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This is nothing like a comprehensive guide to the literature, although I do discuss some real bibliographies. I cover a few works of scholarship, and those not necessarily my favorites they're the ones that I think are most important for a beginner to know, the most often quoted, though not always the most thought-provoking. And this guide is unabashedly opinionated, though I hope my preferences aren't often perversely far from the mainstream. Still, it might be useful for people who've received no more formal introduction to Johnson studies.
I don't pretend for a minute that this guide is anywhere near complete or comprehensive it was prepared off the top of my head. I don't know whether my omissions of important material are more grievous than the outright errors that are doubtless in here somewhere. But it might be useful to someone just getting started, and, since it's free, it would be a bargain at twice the price. I welcome comments and corrections; my address appears below. | <urn:uuid:2756ec24-a0e9-4058-8f27-6886264771f7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Johnson/Guide/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966249 | 202 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Back from the Games Developers' Conference in San Francisco, Raph Koster weighs in on the perennial debate about what makes a game, starting with his own classic formulation, "Playing a game is the act of solving statistically varied challenge situations presented by an opponent who may or may not be algorithmic within a framework that is a defined systemic model."
Some see this as a “fundamentalist” approach to the definition. But I use it precisely because it is inclusive. It admits of me turning a toy into a game by imposing my own challenge on it (such as a ball being a toy, but trying to catch it after bouncing it against the wall becoming a game with simple rules that I myself define). It admits of sports. It admits of those who turn interpersonal relationships, or the stock market, or anything else, into “a game.”
Basically, I see this whole issue as this Venn diagram. I group sports, boardgames, and yes, videogames under “game” because all of them are susceptible to being broken down and analyzed with game grammar. They all have rules. They all have an “opponent” that presents varied challenges to the player. They all have a feedback loop. They all present verbs to the player. They all present goals. The fact that some use real-world physics as the opponent, some use the human body, some use dice or boards, and some use a computer is not even relevant when you break down the game atoms. I can group these easily because I’ve dug into them so much that I know there is something there in common.
I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too. | <urn:uuid:e23c41ec-5eed-4aa6-adb6-582752082813> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://boingboing.net/2012/03/13/what-is-a-game.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963091 | 414 | 2.140625 | 2 |
I cannot find an antonym for to suggest with the force of to suggest that p is false if to suggest is used with the force of to suggest that p is true. The context is a sentence that looks approximately like:
The proposition that proper names have senses is suggested by P. The proposition that proper names are definitionally equivalent to definite descriptions is [...] by Q.
Where P and Q are lists of reasons that aren't important here. The meaning of the passage should be equivalent to the following:
The truth of the proposition that proper names have senses is suggests by P. The falsity of the proposition that proper names are definitionally equivalent to definite descriptions is suggested by Q.
I recall having attempted to find a suitable word to replace [...] in the first set of sentences before. However, I was unsuccessful and rephrased the passage. Even if the passage would work best rephrased, such a word would be useful For reference, the context is an introduction to a discussion of the problems raised by P and Q. | <urn:uuid:0e026679-0008-4bee-9de1-929f188405b2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/56140/verb-meaning-to-suggest-that-something-is-false | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97631 | 212 | 2.640625 | 3 |
You see how smooth Tarzan moves in the Disney title of the same name?
You see how smooth Tarzan moves in the Disney title that bears the same name?
One of them must've been what I said on the phone with my friend. Well, I could've just said "You see how smooth Tarzan moves in the Disney animated movie 'Tarzan'?", but I don't like the repetition of the same word unless it's intended.
My question is, would the two sentences above be something you native speakers use? are they too wordy? or would you rather use totally different structure? Please let me know. Thank you very much.
Re: Too wordy?
You see how smooth Tarzan moves in the Disney version/movie.
That's what I'd say. Well, being a BrE speaker, I'd go for 'smoothly'.
Re: Too wordy?
The exact way of phrasing would be influenced by time and circumstance. If you had just seen the movie or had established a context of discussing recent films, I think most Americans would express this thought by saying, "Did you see how smoothly Tarzan moved? Those Disney animators are amazing!" In a written analysis of the film, a writer might phrase this thought by stating, "The smooth movements of the character Tarzan demonstrate that Disney's contemporary animators have lost none of the studio's lifelike skill and precision, the trademark of its golden era."
Yes, both sentences could be used by native speakers, but only the second one is closer to being gramatically correct according to the rules of standard American English.
The first sentence has some errors very common in slang usage, one of which could also be construed as a clarity issue. Technically, in the way the sentence is written,
"You see how smooth (+ ly) Tarzan moves in the Disney title of the same name?"
the sentence structure suggests that the speaker is asking the listener to look at how the animated character Tarzan is moving in the actual letters of the film's title as they are presented two-dimensionally either on a movie screen or on a piece of paper (perhaps an ad for the movie in a newspaper.) Is he swinging from the letter "T" in his own name like an ape? Regardless of whether the film were live action or animated, would a native speaker/listener understand the content? Yep. You betcha. But it is awkward.
The other error is an EXCEPTIONALLY FREQUENT mistake made by many native speakers in casual conversation and informal writing. It's a modifier problem in which speakers leave off the -ly ending that makes an adjective form of a word into an adverb. Most likely, the speaker's thoughts, and subconscious, internalized system of grammar, are focused on the subject (a noun or pronoun), so that even when describing the subject's actions, the speaker concentrates on Tarzan himself and not on what he is doing: Tarzan moves smoothly.
The first sentence could be used by an educated person in a very casual, face-to-face conversation with either close friends or others who are in some slight, almost insignificant way, subordinate to the speaker. It's not very likely that a well-educated person would make such a grammar goof in the company of people who are superior in status, or who are held in high regard, because the speaker would subconsciously be on his or her "best" syntactical behavior and wouldn't want to do anything to lose face or cause a venerated person, such as a grandparent, to feel disappointed or embarrassed.
What a very interesting question, Harakiriblade! As you can tell from lengthy reply, I enjoyed giving it a good "think."
Re: Too wordy?
Thank you very much Tdol, as always. Now that I think of it, 'Tarzan' has many different 'versions' and Disney's is just one of them. See, in my native language the concept of 'verson' is virtually non-existent. It was probably introduced only recently.
And tctepreslm, I really, really appreciate your long reply! I usually don't write back if the reply answers my question in full because any reply I write, a display of gratitude and whatnot, will bump this thread up, but I see you just started coming here and I didn't want to let you down. Please do keep it up! I need somebody like you to provide explanations in detail. Don't feel obliged to do so every time, bust I just want you to know your input is very much valued.
Search Engine Optimization by vBSEO | <urn:uuid:16661c5c-b448-4e49-82d4-677309a50d5a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.usingenglish.com/forum/ask-teacher/13857-too-wordy.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00051-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96831 | 962 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Fed chairman Ben Bernanke is living proof that delusional optimism is always possible if the person in question restricts their view to exclude any and all inconvenient considerations which contradict it.
Bernanke made the case for a Happy Future in a commencement speech to the graduates of Bard College. The chairman scolded "pessimists" for taking too narrow a view of that future. Bernanke's conventional thinking about the future rests upon human ingenuity and the technological innovation which springs from it. There are three fundamental assumptions which typically guide human beliefs about the future.
- Technological innovation solves all problems.
- More innovation is always better—it facilitates population or economic (consumption) growth, which is axiomatically a Good Thing.
- Human ingenuity (technological cleverness) is essentially unbounded (practical limits do not exist or do not matter).
Assumptions #1 and #2 form the Human Nature clause—when all you've got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Behavioral changes which might violate either assumption are ruled out. Assumption #3 springs from innate human bias (untempered optimism). Thus humans take an unrealistic view of themselves and their capabilities.
Once you've absorbed these assumptions, you will better understand the chairman's speech. Bernanke compares life in 1913 (shorter, harder) to life in 2013 (longer, easier). He then launches into his main theme.
The purpose of these comparisons is to make concrete the argument made by some economists, that the economic and technological transformation of the past 50 years, while significant, does not match the changes of the 50 years—or, for that matter, the 100 years—before that.
[See my post Two Ted Talks, and pay particular attention to the talk by Robert Gordon.]
Extrapolating to the future, the conclusion some have drawn is that the sustainable pace of economic growth and change and the associated improvement in living standards will likely slow further, as our most recent technological revolution, in computers and IT, will not transform our lives as dramatically as previous revolutions have.
Well, that's sort of depressing. Is it true, then, as baseball player Yogi Berra said, that the future ain't what it used to be? Nobody really knows; as Berra also astutely observed, it's tough to make predictions, especially about the future. But there are some good arguments on the other side of this debate.
Having completed his straw man, Bernanke now makes the optimistic case, which is founded on the considerations stated at the beginning of this post.
Technological innovation, which is part of our very nature, will continue. Pessimism is shortsighted and thus unwarranted (e.g. growth in income per person in the United States, great income inequality notwithstanding).
Second, not only are scientific and technical innovation themselves inherently hard to predict, so are the long-run practical consequences of innovation for our economy and our daily lives.
Indeed, some would say that we are still in the early days of the IT revolution; after all, computing speeds and memory have increased many times over in the 30-plus years since the first personal computers came on the market, and fields like biotechnology are also advancing rapidly.
Moreover, even as the basic technologies improve, the commercial applications of these technologies have arguably thus far only scratched the surface. Consider, for example, the potential for IT and biotechnology to improve health care, one of the largest and most important sectors of our economy.
A strong case can be made that the modernization of health-care IT systems would lead to better-coordinated, more effective, and less costly patient care than we have today, including greater responsiveness of medical practice to the latest research findings. Robots, lasers, and other advanced technologies are improving surgical outcomes, and artificial intelligence systems are being used to improve diagnoses and chart courses of treatment. Perhaps even more revolutionary is the trend toward so-called personalized medicine, which would tailor medical treatments for each patient based on information drawn from that individual's genetic code. Taken together, such advances could lead to another jump in life expectancy and improved health at older ages.
Other promising areas for the application of new technologies include the development of cleaner energy—for example, the harnessing of wind, wave, and solar power and the development of electric and hybrid vehicles—as well as potential further advances in communications and robotics. I'm sure that I can't imagine all of the possibilities, but historians of science have commented on our collective tendency to overestimate the short-term effects of new technologies while underestimating their longer-term potential.
Technological innovation solves all problems. The human-created, god-awful mess which is health care in the United States will be fixed by means of better health-care IT systems. We will innovate our way out of the climate problem by means of wind, waves, solar, etc. More is always better.
Finally, pessimists may be paying too little attention to the strength of the underlying economic and social forces that generate innovation in the modern world.
Invention was once the province of the isolated scientist or tinkerer. The transmission of new ideas and the adaptation of the best new insights to commercial uses were slow and erratic. But all of that is changing radically. We live on a planet that is becoming richer and more populous, and in which not only the most advanced economies but also large emerging market nations like China and India increasingly see their economic futures as tied to technological innovation.
In that context, the number of trained scientists and engineers is increasing rapidly, as are the resources for research being provided by universities, governments, and the private sector.
Moreover, because of the Internet and other advances in communications, collaboration and the exchange of ideas take place at high speed and with little regard for geographic distance. For example, research papers are now disseminated and critiqued almost instantaneously rather than after publication in a journal several years after they are written. And, importantly, as trade and globalization increase the size of the potential market for new products, the possible economic rewards for being first with an innovative product or process are growing rapidly. In short, both humanity's capacity to innovate and the incentives to innovate are greater today than at any other time in history.
Well, what does all this have to do with creativity and critical thinking, which is where I started? The history of technological innovation and economic development teaches us that change is the only constant...
If human ingenuity is essentially unbounded, it makes sense to say that the more people there are, the more innovation you're going to get. And now, thanks to technological advances like the internet, it is easier for good ideas to spread. It is easier to find a market for practical implementations of those ideas. And so on.
Thus the chairman chastises "pessimists" for taking too narrow a view of the human future, which is ironic because I began this post by saying that optimists like Bernanke are only able to maintain their rosy views because their belief systems exclude huge swathes of what we might (affectionately?) call Reality.
Change, says Ben Bernanke, is the only constant. But what sort of change will that be? And what, despite the chairman's assertion, will remain constant?
If humans were technological innovators who could also be counted on to benignly manage their home planet, the ecosystems and biosphere upon which they depend, and most importantly, themselves, there would be no problem here. Humans would then be highly discriminating in what they choose to do and choose not to do. Tragically, such is not the case. Humans are like bulls in a china shop, causing indiscriminate drepredation everywhere they go. Often humans will tell you that they didn't mean to cause all that destruction, or that they did not cause it, but almost invariably they do cause it. Most of the time they don't care one way or another, or even notice the damage which follows in their wake.
Viewed this way, Bernanke's speech is simply a recipe for more capitalistic rape & pillage, and more environmental carnage. The world Bernanke would construct is not a world where we leave the moose alone.
Or, as I said in my Schopenhauer post, let the suffering continue! | <urn:uuid:b7191190-9ce6-480a-9d6c-026a2c16c7a4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.declineoftheempire.com/page/2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957972 | 1,702 | 2.578125 | 3 |
October 31, 2006 > Who loves ya, baby?
Who loves ya, baby?
In 1973, Telly Savalas emerged on the small screen as a bald, no-nonsense, lollipop-sucking detective, Lt. Theo Kojak, whose tag line was "who loves ya, baby?" This tough, outspoken and streetwise guy would ferret out criminals and bag them with regularity every week. Kojak's rhetorical question might be appropriate to ask of our local politicians as they face the voters at election time to find out how much love and trust exists between them.
It would be interesting to see what Kojak would do with the candidate lineup presented to the public at each election. These are people who profess to uphold the laws and rules of the land, yet some of them begin by disregarding election disclosure regulations. As is often the case, statements, records and disclosure forms are quietly filed and then forgotten, even by watchdog agencies such as the state Fair Political Practices Commission. The FPPC's role is regulatory, but it only seems to regulate after a complaint has been filed by activist citizens or campaign opponents.
Candidates for municipal office are governed by a set of laws designed to allow the public to understand who is running for office. A preliminary form simply lists an address and asserts the intention to run for a particular office. Qualification is based on submission of a "Nomination Paper" with at least 20 addresses and signatures of valid, registered voters, as confirmed by the county Registrar of Voters. A fee of $2,000 is required if the candidate wishes to publish a voluntary candidate statement, but this is not required. Candidates may choose to sign a "Code of Fair Campaign Practices," but this is also not required.
At this point, the only thing a voter may know about the candidate is name, address and contact information. Signatures on the nomination paper may include people who know the individual or people who simply signed the form in support of a prospective candidate. The Secretary of State records, but does not confirm, the candidate's occupation, if one is listed. Each candidate then signs an affidavit affirming that all information listed is correct and true. Candidates are not asked about citizenship, even though only U.S. citizens may run for elective office. Natives of the United States are citizens by birth; naturalized citizens have only to declare their status by checking a box on their voter registration form. The Registrar of Voters does not routinely confirm this information.
A candidate's financial holdings or business interests may be of interest to voters, especially if business dealings might interfere with governance, or represent a possible conflict of interest when considering contracts or other fiscal decisions. For this reason, candidates and those who hold certain municipal offices are required by law to disclose their financial positions, within certain broad measures of value. Also, since California is a community property state, candidates must disclose spousal business interests, stock holdings and employment earnings.
Campaigns can be expensive undertakings and the public has the right to know who is giving money to those running for office. The 1974 voter-approved initiative known as The Political Reform Act, established the FPPC in the wake of the Nixon administration's questionable political activities. The Act required disclosure of campaign contributions and expenditures during elections. Candidates are briefed by local jurisdictions to disclose information about their campaign committees and they must list the names and addresses of all contributors, along with the amounts donated to the campaign.
With several agencies handling paperwork and with state laws mandating disclosure from public officials, it would seem reasonable for the public to be assured that candidates are vetted, making sure that at least required forms are filled out and submitted with accurate information. Unfortunately, as with many rules and laws on the books, intentions are rarely matched by compliance. TCV decided to look at the public filings of current candidates for office in the greater Tri-Cities area. Local clerks informed us that we, as well as the general public, were free to examine the filings. However, clerks made clear their role was simply to accept the papers with a review for proper completion of basic information boxes. Neither city clerks nor city attorneys are responsible for insuring accuracy of the information presented, or for verifying its truthfulness.
With our Kojak lollipop firmly in hand, we read through the files. We found some candidates filed all required documents while others appeared to omit information that, on cursory examination, amounted to glaring deficiencies and possible evasion. We found consistent compliance in the filings of campaign committee information and donor records disclosures. Then, the story changed when reviewing the various schedules that must be attached to FPPC Form 700, "Statement of Economic Interests." The schedules apply to specific economic information that may affect a candidate's decisions in office.
The Form 700 is where a candidate must disclose investments, real property holdings, and any business interests held on the day the Declaration of Candidacy is due. Plus, candidates must also disclose income received for the 12 months prior to the date of filing, including full disclosure of a spouse's income and interests where applicable.
In our review of the documents filed for this election, we found that while Fremont City Council candidates Bill Harrison and Alan Stirling fully disclosed all required information, candidate and appointed incumbent, Anu Natarajan, failed to file a Schedule C with information about personal income, her husband's holdings and income and disclosure of a property management business advertised on the Internet.
In the Union City, City Council race, none of the candidates disclosed any spousal interests. What's more, candidate and incumbent, Richard Valle, filed no form 700 schedules. Instead, he checked a box marked "No reportable interests on any schedule." Voters might infer from this that Valle has no income, business holdings, spousal interests or stocks.
Milpitas mayoral candidate, Jose Estevez, filed a complete disclosure of both his and his wife's interests. His opponent, Henry Manayan, reported no spousal interests, and only a minor ownership interest in an orchid nursery. This conflicts with his public assertions of considerable success in commercial real estate ventures. In the city council races, disclosure statements of spousal interests were not on file by any candidate.
Voters are led to believe certain "facts" about their elected officials and those who promote themselves as trustworthy representatives in political campaigns, but what conclusion can we draw, when incomplete information and obfuscation are the answers to legally mandated disclosures? In some instances, candidates have clearly retired from active investing or business interests, but in others it strains credulity to believe their statements or lack of filing any statement at all. These are the same civic leaders entrusted with oversight of hundreds of millions of dollars of public money. In future issues, TCV plans to explore these questions in more depth.
In the meantime, when you go to the polls and vote, the question remains, "Who loves ya baby?" | <urn:uuid:4be510c7-f865-42c9-8798-a237cac637cd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tricityvoice.com/articledisplay.php?a=6348 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961497 | 1,422 | 1.734375 | 2 |
"There must have been a moment, at the beginning, where we could have said ... no. Somehow we missed it. Well, we'll know better next time."
"Until then ..."
-- Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
XML is predicated on two main strengths. First, publishers can use any character in the world, natively and efficiently, by declaring the character encoding that makes the most sense for their content. English publishers can use an ASCII encoding and store each character in one byte. But Russian publishers can use an encoding such as KOI8-R, and they can store their Cyrillic characters each in one byte. Publishers that don't know what language they'll be dealing with can use "universal" encodings like UTF-8 or UTF-16. Second, consumers can use off-the-shelf parsing libraries that can assume well-formed XML as input.
Finally an end to the "tag soup" hell that infected the HTML publishing world, where every parser handles ill-formed markup differently and nobody is wrong. Draconian error handling, we were and are assured, is crucial for interoperability.
XML has had many successes. I just finished writing a 400-page book in DocBook XML. It is over one megabyte of well-formed XML, and I use off-the-shelf tools to transform it into HTML, PDF, and a number of other formats. This was one of the original use cases for XML, way back in 1997 when SGML ruled the Earth and dinosaurs like ISO-8879 were gospel. It works; I love it; I recommend it for any serious content creator.
The other apparent success of XML is the rise of syndicated feeds, in a range of XML vocabularies like CDF, RSS, and now Atom. There are feed directories; there are feed search engines; there are feed validators. Every major blogging tool -- from freeware like Blogger to commercial software like Movable Type to open source software like WordPress -- every tool publishes at least one of these XML formats.
Syndicated feeds are wildly popular, but they're not a success for XML. XML on the Web has failed: miserably, utterly, and completely.
The Primacy of HTTP
What's the main strength of XML for publishers? Publish in any character encoding. I use ASCII, you use Big-5 (Chinese), he uses EUC-KR (Korean). XML handles them all. Just declare your encoding at the top of your feed, like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="koi8-r"?>
But not quite. That's the way it works when an XML document is stored on disk. But HTTP has its own method of determining character encoding, that looks like this:
Content-Type: text/xml; charset="koi8-r"
So if we're serving XML over HTTP, suddenly we have two places to look for the character encoding. Not a problem if they're both the same, but what if they're not? The answer is simple and universal: when an XML document is served over HTTP, HTTP's method always wins. The XML specification even admits this, in appendix F:
When multiple sources of information are available, their relative priority and the preferred method of handling conflict should be specified as part of the higher-level protocol used to deliver XML. In particular, please refer to [IETF RFC 3023] or its successor, which defines the text/xml and application/xml MIME types and provides some useful guidance.
But wait, there's more. In both HTTP and XML, the encoding declaration is optional. So now we run into cases where the XML file declares an encoding but the HTTP headers do not or vice-versa. This is actually very common, especially in the case of feeds. Why? Many publishing systems don't generate feeds dynamically. Instead, they generate the feed once, and then they cache it in a file (probably with a ".xml" or ".rdf" extension) and let the underlying web server actually serve it when anyone comes along and asks for it.
This is efficient, since feeds are requested over and over, and the web server is much faster at serving static files than it is at calling a script that happens to spit out a feed as output. It may also be required. Consider the case of Blogger: the publishing system is on a central server, but the feeds (and the rest of your site) are served from a completely different server. (When you make a change, Blogger regenerates all the necessary files and transfers them to your server over FTP.)
Stay with me, this is important.
So we're being efficient by caching feeds as static files. But the underlying web server doesn't know anything about the encoding preferences of one specific application, so it always serves ".xml" files without an explicit character encoding in the HTTP headers. That sounds like a good thing. It's certainly faster and less error-prone than introspecting into the XML document each time before serving it. And presumably the publishing system knows the correct character encoding, so it should have stored it in the encoding attribute in the first line of the XML document when it cached the feed. The encoding isn't getting lost, it's just stored in one place instead of another place.
So what's the problem?
Enter RFC 3023
RFC 3023 (XML Media Types) is the problem. RFC 3023 is a valiant attempt to sort out the precedence mess between HTTP and XML, while still respecting all the other software that allows the Internet to work. (More on that in a minute.) RFC 3023 is the one and only place to learn how to determine the character encoding of an XML document served over HTTP.
According to RFC 3023, if the media type given in the Content-Type HTTP header is application/xml, application/xml-dtd, application/xml-external-parsed-entity, or any one of the subtypes of application/xml such as application/atom+xml or application/rss+xml or even application/rdf+xml, then the character encoding is determined in this order:
- the encoding given in the charset parameter of the Content-Type HTTP header, or
- the encoding given in the encoding attribute of the XML declaration within the document, or
On the other hand, if the media type given in the Content-Type HTTP header is text/xml, text/xml-external-parsed-entity, or a subtype like text/AnythingAtAll+xml, then the encoding attribute of the XML declaration within the document is ignored completely, and the character encoding is:
- the encoding given in the charset parameter of the Content-Type HTTP header, or
There is actually a good reason for this second set of rules. There are things called "transcoding proxies," used by ISPs and large organizations in Japan and Russia and other countries. A transcoding proxy will automatically convert text documents from one character encoding to another. If a feed is served as text/xml, the proxy treats it like any other text document, and transcodes it. It does this strictly at the HTTP level: it gets the current encoding from the HTTP headers, transcodes the document byte for byte, sets the charset parameter in the HTTP headers, and sends the document on its way. It never looks inside the document, so it doesn't know anything about this secret place inside the document where XML just happens to store encoding information.
So there's a good reason, but this means that in some cases -- such as feeds served as text/xml -- the encoding attribute in the XML document is completely ignored.
The Curse of Default Content-Types
Remember that scenario of caching feeds as static ".xml" files, and letting the web server serve it later? Well, until very recently, every web server on Earth was configured by default to send static ".xml" files with a Content-Type of text/xml with no charset parameter. In fact, Microsoft IIS still does this. Apache was fixed last November, but depending on your configuration, the fix may not be installed over an existing installation when you upgrade.
According to RFC 3023, every single one of those cached feeds being served as text/xml has a character encoding of us-ascii, not the encoding declared in the XML declaration.
How bad is this problem? I recently surveyed 5,096 active feeds from Syndic8.com. The results were astonishing.
|text/xml and non-ASCII||ill-formed||961||19%|
|text/xml but only used ASCII||well-formed||2491||49%|
Over 20% of the feeds I surveyed weren't even served with an XML content type, so they're automatically ill-formed. The vast majority of the rest were served as text/xml with no charset parameter. These could be well-formed, but RFC 3023 says they must be treated as us-ascii. But many contained non-ASCII characters, so they were not well-formed. They were properly encoded, but not properly served. That is, they were encoded in some non-ASCII character encoding that the publisher carefully declared in the XML declaration -- which must be ignored because of the HTTP Content-Type.
The Tools Will Save Us
More Dive Into XML Columns
There's one more piece to this puzzle: client software. Remember those wonderful "off-the-shelf" libraries that are supposed to reject ill-formed XML documents? After all, "draconian error handling" is one of the fundamental principles of XML. Since determining the actual character encoding of an XML document is a prerequisite for determining its well-formedness, you would think that every XML parser on Earth supported RFC 3023.
And you'd be wrong. Dead wrong, in fact. None
of the most popular XML parsers support RFC 3023. Many can
download XML documents over HTTP, but they don't look at
the Content-Type header to determine the character encoding.
So they all get it wrong in the case where the feed is served
text/* and the HTTP encoding is different from the XML
Which is the case 90% of the time. Well, 89%, but who's counting?
Postel's Law Has Two Parts
Postel's Law was defined in RFC 793 as "be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others."
The first part of Postel's Law applies to XML. Publishers are responsible for generating well-formed XML. But think about what that actually requires. Think about Blogger, generating a feed, and moving it to an unknown server that's not under Blogger's control. If publishers want to be strict in what they produce, and they want or need to publish feeds as static files, then they need to programmatically ensure that the feeds will still be valid if they were later served as text/xml.
In other words, publishing systems need to encode all of their feeds as us-ascii. (They could use character entities to represent non-ASCII characters, but what a cost! 4-8 bytes per character, instead of 1. That's some serious bloat.) So much for the promise of being able to use any character encoding you want.
But Postel's Law has two parts, and XML was supposed to take the second half ("be liberal in what you accept from others") and throw it out the window. Clients are supposed to be strict in what they accept, and reject any XML that's not well-formed.
But clients are not being strict. They're all liberal; they're all buggy. Remember those 961 feeds I surveyed, that were served as text/xml but were actually using non-ASCII characters? And the 1,064 feeds served as text/plain? All the popular XML client libraries say they're well-formed, even though they're not. So much for draconian error handling.
What's worse, most publishers aren't aware of it. Publishers rely on the widespread bugginess of the most popular XML client libraries, and they continue to blithely publish XML documents over HTTP with a Content-Type that should downgrade their feeds to us-ascii, but in reality doesn't. They're not being strict in what they publish, but it works out, because clients aren't being strict in what they accept.
The entire world of syndication only works because everyone happens to ignore the rules in the same way. So much for ensuring interoperability.
XML on the Web has failed. Miserably, utterly, completely. Multiple specifications and circumstances conspire to force 90% of the world into publishing XML as ASCII. But further widespread bugginess counteracts this accidental conspiracy, and allows XML to fulfill its first promise ("publish in any character encoding") at the expense of the second ("draconian error handling will save us").
Let this fester for a few years and suddenly we find that we couldn't fix the problem even if we wanted to. Forty percent of the syndicated feeds in the world would simply disappear if clients suddenly started living up to their end of XML's anti-Postel bargain.
Perhaps XML's successor can do better. "Well, we'll know better next time ... Until then ..." | <urn:uuid:7b211b44-3237-4a21-aa7e-18889919ef25> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2004/07/21/dive.html?page=last&x-order=date&x-showcontent=off | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931144 | 2,781 | 2.03125 | 2 |
Currently, more than 2.9 million breast cancer survivors are living the United States, including women still being treated and those who have completed treatment, according to statistics from the American Cancer Society.
As part of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the Panhellenic Association (PHA) has a table in Memorial Union this week to help spread awareness and to raise funds for Susan G. Komen for the Cure, an organization that has been dedicated to spreading awareness and raising funds for breast cancer research since 1982. By press time on Wednesday, PHA had collected about $30 in loose change. Their target goal is $50.
“We have fact sheets for both women and men in regards to breast cancer because this cancer can occur in anybody, not just women,” said Kelcie Push, senior psychology major and director of community service and philanthropy for PHA.
Push also said the group made pink ribbons that students can pick up for free and wear to show support for breast cancer awareness.
“Men (with) breast cancer is not frequent, but it can still happen,” Push said, “and all men should be educated on the prevention of breast cancer and the warning signs as well.”
Although men are, indeed, susceptible to the disease, Mary McDaniel, assistant director of Health Services, said breast cancer is far less common in men than it is in women. Incidents of male breast cancer account for about 1 percent of total breast cancer cases, according to the Komen group’s website.
“The average age (for men) is 68, so typical college-aged men have little risk,” McDaniel said. “Student Health more often talks to young men about testicular cancer, which does hit young men.”
But breast cancer is the most commonly occurring cancer in American women – except for skin cancers – and 1 in 8 women, or 12 percent of the total female population, will develop invasive breast cancer in their lifetime, according ACS.
“Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in women, exceeded only by lung cancer,” the ACS website states. “The chance that breast cancer will be responsible for a woman’s death is about 1 in 36 (about 3%).”
The website also states that breast cancer related deaths have been declining since 1990, which is “believed to be the result of earlier detection through screening and increased awareness, as well as improved treatment.”
McDaniel said young women should be aware of what’s normal for their breasts and become accustomed to that knowledge so they can spot an abnormality.
“Start maybe after a clinical breast exam so you know that what your healthcare provider felt was normal,” McDaniel said. “Then, by doing self-exams on a regular basis, women will notice changes when they first occur and seek care.”
McDaniel said breast self-exams (BSE) can be done regularly at home, and clinical breast exams (CBE) are usually done as part of a woman’s annual gynecology exam.
“I’d rather people didn’t try to figure out on their own which lumps might be dangerous and which ones might not be,” McDaniel said. “Rather, people should be very comfortable with their breast tissue, know what’s normal for them, and have any new lumps or changes checked out by their healthcare provider.”
Mammography is another way to detect signs of breast abnormalities, and yearly mammograms are recommended starting at age 40 and continuing for as long as a woman is in good health, according to the ACS.
McDaniel said some risk factors, such as genetics, cannot be helped, but there are some risk reduction strategies, including maintaining a normal weight, exercising regularly, avoiding smoking and moderate alcohol use.
“There are more, such as bearing children before age 30, but you don’t typically think of college students planning to have a baby to reduce cancer risk,” McDaniel said. | <urn:uuid:1674ade4-aaa7-41a8-9872-e53dfe6d9e6f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.esubulletin.com/2012/10/04/12753 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972339 | 853 | 2.953125 | 3 |
With the ever increasing usage of disk based backup solutions, one of the questions I get asked most often is around the future of tape. There is no doubt that disk offers many benefits over tape, not least restore performance and reliability, combined with some great technical advances like deduplication. That said, does tape still have a place in modern data protection?
Rarely a week passes when I don’t talk to a customer who wants to reduce their reliance on tape. The main challenges customers experience with tape are performance, especially when backing up lots of small files, restore speed, and also reliability issues caused by media volatility and drive failures. Add to that the cost of taking tapes off-site and cycling them back on site each day and it is little wonder many want to try and reduce their reliance on the technology.
Disk as a backup technology has been around for many years but, in recent years, has become almost a defacto standard for customers looking for new backup solutions. Disk doesn’t suffer from many of the same reliability issues as tape and the decrease in the cost of network links combined with deduplication and WAN optimisation has meant that replication is now no longer only for the largest customers. Furthermore, disk can be considerably faster than tape for restores, though – interestingly - tape can often outperform all but the fastest disk for backups when backing up certain optimum datasets such as large databases.
Where disk falls down is simply the cost if a customer needs to keep data for extended periods of time – the current street price of an LTO-5 tape is in the region of £35 for 1.5TB of storage capacity which equates to £23.33 per TB (prices may vary). Compare that to disk, where you will likely pay more than £50 for a basic 1TB desktop disk, and you can see the appeal of tape. There are, of course, other costs to both solutions, including drives, enclosures, power, cooling and so on but media alone for media tape offers a significant cost advantage.
Recent analyst studies have shown disk to be anywhere from two to fifteen times more expensive to implement than a tape based solution for long term archive storage and the cost to run and, according to the same study, the cost to run and cool a datacentre could be anything up to 200x more for a disk only solution (http://www.clipper.com/research/TCG2010054.pdf
). Added to that, we are about to see the launch of LTO-6 offering 2.5TB native on a single tape with a roadmap planned to LTO-8 which will offer 12.8TB native on one tape and that delta could continue to get bigger.
So am I saying you shouldn’t use disk? Of course not! Disk is a great medium for backup and restores, especially for short term restore requirements which, let’s face it, is where most restores come from – “can you restore my spreadsheet from last night?” or “can you find my proposal from last week?” are common requests that most backup admins hear on a daily basis.
If you only have a requirement to keep data for a short time then disk only will be a great option for you. If you need to keep data for longer, then think about using disk combined with flexible deduplication for your short term backup requirements and then move the data off to tape for long term retention and get the best of both worlds. | <urn:uuid:5ff308ca-c1d4-4990-af0c-ac5a78d3bbaa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/tape-dead | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960528 | 722 | 2.234375 | 2 |
In the run up to the election, a group of Orthodox rabbis, most from Brooklyn, but including others, notably Rabbi Shmuel Kamenetsky and Rabbi Simcha Bunim Cohen, two nationally prominent Orthodox Jewish authorities, published a letter stating that "it is forbidden to fund, support, or vote for David Weprin." The reason? As a member of the New York state legislature, Weprin, despite his Orthodox Jewish beliefs, voted to redefine marriage to include same-sex partnerships. This, the rabbonim declared, was chillul Hashem—a desecration, or bringing of shame, on God's name. The rabbis went on to say that "Weprin's claim that he is Orthodox makes the chillul Hashem even greater"…The letter from the rabbonim went farther than anything I recall Catholic bishops saying.
Naturally, K-Lo and Maggie Gallagher chime in. I'm sure some generic national factors – the economy primarily – played a role in the Democratic disaster here. But it may not be too wise to extrapolate too much from a population dominated by older, more paranoid Jewish voters and hardcore Orthodox homophobes. | <urn:uuid:c1b19c5c-6f46-40d2-b6f2-af7741f96fc1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2011/09/14/jewish-christianism-in-new-york/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958502 | 241 | 1.523438 | 2 |
7 Caribbean islands and what we recommend them for
Everyone loves the Caribbean, but which island should you choose?
Published 31 July 2012 in Travel Articles
ARUBA - Wedding blissWhy go: Lying just 15 miles off the coast of Venezuela, Aruba is a 33 km-long island of the Lesser Antilles. The island is well-klnown as a wedding and honeymoon destination thanks to perfect year-round weather — it lies away from the hurricane path and has no rainy season — and pristine coastline.
Many a cruise passenger have hopped off here to wed on its seven-mile palm-fringed beach. To make life easier the Aruba tourist board have created an online bridal registry.
Aruba is part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and feels somewhat European culturally speaking. Highlights include the eerie ruins of the bushiribana gold mine, natural rock bridges and the arikok National Wildlife Park which spreads over 20 per cent of the island.
Where to stay: Bucuti & Tara Beach Resort
more hotels in Aruba
Getting there: find flights to Aruba
THE BAHAMAS - Eco travellers will love this
Why go: The name for the Bahamas comes from “baja mar”, the Spanish for “shallow sea” and this destination is the perfect eco-getaway. there are 700 islands and sandy cays offering oodles of adventurous playgrounds for divers. New Providence and grand Bahama providing the most varied diving.
