, the increase is being more than absorbed by biofuel diversification. According to the World Bank, global maize production increased by 51 million tonnes between 2004 and 2007. During that time, biofuel production in the US alone (mostly ethanol) rose by 50 million tonnes, absorbing almost the entire global increase.
Subsidised by the US government, American farmers have diverted fully 30 percent of corn production into the ethanol scheme, driving up the cost of other, more expensive, grains that are being bought as substitutes for animal feed.
The European Union, India, Brazil and China all have their own targets to increase biofuels. The EU has declared that by 2010, 5.75 percent of all gasoline sold to motorists in Europe must stem from biofuel production. This month, a UK law enforced a mandatory mix of 2.5 percent biofuel in gasoline sold to motorists. A similar law stipulating a staggered 10 percent increase in biofuel share in gasoline was recently struck down in Germany following opposition from the auto industry, as well as ordinary car owners who would be forced to buy new cars to accommodate the new fuel.
In addition to the rapidly rising price of basic commodities as a result of the decreased production of grains for food purposes, the switch to crop production of biofuels has served to orient food prices to the high price of fuel. An equivalence is emerging between the price of food and the price of oil.
According to Josette Sheeran of the World Food Programme: “We are seeing food in many places in the world priced at fuel levels,” with increasing quantities of food “being bought by energy markets” for biofuels.
With oil topping $100 a barrel, the biofuel sector is currently regarded as a potential source of huge returns for investors. The drive for maximum profits by the biofuels sector was summed up in the advertisement for a congress held in 2006, which declared:
“Biofuels Finance and Investment World is Europe’s definitive investor congress focusing exclusively on the value chain evolving around the new biofuels economy. Investors and financial institutions will gather with key industry stakeholders to discuss future investment opportunities, the risks and areas with huge potential for profit.”
The April 22 edition of Money Week recommends that investors stung by the subprime crisis switch their funds to the lucrative biofuels market. Money Week sides with Fortune magazine in identifying the oil multinational Royal Dutch Shell group as a guarantor of good returns: “We love it because it makes huge profits and is very cheap, but apparently it also has a large stake in Iogen, a Canadian firm with an exciting-sounding ‘potential breakthrough in ethanol technology.’” | <urn:uuid:50fc4dc9-c522-4767-9fef-f7b64691ba81> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.countercurrents.org/steinberg280408.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957474 | 2,357 | 1.90625 | 2 |
Oral Comprehension Sets the Ceiling on Reading Comprehension
By Andrew Biemiller
To succeed at reading, a child must be able to identify or "read" printed words and to understand the story or text composed of those words. Both identifying words and understanding text are critical to reading success. For many children, increasing reading and school success will involve increasing oral language competence in the elementary years.
The main argument is as follows:
• During elementary school, a child's maximum level of reading comprehension is determined by the child's level of listening comprehension.*
• Children differ markedly in the language and especially the vocabulary they have upon entering kindergarten. Advanced children (75th percentile) are about a "year" ahead of average children, while delayed children (25th percentile) are about a year behind. (Bankson, 1977; Dunn & Dunn, 1982).
• Language continues to develop during the primary years. However, the gap between children with advanced language and children with restricted language grows wider during the elementary years. By grade 3, advanced children's comprehension is equivalent to that of average children in grade 4, while slower-progressing children are similar to average 2nd-graders or even younger children. Some of this difference is attributable to cumulative vocabulary deficits in less advanced children.
• Current school practices typically have little effect on oral language development during the primary years. † Because the level of language used is often limited to what the children can read and write, there are few opportunities for language development in primary classes.
• In the upper elementary grades, those who enter 4th grade with significant vocabulary deficits show increasing problems with reading comprehension, even if they have good reading (word identification) skills. The available evidence does not suggest a substantial "catching-up" process, but rather a continuing slippage relative to those with average and above-average achievement.
• Thus, early delays in oral language come to be reflected in low levels of reading comprehension, leading to low levels of academic success. If we are to increase children's ability to profit from education, we will have to enrich their oral language development during the early years of schooling. Although not all differences in language are due to differences in opportunity and learning, schools could do much more than they do now to foster the language development of less-advantaged children and children for whom English is a second language.
* * *
The listening comprehension of the average child begins to develop around 12 months of age and continues to grow long after grade 6. Reading comprehension typically begins to develop in kindergarten or 1st grade. At this point, the child's level of reading comprehension is obviously far below her listening comprehension. There is considerable evidence that for the majority of children, comprehension of printed language continues to lag behind comprehension of spoken language well past 3rd grade (Sticht & James, 1984). When a child can understand language equally well whether presented in print or speech, the distinction between listening and reading comprehension ceases to be important. However, a number of studies suggest that average children don't reach the point of being able to read what they could understand if they heard it until around 7th or 8th grade. ‡
Listening comprehension continues to grow during the elementary years. Thus the typical 3rd-grader can comprehend more complex oral stories, expositions, etc., than the typical 1st-grader. Broadly speaking, language can only "grow" through interaction with people and texts that introduce new vocabulary, concepts, and language structures. In grades 1 to 3, this growth cannot result mainly from reading experiences because most children are not reading content that is as advanced as their oral language. We often assume that children's reading experiences contribute much to their increasing ability to comprehend language (e.g., Nagy & Herman, 1987; Sternberg, 1987). However, for many children, most language growth continues to come from non-print sources (parents, peers, teacher lectures, class discussions, television, etc.) throughout the elementary years. For many children, the skills necessary for reading printed English remain too poor for them to read texts that introduce new vocabulary and new conceptual structures. The problem is even more severe for struggling students. For example, the listening vocabulary level of a 25th percentile 6th-grader is equivalent to that attained by the 75th percentile 3rd-grader. The same is true of reading comprehension measures.
If we could improve the word identification skills of children at the 25th percentile in reading comprehension, we would get some improvement—up to the child's listening comprehension level. But in many cases, we would still be looking at a child whose comprehension level is far below that of many peers. To bring a child to grade-level language comprehension means, at a minimum, that the child must acquire and use grade-level vocabulary plus some post-grade-level vocabulary. Obviously, this does not mean simply memorizing more words, but rather coming to understand and use the words used by average children at that level. Knowledge of this vocabulary will not guarantee success, but lack of vocabulary knowledge can ensure failure.
Andrew Biemiller is professor in the Institute of Child Study at the University of Toronto and author of numerous articles on how children develop language and literacy. This article is excerpted from Language and Reading Success, a title in From Reading Research to Practice: A Series for Teachers, Brookline Books, 1999, (800-666-BOOK).
*Later, adolescents and adults may comprehend more complex printed narrative or expository text than spoken text because print remains after reading and can be reviewed, while oral language usually cannot be reviewed. However, children must reach the point where they can understand printed text as well as spoken text before their comprehension of printed text can exceed their comprehension of spoken text. (back to article)
†This is true for children whose first language is English. Non-English-speaking children in English-speaking schools clearly acquire some English. However, as a group, they also clearly remain at a disadvantage compared to English-speaking children in elementary schools. (back to article)
‡Of course they can understand simpler text sooner. Many second graders can read and understand "first grade" written text. But they cannot understand stories and expository material in print that they can understand when heard. (back to article)
Bankson, N.W. (1977). Bankson Language Screening Test. Baltimore, Md.: University Park Press.
Dunn, L.M., & Dunn, L.M. (1982). Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revisited. Circle Pines, Minn.: American Guidance Service.
Nagy, W.E., & Herman, P.A. (1987). Breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge: Implications for acquisition and instruction. In M.G. McKeown & M.E. Curtis (eds.), The nature of vocabulary acquisition, pp. 19-36. Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum.
Sternberg, R.J. (1987). Most vocabulary is learned from context. In M.G. McKeown & M.E. Curtis (eds.), The nature of vocabulary acquisition 89-106. Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum.
Sticht, T.G., & James, J.H. (1984). Listening and Reading. In D. Pearson (ed.) Handbook of Research on Reading, vol. 1, pp. 293-317. | <urn:uuid:8162cfc9-11dd-45b6-b874-054cd76bbb07> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://aft.org/newspubs/periodicals/ae/spring2003/hirschsboral.cfm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940969 | 1,536 | 4.25 | 4 |
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If you are new to the award winning Cedar Key Beacon and wish to get a subscription or simply gain access to our online content then please enter your ZIP code below and continue to setup your account. | <urn:uuid:6d39c782-ea14-408c-9f5a-9a62ae9a36a6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cedarkeybeacon.com/content/conservation-corner-march-26?quicktabs_2=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917185 | 171 | 1.960938 | 2 |
Summary: On Baking, Third Edition brings a fresh new design and 350+ new images to the ''fundamentals'' approach that has prepared thousands of students for successful careers in the baking and pastry arts. It teaches both the ''hows'' and ''whys,'' starting with general procedures, highlighting core principles and skills, and then presenting many applications and sample recipes. Professionalism, breads, desserts and pastries, and advanced pastry work are each covered in detail, and ba ...show moreking and pastry arts are presented in cultural and historical context throughout. An expanded recipe testing program involving chef-instructors at leading culinary schools ensures superior accuracy, clarity and instructional value. This edition reflects key trends including artisan baking, sensory science, and flavor pairing, and is complemented by a greatly enhanced support package, including media solutions MyCulinaryLab for course management and Pearson Kitchen Manager for recipe management. ...show lessEdition/Copyright: 3RD 13
More prices and sellers below. | <urn:uuid:3bd9951f-5801-46cf-b23f-f602da83e7ce> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.textbooks.com/On-Baking-3rd-Edition/9780132374569/Sarah-R-Labensky.php?mpcond=Good | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922021 | 202 | 1.851563 | 2 |
TERRE HAUTE —
Kroger pharmacy counters in Terre Haute have begun featuring new medical alert jewelry.
Many children, teens and adults with chronic medical conditions like diabetes or asthma or severe allergies need to wear some kind of medical ID jewelry (bracelet or pendant) to alert caregivers to their condition in case of emergency. But many refuse to wear the old-style, clunky, ugly, stigmatizing medical ID bracelet. Now there are alternatives.
Medical ID Marketplace has introduced a series of designs in inexpensive, bright, colorful rubber, mesh, crystal, bead, rope and leather. The company also offers some more traditional styles, as well as pendant and “dog tag” jewelry options.
Most pieces of Medical ID Marketplace medical ID jewelry carry the Medical Alert symbol and can be customized at no additional charge with engraved information about the medical condition of the wearer. Medical ID jewelry is recommended for anyone who suffers from a range of conditions, such as diabetes, asthma, blood disorders, heart disease, and severe drug, food or insect allergies — in case he or she requires emergency medical care and is incapacitated and unable to explain his condition.
Medical ID Marketplace also offers an additional option on some medical alert jewelry called TextID. The wearer of a medical alert bracelet or pendant can pay an annual fee to have a complete medical profile stored in a secure online account. Each account receives a PIN number. The number can be engraved on the jewelry item, along with the phone number 51020. An emergency medical technician can access the phone number, text in the PIN number and obtain the individual’s medical record, including medications and up to 10 phone numbers of emergency contacts.
Medical ID Marketplace also offers “write-on” Medibands. Medibands are food-grade silicone bands with a white space on the inside which the wearer can use to provide additional medical information. For example, the bracelet may simply say “Allergy” on the outside, but the wearer can write “no peanuts” on the inside — or an emergency contact number could be added. The wearer uses a permanent marker or ballpoint pen to write on the inside of the bracelet and then puts the bracelet in boiling water (that has been taken off the burner) for 30 seconds to make the written notes permanent.
Medical ID Marketplace has partnered with Ronald McDonald House Charities, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, the Make-A-Wish Foundation and other nonprofits. Corporate customers include The Coca Cola Co. and The McDonald’s Corp.
The display can be seen and brochures obtained at Kroger stores in Terre Haute and at other Kroger stores throughout Indiana. The jewelry also can be ordered online at www.medical-bracelet.com, or by calling 1-866-805-1951. | <urn:uuid:fc9488cb-d1fb-4f03-bb7a-a58d6bbafb5b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tribstar.com/business/x1744866952/Kroger-carrying-new-line-of-medical-jewelry/print | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928178 | 582 | 1.6875 | 2 |
At the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal, where the German war criminals were put on trial, there was evidence given in an affidavit made by Hans Marsalek, a former prisoner in the Mauthausen Camp. Marsalek was allegedly present when Franz Ziereis, the Commandant of Mauthausen, gave his deathbed confession. Several photos of Ziereis, on his deathbed, were taken. One of these photos, which now hangs in the Mauthausen Memorial Site Museum, shows the arm and hand of someone who was taking notes. Does anyone know the name of the person who took notes as Ziereis was speaking?
Someone had to be taking notes, as Ziereis gave his 6-8 hour confession in German while Charles Heinz Pilarski translated his words into English. I have recently learned the name of an American soldier who was allegedly taking notes in English while Pilarski was translating, but I am not at liberty to divulge his name. He was allowed to bring his rough draft of the Ziereis confession home with him.
Franz Ziereis was allegedly alive when this photo was taken on May 24, 1945, the day that he died. The photo above was NOT taken by an American Army Signal Corp photographer because it has no identification number which is characteristic of all Signal Corp photos.
Note the arm and hand in the upper left hand corner of the photo. The developing and printing of the arm looks different than the rest of the photo. The developing and printing of the main part of the photo looks a bit “muddy” meaning that it does not have enough contrast, while the portion of the photo that shows the arm and the sleeve has been developed and printed correctly. This indicates to me that two different photos might have been pasted together.
Note the man in the foreground of the photo above; he is wearing an American Army cap and glasses. He is also in the photo below, which appears to have been taken around the same time.
Where is Hans Marsalek in the photo above? Where is the man who was taking notes? Where is the former prisoner who was translating the words of Ziereis into English? Anyone who can identify the men in the photo, please write a comment.
By my calculation, there are seven men in the photo above, gathered around the deathbed of Franz Ziereis. But where is the guy who is taking notes? Where is the American soldier who allegedly took notes while Charles Heinz Pilarski was translating?
The following quote is from this page of the Gusen Memorial website:
EXCURSUS: The capture and interrogation of Ziereis:
On the morning of 3 May, Franz Ziereis, commander of the concentration camp Mauthausen and in this capacity also commander of the camp Gusen, left Mauthausen to hide from the allied troops in his hunting lodge in Spital am Phyrn together with his wife Ida and their three children. Almost three weeks later, on 23 May, he was apprehended by a patrol unit of the US army accompanied by former prisoners and shot when attempting to escape. Ziereis was seriously wounded and taken to the American 131st Evacuation Hospital in the former SS barracks at Gusen, where he was interrogated for several hours by members of the US army, including commander Richard R. Seibel who was responsible for camp Mauthausen, and several former prisoners.
On the evening of the 24 May 1945, Ziereis died from his injuries in the military hospital in Gusen. The original interrogation document was handed over to Colonel Seibel and served as evidence in the forthcoming war crimes trials. Further records were drawn up by former prisoners who had attended the interrogation session. As a result, several versions were in circulation, which were, however, largely identical in content.
Plans to hold a trial of the German war criminals had already been made before the Mauthausen camp was liberated. Col. Richard R. Seibel, who was one of the men present at the death bed of Ziereis, had already taken over the Mauthausen camp in April 1945; he was at the camp for 35 days which included the day that Ziereis allegedly gave his confession. So why didn’t Col. Seibel testify at Nuremberg? Why didn’t he sign the alleged confession of Ziereis which was submitted in an affidavit by Hans Marsalek? | <urn:uuid:108d2cfb-0840-4d9a-99f9-9c7f0a8ed864> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://furtherglory.wordpress.com/2012/08/23/the-deathbed-confession-of-mauthausen-commandant-franz-ziereis-who-was-taking-notes/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987541 | 920 | 2.5 | 2 |
Has America Become Immigrant Nation?
There are more than 11 million illegal aliens in the U.S. But could you spot one in a crowd? They're not always who you think they are
By Sarah Garland
Photo Credit: M. Clamer: Photo used for illustrative purposes only/Getty Image
As you read this story, more than 11 million undocumented immigrants are living in your country. Another 400,000 are expected to arrive by next year. Yet despite their large numbers, you may never have seen an illegal immigrant-- or if you have, you don't know it. Afraid of being found out and deported, they often work while you are sleeping. They live on the other side of town. They don't go to the doctor when they're sick or to the police if they're victims of crime. Smugglers prey on their vulnerability; employers often abuse them with impunity. Many pay taxes but will never collect government benefits because of their illegal status. Still, they come. Some come to work in jobs Americans don't want. Others are captured by the country's spirit, letting a vacation lapse into a permanent stay. All are looking for something they didn't have at home: hope. Two major immigration reforms, in 1986 and 1996, couldn't slow their steady flow across America's borders: The number of undocumented has doubled since the early 1990s. But the reforms have made coming here more dangerous: New fences and more agents along the U.S.-Mexico border force immigrants to cross in increasingly remote areas. Since '96, more than 3000 people have died in the desert. This past year, while thousands of undocumented immigrants and their supporters held protests to bolster their demands for reform, Congress introduced two new bills in the latest attempt to fix the system. The Senate bill would introduce a guest-worker program and a path to citizenship for law-abiding immigrants; the House bill focuses on penalizing the undocumented by making it a felony to be here illegally. Both bills propose more fences and an even bigger border patrol. What these bills don't do is diminish the mix of desperation and ambition that brings people here in the first place. Officially, they are called "illegal aliens," but their dreams may not be too different from your own. | <urn:uuid:7b65c211-df0b-4fa2-8d43-04e441a46ec5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.marieclaire.com/world-reports/news/immigrant-nation | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975552 | 457 | 2.015625 | 2 |
I guess it might make a difference if you mean a 2d line or 3d? Take elevation out of it, and I think it would be (relatively) easy to determine if a straight line passes within x meters of a point. Use the pos array as the center spot, then the bounding box information for the +/- values from that spot. Like, for 2d, you really only want to know whether the line AB intersects a line segment set perpendicular to AB with the center at the position array.
For 3d, it becomes more complicated with the angles, but I think the same principles would apply.
(Sorry if this doesn't really help.)
Thinking about it more, as a function, you could do it by measuring distances from the center position C, and using the vector between A and B.
- check if either A or B is within the bounding box area.
That'll make the routine shorter!
- get vector from A to C, if it isn't within a few degrees* ignore the whole thing
- get distance and vector from A to B; and a distance from A to C and B to C
- pick a spot X half way from A to B on the vector
- check if X is within the bounding box area
- if not, then figure out which is further away from C - either A or B - and replace it with X (that should make sure you keep narrowing on on the point on the line AB that is closest to C
- and get the distance/vector/half way point again
- probably include a check so that if X is only moving by a few meters, then that's the end of the analysis
Oof. That still looks pretty ugly. Hopefully someone else who knows what they're doing will see this.
I guess the real trigonometry way would be to start with the vector and distance from A to C, and the size of the object. Figure out how many minutes of angle (? I think that's right) the object takes up. Get the vector from A to B, and if it is within the vector +/- the size of the object, then it intersects.
But, that is stretching the very limits of my math brain. Now, I need a scotch. | <urn:uuid:f3931d99-f449-47e9-b7ac-120ae78b4813> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ofpec.com/forum/index.php?topic=34369.msg236536 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961893 | 473 | 3.296875 | 3 |
General Education Program
For detailed information, visit the General Education web site.
General Education + Major + Electives = Meredith Education
The education that students receive while at Meredith is comprised of three components: general education requirements, major requirements, and electives. These three components, combined with many other experiences to be had both on and off campus, develop in students the knowledge, skills, values, and global awareness necessary to pursue careers, to assume leadership roles, to continue their education, and to lead responsible lives of work, citizenship, leisure, learning, and service.
General Education Purpose Statement
The mission of the general education program is consistent with the mission of the college. Our mission is to provide a unique signature curriculum, a broad education in the liberal arts and sciences, and a focus on academic skills to all Meredith students. Through their active participation in this curriculum Meredith College women will be able to inquire critically, solve problems creatively, make decisions ethically, and communicate effectively. As educated women Meredith graduates will understand that they have the moral responsibility to use their skills as engaged citizens. They will know that global problems can be addressed through local action. Understanding knowledge as complex and ever changing, they will have the courage and curiosity to be adaptable, lifelong learners.
The Goals of General Education
Meredith’s General Education encourages students to develop a breadth of skills and knowledge for the 21st century, to serve their communities through civic engagement, and to become independent and lifelong learners. Through courses in the liberal arts and sciences, and in their majors, students work toward the following goals.
