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WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama said on Monday that even though the recession has been officially declared over, for the millions of people who are out of work or otherwise struggling ``it's still very real for us.''
Focusing on the poor economic conditions that existed when he took office, Obama said, ``The hole was so deep that a lot of people out there are still hurting.'' He addressed a town-hall-style meeting telecast live on CNBC.
He spoke shortly after a group that dates the beginnings and ends of recessions said that the economic downturn that began in December 2007 ended in June 2009. At 18 months, that makes it the longest since World War II, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research.
``Something that took ten years to create is going to take a little more time to solve,'' Obama said.
Obama participated in the hour-long session before heading to the nearby state of Pennsylvania on Monday to raise money for Democratic Senate candidate Joe Sestak, who is locked in a tight race for a seat considered a must-win for the president's party.
The group assembled for the session included large and small business owners, teachers, students and unemployed people.
A woman who said she was the chief financial officer for a veterans' service organization told Obama, ``I'm exhausted of defending you'' and recounted that the times have been hard on her and her family. ``I'm disappointed where we are right now,'' she said, asking, ``Is this my new reality?''
Obama told her, ``My goal is not to convince you that everything is where it ought to be. It's not.'' Still, Obama said that things were ``moving in the right direction'' under policies he has put in place.
A 30-year old law school graduate who said he could not find a job and could not even make interest payments on his student loans told Obama he was inspired by Obama's 2008 campaign but ``that inspiration is dying away.''
``The most important thing we can do right now is grow our economy,'' Obama said.
He talked about a series of his recent proposals to accelerate business investment.
``What we can't do is go back to the same old things we were doing,'' he said. | <urn:uuid:dc6c681e-1059-4bcb-92a7-84bfb90f1425> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2010-09-20/news/27626090_1_barack-obama-recession-end-chief-financial-officer | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984234 | 456 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Written by Super User
The last time many Californians thought about high-speed rail was in the voting booth. On that day, Nov. 4, 2008, more than 6 million of us voted to tell the state to get going, to build high-speed rail in California.
Now, 2 1/2 years later, the second guessing is in full swing. In recent weeks some have suggested that we should put the project on hold.
We couldn't disagree more.
California will need high-speed rail in the coming years to do something about the gridlock on our roads and at our airports. Building it is a major investment, but the most recent estimates say it would cost twice as much over the next generation to build new highways and runways just to move the same number of people. With California expected to grow by 12 million people in the next 25 years, investment in the state's transportation system is inevitable, and high-speed rail is a cost-effective alternative.
In the last 2 1/2 years the case for high-speed rail has gotten stronger, not weaker. When voters approved the plan, a barrel of oil cost about $55; today the price is almost $100. Unemployment
was around 8 percent back then, and it is now over 12 percent statewide and even higher in many areas. Californians need the jobs.
There are bound to be questions with any project of this size. We welcome the dialogue. Last month the Legislative Analyst's Office
published a report calling for at least a temporary halt to the project. The report alluded to a number of concerns about the project:
• The amount and timing of future federal funding are unclear.
• Spending state funds on rail will mean there is less money for other things.
• We do not yet know how much private investment the system can attract, or when it will come.
Let's take the criticisms one at a time.
First is federal funding. While we don't know precisely how much we will get in future years, we've competed well up to this point. California's project has received the largest slice of federal high-speed rail funds to date – $3.6 billion out of $10.2 billion. This is in large part due to the extensive planning already under way at the state level and the ability to leverage voter-approved Proposition 1A funds. There is no other program where California competes so well for federal funding. We will continue to encourage additional investment – both public and private – while promoting efficiencies that allow us to stretch every dollar in creating jobs and planning for the future growth of this great state.
Second is state funding. The voters said high-speed rail was a priority and authorized spending $9 billion in state funds. The state continues to experience fiscal constraint due to diminishing revenues, but because construction is ramping up slowly we will only need 2 percent of these funds in the coming year to keep the project on track. The amount approved by voters will be spent over many years, keeping the impact on our state's budget low in any given year.
Third is private funding. Our high-speed rail system
is expected to make money and attract private investment – similar to systems in Europe and Asia. Twenty-two different funds have shown investment interest in financing part of the system's capital costs. Demonstrating our commitment by beginning major construction and finalizing all the approvals will minimize investor risk and net the best terms for the taxpayers.
Finally, there is the matter of where to start building. Many Southern Californians have said we should give priority to their part of the state; same in the Bay Area.
We know that this system will never be a success until it connects these two population centers
and does so in a way that is sensitive to local concerns. But the question of where to start does not require complicated analysis. The place to start is the place where we're ready to start, and that's the Central Valley.
No one thinks we should build the line through the Central Valley
and then stop. And we won't. There is a parallel to the building of the Interstate Highway System
more than 50 years ago. When we started building the Interstate Highway System,
the first segments to be completed were not in New York
or Los Angeles.
The interstate was born in the middle of the country, America's heartland, with the very first sections laid in Kansas and Missouri and then connected to the rest of the nation.
On the day that first segment of interstate was dedicated we did not know where all the money would come from to build a 40,000-mile network throughout the nation, and we did not know when it would be finished. However, it was because of the vision of those who were willing to initiate the effort that, today, America has the most extensive highway system
in the world.
California and the United States need high-speed rail, so let's keep going.
This pro-high-speed rail op-ed ran in the Sacramento Bee from the Mayors of San Francisco, Sacramento, San Jose, Fresno, Los Angeles: Edwin Lee, Kevin Johnson, Chuck Reed, Ashley Swearengin and Antonio Villaraigosa, respectively. It was published: Tuesday, Jun. 7, 2011.
Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2011/06/07/3681606/case-for-high-speed-rail-grows.html#ixzz1Q99UBImY | <urn:uuid:7623079e-5d55-4e19-a7d8-fe4bb1ca908c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.narprail.org/index.php/news/stories/81-viewpoints-case-for-high-speed-rail-grows-only-stronger | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957384 | 1,126 | 2.234375 | 2 |
Valley vistas: New excursion in Staunton
A short 20-mile jaunt through the central Shenandoah Valley doesn't sound like it could be all that compelling. That stretch of the Valley between Staunton and Harrisonburg is nice– the views of the mountains to the east and west, the farmland– but is it worth getting all worked up over?
And anyway, is the view of the world from a train that different from the view from the window of a car?
"It is. It's a different world," says Larry LeMond, president of the Eastern Shore Railroad, the company that operates the Shenandoah Valley Railroad connecting Staunton to Pleasant Valley.
Shenandoah Valley Railroad is offering a series of two-hour excursion rides on Sundays in October to show how different the world looks from a train window.
The Railroad is primarily a freight railroad, moving products from foodstuffs to propane gas to fertilizers. But LeMond says, "We've been looking to do something like this as a trial balloon to see if it would work, and decided that this would be the year to try it."
The response, he says, has been "overwhelming."
The railroad had 3,500 tickets, and as of Friday, September 16, more than 2,800 had been sold. Trips on October 8, 16, and 23 have sold out, LeMond says, adding,"The phones have been ringing off the hook."
Looks like the trial balloon is flying high.
"It's a very good sign," LeMond says. "We're going to sit down at the end of the month and decide what we want to do next year."
The Virginia Central Railroad leased its historic cars to the Shenandoah Valley Railroad for this excursion.
FILE PHOTO BY JEN FARIELLO | <urn:uuid:c31ed9a6-eb52-4530-8603-289e449a3bc9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.readthehook.com/97723/news-valley-vistas-new-excursion-staunton?quicktabs_1=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976377 | 387 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Most Active Stories
WWNO News Reports
Wed December 8, 2010
Mayor Landrieu Calls For Volunteers To Fight Blight
By Eileen Fleming
New Orleans, La. – Mayor Landrieu is calling it the "Fight the Blight" plan. It's coordinated around a five-block radius of schools, playgrounds, and high-traffic commercial corridors in each district.
"We're doing the citywide sweep by going to five different areas of the city and then we'll start over again and we'll keep going. There's no other city in the nation, other than Detroit, you know, that's got this number of it. So, it's large. It's widespread. You know - and again: How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time."
Volunteers will be needed from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. They'll be picking up litter, planting trees, clearing lots and helping city inspectors identify code violations. Volunteers can sign up at the city website, nola-dot-gov, or by calling the mayor's office.
For WWNO, I'm Eileen Fleming | <urn:uuid:46b4abdf-2f7c-4d01-a83e-dea755970b96> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wwno.org/post/mayor-landrieu-calls-volunteers-fight-blight | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93768 | 237 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Turner to Monet
Three bands make up the painting: a blue sky, pink and grey clouds, the green meadow. A tree at left frames the composition, the central haystack provides a point of focus, a few animals add extra interest, and some exquisite reflections persuade us of the artist’s painterly skills. If we were to follow the thin, flat bayou meandering through the marshland, where would it take us? The distant hills have none of the grandeur or drama expected of landscapes at this period. Even the hand of the artist seems peculiarly absent. We are left with a haystack at the centre of the painting which, on closer examination, is a rather strangely shaped mound. Where, exactly, are we?
Marshlands – at the mouth of the Parker River in Ipswich, Massachusetts, or Hoboken in New Jersey, or Southport, Connecticut – held a great fascination for Heade; he produced more than a hundred paintings of the subject. These canvases have various descriptive titles: passing or approaching storms, sudden shower, after the rain, sunrise, sun breaking through, after the rain. Our attention is drawn to the natural forces and meteorological phenomena that shape these environments. Clearly, it was the changing atmospheric conditions and variations in light that attracted the artist. Is this what fascinates us still?
Heade began painting salt marshes in about 1858 and continued to paint them for more than four decades, in pairs, thematic groups, or as long series. He worked on marshland subjects intermittently, alternating them with Romantic mountain, tropical, southern or northern landscapes.1 At times, for variety, Heade included duck hunters or their hutches, hayricks or covered haystacks in his marsh scenes – he even created still-life paintings of marsh canvases propped up on trestles.2 Despite all these variants, even with staffage, the best of Heade’s paintings are characterised by a mysterious emptiness.
Just as a marsh is a transitional zone between land and water, Heade’s Luminist paintings sit slightly apart from those of the Hudson River School. Like many of his contemporaries, Heade travelled widely: in his early twenties he spent two years in Rome, travelled in Brazil from 1863 to 1864 and his life in the United States was peripatetic. Sunlight and shadow, the Newbury Marshes encapsulates both major European aesthetic traditions: idyllic, light-filled scenes or intense, northern specificity. Looking at Heade’s marsh paintings, those who value stillness may be think of Friedrich’s The Great Preserve c. 1832. Conditions of light in both paintings – twilight in Friedrich’s, the combination of sunlight and shadow in Heade’s – liberate colour from naturalism, contributing an intriguing violet tinge to each scene. Both artists use unnatural colour palettes, and only a few motifs. But like composers, they obtain seemingly endless variations from these notes. In Sunlight and shadow, the Newbury Marshes, Heade makes the ordinary exotic. Lurid colours give the painting a hallucinatory quality, the solitary haystack takes on mystical power, and the deceptive simplicity of the scene makes it seem hyper-real. Here the Sublime verges on the transcendental.
1 Heade and Church were close friends – Church passed his studio, in a 10th St New York, to Heade – and Church also encouraged his interest in South America.
2 See Gremlin in Studio II c. 1871–75, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford; for this and others, see Theodore E. Stebbins et al., The life and work of Martin Johnson Heade: a critical analysis and catalogue raisonné, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000. | <urn:uuid:b6d64db9-19af-4ecf-baac-fe7df6998f0e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nga.gov.au/exhibition/turnertomonet/Detail.cfm?IRN=165115&BioArtistIRN=20354&mystartrow=61&realstartrow=61&MnuID=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932898 | 788 | 3.109375 | 3 |
Since January, the Dutch politician Geert Wilders, Beach Boy-haired founder and leader of the Freedom Party (PVV), has been on trial in Amsterdam for inciting hatred against Muslims and Holland’s recent Moroccan immigrants, for inciting discrimination against Muslims, and for insulting Muslims. Wilders’s alleged offenses include directing a short film, Fitna, that criticizes the Koran as an incitement to violence and writing a letter to the editor that called for the banning of the Koran—a “fascist book,” in Wilders’s opinion.
The wording of the law is clear. It targets anyone who “publicly, verbally or in writing or image, deliberately expresses himself in any way insulting of a group of people because of their race, their religion, or belief.” Before Wilders’s indictment almost a year ago, Dutch politicians and lawyers, liberals and conservatives alike, assured the public that the law could only be used against those who were haranguing mobs bent on riot, and against publishers of Mein Kampf (banned in Holland) and other hate speech. But an Amsterdam judge named Tom Schalken overruled the public prosecutors in his district who recommended that the case against Wilders (urged on by extreme-left politicians) be dropped.
For obvious reasons, Wilders’s trial has attracted worldwide attention. It’s not just that, since the indictment, the PVV’s stunning success in the June general election made it the third largest party in Holland. The charges against Wilders raise grave human rights, legal, political, and moral issues. Have Holland’s laws and decisions of the European Court of Human Rights put fears of blasphemy ahead of any concern with the right of free speech? And have the Dutch allowed the definition of blasphemy and insult to be controlled by the feelings of a particular group of citizens—Muslims—because of favoritism or fear of violence? A Dutch professor of human rights created a furor when he suggested that Wilders is being persecuted just as dissidents are persecuted in China and Cuba.
The trial has been suspended since October 22, when an appellate court dismissed the panel of judges led by Judge Schalken and ordered a new trial, which may resume shortly, as three new judges were appointed November 11. What happened to the first panel of judges? Their dismissal had surprisingly little to do with the profound issues of human rights and political freedom I mention—and about which I have nothing new to say here. It happened because an expert witness, a retired professor of Arabic and Islamic thought named J. J. G. Jansen, was affronted by a load of post-structuralist cant.
But Professor Jansen’s indignation may be just as important as the weighty issues touched on in the prosecution of Wilders. It raises the question of whether our best and brightest are still intellectually equipped even to think about, much less decide intelligently, the great questions of law, freedom, and human rights. What is really troubling, and fascinating, about the Wilders prosecution is how much it depends on the intellectual weapons of “postmodernism,” deployed by a highly educated Dutch elite. In Amsterdam’s battlefield of ideas, the guns of Adorno, Foucault, Kristeva, Derrida, Edward Said, and their countless academic popularizers have been turned against civil rights and human freedom. Learned pretentiousness has consequences.
J. J. G. Jansen, known as Hans Jansen in Holland, retired from the University of Utrecht after a distinguished and rather dashing academic career, including many years spent living and researching in Cairo. Jansen testified at the Wilders trial in May. He had been called as a recognized expert in Arabic and the modern interpretation of the Koran (about which he has published several books and numerous articles since 1972) to tell the court about what the Koran actually has to say on the subject of jihad and other disagreeable matters. Jansen believes that he was asked to testify because the court “could not imagine that the things Geert Wilders claimed were in the Koran were actually in the Koran.”
On October 20, Jansen dropped the bomb that derailed the trial. In a post at the small but well-regarded blog HoeiBoei, he revealed that a few days before his May testimony, Judge Schalken had engineered a surprise meeting between them at a dinner party, where the judge tried blatantly to influence his testimony. Schalken’s intentions seemed obvious, even clumsy. He kept turning the subject of conversation to the trial, tried to convince Jansen that the charges against Wilders were justified, and attempted to elicit Jansen’s sympathy and even his cooperation with the prosecution (Dutch trials are always presided over by a panel of judges, but Schalken’s role in forcing the case to trial was unusual).
Jansen’s witty account of the dinner party produced chaos among the Dutch legal establishment. The Amsterdam appellate court to whom Wilders’s lawyer appealed delayed for a few days, insisting that it was “implausible” that Schalken could have intended to influence the witness, but suddenly gave in. On October 22 they dismissed Schalken and his fellow judges from the trial for bias and ordered that the case be restarted. But behind the scenes there was even more uproar, very un-Dutch, in the world of judges, prosecutors, and law professors. Secret and very improper memos flew from officials of one court to judges of another. Judges met in secret like trade union bosses. The president of the Supreme Court sent rockets in all directions. What exactly did take place at the dinner party?
Let me caution the jury: You must guard yourself against bringing your own cultural preconceptions to the question. At a dinner party of pols in pre-Tea Party Illinois, you might imagine brown paper bags of cash circulating with the port and walnuts, the after-dinner conversation veering to whether it’s better to serve on the Sanitary Commission, the Cook County Park District, or to aim for Carp Czardom. In London or Oxford, you might expect to overhear mumbling about a peerage, connected to a consulting gig or two.
They order things differently in the Netherlands, and Tom Schalken used different bait. After all, his host, the fellow guests, and perhaps Jansen himself had all been comrades on the university barricades in the ’60s and now enjoy distinguished places in academia, the bar, and public broadcasting. Schalken seems to have calculated that Jansen would respond if the trial were “reframed”: He should think of it not as the criminal trial of a notoriously populist politician, but as a high-level academic seminar. Geert Wilders was not a defendant but a text to be deconstructed.
Jansen’s blog post tells the story well (I rely on the translation by the Dutch blogger “Klein Verzet,” aided by my own bad Dutch). Jansen was not at all surprised to meet the usual run of left-wing highbrows at the party—they were the pals of his host, Bertus Hendriks. Hendriks is famous in the Netherlands for having been a leader of the 1968 student revolt at the University of Amsterdam, and then for many years a senior correspondent with the Netherlands Broadcasting Service. In his piece, Jansen teases Hendriks for being the heart and soul of the Palestina Komitee, the most prominent of many Dutch do-gooder organizations advocating the destruction of the state of Israel: “No one can talk as beautifully about the sufferings of the Palestinians as Bertus,” Jansen wrote, but “after a couple of beers, Bertus once told me that he doesn’t care that much about the Palestinian problem itself. What he’s really interested in, he explained to me painstakingly (because I am a ‘petty-bourgeois product of the older generation’) is using the fate of the Palestinians as a way of unmasking the ‘global structure of exploitation.’ ” Jansen did expect to be quizzed about Islam and the Wilders trial, but in private and among friends of Hendriks—even if those friends were officials of the biggest Dutch socialist and Green parties and other judges.
But the atmosphere of the party was not quite what he expected. He was astounded to meet Schalken, simply as a matter of legal propriety—he even feared that anything he said in response to Schalken’s first questions about Islam might put him in legal jeopardy (much to Schalken’s indignation!). But eventually he realized that something else was going on. The underlying message was not that he was regarded as an Islamophobe or reactionary—far from it. Jansen was meant to understand that he was at the party because he was one of the elect—professors, socialist politicians, and intellectuals, with degrees from Amsterdam and Leiden and CV-pagefuls of imposing books and -articles. Such people of quality have to stick together, whatever their politics, against counter-jumpers like Wilders.
Schalken, an Emeritus Professor at the University of Amsterdam, the very university with which Balkenende, Rouvoet and Bos were associated [the then-current Dutch prime minister and his coalition partners who were running against Wilders in the upcoming June elections], let me know that this trial was, purely in scholarly terms, an “imposingly interesting case,” which needed tremendous study and would yield all kinds of perspective on vital current questions.
Ah, now I understood.
For Schalken, this trial was not so much a real trial, but rather a kind of academic seminar, or even a legal student’s plea exercise—not a criminal trial with serious consequences for the adults involved in. This academic exercise would make use of a profoundly threatened and vulnerable politician. “Unmasking global structures”—what a nice hobby to have!
Wilders presents a serious problem for the Handelsblad-reading (i.e., New York Times-reading) classes. What scandalizes them about Wilders are not so much his commonsense views on immigration and doubts about political Islam, not even so much that he speaks, without racism or neo-Nazism, for 1.4 million Dutch voters who had been persuaded to feel ashamed by a national consensus of politicians, professors, jurists, and journalists. It’s his rhetorical skill that floors them. Wilders is a persuasive and concise speaker, writer, even filmmaker—yet he never attended a real university. He studied “insurance” at the equivalent of a community technical college and has law certificates—not full degrees—from a distance-learning college. And there’s more. He is of partly Indonesian descent. He is from a Catholic family (though he is an atheist) from largely Catholic Limburg province, dangling off from the rest of the Netherlands at its far southeastern border. Limburg has its own style, its own dialect, and shares a much longer border with the Belgian province of Limburg than it does with what might be called the Netherlands’ “lower 48.” It’s not just his flamboyant personality and hairstyle. Wilders himself can seem foreign in his affect (and perhaps his accent): One foreign correspondent wrote a long thumbsucker headlined “Listening to Wilders raises the question: am I still in Israel?” His propensity to speak bluntly and charm the masses is as embarrassing and horrifying to the educated classes as Sarah Palin is to everyone I know.
Wilders should simply be unable to compete on equal terms with highbrow judges, lawyers, professors, and journalists, all liberal arts graduates of the great Dutch universities. But he can, and as a result many nice Dutchmen feel that there’s something uncanny about him. After all, as one Handelsblad reader exclaimed, “Highly educated PVVers scarcely exist. Whenever you read the response of a PVV member, there are almost always several grammatical errors.” Wilders, for all his educational limitations, nonetheless speaks truth to those who believe in such things as “global structures of exploitation” and the fetishization of free speech.
But there’s help for liberal Netherlanders. If you were in Rotterdam last month, you could have joined them at a public seminar, cosponsored by Rotterdam’s Erasmus University, that taught the secret sources of Wilders’s dazzling rhetorical technique. The seminar leader, Delft University professor Hans de Bruijn, has just published a new book on how Wilders’s debating skills can fool you into thinking that his arguments are reasonable, even attractive. De Bruijn promised to teach the audience his own method of resisting Wilders. Then audience members were invited to test their newly learned skill against a professional actor playing the role of Geert Wilders!
What both empowers and disables the Dutch elite in the face of J. J. G. Jansen’s learned honesty and Wilders’s sheer talent is their long marinade in the discourse of postmodernism. The Handelsblad-reading classes actually believe what they have been taught in school: namely, that opposition to multiculturalism and unlimited immigration has no rational basis. Left in the state of nature, the Dutch masses would have followed elite guidance and never have had second thoughts about these matters. That it might be disagreeable, even dangerous, to have neighbors who do not respect the secular nature of government, sexual equality, freedom of speech, and toleration of homosexuality—these feelings, to the postmodern eye, are merely social constructions.
Properly deconstructed, these feelings can be seen for what they are: the product of malign, racist, and no doubt Zionist rabble-rousers and their politician toadies, who have created these feelings among the Dutch electorate to redirect anger that would otherwise be correctly aimed at capitalism. So Rudolph Peters, professor of Islamic law at Amsterdam University, instructs us in his paper “Dutch Public Intellectuals and the Koran.” He believes that the Dutch masses have “feelings of fear” that stem from the “deep transformations” of Dutch society in recent decades that are really caused by left-wing bogeys such as “globalization” (from which the Netherlands has in fact profited immensely). A certain group of Islam-hating intellectuals and politicians then “projected” this anticapitalist resentment against radical Islam instead. Their voices entirely constructed reality.
You might then argue that Islam should be able to take its lumps just as Christianity and Judaism do in a modern society—but how wrong you would be. Peters reminds us that the 19th-century critics of Christian orthodoxy spoke against a privileged institution from a noble—and thus permissible—position of weakness. But Islam in the Netherlands is not in the “position of power” enjoyed by Islam’s critics like Wilders (hauled into court), and others, whom Islamists tried to murder, including Ayaan Hirsi Ali (driven from the Netherlands by death threats in 2006); or whom Islamists did murder, like Theo Van Gogh (shot and almost decapitated in 2004) and Pim Fortuyn (gunned down in 2002).
The history of the left’s attraction to tyranny is a very old one. Less well appreciated is its attraction to pomposity and pretension, so well illustrated in the Wilders saga. Fashionable academic theory has completely unhinged the best and brightest minds in the West—rendering too many of our elites incapable of thinking clearly about matters of ordinary justice, racism, and democracy, which they fancy they have special expertise to fix. Judge Schalken, Professor Peters, and their like, in Europe and America, are happy to render certain kinds of discussion illegal because of utterly abstract concerns that are real to them only because of dogmas absent-mindedly absorbed from Foucault and his followers. They would be worthier opponents if they were morally suicidal or loathers of European civilization. They’re not—they merely enjoy the feeling of superiority to which they believe they are entitled by the argot of anti-essentialism and the social construction of reality. They should be pitied, and also sometimes feared.
Sam Schulman, a writer in Virginia, was publishing director of the American and publisher of Wigwag. | <urn:uuid:e0466d10-f8a6-4903-ba33-9ee47af2ca9c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.weeklystandard.com/print/articles/pretentiousness-kills_516687.html?page=3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97324 | 3,454 | 1.828125 | 2 |
2013: Do One Thing for Diversity and Inclusion
In 2001, UNESCO adopted the Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity and in December 2002, the UN General Assembly, in its resolution 57/249, declared May 21 to be the World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development.
The day provides us with an opportunity to deepen our understanding of the values of cultural diversity and to learn to live together better.
The 2013 campaign, by encouraging people and organizations from around the world to take concrete action to support diversity, aims:
- To raise awareness worldwide about the importance of intercultural dialogue, diversity and inclusion.
- To build a world community of individuals committed to support diversity with real and every day-life gestures.
- To combat polarization and stereotypes to improve understanding and cooperation among people from different cultures.
The campaign works through a dedicated Facebook page, serving as a platform for people around the world to share their experiences through posts and videos. | <urn:uuid:4948f718-baae-4a67-a28d-1918aaeaceae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.un.org/en/events/culturaldiversityday/index.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.901155 | 191 | 3.09375 | 3 |
History of Initiative & Referendum in Ohio
- Initiate amendments to the Ohio Constitution.
- Initiate new laws.
- Overturn laws passed by the Ohio State Legislature.
- Approve legislatively-referred constitutional amendments.
From 1913, when the first initiated constitutional amendment was voted on in 1913, through 2007, Ohio voters have voted on sixty-three initiated amendments to their constitution, approving 17 and rejecting 46.
Between 1913 and 2007, Ohio voters also voted on 142 proposed constitutional amendments that were legislatively referred to the ballot by the Ohio State Legislature. Of these, voters approved of 94 amendments and rejected 48.
Including all 205 initiated and referred constitutional amendments voted on by Ohio citizens, 111 amendments have been approved and 94 rejected.
History of I&R
The first steps toward I&R in Ohio begin in 1896 when the National Direct Legislation League met in St. Louis, Missouri. The league elected 56 vice presidents, four of whom were from Ohio, the largest number of the 36 states that were represented.
Reverend Herbert Bigelow
The leader who guided Ohio initiative and referendum forces to victory was the Reverend Herbert S. Bigelow of Cincinnati's Vine Street Congregational Church. Church members who disapproved of his political work quit in droves; his salary diminished to the point that he and his wife had to take in boarders to make ends meet. When he invited the I&R advocate and Prohibitionist R. S. Thompson to speak to the congregation, the church's trustees locked the doors. Later, the trustees filed formal charges of heresy against Bigelow before a church court, but he was never tried. Eventually, Bigelow's supporters won control of the board of trustees and helped him make Vine Street a nerve center of the state's Progressive movement.
When the state senate approved an I&R amendment in 1906, Bigelow sensed that success was near and took a leave of absence from the church, with his congregation's consent, to work full time for I&R, "for a time, perhaps two or three years." In 1908, despite opposition from the Governor, "the well-known machine representative," (as Equity called him), the I&R bill passed both houses, but was killed by legislators voting secretly in a conference committee. I&R backers charged that "the Republican bosses and their tools in the state senate" were responsible.
The 1912 state constitutional convention
The Progressives finally got their I&R amendment, not through the legislature, but in a state constitutional convention, along with some 41 other amendments, which were submitted for voter approval in a special election held September 3, 1912. A contemporary account of the campaign called it “the most bitter and momentous struggle known in the state for a generation. Every ruse and trick known to Big Business politicians was employed to frighten the people of Ohio from adopting the I&R. The whole corporate power of the state backed by Wall Street money and influence was thrown into the fight. The Catholic Church stood against the people's power measures and issued printed instructions to their members, at the Sunday services, on how to vote.”
The fight for the I&R amendment and for other vitally important amendments was led by Reverend Bigelow, ably assisted by Mayor Brand Whitlock of Toledo and Mayor Baker of Cleveland. The I&R amendment passed in a statewide vote on September 3, 1912 with 57.5% of the vote.
First initiative in 1913
The first year an initiative appeared on the Ohio ballot was in 1913, when Ohio Issue 1, an attempt to reduce the size of the state legislature, was petitioned onto the ballot. The measure failed.
First successful initiative in 1914
Ohoians petitioned four measures onto the 1914 ballot, and one of them, Ohio Issue 1 regarding home rule for the sale of intoxicating beverages, passed. The Women's Suffrage Amendment was not so lucky.
Voters in 1933 approved the Old Age Pension Initiative and, in 1936, overwhelmingly passed an initiative banning taxes on food. In 1949 they dealt a serious blow to political machines in the state, abolishing the voting-booth system of electing an entire party slate of candidates with the flick of a single lever. Henceforth, voters decided the merits of each candidate independently.
Rejection at the voting booth
During the next 39 years, voters rejected all but one initiative put before them. The exception was the 30-Day Voter Eligibility Initiative, a 1977 vote to repeal a law, approved only months previously by the legislature, that allowed people to register to vote at the polls on election day rather than requiring them to register beforehand.
In 1992, three separate term limits initiatives were petitioned onto the ballot and approved at the ballot box: Congressional Term Limits, Gubernatorial Term Limits, and State Legislative Term Limits.
This article is significantly based on an article published by the Initiative & Referendum Institute, and is used with their permission. Their article, in turn, relies on research in David Schmidt's book, Citizen Lawmakers: The Ballot Initiative Revolution.
- ↑ History of Ohio's initiative
- ↑ Citizen Lawmakers: The Ballot Initiative Revolution Temple University Press, 352 pp., ISBN-10: 0877229031, October 1991
- A History of Statewide Issue Votes in Ohio, compiled through 1954 by Arthur Schwartz
- Ohio Issues Procedures and Ballot Board
- List of Ohio initiatives from 1913-2000, PDF from the [[Initiative & Referendum Institute]
- Ohio ballot measures from 1998-present
- Procedures for qualifying an initiative in Ohio
- Laws governing the initiative process in Ohio
- List of Ohio ballot measures
History of I&R
Alaska · Arizona · Arkansas · California · Colorado · Florida · Idaho · Illinois · Kentucky · Maine · Maryland · Massachusetts · Michigan · Mississippi · Missouri · Montana · Nebraska · Nevada · New Mexico · North Dakota · Ohio · Oklahoma · Oregon · South Dakota · Utah · Washington · Wyoming
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According to a recent Angus Reid poll, 68 per cent of Canadians believe Prime Minister Stephen Harper is harbouring a hidden agenda.
It’s a staggering number that sheds light on the impact of running a heavily-centralized agenda and playing one’s political cards needlessly close to one’s chest.
Accusations of a lack of transparency and poor access to information response times have dogged the Harper administration since it rose to power in 2006.
One of the harshest critics of the government’s access to information procedures and performance has been the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE), an organization that has consistently handed the Harper administration failing grades on transparency.
The CJFE frequently points to the outcomes of a recent Centre for Law and Democracy study that ranks Canada 55th of 93 countries worldwide in the area of rights to information.
Regardless of whether the Harper government is actually harbouring a secret agenda, it certainly seems like one exists, and appearances can be everything. Poor transparency notwithstanding, it is only fair to acknowledge the administration’s successes.
Under Harper, the country has outperformed its counterparts in the G7 economically, putting our banks and businesses in a strong position to dominate internationally. In fact, our economy has performed so well that it has been held up by IMF chief Christine Lagarde as the “economic model for the world.”
And in spite of the ongoing chorus that Harper has worsened Canada’s image internationally, a recent Ipsos poll found that 82 per cent of global citizens surveyed felt Canada has the greatest potential of postively impacting world affairs — putting us ahead of all other world players included in the survey.
The country’s economic outcome has not come without a price, of course. The Harper administration has been notably sluggish in the handling of its environment portfolio, and certainly fell on the wrong side of a United Nations vote regarding Palestine’s status with the organization.
And the access to information elephant is certainly looming.
With the Liberal leadership race heating up, and with the NDP in a position to heavily bleed support — support most likely to fall to another left-wing party — the dearth of serious opposition to the Conservative Party may be at an end.
It certainly will be, provided the Liberals make the right choice and go with substance and vision over charisma and a brand name.
If the Harper administration wishes to maintain some form of hold over Canada moving forward, it must start to adopt a more transparent means of doing business, and it must find that mentality now.
If the Conservatives fail to do so, the country’s “natural governing party” may find itself forming government again in 2015. | <urn:uuid:4ab8c2dd-eb4d-4e85-aad0-efcf784edc0d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mjtimes.sk.ca/Opinion/Columns/2012-12-07/article-3136259/The-Soapbox-Time-is-now-for-Harper-to-get-on-Canadians-level/1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937597 | 551 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Players use card drafting and simultaneous action selection to form a story while interfering with other players' stories. The game consists of four rounds. In each of them, players are dealt five cards. They simultaneously select one each and pass the remainder to the left, repeating until done. Then, they start playing cards simultaneously, playing three and discarding two. When the cards are revealed after each selection, card abilities turn other cards face-up or face-down. At the end of the four rounds there are 12 cards in front of each player and the players; they each score based on their face-up cards.