There are 28 national parks spread over a million acres of land with amazing colonies of West Indian Flamingoes, mangroves and sea turtle research stations. Recently the Leon Levy Native Plant Preserve was opened on the island of Eleuthera. This was funded by the Leon Levy Foundation whose mission is to continue his philanthropic legacy, and supporting excellence in six broad areas: understanding the ancient world; arts and humanities, preservation of nature and gardens, neuroscience research and human rights.
Where to stay: Grand Lucayan
more hotels in Bahamas
Getting there: find flights to Bahamas
CAYMAN ISLANDS - Dive into these islands
Why go: Divers, get your flippers and head to the Cayman Islands. Thanks to the policing of the marine environment, the diving and snorkelling around these parts must surely rank with some of the best in the world. It has a vertiginous geology which means the islands are the tip of an underwater mountain range.
Incidentally, one of the world's rarest lizards, the blue iguana, is the closest living relative to dinosaurs, and can only be seen on Grand Cayman.
Where to stay: Grandview Condominiums
Getting there: find flights to Cayman Islands
CUBA - Culture, colonial history and salsa
Why go: Where else can you salsa the night away with the locals, make like Hemingway in Havana, get a taste of the Spanish empire, and soak up the colonial atmosphere and history from Columbus to Castro all in one place? And then add in cigars, rum and classic cars and you have a truly culturally rich destination.
This is the biggest island in the Caribbean but for half a century the country has been infamous for its politics, thanks to Fidel Castro. A lack of resources means its infrastructure has seen better days, yet despite that for visitors it offers a laid-back vibe and a unique Afro-Latin culture.
Where to stay: Hotel Nacional de Cuba
In addition to hotels, many people stay with the locals, also known as Casa Particular. For example, Casa 1932 in Centro Habana is an art nouveau den run by a former pharmacist - 3 lovely rooms & four-course meals every night.
Getting there: find flights to Cuba
GRENADA - Life is a beach
Why go: There are two and a half impressive miles of spacious white sandy beach on Granada. Add to that a backdrop of lush, verdant hills and sensational raintforest and the island feels alive with nature. Yet this island is not just beautiful its entertaining too. There are ample bars, restaurants and waters sports and for a day out hire a sturdy car and explore.
Where to stay: Coyaba Beach Resort
more hotels in Grenada
Getting there: find flights to Grenada
JAMAICA - Reggae and rainforests
Why go: Famous for being the home of Bob Marley, Reggae, and the rainforest that tumbles down from the Blue Mountain to rocky coves and of course, the coffee. Its dashingly blue shoreline is the welcome mat for underwater caverns and caves.
Where to stay: Jamaica Inn
more hotels in Jamaica
Getting there: find flights to Jamaica
TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO - Lime with the locals
Why go: There is an intriguing cultural mix encompassing the Middle East, India and China. Popular “street food” includes the Indian channa dhal — curried chickpeas topped with chutney.
There is a weekly Sunday festival of steel bands with energetic dancing. Tobago, which as the oldest, protected forest in the eastern hemisphere, is a laid back place where you can “lime” with the locals (basically just hang out doing nothing) while Trinidad is more hard-working but has an abundance of natural and nocturnal attractions.
Where to stay: Le Grand Courlan Spa Resort - Adults Only
Getting there: find flights to Trinidad and Tobago
Add Your Comment | <urn:uuid:1e10cb19-2ae5-4819-8bcb-96fca6e8c948> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thetravelmagazine.net/i-4660--7-caribbean-islands-and-what-we-recommend-them-for.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.908071 | 1,146 | 1.523438 | 2 |
6 comments May 17th, 2010 Headsman
On this date in 1995, Illinois executed Girvies Davis for murdering 89-year-old Charles Biebel in Belleville, Ill.
A small-time African-American hood reared in an alcoholic home, Davis was not linked to the murder by any physical evidence, or even any eyewitnesses. There was only one piece of evidence against him: his signed confession.
Unfortunately, the source lacked all credibility.
Davis copped to some 20 crimes under police interrogation. Officially, he did this when he voluntarily wrote out a list of evildoings and spontaneously passed it to a guard, which would be hard to believe even if the guy weren’t nearly illiterate. (Even the official story later became that Davis must have dictated the confession to someone else, like a cellmate.)
According to Davis’s later account, he signed statements the police had prepared for him … at gunpoint. The police logs say that he was taken out for a drive that night (“for evidence”), and conveniently confessed in the small hours of the morning.
Even though our man’s involvement in most of these “admitted” crimes (anything outstanding in the area that was still unsolved, it seems) was disproven, he couldn’t get traction in the courts once his conviction by an all-white jury was secured. Paradoxically, because there was no other evidence in the case to discredit, that “a-ha!” exoneration moment became all but impossible to secure despite the other holes in the case.
More action was had in the court of public opinion, where the usual suspects enlisted any number of pro-death penalty prosecutors and Republicans with serious misgivings about the case.
“The public sees the Bundys and the Gacys executed and they cheer,” said Gary V. Johnson, a former Kane County, Ill., prosecutor, who sought the death penalty in the past but opposes the execution of Mr. Davis. “The public doesn’t see the Girvies Davises.”
Years later, Davis’s last appellate attorney still believes “that the State of Illinois executed Girvies Davis for a crime I am sure he didn’t commit.”
Northwestern University journalism professor David Protess was also convinced of Girvies Davis’s innocence, and led a team of students researching the case back before he was famous for doing exactly that sort of thing. His work did not yield success on this occasion, but to judge by his account (pdf) of a last conversation he and his students had hours before Davis was put to death, it helped lead to the school’s later headline-grabbing wrongful conviction exposes.
Protess put [Davis] on the speakerphone, and the group gathered around. “Try not to mourn for me,” Davis said. “Move on with your lives. Just try to help people like me who get caught up in the system.” …
Davis had a final request: He wanted Protess and the students to promise that this wouldn’t be their last crusade in a capital case.
The room fell silent. “Of all the guys you know on the Row, who do you think most deserves help?” Protess asked.
“Buck Williams,” Davis answered without hesitation. “I’m certain he’s innocent.”
Protess … vowed that he and his next group of students would leave no stone unturned for Williams.
Protess was as good as his word.
In less than a year, Williams along with Verneal Jimerson, Willie Rainge and Kenneth Adams were free men after a generation in prison.** These men, known as the “Ford Heights Four”, would win the largest civil rights lawsuit payment in U.S. history for their wrongful imprisonment.
* Davis may also have been the first death-row prisoner in the U.S. with his own Internet site and online clemency petition, although these interesting artifcats have long since vanished into the digital oubliette. Gov. Edgar reportedly received 1,200 emails asking him to spare his prisoner’s life … testament even then to elected officials’ disregard for online advocacy.
** Williams and Jimerson were on death row; Rainge and Adams were serving life sentences.
Also on this date
- 1521: Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham
- 1964: Namgyal Bahadur, Bhutan assassin
- 1868: Kondo Isami, Shinsengumi
- 1972: The rapists of Maggie dela Riva
- 1955: Leslie George Hylton, a better bowler than liar
Entry Filed under: 20th Century,Capital Punishment,Common Criminals,Crime,Death Penalty,Disfavored Minorities,Execution,History,Illinois,Lethal Injection,Murder,Racial and Ethnic Minorities,USA,Wrongful Executions
Tags: 1990s, 1995, charles biebel, david protess, dennis williams, ford heights four, gary johnson, girvies davis, kenneth adams, may 17, northwestern university, verneal jimerson, willie rainge, wrongful confessions | <urn:uuid:a48c1fcb-23ee-4ffc-983b-5735911e2b86> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.executedtoday.com/tag/girvies-davis/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00051-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966946 | 1,124 | 1.726563 | 2 |
On Monday, the top official with a national miners' union says bankrupt Patriot Coal's bid to cut retiree health care benefits, while seeking millions of dollars for executive bonuses, is immoral.
Patriot Coal spun off from St. Louis-based Peabody in 2007, taking with it an enormous amount of the larger company’s health care obligations. Now that Patriot has declared bankruptcy, the company is looking to cut health care coverage for retired miners.
At a press conference in St. Louis, United Mine Workers of America President Cecil Roberts said Patriot was designed to fail.
St. Louis-based Patriot Coal Corp. has asked the U.S. Bankruptcy Court to modify collective bargaining agreements with the United Mine Workers of America, allowing the coal company to cut health care coverage for retired miners.
Patriot was created by St. Louis-Based Peabody Energy Corp., as a stand-alone company in 2007. In creating Patriot, Peabody also transferred a hefty chunk of Peabody’s outstanding pension obligations onto Patriot’s books.
Local activist groups say they’re planning several protests this week against Peabody Energy.
This morning activists hung a banner on a Peabody Energy and United Way billboard that read, “Dirty Coal = Dirty Money.”
Later in the day, activists joined student groups to protest at Washington University, saying the school had too cozy of a relationship with Peabody. In a statement, Washington University says it respects students’ right to express their opinions. | <urn:uuid:ebd09264-eaa4-460c-ac38-d477ade175c0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.news.stlpublicradio.org/term/peabody-coal?page=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945181 | 319 | 1.59375 | 2 |
The island was explored in 1768 by the French navigator Louis de Bougainville. Unlike the rest of the Solomon Islands, which became British territory, Bougainville and Buka became part of German New Guinea in 1884. Occupied by Australian forces during World War I, Bougainville was mandated to Australia by the League of Nations in 1920. During World War II the island was the last Japanese stronghold in the Solomons. It became part of Papua New Guinea in 1973, despite strong secessionist sentiment. A bloody secessionist uprising, begun in the late 1980s, persisted through much of the 1990s; in 1998 a cease-fire, monitored by Australian-led forces, went into effect. A peace accord granting Bougainville broad autonomy and promising a referendum on independence was signed in 2001. Peacekeeping forces were replaced by a smaller transition team in 2003, a constitution was adopted in 2004, and a government was elected in 2005. The autonomous government has faced challenges from a former militia group that was aligned with the Papua New Guinea government during the uprising and rebels in S Bougainville that have remained outside the peace accord, but some of the rebels signed a peace accord with the autonomous government in 2007. | <urn:uuid:380a90a0-4687-4c56-8bb7-2b3027e55f10> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Bougainville | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981227 | 246 | 3.609375 | 4 |
What's Wrong With My Plant? (And How Do I Fix It?): A Visual Guide to Easy Diagnosis and Organic Remedies
I've been waiting years for this very book — it answers the one question every curious gardener is sure to ask.
Joe Lamp'l, Nationally syndicated gardening columnist, author, and TV host
Dealing with a sick plant is one of the most frustrating situations a gardener can face. More often than not, we have no idea what is causing the problem, or how to fix it. Fortunately, help is at hand. What's Wrong With My Plant? (And How Do I Fix It?) provides an easy system for visually diagnosing any problem, and matching it to the right cure.
This innovative and easy-to-use guide is split into three parts.
Part One presents easy-to-follow, illustrated flow charts — organized by where on the plant the symptoms appear — that allow readers to accurately diagnose the problem. The format is so simple it doesn't even require knowing the name of the plant; all you need to know is whether the problem is affecting its roots, stem, flowers, or leaves. It does not matter whether the plant is a houseplant, perennial, vegetable, tree, or shrub.
Part Two offers a 100% organic way to fix the problem. From improper growing conditions and environmental factors, to molds, pests, and diseases, every problem has a safe, natural solution. Part Three shows photographs and drawings of stressed, damaged, and diseased plants that help with accurate comparison.
Whether your garden consists of herbs on a kitchen windowsill, a vegetable garden, an elaborate backyard border, or a container on a patio, What's Wrong With My Plant? is an indispensable resource. If you can see it, you can fix it. Curing a sick plant just doesn't get any easier.
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 452 pp.
- Book dimensions: 7⅝ x 9¼ in. (235 x 195 mm.)
- Images: 472 color photos, 600 line drawings
- ISBN-10: 0881929611
- ISBN-13: 9780881929614
- Product code: 682961
Want to see inside the book?View book preview.
"A handy reference book for figuring out how to help your plants stay healthy."
"This attractive, comprehensive, authoritative and easy-to-use guide, allowing gardeners to diagnose and organically treat a wide range of plant problems, is a worthy purchase."
—Sue O'Brien, Library Journal
"A combination of drawings, photos and easy to understand advice on organic methods for diagnosing and treating a whole host of plant issues."
—Deborah Roberts, Stonington-Mystic Patch
"I've barely put this book down since I bought it, and look forward to using it to maintain my plants this year."
"This book makes diagnosing a plant problem super easy. I have never seen anything quite like it and it works remarkably well."
—Jeneen Wiche, Louisville Sentinel-News
"Whether your garden consists of herbs on a kitchen windowsill, a vegetable garden, an elaborate backyard border, or a container on a patio, What's Wrong With My Plant? is an indispensable resource. If you can see it, you can fix it. Curing a sick plant just doesn't get any easier."
—Joe Lamp'l, Growing a Greener World
"A definite keeper for my library."
—Christine Thomson, Triangle Gardener
"Its 500 color photos and 600 line drawings facilitate fast identification of diseases, pests and other problems. ... And, equally important, this comprehensive text explains how to use environmentally friendly remedies to restore plant health."
"An essential book for anyone who gardens."
—Jane Berger, Garden Design Online
"The smartest, best-thought-out book on diagnosing plant problems (and how to solve them) that I have seen in all my years as a gardener."
—Jodi Delong, Halifax Chronicle Herald
"It's like having a Master Gardener at your beck and call, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, any season of the year."
—Colleen Vanderlinden, About.com
"You'll have experts waiting on your book shelf to help you. Because if you haven't asked yourself 'what's wrong with that plant' yet, you will one day."
—Deborah Roberts, Garden of Possibilities blog
"Almost as good as having your own consulting plant doc at hand."
—Valerie Easton, Plant Talk
"A wonderful book for the gardener facing his/her first garden problems. It's also a handy reference guide for experienced gardeners."
—Dee Nash, Oklahoma Gardening Examiner
"Where does this book belong on my bookshelf? Front and center."
—Carol Michel, May Dreams Gardens blog
"The idea behind What's Wrong With My Plant? is so obvious that I almost gave myself a head slap for not thinking of it first. ... A phenomenal resource for the serious gardener as well as for hobby gardeners who just want to know why some flowers wilt and die."
—Mary Jane Smetanka, Minneapolis Star Tribune
"This is one of the best books I've seen for guiding the gardener through the maze of maladies that can visit garden plants. ... This book is a valuable tool and long overdue."
—Adrian Higgins, Washington Post
"Written by plant pathologists, What's Wrong? thoroughly covers diagnosis and cure in three parts: Simple to follow, illustrated, flowcharts of problems; organic approaches to cures; and photographs to clarify diagnosis."
—Molly Day, Muskogee Phoenix
"Whether your garden consists of herbs on a kitchen windowsill, a vegetable garden, an elaborate backyard border, or a container on a patio, this reference book is a resource any gardener can use."
"Bases its tutelage on progressive drawings that will help puzzled gardeners diagnose the troubles. Another plus: Suggested remedies are organic."
—Renee Enna, Chicago Tribune
"It was with great joy and relief that I opened an envelope ... with What's Wrong With My Plant? My excitement heightened when I saw that authors David Deardorff and Kathryn Wadsworth had approached the subject organically."
—Kym Pokorny, OregonLive.com
"A valuable resource for all gardeners."
—Marin Independent Journal
"David Deardorff and Kathryn Wadsworth have produced one of the best and most easily used keys to diagnosing a wide range of plant problems. ... Makes a great gift for any gardener."
—Cheryl Cadwell, Warwick (RI) Beacon
"A book that will grow dog-eared and dingy from use, yet remain on gardeners' shelves for years to come."
—Karen Taylor Gist, New Orleans Times-Picayune
"Has trouble-shooting flow-charts and solutions aplenty."
—Penny Carnathan, Tampa Tribune
"A welcome reference book for any gardener, one to keep front and center on your bookcase so that when problems show up, you'll be able to avoid your worst plant nightmares and continue to have a garden as your own paradise."
—Carol Michel, Southside Times
"An answered prayer for all gardeners."
—Ken Druse, Real Dirt blog
"I wish I had [this book] sooner, so I could have prevented the spread of fungus. This is a valuable reference for gardeners of virtually any skill level and experience."
—Carol Michel, Mr. McGregor's Daughter blog
In the UK or Europe? View this book at TimberPress.co.uk.
In the media?
Download a hi-resolution version of the book jacket (2288×2776 px, 1.1 MB). | <urn:uuid:c86d45df-6aa6-4dd7-bb74-e20ea67705a9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.timberpress.com/books/whats_wrong_my_plant_how_do_i_fix_it/deardorff/9780881929614?s=rot | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.902151 | 1,659 | 2.09375 | 2 |
Posted at: 10/29/2012 4:37 PM
Updated at: 10/29/2012 11:06 PM
By: WNYT Staff
COEYMANS - Voluntary evacuations are in effect for a part of Coeymans that is prone to flooding.
That includes homes on Miller and Kruger Roads.
Town and county officials inspected the bridge over the Coeymans Creek, which flooded during tropical storm Irene.
They say the waters were so high that four fighters nearly capsized while rescuing one of the residents.
That's why they want people to be prepared for Sandy.
“It's better to be prepared and safe than sorry We're trying to be proactive and target the residents to get out before the need arise. So emergency personnel aren't wasting time coming in and recovering people when they should take the responsibility and leave early,” said Coeymans Chief of Police, Gregory Darlington.
A shelter is also set up at the Coeymans Ravena Selkirk High School, where they say there's enough food to feed 200 people for four days. | <urn:uuid:a038b793-4914-48ad-a59b-8da4f0e76792> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hbispace.com/printStory/wnyt/index.cfm?id=2816265 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00051-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957639 | 228 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Race car driver Milka Duno will be on campus on Wednesday to speak about the importance of women and Latinos entering the field of engineering. Duno, who has four master's degrees in engineering, took up racing in 1998 after attending a Porsche driving clinic. The Venezuelan native and resident of Miami was the first Latina to qualify and race in the Indianapolis 500, and in 2007 placed second in the 24 hours of Daytona, the best finish ever by a female driver in the event's 45-year history. Off the track, she is committed to promoting education and has written a children's book on the subject. She will speak from 3 to 4 p.m. in Building 17, room 2640, and will tour the engineering labs afterward. | <urn:uuid:cc63b7eb-2994-4b77-9b48-02c2207a76c2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://polycentric.csupomona.edu/events/2010/04/414-racer-milka-duno-to-visit-engineering.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976284 | 150 | 1.585938 | 2 |
The Director's Parent Advisory Council (PAC) is comprised of two representatives from each of the 120 schools within MNPS. PAC meets as a collective body of 240 representatives every other month with the Director of Schools and other MNPS administrators to discuss district wide concerns. The alternate months are dedicated to individual cluster meetings (see the twelve geographical clusters ) in which the clusters meet to discuss cluster concerns and have training and development sessions.
Please see the monthly calendar for times and locations of the meetings. For more information or to become involved please contact your school principal, family school liaison or parent representative.
- To energize, organize, and mobilize parents to be involved in the lifelong education of their children
- To identify barriers to parental involvement and work with Metro Schools personnel to reduce or remove these barriers
- To make these actions ongoing through structured committees, meeting regularly, and reporting to the Director’s PAC and Metro Schools on a frequent basis
Representatives to the Director’s Parents Advisory Council (PAC) elected leaders for the 2013-14 school year: Chair Chelle Baldwin; Vice-Chair Daynise Couch and Secretary Haley Dale. MNPS thanks outgoing officers Erica Lanier, Michael Hasty, and Scott Eddins. Learn more about nominations and voting.
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS!
Weigh in on the district's Parent Involvement Policy. Send input and feedback to Donna Hackett at firstname.lastname@example.org.
NEW PAC GUIDELINES
What does the Director's PAC do? How do its representatives work with parents? It's all laid out in the new PAC Guidelines, written with input from parents and involvement experts. READ THE PAC GUIDELINES
SIGN UP FOR FULL PAC MEETING UPDATES
If you'd like to know when PAC meetings, agendas, and live-blogs are posted to the site, you can sign up for regular email updates! Click here to sign up for PAC meeting updates.
FULL MEETING RECAP: CHANGES COME TO ELEMENTARY, MIDDLE, & HIGH
The first full PAC meeting of the school year was a huge success. We had one of the biggest turn-outs ever for a PAC meeting and heard three remarkable presentations from the senior leaders of elementary, middle, and high schools. If you couldn't make it to the meeting, a live-blog of the event and all three presentations are available in the links below.
ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS PRESENTATION
MIDDLE SCHOOLS PRESENTATION
HIGH SCHOOLS PRESENTATION | <urn:uuid:9dc24206-2efb-4225-bce9-0e8840604b65> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.humefogghs.mnps.org/Page57639.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918399 | 533 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Early on in “The Words,” the film’s protagonist is called into the office of a book publisher. The publisher compliments the struggling writer on his literary talent and the book he has submitted. Ultimately, however, the publisher tells him that his novel isn’t marketable. This scene will likely resonate with anybody who has ever poured his or her soul into a book, screenplay or television pilot only to face rejection. “The Words” has a lot to say about the labor of succeeding in a creative field and the price that comes with achieving fame. Regrettably, the film isn’t without some evident flaws.
In their directorial debut, Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal weave together a story within a story within a story. The decisive narrator of the film is Dennis Quaid as Clay Hammond, an acclaimed novelist attending a public reading of his latest book. Olivia Wilde is Danielle, a luminous student who is fascinated by Hammond’s work. A majority of the film takes place within Hammond’s story in which Bradley Cooper’s Rory Jansen dreams of being a writer. Rory’s wife, played by Zoe Saldana, purchases her downhearted husband an antique satchel in an attempt to make him look more professional. Emptying the satchel, Rory comes across a masterful piece of unpublished literature. Through a series of misunderstandings, Rory is prompted to claim the book as his own and becomes the toast of the literary world.
The most intriguing portion of the movie is supplied by the great Jeremy Irons as an old man who shares his life story with Rory. He delves deep into his experiences in the war and how he fell in love with a beautiful French woman named Celia. Some of the twists and turns regarding the Irons character are admittedly predictable. Yet, Irons’ elegance and sly humor still make him a very fun character to follow. The dynamic he shares the naive Rory is especially enticing, suspenseful and even poignant.
Among the film’s three major plots, the weakest takes place in the real world with Quaid and Wilde. The audience keeps waiting for this subplot to amount to a payoff that cleverly brings matters full circle. But it just sits there with no place to go. The filmmakers could have removed this entire portion from the movie and it would have had little impact on the narrative. Then “The Words” would probably be just under an hour and 30 minutes long though.
All in all, we have two-thirds of a movie that works quite well and one-third that’s needless padding. It’s a close call, but for the strong performances and fraction of the film that does succeed, “The Words” just barely crosses the brink of worthiness. In many ways, “The Words” can be interpreted as a counterpart to “Anonymous,” a film that suggested William Shakespeare stole all of his plays from Edward De Vere. Both of these movies agreeably have their faults and moments that drag. For what they get right though, they’re entertaining rides nonetheless.
• Ahwatukee native and Desert Vista graduate Nick Spake is a student at Arizona State University. He has been working as a film critic for five years, reviewing movies on his website, NICKPICKSFLICKS.com. Reach him at firstname.lastname@example.org. | <urn:uuid:c8c2c61b-cd19-47d7-b7f8-33020b39959e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://eastvalleytribune.com/local/the_valley/ahwatukee/article_18d67f27-5a13-5188-9010-2af1e06f5e8b.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973222 | 709 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Would someone be able to identify this chord for me?
- F# - bass
I'm sure it's obvious but I can't seem to figure it out.
It's a song in the key of C major. A C major chord precedes it and an F major chord follows it
It really depends on context. It could be an Am6, but this is an unlikely inversion, so probably not. It could be an F#m7b5, especially if followed by some form of B7, where it would serve as a II in E, probably E minor. For other functions of half-diminished chords, see Wikipedia: Half-diminished Seventh Chord. It could also be a rootless D9 voicing with the third in the root, especially if followed by some sort of G.
If you can give us more context, we can better figure out how the chord is functioning and give you a more accurate answer.
Edit for updated question: This is F#m7b5 serving in a diminished function as a chromatic passing chord preceding the F. It could also be serving in a secondary dominant function, as a tritone substitution for the V of IV, if it can be considered an F#7b5#9 in a voicing without the third (think C/F# to better visualize its dominant function). It is described in more detail in the previously mentioned wikipedia article as a Sharpened subdominant with minor seventh, and appears in the Super Mario Bros. theme and The Entertainer (but not followed by the IV), although that section doesn't specifically address its function when preceding the IV.
In any event, I am now curious as to what song this is.
|show 8 more comments|
It's an F#m7-5 (F# minor 7, flat 5), aka an F# half-diminished chord. It's the diatonic seventh chord built on the seventh degree of the G-major scale. In root position, it would be voiced F#-A-C-E.
It could also be a D7/9, without the D. In root position, it would be D-F#-A-C-E
Thanks for adding the context. Makes it much clearer it's a half-diminished seventh chord or, even more specifically in this context, a sharpened subdominant diminished triad with minor seventh. | <urn:uuid:963f62d8-1894-4140-b229-5f0506ad35db> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://music.stackexchange.com/questions/714/identify-this-chord-f-bass-c-e-a/770 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946962 | 501 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Futures Fundamentals: Introduction
|Sponsor: At last, an easy way to predict stock trends – get your FREE copy of 5 Chart Patterns You Need to Know.|
A futures contract is a type of derivative instrument, or financial contract, in which two parties agree to transact a set of financial instruments or physical commodities for future delivery at a particular price. If you buy a futures contract, you are basically agreeing to buy something that a seller has not yet produced for a set price. But participating in the futures market does not necessarily mean that you will be responsible for receiving or delivering large inventories of physical commodities - remember, buyers and sellers in the futures market primarily enter into futures contracts to hedge risk or speculate rather than to exchange physical goods (which is the primary activity of the cash/spot market). That is why futures are used as financial instruments by not only producers and consumers but also speculators.
The consensus in the investment world is that the futures market is a major financial hub, providing an outlet for intense competition among buyers and sellers and, more importantly, providing a center to manage price risks. The futures market is extremely liquid, risky and complex by nature, but it can be understood if we break down how it functions.
While futures are not for the risk averse, they are useful for a wide range of people. In this tutorial, you'll learn how the futures market works, who uses futures and which strategies will make you a successful trader on the futures market.
Next: Futures Fundamentals: A Brief History »
Table of Contents
comments powered by Disqus | <urn:uuid:2225d170-db21-49bd-aca2-c861f8092e0b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.investopedia.com/university/futures/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937925 | 327 | 3.09375 | 3 |
The unemployment rate declined by 0.6 of a percent, from 9.2 percent in August to 8.6 percent in September — the largest drop since the rate declined from 10.8 to 10.2 percent from February to March 2011, said state labor market analyst Corey Smith.
“Construction; Administrative and Support Services; and Retail Trade were industries with the largest drop in jobless claims over the month,” Smith said in an e-mail.
A total of 797 more residents were employed in September — with the number rising from 62,377 in August to 63,174 in September. A total of 382 fewer residents were unemployed over the month — decreasing from 6,310 in August to 5,928 in September.
Initial claims for jobless benefits dropped from 606 in August to 485 in September.
In September 2011, the unemployment rate in Douglas County was 10.1 percent and 662 initial claims for jobless benefits were filed, he said.
In a separate report on city jobless rates, Douglasville showed an even sharper drop in unemployment over the month — from 10.1 percent in August to 9.1 percent in September. The city’s jobless rate in September 2011 was 11.6 percent.
Neighboring counties’ September rates ranged from Cobb at 7.7 percent and Paulding at 8.0 percent; to Carroll’s 8.9 percent and Fulton’s 9.2 percent.
The unemployment rate for Metro Atlanta — encompassing 28 counties — dropped from 8.8 percent in August to 8.4 percent in September. The rate was 9.7 percent in September 2011.
Georgia’s unemployment rate dropped from 9.2 percent in August to 9.0 percent in September. The jobless rate was 9.8 percent in September 2011.
The nationwide unemployment rate was 7.8 percent in September. | <urn:uuid:46ee2f89-8aa3-4d94-a3c6-6bc5d68cc2e8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.neighbornewspapers.com/pages/full_story/push?article-Douglas+jobless+rate+drops+to+8-6+percent%20&id=20748863&instance=douglas | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967023 | 393 | 1.703125 | 2 |
You and a friend can get FREE passes to one of more than 1,000 museums located across the country.
For more like this, read Just FREEBIES
In the spirit of Smithsonian Museums, who offer free admission everyday, Museum Day is an annual event hosted by Smithsonian magazine in which participating museums across the country open their doors to anyone presenting a Museum Day Ticket…for FREE.
You’ll need to sign up and print your tickets in advance, and be prepared – some museums may charge parking fees or have a separate admission charge for special exhibits.
Source: Northern Cheapskate | <urn:uuid:eefdea67-f701-49dc-bc54-29471fe446ce> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.justfindit4u.com/2011/09/23/just-freebies-smithsonian-magazine-7th-annual-museum-day-924/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949908 | 123 | 1.53125 | 2 |
User's default printer changes on each logon
We are a Windows 2000 Terminal Server thin client shop. For each user, we've set a 'default printer' assignment when they log on. However, in a few instances, with specific users, even though they have the default printer set during the log on session, when they log off and back on again, the default printer has changed to another printer. My question is this: What is changing the default printer back to another printer after users log off and log back on? This is only happening with one individual on my network. She is working from a PC with defined locally attached printers. She can log onto the thin-client, set the default printer and is able to print. However, when she logs off and back on, the default printer changes to another setting.
Based on what you say here, my guess is that the wrong default printer is set in her profile and that she's using the same profile for her local use and terminal server sessions. Default printer settings are stored in the user profile, but the profile is a single file called NTUSER.DAT, not a granular connection of settings. Every time you log off and close your profile, the profile is written back to its storage place, overwriting any copies already present. If she's using the same profile for both local use and terminal sessions, then she's got two copies of the profile open, and the last copy saved will be the one open for local use, where she has not changed the printer. Try giving her a separate profile for terminal session use and see if that fixes the problem.
This was first published in October 2003 | <urn:uuid:f466fcc1-bbb0-4bec-bb9a-f302ce3f9eac> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://searchenterprisedesktop.techtarget.com/answer/Users-default-printer-changes-on-each-logon | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941583 | 338 | 1.609375 | 2 |
I've heard of displays of affection differing from culture to culture, but what I read in the book blew my mind. It said that "members of the Apinaly society in Brazil don't kiss, but women of the tribe may bite off their lovers' eyebrows and noisily spit them to one side" to show their sexual desires. It also talked about how members of a tribe in Africa thought it was weird when they saw Europeans kissing. After reading this, I researched affection in foreign countries and found that many "normal" public displays of affection that are frowned upon in other cultures. For example, don't even think about putting your hand on your partner's rear if you're visiting an Arab country, you may be charged with obscenity!
Click here to view the article.
Moral of the story: if traveling with a significant other, research the tolerance in that area before laying a hand on them!
Have any of you had a problem with public display of affection in other countries? Or even inappropriate gestures?
My favorite post was malon271's in Writing #3 because of the catchy title. It was very clever and went along with the content perfectly. I also liked the post in general because it was short, sweet, and right to the point.
My second favorite post was khori002's in Writing #3 because of the picture and also the topic; I think a lot of people can relate to that happening.
My third favorite was zhan1689's in Writing #3 because of the topic. Definitely something all college students struggle with. I like how an example of how to overcome it was given. | <urn:uuid:ef182322-d53e-49bc-a5b9-56a25c3269b0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.lib.umn.edu/wlas0006/1001a/2011/11/love-abroad.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978499 | 335 | 1.507813 | 2 |
The holiday season is usually synonymous with Christmas trees, festive decorations, and bright lights. Homes around the world put out their holiday best, stringing their trees and home exteriors in bright decorative lights to beautifully welcome the season. However, such decorations do come at a steep price.
Holiday lights, for example, are usually to blame for the rising electricity bill during the last two months of the year. Additionally, covering a home in incandescent lights heightens the risk of house fires brought about by malfunctioning light bulbs, which are sometimes difficult to spot. It doesn’t help either that damaged Christmas lights are expensive to replace. So save a little this Christmas by incorporating LED Christmas lights into your holiday lighting design. After all, the pros of the product easily outweigh the cons of its initial expense.
With the popularity of green living, many are looking for ways to have a more energy efficient household. This is where LED lights really shine. Studies have shown that LED lights generally use about 3-33% less energy than its incandescent counterparts. This results in huge savings on your home electricity bill which in turn lowers your overall carbon footprint.
Since Christmas lights are always in close proximity to other combustible objects, such as trees and curtains, it is imperative that the bulbs remain cool throughout the season. Since the lights are usually turned on throughout the night, especially when you have guests coming over, having overheated bulbs increases the chances of an electrical fire or at the very least, a damaged string of Christmas lights. With LED lights, you are assured that the bulbs will remain cool to the touch as the night wears on due to its innovative design.
Sturdy & Reliable
Unlike incandescent lights which are encased in glass or plastic casings, LED lights are sturdily encased in epoxy casing making them highly resistant to breakage. Its usage of a non-filament lighting source also eliminates burn out and damage when accidentally dropped, so there won’t be any need for bulb replacements.
Despite these benefits, some homeowners opt to stick to the traditional Christmas lights because of their softer and more relaxing glow. If the brightness of LED lights is too intense for your sophisticated holiday setting, turn to an innovative design called Candlelight LEDs. Exclusive to Balam Hill, these lights have a warmer glow and real glass casings, making them look like classic Christmas lights. For fuss-free decorating, you can also choose from stylish trees that are already expertly strung with candlelight LED lights like the Balsam Hill Noble Fir.
Make the switch to LED lights and enjoy many beautifully illuminated Christmases with your family. | <urn:uuid:58dde844-af11-42b9-8d5a-11f9a7a1265a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.balsamhill.com/2012/12/switching-to-led-christmas-lights/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951432 | 543 | 2.015625 | 2 |
APC Women's Networking Support Programme (APC WSNP) celebrates a decade of empowering women through information and communicatio
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND, 11 December 2003
In honour, they hosted a day-long series of panels, workshops and presentations which included a Gender and ICT award winners panel, a presentation on the WNSP's innovative gender evaluation methodology for ICTs which included the experiences of APC Annual Report 2006 ">GEMtesters from several continents, a session on free and Free Software Foundation ">open source software for African women from AAW website">APC-Africa-Women, and the WENT Asia fifth anniversary awards.
The day was rounded off by a tenth anniversary presentation. “It was incredible that everyone who got up to speak from the audience commented on how inspiring and innovative they consider the WNSP,” said a participant. “Many of the women there had actually got their first taste of the Source: TechSoup Glossary and GenderIT.org">internetthrough training from the WNSP.”
APC WNSP member, Chat Garcia Ramilo, feels that the name says it all.”WNSP is a home for women working with information and communications technologies which is often a stressful environment to be in. Women's Networking Support, that's what WNSP is all about,” she told APCNews.
Katerina Fialova joined the WNSP just a few years ago. She was attracted to it as “a friendly space where more than anything I've learned a lot about the social impact of ICTs and how to get involved in The American Heritage Dictionaries on Answers.com ">advocacywork.” She's working to raise awareness about the importance of APC">ICT policy in the Czech Republic which she says will be affected dramatically when the nation becomes part of the European Union.
Online members from Mexico and the Philippines were working hard to prepare a 10th anniversary website, and an online Learn the Net Glossary, cited on TechSoup Glossary ">chat/message board where people can write messages.
The Programme emerged in 1993 as a response to several convergent needs and demands from within the women's movement. The United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women (UNWCW) and the rapid development of international communications technologies were key factors which gave rise to the Programme's beginning.
APC WNSP's network numbers over 100 women from more than 35 countries. They are individual women and women's groups and organisations working in the field of gender and ICT and actively supporting women's The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English on Encyclopedia.com">networking. Members have formed themselves into regional networks in Africa, Asia-Pacific, and Africa and are building an emerging network in Europe. | <urn:uuid:98649198-f632-4627-8866-9ae023abe6c0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.apc.org/es/news/gender/world/apc-womens-networking-support-programme-apc-wsnp-c | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964216 | 588 | 1.929688 | 2 |
If you can't find the shape you need in Visio, you can always draw your own shape. Your own shape can be simple or complex, from a wiggly line to a piece of custom office equipment.