- An understanding of self, others, and the world,
- The ability to analyze, evaluate, and discover solutions,
- Effective communication,
- A recognition of ethical and responsible behavior in society, the global community, and the natural world, and
- An understanding of the complex nature of knowledge. | <urn:uuid:61d3a9f9-61ca-4c18-b630-cf4c7b804974> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.meredith.edu/academics/general-education.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948952 | 386 | 2.21875 | 2 |
George Stubbs, Lion and Lioness, 1771
From the Boston Museum of Fine Arts:
Stubbs began his career as a portraitist and an anatomical illustrator, becoming widely renowned with the publication of The Anatomy of the Horse (1766). His aptitude for rendering the physical structure of animals is evident in the muscular haunches of this lioness. Natural phenomena were both an object of study and a source of awe for eighteenth-century artists and scientists, who endeavored to describe the natural world, master its complexity, and convey its sublime power. By manipulating setting, light, and color, Stubbs gives his realistic representation of the lions, plants, and trees an eerie and fantastic quality. | <urn:uuid:7d3c2dd2-ea19-4102-a58a-364c140e5b24> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://assweetastupelohoney.tumblr.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950478 | 145 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Where to Buy
Take a look at Where To Buy for local sources of basic food items.
Updated: October 2012
SOW IT - GROW IT - EAT IT!
Would you like to grow vegetables but only have a balcony, patio or small garden; need to know how to go about sowing and growing vegetables; want to do so without spending a lot of money; want to have someone to turn to for advice?
If so, FOOD UP FRONT 2013 could help You!
We are planning to hold a regular series of “Pop –Up” events in various parts of town. We will be offering: small amounts of seeds, growing advice, recycled containers in which to grow seasonal vegetables, recipes.
February/March - potatoes / tomatoes
April - courgettes, squashes
May - runner and french beans
June - salads
July - spinach
August - pak choi / chard
In return we would welcome a small donation and feed-back on your growing and cooking experience. To take part please email Vicki
FOOD UP FRONT 2013 is a project of Transition Town Lewes Food Group.
EAT MORE SPUDS! Our latest local recipe booklet features potatoes, because unlike hard wheat and rice, they grow here, in our gardens, on the allotment and in the fields. Recipes include potato and garlic soup, gnocchi and much more. Click here to download a copy.
GET INVOLVED! We welcome new members and will give support and feedback if you have a project you want to develop – contact Eileen Bull. We are exploring future project ideas.
Local food to look forward to.
Lewes Shop Local Eat Local Questionnaire
Full results of the Lewes Shop Local Eat Local questionnaire are available. There is a five-page summary with charts, and an appendix with all the individual responses (with personal details removed). Printed copies of the main report will be available also, and distributed to shops, stallholders and some others.
Thanks very much to all the organisations and individuals who helped to distribute the questionnaire, and everyone who took part. Some really interesting ideas emerged. The Food Group will be in touch with everyone who wanted to help promote local food and local independent shops and markets. Click here to link to Where To Buy for local sources of basic food items. Contact: Ann Link
More about the Food Group...
Who we are
We're a group of local people who feel passionate about food. We're also concerned about climate change and peak oil. We want to find ways to make sure Lewes can feed itself in future – in a way that reduces carbon emissions and uses less energy.
What are we aiming to do?
Support Lewes in making the change to a low carbon, low energy future at every stage of the food cycle. We believe this means thinking about how to:
- farm organically to minimise use of oil - based fertilisers
- transport and sell food in a way that reduces carbon emissions
- encourage people to buy local food, cook their own food and not throw good food away
- make sure everyone gets access to a healthy diet.
Growing local produce.
How are we doing this?
We have started some local projects to get lots of people thinking about these ideas and to start making changes themselves. Some of these have been pilot schemes while other projects are ongoing.
PROJECTS AND EVENTS
Our pride and joy is the Lewes Food Market which opened during July 2010 and was a way of putting some of the groups’ aims into practical actions: supporting local producers, cutting carbon emissions in food production and transport, as well as making fresh produce available on a weekly basis. Based right in the centre of town (in the old Market Tower) every Friday morning, it gathers together the best of local food and produce from a 30 mile radius around Lewes.
The weekly market is run as a social enterprise by a new Lewes company, Lewes Local C.I.C.[ Community Interest Company] which employs a market manager and is very proving popular with local people.
Beautiful redcurrants, summer fruits and broad beans.
Food Up Front encouraged householders to grow food in small areas from balconies to window boxes – no space is too small. We produced full instructions for beginners about how to grow in containers. We are not running Food Up Front in 2012 but are still happy to advise on food growing in gardens and small spaces. Tel. 475 521 or email Vicki
Fish for the Future - We organised a delicious fish supper at Pelham House followed by a screening of ‘End of the Line’. It was a real wake-up call for the 90 people who came along and they left vowing to cut their fish consumption and always question the provenance of the fish they do consume. Eat local and seasonal food is the overriding message – as always.
Local Food for Lewes - With rising food prices and predicted food shortages we all need to plan for the future. Patrick Holden of the Soil Association came to Lewes to talk about building resilience into our lives. Almost 100 people (including a number of local farmers) attended the event and lively discussions continued late into the evening.
Garden Buddies – we set up a group (including a Google Group) for people to visit gardens and support each other to grow food. It is not active now, but could be reinstated if some else would like to run it.
It’s a day to find seeds, friendly advice, inspiration and hot soup on a cold day! There was a chutney competition with the legendary Marguerite Patten as judge plus workshops, talks, stalls and yummy local food. We helped Lewes District Council organise the event for the third year running.
East Sussex Local Food Action Plan – we are involved along with many other groups with this practical plan, which is part of the Environment Strategy. Contact: Ann Link for more information.
And for the future climate change, government policies and peak oil shortages all continue to present new challenges. The Food Group will continue to look at ways forward to a sustainable food supply for the Lewes area using practical and engaging solutions. Join us!
Contact: Eileen Bull
Other local food related projects and groups:
Sussex Community Seed Bank: contact Bernard McDonagh firstname.lastname@example.org or phone: 07530324296
Lewes Residents Landshare
Ringmer Community Orchard
Lewes Arboretum and fruit tree mapping
Transition project on emergency food storage in SE England see Resilient Food Storage | <urn:uuid:7bb3e3fa-3c1e-4a60-aa15-668c8039df59> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://transitiontownlewes.org/food.html | 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 | 0.940213 | 1,370 | 2.109375 | 2 |
Superman Family Adventures by Art Baltazar and Franco
I mentioned this series coming out back when the last issue of Tiny Titans came out. I love reading comics for kids and all ages titles because they're generally more fun to read than the regular DCU's offerings which are all rated "T for Teen" and are all about "serious business."
This comic starts out with Superman saving Metropolis from a meteorite and then as soon as he's back at the Daily Planet he's off again to stop a trio of giant purple and green robots stomping through the city. The first five pages are in the gallery so you can take a look at this big adventure drawn in Art Baltazar's adorable style.
I'm a huge Superman fan so I'm just going to list off some of what made this so great:
- Superman making puns about what the robots are throwing at him.
- Superboy, Supergirl, and Krypto show up to help and Superman responds, "Great, kids! Be cautious! These robots are dangerous!"
- Superman goes straight to Plan S. He throws a robot into space.
- Jimmy Olsen blushes and has little hearts circling his head when he's saved by Supergirl.
- Lex Luthor steals most of his lines from Gene Hackman.
- Jimmy's adventures getting Perry White his coffee.
- Superman has a big grin on his face while flying off to the Fortress of Solitude with Krypto the Superdog and Fuzzy the Supermouse!
I don't know how somebody could get through this book without getting a big grin on your face.
Over on the DC blog in the last two weeks they had some great behind the scenes looks at this book that you can see here: http://www.dccomics.com/tags/superman-family-adventures and it really makes it hard to wait another month for the next issue.
"Also, Superman has a huge crush on Lois Lane."
-SFA Character Description
If you have little kids who like superheroes or very possibly a kid who always takes a towel to wrap around his or her neck to use as a cape then I suggest you head down to Legends of Superheros in Middlebury and pick up a copy. | <urn:uuid:70ddf257-ec6d-47a5-9b3a-ce71f104cb96> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://woodbury-middlebury.patch.com/groups/bj-dowds-blog/p/bp--comic-conversations-superman-family-adventures | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959419 | 462 | 1.648438 | 2 |
About Owen Lattimore
Owen Lattimore (July 29, 1900 – May 31, 1989) was an American author, educator, and influential scholar of Central Asia, especially Mongolia. In the 1930s, he was editor of Pacific Affairs, a journal published by the Institute of Pacific Relations, and then taught at Johns Hopkins University from 1938 to 1963. During World War II, he was an advisor to Chiang Kai-shek and the American government and contributed extensively to the public debate.
In the early post-war period of McCarthyism and the Red Scare, American wartime China Hands were accused of being agents of the Soviet Union or under the influence of Marxism. In 1950, Senator Joseph McCarthy accused Lattimore in particular of being "the top Russian espionage agent in the United States."
The accusations led to years of Congressional hearings that did not substantiate the charge that Lattimore had been one (and wartime intercepted Venona cables did not refer to him as one). The hearings documented Lattimore's sympathetic statements about Stalin and the Soviet Union, however. Although charges of perjury were dismissed, the controversy put an end to Lattimore's role as a consultant of the United States State Department and eventually to his career in American academic life.
From 1963 to 1975, Lattimore was the first professor of Chinese studies at the University of Leeds in England, where he taught Chinese History, richly flavoured with personal reminiscences. He died in 1989 in Providence, Rhode Island.
Lattimore's "lifetime intellectual project," notes one recent scholar, was to "develop a 'scientific' model of the way human societies form, evolve, grow, decline, mutate and interact with one another along 'frontiers.'" He eclectically absorbed and often abandoned influential theories of his day that dealt with the great themes of history.
These included the ecological determinism of Ellsworth Huntington; biological racism, though only to the extent of seeing characteristics which grew out of ecology; the economic geography and location theory; and some aspects of Marxist modes of production and stages of history, especially through the influence of Karl August Wittfogel.
The most important and lasting theorist, however, was Arnold J. Toynbee and his treatment of the great civilizations as organic wholes which were born, matured, grew old, and died. Lattimore's most influential book, The Inner Asian Frontiers of China (1940), used these theories to explain the history of East Asia not as the history of China and its influence, but as the interaction between two types of civilizations, settled farming and pastoral, each of which had its role.
Although born in the US, Lattimore was raised in Tianjin, China, where his parents, David and Margaret Lattimore, were teachers of English at a Chinese university. (His brother was the classics translator Richmond Lattimore. One of his sisters was the children's author Eleanor Frances Lattimore.) After being schooled at home by his mother, he left China at the age of twelve and attended schools in Switzerland and St Bees School, England (1915–1919), but returned in 1919 when it turned out that he would not have enough funds for attending university.
He worked first for a newspaper and then for a British import/export related business. This gave him the opportunity to travel extensively in China and time to study Chinese with an old-fashioned Confucian scholar. His commercial travels also gave him a feel for the realities of life and the economy. A turning point was negotiating the passage of a trainload of wool through the lines of two battling warlords early in 1925, an experience which led him the next year to follow the caravans across Inner Mongolia to the end of the line in Xinjiang.
The managers of his firm, however, saw no advantage in subsidizing his travels but sent send him to spend a year in Beijing as government liaison. During the year he spent there before departing on his expedition, he met his wife, Eleanor Holgate. For their honeymoon they planned to travel from Beijing to India, he overland, she by rail across Siberia, a mammoth feat in the first half of the 20th century, but in the event the plans were disrupted and she had to travel alone by horse-drawn sled for four hundred miles in February to find him. She described her journey in Turkestan Reunion (1934), he in The Desert Road to Turkestan (1928) and High Tartary (1930). This trip laid the ground for his lifelong interest in all matters related to the Mongols and other peoples of the Silk Road.
Upon his return to America in 1928, he succeeded in receiving a fellowship from the Social Science Research Council for further travel in Manchuria, then for the academic year 1928/1929 as a student at Harvard University. He returned to China 1930-1933 with fellowships from the Harvard-Yenching Institute and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.
In 1934, he became editor of Pacific Affairs, published by the Institute of Pacific Relations, which he edited from Beijing. Rather than have bland official statements, he made it his policy to make the journal a "forum of controversy." As he later recalled, he was "continually in hot water, especially with the Japan Council, which thought I was too anti-imperialist, and the Soviet Council, which thought that its own anti-imperialist line was the only permissible one...." As explained below, others later accused him of motives which were less scholarly than political. Lattimore sought articles from a wide range of perspectives and made the journal a forum for new ideas, especially from the social sciences and social philosophy. Scholars and writers of all persuasions were contributors, including Pearl S. Buck, some Chinese literary figures, and dedicated Marxists.
After sojourns in New York and London and a trip to the Soviet Union, the Lattimores returned to Beijing in 1937. Owen visited the Communist headquarters at Yan'an to act as translator for T. A. Bisson and Philip Jaffé, who were gathering material for Amerasia as an activist journal of political commentary. There he met Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. He was impressed with their candor, but had a less favorable experience on his visit to the party school for national minorities. When he spoke to the Mongols in Mongolian, his Chinese hosts broke off the session.
World War II
Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Lattimore US advisor to Chinese Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek. In 1944, Lattimore was placed in charge of the Pacific area for the Office of War Information. By this time, Lattimore's political activities and associations had been under scrutiny for the last two years by the FBI, which recommended for Lattimore to be put under "Custodial Detention in case of National Emergency". At President Roosevelt's request, he accompanied US Vice-President Henry A. Wallace on a mission to Siberia and to China and Mongolia in 1944 for the US Office of War Information. The trip had been arranged by Lauchlin Currie, who recommended to FDR for Lattimore to accompany Wallace.
During this visit, which overlapped the D-Day landings, Wallace and his delegates stayed 25 days in Siberia and were given a tour of the Soviet Union's Magadan concentration camp at Kolyma. In a travelogue for National Geographic, Lattimore described what little he saw as a combination of the Hudson's Bay Company and the TVA, remarking on how strong and well-fed the inmates were and ascribing to camp commandant Ivan Nikishov'a trained and sensitive interest in art and music and also a deep sense of civic responsibility'. In a letter written to the New Statesman in 1968, Lattimore justified himself by arguing his role had not been one to "snoop on his hosts."
During the 1940s, Lattimore came into increasing conflict with another member of the IPR's board, Alfred Kohlberg, a manufacturer with long experience in the China trade whose visit to China in 1943 convinced him that stories of Chiang Kai-shek's corruption were false. He accused Lattimore of being hostile to Chiang and too sympathetic towards the Communist Party of China. In 1944, relations between Kohlberg and Lattimore became so bad that Kohlberg left the IPR and founded a journal Plain Talk intended to rebut the claims made in Pacific Affairs By the late 1940s, Lattimore had become a particular target of Kohlberg and other members of the China Lobby. Kohlberg was later to became an advisor to Senator Joseph McCarthy, and it is possible that McCarthy first learned of Lattimore through Kohlberg.
Accused of espionage
Meanwhile, accusations were made, which later became public. On 14 December 1948, Alexander Barmine, former chargé d'affaires at the Soviet Embassy in Athens, Greece, advised Federal Bureau of Investigation agents that Soviet GRU Director Janis Berzin had informed him prior to Barmine's 1937 defection that Lattimore was a Soviet agent, an allegation Barmine would repeat under oath before the Senate McCarran Committee in 1951.
Confrontation with Congressional Committees
In March 1950, in executive session of the Tydings Committee, Joseph McCarthy accused Lattimore of being the top Soviet agent, either in the US, in the State Department, or both. The committee, chaired by Senator Millard Tydings, was investigating McCarthy's claims of widespread Soviet infiltration of the State Department. When the accusation was leaked to the press, McCarthy backed off from the charge that Lattimore was a spy but continued the attack in public session of the committee and in speeches.
Lattimore, he said, "in view of his position of tremendous power at the State Department" was the "'architect' of our Far Eastern policy" and asked whether Lattimore's "aims are American aims or whether they coincide with the aims of Soviet Russia." At the time, Lattimore was in Kabul, Afghanistan, on a cultural mission for the United Nations. Lattimore dismissed the charges against him as "moonshine" and hurried back to the United States to testify before the Tydings Committee.
McCarthy, who had no evidence of specific acts of espionage and only weak evidence that Lattimore was a concealed Communist, in April 1950 persuaded Louis F. Budenz, the now-anticommunist former editor of the Communist Party organ Daily Worker, to testify. Budenz had no first-hand knowledge of Lattimore's Communist allegiance and had never previously identified him as a Communist in his extensive FBI interviews. In addition, Budenz had in 1947 told a State Department investigator that he "did not recall any instances" that suggested that Lattimore was a Communist and had also told his editor at Collier's magazine in 1949 that Lattimore had never "acted as a Communist in any way."
Now, however, Budenz testified that Lattimore was a secret Communist but not a Soviet agent; he was a person of influence who often assisted Soviet foreign policy. Budenz said his party superiors had told him that Lattimore's "great value lay in the fact that he could bring the emphasis in support of Soviet policy in non-Soviet language." The majority report of the Tydings committee cleared Lattimore of all charges against him; the minority report accepted Budenz's charges.
In February 1952, Lattimore was called to testify before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SISS), headed by McCarthy's ally, Senator Pat McCarran. Before Lattimore was called as witness, investigators for the SISS had seized all of the records of the Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR). The twelve days of testimony were marked by shouting matches, which pitted McCarran and McCarthy on one side against Lattimore on the other. Lattimore took three days to deliver his opening statement: the delays were caused by frequent interruptions as McCarran challenged Lattimore point by point. McCarran then used the records from the IPR. to ask questions that often taxed Lattimore's memory. Budenz again testified, but this time claimed that Lattimore was both a Communist and a Soviet agent.
The Subcommittee also summoned scholars. Nicholas Poppe, a Russian émigré and a scholar of Mongolia and Tibet, resisted the committee's invitation to label Lattimore a Communist but found some of his writings superficial and uncritical. The most damaging testimony came from Karl August Wittfogel, supported by his colleague from the University of Washington, George Taylor. Wittfogel, a former Communist, said that at the time Lattimore edited the journal Pacific Affairs, Lattimore knew of his Communist background; even though they had not exchanged words on the matter, Lattimore had given Wittfogel a "knowing smile."
Lattimore acknowledged that Wittfogel's thought had been tremendously influential but said that if there had been a smile, it was a "non-Communist smile." Wittfogel and Taylor charged that Lattimore had done "great harm to the free world' in disregarding the need to defeat world Communism as a first priority. John K. Fairbank, in his memoirs, suggests that Wittfogel may have said this because he had been made to leave Germany for having views unacceptable to the powers that be, and he did not want to make the same mistake twice. They also asserted that the influence of Marxism on Lattimore was shown by his use of the word "feudal." Lattimore replied that he did not think that Marxists had a "patent" on that word.
In 1952, after 17 months of study and hearing, involving 66 witnesses and thousands of documents, the McCarran Committee issued its 226-page, unanimous final report. This report stated that "Owen Lattimore was, from some time beginning in the 1930s, a conscious articulate instrument of the Soviet conspiracy," and that on "at least five separate matters," Lattimore had not told the whole truth. One example: 'The evidence... shows conclusively that Lattimore knew Frederick V. Field to be a Communist; that he collaborated with Field after he possessed this knowledge; and that he did not tell the truth before the subcommittee about this association with Field....'
In 1952, Lattimore was indicted for perjury on seven counts. Six of the counts related to various discrepancies between Lattimore's testimony and the IPR records; the seventh accused Lattimore of seeking to deliberately deceive the SISS. Lattimore's defenders, such as his lawyer Abe Fortas, claimed that the discrepancies were caused by McCarran deliberately asking questions about arcane and obscure matters that took place in the 1930s.
Within three years, federal judge Luther Youngdahl dismissed the charges. Four of the charges were dismissed as insubstantial and not judicable; denying that he was sympathetic to communism was too vague to be fairly answered; and the other counts were matters of little concern, those for which a jury would be unlikely to convict on matters of political judgment. In his book Ordeal by Slander, Lattimore gives his own account of these events up until 1950.
The American Center for Mongolian Studies, together with the International Association of Mongolian Studies and the National University of Mongolia School of Foreign Service organized a conference entitled, "Owen Lattimore: The Past, Present, and Future of Inner Asian Studies" in Ulan Bator, Mongolia on August 20 and 21, 2008.
