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commonly called APPULEIUS BARBARUS, a botanical writer of whose life no particulars are known, and whose date is rather uncertain.
He has somtimes been identified with Appuleius, the author of the " Golden Ass," and sometimes with Appuleius Celsus [CELSUS, APPULEIUS], but his work is evidently written later than the time of either of those persons, and probably cannot be placed earlier than the fourth century after Christ. it is written in Latin, and entitled Herbarium seu de Medicaminibus Herbarum
; it consists of one hundred and twenty-eight chapters, and is mostly taken from Dioscorides and Pliny.
It was first published at Rome by Jo. Phil. de Lignamine, 4to., without date, but before 1484. It was reprinted three times in the sixteenth century, besides being included in two collections of medical writers, and in several editions of the works of Appuleius of Madaura. The last and best edition is that by Ackermann in his Parabilium Medicamentorum Scriptores Antiqui, Norimb. 1788, 8vo.
A short work, De Ponderibus et Mensuris
, bears the name of Appuleius.
This is to be found at the end of several editions of Mesue's works.
Haller, Biblioth. Botan.;
Choulant, Handbuch der Bücherkunde für die Altere Medicin. | <urn:uuid:daf3028d-e8fc-48d2-896c-b561ae140b27> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0104%3Aalphabetic+letter%3DA%3Aentry+group%3D34%3Aentry%3Dl-appuleius-bio-1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943894 | 319 | 2.28125 | 2 |
Date: November 26 2012
Chief climate commissioner Tim Flannery believes Australia will be generating 100 per cent of its energy from renewable sources within decades.
At the moment renewables such as hydroelectricity, wind and solar power account for 10 per cent of Australia's energy mix. That figure is expected to rise to 25 per cent by 2020.
But Professor Flannery insists there's "no doubt" Australia will end up with 100 per cent renewables sooner rather than later.
"It's only my gut feeling, but I would say (it will happen) within decades and not many," Prof Flannery told AAP, adding that prices were coming down and penetration was growing "massively".
The Climate Commission on Monday is to release a report examining renewable energy in Australia.
It suggests there is enormous potential but so far it's under-utilised.
"Solar PV and wind could be the cheapest forms of power in Australia for retail users by 2030, if not earlier, as carbon prices rise," the report states.
"The rate of growth of wind energy is well above any other large-scale generation source, growing at an average of 40 per cent each year over five years to 2009-10."
Prof Flannery said the situation was similar to what was happening in the media where historically there'd been a few large generators of news and many consumers.
"But the internet means there's now a whole lot of producers and a whole lot of consumers," he said.
"The electricity sector is going the same way. We led the world in terms of small installations of PV (solar) last year."
Prof Flannery said as renewables replaced fossil fuels there had to be changes such as a national roll-out of smart meters to manage demand.
There could also be a limited need for new infrastructure such as a connection to transfer wind-generated power from South Australia to the southeastern grid.
The ability to store electricity produced from renewables was also key, the chief climate commissioner said.
"That's what is going to be the next transformational technological innovation," he said.
"We already have the technology in terms of lithium-ion batteries."
Monday's report notes that global investment in renewable power reached almost $250 billion in 2011. That exceeded spending on new fossil-fuel power plants for the first time.
This material is subject to copyright and any unauthorised use, copying or mirroring is prohibited.
[ SMH | Text-only index] | <urn:uuid:9146b87e-7982-432a-994b-5a76f356d798> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/renewables-to-dominate-within-decades-20121126-2a1yw.html?skin=text-only | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963464 | 504 | 2.65625 | 3 |
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Advanced ECL - Working with Relational Data - Atlanta
Monday, May 6, 2013 at 1:00 PM - Wednesday, May 8, 2013 at 12:00 PM (EDT)
Advanced ECL - Working with Relational Data
This class examines in detail the ECL functions that make it easy to work with Relational data in the HPCC system. ECL began as an extremely powerful query language built around easily querying into Relational Data. The techniques taught here reveal that power to its fullest.
Course Length: 2 days
Class Prerequisites: Students must have attended the Introduction to ECL and Introduction to Thor Training classes. Students are welcome to bring their own laptops to take away the code and examples from the class.
- Creating hierarchical relational datasets (Nested Child Datasets)
- Nested Child Dataset Definitions (RECORD/DATASET)
- NORMALIZE and DENORMALIZE
- Complex Multi-level Relational Querying
Class begins Monday at 1pm and concludes at 5pm.
Class begins Tuesday at 9am and concludes at 5pm.
Class begins Wednesday at 9am and concludes at 12pm. | <urn:uuid:c2abf903-98b8-441f-a4af-d6a9165a33b1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://advecl-may6-2013-atl-eventful.eventbrite.com/r/eventful | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.908535 | 268 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Several degrees below canvas - camping in Antarctica
Page:
Despite its simplicity, life in a tent in the Antarctic is not as bad as it sounds. According to Vaughan: "When everything is set up right, living in a tent in Antarctica is much more comfortable than being in a tent in the winter in the UK. It's dry, and you don't need to worry about lack of fuel or where the fresh water is coming from. It's only when the weather begins to get grim - which means windy or warm - that you have problems. If the snow starts to melt it's horrible, because things start to get wet."
When the weather deteriorates, BAS scientists have more than just wind to contend with. BAS oceanographer Dr Keith Makinson has spent up to three months in the field, including stretches of up to three weeks "laid up" in his tent in bad weather. "With practice you get better at it. Killing time in a productive way is a skill you have to learn," Makinson explains.
"You can do more cooking. You have ingredients that you've taken along as goodies, but that require time and effort to prepare. So during bad weather you can invest time and effort in making some great culinary creations. I cooked a fruit cake once by putting two pans inside each other with a couple of nuts and bolts as spacers to make an oven, and even if it's a little charred on the outside, the cake still tastes wonderful," he says.
Although the food boxes BAS uses in the field provide scientists with a balanced diet - high in the fat and carbohydrates necessary to supply the 3,500 calories a day that humans require to fuel them in sub-zero temperatures, there are many items they miss. Almost obsessively so. "You do become a little bit obsessed by food. Your body tells you what food you really need. You get very jaded by eating a high carbohydrate diet, and what you really want is what you haven't got - fresh fruit and vegetables. I miss a good crunchy carrot - something that tastes nice, rather than sweet and fatty," Vaughan says.
Desert Island Disks-style, we asked BAS scientists which books and what kind of music they take south, and what their luxury would be.
Dr Keith Makinson is an oceanographer and has worked for BAS since 1988. Music he took south last season included Meatloaf, Medwin Goodall and Celine Dion. “My selection must include music that is mellow, uplifting or stimulating to reflect - or change - my moods. After half an hour lying down in the tent, eyes closed, with the music on loud, I generally come out feeling like a new person,” he says.
Glaciologist Professor David Vaughan prefers to take books in place of music. The books he's read in his tent most recently include Graham Swift's Waterland and J K Rowling's Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban. “I read Waterland while working on an ice shelf – a most unnaturally flat landscape. It made a strange resonance with the flat fenlands that are described in the book. Harry Potter is the ultimate in escapism and something to save for bad weather, so you can immerse yourself in it completely,” Vaughan says.
And their luxuries? For Makinson it's butterscotch Angel Delight. “An absolute taste sensation after eating field rations,” he says. Vaughan opts for something a little more sophisticated – a nice Shiraz.
As well as lack of fresh food, isolation can be a challenge. Modern communications technology is another aspect of Antarctic life that would astound Scott and Shackleton. BAS field parties go equipped with both high-frequency radio and Iridium phones, which allow them to communicate with the nearest research station as well as with friends and family in the UK. "I still find it extraordinary that you can stand outside your tent - with a wonderful view if you're lucky - and speak to home," Makinson says.
Loneliness bothers him less. "The moment when you really feel the isolation is when you're the first at the site. The plane drops you off with your pile of equipment and then it just goes. That's the one moment when you're very much alone. But I enjoy the field environment. I like the isolation; getting away from it all. Life is pretty simple there, and when the work's going well it's very enjoyable. The Antarctic environment is something you feel you want to make the best of, enjoy and soak up."
Images © British Antarctic Survey / Words © Becky Allen. | <urn:uuid:d1251960-8d91-48c7-ab02-e47c55356bb7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.antarctica.ac.uk/living_and_working/camping/below_canvas/page2.php?vote=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970053 | 956 | 2.046875 | 2 |
VD on the rise via unsafe gay oral sex
MEN who have unprotected oral sex with other men have been urged to use condoms and get regular blood tests after a dramatic rise in rates of sexually transmitted diseases.
Sexual health experts say the rate of gonorrhoea and syphilis among men have not been so high since the early 1980s. A new generation of young gay men have heeded the safe sex message but are unaware of the dangers of unprotected oral sex.
Figures in the recent Victorian Infectious Diseases Bulletin revealed there have been 405 notified cases of gonorrhoea in the first quarter of 2006, 11 per cent up from the previous quarter and 54 per cent more than this time last year when 260 cases were recorded. Nearly 90 per cent of cases this year were among men aged between 17 and 70.
Rates of syphilis are also on the increase, with men accounting for 90 per cent of the 112 cases recorded between January and March this year - up from 23 cases at the same time last year. If left untreated gonorrhoea can cause sterility, and syphilis can lead to serious medical conditions, including cardiovascular and neurological complications.
Professor Christopher Fairley, director of the Melbourne Sexual Health Centre, said 40 per cent of cases of syphilis he sees are transmitted through oral sex. "For gonorrhoea and syphilis the real problem is they increase the chances of HIV transmission," he said. "So if you're infected with syphilis, which gives you an ulcer, or gonorrhoea and you have inflammation, if you then have sex with someone with HIV you're substantially more likely to acquire HIV."
A separate study at the University of NSW shows 10 per cent of gay men under the age of 25 in Sydney are becoming infected with the herpes type 1 virus. The virus, usually associated with cold sores on the mouth, has morphed and is becoming more common around the genitals.
Professor Fairley advised men to use condoms until forming a regular relationship and both parties are tested.
The Victorian Health Department is working on a new strategy to fight sexually transmitted infections. It will be revealed in the coming months. | <urn:uuid:47979295-ef9e-4c75-8b89-8ec4b89a0ab7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.smh.com.au/news/hivaids/vd-on-the-rise-via-unsafe-gay-oral-sex/2006/09/08/1157222301224.html | 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 | 0.951954 | 443 | 2.15625 | 2 |
Muscles with a mind of their own!
I went for EMG testing of both my internal pelvic muscles and my gluteals (buttocks) and finally got numbers to corroborate the fact that (a) I can't feel anything (b) I can't move anything voluntarily and (c) the muscles stay permanently tensed up. I only have a tiny amount of 'useful' muscle contraction. As the tester said, "Your muscles are in a world of their own, aren't they!" I thought "No kidding, I've only be trying to tell docs that for years!"
So fortunately she has realised that biofeedback is a pointless exercise, in fact she went so far as to declare it would be 'cruel' to make me do it. I am going to try a little external stimulator gadget, although I am still unsure how that makes the muscle relax. We shall see. If it doesn't work, she reckons I am a good candidate for a sacral nerve stimulator which could make a real difference to managing the problems I have (just got to get funding....!)
A stimulating topic?
I mentioned a sacral nerve stimulator in my last blog and want to clarify what it is...and isn't.
SNS is a gadget that is implanted to send electrical impulses to the sacral nerves. It is not a spinal cord stimulator (SCS) although the technology is similar. In SCS the electrodes are located adjacent to the spinal cord and are tuned to send an impulse to block pain signals (like an internal TENS machine): so a sensory effect. SNS is for stimulating the sacral nerves to assist with the function of pelvic muscles so has an effect on the motor function.
Although both are implanted foreign bodies and carry certain risks (e.g. infection, nerve damage), the risks are higher with SCS. I must stress however that both SCS and SNS should be regarded as highly specialised treatments used as a last resort. SNS in particular is only indicated for very specific problems.
In the UK, getting funding for trial and then implantation can be difficult and is only granted by PCTs (Primary Care Trusts) in what they term "exceptional circumstances". | <urn:uuid:8a0c3411-0285-422d-9ab3-4b125e1fcf69> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theaword.org/index.php?limitstart=30 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968715 | 463 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Helen Drury, Policy Advisor at BCSC, assesses the legacy of London 2012.
Last Friday saw the opening of the London 2012 Olympic Games with a spectacular show by Danny Boyle. Spirits are high for British medals, especially after winning our first two gold medals in the rowing and cycling today.
Our aspirations for our competitors are certainly high, but how about the ambitions for the London 2012 Games to be the most sustainable ever?
The Olympic stadium stands on what was some of London's most degraded land and contaminated waterways. In the run up to the Olympics, great efforts were taken to remediate the land; the stadium itself is mostly made from recycled materials, renewable energy is being used to power the stadium and there is a zero-waste to landfill policy.
Sustainability does not just mean green though; it also encompasses economic and social improvement as well. Certainly the increased number of visitors will help to boost the economy in the short term, and hopefully into the long term with increased tourism. Local Authorities have also been getting in on the action, hosting Olympic events, community parties and sports schemes at schools and leisure centres.
I have been impressed with the use of the existing infrastructure in London, with the three day eventing seamlessly slotted into Greenwich Park and the cyclists winding through South West London to the finish at Pall Mall. But this isn't only special to London, the sailing is taking place at Weymouth Sailing Pavilion and will hopefully drive tourism to the area in the future as it has been showcased across the world with the coverage of the Games.
Undeniably, the ambition for sustainability this year has set the bar for future Games very high. Success, however, ultimately depends on the legacy and how much the spirit of the Olympic Games is passed through to lasting change in the UK. A legacy strategy has been in place since 2009 and there are high hopes for the success of this; the athlete's village will be converted to housing following the Games and the park will be converted into a landscaped park for Stratford residents. What I think will be most interesting to see will be how much the sustainability of the site itself inspires other areas and businesses in the UK. In particular, East London's economy will undoubtedly benefit in the long term from such vast capital investment - including the new sustainable Westfield Shopping Centre - and four weeks of incredible showcasing. Will this area of London become a bubble of sustainable design and living? | <urn:uuid:3778cc85-9e1c-48ea-a65b-227d9b6e99d9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.estatesgazette.com/blogs/ed-cooke/2012/08/olympic-sustainability-and-its-legacy.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964341 | 495 | 1.9375 | 2 |
Facebook's (FB) IPO assigned the company a market value of $90 billion. Since then, the company's market price plunged down to about $77 billion. Even with the plunge, the market still values Facebook more than it values many other companies including these companies:
Citigroup (C): One of the largest banks in the world. The company earns about $11 billion annually with revenue of $65 billion. The bank has 266,000 employees all over the world and its assets near $2 trillion. The bank's market value is $75 billion.
Bank of America (BAC): With assets passing $2 trillion and annual revenues passing $115 billion, Bank of America is valued at $73 billion. The company has over 6 thousand branches and nearly 300,000 employees, but the market thinks that the bank is worth less than Facebook is.
Siemens (SI): Siemens is Germany's GE. The company produces a well range of electronics including but not limited to home electronics, and many tools used in healthcare and engineering. Last year, the company earned near $7 billion. It is also worth about $73 billion according to the market.
Home Depot (HD): The company operates 2300 stores that exceed 100,000 square feet each. It offers thousands of products and earns over $4 billion annually. The company is also growing aggressively by opening new stores and acquiring some smaller companies. The market prices the company at $72 billion.
UPS (UPS): This company is valued at $71 billion by the market. The logistics company operates in almost every country in the world and delivers millions of packages on daily basis. In 2011, the company delivered 4 billion packages, generating it revenue of $53 billion. The company's net income was near $4 billion in the same year.
Kraft Foods (KFT): This is one of the largest food producers in the world. The company markets its products in more than 170 countries around the world. It has 220 production facilities in 80 different countries. The company earns $3.5 annually and its valued at $68 billion by the market.
ConocoPhillips (COP): Valued at $65 billion by the market, ConocoPhillips is one of the largest oil companies in the world. The company earned $11.5 billion last year.
In addition, Facebook is more valuable than industry giants such as Boeing (BA), Caterpillar (CAT), 3M (MMM), Honda Motor (HMC), Ford (F) finance giants such as American Express (AXP), Goldman Sachs (GS) and Mastercard (MA), companies like Ebay (EBAY) and Nike (NKE) along with many others. Does it even make sense?
In the coming quarters, Facebook will have a huge pressure to perform. Currently the company has a lot of potential as it holds detailed data regarding every 7th person on earth; however it has failed to turn most of its potential into profits. I don't think investors will be patient with Facebook for long if the results don't come soon. Currently Facebook only earns about $650 million per year. If we sort companies by net income, Facebook compares with companies such as Ross Stores (ROST) Nordstrom (JWN) and Tyson Foods (TSN).
Facebook's peers in net income usually enjoy a market value between $5 billion and $13 billion. If Facebook fails to convert its potential into real earnings, it may be dancing with these guys with a similar market value. Will they do it? Time will tell. For now, I don't recommend buying, selling, or shorting this stock. My recommendation is to wait a couple quarters and see how it performs financially before making any decision in any direction. | <urn:uuid:c87a5b9e-8802-41ea-b957-5a10439e6a27> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://seekingalpha.com/article/607031-facebook-is-worth-more-than-these-companies | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966401 | 769 | 1.601563 | 2 |
[acimlessons_list] [RESEND] The Practice Instructions to Part II
suelegal at gmail.com
Fri Sep 19 05:43:59 EDT 2008
The Practice instructions to Part II
PURPOSE: The introduction to Part II talks as if, in the remaining part of
this year, we are trying to reach the end of our spiritual journey: "This
year has brought us to eternity" (10:8). However, the Manual, in Section 16
("How Should the Teacher of God Spend His Day?") implies a more modest goal:
to reach a place where we practice because of our own motivation and
inspiration, rather than because a book is telling us to. This would
transform our practicing from a special assignment into a way of life. Part
II of the Workbook, with its absence of daily practice instructions, is an
important step in this direction. If here, in the relatively formless
landscape of Part II, your practice can blossom, rather than wither, you are
close to graduating from the Workbook.
I think we need to combine these two goals: We should aim for eternity,
realizing that by aiming high we will carry ourselves farther than if we
didn't, even though we may only get as far as weaning ourselves from the
Workbook's support. In other words, we should aim to graduate from time and
space, <so that> we can reach the more realistic goal of graduating from the
Reading the lesson: The lessons in Part II take a very different form than
in Part I. After the day's idea, we find just two paragraphs, both worded in
the first person, which expand and comment on the idea. This makes the Part
II lessons look much like what we see in most of the reviews, where the idea
for the day is followed by a series of "related comments" (W-pI.rI.In.2:3;
3:3) which are worded in the first person and expand on the idea. In the
reviews, these related comments become part of the exercises. We read them
over several times, we think about them, we repeat them to ourselves, we
savor each word. We make them our own, which is why they are worded <as if>
they are our own. We so fully engage them that reading them becomes more
like a practice than a simple act of reading.
It makes sense that we should use the comments in the Part II lessons in the
same way that we used the comments in the reviews, simply because the two
are so similar. And the introduction hints at this. For it speaks of our
reading of those paragraphs as an "exercise" (2:1) that is meant to induct
us (1:4) into "the periods of wordless, deep experience which should come
afterwards" (11:2). Let's look at how we can turn the reading of those two
paragraphs into a genuine exercise.
First, the< commentary paragraphs> (the nonitalicized paragraphs). I
recommend that you read these over slowly, perhaps several times, and
imagine that these really are your own thoughts (which is how they are
worded). To facilitate this, you may want to emphasize words like "I," "me,"
"my," and "mine."
Second, the< prayers>. These read as if you yourself are praying them to
God, and I recommend doing just that. Fix one sentence at a time in your
mind and then close your eyes and say that sentence to God. Try to really
mean it and expect Him to hear you. These appear to be designed to carry you
into the meditative state, and many of them virtually say that. Lesson 307
says of its prayer, "And with this prayer we enter silently into a state
where conflict cannot come" (W-pII.307.2:1). To enhance this effect, you may
want to pray the prayer several times.
Morning/evening quiet time: As long as you need for the effect you want.
The longer practice periods are meant to consist of Open Mind Meditation.
Begin by repeating the idea for the day, but in a special way: as an
invitation to God to come to you. "We say the words of invitation that His
Voice suggests, and then we wait for Him to come to us" (4:6). After
repeating these words, go into a time of expectant, wordless waiting (the
word "wait" here occurs six times). To wait normally means to stay
physically still in anticipation of some event. Here it means to stay
<mentally> still in anticipation of a wondrous event: the dawning of God on
your mind. Wait as if holding your breath for this event. Wait with an
attitude that "the memory of God is shimmering across the wide horizons of
our minds" (9:5). Your waiting, then, though motionless, should be very much
alive. It should be filled with expectancy: "We...expect our Father to
reveal Himself, as He has promised" (3:3). The basis for your expectancy, in
other words, is your trust that God will keep His promises. He promised to
come to you when you asked. You are asking; He will come. Hold this state
without the aid of repeating words. However, whenever your mind wanders, you
should use words--repeat the idea to draw yourself back to this nonverbal
waiting. "We will use that thought...to calm our minds at need" (3:1).
If you find Open Mind Meditation either too challenging or too unrewarding,
I would recommend using either of the other two methods the Workbook has
taught: Down-and-Inward Meditation or Name of God Meditation. In fact,
Lesson 222 clearly instructs you to use Name of God Meditation: <"Father, we
have no words except Your Name upon our lips and in our minds, as we come
quietly into Your Presence now"> (W-pII.222.2:1).
Hourly remembrance: One or two minutes as the hour strikes (reduce if
circumstances do not permit).
Do a miniature version of the morning practice. Repeat the idea as an
invitation to God, and then wait in wordless silence for Him to come to you.
Frequent reminder: As often as possible within each hour.
"Repeat [the idea], and allow your mind to rest a little time in silence and
in peace" (W-pI.rIII.In.10:5).
Response to temptation: When you are tempted to let upset cause you to
forget your goal.
Repeat the idea as a way of calling on God to dispel your upset (see 2:9 and
Reading the "What Is" section: Before one of the day's practice periods (not
necessarily the morning one), read the relevant "What Is" section. Don't
just read it casually. Read it slowly and think about it "a little while"
* * *
LET US PRAY
What are we supposed to do with the prayers in Part II of the Workbook for
<A Course in Miracles>? There are 140 of them, one for each lesson. This has
puzzled many a Course student who, upon reaching Part II, finds himself
confronted each day with an italicized prayer directed at God. Is this
prayer offered by the author of the Course on our behalf? Do we simply read
it? Do we actually pray it? If so, why?
Actually, I am only <assuming> that this issue has puzzled Course students.
I have never really heard much discussion about these prayers. They sit
there on the page, staring at us every day for five straight months, but we
don't seem to talk much about them. The only perspective I recall hearing is
that they must be metaphorical because God can't hear our prayers.
Having done the Workbook several times, I too didn't know what to do with
these prayers. Yet, to be honest, I hadn't really confronted the question. I
would just dutifully open my book and read the prayer attached to that day's
lesson. The prayers generally struck me as being a kind of Course word
salad: a series of typical Course words--Christ, peace, joy, Heaven,
etc.--tossed together as one would toss a salad.
Then one day a few years ago, all that changed for me. I was on a short
retreat and, for some reason, the first thing I did was sit down and try to
discover what the Course wants us to do with its prayers. Having spent many
years studying the Workbook's practice instructions, I had learned that
virtually all our questions about practice are answered right in the
Workbook, if we pay careful attention. Now, for the first time, it occurred
to me that this ought to be true for those prayers; we should expect there
to be instructions for what to do with them.
The logical place for those instructions was the introduction to Part II,
since that is where we find the practice instructions for the entirety of
Part II, where the prayers are found. Within minutes I found two sentences
that ended my search and changed my relationship with the Course and with
God. Here they are:
We say some simple words of welcome, and expect our Father to reveal
Himself, as He has promised. (WpII.In.3:3)
We say the words of invitation that His Voice suggests, and then we wait for
Him to come to us. (WpII.In.4:6)
>From these sentences and the paragraphs around them I obtained the following
The Course has given us words (from the Holy Spirit) which we are to say to
God as words of invitation and welcome. Once we invite Him with these words,
we sit in a state of silent expectancy, waiting for Him to come and reveal
Himself to us in direct wordless experience.
What are these "words"? In this context, they are definitely the thought for
the day, the lesson title. But are they confined to that? Don't these
"simple words of welcome" also sound like they could be the prayers? After
all, like these words, the prayers are words given us by the Course which
are written as if we are saying them to God.
So I turned the page and looked at the first prayers in Part II. They
resoundingly confirmed what I was thinking. This is how the first prayer
<Father, I come to You today to seek the peace that You alone can give. I
come in silence>. (W-pII.221.1:1-2)
Just as the introduction described, in this prayer we state our intention to
have an encounter with God in the silence of our minds. The comments that
follow this prayer continue along the same lines: "Now [that we have said
this prayer] do we wait in quiet....We wait with one intent...[for God] to
reveal Himself unto His Son" (W-pII.221.2:1, 6). Here is exactly what the
introduction said: Once we say these words of welcome, we wait in silence
for God to reveal Himself to us.
The next prayer was very similar. In it we state our intention to silently
enter into an experience of God's Presence:
<Father, we have no words except Your Name upon our lips and in our minds,
as we come quietly into Your Presence now, and ask to rest with You in peace
a while>. (W-pII.222.2:1)
This was a very intellectual process of detective work, but its results were
extremely practical: At last I felt I knew what to do with those prayers! I
am to say them directly to God as preparation for a direct wordless
encounter with Him.
So I immediately tried this out. I spent the next hour or so going through
the first twenty prayers in Part II, praying them as I had just discovered I
should. I will never forget that time. It was a pivotal moment in my journey
with the Course. Until that moment, I had no idea how much richness was in
those prayers. What seemed like word salad when read as information became a
wealth of emotional experience when repeated as prayer, when spoken to God.
I was astonished by the sense of loving intimacy with God that shone through
these prayers. I had never realized that <this> was how the Course wanted me
to think about God. God came across not as a remote metaphysical
abstraction, an impersonal essence that is completely unaware of us.
Instead, He came across as near and dear, as the most attentive, loving
Father one could possibly imagine, always there, always listening, always
answering, wanting only to lavish all of His Love upon us. "He covers me
with kindness and with care" (W-pII.222.1:4), one of the lessons said. And
that is exactly how I felt, blanketed in His kindness and care.
Since that day, these prayers have become a staple in my daily life. There
are few things I enjoy doing more than sitting down and spending time with
them. They have literally transformed my relationship with God. My sense of
God before was somewhat remote and abstract. Yet increasingly these prayers
have implanted in me <their> sense of God, so that my feeling for Him has
become a deep well of sustenance and comfort that I draw from daily.
As time went on, I fell into the habit of using these prayers before my
meditation time, because I found them to be the ideal way to prepare my mind
for seeking God in meditation. They gathered the scattered and chaotic
threads of my thought into a single desire to be with God. After I had been
using them in this way for some time, I remembered something: <This is
exactly what they are for>. This is what the instructions in the Workbook
say is their purpose. We are to use the words of these prayers to prepare
our minds for a direct, wordless encounter with God. I can attest to the
fact that they serve their intended purpose very well indeed.
I therefore encourage every student of the Course to avail him- or herself
of the great benefit of these prayers. Try them out and see if you are not
drawn to return to them. Here are some tips for getting the most out of
1. <Focus on one line at a time>. Dwell on each line and let it sink in
before going on to the next.
2. <Say it directly to God>. When the prayer says "Father," have a sense of
speaking directly to God, and of Him in some sense hearing you.
3. <Make it from you>. When the prayer says "I" or "me," have a sense of you
being the one saying the prayer.
4. <Mean it>, as much as you can. Try to make it the prayer of your own
5. <Make it specific>. For instance, when the prayer we will use below says
"a something I have called by many names," list some of the names you have
given what you seek.
6. <Feel free to elaborate> on the prayer as it evokes additional thoughts
and feelings in you.
To try out this method of using these prayers, I would like to utilize the
following prayer from Lesson 231, "Father, I will but to remember You." My
suggestion is for you to repeat each line slowly, with concentration and
sincerity. Try to see the fullness of meaning contained in each line. Try
also to go through the prayer twice or more.
1. What can I seek for, Father, but Your Love?
2. Perhaps I think I seek for something else; a something I have called by
3. Yet is Your Love the only thing I seek, or ever sought.
4. For there is nothing else that I could ever really want to find.
5. Let me remember You.
6. What else could I desire but the truth about myself?
What was your experience in repeating these lines? Was it an experience you
want more of? I sincerely hope that the prayers in the Workbook will become
the blessing in your life that they continue to be in mine.
More information about the Acimlessons_list | <urn:uuid:edf4be3c-6a1f-415f-9261-88c6cfbbb0a1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://five.pairlist.net/pipermail/acimlessons_list/2008-September/001667.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962868 | 3,547 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Graduate student Ediuska Laurens was elected as the student representative on the 2007-09 Executive Council of the International Society of Biomechanics. She was chosen over students from Australia, England and Case Western Reserve University. This July, she will represent students from all over the world when she attends her first ISB meeting in Taipei.
Laurens is a second-year doctoral student in the Applied Biomedical Engineering program, a collaborative effort between Cleveland State and the Cleveland Clinic. She does her research at the Clinic’s Lerner Research Institute in the laboratory of biomedical engineer Dr. Tony Calabro. Her area of expertise is using hydrogels as a basis for tissue-engineered devices to replace human tissues.
Laurens holds a master’s degree from SUNY-Buffalo. A native of Venezuela, she is the first person from South America to serve on the ISB Executive Council.
August 14, 2009
Professor of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering Surendra Tewari’s research on the solidification of single-crystal castings gains national scientific prominence
For the last eight years, NASA has seen a significant reduction in federal funding for conducting scientific experiments in outer space. But on August 24, the NASA Space Shuttle Discovery will take six experiments to the International Space Station Freedom’s U.S. Laboratory Module Destiny for low gravity experiments to be conducted by astronauts aboard, and CSU Chemical and Biomedical Engineering Professor Surendra N. Tewari is at the forefront of the U.S. scientific experimentation.
The NASA expedition is part of a collaborative research program with the European Space Agency (ESA). In this first series of six materials science experiments to be conducted on the Space Station, two are U.S.-based and four are European. The U.S. team, consisting of Professor David Poirier and Professor Robert Erdmann (University of Arizona), Professor Tewari (CSU), and Dr. Frank Szofran (NASA-Marshall Space Flight Center), is studying variances in the crystallization of metals in space and on earth.
These experiments aim to understand to what extent convection (the transfer of heat by movement of fluid), which is always present on earth, is responsible for creating defects in castings, and what happens to these defects when solidification is allowed to occur in the significantly reduced convection environment of space. These experiments will examine how single-crystal dendritic castings solidify differently in space, and how growth speed changes influence their grain structure. Single-crystal castings are critical components in high-temperature gas-turbine engines that are used in high-speed aircraft and land-based power turbines.
The technological significance of these experiments is that they will provide the scientific foundation to understanding and controlling how single-crystal castings solidify. It is hypothesized that in space, the single-crystal castings will solidify with more order and less defects. The knowledge generated from these experiments will be helpful for the casting industry in improving the processing behavior and eliminating defects, thus reducing the number of manufactured items that have to be rejected.
Destiny is the primary research laboratory for U.S. payloads, supporting a wide range of experiments and studies contributing to health, safety and quality of life for people all over the world. Science conducted on the Station offers researchers an unparalleled opportunity to test physical processes in the absence of gravity. The results of these experiments will allow scientists to better understand our world and ourselves and prepare us for future missions, perhaps to the Moon and Mars.
Dr. Tewari is available to discuss his research. To arrange an interview or for more information, contact the CSU University Marketing Office at 216.523.7279.
Read the Plain Dealer post for additional details. | <urn:uuid:9c2b37ec-2e4c-4e6c-9238-3f766fcb4911> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://csuohio.edu/engineering/chemical/news/ | 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 | 0.927853 | 781 | 2.03125 | 2 |
Mt. Edgecumbe High School Students present at ASSEF
Three projects, won their category competition.
Eight Mt. Edgecumbe High School students enrolled in UAS Sitka’s BIOL S193 Molecular Ecology class participated in the Alaska State Science and Engineering Fair (ASSEF) in Anchorage March 19th. This dual enrollment class focuses on students developing and completing original research on locally relevant biological questions and is taught by Kitty LaBounty, Assistant Professor of Biology at UAS and Chohla Moll from Mt. Edgecumbe High School. The ISEF affiliated event is a juried poster session with preliminary and final rounds. Students enter their project in a specific category, e.g. microbiology, plant sciences, Biochemistry, computer science, engineering, etc. Three projects, won their category competition. The winning project in the Microbiology section that of Deedre Deaton and Abigayle Fisher, The microbial communities associated with the rhizosphere of healthy and unhealthy stands of Chamaecyparis nootkatensis.
Two students, Catherine Riley and Talia Ayunerak won the plant sciences category with their projects; Molecular comparison of Vaccinium ovalifolium and Vaccinium alaskense and Taxonomic Examination of Cornus Canadensis, Cornus suecica, and Cornus unalaschensis using Molecular Methods.
Richard Corbett’s project The Identification of Nitrifying Bacteria over a Course of Time in the Indian Riparian Zone won the Society for InVitro Biology Award by an 11th grade student.
The Mt. Edgecumbe team also won the best school projects award and Ms. Chohla Moll won the best high school science teacher.
Photo: Talia Ayunerak with her winning project. | <urn:uuid:ee2abcaa-76f3-4724-bfa0-5435588afabe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.uas.alaska.edu/soundings/archive-files/2011/04/edgecumbe-assef.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917628 | 373 | 2.046875 | 2 |
Featured Clinical Trials Supported by the National Cancer Institute
Today, thousands of cancer clinical trials are under way in the United States. Clinical trials answer vital research questions that lead to better screening, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment options for all cancers. This section highlights NCI-supported cancer trials and demonstrates the breadth of clinical cancer research supported by the Institute.
To find other cancer trials open to enrollment:
- Call NCI's Cancer Information Service at 1-800-4-CANCER (1-800-422-6237) for information about trials all across the country. The call is toll-free and completely confidential.
- Use the clinical trials search form to look online for trials listed on NCI's Cancer.gov Web site. The form has a Help link for tips about searching for clinical trials.
- For information about cancer trials taking place on the National Institutes of Health campus in Bethesda, Maryland, call NCI’s Clinical Trials Referral Office at 1-888-NCI-1937 (1-888-624-1937). The call is toll-free and completely confidential.
(Posted: 11/13/2012) - In this phase I clinical trial, patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer who are about to undergo chemoradiation therapy will consume a very low-carbohydrate ketogenic diet for the duration of their treatment.
Comparing Relaxation Programs for Breast Cancer Patients Receiving Radiotherapy
(Posted: 10/16/2012) - In this study, women with breast cancer who have had surgery and are scheduled to undergo radiation therapy will be randomly assigned to one of two different stretching and relaxation programs or to a control group that will receive usual care.
Comparing Radiation Therapy Regimens for Early-Stage Breast Cancer
(Posted: 10/02/2012) - In this phase III clinical trial, women with early-stage breast cancer will be randomly assigned to undergo a standard 5-week course of whole-breast irradiation (WBI) followed by a sequential boost course or 3 weeks of hypofractionated WBI with a concurrent boost.
Treating KSHV-Associated Multicentric Castleman Disease
(Posted: 09/18/2012) - In this pilot study, patients with KSHV-associated multicentric Castleman disease will receive intravenous tocilizumab every other week for up to 12 weeks. Patients who do not benefit from tocilizumab therapy alone may go on to receive high-dose AZT and valganciclovir in addition to tocilizumab.
Targeting Invasive Glioma Cells
(Posted: 09/04/2012) - In this trial, patients with glioblastoma that has not responded to standard postoperative therapy or that has progressed will be treated with varying amounts of a Trk inhibitor called AZD7451 to determine the maximum tolerated dose and the side effects of this drug. | <urn:uuid:944b0196-85a9-4350-a016-f2d7dbf75334> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nci.nih.gov/clinicaltrials/featured?page=2&RecordsPerPage=5&Offset=5 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.904991 | 608 | 1.726563 | 2 |
A Gathering Opposition Faces a Weakened Regime
July 14, 2009
By Robin Wright
How much has changed for Iran in one occasionally breathtaking month. The erratic uprising is becoming as important as the Islamic revolution 30 years ago -- and not only for Iran. Both redefined political action throughout the Middle East.
The costs are steadily mounting for the regime. Just one day before the June 12 presidential election, the Islamic republic had never been so powerful. Tehran had not only survived three decades of diplomatic isolation and economic sanctions but had emerged a regional superpower, rivaled only by Israel. Its influence shaped conflicts and politics from Afghanistan to Lebanon.
But the day after the election, the Islamic republic had never appeared so vulnerable. The virtual militarization of the state has failed to contain the uprising, and its tactics have further alienated and polarized society. It has also shifted the focus from the election to Iran's leadership.
Just a day before the election, Iran also had the best opportunity in 30 years to end its pariah status. Since the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy, Tehran has sparred with five U.S. administrations. President Obama's offer of direct engagement is the most generous to date. He had the world's major powers and a growing number of Americans on board.
The tide has turned. At its summit in Italy last week, the Group of Eight industrialized nations "deplored" the post-election crackdown and urged "democratic dialogue" with the opposition. At his news conference there, Obama noted the G-8's "strong condemnation about the appalling treatment of peaceful protesters post-election in Iran" and "behavior that just violates basic international norms."
Given its advancing nuclear technology and regional influence, Iran believed before the election that it held the trump cards in any negotiations. Now, politically disgraced, it is the needy one. Yet Washington might also pay a price for engaging with a government that brutalizes its people. Any involvement could effectively bestow legitimacy on a disputed election and reject the transparency and justice that protesters are seeking.
The uprising has transformed Iran's political landscape. Over the past month, dozens of disparate political factions have coalesced into two rival camps: the New Right and the New Left.
The core of the New Right is a second generation of revolutionaries, called principlists, who have wrested control of the security instruments and increasingly pushed their elders aside -- at least for now. It includes Mojtaba Khamenei, the supreme leader's son and chief of staff; Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi, a presidential adviser and campaign manager; Intelligence Minister Gholam Hossein Mohseni-Ejehei; Interior Minister Sadegh Mahsouli; Major Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari of the Revolutionary Guards; Basij commander Hasan Taeb; influential commentators such as Hossein Shariatmadari, editor of the newspaper Kayhan; and industry titans like Mehrbad Bazrpash, the former cabinet minister for youth affairs who now heads Saipa, the automobile manufacturer.
The New Left is a de facto coalition of disparate interest groups that found common cause in anger after the election. The name comes from opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, who was considered leftist as prime minister in the 1980s, and the opposition's goal is to open up the rigid theocracy.
Its organization, tools and strategy are weak, but it is the most extensive coalition since the 1979 revolution. The New Left includes former presidents, cabinet ministers and members of parliament as well as vast numbers of young people (the dominant demographic), the most politically active women in the Islamic world, white-collar professionals and inflation-sapped laborers.
What was a political divide has become a schism. Many Iranian leaders served time together in the shah's jails; today, their visions of the Islamic republic differ so sharply that reconciliation would be almost impossible.
What happens next will be determined by three factors: leadership, unity and momentum.
The opposition is most vulnerable on leadership. The big unanswered question is whether Mousavi, a distinctly uncharismatic politician, can lead the new opposition over the long term. He was an accidental leader of the reform movement, more the product of public sentiment than the creator of it. Without dynamic direction, the opposition may look elsewhere.
The regime is most vulnerable on unity. Many government employees, including civil servants and members of the military, have long grumbled about the strict theocracy. In 1997, a government poll found that 84 percent of the Revolutionary Guards, which include many young men merely fulfilling national service, voted for Mohammad Khatami, the first reform president.
Momentum may be the decisive factor. The regime will need to shift public attention to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's second-term agenda. Though Ahmadinejad blames the outside world for the protests, he may focus on regional or international goals to win the legitimacy that his presidency is unable to get at home.
For the opposition, the calendar of Shiite rites, Persian commemorations and revolutionary markers is rich with occasions to spark demonstrations. The opposition also has supporters in Iran's parliament who are likely to challenge Ahmadinejad's cabinet choices and economic proposals. Further arrests and future trials could also spark new tension. With each flash point, the regime's image is further tainted, its legitimacy undermined.