How to draw your own shapes is beyond the scope of this course. The tip of the iceberg is the Drawing toolbar, shown here. It lets you create shapes from scratch by using simple tools.
For more information on drawing your own shapes, see the additional resources in the Quick Reference Card. | <urn:uuid:4851623c-c017-4779-bdde-a1b9f7251a68> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/training/draw-your-own-shapes-RZ010132095.aspx?section=16 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913597 | 104 | 2.296875 | 2 |
|It is thought that dogs may choose to roll in foul-smelling things to mask their scent, just as wolves do. Wolves may roll in decomposing carcasses or the feces of herbivores (plant eating animals) to disguise themselves. They want to cover their own odors so their prey will not be alarmed by their scent. This way, they can sneak up on their prey and have a better chance of making a kill.
Some behaviorists feel dogs may roll in smelly things to 'advertise' what they have found to other dogs.
No matter the reason, unfortunately, some of our domesticated friends have held onto this trait. How many of us have given a dog a bath only to find him running outside to again roll in something foul? | <urn:uuid:90580781-c214-4940-8ff7-9215d39da21a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?c=21&aid=1152 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974192 | 157 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Unwanted Fax Lawyers
What Are Unwanted Faxes?
Fax machines send and receive data over a telephone line. Faxes come in the form of text or images. In 1991, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) was passed to prohibit sending unsolicited advertisements to a fax machine. These advertisements are known as “junk faxes.” This law applies to both business and residential fax machines.
What Is an Unsolicited Advertisement?
Any material advertising the commercial availability or quality of any goods or services which is transmitted to someone without that person’s permission is an unsolicited advertisement. Beginning January 1, 2005, someone may give permission to send a fax advertisement only with a signed, written statement, including the fax number to which any advertisements may be sent. Before January 1, 2005, someone who sends faxes may continue to rely on “established business relationships” as permission to fax such an advertisement. Others do not have permission to send you unsolicited advertisements just because your fax number is published or distributed.
Are there Any Laws against Unsolicited Faxes?
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulates the delivery of faxed advertisements. The rules are:
- Starting January 1, 2005, it is against the law to send unsolicited advertisements to fax machines without the prior written permission of the recipient.
- The business on whose behalf the fax is being sent must identify itself. This must be done in the top or bottom margin of each page or on the first page. It must also include its telephone number and the date and time of transmission.
- A facsimile broadcaster (whoever transmits the messages on another person’s behalf) who has a “high degree of involvement” in the sender’s messages (i.e. supplying the facsimile numbers to which a message is sent) must provide its own name on the fax.
- A broadcaster may be liable if it supplies facsimile numbers to a business that sends illegal advertisements.
- The faxing rules cover faxes sent to fax servers and personal computers as well.
What Can I Do if I Have Received an Unwanted Fax?
There are some measures you can take if you have received an unwanted fax, including:
- The FCC itself has taken enforcement actions. This may include issuing citations and fines for violations of the TCPA.
- You may contact the FCC if you encounter any such incidents. You may need to supply documentation, including the copies of the faxes you received. You can file a complaint by completing the FCC’s Consumer Complaint Form (which can be found online at www.fcc.gov/cgb/complaints.html or by calling the Consumer Center (1-888-CALL-FCC). You may also write to: Federal Communications Commission, Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau, Consumer Inquiries and Complaints Division, 445 12th Street, SW, Washington, DC 20554.
- You may also wish to contact your state officials, such as local or state consumer protection offices or the state Attorney General’s office.
- You can also sue the violator in court. In such a private suit, you can try to recover the monetary loss that resulted from the violation, or receive damages for each violation (up to $500 each).
Do I Need a Lawyer Experienced with these Issues?
A lawyer who has experience with these issues may be able to help you determine the proper course of action. A lawyer would be able to determine if you should contact the FCC or if the violations are serious enough to warrant a lawsuit.
Consult a Lawyer - Present Your Case Now!
Last Modified: 09-12-2011 02:47 PM PDT | <urn:uuid:479ca85c-8a45-43d6-b245-24c646cce105> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/unwanted-fax-lawyers.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934165 | 782 | 2.0625 | 2 |
THIS IS GOOD
“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28
A tribal king had a close friend with whom he grew up. The friend had a habit of looking at every situation that ever occurred in his life (positive or negative) as well as the lives of others and remarking, “This is good!” He based it on two scriptures; one that says that it is God’s will that we be thankful for ALL circumstances and Romans 8:28 which assures us that God can turn every situation (good or bad) into ultimate good. The king loved his friend’s positive outlook and took him with him wherever he went.
One day the king and his friend were out on a hunting expedition. As the king fired his gun at a pheasant that flew up from the long grass, the rifle backfired and blew off his right thumb. Looking at the king’s bleeding hand; his friend remarked as usual, "This is good!"
The king was angry and replied, "No, this is NOT good!" and proceeded to send his friend to jail for his insensitivity.
About a year later, the king was hunting all alone in an area that he should have known to stay clear of. Cannibals captured him and took him to their village. They tied his hands, stacked some wood, and were going to cook him in a big pot. As they set fire to the wood, they noticed that the king was missing a thumb on his right hand. Being very superstitious, cannibals never eat anyone who is less than perfect. So releasing the king, they sent him on his way home.
Walking home he kept staring at his right hand without a thumb. “This IS good!” he said out loud. He was reminded of the event that had taken his thumb and felt remorse for his shabby treatment of his friend. So he went immediately to the jail to speak with his friend.
"You were right," he said, "it was good that my thumb was blown off." And he proceeded to tell the friend all that had just happened. "And so, I am very sorry for sending you to jail for so long. It was bad for me to do this."
"No," his friend replied as usual, "This is good!"
"What do you mean, 'This is good'? How could it be good that I put my friend in jail for over a year?"
"Well,” replied his friend, “if I had not been here in jail, I would have been out there with you!"
In our SSTS seminars we share this story early in the sessions and for the rest of the time holding up four fingers on the right hand (with a hidden thumb) communicates clearly the message: THIS IS GOOD!
Today I will focus by faith on the potential good that God wants to bring out of the negative challenges I face in my life.
Pray that all persecuted Christians will respond to their daily challenges with this faith perspective.
STANDING STRONG THROUGH THE STORM (SSTS) -A daily devotional message by Paul Estabrooks
© 2010 Open Doors International. Used by permission
“When the storm has swept by, the wicked are gone, but the righteous stand firm forever.” Proverbs 10:25
Right now millions of Christians face persecution because of their faith in Christ. Register to receive the Open Doors USA Weekly Prayer Alert email. Join alongside thousands of others praying for our brothers and sisters worldwide to stand strong in the midst of their struggles. Also learn more about countries where the persecution of Christians is most severe by visiting the Open Doors website today. | <urn:uuid:ceb7d389-209a-4ffe-bafe-080ebbffee42> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.oneplace.com/devotionals/standing-strong-through-the-storm/standing-strong-through-the-storm-june-27-11652535.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988981 | 788 | 2 | 2 |
Agriculture Increase And Diffusion Of Agricultural Knowledge
society farm farmers means highland practical national operations essays
AGRICULTURE INCREASE AND DIFFUSION OF AGRICULTURAL KNOWLEDGE Let us look now at the means by which, during this period, agricultural knowledge has at once been increased ' and diffused. Notice has already been taken of the institution of the Highland Society and the National Board of Agriculture. These patriotic societies were the means of collecting a vast amount of statistical and general information connected with agriculture, and by their publications and premiums made known the practices of the best-farmed districts of the country, and encouraged their adoption elsewhere. These national associations were soon aided in their important labours by numerous local societies which sprang up in all parts of the kingdom. After a highly useful career, under the zealous presidency of Sir John Sinclair, the Board of Agriculture was dissolved, but has left in its Statistical Account, county surveys, and other documents, much interesting and valuable information regarding the agriculture of that period. In 1800 the original Farmers' Magazine entered upon its useful career under the editorship of Robert Brown of Markle, the author of the well-known treatise on Rural Affairs. The Highland Society having early extended its operations to the whole of Scotland, by-and-by made a corresponding addition to its title, and as the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland continues to occupy its important sphere with a steadily increasing membership, popularity, and usefulness. As its revenue and experience increased, it gradually extended its operations. In 1828, shortly after the discontinuance of the Farmers' Magazine, its Prize Essays and Transactions began to be issued statedly in connection with the Quarterly Journal of Agriculture, a periodical which until recently occupied a prominent place in our professional literature. This society early began to hold a great annual show of live stock, implements, &c., the popularity of which continues unabated. In 1842, Mr John Finnie at Swanstone, near Edinburgh, having suggested to some of his neighbours the desirableness of obtaining the aid of chemistry to guide farmers in many departments of their business, the hint was promptly acted upon, and these Mid-Lothian tenant-farmers had the merit of originating an Agricultural Chemistry Association (the first of its kind), by which funds were raised, and au eminent chemist engaged, for the express purpose of conducting such investigations as the title of the society implies. After a successful trial of a few years this association was dissolved, transferring its functions to the Highland and Agricultural Society, which has ever since devoted much of its attention to this subject. The nature and importance of the services which labourers in this department of science have rendered to agriculture may be gathered from the society's Transactions, and numerous other publications of a similar kind. The Highland Society has of late years established itself on a broader basis, and imparted new energy to its operations by lowering its admission-fee in behalf of tenant-farmers, who have in consequence joined it in great numbers, and now take an important part in the conduct of its business. The practice adopted by it, about the same time, of holding periodical meetings for the discussion of important practical questions, by means of essays, prepared by carefully selected writers, did good service, too, to the cause of agricultural progress.
The adoption by Government of a proposal made by this society, to collect the agricultural statistics of Scotland, showed at once how thoroughly it enjoyed the confidence of the tenantry, and how easily, and by what simple and inexpensive machinery, this most important and interesting inquiry could be conducted. Through an unfortunate misunderstanding between the Government and the society on a mere technical point, this most useful -inquiry came to an abrupt termination, after having been conducted for five years. This brief experiment had, however, proved so conclusively the value of such statistics, and the ease with which they could be collected, that the Government soon after took the matter in hand, and has ever since, through the agency of the officers of Inland Revenue, obtained annual returns of cropping and live stock for the whole of Great Britain.
The obvious _success of this National Scottish Society has led to the formation of similar ones in England and in Ireland. The former, instituted in 1838, and shortly afterwards incorporated by royal charter, at once entered upon a career of usefulness, the extent of which cannot well be over-rated. Its membership - comprising the most influential persons in the kingdom - and its revenues are now so large as to enable it to conduct its proceedings on a scale befitting its position and objects. These are of a varied character, hut its efforts are concentrated upon its journal and annual show. The former, published twice a-year, is chiefly composed of the essays and reports to which the liberal prizes of the society have been awarded, and undoubtedly stands at the head of our present agricultural periodicals. At the annual shows of the society, a prominent place is assigned to implements and machines. Such as admit of it, are subjected to comparative trials, which are conducted with such skill and pains that the awards command the entire confidence of exhibitors and their customers. The extent and rapidity of the improvement in agricultural machinery which the society has been mainly instrumental in effecting are altogether extraordinary.
There are few market towns of any importance that have not their organised club or occasional gathering of the farmers in their neighbourhood, for the discussion of professional topics. We have now also a goodly list of agricultural periodicals, both weekly and monthly, most of them ably conducted, which are extensively read, and are the means of collecting and diffusing much valuable knowledge, which, but for them, would often, as in former times, perish with its authors, or be confined to corners. The facilities now afforded by railways for cheap and expeditious travelling, induce most farmers to take an occasional peep at what is going on beyond their own neighbourhood. This, more than anything, deals death-blows to prejudices, and extends good husbandry.
The literature of agriculture has been enriched by the contributions of many able writers. Some deserve to be particularly mentioned. The volumes of the late David Low, Esq., on Practical Agriculture, Landed Property and Economy of Landed Estates, and Domesticated Animals, must ever be of standard authority on their respective subjects. Mr Henry Stephens' Book of the Farm, and Mr J. C. Morton's Cyclopeedia of Agriculture, are invaluable to the agricultural student for their fulness, and for the minuteness of their details. Mr Caird's English Agriculture supplies the means for a most interesting comparison with the descriptions left to us by Arthur Young. Mr Hoskyn's History of Agriculture and Chronicles of a Clay Farm are the very gems of our professional literature. In a series of essays on our Farm Crops by Professor John Wilson of Edinburgh, the scientific and the practical are most happily combined. Among the more recent publications of value may be mentioned Loudon's Encyclopwdia ; How Crops Grow, by Mr Johnson; M'Combie's Cattle and Cattle-Breeders ; Meehi's How to Farm Profitably; Hozier's Practical Remarks on Agricultural Drainage ; Todd's American Wheat Cult2trist, &c. Johnston, Anderson, Way, and Voelcker, have done admirable service in expounding the chemistry of agriculture; Youatt, Spooner, and Casey, its zoology ; and Smith, Parkes, Webster, Bailey, Denton, Scott Burn, and Starforth, its engineering, mechanics, and architecture.
In reviewing the history of our national agriculture for I he past sixty years, it is pleasing to note the growing intelligence displayed by our agriculturists in the prose cution of their calling. It is curious, also, to observe the analogy between the order of that progress, and that which is usually observed in individual minds. For a long time we see agricultural societies and writers occupying themselves chiefly about the practical details and statistics of husbandry, and attaching much importance to empirical rules. Gradually, however, we observe, along with a zealous collecting of facts, a growing disposition to investigate the causes of things, and desire to know the reason why one practice is preferable to another. When, therefore, the Royal Agricultural Society adopted as its motto, " Practice with Science," it expressed not more the objects to be aimed at in its own proceedings, than the characteristic feature of our present stage of agricultural progress.
We shall now endeavour to present a picture of British agriculture in its present state. In doing this, we shall take much the same course which we should pursue, if we were asked to conduct a visitor over our own farm, and to give him a detailed account of its cultivation and management. In the case supposed, we should, first of all, explain to him that the farm comprises a great diversity of soils; that its fields are very variously circumstanced as regards climate, altitude, exposure, and distance from the homestead ; and that in its tillage, cropping, and general management, regard must be had to these diversities, whether natural or artificial. We should then conduct him through the homestead, pointing out the position and uses of the various farm buildings and of the machinery and implements contained in them. From thence we should proceed to the fields to examine their fences and the tillage operations. With some observations about time succession of crops, and the manures applied to them, there would follow an examination of the cultivated crops, pastures, and meadows, of the live stock of the farm, and of the measures adopted in reclaiming certain waste lands belonging to it. This survey being completed, there would naturally follow some discussion about the tenure of land, the capital required for its .profitable cultivation, the condition of farm labourers, the necessity for devoting more attention to time education of the agricultural community, and the duty of the Legislature to remove certain obstructions to agricultural improvement. | <urn:uuid:e80d5faa-44e0-45a3-a645-3792e4203eac> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.libraryindex.com/encyclopedia/pages/covwp8macc/agriculture-increase-diffusion-agricultural-knowledge.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968176 | 2,045 | 2.359375 | 2 |
Doctors have prescribed antidepressants for decades without fully understanding why they helped people. Yes, they increase serotonin levels in the brain, but a new study gives a clear picture of what else these drugs do to us.
Prozac and other major antidepressant drugs have helped people deal with clinical depression for decades, but the underlying mechanisms that allow the drugs to influence the activity of the brain's neurons weren't well understood. The end result was clear - the neurotransmitter serotonin tends to be deficient in depressive individuals, and antidepressants are able to boost serotonin levels, which helps relieve many of the anxiety and mood issues people with depression experience.
Most antidepressants don't show an immediate effect - instead, they take about three weeks to kick in. For the longest time, scientists couldn't actually explain this delay. They knew the antidepressants had to somehow "adapt" themselves to the neural pathways, but what that actually meant was anyone's guess. Now a team of French researchers have figured it out: antidepressants need three weeks to shut down a particular chemical regulator of microRNA.
This particular microRNA, designated miR-16, is in charge of making the serotonin transporter, and is generally found in the serotonergic neurons that produce serotonin. However, miR-16 is also found in neurons responsible for making the neurotransmitter noradrenaline. Here, miR-16 has precisely the opposite purpose - it completely blocks the production of serotonin in these neurons.
When drugs like Prozac go to work, they cause the serotonergic neurons to release signals. These signals cause the miR-16 to die off, which frees up the noradrenaline neurons to start making the serotonin transporter as well. Thus, Prozac both directly boosts the production of serotonin in the serotonergic neurons and indirectly causes the noradrenaline neurons to start making it as well.
It takes a little time for the miR-16 to be shut down enough for serotonin production to begin in earnest. That explains the three week delay between when a patient starts taking Prozac and first feels the effects of the drug. The researchers say the "plastic" properties of the noradrenaline neurons, in which they can alter their basic functions to help make more serotonin, is what's really crucial to Prozac's success.
[Science; image courtesy of Odile Kellermann.] | <urn:uuid:97a0b830-6b3a-475e-8fbb-1e43ec1314cf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://io9.com/5640166/at-last-scientists-finally-understand-what-makes-antidepressants-work | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943647 | 477 | 3.546875 | 4 |
NEW YORK: Next month, General Motors will begin selling its electric car, the Chevrolet Volt. It's costly for a mid-sized vehicle — $41,000 — and only about 10,000 will be produced next year. So, is GM serious about the Volt? Should we even care? The answers are yes and a resounding yes.
This unassuming four-passenger car speaks both to the future of the automobile and to whether US-made cars still matter. It's revolutionary and clever, and it drives really well. It's made in Michigan. I'm still kind of in shock.
Here are the nuts, bolts and batteries. The Volt runs on electric motors powered by a 435-pound lithium-ion battery pack. That battery power will propel you some 25-50 miles down the road and to a top speed of 100 miles per hour. When the charge is depleted, a small gasoline engine kicks in, turning generators which power the electric drive system. Just like any 21st-century car, the only range limits are gas money and rest stops.
The Volt delivers on its promise of the best of both worlds — electric power with no tailpipe emissions while driving short distances, and the ability to motor cross-country when the need (or urge) arises. Unlike the Nissan Leaf, which is also being released in December, the Volt isn't a pure electric car. The inclusion of a 1.4-litre four-cylinder engine and 9.3-gallon tank means that it is a hybrid, though the gas engine is not used to primarily drive the wheels, unlike a Prius. The electric system is key to its movement. Chevy calls it an extended-range electric vehicle.
I call it semantics. Until we get an infrastructure of quick-charge stations, pure electric cars will be severely hindered. It's no fun to constantly keep an eye on the range indicator, terrified that a sudden drop could mean getting stranded. All kinds of stuff affect range, from temperatures below 60 to blasting up a hill.
A Volt owner could recharge every night, and not use a gallon of gas for months. (Gasoline does get old, so the engine will eventually turn on to cycle out the tank.) Alternatively, you could never plug it in and get along fine, though that would be asinine. On gasoline alone, the Volt gets mpg in the mid-30s. But with a full charge you'll get many miles on electric power, so figuring out exact mpg involves fuzzy math.
Those two figures have to be mixed in a way that becomes meaningful. Remember GM's oddball early claims of 230 mpg? The Environmental Protection Agency is currently wrestling with its definition, but expect the numbers to be conservative.
The short answer is the more often you recharge, the better mileage you'll see. If you run only on electric power and recharge on off-peak rates, you'll probably spend somewhere between $1 and $1.50 a day. GM is selling a 240-volt in-home unit for $490 that recharges the car in four hours. | <urn:uuid:8fa491c4-aee4-4d9c-aa56-fdbcf8022bed> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2010-11-06/news/27594520_1_chevrolet-volt-electric-power-electric-car | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950777 | 634 | 1.960938 | 2 |
(There seems to be some contention around the internet about whether or not agave is better than sugar for diabetics. If nothing else, agave is much sweeter than sugar, so you use far less. I'm no expert, so do your own research and make up your own mind.)
My parents came to visit a few days ago. I was asked to bring dessert. My father is diabetic, so I wanted to come up with something that wouldn't put him into a coma.
I've had lots of practice with vegan desserts and gluten-free desserts, but not with diabetic. I definitely did not want to use any artificial sweeteners like Splenda, because they taste awful and will probably give you cancer. Gross.
I eventually decided on making low-sugar peanut butter cups.
These were so damn good! No one would ever believe these were low-anything.
1 cup natural peanut butter (no sugar, no salt, just peanuts)
1/2 cup low-sugar graham cracker crumbs (make these vegan graham crackers and you've got yourself a vegan dessert)
Agave syrup to taste (If these were just for me, I would have stuck with 1 tsp, but since these were for family with sweeter teeth than my own, I used 1 Tbsp)
10 ounces very dark chocolate (look for around 80%) or sugar-free/grain-sweetened chocolate
Chop your chocolate into fine pieces and melt about half over a double boiler on low heat. Stir frequently and gently, do NOT let your chocolate get hot! If it's hot to the touch, it will taste burnt.
Spoon a small amount of chocolate into the bottom of your shell or paper liner. Using the back of a small spoon or a tiny pastry brush, coat the bottom and sides with a thin layer of chocolate. I used tins with pop-out bottoms, but they are tricky to unmold, paper or silicone liners would be much easier.
Place these in your fridge to set. While you're waiting, mix your peanut butter, crumbs, and agave (or other sweetener) until thick. Depending on the oiliness of your peanut butter, you may need a bit more or less crumbs to get a good thickness.
When your chocolate is hard, spoon the peanut butter mixture into the shells, leveling the tops as much as possible.
Melt the rest of your chocolate as before, then spoon a bit on top, on at a time, and knock them on the counter to spread it out and remove air bubbles.
Now if you're feeling fancy and have a little left over chocolate, you can make a piping cone from parchment, and pretty the tops up a bit (let them set in the fridge first).
This lady will explain how to make a parchment cone far better than I can.
When you're filling the cone, it's really helpful to have someone hold it for you, or place it in a tall glass to hold it steady.
Then drizzle over the top, or pipe some cute designs, maybe initials?
Seriously, these are extremely delicious, and while I doubt they could be called "good for you", they are far healthier (and tastier) than what you'll buy in the checkout lane. Try it out! | <urn:uuid:d5c09e5b-5401-4775-bdc1-bda677d6bedb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.organicheretic.com/2011/12/diabetic-friendly-chocolate-peanut.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962361 | 684 | 1.710938 | 2 |
The Food Services Unit operates a total of four kitchens, three inmate dining halls, four warehouses, and prepares over 5.2 million meals annually. Utilizing approximately 90 professional staff members along with inmate kitchen crews, Food Services provides three nutritionally balanced meals to each inmate housed in the County's four jail facilities. In addition, Food Services prepares special medical diets ordered by Correctional Medical Services staff for inmates with special dietary needs as well as religious diets, court ordered meals, cold bag meals for inmates attending court, County inmate work crews, and emergent operational situations. These meals must meet or exceed the requirements set forth by the California Board of Corrections, Title 15, the National Academy of Sciences Recommended Daily Allowances, and the California Retail Food Code. The Food Services’ Public Health Nutritionist analyzes all menus to ensure the Sheriff stays in compliance with the above mentioned guidelines and also provides similar nutritional services for the Probation Department. | <urn:uuid:fe1ba03e-63d7-474f-8ae4-923e1adbe41a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ocsd.org/divisions/custody/inmate/food | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932388 | 188 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Original Post Dec. 13th; Updated 2:46 pm. ET, Dec. 21
The news that President Obama plans to nominate Massachusetts Senator John Kerry as Secretary of State isn’t just good news for Kerry, it’s also good news for out-going Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown.
Brown, who lost his re-election to Elizabeth Warren, is widely expected to seek out his old job and he would be viewed as a strong contender, particularly in a special election to fill Kerry’s vacancy. Republicans have a tendency to perform better in special elections, which draw many fewer voters.
But it would be at least six months – assuming that Kerry is confirmed as Secretary of State, which he is expected to be- and assuming that Brown wins a special election – before he could re-join the Senate.
Massachusetts law dictates that a special election cannot take place sooner than 145 days from the time an out-going Congress member’s resignation is effective, meaning that at least 145 days must pass between the date that member actually leaves their job and the date that the special occurs. At this juncture in time, even if Kerry has an incredibly quick confirmation at the beginning of the next Congress, the earliest conceivable date to reach this mark is in June, 2013.
The special cannot occur more than 160 days from the time that the resignation is effective.
Gov. Deval Patrick is likely to appoint a replacement to fill Kerry’s seat in the interim period. Former Massachusetts Gov. and presidential nominee Michael Dukakis, as well as Vicki Kennedy, the widow of Ted Kennedy, are on Patrick’s list, according to reports.
Brown’s victory in a special election would not be a sure thing. Although he leaves office with high approval ratings- exit polls from the 2012 election showed him with a favor-ability rating of 60 percent- but Massachusetts is a solidly Democratic state, and there are many Democrats in elected office in the state who could challenge Brown.
There’s even been a celebrity named as a possible Democratic contender for the seat. Ben Affleck, who is from Cambridge, has been mentioned as a possible candidate. Affleck himself has been coy on the possibility. ”Well, one never knows. I’m not one to get into conjecture,” he said in a recent interview on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
In an odd twist of political gamesmanship, the law requiring a special election instead of an appointment from the Governor in the event of a vacant seat was passed by Democrats passed in Massachusetts in 2004 in case Kerry resigned if he won the presidency. He did not. But Democrats at the time were trying to take the appointment power away from the sitting Republican governor— Mitt Romney. | <urn:uuid:002b1c8f-1517-401e-b62d-b9981cb1b3c8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/12/john-kerry-nomination-could-create-musical-chairs-for-scott-brown-in-senate/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00076-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977127 | 570 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Baltimore Youth Empowerment
The Youth Empowerment through Conflict Resolution program works with young people in Baltimore to find peaceful resolutions to conflict in their lives. Participants learn to use tools from the Help Increase the Peace Program as well as other community building skills.
Working in under-resourced schools, the program helps young people deal with violent and impoverished neighborhoods, learn about conflict resolution and human rights, and get the support they need to become educated and engaged citizens.
Through education, we hope to instill a sense of confidence in Baltimore youths – confidence that they can make a better tomorrow for themselves and their communities. | <urn:uuid:831f69ee-2182-47e7-b89f-9ad9f481d0b2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.afsc.org/program/baltimore-youth-empowerment | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961285 | 124 | 2.0625 | 2 |
Youth Correctional Counselor Job Description & Career Outlook
Youth correctional counselors work within law enforcement to counsel juvenile offenders and their families. They also act as a liaison between their clients and the courts, schools and prisons. They are typically employed by government correctional departments to work in juvenile detention centers or community programs.
Youth Correctional Counselor Requirements and Common Tasks
Youth correctional counselors help rehabilitate young offenders. Often the counselors work in a juvenile correctional facility, such as a detention center, where their duties include supervision of the offenders. This may involve enforcing discipline, making and maintaining records, and implementing constructive activity programs. Additionally, they recommend to juvenile courts the right destination for young offenders such as detainment, care homes or treatment programs. They also counsel juvenile offenders and their families, as well as provide specialized courses such as addiction recovery and anger management.
The minimum requirements for someone training as a youth correctional counselor typically include a relevant bachelor’s degree in justice, social work or counseling. A medical check, no past felonies, a driver’s license and the legal right to use firearms are also essential. Military experience, supervisory roles or other positions of authority are often considered beneficial. Correctional counselors’ personalities are important as well. The ideal candidate is able to empathize with a juvenile offender’s problems, while remaining calm, stable and mature.
Youth Correctional Counselor Salary, Job Outlook and Employers
A correctional counselor’s annual salary during training is around $36,000 a year, which rises to around $48,000 after training. The most experienced and qualified correctional counselors can earn up to $70,000 annually. Further benefits may include health and dental coverage, sick and vacation pay and educational opportunities. Counselors can often specialize in a certain role, such as providing group therapy, and this requires further training. State or local governments are the main employers for youth correction counselors. The outlook for this field is stable with possible growth due to population increases and mandatory sentencing laws.
Youth Correctional Counselor Related Degrees, Programs & Schools
- BS in Psychology - Substance Abuse
- MS in Psychology - Addictions
- MS in Psychology - General Psychology
- Ph.D. in Counselor Education and Supervision - Consultation
- Ph.D. in Psychology - Counseling Psychology
- Ph.D. in Counselor Education and Supervision - Trauma and Crisis
Stratford Career Institute
- Drug and Alcohol Treatment Specialist
California University of Pennsylvania
- Graduate Certificate in Sports Counseling
- MS - Counseling Psychology
- PhD - General Counselor Education and Supervision
- MS - General Mental Health Counseling
The University of Liverpool
- MSc in Applied Psychology (Mental Health Psychology)
- MSc in Applied Psychology (General Psychology)
Grand Canyon University
- M.S. in Professional Counseling
- B.S. in Counseling with an Emphasis in Addiction, Chemical Dependency, and Substance Abuse
- M.S. in Psychology: General Psychology
Page Edited by Charles Sipe. | <urn:uuid:7a722235-3266-4786-8aa0-fe80c9062bd8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.criminaljusticedegreeschools.com/criminal-justice-careers/youth-correctional-counselor/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.915376 | 632 | 2.578125 | 3 |
SHERMAN, TX-StopBullying.gov shows 17% of students nationwide are bullied. But, a local boxer is stepping up to help fight the trend.
Alex Lopez has been teaching boxing to area kids for several years so they will learn how to fight, but also to stand up for themselves when facing a bully. One of his students tells us how the class has made a difference.
Eleven year old, Jonathan Harden has been taking boxing class at Fight Time Fitness in Sherman since February because he's been bullied at school many times.
"So that people at school wont be a jerk to me whenever I come around and stuff," he said.
His mother, Jennifer Harden, said kids pick on Jonathan because he's one of the shortest in 5th grade.
"He's always had people picking on him, calling him names, shrimp, shorty, things like that. I'm thinking this will actually help his self confidence," she said.
"A lot of times the kids that come into the class have low self-esteem."
Boxing instructor, Alex Lopez, have been teaching area kids for three years to defend themselves improving their boxing technique and sparring. He said confidence is key when standing up to a bully.
"What we try to teach them here is that we want them to just build their self confidence. And the way I can do that is by teaching them how to be confident in themselves if you're in good shape and also promote that you can feel good with your well being," he said.
But he said fighting is still not the answer.
"What I try to teach kids here is that you can only do so much with your fists but you want to try and use as much as you can with your brain and communication skills," Lopez said.
Jonathan said he has learned a lot in the class.
"How to punch, kick, move when people are trying to punch you in the face," he said.
Harden said she has seen a difference in her son's behavior.
"It's a slow process, but you know, he can walk in and hold his head up high and not actually feel like 'aww, everyone's picking on me' and things of that nature," she said.
Lopez added that keeping kids busy after school and during the summer can help keep them out of trouble.
Fight Time Fitness offers boxing class Tuesdays and Thursdays for kids of any age. | <urn:uuid:386ae9ca-2c3b-4739-9003-3ceba8953c2a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kxii.com/home/headlines/151067765.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.989199 | 504 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Best-Seller Yanked From Web
Professor Paul Goldstein, an expert in copyright and intellectual property law, is quoted on online copyright issues:
A Chinese website has removed a translation of Dan Brown's latest best-seller following complaints that it used copyrighted material without permission.
But some observers say the incident better illustrates the ease of posting copyrighted material on the Internet than of any lingering problems with Chinese piracy of copyrighted works, a big problem in the 1990s.
The episode with Yeeyan, however, points to copyright problems with the Web rather than with China, according to Paul Goldstein, an author and professor at the Stanford Law School who specializes in intellectual property.
"Historically, this has been a huge problem in China," he said. "But it seems to be getting better, so this is unusual. China views itself as bound by the international norms of copyright and is becoming a significant player on that stage as a copyright owner itself.
"(Copyright violations) happen everywhere. It is not surprising that it's been taken down, nor will it be surprising if it pops up somewhere else in China on some other website. It's hard to control."
In the late 1990s, Goldstein had one of his own books, Copyright's Highway, pirated in China. He learned of the violation when a student brought a pirated copy to California. But print piracy has largely given way to digital piracy in the last decade, he said. Unauthorized posting on the Web is a problem not only in China, but also in the US, Germany, the UK, France and other countries, he said. | <urn:uuid:581fbf8b-3e3b-44d0-9752-a3f3a713e93c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.law.stanford.edu/news/best-seller-yanked-from-web | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957408 | 326 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Smith and the Klamath Fish Kill: Fact and Fiction
What Senator Gordon Smith has said about the fish kill and how it stacks up with reality.
On July 31, 2007, the U.S. House of Representatives Natural Resources Committee held a hearing to investigate Vice President Dick Cheney’s alleged role in the Klamath River’s massive salmon kills of 2002. These devastating and unprecedented kills resulted after the Bush administration overturned salmon restoration efforts in the Klamath River to favor powerful agribusiness interests. Shortly after the House hearing, the Eugene Register Guard’s editorial board asked Oregon’s Senator Gordon Smith about his role in the federal government’s decision to overturn salmon recovery efforts, his feelings on the fish kill, and his thoughts regarding Cheney’s actions.
Smith’s response that he had “no regrets” regarding the fish kill sparked widespread outrage, particularly in Oregon, where fishing communities are still suffering severe economic losses due to commercial salmon season closures in 2005 and 2006 aimed at protecting what is left of greatly weakened Klamath chinook salmon stocks. In the weeks following the statement, Smith responded with a series of convoluted and conflicting answers regarding the fish kill and its causes. In an effort to separate myth from fact in the furor over Senator Smith’s statements, Oregon Wild has created the following fact sheet.
The Slippery Sayings of Senator Smith
What Smith says: “I don't know that there's a connection between water for sucker fish that went to farmers and salmon 18 months later that died of a gill disease.” (Eugene Register Guard, August 8, 2007)
Why he’s being slippery: Smith’s 18-month number has no bearing on actual events. Full water diversions to the federal Klamath Irrigation Project’s “A” Canal at the headwaters of the Klamath River began on March 29, 2002 – during a gala ceremony attended by Smith and high-ranking Bush administration officials. The largest adult salmon kill in Western U.S. history began in the lower Klamath River in mid-September, less than six months from the day Smith publicly celebrated the federal decision to send scarce water to irrigators instead of protecting threatened fish. Smith later admitted he got his dates wrong.
Senator Smith’s statement that the salmon died of a gill disease avoids addressing the root cause of the catastrophe. Biologists studying the 2002 kill found evidence of diseases typical among salmon, but not typically lethal in healthy salmon populations. In the Klamath, these diseases turned lethal when the river became shallower and warmer – forcing salmon to crowd into pockets of cooler water to survive. The exhaustive U.S. Fish and Wildlife report, Klamath River Fish Die-Off September 2002: Causative Factors of Mortality, pointed to river levels as the primary cause for the fish kill. “Low river discharges apparently did not provide suitable attraction flows for migrating adult salmon, resulting in large numbers of salmon congregating in the warm waters of the lower river. The high density of fish, low discharges, warm water temperatures, and possible extended residence time of salmon created optimal conditions for parasite proliferation…” (USFWS, Causative Factors of Mortality, p ii)
In addition, the California Department of Fish and Game’s analysis of the fish kill determined that “River flow and the volume of water in the fish-kill area were atypically low,” and that flow is the only controllable factor and tool in the Klamath Basin to manage risks against future adult fish kills. (CDFG, September 2002 Klamath River Fish Kill: Final Analysis of Contributing Factors and Impacts, p 158)
says: “I’ve never said there wasn’t a
connection. I’m just saying you can’t
blame it entirely on the diversion as being the exclusive cause of the salmon
die-off.” (Bend Bulletin, August 20,
Why he’s being slippery: In his meeting with the Register Guard’s editorial board Smith said: “I don’t know that there’s a connection…” Reporters at The Oregonian and Oregon Public Broadcasting thought the Senator was crystal clear in denying a connection. "Sen. Gordon Smith argues there is no evidence a massive fish kill on the Klamath River in 2002 was caused by water diversions to farmers.” (The Oregonian, August 11, 2007) “…[Smith] says there is no link between the federal water diversion and the massive fish kill.” (OPB, August 15, 2007).