A Leeds student housing block is now named after him. While there, he also promoted the establishment of a Mongolian Studies Department. Lattimore had a lifelong dedication to establishing research centers to further the study of Mongolian history and culture. He is one of the few Westerners to have received recognition from the Mongolian state. The State Museum in Ulaanbaatar named a newly discovered dinosaur after him.
In An Inner Asian Approach to the Historical Geography of China (1947), Lattimore explored the system through which humanity affects the environment and is changed by it, and concluded that civilization is molded by its own impact on the environment. He lists the following pattern:
1.A primitive society pursues some agricultural activities, but is aware that it has many limitations.
2.Growing and evolving, the society begins to change the environment. For example, depleting its game supply and wild crops, it begins to domesticate animals and plants. It deforests land to create room for these activities.
3.The environment changes, offering new opportunities. For example, it becomes grasslands.
4.Society changes in response, and reacts to the new opportunities as a new society. For example, the once-nomads build permanent settlements and shift from a hunter-gatherer mentality to a farming society culture.
5.The reciprocal process continues, offering new variations. | <urn:uuid:121c9ea3-17fe-44d4-9dc4-214a73ee0a00> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.geni.com/people/Owen-Lattimore/6000000018022752391 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979251 | 3,529 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Danish architecture firm, EFFEKT, was recently announced as the winner of a design competition for the Danish Cancer Society’s new Cancer Counseling Center at Næstved Hospital in Denmark.
The concept is a cluster of seven small houses surrounded by green space. Each house has a specific function, all seven forming a functioning and useful compound that features such simple amenities as a library, kitchen, conversation room, lounge, shops, a gym, and wellness facilities.
Leif Vestergaard Pedersen, CEO of the Danish Cancer Society, said, “The house will feel homely and comfortable and provide room for all forms of activities. The center will be located quite close to the hospital, this will make it easy for cancer patients and their relatives to come by for a cup of coffee and maybe a talk between treatments.”
Perhaps the features are simple, but as the title of the new center suggests, the purpose of this thoughtful and beautiful design is comfort, therapy and overall well-being for patients.
The difference and roof height and the variety of materials used gives the counseling center a distinctness that will separate it from the surrounding hospital buildings, giving it a mental barrier from the fray. Though ascetically removed, the hospital’s oncology center and cancer ward are in fact nearby for convenience and collaboration.
Construction is set to begin this August, and be completed for opening as early as spring of 2013. For more images see EFFEKT’s Facebook page. | <urn:uuid:d25b5b07-aaa4-4d4b-b411-b4982b3c0417> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/design-architecture/designing-for-well-being-danish-firm-wins-competition-for-cancer-counseling-center/5104 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960626 | 307 | 1.554688 | 2 |
It is to American occupation and the admission of California to the Union that San Francisco owes its advance to a city. Under Spanish and Mexican rule it was valued simply as a trading post, for the Latins hated the harsh winds that sometimes (tell it in whispers) blew then, as now, and loved the sunnier towns to the south, Monterey and Santa Barbara and San Diego.
San Francisco in the parlance of 1850 meant the cluster of houses between Telegraph Hill and El Rincon. The Presidio was reduced to two dilapidated adobe buildings, in which was quartered a United States military company. The Mission was a resort where it was pleasant to while away a Sunday.
Of the town proper the plaza was the center. Reminiscences of the admission celebration of 1850 naturally linger there. There the sunrise Federal salute of thirteen guns was fired; there the procession, after circling around the vicinity, massed itself to attend the literary exercises of the day; there at sunset the thirty-one shots of the new national salvo were discharged; there the grand ball continued the jubilation until the sun ushered in another day.
The plaza was laid out in
1839, when Captain Jean Vioget made a survey of the infant pueblo for the
Californian authorities. The population being sparse the plaza was not
improved until 1844-45. Then the National Government erected a
The plaza received its present title from the American man-of-war Portsmouth which was anchored in our harbor during the summer of 1846. On the 9th of July of that year, two days after Monterey had been seized by the Americans, a detachment of marines under orders of Commodore Montgomery marched to the plaza and raised the Stars and Stripes, amid enthusiastic cheers and a volley of twenty-one shots from the Portsmouth. They bestowed the name of their vessel upon the plaza and sent a number of names down to posterity through the surrounding streets. No opposition was made to the seizure. The Custom-house receptor, Pinto, had left a week before, after depositing with [Alexander] Leidesdorff a trunk containing the Mexican flag and documents.
The Mexican flagstaff remained in the plaza until July 4, 1850, when it was replaced by a gift from the citizens of Portland, Or. The new pole was 111 feet long, with a diameter of one foot at the base and tapered to a point. It was received with gratitude and admiration, but a good deal of affection clung to the old staff, which was now erected before the new Custom-house at the corner of California and Montgomery streets.
After being used as a barracks
the adobe served as a quartermasters depot and then as a
After the American occupation Portsmouth square was for several years the focus of all that was going on in San Francisco, but in 1850 the commercial activity moved to the water front. Although deserted by business the plaza still remained the center of life. Around it were grouped the hotels, each striving to out rival the others in new luxuries and recreations. Most of these buildings had been destroyed by fire three times, but three times they had been rebuilt, each time with more gorgeous finishings.
On the east side, a contemporary tells us, there was in September, 1850, a line of palaces, the magnificence of whose interior even more than corresponds to the promise as their outward show. They were all devoted to the fickle goddess, Fortune, but they are good lounges for one who can withstand temptation. At the right was the three-storied El Dorado, a fireproof building that had saved some of its weaker neighbors during the last conflagration. It was a favorite resort of the Mexican gamblers. Next stood the Parker House, the third of its name on the same site. The first was built in the spring of 1849 by Robert A. Parker and John H. Brown. It fronted sixty-five feet on the plaza and was 145 feet deep, with a wing thirty-five feet wide running back ninety feet. The whole structure was two stories high. During the festivities of Christmas eve, 1849, it was burned to the ground.
A few months later Thomas
Maguire & Co. began the erection of a new three-
On the west, beginning at the right was the Postoffice, a great improvement for the convenience of both public and employes upon the cramped and inconvenient offices higher up on Clay street. Next was the tidiest of miniature cafes, joined with a fruiters establishment. Here the fragrant Mocha was dispensed by one Thomas Truworthy. Next came the store of Still, a bookseller and stationer. Mr. Still was an example of prosperity resulting from industry. He had worked his way around the Horn and landed in San Francisco without a cent, yet in 1850 he had a good store, with a late consignment of 8000 volumes and 13,000 newspapers. Next to Stills was Justices Court, and it was hinted that Justice frequently slipped the bandages off her eyes to glance at the fees.
On the south side the old City Hall stood at the right. There was a large, low adobe, with a veranda in front, erected in 1846 by Leidesdorff. In 1847 it was kept as a hotel by John H. Brown, and so was often known as Browns Hotel. It was the headquarters of the gamblers and coined money from the tables. The American Hotel and others filled up the block.
On the north side the Alta California publishing house faced the Plaza, and below it, in the same block, was the banking-house of Palmer, Cook & Co. and the offices of Glaysen & Co. and Stevenson & Parker, land agents.
In the center of the Plaza was an unsightly artesian well which had been a failure and butt of innumerable jokes.
In 1850 a mining excitement added to the disorderly condition of the Plaza. Strangers arriving in California expected gold to greet them from every inch of surface, and many jokes were played at their expense. During this summer an individual placed two or three ounces of gold on the surface of the Plaza in front of the Parker House, and then took out some late arrivals to show them how gold could be found in the streets. He took a pan of dust, and on washing it got two ounces of gold. Instantly an excitement arose. Others procured pans, and in a short time the Plaza had all the appearance of a placer. One man was rewarded by getting 20 cents in his first pan, but no more gold was discovered. Later it was learned that the man who deposited the gold and the sellers of the tin pans were partners, and that they had reaped a harvest from pans at $2 a piece. This was known as the spelter excitement.
What with spelter and the artesian well, with deposited goods and animals roving at will, the Plaza did not present an attractive appearance. The papers were constantly calling attention to the nuisances, but without effect until the news of the admission arrived. Then the City Council ordered that the streets and Plaza be cleared in order that the procession be not impeded.
The adobe continued to stand as a picturesque monument to that government from which California had sprung, until the great fire of 1851 destroyed it and many of its companions, and so changed the Plaza that it could not be recognized as the scene of the first admission celebration.
The business section, starting with Montgomery street, extended to the wharves. North of the Plaza, between Broadway and Green, Kearny and Stockton, was Little Chile, whose denizens represented all the Latin-American countries; and just below, between Kearny and Sansome, Broadway and Green, was located Sydney Town, the rendezvous of the lowest strata of the population. South of Market, between what is now First and Second, Natoma and Mission, lay Happy Valley, and below it, between Mission and Howard, was Pleasant Valley, both boasting of manufacturing industry and of good health.
In the summer of 1850 many ordinances were passed for the improvement of the streets, and $500,000 was appropriated for the work. Hills were removed to hollows, and many of the streets were graded and planked, and some sewered. The city paid one-third the expense, and the remaining two-thirds fell in heavy assessments on the property-owners. A planked toll road to the Mission was planned this year, and built in 1851. The length of the streets was increased by extending them into wharves, twelve of which were built by September, 1850. Central Wharf was the first constructed, and it extended 2000 feet into the bay. It was built by a private company at a cost of $130,000. As vessels could load here even at low tide, Central, or Long Wharf, as it soon was called, became a great thoroughfare and the noisiest spot in the city. From the foot of Sacramento street, Howisons pier ran out 1100 feet, and Cunningham Wharf extended from Battery, between Vallejo and Green, for 375 feet, and then had a T at the end 330 feet long, 30 feet wide and with a 25-foot depth of water. Market, California, Clay, Washington, Jackson, Pacific, Broadway and Green streets all had their wharfage extensions, varying from 250 to 900 feet in length.
The narrow streets, as well
as the combustible material of the houses and the scarcity of water, made
San Francisco an easy prey to the god of flame. In January, 1849, a noted
resort, The Shades, was reduced to ashes, and in the following
June the ship Philadelphia was burned to the waters edge; but these conflagrations
seemed to make little impression on the citizens. On the morning of December
24, 1849, at about 6 oclock, the whole town was aroused by a fire raging
near the Plaza. It started in Dennisons Exchange, about the middle of
the east side of the square, and plunged down Kearny to Washington, and
along the south side of Washington to Montgomery, destroying all in its
path. It was only checked by the authorities pulling down some buildings
and blowing up others, so as to deprive it of sustenance. Water was so
scarce that one merchant paid $1 a bucket to save his property; others
threw mud from the streets
The horror of the first
fire was scarcely dimmed when on May 4, 1850, the second great one cost
the town $4,000,000. It broke out about 4 A.M. in the United States Exchange
and by 11 three blocks had been swept away
New structures were being erected on the ashes and people were beginning to breathe freely once more when, on June 14th, at 8 in the morning, the alarm of the third great fire was sounded. A defective flue in a bakery in the rear of the Merchants Hotel on Kearny street, between Sacramento and Clay, was the starting point. Unfortunately one of the fiercest winds of the season was blowing and in a few hours all between Clay and California from Kearny to the waters edge was made of flames. The entire loss was estimated to be $3,500,000.
The city at last seemed to realize that something more than mere exertion at the time of the conflagration was necessary to avoid being swept away by fire. Many of the buildings commenced on the ruins were of brick; numerous hook and ladder, engine and hose companies were formed; the City Council passed ordinances for the erection of fireproof vaults for the archives of the city and for the establishment of a fire department, and instructed a committee to obtain an estimate of the best method of supplying the city with water.
On September 17th the fourth fire in nine months struck awe to the hearts of the citizens. The superstitious began to believe that Heaven was chastising the city for its wickedness. The flames originated in the Philadelphia House on Jackson street near the Washington market, and swept away most of the blocks between Pacific and Washington, Dupont and Montgomery streets. Nearly all the houses were one-story wooden structures, so the loss did not exceed a half million. On Washington street, between Dupont and Kearny, the brick walls of the Alta California building, erected after the May fire, stopped the flames and saved its neighbors to the corner. This fact caused more substantial materials to be used in the rebuilding. In this fire the newly organized fire department did effective work, and would have saved more had it had a supply of water.
The great fires of 1850, while at the time considered a curse, were really beneficial to the city in their results.
The old ramshackle shanties were replaced by more respectable buildings, a water supply system was secured for the city, an efficient volunteer fire department under an official head was organized under the charter, and it became fashionable to become a fireman.
In a city where the population
was mostly masculine and where homes were few, men naturally congregated
for their leisure hours in the most attractive places. These, in 1850,
were the gambling places, the better class of which immediately
faced the Plaza, while the poorer ones crowded around its vicinity. They
used to their advantage music, lights and paintings, and at some resorts
pretty women dealt the cards. No hotel was without its gambling rooms,
and fabulous rents, such as $10,000 a month, were paid by the gamblers
for these apartments. Sometimes enormous stakes were played
During 1850, before September 9th, nine papers were issued in San Francisco, and eight of them had some claim to distinction. The best remembered to-day is the Alta California, child of the union of the pioneer journals, the Californian and the California Star and mother of the California press, as she was affectionately termed by early newspaper men. The Journal of Commerce had intended to be the first daily in California, but the Alta, learning its intention, outwitted it by appearing as a daily one day previous to its advertised time, January 23, 1850.
In reading over the old
files one sees that, in spite of the fabulous tales of gambling and of
crime that have crept down through the years the citizens of San Francisco
were leading earnest, busy lives, and showing a greater interest in public
affairs than is exhibited by most citizens to-day, and one feels that it
is not the mere fact of admission to the Union nor the wealth of field
or forest or mine, that has carried California to her present position
among her sister states, but the impetus given her by the strong, reliant
characters that governed her in 1850.
Katherine Chandler (1876-1930) was author of Habits of California Plants (1903), as well as several books about Pacific Coast folklore. In 1905, she compiled, for the Library Association of California, a list of California periodicals issued before the 1861 completion of the transcontinental telegraph. | <urn:uuid:894d2c0e-3522-4f62-a05d-5b17b1bca967> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist5/oldsf.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982447 | 3,122 | 2.5 | 2 |
in between reading SOSP liveblogging notes, I'm still trying to think up how one might implement a "proof of deletion" service for cloud storage - here's the latest
a user stores data in the cloud - the data is encrypted so cloud provder cannot simply read it, but is amenable to privacy preserving queries on some keys.
the user wants to delete a record, contacts a third party (the grim reaper?), and gives then the keys of records. the third party tells the cloud service to delete the data. and then, using an anonymous service (via TOR etc) queries the record - they should get a 404 response.
of course, the cloud provider can squirrel data away but not in any useful way, as the TTP can do the query at any time
why ot just let the user run the query? well they might want to go away, and rely on the TTP who might also be persistent and might have bigger TOR guns....
Chris Smowton, Stephen Smith, Derek Murray, Steve Hand and myself are in the beautiful Cascais near Lisbon to attend the 23rd Symposium on Operating Systems principles. Hopefully, we are going to find some time to write up some of the presentations for syslog over the next couple of days. In the mean time, there is a semi-live blog of semi-structured notes here.
here are few papers presented at socialcom (our two papers on personality and language are summarized here)
Funf: Open Android Sensing Framework. One tutorial at socialcom was dedicated to Funf. This is an open source set of functionalities running on phones and servers that enable the collection (sensing), uploading, and configuration of a wide range of data types (location, movement, usage, social proximity). This framework has been built by a professional developer within Sandy Pentland's group (thanks to a Google grant), and has just been made publicly available on the android market (well done!) (download link ). The conference featured a considerable number of papers that made use of the framework. A case in point is . This paper is about predicting "who installs which (mobile) app" based on one's social network (here the term network refers to a composite graph made of different types of phone-sensed networks). It turns out that one has more common apps with familiar strangers than with friends (i'm not 100% sure though, you need to check the paper). A cute bit of the framework is its fun dashboard - this allows researchers to run studies in which personal data is shown to the participants and consequential changes of behaviour can be automatically traced. The ubicomp paper highlights the vision behind the framework.
Composite Social Network for Predicting Mobile Apps Installation
the social fMRI: Measuring, Understanding and Designing Social Mechanism in the Real World. Ubicomp 11.
Another "special" session was dedicated to cyber-bullying - an extremely interesting topic in need of research (pdf overview). Folks at the media lab built an initial model to spot cyber-bullying from conversation in social media. Interestingly, they trained the model using the data from this site. The paper will soon be published and will be titled "Commonsense Reasoning for Detection, Prevention, and Mitigation of Cyberbullying"
Predicting Reciprocity in Social Networks. This paper studied the factors that are associated with the probability that a node w reciprocates and links to a node v in a social network. The most important factor is the difference in status between the two nodes v and w: status(v)/status(w), where status(v)=in_degree(v)/out_degree(v).
The larger that fraction, the more likely w will reciprocates the link. That is because a large denominator and small numerator indicate that v has many in-links and few out-links and that w has many out-links and few in-links. This suggests that v has higher "status" than w will be more likely to reciprocate.
Link Prediction in Social Networks using Computationally Efficient Topological Features. Using katz measure, these researchers effectively predicted social ties in a variety of networks. This isn't a very novel work, yet it's interesting that Katz measure performed best.
The new director of the media lab, Joi Ito, gave a interesting keynote on "Open Standards and Open Networks". He recounted his involvement in a post-disaster radiation monitoring effort in Japan. During his talk, I also learned that the a large number of governments are realising their data (not pictures or videos, but data) under creative common licence.
Fortune Monitor or Fortune Teller: Understanding the Connection between Interaction Patterns and Financial Status. This paper studied the relationship between interactions monitored using mobile phones and financial status. Apparently people with high income don't talk longer but their meeting patterns (mobility) tend to be more diverse than those of people on low income. They also studied people's personality traits and found that people high in
1) Agreeableness tend to have more friends and interact with diverse users (as per face-to-face interactions monitored with bluetooth)
2) Happiness [i hope they measured satisfaction with life] tend to be more diverse contact (it would be cool to double check the measure of diversity used here)
The workshop NetMob was running in parallel and featured a lot of interesting talks that used mobile phone data to answer very interesting societal questions. The full program is in pdf. Salvo fully attended it, so he might be able to tell you more about it ;)
Open Hardware Workshop, October 2011 Grenoble
(mk2 with some corrections from Javier)
I had reason to attend the Open Hardware Workshop 2011 in Grenoble. (Waving the flag for NetFPGA and Raspberry Pi and because openhardware appeals to my inner maker and is very cool. (This post comes across a little dour - it shouldn't - I think this is hugely exciting.)
Motivated by the ideals of Open Hardware and exposed with a definition and everything (OSHW) (exampled recently by the CERN Open Hardware License), this workshop was held coincident with the big physics instrumentation conference ICALEPCS, lots of high energy physics people present.
While not the first license for open hardware, the CERN OHL has seeded some interest and contributes to the area being taken more seriously - the event was organized by Javier Serrano and this coupled with an open-hardware success story, Arduino, this workshop was the result.
An exciting gathering with people from a bunch of high energy physics and related people, a bunch of companies (some trying and some not trying OH) and a tonne of others like me (keen enthusiasts, regular enthusiasts or people that see 'this is important').
Javier Serrano gave an introduction to (his version of) the 'open hardware community' he started with a nod to the OSHW definition. There was a nod to specific goals by part of the open hardware community: with a heavy taste of GPL derived OSS-scented ideas, while it did seem a little naive at times, there were clear best-intentions and in particular the community (drawing on experience from OSS) recognizes that there has to be flexibility in specifics as well as a community that fosters support companies otherwise no one is going to have a commercial route.
Another aspect was the Open Hardware Repository - while not intended to be Sauron's eye - it is a fantastic resource for combining and sharing projects. A little unclear what license things are/must/should/could be under but a great idea.
Tomasz Wlostowski, gave a quick summary of the Open Hardware Summit held a few weeks earlier in NYC - and the best (hope) take-away was "The best is yet to come" an interesting justification was given relating to the slow-down in Moores law as it relates to the simple manufacturing speed ups (the assertion was this moved the leading edge away from simply being make-things-faster, and would be the chance for making-things/different/cheaper/flexible/interesting to flourish - this being the open door for the Open Hardware movement.) in contrast to the 'engineers' of the Workshop, the Summit had been all about community-raising and a much more consumer/social event. Notable cool things was the Instructables (what happens when you mix 13 year olds, constuction-kits and many rubber bands), and the ifixit (free manuals) website.