Language Note: This is a multiple language edition game. Manufacturer’s rules are in multiple languages (including English). Game components are language-independent. | <urn:uuid:bb89ad58-f65b-47be-ad0d-9c0da6f09398> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gamesurplus.com/product_info.php?products_id=508 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962632 | 155 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Proper pH balance can help you avoid disease, sleep better, improve digestion, maintain proper weight, save you money and much more! Stress, improper diet and your environment can all lead to a pH imbalance.
However, with the right information you can take the steps to correct your pH and greatly improve quality of life. Expand the tabs below to learn more.
The human body's metabolic process is naturally acid-producing (wastes). This cellular waste, however, needs to be neutralized or "balanced" to a degree so that it can be safely eliminated without damaging tissues of the glands and organs responsible for detoxifying the body.
Each body fluid system (blood, lymph, etc.) has its own natural degree or measurement of acidic quality. Acidity supports decomposition, decay, disease, and energy loss. Most Americans maintain high acidity because of "acid-causing" lifestyle characteristics that include but are not limited to diet, stress, toxic environment. Therefore, "alkaline input" has to come from or be created somewhere (food/supplements, air, lifestyle habits) to insure a level of balance.
Monitor your own pH levels and learn more about how to improve vitality and alkalinity with the pH Test Kit.
Alkalinity in the human body's metabolism is needed to "neutralize" or "balance" acidity. The availability and presence of alkalinity in the body's acid-producing environment is counteractive to illness and disease and prevents decomposition.
Acid waste can be safely eliminated by kidneys, liver, etc. only when "alkaline input" has played its balancing role. Minerals such as calcium, magnesium, potassium, and sodium promote alkalinity. Raw fruits and vegetables tend to be "alkaline - causing" in the body's metabolic end product.
Monitor your own pH levels and learn more about how to improve vitality and alkalinity with The pH Test Kit.
pH balance is the balance of acid and alkaline qualities in all fluids throughout the body. General cellular function is acidic in nature and hence requires an input of alkaline qualities so that the body can strive for balance. Perfect balance is never really achieved at any given moment and balance is a never-ending task/goal that is in constant perpetuation. If your bodys overall chemistry is pushed or forced into staying too acidic or alkaline then your health is compromised or in danger.
Most Americans maintain high acidity because of diet, stress and toxic environment. Blood is one of the fluid systems that is constantly trying to maintain a pH of 7.4 (slightly alkaline). If your blood is "pushed" in an acidic direction, your body will search/find alkaline elements (calcium, potassium, magnesium, sodium) to create and maintain balance. Other body fluids such as urine and saliva can be measured/monitored with pH paper test strips that measure hydrogen ion concentration. Readings can range from approximately 5.5 to 8.0 (acid alkaline). A reading of 7.0 is neutral.
In the long run poor health is far more EXPENSIVE than good health. It is up to you to take more responsibility to form and maintain healthy eating and exercise habits. Take responsibility for your health and reduce/eliminate disease, illness, frequent doctor/ hospital visits.
Clearwater Beach Spa
641 1/2 Mandalay Ave. Clearwater Beach, FL 33767 | <urn:uuid:3e7903bd-ed39-414b-97e4-e37e4313b9e9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.clearwaterbeachspa.com/products/acid-alkaline.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924229 | 704 | 2.828125 | 3 |
9 Interview Questions that Will Help You Land the Right Hire
How many times have you hired an employee who turns out to be much different than the employee you thought you were hiring? One way to prevent those unpleasant surprises is to tighten up your interview questions. Here are some questions that can help you uncover more insight into your candidates.
Questions to determine the candidate’s weaknesses:
1. If I were to contact your last boss, what would they say would be the biggest area you could improve upon?
2. What is a weakness that you are currently working towards making into a strength?
3. What things might some of your coworkers say are your weaknesses but you believe are your strengths?
Questions to determine the candidate’s initiative, creativity, etc.:
4. Initiative: Tell me about project XYZ —how did you identify the problem and what were the steps you took to implement a change? Tell me a time when you identified a problem and had to communicate it to management? What was it about the problem that caught your attention and what did you do to convince management to allow you to do to implement change?
5. Organizational Skills: Tell me about a time when your ability to organize was challenged the most and did you find a way to create order from chaos? How do you plan your day? What tips would you give someone who is overwhelmed with paperwork or tasks?
6. Creativity: Tell me about your last idea. What inspired you and did you change you idea after consideration? How would you improve upon this process? Tell me a time when your creatively solved a problem in a way no one had considered in the past?
Questions to determine a candidate's ability to work autonomously:
7. Tell me about the last time your manager was not reachable and you needed their immediate input. What did you do?
8. Describe for me on a scale of 1 to 10 how hands-off you prefer your managers to be.
9. Describe a time in your most recent job where you were given responsibility for a project that you had little experience in, but were provided with reference materials. How did you handle it and did you feel you received enough guidance? | <urn:uuid:8a821420-73d4-409c-8507-3ee090dc63c8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.linkstaffing.com/9-interview-questions-that-will-help-you-land-the-right-hire.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980199 | 453 | 1.5 | 2 |
Second in a series of posts looking at the rapidly evolving world of online education for school-age students. Click here for Part 1.
“The student of the future will truly be an explorer, a researcher, a huntsman who ranges through the new educational world of electric circuitry and heightened human interaction just as the tribal huntsman ranged the wilds. Children, even little children, working alone or in groups, will seek their own solutions to problems that perhaps have never been solved or even conceived as problems.”
McLuhan, M., & Leonard, G. B. (1967). “The future of education: The class of 1989.” Look magazine, February 21, pp. 23-24.
When McLuhan and Leonard wrote those words 46 years ago, they probably did not anticipate that school-age students of this century would first master that “new educational world” by playing games and exploring “heightened interaction” via social media. Aside from a handful of early educational programs like Oregon Trail, the first attempts to teach full courses online were mainly college-level classes. Many adult learners welcomed this, as it permitted flexibility and gave access to people not living near a campus. Online courses have been widely used by teachers for CEUs for over 30 years.
Some of the introductory college courses were made available to high school students who wanted to have “enriched” study or gain some college credits while still in school. When the demand for online courses soared for all ages, curricula were adjusted to suit the delivery and content management systems developed. The technology kept evolving, adding the ability to manage group work and discussion groups as well as individualized instruction.
Virtual high schools have proliferated all across the country in the last decade. They are not simply classes delivered via the Internet, but interactive courses that can be adapted to many learning styles. A student can attend an online high school from anywhere in the world, but many work with programs from their own state. Students can move through work at their own pace, have peer groups online, and have consistent interaction with their instructors. While various types of virtual schools exist, most integrate real-life experience with academics.
Types of Virtual Schools
Many virtual schools are online public charter schools, most often an extension of an existing school or school district. Some traditional schools offer their own programs—for a few courses or for the entire program. These virtual schools are largely funded through their districts. The cost to families using an online public charter school is minimal, with some schools even supplying computers. If the student is using the family computer, it may need to be updated or upgraded to support the latest technologies, but each school will have specs available. Often these schools work only with students in their own state, but there are national programs as well. Most of those have registered charter schools in each state they support, but the actual headquarters and teachers may be located in another state.
Online private virtual schools are also available. Just like their physical counterparts, private virtual schools are required to be accredited in the state they serve. They may seek accreditation in several states, just as online public charter schools do. They will have a tuition-based program, and the costs vary widely. These schools are often supported by a particular group, such as a religious-based organization or college. Most often, parents select an online private school for the same reasons that they choose a traditional private school: because it fits their values or lifestyle, because of smaller student-to-teacher ratios or more personal attention, or because it offers particular classes or support for their student.
When special equipment is needed for a course, like a microscope for biology, some programs have them available for loan, but many do not. When loaned, a deposit may be required. As you consider the school, be sure to ask about resources and fees.
Both public and private options may offer their courses strictly through their content management system, or they may be prepared to develop individual learning plans for each student. Many blend both of these features. As an advisor or parent of a student looking at virtual schools, asking to see demonstrations and examples of courses or custom learning plans is a good way to see what is right for your student.
For students with learning differences or specialized needs, many of the resources that states make available to all students are also available for students in virtual schools. Martin is an occupational therapist who works at a Florida school that has both traditional and online classes: “We have students who are dealing with spinal injuries, and we can use the state resources to outfit them with the right add-ons to their computers whether they attend classes or learn at home. If a family is not currently working with a social worker, they can find one through their home district to get this started.”
Selecting a Virtual High School
Is a virtual high school right for the student in your life? Consider the following questions: Is this student looking for a chance to move ahead at her own pace? Has this student struggled with the structure of classroom learning? Would the student learn faster without the distraction of a class full of peers, or does he thrive on having friends around? Are the classes that interest him unavailable at the local school?
When considering online schools, you will want to look at many of the same factors you would look at when considering a traditional school. Examine the school’s website closely, and have the student look too. Most offer demonstrations or sample lessons for you to review, and some have videos of their programs being used. Some virtual schools cater to at-risk students and others support special interests and advanced studies. Talk to a representative and an actual teacher if possible. Be prepared to give some examples of your student’s school successes and struggles so you can discuss how these would be addressed by the program. If you are looking for a virtual program to meet a specific need or augment a classroom-based experience, ask how the program supports that need. Ask about the role the parent or guardian plays in their program.
Some lifestyle situations make virtual schools ideal. Dale is an Air Force pilot whose family has moved around the world as his career has transferred him. “My younger kids loved the base schools, but as they got into high school, the adjustments of moving showed stress in their studies. We opted for a national online high school, and our sons have had the same program move with them with every change. They still connect with other teens wherever we have lived, but the consistency of their coursework has been a stabilizing force.”
The Whole Package or Bits and Pieces?
Some virtual schools are package deals, but many allow students to choose only a handful of courses online. For many students, taking both classroom courses and online studies may be the best option. Check with your school advisors as well as the representative from the virtual school to see what is available and how the cost is determined.
Living in a mountainous area of Washington, far from a large city, Mike and Terese have opted to join a homeschool group in their region. They were thrilled to find a virtual public high school program that gives their high schooler access to advanced calculus and chemistry classes. “I was comfortable with our homeschool community’s resources for language arts, social studies, and history,” shares Mike, “but as my daughter’s interest in science flourished, I knew she needed some expert help.” They found a public charter program supported by a school in Seattle and added a smartphone to the learning room. “Using video chat lets her get the feedback and help she needs and also develop a classroom-type relationship with her teacher.” The entire family has been enjoying adding some chemistry lab work to their learning experience.
What About Social Needs?
Yes, the virtual school experience is different from the traditional classroom. “You can’t see the faces of your classmates as they start to dissect a frog, or smell the Bunsen burners,” says Donna, who teaches online science courses for a national program. “But today’s technology lets students work in groups and access their teachers easily.” She views it as a very reasonable trade-off, giving each student the chance for individualized learning.
As for the social side of school, families and programs take several approaches. A student virtually attending a public charter school that’s in his community is often able to participate in the same extracurricular activities as other students, even sports. When that option is not available, virtual schools can help parents build partnerships with local resources like youth groups or activity clubs. Families who live in remote areas are faced with these challenges whether they have students in a local, virtual, or homeschool. Many have found planning volunteer events in their regions and participating in the planning of local events to be a great social resource. The bottom line is that students and their families will likely need to put in some extra work to make social connections, but it’s very doable.
Virtual high schools are certain to gain a stronger foothold in the education system. Expect to see some of their best features and content management systems start to show up in traditional classrooms as well. Every student faces different challenges and has different needs. When the neighborhood school is not a good match, an online opportunity might be. To find out more about virtual high schools available for your students, start with the resources suggested below.
Have you taught through a virtual high school? Do you help students connect with online learning opportunities? Are you the parent or guardian of a student who is going the virtual school route? Please share your experiences, we would love to hear your comments.
We welcome your comments and suggestions. Share your comments, stories, and ideas below, or contact us. All comments will be approved before posting, and are subject to our comment and privacy policies.
Complete Guide to Online High Schools: Distance Learning Options for Teens & Adults by Thomas Dixon
Best Online Schools
Global Academy from the University of Miami, designed for students living abroad
Heppner’s Legacy Homeschool Resources has class resources but also has supporting items like microscopes available
And remember to check for programs in your own state, via search engines or your local school advisors and librarians.
© 2013 by Free Spirit Publishing. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:9c9d755a-02dc-4ceb-8daf-e2754bf6897d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://freespiritpublishingblog.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969591 | 2,128 | 3.203125 | 3 |
Don’t you ever get the feeling that all your life is going by and you’re not taking advantage of it? Do you realize you’ve lived nearly half the time you have to live already? The world was not wheeling anymore. It was just very clear and bright and inclined to blur at the edges. ― Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
We always thought things would be different. We practiced idealism like sacrament, viewed the road that lay ahead of us as the promise land. A land worth fighting for. That Saturday, when we tossed our black hats up toward the sky we felt bound by nothing. We were jubilant. Let the shackles fall from our ankles. And the stampede! We ran on the hot pavement, away, away, from the flannel shirts, Nirvana, verdant lawns, apathy and dollar drafts. I tell you, it was a thing to see: the motley lot fleeing into the dark forest. We promised we’d hold hands like in grade school, but somewhere along the way, through the thicket, we lost one another. We let go. Don’t look back. Ours was a suspicious generation, one that didn’t care — or so we were always told by the elders — but we would still lay claim to the land. Carve out our place in it. Get the jobs we were meant to have; erect grand houses; have beautiful children. We set our clocks and watched them tick. Some of us respectfully declined wedding invitations. Others took planes across the ocean. Some of us passed away, and a few found it hard to let those four years fade. The sea was red and the sky was grey, wondered how tomorrow could ever follow today. The mountains and the canyons started to tremble and shake, as the children of the sun began to awake.
I look at this picture — of me holding a film camera, graduating with honors, ready for a job in investment banking — and I sometimes weep. Everything was so tragically clear back then, the world was mine for the taking, and I was ambitious, opinionated, arrogant, kind, loud and passionate. That Saturday I was also still drunk from the night before and reeling from the fact that I told my mother I never wanted to see her again. That I was done. I would spend the next decade recovering from this hurt. I would spend the next decade playing barnacle to a bottle of red wine. Letting some of my friends in this picture fade into film. But on that day I didn’t know any of this. I didn’t know that I’d take one job to leave it for another. Attend graduate school to leave it, cutting lines with my school ID card and flying to California, to the ocean, to take pills, tremble and shake. Back then the sheets bled red wine. My heart was a river and thankfully I was able to pull myself back to shore.
And here I am again. Half a life away from the day I walked onto that campus — the first in my family to attend college — determined to travel far, far away from where I’d come. And then I think about me in the next half life. Hopeful that I will have made a tremendous leap because I’m getting antsy in my own skin. Feeling the tension of being in the betweens, half here, half in the life I want to make for myself. Soon. Don’t look back.
Today I wanted to go back to all that was comforting. A recipe that felt like home, and so I tinkered with my banana loaf, making it a little more delicious with an infusion of dark chocolate to temper the sweetness. The combination of coconut oil and almond milk render a moist bread with an undercurrent of nutty flavor. This loaf was pure perfection and it gave me solace as I started to think about all that lay ahead.
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
3 large eggs
1 1/2 cups cane sugar
1 cup coconut oil
2 tbsp pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups ripe mashed banana (about 3 medium)
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
1/4 cup almond milk
Nonstick cooking spray
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Coat two 9×5 inch loaf pans with cooking spray; set aside. I opted to use a larger pan and a a muffin tin because I felt a little rebellious today. However, feel free to color in the lines. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt; set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the eggs, sugar, and coconut oil on medium-low speed until combined. Beat in the flour mixture, slowly. Add the vanilla, banana and almond milk, and beat just to combine. Fold in the chocolate chips.
Divide batter evenly between prepared pans; smooth with an offset spatula. Bake, rotating pans halfway through, until a cake tester inserted in the centers comes out clean, 60 to 65 minutes. Since my oven is hot, I tend to start checking at 50 minutes. Call me paranoid.
Transfer to a wire rack to cool for 10 minutes. Remove loaves from pans and let cool completely. Bread can be kept at room temperature, wrapped well in plastic, for up to 1 week, or frozen for up to 3 months. | <urn:uuid:92da889c-09dc-4e88-ad36-dc2bc48bf821> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lovelifeeat.com/2012/10/27/chocolate-chunk-banana-loaf/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968219 | 1,141 | 1.65625 | 2 |
click image to zoomPurdue Pesticide ProgramsPulling out vehicles stuck in mud requires the right equipment and proper technique, in order to avoid vehicle damage and physical injury. Some jobs are best left to professionals. That's often true when pulling farm machinery, fertilizer and spray applicators and trucks out of soft soil or ditches, says a Purdue University specialist. Although discussion of this topic seems far from necessary with the continuing drought in some areas, rain will arrive someday and wet roads and fields have actually been a problem in the South already.
Performed improperly or without the right equipment, the seemingly simple task of extracting equipment from mud can result in costly damage and, possibly, physical injury, said Fred Whitford, coordinator of Purdue Pesticide Programs. Whitford is the lead author of a new Purdue Extension publication on the topic, Extracting Stuck Equipment Safely: How to Avoid Expensive and Painful Incidents (publication No. PPP-98).
The 96-page publication is available for free download or $5 in printed form from Purdue's The Education Store. The book can be ordered online at https://mdc.itap.purdue.edu/item.asp?item_number=PPP-98.
"Everyone's pulled out stuck equipment, and maybe it's always worked. But just because you can doesn't mean you should," Whitford said. "You've got to think about whether you have the equipment capable of doing the job and what kind of vehicle you're using to do the pulling. If you don't it can lead to serious injury or death and, if chemicals are involved, possible environmental contamination."
In the book, Whitford and his contributors recount real-life stories of people who were hurt when towing chains or straps broke and flew back into the cab of the pulling vehicle. In some cases the pulling vehicle lost bumpers and axles or sustained body damage.
"You might spend several hundred dollars for a professional wrecking service to extract the stuck machinery, but that's nothing compared to losing potentially thousands of dollars if you do it yourself and things go wrong," Whitford said. "And, of course, you can't put a price tag on someone's life."
Extracting Stuck Equipment Safely covers assessing the stuck machinery situation, choosing and inspecting pulling equipment, checking attachment device ratings, communicating with the recovery team and what to do if tragedy strikes.
"There's a chapter where we go into the four 'zones' of extraction and forces of resistance," Whitford said. "There's the stuck zone, where the vehicle to be pulled is located; the tow zone, the truck or tractor that's going to be doing the pulling; the danger zone, which is the hookup between the stuck and pulling vehicles where the stress is concentrated; and the clear zone, where we make sure there are no people near you in the event something breaks.
"Gathering all this information at the scene takes a couple of minutes and will help us know if we can do the job safely."
The full-color book contains photographs illustrating the right and wrong ways to pull out stuck machinery and how to examine pulling equipment.
Others who contributed content to Extracting Stuck Equipment Safely were Steve Hawkins, assistant director of Purdue Agricultural Centers; Dennis Nowaskie, superintendent of Southwest-Purdue Agricultural Center; Doug Busdeker, area general manager of farm centers for The Andersons; Mike Depoister, owner of TriPower Towing and Recovery; Steve Queen, safety and risk coordinator for Trupointe Cooperative; and Jamie Southard, safety and regulatory director for Effingham Equity. | <urn:uuid:8d593210-692b-4f96-937f-3c867496a4d3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cattlenetwork.com/cattle-news/Stuck-in-the-mud-Publication-helps-farmers-extract-machinery-188729441.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947108 | 747 | 2.375 | 2 |
Home Visits by Medical Personnel
- individually designed services to provide diagnosis, treatment and
wellness monitoring in order to preserve the waiver participant's functional
capacity to remain in their own home. Wellness monitoring is critical to the
overall health of waiver participants. Wellness monitoring includes disease
prevention, the provision of health education and the identification of
modifiable health risks. Through increased awareness and education, waiver
participants are more apt to make healthy lifestyle choices, which will
decrease the likelihood of unnecessary institutionalization. The frequency of
wellness monitoring will be contingent on the waiver participant's needs.
Home Visits by Medical Personnel differs from what is
offered under the State Plan as this waiver service is used for wellness
monitoring, the assessment of the natural supports'/caregivers' ability to
provide assistance to the waiver participant, and/or the evaluation of the
waiver participant's home environment from a medical perspective. | <urn:uuid:56cc0ae2-568c-478c-a2c1-e727524ff9fa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://putnamils.org/programs/waiver15.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929446 | 198 | 2.296875 | 2 |
Decision aids reduced decisional conflict in patients with newly diagnosed hypertension
Q Do simple or complex decision aids assist patients with newly diagnosed hypertension in deciding whether to start drug treatment?
randomised controlled 2 x 2 factorial trial.
Follow up period:
2 weeks and 3 months.
21 general practices in Avon, UK.
217 patients aged 30–80 years (mean age 58 y, 52% men) who had sustained high blood pressure (BP) requiring discussion of drug treatment with a general practitioner and were not taking antihypertensive medication. Exclusion criteria: severe hypertension requiring immediate treatment, secondary hypertension, pregnancy associated hypertension, inability to understand English, and dementia or learning difficulties.
decision analysis (computerised utility assessment interview with individualised risk assessment and decision analysis) (n = 103) or no decision analysis (n = 114) and an information video plus leaflet (n = 106) or no video plus leaflet (n = 111). Interventions lasted 1 hour.
degree of uncertainty about treatment course of action (total score on the 16 item Decisional Conflict Scale [DCS]); anxiety; knowledge of hypertension; intention to begin treatment; actual treatment decision.
Patient follow up:
98% at 2 weeks and 92% at 3 months.
Analysis was by intention to treat. At 3 months, 133 patients (67%) had been prescribed antihypertensives.
At 2 weeks, patients who received decision analysis had less decisional conflict than patients who did not receive decision analysis (table); the groups did not differ for anxiety levels (mean score 34.8 v 36.8 out of 80, adjusted difference −2.8, 95% CI −5.6 to 0.1), intention to begin treatment (yes v unsure adjusted risk ratio 1.19, CI 0.59 to 2.40); no v unsure adjusted risk ratio 3.15, CI 0.91 to 10.98), or actual treatment decision (medication prescribed 67.7% v 66.0%, adjusted odds ratio 1.13, CI 0.59 to 2.19). Similar results were found for patients who received the video plus leaflet compared with those who did not.
Patients who received decision analysis as well as the video plus leaflet had less decisional conflict (unadjusted mean score 27.1) than patients who received decision analysis alone (28.2), video plus leaflet alone (33.3), or no intervention (44.2). Decision analysis and the video plus leaflet interacted (interaction coefficient 12.5, 95% CI 5.4 to 19.5, p = 0.001 for decisional conflict), suggesting a ceiling to the amount of information from which patients can benefit.
Simple (video plus leaflet) or complex (decision analysis) decision aids each reduced decisional conflict in patients with newly diagnosed hypertension, but did not affect anxiety, intention to start antihypertensive treatment, or the actual treatment decision.
- 1Department of Nursing and Midwifery, University of Stirling Stirling, UK
- 2Department of Health Sciences, University of York York, UK
Increasingly, patients are expected to have a greater role in healthcare decision making. Through increased knowledge, realistic expectations, and structured treatment options, decision aids can help increase patient participation.1
Montgomery et al evaluated 2 interventions to aid patients’ hypertension treatment decisions, and found that patients who used decision aids better understood their condition and had lower levels of decisional conflict. This finding implies that they were more confident in their decision choices.
As a safeguard against poor quality advice, decision aids should be based on robust research evidence. The quality of the evidence underpinning the interventions in the study by Montgomery et al is difficult to judge.
The use of a factorial design in this study confers the advantage of efficiency by allowing 2 trials within a single sample as a 2 arm trial. In this study, however, there was an interaction between the video/leaflet and the decision analysis, such that the effect of each intervention was reduced in the presence of the other. Despite reducing conflict, improving knowledge, and increasing confidence, the use of decision aids did not alter the actual decisions made. This suggests that the benefits of decision aids are limited primarily to conflict resolution or that the decision choices already considered by the patient concurred with the results of the decision analysis. The clinical significance of any gains is unclear. Without an economic analysis of the costs associated with the benefits, it is difficult to judge the overall benefits of the decision aids assessed in this study.
Ultimately, if decision support helps patients become more involved in the decision making process, long term benefits such as informed patients who understand their condition and are confident in their treatment decisions may outweigh the costs.
A modified version of this abstract appears in Evidence-Based Medicine.
For correspondence: Dr A A Montgomery, Division of Primary Health Care, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK.
Source of funding: UK Medical Research Council. | <urn:uuid:5e858cd2-9d02-4a17-9ac3-09fb527e2bdf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ebn.bmj.com/content/7/1/17.full?cited-by=yes&legid=ebnurs;7/1/17 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933611 | 1,026 | 1.851563 | 2 |
Rule Number 10 Seriously, never call this playing with dolls. Okay, it’s ostensibly playing with scaled-down characters. But playing guys is an activity, nay, a rite of passage, through which we develop spatial skills, such as how a flame-thrower would work while you’re flying. (Answer: it can also become a jet.) And while structurally the term “playing guys” is similar to “playing house,” the latter is a game of mimicry. (“Let’s bake and vacuum like we see Mommy and Daddy doing.”) Playing guys is one of fantasy, of building a world that is not just better and cooler than our own, but one that is the actual manifestation of a set of physical laws and heroic values that, we feel deeply (even at age six), codifies the way things should be. (“Let’s do 17 flips in the air like Mommy and Daddy have never done, but, look, let’s just do it, okay?”)
In fact, this is why we like action movies: they are a life-size dramatization of playing guys. That actor jumping that house on the dirt bike and the 20-minute fight scene are not ridiculous insofar as they are merely a director playing guys, a game come true. So the “action” that precedes both “movies” and “figures” is this specific type of action, an unrealistic fulfillment of a latent schema in which physical laws bend to accommodate a massaging of the ego by way of stretching what an individual is capable of — a world enchanted by the hyper-masculine. In this sense, the term “playing guys” rings with second meaning: a paraphrasing might lead to, “amusing oneself with action figures,” but “playing guys” also suggests, in a sad way, “acting like men.” (See Rule Number 6.)
Rule Number 11 A guy’s fort is his castle. I say this because I’m wondering why you continue to move the cushions back to where they “belong.”
Rule Number 12 While most guys come with movable legs, it would be absurd to manipulate each leg individually for every step they take. So we’ve devised this sort of two-legged hop motion. I know, it’s not very realistic. Humor us . . . (See Rule Number 3.)
Rule Number 13 Number of lives every guy has: one million. Except sometimes if you’re a low-ranking bad guy I encounter on my way to being head bad guy. Then you get one. Or you are particularly susceptible to getting knocked out by one punch and placed into this ambiguous not-quite-dead state that excuses my six-year-old mind from having to contemplate the finality of death.
Steve Macone is a writer living in Boston . . . okay, Medford. He can be reached email@example.com. | <urn:uuid:3488be5e-326b-4052-a32c-bbfba48c88b7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thephoenix.com/boston/life/53228-complete-rules-of-%E2%80%98playing-guys/?page=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948012 | 646 | 1.695313 | 2 |
It’s been four months since the day an elite team of Navy Seals swooped down onto a mansion in Abbottabad, Pakistan and vanquished the most wanted terrorist in the world. One of President Obama’s principal foreign policy goals was that if he had actual intelligence on Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts, he would not hesitate to strike with or without Pakistan’s help. I feel he was completely justified in ordering the assassination of the man responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent men, women and children over a period nearly 20 years, and he was completely justified in not giving away information to Pakistan for fear of their jeopardizing the assault. Thankfully, the operation could not have gone any smoother and bin Laden was buried at sea…and, to many, the dark chapter that began on September 11th, 2001 ended on May 1st, 2011…
…But this appears to have come at a price!
Here we are, 10 years after the attacks, and we’re still relying on one of the most reckless, unstable countries in the entire world for intelligence gathering, helping seal the Afghan border and quelling their own internal rebellion. Forget Iran, Russia or China. Pakistan is, without a doubt, proud owner of the title: “Most Dangerous Country in the World.” With a listing of #12 on Foreign Policy’s “Failed States 2011 Index”, this South Asian country is literally hanging by a thread and could easily occupy the top spot if President Asif Zardari’s government were to be overthrown and his military incapable of controlling the chaos that would be sure to follow. It is estimated that Pakistan possesses 100 nuclear weapons, and while the Pakistani military has consistently tried to reassure the international community that these weapons are locked up and safe, recent attacks by the Pakistani Taliban near nuclear facilities continue to show just how vulnerable they are.
America just recently decided to withhold a massive chunk of money promised them for their pledge to fight terror ($800 million, along with $300 million in reimbursement for counterinsurgency expenditures). The Obama Administration was right in their decision to delay in disbursing these funds, as it has become quite clear since the U.S. invaded Afghanistan ten years ago, that this South Asian ally gives us more reasons to pause than not. The advantages to this would be, hopefully, to force Pakistan to get serious on their commitment to fighting terrorism. On the other hand, it could already make a fragile alliance worse and play into the hands of extremists by beefing up their argument that America can’t be trusted one way or another: “Holding back the $800 million in aid is unlikely to pressure Pakistan to increase cooperation with the U.S. and could strengthen those in the government who argue that Washington is a fickle ally who can’t be trusted” claimed Pakistani officials, quoted in an article from www.military.com. The article later goes on to state that this move, while reasonable in the eyes of America, might push Pakistan back towards its old Cold War ally, China. I don’t, and have never truly viewed, Pakistan as a solid U.S. ally, and this opinion is based on history going back over 20 years.
As the Soviet-Afghan war was winding down in 1988, bin Laden gathered his Arab fighters together in Peshawar, and out of the remnants of the mujahadeen, formed the nucleus of Al Qaeda. It just so happens that Peshawar is located in northwestern Pakistan, in the country’s region known as FATA, or Federally Administered Tribal Areas. For the most part this area is ungovernable, which makes it prime real estate for militants. Within FATA is the Khyber Pass, which served as a route for Taliban and Al Qaeda militants to escape U.S. bombing in Afghanistan and regroup and re-energize in Pakistan. It is in FATA that Pashtun tribes, living under semi-autonomy, give shelter to Islamic militants, who operate with almost total freedom, to both launch suicide bombings in the urban areas of Pakistan, as well as launch cross-border attacks again U.S. and NATO troops in neighboring Afghanistan. No matter how many military operations the Pakistani army has launched in these areas, they have pretty much all been met with little to no degrees of success. And there is no doubt that Pakistan’s corrupt intelligence agency, ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence), has become infiltrated with Muslim extremists (this is obvious with the bravura of Taliban attacks inside Pakistan), if not garnering tremendous sympathy towards the group (the seizure of bin Laden’s courier’s cell phone following the raid also revealed contacts of Harakat-ul-Muhajahedeen, a Pakistani militant group with known ties to the ISI, discussed in a New York Times article). The ISI helped bring the Taliban to power in Afghanistan in the mid-nineties as a government that would be hostile to Pakistan’s arch rival, India. Pakistan was one of the Taliban’s earliest supporters, and continued to fund, train and supply the them right up until former President George W. Bush told former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf that he had to choose between the shadowy, brutal regime and the world’s only superpower.
Yet ten years later our relationship with Pakistan has been anything but simple. It has basically allowed the Taliban and Al Qaeda to regroup within its borders, and, probably the biggest whopper of international affairs, claimed total oblivion to the fact that Osama bin Laden was living in a not-so nondescript mansion in Abbottabad, located a mere 35 miles from the capital, Islamabad, and less than one mile from a major military garrison for the Pakistani army. How can any reasonable person honestly believe that the Pakistani government, the Army, or, god for bid, the ISI, had no knowledge that bin Laden was hiding out in almost plain sight, and not in some remote cave on the Afghan-Pakistan border as many had believed for years?!