Robin Wright, a former Post reporter, is the author of "Dreams and Shadows: The Future of the Middle East" and is a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. | <urn:uuid:f985a407-b740-4059-ae06-09cd706b1891> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.robinwrightblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/tipping-point-in-tehran.html | 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 | 0.961341 | 1,133 | 2.21875 | 2 |
Today is January 8, the year 2031. It has been two decades since the great war started. Twenty million people have died and the last of the world’s three governments are on the brink of collapse. Anarchy is the new world order. We read about this day in our holy books when we were young. We were told that smoke and artillery would block out the face of the sun and that every man would turn against his brother for food. It has all come true. One thing is clear though, this is just the beginning. The end is not yet near. In this day, we fear not the threat of disease or natural calamity. We fear war. The war that has caused fathers to rise against their own flesh; blood against blood. In this day, happy are those who die by suicide. Death is indeed a rare commodity. Surely John had seen this day when he wrote “In those days people will seek death but will not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee from them!”
It is winter and the temperatures average at 7 degrees in central Tunisia during this period of the year. An old man in shabby clothing makes his way through Boulevard Mohammed Bouazizi, in the capital of Sidi Bouzid. He keeps to the shadows as he is trying his best to conceal his identity. The last thing he wants is someone to know who he is. A wanted man. It’s been two decades since he was last seen here but people never forget. His name is Habib Ali, an ex-municipal officer with the former Tunisian regime that was ousted twenty years ago, in the revolution of January 14, 2011. He crosses the street and breaks in to a slight run. He is old and his feeble feet can hardly hold pace. After ten minutes, he arrives at the Garaat Bennour cemetery and heads straight to a grave in the far end. Tears begin to well up in his eyes as he kneels beside the tombstone. He is heartbroken and knows heaven will never forgive him for what he did. The grave belongs to Tarek el-Tayyib Mohamed Ben Bouazizi the young street vendor who started the revolution.
These are the events that took place on December 17th of 2010.
Habib reported to work early and as usual, he found his boss waiting for him obviously to brief him of the duties of the day. She was upset. He knew why. He had not completed his tasks for the previous day. It was unusual for Habib not to carry out his duties well and so Fedya (his boss) wanted an explanation. You see, Habib had been ordered to arrest and confiscate the wares of illegitimate vendors along the streets in the municipal. Since he had once been a vendor himself, he understood the plight of these vendors so he ignored the directive and hoped Fedya would forget the issue. Habib also felt bad that he knew how such operations ended. Usually after being arrested, a vendor usually had to bribe the municipal officials to be released. Habib didn’t want to be the one to oppress the poor. After all, these were young people who had been forced to their situation by the system. But he couldn’t explain his dilemma to Fedya. He had four children and desperately needed this job to take care of his family.
After enduring a twenty minute verbal hurricane, Habib went out to meet his juniors who were waiting outside in the municipal van. He knew he didn’t have any option but to reel the vendors in. The raid lasted for a long half hour and in the end they had arrested fifteen illegal vendors. They collected bribes from all vendors except one who claimed he couldn’t raise the 400 Dinars demanded for release. The junior officers took this as an act of defiance and immediately set on the vendor with kicks and blows. This escalated when the vendor obviously enraged by now demanded to see the governor and report the matter. Habib ordered his juniors to stand down but it was too late, Fedya was already on the scene.
She had come to complete the work he couldn’t finish. She ordered the juniors to hold up the vendor so she could teach him a lesson. She slapped him hard across the face and spat on him for what seemed like an eternity. She then went on to throw his electronic scales and vegetables on the street as her juniors toppled his cart over. They left him bleeding and whimpering on the street. Habib stood there in disbelief as the crowd also went silent obviously shocked at what had happened. It was later to be stated by a senior official in the municipality that one did not need any permit to sell wares from a cart on the street.
In the afternoon when Habib was back at the office, he got a phonecall from a man claiming the vendor whos name was Mohamed Bouazizi was camping outside the governer’s office in protest. The man also added the Bouazizi was threatening to set himself on fire if the governor did not show up. Habib immediately sensed trouble and called his boss Fedya to brief her. In response Fedya accused him of siding with ‘scum’ and cautioned him against correcting her in future. As Habib put down the phone, he knew deep down that there was nothing more he could do. He had a bad feeling about the whole case.
Bouazizi immolated himself in protest that afternoon while the citizens of Tunisia and the whole world watched. It was the kind of protest that comes after many years of torment and oppression. He had passed his message loud and very clear. He was rushed to the Burn and Trauma Centre in the town of Ben Arous where he died eighteen days later on the 4th of January 2011. In the days that followed, citizens took to the street in protest and on the 14th of January they ousted President Ben Ali who they claimed had led their country to ruins. In a matter of days, the Arab world was rocked by similar protests and immolations. One after the other, the tyrants fell like dominoes. Oil prices shot up and the third great war began. It is funny how money and religion always find their way back into the same bed.
Fedya was captured by the citizens and reportedly executed in an undisclosed location in the outskirts of the capital city. Her family is still looking for her twenty years on. They believe there is a chance she could be alive. As for Habib, he fled to Algeria and started a new family there. He never contacted his first family again for fear he would put them in danger. He still feels he was responsible for the war. He believes that he could have handled it differently and snuffed out the spark that started the fire. At the same time he holds in deep respect, the man Tarek el-Tayyib Mohamed Ben Bouazizi. The vegetable vendor who delivered the world from the worst of its tyrants.
It is dark and the sound of gunfire and wailing can be heard in Tunisia. Habib kneels and bows down to pray. He knows he might die tomorrow because he is planning to give himself up to the people he oppressed twenty years earlier. He believes he will find redemption for the things he did in the hope that through his story, the domino effect will stop.
“Inshallah. Thy will be done” he mutters as he stands to leave the grave side.
I hope our governments will learn from the revolution in Tunisia. I dedicate this post to the leader of arguably the biggest revolution in the world, Mohamed Bouazizi (March 29, 1984 – January 4, 2011; Arabic: محمد البوعزيزي)
‘The government drove him to do what he did; they never gave him a chance. We are poor and they thought we had no power. My son is lost, but look what is happening, how many people are now getting involved.’ -Menobia Bouazizi, mother to Mohamed Bouazizi | <urn:uuid:f83e37e2-8e13-4536-8ecc-0be35bbd3ef4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://michaelngigi.wordpress.com/2011/02/23/dominoes/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.989788 | 1,682 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Before inaugural Mass, Pope speaks by phone to crowd in Buenos Aires
CWN - March 19, 2013
Pope Francis made an unexpected phone call to his native Argentina early on Tuesday morning, to speak to thousands of people who had gathered in the main square of Buenos Aires to watch the inaugural Mass of his pontificate on large-screen video monitors.
The crowd in the Plaza de Mayo had assembled in the early hours of the morning, since the inaugural Mass, scheduled for 9:30 am Rome time, would be at 5:30 am in Buenos Aires. Shortly after 3:30 am, the speakers in the square began carrying the voice of the city’s former archbishop, prompting a roar of applause.
An Argentine newspaper reported that the Pope had placed the call to the rector of the cathedral, who was then able to patch the call to the Plaza de Mayo. “I want to ask for us to walk together, to care for one another, for you to care for each other,” the Pope said. "Don't forget this bishop, who though far away, cares so much for you,” the Pope said. “Pray for me," he requested, before giving the crowd his blessing.
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Posted by: Minnesota Mary -
Mar. 20, 2013 1:01 PM ET USA
I hope Pope Francis makes a phone call or sends a letter to be read this Palm Sunday at his childhood parish, The Basilica of San Jose de Flores, where he was scheduled to say Mass this coming Palm Sunday. It was in this very church, in the confessional, that he discerned that God was calling him to the Priesthood. | <urn:uuid:451304cd-db01-40e4-9022-d5ccb989767f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=17364 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969503 | 466 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Galaxy census one of the first ASKAP projects
- 08 October, 2012 10:17
The Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) radio telescope which officially opened on Friday in WA is already in demand with a galaxy census and black hole research among the projects planned for the next five years.
CSIRO SKA Australia and New Zealand director, Doctor Brian Boyle, told media during a press briefing that the census of all the local galaxies within a few billion light years of Earth will tell researchers a lot about the local dynamics of the universe.
“That will give us the most accurate map of the mass around us within 2 billion light years and also explain how our Milky Way galaxy was formed,” he said.
“There is another project to study all the magnetic fields in the universe to look at whether or not cosmic magnetism played a vital role in the formation of stars and galaxies.”
In addition, researchers will use the ASKAP radio telescope to map all of the black holes in the universe.
“These are the dense, compact objects which we think actually seed the formation of galaxies,” Boyle said. The starting point for black hole research will be the Centauraus galaxy, over 11 million light years from Earth.
According to Boyle, the Centaurus galaxy has a black hole in the middle which is 50 million times the mass of the Sun.
“We now think that black holes are ubiquitous in the formation of galaxies but we can’t study them very easily because we don’t have the wide fielder view capability,” he said.
Boyle added that science observations will start taking place before the end of 2012.
While it is not the primary goal of the ASKAP or Square Kilometre Array (SKA) telescope projects to find extraterrestrial life, Boyle said that the power of the ASKAP radio telescope could make the interception of deep space radio signals from other planets easier.
“As you are surveying the sky, particularly over wide areas of sky looking for other objects, you are also increasing the search volume for signals from extra-terrestrial life,” he said.
“We don’t really know where we would look first so the best thing is to try and look everywhere if possible.”
According to Boyle, CSIRO scientists know of at least 1000 planets beyond Earth’s solar system. However, none of these planets have been “terribly Earth-like” in terms of their potential for harbouring life.
“The universe is certainly teeming with planets but the drive behind ASKAP and SKA are to understand our origins and how galaxies formed,” he said.
“It’s very unlikely that we will detect any [extra-terrestrials] but the impact if we do is pretty high.”
The ASKAP radio telescope was funded at a cost of $152 million by the Commonwealth Government of Australia. The Government also invested $80 million in the Pawsey Centre. A $33 million Cray supercomputer will be built at the Pawsey Centre over the next two years to support ASKAP.
“Research at the Pawsey Centre will have an impact beyond radio astronomy because it will be used in all sorts of areas of data analysis, particularly in the areas of mining and medical applications," Boyle said.
Follow Hamish Barwick on Twitter: @HamishBarwick
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How Web Security Improves Productivity and Compliance
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ESG Whitepaper: Integrated Computing Platform Survey
Data centres, servers, storage and more are being combined for simplified management and cost savings. In this survey, ESG looks at the current and future trends surrounding today’s integrated computing solutions. Download to find out how organisations are more likely to see commit IT budgets to the purchase of integrated solutions. Read more. | <urn:uuid:875ae02e-5ab8-4695-be78-106cde7e0656> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cio.com.au/article/438432/galaxy_census_one_first_askap_projects/?fp=16&fpid=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913114 | 1,010 | 3.03125 | 3 |
The Pacific Northwest can count four more deacons, and the Catholic Sentinel has the scoop:
David Briedwell, a firefighter and paramedic, joined the Catholic Church in 1990. On a Marriage Encounter weekend, he felt grabbed. Before he knew it, he was telling others on the weekend that he was going to become Catholic, joining his wife Sally Marie in her faith.
He started out as a member of St. James Parish in his home town of McMinnville. Like some new Catholics, he drifted away from practicing his faith for awhile. When he returned, he felt welcomed with open arms. That started something.
He offered to mow the lawn at Good Shepherd Church in nearby Sheridan. Pretty soon, he was also counting the weekend collection and doing other jobs. When the priest was reassigned and it appeared no other was coming soon, the clergyman handed the church keys to Briedwell. Eventually, he began serving as a lector, eucharistic minister, sacristan and pastoral associate in Sheridan and Grand Ronde. Then he was named pastoral administrator. On Saturday, Briedwell became a deacon of the church, bound to serve the needy, preach the word and lead sacraments.
“You have to have people praying for you to do this,” says the father of two, citing great support from family and friends.
Briedwell was one of four men ordained as permanent deacons at St. Mary Cathedral. The others are Mike Caldwell, Dennis Desmarais, and Tim Dooley.
The permanent diaconate was revived by the Second Vatican Council. In the U.S., there were only 500 or 600 deacons in the 1970s. There are more than 17,000 now.
In Oregon, 64 permanent deacons visit the sick and prisoners and provide food, clothing and other assistance to needy Oregonians. They help prepare young couples for marriage and instruct those hoping to become Catholic.
The ministry of a deacon is primarily one of service and charity. Deacons are ministers of the word, which means they can proclaim the gospel at Mass, preach and teach in the name of the church. Their sacramental ministry includes baptizing, conducting prayer services, serving as an official church witness to marriage and conducting funerals and wake services.
Archbishop John Vlazny thanked the men and their wives for their willingness to play a role as “servant ministers” in the church’s evangelizing mission.
“First and foremost we ourselves must be men of prayer, integrity, generosity and compassion,” Archbishop Vlazny told the new deacons, offering that as an antidote to “bland Christianity” and “darkened spirits” in the world.
“The extent of the spirituality and generosity of deacons and their wives is reflected over and over again in the way they live their lives together with their families and through their service to the people of God, especially the poor and needy,” the archbishop said.
There’s more at the link. Welcome, brothers — and congratulations! Ad multos annos!
Photo: by Kim Nguyen | <urn:uuid:4ea4953c-705e-42aa-9dec-22f42110de9a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.beliefnet.com/deaconsbench/2008/10/Four-for-Oregon.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977158 | 655 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Pearl sugar, also called hail sugar or nib sugar, is an essential ingredient in many European recipes.
We wholesale to the bakery industry and also retail our pearl sugar throughout Australia / New Zealand under our "Hail Sugar" brand. Click here to order.
Our Pearl sugar (also known as nib sugar and hail sugar) is a product of refined white sugar and is 100% sucrose in composition. The hard, opaque white pearls come in various sizes and do not melt at temperatures typically used for baking. The pearls are made in a unique extrusion process and imported directly from Belgium.
Pearl sugar in general is also known as pärlsocker in Sweden, and as perlesukker in other Scandinavian countries, except Finland, where it is called helmisokeri or more commonly raesokeri ("hailstone sugar").
A complete range of pearl sizes from 0.8 mm 15 mm has been developed to meet your different needs according to your applications.
In Scandinavia, pärlsocker is used extensively to decorate various pastries and confections, cookies, especially on top of plain Swedish bulle or Finnish pulla cakes, muffins and buns, such as kanelbullar (cinnamon buns) and chokladbollar.
In Germany it is known as Hagelzucker and traditionally used on Christmas cookies and cinnamon buns.
In Belgium, it is used in Liège waffles, while in Friesland it is used in sûkerbôle (sugar bread).
Pearl sugar is the indispensable ingredient in the bakery and pastry sectors
Our processes and dedication to quality enable us to offer high and rigorous quality pearls sugar to our customers.
Some of the characteristics include: | <urn:uuid:0411b575-0b31-42d2-8a00-ece1d2c4e4b6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://swaffels.com/pearl_sugar.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938601 | 366 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Too often, the traditional public-school model fails students and teachers. Charter schools, scholarship tax credits, and merit pay are giving students a better education and teachers a better career.
In 2000, Arizona was spending only 57.7 cents of every education dollar in the classroom. That fact helped persuade voters to pass Proposition 301, which boosted the state sales tax to fund classroom spending with higher teacher salaries, more instruction aids and other needs.
During a special session last year, the Arizona Legislature passed a budget provision which said in the event of layoffs, school districts could not use years of service as the only factor for determining which teachers to let go. The Arizona Education Association—the teachers union—is trying to overturn the measure by filing a lawsuit on technical grounds. The union also is opposing a similar measure before the Legislature this year.
Acclaimed historian Paul Johnson has written that it is impossible to know if the fortunes generated by creating empires ultimately outweigh the costs. Regarding Europe, Johnson concluded that the European Age of Empire was ultimately about “colored maps.”
Here then is a colored map for you to consider, courtesy of our friends at the Heritage Foundation, showing Florida’s Hispanic student scores on 4th grade reading compared to the 31 states they either outscored or tied in 2009.
Senator John Huppenthal is sponsoring Senate Bill 1286 to label public schools with a letter grade of A, B, C, D or F, based on overall AIMS test scores and gains in student learning. The proposal is based on education reforms put in place in Florida a decade ago. There schools with D and F grades have significantly improved when faced with losing students. Arizona schools would do the same.
Arizona’s legislative session is nearing the end, with major education reform legislation pending. Most notable of these is the “Truth in Advertising” bill. Senate Bill 1286 will require the state Department of Education to assign letter grades to Arizona public schools based upon overall performance and academic gains over time. The proposal is modeled after similar reforms in Florida.
This session Arizona lawmakers enacted some of the most far-reaching K-12 education reforms in state history. The changes have received little attention from any Arizona media so far. But you can bet you’ll hear much more as the state implements the new laws.
Ten years ago Florida implemented a set of education reforms that transformed their schools from among the worst performers on national tests to among the best. Several of the bills that Governor Brewer has signed into law are modeled on Florida’s success.
In February, I wrote an article about the graduation rates at our community colleges and universities. I pointed out that they are near the bottom of national rankings. ABC 15 did a story focusing on Arizona State University’s four-year graduation rate of 28 percent.
When the Arizona Capitol Times hosted a public discussion on Sept. 9 about higher education, the first question from the audience was about the recent Goldwater Institute study on administrative bloat at Arizona universities. An interesting objection was raised by Dr. Bernie Ronan, an associate vice chancellor of the Maricopa County Community College District. | <urn:uuid:9e99f2d7-4741-48dd-9f5e-9a5f867e7a04> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/education-reform-0?page=12 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964395 | 644 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Hate Crimes & Bias-Related Incident Protocol
Saint Louis University is committed to creating an inclusive environment that respects the fundamental dignity of all human beings. As part of this commitment, the University has developed the Hate Crime and Bias-Related Incident Protocol to provide a caring, effective, and uniform response to any member of the SLU community who reports a hate crime or bias-related incident, or who is the victim of a hate crime or bias-related incident.
What is a hate crime?
Pursuant to federal law, a hate crime is a criminal act, where an individual willfully causes bodily injury to any person, or attempts to do so through the use of fire, a firearm, a dangerous weapon, or an explosive or incendiary device, because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability of any person. 18 U.S.C. § 249.
What is a bias-related incident?
Not all hateful behavior rises to the level of a crime. The protocol uses the term “bias-related incidents” to refer to any act or behavior that is a violation of the Code of Student Conduct and/or the Policy on Harassment and reasonably believed to be motivated by a consideration (real or perceived) of race, sex, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, disability, age, sexual orientation, marital status, military status, veteran status, pregnancy, or any other protected classification. | <urn:uuid:d447a362-fa76-4b91-86ef-925dcc6e4bab> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://slu.edu/x38951.xml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.906302 | 307 | 2.59375 | 3 |
My most lasting impression is that there is a growing field of research, which is at a stage where it could advance rapidly. Good work has been done over the last several decades, which has given us a store of results, hypotheses, conjectured laws and principles, methods etc which provide a good foundation for continued work. But much remains to be done before there can be a claim that these results add up to an approach to economic theory and modeling that can take over from the neoclassical paradigm as the foundation of economic theory.
To say that there is a field of research is not the same as saying that there is a theory or approach that everyone agrees on. Quite the opposite, what we saw was several distinct strands of thought, each with their own methodology, some of which were meeting each other for the first time. There is no consensus about the right way to approach economics out of equilibrium, even among those who take this as their goal. Even within approaches that share a common methodology, such as agent based models, we saw at least three very different frameworks based on different philosophies as to how agents are modeled and what the aim is. What makes it possible to group these diverse projects within a single field is so far only that they share a common aim, which is to develop an approach to economics which is dynamical and capable of describing markets out of equilibrium. For this goal to succeed it is not necessary that these directions become part of an eventual successful theory. But at least some of us suspect that there are latent and possibly important relationships between some of the directions, such as agent based models, insights from biology and the gauge theoretic approach. If this is right then there is a great deal to be gained from cross talk and collaboration amongst these approaches.
What should this field, which aims to be go beyond the study of equilibrium economics, be called? The term econophysics is useful but not general enough as we are not all physicists. Leigh Tesfatsion uses the term “non-equilibrium dynamical model (NED).” One possibility would be to shorten this to dynamical economics, as dynamical implies that it can encompass both non-equilibriium and equilibrium.
Another alternative is nonequilibrium economics, but this recalls the confusion between physicists and economists notions of equilibrium, due to the suggestion that the economists notion of equilibrium may correspond to a physicists’ notion of non-equilibrium steady state. Dynamical brings to mind the neoclassical conception of equilibrium as analogous to a static balance of forces. It encompasses everything having to do with the dynamics of an economy, ie with evolution in time. This includes agent based models and the gauge theoretic approaches.
Leigh Tesfatsion’s definition of NED I believe applies:
“A model of an economic system is an NED model if and only if the model generates the motion of the economic state between at least two **distinct** time points without dependence on external coordination conditions ("skyhooks"), i.e., coordination conditions imposed outside of any structural conditions, institutional arrangements, and behaviors arising from within the modeled economy.”
The biggest question that I am left with from the conference is whether there can be unification or at least cross talk amongst different approaches that could be so characterized. A possible route to this would be a unifying idea. Here is a candidate for one: the notion of path dependence in economic dynamics. This comes from the ecological and complex systems approaches to economics, as cycles are central to those programs, through Morowitz’s 1968 cycle theorem. We saw evidence for the importance of cycles in Kelly John Rose’s presentation and there were hints of it in some of the discussions of agent based models.
Path dependence is also the central idea of the gauge theory, as discussed by Pia Malaney and Eric Weinstein. The key insight of the gauge theory approach is that evolution of a market in time is generically path dependent, as a consequence of embodying in the mathematics the decomposition of a history of a portfolio or inventory into components of substitution, during which value doesn’t change, and growth, during which it does. This is the definition of what mathematicians call a connection. The efficient market hypothesis characterizes equilibrium as equivalent to path independence, which is in turn related to no-arbitrage. Hence, the evolution out of and fluctuations around equilibrium are path dependent, hence they are measured by what mathematicians call curvatures of the gauge connection. That is, in a gauge system the observables are connected with cycles; what they measure is path dependence around closed curves. This way of looking at it suggest that gauge invariance is a deep notion that underlies the dynamics of economics out of equilibrium, but the proof must be in what results this leads to.
Could the notion of gauge invariance be helpful for agent-based approaches? This is a step towards investigating the power of the notion of path dependence. This has been the particular interest of our small PI effort, with Sam Vazquez, Simone Severini and others, and what we have found is that gauge invariance can be imposed on agent based models and it helps to constrain the freedom in the choice of dynamics and point to interesting observables for measuring departures from equilibrium. Big questions remain such as whether the gauge invariance should be fundamental, or should be emergent, say when price discovery happens.
Another way to seek to bring the approaches together is to articulate common goals. Here is an attempt to do that:
Main goals of this field.
- Develop a new theory of economics which extends neoclassical economics by discovering principles and laws which govern the dynamics of economies and markets.
- Build a suite of toy models to illustrate and test these principles. These will be primarily agent based models, but they will be supported and checked by various analytic approximations.
- Build a family of increasingly more realistic models to be compared to real markets, against real data. This is the goal of the test-bed that Leigh talks about. Develop a common format and language for both the toy and more realistic models and make them modular and open source, so that different researchers and groups may contribute their own ideas and models within the overall project.
- Develop a family of data sets which can be used to test models against, and make them available in a common format for download from a project web page. It would be good if this data set encompasses several if not many countries as well as as long a time span as is practicable. As Danny Goroff emphasized, the construction, formatting and maintanence of these data sets are major efforts in themselves. Another point, raised by Sabine Hossenfelder, is that it would be very good to develop visualization tools to help in working with the data sets.
- After sufficient development of models and testing against data sets the goal is the construction of tools for policy makers which might then be used “in the basements of central banks.”
- Finally, integrate these newer approaches to economics with neoclassical economics, as the former, to the extent that they succeed, represent a deepening of the latter and are built on it rather than in opposition to it.
These goals are interconnected and it is likely that major progress in any of them will go hand in hand with progress in the others. A great deal has been done with agent based models, and, as Doyne Farmer emphasized, some laws and hypotheses are known. But I don’t think it is the case that there is yet a principle based theory of the dynamics of economics on the same level of robustness and canonicalness of the neoclassical theory of economic equilibrium.
A final way to seek to connect approaches is through common questions, so this is my last list.
Some key issues going forward from the conference
Here are the issues we wrote down on the board during the last morning as well as some which have been mentioned or occurred to me since. I would invite others to contribute their own.
- What is the important data to explain/match? Where can it be found, how easy is it to get? Does there need to be work to define data sets and make them available online in specified formats?
- Can we specify the minimal elements a model must have to be considered an “in principle” model of a market or an economy.
- Can we specify the minimal elements a model must have to have the possibility of modeling a real world modern economy?
- Can we define a framework, test-bed, set of protocols etc to define a class of economic models to allow them to be interchanged and developed efficiently?
- What are the observables of an economic model? Are there unobvious observables? Are all the things in models genuinely observable? Are there non-obvious observables such as those associated with cycles? Is it a problem that many economic models/theories have elements such as utilities that are not observable? The notion of gauge invariance strongly constrains the choice of observables in physics, will it play a similarly powerful role in picking out the observables of economics?
- What is the role of unobservables in economic models, such as utilities? Can models be constructed without them? Or, is there a necessary place in the model to represent the large variability in how real people and corporations make decisions, which are not readable off the economic data? That is, is it possible that the utilities represent factors that are and will remain unknown to the theorist that do influence market decisions? The goal of an economic theory and models may then be to understand and model a system, within the constraint that a component of the causes for decisions are unobservable to the modeler, because they are in the heads of the people involved?
- What are the goals of economic modeling? Given Taleb’s point that we cannot hope to predict unusual events that have strong influence on markets, are there still questions that can be answered and patterns that can be found and understood? Can we investigate questions such as how to construct more or less stable markets, or possible tradeoffs between rate of growth and stability, without being able to predict exactly how a market will evolve?
- What is the role of cycles in economic models? How relevant is Morowitz’s cycle theorem? A common theme of diverse approaches to non-equilibrium economics is path dependence. This arises in cycles in models of complex economies, including Kelly John Rose’s model of the US economy, it is also the key point in the application of gauge fields to economics. Is the role of cycles and path dependence a key insight which provides the basis for a unification of these diverse approaches?
- Would it be interesting and novel to develop agent based models of trade among many countries? What questions could such models investigate? Would it be good to see if a dynamical economics approach could confirm or correct the principle of comparative advantage?
- The role of innovation, technological development etc, appear to offer opportunities and challenges for theories of economics. They are good challenges because innovation is at the same time central to economic growth and impossible to predict in detail.
- To what extent is market regulation a computer science problem? Given that all the major markets are instantiated in software and run across computer networks, can we conceive of the goal of stable markets, regulated as well as designed to be self-stablizing, which contribute to economic growth without being parasitic on it, as a design problem in computer science. Could we make use of experience computer scientists have of designing stable, dynamic networks?
- Can we give meaning to the slogan, “economics is the continuation of natural selection by other means”? One hypothesis is that when accounting is invented there comes into existence a new entity, called the economic agent, which the books refer to. Whether this is an individual, family or a firm, it has specific existence and properties by virtue of the fact that books are kept of its activities. Is it possible that this economic agent defined by accounting becomes a unit of selection?
- Can we define a sufficient set of characteristics, which define human behavior in market situations to design agents which are realistic mimics of human agents?
- On the other hand, are there questions about markets for which the answers involve appeal to a universality class of models, where all or most of the specification of properties of agents become irrelevant? To put this differently, can we distinguish the relevant from the irrelevant parameters in microscopic models of agent interactions?
- There seem to be two very distinct ways in which biology and evolution enters the discussion of economics. One, as a better understood example of a complex, self-organized system, from which ideas and strategies for economics have been drawn. Second, as a source of knowledge about how real human beings behave within markets. There does not appear to me to be a strong relation between these two claims for the relevance of biology to economics. Is this a problem?
- Several times in the discussion there appeared evidence that in the real markets, at least recently, the majority of traders occupy a small number of positions in the spaces of positions and strategies. This point was made by people with experience in the markets, as well as by Sasha Outkin and Mike Brown in their discussion of the NASDAQ model. This appears to contradict the efficient market hypothesis, which holds that the market embodies all the information available to it in prices because all possible positions are taken. It is only if positions are held on all sides that equilibrium, in the sense of a static balance of opposing forces, can obtain, in a high dimensional space of products and prices. It is also only if a large number of strategies have been covered that arbitrage can be eliminated. If this it is really the case that a very small number of positions dominate markets, is this characteristic of dangerously unstable or overleveraged markets, or a general characteristic of metastable equilibria which is not captured by the efficient market hypothesis?
- What are the next steps for developing this research program and field?
The talks of this conference have been recorded and can be found in the PIRSA Collection C09006.
Other reports on the conference: Barkley Rosser from EconoSpeak: Do We Need an "Economic Manhattan Project"?, Steve Hsu from Information Processing: Economics, ant farmers and free will theorems, and some photos here.
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung had an article "Die Vermessung der Krise" by Jordan Mejias who reported on the meeting. You can find an English translation on Edge here.
Related postings on this blog: The Trouble with Economics, Assumptions and Limitations, Science and the Economic Crisis, This is Your Economy on Drugs, When Capitalism Fails, and the Recession Playlist. | <urn:uuid:e8d08027-94a3-41b7-93a3-1e4d50182ebe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2009/05/reflections-from-pis-economics.html?showComment=1242240060000 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956592 | 3,033 | 2.03125 | 2 |
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...you can learn Spanish at a variety of locations in the UK aswell as on residential and day courses in Spain?
Regardless of your standard, and whatever level you wish to reach Cactus Language has a program to suit your needs!
- For Whom the Road Tolls
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- Join us on the Costa del Sol to discuss your Spanish IHT requirements
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- Own a Property in Spain ? Then you need to read the following
- EU Summit Eagerly Anticipated
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Europe considers EU bailout aid for banks
The European Central Bank and a group of euro zone countries are working on a possible initiative to enable crisis-stricken banks to have direct access to Europe's permanent bailout fund, German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung wrote on Thursday, without citing sources.
"According to the Sueddeutsche Zeitung's information, a group of euro zone countries will check in the next two weeks how credit could be directly transferred to banks that are strapped for cash but able to survive," the paper said, noting, however, that Germany strongly opposed this.
"The reason for the haste is the crisis in Spain and the worry that this could spread to further euro countries."
According to the existing agreements, countries rather than banks can tap the European Stability Mechanism.
The Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported earlier this month that there was a dispute over the allocation of funds in the common currency bloc and that some officials of the ECB and a number of euro zone countries were pressing for a relaxation of the terms under which Europe's bailout mechanism can dispense aid.
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Toys "R" Us, the nation’s largest toy retailer, was ordered today by the Federal Trade Commission to stop engaging in illegal practices that keep toy prices higher and reduce choice for consumers. Toys "R" Us, the FTC said, was concerned that warehouse clubs -- with substantially lower prices -- presented a threat to its low-price image and its profits. The Commission determined that to eliminate this threat, Toys "R" Us used its dominant position as a toy distributor to extract agreements from and among toy manufacturers to stop selling to warehouse clubs the same toys that they sold to other toy distributors. The Commission’s opinion, authored by FTC Chairman Robert Pitofsky, explains that Toys "R" Us wanted "to prevent consumers from comparing the price and quality of products in the clubs to the price and quality of the same toys displayed and sold at Toys "R" Us, and thereby to reduce the effectiveness of the clubs as competitors."
"Toys "R" Us rose to its current position as the largest toy retailer in the United States by offering a larger selection of toys than any other retailer at the lowest prices," said Chairman Pitofsky. "Indeed, a remarkable irony of this case is that if the law were as Toys "R" Us contends -- if a large [retailer] could cut off or encumber a new or innovative [company’s] source of supply by exercising market power against suppliers -- then Toys "R" Us, itself an innovative marketer resented by larger and less dynamic [companies] a generation ago, could have been denied an opportunity to compete on the merits and win in the marketplace."
Toys "R" Us, based in Paramus, New Jersey, has about 650 stores located throughout the United States and roughly another 300 stores in foreign countries. Toys "R" Us offers an assortment of about 11, 000 individual toy items throughout the year. The company also buys about 30 percent or more of the large toy companies’ total output and is usually their most important customer. Toy manufacturers who participated in the boycott account for 40 percent of all toy sales in the United States and therefore have market power, the Commission determined. According to the Commission, no other toy retailer carries as many toys or purchases such a large percentage of the toy manufacturers’ output.
The Commission noted that retail margins enjoyed by different types of retailers vary widely. Toys "R" Us’ average margins are close to 30 percent above cost. Warehouse clubs sell toys at prices as low as 9 percent above wholesale cost.
In the past, when Toys "R" Us faced new, lower-priced competition from Wal-Mart, Target and other regional and national discount chains, Toys "R" responded by lowering its own toy prices and improving the presentation of toys in Toys "R" Us stores. The Commission found, however, that Toys "R" Us behaved quite differently when confronted with the dramatically lower prices of the warehouse clubs. By the end of the 1980s these clubs had emerged as increasingly important toy retailers in much the same way that Wal-Mart and the other discounters had done before. The warehouse clubs -- by reducing costs, selling branded products at low prices and increasing product turnover -- soon became the fastest growing retail outlet of toys. Contemporary estimates predicted that they would grow to occupy a significant percentage of the toy market, bringing down retail prices in all channels of distribution as they grew.
Fearing that warehouse clubs presented a greater threat than Wal-Mart and Target had to Toys "R" Us’ prices and profits, Toys "R" Us planned to restrict or cut off the clubs’ supply of key toy products. The Commission found that Toys "R" Us did this by inducing its suppliers to sell to the clubs only toys that were unique and highly differentiated -- most often so-called "combo" packages of two or more toys -- from the toys sold to Toys "R" Us. According to the Commission, beginning in 1992, Toys "R" Us entered into vertical agreements with 10 manufacturers to restrict their sales to clubs. (The 10 toy manufacturers who entered into vertical agreements are: Mattel, Hasbro, Fisher Price, Tyco, Little Tikes, Today’s Kids, Tiger Electronics, VTech, Binney & Smith and Sega.) Toys "R" Us also used the acquiescence of one manufacturer to obtain that of others, orchestrating a horizontal agreement among at least seven manufacturers to adhere to Toys "R" Us’ restrictions. (These seven manufacturers are: Mattel, Hasbro, Fisher Price, Tyco, Little Tikes, Today’s Kids, and Tiger Electronics.) "Through its announced policy and [these] related agreements, Toys "R" Us sought to eliminate the competitive threat the clubs posed by denying them merchandise, forcing the clubs’ customers to buy products they did not want, and frustrating consumers’ ability to make direct price comparisons of club prices and Toys "R" Us prices," the opinion states.
The Commission further found that Toys "R" Us enforced the agreements by fielding complaints from toy manufacturers about their competitors’ sales to warehouse clubs. When manufacturers complained that a competitor was selling to warehouse clubs, Toys "R" Us again threatened to stop buying that competitor’s products and got its renewed acquiescence to the sales restrictions.
The FTC announced its complaint against Toys "R" Us in May 1996. The charges were upheld by Administrative Law Judge James P. Timony in a September 1997 decision. Toys "R" Us appealed, and the Commission heard oral argument on February 19, 1998.
The Commission agreed with Judge Timony that Toys "R" Us "halted a pattern of rapid growth of toy sales at the clubs" and noted that the "boycott hobbled individual clubs’ toy business." Citing warehouse club Costco’s experience, the Commission found that "while its overall growth on sales of all products during the period 1991 to 1993 was 25 percent, Costco’s toy sales increased during the same period by 51 percent. But, after the boycott took hold in 1993, Costco’s toy sales decreased by 1.6 percent despite total sales growth of 19.5 percent." The Commission also pointed out that reversal of the clubs’ success as toy retailers can also be seen by examining individual toy manufacturer’s sales to the clubs. For example, Mattel’s sales to warehouse clubs declined from over $23 million in 1991 to $7.5 million in 1993.
The opinion underscores that the most significant effect of the agreements was to eliminate competition that would have driven Toys "R" Us to lower its prices had Toys "R" Us not taken action to stifle the competitive threat posed by the clubs.
The Commission found that Toys "R" Us’ only asserted justification for its conduct -- that the agreements were necessary to prevent free riding on its advertising and "showroom" status -- was entirely without merit. The toy manufacturers and not Toys "R" Us (or any other retailer) promote toys to consumers, primarily by designing and purchasing television advertising, and Toys "R" Us is compensated for any services it does provide the toy industry, the Commission found.
The Commission used a four prong test that the Supreme Court has set out to provide guidance as to when boycotts are per se illegal under the antitrust laws. The Supreme Court found that these boycotts generally display four common factors. The opinion states that "[w]e conclude from the evidence in this case that each of the factors ... is present." First, the purpose of the group boycott agreement was anticompetitive, in that it was designed to disadvantage competitors of Toys "R" Us. Second, the firms involved (both Toys "R" Us and the manufacturers) were dominant in their markets. Third, the boycott cut off access to products and relationships needed for the boycotted firms to compete effectively. Lastly, the practice was not justified by plausible arguments that it enhanced overall efficiency. "Toys "R" Us and its reluctant collaborators set out to eliminate from the marketplace a form of price competition and a style of service that increasing numbers of consumers preferred," the Commission said.
The Commission also examined Toys "R" Us’ conduct under the full rule of reason and found that its behavior would also be illegal under this more elaborate mode of analysis. The additional factors that the Commission examined were whether Toys "R" Us’ behavior had a significant anticompetitive effect and whether any such effect is outweighed by legitimate business justifications. The Commission found that Toys "R" Us’ orchestrated boycott "had harmful effects for the clubs, for competition, and for consumers" and that there was "no business justification for a boycott that had a pronounced anticompetitive effect."
The Commission’s order prohibits Toys "R" Us from continuing, entering into, or attempting to enter into, vertical agreements with its suppliers to limit the supply of, or refuse to sell, toys to a toy discounter. The order also prohibits Toys "R" Us from facilitating, or attempting to facilitate, an agreement between or among its suppliers relating to the sale of toys to any retailer. Additionally, Toys "R" Us is enjoined from requesting information from suppliers about their sales to any toy discounter, and from urging or coercing suppliers to restrict sales to any toy discounter. According to the Commission, "[t]hese four elements of relief are narrowly tailored to stop, and prevent the repetition of Toys "R" Us’ illegal conduct."
The Commission vote to issue the opinion and order was 4-0, with Commissioner Orson Swindle concurring in part and dissenting in part.
Commissioner Swindle concurred in the Commission majority's determination that Toys "R" Us ("TRU") entered into a series of anticompetitive vertical agreements with various toy manufacturers. However, he found that the evidence in the record was insufficient to support the majority's conclusion that TRU orchestrated a horizontal boycott among the manufacturers.
According to Commissioner Swindle, "it is precisely the plausibility of the vertical theory and the strength of the evidence underpinning that theory that undercut the majority’s finding of a horizontal conspiracy among toy manufacturers." Swindle further stated that “[t]here is a paucity of evidence -- direct or circumstantial -- that the manufacturers developed among themselves a scheme to boycott the clubs.” Indeed, “TRU's hammerlock on the manufacturers made [any such] horizontal agreement among the manufacturers simply unnecessary." He observed that "TRU’s very indispensability gave each toy manufacturer every incentive -- every unilateral incentive -- to knuckle under to TRU’s demands regarding the clubs." In Swindle's view, "No inference of horizontal agreement is necessary to make sense of the manufacturers’ actions."
Swindle contended that rather than there being "hub and spoke" arrangement directed by TRU or some other type of horizontal conspiracy among manufacturers, the "glue that held TRU’s scheme together was each manufacturer’s individual decision not to cross its most important customer’s interests." The Commissioner concluded: “I am simply unable to find a horizontal boycott on the basis of this evidence. The gaps and ambiguities in the record require that I dissent from the conclusion that TRU orchestrated an anticompetitive horizontal agreement."
The order will be effective 60 days after it is served on the respondent. Under the Commission’s rules, ex parte communications regarding this matter are barred until the Commission has disposed of any petition for reconsideration, or until the time for filing such petitions (14 days after service) has elapsed.
Copies of the opinion and order and other documents associated with this case, are available from the FTC’s web site at http://www.ftc.gov and also from the FTC’s Consumer Response Center, Room 130, 6th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20580; 202-FTC-HELP (202-382-4357); TDD for the hearing impaired 1-866-653-4261. To find out the latest news as it is announced, call the FTC NewsPhone recording at 202-326- 2710.
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Were Dinosaur “Feathers” Colored?
Marco Polo lived during the 13th and 14th centuries A.D. He was originally from Venice, but he, his father, and his uncle travelled extensively to the Far East. His book, The Travels of Marco Polo, document much of his exploration into the regions of China, Persia, Tibet, and Burma (Polo, 1961, preface). Polo spent much of his book detailing the interesting customs of different ethnic groups he encountered. He also focused on the different animals and plants associated with these tribes.