What Smith says: “There's a lot of revisionism going on. If you look back at the editorial pages and the overwhelming feeling of Oregonians, that when water was cut off to farmers for the first time in 95 years, that was a wrong that needed to be righted.” (OPB, August 15, 2007)
Why he’s being slippery: Again, Smith’s statement has little bearing on reality. In 2001, when irrigation water was curtailed to protect endangered fish in Upper Klamath Lake and threatened coho salmon in the Klamath River, The Oregonian published an editorial titled “Klamath Dust Bowl,” stating that, “the government long ago promised settlers and farmers more water than it could deliver without destroying some of the most significant marsh lands, wildlife refuges and wild salmon runs in the nation.” Far from calling for water to flow only to irrigators, the paper recommended “…restored wetlands, a lake clean and sufficient enough for fish, a river with enough cool flow for coho salmon, and last but not least, a Klamath Basin with a sustainable level of irrigated family farms.” (The Oregonian, May 13, 2001). Most observers agree that current water demand in the Klamath Basin is not sustainable. This majority once included Senator Smith, who helped Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon introduce Klamath legislation in 2001 aimed at permanently reducing irrigation water demand.
After Klamath agribusiness interests and Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR) worked to defeat that legislation, The Oregonian responded. “This time, Klamath farmers themselves wrenched shut the spigot that would have brought relief to their thirsty, polluted basin in Southern Oregon.” They added, “the salmon and suckers will keep teetering on the edge of extinction,” if the status quo remains unchanged. (The Oregonian April 28, 2002)
What Smith says: “This is not about a fish versus a farmer.” and “My actions today are not to subvert the Endangered Species Act.” (Speech on the Senate Floor, July 11, 2001)
Why he’s being slippery: Just a few minutes before Senator Smith made the above statement, he opened his remarks with this: “Americans are becoming familiar with a part of my State and a part of California known as the Klamath Basin because of the coverage of a tragic situation that has developed there in a contest between suckerfish and farmers.”
What Smith says: “Whenever the government says to any group of Americans, we are cutting you off 100 percent, not one drop (of water), that gets my blood boiling…” (The Oregonian, August 11, 2007)
“I am proud to fight for the farmers or any group of Americans whom the federal government says has no standing, no water. I just find that offensive.” (Eugene Register Guard, August 8, 2007)
Why he’s being slippery: Contrary to Smith’s statements, Klamath irrigators were not cut off “100 percent.” The Klamath Irrigation Project’s total normal water intake is approximately 450,000 acre-feet (af) of water per year. Before the decision to reduce deliveries in 2001, the Klamath Basin Pilot Irrigation Demand Reduction Program had paid 162 irrigators $2.7 million to idle roughly 17,000 acres of farmland within the Project. This reduced demand by roughly 35,000 af, or 7% of total demand. Given this reduction, 415,000 af would have been normal in 2001. The Project actually received 280,000 af of water from reservoirs and wells in 2001, or 67% of normal. Here are the numbers:
- 25%: On April 6th, Vice President Dick Cheney ordered 70,000 af released from Clear Lake Reservoir. In fact, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) spilled 107,000 af from Clear Lake at this time to compensate for losses to evaporation and rampant unregulated diversions along the Lost River delivery system (Jim Bryant, USBR). The USBR had no authority to release this additional 37,000 af.
- 18%: On July 24, Secretary of the Interior Gail Norton directed a 75,000 af release from Upper Klamath Lake.
- 24%: Emergency wells authorized and funded after the decision produced up to 100,000 acre-feet of water for the Project. (“Clearing up water issues on Klamath Basin,” The Oregonian, August 29, 2001)
What Smith says: “Smith also cast doubt on the connection between the fish kill in 2002 and the severe curtailment of commercial salmon fishing in 2006.” (The Oregonian, August 11, 2007)
Why he’s being slippery: Again, from The Oregonian: “In making their decision, fishery officials cited continuing problems with the Klamath River runs, including the fish kill in 2002.” | <urn:uuid:6c3df73d-6f0b-4aea-8057-53f76df9eb19> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.oregonwild.org/waters/klamath/the-klamath-river/klamath-fish-kills/smith-and-the-klamath-fish-kill-fact-and-fiction/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00076-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946328 | 2,052 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Price is per bead - measures a long 59mm x 28mm x 7mm, top-drilled, making it ideal as a pendant or focal bead. Every one of these will look slightly different.
Fossil beads are the latest trend in jewelry making. These stones are especially cut to reveal unusual and interesting surface features, and then dyed brilliant colors making dramatic eye-catching jewelry. Rich burnt red and vivid polished purple are particularly spectacular.
These beads are created from stones containing fossils of creatures that lived millions of years ago. The fossilized rock is then pulverized and formed into the bead shape, ready for polishing, drilling, and making into jewelry.
Fossil coral is the fossilized remnants of ancient coral reefs. Their striking pattern is determined by the species of coral that became fossilized. A common fossil coral is made from crinoids stems. These look like flowers, but were really tiny animals – the lines radiating out to form circles are where their spines were attached. | <urn:uuid:8cfc0a31-40ba-4f8f-8f8f-3342bd290a41> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mrbead.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=ga4682&Category_Code=fossilbeads | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967607 | 206 | 1.914063 | 2 |
On this page you can discover detailed information about Here You Come Again (Dolly Parton) piano music including printable sheet music, tabs, free mp3s, how to learn the piano part and other useful info.
Always a charmer, the words of this song capture that moment of a “funny tummy” – of butterflies in the belly when a stranger captures your interest and you just want to get to know them better. This fun country music song “Here You Come Again” is actually a crossover from pop music, and not written by Dolly Parton. This is rare, as most of her songs were.
“Here you come again
Just when I’m about to get myself together
You waltz right in the door
Just like you done before
And wrap my heart ’round your little finger
Here you come again…”
The right hand should play a piano chord on every beat of this song and then join in the funky bass line. The original key of G flat major has a shed-load of flats, so you may find it easier to choose a neighboring key like G major.
The harmonies love to repeat themselves over again, its the melody that is tricky to master as it jumps up and down all over the place. Dolly Parton had quite a range! Practice the harmonies of G major, G major seventh (basically an added F sharp) and C major.
There are TWO simple ways to download sheet music:
1. You can immediately download printable sheet music for this song using the link below.
2. You can create your own sheet music for FREE using special notation software.
You can listen to this song right away with an mp3 download by using the link below.
Or, read our special tips page on how to download free piano mp3s. | <urn:uuid:e2c42b6c-7af1-40f4-aa63-d87d7ab60b92> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pianomusicinfo.com/popular-piano/here-you-come-again-dolly-parton-sheet-music.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.900562 | 387 | 1.71875 | 2 |
UCSF Neuro-Intensive Care Nursery reaches milestone
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- A cutting edge center for infant care in the Bay Area has just passed a major life-saving milestone. More than 200 infants have been treated with a technique that helps head off brain damage and other debilitating conditions.
Watching Nolan Hochleutner play in his oak shaded yard, you'd never imagine the wild swings that marked the first few days of his life. When we first met Nolan in 2008, he was still recovering from a life saving treatment at UCSF. It was a cutting edge therapy that began just hours after a traumatic delivery cut off oxygen to his brain.
"They basically said, 'We don't know what's going to happen to him, he's lost of a lot of oxygen and we have to take him to San Francisco,'" said Nelya Hochleutner, Nolan's mom.
Nolan was one of the first infants treated in UCSF's Neuro-Intensive Care Nursery at the Benioff Children's Hospital. Doctors used a special temperature controlled incubator, designed to deliberately induce hypothermia.
"Cooling the body temperature down, which is protective for the brain that has suffered a lack of oxygen," said David Rowitch, M.D. from UCSF.
Rowitch says the hypothermia technique has been so successful at protecting infants from brain damage, that his team has invested in technology to make the overall treatment process even more effective.
"Our model at UCSF is different than anywhere else in the world because we bring in a pediatric neurologist, and because we have continuous monitoring of the brain at every stage," said Rowitch.
A powerful electroencephologram can detect if an infant is having a seizure, even when there are no external symptoms. And a camera system gives neurophysiologists access to the readings around the clock.
UCSF Hannah Glass, M.D., says she can check the readings "in the neurophysiology lab, or at home at night, on a personal computer."
A few feet away, one newborn is being monitored with a second new device that looks at the brain in a different way.
"So this is a near infrared spectroscopy monitor. And what is allows us to do is to understand how well is brain is either getting oxygen delivered to it, or how well it's using oxygen," said UCSF Sonia Bonifacio, M.D.
In a nearby lab, neonatologist Fernando Gonzalez, M.D. is experimenting with growth factor, which is already used to raise the red blood cell count in infants. He said, "So we're studying how combining Erythropoetin with hypothermia can provide more long-term protection."
"I think we are entering a very exciting age in the care of neonates," said Rowitch.
Heading off conditions like cerebral palsy and giving newborns like Nolan, a chance to grow into a healthy, energetic children.
"He's just the most sparkly kid. That's the best way to describe him, sparkly," said Nelya.
A quick update -- doctors at UCSF treated their 200th cooling patient just last week. Beyond the hypothermia treatments, the Neuro-Intensive Care Nursery also provides life saving care for some of the smallest premature infants born in the Bay Area.
UCSF, health, carolyn johnson
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- weather: Bay Area weather forecast for Sunday | <urn:uuid:9fd660cd-422d-4aab-84bf-88aa8e978a75> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/health&id=8757215 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954091 | 886 | 2.34375 | 2 |
How Hedrin works
Hedrin’s efficacy is a result of its active ingredients, Dimeticone (Hedrin 4% Lotion and Hedrin Once) and Activdiol (Hedrin Treat and Go). All formulations are patented and have been shown to be effective at killing head lice in clinical trials and even work on lice that have developed a resistance to traditional pesticide treatments.
Hedrin 4% Lotion is a medicine
Always read the label
Head lice have a unique strategy of water management in that they do not produce urine. Instead they eliminate excess water via tiny passages in their exoskeleton called spiracles. The active ingredient Dimeticone, a silicone oil, disrupts this process of water management by coating the louse, causing them to become permanently immobile, and blocking the spiracles preventing them from getting rid of excess water. As a result, any lice that have recently fed suffer from death by gut rupture and, the ones that haven’t, die of starvation.
Experiments carried out at the Medical Entomology Centre showed how Hedrin kills lice.
Like all insects, head lice are covered by a waxy protective coating. It is this waxy layer that helps the louse maintain its delicate internal water balance, preventing too much water from evaporating.
The Activdiol® in Hedrin works by coating the louse and dissolving away this waxy cuticle, causing death by dehydration.
Because Dimeticone and Activdiol® kill lice with a ‘physical’ mode of action unlike a traditional chemical pesticide, you can use it as often as you like without the danger of the lice becoming resistant. Hedrin products are also free from solvents that can cause problems in some asthma sufferers. | <urn:uuid:5c65582d-d13d-4668-872f-b32ecc4c43f9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hedrin.co.uk/whyhedrin/howhedrinworks.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929257 | 373 | 2.359375 | 2 |
Posted on June 3, 2011
by Robert Moore
See =>here, from NBC 29 out of Charlottesville, and =>here, from the Daily News Record, Harrisonburg.
More to follow…
June 3, 2011
Some enterprising entrepreneur should get busy making plaques, boxes, stools, etc, etc, etc.
I think that’s what the property owners might be thinking. I was going to stop by on the way home and grab a piece, but, looks like they’ve got the no trespassing thing in effect right now.
“Miller said her family has posted no trespassing signs to shield it from souvenir hunters until it is removed. ‘The tree is down. Let it rest,’ she said.”
I give up, why is it called the Jackson prayer oak tree?
Around June 15, 1862, a few days after the victories at Cross Keys and Port Republic, Stonewall Jackson declared a day of thanksgiving. He held a large prayer meeting in close proximity to the tree. That tree is all that is left of the original stand of trees present there at the time. Local legend also suggests that he prayed under the tree on occasion, after taking his meals on the front porch of the house, just across the road.
[...] Since we’re in mourning for the Jackson Prayer Oak (see here, and here… and yes, I’m a tree hugger of sorts… especially when it comes to [...]
[...] partly from the wood of the Stonewall Jackson Prayer Tree, which once stood near Grottoes, but was fallen by strong winds, in 2011. Needless to say, an immediate family heirloom… and with family connections built [...]
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Join 588 other followers | <urn:uuid:13ae4bf9-cbbf-4236-9d63-7e90d124e39c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cenantua.wordpress.com/2011/06/03/the-jackson-prayer-tree-near-mt-meridian-is-no-more/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=9233933e84 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952425 | 464 | 1.773438 | 2 |
During the First World War the company produced a series of bomber for the Royal Navy to bomb the German Zeppelin yards, with the ultimate intent of bombing Berlin in revenge for the Zeppelin attacks on London. These aircraft included the 0/100, the 0/400 and the four engined V/1500 with the range to reach Berlin. The V/1500 only just reached operational service as the war ended in 1918.
In the immediate post-war years, Handley Page modified a number of O/400's to passenger use, which they flew on the London-Paris route as Handley Page Transport. The V/1500 was considered too large to be practical at the time, but a number of design features of the V/1500 were later incorporated into a O/400 airframe to produce their their first dedicated passenger design, the W.8. In 1924 Handley Page Transport merged with two other regional airlines to create Imperial Airways, England's first national airline service. Handley Page developed several large biplane airliners, including the luxurious Hannibal, for use on Imperial routes.
Handley Page also paid for the development of what soon became known as the Handley Page Slat (or slot), a small channel cut into the leading edge of the wing to improve airflow at high angles of attack. The design was so successful that licensing fees to other companies was their main source of income in the early 1920s.
With the spectre of the Second World War looming, Handley Page turned back to bomber design, and produced the Hampden, which took part in the first British raid on Berlin. In response to government request for heavier, longer ranged aircraft Handley Page produced the Halifax which after the Lancaster was the most prolific British heavy bomber, and considered by some to be to a superior aircraft.
After the war the British government sought tenders for jet bombers to carry Britain's atomic bomb. The three types produced were known as the V-Bomberss, and Handley Page's contibution was the Victor, a four engined cresent winged design. This aircaft remained in service (as a tanker aircraft) well beyond the demise of the company which created it.
Aircraft Designs (chronologically): | <urn:uuid:1fe6105a-08a9-4264-a90e-b2846419703c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fact-index.com/h/ha/handley_page_aircraft_company.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97441 | 454 | 3.375 | 3 |
Behavior Changes and Commuting: Making It Easier
I recently attended the Behavior, Energy and Climate Change conference in Sacramento, CA. I also presented all the great work that Arlington Transportation Partners does with the Arlington county employers and property managers, as well as learning from all the sessions I attended. Although the conference focus was on energy and climate change, the best part was learning about basic behavior change strategies that can apply to anything – commutes, weight loss, even buying habits. I recognized every point in myself, as I thought about my transformation from a car-less Metro rider to a car-less bicyclist.
There are some basic behavior change concepts that apply to everything – people do not change their habits based on information, but rather, on information they learn from friends, family, and respected role models. Once the motivation is there, however, individuals will only change their behavior if the barriers are removed and if there are prompts, often social, in place to encourage them to repeat the desired behavior and reframe their world view. It sounds simple, right? However, the reality is much harder, or we would all be perfect.
I was interested in bike riding when I lived in Manhattan for ten years, but despite knowing that it was healthy, inexpensive, and fun, there were several barriers in place. I did not know anyone who did it, so my only real reference point was the huge bike messenger and bike delivery population swarming around the city every day. Watching them made me nervous about bike safety, and honestly, it was not a lifestyle or look I was interested in emulating. Moreover, in my small apartment, where on earth would I keep a bike? I didn’t want to hang it from the ceiling – that did not match my décor!
Fast forward to moving into Arlington. My parents came to visit. My dad, who used to ride his bike to work every day, helped me find a decent beginner bike, installed fenders and lights, and made sure I had the proper tire pump. So that was not only the first lowered barrier, but I was learning from someone I trusted. I still didn’t know anyone who biked for transportation, and got used to coworkers at the job I had then teasing me for biking, but then I discovered that a local bike shop was having a “Ladies’ Night” event. That made a huge difference for me – I found a large group of women, some of whom were new like me, and many of whom were more experienced. Add in some fun women leading the talk, and encouraging us, and suddenly I’d found a group of role models I could emulate. Then, when I joined the ATP team, I went from being “the person in the office who bikes to work” to “one of many people who bike to work.”
Now I’ve completed the behavior change loop. I have reframed my world view so that biking for transportation is completely normal, I have many friends and colleagues who do it, and it is encouraged by my workplace. It only proves what the presenters at the BECC said – it takes time to change behaviors.
Wait, that’s what we say here at ATP! We know it isn’t easy to change behaviors, but we are here to help with the process. We encourage businesses and properties to offer not just bicycle amenities, but many types of benefits to help remove barriers to non-car commuting. And once everyone in an office or building sees biking, Metro, busing, and walking as easy, socially acceptable behaviors, it becomes easier to do it as well. So contact ATP now to find out how to remove barriers, add benefits, and begin to reframe your transit world view.
Elizabeth Floyd is a Business Development Manager at Arlington Transportation Partners.
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A comment form is available following the full text of each blog post. To prevent spam, comments must be approved. After approval, comments will appear following the post. If you have a comment or question, but do not want it to be published, please contact ATP. | <urn:uuid:b8c0f92e-e8fa-4f1b-af6d-3b18d2c14938> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.arlingtontransportationpartners.com/pages/blog/behavior-changes-and-commuting-making-it-easier/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977713 | 862 | 1.53125 | 2 |
GLENDALE, Ariz. -- One Glendale woman's fight to keep giving away food from her front yard to hungry people has intensified to a national level. Last week, Millie Ramirez received her final warning from the city, saying she has to stop her front yard food bank or appear before a judge.
"I don't want to stop and I don't think I'm going to," Ramirez said after being told that she could have to explain herself to a judge.
With overwhelming support pointing toward Ramirez and her front yard food bank, the neighbor who complained to the city spoke for the first time Tuesday about why she opposes Ramirez's operation staying in the neighborhood.
While she wants her voice to be heard, the woman didn't want her identity revealed because she has read threatening comments aimed at her on the Internet.
"I just don't see how it's safe, leaving food out standing out in the sun all day, letting anyone come and take it," she explained. "Like I said, rodents, birds [can get it]. It cannot be safe."
Ramirez has been putting donated food out on her front yard for about seven years. Every day she wheels out a shelving unit filled with dry goods and a refrigerated unit filled with frozen goods and perishables. She leaves everything in the front yard for a few hours with a sign telling people to help themselves. Every night she puts it all away.
But after the neighbor's complaint, the city started giving Ramirez notices to let her know she's out of compliance with a city code prohibiting the storage of items in public view. The city told 3TV the neighborhood isn't zoned for Ramirez's charitable activities and it's irrelevant whether the items are put away each night.
"[It's] bringing transients into this area. It's bad for property values; it's bad for neighbor safety. There's children all around and it's not a safe environment," said the neighbor, adding that her child's school, Glendale American Elementary, sits right across the street from Ramirez's house.
"I do have a few homeless people that come through here. If the food's not here they're gone because I've explained to them they cannot hang around here," Ramirez countered. "We have to respect the neighbors and the neighborhood."
Since getting her first notice from the city, Ramirez has built a fence to hide the food from street view and the Rutherford Institute, a national civil rights group from Virginia, has sent a letter to the city telling it to leave Ramirez alone. That group also told 3TV it would file a lawsuit on Ramirez's behalf if necessary. Ramirez said she won't back down and will face a judge if need be.
Meanwhile, the unhappy neighbor hopes the city stands it's ground, too.
"I support her being a giving person. I support her wanting to give charity. But I just think that this neighborhood is not the right place for it," she said. "I'm not a mean person. I don't wish anyone ill will."
Ramirez told 3TV that city code officials have been by her home to photograph her food in the front yard twice since issuing a final warning, but have yet to issue her a summons to appear before a judge. | <urn:uuid:6024927a-1f1e-4ae3-8b6b-23574f3db86e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.azfamily.com/news/slideshows/National-Attention-for-Front-Yard-Foodbank-Fight-175540831.html?ref=prev | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983215 | 664 | 1.585938 | 2 |
According to hierarchical structure formation scenarios, low-mass systems should have been the first sites of star formation in the Universe. The first star formation events may have occurred as early as at a redshift of z ~ 30, an epoch unobservable for us with our present tools. Larger systems should then have formed through hierarchical merging of smaller systems, leading to the idea of dwarf galaxies as building blocks of more massive galaxies. Hence one important test to carry out is to compare the properties of the old populations in dwarf galaxies with those in massive galaxies to investigate how similar or dissimilar they are. If today's dwarf galaxies are the few survivors of a once much more numerous, since accreted low-mass galaxy population, and if dwarf galaxy accretion is the primary process governing the formation of more massive galaxies, then detailed studies of their old stellar populations should reveal very similar properties.
A number of cosmological models predict that cosmic re-ionization will squelch star formation in low-mass substructures, and that galaxies less massive than 108 to 109 M will lose their star-forming material through photoevaporation during re-ionization (e.g., Ferrara & Tolstoy 2000; Dekel & Woo 2003; Susa & Umemura 2004). As a consequence, low-mass galaxies must form their stars prior to re-ionization (e.g., Tassis et al. 2003) and need to contain ancient populations. Furthermore, one would expect a sharp drop and indeed a complete cessation of star-forming activity after re-ionization is complete. A third consequence is that the oldest populations in high-mass galaxies must be either as old as those in low-mass galaxies, or younger.
Figure 2. Bar diagram indicating the approximate duration of star formation episodes in low-mass galaxies (~ 107 M). The approximate beginning and end of the re-ionization epoch are indicated (based on results from WMAP and from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey). The predicted cessation of star formation in low-mass galaxies, esp. in dSphs, is not observed. For more details, see also Grebel & Gallagher (2004).
These are testable predictions that can be investigated by exploiting the fossil stellar record in nearby galaxies. The LG is an ideal target since here the oldest populations are resolved and can be accessed with HST and increasingly also with large ground-based telescopes operating with high angular resolution. This requires age dating of old populations. The most accurate ages can be obtained for resolved stellar populations. For old populations the most age-sensitive feature is the old main-sequence turn-off (MSTO), where via differential age-dating techniques internal accuracies of less than 1 Gyr can be obtained. Comparison objects are usually ancient Galactic globular clusters of the same metallicity as the target population. Absolute ages are more difficult to determine since here one needs to rely on isochrones, which makes the resulting ages model-dependent. But also differential techniques have a number of drawbacks: They require very deep, high-quality photometry reaching at least 2 mag below the MSTO, which is a challenge in more distant galaxies. They require stellar populations sufficiently numerous to produce a measurable MSTO, which necessarily limits us to Population II stars (note that to date not a single Population III star candidate has ever been detected beyond the Milky Way). Ideally, one wishes to compare populations with the same [/Fe] ratio. (Establishing to what extent this condition is met and what the consequences are will be an important area for large ground-based telescopes in the coming years.) Other effects such as diffusion may further affect relative measurements; see Chaboyer's contribution in these proceedings for details.
For a more detailed discussion of the results of differential age dating as applied to ancient Milky Way populations and nearby dwarfs I refer to Grebel (2000) and Grebel & Gallagher (2004). Here only the results shall be summarized, which are based on Galactic and extragalactic globular clusters and field populations with MSTO photometry: (1) Old populations are ubiquitous, but their fractions vary. There is not a single dwarf galaxy studied in sufficient detail without an old population. (2) There is evidence for a common epoch of star formation. The ancient Population II in the Milky Way, the LMC, and the Galactic dSphs are coeval within ~ 1 Gyr (which is consistent with the building block scenario). (3) In contrast to predictions from cold dark matter models, no cessation of star formation activity is observed during or after re-ionization. (4) Instead, even the least massive galaxies known, the dSphs, show evidence for star formation extending over many Gyr. This holds even for those dSphs entirely dominated by very old populations - their metallicity spread requires enrichment due to star formation extending over several Gyr.
It is certainly correct to point out that the accuracy of age determinations does not permit us yet to confidently state when exactly early star formation began and ended in dSphs. Nevertheless, the presence of ancient populations in dSphs is a fact. The large metallicity spread in old dSphs has been proven spectroscopically. Furthermore, the presence of intermediate-age populations in addition to ancient stars in many though not all dSphs cannot be refuted. In only one of these dSphs (Carina) clearly episodic star formation with well-separated "bursts" has been observed (Smecker-Hane et al. 1994); in all others star formation appears to have proceeded fairly continuously. The characteristics of the star formation and enrichment histories of dSphs contradict the cosmological predictions mentioned earlier, particularly the suggestion of complete photoevaporation of baryonic material not yet turned into stars.
There are several possible ways out of this quandary. Either the above quoted cosmological models are wrong, or do not take other effects that might prevent photoevaporation into account, or the galaxies we observe today as dSphs once were substantially more massive. In case if the latter, today's dSphs would once have needed to be at least a factor of 100 more massive. An oversimplified estimate shows that at the times when dSphs were forming stars, they should have had at least 10 times more baryonic mass if we assume a star formation efficiency of 10%. Their present-day baryonic masses are of the order of 106 M, so an increase by one order of magnitude would not yet change the overall estimated masses of dSphs drastically, but it would considerably alter their mass-to-light ratios. More detailed calculations and more observational data are needed to investigate whether substantially more massive dSph progenitors are plausible. The differences in the metallicity-luminosity relation of dSphs and dIrrs seem to rule out dIrrs as progenitors of dSphs (Grebel et al. 2003). | <urn:uuid:5429b471-1ddf-4450-b59f-440ee42bec6c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/March07/Grebel2/Grebel2.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937706 | 1,446 | 3.6875 | 4 |
Fifth offshore bank opens!
Forget the Caymans; bank in Belize. That's the message government is sending to the world of international finance. The occasion was the official opening of Belize's newest offshore institution, the Investment and Commerce Bank Limited. Speaking at ceremonies on Friday night, Minister of Budget Management Ralph Fonseca applauded the development of the offshore banking sector, which has grown from one bank, with one point three million U.S. dollars under management in 1998, to five banks and one hundred and sixty-four million dollars today. In addition to Investment and Commerce, which is owned by Guatemala's Banco del Quetzal, Belize's other offshore banks include Provident, which is owned by investors from Belize and Antigua, Atlantic International, an affiliate of Atlantic Bank Limited, and Oxxy Bank, owned by Guatemalan's Banco de la Republica.
These are class "A" banks with unrestricted licenses. The fifth bank, Market Street Bank, is a class "B" institution which is restricted to doing business solely with its twenty-five U.S. based owners. Under Belizean law offshore banks are not allowed to do business with residents of Belize, although recent legislation has expanded the definition of "non-resident" to include the government as well as entities located within free zones and export processing zones. The primary benefit to the country from offshore banks is official fees, rents and a small amount of skilled employment. The international banking industry has come under increasing pressure from the U.S.A. and European authorities who see it as a haven for money launderers and tax evaders. Proponents of the industry point out that the vast majority of customers doing business with offshore banks only seek to keep their assets safe from the prying eyes of greedy governments and the sharp teeth of hungry spouses. In Belize the job of policing the offshore sector falls to government's Financial Intelligence Unit, headed by former Central Bank Governor Keith Arnold. According to Arnold, his office closely monitors the movement of offshore funds and any hint of a crime would immediately trigger an investigation into the bank in question. Since the introduction of offshore banking laws in 1996, more than two dozen applications have been processed. Only the five banks mentioned have been granted licenses. | <urn:uuid:db1de925-aad6-43ba-96af-467cee8c70d4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ambergriscaye.com/BzLibrary/trust544.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961854 | 464 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Baby's Brain in Week 13
Your mother notices how you attend to your child when he cries. Once screeching starts, you check on him to determine if he's crying because he's hungry or because he's distressed from too much sensory stimulation.
After observing your interactions, Gram comes right out and says, "Your baby is crying because he wants you to pick him up. If you do, you'll be spoiling him."
Now you're worried. You thought you were just being attentive and attuned and, well, a good mom. But will all your responsive care lead to a child who is demanding and spoiled?
What the Research Shows
Research related to the theory of attachment tells moms and dads that actually the opposite is true. By picking up a crying baby and attending to his needs responsively, he'll soon cry less. So there's no need to ration your attention. It's the infant who isn't attended to who cries more, louder, and longer. (Can you imagine the poor researchers who had to endure these crying studies?)
Since your baby can't talk, he communicates with cries, movements, and facial expressions. Once you determine what your baby needs—feeding, sleeping, or comforting—by all means, indulge him. You'll be bringing you both pleasure and building his trust in you.
What does trust mean to an infant? That someone is available on a predictable basis. When your baby knows this, he relaxes. An infant without an attentive parent is stressed, which works against his brain and body developing optimally. Children who feel secure actually explore more and feel safe to satisfy their curiosity. | <urn:uuid:2df12987-ce86-4b54-8864-06b1f6e9142b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.babyzone.com/baby/baby-week-by-week/week-13-baby_65834 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976023 | 333 | 2.765625 | 3 |
Current Location: (((Main Site)))
Herbs.2000.v1: Welcome to the year 2000 version 1 edition of Herbs!
Looking up, you see the many shades of colors streaked across the dusking sky. The magnificent hues of oranges, reds, purples, and pinks parley with one another in an effort to achieve a dominance. Birds spread their wings and take flight into the flat unknown horizon, heading to wherever food may be plentiful, or where shelter comes without a price. Below the flurry of activity of the illuminous sky stands the gazing life of plants and animals. The birds and the insects and plants live in a symbiotic relation, relying on one the existence of one another to balance life. The sky begins to fall under a spell, as the midnight blue hue reigns dominance over the sky. The moon rises and a cool moisture blankets the tranquil, night ambience. The moisture gathers on the leaves of the many plants, forming small balls of water onto the surface. Animals pitter patter about, searching for food, and try to stay clear of predators. This paradise is nothing short of amazing, however, beyond the cover of life, beholds a ??secret?? unknown of origin, unknown of its power, and unknown of its potential. In nature, it holds many colors but is primarily green. Its healing power and healing potential is still to be charted, and leaves much to the imagination. A slight breeze blows through the scenery, caressing the leaves with much delicacy. A whisper in the night wind carries the word...herbs...
Herbs...no matter how one can envision it, they are still a wonder. Only recently, the application of herbs for the body has become popular. As part of the Thinkquest team, it is time to get the "lowdown" on herbs, and how it can affect the body. It is time to step into our universe and depart from the gates of time... | <urn:uuid:f81ce187-3dce-4e38-bc05-246af6e6ac06> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://library.thinkquest.org/C001289/public_html/partialflash/index.html?site=C001289home&ad=false | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00076-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.91843 | 404 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Future climate talks deal agreed
The 10th international climate change conference in Argentina has ended with a compromise plan for talks on how to combat global warming scheduled for next year.
Hard line American negotiators have agreed to another meeting next May to exchange information.
The European Union and other nations committed to cutting gas emissions wanted much more.
The loose compromise is seen by many as a lost opportunity.
Some developing countries are still raising last minute objections. | <urn:uuid:9fb19678-6ffa-4a03-85d9-26efed38c8a9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.abc.net.au/news/2004-12-18/future-climate-talks-deal-agreed/604798 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949168 | 90 | 1.875 | 2 |
Raw meat sounds so scary to eat, what if you only eat raw egg yolks in this diet....?
Perfectly fine. Lots of people on this diet only eat them as animal food. They are probably the most nutritious food btw.
So you don't think vegetables are healthy at all? And you mostly eat olive oil and avacado right? This diet is really confusing but so many people are clear from it. I want to do it too but are there bad longterm affects? Like, do you know anybody who has been doing this diet for a long time, or a civilization that lives with this diet?
Veggies are imo less harmful than cooked foods, diary and spices, but they are still bad, and absolutely dispensable. Just read the link I just posted here about it.
I don't eat mostly avocado and olive oil. I can rarely get good quality avocados, in fact. Olive oil, I eat like 60g a day.
This diet is confusing yeah, because it's a breakthrough paradigm. Lots of people are clear from it, because it works
Longterm effects? I guess there are none. Only if you eat spoiled food, day, after day, after day... This can lead to auto-immune diseases. But this can happen on a normal diet too (ham, cheese, and other processed foods tend to get loaded of bacteria and molds I guess). You just gotta make sure you always eat very fresh food. On fruits this is easy to notice (as long as their aren't visibly damaged, they are 100% fresh), but on animal food might be a little harder. You gotta buy safe fish species (all that are used in sashimi), get your fish from a reliable seller, check freshness (eye, gilles, etc)... For eggs, just do the bowel test and buy organic/free-range.
As long as you be this minimally careful, the risk is none, imo.
The creator of this diet has been on it for 15 years I guess. No side effects at all. Some other people in the forum have been on it for 5-10years.
Civilization on this diet... well, almost: all humans that lived before agriculture and civilization! The only difference is that they ate vegetables because food was always scarce, so they had to eat what they could find, in order to survive. But if they had abundance, I think they'd definitely focus on fruits. And they didn't eat oils, because they hadn't invented machines that could make lots of pressure and extract the oil, and Wai Dieters eat, since this process is completely harmless to the food's molecules (so is juicing fruit, drying fruit, etc).
sorry for all the questions.
Np. I'm here to answer them!
Edited by OlympusMons, 17 November 2011 - 11:36 AM. | <urn:uuid:c28c9828-36c4-4583-82f2-1f0ebc00af61> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.acne.org/messageboard/topic/306613-wai-diet-thread/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979165 | 597 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Honduras takes a tip from Dubai
Thanks to the jet engine, Dubai has been able to transform itself from a backwater into a perfectly positioned hub for half of the planet's population. It now has more in common with Hong Kong, Singapore and Bangalore than with Saudi Arabia next door. It is a textbook example of an aerotropolis, which can be narrowly defined as a city planned around its airport or, more broadly, as a city less connected to its land-bound neighbors than to its peers thousands of miles away. The ideal aerotropolis is an amalgam of made-to-order office parks, convention hotels, cargo complexes and even factories, which in some cases line the runways. It is a pure node in a global network whose fast-moving packets are people and goods instead of data. And it is the future of the global city.
This hasn't been lost on Paul Romer, the Stanford University economist overseeing the development of an instant city in Honduras. He proposes building "charter cities" in impoverished states with new laws, new infrastructure and foreign investors—free trade zones elevated to the realm of social experiment. Mr. Romer sold Honduran President Porfirio Lobo on the idea in November and has stayed on as an adviser. Last month, the Honduran Congress voted to amend the country's constitution to allow the pilot project to proceed.
In making his case to the Honduran public, Mr. Romer pitched the city as an aerotropolis. "Honduras could be the hub that brings Central America and Latin America into the world-wide network of air traffic," he wrote. "Central America will eventually have a major hub. It's a question of where, not if." Without air connections to the outside world, his charter city will stagnate. "If you're going to take the next step from assembling garments to assembling iPads," he told me, "you've got to have a major airport, or you'll never beat Shenzhen."
Here's more from Romer on the Honduras project:
To implement this vision, the Honduran National Congress has already passed an amendment to the constitution that gives the government the power to create special development regions (which based on the name in Spanish, are abbreviated as REDs). The amendment passed with 126 votes in favor from a total of 128 members of Congress (one abstention and one vote against.) The nearly unanimous vote sends a strong signal about the breadth of support for this new initiative. The National Party, the party of the government and the President (who is elected separately), has about 70 seats in Congress. Members of all parties supported the amendment, including members from rival factions within the opposition Liberal Party.
To become a part of the constitution, the amendment must be passed again in the new Congressional session, which has already begun.
Here are the key points in the amendment:
- The government of Honduras has the option to create one or more REDs, but in no way locks them into to doing so.
- To create an RED and establish its basic system of governance, the amendment requires that the Congress pass a piece of enabling legislation that they call a Constitutional Statute. This requires a two-thirds majority to pass. A subsequent Congress can change this enabling legislation only with the same two-thirds majority and approval by referendum from the citizens living in the RED.
- The REDs would be areas with their own legal personality and jurisdiction, their own administrative systems and laws. An RED can also negotiate international treaties with partner countries or organizations. Congress would need to ratify these international treaties with a simple majority.