New Yorker reporter Nicholas Schmidle wrote a phenomenal article detailing the events surrounding bin Laden’s assassination. It read like the screenplay to a fast-paced spy thriller that only writer/director Paul Greengrass could have concocted. Now fast-forward the beyond-nightmare scenario when any number of contingencies results in the total collapse of what little stability Pakistan currently possesses…and the unguarded 100+ nuclear weapons sitting idle, just waiting for any extremist group, be it Al Qaeda or LET (Lashkar-e-Taiba) to seize them and begin putting their deeply-laid plans of urban destruction to work. NBC Investigative Reporter, Robert Windrem, highlights a variety of scenarios that the U.S. is considering when nuclear weapons are at stake: “Pakistan plunging into internal chaos, terrorists mounting a serious attack against a nuclear facility, hostilities breaking out with India or Islamic extremists taking charge of the government or the Pakistan army.” In his article, “US Prepares for Worst-case Scenario with Pakistan Nukes,” Windrem states how the Pentagon has plans for getting control of the facilities should any one of these hypotheticals comes to pass. And Pakistan does not trust us anymore either, given the stealth activity that the Seals displayed when dispatching bin Laden. Their fear that America would conduct a similar raid to secure their nuclear weapons doesn’t sit too well with them all the same; Musharraf even stated in Windrem’s article that an incident like that would lead to “total confrontation” between the U.S. and Pakistan. Um…Pakistan had bin Laden inside their borders since 2005 and did nothing about it?! America would be completely justified in securing that country’s nuclear arsenal, just as it was in fulfilling President Obama’s 2008 campaign promise to hunt down bin Laden. Yet if it ever looked like Pakistan’s nuclear weapons were literally moments away from seizure by anti-government forces, we would have no choice but to go in there and risk confrontation to prevent catastrophe. Former Defense Secretary, Robert McNamara, once said, “In order to do good, you may have to engage in evil.” I see a raid on Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and a possible military conflict as a chance to avoid not only a wider war, but a way to avoid the deaths of thousands, if not millions, of innocents. And unlike the scenario of getting bin Laden, this one might not have the satisfactory ending we’re all hoping for! | <urn:uuid:85ab3afe-1421-4d52-a9e1-7d529dfd8a22> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cchronicle.com/2011/08/how-can-we-trust-pakistan/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00049-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958919 | 1,770 | 1.515625 | 2 |
One of the biggest poker games in recent German history was set to begin on Thursday in Berlin as the government begins to negotiate a partial retreat from the country's 2001 move to abandon nuclear energy.
Ronald Pofalla, Chancellor Angela Merkel's chief of staff, invited the executives responsible for nuclear power at Germany's top four energy utility companies as well as senior officials from the Economics and Environment ministries for top-level meetings about the future of atomic energy in the country. The government is playing down the importance of the meeting, with the Economics Ministry describing it as "routine." Participants belong to the so-called Monitoring Group, a panel formed by the former government of Gerhard Schröder's center-left Social Democrats and the Green Party to monitor Germany's atomic energy phase-out at regular intervals.
But Thursday's meeting is actually far more spectacular because the exact opposite of the Schröder government's policy will be at issue: reversing the phase-out, an issue that divides Germany like few others. The meeting isn't scheduled until Thursday evening, but anti-nuclear organizations planned protests in front of the Chancellery in the capital throughout the day.
233 Billion to 339 Billion in Extra Profits
For energy companies, the move could present a tremendous business opportunity. Landesbank Baden-Württemberg (LBBW), a state-owned bank, estimates that if the lifespans of existing German nuclear power plants are extended by 25 years, at a price of 80 per megawatt hour, the four energy companies would stand to make 233 billion. Most of those profits would first start coming in around 2014 because the government is expected to stipulate that plants be upgraded with modern safety technology before their lifespans can be extended. The Bremen-based Energy Institute (BEI), a scientific institute that provides analysis of energy issues, estimates a similar raft of profits. Depending on how many years the plants are kept online and how high electricity prices remain, profits of up to 339 billion could be possible.
The deal could also prove to be a cash cow for the German government. As a precondition for extending the lifespan of Germany's nuclear power plants, the government is going to demand a share of the utility company's atomic power profits from those plants. Economics Minister Rainer Brüderle of the business-friendly Free Democrats (FDP), who share power with Merkel's conservatives, would like to see the government take a cut of at least 50 percent of the new profits. Meanwhile, Josef Göppel -- the energy issues coordinator for the Christian Social Union, the Bavarian sister party to Merkel's Christian Democrats, and head of the federal parliament's environment committee -- is calling for a 75-percent take, though he won't participate in the talks.
In the contract the political parties agreed to in the new coalition government, nuclear technology is only permitted for use as a bridge technology, whose additional profits are earmarked for use to help speed up the transition to the age of green energy.
"The additional profits should be used to advance the expansion of renewable energies," said Joachim Pfeiffer, the economics issues coordinator for the CDU and CSU parliamentary group and the former CDU coordinator for energy issues. He said the conservatives would also take steps to ensure that if the lifespans of nuclear plants are extended, they will not create a competitive disadvantage for renewable energies.
The more money the government demands from the companies, the more credible its position will appear to the public. "Politicians want to position themselves as a tough negotiating party against the nuclear lobby," said Bernhard Jeggle, an energy analyst at LBBW.
A Clear Advantage for Government
Berlin already holds the best cards in this high stakes game of poker, since only the government and parliament have the power to change German legislation codifying the nuclear phase-out. Utility companies have little power in the issue. All they can do is push the government to stick to its coalition contract. But all it states is that the issue of extending plant lifespans should be addressed quickly and that a considerable part of the extra profits should go to the state.
Time, though, is running out for some energy giants. The government in Berlin is expected to reach an agreement on the extension of plant lifespans before the summer recess and legislation could possibly go before parliament for a vote as part of a larger energy policy package in the autumn.
The timing is particularly problematic for nuclear power plant operators RWE and EnBW. Both companies have nuclear power plants that, under existing legislation, might be forced to close before lifespans are extended. LBBW estimates that RWE alone would stand to lose up to 5 billion if its two Biblis reactors (online since 1974 and 1976) were forced to go offline, not including the costs for dismantling the facility.
Concerns about aging reactors are significant, and the government could ultimately shut some of the old ones down in order to make the extension of other plants more palatable to a German population that is already opposed to nuclear energy. "The CDU knows that the people don't like nuclear energy and could use the prospect of closing down older reactors," said Wolfgang Pfaffenberger, the head of the Bremen Energy Institute. "We currently have an excess supply of electricity. If some of these plants are shut down, the lights are not going to go out in Germany."
'Time Is Pressing'
That fact is not lost on the industry. "Time is pressing," said a spokesperson for the German Atomic Forum, the industry lobby group. "We are prepared for negotiations immediately." Meanwhile, RWE chief Jürgen Grossmann is calling for "expedient clarity about the future of nuclear energy." Wulf Bernotat, who heads utility company E.on, warned that it would be "politically irresponsible" to close the first nuclear plants before a deal is reached on the extension of lifespans. But he also signalized a willingness to pay the government, although he didn't provide concrete numbers. "It clear to the industry that the government will make us pay a price for an extension," he said.
But the government hasn't made any definitive statements about it yet. Chancellor Merkel has remained silent about whether or not the Biblis A or Neckarwestheim 1 (online since 1976) nuclear plants will be closed. And Environment Minister Norbert Röttgen, who will be in charge of the issue, has also kept mum. Economics Minister Brüderle, on the other hand, has suggested he could foresee a solution in which no plant would have to be shut down. But he hasn't gone into detail.
Still, the government could reach a deal that would allow utility companies to transfer government-regulated energy production allowances for newer nuclear power plants to older ones, thus extending the lifespans of plants whose operating licenses would have otherwise expired.
RWE and EnBW applied in 2006 to do exactly that, but their requests were turned down by then-Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel of the Social Democrats, whose government remained firm about the phase-out. The companies then took their case to court, where they were rejected.
Did Nuclear Operators Try to Stretch Lifespans for New Government?
Following that decision, operations at the Biblis plant were suspended conspicuously often for maintenance. And strategy papers were uncovered showing that operator EnBW slowed electricity production at its Neckerwestheim 1 plant in order to artificially extend the reactor's lifespan. According to the paper, the goal was to stretch out the plant's allowed operating lifespan until after German elections in September, which ultimately delivered a new government of the conservatives and the FDP that was friendlier to the idea of buying more time for nuclear energy in Germany. But the company has denied the allegation, saying the election had nothing to do with its considerations.
Nevertheless, the moves could now pay off. Environment Minister Nortbert Röttgen, who is fond of portraying himself as an environmentalist with conservative credentials, is now likely to reverse some of the last two governments' positions. He will either agree to allow power allowances from newer plants to be transferred to older ones or he will keep in place a temporary moratorium on suspending the operating licenses of older reactors until autumn.
That puts Röttgen in a strong negotiating position, since it means he can impose additional conditions and also ask for money from the companies. The minister has already issued one demand: He wants the nuclear waste currently being held at the country's Asse facility, a former salt mine in the state of Lower Saxony that is in danger of collapsing, to be removed quickly. It is conceivable that the utility companies would be forced to pay for the transfer.
And it could get very expensive: Germany's Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) recommended in a study that all of the nuclear waste being stored in the shafts at the facility should be removed because of the threat of collapse. The agency recommended that the approximately 126,000 barrels of nuclear waste with low and medium levels of radioactivity currently being stored there be transferred to the Konrad respository, a former iron ore mine in the same state, for permanent storage.
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Reproduction only allowed with the permission of SPIEGELnet GmbH | <urn:uuid:eaa7e170-6633-4021-ac0c-759e6c1ece83> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/reversing-germany-s-atomic-phase-out-negotiations-begin-for-extending-nuclear-plant-lifespans-a-673223.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961515 | 1,950 | 1.75 | 2 |
It's easy to find a place for beets in the garden. They prefer full sun, but will tolerate some light shade, so if part of your garden gets only half day sun, or you have space between two tall crops, you can plant them there.
Beets are root crops, and a little bit of extra soil preparation is needed to make sure that the roots develop properly. The best soil for beets is a light, sandy loam that has been enriched with compost or aged manure. The key is to dig deeply (at least 8 inches down) and free the soil of any rocks, dirt clumps, or roots which could impeded development and cause forked or misshapen roots. If your soil is acidic, you'll need to add some lime in to raise the pH to the range of 6.5 to 7.5.
Beets develop the best flavor, color, and texture, when they grow and mature quickly during cool weather. Plant them in traditional or wide rows, or block plantings.
How much to plant: Plan on a 5 to 10 foot row of garden space per person for fresh eating. For canning or freezing, sow 10 to 20 feet per person. (One ounce of seed will plant a 75 foot row).
Sow beet seeds as early as you can work the soil (or when soil temperatures exceed 45 F). In cooler climates, succession plantings can be made every two weeks for a continuous harvest. The "seeds" of most cultivars are actually small fruit clusters that contain between 4 and 8 seeds, each having the potential to produce several individual seedlings.
Plant the seeds 1/2 inch deep and 1 to 2 inches apart, in rows 12 inches apart. If you are planting in blocks, the seeds should be spaced 8 inches apart on all sides. Avoid planting them any closer together or they will be difficult to thin later on. After planting, water the seed bed with a fine mist and cover it with a thin layer of straw or grass clippings to keep the soil moist.
Mulching: When your seedlings emerge, remove any straw or hay mulch that is covering them and use it to cover the soil in between the rows. This will help suppress weeds and keep the soil around the seedlings cool and moist.
Thinning: The most common mistake made when growing beets is the failure to thin them properly. To make sure beet roots have enough room to develop, you need to thin the clusters of seedlings to 1/2 apart when they reach 2 inches tall. After that, it really depends on the cultivar that you are growing. (Carrot-shaped beets should be thinned to 2 inches apart, standard round cultivars to 4 inches apart and large cultivars bred for storage to 6 inches apart.) To thin, pull out clusters of seedlings so that the ones remaining are about 4 inches apart. Then, using a scissors, snip off the extras seedlings in each cluster until only one remains.
Feeding: Beets should be given a shot of a diluted solution of fish emulsion and kelp extract when the first true leaves are fully open (either as a side dressing or foliar feeding). Continue to feed them weekly until the plants are 2 to 3 inches tall.
Watering: Young beets need a steady supply of water. Too little and the plants will go to seed early and the roots will become woody and tough. Keep the soil evenly moist, but not soggy throughout the entire growing season.
Hilling up: As beet roots grow larger, they have a tendency to poke above the soil's surface, and get sunburned "shoulders" (turn green). To avoid this, keep them covered by hilling up the nearby soil.
Beets are relatively problem-free crops, but they are occasionally attacked by flea beetles, leaf miners or curly top virus (which is spread by leaf hoppers). To protect seedlings, cover them with floating row covers as soon as they emerge-leaving them on until harvest.
Early cultivars of beets can be harvested when the roots reach 2 to 3 inches in diameter (use your fingers to brush away the soil and reveal the top of the root). While the beets are growing you can also pick up to a third of the leaves off each plant and use them as cooked greens. Pull them gently, or dig them up and cut off the stems and leaves.
Roots can be kept in the refrigerator (leaves removed and stems cut short) for several weeks. Roots can also be stored in boxes between layers of sand or peat, at 35 F to 45 F for up to 5 months. Other ways to preserve beets include canning, pickling, or freezing. Fall crops can also be left in the ground until needed, if covered with a heavy blanket of mulch.
Your basic beet is red in color with a round shape, but you can also find varieties that are white, yellow, carrot-shaped-even striped. 'Detroit Dark Red,' good for both spring and fall harvests. Reliable early varieties include 'Red Ace,' 'Early Wonder' and 'Little Ball'. 'Cylindra' is long and carrot-shaped instead of round. 'Burpee's Golden' is a beautiful red-orange beet that doesn't bleed when you cut it. Regardless of the variety, most beets will mature in six to eight weeks.
By Ellen Brown
Rabbits have eaten the majority of the leaves on my beets. I am wondering if I should pull them and dispose of them, or will they grow new leaves?
Hardiness Zone: 5a
By Debi3735 from Chicago, IL
I hear ya! Rabbits have destroyed many of my vegetable plants. One was chowing down on my swiss chard the other day and then the nerve of him, he drops half eaten large leaves on the ground like, "didn't like that one" then goes to the next! Well, the ceyenne pepper did great for my pea plants this year (this is the first year I've been able to grow them with a fantastic harvest). I guess it's time to sprinkle it around and on my chard too. It really does work! No killing them (I love to watch them enjoy a snack in my lettuces), no chemicals, not even organic "chemicals". But you do have to reapply after a rain. By all means let the leaves grow back, they should turn out fine. Good luck!
I moved to a small flat last November. I have started to try and grow herbs in containers. I was given some beetroot seeds. Would I be able to grow these in containers, too? Many thanks.
By Helen from UK
I have not tried it, but I have read that it can be done. It requires a large pot that is at least a foot deep; is that 30 mm? Use enriched potting soil. They may start more quickly if you cover the planted seed with a cloche or even a large, clear plastic bag until they emerge. And, this is a lesson learned the hard way, NEVER re-use potting soil the following year! I hope you'll let us know how you fare.
I've got a lot of beet seeds in one pot at the minute, shall I separate them into a pot each and how big should they be before I plant them into the ground? I've always lived in a flat, but now have moved to a house with a garden so I had no experience with gardening. Thanks.
How long does beetroot take to grow from seed to harvest?
We planted beets February 15 and I cooked my first batch last week. This is our first year having beets in the garden and I had to look on line to find out how to cook them. They are delicious. I didn't think it would be much difference from the canned but you can't beat fresh out of the garden produce. | <urn:uuid:895427ed-57dc-4cd3-ac84-9e54241a85af> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thriftyfun.com/tf/Gardening/Vegetables/Growing-Beets.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963964 | 1,649 | 3.28125 | 3 |
Financial Organization, Planning, Budgeting
Should You Plan to File Taxes Separately or Jointly?
In most cases married couples file taxes jointly. Even if you and your spouse have dramatically different incomes, tax rates typically work out in favor of filing jointly. But occasionally that might not be the case. Say, for example, that your spouse has a relatively low income but has significant medical expenses this year. In order to claim medical expenses as a deduction, those expenses must exceed 7.5% of gross income. Filing separately could enable your spouse to meet the 7.5% threshold, itemize medical costs, and lower your total tax burden. Don't automatically assume filing jointly is your best bet, especially if you face unusual circumstances during the year. Tax planning is a year-round effort, not just something to do when it's time to file your taxes. | <urn:uuid:2e9dc080-dab0-45f4-9cfb-f3592adbd8c4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.onbbank.com/pfc/SBR_template.cfm?docNumber=PL45_T0143.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970673 | 177 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Bok choy (Cantonese) (also: bok choi, baicai (Mandarin, 白菜, báicài, literally white vegetable), pak choi and pak choy and sometimes ambiguously known as Chinese leaves and has been planted in China for more than 5,000 years.) its origin is from China, but it is also grown now in California and parts of Canada. It takes about two months from planting to harvesting Bok choy in milder weather.
Bok choy is a green leafy vegetable used in Chinese and South-east Asian cooking. It has a firm white stem, dark green leaves, and a faintly bitter taste. Since the shape of bok choy’s leaves is like spoon, it is also called “soup spoon”. There are a number of different related varieties, some of which have green stems and lighter-green leaves, which looks like white cabbage, and is also different from Napa cabbage. The bok choy varies in color, taste, and size such as tah tsai and joi choi. Even though bok choy is similar to celery, it is actually a member of the cabbage family (brassica chinensis, or brassica campestris, Chinensis group).
Unlike a western cabbage, the heads are very loose and fan outward instead of close in on themselves. Both the stems and leaves can be used, but the stems take a little longer to cook (though still very little time). Bok choy is used after washing it carefully with the separation of the leaves and the stalks to make sure they are completely clean. It has a mild flavor that permits it to be eaten raw in a salad if the leaves are very small (Baby bok choy), steamed, stir-fried or even deep-fryed, braising, boiled and in soups.
Bok choy can be fresh in the refrigerator for up to six days without washing. So, only wash it as needed. The veggie is fulled with vitamins A and C. One cup of cooked it offers more than 100% of the recommend dietary allowance of A, and close to two-thirds the RDA of C.
Bok choy is related to:
Read in another language
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Whose Shoes? A Shoe for Every Job is a creative slant on the importance of respecting differences among people.
This enjoyable children's book is for ages 4 to 7. An interactive section asks readers to identify the shoes that go with different jobs.
This exercise encourages us to share stories about the shoes we've worn for different occasions.
The book can be used by parents or grandparents to help kids see that God loves diversity and that the world is a place where differences are often a good and necessary thing (Boyds Mills Press).
© 2013 Augsburg Fortress, Publishers | <urn:uuid:8623256b-b0cf-4c6a-9c62-3390e50f7290> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thelutheran.org/article/article.cfm?article_id=9110 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.921159 | 118 | 2.90625 | 3 |
TITLE 92: TRANSPORTATION
CHAPTER I: DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
SUBCHAPTER j: RAILROADS
PART 810 LOCAL RAIL SERVICE ASSISTANCE PROGRAM
SECTION 810.10 SCOPE
Section 810.10 Scope
The Illinois Department of Transportation (the Department) has the power to enter into agreements to loan or grant Federal and/or state funds to any railroad, unit of local government rail user, or owner or lessee of a railroad right-of-way to rehabilitate, improve or construct rail facilities. The Department also has the power to grant or loan funds to any rail users located on an abandoned line, to a unit of local government, or to an owner or lessee of an abandoned railroad right-of-way to undertake substitute service projects. (Section 49.25g of the Civil Administrative Code of Illinois (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1987, ch. 127, par. 49.25g)) The purposes of the program are to preserve private sector rail service on freight lines and to promote economic development through the retention and development of rail-dependent industry. The program is administered by the Illinois Department of Transportation, Bureau of Railroads. This Part contains the Illinois Department of Transportation's requirements for Local Rail Service Assistance projects and for the management and administration of the projects funded under this program. | <urn:uuid:77001b48-0fc3-4410-87ca-a53c572aacb1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ilga.gov/commission/jcar/admincode/092/092008100000100R.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.915991 | 281 | 1.726563 | 2 |
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BUTLERVILLE — Two North Vernon Police Department officers participated in the Indiana Department of Homeland Security’s Operation Without Warning exercise at Muscatatuck Urban Training Center.
Sgt. Andrew Richmond, Officer Todd Beam and police dog Heros, who are members of the Indiana District 9 Task Force response team, participated in the exercise Sept. 23-25.
Operation Without Warning was a full-scale drill involving members of the Indiana District 9 response team. The officers participated in a variety of law enforcement and emergency aid scenarios during the exercise while working alongside ambulance and fire personnel.
Other agencies that participated in the exercise were the Indiana State Police, Jeffersonville Fire Department, Westport Fire Department, Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department, Decatur County Sheriff’s Department, Greensburg Police Department, Rising Sun Police Department and the Jennings County 911 Center along with multiple other agencies.
The North Vernon Police Department has four officers registered with the task force.
The purpose of the task force, which is a federally funded program through the Indiana Department of Homeland Security, is to provide a response force for areas stricken by overwhelming natural disasters or events that would go beyond what local services could provide.
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Promoting socio-economic rights of youth living in rural areas of the Russia’s North-West Region
Participant : Fransua Tulikunkiko
Organisation: Organisation humanitaire de la Region de Pskov "Heureuse Enfance", Russian Federation
Project idea in brief
This project has been elaborated to promote socio-economic rights of youth living in rural areas of the Russia’s North-West Region through human rights education, development of intercultural exchanges and good practices with a European dimension. It is called to indicate the slopes and help them in solving social problems: insufficient food, lack of access to medical care, equal education, housing, unemployment exacerbated by the economic crisis, almost nonexistent civic participation and social inactivation in the field of protection of his rights, freedoms and legal interests.
Social rights addressed
- Adequate standard of living (including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living conditions)
- The right of everyone to education
- Access to medical care and social security, including social insuranc
- Enjoyment of just and favorable conditions of work;
- Cultural rights.
Target group: Children, teenagers and other youth aged 10 to 30 years.
Local authorities involved: The project has the support of local authorities: 1) Administration of Pskov's Region (Department on work with public associations and political parties: Oksana Ivanova); 2) Administration of the Novosokolniki District (Deputy Head of the Novosokolniki District’s Administration for Social Affairs, Zoya Bulova)
The current stage of the project: The project is in realization: 2 micro-projects received grant in Russia and they activities have been accomplished up October 31th, 2010. The first one is called «Promotion of Tolerance through intercultural cooperation of youth in small towns of the Russia’s North-West» (granted by Welfare Foundation for support of civil initiatives "Tochka opory") and the second – "Preparation of rural Youth of the Pskov Region on self-realization in conditions of economic crisis" (with grant from the Regional Public Organization "Institute for Problems of Civil Society” by order of the President of Russia on March 16, 2009 № 160-rp "On ensuring the 2009 state support for non-profit non-governmental organizations involved in the development of civil society").
The 3rd small project is a pilot project (Category D) oriented on PROMOTION AND ADAPTATION OF COMPASITO AND COMPASS in rural areas of the Russia’s North-West Region. The educational and information activities to trainer multipliers are going from November 1st up to December 31th, 2010. | <urn:uuid:f62208f0-f060-4aeb-8e3d-87055628bc8d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://enter.coe.int/eng/Enter-Long-Term-Training-Course-2009-2012/Projects/Promoting-socio-economic-rights-of-youth-living-in-rural-areas-of-the-Russia-s-North-West-Region | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923816 | 569 | 2.28125 | 2 |
Hurricane Irene leaves a million US homes without powerAugust 28th, 2011 - 10:21 am ICT by IANS
Washington, Aug 28 (IANS) Bearing down on major US East Coast cities, including Washington, Philadelphia and New York, Hurricane Irene knocked out power in more than a million homes and forced millions off the New Jersey shore alone.
Though weakened somewhat since coming ashore early Saturday near Cape Lookout, North Carolina, Irene is continuing its relentless march up north with sustained winds around 80 mph and extending 85 miles from its centre.
Slowly losing more strength, Irene which has claimed nine lives so far in North Carolina, Virginia and Florida, is expected to remain a hurricane until it once again makes landfall Sunday afternoon in southern New England, forecasters said.
In Virginia, more than 600,000 homes and businesses were without electricity, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell said. Officials warned people to be prepared to be without power for up to a week.
More than one million people on the Jersey shore had joined untold numbers of others from the Carolinas to New England in moving inland or to higher ground, away from the storm’s worst impacts, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said.
New York, where the city ordered the unprecedented evacuation of 370,000 people from low-lying areas of all five of the city’s boroughs, including Queens, home to the largest concentration of Indian Americans in the US, Friday residents are bracing for Irene’s fury as it slams the city Sunday.
The city’s transit system, shut down Saturday, may not be fully running again until Monday at the earliest, high-rise buildings are being instructed to turn off elevators and utility ConEd may have to cut power to Manhattan, Bloomberg said.
Authorities in communities across North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland announced curfews. Some banned the sale of alcohol. Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter declared a state of emergency, telling residents to be prepared to go without power for up to two weeks.
Boston has joined New York, New Jersey and the cities of Philadelphia and Baltimore in suspending all transit service, including subways and buses on Sunday. Philadelphia International Airport will remain closed from 10:30 p.m. Saturday until at least 4 p.m. Sunday.
(Arun Kumar can be contacted at firstname.lastname@example.org)
- Americans brace for 'hurricane of historic proportions' - Aug 27, 2011
- US East Coast braces for monstrous hurricane - Aug 26, 2011
- Hurricane Irene slams US, millions brace for storm's fury (Lead) - Aug 27, 2011
- Hurricane Irene toll is 38; 5 mn in US still without power - Aug 30, 2011
- 100 flights cancelled in Canada over Irene storm - Aug 29, 2011
- Weakened Irene causes little damage in New York - Aug 28, 2011
- Hurricane Irene may be America's costliest catastrophe - Aug 31, 2011
- Hurricane Irene kills 18, impacts millions in US - Aug 29, 2011
- Hurricane Irene makes landfall in North Carolina, killing 3 - Aug 27, 2011
- US mobilises 6,500 troops for hurricane relief - Aug 28, 2011
- Insured losses in the Carolinas estimated between $200-$400 million - Aug 28, 2011
- Hurricane Irene slams Big Apple; leaves 3 mn powerless in US - Aug 28, 2011
- US East Coast recovering from Irene's deadly punch (Lead) - Aug 29, 2011
- Hurricane Irene kills four in US - Aug 28, 2011
- Hurricane Irene hits US coastal areas - Aug 27, 2011
Tags: bloomberg, bob mcdonnell, cape lookout north carolina, coned, east coast cities, governor bob, high rise buildings, hurricane irene, jersey governor, michael nutter, new jerse, new jersey shore, nine lives, north carolina virginia, philadelphia mayor, relentless march, southern new england, sustained winds, untold numbers, virginia governor | <urn:uuid:769369f2-7567-409b-ba0c-78dca9079c5c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/uncategorized/hurricane-irene-leaves-a-million-us-homes-without-power_100559675.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.916078 | 838 | 1.984375 | 2 |
Henry David Thoreau Quotes
Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.
I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor.
The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.
Only he is successful in his business who makes that pursuit which affords him the highest pleasure sustain him.
Good for the body is the work of the body, good for the soul the work of the soul, and good for either the work of the other.
Men have become the tools of their tools.
Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.
That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.
If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book.
Man is the artificer of his own happiness.
Our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed in them.
If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
He enjoys true leisure who has time to improve his soul's estate.
There will never be a really free and enlightened state until the state comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly.
It is not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is, 'What are we busy about?'
Did you ever hear of a man who had striven all his life faithfully and singly toward an object, and in no measure obtained it? If a man constantly aspires, is he not elevated?
In the long run men hit only what they aim at.
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.
I am convinced both by faith and experience, that to maintain one's self on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime, if we will live simply and wisely.
Live each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each.
With all your science can you tell me how it is, and whence it is, that light comes into the soul?
A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.
He who distinguishes the true savor of his food can never be a glutton; he who does not cannot be otherwise.
The fate of the country does not depend on how you vote at the polls - the worst man is as strong as the best at that game; it does not depend on what kind of paper you drop into the ballot-box once a year, but on what kind of man you drop from your chamber into the street every morning.
Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.
Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind. With respect to luxuries and comforts, the wisest have ever lived a more simple and meager life than the poor.
What does education often do? It makes a straight-cut ditch of a free, meandering brook
The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.
The State never intentionally confronts a man’s sense, intellectual or moral, but only his body, his senses. It is not armed with superior wit or honesty, but with superior physical strength. I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest.
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You should follow me on twitter here. | <urn:uuid:4b1e1d70-0e42-42d6-b6e7-a310eac37849> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.quotationcollection.com/author/Henry-David-Thoreau/quotes | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974748 | 851 | 1.960938 | 2 |
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
OCA sewing tip #2: Presser Foot
When sewing with oilcloth it is as important to have the right presser foot. Oilcloth has tendency to crawl and to not want to stay put, this results in puckers at every pin. Using a roller foot or a teflon foot will help remedy this. When you use one of these handy presser feet you take some of the friction away and have less puckers in your seams.
My roller foot (number 51) is made for the Bernina machine it is a bit costly around $60.00. Suzanne, a Modern June stitcher and future blogger here on OCA, purchased the Bernina Teflon foot, the cost was around 26.00. But don't get upset just yet, I have another stitcher that uses a Kenmore machine and she lucked out, she found a roller foot at Joannes that fits her machine, the cost...$5.00! Now that is a steal!
Suzanne has used both the Bernina feet and likes them equally. She did say that it would be more convenient to use the roller foot because teflon feet are not to touch the feed dogs. She says she would have to think less!
Get creative and make something cool today! | <urn:uuid:60de7400-ad59-41d6-b835-cbdf8188be6e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://oilclothaddict.blogspot.com/2008/10/oca-sewing-tip-2-presser-foot.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970138 | 270 | 1.585938 | 2 |
The dawn is breaking, slowly, over the snow blanketed city. You have assembled yourself for the morning, with your coat and hat and mittens. You stand like a medieval knight with his standard, you with your great-mouthed shovel in hand, and dawn is breaking, slowly, over the fourth day of Nevada, the great snowfall. You are ready to start.
In our shared epiphany, this early winter, we have prepared to start. We encouraged you to begin by breathing. We pondered the possibility of a New Birth of Freedom. We noticed the early, first light of love in music, love and music. We announced and received a winter grace. We meditated on starting over. You have had already a homiletically busy year.
Yet there is a relationship between knowing and doing that dies without the strength of choosing. It is one thing to know the true and good and beautiful. It is another thing to do the true and good and beautiful. How do we move from knowing to doing? By choosing. Learning becomes virtue through piety. Learning becomes virtue through piety. Learning becomes virtue through piety…
In some best only known to you, by faith, you are ready to start. You have practiced the breathing of prayer. You have seen the horizon of freedom. You have heard the loving angels sing. You have admired a winter grace. You have seen the need to start over. Somehow. I do not know, fully, all of your new starts, though some are pretty clear, and shared. All share this: it takes strength to start. To change to a new path requires strength to start.
Shakespeare knew the beauty and terror of the dawn:
The grey eyed morn smiles on the frowning night
Chequering the eastern clouds with streaks of light
And flecked darkness like a drunkard reels
Form forth days path and Titan’s fiery wheels
Now ere the sun advance his burning eye
The day to cheer and night’s dank dew to dry
I sometimes long to leave all and teach Shakespeare, perhaps the only English voice needed for guidance, apart from the many voices of Scripture. The great poet and playwright knew, as was said of our Lord in his earthly ministry, knew the heart of man. He knew the complexity of moral judgment. He knew the ambiguity of corporate and governmental life. He knew the strange subterranean interplay of spirituality and sexuality. He knew the elusive mobility of truth, which, to be spoken, requires a lifetime of rapt attention, and years of isolated pain and imprisonment. He knew the repetitions, generation to generation, of impeachment and trial and coverup and revelation. What this country needs is neither a chicken in every pot nor a good 5 cent cigar nor a plain, new, fair, or square deal, but, a rivetingly taught course in Shakespeare!
As you start, at whatever dawn you face, ponder this: Christ gives strength to start. A new year? Strength to start. A new path? Strength to start. A new relationship? Strength to start. A new diagnosis? Strength to start. A new commitment? Strength to start. A new situation? Strength to start. Christ offers strength to start.
To you remains the decision to choose what you know you should do. Here are three encouragements to such a choice.
In the first place, we may plainly affirm that we find strength in Christ.
At the start of his long letter to the feisty Corinthians, St Paul places the few choice verses read aloud for us this morning. We listen to them and we hear them as God’s Word. The words of Scripture are “holy” in that they stand over against us, they take the measure of our self-deception, they outlast our passions and defeats and very lives. These verses will live longer than we, and rightly so.
It will be more obvious to the newer among us that every Sunday we hear two contrasting readings. One is from Mark, the gospel, a story, a narrative, an announcement of resurrection set in an account of Jesus’ ministry. The other is 1 Corinthians, a letter, a direct statement about how to live, sent from Paul to his church. I believe we who are more used to hearing these parallel readings have grown insensitive to just how different they are from one another.
Having followed Jesus in his healing ministry for some weeks, we turn now to Paul. We have returned to the beginning of the letter from which we have heard so much this winter.
While these verses are a part of a standard letter opening, used in almost all of Paul’s epistles, they are far from perfunctory greetings or boilerplate thanksgiving. To the contrary, subtly here Paul surveys the whole of the coming letter and summarizes what he is about to proclaim. He starts with the whole and with the end in view.
We too must make our various beginnings, and so we are not displeased to find here an inspired manner of entry. Paul asserts strength to start.
And what a generous start does he make! All of the pieces of the letter’s later puzzles are laid out here in the grand style. Where later there will be acrimony, difficulty, opaque philosophy, deep meaning, ethical admonition—scolding, and other standard religious fare, here there is great strength, a happy word, something good with which to start.
Our sixth grade teacher, a harsh task master as the day wore on, nonetheless began every morning with 30 minutes of simple reading–from Tolkien’s The Hobbit, or from Harriet the Spy, or from Tom Sawyer.
Then she would turn to math or history saying, “well begun is half done”.