In chapter 49, Polo related items of interest found in a province named Karajan. He reported that large quantities of gold were found in the rivers. He further noted that the citizens used cowrie shells as currency. He then described some of the animals associated with the area. He wrote:
Here are found snakes and huge serpents, ten paces in length and ten spans in girth [that is, 50 feet long and 100 inches in girth]. At the fore part, near the head, they have two short legs, each with three claws, as well as eyes larger than a loaf and very glaring. The jaws are wide enough to swallow a man, the teeth are large and sharp, and their whole appearance is so formidable that neither man, nor any kind of animal can approach them without terror. Others are of smaller size, being eight, six, or five paces long (1961, pp. 158-159).
Julsrud Figurines representing ancient reptiles with two legs
Polo continued his chapter by explaining how the local citizens of the area hunted and killed the creatures. He noted that the creatures were nocturnal (assisted by “eyes larger than a loaf”), dwelling in “caverns” during the day to avoid the heat. After the creatures killed their prey, Polo wrote that they would find a water source such as a lake, spring, or river. The serpents’ massive bodies left “deep impressions” in their paths “as if a heavy beam had been drawn along the sands” (p. 159). The creatures followed these same rutted paths regularly. Since their route was predictable, the natives buried large “wooden stakes tipped with sharp iron spikes, which they cover with sand” (p. 159). Polo reported that these spikes so severely wounded the creatures that they died quickly.
The 21st-century reader cannot help but be captivated by several items of interest in Polo’s account. First, his account of these creatures sounds remarkably like many dragon legends that circulated in the Far East. Yet Polo relates his information without any embellished mythologizing. His description is exactly what a person would expect from a traveler who had seen such a creature, and who had discussed its habits with the natives. In short, Polo matter-of-factly described an actual creature living during his time that modern people would certainly call a dragon.
The idea that Polo actually saw a huge serpent, with two legs near
Photos by Don Patton
the front of its body, that matches a description of a dragon perfectly, does not sit well with many modern scholars. In fact, in the Signet Classics edition of Polo’s writings, an editor’s note in the text says that these creatures were crocodiles. Immediately following the description of the two front legs, an asterisk in the text takes the reader to another editor’s note that states: “Strangely, Polo seems not to have noted the other two legs possessed by all fully equipped crocodiles” (p. 159). Supposedly, according to the editor, Polo described the length and bulk of the creature, noted the front legs and mentioned exactly how many claws were on them, described the face and teeth in remarkable detail, but simply forgot to mention the two back legs! Furthermore, crocodiles have five claws on their front legs, not three.
There are several reasons why many modern minds want to reject the idea that only a few hundred years ago, humans interacted with reptiles that match descriptions of dragons. One of the most powerful reasons is the fact that many of these “dragon” descriptions perfectly match the anatomy of well-known dinosaurs that scientists claim died out millions of years ago. Eric Lyons has done a masterful job of connecting dinosaurs to dragons, using many of the evolutionists own admissions (Lyons, 2007). Furthermore, Polo’s description of these reptiles matches ancient artifacts in collections, such as the Julsrud collection, that unmistakably contain well-known dinosaur representations (see Butt, 2008).
If God made all land-living animals on day six of Creation, along with the first human pair, then we would expect to find ancient stories and art that connect humans and dinosaurs living at the same time. There is no need to explain away descriptions, like Polo’s, of creatures that sound like dragons and dinosaurs. If evolution is true, however, there is no reasonable explanation for the dragon legends that span the globe and the centuries. All ancient depictions and descriptions must be altered, distorted, or reworded to avoid the idea that humans and dragons/dinosaur-like reptiles coexisted. When the facts are taken at face value, an honest observer is forced to conclude that humans lived on the Earth with huge reptiles that are now extinct. The ancients often called them dragons. We call them dinosaurs.
Butt, Kyle (2008), “Physical Evidence for the Coexistence of Dinosaurs and Humans: Part 2,” Reason & Revelation, [On-line], URL: http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/3661.
Lyons, Eric Lyons (2007), “Historical Support for the Coexistence of Dinosaurs and Humans: Parts 1 & 2,” Reason & Revelation, [On-line], URL: http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/3449 and http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/3476.
Polo, Marco (1961), The Travels of Marco Polo (New York: Signet Classics). | <urn:uuid:b55e7bac-bfda-4b15-a1a3-917ddc7d1684> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=9&article=2867&topic=24 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965806 | 1,276 | 3.515625 | 4 |
The Relics Project
The Laboratory was founded in 1937, originally named the Mathematical Laboratory. It housed mechanical computers, Brunsvigas, Facits, electric Marchants
and an electric Midas etc.
Calculating Machines in the Computer Lab collection
Work began on the EDSAC (Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator, later referred to as EDSAC I), following Prof.Wilkes' visit to the US in August and September 1946. The first logged program
on EDSAC I (computing squares of 0-99) ran on 6th May 1949.This was the first complete and fully operational regular electronic digital stored program computer; Manchester's absolute first, in 1948, was the Small Scale Experimental Machine, built to validate innovative CRT memory technology. (These machines were before the first US machines.) It was shut down on 11th July 1958.
EDSAC I items in the Computer Lab collection
EDSAC II (1958-1965), was the first full-scale microprogrammed machine, also the first bit-sliced machine. It used fast paper tape for I/O, magnetic tapes. A small number of basic library subroutines were wired into a ROM.
EDSAC II items in the Computer Lab collection
The TITAN (1964-1973) was essentially a cut-down version of the Ferranti Atlas computer. It featured the first operating system (Temporary Supervisor by Swinnerton-Dyer). It was used among many other things for early work on graphics interfaces and computer-aided design.
Titan items in the Computer Lab collection
The Cambridge Ring/Cambridge Fast Ring
The Cambridge RING project was initiated in 1974. It was a communication network through
the Laboratory. Information flowed round twisted-pair wires and all stations were in
series. The main purpose was not to provide rapid speed but to provide
intercommunication between printers, computers etc for which speed didn't matter.
Development work on the Fast Ring began in 1980.
The Cambridge Ring/Cambridge Fast Ring items in the Computer Lab collection
The CAP project on memory protection ran 1970-77, based on capabilities
implemented in hardware, under Wilkes and Needham with
Wheeler responsible for implementation (BCS Technical
Award 1978 for `CAP (Capability Protection) Project' to Needham).
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Photo: 1,100 murdered in 2011 in Puerto Rico
The number of violent deaths registered since Jan. 1 in Puerto Rico has hit 1,100, making 2011 the bloodiest year in the island’s history.
One of the latest victims in the crime wave linked to the surge in drug trafficking was 4-year-old Jomar Rivera Rodriguez, who died from a gunshot wound to the head in an incident where his stepfather, Kenneth Rivera Fontanez, 21 - who was also killed - was apparently the target.
The boy and his stepfather, who was identified by the media as a drug dealer in the San Juan neighborhood of Rio Piedras, were playing in a park then they were shot.
In addition, over the weekend, a couple were shot to death while they were together with their three children, who were unharmed, driving in an automobile on one of the capital’s main streets.
The vehicle was machine-gunned, something that is becoming a more frequent occurrence in the metropolitan area.
A war of sorts is raging on the streets of the U.S. commonwealth as drug gangs vie for control of drug sales points. Experts say that in recent years the island has become a key cocaine shipment route from South America to the U.S. mainland.
This month, the newspaper El Nuevo Dia published a report in which it warned that Puerto Rico is showing some of the characteristics of what U.N. agencies call “narco-states,” although that contention has been denied by the government.
An economist consulted by the daily estimated that the illegal drug business on the island totals $9 billion per year, or around 20 percent of the island’s economic output. | <urn:uuid:978b49ec-b658-4843-a905-cf362832d0d0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hispanicallyspeakingnews.com/latino-daily-news/details/1100-homicides-so-far-this-year-in-puerto-rico/12678/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982263 | 360 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Chiles en nogada
Chiles en nogada is a dish from Mexican cuisine. The name comes from the Spanish word for the walnut tree, nogal. It consists of poblano chiles filled with picadillo (a mixture usually containing shredded meat, aromatics, fruits and spices) topped with a walnut-based cream sauce, called nogada, and pomegranate seeds, giving it the three colors of the Mexican flag: green for the chili, white for the nut sauce and red for the pomegranate. The walnut used to prepare nogada is a variety called Nogal de Castilla or Castillan Walnut, also known as the English Walnut.
The traditional chile en nogada is from Puebla; it is tied to the independence of this country since it is said they were prepared for the first time to entertain the emperor Agustín de Iturbide when he came to the city after his naming as Agustín I. This dish is a source of pride for the inhabitants of the state of Puebla.
Some Mexican historians believe the inventors of this dish were the Monjas Clarisas, although others think they were the Madres Contemplativas Agustinas of the convent of Santa Monica, Puebla.
The picadillo usually contains panochera apple (manzana panochera), sweet-milk pear (pera de leche) and criollo peach (durazno criollo). The cream usually has milk, double cream, fresh cheese and washed nuts. The traditional season for making and eating this dish is August and first half of September, when pomegranates appear in the markets of Central Mexico and the national independence festivities begin. In some areas, the dish is created depending on when the pomegranates are ripe - usually between early October and January.
- "Nogal". DICCIONARIO DE LA LENGUA ESPAÑOLA. REAL ACADEMIA ESPAÑOLA. 2009. Retrieved 11 August 2011.
- Moon, Freda (17 September 2011). "Delicious patriotism". The Daily Holdings, Inc. Retrieved 18 September 2011.
- Graber, Karen Hursh (1 January 2006). "Pomegranates: September's Gift To Mexican Cuisine". MexConnect. Retrieved 2 February 2012.
See also
|This Mexican cuisine-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.| | <urn:uuid:743ff58f-2dd9-4296-a775-efa51b3ffa15> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiles_en_nogada | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.906978 | 529 | 2.203125 | 2 |
Vitamin D—Natural Relief for Low Back Pain?
Older women with low back pain might benefit by getting some extra vitamin D, reports a study in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. Low levels of vitamin D can lead to weakened bones, lowered immune function, and sometimes pain.
The new study included 958 people over age 65 who gave information about the location of their pain, from their midback to their feet. Blood samples were taken to measure vitamin D levels.
Women were more likely than men to have moderate or severe pain in some part of their bodies, and women who were vitamin D deficient were almost twice as likely to suffer from low back pain as were people with normal vitamin D levels. Vitamin D status didn’t seem to affect low back pain in men, nor did it influence pain in other parts of the bodies of men or women.
How (and how much) do you D?
The “sunshine vitamin” is produced in the body after exposure of the skin to sunlight. Exposing the face, arms, and hands to sunlight for 15 minutes three times per week year-round can help boost vitamin D levels. Vitamin D also occurs naturally in a few foods like egg yolks and fatty fish such as salmon and mackerel. Dairy products, juices, and cereal products are often fortified with vitamin D.
Just how much vitamin D is best for optimal health is a hot topic. A growing body of evidence suggests that 400 IU per day, the amount found in many multivitamin products, is not enough to maintain optimal levels. Many people appear to need 1,000 IU per day and in some cases even more. The body’s ability to synthesize vitamin D diminishes with age, putting older people at increased risk for deficiency.
The Institute of Medicine has concluded that long-term intake of 2,000 IU per day is safe for most people. Some doctors recommend even more, such as 2,000 to 4,000 IU per day depending on the season, but people taking those amounts should be monitored by a doctor.
Along with the many other benefits adequate D offers the body, such as supporting calcium absorption that keeps bones strong, the authors of the new study conclude that the new study’s “findings suggest it may be worthwhile to question older adults about their pain and screen older women with significant back pain for vitamin D deficiency.”
(J Am Geriatr Soc 2008;56:785–91)
Kimberly Beauchamp, ND, earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Rhode Island and her Doctorate of Naturopathic Medicine from Bastyr University in Kenmore, WA. She cofounded South County Naturopaths in Wakefield, RI. Dr. Beauchamp practices as a birth doula and lectures on topics including whole-foods nutrition, detoxification, and women’s health.
Copyright © 2008 Healthnotes, Inc. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of the Healthnotes® content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Healthnotes, Inc. Healthnotes Newswire is for educational or informational purposes only, and is not intended to diagnose or provide treatment for any condition. If you have any concerns about your own health, you should always consult with a healthcare professional. Healthnotes, Inc. shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. HEALTHNOTES and the Healthnotes logo are registered trademarks of Healthnotes, Inc. | <urn:uuid:876b0898-4a03-42ee-b4c4-8a84cb7792bc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bastyrcenter.org/content/view/1425/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957043 | 729 | 2.65625 | 3 |
You Don’t Have to Move Out of Your Neighborhood to Live in a Better One
Imagine a neighborhood with clean air, safe places for children to play, and abundant green spaces—all the attributes of a healthy community. Many people lack these basic amenities and I ask myself, why? Are these fundamental needs not the rights of all people?
Majora Carter has spent a large part of her life fighting for environmental justice and promoting the idea that "you don't have to move out of your neighborhood to live in a better one." As a child growing up in the South Bronx, she watched her once thriving neighborhood disintegrate under the weight of poverty, industrial waste, and the worst kind of urban planning. Subsequently, pollution rose, health rates declined, and the economy weakened. Carter began fighting for the revitalization of the South Bronx and secured a $1.25 million federal grant to redevelop the south Bronx waterfront to bring environmental improvements to her community.
To continue this fight, Carter founded Sustainable South Bronx (SSBx), a nonprofit organization dedicated to transforming underserved urban communities into sustainable places to live. Her work at SSBx boosted the creation of environmental education programs, green job training, and community projects. Carter now serves as the President of the Majora Carter Group, where she concentrates her efforts on environmental remediation with clients.
People like Majora Carter make me believe that a healthy and sustainable community is indeed attainable for all people. Her work promotes the idea that a collaborative model where government, developers (business and industry), and community unite to create environmental justice is possible. A clean green economy can exist where all people can thrive and live healthy sustainable lives.
Joanna Gangi: There is a major social equity gap in the environmental movement. Why do you think that has been the case? What can we do to make our movement more inclusive?
Majora Carter: Most real social change in societies comes from the advancement of equality. The American Revolution, the Suffrage movement, Labor Rights, Civil Rights, even the Internet.
The environmental movement has traditionally left people behind in environmental sacrifice zones, which are almost always populated by poor people—usually non-white, but not always.
So, for instance, while the environmental movement may have had past successes in getting land preserved or making automobile emissions cleaner, it has not worked as hard to ensure that working-class people living near preserved land can make a living through sustainable stewardship of the area; nor have the oil refineries near where poor people live become any less toxic.
If we had located our power, waste, transport, and mega-agriculture infrastructure near wealthy people like we have with poor people, we would have had a clean, green economy decades ago. Instead, the environmental movement turned its back on the point sources of greenhouse gases and pollution in favor of their own backyards and favorite animal species. The public health stats illustrate this phenomenon quite clearly.
If we can turn the "environmental" movement into an "environmental equality" movement, I believe new allies will come on board with more passion and tenacity than we've seen before. Clean air, water, and land is not evenly distributed. Poor people are more likely to breathe dirtier air, drink dirtier water, and live, work, or go to school on toxic soils.
The hunger for equality will always be greater than support for Cap and Trade or some other effort that's not directly tied to the lives of people. If we bring everyone together for environmental equality, many of the traditional environmentalists' goals will surely be met as well.
Joanna Gangi: As you have said, economic degradation begets environmental degradation, which begets social degradation. What do you see as the key leverage points for breaking that cycle?
Majora Carter: I think comprehensive cost-benefit analysis of the long term consequences of environmental management is the best place to start. For example, look at coal country in West Virginia: You have a traditionally poor rural area, so you can assume the people there have little to no political power. Mountain top removal strip mining moves in and destroys their water table and their air quality while producing very few jobs. So now they have no cheap clean water supply, dirty air, and continuing unemployment. It adds up to hopelessness, which leads to drug and alcohol abuse, domestic abuse, poor school performance among kids, increased teen pregnancy, etc.
Mountain Memories: Interview with Judy Bonds
Before she died, West Virginia activist Judy Bonds gave this interview about fighting to save her home from mountaintop removal coal mining.
These problems all cost a lot to combat, but the company pulling the coal out of the area does not pay; taxpayers do. If we look at the two to four years' worth of coal energy produced in such an operation, against all the social and environmental services costs in the context of quality, it's not economic development in any rational sense of the word.
I think this template can be applied to everything from shopping malls to feed lots. Positive alternatives to bad projects will make better economic sense when we first look at the fallout from inequalities among our fellow Americans that a given proposal might produce.
Joanna Gangi: What is your message to people living in underserved neighborhoods who want to make a difference, but may not know where to start or have the appropriate resources?
Majora Carter: Your local elected officials and your fire, police, and parks departments are there for you and most of them really do care—but you have to engage them in a constructive manner. Start by talking among your friends about what you would like to see different in your area. This is not just for "underserved" neighborhoods—all communities can benefit from some intelligent discussion.
So, if it's a traffic light that doesn't give enough time to cross a dangerous intersection, a truck route near residences, not enough green space, or locating a landfill, power plant, or other noxious infrastructure near people, it all matters.
Start with the people responsible for your area and see what you can accomplish. Not everyone will respond, but that might mean your approach is not appropriate for what they can do. Make sure you ask, they will probably say yes. Positive momentum can go a long way.
When I wrote a $1.25 million federal transportation planning grant, I had no idea what I was doing. But I kept the conversation alive in various settings and asked for help. People came out of the bureaucratic woodwork to guide the process and help shape the language for the system. It worked, and today the project has secured over $20 million in local funds and another $30 million in Federal Stimulus funding (shovel ready). This is more money for a project designed with positive community impacts in mind than the South Bronx has seen in almost a century.
But it all started with regular people talking constructively to one another.
Joanna Gangi: You've said that the economic and environmental injustices inflicted on the South Bronx were a direct product of urban planning. When you look at large scale urban planning projects going on now, do you see signs of improvement?
Majora Carter: Not really. I think the use of eminent domain to promote purely private development is a disturbing national trend. Government-subsidized stadium construction is often lurking in the shadows of these undemocratic land deals. In my hometown, we watched with disbelief as New York City's Mayor Bloomberg and our former borough president, Adolfo Carrion, supported a new Yankee stadium to be built on an 18-acre public park with trees over 100 years old—all gone now. This is the richest baseball team in a part of the city with the lowest parks-to-people ratio. And now both of these characters are running around the country promoting themselves as "green." I can't think of any current large scale projects that are going to bring about more equality.
The real intelligent planning and execution is happening on a community/neighborhood level. This is where the real heroes are, but they remain largely unsung. I am currently putting together a new TV series with Sundance Channel to highlight these innovative attempts.
Joanna Gangi: You've identified the players involved in making the triple bottom line work for development projects: developer, community, government. Can you think of an example when these three entities have really come together for the greater good?
Majora Carter: Yes, of course. My favorite is Bogotá, Colombia. In the late '90s while Enrique Peñalosa was mayor, he took a hard look at how much money was going into transport infrastructure and who was benefiting. He didn't have much money to work with, so he looked for low cost investments that would produce the highest quality of life impact.
How to Build a Happy City:
Interview with Enrique Peñalosa
The former Bogotá mayor is convincing city planners from Beijing to Mexico City to create lively public spaces that center around people and community, not cars.
His administration purchased large tracts of suburban land, beyond the slums that ringed the city. The DOT connected the land via bike and pedestrian routes to local shopping areas and mass transit hubs—but no automobile access except for emergency and delivery vehicles.
In a short time, developers were putting private investments into housing along these non-auto routes. Simple, resident-generated community improvements were implemented in the existing poor neighborhoods, while relatively higher income Bogotaños occupied most of the new housing.
Bike repair and juice stands opened along the route—owned and operated by previously unemployed people. Police spent less time on car theft and more time on community. Public health improved. Everybody gained, and I hear it's gotten even better since I was there in 2005.
Joanna Gangi: The International Living Building Institute is hosting the Living City Design Competition. The competition calls on designers, students, and activists from around the world to create inspiring but realistic visions for the future of civilization. Competition teams will conceptually retrofit existing cities, demonstrating how real communities might transform their relationship with the resources that sustain them. What do you think the most important consideration should be for teams working on this competition? Do you think communities like yours in the South Bronx would be interested in this kind of visioning process?
Majora Carter: I think that people in communities across America, who currently experience environmental inequality, would be interested in seeing the teams demonstrate how to transform the relationship with resources that sustain others. How do we remove the unequal environmental burdens that currently befall some people disproportionately?
Beyond that, locally maintained horticultural infrastructure should be integrated into all new and renovated buildings and landscape design. The technology is there to utilize greywater, manage stormwater runoff, incorporate high-yield agricultural systems, reduce the urban heat island effect, and more.
The effects of smart policies that incorporate those environmental services' cost savings would be a great thing to see—what would the government savings over the typical 20-year municipal bond issue be?
Joanna Gangi: Your personal story is a major source of inspiration to many people who have felt marginalized by the green movement. What have you learned along the way that surprised you the most?
Majora Carter: I learned that my message plays just as well in "red" states as they do in "blue" states, based on the heartfelt personal reactions I get. I come from the most urban place in the U.S., but I have directly comparable experiences to people in rural areas and places in between. The solutions are often based in shared experience, too. I am so happy to see that an idea like "you don't have to move out of your neighborhood to live in a better one" is gaining ground everywhere!
Joanna Gangi is Communications Coordinator for Cascadia Green Building Council and managing editor of Trim Tab. This article was originally printed in the Fall 2010 issue of Trim Tab, the Cascadia Region Green Building Council’s magazine for transformational people and design. To see this and other issues of Trim Tab, go to www.cascadiagbc.org/trimtab.
- Van Jones: The Economic Injustice of Plastic
Video: How plastic unfairly harms the poor—and what the rest of us can do about it.
- Replacing Coal with Green Jobs in Navajo Nation
Shutting down coal mines was a first step. Now Navajo activists are working for a new, green-jobs economy.
- At Climate Talks, an Answer Grows Outside
In Mexico, communities own and manage their own forests, a proven method for reducing deforestation.
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Independent. Nonprofit. Subscriber-supported. | <urn:uuid:bf6416a1-d5fe-47cd-993b-509cacb11193> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.yesmagazine.org/happiness/majora-carter-how-to-bring-environmental-justice-to-your-neighborhood | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960559 | 2,613 | 2.890625 | 3 |
A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, by Samantha Power, New York: Basic Books, 284 pages, $30
No one would argue that the Pol Pot regime's killing of some 2 million Cambodians was anything but the brutal, savage slaughter of innocents. The same is true for Saddam Hussein's destruction of over 4,000 Kurdish villages in Iraq and the deaths of an estimated 55,000 to 75,000 Bosnians (according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute and the International Committee of the Red Cross), an unknown number of which were mass killings of Muslims attributed to Slobodan Milosevic's Serbian forces. But do these acts constitute "genocide"? And, more pressing, should the United States have intervened in any or all of these acts? The difficult answer to these questions is no. To understand why, consider Samantha Power's A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, which argues otherwise.
In June 1995 Power was a reporter covering Bosnia when she learned of a 9-year-old girl named Sidbela Zimic who was killed by a Serbian shell that hit a playground in Sarajevo where Sidbela and three other children were jumping rope. As Power saw it, Sidbela's death resulted from Bosnian Serb genocide of Muslims and the lack of American intervention. The event became the impetus for A Problem from Hell, her survey of genocide in the 20th century and of American responses to it. She takes her title from former Secretary of State Warren Christopher's description of the intense hatred between the Bosnians, Serbs, and Croats.
Power leads her readers on a long and often gut-wrenching journey that starts with a 24-year-old Armenian, Soghomon Tehlirian, murdering former Turkish Interior Minister Talaat Pasha on March 14, 1921, to avenge the death of his family. (Pasha had presided over Turkey's "solution" to its Armenian "problem," resulting in the deaths of nearly 1 million Armenians in 1915.) At the time, the concept of genocide did not even exist; the Turkish government's persecution and killing of Armenians was called "race murder" by the U.S. ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Henry Morgenthau Sr. Power uses the pre-Holocaust Armenian experience to outline a pattern of genocide she sees repeated in Cambodia, Iraq, Rwanda, and Bosnia.
For her, that pattern consists of the following progression:
� Initial warning signs that a regime intends to take action against a specific ethnic group. (In January 1915, The New York Times reported Talaat's statement that there was no room for Christians in Turkey, and that their supporters should advise them to leave.)
� The first steps. (In late March, Armenian men serving in the Ottoman army were disarmed.)
� Justification. (The Turkish leadership used the pretext of an Armenian revolutionary uprising and the cover of war to facilitate the eradication of Armenians.)
� Recognition met with disbelief or denial. (British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey cautioned that Britain lacked direct knowledge of massacres and that the massacres were not all on one side.)
� Ineffective response. (The Allied governments declared that they would hold members of the Turkish government personally responsible for the massacres, but there was no intervention.)
The first several chapters of A Problem from Hell are devoted to the tireless travails -- spanning more than two decades -- of Polish legal scholar Raphael Lemkin to invent and legitimize the concept of genocide and to make it a crime under international law. Lemkin's achievement was the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which defined genocide as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such: Killing members of the group; Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; Deliberately inflicting on the group the condition of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."
It is important to recognize that this legal definition of genocide is very different from the more common dictionary definition, which probably is how most people think of it. The American Heritage Dictionary defines genocide as "the systematic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group."
Power also chronicles a similar journey by U.S. Sen. William Proxmire (D-Wisc.) to persuade the United States to ratify the genocide convention. On January 11, 1967, Proxmire delivered his first genocide speech on the floor of the Senate. During the following 19 years, he would make over 3,000 speeches on the subject, until the Senate adopted a ratification resolution in February 1986. Full ratification did not occur until October 1988.
The remainder of Power's book can best be described as a series of post-Holocaust case studies: Cambodia, Iraq, Bosnia, Rwanda, and Kosovo. In each instance, Power walks her reader through events and actions that constitute, for her, the pattern of genocide. She does not spare the reader the grim and horrific details: children delivering death blows to the back of the head with a hoe in Cambodia; four small Kurdish girls lying like discarded rag dolls in a stream, victims of Iraqi chemical weapons; Bosnian Muslims forced to watch family members have their throats slit by Serbian paramilitaries; Rwandan men, women, and children hacked to death with machetes in churches where they sought refuge.
Regardless of what one believes about what the United States could have and should have done to stop the killings, Power's book raises vital questions. It deserves the most serious possible response.
When does "genocide" begin? This is a particularly difficult legal issue, because there must be some explicit criteria on which to base a decision to take action, especially U.S. military intervention. But there is no consensus, and probably never can be, on how many people have to be murdered (or, given the broader definition, expelled from their homes) for such acts to be considered genocide. Establishing such a number (or a percentage of the population) would invite perpetrators to kill up to the limit. We are left with determining genocide amorphously: You know it when you see it.
How many people have to be killed to warrant intervention? Is it 100, 1,000, 10,000, or 100,000? Prevention would dictate the earliest possible intervention. But the fewer people killed, the less the evidence of genocide. Does genocide have to have occurred before one can recognize it as such and take action against it?
If genocide can't be adequately defined by the number of people killed, how else are we to know when action should be taken to stop it? Power points out that genocide is just as much about intent as it is about action. But how do you establish the intent to exterminate a group, especially in the absence of action? In the extreme, intervention should be pre-emptive. But does that mean committing military forces and possibly changing a regime based on declarations that may or may not signal intent? When it comes to intervention, genocide presents us with a vast gray area.
Genocide is by definition ethnic. It is about a ruling ethnic group that is unwilling to share the same territory with another (usually minority) ethnic group. One solution would be to separate the different ethnic groups so they don't come into direct contact or conflict. Yet this is in direct opposition to the traditional U.S. approach to such problems, which has focused on "nation building." The goal of such efforts is always to try to get different groups to share power within a prescribed geographic boundary. The latest instance of this is the U.S.-led effort to build a representative, multi-ethnic government in Afghanistan.
Trying to force different peoples to live and govern together, however, may not be a solution. Attempts to build a multi-ethnic Bosnian nation in the wake of Serbian atrocities have simply resulted in a Bosnia-Herzegovina that is divided into Serb, Muslim, and Croat enclaves. The only thing keeping the sides from killing each other is the indefinite presence of several thousand peacekeepers. On the other hand, ethnically "pure" states (or statelets) serve only to draw the distinctions even sharper; if such states become the objective, ethnic groups might engage in genocidal action as a way to hasten their creation.
Herein lies an essential problem in the contemporary discussion of genocide: Genocide is a moral issue, but U.S. intervention using military force should be reserved for protecting vital American national security interests. The temptation to intervene in humanitarian crises on moral grounds is understandable, especially when outrageous crimes are being committed against innocent persons to further political or ideological aims. But giving into that temptation when there are no vital U.S. national security interests at stake is likely to result in exacerbating the very criminality that intervention is intended to resolve.
Genocide is the one instance -- a rare exception -- where U.S. action is warranted, even if U.S. vital interests are not directly threatened.
The problem is that advocates of humanitarian intervention often equate any killings of innocents with genocide and sometimes overinflate the numbers to make their case. Power, for instance, claims 200,000 Bosnians were killed, but this number is provided by Bosnia's Muslim government and includes all Bosnians killed by Serbs, Croats, and Muslims as part of ethnic civil war.
According to more reliable sources, such as the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute and the Red Cross, the number of Bosnians killed is estimated to be 55,000 to 75,000 -- and even these numbers cannot separate out casualties of war vs. mass killings of innocent civilians. As tragic and abhorrent as tens of thousands of deaths are, the hard truth is that such killings neither constitute genocide nor warrant U.S. intervention.
Power acknowledges that U.S. intervention has often helped create the conditions that led to her claims of genocide, but she does not seem to grasp the full implications of that deadly fact. For example, the U.S. supported the Lon Nol regime in Cambodia because it was anti-communist. But it was also corrupt, repressive, and incompetent, fueling support for the Khmer Rouge. Later, concerned about Vietnamese incursion into Cambodia, the U.S. orchestrated a vote in the U.N. Credentials Committee to favor the murderous Khmer Rouge regime. In the case of Iraq, the U.S. sided with and supplied agricultural and manufacturing credits to Saddam Hussein to support his war against the fundamentalist, anti-American regime in Tehran.
Rather than asking the United States to intervene to fix the problems it exacerbated by intervening in the first place, it would be better to break this vicious circle and adopt a less interventionist American foreign policy. While this does not guarantee that ethnic groups will not engage in genocidal actions, neither will constant U.S. intervention. Indeed, the appalling evidence suggests that an interventionist United States is likely to create more problems than it will solve.
Power is critical of "vital American interests, narrowly defined" as an excuse for American inaction against genocide. But the primary concern of U.S. policy must be U.S. interests; the United States cannot and should not be the world's policeman. The Constitution was established for the common defense, not to establish a new world order or to rid the world of evil. American policy makers must make decisions about what is vital to U.S. national security and what isn't. If the United States is constantly involved around the world for reasons that are not vital, it could be difficult to muster the necessary political will to act when national interests demand action.
If one knows genocide when one sees it, then Rwanda is a perfect example. Power admits that "no genocide since the Holocaust has been completely black and white," but of all the cases in A Problem from Hell, Rwanda is the one unambiguous case of genocide, and presents the strongest argument that the United States should have intervened. Although no U.S. national interest was at stake there, Rwanda presented an unambiguous moral imperative.
The killings in Rwanda began almost immediately following the downing of Rwandan President Juvénal Habrayimana's jet on April 6, 1994. Hard-line Hutu tribesmen used the incident as a pretext to attack rival Tutsis. The Hutu-controlled army, the gendarmerie, and the militias worked together to round up and kill Tutsi men, women, and children.
This was not a case of ethnic cleansing (expelling an ethnic group to create an ethnically pure enclave) that might involve mass killing, which was more what happened in Iraq and Bosnia. Nor was this the same as Pol Pot's killing of fellow Cambodians to eliminate political opponents in the way that communist regimes in the Soviet Union and China had done.
In Rwanda, those Tutsi who tried to flee their homes (ostensibly to seek safety across the border) were snared and butchered at checkpoints. Children of Hutu and Tutsi who had intermarried were categorized as Tutsi and killed. In one instance, a 3-year-old pleaded for his life after seeing his brothers and sisters killed: "Please don't kill me. I'll never be Tutsi again." Power writes that "the killers, unblinking, struck him down." Clearly, the Hutu were engaged in genocide, trying to exterminate the Tutsi systematically. Indeed, lists of victims had been prepared ahead of time. All this took place while a United Nations peacekeeping force was stationed in Rwanda's capital, Kigali.
Although it took time to recognize that genocide was occurring and to distinguish the mass killings of Tutsi from the inevitable casualties of Rwandan civil war or even ethnic cleansing, it is hard to imagine a more clear-cut case of genocide and the ensuing moral imperative for the United States to act. Recognizing genocide rests on a confluence of evidence. Mass killing based on ethnicity is clearly a necessary, but not sufficient, condition. That Tutsi were not allowed to flee to safety made it clear that extermination rather than ethnic cleansing was the goal.
That the killings were widespread throughout the country, not just in the area surrounding Kigali, is another piece of evidence. But it is no one single thing, and it's evidence accumulated over a period of time (in this case, probably several weeks).
One of the reasons that the U.S. failed to act in Rwanda was the disastrous American military operation in Somalia, not long before, that had resulted in the deaths of 18 Army Rangers. Scarred by a firefight gone bad on a humanitarian intervention mission that was neither vital nor important to U.S. national security interests, U.S. policy makers were paralyzed when it came to taking necessary action in Rwanda. Moreover, American politicians, pundits, and the public expressed little or no interest in Rwanda. Not only was the Pentagon opposed to military action, but there was no constituency expressing outrage. The sad and shameful truth is that American politics and policy would allow the U.S. to become engaged in Bosnia-Herzegovina because it was in Europe, but not in Rwanda because it was in Africa.
In the end, some 500,000 Rwandans were killed in 100 days. The United States should have acted. But the limits of what U.S. intervention can realistically accomplish also need recognition. Writing in the January/February 2000 issue of Foreign Affairs, Alan J. Kuperman argues that "although some lives could have been saved by intervention of any size at any point during the genocide, the hard truth is that even a large force deployed immediately upon reports of attempted genocide would not have been able to save even half the ultimate victims."
The rapidity of the Rwanda murders was staggering. The largest number of killings took place within three weeks of President Habrayimana's plane crash (nearly 300,000 Tutsi -- almost half the Rwandan Tutsi population -- were killed). Even if 5,000 U.S. troops could have prevented the killings (a claim originally made by the U.N. commanding general in Rwanda, Canadian Maj. Gen. Romeo Dallaire), whether they could have been deployed in time is questionable. Moving troops and equipment likely would have taken several weeks (made more difficult by the necessity of an airlift, the slowest way to transport large numbers of troops and equipment).
At best -- if the order to deploy had been issued immediately after President Habrayimana's plane crash -- those troops would have arrived only after several hundred thousand Tutsi had already been killed. Realistically, such an order would have come a week or two later, after there was irrefutable evidence that genocide was occurring. This is not an excuse for inaction, but simply to highlight the fact that, at least in the case of Rwanda, intervention would not have averted genocide, though it could have saved a great many lives. It also points to the tragic fact that it may not be possible to prevent genocide (because there must be strong evidence that genocide is occurring to warrant intervention) but only that further genocide might be stopped once it has started.
What is the lesson of Rwanda? That the more the U.S. involves itself in every crisis, the more every crisis begins to look the same. Without being able to make clear distinctions between crises -- without maintaining political will -- it is easier to marginalize and ignore the important ones.
Moreover, U.S. military resources are finite. If stretched too thin by attempting to address the myriad humanitarian crises that continue to erupt, there may not be enough critical military mass to take action when true genocide is occurring.
Indeed, the more narrowly the United States defines its national security interests, and the less engaged and entangled U.S. foreign policy is with nonvital interests around the world, the more likely that genocide will be quickly recognized and forcefully targeted.
That is exactly the point of Power's compelling narrative: The horror and tragedy of genocide is a moral issue that transcends national interest. But to prevent another Rwanda, the United States must also have the wisdom to avoid another Somalia. | <urn:uuid:0b2e9d7e-ae72-4442-96ec-e838d99b2b69> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://reason.com/archives/2002/11/01/murder-most-foul/singlepage | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965319 | 3,796 | 2.3125 | 2 |
What If Apollo 13 Failed to Return Home? New Video Tells All
A new computer video simulation reveals what could have happened if NASA had failed to return the crew of Apollo 13 home after an April 13, 1970 explosion during the moon-bound flight.
A new video that uses special software to analyze data from the fated Apollo 13 flight reveals a new story about the destiny that would have befallen the Apollo 13 astronauts had they not pulled off their extraordinary safe return to Earth.
The video, narrated by space writer Andrew Chaikin, marks the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 13 flight, in which mission commander Jim Lovell and his crew were forced to abort their mission to the moon after an oxygen tank exploded 200,000 miles (approximately 322,000 kilometers) from Earth.
"Apollo 13 is a reminder to all of us what people can accomplish when they work together and refuse to fail," Chaikin said in the video.
Analytical Graphics, Inc. (AGI), a company that provides software for advanced space, defense and intelligence applications, used Satellite Tool Kit (STK) software to analyze data from the Apollo flight. [Apollo moon mission photos.]
Apollo 13 launched on April 11, 1970. The oxygen tank exploded on April 13.
AGI used key moments from the mission to create a simulation of what might have happened if the astronauts had failed to get back on a proper course to Earth.
Chaikin, author of "A Man on the Moon" (Penguin, 1998) explains how AGI's simulation reveals a different outcome from the one that has, until now, been commonly accepted.
Previously, it was thought that if the Apollo 13 lunar module missed Earth, the astronauts would eventually die when their oxygen supply ran out, and the module would simply drift billions of miles through space. ?
But, AGI's study reveals a very different outcome.
As expected, the lunar module would miss Earth, but by approximately 2,500 miles (4,023 km) - much closer than the commonly accepted 40,000 miles (about 64,000 km) that had been predicted before.
The astronauts would enter a new orbit that stretched 350,000 miles (approximately 563,000 km) into space before falling back toward Earth again. The spacecraft would then pass approximately 30,000 miles (48,000 km) from the moon, which would have been enough for the moon's gravity to change the lunar landing craft's orbit.
"Now, when Apollo 13 heads back toward Earth, it's on a collision course," Chaikin explained in the video.
The simulation determined that on May 20, 1970, five weeks after the initial oxygen tank explosion, Apollo 13 would plunge into the Earth's atmosphere at an angle that would cause the module to incinerate.
These findings were confirmed by Apollo 13 flight controller Chuck Dietrich, who used data from the flight 30 years ago to corroborate the outcome of the simulation.
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The Catholic hierarchy is no doubt disappointed that the Blunt-Nelson amendment – designed to provide accommodation for those who, for reasons of conscience, find paying for contraceptive devices and abortifacients unpalatable – failed to pass in the Senate today, and I can easily understand why. Eighteen years ago, as John McCormack pointed out on Tuesday in an article posted on the website of The Weekly Standard, the precise language of that amendment was, as a matter of course, included in the healthcare proposal that came to be called Hillarycare. But, of course, that was then, and this is now. In 1994, the Democrats in the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives were eager to avoid offending the Roman Catholic Church and its faithful adherents, and now, with exceedingly rare exceptions, they are intent on humiliating that church and its adherents.
The bishops, priests, and nuns of the American Catholic Church may be dismayed, but they should not be in any way surprised. The situation that they now find themselves in is one of their own making. Thirty-eight years ago, when the Supreme Court handed down its decision inRoe v. Wade, the country was resolutely hostile to abortion on demand. At that time, many Democratic politicians, not all of them Catholic, announced their opposition to abortion. For a time, Bill Clinton and Al Gore were in their number. Had the Church pressed the question resolutely at the time, the 5-4 court decision would quickly have been reversed. As Mr. Dooley was wont to say, the Supreme Court follows the election returns.
But, of course, under the leadership of Archbishop Joseph Bernardin, who became President of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) in 1974, the hierarchy chose to soft-pedal the issue, treating abortion as one among a number of issues, such as the death penalty and the public provision of healthcare, that Catholics should take into consideration when voting in local, state, and national elections. Nowhere did the bishops expressly say that outlawing abortion was no more important than providing healthcare and eliminating the death penalty, but by treating these issues all as part of a “seamless web,” Bernardin and his supporters implied as much.