Myriam Ayass (legal advisor of CERN's Knowledge Transfer group) talked about the Cern OHL, in particular that it is going to version 1.2 (with a version 1.3 in the planning stages) and that this attends many issues with earlier versions. There is a mailing list for discussing the license and if you have a heart felt opinion - first make sure you have the latest copy and second join the discussion. It is clear Cern have their heart in the right place over this and don't mind the legal investment most of us cannot make.
My notes are that currently this is a PCB-focused license, the definition of hardware is a confusion and that a kicking question is 'so what is RTL/VHDL/Verilog/etc' - is that hardware covered by the OHL or something else?
This talk generated a huge bunch of questions ranging from "what does Cern OHL want to be: GNU-like (coveting openness as priority) or BSD/Apache-like (coveting dissemination as priority). " certainly less understanding from those present about what happens when licenses are combined, when licenses are unclear and far too much "well don't use that tool then" in response to tool-chain lockin. However, none of these people were idiots and now is the time to have an impact, mailing list details are off the Cern OHL site link
This was followed by a talk by the Arduino cofounder David Cuartielles. They make rather nice, very very cheap, do-dads (started life as a "how do I get my kid interested in CompSci/CompEng"). work in collaboration with Telefonica (including Pablo Rodriguez), among others. Very near ideas, but they face a real trauma - because they are signed up to "open" they are put at risk economically by the problem that once the PCB artwork of boards are released, the company has less than four weeks before clone boards appear. The arduino boards are considered (and perhaps fairly-so) as a potentially useful blob in the "Internet of things" (yeah I know - no working definition) sensor boards, various neat flashing light things, robot boards, all that sort of stuff, neat and nice. I hope Raspberry Pi can recycle the community of connectables this project has fathered.
Creotech (the second of four commercials that had talks), founders include an ex-CERNer and are working on instrumentation that plugs into a bus called FMC- something (FMC is a wider standard called VITA 57) that is intended to allow compatible instrumentation packages, what this means for you and me is unclear but the motivating project for a lot of these people was either to stop having their lives/work ruled by huge transactions of money to "National Instruments" (and other vested interests) and to stop needless repetition rebuilding things that already existed - a particular density Msamples-per-second do-dad was one particular issues that it appeared many organizations had started and perhaps even completed at least 90% of their own in-house designs. Creotech was open hardware thinking, seemed fairly successful and had some respect.
In contrast National Instruments, ICALEPCS (but not the OHW) sponsor, did not. A talk that largely consisted of "Yah national instruments" did contain one seed of useful insight; the problem most any organization has (and the one National instruments can do) is provide a 25 year guarantee of lifetime replacement/operation/etc It was clear the speaker was having a pot-shot at the open hardware startups, but he also made courting noises and a question "what does your talk have to do with open hardware" summed up the chasm nicely (in short: not much or "we are still thinking".) The problems for NI are interesting, but an example is this: apparently (don't quote me on how good the toolchain is) the NI tool chain can target special NI devices that are both programmable and include a range of flexible bits- from hardware to firmware (FPGA) to whatever. The toolchain is assured, and tightly (conservatively) bounds what the programming can actually do - this all is rather critical if you (as NI) need to give assurances that not only will your kit work for 25 years, but the 'motor control unit that closes the small door preventing escape of the nasty gas' will actually do its job." The idea that someone can knock together some new code to run on the NI device brings out the NI lawyers in cold-sweats.
The issue of liability is interesting too, as it is a strong theme in the Cern OHL.
Seven Solutions a little more Creotech-like,are dabbling and sell an open board or two. They make an interesting and active hybrid model (propriety + OH)
and Instrumentation Technologies another instrumentation group that is flirting with open hardware talked, time passed, talk finished.
Facebook (John Kenevey) talked about the Open Compute Project. Don't get too excited, its about building a design for machine rooms that is more universal and more wide-ranging than simply fits in 19" racks - the current definition.
Notable soundbits: Open compute is a white-box channel to the market that challenges supplier base and allows new entrants. A conclusion was that the dance between silicon vendors (CPU makers) and box-benders meant that the vendors are screwed and the customers are worse-than-screwed. People pitching OCP as a mechanism to get out form under vendor locking.
When you see the in-house machines of Google, and Facebook, and others, this makes a lot of sense.
Modularization is key, and facebook seem to be enjoying not caring about doing anything more than 'motivating' the actions and encouraging the open-source hardware community. It is clear they are sick of being held over a barrel by people that assemble machines (metal benders) and hope for some nice innovations... Facebook consider this part of their "GRID to Gates" (GRID in this case means the power-grid) initiative. Problems seem to be what does a standard smell like? do we have fans in the rack or in the units, what is the form and nature of power in the rack or the exchangeable units.. etc etc. Sadly the impact for the man in the street (or the machine-room fitter-outer in the room) will be 12 months away (my wild guess). The slides of this talk were not available (nor the recording) as there was some discussion (funny stories) about specific 'metal benders.
Following lunch we had several speakers talking about tool chains for (PCB) design: two tools got discussed: GEDA and Kicad, kicad looked very nice indeed and certainly looked better than some of the approaches common. Problems discussed including importing artwork and the general mumbles of agreement about libraries of package and pinout. For this writers perspective it seems a public definition of pinouts and packages is obvious and in the interests of the manufacturers - although probably not in the interests of various 'big package' authors (Cadence, etc.) Time will tell.
Projects discussed in the remainder of the day included
hdlmake, a concept to get away from the GUIS commonplace in build tool-chains, adds manifests to permit dependency trees, and seems for the most part like a good idea. (Also makes me appreciate the effort Jad Naous and others did on NetFPGAv2 to build the make as clean as it was.)
Icarus Synthesis engine - considered critical OSS for Open Hardware. obvious problems include propriety core-handling.
Open FPGA toolchain (Sébastien Bourdeauducq who did the Milkymist open video (effects) hardware. neat stuff trying to hack his way around obfuscated FPGA details - (with a lot of grumbles about how mean Altera and Xilinx are) but the guy was totally oblivious to the idea that people don't realize details about their FPGA because some knock-off company will start making 10cent copies of the FPGAs themselves. Ok I'm being unfair, Sebastien's position is "let's get started nevertheless and see what happens". I think this would appeal strongly to academics who want to redesign/modify/mess-with the RTL -> FPGA process.
Other things presented included: SOLEIL synchrotron instrumentation and the RHINO project.
RHINO is interesting, as an open source radio thing that came from the radar remote sensing group at the University of Cape Town born from CASPER (a project at Berkeley) and the interest in South Africa in the SKA project (SKA is at this moment a competition to build the next serious astronomy platform: either in Australia or South Africa), neat stuff. This project incorporates BoRPH and a number of other technologies to make it easier to use and consume.
From the discussion slides for the Open Hardware Community: (some questions without answers)
- Can clients change mindset from build-in-house (a not-invented-here variant) and pay for support?
- How can we deal with Tech Transfer departments that argue against OSH (even if the hardware is not core buisness)
- How can we involve universities?
- (How) can we pool resources?
- (How) can we pool manpower for projects?
- (how) can we pool money to pay companies (for the dull stuff)?
- Who are the communities?
lots of talk, not many answers - this is a very young community, lots of idealism lots of potential.
Most-all the presentations and videos of the presentations and Q&A are available from the workshop, all under creative commons (of course)
General comment: This community is very interesting but right at the moment there are considerable dumb-language (lazy language) defaults that conflate commercial and propriety when they mean "open-source" and commercial and it may be an issue from "English as a second language"; I know this wounds commercial organizations (cast as bad guys) and in fact the intention is something else.
It was great - I will go again, if Javier lets me. | <urn:uuid:938c198b-712c-4ec2-8855-e63fc12b1d03> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.syslog.cl.cam.ac.uk/2011/10/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959649 | 3,907 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Inspirational and motivational, Me to We Speakers will tailor a passionate keynote to your event.
“We” Thinker Inspired to Help Others
Written by Owen Lockyer, a grade 4 student in St. Catharines, Ontario
I first heard of Free The Children when I read the book “It Takes a Child“. Reading the book made me feel like I had to do something to help, so I had a charity garage sale with my family. At the garage sale, a lot of people came and it was really fun. We raised over $350! It felt good to help other kids by donating that money to Free The Children because we can just go to the store and buy food but they have to beg for food. But if we try, we can stop that. | <urn:uuid:3c9ad1a7-68f6-4a4b-817d-1c8a15b41343> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.freethechildren.com/2012/08/we-thinker-inspired-to-help-others/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976225 | 165 | 2.046875 | 2 |
The civil war in Liberia that lasted from 1989 to 2003 (with a brief break), forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes. In 1992 the Centre for Liberian Assistance was formed to support female refugees.
In Ghana's Buduburam camp, more than 40,000 people, the majority of whom are women and children, struggle to survive. Until the 2005 election of Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf violence kept Liberians from returning home. Today, the high costs of travel prevent most refugees from returning.
"The women have a feeling of hopelessness. Most of them either lack the employment skills or financial support necessary to provide economic stability for their families," explains Hawa Bropleh, head of the Centre for Liberian Assistance.
In 2000, all U.N. organizations pulled out of Buduburam, and the remainig aid organizations ignored women's needs. The women in the camp told the Centre that their first priorities were education for their children and health care for all. Secondly, they wanted to learn skills to become economically independent, in order to reduce their vulnerability.
In addition to distributing food and resources to over 300 single mothers in refugee camps inside and outside Liberia, the group provides training in human rights and campaigning. As Hawa explains, "We want Liberian women to take part in running the country."
With a $10,000 grant from the Global Fund, CLA is training 100 refugees in the skills they need to run businesses in sewing, computer science and baking. | <urn:uuid:f07be701-3fbc-4fed-af5c-096ca5a2600f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.globalfundforwomen.org/uganda-a-congo/77 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963282 | 306 | 3.078125 | 3 |
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
THE GOD WHO IS NEVER WRONG
“Great and amazing are your deeds, O Lord God the Almighty! Just and true are your ways, O King of the nations! Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship you, for your righteous acts have been revealed” (15:3-4).
“Just are you, O Holy One, who is and who was, for you brought these judgments. For they have shed the blood of the saints and prophets, and you have given them blood to drink. It is what they deserve” (16:5-6).
“Yes, Lord God the Almighty, true and just are your judgments!” (16:7).
Because humans have been created in God’s image, we have a desire for justice (though we often have a twisted sense of what is right and wrong). We are troubled when we see injustice (e.g., the O. J. Simpson trial).
God’s judgment is perfect. Why? First, God is never mistaken. “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” (Genesis 18:25). Second, God is never partial. Third, God is never intimidated. Fourth, God is never unfair. “I the LORD speak the truth; I declare what is right” (Isaiah 45:19). “Will you even put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be in the right?” (Job 40:8; cf. vv. 1-5; Romans 9:20). With God, the punishment always fits the crime. “God always acts in accordance with what is right and is himself the final standard of what is right” (Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, p. 204).
God is absolutely just: trust Him for salvation and trust Him daily.
A NEW EXODUS
And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb (15:3).
There are many parallels between Revelation 15 and 16 and the Old Testament account of the Exodus.
First parallel: plagues. God brought ten plagues against Egypt (Exodus 7-11), and God will pour out seven plagues (bowls) on the earth. Some of these seven plagues are similar to the Egyptian plagues: sores (16:2), water turned into blood (16:3-4), darkness (16:10), and frogs (16:13). In 16:6, the angel says, “You have given them blood to drink. It is what they deserve!” The Egyptians deserved to have the Nile River turned to blood because they had killed the infant sons of the Israelites by throwing them into the Nile (Exodus 1:22).
Second parallel: hardened hearts. After each of the plagues, Pharaoh hardened his heart (Exodus 7:14, 22; 8:15, 19, 32; 9:7, 12, 35; 10:20, 27; 11:10), and the people on earth “did not repent” and “cursed” God (16:9, 11, 21).
Third parallel: the blood of a lamb. The Israelites avoided the tenth plague (death of the firstborn) by the blood of the Passover lamb (Exodus 12), and the saints avoid the judgment of God by the blood of Jesus, the Lamb of God.
Fourth parallel: salvation and judgment. The parting of the Red Sea resulted in both salvation and judgment: salvation for the Israelites, but judgment for the Egyptians. The Second Coming will result in both salvation and judgment: salvation for the saints and judgment for the unrepentant.
Fifth parallel: the song of Moses. In 15:3, the “song of Moses” is sung in heaven. There are two songs of Moses in the Old Testament (Exodus 15:1-18; Deuteronomy 31:30-32:43). The first song was sung after the Israelites’ crossing of the Red Sea. “Who is like you, O LORD, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?” (Exodus 15:11). “The Rock, his work in perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he” (Deuteronomy 32:4).
Sixth parallel: the defeat of Satan. “You divided the sea by your might; you broke the heads of the sea monsters on the waters. You crushed the heads of Leviathan; you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness” (Psalm 74:13-14). In this passage, the Leviathan (a dragon-like monster) is a symbol of Egypt. Satan, the “dragon” (Revelation 12) was using Egypt to oppress God’s people. He was defeated then, and He will be defeated again when Christ returns.
IS THERE JUSTICE ANYWHERE?
People often complain about the injustice in the world (“life is unfair”). Ultimate justice is present in only two places: in the lake of fire and at the cross. “Whom God put forth as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Romans 3:25-26).
Thursday, June 23, 2011
BEYOND YOUR WILDEST DREAMS
This month we traveled to North Conway, New Hampshire for a family vacation. Traveling can be difficult if the kids are fighting in the back seat, or they’re asking every five minutes, “Are we almost there?”, or the baby is crying, or you get lost, or your car gets a flat tire. (Fortunately, we avoided most of these difficulties.) Following Christ is like a journey.
Following Christ can be a difficult journey, but the destination will be rewarding beyond imagination.
Then I looked, and behold, on Mount Zion stood the Lamb, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads (v. 1).
The 144,000 (cf. 7:1-8) give us two ways to view our commitment to Christ. First, we are committed to Christ as His army. A “good soldier,” according to 2 Timothy 2:3-4, does not get involved in “the affairs of this life” (NLT) but always seeks to “please his commanding officer” (NIV). Second, we are committed to Christ as His bride.
IN WHAT ARE YOU TRUSTING?
“Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come, and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water” (v. 7).
“Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, she who made all nations drink the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality” (v. 8).
People make one of two choices: either they trust in the gospel, or they trust in substitutes. The first commandment states, “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3). An idol is a substitute for God. The substitutes (money, power, fame, etc.) don’t satisfy.
The gospel is “eternal” (v. 6), but Babylon is “fallen” (v. 8). Babylon could be seen as symbolizing man’s self-reliance. (The number of the beast, 666, symbolizes man’s incompleteness without God.) In Daniel 4, King Nebuchadnezzar said to himself, “Is not this great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power...?” (v. 30), and was humbled by God.
If you trust in substitutes, you will be disappointed in the end. Jesus said, “What profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” (Matthew 16:26).
As Christ’s army and bride, idolatry is betrayal. As Christ’s army, we must not betray our leader. As Christ’s bride, we must not betray our true love. “Sexual immorality” (v. 8) probably symbolizes idolatry (spiritual adultery).
WHAT IS YOUR DESTINY?
“And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name” (v. 11).
“Write this: Blessed are the dead who dies in the Lord from now on.” “Blessed indeed,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them!” (v. 13).
People have one of two destinies: either heaven, a place of eternal rest and reward or hell, a place of eternal unrest and punishment.
When we traveled to North Conway, there were many possible routes we could have taken (the shortest route, the scenic route, etc.). Are there different routes to heaven? No. Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
My children found the trip long, but there were willing to endure it because of the destination: Story Land—and amusement park for kids. In the journey of life, there is a destination! The journey might be difficult, but the destination (heaven) is rewarding beyond imagination. | <urn:uuid:8eb663f3-c2ad-4925-8baf-c2e5730f9d48> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.fhfbc.org/2011_06_01_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945385 | 2,182 | 1.976563 | 2 |
Friday starts Minneapolis' official celebration of 150 years
- July 14, 2008 - 9:28 PM
There's another sesquicentennial happening in Minnesota this year, and it's about to unfold in Minneapolis.
The city's celebration of the 150th anniversary of the formation of its municipal government officially begins on Friday, although related events began earlier this year.
Several family-oriented events are planned through July 27. There are ongoing exhibits at such places as the Mill City Museum and the mayor's office, as well as lecture series at the Hennepin History Museum and the downtown library.
Several notable events during the sesquicentennial include:
• An 1860s vintage baseball game featuring the Quicksteps team and a pickup team of Minneapolis elected officials organized by Paul Ostrow, a Quicksteps regular and City Council member. That's Saturday at 11 a.m. at B.F. Nelson Park, Main Street and 5th Avenue NE., on the edge of the original town site of what became Minneapolis. A groundbreaking for the move of the Pioneers statue to the park is also planned.
• Dance and music marking the city's sister city relationships with eight other countries, including delegations from those cities. This event, highlighted by synchronized Japanese baton twirlers, will be held from 1-4 p.m. Sunday at Nicollet Island Pavilion.
• The City Council will meet at 10 a.m. Friday at City Hall to recognize former elected officials and hear speakers on the city's history.
© 2013 Star Tribune | <urn:uuid:811507fc-4a2c-41ca-a428-163960f9e126> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.startribune.com/printarticle/?id=25451934 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959205 | 317 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Listening too loud in urban environments
Urban college students may be risking noise-induced hearing loss
August 16, 2010
Boston, Mass. - A new study from Children's Hospital Boston and City University of New York (CUNY) finds that the majority of college students using MP3 players and iPods exceed the recommended sound exposure limits while listening. Findings from this study - the largest of its kind - suggest a majority of these students are at increased risk for noise-induced hearing loss. The study recently appeared online in the Journal of Speech Language Hearing Research and will be featured in the February 2011 issue.
Brian Fligor, Sc.D. CCC-A, director of the Diagnostic Audiology Program at Children's Hospital Boston, and his collaborators at CUNY, Sandra Levey, Ph.D., and Tania Levey, Ph.D., surveyed the listening habits of 189 college students at a New York City university and recorded the levels of their MP3 player and iPod headphones as they entered the campus.
It was found that 58.2 percent of participants exceeded daily sound exposure limits and 51.9 percent exceeded weekly sound exposure limits, suggesting that over half of college students in this urban environment are at risk for noise-induced hearing loss. "These findings are extremely concerning in light of recent research published in JAMA indicating teenagers have worse hearing today, and identify a hot spot for loud music listeners in urban youth," says Fligor. "Young adults are not aware of the dangers that come with listening to music too loud. They must take control of their hearing health and become educated on the topic."
For this study, students were asked about their daily and weekly listening habits, as well as:
- their demographic information;
- whether or not they came off the subway;
- if the volume control of their MP3 player or iPod was the same since they left the subway;
- the type of device and earphones they used; and
- the duration and frequency of use of their device.
Based on the responses, it was determined how many hours per week participants listened to their devices. Sound levels were then factored in, allowing Fligor and his collaborators to estimate daily and weekly sound exposures. Those results were compared to noise exposure limits, as recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Children's Hospital Boston is one of the nation's premier pediatric medical centers. Founded in 1869 as a 20-bed hospital for children, today it is a 396-bed comprehensive center for pediatric and adolescent health care grounded in the values of excellence in patient care and sensitivity to the complex needs and diversity of children and families. Children's is the primary pediatric teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School, the largest provider of health care to the children of Massachusetts, and home to the world's leading pediatric research enterprise. For more information about Children's, visit: www.childrenshospital.org/newsroom. | <urn:uuid:fe734dcb-a6fa-4251-b74c-558f981ef34f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.childrenshospital.org/newsroom/Site1339/mainpageS1339P654.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960013 | 601 | 3.09375 | 3 |
Think about it for a second, isn’t social media the perfect answer to an age old problem?
Mummy, how do I send my letter to Santa Claus?
Santa’s Dilemma… Posting a letter to the North Pole in this day and age is a nonsense! Shouldn’t Santa be using Social Media to interact with people? It’s quicker, cheaper, and his target audience use it.
What’s Santa’s problem?
Santa’s a smart guy (runs the biggest logistics business in the world –click to read about it), he understands the concepts of modern social media marketing, but doesn’t quite get round to it because…..he’s to busy (not because he’s too old for social media).