Think of the Voyage of the Beagle, five years long, on which and through which, early in his life, Charles Darwin started to develop his lastingly powerful comprehension of our origins. We have a whole series of sermons on Darwin coming this summer.
The letter opens with joy, and with a new vocabulary of love and delight. This is meant to be our daily glossary, too, even as Paul now will teach it to the Corinthians.
God is faithful
Oh that we would bathe ourselves at the outset of each day in such a shower of strength!
For you, all of you, have been found in a new situation. You are “in Christ”.
Start the day strong—much will befall to challenge by dusk.
Start life strong in childhood—much comes later to unsettle.
Start with laughter and play in summer—much in autumn proves more difficult.
Start this New Year with strength, and like a skier carried along by Newton’s gravity, you will pass by and over and around the bumps.
Start this week and each week with the hearing of the Holy Word—much that is less than holy will greet you later.
In the second place, we may plainly affirm that the gifts of Christ are reliable in time of need, are firm in the face of danger. They make us certain when we need to be and inwardly secure when we have to be.
Whether we are babes in Christ or approved in Christ or wise in Christ—we make our starts with strength.
For the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to the men of skill, but time and chance happen to t
How well we remember the final game of the NCAA tournament in 1989, pitting Syracuse against Indiana. You remember the close finish, the wild crowd, the first place ranking at stake. Derek Coleman, then a freshman, somehow, inexplicably missed an easy shot at the end, and the player berating, chair kicking, opponent bedeviling Coach Knight went on victory. “O somewhere in this favored land the sun was shining bright, and somewhere children were singing, and somewhere hearts were light, but there was joy in upstate New York when mighty Derek struck out.” The race is not always to the swift…
On Monday the Rotary Club lunch began, in a deep and sorrowful reverie, broken only half-heartedly by the dejected President’s call to order, the weekly off-key singing of the national anthem, and then, as usual, with the prayer, offered that day by county judge Jack Schultz. “Dear God, we know that we cannot always win. We know that we learn from our losses as well as our victories. We thank you for many blessings that have come our way, even though this inferior Indiana team, lead by a heartless and ruthless tyrant, has stolen our one chance in this generation for glory. Lord, we do not expect always to win…but, but, but… we do demand justice in the future! Amen.” It still rings out as the most heartfelt public prayer I have heard.
No, the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to the men of skill, but time and chance happen to them all.
Life is not fair, not by a country mile.
Not fair to those who suffer untimely loss
Not fair to those stricken with unexpected illness
Not fair to those whose limbs are taken and torn
Not fair to those who should have been chosen
Not fair to those whose flight falls earthward
Not fair to you
Time and chance happen to all.
Jan and I know the Buffalo airport well. For many years, about half our flights began or concluded there. We know the little village become suburb of Clarence Center, and the Clarence Center United Methodist church. We know the rhythms of travel for women and men who go downstate to work and come upstate to live.
I remember living in the Syracuse University neighborhood in 1988, when the Lockerbie crash occurred, and 200 lives were lost.
Our hearts reach out to the lost and the grieving. We do not know what a day may bring, but only that the hour for serving good is always present. One of the reasons, over time, that we struggle to start something new is that we cannot see all the risks in and of the future. Things go wrong, in ways that we do not expect. It can make us gun shy. It can make us risk averse. It can make us think only twice but twenty times twice. So it takes strength to start.
So we long to hear an encouragement to start with strength.
I have a friend who loves to start almost anything, but has no energy to finish. He loves to take things apart, but not to put them back together. He loves to initiate ideas but not to see them through. He loves to begin, but not to complete.
St Paul had something of this spirit. Who can say why?
He loved to start people on the road to faith, to start the preaching of the Gospel, to start churches on the road of their common life. And so, he ignited a church in Thessalonaica, and incited a church in Corinth and initiated a church in Galatia and one Philippi and on he went, to finish preaching the good news through the whole inhabited world before Christ would return.
His was a dawn faith, a morning view, a salutation, a hello…
You can take some of his starting strength with you today.
If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation…
He who has begun a good work in you will complete it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ…
Have you begun with the Spirit to end with the flesh?…
It is the God who said ‘Let light shine out of darkness’ who has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ…
He is the beginning, the first born from the dead that in everything he might be pre eminent…
For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we preached among you, was not Yes and No, but in him it is always Yes. For all the promises of God find their Yes in him…
Martin Luther, whose sermon on these verses is one of his finest and most personal, recounts his many attempts to find peace with God through self-discipline, through religious duty, through acts of contrition, through his own works, until at last he collapsed.
“But this availed me nothing; nor did it free me from a fearful and dreadful conscience…This is God’s Word… this one thing God asks of you, that you honor him by accepting comfort; believe and know that he forgives your transgressions and has no wrath against you.”
You may start again with strength. You have the love of God, the Gospel of Christ, the Grace of the Lord, the baptism of the church, the prayers of the church, the Lord’s prayer, the ten commandments, the sacrament of communion, the word of absolution, and the decision of faith.
Strength in the Hope of the Future
In the third place, we may plainly affirm the strength that comes from beginning with the end in view.
The verb found here translated now as confirmed and then as sustained is really the same verb and it means “strengthened”. The testimony of Christ is strengthened among you….He will strengthen you to the end, blameless in the day…
You recognize here the language of ancient Jewish apocalyptic. Paul expresses his hope in the characteristic mode of his time and his people. He writes of the end and of the day of the Lord. Jesus in Mark 13, Paul in 1 Thessalonians 4-5 and John in John 14 say, in short, that speculation about dates and times is useless. “Of that day no one knows”.
But Paul here reminds us, and this is a source of strength for the beginnings of life, that the Lord Christ is both Alpha and Omega. When at last we set down our various tools and trades, when at last we have lost our eyes and ears, when at last the various dawns have given way to dusk and dusk and dusk—here too we are in Christ and nowhere else, of Christ and no one else. Somehow all the little subplots and sufferings of this present time are going to find their full place and point in a greater story, the day of God, the life-span of Jesus Christ. Today is God’s, and tomorrow is too.
Only such a hope could have sustained Paul, even as it has sustained the church for these many generations. Only such a hope could have strengthened Martin Luther King on August 28 1963 in Washington and all the long bitter way to April 3 1968, his last earthly night: “I just want to do God’s will. And he has allowed me to go to the mountain. And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the promised land…So I’m happy tonight, I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man.” Only such a hope could have sustained Abraham Lincoln, and given him, after slaughter, the strength to start again, ‘with malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right’.
Our young leaders here opened the world to breathing, to freedom, to love, to music, to grace, and to strength on Friday night. In a strange, humble way, our communal fellowship on Friday evening exemplified this strength. Our Valentine’s evening was beautiful, gracious, enjoyable, full, delicious, well-attended, and real. It was an experience of really being alive. Yet our young leaders had never done this. They had to summon the strength to start. Our hospitality team had to ‘worry the evening into existence’ as one said, finding a strength to start something new. Our musicians had to open the
mselves, give themselves to the moment, finding a strength to start something new. Our community in ministry had to come together, in a new way, finding a strength to start something new.
We looked back on all the similar new starts over the years. In Ithaca, a summer fair. In the North Country, a fall tea and sale. In Syracuse, a spaghetti dinner. In Rochester, a golf tournament. All very human, very humble moments. But people do not leave off being human when they come to faith. And people do not leave off being human when they come to university. Being in community requires a decision to be in community, and that requires strength to start, and that requires a choice, to choose to do what we know is true.
You start with confidence about the end. That is the main thing in Paul’s hope. You are strengthened to start in the hope of Jesus Christ.
I do not know, precisely, what you may be about to start. But I call you to decide to do so, to start with strength. The strength is God’s gift to you. The start is up to you.
Strength to start.
Strength to start in Christ
Strength to start in times of trial
Strength to start with hope for the end
Put on the whole clothing of Christ!
As you stand at the dawn of the rest of life…
We will put it in terms familiar…
Put on the whole wardrobe of Christ
Put on the sweater of grace
Put on the boots of peace
Put on the mittens of thanksgiving
Put on the tuke of fellowship
Put on the scarf of faithfulness
Put on the snowsuit of sanctification
Pick up the shovel of salvation
And the ice-pick of hope
And the salt of happiness
For IN CHRIST ARE YOU GIVEN STRENGTH TO START! | <urn:uuid:7001ee21-39b4-4664-8402-358bdb93f57d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.bu.edu/sermons/2009/02/15/strength-to-start-2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961648 | 3,726 | 1.65625 | 2 |
A reader who shall remain anonymous asked what a "brownshirt" was...as in Gore calling people Digital Brownshirts. So I figured other people might be confused too.
Brown Shirt noun 1. Nazi storm trooper: a member of a Nazi uniformed paramilitary organization originally forming Adolf Hitler’s personal bodyguard and later used as a militia. Brownshirts assisted Hitler’s rise to power, but lost their influence to the SS following the assassination of their leader Erich Röhm in 1934. 2. offensive term: an offensive term for somebody who is viewed as being a violent racist ( insult ) [Translation of German Braunhemd , from the brown uniform shirts of the Nazi storm troopers]
Do you have a question for me? You can e-mail it. If I know the answer, I'll answer it. If I don't, I might make something up.Posted by Jennifer at June 25, 2004 03:39 PM | <urn:uuid:e053e06f-5dde-4d22-90f6-3e70bb419e7b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://jenlars.mu.nu/archives/033473.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944906 | 192 | 1.773438 | 2 |
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MASSIVE RIDGE CLIMBED IN NORTH CASCADES
Posted on: September 22, 2007
A foreshortened view of Megalodon Ridge (IV+ 5.10), Mt. Goode (9,220'), North Cascades National Park, Washington. The ridge, surprisingly unclimbed until Blake Herrington and Sol Wertkin made the ascent on September 6, offers "distinctly alpine" rock—with the harder pitches being solid gneiss—and 5,000 feet of exposure. [Photo] Blake Herrington
Earlier this summer Dan Hilden and I decided to begin a major enchainment with a trip up the unclimbed east ridge of Mt. Goode (9,220'), a peak in Washington's North Cascades National Park. The peak is frequented because of the famous Beckey route on its north side (Northeast Buttress: IV 5.5). Grossly underestimating the size of the east ridge, we bailed after completing only a few pitches of the route.
Ambition is a good thing, and for a climber, maybe even a necessary thing. However, once I realized just how big Goode's east ridge was—and after we made an exposed ten-rappel descent down an unclimbed, unknown face—I began questioning my ambition. But thoughts of this "big fish" would not go away. So Sol Wertkin and I, both from Bellingham, WA, returned to Mt. Goode on September 5, with an eye on climbing the line.
Sol Wertkin simulclimbing the lower part of the ridge on the morning of September 6. This was just the beginning: the deceivingly long ridge took the pair about twelve hours to climb; most of it they simuled. [Photo] Blake Herrington
Goode's brittle rock does not have a stellar reputation. Nevertheless, it is amazing that such a major line on one of the range's largest peaks had not been climbed. Most pictures don't do the scale and exposure justice—the route is long and committing, with 5,000 feet of exposure to the north and 4,000 to the south. True to its reputation, much of the rock is "distinctly alpine," but the harder pitches offer excellent gneiss.
Sol had dubbed it the Megalodon Ridge, in honor of the largest fish ever to swim the seas, and on this attempt, unlike my initial foray, we came fully equipped—with the right hardware and weather forecast—for a demanding, grade IV/V route.
Although the tallest peak in the park, Mt. Goode cannot be seen from any road. After hiking twelve miles along the Pacific Crest Trail we reached the north fork of Bridge Creek, which deposited us below slide-alder thickets, hidden cliff bands, and rumbling glaciers 6,000 feet below Mt. Goode's summit.
We soloed some fifth class rock along the east ridge that night to where the vertical terrain began. The next morning on September 6, we began climbing from our exposed bivy 4,000 vertical feet below the summit. Clouds passed overhead and occasionally allowed glimpses of looming gendarmes and the distant summit. After two hours of simulclimbing, we made one 50-meter rappel from the first tower of the ridge. From there Sol and I swapped leads and did running belays along the crest of exposed gneiss, finding climbing up to 5.8. As we neared the headwall of the southeast peak, the rock steepened abruptly and the climbing became more difficult. The direct line on the crest yielded two pitches of 5.10 crack climbing, and we afforded ourselves the luxury of a ten-minute break atop the southeast peak, the only such one we would take all day. From that sub-summit we scouted a path around the high glacial ice, and climbed through a moat atop the Goode Glacier to reach more technical rock that headed to the main summit.
Blake Herrington commiting to the 5.10 corner, high on Mt. Goode's southeast peak. [Photo] Sol Wertkin
The final crux of the day came when we attempted to descend into Black Tooth Notch, the last major gap before the summit. The traversing nature of this pitch prevented a rappel, forcing Sol to downlead an overhanging pitch of 5.10, which I, moments before, had dismissed as an option that "would not go." My initial reluctance to lead the pitch meant that I now had to follow the downclimb across an overhanging face, with 5,000' of snow and rock beneath my heels. Using perfect beta, which Sol shouted to me as I climbed, I was able to reach his sheltered belay alcove, and after a few more pitches of easier climbing we were on the summit, just as the sun was setting.
Our adventure on Megalodon Ridge (IV+ 5.10, 12 hours of climbing, simuling up to 5.8) was topped with an amazing sunset, a meteor shower and a perfect bivy: that night our heads were the highest point in North Cascades National Park.
The next day we took the standard descent via Black Tooth Notch and the southwest gully. This descent brought us to the south side of the peak and meant that we would have to skirt a forest fire and endure twenty miles of trail before reaching the car. For that ridge—or for any number of other unclimbed objectives, of which there are plenty—the long day of tramping is entirely worth it.
Forest fire smoke improving the sunset over the North Cascades. Herrington and Wertkin were rewarded with this view from their bivy on Mt. Goode's summit. [Photo] Blake Herrington | <urn:uuid:a535e29a-988e-4b8c-a951-469d9fcab32e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.alpinist.com/doc/web07f/newswire-goode-megalodon-ridge | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956014 | 1,225 | 2.4375 | 2 |
Demand (Tankless or Instantaneous) Water Heaters
Demand (tankless or instantaneous) water heaters provide hot water only as it is needed. They don’t produce the standby energy losses associated with storage water heaters, which can save you money. Here you’ll find basic information about how they work, whether a demand water heater might be right for your home, and what criteria to use when selecting the right model.
How They Work
Demand water heaters heat water directly without the use of a storage tank. Therefore, they avoid the standby heat losses associated with storage water heaters. When a hot water tap is turned on, cold water travels through a pipe into the unit. Either a gas burner or an electric element heats the water. As a result, demand water heaters deliver a constant supply of hot water. You don’t need to wait for a storage tank to fill up with enough hot water. However, a demand water heater’s output limits the flow rate.
Typically, demand water heaters provide hot water at a rate of 2–5 gallons (7.6–15.2 liters) per minute. Gas-fired demand water heaters produce higher flow rates than electric ones. Sometimes, however, even the largest, gas-fired model cannot supply enough hot water for simultaneous, multiple uses in large households. For example, taking a shower and running the dishwasher at the same time can stretch a demand water heater to its limit. To overcome this problem, you can install two or more demand water heaters, connected in parallel for simultaneous demands of hot water. You can also install separate demand water heaters for appliances—such as a clothes washer or dishwater—that use a lot of hot water in your home.
Other applications for demand water heaters include the following:
- Remote bathrooms or hot tubs
- Booster for appliances, such as dishwashers or clothes washers
- Booster for a solar water heating system.
Although gas-fired demand water heaters tend to have higher flow rates than electric ones, they can waste energy if they have a constantly burning pilot light. This can sometimes offset the elimination of standby energy losses when compared to a storage water heater. In a gas-fired storage water heater, the pilot light heats the water in the tank so the energy isn’t wasted. The cost of operating a pilot light in a demand water heater varies from model to model. Ask the manufacturer how much gas the pilot light uses for the model you’re considering. If you purchase a model that uses a standing pilot light, you can always turn it off when it’s not in use to save energy. Also consider models that have an intermittent ignition device (IID) instead of a standing pilot light. This device resembles the spark ignition device on some gas kitchen ranges and ovens.
For homes that use 41 gallons or less of hot water daily, demand water heaters can be 24%–34% more energy efficient than conventional storage tank water heaters. They can be 8%–14% more energy efficient for homes that use a lot of hot water—around 86 gallons per day. You can achieve even greater energy savings of 27%–50% if you install a demand water heater at each hot water outlet.
Selecting a Demand Water Heater
Demand water heaters cost more than conventional storage water heaters. However, you may find that a demand water heater may have lower operating and energy costs, which could offset its higher purchase price.
Before buying a demand water heater, you also need to consider the following:
- Fuel type and availability.
- Energy efficiency (energy factor)
- Estimate costs.
For information about specific demand water heater models, see the Product Information resources listed on the right side of this page (or below if you’ve printed out this page).
Installation and Maintenance
Proper installation and maintenance of your demand water heater can optimize its energy efficiency.
Proper installation depends on many factors. These factors include fuel type, climate, local building code requirements, and safety issues, especially concerning the combustion of gas-fired water heaters. Therefore, it’s best to have a qualified plumbing and heating contractor install your demand water heater. Do the following when selecting a contractor:
- Request cost estimates in writing
- Ask for references
- Check the company with your local Better Business Bureau
- See if the company will obtain a local permit if necessary and understands local building codes, etc.
If you’re determined to install your water heater yourself, first consult the manufacturer. Manufacturers usually have the necessary installation and instruction manuals. Also, contact your city or town for information about obtaining a permit, if necessary, and about local water heater installation codes.
Most tankless water heaters have a life expectancy of more than 20 years. They also have easily replaceable parts that extend their life by many more years. In contrast, storage water heaters last 10–15 years. Periodic water heater maintenance can significantly extend your water heater’s life and minimize loss of efficiency. Read your owner’s manual for specific maintenance recommendations.
Improving Energy Efficiency
After your demand water heater is properly installed and maintained, try some additional energy-saving strategies to help lower your water heating bills. Some energy-saving devices and systems are more cost-effective to install with the water heater. | <urn:uuid:f97fe4a3-0a65-4b7b-b0ac-45d1783a8ab9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.deltamechanical.com/tankless-water-heaters/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.906961 | 1,116 | 2.671875 | 3 |
TB or not TB
School: Los Alamos High
Area of Science: Mathematics
Interim: Team 52’s project for the Supercomputing 2012-2013 Challenge involves the epidemiology and disease host modeling of tuberculosis. Tuberculosis may seem like it is not an important disease that pertains to the U.S., however, it is becoming an increasing problem for us today. In addition to the outbreaks in the U.S., our troops are acquiring it overseas and returning with it. If we are not more careful, we may eventually have a full-blown epidemic with the soldiers returning home. A very large threat to us could be that the soldiers who have contracted it, and then return home, may not even be aware that they have this disease. This is especially important in the anti-biotic resistant strain that is now popping up around the world. We have accomplished most of the introductory work for this project and are now working on developing the models of this disease to run our code.
Research has been done into the background of tuberculosis in the State of New Mexico, nationwide and abroad. Early in September the team went to Albuquerque to visit the UNM medical library to gather this information. We had researched what resources were necessary to learn about ahead of time. At the medical library we read many books on the subject, and we made copies in order to use any of this research pertaining to our project at a later date.
Our mentor Dr. Don Tucker at the University of Utah has suggested a system of ordinary differential equations that can be used to model specifically the disease known as tuberculosis. These equations are more specific to tuberculosis than the equations we used last year for disease host modeling. Currently, a code written in the language C, on a Mac OS 10.6.4 operating system and on a PC running Microsoft Windows 7, is being developed to model the system of equations with application to epidemiology. We will use this to further our research and understanding of tuberculosis.
We expect to get results by early 2013 in order to complete our final report. We hope these results will show the threshold of collapse of an individual who has tuberculosis. With this data we will be able to predict the result of a specific individual contracting tuberculosis, whether or not the individual will survive and how significantly they will be impacted. We will also explore what the effects of tuberculosis are on the human body, and what to expect if a large-scale epidemic occurred upon the general population. We may also end up with results to predict the new anti-biotic resistant strain.
Sponsoring Teacher: Lee Goodwin
Mail the entire Team | <urn:uuid:726fb8e9-bf8d-42c2-b2e3-6fdcafb35c31> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mode.lanl.k12.nm.us/get_interim1213.php?team_id=52 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953607 | 530 | 2.75 | 3 |
iberal PBS host Bill Moyers has some explaining to do, said Jack Shafer in Slate. The Washington Post reported that when Moyers was working for President Lyndon Johnson, he directed J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI to investigate whether two fellow Johnson administration officials had “homosexual tendencies.” The “gay hunting” made political sense in 1964—LBJ aide Walter Jenkins had just been arrested having gay sex in a restroom—but Moyers should own up to it.
This isn’t the first time Moyers’ name has been linked to gay hunting, said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial. Federal judge Laurence Silberman, who read all of Hoover’s secret files in 1975, says that Moyers also asked the FBI to search for any homosexuals working for LBJ’s 1964 rival, Barry Goldwater. Amazingly, this is the same Moyers who has remade himself into a “political moralist.”
Moyers’ long second act as “the conscience of the American press” is pretty unbelievable, said Glenn Garvin in The Miami Herald online. He was one of LBJ’s “dirtiest henchmen,” and his “gay-bashing” is just the tip of the iceberg. But if history is any guide, this load of Moyers’ “dirty laundry” will vanish “down the memory hole” like all the rest.
Cut the man a little slack, said Ryan Tate in Gawker. His response to the Post, that he can’t remember the details of what happened in 1964, is a little weak. But “Moyers is 74.” And besides, “people will probably forgive him trying to protect a pro-civil-rights president against then-lethal associations with gays.”
The gay “witch hunts” were famously an obsession of Hoover’s, said Connecticut’s Middletown Press in an editorial, and the main focus of the Post’s article is a look at how Hoover “pestered Johnson” until he let them look into whether another LBJ aide, Jack Valenti, was gay. Hoover’s focus on the sex lives of others “seems almost quaint now”—hopefully we’ve progressed to where it is also irrelevant.
- The House's cold war over the IRS scandal just turned hot
- Washington has an Edward Snowden problem
- Michael Hastings, remembered
- WATCH: Australia's army chief demonstrates how you address sex abuse
- WATCH: John Oliver tackles the politics of immigration reform
- The last word: He said he was leaving. She ignored him.
- 10 things you need to know today: June 19, 2013
- The last telegram ever is about to be sent
- How typeface influences the way we read and think
- The culture war is over, and conservatives lost | <urn:uuid:7d54e261-94b4-4d0c-a35a-a1f838471c9b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://theweek.com/article/index/93586/Bill_Moyers_gay_witch_hunt | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00071-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951907 | 619 | 1.976563 | 2 |
A: Electrolyte drinks may help. Electrolytes are chemical substances that when dissolved in water transform into ions, which are molecules that are involved in conducting electrical impulses throughout the body. If there is an electrolyte deficiency, the muscles will not be able to contract properly.
If you drink only plain water, the electrolytes in your tissues become diluted. To restore the electrolyte balance, the body must excrete this water through the kidneys, carrying electrolytes with it. Even so, there’s more to this story.
In a study published in the April ’05 Journal of Athletic Training, 13 college-age men with a history of exercise-associated muscle cramps participated in an experiment to determine how well electrolytes could prevent cramping in the calves. The authors concluded, “Consumption of a carbohydrate-electrolyte beverage before and during exercise in a hot environment may delay the onset of exercise-associated muscle cramps, thereby allowing participants to exercise longer.” The authors did note that 69 percent of the subjects still experienced cramping from their training, suggesting that addressing other factors, especially physical conditioning, is necessary to prevent cramping.
One of the best natural sources of electrolytes is coconut water; another option is to add an electrolyte-replacement mix to your water. As for some of the popular sports drinks, consider that water enters the cells through a process called osmosis. Sports drinks often have such a high concentration of sodium (to improve the taste) that the water cannot get into the cells—in effect, you are hydrated and dehydrated at the same time!
You asked about potassium. Potassium is an alkalizing mineral, and it is also associated with the prevention of muscle cramps. I like potassium citrate, which is highly absorbable.
Potassium deficiency is not the only mineral-related cause of cramping. Magnesium is involved in muscle contraction as well, and it is the most common mineral deficiency I see in athletes. One reason is that resistance training increases magnesium requirements. In fact, during the last 12 years not one of the first-time trainees I’ve worked with has had acceptable magnesium levels. Compromised absorption will generally keep you from having optimal levels.
Over the years, I have accumulated extensive research and experience in restoring magnesium levels, and I believe it’s best to use a combination of four different magnesium complexes: magnesium taurate, magnesium glycinate, magnesium fumarate and magnesium orotate. Adding vitamins E and D3 will also help.
Editor’s note: Charles Poliquin is recognized as one of the world’s most suc-cessful strength coaches, having coached Olympic med-alists in 12 different sports, including the U.S. women’s track-and-field team for the 2000 Olympics. He’s spent years researching European journals (he’s fluent in English, French and German) and speaking with other coaches and scientists in his quest to optimize training methods. For more on his books, seminars and methods, visit www.CharlesPoliquin.com. Also, see his ad on page 147. IM | <urn:uuid:fe561d26-7b13-430a-a91f-b3449289fd74> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ironmanmagazine.com/do-electrolyte-drinks-really-help-to-prevent-cramping/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953946 | 656 | 2.875 | 3 |
The American Academy of Pediatrics has updated the Childhood Vaccination Schedule. A yearly flu shot is now recommended for all children aged six months and older, and the academy is now calling for a second dose of the rotavirus vaccine to protect children against the leading cause of severe diarrhea. The academy also published a special article in response to concerns from parents about the safety of vaccines. It says that parents should not delay vaccinations, or withhold vaccines from their children. A large study previously found no additional health risks for children who received vaccines. Children who don't receive vaccines on schedule are at an increased risk for catching infectious diseases. Young children who are not vaccinated can also suffer severe injuries and even death. Before the pneumococcal vaccine became part of the schedule in 2000, there was an average of 200 deaths of children under five, every year in the US.
- Video Central
- About WWAY | <urn:uuid:8a6b3528-fe42-4360-bd69-be5036309e8c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wwaytv3.com/reasons_not_delay_your_childs_vaccinations/12/2008 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966797 | 180 | 3.15625 | 3 |
PASSENGERS TRANSPORT INDUSTRY * USA
(Photo by Ricardo Thomas / The Detroit News: Ron Freeland, Detroit's CEO of the Department of Transportation, explains how he monitors the city's buses from his office)
Detroit,MICH,USA -The Detroit News, by Josh Katzenstein -June 17, 2012: -- The city's bus system has embraced the world of technology... Since April, 95 percent of the Detroit Department of Transportation buses have used a tracking system that allows control center operators to adjust routes to fill any gaps caused by unpredicted delays — trains, accidents, fights on buses or poor driving — that in the past have contributed to riders' mounting frustrations at the troubled public transportation system... While DDOT doesn't yet have statistics for how timely buses ran in May, control center employees say the tracking system has made operations run smoothly... And by September, DDOT hopes to unveil a cellphone application so riders can check to see exactly when their buses will be arriving...
Labels: passengers transports industry | <urn:uuid:774557bb-b8b6-44cf-a62b-5d9dca490a16> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://busnews.blogspot.com/2012/06/passengers-transport-industry-usa.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929082 | 210 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Carriers like to charge for tethering, as it’s another pricey feature they can add to wireless bills. Customers don’t like being charged for tethering, as they’re paying a second time for the data they’ve already paid for. In these kinds of business/customer conflicts, the balance of power is usually decided by the amount of competition. As there are only four major carriers in the US, it’s now established that tethering costs consumers money. Fortunately for customers there are developers like Koush who are looking to shake things up. He has released a new app that tethers for free without requiring root.
The app is called Clockworkmod Tether, and it’s now in alpha. It tethers to a Windows, OS X, or Linux machine via USB. Not only does it bypass the requirement of paying extra for tethering, but it also goes undetected by the carriers.
If this sounds familiar, it’s because it does essentially the same thing as PDANet. It too will tether via USB without carrier detection, but there’s a big difference: PDANet costs $16 (for the full version), and Clockworkmod Tether is free. But as Koush’s new app is only in alpha and it will stop working on January 7 (he will release updates before then), there’s nothing stopping him from charging for it later.
In the meantime you can try Clockworkmod Tether by following these steps:
2. You’ll need to have ADB drivers for your Android device installed on your computer (that usually means installing the Android SDK).
3. Connect your device to your PC via USB
4. Open the app and press start. It should start tethering your device’s connection to your desktop.
If you run into device detection errors, then you’ll want to double check that you have the ADB drivers installed. If your device is detected but the app isn’t properly working, try restarting it. | <urn:uuid:e3a74f02-5670-49c0-802f-b2b1623e8f8b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.geek.com/mobile/how-to-tether-for-free-from-your-android-device-no-root-required-1454519/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945167 | 428 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Another muzzle story. Names have been changed to protect the innocent.
Bob and Sue adopted Rex from their local animal shelter. When they got home, the couple decided to give Rex a bath outside before bringining him into the house.
They didn’t know how Rex would react to a bath, so they decided to muzzle him.
During the bath, Rex got spooked and took off – still wearing his muzzle.
Because Rex didn’t know the family that well, they were not able to retrieve him. Rex was running loose, in the country. With his mouth closed shut from the muzzle, he wasn’t able to drink nor eat, nor defend himself against predators or other dogs.
An hour or so after Rex escaped, he was spotted without his muzzle. Luckily he was able to paw it off of himself. I don’t know if the family was ever able to recover Rex.
Several volunteers spent some time in the area without spotting the dog.
Although muzzles can make the human handler much safer, muzzles can be dangerous for the dog for several reasons:
-Most muzzles restrict air flow so should never be on a dog for an extended period of time. The less air flow, the shorter the wearing period.
- If a dog has on a muzzle, make sure he/she is in a secure location and/or is wearing a secure, properly fitted martingale collar. The handler must be sure to never drop the leash if the dog isn’t in a secure enclosure.
- Be aware that a dog can’t fight back if he/she is attacked when wearing a muzzle.
- Don’t leave a dog unattened while he/she is wearing a muzzle (even muzzles that don’t restrict air flow). The dog might need to regurgitate or there could be other complications.
Remember to always get help from a professional.
This ends our muzzle series for now.
Tells us about your muzzle experiences
Next blog – Electrocutions. Stay tuned!
For more training tips, please see Puddin’s Training Tips
For more pet articles, check out SAPAWS | <urn:uuid:31d42f3a-ebe6-48c6-8cbe-c52ea361d086> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.mysanantonio.com/latrenda/2011/05/muzzle-safety/?gta=commentlistpos | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963268 | 456 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, who was ousted by a U.S. invasion in 1989 and jailed in the United States, arrived in France today to face money laundering charges after being extradited from the U.S. Tuesday night.
Escorted by French prison officials, the 76-year-old former general arrived on an Air France flight from Miami early this morning at Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport outside Paris. This afternoon a judge ordered that he be jailed pending trial, which could take place within two months.
"We did not see anybody in particular leave our aircraft," a passenger on the flight told reporters at the Paris airport. "But we saw a lot of policemen around the plane" she said.
Before he boarded the Air France flight at Miami airport, local television showed helicopter pictures of a physically weak Noriega being helped out of a black pickup, walking with difficulty. Noriega suffered a mild stroke four years ago.
This morning, Noriega appeared behind closed doors at Paris' main courthouse, where French prosecutors read him an arrest warrant, the first step before any other judicial action can be taken against him in France.
French authorities say Noriega laundered $7 million in drug proceeds from the Medellin Cartel in Colombia by purchasing luxury apartments in Paris.
In 1999, while he was in prison in the U.S., Noriega was convicted in absentia by a French court. He was sentenced to 10 years in jail and fined close to $15 million. But France agreed to give him a new trail if he was extradited.
Manuel Noriega, Panama's strongman in the 1980s and a one-time CIA informant during the Cold War, was ousted as Panama's leader by U.S. troops in December 1989. Noriega was captured and brought to Miami where he was later sentenced to 40 years in jail for drug trafficking and related charges.
His sentence was later reduced for good behavior and after spending 17 years behind bars, Noriega was expected to regain freedom in 2007. But he remained in jail pending the extradition request made by French prosecutors.
On Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton signed a so-called surrender warrant for Noriega after a federal judge in Miami lifted a stay blocking the extradition last month.
Noriega's French lawyers are seeking his immediate release, saying his detention and transfer are unlawful.
"If the rules of law are applied, there should not be a trial in France," Yves Leberquier, one of Noriega's French lawyers, told RTL radio today. The French lawyers argue that it is illegal to try a former head of state who should have immunity from prosecution.
Noriega's lawyers also say the charges against him are too old to be tried under French law. And they say Noriega is considered a prisoner of war, a status French jails aren't ready to accommodate.
Noriega was declared a P.O.W. after his 1992 drug conviction by a Miami federal judge. In Miami, Noriega had separate quarters in prison, the right to wear his military uniform and insignia, access to a television and monitoring by international rights groups.
Panama also has an outstanding request for the former dictator's extradition. He was convicted in Panama in absentia and sentenced to 54 years in prison on charges of embezzlement, corruption and ordering the murder of opponents.