- Judges for its judicial system will be nominated by the governing authority in theRED but subject to approval by a 2/3rds majority in the Congress. The judicial arrangement would allow the use of an external body that acts as the court of final appeal for judicial decisions from the zone.
- Laws developed by the governing authority of the RED require a ratifying vote by the Congress. This vote would be a simple vote to approve or reject. Approval requires only a simple majority. (This is similar to the BRAC rules that govern military base closures in the United States.)
Most important among the immediate next steps is a public discussion about the merits of establishing the first RED, its location, and the specifics about how foreign governments can assist in its governance. The government is already working to raise awareness of the effort both in Honduras and internationally. The international efforts will focus on potential partner countries, major investors, firms and individuals with special expertise, and influential supporters in the broad community of people concerned with economic development.
Labels: charter cities | <urn:uuid:41be696a-7760-4f6d-aed4-12aac0add491> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://emirateseconomist.blogspot.com/2011/02/honduras-takes-tip-from-dubai.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958727 | 950 | 2.203125 | 2 |
1 And now it came to pass that I [Helaman] received an epistle from Ammoron, the king, stating that if I would deliver up those prisoners of war whom we had taken that he would deliver up the city of Antiparah unto us.Antiparah was the city that the stripling warriors led away the Lamanite army away from, so it could be concluded that the Lamanite force left to protect it was small. And since Ammoron was offering to trade the city for prisoners, it is safe to conclude that Ammoron was in the city; I don’t see that he would allow anyone else the authority to make such a trade. (Ammoron must have felt pretty exposed, sitting in the city without much of an army to protect him. He must have realized that occupying a city meant nothing without a force to keep it safe, so he changed his focus to getting his army back.)
2 But I sent an epistle unto the king, that we were sure our forces were sufficient to take the city of Antiparah by our force; and by delivering up the prisoners for that city we should suppose ourselves unwise, and that we would only deliver up our prisoners on exchange.
3 And Ammoron refused mine epistle, for he would not exchange prisoners; therefore we began to make preparations to go against the city of Antiparah.
4 But the people of Antiparah did leave the city, and fled to their other cities, which they had possession of, to fortify them; and thus the city of Antiparah fell into our hands. (Alma 57:1-4)
I find it curious that Helaman didn’t take Ammoron’s offer to exchange Lamanite prisoners for the city Antiparah. You’d think he would have been interested in negotiations; peace-loving people tend to prefer accomplishing things through talk instead of war. Of course, Helaman couldn’t immediately grant Ammoron’s request anyway; Helaman had already sent the Lamanite prisoners to Zerahemla, but he probably had the power to bring them back for a prisoner exchange if he wanted to.
But rather than do this, he makes his own terms. Antiparah will fall to the Nephites no matter what and he will only exchange Lamanite prisoners for Nephite prisoners.
It is interesting that though Helaman refused to give up prisoners in exchange for the city, Ammoron left the city anyway. Because Helaman remained firm, he got what he wanted without giving up any advantage.
One thing that I puzzled over though, was Helaman’s statement “by delivering up the prisoners for that city we should suppose ourselves unwise.” On the surface it seemed that he refused to value real estate more than his people. Perhaps that is true, but it seemed like there was some very practical considerations behind it too.
As a general, his objective was to recapture Nephite cities, AND neutralize the Lamanite threat, and so far, one of those objectives had been met. If he got the city back and then let the Lamanite prisoners go, that would mean giving up one successful military object in return for the other. Yet both objectives were presently within his grasp. It would be stupid to give up what they’d already fought so hard to capture (prisoners) just for a city. If they gave up the prisoners, then they’d only have to fight them again, and that would be a mockery of all the lives that were lost to win the first time.
That seems to be the lesson from this little story: it would be stupid to give up the thing we’ve worked so hard to win because then we’ll only have to fight for it again. It would be stupid if, for the sake of some fleeting pleasure, we give up our marriage or our kids that we’ve worked so hard to have. It would be stupid to give up our dream that we’ve worked so hard to attain. It would be stupid to give up our purity that we’ve worked so hard to maintain. It would be stupid to give up our standards that we’ve worked so hard to establish and live by.
Let’s be smart and maintain the victories we've fought so hard for. | <urn:uuid:c5437d3f-a01f-4e15-965b-a6f2056aac7a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://scriptoriumblogorium.blogspot.com/2011/08/dont-give-up-your-objectives.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983957 | 913 | 2.15625 | 2 |
London’s mayoral race
Right man, wrong job
Boris Johnson deserves another term as mayor of London. He also deserves a proper job
IT IS one of the world's great cities—with problems to match. London is Britain's economic engine, generating more than one-fifth of its wealth. Yet its greatest industry, finance, is perpetually under attack. London's immigrants, who give the capital its energy, also put huge pressure on hospitals and transport. The city's schools are bursting. It is an obvious terrorist target. Sadly few of London's difficulties, or its greatness, are evoked by the race to become the city's next mayor.
The election, which takes place on May 3rd, pits Boris Johnson, the Conservative incumbent (pictured right), against Ken Livingstone, a left-winger who ran London between 2000 and 2008. The battle between the two main challengers has been dominated by niggling personal issues and trivial disputes. Is Mr Livingstone's use of a (legal) tax-avoidance vehicle inconsistent with his socialism? Did Mr Johnson spend too much money on some retro-chic double-decker buses? Were Mr Livingstone's tears at a campaign broadcast genuine? Is Mr Johnson sexist? The incumbent has a slight lead in polls. But his party has grown toxic in London. The vote should be close.
Mr Johnson has been a good mayor rather than a great one. His image of tousle-haired disorganisation is not merely a pose. He has a habit of fastening on social problems, setting up an advisory group, then losing interest. Under great pressure—following last summer's riots, for example—he can wilt. Mr Livingstone ran London as a machine; Mr Johnson occasionally appears to forget where the levers are.
Yet he has two great things to recommend him. The first is that, on the big issues, his instincts are right. The mayor defended bankers and called for a cut in the top rate of income tax when both positions were deeply unfashionable. He is socially liberal. For years he has been enthusiastic about immigration, and has even called for an amnesty for illegal immigrants, although he has bowed to a harder, more conventional line in the past few days. He has also done a good job of getting cash for infrastructure from central government.
His second advantage is that he is not Ken Livingstone. London's first elected mayor began boldly. Belying his left-wing instincts, he introduced a congestion charge inspired by Milton Friedman and cosied up to the City. This newspaper backed him for a second term. Disappointingly, though, Mr Livingstone has gradually conformed to the “Red Ken” stereotype. He claims he can cut public-transport fares and even the rents Londoners pay private landlords. Over time, an ugly side to Mr Livingstone's personality has emerged. He has shown startling insensitivity towards Jewish people. This would be unattractive in any politician. In the mayor of a diverse and occasionally tense city, it is intolerable.
Give him something important to do
This newspaper would like Mr Johnson to serve another term—and pull his finger out. We do not imagine, though, that he will abruptly be transformed into an English-accented Michael Bloomberg. For that to happen, the mayoralty itself would have to be radically changed.
A big reason the mayoral race has degenerated into squabbles over personal taxes and the shape of buses is that the candidates do not have much more to talk about. London's mayor has great power over transport, as well as rather less power over housing and planning. He has almost no sway over education and health. The legislatures of Scotland and Wales, with a combined population roughly equal to London's, are much more powerful. Most emasculating of all, less than 10% of the money London's mayor spends comes from local property taxes. The rest comes from central government, which often tells the mayor how to spend the cash.
If the mayoralty is to become a serious job, attracting serious candidates, this must change. One thing Mr Johnson has demonstrated is that London's police chief cannot hold on to his job if the mayor wants him gone. That power should be made formal. There is a case, too, for giving the mayor more sway over education: power is rightly being devolved by local authorities to individual schools, but Westminster still keeps too much to itself. As America shows, mayors are often the boldest education reformers: Mr Bloomberg is not the only mayor who has transformed local schools. Most of all, London's mayor should be allowed to raise more money locally.
London's mayor has the biggest personal mandate in British politics. He, or she, is a model to other cities that are toying with the idea of elected mayors. Mr Johnson has carried his responsibilities rather lightly. Time to increase his burden. | <urn:uuid:4d443ea7-2b85-4b43-a011-2e4f0d8759f2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.economist.com/node/21553441?zid=309&ah=80dcf288b8561b012f603b9fd9577f0e | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979862 | 1,000 | 1.523438 | 2 |
A Txoko (Basque pronunciation: [ˈtʃoko]) is a typically Basque type of closed gastronomical society. Traditionally they are only open to male members who come together to cook, experiment with new ways of cooking, eat and socialize. They are very popular institutions; the town of Gernika, Spain, for example, has approximately 15,000 inhabitants and nine txokos with some 700 members in total.
Txoko, a diminutive form of zoko, literally means nook, cosy corner in Basque. In some regions, the variant xoko is used. In Spanish, they are called sociedades gastronómicas, in French sociétés gastronomiques.
The first record of a txoko goes back to 1870 in San Sebastián, Spain, from where they spread outwards geographically in all directions. They are a modern development of originally informal groups of friends who would regularly meet to eat, drink, sing, and talk.
During the Franco years, txokos became increasingly popular as they were one of the few places where Basques could legally meet without state control, speak Basque and sing Basque songs as the constitution of the txokos prohibited the discussion of politics on the premises.
Setting up a txoko
Normally, a txoko is set up by a group of friends who decide to set up a society. Once enough founding members have been found, they rent a local restaurant or in some cases, buy an appropriate location and equipment. Normally these are premises in a basement with a kitchen or, in more affluent societies, at ground level. They are funded communally from the outset.
Members pay a monthly membership fee which varies from society to society and the exact setup. A treasurer, administrator and buyer are usually nominated who oversee the administration of the txoko. Usually, someone outside the society is hired to deal with the cleaning.
Each txoko has a society constitution that sets out things like the maximum number of members, administration issues and so on. Curiously, most traditional txokos have a clause in their constitution that prohibits the discussion of politics on the premises. Some very conservative txokos have clauses that do not permit women access to the txoko at all such as the Sociedad Gaztelubide in San Sebastián which goes back to 1933. However, most txokos today allow women access to enter the txoko to eat, drink and socialize, but not to cook.
Because the number of members is fixed, there are usually long waiting lists, and vacancies in existing txokos become available only sporadically.
Running a txoko
Since a txoko typically can have up to 80 members but space for less than that, usually not all members use the txoko at the same time. Someone will normally arrange for a smaller group of friends to get together to cook dinner for themselves, their families or guests.
Such a group then "books" the txoko, buys, collects, harvests, hunts, or fishes for fresh ingredients and gets together to prepare the meal. Each member has free access to the txoko's communal stocks. Every individual is responsible to record items such as food and drink that have been used from the communal stocks for themselves or their personal guests and pay for them. This system is fully self-regulated.
A few times a year, all txoko members are invited to get together which occasionally leads to space problems, but it is rare for all members of a txoko to meet at the same time. The ratio between txoko members and guests can vary greatly. At the very least, one txoko member must be present at a dinner but since members are free to invite as many guests as they wish, they may on occasion be the only member present if they are holding a dinner for their football club, extended family, a business dinner, etc.
Impact on Basque cuisine
The development of txokos has had a significant impact on Basque cuisine. Many traditional dishes have been rescued or resurrected by txokos which would have otherwise died out. They have also influenced the development of new dishes as txoko members frequently experiment with new dishes, ingredients and methods, or variations of existing dishes. They are also places where information on the best and cheapest ingredients available is exchanged. This in turn has led to Basque cuisine being both highly refined and affordable.
- Plaza, Joseba Txoko in Wandler, R. (ed) Euskadi Walter Frey 1999
- Trask, Larry The History of Basque Routledge 1997 | <urn:uuid:3b13d15d-ca68-4f8b-971a-17c10c0edffe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Txoko | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957952 | 945 | 2.21875 | 2 |
Ivanhoe Mines , owner of Mongolia’s Oyu Tolgoi project, will scrap a controversial “poison pill”, clearing the way for its single largest shareholder, Rio Tinto, to take over what could be one of the world’s largest copper-gold mines.
News that Ivanhoe’s board will propose throwing out the shareholder rights plan, originally aimed at blocking a creeping increase in Rio Tinto’s stake, came as a separate standstill agreement capping the global miner’s holding at 49 per cent expired on Wednesday.
Rio, which has built its stake in the miner to 49 per cent as it has helped fund construction of Oyu Tolgoi, welcomed the decision.
“As the 49 percent cap on Rio Tinto’s ownership of Ivanhoe expires today, we are free to increase our shareholding as we see fit,” a Rio spokesman said.
In a statement, Ivanhoe said Rio had recently told Ivanhoe’s board that it intends to buy additional shares to raise its stake to more than 50 per cent.
Ivanhoe’s rights plan, backed by shareholders in 2010 and due to expire next year, was dealt a fatal blow in December when a court ruled it could not be used to dilute Rio’s stake. The ruling recommended Ivanhoe consider scrapping the provision, which would have triggered a massive rights issue in the event of a bid.
“Certainly Rio would like to own it, they would like to control it - it is their biggest copper project. They see it is a great asset and they are willing to back it,” said analyst Nik Stanojevic at brokerage Brewin Dolphin in London.
“They want to buy it and they will think of a sensible way of getting hold of more of it.”
Credit Suisse estimated this week that the poison pill plan would have required require $73-billion (U.S.) of funding from shareholders if triggered, including $38-billion from Rio.
“The board of directors has decided that the interests of shareholders and the company’s strategic objectives would be best served by the termination of the company’s shareholders’ rights plan,” Ivanhoe said in a statement.
Cancelling the plan will require approval of shareholders at the company’s annual meeting on May 11.
Analysts said Rio, still scarred by its costly takeover of Canadian aluminium giant Alcan in 2007, was unlikely to jump into an aggressive move to take over Oyu Tolgoi or Ivanhoe - or get into a potentially bruising battle with Ivanhoe’s CEO, Robert Friedland.
Rio’s preference, they said, is most likely to lie with a friendly deal with Ivanhoe directors to give Rio control of Oyu Tolgoi in a cash and share swap, leaving behind Ivanhoe’s other assets, including stakes in coal miner South Gobi Resources, Ivanhoe Mine Australia and Kazakh project Kyzyl Gold.
Credit Suisse analysts valued the 66-per-cent stake in Oyu Tolgoi at $13.3-billion in a note earlier this week.
Ivanhoe’s Friedland, one of the industry’s best known entrepreneurs, may be ready to move on to fresh pastures, but he is also renowned for tough negotiation, having extracted a fortune from Inco for the Voisey’s Bay nickel deposit in Eastern Canada - the 1990s deal that made his name.
There are no other apparent buyers for Oyu Tolgoi, with Rio already controlling a blocking stake in Ivanhoe. It also already operates the project and is one of few companies with the deep pockets necessary to fund a similar sized mine.
This could allow Rio time to resolve key operational issues at Oyu Tolgoi, including power provision to the site.
Oyu Tolgoi, considered one of the world’s largest copper deposits, is expected to reach commercial production in 2013. Over its first 10 years, the mine is expected to produce more than 544,000 tonnes of copper, 650,000 ounces of gold, and 3 million ounces of silver.
Ivanhoe made Wednesday’s announcement as it said it had obtained second $1.8 billion bridge loan as a stopgap measure while it negotiates $4 billion in long-term financing for Oyu Tolgoi. The bridge loan is subject to Rio approval.
Shares of Ivanhoe were down 1.4 per cent at $19.02 (Canadian) on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Rio was up 0.2 percent in London.
Companies & investments Mentioned In This Article (2)
RIO-N 45.4 0.83 | <urn:uuid:d8ab358e-054e-4b36-b58a-3127417252b2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://m.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/energy-and-resources/ivanhoe-cancels-poison-pill-paves-way-for-rio-deal/article549448/?service=mobile | 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 | 0.956663 | 995 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Marathi is the official language of the state of Maharashtra. It is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people of western India. The 4th most spoken language in India and the 15th most spoken language in the world, Marathi has almost 90 million fluent speakers worldwide. It is spoken in India, Israel and Mauritius. Marathi speaking population is also found in United States, Suriname, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, Netherlands, Canada, UAE, South Africa, Israel, Pakistan Singapore, Germany, UK, Australia and New Zealand.
The history of Marathi can be traced back far beyond the 10th century. It descends from Sanskrit through Pali, Maharashtri and Maharashtra - Apabhramsa. It is said have evolved from Sanskrit through Prakrit and Apabhramsha, with grammar and syntax derived from Pali and Prakrit. A gradual process of change and modification in the spoken language has led to the present day Marathi. The origin and growth of Marathi literature is indebted to two important events. The first was the rise of the Jadhava dynasty, whose capital was Devgiri.
The Jadhava’s adopted Marathi as the court language and patronized Marathi learned men. The second event was the coming of two religious sects known as Mahanubhav Panth and Warkari Panth that adopted Marathi as the medium for preaching their doctrines of devotion. Writers of the Mahanubhav sect contributed to Marathi prose, while the saint-poets of Warkari sect composed Marathi poetry. However, the latter group is regarded as the pioneers and founders of Marathi literature.
During the 11th century, written Marathi first appeared in the form of inscriptions on stones and copper plates. It is written in both Devanagari and Modi script.
Marathi has been written with the Devanagari alphabet since 1950. Marathi Devanagari script, also known as Balbodh script is written from left to right and is different from Hindi or any other languages. It consists of 16 vowel letters and 36 consonant letters making a total of 52 letters.
It was written with the Modi alphabet from the 13th century until the mid 20th century. Most writings of the Maratha Empire are seen in Modi script. It was written in modi script which was basically designed for minimizing the lifting of pen from paper while writing.
Dialects are the linguistic varieties that generate when slight changes in the original language are seen. There are many varieties of Marathi language, depending upon the various parts, region, areas and most importantly the speakers. Indic scholars distinguish 42 dialects of spoken Marathi. Historically, according to the scholars, the major dialect divisions have been Ahirani, Khandeshi, Varhadi, Wadvali, Samavedi Are Marathi, Konkani, Thanjavur Marathi, Namdev Marathi, Dangii, Judæo-Marathi, Kadodii, Warli, Dakshini, Deshi, Deccan, Nagpuri, Ikrani and Gowlan. | <urn:uuid:331cb8f5-509b-485a-a971-da0f868187e3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://languages.iloveindia.com/marathi.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952461 | 657 | 3.53125 | 4 |
Linderman, Charles E. Hon.
The following data is extracted from History of Page County Iowa.
Not the good that comes to us but the good that comes to the world through us is the measure of our success, and judged by this standard as well as by the ratings of the business world Hon. Charles E. Linderman was a most successful man. He was numbered among the prominent, valued, honored and respected citizens of southwestern Iowa and left the impress of his individuality for good on its substantial development and improvement. He stood for high ideals in citizenship, in business affairs and in private life, and the nobility of his manhood made him most honored and respected where best known.
A native of Orange county, New York, Mr. Linderman was born near Bloomingburg, February 4, 1829, and was of German lineage on the paternal side and of Irish descent on the maternal side. He was the ninth in order of birth in a family of eleven children and his early education, acquired in the common schools near his boyhood's home, was supplemented by study in the academy at Bloomingburg, while in 1851 he entered Hamilton College, at Clinton, New York, and was graduated from that institution with the class of 1854. For a year thereafter he engaged in teaching school at Seneca Falls, New York, but in 1855 he resolved to seek his fortune in the great west and accordingly came to Iowa. For one winter he taught school in Scott county and then in the spring of 1856 went to the territory of Nebraska and for a season assisted the government surveyors in establishing the sixth principal meridian. In November of the same year lie located at Sidney, Fremont county, Iowa, where he remained until the spring of 1859, and in April of the same year he came to Clarinda and entered upon the practice of law but soon abandoned the profession for other duties.
In the fall of that year Mr. Linderman was appointed clerk of the district court and in the fall of 186o was elected to that office and reelected in 1862. In the latter year, however, he resigned and offered his services to the government in defense of the Union, enlisting as a member of Company A, Eighth Iowa Cavalry, as a private. On the organization of the regiment he was made second lieutenant of his company. The regiment was sent forward to Louisville and in the fall and winter of 1863-64 was engaged in guarding the railroads and putting an end to the guerrilla warfare that had been so successfully waged around Waverly and other points west of Nashville. In the spring of 1864 the regiment became a part of the army that was to fight and win the Atlanta campaign and he took part in most of the engagements of that campaign. At its close the regiment became a part of General Thomas' command that was to resist General Hood's attempt to capture Nashville and participated in the engagements with General Hood's army while General Thomas was falling back upon Nashville and also during General Thomas' advance upon General Hood that resulted in the destruction of the heroic army commanded by that Confederate leader. In the spring of 1865 the regiment was attached to General Wilson's cavalry command and with it fought its way from Alabama and Georgia and had reached Macon, Georgia, on its way to join General Sherman in his campaign from Savannah along the Atlantic coast, when its further progress was stopped by the close of the war. Except when on detailed duty as provost marshal and acting quartermaster Lieutenant Linderman was at the front, meeting with every peril, discharging every duty with the highest courage and conspicuous fidelity, at all times and under all circumstances displaying those and only those qualities that characterize a true soldier and general. As in civil, so in military life, his absolute devotion to duty, joined with a genial disposition, won for him the confidence and general respect of all who came in contact with him. He represented one of the best types of American manhood-an honorable, useful, public-spirited citizen in times of peace; a loyal, courageous, volunteer soldier in the hour of his country's peril.
At the close of the war Lieutenant Linderman gladly sought a home among those who knew him best and therefore loved him most. He possessed business ability of a high order and accumulated a considerable fortune, becoming one of the largest property owners in the county. He never allowed the accumulation of wealth, however, to dwarf his finer sensibilities nor to dull his interest in his fellowmen. He was generous in charity although he avoided anything like ostentation in his benevolence. The integrity of his life and the value of his public service were recognized and in the fall of 1865 he was elected by the voters of Page county as their representative in the eleventh general assembly. The following year he was elected to the responsible position of clerk of the supreme court of Iowa and by successive reelections held the office for eight years. In 1875 he became identified with the banking interests of Clarinda and soon became president of the oldest and strongest bank of the city, which position he retained, except for a short interval or two, until his death. It was in January, 1875, that he purchased an interest in the First National Bank of Clarinda, now known as the Page County State Bank, and as its chief executive officer his opinions carried great weight in its management, while his enterprise was a substantial factor in its success. In 1892 Mr. Linderman was again called from private to public life in his reelection to the general assembly. It was in that year that the prohibition party broke down the republican prestige and the state went for Boies. The republicans had to bring out their very best man in order to save the county from going democratic. Mr. Linderman was persuaded to make the race and he won by a hard struggle, the vote standing twenty-four hundred and twenty-seven for Mr. Linderman, and twenty-one hundred and twenty-one for Jesse B. Bartley, who was running as an independent, supported by the democrats. It is doubtful if any other man than Mr. Linderman could have succeeded in that year. He served acceptably as a member of the house and at the close of the session returned again to his banking business.
On the 7th of November 1877, Mr. Linderman was united in marriage to Mrs. S. E. Conine, who was a daughter of j. H. Powers, one of the pioneers of the county. Mr. and Mrs. Linderman had one child, Ina Lucile, now the wife of Frank L. Blair, of Creston.
From the time of Mr. Linderman's arrival in Clarinda to the day of his death he was actively identified with the up building and development of his home town and county and was ever willing and ready to assist in each laudable undertaking. His acquaintances became his friends and he retained their confidence to the end. A prominent Mason, Mr. Linderman also held membership with the Odd Fellows and the Knights of Pythias. He was, moreover, a member of the Loyal Legion and of Warren Post, No. 11, G. A. R., and through his business, social and political connections he had an extensive acquaintance throughout the state. For more than half a century he was a resident of Iowa and during all of that time was actively identified with the interests which have produced the marvelous growth and development of the state. The feeling in which he was held in his home town is shown by the fact that some years ago the people of Clarinda sought a name for their new hotel-the name of some man among them most representative and most esteemed-and the choice fell unanimously upon the "Linderman."
The death of Mr. Linderman occurred April 15, 1907, after which the various societies to which lie belonged took official action concerning his death, writing most fitting resolutions of honor and respect. In his demise the county lost one of its earliest pioneers, most honored citizens and a man whose long life was a credit to himself and to the people among whom he lived. His modest, unassuming manner often hid his real worth. Whereever he was known he was held in the highest respect for he lived close to the high ideals of honorable manhood and upright citizenship. Moreover, his was a most kindly, genial nature that inspired and retained friendship.
Source: History of Page County Iowa | <urn:uuid:52596839-0e5a-473f-a42b-cfe891e981c9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.accessgenealogy.com/scripts/data/database.cgi?file=Data&report=SingleArticle&ArticleID=0010668 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.990109 | 1,712 | 1.546875 | 2 |
The latest news about biotechnologies, biomechanics
synthetic biology, genomics, biomediacl engineering...
Posted: Jul 5th, 2012
Waste to watts: Improving microbial fuel cells
(Nanowerk News) Some of the planet’s tiniest inhabitants may help address two of society’s biggest environmental challenges: how to deal with the vast quantities of organic waste produced and where to find clean, renewable energy.
According to César Torres and Sudeep Popat, researchers at Arizona State University’s Biodesign Institute, certain kinds of bacteria are adept at converting waste into useful energy. These microorganisms are presently being applied to the task, through an innovative technology known as a microbial fuel cell or MFC.
As Torres explains, “the great advantage of the microbial fuel cell is the direct conversion of organic waste into electricity. “ In the future, MFC’s may be linked to municipal waste streams or sources of agricultural and animal waste, providing a sustainable system for waste treatment and energy production.
To scale up the technology however, improvements in efficiency will be required. “My particular focus is to understand at a fundamental level how anode respiring bacteria transfer electrons from their cells onto an electrode,” Popat says, “as well as to design new systems that are both economical and efficient.”
The group was able to demonstrate that significant loss in MFC efficiency was due to reactions occurring at the fuel cell’s cathode. By modifying materials used in the cathode, as well as adjusting pH levels, they were able to improve cathode performance.
The group’s research results appeared recently in the journal ChemSusChem in a special issue devoted to MFC technology.
This graphic shows the basic setup for a microbial fuel cell. An MFC consists of an anode, a cathode, a proton or cation exchange membrane and an electrical circuit. Anode respiring bacteria cling to the anode of the MFC. In the course of their metabolic activity, these bacteria strip electrons from organic waste. The electrons then flow through a circuit to the cathode, producing electricity in the process, in addition to CO2 and water. Hydroxide or OH- ions are transported from the cathode into the surrounding electrolyte.
Torres and Popat work in Biodesign’s Swette Center for Environmental Biotechnology, directed by ASU Regents’ professor Bruce Rittmann—a co-author of the current study. Environmental biotechnology is a rapidly developing discipline in which disparate fields including microbiology, bioinformatics, chemistry, genomics, materials science, and engineering join together to harness biological entities—including bacteria—for the purpose of helping society.
Two chief areas of environmental biotechnology are bioremediation, or the clean up of environmental contaminants, and the production of clean energy. As the authors note, an MFC can perform double duty, targeting electrons from waste streams and converting them into useful energy.
An MFC is a unique kind of battery—part electrochemical cell, part biological reactor. Typically, it contains two electrodes, separated by an ion exchange membrane. On the anode side, bacteria grow and proliferate, forming a dense cell aggregate known as a biofilm that adheres to the MFC’s anode. In the course of their microbial metabolism, the bacteria act as catalysts for converting the organic substrate into CO2, protons, and electrons.
Under natural conditions, many bacteria use oxygen as a final electron acceptor to produce water, but in the oxygen-free environment of the MFC, specialized bacteria that send the electrons to an insoluble electron acceptor, namely the MFC’s anode, dominate.
The anode-respiring bacteria are able to oxidize organic pollutants, such as those found in waste streams, and transfer the electrons to the anode. The scavenged electrons then flow through an electrical circuit, terminating at the MFC’s cathode, thus generating electricity. Ions are transported through the fuel cell’s ion membrane, to maintain electroneutrality, although the membrane is often excluded. The basic setup is pictured in the figure above.
In an effort to refine the technology and address losses in MFC efficiency, the group looked at the oxygen reduction reaction at the MFC cathode. While it had earlier been speculated that efficiency loss at the cathode was due to a low availability of protons, the new research showed instead that the transport of hydroxide ions (OH-) away from the catalyst layer of the cathode and into the surrounding liquid largely governed cathode potential losses in the device.
“We found that the cathodes were limiting the power densities we can produce in these MFCs,” Popat says. “This is very surprising because, in chemical fuel cells, the same catalyst allows much greater power densities.”
A key to the disparity lies in the fact that MFC’s, unlike chemical fuel cells, must operate at neutral pH in the anode chamber to ensure optimum growth and activity of the microorganisms catalyzing the reactions. At the cathode, OH- ions cause a local increase in pH, due to a limiting rate of their transport. Further, every unit of pH increase at the cathode results in a loss of 59 millivolts of energy—the authors found that the local cathode pH could easily reach >12, representing a substantial loss.
To attempt to remedy this situation, the group conducted a detailed examination of transport properties at the cathode. An ion exchange binder contained in the cathode usually assists transport of ions to the surrounding electrolyte. Normally, this binder is made from a material called Nafion, which the authors explain is good for transporting positively charged cations like protons, but a poor conductor of negatively charged anions like the hydroxide ions that accumulate at the MFC cathode, or anionic buffer species, such as phosphates and bicarbonates, that help transport OH- ions.
An experimental polymer known as AS-4, which has high anion-exchange capacity, was substituted for Nafion as a cathode binder in the study. The modification ensured the efficient transport of hydroxide ions and improved the performance of the cathode. The study showed that OH- transport could be further enhanced by adjusting pH directly, though the addition of CO2 mixed with air as a buffer for the cathode catalyst.
The study represents the first comprehensive analysis of cathode limitations in MFC’s and will further the development of these systems through refinement of materials and operating conditions. “The main importance of our study is not to provide immediate answers, but to conduct a mechanistic study to determine how the cathode operates and identify the sources of inefficiency,” Torres explains. “Now we can begin to work on solutions.”
Source: By Richard Harth, Arizona State University
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Check out these other trending stories on Nanowerk: | <urn:uuid:70cc5cca-5bbd-46c9-b743-b881cce9aeb7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nanowerk.com/news2/biotech/newsid=25893.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93298 | 1,480 | 3.09375 | 3 |
Rather than waiting for an outbreak before it can order a recall, the Food and Drug Administration will now require producers to reduce contamination risks before food goes to market.
Congress has passed sweeping legislation aimed at making the U.S. food supply safer.
The bill gives the government broad new powers to inspect processing plants, order recalls and impose stricter standards for imported foods. And, rather than having to waiting for an outbreak to start before it can order a recall, the Food and Drug Administration will now require producers to draw up detailed food safety plans to reduce contamination risks before food goes to market.
While the new law tightens regulations on food producers, it does exempt small producers. That's a concession to the growing local-food movement in the United States.
U.S. health authorities say one in six Americans gets sick from food borne illness each year. Rylee Gustafson was one of them.
When she was nine years old, Rylee ate spinach contaminated with E. coli bacteria. She was one of the worst affected of at least 200 people in 26 states who got sick in that 2006 outbreak.
She says it started with cramps and diarrhea, but got much worse. "Blood just started coming out and it was just really gruesome and very terrifying because I didn't know what was happening to me."
Rylee got so sick her kidneys shut down and she may eventually need a transplant.
More recently, outbreaks linked to eggs, peanut butter and other foods affecting hundreds of people in multiple states have also drawn a great deal of attention.
The new law aims to prevent those outbreaks.
"You've got a real shift here, a paradigm shift in how the government ensures that the food supply is safer," says Sandra Eskin, food safety campaign director at the Pew Charitable Trusts.
She says tightened regulation is especially important in today's food production system. While contamination is rare, a little bit can go a long way. "Any initial contamination can be compounded and, again, spread widely if a product is mixed with other non-contaminated products."
She says it was the mixing of contaminated and non-contaminated spinach, shipped nationwide, that caused the widespread 2006 outbreak.
Advocates of the local-food movement in the United States won an exemption from the new regulations for smaller growers who sell to local markets.
Industrial v. local food
Opposition to the industrial food system is one of the factors behind a growing local food movement. The number of markets where consumers can buy directly from small, local farmers has more than doubled in the last decade, to more than 6,000 nationwide.
Monika Blaumueller lives near one such market in Washington, D.C. "I have a lot of confidence in the food. I know that things are done in small batches. That makes it more sanitary."
She might feel safer but experts say local food carries the same risks. However, fewer people would be affected by an outbreak at a smaller-scale farmers' market than at a food factory.
Small farmers worried that rules intended for big corporations would squash the local food movement.
"A one-size-fits-all approach would have put small farmers and ranches out of business or prevented them from providing locally produced, healthy, fresh food to consumers who want it," says Susan Prolman, executive director of the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.
In an indication of how popular the movement has become, advocates won an exemption from the regulations for growers below a certain size who sell to local markets.
That's a mistake, says Tom O'Brien, an attorney for the industry trade group the Produce Marketing Association.
"There's an assumption that there are two separate and distinct markets for food: one of large guys and one of small. At least in the produce industry, that's not how it works. It's really an integrated market."
And, he notes, a growing number of restaurants and big supermarket chains buy locally grown produce. That will make it hard for consumers to know whether or not their food is protected by the new law.
Despite that drawback, most food safety advocates support the new law and say it should reduce the number of Americans like Rylee Gustafson who get sick from tainted food. | <urn:uuid:f69b933f-18f0-40e9-9fd5-4af0eade564f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.voanews.com/content/us-passes-sweeping-food-safety-law-112317799/171324.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963778 | 878 | 3 | 3 |
The GNOME Display Manager (GDM) is a component of the GNOME desktop environment that provides a graphical login prompt. It is used on many Linux distributions and is often the first interactive part of the desktop that users experience after the computer finishes booting. GDM is themable, and is often customized by distributors to include branding, but has changed little over the years.
GNOME eye-candy expert Mirco Müller, who is employed by Canonical, is currently working on refining the login experience to make it aesthetically richer and more interactive. He is designing an animated face browser for the next generation GNOME display manager, which will be used in a future version of Ubuntu. Although the functional details and visual design haven't been finalized yet, the basic experience is documented in a specification at the Ubuntu wiki.
According to the proposal, the new face browser will display user account images in a grid and will allow users to select their account either by clicking an image or typing their username. The face browser will automatically filter the visible images while the user is typing so that only accounts with usernames that match the inputted letters are displayed. After an account is selected, the user will be prompted for their password. Tools like GNOME's new Cheese webcam utility could also potentially be integrated with GDM configuration utilities so that users can take their own picture and use it as their account icon.
Müller intends to develop the new login interface with Clutter, an open source canvas and scene-graph library built on OpenGL. Clutter, which is being developed by OpenedHand, is one of several canvas solutions that is being evaluated for potential inclusion in the next generation of the GTK+ toolkit. Clutter is also being tested experimentally in GNOME's image viewer and in at least one program in GNOME's game collection.
Müller has used Clutter to create an intriguing interactive animation prototype that provides some insight into what the face browser might eventually look like. The video is available for download from his web site. Keep in mind that it's still just an early experiment for testing animation capabilities and the Clutter API. It's a very impressive start and does a nice job of showing how Clutter can be used to add some extra polish to a simple interface. | <urn:uuid:7698768f-5b26-44ab-86a3-1671f83a4877> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2008/04/ubuntus-opengl-face-browser-will-bring-bling-to-gdm/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947092 | 460 | 1.882813 | 2 |
Go to Admin » Appearance » Widgets » and move Gabfire Widget: Social into that MastheadOverlay zone
Republican Rep. Michelle Bachmann — a frequent critic of government waste and excessive spending — is less critical when that money comes into her Minnesota congressional district.
Bachmann, for example, is a staunch supporter of a $690 million bridge project that would connect the 20,000 inhabitants of Stillwater, MN, to a small, unincorporated town in Wisconsin just across the St. Croix River.
David Williams, president of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, calls Bachmann’s double-standard the “height of hypocrisy.”