His young elves understand social media. They’d love to be involved with helping him update his client communications, if he delegated it to them.
Can you trust your team?
If Santa and his elves are involved with his brand on Social Media, there maybe problems….
- What if somebody says something out of line with Santa’s values?
- how will they handle an upset child who gets the wrong present?
- what does a good client response look like?
- how will they ensure a timely response to queries?
- how will they ensure brand consistency?
- etc etc
But you allow your team to talk to clients already!
It seems there’s always something new or changes in how to use Social Media. What do you think will come up next? Would Santa be trying to protect himself against something that’s changing faster than the law can keep up with? How will he get his helpers to put that into place?
You NEED a social media policy.
Without a one you can’t:
- use Social Media for yourself, let alone getting your team to help you. It gives you a framework on what to say, do, not do…etc.
- outsource ANY element of your social media, be it blogging, tweeting, responding to queries. How will you be sure they do the job right (or handle your clients data)
12 thoughts on creating a social media policy
- If you don’t create a policy, the problem still exists. Even if you’re not active on social media you need to protect yourself. There are hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute! A child complaining about Santa’s toys would be heard by all the other children, even if Santa doesn’t use Social Media. How should you listen and what will you do to respond? Is your complaints procedure fit for purpose? Click the-coke-was-flat-so-we-went-thirsty for a thought about complaints!
- What’s the purpose: Be clear on why you use social media! What’s the objective? This will help you with the purpose of a policy which you and your team can use.
- What protection do you need? List the risks you’re already exposed on Social Media; regardless of what you do/ don’t do. Poor Santa might never find out what the elves say about him when they talk privately to their Facebook friends, if they do it on their own accounts (read how-is-your-firm-going-to-implement-its-social-media-policy). Do you need to protect yourself against all the things on the list?
Do you want Social Media Success? Social Media Success Strategies is a series of reports with 27 hints, tips and essential strategies for getting results from your social networking. We've taught hundreds of professionals to use social media in their firms and distilled the most successful strategies and tactics into "Social Success Strategies". Click here for your free copy.
Read the next 9 points in Father Christmas meets modern marketing
What’s the solution? Convert to Social Media, or carry on posting to the North Pole. What do you think Santa should do? | <urn:uuid:f6a8189c-7724-4007-a893-a520363790aa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://venture-now.com/santas-social-media-solution/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922237 | 839 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Beyond the fireground: injuries in the fire service
- 1Division of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of Arizona Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, Tucson, Arizona, USA
- 2Department of Health Policy and Management, Center for Injury Research and Policy, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
- 3Division of Community, Environment and Policy, University of Arizona Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, Tucson, Arizona, USA
- Correspondence to Gerald S Poplin, 1656 E. Mabel, PO Box 24515, Tucson, AZ 85724, USA;
Contributors All authors gave significant contribution to the concept and design of this study, in addition to providing critical review, intellectual content and final approval for the manuscript.
- Accepted 8 October 2011
- Published Online First 23 November 2011
Background Although firefighting and emergency medical services are high-risk professions, few studies have identified the aetiology of injury in the fire service beyond the fireground.
Methods Data were collected for work-related injuries in a medium-sized metropolitan fire department. In a descriptive study, the factors explored included the nature of injury, agent, mechanism, body location, environment, abbreviated injury scale (AIS), functional capacity index (FCI) and lost time status.
Results From 2004 to 2009, the annual injury incidence rate averaged 17.7 per 100 employees. One-third of all injuries (32.9%) resulted from physical exercise activities, while patient transport, training drills and fireground operations resulted in 16.9%, 11.1% and 10.2% of injuries, respectively. For all job operations, sprains and strains were the most prevalent type of injury (40.2–85.2%), followed by contusions and lacerations (7.7–26.1%). The third most common injury was related to the conventional hazards of the individual job operation. Most injuries (n=862, 95.6%) were minor in severity, while 4.3% of injuries were classified as having some impedance of normal function (FCI 3). Moderate injuries (AIS 2) were infrequent, but comprised a greater proportion of fireground injuries (8.7%) than the other activities (1.0–4.1%); however, lost time injuries were more frequent for patient transport (46.1%) than other operations (22.0–29.1%).
Conclusions Physical exercise, patient transport and training activities were responsible for a greater percentage of injuries than fireground operations. Focused efforts to improve the characterisation of risks during these more diverse set of work processes should help guide the development of salient strategies for injury prevention.
- health education
- job tasks
- occupational injury
- physical exercise
- systematic review
Funding This study was supported by grant 5R01OH009469 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (CDC/NIOSH). The contents of this article are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the CDC/NIOSH.
Competing interests None.
Patient consent Obtained.
Ethics approval Ethics approval was provided by the University of Arizona Institutional Review Board.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed. | <urn:uuid:d3fd6b47-3496-4187-8490-bd821212eea2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/early/2011/11/03/injuryprev-2011-040149.abstract | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92701 | 696 | 2.46875 | 2 |
Monthly Archives: May 2012
“Now, when I say questioning the whole society, it means ultimately coming to see that the problem of racism, the problem of economic exploitation, and the problem of war are all tied together. These are the triple evils that are interrelated.”
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “Where Do We Go From Here?,” Delivered at the 11th Annual SCLC Convention, Atlanta, Ga. 16 August 1967
Michelle Alexander’s portrait of the mass incarceration industry in the contemporary United States is chilling and horrific. Her pivotal identification of this “New Jim Crow” is saturated in the irony that the current President of this nation is a black man who has admitted to smoking and inhaling marijuana, a “criminal” commodity that accounts for over half the prison population. Decriminalizing marijuana alone and releasing prisoners held on charges related to this contraband product would massively reduce the very problem she identifies. Of course, reforms such as marijuana decriminalization aren’t won in a vacuum. The prison-industrial complex is a lucrative business for state and federal governments as well as the booming private prison industry. Such vested economic interests will hardly roll over as their paychecks are canceled.
Her calls for a new “human rights” movement to address mass incarceration issues a direct appeal to the largest group of Americans who were not included in the landmark civil rights movement victories of the 1960s, “poor and working-class” white men. Blacks, women, and gays have all won significant new statuses in the post-60s social order, but wages and salaries for the vast majority of white men, as well as most working people, have remained stagnant or even declined for the entire four and a half decades since 1976. Sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein identifies the current phase of the “world-system” after this point as a period of nearly inexorable decline in wages and relative wealth for the overall system of capitalist production. He predicts the cycle will end in a bifurcation between two possible resolutions, which he labels as “Davos;” referring to the World Economic Forum, which holds its annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland and is comprised of business leaders who seek to understand and respond to the crisis from within a commitment to reform, but not a general reordering of economic system, versus “Porto Alegre;” named after the World Social Forum headquartered in Porto Alegre, Columbia which is generally committed to the view that “Another World Is Possible.” Wallerstein fears that the resolution that may be favored by the Davos trajectory will necessarily reshape and replace existing capitalism with a system that will nevertheless still be hierarchical and inegalitarian.
Why do such grand considerations impinge on the topic of prison reform? I will explore here the hypothesis that the prison-industrial complex that Alexander surveys and critiques serves an explicit economic function that is in some sense more crucial than its function as a racialized undercaste. This hypothesis is derived from Marxist and post-Marxist theories about a “reserve labour army” of chronically unemployed persons who Marx theorized were a crucial element in the maintenance of profit margins and low wages in capitalism. My conjecture is that the prison-industrial mass incarceration complex is a criminalized and racialized concrescence of this reserve army hypothesis. Further, this undercaste serves to visibly anchor and fortify the “white supremacist capitalist patriarchy’s” inherent stratification of our world.
The first difficulty in using the “reserve army” hypothesis to explain the economic function of the mass incarceration undercaste is that Marx himself explicitly excluded “vagabonds, criminals, and prostitutes” as “dangerous classes” from the reserve army. In my research of Marx’s hypothesis I have been unable to find a justification for this exclusion. For the purpose of my exploration, I will offer some considerations for not taking Marx’s exclusion of criminals from the “reserve army” as definitive. Marx’s starting assumption in the Communist Manifesto that all history is the history of class struggle would suggest that in a real sense the very category of “criminal” either serves or is created to serve an economic function. Marx would hardly be expected to consider the criminalization of marijuana, for instance, as a democratic implementation of an ahistorical moral principle, but more likely as a legislative expression of ruling class interests. That laws, courts, police, and prisons might actually be forces that construct a class structure seems a natural deduction from Marx’s premises. That he doesn’t draw this conclusion from his own premises begs explanation, but that is beyond the scope of this essay. Suffice it to say, all that is needed to frame the hypothesis that the criminal justice system is structured to manifest ruling class purposes is to examine the history of the criminalization of marijuana through a mass media campaign of fear and racial demonization. The 1936 film “Reefer Madness” and the prejudiced attribution of greater marijuana abuse rates to blacks are exhibit ‘A’ supporting this charge.
How does the “reserve army” function in capitalism according to Marx? Capitalism depends on the ability to cheaply mass produce necessary commodities that can be sold to the public for a profit. This means that the labor costs of production must be devalued, since if the real labor costs were expressed in the retail price of a commodity, no profit would be reaped from sales. In order for the hundreds of millions of working people to accept devalued wages, there must be an existential threat to their livelihood. This threat is unemployment. Marx proposed that capitalism needs a constant supply of unemployed workers to keep profits elevated. When production soars in response to growing demand, more workers are hired. But once demand is met, capital must slow production through lay-offs and firings or risk profitability and bankruptcy. For my hypothesis, I propose that beyond the threat of unemployment, an even more ominous threat is incarnated as the prison-industrial complex. Since we know that most criminals are also unemployed, the economic connection between the two conditions seems almost obvious. If one is unable to find employment in the usual market opportunities, one’s health and ultimately survival dictates one’s acquisition of at least basic foodstuffs by some means, including theft and black market activities, such as drug sales.
Alexander identifies the emergence of the “New Jim Crow” with the Reagan Administration’s prosecution of the “War on Drugs” in the early 1980s. If, as Wallerstein claims, capitalism fell into a profitability crisis in the late 70s, then the War on Drugs provided a convenient opportunity to intensify the discipline on the working-class that criminalization represents. That the war was also racialized served a parallel purpose of extending this existential threat to the rising black middle-class that had benefited from the Civil Rights and Affirmative Action victories of the 60s and 70s. Devah Pager studied the effect of a criminal record on the job prospects of blacks compared to whites in a 2003 study, and charges that,
“Those sent to prison are institutionally branded as a particular class of individuals—as are college graduates or welfare recipients—with implications for their perceived place in the stratification order. The “negative credential” associated with a criminal record represents a unique mechanism of stratification, in that it is the state that certifies particular individuals in ways that qualify them for discrimination or social exclusion.”
Since blacks were the overwhelming target of this incarceration crusade, middle-class blacks reflexively distanced themselves from opposing the new criminal justice regime, as Alexander amply documents. Securing the gains of affirmative action, civil rights, and desegregation were turned into a legalistic survival tactic, and neutralized any substantive political opposition to the system itself.
What should replace the “prison-industrial complex?” Angela Davis supplies an important part of the answer,
“…positing decarceration as our overarching strategy, we would try to envision a continuum of alternatives to imprisonment — demilitarization of schools, revitalization of education at all levels, a health system that provides free physical and mental care to all, and a justice system based on reparation and reconciliation rather than retribution and vengeance.”
Doubtless, such a political program will face massive obstacles. The attempt by Obama to pass a universal healthcare plan met with intense opposition and only passed after a nearly complete evisceration of the very word, “universal.” Education funding reform is even further hamstrung. The crisis of capitalism that Wallerstein presents ensures that the ruling forces of our society, whether they be black or white, are locked in a massive pursuit of falling profits in a world that is awash in overpriced and over-produced commodities. This means that criminalization as a necessary method of targeting the most vulnerable populations for exploitation and incarceration continues with little political will to oppose it.
Despite this pessimistic conclusion, I am hopeful that history is on the side of the majority in the long run. The ruling class is small in real numbers and the declining rate of profit promises to shrink their numbers inexorably. What the vast ruled majority must forge the will to achieve is their own political unification as the dispossessed heirs of the centuries of toil and blood of their forebears. In a billion different ways, in a billion different places, the suffering and marginalized must seize the realities that their own unemployment, underemployment, and incarceration represents, the failure of the great capitalist system of the past few centuries to provide a decent standard of living for all humanity.
“From each according to ability, to each according to need.” Louis Blanc 1839.
Suh, Jae Jang. “Capitalism’s Demise? An Interview with Immanuel Wallerstein.” History News Netowrk, George Mason University, January, 2009. http://hnn.us/articles/59481.html
Marx, Karl. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. volume 1. Marx/Engels Internet Archive, 1999. Orig German pub. 1867. The section dealing with the reserve army hypothesis is chapter 25, section 3.http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch25.htm#S3 | <urn:uuid:90b27169-97cd-471c-af33-4382a7b6fe48> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://radicalprogress.info/2012/05/ | 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 | 0.942224 | 2,168 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Diversification is one of the most important rules of investing. If you invest in a range of different asset classes, such as stocks and bonds, losses in one may be offset by gains in another. Investing in commodities—whether it's oil, gold, or pork bellies—is yet another way to achieve broader diversification.
"We believe they have a role in just about every client's portfolio—aggressive, conservative, or anything in between," says Jerry Miccolis, coauthor of Asset Allocation For Dummies and principal and chief investment officer of wealth management firm Brinton Eaton. "The reason is that they typically zig when the more traditional investments zag."
Many advisers recommend commodities funds to their clients, in part because it's easier than ever to invest in commodities. The emergence of investing options like exchange-traded funds has made what was once an exotic asset class more accessible. "Commodities are now more broadly recognized as an asset class that investors and advisers have access to, and everybody is trying to figure out how much they should allocate to them in their portfolio and in what form," says Tom Lydon, editor of ETFTrends.com.
For many investment advisers, the case for commodities goes further than diversification. Commodities are commonly used as a hedge against inflation, which some experts say could become an issue over the long term. Rapidly growing emerging economies including China and India will increase demand for commodities as well. Some advisers recommend a portfolio allocation of between 5 and 10 percent to commodities, depending on clients' investing time horizon and risk tolerance. It's important to be cautious, though, as commodities can be an extremely volatile asset class.
U.S. News spoke with a few investment experts about how to incorporate different commodities into a portfolio in today's market:
Gold. In recent weeks, gold has soared to historic highs of more than $1,250 per ounce. Historically, the precious metal has benefited from volatility in the stock market, as investors get spooked and seek safety. SPDR Gold Shares ETF (ticker GLD), which holds actual gold bullion in underground vaults and tracks the spot price, has seen its net assets skyrocket to more than $50 billion since its 2004 inception—making it the second-largest ETF behind SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY). Depending on who you ask, gold could be poised for an even bigger run-up, or just the opposite. "If we saw $1,400 gold by Christmas, that wouldn't surprise me," says Sean Brodrick, small cap and natural resources analyst for the blog Uncommon Wisdom Daily. Brodrick believes gold could reach $1,600 an ounce sometime in 2012. Others aren't so sure.
Lydon points to a different route to access the yellow metal: stocks of gold mining companies. "Even if gold stays flat from this point going forward, these companies are going to continue to be very, very profitable," Lydon says. "If you've missed the gold trend at this point, consider the metals miners." Lydon recommends Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX), which holds gold mining companies throughout the world.
Silver. Often referred to as the "poor man's gold" because it generally trades at a lower price, silver has been on its own rally of late. The metal recently closed at more than $20 per ounce, a level not seen since March 2008. iShares Silver Trust ETF (SLV), which holds physical silver bullion and tracks the spot price, has outperformed its yellow counterpart, SPDR Gold Shares, so far in 2010. Year-to-date, the funds have returned 17 percent and 13 percent, respectively. Experts say silver has benefited from more than just uncertainty in the market. "It plays both sides of the fence," Lydon says. "It's not only a precious metal that's used in jewelry—and that has the same types of demand [as gold]—it's also used as an industrial metal." As the global economy recovers, Brodrick believes there may still be some upside for silver because it's used in a range of products, including LCD TVs and microprocessors. | <urn:uuid:80f4a92a-976c-46e1-b1ce-a88327107c00> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/mutual-funds/articles/2010/09/13/the-case-for-investing-in-commodities?s_cid=related-links:TOP | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96794 | 866 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Right-to-work means that you can’t be forced to join a union as a condition of employment. Right-to-work means that you can’t be forced to pay union dues as a condition of employment. Right-to-work laws defend your right of free association. Job growth is substantially greater in right-to-work states.
Obama is supporting special privileges being granted to unions under color of law. He is advocating harsh discrimination against any worker not wishing to belong to a union. He is even supporting that they be denied a right to work and earn a living.
Once again, Obama disparages millions of Americans who want nothing more to choose their own associations and earn a living. What to do about that pesky, duly elected Michigan Legislature?
Of course no one is telling workers they cannot collectively bargain; that is just another one of Obama’s ubiquitous straw men. Right-to-work means that unions cannot use the coercive power of the state to force people into unions. They cannot use the state to steal money from unwilling workers and give it to the thugs running the unions. Obama cannot abide that kind of freedom. None of this is surprising.Share | <urn:uuid:f87c3aa8-43bb-4b4b-af2d-f94c071327a6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://therealrevo.com/blog/?p=89627&cpage=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96198 | 243 | 2.46875 | 2 |
Me and my associated are having a bit of a concept problem.
We're using a GPS tracking device mounted in vehicles and later display the movements in our application. Pretty straightforward, right?
We're having a small issue however with vehicles when they are NOT moving.
Despite standing still, the GPS device will send information with varying positions, sometimes it'll even report the vehicle is moving (every once in a while it'll report a vehicle is moving quite fast). The end result is an ugly representation of the movement in our application, and worse, incorrect calculations with regards to how long the vehicle was moving and was standing still (we've got some statistical analysis going on as well).
I know the problem isn't new: Google Navigation on my Android phone also has trouble when I stop at a crossroad every now and again, detecting that I'm now driving in the opposite direction (when in fact, I'm standing still).
But we really need to have some method of telling the vehicle isn't moving, especially for prolonged periods of time.
The problem is compounded in some vehicles which are kept under roofs for the night, which causes the GPS to go wild due to a weaker signal (which is still strong enough to get a position however).
We can detect if the vehicle's engine is turned on or off, but we cannot assume it's not moving with the engine off (there were incidents where a damaged vehicle was towed... and of course there's a case of potential theft which also needs to be reported).
What's the best way to approach this problem?
To add some more information:
The GPS device does have an accelerometer, but that only returns a binary information (moving / not moving) and it's either TOO sensitive or just plain isn't working.
We do have access to things like number of satellites or quality, but we're unsure how to utilize that information. Thus my question. :)
The problem isn't about detecting if a vehicle is moving or not in real-time. We collect the data, and later on do some statistical analysis and display it. We do show the current position of the vehicle, but that is of little importance. So basically we need to be able to tell a vehicle was or wasn't moving by looking at historical data. | <urn:uuid:ad5e040c-52dd-4361-9bfd-1358ec6f8f93> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gis.stackexchange.com/questions/35215/detecting-lack-of-movement-on-gps-device/35233 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976965 | 466 | 1.84375 | 2 |
U.S. Conventional Weapons Destruction Program in Afghanistan
The U.S. conventional weapons destruction program in Afghanistan aims to protect victims of conflict, provide life-saving humanitarian assistance and help provide security and safety for the Afghan people. Since 1993, the Department of State has provided more than $95,000,000 in conventional weapons destruction and humanitarian mine action assistance to Afghanistan. Direct funding to five Afghan non-governmental organizations has sustained clearance operations, developed host nation management and technical capacity and provided vocational training when a reduction in mine clearance activities increased the number of unemployed deminers.
The Conventional Weapons Problem
The widespread and indiscriminate use of mines, small arms/light weapons, ordnance and munitions since the Soviet invasion of 1979 has left Afghanistan heavily contaminated with explosive remnants of war (ERW). The United Nations Mine Action Program for Afghanistan (MAPA) estimates that 720 square kilometers of suspected hazardous areas exist, with more than 4 million Afghans living in 2,229 ERW-contaminated communities. Mines and ERW killed or injured more than 445 Afghans in 2008, an average of 37 victims per month. Additional conventional weapons and munitions hazards are reported daily. Although MAPA has cleared almost two-thirds of all suspected hazards discovered to date, vast amounts of areas remain contaminated due to on-going conflict and inaccessibility because of difficult terrain and deteriorating infrastructure.