In 1987, Noriega was made a commander in France's prestigious Legion of Honor.
The Associated Press contributed to this report. | <urn:uuid:11e8fbbf-eedc-4450-897e-750d82797984> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://abcnews.go.com/International/Blotter/panamas-dictator-manuel-noriega-extradited-us-france/story?id=10486776 | 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 | 0.981467 | 740 | 1.625 | 2 |
I LOVE this "Litre of Light" project in Manila.
Basically, they take a litre-sized soda bottle, fill it with water and bleach (to keep algae from forming), and shove it through a hole in the ceiling. Unlike just putting a hole in the roof, which would admit light in a straight line, the water in the bottle refracts the light, and it really does look like a light bulb in the ceiling ... but it's just sunlight streaming through a water-filled soda bottle.
According to a tech-y guy on the Portland Permaculture forum, this same technology could be used even here in Maine, if the bottles are filled with an anti-freeze solution (like isopropyl alcohol or vodka :).
In the parts of in my house where I could use the most light, I have a crawlspace/attic space, and so a soda bottle wouldn't work, but how about using this technology in the walls instead - to bring light from a bright room into a dark room?
Definitely something to think about. | <urn:uuid:78063158-26c0-4e5f-a221-f5ae1d8bc547> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://happilyhome.blogspot.com/2011/08/innovation.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945088 | 222 | 2.25 | 2 |
Noam Chomsky page
" Any dictator would
admire the uniformity and obedience of the (U.S.) media."
"I think we can be reasonably
confident that if the American population had the slightest idea
of what is being done in their name, they would be utterly appalled."
"The rascal multitude
are the proper targets of the mass media and a public education
system geared to obedience and training in needed skills, including
the skill of repeating patriotic slogans on timely occasions."
Books by Noam Chomsky
"Vietnam wasn't a "disastrous
mistake" - it was murderous aggression."
"The U.S. is the only
country condemned by the World Court for international terrorism-for
"the unlawful use of force" for political ends."
"Advertising is tax deductible,
so we all pay for the privilege of being manipulated and controlled."
"In much of the world
the U.S. is regarded as a leading terrorist state."
"As long as people are
marginalized and distracted [they] have no way to organize or
articulate their sentiments, or even know that others have these
sentiments. People assume that they are the only people with a
crazy idea in their heads. They never hear it from anywhere else.
Nobody's supposed to think that. ... Since there's no way to get
together with other people who share or reinforce that view and
help you articulate it, you feel like an oddity, an oddball. So
you just stay on the side and you don't pay any attention to what's
going on. You look at something else, like the Superbowl."
" The U.S. will not
permit constructive programs in its own domains, so it must ensure
that they are destroyed elsewhere to terminate " the threat
of a good example".
" The most effective way
to restrict democracy is to transfer decision-making from the
public arena to unaccountable institutions: kings and princes,
priestly castes, military juntas, party dictatorships, or modern
of America' during the past century [has been] an attack on democracy."
"The smart way to keep
people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum
of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that
spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views.
That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on,
while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being
reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate."
"The South is assigned
a service role: to provide resources, cheap labor, markets, opportunities
for investment and ... export of pollution."
"The best defense against
democracy is to distract people."
"The Orwellian term is "right
to work," meaning "effectively illegal to organize".
" Sports plays a societal
role in engendering jingoist and chauvinist attitudes. They're
designed to organize a community to be committed to their gladiators."
"There's a very committed
effort to convert the US into something resembling a Third World
society, where a few people have enormous wealth and a lot of
others have no security."
"If you assume that there
is no hope, you guarantee that there will be no hope. If you assume
that there is an instinct for freedom, there are opportunities
to change things, etc., there's a chance to contribute to the
making of a better world. That's your choice."
"... the media serve the
interests of state and corporate power, which are closely interlinked,
framing their reporting and analysis in a manner supportive of
established privilege and limiting debate and discussion accordingly."
"Societies of the North
- notibly the United States - are taking on certain Third World
aspects. The distribution of privilege and despair in a society
with the emormous advantages of ours is not, of course, what one
finds in Brazil or Mexico. But the tendencies are not hard to
"[Noam] Chomsky's truly
great contribution to the struggle for human freedom is that he
has taken what we have been persuaded to believe is an insane
idea, a product only of individual neurosis - the idea that society
is not free and quite possibly not even sane - and shown it to
be empirically, demonstrably true; he has provided the vital support
for the individual to be able to declare him - and herself sane
against the insanity of society, despite a million voices declaring
that it is the occasional doubter who is mad."
David Edwards - Burning All Illusions
Global Secrets and Lies | <urn:uuid:e3e9e47d-c304-47cb-a102-e6a74f8bdb1c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Chomsky/Noam_Chomsky.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927057 | 989 | 1.84375 | 2 |
|House Plan Weblog
Deciding Where to Build Your Home
Posted On: 2010-08-06 at 10:38:05 PM
Just as important as deciding on that perfect house plan for you and your family is the decision of where to build your dream home!
Begin by selecting a building site or lot that is compatible with your home plan, or choose the home plan that works great for your site. Would you like to live on a private lot or in a subdivision? Check with your town’s building department to confirm that your lot is zoned accurately and that your home will fit within the allowable setbacks. Also, verify any other restrictions that may be in place. You must decide the best placement of your home while following all codes and guidelines. Consider the conditions and the terrain. What are the levels of the land, and how does the movement of the water over the surface of the soil affect your home? What are the views of and from your home and the way it is built on your site. Another issue to weigh is the location in the general community you wish to live. Is it near work, schools, church, shopping, restaurants, activities and other places that are important to you and your family? You may want to check on the utilities for your area as well. Is public water available and in what capacity or is well drilling necessary? What are the choices for the electric and/or natural gas services? Are there sewer lines available to the property, or is it necessary to install a septic system?
These are just a few factors to consider when deciding where to build your perfect house plan. A little pre-planning is a great idea and makes the exciting process of seeing your dream home come to life a little easier! So, start your search today!
Submitted by: Blogmaster | <urn:uuid:57250d4c-6cfd-4368-8397-96672137d212> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.houseplancentral.com/houseplans-and-homedesigns-blog_bypost.php?id=86 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959908 | 372 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Science Fair Project Encyclopedia
Pan pipes (also known as the panflute or the syrinx or quills) is an ancient musical instrument based on the principle of the stopped pipe, consisting usually of ten or more pipes of gradually increasing length. The syrinx (Greek συριγξ) has long been popular as a folk instrument, and is considered the ancestor of both the pipe organ and the harmonica, or mouth organ. The panpipes are named for their association with the rustic Greek god Pan.
The pipes composing it are stopped at one end, so that the sound waves have to travel twice the length of the pipe, giving out a note nearly an octave lower than that produced by an open pipe of equal length. In the traditional style, pipes are fine tuned to correct pitch by placing small pebbles or dry corn kernels into the bottom of the pipes. Contemporary makers of panpipes will use a wax - commonly beeswax - to tune their new instruments.
The pan pipe is played with breath blown horizontally across the open end against the sharp inner edge of the pipes. This creates the regular series of pulses which generate the sound waves within the tubes. Each pipe gives out one note, but by overblowing, that is, increased pressure of breath and tension of lips, harmonics are produced.
The plural of syrinx is syringes, from which the modern word syringe is derived. (Pan pipes is both singular and plural.) Other names for the instrument include panflute and the medieval name fistula panis.
The pan pipes were most recently popularised by the Romanian musician Gheorghe Zamfir, who toured extensively and recorded many albums of pan pipe music, and by several other artists who began recording at the same time. They are also very popular in Peruvian traditional groups and other Andean music.
- History of the Panflute by Brad White
- The Enigmatic Panpipe
- Pan-Flute.Com a fun site & educational!!
- click on the British flag for English language, Steffen Küttner, panfloeten
- Build your own homemade panpipes!
The contents of this article is licensed from www.wikipedia.org under the GNU Free Documentation License. Click here to see the transparent copy and copyright details | <urn:uuid:64745ee3-b777-4278-b122-5967346a2985> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com/science_fair_projects_encyclopedia/Pan-pipe | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943865 | 483 | 3.609375 | 4 |
34th Week OT (F)
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
Ss. Domenico e Sisto, Roma
Here we are at the end of November in Rome. It's cold and raining. Has been for weeks now. We see the sun for maybe 30 minutes a day. All signs that winter is not far off. This morning Jesus tells us that the budding fig tree will be a sign that the long winter is ending and that summer is near. We also have John telling us that in his vision of the last judgment, “the former heaven and former earth had passed away.” The old order of the universe is replaced by “a new heaven and a new earth.” Winter turns to summer; the old gives way to the new. This isn't the Cycle of Life our pagan ancestors revered and celebrated; rather, it's the drama of human conversion from sin to salvation, the salvific action of Christ on the cross and our graced reaction to his sacrifice. Having died and risen again once for our sins, Christ continues to lure us away from disobedience and destruction and into a renewed life, an eternal life among all his redeemed in heaven. It is no accident that these readings come on the Friday before the first Sunday of Advent.
In the Church's liturgical year, Friday's are always marked as the dark day of the crucifixion, a day for penitential reflection and fasting. It is entirely fitting that we are called to repentance on this Friday, the Friday before we begin our long wait during Advent for the coming of the Christ Child. For four weeks we will watch for the signs of his coming. For four weeks we will pray, fast, study, do our work all the while waiting and waiting for the first signs of his coming. Even knowing that his coming is inevitable, even knowing that he has already arrived once for all, we will wait and wait. This generation—those who faithfully anticipate his arrival—this generation will not pass before he finally comes among us. Are you ready? Fully prepared? Ready to receive all the graces and all the tribulations he has to give you?
Military men and women often describe their work as “hurrying up to wait.” Rush, rush, rush to get ready. . .and then a long, anxious wait for action. If John's apocalypse tells us anything, it tells us that now is the time to hurry up and wait. Hurry to repentance. Hurry to conversion. Hurry up and get your spiritual house in order. And then wait. Christ has come. Christ is coming. And he will come again. There's a new heaven and a new earth to anticipate. Be sure that you are ready!
Follow HancAquam ------------> | <urn:uuid:fdd7aac4-eddc-42a5-adfe-39aed5c89584> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hancaquam.blogspot.com/2010/11/hurry-up-and-wait.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972492 | 571 | 2.0625 | 2 |
Nathan's Driving School is pleased to announce our new Bioptic and Low Vision Driver Training Program
To register for one of our Bioptic Driving Courses, please click here: www.nathansdrivingschool.net/index.php/bioptic-telescope-program/register-online
If you have been diagnosed with macular degeneration or another vision issue requiring you to wear bioptic telescopic lenses, the Georgia Department of Driver Services will require you to complete a driver education program in order to obtain or retain your driving privileges. The State’s mandated program for certification involves the successful completion of thirty hours of classroom instruction and a minimum of six hours of in-car training. Although most experienced drivers can readily adjust their driving habits with just the six hours of in-car training, new drivers will generally need additional hours to safely operate a motor vehicle while wearing the bioptics.
At Nathan’s Driving School, we are committed to teaching all of our new drivers the best methods for being a safe, low risk driver. We have twenty years of experience working with low vision drivers, and are eager to take that knowledge into a new direction. We are pleased to announce that we now offer a Bioptic and Low Vision Driver Training Program.
Not only does our Bioptic and Low Vision Driver Training Program meet the 30 hours of classroom requirements put forth by the Department of Driver Services, but it also covers special issues for low vision drivers who may be using the bioptic telescope device. Please read our link labeled "Bioptic Classroom Schedules" for more information. Please note: It is not required for a bioptic driver to take this particular version of the 30-hour course. Any of the 30 hour classes listed under the "Teenage Driver Education" link will meet the requirements as well.
Here is a sampling of some of the special issues that will be covered in the class:
Loss of Depth Perception in Nighttime Driving
Glare Recovery Time
Speed Smear and Reduced Visibility During High Speed Driving
- How to Correctly Navigate the Road and Traffic in Times of Bad Weather
Our patient and understanding instructors are well trained and experienced in helping individuals learn to drive or adjust their driving habits to meet the unique challenges that they face when driving with bioptics.
During the in-car sessions, the instructor will observe your physical skills, decision-making skills, and social skills to determine whether or not you are capable of safely operating a motor vehicle while using the bioptic telescopes. He or she will also instruct you on the safest techniques to use to be a safe driver while using the bioptics.
Within two business days of the successful completion of the thirty hours of classroom as well as the in-car training, your instructor will prepare a written narrative report, a Certificate Of Completion, and a signed Certification Checklist (provided to you by the Department). All three items will be mailed to the Medical Review Board of the Georgia Department of Driver Services. A copy of all three items will also be mailed to you and your ophthalmologist.
We will come to your home to meet you at the beginning of your behind the wheel lessons as long as you are within our service area of Cobb, DeKalb, Fulton, or Gwinnett county. If you live outside our service area, we gladly will make arrangements to meet you someplace within our service area.
If you are interested in our Bioptic and Low Vision Driver Training Program, you will not need to worry about having a learner’s permit prior to your in-car lessons. The Georgia Department of Driver Services will not allow you to obtain a permit until you have been certified by a licensed driving school. Once we submit certification to the Department, and your ophthalmologist also submits his or her report to the Department, you will receive a letter from the Department as to the next steps for taking the written and driving tests. If you are under 18 years of age, you will have to wait until you have had your permit for at least a year and a day before you can obtain your license due to the Joshua’s Law requirements. If you are over 18 years of age, you can usually take the written and driving test the same day. Appointments for doing so must be made through the Department of Driver Services by calling 678.413.8400.
If you are interested in signing up for our classroom program, please click on the "Bioptic Classroom Schedule" link for more information or the "Online Registration" link to register. | <urn:uuid:1c3880ca-44fb-4568-8de3-29af3b61f34b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nathansdrivingschool.net/index.php/bioptic-telescope-program | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950929 | 951 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Modelling the Balassa-Samuelson Effect in Australia
This paper examines the Balassa-Samuelson hypothesis in Australia using the ARDL cointegration framework. Evidence was found of a significant long-run relationship between real exchange rate and Australia-US productivity differential during the period of 1950-2003. The results indicate that a one per cent increase in labour productivity in Australia relative to the US will lead to 5.6 per cent appreciation in the real exchange rate of Australia. The estimated coefficient for the error correction term is -0.1983 and is highly significant, indicating that the deviation from the long term real exchange rate equilibrium path is corrected by nearly 20 per cent over the following year. The Author suspects that the elasticity coefficient is “over-estimated” due to the exclusion of relevant explanatory variables in the analytical model. The real exchange rate movements are affected by real fundamentals and policy-induced shifts in its real fundamentals. The fundamentals include the terms of trade, government expenditure, real interest rate differentials, net foreign liabilities among others along with labour productivity differential.
Khorshed Chowdhury. "Modelling the Balassa-Samuelson Effect in Australia" Australasian Accounting Business and Finance Journal 5.1 (2012): 77-91.
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/kchowdhury/7 | <urn:uuid:2327f9eb-0784-4453-ad80-cfc0acd94bd6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://works.bepress.com/kchowdhury/7/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.902113 | 283 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Hint: It’s in a state with a lot of cheese. It has a low unemployment rate. It has about 40,000 people. Ok, you probably haven’t heard of it.
In Experian’s latest analysis of U.S. cities, Wausau, Wisconsin, took the top prize as the city with the best average credit score in the country. Residents of Wausau have an average credit score of 789. The national average is 749, while the lowest city in the study, Harlingen, Texas, had an average score of 686.
The highest credit scores were overwhelmingly found in the Midwest. In fact, 8 of the top 10 average credit scores are in that area of the country, including Minneapolis (last year’s No. 1), Madison, and Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
Wausau seems to be doing everything right: At the time of the survey, the average debt there was $22,439 ($2,000 lower than the national average); the unemployment rate was 8.1 percent; and there were only a handful of foreclosures.
The Midwest fared far better than other regions in the U.S. It seems that during better economic times, its residents tend to stay within their financial means.
By contrast, many of the worst average credit scores were found in the southern states, including Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Georgia.
The good news is that, nationally, our credit score is going up — but barely. This year, it’s 749. Last year it was 748. Before the recession it was 754.
What’s funny is that Wausau’s residents aren’t exactly celebrating their distinction. In fact, they’re questioning it. ”If the majority of people in Wausau had a 789 credit score, I would be shocked,” said Kathy Jansen, a vice president at Cloverbelt Credit Union in Wausau.
Some bankers in Wausau are actually questioning the survey’s legitimacy, and believe that the average score is in fact much lower. But according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Wausau’s unemployment rate has been falling over the last several months and now sits at 7.4%. So Wausau appears to be doing something right. Perhaps modesty and frugality go hand in hand. | <urn:uuid:98f090f9-fcf0-42f6-9ddf-5fd031db788a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://business.time.com/2011/10/13/what-u-s-city-has-the-top-credit-score/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976513 | 498 | 1.976563 | 2 |
Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream, picks up a one-dollar bill after he stamped it with the words "Not to be used for bribing politicians" as he advocates to get money out of politics, outside Union Station in Washington on June 18, 2013. Cohen manned a stamping station to stamp people's money with the slogan and once people showed that their currency had been stamped, they received a free Ben & Jerry's ice cream cone. AFP PHOTO / Saul LOEBSAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images
Content engaging our readers now, with additional prominence accorded if the story is rapidly gaining attention. Our WSJ algorithm comprises 30% page views, 20% Facebook, 20% Twitter, 20% email shares and 10% comments. | <urn:uuid:3a517910-4fb8-4f02-a3b1-fcc53f8e4bd7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://topics.wsj.com/subject/d/Dollar/2479/photos/b960fc17801247598229fb98adca7dde | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956327 | 158 | 1.882813 | 2 |
Juror Using iPhone To Look Up Definition Of 'Prudence' Leads To Mistrial
from the dear-prudence... dept
We've had a number of stories recently about juries getting in trouble for using forbidden technology while on the jury -- and some of our most heated discussions have been over whether or not it makes sense to block these tools from jurors. Of course, for now, the tools are very much blocked, but it certainly doesn't seem to stop anyone from using them. The latest such case involves a juror who used his iPhone to access Encarta to look up the definition of the word "prudence," since the ruling in the case was dependent on whether or not the jury felt the accused had acted with "prudence." While the lower court refused to grant a new trial, the appeals court reversed, noting that "using the smartphone in this way was analogous to using a dictionary, and that conduct has generally been prohibited in juror deliberations." Separately, I have to agree with Evan Brown (who wrote the story linked above about this) in pointing out:
Ed. note: If the jury foreperson was savvy enough to use an iPhone, why on earth was he consulting Encarta? Hello, 1995 called -- it wants its web pages back.Honestly, I think the last (and perhaps only) time I ran across Encarta it was still in the heady CD-ROM days, and my first reaction on reading this story was to wonder how one used an iPhone to access a CD-ROM. | <urn:uuid:7a8be679-25a4-47a7-bed7-960a40cfab7a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100914/02130611001.shtml?threaded=true | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976094 | 314 | 1.554688 | 2 |
June 6, 2011 Research being presented at SNM's 58th Annual Meeting shows that molecular imaging is helping to determine the cause and expand treatment for a silent killer. A study focusing on hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) -- a cardiovascular disorder that causes a thickening of the heart muscle -- is proving that the effects of a genetic mutation may be an important key to understanding the disease. In related research, a treatment called alcohol septal ablation is being revealed as an effective treatment for severe cases of HCM.
"These studies show that molecular imaging has great potential for clinical use in the field of cardiology," says Stefan Timmer, MD, Free University Medical Centre, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. "HCM is usually asymptomatic, and one of the first symptoms is acute death due to arrhythmia, which demonstrates how essential it is to detect this disease. We used molecular imaging to gauge the heart's efficiency in subjects with a pathogenic mutation linked to HCM. Unexpectedly, we found that carriers of the mutation already have a less efficient heart despite the absence of any symptoms. In addition, the research provides a suggestion why a frequently used therapy, alcohol septal ablation, is an effective treatment for symptomatic patients who remain symptomatic despite optimal medical treatment."
The abnormal thickening of the muscle, or myocardium, involved in HCM makes it harder for the heart to contract and relax, forcing the heart to work harder to pump blood. HCM is often asymptomatic and can cause sudden cardiac death at any age. The pathophysiology of HCM is not well understood. However, preclinical research points toward genetic mutations, such as MYBPC3, which are exclusive proteins in the heart's contractile tissue.
In one study, researchers imaged 16 subjects with the MYBPC3 mutation using positron emission tomography (PET) in order to image the heart's oxygen usage. This was coupled with cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging to gauge the heart's ability to use energy efficiently. To their surprise, patients carrying the MYBPC3 mutation were shown to have less efficient hearts even prior to the thickening and subsequent symptoms associated with HCM, which makes it a prime causal candidate for the development of the disease.
For HCM patients who remain symptomatic despite medication, alcohol septal ablation is a popular treatment. It is essentially a miniature, controlled heart attack triggered by an absolute alcohol solution administered to the septal artery that provides blood flow to the thickened heart muscle. Interventional cardiologists perform the non-invasive therapy using wires and balloons guided to the artery. There are few complications associated with the procedure, and it is the preferred treatment over open-heart surgery. In the study researching alcohol septal ablation for obstructive HCM, 15 patients received the procedure, and results were analyzed. Researchers concluded that obstructive HCM was at least in part reversible with alcohol septal ablation due to its ability to improve oxygen delivery to the heart and improve myocardial energetics, which is the heart's use of energy in relation to its ability to pump blood.
Further research could potentially lead to better screening for asymptomatic HCM carriers and the development of early treatments that could halt or at least postpone full onset of the disease.
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Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead. | <urn:uuid:e3c42c61-a07a-42d3-92b6-396bcdf610ab> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110606131605.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948083 | 708 | 2.5625 | 3 |
So February 29 is today and it’s Leap Year!! Did you know that Leap Year only happens once every four years? What exactly is Leap Year and why does it only happen every four years?! We did some research – so find the answer to that question plus other cool facts about Leap Year!
10. Leap Year = Extra Day in the Year
A leap year consists of 366 days, as opposed to a common year, which has 365 days.
9. Every Four Years
Leap Year happens every four years, so the next time February 29 will exist on our calendars will be 2016! Like US Presidential elections and Summer Olympic Games.
8. History of Leap Year
Ancient Egyptians are smart and figured out that solar calendar and the man-made calendar didn’t match up. It takes the Earth 365 days to travel around the sun, but the Egyptians realized that it’s roughly “365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds, to be exact.” So the extra time amounts to an extra day on our calendar — Leap Year!! Julius Caeser officially added the year into Roman calendars 2,000 years ago.
Women are traditionally allowed and even encourage to propose to men on Leap Year. This tradition dates all the way back to 5th Century Ireland.
6. Leap Year Birthdays
There are about 4 million people in the world who have been born on February 29th, and the chances of having a leap year birthday are 1 in 1,461.
Those born on Leap Year are considered “leaplings,” who celebrate their birthdays on either February 28 or March 1 on a non-Leap Year. Famous leaplings include rapper Ja Rule and actor Anthony Sabato Jr.
4. Leap Year Babies
Leap Year babies are considered to have “unusual talents” and personalities reflecting their special status. The Chinese believe that Leap Year babies are difficult to raise and unlucky.
3. Unlucky Marriage
In Greece it’s said to be unlucky for couples to marry during a Leap Year, and especially on Leap Day.
2. Leap Year Movie
Whaaat! If you want to learn more about Leap Year, there’s a movie starring Amy Adams that featured all the traditions of Leap Year!! Check it Out!
1. Celebrate Leap Year
Since Leap Year and Leap Day only happens once every four years, let’s celebrate!! One obvious way is to celebrate your birthday, if your a Leap Day baby. Also, you can go to Disney!! See, Disney is going to be open 24 hours on Leap Day!! Go CELEBRATE!!
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- Justin Bieber Owes Germany Thousands For Monkey Day Care
- $han’s Weekend Hit List (05.17.13)
- $han on the $treet (05.17.13) | <urn:uuid:6950de4b-fd88-46cd-a673-7a2749c7cf1e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://997now.cbslocal.com/2012/02/28/leap-year-fun-facts/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.914511 | 649 | 3.03125 | 3 |
Divides Obama Doesn't Bridge
In distancing himself from the heated remarks of his pastor, Barack Obama did as well as anyone could do in his position. The problem is his position, which is having sat in the reverend's pews for 20 years without thinking to pick up and leave.
The discussion of race in the Democratic contest — as in American life — runs along different tracks. Certain people can say certain things. When the wrong person crosses to a track he or she doesn't have a license to be on, all hell breaks loose. Such was the consequence of Geraldine Ferraro's remark that Obama wouldn't be where he is today in the presidential contest were he not black.
Obama is a gifted and brilliant politician — and would be so if both parents were white. But serious political analysts do consider how race has helped this otherwise inexperienced candidate. Because Ferraro is white and expressed her opinion in an insensitive manner, she had to leave the Clinton campaign.
Obama's classy response to the former vice-presidential candidate's comments demonstrated his legendary political skill. He dismissed them as "wrong-headed" but not racist — enhancing his reputation as a builder of bridges over the color divide.
But the Obama campaign hasn't always been as lofty in the game of who-may-say-what-about-race as its candidate.
The first contest in which race played an important role was the South Carolina primary. Obama used his race in appealing to black voters — about half the Democratic electorate — and who could blame him? Hillary uses gender when it suits her.
But while candidate Obama floated above the fray with his soothing style, his underlings trumped up charges against Clinton of hidden racism. The most ludicrous was the claim that she had said disrespectful things about Martin Luther King Jr.
The Obama camp had one credible rap against the Clintons.
Obama's smooth flight over racial turbulence ended with the airing of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's tapes. By now, the public has heard the "God damn America" a dozen times. That, plus Michelle Obama's hard-edged remark about how her husband's campaign has made her proud of being American for the first time, has cut into the Obama race-transcending mystique. Hence the speech in Philadelphia.
Holding a tough hand of cards, Obama responded to Wright's outbursts with admirable finesse. He downplayed their outrageous, sometimes demented, nature by labeling them "divisive," a moderate word. He refused to disown his pastor. He couldn't. Doing so would have seemed craven after their long history together.
Given the calamity of slavery and Jim Crow, one must give slack to black anger. But there are limits, especially for an avowedly post-racial candidate.
We've had a situation where it's politically unacceptable to attribute Obama's success to race, but a minister may say that the government created AIDS to kill people of color and remain a candidate's spiritual adviser. Suppose Clinton's minister had awarded a lifetime achievement award to David Duke, as Wright had to Louis Farrakhan.
But for Obama, the most lasting damage of this affair may not be tied to race or religion but to class. Working stiffs will struggle to square Obama's close bond to a purveyor of racial grievance with his own golden existence. With four Ivy League degrees between them, half a million in income and children in private schools, the Obamas seem to be doing more than OK.
The clashing images of resentment and privilege are a divide that is hard to bridge.
To find out more about Froma Harrop, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2008 THE PROVIDENCE JOURNAL CO.
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC. | <urn:uuid:df4186bc-1122-431a-98cc-507b82f554c0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.creators.com/opinion/froma-harrop/divides-obama-doesn-t-bridge.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976576 | 801 | 1.851563 | 2 |
I attended the Social Collective conference in London earlier this month. In an apparently very exclusive presentation, CNN shared some recent results from global research (called ‘Pownar’, for ‘power of news and recommendation’) they have done looking at the sharing behaviour of digital users. Fascinatingly in-depth look at the web of sharing each user can create online.
In an age of viral and content marketing gone wild (thanks, social media!), understanding what makes certain content ‘share-able’ is a necessary asset to any strategic campaign. Sharing, as highlighted by the CNN research, is typically driven by one of two basic motivating factors: altruistic (“I’ll share this because it is similar to my friend’s interest”) or broadcasting (“I’ll share this to increase my status in this subject”).
While the study explored a broad scope of content, it did of course focus specifically on CNN content. It found, interestingly enough, that every ‘sharer’ typically brings an average of 5 new visitors to the CNN site. Specifically within their business content, research determined that over half of their readership was as a result of sharing and that almost half of the ‘frequent sharers’ (6+ shares in a week) were from the C-suite.
So business customers (and decision-makers) are online, actively consuming – and sharing – content.
If you don’t have already have a content strategy in place, perhaps it’s time?
[NOTE: You can read more on the research from CNN here] | <urn:uuid:68583548-98a6-4c32-a6da-72acb225dec7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.weblogtheworld.com/countries/europe-countries/england-europe-countries/city-london/social-collective-pownar-for-power-of-news-recommendations/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950096 | 340 | 1.570313 | 2 |
The alluring calls of song birdsWritten by George Ellison
In the opaque early-morning light outside our bedroom windows, the birds that reside in our woods — or do we reside in their woods? — commence warming up for the day with tentative calls and whistles. The male cardinal seems to take the lead most mornings. Before long, however, the patterns arrange themselves into a tapestry of music.
Throughout the year male and female birds of the same species use various call notes to stay in contact with one another or as signals of alarm. For instance, male and female eastern towhees whistle a call that sounds like “tow-hee.” Therefore the common name.
During the breeding season, the male of the species makes the vocalization we recognize as song in order to establish a breeding territory, attract a female, and warn other males of the same or competing species out of that territory.
The male towhee’s song sounds for all the world like “drink-your-tea.” If you learn the phrases associated with specific calls and songs (“mnemonics” or memory devices), you will be able to identify birds readily whether you actually see them or not.
Some male birds can really sing. Rose-breasted grosbeaks sound like robins that have had music lessons. (Scarlet tanagers, on the other hand, sound like robins with a sore throat.) In my opinion, winter wrens emit the most sensational bird vocalization in the southern mountains: a musical series of bubbling warbles and trills that may last for five seconds or more.
There are several bird songs that seem to mystify people. You can hear their songs on a regular basis but never seem to locate the birds. I am invariably queried about these “mystery” songs each year. Two of the most common “mystery” birds of the southern mountains are the yellow-billed cuckoo and the ovenbird.
The yellow-billed cuckoo is a bird that is often heard but seldom seen. Along with the Swainson’s warbler, it is one of the most furtive birds that breeds in Western North Carolina. The cuckoo is known to farmers as the “rain crow” because its hollow, low-pitched “kowp, kowp, kwop, kwop” vocalizations are often sounded just before a summer thunderstorm.
If you must see a yellow-billed cuckoo, sit down near a black cherry tree that contains tent caterpillar nests and watch for movement. You may well have to sit there for a good while — bring your lunch — but you may be rewarded with a fleeting glimpse of the bird described as “a wandering voiced.”
The ovenbird resembles a thrush but is actually a warbler with an orange crown. It nests on the ground in an oven-shaped nest. All day long you can hear their rising “teach-teach-teach” vocalizations without ever seeing the bird except, at best, as a flitting shadow.
Fred Alsop notes in his Birds of the Smokies (1991) that ovenbirds sometimes create a “vocal domino pattern,” when “the singing of one territorial ovenbird often stimulates the adjacent territory holder to proclaim his presence, which induces a third male to announce that he is still on station, which may cause other males to follow suit or hand the challenge back to the original singer.”
There are many CD and cassette guides to bird calls and songs. Although I don’t recommend the two-volume “Stokes Field Guide to Birds” (1996) by Donald and Lillian Stokes as an everyday field guide, I do recommend “Stokes Field Guide to Bird Songs” (Time-Warner Audio Books, 1997) by Lang Elliott with Donald and Lillian Stokes. This 3-CD boxed set provides precise call and song recordings of 372 species. The 64-page band location booklet that comes with the set also provides one of the best listing of the “mnemonic” phrases used to recognize bird vocalizations that I am aware of. | <urn:uuid:d33ca389-39a6-4c53-9f72-af0c86dc1e97> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.smokymountainnews.com/outdoors/item/2426-the-alluring-calls-of-song-birds | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949995 | 889 | 3.671875 | 4 |
Source Newsroom: University of Arkansas, Food Safety Consortium
Newswise — It's bad enough when pathogenic bacteria work their way into the animal food supply. Here's a related problem that has recently attracted scientists' attention: some of the pathogens may become resistant to the antimicrobials that are used to fight animal disease, and that might lead to more human resistance to the benefits of antibiotics.
"We're speculating that there may be a possibility of a link," said Daniel Fung, a food science professor at Kansas State University who led research into the question for the Food Safety Consortium. "We are looking at it from the food scientist's standpoint. The resistant cultures may get into the food supply and may get into human beings. But those are speculations only."
The work was done by Maggie Hanfelt and Mindi Russell under the direction of Fung and KSU College of Veterinary Medicine professionals.
Fung's research group targeted lagoons in Midwestern cattle feedlots because of concern over antimicrobial-resistant microbes being transferred into the food supply through water sources. In the feedlots, Fung explained, antimicrobials are used to treat sick food-producing animals such as cattle, poultry and swine.
Antimicrobials are also used to prevent disease and to promote growth.
The drawback, Fung said, is that the use of antibiotics as growth promoters appears to create large reservoirs of resistance to antibiotics in animals. That resistance could be transferred to humans who consume the food from those animals.