Moreover, thanks to the efforts of Bernardin and those of his adherents whom he installed as his successors atop the NCCB in later years, Catholic politicians came to realize that they could with impunity publically repudiate the teaching of the Church to which they professed to belong and propagate the notion that pregnant women had a right to kill their children as yet unborn. Mario Cuomo was the pioneer. He tested the waters, encountered criticism, and came away politically unscathed. Before long, virtually every Catholic who held elective office as a member of the Democratic Party occupied the ground that he had cleared. No one was excommunicated for taking this stand. Next to no one was publically reprimanded, and the faithful were never once told that they could not in good conscience vote for pro-abortion candidates. In the meantime, thanks to the silence of a host of clergymen who gave only lip service (if even that) to the notion that abortion is murder, more than forty million unborn Americans were deprived of their lives. It would not be too much to say that those who remained silent in the face of this have blood on their hands.
The Blunt-Nelson amendment failed to pass the Senate today for one reason and one reason only. The supporters of abortion-on-demand are serious about the matter. They will do what it takes to punish at the polls any Democrat who crosses them. The bishops of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States have spent almost four decades intimating with a wink and a nod that they are not really serious about this question. In the process, they have made themselves politically irrelevant.
For the first time in memory, however, the leadership of the American Church has fallen into the hands of a man who appears to have a backbone. We will soon learn what Timothy Dolan, Cardinal-Archbishop of New York, and his episcopal colleagues across the country are made of.
It is not easy to recoup moral authority that one has spent four decades in squandering. It will take a supreme effort on their part. It will take courage. It will take determination and grit. And it will take humility – for it cannot be done if the bishops do not first admit to themselves and to the rest of us that they have been party for a very long time to a pact with the devil. Renewal begins with repentance. If the Church Flatulent does not now become again the Church Militant, in the United States, it will be regarded from now on as the Church Irrelevant. | <urn:uuid:8796b4cf-00f0-411f-a24d-9e21e4972fc3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ricochet.com/main-feed/The-Church-Flatulent/(comment)/317794 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982754 | 975 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Your Talents Could Hurt Your Organization
The more talents and skills you have the more likely you are to take something from nothing to up and running. Talented people who can learn quickly, adapt, and grow are the heart and soul of start-ups. But unless you learn to let go of most of those things, the organization you serve will not be able to grow beyond your incompetence level. Yes, incompetence.
No matter how talented you are, you cannot be an expert on all the skills that your business or non profit need to grow and thrive. The skill set that got the organization from ideation to reality are not the same skills that will take it to the next level of growth. Early in my career as a business leader, I used to spend hours learning how to use software so I could design marketing pieces or edit videos. I had to come to grips with the fact that, regardless of how much I enjoyed the design process, I should not be doing it for the sake of the organization.
Over the years, I had to let go of several other tasks in order to allow the organization to continue to thrive. Last year, I gave the presidency of The A Group to Shannon Litton, our then Executive VP of marketing. It was the right call. Shannon is much better at developing business processes than I’ll ever be. We have seen our best year yet because of her leadership.
The blessing of the talents can quickly become a curse of the talents when you hold on too closely to tasks and lose sight of the overall organizational health. Personally, I had to make a shift in thinking: I had to get my satisfaction from the overall success of my business as opposed to the quality of my own work. For those of us who equate productivity with success, giving up control and the accolades that come from accomplishing the tangible is a tough thing to do.
But giving up control is not an option for growth. It’s essential.
You might be a talented person, a life-long learner, and an overall amazing individual, but you cannot be the best at everything–no matter what your mother has told you. Unless you learn to define success as reaching the organization’s goals instead of accomplishing tasks, you will go from being seen as the organization’s builder to its choker, where you thwart growth on the anvil of your own incompetence.
Have you ever been in a situation where someone strangled growth? | <urn:uuid:8a7f0143-6d71-4fc2-80e9-8303a943b95c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.maurilioamorim.com/2012/10/your-talents-could-hurt-your-organization/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97125 | 504 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Few people have bothered to read From West to East. It is a brilliant work about the movement and history of art, politics and literature in California. Many of us buy the same set of books and never challenge our assumptions. I will be buying a copy of his newest book about Sufism and will review it with an open mind.
Schwartz represents the other side of Islam that we sometimes forget about when presented with constant images of angry cartoon like hateful Wahabis and blood crazed Iranian Revolutionary madman. How do we rationalize those images with the many decent Muslims we meet in our daily lives. Does the life of my friend Omar who works 60 hours in a gas station differ as much from my life or yours. What about Abdul the printer forever doting on his daughter who dreams of buying a larger home? Is much of Wahabism fed by people not working and desperate for self worth like Nazism? Are people like the familiar middle class terrorists bombers in London reacting to a far left culture thatdemands angry Muslims as "authentic".
There is something interesting at looking at the mix of politics and art. When one looks at communists in the 1920's through the prism of Schwartz's wisdom we note the familiar self serving hacks, the amoral adventurers and the insane. The previous communists are not too dissimilar from the madmen and goons we loathe today except they no longer have the vision of a limitless future.
In many ways the cast of opportunist, hacks and are all to hauntingly familiar and real. Schwartz, has conveyed the human realities of a mindless movement out of control blundering along. Above all things the book is entertaining and thought provoking. | <urn:uuid:07b892d2-8071-4baf-88be-94b7c69e6b25> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thebeakspeaks.blogspot.com/2008/07/stephen-schwartzs-apex.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00060-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950413 | 342 | 1.5625 | 2 |
The Aftermath of War
A Hypothetical Question: Was the U.S.-Mexican War Necessary?
By David M. Pletcher
While the U.S.-Mexican War was being fought and for some time afterward, Americans argued heatedly over its morality. President Polk defended his actions stoutly in his war message. An illegal and undemocratic government of Mexico, he said, had refused to negotiate pressing disagreements with the U.S. about debts, claims and boundaries. Mexico had then invaded Texas, a part of the United States, and had killed Americans on American soil. The President concluded: "As war exists, and notwithstanding all our efforts to avoid it, exists by the act of Mexico herself, we are called upon by every consideration of duty and patriotism to vindicate with decision the honor, the rights and the interests of our country."
During and after the fighting, many Americans accepted this interpretation of the war; few would do so now. If asked about the morality of the war, probably most would profess ignorance or otherwise avoid answering. If presented with the evidence, they would reluctantly admit that their side had had a weak case for fighting. Put more baldly, however, this was a war of aggression. Some American expansionists, including President Polk, wanted Mexican territory, mainly California, and thought they could take it by force, although they had no idea of how much force would be required. They satisfied their scruples with a suitable rationalization.
But was it necessary to fight at all for the desired territory? Since its independence, the U.S. had developed a flexible, effective procedure for gradually acquiring territory with a minimum of risk. This procedure was to reinforce its much-vaunted "irresistible progress" with diplomatic and economic pressure or perhaps veiled threats and to exploit fully the disunity among European powers and their lukewarm interest in North America. In each case, the pressure of American westward migration had been an actual or potential force supporting government actions. By 1845, American migration into California had prepared that province for incorporation into the American Union, and the Bear Flag rebellion, awkward and ill-managed though it was, showed how close the province was to revolution and independence.
Why not use this time-proven gradualist procedure in California and the Southwest? There were obstacles. One was the linguistic, religious, and other cultural differences between rough American migrants and the settled, conservative Californian ranchers. Another was the likelihood of Indian fighting against the fierce Southwestern tribes. To judge from Polk's diary and letters, the obstacles that impressed him most were the stubbornness of the Mexican government and Britain's desire to add California to Oregon and control the Pacific coast of North America. A threat of war or, if necessary, a short border conflict might bring the corrupt, deceitful officials in Mexico City to see reason, and speedy action would forestall British plots.
Polk might have been able to think more clearly about these obstacles if he had had a more cosmopolitan background. He had been raised in Tennessee, far from the Atlantic coast and its orientation toward Europe. In the lower Mississippi valley, he also inherited a disdain for Spanish and Spanish Americans, whom he regarded as haughty, aristocratic liars. (Slavery and slave territory played little role in his thinking about foreign affairs.) Polk's idea of proper negotiating technique was to take a strong stand, backed up by a threat of force, and maneuver his opponent into submission without offering any compromise. But this was exactly the wrong way to treat the sensitive Mexicans with their feeling of "death before dishonor." Later, after the capture of Mexico City, it was diplomatic persuasion, aided greatly by British influence, that brought the war to an end. As for the British, they had their sense of honor too, and it forbade them to yield territory to which they had a legal claim. Since they had a partial claim to Oregon but none at all to California, it eventually seemed reasonable to them to divide the former and let the Mexicans defend the latter. Polk might have considered also that London had not resisted the American annexation of Texas, where their interests were greater than in California. Most Britons were more interested in American trade than in North American territory anyway.
Polk fought a war against Mexico with an untried army far from home over an unfamiliar terrain. He risked blundering into a stalemate like that which France had faced in trying to set up Maximilian as emperor of Mexico during the 1860s. A less risky alternative was to wait until American migrants into California could occupy that province, create an independent state like Texas, and eventually join the American Union of their own accord. Alone, Mexico could not have prevented this, and European entanglements would have kept England or France from intervening. The liberal revolutions of 1848, the year the war ended, would have been enough to divert European attention for several years.
To be sure, a gradual solution to the American territorial problem, if less risky, was likely also to take longer to complete than a victorious war. Polk was no gradualist, but an impatient man who had promised to serve only one term in office. In the long run, would the American people have been more patient than he as the California Question stretched on and on? Like so many problems in history, we cannot solve this one in retrospect. We know only that a gradual solution would have been less costly in lives than a conflict. It would probably have delayed and might even have avoided the Civil War. | <urn:uuid:ecbbf30b-dd9a-4f45-a824-800fabb666fc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pbs.org/kera/usmexicanwar/aftermath/was_the_war_necessary.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984088 | 1,127 | 3.953125 | 4 |
Reportedly, the plane crashed at 6:30 AM India time on Saturday morning, which is 9PM EST Friday in the US. The plane was a Boeing 737 which overshot the runway after its arrival on a flight from Dubai at the airport near Mangalore, India. It burst into flames causing a great deal of smoke.
Video of the 2010 India Plane Crash coverage.
The video shows the plane is still on flames.
The reasons for the Indian Plane Crash are as yet unclear. Minister of State for Civil Aviation Praful Patel said an inquiry by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) had been ordered. The pilot did not report any problem or deficiency either during the course of the flight or on its final stretch. The weather was relatively normal with a visibility of six kilometres, calm winds and no rain. The runway was dry.
The plane's data and voice "black box" recorders have yet to be found.
All the passengers on the flight were Indian nationals, with many returning from jobs in the Gulf to visit their families, says the BBC's Sanjoy Majumder in Delhi. There were up to 20 children on board, our correspondent adds.
The survivors, some of them severely burned, are being treated in hospital in Mangalore, a southern port city. | <urn:uuid:c4638488-4516-401a-a9ca-175763ebd7bb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://uaddit.com/discussions/showthread.php?p=25431 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978257 | 266 | 1.65625 | 2 |
When your child is a picky eater, everyone has advice: Cook with your kids! Eat like a French person! Roast those Brussels sprouts!
Jessica Seinfeld, wife of the comedian Jerry, advocates pureeing, say, butternut squash or cauliflower, and sneaking it into a familiar food such as mac and cheese.
Nancy Tringali Piho, author of the book "My Two-Year-Old Eats Octopus: Raising Children Who Love to Eat Everything" thinks it would be great if you could introduce your child to a wide range of exquisitely prepared foods from around the world, preferably before he's out of the high chair.
You could easily spend all day and a sizable trust fund following the most popular recommendations — and still see your young child spit a seemingly harmless food (homemade chicken nuggets, sliced cucumber) right on the plate. That is, if you are lucky enough to achieve that one precious second of mouth-to-food contact.
So what's a busy parent to do? Like many parents of the young and the picky, I'm basically concerned with increasing vegetable consumption — not, say, with impressing the other restaurant patrons with my kid's passion for octopus. I also place a pretty high value on my own time and effort. So, with those factors in mind, I redirected my efforts: I resolved that I would continue to try new techniques for promoting vegetable consumption, but not only those that had proven effective in large studies published in respected scientific journals.
That, as it turned out, left me with surprisingly few options.
"The vast majority of scientific research has been through repeat exposure," says Terence M. Dovey, a lecturer at the Centre for Research into Eating Disorders at Loughborough University.
"You show (the food) once. You show it again. You show it again. You show it again. And at no point do you force the child to eat it. Eventually, the vast majority of children will accept the food."
There's plenty that researchers don't know about picky eaters, starting with the basics, such as how many there are. Estimates vary widely, from 8 to 50 percent of kids, with researchers differing on how to define the term. Some allow parents or caregivers to define pickiness, others look at how many foods kids actually eat, and some look at average kids during some or all of the peak pickiness years: ages 2 to 6.
"The research is a bit hampered by that," says Lucy Cooke, a senior research associate at the Health Behaviour Research Centre at University College London.
"The definition of picky eating is a very wishy-washy one; it's hard to tell what people mean."
Even in the case of the relatively well-tested repeat exposure, the evidence of effectiveness is "pretty good" as opposed to very good, says Dovey. The difficulties, he says, lie in the studies' focus on single foods such as kidney beans (but not popular combined foods such as chili) and in the fact that many of the studies take place in schools, where, scientists suspect, kids tend to be more flexible and obedient than they are on their home turf. (If scientists need any parents to vouch for that, I'm available.)
Still the evidence for repeat exposure keeps piling up; a 2007 review of scientific studies by Cooke in the Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics found repeated exposure can increase liking and consumption.
And in the past 10 years, scientists have begun to venture into the ultimate picky-eating battleground — yep, the home — with a few large, well-structured experiments and promising, if occasionally contradictory, results.
In a 2003 study published in the journal Appetite, a team of British researchers divided 143 kids ages 2 to 6 into three groups. The parents in one group got nutritional information, the parents in the second (control) group didn't get any extra assistance, and the parents in the third group were asked to offer their kids a taste of a single moderately disliked vegetable every day for 14 days.
The kids in the "14 tastes" group showed greater increases in consumption and "liking" of the despised vegetable than the other kids, and the tasting group was the only one to show significant increases across all three of the measures used (liking, consumption and "ranking" of the vegetable relative to other vegetables.)
Parents complained about the number of tastes required, but of the 10 parents in the "14 tastes" group who did follow-up interviews, seven felt that the experiment had had a lasting effect on their child's opinion of the test vegetable. "It is his favorite, and he would not touch it before," one parent was quoted as saying.
Many of the parents in the study said their children had actually enjoyed the tastings. "Afterwards, he kept asking to try other things," a parent was quoted as saying.
Cooke, a co-author of the study, says that it makes sense, when you think about it, that repeat tastings can affect a child's experience of a food. An adult who's learning to drink tea or coffee without sugar will often miss the sweetness — at first.
"Over time, over repeated exposures to a taste, we can become accustomed to it and like it more," she says. | <urn:uuid:fd8671ed-0a95-4dfa-9e24-5ae0c7db11b7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sun-sentinel.com/health/sc-health-0725-picky-eater-20120725,0,4708227.story?page=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971814 | 1,104 | 2.296875 | 2 |
Serbia's Foreign Policy: Substance and Rhetoric
Two years after Kosovo independence, the majority of Serbs still reel with
the loss of their ancestral province and continue to resent the role the
United States played in the break-up of their country. At the same time,
most continue to support becoming part of "the West" and joining the
European Union, and are almost equally eager to strengthen their country's
political, cultural, and even military ties to the United States.
As if such contradictory positions were not enough, Serbia's leaders have
recently come up with a foreign policy claiming no less than four pillars--European, American, Russian and Chinese. Starved for cash and desperate for new investment, Serbia is trying to prove this is a workable regional strategy, and not mere posturing.
No wonder some are calling Serbia's position schizophrenic, a mission
impossible. Yet Serbia's foreign minister, Vuk Jeremic, tops the country's list of most popular politicians, and is considered to be the only one able to bridge party lines and loyalties. Serbs seem captivated by the paradox of their country inching towards EU membership with US backing, while their top diplomat invests all his energy into thwarting US ambitions to secure UN membership for America's Kosovo Albanian protégés. Is there any substance to this policy, beyond playing to the nation's sense of self-importance? How did a foreign agenda born of domestic political necessity become the bedrock of an increasingly wobbly pro-Western coalition government in Belgrade?
This event will take place in the 6th floor boardroom. | <urn:uuid:6e93c7d8-8108-4260-9b16-45fad12f16f5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/serbias-foreign-policy-substance-and-rhetoric | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955552 | 336 | 2 | 2 |
More than just a fancy name. TURNIGY nano-tech lithium polymer batteries are built with an LiCo nano-technology substrate complex greatly improving power transfer making the oxidation/reduction reaction more efficient, this helps electrons pass more freely from anode to cathode with less internal impedance. In short; less voltage sag and a higher discharge rate than a similar density lithium polymer (non nano-tech) battery. For those that love graphs, it means a straighter, longer curve. For pilots it spells stronger throttle punches and unreal straight-up performance. Excellent news for 3D pilots!
Unfortunately with other big brands; numbers, ratings and graphs can be fudged. Rest assured, TURNIGY nano-techs are the real deal, delivering unparalleled performance!
* The nano-core technology in lithium ion batteries is the application of nanometer conductive additives. 1) The nanometer conductive additives form ultrastrong electron-conducting networks in the electrodes which can increase electronic conductivity. 2) These additives create a superstrong ability for imbibition in the carrier liquid to supply more ion channels. This improves the ability of ion transmission and ion diffusion. Through improving electronic conductivity and ion transmission, the impedance is reduced and the polarization of high rate discharge decreases greatly. Advantages over traditional Lipo batteries; -Power density reaches 7.5 kw/kg. -Less Voltage sag during high rate discharge, giving more power under load. -Internal impedance can reach as low as 1.2mΩ compared to that of 3mΩ of a standard Lipoly. -Greater thermal control, pack usually doesnt exceed 60degC -Thickness swelling during heavy load doesnt exceed 5%, compared to 15% of a normal Lipoly during heavy load. -Higher capacity during heavy discharge. More than 90% at 100% C rate. -Fast charge capable, up to 15C on some batteries. -Longer Cycle Life, almost double that of standard lipoly technology.
Im seeing "product Config table" -Weight 79g and Bellow next to STOCK- weight 99g
Which one is correct? 20G to my Heli 250, maybe be important, im using one that has 86g, and Zippy as 92g, knowing that Turnigy Nano-Tech are better in everything to Heli´*s, could i know which correct weight?
Yes it does fit! and it is a very good power source for the 250 size heli, I am running three of these packs for one heli and they charge almost as fast as the flight times, sorry I cant see how you have to modify anything at all, they are a perfect fit secured with hook loop(velcro), I have more info if required..
Just over ten minutes flying on a 3500 motor and 30amp esc, which provides power to burn. I charge these packs in approximately 15 minutes from around 30%, usally by the time the flight is finished the charger is beeping and the next pack is charged, I also have another pack for backup so the only downtime is hooking the batteries up to the heli or charger..
you shouldn't do that, becaouse the higer C battery has a lower internal resistance, so it will handle a higer comsumption, wich make a flow of electricity from one batery to the other
anycase, i think you can try only if you had a low consumption, but with higer consumption (>15C) you may reduce the expected life of the battery
Not long, you will do better, if U take another one, if you need 30-35Amps, so take the 3s 1300 25-50C, or some lighter 1000mah, but with 30-40C discharge.
Ive used this allready with an EDF, so I know what Iam talking about, after a few minutes went the jet down and the lipo was like an bubble and really hot, so carefull! *)
Any ESC which takes 3s input. To be safe you need guarantee that ESC max current rating is at least 15pcnt higher than motor peak current. And don't use any motor with 25A or more rating with this battery.
Alle nano-tech Lipo sind "brauchbar" - Stopp - falsche Aussage! Richtig ist: Alle nano-tech Lipo sind ausgezeichnet! Keine Werbung fuer HK - ist meine Erfahrung mit bisher 6 (3 verschiedene) 3S1P Lipos - alle 30C. Knackig bis zum letzten Tropfen. Aber dann muss Du ganz schnell runter! Da gibt es kein Rausschleichen - glaube mir.
I use them instead previous ST 900mAh 15C 3S on my
GP Silhouette EP 3D with ST 400 motor and ST30A ESC.
That gives 7 minutes of full throtle flight. Real capacity 1100! They have foam protectors in front and rear sides.Ones it saved one pack from failure damage.If you'll get your parcel, you'll be happy, like me.I'll buy more. Not big risk for that price!
Wow 5c charge rate and some up to 15c charge rate can't wait for more stock to come in anyone else confirm these charge rates?I would like to know Thanks HK now we just need to get more stock in the U.S warehouse (Its getting there slowly but surely!)
i have this exact battery, cells are amazing, had it for a month with around 40 charges. all cells are within .o1 of each other. i been charging them at 4c, no puffing look totally fine might try higher rate. but great battery might get one for my 600 heli.
I got a notification about this battery arriving today. I don’t think they got many batteries. Last time I checked the backlog was not that big. (Before they removed the opportunity we had to see how many items that was on backorder) And my order is still on backorder. I am wondering when the next batch will arrive? The information about arrival date has been gone for some while now…
Other (higher capacity) nano-techs are better... Internal resistance (Ri) is 30 miliOhms = 12A continuous discharging = 12C, not 25C :(
5 comments. Reply..
17 thumbs up!
These are just OK. The ones I received ( I bought 6) had the JR connector with the small gauge wire. Only outstanding was one cell was 140mV out of balance after the first use. Getting better with age and gentle break-in.
No comments. Reply..
3 thumbs up!
Battery was ok on arrival, with good balance and about 50pcnt charge, which are optimal. But wire was way too small gauge with way too little connector. Picture shows now stronger leads with XT60, so hopefully already corrected. Battery delivers constant power, and didn't puffed at all after 2 cycles at about 15/22C and 0.5C charge. Hope those live longer than Rhino 20C at same use, puffed and higher resistance after less than 10 cycles.. | <urn:uuid:fa04c39f-02be-4c02-be01-24dbd7ffd7d1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__11901__turnigy_nano_tech_1000mah_3s_25_50c_lipo_pack.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919523 | 1,518 | 2.078125 | 2 |
Helpful Social Media Tools to Promote FAFSA Completion
For us at the U.S. Department of Education, the start of a new year provides a fresh opportunity to remind parents, students and educators about the importance of submitting the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). The Department’s Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) provides more than $150 billion in grants, loans, and work-study funds each year to help pay for college or career school. Completing the FAFSA is the primary step for determining eligibility for federal student aid and subsequently accessing these funds. With the 2013-14 FAFSA application having gone live on January 1st, FSA’s Digital Engagement Group is requesting your assistance in promoting FAFSA completion.
We are asking for your help in getting the message out through your social media channels about the importance of completing the FAFSA early in the year. To help you do that, we have developed some resources for you to use:
- Complete social media content calendar to support FAFSA completion: Includes Facebook posts and tweets for the entire month of January.
- 20 Tweets to promote FAFSA completion
- 10 Facebook Posts to promote FAFSA completion
- Helpful videos
- Helpful infographics
- Embed our videos, infographics and Twitter stream into your site
In addition, over the next few months, the Federal Student Aid Digital Engagement Group will be actively managing our own presence on social media with a strong focus on FAFSA completion. We highly encourage you to use and repost our content whenever applicable. Here are the places you can find us:
Thanks for your support and commitment to advancing the higher education goals of students and families across | <urn:uuid:3fef79e1-cf19-4511-9f54-e8575b879df9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ed.gov/blog/2013/01/helpful-social-media-tools-to-promote-fafsa-completion/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.902658 | 358 | 1.695313 | 2 |
This October, the Federal Communications Commission is expected to complete a rulemaking process that could open the door to solving the rural broadband Internet access problem. Or, this rulemaking could further delay a solution to the lack of affordable broadband which handicaps so many of our rural communities.
The ruling will decide whether or not vacant TV channels which become available next February when TV goes digitalmay be used for unlicensed wireless broadband Internet access. The technology is similar to the popular wireless broadbandknown as Wi-Finow used in homes, airports, and coffee shops nationwide.
These TV channels (part of our public airwaves) are far superior to the unlicensed spectrum currently used for Wi-Fi accessand for a wealth of other useful wireless devices ranging from baby monitors to garage-door openers.
This spectrum has exceptional reach and coverage: Signals travel further, using less power than in the higher frequency bands, and can penetrate foliage and solid objects, making it easier and cheaper to construct networks. Unlicensed use of this spectrum is a cost-effective solution to the rural broadband problem, and it is close at hand.
Without unlicensed access to these vacant public channels, rural America will be condemned to even more years of absentee-owned telecommunications networksand the dependency and neglect this system perpetuates.
A growing coalition of rural organizationsincluding the Center for Rural Strategies, Main Street Project, and the Institute for Local Self-Relianceinvite you to add your organizations name to a letter urging the FCC to approve unlicensed use of the vacant TV channels. This letter will be added to the official FCC file on the vacant TV channels (known in tech-speak as the white spaces).
To add your organizations name to this important letter, send an email to email@example.com stating this intent, the name of your organization as you would like it listed, and your title. To see who else is signing on, just go to www.ruralstrategies.org (or call 828-255-0182 for more information).
Thanks for supporting this historic effort to ensure affordable broadband for all!
Mountain Area Information Network
Froma Harrop (in A Nation of Whiners? Perhaps, 9/1/08 TPP) sadly follows the skewed line of reasoning of other intellectuals and self-righteous lefties that the majority of Americans reeling from gas and housing prices are McMansion-owning, big-assed SUV driving, credit-card-loving spendthrifts. That is not the truth.
Yes, there are those types out here but the majority of Americans hurting financially live in average apartments or houses in unspectacular neighborhoods for which they are struggling to pay rent or mortgages. Many of those caught up in the mortgage debacle werent buying McMansions, just a regular house in which they purchased to live and raise a familynot as a speculative investment.
Credit card debt? For every spendthrift and bad budgeter, there are two more households that just dont make enough (even with a second job) to get by til the next payday. Spiraling gas, food, and utility costs are causing many folks to utilize credit cards to keep the lights on and kids bellies half-full. Unexpected car or house repair, dental or medical emergency not covered by insurance, travel costs to take care of sick relative are a few examples of how credit card debt can happen to even the most careful spenders.
Im sick of big city pundits (with access to plenty of public transportation and money for taxis) full of glee over $4 gas. And dont wag your holier-than-thou finger at me about Europeans paying double that. There are several factors that allow such prices to be sustained in Europe that wont see reality on these shores any time soon, if ever.
The majority of Americans arent guzzling gas in super-size SUVs and muscle cars. In urban areas, not all live near the bus or subway linerural America has no public transport. Even with good public transportation, many jobs or other situations require driving to get to work, or to hospitals when self or family member is sick.
There are still small farmers and blue-collar jobs, such as plumbing and construction work, that require trucks and machinery to earn a living as well as provide services to the community. High gas prices are nailing the coffins for many of their livelihoods.
With wages lagging far behind the cost of living, 3- and 4-dollar gas is nothing to be gleeful about. Every product we use comes to town via truck; higher gas prices are putting truckers in bankruptcy and out of business, and, the higher costs get passed on to wage-poor consumers.
Yes, Mr. & Ms. Hummer McMansion A**hole are a-hurtin but Mr. and Ms. Joe Working Stiff are hurting the worst. The McMansion crowd will just downsize but the Working Stiffs will be seriously down and out.
Reading Dave Zweifels article, Law Ignored as Lenders Prey on Elderly, (9/1/08 TPP) his description of some of the practices of money lenders put me in mind of some of the black-and-white movies I saw in the late 30s as a child.
In the 2-reelers with Tom Mix and Gene Autry, quite frequently the villain of the story turned out to be the banker or the land speculator, now known as a developer. We knew it to be fiction but maybe they were trying to tell us something.
From the Bible to Shakespeare, from the 2-reelers to the current scandals, there is always the element of greed that seems to undermine mans humanity to man.
I seem to remember a PBS Frontline piece about Wachovia and some really inventive tax dodges here and in Europe. I think of it every time I see a commercial for Wachovia and their benevolent plans available to investors.
It seems the bankers havent changed much, have they?
John L. Harrison
Sam Uretskys statement, It took the mobilization of World War II to restore the economy (in Move Forward from Bush Mess, 9/1/08 TPP) confuses people, making them think that war benefitted the economy. No, it was the specific parity for agriculture bill, the Steagall Amendment, that brought the economy out of the Depression. ... All people need to eatall plants and animals are dependent upon the energy of the sun. Shrink down the economic argument to the fact that agriculture is the basic solar-based activity that needs support for us all to survive. Paritys equality with other sectors of the US economy is necessary and missing from the arguments about how to end a Depression which we have been in since we stopped the parity program at the end of the war. Please enlighten the authors that corporate greed is a vast result of the ignorance of the masses of people about who creates wealth out of solar energy beside the mining and unsustainable oil industry. Please, more information on community-supported agriculture contracts that support small farmers and return money to those who most deserve it and upon whom we are all dependent.
Kansas City, Mo.
Three founding fathers of the American experiment in republican government (Hamilton, Madison and Jay) authored the 85 articles that became known as The Federalist Papers. Their purpose was to elaborate on the principles of government that could ensure the survival of liberty and democracy in the new republic, and to persuade the general public that they should vote for the new Constitution of the United States.
They used the pen name, Publius, to write what have been called the greatest political science dissertations in history. Today, the American republic is threatened by private interests over the public interest and the need for an enlightened electorate has never been higher.
To serve this need, the Liberty and Democracy Alliance has constructed a free-access website devoted to providing ideological research material to all progressive activists. The website (www.liberaldemocracyalliance.org) contains factual information in selected opinion pieces and articles and essays written by anonymous experts. Like the founding fathers, they have chosen the pen name Publius.
Col. William Hamm (USAF, ret.)
Julia Olmsteads assessment of Californias proposed Prevention of Farm Cruelty Act (Chicken Run, 8/15/08 TPP) brings into relief the futility of any such well-intentioned efforts to place constraints on agri-business so long as NAFTA remains in place. Whether the vast coops (soon to be cage-free, no doubt) spread their footprint, or whether poultry management deems it more profitable simply to transfer operations across borders, the scale of noxious by-products is bound to grow. However laudable the private charity at the market, we, as individuals, may strive to practice with some economic sacrifice, i.e., the voluntary virtuous inflation of buying local, small-scale produce, carbon, not to mention myriad other nasty chemical and social consequences, will continue will continue to increase until, as Ms. Olmstead warns, a more radical change to our food system can be instated. Stirring the same populace that was sold Free Trade to resist now the siren-song of cheap goods in big-boxes from the sweat-shops of the globe may prove a fools errand. Nonetheless, what about emissions standards for food? Placing a carbon footprint, however crudely quantified, beside the price of each item on the shelf would help. Thus bovine feedlot flatulence would figure beside a low beef price; jet fuel, for example, would figure in the visible cost of strawberries from Chile or China, etc. And what ever happened to Dick Gephardts (ex-D-Mo.) call for an international minimum wage-pegged to local costs of living? (Did Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University succeed in fully obfuscating that straightforward formula?) Lest we forget, Yes, we can Si se puede! the UFW reply of legal California farm workers (many with Latino or Filipino ancestors) demanding legal wages and working conditions. And, as for marching, I still have my black T-shirt NAFTA = Death of the Family Farm.
Edward F. Tuttle
Los Angeles, Calif.
Much of what ills our various industries (the airline industry, the banking industry, the food industrythe seemingly never-ending lists of recalls) can all be traced to one word: DEREGULATION, and it has been an unmitigated disaster, whose-major proponents the GOP were but the Democrats have had their hands on it as well. History has proven time and time again that the private sector cannot be left to their own devices without the regulatory hand of government or how many more Sulfonamide Elixir Disasters or financial meltdowns are we going to see? We better start caring about it, or we are not going to have a country to care about.
Tyrone M. Segarra
For months, the McCain campaign has condemned Obama for youth and lack of experience. Then McCain, who if elected would be the oldest first-term president ever, selects a running mate even younger and less experienced than Obama. On top of that, she has reportedly come under investigation by the Alaska legislature, controlled by her own party, for trying to get her ex-brother-in-law fired from his job as a state trooper: read unprincipled, petty, and vindictive. No one in their right mind would risk having this person as chief executive of the United States, but McCain, caring not for the country but only for winning, stoops to the shallows of identity politics. All cats are gray in the dark for this man, and he plainly believes they will be for the voters as well.
Prove him wrong!
Katharine W. Rylaarsdam
Republicans working for Sen. McCain (particularly the Swift Boaters), remind me of Hitlers Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels: When telling a lie, be sure you make it a big one so the masses will believe it. These Republicans, during the 2000 Republican primary, told the Big Lies against their very own, John McCain, when he was a threat to Bush, in lying that McCain had collaborated with North Vietnam and also, fathered an illegitimate child. Next, it was Al Gore, Wesley Clark, John Kerry and now, Barack Obama. I am disappointed in McCain not disavowing this type of politics. He is not the man he was when I voted for him in 2000.
Col. Colin J. N. Chauret (USAF, ret.)
Universal City, Texas
A true newspaper is supposed to lay real facts, all facts, unbiased facts before its readers. But many newspapers in this most crucial year of politics are slanting news toward one political partyRepublicanin spite of the fact that recent polls show the Bush-led Republicans have mis-governed like no other president in history in the minds of citizens.
Of course when we see our national debt soaring into the trillions, with 9.4 million people out of work, with the whole world hating Americans, with Bush attempting to interfere in the affairs of other nations, lying us into a war causing deaths of our soldiers and untold thousand deaths in other nations, with his anti-woman rights stance, with his support of Big Oil, with his anti-Social Security and anti-health moves for children and the aged, it seems there should be more publicity to these negative facts that affect our lives and happiness.
It is inconceivable that Christians, especially Baptist, voted for this man.
Everett L. Williams
The US spends more annually on its military than the rest of the world combined. The war in Europe ended in 1945. Has the US military inherited a perpetual job of baby-sitting Germany, and Eastern Europe? During the last 60 years the US engaged in numerous armed conflicts, always attacking first. Why? Doesnt anyone like us? Or, does our economy depend upon being involved in war? Either hot, or cold? The US is also the worldest largest arms merchant.
From The Progressive Populist, October 1, 2008
Subscribe to The Progressive Populist | <urn:uuid:541d3b0a-58db-4614-bcef-4c47f0836662> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://populist.com/08.17.letters.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949472 | 2,933 | 2.0625 | 2 |
Radon gas is found throughout the United States, but the levels vary greatly from area to area. The only way to determine if your home contains high levels of radon is to conduct a test. The average indoor radon level in the U.S. is 1.3 picoCuries per liter of air and the average outdoor level in the U.S. is 0.4 pCi/L. The US Environmental Protection Agency has established an action level of 4.0 pCi/L of Radon in indoor air. The RI Department of Health’s Radon Control Program maintains a database of Radon testing performed in the State. The current average Radon level in Rhode Island is 3.5 pCi/L, which is nearly 3 times the national average. Over 1 in 4 homes tested in Rhode Island has Radon levels exceeding the EPA action level.
Conducting a Radon test is easy and inexpensive. Radon test kits can be obtained from the American Lung Association of RI (401 421-6487), major building supply stores, other retail outlets and any one of the following analytical labs. Initial screening may be conducted with a short-term test kit. A long-term test kit may be used to obtain a better year round average of your home’s radon level. It is important to follow the instructions included with the test kit. This will include instruction on placement of the test kit in the lowest habitable or lived in area of the home, and closing of all doors and windows (except for normal entry and exit) for at least 12 hours prior to exposing the test kit and for the full duration of the test. The test kit must be exposed for the time period stated by the manufacturer for results to be accurate. You may choose to have a certified radon measurement business perform the test for you.
If the results of your test is 4.0 pC/L or greater, it exceeds the EPA’s action level, and additional testing and/or mitigation should be conducted. The higher the level reported, the greater the health risk to you and your family.
The RI Department of Health’s Radon Contol Program is available to assist you in interpreting radon test results and will offer suggestions on retesting and/or mitigation. Please contact us if your short-term results are between 4 and 8 pCi/L we recommend long term testing.
The Rhode Island Rules and Regulations for Radon Control require radon testing in all public and buildings and schools. Testing requirements include: | <urn:uuid:2c6865df-5000-40ac-aea0-ecc559a8967c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://health.ri.gov/healthrisks/poisoning/radon/about/testing/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92423 | 524 | 2.34375 | 2 |
Contagious Magazine, the London-based quarterly, is the most seductively gorgeous marketing publication around, and remarkably insightful in the bargain. So when production editor Emily Hare and North American editor Nick Parish said they wanted to run an essay based on The Art of Immersion's discussion of the role of empathy in advertising, I was more than happy to pull something together. This is the piece that resulted, from the current issue of Contagious:
In the early 1990s, long before social networking existed on the web – almost before the web itself existed, in fact – a monkey in Italy made a wholly unexpected contribution to our future under-standing of the phenomenon of empathy. The monkey, which was part of an experiment in a neuroscience lab at the University of Parma, was watching a research assistant eat an ice cream cone. Because the scientists were trying to map the part of monkey brains involved in rehearsing things, the animal had needles in its head – needles so thin they had been implanted in individual neurons. As the lab assistant lifted the cone to his lips, one of the researchers noticed a particular neuron lighting up in the monkey’s brain – the same neuron that would have lit up if the monkey itself had made such a motion. The scientists tried putting a piece of food on a table, taking it off the table, taking it from another researcher’s hand, each time with the identical result: the same neurons that fired when the monkey did something also fired when the monkey watched a person doing it.
The scientists at Parma had stumbled across what’s come to be known as "mirror neurons" – cells that mirror the experience of cells in other brains, almost as if the observer and the observed were one. Subsequent research has revealed the same phenomenon in humans. A study at University of California, Los Angeles, used functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to show that the area of the brain that’s activated when people watch someone else move a finger is also activated when they move their own finger. Researchers at Washington University in St Louis found the same correlation when they conducted fMRI scans of people reading stories from a book about a day in the life of a schoolboy. | <urn:uuid:17a3ba4a-7f42-4228-bf07-499ccd63f6c1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.deepmediaonline.com/deepmedia/neuroscience/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965613 | 452 | 2.03125 | 2 |
In Pictures: London 2012 Olympic preparations
Since London won the 2012 Olympics bid in 2005, the city has been heavily investing in preparations for the games. As the big date draws close, Laura Mtaini takes a closer look at the £9.3 billion investment.
July 23, 2012 2:33 by kippreport
The Olympic Park:
London 2012 has been the catalyst for transforming 2.5 square kilometers of land into a green space that will be holding the main events of the Olympics 2012.
This land will not only be the home to eight venues including the Olympic Stadium, Aquatics Center and Velodrome but it will also be hosting a range of attractions and events during the games.
The Olympic Stadium:
Located in Olympic Park, The Olympic Stadium is designed to be the centerpiece of the 2012 summer Olympics. The stadium was built from scratch and is one of the most important infrastructures of the event.
The construction cost of the stadium was of £468 million (Dh2.663 billion)
The capacity of the stadium is 80,000.There are more than 700 rooms within the stadium, including changing rooms and prayer rooms. The turf for the field of play was grown in Scunthorpe and was laid over a period of three days.
London’s public transport was a point of contention; some have claimed London to have one of the weakest public transport in Europe. Transport for London (TfL) carried out numerous improvements in preparation for 2012 such as:
- A £100 million pound (Dh569.12 million) investment poured into the improvement of the Stratford Regional Station (main arrival point).
- £25 million pounds (Dh142.28 million) cable cars across the river in order to link the 2012 Olympic venues: “The Thames Gateway Cable Car”.
- £77 million pound (Dh438.22 million) relief road connecting Weymouth to Dorchester was built in 2011 and some £16 million(Dh91 million) were put aside for the rest of the improvements.
Well over 10,000 officers and 13,500 members of the armed forces will lead the security operation. In addition, Naval and air assets including ships situated in the Thames, Eurofighter jets and surface-to-air missiles will be deployed as part of the security operation. The cost of security has increased to £553 million pounds (Dh3.147 billion)
London alone could see an extra £2.2 billion pounds (Dh12.52 billion) pumped into the local economy from the impact of foreign visitors coming to enjoy the Games in 2012.
The revenue gained from this is hoped to offset any losses made by the LOCOG.
Top 10 findings about Arab youth
DSF 2013: Who let the spenders out?