In an statement to The Daily Caller, Williams said:
As a self-acclaimed fiscally conservative member of Congress you can’t pick and choose which projects are questionable and which are not just because a project happens to be in your district. Being a budget hawk also means that you have to scrutinize projects that are in your district or state.
Bachmann’s office defends the project as a safety issue and claims the bridge should have been built years ago. But critics say other bridges in Minnesota need to be replaced and should have a higher priority than the St. Croix River project.
Those bridges, however, are not in Michelle Bachmann’s district so the Minnesota Congresswoman considers them wasteful spending. | <urn:uuid:701b8bdc-4ea0-4210-b8e1-ba5d6c462d74> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.capitolhillblue.com/node/42359 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939026 | 289 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Special Ops Body Armor Recalled After Safety Defects Found
(NEW YORK) -- Thousands of body armor plates worn by U.S. Special Operations troops are being recalled after it was discovered that a small percentage of the plates have safety defects.
The defects were identified in less than 5 percent of the Generation III ballistic armor plates that are issued to Special Forces, a spokesperson for United States Special Operations Command confirmed to ABCNews.com.
"The command has also developed and implemented a test that is being used in the field to determine if a plate is defective. All ballistic plates have been tested and Special Operations Forces are performing the test as part of their pre-combat inspection," USSOCOM said in a statement.
An analysis determined the small percentage of plates were defective due to "internal manufacturing and quality assurance processes" during manufacture by Ceradyne, Inc.
"The Department of Defense was actually the one that found this flaw, and it would seem at least from the reporting that there may be some question about whether the company was responsive to fixing it and acknowledging that there was a problem," ABC News military consultant and retired Marine Col. Stephen Ganyard said.
While the California-based ceramics manufacturer is making the new plates, Generation II plates will be issued in exchange for the defective ones, USSOCOM said.
No one has been killed or wounded as a result of the defective body armor, according to USSOCCOM.
The plates, which are inserted into bullet proof vests, have saved countless lives over the years.
"I think the most troubling thing here is that we've damaged the trust that our troops have in their safety kit, and that's a problem," Ganyard said. "The troops ought to be able to go outside the wire and have every confidence that their ballistic plates are going to prevent a bullet from penetrating their vests.
"This has probably shaken their faith in their equipment, and that's the real fallout here," he said.
ABCNews.com was unable to immediately reach Ceradyne for comment.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio | <urn:uuid:c1812d3d-1cd5-4db0-8196-ace90eaba410> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.eastidahonews.com/2012/11/special-ops-body-armor-recalled-after-safety-defects-found/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983198 | 430 | 1.671875 | 2 |
U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, Three Aides Killed in Libya
The U.S. Ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens (pictured), and three American members of his staff were killed in an attack on the U.S. consulate in the eastern city of Benghazi inspired by anger over a film posted on YouTube and promoted by Florida pastor Terry Jones:
Jones showed the trailer for the film, which disparages the life of the Prophet Mohammed and his followers, on Tuesday during what he called, "International Judge Mohammad Day."
"Reports say the film depicts Muhammad and Islam’s other founders as womanizers, child molesters and homosexuals," according to the Wisconsin Gazette.
Graphic photos (warning) of what appears to be Ambassador Stevens after the attack were released by AFP.
President Obama released a statement:
I strongly condemn the outrageous attack on our diplomatic facility in Benghazi, which took the lives of four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens. Right now, the American people have the families of those we lost in our thoughts and prayers. They exemplified America's commitment to freedom, justice, and partnership with nations and people around the globe, and stand in stark contrast to those who callously took their lives.
I have directed my Administration to provide all necessary resources to support the security of our personnel in Libya, and to increase security at our diplomatic posts around the globe. While the United States rejects efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others, we must all unequivocally oppose the kind of senseless violence that took the lives of these public servants.
On a personal note, Chris was a courageous and exemplary representative of the United States. Throughout the Libyan revolution, he selflessly served our country and the Libyan people at our mission in Benghazi. As Ambassador in Tripoli, he has supported Libya's transition to democracy. His legacy will endure wherever human beings reach for liberty and justice. I am profoundly grateful for his service to my Administration, and deeply saddened by this loss.
The brave Americans we lost represent the extraordinary service and sacrifices that our civilians make every day around the globe. As we stand united with their families, let us now redouble our own efforts to carry their work forward.
As did Secretary of State Clinton:
I condemn in the strongest terms the attack on our mission in Benghazi today. As we work to secure our personnel and facilities, we have confirmed that one of our State Department officers was killed. We are heartbroken by this terrible loss. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and those who have suffered in this attack.
This evening, I called Libyan President Magariaf to coordinate additional support to protect Americans in Libya. President Magariaf expressed his condemnation and condolences and pledged his government's full cooperation.
Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet. The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. Our commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation. But let me be clear: There is never any justification for violent acts of this kind.
In light of the events of today, the United States government is working with partner countries around the world to protect our personnel, our missions, and American citizens worldwide.
Mitt Romney launched a political attack on Obama:
“I'm outraged by the attacks on American diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt and by the death of an American consulate worker in Benghazi," said Romney in the statement, which the campaign initially embargoed for midnight, which was when the 9/11 anniversary would have ended, and was sent out a short time ago (this was one of the sharper statements of the day, although as I noted earlier, the anniversary was hardly devoid of politics by both Democrats and the Obama campaign, and Republicans, before this).
"It's disgraceful that the Obama Administration's first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks,” Romney added.
The Obama campaign responded:
“We are shocked that, at a time when the United States of America is confronting the tragic death of one of our diplomatic officers in Libya, Governor Romney would choose to launch a political attack.” | <urn:uuid:1549b8b6-7d8a-4f03-aebf-e52820eec7b4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.towleroad.com/2012/09/president-obamas-statement-i-strongly-condemn-the-outrageous-attack-on-our-diplomatic-facility-in-benghazi-which-took-the/comments/page/1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969813 | 860 | 1.5625 | 2 |
COLUMBUS, Ohio — A federal appeals court on Friday reinstated in-person early voting in the battleground of Ohio on the final three days before the Nov. 6 election, handing a victory to President Barack Obama's campaign.
But local boards of elections would have the discretion to decide whether to allow voters to cast an early ballot on the weekend and Monday before Election Day – just as they could in 2008.
The ruling by the three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati came in a case targeting a state law that ends early voting for most residents on the Friday evening before a Tuesday election. The law makes an exception for military personnel and Ohio voters living overseas.
Obama's campaign and Democrats sued Ohio's Secretary of State Jon Husted and Attorney General Mike DeWine, both Republicans, over the legality of the law. They argued that everyone should have a chance to vote on those days.
Husted said Friday evening that his office was still reviewing the 6th Circuit's decision.
"On Monday, we will make a determination on how to proceed legally and provide administrative guidance to Ohio's boards of elections," his office said in a statement.
Ohio is among 34 states, plus the District of Columbia, where people can vote early without giving any reason. About 30 percent of the swing state's total vote – or roughly 1.7 million ballots – came in ahead of Election Day in 2008. Crucial to Obama's win that year was early voting in Ohio, North Carolina and Florida.
Obama won Ohio in the last presidential election, but Republican rival Mitt Romney is making a strong play for it. No GOP candidate has won the White House without Ohio in his column.
Obama's campaign praised the Ohio ruling in a statement Friday.
"As a result of this decision, every voter, including military, veterans, and overseas voters alongside all Ohioans, will have the same opportunity to vote early through the weekend and Monday before the election," said Bob Bauer, general counsel for Obama for America.
In the same week as the Ohio decision, a judge ruled Tuesday that Pennsylvania voters won't have to show photo identification to cast ballots on Election Day, a move that could help Obama.
The Democrats who sued in Ohio said a series of legislative changes by state lawmakers had arbitrarily eliminated the opportunity for most Ohio residents to vote in person on the three final days before the election, while giving military or overseas voters the chance to do so. They estimated in their lawsuit that 93,000 people voted during the final three-day window before the 2008 election.
Attorneys for the state have said many laws already grant military personnel special voting accommodations, such as requirements for states to send them absentee ballots 45 days before the election. And they contend local boards also need those three days to prepare for the election.
U.S. District Judge Peter Economus in Columbus had ruled that voters' right to cast ballots in person on those three final days outweighs the state's reasons for limiting that opportunity. The judge issued a preliminary injunction on Aug. 31, concluding that the state's law was unconstitutional in changing the in-person early voting deadline and that the state was wrongly valuing certain votes above others.
The appeals court affirmed the lower court's ruling on Friday.
"While we readily acknowledge the need to provide military voters more time to vote, we see no corresponding justification for giving others less time," Judge Eric L. Clay wrote in the opinion.
Economus had said in his ruling that he expected Husted to direct all county elections boards to maintain a specific, consistent schedule on those final three days.
But the appeals court said it didn't interpret the judge's order as mandating early voting hours during the final days.
While the state can't prevent nonmilitary voters from participating in early voting, Clay wrote, "the State is not affirmatively required to order the boards to be open for early voting."
Clay said local boards of elections would have the discretion to allow all Ohio voters to vote during Saturday, Nov. 3; Sunday, Nov. 4; and Monday, Nov. 5.
At least two elections boards have already set their own hours on disputed days.
Jefferson County in eastern Ohio and Wayne County in the northeast have voted to establish their own times ahead of the ruling from the appeals court. And elections board members in Summit County, where Akron is the county seat, also voted on early voting hours during the final days. But it was unclear if that vote counted because of questions over whether they had a quorum. | <urn:uuid:adb58a81-c786-4039-a722-5decc713647e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20121005/us-early-voting-dispute/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976306 | 931 | 1.609375 | 2 |
IUCN welcomes France’s significant scale-up of marine protected areas
27 August 2009 | News story
France has significantly boosted progress towards improved protection of the marine environment. President Sarkozy speaking recently in Le Havre announced the creation of marine protected areas (MPAs) covering 20% of the country’s Exclusive Economic Zone.
Dan Laffoley, Marine Vice Chair of IUCN’s World Commission on Protected Areas, in welcoming the announcement said ‘The President has set an ambitious target that half of the new MPAs should be no-take and is committing France to becoming a new world leader in marine conservation.’ ‘This is particularly impressive as France has the second largest maritime territory in the world behind the United States – some 11 million square kilometers’ he added.
The heart of this process is a ‘blue book’ which will define the French maritime strategy (“Grenelle de la Mer”) and which will be in place by the end of 2009.
In making the announcement President Sarkozy stated ‘Today France protects less than 1% of its maritime space. By 2012 marine protected areas will cover 10% of the territory. By 2020, these marine protected areas will reach 20% of the 11 million square kilometres of sea under the sovereignty of France. And I expect that half of that scope should be established as reserves and no-take zones to be defined with fishermen, scientists and local stakeholders. It is in these places that marine biodiversity will be preserved, and that marine resources will be able to recover, allowing to sustain fishing in our country in the future.’
‘This network of protection, covering some 2 million square kilometres, will extend both along its coast metropolis especially in the Mediterranean, and throughout the French overseas territories: the Antilles, New Caledonia, Polynesia and the Indian Ocean.’ The President added.
Full text of President Sarkozy’s speech can be accessed at:
English version at: | <urn:uuid:f3d2e18d-cb6a-404b-9b47-3d1914ab250d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.iucn.org/fr/nouvelles_homepage/nouvelles_par_date/2009_news_fr/aout_news_2009/?3831/france-mpas | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.908478 | 415 | 2.484375 | 2 |
In the largest investigation of its kind, published in the journal Cancer, researchers found that women who regularly take aspirin have a decreased risk of developing melanoma, and that the protection may be cumulative — the longer they take it, the lower their risk.
More than 61,000 people were diagnosed with skin cancer in the U.S. in 2009, the latest year for which statistics were collected by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and deaths from melanoma cost $3.5 billion in lost productivity each year. Despite greater awareness of the dangers of tanning, as well as the importance of protecting sun-exposed exposed skin with clothing or sunscreen, diagnoses of melanoma have inched upward by 2% each year between 2000 and 2009.
In the latest study, the researchers studied 59,806 women between ages 50 to 79 enrolled in the Women’s Health Initiative who were followed for around 12 years. The women answered questions about their medication use, diet and other lifestyle habits such as sun exposure. And even after controlling for skin cancer risk factors such as tanning and low use of sunscreen, the women who reported taking aspirin at least twice a week showed a 21% lower risk of melanoma than the women who didn’t take the pain killer. And the longer they stayed on aspirin, the lower their risk; women who used aspirin regularly for one to four years for example, showed an 11% lower risk of melanoma compared to those who didn’t take the pills for that time, while women who continued taking aspirin for five or more years enjoyed a 30% lower chance of developing melanoma.
How is the pain killer connected to cancer?
The explain could lie with inflammation, the potentially damaging reaction by the immune system to stresses, irritants and foreign intruders such as bacteria and viruses. Since aspirin works to reduce inflammation, it could help to quiet down the processes that can trigger cells to grow abnormally. The study isn’t the first to connect the anti-inflammatory effects of aspirin to a lower risk of developing melanoma, but it is the largest to see a significant pattern among pain killer users. In other studies, aspirin has been associated with a lower risk of other cancers, potentially for the same reason that curbing inflammation may also inhibit tumors. A study published last year linked aspirin and other pain relief drugs like ibuprofen, called nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), to a 46% lower risk of colon, lung and prostate cancers. But the current study did not find a protective effect against melanoma for NSAIDs other than aspirin.
The findings are exciting for the cancer prevention, since aspirin is widely available and inexpensive. But because the study only compared past use to melanoma outcomes, the researchers say the next step in confirming the results would be to conduct a clinical study in which some participants take aspirin on a regular basis and others do not, to test whether the pain killer can prevent melanoma. Any benefits, they say, will have to be weighed against the risks of taking aspirin, which include stomach bleeding and clotting disorders.
“There’ve been about eight studies that have looked at melanoma, and about half of them find slightly lower risk and half find no connection at all. You look at the totality of the evidence, and right now it’s rather mixed,” Eric Jacobs, an epidemiologist at the American Cancer Society told NPR.
Until the data on aspirin and skin cancer is solidified, he and other cancer experts recommend avoiding tanning beds, using sunscreen with SPF above 15 and finding shade and covering up when in the sun in order to lower chances of developing skin cancer. | <urn:uuid:aad1ac45-a2e7-4c7f-aa9b-d091a9e814cc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://healthland.time.com/2013/03/11/can-aspirin-keep-skin-cancer-at-bay/?iid=ol-article-mostpop2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956107 | 751 | 3.09375 | 3 |
Enhancing our academic program and the liberal arts
We will build on our commitment to excellence in liberal arts education.
In the context of this Strategic Plan, Cedar Crest reaffirms its mission as a liberal arts college. Our success in providing an education grounded in those disciplines deemed crucial to forming the knowledge and expertise of a well-educated person is both a source of great pride for the faculty and a defining characteristic of the College’s legacy. A liberal education creates an enlightened and thoughtful citizen who lives a free and rational life, a citizen with a broad perspective, equipped to make reasoned choices and informed decisions, with the keen ability to analyze and evaluate, with the knowledge, judgment, and thinking skills that enable success across all career areas.
The College recognizes, however, that the knowledge and skills required for success in this new decade of the 21st century are more complex than they were twenty or even ten years ago. Our graduates’ success will depend upon their ability to understand and navigate a world shaped by advanced technologies, globalization, economic and social changes, and shifting demographics. This calls for the redefinition of the College’s liberal arts education so that it will meet the demands of the world in which our students will live and work.
This redefinition must have, at its center, our students. This generation of students has grown up in an era wherein education is valued primarily for the instrumental purpose that it serves. Whereas the Cedar Crest student of the 1960’s, 1970’s, and 1980’s may have viewed college as an opportunity to find herself, today’s student is more inclined to view college as an opportunity to position herself for the next step in her career. We must be able to articulate why the liberal arts education offered at Cedar Crest is uniquely suited to prepare students for life in the 2010’s and present this message in ways that women will readily understand and appreciate.
This message applies to the College’s liberal arts curriculum as well as majors in liberal arts disciplines, which are at the heart of the College’s mission. The faculty agenda will include a meaningful discussion of these topics to determine what the Cedar Crest experience can and should be in the 21st century. We will commit to improving the vitality of majors in the arts, humanities, and social sciences to help promote a vigorous intellectual culture and influence scholarly discourse across the entire academic program.
Our liberal arts mission aligns perfectly with our women’s leadership mission. A liberal arts education develops and strengthens a student’s formation as a leader. She will learn to communicate effectively in her writing and speaking, including debate and persuasion; how to conduct and use research; the value of critical thinking and decision making; the ability to understand and assess diverse peoples and perspectives; how to work with others in teams; and how to apply theory to practical situations. She will develop greater insight into her own leadership strengths and aspirations.
We will build on the strength and reputation of our professional programs.
Our professional programs are consistently recognized for their excellence and distinctiveness. Professional majors complement the liberal arts program by teaching students to apply their liberal arts education to the challenges of career-oriented study.
Cedar Crest’s professional education presents unique opportunities to fulfill our mission of educating women leaders. We are confronted daily with reminders that the world desperately needs strong, competent, ethical leaders in professional areas. These are leaders whose decisions directly affect our lives, our families, and the quality of our communities and our world. Thus our professional education constitutes an important mandate for the College, one that will guide academic planning for the life of this strategic plan.
We will build on our pledge to foster all aspects of student development.
The teaching/learning model of the Cedar Crest classroom, however rich and stimulating, is only one aspect of the student’s formation. The “whole student” referred to in our new Mission Statement is educated not only in the academic setting, but also in the broader learning environment of campus activities, community service, athletics, and residence halls, and in a multitude of other ways and places on and off campus.
The Strategic Plan will create Living Learning Communities in residence halls, a Women’s Leadership Institute, and an innovative First-Year Experience. These initiatives will greatly enhance the campus experience, helping to develop students who will participate in our learning community and, upon graduation, contribute to the community beyond our borders. We commit to reinvest in the process of student formation and character development, imagining new ways to create a broader and fuller education for each student and, ultimately, a more satisfying life for each graduate.
We will build on the stature and success of our graduate programs.
At this writing, Cedar Crest has established three prominent Master’s degree programs, in Education, Forensic Science, and Nursing. These programs have added to the intellectual vitality of the campus and enhanced undergraduate education by fostering the creation and exchange of ideas, encouraging scholarly discourse, and promoting research.
As the demand for graduate education grows locally and nationally, the College will respond with new opportunities for students to pursue advanced study, including a number of initiatives in the Strategic Plan. Our graduate programs align with our leadership mission in important ways: students with post-baccalaureate education have greater potential to provide leadership in their fields and contribute in valuable ways to their profession, their community, and the world.
The Strategic Plan reinforces liberal arts programs in a number of ways. The Global Studies major, the Media Studies and Visual Communication Majors, and the First Year Experience, as well as new enrollment strategies aimed at improving the health of majors in liberal arts disciplines, will strengthen liberal arts education in broad ways.
Download Strategic Plan | <urn:uuid:261ca68d-d616-4d17-b64d-4370f90912e3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cedarcrest.edu/ca/strategicplan/plan/programs.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942562 | 1,164 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Several University of Toledo art students recently were recognized on a national scale for bringing their art to the city.The project, “Stories From Toledo,” developed by art students from the Time, Motion, Space class and others representing the Department of Art, was selected as the winner of the 2012 Achievement in Digital Art & Design Award by the International Digital Media and Arts Association.
UT art students had their work displayed on 20 digital billboards throughout Toledo from October through December last year thanks to a collaborative effort with Lamar Outdoor Advertising.
“It’s very exciting to have student work seen locally and recognized nationally,” said Barry Whittaker, assistant professor of art and coordinator of new media design practices, who directed the students on the project. “It was a unique opportunity to get the art out of the classroom and into the city.”
For the project, students were told to create fictional film stills that represented a larger story that was connected to the Toledo community.
“This posed an interesting challenge for a time-based media class. They had to create a still image that would suggest something before and after,” Whittaker said.
The student artists who participated in the project were Clinton Bales, Alyssa Brown, Kasia Gacek, Yang Gao, Morgan Hayward, Philip Herman, Thomas Johnson, Marko Milliken, Halah Mohamed, Jessica Ostrander, Jeremy Pellington, Noah Roszczipka, Austin Tuttle, April VanSlambrouck, Jon Wittes and Mark Yappueying.
Click here to view the pieces used in the project. | <urn:uuid:7f1ce886-8d40-406d-b84b-8990ac26db35> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://utnews.utoledo.edu/index.php/category/arts | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970164 | 339 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Tuesday, November 9
Thanksgiving Side Dish Recipe: Roasted Root Vegetables with Pomegranate Molasses and Rosemary
Does anyone at your Thanksgiving dinner table get visibly excited over root vegetables? I've eaten a lot of Thanksgiving dinners, and I've never heard anyone exclaim, "Ooh, look! Roasted rutabagas! My favorite!"
We know potatoes and usually love them. We know beets and usually hate them. But many of other root vegetables remain a mystery. Do you know the difference between rutabagas and turnips? (If you don't, read this post.) How about parsnips? Are you familiar with those?
Here's what I want you to do for this Thanksgiving dinner: Buy an assortment of root vegetables, including the enigmatic turnips and rutabagas. Roast them with a little olive oil, salt and pepper until they release their sugars and caramelize. Then drizzle them with pomegranate molasses, a uniquely tangy syrup made from pomegranate juice and sugar. Serve them to your guests, but don't tell them about the pomegranate molasses. Then wait for someone to say, "Wow! These are delicious. May I have some more?"
Pomegranate molasses is most commonly found in Middle Eastern specialty stores. You can also buy it online. If you can't find any, then you can make your own pomegranate molasses. Elise of Simply Recipes shows you how.
Roasted Root Vegetables with Pomegranate Molasses and Rosemary
1 rutagaba, peeled and diced, about 2 cups
2 turnips, peeled and diced, about 2 cups
1 large sweet potato, peeled and diced, about 2 cups
4 parsnips, peeled and diced, about 2 cups
4 carrots, peeled and diced, about 2 cups
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
6 tablespoons pomegranate molasses
3 teaspoons chopped fresh rosemary, divided
4 tablespoons pomegranate arils, divided
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. In a medium bowl, toss diced vegetables with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Spread vegetables in a single layer on an aluminum lined baking sheet (for easy clean up). Roast for 20 minutes. Stir and continue roasting for another 20 minutes. Remove from oven.
2. Drizzle pomegranate molasses over the vegetables, and stir until well coated. Sprinkle with 2 teaspoons rosemary and stir gently. Roast for another 15-20 minutes or until vegetables are tender when pierced with a fork. Taste. Season with salt and pepper if desired. Toss in 3 tablespoons pomegranate arils and stir gently. Transfer to a serving bowl. Garnish with remaining teaspoon of chopped fresh rosemary and remaining 1 tablespoon pomegranate arils before serving.
You might also like these root vegetable recipes:
Pureed Roasted Parsnips recipe from Simply Recipes
Potato Root Vegetable Mash Up recipe from Blue Kitchen
Slow Roasted Root Vegetables recipe from Sarah's Cucina Bella
Saffron and Honey Glazed Root Vegetables recipe from ecurry
Baked Yams with Citrus Glaze and Toasted Pecans recipe from Food Blogga
Roasted Root Vegetables with Maple Sage Glaze recipe from Food Blogga | <urn:uuid:f82c199d-eaf0-41bd-bb46-1d5397e924ec> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://foodblogga.blogspot.com/2010/11/thanksgiving-side-dish-recipe-roasted.html?showComment=1289345093990 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.907912 | 711 | 1.539063 | 2 |
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Which old wives' tales do you believe?
2:21pm Friday 15th June 2012 in Opinion
Is it sexist of me to ask about, never mind use the phrase 'Old Wives' Tales'?
I’ve just remembered about Mrs Paine, as a school kid being brought up in Brum, our revered next door neighbour.
She wore a hairnet, always, had John Lennon glasses before he did and always wore an overall.
My Mum, then a trim and sparkly mid-30s, taught me to revere Mrs P big style.
Indeed her only trespass was to listen to the tea time Archers on a very high volume.
My Mum would turn our telly down and then complain she could hear all the adventures in Ambridge.
Mrs P’s main function in the community was applying butter.
Bump your head, cut your hand, graze your leg and off you were despatched to No 561 to have proper butter, no low fat spread, proper butter liberally applied on the newly acquired wound.
Did it make any difference, did it help, was it safe to apply? Goodness only knows.
Friday nights was Californian Syrup of Figs to keep you “regular” whether you were already or not.
Everyone got measles, German measles, mumps, chicken pox - everyone.
It was great when, not if, you did as then you got ownership of the street box of comics.
This was a heavy cardboard box full of Eagles, Toppers and Victors and for the girls, Junes and things.
Did no-one ever think the box and its contents might have been the cause of these infections?
Colds were always head colds or chest colds, can’t remember which was worse.
As soon as the temperatures dropped, balaclavas, with big long bits over chest and back were donned, scarves were wound around necks and chests and tied at the back, gloves or mitts were threaded through sleeves.
We were also told to starve a fever and feed a cold, (or was it the other way round?).
There will be a logic to that somewhere.
Consuming carrots improves your eyesight was also known to be an Indisputable Truth.
Apples, of course, prevented the doctor having to call.
You couldn’t go out with wet hair, that would definitely bring a cold on.
I could go on . . .
What were you told, what did you believe, what didn’t you believe but were too fearful to challenge?
Who was your local administrator of potions and lotions? | <urn:uuid:33b859ec-144b-455d-ba7d-70f8d1bb5c32> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/opinion/9764901.Which_old_wives__tales_do_you_believe_/?action=complain&cid=10475806 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983375 | 584 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Foodborne illness (Food Poisoning) is an illness suspected to have resulted from consuming foods or beverages.
There are over 250 organisms that can cause foodborne illness.
Although signs and symptoms of foodborne illnesses vary, the most common symptoms are vomiting, abdominal cramps, nausea and diarrhea.
Most cases of foodborne illness are single cases and not associated with large outbreaks.
The last meal consumed does not necessarily cause foodborne illness.
Many illnesses can spread more than one way so we do not always know if the illness was caused by food.
In order for Environmental Health to respond to reports of suspected foodborne illnesses, accurate and complete information from the person(s) involved is needed.
Reporting Foodborne Illness
Food illness complaints can be reported over the phone at (714)433-6418 or online. Information provided is confidential and is not given to the food operator or any other third party. If this is an emergency, please contact your local police, fire department, or hospital by calling 9-1-1. | <urn:uuid:c3763dff-6f3d-4891-8347-0c1ef19e03f5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ocfoodinfo.com/illness | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935952 | 213 | 3.59375 | 4 |
Counseling Across Cultures
for Cross-Cultural Research
Suppose a Black American counselor is employed in a mental health unit that's located in a moderate-sized United States city. For the first time in her career she is assigned a client who recently immigrated from Viet Nam. The presenting problem concerns strained relationships within the client's family. The counselor knows little about Viet Nam, let alone Vietnamese family structure and dynamics.
Consider a second scenario: A psychotherapist in Barcelona, Spain has been assigned a case involving a married couple from the disputed Basque region of Spain and France. The Basque people are separatists, already setting up some potential strain.
What these contrived situations present are common throughout the world: Clinicians and counselors from one culture doing psychotherapy or counseling with people from quite different cultures. It is often difficult to be an effective counselor with people from one's own culture. When other cultures and world views enter the picture, things can become quite complicated and challenging. Yet there is currently, at least in the United States, an increasing requirement that counselors and psychotherapists become interculturally competent. To avoid or neglect this area of preparation is considered by many to be professionally irresponsible. The present and future chapters in this unit address many of the problems in this active area of professional involvement. These chapters should be especially interesting to individuals who are either in or are contemplating a career in professional counseling.
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Scientists Use Tarantulas to Explore Human Fear
TUESDAY Nov. 9, 2010 -- An experiment using humans, video footage of tarantulas and brain scans sheds new light on the many ways your mind responds to perceived danger.
"When we encounter fear, multiple systems in the brain are acting to help you survive. These systems are monitoring the movements of the threat, detecting surprises and calculating how close the threat is to you. Basically, your brain is multitasking and evaluating the best possible way to escape the danger," explained study author Dean Mobbs, a neuroscience researcher at MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge in the United Kingdom.
Fear, of course, is a deeply primitive human emotion. "We now know that fear is not in one place in the brain, but is represented in many different areas that are highly interconnected," Mobbs said. "Different types of fear can tap into many of the same parts of the brain's fear network, from fear of taking an exam to fear of meeting a bear in the woods."
But there's more to figure out about how the process works. In the new study, Mobbs and colleagues sought to gain more insight into how the brain handles one kind of fear in particular -- the fear of spiders.
"The U.K. has one of the highest amount of spider phobics in the world. This is despite the fact that we have no deadly spiders in the U.K.," Mobbs explained. "Presumably, we learn from others or the media that spiders are scary, yet because we don't encounter them, we cannot habituate to them. Thus, our fears persist."
Mobbs has a personal motivation, too: "I mainly used spiders because I have a slight fear of them."
In the study, which appears in this week's online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers placed 20 participants in functional-MRI machines. The subjects watched videos that appeared to show tarantulas being placed near their feet at that exact moment.
In reality, the tarantula videos had been recorded earlier. But the subjects didn't know that, allowing their brain scans to reveal the way they processed the threats from the tarantulas as the spiders moved closer to, or further away from, their feet.
"When a spider is placed closer, activity increases in the brain's fear areas. These areas are strongly implicated in defensive response as well as panic," Mobbs said. When the tarantulas moved, activity spiked in the parts of the brain involved in "vigilance or tracking threat," he added.
In conjunction with other findings, "this suggests that many parts of the fear system are working in tandem, each evaluating the external threat in different ways," Mobbs said.
What's next? "A goal of future research should be to try and understand which part of the system breaks down [with phobias]," Mobbs said. "If we can understand this, then we can better engage people with phobias and other types of fear."
The subjects in this study didn't have phobias. But in the future, research could enlist phobic people to see if their brains respond differently to the threat, said Joseph LeDoux, a professor of neuroscience at New York University.
To learn more about phobias, try the U.S. National Library of Medicine.
Posted: November 2010 | <urn:uuid:3dd2ead2-3e68-4abc-b8e1-13f9b148e9b6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.drugs.com/news/scientists-tarantulas-explore-human-fear-27724.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958395 | 698 | 3.015625 | 3 |
On 19 June 2012, conflict reports emerged about the fate of Hosni Mubarak. The initial reports were that former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak had been declared clinically dead by his doctors at the age of 84 after suffering a stroke in prison late the night before. The state news agency MENA reported that his heart had stopped beating and he had not responded to several attempts to restart it using a defibrillator. Reuters subsequently reported that sources had told them that Mubarak was in fact only unconscious and on a respirator. Mubarak's health had reportedly been deteriorating since he was put on trial for crimes committed during the protests in early 2011. By 20 June 2012, the reports had been clarified to explain that doctors had declared Mubarak clinically dead, though he had been placed on life support and continued to breath using a respirator. The military had determined that it was still too soon to make a final declaration on Mubarak's fate. Later reports on 20 June 2012, citing Mubarak's lawyer, suggested that he had slipped and fallen in a bathroom and needed to be hospitalized for the resulting head injury. The varying accounts of Mubarak's condition have raised suspicions that the move was not medically necessary, but just rather used to get him out of prison. Mubarak had ruled Egypt for almost 30 years until he was swept from power in an 18-day wave of mass protests in February 2011.
On October 6, 1981, Islamic extremists assassinated President Sadat. Hosni Mubarak, Vice President since 1975 and air force commander during the October 1973 war, was elected President later that month. He was subsequently confirmed by popular referendum for four more 6-year terms, most recently in September 2005. Mubarak has maintained Egypt's commitment to the Camp David peace process, while at the same time re-establishing Egypt's position as an Arab leader. Egypt was readmitted to the Arab League in 1989. Egypt also has played a moderating role in such international fora as the UN and the Non-Aligned Movement.
Muhammad Hosni Said Mubarak was born on May 4, 1928, in a small village of Kafr El-Meselha. His father owned a small plot of land and also worked in a legal department of the province. He decided to join the Egyptian Military Academy, one of the top universities in Egypt. With a Bachelor's degree in Military Sciences and the rank of lieutenant, Hosni Mubarak entered the Air Force Academy where only top graduates of the Egyptian Military Academy were admitted. Hosni was the best in his year. By age 31, Hosni Mubarak became a base commander. To develop skills in flying Il-28 bombers he was sent to the USSR for training. He went to the Soviet Union for the second time in 1964 to receive the training of piloting Tu-16 heavy bombers.
In 1969, Egypt's President Gamal Abdel Nasser appointed him Chief of Staff of the Egyptian Air Force. Nasser was Hosni Mubarak's idol, and Mubarak named his son in the honor of the former president. In 1972, Mubarak worked as Deputy Defense Minister in charge of reorganizing the Egyptian Air Force. The Yom Kippur War showed substantial progress in the development of the Egyptian Air Force, making Hosni Mubarak a national hero. Egypt's new President Anwar Sadat promoted him to the rank of Air Chief Marshal.
In 1975, Anwar Sadat appointed him Vice-President. Mubarak was a real hero in the early 1970s. He was a fighting commander with an impeccable reputation, incorruptible and averse to any idols. It was then that he received the nickname of Mr. Integrity.
Sadat's handpicked successor, Husni Mubarak, was overwhelmingly approved in a national referendum on October 24, 1981. Sadat appointed Mubarak vice president of the state in 1975 and of the NDP in 1978. Mubarak, who was born in 1928 in Lower Egypt and had spent his career in the armed forces, was not a member of the Free Officers' movement. He had trained as a pilot in the Soviet Union and became air force chief of staff in 1969 and deputy minister of war in 1972.
In a speech to the People's Assembly in November 1981, Mubarak outlined the principles of his government's policy and spoke about the future he wanted for Egypt. Infitah would continue, and there would be no return to the restrictive days of Nasser. Mubarak called for an infitah of production, however, rather than of consumption, that would benefit all of society and not just the wealthy few. Food subsidies would remain, and imports of unnecessary luxury goods would be curtailed. Opposition parties would be allowed. The peace treaty with Israel would be observed. Thus, Mubarak sought to chart a middle course between the conflicting legacies of Nasser and Sadat.
From 1981 onward, Mubarak allowed more overt political activity. Slowly, parties and newspapers began to function again, and political opponents jailed by Sadat were released. At the time of the 1984 election, five parties were allowed to function in addition to the ruling NDP. The left-wing opposition consisted of the National Progressive Unionist Party, a grouping of socialists led by Khalid Muhi ad Din, and the Socialist Labor Party. The Wafd resurfaced and won a court case against its prohibition. One religious party was licensed, the Umma. Not officially represented were the communists, the Muslim Brotherhood, and avowed Nasserites, although all three tendencies were represented in other parties.
In the 1984 election, a party had to win at least 8 percent of the vote to be represented in the Assembly. The NDP received more than 70 percent of the vote (391 seats). The Wafd, the only other party to gain any seats, won fifty-seven. The NPUP received only 7 percent of the votes and consequently lost them all to the NDP. There were some complaints that the election was rigged, but no serious challenge was mounted against the results.
In addition to domestic programs, Mubarak was concerned to regain the Sinai Peninsula for Egypt and to return his country to the Arab fold. One of Mubarak's first acts was to pledge to honor the peace treaty with Israel. In April 1982, the Israeli withdrawal from Sinai took place as scheduled. A multinational force of observers took up positions in Sinai to monitor the peace. Egypt was allowed to station only one army division in Sinai.
In 1983, Egypt's isolation in the Arab world began to end. In that year, Arafat met Mubarak in Cairo after the PLO leader had been expelled from Lebanon under Syrian pressure. In January 1984, Egypt was readmitted unconditionally to the Islamic Conference Organization. In November 1987, an Arab summit resolution allowed the Arab countries to resume diplomatic relations with Egypt. This action was taken largely as a result of the Iran-Iraq War and Arab alarm over the Iranian offensive on Iraqi territories at the end of 1986 and throughout January and February 1987. On Egypt's side, its economic crisis worsened, and it needed economic assistance from the Arab oil states. Thus, the summit resolution amounted to an exchange of Egyptian security assistance in the Persian Gulf crisis for Arab aid to Egypt's economy. The summit indicated that Mubarak, in attempting to steer a middle course between the imposing legacies of Nasser and Sadat, had brought Egypt back into the Arab fold and into the center of Middle East peace making.