The KSU group looked at two types of feedlots: natural feedlots, which don't use antimicrobials in the cattle, and commercial feedlots, which use the antibiotics. Tests in the feedlots' lagoon water were conducted to measure the presence of E. coli and Enterobacter. The results consistently showed that the pathogens were more prevalent in the feedlot lagoons where the antibiotics were used.
Fung emphasized that the study is a preliminary one that raises questions. Veterinary medicine researchers are also interested in the situation and are starting to study gene pools and to track the resistant genes in the environment.
The studies of the lagoons showed that although those feedlots using antibiotics had higher rates of resistance to pathogenic bacteria, the natural feedlots still recorded instances of resistance. That's not unexpected, Fung said.
"That may be because of the naturally resistant organisms already in the environment anyway," Fung said. "They would have some antibiotic resistance because of the organisms around the environment."
Because antibiotics are used in the commercial feedlots, Fung said, it is reasonable to conclude that they would have more antibiotic-resistant cultures than the natural feedlots. But natural feedlots also use antibiotics when animals become ill.
"The vet school will do a lot more on this subject," Fung said. "If we find out something really interesting that can relate to food safety directly, then we'll do some more work.
In any case, it's still important to find the answers because of the implications for antibiotic resistance in humans, Fung said.
"If humans receive antimicrobial cultures in their system and if they're sick from something, then the antibiotics will not be able to treat human beings. There are many antimicrobials in cultures in hospitals and places like that. And there aren't too many antibiotics discovered in the past 20 years." | <urn:uuid:582aea1f-549f-494f-8bcf-f9ce00c60f96> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/537869/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966499 | 709 | 3.359375 | 3 |
New Sleep Apnea Treatment Improves Depression?
(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Do you have depressive symptoms as a result of obstructive sleep apnea? If so, there’s something new in the works that could help!
A new study of 779 patients was recently done at The Cleveland Clinic to assess the depressive symptoms related to obstructive sleep disorder (OSA). OSA is a sleep-related breathing disorder that occurs when the tissue in the back of the throat collapses and blocks the airway, causing the body to stop breathing during sleep.
The new treatment is called positive airway pressure (PAP). PAP therapy keeps the airway open with a stream of air whilst sleeping.
Before the patients began participation in the study, they were asked to fill out a standardized PHQ-9 form, a tool used for assisting primary care clinician in diagnosing depression. The patients were assessed again with the same form following the PAP treatment, and all showed improvement in their scores; however patients using their PAP devices for more than four hours per night had greater score improvements than those failing to use PAP as prescribed. Other factors that affected the improvements in the scores were whether the patient was sleepy and marital status.
"The score improvements remained significant even after taking into account whether a patient had a prior diagnosis of depression or was taking an anti-depressant," Charles Bae, MD, principal investigator in the study was quoted saying.
Source: SLEEP 2012, the 26th annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies (APSS) | <urn:uuid:4daada6c-4c4d-464f-8aca-8fd5c1f6ca93> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ivanhoe.com/channels/p_channelstory.cfm?storyid=29539 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968697 | 324 | 2.4375 | 2 |
Brennan Discusses National Defense Authorization Bill
Originally published on Fri December 9, 2011 5:12 pm
LYNN NEARY, HOST:
This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Lynn Neary.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
And I'm Robert Siegel.
The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 runs hundreds of pages. It authorizes hundreds of billions in defense spending. And as it stands, the version of the bill approved by the Senate is facing a veto by President Obama.
The administration's main objection is to one part of the bill, the part that governs the treatment of detainees. According to the administration's reading of it, the bill mandates military custody for a certain class of terrorism suspects. And since it would apply to individuals inside the U.S., it would, and this is a quote, "be inconsistent with the fundamental American principle that our military does not patrol our streets."
Well, John Brennan is President Obama's chief counterterrorism adviser, and he joins us from the White House. Welcome.
JOHN BRENNAN: Hi, Robert.
SIEGEL: The administration says the detainee provisions here could restrict intelligence professionals from doing their job and restrict the president's ability to fight terrorism. How exactly would it do that?
BRENNAN: Well, in a number of ways. First of all, we don't believe that this legislation is necessary from the standpoint of the language that is included on detainees and military detention. What it calls for is that there'd be required military detention for certain individuals who are determined to be part of al-Qaida, and that would apply whether or not these individuals are captured overseas or, you know, captured, arrested here in the United States.
And so, what we've tried to do in this administration is to maintain as much flexibility as possible. And anything that restricts our flexibility in terms of how we want to detain them, question them, prosecute them is something that counterterrorism professionals and practitioners really are very concerned about.
SIEGEL: But is the administration's concern here based on the efficacy of making cases, investigating terrorist suspects? Or is it over the principle that the military doesn't enforce law in the U.S.?
BRENNAN: Well, it's both. One is that it complicates greatly the ability of individuals who capture these individuals or arrest them to make the determinations in the immediate aftermath of that detention, about how to handle them. And so, that puts quite frankly a lot of red tape. And the last thing that we need in government is more red tape.
Secondly, we have, I think, a very strong established track record of dealing successfully with individuals here in the United States who are involved in terrorism-related activities. President Obama, I think, has a record second to none in terms of his willingness and determination to go after these individuals aggressively overseas, but also to deal with them forcefully if they're found here the United States.
SIEGEL: But it seems that part of what you're up against here is some pretty broad public resistance to treating terror plots as common felonies. This is what Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said when he took issue with those who claim that this law violates the prohibition against a military role in law enforcement.
SENATOR LINDSEY GRAHAM: This is the central difference between us. I don't believe fighting al-Qaida is a law enforcement function. I believe our military should be deeply involved in fighting these guys at home and abroad.
BRENNAN: Yeah. Well, I don't agree with Senator Graham. I, you know, I think that they are well-intentioned in terms of what they're going to do. But the practitioners who are out there really want to make sure that we're able to deal with these individuals appropriately. They're not considered to be common criminals.
What we want to do is to extract the intelligence from them so that we can keep this country safe. We cannot hamper this effort. It's been successful to date and this legislation really puts that at risk.
SIEGEL: Now, there's criticism from the other side as well. Some civil libertarians are very concerned that this bill would permit a U.S. citizen to be detained indefinitely by the military. In addressing that concern, Senator Carl Levin of Michigan quoted the Hamdi decision, which said that a citizen, no less than an alien, can be part of supporting forces hostile to the U.S., and there is no bar to this nation's holding one of its own citizens as an enemy combatant.
For the administration, is the inclusion of U.S. citizens picked up on U.S. soil at all troubling here?
BRENNAN: It is very troubling in terms of picking up somebody here on U.S. soil. If there are U.S. citizens who are engaged in hostilities on the battlefield abroad, we want to make sure that our military is able to deal with them appropriately. But there also are certain considerations we need to account for in terms of U.S. citizenship.
We are a country that takes very seriously our commitment to the rule of law. When I go overseas and I talk to other governments, talking to them about making sure that they handle their cases appropriately and not throw people into military detention, not throw them into a military court, hold them indefinitely without the due process of law, this is what has caused a lot of problems overseas. And if we go down this road, we're sending a very bad signal.
We need to demonstrate, through the strength of our judicial system, that we can handle these issues, particularly on our soil, in a way that's consistent with our commitment to that rule of law, but also works very effectively in terms of getting the intelligence we need to keep this country safe.
SIEGEL: Senator Dianne Feinstein of California attached an amendment to the bill which says: Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect existing law or authorities relating to the detention of United States citizens, lawful resident aliens of the U.S., or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States.
If that language isn't sufficient to satisfy the administration and win the signature of the president, what is? What would be sufficient?
BRENNAN: Well, you know, we've looked at the latest versions of the legislation and it's still insufficient. And the president has made it clear he is not going to sign any piece of legislation that restricts his ability to deal effectively with the terrorist threat we face. And so, there are a number of recommendations that have been put forward to ensure that we are able to continue to prosecute our effort.
You know, Senator Feinstein and others have been, I think, working very strongly to try to get some of this language in there that will protect our citizenship, our liberties and our freedom.
SIEGEL: Well, Mr. Brennan, thank you very much for talking with us today.
BRENNAN: Thank you. Thank you.
SIEGEL: John Brennan, who is deputy national security adviser for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, and assistant to the president. He is President Obama's chief adviser on counterterrorism. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | <urn:uuid:e55bf9dc-419f-4af8-95ab-3a3094ccc4d1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://redriverradio.org/post/brennan-discusses-national-defense-authorization-bill | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966491 | 1,500 | 1.71875 | 2 |
With the same logic that dictates that logging is good for trees, the 5 years of the Bush Administration has rolled back regulations on mine safety at the bidding of mining corporations.
The head of the Mining Healthy and Safety Administration is himself a former mining executive. A New York Times article in August 2004 noted:
In all, the mine safety agency has rescinded more than a half-dozen proposals intended to make coal miners' jobs safer, including steps to limit miners' exposure to toxic chemicals. One rule pushed by the agency would make it easier for companies to use diesel generators underground, which miners say could increase the risk of fire.
The policy of the Bush Administration from the first has been to kowtow to energy interests, allowing them to tinker with the nation's energy policy, labor codes, and environmental protections in exchange for huge financial contributions to campaign coffers. Only today, in the wake of the Sago mine tragedy, we see how such policies can actually kill. And to think that West Virginia is a blood red state; perhaps not for long. | <urn:uuid:3a20679c-17a6-47f6-b14b-c99e7e5eb6b5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=13043 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962163 | 215 | 1.90625 | 2 |
The survey found that Britain projects more positive influence around the world than any other nation.
For the first time, Britain has beaten the US to the top spot in an annual survey of global soft power.
Coined by a Harvard academic in 1990, the term describes how countries use attraction and persuasion, rather than coercion or payment, to change behaviour.
Monocle magazine's annual "Global Soft Power" survey, ranks nations according to their standard of government; diplomatic infrastructure; cultural output; capacity for education; and appeal to business.
The top five spots went to Britain, the US, Germany, France and Sweden. The list is calculated using a matrix of 50 factors that indicate the use of soft power, the 'Independent' reported.
Some are empirical - such as the number of cultural missions, Olympic medals and foreign students a country can claim; others are more subjective - with countries ranked for the quality of their cuisine, architecture and business brands, the report said.
"We're in a time, right now, where, more than ever, it's not particularly fashionable to go out and write massive cheques to get your way in the world," Tyler Brule, Monocle's editor-in-chief, said.
"With the Olympics taking place here, which got far more fanfare internationally than domestically, and with America very focused on elections, I think the result is probably right. The UK has had a very international presence this year and it has been the best of the British.
"I think America vastly undervalues the importance of soft power. It has a tendency to focus on the tangible and the concrete," Xenia Dormandy, a senior fellow and US expert at Chatham House, was quoted by the paper as saying.
According to the report, the Olympics brought global attention to the UK, with Team GB winning 65 medals. Bradley Wiggins conquered the Tour de France and Andy Murray took his first Grand Slam title in New York.
James Bond was everywhere, appearing with the Queen in the Olympics opening ceremony, then in cinemas, with the global franchise's biggest ever release, Skyfall.
Around 29 million visit the UK a year, while just 62 million visit the US, the report said. | <urn:uuid:1ccf7aa8-0fac-4bfd-be11-5ae40a943acf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://profit.ndtv.com/news/international-business/article-britain-topples-us-as-most-powerful-nation-on-earth-survey-313441?pfrom=home-business | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962091 | 456 | 1.960938 | 2 |
Obama Sends $3.8 Trillion Election-Year Budget to Congress
President Barack Obama sent Congress a $3.8 trillion budget plan today with stimulus spending and tax increases for the wealthiest Americans, spelling out election- year priorities that drew immediate Republican opposition.
Obama is proposing more money for jobs, highways and bridges, schools, student aid and manufacturing research as well as higher taxes for corporations, banks and oil, natural gas and coal companies, even as the nation’s debt grows faster than the administration predicted in September.
The spending measures will ensure the recovery is sustained and the tax increase will help draw down the deficit, Obama said today at Northern Virginia Community College in suburban Washington.
“We can cut back on the things that we don’t need, but we also have to make sure that everyone is paying their fair share for the things that we do need,” Obama said.
Obama’s fourth budget includes measures that are similar to his September jobs and deficit-reduction proposal that Republicans in Congress largely blocked or rejected as unworkable or unnecessary. The budget lays out Obama’s priorities for the economy as Republicans campaigning for president question the direction of the federal government.
$1.33 Trillion Deficit
The budget shows Obama will fail to keep his 2009 pledge of cutting the deficit in half by the end of his first term. The forecast shows a fiscal 2012 deficit of $1.33 trillion, or 8.5 percent of the economy, marking the fourth straight year the shortfall will exceed the trillion-dollar mark. That’s up from the administration’s estimate in September of $956 billion.
Next year, the deficit is projected at $901 billion, or 5.5 percent of the economy, and up from the $648 billion that Obama’s economists predicted five months ago. The administration’s forecasts for 2014-2021 are all higher than the outlook issued five months ago.
Public debt is taking a bigger bite out of the economy, rising to $18.7 trillion by 2021, or almost 77 percent of the economy, compared with $17.1 trillion, or 70 percent of the economy expected in September.
The deficit forecasts may have little validity beyond this year, partly because they assume enactment of Obama’s tax increase proposals in the face of opposition from Republicans, who control the House and have enough votes in the Senate to block legislation.
House Speaker John Boehner, an Ohio Republican, called Obama’s budget plan “a gloomy reflection of his failed policies” that is “a collection of rehashes, gimmicks, and tax increases that will make our economy worse.”
‘Decline of America’
Paul Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican and chairman of the House Budget Committee, said the president’s budget was “irresponsible” and a “recipe for a debt crisis and the decline of America.”
“His refusal to honestly confront our nation’s most pressing challenges does real harm to the economic security of millions of American families,” Ryan, who is working on a Republican alternative, said.
Obama’s deficit projections depend on allowing expiration of Bush-era tax cuts for couples earning $250,000 or more a year, limiting the value of itemized deductions to 28 percent for those families, and imposing a minimum tax for individuals with annual incomes of at least $1 million. It would also raise taxes on dividends received by the wealthy to 39.6 percent from the current 15 percent.
Those proposals, along with an across-the-board $1.2 trillion cut in spending and possible debt-ceiling increase, probably won’t be acted on before the Nov. 6 elections, and decisions either way may affect the deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars.
The minimum tax on $1 million-earners, named for billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who originated the idea last year, would replace the Alternative Minimum Tax, “which now burdens middle-class Americans rather than stopping the richest Americans from paying too little as was originally intended,” according to the budget document. The plan doesn’t give a detailed proposal for the tax beyond setting a 30 percent threshold for the minimum rate.
Obama also calls for revamping the tax code to “cut and simplify tax breaks that are now inefficient, unfair, or both,” also without a specific proposal for how the new tax would be structured. The changes should cut the deficit by $1.5 trillion over the next decade, according to the budget plan.
The administration proposes an overhaul of the corporate tax system that would eliminate tax benefits to lower the rate from the current maximum of 35 percent. The budget didn’t give specifics. The administration will provide “more detail” by the end of the month, Gene Sperling, the head of Obama’s National Economic Council, said at a briefing today.
The budget reiterates Obama’s proposal to tax so-called carried-interest income earned by hedge fund managers and private equity partners at ordinary income rates, rather than at the 15 percent capital gains rate, raising $13 billion over a decade.
Obama’s plan would impose $156 billion in new or expanded government fees including higher Medicare (FFSOMED) premiums for wealthier beneficiaries beginning in 2017. It would also increase the terrorism-security fee charged to airline passengers as well as the premiums paid by companies for federal pension insurance, among other changes.
Big financial institutions would face $61 billion over 10 years in a “Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee” to help pay for the bank bailout program and a home-mortgage refinance initiative.
Credits and Subsidies
Obama would end credits and deductions that help subsidize the oil and natural gas industries, for a savings of $41 billion over a decade. Depreciation rules on corporate purchases of aircraft would be abolished, for a savings of $2 billion over 10 years.
Spending cuts over a decade include $278 billion in farm subsidies, federal workers’ retirement plans and the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corp., which insures company pensions.
The budget proposes to cut payments to Medicare (USBOMDCR) providers by $268 billion over 10 years. It would require pharmaceutical companies to provide bigger rebates on drugs sold through Medicare, reduce federal reimbursements for patients’ bad debts and cut payments to teaching hospitals, among other changes.
It would also cut over the same period $51 billion out of Medicaid (USBOMDCA), the joint federal-state health care program for the poor, in part by shifting more of the program’s costs to the states.
The budget anticipates war costs will fall next year by about one-quarter to $97 billion. It would be the first time since 2004 that annual costs have dipped below $100 billion.
Most federal agencies would see their budgets cut or essentially frozen. The Pentagon (USBODEFN) would receive $525 billion, about $5 billion less than last year. Funding for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the military’s costliest weapons program, would fall by $1.6 billion.
The Environment Protection Agency would shrink by 2 percent to $8.3 billion. The Department of Housing and Urban Development would fall by 7.5 percent. Agriculture would take a 3 percent cut.
One of the biggest winners would be the Department of Education, which would see a 3.5 percent increase to $69.8 billion. The administration’s “Race to the Top” program, which awards competitive grants to states, would receive a 55 percent increase. Funding for college work-study programs would increase by 15 percent.
The Department of Veterans Affairs would see a 4 percent increase, to $61 billion, in part because of growing medical- care costs.
Obama is seeking $350 billion in short-term jobs measures, including additional infrastructure spending, extending unemployment benefits and increasing aid to cash-strapped state governments. He would also extend an expiring payroll tax break for the rest of this year.
In other areas to boost the economy, the budget sets aside almost $121 billion over a decade for expanding U.S. manufacturing, including tax credits for clean-energy vehicles, tax breaks for bringing jobs back from overseas and credits for companies locating in hard-hit communities.
Small businesses would be in line for $25 billion in various tax cuts, including ending capital gains taxes on small business stockpiles. Expensing provisions scheduled to expire Dec. 31 would be extended through calendar 2013, for a value of $26 billion.
The White House said it’s supporting a six-year, $476 billion renewal of a highway bill that would add thousands of construction jobs.
Bloomberg moderates all comments. Comments that are abusive or off-topic will not be posted to the site. Excessively long comments may be moderated as well. Bloomberg cannot facilitate requests to remove comments or explain individual moderation decisions. | <urn:uuid:6f915e90-fc35-4fa1-92a4-4e142dabcf53> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-13/obama-sends-3-8-trillion-budget-to-congress-with-stimulus-tax-increases.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947948 | 1,859 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Step 7: ASSEMBLY AND WIRING THE ELECTRONICS
SHEILDING Sheilding is good to use if you want to minimize that annoying buzz you can get from surrounding interference that electronic components such as amps can produce. You can use sheilding paint that is a bit more expensive but easier to apply than copper tape. All you do is paint it on and let it dry. It also gets into the areas tape can't reach. To install the tape you basically just apply it to the inside of the control cavity and solder up any seams that might let the interference through. The soldering can be a little tricky since you have to lay down a long bead of it along the seam. Kind of like welding. Here are some futher instructions After this is done you can install the pots and switch. Be careful when tightening them down not to scratch the finish. Add the knobs and get out your schematic for wiring it up.
WIRING Lay your beautifully finished guitar on a soft towel so you don't scratch it and cover the back with a cloth as wel so you don't splatter solder on it. How you wire you guitar up depends on the layout you have chosen. Mine was a simple one tone, one volume and three way switch set up. I have gone with the Les Paul set up on other guitars which is a two tone and two volume before as well. What ever set up you go with just follow the schematic that either came with you pickups or get one from Seymour Duncan. They also have instructional videos that are done by Seymore Duncan himself on Strats and Les Pauls. I recomend watching these if its your first time wiring a guitar. | <urn:uuid:912280e0-7796-4059-9f92-0b52ce1a74e4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.instructables.com/id/Build-Your-Own-Electric-Guitar!/step7/ASSEMBLY-AND-WIRING-THE-ELECTRONICS/?comments=all | 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 | 0.963723 | 347 | 1.679688 | 2 |
A Different Body
In the first century, the Christians in Corinth had many of questions about what was going to happen to them when they died. They had been taught that Jesus was resurrected from the dead and that some day they would be resurrected as well. But that was not quite enough information for some of them; they wanted to know what kind of a body they would have in the resurrection. Truth be told, many Christians today want to know the same thing. Will our new bodies be floating balls of yellow light, see-through spirits with wings and halos, or some other kind of body?
In 1 Corinthians 15:35-37,44, the apostle Paul answered this question by using a seed. He said that our earthly bodies are similar to a seed. If we take a piece of corn and plant it in the ground, it appears (from a human standpoint) to "die." Yet it really isn’t dead. It will "spring back to life" and produce a huge, green plant that has a very strong stalk that can reach a height of about 7 feet. The big corn stalk does not look anything like the little corn seed. In the same way, Paul said that the bodies we will have in the resurrection will be totally different from the bodies that we have now—just like the corn stalk is different from the corn seed.
But Paul went on to say that there is another way that our new, resurrected bodies will be different from the ones we have on this Earth. He said that our new bodies will be more glorious and more powerful, just like the little corn seed changes into a plant that is bigger and stronger.
Paul did not tell us what our resurrected bodies will look like; nor did he give us a Polaroid picture to examine. But he did use a seed to explain that God can do things that we do not always understand completely—like changing our weak, material bodies into powerful, spiritual bodies. In fact, Paul explained that our new bodies will be immortal, which means that they never will die. Let’s all be faithful Christians so that we can receive such a wonderful body someday. | <urn:uuid:9afbc6f9-7c93-4f2d-a6a0-59310ec8b6f1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.apologeticspress.com/apPubPage.aspx?pub=2&issue=782&article=1360 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980501 | 436 | 2.15625 | 2 |
NAGPUR: Just a few decimals below 5% - this seems to be the magic markup figure for tender bids to bag irrigation contracts in the state. Even as overpricing of irrigation projects has become a contentious issue within the state government, documents secured through RTI reveal this suspicious practice in approving tenders of Vidarbha Irrigation Development Corporation (VIDC).
Strangely, tenders valued over a wide range and for many different projects have all been passed with a markup of little below 5% of the estimated price. In some cases, the markup accepted is even 4.98%, but never above 5%.
However, this 'coincidence' is actually a smart move to beat the system, reveal some contractors.
It is normal for bids to be above the estimate price set by the agency inviting tenders. In VIDC, various officials are authorized to pass tenders quoted at a certain percentage above the benchmark estimate. At the top level, the executive director (ED) has the power to pass any tender, irrespective of cost, as long as it is not more than 5% above the estimate.
Bids beyond this level have to be kept before the governing body, which includes a secretary from the finance and planning department. There are chances of the tenders facing further scrutiny before the governing body, say contractors.
So, it has become a practice to peg the cost slightly below 105% of the estimate price, and get it passed conveniently from the ED's office.
There are, though, some tenders approved at markups of 12 to 14% of the estimated price approved by the governing body.
TOI has RTI documents regarding tenders passed in 2008 and 2009, with signatures of then ED Devendra Shirke recommending the tender and a counter sign of Ajit Pawar, who was the irrigation minister at that time. In most of these tenders, the bids are just below 5% markup from the estimated price.
"Costs do go up, but not at the same rate, since the prices of all materials cannot increase at the same level at any given point of time. But strangely, in VIDC, the contracts have been carefully passed in a fixed range of 4.90% and above," said a contractor on condition of anonymity.
Present irrigation minister Sunil Tatkare said he would not be able to comment till he saw the documents and studied each case in detail. "Bids go up due to changes in input costs, so it would be difficult to comment till each case is seen," he told TOI.
However, there does not seem to be any other explanation for the contracts being passed in VIDC within a very narrow range of markup. There are only a few instances of a different rate, but even here the markup price is 4.7 to 4.6%.
This clearly indicates that this 'system' is a move to avoid complications of referring the matter to the governing board, said the contractor. Moreover, what appears to be a hike of only 5% is not exactly so. In many cases, the markup is 5% above the revised estimated price, say contractors.
Estimate price is a benchmark rate fixed by a government agency like VIDC, on the basis of the cost of raw materials and a reasonable margin of profit. It is normal to receive quotations above the estimate price, as profitability changes with the raw material price, which are often not updated in government manuals.
When bids are way above the original estimate price, this benchmark is reset after negotiations with bidders. In VIDC, even the final bids have been found to be just below 5% markup on the new estimated price. So, the final rates are much higher than the original estimate price, say contractors.
The practice of getting contracts approved at the ED's level after marking it up by around 4.9% was started during Pawar's regime, say contractors, after which political interference has increased in awarding irrigation works. | <urn:uuid:1a984e7d-9c78-42c8-ba56-e34936340b15> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-05-22/nagpur/31813771_1_tenders-vidc-vidarbha-irrigation-development-corporation | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958591 | 813 | 1.601563 | 2 |
May 20, 2013
May 14, 2013
NC JUSTICE NEWS: Mandatory Drug Testing + Crucial Conversation in Charlotte + Immigration Reform Debate Moves ForwardApr 23, 2013
The Health Access Coalition works to expand access to quality, affordable health care for everyone in North Carolina, including people who are low-income, are elderly, or have disabilities.
- Expand access to health services for low- and moderate-income families.
- Secure health-care policies that prioritize the needs and well-being of North Carolina consumers, especially with respect to the implementation of federal health reform.
- Empower health-care consumers with information about their rights, available services, and how they can become effective health-care advocates.
- Provide assistance to individuals trying to access public health programs.
- Promote the consumer perspective on state and federal health care policy in the press and at public forums.
Join us! The NC Health Access Coalition is a coalition of groups and individuals from across the state working to create a better health-care system. We want you to join the effort.
Health Care Reform: We are leading the effort to educate state lawmakers about reform and ensure that new state laws governing reform put the needs of consumers first. As part of that effort, we created one of the largest health advocacy coalitions ever assembled in the state, Citizens for Responsible Health Care, in order to inform and mobilize those with a stake in the health reform process. Our aggressive advocacy efforts have been recognized nationally.
Public Health Programs: Every year, we work with legislators and policymakers to push for adequate funding for health-care programs that serve North Carolina’s children, low-income families, and people who are elderly or have disabilities. We also work to remove barriers that prevent some families from accessing much-needed services.
NATIONAL VIDEO TRAINING PROJECT
As a national leader in the use of short video to enhance nonprofit advocacy efforts, we are traveling the country to work with our fellow state advocacy groups on the use of video. This powerful tool can help nonprofits build relationships with policymakers and funders, expand mainstream media coverage, bring compelling personal stories of the people we work with to a wide audience, and create concrete change. Read about our most recent efforts with the Georgetown Center for Children and Families: Video Advocacy – It’s Easier than it Looks.
Plus, check out our free Video Training Manual for Advocacy Organizations, which pulls together the equipment and basics of short video production and explores the different and surprising objectives advocacy groups can achieve using this powerful tool. And take a look at our Behind the Scenes video. The HAC team shows you how easy it is to shoot and edit a personal story video that advances your goals.
Caregivers and Elderly North Carolinians: We launched the Campaign for Better Care, with our partners Community Catalyst and AARP North Carolina, to educate elderly North Carolinians and their caregivers about their rights, hear their stories about difficulties with the health care system, and engage them in the effort to create a better system. Check our website for upcoming events.
HOSPITAL ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT
We work to ensure that hospitals are held accountable for the large taxpayer subsidies they receive in return for providing affordable, accessible health care to all people. Learn more about Community Catalyst’s Hospital Accountability Project.
To help people access charity care, we push hospitals to publish financial assistance guidelines online. We also work with the news media to reveal some of hospitals’ bad practices, such as suing patients and putting liens on their homes. We continue to fight for more transparency in hospital billing and to encourage hospitals to adopt more realistic charity-care and collections policies that do not bankrupt our state's most vulnerable residents. | <urn:uuid:48e06aaa-4084-40a4-96df-15c6cec204ce> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ncjustice.org/?q=node/25 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928954 | 764 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Last week in a local charity shop I bought a copy of ABC for Book Collectors by John Carter (revised by Nicolas Barker). This edition was published by Oak Knoll Books, Delaware in 1992.
The book is an A to Z of book related terms, mostly concerning older books, which I would class as antiquarian books, which are mostly out of my price range. What really appealed to me were the definitions of the words that are used to describe the physical aspects of a book, such as its binding, stitching and size.
Many of these terms are ones that I see in archive catalogues when describing bound volumes of material, so it will be good to have a reference book on my shelf that explains what some of these terms mean.
Whilst looking through I came across two terms which made me stop and think. They describe the relationship between the reader (or collector) and the books. This made me think about my relationship with books, both now and in the past. I have come to the conclusion that I was once suffering from bibliomania, but now I would describe myself as a bibliophile.
When I read the definition of bibliomania on Wikipedia, it reminded me of the trips I used to make up to London (perhaps once a month) to visit various bookshops (both new and second-hand) to buy books. At that time I was still living at home, had very few outgoings and lots of space for books. I still have, or rather my parents still have in their loft, more books than I could ever hope to read in my lifetime.
My favourite new bookshop was Dillions in Gower Street, London. It is now a branch of Waterstone’s and I haven’t visited for many years, but I still remember with fondness taking the lift to the top of the building and working my way back down through the many floors browsing.
The sentence about the “purchase of multiple copies of the same book and edition and the accumulation of books beyond possible capacity of use or enjoyment are frequent symptoms of bibliomania“ really did describe my behaviour. I did have several copies of some books, although these were usually only cheap second-hand copies, and of course it was quite normal to want both hardback and paperback copies of the same book.
I remember one holiday in South Devon with a friend I was forced to by a new holdall, just to take home the books I had bought during the week. This was when we were on a camping holiday and living out of our rucksacks in a tent!
I was forced to curb my book hoarding by a lack of space and lack of money, brought about by a mortgage when my future wife and I bought a place together. It didn’t stop instantly, but the compulsion to buy books has gradually faded.
That’s not to say that I don’t indulge every now and then, because I do, but it tends to be more selective and more controlled. I still find it impossible to pass a second-hand bookshop without popping in, but nine times out ten I come out empty-handed. | <urn:uuid:50abbfeb-1948-43b7-9d7b-67a18f275fc5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wanderinggenealogist.wordpress.com/2009/12/07/madness-monday-confessions-of-a-bibliomaniac/?like=1&_wpnonce=fb65bac995 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983538 | 656 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Looking for an easy Valentine’s Day craft or project? This recipe from Make and Takes is a winner in my book. It includes less than five ingredients, doesn’t involve much cooking, and is a project that my preschool kids can do with me. All you’ll need is pretzels, chocolate to melt (white chocolate and milk chocolate), wax paper, toothpicks, and sprinkles. Use food coloring in the white chocolate to get that lovely pink or try mixing it with some blue, yellow, or green for some fun spring colors.
Although most of these will probably get eaten by the kids as soon as they are done, you can save some to pack away in some little bags or little boxes to give away as an inexpensive teacher’s gift or a gift to any friend! Click here for the full recipe and how-to-do-it instructions. | <urn:uuid:515c5869-59d2-4a89-8869-6ecd7737c097> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mai-mag.com/2009/02/07/easy-valentines-day-treat/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963469 | 183 | 1.78125 | 2 |
These links direct you to other sources that can be used to gather and analyze data, conduct policy research, evaluate programs and services, and to educate communities about their health
U.S. Census Bureau is the premier source of information about the American people and the economy. This information shapes important policy decisions that help improve the nation’s social and economic conditions. Its activities involve survey and questionnaire design, geographic infrastructure update, and data collection, processing, and dissemination.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), CDC Wonder, is a wide-ranging online data for epidemiologic research. It provides an easy-to-use, menu-driven system that makes the information resources of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) available to public health professionals and the public at large. It provides access to a wide array of public health information, including: AIDS, births, infant death, mortality, cancer, population, tuberculosis, STI mortality, and vaccine adverse event reporting.
The Guttmacher Institute aims to advance sexual and reproductive health through an interrelated program of social science research, policy analysis and public education. The Institute focuses on such topical areas as: abortion, adolescents, contraception, HIV and AIDS and STIs, men’s health, pregnancy, services and financing, sex and relationships, and technology and bioethics. In each of these topic areas the Guttmacher Institute produces and publishes fact sheets, policy papers, research articles, and statistical reports.
The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, a leader in health policy and communications, is a non-profit, private operating foundation focusing on the major health care issues facing the U.S., with a growing role in global health. This Kaiser Family Foundation produces policy analysis and research, is a clearinghouse of news and information for the health policy community, and develops large-scale public health information campaigns in the U.S. and globally.
Harvard University, School of Public Health, Department of Society, Human Development, and Health conduct research and analysis of data for the website Diversitydata.org providing Metropolitan Quality of Life Data. This project identifies metropolitan area indicators of diversity, opportunity, quality of life and health for various racial and ethnic population groups. The indicators provide a scorecard that allows researchers, policymakers, and community advocates to compare metro areas and to help them advocate for policy action and social change.
Office of Minority Health HIV/AIDS Data/Statistics, This website provides statistics about the impact that the HIV/AIDS epidemic has had on different communities of color in the United States.
The National Association of County & City Health Officials (NACCHO) is the national organization representing local health departments. NACCHO supports efforts that protect and improve the health of all people and all communities by promoting national policy, developing resources and programs, seeking health equity, and supporting effective local public health practice and systems.