Let's welcome Tweetable & Braggadocious
It is all about the money at the Oscars
Top 5 shocking resignations of the business world | <urn:uuid:3ad09b38-99a2-47a6-8153-5d39b22688cd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kippreport.com/features/in-pictures-london-2012-olympic-preparations-2/?poll-results=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948196 | 611 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Background: Klaus Theweleit's Male Fantasies offers an interesting look at the connections between masculinity, fascism, hatred of women and violence (1987). The Ads: Recent visual compositions in Maxim illustrate the connections between masculinity and violence. Images 1 and 2 are features of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. Like ad 6, these two ads suggest that male power (such as in the war machine) is connected to a violent and competitive sexuality. Image 5 is particularly disturbing and should raise questions about the nature of our popular culture. It is also interesting to analyze images 4 and 15, especially as they suggest the ways in which boys are inculcated and socialized in the gender order of society. Resources: Psychological studies of fantasy abound, and a clear foundation for the understanding of the politics of fantasy is its construction in the human mind. Discussion Questions: (1) In what situations are a person's fantasies legitimate. In other words, are there situations in which one person's fantasy does not compromise the safety, security or dignity of the person subject of the fantasy? (2) Do men and women share similar fantasies? If so, how are they similar? How are they different? (3) Why does there seem to be a connection between male sexuality and forms of violence? | <urn:uuid:4a7472fa-8cc3-4397-86bc-2de31386fe87> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://genderads.com/page6/slideshow-44/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950473 | 260 | 1.90625 | 2 |
The NASA authorization bill that Congress passed nearly a year ago demanded not only that NASA build a new heavy-lift rocket, but also that the new system use space shuttle components. The new program, called the Space Launch System, didnt disappoint in that regard. Its first stage and boosters will be similar to the shuttle propulsion system, at least initially, and it will use the new five-segment variants of the solid rocket boosters that were originally planned for the canceled Ares I and Ares V.
SLS will use a new expendable (and presumably cheaper) version of the liquid-oxygen/liquid-hydrogen Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME), designated RS-25D/E. Its upper stage will also use oxygen and hydrogenand include a throwback to the Apollo era: a modern version of the venerable J-2 upper-stage engine from the 1960s Saturn V, fittingly called J-2X. The diameter of the first and second stages will be the same as the shuttle external tank (about 27 feet), and probably built with the same tooling in Michoud, La. In its initial form, SLS will be able to deliver at least 70 metric tons to low-Earth orbit, as the legislation specifies, and could grow to 130 metric tons. That would make it the biggest rocket ever built, surpassing the Apollo Saturn V.
Ostensibly, the reason for using this legacy hardware is to save money by minimizing new development. But recent analysis by Booz-Allen Hamilton indicates that it will actually cost much more than using new systems, partly because the SLS will employ expensive legacy workforces who worked on the shuttle. In fact, NASA administrator Charles Bolden laid out the real reason for the demand to use shuttle parts in his remarks today: This launch system will create good-paying American jobs," he said, as well as "ensure continued U.S. leadership in space and inspire millions around the world.
That is, the SLS plan wasnt pushed through to save money so much as to save jobs in the states represented by the senators who wrote the legislation. But its good news for some other places, too, such as California. The Rocketdyne Division of Pratt & Whitney, which built both the SSME and the J-2X, had been facing a major decline in business with the retirement of the shuttle program. Jim Maser, the head of the division based in suburban L.A., tweeted last night: In DC to talk future space policy with NASA/Congress. reps/DC press. Rumor is there might be an SLS announcement tomorrow . . . Im optimistic. If SLS continues, there will be a lot of development money for both engines. NASA may actually use leftover shuttle engines for the first flight or two if SLS gets off the ground. But after the leftovers are exhausted, each SLS flight would use up to five RS-25D/Es and one J-2X.
There may be more good news for California. Aerojet, a company in Sacramento that builds both solid and liquid engines (the only major company to do so), has demanded the right to compete for the solid rocket booster contract, and threatened to sue NASA if the agency gave the contact to SRB builder ATK without a bidding process.
So will the SLS program move forward smoothly now that NASA has settled on a design?
Dont count on it. First, note whats missing from the administrators praise of the program. Other than promising to inspire and maintain leadership, Bolden doesnt offer any concrete plans for what the program will actually do. Thats because currently there are no actual missions planned or funded.
While NASA faces a congressional mandate to build a heavy-lift rocket, it also finds itself under harsh budget constraints. With the cost overruns on the James Webb Space Telescope (which Congress threatened to axe this summer) and the high cost of building the SLS, its hard to see where there will be any money to fund an actual mission.
If SpaceX delivers on its promise of a Falcon heavy rocket in the next couple of years at a price of $120 million a flight, and if NASA comes up with missions that dont require a rocket as big and as expensive as the SLS, it will become increasingly difficult to justify spending tens of billions of dollars that we dont have on a rocket that wont fly for years, will fly only once or twice a year (or less) when it is finally ready, and that isnt actually necessary to explore space. (Just yesterday, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher demanded that NASA release its assessment of an alternative plan to put a fuel depot in space to support commercial rockets.) Without a course correction, SLS could already be on the way to cancellation, like Constellation before it. | <urn:uuid:1578cd24-d1b6-4159-8f77-b9ef5b77b777> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/space/nasa/nasas-space-launch-system-unveiled-analysis-6432937 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940694 | 976 | 2.75 | 3 |
Most Common Form Of Heart Valve Disease Linked To Unusual Cholesterol
Researchers have discovered a gene associated with a form of cholesterol that increases the risk of developing aortic stenosis, the most common form of heart valve disease, by more than half. This international study, involving the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC), is the first of its kind to uncover a genetic link with aortic valve disease – a condition that affects more than 5 million people in North America.
The results of the study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, point to the first known cause of aortic stenosis and to a potential treatment to prevent this disease. “We found that an unusual type of cholesterol called Lipoprotein (a) or Lp(a) – that is not normally screened for in current clinical practice – appears to be a cause of aortic valve disease,” says Dr. George Thanassoulis, one of the co-lead authors of the study, who is also director of preventive and genomic cardiology at the MUHC and an Assistant Professor in Medicine at McGill University. “High levels of this type of cholesterol are predicted primarily by an individual’s genetic make-up with only modest influence from lifestyle or other factors.”
Aortic stenosis (AS) is the third most prevalent form of cardiovascular disease in the western world, after hypertension and coronary artery disease. It mainly affects people over the age of 60 years. AS is caused by calcification and hardening of the aortic valve which impedes blood flow from the heart to the rest of the body leading to chest pain, loss of consciousness and shortness of breath. In severe cases, patients need aortic valve replacement surgery. Currently, there are no medical treatments to prevent this disease or reduce the need for valve replacement. According to the study’s lead investigators – from the RI-MUHC, Johns Hopkins University, Harvard University, Washington University, the University of Iceland and the US National Institutes of Health – the findings not only explain why heart valve calcification may run in families, but could also lead to the development of targeted medications that might slow the progression of valve disease and reduce the need for valve surgery in patients. “Previous studies could not differentiate whether Lp(a) was a cause or simply a marker of valve disease,” says Dr. Thanassoulis. “But our results strongly suggest a causal link and add to the mounting evidence that Lp(a) may be an important drug target for cardiovascular diseases.”
“This is an important step forward in understanding the biology of the development of aortic stenosis and how this common genetic variant, which is found in thirteen per cent of the general population, contributes to that risk,” says Dr. Wendy Post, a cardiologist and associate professor of medicine and epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine who is a senior author of the study. “Advancing age is a major risk factor for aortic stenosis and, with the aging population this will become an even bigger health concern.”
Frequently used statin medications, which reduce the common form of cholesterol that clogs arteries, do not reduce Lp(a) or prevent aortic valve calcification. “Therefore, it is very important that these results benefit our patients,” says Dr. Thanassoulis. “For this to happen we need to test whether lowering this type of cholesterol with other drugs slows valve calcification in a randomized clinical trial. Our hope is to eventually prevent valve disease with medication and reduce the need for surgery.”
On the Net: | <urn:uuid:ebcddb20-1fcd-49f1-a100-56a3088d6bf3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/1112779641/most-common-form-of-heart-valve-disease-linked-to-unusual-cholesterol/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00051-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94112 | 764 | 3.078125 | 3 |
There are several changes and improvements from Windows 7 to Windows 8 on computers, tablets and smartphones. Windows 8 has allowed these three classifications of devices to sync with each other and even allows one another to use features that are normally exclusive to just one type.
Early feedback about the major shift to Windows 8 from Windows 7 resulted in both positive and negative comments with the given time span of this new Windows in the market.
Tech experts said that one of the best points of Windows 8 is its speed compared to Windows 7 and with its new touch feature. Unlike the old OS, Windows 8 has made unnecessary background processes that take much more memory which made the touch-friendly menu system responsive and lag free, plus the influence of new Intel Core processors available with devices running Windows 8. Unfortunately, a lot of other things are needed to be improved to match up with the services and applications offered by iOS and Android.
When it comes to mobile devices and tablet computers, three operating system marks differently from each other even with their new versions:
iOS has more than 600,000 of applications which includes 225,000 for iPad in this count. For Androids, there are more or less 600,000 and most of it run in tablets, although the low-range Android devices can view many of the applications in the Android market but unable to install them due to specification restrictions. Windows Phone has at least 100,000 applications available for download, but for tablet it is still not sure how many can be used. Right now, Android has more free applications which can be downloaded no matter which device type ismused for trial purpose before being purchased if the user wants the paid version.
Apple has now its own map service like Google and Microsoft. The map application has traffic updates, points of interest, and turn by turn navigation.
The Google Maps in Android devices offers 3D buildings, search combinations, places, turn by turn navigations, Street View, and offline caching.
Windows uses Bing maps which offer terrific NAVTEQ maps, turn by turn navigation as well, 3D buildings, offline caching, and dynamic routing for public transit.
The cons about the three mapping services are still the user's location. Not all countries and cities are supported with equally information or services in the map applications.
The iCloud Tabs are new in iOS 6 which unify the browsing across all iOS and OS X devices.
Chrome Beta on Android allows tab syncing with desktop. Right now, there are more Chrome users using desktop than mobile which will make this feature fully maximised in the future.
Windows 8 allows the syncing of data using SkyDrive, which includes information within the browser history. However, the devices should all be Windows 8 active to sync perfectly with each other.
The much-vaunted Siri in iOS isn't that amazing, but actually works. Not only it can dictate texts and emails, schedule calendar events, and set times, Siri can also pull data from more sources like sports scores, movie times, and dinner reservations in different useful ways. It could also interface with car audio and navigation systems with iOS 6.
Google Android OS has made an improvement with its speech recognition feature, making it to voice search and dictation across the entire OS. It will have built-in speech recognizer in all of its future devices. The voice recognition input can be also used even while the user is offline.
In Windows Phone, the voice commands allow the user to place calls, send texts, search the web, and launch application from the device. It is not as deep as the Google and iOS technology but still available for use.
The iOS has AirPlay which has been one of the easier and intuitive implementations of media streaming. The user can push music from the computer or iOS device to AirPlay capable speakers, AirPort Express routers, and Apple TV. And if the user is streaming for a computer, the user can push it to multiple AirPlay devices.
In Android, Nexus Q has been introduced to provide its own streaming standard among Android-based devices. The hubs will be able to take audio and video streams, and output them out to televisions and speakers. It could also be used to link hubs altogether for more robust multizone streaming.
The Windows Phone will have SmartGlass to serve as its media streaming portal to the Xbox. The application simplifies and visualises the process of pushing content back and forth between the Xbox and Windows 8 devices. Another effect is the capability of beam content to the device while watching TV.
To contact the editor, e-mail: | <urn:uuid:365ac966-d59c-4850-aad6-cecdcc4e555e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/399101/20121029/windows-8-device-exclusives-ditch-ios-android.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940522 | 931 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Themes : An alternative vision of the economy
The economic and social functions of the social and solidarity economy (SSE), such as creating new markets, responding to new social needs, creating jobs, fostering social inclusion and strengthening social capital, sometimes overshadow its political mission of democratizing the economy. However, a number of authors, such as Jean-Louis Laville (1999), define the SSE as “all activities that contribute to democratizing the economy based on citizen involvement.”
This mission is expressed in various ways:
• at its most immediate, through the statutory aspects of the mutual societies, cooperatives, non-profit organizations, etc. comprising the SSE, aspects that link into democratic governance of initiatives;
• through collective decision-making by social actors (local authorities as well as professionals, the unemployed, women, young people, investors, etc.) on a whole series of economic variables (definition of social needs to be met, organizing production, setting a fair price in fair trade or social money systems, solidarity-based criteria for production, distribution, consumption, investment, etc.).
Above and beyond these aspects, which tend to be associated with a form of management, we can also observe an alternative political project for social transformation:
• debate fostered by SSE networks on the concept of wealth, role of money, predatory globalization, competition as the driving force of the economy, environmental destruction, etc.;
• respect for the principles of redistribution and reciprocity, outside of state and market mechanisms;
• the question of SSE institutionalization points to the fact that market and state regulations would need to be supplemented by democratic and citizen regulatory mechanisms for economic activities;
• the incorporation of new forms of citizenship and citizen participation in the economic arena, thus opening up a new and local public space lying between the political and the economic.
One of the main challenges facing the plural economy is to bring about real recognition that democratic principles can serve as mechanisms for management, mediation and economic regulation within the production and consumption of goods and services in the same way as the market and state (Fraisse, 2004).
International Social Sciences Journal, Unesco, Vol. 62, Issue N°203-204, pages 205-215
Edited by Ash Amin, Zed Books, UK, September 2009
Gilles Raveaud, August 2009
Excerpts from “L’Essai sur l’oeconomie”, Editions Charles-Léopold Mayer 2009.
Pierre Calame, 2009
Excerpts from “L’Essai sur l’oeconomie”, Editions Charles-Léopold Mayer 2009
Pierre Calame, 2009
This proposals paper is a synopsis of the work of the Solidarity Economy Workshop.
Manon Boulianne, November 2001
Yvon Poirier, September 2012
Robley E. George, 2012
Judith Hitchman, November 2011
Mémoire for The CNAM - Jean-Louis Laville
Max Rademacher, September 2011
Presented at the Tokyo Seminar on Human Responsibility and Solidarity Economy September 28, 2008 Waseda University, Tokyo
Ben Quiñones, September 2008
Women’s entry into public life has been a major event in history. It has caused an upheaval in dominant mindsets and highlighted a number of contradictions that are inherent to the organization of the social order. Women recommend that the dominant values of the patriarchal system be fundamentally questioned and condemned for their responsibility in excluding a greater part of humankind, in establishing the domination of the strong, and in the destruction of our planet.
Nadia Leïla Aïssaoui, November 2003
The Economy of Labour text discusses the limits and uncertainties of the capitalist economy, highlighting the main methods for dealing with them. The possibility is raised of developing an economy centred on labour in order to satisfy everyone’s needs and promoted by several solidarity-based relationships. The economy of labour system would have the capacity to take action and to breathe life into projects that promote quality of life in a more egalitarian, fairer and self-determined society.
Jose Luis Coraggio, January 2003
Conscise Research project 2000-2003
Karl Birkhölzer, 2003
IV Meeting Globalization of Solidarity, Lux’09
Second International Meeting on the Globalization of Solidarity October 9 to 12, 2001, Quebec City Synthesis and Conclusions | <urn:uuid:8c730c25-87f6-4b05-b6ea-9b0f2b4a5c4b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.socioeco.org/bdf/en/dossiers/dossier-3.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.906973 | 919 | 2.484375 | 2 |
Bloating, fatigue, depression, headaches, skin disorders, iron deficiency? You may have problems with Gluten
The buzzword over the last few years has been “gluten.” Gluten is the protein found in grains that we commonly eat such as wheat, rye, spelt, barley and more. Gluten can be toxic to some people. Did you know that 1 in 7 people are “gluten sensitive” and 1 in 100 people are celiac?
Celiac is a serious medical condition in which the small intestine becomes damaged from ingesting gluten in the diet. This protein cannot be broken down and causes inflammation and damage to the small intestine. Once the intestine is damaged, critical nutrients, minerals, & fats cannot be absorbed (iron, B12, calcium, magnesium, vitamin D, essential fatty acids). 95% of Americans with celiac are never diagnosed and it takes an average of 10 years to be finally diagnosed.
Gluten sensitivity is a milder condition in which the body is intolerant/sensitive to gluten causing similar yet less severe symptoms. A sensitivity does not mean for life, and it can be as simple as reducing intake of gluten.
Risk factors for celiac include a family member that suffers from celiac, Type 1 diabetes, or European Irish descent. In our clinic, we often question gluten when patients are suffering from chronic low iron (anemia), B12 or Vitamin D, which are routine blood tests for Naturopathic Doctors.
Other symptoms include and are not limited to are bloating, abdominal pain, diarrhea, constipation, gas, fatigue, depression, migraines/ headaches, weight gain or loss, breathlessness and skin disorders. Celiac symptoms can differ in each person making it difficult to diagnose. Naturopathic doctors offer an easy in office test to screen patients for both celiac or gluten /wheat sensitivities, however the gold standard diagnostic test is a biopsy of the small bladder.
Treatment for celiac is a gluten free diet. The current market has been great at providing products to make life much easier. It is also important to treat nutrient deficiencies and heal the intestine, while adhering to the lifestyle change. The difference is life changing for many people. | <urn:uuid:f1253358-07ba-423d-a47b-95a38d8ab157> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wasaga.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=272:do-you-have-problems-with-gluten-&catid=69:monika-lukacena&Itemid=352 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943895 | 462 | 2.890625 | 3 |
The Price of Inequality
How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future
A forceful argument against America's vicious circle of growing inequality by the Nobel Prize–winning economist.
The top 1 percent of Americans control 40 percent of the nation’s wealth. And, as Joseph E. Stiglitz explains, while those at the top enjoy the best health care, education, and benefits of wealth, they fail to realize that “their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live.”
Stiglitz draws on his deep understanding of economics to show that growing inequality is not inevitable: moneyed interests compound their wealth by stifling true, dynamic capitalism. They have made America the most unequal advanced industrial country while crippling growth, trampling on the rule of law, and undermining democracy. The result: a divided society that cannot tackle its most pressing problems. With characteristic insight, Stiglitz examines our current state, then teases out its implications for democracy, for monetary and budgetary policy, and for globalization. He closes with a plan for a more just and prosperous future.
- June 2012
- 6.5 × 9.6 in
/ 448 pages
- Territory Rights: Worldwide including Canada, Singapore and Malaysia, but excluding the British Commonwealth.
Endorsements & Reviews
“Joseph E. Stiglitz's new book, The Price of Inequality, is the single most comprehensive counterargument to both Democratic neoliberalism and Republican laissez-faire theories. While credible economists running the gamut from center right to center left describe our bleak present as the result of seemingly unstoppable developments—globalization and automation, a self-replicating establishment built on "meritocratic" competition, the debt-driven collapse of 2008—Stiglitz stands apart in his defiant rejection of such notions of inevitability. He seeks to shift the terms of the debate.” — Thomas B. Edsall, New York Times Book Review
“Stiglitz writes clearly and provocatively. He’s the kind of economist who can talk about terms such as 'rent-seeking' and the 'euro crisis' and bring readers along for the ride... Stiglitz isn’t just writing about people being hurt by inequality, he is also writing about the system itself being in jeopardy and what needs to be done to fix it.” — Dante Chinni, Washington Post
“Concise and clearly argued.” — Publishers Weekly
“An impassioned argument backed by rigorous economic analysis.” — Kirkus Reviews
“An important and smart new book... It’s a searing read.” — Nicholas Kristof, New York Times
Also by Joseph E. Stiglitz
Fourth Edition / Hardcover + Online Resource Folder
Fourth Edition / Ebook, Downloadable Version
Third Edition / Hardcover | <urn:uuid:e1840f07-0295-4ec7-811c-1f06edc90834> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://books.wwnorton.com/books/detail.aspx?ID=4294967848 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.902962 | 593 | 2.25 | 2 |
Former Head of State Charged With Genocide
Until recently, the idea of a Guatemalan general being tried for these heinous crimes seemed utterly impossible. The fact that a judge has ordered the trial of a former head of state is a remarkable development in a country where impunity for past atrocities has long been the norm.
(Washington, DC) – A Guatemalan judge’s decision to try the former de facto head of state, Efraín Ríos Montt, for genocide and crimes against humanity is a major step forward for accountability in Guatemala, Human Rights Watch said today.
Ríos Montt has been under house arrest since January 2012, when the Attorney General’s Office charged him with ordering the killings of more than 1,700 Mayan people in Guatemala during the years he was de facto head of state (1982-1983). The judge, Miguel Ángel Gálvez, also ordered a former general, José Rodríguez Sánchez, to stand trial for his alleged role in these crimes.
“Until recently, the idea of a Guatemalan general being tried for these heinous crimes seemed utterly impossible,” said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. “The fact that a judge has ordered the trial of a former head of state is a remarkable development in a country where impunity for past atrocities has long been the norm.”
A United Nations-sponsored Commission on Historical Clarification estimated that as many as 200,000 people were killed during Guatemala’s internal armed conflict (1960-1996) and attributed 93 percent of the human rights abuses it documented to state security forces. It concluded that the military had carried out “acts of genocide.”
In 1996, at the end of the armed conflict, a Law of National Reconciliation established an amnesty for “political crimes” committed by both sides during the armed conflict, but explicitly excluded genocide, torture, enforced disappearances, and crimes that are not subject to statutes of limitation under international law.
In May 2012, Ríos Montt was also charged with murder and crimes against humanity in a separate case for his role in a 1982 massacre in the town of Dos Erres, in the Petén region, in which soldiers murdered more than 250 people, including children. In March, a former member of army special forces, Pedro Pimentel Ríos, was sentenced to 6,060 years in prison for his role in the Dos Erres massacre. In 2011, four other former soldiers received similar sentences for their involvement in the killings. | <urn:uuid:70a99bd9-c3bf-4403-9f17-8690d744b4fb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/01/28/guatemala-rios-montt-trial-milestone-justice | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97375 | 532 | 2.28125 | 2 |
Mid-Book Test (up to Chapters 10 through 15)
|Name: _____________________________||Period: ___________________________|
This test consists of 15 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions.
Multiple Choice Questions
Directions: Circle the correct answer.
1. Who else does Kayla know who is in the same situation as described in the answer to question forty-nine?
a) Amber's older brother.
b) Kayla's father.
c) Kayla's mother.
d) Kayla's boyfriend's father.
2. How does Zekeal help Kayla when he arrives at her house?
a) He move the living room furniture.
b) He bathes her dog.
c) He hacks back into her father's file.
d) He finishes her calculus homework.
3. Where does August suggest the group might meet up if they have to leave their homes?
a) Lake Placid.
c) Cape May.
4. What does Kayla not want to reveal about being late to the meeting?
This section contains 672 words|
(approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) | <urn:uuid:65844141-3a7f-48a4-ac90-b7b3d009c155> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bookrags.com/lessonplan/the-bar-code-tattoo/test1.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.905253 | 244 | 1.9375 | 2 |
Each sermon is published in large print for use in preaching, and for easy reading by several people gathered around the computer monitor.
MY HEART EXULTS IN THE LORD
A SERMON ORIGINALLY DELIVERED AT
THE HIGH HILL UNITED METHODIST CHURCH
8 MAY 1988
By Frank L. Hoffman, Pastor
1 Samuel 1:20
Preparation Verse: (Psalms 35:9)
And my soul shall rejoice in the Lord;
It shall exult in His salvation.
Today is Mother's Day.
The Bible does not set a day aside to celebrate or honor our Mothers. In fact, the Bible approaches this subject in a much different way. Let's take a look at some of these.
In Exodus 20:12 it says:
12. "Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the Lord your God gives you."
Note that here God says to honor our father and our mother, but He sets no limit on when we should do it.
God also tells us that when we do honor our parents, things will go well for us. This also implies that if we do not honor them, things will not go well.
In Deuteronomy 21:18-21 we are told that if a son is stubborn and rebellious toward his parents, they are to seize their son and denounce him before the elders. Then the men of his city are to stone him to death.
God said to do this so that the evil would be removed from their midst and “all Israel shall hear of it and fear.”
This is an example of how God tells the people the consequences of their hardness of heart and lack of unconditional love.
And while we are pondering this, think about something else.
When people eat the flesh of some mother's child, have not those people also taken that child and condemned him or her to death?
This also shows a hardness of heart and lack of love and empathy for the billions of animal mothers and children around the world.
Should not we honor them, too?
Didn't God lovingly create us all?
Shouldn't we be honoring all mothers and not just our own?
God puts very great value on the honoring of our parents. But also continue to note that there is no limit to when we should honor them.
Now let’s take a look at Ephesians 6:1-3.
1. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.
2. Honor your father and mother (which is the first commandment with a promise),
3. That it may be well with you, and that you may live long on the earth.
In all that we have seen so far, there is a great emphasis on honoring our parents, but no mention of specifically when to do it.
Do you know why?
It's because we are to honor our parents all the time. That's right; every day, all day long, for this is pleasing to the Lord.
The setting of one day aside to honor our mothers is not of God, but of man, perhaps to ease our consciences for not honoring our mothers every day of the year. God wants us to do it every day.
There is one very important limitation to this honoring. It is to be in the Lord. This applies to the parents, as well as to the children.
God must come first in everyone’s life, or we will gain nothing.
Note what it says in Matthew 10:37.
37. "He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.
Therefore, what all of this is saying is that we are to honor all that is godly in the parent or child, and not to accept or honor what is counter to God's will.
This means that in order for a family to be in harmony with each other, they must first be in harmony with God.
The way that a parent truly acquires and deserves the honor that God speaks of is by leading their children to the Lord, and by doing all that is in their power to set the proper example of a Christ-like life.
And this brings us to the title of today’s sermon: MY HEART EXULTS IN THE LORD.
The Old and New Testament lessons for this morning were songs of godly mothers who set the proper example for us all.
The first was from Hanna, the mother of Samuel who was the last of the judges of Israel; and the second was from Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ.
Hanna and Peninnah were the two wives of Elkanah. Peninnah had many children, but Hanna had none; and Hanna was reproached by her rival because of her being childless.
Instead of fighting back with evil against evil, Hanna brought her request before the Lord, so that her reproach might be taken away.
God granted her request. Thus Hanna named her son Samuel, which means "heard of God," for she said, "Because I have asked him of the Lord." (1Samuel 1:20)
This was part of Hanna's walk with God. It is also an example to all of us to behave in the same way. God will most assuredly hear our prayers and answer us.
Thus Hanna dedicated her son to the Lord. And on the day of his dedication, she prayed the song we read this morning. (1 Samuel 2:1-10)
1 Then Hannah prayed and said,
“My heart exults in the LORD;
My horn is exalted in the LORD,
My mouth speaks boldly against my enemies,
Because I rejoice in Your salvation.
2 “There is no one holy like the LORD,
Indeed, there is no one besides You,
Nor is there any rock like our God.
3 “Boast no more so very proudly,
Do not let arrogance come out of your mouth;
For the LORD is a God of knowledge,
And with Him actions are weighed.
4 “The bows of the mighty are shattered,
But the feeble gird on strength.
5 “Those who were full hire themselves out for bread,
But those who were hungry cease to hunger.
Even the barren gives birth to seven,
But she who has many children languishes.
6 “The LORD kills and makes alive;
He brings down to Sheol and raises up.
7 “The LORD makes poor and rich;
He brings low, He also exalts.
8 “He raises the poor from the dust,
He lifts the needy from the ash heap
To make them sit with nobles,
And inherit a seat of honor;
For the pillars of the earth are the LORD’S,
And He set the world on them.
9 “He keeps the feet of His godly ones,
But the wicked ones are silenced in darkness;
For not by might shall a man prevail.
10 “Those who contend with the LORD will be shattered;
Against them He will thunder in the heavens,
The LORD will judge the ends of the earth;
And He will give strength to His king,
And will exalt the horn of His anointed.”
"My heart exults in the Lord," she sang. Every part of her body was lifted up by the presence of the Lord within her, and the things He did for her.
This comes only from a total submission to God's will. And when this happens, we also lift up the Lord in our praises. Thus Hanna says, "My horn is exalted in the Lord."
Why does Hanna feel this way?
It is because she is rejoicing in the Lord's salvation, and she wants others to know about it.
She is living the example of a mother worthy of the honor that God commands us to give to a parent.
This reaction of Hanna's is not that unusual. All who come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ experience similar reactions. And even though Hanna lived many years before Jesus Christ's birth, her commitment was totally in agreement with God's will in her day.
Mary, the mother of Jesus, experienced the same reaction even before He was born, for she said, "My soul exalts the Lord." Every part of her inner being is lifting up the Lord. (Luke 1:46-55)
46 And Mary said:
“My soul exalts the Lord,
47 And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.
48 “For He has had regard for the humble state of His bondslave;
For behold, from this time on all generations will count me blessed.
49 “For the Mighty One has done great things for me;
And holy is His name.
50 “AND HIS MERCY IS UPON GENERATION AFTER GENERATION
TOWARD THOSE WHO FEAR HIM.
51 “He has done mighty deeds with His arm;
He has scattered those who were proud in the thoughts of their heart.
52 “He has brought down rulers from their thrones,
And has exalted those who were humble.
53 “HE HAS FILLED THE HUNGRY WITH GOOD THINGS;
And sent away the rich empty-handed.
54 “He has given help to Israel His servant,
In remembrance of His mercy,
55 As He spoke to our fathers,
To Abraham and his descendants forever.”
And why does she feel this way?
Because, as she said: “And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.” She is filled with the saving power of Jesus Christ, both because He is in her womb and because she is filled with the Holy Spirit.
She goes on to explain more of the reason for this rejoicing: "For He has had regard for the humble state of His bondslave."
How could a young woman of her day, as yet not married, rejoice when she becomes pregnant?
Under the law, she should have been taken outside and stoned to death.
How could she rejoice?
She could rejoice because she was totally committed to the Lord. The world didn't understand then, and it still doesn't today; but she did testify of God's grace through her life, and the world cannot deny that.
She could rejoice because her pregnancy was not the result of the lust of the flesh, but of her total submission to the will of God.
Thus she is worthy of the honor that the Lord says we are to give our parents.
Did you notice the similarity in the prayer songs of these two women?
There was about 1000 years between the time of Hanna and the time of Mary; yet they both acknowledge the holiness and righteousness of God: that He often reverses the circumstances of the proud and exalts the humble, and that in Him is our salvation.
Not only was it true over that thousand years, but it is still true today and will also be true tomorrow. The key, however, is that in order to make it true in our lives, we must accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of our lives.
Only then can we experience what Hanna and Mary experienced.
In the 50th verse of the 12th chapter of Matthew, Jesus tells us a very important spiritual relationship that must exist within a family. He said this after someone told Him that His own family was there. Note the verse:
50. "For whoever does the will of My Father who is in heaven, he is My brother and sister and mother."
Are we members of the Family of God?
We are, if we do the will of our Father who is in heaven.
The proof of that relationship is knowing that our sins have been forgiven, and in our exaltation of the Lord we find ourselves doing all that the Lord desires us to do.
If we are parents in this relationship with Christ, we are honored because of the life we lead and for the godly home we provided for our children.
It we are children in this relationship with Christ, we will be honoring our parents continually, and not just one day a year, because it is the will of God, and thereby also receive the blessing of God in return.
There is no greater honor that a parent can receive than to have their children grow into the adults that they desired them to be.
There is no greater honor we can give our Father in heaven than to do His will.
Yes, today is Mother’s Day.
Does your heart exult in the Lord?
Is His very presence in your life lifting you up?
And all at the same time are you praising His holy Name? Are you exalting Him?
If you are experiencing this, child, then share it with your mother.
And mother, if you are experiencing this, then share it with your child.
And if they are not with you, then share it with the Lord.
If you are not experiencing this relationship with the Lord, then submit yourself to Him and ask Him to forgive you.
Ask Jesus to come into your heart and change you into the person He desires you to be. And if you mean it, it will happen.
If everything we do in our lives is Christ-centered, then we will be successful in what we do and have that joy and exaltation that surpasses all understanding.
Then we will walk with the Lord and sing as Hanna and Mary did: "My heart exults in the Lord."
Happy Mother’s Day, Mom! | <urn:uuid:c807c597-e7ba-47b6-838c-b3036c4f7dbd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.all-creatures.org/sermons97/s8may88.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968118 | 2,866 | 1.84375 | 2 |
“At CIERP I’m able to participate in cutting edge practical research on environmental issues, but at the same time have discussions about the Israel-Palestine conflict, the partitioning of Sudan, or microfinance in Bangladesh. The diversity of interests and backgrounds is mind-numbing.”
— Kartikeya Singh, Fletcher PhD candidate and Junior Research Fellow, CIERP
Learning at CIERP takes place both inside and outside the classroom. Each year we offer courses at the Master’s and PhD levels as part of the International Environment and Resource Policy field, which attracts about 15-20% of Fletcher’s students.
We have formal ties with high level practitioners (Professors of Practice) and with colleagues in other departments and universities, and we support both pre- and post-doctoral research fellowships. Our scholars are often engaged in local, state, national, and international policy development, negotiations, and implementation. Students gain experience by working with these scholars on projects that apply their classroom studies to practical problems.
Our students come from across the globe and bring a wide range of international professional experience, and upon graduation move into more senior positions spanning the public, private, and non-profit sectors.
Please visit The Fletcher School admissions page for more information about degree options and applying to Fletcher, or see the sidebar options to the left for more information about education and opportunities in the international environment and resource policy field. | <urn:uuid:77a5d11c-d79d-4634-9f2b-f5d41a5c302f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fletcher.tufts.edu/CIERP/Education | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00048-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.915783 | 296 | 1.5 | 2 |
UPDATE: The BAS did indeed move the Doomsday Clock forward, by one minute. It now reads five minutes to midnight.
Tick, tick, tick... doom. Listen closely this afternoon and you may hear the ominous whirrings of the Doomsday Clock, counting us ever closer to mankind's certain end.
The clock, invented in 1947 in the wake of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, tells the world – symbolically – how close it is to total nuclear destruction.
Initially set at seven minutes to midnight (i.e. wipe-out), the clock currently reads 11:54 PM. Later today, LiveScience reports, the Washington-based Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (BAS) will decide whether to adjust it to reflect current threats to humankind.
Hey, it could go backward. But the BAS, in its annual review, has already listed plenty of reasons why the past year may have speeded us on our path to destruction – including the Fukushima nuclear disaster, growing nuclear capabilities in Iran and North Korea, and the obstacles to effective US policies against climate change. (Plus there are all those rumors the Mayans started.)
The closest the clock has ever come to midnight was in 1953, when tests of hydrogen bombs by both the US and the Soviet Union prompted the BAS to set it to two minutes to midnight. The longest we've had was 17 minutes in 1991, when the Cold War was declared over and the US and Russia cut their nuclear arsenals.
We'll find out at 1 PM EST how long we still have left. | <urn:uuid:80e245cd-5e6a-491d-a7e5-64caf2ceea78> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/weird-wide-web/doomsday-clock-bulletin-atomic-scientists | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929578 | 314 | 3.5625 | 4 |
Now learning isn’t limited to sitting in classrooms, listening to teachers and reading text-books; it’s just one-click away via Nokia Life Education services on Nokia mobile phones.
Nokia Life Education Services:
Nokia Life Education services provide a suite of education and lifelong services for people at every stage of their lives.
You might be a teenager using Nokia Life Education services to swot up on study tips or prepare for an exam– and then share what you’ve learned with your peers or friends. Or you might be a mother helping your children with their homework.
If you want to improve your skills later in your life, maybe by preparing for a job interview, improving how you handle your finances, finding out more about current affairs and the world, or learning English you can use Nokia Life Education services to get all the information and advice you need.
New Nokia Partnerships:
To bring locally relevant, superior quality information, knowledge and skills to people via Nokia Life Education services, Nokia has been working to build and grow an ecosystem of knowledge partnerships with private and public organizations.
All Nokia Life Education services are supported by knowledge partnerships with renowned and reputed organizations such as British Council, Gamatechno, Primagama, Beijing No. 4 Middle School, EnableM, 3WC, EzVidya, YouthReach, HDI, Sygma, and others.
Most recently Plan International (Plan) and Foundation for Social Change (FSC) have partnered with Nokia. Plan and FSC have vetted and accredited the content of the Life Skills service of Nokia Life which is an acknowledgement of the superior quality information & knowledge people receive via Nokia Life services.
Plan International is an NGO that works in more than 50 developing countries around the world to promote children’s rights, and help lift children out of poverty. Plan has made a strong strategic commitment to combat exclusion through measurable results, broader reach and collaboration.
The Foundation for Social Change works in emerging economies to help private enterprise turn social responsibility into a successful business model – and is focused on empowering women and girls.
Partnering with Nokia and making available quality information to millions of people is a good example of implementing Plan’s & FSC’s strategy in action.
Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU):
Nokia’s partnership with Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) is the first of its kind in open & distance education. People in India will be able to learn and qualify for IGNOU’s Certificate in Functional English programme through their mobile phones using Nokia Life. Nokia has already been working with IGNOU on an ongoing pilot in the three states of Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh.
Nokia Life will now offer a certified programme in learning functional English across India. Users who enroll in the program, apart from the course material from IGNOU, will also receive content in their local language on their mobile phones to complete the course using Nokia Life.
The Indira Gandhi National Open University has two million students enrolled in more than 150 programmes across India, and offers courses at every level up to doctorate through a network of distance learning and regional study centres. Partnering with Nokia is a part of their strategy in action around mLearning.
Nokia Life is today the world’s largest life and livelihood improvement services suite for youth & young adults. Apart from education, Nokia Life offers services in a range of topics in health, agriculture, entertainment & spirituality. Apart from information and knowledge, this subscription based SMS service suite also provides for interactive experiences like share, poll and ask-an-expert. Nokia Life is currently available on Series 40 and Series 30 mobile phones in India, China, Indonesia and Nigeria. Over 50 million people have experienced and benefitted from Nokia Life services already. | <urn:uuid:a3b9a0d2-32d8-4f6d-ae1a-3aea71e523b0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://conversations.nokia.com/2012/03/30/amazing-new-learning-with-nokia-life-education-partnerships/?article2pdf=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931242 | 784 | 2.078125 | 2 |
A jury in the US District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin found Danisco liable for infringing Novozymes' US patent on alpha-amylases for use in the starch and biofuel industries.
The jury also found Danisco's infringement to be willful. Novozymes filed the lawsuit against Danisco in May 2010.
But the jury’s decision is not the final decree, which is subject to the judge's affirmation and possible appeals.
When asked if the Danish group could confirm the likely date for the final verdict, Johan Melchior, a spokesperson for Novozymes said: “To be honest, we don’t know. These processes can take a considerable amount of time.”
In an emailed statement to FoodNavigator.com Mikkel Viltoft, general counsel in Novozymes, said “We are pleased that the jury has decided in our favor and we will now wait for the judge’s final decision in this matter. Novozymes will continue to protect its investment in R&D and defend its intellectual property rights.
We believe it is in everybody’s interest that intellectual property rights are respected, as this is the only way we can continue to provide innovation to the benefit of our customers, consumers and society as a whole.”
Novozymes makes enzymes at a plant in Franklinton, North Carolina.The infringing products have primarily been used to produce ethanol from corn starch in the US.
This is not the first time the two enzyme companies have battled it out over patent violation.
In April 2007, they settled a dispute, again relating to alpha-amylase, which resulted in Novozymes receiving over $15m from Danisco. A court in Delaware, US, found that Danisco's US subsidiary Genecor had infringed on a Novozymes patent for one of its bioethanol enzymes.
Novozymes was granted a patent for the enzyme in 2005. The company said it had contacted Danisco warning that the patent was due to be issued, and advising the firm to stop manufacturing and selling its Spezyme Ethyl product, an alpha amylase enzyme used in ethanol production.
Danisco voluntarily withdrew its product from the market only after a first patent infringement ruling in August 2006. | <urn:uuid:9338c5ec-db83-4c1e-8bc9-56fe034b83b0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mobile.foodnavigator.com/Financial-Industry/Jury-finds-for-Novozymes-in-patent-infringement-case-against-Danisco | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959982 | 472 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Software Can Detect Best Responses for ‘That’s What She Said’ Jokes
We still don’t know who’s going to be the new boss on ‘The Office‘ but could Michael Scott’s sense of humor be replaced by a computer program?
Chloé Kiddon and Yuriy Brun, two computer scientists at the University of Washington, have developed software that identifies the best sentences to attach the classic amendment “That’s what she said.”
They call their invention Double Entendre via Noun Transfer (or DEviaNT). It works by analyzing each word in the sentence for sexiness potential, flagging words such as “meat” “rod” or “wet.”
The programs is 70 percent accurate in identifying the proper sentences to add a “That’s what she said!” to. (In other words, it’s about as accurate as Michael Scott.) | <urn:uuid:ce6fdbee-cf77-453e-8274-2acfd88ab08d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bozemanskissfm.com/software-can-detect-best-responses-for-%E2%80%98thats-what-she-said%E2%80%99-jokes/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920158 | 209 | 1.789063 | 2 |
High tax refunds are the cause of India’s current cash crunch, so the Indian government will provide for its funding needs by issuing cash management bills until June, according to a senior finance ministry official on Friday.