The majority of ERW-contaminated areas are agricultural fields, irrigation canals, and grazing areas as well as roads and residential and commercial areas. Security belts of landmines also exist around major cities, airports, government installations, and power stations. An equally significant problem is the existence of large amounts of unexploded ordnance, which inflicted extensive injuries and destruction even prior to the on-going conflict. Still, mines and ERW and loosely secured or illicit conventional weapons and munitions persistently restrict access to valuable resources and important infrastructure, effectively making social and economic reconstruction in Afghanistan extremely difficult.
United States Assistance
In FY 2008, the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs’ Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement (PM/WRA) in the Department of State provided $18,000,000 for the Conventional Weapons Destruction Program in Afghanistan. These funds enabled Afghan non-governmental organizations, international non-governmental organizations, international organizations, and private and public sector partners to clear ERW-contaminated areas as well as to destroy or secure abandoned or otherwise at-risk munitions and explosive ordnance that might be used by insurgent elements to construct roadside bombs and other improvised explosive devices that target coalition forces, Afghan civilians, and international aid organizations. Slight increases in programmatic funding for FY 2009 will be used to increase national capacity development and conventional weapons destruction activities throughout Afghanistan.
Since January, 2006, PM/WRA-funded projects have destroyed or secured more than 9,000 metric tons of unexploded, abandoned, or otherwise at- risk munitions and small arms/light weapons, and provided explosive ordnance safety training to more than 65,000 Afghan nationals. This assistance removes explosive hazards that threaten civilian populations, and enables critical reconstruction and development projects central to economic growth, stability, and security. Department of State funds also play a vital role in the capacity development of MAPA, which consists of 20 Afghan implementing partners and international non-governmental organizations, and the UN’s Mine Action Center in Afghanistan, the coordinating body for MAPA management and operations.
To learn more about the Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement's humanitarian mine action and conventional weapons destruction programs, visit www.state.gov/t/pm/.
Recently discovered pieces of unexploded ordnance en route to a holding bunker near Jalalabad.
An Afghan explosive ordnance disposal team leader stacks munitions at a controlled demolition site in Nangarhar Province.
A variety of anti-tank landmines stacked in a holding bunker awaiting demolition.
Mine clearance machines are often used to process ground in the dry, rocky conditions of Afghanistan. This machine, funded by PM/WRA, prepares the ground in operations in Parwan Province.
Disabled Afghans play volleyball on the grounds of the Afghan Landmine Survivors Organization, an Afghan NGO funded by PM/WRA.
Photos courtesy of Anthony Morin, State Dept. | <urn:uuid:3ddf69ac-7bf3-42ae-9c2a-037d9b1a49df> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://m.state.gov/md115320.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.908657 | 870 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Two out of three urban black women at high risk for heart disease do not consider themselves at risk, according to recent research from Tulane University in New Orleans.
“Black women are more likely than other groups to die from heart disease,” says Dr. Karen B. DeSalvo, an associate professor of clinical medicine and chief of the Division of General Internal Medicine & Geriatrics. “We do not fully understand why they are at greater risk. The results of this study show the women themselves do not think they are at risk, even when they are. We also determined that women who are poor or who believe they are under a lot of stress are the least able to accurately assess their personal risk of heart disease.”
Dr. DeSalvo and her research team interviewed 128 African-American women seeking care over a four-month period at an urban New Orleans internal medicine clinic. The women were considered high risk if they had three or more heart disease risk factors, including obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, tobacco use and a family history of heart disease. Both obesity and high blood pressure were found in 61% of the women.
Addressing the disproportionate impact of heart disease on black women will require improved health education, as well as social or policy approaches to reducing stress and increasing support, according to Dr. DeSalvo. Questions about perceived stress should be included in heart disease risk screenings, she says. A better understanding of the stressors for urban black women, as well as methods to reduce stress, could help women address their heart disease risks.
Results of the study were published in the December edition of the Journal of General Internal Medicine. | <urn:uuid:a5149717-56da-41f2-bfe7-74200e0c2cb6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.organicauthority.com/blog/health/a-note-to-african-american-women/comment-page-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971211 | 341 | 2.625 | 3 |
The University of Central Florida’s Florida Solar Energy Center (FSEC) will now offer a 12-course Webinar series on how to design, build and operate a Zero Energy Home — a home that produces as much energy as it uses.
This series of online courses offers practical education from building science experts with more than 30 years of research and experience. These courses are appropriate for architects, builders, contractors, designers, educators, energy auditors, energy raters, engineers, prospective homebuyers and utility representatives.
During these tough economic times, builders are looking for ways to attract home buyers and the new government administration is concentrating on creating “green jobs.” Zero Energy Homes provide an opportunity to accomplish both and save consumers money while reducing their carbon footprint. These courses will show participants how to maximize energy-efficient design, make the best “green” choices, and optimize performance from solar and home energy management systems. | <urn:uuid:047817a3-45ea-470f-833b-367eb7d6c6f3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.floridaenergycenter.org/echronicle/tag/roof/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925711 | 191 | 2.328125 | 2 |
Augustine reads Genesis: "Give what I love, for I do love it, and this also you gave me." — (Conf. XI,2,3; 22,28)
354 – 2004: 1650th Anniversary of the Birth of St. Augustine St. Augustine was born in Thagaste, Roman North Africa on 13 November 354. After his conversion and baptism he subsequently became bishop of Hippo where he labored indefatigably as monk, pastor, theologian, and spiritual guide until his death on 28 August 430.
“Let knowledge be used as a kind of scaffolding to help build the edifice of love and understanding, which shall endure forever even after knowledge itself passes away.” — St. Augustine, Letter 55.21.39
Founded by the Augustinians in 1842
800 E. Lancaster Avenue
Villanova, PA 19085
(610) 519-4500 | Contact Us | <urn:uuid:a35c33ee-f140-4f08-892d-f9ae31176daa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www1.villanova.edu/villanova/mission/augustinianinstitute/cosponsored/lectures.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945735 | 195 | 1.992188 | 2 |
You may have noticed that in industries in decline the workforce becomes increasingly older. It's attrition. New typically younger workers are not hired, while existing workers hang onto their jobs as their skills age out and become less relevant to industries that are growing and adopting new technologies requiring new skills.
In some industries age of the employees affects demand for the product. There's a reason you don't see many fifty year-olds serving customers at Hooters. It's age discrimination of course, driven by the preferences of the customers.
Hooters in decline is one thing. But in my hypothetical, if management is not allowed to move older employers into less visible areas of its operation it would decline faster.
Some businesses decline because they fall out of favor with young people. Who ever thought that would happen to Levis? But it did, perhaps because boomers never grew up and gave up their Levis. Would you wear the same brand of jeans that your parents wear and think is cool? There it is: another form of customer-based discrimination.
Finally, some businesses face another difficulty with those pesky customers. They sell a product or service, but some customers are more costly to serve than others. The classic example is health insurance, but there are others. Take, for example, banks. Some customers come into the bank frequently for small transactions. Others holding similar bank balances visit less frequently requiring less face time with tellers. For them banking is not the social event of the day. Banks want to discriminate between these two kinds of customers, but aren't allowed to do so directly. Solution: reduce the number of tellers and install ATMs. Time in line may increase but that's a cost to the customer. A few customers grudgingly switch to using ATMs. Many gleefully switch to the ATM. Banks that don't follow suit lose the cheap-to-serve customers.
We know that membership in mainline churches is declining. As is widely known that's because religiosity is falling among younger cohorts. The knock-on effect is that congregations are getting older. The young prefer to, um, congregate where there are people close to their age -- the Levis effect.
The Great Recession is raising the average age of active clergy. As Martyn Marty is just the latest to observe:
I have kept on file last Fall’s Colloquy, published by The Association of Theological Schools. It leads off with frank language which almost summarizes the current situation: “Current prospects for theological school graduates are defined by several trends. * The job openings available to graduates have been steadily declining in number for the past four years. * Increasing numbers of MDiv graduates are undecided about full-time positions expected after graduation. * Those expecting parish ministry positions have declined. * In response to the economic depression, many retirement age pastors are choosing to postpone retirement. * The annual income required for servicing educational debt may limit job options for new graduates. * Placement and vocational counseling services consistently rank low among measures of student satisfaction.” There it is.
There's a knock-on Hooters effect (how large it is an open question), one pointed out by Peter Brierley, former head of Christian Research:
"Ministers tend to attract members of their age, so to attract young people you need a younger minister."
Where's our checklist? Do churches have Levi's problem? Check. Hooter's problem? Check.
What about the costly-to-serve customer problem? Yep. Here it is, in the words of Jenny Williams:
One of the reasons denominations die is that we pastors are expected to spend a disproportionate amount of our time serving as chaplains. The membership of my own denomination is aging. I spend significantly more time with very elderly people than I do with anyone under 50. I am not intending to disparage these saints of the church or say that vitality only exists in young people. That the pastor is the one who is expected to visit is one example of the problem we have gotten ourselves into. Baptism, not ordination, is the authorization for ministry.I don't have an easy answer for that. Many of us give lip service to pastoral visitation from lay persons. But when it comes down to it we want the clergy there, we demand a pastoral church like our parents had. (Members with that attitude are costly-to-serve just for that reason.) Can clergy change these attitudes? How many clergy actually prefer things just that way?
So what do you think? Should we kick off a decade of evangelism (didn't we try that?) with an early retirement plan funded by the Church Pension Group? Is the time auspicious -- has the culture war within The Episcopal Church turned a corner so that young people are less likely to be driven away? Afterall, Mary Glasspool's consecration barely caused a ripple inside or outside the church, or the Communion. | <urn:uuid:b2498176-cf41-48da-b72e-817fcaa3e241> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.episcopalcafe.com/lead/evangelism/drawing_people_to_church_or_no.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966585 | 1,005 | 2.1875 | 2 |
By: Doetince Kelly | Apr 8, 2013 This piece of article will be debating about the stigma that is fixed to lending money and the various pros of having loans during personal financial crisis. In addition this piece of article supplies the cons of loaning money to be certain that readers are readily equipped with the knowledge to make the best financial choice in their own personal life.
By: Kyle Turnaway | Mar 30, 2013 Households that have encountered serious financial problems have a number of options available. Some attempt to implement strict budgeting. Others consider filing for bankruptcy. One option that can effectively remove debt over time while preserving the finances of the home is debt consolidation. Consolidation involves combining all debts into a single lump sum that is then paid down over time. Su
By: anthonymax | Feb 20, 2013 The present situation in the economy has dragged several people in a high level of debt due to various reasons. Some of the prevalent debts that people face are the consumer debts as well as the credit card debts. The credit card debt is akin to a consumer debt with a difference that it is accessed through credit cards. The consumer debt occurs due to purchasing goods and services for the purpose
By: vicent sara | Feb 19, 2013 A while back a close friend of my was suffering with her finances and asked me if I could break down my ideas into a handful of principles or rules that she could use seeing what am was always good with my finance.
By: sr.savaj | Oct 5, 2012 Do you know the best ways to balance your personal finances, and use your income to its best advantage? It is often easy to live outside an individual's means and fall prey to the paycheck-to-paycheck syndrome. You don't have to suffer through this anymore, if you make some changes, like the tips presented here, and keep balance in mind.
By: Thomas | Sep 19, 2012 It might be time to look into debt reduction assistance when you have no idea which way to consider, and you have no idea what your options are. As a borrower, you can choose between a variety of possibilities like debt consolidation, bankruptcy, debt settlement, and a debt management plan. If you don't really know which option is the most beneficial for your individual problem, it is sensible to
By: Brian Farrell | Jun 12, 2012 The process about credit card debt comes from multiple alternate sources, that appear innocent enough when examined by them self, however when combined they end up in a tangled web that conspires to entrap the debtor into a massive sea of debt. In case you are interested in knowing the secret behind credit card debt, and much more fundamentally you might be thinking about becoming free of credit c
By: James Jackson | May 27, 2012 More and more homeowners are now becoming upside down on their mortgages! The debts of people who have borrowed money might have also increased threefold! This trend has grown largely due to an increase in the interest of many people on low interest rates and creative mortgages. | <urn:uuid:3d5a5023-06a0-4ded-bb38-565fa6d0e952> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://business.ezinemark.com/Debt-Management/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968239 | 615 | 1.71875 | 2 |
For a plan that puts "competition" as its number one goal, the National Broadband Plan is remarkably light on policies that will produce much of it in the wireline space. Talk of competition is everywhere, but all suggestions are remarkably general or terribly banal: "more data collection" and "future policy reviews" are everywhere. Suggestions about how such reviews should turn out is lacking.
But the reviews will still be held, and at some point the consensus-building NBP will devolve into ugly battles of wholesale access, special access (middle-mile connections), and ISP disclosure. The FCC commissioners know it, and they're already gearing up for the fights ahead.
All five commissioners issued statements when the Plan appeared, and everyone took on the issue of competition.
"We should be very concerned about the competitive state of broadband service," warned Mignon Clyburn. "We need to keep our eye on the ball here because evidence in the Plan suggests that by 2012 only 15 percent of households will have the 'luxury' of two providers offering the highest speeds of broadband service (up to 50Mbps). Seventy-five percent of households will have only one provider offering the highest speed. And the remainder of households will not have the highest speeds offered to them at all."
Clyburn made clear she is willing to take bold action, saying that "the Commission must stand ready to act where competition is lacking and be willing to use all available tools to protect consumers and to inject meaningful competition into the marketplace."
The longest-serving commissioner, Michael Copps, went directly after the lack of competition-creating policies in the Plan. "Lack of competition could conceivably require us to take actions going beyond what is generally discussed here," he said.
"I daresay that I don’t need to remind many people here that competition is not, to my mind, the defining hallmark of America’s current telecommunications sector. But it is at the core of our enabling statute. In competition, and elsewhere, should we find that we lack the tools we need to conduct effective public interest oversight of the evolving broadband network, we may have to invoke other available authorities already invested in the Commission—or, should we lack some authority that we need, we may have to request it."
The two Republican commissioners see the implicit threats of more government action here, and both rallied to beat it back. Robert McDowell praised the current deregulatory environment for promoting the robust competition we have today.
"As a direct result of adopting policies that ensured the ’Net would be regulated only with a light touch, the Internet environment is growing and evolving faster than any individual, company or government can measure...." he wrote. "As the Commission and Congress move to consider the ideas offered up by the Office of Broadband Initiative, we should make sure that we first and foremost do no harm."
"Broadband competition is healthy and vibrant," added Meredith Baker. "Under a light-touch targeted regulatory regime in both the Clinton and Bush Administrations, we have gone from a narrowband dial-up world to a multi-platform broadband world by crafting a regulatory framework that promotes facilities-based competition in lieu of prescriptive government requirements."
In other words, the US has moved towards a cable/telco duopoly ("facilities-based competition") and away from line-sharing rules ("prescriptive government requirements").
Let's get ready to rumble
The NBP reminds us that, within a few years, cable will be the only high-speed choice for most Americans unless the telcos start investing in fiber to replace their aging copper networks. Even now, in a well-off Chicago suburb, I have a single ISP choice if I want anything over 6Mbps.
Promoting competition might not require a return to line-sharing mandates—but it certainly requires something. If heavily taxed and highly regulated France can get a complete triple play package of phone, TV, and Internet for €30 a month, these claims about robust US competition look... less than robust.
So the big fights are coming. Baker asks for a "consensus-based broadband policy," but given the ground commissioners are already staking out, that seems difficult if not impossible once the important proceedings begin in earnest. The NBP punted on the toughest questions, perhaps in an effort to give its Plan the consensus that Baker wants, but they will be answered someday.
As for the FCC Chair, Julius Genachowski, he did not take up the line adopted by his Democratic colleagues. In praising the Plan, he noted that it is "idealistic, but not ideological. From my time in the private sector, I have personal appreciation for its focus on the vital role of private investment and competition; and on providing real solutions to real problems."
Genachowski has been good about making the FCC a collegial place once again, seeking common ground whenever possible and operating in a more transparent fashion. But, when the "comprehensive review of wholesale competition rules" begins, that approach may be tested to the breaking point. | <urn:uuid:f88d22e2-e583-4d7a-a555-5c7e4108945a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/03/the-nbp-and-isp-competition-this-fights-just-beginning/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956565 | 1,045 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Ferrari 250 GT
The 250 GT Europa was introduced at the Paris Salon in 1954. The first series produce for Ferrari. This three-liter car was manufactured for the next ten years. It was the 250 sequence includes an entire range of models accommodating from the very rich to the pushy race car drivers. The 250 Pinin Farina Coupe launched in Paris in 1958 and switched places with the 250 Europa.
The 250 series of the Ferrari actually started in the early 1950s. It is a huge family with many children. Some of these children of the Ferrari 250 are the Lusso, California Spyder, LWB Tour de France, SWB Berlinetta, 250 GTO and the Testa Rossa.
All the cars in the 250 series were equipped with a 2553 cc 60-deree sohc V12 also known as the "Colombo V12". The creator of this engine was Gioacchino Colombo. The V12's configuration and over square combustion was 73 mm bore x 58.8 mm stroke. This ensured an extraordinary, effortlessness and dominance.
These cars of the Ferrari manufactures were called the "250 GT" since each cylinder displaced 250 cc. Besides having a V12 in it, this series had a comparable tubular ladder frame chassis, double-wishbone front suspensions and live rear axle. The similar model might have a lot of made to order features differing from one car to a different one. In addition, there were a lot of running modifications made to the life of production longer. Consequently, resulting in precise specifications for every car is practically unattainable. There were 1317 units of the 250GT series and 231 units of competition cars. They won many numerous races worldwide.
In 1957, the 250 GT California Spyder was the Ferrari in most demand in America with its chic and forte for more than performance. The Spyder was practically the same as the other cars in the 250 series, but were more pleasing to the eye. It still had the 240 hp V12. Forty-nine Spyders was built in the long wheelbase (LWB), before Ferrari made the stiffer short wheelbase (SWB) version. It was given dics brakes and a stronger more powerful engine of 260 hp. There was forty-nine of these short wheelbase Ferraris made.
Ferrari built a lighter weight completion style of this beautiful California Spyder for racing. This one was made of aluminum bodywork and the 280hp style V12 from the SWB Berlinetta. It was not a match on the racetrack for the Short Wheel Base Berlinetta, but it did make up for it in beauty and the rareness of it. Today the California 250GT Spyder can be valued at $2 million!
The 250GT Berlinetta "Tour de France" was named after the famous domination of the Tour de France race. A 3300-mile marathon race combining hill climb, drag race, circuit racing and rally stages, therefore, was the hardest hitting test of speed and reliability. At that point in time, the multitalented performance of 250GT Berlinetta was confirmed unmatched. Ferrari produced the Lusso Berlinetta in its 250GT series the same year as it did the GTO. Three hundred fifty-one Lussos were sold between 1962 and 64, making it the fastest selling car of Ferrari.
The Ferrari 250GTO is the most sought-after collection. There were just a few GTOs made between 1962 and 64, thirty-nine to be exact. Very few of them remain today. The Ferrari 250GTO was the most powerful in the 250 GT series made by Ferrari. | <urn:uuid:b6cb7f37-c008-469c-bd4d-f7482bb12408> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.oldoppos.us/ferrari-250-gt.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971482 | 751 | 1.984375 | 2 |
Download Midi File
|According to Helen Hopekirk The Laird o'Cockpen is "very ancient Scottish melody" for which Lady Carolina Nairne (1766-1845) adopted these lyrics.
The original tune was When she came ben she bobbed which appears in a manuscript in 1692. It later appeared as Buckingham's Horse in Twenty Four New Country Dances for the Year 1708.
Digital Tradition has a set of similar lyrics, except Jean changes her mind and becomes his wife. Verses where she accepts the Laird were later additions to the song. One set of these lyrics was added by Sir Andrew Boswell,* another version of her acceptance was added by Miss Ferrier, a Scottish authoress**.
The Laird of Cockpen was a companion-in-arms to Charles II who fought with him at Worcester and was in exile with him in the Netherlands. He was a musician who wrote the air Brose and Butter. After the Restoration the Laird appealed for the return of his property, but was not granted an audience. Cockpen then reportedly gained admission to a play Charles attended. When the play was over Brose and Butter played. Charles went to Cockpen remarking that the air had almost made him dance. The Laird replied, "I could dance, too, if I had my lands again." Charles thereupon restored his lands.**
For a complete list of Lady Nairne tunes at this site, enter Lady Nairne in the search engine.