CityMatCH is a freestanding national membership organization of city and county health departments’ maternal and child health (MCH) programs and leaders representing urban communities in the United States. It consists of four action groups: organization effectiveness, education and training, best practices and policy, and undoing racism.
National Association of Counties (NACo) is the only national organization that represents county governments in the United States. NACo advances issues with a unified voice before the federal government, improves the public’s understanding of county governments, assists counties in finding and sharing innovative solutions through education and research, and provides value-added services to save counties and taxpayers money.
Brookings Institution’s Metro Monitor is a quarterly measure of how 366 metropolitan economies are functioning. The Metro Monitor analyzes these metropolitan economies in three respects: employment, unemployment rate, wages, gross metropolitan product, housing prices and Real-Estate Owned Properties. The Metro Monitor is part of the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program.
Center for American Progress: Interactive Map: A New Progressive America Update. This interactive map provides data on the progressive political shift occurring in metropolitan areas around the United States.
The Avenue is a blog focused on what it means to be a metropolitan nation. A collaboration between The New Republic magazine and the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program, it highlights local and metro innovations that should drive national and state policy.
The State of Metropolitan America. This interactive map from the Brookings Institution’s State of Metropolitan America program allows you to search many demographic and social indicators among the nation’s largest metropolitan areas.
Future of Sex Education. This website is a joint project of Advocates for Youth, Answer, and SIECUS. Started in 2007, the Future of Sex Education project works to create a national dialogue about the future of sex education and to promote the institutionalization of comprehensive sexuality education in public schools. The website includes resources, statistics, and a toolkit.
The Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) monitors priority health-risk behaviors among youth and young adults. The YRBSS includes a national school-based survey conducted by the CDC and state, territorial, tribal, and district surveys conducted by state, territorial, and local education and health agencies and tribal governments. | <urn:uuid:86cf5f34-dffa-43f6-aadf-9a0160a2edb2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.urbaninitiative.org/Resources/UsefulLinks | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00054-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.904329 | 1,058 | 3.015625 | 3 |
Report: Aliens with visas revoked after 9/11 may be in U.S.
Justice Department: No security risks among nearly 30 people
From Mike M. Ahlers
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- An estimated 30 people whose visas were revoked after the September 11 attacks due to terrorism concerns may still be in the United States, according to a draft of a congressional report.
The draft report said that the government has formal procedures for keeping suspicious people out of the country but relies on informal, faulty methods for tracking down visitors whose visas are revoked after their arrival.
Between September 11, 2001, and the end of 2002, the State Department revoked visas for 240 people who had entered the United States because of concerns they were terrorists, according to the report by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress.
Justice Department officials said the State Department revoked the visas because background checks on the individuals were not completed. The completed checks later turned up no security concerns, Justice officials said.
The report does not name individuals or account for the other 210 people. It said only that the number is based on an analysis of data received in mid-May from the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The INS recently was absorbed into the Department of Homeland Security.
Additional information since then "could show that the number of persons is higher or lower than 30," it said.
The House Subcommittee on National Security is set to hold a hearing Wednesday on the report.
The report faults communications between the State Department, FBI and INS.
Part of the problem, the agencies told congressional investigators, was the scarcity of revocations on terrorism grounds after a person had already entered the country. "This relatively small number resulted in [government agencies] operating in an informal manner," the report said.
But the lack of comprehensive, written policies and procedures "may have contributed to systemic weaknesses ... that increase the possibility of a suspected terrorist entering or remaining in the United States," the report said.
FBI and INS officials told congressional investigators they did not routinely attempt to locate or investigate people whose visas were revoked on terrorism grounds. In some cases, they said, it is because they were not notified about the change in status. In other cases, FBI officials said, the State Department did not alert them that persons with revoked visas could be "possible terrorists."
The INS also said it failed to pursue the matter because revocation itself is not grounds for removal. Even if the agency could find people, the report said, it would be challenging to remove them unless they were in violation of their immigration status or officials could prove terrorist affiliations.
"Without sufficient evidence linking the alien to any terrorist-related activities, the INS cannot institute removal proceedings based on that charge," the report said.
Six months after the September 11 attacks, the INS mailed visa approval notices for Mohammed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi, identified as the two pilots who crashed planes into the World Trade Center. They applied to change their visa status from visitor to student a year before the deadly attacks, and both received approval before then.
The draft GAO report lists a series of recommendations to the Department of Homeland Security to ensure that agencies are notified about visa changes and appropriate actions are taken. Among them:
• Develop policies and procedures to ensure that notification of visa revocations for suspected terrorists is transmitted from the State Department to immigration and investigation units in a timely manner;
• Develop a policy on actions that agencies should take to locate individuals whose visas have been revoked for terrorism concerns; and
• Determine if any persons with visas revoked on terrorism grounds are in the United States and if so, whether they pose a security threat. | <urn:uuid:21eb425b-f699-4bc0-83ef-37d8136887ca> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/06/18/gao.terror.report/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965654 | 743 | 1.640625 | 2 |
|Version 6 (modified by chak, 6 years ago)|
Data Parallel Haskell
This page documents the integration of nested data parallelism into GHC at the developer level, including notes about where we are and what needs doing. See also the user-level wiki page, which includes examples and tutorial-style instructions.
Most of the material is partitioned into a set of subpages:
- Nested data parallelism by example
- Data parallelism on shared-memory machines
- Other nested data parallel work
Pages that have fallen out of use (and contain out dated information): | <urn:uuid:e0969f9c-58e5-4320-8191-0d28831f0687> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/ghc/wiki/DataParallel?version=6 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.900089 | 120 | 1.90625 | 2 |
Our virtual tour is hosted by oncell. Click here to begin.
"There on the stove you see the bean pot. We always ate Boston baked beans on Saturday night. Warmed over for Sunday morning breakfast they were perfectly delicious with brown bread. Everyone had their special recipe for Boston baked beans and piccalilli which was usually served with them."
Did You Know?
While many American women-including Jack Kennedy’s grandmother, Mary Kennedy-supported woman’s suffrage, the US Constitution didn’t extend the vote to women until 1920. Years later, in 1963, Jack signed a Civil Rights Bill to guarantee every American’s right to participate fully in civic life. | <urn:uuid:e42166e4-286a-45bd-9fbf-992cd798a969> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nps.gov/jofi/photosmultimedia/virtualtour.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962419 | 143 | 2.53125 | 3 |
#6 Retired by Cardinals
Stanley Frank Musial wore No. 6, the first number retired by the Cardinals franchise. Upon his retirement on Sept. 29, 1963, Musial held 17 major league records, 29 National League marks and nine All-Star Game records. His career highlights include:
- Ranked first in National League history in hits (3,630) and second in homers (475) when he retired.
- Batted .331 in his career, won seven National League batting titles and led the league in hits six times.
- Never ejected in 3,026 regular-season games.
- Member of the the Cardinals' World Series championship clubs in 1942, 1944 and 1946, and a pennant-winner in 1943.
- Cardinals general manager for one season, when they beat Boston in the 1967 World Series.
- Business and civic leader, chairman of the Crippled Children's Society of St. Louis for 20 years, member of numerous boards of directors, including Boy Scouts, USO, Senior Olympics, St. Louis Muscular Dystrophy Association, St. Louis Diabetic Association and Southwest Bank. | <urn:uuid:dec99008-822e-49e8-8b19-d0f3188544f7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://losangeles.dodgers.mlb.com/stl/fan_forum/stan_musial.jsp?loc=achievements | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938312 | 233 | 1.679688 | 2 |
A history of the department
The Department of Sociology and Human Geography was established under the Faculty of Humanities on 7 January 1950. In 1963 the department was incorporated into the new Social Sciences Faculty and in 1996 the department of sociology and the department of human geography were merged.
We moved to newly renovated premises in Harriet Holter's House (the old C block of Eilert Sundt's House) in 2003. Today there are 66 academic staff and 11 administrative staff at the department. The department offers 39 courses in sociology and 22 courses in human geography.
A brief history
- 1950: The department of sociology is established under the faculty of humanities 7 January
- 1963: Incorporated into the new faculty of social sciences
- 1996: The merging of the department of sociology and the department of human geography
- 2003: The department moves into newly renovated premises in Harriet Holters House.
Who was Harriet Holter?
Harriet Holter (1922-1997) was the pioneer of women’s research in Norwegian social science. Her academic breadth spanned the whole spectrum of social science. She was educated as an economist, became a professor of psychology, yet most of her research is best classified as sociology. In the early 1950s she became a prominent voice in Norwegian research on work and industrial relations. The contribution of employees in decision-making processes and the relationship between employees and their shop stewards and union representatives were central themes.
This work was patently rooted in gender relations. The large Nordic collected work Kvinners liv og arbeid (1962) [the lives and work of women], for which Holter was a central contributor, set new standards for studies of gender roles. The connection between gender and work was approached from a new direction in a study of the role of housewife. Many of the threads ran together in the larger work Sex Roles and Social Structure (1970), one of the works of Norwegian social research that has received the most attention internationally. Based upon extensive empirical studies Holter developed a general theory about gender differentiation and gender roles. She drew out and clearly defined the basic norms for gender roles, and she pointed out mechanisms that reinforced existing role patterns. But gender roles are not static. There are variations between the opinions of women and men, between social classes and between urban and rural areas. Conflict and change are the hallmarks of role patterns, also those role patterns that concern gender relations. In Familien i klassesamfunnet (1975) [the family in class society] the variation in gender roles between the classes is expanded upon.
Harriet Holter was a driving force in the growth of women’s studies in Norwegian social science from the beginning of the 1970s. She inspired many and she contributed to studies of sexualised violence, a field that later has become important and productive.
This content is translated from the book: Introduksjon til samfunnsfag. | <urn:uuid:b32faa77-9962-4379-a37e-02639c83c05a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sv.uio.no/iss/english/about/history/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968497 | 600 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Premiering at the first public projection of motion pictures in Germany, Das Boxende Känguruh is one of the earliest examples of animal behaviour on screen.
A groundbreaking production, the captive marsupial is recorded boxing against Mr Delaware and, despite being intended for entertainment rather than as a scientific behaviour study, it revealed animal actions in a way that had never been seen before.
The contest, recorded by Max Skladanowsky against a white background at the Circus Busch, was a huge success and exposed the potential for future films concerning wildlife and natural history. —WildFilmHistory
Max Skladanowsky (April 30, 1863 – November 30, 1939) was a German inventor and early filmmaker. Along with his brother Emil, he invented the Bioscop, an early movie projector the Skladanowsky brothers used to display the first moving picture show to a paying audience on November 1, 1895, some two months before the public debut of the Lumière Brothers’ technically superior Cinématographe.
Born in Berlin of Polish ethnicity to a glazier, Skladanowsky was apprenticed as a photographer and glass painter, which led to an interest in magic lanterns. In 1879, he began to tour Germany and Central Europe with his father Carl and elder brother Emil, giving dissolving magic lantern shows. In the early 1890s he built a film camera along with Emil, and in 1895 the brothers produced the Bioskop. The Bioskop, which was inspired by magic-lantern technology, used two loops of 54mm film, one frame being projected alternately from each. This made it possible for the Bioskop to project at 16 frames… read more | <urn:uuid:a67c158c-c7e4-4a91-8c77-8c45326ae61c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mubi.com/films/boxing-kangaroo | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00070-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954971 | 354 | 3.390625 | 3 |
Can Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts compete against superheros, robots, and talking animals?
There was a time—let’s call it the ‘90s—when you could find little better guarantee for the success of a movie than by having Tom Hanks or Julia Roberts star.
But that was in a different Hollywood, one in which superhero movies were niche rather than ubiquitous, the world knew little of viral marketing, and 3-D was a long-forgotten novelty fad.
So it is that this week’s Larry Crowne, starring Hanks and Roberts (and directed, co-written and co-produced by the former), is being seen a “real test” for the movie industry, says veteran film critic Marshall Fine. Is there still an audience for the star-driven summer movie based on original material? Early signs aren’t great: Reviews have been generally negative, and The Hollywood Reporter says there’s been “relatively soft” audience interest tracking. Plus the film is being released amid deafening, all-consuming Transformers mania.
The story of a middle-aged man (Hanks) who enrolls in community college and falls for his professor (Roberts) after being fired from his job, the film possesses what Movie City News editor David Poland calls a “gentle” spirit.
Yet the picture is being marketed entirely on the strength of its stars, with Universal stressing the “Tom” and “Julia” in large letters above the much smaller “Hanks” and “Roberts” at the top of many print ads. The TV spots and trailers bank on Hanks’ everyman appeal (“Can you get this hunk of junk working?” he says, ostensibly referring to an old scooter) and Roberts’ famed smile.
Forgoing men in tights, explosions, and gratuitous dirty jokes, it’s the rare big-studio summer movie meant for adults. And that’s inherently a risky proposition. These days, “movies for adults are not as sexy for private investors and private investors fund a lot of development and production,” Poland wrote in an email.
“[Studios] think in terms of home runs, not singles and doubles or even triples,” Fine says. “They want the big return right now. They’re looking at the short term, not the long term. They recognize that [about] 50 or 75 percent of what a movie’s going to make it makes in the first month.”
This is why Larry Crowne represents a gamble. “The adult audience is not driven by opening weekend the way younger audiences are,” Poland says. “A movie for them needs to be supported longer and keep its theaters longer, even if the evidence that it's catching on is scant. And maybe it's not really catching on.”
In that climate, any movie that’s not “pre-sold” represents a serious risk, Fine says. That’s why so many summer titles are derivative: Prequels, sequels, remakes and comic book adaptations all come with built-in constituencies. "I wouldn't even pitch an original idea anymore," Oscar-winning screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie ( The Usual Suspects, X-Men, The Tourist) told New York earlier this year. "What [studios] want is — through no fault of their own — a piece of pre-existing material that's survived some sort of a litmus test, like a graphic novel.” A-list stars aren’t immune: Hanks’s biggest hits of the past decade were The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons, based on the sensationally popular Dan Brown novels. Roberts’s most-notable success was the remake of Oceans 11 and the resulting sequels.
That all seemingly leaves out Larry Crowne, a small film with an original screenplay of modest ambitions, starring two aging stars whose “glory days were 10 or 15 years ago,” as Fine puts it. The currently top-targeted audience was “barely born when ‘Forrest Gump’ and ‘Pretty Woman’ came out,” he adds.
Still, the old-fashioned marketing campaign, if helped along by that dinosaur known as positive word of mouth, might just pay off. There are plenty of viewers eager for a taste of what big studio movies used to be, starring actors they’ve loved. Witness this summer’s swelling success for Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, or the phenomenon that was My Big Fat Greek Wedding nearly a decade ago.
“It's an underserved audience,” Poland says. “When they get a whiff of something that doesn't suck, they really show up.” | <urn:uuid:ef6cb88f-9900-45f1-a808-abe24f1cfda5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/06/larry-crowne-a-throwback-to-when-star-power-sold-movies/241276/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966606 | 1,030 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Decorating Tips for Small Spaces
It is a common myth that small spaces are difficult to decorate. There are a few things to keep in mind in order for your small space to look amazing and seem larger.
Be Creative with Storage Solutions - Clutter makes any space look smaller than it really is, especially with spaces that are smaller to begin with. Also, smaller spaces tend to have less closet and cabinet room, so it is important to find storage anywhere you can. Get creative with different ways to store items that do not need to be in view.
The space beneath the coffee table in this photo is utilized with an old vintage trunk. This trunk could easily store a variety of items that you may want to keep out of sight.
The unused space above the cabinets in this kitchen is used for extra storage. Decorative baskets are used to hide clutter
Floor to Ceiling Window Treatments – Go bold with your drapery. Adding floor to ceiling window treatments brings the eye upward, making the ceiling look higher and the room look larger.
Use Mirrors – A mirror is a small space’s best friend. It will create the illusion of a larger space. Add a large mirror opposite a window in a small room. It will reflect light, making it an extra source of light. As a result, this will make the room appear larger.
Make Use of Every Space, Nook, and Cranny – Smaller rooms have obvious limitations. Can’t find that extra space for a desk? Think outside the box:
Also, remember to make use of your vertical space! This is often ignored, but can be extremely beneficial for storage and decorating:
This shoe shelf takes up minimal space in the room, but by taking advantage of the vertical space up the wall, it adds extra storage.
Remember, it isn’t hard to decorate a small space. There are many ways you can make a small space appear larger. All it takes is a little creativity and some thinking outside the box.
Author bio: Eric Blair writes about interior design and spicing up any room with the proper use of unique oval wall mirrors from Oval and Round Mirrors. | <urn:uuid:76de41b5-ed98-409d-81ec-bdadb2f1b764> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://shabbytochicdesigns.com/?p=115 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929429 | 449 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Just a tiny recession
GERMANY had a very good 2011. Its economy grew by 3% on the year, helping bring unemployment down from nearly 7% to just 5.5% (as of November). No other large, developed economy performed nearly as well. If the Germans are tempted to pat themselves on the back and celebrate, however, they should think twice. Growth peaked back in the second quarter and slowed sharply thereafter. Odds are good, in fact, that the German economy shrank in the last three months of 2011. Low unemployment should boost consumer spending and provide domestic demand support to growth, but exports remain Germany's bread and butter. Private consumption rose by 1.5% in 2011, compared to an 8.2% jump in exports. And Germany's export markets are in trouble.The largest destination for its goods is obviously the euro zone. The single-currency area is descending into a dangerous recession. Since much of the euro zone is desperately trying to move from current-account deficits to current-account surpluses, the recession will be longer and deeper the more Germany manages to protect its net exports. Germany's surplus with Europe can only decline.America is the next largest customer and seems likely to have a better (though not obviously great) 2012. Then comes Britain, which is probably back in recession. And then China. China's still growing, you say, and you're right. What's more, its trade surplus shrank nearly 15% in 2011, as import growth outpaced export growth. China's growing import appetite helped pace the rapid German expansion in the first half of last year. But:China’s import growth fell to a two- year low in December, underscoring a slowdown in the fastest- growing major economy that deepens risks for the global outlook...Weakening import growth may undermine China’s ability to lead the recovery as it did after the 2008 crisis. The nation’s expansion may slide to 7.7 percent this quarter, the slowest pace in three years, according to a UBS AG forecast. “There will be a ripple effect on the rest of the world, particularly those who rely on China’s imports..."I've been talking about the nature of liquidity traps, in which borrowers suddenly face much tighter constraints and growth declines if savers can't be convinced to pick up the demand slack. The euro zone is facing a challenge something like that. The periphery is being forced to rapidly increase its savings. In the absence of a big increase in consumption elsewhere, a deep recession will result. Now, that consumption doesn't necessarily have to come solely from Germany; the euro zone is an open economy, and it can boost demand by raising its net exports. There are lots of other economies trying to do the same thing, however. Germany wants the rest of the euro zone to become more like it, but is it ready to accept that such a transformation would force Germany to become less like itself and more like the coarse, consumption-hungry Americans?In coverage of Germany's growth figures and elsewhere, one can't help but hear forecasts that call for a short euro-zone recession in 2012. I find that a difficult forecast to believe. Europe is forcing itself through a significant structural transformation that can't occur overnight. Meanwhile, recession will make deleveraging that much more difficult for the periphery, and will increase the odds that something breaks. | <urn:uuid:36fa345b-6648-4689-9f5e-7fa7a481147e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bullfax.com/?q=node-just-tiny-recession | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96799 | 692 | 1.546875 | 2 |
The U.S. Court of Appeals upholds the conviction of writer R. Foster Winans for securities fraud. Winans, author of the "Heard on the Street" column for the Wall Street Journal, entered into a scheme with two brokers at Kidder Peabody to give them advance information about his column. The brokers, Kenneth Felis and Peter Brant, made $700,000 by trading stocks that Winans touted in the newspaper; Winans and his lover, David Carpenter, received only $31,000 in kickbacks.
Winans began writing "Heard on the Street" in 1982 and, though successful, was having difficulty leading the lavish New York City lifestyle that he desired. In October 1983, Felis and Brant persuaded him to leak the contents of upcoming columns so that they could take advantage of the price changes that typically occurred after a stock had been written about in the nation's leading financial publication.
It wasn't long before executives at Kidder Peabody noticed a strange coincidence between the Felis account and the stocks discussed in "Heard on the Street." With the SEC already investigating, Winans admitted the scheme in March 1984 and was immediately fired by the Wall Street Journal. Winans, Carpenter, and Felis were indicted and convicted of securities fraud. Winans received an 18-month prison sentence.
Although the amounts of money involved were relatively small, the Winans case became a public symbol of the widespread greed, corruption, and win-at-all-costs mentality of Wall Street that prevailed in the 1980s.
Winans revealed all in his 1986 book Trading Secrets, which sold well. The New York Crime Victims Board initially disputed his right to the profits under a law that prevents criminals from profiting from their crimes, but the law was eventually overturned. Later, Winans told people, "I like what [the conviction] has done to my life, if you can believe it." | <urn:uuid:f57e55bc-132f-4fac-817f-13ed5d6aa8f4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-decision-in-a-well-known-securities-fraud-case-is-upheld?catId=4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978756 | 396 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Submitted by libbyliberal on Wed, 05/02/2012 - 8:00pm
Patrick Martin of wsws has posted a provocative article on Barack Obama’s campaign use of the “take out” of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Martin:
There is something particularly degrading about the use of a state killing—in which dozens of heavily armed special ops troops mowed down the fugitive in front of his wives and children—to promote a political campaign. Obama presents himself, not so much even as commander-in-chief, but as “hitman-in-chief,” appealing to the worst social instincts.
snip Read below the fold...
Submitted by libbyliberal on Fri, 05/06/2011 - 5:56am
(552 Obama-dumping days until 2012 election-Hugh's Obama's Scandals List)
The incident of Osama bin Laden’s execution by Navy Seals is one more litmus test for morality. It shows a disrespect for the sanctity of human life and the foundational principle of due process. Yes, even the sanctity of the human life of an Osama bin Laden. Obama counted on “vengeance” being accepted by us citizens, rather than real justice through the law.
As Chris Floyd has written: Read below the fold...
Submitted by chicago dyke on Wed, 02/21/2007 - 4:46pm
I'm sure the folks in Yurp are glad this guy is going to be in charge of that tiny and unimportant organization called "NATO."
Read below the fold... | <urn:uuid:d698147a-2d6a-4ce7-aeca-6e334c6644c2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://correntewire.com/tags/bin_laden | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946145 | 336 | 1.734375 | 2 |
How to resist Big Brother 2.0
The ubiquity of digital gadgets and sensors, the pervasiveness of networks and the benefits of sharing very personal information through social media have led some to argue that privacy as a social norm is changing and becoming an outmoded concept. In this three-part series Don Tapscott questions this view, arguing that we each need a personal privacy strategy. Part one can be read here, and part two here.
As the Net becomes the basis for commerce, work, entertainment, healthcare, learning and much human discourse, each of us is leaving a trail of digital crumbs as we spend a growing portion of our day touching networks. The books, music and stocks you buy online, your pharmacy purchases, groceries scanned at the supermarket or bought online, your child’s research for a school project, the card reader at the parking lot, your car’s conversations with a database via satellite, the online publications you read, the shirt you purchase in a department store with your store card, the prescription drugs you buy – and the hundreds of other network transactions in a typical day – point to the problem.
Computers can inexpensively link and cross-reference such databases to slice, dice and recompile information about individuals in hundreds of different ways. This makes these databases enormously attractive for government and corporations that are keen to know our whereabouts and activities.
George Orwell’s iconic text Nineteen Eighty-Four described the dystopian society where a totalitarian state rules in its own interests and everyone is under constant surveillance by authorities. This situation was often correctly alleged about the totalitarian East Bloc countries during the Cold War. It is unfortunately increasingly true of Western democracies today. In the name of national security, governments are collecting real-time information from us, sampling phone calls, emails and social networks, and taking our biometrics at airports and a growing list of other places.
We have little idea what governments are doing with this flood of personal information. And the aftermath of 9/11 should remind us just how quickly our civil liberties can be undermined in the name of national security.
Recently the New York Times reported that: “Law enforcement tracking of cellphones, once the province mainly of federal agents, has become a powerful and widely used surveillance tool for local police officials, with hundreds of departments, large and small, often using it aggressively with little or no court oversight.”
The Times reports that this practice has become big business for cellphone companies, too, as carriers market a catalog of “surveillance fees” to police departments to determine a suspect’s location, trace phone calls and texts, or provide other services.
Sure, you could argue that it’s becoming difficult to restrict the information that governments can collect, and yes of course we need to be vigilant about how that information should be used. But we still need to resist attempts of governments to collect unnecessary information. We still need to fight for the basic privacy principle of “data minimization” – of limiting the information collected to clearly definable and socially helpful purposes.
There should be no tapping of phones or anything else without due process. If a government agency proposes setting up a video camera in your neighborhood, you need to decide if the benefits of possible crime reduction outweigh the possible dangers of unknown governments being able to watch you constantly.
Or increasingly, governments want to collect biometrics information about you – like fingerprints, retinal scans and even DNA. We each need to make choices. Sometimes this benefits you with better government services or faster movement through airports. But what are the long-term implications should a government agency or individual become malevolent? The average person must be cautious and vigilant, and even resist the collection of unnecessary personal information.
To me, it’s not so likely that the future will resemble Orwell’s 1984, or Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon prison, or an East Bloc police state during the Cold War. Those are dystopic models from another era that depended upon a single, all-knowing malevolent power seeking control. The appropriate metaphor for the growing loss of privacy today is found in Frank Kafka‘s The Trial: The central character awaits trial and judgment by an inscrutable bureaucracy for a crime that he is not told about, using evidence that is never revealed to him, in a process that is equally random and inscrutable. In like manner, we, too, will be judged and sentenced in absentia by unknown public and private bureaucracies having access to our personal data. We will be the targets of social engineering, decisions, and discrimination, and we will never really know what or why.
In the private sector, companies want to know more and more about what makes each of us tick – our motivations, behavior, attitudes and buying habits. The good news is that companies can give us highly customized services based on this intimate knowledge – and build trusting relationships. Sometimes it is great to have highly customized ads. I don’t want to hear or see car ads except when I am interested in buying a new car. When I am, I would like to advise the car companies to bring it on! And as the Net becomes part of almost everything we do, the possibilities are limitless for fabulous, customized value for each of us, courtesy of the corporate world.
But there is a dark side. Companies can use our personal information to our disadvantage. Some of these are rogue “bad actors.” In the Rupert Murdoch tabloid scandal in the UK, cellular phone company technicians could sell the location of a specific phone. This way Murdoch’s reporters could track down celebrities.
Now, imagine a world where corporations have near-perfect information about each of us. As the aphorism goes, “knowledge is power.” Could companies go beyond fairly influencing us to being able to manipulate us? Could they abuse their detailed knowledge and cause us to purchase goods or services or take other actions that are not in our interests?
We already live in a consumer society where people go into debt to purchase things they really can’t afford. If corporations had information about our every purchase, articles we read, movies we watch, things we say, places we go, food we eat, medications we take and “big data” from myriad other sources, how could they use that asymmetrical power to advance their interests against ours?
Sometimes the information is used in a very roundabout way. Drug companies buy information from pharmacies about the medicines doctors prescribe to their patients. That way they know which doctors to target for their advertising and promotional campaigns, in the hope that the doctor will prescribe different drugs.
So, given that there are few controls and even fewer companies that practice “privacy by design,” it makes sense to be cautious about what information you provide. Don’t fill out warranty cards. A warranty is valid whether or not you fill out a card. They simply provide information about you to companies. Refuse junk mail, and take time tweaking your spam filter. Don’t let a merchant copy your driver’s license. Never give out your Social Security number unless it’s legally required. Make sure that online forms are secure. Don’t automatically consent to the collection, use or storage of your personal information. Question why people want your personal information. Make it clear that you do not wish your information to be disclosed to any third party. There are many things you can do, while we wait for companies to change how they treat our data.
Moreover, the information you provide has value – to market researchers, advertising companies, social networks and other online platforms. But most companies disagree that individuals own the rights to such information, since people provide the data for free or nearly free. The entire value of Facebook, estimated at $100 billion, for example, is the knowledge it has of its users: their likes and dislikes, what they say, what they do, where they shop, who their friends are, and so on.
The degree of detail Facebook has is mind-boggling. Facebook does not pay users any money in exchange for this information. Facebook insists that it provides a superior service as a result and that the service is sufficient payment. The same is true of Google. It prides itself on its accurately targeted advertising, for which its advertising clients pay top dollar. None of this money is shared with Google’s users, however. If they are selling your information without your permission, they are depriving you of the opportunity to capture that income yourself.
The situation becomes more grim when companies exchange information with one another or with different arms of the same corporation, taking a series of seemingly simple isolated acts and compiling them into a detailed profile of an individual’s behavior. Google recently announced it would share information across its search engine, YouTube downloads, Gmail use and more than 50 other separate services the company provides. Again, this is done so that Google has as detailed a profile of individuals’ behavior as possible so that advertisers will pay more for the possibility of influencing your behavior.
If history is any guide, advances in privacy have tended to arise in the wake of widespread privacy abuses – for example, the negative effects of mass printing presses, the emergence of the fascist state, and the abuses of credit reporting companies in the 1960s. Something similar may be happening today with data breaches and identity theft “in the cloud,” as more and more people come to understand the pain and consequences of personal data misuse.
By all means, be as open as you want, but realize that with openness can come vulnerabilities, especially for your children. “Discretion is the better part of valor,” to borrow Shakespeare’s thought, and that means it makes sense to be careful in the face of unintended consequences and risks.
PHOTO: A row of security cameras in central London, November 2, 2006. REUTERS/Dylan Martinez | <urn:uuid:ccfbd375-3301-4224-b96c-828b7c91816d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2012/05/17/how-to-resist-big-brother-2-0/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946736 | 2,046 | 2.015625 | 2 |
Boudhanath - A virtual tour of one of the most sacred Buddhist Pilgrimage sites in the world by Gru Bo
Price: $2.99 USD. 3160 words.
Published on April 11, 2012. .
Boudhanath Stupa, also called Bodnath Stupa, is the holiest Tibetan Buddhist temple outside Tibet. The Stupa’s massive Mandala makes it one of the largest spherical Stupas in the world. The holy Stupa is located in a town called Boudha which is about 11 km (6.7 miles) from the centre and on the eastern outskirts of the Kathmandu valley.
This ebook is a virtual tour around Boudhanath Stupa. | <urn:uuid:cd95430b-033c-4050-aa5f-33f68746a97d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.smashwords.com/books/tags/unesco_world_heritage_site | 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 | 0.927788 | 154 | 2.015625 | 2 |
When you receive a text message, at the bottom the sender and the time sent are displayed: but whose time is this: the time as recorded on the sender's phone, the time as recorded on the receiver's phone, or the time as recorded by the mobile phone operator sending the text, or the time as recorded by the operator receiving the text?
#87275. Asked by billythebrit. (Oct 14 07 11:48 AM)
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People tend to forget that President, George W. Bush, inherited a recession and he was bashed by the Democrats, when unemployment was often below 5 percent and averaged 5.3 percent.
Almost four years into his presidency, President Obama, continues to blame Bush for all economic troubles, disregarding the fact that his own federal spending on "Cash for Clunkers" and other redistributionist schemes, failed to improve the economy.
This past February, the unemployment rate tumbled to 8.3 percent.
Shortly after the jobs report was released, Obama declared, sounding more confident than ever, "the recovery is speeding up."
This past July, a new snapshot has showed the unemployment rate rose a notch to 8.3 percent on matching February's rate.
Back then, House Speaker, John Boehner, accurately pointed out that unemployment had topped 8 percent for 36 months in a row.
I know this is representing something he said, but if can't be said too often .
Unemployment has not topped eight percent for 42 months in a row - under Obama. | <urn:uuid:d704e416-a643-448c-a316-76f5a4e7be72> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://timesleaderonline.com/page/content.detail/id/540362/-Jobs-picture-.html?nav=5007 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971658 | 218 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Permanent cosmetics are a tattooing process by which natural pigments are inserted into the skin, reducing or eliminating the need to apply makeup. They may be sought for convenience, to improve a facial feature's shape, or as a solution for those with allergies who can't wear makeup. The procedures are relatively simple, and most can be done in an hour, requiring only topical anesthetic. One common application is the use of permanent lip color. The lips may be outlined with tiny dots of pigment to create a fuller appearance, define the border, alter the shape, or disguise scars around the mouth. The overall color of the lips may also be enhanced with pigments ranging from natural to bright tones. The tattooing process is also used to create permanent eyeliner at the base of the eyelashes. To achieve this effect, thousands of tiny sites along the lash line are implanted with a dark pigment. Both men and women can benefit from this technique, especially those with blonde lashes. After the procedure, you may experience a little swelling, though it usually goes away rapidly. If you're considering permanent makeup, be sure to choose a technician carefully. Most states have few, if any, regulations concerning the application of tattoos.