Cash management bills are a non-standard short term borrowing instrument that lasts less than 91 days that were introduced in August 2009 to help the government make up for a short term cash crunch. The finance official explained that for the financial year that started on April 1, the government has so far sold 260 billion rupees worth of cash management bills, and has paid 270 billion rupees in tax refunds in April.
The government had expected to borrow just 300 billion rupees between April 1 and April 20 but for the week ending April 15th it was much higher at 506 billion rupees. The government is required by the ways and means advances facility to use auctions and bonds to repay the Reserve Bank of India if its borrowing is more than 75% of the limit.
Citi on Wednesday said India’s fiscal deficit target, which the finance official was 4.6% of gross domestic product for the year, may not hold, explaining “while the [government’s] revenue and growth assumptions appear realistic, the expenditure numbers appear optimistic”. | <urn:uuid:da954138-7fd8-476d-9a6e-15682da63981> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://seerpress.com/indian-government-short-on-cash/35386/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969684 | 258 | 2.3125 | 2 |
New Guideline Urges Screening for Fall Risk
MONDAY Feb. 4, 2008 -- Certain people are at high risk for accidental falls and should be regularly screened to help reduce the high number of fall-related injuries and deaths in the United States, a new guideline says.
Each year in the United States, accidental falls result in 1.8 million emergency room visits and more than 16,000 deaths.
The new guideline, issued by the American Academy of Neurology, take into account all available scientific studies and concluded that people with stroke, dementia, and walking and balance disorders have the greatest risk of falling. Having fallen in the past year strongly predicts that a person will suffer another fall, and people with Parkinson's disease, peripheral neuropathy, weakness in the legs or feet, and substantial vision loss are also at increased risk for falls.
The new guideline recommends doctors routinely ask patients about falls and use screening measures and mobility tests to assess whether a person is a risk of falling and needs prevention measures, such as starting a regular exercise program or eliminating fall hazards from their home.
The new guideline is published in the Feb. 5 issue of Neurology.
"There is a lack of awareness among doctors and patients in recognizing and preventing falls, which can lead to hip fractures, head injury, hospitalization and in some cases death," guideline lead author Dr. David J. Thurman, of the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a prepared statement.
"People need to know that falls are preventable, and there are simple tests to determine if you're at risk of falling," Thurman said. "Oftentimes the doctor may not ask about falls, and the patient may not mention falls. But, it's important to discuss falls, since some people can face serious life consequences after falling, such as disability and loss of independence, which may be averted only through fall prevention."
The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons has more about falls.
Posted: February 2008 | <urn:uuid:1675b9c9-c717-42e2-8367-aa113dcbc81c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.drugs.com/news/new-guideline-urges-screening-fall-risk-10896.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948115 | 419 | 2.671875 | 3 |
This article was originally distributed via PRWeb. PRWeb, WorldNow and this Site make no warranties or representations in connection therewith.
SOURCE: The Krazy Coupon Lady, LLC
Holiday shoppers will spend $28.79 billion on gift cards in 2012, spending an average of $156.86 on card purchases, according to a survey from the National Retail Federation. Those figures are an all-time high in the survey’s 10-year history.
Boise, Idaho (PRWEB) December 06, 2012
Only a few weeks remain before the holiday shopping season comes to a close, and many consumers will turn to gift cards in an effort to give a loved one something they know will be appreciated. Whether the shopping list includes gift cards, electronics, clothing or the hottest toy, holiday shopping can easily lead to a spiral of debt as a new year begins. But it is possible to escape overspending by following some guidelines from family finance and frugal living experts Heather Wheeler and Joanie Demer of TheKrazyCouponLady.com.
- Never pay full price for gift cards. They can be found at discount prices at sites such as Cardpool.com, GiftCardGranny.com, Giftcards.com, and Plasticjungle.com. TheKrazyCouponLady.co m often lists deals on gift cards (such as $25 restaurant.com cards for $2).
- Be safe. Don’t buy gift cards from auction sites (cards could be stolen or counterfeit). In addition, make sure cards will be honored by selecting stable companies that won’t go out of business. Read ScripSmart.com to find out which gift cards to avoid.
- Make the most of discounts. Buy gift cards from retailers that offer coupons to stretch dollars further.
- Give the recipient the original receipt to ensure the card can be replaced if it is lost.
- Always read the fine print before buying. Look for hidden fees, reductions in value, replacement policies (if cards are lost or stolen) and cash back policies.
Holiday greeting cards:
- Shop around to find the best deals and resist the urge to settle on the first offer that is discovered. Watch for special promotions offering online coupon codes and free shipping, and consider purchasing smaller quantities from several different locations in order to take advantage of multiple promotions and save more money. Get 25 cards at one site, 15 cards from another location, etc.
- Check dollar stores for deals on larger quantities of cards in classic holiday designs.
- Go high tech with e-cards and social media. Sites such as Smilebox.com allow users to personalize using music, photos and videos. Use Animoto.com to share holiday greetings by designing animated slideshows of photos and videos. Bonus: Creations can be quickly shared through email and social media feeds for last-minute distribution, and there is no need for postage.
General holiday shopping:
- Use price comparison apps. Download an app like Google’s Mobile Shopper or GetYowza.com to search for and display prices at other local retailers. Avoid buyer’s remorse and use Eyeona, an app that navigates price adjustment policies for consumers.
- Never pay full price for magazine subscriptions. Daily deals for discount subscriptions are listed on TheKrazyCouponLady.com at up to nearly 90 percent off the cover price.
- Save on sales tax by purchasing from sites that aren’t required to collect sales tax in certain states.
- Earn money by shopping through sites that offer cash back on purchases. Shopathome.com and Ebates.com give shoppers the opportunity to earn between 1 and 30 percent back on purchases from thousands of stores.
Plan ahead for easier holiday shopping in 2013
- To make the most of frugal tips and techniques, shoppers should start well in advance of December. Consider shopping right after the holidays have ended this year to set gifts aside for 2013. Hit the clearance sales when retailers unload their holiday season stock to prepare for the next season.
- Stockpile those gifts for later giving. Set aside space for gifts that can be used for the 2013 holiday season, along with other occasions such as birthdays, baby showers and weddings. One of the best ways to save on gifts is to purchase items when the best deals are available rather than waiting until the occasion arises and shoppers are forced to pay full price.
By following the tips above shoppers can save 50 percent or more on holiday gifts. To find the latest coupons and sales, along with other frugal living tips, visit TheKrazyCouponlady.com.
For the original version on PRWeb visit: http://www.prweb.com/releases/prweb2012/12/prweb10208886.htm | <urn:uuid:27a6787d-5b1a-48a7-91a7-d261b067a9d2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kait8.com/story/20278744/thekrazycouponladycom-offers-tips-on-how-to-spend-less-on-holiday-gifts | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.914911 | 1,001 | 1.59375 | 2 |
ROYERSFORD — The potentially deadly consequences of mixing dangerous activities with prom night festivities will be witnessed April 20 (2012; Friday) by Spring-Ford Area Senior High School students during an 8 a.m. mock crash conducted by Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD) and sponsored by State Farm Insurance.
The event, which emphasizes the importance of making responsible decisions traveling to and from the prom, will be held at the high school 10-12 Grade Center’s parking lot, 350 S. Lewis Rd., Royersford.
Student actors will portray victims of a fatal automobile accident caused by driving under the influence and other life-altering decisions. Local emergency responders will work to rescue them from a crashed car and will treat the victims at the scene. Others will be taken away by ambulances and a medical helicopter.
The message is intended to help 11th- and 12th-grade students drive safely and make wise choices during their April 21 (Saturday) prom, according to school officials.
Local emergency crews “have been very helpful in making this event as real as an actual crash site, to help our students understand their choices have a real and lasting impact,” Principal Jeff Kollar said.
Photo from Google Images | <urn:uuid:6f2a33b7-60a8-45bf-852e-3ea0b02c493c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.limerickpost.net/2012/04/16/mock-crash-at-royersford-serves-to-warn-students/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958449 | 257 | 1.671875 | 2 |
‘Secrets of the Horse UK Ltd.’ supports the ‘Horses for Orphans’ projects lead by Richard and Ingela Larsson Smith.
‘Horses for Orphans’
The ‘Horses for Orphans’ (H4O) projects enable children that live in orphanages to experience joy and the healing of their hearts through interacting with horses the natural way.
By learning how to take care of horses and understanding how they think and feel, children can grow in kindness and responsibility.
Horses by nature look for a leader to follow and as the children grow in leadership, communication and team skills, they gain the trust of the horses. As the children experience a horse choosing to enter a relationship with them, they gain confidence.
Through the ‘Horses for Orphans’ projects leaders are raised up. The children can advance through a program to gain the necessary skills to pursue a career with horses.
Opportunity is given to the older teenagers to train as leaders of the horse project in their country.
‘Horses for Orphans’ is part of Torchbearers Trust. Torchbearers Trust is a registered charity in England and Wales (no. 1000113).
To donate to ‘Horses for Orphans’ click here: www.lostchildrenoftheearth.com | <urn:uuid:1ce0559f-57e5-4f09-8ac6-9bd7c959cdfd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://secretsofthehorse.com/Giving.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939898 | 281 | 1.851563 | 2 |
A popular concept of bankruptcy is:
- You lose almost everything you own to pay off as much as possible of your debts.
- All your debts are wiped out
- You have to start from scratch to build a new life, including getting credit in the face of a bad record.
In the US, this is roughly a correct description of Chapter 7 bankruptcy for an individual. Other chapters of the US Bankruptcy Code provide other kinds of bankruptcy (including for businesses), of which the main alternative for an individual is Chapter 13 bankruptcy. If you are considering personal bankruptcy, you will probably have to choose between chapter 7 and chapter 13.
Any bankruptcy is an extreme solution. Before you choose a type of bankruptcy, check whether you can use one of these alternatives:
What is the difference between chapter 7 and chapter 13 bankruptcy?
Liquidation vs extended payments: Chapter 7 bankruptcy is a liquidation: virtually all assets are sold. Chapter 13 bankruptcy is an extended repayment arrangement, known as Adjustment of Debts. Both types end with a bankruptcy discharge, when the individual’s debts are wiped out and the individual starts over.
Loss of assets: In chapter 7, a debtor surrenders all their property to a case attorney. The case attorney converts the property into cash and pays back the creditors (the people the debtor owes). Certain property (called “exempt assets”) can be protected from seizure. Chapter 13 bankruptcy is designed for individuals who want to pay back their debts but need an extended period of time to do so. It does not require the debtor to sell their assets. In this type of bankruptcy, the debtor makes biweekly or monthly payments to the creditors. The amount for payback is based on how much they can afford after necessary living expenses.
No assets vs regular income: Generally a Chapter 7 bankruptcy is filed by a person with limited or no assets. With no assets, it is a relatively simple procedure. However, if the debtor has sufficient income to re-pay at least a portion of the debts, a Wage Earner Repayment Plan under Chapter 13 may be the way to go.
Unsecured debts and completion time:
In a typical Chapter 7 bankruptcy, the debtor does not pay anything to the unsecured creditors, unless the bankruptcy court requires them to liquidate non-exempt assets. A Chapter 7 bankruptcy is typically completed in a relatively short period of time, generally a number of months.
Although a Chapter 13 bankruptcy does not require selling assets, the debtor is required to repay some or all unsecured debt back through the court over a period of up to five years. The payments will be at least as much as the money creditors would receive if non-exempt assets were liquidated as part of a Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Upon the completion of the court-ordered repayment schedule, any unpaid unsecured debts are discharged.
Which bankruptcy chapter is right for me?
The correct option will depend on a number of factors, including your income, your ability to repay your debts, and where you live (the rules on exempt assets vary from state to state). Since the law is complicated, we suggest you contact a bankruptcy attorney to fully explore your options.
Since Chapter 7 bankruptcy typically involves no payments, and Chapter 13 bankruptcy involves payments for up to five years, why would anyone choose to deal with their debts through Chapter 13? There are four typical answers.
- The Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2005 has imposed a means test; if your income is too high, you cannot file for bankruptcy under Chapter 7; you must file under Chapter 13.
- If you are concerned about a foreclosure on your home, a Chapter 13 Wage Earner Plan may be a better option. Although a Chapter 7 petition delays foreclosure, it does not prevent it. In fact, it may require the property to be sold to satisfy the mortgage debt. In a Chapter 13 bankruptcy, the person filing the Wage Earner Plan may be able to negotiate with the mortgage holder to catch up in full on the mortgage arrears as part of the court approved repayment plan. Assuming the mortgage is brought up to date, the foreclosure is prevented.
- Even though Chapter 7 may be an option, you may simply not want to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Since you know you borrowed the money, you may prefer to file a Chapter 13 repayment plan to deal with your debts.
- A Chapter 13 Wage Earner Plan generally allows you to retain all of your assets, so if you would lose assets in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, Chapter 13 may be the best option for you. Chapter 7 bankruptcy, where a debtor's assets are liquidated, should be considered a last resort, and should only be filed if all other options have been explored and exhausted.
If you have a regular income, you may not qualify to file under chapter 7.
According to www.equifax.com, a bankruptcy can remain on your credit report for 10 years, which will impact your ability to obtain credit in the future.
Chapter 7 should be considered a last resort. A bankruptcy attorney can help you determine which bankruptcy chapter would best suit your personal needs.
What else do I need to know about bankruptcy?
The cost of filing for bankruptcy will vary depending on which chapter you choose. Fees are subject to change; however, you can expect that filing will cost approximately $300. You will also need to consider the cost of hiring a bankruptcy attorney.
As soon as the bankruptcy petition is stamped by the bankruptcy court, all creditors must stop collection efforts against the debtor, and you are immediately protected from your creditors.
There are several "do it yourself" books on bankruptcy that explain the bankruptcy process. However, bankruptcy law is complicated. To help make your decision, professional advice is always a good idea. Remember that the bankruptcy clerk's office staff, bankruptcy petition preparers, typing services and paralegals are prohibited by law from giving you legal advice. Only a lawyer can give you legal advice.
Most bankruptcy lawyers will give you a free consultation. They will go over your family situation, review your debts and your assets, and explain the different options. They will also explain what services they provide, and how much it will cost.
How can I decide my next step?
If you have not followed our three-step process to get here, go to debt consolidation to start the process. It is important that you thoroughly check other alternatives before proceeding with bankruptcy.
If you have come here by eliminating debt consolidation and credit counseling as options in your case, get an indication whether you qualify for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. For further information, check Chapter 13 bankruptcy and/or Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
If you know you wish to pursue bankruptcy, contact a bankruptcy lawyer to guide you through the process and ensure that your solution is truly the best one for your case. | <urn:uuid:d6f10f63-0bd4-4b1a-b7d1-22a2fa99f559> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bankruptcy-america.com/bankruptcy.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958151 | 1,397 | 2.25 | 2 |
WILLIAM ALBERT HALLADAY, sometimes known as only Albert Halladay came to Michigan from Ontario, Canada. He died 7 Sept 1873 in Gratiot, MI. I have not verified this but his daughter Patience is my gr grandmother and am looking for her family. She had a sister, Lucy and two brothers, Reuben and Henry. Would like to find out anything on this family and can share what I have.
John W. WARD, son of Absalom Levi WARD and Clara CRINER, b. 1 Jan 1861 (Gratiot Co.?) m. about 1879 , Gratiot Co., MI, Clara May MINEGAR. Searching above lines and WHITE/WARD connection. Sarah WHITE, dau. Absalom WHITE and ?, m Allen WARD.
I am researching the ancestors and decendants of James WOOD (b.1809) and Adeline EGGLESTON (b. 1812) who were both born in New York, probably in Chautuaqau County. They moved from New York to Lenawee County, Michigan in 1840 and moved on to Gratiot County in 1854. James WOOD patented 80 acres in section 30 of Newark Township. James and Adeline are both buried in the Newark Township Cemetary about a mile north of Middleton. They had the following children: Luther (b.1833), Sarah (b. 1834), Myron (b. 1838), Henry (b. 1840), Harrison (b. 1843) and John (b. 18??). I am a decendant of Henry WOOD's son Howard and grandson Clyde.and have many data on Henry's decendants and some data on the decendants of Henry's brothers, but I have no data on the ancestors of James and Adeline WOOD. I will exchange data with anyone interested in the family. LWood4562@aol.com
Seeking information on Philip Francis STREET. Born about 1849 in Blanchard Township (Hancock County, OH). Moved to Gratiot County (MI) about 1865. Married Margaret L. HULL about 1870. Especially want info on his parents. Thank you. Other Surnames from family:STREET RIES MCGREGOR MCCLURE PRATT FENNER CLABAUGH/CLAYBAUGH HOUSER HULL FISHER
Edward EASLICK married Maggie GLAZIER in Lafayette in 1900. They
had Lottie in 1902. Two other daughters from that union not identified.
One possibly Jean. This union dissolved prior to 1914 when Ed married
Marie SMITH-CUMMINGS (CUNNINGHAM?). Want to known
names/birthdates/places for children (other than Lottie) for children
from these two unions. Ed married my mother (Anna MCEACHERN of Texas) in
Saginaw in 1925 w/daughter Catherine b. 1926 before removal to California
that year. Edward was son of David and Caroline EASLICK of Lafayette.
Need death date for Edward's youngest brother Lewis who, at 16, showed
with parents, Charles, and Edward in the 1894 State Census.
COLE/KITTLE/GOULER - Alma 1915 - I am just begining to search my ancestory and have hit a wall. My grandfather Everett Max KITTLE was born in Alma in 1915. He was an adopted child. He was adopted by John KITTLE and ? GOULER. His born name was Max Everett COLE. I am trying to find the names of his real parents. I would appreciate any information. Here is some additional info I can provide about him. He owned property in Lake City Mi. at one time. He currently lives in Clio Mi. He has Five children that I know of. Names:Russel, Roger, Lyle, John, and Brenda.
Does anyone have cemetery info for Gratiot County, Arcada Township for
the NEWCOMER family. They were there in 1900. His names was Sylvanus
Newcomer. His wife was Clara E. (CHAMBERS). Sons Erasmua and Adam.
Sylvanus born Nov 1849
Clara E. born Apr 1851
Erasmus born Jul 1877
Adam born 1879
I am looking for any information on the FLECK family. I have not found them in any census information, but according to family information, they moved to North Star area, probably before the turn of the century. My grand mother remembers going to a funeral (in North Star?) many years ago. This was probably a child or other relative, as Adam and Eve most likely died well before that. Unfortunately, I have found no cemetery records either.
Pine River Twp, Gratiot Co. Seeking information about the family of Nehemiah HURLBUTT, b.abt Feb 1821 in Ontario Co., NY; m. Amanda A. BRISTOL, 20 Sep 1846; d. 19 Mar 1887. Their children were: Augusta "Mary" b. 27 Jun 1847, m. Orlando LUCE abt 1868; d. 26 Feb 1906 Ellen M. b. abt 12 Aug 1849; d. 04 Oct 1876 George W. b. 05 Feb 1853; m. Edna CHILDS 05 Nov 1873; d.? Oscar Eli b. 06 Jun 1854; m. Esther WADE 14 Aug 1877; d. 12 Mar 1938 Willie b. abt 24 Mar 1863; d. 09 Jul 1865 Anna (possibly?) b. abt 04 Jun 1864; d. 23 Aug 1878 Jessie M. b. 07 Jan 1867; m. Kirk HILDRETH 31 Jul 1895; d. 25 Aug 1961
I am researching the DAMON/DAYMON surnames of Gratiot County, Michigan. Please add these surnames to your Gratiot County Surname List. Anyone else interested in these surnames can contact me at Michgnboy@aol.com.
I am looking for family of George BUND who lived in Alma, Gratiot Co., Michigan most of his life. I show George was born in Monroe County, Michigan in about 1895. I have papers about his baptism at St. Patricks Church in Carleton, MI and some info about other family members. I would like to exchange info if possible. George's parents are Mathia and Anna BUND Mathia is my grandma's brother. George would be my mother's cousin. She does not ever remember meeting him. Hope to make contact with someone who knew George.
Mary GEORGE SHERWOOD. Born 24 March 1842, St. Louis, Gratiot Co, Michigan. She married William SHERWOOD 23 Dec 1889, Gratiot County, Michigan. William died 16 Jan 1902, Crystal, Montcalm Co, Michigan. Would love to find out when and where Mary GEORGE SHERWOOD, my ggrandmother died. She died after 1902. Their children were Athela SHERWOOD born abt 1861, Eliza SHERWOOD born 1865, Carrie born 1869, George, born 1871, Lillian, my grandmother born 5 March 1875, Alra born 1872, Ruth 1878, Grace & Clarence birthdates not yet known. Mary George SHERWOOD's parents were Eliza KELLOGG, born 1806, NY and David GEORGE, Born 1801, VT both residing Gratiot Co., Michigan. Their children were Mary Matilda GEORGE,born 1842 Lyndon GEORGE, William GEORGE born 1845, Jonathan GEORGE born 1835 and Hannah GEORGE born 1849. If you would have any information on any of these people, I would appreciate hearing from you. I am always glad to share any of my data.
Louis(sp) EASLICK, 16, appears in 1894 State Census,
Lafayette Twp, with parents David and Caroline and with
brothers Charley and Edward (my pop). What is strange about
this is that Lewis(sp) EASLICK, b. 16 Sep 1877, in Leslie,
died in Leslie Twp, Ingham Co. on 22 Nov 1882. Had he lived,
he would have been about 16 in 1894. A possibility is that
"Louis" and "Lewis" may have been twins but there is no
family record of this. Anyone have an answer to this enigma?
I am looking for the BALL
family who lived in Gratiot Co. Harvey BALL was on the 1880 census in
New Haven Twp. He had another brother William Henry BALL who settled in
Michigan also. Any connections would be appreciated. Harvey's father
was Henry BALL who was born in Virginia.
Seeking information on Calvin W. COURTER (d Gratiot Co, 18 Jul 1908) and Clara Ann MUNSEE (d 17 Jan 1911). Also seeking information on Alpheus Nelson RUNDIO (d 04 Oct 1877) and his wife Lucy Ann WOODWARD. Need info on Wilford MYERS who married Nellie May FULLERTON on 08 Aug 1884 in Gratiot Co, MI. Will be happy to trade information.
Seeking descendants/information on Amelia BURNETT and
Charles BURNETT, children of Charles L. BURNETT. They were
born mid 1870's in Chicago. When father died, their
mother, Alice Adele Clark BURNETT married W. Frederick
FROSCH of Gratiot County MI, where the family lived in the
Alice died in 1890's and Charles shortly after turn of the
century. Fate of Amelia unknown.
Benjamin Ellis VAN DEVENTER and Martha LINN had four children. The third child, Edward Joseph VANDEVENTER was born in Lenawee Co. on May 8, 1868. He died October 24, 1892. He is buried in the Ithaca Cemetery. My question is: how and where did he die? I have some records indicating that it was some sort of accident.
Any information on The Twin Brothers Cigar Company, in business through about 1947 and Joseph Wolfe MacKenzie and Elijah (Lyle) Marion MacKenzie, proprietors. Name sometimes spelled McKenzie. The MacKenzie twins were born April 24, 1872 in Ft. Wayne, IN. Joseph MacKenzie died July 24, 1926 in Alma, MI. Elijah (Lyle ) Marion MacKenzie died August 1, 1957 in Alma, MI. Lyle was married to Jesse Robinson.
There may be a divorce record for Joseph MacKenzie sometime about 1920-1922. He was married to Louise Gailey MacKenzie. How would I obtain copies of this record ? Joseph MacKenzie was also the paid Secretary of the Loyal order of Masons and was connected with the Masonic Lodge. Is there someone at the lodge I might write who would have access to records.
A sibling of Joseph and Lyle MacKenzie was Edward H. MacKenzie who died ( probably in Alma ) in 1958. Any information on him would be appreciated. Another sib;ing was Arthur A. MacKenzie, though I do not know whether he had an Alma connection. Thanks
Would like information on Charles William Bailor, wife Eva Dramer, son William Henry, b 3/22/1867 who married Cora May Small. Their son Lester married Bessie McJilton Dworak. Bessie and Lester lived in Gratiot County where they raised their family. Would like any information on any of these people. I understand that Lester put out a 2 volume family history. I would like to purchase this if anyone has it available and no longer needs it. | <urn:uuid:2783f928-7944-4674-9d74-456754a79db8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mfhn.com/gratiot/query006.htm | 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 | 0.961458 | 2,470 | 1.515625 | 2 |
If you are healthy and searching for life insurance, medical exams can lower your rates. However, not everyone is in perfect condition or wants to meet with doctors if they don’t have to. The best option in these cases is to get life insurance without a physical exam.
Although there is no meeting with a doctor in no medical exam life insurance, you may be asked a few basic health questions. In fact issuing these policies has become so common some agencies will not even require that you answer the questions.
A life insurance policy that does not require an exam will definitely cost more. Life insurance agencies want to know as much as possible before insuring someone. The more they know the lower the risk of insuring them.
By refusing the medical exam you are denying the agents information and the risk for insuring you will be higher. The risk will then be shared with the customer through more expensive rates.
Some of the drawbacks of taking out a no exam policy include higher cost and less coverage. How much it will cost depends upon the policy and the carrier. The easiest way to compare rates and to ensure you get the lowest cost for the most coverage is to use an agency. Agencies will save you money and save you time.
How to Get Life Insurance Without A Physical
The first thing to do is choose which policy fits your circumstance best. Policies that do not require a physical exam include Guaranteed issue, Instant issue, and Simplified issue (also called Renewable).
Guaranteed issue life insurance guarantees that you will have coverage. No questions asked. Your policy will be complete quickly and efficiently, however the costs will be noticeably higher than the average policy.
Guarantee issue usually used by people who would have trouble getting life insurance with other policies. The life insurance companies are aware of this added risk so the rates are higher.
Instant Issue Term Life Insurance is mostly used for people who do not have the time to hassle with a medical exam. It is for people who want life insurance fast. Often times companies will allow you to get this policy online after filling out an application. The application will be processed quickly, sometimes within the day.
Simplified or Renewable Term Life Insurance is similar to Instant issue. The difference lies in the ability to renew your contract with your agency without a medical exam however you will have to answer health questions. There will be no medical exams now, or in the future.
If you have any questions feel free to ask below in the comments. After all that’s what this blog is for – to answer your questions. | <urn:uuid:bddc269d-1aee-4d1a-b038-19cd1c093d43> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lifeinsuranceonmyterms.com/finance/life-insurance-with-no-medical-exam | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00069-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962527 | 526 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Nature has an interesting editorial this week on the state of the science for attributing extreme events. This was prompted by a workshop in Oxford last week where, presumably, strategies, observations and results were discussed by a collection of scientists interested in the topic (including Myles Allen, Peter Stott and other familiar names). Rather less usual was a discussion, referred to in the Nature piece, on whether the whole endeavour was scientifically worthwhile, and even if it was, whether it was of any use to anyone. The proponents of the ‘unscientific and pointless’ school of thought were not named and so one can’t immediately engage with them directly, but nonetheless the question is worthy of a discussion.
This workshop was a follow-up to one held in 2009, which took place in a very different environment. The meeting report was typical of a project that was just getting off the ground – lots of potential, some hints of success. Today, there is a much richer literature on the topic, and multiple approaches have been tried to generate the statistical sample required for statements of fractional attribution.
But rather than focus on the mechanics for doing this attribution, the Nature editorial raises more fundamental questions:
One critic argued that, given the insufficient observational data and the coarse and mathematically far-from-perfect climate models used to generate attribution claims, they are unjustifiably speculative, basically unverifiable and better not made at all. And even if event attribution were reliable, another speaker added, the notion that it is useful for any section of society is unproven.
Both critics have a point, but their pessimistic conclusion — that climate attribution is a non-starter — is too harsh.
Nature goes on to say:
It is more difficult to make the case for ‘usefulness’. None of the industry and government experts at the workshop could think of any concrete example in which an attribution might inform business or political decision-making. Especially in poor countries, the losses arising from extreme weather have often as much to do with poverty, poor health and government corruption as with a change in climate.
Do the critics (and Nature sort-of) have a point? Let’s take the utility argument first (since if there is no utility in doing something, the potentially speculative nature of the analysis is moot). It is obviously the case that people are curious about this issue: I never get as many media calls as in the wake of an extreme weather event of some sort. And the argument for science merely as a response to human curiosity about the world is a strong one. But I think one can easily do better. We discussed a few weeks ago how extreme event attribution via threshold analysis or absolute metrics reflected a view of what was most impactful. Given that impacts generally increase very non-linearly with the size/magnitude of an event, changes in extremes frequency or intensity have an oversized influence on costs. And if these changes can be laid at the feet of specific climate drivers, then they can certainly add to the costs of business-as-usual scenarios which are then often compared to the cost of mitigation. Therefore improved attribution of shifts in extremes (in whatever direction) have the potential to change cost-benefit calculations and thus policy directions.
Additionally, since we are committed to certain amount of additional warming regardless of future trends in emissions, knowing what is likely in store in terms of changing extremes and their impacts, feeds in directly to what investments in adaptation are sensible. Of course, if cost-effective investments in resilience are not being made even for the climate that we have (as in many parts of the developing world), changes to calculations for a climate changed world are of lesser impact. But there are many places where investments are being made to hedge against climate changes, and the utility is clearer there.
Just based on these three points, the question of utility would therefore seem to be settled. If reliable attributions can be made, this will be of direct practical use for both mitigation strategies and adaptation, as well as providing answers to persistent questions from the public at large.
Thus the question of whether reliable attributions can be made is salient. All of the methodologies to do this rely on some kind of surrogate for the statistical sampling that one can’t do in the real world for unique or infrequent events (or classes of events). The surrogate is often specific climate simulations for the event with and without some driver, or an extension of the sampling in time or space for similar events. Because of the rarity of the events, the statistical samples need to be large, which can be difficult to achieve.
For the largest-scale extremes, such as heat waves (or days above 90ºF etc), multiple methodologies – via observations, coupled simulations, targeted simulations – indicate that the odds of heat waves have shortened (and odds for cold snaps have decreased). In such cases, the attributions are increasingly reliable and robust. For extremes that lend themselves to good statistics – such as the increasing intensity of precipitation – there is also a good coherence between observations and models. So claims that there is some intrinsic reason why extremes cannot be reliably attributed doesn’t hold water.
It is clearly the case that for some extremes – tornadoes or ice storms come to mind – the modelling has not progressed to the point where direct connections between the conditions that give rise to the events and climate change have been made (let alone the direct calculation of such statistics within models). But in-between these extreme extremes, there are plenty of interesting intermediate kinds of extremes (whose spatial and temporal scales are within the scope of current models) where it is simply the case that the work has not yet been done to evaluate whether models suggest a potential for change.
For instance, it is only this year that sufficient high frequency output has been generically archived for the main climate models to permit a multi-model ensemble of extreme events and their change in time – and with sufficient models and sufficient ensemble members, these statistics should be robust in many instances. As of now, this resource has barely been tapped and it is premature to declare that the mainstream models are not fit for this purpose until someone has actually looked.
Overall, I am surprised that neither Nature or (some?) attendees at the workshop could find good arguments supporting the utility of attribution of extremes – as this gets better these attributions will surely become part of the standard assessments of impacts to be avoided by mitigation, or moderated by adaptation. We certainly could be doing a better job in analysing the data we have already in hand to explore whether and to what extent models can be used for what kinds of extremes, but it is wrong to say that such attempts are per se ‘unverifiable’. As to whether we are better off having started down this path, I think the answer is yes, but this is a nascent field and many different approaches and framings are still vying for attention. Whether this brings on any significant changes in policy remains to be seen, but the science itself is at an exciting point. | <urn:uuid:b1026128-3187-4eaa-bd19-9a928ddfa191> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/09/why-bother-trying-to-attribute-extreme-events/comment-page-3/?attest=true&wpmp_tp=1&wpmp_switcher=desktop | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00072-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962612 | 1,433 | 2.21875 | 2 |
I’m not really an old-timer but I remember precisely the transition from hypertext web 1.0 (it was mainly text with the possibility of linking websites, that’s why we say hyper-textual link) to social web 2.0 or, in other words, from anonymity to digital (and not virtual) identity.
Let’s set the scene to this evolution. I remember my first 20-hour internet plan at 56k in 1998 when I couldn’t even use the phone while I was online. Few of us were then connected to the web: 360 million in 2000. In 2011, there are over 2 billion internet users. At the time, the principle inherent to interconnectedness was anonymity: a new, independent kind of web, as envisioned by Tim Berners-Lee. The World Wide Web thus grew as a space parallel to reality. You could choose to be cutiepiebaby<3 just as well as TheD4rkLord0fEvilD34th. The main usage then was participation in forums, and actual peer-to-peer connections would only appear years after the Y2K scare.
Over those few years, a change in semantics took place which globally affected our approach to the internet. We switched from virtual space to digital space. Let me explain: something virtual is something that is not real, that has no impact on reality. Since the Internet is more than real, it becomes incidentally nor a virtual but a digital space. The first recorded example of this was a momentous event experienced by a member of one of the very first online communities: The Well. This member’s son had developed a serious case of croup and, with no one to turn to and unable to call paramedics, the father asked for help via The Well where a pediatrician showed him what to do and helped his son survive.
From the moment the internet starts affecting the life of its users, it becomes an integral part of reality. At the same time, the emergence of the social dimension of the internet renders necessary the identification of web users. Real names and profile photos are indeed easier to find than pseudonyms or avatars.
Let’s take a look at the question of anonymity and digital identity. As long as the internet is not considered real, we may inhabit that space as different avatars, but as soon as it becomes real, we once again become our own unique selves (for the sake of clarity, our identity is indeed unique but we may adapt to a different role or status). For instance, I will not be having dinner with my colleagues under my own identity only to then have a drink under the name 541LordN01rOfCr0ws4 and dress in shining armour. We fear the confusion between public and private spheres, which is understandable.
Nevertheless, we tend to react inappropriately to certain analogies: be it one’s presence on search engines or the publication of private content, this is a situation of crisis, of deep change concerning online confidentiality. The point is not to clam up like oysters or to give up on managing any of these new issues (nobody would display the pictures of their last party on their company’s bulletin board, right? Why then do it online?).
In short, it’s up to us to make sure our digital identity is close to our IRL (In Real Life) identity. Unlike Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt, who once said,
if you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place, I would say instead: “if you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, make sure no one finds out”.
Awesomely translated from French by Pierre Bonenberger | <urn:uuid:fadd5370-592e-4764-98de-d24b201eda16> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.viadeo.com/en/2011/10/10/digital-identity-anonymity/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956204 | 785 | 2.203125 | 2 |
LONDON, May 13 (Reuters Point Carbon) – The United States has proposed launching a global scheme to force all ships to measure and eventually reduce the rate at which they consume energy in a bid to cut emissions of gases blamed for global warming.
LONDON, May 13 (Reuters Point Carbon) – EU carbon permits closed down for the second successive day on Monday as a government sale weighed on prices and optimism about a backloading deal faded.
LONDON, May 13 (Reuters Point Carbon) – Europe’s power companies, warning of a lost decade of low carbon investment, have urged EU lawmakers to set a single mid-term target to cut carbon dioxide emissions and reduce the number of CO2 allowances they hand out each year in the bloc’s carbon market.
LONDON, May 13 (Reuters Point Carbon) - The EU sold 3.462 million spot EU carbon permits on EEX on Monday for 3.23 euros each, according to traders.
BEIJING, May 13 (Reuters Point Carbon) - Tokyo’s emissions market recorded just six trades in the 2012/2013 financial year, according to government data, as a nationwide energy efficiency drive triggered by the Fukushima nuclear meltdown forced many companies to cut energy use and saw the scheme record a surplus of permits.
BEIJING, May 13 (Reuters Point Carbon) – The cost of emitting carbon dioxide in South Korea could reach $150 per tonne by the end of the decade, 15 times more expensive than analysts expect prices in Europe to reach, according to a report published Friday urging the government to rewrite the rules of its future carbon market.
SAO PAULO, May 10 (Reuters Point Carbon) – The Brazilian government opened its upcoming energy auction to electricity from coal-fired plants this week, and drew fire from environmental groups who accused the government of rolling back its highly touted climate policies.
LONDON, May 10 (Reuters Point Carbon) – European carbon permits ended the week down 11 percent on Friday after prices fell on the back of weaker energy markets in thin trade broken by public holidays across Europe, traders said.
LONDON, May 10 (Reuters) – ArcelorMittal, the world’s largest steelmaker, on Friday said it faced weak European demand for its products this year and rising carbon costs at its South African operations from 2015, adding it did not raise any cash from selling spare EU carbon credits in the first quarter.
LONDON, May 10 (Reuters Point Carbon) - Germany sold 4.02 million spot EU carbon permits on EEX on Friday for 3.52 euros each, the exchange said.
BEIJING, May 10 (Reuters Point Carbon) – New Zealand’s government will draft new laws to encourage foresters to help the nation cut emissions of greenhouse gases by planting trees after its refusal to sign up to a second emission cap under the Kyoto Protocol rendered current laws unworkable.
BEIJING, May 10 (Reuters Point Carbon) - Australia will hold two auctions of carbon permits under the nation’s proposed Emissions Trading Scheme by July 1 2014, a full year before the market starts, according to the scheme’s auctioning regulations that became law Friday.
SAN FRANCISCO, May 9 (Reuters Point Carbon) – California carbon allowances (CCAs) for delivery in December 2013 rose 3 cents from their close one week ago to $14.35 a tonne on Thursday as participants took positions ahead of the program’s third allowance auction on May 16.
LONDON, May 9 (Reuters Point Carbon) – European carbon prices, trampled to record lows recently, could face more downside in the next few months if current CO2 permit demand from utilities fades and lawmakers continue to dither over whether to cut supply, analysts said this week.
LONDON, May 9 (Reuters Point Carbon) – EU carbon permits for delivery in December rose 8.9 percent Thursday in thin trade as supply was cut due to a temporary halt in government allowance sales, traders said.
LONDON, May 9 (Reuters Point Carbon) – European lawmakers over the next two months will once again agonise over whether to intervene in Europe’s carbon market to prop up prices, leaving CO2 permits vulnerable to big price shocks that could also hit stocks of some of the EU’s biggest companies.
LONDON, May 9 (Reuters Point Carbon) - Poland’s second largest electricity producer, Tauron Polska Energia generated 3.4 percent more power in the first three months of 2013 than a year ago, data from the company’s interim report showed Thursday.
BEIJING, May 9 (Reuters Point Carbon) - Spot permits in New Zealand’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) barely budged this week, closing Thursday at NZ$2.03, up 3 cents from last week while liquidity fell amid waning interest.
LONDON, May 8 (Reuters Point Carbon) – European carbon dipped for a second day on Wednesday, after Britain pumped fresh supply into the market and speculators continued to take profits following a 30-percent price surge chalked up in the past week, traders said.
LONDON, May 8 (Reuters Point Carbon) – German energy bourse EEX grew its carbon trading revenues by 76 percent in 2012 after it held more government CO2 permit auctions than the previous year, it said Wednesday.
LONDON, May 8 (Reuters Point Carbon) – Italy’s biggest utility Enel produced 12 percent less electricity at its Italian plants in the first quarter, the company said, outpacing a decline in national power demand and likely reducing its demand for emission permits.
LONDON, May 8 (Reuters Point Carbon) – Britain’s Drax Group, operator of one of Europe’s largest coal-fired power plants, stockpiled fewer carbon allowances in the first four months of 2013 than in the same period a year earlier, it said on Wednesday, as the company prepares to burn less CO2-intensive coal and more biomass.
LONDON, May 8 (Reuters Point Carbon) – Three of the world’s biggest cement producers said this week European production of building materials slowed in the first quarter of 2013, a move that will likely see emissions of carbon dioxide fall and surplus of CO2 permits grow across one of the biggest sectors covered by the EU carbon market.
LONDON, May 8 (Reuters Point Carbon) – German energy giant E.ON generated 7.1 percent less power at its EU-based facilities in the first quarter of 2013 compared to last year, due mainly to difficult market conditions, it said in an earnings statement on Wednesday, suggesting the company will require fewer carbon permits this year.
LONDON, May 8 (Reuters Point Carbon) - Britain sold 4.13 million carbon permits at a price of 3.51 euros each on ICE Futures Europe on Wednesday, the exchange said.