From 1991 onward, Mubarak oversaw a domestic economic reform program to reduce the size of the public sector and expand the role of the private sector. There was less progress in political reform. The November 2000 People's Assembly elections saw 34 members of the opposition win seats in the 454-seat assembly, facing a clear majority of 388 ultimately affiliated with the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP). Opposition parties continued to face various difficulties in mounting credible electoral challenges to the NDP. The Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928, remained an illegal organization and was not recognized as a political party (Egyptian law prohibited the formation of political parties based on religion until Mubarak was deposed in early 2011). Members were known publicly and openly speak their views, although they do not explicitly identify themselves as members of the organization. Members of the Brotherhood had been elected to the People's Assembly and local councils as independents, and also scored a major victory in 2005 parliamentary elections, winning 88 seats, thus forming the largest opposition group.
Egypt's September 7, 2005 presidential election was the first in Egyptian history to be open to opposition candidates. As was widely expected, incumbent President Hosni Mubarak of the National Democratic Party won a fifth consecutive six-year term with 88 percent of the vote. Out of numerous opposition candidates, the two main challengers, Ayman Nour of the Al-Ghad party and Noaman Gomaa of Al-Wafd, received 7.3 percent and 2.8 percent of the vote, respectively. Although Mubarak received 88 percent of the vote, estimates were that only 15-23 percent of the 32 million registered voters participated in the election, meaning that Mubarak had the support of 6.5 million in a country of 72 million.
As Mubarak approached his 83 birthday in 2011, he was in reasonably good health. His most notable problem was a hearing deficit in his left ear. He responded well to respect for Egypt and for his position, but was not swayed by personal flattery. Mubarak peppered his observations with anecdotes that demonstrated both his long experience and his sense of humor. During his 30 year tenure, he survived at least three assassination attempts, maintained peace with Israel, weathered two wars in Iraq and post-2003 regional instability, intermittent economic downturns, and a manageable but chronic internal terrorist threat. He was a tried and true realist, innately cautious and conservative, and had little time for idealistic goals.
Mubarak was said to have had no single confidante or advisor who could truly speak for him, and he had prevented any of his main advisors from operating outside their strictly circumscribed spheres of power. Defense Minister Tantawi kept the Armed Forces appearing reasonably sharp and the officers satisfied with their perks and privileges, and Mubarak did not appear concerned that these forces were not well prepared to face 21st century external threats. EGIS Chief Omar Soliman and Interior Minister al-Adly kept the domestic beasts at bay, and Mubarak was not one to lose sleep over their tactics. Gamal Mubarak and a handful of economic ministers had input on economic and trade matters, but Mubarak was expected to likely resist further economic reform if he viewed it as potentially harmful to public order and stability. Dr. Zakaria Azmi and a few other senior NDP leaders managed the parliament and public politics.
Mubarak was a classic Egyptian secularist who hated religious extremism and interference in politics. The Muslim Brothers represented the worst, as they challenged not only Mubarak's power, but his view of Egyptian interests. As with regional issues, Mubarak, sought to avoid conflict and spare his people from the violence he often predicted would emerge from unleashed personal and civil liberties. In Mubarak's mind, it was far better to let a few individuals suffer than risk chaos for society as a whole. He had been supportive of improvements in human rights in areas that did not affect public security or stability. Mrs. Mubarak had been given a great deal of room to maneuver to advance women's and children's rights and to confront some traditional practices that had been championed by the Islamists, such as FGM, child labor, and restrictive personal status laws.
The next presidential elections were scheduled for September 2011, and it was long expected that if Mubarak was still alive he would run again, and, inevitably, win. When asked about succession, prior to the events of January 2011 he had stated that the process would follow the Egyptian constitution. Despite incessant whispered discussions, no one in Egypt had any certainty about who would eventually succeed Mubarak nor under what circumstances. Prior to 2011 the most likely contender was presidential son Gamal Mubarak (whose profile was ever-increasing at the ruling party); some suggested that intelligence chief Omar Soliman might seek the office, or dark horse Arab League Secretary-General Amre Moussa might run. Mubarak's ideal of a strong but fair leader was seen to discount Gamal Mubarak to some degree, given Gamal's lack of military experience, and could have explained Mubarak's hands off approach to the succession question. Indeed, he seemed to be trusting to God and the ubiquitous military and civilian security services to ensure an orderly transition. In an interview on February 3, 2011 with ABC News correspondent Christiane Amanpour, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said he was fed up with being the country's leader and would like to leave now, but feared Egypt would sink deeper into chaos if he did.
On Tuesday 01 February 2011 President Hosni Mubarak announced that he would not seek another term in office, amid mass demonstrations demanding that he step down immediately. A number of world powers have urged Egypt to step up its timetable for a political transition. U.S. President Barack Obama said Tuesday that Mr. Mubarak recognizes that the "status quo is not sustainable." Mr. Obama also said he had told the Egyptian president that an orderly transition "must be peaceful and must begin now." On Wednesday, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton urged Mr. Mubarak to respond quickly to anti-government protesters seeking the transition. The EU issued a statement calling on Egypt to begin an "orderly transition" with reforms that include "free and fair elections."
On 11 February 2011 President Mubark resigned. The announcement came from Vice-President Omar Suleiman, who announced that military forces will now take over. The announcement on state television came as hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators spread out across Cairo and other Egyptian cities, after Mubarak refused their demands to resign immediately. Mubarak and his family left Cairo, arriving just before sundown in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh, where he has a resort home. In the end, it took just eighteen days to bring down a 30-year-old regime, but the anger that drove Egyptians into the street had been building for years. What began as a youth movement on January 25 quickly grew into a popular, leaderless uprising that expanded as the days went by.
After being ousted from power, Mubarak was subsequently put on trial for various crimes allegedly committed during mass protests in early 2011. On 2 June 2012, Mubarak was sentenced to life in prison for failing to stop the killing of protesters. Other officials tried with Mubarak were acquitted, sparking renewed protests.
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Understandably, you may be very upset by many aspects of the illness.
You may resent that you or someone you care for has cancer, while other people are well. You may feel frustrated that the illness or its treatment restricts what you’re able to do. These feelings are a common reaction to cancer. There’s no need to feel guilty about having such thoughts or feelings.
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Prasugrel may cause serious or life-threatening bleeding. Tell your doctor if you currently have or have had a condition that causes you to bleed more easily than normal, if you have recently had surgery or been injured in any way, or if you have or have ever had a stomach ulcer; bleeding in your stomach, intestines, or head; a stroke or mini-stroke; a condition that may cause bleeding in your intestines such as polyps (abnormal growths in the lining of the large intestine) or diverticulitis (inflamed bulges in the lining of the large intestine); or liver disease. Tell your doctor and pharmacist if you are taking medications that may cause bleeding including anticoagulants (blood thinners) such as warfarin (Coumadin); heparin; other medications to treat or prevent blood clots; or regular use of a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medications such as ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin) and naproxen (Aleve). Your doctor may not prescribe prasugrel for you if you have any of these conditions, you are taking any of these medications, you weigh less than 132 lb (60 kg), or you are older than 75 years of age. Your doctor also will probably not prescribe prasugrel if you are likely to need heart bypass surgery (a certain type of open heart surgery) right away. While you are taking prasugrel, you will probably bruise and bleed more easily than usual, bleed for longer than usual, and have nosebleeds. However, if you experience any of the following symptoms, call your doctor immediately: bleeding that is unexplained, severe, long-lasting, or uncontrollable; pink or brown urine; red or black, tarry stools; vomit that is bloody or that looks like coffee grounds; coughing up blood or blood clots; or bruises that are unexplained or that get larger.
If you are having surgery, including dental surgery, or any type of medical procedure, tell your doctor or dentist that you are taking prasugrel. Your doctor will probably tell you to stop taking prasugrel at least 7 days before your surgery is scheduled.
Your doctor or pharmacist will give you the manufacturer's patient information sheet (Medication Guide) when you begin treatment with prasugrel and each time you refill your prescription. Read the information carefully and ask your doctor or pharmacist if you have any questions. You can also visit the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) website ( Web Site) to obtain the Medication Guide.
Talk to your doctor about the risk of taking prasugrel.
Prasugrel is used along with aspirin to prevent serious or life-threatening problems with the heart and blood vessels in people who have had a heart attack or severe chest pain and have been treated with angioplasty (procedure to open the blood vessels that supply blood to the heart). Prasugrel is in a class of medications called anti-platelet medications. It works by preventing platelets (a type of blood cell) from collecting and forming clots that may cause a heart attack or stroke.
Prasugrel comes as a tablet to take by mouth. It is usually taken once a day with or without food. Take prasugrel at around the same time every day. Follow the directions on your prescription label carefully, and ask your doctor or pharmacist to explain any part you do not understand. Take prasugrel exactly as directed. Do not take more or less of it or take it more often than prescribed by your doctor.
Swallow the tablet whole; do not split, chew, or crush it.
Prasugrel will help prevent serious problems with your heart and blood vessels only as long as you take the medication. Do not stop taking prasugrel without talking to your doctor. If you stop taking prasugrel, there is a higher risk that you may have a heart attack, develop a blood clot, or die.
This medication may be prescribed for other uses; ask your doctor or pharmacist for more information.
Before taking prasugrel,
- tell your doctor and pharmacist if you are allergic to prasugrel, any other medications, or any of the ingredients in prasugrel tablets. Ask your pharmacist for a list of the ingredients.
- tell your doctor and pharmacist what prescription and nonprescription medications, vitamins, nutritional supplements, and herbal products you are taking or plan to take. Be sure to mention the medications listed in the IMPORTANT WARNING section.
- tell your doctor if you have or have ever had kidney disease.
- tell your doctor if you are pregnant, plan to become pregnant, or are breast-feeding. If you become pregnant while taking prasugrel, call your doctor.
Unless your doctor tells you otherwise, continue your normal diet.
Take the missed dose as soon as you remember it. However, if it is almost time for the next dose, skip the missed dose and continue your regular dosing schedule. Do not take a double dose to make up for a missed one.
Prasugrel may cause side effects. Tell your doctor if any of these symptoms are severe or do not go away:
- excessive tiredness
- pain in the back, arms, or legs
Some side effects can be serious. If you experience any of these symptoms or those listed in the IMPORTANT WARNING section, call your doctor immediately:
- purple patches on the skin
- yellowing of the skin or eyes
- shortness of breath
- slow, fast, or irregular heartbeat
- slow or difficult speech
- sudden weakness of an arm or leg
- stomach pain
- decreased urination
- swelling of the eyes, face, mouth, lips, tongue, throat, arms, hands, feet, ankles, or lower legs
Prasugrel may cause other side effects. Call your doctor if you have any unusual problems while taking this medication.
If you experience a serious side effect, you or your doctor may send a report to the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) MedWatch Adverse Event Reporting program online [at Web Site] or by phone [1-800-332-1088].
Keep this medication in the container it came in, tightly closed, and out of reach of children. The medication will come with a gray cylinder that helps keep the tablets dry; leave this cylinder in the container with the medication. Store it at room temperature and away from excess heat and moisture (not in the bathroom). Throw away any medication that is outdated or no longer needed. Talk to your pharmacist about the proper disposal of your medication.
In case of overdose, call your local poison control center at 1-800-222-1222. If the victim has collapsed or is not breathing, call local emergency services at 911.
Keep all appointments with your doctor.
Do not let anyone else take your medication. Ask your pharmacist any questions you have about refilling your prescription.
It is important for you to keep a written list of all of the prescription and nonprescription (over-the-counter) medicines you are taking, as well as any products such as vitamins, minerals, or other dietary supplements. You should bring this list with you each time you visit a doctor or if you are admitted to a hospital. It is also important information to carry with you in case of emergencies.
AHFS® Consumer Medication Information. © Copyright, The American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, Inc., 7272 Wisconsin Avenue, Bethesda, Maryland. All Rights Reserved. Duplication for commercial use must be authorized by ASHP.
Selected Revisions: September 1, 2009. | <urn:uuid:47d58cb3-bdf4-4802-b005-714f18205aac> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.abrazohealth.com/education/drug_dictonary.aspx?chunkiid=673729 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926155 | 1,606 | 2.1875 | 2 |
With a quiet end to the meteorological summer USDA Meteorologist Brad Rippey says the condition of the corn and soybean crops hasn't changed much in the last week. But he says the crops are definitely progressing.
"The percentage of the corn that has now dented is 73%," Rippey said. "The five-year average is only 55%, last year only 30%."
Eight percent of the soybean crop is dropping leaves. Rippey says that's about average for this time of year.
As for conditions Rippey says 70% of the corn crop is rated in good to excellent shape and 64% of the soybean crop is rated good to excellent. While that is steady from the previous week Rippey says that is off five points from a year ago, which he says is being driven by deterioration in the south and eastern part of the Soybean Belt.
There are five southern states where the summer was very hot and at least 20% of the beans are rated in poor to very poor condition.
Rippey says there's a similar story in cotton. While it appears cotton producers will harvest a better crop this year than last, the crop's condition is sliding just a bit.
"Sixty percent good to excellent, a week ago it was 62%, a year ago it was only 51% at this time," Rippey said. "We do have four states that have very poor to poor ratings of at least 25% of the crop and those are Alabama, Georgia, Missouri and Virginia."
Twenty-nine percent of the nation's cotton bolls are now open, six points ahead of the five-year average. Rippey says that does mean some vulnerability to storms like hurricane Earl.
"Every fall we look at the cotton bolls open number to see what's vulnerable if we do get a hurricane or a tropical storm," Rippey said. "In this case we continue to keep an eye on Hurricane Earl. At this time it looks like the storm will remain offshore on Thursday and Friday, but pass very close to the East Coast. So cotton that is now almost half open, 43% in North Carolina, would be one place where we would be looking for vulnerability."
But Rippey says it does look like the eye of the storm will not make landfall.
A quick note on spring wheat, Rippey says harvest is now at 69% complete, just behind the five-year average of 75%, but well ahead of last year's 36% at this time. | <urn:uuid:b54bcdeb-a7b7-4577-8fcd-9df136fce504> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://farmprogress.com/story-usda-meteorologist-looks-at-corn-soybean-and-cotton-conditions-0-41609 | 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 | 0.977362 | 520 | 1.984375 | 2 |
IMF On Canada: Household Debt, Overvalued Housing Pose Risks
OTTAWA - The International Monetary Fund says Canada's economy is slowing and faces risks both at home and abroad.
The IMF says Canada not only faces headwinds from the global economy, but also challenges from record-high household debt and an overheated housing market.
The Washington-based monitor of the global economy says Canada's house prices are about 10 per cent above fundamentals, and more so in some areas.
A 15 per cent correction in prices could cut 1.5 per cent from private consumption, the IMF says, damaging the economy.
For the nation as a whole, the IMF says Canada's economy likely grew by 2.2 per cent this year and will expand a further 1.9 per cent next year.
That is close to the Bank of Canada's projections for growth.
IMF: NO COUNTRY IN WORLD IMMUNE TO EUROZONE CRISIS | <urn:uuid:0599baf3-0f37-4e3e-a9a5-27f7a96c975f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2011/12/22/imf-canada-economy_n_1165880.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927196 | 197 | 1.6875 | 2 |
The following is an excerpt from There's A Mouse In The House ©, just one of the many 'Almost A Story A Day' © e-mails, that tell the ongoing saga of pet mouse ownership from Here There Be Mice...©.
It all started out so innocently. There was no way of knowing where it would lead. It seemed like such a small thing. It was a cold day in late fall. It was an unusually cold day for that time of year. And then it happened. Mouse droppings were spotted in a drawer.
Neither of us liked the idea of killing the mouse.. But we also couldn't just live trap it and put it outside with the ground frozen. That would have been a slow method of killing it. So we live trapped it and bought a cage. We ended up with several females and two males, requiring a second cage as males fight. A couple of weeks later, the weather warmed sufficiently that we were able to release them in a protected area where they had food and shelter available. We found the wild mice to be fun, but of course, they were wild so we looked into having pet mice.
Pet mice have few problems it seems. Much of the same information we had found on the wild mice applied to pet mice. Experts said females exist happily together and almost never fight. Females are also far less smelly than males , and they don’t fight. It's also recommended that you have several females as they are very social creatures and are lonely and unhappy by themselves………. and virtually never fight.
OK…we were prepared. We knew not to use pine bedding but use aspen instead. Don't feed them cheese. Yes, you read that right. Cheese isn't good for them either. Cartoons got it wrong (imagine that?). Mice need to run, a lot. We were set there though. The cages we own had a ball on top and a built in wheel for them to run in. We were ready. Fun was about to commence…. wasn't it?
So what happened next? How many mice did we get? Is it fun owning mice? The humorous answers to these questions and more can be answered by signing up for 'Almost A Story A Day', where you will receive the full and often funny story of becoming mice owners as well as current stories of the mice. (No more than one email daily and sometimes less…after all even mice deserve a day off from time to time. Being cute is hard work!!)
Just Click On Maya's Nose To Sign Up For 'Almost A Story A Day' | <urn:uuid:c6a07e64-37db-4cbf-beb5-31b945dc5532> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.heretherebemice.com/mlist.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988179 | 533 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Don't Blame the Market for Housing Bubble
The U.S. housing market, long considered vulnerable by many economists, is now on the verge of suffering a serious collapse in many regions. Commodities guru and hedge fund manager Jim Rogers warns that real estate in expensive bubble areas will drop 40 or 50%. Mainstream media outlets like the New York Times are reporting breathlessly about the possibility of widespread defaults on subprime mortgages.
When the bubble finally bursts completely, millions of Americans will be looking for someone to blame. Look for Congress to hold hearings into subprime lending practices and "predatory" mortgages. We'll hear a lot of grandstanding about how unscrupulous lenders took advantage of poor people, and how rampant speculation caused real estate markets around the country to overheat. It will be reminiscent of the Enron hearings, and the message will be explicitly or implicitly the same: free-market capitalism, left unchecked, leads to greed, fraud, and unethical if not illegal business practices.
But capitalism is not to blame for the housing bubble, the Federal Reserve is. Specifically, Fed intervention in the economy-- through the manipulation of interest rates and the creation of money-- caused the artificial boom in mortgage lending.
The Fed has roughly tripled the amount of dollars and credit in circulation just since 1990. Housing prices have risen dramatically not because of simple supply and demand, but because the Fed literally created demand by making the cost of borrowing money artificially cheap. When credit is cheap, individuals tend to borrow too much and spend recklessly.
This is not to say that all banks, lenders, and Wall Street firms are blameless. Many of them are politically connected, and benefited directly from the Fed's easy money policies. And some lenders did make fraudulent or unethical loans. But every cent they loaned was first created by the Fed.
The actions of lenders are directly attributable to the policies of the Fed: when credit is cheap, why not loan money more recklessly to individuals who normally would not qualify? Even with higher default rates, lenders could make huge profits simply through volume. Subprime lending is a symptom of the housing bubble, not the cause of it.
Fed credit also distorts mortgage lending through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two government schemes created by Congress supposedly to help poor people. Fannie and Freddie enjoy an implicit guarantee of a bailout by the federal government if their loans default, and thus are insulated from market forces. This insulation spurred investors to make funds available to Fannie and Freddie that otherwise would have been invested in other securities or more productive endeavors, thereby fueling the housing boom.
The Federal Reserve provides the mother's milk for the booms and busts wrongly associated with a mythical "business cycle." Imagine a Brinks truck driving down a busy street with the doors wide open, and money flying out everywhere, and you'll have a pretty good analogy for Fed policies over the last two decades. Unless and until we get the Federal Reserve out of the business of creating money at will and setting interest rates, we will remain vulnerable to market bubbles and painful corrections. If housing prices plummet and millions of Americans find themselves owing more than their homes are worth, the blame lies squarely with Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke. | <urn:uuid:e3a0e15a-94c9-45ff-8663-b1b96ddee279> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.safehaven.com/article/7174/dont-blame-the-market-for-housing-bubble | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941575 | 655 | 2.015625 | 2 |
[Sca-cooks] Sca-cooks Digest, Vol 36, Issue 8
christianetrue at earthlink.net
Fri Apr 3 11:57:42 PDT 2009
>You can make cheese out of milk, but what did they
>do with the steady supply of perishable eggs?
>Did they hard boil and pickel them?
Well, keep in mind that most folks were really getting a lot of eggs only once a year, in the springtime; that's why there are so many egg-based dishes (green tarts, etc.) in Italian feasts in the spring. It was to use up all the eggs. Hens may lay all year round, but they lay fewer eggs in the winter than in the spring, if I recall correctly.
If you weren't lucky enough to have access to a cool room of some sort, I guess you had to look into some sort of method of preservation, if you weren't aiming to raise more chickens. FYI, it's been traditional in a lot of towns in Southern Italy to build your house into a hill so you could have a cave for the storage of wine and perishable and preserved foods. Depending on how deep you were able to go, some of these rooms could be very chilly, even in the heat of summer.
More information about the Sca-cooks | <urn:uuid:cde5230f-203d-49f3-9f28-7b879f043ac7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lists.ansteorra.org/pipermail/sca-cooks-ansteorra.org/2009-April/024327.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975878 | 282 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Michigan’s 21st Century Jobs Fund is a $2 billion, a 10-year initiative to accelerate the diversification of the state’s economy and devotes approximately $800 million for technologies in the targeted sectors of life sciences, alternative energy, advanced automotive materials and manufacturing, and homeland security/defense. The annual awards are administered by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) with contracts that establish conditions and mileposts for receipt of receipt for funds.
The Competitive-Edge Technologies Program within the broader Jobs Fund invests in funds or alongside qualified private equity funds, qualified mezzanine funds, and qualified venture capital funds and a commercial enhancement program to assist small companies
Maryland’s Biotechnology Investment Tax Credit program provides income tax credits for individuals, corporations and qualified Maryland venture capital firms that invest in qualified Maryland biotechnology companies. The value of the credit is equal to 50 percent of an eligible investment made to a qualified Maryland company during the taxable year. The maximum amount of the credit cannot exceed $50,000 for individual investors and $250,000 for corporations and qualified Maryland venture capital funds.
A qualified Maryland biotechnology company has its headquarters and base of operations in the state, has fewer than 50 employees and has been in active business no longer than 10 years. A qualified venture capital firm has at least two principals who each have at least 5 years of venture capital experience and has its principal place of operation in Maryland.
Missouri’s New Enterprise Creation Tax Credit through their Department of Economic Development offers a $20 million pool of 100 percent tax credits to individual and corporate investors in venture funds that are approved by the statutory Missouri Seed Capital Investment Board. The board in turn has selected Prolog Ventures as the (to date) sole eligible investment, based on Prolog's commitment to invest in Missouri-based seed- and early-stage companies, primarily in the life sciences.
The Kentucky Investment Fund Act provides a 40 percent tax credit capped at $3 million a year is available to certain personal and corporate investors in approved venture funds. After credits are allocated to a fund, they are proportionately granted to the fund's investors upon completion of the fund's investment program. They must invest in qualifying companies that are Kentucky-based small businesses half of whose assets are in state, with net worth less than $5 million or net income less than $3 million, and fewer than 100 employees.
Oklahoma’s CAPCO Tax Credits Act, rather than direct or indirect investment of appropriated funds, uses tax credits as levers to increase the level of indigenous capital that is invested in¬-state in various kinds of targeted enterprises. The Oklahoma Capital Investment Board has set up as a state-beneficiary public trust, and uses contingent tax credits to guarantee $30 million generated from public utility corporations operating in-state by the Oklahoma Capital Formation Corporation.
Incubators and Economic Development Centers
By the early 2000s, governors and legislators in almost every state recognized commercialization of university research and support for small business innovation as a valuable means of economic development. Through the recent economic downturn, lawmakers and state agencies have continued to appreciate and support a broad range of initiatives that foster bioscience industry growth.
Some states have established and funded privately-run organizations dedicated to promoting bioscience investment, entrepreneurship and new product development. Such organizations are often supported by, or operate, as an extension of state economic development agencies.
Other states and regions have adopted more modest strategies while maintaining a broader tech-focus. Despite the variations of strategy, virtually every state recognizes the financial payoff from fostering the unique conditions needed to attract and grow biotech innovation - generally known as the "incubator model."
Biotechnology incubators support early stage companies in a number of ways - providing access to investors, managerial support, and often laboratory and office space. The incubator facilities generate a return on their investment through equity shares in the sponsored companies.
More broadly speaking, states and municipalities eventually see a benefit in the form of tax revenue that come from both company profits and the expanding workforce needed to staff successful ventures. Furthermore the bioscience industry creates a higher than normal indirect employment ripple in terms of jobs generated by essential service industries.
Here is a listing of several state-supported organizations that are singularly focused on supporting bioscience industry development: | <urn:uuid:acf2437f-9143-4625-a6fd-b163e7db57f3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bio.org/articles/successful-state-initiatives-encourage-bioscience-industry-growth?page=3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951082 | 875 | 1.539063 | 2 |
In history seemingly innocuous events portend more serious outcomes – albeit we recognise them in hind(e)sight. This is the dramatic irony of history. Just as a single shot in Sarajevo, took out a largely unknown European aristocrat, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who would have known then that the world would plunge into World War I. The Cypriot savers must have thought the authorities were being highly ironic, of the Socratic kind, when they were told they were receiving a bail-out, except it was a “bail-in”. I don’t know the Greek/Turkish for – you are having a laugh, but I bet that’s what they are saying. So what is a bail-in?
A bail-in takes place before a bankruptcy, and involves losses being imposed on bondholders, something that has rarely taken place throughout the GFC and euro crisis. In fact taxpayers (the government) have consistently bailed-out the private sector in full. The Cypriot bank rescue is no exception, except this time there is a bail-in and ironically again not of bondholders but of the depositors first. This is a direct contravention to the usual legal claims on the capital structure.
So there you have it – on Friday 14th March Cyprus became the 5th country to receive an EU bail-out (in), except this one was a bail-in but one with a significant and severe twist of fate. The Cypriot government in Nicosia is scheduled to vote on a EU bail-out plan which calls to extract a “tax” on bank depositors (savers) some €5.8 billion: 6.75 per cent for anyone with less than €100,000 in a Cypriot bank account, 9.9 per cent for anyone with more than that.
This is an unprecedented assault on individual property rights and every individual in the developed world should take notice, and far from stabilising the eurozone, the bail-out likely heightens contagion risk across the EU.
Why bother holding a bank account when your government can expropriate your savings? Far from containing a bank run in Cyprus it will exacerbate it, absent capital controls, and likely begin significant depositor flights across the European periphery.
These events I believe signify one of the most alarming developments in the Eurozone crisis and by dint the global economy since the financial crisis began.
Cypriot Disputes and Levies
For a sovereign entity so small, Cyprus is a country that has had more than its fair share of international controversy and disputes. Cyprus has a long and convoluted history with the British, Turks and Greeks, whose tensions have wreaked havoc across Europe over two World Wars. This weekend marked yet another period of disquiet in the history of this troubled island.
Cyprus is reeling from an oversized and ailing banking system. Technically bankrupt, domestic banks stand at €126.4 billion in size, or over 7 times the size of the economy. Without a bail-in, depositors would be wiped out and Cyprus would undergo economic collapse, bringing along with it all the attendant social misery and deprivation of a depression.
Ironically Cyprus is no stranger to levies. The British extracted taxes in the 19th century to cover the compensation they owed to the Ottoman Sultanate, who had conceded the island to the British.
In 1878, under the Cyprus Convention, the Cyprus became a protectorate of the British in a secret agreement between the United Kingdom and Ottoman Empire. The Greek Cypriots believed the British would eventually help Cyprus unite with mother Greece, just as with the other Ionian Islands. The indigenous Cypriots believed it their natural right to reunite the island with Greece; after all the very first census showed the population was comprised of 74% Greeks and 24% Turks.
Fast forward half a century and most of us over the age of 40 refer to the Cyprus dispute as that of the conflict between the Republic of Cyprus, and Turkey, over Turkish-occupied North Cyprus. My knowledge of the origins of the Cyprus dispute is a little sketchy but as I understand it, the dispute originally was born out of the Cypriots’ desire for self-determination away from the British Crown, which had unlawfully declared itself the constitutional ruler after Greece failed to fulfil its WWI obligations to invade Bulgaria; in return the Republic of Turkey recognized British rule of the island.
Eventually this colonial dispute became an ethnic one between Greek and Turkish islanders and their respective mother countries. In 1974 Turkey invaded Northern Cyprus and declared unilateral independence, as well as itself a sovereign entity – the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus – but has never received UN and international recognition. There has been a UN no-go zone buffering North and South ever since.
Another irony of the day was that in return for the British protectorate the Ottoman Empire received military support against Russia in Asia. As I will cover later Russia has been integral to the demise and now the future well-being of Cyprus. Another legacy dispute that has compounded the Cypriot collapse was their adherence to Enosis. This refers to ‘the union’, literally speaking, of the Greek-Cypriot population to incorporate the island of Cyprus into Greece. Observance of this tradition led the Cypriot banks to misguidedly purchase vast amounts of Greek sovereign debt before and during the euro crisis. Cyprus became a casualty of the Greek’s very own bailout restructuring. Oh the irony again.
Bank depositors by now will have realised that bank deposit guarantees are not worth the paper they are written on and the legal precedent to label this confiscation of assets as a ‘stability levy’ or tax has no doubt been framed as such so as to circumvent EU deposit guarantee law, which this levy clearly violates. This is stealing – period.
Every saver in Italy, Spain, Portugal, but not limited to these countries, as it potentially applies to any saver in northern Europe and the UK, are at risk of a confiscation of their hard-earned money. We will likely see depositor flight from the periphery to the supposedly more robust surplus countries – principally Germany. This is despite the very large outstanding Target2 balances owed Germany by the periphery, but don’t expect the man in the street to be aware of this fact. This is unfortunate as some progress was being made in the reduction of Target2 imbalances as deposits in the periphery showed renewed signs of growth.
The Troika has run roughshod over the rule of law. By calling for a universal bail-in of depositors (the securest part of bank capital ladder) before extracting money from shareholders, junior and subordinated bondholders, the EU bureaucrats and IMF have unilaterally ripped up the legal framework for property rights. This is a truly worrying and frightening progression – actually regression – in economic freedom.
At Hinde Capital, we have no issue with uninsured depositors contributing to the bail-out of a banking system, even as unpalatable and clearly undesirable as this would seem.
Unfortunately bank depositors (savers) have long been under the misguided impression that they are potentially immune from a bank collapse, with the State providing a safety net in the form of deposit guarantees up to a declared sum. I would argue that individuals, partly due to government propaganda in the good times, have long since forgotten – or indeed have never understood – that once you deposit your money into a bank, you give up your right to ownership, ie, It’s a LOAN! An asset which is lent out multiple times as is the agreed practice under fractional reserve banking, clearly has a risk of no return, albeit a seemingly a low risk when confidence and trust is high in the economic system.
In truth the correct order of claims on the creditor structure in this ‘bankruptcy’ proceeding has been largely ignored as the Cypriot banks have such a small sliver of equity and debt, and have an unusually large depositor base. It is the involvement of the depositor base that turns this whole debacle into a plot of immense political intrigue and, indeed, even conspiracy.
Cyprus-sia ‘Tax’ Haven
It has been long known that Cyprus has held a vast sum of deposits from Russian lenders, and because of that Russia has been its biggest direct foreign investor. Low corporate tax rates, sub 10%, were the attraction, with Russians transferring their money into companies based in Cyprus. Some of this was then reinvested back in Russia. According to Der Spiegel:
An internal study by the German foreign intelligence agency, the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), says banks in Cyprus hold $26 billion (€20.33 billion) in deposits by Russian investors. According to the BND, most of this money has been illegally moved abroad to evade Russian tax authorities. By Cypriot standards it’s a tremendous sum given that the island’s entire annual GDP amounts to €17 billion.
The Cypriot government on Monday denied the money-laundering accusation. A government spokesman said SPIEGEL was trying to besmirch the reputation Cyprus has as an international investment location. The country had effective money-laundering rules and adhered to EU law, the spokesman said.
Indeed, Russians aren’t the only ones who sought the refuge of this once tax safe-haven, and consequently other European countries were not keen to be seen to be using their own tax payers’ money to afford a bail-out for ‘tax dodgers’ and money laundered in Cypriot banks by Russian KGB, mafia and their own citizens. So you could call the tax on uninsured depositors actually a levy on money laundering – call it a 10% haircut for washing your dirty linen. I bet any good money launderer worth his salt would take that cut.
The question is why have the small savers been penalised? This is the point in the plan which makes the EU bureaucrats look so dysfunctional or at best dishonest – I meant to phrase it that way round. By penalising small depositors, mostly local Cypriots, they, as I have stated, undermined the universally agreed EU depositor guarantee that currently stands at €100,000. The talk is that the Cypriot government who took a line of credit of some €2.5 billion from Russia in 2011, and having utilised it fully, wanted to appease the ‘motherland’. So they have agreed not to levy the full tax on deposits above €100,000. By doing this they hope for further assistance from Russia. I suspect they will offer support as Russian banks have loaned in excess of $40 billion to Cypriot companies of Russian origin (according to financial reports).
The Private Sector Initiative (PSI) on depositors is a victory for the ‘northern league’ of Europe, for now at least. With a German election year in full swing Merkel needed to satiate German taxpayers by no longer exposing their euros to the profligacy of the periphery. Yes, a victory in round one for Merkel and the CDU, but ‘ding ding’, here comes round two: I bet the Cypriots pull a few punches by pushing back on the levy on small depositors. ‘Ding, ding’ – round 3 – I say Merkel gets knocked off her feet as depositors flee the periphery and then (eventually) Mario has to step in and decide whether to cite ‘irreversibility’ status as a clause to stem a banking sector collapse in Europe, and provide unlimited monetary support, but without the conditionality clause of austerity. I say ‘eventually’ as Mario had repeatedly slapped the EU finance ministers, and Schauble particularly, for advocating a haircut on bank deposits. So he could really make Germany sweat by holding back on a re-load of its big bazookas’ – long-term LTROs and OMTs.
In the interim the national central bank (NCB), in this case Cyprus is no doubt utilising the ELA (Emergency Liquidity Assistance) to supply the Cypriot banks with sufficient funds to remain liquid in the event of insolvency and failure. This is at the risk of the NCB concerned and outside the ECB’s refinancing operational framework. It is completely opaque and in truth it will appear as a Target 2 ledger or on the ECB asset side as ‘Other assets’.
For now the Cypriot banks are now on holiday, forcibly closed for business until at least Thursday at time of writing, so depositors cannot withdraw their money. Likewise, ATMs have been deactivated and electronic wire transfers suspended. They will be opened once the Cypriot parliament has ratified (or not) the deposit levy and other terms of the bail-in. It could well be that the terms change yet to protect small savers as they should have been all along. Either way, the psychological damage has been exacted across European populations.
Those who think there is little risk of a levy being imposed on other periphery members are missing the point. The seeds of doubt have been planted. As a saver facing zero yields on deposits and a potential haircut, why keep your savings in a bank? Sure it is convenient for electronic transactions, but individuals can adapt easily. As one of my more amusing colleagues put it, “mattresses now hold a 10 per cent premium”.
Talk of ‘exceptional’ circumstances and a ‘one-off’ are true but only because Germany and the Troika would never succeed in enforcing such illegal measures on Italy and Spain without risking social unrest and a collapse of the euro. The Cypriots have more leverage than they realise. The Russians don’t need a failure as it could mean Russian bank risk. Moreover, Target 2 imbalances likely ensure that the ECB would not cut off the ELA and risk a euro currency break-up.
What this should reaffirm to you all is how the handling of the crisis has only succeeded in heightening the risks associated with this current monetary order. The excessive amounts of debt have continued to grow and are clearly not sustainable. Policymakers have resorted to draconian methods of expropriating private sector assets (households, pension funds and corporates) either by excessive explicit ‘taxation’ and/or stealth taxation administered by a policy of negative real rates to help reduce the fixed real burden of debts.
It also reinforces our long-held views that when push comes to shove policymakers (the State) will escalate oppressive tactics against their electorate in a bid to maintain their status quo and that of their fiat currency system.