©2006 Crossroads Mobile. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. | <urn:uuid:da09f371-00e7-4d8a-8290-a058b6080b0c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fox16.com/guides/beauty/surgery/story/Permanent-lip-color-and-eyeliner/d0CR2a-uo0-yYZVKtUT6Hw.cspx | 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 | 0.940384 | 269 | 1.820313 | 2 |
- Adopted the Arizona state flower in 1931
- Botanical name: Carnegiea gigantea
- Also called the sahuaro cactus
- Saguaro trivia: The fruit of the saguaro can be eaten raw or made into a jam
It may come as a little surprise that the Arizona state flower doesn't grow on a bush or on a shrub, but on a cactus. The saguaro flower grows on the giant saguaro, the largest cactus in the country.
These magnificent cacti thrive in the hot, dry Arizona desert, particularly in the Sonoran Desert which is located in the southwestern part of the state. The cacti can also been seen in the Saguaro National Park which is outside of Tucson. Flowers from the blossoming saguaros draw visitors from nearby Phoenix , Mesa and Glendale each year.
Saguaros begin their life in the shade of a shrub or small tree. This shade provides shelter from the harsh desert sun. The cacti grow very slowly, about an inch per year. However, after time, they eventually become giants of the desert. At maturity, saguaros can reach heights of up to 50 feet and can live to be 200 years old. Older saguaros develop arms that grow out and upwards, creating the familiar cactus shape often associated with the desert.
The Arizona state flower appears at the tips of the saguaro's trunk or arms each year during the months of May and June. Its unique bloom consists of a three-inch creamy white blossom with an orange center along with waxy petals. The blossoms also give off a fragrant scent.
Most interestingly, the Arizona state flower has an extremely short bloom period. Saguaro flowers open in the cool of the night and then close the following day around midday when the sun warms up the land. Fortunately for photographers who love to capture the saguaro in bloom, a single cactus may produce up to 200 flowers that bloom over the course of a month.
Arizona's state flower is also a major contributor in the food supply of the desert animals. Birds, bats and bees pollinate the saguaro's flowers, which in turn produce red, seeded fruits that desert birds and animals feed on. The saguaro is also home to the desert's Gila woodpecker, which hollows out holes in the saguaro's trunk to form its nest.
The Arizona state flower is not only important to the desert wildlife, but it is also a great symbol of the southwest and of Arizona. Images and pictures of the southwest often show the stately saguaro at sunrise or sunset.
Arizona Secretary of State Website for Kids
Saguaro National Park, National Park Service | <urn:uuid:faea51d9-f68a-4124-9dd7-ebf5860fc54b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.proflowers.com/guide/arizona-state-flower-saguaro?ref=pfcaffillivingsocial | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928394 | 572 | 3.21875 | 3 |
Ciencia del suelo
versión ISSN 1850-2067
ABRIL, Adriana et al. Inoculation with Azospirillum spp. in the semiarid-central region of Argentina: factors involved in rhizosphere colonization. Cienc. suelo [online]. 2006, vol.24, n.1, pp. 11-19. ISSN 1850-2067.
The effectivity of inoculation with Azospirillum spp. often lacks consistency under field conditions. Microbial colonization of the rhizosphere is considered a prerequisite for successful inoculation. The objective of this study was to determine the degree of rhizosphere colonization in 11 field inoculation assays under different treatments (sites, crops, strains, cultivars, etc.) performed in the semiarid central region of Argentina in the last 15 years, conforming a total of 32 study cases. For comparative purposes, all the assays were performed following the same experimental design and inoculation and analytic methods. Variation results relative to control treatment were clustered according to each assay characteristic. Colonization degree measurements showed high variation among different cases studied (CV 173%, range: -18 to >100%). In 11 situations, measurements differed significantly from results obtained in the control treatment. No defined pattern that could explain the highly heterogenic results was found. However, it could be speculated that water stress and strain of origin would be the principal factors responsible for the variation observed in rhizosphere colonization by Azospirillum spp. Plant carrying capacity may decrease under stress conditions, promoting microbial competition in the rhizosphere, where native strains appear to take advantage due to their higher adaptation capacity.
Palabras llave : Field conditions; PGPR; N2 fixation; Water stress; Native strains. | <urn:uuid:794e46aa-66e8-4d29-90c7-ea60bdcdde27> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.scielo.org.ar/scielo.php?script=sci_abstract&pid=S1850-20672006000100002&lng=es&nrm=iso&tlng=en | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920894 | 373 | 2.03125 | 2 |
It is the purpose of the medical quality assurance commission to regulate the competency and quality of professional health care providers under its jurisdiction by establishing, monitoring, and enforcing qualifications for licensing, consistent standards of practice, continuing competency mechanisms, and discipline. Rules, policies, and procedures developed by the commission must promote the delivery of quality health care to the residents of the state of Washington.
[1994 sp.s. c 9 § 301.]
| Severability -- Headings and captions not law -- Effective date -- 1994 sp.s. c 9: See RCW 18.79.900 through 18.79.902.| | <urn:uuid:5f385660-fc9e-49c6-9add-d0d4311569d7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://apps.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=18.71.002 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.909103 | 129 | 1.5 | 2 |
- Buyers Guide
An automated simulation-based design cycle has become a fundamental part of the success of one of today's leading designers of travelling wave tube (TWT) microwave amplifiers.
TMD Technologies produces a large range of TWTs, a core component of many radar and missile seeker systems, electronic counter measure (ECM) and electronic warfare (EW) systems. By using scripting tools built into Cobham Technical Services' Opera electromagnetic design software, the company has created a custom tool that automatically builds a three-dimensional (3D) model of a new TWT, simulates it and analyzes the results, all within the space of around five minutes. This speed of design provides the engineering team with a means of rapidly creating highly-optimized solutions for new TWT applications, allowing the company to respond quickly and effectively to this largely project-driven business.
TMD is one of the oldest companies in the TWT marketplace, with roots dating from the early 1940s, when as the microwave tube research division of EMI Electronics it developed high power klystrons for the first airborne radars. Today, the company retains a leadership position in several TWT design segments including ring-loop and coupled-cavity types, and particularly in the higher-power parts of the market. The company's ability to design specialized high-voltage low-noise power supplies required for TWT applications, and to provide integrated transmitter subsystems is another major factor behind the company's recent growth.
Automation of the design process is critical, as simulation is the main means of understanding the effects of design changes on TWT performance. Although there are markets for standard TWT products, a large proportion of the business is application-specific and TMD often has to balance several competing design goals in order to produce the required characteristics. Along with frequency and amplification specifications, there are often severe weight, size, power consumption and heat dissipation targets for example, as systems might be installed on satellites or aircraft. The ability to design a TWT that is compatible with the voltage levels of an existing power supply is another common demand, as this can substantially reduce project costs and timescales.
The Opera-based electromagnetic design tool provides TMD with a powerful means of exploring the solutions to these design challenges. The tool has a library of generic parameterized models of TWT tube designs, containing unique intellectual property on the design of component parts of TWTs, and all the engineer needs to start creating a custom TWT is to enter some of the model geometry parameters using dialog boxes - which takes only a few minutes. The package will then automatically simulate and post-process the results to provide custom high-level views of the resulting performance.
This process typically takes less than five minutes, so it is easy for TMD to modify the design parameters and repeat the analysis to locate the optimum solution within any chosen design space. TMD also has built in special features to the custom design software to improve the optimization process, such as making it easy for users to suspend simulation and change parameters on the fly, or to 'bracket' a design topology and then to create an interpolated data file that can be used to explore the intervening design space. Thanks to the highly automated design optimization, this phase of the total TWT design process can often be accomplished within a couple of days. TMD has also produced similar script sequences that partially-automate the design of the electron gun and magnetic focusing elements of a TWT.
One of the most recent applications for the automated design tool has been in the development of a groundbreaking microwave power module called PTX8400. The compact transmitter module provides 1 kW output thanks to a novel ring loop TWT offering very high gain. This combination of size and performance is setting a new standard for space- and weight-critical radar applications such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and military helicopter platforms.
TMD has been using the Opera software suite from Cobham for over 10 years. The company utilizes many of the specialist electromagnetic design solvers developed by Cobham including ones for simulating charged particle beams, for static and time-varying magnetic field analysis, and for modelling thermal effects. The accuracy of the finite element analysis design software has been proven time and again for the company, by comparing actual measured results from the finished real-world products with the predictions obtained from the simulation models.
"The Opera-based tools that we have developed substantially shorten design cycles, giving us a lot of time and freedom to find the best solution for any particular application," says David Dyson, Chief Engineer of TMD Technologies' Tubes Division.
Travelling wave tubes (TWTs) are vacuum devices that amplify by producing an electron beam and coupling it with a microwave frequency electromagnetic signal. Synchronization is achieved by means of a 'slow wave structure' which employs a geometry such as a helix, ring bar or ring loop to precisely delay the microwave signal by forcing it to meander back and forth. | <urn:uuid:331f1d3d-e244-4495-befd-0a2e1763237d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.microwavejournal.com/articles/18785-electromagnetic-simulation-tools-accelerate-design-of-microwave-amplifiers | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93438 | 1,023 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Inspirational Traffic Light Craft Kit
Teaching with something the children already recognize
Easy way to teach Biblical messages through something the children are used to seeing and know.
May 22, 2012
Kids loved them and they were the best price I could find.
June 17, 2011
Great for Children's Church craft
Easy instructions. Kids enjoyed making them.
June 4, 2011
I bought this product for my Religion Class. The project was easy enough to be completed in minutes, which is good when time is limited. Each set of pieces were individually packaged, which made it easy to distribute. However, I was grateful that I had several children absent that day because pieces were missing from the sealed packets (not packed properly), some packets had duplicate parts, but not a full set, and the the printed words on many parts were smudged or invisible. Out of a package of 12, I was able to get 9 decent completed ones. It looks nice when done and has a great message, but I would recommend buying extra sets if you could afford to do so, so you could sort out the bad parts from the good and still have enough to complete with your class. I will not buy this product again...for the price, the quality should have been better. And at a price that high, when on a budget, buying an extra set is not really an option. I was disappointed.
March 1, 2013
Great craft, it went well with our theme and all the children could make it. The younger children just required more help than the older ones.
July 2, 2012
great theme product
this will fit right in with our NY theme!! easy to do!!
February 1, 2011 | <urn:uuid:be09872e-ab0c-4ce5-ac6e-6949fb262a7a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.orientaltrading.com/inspirational-traffic-light-craft-kit-a2-48_9557.fltr?prodCatId=90000&tabId=6 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983061 | 349 | 1.601563 | 2 |
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What’s your first memory of that day?
The towering Year-11s? The hundreds of people all round the place? The new teachers? The new buildings? Wondering how you’d find out where the toilet was?
Whether you were a confident or a scared 11-year-old, chances are that you were at least a bit apprehensive about starting this new phase of your life.
Research conducted by Scripture Union confirmed that the big change from primary to secondary school can be really stressful, as children come to terms with being the small fish in a much bigger pond.
That's why we developed It’s Your Move, a brilliant book designed to help primary schools as they prepare their top year pupils for their move to secondary school. It's packed with wise advice and true stories of young people who have already taken that big step.
Now on its fifth edition since its publication in 2001, It’s Your Move has helped over a million children move on with confidence.
We've put together a video showcasing It's Your Move, as below.
You can also download the It's Your Move leaflet, special church notice board poster and the It's Your move resource booklet on the right of this page. We're updating the resource booklet for 2013 so if you've got any assembly material, lesson plans or worksheets that you think might be suitable send your ideas to firstname.lastname@example.org
Take a look at It’s Your Move today...
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copyright © 2002-2013 Scripture Union. All rights reserved | <urn:uuid:69e89fb2-166a-41dd-8333-02dd2ab61c80> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/ItsYourMove/112817.id | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955769 | 354 | 1.914063 | 2 |
All the BASIC languages I grew up with ZX81/BBC/Amiga all had GOSUB-RETURN.
Anyway I am in a way greatful that I started with basic and progressed through c, pascal, c++ etc. I always felt it gave me a much better appreciation for each improvement in the language.
I wonder, if in the future Funtional programing will rule and people will look back and pitty those of us that learned OO first.
I pretty sure the only rule of software development is adapt or die.
As they should. Surely it's kind of difficult to wrap your head around functional programming after being exposed to so much imperative programming. And no I don't mean understand what functional programming is, but actually program non-trivial stuff with something like Haskell. You have to unlearn a lot. We have corrupted by dishonest languages to write dishonest code. | <urn:uuid:2c0a1c79-e8ba-4027-ba19-1dc52e7e19a4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://channel9.msdn.com/Forums/Coffeehouse/Windows-Phone-Development-goes-VBNet/5b40d12371914832932c9dfd012b631c | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963662 | 188 | 2.3125 | 2 |
Quotation added by staff
The wise man realistically accepts as part of life and builds a philosophy to meet them and make the most of them. He lives on the principle of nothing attempted, nothing gained and is resolved that if he fails he is going to fail while trying to succeed.Peterson, Wilferd A.
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Unless you’re a recluse with no internet, cellphone, bank card or car, you will have encountered a fraudster intent on scamming you. The more advanced the technology, it seems, the more imaginative the con.
Like most South Africans, I receive an attempted scam via e-mail almost daily, most often purporting to come from my bank, prompting me to do something online that would result in my account being cleaned out.
And recently, I had my credit card “skimmed” at a popular Joburg restaurant, and within 24 hours R4 000 was withdrawn in cash from my account.
But arguably the most unconscionable scams are perpetrated on people who are lonely or naively generous, like the women who fall for “419 heartbreakers”, confidence tricksters who romance them online and then con them out of money.
Hawks spokesman MacIntosh Polela says cybercrime costs SA millions every year, even though the scamsters have to work hard to get a “hit”. “Only a few will respond and among those who respond, very few of them will pay the money,” he says.
But someone will always take the bait, unfortunately, which is why scamming continues to be a widespread scourge.
The only defence against the scam is awareness. Remember, if it sounds too good to be true, it is. And never respond to an e-mail, SMS or phone call requiring you to submit personal information, even if it’s in the form of a threat to your account being suspended due to some third-party interference.
Never participate in any “sale of goods”, “survey”, “competition”, “lottery” or “inheritance” scheme requiring any personal information over the phone or the internet.
If you’re selling something, confirm payment with your bank before releasing the goods, and if you don’t remember entering a competition or buying a lottery ticket, you haven’t won anything.
The top 10 scams to look out for:
1. The 419 heartbreaker scam
The 419 scams have been around since the dawn of the internet, the oldest one speaking of an inheritance worth billions that the sender is due, but your bank account details are needed to deposit the funds, in return for which you’ll get a percentage. Another oldie is the e-mail from Western Union telling of a “deposit” into your account and requiring your personal information.
But the 419 scam is always evolving. The latest is the “419 heartbreaker” scam. In a recent episode of M-Net’s Carte Blanche, Monique Roeloffse nearly got scammed by after meeting “Josef Werner” on an online dating site. After romancing her for a few weeks, he came up with a story that he’d been in a submarine accident and had lost all his money. Inevitably he asked her to send a cash advance, but fortunately, she smelled a rat before it was too late.
The 419 heartbreaker’s correspondence looks authentic and oozes charm, but the reality is that these are being generated by criminal syndicates, usually made up of people of different nationalities, says Polela.
These are the e-mails purportedly from your bank requesting various online actions, all to gain access to your bank accounts.
A young woman who got caught, Phindile, says she got an e-mail from her bank prompting her to verify her details. What she didn’t realise was that the link provided was to a fraudulent website.
“The website page that I clicked on to looked exactly the same as my bank’s site, and I even received an RVN number (a one-time PIN) on my cellphone, so I thought it was all legitimate.
“Next thing I knew an amount of R15 300 went out of my account. The money came out in two large sums, R9 000 and R4 000,” she says.
In all these attacks, it’s your banking information that the fraudsters are after. Without the account holder’s banking details and passwords, the fraud would simply not be possible. Don’t go there, ever.
SA has one of the highest cellphone penetration rates in the world, so it’s a wide open field for the SMS version of phishing. Many people have received an SMS requesting account verification or, occasionally, an alarmist message requesting you to make a call rather than go to a false link.
The person on the other end of the line is a fraudster adept at eliciting critical information, including your PIN code. Remember, as banks keep telling us, you will never be asked for your PIN over the phone.
4. False payment confirmations
Lyl, a complainant on www.hellopeter.com, says she advertised furniture on Gumtree that was bought by someone called Max. “He said he’d deposited money into my account, and I received an SMS confirming this, but when I checked with the bank, no money had been cleared,” she says.
The hoax payment confirmation by SMS usually appears to come from your bank. Always verify that the money is indeed in your account before releasing the goods.
5. Unethical app downloads charges
Criminals and unethical developers are now using premium-rated SMSes to defraud people via the mobile applications they download. At the end of 2011, Google removed 22 applications from the Android cellphone market because they conned people into agreeing to premium SMS charges.
“This is not strictly fraud but certainly unethical in that the charges are hidden by misleading terms and conditions and the application’s sign-up process doesn’t give the customers any other option other than to agree to the premium charges,” says Pieter Streicher, MD of BulkSMS.com.
The first line of defence against any SMS fraud is to diligently check your phone bills for any unusual amounts being deducted. And only download the more popular apps.
“You also need to check the permissions that you grant the application on installation: you should be sceptical if a basic game, for instance, requires access to address books and the internet, or needs the ability to send SMSes,” says Streicher.
6. SIM swops
One of the outcomes of a phishing scam could be a SIM swop. The fraudster already has your cellphone number and can get enough additional information to request a SIM swop from your network operator. They then have access to both your bank account details and the SIM card needed to complete transactions. Fortunately, the networks have tightened up on their SIM swop processes and this type of fraud is decreasing, says Streicher. “However, it is still worth knowing about, and if your cellphone ever stops working for no reason, you should assume the worst and contact your bank and network operator immediately.”
7. Credit card skimming
Card skimming is a global problem and usually takes place when fraudsters capture card data on devices similar to those used for legitimate point-of-sale or ATM transactions. The devices fit snugly over the card slot on an ATM and can even include a camera to record the PIN. But the main point of compromise is when you hand your card to someone to do a transaction.
As I was personally caught out, I know how easy it is if you’re not concentrating. In my case, the waiter took my card away briefly and when he returned, I entered my PIN without covering with my other hand. Never let your card out of your sight and when entering your PIN, cover the PIN pad.
8. Unscrupulous subscription services
Cellphone users need to be aware that unscrupulous Wasps (wireless application service providers – the companies that typically provide much of the mobile content that people buy) can bill any SA cell number and can even detect and record your cellphone number if you browse their websites using your cellphone.
Unlike the desktop internet where credit card numbers need to be entered and orders need to be confirmed, on a mobile device all that is needed to bill you is your cellphone number.
A notorious one is Mobthumbs, which sends you an SMS saying you’re now subscribed to it, at a cost of R20 a day.
The Wasp Association advises sending “Stop” in reply to a message received. The service should in most cases be stopped, or alternatively result in an error message which would contain details regarding how to properly unsubscribe from the service.
And again, you need to check your phone bills looking for charges you didn’t authorise or ongoing charges for subscription services that you didn’t realise weren’t one-offs.
9. Counterfeit merchandise
If you’re buying anything expensive, beware of fakes. It’s big business, and a lot of it’s happening online. Just recently, police arrested four men who tried to con a businessman into buying fake gems, which were ostensibly worth R250 000. The businessman set up a sting operation and the men were arrested. The “gems” were nothing more than four pieces of glass covered in the melted silicone tube of a TV set.
10. Microsoft scam
These scamsters call you on your cellphone or home phone claiming to be a Microsoft employee. They tell you they have found out you have a problem with your computer (who hasn’t?). Then they ask you all sorts of questions and prompt you to do all sorts of things with your computer “to sort out the problem”. Their aim is to get into your computer remotely, and to access all your private info.
Alternatively, you’ll be told you’ve won the “Microsoft Lottery”, and that Microsoft “requires credit card information to validate your copy of Windows”. Another one is an unsolicited e-mails from “Microsoft” requesting a “security update”. Don’t go there. - The Star | <urn:uuid:0fcc12e2-514a-4a91-823a-915d718f1c38> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/beware-top-10-scams-1.1256210 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950483 | 2,134 | 1.882813 | 2 |
DETROIT • You have to wonder where this green revolution is. It has to be out there somewhere. After all, the media is reporting it’s burgeoning, the tree huggers are proselytizing an uprising and the automakers are marketing environmentalism with an incredible fervour. But actually finding said revolution? That’s proving elusive.
The most recent U.S. automobile sales number are in and, in top place among all light vehicles, the best-seller is — it’s no surprise as it’s still the perennial leader — Ford’s F-Series. What you might find surprising is that sales of the big pickup grew by a whopping 27.7% last year. Ditto for Chevy’s Silverado almost-as-whopping 16.9% uptick. Toyota’s environment-loving Prius? Well, it’s stuck way down in 15th spot and sales increased but a paltry 0.9 % over a dismal 2009.
But, wait, the news gets worse. The Prius is the only “green” vehicle that made the list (heck, even the lowly Jeep Grand Cherokee made it, increasing its volume by a humungous 68.2% thanks to its recent redesign). Indeed, since the Prius entails the lion’s share of hybrid sales in North America (Honda’s hybrids seem so anchored to their dealers’ lots that one has to wonder if their tires are cemented right into their parking spaces), it means that hybrid sales as a percentage of total vehicles sales declined in 2010.
Yet, here on the floor of the North American International Auto Show, the “revolution” continues, seemingly unconcerned that no one outside the hallowed doors of Detroit’s Cobo Hall gives a damn.
Toyota is, for instance, launching an entire line of Prius-branded products. You can’t blame it; the Prius, despite its recent tepid sales, is the one shining success of the green revolution. But one can’t help but wonder how much of its popularity rests in its actual ability to reduce emissions and how much is just
Toyota’s powerful Prius — now “Prius Gone Plural” — marketing machine. After all, Camry Hybrids are rare beasts indeed.
Meanwhile, over in the Lexus booth, the message is “the darker side of green” — only that darker side is a CT200h runabout that boasts 134 horsepower and a zero-to-100-kilometres acceleration time that barely beats 10 seconds. And its U.S. price tag of $29,120 suggests a Canadian price well north of 30-large.
Though it is launching a new 6 Series convertible and a 1 Series M Coupe (yeah!), BMW’s show booth is fronted by a pair of ActiveHybrids (X6 and 7 Series).
Meanwhile, over at the Porsche exhibit, holding centre court is the 918 RSR Hybrid. Never mind that that its flywheel-based Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) is the ideal solution for racing — there is currently no series for the car in which to race. And such flywheel-based systems will never be used on the street, though Porsche has another, battery-based hybrid system in the works for production-based cars.
Then, of course, we have the true believers, such as Tesla proudly displaying CEO Elon Musk’s “We will not stop until every car on the road is electric” proclamation along the walls of its exhibit. Right across the aisle, there’s an outsized (for a mini car at least) display of Smart’s electric car and scooter program. Next door is China’s BYD, with seemingly its entire booth devoted to its Green City Solution and its electric sedans, SUVs and minivans. Meanwhile, back in the real world — at least the North American version of it — 2010 marks the first time in Canadian history that trucks outsold cars — 54% versus 46% — with Ford being particularly blessed with its F-150 selling more than 97,000 units last year.
Meanwhile, over at the General Motors booth, the Chevrolet Volt — the EV that bills itself as “more car than electric — holds centre stage. As much as I admire the technology, one has to wonder exactly many of them GM will be able to flog at US$41,000 a pop. The key display at GM’s cross-town rival Ford is an electric Transit Van scurrying — emissions-free, so it’s safe to do indoors — round a tiny raised oval leading a charge of electric vehicles, plug-ins and hybrids that will see the Blue Oval’s family of electric vehicles rival Toyota’s burgeoning Prius family.
It’s quite a dichotomy. No matter where you look, consumers are eschewing environmentally conscious cars in droves while manufacturers become ever more strident in their marketing of the greenness of their new electric vehicles. Is it because they think the environmental lobby so powerful it will eventually overcome consumer resistance? Or is it, as someone more skeptical might posit (Qui? Moi?) that the environmental lobby is too powerful to tell to go away. Whatever the case, what will car companies do when all the monies they are pumping into these green cars fail to generate sales? How will shareholders react to a company pumping $20-billion into programs for which there are no customers?
Or as I said before, where is the green revolution? | <urn:uuid:9a79376b-3a72-46b4-943a-fc2a1aa7bc87> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.driving.ca/montreal/microsites/going-green/Lots+green+little+buyer+interest/4090984/story.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944042 | 1,172 | 1.5 | 2 |
child car seat
8kg to 18kg
(6 months to 4 years)
Around 70cm to 100cm tall
Based on the age and weight you entered, your child should be restrained in a child car seat. The Victorian Road Rules require that all children between 6 months and under 4 years must use an infant restraint or a child car seat. If, however, your child is too tall for this restraint (taller than 100 centimetres), there is a provision in the legislation to move a child into a booster seat and you may want to seek the advice of a professional child restraint fitter.
Child car seats are forward facing and are not designed for use with vehicle seats that face sidewards or rearwards.
Child car seats are fitted using the car seat belt and a tether strap that attaches to an anchor point. Some child car seats recline, which is useful if the child wants to sleep. If you need to move the restraint between cars regularly, it is a good idea to get one that is light and easy to install properly.
There are three types of child car seats available:
- single purpose seats – can only be used in the forward facing position
- convertible dual purpose infant/child restraints – designed to be used as a child car seat in the forward facing position, but able to be used in the rearward facing position for a baby up to 9 or 12kg in weight.
- child car seat/booster seat combinations – these can be used as a car seat until the child reaches 18kg, then the harness straps can be tucked away inside the seat and it becomes a booster with a lap/sash belt.
While convertible restraints can be used for a little longer, some convertible restraints may be safer in one position over another. RACV recommends that parents refer to the latest CREP results when choosing a restraint.
restraint safety tips
- Approximately 70% of child restraints are not installed correctly. A child restraint that is not fitted properly could result in serious injury or even death in a crash. It is strongly recommended that new restraints are professionally fitted by a trained child restraint fitter, so that parents can be shown how to fit the restraint correctly.
- Child car seats with side wings offer more protection in the event of a crash.
- Check the seat belt and tether strap are taut and firm every time the restraint is used.
- Adjust the car seat harness straps as a child grows, which includes moving the shoulder straps so they are above or level with the child’s shoulders.
- If a child car seat is to be used in a position where there is an airbag, check the car owner’s manual for advice.
- Do not place a child restraint in the front seat of a vehicle.
- Learn about the laws and standards on child restraints. Click here for further information.
- For advice on fitting the restraint correctly see: Fit the restraint correctly or RACV member's can contact the Motoring AdvisoryLine for free motoring advice
- Tips on how to use the restraint correctly
- Download RACV’s latest Child Restraint Evaluation Program results | <urn:uuid:d0df02aa-e0f1-4336-b2a8-5b713125abd8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.racv.com.au/wps/wcm/connect/Internet/Primary/road+safety/child+safety/child+restraints/child+car+seat | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932536 | 647 | 2.375 | 2 |
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SOURCE: North Shore-LIJ Health System
Researchers and doctors at the North Shore-LIJ Health System and the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research discovered that blood can help determine the best treatment plan for patients with ovarian cancer.
Chicago, IL (PRWEB) April 03, 2012
Researchers and doctors at the North Shore-LIJ Health System and the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research discovered that blood can help determine the best treatment plan for patients with ovarian cancer. More specifically, a genetic marker embedded in deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), called microRNA, indicates if a patient with ovarian cancer has a benign or cancerous tumor, and that she will benefit from chemotherapy after surgery on the tumor. This data will be presented at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting to be held from Saturday through Wednesday (March 31- April 4) in Chicago, IL.
It is estimated that there will be 22,280 new cases and 15,500 deaths this year from ovarian cancer in the United States. Due to lack of adequate screening, the majority of patients with ovarian cancer are diagnosed at stage III (the second-to-last and most devastating stage of cancer), when 70 percent of these patients will die of their disease within 5 years.
“The discovery that microRNAs can help predict the best treatment plan for women with ovarian cancer, who are most likely at stage III of the disease, offers them enormous hope,” noted Iuliana Shapira, MD, director of the Cancer Genetics Program at the North Shore-LIJ Health System’s Monter Cancer Center. “We can now inform patients at stage III ovarian cancer, if they will have success with chemotherapy following surgery, similar to patients who are at stage 1 disease. This information gives them hope that their disease is curable despite being diagnosed at an ‘advanced stage.’ It also gives them the strength necessary to undergo chemotherapy, which is a very invasive and toxic therapy necessary to obtain the cure.”
Several microRNAs have been found to have links with various types of cancer. The research conducted at the North Shore-LIJ Health System and the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research found that microRNA-195 increased 40 fold during chemotherapy and microRNA-16 increased 80 fold during chemotherapy. These changes may explain why some patients with ovarian cancer have side effects of chemotherapy, why others become cured of cancer as a result of chemotherapy, and why others need ongoing chemotherapy to continue living with the cancer.
“Understanding the changes in microRNA throughout chemotherapy treatment helps us better understand ovarian cancer and how best to treat patients who have this disease,” said Annette Lee, PhD, associate investigator at the Feinstein Institute. “The genetic markers we identified allow patients to individualize their own therapy in order to have maximum benefit and minimal side effects. In addition, this knowledge will help researchers develop new treatments for patients with ovarian cancer.”
Dr. Shapira adds that, “We applied for a government grant and hope to receive the funds needed to validate these markers allow result in women receiving therapies that are more personalized and match their genetic makeup.”
About The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research
Headquartered in Manhasset, NY, The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research is home to international scientific leaders in cancer, human genetics, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer’s disease, psychiatric disorders, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, sepsis, inflammatory bowel disease, neuroimmunology, and medicinal chemistry. The Feinstein Institute, part of the North Shore-LIJ Health System, ranks in the top 6th percentile of all National Institutes of Health grants awarded to research centers. For more information, visit http://www.feinsteininstitute.org.
For the original version on PRWeb visit: http://www.prweb.com/releases/prweb2012/4/prweb9366349.htm | <urn:uuid:5ab8d160-82cb-4b4b-a711-142b570a1088> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kcoy.com/story/17325871/researchers-discover-a-dna-marker-that-indicates-if-ovarian-cancer-treatment-will-be-successful | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928963 | 838 | 2.421875 | 2 |
Manga About Manga
- Hatsukoi Shinan, by YABUUCHI Yuu
Title: Hatsukoi Shinan (First Love Instruction)
Author: YABUUCHI Yuu
ChuChu Comics, 2008
There is something about YABUUCHI Yuu’s art. Over the years it has become progressively cuter and cuter and CUTER. I think at some point soon, it will reach critical mass, and people will be passing out in bookstore aisles after just one glance at the pages. Seriously! :) She draws girls that look so young and adorable! Her guys are also more “cute” than “hot bishounen” too. But considering ...
- Kimi ga Suki to ka Arienai!, by AOI Mitsu
Title: Kimi ga Suki to ka Arienai!
Author: AOI Mitsu
KC Nakayoshi Comics, 2012
This is definitely one of those series where my main reaction while reading it is, “Hahah only in shoujo manga!” This series is so silly and cracktastic, I kind of wonder what was going through the author’s mind while working on it. I think some of the random twists in this were thrown in for the heck of it. I enjoyed volume 1 of this ridiculous story, and ...
- Manga Mitai na Koi Shitai! by YAGAMI Chitose Title:Manga Mitai na Koi Shitai!
(Fall in Love Like a Comic)
Ciao Comics, 2003
It was actually the title of this manga that prompted me to buy it. The ‘official’ English title for the series is ‘Fall in Love Like a Comic’, but that translation seems a little odd to me. It should be something more along the lines of ‘I want a love like in a manga!’. As one who reads a lot of shoujo manga, and sees ...
- Yasuko to Kenji, by Aruko
Title: Yasuko to Kenji
(Yasuko and Kenji)
Margaret Comics, 2005
Ah this is such a fun series! I decided to summarize Yasuko to Kenji because of a live action TV drama version of it that recently started airing, which I am enjoying very much. It reminded me that I do have the manga, and that I never talked about it here. This is a fun comedy series, which, after re-reading it, does seem perfect for a live action adaptation. And while the ... | <urn:uuid:882e2563-2d37-43d4-bca0-0fc778d474c8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://niko-niko.net/shoujo/manga-about-manga/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941932 | 547 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Florida is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States, bordering Alabama to the northwest and Georgia to the north. It was the 27th state admitted to the United States. Much of the land mass of the state is a large peninsula with the Gulf of Mexico to the west, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. It is nicknamed the "Sunshine State" because of its generally warm climate—subtropical in the northern and central regions of the state, with a true tropical climate in the southern portion. The state has four large urban areas, a number of smaller industrial cities, and many small towns. The United States Census Bureau estimates that the state population was 18,328,340 in 2008, ranking Florida as the fourth most populous state in the U.S. Tallahassee is the state capital, Jacksonville is the largest city, and the Miami metropolitan area is the largest metropolitan area.
Protect Your Smartphone! | <urn:uuid:29256e5a-9daf-4cd5-bccf-f867b0827961> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wapipedia.org/wikipedia/mobiletopic.php?s=florida | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961622 | 190 | 2.734375 | 3 |