SAO PAULO, May 6 (Reuters Point Carbon) – A group of companies involved in public transportation projects for Brazil’s 2014 World Cup bought 200,000 voluntary carbon credits last week to offset their greenhouse gas emissions, marking the first offset deal associated with the major sporting events Brazil will host in the next three years.
SAN FRANCISCO, May 7 (Reuters Point Carbon) – Urban forests across the United States soak up 21 million tons of carbon emissions annually, an amount that will rise as cities expand, the U.S. Forestry Service said in a new report.
LONDON, May 7 (Reuters Point Carbon) – EU carbon gave back some of the market’s recent big gains on Tuesday as hopes dimmed that lawmakers would come to a quick decision over a supply cut plan.
LONDON, May 7 (Reuters Point Carbon) – Electricity generation in Poland dipped 0.5 percent in the first quarter of 2013, extending a 3.8-percent fall last year, preliminary government data showed, suggesting carbon emissions in the EU’s most coal-dependent nation decreased slightly despite rising economic growth.
LONDON, May 7 (Reuters Point Carbon) – Norway, a major buyer of United Nations carbon credits, will this year stop buying offsets generated by wind and hydro projects and will instead target schemes at risk of folding due to low carbon prices, a government official said Tuesday. | <urn:uuid:66ea899c-c33f-406a-bd86-2cb6d65e41eb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.growcleanair.com/node?page=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928982 | 1,703 | 1.507813 | 2 |
The Mormon pioneers viewed their arrival as the founding of a homeland after being driven out of Nauvoo, Illinois. The settlers traveled west seeking refuge from religious persecution. The final impetus for their trek was the murder of founder and prophet Joseph Smith, Jr. on June 27, 1844.
The pioneers made their way across the plains and over the Rocky Mountains to Utah determined to settle in an isolated region. They lost many of their party to disease during the winter months. By the time that they reached Utah, the desolate valley was a welcome sight. Potatoes and turnips were soon planted, and a dam was built. With solemn ceremonies, the settlers consecrated the two-square-mile city, and sent back word that the “promised land” was found.
Nearly 2000 Mormons had settled in the Salt Lake Valley by the end of 1847. The first Pioneer Day was celebrated in 1849 with a parade, band music and speeches. In modern times July 24 is celebrated annually as Pioneer Day.
Pioneer Day is a state holiday in Utah so county offices (except emergency services), educational institutions, and many businesses are closed. In some areas, some public transport services, such as buses, do not run on public holidays. People are advised to check public transit schedules first before they decide to travel via public transport during a public holiday.
Pioneer Day activities include fireworks, parades, picnics, rodeos and other festivities throughout the state. Some people say that this day is celebrated in Utah with more zeal and pride than major holidays. Children take part in essay contests and projects about pioneers, while families enjoy the day with concerts and festivals. For the parades, some people may wear costumes that resemble clothes worn during the 19th century when Salt Lake Valley was founded.
“Industry” officially became the state motto on March 4, 1959. It is associated with the symbol of the beehive. The early pioneers had few material resources at their disposal and had to rely on their own “industry” to survive. The word “industry” appears on both the state seal and the state flag.
The beehive became the official state emblem on March 4, 1959. Utah’s residents relate the beehive symbol to industry and the pioneer virtues of thrift and perseverance. The beehive was chosen as the emblem for the provisional state of Deseret in 1848 and was maintained on the seal of the state of Utah when Utah became a state in 1896. | <urn:uuid:39454371-81ee-4ef2-aac3-bd4037754c51> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kcsg.com/view/full_story/14797225/article-Pioneer-Day-Commemorates-Arrival-of-the-First-Mormon-Settlers-in-Salt-Lake-Valley?instance=home_stories10 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981757 | 520 | 3.6875 | 4 |
I've been searching around (perhaps not in the right places) and can't seem to figure out the answer to my question. Is Magnesium consumed/used up in reactions? I have a protocol where the sample is taken through multiple reactions (poly A tailing, second strand synthesis, then PCR) with no purification in between, and was wondering if I need to worry about Magnesium accumulating, or if it's like dNTPs and is (mostly) used up in each reaction.
Magnesium in PCR
1 reply to this topic
Posted 14 July 2009 - 05:17 PM
No, it is all still there. You should either purify between reactions, modify the buffers added to give the correct buffer concentrations, or dilute the product between reactions sufficiently that the amount of the previous buffers present at the next step is insignificant. | <urn:uuid:45b1358e-ec45-4d3e-a0d2-26a2b5e6b833> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.protocol-online.org/forums/topic/9138-magnesium-in-pcr/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967673 | 173 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Beechwood, the Mrs. Astor's 39-room Italianate mansion in Newport, Rhode Island and one of the last great relics of the Gilded Age, is now being offered for sale for $14.9 million. The 19,000-sq.-ft., 15-bedroom house on Newport's famous Bellevue Avenue, was listed at $16 million last year (as my colleague Deidre Woollard reported) and has since served as a "living history museum" showing what life was like for the Gilded Age idle rich before they were forced to sell off their mansions.
The museum is a bit cheesy, with events like "An Evening With the Astors", but Beechwood does have a very rich history. In fact, with the $1.1 million discount it might even be something of a bargain. Cole Porter was said to have written Night and Day, one of his most famous songs, while visiting Beechwood, and the house also made an appearance in the 1956 Bing Crosby / Frank Sinatra / Grace Kelly movie High Society. Originally constructed in 1851 by Calvert Vaux - co-designer of Central Park - and Andrew Jackson Downing for drygoods magnate Daniel Parish, it was on the market when well-bred debutante Caroline Schermerhorn married billionaire merchant William Backhouse Astor Jr., giving the Astors some much needed social cachet.
Gallery: Mrs. Astor's Beechwood
Mr. Astor owned the Ambassadress, the largest private yacht in the world at the time, and a beautiful Hudson River mansion called Ferncliff. "The Mrs. Astor" as she soon insisted upon being referred to, intended to entertain in grand style with her husband's money and needed a Newport mansion in which to do it during the summer season, which lasted for eight precious weeks. The Astors bought the place in 1881 and spent $2 million on improvements, including the addition of a mirrored waterfront ballroom by architect Richard Morris Hunt (who designed the Fifth Avenue facade of Manhattan's Metropolitan Museum of Art) complete with bas reliefs depicting Poseidon and Aphrodite.
Mrs. Astor soon became the reigning queen of New York society, and her Summer Ball at Beechwood was the highlight of the season. She and social arbiter Ward McAllister then founded the famous "Four Hundred", referring to the strictly limited number of socially acceptable families (i.e. not nouveau riche) in New York - which some people are still trying to get into. Her son, John Jacob Astor IV, who inherited Beechwood, later went down on the Titanic, the ship's wealthiest passenger. | <urn:uuid:5b6ab2dd-de50-4cda-bcb1-a9514b1be4f7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.luxist.com/tag/WilliamBackhouseAstorJr./ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968099 | 551 | 1.882813 | 2 |
Former local teacher pens third novel
Published: Saturday, November 17, 2012 at 4:31 p.m.
Last Modified: Saturday, November 17, 2012 at 4:31 p.m.
For Jerry Mullinax, becoming an author was an accident.
In 2004, while working as an English teacher at Hendersonville Middle School, Mullinax handed out an assignment to his sixth-grade students. The assignment was to write the first chapter of a potential novel.
A student asked if he was going to do the assignment as well. Mullinax hadn't planned on it, but found himself writing the first chapter of his first novel.
Eight years later, Mullinax has just finished his third book, “Enoree.” The book is set in the 1950s and deals with a racially charged south.
“It's an unveiling of the raw nerve of the south in the 1950s,” Mullinax said.
The book, which explores the emerging friendship between a white kid and a black kid, touches on life experiences for Mullinax.
He remembers, as a child, his father taking him to a “black town” in Upstate South Carolina in 1957. He caught a glimpse of a black kid, but didn't get to strike up a conversation.
“I always wondered who he was,” Mullinax said. “In this book, I give him a name and make him a hero.”
Mullinax doesn't teach English to middle schoolers anymore. He's an adjunct professor at Greenville Tech in South Carolina.
He does, however, remember both of his students that pushed him toward this newfound love. A student outside of his class heard about the book writing assignment and asked Mullinax if he could read the teacher's chapter. After he read it, the student kept returning to Mullinax to find out what happened next.
“He asked me 37 times over a year's time,” Mullinax laughed.
That first book became “Jasper's Castle.” Published in 2005, it's about three 12-year-old cousins who visit their grandmother's castle and open a door to a fantasy adventure. The book took him a year to write.
Mullinax published his second book two years later. “The Elephant with a Trunk on Its Head” touches on bullying. As the title suggests, the book is about an elephant whose trunk is in the wrong place. The elephant herd wanted the elephant to be the African queen's next elephant. It took Mullinax eight months to write.
“Enoree,” because of the personal connection, took Mullinax just 30 days to complete.
“I found out writing is really just putting your keys to the keyboard,” Mullinax said. “It forces you into creation.”
More information can be found about Mullinax and his books at www.readjerry.com.
Reader comments posted to this article may be published in our print edition. All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission. Links are encouraged. | <urn:uuid:31a7d08d-ad21-4793-a8cc-f1c71356cd9d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.blueridgenow.com/article/20121117/ARTICLES/121119799/0/ARTICLES | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981206 | 665 | 1.921875 | 2 |
And it came to pass, after Israel was carried into captivity, and Jerusalem was desolate, that Jeremias the prophet sat weeping, and mourned with this lamentation over Jerusalem, and with a sorrowful mind, sighing and moaning, he said:
Aleph. How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people! how is the mistress of the Gentiles become as a widow: the princes of provinces made tributary!
Beth. Weeping she hath wept in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks: there is none to comfort her among all them that were dear to her: all her friends have despised her, and are become her enemies.
Ghimel. Juda hath removed her dwelling place because of her affliction, and the greatness of her bondage: she hath dwelt among the nations, and she hath found no rest: all her persecutors have taken her in the midst of straits.
Daleth. The ways of Sion mourn, because there are none that come to the solemn feast: all her gates are broken down: her priests sigh: her virgins are in affliction, and she is oppressed with bitterness.
He. Her adversaries are become her lords, her enemies are enriched: because the Lord hath spoken against her for the multitude of her iniquities: her children are led into captivity: before the face of the oppressor.
Vau. And from the daughter of Sion all her beauty is departed: her princes are become like rams that find no pastures: and they are gone away without strength before the face of the pursuer.
Zain. Jerusalem hath remembered the days of her affliction, and prevarication of all her desirable things which she had from the days of old, when her people fell in the enemy' s hand, and there was no helper: the enemies have seen her, and have mocked at her sabbaths.
Heth. Jerusalem hath grievously sinned, therefore is she become unstable: all that honoured her have despised her, because they have seen her shame: but she sighed and turned backward.
Teth. Her filthiness is on her feet, and she hath not remembered her end: she is wonderfully cast down, not having a comforter: behold, O Lord, my affliction, because the enemy is lifted up.
Jod. The enemy hath put out his hand to all her desirable things: for she hath seen the Gentiles enter into her sanctuary, of whom thou gavest commandment that they should not enter into thy church.
Caph. All her people sigh, they seek bread: they have given all their precious things for food to relieve the soul: see, O Lord, and consider, for I am become vile.
Lamed. O all ye that pass by the way, attend, and see if there be any sorrow like to my sorrow: for he hath made a vintage of me, as the Lord spoke in the day of his fierce anger.
Mem. From above he hath sent fire into my bones, and hath chastised me: he hath spread a net for my feet, he hath turned me back: he hath made me desolate, wasted with sorrow all the day long.
Nun. The yoke of my iniquities hath watched: they are folded together in his hand, and put upon my neck: my strength is weakened: the Lord hath delivered me into a hand out of which I am not able to rise.
Samech. The Lord hath taken away all my mighty men out of the midst of me: he hath called against me the time, to destroy my chosen men: the Lord hath trodden the winepress for the virgin daughter of Juda.
Ain. Therefore do I weep, and my eyes run down with water: because the comforter, the relief of my soul, is far from me: my children are desolate because the enemy hath prevailed.
Phe. Sion hath spread forth her hands, there is none to comfort her: the Lord hath commanded against Jacob, his enemies are round about him: Jerusalem is as a menstruous woman among them.
Sade. The Lord is just, for I have provoked his mouth to wrath: hear, I pray you, all ye people, and see my sorrow: my virgins, and my young men are gone into captivity.
Coph. I called for my friends, but they deceived me: my priests and my ancients pined away in the city: while they sought their food, to relieve their souls.
Res. Behold, O Lord, for I am in distress, my bowels are troubled: my heart is turned within me, for I am full of bitterness: abroad the sword destroyeth, and at home there is death alike.
Sin. They have heard that I sigh, and there is none to comfort me: all my enemies have heard of my evil, they have rejoiced that thou hast done it: thou hast brought a day of consolation, and they shall be like unto me.
Thau. Let all their evil be present before thee: and make vintage of them, as thou hast made vintage of me for all my iniquities: for my sighs are many, and my heart is sorrowful. | <urn:uuid:cfc677df-0e3a-4eef-9860-28929ea214c8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.drbo.org/x/d?b=drb&bk=29&ch=1&l=12 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974202 | 1,088 | 2.09375 | 2 |
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The Interfaith Council for Environmental Stewardship
A not-so-funny thing happened on the way to this years 30th anniversary of Earth Day. A group of Religious Right leaders, scientists, and academics, basking in the dual spotlights of Earth Day and Holy Week, launched the Interfaith Council for Environmental Stewardship (ICES), an organization to graft dominion theology onto right-wing environmentalism.
For years, Religious Right groups have anchored their views on environmental issues in Genesis 1:28God granted dominion over every living thing that moves on earth. Because nature is wild, explains Nina George Hacker in Concerned Women for Americas Family Voice, we [humans] were given the authority to subdue it for lifes necessities.
What the Christian Right and free-market think tanks have done for the debate on social and political issues, the Washington, DC-based Interfaith Council hopes to do for environmental issues; harness scripture in the service of free-market environmentalism.
In October 1999, 25 economists, environmental scientists, and policy experts convened in West Cornwall, Connecticut, and hammered out the Cornwall Declaration on Environmental Stewardship. The Cornwall Declaration, the founding document of ICES, is the first major pronouncement on environmental issues by a coalition of conservative religious groups. The Declaration prioritizes the needs of humans over nature, advocates the unleashing of free-market forces to resolve environmental problems, and denounces the environmental movement for embracing faulty science and a gloom-and-doom approach.
Father Robert A. Sirico, CSP, founder and president of the Grand Rapids, Michigan-based Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, is the intellectual author of this new collaboration. According to Michael Bankey, environmental policy analyst and editor of Actons Environmental Stewardship Review, For many years Father Sirico has been worried about [misguided] theological trends in the environmental movement.
Bankey added that the Institute played a large part from the very beginning of the project and lit the fire that helped pull the project together.
The Cornwall Declaration
The conservative National Catholic Register summarized the Declarations three areas of common misunderstanding: Many people mistakenly view humans as principally consumers and polluters rather than producers and stewards.... The tendency among some to oppose economic progress in the name of environmental stewardship is often sadly self-defeating.
Many people believe that nature knows best, or that the earthuntouched by human hands is the ideal.... Denying the possibility of beneficial human management of the earth, removes all rationale for environmental stewardship.
Greatly exaggerated or unfounded environmental concerns, among them global warming, overpopulation, and rampant species loss.
The Declaration warns that social collectivism and government intervention cannot ameliorate environmental problems: The relationship between stewardship and private property [needs to be] fully appreciated, allowing peoples natural incentive to care for their own property to reduce the need for collective ownership and control of resources and enterprises, and in which collective action, when deemed necessary, takes place at the most local level possible.
Publication of ICESs Cornwall Declaration comes on the heels of George W. Bushs first environmental initiative unveiled in early April. Bush aims to speed the cleanup of brownfields (abandoned or under-used contaminated industrial sites) by restricting cumbersome environmental regulations. Brownfields edged into the nations consciousness with the release of the Julia Roberts film Erin Brockovich. Based on a true story, Brock- ovich, a file clerk, discovers a cover-up involving the Pacific Gas & Electric Co., which had recklessly dumped highly toxic chemicals that seeped into the groundwater in Hinkley, California, causing many of the towns residents devastating illnesses.
Jonathan H. Adler, senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and long-time critic of the environmental movement, appreciates Bushs anti-regulatory thrust. Adler applauds Bush for a common sense plan that will accelerate the cleanup and redevelopment of brownfields around the country by increasing regulatory flexibility and easing up on draconian liability standards that discourage developers from investing in brownfields. This initiative puts Bush on the right track, says Adler, to capture the moral high ground in the environmental debate.
Bushs proposal was roundly criticized by the Sierra Club in a press release (George W. Bush: The Polluters Governor), claiming that his plan would weaken the Federal Superfund law for cleaning up abandoned toxic waste sites. According to Carl Pope, Sierra Club executive director, Bushs promises on the environment are as credible as [TVs infamous Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire groom] Rick Rock- well saying til death do us part. (The Sierra Club has extensively documented Bushs abysmal environmental record at www. sierraclub.org.)
In a recent interview, Acton Institutes Bankey denied a Religious News Service report that ICES would be initiating environmental legislation, saying that the group would not be engaged in legislative battles. When asked about the organizations budget, Bankey said that while he wasnt clear about the details, each of the participating groups would contribute financially to different aspects of the organizations program.
The Declarations signers are a veritable Whos Who of the Religious Right. Among them: Focus on the Family president James Dobson; Campus Crusade for Christ founder Bill Bright; Prison Fellowship Ministries head Charles Colson; the Rev. Donald Wildmon, president of the American Family Association; Rabbi Daniel Lapin of Toward Tradition; and Sirico.
The Interfaith Council distinguishes itself from run-of-the-mill conservative anti-environment collaborations by the inclusion of these high-profile leaders of the Religious Right. The advisory committee also taps a cross-section of Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish leaders aligned with conservative politics, including highly controversial figures like Dr. D. James Kennedy of the Ft. Lauderdale, Florida-based Coral Ridge Ministries. Dr. Kennedy, a leader in the anti-gay movement and an outspoken denier of separation of church and state, says, if ever an issue needed sound Biblical Doctrine brought to bear upon it, its the environment, and the Interfaith Council for Environmental Stewardship, through its Cornwall Declaration accomplishes this. Two other advisory committee members of note are Diane Knippers, president of the Institute on Religion, a persistent critic of mainline Protestant denominations, and Dr. Marvin Olasky, professor of journalism and history at the University of Texas, Austin and George W. Bushs compassionate conservatism guru.
ICES also hammers away at environmentalists for their faulty science and economics, strident street theater, and demands for immediate, drastic action on problems that are often hypothetical or overstated, according to the Religious News Service. Rabbi Lapin, a declaration signer, summed it up by saying, when we embrace the strident messages of radical environmentalism, we are neither just, nor merciful, nor good stewards of the earth, and we condemn the worlds poorest people to continued misery and disease. This is not what God intended, and not what our traditions have taught.
ICESs web site, (www.stewards.net/About.html) maintains that the organization is building a network of religious, academic, and community leaders who can offer sound theological, scientific, and economic perspectives on these issues. Soon, they will provide a credible alternative to liberal environmental advocacy for people in congregations, schools, government, and the religious and secular media.
The Acton Institute
In 1990, Father Sirico founded The Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty. Named for historian and conservative social philosopher Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, otherwise known as Lord Acton, the Institutes mission is to promote a free and virtuous society, characterized by individual liberty and sustained by religious principles.
Father Sirico has a colorful background. In the 1970s, according to Jerry Sloan, executive director of the watchdog group Project Tocsin, Sirico was a roll-em-on-the-floor Pentecostal boy preacher, who was packing 1500 people into a Seattle theater every week, until, under puzzling circumstances, he was forced to leave town. He moved to Los Angeles where he became a minister in the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Church- es, and later served as executive director of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Community Center.
Sirico later called this his soft Marxist period. After a political transformation to libertarianism, he returned to the Catholic Church with a mission. I heard homilies preached that inevitably insulted business people, he says, and he was determined to turn that around.
In the mid-1990s, the Acton Institute, then little known outside of conservative circles, played a significant role during the welfare reform debate. At its 1995 Welfare to Work conference in Washington, DC, the Institute founded the National Welfare Reform Initiative. Father Sirico became one of only a few religious leaders to support welfare reform. In Congressional testimony he argued for greater restrictions on welfare for recipients and for the wholesale moving of social welfare programs into the hands of faith-based organizations.
According to The Right Guide, published by the Ann Arbor, Michigan-based Economics America, Inc., in 1997, 94 percent of the Acton Institutes $1.8 million budget came from contributions and grants awarded by foundations, businesses, and individuals. Grants from right-wing foundations included $100,000 from the Scaife Family Foundation, $50,000 from the Richard and Helen deVos Foundation, $50,000 from the John M. Olin Foundation, and $40,000 from the Lynde & Harry Bradley Foundation.
Father Sirico converts the Churchs advocacy on behalf of the poor, strongly promoted by John Paul II in his 1991 encyclical Centesimus Annus, into a paean for the free-market. The Pope asks, can it...be said that, after the fall of communism, capitalism is the victorious social system...? While recognizing the failure of the Marxist solution and praising capitalism, the Pope acknowledges, the realities of marginal- ization and exploitation remain in the world, especially in the more advanced countries. Against these phenomena the Church strongly raises her voice.
Father Siricos open disagreements with many of the social teachings of the Church make the news of his recent work on behalf of the Vatican even more chilling. According to the conservative National Catholic Register, Sirico just completed his most prestigious assignment, the sift[ing] out [of] the most important passages from the social teachings of the popes from Leo XIII to John Paul II. The finished work, The Social Agenda: A Collection of Magisterial Texts, a 225-page book containing nearly 370 quotations from some 75 Church documents, was released at the Vatican in late April.
By selecting as the central theme in the papal social encyclicals the principle of subsidiarity wherever possible responsibilities should be handled at a lower organizational level (read less government regulation)and emphasizing the right to private property, Sirico is clearly aligning the Churchs teachings with his own free-market philosophy.
Professor Anthony Basile, in a lengthy critique of the Acton Institutes work in the September 1998 issue of Culture Wars, tears into Sirico for supporting a view that portray[s] poverty as the fault of the poor individual, and not due to social injustices, a fundamental departure from Catholicism.
Basile sees the Institute as undermining the Churchs teachings by developing a counter-theology which dismisses Church doctrine in the name of discussing it. The creation of the Institutes Center for Economic Personalism allows Sirico a platform for melding ideology and practice and indoc- trinat[ing] all [its] seminarians and theology students along these ideological lines.
Having completed this formidable task, Father Sirico says he plans more ventures with the Vatican including projects on globalization, family issues, and...[the] tax culture, issues that he writes about regularly in columns for the Wall Street Journal and Forbes magazine.
In recent weeks, Father Sirico was a major player behind the launching of the Interfaith Council for Environmental Stewardship. Father Sirico has long argued, environmental ideology is increasingly being used, not to preserve natures beauty, but to restrict human enterprise that is essential to a more humane existence for people. The Interfaith Council allows Father Sirico to add free-market environmentalism to his ideological quiver.
Although it is too early to tell if ICES will have a significant impact on this years elections, if Bush wins in November, this new coalition will likely lead many faith-based organizations lining up for government dollars to challenge the progressive environmental movement. Z
Bill Berkowitz edits CultureWatch, a monthly publication tracking the Religious Right and related conservative movements, published by Oaklands DataCenter. | <urn:uuid:f05120f2-3dda-42c6-aca8-9b8e3ac7e474> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.zcommunications.org/the-interfaith-council-for-environmental-stewardship-by-bill-berkowitz | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927243 | 2,761 | 1.796875 | 2 |
The solar industry in Latin America is starting to take off, aided by shrinking costs for photovoltaics and new government programs that facilitate business, experts said Wednesday at Solar Power International 2012.
The Latin American region of nearly 600 million residents holds great promise for solar, thanks to relatively high costs for electricity, ample sunlight and a fast-expanding middle class that is increasing its energy consumption, panelists said.
Puerto Rico, the U.S. Caribbean island of 4 million people, offers one of the best solar markets short-term. The island has ambitious renewable energy targets and offers both federal and local incentives for solar, said industry veteran Elias Behar, who runs Latin American sales for manufacturer SolarWorld Americas.
Chile, the South American nation of 15 million people that often ranks top for business in Latin America, also offers strong opportunities now. While its government offers no specific solar incentives, Chile has an open market and excellent sun to tap, especially in the Atacama desert, said Behar.
Brazil, the South American giant with nearly 200 million people, offers a more mid-term play instead. The country is setting up a net-metering program that will allow solar producers to obtain credits for energy sold to the grid. The government’s electricity agency expects to finalize details of net-metering this year, likely prompting a spike in solar business starting next year, said Jose Renato Colaferro, director of projects and operations for Blue Sol Solar Energy, a Brazilian distributor.
Brazil has only a small solar market now and is on pace to import just 5 MW of PV panels this year. Residential and commercial projects offer the best opportunities mid-term, but even then, small demonstration projects likely will be key to convince customers to invest in solar, said Colaferro.
“It’s not going to be quick. It’s not going to be explosive,” Colaferro said of Brazil’s solar future. “But it’s probably going to be much more organic and much more solid, when it starts.”
Mexico, with its 112 million residents, now has roughly 40 MW of installed PV, some of it from Walmart, the largest Mexican retailer. The country has started a net-metering program, allowing sales to the sole electric utility, the government’s CFE. But to gain approvals for solar projects, “put your patience hat on,” suggested Luis Cejudo, chief executive of Mexico’s Solargreen.
Financing remains a key challenge for Mexico’s solar industry, discouraging investment even when electricity can run 31 cents a kilowatt hour, triple the rates in nearby Texas, Cejudo said.
“it is easier to buy a car in Mexico now than to finance a PV system,” agreed Carlos Flores, managing director of Conermex, a Mexican distributor now expanding into Central America.
Panelists said they’re optimistic that financing options in Latin America will expand, as more U.S. and European firms look to the region to grow their solar business. Local banks and governments also may help with funding as the solar industry matures in countries south of the United States, they added.
In the meantime, veteran Behar warned solar newcomers to the region, “it’ a serious issue how to get paid.”
Lead image: Solar panels via Shutterstock
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The demand to manage and store massive amounts of file data continues to challenge data centers. IBM Scale Out Network Attached Storage (SONAS) is designed to embrace and deliver cloud storage in the petabyte age. SONAS can meet today’s storage challenges with quick and cost-effective IT-enabled business enhancements designed to grow with unprecedented scale.
SONAS can also deliver storage services that make the supporting technology almost invisible. It allows applications and services to be uncoupled from the underlying infrastructure, enabling businesses to adjust to change quickly. As a result, SONAS can easily integrate with your organization’s strategies to develop a more dynamic enterprise.
Organizations with fast-growing, rapidly multiplying file systems are beginning to discover that traditional network attached storage (NAS)—even clustered NAS—has serious problems. Managing and supporting storage as it scales to millions, then billions, of active files is extremely complex. When such massive numbers of files require separate file systems connected with many separate servers, operational complexity grows exponentially. Consolidating tens, even hundreds, of these file servers into high-end scale-out NAS becomes a necessity. This is where SONAS helps. SONAS is designed to scale out to store millions to billions of active files in a single namespace. SONAS offers operational efficiency and administrative savings, combining massive scalability with automated file management to quickly deliver information around the world.
Ideal cloud storage: The IBM Active Cloud Engine in SONAS
The unique IBM Active Cloud Engine™ at the core of SONAS gives users the ability to efficiently manage large numbers of files, rapidly locate the data of interest and seamlessly get that data to where it is needed. It is a “policy-driven” engine tightly coupled with a file system that enables you to manage “file” data with ease, efficiency and at a scale. This unique SONAS capability, offered at no charge, enables ubiquitous file access from across the globe quickly and efficiently. It localizes file data where it is needed. The IBM Active Cloud Engine offers clients not only a high-performance file-serving function, but also reduced network costs. It can cache files to remote sites in advance of file requests coming in. This provides for high availability and very fast access of those files at remote sites. It also eliminates unnecessary replication of files to remote sites, thereby significantly lowering network and storage costs.
SONAS is an ideal solution for cloud storage implementations as well. It is designed to consolidate files that are scattered in multiple storage locations and allow them to be efficiently shared and managed. The IBM Active Cloud Engine is a unique capability of SONAS (offered at no charge) that enables this and many more management abilities. The IBM Active Cloud Engine is a suite of capabilities specifically designed to manage files in an automated, scalable manner. It creates the appearance of a single system despite geographic, physical, media or other discrepancies that may exist in the physical world. It is designed to put the right file in the right place at the right time, and to give users the fastest possible access with the same view of their data no matter where they are. It enables ubiquitous access to files from across the globe quickly and cost effectively. The IBM Active Cloud Engine offers clients not only a high-performance file serving function, but also reduced network costs. It localizes file data where it is needed. It can prepopulate files to remote sites in advance of that file request coming in, which allows for high availability and very fast access of those files at remote sites. This capability allows for file sharing and content distribution while it shields applications from fluctuating wide area network (WAN) latencies (performance fluctuations and outages during data access across a WAN). In addition, it eliminates unnecessary file replication to remote sites, thereby significantly lowering network and storage costs.
When organizations are managing millions to billions of files, the protection and availability of these files are critical. SONAS is a reliable, scalable storage solution with built-in high availability and redundancy. The IBM Active Cloud Engine within SONAS provides automated policy-based file management that enables backups, restores, snapshots and remote replication. SONAS has a specific exploitation and integration with IBM Tivoli® Storage Manager to provide very efficient and extremely fast backup and restore processes, and enables movement of files to an external disk or tape. In addition, SONAS provides support for the Network Data Management Protocol (NDMP) “at scale” to provide both full and incremental file backup as well as restoration of these files and related file system data if needed. Support for the NDMP enables SONAS to be backed up with independent software vendor (ISV) backup applications like Symantec, CommVault, Legato and others over the local area network. The SONAS policy engine increases the efficiency of backing up billons of files by scanning their metadata in just minutes.
SONAS provides central deployment and management of automated tiered storage, with high performance and high storage utilization. Based on a Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation System File Server benchmark using a realistic, standard configuration, SONAS demonstrates excellent near-linear performance for a single file system without compromising capacity or cost.
Protecting business information from malware and viruses is a business imperative. Integration with McAfee and Symantec Antivirus is designed to provide the ability to isolate or delete compromised files, and protect data from risks due to viruses that can potentially compromise SONAS data.
SONAS provides ease of use for administrators through an intuitive graphical user interface (GUI). This user interface is similar to those used in XIV or Storwize V7000 systems. The highly intuitive GUI and built-in policy-driven management tools through IBM Active Cloud Engine make administrative tasks easy and efficient. Administrators can also leverage IBM Tivoli Productivity Center version 5.1 to manage SONAS, providing discovery and visualization, health status monitoring and capacity usage reporting. The new release of Tivoli Productivity Center 5.1 also enables applications to perform SONAS provisioning.
You can order SONAS as an integrated appliance or as a gateway. SONAS gateway support is enabled for XIV and Storwize V7000 disk systems, so users with these storage systems can leverage a SONAS gateway for their rapidly growing file data.
Browse System Storage
Expect more from your storage
See how easy it is to manage your storage equipment with the IBM System Storage GUI
Why IBM SONAS with IBM Active Cloud Engine
Discover what makes IBM SONAS with Active Cloud Engine unique
IBM SONAS white paper
Scale-Out Network-Attached Storage Addresses Storage Problems for Private Cloud Deployments
Evaluator Group analyst paper
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Promoting the work of the International Tracing Service (ITS) in Eastern Europe
A large proportion of the records on victims of Nazi persecution held in the ITS archives come from Eastern Europe. Together with the ICRC, the ITS is striving to make this fact better known in the region. The ICRC's Udo Wagner-Meige, an ITS adviser, explains.
The archives of the ITS were opened to the public in November 2007. What impact has this had on the work of the service?
It has brought the service an entirely new set of "clients" – researchers – in addition to the victims and their families who traditionally make requests. While the latter usually seek information about individuals, research workers are interested in broad historical topics. The ITS has had to adapt its working procedures to accommodate this new focus. Search criteria have had to be adjusted, and decisions have had to be taken to strike a balance between the need to protect sensitive personal data and the need for the information required for historical research to be made available to the public.
Why are you now focusing on areas of the former Soviet Union?
During the Cold War, the fact that the ITS was located in Western Europe made it difficult, or even impossible, for victims and their families from the Soviet bloc to go there. In order to compensate for this long period, the ITS and the ICRC are currently making a concerted effort to make the service better known within three successor countries of the Soviet Union: Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. Large parts of these areas were occupied by Nazi Germany, and the number of victims is very high.
This initiative by the ITS, aimed at the last living representatives of the survivor generation, is intended to make sure that all interested persons will have an opportunity to contact the service. Because the archives have been opened to the public, applicants can now receive copies of the files that document their own fate or that of a relative under the National Socialist regime. Previously, they would have received only a single page setting out the bare essentials. In addition, the ITS is now able to receive and process requests in Russian, which it was previously unable to do.
Sixty-five years after the end of the war, is the ITS still receiving individual requests from victims or their relatives?
In territories of the then Soviet Union occupied by Nazi Germany, 25 per cent of the civilian population died. This means that, even now, just about everyone has a relative who disappeared or died during that time. Survivors are still with us, and they want to pass on what they know before it gets lost. But an increasing number of requests are also being made by members of the younger generation, which shows that the need to understand the past remains very high.
What are you doing to make the ITS better known in the former Soviet Union?
Five joint ICRC-ITS missions to Moscow, Kiev and Minsk were carried out over the past year to contact other archives covering similar periods and topics, National Red Cross Societies –the most important partners of the ITS – and victims' associations and research institutions. Proposals were made for various cooperation projects, some of which are already materializing.
Have these missions had an impact?
The trend is clear: there has been an upsurge in requests from these countries. The ITS is proud that its website has been available in Russian since May 2010. The number of visits to this portal increased fourfold following the recent missions to the region. Applicants can fill in an online request in Russian. The whole service is free of charge for survivors and next of kin.
The ICRC will pull out from the ITS at the end of 2012. What will be the consequences for the service?
With the opening of the archive for research purposes, the focus of the work at the ITS will increasingly be on historical research, documentation, archival work and education. These activities, which go far beyond the ITS's original task of providing tracing services, do not fall within the ICRC's core areas of responsibility.
It is for this reason that the ICRC has come to an agreement with the 11-member International Commission for the International Tracing Service, the governing body of the ITS (see box), to withdraw from its management role by the end of 2012. This will pave the way for a management structure to be adopted that corresponds to the new situation. Negotiations are under way with the Federal Archive of Germany with the aim of reaching an agreement under which that institution will advise and collaborate with the ITS.
The ICRC will remain associated with the ITS, as it will have the role of an observer and will continue to share its expertise in tracing. | <urn:uuid:134f77cb-39b2-433e-a334-58e66d57bb0d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/interview/2010/its-arolsen-interview-2010-12-15.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975881 | 949 | 3.1875 | 3 |
Memorial Day weekend means thousands of boaters on our local lakes, and more people means more officers.
News 12 rode along with officers from the Department of Natural Resources on Monday, and there were some arrests this weekend on Clarks Hill Lake.
"A lot of people don't think about police being on the water...but we're out here," said Cpl. Ryan Swain. He and his team of DNR officers pulled over about 40 people Memorial Day weekend for safety violations.
Doug McKinney and his family are an example.
"We're good, we usually carry about 15 to 20 lifejackets," McKinney said. Everyone on the boat had one. The violation?
"You got a picture ID on you?" Swain asked.
"You know, I don't," said McKinney.
He got off with a verbal warning. But Swain says his team made several arrests this weekend.
"It's not just alcohol...we're seeing drug abuse on the lake."
The new trend is methamphetamine, but most Boating under the Influence arrests are for alcohol.
"A lot of times we get complaints on people because of erratic behavior...they drive near the dock, they drive near people skiing," Cpl. Swain said.
But they chase down anything suspicious.
Joel Turner was pulled over for having too many people on his boat.
"How many people this boat rated for?" asked Swain.
"I don't even know," Turner replied.
The boat was riding low because of the crowd.
"It's busy...real busy," Cpl. Swain said. "We get a lot of complaints on holiday weekends."
Last memorial weekend across Georgia, DNR officers arrested 77 people for BUI. There were 116 boating accidents and 16 fatalities.
If you're on the water, you should have the following: one life jacket per person, a navigation light for night time, a fire extinguisher, registration, and proper identification.
Designed by Gray Digital Media | <urn:uuid:f54194e9-2b6f-48fe-a79d-649b2c092795> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wrdw.com/home/headlines/2899426.html?site=mobile | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981354 | 419 | 1.554688 | 2 |
By The Bakersfield Californian
One of the recurring devices in "The Twilight Zone," that classic treasure trove of madness and irony, was the "repeat sighting." In one episode, Nan Adams, driving alone cross-country, kept spotting the same ominous-looking hitchhiker every few miles. In another, schoolteacher Helen Foley kept seeing the same mysterious little girl in her apartment.
Those riveting fantasies were entirely fiction. Funny thing is, though, we have "repeat sightings" in Bakersfield all the time. And even though we are, in one undeniable sense, poorer for it, we tend to characterize it strictly as a good thing. You've heard it, perhaps even proclaimed it yourself: Bakersfield is the biggest small town in America. Four hundred fifty thousand people live in this city and its environs, and yet we always seem to run into the same people.
"Doesn't that strike you as odd?" said Jill Egland, a vice president for the United Way of Kern County who first pointed out the Rod Serling nature of things around here. "What that really means is that we're ghettoized. But we've created these narratives about ourselves that keep us from addressing the fullness of who we are."
Egland's inspiration for her narrative about narratives is Richard Harwood, president of the Maryland-based Harwood Institute for Public Innovation. His organization shows U.S. cities how to transform local attitudes and assumptions -- a step they'll have to take if they're to instigate change in important but often-elusive areas such as educational attainment, poverty eradication or simply overall quality of life. Harwood spoke in Bakersfield twice last week, first at the United Way's Professional Development Conference for Nonprofits and then for the Kegley Institute of Ethics at Cal State Bakersfield.
Central to his message is this: Little is ever accomplished if the same core of citizens always appoints itself opinion leader. Communities have inumerable constitutiveness with different vantage points and the potential to develop unique solutions, but too often these people are never asked or engaged.
Sometime in the past 20 years, Harwood said, Americans slipped into a Tower of Babel existence that caused us to lose the ability to reason together and solve problems as a community.
Every community has an inner narrative, Harwood says -- the thing communities tell themselves about themselves, and which can come to define them. In Youngstown, Ohio, where local leaders have been working with Harwood, the narrative was "We're waiting for the new mayor to come in and save us."
So many cities, he said, "are in a waiting place. There's an undercurrent that something's off. ... A lot of false starts because there's no clear path."
Harwood wouldn't attempt to offer up a narrative for Bakersfield; he's not sufficiently familiar with the city. But others did. "We are a community of gracious and resilient people who have some of the resources we will need to solve some of the issues we're now facing," Egland suggested.
Christopher Meyers of the Kegley Institute said our narrative still revolves around Johnny Carson jokes: We're simple rednecks for whom high culture is Olive Garden. But on a positive note, he said, Bakersfield believes it's a generous and compassionate city.
This isn't just a bunch of feel-good talk and esoteric theory. The local United Way has already held a half-dozen discussions with groups of people outside that Twilight Zone circle. "We convene these gatherings in unlikely places," Egland said, "and make the table big enough and shaped however it needs to be shaped."
These aren't task forces or focus groups. They're simply a way to measure appetite for change. Without that, we'll never move the needle on high school dropouts, teenage pregnancy or bad air. And we'll never develop an honest community narrative that we might actually enjoy hearing.
Email Editorial Page Editor Robert Price at rprice@ bakersfield.com. | <urn:uuid:7dfe3242-1e20-4217-bd34-628ed1c31290> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bakersfieldcalifornian.com/opinion/hot-topics/x595149795/ROBERT-PRICE-Who-are-we-exactly-Its-a-valid-question | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965966 | 833 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Preserve the Pensions
Why Are The War of 1812 Pension Records So Important?
FGS is committed to projects such as the Preserve the Pensions – War of 1812 Pension Digitization Fund that link the genealogical community by advancing the cause of preserving records and making them more accessible to the public.
FGS is proud to be leading the national fundraising to support this project and is actively seeking donations from genealogical and historical societies, patriotic and military heritage societies, as well as interested corporations and individuals. Ancestry.com and Fold3 are providing a dollar-for-dollar match of each donation through a provision of services.
Preserve the Pension Partners
The multi-year project consists of scanning the pension files at the National Archives in Washington D.C. and creating a searchable index to the digital images. FGS has targeted the War of 1812 Pension Applications as a high priority project based on the value of the content for genealogists as well as the importance of preserving the fragile records.