Of most importance is the adherence to retrospective changes of law and different rules for different people and countries. Insolvencies are generally well-defined in law. First equity, then subordinated debt, then deposits and senior bonds together, take the hit in that order. The creditor structure has been up-ended and more than merely tweaked over the last few years. I suspect with levels of ignorance high amongst populations they haven’t quite woken up to the reality that the state is not in fact here for your protection as it once was and that we all need to take on self-reliance and a heightened sense of responsibility for ourselves. Some notable rule changes of late are subtle but growing in number:
- The ECB, holders of Athens-law and foreign law Greek debt all received different treatment
- The Dutch didn’t restructure SNS Reaal paper, they confiscated it
- The Irish banned lawsuits against the ultimate wind-down of Anglo Irish
- Portuguese private pensions were confiscated
The list is long but you get the idea. Rule-changes are getting ‘regressively’ more creative and sinister. As a friend pointed out to me this as if the “football referee has gone from being a quasi-neutral arbiter, to pulling off his black shirt to reveal a Manchester United one underneath and awarding himself a series of penalties.”
The bail-out should have been a legal bail-in whereby equity is wiped out, and all bank debt is written down. Then unsecured (uninsured) depositors ie above €100,000 should have taken a double digit hit. By doing this EU finance ministers and lawmakers would have been respecting the creditor hierarchy while adhering and honouring the rule of law. The retrospective change of law is what should alarm us all. The insidious and subtle nature of this encroachment on our civil rights sets an ominous precedent and those who glibly mock libertarians for their ‘rants’ are no doubt those same people who thought PIIGS really do fly.
The bail-in announcement for the Cypriot banks late Friday night was one of those events when we all look back and think that was the beginning of the end of the real global financial crisis. This should leave any individual in Europe under no illusion that the political elite will enact whatever it deems fit to protect their positions in the name of the euro and their own positions of power.
It is very clear that markets and investors underestimate the reality that debt restructurings are very necessary but won’t necessarily be enacted which leaves only more private sector wealth transfers (confiscation) and likely circumvention of the underlying problem of sovereign insolvency by central bank deficit financing.
So much for EMU solidarity…comrades.
Market risk will be most exposed in positions of heightened risk taking – short term buy yen crosses, sell Nikkei, sell Nasdaq as margin debt is very high and buy USD and UST. Gold as well – with no creditors – is designed for such occasions. But gold has been going down, hasn’t it? Not quite.
Who Said Gold is Going Down?
Let’s look at two simple charts, one of gold denominated in sterling and one in yen. Depending on where you are domiciled and hence exchange your domestic currency for gold will determine the extent to the value of your gold holdings.
Personally domiciled in UK, alongside many of our investors, we have exited sterling for gold and right now are enjoying all the protection that gold historically affords an individual when confronted with a currency that is being serially debased. Similarly with Japan’s escalation of monetisation of their structural fiscal deficits which has led to a significant fall in the value of yen on a trade weighted basis, Japanese gold owners have received a significant rise in the value of their gold holdings too. So gold has not gone down in value unless you own it in dollar terms!
Gold in GBP
Gold in Yen
Gold is doing exactly what it should be: holding its value against currencies being actively debased. The dollar – as reserve currency – will likely be the last currency to be debased, in what is likely to the closing stages of the fiat currency system and the dollar paper standard. Gold at that point will also be strongly appreciating against the USD, while the other major paper currencies will likely already be dust. | <urn:uuid:83c2e39d-a77b-4d6e-9f2c-a10206fe532c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hindecapital.com/blog/cyprus-oh-the-irony/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96246 | 3,938 | 2.1875 | 2 |
Sure, before you head to the beach, it’s imperative to slather on the sunblock. (Note: as far as I know, this is the first time I’ve used “slather” in a written sentence.) Everyone knows that too many UV rays are bad for you, and that SPF is the remedy. But what about another kind of ultraviolet?
This particular UltraViolet is a new cloud format for movies that is almost ready to make its consumer debut. UltraViolet has almost all of the major movie studios and many electronics manufacturers onboard, as well as many other supporting technology companies. But — and it’s a big but — Disney and Apple have not signed on yet.
UltraViolet seems pretty cool. When you buy a movie on Blu-ray, you’ll get access to a cloud version that you can stream to your various devices. And, it’s “free,” because the cost of the rights to stream the movie will be included in the price of the Blu-ray disc.
It’s hard to say exactly what studios will do, but I imagine that major movie releases will contain a Blu-ray disc, a DVD disc, and a UV cloud copy that can be accessed on a phone or tablet or whatever (the standard supports up to 12 devices). The whole digital copy download thing, always awkward to use, will probably disappear. Another UltraViolet option is to dispense with the disc altogether and simply sell the cloud version of the movie. In other words, UltraViolet is a bridge to the all-cloud future.
The question is, is that a future that we really want? Will the cloud picture and sound quality be equal to or better than Blu-ray? And what about the bonus material? Will an all-cloud UltraViolet delivery system do to movie quality what MP3 did to CD music quality? Sure, not having to pay for disc pressing will mean more profit for studios, but what about us consumers?
Ken C. Pohlmann is well known as an audio educator, consultant, and author. He is a professor emeritus at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, and the author of numerous articles and books, including Principles of Digital Audio and Master Handbook of Acoustics.
Copyright © 2013 Bonnier Corp. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited. | <urn:uuid:3d9a0756-04d1-4fad-9eb7-e2ed789fba86> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/blog/2011/07/27/uv-hazardous-your-health?page=3&quicktabs_1=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947491 | 501 | 1.515625 | 2 |
If you have teenage children, then chances are they will turn to you when they want to learn how to drive.
Parents are often put in the slightly stressful position of accompanying their teens as they get behind the wheel for the first time.
Here are a few top tips that can help you help your children!
Teach them the road rules
Theory is just as important as practical learning. Before your teens even think about getting in the car it's important that they understand the road rules!
Start off slow
Don’t rush into it - take it slow and give your teenagers a chance to get the feel of the car before they try and hit the roads.
A good place to practice is in empty car parks.
Provide them with professional lessons
While you can help your teenagers as they begin, it's a good idea to provide them with professional lessons as well.
This way an expert can make sure that they completely understand all of the road rules, as well as teach them more specialised knowledge such as what to do in the event of an accident, or how to handle their vehicle in wet conditions.
Keep helping, even once they have got their P-Plates
It can be tempting to step back and leave your teenagers to it once they have got their P-Plates, but it may be worth checking in with them every now and then and making sure they are following the road rules.
Young people can often fall victim to peer pressure, or simply think that they are invincible when behind the wheel.
Just yesterday (Thursday July 26), police allegedly caught a "novice driver" speeding at 157 kilometres per hour in a 70 kilometres per hour zone.
Superintendent Stuart Smith was displeased with this news, and said that the motorist's reckless behaviour had cost him dearly.
"A novice driver at this speed places himself and other road users at serious risk," he said.
"This driver now faces a significant fine, and the offence of driving at a speed [this] dangerous carries a maximum penalty of nine months imprisonment, a $3,300 fine, and three years driving disqualification."
Inform them what to do when involved in an accident
Give your young drivers tips on what they can do should they be involved in an accident. It's important for them to exchange contact details and insurance information with the other vehicle, as well as call the police and emergency services if need be.
If they are ever involved in a crash, they may also like to know that they could be eligible for car accident compensation.
There are lawyers in Sydney that can help them make a claim on a no win no fee basis. | <urn:uuid:8f137a87-67a7-490d-9e5e-f8a593bffdd6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gerardmaloufpartners.com.au/DailyLegalNews/800483474-Top-tips-for-teaching-your-kids-how-to-drive.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978264 | 546 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Q&A: Ukraine's Yulia Tymoshenko on trial
The former Prime Minister of Ukraine, Yulia Tymoshenko, has been convicted by a Kiev court of abuse of office over a gas deal with Russia and jailed for seven years. She rejected the trial, saying it was politically motivated.
Who is Yulia Tymoshenko?
The former businesswoman came to prominence on the world stage during Ukraine's 2004 Orange Revolution. She was one of the leaders of the successful campaign to overthrow Viktor Yanukovych, who had claimed victory in that year's disputed presidential election. Following the revolution she was appointed prime minister by President Viktor Yushchenko but was dismissed a few months later after conflicts within the coalition. She regained the premiership in 2007 but political squabbling with Mr Yushchenko continued. She was defeated by Viktor Yanukovych in the presidential election of 2010 which outside observers generally deemed to be fair, and was forced out of office shortly afterwards.
On what charges was she convicted?
She was jailed on 11 October for criminally exceeding her authority over a 10-year gas contract signed with Russia in January 2009. Prosecutors said Mrs Tymoshenko had not had cabinet approval to sign and the deal had been ruinous for the Ukrainian economy. She denied the charges. This is not the first case to be brought against the former prime minister. In December 2010, she was charged with misusing 320m euros (£270m; $425m) received by the government in 2009 for the sale of carbon credits.
Why was she held on remand during her trial?
On 5 August, trial judge Rodion Kireyev ordered Yulia Tymoshenko to be remanded in custody, accusing her of repeated violations of court rules, including impeding proceedings. She had reportedly refused to stand up while addressing the judge and questioned his objectivity during the trial. One of her lawyers, Sergei Vlasenko, described her detention as "unprecedented and illegal". The prosecution had accused Mrs Tymoshenko of failing to take the trial seriously and mocking the judge and witnesses - who have included current Prime Minister Mykola Azarov. She has also sent tweets from inside the courtroom.
Was this a show trial?
Mrs Tymoshenko and her supporters have repeatedly denounced the trial - she called it a "political lynching". She says the proceedings are an attempt by President Yanukovych to bar her from future elections. The Ukrainian government rejects these accusations and insists it is not interfering with the legal system. The US and EU have criticised the charges, saying they constitute selective prosecution of political opponents. EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fuele suggested Ukraine's EU integration hopes could be undermined. "If she indeed is put in prison... it would be problematic," he said. Ukraine's PM called such external pressure "immoral".
What has been the reaction outside the court?
Her trial appearances have provoked confrontations between hundreds of her supporters and riot police. | <urn:uuid:466cf930-b2b2-4239-8f09-fbed37687cb9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14459446 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988091 | 597 | 1.554688 | 2 |
By Louise Vest
Succulent aromas ascended from the grill; adults chatted; bees buzzed the dessert table; and kids played in the grass, their orange ball and blue bat waxing exotic against placid fields of green.
This was, however, an extraordinary event, for not only has this annual May procession and family reunion been held continuously for 65 years, it was born from a mother's prayers for her children.
Elvira Lancelotta is gone now, but her family, many of whom reside in Howard County, continue to honor her by coming together one day every May for a Mass and celebration of family. This reunion, honeyed by tradition, is both joyous and peaceful; but it began because of war.
As if there wasn't enough horror surrounding World War II, an event occurred during America's first year of the war that jolted millions and, in particular, made parents of those in the military shudder every time they thought of Aleta and Thomas Sullivan. In 1942, at the Battle of Guadacanal, the Iowa couple lost all five of their sons, who were stationed aboard the bombed USS Juneau.
So when Joachim and Elvira Lancelotta, parents of a large family living in Baltimore's Little Italy, sent off five of their six sons into the military during the war, Elvira made a promise to the Blessed Mother that if all of them returned home unharmed, she would make a special tribute to her every May, for the rest of her life.
Eddie, Guido, Victor, Jerry and Charlie all came home safely. True to her word, she made that tribute of thanks for all that could have happened to her sons and didn't. For the most part, they were not in harm's way. Though throughout the war years, there was plenty of worry about when one or more of her sons might be thrust into battle.
That waiting game required a certain kind of valor and was not without consequences, as the stress quickly aged lots of war-time parents -- including the Lancelottas.
"After my mom's second son was drafted, her hair turned gray," recalled Victor Lancelotta, 89, the youngest of Joachim and Elvira's sons, and the only son still remaining. Two sisters also remain, Eleanor and Mary. The oldest brother, Guido, died just last year at the age of 101.
Brother Edmund was the first to be drafted, a short time before the war began. After his training, he was slated to be sent overseas on Dec. 8, 1941.
"Eddie told my mom, 'There's not going to be a war, I'll be OK.' Ha! Then came December 7 and Pearl Harbor!" said Victor.
Eddie, who was in the army, ended up in the South Pacific on the Galapagos Islands. Then Guido was drafted; he was also Army. Next, it was Jerry's turn, and he went into the Navy and was stationed stateside.
By summer 1942, the draft board set its sites on Victor, but this time Elvira Lancelotta wasn't letting go without a fight.
She went to the draft board and appealed to them, telling them she already had three sons in the military. Victor was given a reprieve of six months. He joined the Navy in December 1942.
Only brother Frank remained at home. Toward the end of the war, brother Charlie was the last to be drafted, when the desperation of the government to finish the fighting was playing out at draft boards across the nation.
"The draft board was grabbing anyone by then," said Victor. "Charlie had two kids and worked in a defense plant, and they still took him!"
During Victor's time in the service, he moved around stateside and then spent part of 1944 in London, where the Germans were sending over the new V-2 rockets. Luckily he wasn't close to the rockets' targets. After V-E Day, (Victory in Europe) in May, 1945, Victor was slated to go to the South Pacific, but the war ended before he was sent.
"My mom had five stars hanging in her window, the most in Little Italy, I think," recalled Victor, about the small flags with blue stars on them indicating a family member is serving in the military during war time. The gold stars represent a family member killed, but to everyone's joy, all the Lancelotta stars remained blue.
"I got out of the service in spring 1946, and in May we had the first reunion," said Victor. It's a reunion the brothers all attended throughout the years. One aspect of the procession that family members particularly enjoy is the crowning of the statue of the Blessed Mother.
"Each year, the children in the family who have had their first Communion do the crowning," said Sam Lancelotta Sr., an Ellicott City resident and son of Jerry Lancelotta.
This year, there was a slight glitch in that no children took their first Communion, so an adult, Theresa Lancelotta Prione, crowned the statue. Prione has the distinction of being the first child to crown the statue back in 1946. Another tradition is that the Mass and Rosary, held in the pavilion before the picnic, is presided over by Father Sal Furnari, of St. Leo's Roman Catholic Church, in Little Italy.
The May procession/reunion, held in the park's Avalon section, hasn't always been held there. For decades, it was held at the family estate, property in west Baltimore that the Lancelottas purchased after the war, referred to as The Hill.
It was where many fond family memories were created, including one of a large, marble statue of the Blessed Mother that the family had made in Italy a couple years after the war. A smaller, more mobile statue is now used at the reunions. And there was also once a large WWII artifact on The Hill for the May procession.
"One of my uncles bought a WWII army surplus jeep, and we had that up on The Hill, too, for the reunion," said Dr. Charles (Buddy) Lancelotta, who also recalled that there were hundreds of people who came to the event. Guests included church Cardinals, nuns and dignitaries, like Baltimore's mayor.
Lancelotta, a neurosurgeon, on staff at Howard County General, is the third oldest of the grandchildren. Born at the beginning of WWII, his father was Charles Lancelotta Sr. The doctor has only missed one reunion in 65 years.
Because the families have grown so large, at this year's reunion, name tags were worn. And one creative family wore T-shirts announcing they were "Team Eleanor" in honor of their mom, who couldn't attend. Eleanor was one of Elvira and Joachim's daughters.
Some of the Baby Boomers in attendance shared their own reunion memories.
"We all have fond memories of being on The Hill," said Rose Lancelotta Cavey, of Ellicott City.
"The first time I really remember the reunion is when it was my turn to crown the Blessed Mother. I was 7 and had my first Communion that year. I think my daughter was 13 when it was her turn."
"I love this reunion, it's great to see everyone. But I can't imagine sending five sons into WWII." said Lulu Lancelotta, Rose's sister.
"My son's a lieutenant in the Marines. He hasn't even gone overseas yet, and it's a worry. So, it must take a great deal of faith to survive sending five," said Pam Bianco, a granddaughter-in-law.
Toni Apicella Donovan, Eleanor's youngest, said her children appreciate the reason behind the reunion, adding that her daughter even wrote a paper on the event in middle school. "For me, it's a great way to remember those brothers and to really thank all those who serve our country."
Keeping the promise
Mary Lancelotta Bianco, youngest child of Joachim and Elvira's, talked about the war as she sat in the shade of the pavilion at a picnic table.
"I was 18 when the war started. I was just coming out of the Hippodrome Theatre when we heard about Pearl Harbor." She knew instantly that the attack would change life for everyone.
She began to talk about her brothers but had to pause for a moment. Though she was surrounded by family on a beautiful May day, talk of that long-ago war and her brothers leaving home, one by one, still brought tears to her eyes.
Once composed again, she continued, recalling that while her brothers were away, her mom went to Mass every day to pray for her boys. Her mom also spent her days working at the family's confectionary store.
"When dad was in the store, he'd sit quietly on a stool with the rosary in one hand and pray for my brothers. When they all came home safe, we had a huge Mass at St. Leo's."
As Mary left her table to talk to a niece, Buddy Lancelotta looked out over a scene ripe with relatives and stated, "Not many events go on for 65 years."
Indeed -- along with the ceremony, food and chit-chat -- there was also talk of the accomplishment of maintaining a tradition in an era when traditions are scarce. Along with the warm breezes wafting about the pavilion, there were definitely undulating currents of pride.
However, as the older generation disappears, along with that magnetic pull of first-hand stories, will the tradition continue? Even with over 30 grandchildren, will those in the outer bands of the family's orbit continue to keep the promise of a war-time mom?
For Buddy Lancelotta that's a situation for which, just like that faced during the war, there are no guarantees.
"Whether it can be kept going, well, that remains to be seen." | <urn:uuid:8ad58cbc-789d-4d71-8e78-c1255f0f8b82> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://archives.explorehoward.com/community/84934/mothers-promise/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986446 | 2,091 | 1.835938 | 2 |
The National Society Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) was founded in Washington, DC, in 1890.
DAR objectives are Historic Preservation, Promotion of Education and Patriotic Endeavor.
The Bellefonte Chapter was founded on October 10, 1895, in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, the county seat of
Centre County and home to four Pennsylvania governors. Settlers came to Centre County as early as 1764.
Bellefonte, incorporated in 1806, remains a beautiful Victorian town. Nearby is State College, home of
The Pennsylvania State University. | <urn:uuid:c2733952-9e07-41c9-a560-913e535ffdf0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~pabcdar/index.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943969 | 120 | 2.234375 | 2 |
The Pedagogies and the Profession Area of the Southwest/Texas Popular and American Culture Association is now accepting proposals for paper presentations and panels on any topic involving successful or innovative approaches for teaching literature, media studies, film, cultural studies, television, rhetoric and composition, technical writing, or technology. Also welcome are proposals that identify and discuss the existence or implication of specific pedagogical problems or issues, whether these advance any resulting new methodologies or not.
Teachers from any type of school or curriculum are encouraged to submit proposals. Graduate students with teaching experience are also particularly welcome with award opportunities for best graduate papers.
Suggestions for possible papers or panels are listed below, but other topics are both welcome and encouraged.
● Unusual discipline combinations in Writing Across the Curriculum courses
● Benefits and challenges of online teaching
● Strategies for teaching games and game theory
● Using Web 2.0 tools such as Facebook, Bebo, MySpace, Twitter in teaching
● Curricula featuring primary sources from library special collections
● New ways to incorporate Wikis or Blogs into the classroom
● Teaching U.S. students in international settings
● Podcasts and videocasts as teaching tools
● Editing family letters and/or journals in student projects
● Promoting active learning by co-opting structures typically associated with webpages
● Experiential learning in community settings
● Integrating service learning with traditional curricula
● Student projects constructed as museum exhibits
Send 100-250 word paper abstracts or proposals for panels to Leslie A. Donovan at the email or physical address below by the submission deadline of December 15, 2009. Please include a brief biographical statement of 50 words or less with your abstract or proposal.
Founded by Dr. Peter C. Rollins in the 1970s, the SW/TX PCA/ACA has sought to foster the interdisciplinary study of our region through its fascinating legacy of literary, historical, visual, and media images. Since then this regional organization, affiliated with the National Popular and American Culture Associations founded by Ray B. Browne, has grown to include a wide range of offerings bringing participants together from across the nation and internationally for its annual conference. A core value of the organization is the belief that an understanding of national concerns begins with regional and local learning.
The 2010 SW/TX PCA/ACA Conference will be held February 10-13, 2010, at the Hyatt Regency in downtown in Albuquerque, New Mexico (330 Tijeras, Albuquerque, NM 87102; 505-842-1234)
Details regarding the conference (listings for all areas, other CFPs, and info about hotel, registration, tours, etc.) can be found at http://swtxpca.org/.
Leslie A. Donovan
University Honors Program
1 University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131-0001, USA
(505) 277-4313 (phone), (505) 277-4271 (fax) Email: email@example.com Visit the website at http:///swtxpca.org/
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Tuesday, April 3, 2012
It’s a running joke in the digital media space that Google+ is a ghost town. Not entirely accurate as companies such as Ford believe in the space and prominent bloggers still actively participate there, but it certainly didn’t meet the promise that many hoped for – to finally bring a direct competitor (with deep pockets) to Facebook. 50mm active users and 90mm registered users is nothing to sneeze at, but it’s certainly not where the Internet giant was hoping to be. This isn’t the first time Google’s tried to venture into social networks, there were the other Internet services, Buzz and Wave, which became fodder for Internet jokes before being shut down.
On the flip side, Google’s content creation engine consistently churns out compelling content that is shared far and wide and highly praised: think Google Doodles; April Fools jokes; and random Easter Eggs in products (e.g. Map Directions). They excel at it and appear to have a lot of fun doing it. So it should be only natural that if they are that good at creating content that people want to share they should understand how to build products that facilitate that sharing. Right?
Well, understanding the psychology of human sharing and interaction is different from creating cool things that people like to geek out to. Google, at its core, is full of incredibly smart engineers who look at problems logically and have a deep understanding of how the Internet works, how to create workflows, and how their own products can all be tied in together. These are the folks who brought us Gmail that revolutionized email, search which is the backbone of how people find information online, etc. etc.
But these products are all fundamentally purpose built, not discovery and interaction built.
I go to Gmail to read and respond to email. I use the search engine to find things I’m looking for, not to browse the web. I use Maps to get directions and find things. You get the picture. YouTube is different, but it wasn’t built in house, it was acquired after it was already successful and hasn’t really expanded much past it’s original purpose – to watch videos online.
The sticky social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr et al. are all about frictionless creation and sharing which is where the content that Google creates naturally spreads. Google+ is amazingly built. It has so many features that the other networks lack it should be a natural place to migrate our social interactions to. Except, all those features that make sense logically probably confuse the average user. Geeks get it, but geeks already have channels where their buddies are to share on. Circles are actually a really great idea, but the average person looks at that and says, whoa, way too much work! I’d hazard a guess that 9 out of 10 people on Facebook and Twitter haven’t set up lists either (the simplest versions of Circles). Ripples? What are those? Hangouts, which should have been the killer feature weren’t promoted properly (think about how Apple promoted Facetime for how it should have been done), and YouTube integration was an after-thought instead of a must have from day one. I could go on and on but you get the picture. When Google builds social networks they build them through their own incredibly logical lens instead of an average consumer lens.
So, what can they do? I’d suggest taking a look at why their content is so successful and how it spreads (psst, they have Google Analytics that recently added social networks tracking they could take a peek at for some insights). I’d also do a deep analysis of what their competitors are doing from a marketing lens, not a development one. Make it easy to import friends from other networks, make setting up a profile a snap, make it cool (and easy) to be there. Then, in the immortal words of start-ups: pivot…. Hell, even Zuckerberg pivoted by opening The Facebook to non-college kids.
In the meantime, keep the content coming, it’s really good!
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The Summer Games by Roger Angell
From spring to fall and from decade to decade, baseball changed in the mezzo years between 1962 and 1972—the hot summer when leagues were expanding, franchises were moving, owners were getting richer, players were getting bigger, and television was altering the game. The New Yorker writer’s pitch-perfect essays from the 1960s gave birth to modern baseball writing, the way that A.J. Liebling was the heavyweight of boxing literature. Read Angell, and you can practically feel the summer breeze blowing through the outfield bleachers. The smell of spring is in the air.
Moneyball by Michael Lewis
Quick. Name one book about baseball. Chances are you said Moneyball. You’ve at least seen the movie, or heard about it. How do you spend $41 million and compete against the New York Yankees’ $125 million payroll? What Billy Beane, the general manager of the Oakland Athletics, had “was a willingness to rethink baseball: how it is managed, how it is played, who is best suited to play it, and why.” That’s not easy for a game synonymous with “tradition.” Alongside the mentions of on-base-percentages and sabermetrics is a very human story of (relatively) strapped underdogs up against flushed elites. Whether Beane’s sabermetrics works is almost beside the point—this is a story about the nature of competition.
The Natural by Bernard Malamud
The most divisive book on this list isn’t so much a baseball novel as it is a novel by a man who didn’t consider a book to be a book unless it can be used to procure a Pulitzer. There’s something about baseball that mesmerized post-war immigrants, and Malamud nailed it with the mythical tale of Roy Hobbs, a “natural” of such star magnetism that he gets shot by a woman for mysterious reasons, and then must climb out of the recovery abyss. One swing of his bat (the Excalibur-like “Wonderboy”) could mean redemption—or ruin. Baseball purists find this allegory dark and over-the-top. But Malamud, who didn’t let so much as a fly buzz by without writing about it as long as it passed through Brooklyn, showed us what Jews living blocks away from Ebbets Field must have felt: awe and hope in the shadow of an ugly new world.
Jews living blocks away from Ebbets Field must have felt awe and hope in the shadow of an ugly new world.
Bang the Drum Slowly by Mark Harris
The four-part story of Henry Wiggen begins with The Southpaw, which was published a year after The Natural. It, too, has the tendency to knock big hitters out cold, since Harris likes the vernacular so much it can look as if he’s throwing nothing but fastballs that blow by you. But true to its title, Bang the Drum Slowly stays the flash of the high heat and centers on the poignant life of Bruce Pearson, Wiggen’s catcher and roommate, who’s dying slowly of cancer.
October 1964 by David Halberstam
The premier journalistic chronicler of the ‘60s was also one of the greatest reporters to have written on sports. (He was killed five years ago in a car crash on his way to interview the quarterback who led the New York Giants in “The Greatest Game Ever Played.”) It should come as no surprise, since to understand America you must take note of its sports, so deeply are they woven into the national psyche. Like Moneyball, the narrative of the 1964 World Series pitted the upstart underdogs St. Louis Cardinals against the Goliath New York Yankees, and Halberstam painted vivid portraits of every member of the teams, from Roger Maris and Micky Mantle to the determined young buck Lou Brock. This is how American men acted, thought, and felt.
You Know Me Al by Ring Lardner
Read this book out loud, or don’t read it at all. The Southpaw did not invent the colloquial baseball novel. Lardner did. And it is pitch-perfect. Virginia Woolf never saw a single baseball game, though from what I gather, she could probably toss a no-hitter, no sweat. But she read You Know Me Al, and called its letter-writing hero, the plainspoken bush-leaguer Jack Keefe, a character through whom “we gaze into the depths of society.” Never mind that the society she so wanted to gaze into was a foreign land populated by people she’d deem savage and subhuman—to Woolf, no one is sophisticated enough, except maybe Lardner.
Triumph & Tragedy in Mudville by Steven Jay Gould
The author of The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, which could stop a tank, not only by its size but also by its heavyweight science, adored baseball. (He was a lifelong Yankee fan, though I won’t hold it against him.) Witness a great mind applying the expertise of a world-class statistician to the love of the game, and find out why “nothing ever happened in baseball above and beyond the frequency predicted by coin-tossing models”—in fact, everything in the universe is governed by mathematical rules. He learned that from Bill James, the Boston Red Sox sabermetrics guru who inspired Billy Beane and laid the groundwork for the 2004 champions.
The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop. by Robert Coover
Waugh, the accountant protagonist of the metanovelist Coover's strange fiction, might have gotten along with Gould. Each night after work, he becomes the god of something like a fantasy baseball league, tossing dice to dictate the plays of players like “bowlegged old Maggie Everts” or “Hatrack Hines.” The conceit might sound pretentious, but it works, and the fun this book offers must be read to be believed.
The Boys of Summer by Roger Kahn
“I’ve seen the Brooklyn Dodgers / Play in Ebbets Field,” Tom Waits croaked, as if it was a privilege. It was. It’s more than that: it’s myth. To relive the legend, you need Kahn’s The Boys of Summer, the story of titans like Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, and Carl Erskine, gods in their glory days who would soon see the twilight. “I see the boys of summer in their ruin lay the gold tithings barren,” as Dylan Thomas said.
The Last Good Season by Michael Shapiro
And the twilight is meticulously depicted in The Last Good Season, which tells you everything you need to know about the tragedy of the Dodgers. (How could Brooklyn not have a team? It nearly killed poor Malamud.) The story is nothing short of a portrait of a city, charting the rise of the feared Robert Moses and the vanishing of the “chained bay waters Liberty” of Hart Crane and Walt Whitman’s old Brooklyn.
The Great American Novel by Philip Roth
Skim a synopsis of a Roth satire and you might think him only riotous, ludicrous and extravagant. But if you know Roth you know that even a story about the only homeless major-league team in American history—the Ruppert Mundys—would be very human. After all, even Alexander Portnoy wanted to be a ball player: “Oh, to be a center fielder, a center fielder—and nothing more!”
Ball Four by Jim Bouton
The forebear of tell-all books like Jose Canseco’s (baseball, hitherto something like a religious sect, was notoriously late to the expositional genre), Ball Four shocked the game when major-league pitcher Jim Bouton decided to let readers peek inside the dugout in 1970. Frequent doping—that’s the sin that was aired, and the one that still haunts the sport.
The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach
What if all baseball players were like Hamlet? Can you field a ball if you over think it? That’s the existential crisis that strikes Henry Skrimshander, the prodigious shortstop of the Division III Westish College Harpooners, who one day finds himself, suddenly and without reason or cause, unable to scoop up a routine grounder. No such affliction for Harbach—this first novel flows like Albert Pujols’s swing, and could very well represent the start of a new wave of baseball lit. Here’s to the future. | <urn:uuid:8d8e0405-c408-484c-baa9-9747575e5ac3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/04/05/the-13-best-baseball-books-from-the-art-of-fielding-to-moneyball.print.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956015 | 1,849 | 1.828125 | 2 |
The Sunnah is for the adhaan and iqaamah for prayer is to be given standing. This is what the people have done from the time of the Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) until the present day. The one who gives the adhaan sitting or gives the iqaamah sitting with no excuse has done a bad action and has gone against the Sunnah.
This is a matter on which the scholars are unanimously agreed that there is no difference of opinion among them.
It says in al-Mawsooah al-Fiqhiyyah (6/11):
The fuqaha' are unanimously agreed that it is mustahabb for the one who is reciting the iqaamah for prayer to do so standing, and it is makrooh to do so sitting without an excuse, but if there is an excuse, there is nothing wrong with it. … It is also makrooh to give the iqaamah whilst walking or riding when travelling or otherwise without an excuse. End quote.
It also says in al-Mawsooah al-Fiqhiyyah (15/264):
Giving the adhaan or iqaamah whilst sitting:
The fuqaha' are unanimously agreed that it is makrooh for the muezzin to give the adhaan whilst sitting except with an excuse, or if he is giving the adhaan for himself, as the Hanafis and Maalikis say, because the Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) instructed Bilaal to stand when he said: Get up and give the call to prayer. The muezzins of the Messenger of Allah (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) used to give the adhaan whilst standing. And because standing makes the voice carry further, and giving the adhaan and iqaamah whilst sitting is contrary to the practice that has been handed down.
Among the Hanbalis, Ibn Haamid said: If he gives the adhaan whilst sitting, it is invalid. This was the view of Shaykh Taqiy al-Deen, who said that the adhaan given by one who is sitting down is not acceptable. And Abu'l-Baqa' narrated that it should be repeated if he gave the adhaan whilst sitting down.
In the case of one who has an excuse, there is nothing wrong with him giving the adhaan whilst sitting. Al-Hasan ibn Muhammad al-Abdi said: I saw Abu Zayd, the Companion of the Messenger of Allah (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him), whose legs had been injured (in jihad) for the sake of Allah, giving the adhaan whilst sitting. End quote.
The Sunnah is not to walk whilst giving the iqaamah, and to give the iqaamah in the place where one is going to pray, so that there will not be an interval between the iqaamah and starting the prayer, and because the iqaamah is an announcement that the prayer is about to begin. So one should start to pray immediately after reciting the iqaamah.
Abd-Allah ibn al-Imam Ahmad said in his Masaa'il (61/220): I said to my father: Can a man walk whilst saying the iqaamah? He said: I like him to stay where he is. End quote.
Ishaaq ibn Raahaywayh said: As for the muezzin, once he starts to say the iqaamah, if he is the imam, he should not walk during the iqaamah until he finishes it. End quote.
Masaa'il al-Imam Ahmad wa Ishaaq, 2/836
And Allah knows best.
Reproduced from Islam QA | <urn:uuid:b5da78bb-9c02-4883-9daf-fc2dd2635d80> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.islamonline.com/news/articles/164/Is-it-permissible-to-say-the-iqaamah-for-prayer-si.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948629 | 830 | 2 | 2 |
The Eclipse Examples Project (Examples) provides a location for adopters of Eclipse technology to find well-documented example applications, platforms, and features/plug-ins/bundles that demonstrate the use of Eclipse technology. The idea behind the project is to provide a home for examples of applications and plug-ins that use Eclipse technology. As a general rule, examples utilize technologies from multiple Eclipse projects, though this is not rigorously enforced to avoid excluding examples that might otherwise be useful and interesting.
We believe that a collection of well-documented and compelling examples demonstrating the use of Eclipse technology is of great benefit to the projects and the adopter community. First, these examples provide increased visibility for the projects. Further, they provide a vehicle for demonstrating and testing interactions between projects that might otherwise be difficult or impossible provide in the context of any one project. Perhaps most important, these examples provide much-needed documentation for adopters of Eclipse Technology.
March 2, 2008 New Team Project Sets for the RCP and RAP versions of EBERT have been added.
June 24, 2008 The IP Due Diligence team has completed it's preliminary review of the Image Utilities example. It has been checked into CVS in accordance with Parallel IP. Full due diligence review will occur in parallel.
May 20, 2008 The IP Due Diligence team has completed it's preliminary review of the Expenses example. It has been checked into CVS in accordance with Parallel IP. Full due diligence review will occur in parallel.
Coming soon... (and, yes, there'll be an RSS feed) | <urn:uuid:f2437580-915d-4eb5-a1a6-172fb74ea769> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.eclipse.org/examples/index.php?example=org.eclipse.epsilon.eunit.examples.bindings | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.916207 | 322 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Tehran displays ECO Bismillah calligraphy works
A number of calligraphy works by veteran artists from member states of Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) have been showcased during an exhibition held in the Iranian capital, Tehran.
Over one hundred exquisite works in different styles of calligraphy and calligraphic paintings inspired by the Arabic word, Bismillah (In the Name of God) are being displayed at the Diplomatic Gallery of the ECO Cultural Institute (ECI) in Tehran.
Gholam-Hossein Amirkhani, Mohammad Salahshour, Hamid Ajami, Nasrollah Afjei, Sedaqat Jabbari, Ahmad Pilehchi and Hassan Ahangaran are among the masters whose works are on show.
Last year, Tehran mounted similar exhibition of calligraphy works titled The Land of the Sun created by a group of artists from ECO member states.
A number of unique Qur’anic manuscripts of Islamic countries and ECO member states were also put on display at Iran's National Library and Document Center’s pavilion at the 2012 Qur’an International Exhibition in Tehran.
ECI through holding these exhibitions aims to foster understanding among ECO member states and preserve their rich cultural heritage through common projects in the field of media, literature, arts, philosophy, sport and education.
ECO Bismillah calligraphy exhibition will be running until September 28, 2012. | <urn:uuid:3ab5892f-d9bd-4267-a7a8-ef9b4be550fa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://english.khabaronline.ir/detail/182748/Tehran-Islamic-Culture--/Culture/Culture | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937863 | 298 | 1.59375 | 2 |