The Laird o' Cockpen, he's proud and he's great,
His mind is ta'en up wi' the things o' the state;
He wanted a wife his braw house to keep,
But favour wi' wooin' was fashious to seek.
Now doon by the dykeside a lady did dwell,
At his table head he thocht she'd look well;
MacCleish's ae dochter o' Clavers ha' Lee,
A penniless lass wi' a lang pedigree.
He mounted his mare an' he rade cannilie,
An' rapp'd at the yett o' Claver ha' Lee,
"Gae tell mistress Jean to come speedily ben,
She's wanted to speak wi' the Laird o' Cockpen.
Mistress Jean she was makin' the elder flow'r wine,
"what the deil brings the Laird here at sic a like time?"
She put off her apron and on her silk gown,
her mutch wi'red ribbons, an gae'd awa'doon.
An' when she came ben she bobbit fu'low,
And what was his errand he soon let her know;
Amaz'd was the Laird, when the lady said, "Na!"
An' wi' a laigh curtise she tuned awa'
Dumbfounded was he, but nae sigh did he gie;
He mounted his mare an' he rode cannilie;
And aften he thocht, as he gae'd thro' the glen,
"She was daft to refuse the Laird o'Cockpen."
Seventy Scottish Songsand
*Songs of Scotland
The Royal Edition, Volume I and
**The World's Best Music
See Bibliography for full information.
Additional Information from Bruce Olsen's Roots of Folk Website | <urn:uuid:e4bacd88-33f6-400c-97a1-3f40e5b0955f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.contemplator.com/scotland/lairdc.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981017 | 730 | 2.28125 | 2 |
In today's On the News segment: As the so-called fiscal cliff nears, Republicans will likely hold things like extended unemployment benefits hostage; a movement is underway in the United States Senate to get rid of the NDAA's highly controversial indefinite detention provision; a new report by the Government Accountability Office confirms that enough prison space has been cleared in the US to securely hold the 166 prisoners currently detained in Guantanamo Bay; and more.
Thom Hartmann here – on the news…
You need to know this. It’s not exactly the corporate death penalty, but it’s a start. On Thursday, the Environmental Protection Agency announced that it is barring BP from receiving any new federal government contracts due to that foreign oil corporation’s “lack of business integrity” following the 2010 Gulf oil spill. BP recently agreed to pay $4.5 billion in fines for the environmental catastrophe, which will only put a slight dent in their corporate money chest. But this latest move by the EPA could be far more harmful to the company. BP can still benefit from existing federal contracts, but the Department of Interior has also banned BP from receiving any new leases to drill on federal lands. According to the EPA, the ban on BP will last until the company can prove it’s capable of meeting federal business standards. Our nation has a long history of putting corporations out of business when they’re operating against the best interest of their workers and the community. Only when corporations have the corporate death penalty “Sword of Damocles” hanging over their head can we make sure that workers and communities aren't being exploited to maximize short-term corporate profits.
In screwed news…as the so-called fiscal cliff nears, Republicans will likely hold things like extended unemployment benefits hostage to make sure their top-1% buddies can hold on to generous tax breaks and loopholes. But if they do so, then they’re standing in the way of hundreds of thousands of jobs being created. That’s the conclusion of a new report by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. The CBO estimates that just the simple act of extending unemployment benefits beyond the end of the year will provide much need relief to 2.1 million jobless Americans, AND will also create 300,000 jobs. After all, that’s how economics works: when Americans have money in their pockets to spend, that spending creates jobs. Conversely, the CBO released a report earlier this year concluding that there is absolutely no evidence that low tax rates on the rich lead to job creation. That report was muzzled by Republicans in Congress. Expect Republicans to muzzle this new report as well, since it doesn't jive with their voodoo trickle-down economic theories.
In the best of the rest of the news…
A movement is underway in the United States Senate to get rid of the NDAA’s highly controversial indefinite detention provision. That provision was signed into law at the end of last year by President Obama, giving unprecedented legal authority to the US military to detain United States citizens indefinitely for associating with terrorists. Now, a bipartisan group of Senators including Rand Paul, Kristen Gillibrand, and Mark Udall have signed onto an amendment to strike that indefinite detention provision from this year’s NDAA bill. They're warning that if the law stands, then the United States could be on the road to repeating the same mistakes from World War 2 when thousands of Japanese-American citizens were detained in internment camps out of fear they may be assisting the enemy. Senator Rand Paul took to the floor of the Senate and said, “If we give up our rights, have not the terrorists won? If we relinquish our rights because of fear, what is it exactly that we are fighting for?” For once, Rand Paul is dead-on. It's time to stop behaving like Bush/Cheney wimps, and start being America again. Tell Congress to restore the rule of law and our constitutional rights!
Speaking of indefinite detention, it’s time to close Gitmo. A new report by the Government Accountability Office confirms that enough prison space has been cleared in the United States to securely hold the 166 prisoners currently detained in Guantanamo Bay. That report was commissioned by Senator Dianne Feinstein, who said, “This report demonstrates that if the political will exists, we could finally close Guantanamo without imperiling our national security.” Republicans have blocked Democratic efforts to close Gitmo in recent years, arguing that it’s unsafe for terrorists to be held on U.S. soil. But, as the Department of Justice has noted, there are already 377 inmates on U.S. soil who've been charged with or convicted of terrorism. It’s hard for the United States to be a beacon of freedom for the world as long as Gitmo stays open. Lawmakers need to come to their senses on this and do the right thing – shut down Gitmo!
Proponents of filibuster reform in the Senate secured a major endorsement from the White House. Led by Majority Leader Harry Reid, Democrats are attempting to change the filibuster rules in the Senate, which have been abused by the Republican minority for the last four years, preventing up or down votes on legislation like the DREAM Act, equal pay for equal work for women, and the American Jobs Act. Under the proposed rule changes, Republicans can still filibuster, but they’ll have to actually stand on the Senate floor and talk the entire time if they want to block legislation. White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer said in a statement on Wednesday, “The President has said many times that the American people are demanding action. They want to see progress, not partisan delay games. That hasn't changed, and the President supports Majority Leader Reid's efforts to reform the filibuster process." Let’s hope Senator Reid can pull this off, and the days of Republican hostage-taking in the Senate are over.
And finally…two rivals meet at the White House today as President Obama hosts Mitt Romney for lunch. According to White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, there is no formal agenda for the lunch beyond just having a “useful discussion.” Romney’s been largely absent from the eyes of the public following his defeat…aside from those comments he made after the election blaming his loss on President Obama’s promise to give gifts to minorities, women, and young people. But rumor has it the President may be considering Romney for an ambassadorship to a place he’s very familiar with: The Grand Cayman Islands.
And that’s the way it is today – Thursday, November 29, 2012. I’m Thom Hartmann – on the news. | <urn:uuid:788aab15-f4af-4959-ace0-d3eeeb83a6c2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://truth-out.org/news/item/13052-on-the-news-with-thom-hartmann-senate-aims | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954065 | 1,378 | 1.710938 | 2 |
LONDONDERRY — A Londonderry High School employee has contracted viral meningitis, the district’s fourth case in two years.
But school and state public health officials say parents, students and staff should not be alarmed.
“The individual is doing well,” Superintendent Nathan Greenberg said of the faculty member. “We expect that person to be back soon.”
Greenberg said an assistant principal notified him over the weekend and parents were contacted by email or letter Monday.
Greenberg would not identify the faculty member or say if it was a teacher.
He did say, “The person does not come in contact with that many kids.”
Viral meningitis is not highly contagious and rarely fatal, according to Beth Daly, chief of infectious disease surveillance for the state Department of Health and Human Services.
Viral meningitis is much less serious than bacterial or fungal meningitis, she said. An outbreak of fungal meningitis linked to a Massachusetts pharmacy has sickened more than 500 people in 19 states, killing three dozen.
A Londonderry High student, 16-year-old Rebecca Tenney, died from complications of the virus in September 2010, only a week and half after experiencing flu-like symptoms.
There are no antibiotics available to fight viral meningitis, which usually runs its course, Daly said.
She said she learned of the Londonderry case through the media; the school district is not required to report cases of viral meningitis to the state.
Her office contacted the school district as a precaution. She said there is no connection between the four cases reported in Londonderry since 2010. Three involved school district employees.
Since there is no obligation to report viral meningitis to the state, Daly said it’s hard to say how often the virus is contracted. Four cases in one school district over two years is not common, but not unusual, she said.
“We are not alarmed by this particular situation,” Daly said. “There is no outbreak currently at this high school.”
Symptoms can include fever, vomiting, nausea, headaches, fatigue, a stiff neck, confusion and sensitivity to light, Daly said. Symptoms can last a week to 10 days, she said.
The virus can be transmitted through saliva, Daly said. She recommends frequent hand washing and not sharing food or personal items, including eating utensils.
Greenberg said the district’s daily sanitizing of the school, including water fountains and bathrooms, is expected to prevent other people from contracting the virus.
Shortly after Tenney’s death shook the school district two years ago, an unidentified teacher at North and South Elementary Schools contracted viral meningitis in 2011, but recovered.
A Londonderry High staff member was diagnosed with viral meningitis two months ago and has also recovered, Greenberg said. | <urn:uuid:efc2d045-5897-4ca1-b029-a0b40beb9150> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.derrynews.com/health/x520556885/LHS-sees-fourth-meningitis-case-in-two-years | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967203 | 613 | 1.867188 | 2 |
Have Israeli scientists discovered a plant to treat cancer?
Recent study finds pace of cancerous growth may be slowed by ingestion of antioxidants extracted from plants.
A recent Israeli study found the pace of cancerous growth may be slowed by the ingestion of antioxidants extracted from plants.
The study, led by Dr. Fuad Fares of Haifa's Carmel Medical Center, examined two groups of mice implanted with cancerous growths, one of which was injected with antioxidants and the other used as a control. The mice given the drug experienced a dramatic deceleration in cancerous growth compared to the control.
The study remain in its preliminary stages, but Fares expressed optimism at its potential implications. "The results are surprising, and encourage us to continue further," he said. "We're seeing the future in the prevention of cancer through food additives."
Fares said the extract used in the study, which has not yet been revealed, had not received much research attention in the past.
"Until now there haven't been many studies on this plant. Now we need to chemically determine the substances this plant contains," he said.
The mechanism by which the plant impedes cancer cells remains unclear. According to Fares, it seems to cause the death of cancer cells by activating certain genes.
The power of antioxidants to combat the spread of cancer is well-known. The application of antioxidants to skin is a powerful preventative measures against melanoma, and the antioxidant properties of the cocoa bean found in dark chocolate are believed to ward off cell damage that can lead to tumor growth. | <urn:uuid:484a65ed-0506-4350-ab25-e04666d24949> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/have-israeli-scientists-discovered-a-plant-to-treat-cancer-1.272231 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962467 | 320 | 3.328125 | 3 |
Pearls: The Unabridged Story
The Unabridged Story of Pearl Formation (and Categorization)
Did you ever, as a child wonder where pearls came from and then how they were made? Later on did you wonder if the oysters that provided pearls survived, or were at least eaten? Was pearl formation explained to you in way that ran as follows (or at least contains this information):
Once upon a time there was an oyster, let's call him Oliver, Oliver O. Oyster, and he lived in a shell at the bottom of the Ocean. One day, Oliver O. Oyster got a grain of sand stuck in his shell. Oliver, irritated by the sand secreted a liquid around the sand to alleviate the itch. After a period of time the secretions built up forming a shiny pearl. Our Oliver O. Oyster remained at the bottom of the Ocean for several more years doing what oysters do until one day a diver happened to spot him. The diver then picked him from the Ocean floor and brought him to the surface. Once back on his boat the diver opened up Oliver Oyster and removed his pearl and throwing him back into the ocean. And that is how we get pearls. The end.
The story of Oliver O. Oyster is only a fraction of the story of how pearls are formed and obtained. I will attempt to provide an unabridged non-narrative version of how pearls are formed and obtained. To start off, the term pearl is applied to two things, 'true pearls' (1 and 2) formed by bivalves (organisms that form two shells, such as oysters and muscles) and 'not-true pearls' formed by univalves (organisms that form a single shell, "snail-like" (1) creatures). 'True pearls' refer to the type the Oliver O. Oyster would make, so lets talk about them first.
True pearls are formed by bivalves, two shelled mollusks found both in salt and fresh water. Based upon this there are two types of pearl, freshwater and saltwater. Both types of pearl can be formed in one of two ways, naturally or cultivated. Natural pearls are formed when an "irritant" (2) becomes lodged in the flesh of a bivalve (forms a "cyst pearl" (1)) or between the bivalve and it's shell (forms a "blister pearl" (1)). In order to protect itself from the foreign mass the bivalve coats it with the same materials used to make for its shell, aragonite and conchiolin (collectively called mother of pearl or nacre). This is why the color of the inside of the shell and the color of the pearl match each other. After a period of time, during which the foreign mass is repeatedly coated with mother of pearl, the object becomes a pearl.
Cultivated pearls are formed in exactly the same way as natural pearls, but the manner of pearl formation is slightly different. Natural pearl formation is caused when an irritant becomes embedded in a mollusk by chance, whereas cultivated pearls are formed due to the irritant being purposefully embedded in the mollusk through human interference. Because of this natural pearls are rarer, occurring in something like "1/1000 or 1/500,000 depending upon the species." (1)
The matter in which the true pearl is obtained depends, of course, in the matter in which it is formed. If the pearl is natural it is found in wild bivalves and thus must be found, on the other hand cultivated true pearls, whether saltwater or freshwater are harvested, because it is already known exactly where the mollusks will be located as they were purposefully placed there. The story of the obtainment of the pearl does not end here, however. In order to get to the pearl the shell of bivalve (and univalve) is pried open and the (uni/bivalve) usually, but not always, dies in the process.
Pearl also refers to 'not-true pearls,' which are "calcareous concretions" (1) formed by univalves, single shelled snail-like organisms such as the conch snail. What I call not-true pearls are technically called "Non-nacreous 'pearls' (1)." These pearls are formed in the same way as true pearls, but instead are "made up of calcium carbonate (which is what Nacreous Pearls are made of) but primarily in the form of calcite rather than aragonite, and with different structural characteristics and protein proportions than their nacreous cousins." In other words while both nacreous and non-nacreous pearls are made up of calcium carbonate, nacreous pearls are made of aragonite and conchiolin and non-nacreous pearls are made up of calcite. This is the unabridged story of the formation and classification of pearls.
While my, and most likely others, childhood story is correct, it leaves out a few facts while getting the technical formation of pearls correctly (minus the misconception that pearls are formed from a grain of sand). For example, oysters make pearls, however, so do other bivalve mollusks. It is also true that some pearls come from the ocean, but they could just as well have come from a lake. I think though, that the story is told in such a way that children can comprehend the information without having to deal with the troubles of purposeful irritation of a fellow creature (cultivated pearls), and without having to come to terms with the fact that in obtaining the pearls most, but not all, of the bivalves and univalves are killed.
1. Gem of the Month: Natural Pearls
2. American Museum of Natural History: Pearls
3. Wikipedia: Pearl
4. Wikipedia: Univalve
5. Wikipedia: Bivalve
6. American Pearl Glossary of Terms
7. The Pearl Page by Jed. G. Archuleta, The Conch Pearls section | <urn:uuid:27a222a0-68e6-4174-8d71-1bba92c5e01d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/94 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961089 | 1,302 | 3.609375 | 4 |
The Sunday Story We need to push back to a place and a point where sexual violence against anyone appalls us
The heart wrenching news of the passing away of the brave young woman who was brutally gang-raped by six young men in a moving bus on Delhi streets marks a tipping point. The protests across the country that have gone viral in recent days represent how we as a nation have arrived at a moment of transformation that many young people have provoked across the world in recent years. Mohammed Bouazizi of Tunisia, who sparked the Arab revolution; or Malala, the young Pakistani teenage social reformer shot by the Taliban; and the children massacred in Newton, whose death has sparked a major debate on guns, that until recently was considered unimaginable.
The woman’s brutal rape and murder provides the spark to bring the culture of destructive masculinity, and the pervasiveness of rape and sexual violence in our society to the front and centre of the political agenda. Such violence cannot be reduced to a social problem to be handed over only to women’s police cells or departments in charge of women and children’s affairs. Its eradication is central to our self worth and integrity as a nation.
The attacks on protesters by the police, and the egregious remarks of innumerable politicians, provide us with little confidence that a thoughtful formula for uprooting such violence will emerge from them. The fact that an apology is regarded as a sufficient response to some of the deeply sexist and offensive remarks that are falling from the mouths of parliamentarians, ministers and officials including those who are ostensibly speaking about women's empowerment, indicates the extent to which such deplorable attitudes towards women are both accepted as normal, and have become endemic. Such remarks and behaviour are indicative of how disconnected the political establishment is from the youth and citizenry of this country as well as how its players continue to regard themselves as demi-gods immune from self-reflection or self-critique. A focus on how we can produce a healthy and respectful sexuality in our society has hardly found mention in remarks by public officials across the political spectrum.
We need to push back to a place and a point where sexual violence against anyone — sexual or religious minorities, boys, girls and women – appals us. The question is how we get to this point. We cannot find solutions exclusively in more stringent laws and penalties, when the very people who may be applying and enforcing these laws see no reason to interrogate their own positions or mindsets.
It is time, time for us not only to be deeply dismayed by the horrific violence that this young Delhi woman and many others have experienced, but to view it as a moment for transformation. At the same time responses to the protests must not be reduced to an anti-men campaign, greater censorship or a call for women to dress and behave in ways that conform to stifling, conservative sexual norms. Nor should we believe that fixing the law or draconian measures are an answer to this violence. We must no longer be content with fatuous remarks that there are some women who are more deserving of protection than others, some who are less rapeable than others. We need to target sexism, not sex, to guarantee equality in the workplace as well as in the home. We can no longer accept a situation where consensual homosexual sex is criminalised, while heterosexual marital rape is condoned. These inequities do not stand up to any measure of human rights scrutiny and can no longer be cloaked under the ruse of “legitimate rape” or the bogey of “Indian cultural values.”
And while our politicians need to be made accountable for encouraging a culture of violence by permitting candidates with criminal records to run for and become Members of Parliament, the buck does not stop there. The judges who allow rape cases to either drag on or accept bribes in exchange for acquittals; parents who encourage and at times even applaud the display of aggressive masculinity amongst sons or abort female foetuses; husbands who abuse their wives and teach their sons and daughters that men are entitled to treat women as objects to be possessed as property instead of persons deserving of respect and recognition of their humanity, are all implicated in this culture of violence. It is an empirical fact that rape is committed by men, whether as part of the state machinery or as individuals, as an exercise of power against vulnerable sections of society. Yet the abysmally low conviction rate simply sends out a message that women lie about rape and that what happens to them falls within the realm of ordinary sex.
These events are not just “unfortunate events,” the result of “misunderstandings” or a “menace” to be eradicated. Such descriptions only reflect how we have become immune and desensitised to what should horrify our moral conscience. Until we are able to respect the bodily and sexual integrity of all women and all those marginalised groups who are the victims of this virulent form of destructive masculinity, we have no entitlement to call ourselves a modern or a civilised nation-state or brandish slogans of “Incredible India.” Regardless of the levels of economic growth and FDI, what is it all worth if in the end we have also developed an immunity to the horror of violence by burying our humanity and compassion.
(Ratna Kapur is Global Professor of Law, Jindal Global Law School) | <urn:uuid:b093234b-551a-4446-b963-783d577fb45f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/for-unshining-india-a-moment-of-transformation/article4253630.ece | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958352 | 1,101 | 2.015625 | 2 |
A lawyer complains in the Wall Street Journal that the plan from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) intended to help the endangered spotted owl should be dismissed because, well, the spotted owl is still endangered, and after all, didn’t the spotted owl personally shut down the entire lumber industry in the Northwest?
Well, no, the owl didn’t shut down the mills.
But before we discuss, can we at least read the shorthand version of what USFWS has to say? Here’s the press release on the plan:
Plan Marks New Route for Recovering Northern Spotted Owl and Promoting Healthy Northwest Forests
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today released a final revised recovery plan for the threatened northern spotted owl, stepping up actions that so far have helped stem but not reverse the old-growth forest raptor’s decline. The revised plan identifies three main priorities for achieving spotted owl recovery: protecting the best of its remaining habitat, actively managing forests to improve forest health, and reducing competition from barred owls, a native of eastern North America that has progressively moved into the spotted owl’s range in Washington, Oregon, and northern California.