How You Can Help
A $25 donation will digitize 50 images -- a $500 donation will digitize 1,000 images! These generous people have helped by donating to the Preserve the Pensions fund!
Spread the Word!
Email us at email@example.com for more information about the Preserve the Pensions project and to find how you can get involved. | <urn:uuid:744ea1ca-d0b8-4dc6-ac87-290062306467> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fgs.org/cstm_PreserveThePensions.php/about.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919673 | 290 | 1.851563 | 2 |
- ECE 612 Lecture 10: The Ballistic MOSFET
- ECE 659 Lecture 2: Molecular, Ballistic and Diffusive Transport
- Simple Theory of the Ballistic MOSFET
- ECE 495N Lecture 26: Ballistic Conductance
- ECE 495N Lecture 27: Molecular to Ballistic Transport
- Lecture 3B: The Ballistic MOSFET
When analyzing semiconductor devices, the traditional approach is to assume that carriers scatter frequently from ionized impurities, phonons, surface roughness, etc. so that the average distance between scattering events (the so-called mean-free-path, λ) is much shorter than the device. When these conditions hold, we can describe carrier transport with drift-diffusion equations. The traditional derivation of the MOSFET I-V characteristic above threshold assumes that the drift current dominates . For the subthreshold current, we usually assume that diffusion dominates . Numerical simulation programs include both drift and diffusion under all bias conditions (e.g. MINIMOS ). As devices shrink, however, we should consider the possibility that the device dimensions become comparable to the mean-free-path for scattering. In the limit, L << λ, where the channel length is much shorter than the mean-free-path, we can ignore scattering completely. In this case, the operation of a MOSFET would be more like a vacuum tube than like a conventional semiconductor device. In practice, scattering always occurs, but it is common now for the critical, current-limiting part of the device to be comparable in size to a mean-free-path. Modern devices, therefore, operate between the drift-diffusion and ballistic regimes. Drift-diffusion theory continues to provide insights into the operation of small semiconductor devices, but a ballistic treatment provides new insights that may prove useful as MOSFETs are scaled to their limits and as new devices are explored. The modern device engineer should be familiar with both approaches. In these notes, we develop a simple theory for the ballistic MOSFET.
- The MOSFET as a bipolar transistor
- Generic model for a nanotransistor
- Application to a ballistic MOSFET
- Relation to traditional MOSFET theory
Researchers should cite this work as follows:
Mark Lundstrom (2005), "Notes on the Ballistic MOSFET," https://nanohub.org/resources/489. | <urn:uuid:74dc46c5-2b7e-42dc-9678-526d5b603b78> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nanohub.org/resources/489?rec_ref=491 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.90351 | 515 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Bible Indicates Way to Happiness, Says John Paul II
Greets the Pontifical Biblical Commission in Audience
| 446 hits
VATICAN CITY, APRIL 20, 2004 (Zenit.org).- In the Bible, God not only reveals himself but also the path to happiness, says John Paul II.
The Pope analyzed the relation between the Bible and morality when he met today with the participants in the annual plenary assembly of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, an institution under the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The assembly continues through Friday.
"This is a theme that regards not only believers but, in a certain sense, every person of good will," the Holy Father said.
"In fact, through the Bible, God speaks and reveals himself and indicates the solid basis and certain orientation for human behavior," he said.
The Pope pointed out the "fundamental behaviors of biblical morality." These are: "knowing God, the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ; recognizing his infinite goodness; knowing with a grateful and sincere soul that 'all good giving and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights'; discovering in the gifts that God has given us the duties that he has entrusted to us; acting in full awareness of our responsibilities in his regard."
John Paul II added: "The Bible presents to us the inexhaustible riches of this revelation of God and of his love for humanity. The duty of your common commitment is to facilitate for the Christian people access to this treasure."
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, president of the commission, is overseeing the assembly's sessions being held in St. Martha's House in the Vatican. The commission's secretary-general, Jesuit Father Klemens Stock, is also on hand.
The assembly began with the commission's 20 members making their own contribution to the topic of the meeting -- the Bible and morality.
In his greeting to the Pope during an audience, Cardinal Ratzinger said that "the relation between the Bible and morality" is a critical issue.
"In contemporary society there is a growing expectation for a non-confessional ethic, for a so-called lay morality produced by reason alone and independent of any revelation," the cardinal said.
"Human reason is certainly able to know and to formulate valid moral norms," he acknowledged. "However, it is fragile and limited and is not able to reveal to itself its origin and its ultimate meaning, as it is the reason of sinful man."
"Therefore, faith is necessary to understand fully the moral contents of the human condition," Cardinal Ratzinger said. The moral law, he added, quoting No. 1950 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, can be defined as "God's pedagogy."
"The moral law is the work of divine Wisdom," the cardinal said. "Its biblical meaning can be defined as fatherly instruction, God's pedagogy. It prescribes for man the ways, the rules of conduct that lead to the promised beatitude; it proscribes the ways of evil which turn him away from God and his love. It is at once firm in its precepts and, in its promises, worthy of love."
"The Christian does not live and understand his faith or his moral life on his own. The access to faith in Jesus Christ, who offers salvation, takes place through the mediation of a living Tradition, the Church: through this Tradition, Christians receive the 'living voice of the Gospel,' as the faithful expression of divine wisdom and will," he stressed.
For this reason, "it is the responsibility of the Church always and everywhere to proclaim moral principles, including those referring to the social order, as well as to pass judgment on all human affairs, to the degree called for by the fundamental rights of the human person or the salvation of souls," as indicated in Canon 747 of the Code of Canon Law.
The last two documents of the Pontifical Biblical Commission are "The Jewish People and Their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible" (2001), and "The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church" (1993). | <urn:uuid:a06838e8-9354-4257-b05f-88f7dfe5d731> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.zenit.org/en/articles/bible-indicates-way-to-happiness-says-john-paul-ii | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966056 | 846 | 2.125 | 2 |
DOE published a notice of public meeting and availability of the preliminary technical support document regarding energy conservation standards for certain types of electric motors that are currently unregulated by any standards. 77 FR 43015 (July 23, 2012).
A public meeting was held August 21, 2012.
The electric motors energy conservation standards rulemaking docket EERE–2010–BT–STD– 0027 contains all notices, public comments, public meeting transcripts, and supporting documents. All planned dates are preliminary and subject to change. For the latest information on the planned timing of future DOE regulatory milestones, see the current Office of Management and Budget Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions. All planned dates are preliminary and subject to change.
The current energy conservation standards for medium electric motors are mandated by Part A–1, the "Certain Industrial Equipment" of Title III of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA), as amended. (42 U.S.C. 6311–6317). This equipment is treated as covered equipment under Part A-1. (42 U.S.C. 6311(1)(A)) | <urn:uuid:9bf90f32-4b69-4fa5-93d1-aeb476ef398b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/appliance_standards/rulemaking.aspx/ruleid/42 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.91467 | 229 | 1.585938 | 2 |
In January Chinese officials announced that starting in June all shops in China would be forbidden from offering customers free plastic bags. Instead, the government is encouraging customers to use cloth bags and baskets. Three weeks into the ban and the results are already good. The country of 1.3 billion was using 3 billion bags every day – twice the amount Americans use. Now bag usage is down by 66 percent, cutting the use of 40 billion bags total.
The ban on plastic bags was partly intended to cut down China’s crude oil usage. In order to meet the nation’s demand for plastic bags, China would have to refine 5 million tons, or 37 million barrels, of crude oil each year. China has already saved 1.6 billion tons of petroleum.
Although many stores are not complying with the ban, China’s State Administration for Industry and Commerce has sent out 600,000 regulators since March to inspect 250,000 stores. So far, 2 million yuan in fines have been imposed.
By outlawing plastic bags, China joins the likes of Ireland, South Africa, Russia, Hong Kong, San Francisco and other nations and cities worldwide. The fight against plastic bags within the U.S. has seen less success. This month store owners and residents of Baltimore united together against a proposed 25-cent fee for plastic and paper bags in the city, and a similar bag ban in Philadelphia lasted only one week before getting squashed by the city council. In January, Seattle enacted a 20-cent "green fee" in for paper and plastic bags. However, Washington D.C. passed a bag ban just a few weeks ago, and Los Angeles is expected to institute a ban in 2010.
Plastic bags are the biggest source of ocean pollution. Although often reused, most plastic bags aren’t recycled, winding up instead in landfills or in the world’s oceans.
More about bags
• Follow China's lead and ditch the plastic bag. Make your own reusable shopping bag out of household materials.
• Don't have time to make your own bag? Check out these trendy tote bags.
• Already have lots of plastic bags stored up at home? Learn how to make a new lunch tote out of those old bags. | <urn:uuid:d3661347-1ab2-454f-9307-a7c22f1683a2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.motherearthliving.com/green-living/china-bans-plastic-bags.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956607 | 461 | 2.765625 | 3 |
The California Association of Realtors just reported numbers that housing bulls and bears could take as good news.
Statewide, house resales (not including sales of new houses) were up 2.5 percent in April, compared with a year earlier. That’s the first year-to-year increase in the state since September 2005. King County house sales were down 28 percent, year-over-year, in April. (including new houses, so it’s not quite an apples-to-apples comparison)
So what accounts for the rebound in California? Maybe the fact that prices were down 32 percent from a year earlier. King County’s yearly drop was just 3.5 percent.
The California association’s Unsold Inventory Index, which gauges the number of months needed to sell all homes on the market at the current sales rate, was 9.2 months in April, down from 11.3 months in April 2007. King County’s inventory in April was 6.2 months, up from three months a year earlier.
What does all of this have to do with the Seattle area?
Well, it could be a sign that a housing recovery might be coming soon to a city near you, with a delay to account for the fact that Seattle started its decline later than most places. It’s also fuel for the argument that sales won’t pick up until sellers give much more on prices (although Seattle’s increases during the boom were not as stratospheric as California’s and its inventory oversupply never got as high). | <urn:uuid:44c409a8-ea5a-43ab-9093-176a34cfbe8f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.seattlepi.com/realestatenews/2008/05/27/sales-up-prices-way-down/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00056-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978616 | 330 | 1.507813 | 2 |
By: Clydette Powell, MD, MPH, FAAP
It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. January 12’s earthquake, epicentered in Port-au-Prince, killed over 200,000 people, but also mobilized one of the largest humanitarian disaster responses in the Western Hemisphere in the last 60 years. As Medical Officer at USAID/Washington, I was part of that response.
They lay in adjacent incubators – two of Haiti’s newest citizens – one born in Port-au-Prince, the other born on a ship in the harbor. Both premature, weighing in at some three pounds. Catherine was born one day before the earthquake. Barely 24 hours old on January 12, 2010, Catherine and her mom were suddenly homeless. Her mom could not breastfeed, and Catherine became dehydrated and ill. After days of wandering the streets of Haiti’s capital city, Catherine’s mom was found by a medical triage team who sent them both to the US Navy hospital ship, the USNS COMFORT, which had just arrived in the harbor. On board, Isabella Rose, her incubator neighbor, had just been born by C-Section. Her mom had been severely injured during the earthquake, and went into premature labor. Again, another triage team sent Isabella Rose’s mom for emergency obstetrical care on the USNS COMFORT, and Isabella Rose took her first breaths on board a US Navy hospital ship.
On the evening of January 12, I had seen the broadcasts of the earthquake’s devastation and the misery it brought to people of a country where I had worked for USAID on numerous short term assignments since 2001. Without hesitation, I volunteered to be part of USAID’s response to this disaster. Being the civilian-military liaison for our Health Office within the Bureau for Global Health, the medical officer in the Infectious Disease Division, and a member of the Haiti Health Team provided the foundation for quick deployment. Invited by the Commanding Officer to serve on the USNS COMFORT, I sailed down with its crew and found myself in several roles, including as neurologist in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, when Catherine and Isabella Rose arrived.
Our USAID/Haiti Health team, themselves survivors of the earthquake, and our team on board the COMFORT quickly established communication links. We worked in tandem to triage, transport, and care for the most severely injured. During the course of two months, the ship-based and the land-based teams collaborated in the care of over 1,000 patients. More than 2,000 helicopter flights transported patients and teams between ship and land. Public health priorities and support for the stewardship role of the Haitian Ministry of Health became daily (and nightly) discussions of both the ship and USAID land-based teams. As the relief effort grew, so did the complexities of patient management, the coordination of care, and the optimization of public health disaster relief responses. Yet on a microcosm, there were still the Catherines, the Isabella Roses, and other children—the displaced, the orphans, some likely restaveks—and injured adults, all of whom sought emergency medical care on board the USNS COMFORT.
As I look back to one year ago, representing USAID in the Haiti earthquake response generated in me a renewed sense of patriotism, increased admiration for our USAID/Haiti team, greater esteem for the US Navy, lasting gratitude for my medical and public health skills, and an even deeper respect for the Haitian people. In the worst of times/best of times perspective, Catherine received her angel wings, to use the Navy parlance, but Isabella Rose bloomed. One of Haiti’s newest citizens, she became a symbol of her people’s resilience, and a tiny testimony to the effective collaboration of USAID, the US Navy, and the non-governmental organizations when all things can work together for the good. | <urn:uuid:6feb8667-9efe-42d1-9a12-51ecd20c80a8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.usaid.gov/2011/01/a-tale-of-two-citizens/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971317 | 830 | 1.914063 | 2 |
- Hispanic Resources
What do you mean by ‘finding the bright spots’ to create change?
Psychology tells us we’re wired to look at the negative. When we want change, we tend to obsess about all the problems we’re having and we try to come up with solutions for them.
But, in times of change, there may be many things that aren’t working, so “problem focus” is a recipe for paralysis. Instead, we need to find the “bright spots,” the early signs that things are working, and clone them.
Let’s say you’re putting into place a new process at work and it has had mixed success. Don’t get caught up agonizing about the places where it’s not working. Instead, reverse-engineer the places where it is working so you can clone those circumstances.
Or if you have a troubled relationship with your teenager, ask yourself, when was the last time we had a really healthy interaction? What was different about that moment? If you understand what conditions made your bright spots possible, you can reproduce them.
Dan Heath is the co-author of "Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard."
He’ll bring his insights about change to the America’s Credit Union Conference in San Antonio, June 19-22.
Stay tuned: In part two of this interview, Heath will explain how to “shape the path” for change—and describe a personal lesson he has learned about the power of the environment. | <urn:uuid:ced0ba5c-ea01-4e0d-ba8b-3024511b96f9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.creditunionmagazine.com/articles/37040-want-to-foster-change-look-for-bright-spots?page=3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952706 | 329 | 1.859375 | 2 |
ROGERS CITY - The City of Rogers City Council split on the issue of increasing a flat fee for city water and sewer customers at its meeting Tuesday, with some council members questioning its necessity and its effect on city residents.
The city council passed a $1.50 per-month increase for water and sewer customers, regardless of the amount of water they use. Sewer customers with a flat rate would see a $1.10 monthly increase. The hike was proposed during the city's budget workshop in April to curb rising costs and declining income for the city's water system. This combination has led to shortfalls in the drinking and sewer water budgets, City Manager Mark Slown said.
Council members Deb Greene and Gary Nowak both questioned the increase, and cast the two dissenting votes in the council's decision to pass the increases. Greene said she wanted an explanation of why the hike was necessary.
"I thought we had talked about this when we did the water and sewer rates, and here we're not even done with our project, and we're already raising the water and sewer bill," she said, referring to the city's USDA-funded water and sewer system upgrades.
Slown said that, while the city hadn't raised rates in two years because of the project, the increase was necessary due to a drop in consumption.
"The department's revenues have been dropping below those that are needed to sustain operations at the amounts that are required for normal operations," he said.
Currently, rates are at the bottom edge of what a rate study performed before the project began recommended, Slown said.
Nowak was concerned the increase, while not tied to consumption, would hit customers in their wallets, affecting water consumption even further.
"Every time we raise them, consumption's gone down," he said. "People can't afford to do their ... grass, they can't afford to do their gardens, and that's why consumption's gone down, and it's going to continue to go down if we keep raising rates."
Rogers City's water and sewer rates are lower than the state average for municipalities, Slown said, and while the city hasn't increased rates in two years, costs like fuel have continued to rise. Exacerbating the problem is a shrinking population.
"If we had more customers, and increased consumption, then that would help us in terms of stabilization of our finances," Slown said. "That's why it's so important that we grow the city, and increase the people here and increase the consumption."
The city also approved its schedule of fees for various services, including engineering, water, sewer and electricity services. Most were unchanged, while a few were increased to reflect the cost of parts, Slown said. One new cost is $50 per day or $500 per month charge for a backflow preventer for those using fire hydrants as a water source. The backflow preventer is now required by state law, and is intended to keep contaminated water from flowing back into the water supply.
In other business:
Jordan Travis can be reached via email at email@example.com or by phone at 358-5688. | <urn:uuid:4f666ffd-4479-46d4-a272-3d9772feda48> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thealpenanews.com/page/content.detail/id/521786.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981462 | 654 | 1.601563 | 2 |
There is, in theory, no limit to how high in price any stock may go. Price alone is not a determining factor in the future price of any stock. Look at Berkshire Hathaway, it has gone from $7225 in February 1990 to over $130,150 today, an annualized rate of return of 13.6%.
For me the question is how long Apple can continue to grow its earnings at 20% plus, thereby deserving higher stock prices in the future? Currently according to http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ae?s=AAPL+Analyst+Estimates Apple is expected to grow its earnings at a rate of 22.52% per year for the next 5 years.
If this holds true, Apple stock shares should be substantially higher than they are today. I am currently a buyer of Apple as well as some other stocks. You may see the stocks I currently recommend at http://davesfavs.com/ for free, just use free as the user id and markets as the password.
The current mean price target for Apple is $736.17 for the 55 professional analysts that follow the stock.
I hope this helps Josh, Dave | <urn:uuid:2e86b13d-464e-4d7c-bc48-d058ce9f73ca> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.brightscope.com/financial-planning/advice/question/4768/how-long-can-apple-keep-up-the-hype-a-new-isomething-product-here-and-there-has-worked-so-far-but-looking-long-term-how-much-higher-can-a-stock-like-apple-really-go | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955354 | 245 | 1.53125 | 2 |
In the wake of the death of Ted Stevens, "Alaskan of the Century" Sarah Palin pays tribute on her Facebook page:
It’s with great sadness that Todd and I hear the reports coming in of Senator Ted Stevens’ passing in the plane crash near Dillingham. In our land of towering mountains and larger than life characters, none were larger than the man who in 2000 was voted “Alaskan of the Century.” This decorated World War II pilot was a warrior and a true champion of Alaska.
In 40 years of service in the U.S. Senate, he fought tenaciously for Alaska’s future. Alaskans know how much we owe to Senator Stevens, but all Americans owe him a debt of gratitude for his leadership on many issues, including the crucial energy issues that fuel American prosperity. Two years ago, he sat at my kitchen table over a salmon lunch, and we talked about our long anticipated Alaska natural gas pipeline and our mutual commitment to have the Last Frontier’s rich resources contribute to America’s quest for energy independence.
Our Senator was also known for spearheading efforts to ensure equality in education, and his Title IX legislation allowed girls to be on a level playing field in the athletic arena.
Our hearts and prayers are with the Stevens family and the families of the other victims of the crash.
Palin and Stevens— two giants of Alaska politics—have not always had a strictly warm relationship. During Palin's rise to stardom, the two came together more often as a political courtesy between fellow party members than in great affection, and sometimes kept their distance. Palin became governor by beating Stevens' friend Frank Murkowski, and Stevens was sometimes symbolic of the old network of Alaska politicians to which Palin styled herself as the alternative. Stevens was late in the game endorsing her for governor, but did, and she later appeared with him during his ill-fated race against Mark Begich while he talked up her potential as a Vice President.
Stevens was, quite literally, part of the birth of the state of the Alaska, working from a top spot in the Interior Department to win votes for statehood. This is not the first time his family has been touched by tragedy in the air in the rugged home state they love:
In his final speech on the Senate floor in 2008, Stevens said he was most proud of transforming Alaska from an impoverished U.S. territory to a rich oil-producing state. It was his life's work, he said.
"Where there was nothing but tundra and forest, today there are now airports, roads, ports, water and sewer systems, hospitals, clinics, communications networks, research labs and much, much more," he said. "Mr. President, Alaska was not 'Seward's Folly.' "
His difficult childhood shaped the tenacious adult who, as a senator, donned an "Incredible Hulk" tie to fight his toughest battles. The second half of his life was shaped by a 1978 crash at Anchorage International Airport that killed his wife, Ann, and four others. Stevens was one of two survivors. He and his wife had five children together. He had a sixth child, Lily, with his second wife, Catherine Bittner.
Five of the nine people on the plane died. Three survivors have been flown to Anchorage for treatment, but I can't find much information about who they were. Former NASA head Sean O'Keefe, a fishing buddy of Stevens', survived the crash. The father of current Alaska Sen. Mark Begich, Rep. Nick Begich, also died when his plane disappeared over Alaska in 1972. The wreckage of the plane, also carrying Rep. Hale Boggs of Louisiana, was never found. | <urn:uuid:097849f9-e137-440d-b2f6-26cae296635c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.weeklystandard.com/print/blogs/sarah-palin-pays-tribute-tough-warrior-ted-stevens | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985084 | 770 | 1.78125 | 2 |
An introduction to Mongolia Travel and Group Holidays with Wendy Wu Tours
Bordered by Siberia to the north and China to the south, Mongolia is the second largest landlocked country in the world, with a varying geography from the Gobi Desert to the south and mountain regions to the north and west. With a landscape that can be quite refreshing for people to visit, it offers pristine lakes, rugged mountains and incredible wide open spaces. Khongoryn Els is the home to Mongolia’s largest sand dunes, which translates to ‘singing sands’.
Lake Khovsgol is the largest and deepest lake in Mongolia, surrounded by mountains and lush forests, it is home to a variety of animals and species of birds. With a turbulent history Mongolia was first declared a Mongol Empire in 1206 by Genghis Khan. One of the most wonderful events that take place in Mongolia is the fascinating Naadam Festival, with people arriving from all over the country to participate.
This spectacular occasion is a photographer’s paradise, with an array of activities, food and crafts on offer. Mongolia conjures up images of the legends of Genghis Khan, horses galloping through the expansive open plains and camels crossing the Gobi Desert. The warm-hearted locals will inspire you as they go about their lives with gentle peace and humility, but most of all they will reward you with an experience of a lifetime.
Time -Mongolia is 2 hours behind Australian EST
Language - The official national language is Mongolian. Kalmyk, Kazakh, Buriat and Mandarin are also widely spoken.
Entry Requirements - Passports must be valid for six months beyond the length of stay. Visas are required for Australian travellers, the price of which is already included in the fully inclusive price of all our group tours for Australian passport holders (providing all applications are received by Wendy Wu Tours within the required visa processing time frame).
Ulaanbaatar is the capital of Mongolia and is located on the Tuul River with a backdrop of the Khairkhan Mountains. This town is steadily developing into a modernised city, whilst still maintaining its old world traditional hospitality.
Kharkhorin is Mongolia’s former capital and attracts many visitors for its intriguing history dating back to the 13th Century. Once the imperial capital ruled by Genghis Khan, Kharkhorin has one of the most ancient and impressive Buddhist monasteries in Mongolia, the Erdene Zuu Monastery.
The Gobi Desert is home to many of Mongolia’s renowned landscapes and consists of the largest sand dunes within Mongolia at Khongoryn Els. Discover the scenery at Eagle Valley, which is covered in metre-thick ice for the greater part of the year.
Khovsgol is a scenic area and is known for its wild mountains and alpine lakes. Lake Khovsgol is the deepest lake in Mongolia,
MONGOLIA Group Tours
MONGOLIA Short Stays
Private short stay packages for the independent traveller. | <urn:uuid:b435a1e7-da1d-400a-abe1-2957d1a099eb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wendywutours.com.au/mongolia-holiday-tours | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00053-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934475 | 627 | 1.671875 | 2 |
The weird new reason to eat pasta
Pass the pasta! Waiting until dinner to eat carbs could be your ticket to a trimmer waistline. It might sound too good to be true (A guilt-free spaghetti dinner? Really?), but the strategy works for people with a few pounds to lose, according to a new study.
Researchers, writing in the journal Nutrition, Metabolism & Cardiovascular Diseases, recruited 78 men and women with BMIs above 30. For six months, the study participants adhered to the same low-calorie diet (1,300 to 1,500 calories per day). Here’s the twist: Half the group ate carbs only at dinnertime, while the other half spread their carbs throughout the day.
The researchers measured hunger, weight and hormone levels at various points throughout the study period. The surprising results: Those who ate carb-heavy dinners lost an average of six more pounds than their study counterparts. They also dropped 36 percent more body fat and an extra inch from their waistlines.
What’s going on here? It may come down to hormones: One, called leptin, makes you feel full and satisfied, while its counterpart—the “hunger hormone” ghrelin—gives you the munchies. When people cut back on calories to lose weight, their ghrelin levels typically spike during the day, while leptin levels plummet. This drives hunger through the roof, and makes sticking to a diet seem impossible.
Daytime carb consumption boosts insulin levels in your blood, which increase your body’s release of ghrelin (that hunger hormone). But by eating carbs at night, the hormone patterns seem to reverse themselves, the study shows. Hunger hormones stay low during the day and fullness hormones dominate the afternoon—meaning you’re more likely to feel satisfied at times when you’re most likely to snack.
So what's for dinner? Individuals in the study ate a couple pieces of bread, a potato, or 1 to 2 cups of pasta or rice every night with dinner. (For more smart carb choices, check out our tips on healthy carbs.)
More from Prevention: Yoga Moves To Stop Cravings
Published November 2012, Prevention | <urn:uuid:810c016c-32c5-430d-b0fe-0fd58a152ea1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.prevention.com/weight-loss/weight-loss-tips/eating-carbs-dinner-linked-weight-loss | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933309 | 457 | 2.203125 | 2 |
I often hear “Only Disney.” Only Disney can create such a fun attraction…only Disney can throw such a big celebration…only Disney. Well, it all started with the man himself. When he opened an attraction, he went all out. In true Disney style he made the opening itself a show worth watching. Go back in time in this video montage of some of Walt’s “opening days,” starting with the biggest opening day of all — July 17, 1955. That’s when more than 28,000 guests showed up for the opening of Disneyland park and the American vacation changed forever. This video also includes the opening of Matterhorn Bobsleds (1959), New Orleans Square (1966) — Walt’s last official ceremonies before his death in December that year –- and Pirates of the Caribbean, the last attraction that Walt supervised. Unfortunately, he passed away shortly before Pirates’ opening day. | <urn:uuid:8028af60-df2d-4aee-8f7e-2aa8f8080776> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://disneyparks.disney.go.com/blog/2010/01/a-look-back-only-disney/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952801 | 194 | 1.65625 | 2 |
The first wave of Telco revenues was driven by text and voice. Thanks to shortened innovation cycles in the mobile eco-system, the revenue mix of Telco industry is now poised to change. Increase in usage of mobile devices to access Internet and penetration of Internet enabled smart phones have accelerated data related revenue growth of Telcos.
Smart Phones leading Mobile Internet adoption
According to eMarketer’s global media intelligence report, the total number of mobile Internet users will be close to 85M by end of 2012. This represents a 170%1 year on year growth. In the same time period, smartphones have grown by a whopping 225% and it is estimated that there would be close to 75M smart phone users by the end of 2012. The interesting part is that by 2016, 26% of all mobile phones in India would be a smart phone. Given our 75% mobile penetration, the smart phone number is going to be a one massive target segment.
One major reason for this growth has been the availability of smart phones across multiple affordable price points. With new models and attractive finance schemes this trend is expected to continue.
Shift in consumer usage pattern
With their limited penetration, smart phones are already changing the usefulness of our mobile device. Instant access to data (thanks to
cheaper pay per use plans) has altered our expectations and usage behavior. Consumers are now open to access content over their mobile device.
One of the ways to understand the surge of Internet enabled smart devices is to take a look at the parallel APP economy that has emerged According to a new post on the official Android blog, from just 1 billion installs in 2010, Google Play recorded 25 billion app installs in 2012. One of the key reasons for such tremendous growth has been the enormous amount of choice available to the user: from 250,000 apps on the Play Store in July 2011 to 675,0002 apps in Sept 2012.
Change in app usage reflecting user maturity
Of the huge number of apps available, gaming and utility apps have traditionally dominated the app download charts world over and India in particular. With user maturity, ease of app discovery and choice seeking behavior, the predominance of these apps has decreased and other categories have emerged.
Data suggests that smart phone users in India are now moving towards a new set of what we call SMS apps – Sports, Media and Social apps.
Over the last 6 months, ad requests from publishers belonging to these three categories has grown at almost 100% while those belonging to gaming has de-grown. The shift to SMS is symbolic of the shift of usage – smart phone is now used as a device to snack on content (to stay updated, socially relevant etc.) and not just kill time.
In sports cricket apps continue to dominate as expected. Prominent apps include Cricbuzz and Cricinfo. Interestingly though, soccer related properties like goal.com have also been impressive in their reach. Among social apps – chat and messenger apps like eBuddy and Nimbuzz have led the charge and niche social networking apps like TweetDeck and Uebertwitter have also gained considerable traction among consumers.
The media category encompasses Music, News and Video apps. While streaming music apps like Dhingana and Saavn are gaining ground sub-par 3G/Wi-Fi infrastructure has been a dampener. On the other hand, News apps have seen enormous adoption. In fact almost all prominent news broadcasters in India now have apps across mobiles and tablets Additionally, news aggregator apps such as World News Papers and NewsHunt are also climbing up the popularity ratings.
Video consumption is an interesting story. The clincher in the case of video apps such as TubeMate is the option for the user to download movies/video clips over 3G/Wi-Fi and consume it offline.
Sports Media and Social apps driving Time spent on mobile
A recently conducted survey suggests that Indian consumers spend close to 95 minutes4 on their mobile devices. This number is more than the combined time spent on Radio and Newspapers. SMS apps constitute close to 50% of the time spent by consumers on mobile. What is interesting is that games accounts for only 15% of the total time spent.
This increase in usage of Sports, Media and Social apps does not only does not only indicate user maturity but also a considerable shift in the overall mobile Internet eco system.
NextBigWhat for Mobile?
The mobile Internet revolution is on and it’s no more a question of why mobile. The smart phone Sports Media and Social (SMS) phenomenon is a clear indicator that users are embracing the media by the numbers. The sooner brands experiment the better positioned they would be to leverage the medium. Thanks to the SMS phenomenon, brands now have the opportunity to explore and connect to their target audience through content such as Bollywood and cricket that they are comfortable with. Given that smartphones and tablets are predominantly used to relax, entertain and consume content, consumers will be more than happy to engage with brands provided the context is appropriate.
Link to full article | <urn:uuid:d23a6314-258b-4b49-96ce-74d8bfbb8093> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://web2asia.blognhanh.com/2013/02/the-new-sms-of-smart-phones-sports.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935165 | 1,025 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Rheumatoid Arthritis Drugs May Have Small Skin Cancer Risk
Study Shows TNF Inhibitors Have No Increased Risk of Other Cancers
By Daniel J. DeNoon
WebMD Health News
Reviewed By Laura J. Martin, MD
Cimzia, Enbrel, Humira, Remicade, and Simponi all inhibit a natural protein called tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFa). TNFa plays a major role in arthritis. It also plays a major role in protecting the body from infections and cancer.
The clinical trials that led to the drugs' approval showed no sign of increased cancer risk. But cancer takes a long time to develop. Worries remained that as time went on, a cancer risk would appear, says University of Miami rheumatologist Ozlem Pala, MD.
A 2006 report in the Journal of the American Medical Association found evidence of increased cancers and serious infections in patients taking anti-TNF drugs. But later studies failed to confirm the cancer risk.
"We are more or less sure now we won't see a really big increased risk of cancer with these medicines," Pala tells WebMD. "It is definitely better than what we were afraid of. But we still have to be really cautious about the possibility of cancer risk [in patients on TNF inhibitors]."
A recent analysis of clinical trial data found no increased cancer risk for TNF inhibitors -- except for an increased risk of skin cancer. Now a new analysis of patient follow-up data confirms these findings, study leader Xavier Mariette, MD, PhD, of the University of Paris, tells WebMD.
"We had exactly the same results. It means there was no increased risk of cancer in patients treated with TNF inhibitors compared to [other RA drugs]," Mariette tells WebMD. "It is very reassuring. But we did also observe an increased risk of non-melanoma skin cancer."
Mariette and colleagues also found a trend indicating increased risk of melanoma in patients on TNF inhibitors -- but this finding was weak and could have been due to chance.
Mariette notes that anti-TNF drugs weaken part of the the immune system. And such drugs are known to increase the risk of skin cancers, he says, so he is not surprised to find that anti-TNF drugs increase non-melanoma skin cancer risk by 45%.
"This means that doctors should be cautious with these drugs in patients with high lifetime sun exposure," he says. "But patients also should be aware that non-melanoma skin cancers are easily treatable."
Cimzia and Simponi were approved only two years ago. They were not included in the analyses of cancer risk by Mariette and previous researchers.
But Pala says that while the five current anti-TNF drugs are different from one another, any cancer or infection risk is probably common to the entire class of drugs.
The Mariette study appears in the Sept. 8 online issue of the Annals of Rheumatic Diseases.
Mariette, X. Annals of Rheumatic Diseases, published online Sept. 8, 2011.
Bongartz, T. Journal of the American Medical Association, May 17, 2006.
Askling, J. Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety, February 2011.
Xavier Mariette, MD, PhD, Institute for Health and Medical Research (INSERM), University of Paris.
Ozlem Pala, MD, assistant professor of rheumatology, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. © 2011 WebMD, LLC. All rights reserved.
Get the latest treatment options | <urn:uuid:11518d54-f61e-4be2-a863-c8db65a95397> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rxlist.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=149191 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953114 | 759 | 2.109375 | 2 |
Next part found here.
Did you guys watch Low Thia Kiang in action yesteday[Link]?
He brought up the same 3 points in my earlier post about the effectiveness of the jobs credit, need to dip into reserves when the govt already has so much current surplus and the limited funds allocated to help the jobless. He was opposed by PAP MPs[Link].
A 2 days ago there was this story in the Business Times about how they came up with this "extraordinary budget" working late nights and eating porridge[Package for Singapore, by express delivery]. It was said in the article that the jobs credit emerged through an organic process. The budget was described by the local media as "creative" and "innovative"[Link].
Here is the truth about the jobs credit. I first heard about this term called the jobs credit during Barak Obama's campaign a few months ago. He wanted to subsidise firms for keeping and hiring workers. This idea was thrown out by his own party members, the Democrats, as unworkable (see Obama Shelves Jobs Credit Proposal) . Ironically, the support for this comes from the opposition Republican camp because it will put money in the pockets of businesses and in some ways has the same pro-business effect as a tax cut....not because of its ability to save jobs. It is ineffective because govt is paying for jobs that employers already intend to keep. In opposing MP Low yesterday, a number PAP MPs say that businesses can hire more workers now that they are receiving the jobs credit. The fact is the businesses can also keep the money and report higher profits or keep the credits as cash reserves. This is precisely why it is ineffective because of the current economic climate in which businesses are seeing a sharp fall in demand. The job cuts are driven by this sharp fall in demand(mostly external demand) and the jobs credit does nothing to address this. It can save a small number jobs at the margin....but what is does is put money in cash rich profitable businesses that don't need it including GLCs and the govt which is the biggest employer in Singapore.
Nevermind about the Jobs Credit being an unoriginal and an already rejected old idea. Suppose the jobs credit actually works and eventually saves a whopping 50,000 jobs. Dr Chua Hak Bin, a Citibank economist, calculated that each of these jobs will be saved at a cost of $90K per year for the tax payer. $90K is triple the median income. We are spending $90K to save jobs that pay $30K. Even if the jobs credit miraculously saves a 100K jobs, it will be at a cost of $45K per job. The jobs credit is ineffective use of tax payers money when it doesn't work and it is inefficient when it does work!
At the end of the day, we will have to deal with sizeable unemployment problem that has far reaching consequences. The default rate for HDB mortgages is 8% at the onset of this recession and the balance sheets of Singapore families are not in good shape. The income gap and poverty were worsening even before we got into this recession. The reserves of this country are not unlimited and have to be used carefully. The govt has to maximise the overall benefit for Singaporeans when they spend taxpayers' money and the best way to do it is to spend where it is most needed...giving money to cash rich companies that don't need it is not a good idea. Singaporeans laid off will need help to with medical care, children's education, utilities etc when their savings are exhausted. | <urn:uuid:66d9f472-984d-45c0-af21-7eb5c2a37e33> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://singaporemind.blogspot.com/2009/02/truth-about-jobs-credit.html?showComment=1233738600000 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975479 | 740 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Nuclear Workforce Initiative
The United States stands on the brink of a nuclear renaissance – a resurging confidence in the power of the clean, safe atom to finally conquer the financial and national security challenges imposed by increasingly dangerous reliance on foreign sources of oil.
The promise of the nuclear renaissance has far-reaching implications for the SRSCRO Region of Georgia and South Carolina. As home to the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site (SRS) for more than a half century, the region is heavily invested in atomic energy, not only for its value to national security but as a source of well-paying jobs and economic growth fueled in large part by nuclear-generated electricity used by many industries in both states.
Nearly 10,000 new workers will be needed in the next decade to support the expansion of the nuclear industry in the greater SRSCRO Region of Georgia and South Carolina, a 2009 survey conducted by Booz Allen Hamilton for the SRSCRO concludes.
In response to the survey data, the SRSCRO is implementing a unified strategy to address the region’s nuclear workforce needs. Through our Nuclear Workforce Initiative (NWI®), we are proactively bringing together the regional private and governmental employers, educational institutions and economic development entities to work as partners. These groups are working together toward the single-minded goal of ensuring that an adequately trained workforce is ready in sufficient numbers to meet the challenges posed by the demand for a new nuclear workforce.
NWI® partners are particularly focused on ensuring that people of the greater SRSCRO Region have an opportunity to develop the skills needed for regional nuclear industry jobs, something we call “Growing Our Own Through Collaboration®.”
The NWI® Steering Committee, comprised of executive managers from nuclear employers, developed the Vision, Mission and Goals for the Nuclear Workforce Initiative.
To provide a well-trained and highly qualified workforce that meets the ongoing needs of the nuclear industry in this region.
To promote and expand nuclear workforce development capabilities by facilitating integrated partnerships between nuclear employers and educational and training entities that foster regional educational attainment, economic growth and job opportunities.
- Facilitate collaboration among nuclear employers on regional staffing needs and incorporate staffing strategies into the Nuclear Workforce Initiative mission.
- Promote nuclear career paths and enhance science, technology, engineering and mathematic (STEM) programs in coordination with existing K-12 public education curriculum requirements.
- Align and coordinate regional educational and training entity curricula and certification requirements to specific job skill needs of nuclear employers.
- Perform outreach and form collaborations to achieve regional and national support to advance the mission of the Nuclear Workforce Initiative. | <urn:uuid:75c3191d-7948-4f42-a504-0a844a78a374> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.srscro.org/nuclear-workforce-initiative/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922055 | 538 | 2.109375 | 2 |
An international scientific expedition has revealed a South Pacific island roughly the size of Manhattan and clearly marked on online maps and marine charts does not, in fact, exist.
The 'undiscovery' of the island -- which until now was midway between Australia and New Caledonia -- highlights how much there still is to learn about the oceans, scientists say.
"We saw this mysterious island on all the scientific maps and weather maps but not on this one navigational chart that was on our ship," Ph.D student Sabin Zahirovic, part of the research team on board the RV Southern Surveyor, told CNN.
"So we decided to go see if it was actually there."
The ship didn't find an island
The island, identified as Sandy Island by Google Maps and Sable Island on others, was supposed to be quite large in size -- 156 square kilometers (60 square miles) -- but the ship sailed right through the area where the island was supposed to be.
"The captain was actually quite nervous because the island was showing up on all the maps," Zahirovic said.
The undiscovery was made during the ship's voyage this month. Although the team had originally planned to check out the existence of the island during the day, they had arrived at the location of the island at night due to a navigational error.
"We were watching all of our depth-sounding equipment. Luckily for us the sea floor turned out to be very deep there," said Zahirovic, who is studying the tectonic evolution of the eastern Coral Sea.
The implications are significant | <urn:uuid:e88dc1ae-68b3-4bc7-9609-97e72257f79b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.4029tv.com/news/money/travel/Scientists-undiscover-South-Pacific-island/-/8897198/17529252/-/46dg5e/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98313 | 324 | 3.1875 | 3 |