“For more than 20 years, northern spotted owl recovery has been a focal point of broader forest conservation efforts in the Pacific Northwest,” said Robyn Thorson, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Pacific Northwest Regional Director. “This revised recovery plan is based on sound science and affirms that the best things we can do to help the spotted owl turn the corner are conserving its habitat, managing the barred owl, and restoring vitality to our forests.”
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will use the recovery plan to work with land managers in the Pacific Northwest such as the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management, as well as other federal and non-federal landowners, to advise them on habitat management activities that can benefit the spotted owl and contribute to improved forest health.
Because about 20 million acres of U.S. Forest Service lands and about 2 million acres of Bureau of Land Management lands are potentially affected by recovery plan recommendations, the three agencies worked together on key recommendations related to forest management. Both agencies provided formal letters of support for the plan’s recovery goals.
“This recovery plan is a welcome update to the state of the science surrounding the northern spotted owl,” said Cal Joyner, Deputy Regional Forester for the Pacific Northwest Region of the U.S. Forest Service. “The plan will help us implement a mix of actively managing and protecting habitat to best contribute to conservation and recovery.”
“The recovery plan provides space to develop ecological forestry principles and to actively manage our public forests to achieve the twin goals of improving ecological conditions and supplying timber,” said Ed Shepard, Oregon/Washington State Director for the Bureau of Land Management. “We look forward to continuing our close cooperation with the Fish and Wildlife Service as we put the science from the recovery plan to work in our planning, in evaluating proposed timber projects, and in improving forest health.”
Overarching recommendations in the revised plan include:
- Conservation of spotted owl sites and high-value spotted owl habitat across the landscape. This means the habitat protections provided under land use plans on federal land will continue to be a focus of recovery, but protection of other areas is likely needed to achieve full success (including some of the lands previously slated for potential timber harvest on federal lands, and possibly non-federal lands in certain parts of the owl’s range where federal lands are limited).
- Active management of forests to make forest ecosystems healthier and more resilient to the effects of climate change and catastrophic wildfire, disease, and insect outbreaks. This involves an “ecological forestry” approach in certain areas that will restore ecosystem functioning and resiliency. This may include carefully applied prescriptions such as fuels treatment to reduce the threat of severe fires, thinning, and restoration to enhance habitat and return the natural dynamics of a healthy forest landscape. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recommends this approach in areas where it promotes ecosystem function and is in the best long-term interest of spotted owl recovery. The agency also strongly affirms adaptive management principles to continually evaluate and refine active forest management techniques.
- Management of the encroaching barred owl to reduce harm to spotted owls. Most of the recovery actions the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has carried out since finalizing the spotted owl’s 2008 recovery plan deal with the barred owl threat. A major part of this is developing a proposal for experimental removal of barred owls in certain areas to see what effect that would have on spotted owls, and then to evaluate whether or not broad scale removal should be considered. This portion of the 2008 plan was not significantly revised.
“While the new recovery plan has been refined and improved from the 2008 version, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service continues to implement the most important recommendations,” said Acting U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Rowan Gould. “We have begun to address the barred owl threat, improved survey protocols, and developed incentives for private landowners to voluntarily participate in recovery actions. We look forward to expanding conservation partnerships to contribute to the spotted owl’s recovery.”
Since the northern spotted owl was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) 21 years ago, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and recovery partners are benefitting from far more information on what factors most affect its survival and productivity. This includes a broader body of scientific knowledge on the species itself and forest ecosystem dynamics — including variables such as climate change and the role of natural disturbances such as wildfire. Recovery partners also are taking advantage of new science and technology to develop more precise tools for analyzing how different strategies can contribute to recovery.
In addition, land managers have made significant strides in advancing active forest management techniques to promote the health and resilience of forest ecosystems. The recovery plan emphasizes the concept of adaptive management to apply new knowledge and science to those techniques on an ongoing basis. This is a more mainstream approach today than in 1994 when the Northwest Forest Plan was created to address the needs of several forest-dependent species, including the spotted owl, and the region’s timber industry.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service developed a final recovery plan specific to the spotted owl for the first time in 2008. As the agency and recovery partners moved forward in implementing many recommendations in the 2008 plan, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service initiated a targeted scientific revision to some portions of that plan after facing legal challenges and critical reviews from leading scientific organizations in the conservation community.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service tapped the knowledge and perspectives of public and private sector experts over the last two years in developing this revised plan, the draft of which was released in September 2010. The agency held more than 30 workshops and meetings with public and private partners throughout the spotted owl’s range to share information, evaluate options, and incorporate valuable input during the revised plan’s development. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service accepted public comments on the draft revised plan for a 90-day period and received more than 11,700 comments. In April 2011, the agency released an updated Appendix C, relating to a new habitat modeling tool, for an additional 30-day public comment period and received about 20 public comments.
The revised recovery plan does not include recommendations from the 2008 plan for a new habitat conservation network of “Managed Owl Conservation Areas.” Rather than creating a potentially confusing new land classification, the plan identifies the scientific rationale and parameters for habitat protection and will revise the spotted owl’s designated critical habitat to reflect the latest scientific information about areas essential for the owl’s recovery. Identifying this habitat through the critical habitat process — as the ESA intended — will be more efficient and provide land managers and the public with additional opportunities for review and comment.
For a recovery timeline, Frequently Asked Questions, related information, and the recovery plan itself, visit www.fws.gov/oregonfwo.
America’s fish, wildlife and plant resources belong to all of us, and ensuring the health of imperiled species is a shared responsibility. The Service is working to actively engage conservation partners and the public in the search for improved and innovative ways to conserve and recover imperiled species. To learn more about the Service’s Endangered Species program, go to http://www.fws.gov/endangered/.
The mission of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is working with others to conserve, protect and enhance fish, wildlife, plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. We are both a leader and trusted partner in fish and wildlife conservation, known for our scientific excellence, stewardship of lands and natural resources, dedicated professionals and commitment to public service. For more information on our work and the people who make it happen, visit www.fws.gov. Connect with our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/usfws, follow our tweets at www.twitter.com/usfwshq, watch our YouTube Channel at http://www.youtube.com/usfws and download photos from our Flickr page at http://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwshq.
Stay tuned for the response, and my response to the response.
Oooooh, bonus! Story in the Daily Astorian says saving the spotted owl habitat also ties up carbon, helping out with the fight against global warming. | <urn:uuid:3e110c54-a37d-4194-92c0-c6c954254460> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://timpanogos.wordpress.com/2011/08/02/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930686 | 1,992 | 2.328125 | 2 |
pET and ampicillin
Craig A. Altier
caa3 at po.CWRU.Edu
Tue Nov 22 17:07:30 EST 1994
In a previous article, rbrooksb at hgmp.mrc.ac.uk (Dr. R.A. Brooksbank) says:
>I found that clavulanic acid did seem to help when expressing proteins in
>E.coli. I too found that with ampicillin the pET vector construct was lost
>from the culture. I used Timentin, this is a mixture of clavulanic acid and an
>ampicillin analogue (sorry I don't have the info on what!). Timentin is a
>propriatry name made by Smith Kline Beecham (if my memory serves me well). A
>point to be aware of is the fact that it is very hard to start a culture in
>the presence of Timentin, I grew starter culture to a very low density (barely
>visible turbidity) using ampicillin and then used these to innoculate a larger
>culture containing the timentin. Can't promise it will work for you but good
>Rob Brooksbank rab at sanger.ac.uk
>The Sanger Centre, Hinxton Hall, Cambridge
Timentin is a 30:1 combination of ticarcillin and clavulanic acid.
The protein-junkies in our lab (I'm not one of them) use it in various ways.
One uses it with a very unstable plasmid at 80ug/ml along with ampicillin at
25ug/ml. This maintains his plasmid, but gives extremely slow growth. He
says that he has grown the starter culture with ampicillin with or without
Timentin and both will grow (although with Timentin it grows much more slowly).
Another person in the lab uses it without any added amp at 16ug/ml. So, it
looks like there is a fairly wide range of useful concentrations (or perhaps
it is just personal preference).
More information about the Methods | <urn:uuid:74d131ec-1327-4bf2-b518-63ea93fd46dc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bio.net/bionet/mm/methods/1994-November/021314.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913051 | 457 | 1.554688 | 2 |
The Sun could hold 60,000 neutron stars.
Its density compares to the entire human population compressed into a sugar cube.
If you had a thimble full of the materials that made up a neutron star, it would weigh as much as a mountain.
Before the invention of the wheel and writing, a prehistoric civilization in northern Mesopotamia engaged in trade, processed copper and developed the first social classes based on power and wealth.
Evidence of the civilization that formed the basis of urban life in the entire Middle East lies beneath three large mounds about three miles from the modern town of Raqqa in Syria, according to U.S. and Syrian archaeologists.
Question: Robert, did you dress up as a superhero as a kid for Halloween?
Robert Downey Jr.: Growing up, no, but in my mid thirties in Palm Springs right before an arrest, yes. Underwear Man. It was a premonition.
When you start with a Jeff Bridges film/photo AND your username is jefflion, it can get confusing fast. Jefflion (one word!) is not a name, but a website. My *actual* website. | <urn:uuid:9f3238e5-df9a-4ab7-b986-5d223100069b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://jefflion.tumblr.com/archive/2010/4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957615 | 238 | 2.03125 | 2 |
As part of my New Year’s resolutions to get up and finally lose this baby weight, I’ve been doing Jillian Michaels’ “Yoga Meltdown” DVD. My six-year-old daughter woke up and decided to join me.
As I’m grunting and sweating, all I hear from her is, “Yoga’s such a great way to start the day,” as she moves effortlessly into tree pose. “This is so easy, Mommy,” she says during downward dog. “Don’t worry, Mommy, the more you do it, the better you’ll get,” as she moves into warrior pose. Meanwhile, I’m shaking and stumbling my way through it.
She’s been doing yoga since she was 3 and loves it. Her preschool teacher told us parents that they’d be doing yoga in class before naptime and that if we’d like, we could continue the practice at home so the kids could feel really comfortable doing it. Ever since then, my daughter has been an intense yogi, wanting to practice whenever and wherever she gets a chance.
I didn’t realize that yoga for kids was a real thing until recently. A recent article in Yoga Journal says the number of schools offering some form of yoga instruction in their curriculum has risen dramatically in recent years, mostly as a way to offer an alternative form of physical education and also to improve the focus of children who are living in an increasingly test-driven world.
In 2003 researchers studied of the effects of yoga classes among students in grades K through 8. The students showed improvements in self-esteem, flexibility, strength, and relaxation. Yoga can help by giving them the benefit of learning self-control and how to relax by breathing deeply.
Lynda Meeder, a school counselor, said that having yoga classes available at her school has been invaluable. “It brings a sense of calm to the classroom,” she says. “Kids are so stressed out. They tell me this is the one time they have to relax.”
Yoga’s gaining in popularity because it’s easy to learn and modify to your particular activity level. It’s also cheap—all you need is open space and bare feet. It doesn’t take long; you don’t have to go anywhere to do it.
Sounds good, right? If you want to add yoga to your child’s routine, here’s what you need to know:
1. Practice your poses in an area that’s clear of sharp points and tripping hazards. A trip to the ER is not relaxing at all.
2. Always do yoga barefoot on a mat, a rug, or grass to prevent slipping and to soften falls. Wear comfortable clothing.
3. Make sure both you and your child stay within your comfort level during stretches. Rest when you need to, and stop if you feel any pain.
4. Limit yoga to about 5-10 minutes. It will be too frustrating to try to get a child to concentrate for much longer and the last thing we want is more frustration!
Here’s a few poses that should be easy for you and your child to do together:
Pose #1: Butterfly pose – This pose opens your hips and your lower back. It can be difficult to lower the knees toward the floor, but you will be able to work up to it. Ask them to close their eyes and pretend they are a beautiful butterfly. Have them “flap” their laps like wings.
Pose #2: Downward dog – This is one of the classic yoga poses and it has a multitude of benefits. It stretches the shoulders, hamstrings, calves, arches, hands, arms and legs and also – a huge bonus for moms – helps alleviate fatigue! It is okay if the heels of your feet don’t reach the floor at first – as you stretch and lengthen your muscles, you’ll find this pose easier to do.
Pose #3: Child’s pose – The ultimate in relaxation poses. It’s designed specifically to combat stress and fatigue, which makes it easy to see why this one is so popular. Ask your kids, “”Did you feel your knees pushing on your belly? This pose helps your belly digest food better!”
Pose #4: Corpse pose – End with this relaxing pose. (Make sure you don’t fall asleep!) It seems deceptively easy (it’s just laying on the floor, right?), but it takes concentration to truly let your body relax and let your back, hips, legs, and chest sink into the floor. As they do this with you, ask your kids to focus on their belly rising and falling. Teach them how to breathe in slowly through their nose and out slowly through their nose.
You can also make up your own yoga poses with your child. Try a snake pose, where you slither like a snake or an elephant pose, where you use your arms to make an elephant’s trunk. Let your imagination run free!
When you are done with the yoga poses, come to your feet and say “Namaste” to each other. It means, “The light in me recognizes the light in you.” Or, in other words, “we are all special.”
This post was originally published on MommyNoire.com | <urn:uuid:ae6fd4e0-6c4c-4af8-a93c-f5c35ca8f0bb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theyoungmommylife.com/2013/02/25/yoga-for-kids/ | 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 | 0.967132 | 1,160 | 1.976563 | 2 |
You don’t need professional financial advice, right? You know enough to get by.
Well, it is time to test your knowledge or current financial affairs. The following test was developed by the National Center for Financial Education (NCFE) to help you gauge your financial knowledge and how well you are taking advantage of the financial opportunities presented to you.
Answer either: True, False, or Don’t Know
1. The tax Reform Act of 1986 eliminated the tax advantages of real estate investments.
2. Two earner couples can take a deduction up to $3,000 or 7.5%, whichever is greater.
3. Mutual funds only invest in common stocks.
4. Since interest payments on a mortgage are tax deductible, home owners should always itemize instead of taking standard deduction.
5. A tax “deduction” of $1,000 is better than a tax “credit” of $1,000.
6. If an individual is in a 28% federal tax bracket, 28% of their income goes to the federal government.
7. A couple wants to establish an “education account” for their four year old child. If they use the child’s social security number they will not have to pay income tax on the investment’s earnings.
8. An investment which simply “defers” income tax offers no real tax advantage since the tax must be paid eventually.
9. Life insurance is an inflexible contract which offers no investment options, such as stocks or bonds.
10. If you own a mutual fund, outside of an IRA, there is no way you can avoid being taxed on dividends paid.
11. A wife should usually be the “owner” of her husband’s insurance policy to avoid paying federal estate taxes when she collects on the policy.
12. Joint tenancy is the best way for a couple to hold title to property.
13. Since annuities are offered by insurance companies the primary benefit is insurance.
14. An “insured” municipal bond fund has no investment risk.
15. Interest earned in a life insurance policy is always lower than the rate of interest you can earn in a certificate of deposit.
Questions 16-20 – Answer by Circling One Answer
16. Currently, a self-employed individual will contribute what percentage of his or her income towards Social Security?
a. 6.5% b. 7.51% c. 13.02% d. 15.30%
17. If you invest $1,000 for your child or grandchild, age 1, and the yield averages 12%, approximately how much will the investment be worth when the child reaches age 65?
a. $250,000 b. $500,000 c. $1,000,000 d. $1,500,000
18. In fiscal year 1995, the highest federal rate at which income is subject to tax is:
a. 28% b. 31% c. 39.6% d. 36%
19. Currently, corporate employees earning $50,000 will have the following amount contributed to their social security account:
a. $3,312 b. $4,243 c. $7,650 d. $7,848
20. A 45 year old individual would like to retire on $2,000 a month at age 65. Assuming an average inflation rate of 7.2% over the next 20 years, how much income will this individual need each month in retirement to keep pace with inflation?
a. $4,000 b. $6,000 c. $8,000 d. $10,000
FINANCIAL FITNESS SCORING
ANSWERS TO THE QUIZ:
Questions 1 through 15 are all FALSE
16 = d
17 = d
18 = c
19 = c
20 = c
SCORING: Total the number of correct scores and multiply by five. Twenty correct answers = 100%
90-100% = Excellent shape
80- 89% = Good shape
70- 79% = Fair shape
60- 69% = Poor shape
How well did you do? Are you still confident in your knowledge of financial affairs?
For professional financial advice, consult the financial advisors at Safe Retirement Solutions by calling 877-268-4086 or visit our website today!
Safe Retirement Solutions’ financial advisers help our clients in all phases of their retirement planning. We help them prepare for a retirement free from financial worries, so that they can enjoy their retirement years. We help to enable our retired clients with the transition of their wealth into a carefree income that will last them a lifetime. | <urn:uuid:f867eb85-8296-4118-be09-854c28ac88ff> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://saferetirementsolutions.com/blog/2012/03/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946865 | 981 | 2.234375 | 2 |
MATT DeRIENZO: Fact Check program about accountability, transparency in local news reporting
Since launching an easy-to-use online “Fact Check” form in May, readers have made well over 100 reports to us about local news stories that contained incorrect information, lacked context to the point of being misleading, or missed the “real point” of the story altogether.
On any given day, we are going to make mistakes. We, unfortunately, do more than our share of simply “getting it wrong.” Far more extensive, though, at our newspaper and other media outlets, are errors of omission. We don’t go deep enough into a story, or we miss pieces of information and perspective that would change readers’ perception of an issue.
Launching a formal “Fact Check” program was our effort to, at the very least, declare our acknowledgement of this dynamic. It was an invitation to every reader, source and community member to hold us accountable and engage in correcting, improving or expanding the story.
Readers have used our “Fact Check” form on RegisterCitizen.Com to report names spelled wrong and stories that placed an accident on the wrong road or town.
One report informed us that a local man was accused of stealing a generator, not jewelry and a generator.
Another pointed out that “Torrington Chevy dealerships to sell new electric car” in a headline was wrong, since there is only one Chevy dealership in Torrington.
A reader asked why we reported a lightning strike victim in “fine” condition in a headline, and in “fair” condition in the article, and by the way, what does “fine condition” and “fair condition” mean?
Regarding Steven Hayes, recently convicted in the home invasion and murder of three members of the Petit family in Cheshire, a reader asked about articles’ continual reference to him as a “Winsted resident.” Had we confirmed that he was, indeed, a Winsted resident, and could we explain his specific ties to the community?
Other reports have targeted news language that typically goes unchallenged, but shouldn’t. A grant that allowed a local land trust to purchase property “at no cost to the taxpayers” was actually a government grant. It was, indeed, funded by taxpayers, albeit from state taxes vs. local property taxes.
Fact Check has caught instances in which we have been inconsistent or made mistakes in enforcing our own policies - such as identification of victims in certain crime stories. And it has exposed areas in which we have no set policy, but should. And exposed the fact that we should be more transparent about policies like this. Such as prominently posting on our website our protocol and commitment to readers and sources regarding how we handle corrections. Continued...
And Fact Check has been used as a simple, easy, default way for readers to communicate with us, mostly about why an outdated breaking news story is still on our website, or, “What happened up on East Main Street last night? ... there were 10 cop cars in the Walmart parking lot.”
To that end, we made a slight change earlier this week on RegisterCitizen.Com, removing the “Fact Check” submission box from our increasingly-cluttered home page to an expanded presence at the bottom of every single story that we publish.
This better matches reading habits (more and more readers are finding our individual stories through referral by friends’ Facebook and Twitter streams than a daily trip to the home page), and is top of mind as someone finishes reading a story. Did you see something that is wrong, or lacks context? Type a few words right here and let us know.
You can submit feedback through Fact Check completely anonymously, or you can leave your name and/or email address. If you provide your email, it will enable us to respond back to you if you have posed a question for us, or if we have a question about what you said.
Craig Newmark (founder of “Craig’s List”) likes to say that “Trust is the new black” when it comes to the future of the news media. We believe that’s built, in large part, through transparency about how we gather the news, an open door for the community to be involved in that process, and a very public process of encouraging readers and sources to hold us accountable and admitting our mistakes. Our Fact Check program is a small step toward these goals, and we encourage you to use it.
Matt DeRienzo is publisher of The Register Citizen. He can be reached at 860-489-1877 or email@example.com. For more, read his blog at http://registercitizen.com/blogs.
See inaccurate information in a story? Other feedback and/or ideas for us to consider? Tell us here.
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